Durarara!! - Volume 4 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Daioh TV, Special Program Ikebukuro’s 100-Day Front

“The city of Ikebukuro knows no rest,” said the ominous narration on the TV, displaying the night city as filmed from inside a moving police car. “Since the serial assaults known as the Night of the Ripper two months ago, the populace has lived in fear. Yet Ikebukuro’s night continues to writhe with life.”

It was the kind of special program often shown at the end of the year, where film crews accompanied a police patrol to catch the decisive moment in an exciting case to show to the viewers in their peaceful homes.

In most cases, these weren’t shocking, nation-crumbling incidents, but simple local brawls, unlicensed or drunken driving, stolen vehicle crackdowns, and other everyday events that wouldn’t even get listed in a newspaper’s local safety section.

But because of the special immediacy of video footage, the programs succeeded in implanting a specific idea into the heads of its peaceful viewers: “Crime is nearby, and the city at night is dangerous.”

There was just one difference from the usual pattern in Daioh TV’s special program.

“On these streets, the very veins of our city, an eerie shadow dances in the darkness…”

The picture cut to the start of a now-famous video clip.

“A motorcycle entirely in black, with no headlight or license plate. This alone qualifies it as a public danger on the street.”

As usual, the place was Ikebukuro at night. But there was something different to the footage this time, something off.

In the center of the screen was a black motorcycle, racing down the street after a car. As the narrator said, it had no headlight or plate, making the vehicle look like a 3-D representation of a solid black silhouette.

There was the sound of gunfire, and the helmet of the bike’s rider shot backward, raising off its shoulders for just an instant. But it returned to its original position just as quickly.

It was creepy enough, the way it seemed to snap back into place with black rubber bands—but the real problem was what that momentary dislocation revealed.

The instant the helmet rose upward…there was nothing beneath it.

It wasn’t a trick of the eye, or camouflage from black hair, or anything of that sort.

The camera caught a clear glimpse of the shooter’s car in the space between the helmet and the rider’s neck.

The sight could be succinctly described thusly: “The rider on the pitch-black bike has no head above the neck.”

A black shadow that extended from the empty cross section of neck grabbed the base of the helmet and pulled it back into place.

It was already suspicious footage to start with, but the very cheap suspicion of it all, when combined with the straight-faced genre of news reporting, gave the scene an eerie reality.

There was one other unsettling feature about the rider. A tool, pure black with no highlight, as thick and pure as a midsummer shadow, that swung around just before the man shot at the rider.

It was too twisted and hideous to call a “weapon.”

The pole, a good ten feet long at least—twice the height of the rider—was connected to a sickle blade just as long.

The first instant the cameraman caught sight of it, he mistook it for the ostentatious insignia flags that motorcycle gangs waved as they rode. Such was the size of the pole the mystery rider held.

The scythe, which looked like the one Death held on his tarot card, was huge and menacing and as black, black, black as a shadow against a wall cast by a car’s headlights.

“Is it a social outcast gleefully seeking to shock the public? A daring member of some motorcycle gang? Even the police have no answer yet.”

The answer was clearly beyond those tame descriptors, but the dignity of a serious news program prohibited them from using words like monster or ghoul. Yet it was clear from a simple glance that this was not an attention seeker or a biker gang member or even a human being—it was something else.

Many people could bring themselves to recognize that this was “something beyond the realm of human understanding,” but none of them could accept it.

Which was why half of the media was desperate to attach some kind of meaning to it. The other half got busy trying to bring acceptance to the unaccepting and made a business of it.

It was a true example of the grotesque brought to modern times.

People on opposing sides—those who sought to bring about another cyclical boom of interest in the occult and those who denied its otherworldly cause—set about to reveal the true nature of the Headless Rider for their own ends.

Thus, the media found itself chasing after the mysterious Headless Rider. Among the journalists, some claimed it was a “true monster.”

The footage from the TV cameras was so vivid, it looked for all the world to see as though the rider’s head was gone.

The image was too raw to be faked, and this peculiar persuasiveness led to the propagation of a rumor: that the Headless Rider existed in the space between reality and urban legend, a being born of the spread of public rumor itself.

An urban legend that anyone could spot if they just lurked around Ikebukuro for a few days.

On this night, the liminal being was being pursued by many such curious onlookers.

But without definitive proof for the public to see, the Headless Rider became a prototypical “modern mystery” with no actual answer, an otherwise accepted part of society.

As for the mystery herself…

She was stuck at a part-time job in a corner of Nerima Ward.

Nerima Ward

Bright light hugged pale skin.

Beneath a light so powerful it seemed to blend the boundary between reality and fantasy lay a woman’s naked body. Two shapely mounds rose above finely chiseled abs, and a finger frolicked fishlike through the soft cleavage.

The finger belonged to another woman, her blond hair shining in the vivid light. She was dressed as a doctor or researcher, and her golden eyes stood out on her young face, somehow clashing with the white coat that covered her body.

It wasn’t just the uniform that clashed with her face, but the body beneath it, which was even more curvaceous and inflammatory than the naked one on the bed. The uniformed woman was unconsciously writhing and squirming with pleasure.

If the blond woman’s body was a personification of pure, heady lust, then the woman on the table exuded a more wholesome eros. Together, the two figures shone in stark, desirable profile within the light.

The finger tracing the naked woman’s breasts slid down to her abdomen to lightly circle her navel.

If these were the only details examined, it would be quite an erotic sight, but one particular oddity ruined the effect and turned the scene into something extremely abnormal.

In fact, it was so unlikely and freakish that that the word oddity was wholly inadequate to describe it.

Because the naked woman lying on the bed had no head.

The cross section at her neck was so smooth and natural that it looked like less of a severance than that there had never been a head there to begin with. The cross section was shrouded in black shadow that covered up the esophagus and backbone that would normally be visible there.

But if that odd shadow was ignored, it looked like nothing more than an examination of a dead body—a white doctor performing an autopsy on a mutilated corpse.

The absence of a head turned it into an utterly unsexy scene. But when the woman in the lab coat took her hands off the headless “body” and spoke, her voice had no hint of either husky lust or scientific examination.

“I have finished to conclusion! There is much thanks for your accomplicing!”

Her bizarre version of Japanese was followed by something even more jarring.

The headless woman’s hand writhed and issued a black something. It was less of a gas than a kind of liquid that seemed to blend into the air.

The substance was the kind of black that actually stole the light it absorbed, closer to shadow or darkness than a color. This shadow issued forth and then enveloped the entirety of the naked body, clamping to the skin in a way that was nothing short of sentient.

The woman dressed in white watched this process with obvious interest, but no surprise in the least. In no more than a few seconds, the headless woman on the bed went from totally naked to covered in a pitch-black riding suit.

The one element that hadn’t changed was her total lack of a head. She sat up from the bed, not bothered in the least by the absence of a skull, and picked up a PDA sitting on the nearby desktop.

The bizarre creature coolly typed a message into the device and showed the screen to the woman in the lab coat.

“It’s not ‘accomplicing.’ What you meant to say is ‘cooperation.’”

“Oh dear. I have apologized. I am terrifyingly sorryful.”

“…Well, I can tell you know enough to read kanji… You aren’t speaking this messed-up Japanese for the sake of being memorable, are you?”

“That is totally undeniable lack of truth. Ring-a-ding-dub,” she said with an innocent smile.

The Headless Rider shrugged and typed, “I can’t tell if you’re confirming or denying that accusation… Listen, Emilia. Just give me this week’s pay. Also, I think you meant ‘Rub-a-dub-dub.’ ‘Ring-a-ding-ding’ is the theme the Robapan bakery trucks play.”

“It is so shrewd and abacusing of you to leap right to reward. It is better to improve cuteness by demure shyness, such as the traditional Japanese way, yes?”

“How can I be a traditional Japanese woman when I’m from Ireland?”

The woman the Headless Rider called Emilia pouted and cried, “Now you are Ikebukuroican! And it is appreciated to the nth degree to call me Mother. Mommy is also allowed. Mamma mia.”

“Uh…well, I’ll admit that I’m considering my future with Shinra, but the concrete topic of marriage is a ways off. Besides, you’re younger than both me and Shinra, so calling you mother would be weird.”

She twisted her body in apparent shyness, but without cheeks for blushing, the motion made her look more like a writhing zombie with its head blown off.

“Just give me my pay! It’s the only reason I’m going through with these unpleasant medical tests. And what was that last physical examination for?”

“Oh, the boiled-egg skin is so beautiful and smooth, I simply wished to engage in pleasures of fondling closely.”

“…I’ll pretend not to be angry if you just give me my week’s worth of money.”

“Yes, yes, please to be calm. Haste make waste, broke as joke,” Emilia said distractingly and produced a heavy envelope.

Inside the brown manila folder, which had “Payment—Celty Sturluson” handwritten on it, was a stack of a hundred ten-thousand-yen bills, each with the face of Yukichi Fukuzawa on it.

The Headless Rider utilized a myriad of little shadow tendrils to quickly count the total, then happily turned and typed a message with a few extra symbols into the PDA.

“Looks good!   Thanks for your business!  ”

With an absolutely outrageous week’s pay in hand, the headless woman, Celty Sturluson, trotted gleefully out of the lab.

When she reached the underground garage, Celty turned to the motorcycle parked in the corner. It was totally hidden by a rain cover, but oddly enough, the material was not the usual silver, but the same featureless black that covered Celty’s body.

She put a hand to the cover, and it dissipated instantly, the tiny black particles melting into thin air. The action looked like some kind of sorcery, but Celty sat on the bike without a second thought and put the helmet hanging on the handlebars onto her neck.

A Headless Rider in the dark of night, riding a black bike without lights or license plate.

Without the slightest shred of understanding of the effect this combination had on the rest of society, or of the mystery her own existence posed, Celty gunned the engine with a sound like a horse whinnying and rode out into Ikebukuro.

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 live 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.

Highway, Ikebukuro

As she raced toward the center of the city, Celty eagerly contemplated the near future.

Wow, who’d have thought I’d make a million yen in short-term income in just a week? I should use this to buy Shinra some new glasses.

Shinra was the black-market doctor who was Celty’s romantic partner and roommate. He was an odd fellow who loved her for both her mind and her appearance, and she loved him back with all of her heart.

The image of her beloved eccentric lighting up with joy made Celty even more excited. She considered other ways to spend the remainder.

I could use a new mini laptop… Oh, right, and I really need a new helmet.

The job she just left was a sudden, unexpected source of income, which made this windfall a bit of a personal bonus unrelated to savings.

She normally made her money as a courier, but nearly all of the proceeds from that business went to savings for the future.

This new venture started about a month ago, when she first met Emilia, who came to Ikebukuro following Shinra’s father. Emilia worked for a major pharmaceutical company overseas and boldly demanded to play with Celty’s body.

Naturally, Celty refused at first, only accepting with reluctance once she had been assured there would be only a minimum of open surgery or cell sampling and the only contact would come from female researchers.

But mostly, it was the amount of pay that Emilia mentioned that sealed the deal.

In the past, I would have no choice but to leave all of the money with Shinra. But now you can buy pretty much anything with anonymity online. Long live modern civilization.

It was not a typical line of thought for an inhuman spook, but Celty was too busy indulging in crass materialism to care.

In my case, it’s helpful that I don’t need to spend money on my bike. All I need to buy are brushes to keep Shooter’s mane in line. He even hates the idea of stickers on his body.

That had to be the nickname of her Coiste Bodhar. She patted the bike, which also happened to be her trusty headless steed. The normally silent motorcycle engine whinnied in apparent delight, startling nearby pedestrians.

Hee-hee, you adorable scamp, she thought, already looking forward to spending her million yen, the way a child looks forward to buying candy the day before a field trip.

I’ll still have seven hundred thousand yen left over. Maybe I’ll buy that DVD recorder I’ve been wanting. The kind that dubs straight from a video deck. Then, I’ll have a more compact storage solution for all the episodes of Gatten, Mysterious Discoveries, TV Investigations, Monday nine PM dramas, Partner, Antique Appraisers, and all the other shows I’ve been taping.

Also, let’s see… Right, I can buy some gourmet food for Shinra to eat. He did say he wanted to try sagohachi-style pickled sandfish sometime. Is this even the right season for sandfish?

In mid-April, sandfish season was long over. The bigger problem for Celty was how to cook the dish. Having no head naturally meant having no tongue. The shadow that her body produced functioned somewhat like a radar, giving her sight, hearing, and even smell through some means unknown.

But there was a problem: Because she didn’t need to eat for whatever reason, she had no sense of taste and no way of knowing if the scents she was picking up were the same things Shinra smelled.

So if she followed a recipe when cooking, it might look right, but there was no way for her to check the actual flavor.

With long years of training, she had gradually learned how to cook certain egg-based dishes to Shinra’s liking, such as crab omelets or scrambled eggs. But for other food, she could only make it by following the recipe to the letter, and given that she couldn’t detect when she’d accidentally used sugar instead of salt, it was always a surprise until Shinra finally tasted it.

I ought to find a good cook and take serious lessons from them. I wonder…if Anri or Karisawa are any good at cooking? she wondered, thinking of her closest female acquaintances, but neither of them seemed to have that cooking air about them. Emilia wouldn’t know the first thing about Japanese food, and the other women she knew were all the eccentric type.

I have a newfound respect for the housewife, the monster thought in admiration. She looked up at the night sky and shrugged. The stars were nearly invisible behind the light of the city. The only object that made its presence known was the moon.

I suppose being able to think about this topic is a sign that my life is good. Not that I was confident of that last month, after Emilia showed up…

By all accounts, Emilia was freeloading in their apartment, but she spent most of the week staying over at the lab, which meant she was almost never home.

Instead, the abnormality of that visit turned into everyday experiments, but that ended up with a minimum of suffering and more than enough reward to make up for it.

The light turned red and she came to a stop, reflecting on the sheer humanity of her life with relief.

This is it. This is what I wanted.

Peaceful days with the one she loved.

As an abnormal, headless knight, she understood just what a rare bliss that was and was acutely aware of the warmth enveloping her emotions.

In fact, I might just call Emilia “Mother” after all. I wonder how Shinra would react.

She felt a peaceful feeling come over her as she imagined her lover’s flustered face and waited for the light to change.

But…

Humanity did not know or care of the goings-on in Celty’s daily life.

It wanted nothing more than to plunge her into hell as the symbol of the abnormal.

“Excuse me, may I have a word?”

Hmm?

Celty made a show of swiveling her helmet around as her otherworldly senses focused on the surroundings. A portly man was holding out what looked like a mic toward her as she waited for the light.

Me? What does he want? Why is he holding a mic out into the middle of the street?

The man was standing on the other side of the guardrail, holding his mic over it into the road where she waited, a deadly serious look on his face.

“I’m Fukumi, a reporter for Daioh TV. I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Oh no.

Celty noticed another man with a TV camera standing a slight distance away and even more men in plainclothes standing around beyond him. She understood Fukumi’s intentions at once.

“We’re currently filming for a news special here in Ikebukuro… I’ve noticed that your motorcycle has no headlight or license plate. This is clearly illegal, is it not?” the reporter asked, which was a perfectly correct observation. Unfortunately, the light was not going to turn green anytime soon.

Damn, I forgot that this is a long light.

In a way, it was rather silly that a motorcycle rider without a headlight or license plate was obeying a traffic light, but the reporter did not crack a smile. “May we assume that the Black Rider witnessed over the years is you? What is your purpose in engaging in such dangerous traffic activities?”

For an instant, the bike growled. It was a low, menacing grrrl, like an animal sending a warning signal. The reporter flinched momentarily, disturbed by the motorcycle’s lack of an ordinary engine rumble, but he regained his cool immediately.

“Please tell us something. Are you aware that you’re committing a crime?”

Oh… What do I do now? If I clam up, it’ll only make me look worse to the rest of society.

It’s not a huge deal to me, but I don’t like the idea of those I associate with being treated like criminals, too… Then again, I can’t possibly get licensed, and Shooter doesn’t like wearing a headlight…

Celty was no closer to finding a solution to her quandary. As a courier, she had naturally been involved in ferrying items that ran afoul of the law. There was no denying that her vehicle broke a number of traffic regulations.

But that didn’t mean she could turn around and say, “Don’t mind me, I’m just a monster anyway.”

…Hmm? Actually, I guess I could say that. If I give that news program some impossible footage, they won’t be able to use the film, and if they did run it, the viewers would assume it was fake CG. And they’ve already filmed me once.

She decided to take out her PDA and type a message, showing it to the reporter.

“…? What is this? Um…what do you mean by this?”

Startled by her sudden response, the reporter look back and forth between the PDA screen and her helmet.

He couldn’t be blamed. The message on the screen said:

“This is a horse, so it doesn’t need a headlight or license plate.”

“Is that supposed to be a jo… Whaa—?!” the reporter yelped, freezing up with shock.

The black motorcycle’s silhouette writhed and morphed, growing to twice its previous size. It transformed from a mechanical shape to a biological one in a way that was clearly violating the laws of physics—and in a few seconds, it looked like a pitch-black horse.

But there was something wrong with this horse.

“A-aah…,” the reporter cried again, not at the transformation, but the finished product. He couldn’t be blamed for this.

The Headless Rider’s beloved headlightless bike had faithfully carried over that particular detail.

The horse had no head.

Hee-hee! I haven’t turned him into a horse since that time we went driving in the forests around Fuji, Celty thought proudly, as she stroked the abbreviated neck and looked back at the reporter. He was frozen in place, visibly trembling, but she didn’t react any differently, leisurely typing a fresh message into the PDA.

“I believe you understand now. If you’ll excuse me.”

Horses are treated as light vehicles, just like bicycles, right? she wondered, as she resumed waiting for the light to change.

Anyone who saw that footage on the news would assume the TV station had lost the distinction between news reporting and action blockbuster movies. Perhaps that was actually the reason that mainstream society refused to report on anything unknown or otherworldly.

The crosswalk signal began to blink, which meant the light would turn green in just a few seconds. Celty stashed the PDA and considered how to leave the scene with maximum dramatic impact.

But then—

“Hey.”

She felt a chill run down her back and through her heart.

“I’m talkin’ to you, monster,” said a familiar voice behind her. Celty’s body had no blood running in it, but she still felt her heart jackhammering like a frog undergoing vivisection in science class.

Don’t turn around.

Must turn around.

Instinct and reason sent conflicting warnings to Celty’s body.

It was behind her. Something that could not be reasoned with.

The part of her that wanted to be sure and formulate a plan and the part of her that wanted to flee instantly faced off and sent tremendous turbulence through her mind.

She slowly, carefully turned her attention behind her, feeling her backbone creak.

It was a traffic patrol officer with a pleasant smile on his face, riding on a white police motorcycle. The very man who had once implanted fear into Celty’s heart, wearing a smile that was half pleasure and half anger. He squeezed the handlebars.

“Did you know that even in a light vehicle, riding without a headlight is subject to penalty?”

The light turned green.

At the same time, it brought an end to Celty’s brief era of peace—and launched a terrifying game of tag between monster and human.

Only in this case, the usual roles of predator and prey were reversed.

A fierce animal cry ripped through Ikebukuro as Shooter trampled his massive hooves.

Celty squeezed the reins that had once been handlebars, completely forgetting to change her ride back into a motorcycle.

Shooter was something like a witch’s familiar, a creature made by possessing and melding a dead horse and the wreckage of a carriage. When she came to Japan, she found a scrapyard and melded him with an old bike, which gave him a third form to use.

A simple headless horse.

The same headless horse pulling a carriage, if necessary.

And now, to fit in with modern society, a motorcycle without a headlight.

She didn’t have time for the carriage now. Celty left the matter in her partner’s powerful hooves—she was too busy trembling in fear of the patrol bike’s exhaust on her tail.

Ahead, she saw that the light had turned red again. The cars on the cross street proceeded into the intersection, so leaping forward would surely cause an accident—if not initiated by herself, then by the drivers startled to see a headless horse leaping into traffic. And Celty wasn’t so much of a monster that she’d allow that to happen.

Damn!

She checked that no one was on the crosswalk, then adeptly tugged at the reins, turning her steed around. As soon as their speed dropped, she felt a heavy, lurking pressure at her back, but there was no time to falter.

The Coiste Bodhar leaped forward and over the guardrail, its massive black form racing toward the side of the building.

The headless horse “landed” on the wall.

Shadows bloomed from each hoof, growing and fusing with the concrete surface. As if there was magic tape with powers beyond human understanding sticking the horse’s legs to the surface, Shooter raced vertically up the side of the building.

“Hah! You won’t get away from me that easily!” the officer shouted, not rattled in the least by this supernatural showing.

He spun the bike into a sudden 180-degree turn for an abrupt stop, watching Celty’s path closely. She, on the other hand, was desperately searching for a way out as she felt his searing gaze from the ground below.

Oh, crap. Crap, crap, crap. This is bad. This is uncontrollably, severely, uncontrollably, incredibly, uncontrollably bad.

Her mind was racing faster than she had words to express it. Her first step was to race all the way to the roof of the building. Once she got to the top of the small apartment complex, she paused and considered how to escape.

Oh, right. I can just…

She put a particular plan into motion.

Apartment building, Shinjuku

It was not a coincidence that Izaya Orihara was watching the TV at that exact moment.

Ikebukuro’s 100-Day Front.

As an information broker, he was not likely to gain anything particularly fresh or juicy from this program, but given that it was an experiment in live broadcasting, he tuned in out of sheer curiosity, just in case something unexpected happened.

Namie had already gone back to her own apartment, and Izaya was enjoying some homemade French toast and basking in the glow of a recently completed major transaction.

“…Wow. Even I didn’t see this coming.”

What started as a live broadcast featuring Ikebukuro at night and a simple motorcycle waiting at a traffic light without a headlight suddenly shifted into a horror movie, then a stunning action blockbuster.

Celty turned her motorcycle into a horse, and a police bike chased after her.

“Suppose that cop is this Kinnosuke Kuzuhara I keep hearing about? His timing’s either the best or the worst,” he exclaimed, eyes narrowed, somewhere between laughter and exasperation. On the screen, the reporter was frantic.

“See that, folks? The mysterious figure riding what appeared to be a horse just used some strange means of climbing the wall to get onto the roof of the building! It seems the traffic patrol officer is calling for backup!”

“For better or for worse, Celty always managed to avoid my expectations for her,” said Izaya Orihara, an information agent who made his base in Shinjuku.

He’d known Celty for years, he was aware of her dullahan identity, and he possessed a secret about her that even she didn’t know.

That is, he possessed the head for which Celty had formerly been searching.

But for now, she didn’t seem to be as fixated on the head, so he was keeping it secret just in case he could use it to achieve a desired outcome in the future.

“Oh dear. The problem is, modern society has decided that things like Celty don’t exist. If she was the kind of alien you see in movies, the government and military would cover her existence up for her…but not in this case,” Izaya cackled at the TV, talking to no one in particular.

Then something on the screen changed.

“Oh?”

“The rider in black is still silent up on the roof…ah! What is that?! Can you make it out through the camera?! The stars have vanished overhead! It’s black! A large black curtain! Wh-whoa!”

The reporter’s breathless commentary was accompanied by an odd object on the screen.

Something like enormous black wings that dimly reflected the city’s lights leaped off the roof of the building and began a leisurely glide.

It was an enormous hang glider. In the center appeared to be a figure sitting atop a horse.

The problem was that the wings were far too huge for it. They spread at least as wide as the building itself and nearly as big as a fighter jet, blocking out the stars.

For its tremendous size, the glider held no hint of mass or underlying structure. It slid effortlessly through the air, like a gigantic paper airplane. The flat, sky-spanning shadow caught a breeze passing between the buildings and began a low-altitude flight with a perfect view of Ikebukuro below.

“Damn! What do…think…are, Lupi…Third? Give up…face…justice! Oh, look at that! The traffic officer is chasing after her, shouting something! W-we’re going to try to follow that flying object!”

The reporting team packed into their vehicle and roared their engine to follow the police bike. They didn’t get far before the officer wheeled around and stuck it to the driver of the van.

“Hey! You’re not an emergency vehicle, so you don’t get to break the speed limit.” “Oh? Y-yes, sir.” “And obey the traffic lights.” “Y-yes, sir!” “Uh, well, it looks like our driver is receiving instructions from the police officer, so let’s send it back to the studio for a moment!”

The next instant, the feed cut, returning the picture to the stunned faces of the newscasters in the studio. Once they realized they were on camera, they turned to one another and began to deliver their opinions on what they’d seen.

Izaya had no interest in their thoughts. He slowly retrieved his cell phone from the recharging holster on the table and brought up a particular number.

Several minutes earlier, apartment building, Ikebukuro

Two shadows writhed within the dark apartment room.

On the screen was the reality of Ikebukuro, happening right now.

The shadows huddled before the TV, conversing with bipolar intensities.

“…That’s weird.”

“It really is mysterious! Why, why, why? Why did the motorcycle turn into a horse? Why? That wasn’t CG, right? It can’t be! It’s too cool for that! Isn’t that crazy? It’s like super-invincible-superman crazy! It’s as crazy and mysterious as General Sherman or the titan arum!”

“…Be quiet.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry! This part is important! But I can’t stay quiet! Isn’t this happening, like, just down the street? Let’s go see it! C’mon! I don’t think I can take this anymore! Oh, geez! I haven’t been this excited since I saw the carnivorous giant cricket fight against the Goliath birdeater! I wanna see, I wanna see!”

The more excited shadow was cavorting around like a kid on a field trip bus ride, performing a rear naked choke hold on the other shadow. Even as the other shadow’s face was going purple with the force of the fatal attack, it calmly raised its arm and pointed a small spray bottle at the shadow behind it.

“…Settle down.”

The liquid within the bottle sprayed mercilessly on the other shadow’s face.

“…?! Aaaaack!! I’m sorry, Kuru! I’ll…I’ll calm down…coff! Koff, hakk… Gahk… Please, not the habanero spray!” The excitable shadow writhed, coughing madly.

Only after flopping around and eventually landing in a break-dance rotation on its head did the afflicted shadow calm down.

“Ahh, that was really rough. You’re so spartanical with your punishment, Kuru!” the shadow said, making up a word out of thin air. The girl she called Kuru ignored her and continued watching the TV.

“…Can’t wait.”

“Yeah, well, we only just started school! It’s super-exciting to know we’ll be spending the greatest moments of our youth in a city alongside something like that! Super-citing! Super-magic! Superbad!” she shouted inexplicably. Meanwhile, the immobile girl smiled as she watched the giant black wings on the screen.

While on the inside, her heart swirled with just as much desire as the other shadow.

At that moment, Jack-o’-Lantern Japan Talent Agency Office, Higashi-Nakano

“Wowza! What? I mean, what? Holy hell in a handbasket!”

The effect of the pristine, ultraclean room with the pure white polished floor was broken by a very uncouth voice.

“I’ll be damned if that ain’t the most powerful image I ever seen! Now that’s good stuff! In movie terms, that’s got Jurassic Park impact! Or should it be Godzilla?”

An odd man was jabbering excitedly to himself in front of a television screen, his speech an oddly accented foreign take on Japanese. He had white skin and slicked-back blond hair, dark sunglasses and facial stubble, a white suit and crocodile-skin bag, expensive rings and a thick cigar in his mouth—the Hollywood image of a fat-cat villain if there ever was one.

The screen in front of him was too big for most people to consider a “television.” It was a good one hundred inches in measurement, the kind of screen most people could only dream of affording.

The interior was a modern office building of the type one would expect to see in some American tech company, with each desk in its own fully screened cubicle that afforded the employee inside a small manner of personal office space.

But the space that housed this noisy man and his giant TV was placed separately, with a wide-open floor plan and several couches and tables, a kind of pseudo–conference room set up for viewing the massive screen in the back.

It was an odd office design that held many personal spaces and a lobby in the same large room. The man was excitedly fixed on the screen.

“Wish I could just zip on over to Ikebukuro right now! Hot damn, I do! Yeah! Hey, what’s Mr. Yuuhei doin’ today? He knows Ikebukuro—he can show us around the town! We’ll get a real good look at that Sleepy Hollow business as we enjoy some traditional flower viewing!” he chattered, his eyes sparkling like a child’s. Meanwhile, the more rational men seated around the TV exchanged concerned murmurs with each other.

“A stunt by Daioh?” “No, that’s not their demographic.” “Gotta call the producer…” “Anyone out on assignment in the area right now?” “I can call the manager in the studio…”

While the Japanese men took the abnormal situation on the screen with tense consternation, the white man shook his head and held up his hands in complaint.

“Hey! Hey, hey, hey! You ignoring my opinion? The boss?”

“Boss, we can’t see the screen.”

“Oh, whoops… Sorry about that. Wait, that ain’t the point! Why am I treated like the odd man out? Or is this a racist thing? You don’t wanna work for a foreigner! I thought Japan was a land that cherished harmony, huh? Are you givin’ your own country a bad name?”

“Maybe you should stop giving your own country a bad name, boss… Also, you’re the one disrupting the harmony. Especially when Yuuhei’s film is doing such good business,” said one of his employees. The company president shrugged and looked away.

The man’s name was Max Sandshelt.

He was the president of the Japanese branch of the American-based talent agency Jack-o’-Lantern. The agency was a big-time player with connections to the McDonnell Company, a major movie distributor, but in Japan they were mid-tier at best. Compared to the big boys, they had an unbalanced stable of talent, with a few top-class actors and a majority of unremarkable youngsters.

At a glance, he looked incompetent, but for whatever reason, his ability to produce talent, forge connections, and escape trouble at the last possible moment were nothing short of genius, which earned him enough regard to function as the company president.

Of course, the reason he needed to get out of trouble at the last possible moment was almost always his own fault.

“Dammit all, the only ones on my side are the sweet little things I helped turn into works of art. The only ones who will eternally understand my soul are the angels that bring happiness to the world,” he slurred sadly.

A prim secretarial woman respectfully said, “Please do your job, boss. Also, we just did our flower viewing last week, and Yuuhei Hanejima went back to his home in Ikebukuro after filming today. Also, why is your English so shaky, if you originally came from America?”

“Oh, brother, whatta buncha sticks-in-the-mud you are. See, the times demand real impact, somethin’ new and never before seen. That’s why I want a glimpse of that Headless Rider… Ah! Eureka!” the president jabbered, completely ignoring his secretary. He excitedly dialed a number, humming to himself.

Great, another harebrained scheme!

Every employee present grumbled restlessly at the sight of the boss’s sparkling gaze and resumed their conversations, only the content had entirely changed to complaints about their employer.

At that moment, Ikebukuro

As the police motorcycle’s engine roared off into the distance, Celty heard the sudden eruption of her phone from the spot where she was hidden.

It nearly scared her witless when it happened, but once she was satisfied that there were no police officers around, she hesitantly accepted the call and pressed the phone to her ear.

“Ah, finally got through… Hey, Celty. Sounds like you’re in trouble.”

Izaya!

She wondered what would cause the information dealer to call her at this particular time. And the way he opened the call suggested to her that he realized what was happening to her.

“Wondering how I know what’s happening to you right now? Don’t worry. I don’t have you bugged or anything. Besides, Shinra would spot something like that right away. He’s so desperate to hog you all to himself, he wouldn’t dare allow anyone to pry into your home privacy.”

I’m going to go sock this idiot a good one and thank Shinra later.

Celty kept the cell phone pressed to her helmet, imagining that a vein was bulging on her nonexistent head. She and Izaya usually discussed business through text messages, but there were times that he called her so that he could speak uninterrupted.

She decided to keep the line open, knowing that he wouldn’t just call for no good reason.

“That was a clever idea, I have to say, creating a fake version of yourself and your bike out of shadow to put on the glider.”

“…”

She felt a clenching at her heart. Is he watching from somewhere after all?

Izaya was correct—she had instantly created black models of herself and her trusty steed from that special solid shadow of hers, then sent the whole thing gliding through the air to distract her foes.

Was it actually really obvious?

Celty was still on top of the roof, waiting a few seconds for the cop and TV crew to chase after the decoy so she could slip away in the opposite direction. While she was shocked that Izaya had seen through this ruse, it also made her worry that the police officer could figure it out just as easily.

Izaya laughed as if he could read her mind and said, “Oh, don’t worry. They’d have to know you really well to see through that fake. But I didn’t see the colored helmet, and you know that there’s no escaping the motorcycle cop at the speed that thing’s gliding.”

Well, he’s perfectly correct, but hearing him explain it so confidently is kind of irritating. Did he call me just to brag about his deductions?

So much for her assumption that he wouldn’t call for frivolous reasons. Celty lowered the phone to stop the call. But through her heightened sense of hearing, she still heard his voice loud and clear.

“Well, starting tomorrow things are going to get kind of crazy, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up.”

?

She waited for the answer, curious. On the other end, Izaya made a request.

“Until things calm down, absolutely do not come to my office. I’ll send you an e-mail with the details, but I didn’t want you showing up before you could see it.”

Huh? Celty wanted to ask him what he meant, but given that it was just an audio call without text functionality, there was no way for her to convey her thoughts to him.

“Well, so long. Best of luck.”

“Best of luck?”

He hung up the phone call, without her expressing a single thing on her mind.

What’s up with him?

Completely bewildered, Celty decided that escaping the roof was her top priority at the moment and stashed away her phone. But that left her with a strong feeling of wrongness.

Her shadow-made riding suit had a chest pocket for storing things. In normal circumstances, it didn’t hold anything other than her cell phone. But at this particular point in time, it wasn’t right for it to be empty.

She reached for her other chest pocket, feeling something cold stealing over her back. The other pocket held only her PDA, and her waist pocket had nothing but her apartment key, just like always.

It was all of her normal belongings.

Which meant that the one extra item she was carrying around today was not in her possession.

The plain brown envelope with “Payment—Celty Sturluson” written on it.

She fell to her knees in shock, realizing the unavoidable truth.

I lost the envelope full of my pay.

I dropped my envelope…of one million yen!

She looked around desperately, but the bag was not on the roof with her. Most likely, it had fallen loose while she was riding away from the motorcycle cop. But she had been so desperate and panicked in the moment that she couldn’t remember which route she’d taken.

The Coiste Bodhar, in its original horse form, nuzzled closer to comfort its owner, but the severed end of its neck merely bumped against her helmet. It created the illusion of two headless creatures fighting over which could use the helmet as a head.

Celty’s night passed quietly, locked in that comical pose.

Without realizing what effect her actions would have upon the city.

Without realizing the twists of fate that the envelope she dropped would bring about.

The headless knight, locked in modern times, mourned for a very human reason.

Chat room

Kanra: Heeeere’s Kanra!

TarouTanaka: Hello.

Bacura: ’Sup.

Saika: good evening. it is a pleasure again today.

Kanra: Sure thing.   Is everyone used to the new chat system by now?

TarouTanaka: Yes, the different colors for each person makes it easy to identify who’s who.

Bacura: Indeed,

Bacura: This allows us to gang up on Kanra more vividly than ever.

Kanra: Vividly?! Oh no, what are you going to do to little old me?!

Bacura: An endless repetition of beatings and neglect.

Kanra: This is more than bullying. It sounds just like a group lynching!

Bacura: Uh, exactly?

TarouTanaka: Lol, that’s so messed up, Bacura.

Saika: cant we all just get along

Bacura: Er, actually,

Bacura: Saika,

Bacura: I don’t truly hate Kanra in reality.

<Private Mode> Kanra: You’re such a liar. You hate me with every fiber of your being.

<Private Mode> Bacura: Shut up and die.

Kanra: That’s right! This is how we get along! He’s a tsundere, he hates the things he loves.

Bacura: I’d say my ratio is more like tsun-tsun-dere-tsun, dere-tsun-tsun-tsun-tsun-tsun-tsun-die.

Kanra: What kind of tsun-to-dere ratio is that?!

Bacura: It was a song that the children at the Sakurashinmachi shopping district were singing.

Kanra: And it ended with “die”?!

Bacura: No, that was my own twist on it. Why?

Kanra: That’s awful!

TarouTanaka: It really is, lol.

Setton has entered the chat.

Setton: Evening…

TarouTanaka: Oh, good evening.

Setton: I can’t take it any more.

Kanra: Good evening.  

Bacura: Evenin’.

TarouTanaka: What’s the matter?

Saika: good evening, it is nice to see you

Setton: Unfortunately, I lost some money…

Bacura: ?!

TarouTanaka: Oh, that’s terrible… Did you tell the police about it?

Setton: No.

Setton: Er, sorry, I mean, yes. I did.

Kanra: Ooh, how much did you lose?

Setton: Actually, it was the envelope with my entire salary for the month…

Saika: are you all right

Bacura: ?!

TarouTanaka: Why, that’s terrible! Is everything okay?!

Setton: Yes, I’ve got enough savings that it won’t affect my budget, but it’s a bummer…

Kanra: Cheer up!

Kanra: As a matter of fact, I have good news for you, Setton!

Setton: What’s that?

Kanra: Heh-heh! Check out this address!

TarouTanaka: Ooh, you can paste links to text now?

Bacura: Cool.

<Private Mode> TarouTanaka: What is this, Izaya?!

Saika: um, what does this mean

<Private Mode> TarouTanaka: Why does this say there’s a bounty on Celty’s head?!

Setton: Oh, this is beyond my ability. I could never catch the Black Rider.

<Private Mode> Kanra: Remember how Celty was all on camera during that live program?

<Private Mode> Kanra: Well, some film production company put out a bounty on anyone who can identify her. Apparently they want to develop her for show business…

<Private Mode> TarouTanaka: That’s completely irrational!

<Private Mode> Kanra: Well, Celty’s very existence is kind of irrational.

Bacura: Ten million yen?

Bacura: Isn’t that crazy?

Saika: im sorry, i have to go for tonight

Setton: Oh, I need to take a bath, so I’ve got to go for now.

TarouTanaka: Oh, good night.

Kanra: Good niiight!  

Setton: Night.

Saika: good night, thank you

Setton has left the chat.

Saika has left the chat.

Bacura: Good nighters.

Bacura: Whoops, too late.

Kanra: Shall we log off too? We can talk about that bounty next time.

Kanra: Well, good night!  

TarouTanaka: Good night.

Bacura: (>_<)  

Kanra has left the chat.

TarouTanaka has left the chat.

Bacura has left the chat.

The chat room is currently empty.

.

.

.

Next morning, near Kawagoe Highway, top floor of apartment building

“I’m home. Wow, what a terrible day.”

The luxury apartment was larger than your average one-story home.

Shinra Kishitani, the owner of this extravagant living space—which boasted five rooms in addition to the kitchen and over 1,600 square feet—returned home in his extremely recognizable white lab coat to see his loving partner.

“Uh, where are you, Celty? I’m so, so exhausted. I got wrapped up in this very strange business. You’ve heard about being the one ‘left holding the bag’? Well, I just got stuck with one of the biggest bags of all time, and… Celty? Celty? What’s the matter? …Are you home? She said the session would be over by the evening…”

He walked down the hallway curiously, then noticed that something in the apartment was wrong.

Despite all of the lights being on, the living room was oddly dark.

“?”

He trotted over and spotted a black cocoon in the corner of the room.

“Wha—?!”

Celty had fashioned herself a huge cocoon out of her own shadow, like some kind of gigantic silkworm. Sensing that she was inside of it, Shinra forgot his fatigue and leaped onto the shadow.

The cocoon immediately cracked open and swallowed Shinra’s body like a carnivorous plant.

“Whoa…hey!”

Shocked and bewildered by his unexpected entrance to the cocoon, Shinra found it to be a world of pleasure.

As he imagined, Celty was inside the cocoon. She clutched him tight. It was dark inside, so he couldn’t see, but he recognized the familiar feeling of her body.

“Wha…?! They say, ‘Time and tide wait for no man,’ but I feel like my sense of reason is crumbling and putting me ‘on cloud nine,’ and…uh…what…?” he babbled flippantly in his usual way but quickly came to his senses when he noticed that Celty’s actions were uncharacteristically stiff.

Suddenly, a light blinded him. He figured out that it was Celty’s PDA screen and narrowed his eyes until he could read the letters.

“Sorry. Just stay with me for a bit.”

“Actually, I would be perfectly delighted to…but what’s the matter, Celty? You seem rather upset.”

“I’m not rather upset. I’m inconsolably upset. So console me.”

“You are the most depressed dominatrix I’ve ever seen.”

Relieved that at least she wasn’t openly discussing suicide, Shinra held her gently and decided to hear her out.

“…So you lost a million yen and then earned yourself a bounty ten times that amount?”

“Yes, so now I can’t just ride around outside. It would be very bad if people found out I was here.”

Relatively relieved after getting her troubles off her chest, Celty released her cocoon at last. Shinra was a bit disappointed that their private haven was gone, but he was wise enough not to comment on it.

He continued to console her, offering her a reassuring smile. “Just relax, Celty. The apartment building has tremendous security, and we can choose to believe that one way or another, that money will find its way back into your hands. As they say, ‘Sadness and gladness succeed each other.’”

“Yes…but I’m sorry, I really am.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

“I was going to buy some electronics with that money. And…well, I was going to buy you a present of some kind, but so much for that. It’s all gone. Sorry. Oh, I wasn’t saying that to demand gratitude from you… I don’t know. Just forget I said it.”

She folded up the PDA and bashfully looked away. This gesture pierced Shinra directly through the heart, and he embraced her again.

“Celty! You’re the bes—Mfgfgfg!”

“Thank you, Shinra. But don’t get carried away, because I’m not in the mood.”

She pulled away from him right as he attempted to fondle her breast, leaving Shinra alone in the middle of the shadow cocoon. Unperturbed, he happily announced, “Ha-ha-ha, I’ll be waiting for the moment when you are in the mood.”

“So will I.”

She pulled his head out of the cocoon so he could see the PDA, and his face lit up with youthful delight. As if prompted by the moment, Celty’s cell phone rang. It was a text message, which she read, then picked up her helmet off the table.

“I’ve got work. I’ll be right back.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should stay back and lie low for today…”

“Trust is the biggest element of a courier’s work. Don’t worry, I won’t cause trouble for you.”

“Oh, you can give me trouble. We’re family; you can make all the trouble you want,” Shinra said. His smile caused her heart to leap momentarily. Regretting that she had no smile to return to him, she awkwardly attempted an emoticon on her PDA.

“Thanks. (^^) ”

Shinra’s waiting for me at home. That’s enough to give me the strength of a hundred.

She left the apartment with confident strides, feeling power course through her.

“Well, that seems to have cheered you up. I’m glad.”

All that she left behind was a solitary man, wrapped up inside a black cocoon with his head poking out.

“Huh…? Wait, Celty, I don’t think I can get out of this shadow cocoon. Hey, Celty? Hello? Hey, I can’t get out of here!”

Half a day later, Ikebukuro

Yes, Shinra’s waiting for me at home. That’s enough to give me the strength of a hundred.

Celty raced along on her bike, recalling her bold determination early that morning.

But…I don’t know if I can get home through this…

All around her was engine roaring and horn blaring.

She concentrated her senses in all directions without turning around. She could sense at least twenty around her.

The men straddled specially modified motorcycles and wore special gang uniforms with striped patterns. Their vehicles were triple seated with amplifying mufflers, gaudy stickers, and various options that did not seem at all necessary.

Nearly all of them were modified to fall into the category of “gang bikes,” flashy and obnoxious—which meant that, needless to say, this was an honest-to-god motorcycle gang.

“Uraaah! I said stop the bike!”

“You want us ta run you off the road? Huh?!”

“Uhyo-rrra! Tah! Tah! Dahh!”

A two-man bike that stuck close to Celty swung over, the man in the rear seat waving metal pipes at her.

Oh man, I didn’t know there were still people this stereotypical in forward-thinking Tokyo!

Of course, Celty herself was not exactly normal in appearance. She was dressed in her usual style, but she had fashioned a pitch-black sidecar to carry her payload.

Sitting in the seat was a black container about the size of a large golf bag, attached to the Coiste Bodhar via the temporary sidecar, which was made out of Celty’s shadow. The long bag was seated upright in the car.

Celty didn’t know what was inside of it, but based on the size and shape…she was very certain that she didn’t want to try to imagine too hard.

About thirty minutes earlier, Celty was reading a tabloid on a bench, waiting for her client to finish her afternoon job.

Wow, Shizuo’s brother is getting into mischief.

There was a massive headline on the front page reading “Yuuhei Hanejima and Ruri Hijiribe in a Late-Night Tryst?!” accompanied by an article that didn’t add much more to that. Two of the biggest young stars in the nation were caught meeting secretly at night.

And they were spotted right outside of Yuuhei Hanejima’s apartment at that.

Even though it had happened right there in Ikebukuro as well, the article about Celty from last night wasn’t even top billing. Society seemed to have more interest in the practical romance of a man and woman than in some unidentified monster.

Ruri Hijiribe? Who would have thought?

Ruri Hijiribe was one of the hottest pop idols in the nation and had rocketed to the top of everyone’s attention a few years ago, through participating in a variety of media.

They sold her as a reserved, laid-back, and slightly weak-willed character, and despite being fully Japanese, there was a kind of Scandinavian beauty to her features, to the extent that even Celty couldn’t deny that she found the girl very cute.

Both Yuuhei and Ruri were adults over twenty but looked younger than their real age. So a passionate affair between the two held an irresistible romantic sway—at least, judging by the way the papers were trying to depict it.

Before she could read further into the article, her client appeared, and she took off with the payload as instructed.

She hadn’t been set upon by the cameramen or police officers she expected. The morning job concluded without trouble, and things went so smoothly that it was almost a letdown after all of her fearful anticipation.

However…

Just when she was ready to feel relief, she ran into the obnoxious motorcycle gang on the main road. At first she was confused, but when she heard the cries of “That’s our ten million yen right there!” she remembered her current plight.

Before she even had time to sigh, the neighborhood of Ikebukuro became the setting for a spectacular car chase.

“Raaah!”

“Don’t mess with Toramaru, sucker!”

The men on motorcycles, decorated with gang stickers bearing a name that seemed to remind her of a manga title, swung their weapons wildly. The average age of motorcycle gangs was rising, she’d heard, and sure enough, all of these men appeared to be in their twenties from what she could see.

Damn… Shouldn’t you be old enough to have grown out of this bounty-hunting nonsense? And isn’t Toramaru a gang from Saitama? What are they doing here?! This must be the power of a hefty bounty at work!

Ten million yen was indeed a preposterous reward just for capturing Celty. So much that even she was considering turning herself in to gain the money. It was only the sinking feeling that it would not be worth it in the long run that convinced her to ignore the bounty.

On the other hand, that didn’t stop other people from coming after her. There were flags from other teams aside from Toramaru in the mix now.

“Th’ hell you doin’?!”

“Fuck off! That Black Rider’s ours, dammit!”

“Don’t mess with the Pylori Kings!”

“We’ll give you chronic gastritis, bitch!”

Celty decided to pick up her pace while the gangs turned on one another.

Aw, crap. I could just fight all of them off…but that’ll only make the situation worse for Shinra, and I don’t want that. I should try to get away for now and ask someone for advice. But who do you go to for trouble like this…?

Just then, one of the bikers she was about to leave in the dust swung his metal pipe wildly. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere!”

The tip of the pipe ripped through the edge of the bag holding Celty’s payload.

A human arm rolled out of the tear.

…

“…” “…” “…” “…” “…”

Celty and all of the gang members around her fell silent as a group.

Ah yes. As I feared. I had a feeling this was the case. I should have known! Celty thought, squeezing her helmet on tight and holding back tears.

The other riders followed along in silence, not sure how to react. In that empty space, a single voice could be heard.

“Oh, this isn’t good. This is very bad news for you.”

It was a voice she’d heard only a few times before. But Celty knew whom that voice belonged to. It was engraved into her soul.

“This is more than just traffic violations we’re talking about now.”

It can’t be.

It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be.

You’re kidding! Not now! You can’t do this to me now!

She looked over, not praying as much as cursing the rest of the world—and witnessed her worst fears come to life.

At some point, a police officer on his white motorcycle had cut through the gangs to pull up alongside her.

“I’ll give you one warning… Pull your bike over to the left shoulder.”

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—?!

Celty’s entire body burst with shadows, which she tried to use as a smoke screen to escape. But the cop made his way through them somehow, staying tight to her side.

“I told you…traffic cops aren’t gonna back down from a little show like that!”

No, that’s just you!

The bikers pulled back to a safer distance, startled by her shadows, but her mortal enemy, the determined traffic cop, steadily closed, not intimidated in the least by her monstrous form.

“Goddammit! Stay outta this, pig! Shit!” one of the bikers yelled, swinging his pipe closer. The officer easily evaded the blow—

And Celty pretended not to see what happened next.

I didn’t see that, didn’t see that. Didn’t see anything.

The officer pushed the parallel gangster’s bike over until the driver’s face was nearly scraping the asphalt, holding it in place for nearly five seconds before pulling him back upright.

Celty did witness the absolutely irrational action but spontaneously decided that it was in her best interest to immediately forget about it before she contemplated what it meant for her.

I didn’t see that! I didn’t see anything!

The biker slowly coasted to a stop, drool dripping from his mouth, his eyes empty. The other bikers watched the entire display in disbelieving silence but only for a moment.

“Wh…wha…what the hell you think you’re doin’, cop?!”

“Kill him!”

The biker gang switched targets to the officer on his white motorcycle and promptly surrounded him.

What ensued was a battle at sixty miles per hour.

Vehicles racing between the law-abiding traffic, separated into the prey and the pursuer, and the one who intended to arrest them both.

Celty took advantage of the conflict between the cop and the bikers to slip down a side street. But all she found there was yet another biker gang.

Am I really going to make it home today?

She spun her motorcycle around and raced back to the main street to avoid the new gang of twenty-strong bikers. That only succeeded in adding yet another large group to the absurd chase.

She heard a chopper noise overhead.

The Headless Rider raced through the evening light, wondering if even the helicopter above was chasing after her. If she had a face, it would be tear streaked by now. Celty envisioned the face of her love—and then remembered something.

She hadn’t dissolved the shadow cocoon that Shinra was trapped inside.

Oh, Shinra. I’m sorry.

If I don’t make it home…I’m so sorry!

As for the target of that message, Shinra was up on the top floor of the apartment building, lying on the floor of the living room, grinning happily and staring vaguely into nothing as he talked to himself.

“Ohhh… Is this one of those kinky abandonment things?”