Durarara!! - Volume 1 - Chapter Ep2

Epilogue: Ordinary Days, Dark

A black shadow raced down National Route 254.

It was a pitch-black motorcycle without a headlight. Far, far ahead, a number of police cars carved away at the darkness with their red lights.

Ahead of even those patrol cars came the occasional dry blast of an explosion.

When that sound reached the bike, its silent engine roared to life in the night.

“Hey, it’s the dullahan.”

“It’s cool and all, but I’m telling you, it’s all CG.”

Karisawa and Yumasaki chattered happily regarding the rider as she overtook them. They’d seen her true powers at close range, but they didn’t seem to appreciate the weight of it all. And it wasn’t just them—a startling number of those who witnessed Celty’s fight took her completely at face value. Either the sheer force of her presence was so overwhelming that it lost all reality and became a dream to them, or she was simply accepted as a part of the city now.

Some of the witnesses did write about their experiences on the Net, but they were all roundly laughed off as nonsense. Thanks to that response, opinion started to shift to explain that night’s meeting itself as just a tall tale, and so the Dollars’ profile didn’t just explode like it might have. That was probably for the best, seeing as the extra attention would also be coming from the police and yakuza.

However, the events of that night most certainly registered deeply into everyone who was present.

“Why do you suppose he showed up there?” Kadota asked from the front passenger seat without turning around.

“Did you know the Black Rider’s actually a member of the Dollars?”

“What? You serious?!”

“I never heard that! So that’s why he showed up and went so crazy!”

“Awesome! The Dollars must be, like, invincible by now!”

Kadota closed his eyes as the two in the back chattered away. He thought back to what Izaya had said as he left the scene.

“Dotachin, I just met the boss of the Dollars. Do you know what the team name came from?”

“Like, give us dollars or something?”

“Nope. Basically, the group doesn’t do anything. And yet, you continue to sell the name. Nothing more. It’s named the Dollars after the adjective dara-dara, meaning ‘lazy’ or ‘pointless.’ That’s all there is to it.”

There was no actual structure to the group. The Dollars organization was nothing more than a castle wall—it was the people within that built the kingdom on their own. The rest came down to how big of a facade they could hang outside those walls.

The outside left a name on its own, whether there was anything inside or not. Just like a human being.

Kadota looked at the show playing out ahead of them and grinned wryly to himself.

Just like the Black Rider.

The black motorcycle evaded the police by riding on the side of a truck as though it were the street. As the policemen’s eyes went wide, a man with a TV camera jabbered away excitedly. He was clearly airing live footage of the chase in progress.

Celty noticed he was there but showed no hesitation in producing a blade from her shadow. It was the largest of any she’d created so far, a giant sickle nearly ten feet across. She swung it back—and howled into the night.

Film me if you want. Expose me if you want. Burn the image of this monster into your minds. But what does it really amount to?

This is my life. The path I’ve been on for a long time. I have nothing to be ashamed of.

She did not hold her breath in the darkness, but let it shine, exhibiting herself unbound by good or evil.

The ordinary days were devoid of extreme hope or despair. Nothing changing. But overflowing with satisfaction and fulfillment.

As she swung the giant scythe at the black bulletproof vehicle, Celty realized something.

Since the night that she exposed all that she was, everything about the city seemed so much more beloved to her.

Perhaps even more than her missing head…

One of the windows rolled down, and a man inside the car shot at Celty.

The bullet split the helmet and passed inside of it.

In the midst of that empty space—the shadow smiled.