Durarara!! - Volume 3 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: That Was Indeed a Monster.

In a city where even the night is brimming with light, there is a monster.

(Yes, a monster that was indeed a monster.)

Another member of the city wandered in the darkness tonight, soon to be gripped by the fear of that creature.

Ikebukuro

As she straddled the headlightless motorcycle, she was certain that she was being followed.

Her bike’s engine made no sound.

And yet, she was easily traveling over thirty-five miles an hour. That alone made her an eerie sight, but even through her helmet, she could sense the shadow closing in on her.

She didn’t have to look into her side mirror. She could sense her surroundings through her back.

It’s the police.

Her grip on the handlebars relaxed as the shadow wafted within her helmet.

There was no need for undue fear as long as she understood what she was facing, that it wasn’t some unexplained menace. Of course, to people unfamiliar with the process, being pursued by the police was an inexplicable and menacing experience—but to Celty Sturluson, it was an encounter with which she was somewhat familiar.

She took care to follow traffic safety laws in all cases outside of an emergency, but there was no hiding the lack of a license plate and lights. She couldn’t possibly pay a ticket if she got pulled over. Celty didn’t even have a driver’s license, so getting arrested would lead to a chain reaction of ugly consequences.

A self-deprecating smile flitted across Celty’s mind.

Breaking the law or not, if I get caught, I’ve got bigger problems.

She silently focused her consciousness on the multiple squad bikes approaching her from the rear.

It’s not like the law of Japan can do anything with me once they’ve got me.

Oblivious to Celty’s confidence, the police motorcycles picked up speed bit by bit, approaching her rear quietly but surely.

Then, I guess I need to give them a show.

She sped up, daring them to react, pulling the black bike into a wide parking lot on the side of the road.

To convince them that this is pointless.

The cops closed in, four in all. It was a bit much just to stop one motorcycle, but apparently even that wasn’t enough—one of the officers was using his radio to call for more backup.

You need to learn that the very idea of catching me is futile.

At her back was the wall of a building and a fence of inorganic color.

At her feet, cracked asphalt and white lines demarcating parking spaces.

Overhead, the faded, blurred moonlight dimmed by the surrounding neon.

With the surroundings just right, Celty was now ready to reveal her true nature.

She took off her helmet to show them.

The motorcycle officers had been following commonsense procedures according to what they knew was normal. But now they recognized an abnormality.

There was no head where there should have been beneath the helmet. From the cross section of her neck, black smoke spilled like some kind of out-of-control humidifier.

That in this world, there are monsters that surpass all human understanding.

To impress her nature upon them, the being atop the black motorcycle reached out—and controlled the night lights with her own shadow.

The seeping shadow instantly spread, forming a mist that clouded the officers’ vision. This mist only existed for a span of several seconds until the particles of shadow contracted, materializing into a weapon in Celty’s hands.

But it was far too ugly and warped to be called a weapon. It had a handle about ten feet long, twice Celty’s height, ending in a pitch-black scythe just as long. It was the kind of object found on the Death tarot card, lit by a powerful light to project a large shadow against a wall, then cut out and turned into a real object. Endless, spotless, black, black, black.

More shadow exuded from Celty’s back, erupting upward into wings just as black as the scythe that enveloped her body.

At the same time, the previously silent bike’s engine roared into life.

As it brayed with the sound of a great beast’s dying roar, Celty swung her enormous scythe, completing the image of her true self—a creature not of this world. A headless dullahan.

Celty Sturluson was not human.

She was a type of fairy commonly known as a dullahan, found from Scotland to Ireland—a being that visits the homes of those close to death to inform them of their impending mortality.

The dullahan carried its own severed head under its arm, rode on a two-wheeled carriage called a Coiste Bodhar pulled by a headless horse, and approached the homes of the soon to die. Anyone foolish enough to open the door was drenched with a basin full of blood. Thus the dullahan, like the banshee, made its name as a herald of ill fortune throughout European folklore.

One theory claimed that the dullahan bore a strong resemblance to the Norse Valkyrie, but Celty had no way of knowing if this was true.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know. More accurately, she just couldn’t remember.

When someone back in her homeland stole her head, she lost her memories of what she was. It was the search for the faint trail of her head that had brought her here to Ikebukuro.

Now with a motorcycle instead of a headless horse and a riding suit instead of armor, she had wandered the streets of this neighborhood for decades.

But ultimately, she had not succeeded at retrieving her head, and her memories were still lost. And she was fine with that.

As long as she could stay with those human beings she loved and who accepted her, she could live the way she was now.

She was a headless woman who let her actions speak for her missing face and held this strong, secret desire within her heart.

That was Celty Sturluson in a nutshell.

Instantly dragged against their wills into a display of the abnormal, the motorcycle cops panicked, which gave Celty an easy window of escape. Naturally, none of them would dare to follow her—or so she assumed.

Sadly, reality was not so kind.

Even to a monster to whom reality had only a tenuous connection, reality was cruel to all.

“It’s always been on my mind,” muttered one of the motorcycle cops to himself, seemingly the central figure of the four men, his face shadowed by his helmet.

—?

This was not the reaction she expected.

Celty concentrated on the officer’s long soliloquy, feeling that something was definitely wrong.

“Always, always. When things like you show up in manga and movies, we’re always the punching bags. By the time the hero with his superpowers shows up, we’re always lying in a pool of our own blood, just to show off how tough your kind is.”

This didn’t seem to have anything to do with his actual job, but none of the other officers showed any disagreement with the sentiment. Celty began to feel unsettled that the men were not panicking at her scythe or lack of head.

“But that’s all right. Because on the flip side, they only depict us that way because we’re considered real tough in real life. It’s a necessary evil when telling a story. Yep, absolutely true. But there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to say to any true monster or evil psychic or cyborg or ninja.”

…What in the world is he babbling about?

Celty watched the muttering cop with suspicion and spread her shadow again.

It just wasn’t enough. She hadn’t used enough yet.

None of this meant anything if it wasn’t threatening her opponent. She was producing this shadow specifically for its mental effect. But after a reaction like this, she wasn’t sure what to do anymore.

Undaunted by any of this, the man murmured, “Just one thing. Just one thing I want to say. And that is…”

He squeezed the accelerator sleeve on his right handlebar.

“Don’t fuck with traffic cops, monster.”

The engine roared, 180 degrees the opposite of the sound the black motorcycle made, and the other bikes joined in, gunning their throttles. Meanwhile, she could hear the backup motorcycles and squad cars approaching in the distance.

The traffic officer directly in front of Celty suddenly looked up. His face was pleasant. But his eyes glimmered dangerously.

“I’ll say it again.”

His gaze, brighter than any headlight, cut mercilessly through Celty’s hesitation.

“Learn your lesson, monster. Don’t fuck with traffic cops.”

Near Kawagoe Highway, top floor of apartment building

The sound of a door slamming open.

The owner of the apartment, Shinra Kishitani, spun around to see the figure of his beloved cotenant, her shoulders trembling. She was holding her helmet in her hand for some reason, making no effort to hide her lack of head.

“Welcome home, Cel…whuh?!”

Before Shinra could finish his greeting, Celty leaped into her partner’s arms. In the midst of his powerful embrace, her body shook and quaked.

“Huh? Wha…what’s up?! This kind of physical intimacy is the greatest of honors, my lady. Er, wait, there’s a better way to say that… Uh, hang on. Are you trembling?! No, really, what’s wrong?! Celty? Celtyyy?!”

Several minutes later, once Celty had finally calmed down, she typed her thoughts into the laptop set up on the dinner table.

Shadows split and split again from her fingertips, enabling her to type much faster than any human could. As a sign of her panic, she was even typing in such a way that entirely mimicked human conversation.

“I was s-s-so s-s-scared, so scared, Shinra! P-p-police these days are monsters!”

“Police…?”

“Yes, a monster, that was indeed a monster! There were nearly a dozen motorcycles and patrol cars chasing me around like a beast with one mind… I swung my scythe around with abandon, but rather than scattering them, that just made them chase me harder! They evaded with perfect precision and maintained the pressure! Each and every bike was like a missile coming after me!”

Her fear was so great that Celty jumped from time to time just by looking at the string of text she was typing. Shinra had his arm around her back, gently enveloping the Black Rider suit in an attempt to calm her nerves.

“I figured that a little menace from my end would frighten them off, and that was always good enough before this, but today, the traffic cops chased me around like one single creature. Even when I brought out a scythe that was like thirty feet long, they didn’t budge. They just kept coming after me!”

“Calm down, Celty. You’re just repeating yourself.”

“I-I rode onto the highway, but the highway patrol already had an ambush waiting for me! I only got away by fleeing onto the Raira Academy campus…”

“Yeah… Speaking of the traffic patrol of the Metropolitan Police Department Fifth District…you were doing such a good job of zipping around evading them that they called in some real crack troops from elsewhere,” Shinra explained calmly, hoping to soothe her agitated nerves. “There’s the Kuzuharas at the police box just outside the station; almost the whole family are police. Well, one of them is named Kinnosuke Kuzuhara, and he’s a problem officer who often pressures his targets so much in traffic that they cause accidents. If you think of him as a new officer called here to be a rival to you, it makes you feel like your life has meaning now, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t need a rival to chase me around like Freddy Krueger to make things exciting!” Celty typed, then calmed down at last and continued at a more even pace. “It was scary. So scary. I got overconfident. Very overconfident. I promise I will live my life with humility and modesty. Please forgive me—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Who are you apologizing to?” Shinra wondered with a smirk, peering at Celty. “For being a headless fairy, you sure are a scaredy-cat.”

“Shut up… I’m not scared of ghosts or vampires,” she rebutted unconvincingly.

Shinra cackled. “Is that so? You were afraid of aliens the other day, and I remember the way you were terrified out of your wits after reading that collection of horror manga short stories.”

“I can’t help it! Just think of that kind of horror happening in reality… Think of your own face flying through the sky and strangling you or slugs dripping out of your mouth! That’s scary!”

The thought of the manga made Celty’s body tense again. Meanwhile, Shinra stared at her with the care of one watching an adorable pet and sighed.

“It just sounds like a joke, coming from you. It’s strange, though… Maybe being such an abnormal thing causes you to mix up reality and fiction much easier than the rest of us.”

Celty sulked into her laptop.

“Aliens aren’t fiction! There are plenty of mysteries out there in the universe!”

“Well, you can stop trembling over harmless mysteries… Especially when you just laugh off the ghosts and goblins. That cowardly nature isn’t the Celty I know. The only time you need to show off your vulnerable side is in bed with m— Hurgh!! Y-yeah…that’s more like it…”

With one fist wedged firmly into Shinra’s stomach, Celty typed away with her free hand.

“Don’t get embarrassing on me now. At any rate… I bet I could win a fight against a ghost, but I have no idea what sort of super-science an alien might use. Who knows, those patrol officers could just be grays wearing human bodies.”

“Wow, you must have really been frightened… Well, I hate to bring this up after you were so scared out there,” Shinra said apologetically, slowly recovering from the damage of the body blow, “but would you mind going back out to Ikebukuro Station?”

A long silence.

Celty’s shoulders rose up and down as if taking deep breaths. She put on her trusty helmet and slowly typed out, “Honestly? I don’t want to. I can probably avoid being spotted by the police, but…is it a sudden job?”

“I just need you to pick someone up.”

“Who?”

Shinra was uncharacteristically hesitant in answering his beloved’s question. “Someone who just came back from America. And…he’s going to live right next to this apartment.”

He took a deep breath, then finally gave her the answer.

“So, yeah… My dad’s back.”

Ikebukuro Station, west exit, outside the Metropolitan Theatre

Celty met Shinra Kishitani, her lover and roommate, shortly after losing her head.

It all started when young Shinra found her hiding spot on the ship out of Ireland where she was stowing away, following the trail of her head. After that, she got a place to stay in Japan, owing to the help of Shinra’s father—but thanks to his so-called “research” vivisection, using anesthetics that didn’t even work on her, she did not have a fondness for the man.

In fact, at present Celty suspected that it was Shinra’s father himself who had actually stolen her head. She couldn’t corner him until she had proper proof of it, but she was always wary of him.

She wanted to tell him that he could get a taxi himself, but he had used the proper channels to call upon her services as a courier.

He’s always tried to needle me like that. Some things never change…

Celty made her way to West Gate Park, evading the watchful eye of the police. Once there, she cast her senses around the area.

Though it was nearly eleven o’clock, there was still a surprising number of people about. Those who noticed the now-infamous Black Rider stopped momentarily, but a quick turn of Celty’s helmet in their direction caused their gazes to dart away.

It was under these circumstances that Celty waited for her client.

“You’ll recognize him right away. He’s wearing his usual outfit.”

Shinra’s words as she left the apartment repeated in her head.

I always thought his outfit was pretty silly…but I guess I have no room to speak, Celty thought, recalling the sight of Shinra’s father before he left for America. She made a head-holding gesture and shook the helmet left and right.

At the same time, she noticed one point of interest in her surroundings. There was a group of people with yellow heads visible through the darkness on the road bordering the far end of the park.

The yellow wasn’t bleached hair, but bandannas that the group of boys all wore tied around their foreheads.

Yellow Scarves.

They were a color gang that was growing rapidly in influence, based around a Romance of the Three Kingdoms motif. Celty could recall seeing them here and there in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku over the last few years, until the whole color gang fad seemed to vanish recently.

And now they’re growing again… What are they doing over there? Celty wondered, focusing on the group.

A white shadow stood in the midst of the yellow.

Ugh.

Celty recognized the identity of that white shadow. Inside her mind, she heaved a sigh, then rode her Coiste Bodhar silently toward the gathering.

Trembling at the possibility of police surveillance all the while.

“Hey, pal. Real cool look you’ve got going on.”

“Real wicked. Or is that wacky?”

The young men wearing yellow bandannas surrounded a single, seemingly middle-aged man. They hobbled awkwardly due to their baggy pants.

“Blurp, blub!”

One of them even took a swig of juice and spat it out onto the ground next to him in an odd attempt at intimidation.

Meanwhile, the seemingly middle-aged man surveyed the youths around him with stoic placidity. He was “seemingly” middle-aged because the boy could not accurately guess at the man’s age.

They had picked their target and surrounded a man in white—a single man clad in white, like a polar opposite of Celty’s black.

Not every inch of him was white. Over his funereal black suit, he wore a white lab coat that was slightly too large for his height. In one hand he held a pure white briefcase.

Standing along the road outside the train station in a lab coat was strange enough on its own, but what truly set him apart and concealed his age from observers was the gas mask covering his face.

Again, pure white.

Even the filter affixed over the mouthpiece of the mask and the bands that strapped the mask to the head were all white. With his face hidden from view, the only detail the boys used to conjecture that he was middle-aged was the graying of about half his hair.

Both his transitioning hair color and the skin color peeking out here and there were overshadowed by the pure snow-whiteness of the gas mask.

Even the eyes of the mask were made of white glass, like negatives of sunglasses. It made him look like some sort of bizarre silkworm.

Within the setting of urban Ikebukuro, he looked nothing short of insane.

If you’re going to dress like that, at least save it for Harajuku or Akihabara…

Celty recognized the man from afar. It was clear that based on the manga, novels, and dubious tabloids she read, Celty thought of Harajuku and Akihabara as mystical places where anything goes.

And sure enough, he’s gotten himself into trouble…

There was no doubting it now.

Celty was sure it was him.

If anything, she simply wanted to believe that there were not multiple people who would dress like that.

So if her hopes were true, that meant the man in white was Shingen Kishitani—Shinra’s father.

The boys crowded around the bizarre, almost exhibitionistic man like he was some kind of creature in a zoo, totally unaware of Celty’s steady approach.

“Listen, pal, we’re in a bad mood ’cause we’ve been on the lookout for a slasher who’s in hiding. I mean, we’re crazy pissed. And you’re crazy suspicious.”

“So is it all right if we do a little inspection?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t—blorp—mind if we examine your wallet. Blorp, blup.”

One of the men approached him, spilling carbonated soda from his mouth. Shingen took a step away from him and spoke at last.

“The air in Tokyo is so dirty. Don’t you agree?”

“Huhh?” one of the boys growled.

Meanwhile, Shingen only shook his head in lamentation and mumbled through the gas mask. “Of course, those filthy faces of yours seem uniquely adapted to the wretched air. A form of camouflage, if you will. And not just that—the stain extends to your eyes. You do not even see the extent to which the filth penetrates you.”

“I dunno, I think this dude might be leakin’ something, if you catch my drift.”

The boys reacted to the man’s obvious insult not with anger, but suspicion and confusion.

“Yeah…no worries, though,” one of them said and poured the remains of his beverage onto Shingen’s head. Large stains grew on the pristine lab coat, and a sweet smell wafted through the air.

Shingen remained silent for a moment, then shook his head again and lamented, “Ahem. Well, it seems the time has come for you to understand what a grown man can do… You may think that being minors under the protection of juvenile law renders you immune from harm if you choose to kill another person—well, think harder! When you attempt to kill a man, you have to be fully aware of the possibility that he might kill you first!”

The instant he finished this imperious speech, the member of the group most difficult to label a “boy” grabbed Shingen roughly by the collar.

“Ah! Ow!”

“Yeah, I think this dude really is leaking brains.”

He stood on Shingen’s shoe and began jabbing his thumb into the man’s ribs.

“Listen up, I’m over twenty!”

“Agh! Ah! W-wait a minute. Ouch, that really hurts! I can’t get away because you’re stepping—ow!—on my shoe! Your thumb is—ow!—stabbing me really hard! Ow, ow, ow!”

“Huh?! I can’t hear you. Huh?!”

With every “Huh?!” the young man drove his extended thumb between the ribs. While unthreatening, the powerful and speedy attack caused Shingen to yelp in surprise.

“What are you doing just standing there, Celty? Hurry up and come to my aid!” he shouted over the boys’ heads, which caused them all to turn around.

They saw a black shadow.

Do I have to…?

Celty seriously considered responding to the cry for help by pretending she had seen nothing and going back home. All the while, Shingen continued yelping.

“Didn’t you put it together that the reason I spoke down to them like this was because I saw you standing behind them and knew I was safe?! I know you’re not the kind of person who would betray my trust!”

I really don’t want to do this…

Celty was truly about to turn on her heel when she was stopped by a sudden shout from one of the boys.

“Hey! That’s the Black Rider!”

“That’s the one, Mr. Horada! It was the dude dressed like a bartender with the Black Rider who did us in!”

“You got a lot to answer for, punk. Yeah?!”

“How you gonna pay for what that bartender did to us?”

Are these the guys who…?

And then Celty remembered.

Several weeks earlier, on the evening of the great mass slashing called the “Night of the Ripper,” the friend she’d been escorting on her motorcycle had flattened a group of the Yellow Scarves who had dared to stare him down.

She didn’t recall the faces of the people he punched, but based on the way they were screaming, these had to be the same boys.

Oh, geez.

Celty pulled her PDA from her waist, hoping to find some way to explain the situation to the angry gang, except—

“What you doin’ with that? You think this is a joke? Huh?”

One of them smacked her hand, sending the not-inexpensive PDA clattering to the asphalt.

The next instant, the shadow seeping from Celty’s body instantly spread throughout the area, clinging to the boys’ feet.

“Whua?!”

“Wh-what is this shit?!”

“H-hyaa!”

The boys screamed, stumbled, and fell as their legs were caught by the sudden appearance of the black, ropy shadows, quick as snakes and sticky as leeches.

Meanwhile, Celty retrieved her PDA. Once she was sure the crystal screen still worked, she calmed down a bit.

Good, it’s not broken.

She clutched the PDA Shinra had given her as a present and turned back, done playing around. She was about to grab Shingen’s hand and drag him away from the scene, when…

“Hey, you! Black Rider! What’s the big idea—?”

“Yah.”

“Guh?!”

—?!

Shingen, who was standing right behind the young man who’d boasted that he was over twenty, swung his briefcase down on the back of the punk’s head. It was a tremendous, centrifugal arc with arms at full extension.

The sound it made was much lighter than Celty expected, but the man crumpled to the ground anyway, eyes rolled back and blood trailing from his head.

While everyone else was stunned into silence, Shingen glared down at his fallen victim imposingly.

“See that…? That’s…how a grown man fights.”

What in the world are you doing, you clown?!

Celty could sense that they were attracting more attention from the surrounding area, so she grabbed Shingen’s hand and practically dragged him away toward her trusty black bike.

“Just a moment, Celty. There are three more of them left.”

“Shut up,” she typed briefly into the PDA before tucking it back away.

The motorcycle silently ran up to the corner of the Metropolitan Theatre, but then she remembered that there was a police station on the other side and quickly wheeled into a U-turn.

The fear she felt earlier in the evening returned, shivering up her back.

“Oh…did you just shiver, Celty? Was it a shiver in response to a sensation of cold? A mental reaction? The workings of some sensory apparatus unfamiliar to humanity? How fascinating. You’ll have to allow me to dissect you agai— Gwffh!!”

She planted her knee in his back and hung her helmet.

He’s just like Shinra, but…I simply can’t find it in me to like him…

“You saved me, Celty. Not only that, you helped me teach the leaders of tomorrow a harsh lesson about life, at the mere price of screaming pain in my serratus posterior inferior and abdominal oblique.”

Shingen was rubbing his ribs with one hand while he clung to Celty’s back with the other.

The contrast of pure white and black atop the dark motorcycle was striking in the back alleys. They would stick out like nothing else on the main roads, and if they were caught, they’d likely be charged with excessive force in self-defense.

With her boyfriend’s father—the very man responsible for that excessive force—seated behind her, she could do nothing but pray that the squad of police motorcycles wouldn’t spot them.

Meanwhile, Shingen continued chattering away into his gas mask. “The thing about that attack is, it wouldn’t really work against a proper fighter—a boxer, say, with powerful abdominal muscles. Sadly, I do not have well-trained abs, so there will be a bruise for quite some time, if not actual interior damage.”

Hope it hurts like hell.

If Celty had actually had teeth to grind, they would have been audible right now. She tried to imagine herself with a head, but the realization that the number one suspect in its theft was sitting behind her just made her depressed.

She slowed her speed through the back alleys, trying to find something else to think about, settling on the earlier gang of boys.

Because there were so many members of the Yellow Scarves, they were a threat if they wanted to be. At worst, they might pinpoint the location of the apartment where she lived with Shinra.

She knew that she could get by without being trailed all the way back, but their numbers were concerning. Celty couldn’t say for certain that one of them who happened to live nearby might not catch sight of her returning home by coincidence.

It’s weird, though, Celty thought, noticing something about the Yellow Scarves. They just picked a fight with Shizuo not too long ago…

Shizuo was the name of the friend who had flattened the previous group of boys a few weeks back. Celty consulted her memories of the more distant past.

The Yellow Scarves were not always such an aggressive bunch, she knew. They might squabble among other kids, but they didn’t seem to be the type to pick fights with older adults or go hunting for victims late at night.

Then again, the idiot in the gas mask is dressed like a perfect mark. Then again, I don’t have room to speak about unusual appearances, either. Huh? So does that mean a few weeks back…they were picking a fight with me, not Shizuo?

If that was the case, she owed Shizuo an apology for getting him involved. But there was something else eating away at her.

She was remembering what one of the members of that group had shouted: “Listen up, I’m over twenty!”

Before, the Yellow Scarves were just middle schoolers… They should be in high school at the most by now. I didn’t think they would be pulling older people into their group…

While this did bother her, the apartment building was within sight, so her thought process hastily wrapped the issue up.

Then again, strange things happen with large enough gatherings. They’re not necessarily representative of the whole. Ha-ha! Just like us.

The organization that she herself was aligned with suddenly passed through her mind. She trembled slightly with a silent chuckle.

The Dollars aren’t much different.

The motorcycle bearing shadows white and black passed into the building’s underground parking lot unseen. The night moved onward in Ikebukuro.

Though she herself was an extremely abnormal being, her very normal life quietly vanished into the darkness.

But the disquiet of that question remained upon her heart.

Chat room

{I’m seeing more people in yellow around town these days.}

[Yellow?]

<No kidding. They’re more visible than the Dollars now, since you can identify them easily.>

[Oh, you mean the Yellow Scarves?]

[They do seem to be on the rise.]

<Ah, you’re aware of them, too, Setton?>

[Yes, well…they’ve been around for years.]

[But…I don’t know, something’s changed with them recently.]

{Changed?}

[I don’t know how to describe it. They’re not like the old Yellow Scarves… They seem to be going in a different direction.]

[It feels like they’re more violent than they used to be.]

{You seem to know your stuff, Setton.}

<That’s incredible! I’m too scared to go around observing them all the time, so I wasn’t aware of aaany of this at aaall.>

{Do you happen to know someone in the group?}

[Oh no, that’s not the case.]

—SAIKA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

{Oh! Good evening, Saika.}

[Evenin’.]

<Welcome!>

|good evening. um, sorry|

{Why are you apologizing? lol}

<Saika always apologizes right off the bat. That first time was because you weren’t used to the Internet yet, and you got hit with a virus, right? You can’t help that!>

|sorry|

|sorry|

[Too much apologizing, ha-ha.]

{Anyway, we were just talking about the Yellow Scarves.}

<Do you know about them?>

|from the romance of the three kingdoms?|

[Well, yes, but more specifically, it’s a gang named after that.]

|oh, the people wearing yellow scraps around town?|

[Yes, those are the ones.]

{Have you seen them, Saika?}

<I’m telling you, pretty much anyone living in Ikebukuro has seen them.>

|sorry, yes, i have|

<Don’t apologize, lol.>

|sorry|

<Speaking of which…seems like the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves are in a touchy situation right now.>

[Oh?]

|what is the dollars?|

{Oh, you don’t know about the Dollars.}

|sorry|

{No, look, you don’t have to keep apologizing.}

<Private Mode> {…Is it true, Izaya?}

<Private Mode> <Yep, dead serious. Though I’m sure you’ve heard about it, too.>

<Private Mode> <The Yellow Scarves are on edge because they think the slasher might have been in the Dollars.>

<Private Mode> {I see…}

[The Dollars are a group of young people, a lot like the Yellow Scarves.]

[They just don’t stand out as much, because they don’t have an easy identifier.]

<Both groups have been in a precarious state ever since the slashings.>

|huh|

|what do you mean?|

[It’s not really worth explaining to someone who doesn’t know the details.]

<That’s not true, Setton. If you live in Ikebukuro, you ought to know!>

<Let’s see. The slashing hit both the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves, but it seems like each side suspects the other of orchestrating the whole thing.>

<And after all, they never caught who did it.>

<After the Night of the Ripper, the whole thing just stopped abruptly.>

<There’s lots of speculation flying around in every direction.>

<And both the Yellow Scarves and Dollars suffered losses due to the attacks.>

<So both sides are eager to find the attacker to preserve their reputations.>

{…The Dollars aren’t that fixated on reputation, though.}

{I think they just want vengeance for their friends.}

<And that’s how we’ve arrived at the current situation!>

{So…I don’t think either side understands the other very well… There’s lots of misunderstandings going around.}

|i see, thank you|

<Private Mode> [I’m sorry. But you really don’t need to worry about this, Anri.]

<Private Mode> [It’s just people who don’t know the truth getting worked up about it.]

<Private Mode> [I don’t think you’d do this, but turning yourself in would have no real effect on any of this. You’re not even the real mastermind.]

<Private Mode> [You shouldn’t rush to a hasty decision.]

<Private Mode> [And the police out there are scary right now…really scary! Especially the traffic cops!]

|i’m sorry, thank you|

{?}

<Private Mode> [Oops. I need to teach you how to use private mode sometime.]

<Private Mode> [Anyway, we can talk about this some more another time. Okay?]

<Either way, if both sides don’t find the real slasher and crush them together, it could be raining blood in Ikebukuro pretty soon… It’s scary stuff. Gang warfare!>

{…I’ll be praying it doesn’t come to that.}

|um, sorry|

|i’m going to leave now|

{Oh, sure. Thanks for coming on, Saika.}

<Have a good night.  >

—SAIKA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

<Private Mode> [I’m really sorry. You shouldn’t let it bother you.]

<Private Mode> [Oops, too late.]

[Night, Saika!]

[Oops, just a second too late…]

[In addition to being late, I think I’m going to log off for tonight.]

<Huh? Isn’t that a bit early for you, Setton?>

[I’ve got a guest staying over.]

[Anyways, night!]

<Okay!>

{Talk to you later.}

—SETTON HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

<Private Mode> {Those weird things that the virus was causing Saika to post…}

<Private Mode> {You think they have something to do with the slashings after all?}

<Private Mode> <That’s what I’m looking into now. I’ll tell you if I find out anything…for a low, low price.>

<Private Mode> {If only the police would catch this guy already…}

<Private Mode> {It would make things so much clearer and help us avoid fighting with the Yellow Scarves…}

<Private Mode> <I’m not so sure. Neither the Yellow Scarves nor the Dollars are just one monolithic entity.>

<Private Mode> <Some people are going to start extorting others for their own personal profit under the guise of “gang rivalry.”>

<Private Mode> <After enough of that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.>

<Private Mode> {Well…I won’t let it happen.}

<Private Mode> <We’ll see.>

<Private Mode> <I don’t think you can stop it from happening at this point.>

<Private Mode> <Besides, you have no control over the Yellow Scarves.>

<Private Mode> {Even still…I won’t let it happen.}

<Private Mode> <Hmm…well, I’ll look forward to seeing you try.>

<Welp, gotta go!>

{Nice talking to you.}

—KANRA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

{And now…}

—TAROU HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—