Chapter 155: Chapter 4.5
Rebellious tuning
All the men in gas masks bowed in perfect sync to Bruno Belmondo, who stood in the center of the stage. By now, it was patently clear who was in control.
"...I had a feeling you were behind this."
When we'd realized Noel had been the one to send us that second wish—"I want you to protect the world's wisdom"—we'd also realized it was possible that Bruno was the mastermind.
Basically, maybe Noel wasn't asking us to keep Bruno from becoming a victim, but rather to keep him from doing harm. We just hadn't wanted to believe it.
The hall was still buzzing over the entrance of this entirely unexpected mastermind. I was the only one who got to my feet.
The closest enemy took aim at me, but at Bruno's signal, he lowered his weapon. Apparently the Information Broker was willing to talk with me.
"Bruno Belmondo. Who are you?"
There were no detectives here. It was my job to ask the questions.
"What are your ties to Another Eden? What are you hoping to accomplish by committing terrorism?"
The crow-mask and the gas-masks had to be residents of Another Eden. If Bruno Belmondo was leading them, who was he?
But I didn't expect Bruno's answer. "We do not belong to Eden."
He claimed that no one here had any connection to Another Eden. "What? Don't tell me you made the place up entirely."
No, that couldn't be. The Federation Government had said that Another Eden had been making contact with them since time immemorial. Siesta had
mentioned hearing that story as well.
"Another Eden does exist. Somewhere in this world, or perhaps somewhere in space. On this occasion, we simply imitated them."
"So you were just impersonating them? Why would you do that?"
"I believe we've already explained our objective to you, many times over."
...Yeah, they had. They—or at least Bruno—wanted to learn the identity of something the Federation Government was hiding, then steal it.
"Is that why you approached the Lupwise family ten years ago? For their strong ties to the Federation Government?"
He'd adopted the five-year-old Noel because he'd foreseen that she would be a government official someday, and that this would bring him closer to the world's secret.
"A solid deduction." Bruno looked down at me from the stage, stroking his beard. Then his eyes went to Noel, who was sitting beside me. "I waited a long time for that girl to approach the core of the world. Three years ago, the time came. The head of the Lupwise family passed away suddenly, and his heir vanished. As I'd anticipated, the girl inherited the family's seat in the Federation Government. However..." Bruno's eyes grew disappointed. "After that, my plans went awry. She was only a makeshift successor, and she showed no sign of being allowed near the core. I waited two years, but that time was wasted."
Noel hung her head. Her shoulders seemed to be trembling. "And so you gave up on me a year ago, Grandfather, and..."
No matter how little I wanted to, I knew what the rest of that sentence would be. Bruno's hopes hadn't played out, so he'd dissolved his relationship with Noel. If she'd never be in a position to learn the world's secret, then he had no use for her.
"A year later, then, I decided to implement this plan. At the Ritual of Sacred Return, where many people near the world's core would assemble, I would ask the identity and location of the world's secret. However, no one here seems to know the answer, either."
Bruno's disappointed gaze traveled around the hall again. He'd gathered and threatened Federation Government personnel, former Tuners, and international VIPs, but in the end, no one had been able to give him what he wanted.
"It wasn't entirely in vain, though. The masked dignitaries fled, using dolls as decoys. They do know the answer. Therefore, we will advance," Bruno said, as if he were declaring war on the world.
"You're going to find Ice Doll and the others? And you're going to keep up
the terrorism until you get what you want? It won't work. Now that you've gone this far, the Federation Government is going to view you as an enemy of the world. The world won't let Bruno Belmondo get away."
At the very least, the Ace Detectives would capture him. His ambition would never be realized.
"I don't need to be the one who reaches the answer." As Bruno spoke, he was gazing into the distance. "It's enough if someone—anyone—does it. As long as the world remembers, that's enough. Even if I fall here, the wave of rebellion has begun, and it won't stop."
Bruno was echoing the argument I'd made to the Federation Government. I'd told them that, while they sat on their thrones way back where it was safe, a spirit of rebellion was building. That the Inventor and the Revolutionary and the Hero were already on the verge of abandoning them.
"...I see. So Stephen's group were all your comrades, too?"
They really had tricked me, in that other future. The thing in the crow mask, Stephen, and Bruno all wanted the same thing. Their attempt to steal the origin text and their attack on the Ritual of Sacred Return had both been part of a revolt against the organization and order of the Federation Government. But then... "What drove you that far? Why would you do all that to rebel against the Federation Government?"
I resented Ice Doll and the other members of the government, too. I could understand feeling intolerable anger toward them. However, Bruno's claim had a different sort of heat to it.
"Is it because you want to know this secret they've got? This can't be your thirst for information as the former Information Broker. What's the point?"
He'd already retired from his position as the Information Broker. What was the secret he wanted to know badly enough to drag all these people into danger? What was Bruno Belmondo's desire? What could he want so intensely that he'd become an enemy of the world, sacrificing everything—
"You're still pretending you don't know?" Bruno's reaction wasn't what I'd expected.
He looked more angry than suspicious. It was as if he thought I was trying to misdirect him or give intentionally evasive answers.
"Why does no one know? Why doesn't anyone remember? Why has the world forgotten these words? What other 'secret of the world' could there possibly be?"
Bruno's eyes flew open, and his hand tightened on his gun.
"It's what the Federation Government has kept hidden. What even I, the Information Broker, haven't managed to reach. The world's taboo—the Akashic records!"
Complete silence fell in the hall.
Everyone listened until Bruno stopped speaking, then considered his words.
The time it took for me to say anything felt like an eternity. That was probably inevitable, though.
"What the hell are the Akashic records?"
The term was genuinely unfamiliar to me. Noel also shook her head. Technically, though, I did have a vague grasp of the concept.
If I recalled, it was the memory of the world itself, recorded since Earth—or possibly the universe—began. I couldn't visualize it in any concrete way, though.
"You're saying you did all this so you could find out what these Akashic records are?" I asked, watching Bruno's face. I didn't understand what he meant.
Bruno wasn't disgusted. He wasn't surprised. The emotion in his face was despair.
"Let me ask you again." Eyes still wide, Bruno doubled down on his question. "The Tuners are the shields who defend the world. How many of them are there?"
"Eleven...right?"
"Then have you ever heard the term 'the Singularity'?" "...? Isn't that some kind of math term?"
"I see. That's enough."
Bruno lowered his gun. He wasn't looking at me anymore. "This really is as far as this world goes."
Then what were his keen eyes fixed on now? The question suddenly scared me.
"As you say, I'll be punished soon. In that case, I'll carry out my final mission here."
After a short silence, Bruno's eyes turned to me again. "The following is a warning."
In the next instant, a new image flashed onto the screen.
The screen was split into sixteen sections. In each section, a world leader was being held at knife- or gunpoint by someone in a gas mask.
"This world is not peaceful. The crises are still very much with us. Even so, humanity persists in the naive belief that peace will continue. Therefore, I make this declaration to the entire human race."
That's right; he'd said this was a warning. "I am about to tune this world, as Evil."
The will that seeks justice is...
In the next instant, all the gas-masked men in the hall leveled their guns at us at once.
"...Bruno. What the hell are you thinking?"
Bruno had originally caused this incident to learn the world's hidden secret, but no sooner had he seen that his wish wouldn't be granted than he'd shifted to blatant terrorism. If he'd had all those agents in position around the world already, had he predicted this would happen? Either way, what he was trying to do now was...
"Do you really intend to become an enemy of the world?"
As a Tuner, Bruno Belmondo's top priority had been preserving the balance of the world. Whenever the world was about to fall into the hands of some great evil, he'd always protected it as a hero. However, he'd just announced that he would tune this world as Evil.
"Evil doesn't necessarily come from outside the world." He gestured to the left side of his chest with his pistol. "Evil is always in here."
I felt as if someone else had told me something similar, long ago. He'd been an enemy. A man I'd once fought with the detective.
—A man? Who?
"Let me ask you this. Is the world really peaceful?"
The next thing I knew, the screen showed an image of a vast, burning forest. Had it been taken from a movie, or was it a past natural disaster? The image shifted to a slum. A small, painfully skinny girl was rummaging through a pile of garbage that spilled out into the street, searching for food.
"These are crises that are happening to our neighbors at this very moment."
The image on the screen changed again. The sound of tanks firing played. In a war zone, soldiers were putting their lives on the line. These weren't movies, nor were they footage from the past. This was really happening somewhere in the world, right now.
"Compared to the disasters we Tuners dealt with, perhaps these aren't serious
enough to be called 'global crises.' However, at the very least, I wouldn't call this peace. These sparks are still smoldering, and one day, they will create a genuine global crisis."
He was right. When it came to disasters, there was no "big" or "small." Even now, there were calamities and battles happening in our world.
Stephen had said he was still working to save the wounded in war zones. The story Charlie had told me, that anecdote from her past, might actually have been recent. Then there was the question Hel had asked me: Were there really no crying girls in the world anymore?
Bruno Belmondo, the man who knew the world, was giving us a warning. "We put our faith in a transient peace and surrendered our powers. In the near
future, a real disaster will strike again. When it does, we will suffer defeat." That was why Bruno was voluntarily choosing evil.
He had been a symbol of justice. By becoming a great evil in the eyes of the world, he would maintain balance. He would tune it.
Humanity had soaked for too long in a tepid peace—he wouldn't let them forget the existence of evil.
"Is that why your group tried to shut down this ceremony of peace?"
If the Ritual of Sacred Return had been completed, the Tuners would have been gone, even though we'd need them to fight the disaster. That was why Bruno and his people had attacked the ceremony and tried to steal the origin text. He hadn't genuinely wanted the origin text itself. His goal had been to force the ritual to fail and keep the Tuners tied to their missions.
"You're saying you don't mind defying justice for the sake of your goal?" "Only justice that runs counter to our ideals."
...So in the end, it came back to that, huh? Flawless justice and transient peace. Bruno believed in the former, while Mia and I had tried to rely on the latter. In order to make his unblemished justice a reality, he was barring our way as Evil.
"Those who have special powers should use those powers for the good of the world. It isn't a right. It's a duty."
"You're telling the Tuners to keep carrying out their missions until they die?" "Yes. On that point alone, I'm in agreement with the Federation Government."
Then, from this stage of justice, Bruno urged on his comrades around the world. "Rise up. Take up your swords, level your guns. Defeat evil, destroy me. Carry out justice until your lives run out."
—He wasn't wrong about any of this.
I sincerely thought that, as a Tuner, Bruno wasn't wrong.
It wasn't that his speech had convinced me. I'd been familiar with that mindset for years. Someone close to me had given me a thorough education in the philosophy of justice.
Siesta.
Like Bruno, she'd been one of the shields of justice, and she'd been saying things like that since I met her. She'd said it was in her DNA to save people. Siesta had said she was born to be the Ace Detective. I was sure that was correct. For a Tuner who guarded the world, that was probably the ideal.
Even so...
"Why does making a peaceful world require sacrifices to justice?"
Why was it always Siesta? Why always Nagisa? Why were the people who tried to stay true to justice the only ones who got unhappy endings? That was why I'd done that day over. I'd tried to overturn the future the sacred texts had determined. Even if it meant denying the Ace Detective's justice, I'd looked for a different route.
It was the same now. If there was a way to save the detectives, I'd use the origin text or whatever it took and do this over as often as I had to. I wasn't asking for much. I just wanted an ordinary life where those two could drink tea and eat apple pie in peace.
"Bruno. Don't you think trying to satisfy your messiah complex with the feeling you've saved the world is basically abandoning justice entirely?"
The sort of peace that was built on one person's heroic sacrifice didn't need to be glorified anywhere except picture books.
"Will you keep soaking in this transient world, then? You're welcome to do so," Bruno murmured. His eyes were still filled with disappointment. "As long as you can stop evil with a false justice like that."
He put down his pistol. In exchange, he brought out—a red switch. Everyone in the hall knew what that meant.
"Grandfather! Please don't!" Noel's face was anguished.
The screen showed the hall where the ball had been held. There were several hundred hostages inside. Bruno was about to detonate the bomb he'd rigged up there.
"Those who've refused to see an unbearable reality have no right to dream of happiness," Bruno said. His eyes were wide, his voice filled with passion. His finger reached for the switch.
"Yeah, you're right," I told him. "I was wrong."
Bruno hesitated.
I knew what my mistake had been. I'd tried to make Siesta and Nagisa graduate from being Tuners to satisfy my own ego. The result of that had been that first future. I was only their assistant; I didn't have the right to do that.
"Not getting things wrong is tough."
This was no place for self-mockery. I just let it sink in, as simple fact. Sometimes not getting things wrong was harder than doing what was right. That was true for everybody, though.
Mia, Noel, Bruno... All of them had secrets, and they'd all made choices before heading into this ceremony. All of them had been correct, and they'd all been mistaken.
Still, there was one thing I knew for sure.
Even now, there was just one thing I could believe in. I used it to answer the question Bruno had posed.
"If both you and I got it wrong, then let's have the detectives set us straight." After all, that was what the world's wisdom had wanted last night.
"Bruno. I still don't think your justice was a total mistake."
The voice spoke from above us. When I looked up, I saw a sky full of stars.
The roof of the hall had been opened again.
The voice's owner—the white-haired Ace Detective—touched down in front of me, facing away.
"Why are you here...?" Bruno murmured in a daze, as if he were dreaming.
It was no wonder he was surprised, or that he'd gotten careless. After all, the white-haired Ace Detective was visible in the image of the hall on the screen.
"You didn't notice? Between the ball and the ritual, the detective and the maid who has her face switched places."
The maid had escaped from this hall, but the real detective had stayed, watching the situation unfold from her hiding place. She'd laid her plans carefully to bring all this to an end.
"Noches. I'm borrowing what you left here."
As Siesta broke into a run, I reached under the seats and grabbed what the white-haired maid had left us. And then—
"Siesta! Catch!"
As Siesta ran, I threw the musket to her with all my might. "So this was the right move."
No—I'd hesitated just a little.
But Siesta, that gun really does suit you.
The detective who brushed happy dreams aside, who threw her peaceful life away, who lived from moment to moment like the wind—she was more noble than anyone, more fragile, and...more beautiful. And so...
"Siesta, you should be the Ace Detective again."
Siesta caught the gun and pointed it straight ahead. "Brilliant work, Assistant." Just now, I'd finally managed to choose a future.
" !" Bruno's face twisted slightly.
The bullet Siesta fired knocked the switch out of his hand.
"...I see, Ace Detective. So you'll dance the waltz of death with me?" Siesta had leaped onto the stage, and Bruno held out his right hand to her.
"Bruno?" Siesta frowned, as if she couldn't read the intent behind his smile.
Then it hit her. "Don't let them press the switch!" she shouted, turning back.
If she meant the bombs rigged to the venue, she'd already—
—Oh. No, that wasn't it. She meant the bomb capsule implanted in Bruno himself.
Siesta had told me about it, a long time ago. A bomb had been embedded in the Information Broker's body in order to protect what he knew, in case he was captured and tortured by a hostile organization. The switch was entrusted to someone else. And the ones who held that switch were—
"...I get it! All these men in gas masks are former Men in Black, huh?!"
They were Bruno's comrades, former fellow Tuners who still followed his principles.
Every one of the men in the hall took a red switch out of his jacket. Bruno's life wasn't in the hands of just one person: the Men in Black were an organization. No matter what we did, we'd never be able to take all the detonator switches out of all of those hands at once.
Bruno Belmondo was preparing to lay down his life, as Evil. "Siesta, run!"
That meant all I could do was try to get her out of there. But—
"Why? Why would you do that?"
The perplexed, trembling voice belonged to Bruno himself.
I couldn't blame him. Every Man in Black in the room had lowered his switch. "I see. They won't take an order that would make you die like this." Siesta
lowered her gun as well.
"Impossible." Bruno wasn't flustered now. He shook his head, denying what was happening. "Prioritizing their emotions over their mission? The proud members of the Men in Black would never..."
"It isn't that strange," Siesta said, and Bruno raised his head. "After all, we Tuners are human."
Just then, there was a loud noise behind us.
A riot squad had kicked the door open and rushed in to provide backup. At that, everyone in the hall scrambled for the exit. Nobody stopped them.
"Oh, I see. Did that girl put you up to this?" As he realized what must have happened, Bruno's eyes narrowed.
"I'm not a big fan of the way you put that." Nagisa Natsunagi, the situation's second key player, walked toward us. "It's simple, though. No one wanted you to die as a villain."
As Nagisa came closer, she took off her earpiece. Had she been using that to talk to the Men in Black? Had she asked them whether they were really okay with letting the hero who'd been a Tuner longer than anyone else die as someone evil?
"Two weeks ago, when I picked up the Ace Detective's musket from the Men in Black, one of them made a formal request. He asked me to protect the Information Broker."
Nagisa had already formed a pact with some of the Men in Black. She'd told me so yesterday, during the stealth strategy-meeting-by-text we'd had at the hotel.
However, she'd said the Men in Black hadn't told her the whole truth two weeks ago, either. She hadn't known that Bruno was the mastermind behind these incidents. All the Men in Black had told her was that they wanted her to protect the Information Broker, and that they would assist her. At the very last minute, the Men in Black had also been trying to balance the scales of justice.
Nagisa had picked up on their intentions during the ceremony today and worked to save Bruno.
"You could never be a villain, Grandfather." One other person had believed in Nagisa's passion: a girl who'd spent longer with Bruno than anyone else. His faded eyes fell to where she stood below the stage. "The right hand of Evil isn't that soft. Your hands are for saving and guiding the weak."
Noel reached for his hand, which she'd probably held countless times. She was remembering the warmth of her kind teacher.
"It's as you said—everyone's heart has evil in it." Nagisa had reached us, and
as she spoke to Bruno, she rubbed Noel's shoulders. "As long as evil is rampant in us, wars will occur. Disasters will break out. Someday, an enormous crisis is bound to strike this world. It will hit when everyone's come to take peace for granted. I understand that." Nagisa bit her lip.
"If you understand, then why?" Bruno had been stubbornly silent, but now he started to speak. "The world has no messengers of justice now. When we're struck with an irreparable disaster one day, there will be no one to save us. That's why I—"
Nagisa shook her head, climbing the steps to the stage. "Even if we don't have our titles as Tuners, we seek justice, and our wills will never die." Siesta came to stand beside Nagisa, gently nestling close to her. "It's all right. There are two detectives here. Just watch; we'll save the world twice over."
Bruno smiled, sending wrinkles across his cheeks. "Corretto. Good answer."
And the hero crumpled to the floor like a dead man.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m