Durarara!! - Volume 12 - Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: It Takes a Thief to Catch a Thief

Anri’s apartment, night

“Um…would you like something to drink?”

“No, I’m fine,” said the girl who called herself Saki Mikajima. She favored Anri Sonohara with a soft smile. “Listen, you don’t need to go out of your way to make me comfortable.”

Even for a single resident, Anri’s apartment was fairly cramped. She was a teenage girl living on her own, but because of the circumstances of the man who’d arranged the place for her, no one gave her any trouble about it.

She almost never had visitors, nor did she ever create noise that rose to the level of a disturbance, so Anri led a quiet life, slipping under the attention of her neighbors. If anything, it was more concerning that a girl of her age barely had any friends over and hardly ever left for social outings, but nobody was interested enough to be concerned.

The only visitors her age who came over were Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida, back when they actually hung out with her, and Haruna Niekawa, when she came to attack her. Now that Mika Harima spent all her time with Seiji Yagiri, Anri had no visits from any girls her own age.

Anri herself began to assume that her entire school life was going to pass without any such guests—until today, when a girl in her age range showed up.

The night was late, not the time a friend ordinarily stopped by for a visit. And in fact, the girl at the door was not a friend. She wasn’t even an acquaintance; Anri had never seen her before.

She thought it was a mistake, until the other girl addressed her by name and said she had “something important to discuss about Masaomi Kida.”

Anri didn’t sense the kind of hostility she felt from Haruna Niekawa, so she let the girl come inside without reservation.

“Well, um…you mentioned something about Kida…”

Anri and Saki faced each other across a table. While Anri was a bit nervous, Saki looked completely at ease with being in the home of someone she had never met before this moment. An odd silence passed between the pair, so full of contrasts as they were.

“Well, I suppose I should introduce myself again. I’m Saki Mikajima. Thank you for trusting me enough to let me in on no notice like this.”

“Oh, I’m…Anri Sonohara,” she said, hastily bowing back in response to Saki’s incline of the head.

“I know we’ve never met before, but we were actually in quite close physical proximity for a time.”

“Huh?”

“Up until last year, I was staying at Raira General Hospital. You were there for a few days, too, after you got attacked by the street slasher, they said. Is that correct?”

“Oh…,” Anri murmured, taken aback. But she couldn’t recall having spotted this girl in, say, the hospital lobby. “Ummm, if I’ve forgotten you, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, no. We never talked in the hospital or anything like that. I just mean we were located in the same building. But it’s true that I did know who you were. I just happened to learn that you were staying there at the same time—that’s all.”

“?”

“The thing about Kida is, he’s always talking about either Mikado or you. He’s shown me lots of pictures with you and him.”

“…!”

So clearly, she was someone with a personal connection to Masaomi. That should have been obvious, given that she said she wanted to talk about him, but after the run-in with the two Saika wielders during the day, Anri couldn’t take anything at face value.

“Um…what exactly is your connection with Kida?” she asked.

Saki considered for a moment. “How should I explain this? We were pretending to go out as far back as middle school…but recently, we became a couple for real, I suppose.”

“A couple…meaning, you’re, um…romantically involved?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Oh,” Anri said.

It was a rather silly conversation, in a way. Because they both had personalities that were a bit off-kilter, a conversation that might normally charge the air with a prickly electricity was producing nothing more than a clammy fog.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Saki noted.

“Kida’s always hitting on girls, so I just assumed he had many girlfriends…,” Anri replied, “…but this is the first time I’ve actually seen one.”

Saki appeared to be taken aback by this at first, but she soon chuckled. “Oh my goodness…I was so sure things were going to get very chilly in here…”

Anri turned her head in curiosity, uncertain of what she meant by this. “Why did you think that?”

“I don’t know—why did I think that? Am I weird?”

“N-no! I didn’t mean to imply that… If anyone here is weird, it’s probably me…”

One after the other, their comments seemed to catch the other off guard, like the teeth of gears out of alignment. Trying to correct that, Saki said, “Actually, can I ask you something, too?”

“Y-yes. What is it…?” Anri asked timidly. Saki went right after her.

“What exactly is your connection with Kida?”

“Huh?”

Anri hadn’t been expecting that question. Knowing the kind of typical human relationships that exist, an ordinary girl would be able to anticipate this kind of question being asked. But Anri was so far removed from “typical human relationships” that it never even occurred to her why Saki might be visiting her apartment.

“Oh, um. Well, I’m…” At last she picked up on what Saki was asking her, and she grew even more flustered. “Oh, n-no. Kida’s just a friend…”

“Really? ‘Just’ a friend?” Saki asked, prying gently.

Anri met the look in the eyes of the smiling girl and had to turn away. Though gentle, Saki’s eyes were piercing, as though they were staring right through the painting frame that separated her from the outer world and directly into her mind.

“Maybe calling him…just a friend…isn’t quite right… But nothing with Kida is like…”

She still couldn’t give her a straight answer. There was some measure of guilt there, of course, but more importantly, she didn’t know whether it was right to tell the girl identifying herself as Masaomi’s girlfriend that he had consistently asked Anri out.

“He and Ryuugamine hang out with me and help me when I’m in trouble…and…”

Even she wasn’t sure how to define their relationship. Various words popped into her mind (acquaintance, schoolmate, good friend), but none of them seemed like the natural fit.

As she waffled, Saki leaned over until her face was close, and she said, “I’ve heard about Mikado Ryuugamine, too. He said the three of you hung out a lot. He said Ryuugamine couldn’t take his eyes off you, either. He was always talking about how incredibly cute you are and how incredibly big your boobs are.”

“P-please don’t tease me,” Anri said, turning away and holding her arms over her chest to evade Saki’s outstretched hands.

“Ha-ha-ha, sorry, sorry. I’m half joking. But it’s true that you’re very pretty. I think I’m more jealous of you for that than anything to do with Masaomi,” Saki said, but her smile was the same as it had been the entire time, and it was hard to tell how much she was joking about, exactly.

Her deceptive, obscuring smile never wavering, Saki asked, “Then what do you think about Ryuugamine?”

“…!”

“Is he the same as Masaomi…just a friend?” she asked innocently but with an odd kind of pressure behind it.

“Well…”

“I know we just met, so this might come off as incredibly rude, but…do you mind if I ask it anyway?”

“Um, go ahead,” Anri assented.

Saki’s smile grew just a bit thinner as she asked, “Sonohara…are you in love with anyone?”

“…”

“Ummm… Have you ever been in love?”

It was a fastball hurled square at the center of Anri’s being; she held her breath with the shock of it. Saki bowed to her.

“…I’m sorry—I know it’s an unpleasant question to receive. But…I really wanted to ask it.”

Saki’s expression was totally neutral now, and at last Anri understood. The question wasn’t meant to be nasty and needling—it was simply a question that meant quite a lot to the other girl.

It seemed that giving her a vague and noncommittal reply would be rude, so Anri gave herself some time to formulate a proper answer.

It was the same thing she’d said to Haruna Niekawa half a year ago, when the girl came to kill her.

“I…don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know how to love people…or what I should do to love people… I think I…I’m not capable of loving another person,” Anri said, giving a rather incisive description of her own nature without including any information about Saika.

Saki didn’t visually react much to that and sat listening.

“…”

“So I can’t really respond to the feelings of others in kind…and I feel like I probably don’t have the right to feel love or passion for anyone else. I just live off others and get various things from them—that’s all.”

Anri had lived her life by placing a frame between herself and the rest of the world, so that all the horrible and sad and painful things that had happened to her and continued to happen were no more a part of her than the subject of a painting. The price she paid for this was that she lived off the emotions, the happiness and delight, of the people in the painting, as if they were characters in a story she was reading.

By seeing Mikado and Masaomi having a good time, she felt fulfilled. The painting frame was just the most efficient coping mechanism she could devise to deal with the abuse her father had put her through.

Which is why I don’t have the right to love others.

Anri even lived out the concept of love through Saika, so perhaps that was how she saw herself in the reflective glass of the painting frame. It was almost as if she was trying to convince herself that was the case.

Saki said, “Doesn’t that feel lonely?”

Anri shook her head and put on a sad smile. “It’s true that I don’t interact with people much. I’ve been called a parasite by a classmate, and I agree with that. But it’s the life I chose for myself, so I don’t regret any of it.”

That’s a lie.

Anri was keenly aware that she had lied not just to Saki but to herself.

The conversation with Izaya during the day should have made it clear to her: She claimed she chose to live as a parasite, but it was only a means to avoid examining the dirty parts of herself.

She felt sick with self-loathing, even if it wasn’t quite as bad as when she had spoken with Kujiragi and Niekawa.

“So…I don’t think loneliness really factors into it at all,” she explained, forcing herself to put on a satisfied smile.

“Are you happy?” Saki asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t even think I know what…happiness means to me. I just want to live quietly and not have to fight anyone…”

“Hmm…” Saki rested her arms on the table and stared directly into Anri’s eyes. “You just want to live quietly and spend time with Ryuugamine and Masaomi?”

“Well…”

“You don’t feel like a relationship based on dependence is lacking at all?”

“No…because even when I think hard about it, I just don’t seem to understand what it means to be in love with someone,” Anri continued simply. Then she hastened to add, “Oh, but…it’s not like the only thing I do is leech off them—!”

Anri might view the rest of the world from a removed perspective, through her special frame, but Masaomi and Mikado were the rare people who actually reached out to her through that frame.

Like Mika Harima, who was the object of her admiration inside the painting, they had a powerful effect on her that was unrelated to feelings of love or friendship.

There were also Celty Sturluson, Erika Karisawa, Haruna Niekawa, and Kasane Kujiragi—figures who’d left their mark on her in various ways—and if anything, it was the arrival of these people that was shifting the foundations of Anri’s heart.

Saki waited for the answer that Anri struggled to come up with to describe the two young men who had been the catalyst for all these encounters, and at last she said, without much confidence, “Um…Kida’s not my lover…”

“He’s not your lover?” Saki asked, tilting her head.

“And he’s not just my friend…”

“Not just your friend?” Saki repeated, inclining her head in the opposite direction, like an insect that wasn’t sure which direction to take.

“I think he’s my savior.”

“Savior?”

“Yes…Kida and Mikado are like saviors to me. They’ve given me so many things. But I haven’t been able to repay it yet in any way…” Anri’s eyes turned downcast and gloomy.

Saki stared at her for a few moments, then said, “You’re…a good person.”

“Huh?” Anri gaped. Saki gave her another smile. But unlike the one from earlier, this smile was more human.

“Well, that was…anticlimactic.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Oh! No, no, you don’t have to apologize,” Saki urged, waving her hand to let Anri know she wasn’t being criticized. Then she sighed with relief and said, “You know…I’m glad. If you had said something like ‘I’m in love with two boys at the same time and don’t know what to do,’ I think I would’ve set fire to this apartment.”

She cackled to herself, despite the horrific threat in her statement. It sounded as if she was joking, but Anri couldn’t help but feel that it might actually have come to pass if she’d given the other girl the wrong answer. It was that hard to get a glimpse past the surface of Saki’s expressions.

Anri silently waited, gauging her conversation partner, so Saki continued gently, “To tell you the truth, I was actually coming here to declare war on you.”

“Declare…what?”

“If you said you were in love with Masaomi, I think it would’ve turned into a cat fight, as they call it. I was just wondering what I would say in that situation. Should I lean into the stereotype and yell, ‘Get your hands off my man, you hussy’?”

It was odd to hear Saki say “cat fight,” given how peaceful her tone of voice was now. She continued, “I guess I should be happy it didn’t turn out that way, though. But I can’t let my guard down, because there’s no guarantee you won’t fall in love with Masaomi in the future.”

Saki nodded at the wisdom of her own words, but Anri couldn’t tell whether this bit of theatricality was honest or an act. For some reason, though, despite having never met the girl before a few minutes ago, Anri felt those words resounding within her.

“…I don’t think that will happen. As I said before, I don’t really know what it means to fall in love with…”

“Do you think I know it any better?”

“Huh…?”

“I’d bet it’s a minority of people who actually understand that kind of thing in a rational sense. Because love and romance and all of that aren’t rational. You don’t have to know how it works—you just realize one day that you’re in love. It’s mysterious,” Saki said leisurely, stirring up Anri’s feelings.

“…But…I don’t have the right to fall in…”

“Yes you do,” Saki said, cutting off Anri before she could finish that dour thought. “You said you consider yourself a parasite, and maybe you’re right about that…but even a parasite has the right to love someone.”

“But…”

Anri hadn’t considered, after she’d labeled herself a parasite, that she would be told it was okay for her to love another person anyway. She was unable to decipher what Saki was after, and Anri’s eyes darted back and forth as she mumbled to herself.

But Saki was gentle with her. “I was a doll.”

“A doll…?”

“Yes. Do you know…who Izaya Orihara is?”

“…!”

Why would his name come up now? What did this girl have to do with Izaya Orihara?

Saki pushed past Anri’s shock and laughed. “Looks to me like you do, then. Did he do something horrible to you?”

“Well, um…kind of…”

“I see… That really sucks,” Saki said sympathetically. Then she switched gears to talk about her own experience. “See, I was kind of like his doll. He told me I should fall in love with Masaomi Kida, so I did.”

“…? I’m sorry—what do you mean?” It was such a bizarre, counterintuitive thing to say that it just bounced right off Anri.

But there was one thing she understood: The “shape of love” as she knew it was nothing more than the things Saika whispered to her.

The girl across from her, however, was speaking of love in a different sense than Saika’s love or the love depicted in romance novels and movies—this, Anri could tell.

“Masaomi would be angry about this, but I don’t even care if he hits me. I want to tell you about him. It’s just… Do you want to hear? About the old Masaomi.”

Anri froze. She wasn’t expecting to be asked permission like this.

Masaomi Kida’s past. Like Saika, it was one of the secrets they’d kept hidden from one another. She and Mikado Ryuugamine had made a promise that they would wait until all three of them were together again before they revealed their secrets.

So it was probably something she shouldn’t listen to now. And she didn’t like the idea of hearing about someone’s carefully hidden past from a different person.

“What do you think? The thing I want to talk about might have something to do with Ryuugamine. That’s why I thought I ought to tell you…but I’ll let you decide if you want to hear it or not… Yeah. So let me know.”

“I…”

I don’t need to hear it. I trust him, Anri was going to say, but she stopped.

The tiniest note of doubt had crept into her heart.

I trust Kida?

Do I really?

Or…do I just want to look away from the truth?

Keep the promise.

Avoid his sensitive past.

Trust in Masaomi Kida and leave his past to him.

It would be a noble thing to do.

But at the same time, Anri wondered, Am I really that noble of a person?

She’d chosen life as a parasite, relying on others for everything. She had just stated as much minutes ago. She was also aware that this was nothing more than an excuse to avoid examining her own base shallowness.

But no matter her reasoning, it was a fact that she had chosen this life for herself.

It was how she had withstood Haruna Niekawa’s assault and stifled Saika’s attempt at a rampage.

Anri wasn’t conscious of any sense of pride or beliefs, but she did know she was not going to regret her decision.

And it was this person whom the feelings down in her deepest core asked, Why do I try to play the saint only in these situations? Am I really trying to pass myself off as human, at this late hour? A girl who doesn’t know love but tries to use the love of others for her own purposes…

Anri tried to drown out that voice, to silence it.

I live by being dependent on others. I have to be careful not to draw the ire of those I choose to leech from. I have to be careful to stay on Ryuugamine’s and Kida’s good sides, she told herself, but the doubts continued to rise up from the depths.

That’s a lie, too. I just said it myself.

“It’s not like the only thing I do is leech off them.

“They’re my saviors.”

“You okay?” Saki asked with concern. Anri hadn’t said anything for over ten seconds.

“Y-yes…I just need…time to think,” she replied and returned to her inner dialogue.

Suddenly, she recalled words someone had said to her earlier that day.

“You put distance between yourself and Mikado Ryuugamine and distance between yourself and Masaomi Kida. Didn’t you?”

Izaya Orihara’s words echoed inside her brain.

“You chose to stay back and wait. You had people around you who gave you affection. And you were so pleased with that, you chose to do nothing. You could have made more of a move.”

Afterward, Karisawa told her that it was nonsense and she didn’t need to pay attention to him. But the words were etched deep inside her now.

She wasn’t able to discount what Izaya had said out of hand. She recognized where she stood.

Am I going to choose to wait again here? When that Kujiragi person told me to let go of Saika, what did I tell her?

“Plus…I have a promise to fulfill, to tell some people I care for very much about Saika. So until then, I want to remain who I was last year.”

That was what I told her.

Just because she herself didn’t want to change, did that mean it was the right decision to avoid looking at how Masaomi had changed, and how Mikado was changing at this very moment in time? It was a question she couldn’t answer.

For one thing, she had Saika residing inside her—a fact that she had not revealed to Saki. She couldn’t say for sure whether it was right for her to be involved with the two boys because of this.

When she told the Kujiragi woman, “Maybe I’m not really human anymore. And if so, maybe I don’t have the right to fall in love like a normal person and enjoy normal happiness,” she had seemed to want to disagree with Anri.

That’s right. She’s…not human. I’m sure she’s much further away from human than me.

But I bet she’s tried to fall in love.

Like Celty.

Like Saika.

Anri had no idea that just hours ago, Celty had passionately told Shinra that nobody was more worried about Mikado than Anri. But then again, neither was she aware of the irony that Celty was now in the form of a shadow monstrosity battling against Kujiragi and her Saika.

Lastly, she thought of what Karisawa had said to her: “I may not know all the details, but I can forgive you for everything right now. Even if you’re some vengeful god of the ancient past, and you destroyed the earth once before, I still forgive you.”

She’d embraced Anri, knowing that the girl was not human. Recalling the feeling of human warmth from that moment, Anri muttered, so quietly that Saki couldn’t hear her, “…I’m such a coward.”

Even in the end, I relied on someone else for the final push.

After a little self-deprecating chuckle, Anri straightened out her face and said, “Please tell me about Masaomi.”

“You’re sure?” Saki asked. Anri nodded firmly.

“I made a promise that the time for revealing secrets would only be when all three of us are together,” she said, looking into Saki’s eyes, “but I don’t want to use that promise as an excuse to run away anymore.”

It might have seemed like a minor thing, but for Anri this was a huge decision. The world she viewed as the other side of her painting frame was now threatening to jump in, to come to her side.

“But that’s not a good reason to break a promise, either…,” she said, looking down briefly and giving Saki a sad little smile. “So if he’s angry with you, he can scold me, too.”

Saki met this declaration with silence. After a few moments, she smiled back and said happily, “You really are nice.” Then, with a bit more frustration, she continued, “Masaomi might have told lots of girls that he liked them…but I bet he was serious when it came to you.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, nothing. Well, um…where do I start?”

So Saki began to speak.

She told of the past, of things Masaomi had never said to Anri and Mikado.

Of his leaner, meaner junior high days as the leader of the Yellow Scarves—and of the mistake Masaomi and Saki had made together.

Abandoned factory, Tokyo

While Saki Mikajima told Anri Sonohara a story, there was another person speaking about Masaomi’s past.

That would be Masaomi Kida himself.

“…All right. I think I get the picture.”

There was only one listener.

It was the man who, together with Masaomi, had engaged in an escape sequence worthy of an action movie: Chikage Rokujou.

They were inside the abandoned factory that had previously been the hangout spot for the Yellow Scarves. More recently, it had been used by the Blue Squares affiliated with the Dollars, but after the recent attack by the Toramaru motorcycle gang from Saitama, hardly anyone bothered to visit.

While this conversation began, there was a bandage wrapped around Masaomi’s clenched hand, and a cast around his entire left leg.

After they’d fled the parking garage, the truck they’d landed on had taken them in the direction of Saitama for a while, until it stopped at a red light that was quiet enough for them to get off unnoticed.

The driver was among the uninitiated, and the truck simply drove off without incident. As it went, Chikage gave it a wave with a little mutter of thanks, then took off his hat and bowed.

They caught a taxi that passed by later and rushed to a nearby orthopedic clinic. Fortunately, Masaomi’s broken knee wasn’t separated that badly, so they gave him a conservative treatment that required no surgery or hospital stay.

But it did mean his leg had to be fixed in place, which necessitated the use of a crutch. His broken right hand was also stabilized with tape and bandages.

He didn’t want any trouble with the police, so Masaomi told the doctor that it was the result of beating up a postbox because he was in such a bad mood.

The doctor gave him a look of sheer annoyance, then shook his head and said, “I hear about that a lot, actually. There’s some famous young man in Ikebukuro who wears a bartending vest…and now there are folks looking up to him and trying to copy what he does. When I see injuries like this, it’s often a result of that copycat behavior.”

The middle-aged doctor smirked and passed the time by chatting as he carried out the tests and treatment. After Chikage and Masaomi paid their bills, they hailed another taxi and took it back to Ikebukuro.

And here they were now.

Once Masaomi had called to confirm that the other Yellow Scarves had safely escaped that parking garage, he felt relief at last. Chikage observed his reaction and said, “Explain to me what’s going on. We can call it even after that.” Masaomi was hesitant but gave in eventually and detailed his embarrassing past and the present situation facing him and his friend.

When it was all done, Chikage asked Masaomi to confirm that his understanding was correct. “You’re sayin’ the start of all this was with a gang you built back when you were just in middle school?”

“…Yeah, I guess that’s accurate,” Masaomi replied, biting his lip as he considered the past that had brought him here.

“And this whole hubbub going on now involves a lot of moving parts, but it’s no big deal? Because it all comes down to the fact that your old buddy snapped for some reason, and you’re tryin’ to slap some sense into him.”

“Huh? I dunno… You might be abridging a bit too much of it…”

While Masaomi was trying to show the older man the modicum of respect that the situation deserved, especially with the dramatic rescue, the fact remained that they’d been fighting not that long ago.

“So that wussy-lookin’ kid turns out to be the boss of the Dollars, eh? It’s a crazy world, man,” Chikage said, patting the pensive Masaomi on the shoulder. “And the Blue Squares are a problem keeping you from stopping your friend. So you needed to get your gang back together to take them down first.”

“…Yeah, I suppose so,” Masaomi admitted, avoiding Chikage’s gaze.

“Okay, I see. I see, I seeee…,” the man muttered to himself.

But then he suddenly grinned.

“You dumb-ass!” He gave Masaomi a sharp head-butt.

“Wha—?!”

Masaomi faltered, holding his forehead. He was seeing stars. It was only thanks to the crutch that he stayed upright, and he glared back at Chikage through unfocused eyes. “Wh-what the hell was that for?!”

“Shut up! From the sound of it, this is all your fault for sitting around on your ass! And now I’m suffering on account of it, too… I don’t deserve this kind of crap!”

“Wait—the only reason you’re involved is because you stuck your own head in here!”

Chikage crossed his arms and thought for a few seconds. He nodded decisively. “Yeah, now that I think about it, that’s true! Sorry about that one! My bad!”

“Were you trying to get one over on me with sheer momentum…?” Masaomi glared, rubbing his forehead.

“Listen,” Chikage said, “you know you bear some fault for hitting that Horada guy, or whatever his name is, and then ghosting without another word, right? And now what? You vanished without a trace, and now you show up and say, ‘I’m gonna make him stop by beating him up, if necessary’? Sounds to me like you’re the one who could use a beating! How can you run out on a guy and then come back and act like his best friend?”

“You think I don’t know all that?! Besides, if you had just gone after Mikado back when…,” Masaomi started to say. “No…never mind. It’s not your fault.”

It wouldn’t be fair for him to bring up the moment when Mikado had declared himself the leader of the Dollars—just petty. But Chikage picked up the thread he had started and continued with it.

“Yeah, if I had just accepted that he was the boss of the Dollars and kicked his ass, it might not have come to this. But I don’t regret the choice I made.”

“…”

“And I’m not softening on that part. If I had a time machine and went back to that moment, I’d still do the same thing. I don’t know about now, but when I saw him then, he wasn’t cut out to be the head of the Dollars. When the fight’s already been settled, and you pretend the enemy leader is some guy you know isn’t up to the task just so you can hold someone responsible, that’s no more than blowing off steam. It ain’t my style. Especially not in front of the honeys,” Chikage declared, cracking his neck. “If I’m responsible for anything, then put it all on my shoulders. Just understand that the head-butt I gave you was because I was irritated at what you did. You don’t use friends that way.”

“…I know it’s not right to get the Yellow Scarves involved in this. I’m not making excuses.”

“That’s not what I mean… Man, you seriously don’t get it?” Chikage griped, clicking his tongue. “The friend you’re using is that Mikado kid, your old buddy.”

“…Mikado? Me?”

“Am I wrong?” Chikage asked. “Aren’t you just thinking that if you save your buddy from trouble, it’ll make up for the sin you once committed of abandoning your girlfriend?”

“I’m…”

“And that way, you can start over with your pal without feeling guilty. You don’t think there’s any element of that going on?”

“Stop it! You asked for an explanation, and I gave you one. What would you know about me?!”

“‘What would you know about me’?”

It was as stock a phrase as they come, and Masaomi felt a clammy, lukewarm guilt rising within him. For one thing, it wasn’t something you said to the guy who saved your life, and Chikage’s assessment was partially correct anyway. It was because he was right that Masaomi wanted to push him away, to avoid facing the truth.

“What would I know…? Good question. Well, we’ve gotta figure out what’s to be done next. So let’s start by thinking about that.”

“Huh?”

“Now, you asked me what I would know about you…and that’s only what you told me now and the fact that you’re pretty good in a fight…”

“Um…look… I wasn’t asking for a literal answer to that question…,” Masaomi hedged, feeling even more guilty now that Chikage was taking his weak attempt at deflection seriously.

But Chikage looked him straight in the face. “Now, this is the really important part. Do you want someone to understand you?”

“Huh?”

“It’s a crucial question. It’s really hard for a person to really understand another person. I’ve got a dozen or more girlfriends, and I could never say truthfully that I totally understand any of them. Non’s pretty sharp, and she’ll call me out on lots of my shit, but doesn’t it frighten you to have somebody know everything about you, down to the deepest level?”

Masaomi felt like the conversation was drifting away from the point, but he decided to go along with it for now.

“…I’m not really good at topics like this… I thought I understood Mikado, one of my oldest friends, and it turned out I didn’t know him at all…”

He could recall how, when Izaya Orihara talked about the “founder of the Dollars,” he’d been unable to take the information at face value. And once Masaomi had beaten up Horada and kicked all the Blue Squares out of the Yellow Scarves, he had chosen to put distance between himself and Mikado.

Part of it was just confusion. But he was also afraid.

Afraid that Mikado Ryuugamine and Anri Sonohara would find out about his past.

Afraid that their own secrets might also be revealed.

For learning them would mean being tied closer and deeper than before. And he didn’t feel he had the right to be open with Mikado and Anri, to smile and laugh with them.

So fearing that outcome, he’d taken Saki and vanished. He’d joined hands with the girl who’d wanted to know him better even after he’d betrayed her, so that he could escape the hands of his friends. He’d run away.

“I really just want…to go back to when we didn’t know anything about one another, and we could just laugh and chat like normal teenagers. I want to tease Mikado and Anri and not think about anything past that.”

“You know that phrases like normal teenagers aren’t what actual teenagers use, right? That’s for when you’re older and you’re lecturing the kids.”

“…Don’t tease me.”

“I can’t help it. From what you’ve said, you’re just like this Mikado guy. What a pair of pals! Huh…yeah, I guess that’s why you’re old friends. No wonder you’re alike.” Chikage rested his elbows on an empty barrel and smirked.

Masaomi’s brow furrowed. “Just like him…? Me and Mikado?”

“Aren’t you? You and this Ryuugamine guy aren’t special. You just hate being weak.”

“Huh?”

“Damn, you really think yourself in circles, don’t you? Puberty!” Chikage exclaimed. He was so bored with it all that he started checking the messages on his phone. “You’re not special at all. When a little brother can’t win in a fight against the bigger one, he gets desperate. So how do you get tougher than your big bro? Do you train yourself? Get smarter? Make more money to show him up? Some of them even go to extreme lengths and try to take him out in his sleep.”

He beamed at Masaomi. “Whatever it is you guys are all worried about, it’s no more important than that. Mikado Ryuugamine thinks that because he’s weak, everything’s gone to shit. You think that because you’re weak and couldn’t save your girlfriend, everything’s still shit now.”

“…”

“And both you and Mikado wanna do something about this weakness of yours.”

“I don’t…,” Masaomi tried to say, but Chikage cut him off.

“If you don’t have a problem being weak, then you can just leave Mikado to fend for himself.”

“That’s not the…”

“Not the same thing? So you think you can stop this Mikado guy, with being as weak as you are? And this guy you have that little respect for, you consider your very best friend?”

“…You sure like to talk, huh?” Masaomi said. It was merely a ruse to avoid answering the question, and it made Chikage grin.

“One of my honeys is a real hard-ass, and she loves debating me—it’s real sweet… I guess I’d say there are a whole bunch of different mes out there, for talking to each one of my honeys. If I told you I got a nursery school license just so I could have something to talk about with one of my girls, would you believe me?”

“…And I thought I was a pickup artist. Buddy, you’re the real deal.”

“I’m not as clever at talkin’ as my honeys, so I might not be sayin’ this right…but it seems to me like you two did things the opposite. Mikado Ryuugamine chose to deny his own weakness by trying to erase everything and start over. You chose to deny your own weakness by trying to create a stronger self. That’s all this comes down to.”

“…”

Masaomi had no answer. He knew that if he looked for the right words for a rebuttal, they would exist. But at this moment, he couldn’t find them—because he understood, to a painful extent, how it was his own weakness that had caused this situation.

Chikage decided to break the silence by changing his tone. “Hey, whatever. Let’s just break it down into even simpler terms.”

“I didn’t think I could get it much simpler than this.”

“Really? You guys are making it too complicated. Let kids be kids, and just have it out exactly the way you want it. The whole reason you couldn’t just talk it over with Mikado is because you were afraid of screwing it up and wasted your time sulking about it.”

“I…,” Masaomi started, then hesitated.

“Make it simple,” Chikage urged. “Do you want to meet up and talk with him or not? Yes or no?”

Masaomi thought he had chosen this location as a hideout on sheer unconscious instinct. But he couldn’t deny that a part of him deep down had hoped Mikado might actually be here.

On the other hand, he still had hesitation and anxiety. If he did meet up with Mikado, would he actually be able to stop his friend? The incident with Izumii that evening was the source of that concern.

He had lost control of his emotions and been swept up in them, to the detriment of all else. How was he supposed to manage Mikado, then?

Now this man was telling him to follow those emotions, to do what they told him to do. Masaomi didn’t know whether he was right or not. But he took a deep breath, willing himself to step forward and put it out there.

“…Of course the answer is yes! Whether I punch him or he punches me, nothing happens without meeting him first.”

The latter half was just an attempt to motivate himself.

Oh, dammit. I put myself on the back foot again. It’s my worst habit.

He smacked his forehead with his bandaged fist. The painkillers were still working, but the sensation from his broken fingers still rippled all the way through his body. His features sharpened, as though awakened by the pain, and his head bobbed firmly.

“Yeah, that’s right. I already made up my mind. Whether it’s my fault to begin with or not, no matter if Mikado cries or tries to avoid me, I’m going to save him from this situation on my own.”

“Well, well. You sound a lot more selfish about it than before.”

“That’s right. It’s all a selfish move on my part. And if he wants to kick my ass, he’s free to do it all he likes afterward.”

“…Ha! I like that look on your face. You’re back to lookin’ how you did when you agreed to fight me one-on-one,” Chikage said, grinning. He smacked the top of the metal barrel with his palm. “Then that settles it! Let’s go!”

“Huh? Go…where?” Masaomi suddenly had a very bad premonition. His smile froze and twitched.

Chikage gave him a very satisfied smile back. “To see this Ryuugamine guy.”

“…What?”

It was all so simple, so straightforward, that Masaomi felt slightly dizzy. But Chikage seemed to be serious about it. He banged on the lid of the metal barrel with both hands in rhythm now. “Call him up and ask him where he’s at. I’ll even throw in the cab money.”

What is he talking about?

Chikage’s suggestion was so freewheeling that Masaomi’s brain was having trouble rationalizing it. It took all his willpower to stay sane, keep his breathing steady, and say, “Um, he’s not going to pick up a call from me…”

“Then give me his number. He should pick up if it’s from a phone he doesn’t recognize.”

“Well, I’ve already changed my number since the old days…and that’s not the issue anyway…”

“Yes, it is. You try everything you can think of, right?”

Masaomi had just told Chikage all about his heavy, sordid past, but the man was giving lackadaisical suggestions as if it was all fun and games to him. And for some reason, Masaomi felt that blitheness to be overwhelming.

“I’ll take care of those Blue Squares kids,” Chikage continued, “and you take the opportunity to go past them right to Ryuugamine.”

“No…wait. This is crazy! Even you can’t handle them all on your own…”

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I just said I’ll take care of them. I’m not stupid enough to try fighting all of them on my own,” claimed the man who actually had destroyed a gang in Saitama single-handedly, making this a bit of unnecessary humility. “Also, I’m only helping you get face-to-face with Ryuugamine. Whatever happens after that is up to you,” he said bracingly. “If you let someone else solve all your problems for you, is that gonna make you or this Mikado guy feel good about it?”

“…”

“Let’s just try what we can, yeah? Our fight kinda got called off in a draw, so let’s set that bet aside for now. I’ll help you out from an equal standing.”

This helped Masaomi remember what they’d agreed upon before they fought that evening. Chikage had suggested a bet: “If I win, the Yellow Scarves have to work for me. But if I lose, I’ll be your muscle.”

“Equal standing…? Meaning that you’re just gonna do whatever you feel like?”

“Whatever the hell I feel like.”

“…”

“Don’t give me that look. It’ll be fine!” Chikage jibed. Masaomi very nearly gave in to the sheer momentum of his cajoling but managed to hold firm.

“Either way, it’s still crazy!” he argued. “If you’re going to deal with the Blue Squares, you need to stop and plan out a whole…”

“…And you think I have that kind of time?”

“Huh?”

“Ryuugamine might think he’s weak…but the Dollars aren’t the same way,” Chikage warned. He was deadly serious now, all charming breeziness gone. “I run a fairly big group in Saitama, so I know how things go…and to continue that earlier analogy about brothers fighting, there’s one situation you have to watch out for.”

The leader of the Toramaru motorcycle gang tapped the top of the barrel with a finger. “Even with kid brothers fighting, you don’t want to attract too much attention, or the big, scary adults will get involved. And these ones aren’t trying to break up the fight. They’re the ones that say, ‘If you help out Uncle for a bit, Uncle will make sure your big brother gets beat up.’”

“…”

“There was something about those guys you were squabbling with at the parking garage… I just got the stink of those ‘scary adults’ from them…,” Chikage said vaguely. He then sighed with resignation and decided to speak directly.

Masaomi knew what Chikage was trying to say, and it was the last thing he wanted to hear.

“To be honest, if the yakuza get involved, even my hands are tied in how much I can help ya.”

Ruined building, second floor, Tokyo

Mikado Ryuugamine wondered where and how he’d gone wrong.

He could understand that he was heading toward the wrong result.

But no matter how often he thought about it, he couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong.

Creating the Dollars as a joke with his friends, attempting to maintain his creation, using the Dollars’ force for his own personal reasons—these things might be possible factors in the current state of affairs, but Mikado did not consider them to be mistakes.

But it’s definitely not someone else’s fault. If anyone is responsible, it’s entirely me. Because I’m weak, Mikado thought, gazing dully at the ceiling.

He was in an abandoned building in an area not that close to downtown. Among other things, there had been a shoot-out here in the past, so the residents wisely chose to keep their distance from the place.

It was now the hangout spot for a faction within the Dollars—Mikado and Aoba’s Blue Squares—but they used it only as a temporary home so that they could abandon it in the face of a raid of any kind.

Mikado sat on a pile of construction materials inside the building, leaning back against the wall and letting his eyes wander upward.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Ryuugamine? You seem to be spacing out,” said Aoba Kuronuma, who had just climbed the stairs.

Mikado sat up straight, taking his time so as not to give any hint of the anxiety he’d just been indulging, and lied, “Oh, I was just wondering about Celty’s head.”

He felt guilty about using Celty as a tool to hide his own weaknesses but continued on the train of thought anyway. “Why would her head just show up now, all of a sudden? It didn’t seem like Izaya had any clue about it, either.”

Mikado didn’t know that Izaya had been in possession of the head. But he didn’t know that someone had snatched it from Izaya’s clutches and tossed it onto the sidewalk, either, so Mikado’s assessment was actually correct on one level.

Because Celty had helped save him before, he wanted to help her retrieve her head. But even the organizational strength of the Dollars wasn’t enough to get back something the police department had seized. It would be nearly impossible without having help from within the force.

At the same time, he had to wonder, “Does Celty still want her head back?”

She acted as if she was fine without it for now, but after the actual head had shown up in the center of public attention, had Celty’s thoughts changed at all?

The question was one Mikado muttered to himself, but Aoba answered it anyway. “Yeah, I wonder. Celty definitely enjoys the life she has now. Maybe she feels conflicted about the head being found. She should get all her memories back with the head, right? Maybe she’ll need to leave Ikebukuro after she remembers everything.”

After he had revealed that he knew Celty, Aoba had heard a few stories of the past from Mikado, so he was able to offer some educated guesses of his own. “Do you feel lonely? Does it hurt to lose that urban legend you love so much, the one who was the cause for the very first meeting of the Dollars?”

“Hmm… My personal relationship with Celty has nothing to do with that anymore, so the thought of her going away really, really hurts. But if that was her own choice, then I don’t have the right to stop her,” Mikado explained.

But then he thought, I wonder what the equivalent of Celty’s head would be for me. I feel like I’ve thought about this several times before…

Anri’s and Masaomi’s faces floated into his head—two people he could see right away if he made up his mind to do it.

But his own smile, when he stood next to the two of them, would no longer return. There was no way he could face them anymore. It had all come about because of his own weakness.

If curiosity killed the cat, then the Dollars, born of curiosity, had killed the ordinary life he should have led.

Almost there.

I’m almost to having everything perfect. Then Sonohara and Masaomi and I can be—

He cut himself off there.

It was only going to make his decision harder.

Mikado was staring into nothingness with no expression on his face again, so Aoba asked, “What are we going to do now?”

“First, we’ll see how the Yellow Scarves act. Masaomi likes a good ambush. We ought to tread carefully.”

“I see. Yes, his methods do remind me of someone else,” Aoba said, his eyes wavering as he thought of Izaya Orihara.

Mikado turned to Aoba, looking serious. “Oh, right, there was one thing I was wondering…”

“What is it?”

Mikado looked into his eyes with concern. “Don’t you guys have summer-vacation homework you should be doing?”

“…”

“I mean, if you’re done with it already, that’s fine, but I’d hate for you to run out of time to finish it up on account of me.”

It was a comically out-of-place thing to say to a delinquent in a run-down, empty building. Aoba’s eyes bulged briefly—but then he smiled, quite happily. “It’s all right. I finished it the very first day.”

From Aoba’s perspective, Mikado looked like an exceedingly mundane high school student. In secret, he raved about the terror Mikado could inspire, however. Even in this situation, he continued to be a mundane young man.

When the man named Akabayashi showed up, he had been terrified. He had quaked in fear of a yakuza lieutenant, like any normal person would. Now he worried about his associate’s school status.

He was a serious student who looked out for others. Not as an act or a persona, but because that’s what he was: a normal human being. And that was the scariest thing about Mikado, according to Aoba.

He lived with over half of his being in a world that no ordinary person would ever come into contact with, and he happily, utterly accepted it as a part of normal life.

Originally, Aoba was just going to use him, but given Mikado’s unique quality of having a normal, helpful side that made him frightening, Aoba began to wonder whether perhaps he could witness the sights he was hoping to see, standing shoulder to shoulder with his new associate.

Aoba, feeling equal parts anticipation and fear, wanted to see where this senior classmate of his was going to wind up. And that meant he had to make sure that no trouble got in their way.

What is Izaya Orihara plotting? Maybe he’s thinking that given Mikado’s current state, he doesn’t need to mess with him anymore…but he’s exactly the kind of sleazeball who thinks he’s being an impartial observer yet can’t actually sit back and observe at all.

It was a remarkably accurate assessment of Izaya, perhaps because Aoba shared some of those qualities. The man could not be overlooked, no matter the circumstances.

When the time came, he could leak information about Izaya to that Awakusu-kai fellow named Akabayashi and set up a confrontation between them and him.

Mikado watched the subtle changes in expression on Aoba’s face and wondered, “Are you sure you’re all right? If you haven’t finished your homework, I can help you.”

“Huh? Oh, no, I swear, it’s all done.”

It really would have been an ordinary conversation between teenagers if it hadn’t been for the dilapidated setting.

Then one of Aoba’s friends ruined the mood by shouting up the stairs. “Hey, Aoba! Mr. Mikado! C’mere…”

“?”

“What’s the matter?”

Aoba and Mikado looked over that way and saw one of the Blue Squares rushing up the steps, worry etched into his face. “There’s someone bad down there…”

“Who?” Mikado asked, but the Blue Square clamped his mouth shut and gave Aoba a meaningful look. Aoba’s brow furrowed, but he sent a visual signal to answer.

“…Um, it’s…a guy named Izumii…”

The back of Aoba’s neck tightened.

Big Bro…! He actually came here?!

“…How many with him?”

“Uh, actually, I only see the one guy for the moment…”

He’s alone? It wasn’t Aoba’s brother’s usual style to do it this way. But more important than that at this point was how he was going to explain Izumii to Mikado.

Aoba was just starting to get his mind working when Mikado turned to him, nonplussed. “Izumii… You mean Ran Izumii?”

“Huh?”

“That’s your brother, right?”

“…!”

Aoba was mildly shocked. “Did I…tell you about him?”

“Look, I have my own information network, you know,” Mikado said, giving him a mischievous grin. “Is that a surprise?”

This reminded Aoba of something he had once said to Mikado.

“To be brief, it’s because you are the founder of the Dollars. Is that a surprise? We have our own information network, you know.”

He had said it when he first gave away his true nature, as a kind of threat to let Mikado realize how much he and his friends knew. And whether intentional or coincidental, Mikado had just returned the statement without any malice whatsoever.

Aoba’s spine shivered. But it wasn’t fear; it was fierce joy, welling up inside of him, moving him to tremble.

“…Oh, geez. How much do you know, then?”

“You were the former Blue Squares boss, right? You had a big fight with the Yellow Scarves, caused the girl Masaomi loved to get hurt really bad, and got arrested, right?”

“…”

“I heard you got thrown in juvenile detention or some kind of boarding school, maybe…but you were already out when you approached me, huh?”

Aoba was doing his best to keep the rising excitement from showing on his face. He even managed to affect a resigned sigh. “Well…if you know that much, there’s no reason to explain any of it. If I’m being honest, my brother is crazy, and you’re better off not coming into contact with him. We can go out there and head him off, but I’d recommend we change our hideout location.”

“No, I’ll see him.”

“Huh?”

Mikado headed for the stairs, a thin smile on his lips. “He might be worried for your sake. I should probably go and explain to him what I’m doing.”

“Oh? You Mikado Ryuugamine?”

When they descended to the first floor, they found a man in sunglasses surrounded by the Blue Squares, his attitude as belligerent as ever.

“Bro…”

“Yo, Aoba. I came to see ya, just like I promised, right?” he said. He had a striking burn scar across his face that drew the eye, and his very presence seemed to cast a violent menace over the surrounding area.

He was honestly the exact kind of person Mikado was least equipped to deal with, but unlike with Akabayashi the other day, he wasn’t so afraid that he felt his life was in danger.

Part of it was probably because he knew this was Aoba’s brother. Another factor that lessened the fear was that Izumii was clearly in less than stellar condition at the moment. Bandages were tied all over his upper half, with a light summer jacket tossed over them.

“…Um, you look like you’re hurt. Are you all right?”

“Wha—? Oh. This? Sorry. Just fell down some stairs, no biggie,” Izumii said, leering. Mikado bowed his head politely.

“Please take care of yourself. Anyway, I’m Mikado Ryuugamine.”

“Ahhh. You’re no taller than Aoba, and you’re the head of the Dollars, huh? Well, I’ll be damned. That’s a lotta work, yeah?” he snarked, but Mikado didn’t appear to be particularly upset by this. If anything, he even seemed a little bit intimidated by the menacing display across from him.

“Oh, er… Actually, the Dollars don’t have a formal leader…so I’m leading the Blue Squares instead.”

“Ha! The Blue Squares! So that would make you the third-generation leader, after Aoba and me. No, wait, fourth—forgot about Horada’s dumb ass,” Izumii chuckled. The sunglasses hid the finer emotional signals around his eyes.

What is he doing here anyway? Aoba wondered. He claimed to be here alone, but it was very possible that he had a large group of his friends lurking nearby. If it came to danger, he had to make sure that at least Mikado escaped safely.

Aoba and his companions were on edge, but Izumii just laughed once more and said, unexpectedly, “Listen…I think it’s fate that we met like this. Can we talk together, alone?”

The Blue Squares bristled at this abrupt suggestion. Some man with unknown motives wanted to speak alone with Mikado? Aoba stepped in to intercept them. “Hey, Bro, you can’t just come in here and mess around like this.”

“Don’t freak out. I’ll have plenty of time to kill with you later. All right?”

“That’s not the issue, and you know it.” The chill between the two brothers thickened.

Mikado clapped Aoba on the shoulder, shaking his head. “It’s all right. I’ll talk with him.”

“You will?”

“Mr. Izumii, we don’t have any private rooms here, so if you don’t mind, we can go upstairs instead.”

“Fine with me,” Izumii said with a smirk. Aoba glared at him and turned to Mikado. The Izumii before he got arrested was one thing, but there was a different air about him now, one that was much more dangerous. Letting Mikado be alone with this man was too much of a risk.

“You shouldn’t do this, Mr. Mikado,” he warned. “You don’t know what this jerk will do…”

“It’s not a good thing to say that about your own brother,” Mikado lectured him, as though this were a totally ordinary situation.

Izumii laughed. “That’s right, Aoba. Don’t show off in front of your friends. Come and sidle up to me—‘Big Bro, Big Bro’—like you always do.”

Aoba ignored this mockery, intent on continuing his argument with Mikado—but the other boy smiled and cut him off.

“It’s all right. I’m just going to have a chat with a former member of the group I’m leading. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

“But…”

“His Dollars membership is one thing…but I am technically the head of the Blue Squares, even if it’s just for show. I ought to treat him with respect for paving the way.”

“…”

Over Aoba’s shoulder, Izumii slowly clapped his hands. “Very nice. Seems like Mikado’s the one who understands proper courtesy. Isn’t that right, Aoba?”

The needling tone in his voice irked Aoba, but he kept his gaze focused on Mikado. The other boy wasn’t being completely careless around Izumii. If anything, he seemed just a little bit frightened. But given that he had announced they were going to talk alone, he wasn’t going to hear any argument to the contrary.

Aoba glared at his brother one last time and reluctantly backed down. “All right, sir… But if anything happens, we’re going up there.”

“I didn’t actually think you’d go along with this,” Izumii said when they had reached the top of the steps. “Why aren’t you more cautious? You don’t look like a fighter to me. Didja think that because I’m injured, you can actually take me?”

Mikado snorted self-deprecatingly. “Oh, hardly. I can’t fight at all. Even if both of your arms were broken, I bet I still couldn’t beat you.”

“…”

“But I don’t think you would make it out unscathed, either,” Mikado threatened without missing a beat. “The Blue Squares are all very good at fighting.”

“So you think you’re a tough guy, getting other people to do the fighting for you?”

“Oh, no. I’m very weak. Strength in numbers is my only defense,” he said, his expression gloomy.

“You said me being Dollars ‘is one thing’ earlier. What’s my status among the Dollars, then?”

Mikado turned his head to look at Izumii with seriousness written across his features. “I’m sorry to say that I don’t want you among the Dollars. I’m getting help from Aoba and his friends specifically to kick people like you out of the gang.”

“…”

It was such a bold and frank answer that it caught Izumii off guard. But the next moment, his sticky smile reappeared. “You got guts, man. What, you think I’m just a joke?”

“No, I don’t. Just the opposite.”

“What…?” Izumii grunted.

Mikado continued, “I’m…afraid of people like you. I would never treat you like a joke. I’m much too scared. But since I can’t deal with you in other ways…I just want you out of the Dollars. If you had a lion in your house, and the weapons to drive it off…I don’t think you’d find many people who would act like that lion is no big deal.”

“…”

Izumii’s expression went blank. This was not the kind of answer he’d been expecting. After a few moments, he burst into laughter. “Ha-ha-ha-ha! Hya-ha-ha! Are you crazy, kid?! What kind of an idiot says somethin’ like that?!”

He clapped his hands as he laughed. There was a note of madness somewhere deep in his voice, which set Mikado on edge. After he was finished, Izumii spotted the folding table that Aoba and his friends liked to hang around, and he sat in a matching folding chair near it.

“Okay, I see. So you’re totally different from Masaomi Kida. What a little pampered Goody Two-shoes. You’re funny, man. Way more interesting than Aoba, that’s for sure.”

Mikado’s face twitched when he heard the name Masaomi. Clearly he felt something at that moment, but he did not speak it aloud. So Izumii put his elbows on the table, smiled wickedly, and got to the point.

“Mikado Ryuugamine. You said you can only rely on strength in numbers?”

“…Yes,” Mikado admitted apologetically. Izumii gave him his fiercest smile yet.

“You ever think about relying on something else?”

Ten minutes later

“…It’s been a while. Are they still talking?” Aoba wondered, looking to the stairs with concern. He’d had his friends on the lookout, just in case Izumii knocked Mikado out and escaped from the second floor.

Whatever it was they were discussing, it wasn’t likely to be your typical teatime chat. He waited, tense, until a figure appeared on the stairs. Izumii descended first, with Mikado watching him go from behind. Relieved that Mikado was fine, Aoba walked over to the stairs.

“Sorry about the trouble. That was fun,” Izumii said over his shoulder to Mikado. Aoba was mildly surprised to see that he was in even better spirits than before.

“No, please, the pleasure was all mine. Thank you,” said Mikado, bowing his head. Izumii gave him a little wave and headed to the exit without another word.

What’s this? I’ve never seen my brother act this way, Aoba thought. The moment they passed each other, Izumii put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Mikado Ryuugamine. Fascinating kid. I like him,” he whispered.

“…What did you talk about?” Aoba demanded, squinting.

Izumii ignored the question. The corners of his mouth curled upward. “The thing is, Aoba, he’s too much for you to control.”

“…And you’re telling me you’re up for the job?” Aoba shot back, quietly enough that Mikado wouldn’t hear.

“Nah. If you can’t do it, there’s no way I can handle him.” Izumii shook his head and whispered, “Every task’s got the right tool for the job.”

It was an uncharacteristically artistic turn of phrase for him.

Aoba watched his brother walk out the door, then turned back to Mikado.

He looked just the same as ever, with no sign of trouble. So Izumii hadn’t done any harm to him.

But if anything, that was eerier to Aoba, and an ugly disquiet took form in his chest.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to let Mikado meet his older brother. A nasty mix of chills and frustration came over him, even more unpleasant than when he had faced Izaya Orihara.

But even then, Aoba was unable to chase down his own brother to demand answers.

On the street, several minutes later

Once he had walked out of sight of the abandoned building, a black luxury vehicle drove past Izumii, then slowly came to a stop. The back door opened without a word, and Izumii got inside sans comment.

“Call for you.”

A large man in a suit sitting in the back seat offered Izumii a cell phone. He took it and held it to his ear, waiting until the speaker emitted a deep, heavy voice that seemed to overpower anyone who heard it.

“It’s me,” the voice said.

“A pleasure to speak with you, sir,” said Izumii, quite uncharacteristically. His face was devoid of expression.

The man on the other end of the call—Aozaki from the Awakusu-kai—didn’t bother with any formalities. “Was there any movement?”

“I got a message from Izaya Orihara. He plans to finish things with Shizuo Heiwajima.”

“I thought he was a bit smarter than that. On the other hand, I’m worried that I can’t get in touch with Slon. He might be aware of what you’re doing and be putting on a bluff. Give him a typical answer, then try to verify independently.”

“What shall we do if he’s really trying to kill off Shizuo?”

“If the scumbag wants to die, let him commit suicide. Orihara might be our pawn in name, but we also owe Heiwajima for what happened with the little mistress. We maintain face by not getting involved,” instructed Aozaki, a simple judgment cast upon the life and death of others. Then he got to the business of the day. “What was the kid like?”

“Just a shrimpy little squirt. Not that tall. Looks like the kind of wishy-washy guy who plucks the petals off flowers. ‘She loves me; she loves me not…’”

“I don’t care what he looks like. Kids these days don’t always match up between the outside and the inside,” Aozaki growled, his voice powerful through the tiny speaker. “Can you keep the reins on him?”

“I’ll be honest: I feel like it’s too much for me.”

“I didn’t expect to hear an answer like that from you,” replied Aozaki with surprise.

Izumii grinned. “Yes, but I do like him. If he turned out to be a really snotty brat with too much spunk, I woulda crushed him and taken over the Dollars myself.”

“That’s my decision to make. Don’t pull any stunts on my watch. Although I’ll admit, that was close to my idea anyway… I’ve got to say, though, it surprises me to hear that you’re capable of liking anyone,” Aozaki mocked, only to continue, “Did you give him our present?”

“Yes, I did.”

Aozaki’s voice rumbled as he threatened, “You better not have dropped our name.”

“Even I’m not stupid enough to reveal the organization’s name when I’m handing over something like that.”

“If the cops haul that Ryuugamine kid in for anything, you and me are total strangers. Carve that into your backbone, and then maybe I won’t have to snap it myself,” Aozaki warned. It was a roundabout way of saying that if he mentioned anything about the Awakusu-kai to the police, he was a dead man. Although maybe it wasn’t that much of a euphemism to begin with.

“…I understand,” said Izumii.

“Good. Now, that thing came from a suspicious source. You’re sure the kid took it anyway?” Aozaki asked.

For the first time since he got into the car, a clear, notable expression crossed Izumii’s face. His mouth twisted with glee, but his tone of voice remained deferential. “He just took it, without fear or delight.”

“…And he didn’t think it was just a toy?”

“No, no! The kid knew what it was, and he even bowed and said ‘thank you’ for it. He actually started some water-cooler chat right after that, like nothing had just happened!”

“…I think I can see why a wrecking ball like you would take a shine to him,” Aozaki acknowledged. When he spoke again, something in his heavy voice conjured the image of a wicked smile. “Especially if he’s that busted while putting on a normal face.”

After a few more minutes of conversation, Aozaki hung up, and Izumii handed the phone back to the man in the suit.

The man said, “You really learned how to speak. Normally, you act like a crazy son of a bitch, but around Mr. Aozaki, you’re as cuddly as a pet cat.”

It was quite a jab from the yakuza, who appeared to be a junior member of the group, but Izumii barely batted an eye.

“…Look, I know how to pay respects to the truly powerful. You gotta look up to the mighty, no matter what form it takes.”

“Ha! You’re gonna pass yourself off as that kinda guy now? You, the guy who abducts girls, gets all his cronies together, and takes cheap shots at people?”

“If that’s what wins, then that equals strength.”

“But you lost. Some jackass outta nowhere cracked your sternum today, didn’t he?”

One of Izumii’s followers must have let it slip about the fight earlier in the evening. He said flatly, “I’ll crush that bastard someday, sir. He’s like Kadota. I can sense the same smell coming off him.”

The young mobster barked with laughter. “I noticed you’re taking a pretty polite tone with me, too. So you think I’m a pretty tough guy as well?” He smiled gleefully.

The tips of Izumii’s mouth curled. “Of course.” The sight of the smile caused the yakuza to tense just a bit. “Violence isn’t the only strength Mr. Aozaki has. It’s the organizational strength of the Awakusu-kai, the financial strength, the influence he wields. And you’re part of that strength, too.”

“…”

“And like Mr. Aozaki, you’re an individual part of the Awakusu-kai.” As Izumii’s dry smile grew more wicked, the other man’s disappeared entirely.

“What…did you just…call me…?”

“Am I wrong? Or are you saying you’re not just another pair of hands working for him?”

If the man gave a careless answer and it got back to Aozaki, he would be in big trouble. Normally in this situation, a young yakuza would crush the bridge of Izumii’s nose to make it clear where they stood, but he couldn’t do that now.

If he gave the wrong answer and created the impression that he wasn’t a part of Aozaki’s strength, this Izumii man would try to crush him without hesitation, said the sensation running through the man’s spine.

After several seconds, Izumii stopped waiting for the man to answer his question. He stared forward into nothingness and spoke in a bit of a monologue.

“…To be fair, outside of Mr. Aozaki, there’s only two or three guys I respect for their strength. Traugott the MMA champion, that bartender punk, and although he’s softened over the years…”

Izumii trailed off. He chose not to speak aloud the name of the final man.

He knew that if he said it, Aozaki and his underling were sure to be angry.

Pedestrian bridge

After Izumii’s car drove away, the road far from the glamour of the shopping center at night was left with only muggy air and silence.

A silence that was broken by a man’s soft voice.

“…Hello? There’s been some movement.”

Standing on a sturdy pedestrian bridge over the road was a man dressed in a fancy black suit, like a nightclub host, speaking into a phone.

“It was a vehicle Mr. Aozaki uses. Izumii just walked right into it.”

The person on the other end of the call spoke for a while. When the first man spoke again, he identified his conversation partner by name.

“Right…it’s just as you anticipated, Mr. Akabayashi.”

Inside a taxi, Tokyo

“Got it, got it. You can leave all of that up to me, then. You boys, ah, you can stay there and keep an eye on Ryuugamine and his friends.”

In the back seat of a taxi, an Awakusu lieutenant with tinted glasses and a facial scar, Akabayashi, was giving orders to a motorcycle gang he oversaw by the name of Jan-Jaka-Jan. He ended the call and chuckled to himself.

Good grief, Aozaki. I didn’t think this was the time for infighting.

But it makes me wonder what he brought and what answer Ryuugamine gave him.

And that makes the question, how do we react…?

At that point, the taxi driver called out, “Sir, is your eye all right?”

“Hmm?”

Only when it was pointed out did Akabayashi realize that he had removed his sunglasses and was pressing on his right eye. And only then was he consciously aware of the strange feeling around his eye: not quite itchiness, not quite pain. He’d been rubbing away at it without realizing what he was doing.

“Ah yes. Just a little tired, that’s all.”

“I know what you mean. My eyes have never been the same since I started getting old.”

“Well, ya can’t beat Father Time. I’m jealous of those young folks who can stay up all night playin’ on their computers and video games,” Akabayashi said. He focused his attention on the sensation in his right eye.

It almost felt as if there were a tiny whisper coming from the old scar.

I’ll be damned… Feels the same as during that whole street-slashing thing six months back.

There had been a string of street attacks, which the media called “Night of the Ripper,” around Ikebukuro, and he had felt a similar itch during that whole thing.

…Wonder if that sword is raising hell somewhere, he thought, referring to the cursed blade that had slashed his eye. The thought worried him. Maybe this situation’s a lot worse than I realized.

He grimaced just a bit and got to thinking about what he should do next.

But he was unaware.

That whether from resonance between Saikas or just sheer coincidence, only a few hundred yards from his taxi, Kujiragi’s Saika had transformed into an enormous net that clashed with a new, monstrous form of Celty.

And that Anri Sonohara’s Saika, too, was undergoing a small change of its own.

And that at this moment, all around Ikebukuro, a great number of “grandchildren” of Saika were being born at once.

Anri’s apartment

“…”

“What’s the matter?” Saki asked, alarmed that Anri had abruptly frozen while they were talking.

“Oh…no, I’m fine. I just felt a little chill…”

“Are you sick?”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m fine, I think.”

“Okay. I bet you were shivering with excitement, then,” Saki teased gently.

Anri smiled back at her. But there was an odd uneasiness lurking behind it. She’d frozen because she’d heard an unpleasant noise in her ears, like the cursed voices of Saika going into a feedback loop.

It must have resonated with another Saika. She remembered feeling a similarly upsetting sensation when she’d caught the blow from Haruna Niekawa’s Saika.

I’ve never felt the presence of other Saikas so strongly…

It was an omen that hadn’t been there yesterday. There had been a change in Saika recently, but it had been very slow and gradual. If she was suddenly much more sensitive to the presence of another Saika, it might stem from the way she made contact with the other Saika from the Kujiragi woman during the day.

But even assuming that was true, Anri did not know why she would feel the presence so strongly now. It filled her with worry.

Did something happen to Kujiragi or Miss Niekawa…?

But she couldn’t talk to Saki about all of that, so Anri was left with no one to speak to, just an uncomfortable knowledge that burdened her. But at least she could come up with a reassuring solution that would surely make things better.

I can go and ask Celty about this later.

She did not know, of course, that Celty’s fate was currently intertwined with that very Saika’s.

Abandoned factory

“By the way, you mentioned an Anri a few times earlier. Would that be Anri Sonohara?” asked Chikage while Masaomi was checking on the safety of the Yellow Scarves from the old factory.

“…Huh? You know Anri?”

Masaomi was surprised because he had mentioned a “friend named Anri” in his explanations but never actually said her last name.

Chikage continued in more detail. “Cute girl with glasses?”

“Yeah.”

“Tits out to here?”

“Yes! Exactly! How do you know her?!” Masaomi demanded. The mound gestures Chikage was making in front of his chest convinced him that it was absolutely the same Anri Sonohara he knew.

“She does kendo or iaido or some discipline like that, right?”

“…? That’s the first I’ve ever heard of it.” But as Masaomi said it, he recalled the glimpse he’d once caught of Anri holding a katana. And he knew it was most likely connected to the secret she kept from him.

“But, uh…anyway, aside from that, how do you know her?” he asked.

“Oh, I ran into her earlier today. She was with, um, what’s her name, Eri. At the hospital.”

“Eri?”

The name wasn’t ringing a bell for Masaomi. At first he wondered whether this was some classmate of Anri’s, until Chikage said her full name:

“Huh? Aren’t you friends with Kadota, though? You should know a girl with black hair named Erika Karisawa, right?”

“Karisawa?! How do you know her, too?!”

“Look, a lot of stuff happened. So…that nice honor student–lookin’ girl, eh? Damn, I’m jealous you get to be friends with a fine girl like her. My honeys are pretty hot, too, though. You jealous of me?” Chikage boasted briefly, but he let it drop a moment later and sobered up again. “So you aren’t going to talk with Anri before you go meet Ryuugamine?”

“Well…,” Masaomi murmured, “I… I think it’s better if Anri doesn’t know anything. Then, after Mikado and I have settled up, we can go see her together with smiles on our faces.”

“If she doesn’t know anything, huh…?” Chikage repeated, shrugging. He smirked at Masaomi. “You probably shouldn’t take girls for granted like that.”

“Huh?”

“Women are a lot stronger and smarter than us guys. Try as hard as you might to hide your cheating—they’ll always see through you. It’s why I don’t bother to hide it in the first place.”

“Wow, you’re a real scumbag.”

Masaomi stared at Chikage, wondering how such a man could attract so many romantic partners. Chikage ignored his gaze and continued, “Look, you’re free to keep Anri out of the loop if you want. Just be careful.”

“Girls these days are quite capable of inserting themselves back into the loop.”

Abandoned building

Mikado had his laptop open, sifting through various online message boards and social media sites, organizing his sources of information.

“What did you talk about with my brother?” Aoba asked.

“Oh, all kinds of stuff,” he replied. “He asked me to look after you.”

“No way, that can’t be right. My brother would never be concerned about me…”

“I’m jealous. I’m an only child, you know. Must be nice to have brothers.”

“Don’t say that. I’d be better off without him.”

Smiling, Mikado scolded the younger boy. “Shouldn’t say that about your own brother.”

“…Don’t try to brush me off. I know him. I know he didn’t just come here to trade pleasantries with you.”

“You’re right. It was a very important conversation, so I’ll let you in on it. Hang on while I finish checking the boards here…”

He turned back to his screen and picked up the pace of his browsing. It should have wrapped up before too long—but in the midst of it, Mikado realized something was wrong.

“Huh…? Wh… What the…?”

He clicked on a bookmark, and a confused, suspicious look crossed his face as soon as the screen loaded.

“…What is it, Mr. Mikado?”

“What…is this…?”

It was rare for Aoba to see Mikado’s face so baldly darkened like this. He looked over Mikado’s shoulder at the screen.

What he saw there was a familiar chat room, filled with instances of Mikado’s real name.

Chat room

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TarouTanaka has entered the chat.

TarouTanaka: Good evening.

NamieYagiri: There you are, Mikado Ryuugamine.

TarouTanaka: My name is Tanaka. I think you have the wrong person.

TarouTanaka: What is the meaning of this?

NamieYagiri: Shut the hell up.

Kuru: The act is pointless, TarouTanaka. This person already knows everything, through Kanra’s help.

Mai: It’s over.

NamieYagiri: I don’t care. Use the Dollars or whoever else you have to. Just find Kasane Kujiragi and Shinra Kishitani. Seitarou Yagiri is the one behind all of this, so use the Dollars to crush him, like you did to me. The Awakusu-kai, Headless Rider, Shizuo Heiwajima, and that idiot Izaya—they’re all connected to you.

Kuru: It brings me no joy to say this, but I believe this chat room is finished.

Mai: So sad.

Mai: So lonely.

TarouTanaka: I don’t understand what you mean. Who is Kujiragi? What are you after?

NamieYagiri: You’re the one who’s after something. What do you think you’re doing?

NamieYagiri: Why don’t you look around yourself?

NamieYagiri: I just want to bring an end to what’s going on. So help me.

NamieYagiri: You have no idea about anything, and yet you’re connected to everything.

NamieYagiri: Wake the hell up. You’re the key.

NamieYagiri: The quickest way to end all of this is for you to understand it all.

TarouTanaka: Please stop this.

Kuru: My goodness, I’m thinking it really might be best not to interject. Perhaps this is what 100% Pure was speaking of.

Mai: I hope Aoba’s okay.

TarouTanaka: Why are you bringing up Aoba?

NamieYagiri: 100% Pure is Aoba Kuronuma.

NamieYagiri: Shall I list the real names of everyone else?

TarouTanaka: Stop this! What are you trying to do?!

NamieYagiri: I’m just playing every card in my hand.

NamieYagiri: Where is that headless monster?

NamieYagiri: Same question about your girlfriend, Anri Sonohara.

NamieYagiri: You know that she’s a monster, too.

NamieYagiri: You must have seen her with a katana at some point.

NamieYagiri: Want me to tell you what she did during that incident with the street slasher?

Kuru: This is quite a lot of personal information being shared. It feels like we’re getting a recital from the problem-customer ledger at a particularly rowdy game arcade. But I don’t have a problem with that.

Mai: Scary.

TarouTanaka: Please knock it off.

TarouTanaka: Don’t ruin this place.

NamieYagiri: It’s been broken for ages. Admit it.

NamieYagiri: And you broke it.

NamieYagiri: The same way you broke my research team.

TarouTanaka: Stop it.

TarouTanaka has left the chat.

NamieYagiri: Don’t run away.

Kuru: But of course he did.

Mai: It’s scary.

Kuru: I hate to say this, but…your ramblings are incoherent, Miss Namie. You are the archetypal “person who really shouldn’t have a blog on the Internet.” I never would have expected you were the type. The relationship between online and real life is such a mysterious thing.

NamieYagiri: Shut up.

NamieYagiri: Don’t run away, Mikado Ryuugamine.

NamieYagiri: You once told me…

NamieYagiri: It’s because it’s reality that we can seek a happy ending.

NamieYagiri: You told me that hypocritical nonsense, and you ruined my life.

NamieYagiri: Don’t forget that.

NamieYagiri: And don’t you dare say you’re not looking for a happy ending anymore.

NamieYagiri: At least take responsibility for your past words.

NamieYagiri: Are you listening?

NamieYagiri: I’m going to continue flaming this place until you show up.

NamieYagiri: Just so you know.

Kuru: …Well, this is a very troublesome visitor we have.

Mai: Trouble, trouble.

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