Durarara!! - Volume 1 - Chapter 11

Last Chapter: Dollars, Closing

At first, the Dollars were nothing more than a silly idea.

On Mikado’s suggestion, a number of friends on the Internet decided to work together. They created a fictional team in Ikebukuro and spread the tales solely on the Net. They added story upon story, claiming Dollars’ responsibility for any real event that happened. None of them ever claimed to be a member of the Dollars but spoke of them as tales they heard from others. When people asked for the source of the information, they were ignored. Sometimes the group even set up fake websites to back their claims.

When the tale of the Dollars began to gain legs of its own, Mikado and his friends got a little carried away and created an official Dollars site. It was password protected, and they wrote a huge mass of “member posts” within. Then they began to leak the address—if anyone wanted the password, they’d send it along in an e-mail, claiming they got it on the down low from a friend within the group.

In this way, they created a fake organization. The only rule was listed on the website: “You are free to claim membership in the team.”

Of course, at first people claimed there was no such team in Ikebukuro. But strangely enough, over time posts appeared that called out such opinions as the work of trolls or accused them of never having been to Ikebukuro in the first place. None of Mikado’s original group were making these posts. In other words, people who weren’t in on the original joke were speaking up to defend the Dollars.

At first, they were delighted over this development, but that soon gave way to subtle unease and chilling alienation.

Yes, it was a silly joke at first. They intended to put work into building up the story, then let it sit, like a little prank. But then things started getting weird.

The Dollars, which had begun as an empty prank, began to wield actual real-world strength.

Whose work it was did not surface, but gradually, people began to join the Dollars in real life, through face-to-face communication, not on the Internet. The story was growing larger and larger beyond their control. At that point, they didn’t have the option of coming out and claiming it was all a big joke, and Mikado’s friends began to drift away from it. They preferred to simply fade away and forget about the whole thing.

Only Mikado kept up the act.

Now that the organization actually had true power, someone had to take control, to ensure it was safe. He couldn’t deny that a part of him was elated over the illusion that he was in control of such a massive group, but he kept it entirely secret—and the next thing he knew, he was in fact the head of the Dollars.

The leader atop the Dollars, a person no one had ever seen, a person no one would have guessed was only in middle school. And the group only picked up speed from there.

Finally, tonight, the organization born from a lie took on absolute substance.

“Boy, that was something,” Izaya muttered, watching the aftermath of the festival.

In less than three minutes, Celty crushed ten men, then disappeared in pursuit of the fleeing Namie.

The crowd seemed to treat the entire display as an illusion, breaking off into smaller groups and continuing on their ways home. It was like the draining of some tremendous tide, and the mob was gone as though it had all been nothing more than the product of a dream.

All that was left was a few cars parked on the street and the same old night bustle that had been in place before the event.

“Were there really that many people here just now?” Kadota asked Izaya Orihara as he got out of one of the vans on the street. He hadn’t seen Izaya in ages.

“Nice to see you again, Dotachin. For the number of people they hold, the twenty-three wards of Tokyo are surprisingly small. It’s the densest city in the world for a reason. You can show up anywhere and disappear anywhere.”

As they chatted, Celty appeared at the entrance to the street nearby.

“By the way, Izaya…what is that? I’ve seen it before. It’s not human, is it?”

“You saw it, right? It’s a monster. Make sure you call it that out of respect,” Izaya joked, then walked over toward Celty. “Seems like you lost your target, huh?”

His tone was as casual toward her as ever, despite having just witnessed the majesty of her combat in person. Celty trudged back to her motorcycle in fatigue, clearly upset about losing Namie.

“Well, at least you cleared your head,” he noted cheerfully, looking straight at the cross section of neck remaining.

Damn. So he knew I didn’t have my head all along.

Izaya was cool as a cucumber even without Celty’s head present. Meanwhile, Yumasaki and Karisawa were still positively buzzing with excitement, chattering a slight distance away.

“No way, no way, you serious? Is this for real? It’s not just my eyes playing tricks on me? Wait, does that mean the Black Rider’s all CG or something?!”

Celty grew tired of their stares, so she walked over to pick up her fallen helmet.

“The thing that makes ghosts scary is that they skulk and hide around before popping out to spook you. But after that grand entrance back there, nobody around here’s going to be afraid of you for quite a while,” Izaya teased her, then added, “And you didn’t even kill anyone, huh? Can’t your scythe cut anything?”

She ignored him completely and brushed the dust off of her helmet. The scythe she’d produced just now was fashioned to be safe on either edge. If anything, it was more of a bludgeon.

If I’m planning to live in this place for a while, it won’t do to make the town infamous for murders.

But she wasn’t going to admit such a shabby reasoning to anyone. She slouched her shoulders in embarrassment and put the helmet back on top.

Before they parted, Izaya approached Mikado.

“To be honest, I’m amazed,” he said pleasantly, but there was not a drop of sweat on his face to support that statement. Mikado couldn’t begin to guess where he had been in the crowd.

Meanwhile, Izaya praised the young man. “I knew there were a ton of people identifying themselves as Dollars on the Net. But I never thought you could call a meeting out of the blue like this and get so many people all at once. Ahh, humanity always surpasses one’s imagination.”

He shook his head softly. “But while you may be dreaming of a life outside the bounds of normality, life in Tokyo will become normal after you’ve been here for a year. If you still want the abnormal, you’ll need to either move somewhere else or get into drugs, prostitution, or whatever lies even deeper underground.”

At that point, Mikado understood. If he did the same thing again, seeking the same high of excitement he was now feeling—or perhaps if he publicly and completely claimed leadership of the Dollars—what would become of him? If he was unhappy with his life now, would he just keep searching for a new life forever?

Izaya smiled in absolute understanding of Mikado’s thoughts.

“Life becomes normal even for the people on the other side of the tracks. Take the plunge for yourself, and you’ll be used to it in three days. And people like you can never bear that.”

It was painful how well he understood what Izaya meant. But why was he saying these things to Mikado? There had to be some ulterior motive, but Mikado had no answer while he was ignorant of Izaya’s true intentions.

“If you truly want to escape the ordinary, you’ll simply need to keep evolving—whether what you seek is above or below.”

To finish off, he patted Mikado’s shoulder and said, “Enjoy your normality. Out of respect, I’ll let you have Namie Yagiri’s phone number absolutely free. And I’ll even refrain from selling the intel that you’re the founder of the Dollars. It’s your organization. Use it when you want to use it.”

And with that, he walked off in Celty’s direction. Mikado wasn’t quite sure how to process all of this, so he simply bowed toward Izaya’s back.

However, Izaya suddenly stopped and turned back, adding one last thing that had just come to him.

“Just so you know, I’ve been observing you on the Net this entire time. I just wanted to catch a glimpse of the guy who actually created something as dumb as the Dollars. That’s all! Hang in there, Tarou Tanaka!”

But how did he know that name, something Mikado had chosen as a username exclusively for certain areas online? And on a similar note, hadn’t he called Kadota “Dotachin” just a few moments earlier?

He thought back to what Izaya had just said—he was observing the creator of the Dollars on the Net, tracking his online behavior.

Then Mikado remembered one of his chat partners, a person who had invited him to a specific chat room, and claimed to know various things about Ikebukuro and the Dollars.

Can it be? Can it be? Can it be?!

Eventually, the police came to sweep 60-Kai Street, but Mikado in his school jacket hid in the shadows of an alleyway with Celty. If the police found him wearing proof that he was in school, he’d be punished for certain.

The passersby and karaoke bar solicitors unrelated to the Dollars no doubt witnessed the raucous scene from earlier, but no one spoke up to tell the police what happened. Either they decided that nothing so freaky was a good idea to get involved with, or they assumed they’d hallucinated the entire thing.

But for some reason, even after the police had left, the unease sat heavy in Mikado’s heart. He felt that he must be forgetting something important. Meanwhile, Celty, her helmet back on her shoulders, walked over to the van in which her head was sitting.

She no longer held any longing for her head, but it seemed appropriate that she say a final farewell of some kind. But as she approached the van—

Shudd.

A dull shock ran through her back as she reached for the car door. A moment later, the sensation repeated, slightly higher.

Huh? Isn’t this the same thing that happened to Shizuo yesterday…?

The shock instantly turned to pain, and Celty fell to her knees. She looked behind her to see a tall young man wearing a school jacket. There was a large scalpel in his hand, probably taken from a laboratory.

After a brief silence, enough time for the wounds to heal and the pain to fade, the boy mumbled, “Hmm, I guess that’s not enough to kill.”

Seiji Yagiri examined the blade, noting there was no blood on it, then hopped right into the van.

Wait, where are you going?

Celty instantly forgot about being stabbed in the back. She wasn’t sure how to handle this unexpected arrival. As far as she could remember, this was Yagiri, who’d been chasing her head—the younger brother of the woman from earlier. As with the time that he stabbed Shizuo, she was struck by how normal he was, and that made it all the harder to know how to respond.

Seiji Yagiri stepped into the van without hesitation and boldly carried his heroine out.

“Huh…?”

At a distance, Mikado had to squint to see what happened.

He thought he saw a man wearing a blazer get into the van, and then just moments later, he got right back out, pulling with him a girl with scars on her neck.

Seiji had a dazzling smile on his face as he pulled her by the hand. With a powerful look in his eye, he led her away from the van.

No one, not Karisawa in the car, or Celty nearby, tried to stop him. No one could.

His actions inside the van were too simple and too bold. At first, Karisawa took him for one of Mikado’s friends. He was wearing the same uniform, and there was no hesitation or doubt in his eyes.

And with that pure look of devotion on his face, he reached out a hand to the scarred girl.

“I’ve come for you. Let’s go.”

If that was all that happened, Karisawa or Celty could have stopped him. But the next moment took them completely by surprise.

“…Okay.”

The girl with the scarred neck took Seiji’s hand without a second thought. As though he completely expected this answer, he nodded and pulled her out of the vehicle. It happened so naturally, it was as though fate had ordained that moment from before they were ever born. The glowing night street was like their wedding aisle.

“Huh? What?”

Despite his bewilderment, Mikado couldn’t take his eyes off of the unnatural scene.

Kadota and Yumasaki, too, seemed to think that Seiji was Mikado’s friend, given the same school uniform, and they watched him go without much consternation. Izaya, on the other hand, did understand the meaning of the events, but he was content to watch the scene play out with a smile on his lips.

Eventually Seiji noticed Mikado on the street, and he approached with the girl in tow.

“Hey.”

The greeting was so ordinary—and therefore eerie, given the circumstances—that Mikado had no response. Seiji continued, not bothered in the least.

“I really owe a lot to both you and my sister. If it wasn’t for my sister, I’d never have found her. And if it wasn’t for you, she’d have been trapped in that lab forever.”

And with that, he walked right past Mikado. The boy watched them pass with shock, but then he noticed the expression on the face of the girl. She averted her eyes, but he thought he caught a hint of fear.

Mikado glared at Seiji and asked a very important question.

“I’d like you to answer something for me. I tried to get an answer out of your sister earlier…”

“Asking if I had killed someone? It might have happened.”

Mikado felt a slight chill run down his back. Seiji did not change his expression. He pointed the scalpel right at Mikado, who stood in his way.

“Now move it. If it’s gotten out that I killed that stalker chick, me and my lady here have to run for safety before the police show up to haul me in.”

Seiji’s eyes were not filled with madness, nor transported with the lust of violence.

“But that doesn’t mean—”

“What do you know? I’ve been watching her, gazing at her, ever since I was a little kid. I wanted to release her, free her from the prison of that cramped glass case. I wanted to live with her out in the free world. That’s all I ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever thought about.”

His eyes were never anything but normal and full of justified intent. This must have been the “ordinary life” that he chose for himself, but from the outside, it was impenetrable and terrifying.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Izaya, Kadota, Yumasaki, and the others noticed the scene unfolding and gathered around them. Seiji simply stood his ground and shook his head.

“Oh, come on. The power of love cannot be stopped by anyone.” Even surrounded by menacing figures, his expression was absolutely ordinary. He spun the scalpel and held it high, then turned to Mikado and shouted, “So what does that make you? Both then and now, you rely on simple numbers and make no extraordinary effort of your own. You’re like a third-rate villain. I bet you’ve never been in love.”

“And you can’t even be third-rate if you don’t understand the effort it takes to gather these numbers,” Mikado replied.

Seiji smirked and swung the scalpel down. At the same time, a black shadow raced up from behind and struck his body.

“—!”

Celty had been waiting for the right moment and smacked his hand with the butt of her scythe to knock the scalpel loose, but despite the incredible pain in his wrist, he did not drop it. Instead, he swung at Mikado again from his bent position.

“My love will not be broken by the likes of this,” he claimed, trying to pull the girl along despite the odds against him.

Seiji gripped the knife and swiped sideways in a huge arc, trying to force everyone in front of him to back away. Celty quickly struck him again, but—

“That won’t work on me.”

“Dude, is this guy on something?” Kadota wondered aloud. Seiji’s expression was as strong and forthright as ever, without an ounce of pain or hesitation.

“It won’t work! I feel pain—I just shake it off! Me and Celty don’t need pain in our life together! So anything you do to me, I refuse to feel as pain!”

“You’re acting crazy!” Mikado shouted. Celty raised her scythe and prepared to cut the tendons in Seiji’s arm.

What is wrong with him? He needs to be stopped. Is this…the form his love takes? What in the world are his values? Does this mean that my views and humans’ are entirely different? I have, I have my own, my own, my own—

She swung the scythe in a tight arc, as much to drive away her own thoughts as anything else. Somehow, the double-sided bluntness of the scythe had given way to a razor-sharp edge. Noting this, Mikado and the other human beings in the vicinity took a wide step backward.

Just as Celty’s scythe was about to descend upon Seiji’s arm…

“Stoooop!”

Everyone went still.

Except for two: Seiji and the girl.

The girl with the scars on her neck was standing boldly in the path of the scythe—and seeing this, Seiji tried to shove himself in front of her. The blade of the scythe stopped just before it touched his body, hurting no one.

Meanwhile, everyone stared at the girl in shock.

The “head girl,” who called herself Celty, had leaped in the path of harm to save Seiji. Her attitude had changed 180 degrees from her previously quiet and reserved self. She boldly spoke out in Seiji’s defense.

“Stop it! Seiji might be harsh and violent and a little different from other people, but he saved my life! He saved me and Anri, but even then, he’s already in love with someone else, you see, so…you can’t kill him…”

Her voice trembled and lost steam until she fell over onto Seiji in a tearful mess.

No way—no way, no way—

And the dullahan realized:

No…this girl is not my head.

At the exact same moment, Mikado realized who she was.

She’s not the dullahan’s head! Her name is—

“Mika…Harima?” he mumbled. She turned trembling eyes on him. “It’s true, isn’t it? You’re Mika Harima, who was supposedly killed by Seiji, aren’t you?”

“That’s a lie,” said Seiji. The instant he heard her voice and name, the memories had begun flooding back into his mind. The stalker who looked so much like his beloved. The girl he had killed by smashing her head into the wall… “It’s not true, is it?”

“… I’m sorry!I’m sorry, I…I’m sorry…”

“I actually…wasn’t completely dead! I clung to life…and your sister asked…if I wanted you to fall in love with me! And even though you almost killed me, I still loved you so much… And then a doctor showed up…and said with a bit of surgery and the right makeup…I could look just like that head…the head that Seiji loves so much!”

Celty’s body twitched.

“But then…the doctor said, ‘Your name is Celty. That’s the head’s name.’ And I decided to try to be Celty for Seiji’s sake…but Namie said it wasn’t working, that I wouldn’t be able to fool him… She was going to erase my memory with surgery or drugs! But…I didn’t want to forget my love for him… I just wanted to tell him how I felt…so I escaped the lab!”

Seiji’s sister must have wanted to combine the head with a living human being so she could try to pry him away from it. But only Namie truly knew if that was to make him a normal human being again or if it was out of jealousy toward the head.

Various pieces were connecting together in Celty’s mind to form a complete picture.

There were only so many people who knew her name. And out of them, the only one who knew she was a dullahan was—

Shinra Kishitani. Celty’s living partner, the underground doctor who knew her secret.

Thinking back further, Celty remembered when she had considered seeking hints on the head’s whereabouts through the research labs of medical manufacturers or universities. But Shinra himself volunteered for that job, saying, “I know people in Yagiri Pharmaceuticals, so I can check on my own. It would be silly to owe Orihara a favor for something like this.”

He came back saying that nothing seemed suspicious or out of place—but looking back on it now, he must have known that the head was at Yagiri Pharmaceuticals all along and volunteered for the fact-finding mission to hide that from her…

She clenched her fists, all interest lost in Mika or Seiji, and bowed briefly to Mikado before hopping on her bike. The roar of the engine burst through the black of night.

It was its fiercest screech all evening, signaling the conclusion of the night’s festivities.

“No way… This can’t… I…I never…noticed?”

An evil shadow loomed closer to plant the final blow on Seiji’s defenseless back.

“Well, well. Looks like you couldn’t even tell the difference between the real thing and a counterfeit. I mean, if we’re being honest, that just shows you how real your love for that head is. Nice work, pal,” Izaya crowed.

Seiji’s heart crumbled to pieces. He fell to his knees.

“Seiji!”

His classmate raced to his side, stitching scars around her neck—Mika Harima.

From Mikado’s perspective, it was all an absurd comedy of errors, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to laugh about it. He thought for a moment, then approached and shyly spoke to the two.

“Umm…maybe you didn’t realize that she was an impostor, but you still risked your life to save hers. I think that’s really incredible,” he said, trying to cheer up Seiji, then turned to Mika. “And after I heard your side of the story, I realized that I was wrong about you. True, you’ve got some…character flaws…but you’re not a stalker.”

When he spoke again, it was more to himself than anything. “Then again…it’s probably about as bad. I think it’s a possessive urge that drives stalking behavior. But she put her life on the line for Yagiri’s sake. I don’t think you could do something like that if it was solely out of a selfish desire. Plus, the fact that she still loves the guy who almost killed her is pretty astonishing…in a variety of ways.”

And with one last unnecessary comment, Mikado left to join the night.

“I think you two are very, very similar.”

Near Kawagoe Highway, top floor of an apartment building, late night

The instant she turned the key in the lock, Celty kicked in the door of Shinra’s apartment.

“Oh, welcome home.”

Shinra greeted her with his usual smile, sitting in the living room at his computer. Celty did not bother to undo her shadow boots. She strode directly over to the young man in his white lab coat and grabbed him by the collar.

She wasn’t in the mood to punch at a keyboard, but punching him wouldn’t be enough, either. She considered how best to register her anger with him.

“Let me guess: ‘What are you playing at?’” he said, putting words to her emotions. “Next you’re going to say, ‘You knew! You knew my head was in that lab for the last twenty years! You and your father have been working with Yagiri Pharmaceuticals from the start! Now that I think back on it, when you two first laid eyes on me, you seemed too calm and accepting! Could it be that your father is the one who stole my head in the first place?! And then you chose to hide the truth, found work as a black market doctor, and mocked up a half-dead girl to look like me! I might be a monster, but you’re the true monster here!’ Does that cover it?”

“…!!”

“Oh, and just to clear up any confusion…I don’t know if my dad is the one who stole your head, and I don’t really care either way. Plus, that plastic surgery was done at the girl’s request. Perhaps the Yagiri people prodded her into doing it, but that’s no concern of mine.”

At last, Celty let her grip on his collar loosen the slightest bit. Her trembling fists fell still, stopped in time.

If I could speak aloud, I suppose I would have said each and every one of the words he just attributed to me.

“Let me guess, ‘Can you tell what I’m thinking?’ I didn’t think it even needed to be said.”

He didn’t need to wait for her answer. He knew what her answer would be.

“Yes, I can. I’ve loved you for twenty years. Of course I can tell that much.”

“…”

“If you ask me, people place far too much emphasis on the face when reading the emotions of others. Slight differences in the tension of muscles or the sound of footsteps can tell all you need to know to instantly sense how another person is feeling. And I’ve been watching you do this for years.”

Then why? Why would you keep quiet about the whereabouts of my head until now?

He saw right through her mind, and his voice was heavy with intent and emotion.

“Because I love you. That’s why I stayed quiet about your head.”

“…?”

“Once you got your hands on it, you’d have been gone. I couldn’t stand that happening.”

In short, he was confessing his own selfishness, but there was an optimistic shine to his words.

“I’m not going to say that I’ll give up if that’s truly what will make you happy. This is a battle of your love against mine. Remember what I said? I will spare no effort in seizing victory in our game of fate. So that poor girl—Mika, her name was? I used her in an attempt to make you give up on your head. I’m not going to let you go. I will use the love of others, their deaths, my own self, even your own emotions to keep you here—as contradictory as that sounds.”

In a way, his words were extremely twisted and insane, but there was no doubt clouding his eyes. That was what broke Celty’s will. If he’d played dumb or given her some lame excuse, she would have beaten him until he couldn’t stand and left, never to return. But after such a strong, direct statement of intent, Celty had no response.

She lowered Shinra to the ground again and tapped on the keyboard, trying to regain the sharpness of her anger.

“I’m not going to leave you just because I get my head back—”

“That might be your desire—but it might not be your head’s,” he answered gravely, without any of his usual playfulness. “I’ve given it a good deal of thought. Why is it that in this wide, wide world, you’re the only one who has shown herself to mankind? What is the boundary that separates you from the rest of the dullahans? I think it’s your head. Perhaps losing your head was what allowed you to materialize in our world—made you what you are now.”

He took on a fateful, lovelorn expression, as though reciting a tragic monologue he’d written.

“What if you get your head back and regain your memory, and then you disappear like mist in the morning sun, as though your entire existence until now had been nothing but a hallucination? That thought terrifies me.”

Celty gently lowered herself onto a nearby chair and sat still for several moments.

The sound of the keyboard echoed off the walls of the still room.

“Do you believe what I tell you?”

“I trust you. In fact, I don’t trust anything but you.”

Satisfied, Celty slowly typed out a confession of her own.

“I’m scared, too.”

“I’m scared of dying.”

“I know that I am invincible. I understand it as a simple truth that there is not a human being in the world who can kill me. That is not a boast but pure fact. I register no joy or emotion in this fact. But that’s what is so scary. As I am now, there is no part of my body that is in charge of my death. There’s only one explanation: that my head is that part. Somebody could destroy my head without me even being there. And completely isolated from my own will or circumstances, I would…”

She stopped typing there, paused for a moment, then continued tapping the keys.

“Would you believe me? I have no eyes or brain, but I dream. Would you believe that I tremble in fear of this nightmare? It’s this fear, the selfish desire to control my own death, that leads me to search for my head. If I told you that, would you believe me?”

Shinra read every single letter of the confession as it appeared on the screen. When she stopped typing at last, he answered instantly.

“I told you—I don’t believe in anything but you.”

And with that, he smiled happily. Smiled like he was about to cry.

“I am utterly and truly lost. I guess we’ve both been stubborn, working off of nothing but assumptions.”

“So stupid.”

The dullahan slowly got to her feet and leaned over to type with one hand.

“Hey, Shinra.”

“What?”

“Let me punch you.”

“Sure,” he replied without missing a beat—and just as quickly, Celty put her fist through his face.

The tremendous sound of the impact echoed off the walls, and the man in his white coat sprawled across the floor. Blood streamed from his mouth, and he lay prone for several moments. Eventually he got back up and faced Celty again.

“Then let me return the favor.”

Celty had done nothing to deserve being hit back, but she nodded her assent anyway.

As soon as he saw the empty helmet tilt forward, Shinra swung a powerless fist and knocked it off.

Her helmet clattered and spun on the floor.

—?

She had no immediate response to that meaningless, confusing action. The doctor grinned and rubbed his smarting hand.

“There, see? You’re at your most beautiful in your natural state, Celty,” he said, staring at the empty space over her neck. “That punch was our version of a promise kiss.”

She hunched her shoulders down and leaned into his chest—so she could deliver a sharp jab to his gut.

“Bhurgh!”

But she stayed where she was, leaning against his chest.

Meanwhile, her left hand typed, “You’re such an idiot.”

There was no need for words anymore. Shinra held her close in silence.

The little shivers that wracked her slender frame told him that she was crying.

Shinjuku, early morning

It was all for her brother’s sake.

Actually, there was no benefit for Seiji—it was entirely for the sake of her desire to see him smile—but she had no personal awareness of this fact.

Immediately following the scene on 60-Kai Street, Namie Yagiri took the head out of the lab. As she expected, shortly after she left there came a report that the Black Rider—the dullahan’s body—had rushed the lab. But she already had the head. If the dullahan got its head back, either Seiji would fall into the depths of despair, or he’d claim that his fated lover was finally whole again for him.

Neither of those options Namie wanted to see.

She had to control the head at all times. It was the only hope she had to keep her brother’s attention on her.

But when she called her uncle hoping to employ his help, she received news that she certainly wasn’t expecting to hear.

There had been an emergency meeting of senior management to confirm the merger with Nebula. Both the company and Nebula must have been observing the incidents surrounding the research lab, not just tonight, but the last several days. Whichever side suggested it, the intention was clearly to finish the deal before any more nonsense occurred.

Naturally, Nebula wanted the dullahan’s head.

Namie slammed the phone down and had the driver turn the car around. She swore never to return to the company and headed off for a group that could help her hide the head.

She couldn’t expect help from the mob; they didn’t have any use for a head like that. If she brought it to another lab, they might prioritize her treatment while they needed her data, but eventually she would be removed from control.

Pushed to the brink of despair, she turned to one last person.

“This is the first time we’ve met in person. Did that list of illegal immigrants help meet your experiments’ needs?”

She was standing in the apartment of Izaya Orihara.

“But then you had to be stupid and screw it all up. You ruined everything thanks to your brother’s twisted love—or was it your twisted love for your brother?” Izaya wondered, placing an Othello piece on the board. He was speaking to Namie, who sat directly across from him, but his eyes never left the game board.

“Your superiors aren’t going to like this, are they? Nebula’s a major foreign corporation—hell, they’re a mega-conglomerate. They push people around over in the United States.”

He placed another Othello piece, trapping a shogi pawn between two black pieces.

“And this piece is promoted.”

He flipped the pawn over, turning it into a king. To anyone else, it was a baffling sight, but it clearly meant something to him.

“Kinda dangerous for you, isn’t it? What if they send the mafia after you? Perhaps a crack sniper, hired through a Swiss bank, to put a bullet through your eyes, blam! And check.”

He slid the king one space forward, placing the other king in check.

“Why can’t there be a rule that kings can capture each other?”

For the first time, Izaya looked up at Namie. Her eyes were empty with anxiety and irritation—she was in no mood for his games.

He opened the special case sitting next to the shogi board and stared at the head inside. Then he turned to Namie and began to propound an odd theory.

“I think your uncle was a lot like me. He believed in the afterlife less than anyone else. He feared death more than anyone else. And he craved heaven more than anyone else.”

Namie tried to imagine her uncle’s face in Izaya, hoping for some insight into his personality, but she had a shocking lack of interest for any member of her family other than Seiji, and in the moment she could barely remember what her uncle was like.

“But he found the truth. And so did I. There is another world beyond ours. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“…?”

He ran his fingers gently through the hair of Celty’s beautiful head.

“It’s said that dullahans only come in what is essentially a female form. Do you know why?”

“…No. My people did some research on mythology, but I thought it was pointless.”

“You’re too logical and pragmatic for that. But I digress… There are many commonalities and connections between mythological tales found all around the world. There’s a heaven called Valhalla in Norse mythology—technically it’s not a heaven, but whatever. It’s similar to the inn of the afterlife as found in Celtic mythology. The Norse believed in female angels clad in armor called Valkyries who came to escort the souls of mighty, worthy warriors to Valhalla. A woman in armor who comes for the dead—sound familiar?”

What’s your point?

Namie had no idea what Izaya was trying to say, but she couldn’t help but be concerned by the angular smile that stayed plastered on his face, looking more like a mask with every passing moment.

“According to one theory, a dullahan is just a Valkyrie wandering the earth. That’s why the dullahans are only female and often depicted wearing armor. That must mean this head is waiting—waiting for the awakening. For the battle. Searching for the holy warrior to take to Valhalla.”

This was entirely his own interpretation, but the way he spoke made it sound like the truth.

“The reason this head’s eyes won’t open, even though it’s alive, is because there’s no war here. I wish I could be chosen as her warrior. But I don’t have the skills to survive if I took it to the Middle East, let’s say.”

And with a glint of hope in his voice, his smile shut out everything else.

“If there really is a Valhalla after death, what should I do? A war—I need to start a war myself. But I’m not going to be of any use in the Middle East. So I need to start a war that only I can orchestrate and star in. Isn’t that right?”

He placed a finger on the corner of the board covered with Othello, shogi, and chess pieces and spun it with evident pleasure. The pieces scattered and flew, leaving only the promoted pawn still sitting in the center.

“However, if I start a war here in Tokyo, one that involves no armies or governments, I’m positive that I have what it takes to survive. How lucky I am! I lived without faith in heaven, lived a life far from holiness—and because of that, I met a fallen angel of death here on earth!”

Izaya grinned with unbridled glee, his smile devoid of expression. There was no room for anyone or anything to affect his excitement. Namie opened her mouth to say something, but could only produce the clumsiest rebuttal.

“That’s just, like…your opinion.”

“There is only salvation for those of faith. Besides, I’m just saying, this is insurance. I’m taking out insurance on the afterlife. Maybe it’s hell—a place with nothing but suffering—but at least I’ll exist there. Still, if I have the option, I’d prefer heaven.”

He called out to her like he was asking her out to dinner. “Hey, Namie, let’s all go to heaven together.”

As she looked at his mask of pleasure, Namie realized that she was giving this “agent of heaven” to the very last person on earth that she should. He smiled at her.

“I’ll take custody of this head as a member of the Dollars. Celty would never imagine that her head was under her team’s own control, would she?”

Dollars? Celty’s team?

The unfamiliar information closed in on Namie’s will, bewildering her. Izaya giddily offered a deal with the devil.

“You should join the Dollars yourself. Our boss has a policy of pulling in anyone and everyone who comes to us. Of course, I’m the one who really started recruiting people.”

He seemed to belittle her, care for her, and bless her all at once.

“Let’s help our fallen angel find her wings and take flight again, shall we?”

South Ikebukuro Park, early morning

This is a twisted story.

“I do not love you.”

A man and woman were leaning against each other on a park bench under the brightening sky.

“But as long as you’re around, I won’t forget my love and dedication for her. Therefore, I accept your love. At least, until the day I get her back,” Seiji said in an empty voice as he softly embraced Mika’s body.

Mika smiled to herself. There was a quiet conviction in that smile.

I have to be that head for Seiji to truly love me. Therefore, I will sacrifice everything I have to love him. I’ll do anything I can to help him find that head. And when we do, I’ll grind it to a pulp right in front of him, pour the remains into my mouth, and make it part of my flesh and blood. It’s all for his sake, for his sake, for his sake…

A love between them that would last until the moment their true love came true.

A love that was so straightforward and so terribly twisted.

The sight of them was so delicate and precious—and so horribly, horribly wrong.