Durarara!! - Volume 2 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Right to the Points

In her dream, the girl met her dead parents.

At a theme park, surrounded by the smiles of her family.

On a mountaintop covered with flowers.

At a riverside blanketed with warm sunlight and the smell of barbecue.

In her own kitchen with a birthday cake in the center of the table.

“You’re going to be just as pretty as your mother someday, Anri.”

“No, I think she gets it from you.”

Her mother and father were smiling.

There were no mirrors in her dream, but she was probably smiling, too.

Mom, Dad.

We’ll be together forever and ever, right?

Anri Sonohara always repeated the same phrase in her dreams.

A happy home.

Her family’s smiles.

So small and insignificant, but the greatest joy of all to a young girl.

The more she had those dreams, the more she recognized they were dreams as they happened.

But within her waking dream, she would smile.

She indulged in the happiness of her dreams, knowing they represented times that would never return.

Food was set on the table.

It was a meal she cooked with her mother.

Her father ate it and smiled, said it was delicious.

She would smile again.

That symbolic process repeated over and over.

Just a repetition of the most orthodox, simplistic series of events, so standard that if happy home appeared in a dictionary, this would be the definition. She’d seen the dreams so often that she knew exactly what would produce smiles in each and every one. There was no need for any other action. She just repeated the process.

That was enough for Anri.

She was fine with the happiness in her dream being a simple, predictable, repetitive process. That was what it took to get her to smile. She could relive the same dream over and over without growing tired of it.

She convinced herself that this was true happiness. And she was truly happy.

Perhaps it didn’t look like happiness to someone else, but this was the world of her dreams. No one else could see it for themselves.

In her dreams, she was in early elementary school. She would talk to her dream parents with a face full of innocence.

“Mom, Dad, we’ll be together forever and ever.”

Her parents grinned and nodded, and the dream ended there.

It was the same dream every single time, and it ended at the same point every single time.

Together forever and ever. It was like a magical mantra that ensured she would have the same dream the next night.

The same process. The same happiness.

She felt that happiness over and over and over, as regular and predictable as breathing.

And on this particular day, just like any other day, she would wake from that dream.

Anri’s eyes opened to take in the morning sunlight filtering through her curtains.

The sleepiness was gone. The last words she spoke to her parents in the dream were always the alarm that snapped her out of the final REM sleep of the night.

Anri stretched and hopped off the bed to trot to the bathroom in her pajamas.

Before she washed her face, she looked at her reflection in the mirror—blurred without the help of her glasses—and smiled.

But when the reality of her parents’ death set in, the smile faded a bit, turned cynical and self-deprecating.

Anri’s parents were dead.

It had happened five years earlier. So she would never again taste the happiness that she found in her dreams.

It was in her dreams that she sought what was impossible in reality.

It wasn’t that she could have whatever dream she wanted. In fact, the first time she had the dream, she hadn’t been hoping for it.

In the dream, she just lived with her parents, with no upheaval or excitement. But after they died, she began having the dream more and more often. Now she experienced it every single night.

A popular theory said that dreams were the brain subconsciously processing memories, but that would mean that her brain cells were processing the same things over and over. Taking out something that was already neat and ordered, then rearranging it into the exact same pattern. If that process was completely pointless, Anri certainly didn’t let it bother her.

At first, it felt completely empty.

Dreams were hollow things, producing nothing, providing no solace.

But as the dream came to her again and again, Anri changed her mind very quickly.

Was it really just a hollow fiction?

Yes, the table and the meal sitting atop it were false. No amount of eating would provide her real body with any nutrition.

But what about the emotion?

In her dreams, Anri felt happiness. She felt her heart being at ease.

Was an emotion produced by a fiction really false? Did that mean the emotions she felt when watching a movie were utter lies as well?

No. That wasn’t true.

Anri denied the fiction. Movies weren’t fiction. Whatever happened on the screen was real. And if that was true, then the events in her dream that moved her heart were just as real.

Since then, Anri had the same dream every night.

She indulged in a happiness of her own creation, over and over and over…

But in the real world, she was just a bit—just a bit further away from happiness.

The horrible incident that had taken her parents’ lives was five years in the past.

And Anri Sonohara still couldn’t find where her life belonged.

At the same time that Celty bolted out of her apartment, Anri Sonohara was wandering.

All through Ikebukuro without a destination.

The end-of-term exams were over, and only graduation and the end of the school year ceremonies were left. So she walked about the town with a goal in mind.

A goal, but not a destination.

She didn’t know where she should go, but she wasn’t in a mood to hang around her house. So she wandered the neighborhood.

The night was cold despite the imminent arrival of spring, and its chill winds tore mercilessly through Anri. She took in the sights of the town through her glasses as she walked and suffered the cold.

The usual waves of humanity. It seemed like the ratio of yellow bandannas was higher than before, but she didn’t give it any more thought than that.

As the various people walked past her with their own various troubles in mind, Anri sought out just one of them.

Haruna Niekawa.

Anri was wandering the night in search of the girl one year her senior. She hadn’t been back home. Once school had wrapped up, she came out here still dressed in her uniform. Raira Academy allowed for students to wear private clothes, but the uniform looked good and was suitably warm in the winter, so plenty of people wore it.

But when it came to the city at night, that number dropped precipitously. If you were out at night, chances were high that you’d still be out very late, and wearing a uniform just meant it was easier to be singled out by the police.

Anri wasn’t planning to be wandering the streets that late, but she didn’t know what the most effective time to return home was, either.

“…What should I do?”

It was an honest lament of her present situation.

So why was Anri searching for Haruna Niekawa?

The answer to that question came earlier in the afternoon.

And the cause was nothing other than Nasujima’s fixation on her.

“Hey, Anri… Have you finished all your preparations for the Raikou Festival?”

The Raikou Festival was an event held the day after graduation along with the remaining students of the school, a type of thank-you party. Participation was optional, but because the class representatives of the underclassmen were central to the planning, Anri and Mikado were enrolled by default, and the preparations for the event were ongoing.

It was after school, and Anri was walking the empty halls on her way to get ready to leave, when Nasujima’s imposing face loomed up, as though he’d been waiting to ambush her.

“Well, Anri? You’re here awfully late again… Is everything all right?”

“Um, yes…”

She felt a small measure of unease and fear at the fact that he was calling her Anri now. If he’d started off calling her that, she would have told herself he was just one of those teachers who used first names…but until recently, he was calling her Sonohara. Now she was Anri to him.

It made her feel like the distance had suddenly shrunk between them. Perhaps that was exactly Nasujima’s intent.

After she saw her personal bullies attacked by the slasher and had to undergo police questioning, Anri was nearly caught by a TV interviewer for a segment. She barely managed to escape, thanks to the arrival of Mikado, who had come out of concern for her. But given the stress of the encounter, she took several days off of school to let things calm down.

The final exams were starting just as she came back, and thanks to her diligent studying, she did just fine on the tests. Things were slowly getting back to normal, until…

“I thought you’d still be taking a break from school. Why didn’t you just tell me you were feeling better, Anri?”

She had no reason to report something like that to an instructor who wasn’t even her homeroom teacher. She didn’t tell him anything specific at all, but Nasujima kept badgering her.

“Don’t you know how worried I was? They say that Nomura was the one who got attacked, and she was apparently one of those bullies harassing you… Why were you together? Were they picking on you again? I’m worried for you…so, so worried. But more importantly, I’m worried about that street slasher. I know you said you didn’t see a face on TV, but the slasher might think you did see him!”

He had found his perfect excuse—feigned concern over the incident. The other teachers simply avoided the topic out of consideration for Anri, or ignored her to sidestep the trouble entirely, or showed obvious and honest concern—but Nasujima was the first to reference the attack directly to her face.

Today was the first time she’d seen Nasujima since coming back to school. It was almost as though he’d been waiting to catch her in another lonely situation with no one around.

“Are you sure you want to be waiting around here this late? Don’t you think it would be safer to have someone escort you home?”

He wasn’t even bothering to hide it. Anri’s willpower helped her resist the urge to turn her face away in disgust.

She just wanted to live in peace and quiet.

Her dreams every night gave her the happiness she needed. So she didn’t expect much from reality. She just wanted to avoid trouble.

That was exactly why she wasn’t sure if she should reject the teacher’s advances explicitly. She was already garnering enough attention because of the slasher attack. If she raised a fuss about sexual harassment from a teacher next, that attention might turn against her.

Besides, even if she complained to someone about Nasujima’s actions, what he was actually doing wasn’t against any rules. The best she could do was raise a new rumor among the girls, and that was altogether too risky. If Nasujima claimed that she was the one who tried to seduce him, she might be forced to transfer schools.

She was fine with being shunned. She felt that no matter what happened to her, Mikado and Masaomi would take her side and believe her. That showed how much she trusted them, but it also caused her to realize something else.

I really am just leeching off of Ryuugamine and Kida after all.

But she didn’t feel much regret about this. That was just the way she lived.

The problem was that the teachers and the school system were not that simple to deal with. If she caused a stir and caught the wrong kind of attention, the school might grow concerned with outward appearances. In that case, Anri would be forced to transfer whether she liked it or not.

On the other hand, she couldn’t just let Nasujima continue to have the wrong idea about her. If she didn’t stand up to him at some point, her peace of mind would be threatened in a different way. In fact, it already was.

In normal circumstances, she could just come out and say it plainly. But now, when Nasujima was in what Masaomi might call his “blown-fuse” mode, there was no telling how he might react. On the other hand, if she tried to be subtle about it, he wouldn’t pay any attention.

Anri was so troubled about this turn of events that she started treading down the path toward the worst possible conclusion: that transferring schools was her best option.

Transfer… Yes, that’s an option…

As she weighed the idea, Anri recalled a piece of information that Masaomi had taught her—and decided to try to rattle the teacher a bit.

“…Then, do you think I should hide myself by transferring schools…?”

“N-no! You shouldn’t worry about that. The security here is absolute. You know that, right?”

Anri recalled an event a few days after the start of school, when a man in black and a mysterious motorcyclist went on a violent rampage, but she chose not to bring that up. It occurred to her now that it was the Black Rider that the whole city was talking about, but that didn’t matter now. She ignored it.

“But…I was seen wearing my school uniform…and there are plenty of other schools in the area that I can attend… And, um…Miss Niekawa transferred to a local school, didn’t she?”

Nasujima’s expression shifted dramatically within an instant.

His reddish, tanned face rapidly went pale blue, and though his eyes were still pointed in Anri’s direction, they were losing focus and looking through her to a point far in the distance.

His eyeballs rattled and shook as he regained his focus, and he put on a smile that didn’t extend beyond his mouth. He spoke hesitantly, trying to ascertain where she was coming from.

“Wh-what’s this, Sonohara? You know Niekawa?”

“No, not directly… I just remember when people were saying she transferred, since she had an uncommon name,” Anri replied, looking away slightly.

Nasujima’s eyes were still shaking. “Ah, I…I see. Y-yeah, Niekawa was my student last year. I think she moved to a school in west Ikebukuro. But hey, that doesn’t really matter, does it?”

He was trying to force the conversation to a different subject, and it showed. Anri was now certain that something had happened between Nasujima and this Niekawa girl, and it was the cause for her transfer.

But why was he so panicked now? Anri couldn’t help but wonder, but no matter what it was, it had nothing to do with her.

“Well, sir, I should be going.”

She bowed politely so as not to sound nasty and turned to leave. What she didn’t see when she turned her back was that Nasujima’s hand reached out to grab her shoulder, only to swing through empty air.

Rather than following or trying to pull her back, Nasujima stayed put, his menacing face looking even darker and uglier as he watched her go.

The expression contained elements of anger, of longing, and terror that she might be onto something about him…

Only Nasujima knew exactly what that was, and when the school bell rang emptily down the hallway, it wiped the look off of his face.

I’m such a horrible person.

Anri was calmly analyzing her own actions as she watched the night streets in search of Haruna Niekawa. Technically, it wasn’t correct to say that she was “searching” for Niekawa. She had no trail, no clues to follow, so it was less a search than a chance to sort out her own thoughts under the guise of searching for the girl.

If she somehow managed to find Niekawa, what would she even ask? How would she approach her? There was no way she could walk up out of the blue and ask, “Were you in a relationship with Mr. Nasujima?”

Even if I don’t ask directly, I might be able to figure out that there was something between them…and that could be the leg up I need to “convince” Mr. Nasujima to leave me alone.

It didn’t need to be anything major. She just needed material that she could use to keep him away from her.

I really am horrible.

She was using Haruna Niekawa’s past as a tool to put distance between herself and Nasujima, knowing full well that the girl probably bore emotional scars from that past.

Anri knew that she was a shallow, self-interested person, but she had no intention of changing her plan.

In the end, I value my own peace of mind most of all. That’s why I’m going to use Miss Niekawa as a stepping-stone. I’m an awful human being. But maybe I actually enjoy this way of life.

Right after school started and Mikado helped her out of trouble, he’d seen right through that aspect of her and pointed it out.

But…he decided to be my friend anyway.

After the loss of Mika Harima, her previous host, this was a pure joy to Anri, and it was why she was determined not to let Nasujima ruin it for her.

She wandered the town.

Searching for the shadow of Haruna Niekawa.

I wonder if she truly loved him. Or if she regretted the way she lived her life. How did she feel about Mr. Nasujima?

It was a matter of personal curiosity. While the information wasn’t necessary to Anri, she found herself more and more intrigued by those details in the hours since she’d escaped from Nasujima.

There was a reason for that curiosity. Something had been wrong with Nasujima earlier.

The reaction he had when she mentioned Niekawa’s name wasn’t just panic at the thought of his relationship to her being revealed—there was actual fear mixed in.

Not the kind of fear of losing his job if those salacious details were made public. Those things were already the subject of Masaomi’s rumor mills, and if he was afraid of being fired, he wouldn’t be messing with a student.

What had happened between Nasujima and Niekawa?

While the mystery was alluring, Anri forced herself to suppress the curiosity.

It was an emotion she didn’t need in the life she’d chosen for herself.

“Excuse me, miss.”

Anri looked up with a start when she realized the voice was directed at her. There were two policemen standing dead ahead.

“Y-yes…?”

Anri was confused, thinking that they were going to take her in for more questioning. She’d told them everything she knew about the attack. What more could there be?

But the policemen didn’t know that she was a witness in the recent attack. One of them pointed to his watch and warned her with concern in his voice, “It’s almost eleven o’clock. You should be home by now.”

“Oh…”

Anri was surprised to learn that she’d been walking the town for so long. Thanks to the frequency of the slasher attacks, the number of police patrols was through the roof now.

As a result, the number of minors out enjoying Ikebukuro late at night was vastly decreased. Of course, most people who stayed out late had moved on to other night districts like Shibuya to continue their business.

“Oh, already? S-sorry, I’ll go home right away!”

“Take care, miss.”

Her straitlaced appearance apparently helped her escape any further questioning, but if she didn’t go right home, she’d only end up in actual trouble before long.

Anri bowed several times to the officers and started on her way home.

“Hang on. If your home is nearby, shall we escort you there?” he asked in a voice devoid of Nasujima’s ulterior motive.

If they were offering, perhaps she ought to take them up on it. In all honesty, though, Anri felt more worried about an ambush from Nasujima than from the slasher.

She didn’t think he would stoop to that, but there was no eliminating that nagging possibility in the back of her mind.

I might as well…

But just as Anri opened her mouth to respond, both officers suddenly raised a hand to one ear, their faces serious. She realized that they must be wearing earpieces and receiving some kind of message.

“…Roger that. We’re on our way. C’mon, Mr. Kuzuhara.”

“Sorry, young lady. We’ve got something to respond to. Take care on your way home. If you want, you can also stop by the police box next to the Parco and wait for an escort.”

The officer named Kuzuhara and his younger partner melted into the night crowd.

“Ah…”

Anri tried to stop them for just a moment, then sighed and turned back on her way. She didn’t desire an escort enough to wait around at the police box for one, and if they were going to break up a fight, there was no telling when they’d be back.

Anri turned her back on the bright town and headed down a silent, empty side street. If she went straight down this way, her apartment would be just ahead, she told herself to calm her nerves.

But she didn’t realize that she was being followed.

The eyes watching Anri’s back were red, so red.

Redder than anything…

“Demon blade?” Shizuo read off of Celty’s screen, raising an eyebrow.

When she tore out of the mansion and headed back to pick up Shizuo as she’d promised, Celty knew she owed him a proper explanation. She couldn’t help but worry, though, that he’d punch her when he read the term demon blade.

“Yes, I know it sounds unbelievable…but it’s a sword with a mind of its own that possesses people.”

Even as Celty typed it out in all seriousness, she realized how stupid it all sounded.

Who’s going to believe in this nonsense?

“All right, gotcha. Let’s go.”

—?!

“You believe me? I mean, I’m not sure if I believe it myself yet,” Celty said incredulously. Shizuo looked directly at her, wonder in his eyes.

“Is this demon blade weirder than a motorcycle steered by a Headless Rider driving sideways along the wall of the Tokyu Hands building?”

“…Good point. My bad.”

She didn’t bear any fault, but Celty couldn’t help herself from apologizing. Shizuo was already on the rear of the bike, though, balancing himself expertly as he waited for the driver.

“A blade dies if you snap it in half, right? And hell, I’ll still kill it, whether it can die or not,” Shizuo muttered, quiet rage smoldering in his eyes. It was as though the murderous rage that had built up within him during work was boiling itself into a caramelized state.

Celty found that both reassuring and terrifying. She straddled the motorcycle, feeling the same nerves she felt that one time she transported nitroglycerin.

The dullahan’s familiar, that pitch-black bike, took its terrible, ferocious engine whinnying into the night.

Thus the accumulation of power focused into a single point known as Shizuo Heiwajima joined the speedy engine known as Celty Sturluson in prowling Ikebukuro without a clear destination, exuding a different kind of fear from that which the stalker spread…

Meanwhile, a strangled yelp sounded inside a van crawling around Ikebukuro.

“You have to stop… You have to stop replacing the word brief with ephemeral and thinking that makes your sentences sound cooler!”

“Is this that age where you like taking contrary opinions on everything, Yumacchi?”

“Denying all the common sense of ordinary adult opinions might make you more popular with antisocial teenagers…but stop thinking that way, too! Stop saying that all power is evil, when you don’t have the knowledge or determination to back that up! If you got wrapped up in some violent nonsense, you’d be begging the power of the police for help, and you know it!”

“You’re at that age where you think bashing ideology and society makes you look cool, but all it does is make you shallow. The thing is, actual adults are smart enough to take that social criticism and write cool stuff about it.”

Yumasaki was bellowing as he read passages from a book in his hands, while Karisawa inserted her own barbed reactions. Their back-and-forth woke up Kadota, who stretched in the backseat.

“You idiots. Whether a book is shallow or deep, as long as it suits your taste, who cares… And I don’t think I’ve ever heard Yumasaki making fun of a book before. What’s he reading?”

“Oh, um…well…”

Yumasaki was at a loss for words. Karisawa cackled at her partner’s consternation and answered for him.

“Oh, it’s this novel he self-published a while back.”

“…Okay, I have a whole lot of comments about that, but I’ll save them. More importantly, I know that it’s rich of me to say this when I was just taking a nap, but can you seriously get to collecting intel? One of our group was attacked, remember? Put the same effort into it as when Kaztano was kidnapped.”

Kaztano was a foreign guy in their group. Rumors said he was an illegal immigrant, but they didn’t care about that. When Yagiri Pharmaceuticals’ henchmen abducted Kaztano a while back, Yumasaki and Karisawa developed a number of horrendous torture methods on the men responsible.

“Okay, but Dotachin, Kaztano is our friend, so that’s one thing. But we don’t actually know the person who got hit. I mean, just because they’re in the Dollars doesn’t mean…”

“Seriously? You can’t even have the courtesy to shed a tear for someone else?”

One of the Dollars had been hit by the street slasher, and yet Yumasaki and Karisawa were carrying on like any other day. Kadota knew that was both their weakness and their strength, but he felt it was worth the warning anyway.

“I think it’s sad, but I choose to feel nothing.”

“I cannot forgive the slasher, but I choose to feel nothing.”

Kadota raised an eyebrow at the phrase they repeated.

“…What do you mean?”

“In my heart.”

“…Is this another stupid manga or novel phrase?”

“Yes, it’s from Lunatic Moon. Heh-heh, whenever something bad happens, you just shut your heart and feel nothing. Life’s a breeze if you never let your emotions get heightened.”

Kadota cut Yumasaki off before he could explain more of his twisted views on life.

“I told you, stop assuming that everyone in the world has read the same books as you have! Anyway…is it true that you actually want a breezy life?”

“My desire for a tumultuous life of excitement is powerful, but I choose to feel nothing. But enough about that. Recently I realized something. For one, there aren’t seven mystical balls that once gathered will grant any wish. Also, there isn’t a shrine near my house that houses a magical fox spirit named Kugen that transforms into a beautiful girl. Also, there’s some road construction happening at night out in front of my place, but there aren’t even any vampires working there! Plus the Black Rider won’t grant my wishes, and the dream demon babe hasn’t shown up since then!”

Wait, you seriously didn’t know all of those things until now? Also, what the hell is this dream demon he keeps bringing up?

Kadota had no end of questions to ask, but he couldn’t bring himself to overcome the sad, fiery look in Yumasaki’s eyes.

“So you see, I’ve learned patience and self-control! I don’t ask for much; I just want a simple, peaceful life! Basically, I just want to visit abroad and adopt an adorable little girl with green hair, then move back to Japan right next door to three beautiful sisters and have a heartwarming life, that’s all! Is that too much to ask?!”

“Is that Yotsuba&!? That’s Yotsuba&!, isn’t it?” Karisawa interjected, grinning madly. Kadota finally came to his senses and shut down the fun.

“First of all, yes, it’s too much to ask, and second of all, shut up about manga already!”

“Eeep!” Yumasaki shrieked, shrinking into a ball.

Kadota turned away with a huff and looked out the window. “This is about the spot where the girl from Raira got slashed last month,” he muttered.

They were crawling along a road a short way away from the business center. Kadota was irritated that one of their group had been attacked, yet they still had no information about it. So they rotated around to the various attack locations. He was hoping to discover some kind of common link between them, but so far they’d had no luck.

Behind him, Yumasaki was already babbling on about if they drew a diagram that connected all the attack locations, a demon would be summoned at the center. At this point, Kadota realized it would be pointless to tell him off.

As he grumpily stared out the window, his eyes eventually settled on a single teenage girl walking on her own.

She had glasses and plain, undyed hair, which suggested that she wasn’t looking for trouble. It was almost unnatural to see someone like her, wearing her school uniform and everything, out this late.

“Ah, geez, how careless can you get? This is exactly what gets you targeted. Doesn’t even have to be by the slasher—she could easily get abducted by folks like us driving a creepy-lookin’ van around,” he grumbled. After they passed the girl, he turned his eyes back to the road ahead…until he noticed the presence of a suspicious man.

His age was uncertain. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about his outfit, except that he was wearing a rather thick coat, given that the weather was warming up lately.

But far more notable than that…

“Were that guy’s eyes…red?”

Was Officer Kuzuhara back there…the father of that Kuzuhara boy from the Discipline Committee at school? Anri wondered, noting the similarities in the faces of the policeman she’d just encountered and the boy from her class. Her apartment was just about to come into view.

She suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, which was neither wide nor narrow.

It was the very spot where Anri’s bully had been attacked.

She dropped her eyes to the asphalt. There were no bloodstains anymore.

Why did that happen?

Anri shook her head, feeling miserable. Was it just simple coincidence that the girl was cut down right before her eyes? Or was there some kind of fate at work?

Maybe…in fact, it must have been…

Just as she was searching for an answer within her memory…

A man stood right behind her.

He pulled a blade out of his coat and took a silent step forward.

The blade swung high up into the night air.

“Oh, shit! He’s got a weapon!”

Togusa’s shout from the driver’s seat shot through the van. Kadota and the others looked forward through the windshield from the backseat to see a tense scene playing out.

At the side of the road was the uniformed girl, face down and back turned—and a man in the middle of the road raising a blade and slowly approaching her from behind.

Kadota had noticed the man’s odd behavior and told Togusa to turn the van around after they’d passed originally, and they were finally at the same street heading the other way—and sure enough, they were witnessing the slasher at work at this very moment.

But he already had his weapon in the air. He didn’t seem to notice the lights or engine noise of the van, as he didn’t turn toward them in the least.

Yet they were still too far away to reach him if they got out of the car and ran. Kadota thought for a second and called out to the driver, “Togusa, can you do something crazy?”

“What’s that?”

The sharp-eyed driver jammed down on the gas pedal, clearly anticipating what Kadota was about to say. He delivered the expected order.

“Run him over.”

A car horn blared, jolting Anri back to reality.

She quickly pressed her back to the wall and looked toward the headlights to see a large van barreling down.

And just in front of her, there was a man with full red eyes, holding a blade pointed at her.

“Red” eyes could certainly be explained as so bloodshot that the whites appeared red. But there was too much blood involved here, if that was the case.

There was no white left in his eyeballs. They were simply points of glinting black pupil in the midst of red spheres.

“…!”

Anri grasped the situation and was turning to run—

—when the van slammed into the slasher with merciless force.

Celty and Shizuo patrolled the streets of Ikebukuro without a clear destination. Shizuo was wearing a pitch-black helmet, hastily fashioned out of shadow by Celty.

It wasn’t for the sake of avoiding trouble with the vastly increased number of police officers out. After all, Celty’s motorcycle didn’t have a license plate or even a headlight and chases with traffic cops were a regular occurrence for her.

But if that happened tonight, Shizuo stood to wind up in trouble if his face was spotted. So she made him a full-faced helmet to hide his identity. Of course, he was still in his distinct bartender’s outfit, so anyone who knew him would recognize him anyway.

Still, I can’t aimlessly wander around without any leads.

Barely any of the attacks had occurred in the bustling shopping district, and there were too many cops. But even the full police force didn’t have enough men to stake out every single street, so Celty was able to travel around using back alleys.

If the Saika in the chat is the actual slasher, today’s attack was already announced in advance.

If she wandered around too much on her own, people might assume that the Black Rider had to be the street slasher, but the danger of that was lessened if she had a passenger with her, Celty assumed. That made Shizuo’s presence a bonus, it seemed, but…

I was naive.

While they were waiting at a light, some people with yellow bandannas decided to stare them down. Celty was used to this and perfectly content to ignore it—but today she had Shizuo with her.

He stepped down off the idling bike and walked over to the youngsters before Celty could stop him.

“When you point a knife at someone, you lose the right to complain if they kill you in self-defense,” he started to lecture, his helmet still in place. The young men, who weren’t carrying any knives, were completely baffled.

He continued to deliver his sermon to the Yellow Scarves, who were looking more irritated by the moment.

“Listen, stares can kill. Whether it’s a curse or a magical death stare, the possibility of it killing a person is at least as high as 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000675 percent.”

The boys’ misfortune was that Shizuo’s helmet covered his face and that they didn’t notice the significance of his bartender’s outfit. The Yellow Scarves hadn’t realized that they’d picked a fight with none other than Shizuo Heiwajima.

“Huh? Dude, what the hell are you talking ab—?”

“I’m saying, if you stare down a man, you aren’t gonna complain if he kills you, are ya?!”

What followed was ten seconds of absolute hell.

Shizuo clobbered the three men in an instant. He didn’t just accept their challenge; he welcomed it.

Celty pulled him away and drove off, but there was no doubt that multiple police officers would be converging on the scene in no time.

Even as they rode away, they passed two officers rushing in the other direction. She recognized one of them, a pushy senior patrol officer at the local police box named Kuzuhara.

Crap, crap, crap.

She wheeled the bike around to avoid attention and sent it racing in the opposite direction of where the officers had come from. She didn’t want any police attention right now.

Once they were safely free, they resumed their steady patrol of the local streets. Suddenly, the part of Celty’s shadow that acted as her sense of hearing picked up the honk of a car horn, followed by a hard collision.

As Anri pressed herself against the wall, wide-eyed, a number of people got down out of the van.

“Is he dead?”

“That was really messed up, Kadota! How can you act like this, just after I was telling you about my desire for a life of tranquillity?!”

Karisawa and Yumasaki didn’t seem to be fazed in the least by the events. Only Kadota looked nervous as he stared down the street.

A few yards away from the van, a man lay sprawled out on the pavement. There were no major external wounds to be seen, and there didn’t appear to be a pool of blood on the asphalt, either. There was a kitchen knife at least a foot long in his right hand.

Kadota eyed the knife and muttered, “Ahh, I see… It’s a little too short, but someone in a panic who didn’t know any better might confuse it for a katana.”

After he was struck by the van, the man flew through the air and sprawled out magnificently upon impact with the ground. He hadn’t budged since then.

Suddenly, the figure rose.

“!”

The silhouette got to its feet. His left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle. With the knife still gripped in his other hand, the bloodshot eyes glared straight at Anri.

“?!”

He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. The middle-age man awkwardly began to stumble in Anri’s direction.

“Hey! What the hell?!”

Kadota’s group, assuming he was coming after them, were taken flat-footed for an instant—then snapped into action to stop the man. But he only paid them an instant’s notice, swiping the knife sideways with incredible force.

“Whoa!”

The tip passed just in front of Kadota’s nose with tremendous speed. Yumasaki and Karisawa behind him actually felt the breeze from the swing.

The slasher kept swinging with the same force, bouncing back and forth like a spring-loaded toy. Like a fan whose blades were all knives. The group couldn’t very well do the child’s game of stopping this fan with a finger—they were completely taken aback.

But the man wasn’t even looking at them anymore.

He created an entire impassable sphere of spinning knife, gradually bringing the sphere closer and closer to Anri.

“Stop, you idiot!”

It was too late to hit him with the car again. Kadota recognized the gravity of the situation and was prepared to charge in at the risk of personal injury…

But the moment he began to step forward, a shadow passed by Kadota’s side.

Celty’s motorcycle, engine on silent, plunged right into the slasher while doing a wheelie.

The underside of the tire tore right through the knife’s sphere of range, flattening the man beneath it.

Stunned by the series of action-movie scenes unfolding before her eyes, Anri didn’t even conceive of running away.

“Ah…”

Then she realized that it was none other than the infamous Black Rider who had saved her and gasped with surprise.

The bike rode straight over the man and came to a stop a short distance away. There were two people on it—behind the monstrous black-suited rider was a man in a bartender’s outfit who slowly stepped off. The rider followed him and turned to face the group.

“The Headless Rider…and…Shizuo?!” Kadota blurted out, recognizing the helmeted man in the bartender’s outfit. But the instant he said the name Shizuo, the slasher on the ground suddenly sprang to his feet again.

“?!”

As Kadota and the others looked on in shock, the man finally spoke.

“Shizuo… So you’re…Shizuo Heiwajima? Is that so? Are you Shizuo…sweetie?”

Kadota murmured, “Huh? Is he…a queen?”

“No, Dotachin, you’re not actually a drag queen unless you’re dressed as a woman,” Karisawa explained patiently, but no one cared.

“Oh, I’ve been dying to meet you… I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting…tee-hee!”

While his appearance was male, his speaking style was unmistakably feminine.

But even more alienating than that was the fact that there was no hint of damage from the way he was speaking, despite separate collisions with both a van and a motorcycle.

Shizuo took a quiet, menacing step forward and said, “Okay, I’m killing you.”

“I’m so happy… Finally, finally, we meet. My beloved.”

“You’re happy, huh? Then I’ll kill you.”

This conversation makes no sense, Celty and Kadota thought simultaneously, but neither wanted to set Shizuo off, so they kept that to themselves.

“I love you, Shizuo Heiwajima.”

The middle-age man spoke words of love in a feminine tone to a person he’d never met before. Add to that the redness of his eyes, and it was clear he was not sane.

I see. He must be under the demon blade’s spell. I just didn’t expect it to be a kitchen knife…

Celty reached out a hand to Anri, who was slumped on her behind against the wall.

“Eeek!” she shrieked, but when she realized the Headless Rider meant her no harm, she timidly grasped the hand and used it to get to her feet.

“Are you okay? Not hurt?”

When Anri saw the message on the PDA screen, she looked with surprise at Celty’s helmet. The only thing visible in the black visor was the reflection of the streetlights, and nothing beyond.

“Oh…yes. I’m…fine.”

“Well, that’s good. You might want to keep your distance,” Celty typed for Anri, who was barely able to respond.

The dullahan turned to Shizuo and produced a shadow scythe within her hand, brandished it behind her, and advanced on the slasher.

So after knocking my helmet off last time, now it wants to ignore me entirely…

Irritated by this change in attitude for some reason, she wondered how to deal with both Shizuo and the slasher now.

Meanwhile, the slasher had stopped talking and was now slowly approaching Shizuo. He had the knife in his right hand held over at his left hip, an odd stance that resembled an iai quick-draw position.

But there’s no point to doing an iai if it’s not in a sheath to begin with. That’s the whole point…

Yet the slasher’s eyes were filled with mad confidence.

Based on the speed with which he swung the knife moments earlier, something was clearly wrong with him. But the veins still pulsed in Shizuo’s temples, and he smiled quietly.

“I can’t catch a blade with my bare hands.”

Anyone who knew Shizuo well would understand just how dangerous that subdued, suppressed smile was. The instant Celty saw it, her goal shifted from how to crush the slasher to how to keep the slasher from dying.

She’d seen the man’s hardiness for herself when he stood up after she ran him over with the bike. Even then, she couldn’t possibly envision the man in the trench coat beating Shizuo.

“So if you wanna wave a knife at me…you can’t complain when I murder you…”

Shizuo reached out toward the van stopped next to him. The slasher didn’t know what Shizuo was doing, but the look in his twisted, supremely confident eyes said that he didn’t care.

“There is nothing you can do to me. You really think you can avoid my sword? Let me tell you: one millimeter. That’s all it takes—one tiny little scratch—for you and me to share our love.”

Celty and Kadota were confused by this statement, but Yumasaki and Karisawa both reacted with surprise and excitement.

“Oh, there must be poison spread on the tip! Poison so powerful just a drop of it could knock out a dragon!”

“Or how about this? The kind that slowly eats away the victim from the inside, like with parasites or flower seeds or something!”

Nobody reacted to their nerdy brainstorming. Only the slasher himself put on a knowing smile. It seemed they might not be that far off.

If that was the case, it meant that Shizuo’s personal fighting style, self-sacrificial “losing the battle to win the war,” wasn’t an option. Celty suddenly didn’t feel so confident.

But she needn’t have worried.

Shizuo, still wearing Celty’s shadow helmet, turned to his conveniently present acquaintance and made a bizarre request.

“Hey, Kadota…I’ll give your door right back.”

“?”

Before Kadota could respond, Shizuo put a hand on the van’s open rear side door and tore it off the hinges as easily as pulling a ticket apart.

 Huh? 

It was the opinion of every other person present.

Kadota, Yumasaki, and Karisawa.

Anri.

Celty.

Even the slasher.

He did it one-handed and didn’t show any sign of effort in the process. He didn’t put all of his weight into it, he just used his arm strength alone to pull the car door off.

As they all watched him in silence, Shizuo put his fingers through the inside handle and held the door aloft with his grip alone…pointing it toward the slasher.

“Uh…”

The slasher seemed to grasp Shizuo’s intention, and unease colored his features for the first time. His iai stance and his secret wild card that required only a scratch were rendered meaningless.

Shizuo Heiwajima was using the van door like a giant shield, protecting his front side from the slasher.

“I live a messed-up life. I ain’t nice enough to fight a man…with my bare hands!”

The instant he finished speaking, the asphalt at Shizuo’s feet seemed to explode. The asphalt itself was perfectly fine, but his speed was so great that it tricked all of the witnesses’ brains into viewing it that way.

The man with the door for a shield hurled himself at the enemy like a cannonball. Directly in a straight line. Simpleminded in its directness.

But the cannonball was too fast to be dodged. That’s all it came down to. All of the slasher’s tricks were nullified by sheer speed and strength. No one would ever know what those tricks were because he hadn’t been given the time to deploy them.

“No…wait…”

Collision.

First, a whud sound.

Just the sound alone was enough to cause serious damage to the slasher’s brain, but next came the actual vibration.

He might as well have been hit by an enormous hunk of metal. A vortex of strength thrust him upward. That hardy body, which had bounced right back from a collision with a van…

It’s an even stronger impact…than the car?!

But by the time he realized that fact, his body was already afloat on the current of force transmitted via the slightly upturned shield.

The slasher had no time to think of resisting or breaking free before he was crushed between the shield and the wall at the side of the street.

The deadly battle against the slasher ended far too quickly, and suddenly the street was as silent as if nothing had ever happened.

No one spoke for several moments, until Togusa stepped out of the driver’s seat and asked, “So who do I bill for the door repairs?”

Only then did they regain their senses.

“What do we do with him?” Shizuo asked, gently pulling the door away from the wall. Behind it was a man whose body was half-embedded in the crumbled concrete. He peeled off of the wall and crumpled to the ground.

Celty took out her PDA and showed Shizuo her opinion.

“Well, first we have to figure out if he’s being possessed by the blade or just an actual street slasher doing this under his own discretion. We should take the weapon away and tie him up until he wakes. If he’s only a puppet, it doesn’t seem fair to put him at the mercy of the police.”

Assuming he wakes up at all, she thought, examining the man’s face. Huh?

Suddenly, Celty felt as though she recognized that face. She beckoned Shizuo over.

“What?”

Shizuo was already cooling off from his fury. His face was calm as he looked down at the man.

The man’s eyes flew open, exposing the bloodred eyeballs.

“!”

Celty and Shizuo both leaped back. The slasher looked at them and groaned, “I suppose…I can’t handle you. I always knew you were abnormal…”

He seemed to have given up on beating Shizuo. Celty started to type a question into her PDA, keeping her guard up, but she barely had time to start.

“But if I can’t have you…I’ll settle for her!” the slasher cried, leaping to his feet.

Right for Anri Sonohara, who was timidly watching events unfold at a slight distance.

“…Uh,” she stammered, unsure of what was happening.

The man everyone assumed was in critical condition leaped for her, knife in the air.

Shudd.

A dull sound rang out, and the slasher’s knife plunged deep into her breast.

The breast of Celty Sturluson covered in black shadows.

“—!”

Anri shrieked soundlessly, her entire body tense.

But not a single drop of blood dripped from Celty’s chest. She clamped down on the wrist holding the knife and extracted it from her chest through arm strength alone.

Next, she flipped the slasher’s feet out from under him, pulled his hand with the knife around behind his back, and shoved him into the ground.

His joints locked, the slasher was completely immobilized. Once he realized that no amount of strength would allow him to move, the man spat with loathing.

“You…you’re not human, are you? Filthy! Abhorrent! How can my pure love be defiled by such a stupid-looking monster?!”

Well, excuse me, you   piece of  .

Celty tried out one of the insults she’d liked from the last Tarantino film she saw and increased her pressure on the arm held behind his back.

There was an odd grunch sound, and the slasher’s arm was suddenly not where it had been before. The knife fell out of his hand and clattered onto the asphalt. He had finally gone entirely silent, apparently unconscious at last.

Celty suddenly realized how angry she’d gotten and shook her head to clear it.

If Shinra found out I’d called this guy a   piece of  , he’d be so disgusted. I have to watch myself, she reflected idly.

Celty left the man sprawled out on the ground and looked up at the knife ahead.

Who would have guessed that Saika was just a kitchen knife?

She assumed that it would be dangerous to touch it herself, so she increased the shadow density around her hands to twice the normal level before pinching the handle delicately.

She still didn’t sense anything special from it. Either Shinra was right and the demon blade didn’t have a presence of its own, or there was no cursed sword to begin with…

I really should have just asked him if he was Saika.

But in any case, the slasher was dispatched. The only thing left was to wait for the man to regain consciousness. She could explain the situation to Kadota and Yumasaki and have them handle the rest.

But for now, the knife needed to be disposed of. If she used Shinra’s connections, she could probably find a blast furnace to toss it into. She fashioned a net of shadow to hang from the underside of the motorcycle and stashed the knife inside of it.

With that out of the way, she pulled out her PDA and started to explain the situation to Kadota, but Shizuo’s quiet monologue interrupted her.

“What the hell…? I just don’t feel satisfied… Why is that?” he wondered, his face growing more and more upset by the moment. “Ahh, dammit, I just don’t feel right… I’m gonna head to Shinjuku and kill Izaya.”

He tossed the shadow helmet back to Celty. It dissipated like mist in her hands, reabsorbing itself into her body.

Shizuo left the scene with no apparent concern for that otherworldly effect. No one made a move to stop him, despite his announced intent to commit murder. They knew that Izaya wasn’t the kind of man who would go down easily, of course, but first and foremost, none of them felt like they would be capable of stopping Shizuo.

Karisawa watched him walk away, her cheeks rosy red.

“I just knew Shizu was in love with Iza-Iza all along. I’ve always had the feeling that behind closed doors, they were actually—”

“That’s not true.”

The answer came from Celty’s PDA, Kadota, and Yumasaki all at once. Yumasaki covered her mouth with his hands, his heart quaking in his chest.

“If you ever say that within earshot, they’ll pound you into mincemeat!”

Celty tried to imagine the sight of Shizuo and Izaya making love. A feeling of nausea rushed up from deep within her. Then again, she couldn’t expel anything from her severed neck but shadows anyway.

It was surprisingly easy to explain matters to Kadota’s group.

She was expecting them to doubt her story, but the mention of a cursed demon blade got Yumasaki and Karisawa on board immediately with sparkles in their eyes.

On top of that, when she said that Saika was a demon blade with a female personality, Yumasaki shrieked something about “moe personification of inanimate objects” and tried to grab the knife from its storage space under her bike. The rest of the group battered him to a pulp and tossed him into the van along with the slasher.

They would be capable of handling the rest. She instructed them to call Shinra if they needed help, but otherwise everything should resolve itself. If he was being controlled, he was just another unfortunate victim of the incident—but given that he attacked Shizuo and still survived, perhaps he should actually consider himself to be fortunate, Celty tried to tell herself.

If we find out he did nothing wrong, I’ll have to send him some support money or something…

When she turned around, the girl with the glasses was timidly staring at her.

Oh, I forgot.

Celty stared at the victim and wondered what to do. How much should she explain? If she chased the girl away, she might call the police. Then again, the local residents might have heard the uproar and called them already. Celty just wanted to extract herself from the scene as quietly as possible.

But when she got a better look at the girl’s face, Celty realized something.

She’s the girl I always see with Mikado Ryuugamine…

Mikado Ryuugamine.

The founder of the Dollars was one of the few people who was aware of Celty’s nature, one of the most secretly influential people in the neighborhood. And yet, hardly anyone actually knew that Mikado had created the Dollars.

She spotted him in town every now and then, and he was usually in a group of three.

There was the girl with the glasses right here and another boy with dyed brown hair and earrings. They were almost always together, so she didn’t know the full nature of their connection.

The girl looked up at Celty and said sadly, “Umm…thank you for saving me…”

Despite the timid look on her face, the girl took a major step forward into the incident that had just engulfed her.

“Um, can you tell me…what’s happening in this neighborhood?”

Ack.

Celty wasn’t hoping for thanks to begin with, but she’d have much preferred if the girl had just thanked her and run off. But she did have one question of her own.

Why had the slasher under Saika’s control decided to go after her at the very end?

Perhaps it was just a desperation move, or maybe he had some other reason. If that was the case, she couldn’t just ignore the girl.

After a long time to think, Celty shook her helmet in resignation and began typing away on her PDA, explaining all about the serial slashings happening in Ikebukuro and even the demon blade Saika…

But once she had finished typing out the whole story, the girl named Anri asked her something completely unrelated to the incident.

“So, um…about your…”

That question again. Celty inwardly snorted at her own luck. Recently, every single person who would talk to her asked the same thing. The TVs were obsessed with the topic of the Headless Rider, so when people found out that she was actually quite easy to talk to, they all got curious. They couldn’t help themselves.

She wants to know if I really don’t have a head.

Celty typed out, “Don’t be scared,” imagining the timid girl screaming in terror, then yanked the helmet off without any fanfare.

Well? Your move.

But Anri was completely silent. As though she were waiting for Celty’s next comment.

“…You aren’t startled?”

“Uh, well, I know that you didn’t have a head because they said so on TV…so I wanted to ask why you didn’t have a head…and then I realized what a rude question that is! I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t anger you!”

The girl bowed in apology, tears in her eyes. Now it was Celty’s turn to be taken aback.

Shinra, Mikado, the kids in the van, Shizuo…

Are all young people like this now? Celty wondered. She leisurely typed into her PDA.

“It’s a very long story… If you give me your e-mail address, I can tell you in detail later.”

She meant it to be considerate to the girl, but Anri replied, “Oh, um…I don’t have an Internet connection…”

“Oh…too bad. Well, we can’t just stand around here all night…”

Celty was beginning to wonder if she should just go home and leave this all behind, when Anri lifted her head and spoke with determination.

“Actually…my place is just up ahead. Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea?”

Late night, near Kawagoe Highway, apartment building

“Welcome home, Celty.”

“I’m back.”

She walked inside to find Shinra waiting for her. It looked like he had nodded off on his desk while looking something up.

“Man, the researching I did! I was looking up all this different stuff on Saika. It was really complicated. Very hard to put all the text together into a coherent picture.”

“I see… Thank you, Shinra.”

“But of course, I’d do a millennium of work in a day for your sake, Celty. After that, they’ll have to change the definition of the word millennium!”

He laughed excitedly while Celty regretfully typed, “But it’s all over already. I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

Celty explained everything that had happened in the day and carefully placed the shadow-wrapped knife on the table.

“Don’t touch it, you might get possessed.”

Shinra stared at the object on the table with fascination in his eyes. Ten seconds later he turned to Celty, a question mark floating over his head.

“This…is Saika? It’s just a knife,” he muttered, wide-eyed.

“I know, I was taken aback, too…but the man who was holding it had bloodred eyes, and he was going on about love and other nonsense and speaking like a woman,” Celty typed regretfully.

“Ahh… I guess this must be it, then.”

“But what’s the connection between attacking people on the street and love? That’s the thing I don’t get. Is Saika just a sadist or what?” she asked. It had been on her mind before, but she didn’t expect to bring it back up, given that the incident was over now.

“Oh…I guess I didn’t go over that part, did I?” Shinra said, as though it were obvious or trivial. He made a show of clearing his throat, then leaned back in his desk chair and began to describe Saika’s desires.

“What Saika wants…is to love a human being.”

The same time, Anri’s apartment

My heart is still racing.

She’d hardly ever had people over at her home. The only ones in the year that she’d been living here were Mikado and Masaomi.

And today, she had granted entrance to someone she had barely shared introductions with—and not human, to boot.

This was quite an adventurous move for Anri, but she couldn’t resist her curiosity about the otherworldly being. Her debt at being saved added to her momentum, a few other emotions rolled into the mix, and before she knew it, the Headless Rider was inside her home.

The rider explained many things.

The reason for coming here, what a dullahan was, various experiences in Ikebukuro, and what little of the homeland remained within the corners of those memories.

All of these things were vivid and fresh, and Anri noticed that they made her excited.

They talked about many things, up to the moment the rider left. Anri told her a bit about herself, but it probably wasn’t very interesting. She didn’t even remember the things she had said.

I wonder what she thinks about most days. I wonder what she thinks about human beings.

Even after the excitement faded, Anri thought back on all the things Celty said.

She said a dullahan knows when a person’s death is approaching…but does that include unexpected accidents?

She thought back on the incident that changed her life five years ago and looked down.

If I’d known about it ahead of time…could I have stopped it from happening?

She could wish, but there was nothing she could do about it now. And she could see her parents every night in her dreams. There was nothing to agonize over now.

But there was one thing that made her sad in what they talked about. She thought of bringing it up on numerous occasions, but ultimately, Anri was never able to bring herself to tell Celty. Once the dullahan left, she felt a terrible regret.

Why couldn’t I bring it up? The topic…of…

Suddenly, her doorbell rang.

Huh? It’s so late!

For a moment, the image of Nasujima’s face floated into her mind, and she twitched with fear. But then it occurred to her that Celty might have come back, so she looked through the peephole, careful not to make any sound.

Huh? A…woman?

It was a young woman wearing a uniform.

Anri didn’t recognize her, but she checked to make sure there was no one else with her, then unlocked the door. She opened it up to reveal an incredibly beautiful girl with long hair.

She had an adult figure but a face with a hint of innocence left. Her black, lustrous hair went halfway down her back. In all, she created a tiny little space of fantastical beauty in the middle of the plain apartment hallway.

“Um…can I help you?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Sonohara.”

The long-haired girl smiled gently in replying to Anri’s hesitant question.

But then she introduced herself.

“My name is Haruna Niekawa.”

Near Kawagoe Highway, apartment building

“Saika loves by cutting? So she is a sadist, after all.”

“No, it’s not quite the same thing. To put it simply, she’s a cursed blade. Her voice can only reach her master, the one wielding her.”

“Right. So why doesn’t she just love her master?”

“The thing is, Saika wants to love all of humanity.”

“…?”

“Not a specific human. She fell in love with all of humanity as a species. For us, it would be like a dog lover. A dog person doesn’t just love one specific dog, they love all dogs. But that hardly ever advances to feelings of romance. No matter how much you love dogs, hardly anyone wishes to get married to their dog, and anyone who gets sexually turned on by a dog is a pervert. Then again, some people are like that…”

“Don’t get distracted.”

“Sorry, sorry! But don’t you see how crucial this is? Anyway, Saika fell in love with people. At first, it was just something she kept to herself. But after loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving…thinking of just one human no longer satisfied her. So she began loving all of humanity, but that sentiment eventually came to a standstill… She wanted to express her love through action.”

“Action?”

“Yes, action. Humans express love in various ways, right? Through words, actions for the sake of the other, risking one’s life, offering protection, luring with money, giving in to lust, doing nothing, picking on or teasing, even killing them to ensure that they’re yours forever.”

“…And the latter is supposed to be ‘love’?”

“Twisted or not, as long as someone considers it a form of love, then it is. But Saika is a demonic blade. It has no body with which to love.”

“…”

“All she wanted was to touch someone. She wanted to unite herself with the flesh of the humans she loved. She wanted to sink into them. She wanted to insert herself into them.”

“This is starting to get vulgar. But…wait, doesn’t this mean…?”

“Yes.”

“In order to express her love, Saika chose to simply slash all of humanity. That moment of dissection is the only moment in which she is able to touch humankind. From flesh to blood to heart to life. See?”

Anri’s place

“Miss Sonohara…do you know why I came…to meet you?”

Anri and Haruna were sitting across from each other at the cheap little table. Haruna wore a fantastical, confident smile, while Anri’s face was plain with troubled concern.

Haruna Niekawa. It was the very person whom Anri had wandered the streets hoping to find earlier that night, but she had no idea why the girl was here. How had she even found her address?

Haruna was rumored to be Nasujima’s lover but had transferred to another school, those same rumors said. Anri didn’t know any details beyond that. She wanted to make contact with Haruna to learn what those details were—but now that they were face-to-face, she found it hard to ask.

But now there was an opening. Haruna herself had just asked the question: Why did she come to visit Anri? There was only one obvious commonality they shared.

“Is it about…Mr. Nasujima?” Anri summoned up her courage to ask. Haruna gifted her with an angelic smile. Anri took that as an affirmative and hastily clarified, “Oh, um, but you know I don’t like him at all, right? It’s just dumb rumors…”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Haruna answered swiftly.

Anri felt relief spread throughout her body. However…

“But I still love Takashi.”

“Huh…?”

Takashi was Nasujima’s first name. It was very strange to hear a girl just one year older than Anri, still wearing her school uniform, refer to him in such an informal way.

Feeling that this conversation might be going in an uncomfortable direction, Anri prompted the older girl.

“Um…were you in a relationship?”

“It was more than just a ‘relationship.’ We were madly in love. We were happy just confirming that fact, day after day. Forever. Forever and ever…”

Haruna’s eyes stared at nothing as she spoke, positively glowing. She must have been reliving past memories in her mind.

But just as quickly, her expression clouded over into sadness, and there was almost mourning in her voice as she looked straight into Anri’s eyes. Her eyes were beautiful and clear. But there was something eerie about them, an unfocused nature that made it hard to tell what she was actually looking at.

“But then one day, he rejected me… I was just trying to confirm my love for Takashi, like always. All I did was try to help our love take shape…”

Near Kawagoe Highway, apartment building

“Saika manipulates her wielder into attacking over and over. Over and over, she tries to confirm her love. In order for her love to take shape. In order to make sure her lover never forgets her…she pierces and wounds her victim’s body and mind at the same time.”

“As proof of love…?”

“Exactly. That’s how she’s loved. But those incidents only spanned a period of ten years or so. As the years went on, Saika vanished entirely. It would be one thing if she’d grown tired of loving and had simply lost interest in humans…but based on the posts on the Net, I’d say she’s still overflowing with love.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense. If she’s been around humans for years and years, then why were her first messages in the chat room so primitive? That was Saika possessing a human body and making them type, right?”

“That’s the thing. Could she have forgotten Japanese in the time that she was gone from human society? This knife is…hmm?”

“What’s up?”

“Huh? Wait…”

Shinra looked back at the knife on the table, exclaiming with curiosity. Suddenly he reached out and grabbed the handle.

What?!

Celty hurriedly tried to snatch it away from him, but Shinra held tight.

He asked, “Celty…you didn’t examine this in the light, did you?”

“Um, no, I picked it up outdoors. Are you sure you’re all right? You don’t feel like it’s tightening its grip on your heart or anything?!”

“Not in the least,” he laughed, then dropped a bombshell. “This isn’t Saika.”

“What?!”

“Here, look at this.”

He pointed at a spot on the handle of the knife. There was a small piece of text carved into the grip.

MADE IN JAPAN 2002

Anri’s place

“Um…what do you mean by…tried to make your love take shape…?”

A cold sweat began to break out on Anri’s palms. The other girl’s abnormal nature was becoming apparent.

Haruna never let her beautiful smile fade as she spoke. It was as though she didn’t even hear Anri’s question.

“But then Takashi rejected me. But I don’t hate him for that. After all, I’m in love with him. I forgive him for everything, including his rejection of me. I love him so much, I can accept everything he does.”

“Uh, I was asking…”

“But I cannot forgive anyone other than Takashi.”

The smile remained, but her words filled with madness. Anri could sense this shift, and the sweat began to trickle down her back as well.

“I can forgive Takashi for falling in love with something other than me. But…I cannot forgive the thing he falls in love with.”

“Uh…”

“Miss Sonohara, you might love Takashi, or hate him, or not care about him at all—but none of that matters.”

Anri got to her feet as the words of madness reached her ears. Her instincts were screaming at her that remaining sitting was a dangerous course of action.

“I’m not going to apologize to you, Miss Sonohara. I mean…everything I do is for the right reasons, for the sake of my love. Why should anyone apologize for doing the right thing? Why should anyone feel wrong for that?”

She wanted to flee the scene and leave it all behind. But Haruna was not likely to allow her to do that.

“…”

Anri had already given up on reasoning with Haruna. She knew it wouldn’t work.

Haruna watched her closely and said, “But you know…it’s not right to use people. If I want love, I need to take action myself. This is good proof of that…”

Near Kawagoe Highway, top floor of apartment building

“Why would a demon blade that’s been around for decades be made in 2002?”

“No, wait. You have to believe me. I know what I saw.”

“I believe you, Celty. I would never doubt your word. This means the slasher was always crazy. It had nothing to do with the weapon. He probably just heard about the legend of Saika from somewhere.”

“I don’t know if I buy that… The man himself was also a victim of the attacks. Either he was possessed at that time or the demon blade ordered him to cut himself and thus remove himself from police suspicion…”

“Was it someone you knew?”

“Well, not exactly… It was the magazine writer who came to ask me about Shizuo at the end of last month. I heard he was attacked later that night, according to the chat room… When I looked further into it, the attack occurred right outside his own house.”

“His name was…oh yeah, Niekawa. His name was Shuuji Niekawa.”

Anri’s place

“I thought my dad could do the job better than anyone else…but it didn’t quite work out.”

What is she talking about?

Anri had no idea what Haruna was saying at first. But what came next, combined with the look on her face, told Anri exactly what she meant.

Exactly.

“So now…I’m forced to handle my own business. To get rid of my rival in love.”

Haruna reached behind her back and pulled out a knife.

“Using the power of my very special partner.”

The blade wasn’t even eight inches long. Compared to what the slasher had earlier, it was much less imposing.

But Anri understood. The girl with her inside the apartment was actually far more menacing than the slasher. After all…

“I might not love you. But Saika, on the other hand, has all the love in the world for you…”

After all, when she pulled out the knife, her eyes went a shade of red much, much, much, much, much deeper and more crimson than the slasher’s had ever been.

Near Kawagoe Highway, top floor of apartment building

“I know, the chat! What is the chat saying?”

Talking about the writer had reminded Celty of the chat room, so she loaded the page right away to see if anything had changed.

And change it had.

“What…the heck?”

What she found was not terror. Or unease.

It was simply chilling. A chill that ran straight through her back.

Deep, deep darkness that shunned all.

Something that froze Celty to her core.

Chat room

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|I screwed up. I screwed up.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|The timing was all wrong.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|How dare you break my sister.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|Mother’s orders are absolute.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|The reasons I’ve stayed hidden are all gone now.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|Now I can use forceful means.|

|I finally met Shizuo.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|But the connection was lost.|

|I can’t feel her presence anymore.|

|I can’t feel her presence.|

|The timing was all wrong.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|I screwed up, I screwed up, I screwed up.|

|But I won’t fail this time.|

|I will give my love to Shizuo Heiwajima.|

|If I can love Shizuo, then I’m sure I can love every human in this town.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|I can love this place humans created called Ikebukuro.|

|Come to me.|

|Come to me again, Shizuo.|

|Come to me and my sisters.|

|We will love you so much more this time.|

|My sisters are the same being as I.|

|This time we will love you all at once.|

|Come to me.|

|Shizuo Heiwajima.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|Shizuo|

|Shizuo|

|Shizuo|

|If you don’t show|

|I’ll love someone else.|

|I’ll love anyone, anyone, anyone.|

|Everyone, all at once.|

|I’ll love the people of Ikebukuro, love, love, lovelovelovelo|

|velovelovelov|

|elovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove|

|love|

|lovelovelove|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|I’m waiting.|

|I’m waiting.|

|wait|

|I’m waiting.|

|At South Ikebukuro Park|

|At South Ikebukuro Park|

|I’ll be waiting all night at South Ikebukuro Park.|

|Waiting for you, Shizuo.|

|I won’t let the police or ordinary civilians come near the park.|

|There will be plenty of distractions.|

|So don’t worry, Shizuo.|

|Ikebukuro will roil with chaos tonight.|

|But don’t worry, Shizuo.|

|I will be there to love you.|

|I’ll love you, too.|

|I’ll love you, too.|

|And me.|

|And me.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

|I’ll love you, too.|

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

.

.

.

.

.

And just after Celty checked on the chat room…

Ikebukuro suffered one of the worst cases of assault in its history, as fifty-four people were attacked randomly on the street at a variety of locations.