Durarara!! - Volume 1 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Shadow

Chat room (weekend, evening)

<I’m telling you, Ikebukuro’s all about the Dollars right now!>

[The Dollars are that team people are talking about these days? I’ve never seen them.]

<Sounds like they’re keeping it on the DL in public. But people on the Net are all into it!>

{Oh, really? Sounds like you know a lot about Ikebukuro, Kanra.}

<Not that much really!>

<Oh, how about this? Have you ever heard of the Black Rider?>

{Black Rider?}

[Ahh.]

<The one people are talking about in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro. It was even in the news yesterday.>

Location in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo (weekday, late night)

“Muh…muh…monsterrrrr!”

The man screamed in rage, lifted his metal pipe—and ran for his life.

The man dashed through the late-night parking garage. In his right hand, the pipe was not cold, but skin temperature. Even that sensation became indistinct and uncertain as sweat flooded his palm.

There were no people around, only cars waiting patiently for their owners.

All sound had vanished from around him, leaving only the pounding of his footsteps, his ragged breath, and the steadily rising drumbeat of his heart.

As he tore past the ugly concrete pillars, the thug practically shouted under his breath, “Sh-sh-sh-shit! Shit! Shit! S-s-s-s-screw this, man!”

The light in his eyes took on a glint of anger, but the only breath that escaped his mouth was the panting of sheer terror.

He’d gotten that neck tattoo to inspire fear in others. Now that tattoo was distorted with the tension of his own fear. Soon the purplish pattern, devoid of any kind of belief or meaning, was covered by a pitch-black boot.

<It’s been around as an urban legend for years, but now that all the cell phones have cameras, people have started getting shots of the Rider, and the story’s famous again.>

[Oh yeah, I’ve heard about that. Actually, it’s not even an urban legend, but a regular old motorcycle gangster. Just not the kind that rides in an actual gang.]

<Anyone riding around on two wheels without their lights on has to be an idiot.>

<Assuming they’re human.>

{I’m afraid I don’t see your meaning.}

<Oh well… I’m saying the Rider’s basically a monster!>

With an eerie crikkle sound, the thug’s body flew through the air at an odd angle, half rotating.

Slammed hard sideways, he desperately scrabbled with what remained of his wits. The air was freezing, but the numbness throughout his body shut out the chill of the concrete. Trapped in a nightmare, he turned back to the approaching source of his terror.

The shadow of a figure stood over him. Not metaphorically, either—it was a shadow.

The figure was dressed in a black full-body riding suit without a single pattern or logo on it, making it look as though the black material had been dipped into even darker ink. Only the reflection of the parking garage lights signified that there was even something physical there at all.

From the neck upward was even stranger. An oddly designed helmet sat atop the figure’s neck. In comparison to the uniform blackness of the body, the shape and patterning of the helmet seemed somehow artistic. It didn’t clash with the overall dark look, however.

The faceplate of the helmet was like the dark mirrored glass of a luxury car. It showed nothing of what lay behind the glass, only the distorted reflection of the lights overhead.

“…”

The shadow was completely silent. It exuded no signs of life whatsoever. The man’s face twisted with fear and hatred.

“I-I-I didn’t do nothin’ to deserve gettin’ chased by a T-t-t-terminator!”

It might have passed as a one-liner, but there was no humor in his expression.

“Wh-wh-why don’t you say something? What’s your problem? What the hell are you?!”

From his perspective, the figure was incomprehensible. They were supposed to meet up in the underground parking garage like usual, do an easy job, then leave. Deliver the product to the client and load up on a new product. That was it. Nothing different from the usual. Where did they screw up? What had they done to call such a monster down upon themselves?

The man and his “colleagues” were supposed to do their ordinary job tonight.

But that ordinary plan had crumbled into dust without warning.

They were standing at the entrance to the garage, waiting for one late straggler, when the thing appeared out of nowhere. A single motorcycle passed by the entrance without a sound, stopping a few dozen feet ahead.

The man and his companions noticed a number of anomalies with this scene.

First, the absolutely silent entrance. Perhaps there had been some slight screeching of the tires on the ground, but the engine itself did not make a sound. Maybe it had been turned off so the motorcycle could coast in silence, but they would have heard the approach of the engine before that, and no one noticed a thing prior to its appearance.

Second, the bike was completely pitch-black, including its rider. That included the engine, driveshaft, and the wheels inside the tires. It had no headlight, and even the place where a license plate would go was just a flat black surface. It was only the reflections of the streetlights and moonlight that helped them recognize it as a motorcycle at all.

But creepiest of all was the large object dangling from the rider’s obsidian hand. It was nearly the size of the rider itself, and an opaque liquid dripped from its narrowed end onto the asphalt.

“Koji…?”

One of the man’s coworkers recognized what the ragged object was. At the same time, the riding suit astride the bike dropped it—no, him—onto the ground.

It was another of their colleagues, the one who’d been late to show up. His face was puffy and beaten, and blood poured from his nose and mouth.

“Are you serious?”

“What the hell?”

The scene was eerie, but none of them felt fear at this point. Neither did they feel any anger about the beating of their companion, Koji. Nothing more than work circumstances united the men, and none of them felt a particular kinship for the others.

“What, huh? Whatchu want?”

A man in a parka, the stupidest of the group, took a step toward the motorcycle. One of them, five of us. The superiority of numbers inflated his attitude a level or two. But the closer he got to the bike, the more his advantage evaporated from five on one to one-on-one. Only the black shadow atop the bike noticed this.

“…”

Jrshk.

A nasty sound. A very, very nasty sound. It transcended simple displeasure and signaled danger to the animal instincts at a fundamental level.

The man in the parka slumped to his knees, then landed on the asphalt face-first.

“Wha…?”

Now the men were unnerved, and their tension spread outward, as it usually did when they were in the middle of their work. All that they were able to ascertain was the presence of the bike before them—there were no other figures nearby. And the shadow atop the vehicle was now stepping down off the bike, its thick black boot hitting the ground.

They saw it being lowered. But the fact that it was lowered meant the foot had been raised in the air before that action. And those with better eyesight noticed something else at the same time.

Tangled into the underside of the descending boot was a pair of glasses belonging to the man in the parka.

This information instantly identified the situation to them.

The man in the parka had been dropped instantaneously with a single kick, delivered while the figure still sat on the bike.

If they’d seen his face, they would see that his nose was twisted and broken. The shadow on the motorcycle had kicked out at a range just long enough not to knock the man backward, catching and breaking his nose in the indentations on the sole of the boot.

But the men watching had no way of realizing this. Half of them wondered how a man kicked in the face ended up falling forward, while the other half ignored it and pulled out police batons or stun guns from their belts.

“Wait…how did that work? Huh? I mean…how…?”

Two colleagues raced past the confused man, roaring with anger as they charged the rider.

“Uh, hey—” he tried to call out as the shadow silently stepped off the bike. It strode over without a change in expression or sound, aside from the crunching of the glasses beneath the boot. The movement was smooth and elegant, as though a shadow had actually been fleshed out into human form.

What happened next was etched into the man’s memory in slow motion—either because the events were simply too bizarre not to leave an impression or because the danger of the situation had sped up his concentration so that everything seemed slower.

One of his colleagues pressed his Taser against the shadow.

Wait, does a leather jacket conduct electricity or not? he wondered. The entire shadow twitched and convulsed. Apparently it did. The ordeal was over.

His colleague pressed the stun gun in farther, but in the next moment, his relief evaporated.

Even as the shadow convulsed with electricity, it reached out to the man with the police club and grabbed his arm.

“Wabya—!”

The man with the club, standing on the opposite side of the crackling shadow, grunted and shook violently, then fell to the ground in shock.

“Oh, you’re gonna get—”

The man with the Taser noticed the shadow’s hand reaching for him now, and he hastily switched off the power. This did not improve his situation—the shadow’s powerful wrist seized his neck.

He flailed his limbs desperately, but the shadow’s grip remained firm. His feet kicked out at the shins and crotch of his assailant, but the helmet produced nothing but silence and darkness.

“Kah…kuah…”

Strangled until his eyes rolled back into his head, the man with the Taser fell to the ground, joining the one with the police baton.

Shit. Whatever the hell is happening, it ain’t good. I haven’t done a thing, and now four of the six of us are down, including Koji. Fear began to paint the thug’s mind, the indescribable thing overriding any thoughts of his own helplessness.

“You pullin’ some kinda MMA crap?”

The other man on the right was calm and cool.

“Gassan!” the thug called out, desperate for any source of strength he could find. The man named Gassan, leader of the coworkers, stoically watched the shadow. There was no terror in his eyes, but neither was there any confidence.

Gassan pulled a large knife out of his jacket and lazily approached the shadow. Careful to watch for any movement, he tried lobbing an insult.

“I dunno where you learned what you’re doin’…but you’ll still die if I stab you.”

He spun the knife in his hand. It wasn’t as small as a fruit knife, but it also wasn’t the kind of short sword you’d see in a comic book. The handle was just long enough to fit in a palm, and the blade itself was about the same length, sharp edge gleaming.

“And just because you know some martial arts don’t mean you can ice me with your bare han— Aaah!”

The shadow abruptly interrupted his challenge. It leaned forward slightly, picking up two objects lying on the ground—the police baton and stun gun his colleagues had been using.

“…”

“…”

Stun gun in the right hand, club in the left. It sure was a nasty-looking double-sword stance.

For an instant, the already eerie quiet surrounding the parking garage turned to absolute silence. It was broken by the leader’s questioning grumble.

“Wait…you kidding? I thought you were gonna use your kung fu on me.”

The words were lighthearted and jocular, but the voice itself was thick with tension and unease. They should have just ganged up on the thing all at once, but it was too late to turn back now.

The thug in the rear couldn’t move a step. If this was some other gang or the police, he’d have leaped in to help without hesitation. The four of them would have all jumped the target at once.

But the thing before them was too eerie and otherworldly for that. Their nerves weren’t ready to react in the usual way. It was just a human being wearing a riding suit. But the atmosphere surrounding it was so creepy, so alien, that he couldn’t help but feel that he’d been sucked into some alternate universe.

Aware of the thug’s unease or not, the leader ground his teeth and rolled his tongue.

“You’re fightin’ dirty! All I got is a knife! Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?!”

The shadow turned to the leader, responding to his pointless question with silence.

In the next moment, the thug saw something take clear shape.

<So the one riding the black motorcycle isn’t a human at all.>

{What is it, then?}

[Just an idiot.]

<Dotachin says it’s a Reaper.>

{Dotachin?}

<As a matter of fact, I’ve seen the black motorcycle chasing someone around.>

{Who’s Dotachin?}

[Did you tell the police?]

<I dunno, given what it was carrying, it was already pretty abnormal.>

{… Am I being ignored? Who’s Dotachin?!}

<I couldn’t tell at first, but the body was making>

{… }

{?}

{Kanra? What happened?}

[I think he got disconnected.]

{What?! But he was in the middle of the story! What came out of the body?!}

{And who is Dotachin?!}

“…?”

The shadow began to move strangely as the thug and his boss watched.

It reached down to pick up the stun gun, then placed it on the seat of the bike.

I guess it must be too difficult to use two weapons at once, the thug decided. In the next moment, the shadow gripped the special police club with both hands.

And twisted it.

“Wha—?!”

At this, the two men could not contain their shock, and they shared a look. What kind of sleight of hand could possibly bend a police baton like that? If anything, the shadow’s frame was slender, not the kind of body that suggested feats of great strength.

In any case, the shadow had now given up the weapons it had just gained—but rather than providing relief to the men, they were even more confused. The level floor of reality that moored their minds was being removed.

Now that the thing was empty-handed again, the thug reached out for a metal pipe leaning against a fence. The leader noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye and brandished his knife again.

Cold sweat dotted their foreheads. Only that unpleasant sensation kept their minds anchored to the reality before them.

“What the hell was that…a threat?” the leader growled, eyeing the bent club. A drop of sweat trickled down into his mouth, and he swallowed it. The thug barely noticed, gripping his pipe and panting heavily. His breathing grew steadily worse, until he realized that his legs, back, and chin were all trembling. The ostentatious club-bending performance had admirably served its menacing purpose.

The shadow started to walk closer, as though to confirm the effect of its show.

“Hand to hand, eh? At least you’ve got guts,” the leader boldly declared. Unlike the thug, he’d made up his mind to fight. Eyes flashing, he approached the shadow, knife in hand.

It was three yards away. Two more steps, and he would be close enough to stab.

Gassan’s a man who can use a knife when the time calls for it, the thug knew. He followed his leader, ready with his metal pipe.

The leader would take one more step, his hostility shifting to bloodlust, then with ultimate malevolence, he would stab the opponent. Only the knowledge that his boss was the kind of man to step across that line gave the thug the courage and security to follow behind him. There was no feeling of taboo about murder at this point, and the shadow itself was so unreal that the recognition of killing another human being didn’t even apply here.

Sensing impending victory within his companion’s aggression, the thug clenched his metal pipe harder. But the next moment, their hope for triumph was completely demolished.

The shadow seemed to reach around its back, and in the next moment, a part of its black form swelled up.

It was like stygian smoke erupting from the shadow, writhing with a will of its own. Black masses squirmed like black snakes out of the black shadow’s black gloves.

The trail traced a vivid, eerie path through the air, like an inky brush dipped into a bucket of water. Eventually, the movement consolidated, building a form—a shape with meaning.

The two wide-eyed men finally saw, bathed in the light from the streetlamps and parking garage, that their foe was not human. They couldn’t help but see.

In the instant when the black blob broke free from the shadow’s body, something like charcoal soot escaped its form. It was as though the riding suit was melting away into the air, making everything aside from the helmet indistinct and hazy under the light.

Their brains were in a greater panic, now that they were fully isolated from the reality they’d known their entire lives. But with escape impossible, their bodies could only faithfully carry out the last orders they’d received. His expression locked in a nightmare rictus, the knife-bearing leader pulled back his weapon, pointing it at the shadow before him. After a moment of hesitation, he thrust the knife forward at the shadow’s midriff, but…

The arm holding the knife shook with a dull shock before the blade reached the shadow. He did not drop it, but the impact rocked his stance enough to put him off-balance.

“?!”

The sharp, black form that hit the point of the knife began to take shape in the darkness.

It was dark, so dark. Darker than the darkest black. It absorbed the light around it, writhing and squirming like a living thing. Its nebulous, roiling form was terrifyingly hideous and primal, out of place in the modern streets of Japan.

But as soon as the shadow in its riding suit grabbed the thing, it began to blend into the scenery with an eerie awfulness.

The object in the shadow’s hands was a dark, sunken hole in the midst of the night, an unmistakable symbol of death to anyone who saw it.

It was an enormous, double-sided scythe, nearly as long as the shadow was tall.

—KANRA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

<I got disconnected. I dunno, my connection’s been crap all day, so I’m just gonna go to bed.>

[Night.]

{What about the rest of the story? And who’s Dotachin…?}

<I’ll tell you later. Heh, oh, but one last thing.>

The thug was truly trapped now.

There was no escape from the interior of the parking garage.

He didn’t know what happened to the leader. He was not a bold enough man to stand around sussing out the details in a situation like that after what he’d just witnessed. On the other hand, he didn’t see that giant scythe anymore. It occurred to him that it might’ve been nothing more than an illusion, but the answer was irrelevant to his circumstances at the moment, and he pushed the thought from his mind.

A powerful kick caught him on the neck. It sounded like something snapped, but there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the bone. Instead, the pain of a terrible stiff shoulder, concentrated into one acute spot, throbbed at the base of his neck.

But at this point, that detail mattered very little to the thug.

“Um, um, hang on, please, ple…please…p-p-puh-please, just hang on a second.” The polite, pathetic stammering of one who is already beaten.

He knew what was happening to him. His senses were still unnerved and uneven, as though trapped in a dream, but the base, instinctual fear kept his mind locked into place and aware.

What he didn’t understand was the reason. What was this shadow? What had he done to deserve this experience?

The most likely answer had to do with the job. Danger was an occupational fact of life, and enemies were a natural result. But those enemies were usually the police or mobsters or perhaps the targets of the job: illegal immigrants and runaway kids.

He knew the risks, and he conducted his job with the proper attention to potential danger. But the shadow in the riding suit was completely outside the realm of expectations, and he had no idea how to react. He’d quickly lost the best and safest option—retreat—and was now trapped on all sides.

The only options he could think of were going down in flames or surrendering, but neither was a real choice as long as he could not grasp the enemy’s intentions. Desperate for any means of survival, the thug wheedled and begged in his most pitiful whine. Perhaps using his voice was the only way to avoid being overtaken by fear entirely.

“P-please…spare me, you got the wrong guy, I didn’t do nothin’, forgive me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

He bowed and scraped, covered in goose bumps, as though faced by a yakuza with his gun drawn. In contrast, the shadow simply stood silently as the thug shattered the illusion of his menacing appearance. It seemed to be searching for something—then abruptly turned its back on the thug and walked toward a van in the middle of the garage.

It was the kind of vehicle that often drove past Ikebukuro Station in the dead of night, rear windows tinted black, contents completely inscrutable to the outside.

The shadow walked straight for the van with unmistakable purpose, apparently seeing right through the black mirror.

Huh?  Wha?! Oh, shit!

It was their “work” van. He still didn’t know what the shadow wanted, but this made it clear the thing was after them. There were plenty of other vehicles in the garage, but it was heading straight for their car.

Wait! No, not that! Anything but that!

The thug’s brain froze cold at the shadow’s unpredictable actions. He’d been filled with a kind of primal fear at the presence of the shadow, but there was an entirely different kind of fear welling up in him now.

Aaaah, aaah, aaah! Wait, wait, waitwaitwait! You can’t look in that van—we’ll be done for! Shit, man, what do I do? What do I do? Shitshitshitshitshit—what is that? What is that thing?!

Two opposing fears wrestled for space in his conscious mind—the terror of the unreal sight and a much more grounded, realistic kind of fear.

If someone sees into that car, forget the police. I’ll get buried!

His legs trembled even harder at the thought of his murdered corpse being disposed of in the forests at the foot of Mount Fuji.

There’s gotta be something. Something I can use to murder that Kamen Rider freak…

The thug desperately searched for a way out of his situation now that he had ironically conquered his momentary fear of the shadow. What caught his eye was what he’d driven to the garage to report for work—his convertible.

Ten yards away from the van, the shadow stopped in silence.

From behind it came the faint sound of a car door opening and closing. As it turned around to see, the garage echoed with the blast of an engine revving.

“…”

At the end of its turn, the shadow caught sight of a bright red convertible speeding toward it. The car accelerated with surprising speed, and the shadow had no time to dart behind a pillar for safety.

After a moment of hesitation, it decided to run in the opposite direction of the approaching car. It was hoping to draw the car along and leap to the side at the last moment, but the terrified thug was using every ounce of his concentration and did not fall for it. The instant the shadow’s foot turned to push it sideways, he yanked the wheel.

The sound of collision.

The shadow flew hideously through the air.

And crashed in a heap atop the concrete.

“Yeaaaaah! In your face! Ha-ha-haaa! In your ugly face, dammit!” the thug crowed, savoring the sensation of the shock that shuddered through the vehicle. He quickly braked and leaped out of the driver’s seat before the car had even come to a stop, then raced for his victim, metal pipe in hand, when—

“?!”

He noticed a black blob rolling on the ground, much closer than the prone figure of the shadow.

There was no mistaking that distinct design—it was the full-faced helmet the shadow had been wearing just moments ago. But what shocked him was not the helmet…but the body of the shadow upon which it had been resting.

“The…the head…”

There was nothing atop the body where the shadow’s head should be.

Did it come off in the crash?! No way can’t be murder I didn’t self-defense

but no why hang on wait hang on

It was the latest shock in a long series. His brain was at a critical mass of confusion.

And because of that, he failed to notice that the body, now headless, had not shed a single drop of blood.

<The guy riding the black motorcycle—has no head.>

The thug hesitantly approached the headless body…

When without warning, the shadow leaped to its feet, still without a head.

<He can totally move around without it.>

<Well, good night!>

—KANRA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

“Aaaahhh!!”

This sudden horrifying sight did not inflict fear on the thug as much as simple shock.

A trick? A suit? A robot?

A costume party? A hologram?

A dream? An illusion? A hallucination? A fake?

Various words floated through his mind, popping like bubbles before his brain could grasp them.

The true shock was that it had been hit by a car yet was standing without any sign of harm whatsoever—but there was not enough conscious wit left in the thug’s mind to dedicate to this fact.

As it had before, the black mist began to seep out of the shadow’s back, taking shape as that gigantic scythe.

His shock shifting once again into fear, the thug began to let out a scream of terror and desperation. At the very moment his throat let the first bit of breath through, it was split by a sudden, sharp shock.

Every shred of his senses went black.

<Private Mode> {Um, Setton. I wanted to check something with you.}

<Private Mode> [Sure thing.]

<Private Mode> [What is it? Something you don’t want others to see?]

<Private Mode> {Is it just me, or is Kanra a little… corny?}

<Private Mode> [I’d say more than just a little.]

<Private Mode> {You said it, not me (lol). But he was the one who invited me to this chat room, so… }

<Private Mode> [Same with me. He does get carried away, but that’s part of his charm.]

<Private Mode> {Plus, he seems to know many things we don’t.}

<Private Mode> [I don’t know how much of it is true, though. Oh, but I can say one thing.]

<Private Mode> [About that Black Rider who prowls around the town.]

<Private Mode> [You’re probably better off not getting involved.]

<Private Mode> [Well, g’night.]

—SETTON HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

<Private Mode> {Huh?}

<Private Mode> {Whoa, Setton left. Well, good night.}

<Private Mode> {Whatever.}

—TAROU TANAKA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

The headless rider quietly picked up the helmet and stuck it atop its dark neck. A faint shadow bled out of the collar of the suit, then melded into the bottom of the helmet, fusing it together.

Eventually, as though nothing had ever happened, the headless rider turned and silently strode toward the van.

Back at the entrance to the parking garage, having completed its business, the headless rider silently left the scene. Several men were lying in the street, but there was no sign that anyone else had passed by. If they had, they’d pretended not to see.

The pitch-black motorcycle waiting in the shadows sprang to life, welcoming its master home. The engine, which had worked soundlessly as it rode the streets, now roared without a key in the ignition.

The headless rider stroked the tank of the engine, like petting a beloved steed. The engine purred and hushed, satisfied, and the rider swung into the seat.

And the black mass, without so much as a headlight, carried its headless master away.

Beneath a starless sky.

Soundlessly melting into the darkness…