Durarara!! - Volume 13 - Chapter 13

Final Chapter: Greener Pastures Wherever You Go

Ikebukuro—in the past

A ship rocked on the waves as it made its long voyage to Japan.

When he wandered into the dark, afraid, the boy encountered “her.”

But his fear eventually turned to trust—and trust into love.

Then he mustered his everything to protect that love and asked a question.

“Hey, Celty, when you find your head, will you be going back home?”

Shinra was only six years old. Celty responded to him by writing on a piece of paper.

“That’s right.”

“I want to go with you.”

“…? That’s nonsense.”

“Then I don’t want you to go,” Shinra whined.

Put off by this, Celty scrawled, “I am not your toy.”

“I know. I don’t care if I never see my toys again.”

“Apologize to the toy makers.”

“I’m sorry,” little Shinra said dutifully, bowing to some unseen, imaginary toy factory.

Celty noted to herself that this must simply be how children acted. She wrote, “Why do you want to be with me?”

“…Because we’re family,” Shinra said. That made sense to her.

The boy hadn’t had a mother around. Perhaps he felt some kind of motherly nurture from her presence. But if she was his example of what constituted “motherly,” he was likely to grow up warped somehow.

“Listen to me, Shinra. I’m not human. I can’t be your family.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” she repeated, then paused her writing.

“I can talk with you like this, Celty. We live in the same place. Or do you think we can’t be in the same family because you’re not rejistered in the household sertifikit or the sensus?”

“Those are some very big words, you know.”

Celty thought it over and answered him very carefully.

“I am too different from human beings. If you live with me long enough, you will dislike me.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“It’s true,” she said, trying to distance herself from him.

Shinra fidgeted. “Then…if I don’t get tired of you, will you promise to stay here?”

“If that’s true, I’ll consider it.”

She wasn’t entirely accustomed to human society yet, but over the last two years, Celty had learned much from news, television shows, manga, and other channels of contemporary Japanese culture.

She recalled a news segment where they’d said, “Unlike pairings of childhood friends in fiction, they rarely go on to a romantic relationship in real life.” She assumed that Shinra was simply being a child and would grow out of it.

If he sees my face every day, he’ll get tired of me eventually. Or…sees everything but my face, I suppose.

She added the last part as a self-effacing joke, but as a matter of fact, it was a crucial piece of information.

He couldn’t see her face, hear her voice, or read her expressions. And perhaps it was this fact of life that helped Shinra hold tight to his affection for her over all those years, without growing tired of her.

To Shinra, Celty Sturluson was like a blank canvas. Bit by tiny bit, he learned what expressions she made and what elicited her happy smile, and he sketched it out onto that canvas.

After about ten years had passed, Celty had a firm image within Shinra. It was the result of seeking out her true face, not of pushing his own hopes and ideals onto her.

And perhaps that was why he was still madly in love with her now.

No matter what obstacles might exist between the two of them.

Ikebukuro—alleyway

On a street heading toward Sunshine City from the opposite side as the shopping district, a man and woman ran into each other.

But it was not by any means a coincidence.

“…I’m surprised. You overcame Saika’s curse in quite a short amount of time,” said Kujiragi, who looked anything but surprised—and yet there was a faint note of it in her voice.

Standing across from her was Shinra Kishitani. Right about the time that he had identified Celty’s location, he spotted a vending machine soaring through the city. Manami surmised that the vending machine was heading toward where they would find Izaya and ran after it.

Meanwhile, Shinra passed down streets with signs of destruction here and there on the way to Sunshine City.

And in the midst of that trip, Kujiragi—also chasing after Shizuo and Izaya—sensed the presence of his Saika.

“Let’s see, it was…Kasane Kujiragi, right?” Shinra asked apologetically, his eyes bloodshot.

“…Yes.”

“Do you have time to talk? Or would that just end up with you cutting me and kidnapping me again?” Shinra wondered.

Kujiragi shook her head. “No, I no longer have any reason to abduct you against your will,” she said, staring into Shinra’s red eyes. “I judge that any emotion that cannot be ruled by Saika will not be swayed by simple pain or brainwashing.”

“I’m glad. I was worried you might say something like ‘If I can’t have you, then I’ll kill you.’”

“No. I am not actually that enamored of you.” Kujiragi walked toward Shinra and explained, “But…it is true that I have an interest in you. If I had to describe it, I would surmise that perhaps I am jealous.”

“Jealous…?”

“As a part of my research into Celty Sturluson, I also examined you, her domestic partner. As a human who was in love with an inhuman creature.”

“No mistake there,” Shinra said bashfully.

“I actually did not believe it at first,” she admitted. “I thought that you were acting out affection for Celty Sturluson on Shingen Kishitani’s orders, in order to keep her and the valuable research she might represent close at hand.”

“…”

“But the more I looked into it, the more I became convinced that your feelings were genuine,” Kujiragi said. She closed her eyes and continued, her voice a monotone: “I, too, have the blood of the inhuman within me, and I have no memory of ever receiving true love from another. Even my actual mother, an entirely nonhuman being, practically abandoned me to survive on my own.”

Despite her admission that she was all but nonhuman herself, Shinra said nothing. He was, of course, well aware that she was no ordinary human being.

“It was only yesterday that I finally became free from some personal business.” Kujiragi looked him in the eyes. “After speaking with other Saika owners, I made a decision. If no one will love me, perhaps I ought to love someone else.”

“And you chose me? Well, I think that’s a much more positive way of thinking than deciding you don’t need love, but why choose me?”

“For one thing, like I said earlier…I am jealous.”

This made sense to Shinra. She was jealous of Celty, who wasn’t human but was able to carry on a happy life. So she decided that she would steal a part of that happiness from Celty.

Kujiragi added, “For another…I sought some kind of return.”

“Return?”

“Perhaps I was hoping that in exchange for loving, I would be loved in return. And since you are capable of loving a nonhuman…perhaps…”

She included suppositions and speculation in her statements as a sign that even she didn’t understand how she felt. Still, despite her awkwardness, she was busy putting her thoughts in order.

“As I researched more about your unique nature, I began to feel a kind of envy. That you were not like other humans and you might represent a kind of hope for me. When I saw how you continued your relationship with Celty Sturluson, even after being injured by Adabashi, I felt—though I bear some responsibility for your injury, I will admit—a kind of admiration for you.”

Adabashi.

He was Ruri Hijiribe’s stalker, the man who’d injured Shinra terribly. But the mention of that name did not cause any particular consternation in him.

Kujiragi paused and tilted her head in slight disbelief at what she was going to say. “I became a fan of yours. Is that an inadequate reason?”

“…”

“So I will broach the topic again. Will you consider accepting my feelings?”

It was a simple confession of love—so very simple.

Silence enveloped the two.

In the distance, motorcycle engines roared, and there were sounds of destruction as well—but here on this street, it was so quiet that time itself might have stopped.

Then Shinra broke the long silence.

“I believe a normal human being would be angry right about now,” he said, grinning lopsidedly, his eyes red. “You got me injured, abducted me for your own selfish reasons, and generally did a lot of awful stuff to me.”

“…”

“But I’m just not mad at you. And that’s only because I have Celty.”

“?”

Kujiragi stared at him quizzically.

Shinra went on, like a rambunctious, innocent child: “Because I have Celty, I don’t need anything else. It would be a waste of my time to hate other people. So it’s only thanks to Celty that I can even stand here and have a pleasant conversation with you.”

He looked down, then raised his head again to stare Kujiragi straight in the eyes. “The only reason the guy you like is here at all is because of Celty.” It felt as if he was saying that as much to himself as to her. “So…I’m sorry. I cannot return your feelings.”

“…”

Kujiragi closed her eyes for a few moments, then exhaled. “I understand. I am satisfied just having heard your answer clearly.”

She was as expressionless as ever, but Shinra gave her a serious look as he said, “I know it’s strange to say this to someone you only just met, but…you seem like a mysterious person to me. You’re demi-human, and clumsy, and yet oddly straightforward, and trying to change yourself so that you’re not so otherworldly.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I think that while you don’t match up to Celty, you’re plenty attractive yourself. It might be cruel to say this after I turned you down, but if Celty didn’t exist, I might have fallen in love with you instead.”

After a pause, Kujiragi said, “Are you consoling me?”

But Shinra shook his head. “I’m not that clever and considerate.” He walked closer to her. “There’s just one thing that I can do for you.”

“…What is it?”

“I can offer you proof.”

“…?”

She gave him a curious look, so Shinra leaned forward, withstanding the pain of his many injuries, and said proudly, “I am proof that an utterly ordinary human being and the world’s most wondrous Headless Rider, the most mismatched couple imaginable, can still find love together.”

“…”

“So I’m certain that you will find the right person for you. And until then, whether it’s family, or someone close, or even yourself—take good care of someone,” Shinra said with a gentle smile.

Kujiragi was silent for quite a while, until at last, she said, “You’re an awful person.”

With the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.

“How could you make me like you more after you rejected me?”

Togusa’s van

“I thought I heard it coming from the building on the left…but if the sound’s bouncing off the expressway, then there’s no telling where it came from…”

Togusa peered through the windshield up at the buildings looming over them.

The biker gangs were gathered just a few dozen yards ahead and had practically taken over the road. No cars were moving, of course, so all the drivers, noticing the gathering ahead, were desperately trying to trickle off onto side streets.

“And you’re saying the guy with the fancy hair was definitely out in front of Russia Sushi, Karisawa?”

“Yep, no question. He was with Haruna.”

“…”

Anri placed her hands on her thighs, clutching the hem of her clothing.

Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida—Izaya Orihara had likened their relationship to “balancing atop a rope on fire.” With the threat of Nasujima added to the mix, Anri was fighting a powerful anxiety over a situation whose full scope she could not ascertain.

“Do you think it would be faster to get out and run?” Seiji wondered.

“Yeah, but…if there really are as many people as there were at the first Dollars meeting…,” Karisawa replied.

Meanwhile, Togusa noticed a person walking down the center of the road, weaving between the cars caught in traffic. The figure’s movement was awkward and halting, as though they were hurt.

What’s that?

Huh? Where have I seen him before…?

As Togusa squinted ahead, the figure suddenly raised a hammer and brought it down on the van’s front windshield with abnormal force.

“Wha…?!”

It smashed against the glass, sending spiderweb fractures all across the surface and turning the driver’s vision through it white. There was a second impact, then a third, and big chunks of the glass fell loose.

“Y-you son of a bitch!” Togusa screamed at the man. He stomped on the gas, making to run over the attacker.

“Stop, Togusa!” Kadota shouted from the passenger seat, which was just enough to keep Togusa in his rational mind.

The attacker, meanwhile, leered at them and examined the group in the van.

“Oh-ho… Very nice… Real tasty bunch ya got in here, huh? Hey…what the hell are you doin’ here, Namie Yagiri?”

“Izumii…,” Namie said with undisguised loathing. A nervous silence ran through the vehicle.

“Huh? Izumii? Did he change up his look…?” Karisawa wondered.

Kadota grimaced. “Hah…you really slimmed down during your time on the inside. What happened to that regal pompadour you were so proud of?”

The air around Izumii seemed to chill several degrees. “Kaaadoootaaa,” he hissed with fury, staring daggers at the young man through his sunglasses. “I heard you got hit by a car, but you seem just fine to me… So I guess I oughta finish the job, huh?”

Those two statements didn’t add up at all, but Kadota reached for the seat belt to undo it anyway.

“Whoa, now. Who said you could move?” Izumii pointed the hammer right at him, a vicious smile smeared across his face. “I’m puttin’ on a car-dismantling show. And you’ve got the best seat in the house, so don’t get up.”

At that point, about ten more thugs appeared from other vehicles to surround Togusa’s van. They all carried metal pipes, bats, shovels, and picks—implements that would indeed be useful in dismantling a vehicle.

“Hey, we’ve got women and children in here. At least let them out.” Kadota glared without a shred of fear.

Izumii cackled and shook his head. “C’mon, dumb-ass. You know the entire reason you betrayed me is because I don’t make those kinds of concessions. Right?”

“You son of a bitch…,” Kadota growled, his brow creasing. The other man glanced at the back seat of the van.

“Okay, Yumasaki, you’re in for it, too… Wait. Yumasaki ain’t here…,” he said curiously. Then he recognized one of the two girls back there. “Wha…?”

He opened his wide mouth into a malicious cackle. “Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You…you’re Masaomi Kida’s girl, huh? Okay, okay, I see. So Kadota saved your skin, and now you’ve been palling around with them ever since!”

“…”

Saki maintained her silence, only staring back at Izumii. As a matter of fact, they’d only just met again yesterday, but admitting so wouldn’t make any difference, so she didn’t bring it up.

“Hey, what if I tossed a Molotov cocktail into the van, like you folks did to me? Huh?” Izumii laughed. “I wondered what was up with the summons right after we split apart, but now it just means I get to see y’all again! I feel fate at work! Gotta thank Mikado for that!”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…?”

Aside from Mika and Namie, the entire group within the van froze.

“What…did you just say? Thank who?” Kadota grunted.

“Oops. I guess you didn’t know that yet?” Izumii said, shrugging theatrically. The action caused the sternum that Chikage had injured to creak, and he scowled in pain. But it lasted only a brief moment and did not dull his enjoyment of the situation.

“I’m not the leader of the Blue Squares anymore,” he said.

“What?”

“…Your buddy Mikado Ryuugamine is the one calling the shots now! Hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The rooftop of a mixed-use building

After the gunshot, only the smell of powder was left in the air.

Within its midst, the two figures did not move.

“…”

There was still a faint trail of smoke coming from the muzzle of the pistol in Mikado’s hand. A little cut on Masaomi’s cheek trickled blood, from either being grazed by the bullet or just the shock wave of its passage.

The sound of the shot hit him directly in the ear, leaving the reverberation of its roar rattling around in his head. Mikado felt the same thing, so for the moment, neither of them could move or speak.

Physically, they were trapped in a stalemate.

“…”

“…”

A moment ago, just before Mikado had fired the gun, Masaomi had bolted off the ground like a spring-loaded toy, racing for the other boy. He had tossed his crutch aside and leaped with one foot.

The knee Izumii had shattered screamed under the cast. The pain was dulled by the anesthetic, but the shock still ran through his spine and smashed into his brain.

But he pushed that unpleasant sensation down into his gut and reached over to grab Mikado’s wrist. The impact of that move caused him to pull the trigger, firing the gun just to the side of Masaomi’s cheek.

They froze, locked in position, for almost a full minute.

The success of Masaomi’s insane one-legged jump was half thanks to good luck and half to something else coming into play. Mikado had given him an opening.

He’d moved his free hand, bringing it closer to add support to his grip on the gun. Masaomi spotted that chance and took it, rushing in to grab Mikado’s right arm. He did so gingerly—if he’d done it with all his strength, the arm might as well have snapped.

Shit… You know you’re not built for fighting like this, you idiot.

Masaomi gnashed his teeth, not from the pain running through his body but with anger at himself for having driven his friend to these lengths.

Once their hearing had largely recovered, his gun hand still held down, Mikado spoke. “You startled me. I wasn’t expecting you to come running at me.”

“…What did you do, look up how to shoot a gun online?”

“Huh?”

“Knowing how serious you are, I figured you would use both hands to steady the gun.”

In a sense, it was a bet that he could make, knowing what made Mikado tick so well.

“I see… Wow, you’re really something, Masaomi,” he said with a grin and tried to use his free left hand to push Masaomi away.

Masaomi smacked his hand away with his own, which was fixed in place with tape and bandages. Once he had cleared it out of the way, he slammed a head-butt right into Mikado’s face.

“Hng!”

Mikado stumbled backward, and Masaomi seized the opportunity to knock him over onto the roof with his foot. He wrenched Mikado’s right wrist, causing him to drop the gun. Awkwardly, he used his shattered leg to kick the clattering pistol away; it rattled into the corner of the rooftop area.

The next moment, Masaomi straddled Mikado and promptly punched him in the face. He used his right fist, with the broken fingers taped up and secured, not caring that it was already damaged.

The physical agony of it far surpassed his painkillers, and he could feel the sensation of bone pieces sliding and shifting. But he hit Mikado again, and again, and again.

“You idiot, Mikado! You idiot! You idiot!” Tears bloomed in his eyes, and with his other hand, he lifted Mikado by the collar. “Create a place for us to come back to? Why would you go and sabotage your chances of ever coming back, then?!”

“…”

“I know I ran away for a while. But Anri was always still here!” Masaomi shouted. “I don’t care if you forgot all about me, the guy who left you behind to fend for yourself! But you shouldn’t be putting Anri through this kind of pain…”

Mikado’s face was bruised and puffy all over from the beating. Blood dripped from his broken lips—but still he smiled.

“The Dollars…aren’t going to stop now…just because I do.” It was a smile not of joy but of resignation. “And that’s why the Dollars have to vanish.”

He reached with his free left hand and stuck it into his pocket.

“Hey, what are you—?” Masaomi yelped, thinking it would be a knife or something of that nature. The instant he looked in that direction, a sharp, heavy shock ran through his leg—and shortly after, he was hit by a wave of heat and pain unlike anything he’d felt before.

Aozaki’s office

“What the hell are you thinking, Akabayashi?”

“Something sneaky.” Akabayashi, who was leaning against the wall near the door, grinned.

Aozaki glared at him as he sat down heavily in one of the chairs in the reception room. “Sneaky?”

“Yeah. About how I’m gonna carve up the Dollars.”

“…Tsk.” Aozaki clicked his tongue, realizing that the info was already out.

“See, I had my eyes on the Dollars, too. Did you happen to hand anything over to young Mikado?”

“…I’ll explain things to the boss. I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.”

“Don’t be cold, Aozaki. It’s my jurisdiction handling the youngsters like the Dollars, right? So if I let this nonsense continue, it’s going to reflect poorly on what I do.”

“I never took you for the type to care about that.”

It sounded like low-key banter, but Aozaki’s subordinates in the room with them got a case of cold sweats from all the aural pressure that exuded from the two men. These were the Red Ogre and Blue Ogre of Awakusu, the two most ferocious of the group’s lieutenants. And they were not having a friendly little chat.

“Now, now, Aozaki. I didn’t come here to spar with you,” Akabayashi said with a smirk, scraping the cane that he used as a weapon along the floor. “Would you mind allowing me to handle the Dollars?”

“…What is this nonsense?”

“Let me guess what you’re thinking. You want to make Mikado Ryuugamine disappear, and you’ll sit some other kid with ties to our family in his place. They’re a weird group; it’s not even clear who calls the shots to begin with. So if you get control of the Blue Squares, the most powerful faction within the Dollars, we can use them as we like.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Aozaki insisted smoothly.

“Look, I’m not accusing you of meddling in my business,” Akabayashi continued. “My job is simply to monitor the young folks. It’s not to control them. As long as they don’t peddle drugs or sell to minors, I’m not going to complain. I’m just askin’ you to let me handle this—the one time.”

“Is this someone you want to protect?”

“…Now that’s something I don’t need to tell you.”

“…”

Aozaki thought it over, then shook his head. “No. Just with the business in mind, I can overlook one kid…but this kid tried to shame the boss. And nobody does that without retaliation. If you wanna beg for that kid’s life, go talk to the old man.”

Akabayashi sighed. If he pled his case to the head of their yakuza group, he might get Mikado’s life spared. But only if the boss and the other officers hadn’t learned the name Mikado Ryuugamine.

The kid was too closely tied to Anri. They didn’t seem to be romantically linked yet, but given that the name Saika was used in the chat room, it meant that Anri Sonohara could turn out to be a significant force in this situation.

He didn’t want to consider the possibility that Anri might become hostile to the Awakusu-kai as a consequence of searching for Mikado or trying to help him. But he said nothing of that here.

“You’re an old-fashioned type, you know that?” he said to Aozaki. “Shiki and Kazamoto are going to laugh at you.”

“Let them. I’m too set in my ways to live any other life.”

“Same goes for me.”

“Says the fool who’s gone soft. At any rate, the kid shot at the boss’s house. That means…”

At this point, one of Aozaki’s subordinates popped his head into the meeting room and approached. “May I have a moment, Mr. Aozaki?”

“What is it?”

The man approached and whispered into his ear, looking deadly serious. Aozaki’s brow furrowed. He thought over what he had just heard, then snorted.

“Looks like the both of us were worried for no reason.”

“?”

“Let’s say that I passed a gun on to the head of the Dollars,” Aozaki said coyly. “But from what my ‘friend’ within the police says…”

“…the gun that shot up the old man’s house and the police station was a smaller caliber than the ones I use.”

The rooftop of a mixed-use building

“Wha…? Gaaaaah!”

At first, Masaomi thought that he’d been stabbed in the thigh with a knife or an awl. But then he sensed something wrong with his ears and realized the truth.

When the shock ran through his leg, he’d also heard a gunshot that was notably quieter than the one he’d heard earlier. He looked down and saw a small hole in the thigh of his pants, which was turning red with blood. Within that hole, heat was spreading and raging through his thigh with a mind of its own.

“Aagh…hngg…”

The smell of blood—and more powerful, of fresh gunpowder—assaulted Masaomi’s nostrils. He could feel heavy sweat exuding all over his body as he tried to press down on the spot that was bleeding. Mikado chose that moment to twist loose, causing Masaomi to lose his balance and topple sideways.

“Mika…do…,” he groaned, looking up at the standing boy.

Through the haze of smoke, he saw a strange object clutched in Mikado’s right hand. At first glance, it looked something like brass knuckles.

“A terrorist in America used this once years ago. But…I can’t remember what it was called…”

A small but eerily shaped device was fit snugly into the palm of Mikado’s hand. In the sense that it fit within a hand and fired bullets, you could literally classify it as a handgun.

“It’s called an HFM. A hand…something or other,” Mikado said. His right eye was so swollen already that he could barely see through it.

“When I said I fired two shots, I was talking about this one,” he continued, smiling. “I wanted to test it out on the way here.”

And clutching that second gun—something Masaomi could never have predicted—he smiled down sadly at his friend, speaking as casually as if merely making small talk.

“I mean, there was no advice online for how to aim it.”

Outside of Russia Sushi

Shijima flinched when he heard the distant gunshot.

It was actually much quieter than the one just before it, but Shijima wasn’t able to tell the difference. He was in too much shock to use his mind that rationally.

That crazy Ryuugamine kid… Is he actually shooting it…?

Nasujima had given him orders to hand Mikado a gun. Technically, a “gun-like” object.

“I borrowed it from Kujiragi’s storage space,” he had said.

“I’m good at ‘borrowing’ things from the office.”

“It’s one of the concealed-type guns that you can fit in your hand. And this one’s an augmented model of one that an American terrorist once used. You can fire it normally with both hands, or you can just squeeze it in one and punch the target, which will fire the bullet.”

It was a firearm out of some spy movie. That alone didn’t exactly shock Shijima, who knew that there were all kinds of “hidden” guns people had invented—inside of lemons, cigarette boxes, cell phones, and so on.

But when he delivered it to Mikado and said, “I bought this for self-defense, but I’m too scared to keep it around, so I want you to hold on to it. Take it as a sign of trust,” he wasn’t expecting the boy to accept it with a smile.

It was clear from his mannerisms that he wasn’t misunderstanding, thinking it was a toy. That was the point at which Shijima recognized that Mikado Ryuugamine was a special kind of person.

Geez, man. If he actually shoots someone, then the Dollars really are in deep shit.

Nasujima said he had a few red-eyes among the police and could have them arrest someone at random to fan the flames of the Dollars’ reign of terror, but it wasn’t clear that he really had everything under control.

“Mr. Nasujima, I think Ryuugamine fired the…,” he started to say as he turned in Nasujima’s direction, but he stopped mid-sentence. Nasujima was trembling, staring down Sixtieth Floor Street, his face pale.

“…Mr. Nasujima?”

But he ignored Shijima and stuck a thumbnail into his mouth to bite as sweat beaded on his forehead and cheeks. “N-n-no, no… N-no, th-that c-can’t be… I…I th-thought h-he was in p-p-pri-pri-prison!” he stammered, the jittering extending even to his lips.

In the direction he was looking was a man with dyed blond hair. When Shijima heard the crashing earlier and saw the motorcycle skittering along the ground, he first thought some idiot of a biker had merely flipped his ride.

But now Nasujima understood.

He saw that the Grim Reaper himself had come bearing his downfall.

“Th-there’s no time! Hurry! Break down the door to the sushi shop or the windows! G-go and take control of the dread-head with glasses right now!” he roared, all his calm and confidence completely shot.

And so the Saika Army surrounding the restaurant converged on Russia Sushi all at once.

Intersection near Tokyu Hands

Izaya stood silently in the middle of the intersection after leaving Tokyu Hands, on the left-side crosswalk, where Sixtieth Floor Street and Russia Sushi’s street met. From there, Shizuo approached him, step by step.

“S-so that’s Shizuo Heiwajima…”

“Holy crap, he wasn’t an urban legend?”

“Did he just throw that motorcycle…?”

“Look, he’s dragging a vending machine behind him…”

The punks who had been so ready to pound Chikage were now hushed and awed by the threatening sight that was Shizuo.

“D-do you think that if we beat him, we’ll be known as the toughest guys around?” one of them suggested. Carried away by enthusiasm, he brandished his metal bat and rushed at Shizuo.

But when he swung, there was a crumpling sound—and the bat itself broke and twisted against the side of Shizuo’s skull.

“Ah, ah, aaa, aieeeee!!” the thug screamed. He stared at the bat, which was as mangled as if it were just a cardboard tube, and pissed himself.

With a rustling of air, the bikers all unconsciously drew themselves back, creating a path through the mass of humanity. But Shizuo did not pay them a single glance. His course was set. His feet moved with one purpose.

And now he stood before Izaya Orihara.

Chikage wanted to say something to Shizuo but thought better of it when he saw the man’s eyes. It was clear that this was not the time to interfere except for the gravest of reasons.

While all this was happening, Izaya Orihara did not make a single attempt to escape. He twirled a knife in his fingers and soaked in the brunt of Shizuo’s burning hatred.

It was only a few seconds that the two of them stood facing each other.

But it felt many times longer than that to everyone else present.

Those who knew Shizuo and Izaya and those who didn’t held their breath equally.

The man in the black intended to challenge the monster in the bartender’s uniform.

How would Shizuo Heiwajima’s overwhelming strength be utilized? And what would happen to the man on the receiving end of it?

In the face of this coming bloodbath, neither the thugs, nor Chikage and the Blue Squares, nor even Aoba Kuronuma could keep in mind what they were doing before. They all waited, watching the scene before them unfold.

The pack of the Saika-possessed reacted largely in one of two ways.

The group with Nasujima as its mother was entranced by the appearance of the mighty Shizuo Heiwajima.

The group with Haruna as its mother quaked in fear of Shizuo, their Saika having been imprinted with the trauma of what he did on the Night of the Ripper.

So Nasujima, who was terrified of Shizuo, and Haruna, who was not, had Saika children with the exact opposite reactions—and the previously uniform actions of the Saika-possessed began to crumble spectacularly.

“…”

“…”

Izaya and Shizuo stood only six feet apart once Shizuo came to a stop.

A single step would put them within striking range.

Their eyes met.

The next moment, Shizuo swung the vending machine he was dragging vertically, like an iai quick-draw katana technique.

A sound of unfathomable destruction blanketed Ikebukuro.

Togusa’s van

Moments before all this—less than a minute before Shizuo and Izaya’s clash, in fact—Anri felt her body seize up at the sound of the man laughing in front of the van.

“What…did he…just say?”

Why would the name Mikado Ryuugamine come up in this context?

Was this man working with Nasujima?

Questions swirled within her mind—when a new, sharp sound pierced the broken windshield, snapping her back to attention.

It’s that sound again! Though it seemed a bit different this time…

This sound, combined with the new presence of Mikado’s name in her mind, made Anri suddenly feel very unsettled. She pushed it all down and mustered her silent resolve.

She would control these men with Saika and have them explain as much as possible.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash in her eyes.

“I’ll admit, I don’t know what Ryuugamine’s up to at the moment, but…hmm…?”

A few seconds before the light flashed, Izumii spotted something. A skinny man on the sidewalk, taking something out of his backpack.

“…Is that…Yumasaki?!” He couldn’t understand why the man wouldn’t be inside of the van, and he pointed at him for his followers’ benefit. “Hey, go get… Huh?”

Then he noticed that it was a fire extinguisher Yumasaki was pulling out of the backpack.

Fire extinguisher?

Smoke screen? Put out.

Yumasaki? No.

Fire.

Tiny thoughts, individual flashback images burst through Izumii’s mind, leading him to one answer.

“Yumasakiii! You son of a bitch…”

Yumasaki pointed the end of the extinguisher toward Togusa’s van.

And then…

“Here we go! It’s my ultimate attack! Innocentius, king of the witch-hunters!”

With that cry, Yumasaki’s fire extinguisher shot a maelstrom of flames from its tip. It was his own homemade flamethrower using the shell of an extinguisher. The flame lit everything in a red glow, covering a shocking range from sidewalk to van.

“Aaaaah!!” “Wh-what the—?!”

The thugs with their picks and metal pipes never saw it coming. They fled in panic from the van’s vicinity. Yumasaki didn’t specifically single any of them out for immolation, but he did spit fire bit by bit to push them back, clearing the space from one side of the van.

“Y…Yuma…saki… You bastard!” shrieked Izumii, who suffered from fire-related trauma. He hid behind a nearby car, still clutching his hammer.

“Now! Hurry! Get out of the van!” urged Yumasaki, and Kadota and the rest all poured out of the left side of the vehicle. Togusa was the slowest of them, being in the driver’s seat, but they all managed to get out soon enough.

“You…! Kadota! Don’t you run away from me!” Izumii hissed from behind the other car, cowering from the spray of Yumasaki’s flamethrower.

The drivers of the other cars nearby all fled from their vehicles when they saw the flames, which only increased the clamor and chaos of the situation.

Kadota came gingerly to a standing position and said to the others behind him, “Leave this to us guys. You girls run for safety.”

He, Karisawa, Togusa, and Yumasaki blocked the path of the thugs, creating a lane for escape.

“B-but…!”

“Just do it and leave this to the adults.” Togusa grinned.

“Aw, man!” Yumasaki cheered. “I always wanted to say that! ‘Go on ahead and leave this to me!’”

“Ha-ha-ha, that’s a death omen,” Karisawa said with a smile, despite the crowd of enemies surrounding them.

Anri still wasn’t sure what to do, so Kadota continued, “This is a squabble between people who haven’t grown up yet and need to get on with it. There’s no reason for you girls to get infected by this idiocy, too.”

He turned to Seiji, who was standing protectively in front of Mika, and said, “Take your girlfriend and get out of here. Make sure she stays safe.”

Seiji considered staying here to fight alongside them, but then he glanced over his shoulder at Mika—and Namie, who was glaring at her.

I’m guessing there’s no point in asking my sister to watch over her for me.

If he just told them to escape on their own, Namie was bound to attack Mika once they were alone again. Reluctantly, he came to the realization that the best choice for Mika’s safety was to escape with her.

“…I will. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank us. I told you, we’re just a bunch of idiots having a fight on our own.”

Kadota turned and punched one of the oncoming thugs. It was a far more powerful punch than it had any right to be, coming from a guy who ought to be in a hospital bed. The other thugs shrank back.

He used that brief interval to yell to Saki, “Kida’s surprisingly weak on the mental end…so make sure you help soothe him when you see him again.”

“…I will!” Saki replied and squeezed Anri’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“…But…”

Anri was hesitant. If she used Saika’s power, she could easily defeat all these people and possess them with the blade’s curse. But Kadota saw through what she was thinking.

“They’re not worth the burden on your conscience.”

“…!”

“Just get going! Do whatever you need to do to protect Mikado!”

“Kadota…”

Anri bit her lip and bowed fiercely. Then she turned and raced for the sidewalk with Saki.

“Hey! Wait, you bitches!” growled one of the thugs. He made to chase after them but got in only a step or two before Togusa dropped him with a roundhouse kick.

“Gahk…”

“You asshole, you didn’t think you could mess up my car and get away with it, did you…?”

That kicked off a majestic round of chaos.

Fights broke out here and there in Ikebukuro.

It was like fireworks going off in a chain reaction.

They burst into motion, burning and flaming, only to go out with a whimper.

All the while unaware that a dark shadow was encroaching upon them.

The rooftop of a mixed-use building

“Mikado…”

Masaomi writhed on the ground in pain. He looked up at Mikado, who smiled down at him and said, “It’s all right, Masaomi. If you tie it off and call an ambulance, I think you’ll pull through.”

Then, while still staring directly at his friend, he began his monologue.

“…Ah yes. I shot him.”

“…?”

“I did it. I was able to shoot…Kida…”

“Mikado…?”

Masaomi kept his eye on Mikado as he fought pain all over his body—and he noticed that his friend seemed to be trembling.

“I wondered how far I would go in embracing the extraordinary. Even I didn’t know what the answer would be. How far would I go, what would I have to do, to make myself stop?”

Mikado walked slowly over to the corner of the rooftop, where he picked up his first gun.

“But…even after you hit me, I didn’t stop. In fact…I went ahead and shot you.”

The faint smile he often wore was gone now, replaced only by deep sadness.

“If I can shoot you, then I’m sure I could shoot my mom and dad.”

“Uh…Mikado?” Masaomi gasped, crawling along the floor, though it wasn’t clear whether Mikado was even hearing the words.

He stared off into nothingness and continued, “I’m sure I could shoot Kadota and Yumasaki and Karisawa, too. And Kishitani, and Izaya, and Shizuo, and Harima, and Yagiri, and Aoba, and Takiguchi, and Miyoshi, and…!”

As he went down the list of close, familiar names, Mikado’s voice grew more and more strained. It sounded as though he was blaming himself. But then it abruptly softened.

“Oh yeah. It’s true, Masaomi… I’m certain that in the quest for my own selfish wants…”

He paused for a moment before continuing even slower and more deliberately.

“…I would even shoot Sonohara.”

Through what faint light there was on the rooftop, Masaomi saw that Mikado was crying.

Then Mikado raised the original gun, the full-sized pistol, to his own temple.

“W-wait, Mikado! What are you doing?!” Masaomi cried with alarm, forgetting even his own pain. “You gotta be kidding! This is the least funny joke you’ve told all day!” he screamed.

But Mikado only said, “I think…I shouldn’t be around anymore. I’m only going to attempt worse things…and make life worse for more people.”

Tears dripped from his eyes as he put on his old smile. “So I think that I should vanish along with the Dollars.”

The sight of him smiling and crying made Masaomi furious. “Don’t you dare think about dying to get out of this! Look, if you die, that’s not your own free will! You’re being manipulated! By that asshole Izaya! I’m gonna get revenge on him! I’ll kill him, even if it takes all my life!”

“…”

“So…so stop this, Mikado… Don’t waste your life for such a horrible reason…,” Masaomi pleaded, tearing his lungs out, slamming his bandaged hand against the ground. The agony was horrible, but he never took his eyes off Mikado.

“…”

“…”

Silence surrounded the two for a moment.

Mikado briefly closed his eyes, then said sadly, his face joyful, “Thank you, Masaomi… I’m sorry.”

“Mika…do…?”

“Even at a time like this, I have to admit…I’m feeling a bit excited by it all… Wondering what will happen when I’m dead. Maybe I’ll get to visit a world I’ve never seen before.”

He kept the gun pressed against the side of his head, smiling to put Masaomi at ease.

“Celty exists, the Headless Rider…so maybe there is a world after death. In fact…maybe I’ll end up being like the Headless Rider after this,” he muttered to himself before looking at Masaomi again. “And the fact that I’m thinking about this stuff…makes me crazy.”

“No…stop! Don’t say that! You’re normal! What’s crazy is how we all did this to you!” Masaomi argued desperately, summoning all the strength he could in an attempt to stop Mikado.

He felt as if he might be able to get to his feet—but Mikado sensed it, too, and so he said, “Masaomi…I’m sorry.”

He placed his finger on the trigger and pulled it without hesitation.

The third gunshot of the night went off.

Mikado Ryuugamine’s world was enveloped in total shadow.

Intersection near Tokyu Hands

It was a battle to the death that defied the imagination.

Shizuo Heiwajima and Izaya Orihara.

There was an overwhelming imbalance between their respective physical capabilities. Izaya had been treated as an equal combatant up to this point largely because he focused on escape and evasion and attacked Shizuo in the resulting openings.

Sometimes he got Shizuo hit by a truck; sometimes he dropped him into a hole; sometimes he lured him into the midst of an Awakusu-kai battle. When Izaya used his knife to attack directly, it was usually as a preemptive measure, a kind of how-do-you-do to get Shizuo into a furious mood.

That was the only thing it would be good for, because the best he could do was get the blade about a third of an inch under his skin. Then again, a normal human being would never even bother to fight Shizuo, much less try to stab him with a knife.

At this time, Izaya had given up on his usual style of fighting.

He had chosen to use his knife as a serious weapon against this monstrous dinosaur of a man.

When the first vending machine blow came down, Izaya leaped not backward or sideways but forward. That actually put him inside, closer than the machine’s attack range. But it meant that he was now close enough for Shizuo’s arms to reach him, and a single misstep could easily get his neck broken.

Sure enough, when he passed inside of the vending machine’s trajectory, Shizuo’s other hand reached for him. Izaya dodged it by a hair and swung consecutive knife attacks.

With each piercing of Shizuo’s body, Izaya felt the physical sensation of trying to stab the tires of some ultra-heavy-duty construction vehicle. He could puncture the outermost, weakest layer of skin, but no matter how much force he used, there was nothing getting past the layer of muscle. In fact, if he stabbed too deep, he might not be able to pull the blade back out.

Fly like a butterfly; sting like a bee.

It was a nice sentiment to emulate, but in reality, he was neither butterfly nor bee—more like a gnat trying to challenge a human being. A single good blow would easily destroy him, but Izaya still fought and fought.

Every single attack Shizuo made was deadly. But Izaya evaded them all by the skin of his teeth and countered with little nicks and cuts on Shizuo’s body several times for each punch.

It seemed as though his plan was that even if he got Shizuo to shed only a single drop of blood each time, Izaya would eventually drain him dry.

Without planning on it, Chikage found himself in the position of observer of this duel. Upon witnessing Izaya’s reckless-in-the-extreme combat style, he muttered, “Is he…trying to get killed?”

“If he wins, great. If he loses and dies, he probably also considers that a victory,” Aoba said.

Chikage looked over his shoulder at the boy, frowning. “What? What do you mean, dying is winning?”

“Why don’t you beat a man to death in the midst of an enormous crowd? You’ll get arrested for murder. That’s how Shizuo Heiwajima gets recognized by the world at large as a true monster. He’s not a violent hero with an abnormal amount of power. He’ll just be known as a bloodthirsty, unthinking beast,” Aoba said with a sigh. He gazed at Izaya with mockery and pity.

“Izaya Orihara… That guy in black there hates the very notion that Shizuo Heiwajima can be treated as human. That’s why he wants to trap him, to lower him to the level of a monster. So that no matter how much he might want to be human, humanity will reject him.”

“How do you know that?” asked Chikage, so enraptured by the bizarre duel that he spoke to his enemy as though having an ordinary chat. Aoba gave Izaya a spiteful look.

“Because there are parts of him that resemble me. So I have a hunch.”

Outside of Russia Sushi

“There you go! You’re almost through!”

Despite his hand-clapping enthusiasm, Nasujima’s face was still pale with fear.

For one thing, Shizuo Heiwajima was raging within visual range. Nasujima was beside himself with terror at the thought of that power being used on him.

On the other hand, if he was fighting over there, that meant that Nasujima could do more over here without worrying about attracting attention. So despite his fear, he chose bold action.

As long as he could gain control over the man inside the sushi place named Tom Tanaka, he could use him as a hostage and possibly even as a stepping-stone to taking over Shizuo himself.

The rest was just a battle against time.

But Nasujima was unaware that the door to Russia Sushi that he had his Saika-possessed tearing down at the moment was something like the entry to Pandora’s box.

After many body blows, the front door to Russia Sushi finally broke.

“Good! Get in there and take control of everyone inside!” he said, a greedy smirk on his lips, as he approached the doorway himself.

In the next moment, the shine of that smile was completely overshadowed by literal light from the sushi restaurant’s interior.

A few seconds before that, when the Saika-possessed made to pile through the open doorway, they heard something spilling onto the floor.

Before anyone could identify them as flashbang stun grenades, they were overwhelmed by light and sound, momentarily robbing them of vision, hearing, and the ability to think.

Suddenly, one of the low tables from the private booth areas of the restaurant was rushing upon them like a giant shield—and pushed the confused dolls clear out of the building like a bulldozer.

“Gaaaah!! Wh-what was that?! What happened?!” Nasujima yelped in a panic, hands over his eyes, as a number of canisters hit the ground around him.

He was blinded, his ears full of roaring echoes.

All around him, light and sound assaulted the shadowy portion of Ikebukuro.

Outside of Tokyu Hands

There was a flash in the corner of his vision.

And the momentary loss of concentration had tragic consequences for Izaya Orihara.

When he recognized it as the effect of a stun grenade, Izaya’s knowledge and experience taught him to instinctually be on guard.

The problem was, he was already dealing with something far more dangerous than a stun grenade and deadlier than potshots from a gun.

It took less than a second to refocus his every nerve on the superhuman creature before him—but even that was a fatal lapse in concentration.

Shizuo’s next blow, which he should have barely dodged, nicked him on the shoulder. And though it was just the slightest of glancing blows, it sent a tremendous shock through Izaya’s body.

“Gah…”

It was what you might feel if an express train passing through the station clipped you on the shoulder. The astonishing transfer of energy to Izaya’s body sent him spinning. By the time he had recovered his balance, Shizuo’s fist was careening toward him again.

“…!”

The timing made it impossible for him to evade it entirely. He crossed his arms to block the blow and jumped backward in hopes of deadening some of its force.

But this was not the kind of punch that commonsense actions could nullify. You don’t put your hands up to block an oncoming cannonball or jump backward with the impact, expecting the result to be any different.

The instant Shizuo’s fist met Izaya’s arms, everyone in the vicinity clearly heard the sound of those arms breaking.

Shizuo swung through, bringing his fist downward and throwing Izaya against the ground, which he bounced off several feet in the air, as though he’d been struck by a car. If it had been an uppercut instead, Izaya might have flown to the height of one of the surrounding high-rise buildings—or so it seemed to the witnesses, such was the power of Shizuo’s blow.

Izaya’s resistance was not entirely in vain, however. If he hadn’t given up his arms to the punch, it might have broken his sternum and obliterated his heart beneath it.

For the cost of his arms, Izaya Orihara stayed alive, leaving him capable of standing before Shizuo. But to everyone watching, it as if looked only he’d given himself a few more seconds to live.

I’m still alive.

Izaya’s arms weren’t just broken, they were also dislocated and dangling from his shoulder joints, but he was conscious.

He stood on the strength of his legs alone, but the shock of being struck against the ground left him hardly able to breathe.

It was a stronger blow to his system than when he’d been struck by the metal beam and knocked into the building across the street. Blood spilled from his mouth as he stared at Shizuo.

His opponent’s body was trickling blood all over as well, and the overall damage seemed more than trivial. He approached, covered in red stains, step after purposeful step.

So if I’d just fought him like this from the start…I might have actually had a chance to win? The irony is rich, Izaya thought woozily as he observed his bloodied opponent.

At this point, the endorphins had kicked in, so that he barely even registered the pain in his arms and everywhere else.

Despite his frustration, Izaya smiled. He simply smiled.

More important than his own coming death was knowing that by sacrificing his own life, he would succeed at expelling Shizuo Heiwajima from human society, making him a monster.

The fact that he could prevent a future in which a monster wearing human skin strolled around society as if he were one of them was all the victory that Izaya could hope for.

This was all Izaya thought about as he stood—for standing was the only thing he could do.

Shizuo picked up the vending machine lying nearby and took another step toward Izaya.

“…Do it, monster,” Izaya said with the last bit of breath from his lungs.

A shock ran through his body before he could even tell whether Shizuo heard him say it.

But the impact was not from Shizuo. He was still holding the machine. If anything, seeing what just happened to Izaya made him stop.

“Huh…?”

Izaya finally realized that something else had happened to his body. Something was sticking into his side.

At the same moment that he recognized the silver flash of a blade, he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye.

There, standing inside the ring of bikers and punks watching the fight, was the figure of Vorona, holding the handle of a knife without its blade.

With cold eyes, she tossed aside the handle and brought her now free right hand up to support what she held in her left. When the crowd recognized the gun, they began to murmur uneasily.

The muzzle was pointed directly at Izaya. The people around her and behind Izaya screamed and darted to the sides to get out of its path.

“Vorona…?”

When Shizuo slowly turned to look at her, there was a troubled light in his eyes, mixed in with his battle fury. She glanced at him, then at Izaya, who was now on his knees.

“Sir Shizuo is human,” she said to Shizuo. She did not know what Izaya was thinking, but through sheer coincidence, she ended up contradicting his opinions. “Necessity to become a beast is nonexistent.”

Vorona pointed her gun at Izaya.

She was going to shoot him in the head and heart and eliminate him from the world forever.

When he understood the situation, Shizuo’s eyes calmed, becoming clearer with reason—and he shouted at his coworker, “Stop, you idiot! Why would you let yourself be a murderer?!”

She smiled when she heard his voice, but she did not take her eyes off Izaya.

“I request your relief.

“I have always been a beast who loves killing.”

Outside of Russia Sushi

“Hey…isn’t that Shizuo?!”

Tom emerged from the restaurant, making his way through the crowd of Saika-possessed who were alternately slumped to the ground holding their eyes or just plain unconscious.

The plan had been to toss stun grenades in the hope of blazing a path to escape the building, but once they were outside, it was hard to believe what they saw. As they scanned the area for the direction of least resistance, they noticed an odd clump in the crowd with a vending machine on the ground between them.

Which meant that the person in the bartender’s vest beside it had to be Shizuo.

“Oh, I see Izaya, too,” said Simon, whose sharp eyes were scanning the intersection. Then the crowd abruptly scattered left and right. With the sudden increase in visibility, Simon made out the figure of Vorona pointing a gun at Izaya.

“!”

His next action was lightning fast. Without a word, Simon pulled the pin from the stun grenade in his other hand. He waited a beat to time it, then hurled it with all the force he could muster toward the intersection.

“Hey!”

The grenade quickly reached the open square on the fly.

Intersection, Tokyu Hands side

No…the end can’t be this ridiculous.

The sight of Vorona’s gun pointed at him filled Izaya with powerful disappointment.

But he smiled, half-resigned, and gave Vorona a direct look.

Fine, I forgive you. I love humanity.

“…You are human. Just a human like any other.”

Vorona paused, puzzled by what Izaya had said—but unlike when she pointed the gun at Shizuo, she did not feel any hesitation about pulling the trigger. She was going to end Izaya before Shizuo could get to her and stop her.

But then something entered her vision that she didn’t expect to see at all.

Before she could recognize it as the kind of stun grenade that her father’s company dealt with, that she loved using—the object burst in midair barely above the ground, blinding the vicinity with light.

Outside of Russia Sushi

After Tom and Simon rushed off in the direction of Tokyu Hands, Nasujima was left behind, his mind a toxic mix of fury, humiliation, and fear of Shizuo, whose approach he could not sense with his eyes blinded.

“Dammit…cut them! Just go and possess every last one of them, even the bikers! No more holding back! Possess every last person in this city!”

“Yes, Mother,” replied Haruna, the first to respond. Because of her distance from the stun grenade, her sight was already recovering.

The crowd of Nasujima’s and Haruna’s Saika-possessed victims, who had previously been merely watching the events happen, now converged on the Dollars.

Major chaos began to erupt around the area in front of Tokyu Hands.

First, a flash went off in front of the biker gangs watching Shizuo and Izaya’s duel from a distance; then a group of people with red eyes rushed up on them. The bikers, plunged into the kind of terror only witnessed in zombie movies, fought back wildly with metal pipes and whatever else they had on hand.

This quickly went beyond the level of a simple skirmish. It was clearly going to end in major bloodshed, possibly death.

But then a miracle happened.

Though perhaps it was too visually ominous to be labeled a miracle.

A “shadow” began to descend from the sky like rain, touching and tangling up the motorcycle gangs and Saika dolls alike and freezing them in place.

Instantly, the entire crowd was nearly under the sway of this black substance—and all those people heard “her” voice in their ears.

“I understand the situation.”

It was as though the shadow itself was transmitting words, a woman’s voice hitting the eardrums of the entire crowd at once—and simultaneously reaching directly into their minds. Few of them had ever heard this eerie voice before.

She continued, “Before I leave this city, I will eliminate all the trouble stemming from my body.”

It spoke clearly and briefly but with a power that resonated inside the minds of all who heard it.

“It is what little atonement I can provide for the confusion my body has wrought upon this place.”

The rooftop of a mixed-use building

All space that could be perceived was covered in shadow. It had poured down from the sky above the building, instantly coating Mikado and Masaomi.

This happened at nearly exactly the same moment as the gunshot—so it wasn’t surprising that Mikado initially thought he was dead.

Ah. There isn’t even any pain…

But it’s so dark.

I wonder…if it’ll always be this dark, forever…

Eventually, after a number of minutes, as his mind settled in, Mikado noticed tears springing from his eyes again.

Sorry. I’m so sorry, Sonohara, Masaomi…

But no sooner had the thought come to his mind than a strange voice sounded in both his ears and his mind.

“I understand the situation. Before I leave this city, I will eliminate all the trouble stemming from my body.”

Then Mikado understood.

He could still feel the sensation of the gun against the palm of his hand.

Am I…still…alive…? he wondered, but without responding to this question, the voice entered his mind again.

“It is what little atonement I can provide for the confusion my body has wrought upon this place.”

My…body? Mikado repeated to himself. It was an odd phrase in this case, and it put the image of someone he knew into his mind. Is that…Celty?

At that moment, the shadow enshrouding him softened, gave way—and the sights and sounds of Ikebukuro returned to Mikado’s world.

“Mikado…? Mikado! Hey!”

He was looking at Masaomi, who was still in the place he’d left him earlier.

“Masaomi…?” he mumbled.

His friend heaved a deep sigh of relief. “I’m so glad…you’re alive… You’re alive, Mikado!”

“Ah…”

He looked to his right hand and saw the gun there. But the very next moment, a swarm of tiny shadows pried his fingers apart, wrenching loose both the pistol and the HFM in his other hand.

Something hard tumbled from the shadow that was right next to Mikado’s head. When they saw the twisted lump of metal roll onto the ground, both boys instinctually understood what it was.

The instant he had pulled the trigger, the shadow had slipped between his temple and the muzzle of the gun, stopping the bullet before it could reach Mikado’s head.

It was a feat no human being could have achieved—which was obvious, given that it was a shadow that had done it. But Mikado knew who was responsible. And before he could say that name out loud…

She descended from the sky.

Straddling a headless horse instead of a motorcycle.

Wearing pitch-black armor instead of a riding suit.

And holding a head at her side, under an arm.

QRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

When he saw her descending to the roof down a path made of shadow, her headless horse whinnying somehow, Masaomi forgot about the pain in his leg and simply stared in wonder.

“What…is this?” Then he looked at the head she was holding and shouted, “H-hey…that head! Isn’t that…Mika Harima from your class, Mikado?!”

“No…it’s not, Masaomi. It looks like her, but it’s not her.”

Stunned, Mikado addressed the woman who descended near the edge of the rooftop: Celty Sturluson.

“Is that you…Celty?”

“…”

The eyes of the head under her arm turned to Mikado. Without emotion, her mouth opened. The words that emerged, unlike the ones earlier, were not addressed to every person touched by the tendrils of shadow. They were audible only to the young men on the rooftop with her.

“Human boy. You are…Mikado Ryuugamine.”

“Huh?”

It was as though she’d never met him before. Mikado was confused.

Celty used her shadow to draw the guns closer to her. Within moments, the shadow essentially dissolved them.

“I do not know what my body said to you, but my existence is not a reason for you to desire what comes beyond death.”

The separated weapon parts scattered across the rooftop.

“It would seem that the presence of my body in this city registered the strongest effect upon you.”

“Effect…?”

“So, human boy, I choose to make a parting statement individually to you,” Celty said, her shadow writhing around her. “After I recovered my consciousness, I spread my shadow through the sky over this city so that I could collect information. I could not have guessed that I’d spent the last twenty years wandering about this distant, foreign land.”

“Celty, what do you mean…?” Mikado asked, baffled.

Just then, the sound of fresh footsteps came from the emergency stairs.

“Ryuugamine…and Kida?!”

“Masaomi!”

Both of the boys turned toward the new voices.

“…Sonohara?!”

“Saki?! Why…why are you here…?”

And they weren’t the only ones. Seiji Yagiri and Mika Harima were coming up behind them.

The group had been trotting down the sidewalk, as Kadota had instructed, but weren’t sure where they should be heading. Should they leave Saki and the other noncombatants somewhere safe, then head to Russia Sushi, where Nasujima was located?

It was at this time that they heard a third gunshot overhead.

“?!”

And after that, the scream of a boy’s familiar voice.

“Mikado!”

At the sound of Masaomi’s voice, they looked up and around—until they spotted the shadow looking especially thick over one building rooftop. They rushed toward the building’s exterior emergency stairs, fighting against their own unease.

And when she reached the roof, Anri was finally there. She saw Mikado, the person she wanted to see most, and felt relief flood through her. In fact, she threatened to burst into tears.

But the situation she saw there prevented her from having the moving reunion she wanted.

“Masaomi…?”

He was crawling along the surface of the roof, while behind him stood a headless horse.

Sitting on the horse was a knight, carrying a head under its arm with the same face as Mika Harima, who was just behind Anri at the moment.

“Is that…Celty?”

Outside of Tokyu Hands

When Shizuo’s vision recovered from the blinding flash, he saw a bizarre new sight around him:

A crowd of red-eyed people and bikers were tied up, their limbs tangled in black shadows. For some reason, however, he was unfettered and free. After a brief glance around, he saw that there was no Izaya Orihara present, just a bloodstain on the ground.

“…”

That briefly rekindled the rage that Vorona’s interference had stilled, but the thought of her put her at the forefront of his mind. The place where she’d been standing a moment ago was now occupied by Tom, Simon, and Denis—caring for an unconscious Vorona.

“Vorona!” he shouted, rushing to her side, ignoring the blood dripping from all over his body.

“Shizuo… Hey, man, you all right?!” Tom asked.

Shizuo nodded. “I’m fine. But Vorona…,” he prompted.

Simon and Denis offered their reassurances. “Oh, she only knocked out. When she wake up, I give her hot cup of tea.”

“She’s hurt here and there, but nothing life-threatening. That stun grenade hit her when she was already exhausted. Apparently, it was too much for her to handle at once.”

“Why…why would she do this…?” Shizuo wondered, recalling what she’d been doing before the grenade went off.

“Well, I only saw a bit of it,” said Denis, “but I’d say she didn’t want you to have a murder on your conscience.”

“…Oh.”

This put many different thoughts into Shizuo’s head. If he had killed Izaya, perhaps she would have thought that he had become a murderer to avenge her.

…I’m…still weak…

I’m sorry, Vorona.

Shizuo breathed in deep and exhaled slowly, and this time, he pushed his smoldering hatred of Izaya deep down into his gut.

But if I happen across him loitering around, I can’t guarantee I won’t kill him out of sheer momentum, he thought to himself, giving the scene another examination. He found his eye drawn to one sight in particular.

“…What’s that?”

He was looking not at Izaya—but at an old friend in a white lab coat, walking down the middle of the street with the aid of a crutch.

The rooftop of a mixed-use building

“I found her…my beloved.”

“…”

Mika Harima met Seiji Yagiri’s mumbled statement with silence. She glared at the head under the dark knight’s arm. Masaomi looked at her and back, wincing with both pain and confusion.

“H-huh…? That is the same face, isn’t it…?”

“Masaomi! Forget that—we’ve got to stop your bleeding!” Saki cried, rushing over to examine him. The next moment, shadows writhed around Masaomi’s leg, covering up the bullet wound and stopping the bleeding.

“Aaagh!” he yelped, briefly jumping from the pain, but the next moment, the shadow wriggled in complex motions, then spat out the little bullet that had been wedged deep in his leg.

“?!”

“I do not condone that my body should have sparked a conflict that leads to the loss of life. I cannot erase the memories of those who know me, but I will at least minimize the victims before I leave,” said the figure, her words simple and economical.

“This isn’t your fault, Celty… It’s all my fault!”

“Human boy. Let me ask you: If you had not met the Headless Rider, would you still be here in this place, shooting your friend with a gun?”

“…!”

Mikado had no way to refute this. He had set up the Dollars, and when they had come together for their first in-person meeting, it had materialized the extraordinary sight of the Headless Rider and brought him into her orbit.

If that hadn’t happened, then Mikado might still just be a normal high schooler right about now, and he might not have become estranged from Masaomi and Anri.

“By being in this town, my existence caused Yagiri Pharmaceuticals to go astray, Seiji Yagiri to drown in a meaningless love, and Mika Harima to give up the face she was born with.”

“Meaningless love…? What does she mean?” Seiji asked. He was gazing at the living head, his face the very picture of bliss.

Celty did not reply to him. She continued her speech.

“These are only a few examples. Many people here have found their lives manipulated and twisted out of shape by the illusion of the Headless Rider.”

“Celty…? What are you saying?” Anri wondered, worried.

The dullahan’s head looked at her and said without any discernible emotion, “I will be direct, girl of the cursed blade. I have no memory of living around you people. I am simply telling the truth as I have reconstructed it from the information I’ve collected.”

“What…?”

“It is clear that my presence has caused the gears of this city to go out of alignment. That much should be obvious, just from looking at this day’s chaos alone.”

“No…it’s not! You’re wrong! It’s not your fault, Celty!” Anri shouted. “There are people whose lives were improved and saved because they met you! People like me…”

“Girl of the cursed blade, salvation is but another kind of misalignment.”

“Huh…?”

“I am nothing but a system. Following a greater will, I exist within a limited area, warning chosen individuals of their death. There is no need for you humans to know the meaning behind this, and knowing it would not bring you any understanding.”

She sat astride the horse, imperiously observing the shocked crowd of young people.

“I regret that you have wasted your time being manipulated by a system that was not meant to exist in this place. It is an outcome that leaves no one happy.”

Then she produced a path into the sky from the shadow at her feet and pulled on shadow-made reins to point the horse toward it.

“I will return to my homeland and my purpose. By offering my words of parting to Mikado Ryuugamine, the human whose fate was most disturbed by his proximity to me, I conclude my duties within this city. Forget about me, human.”

“Hey, wait…wait up!” Seiji called out, stumbling toward her, but the black shadow tangled around his foot and sent him tumbling to the ground.

“You did not fall in love with me, only an individual part of me. I have no obligation or desire to return that emotion,” Celty replied robotically, in the very systematic form she had described.

“I’m not giving up! If you’re going back home, then I’ll go to the other side of the world for you!” he yelled, still tangled up, a true stalker.

As she watched Mika rush over to him, Anri Sonohara silently issued her own disagreements.

That’s not true. Celty is lying.

The one who’s had the deepest connection to her…

The one whose life was the most changed by her…

She was just about to speak out loud, to utter the name of the man who would make Celty pause, when…

“Celty…you’re being a liar today.”

The man spoke for himself, standing behind her.

It was not a powerful voice. If anything, it was gentle.

But it carried across the rooftop, crystal clear—and caused the headless horse to pause its forward motion.

Celty did not reply to him. She swung the reins.

“…What is it, Shooter? Move.”

It was as though she couldn’t hear his voice.

Instead, the man behind Anri declared, “Let’s see. Did you perhaps mean, ‘Move it, Shooter. If you stop now, then the point of lying will be lost’? Or am I mistaken about that?”

“…”

The head under the dark knight’s arm swung around toward him. It caught sight of Shinra Kishitani dressed in his coat, looking notably clear-eyed and gazing right back at her.

“Human… Who are you?”

Anri was shocked.

It wasn’t only her. Mikado, who was aware of their relationship, looked as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

But Shinra himself just smiled gently and said, “All right. That one’s more like ‘Why are you here? Seeing you only makes the parting more difficult, so I thought that pretending not to have any memory of you would make you give up! And why are you talking under the assumption that I haven’t lost my memory anyway?!’”

He was speaking her mental state aloud, imagining her thoughts the way a stalker might his victim. The head did not show any emotional reaction, however.

“What? What is this human saying?”

“I don’t doubt that you have recovered your memory. But I also trust you that much. I believe that you still have your memories of this city.”

“What nonsense is this? I have no memory of the last twenty years.”

“Either way, I don’t care. It was just a hope of mine. See, simply talking with you has cleared it up for me. I knew you were a kind and gentle soul, Celty. You’re too kind, in fact.”

Shinra was not uninjured. He had dulled the pain, but his condition demanded that he stay bedridden, just like Kadota. He rapped his crutches together, however, not giving away any signs of discomfort.

“Ah, let’s see. This one is more like ‘Stop it! I’m not meant to be here! My presence caused you to be terribly injured, and it completely ruined Mikado’s life!’”

“This is a waste of time. I do not understand what you are saying.”

“‘All I wanted to do was clear up the confusion in the city before I disappeared for good! I figured that if they found out I was a cold, cruel monster at heart, they would all want to forget about me! So if I act like I’ve lost my memory of them, they’ll all give up on me! And you’re the one I want to forget me the most, so why are you ruining this for me?!’ …Is that right?”

“Nonsense.” Celty snorted, head facing in his direction.

But Shinra just smiled at her. “Don’t be like that. Look at me, Celty.”

“…”

The head was already looking at Shinra, though. It was her body that had its back to him.

“Enough, human. Your ramblings are nonsense.”

“Whoa!”

She extended her shadow to spin around Shinra and tangle him up. With her back still facing him, she kicked lightly at Shooter’s flank.

“Go.”

Qrrrrrrrrrr, Shooter trilled, stamping his hooves on the spot without stepping forward. He seemed to be pushing her, urging her, but Celty ignored it.

“Go! Yah! Yah! Move, Shooter!”

But by this point, Mikado and the others understood: Shinra was probably correct.

“Celty…”

“Wait, Celty!”

Anri and Mikado called out to her. Shooter gave another mournful whinny, then began to walk up the path of shadow stretching into the sky. Celty said nothing more; she simply rode onward up into the darkened expanse.

As though she wanted to melt into the deep of the night and vanish entirely.

Mikado and the rest, left behind on the rooftop and unable to speak their minds aloud, felt a terrible sense of powerlessness. But then a new voice joined the scene.

“Hey…was that Celty who just flew off?”

They spun around to the source and found Shizuo there, lacerations bleeding all over his body.

“Shizuo…?!” they yelped in shock.

Afterward, a single man rose to his feet and greeted him. “Hi there, Shizuo. Good timing.”

It was Shinra, who had somehow freed himself from the bonds of Celty’s shadow.

“Yeah, well, I saw you going up this building… Then I spotted what looked like Celty and Shooter on the roof, so I climbed up here… What’s going on?” Shizuo wondered.

Shinra chuckled. “What’s going on? Well, I’m about to become a villain.”

“What?”

“Shizuo, do you remember the promise we made back in high school?”

“…?”

Whatever Shizuo was expecting, it was not a reference to his school days. But behind his smile, Shinra’s eyes were deadly serious, so Shizuo decided to hear him out.

“…Remind me.”

“That if I became a villain for the sake of the woman I loved…you would smash me to the other end of the sky for her.”

“…Oh yeah. I remember that.”

“Now’s the time,” Shinra said, staring up at where Celty was vanishing into the dark of the night. “I’m about to do something terrible to Celty. But she’s so kind and gentle, I’m sure that she’ll forgive me for it.”

“…”

“So…will you fulfill your side of the agreement and hurl me into the sky?” Shinra asked. It sounded like a joke, but Shizuo did not laugh it off.

“…Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“If you fall, you’re 100 percent guaranteed to die. At that angle, I won’t be able to catch your landing. Speaking of which, are you trying to make me a murderer?” he demanded, thinking of Vorona.

Shinra was quiet for a moment, then said, “Yeah, if it happens…then I’m sorry. But I trust Celty. You probably don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I can put it in these terms: Do you trust me for trusting Celty?”

“…”

Shizuo thought it over, then grinned without a word. He grabbed Shinra’s leg and hurled him with strength that far surpassed human limits.

“Don’t regret this, you villain!” he bellowed.

And though he was injured all over and not anywhere near his peak condition, it was the most powerful throw he’d made that night, including his duel with Izaya.

Sky

“…Don’t be so upset, Shooter,” Celty said to her mount now that they were alone in the air. “This was for the best. Now that all my memories are back, living here among the humans will only cause them more suffering…”

She climbed farther into the pitch-black sky that her own shadow had fashioned as she spoke to Shooter.

“Yes, it hurts. It hurts a lot, Shooter. I would rather never deal with human beings again if it meant not going through this feeling…,” she said mournfully, though her head still showed not a single hint of emotion on its features. “I just want Shinra to forget about me…but I don’t want to forget…Shin…ra…?”

She paused there.

In the sky of Ikebukuro, locked in abnormal darkness by a blanket of shadow, a blazing white light in stark contrast to the background shot right past her side.

And when she realized that it was Shinra, Celty’s mind went blank instead.

“Wha…?”

“Hi.”

“Wh-wha…wh-wh-wha…what are you doing?!”

As Shinra slowly arced and began to fall, Celty couldn’t help but stick her hands out. Dutifully reading her mind, Shooter charged forward on his shadowy path, racing faster to catch up to the falling man.

The head spilled out of her grasp, but that wasn’t a problem. Shadow tendrils extended from the severed head itself, attaching it to the sheer surface of her neck. If it wasn’t going to fall, she couldn’t lose it.

At this point, the soul of her head and body were completely reattached. Nothing—no saws or gunpowder—could separate her head now that it was attached by the soul that was her shadow.

All except for one cursed sword that was said to separate the soul from the body.

“…Celty,” Shinra murmured as he fell.

She lunged, reaching out for him. “Grab on!”

At this point, there was no use keeping up her act. She was in her natural, true element now.

“Sorry,” Shinra stated.

“What?”

He continued to plummet, with Celty chasing after him.

And then she saw: They were not bloodshot.

Shinra’s eyes were actually glowing with red light, as Anri’s had done.

And a sharp blade extended from the palm of his right hand.

“Oh, n…”

Silver flashed briefly in the night sky.

And Saika quickly, powerfully severed the shadow connecting Celty’s body and head.

More than ten minutes earlier

“Oh, right…Miss Kujiragi.”

“?”

She stopped in the act of leaving and turned back to Shinra.

“If I wanted to rent out your Saika…how much would that cost me?”

Celty writhed and jerked in midair after the separation of her head and neck.

An abnormal volume of shadow spurted forth from the space where each side had been cut, and it spread through the sky over Ikebukuro with abnormal speed.

Qrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……………

Her body continued spasming a little bit, but Shooter’s fierce cry brought her back to her senses.

This was not the time to be asleep. As her thoughts spurred back into motion, the effects of the mental link being abruptly severed caused memories to flash back through her mind in rapid succession.

Aaah… Aaaaaaaaahhhh!

I…I…I…!

Countless memories, stretching back over decades and centuries, flooding through her, filling her mind.

She descended along with Shooter in her confusion—and as she did, flickers of a white shape began to appear in the rapid shuffle of images.

Despite the chaos, Celty reached out for the pale thing. As if to say that it was the most precious thing of all to her.

The next moment, her blindly stretching hand caught something.

It was the arm of a man wearing a white coat.

Shin…ra. Shinra…

…Shinra!

Celty’s mind snapped back to consciousness again, and she sent out shadows in all directions. A cushion of darkness spread out below as they plummeted onto a corner of one of the Sunshine City buildings.

They bounced off the cushion and back into the air, and Celty still did not let go of Shinra’s arm. Without Shooter’s guidance, she might never have caught Shinra as he fell.

It was through a series of miracles that he avoided falling to his death. But Celty was not in the mind space to appreciate all this in the moment.

Shinra!

“Wake up, Shinra!”

Celty hopped off Shooter, pulled her PDA out of her armor—she’d been hanging on to it, just in case—and thrust it before Shinra’s dizzy eyes.

“Please! Wake up! Don’t die!” she typed and shook his shoulders.

He opened his eyes slowly. “No, Celty…you shouldn’t shake someone with an injury like this.”

“…Shinra!” She bopped him on the chest. “You dummy! You big dummy! You’re a big, dumb dummy!”

“Ouch, ouch… That hurts, Celty.”

“Why? Why would you do something so dangerous?! If something went wrong…you’d be dead… You would have died, Shinra!”

She thrust out the PDA for him to see, her body trembling.

“I refused to accept your determination,” he said with a smile. “I insulted the dullahan’s way of life…and the future you chose.”

The doctor traced a finger softly along the nape of Celty’s neck and grinned at her.

“So it doesn’t even out unless I risk my neck, does it?”

Celty typed into her PDA. Words she typed at the most important moments. Words she was more used to typing than any others.

“You really are an idiot.”

Outside of Tokyu Hands

“So…should I assume that the festival is over?” Chikage wondered.

Aoba smirked and replied, “I suppose it might be. Never would have counted on an ending like that.”

“…By the way, how come I’m not tied up, but you are?”

Chikage had full, free motion, while Aoba, like the rest of his gang and all the other biker groups, had shadows twirled around his limbs, keeping him bound to the ground.

“Dunno. Never would have counted on finishing up our fight like this.”

In fact, Celty made the decision based on Chikage’s constant proximity to Masaomi, but Chikage and Aoba didn’t know that, so they just assumed Chikage was lucky, and Aoba’s gang wasn’t.

“Finishing up, huh…? To be honest, if I’d had to fight those two big guys and all the other biker gangs, it’d probably be me on the ground right now.” Chikage approached Aoba and pulled the ski mask off him.

“…!”

Aoba glared up at him, humiliated.

“But I ain’t stupid enough to beat the crap out of some kid in this condition and claim I won,” Chikage went on. “I’ve seen your face now. I’ll remember it…I think. So the score between your gang and mine will have to wait until next time to be settled.”

Then he looked around at the red-eyed crowd stuck to the ground and put his hand to his chin.

“So…what’s up with these folks…? Their eyes are still red…”

Sidewalk

Mikado and Masaomi walked along on the sidewalk down on the ground, Mikado offering his shoulder to his friend for support.

They were worried about Shinra after he got hurled into the sky after Celty, but they’d managed to witness him making apparent contact with her. They chose to trust that she’d help save him and went on ahead to get Masaomi to a hospital.

Shizuo returned to the area around Tokyu Hands, claiming to be worried about his newer coworker, and Seiji and Mika ran off toward Sunshine City to “check out how Celty’s doing.”

So Mikado and Saki each offered a shoulder to Masaomi, and they began walking in the direction of Raira General Hospital.

For quite a long time, Mikado found himself unable to speak. Celty was the very cause of his slide into the extraordinary and abnormal, but after she told him their paths crossing was without meaning and that he shouldn’t die on account of her, he was left with no idea what to do next.

“Hey, Mikado,” said Masaomi.

“…”

Mikado flapped his lips without words.

“How are we going to explain the gunshot wound in my leg?”

“Huh…?”

“Think about it. If they identify it as a gunshot, that gets the police involved. What if we told them…that one of those bikers over there just happened to have a gun? Then they won’t know which group it was…,” Masaomi joked, despite the pain that was surely racking his entire body.

“…”

Mikado looked as if he was ready to cry.

“What’s this?” Masaomi continued. “Tears of joy that you got to see Anri? Better tell her you love her before I snatch her away.”

“Oh, Masaomi.” Saki snickered and gave him a light head-butt.

Seeing their teasing and the way Anri watched him with concern from a few steps away, Mikado looked down at the ground and muttered, “Maybe I just wanted someone to hate me. For someone to call me a villain and force me to stop…”

He felt the tears welling up and forcibly pushed his face into a smile. “It would have been nice if it were either Sonohara or Kida.”

“C’mon, call me Masaomi… I don’t want us going back to that awkward formal distance again. Not after everything that’s happened,” Masaomi said, dragging his foot while Mikado put on that forced, fake smile.

Anri felt relief flood through her at seeing them like this and managed a smile of her own, complete with tears.

“The three of us…are together again.”

“Well, four,” Saki pointed out with a grin. She closed her eyes. “Go ahead—I’ll be a statue over here. You three talk among yourselves.”

Anri smiled gratefully and took the lead ahead of the group. “We agreed that when we came together again, we’d talk about our secrets.”

“…We did.”

“What? You had a promise? Hang on—why am I the odd man out?” Masaomi protested. Mikado and Anri shared a look and laughed.

“Let’s see… Who should go first?”

“It’s gotta be Mikado, right?” Masaomi joked to hide the crippling pain. “I’d rather save Anri’s secret for dessert.”

Despite the agony of seeing his friend’s state, Mikado felt the pressure around his mind steadily easing.

The ticket to the abnormal that he’d gained on the night of the Dollars’ first meeting had turned into a one-way express pass after he’d stabbed Aoba Kuronuma through the palm during the Golden Week holidays.

It felt as though the things each of them had lost as the price for their actions were slowly coming back to their rightful place.

I get it now. Sonohara was right all that time ago.

Maybe a totally typical normal life that lasts forever is what’s really abnormal.

Mikado thought back on the past, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he looked at her. And then…

He noticed a man approaching her from behind.

“Huh…?”

A man with bloodshot red eyes and a small knife in his hand.

The man sported a fashionable, youthful haircut, but Mikado recognized his face.

Mr. Nasujima…? Why…?

As he watched, confused, Nasujima thrust the knife down toward Anri’s back, a cruel, sickening smile on his face.

Unconsciously, Mikado left Masaomi’s side and pushed Anri away.

Before either of them—Masaomi stumbling and Anri jolted to the side—could process what was happening, Mikado stood tall before Nasujima.

His blade dug into Mikado’s stomach.

“Aah…”

A feeble gasp was all he could manage. Heat and pain shot through him from the spot where he was stabbed.

“Shit! Got in my way!” Nasujima spat with a click of his tongue and thrust the knife into Mikado’s side a few more times.

There was a scream.

Was it Masaomi? Or possibly Anri?

He never found the answer.

Mikado Ryuugamine’s world was enveloped in shadow without light.

Chat room

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The chat room is currently empty.

Mai has entered the chat.

Mai: See you again later.

Mai has left the chat.

The chat room is currently empty.

The chat room is currently empty.

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