Durarara!! - Volume 2 - Chapter 6

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Chapter 6: Sword and Stress

It drifted.

And drifted.

Everything drifted away from the boy.

He only wanted to be loved by someone.

He only wanted to love someone.

The shy boy didn’t even have the bravery to control himself.

He was afraid of hurting the one he loved.

So he decided not to love anyone.

Feared, feared, and unloved.

Time evolved the boy into a monster.

If there was a god in this world whose purpose was to control violence,

then the boy must have earned this god’s love.

More than anyone and anything.

Shinjuku

“And why would Shizu be standing right outside my apartment building?” Izaya Orihara wondered with a smile that could only be described as bitter.

“…Because I’m here to kick your ass, obviously,” replied Shizuo with a humorless smile. Every other part of his being was overflowing with rage.

They were outside the high-class apartment building in the middle of the night. Izaya had returned from a trip to the convenience store to find Shizuo just about to kick the front door of the building down.

He could have left the scene as it was and gotten the police to arrest Shizuo, but Izaya considered another possibility and realized he had to show himself to his foe.

I don’t want him barging into my place and finding the head before the police arrive.

“And why do I deserve a beating?”

“Because I’m feeling pretty aggravated right now.”

“You know, you’re really much too old to be engaging in this kind of childish logic, Shizu.”

“Shut up. If I had to give another reason…it’s because you’re too damn fishy,” Shizuo shot back.

A grimace spread over Izaya’s features. “Fishy? What about?”

“This street slasher who’s tearing up my hood… How involved are you?” he asked directly.

Izaya shook his head exasperatedly. “Why would I be involved?”

“Because ninety-nine percent of all the bizarre and violent things that happen here are your doing.”

“What, you’re not gonna trust that this one is in the other one percent?”

“If I were able to trust you with even one percent of my being, I think you and I would get along better… Right, Izaya?”

The veins on Shizuo’s face bulged and popped as he recalled events from the past. The sight was so grotesque that someone who didn’t know any better would assume he had some kind of condition.

“And even if there weren’t this slasher going around, ’Bukuro’s been weird lately. And that’s your fault, ain’t it? What are you plotting?”

“This is quite an accusation,” Izaya stated with a wide smile. He already had a knife clutched in his hands. Shizuo looked at it and grinned, then put a hand on the guardrail out in front of the building.

“?” Izaya felt a bit of sweat break out on his skin. He didn’t know what Shizuo was doing. He’s not going to rip that guardrail out and fight me with it, is he…?

The problem was, Shizuo Heiwajima was exactly the kind of man who did the thing you assumed he wouldn’t possibly do. Sure enough, as Izaya dreaded, Shizuo clenched the hand holding the guardrail tight.

“…Seriously?”

He’d just have to stab Shizuo before he pulled it out of the ground.

The moment Izaya made up his mind to stab the other man, the smile vanished from his face. When Shizuo noticed that, his own smile got wider: “Do it, if you can.”

And just as the tension reached its peak, the face-off was interrupted by the sudden entrance of a shadow.

The black motorcycle appeared without a hint of sound and cut between the two.

“Well, well.”

“Celty…what do you want?”

She quickly waved Izaya back and showed her PDA screen to Shizuo. It was a copy of the chat log that she’d saved to the device.

He took some time to read it over. Eventually he squinted and asked, “The hell is this?”

Shizuo thought for several moments, and with an oddly calm look in his eyes, he turned back to Izaya. “Is this part of your plot?”

“I dunno what this means, but if I could have calculated that Celty would randomly show up here, I’d have dropped a meteor on your house by now.”

Shizuo kept watching Izaya for a while after that, then clicked his tongue in disappointment and got onto Celty’s bike without another word.

He really was hard to handle.

Ever since high school, Izaya had used everything at his disposal to get to where he was. There was only one person who never acted the way Izaya wanted him to, and that was Shizuo Heiwajima.

At first, I actually thought I could control Shizu, Izaya thought ruefully to himself as the motorcycle rode off.

“How does an amoeba like him get so sharp?”

His smile was one of both pure joy and irritation.

“This is exactly why I hate you so much.”

Anri’s place

“I’ve done some research on you,” Haruna said, knife in her hand. She slowly got to her feet. That angelic smile never left her face, but her eyes were a demonic red.

“What a stupid, pointless human. Ever since middle school, you’ve been like toilet paper stuck to Mika Harima’s shoe…and now you’ve begun seducing two of your male classmates, and you think you can manipulate Takashi as well?”

Her face wore a smile, but there was nothing but pure malice in her words.

Meanwhile, Anri stayed silent, taking in Haruna’s words. Perhaps she was frantically thinking of what action she ought to take next. But Haruna only continued her outpouring of contempt. She hurled words of despair and disaster at Anri, yet her face was as beautiful and holy as a saint announcing the girl’s end.

“On top of all this…a burglar broke into your home five years ago and killed your parents? Apparently you claimed that you didn’t see the killer, despite being in the same room the entire time… How can that be? How did you not see the killer? How did you survive?”

It was a fact that Anri hadn’t even told Mikado or Masaomi. But her face did not change expression. She didn’t even open her mouth. It wasn’t a simple enough matter that she could settle with just facial expressions or arguments, Haruna knew, but she continued her verbal assault anyway.

“Unless you even tried to seduce the burglar? A girl in elementary school? Do you suppose he was a pedophile?”

Even after that barb, Anri’s face was placid. It wasn’t that on the inside her heart was brimming with rage, either. There were only swirling questions.

Why is this happening?

She only wanted a life of peace and tranquillity. What did she do to deserve this chaos?

Anri tried to view the world within the customary picture frame, but the glint of the knife in the hands of the other girl did not allow her to withdraw entirely.

Her tranquillity was crumbling to pieces.

Was there no way to go back? Would her uneventful reality never come?

Would it all fall apart, including the eternal dreamworld she’d made for herself?

There was a solution.

She could just yell something back at the other woman who kept hurling bullshit at her. She could fight. She could crush her opponent.

But just being forced into making that choice was the greatest suffering of all.

I just don’t want to fight. I don’t want to fight with anything. I don’t want to compete with anyone. I just want to lead a peaceful life. I only fight when I want peace. I wasn’t born to waste my life with stupid battles like this…

“It must be easy, living by latching onto other people like a parasite,” Haruna muttered.

Anri finally found her voice. “…Not easy.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not…easy at all. Living off of others, trying to make sure just the right person likes you. I agree, parasite is a good term for me. But do you have any idea how much you need to sacrifice…to ensure the person you’re latching onto doesn’t drive you off?”

Now there was indeed a kind of strength in Anri’s eyes.

Most people who lived comfortably in the shadow of another person would become angry and deny it if called out for it. Even they would agree that it wasn’t a cool or admirable way of life. Anri certainly didn’t think that her choice was necessarily laudable—but it was a conscious choice that she made for herself.

She wouldn’t stand for that to be criticized by someone she’d never met until just now. It was this anger that finally wrung the words out of her.

But Haruna only smirked at her statement. Voice dripping with utter loathing, she spat, “That’s what you’ve been doing? Sacrificing yourself so that Takashi will like you…?”

“No,” Anri said, loud and clear. “Mr. Nasujima is not worth doing that.”

She was surprised at how forceful her own response was.

Meanwhile, Haruna’s face had gone stone-still. Her expression vanished entirely, her red eyes narrowed, and her grip on the knife tightened.

“Oh…? I see.”

Something charged was in the air now, but Anri did not take her eyes off of Haruna. Just moments ago, she was intimidated by the other girl, but now there was no hesitation in her actions.

But that didn’t matter to Haruna. All she felt was a desire to kill the girl who stood in her way and insulted her beloved Takashi Nasujima.

“Die, then,” she mumbled and thrust out the knife for Anri’s throat.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

It was nearly after midnight. Who would be ringing her doorbell at this time of night? Haruna set her own issues aside for a moment to marvel at this odd occurrence.

“Is it one of your little friends?” she wondered.

Anri had no idea. Could Celty have come back?

“Well, whatever. I’ll start by stabbing your friend before your eyes—and then take my time finishing you off afterward.”

The smile was back on Haruna’s face as she crossed the room to the door and pulled it open.

Time stopped as Haruna and the visitor came face-to-face.

“Nie…kawa?”

“Takashi!”

Anri looked out the door from across the room and saw with surprise that it was Nasujima.

What is he doing here?

In a way, his appearance was even more shocking than Haruna’s, but that didn’t matter at this point. Anri decided to stand back and watch what unfolded.

“Ohhh…ahh! Takashi…Takashi, Takashi, Takashi!” Haruna chanted, her features overcome with emotion and tears.

Nasujima’s reaction meanwhile…

“Aheaaaa!”

He let out a garbled shriek, turned ninety degrees, and raced down the hallway of the apartment building. He had run away at the first sight of Haruna’s face.

Huh?

Anri was certainly confused about his appearance at her apartment and didn’t want to consider what he had planned, but this sight filled her with a different question.

Why did he run away? Weren’t they supposed to be a couple? She thought that Mr. Nasujima had forced the girl into it, but now it didn’t seem that way… So why did he run away?

“Wait, Takashi!”

Haruna started to rush out the door after Nasujima, but she immediately changed her mind and held back for a moment to warn Anri, “I was hoping to take care of you on my own…but it seems I don’t have time to deal with you anymore. So I’ll have everyone else kill you instead.”

“Everyone?” Anri repeated, unsure of what Haruna meant. A moment later, that clarity came to her in full.

“Actually, Saika wanted to get everyone involved to help love Shizuo…but I’m glad I convinced her to let me bring a few here.”

Anri realized that several men were now milling around outside the door. They all carried their own blades—X-Acto knives, kitchen knives, cleavers.

All of their eyes were red.

“These are Saika’s children,” Haruna announced, then raced off into the night after Nasujima.

All that was left in the now-silent room was Anri and a number of slashers with weapons held at the ready.

She backed away into the room as the men advanced, blades held high, ready to begin the slaughter.

South Ikebukuro Park

In the back of Celty’s brain—wherever that brain physically existed—the words that Shinra uttered after seeing the chat log for himself played back.

“…If you want me to analyze this situation, there’s one thing I can speculate.

“Lots of human beings desire signs and symbols of love when they’re in a romance. The so-called fruits of love.

“Once two people love each other, they desire something they both love together. The classic example of that would be children.

“That’s right… Saika’s giving birth. She’s leaving a child in the souls of the humans she slices.

“Saika really does love people, it’s true.

“She seeks a perfect fusion with man…with humanity.”

There was no way for it to be true, but this case had involved a succession of no ways happening one after the other. In a way, her own existence was another thing too bizarre to be true, so she had no right to complain.

Celty focused on her surroundings. She’d arrived at South Ikebukuro Park with Shizuo in tow. Once the bike was parked in the middle of the park, she looked around—and muttered to herself.

No way.

She’d thought the park was empty at first. Normally there was at least someone out there, even in the middle of the night, but there was no one to be seen at the moment.

Yet the instant that Celty and Shizuo entered the park, silhouettes began to gather in the corners of the area, seemingly out of nowhere.

Like germs, as the overall number rose, so did the rate of their multiplication. This pyramid scheme continued for about thirty seconds. Celty and Shizuo were completely surrounded by humans.

This is way more than fifty people, she noticed.

There was quite a variety to the crowd surrounding them: salarymen, street punks, young children, housewives, college students…

There were a number equipped with yellow bandannas, as well as several who looked like Dollars members.

Given the uneven collection of people, Celty and Shizuo immediately thought of the impromptu meeting of the Dollars that happened one year earlier. There were two key differences here.

For one, the Dollars probably had greater numbers.

The other difference was that all of these people had their own blades and their eyes were as red as blood, without exception.

The blades they held were as varied as the people: knives, scissors, extendable branch pruners, even chain saws.

They had to be the victims of the string of slashing attacks.

No wonder they’d never caught the slasher. Some of the people even had hospital gowns, as though they’d just escaped in the middle of the night.

All the victims were possessed by Saika and falsified their testimony…

As Celty pondered what to do next, one of the hundred or so people surrounding them, a teenage girl wearing a Raira Academy uniform, walked up to act as spokesperson.

“I’ve been hoping to meet you, Shizuo Heiwajima.”

Though Celty and Shizuo wouldn’t have known this, she was one of Anri’s bullies, the one who was attacked before the girl’s eyes. Her statement passed straight through Celty to Shizuo, who was still sitting on the back of the motorcycle.

“You’re so wonderful… I was watching from a distance when you beat my sister…”

Watching from where? Celty wondered. Then again, with this many of them, it wouldn’t have been that strange for one to have witnessed the attack. But did that mean they didn’t actually share consciousness among all of them?

“So I told my other sisters and Mother about your incredible strength… The Internet’s so convenient, isn’t it? In the past, it was so hard for us Saikas to share our minds. But now, all you need is a single e-mail,” the teenage slasher explained, revealing their nature. It was a revelation that she likely made freely, knowing that Celty and Shizuo would be powerless to do anything about it.

“At first, it was very difficult for our consciousness to understand words…but now we each have a will just as strong as Mother’s.”

With each word, the circle of people closed in. They were close enough now that they could all leap in at once and engulf the two, if they wanted.

“Shizuo, we want to know more and more about your strength. We want to see more of it. This time, in front of the group. Then, I’m sure we can love you even more than we do now…”

The enraptured girl—no, it was Saika possessing the mind of a girl—inched closer to Shizuo, waving around her butterfly knife.

Celty finally felt like she had a good understanding of the enemy.

I see… When the victim gets slashed, a new Saika is born within her that takes over her body. Then, she grabs whatever blade is on hand, and that blade becomes the means by which a new body is born.

The reason nothing happened to Shinra when he touched the knife was that the knife itself wasn’t cursed. Perhaps Saika wasn’t a monster or spirit at all, but a kind of hypnotism. By cutting another person, that fear became a medium through which to plant itself into another person’s heart. The seed then took root, just as it did in the attacker, multiplying endlessly. Perhaps that was how it worked.

So did that make Saika a life-form?

The question passed through Celty’s mind, but she didn’t have the time to spend considering that thought. She was too busy producing the black scythe from her hands and wondering how to incapacitate Saika’s victims without killing any of them.

The girl with the butterfly knife professed her love for Shizuo, mouth twisted. “Now! Shall we make love? We’ll keep loving you, no matter where, no matter how, even when you’re too tired to move! We’ll love you without end! And except for that monster over there, no one is allowed to interfere. Our sisters are making more and more sisters so we can keep loving the people of this city! The police will be too busy to stop us!”

The other Saikas followed the girl’s lead in cackling with delighted laughter.

Celty was plenty creeped out, but she was also honestly concerned for Shizuo’s safety now as well.

Yet the man behind her was not particularly angry or afraid in any way. He got off the bike and stood before the throng, his face a mask.

“Can I ask you one thing?”

“What is it?”

“Why exactly…do you people like me?”

Celty nearly fell off the motorcycle with the shock of his out-of-place question.

Get a hint! Are you seriously asking that now?!

But she had no time for arguing at the moment. Meanwhile, the Saika spokeswoman at the front felt confident enough to indulge his question.

“Because you’re strong.”

“…”

“That preposterous strength…not derived from power or money, but the absolute extreme of human possibility, the most instinctual and violent strength possible. That’s what we want. Plus…what human being wouldn’t want to fall in love with a wild man like you? You’re scary. But we think we’re enough to love you.”

She broke out of her pose and started to explain their philosophy to Shizuo.

“We love all of humanity. But just loving isn’t enough for us anymore. Just creating more children with humanity isn’t enough for us anymore. If loving and loving and loving isn’t enough, we want to rule all of humanity. And to do that, we need excellent offspring. Powerful specimens like you, for example. Don’t humans try to leave behind the best possible genes for the future?”

She sounds like a certain dictator, Celty marveled. She checked on Shizuo, figuring that such a selfish and nonsensical speech would have him exploding with rage.

“Ha-ha…”

He’s laughing?!

“Ha-ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

It wasn’t the laughter of someone trying to hide his anger. It was simply pleasant, delighted laughter.

“Settle down, Shizuo. If it starts to look bad, I’ll do my best to make sure you escape.”

Was the fact that they were surrounded by a hundred assailants making him loopy? She waited for him to react. Eventually he stopped laughing and gave his response to the Saikas’ confession of love.

“Nah, Celty… To be honest, I’m actually happy.”

“Huh…?” This reaction was not what Saika expected, either. The people in the crowd gave one another confused looks.

“I’ve always despised this strength I was given. I thought no one would ever accept me for what I am,” Shizuo stated. There was a variety of emotions in his voice as he spoke of his past.

“The thing is…now I don’t have to worry anymore. Look at how many people love me. One, two…well, let’s just say ‘a lot.’ So…it’s all fine now,” he said, grinding his teeth with pleasure.

“I mean, I can accept who I am now, right?” he said, clenching his fists with enjoyment.

“I can like myself for what I am, right?” he said, his eyes wide with bliss as he tucked his sunglasses into his pocket.

“This power I’ve tried and tried and tried to get rid of, because I hated it so, so, so much… But now it’s okay for me to accept it, right? It’s okay for me to use it, right?

“I can—I can finally use my full power, right?”

And in the next instant, for the first time in his life, Shizuo Heiwajima willingly used all of his power. Not in the grips of rage, like always…

But out of joy that something loved his power.

What he said next plunged the Saikas into despair.

“Oh, just for the record…people like y’all are not, at all, even the slightest, my type of partner.

“The one thing I can say for you…is that I only hate you second most after Izaya.”

Fairly close to the park, on an isolated, empty road, a man and woman were speaking of love.

The man, his rejection of it. The woman, her overflowing abundance…

“Hey…do you remember?” she said quietly, as the man sat at the side of the road in terror.

They were standing in the darkened midpoint between streetlight and streetlight, and an eerie tone dominated the scene. The woman who was the source of that aura was smiling so radiantly that tears brimmed in her eyes as she spoke of her love.

“The first time I met you, when you saved me from being bullied… You helped me with lots of things after that, didn’t you?”

She was staring right into the memories of her past as she talked. On the other hand, the man saw her face as nothing more than a source of terror.

If you ignored the red eyes, she was quite a pretty girl, and he was the kind of rough-looking man who could be found roaming the streets anywhere. In most cases, you would expect their roles to be reversed.

But the man was terrified of her and didn’t pay a single bit of attention to what she was saying.

“Ever since then, you’ve been the only thing on my mind… You noticed that, didn’t you? That’s why you returned my love. You gave in and accepted me. You even did me the courtesy of using me to make money, then tried to get rid of me when you grew tired of it. I accepted all of these things you did to me. I forgave you and I still loved you.”

“H…hyaaa…”

“But eventually, it wasn’t enough… I wanted more than that… That’s when Saika started talking to me.”

With the reflection of the knife glinting in her eyes, the woman drew the blade lightly along her own arm. A line appeared on her white flesh, little red droplets forming from the aperture.

“All I had to do was give her a little blood—drop by drop. See?”

“Hyeep!”

The girl’s eyes stared right at the terrified, prone man, but her mind was somewhere far, far away. His figure did not reflect in her eyes. She was watching a fantasy of the man that existed only in their honeymoon period.

“So how about today…? Is today the day you’ll finally accept my love?” she asked, bringing the knife close to the man’s throat.

Slowly.

So slowly.

Like a child taking her very first kiss.

The silver blade was ready to plunge into the man,

making their bodies and minds one through the knife,

tearing his mind and body apart, exposing all of him…

“Aaaaahhh! W-wait, please wait!”

He flopped his legs, trying to push her away and put distance between them, but the stone wall blocked his back. The way he continued to flop despite the lack of any ground to gain was exceedingly pathetic, but the girl wasn’t seeing him anymore.

She put her strength into the knife. She had reached the limit of her patience.

“Wait!”

The moment she was about to jab her beloved with the knife that was an extension of herself, a familiar voice came from somewhere behind her.

When she realized that her process had been interrupted, the girl’s world suddenly fell apart. She and the man were not two abstract characters living in a fantasy, but two real human beings named Haruna Niekawa and Takashi Nasujima. Suddenly, she was seeing Nasujima’s pathetic, frantic attempt to reject her.

“…”

Realizing that she’d “awakened” from the world of love, Haruna’s smile vanished entirely at last. She turned toward the voice.

It was Anri, out of breath from running, but with a powerful, intent look in her eyes.

“How did you escape? There were at least five back there,” Haruna said.

Anri didn’t answer. She tried to steady her breathing. “Please…just stop this, Miss Niekawa. Stop hurting people with that knife…”

“This has nothing to do with you. You just don’t want to die, is that it?”

“Yes…it does have to do with me…”

“?”

Haruna didn’t know what Anri was talking about, so she assumed that the girl was just in a daze from escaping the other Saikas.

“Listen, Miss Sonohara… Your words carry no power of their own. A weak-willed human being who can only live by leeching off of someone else’s life has no right to dictate what me and Saika’s love should be!” Haruna stated, her words full of pressure. Anri was not intimidated, however.

“I don’t need any right to stop something I think is wrong. Plus…I don’t think the strength of one’s words has anything to do with the way one lives,” she responded, matching the intensity of Haruna’s attack. “Just because I can only live through other people doesn’t make me weak. I chose that way of life. That’s all there is to it.”

“That makes no sense…”

“Don’t decide whether people are weak or strong…based solely on the way they live!” she shouted, overpowering Haruna’s words with her own.

The girl standing there now couldn’t be the same timid creature she’d visited earlier. Haruna was bewildered by the change but had no intention of questioning her about it.

All she had to do was believe in the power of her love—and kill the girl.

An ephemeral silence passed between the two before Haruna spoke again.

“Hey, Miss Sonohara… Have you ever even loved anyone before?”

The smile was back on her face. Anri looked mystified, but her goal here was to convince Haruna to stop what she was doing, so she had to engage the question.

“…Probably n—”

“I have!” Haruna blurted out, ignoring the other girl’s answer. “When Saika first spoke to me, I almost let this one take over my body…but then it started telling me I had to cut Takashi. I cannot hurt the man I love so much! So I resisted, I fought back…”

As she spoke, she swung her arms. The reflection of the knife glimmered in the darkness, bringing the strength of her conviction to life.

“…And instead, I conquered the demon blade! I conquered Saika! With the power of love! The power of love!”

“Huh? But…you were trying to stab him just now…”

“Yes. At first, I thought what Saika was telling me was wrong. But the more I listened to her…the more I realized she was right. Controlling another person…planting yourself entirely within the deepest part of their heart is the true form of everlasting love.”

Her eyes, which were already overpowering in their redness, took on the tint of madness that only heightened the eerie awfulness of the scene.

“Even if that ultimately means killing the one you love.”

That was the signal.

Haruna crouched low, set her sights on Anri’s throat, and put all of her might into the purpose of killing her foe. Quick action usually led to victory, but even if she didn’t strike first, what was there to fear from a single unarmed girl?

“There will be no rescue for you this time. You don’t have the strength to love another—you cannot stop me. There’s only so far you can get on sheer arrogance!”

She began to charge at Anri. The girl started to open her mouth, but Haruna didn’t care. She put all of her effort into the strike that would tear that impertinent throat right open…

A metallic ring cut through the night.

Huh?

Haruna couldn’t tell what had just happened.

All she knew was that what she was seeing far surpassed her understanding.

Anri’s right arm had blocked the slash aimed at her throat.

“What is…happening?”

As a response to that, Anri continued with what she was going to say moments earlier.

“It’s true that I can’t love anyone else. Ever since that day five years ago, I’ve been afraid to open my heart and love.”

She was probably referring to the break-in that ended with the murder of her parents. But what did that have to do with the current situation?

Anri continued. “So I’ve taken to living off of others in order to make up for what I lack in my life. Yes, I admit it… I chose this way of life, after all.”

Her arm was touching the knife. Through the tear in her sleeve could be seen the silver shine of steel.

“Wait…you can’t…”

“So I decided that I would leech off of even the love of others.”

Anri put her left hand to her right wrist and pulled the hilt of the sword that appeared out of her right arm, yanking it free.

The girl had extracted a katana, crackling, from her own arm. Haruna had no words for the scene she had just witnessed.

“Just as you cut other people to create Saika’s children, your own Saika is nothing more than a child of the original… And the original takes the form of a proper katana.”

“No…this can’t be!”

“I cannot love others,” Anri muttered to herself. Her eyes literally shone with a demonic light. “So I decided to rely on Saika, who loves people for me…”

The light in her eyes was eerie, gentle, and warm, as if red fireflies had taken home within them. The light caught the lenses of her glasses, causing them to shine like giant red insect eyes.

“No…I live as her parasite…”

It wasn’t as if the boy never fell in love with a girl.

But when he inevitably failed to control his strength, his attempts to save her did more harm than good.

Not just once. It was a constant occurrence.

Eventually, no one stuck around with him. Even as a grown adult, there was no one in his vicinity. There was only one man, Izaya Orihara—but he only came over to use the boy for his own ends. He was also a man, so there was nothing like love in that equation.

Over time, the boy came to an understanding.

It wasn’t a sudden enlightenment, simply something he learned through constant repetition.

He just wanted to be loved by someone.

But he wasn’t allowed to have love for anyone else.

If he did, he would only hurt them.

Not of his own volition, but certainly of his own strength.

If that strength was meant to protect something, he might have been able to forgive himself. But he knew exactly what the world called that strength.

Violence.

It was a simple matter. As some said, strength could be either violence or justice, depending on how it was used. If that was the case, his strength could be nothing but violence.

The boy was unable to control the sway of his emotions, and he used his strength in anger, in a way that left his own conscious will far, far behind in the dust…

It was strength—pure strength—that took the boy somewhere far away and unfamiliar.

Time passed, and as a man now, he had received words of love from another for the first time.

The man greeted the thing that showered him in pure love…

…with clenched fists.

In the center of the park, Celty Sturluson, a knight of death meant to inform people of their imminent mortality, the Headless Rider who sent waves of panic throughout Ikebukuro…was unable to do a thing but stand and watch.

Not because of the sheer force of a hundred slashers.

When faced with the sight of the red-eyed mob, she had originally thought of the Dollars’ meeting a year ago.

But the result of this incident was the complete opposite of that earlier occasion.

The strength of one man, Shizuo Heiwajima, was absolutely overpowering the hundred attackers.

Shizuo Heiwajima’s style of fighting was exceedingly simple.

Punch.

Kick.

Throw with all your strength.

That’s all it came down to.

Punch, punch, punch.

Kick, kick, kick, punch again.

Throw while kicking backward, spin and throw a punch.

Just the same simple combinations, like hammering a single button in a fighting game.

But that very simplicity was what made it so terrifying.

All he had to do was punch the blade-holding arm of an attacker, and it would cause a nasty crunch and no longer function. A low kick meant to fend off an onrushing person would completely demolish the knee.

When he punched a person, they flew horizontally, like something out of a slapstick comic book.

He didn’t fight with the grace and agility of a Hong Kong action movie. But even still, Celty and the hundred slashers present to see it felt their hearts being stolen by the sight.

He was strong.

That was the only word needed to describe Shizuo.

But if one were to add more, another two words would suffice.

He was scary.

And he was cool.

I mean…I knew he was strong…

…but…this strong?!

If Celty used all of the power at her disposal to produce a deadly shadow scythe and attack Shizuo at this moment, she didn’t think there was a chance she could win. She couldn’t even envision such a scenario.

Fighters all shared a desire to fight those who were stronger than themselves. If she had to classify herself, Celty believed she was in that category rather than the opposite.

But this Shizuo was someone she never wanted to fight.

Not just because of fear.

She couldn’t possibly turn her blade upon something that made such a strong impression on her.

Even the word demon didn’t describe him anymore.

If any term fit Shizuo Heiwajima at this moment, it was more like demon god.

In fact, no words were necessary at all to describe him.

His strength became a word greater than words, telling the rest of the world of his existence.

Shinra had once explained Shizuo’s strength to Celty.

“When muscle fibers are damaged, they grow that much thicker, but his constant rages don’t give his cells any rest.

“So the cells of Shizuo’s body—whether by a miracle or fate—chose a different route. The bundles of muscle fiber abandoned the process of bulking up and chose to stay at their current size, just tougher. That might be one of the reasons why he has such strength while remaining skinny.

“It’s minimal regeneration. Shizuo’s way of life caused his own bones and joints to change the way they grew so they could be stronger. His bones are hard as steel, and his joints are extra tough after endless dislocations. And this all happened within the short life of Shizuo Heiwajima.

“You might call this a kind of miracle.”

A miracle.

But even that word might be too tepid to describe it.

There was no combination of words that Celty could use to adequately describe Shizuo’s strength.

It must be a similar feeling to what would happen if one saw Superman or the protagonist of a shonen manga come to life. It was easy to say anything when viewing the situation objectively, but actually being present for the experience would blow anyone’s worldview out the window.

That was the kind of presence Shizuo had now.

Despite the fact that the slashers’ weapons gave them twice his reach, they couldn’t hit him. The meager advantage of reach was not even a proper handicap against Shizuo.

He dodged their long swings by a hair, then countered by punching either the man holding the weapon or the flat of the blade. When the opponent lost his balance, the finishing kick was already incoming.

The onslaught continued without losing any momentum. Shizuo was joyfully unleashing all of the pent-up frustration that he’d accumulated throughout the evening, and he was going to get rid of all of it.

The hundred-strong Saikas were taken aback by Shizuo’s overwhelming strength, so they held back and shot signals to one another to form more complex combination attacks.

But suddenly, they all moved as one.

Everyone in the park, aside from Shizuo and Celty, turned their heads in the same direction.

The move was as pristine and precise as a champion synchronized swimming team. Their eyes all pointed toward the same spot.

What is it?

Celty turned the same direction herself, but all she saw was the entrance to the park.

Though she couldn’t possibly have known it, at that very moment elsewhere, Anri Sonohara had just pulled Saika out of her arm.

“Hey, is it just me…or is something happening close by?” Shizuo wondered, surprisingly calm given his actions. Celty nodded in agreement. “I can manage this scene here if you don’t mind going and checking it out. Either way, you ain’t doin’ nothin’ here, are you?”

It was a considerate offer. Otherwise, she would have felt uncomfortable leaving Shizuo behind by himself. But in this case, she didn’t think she needed an ounce of worry for his sake.

As a parting gift, she produced more shadow from her hands, fashioning it into a pair of gloves, much like she had with the shadow helmet earlier.

“Special-made like my scythe. They’ll be able to stop a blade,” she typed into her PDA, then tossed the gloves to Shizuo.

Not because she was worried for him. She simply wanted to be a part of the legend that she’d just witnessed.

“…Thanks.”

Shizuo grinned and put the gloves on. Celty scattered the paused slashers as she drove the bike out of the park and out of sight.

“All right, then.”

Now Shizuo was truly alone.

All alone against a hundred attackers.

But he had no thought of defeat.

Meanwhile, the Saikas surrounding him shared the same thought: that they didn’t have the confidence to love Shizuo enough.

What’s going on? What’s going on?

Our opponent is hardly unharmed.

Countless scratches and cuts cover Shizuo’s body. But he shows no signs of accepting our love. The fear and pain of one simple cut is supposed to be enough to force him to accept our thoughts.

If there’s any explanation…it’s that Shizuo’s not human…or…

Oh…how can this be?

The creature known as Shizuo Heiwajima does not feel the slightest ounce of fear.

Not just about himself being wounded.

Shizuo doesn’t have an ounce of fear that he might hurt others, either.

He joyfully throws his full will into our destruction.

All because he accepted our words of love.

…Is this fear?

Is it fear?

We feel fear from a human that we love.

What irony.

We are afraid of a human who accepted our love.

We are afraid.

Afraid. Afraid.

Afraid…

The one who accepted our words of love does not fear us.

Therefore, we cannot pour the “reign” of love into him.

We cannot love him.

Does she know? Has our mother realized this truth yet?

Our mother, and the one who begat her, the great progenitor… Does she realize?

That our existence is so full of contradictions.

That from the perspective of a human being, the love of a demon sword is nothing more than an illusion…

As the Saikas continued to close in, regardless of the challenge, Shizuo found a smile creeping over his features.

Don’t get the wrong idea, you idiots.

No one will love me because they’re all scared? Don’t make me laugh.

I’m the one who’s scared.

It’s me.

I’m the world’s biggest coward.

Because I’m scared of what I should trust the most—myself.

But so what?

Me being a coward and destroying you assholes have nothing to do with each other!

Besides.

I can’t afford to get knocked on my ass in front of someone who actually loves me, can I?

Maybe that was the moment that it started.

When even if I liked someone—I was afraid to love them.

Anri still had the dream.

The dream of her family in happy times. The dream where they all laughed together.

But it was nothing but a lie.

Not because it was a dream, but because Anri Sonohara was never that happy in the past.

Anri was abused by her father from a young age.

Upon nearly every encounter with him, she had to suffer insults and injury. It was a daily occurrence.

Her mother would attempt to step in and help, but he would just beat her instead.

The process escalated over the years, so that by the time she was eleven years old, there were always fresh marks on her body.

Not because he was a drunk. That was not the case.

He never hit Anri’s face, and he made sure not to leave marks when she had swimming lessons and people might have seen them. It was calculated. He performed just the right amount of violence to keep her from being able to report it to the school or police.

In time, she closed her heart off and lived in a deep depression with no escape.

That was about the time that the slashing attacks started happening around town.

“No…that katana…Saika!” Haruna stammered in shock. “That’s it…that’s the sword that attacked me five years ago!”

Just as Anri imagined.

Haruna was a victim of Anri’s Saika, and the seed within her that had been growing all along found quick purchase within the imbalance from her love of Nasujima, she suspected.

Meanwhile, Haruna sneered, “Y-you…you killed them! Your own parents! With that katana…”

“That’s right. I might as well have killed them, I suppose,” Anri replied, neither an affirmation nor denial. She raised the katana.

That was all she did—pull it upward—but the back of the sword hit Haruna’s arm in a sensitive spot, causing her to drop the knife.

“Ah…”

Haruna panicked and crouched to pick up the knife—an amateur’s mistake. In the next instant, the long blade of the katana slid against her neck, freezing her instantly.

“…!”

“That child of Saika won’t tell you how to fight, will it? Which means…it might inherit the will and aims of Saika but not the experience and memory,” Anri conjectured. “Please…I have a request. Tell the other Saikas to stop this… As the parent, your orders should reach the children. Of course, if you’re under Saika’s control, my Saika can order you to stop, as your parent…”

“No…this can’t be!”

Despite Anri’s request that she not hurt anyone, those very words did indeed hurt Haruna’s pride deeply.

“Saika tried! It rushed up and tried to take me over, day after day…but I survived it! I held it down with the power of my love! And yet, you don’t know the first thing about love…so how can I lose to you…?”

She glared up at Anri, the picture of frustration.

In contrast, Anri’s voice held nothing but sadness. “Miss Niekawa…I’ll let you hear just a little bit.”

“Huh…?”

“Of the words of Saika’s love, the thing that constantly echoes within me…”

Anri moved the katana away from Haruna’s neck and stuck it, just a fraction of an inch, into the girl’s arm.

She felt a small prick of pain on her arm, then—

The words of love came right into her heart and

and

love

was all

ve, love, love, lo

ause of love.” “So mu

ust love people.” “Don’t be ridicu

“Don’t talk about who you love, that just

o, no, no! I love all, all, all of humanity equally

What do I love? Don’t be ridiculous! It’s everything

love blood splatter.” “I love hard bone.” “It’s love.” “Nice

so I forgive you.” “So you can forgive me too, okay” “I won’t

all of this.” “Ah!” “The slice of meat during the moment of ecstasy

I just love the soft and yet hard muscle that rips right apart!” “And there’s that hard bone, so smooth and supple, weak yet sharp, tough and cracking!” “Love trembling and soft and silky and squishy sticking and sticking and sticking tight together as voices echo with cries of love, yes? I’m so jealous I wish I had words of love to speak but I don’t so I want you to love me instead I want to be filled but yes oh yes but oh yes I’m so jealous even dying can be a form of love lust is a powerful form of love but no you can’t try to narrow love to a definition that’s blasphemy against the heart there is no definition of love all that you need are those simple words I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you—

Just at the moment Haruna’s mind threatened to explode, Anri pulled the sword away.

“Did you hear Saika’s words?”

She heard them. To be more precise, she couldn’t shut them out.

It was nothing at all like the words that Haruna had heard within herself.

This was not love.

Taken one by one, the words might have included love, but boiled and bubbled into one solid mass of “words of love,” it was nothing but a thick stew of voices of loathing to anyone who heard it.

“H-how…? How can you possibly stand…those haunting curses?”

“I am lacking in many ways,” Anri explained, forcing a smile onto her face despite the sadness in her eyes. She examined her own Saika. “So I must fill the gaps of what I’m missing… I’m a parasite. I live off of all kinds of things.”

She continued in a tiny voice, as if speaking just to herself, “I know that I lack the heart to love others…and that’s why I’ve been able to listen to the voice, over and over…with total objectivity…”

From outside the picture frame.

Anri looked down as she envisioned the familiar image, and Haruna took it as her chance to strike. She picked up the knife from her feet and swung it at Anri with everything she had.

Once, twice, thrice—the knife flashed at the limit of speed for a human being, carving fresh slices into Anri’s body. Though she didn’t hit any fatal spots, there were heavy wounds on her arms and legs.

“Ha-ha…ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! I did it! Yes, you could never stop me…”

Her gale of laughter was short-lived.

Anri withstood the assault with utter calm, and now the point of that katana was pressed to the other girl’s throat.

“Ah!” Haruna shrieked with fear.

Anri asked curiously, “Why are you so afraid of being cut? Isn’t that just a result of being loved?”

It wasn’t sarcasm, but an honest question. Haruna gritted her teeth and put on her bravest face, throwing the question back at Anri.

“Wh-why did you just let me cut you…?”

Haruna was no fool. She was rational enough to understand that Anri chose not to dodge attacks that she could have avoided. Anri responded to the question by allowing her expressionless eyes to flash red.

“If you won’t stop the other slashers now, I’ll have to do something awful to you. This means we’ll be even,” she announced.

“Huh…?”

It was an absurd thing to say, when she was the one who’d just taken several deep slashes, Haruna thought. But while her rational mind was confident, her subconscious heart was trembling in fear at what might happen to her.

Just as her heart feared, Anri pressed the tip of the sword against her throat.

“I’m letting Saika take over just a bit of your heart. You’ll be fine—I highly doubt it’s fatal…”

“Ah…aaaah…”

“I won’t apologize. If I apologize to you now, I’ll be denying my very way of life. Yes, I think I’m a coward. I’m trying to protect my own peace of mind by doing something awful to you…but I can’t help it.”

The bespectacled girl smiled ruefully.

That was the last image Haruna saw before her mind was occupied.

“After all, I’m a parasite.”

The tip of the sword broke the skin of her throat, just the smallest of margins—and the words of love flowed into her.

She remembered that it was the voice that entered her for only an instant when she was just barely grazed by the slasher five years ago.

The last thing Haruna heard was Anri’s voice atop a tremendous flood of loving curses.

“You see, Saika gets very lonely. So it hurts to hear you claim that you ‘suppressed’ her or ‘used’ her. From our human perspective, she might be doing it wrong…but it’s true that Saika does love all of humanity…

“So please…love her back.

“Miss Niekawa, I want you…to love Saika.

“You, at least, can love others…unlike me…”

At the same moment—

Shizuo noticed that one of the slashers coming after him suddenly lost the will to fight, and he gave his body an order with all of his mind and spirit.

Just one word: Stop.

That had never worked before. The cells, ruled by his anger, always continued their destruction until everything was finished.

But this was different.

Shizuo was not ruled by anger now.

It was joy. He was using his strength of his own will, out of nothing but joy.

Stop…stop…stop, damn you!

Finally, his anger appeared, its momentum focused at all of his own cells. The fist that threatened to crush the face of the oncoming but nonhostile slasher, now just an ordinary, harmless person…

Stopped right before making contact with the nose and went still.

“…Ha-ha.”

Shizuo looked at the halted fist and realized he was laughing.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”

It was the laughter of an innocent child and the laughter of an insane killer.

What the hell?

About time you finally started listening to me.

Behind him was the by-product of that personal victory.

An entire field of Saikas, beaten until they couldn’t move again, and a pile of broken blades in all shapes and sizes, snapped in half by Shizuo’s shadow-gloved hands.

But none of them was dead.

He swung his fists with a different emotion than anger. It was pleasure—still a twisted emotion to utilize for fighting—but the result was that he’d been able to hold back for once.

It was the moment that violence turned to strength for Shizuo Heiwajima.

One night, five years ago

Anri’s father was trying to kill her.

Not out of anger. He stared at her with calm, blank eyes as he put his weight into strangling her around the neck.

Daddy.

It hurts.

Don’t.

Why are you strangling me?

Why is Mommy lying on the ground?

I don’t want you to fight with her.

I don’t want to fight with you, either, Daddy.

I won’t cry when you hit me anymore. I’ll hold it in.

Just don’t kill me. Please, help me, Daddy…

As her wits began to fade, the girl saw her mother standing over her father’s back. He continued to choke Anri, unaware.

She didn’t know what had happened between her father and mother or why he was trying to kill her.

All she knew was that her mother said, “I love you, dear,” and lopped his head off with a swing from a katana that she’d produced from somewhere. At the end of the swing, she turned the blade around and stabbed it into her own stomach.

As the katana fell from her mother’s hands, it clattered to the ground at Anri’s feet and filled her heart with the accursed words of love.

But they didn’t reach her.

For the first time, Anri was seeing the world and herself from outside of the picture frame—and even Saika’s cursed words couldn’t reach her mind.

The words poured right off of her. She picked up Saika, her mind blank—and learned of Saika’s past, her intentions, and the fact that her own mother had been the source of the slashings.

Anri’s body absorbed the sword. The police never found the slasher’s weapon.

“A-Anri. Is that you…Anri?”

She came back to her senses at the sound of Nasujima’s voice.

In front of her was an unconscious Haruna and Nasujima, who looked down at the girl’s body as though she were something creepy and disgusting.

“I-I don’t know what you did…but she tried to attack me in the faculty room once. The school helped me hush the matter up and transfer her out, but… Shit! I guess she never gave up, the freaky stalker!” he ranted, all image of an educator lost.

Suddenly, he shrieked and backed away from Anri. Was he startled by the katana in her hands? But that wasn’t the case.

Anri turned around to see that a motorcycle had appeared without producing any engine noise. It was Celty.

But why now…?

Anri shook her head in resignation and turned toward Celty. Just as she was about to say something, Nasujima grabbed her shoulder from behind.

“C’mon, Sonohara, run away with me. Okay? Okay?”

His ulterior motives were obvious even in this extreme situation. Anri just shook his hand away.

“Wh…why are you turning me down? D-don’t you remember how I saved you from those bullies, Sonohara? Before? Y’know?”

“I already returned that favor.”

“Wh-what, you mean just now? W-we’ve got bigger fish to fry!”

“No…I did this for myself…”

She turned her back on the confused Nasujima and delivered a statement meant for both him and Celty.

“Until just recently, I thought that the Black Rider here was responsible for all of the slashings. So when I thought you were being attacked, I didn’t think twice—and I used my power…because I just wanted to save you…”

“Huh…?”

“It wasn’t because I like you. I hate you! That’s why I wanted to repay you for helping me. So we could be even!”

Oh.

Anri’s words jogged Celty’s memory. She studied Nasujima’s face.

He was that scumbag…

Celty thought back to the night that Anri attacked her and recalled the face of the man standing right there.

And he’s a teacher? If he was a teacher, why was he taking money out of a place like that?

“But, sir, it doesn’t add up. The Black Rider here…is a very, very good person. Much stronger than me…and forthright…and helping to keep our neighborhood in order.”

Nasujima finally realized that something chilling was in the air. He didn’t attempt to interrupt any further.

“So, sir…can you tell me…why you were running away from the Black Rider? What exactly were you doing?”

She slowly turned to face Nasujima. At last, he noticed the Saika in her hand and shrieked, “Nuh-nuh-nuh-n-not you, too! Not you, too, Anri! Are you pulling that sword on me t-t-too, too, too?!”

His voice rattled into an unintelligible mush.

“No, sir.”

Anri wore a faint smile and started to walk toward Nasujima, the cursed katana Saika in hand, a part of her now.

“Miss Niekawa and I are different.”

“Unlike her, all I feel for you is utter loathing.”

After Nasujima fled in a panic, Anri turned back to Celty.

She was ready for what came next, if that should happen to mean a fight and possibly her own death…

But all she saw was the Headless Rider slinging the unconscious Haruna over a shoulder and getting onto that motorcycle.

“Huh…?”

Anri watched Celty in bewilderment. Celty apparently noticed her confusion and typed out a quick message on the PDA.

“I’ve been watching you for quite a while, actually. I’ve pretty much got a grasp on the situation. I’ll take the girl to see an unlicensed doctor I know—don’t worry about her,” the message read nonchalantly.

Anri blurted out, “C-Celty! Um, I’m really…”

“Don’t apologize,” the PDA said, the font enlarged for emphasis. “You did what you thought was right, didn’t you? I think it was the right thing to do in that situation. Knocking my head off might have been excessive, but I can complain to Saika about that later.”

The rider leaned closer to Anri and typed in a fresh message.

“But don’t think that I’m sympathizing with you.”

That statement felt like it was covering something up and was followed by another more bashful one.

“I just think that if we fought, I couldn’t beat you.”

After Celty left, Anri clenched her own Saika as she stood in the empty street.

Sympathy… I don’t really bother myself with the sympathy of others…

But Anri didn’t particularly think that she was worthy of pity.

She didn’t feel sadness.

This was the life she chose for herself.

Anri thought back to the last message Celty left upon departure.

“If you still can’t accept all of this…then instead of apologizing to me, use that sword of yours to protect Ikebukuro. You could, let’s say…use those hundred Saikas to do volunteer work around town or fund-raise to plant more trees in Ikebukuro…”

As Celty said, Anri Sonohara had gained a sword.

A mob of more than a hundred slashers. In normal circumstances, they acted with their own wills, but when the time came, Anri could call upon them as faithful partners.

It was a burden, but a weight that Anri wanted on her shoulders.

She had been floating aimlessly before this, so the weight of controlling the fate of others kept her feet firmly on the ground.

The weight might keep her from moving from that spot.

But at least her eyes and mouth, hands and heart were still free.

She could look where she wanted.

She could listen to the world around her.

She could tell someone about that.

She could reach out and grab what she wanted.

And she could still smile.

She wasn’t sad.

She might not be having fun, either.

So she chose to smile.