The Detective is Already Dead

If that's an idol's job...

Five days after Bruno and Noel's visit, because school was still on winter break, Nagisa and I went to a certain artist's concert.

The venue was the National Stadium, which had been designed by a famous architect.

The stadium was surrounded by trees, and it really felt as though we were in the middle of a forest: Nature and the artificial had been joined in perfect harmony. On that stage, Japan's most famous idol was giving the final performance of her national tour.

"Farther, farther, out beyond the skies, our hearts will always be our allies...

?"

The concert was near its midpoint. The idol on the central stage was turning up the heat, whipping up the excitement of the audience. We stood at the back of the standing room section, waving back at her with a pink-colored light stick in each hand.

"The sign is hope, shout out that motto louder, louder... ?" Thunderous cheers and shouts rocked the venue.

However, I just kept silently offering my light sticks to the stage. Yelling wasn't the only way to cheer someone on. As her fan, sometimes it was important to watch over her quietly from the back rows...

"Y-you're crying." Next to me, Nagisa was staring at me like I was a total weirdo. "That other time, you yelled like crazy. I think that might have been healthier, don't you?"

"Just look at Yui-nya, all grown up. Who wouldn't cry?"

"What exactly are you to Yui?" Nagisa sighed and rolled her eyes. I didn't have time to bother with her now, though.

"Thank you so much, everyone! That was You-Colored Gimmick!"

Finishing her song, Yui-nya—aka Saikawa—waved at her fans. I returned the gesture with a little wave of my own... Oh, hey! Our eyes just met!

She was looking at me! I'm positive!

"When Yui grew up, are you sure you didn't switch places with her and

regress, Kimihiko?"

Right after that, Saikawa launched into a talk segment, carrying herself with even more confidence than before.

"Although I guess it does feel as if she's gone somewhere out of reach." As Nagisa gazed at Yui, she seemed to be looking at something very far away.

Yui Saikawa, idol and current high school student.

She'd been in middle school when we met, and now she was in her second year of high school. Her popularity hadn't suffered at all in the meantime; she was more successful than ever now. She was working as an actress in the domestic film industry, too, and she was nailing overseas performances one after another.

She was the idol whose tickets were hardest to get. Nagisa and I had only been accommodated because we were connected. Siesta had wanted to come, but then she'd said she had work today and holed up at the agency instead.

"Even for fan club members, the win rate for concert tickets is under five percent. It's gotten even harder to see her in person."

"Yes. More importantly, Kimihiko, I'd never heard that you were in Yui's fan club."

Hadn't I mentioned that? I've been a member for three years. A group bulletin shows up every month.

"Well then, we were really lucky to be invited today."

"As a genuine fan, I do feel a little guilty for taking a shortcut."

"I mean, it's not like we came to the concert for fun in the first place." Yeah, I know that. There's a rather serious conversation waiting after this.

But until then, at least, I thought I'd bask in Super Idol Saikawa's catchy, crazy world.

About two hours later, when we visited Yui Saikawa's dressing room as scheduled, we found her drinking tea and taking a breather after a successful concert.

"Oh!" When she saw us, she jumped to her feet and ran over, her eyes sparkling. A little nervous, I spread my arms, bracing for her to fling herself into them—

"Nagisa, I missed you!"

—but Saikawa dived into Nagisa's arms instead. "Yui, it's been ages!"

Next to me, Nagisa was hugging Saikawa close and spinning around and around.

Yeah, this was about what I expected.

"Oh, Kimizuka. Hello." Saikawa poked her head out of Nagisa's arms.

"That was on purpose, wasn't it? You can't have done that by accident." I gave her a look. Saikawa giggled.

"Actually, Saikawa, why are you dressed for school?"

Now that the concert was over, for some reason, she was wearing her high school uniform.

"I hadn't seen you in a long time, Kimizuka, so I was trying to think of the very best outfit for the occasion, and this is what I came up with. How does it look?" Saikawa plucked her uniform ribbon up between her fingertips, showing it off.

Yes, Saikawa in uniform was a novel sight, but... "So does that mean you were actually looking forward to seeing me, too?"

"...Oh, shut up. I can't stand people who can't read the mood." Saikawa averted her face, snubbing me, and went back to Nagisa.

Why is Nagisa getting all the attention? Should I have been born as a girl or something?

"Honestly, you haven't changed a bit." Someone in the dressing room was watching me coldly. "Nothing's more unsightly than jealousy in a man, Kimihiko."

The girl who'd spoken had been making tea for Saikawa, and she looked exactly like a younger Siesta.

"Gender has nothing to do with how jealous people get, Noches."

Noches gave a thin smile that didn't make it past her lips. "Everyone says we should care less about gender, but it's actually just getting stricter, isn't it?"

The girl in the classic maid outfit lambasted social conditions with extremely unrobotic sarcasm. In another few years, the world might be wanting android- blindness, too.

"So you're with Saikawa when she's away from home, too, huh?"

"Yes. As the Saikawa household's head maid, it's only natural that I act as Miss Yui's guard."

Noches had begun working for the Saikawa family a year ago. While her former mistress Siesta slept, she'd been Siesta's main caretaker. When Siesta woke up, Noches had been released from her mission, and now she was working as Saikawa's head maid.

"You're keeping as busy as ever, then."

"Yes, just tending to the mansion and the garden every day takes until sundown. Why do trees grow so quickly?" Noches said. "Granted, I am doing this because I want to." A year ago, the one who'd released her from her mission had been Siesta herself. Siesta had said Noches could live as she chose, but...

"I really do like serving people."

Noches was still working as a maid voluntarily. That had to be a good thing. "Not much has changed with you, either, I see." Noches was gazing at

Saikawa and Nagisa, who were chatting animatedly. From what I heard, she and Siesta swapped information every so often, so she was very familiar with our everyday lives.

"Siesta and Nagisa fight a lot, though."

Then, thirty minutes later, they'd be friends again and chatting up a storm, as if it was some sort of girls-only party. Thinking about those times made me sigh.

"That sounds like fun," said Noches. "It's tiring, that's what it is."

"I meant for you, Kimihiko." Unexpectedly, Noches gazed at me. "You sound as if you're having fun."

"...Yeah, I guess," I said, in a voice low enough that no one else could hear.

You had to be pretty clever to hide anything from Noches.

"Now then, shall we move on to the main topic?" Noches said, and Saikawa and Nagisa stopped chatting and came over to join us.

"You have something to tell Miss Yui, don't you?"

I nodded, then gave a brief explanation of the unknown crisis. I'd spotted Saikawa's name on the guest list for the Ritual of Sacred Return that Noel had

sent over. Yui Saikawa had worked with us to stop the Great Cataclysm; that was probably what had earned her a place at the ceremony.

"I see. So that's going to happen a week from now..." After I'd filled her in, Saikawa started thinking hard.

"I hadn't decided whether to attend the ceremony yet, actually. I have an overseas performance a week from now..."

"I see. Right after the end of your national tour. That's rough," I commiserated.

"It's fun, though," she said, flashing her white teeth in a grin.

For a little while, we were all silent. Saikawa was the one who started the conversation back up. "The rest of you are getting involved with the world again, aren't you?"

I almost told her, You're singing with the world as your stage, too, then realized that wasn't what she meant. When Saikawa said "the world," she meant all the extraordinary stuff we'd lived through earlier.

The past year had been comparatively peaceful. However, if that unknown crisis did occur at the upcoming ceremony, we'd connect with the extraordinary again for the first time in ages.

"...What do you think I should do?" Saikawa's smile looked a little troubled. "Not long ago, the enemies on Earth were formidable. Everyone really thought we might be done for. However, Siesta and Nagisa are both here now, and we're all happy and healthy. This past year has been so much fun that it's felt like a dream."

Saikawa had spent the entire year completely out of touch with the extraordinary. Her dreams for her career as an idol singer were coming true every day. That was probably why she was hesitating now.

Personally, I was impressed that she'd stuck with us for as long as she had. Her left eye had been directly involved in the Seed incident, but she'd kept helping us try to resurrect Siesta even after we'd defeated him. And so...

"I bet it was quite a burden to carry, wasn't it?" Maybe I'd leaned too hard on her kindness.

"A burden? Well..." Saikawa thought for a moment. "It was certainly heavy," she said, looking from me to Nagisa and back. For some reason, she seemed a little bashful. "As far as I'm concerned, the two of you have always, always been too heavy and important for me to carry, even if I use both hands."

Her brilliant smile reminded me of something I'd seen before.

It had happened during the Sapphire Eye incident, the case where we'd met

Saikawa. On the day we'd solved it, we'd been in her dressing room after a concert, just as we were now. Back then, Nagisa's intense passion had brought us together, joining us with a bond we couldn't sever no matter what.

"You really are an idol, Yui." Nagisa smiled gently at Saikawa. It sounded like she was stating the obvious, but that probably wasn't quite it. "If you say the world now is like a dream, then I'd like you to protect everyone's ordinary lives as an idol."

Right. What Nagisa was trying to tell Yui was that...

"After all, it's an idol's job to show everyone a dream, isn't it?" Saikawa's eyes widened.

There was more than one way to be involved with the world.

Those who predicted global crises, those who fought enormous evils, those who healed the wounded, and those who protected the ordinary lives everyone hoped to return to. There was more than one way to defend what was right. And so—

"Yes, gladly!"

As Saikawa said this, she was wearing her usual pure smile.

The idol might have grown up a bit, but she was still Yui Saikawa, as large as life.

A beautiful, consummate kidnapping

After that, we chatted with Saikawa and Noches for a bit, and then Nagisa and I left the stadium. Just as we were thinking about heading home for the day, I got a text from an unknown sender.

It said, I have your precious Ace Detective.

As soon as we saw it, Nagisa and I headed for the Shirogane Detective Agency.

"Siesta!"

We unlocked the door and burst into the office, but the white-haired detective wasn't in her usual chair at the back of the room. Our ray of hope was gone.

"...! No... Why?"

Someone had snatched Siesta.

We were too late. I dropped to my knees, and my vision went dark.

"Oh, come on! What is this, a visual novel bad ending? Get up already!"

Nagisa hauled me back to my feet. "Look at this." She showed me the notebook that had been sitting on the desk. Something was written on it.

"'If you want your precious detective back, come to the top of the communications tower,' it says. So it really is a kidnapping?" I said.

"Mm... I don't think Siesta would let herself be carried off that easily."

She had a point. If anything, I could see her lethally injuring the kidnapper with a counterattack. "Then, what, somebody she knew did this?"

"Right. And I bet Siesta knew she was being taken away. The kidnapper wrote this note with the ballpoint pen on the desk over there."

"Oh, you're right. You can sort of tell from the texture of the ink."

That meant the kidnapper had written their challenge to us right here, in this office, probably in Siesta's presence.

"They put the pen back in the holder, though, and I don't see any signs of a fight. That means this was premeditated, and Siesta agreed to it."

I see. Which meant the threat level was pretty low.

"Now that we know that, let's go find our precious Ace Detective. Our

'precious Ace Detective.'"

"What's that look for? I didn't write this, okay?"

I picked up the letter the kidnapper (?) had written. The top of the communications tower, huh? "Which one, though? Red or blue?"

Japan had two famous communications towers: a venerable old red one, and a comparatively new blue one.

"What are you saying? The other day, the blue one got, you know..." "Oh, right. So red, then."

Leaving the agency, we grabbed a taxi and headed for what was formerly the nation's tallest communications tower. Siesta wasn't there, though. Instead, taped to the glass on the observation deck, there was another note with the name of a new destination.

We got shunted around from place to place—cafés, used bookstores, churches

—until well after the sky had darkened and filled up with stars. Finally, Nagisa and I found ourselves at an old amusement park. It was closed for the day, and apart from us, there wasn't a soul around.

Of course, we weren't there to have fun. In accordance with the letter's instructions, we infiltrated the service area of one of the attractions. When we removed some of the floor tiles, we found a ladder leading down to a door.

"Any day now." Weary in body and soul, I opened the iron door, and— "Hold still, Charlie. You've got soot on your face."

"Hee-hee! Ma'am, that tickles!"

A woman in a tank top was inside, cheerfully letting Siesta clean her face with a towel.

"What are you doing, Charlie?"

"Oh, that didn't take you as long as I expected."

The woman's name was Charlotte Arisaka Anderson. She was our former companion, an agent who was active worldwide. She used her assassination techniques to save people, and I didn't even know how many scrapes she'd gotten me out of.

Charlie had weaknesses, though. For one thing, battles of wits were definitely not her forte. For another, she liked Siesta so much she'd accidentally kidnapped her, among other things. (Don't accidentally kidnap people.)

"Oh, Assistant and Nagisa. You came." "...Sheesh. Well, I'm glad you're all right."

Come to think of it, when Charlie had chosen the phrase "precious detective," had she been speaking from her own point of view? Talk about the world's dumbest kidnapper.

"You made us take the long way around on purpose. You wanted to enjoy your alone time with Siesta."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I was just testing you, to see whether you'd lost your edge," Charlie said, brushing me off with a vague smile. She straightened up and took the long-barreled gun that had been leaning against the wall—Siesta's musket. She began polishing it with a cloth.

"What is this place? What were you doing here, Siesta?"

My first impression of the room had been "somebody's secret base." Multiple monitors showed security footage from inside the park, and there was a worktable littered with brushes and oilcans by the wall.

"I've been having Charlie do maintenance on my gun. I'm considering having her decorate the barrel with a new floral pattern while I'm at it. What do you think?"

"I couldn't care less if I tried."

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