Intermediate Chapter
May 4, morning, apartment in Shinjuku
“…”
Shizuo Heiwajima stood in front of a door, clenching a fist in irritation.
Blood dripped from between his fingers. The pressure being squeezed into them was unimaginable.
“Son of a…! What a waste of my time!” he fumed, veins popping out on his forehead. If anyone had heard him, they would surely come to the conclusion that his lungs were connected directly to hell, such was the volcanic fury of his tirade.
It was directed at a piece of paper taped to the door.
WE’VE MOVED OFFICES! OUR NEW ADDRESS IS…
The place where Izaya’s home/office had been was now completely empty.
The sign would not still be up if a new tenant had moved into the place already. Shizuo was possessed with the urge to kick down the door and destroy everything inside, but the realization that this would only hurt the owner of the property was just barely enough to stifle the rage in his throat.
“…He’s wasted my time twice…so I’ll murder him twice…”
Shizuo stomped away from the apartment, veins still bulging at the thought of his old nemesis’s face.
Only dozens of seconds later, just as Shizuo was leaving the apartment building, a woman pulled the sheet of paper off the door.
“If a trick that crude actually worked on him, this Shizuo must be extremely dense.”
Namie Yagiri looked down over the railing of the apartment hallway. She caught sight of the man in the bartender outfit stalking away in a huff and muttered, “This is quite an elaborate ruse, all to push one man into a corner.”
She continued watching Shizuo go without much interest and then offered a ghastly suggestion.
“If you can’t kill him with a knife, just use poison.”
As for why Shizuo Heiwajima was heading for Izaya’s apartment, that will require rewinding to the morning of the fourth.
“Oh! She’s awake!” rang out a voice in Shinra’s apartment at six in the morning.
The voice belonged not to Shinra or Tom or Shizuo—but a teenage girl wearing glasses.
Both Shizuo and Tom witnessed Celty asking Shinra to “let her spend the night, since she was attacked by a stranger.” Shinra reassured Anri that she didn’t need to help out or do anything, but unable to resist, she decided to take over the duty of watching the bedridden little girl.
Shinra got up from his desk and answered, “Okay, I’ll be right there.” He washed his hands at the sink, picked up a sterilized examination mirror, and headed toward the bedroom.
“Speaking of which, I forgot to tell Celty about the girl.”
Well, she seemed really preoccupied. I guess I can tell her later, the doctor thought blearily as he trudged to the room in the back where the girl was sleeping. When he opened the door, he did not see what he was expecting to see.
The little girl was not in her bed anymore, but in the corner of the room, trembling incessantly. And the trembling was not because of the fever.
Her eyes were staring at Shizuo, who was already in the room. He was standing with his arms folded, looking down at her in consternation. “Should I just stay quiet, then?”
“I feel like you talking is just going to agitate her, Shizuo. So, yes, hush up,” Shinra advised and held out a hand toward the girl. “How are you feeling? Your complexion looks better, but we should check your temperature first.”
But the girl kept her gaze locked onto Shizuo, her eyes pleading angrily.
“Are you going to kill me, too?”
“…What do you mean, ‘too’?” Shizuo shot back, frowning.
Shinra shook his head sadly. “I knew it. You must have slain one of this poor girl’s loved ones…”
“Want me to make you Victim Number One in my personal homicide record?” Shizuo threatened, veins beginning to pulse.
Tom stepped in to calm him down by saying, “Not in front of the kid! You can do it later.”
Shinra put a hand to the wary girl’s forehead and soothingly noted that her fever was going down. He had a thermometer as well for a proper reading, but the point of the gesture was to calm her down.
Anyone who knew the normal Shinra would have to assume this was a different person entirely. If Celty were there, she would scream, “You’ve never shown me such a normal smile like this… Aaaah! You lolicon!” and run away from home. That was how reassuring and heartfelt the smile was.
“…Who are you? One of Shizuo Heiwajima’s friends?” the girl asked.
“No, I just can’t seem to get rid of him. Don’t worry. I won’t let him hurt you. But to do that, I need you to explain some things first,” Shinra said, like a helpful neighborhood physician.
Shizuo felt goose bumps on his back. But if anyone here was going to get the girl to talk, it would be Shinra. So he kept his distance from the girl, listened closely, and tried not to let the creepiness affect him.
Shinra crouched down until he was at eye level with the girl and spoke to her as if she were his own child. “Would you mind telling me your name?”
“…Akane.”
“What’s your last name, Akane?”
“…”
The moment he asked, the girl named Akane fell silent. He decided that she didn’t want to tell him that, so he moved on.
“Does anything hurt? Sore throat, tummy ache, anything like that?”
She shook her head no.
“I see… That’s good. Can I ask you about what happened yesterday?”
The girl thought it over for a bit but didn’t nod or shake her head. She glanced timidly at Shizuo, and when he met her look through his sunglasses, she twitched in fear.
“Don’t worry. He won’t do anything. He might be a violent cretin, but he’s good at heart. If he was really trying to pick on you, he would have beaten you up already, wouldn’t he?”
“…”
“Or did he do something else to you? And that’s why you were trying to get him?”
“…No,” she squeaked, shaking her head.
Perplexed, Shinra decided to be direct. “Then, why did you want this man in the sunglasses to disappear?”
“…”
She said nothing at first, but after seeing Shinra’s disarming smile, she finally admitted, “Because…he’s a killer.”
“Huh?”
“I heard that a hired killer named Shizuo was going to kill my dad and grandpa. But I can’t go back home to them, either, so I didn’t know what else to do…”
He had a bad feeling.
Even before he could ask her why she couldn’t go back home, a nasty shiver raced through Shinra’s body.
The man in the bartender outfit behind him must have felt the same premonition. Shinra heard something that sounded like creaking bone from Shizuo’s direction. He forced himself not to look.
“And…what about the stun gun?”
“Someone gave it to me and said it would work on him.”
“Who did?”
“Someone who taught me all kinds of things when I ran away from home.”
The foreboding intensified. Shinra was beginning to envision a particular face in his mind’s eye.
“So this person gave you the stun gun and told you Shizuo was a hit man?”
She nodded.
Shinra tensed up and finally asked, “And…what was his name?”
She hesitated to deliver the finishing blow at first, but over the course of their short conversation, she had decided she trusted Shinra now.
“…Big Brother Izaya.”
A chill ran down his back.
He felt a momentary illusion that a demonic god sent to destroy the world was materializing right behind him—and turned slowly, a cold sweat forming, to look at the other man in the room.
There was Shizuo. Smiling kindly.
Huh?! The unfamiliar expression initially plunged Shinra into sheer terror. Sorry, Celty. I think I might die today, he thought to himself.
Shizuo said kindly, “Ha-ha, you’ve got the wrong idea, Akane.”
“Oh…?”
“Izaya just has the wrong idea about me. I’m not actually a killer.”
“…Really?”
“It’s true! Izaya and I are friends—we just had a little fight,” Shizuo claimed, shrugging and turning away from Shinra and the girl. “I’m just going to go patch things up with him.”
He gave Akane a cheeky wink and left the room, whistling innocently.
When Shinra realized that there was a cold sweat forming all over his body, he thought to himself, so that Akane wouldn’t be disturbed, I wonder if Izaya is tired of life or something…
Tom walked out the front door and closed it behind him, then called out to Shizuo ahead.
“Way to hold it in. You deserve the People’s Honor Award or something.”
“…Thank you, Tom,” Shizuo grunted to his boss without looking back. “I have a request.”
“What’s that?”
“If I kill someone and get arrested today, please ask the boss to say that I was fired as of yesterday.”
“…”
Tom had plenty of thoughts to share, but he kept them to himself as he watched Shizuo head down the stairs.
He stood in the walkway of the apartment building, watching the scenery below, and then pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He took a deep drag and exhaled a comment to himself with the smoke.
“Better call the boss and tell him Shizuo took the day off…”
May 4, late morning, art gallery, Ikebukuro
It was a pristine interior, full of painting frames hanging on exquisite wallpaper.
But the voice that spoke within it had very little in common with fine art.
“…Just think about it. For the price of just a single cup of coffee a day, this work of art, a source of pure joy, can be yours. It’s just the first step to being a winner in life,” the woman said with a plastic smile.
The young man, his face bandaged, looked lovestruck. “Hmm, it’s very tempting. But if I spent all that money at once, I don’t know what my girlfriend would think.”
“I believe she will be utterly impressed when she sees this painting on the wall of your residence. Coming across the right piece of art is as fateful as locking eyes with the girl of your dreams. It’s extremely rare to come across a piece by the great Karnard Strasburg, even if it is a print!”
She was in the midst of a sales pitch over a particular piece that had been placed next to the table. The young man she was trying to sell it to had been there for over an hour. But he was staring directly at the saleswoman’s face, not showing the least amount of interest in the painting itself.
“Personally, I find you to be much more interesting than the painting.”
“Well, if you want to know, I find myself very attracted to men who would buy paintings like this.”
“Really?”
“Really! I mean, people who can spend money on their dreams are just irresistible!”
The art was indeed from a famed master—but it was silk-screened on a poster, no more than a cheap mass-market item. She kept calling it a “print,” claiming that it was a rare item with a serial number.
In fact, it could be bought for less than thirty thousand yen, but the price she quoted to him was 1.28 million.
If you wanted a rare Karnard Strasburg piece for that price, you could get one that was a lithograph rather than silk-screened—but the saleswoman continued to insist that the cheap print was, in fact, a valuable work of art.
He’s gotta give in soon.
The chief of the sales team, watching from a distance, was certain that the customer would buy the painting. If he still held back, the chief could try the “you wasted our time and business, so just sign the check” method. This was the kind of place that would get down and dirty, if needed.
But the bandaged man’s reaction was too abnormal for such orthodox means to work.
The bandaged young man spotted the sales chief and beckoned him over, beaming. He approached the table, assuming that the deal was as good as closed.
“Is something the matter, sir?”
“Well, actually, I don’t have any money. And this babe here says she really needs me to buy it. So I’ve decided to work out a deal.”
“Yes, sir, thank you very much!” the chief grinned, assuming they were going to work out a finance plan. The young man with the eyepatch grinned back.
“Put ’er there.”
“Pardon?”
To the chief’s confusion, the man covered in gauze held out the palm of his hand as if to receive something. But the contract and pen were already sitting on the table. What else could he want?
He was just wondering if the customer was expecting a business card when he shockingly heard, “One million two hundred and eighty yen, she says. You can give me your card, if you don’t have the cash.”
“…Huh?”
The sales chief had no idea what the young man meant.
He continued, “Well, I mean, the lady says she needs this. But I don’t have the money. A man can’t cause trouble for a lady, now, can he? But you seem like you’ve got the means. You’re probably the owner of this gallery or something, right? If you can buy all this expensive art to hang in here, you’ve gotta be loaded.”
“Umm…”
“Money should be spent on women. You’re a man, so you should buy this painting to help her out. Give me the one million two hundred and eighty and I can handle the rest.”
“Sir, you must be joking,” the chief mumbled, his face tense. The next moment, it froze entirely.
“…What? …Joking?”
Abruptly, the eyepatch-covered face turned sharp, cold, and undeniably cruel. The shift from when he was talking to the woman was so sudden and startling that the sales chief instantly realized, This guy isn’t a regular patron.
“When did I tell a joke? When did I make you laugh? Huh?” he said, getting to his feet and approaching the chief’s nose.
The saleswoman finally recognized what was happening, and her face went pale. She said, “Um, s-sir?”
The young man spun around on the spot and flashed her a smile and thumbs-up. “Don’t worry, miss. He’s gonna buy it. Like you said, not only will it make his life better, he’ll have the women screaming over him. Any man with money would buy it!”
The sales chief shot the woman a look that said, Why did you bring him in here?
She looked back at him with teary eyes that pleaded, I didn’t pitch him anything; he just started hitting on me on the street and followed me in here, but that was a little too detailed for mere eyes to get across.
But there was another person who saw her about to cry: the unbelievable customer.
“Hey, guy.”
“Y-yes?!”
“You just shot her a dirty look, didn’t you?” he accused, full of righteous fury.
The chief was taken aback—which was ironic because it was usually his job to threaten customers. “H…huh…?”
“I don’t know if you’re her boss or whatever, but she’s been tryin’ her best to walk me through this whole practice, since I’m new to it. Who the hell do you think you are, staring her down?”
“Wha…? Um, sir, this is a private company matter. It has nothing to do with you…”
“So if it’s none of my business, that means I’m free to hit you?” he threatened, cracking his neck as he took a step forward.
“S-sir, I’ll call the poli—” the chief started to say, and then the possibility arose in his head that he might die before the police arrived. He had plenty of experience with odd guests, but the attitude coming from this person was something he’d never seen on this level before.
And right as the menacing youth crouched down to do something—a ringtone went off in his shirt pocket.
“…”
The young man stopped, picked up his phone, and held it to his ear.
“It’s me… Ah, gotcha. Where are you now? Huh? …The hell? That’s right outside this building. Actually, all of you come inside here right now. There’s an asshole here who doesn’t know how a lady feels… Oh yeah? Tsk… Fine, fine. I’m coming out.”
The man in the eyepatch and bandages hung up and glared at the sales chief.
“I’m gonna come back here later to make damn sure you bought this lady her painting…”
Outside of art gallery, Ikebukuro
“So you found this Dollars guy?” Chikage Rokujou asked of his fellow Toramaru gang member as he exited the gallery.
The man in the leather jacket grunted confirmation and reported, “He’s a half-Japanese guy named Walker Yumasaki, and he’s supposedly pretty well known within the Dollars.”
“Weird name. Where is he now?”
“Well…,” the man in the jacket mumbled. He jutted his chin up a bit to signal the gallery building in front of them.
“He followed a woman into that building right before you walked out of it.”
Inside the gallery
I thought I was going to die…
The sales chief was relieved that the man finally left. Then, he heard a different visitor’s voice. It was not the usual business talk—it sounded as though there was trouble after all.
What is it now? he wondered.
A young man was arguing passionately in front of a painting by an illustrator who went by the name Suzy Yasuda.
“I mean, this is just silk-screened, so even with the frame, at this size the base cost would be twenty-four thousand yen, right? I have great respect for this illustrator, so I’d be willing to pay a million yen for this masterpiece! However, I cannot make this deal unless I have a guarantee that at least eight hundred thousand of that will go to the artist.”
“Er, well…”
“Besides, this piece was not originally drawn to be silk-screened. And selling it with a serial number as if it was supposed to be printed is just tarnishing the true value of the work. Did Suzy really allow you to print and sell this? This? I mean, there are way too many holes in your story! It doesn’t get a single fraction of Suzy’s appeal across to the buyer! It completely ruins her mystique! Where did you get these level-zero powers, anyway?! Listen, the root of Suzy’s illustrations goes back to…”
“Ch-chief!” pleaded the sales clerk.
The chief raced over and recognized the narrow-eyed half-Western boy. He put his head in his hands. “Not you again, sir! Please leave at once!”
Once the chief harangued the young man out of the building, he turned to scold the woman who had been soliciting customers on the street.
“You’re new here, but let me warn you: That half-Japanese customer is not to be trifled with! Even if he happens to look like a very easy mark!”
“Y-yes, sir.”
The stressed-out chief, a master at underhanded sales strategies, muttered to himself, “I think I need to get out of this business…”
“That guy dressed as a bartender smashes the place up right as I start working here… The Awakusu-kai stroll right in and demand the originals we copy… It’s just insane, really…”
Right around the time the sales chief felt like he was going to get an ulcer, Chikage Rokujou started following Yumasaki as he exited the gallery.
“…That’s him? Doesn’t look the part.”
“Well, that’s just what the Dollars are like. You can’t identify ’em in a crowd like that. A couple of our guys who raided Ikebukuro last month got beat by his friend, some asshole named Kadota. From what I hear, Kadota’s got a lot of pull within the Dollars.”
“Ahhh…,” Chikage muttered, following his prey by sight. Up ahead, a woman dressed in black stopped Yumasaki. Next to her was a fierce-looking man with a knit cap who was speaking with Yumasaki on obviously friendly terms.
“Ah, that’s him! Kadota is the guy in the beanie.”
“…They’ve got a girl. No action this time, then. We’ll just watch.”
“Got it.”
The Dollars trio wandered around Sunshine Street for a while longer, and as they reached the Tokyu Hands building, Kadota said something to Yumasaki and the woman and then walked off on his own.
The pair crossed at the light to go toward Sunshine City, while Kadota continued south along the Metropolitan Expressway.
“I’ll take it from here. You meet up with the rest.”
“But—”
“Just go.”
“Got it.”
With his companion out of the way, Chikage continued following Kadota. But after a while, his gaze stopped on a building nearby.
He stopped walking momentarily, forgetting even that he was busy trailing a target.
“…Right in the middle of Ikebukuro…there’s an all-girls’ school…?!”
The leader of Toramaru was rooted to the spot for most of a minute, standing at the entrance of a girls’ academy located right near Raira Academy. Because of the vacation, there did not happen to be any girls in the vicinity right now.
But I gotta hold out hope… No! I got more important things to do now.
He came back to his senses and shook his head. Suddenly, he heard someone speak in a cold voice behind him.
“…You want something with us?”
“…”
Chikage spun around and saw the man with the beanie, the one he was supposed to be trailing. “Oh. You knew I was following you.”
“Yeah. But I began to doubt my own instincts when you stopped in front of the all-girls’ school,” Kadota said, cracking his neck. He asked Chikage, “So who are you? I don’t think I’ve ever met you before, but at least I know you’re not the kind of scum who’d target a guy escorting a lady.”
“My name’s Chikage Rokujou… I think I’d get along with you,” he grinned, and then he shook his head sadly. “But…you’re with the Dollars, right?”
“…Yeah, you might say that.”
“It’s a shame. I heard a rumor that Shizuo Heiwajima’s also in the Dollars. Is that for real?” he asked.
“…I think that’s the case, but I don’t believe he thinks of himself as being a member of anything,” Kadota replied honestly.
“Yeah, he’s one of those guys, huh? I see… So you’re not all on the same page together.”
“?”
“…But still, that’s got nothin’ to do with us.”
Right at that moment, Kadota’s cell phone rang, as if on cue.
“Go on, get it. I’ll wait.”
“It’s an e-mail,” Kadota said, looking at the screen without letting down his guard. The ringtone had to be for messages relating to the Dollars. He opened it up promptly, wondering if it had something to do with the man right in front of him.
“…”
Kadota squinted at the contents of the message, and then he turned up to glare at Chikage.
“What’s up?”
“…Hey, punk.”
The message on his phone was an emergency alert—that Dollars were being attacked all over Ikebukuro.
“Why did you— No, why did all of you people come here?” Kadota demanded, staring down the other man in worry and anger.
Chikage, meanwhile, stared right back into Kadota’s eyes. He shrugged. “We just came to pay for the fight we were sold.”
“Keep the change. I don’t need it.”
At that moment, inside the abandoned factory
As Mikado tried to extract the term Blue Squares from the recesses of his mind to put a meaning to Aoba’s shocking revelation, his cell phone suddenly erupted with the arrival of an e-mail.
Similar notifications and vibrations went off on the phones of the other boys around them, all at once.
—!
The notification was the sound Mikado used for Dollars-related messages—which led him to a major realization.
I should have figured… They’re all Dollars, too.
A group all gathered in one place. Ringtones going off all at once.
The scale was much, much smaller, but it reminded Mikado of a scene he experienced a year earlier. The realization shook him.
And even worse than that was the content of the e-mail: that members of the Dollars were under attack.
“I think it’s started,” Aoba said as he checked the same message on his phone, his smile never wavering.
“Started…? What’s started…?”
“Toramaru’s revenge… The guys from Saitama,” Aoba replied. Mikado felt his vision warp.
Is this…real life?
Was this boy really the same kid from school who grinned innocently at everything? Well, he certainly had that same smile right now.
But Mikado couldn’t connect the things that Aoba was saying with reality as he knew it.
“Why…would you attack people in Saitama? Why are you doing this…?”
“It was thanks to them that our little Ikebukuro tour got torn to shreds. So this was a little payback… Does that work for you?”
“…”
Mikado swallowed. He had no words.
Based on what he heard so far, he had to assume that he wasn’t going to elicit Aoba’s true intentions here. Clutching his phone, Mikado decided to attempt a dialogue with the younger boy.
“The Blue Squares… I’ve heard of them. I think…they were a color gang around here years ago… And after a war with the Yellow Scarves, a number of them were claimed by the other gang…from what I hear.”
A number of the boys in the factory whistled in admiration. Even Aoba’s eyes were sparkling in surprise.
“You know a lot more than I imagined. I’m impressed!”
“Why would you tell me…tell me these things?”
“Because I trust you. Is that such a bad thing?”
“It’s not an answer… What do you want from me?” Mikado demanded, his confusion only deepening.
“That’s a good question. I was hoping to do this after you knew a little bit more about us…but I guess I could just start off by asking you first.”
Aoba looked up at Mikado, still sitting on the pile of metal beams, his eyes sparkling.
“Leader,” he prompted.
“Huh…?”
“I’m not asking you to be the leader of the Dollars. That would conflict with the ethos of the Dollars, I suppose.”
Giggling.
Mocking.
For some reason, the other boys present all broke into laughter, the sound undulating rhythmically off the walls of the empty factory. And riding atop that rhythm like poetry, Aoba’s words melted into the air of the room, rattling Mikado with their implication.
“…Instead, we want you to be the leader of the Blue Squares.”
“Uh…”
“We’ll just hang back and follow you.”
He couldn’t keep up. It was too sudden, too illogical.
It felt like someone was asking him to become an Arab oil monarch tomorrow. If Yumasaki and Karisawa had mentioned it, he would have assumed they were making a manga reference. That was how baffling the request was to Mikado.
“Why…why would I—?”
“Well, there are a number of reasons, but mostly it’s because you occupy a special position in the Dollars.”
“Special position…?” Mikado repeated robotically.
Aoba helpfully explained, “To be brief, it’s because you are the founder of the Dollars.”
“…!”
“Is that a surprise? We have our own information network, you know.”
Aoba was neither intimidated by nor was he patronizing to the stunned Dollars’ founder. He simply put his intentions into words that spoke for themselves.
“You can use us any way you want. If you decide you want to end this war, and command us to go and grovel at Toramaru’s feet so they can beat us to a pulp…then we’ll have no choice but to obey. We’ll take it. But if we survive and make it out of the hospital, then you really will be our leader… On the other hand, if you command us to crush Toramaru and stop them from harming our fellow Dollars, we’ll use whatever means necessary.”
“You know…I can’t do…either! It’s out of the question!” Mikado said, finding his authority at last. He shook his head vigorously. “What makes you think I would accept such a thing…? If you want to avoid gang warfare, just pretend you’re not in the Dollars and stay out of it. That’s the type of person I am. I’m not meant to stand on your shoulders!”
It was a true cry from the heart. That was how he meant it and how it felt coming out.
But Aoba only got to his feet and leaned in close.
In a tiny voice that only Mikado could hear, he muttered, “That’s not true.”
He looked delighted, so delighted.
“After all…”
“Huh…?”
“At this very moment…
…you’re smiling, aren’t you?”
At that moment, within the factory grounds
It was a negotiation taking place in total privacy.
No matter what choice Mikado made, only those involved in the matter would know.
Except that a third party was, in fact, listening in at that very moment.
And depending on how loosely you wanted to define it, they were very much involved.
Ummm…
Celty Sturluson was on the outside of the abandoned factory, hiding in the shadows around a window.
…What’s going on here?
Her sense of hearing could pick up the conversation inside with ease. It sounded like the uniquely aggressive bravado of young delinquents, but the boy at the center of it was someone she knew.
Am I actually witnessing a major turning point in Mikado’s life?
The irony was that it wasn’t even the group of boys that had brought her here.
Celty only spent a few minutes back at Shinra’s apartment the previous night. She was surprised to learn that Shizuo and his workmate had been there, but there was more important business to cover: She explained the situation with Anri and asked Shinra to let the girl stay the night, then left again.
The reason she left was simple: She had to search for the girl in the photo, the granddaughter of the Awakusu boss.
According to Shiki, the girl was bouncing between twenty-four-hour manga cafés and family restaurants. It seemed unlikely that such a girl could stay at a late-night restaurant by herself without being reported to the police, but she clearly had some special trick to living out of a restaurant.
But how would she shower? When Celty peered into an actual manga café (with funny looks and warnings about wearing her helmet indoors), she was surprised to learn that the cafés were putting in showers now.
In addition to this, she was rotating around the homes of friends from school and acquaintances from the Internet, which made it difficult for the yakuza’s information network to pick up details.
Shiki claimed that they would inform her once they found the girl, but the thought of those dangerous, armed men on the move made Celty afraid for this unfamiliar girl and pressed her into action.
All night long, she prowled around Ikebukuro—without realizing that the girl had been inside her apartment all along.
Celty wound up cycling through restaurants until morning but never found the girl—and when she returned to digging into the identity of the mystery attackers from earlier, the trail of black thread led her to the abandoned factory.
Wow…my shadow really will stretch for miles and miles, she noted with surprised admiration when she saw that the thread was still intact. When the slender line of shadow touched the ground, it rejoined her real shadow, where it would not tangle on anything or anyone.
Celty could manipulate the shadow at will, making it act like a liquid or even a gas if she wanted. If she ran it around a single building hundreds of times, she could still retrieve all of it within mere seconds.
I feel like that cat-shaped robot that came from the future with all its helpful tools. But I can return to that later, she thought and focused on the situation before her. What is it with me and this run-down old factory?
She was interested in what choice Mikado would make, but was it right of her to listen in? A wave of terrible guilt washed over her, but Celty couldn’t force herself to move or stop eavesdropping.
And she, too, was being observed by someone else.
At that moment, inside Russia Sushi
“So what is it?”
“There are signs the two of them have been around Ikebukuro. I thought I ought to tell you.”
They were speaking Russian—the familiar visitor Egor, as well as the brusque owner of the sushi shop, who asked, “You said the other day that these are people we don’t know?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s true that I don’t know this Slon fellow, but Vorona is Drakon’s little daughter, isn’t she?”
“When I said you don’t know them, I was being truthful. She’s not the girl you once knew, Denis.”
Simon was out luring in customers for the approaching lunch hour, when the restaurant would open, so the only ones in the building were Egor and Denis, the owner.
“It’s still her, no matter how much she changes. That’s what Colonel Lingerin would say,” Denis noted with disinterest.
“Well, er…if you look at things the same way that Lingerin does, yes,” Egor sighed. “Did you happen to hear anything last night?”
“…I heard what sounded like one distant shot from an anti-matériel rifle.”
“I heard it, too. That was probably Vorona and Slon. And it didn’t just ‘sound like’ that, it was the very anti-matériel rifle that they took from the company.”
“…”
The sushi chef silently polished his knife as Egor rubbed the bandages wrapped around his face. He came to a serious conclusion.
“It will do no one any favors if we don’t stop her soon. For her sake, for Drakon’s sake, and for Tokyo’s sake. And of course…for your sake, since you love this place so much.”
At that moment, rooftop, building next to abandoned factory
“Unused factory building. The information was in error. Location is gathering place of delinquent youth.”
“It looks like the Black Rider is hiding from the children… Should we snipe from here?” Slon asked as he peered through the scope.
Vorona shook her head. “Rider survived after yesterday’s shot—true monster. Failed attempt will only reveal our location. Fatal mistake.”
Vorona and Slon were on standby on the roof of a building within a reasonable distance from the factory. They were set up so they could see the majority of the factory grounds and watched Celty as she followed the black thread in.
If they only wanted to find her, they just had to follow the thread the other direction. But they were enemies, of course, and it would be foolish to head straight into a face-to-face confrontation.
Instead, they left Vorona’s motorcycle inside the empty factory to lure the Black Rider there—and just moments after that, the strange group of boys appeared. Now the rider was crouched in the shadows outside of the window, hiding from them.
But of course, she was openly visible to Vorona and Slon. The Russian woman continued watching for a while, sucked in a deep breath, and muttered, “We will follow the monster. Target child might be found at the end of this.”
Slon sighed and commented, “You’re enjoying yourself, Vorona.”
“Affirmation. It has become more enjoyable.”
Vorona’s flat expression, that was a gift from her father, twisted slightly with her warped words of love.
“I like Ikebukuro. Half disappointment, half envy. A bit of hope. That is love.”
“I have decided to love Ikebukuro. Affirmation.”
At that moment, office building, Ikebukuro
“That son of a… I told him never to come back to Ikebukuro…”
In an office building far from the shopping center of the neighborhood, Shizuo was furiously climbing the stairs.
“Now he thinks he can just open up an office here…”
He reached the third floor and set his sights on a door straight ahead. The address on the sheet of paper pasted on his old office was correct. There was no sign on the door or wall, but there weren’t any other tenants in the building, either.
Guess I’ll pretend to be a customer to get him to open up.
He knocked on the office door.
“…”
There was no response.
He spotted a doorbell to the side and tried ringing that—still no response.
Next, he attempted to listen through the door to see if it was vacant inside, but he heard the sounds of a TV or radio coming from within.
So he thinks he can pretend not to be home? Shizuo fumed and grabbed the knob so he could force the door open…
Huh?
The door wasn’t locked. It opened without any resistance.
What the hell? He didn’t even lock up.
Shizuo let go of the knob, which was now molded into the shape of his palm, and strode into the office, not bothering to hide his irritation.
The office was split into a number of smaller rooms, and the first one had bookshelves along the wall, packed with countless files and materials.
…Is this what an info dealer’s office looks like? Shizuo wondered suspiciously. He continued toward the back in search of his archenemy.
What he saw there was…
“…”
“………”
“……………Huh?”
Seconds passed after he first saw it.
Shizuo could not initially process the sight before him.
It was actually quite a simple scene, one that an objective observer could instantly identify.
But for the subjective viewer in this case, it was almost impossible to piece together.
He was looking at three blobs of flesh, dressed in suits.
One in front of the TV, which was still on.
One slumped in a chair.
One driven into the thin wall that separated room from room.
It took some time for Shizuo to realize that they were all “done in,” as it were.
The face of the man in front of the TV was half-pulverized.
The head of the man sitting in the chair had been twisted 180 degrees.
The spine of the man driven into the wall was broken at an odd angle from the rest of his torso.
There was one initial thing that unified all of them, as far as he could tell.
All three had been dispatched using what appeared to be bare-handed means.
“…”
It had been a long time since he saw a dead body.
Shizuo had never committed murder, but through his various exploits over the years starting from high school, he had seen corpses on a number of occasions.
If he hadn’t, he might have thrown up on the spot, such was the level of carnage on display.
How long had he stood on the spot?
Wait, you gotta be kidding me. Why are there dead bodies in Izaya’s office?
Surprise turned to suspicion in Shizuo’s mind, and the questions led to more questions.
Hang on… Is this really Izaya’s office…?
Just then, someone behind him bellowed, “Hey, you! Who said you could come…in…?”
Shizuo spun around to see a young man with a shaved head. He looked imposing enough on his own, but he stopped in his tracks with obvious uncertainty when he recognized Shizuo.
He looked from Shizuo to the blobs of flesh. His eyes went wide, and his mouth started working like a goldfish’s.
“Y-y-you, why, why, why you…why you…”
The man with the shaved head put a hand on the wall behind him and then ran toward the entrance in a panic.
There had been no time to explain anything. Shizuo snorted in confusion and put a hand to his chin to think.
That was when he realized that he had been framed, in the most direct and stunning way possible.
Less than a minute later, the bald-headed man returned with a gun, fearfully looking for Shizuo. But Shizuo was already gone. The only sound in the office was the whistling wind from the open third-story window.
A few seconds more after that, the room echoed with the man’s furious voice as he yelled into the phone.
“Shizuo… It was Shizuo Heiwajima! I recognized him! Call Mr. Shiki right away!”
“That little prick just killed three of our boys!”
And as of that moment, Shizuo Heiwajima’s peace of mind and his desire to lead a quiet life were utterly eradicated.
May 4, midday, underground east exit of Ikebukuro Station, front of the Ikefukuro Owl Café
“Don’t worry. The person coming to see us is very nice,” Anri reassured Akane, who looked up at her and nodded.
Akane’s fever was totally gone, and with Shizuo being gone now, it seemed that the mental stress plaguing her had eased. Shinra gave his stamp of approval as well, and so Anri decided to take the frightened girl outside to buoy her spirits.
She was worried about the possibility the girl might try to run away, but Akane claimed that if she ran across “that Shizuo person,” she would try to hear him out properly this time, so Anri took her at her word.
Plus, the mention of Izaya Orihara’s name was very concerning for Anri, too. She and Izaya had faced off as enemies once before, although that was less Anri and more Saika at work.
On top of that, there was the sudden attack the previous night, as well as the girl’s claim that her father and grandfather were going to be killed.
Shinra suggested that it might be dangerous to go out, but it also seemed very unlikely that any fights would break out among the bustling crowds of Ikebukuro in the middle of the day.
When she explained that she had an arrangement to meet some school friends, Shinra said, “Okay, I’ll tell Celty when she gets back. Once she has some free time after work, I’ll send her to keep an eye on you. Of course, if Shizuo was around, I’d have him be your bodyguard,” and allowed them to leave the apartment.
But now that they were actually out, Anri suspected that it might have been careless of her after all. If that assailant from yesterday wasn’t the type to hesitate in the middle of the open public, she might be exposing innocent Akane to danger.
So Anri waited, tense and wary.
She wanted Mikado and Aoba to arrive as quickly as possible to bring the sense of normalcy and security that they provided her.
But she simply didn’t realize that the normalcy of Ikebukuro, particularly around the people she knew, had already been shattered.
And thus Anri Sonohara did not yet realize that they were taking a step into that broken city.
A dark place, Ikebukuro
Izaya Orihara’s cell phone also received the message about the Dollars under attack.
But that wasn’t all.
He was getting messages from multiple pet sources of his with similar information. Every once in a while, there were details of an entirely different kind.
Izaya glanced over all of this info equally in the darkness. He mumbled, “Those little Blue Squares brats. I guess they were after the same thing, but only up to a point.”
Half-excited and half-irritated, he envisioned a particular boy’s face.
“But that’s all right. If you think about it, Aoba Kuronuma is another sweet little junior of mine from Raira. I suppose…I accept his challenge.”
He fiddled with his phone and spoke aloud—to the darkness or to himself?
“Now I will work directly to outdo you in an honest battle of wits.”
Izaya sent a few messages off and then reached for a knob in the midst of the dark.
“As fellow black sheep among the sea that is the Dollars…”
The door opened, filling his eyes with the blinding noon sun. He stared balefully up at it.
“…We ought to get along and cannibalize each other.”
Izaya Orihara laughed.
It was unclear just how much he knew about Aoba Kuronuma and his cohorts.
Did he have a plan to crush them, or was he happy to be obliterated in the attempt either way?
Izaya’s smile was endlessly human, and that was what made him seem so unnatural.
His laugh was only the starting point.
It was the beginning of an extremely twisted story.
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