Durarara!! - Volume 2 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Ikebukuro’s Most Dangerous

I just wanted to know.

Not as a writer for a third-rate gossip-slinging tabloid, but purely out of personal curiosity.

Curiosity.

Funny to think that a man in his thirties still possessed that artifact of boyhood. Even the panic over the Headless Rider incident back in the spring didn’t inspire this kind of fervor in me. I figured that story was best left to the occult rags or the motorcycle gang specialists, not me. My paper handled that sort of stuff, too, of course, but we couldn’t match the experts at their game.

I just wrote up whatever happened here in this place called Tokyo and made it sound interesting. That’s all I wanted to write, and the readers seemed to be happy enough with it.

It was the keyword the editor in chief gave me as the theme for this in-depth Ikebukuro scoop that inspired this youthful energy in me.

Strongest.

That’s right…strongest.

Nothing more than that one word.

Taken literally, I had to assume he wanted to know who was the strongest in the city.

A stale, clichéd, but powerful word.

But as a matter of fact, maybe it was the fact that it was such a cliché that made it resonate with me. Just like love and freedom.

So who’s the strongest in Ikebukuro?

When I asked the citizens of Ikebukuro this question, I got a lot of answers.

“Oh, I know! It’s the guy on that black motorcycle!”

“Dunno…probably some local yakuza.”

“No way, it’s gotta be Simon.”

“Hmm… An amateur wouldn’t know about him, but there’s a guy named Izaya Orihara who left for Shinjuku…”

“Nope, the strongest now is whoever started the Dollars.”

“You seen the guys wearing these yellow bandannas, right?”

“Has to be an official. The cops, I mean. There’s this officer at the station on the corner named Kuzuhara. He’s unbelievable—whole family’s police. Even his three sons all say they want to be cops when they grow up.”

The most fascinating part was that essentially no one said they didn’t know.

All of the local citizens and self-proclaimed “well-informed” folks I asked this question, whether their answer was vague or specific, all had their own predecided mental image of who the “strongest” in Ikebukuro was.

That’s what made it so fascinating.

In that case, what would all of these people already identified by someone or other as the strongest in town think? I approached these folks as best I could manage in order to find out the answer.

Testimony of Mr. Shiki, Awakusu-kai lieutenant, Medei-gumi Syndicate

“The strongest in a fight… Hmm. You know it’s not really like that anymore, right? On the other hand, sure, you can’t let anyone disrespect you, so when it comes time to kill, we’ll still go at it until we win. If you come after us, we don’t care if you’re an amateur. We’ll bring the numbers, the knives, the guns, we’ll go after your family…anything to crush our opponent. But that hardly ever happens nowadays. Leaves a bad aftertaste for us, too.

“…So who’s the strongest? Well…like I said, in our line of work, it’s not really about who’s the toughest in a fight anymore. Huh? Including amateurs, you said?

“…

“…Hmm.

“Don’t put what I’m about to say in your article.

“I’m just saying, officially, we don’t mess with civilians. But like I just told you, all bets are off if they’re attacking us. But…I will say, there’s an amateur out there I wouldn’t want to mess with, personally.

“Yeah, if we get a bunch of men and weapons together, we’d win. But in a brawl, like one-on-one, I don’t know if I could beat this guy even if I had a machine gun.

“Huh? Simon? Oh, the sushi guy. He’s easy to get along with, so I can’t imagine fighting with him. I bet he would be real tough though. They say he can pick up a motorcycle like he’s lifting barbells. But I don’t see myself losing to him.

“Your guess isn’t far off though. It’s a guy who associates with Simon a lot…

“Shizuo Heiwajima.

“We tell the new kids, don’t mess with him.

“I mean, if you’ve seen Shizuo fight at all, you’d understand… He just exudes cool. It’s not elegant in the least. He’s a real wild man…like Godzilla… When you watch him fight, he looks cool the way that Godzilla looks cool to the kid watching it. I guess that sums it up. At any rate, he’s one crazy bastard.

“The thing about those cool guys is, you can’t really pick a fight with ’em. It’s a lot more fun to stand aside and watch ’em work from a distance. That way, they’re not in your business, either.

“Gotta admit, I’ve got some admiration for him. Wish I could tear things up the way he does…

“But I need you to keep that part close to your chest.

“…

“So, Mr. Reporter, I hear your daughter’s in high school. Raira Academy, was it?

“When you called about setting up this interview, we did some background checks on you.

“Now, now, no need to stare holes through me. We have our own source of information.

“Don’t worry, we’re not low enough that we’d threaten an amateur.

“But…only if you don’t pick a fight with us first.

“So please keep that information out of your article, pal.”

Ultimately, most of what I had on that tape was unusable.

He said that I could go with what was in the first half…but in any case, the stuff about Shizuo Heiwajima was off the table for me. I didn’t hear anything concrete about the guy, for one thing.

But if anyone else brought up his name, then I’d be onto something.

At this point, I decided to get in touch with the black man named Simon who people in town mentioned.

“Hey, you. Sushi, good for you.”

“Uh, er, actually, I was hoping to speak with you personally…”

“One for dinner, boss.”

I tried to decline his offer, but I eventually gave in to his force and found myself seated at the sushi counter.

The interior was made out to look like that of the Russian Winter Palace, with a traditional sushi counter slapped right in the middle. The seats there were fine, but the booth seating was tatami under marble walls, an extreme imbalance of design if I’d ever seen it. It was impossible to guess at the price of the sushi based on this, but there was a hanging curtain on the ceiling that promised “Hassle-Free Pricing! All Items Market Value!”

Despite the simplicity of that promise, it left me feeling more uncertain than ever.

It was already a low-expense project, and I had a feeling I’d need to pay for this one out of pocket.

True to expectations, the Russian who ran Russia Sushi recommended all of the most expensive items. I tried to maintain a pleasant face to keep him in a talking mood. I soon found out that the manager and Simon knew each other from the same city in Russia.

I didn’t know why a black man like Simon would have been in Russia, but it had nothing to do with my research, so I left that detail for another time.

After sampling a few sushi (it wasn’t bad at all), Simon had come back inside from his duties advertising to pedestrians outside, and I asked him about the man named Shizuo Heiwajima.

“Oh, Shizuo. My best pal.”

So they did know each other. After what the yakuza had said, I half assumed he would be a legendary figure, a tall tale I’d been fed, but this looked to be solid info.

I put aside the topic of Heiwajima and asked Simon about fighting in town, but I didn’t get far.

“Oh, fighting, very bad. Get very hungry, need food coupons. You eat sushi, good for you,” Simon told me and started ordering me fresh urchin and salmon roe sushi.

That was the last straw. Before long I’d have no choice but to run before the bill arrived.

As I checked the contents of my wallet, the Russian chef took note of what I was after and spoke to me in fluent Japanese.

“Sir…Simon’s a pacifist, so you won’t get anything worthwhile about fighting out of him.”

“N-no, I’m just asking who’s the strongest fighter around here…”

“You talking about Master Heiwajima? You just brought him up yourself.”

“Uh—”

It all snapped into place. The chef gave me an extra piece of info on the house.

“You won’t get anything out of Simon about Heiwajima. He’ll just tell you he’s a good guy. If you truly wanna know about the real Heiwajima…”

“Who told you about me?” the man demanded with expressionless eyes, rolling a shogi piece in his fingers. “If they even knew my address, it must be a pretty close client of mine…”

He was much younger than I expected. Very young to have a suite in a high-class apartment building in Shinjuku and unnaturally young to be such a well-connected information dealer. He didn’t look much older than twenty.

His name was Izaya Orihara. I heard about him from the chef at the sushi place, but his name also turned up several times during my first round of surveys on the street from the more knowledgeable types.

“My source is confidential,” I said, covering for the sushi chef. The slender young man put on an inscrutable smile, leaning back against the sofa.

There was a shogi board on the table between the two of us. Interestingly enough, there were three kings on the board.

“Claiming confidentiality to an information dealer… Fine, that’s your prerogative.”

I began to describe the course my research had taken me, leaving out the sushi place. But to my surprise, he had apparently been reading my articles.

“You write ‘Tokyo Disaster,’ don’t you? The column about odd events and the various groups active around Tokyo… If I recall correctly, the next issue will be having a big Ikebukuro special.”

“Oh, you read us? That should make this easy,” I said, somewhat relieved that things would proceed smoothly.

I was wrong.

“Is your high schooler well?”

“Wha…?”

“Wasn’t Mr. Shiki from the Awakusu-kai considerate?”

“…”

Then I understood everything.

The source of information the yakuza lieutenant had mentioned was none other than Izaya Orihara. And like a poor ignorant sap, I’d come right to the guy who sold them their information.

Anger, frustration, and a hint of fear.

The three emotions interlocked within me. I wasn’t sure what kind of expression to wear anymore. But the information agent across from me continued talking, completely unconcerned with my struggle.

“But…enough about that. The strongest in Ikebukuro, huh? Well, there are plenty of tough people around this neighborhood…but if I had to narrow it down to one… In a fistfight, it’s Simon. But if anything goes…that’s probably going to be Shizu.”

“Shizu…?”

“Shizuo Heiwajima. I don’t know what kind of job he has now. I don’t even want to know.”

There was that name again.

I never brought him up, but even Izaya Orihara was giving me the name Shizuo Heiwajima. And yet again, I still hadn’t the least idea what kind of person he was.

“Um…so who is this Shizuo guy?”

“I don’t even want to talk about him. I know him, and that’s enough. No one else should.”

“You can’t toss me a bone?”

“I try to find out more about him because he gives me so much trouble, but even that’s unpleasant enough…”

It didn’t seem like I was going to get anywhere with him, but after pushing a little bit more, Orihara put on a creepy smile.

“All right. I’m a busy guy, so I can tell you about someone who knows him well. If you want more, this is your source.”

Good grief. Once again, I might as well have learned nothing. The trip to Shinjuku, all for nothing. Perhaps I should have bugged him a bit longer, but he knew my address and about my daughter. No use making enemies with someone like that.

At this point, my only hope was placed in this acquaintance of the young man’s.

…I just had to hope it wasn’t going to end up being Simon again.

“Hello, I’m Celty the courier.”

…

No idea how to respond to this one.

The being in front of me was showing off a PDA with a message typed out on the screen.

When I showed up at the park at our meeting time, I was met by a very strange person wearing an all-black riding suit and an oddly shaped helmet.

The courier showed up on a motorcycle without a headlight, with everything from engine to driveshaft to tire rims in pitch-black. There was no way to see inside the helmet, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The moment I saw it, I thought it was a man, but the slender form told me that it might be a woman.

But this couldn’t be right…

I never counted on meeting the Black Rider urban legend in a place like this.

I was more curious about what I was seeing here than in the topic of Ikebukuro’s strongest. No, I didn’t believe in occult rumors of ghosts or spirits. And it was still the middle of the day. But from the moment I saw him (her?) I could tell that he was something different.

I’d assumed that whoever was riding the black bike had to be doing a street performance or making some kind of antisocial statement. But the person I was seeing here was far too natural and comfortable in this setting, as if to say that he was the one who truly belonged here in this world. And the name Celty—that wasn’t Japanese, was it? I had more questions than answers now, but I suppose that was what made it a “real urban legend.”

I knew more journalists and writers than I could count who would leap at the chance to talk with the mysterious rider. Was it right for me to make contact regarding something completely unrelated?

It only took moments for me to get over my doubt. Nothing good happened in this business if one got too curious.

“Umm…it’s nice to meet you. Mr. Orihara told me that you knew Shizuo,” I said for starters.

Celty hammered away at the PDA keyboard with frightful speed. For an instant, it looked like a shadowy digit was extending from those fingers and tapping along on the keys next to them—but that had to be my imagination. Don’t get curious. Focus on today’s job, me.

“Shizuo Heiwajima, right? Yes, he’s a very close friend. To me, at least.”

“I see.”

“He can be scary when he’s mad though.”

There we go. Now we’re talking—er, typing.

I tried to keep my excitement to a minimum, calmly getting to the point of my questioning. “Interesting… Well, as a matter of fact, I’m taking statements for an article where I’ll be figuring out who the number-one fighter in the neighborhood is.”

“Ahh, your magazine likes topics like that, doesn’t it? You did that motorcycle gang ranking, and the ones who got left off the list tossed Molotov cocktails at the company office, didn’t they?”

“Well, that wasn’t my article… But from what I’ve heard so far, some people claim you might be the strongest in town…”

For a moment, Celty went quiet, shoulders trembling. Based on the way the helmet was shaking, I judged this to be laughter.

“Me? No way! They’re just afraid of the way I look.”

After another moment, Celty typed away at the PDA with great confidence.

“Shizuo’s much stronger than me. I doubt there’s another person in this town who can beat him in a pure fight.”

“He’s that tough?”

“Oh yeah, real tough. He’s so dangerous, it’s almost moving. It’s not just a brawling or martial arts thing—it’s like he lives in a different world from the rest of us. If you told me he was a werewolf or a lizardman, I’d believe you. Oh, but I hope he’s not an alien. Those grays are traumatic to me.”

Celty’s typing was even faster than a spoken conversation. The text almost struck me as…excited? As though Celty was bragging about this friend, Shizuo Heiwajima.

“It’s not that he does some MMA thing or anything. It’s like, you know how even the toughest combatant will go down if they get shot? How to explain this…?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Celty increased the font size on the PDA.

“That’s it—his strength is like the power of a gun. Even comparing him to others makes no sense.”

After discussing a few other topics, I finally learned where Heiwajima worked. Once I was certain that my article research was done, my discipline finally cracked.

I got curious.

“Um…”

“What is it?”

“I don’t need this for a story, it’s more of a personal curiosity thing, but…do you mind if I ask what you are? Um…might I see under your helmet?”

It wasn’t so I could expose the rider’s identity or report it to the authorities. It was just simple curiosity, a desire to know the gender and age of the person I was talking with. I certainly didn’t think there would be no head underneath, like the silly paranormal shows suggested.

“Er, sorry, didn’t mean any offense. I’m just curious,” I stammered.

Celty began typing on the PDA without any hesitation. “Sure thing. If I take this helmet off, you’ll see exactly what I am. Plus, you still won’t be able to write an article about my true identity… You won’t even be able to tell anyone about it.”

“Huh?”

I was about to ask what that meant when the rider put a hand to the helmet…

I was sitting on the ground, completely paralyzed, as the shadow walked away.

Celty must be an illusionist, I thought. I figured that wasn’t actually true, but I was desperate to convince myself.

This was what happened when you let your personal interest get the best of you.

It’s why you can’t let your curiosity take control in this line of work…

Satisfied that I’d bought my own lie, I continued with my interviews.

Next was the color gang wearing yellow bandannas. They took the name Yellow Scarves and had been consolidating power within the city since last year. They appeared just at the moment that it seemed the color gang fad was going out of style, and now they wielded a quiet presence throughout Tokyo. They weren’t suffering any crackdowns, as they hadn’t shown any propensity for criminal activity or turf warfare, but the simple fact that they were a color gang was enough to intimidate plenty of folks.

Even the people inclined to scoff at the idea of color gangs still existing would be overwhelmed by the sight of several dozen clad in the same colors walking the streets—not that anyone who talked trash was dumb enough to pick an actual fight with them.

According to Mr. Shiki from the Awakusu-kai, the Yellow Scarves didn’t seem to have a working relationship with any of the criminal syndicates. They weren’t interfering with the business or causing trouble with the motorcycle gangs under the syndicate’s umbrella, so the Awakusu-kai had little reason to care about the group.

I made contact with one of them and succeeded in getting introduced to one of the group’s officers. What I heard from him, put simply, was the same thing I’d been getting all along.

“We’re not beefing with anyone. We just exist… A big group of friends getting along. Oh, but the Shogun gave us the name Yellow Scarves—we gotta call the boss ‘Shogun,’ that’s the rule. All the guys at the top love manga about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, see… Oh, sorry, got distracted. Anyway, I’m pretty sure we’re more than a match for the Dollars when it comes to numbers, but the Yellow Scarves’ Shogun always says there are two guys never to mess with. One of them is a guy you should never let talk you into anything, and that’s Izaya Orihara…”

I was a bit surprised to hear Orihara’s name, but I’d been doing this long enough to predict the other name he mentioned.

“The other one is this guy named Shizuo Heiwajima, who wears a bartender’s outfit and sunglasses. We’re not supposed to go near him… I’ve seen that guy in a fight once, and he was a freakin’ monster.”

Finally, I got a statement from someone in the mysterious Dollars organization.

“We’re not trying to pass ourselves off as big shots in Ikebukuro… And even if we wanted to, we don’t have a team color, so there’s no way to rep ourselves.”

The Dollars seemed to have zero interest in or connection to the “strongest” qualifier. Once I’d figured this out, I was ready to wrap it up early, except he dropped a bombshell right at the very end.

“Oh, but there is one thing we can brag about! The Dollars have this guy named Shizuo who’s a real monster! And Simon, and Izaya, and even the Black Rider are in the Dollars! I’m serious! Isn’t that nuts?!”

No way.

I was going to laugh it off, but—Simon, Izaya, Black Rider, Shizuo. I already knew for a fact that these four were connected personally, so I couldn’t just shrug it away, but I didn’t feel like presenting it as fact, either. I ended the interview early.

Through the magazine’s connections, I was also able to speak with someone connected to the police.

It wasn’t an actual officer, which made me wonder how exactly they were connected. When I asked about this, the only answer I received was that the nature of the connection was confidential. Probably just someone involved with stocking equipment for them, I guessed.

“The kids in Ikebukuro these days are all up to no good, between the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves… It’s all trouble, if you ask me. On top of that, you’ve got this serial slasher and the Black Rider. Well, at least it’s still better than when Izaya was in Ikebukuro… Sorry, just talking to myself. At any rate, you gotta keep an eye out for the yakuza and foreign mafia while handling the weirdos and the kids. It’s hard to be an active officer on the force these days.”

I wanted to get back to the topic of my article, not that I wasn’t interested in what this so-called police-related figure had to say.

“What’s that? The biggest problem child out there? Excluding the slasher? Hmm…well, in terms of crime, that’s Izaya Orihara, not even close. But the biggest pain in the ass would have to be Shizuo Heiwajima, I’d say.”

The man started describing Orihara, but when informed that I’d already met him, he launched straight into Shizuo’s exploits instead.

“Once there was a time when the cops were closing in on Izaya Orihara…and they got Shizuo’s name as an accomplice. Shameful as it is to say, the guy in charge of that case got fooled on that one. It was a frame job. Anyway, they were bringing him in as a minor, and he ended up proving the charges were false, but he got locked up anyway for obstruction of justice and property damage in the process.”

“Property damage?”

“I actually thought it sounded far-fetched, but I’ll tell ya… As he kept resisting arrest, what do you suppose he destroyed?”

“I don’t know… A bicycle? Windshield on a patrol car?”

“A vending machine.”

???

That one baffled me. Didn’t your average middle school delinquent trash a vending machine with a baseball bat? All these stories built the guy up to be a monster, but it sounded like your run-of-the-mill street vandalism.

But what he said next had me at a complete loss for words.

“He threw it.”

“Huh?”

“He threw the vending machine—at a cop car!”

Interesting.

Very, very interesting.

When I asked people around town who the strongest person in Ikebukuro was, I got a whole variety of answers. But when I asked the same question to the various “strong” people mentioned, they all spoke of the same man.

Shizuo Heiwajima.

If everything they said was true, I’d never heard of a guy who lived up to his name less. There was no hint of the “peace” and “tranquillity” from the kanji characters in his name.

But how was it possible that the random people I met who claimed to be in the know didn’t actually hear about these Shizuo rumors? I began to wonder about that and turned back to contact some of the first people I asked.

Every single one of these well-connected people, when asked about Shizuo, had the same answer.

“I didn’t want to get involved with him.”

Simple as that.

And now I was attempting to meet with that very monster.

I could tell that my inner boy was knock-kneed with excitement at seeing this guy in the flesh. But the adult me was trembling with nothing but fear.

It was a strange sensation that filled me as I stood before the small building. It was the kind of place that had a vibrant, constant flow of tenants in and out. There was no sign outside.

“You the dude who wants to see Shizuo?”

A man came out of the building. His tanned skin and dreadlocked hair suited him well, and his face made him look like a host in a nightclub. He wore typical street fashion clothes, which made it hard to gauge what he did for a living.

“He’s upstairs, so he’ll come down if you want…but don’t you dare piss him off.”

“Okay…”

Despite his obviously Japanese heritage, the man introduced himself as Tom Tanaka. I found out that he was Shizuo’s supervisor at his current job, where they went around collecting fees from members of a dating/hookup website.

I didn’t bother asking if the site was legal or not. Usually my interest would run straight to that topic, but Shizuo Heiwajima was a far more pressing matter at this point.

Now I wasn’t just exuding curiosity, I was gushing it.

“Seriously, don’t piss him off. It’s a huge pain in the ass,” Tom repeated.

I’d heard about Heiwajima’s dangerous nature from many different people at this point. But the more times the same thing got repeated, the more I felt like I was being treated like an idiot.

“Here’s my advice: Don’t talk. Ask what you want to ask, then shut up and look like an idiot while Shizuo talks. Wrap it up with a simple ‘thank you very much,’ and even Shizuo shouldn’t be too angry with you.”

What was that supposed to mean? If I didn’t talk, I couldn’t ask what I needed to ask. It was the role of an interviewer to take the subject’s statements and expose their contradictions. Also, I wasn’t stupid enough to tick off a person I’d never spoken with before. When Izaya Orihara got angry, that was because of his antagonism toward Shizuo Heiwajima. It wasn’t my fault.

But I chose to be patient and not raise any of these issues to Tom. Speaking of which, he looked like a pretty decent fighter himself. I definitely didn’t want to cause any trouble here…

Tom disappeared back into the building as I mulled it over.

It was showtime.

The man I was about to meet was the toughest fighter in Ikebukuro. That was the only title he had to his name. There was no public record for this, and he wasn’t making any money off of it.

In modern Japan, there was nothing to gain from a full-grown man boasting about his fighting skills. If he really felt confident in his ability, he could go into professional fighting—if his skills matched his boasts, he could find money and fame that way. But Shizuo Heiwajima was just a collector for a pay website. In society’s view, it was hardly a position that anyone cared about or lauded.

But the curious boy inside of me had been up late with excitement for three straight nights. I could tell that my instincts had my heart hammering away in my chest.

The real question: Was it excitement or fear?

“Um.”

It would all be clear once I met him.

“Hi…I’m Heiwajima.”

Hmm?

I was so busy trying to calm my own excitement that I completely failed to realize that someone was already standing in front of me.

The young man wore luxury-brand sunglasses on his slender, gentle-looking face. And as I stood there dumbfounded, he had introduced himself as Heiwajima—

Hmm?

Heiwajima?

“Shizuo…Heiwajima?” I asked, confused. He nodded flatly.

Uh…

For an instant, I was unable to believe the situation.

That’s him?

That’s the…strongest man in Ikebukuro? The most fearful man in town?

Shameful as it is to admit, I had built up my own mental image of the monster named Shizuo Heiwajima. His body was covered in steel muscles as thick and huge as tires, with the icy expression of a movie assassin, not to mention scars. On top of that, a full-body tattoo of a dragon…

About the only part of my image that matched was the height. The sunglasses that hid his gentle eyes didn’t match the man’s atmosphere at all. They looked like a sad attempt to add cool character to his look.

I was prepared for something a bit different than I imagined, but this was such a huge shift that it suddenly cast all of the stories I’d heard into doubt.

This was not the kind of man that yakuza would avoid, and he certainly couldn’t pick up and throw a vending machine.

I knew that appearances could be deceiving, but there had to be a limit to that cliché.

Had I been set up? Did that yakuza Shiki or someone else get the sushi place and the information agent and the police connection all to match their stories and fool me…?

No. The color gangsters I had chosen at random. They couldn’t possibly have coordinated to arrange that somehow.

So was this a different man with the exact same name?

No, this office was the very place the Black Rider told me.

So what was different, then?

What was it…? Where did I go wrong?

Is this guy just hiding his true nature at the moment?

…No, that wasn’t it. I’d seen a lot of people in my life, and I could tell right away when someone was lying or hiding his true ability from me. But the man here seemed to be gentle and well-behaved to his core. He wasn’t lying or on guard around me in the least.

What did it mean?

What was this all about?

Was it some kind of martial arts? Did he have really good special attacks?

What if that slender build disguised the fact that he was actually an aikido master… Nahh.

A person might be able to throw another using the target’s own strength, but that wouldn’t be enough to throw a vending machine.

This was a troubling development. If I wrote up an article proclaiming this fellow as the strongest man in Ikebukuro and anyone saw him in real life, I would look like a flat-out liar.

At this point, there was only one choice left to me: I had to assume that he possessed some hidden power that he was sealing away from me at the moment. It seemed too silly to be true, but I couldn’t possibly get into the mind-set of the interview unless I told myself that.

Hey, maybe I should find some way to work that hidden power out of him.

Half-desperate now, I held my external agitation in check to speak to the man. At first I’d been planning to move over to a café for the interview, but I no longer had the patience or consideration.

“Well…there are two or three things I’d like to ask you, Shizuo…”

“’Kay,” he grunted.

Was he really that tough at fighting? I felt I could probably take him myself. I’d put myself in danger a number of times on assignment. I’d investigated shady bars, been threatened by street thugs, and even been surrounded by foreign mobsters.

I’d made my way around some dangerous fights, even if it hadn’t been through actual fighting prowess. I had courage to spare.

“I’ve heard lots of stories about you, Shizuo… Are you often involved in fights and confrontations?”

“Um…no?”

He had a look on his face that said, Why would you even ask that?

“Really?”

“Actually, I detest violence.”

Oh, brother, are you kidding me? The guy’s a dud.

My inner boy went right to sleep. The human instincts within me no longer felt any kind of fear or expectation toward the man.

I was ready to wrap this interview up, so I finished as quickly as I could.

“What do you think of the town these days?”

“Not much… It’s a nice place.”

“I hear you know the famous Headless Rider.”

“Celty? Yeah, Celty’s great.”

Fine…so he was the man the Black Rider mentioned after all. But the problem was that the rider had stated that this was the strongest man in Ikebukuro…

Just as I was about to ask about that, the man spun around on his heel and started walking back into the building.

“H-huh? Where are you…?”

“…That’s it, right?”

“Huh?”

“You said you had ‘two or three questions,’ didn’t you? Well, I answered three, and I have nothing more to say.”

…Are you kidding me? What is he talking about?

Did he take that literally? Must be a by-the-book type of guy.

At any rate, I needed more than this.

I decided my best chance at drawing out the conversation was to challenge him a little.

“Okay, just one more. They say you fought with the police and threw a vending machine…but that’s not true, is it?”

“…”

“Izaya just tricked you into—”

Flew.

Flew?

…What flew?

At first, I couldn’t tell what flew.

Shizuo Heiwajima turned around and flew with terrific force.

Where? Above? In front?

No. Below.

Everything in my field of vision was happening in slow motion.

Oh, wait. It wasn’t just Shizuo Heiwajima that went flying.

So was the building he came out of, and the asphalt base, and all the air surrounding it—

I get it.

I understood at once—I just didn’t want to admit it.

I was the one flying.

He sent not just my body, but my wits flying as well.

A shock ran through my back, telling me that I’d fallen back onto the ground.

“…! Uh—! Aghk…gah…”

I gurgled weakly as both intense pain and numbness fought over my body. My brain scrambled to process what had happened.

The moment Shizuo Heiwajima turned back, I felt a tremendous impact on my throat, and the next instant I was in the air.

It was like being on a launcher-style roller coaster that shot me backward. The only thing I felt in that brief instant was…what I assumed was Shizuo Heiwajima’s arm muscle.

But—was that truly muscle?

It was more like the tire of a dump truck, shrunk down to a small enough size that it could catch me around the neck. A thick, strong bundle of fibers, still smooth and supple. Upon calm recollection, that seemed like an apt description. But the moment that it hit me, I was unprepared to analyze the sensation—the only thing that filled me was instantaneous terror.

My head’s going to be torn off.

That was actually what I felt. At that very moment, I felt sure my head would tear off—the same way you might feel that having the Grim Reaper’s scythe pressed to your neck means your head would be cut off. It was due to the powerful shock and the centrifugal force of being pushed backward.

A lariat.

He hit me with one of the most basic pro wrestling moves in the book.

Some people watching it on TV might think that the lariat does less damage than a good punch or a German suplex. Some might even claim that anyone suffering heavy damage from a lariat had to be throwing the match.

But that would be a mistake. I once accompanied a writer from the sports page on his beat and got to try out being hit by a wrestling move. I chose the lariat, hoping for the least painful move possible.

The wrestler couldn’t have been using even half of his full strength. But I fell hard onto the ring and passed out. It was less the damage of the fall than the powerful impact of that arm.

That prior experience was possibly the only reason I could even identify that it was a lariat I’d just suffered.

But there was one thing I couldn’t quite buy yet. How did the skinny man I was seeing have the strength to lariat me straight up into the air? A man who clearly didn’t have half the body mass of a pro wrestler!

I got my nearly convulsing lungs under control and took focus on the approaching shadow.

Damn, eyes foggy. My vision was unclear.

The shadow of Shizuo Heiwajima stood over me, speaking softly.

“The reason I was turning around to leave…”

His voice was indeed quiet—and chilling. Some people had voices of ice. The man named Izaya that I met a day before had one of those. But the chilling edge to Shizuo Heiwajima’s voice was something else entirely.

If Izaya had the kind of chill that froze his listener, this one was enough to cause frostbite. No, frostbite was too gentle to describe it. It was like liquid nitrogen boiling, a bubbling something enveloped in pure chill.

“…was because you were asking stupid questions, and I was about to snap.”

The voice was the same one that belonged to the man just moments ago. But the temperature of the voice was completely different. Before now, they’d been just words—there was no inflection to them in any way…

“See, I was leaving to make sure that I didn’t end up killing you.”

Now there was strength in his words.

It wasn’t like he was speaking words of power. There was no real meaning to what he said. But was it possible to strike fear in another person just with a tone of voice? Even that fact alone terrified me.

Finally, my vision was recovering from the shock of the blow.

My eyes found the man standing in front of me. It was undoubtedly the same man I had been standing with just moments before.

It was the same man…

…but…strange…why did his sunglasses seem to suit him now?

Those odd, out-of-place shades were now a perfectly natural feature of his face.

The shape and bridge of his nose hadn’t changed; neither had his hair. He wasn’t wearing a particularly different expression. The only thing that seemed to have changed from moments ago was the slight smile playing on his lips. But that smile itself had no effect on the look of the glasses.

It was the air.

The air around him seemed to have changed. There was no other wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-way-wa-wa-way-wa-wa-wa-wa-way-way-way-way-way-way-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-way-way-way-way-wa-wa-way-way-wa-way-wa-way-way-way-way-way-way-way-way—

“Who said you could go to sleep?”

He grabbed my collar, and for an instant I couldn’t breathe. When he lifted me off of the ground, all I could feel was his incredible, monstrous strength.

I was scared.

At this point, I was jealous of scared the disappointed scared me from scared a minute ago. If the scared man scared here scared was scared truly scared that scared weak, scared scared scared how lucky scared scared I scared scared scared would scared scared scared be scared scaredscaredscaredscaredscaredhelpscaredscaredhelpscaredscaredhelpscaredhelphelphelphelphelpohshitshitshithelpshitshithelpscaredI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry—

Every part of my body screamed in terror.

“Were you actually trying to piss me off? Huh? I’m not an idiot, you know. I can tell that much. But just because I understand it doesn’t mean I won’t get pissed off…”

There was no time for my boyish curiosity to open his eyes or my instincts to scream.

“So I give in to the provocation and get mad, I lose? Fine, I lose then. That’s all right. Because I don’t stand to suffer for losing this one, do I? Besides, you won, and your reward is that I kill you…”

That was the moment.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

The scream sounded.

Not from me.

I was unable to speak, paralyzed with fear.

The howl that echoed off the alleyway was from Shizuo Heiwajima himself.

The liquid nitrogen suddenly transformed into boiling oil, spitting all of the rage stored inside his body outward.

“Raaaah! I told you, I hate violence! Didn’t I?! And now you forced me to get violent! Who do you think you are? God? You think you’re God?! Huh?!”

That’s not fair, I started to think, before I was flying again.

It was not a proper judo throw. That would involve some element of technique. There was none here.

He just picked me up and threw me forward, the same way one would throw a baseball.

I’d never done it, of course, but I could imagine a strong person being able to throw a toddler this way. But I weighed many, many times more than that—possibly more than Shizuo Heiwajima himself, in fact.

So how was I flying virtually horizontal?

If this were an American cartoon, I’d crash into the wall of the building across the way and leave a human-shaped hole behind. It certainly felt like there was enough force for that, but in reality, after just a few yards of flight, I crashed to the ground and rolled across the asphalt.

Is he going to kill me? I wondered, my mind suddenly calm now that the fear had been eradicated by the force of his throw.

I didn’t want to die.

But he was going to kill me.

Once that logical calculation was finished, the fear began creeping back into my heart.

But at that moment, a voice of salvation came down from above.

“Hey, Shizuo.”

I recognized that voice. It belonged to Tom Tanaka, the man who showed me here.

“…What is it, Tom?”

“Remember that cup of instant ramen you opened? It’s been three minutes.”

“…Seriously?”

And just like that, Shizuo Heiwajima was shockingly uninterested in me. He reentered the building as if nothing had just happened.

So he never meant to speak to me for more than three minutes to begin with.

But that didn’t matter now.

All I wanted to do was savor the joy of being alive.

A little while later, Tanaka emerged from the building and came over to where I was lying.

“Well, there you go. Warned you not to piss him off, didn’t I? Lucky for you, while his boiling point is low, he’s also quick to cool off. I hope you learned your lesson and aren’t stupid enough to go to the cops about this.”

Though it didn’t make perfect sense, I decided to nod my understanding. Satisfied, Tom turned back and went into the building.

All alone now, I rolled over to face the sky, limbs outstretched. It wasn’t that I wanted to savor the sensation of stretching out in the middle of the street—I was just in too much pain to stand yet.

Even as I gave thanks for my safety, I was stunned to realize just how powerful that instantaneous fear had been.

When I was surrounded by the foreign mafia, the fear was more of a creeping sensation, the feeling of my body rotting from the inside out. Yet I’d managed to avoid my death by shooting or stabbing in that case.

But what I’d just experienced was instantaneous fear. An explosion of fear—the feeling one must feel when stabbed out of nowhere by a man passing in the street.

In fact, a knife wasn’t adequate to describe this. A katana…yes, the victims of the katana slasher running wild in Ikebukuro right now might have felt this same fear.

And now that the fear had passed…

…I remembered why I wanted to be a journalist.

I wanted control, to monopolize.

I wanted to gain the best, most shocking information on my own and tell the world about it myself. By doing so, that “truth” became mine.

It was the search of that pleasure that drove me to become a journalist, but after getting married and raising a daughter, my bubbling passion had cooled off.

And now it was back.

It had all come back just now.

Brought back by the fear I’d just tasted.

Incredible.

It’s incredible.

How stupid I must have been to doubt this.

But it was that very stupidity that led me here.

Here to my article!

The boy screaming about curiosity in my heart was dead. He had just died.

And now, the adult me was screaming it for him.

“Write!

“Seize it!

“Seize all of the truth, even if you have to fabricate it!

“Turn the fear that man put in you into your own strength!

“That’s right, I’m coming out ahead.

“I found this through the experience of fear and pain!”

No matter how much I screamed them out, my heart kept overflowing with new words.

I want to tell the world about that fear.

I want to write an article about Shizuo Heiwajima.

With my hands, my own hands!

I want Shizuo Heiwajima and everything abnormal about him to belong to me, without exception.

That’s right.

I’ll get over this.

I’ll get over my fear, research everything about him, and announce his exalted strength to the entire world. That’s my duty as a journalist. In fact, when you consider what had to happen for me to come across him, you could say that it’s my fate.

I don’t care if all the rumors swirling around him are lies.

The instant of terror that I felt is an eternal truth! I don’t even care if you tell me he’s not the strongest. My article will make him the strongest!

That’s right! I’ve got better things to do than lie on the ground here.

I stood up at once and took a step forward to conquer my moment of fear—no, to make that fear my own weapon.

That’s right. I’m a journalist.

I’ll uncover everything about him—starting with his tastes, his personal ties…and how he can wield such incredible strength in such a thin body! Everything: past, present, and future!

If I can write this article, my life will get back on track. I’ll patch things up with my daughter. I can rekindle the old flame with my wife. It’ll be just like it was before…

I clenched my fist with absolute determination, ready to write the greatest article ever about Shizuo Heiwajima. Clenched it hard, so hard…

That night—chat room

«Did you hear? Today’s slasher victim was the guy who wrote the “Tokyo Disaster” articles for Tokyo Warrior.»

 Oh, a magazine writer? 

[…Uh, is that true?]

«When have I ever lied to you?»

[Is he all right?]

«Well, apparently he’s in a coma, critical condition! For some reason, he had bruises all over his body in addition to the slash wound. But the cut’s already scabbing over, so they’re saying that he probably got it earlier in the day!»

[Is that so…?]

 ? Do you know him? 

[Er, no… But I’m a fan of those articles.]

 Oh. Maybe I should start reading them… 

 Anyway, these slashings are getting scary, aren’t they? 

«Really! I can’t even set foot outside!»

[Hmm. I wish the police would get a handle on this.]

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

«Here we goooo!»

[Ah.]

 Huh? 

|cut|

|cut, today|

«Well, I wish you would cut it out instead!»

 What’s going on with this person? I saw the logs earlier… 

«It’s a troll who keeps messing up all the Ikebukuro boards and chat rooms!»

[Evening, Saika.]

|cut, person, but, still, bad|

«There’s no point, Setton. It won’t respond to our messages.»

[I’m guessing it’s a bot of some kind.]

|must, love, more|

«Maybe you’re right.»

|love, strong person. so. want love, strong person|

 Kinda creepy, isn’t it? 

«But it seems like it’s very slowly typing better sentences…»

 Can’t you just ban it from the chat? 

«I keep doing it…but it doesn’t work.»

|must, cut, more|

[Wow, really?]

«I keep banning the individual remote host, but it just pops in with a different host.»

 Is it using a proxy? 

|must, get, closer|

«Hmm, doesn’t seem to be the case.»

«The one common thread is that all the hosts are located around Ikebukuro.»

«So I think there’s a high probability it’s someone living around here.»

«Could be just jumping from manga café to manga café, for example.»

|to, strong person|

[It seems like the other message boards don’t know how to deal with it, either.]

 You know, the way it keeps talking about cutting people… 

«Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Tarou?»

 What if it’s the slasher? 

«Ha-ha-ha-ha! Nice.»

[…I can see why you would think that. This is clearly irrational activity.]

|keeping cutting|

 Keeping cutting? 

|get, stronger|

[…It really does seem to be connected to the slasher.]

«As a matter of fact…it always shows up on the days when I announce there’s been a new victim.»

 “Always”? You’ve only said it twice. 

«Then it is the demon blade! A big ol’ sword tapping away on a keyboard!»

[Monsters don’t use the Internet.]

«Come on, Setton! Haven’t you ever heard about cursed e-mails?»

[Um, no. Why would I have heard of that…?]

|moremoremoremoremoremoremoremoremore|

 I think we should just leave the chat room until it calms down. 

«Oh, don’t worry. It usually leaves pretty soon.»

|in the end, approach, cut, I, love|

|found, goal, found, love|

[Well, let’s hope so.]

|Shizuo|

|Heiwajima|

|Shizuo, Heiwajima|

|Heiwajima Heiwajima Heiwajima Heiwajima Heiwajima Heiwajima Heiwajima|

|Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo Heiwajima Heiwajima Heiwajima Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo|

|love Shizuo cut Heiwajima I Heiwajima cut Shizuo love|

|for love for love for love for love for love for love for love|

 Huh? Is this someone Shizuo knows?! 

|Shizuo, Shizuo, Shizuo|

<Private Mode>  …Izaya? 

<Private Mode> «I get what you’re saying, but I don’t know, either.»

|mother|

|mother’s wish, is, same as, my wish|

|mother loves people, so do I|

|born born born to to to love love love I I I|

<Private Mode> «Damn, is this someone Shizu knows…?»

<Private Mode> «No… No way he would let someone this annoying live.»

<Private Mode>  Anyway, we should probably clear out for a bit. 

 Well, I’m logging off now. 

[Oh, me too…]

—SAIKA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

—TAROU TANAKA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

[Huh? It just left…]

«Either way, we’re done for today.»

[Good point.]

[So long.]

«Good night!»

—SETTON HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

—KANRA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—

.

.

.