Chapter 72: Chapter 3.1
Guardian of the world
After splitting up with Natsunagi, I went to a certain location to reclaim my stolen wallet and key. This was the address I'd been given over the phone, but...
"I don't have very good memories of this place."
The building in front of me wasn't a police station. It was Westminster Palace, the nerve center of the United Kingdom. About a year ago, Hel had kidnapped me and held me prisoner under this building, then fought a ferocious battle around its clock tower with Siesta.
"I guess I'll have to go, though." I stepped inside.
Right away, an English gentleman in a suit appeared and showed me to an area that was off-limits to the general public. After ushering me into a dedicated elevator, he bowed, then left. Apparently the person who'd called me here was at the top of Elizabeth Tower, the spire annexed to the palace.
"Geez. Mia Whitlock sure is picky about presentation," I grumbled to myself as I rode the elevator up.
It didn't take any detective work to know who was waiting for me up here. In the first place, I suspected that the one who'd stolen my wallet—or rather, the key inside it—had been the cabin attendant, Olivia. She'd done it simply to determine whether we were worthy of meeting Mia.
Olivia had taken my key on the plane, nudged us to do what we'd done after that, and ensured that we found the sacred text. Then she'd watched to see whether we'd resolve the Medusa incident. When Natsunagi and I had figured out the Medusa's identity and were well on our way to shutting down the incident, she'd contacted me. Meaning the one waiting for me had to be the Oracle, Mia Whitlock.
"That was some skilled manipulation. It's almost invigorating."
But that ended now. I told myself I wouldn't leave until my demands were accepted, just as the elevator doors opened to reveal a spiral staircase.
I climbed it, heading up and up through the gloom. And then...
"This is it, huh?"
There was a door in front of me. Steeling myself, I twisted the knob. "...!"
I covered my face as a sudden gale howled and blustered around me.
It didn't take me long to realize it was just because we were a hundred meters up.
Orange light struck my covered face and shone through my closed eyelids. "...Is this place open to the outside?"
As I gradually got used to the wind and the dazzling light, I finally opened my eyes. The place looked like a hotel room. On the opposite side, there was a balcony. On that balcony, looking out over the streets of London, was a girl. She was dressed in the white robe and scarlet hakama trousers of a shrine maiden.
Illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun, the Tuner protected the world from the top of the clock tower.
"Who's there?"
Just then, the girl seemed to sense me and looked over her shoulder.
Her pale blue hair swung, and her big, beautiful, doll-like eyes grew even wider.
"So we finally meet, Mia Whitlock," I said, approaching the guardian of the world.
"Tell me how to change the future."
We would get the ending everyone wants. The one where we retake Siesta.
The end of the world, prophecy of the v?lva
"It can't be done."
Once Mia Whitlock had changed from her shrine maiden outfit into street clothes, she answered me bluntly. At the moment, she was returning books to the large bookshelves that covered the room's walls.
People said she could see the future. Once I'd reached her, I'd waited until she'd finished her regular evening duties in the clock tower, and then she'd allowed me to meet with her in this room. At that point, I'd figured my goal was as good as achieved, but...
"The future is changeless. We can fight it all we want, but the story's ultimate ending won't change." The girl's voice was cool. She had her back to me and was standing on tiptoe to return a book to a high shelf.
"Are you the only one here? I thought your servant would be with you." Reaching in from behind her, I snitched the book from her hand and put it back on the shelf for her. Olivia the flight attendant was the one who'd invited me here. Before anything else, I had to get my wallet and that key back...
"She set me up." Mia's sweet, doll-like face twisted in a grimace. She looked up at me from twenty centimeters below. "I'm not sure what she's trying to accomplish, but Olivia is trying to bring me and the two of you together."
I see. True, even on the plane, Olivia had seemed to want us to meet Mia.
"In other words, I have no business with you myself, and you don't interest me. I'd prefer not to see your face, if I can manage it, and I don't want to breathe the same air. Could you go home soon?"
Slipping past me, Mia began sorting books again.
...I didn't expect her to dislike me this much. Well, actually, it's probably less that she hates me personally and more that she's avoiding people in general. Yeah, that's gotta be it.
"Sorry, but I can't leave until I get what I came for."
I picked up one of the books that were piled on the table. "Mia Whitlock. These are sacred texts, right?"
All of them—both the books Mia and I were handling, and the ones already lining the walls.
"Remind me why I have to answer that?"
"My partner is solving a case right now, on instructions from Olivia."
If that sacred text had been sent to us by someone in Mia Whitlock's camp, then the fact that Natsunagi was solving the tough problem we'd found in it had to work to our advantage. Plus, I was helping her organize her library.
"...I don't think forcibly putting someone in your debt is always an effective technique."
Even so, as if she was out of options, Mia gave a little sigh.
"Yes, that's right. There are 100,279 volumes. All the sacred texts here have been compiled by previous Oracles, or by me."
As she spoke, she quietly pointed to the bookshelves all around the room. "My ability to predict the future lets me foresee the world's crises, although only in fragments. Because of that ability, I was made the Oracle and given the role of recording the end of the world, the Ragnarok, in these sacred texts."
It was just as Ms. Fuubi had said, then; the Oracle did have the ability to see the future. Now it was clear that she had a power I'd need in order to achieve my goal.
"But just knowing the future doesn't mean it's possible to change it. It doesn't mean much to most people." Talking down her own ability, Mia swept her blue hair back.
"Is there anyone else who has that sort of power?" I stopped working and leaned forward, pressing Mia for details.
"Those who don't work don't eat. Didn't you learn that in preschool?" Mia sat down in a tall chair, leaned back, and closed her eyes.
"They don't teach you that in preschool. Don't overwork the three-year-olds."
However, she probably meant that if I wanted an answer, I had to help her with this job. I couldn't tell what her system was, but I kept shelving the books according to her instructions.
I was seeing a lot of ominous words on the spines of the volumes lining the shelves: "Viral Pandemic," "World War III," and even "Vampire Rebellion." Were these all global crises that the twelve Tuners had averted?
"By the way, the sacred text is first-degree classified material. You can read it,
but be prepared to never sleep in a bed again." "You say that like it's nothing..."
Apparently, the day I opened one of these books without permission, somebody big would have me liquefied. Anxious now, I slid a sacred text titled "Alternate History" onto the shelf.
"Only one person in the world ever has this power at a time. The moment that person dies, another person acquires the power—as a divine blessing." While I worked, Mia answered my earlier question. "It began with a v?lva, one of the seeresses in Northern European myths. Starting with her, many Oracles have been born over the course of several millennia. There was one in your country as well. What was her name again? I think it actually had the word miko in it."
Mia probably meant the queen who'd ruled Wakoku 1,800 years ago, a woman who'd used the power of divination. Was Agastya, the holy man Hel had once mentioned, one of the people who'd held the position?
"When did you acquire your power, Mia?"
"About ten years ago. One day, out of nowhere, I began murmuring that a certain natural disaster would occur soon, as if I were delirious... My parents heard me, and that's what started it."
In addition to filling me in on the details of her ability, Mia began to tell me about her past.
"They were like prophecies; they just appeared in my mind, as images. I'd put them into words, almost unconsciously, or I'd write them down on paper. I began foretelling large-scale acts of terror and times when the lives of important people would be in danger—and before long, I was known as a child of God."
"A child of God... So you caught somebody's attention?"
Mia gave a self-deprecating smile. "I did. My parents, to be specific. The ones closest to me. When they discovered my ability, they created a religious body, set me up as its founding figure—and began to make money."
A child of God who could see the future—of course certain people would consider someone like that a money tree. Even more unfortunately for Mia, the ones who'd done it had been her family.
"Sorry to interrupt, but... Mia, what should I do with this?" I'd picked up a bundle of a dozen or so sheets of parchment, tied with string. Unlike the other sacred texts, it didn't have a cover, just the word Singularity scrawled on the first sheet.
"That's rubbish."
...It shouldn't have been anything to do with me, but since I was holding it, it
felt like she'd insulted me unfairly as well.
"What's written in there can't be trusted anyway."
So this wasn't connected to the sacred texts? I'd heard that those only held futures that were determined. For now, following Mia's orders, I put the bundle of parchment back.
"However, the only thing my ability can do is foresee global crises. I couldn't tell the futures of individual believers," Mia went on. Her parents had begun a religion around their daughter's ability to tell the future. However...
"Did that function as a religion, then? Weren't the believers counting on prophecies from the child of God?"
"Yes. And so my parents repeatedly made up divine revelations and used them to swindle money from the believers. They threatened them, implying that they'd receive divine punishment if they didn't do what they said."
It was your typical crooked cult. What Mia told me next was also really typical—although it was the sort of tragic tale you wish would never happen anywhere.
Mia's parents had hit on the idea of making up prophecies and separating believers from their money. Mia, the central figure in all this, had objected again and again, but every time she did, the adults had hit her. "You can't betray your believers now," they'd said.
Mia was still a little kid, and she hadn't been able to fight them. They'd shut her in a basement room, and after that, all she could do was watch her parents get their hands dirtier and dirtier... But then those days were blotted out by something even worse.
One day, in an attempt at revenge, a believer who'd lost a fortune over a false prophecy set Mia's house on fire. In the blink of an eye, those flames had enveloped her parents.
"My mother had done bad things. My father had hit me many times. Even so, they were the only family I had—so I tried to save them. I tried to use my clairvoyance to find a way for them to escape the inferno."
Mia had gone over to stand by the great window. The fading sun illuminated her fragile profile.
"But no matter what I did, I couldn't see a future where they survived. As far as the world was concerned, my parents weren't important."
Right, all Mia could see were things related to global crises. Her parents were ordinary people. They didn't count.
"...And so only you were saved?"
"The fire never reached that basement room. I didn't even want divine protection or whatever it was, and yet..." Mia gave a self-mocking smile.
"How did you go from there to being a Tuner?"
Having lost her family, Mia Whitlock had been living on her own, without hope. How, and when, had she begun fighting the enemies of the world as the Oracle?
"Four and a half years ago, the Ace Detective stole me," Mia said, turning back toward me.
"...So Siesta was involved?"
From context, "stole" probably meant "took into protective custody." Siesta had extended a helping hand to a girl who'd been all alone in the world.
"Did Siesta take you as one of her Ace Detective jobs?"
"I'm told the mission was originally assigned to the Phantom Thief. However, the Ace Detective stole me in his place. She said 'That man's the last person on the planet you should trust.'"
During the three years I'd spent traveling with Siesta, we'd dealt with phantom thieves countless times. However, right now, Mia probably meant the Tuner. I was pretty sure "Phantom Thief" had been one of the positions SIESTA listed for us once. But...
"What do you mean, the Phantom Thief can't be trusted? He's technically a hero, right?"
The twelve Tuners had all been appointed to save the world in its time of need. I'd heard that Scarlet the Vampire was a black sheep... Was the Phantom Thief another one?
"The Phantom Thief is a traitor, the only one of the twelve Tuners to blatantly violate the Federal Charter. He's currently imprisoned deep underground for committing a serious crime. The Ace Detective is the one person who saw the danger he posed ahead of time. That's why she rescued me herself, without relying on him."
Was the Federal Charter Mia had mentioned the same thing Charlie had brought up earlier? From what I'd heard, its regulations held the group of Tuners together.
"What was the Phantom Thief's crime?" I knew the conversation was getting further and further off topic, but I asked anyway. How had a hero who should have been keeping the world peaceful gotten locked up like a criminal?
"I'm the only one who's allowed to touch the sacred texts, but he stole some
of them."
As Mia said that, for the first time, there was a hint of anger in her eyes. "Then he sold the sacred text that held prophecies about SPES to Seed...in exchange for a certain consideration."
"So that's where our stories link up, huh?"
Seed had used the Phantom Thief to steal some of Mia's sacred texts. The other day, too, he'd tried to team up with the Vampire to break Bat out of jail. Apparently, he'd been attempting to use the Tuners for a few years already.
Once he'd gotten his hands on the sacred text and learned the future, Seed had been able to see danger coming before it reached him. Siesta had repeatedly fought an opponent with such a massive advantage, until finally, she'd—
"I'd like your opinion." Suddenly, Mia turned and walked toward me. "Say a Tuner's role is to risk everything to fight the enemies of the world, until they eventually meet the end one would expect. They may avert one crisis, but the enemies will keep coming. The fight won't ever end. Until the world is destroyed, they'll just keep pretending to save it, using every trick in the book, while only the people who fill those positions change. Can you find any hope in a future like that?"
Mia Whitlock's lilac eyes were right in front of me, wavering.
This was her counterargument to the wish I'd brought her: "Can the future be changed?"
Her answer was: No matter which future you choose, it will end badly. With the end of the world.
She wasn't exaggerating, though. Mia had been given the ability to see the future at a young age, and the people around her had seized the chance to use her. Siesta had saved her once, but then she'd sacrificed herself... And even that hadn't been enough to destroy the world's enemies. As the Oracle, Mia Whitlock would observe this hellish future for the rest of her life.
"So until my life ends, or the world does, I'll carry out my duties within the walls of this tower. I don't have any expectations to speak of. I have no ambitions of changing anything. I don't hope, I don't wish, I don't rely on anyone. I only do the job the Ace Detective gave me. I work quietly, and I work alone."
Without waiting for me to respond, Mia Whitlock gave me her final answer. "...Okay. I finally understand your position on this," I told her, getting to my
feet.
It was just as she said: If that was the only sort of future waiting for us, any kind of action would be pointless. That was a normal perspective to take. Until the dark, inevitable day, Mia planned to stay holed up in this clock tower. How badly must she be hurting? I wondered. I really couldn't tell her she was wrong.
"Sorry, though. I may understand it, but I can't sympathize."
I scooped Mia up in what's known as the "princess carry." "...Huh?"
In my arms, Mia blinked at me rapidly.
What's the matter? You sound kinda silly. You realize you're breaking character, right?
She can't actually have thought she'd convince me with that. "I'm going to show you just how uncertain the future really is."
Right then—an alarm began to sound in the room, or maybe all through the building. Then the window Mia had just been leaning against shattered.
"Wh-what? What's happening?"
Mia was flustered. Outside, something exploded, and the floor shook as if an earthquake had hit.
What? You didn't see this coming? —Well, too bad. "Just who do you think you're with right now?" Still carrying Mia, I headed for the exit.
"Don't go underestimating my knack for getting dragged into things." If you're a girl the gods loved, then I'm the guy they all abandoned.
Sorry, but I'm about to drag you into more trouble than you can even imagine.
"Where are you taking me?!" Mia screamed as I booked it out of the wheel of fate, carrying her with me.
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