Durarara!! - Volume 3 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Hey.

Wanna hear a nasty story?

Hey, you. You ever killed someone?

I have.

C’mon, don’t look at me like that.

Pretty much anyone who’s worked on a big farm has killed something.

Chickens, cows. Killing really takes it out of you.

There are lots of ways to get over that: experience, environment, religion, hunger. But until you get to that point, it’s still rough.

Once you’re a full-grown adult, not a stupid kid, some people aren’t even sure if they want to stomp on a line of ants. What about you?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. C’mon, I told you not to look at me like that. I’m not trying to lecture you, and I’m not preaching a religion or a vegetarian diet or anything like that.

Listen, I’m not talking about animals here. I love raw meat. I have pride. But all that aside…

I’m talking about people.

The thing is, it takes a lot of labor to kill a person.

I mean, don’t get the wrong idea. People die easy. Push ’em off the train platform, wedge an ice pick into the back of their head, and that’s it. Age, sex, and experience all mean nothing. If you can’t beat them in a fight, just poison them.

Anyone with eyes in their back who can dodge bullets and digest poison isn’t a mere human, so they’re not applicable to this exercise. Rule out the Headless Rider, who might be dead from the start for all I know, and that freak of nature who throws vending machines one-handed.

…Oops, I’m getting off track. Sorry.

At any rate, you can kill people real easily.

But it takes an incredible amount of work to actually kill.

People die quick, but it takes labor to go from “wanting to kill” to “killing.”

You often hear about stupid kids thinking they were just gonna beat on a guy, real easy, and then he just up and died on them. Right?

But when you have an adult, someone much, much stronger than a kid, possibly in possession of a gun…and they calmly think to themselves, All right, I’m going to kill him, that takes quite a lot of mental effort. Especially the first time. It’s different once you get used to it—then there’s no going back. At least, according to what I heard a soldier say once on TV when he came back from some war or another.

What I’m getting at is, it’s really, really hard for normal folks like you to rationally kill a person.

It’s a whole lot easier to suddenly go into a rage, scream that you’re going to kill someone, and then start firing.

Isn’t that weird?

Someone without intent to murder can’t kill a person. If they do, it’s an accident. There’s still a punishment for that, of course. The only difference between “I killed him” and “I accidentally killed him” is the level of intent.

So let me ask again.

Could you kill a person?

You sell information in Shinjuku, toying with people however you like.

But you love human beings more than anyone else around. Isn’t that right?

I’ve heard about you, Izaya Orihara.

Could you kill a person? With your own hands, I mean.

Instead, you stab them with a knife real weak so they don’t die, and you pretend you’re a real bad guy.

Either way, you’re gonna use them, right?

You know, it’s laughable what a cowardly creep you are.

Ha ha!

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Chat room

{Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.}

<Easy with the laughing.>

{Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha}

{Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha}

<A little overboard, Tarou!>

—SETTON HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—

[Evenin’.]

{Oh, good evening.}

<And good evening to you.>

[Are you just copy-pasting that mechanical laugh? What’s up, Tarou?]

{Well, what else can you do? Check out the backlogs.}

<Yah!>

{Huh?}

[Ah!]

{The backlog disappeared!}

<Heh-heh! Never overlook the power of administrator privilege!>

{This is tyranny!}

[That’s mean.]

[So what happened?]

{That’s the thing… Kanra said something weird.}

{You know Shizuo Heiwajima, right?}

[Yes. You were talking about him?]

[I’m not sure why, but his name seems to pop up in here a lot.]

{You’re right, lol. So, about Shizuo…}

|well|

[Huh?!]

|i’m going to leave for today|

{Oh, sure. Good night, Saika.}

[When did you get here, Saika?!]

<Just look at the user list, silly!>

[Huh? Where is that displayed…?]

{User list?}

|i’m not used to this yet|

{Where is the user list displayed, Kanra?}

<Uh-oh. I forgot, only the admin can see it!>

[Oh, Kanra… Well, either way, good evening, Saika.]

|good evening|

|i’m sorry for not saying hello|

|thank you|

|sorry|

<Why are you apologizing? lol>

—SAIKA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

{Good night, Saika. Then again, it’s only eight thirty.}

[Maybe Saika’s coming from an Internet café.]

[That reminds me, there was just that armed robbery in Ikebukuro, so I hope everyone’s being careful walking around the area.]

{First, a slasher, now guns? It’s getting dangerous out there.}

<Let’s not talk about this stuff anymore, please?>

<Oh? By the way, has your PC not gotten that virus infection fixed, Saika?>

<You said you met Saika off-line, right, Setton?>

<Also, Ikebukuro’s always been dangerous.>

[Yes, a few times since then. The viruses and whatnot are fine now. She’s just not used to computers yet, so I’m giving her some tips.]

[Re: always dangerous—Yes, someone I know told me that even back in the Edo period, there were many street slashers around here.]

{Oh, really?}

[Oops, sorry.]

[Looks like I have some work all of a sudden. I’ve got to go.]

[So long!]

{Oh, no worries.}

<Oh, Setton. You and your late-night jobs!>

[Night!]

—SETTON HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

{Good night.}

<Good niiight.>

<Private Mode> {…Um, so… We laughed it off earlier, but…}

<Private Mode> {People will believe what you say, Izaya, so newbies to the Net like Saika might take you seriously.}

<Private Mode> <Sorry about that, I was struck by a whim.>

<Private Mode> <Plus, I thought Saika would join in on the joke. I mean, remember how Setton explained that Saika was a newbie and got hit by a nasty virus and that was the cause of all the weird posting?>

<Private Mode> {Well, that does make some sense.}

<Private Mode> <In which case, why was there that connection between the posts and the slashings?>

<Private Mode> {I think it was the slasher who was spreading the virus.}

<Private Mode> {It would explain why it was trolling our chat from a bunch of computers at once.}

<Private Mode> {The kind of virus that sends instructions afterward to make you look more powerful, you know?}

<Private Mode> <That would make some sense…but consider this, would you?>

<Private Mode> <What if Saika was the slasher?>

<Private Mode> {That’s not funny, either, man.}

<Private Mode> {Speaking of which, your first attempt at a “joke” was bad enough.}

<Private Mode> {Finding a way to legally kill Shizuo?}

<Private Mode> <If I could kill him with jokes, that would make my life a whole lot easier.>

<Private Mode> {Besides, you can’t even scratch him, he’s so powerful.}

<Private Mode> <I’m not so sure. I think it might be possible, if you just find the right method.>

<Private Mode> <If you rely on numbers, there’s no way to kill him.>

<Private Mode> <But if you throw in some extra variable…>

<Private Mode> {Knock it off.}

<Private Mode> {And let me be clear… Don’t try to use the Dollars for this.}

<Private Mode> <I’ll handle it.>

{Well, I suppose we’ll log off now.}

<Sure! Good night!  >

{Don’t use that   with me.}

<Oh, fine. ∞>

{I’m not going to keep playing this game.}

—TAROU HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

—KANRA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—

—THE CHAT ROOM IS CURRENTLY EMPTY—