Durarara!! SH - Volume 4 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

We Don’t Sell That Here

Tokyo, night

While Celty Sturluson was busy fulfilling the duties of her job as a courier, the young man she’d been thinking of was walking down a side street in the outer areas of Ikebukuro, accompanied by a boy whose eyes had begun to sparkle the moment the sun went down.

“So what are you plotting right now, Mr. Shijima?” Jami asked expectantly.

With dead eyes, Shijima answered, “Nothing in particular.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. For one, I don’t put together big, grand plots. What I do is find fires that are starting around the city and either pour gas on them or send a gust of wind to whip them up,” Shijima said, a spark gleaming darkly in his eyes.

Jami pondered the answer. “How are pouring gas and gusting wind different?”

“One strengthens the force of an uprising, and the other spreads the reach of an uprising. Or the difference between leveling one specific area to nothing but ash or allowing little flames to spread all over the city.”

“What about burning the entire city to ash?”

“I could probably pull that off, but what’s the point? That’s not the revenge I’m looking for,” Shijima said. He wore a rare, thin smile. “But whether I choose to give the fire gasoline or wind, I’m happy as long as the city ultimately turns to ash.”

After several more minutes of walking, Shijima pointed out an area of town with a thrust of his chin.

“We’re here. There it is.”

He was staring at an old, abandoned, worn-out building. It must have been abandoned in the middle of either construction or dismantling; it was impossible to tell at a glance. All that could be said was that it was collapsing in parts, and it possessed all the visual details that made it clear it had not been under any responsible upkeep in a very long time.

“What is this?”

“It’s the place where I screwed up when I was leading Heaven’s Slave. I tried to take out that Akabayashi guy here and fell right into a trap. The soldiers I sent in there ran into guys from a different yakuza gang than the Awakusu-kai, and it turned into a big battle.”

“Ohhh. A bitter history, huh? So you want to see the site of your big failure so you can get in the right mindset to succeed?”

“What? No, I don’t consider mentality to be that important,” Shijima remarked. A faint light was coming out of some of the windows around the middle levels of the building. “I have business with the people who hang out here. And I’m not a good fighter, so if necessary, I need you to keep me from dying, Jami.”

“I can’t guarantee it, okay? I’m not a bodyguard… By the way, what kind of people hang out here? Are they tough? Do they have guns?”

“…No, not guns, I’m sure. There are high school kids in this group.”

Jami’s shoulders dropped a bit with disappointment. “Aww. Then it probably won’t be very fun to fight them…”

“We didn’t come here to fight.”

“Then why? Who are they?” Jami asked again, although his enthusiasm was much weaker than before.

Shijima strode toward the entrance to the abandoned building. He narrowed his eyes with reminiscence.

“…Another group of scumbags just like us called the Blue Squares.”

Inside the abandoned building

“Ahhh, dammit. It won’t budge.”

“What have you been doing, man?”

Kuon was busy fiddling with the puzzle box he’d taken from Anri’s storehouse. The other Blue Squares crowded around him to see.

“Oh hi, fellas. See, I got this parquet box from a friend, but I can’t get it open…”

“Par-kay?” asked a confused man with bleached blond hair, Yoshikiri.

Another young man wearing a cat-ear accessory, Neko, replied, “You don’t know what that is? It’s a box that’s a kind of puzzle, like those interlocking rings, and you can’t open it unless you solve it.”

“Huh. Why are you doing it, if it’s so annoying? What’s the point?”

Another young man who’d been listening, the leader of the group—Aoba Kuronuma—joined the conversation. “Technically, they’re called Hakone parquet boxes, because they’re known for being made in Hakone. Not all parquet wooden objects are puzzles, though. The ones that you’re supposed to solve are known as ‘secret boxes’ or ‘trick boxes’ or ‘puzzle boxes,’ and people love them. I bet lots of people use them to store stuff that you don’t want just anyone seeing but isn’t worth sticking in a safe.”

Kuon exhaled. “Exactly. I can hear something clattering inside, so I’m really curious to find out what it is. Then I’ll put up pictures of the box before and after opening it, plus what I found inside, and use them for a blog article.”

“It’s wood, right? Just smash it, dude,” said Yoshikiri, who was more perplexed than ever.

Kuon just grimaced and shook his head. “I guess if you lost your door key, you’d just break down your own door, huh…?”

“Yeah…why wouldn’t you?”

“…”

“…”

Realizing that the others were giving him pitying stares, Yoshikiri’s temple twitched. He reached for the parquet box. “Ugh, what a pain in the ass! Stop makin’ me feel stupid! I’ll open the damn thing!”

“Ah! No, please, Yoshikiri! If you break it, it’s completely useless!” Kuon protested, clutching the box and running away.

Aoba threw the kid a bone and said, “Knock it off, Yoshikiri. That box is probably worth well over ten thousand yen.”

“…What?” Yoshikiri paused and turned to Aoba. Others around them also stirred at the mention of that magic number. “Hey, Aoba! Are you serious? That box is worth ten thousand?!”

“Yep. The price ranges depending on the complexity of the box—how many steps it takes to open, the size, the pattern. But based on the way Kuon’s been trying to open it, there’s no way there are only ten or twenty steps to it. The pattern’s super complex, and it looks like an antique. I’m talking ten thousand at a minimum, maybe even over fifty.”

“Fifty thousand?!”

“From what I’ve seen online, boxes that have over, like, three hundred steps before they open can go for over sixty or seventy thousand yen…and that’s a modern item. So if it’s old enough that it was from the Edo period, we could be talking a hundred, two hundred thousand.”

The Blue Squares, their eyes gleaming in unison, turned toward Kuon. More precisely, toward the trick box in his hands.

“H-hey… I was given this box! You can’t have it!”

“It’s fine—we’re just going to borrow it for a bit. There’s a local antique shop that was out of business until just last year, when they reopened. We’re just going to ask what the thing’s worth,” Neko said, his eyes glittering with avarice.

Kuon shouted, “You mean Sonohara-dou?! No way, not gonna happen! It would destroy any trust I’ve built up, and I can only imagine the looks Yahiro and Himeka will give me! No!”

“What the hell does that mean? Just let me see the box.”

The other guys surrounded Kuon, intent on snatching the parquet box out of his hands—when two figures stomped up the staircase to come into view.

“Huh? Who’s that?” Neko wondered.

It was a young man wearing glasses over his bandaged face and a feisty-looking boy with brown skin.

The man in glasses looked around until his eyes landed on Aoba. He inclined his head. “It’s nice to see you again. I’m Shijima.”

“…Yes, it has been a while, hasn’t it?” Aoba said, initially bewildered. He found a match for the name and face in his memory and clapped his hands together.

In the old Dollars incident, this was the man who had made contact, hoping to help instigate a purge within the Dollars; he had been rather helpful in that regard. But Aoba recalled that the guy had simply disappeared after that day when darkness covered the sky over Ikebukuro.

“…What have you been doing, then? And who is that?”

“I vanished into the wind because I made too many enemies. He is…a friend.”

“I’m Jami. Nice to meet you!” said the brown-skinned boy, beaming. He held out a hand.

“Um, hi,” Aoba replied, giving it a quick shake. He inclined his shoulders and asked Shijima, “Well? What brings you here? Just to be clear, the Dollars have disbanded, and my friend Ryuugamine I introduced you to earlier has left all this behind him to lead a normal life. If you wanted to see him, I’d advise against it.”

“…Ah yes. I heard the rumor that Mikado was stabbed by a street slasher. Was he all right?”

“He’s totally better now. No need for any hospital visits.”

“That’s too bad. I only wanted to ask him what he was stabbed by.”

Aoba and Shijima remained cagey, as though each knew the other was trying to hide something. Eventually, Shijima sighed and decided to offer a challenge that more directly tied into his reason for being there.

“So even though the Dollars disbanded, the Blue Squares didn’t suffer any damage and expanded their territory, too, Aoba Kuronuma? Would you happen to have your brother in the Awakusu-kai backing you up?”

Aoba had not given his full name, and Shijima knew about his brother, too. It was a demonstration that he knew all about the boy already.

Aoba narrowed his eyes and fired back with information of his own. “Wouldn’t that make you the one in danger? I wonder what the Awakusu-kai would do if I told my brother that the leader of Heaven’s Slave is here.”

Shijima shook his head. “That’s not quite right. I was only ever the subleader. Kumoi was the real leader.”

“And does this person actually exist? I haven’t seen the faintest trace of him.”

“Perhaps that’s an issue to discuss with your optometrist.”

“Interesting… In that case, is it Kumoi who’s giving the orders to make deals with those scary people who just showed up from out of the country? I understand they brought a helicopter into the Kanto region and got into a gunfight with it. Are you starting a war?”

Shijima had no response to this at first. After a while, the end of his mouth curled upward.

“If you’re scared, you should buy one of those shelters and hide in it. I’m not interested in guns or helicopters. It’s a smooth and beneficial relationship between groups in Ikebukuro.”

“So you want pawns?”

“Not at all. If I wanted pawns, I could easily hire some random thugs off the street, couldn’t I? No, I just want to forge a particular relationship. You need help, and I offer it. Then you pay me with money or something else.”

“A nice story…but as long as you don’t intend to mess with us, I don’t have any particular desire to be antagonistic. I know the Headless Rider cult isn’t the only thing you’ve set up—you’re dealing tons of drugs all over the city and in Saitama. We’re not going to stop you, but just to be clear, we have no reason to stick up for you if the Awakusu-kai catch wind of it.” Aoba smirked.

Shijima returned the expression and pulled out a notepad. “Phones are too likely for the Awakusu-kai and police to trace back. So if you want to do any business with us, go to this web address and type in the password below. That will bring up a contact form.”

“Thanks. I like cautious people. Although I don’t trust them.” Aoba grinned confidently. Shijima received it coldly.

A cheer from off to the side broke the awkward, ugly moment.

“?” They turned to see the puzzle box that Kuon just brought in, neatly open in Jami’s hands.

“Whoaaa, that was crazy! He just popped it right open!”

“It was so fast I couldn’t even see what he did…”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Aoba asked.

Kuon turned to him, mouth hanging open. “Uh…well…he said, ‘Hey, I can open that!’ and then…he just did it, with incredible speed…”

“That was eighty-four moves to solve it. Here you go!” Jami said, tossing the box back to Kuon, who was so startled that he failed to catch it cleanly. Something spilled out of the box.

“Whoa…what’s this?” Kuon scooped the object up: It was a small collection of SD cards in a little plastic case. “Awww, I was looking for gold coins or something. This is way cheaper than that…”

Despite his disappointment, though, he stuck one of the cards into a nearby laptop and nodded to Jami. “Well, thanks for opening it up. I can’t believe you did it so fast, though. I guess there are all kinds of geniuses…”

After a virus check of the data on the card, Kuon proceeded to open it up to look at the files.

“Oh, man, there are a couple thousand files on here… Huh?”

He was looking at neatly arranged rows of image thumbnails. The uniting feature of the images was that they were virtually all the color of bare skin.

“What’s up? What’s on there…?” Aoba asked, peering over his shoulder. Then he froze and asked, “Whoa…are those uncensored…?”

At the sight of thousands of images of sexy skin in various peachy hues, Yoshikiri and the other Blue Squares were suddenly full of an uncharacteristically serious resolve.

“All right, I’ll keep this safe.”

“No, I will.”

“I’ll do it!”

“What about me?!”

“Wait, wait, wait. Aren’t these basically illegal? We could be charged with a crime for having them.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s fine if they’re for personal use…”

“I dunno.”

“What’s the truth, Aoba?”

With their eyes on him, Aoba returned only a cold glare. “Seems fine to me. Who cares…?”

“H-he’s playing it cool!”

“This is what happens when you’re friends with hot, slutty twins!”

“…I’ll kill you!”

“Why?!”

Aoba fled, and the others chased after him. Shijima just shook his head with annoyance and headed for the stairs. “Let’s go, Jami.”

Jami did not seem especially pleased with this. “Awww! We’re leaving? Aren’t we going to that Sonohara-dou place?” he asked.

“Next time we will. Sonohara-dou’s not going anywhere. We’ll have plenty of chances.”

The two left amid the clamor of the gang, trading fairly pointless comments. Most of the Blue Squares didn’t pay them any mind, but one person in particular kept his ears and eyes sharp, catching every last comment.

As he fiddled with the puzzle box, the boy with green hair muttered to himself, “Did I just hear them say…Sonohara-dou…?”

On the street

Shijima and Jami were heading back the way they came.

Jami beamed excitedly and remarked, “Those guys seemed like fun!”

He had his hands behind his head as he walked, reminiscing on what had just happened. Shijima, as usual, was cold and emotionless underneath the facial bandages.

“Hmph. For how famous they are, I didn’t expect the Blue Squares to be such a group of boys just goofing around and bonding.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Why would you ask that…?”

“Well, you don’t seem to have any friends, Mr. Shijima!” Jami observed rather brutally.

Shijima just spat, “This is stupid,” and kept walking.

“So you say. But I bet you wish you could have seen all those dirty pictures, too, huh?”

“……”

Shijima came to a halt and slowly turned to Jami.

“What is it, Mr. Shijima?”

“I can’t believe…you people can act so normal when you…look at those…scandalous pictures…”

At that moment, Shijima’s face fell under a streetlight. Through the gaps in the white bandages, his skin was flushed, and his eyes were roaming nervously.

Jami gaped at him. “Huh…? Are you serious, Mr. Shijima? I mean, Miss Earthworm is always wearing that half-naked dress around you, putting her arms around you from behind, resting her chin on your shoulder, and stuff!”

“She’s doing it on purpose because she knows I hate it! It takes everything I’ve got to remain rational!” Shijima shouted, a rare display of emotion. He cleared his throat to recover control and continued, “At any rate, such things can be saved until after marriage.”

“Wow, I really didn’t think you were the type to say things like that. That reminds me of a story someone told me years ago, about a gangster who married his girlfriend after fifty years together, and they went on their honeymoon after the seventieth. I’m sure they’re really, really old by now.”

“I feel a bit jealous of a guy who has a girlfriend who’ll wait that long,” Shijima said, then began to walk off, indicating that the topic was finished.

Instead, Jami remarked, “Anyway, Mr. Shijima, you say you’re not plotting anything, but you’re definitely involved in a lot. What’s this foreign group? What are they like? Are they strong?” His voice got faster with anticipation.

“I have no idea,” Shijima replied.

“Huh?”

“Aoba Kuronuma just said that. I don’t know about this group at all, and even if I’m dealing drugs, I don’t use the name Heaven’s Slave for the group anymore. You know that already. So I can tell you truthfully that I have nothing to do with that.”

He exhaled, looking up at the night sky with dead eyes, and clicked his tongue.

“…I can just tell this is going to be a huge pain in the ass.”

The next morning, outside Sonohara-dou

Now this is just a huge pain… Who would have guessed that Shijima would be involved in the theft?

Celty mimicked a sighing gesture. She was outside the shop, straddling Shooter.

Anri came out of the building and called out, “I’m so sorry to have made you worry like this,” bowing her head. Celty waved back casually.

“Don’t let it worry you. More importantly, you be careful of that Shijima guy. He might come back for Saika.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Celty had come to see Anri early in the morning to hear what she had to say about Shijima.

The previous night, Celty heard that Heaven’s Slave might have a connection to the Natsugawara boy. Considering her discussion with Akabayashi, she decided to look for Shijima—and that was when Kuon messaged her.

It felt like a social media post. “This guy Shijima, a high-ranking member of the infamous Heaven’s Slave, just came to the Blue Squares. He said he was going to Sonohara-dou and that there would be plenty of chances. LMAO!”

But to Celty, this might as well have been an arrow striking her in the chest with a message of crucial importance attached to it.

After asking Anri about it, she said that a man had indeed come asking about Saika, and that evening was when the burglary happened.

Is he going after Saika…?

She sent a message to Kuon to check, but according to him, it was “a man with glasses and bandages around his face.” That was probably him.

But what was he doing in the storehouse? Did he think that there was another Saika kept back there, like the one Shinra’s holding…?

She asked Anri about that possibility, but Anri could only say, “Um, we don’t know if he’s responsible for this yet…”

Yes, it might be hasty to decide who was the culprit already, but at this point, it seemed unnatural not to think he had a connection.

Then again, I kind of doubt that Shijima can do anything to Anri… Oh, but wait. What if he doesn’t try to fight her but lights her house on fire…? He might saddle her with some kind of terrible debt that forces her out onto the street…

These were the kinds of things that villains in TV dramas did. Celty found her hackles rising at the thought of them.

Just when Anri’s found a tranquil life for herself… I have to protect that…

“Well, putting aside whether the bandaged man is the burglar, I’m chasing after him for a separate matter. If I catch him and find anything out, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you for that…um, and please be careful,” Anri said, concerned.

Inside her heart, Celty smiled back at the girl. “Thank you. I’ll be very cautious.” Then she remembered something else and asked, “Oh, by the way, about that wooden hammer in the message last night…”

“Ah, right… When we organized the storehouse yesterday, I didn’t see anything like it… It’s possible that it sold during my father’s generation. I’m sorry,” Anri said, bowing.

Celty waved a hand. “Oh no, it’s fine. It wasn’t something I needed.”

She left after that and rushed off, letting Shooter do most of the driving as she considered her plans for what came next.

Hmm…so if the cursed hammer isn’t in the storehouse…could the thief have stolen it? If Shijima’s the culprit, then maybe he took something else in the same vein when he couldn’t find Saika…but according to Kujiragi, it’s not actually cursed in the same way… And on the other hand, he might have only heard the rumors that it was cursed, like I did, and believed them…

Ultimately, she concluded that she wouldn’t get anywhere without catching Shijima first, so Celty headed off to look for members of Heaven’s Slave. If the Natsugawara boy was hanging out with Shijima, he could already be hooked on drugs.

Celty didn’t want to see the heartbroken disappointment on Awayuki’s face when she saw her brother as a strung-out junkie. Just in case, she sped Shooter up a bit more.

She had no idea that she was being observed from afar.

Building rooftop

A man was watching Celty ride through the streets below and spoke into his phone in English. “…I’ve got confirmation. It’s the Headless Rider.”

“Right, just like the video. The one who attacked our helicopter. Seems like it was true that our target’s been to Natsugawara’s mansion.”

After reporting a few more observations, the foreign man offered his partner over the phone a conjecture.

“Yes, I would say it’s a pet of Natsugawara Konzern. I would assume that the incident two years ago was an intentional hostility against us.”

“…Absolutely. And even if it’s not true, we still owe that ridiculous stage magician for the loss of our helicopter and men.”

Raira Academy, rooftop, daytime

“So what’s the deal? Is that Shijima guy the thief?” wondered Yahiro, scarfing down his sandwich.

Kuon washed down his home-cooked lunch with cola. “Dunno. I’m not really sure what he’s after, but he did say there would be ‘plenty of chances.’ It’s hard to imagine it could be anyone else.”

Himeka, who was eating a curry bread from the cafeteria, said, “But if he’s the thief, why would he say something like that in front of another person?”

“Well, my Blue Squares are basically thugs to begin with. He probably wasn’t worried they’d squeal, ya know? And they were all worked up at the time… Also, I wouldn’t have paid as much attention if I hadn’t recognized the name Shijima.”

That was a name that held a special meaning for them. When the Headless Rider cult incident happened around the start of high school, the man who’d been distributing man power and drugs to the cult was a man named Shijima.

In particular, Himeka had a strong connection because it was her family members who’d been victimized by the scheme. She didn’t display any outward emotion; she just asked Kuon, “You couldn’t have caught him at the time?”

“Kuronuma was in a noninterference kind of mood, so I would have been alone yelling, ‘Dammit! Revenge for Himeka’s sisters!’ It would be one thing if it was just him, but he had this other weirdo with him…”

“You know my sisters are still alive, right?” Himeka sighed. “Anyway, he might have just been careless, since you look like you’d be a thief yourself.”

“Look, I know I bring this upon myself with how I look, but you could at least take my side after all this time…,” Kuon lamented.

“Maybe you should just dye your hair black and go back to how you used to look,” suggested Yahiro.

“…Why do you say that like you know my old look?”

“Because the Orihara twins showed me pictures of you back in middle school.”

“Unbelievable! I figured it would be Kuronuma—how did those twins get pictures?! How much, dammit?! How much did he sell my past for?!” lamented Kuon.

Himeka and Yahiro ignored him. “I wonder what this Shijima guy wants,” she said.

“…How do you feel about him, Himeka?” Kuon said. “He’s the one who gave dangerous drugs to your sisters, right? If you want to catch him and make him pay, I’ll help. The next time he shows up to see Kuronuma, I’ll follow him back to his hideout, then send Yahiro in there to raise hell. That sounds like a plan to me.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize I was part of your plan,” said Yahiro. He must have been fine with the thought of helping Himeka because he didn’t seem especially displeased by this.

Instead, she was the one who shook her head. “To be honest, my sisters partially earned what happened to them… Although some of that is only because the Heaven’s Slave drug effects were weak on them, and they were able to go back to normal life quickly. If that Shijima guy were here, I’d probably slap him across the face. But I don’t really feel like searching for him just so I can do something.”

“One of those ‘vengeance solves nothing’ mindsets? Wow, that’s so cool. You hear that, Yahiro? Doesn’t sound like we’ll have any part of the action after all,” Kuon snarked.

“But I’m scared,” said Yahiro.

“Scared? Of what?”

“It’s scary to me that I can’t tell what this Shijima guy is thinking. What if he’s trying to plunge Tokyo into a sea of flames or end the world? It makes me imagine a bomb’s just going to fall on my head out of the blue one day. That’s really frightening,” said Yahiro quite seriously.

Kuon just chuckled and shook his shoulder. “Seriously, how can you be such a pessimist when you’re such a good fighter? Don’t answer that—I know your story. But seriously, you can afford to chill out a bit. Nobody’s been hitting you with dump trucks here, have they?”

“True, they’re not…but that’s just why I don’t want to repeat the same experiences. If someone around is scary, I want to know more about them. Maybe that way, I’ll know how to stay away from them or avoid making them angry…,” Yahiro said, trailing off. Then a thought occurred to him. “Ah, in fact…maybe it would be good to know where his hideout is. So that I don’t accidentally wander into it.”

“Wander into it? We’re not talking about a bear cave, man… You’re not just a chicken, Yahiro, you’re a really proactive chicken…”

But while Kuon was as sardonic as usual, Himeka offered Yahiro encouragement in her own flat manner.

“It’ll be fine, Yahiro. I can help you manage that anxiety, as long as it’s within my power.”

“Yeah, good point. Thanks.”

They were both utterly expressionless. It caused Kuon’s face to scrunch up, and he swung his hands with frustration.

“Gaaah! What is with you two? What is your deal?! I can’t even tell if that was supposed to be romantic or not! Like, that was a kinda-sorta touching line, so you have to do something with it! You’re making me worry over here! You two should be going out by now!” he bellowed.

This came as a surprise to Yahiro. “Huh? We can go out?” he asked her, without a trace of irony.

Himeka considered this for about ten seconds before replying, “I’m sorry. I think that men and women should get to know each other a bit better before making such a momentous decision.”

“That’s true. Kuon’s just impatient.”

Kuon put the cap on his half-finished bottle of soda and shook it furiously. “Gaaaaah! Why am I the one who’s being oblivious here?!”

“Calm down, Kuon. By the way, did you ever get that box open?”

“Huh? Oh, the box from Sonohara-dou. Yeah, it’s open.”

“You said you’d write about what was inside on your blog, but you haven’t put out an update yet,” noted Himeka.

This attention caused Kuon to guiltily avoid looking at either of them. “Well…some stuff happened…and the contents weren’t really worth blogging about… Besides, Shijima! Shijima!” he said, clearly desperate to change the topic. “Kuronuma said to leave him alone…but Celty’s searching for him for a different reason, and I’ve kept her up to date, so maybe she’ll catch him for us?”

Awakusu-kai office

“And? What’s the deal with these guests from overseas?” Akabayashi asked.

His fellow lieutenant, Kazamoto, blinked with gleaming reptilian eyes. “Well, they’ve never fought with us directly. Seems they’re the folks who caused that whole hubbub in Saitama. You know, the one that made the news. Helicopter crash-landing in a port town in Kanagawa, bunch of guns found, prominent gun fighting around that time.”

“Ah yes, I remember that. But if it was a squabble in Saitama, what’s it got to do with Kanagawa? They’re in different directions.”

“Well, that’s where this gets funny. You know the Natsugawara Group, right? The rich guy in Saitama. Apparently, they stole some valuable cargo from there and took it to the port to ship it out of the country. It turned into a shoot-out, and even the helicopter went down. Honestly, it was probably infighting…but it didn’t have anything to do with us, so I don’t have details about it. At least, not this early…”

“Mmm…gunfight and a chopper. That’s a pretty big operation, then,” murmured Akabayashi, his eyes narrowing.

Kazamoto smirked, revealing crooked teeth. “Well, the Natsugawara Group might be famous in Japan as a toy maker, but internationally, they’re known for several revolutionary pieces of software tech. I can understand why people seeking to steal their secrets might come to Japan, attempting to find a personal vulnerability that will give them control over the Natsugawara patriarch.”

Rental office, Saitama Prefecture

“It’s an antique shop in Ikebukuro called Sonohara-dou. I’ve slipped all the stuff into the storehouse there,” said Yukihiko Natsugawara.

The members of Heaven’s Slave shared questioning expressions. “When you say ‘slipped into’…you don’t mean that you asked the owner to hold on to the things?” one asked.

“It was a tricky situation,” Yukihiko replied, clicking his tongue as he recalled the events of two nights ago.

Shit. Was I really so terrified of these idiots?

When he ran away from home, Yukihiko took a few items with him.

His reasons for what he chose were simple: Some were for a quick source of cash, some were for long-term funding, and other things were for pure spite at his father. He found it quite logically satisfying.

By first selling the items, he would gain enough money to live off for several months.

And then, using the knowledge he had as part of the family, he would make use of the thing hidden inside the objects for long-term financial gain.

As a result, because the profit he gained represented a long-term loss for the Natsugawara family, it also successfully punished his father. With all that in mind, he removed some high-value items of a special nature from the house as he ran away.

Yukihiko hated his father.

It was an utterly misplaced grudge.

Yukihiko’s parents told him on a regular basis that he shouldn’t worry about being the heir to the Natsugawara Group and to live as he wished to live. Yukihiko had always compared himself favorably to other children from a very young age. He considered himself special and superior. He didn’t understand what his parents meant.

If he was free to live as he wanted, then why would he ever be anything but the heir to the Natsugawara family, where he was guaranteed to be fabulously rich by doing nothing at all? That was the kind of person Yukihiko was. When his young sister Awayuki said she wanted to draw storybooks when she grew up, he just mocked her and said, “That’s stupid. Why would you create something from scratch that you can just buy with money?”

In his mind, he wasn’t born to make money; he was born to spend money. He existed to put more money into circulation and to oil the gears of commerce: a modern-day nobleman. And that was when his parents brought in the foster son.

At first, he considered the newcomer something like a servant rather than a brother.

When his foster brother achieved school grades far better than his own, he thought it rather impudent but didn’t really care much, assuming that the boy was still far below his own standing in the world.

But eventually, he began to notice things.

The stares of others gradually moved past him and gathered on his foster brother instead.

Yukihiko’s downfall came quickly.

He began to think, without reason, that even his parents didn’t care about him anymore. Surely, “live the way you want” meant “we don’t need you anymore.” Once his mind was stuck in that swamp, he was unable to free himself.

When he began to act out, and his parents scolded him, he would think, They’re only concerned with what society thinks, and found himself hanging around with the outlaws of society.

When he spent his money on them, the people he found would praise him without end.

Satisfied with the situation that he’d always considered “the way things should be” since childhood, Yukihiko enjoyed this dream for a while.

But after running away, he found that illusion began to fray at the seams.

The friends who had lifted him up suddenly seemed awfully concerned about his remaining balance. “How much did you manage to take with you?”

And once he noticed that change in attitude, irritating as it was, Yukihiko ventured to Ikebukuro in search of a certain man.

Izaya Orihara.

His plan was to use this information agent, a well-known name among the outlaws, as a means of gaining long-term income.

But Yukihiko had no idea that after an incident two years earlier, the information seller had completely vanished from Ikebukuro.

It was while he was wandering around the city that Heaven’s Slave showed up.

“Hey, I remember what you said. That in the stuff you took, there’s data that could destroy your dad’s company.”

“You were talkin’ all about it at the bar, weren’t you?”

“There are some guys from overseas who are interested in buying at a lucrative price. We’ll act as an intermediary for you.”

He wasn’t nobility; he was just a laborer being extorted by corrupt nobles. He performed the simple but dangerous work of taking money from his family, and it was all going to be stolen from him. By the time he realized what he’d done, it was already too late. He became a lost little lamb, running for his life all over Ikebukuro.

Then he remembered that Sonohara-dou, a place he’d identified when he first came to Ikebukuro as a convenient antiques store that would buy the items he’d taken with him, was nearby. He used the storehouse around the back as a place to hide.

If he handed over everything the other people wanted, he would no longer hold any worth. And the value he’d gained would go straight over his head and into Heaven’s Slave.

Understanding his predicament meant that he now needed to temporarily hide what the other men wanted. He needed to improve his status from “target for exploitation” to “trading partner.”

If he just put the stuff down, the shop owner would realize very quickly that something had been added. And since he’d broken the simple lock to get inside, if he did a bad job of hiding it, the police might very well impound it as evidence.

Which is why he messed up the storehouse a certain amount—to make it look like a burglary—and slipped the items he’d taken from home among the mess.

Hmm…should I also steal a thing or two while I’m doing this…? Are there any weapons in here? I wouldn’t want to run into those guys outside. It’s an antiques shop, so maybe there’s a katana somewhere.

After a bit of rifling around, he found a small hammer. It was made of wood, aged but sturdy, and decorated with strange patterns.

A wooden hammer…? Well, it’s better than nothing. I doubt they’re going to be scared by seeing me swing this around, though…

Despite his misgivings, however, the instant he held the hammer, its sheer comfort simply took his breath away.

It had been crafted solely for one man to use it: Yukihiko Natsugawara. Such was the perfect feel of the handle in his hand. It was as if the hammer had fused to his palm.

After staring at it in wonder, he found himself reconsidering. Why was he sneaking around at all? He was the exalted son of the Natsugawara family. He stood at the pinnacle of the world and had nothing in common with these street-level thugs.

He slowly walked out of the storehouse, holding the little hammer.

He was going to take back the status he was owed.

It was time to punish the ones who had betrayed him and tried to sell him to another, larger organization.

This quest resulted in Yukihiko smashing Heaven’s Slave’s leader with the hammer and taking over his seat.

“Listen, the stuff should all be in the storehouse. If you can just bring it to me, I can do the rest,” he said, giving his new followers their instructions to attack the storehouse of Sonohara-dou.

His voice brimming with confidence, he noted, “I saw the owner of that place during the day for a bit. She was a good-looking woman…”

Because he was special, he knew that he was therefore allowed to do anything that he wanted.

And it was this that spurred him on to give the order that would lead to his downfall.

“If she spots you and raises a fuss, you can go ahead and kidnap her.”

Togusa’s apartment, evening

“Whoa…so this is the giant shark tooth you found at Sonohara-dou!” Yumasaki exclaimed.

“Yes. I like shark movies and stuff, so…”

“Yeah, this is cool. Lots of manga and anime like to insert parodies of famous shark movies, so it’s good to keep up on them, you know? Man, if I’d known they had things like this there, I would have helped out…”

Yumasaki examined Yahiro’s shark tooth fossil with great excitement, standing in front of Togusa’s van. It was a single piece about the size of his palm, with serrated edges along its spearhead shape. You could use that thing as a weapon.

He and Karisawa had taken a car ride over to Togusa’s place, where they saw Yahiro and struck up this conversation. It was in the course of explaining yesterday’s events that Yahiro brought up the fossil from Sonohara-dou, which proved to be quite the topic of interest.

“Oh, you boys, with your shark and dinosaur teeth.”

“You don’t have any interest, Karisawa?” Yahiro asked.

“Well, I like sharkboys.”

“Sharkboys… Actually, I think sharkgirls sounds surprisingly cute and alluring, for some weird reason?” Yumasaki said.

The conversation devolved from there, as usual. Once they had run their course, Yumasaki examined the tooth fossil closely and said, “I have to say, Anri’s quite generous. This is a really high-value item.”

“Huh?”

“At this size, it’s probably a megalodon tooth. They’re tens of thousands of yen at the cheapest. Could be a hundred, two hundred, easily over half a million yen for the very best specimens.”

“What?!” Yahiro gaped.

Saburo was equally shocked. “Are you serious?! Th-they go for that much?! Damn… I shouldn’t have told you to accept her offer… Now I feel like I cost Anri big-time…”

“So I should probably return it…,” stammered Yahiro, his eyes ready to pop out.

Karisawa took a closer look at the fossil. “Well, not this one. It’s not going for a hundred thousand yen or whatever. It’s a composite.”

“A composite?”

“Yeah. Megalodon teeth rarely come in one complete piece, so when that happens, they use other teeth from the other side of the jaw in a similar shape and cut them to fill the missing bit and make a complete tooth.”

“Ohhh.”

“Spoken with the authority of someone who sells her own handicrafts…,” Togusa said.

The guys were duly impressed by her knowledge. Karisawa continued, smiling, “Yes, which is why it’s more like thirty thousand yen for one this size.”

“That’s still a lot of money…”

Yahiro stared at the fossil, unsure of what to do. A sudden thought made him turn to Karisawa.

“But how do you tell the difference between a composite and a normal fossil…?”

“See, if you look closely, notice how the colors are different on the right and left sides of the middle here?”

“Oh, you’re right… Wow. But they’re pretty firmly attached together… Oops!”

Yahiro applied pressure on the seam with his thumbs and promptly cracked the shark fossil in two.

The others went paler much faster than Yahiro did.

“Aaaah! Oh no! Glue! We need glue! Or grains of rice! They say each grain of rice has the seven lucky gods inside of it! We can use their godly power to fuse shark with shark into the demonic Sharktopus-nado!”

“Hang on—I’ve got a soldering iron and some solder inside the van…”

“Let’s just call Kadota! He’s a plasterer, so he might know what to do!”

While the others panicked, Yahiro’s shock was dulled by a discovery he’d made. “What is this…?”

Right along the seam where the giant shark tooth fossil cracked, there was a little notch—out of which poked a thin micro SD card.

Rental office, Saitama Prefecture

“You’ve been making quite a name for yourself in just the last few days, from what I hear,” Earthworm said.

Eyes half-open, Shijima scowled. “Yeah, I heard. People calling themselves Heaven’s Slave are working with some foreign group.”

“Oh. I thought you were utilizing some friends you were keeping hidden from me. Is that not the case?” She slowly and knowingly sighed, practically with seduction.

Shijima just grimaced. “Heaven’s Slave is a name I gave up. What value can it have without Kumoi or me? It only sticks around as the name of the drug.”

“And that drug is really doing the rounds these days. Junkies are showing up at our casino looking for dealers. It’s starting to become a problem.”

“…What?”

Jami had been listening from the corner of the room, and now he came spinning forward. “Mr. Shijima, I think drugs are bad! I was reading a manga where it said that people who sell drugs are the worst. It’s not too late to turn things around. Say no to selling drugs! It’s majorly uncool!”

“Calling me the ‘worst’ implies a level of importance I don’t rise to. I’m the bottom of the barrel.”

“Oh, man. That wasn’t even a real rebuttal. That makes you look even more uncool, Mr. Shijima!” Jami exclaimed, quite serious despite his childish mannerisms.

Shijima carefully avoided his eyes. “Well…for one thing, I’m not dealing drugs anymore.”

“Huh?”

“Heaven’s Slave is a drug that amplifies your own delusions. It only works when given to the right people. I gave the Headless Rider worshippers some doses, but if I was distributing to anyone, the drug would only follow the same fate as Heaven’s Slave, the organization.”

Earthworm seemed surprised by this. “Oh. You said you wanted revenge on Ikebukuro, so I assumed you were going to do something like mix your drugs into the school lunches of all the schools in the area.”

“Are you confusing me for some secret criminal organization from a children’s show?” Shijima muttered unhappily. He strode to the window and gazed out at the darkening city. “It means nothing for me to do that vengeance myself. Helping the city create its own downfall is good enough. In fact, that’s exactly what I want. If my response to the city that totally ignored me is to rage and say, Pay attention to me, it would basically be bending my knee and acknowledging their reproach,” he said loftily.

Behind him, Jami and Earthworm spoke in hushed tones.

“Sometimes I can’t tell if Mr. Shijima is sick in the head or just obsessed with himself.”

“I think it’s both.”

Shijima could hear exactly what they were whispering, but he didn’t seem particularly upset by it.

“Yes…that’s correct,” he said. He paused before resuming.

“…If I wasn’t using self-obsession as a cover, I would have gone mad and self-destructed long ago.”

4F of Holy Article Hall, mixed commercial building in Ikebukuro, night

This particular building was dedicated to various Taiwanese real estate offices and restaurants. One entire floor was a kind of warehouse, which acted as a hangout spot for Dragon Zombie. Celty was visiting to ask their leader, Libei Ying, for information about Heaven’s Slave.

“Ah yes…that name’s been popping up again lately. I heard they were wiped out when I was hospitalized in Taiwan. By the way, may I ask how you knew about this spot, Headless Rider?”

About fifteen members of Dragon Zombie were keeping a close eye on her, albeit from a distance. But perhaps because they’d been in Ikebukuro for a long time and understood Celty’s power, their attitude was less open hostility and more nervous tension, a desire for things to end peacefully.

“I asked someone I know.”

“I’m assuming it’s that green-haired boy. If you see him, could you tell him I’d appreciate it if he didn’t blab about my hideout to others?”

“You could say that to your own people, but you can’t stop others from talking, can you? Besides, after you trespassed into my apartment building, I don’t think you have any right to talk,” Celty said rightfully.

Libei shrugged and laughed. “Well, I guess you’re right about that… It’s just creepy how much that kid knows about things. Reminds me of Izaya Orihara.”

“Now that’s just a cruel thing to say,” Celty opined, although she probably didn’t realize that Kuon’s wish was to be even better than Izaya in that regard. She returned to the topic. “Kuon doesn’t know Shijima’s hideout, either. But I figured because you’re roaming all over Tokyo on your bikes, you guys might have that information.”

“Well, that depends.”

“I’m not asking for free. I can pay a reasonable amount for the information.”

“The thing is, they’re really slippery. We’ve spotted them selling on a few occasions, caught the dealers, and crushed the higher-ups…but none of that has gotten us any closer to their main hangout. We don’t even know where they’re cultivating the base of the drug.”

Celty couldn’t detect any falsehood in the look on Libei’s face.

Interesting. So even if they’re able to catch the street-level dealers, they can’t manage to go up the chain to Shijima. Just like Mr. Akabayashi said, they’re trouble. When I observed him before, he was basically just an underling working for Nasujima…

“I see… Well, that’s too bad. Let me know if you learn anything good,” she typed, turning to leave.

But Libei just smiled and waved his hand. “You take care out there, too, rider. I hear that motorcycle cop Kuzuhara is off his suspension.”

That froze Celty in her tracks.

“…Suspension? I guess I hadn’t seen him around lately.” No wonder she’d had such an easy time driving around. “What did that monster get up to? Did he skin someone and reupholster his seat with it…?”

“Uh, I’m not sure how seriously to take that question,” Libei remarked, smirking. “Look, it’s simple. A big politician’s car committed a hit-and-run. He went after the car and tried to arrest the guy.”

“But…that shouldn’t actually be his fault, right? If that earns him a suspension, it makes you wonder if our entire society is rotten to the core…”

“Well, let me finish the story. The politician, no surprise, goes on a rant, like, ‘Who do you think I am?’ And then Kuzuhara dragged the old man out through the window and rode around, dangling him inches above the street. He said, ‘I don’t care who you are—if you crash, you’ll be a stain on the asphalt.’ So he got suspended for going too far.”

Celty felt relieved to hear that the politician was properly arrested for the hit-and-run and was punished.

“I’m glad. Society is still healthy…”

Libei just smirked. “Anyway, for bikers like us, it only means that hell’s coming back around.”

“That’s just a fact of life. It’s your fault for breaking the speed limit.”

“Do I need to fetch you a mirror?”

“I mean…it’s anyone’s fault for doing that…myself included…”

Ugh, now I feel like I’m really losing my grasp on normal society…

But no. This is the time to focus on Shijima.

After leaving the building behind, Celty reflected on the information she had collected. It seemed like an agglomeration of dozens of little groups in a hierarchy that was widespread yet shallow, busy with a variety of crimes.

“A group that’s hard to grasp…just like the Dollars.”

In fact, I think Mr. Akabayashi said they’d used the Dollars as a model. Maybe I’ve been underestimating this Shijima fellow…

She straddled Shooter and slapped the sides of her helmet, willing herself to sharpen up.

I have to give this everything I’ve got. As though I’m facing the Dollars themselves.

Saitama Prefecture

Men in dark suits traded English comments in the dimly lit room.

The majority of them were clearly not Japanese, but the few among the group who looked Japanese spoke English exclusively with the others.

Each held a tablet showing videos of the Headless Rider, presumably taken around Ikebukuro.

“I don’t know what it means, but it seems like Natsugawara’s pet magician rider is wandering around Ikebukuro.”

“Apparently, the rider’s been spotted in Ikebukuro for years…but they also pointed out that there’s a connection to a group called the Awakusu-kai. I also heard she worked for a fixer in Shinjuku named Izaya Orihara…but he’s a dangerous sort. He’s even got connections to the SAMPLE cult.”

“There’s a possibility the Awakusu-kai and Izaya Orihara are secretly connected to Natsugawara. He’s a resilient man. Over in America, he’s made contact with mafia families big and small, like the Runoratas and Russos, and he has many dummy connections, too. There’s probably only a tiny handful of people in the Natsugawara Group who know which organizations are actually backing them,” one of the men warned.

The others said, “Which is what makes this information his eldest son stole so fascinating.”

“Is it a trap meant to lure us into the open?”

“No, from what I understand, Yukihiko Natsugawara is just the classic failure of a son, unlike his father. People say the recent foster son is meant to give the family a viable successor. We’re monitoring Yukihiko now that he’s joined Heaven’s Slave; I think the possibility that he’s a genius playing dumb is very low,” said a man. Then he presented his concerned hypothesis about another figure. “This magician rider seems to be searching for Yukihiko…and I suspect…this might be a means to eliminate the man’s oldest son.”

“Interesting. So the pet bodyguard is actually the pet assassin?”

“In any case, the maximum caution must be paid to this character. Get all the personnel and weapons you can at the present moment.”

“Wait, all of them…? You want to start a war in this country?” One of his companions gaped.

The central figure in the room shook his head. “Don’t forget—she knocked a helicopter out. Those who dealt with her directly are still in prison…but from what I hear, it was very clear that she’s no ordinary opponent. It would be dangerous to assume that all the videos online are fakes.”

“Oh, come on. Are you the kind of guy who believes that they research aliens at Area 51 or that Nebula Pharmaceuticals is secretly working on vampires and the undead? If anything, this rider’s probably just using some kind of hallucinatory gas or something.”

“If she can freely wield chemical weapons that give groups of people identical hallucinations, she’s more dangerous than your average alien or vampire,” the leader sneered.

“Uh…huh…” The teasing one had no response.

Then the leader played a few more videos on their tablets, including ones with eerie shadow movements that could only be special effects. He brought up another suggestion.

“The Natsugawara Group is a leading company in the realms of nanotech, AI, and biotech overseas. Their scale is smaller than Nebula’s, but the richness and future possibilities of their tech is eye-popping. Perhaps this strange rider has a connection to that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard that this shadow might actually be the latest technology from the Natsugawara Group.”

The room buzzed with unease, and the leader cast a wary glance around.

“Don’t assume we’re only dealing with one person. Proceed with extreme violence. Expect to make an enemy out of Natsugawara’s true connection…or perhaps every group in Ikebukuro and Saitama together.”