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Chapter 68: Side Charlotte

"So you finally cleared them away, huh?"

I heard clicking footsteps, and a woman\'s surprisingly husky voice came closer.

"You could stand to fight more efficiently, though." As she smoked her cigarette, she started criticizing the fight I\'d just had.

"Then teach me how, Fuubi." Down on the concrete, hugging my knees, I glared up at my extremely arrogant redheaded boss.

Ever since Kimizuka and Nagisa left for London, I\'d been putting in live combat training under her direction, but all she did was nitpick. She apparently wasn\'t planning to give me any proper instruction.

"Wait, didn\'t you quit smoking?"

"Quit? Oh yeah, sure did." Even as Fuubi said it, she was puffing away as brazenly as an old Japanese movie star... That\'s insanely annoying.

"At least help me out. Are you planning to just watch your subordinate get killed?" I demanded, getting to my feet and confiscating all her cigarettes.

The SPES members we were fighting right now were like Bat: humans with implanted seeds. Of course, they weren\'t as strong as a purebred

like Chameleon, and Bat probably outclassed them. Even so, they weren\'t the kind of enemies I could get careless with.

Fuubi gave me a sharp look. "What are you talking about, Charlotte? This has been your job for the past year."

...She was right. Taking down SPES survivors had been my mission for a year, ever since Ma\'am died. It was the "role division" she\'d talked about.

My combat skills were good, so I was in charge of the fighting. Kimizuka was clever, so he used knowledge and on-the-spot decisions to solve problems. Ma\'am had always wanted us to work together that way.

"And yet that guy..."

Kimizuka had spent the entire year since we\'d lost Ma\'am in his tepid routine. Just remembering it was making me mad again... But I shook my head. This wasn\'t the time.

"Is there any point in hunting these survivors, though? Wouldn\'t it be better to find a way to defeat Seed directly?"

Of course, Nagisa and Kimizuka were probably looking for that very thing right now.

"We\'re snuffing out his other candidate vessels." Fuubi leaned back against the wall, folding her arms. "Yui Saikawa\'s definitely at the top of his list, but we can\'t guarantee he won\'t burn through other seed-implanted humans as temporary vessels. It\'s better to wipe them out now."

I looked at the SPES member I\'d just been fighting. So there was a risk that the guy on the ground would be used as one of Seed\'s vessels, too. She was telling me it was my job to eliminate that possibility.

...True, that was something only I could do. Kimizuka was one thing, but both Nagisa and Yui were too kind. It was better if any direct killing was my job.

"But then, is Kimizuka okay? He\'s got a seed, too."

He\'d recklessly swallowed Chameleon\'s seed, attaching it to himself by force. In that case, there was at least a possibility that he\'d be chosen as Seed\'s vessel.

"Ha! He\'d probably love to have you kill him," Fuubi murmured. I couldn\'t tell whether she was joking or serious.

...But if Kimizuka were really chosen as a candidate vessel... Or if the seed took over his mind or his body and he turned into a monster, like Chameleon had... If that happened, I\'d—

"That\'s what I\'m telling you, Charlotte Arisaka Anderson." The next instant, Fuubi\'s dagger skimmed past my cheek.

Hastily turning, I saw that a tentacle had grown from the back of the man I\'d

knocked out. The knife Fuubi had thrown sliced it clean in two. Then she walked up to the nameless SPES survivor and mercilessly shot him dead.

"Did you sympathize with him? You\'re supposed to destroy the enemy." She turned back, and her eyes were as sharp as a hawk\'s. "Nobody needs that kindness. Get rid of it. Take your softness and trash it. Don\'t let pity make you careless. Kimihiko Kimizuka, Nagisa Natsunagi, Yui Saikawa—none of them can do this. You do it. If you want to be part of their circle, then at least do what they can\'t."

...She was right. That earlier incident certainly hadn\'t earned Fuubi\'s approval. It was likely that she\'d never allow me to be naive.

"If you pick up a gun, fire it. If you draw your sword, swing it. Once the battle starts, don\'t consider it over until someone is dead. Be heartless about judging what you can and can\'t protect. Even if it means you end up making the entire world your enemy." Fuubi narrowed her eyes.

"So it\'s not possible to protect everything?"

"Say that after you\'ve gotten strong enough to do it."

...Right again. I couldn\'t even beat her in an argument.

Still, her conviction was real. She\'d sworn off cooperating, didn\'t trust anyone, and lived only for the mission she believed in. Her role as Tuner was the Assassin, someone who nearly always worked alone, and she\'d protected the world from the shadows for who knows how long.

"Listen, why are you helping us take down SPES?"

Since that was true, though, a question tugged at me. She never supported anyone, so why was she still helping with the job Ma\'am had left undone?

"Same as you." As Fuubi spoke, she lit a cigarette she\'d managed to snitch back from me. "I wasn\'t able to kill that thing, either."

Then, exhaling smoke, she began to talk about her past with unexpected candor.

The "thing" she\'d mentioned had to be the former Ace Detective. Five years ago, the organization I\'d been part of had ordered me to assassinate Ma\'am.

"At the time, she\'d just run away from SPES\'s facility. As the Assassin, I was ordered to dispose of her."

"You mean it was a Tuner job? Why would the top brass make that call?"

"We already knew the thing was one of Seed\'s candidate vessels. They probably meant to defeat Seed indirectly by nipping that in the bud, as it were."

...I see. So they\'d attempted the same sort of maneuver that they\'d just tried with Yui on Ma\'am.

"But she survived." Fuubi watched the smoke from her cigarette climb into the sky. "I chased her to the ends of the earth, the bottom of the sea, the top of the sky, but she ran and ran, launched a few solid counterattacks, and got clean away. \'I don\'t intend to die until I complete my mission, even if I take a hit from a missile,\' she told me. She was wearing this really irritating smile."

Even as she said that, the set of her own lips softened.

"After her brilliant escape from the Assassin, she was made a Tuner, in part because they\'d acknowledged her skills. After that, the task of taking down

SPES was officially assigned to the Ace Detective." Fuubi\'s tone changed again as she grumbled, "Steal other people\'s jobs, will she." The grumpiness sounded manufactured.

After hearing that story, I had one question. "Did you really give it everything you had and still fail to kill Ma\'am?"

Five years ago, I\'d had far less experience than I had now, but she\'d already been famous in the underworld as the Assassin. Had she genuinely failed in her mission again and again?

Could this woman have picked up on something in Siesta, the way I had? Was that why she\'d consistently let her live?

When I asked, Fuubi said, "I\'ll admit I thought Huh! Interesting girl." On that uncharacteristically light note, she wrapped up the conversation. "All right. We\'ve wasted a little too much time on talk." She stubbed her cigarette out in her portable ashtray. "I need to step out and run an errand, but you stick with the job." Keep taking down SPES survivors, in other words. She turned to go.

"Is that errand of yours a summons from the top? From the Federal Council?" On impulse, I called after her.

It could be a reprimand, since subjugating SPES was the Ace Detective\'s duty, and Fuubi was still helping without permission. Or it might be the other way around. Even as the Assassin, she might have been ordered to clean up the job the Ace Detective had left unfinished. They might cross-examine her for having failed in that mission, since she hadn\'t killed Yui Saikawa.

"A summons? No." Fuubi paused for a moment. "I\'m just headed out for a little fight," she muttered belligerently, slinging her jacket over her right shoulder.