Durarara!! - Volume 5 - Chapter 2.1

Interlude or Prologue B, Vorona (Crow) and Slon (Elephant)

Russia

A comment mumbled in Russian traveled on the breeze to eventually settle upon the land.

“…Strange… This is not right.”

A troubled man stood against the backdrop of endless fields.

He was not especially tall, but his figure was broad, and the thick, fleshy muscles that adorned his frame made him look larger than others his height.

The man was probably around forty years old. He wore a white coat over a white jacket, which gave him an appearance that a distant viewer might mistake for a polar bear. A number of scarves were wrapped around the top of his head and face, so that only a little gap was left, issuing periodic puffs of exhaust like a steam engine.

“Yep, not right. Oh dear, this could be trouble.”

There were about ten other men around him. One of them, an older man with glasses and a grave expression, asked, “What is the matter, Comrade Lingerin?”

“Hmm? Oh…ohh. Listen to this, Drakon. It’s all wrong.”

“What is it?” Drakon asked, looking down at the first man’s hands.

There were two round pots, with narrow openings. Lingerin had a hand stuck into the mouth of either one. “Look at this, Drakon.”

“…”

Lingerin lifted his hands to show the other man. His looked somewhat like a boxer.

Drakon’s calm expression never wavered. Without a drop of sweat, he asked, “What has happened, Comrade Lingerin?”

Lingerin waved his arms, his face deadly serious.

“My hands are stuck.”

Silence churned through the group. Drakon merely lifted his glasses and set them down again.

“This is…quite a turn of events.”

“I was trying to get the contents out, and then my hands got stuck. See?”

Anyone else would have scolded him for trying to tease or rolled their eyes at the bad joke, but Drakon gave him a perfectly serious answer—though it was given in resignation.

“Well, if it should come to it, you could always spend the rest of your life like that.”

“No, I couldn’t! How will I eat or use the toilet?”

“Nothing is impossible for Mother Russia. Throughout her vast lands there are surely those who would accept you warmly, Comrade, and give life to the seeds of a new generation.”

“Hmm…? Have I just been killed off? Why do I feel as if you have skipped over quite a lot of time, Drakon?” Lingerin asked.

Drakon fixed his glasses again and said, “I shall make my point directly, then. Please give up on life—both physically and mentally.”

“For being direct, that was certainly an indirect way to tell me to die. It’s giving me the willies!”

“It was a joke, Comrade Lingerin,” Drakon said without batting an eye, his features as placid as a wax figure. He decided to clarify his wishes.

“If you die, please wait until after we have overcome this challenge.”

Lingerin turned to face the rest of the group. Unlike Drakon, their ages were impossible to gauge.

The men wore titanium helmets with bulletproof masks, assault armor, and vests with an assortment of pouches. Some of them even had gas masks on, giving the group the overall appearance of a special assault team.

But there was no consistency to their equipment, all of them using whatever gear they preferred. Some of them were carrying automatic firearms. Their presence brought an eerie tension to the Russian forest.

Lingerin surveyed the group and cracked his neck. “So what’s the obstacle?” he asked.

“Thirty-seven armed illegals. It seems they were passing through the country to reach the west, and when we coincidentally became aware of their plan, they decided to come get rid of us.”

“Coincidences can be scary. You sure it was a coincidence?”

“If you call it a coincidence that you bugged a car you thought was owned by a business rival, overheard their secret plan, admitted it, then tried to make a profit by selling them weapons—then, yes.”

“You’re right. It is a coincidence,” Lingerin grunted, but the effect of his gruffness was lessened due to the pots stuck to his hands.

Drakon made no comment on his partner’s appearance or attitude as he continued mechanically, “It seems they intend to raid the village we are staying in to steal all our product. Based on the speed and determination of their actions, I believe they might have been planning all along to steal weapons somewhere along the way.”

“I see… So what you’re saying is, they’re like Thieves Without Borders.”

“Not in the least, Comrade, but you are stupid enough that it will have to do.”

“Good. Finding compromise is the mark of a valuable adviser, Drakon. I have full trust in you,” said Lingerin Douglanikov, the president of a small arms-trading company—though it was hard to tell if the two were properly communicating their thoughts to each other or not. He cracked his neck and waited for the arrival of their enemy.

“What a pain in the ass, I tell you. If they were here, I could lie back in bed and enjoy my sleep.”

“Are you speaking of our ex-employees Semyon and Denis? Or Comrade Egor, currently on leave?”

“No. Yes, they are all valuable men, but in this case, I am thinking more of certain specialists who will take care of such matters without even being asked,” Lingerin said, like a child boasting about his favorite superheroes. Coming from a grown man around forty, he merely seemed drunk. As a matter of fact, he had already emptied his morning bottle of vodka.

“And they’re the ones that Egor went on leave to find,” the drunk muttered.

For the first time, emotion played on Drakon’s features. “You mean Vorona and Slon.” That emotion was faint disgust. “Yes, they are experts in dirty work. But compared to you, Comrade Lingerin, Slon is even more…well, you know…”

“More what? More…handsome?”

“I retract my statement. It is a closer race than I thought,” Drakon said, his face placid once more. “As for Vorona, she possesses more beauty, grace, and knowledge than anyone else here…but at the same time, she is also more enthralled by a berserk need to fight.”

He paused, removed his glasses, and grimaced. Lingerin smirked at his partner and taunted flippantly, as if there wasn’t about to be a major battle, “Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were boasting about your own daughter, Drakon! If that was the point, why don’t you call her by her real name rather than Crow?”

Drakon kept his expression hidden. He said to his employer, “I cut our family ties ages ago.”

“And remember…they took our products with them when they ran off to Japan.”

May 3, Sunshine, Sixtieth Floor Street, Ikebukuro

Right around the time that a shoplifter began to charge through the milling crowds…

“Что случилось?” (What happened?)

The question belonged to a white man who stood out even more than the shoplifter in a way. There were plenty of black men around advertising for various businesses; foreigners were not a rare sight in Ikebukuro. But this man stood six feet tall, with limbs like massive logs and a professional wrestler’s physique. With a sandbag-like sack slung over his shoulder, he looked just like a fighter preparing for a journey for training.

But the reason for the attention was the stunning contrast to the figure standing next to him.

“Нет проблем.” (No problem.)

The reply came from a Russian woman, approximately twenty years old, carrying a large paper bag. Her features were young enough that girl might have been more appropriate than woman. But her figure was most certainly mature, and fine musculature was visible on her smooth, slender arms.

Her short hair was pale blond and dazzling, and little pupils stood out in the middle of her sky-blue eyes like deep pits.

The look on her face was cold, and there were scar-like marks here and there on her skin. In combination with her plain black clothes, she cast a dark aura on her surroundings. But that darkness only served as a pleasing, fascinating accent on the woman’s finely chiseled features.

It was a veritable case of Beauty and the Beast.

Many in the crowd couldn’t help but watch the pair until the ruckus caused by the shoplifter drew their attention away.

The girl showed no recognition of the reactions from the crowd as she turned to her partner and said flatly, “Denial, Slon… We speak Japanese in Japan. That was the decision. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. That is the basis of hiding one’s body. I accidentally performed a Russian response. I will be more careful from now on. Both of us.”

“I’m sorry, Vorona. It was my mistake.”

“You stand out. We will enter our destination quickly. Please confirm.”

Her accent and pronunciation were perfect, but her syntax and choice of vocabulary were off-putting.

The woman named Vorona and the man named Slon headed off to their destination. They had no interest whatsoever in the shoplifter and did not dedicate a second thought to the scene after that.

As the crowd around them eventually trickled away, a muttered comment hung in the air.

“A tepid country drowning in its own peace. Half disappointment. Half envy.”

A few minutes later, inside a karaoke box

“I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m too curious to take another step.”

The pair entered a predesignated individual karaoke room, where they would wait for a certain contact to arrive—but as soon as they walked inside, the large man named Slon curled up and cradled his head in his hands.

Vorona, meanwhile, pulled a book out of her paper bag and began to read, flipping the pages rapidly. She said, “You are sitting. Deny your need to walk.”

“I just can’t help it… In the street back there, I saw a sukiyaki and a shabu-shabu restaurant. I just can’t stop thinking about beef,” Slon muttered, looking like the world was about to end. Vorona continued flipping the pages of the book without glancing at him.

“How…how do the cows grow so big when all they eat is grass?! It makes no sense that they can bulk up to that size from grass alone… I cannot undertake any jobs—I cannot even see a reason to live until I have solved this mystery!” he wailed, tears streaming out of his eyes.

Vorona continued turning the pages, but while her brain was totally fixated on the book, her mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. “A cow’s stomach has special microorganisms, and the microorganisms react to the grass and saliva. They produce amino acids that the cow absorbs. Then, the cow grows. No problem.”

“…”

She had accurately, succinctly answered Slon’s question. Satisfied, his face shone with a brilliant light.

“Oh, I see! You’re so smart, Vorona! Of course! Now I can eat steak with reassurance once again! It all makes sense now!”

But then…

“And I can drink milk! Of course, the picture of a human sucking on a cow’s nipple is strange, but…but…oh… Now that I think about it…huh?”

A sudden thought caused Slon’s head to sink down into his hands once again over the menu sitting on the table.

“I can’t do it… I’m so curious I can’t even look at the menu… Thinking about cow nipples made me wonder—why do men have nipples? What possible benefit do they have to procreating the species…? Damn! I won’t move from this spot until I’ve solved the mystery of nipples! This is my war to fight!”

“There is a period in gestation when the fetus is neither male nor female. The sex is determined after the stage at which the nipples are generated. It is merely a leftover from that stage.”

“Oh…ohhh… It’s perfect! You’re perfect, Vorona!” Slon exclaimed to the expressionless woman. “But…that brings a new question…and if I don’t know this, I don’t know how I can live in this world! Why—why are you not ashamed, Vorona?! When a man and a woman are alone and speaking suggestively of nipples and procreation?!”

Vorona replied to his idiotic question by flipping more pages.

She flipped.

And flipped.

And flipped.

And flipped.

And flipped, and flipped, and flipped, and—

“Are you ignoring me?!” Slon cried out at last, as Vorona finished reading her first book.

She pulled out a second and looked ready to say something at last, but the door to the karaoke room opened at that very moment, and a man appeared.

“Ahh, hello, hello, please pardon me.”

An aging Japanese-looking man with a thoroughly friendly face looked through the doorway.

“Hello, hello, sorry about the wait. Hello,” the man repeated, beaming as he took a seat. “I hope you’ll forgive my haste, as I am a very busy man… I will get right to explaining your job.”

He smiled all throughout his speech and pulled out two photographs to show the Russians without waiting for a response.

“The truth of the matter is…I need you to abduct a child for me.”

“…”

The first photo was of a little girl with a doleful expression on her face. She couldn’t have been more than elementary school age. Slon took the photo with his brow furrowed, while Vorona continued to flip the pages of her book, despite being in the midst of a negotiation.

The aging gentleman did not react. He continued his explanation.

“This is the granddaughter of the local yakuza boss—ah, yakuza being the Japanese mafia, ha-ha. I want you to kidnap her without killing her, if at all possible. Ha-ha-ha, I’m sorry about this. I know, you’re usually hired killers rather than kidnappers. I know, I know.”

“You might be the client who brought us to this country, but our participation will depend on the money. We can perform this job without being identified, but making an enemy of the yakuza carries its own considerable price,” Slon said in quite fluent Japanese.

The man chuckled politely. “Well, you see, that is its own tricky problem. As it happens, they’ve hired their own bodyguard for the child. It is hard to imagine, but if the rumor is true, he is quite a dreadful fellow.”

Bodyguard.

The mention of that word was the only thing that could stop Vorona from flipping pages.

“Protection is powerful? Confirm or deny. Quick answer is desired,” she demanded.

The aging man smiled amiably at her and murmured, “Well, you see…it’s not even a matter of strength or weakness… This one is almost like a magician.”

“?”

“There was some footage on the Internet, so I downloaded it very hastily before coming here…”

The man had already produced a portable video player from his pocket and was playing a video on its small screen.

It was footage from a news program.

A group of what appeared to be criminals were on the run from a police car, as well as a mysterious figure on a black motorcycle swinging an enormous scythe at them.

“This is somewhat of an urban legend around these parts, known as the Black Rider… Who can say what sort of trick is being employed to create this effect? All I know is that if you try to mess with the girl in this photo, he will have something to say about it.”

The man lowered his face in apparent consternation—but his expression still contained a smile. He looked sidelong at Vorona, whose face wore an emotion she had not yet expressed here.

“I have one question.”

Vorona’s cheeks were flushed, and her mouth curved upward into a delighted smile. She did not bother to hide her excitement.

“Will you allow me to kill this biker?”

The question was meaningless.

Slon did not consider himself to be a smart man, but he knew something about his partner.

Vorona was born with an innate berserk desire for battle.

With the carrot of fighting a mystery foe dangling in front of her, there was no way she would refuse this job.

He also knew another thing about her.

No matter how their client, Jinnai Yodogiri, answered her question, Vorona was going to attempt to kill this biker.

With these facts in mind, Slon calmly decided: I don’t get it, so I don’t care.

And so the mysterious Russians, their abilities still kept hidden, willingly stepped into the realm of the abnormal.

But then again, to them, the present situation of unrest and unease could be considered perfectly normal.