Durarara!! - Volume 7 - Chapter 2

Ordinary A: Rendezvous Bolero

May 5, morning, Shinjuku

“…So, he never came back,” the woman muttered as she watched the pot bubble away.

Through the rippling air above the pot, her hair shone, long and black.

Namie Yagiri stood in an apartment bordering Shinjuku’s central park, thinking about the absent owner of the residence…

But the moment only lasted a few seconds.

“This stew turned out better than I expected. If he’s not going to come back, I should take it to Seiji instead.”

She tasted the broth of the dish. Namie’s harsh expression softened and reddened a bit as she thought of herself and her lover Seiji hunched over the hot pot.

If judged solely on appearances, she would seem to be a woman with a childish side for her age.

But that was only if you didn’t know the truth: that she was thinking about her brother.

—And that she wasn’t thinking of familial love, but the carnal, lusty type instead.

Namie turned off the stove and reached for the TV remote.

She sat down on the sofa with graceful ease, stretching her legs and inadvertently exuding feminine beauty into the otherwise empty room.

On the TV, the morning news programs were just starting up.

What’s with this? The TV in here is way nicer than the one in his other apartment.

She proceeded to glare lazily around the interior of the room. While she might have been acting like she owned the place, as a matter of fact, she’d only been there for fifty hours.

Ordinarily, she worked as an assistant to an info broker, out of an apartment located in a different building in Shinjuku. Now that office was empty, though, due to present circumstances.

The info broker took out this apartment as a refuge in case a certain man who wore a bartending outfit came after him—and now he was even hiding from Namie, apparently.

He was supposed to contact her at night, and even that hadn’t happened.

“He can be surprisingly sloppy about certain things. Perhaps that bartender boy caught him and beat him to death,” she muttered as she flipped through the channels. She stopped when it landed on a horoscope segment that she usually watched. Her expression went lustful as she imagined her brother’s face.

The next instant, a familiar name came over the TV speakers.

“A citizen from Tokyo named Izaya Orihara was traveling alone when he suddenly collapsed, bleeding from his abdomen…”

—?!

An abrupt shock to her senses from an unexpected source.

Izaya…Orihara?!

Did she mishear, or was it a different person by the same name?

Her mind suddenly engaged and active, Namie listened closely to the newscaster.

“…the street of a shopping area near the train station. Witnesses claim they saw Mr. Orihara fall to the ground, bleeding. The victim is currently receiving treatment at a local hospital, where police say he had lacerations matching those of stab wounds. They believe it was a random attack by a passerby. As Mr. Orihara recovers, we will wait for more detailed information…”

“Whoaaa…”

The chyron on the screen said, “Injured: Izaya Orihara.” There was no photo to identify him, but it seemed pretty certain that the news report was about the very man whom she worked for. Even the kanji for his name were the same, and it was a strange enough name that all doubt was removed.

Still, the knowledge that her boss’s name was all over the news didn’t provoke any reaction other than pale cheeks.

He got stabbed.

She changed the channel. The other networks were all discussing some celebrity’s love life or airing morning anime, so it didn’t seem like a major national story.

Well, if they take it as just some squabble between thugs, it wouldn’t be treated like a huge deal… And I guess that’s not far off the truth.

Izaya had plenty of personal baggage. Namie was well aware of that after working for him all this time.

She wasn’t particularly inclined to get involved in his personal business, but her employer getting into trouble wasn’t a desirable outcome, either, so she tried to keep herself aware of information that might end up affecting her.

Still, there were so many possible attackers she could think of, the fact that he was stabbed didn’t seem all that notable.

“…”

Namie’s number was placed in his cell phone as a “pizza place,” so she wasn’t worried about the police calling her out of the blue based on that. Would they even bother to track down the individual numbers unless it turned into a murder case? Or did the police regularly go to those lengths for aggravated assault?

Oh… Does this mean really bad news for him?

Namie spontaneously wondered if what was a simple assault today might escalate into a murder attempt within the next few days. Now that the incident was news, and he was reported as being taken to a nearby hospital—what if that boy dressed as a bartender saw the report? What if some other person in an antagonistic position saw it?

Realizing that her employer’s life might be in grave danger, Namie murmured…

“Well, in any case…I suppose I’m off work for the next few days.”

She stood up, apparently satisfied with just that knowledge and nothing else.

Namie shut off the gas and put a lid on the pot that was still more than half full, her boss’s face already banished to the realm of the subconscious.

In fact, it might not even have been in the subconscious—everything, including any concern for his life or death, might as well have vanished from her brain entirely.

“Seiji…”

She looked out the window blissfully.

…As if she saw her beloved little brother somewhere in the night skyline.

May 6, midday, Ikebukuro, in front of an apartment building

There was a kind of shadowed, downcast beauty to the girl’s face.

Her black hair shone in the sun, and her features had a whiff of foreignness to them. Not in the sense of being from a country overseas, but of something inhuman, like a painting.

Strangest of all was a large scar that ran around her neck. It looked like a surgical scar, as if to suggest that her head had once been severed and reattached.

When one stood next to her, the sight was jarring enough to make one wonder if this was some fantasy realm, rather than the real world. No doubt there were some people who had been enraptured by her upon their first viewing. However…

“Morning, Seiji!”

The bubbly, excited voice that escaped from her lips totally undid any effect her appearance created. It was the voice of someone without any troubles whatsoever, someone who believed that the entire world was in her corner.

Answering her call from the entrance of the apartment building, smiling briefly, was a young man. “Morning, Mika.”

Seiji was dressed in his own clothes, not a school uniform, but one look at his face was enough to identify him as a high school student.

As for Mika, she looked young but often gave off an older appearance due to her otherworldly features. As long as she avoided speaking, that is.

“Where are we off to today? I’ll go anywhere if it’s with you!”

Innocent words. Childish voice.

It was the kind of silly, bubbly thing that people said when they just started going out, but as a matter of fact, Mika and Seiji had been a couple for over a year at this point. When they first met, she would speak to him in polite forms of speech, but at Seiji’s request, she now took a closer, more natural tone of voice that was appropriate for their intimacy.

There was love, hope, and the rock-solid conviction of their relationship in her eyes. She looked as though she had just met the man of her dreams minutes ago.

By contrast, he was totally calm and collected and easily shrugged off her passionate gaze.

“Let’s see… Wanna go catch a movie or something?”

Seiji gave her a weak grin and placed his hand on her shoulder.

May 5, midday, café

The café located in the basement of the major electronics wholesale store exuded elegance. It often found itself host to meetings after work or lengthy, relaxed visits from friends and lovers.

A corner of the stately café buzzed with the excited voices of teenage girls.

“And as soon as he put his hand on her shoulder, Miss Harima just grabbed onto his and squeezed! And he said, ‘Hey, it’s hard to walk like this,’ but his face sure wasn’t complaining! It’s incredible how they never get tired of each other.”

“…Heat…” [They’re so in love.] The gloomy-looking girl spoke to her glasses-wearing partner, who was all amped up. Aside from the difference in attitude, hairstyle, and the glasses, they looked completely identical.

Sitting across from the twins and listening intently was Namie, dressed in a business skirt suit.

“…”

She was silent as the twins described the events as excitedly as if they were their own personal experiences. Overwhelmingly silent.

“…Miss Namie?” asked the girl with the glasses, noticing something strange in her attitude.

There was nothing adding up to an expression on Namie’s face. But her eyes were full of enough freezing force to stop anyone else in their tracks—enough to cause a trickle of sweat down the bubbly girl’s back at least.

“What’s the matter, Miss Namie?”

“Nothing. Please continue, Kururi Orihara and Mairu Orihara.”

“Um…when you use our full names like that, it sounds a bit…intimidating.”

“…Danger…” [I’m scared.]

The girls tensed and crept toward each other, sensing something swirling within the woman sitting across from them. The twin with the glasses—Mairu—decided to dispel the cold touch of fear by putting on a formal smile and continuing her report.

“After that, they went to the Metropolitan movie theater, where they’re watching Vampire Ninja Carmilla Saizou’s Beginning now! Or perhaps it’s over already?”

“…A bit…” [Ten minutes left.]

“Ah,” Namie murmured, lifting her coffee to her lips. “Thank you for all your observations and reports. Here is a token of my appreciation.”

She slid a card over the table without emotion. It was a bank cash card.

“That shouldn’t leave any traces behind, but I can’t guarantee it’s one hundred percent safe, so I recommend that you withdraw the entire balance and destroy it. The pin number is zero one six four. You’ll find three hundred thousand yen, as we agreed upon.”

“I’ve meant to ask,” Mairu piped up apologetically, “do you really mean to give us all that money?”

“Of course. Why? Do you have some suspicions?” Namie replied, baffled at the idea. Even the questioning tilt of her head was captiviating—but the cold nature of her face froze the spines of anyone who saw it.

“It just seems like a lot of money for watching what your brother does and telling you…”

“That is silly. For one thing, understanding more about Seiji is so valuable that it cannot be measured in currency. I merely arrived at the sum by calculating the amount of time that you watched him and converting what Izaya Orihara paid me during that period. It is not worth your concern.”

The sisters leaned in and whispered to one another.

“Sounds like Iza is paying Miss Namie a hefty hourly wage.”

“…Test…struggles…” [Maybe since it’s his first time hiring someone, he didn’t know a reasonable rate.]

Namie was close enough to hear what they said, but she gave no reaction whatsoever. She merely said, “I happen to think that I offer value greater than what he pays me. Watching over your capricious family is far tougher work than I ever imagined.”

They replied, “Oh, you mean that someone stabbed him?”

She paused and then, seeming to realize something, asked the twins, “Have you…heard about what happened to Izaya?”

“…Station…morning…heard…” [The police called this morning to tell us.]

“Mom and Dad are both overseas for work, so the fuzz came to us first. I told them, ‘He can rub some spit in the wound and be back on his feet in no time!’ Then the lady on the phone yelled at me for talking about my own family like that.”

Kururi admonished, “…Annoyance…” [Of course she did.]

But there was no pain or worry in her face about the fact that their brother was stabbed. Perhaps he really didn’t mean that much to them.

For her part, Namie wasn’t interested in her employer’s family bonds, so she immediately switched topics. “Well, there’s one thing I’d like to confirm about what you just reported.”

“What’s that? Just to clarify, my report contains subjective opinions, but no embellishment!” Mairu stated.

“What does Seiji…normally call her?”

“Huh?”

The twins looked at each other, not understanding the question. So Mairu gave her an off-the-cuff answer.

Without thinking, unfortunately.

“Umm, normally, he just refers to her as Mika. Usually, Miss Harima talks all polite with other people, in a way that gets kind of weird, but lately, she’s been way more frank and blunt when she talks to him. According to another upperclassman we asked, they just started doing that as a mark of celebration for reaching a year together, so—” Mairu blabbed, until she was cut off by a strange sound.

Krakl.

With a dry crunch, the coffee cup fell from Namie’s hand. It bounced off her knees and fell to the ground. Fortunately, she had finished the liquid, so nothing splashed out onto her clothes or the floor. But Kururi and Mairu were more focused on her hand.

Within her fingers was the snapped-off handle of the cup.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am! Are you all right?” stammered an employee, who rushed over at once. He assumed that something was faulty with the cup and that it had shattered on its own.

“…I’m fine. Nothing to worry about,” Namie said, still cold. She gave the apologizing man the broken piece and sent him away, then lifted her cup of water.

Again, it was an elegant action, but Kururi and Mairu didn’t fail to notice one crucial detail.

There were no cracks in the cup. She had broken off the ceramic handle with nothing but the strength of her fingers.

“Um, Miss Namie?”

“…Mystery…?” [What is it?]

The girls thought they sensed the cloudy presence of hatred in the air before them, and they pulled away slightly.

But Namie just looked past them, off into the distance at something, seemingly oblivious to them, and mumbled to herself.

“…by my name…”

“Huh?”

“…”

The words she then repeated were so obvious and self-apparent to the twins that they would have been funny if not for the powerful essence of madness behind them.

“Seiji’s never even…called me…by my name…”

It was at that point that the twins noticed that her voice was full of both sheer murder and bottomless jealousy.

Both in levels that were far beyond the ability of the ordinary mind to comprehend.

Thirty minutes later, theater lobby

Allow me to explain!

Carmilla Saizou is a vampire ninja!

He is the son of a vampire father and human mother, an agent of darkness with mastery over the ancient skills of the shinobi!

Despite his hatred for the vampire blood that runs in his veins, he prowls the shadows and fights the dark side of New Tokyo to preserve its peace!

In the first two movies, Saizou saved first New Tokyo, then Edo, and in this third movie, he’s making his second trip through time—to medieval Romania!

There, he’ll meet his father in his old human-hating days…as well as a brand-new enemy.

After a deadly battle that spans space and time, Saizou will find his own truth…

Seiji Yagiri looked up from the movie pamphlet often handed out with tickets in Japan and asked the girl next to him, “How was it?”

“It was sooo exciting! I got to sit next to you the whole time!” Mika Harima bubbled, winding her wrist around Seiji’s arm.

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Exasperated, he turned to Mika and gave her a thin smile.

But his smile wasn’t a reaction to the words she’d just said.

He was smiling in response to the smile that her sculpted face reminded him of.

Seiji Yagiri was a man who lived in love.

He would take on a tank with his bare hands for the woman he loved. If he needed to tear out his own heart to keep her alive, he would do it without questioning (but only if he truly needed to).

Yet the target of this love was not the innocent but ominous girl clinging to his arm.

Technically, it was just her face.

What Seiji loved was the model face, the head that rested atop the body of Mika Harima. If, say, the woman at the ticket counter of the theater happened to have that same identical face, Seiji would just as quickly move on to adore her instead.

Was that really love?

Some might agree, if you claimed that you only loved sculpted heads.

But setting aside any deeper definitions of what love was, Seiji’s individual case was a little bit more complex than just being infatuated with a woman’s physical appearance.

He did not judge people entirely by outward looks. If a woman came along who was even more beautiful than Mika, it would not change his mind in any way.

It was through a great number of twists and turns, following a life driven mad by a particular woman’s head, that Seiji was in his current relationship with Mika Harima.

And until the moment that he found the woman’s real head, Seiji Yagiri would continue his pretend love.

He did it because looking at Mika Harima’s face kept him from forgetting the real woman.

He believed that was love.

Mika Harima was a woman who lived in love.

And what she loved most of all about it was the concept of herself being in love.

So her partner’s concerns were none of her own. She wouldn’t think twice about breaking into her partner’s house for the sake of living out her love. She wouldn’t think twice about planting a hidden bug in her beloved boyfriend’s apartment.

Even if Seiji fell in love with another woman, she wouldn’t hate him for it.

Even if Seiji hurled hurtful names at her, she wouldn’t despise him for it.

She would still love him, because her love was the most important thing in the world to her.

Her love was far, far, far more important than even the feelings of Seiji, the subject of that love.

So she would continue to love Seiji Yagiri—from the bottom of her pure-black heart.

Once, he had confessed his feelings to her: “I do not love you.”

She could still hear the words in her mind, clear as day.

“But as long as you’re around, I won’t forget my love and dedication for her. Therefore, I accept your love. At least, until the day I get her back…”

And then he had embraced her.

Had done it willingly.

That was enough.

That was all the reason she needed to cherish Seiji Yagiri.

He accepts me. He accepts my love.

And so, she thought of the one that he truly loved through her.

The true owner of her face.

When she and Seiji found her, she would break that face into pieces right before his eyes and devour its every drop of blood, its every strand of hair. Then Seiji’s love would truly be hers.

He might be furious. He might kill her.

She understood that. But it was an entirely trivial detail.

Mika Harima’s thoughts on the matter were thorough and unblemished.

She had faith.

She believed that this feeling, which an ordinary person might consider insane, was actually the thing called “love.”

As for the “real owner” of the face that featured so heavily in this boy and girl’s love—well, it was not quite as mundane as one might think.

For the owner of the face was just the face itself.

It was a woman’s severed head that still lived on today, even after being separated from its body.

She was not human.

She was a type of fairy commonly known as a dullahan, found in Scotland and 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.

And the head that this knight carried was none other than the target of Seiji Yagiri’s undying love.

A year ago, Seiji stole a test subject from the pharmaceutical company that his family ran. That subject was the very symbol of beauty that had been his object of worship from a young age—the dullahan’s head.

After a series of events, he had to eventually give up the head. Instead, he received the presence of a girl whose face was reconstructed to look just like the dullahan’s: Mika Harima.

Seiji ended up unable to tell the difference between the two faces—the head he loved and Mika’s after plastic surgery.

The final blow was a mocking insult that arrived at the moment he realized his own inability to do so.

“Well, well. Looks like you couldn’t even tell the difference between the real thing and a counterfeit.”

He couldn’t remember who had said it. Probably someone whom he didn’t know very well. But those words became shackles that ensnared his love and tore it to bits.

“I mean, if we’re being honest, that just shows you how real your love for that head is. Nice work, pal.”

Seiji’s love shattered in that moment.

But he didn’t give up.

What was broken could be rebuilt.

So he let Mika stick around, to ensure that he didn’t forget his love for the head—to serve as an admonishment toward himself.

Mika Harima was nothing but a conduit for Seiji’s love for the head; she was but a terminal.

So for the sole purpose of confirming that his love was real, Seiji continued to play out a pretend relationship with a woman he did not love.

Several minutes later, Ikebukuro

After leaving the theater, the couple decided to wander around the area. They started walking down Sunshine 60 Street toward Tokyu Hands, apparently without a specific destination.

Thanks to the extended holiday, the neighborhood was even busier than usual.

The crowds of a Tokyo metropolitan area took on different hues depending on the place. It was rare that they could be summed up and described with a single term, the way people talked about the fashion of Shibuya or the nerds of Akihabara, but even in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro there were distinct flavors to the crowds.

Seiji and Mika stood out somewhat from the general crowds here, but the excitement of the holiday easily hid what distinguished them.

“What did you think of the time paradox in Saizou?”

“Good question. It’s the same thing I thought about the second movie; it didn’t look like the future was changed that much, so what if it wasn’t really the past he went into, but a parallel timeline? One that was close enough for Saizou to learn about his father’s past… That was my takeaway. What did you think, Seiji?”

“Pretty much what you just said.”

“Really?! Yay!” Mika giggled.

Without fanfare, he noted, “When I see stuff with monsters or vampires, I can’t help but think of it,” referring to something highly relevant to the two of them.

“…You mean the head?”

“Yeah.”

Seiji didn’t hesitate to bring up the topic, even out in public like this. He turned to face the girl walking next to him.

Mika Harima was no simpleminded fool. Seiji understood that.

His first impression of her personality was that of a stupid stalker who overrode people and never listened to them. But once they started going out, he realized that this was merely one crazy side of her and that she was also very cunning and intelligent.

Still, there were many mysteries about her.

Why me?

He had to wonder.

Yes, he had saved her and her friend from some thugs about a year ago. But he’d heard that even before that, she’d fallen in love with him at first sight during tests.

However. However.

This love at first sight, the gratitude of his help—whatever “fate” she might feel about their connection—were they all really worth risking anything and everything to make good on?

He had once split Mika’s head open. He had tried to kill her.

And yet Mika Harima was still madly in love with Seiji Yagiri. She had put irreversible fake scars around her neck (albeit largely through coercion) and went under the knife to replace the face that she’d been given by her parents. She didn’t regret any of this.

That was why it was so hard for Seiji to understand. If asked whether he could risk his life for love, he would answer yes. But he’d never had a broken arm or been in a situation with fatal consequences. Looking back, he thought the closest he’d ever been might be that moment when he picked a fight with the man in the bartender’s outfit, but he’d been so worked up that he didn’t have time to worry about his safety.

Could he, for example, continue to uphold his love through terrible torture? He believed he could, but there was no way to know the truth without actually experiencing it.

But he bet that Mika could probably keep loving him, even through torture. He just had a feeling.

Why?

If Seiji was a total narcissist, he might reach the conclusion that he was just that irresistible. Or if he fell in love with her, too, that doubt might never arise. If their relationship was half-hearted, he would grow afraid of her love.

Yet, to him, she was nothing but a conduit. So when viewed objectively, he was left with nothing but questions.

What does she see in me?

Seiji had pondered this question many times.

But every time his mind wandered down that path, he eventually remembered the real head and told himself that this question wasn’t worth worrying about. Over and over again.

He got so tired of wondering that he just asked Mika outright. Predictably, she just answered, “Why, because it’s you, of course!”

Now that they were on closer speaking terms, she would just say, “Because it’s you!” but that didn’t make it any better of an answer.

And today, after more than a year of the same thing, Seiji once again said, “I know I keep telling you this, but it’s not you who I love.”

“…I know.”

“So why do you love me?”

“Because it’s you, Seiji. I have no other reason.”

Her answer was the same as always. Seiji sighed and decided to move on to a different subject.

“Sis has been missing for over a year, too… I’m guessing that she knows where the head is.”

“…Are you worried about her?”

“Huh? Why would I be?”

“I mean, she’s probably on the run from all kinds of people… Maybe she’s in danger,” Mika suggested, surprisingly thoughtful for once.

Seiji just grimaced and said, “She’s not that helpless. She’s tough—and evil.” He didn’t seem to want to get any further into the topic, as he cracked his neck and looked around them. “Let’s get some lunch.”

The street was packed with a variety of fast-food options, cafés, and coffee shops, as well as Taiwanese food and ramen down cramped side streets. Seiji patted Mika on top of the head and asked, “You in the mood for anything?”

“I’ll eat anything you like, Seiji!”

This, too, was an utterly typical exchange.

I feel I read a passage in a book once that said men didn’t like women who were too passive. Not that I really care. I’ll accept the head for whatever personality it has, assuming it can actually talk.

Anyone else would have found that statement creepy, but Seiji merely followed his gut like always and picked out a direction for the meal.

“Maybe we should get some sushi for once.”

They headed for Russia Sushi, right next to the bowling alley.

Along the way, Seiji’s eyes were drawn to a particular spot.

“…Hmm?”

He realized that a familiar face had just passed before his eyes.

“Ryuugamine. Is that you, Ryuugamine?”

“Huh?” replied a surprised boy with a youthful face. He glanced at Seiji and Mika and then smiled. “Ohh, Yagiri and Harima. Out on a date?”

“Yeah… Hey, what happened to your face?”

Their schoolmate at Raira Academy, Mikado Ryuugamine, was walking through the crowd with bandages and bruises all over his face.

“Oh, this? Nothing much… Just fell down the stairs at my apartment.” Mikado laughed. Seiji sensed something amiss but judged from the smile on the other boy’s face that he wasn’t going to get a straight answer anyway, so he decided to play along.

“Yikes. Well…be careful.”

“Thanks,” Mikado replied, still smiling benignly. “It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year already, huh?”

“Hmm? Oh…yeah.”

Seiji understood what he was referring to. A year ago, an incident had arisen having to do with the head, and Seiji had caused a great deal of trouble for Mikado. Technically, it was his sister who had put Mikado in danger—but Seiji decided to apologize for his part in whatever his past actions had brought about.

“Listen…I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything. That was the Dollars as a whole.”

“I see.”

“And you and Mika are part of the Dollars now, so there’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

…?

That was when Seiji recognized what felt off.

Mikado almost never brings up the topic of the Dollars on his own.

The Dollars were a street gang that existed in Ikebukuro, repping the mysterious color of “nothing at all.” Seiji knew that the other boy was a member of the gang. And based on the way Mikado acted and the places he found himself after the incident, Seiji knew that he was more than just a rank-and-file member.

But Seiji had no interest in questioning him and finding out those details. He wanted only to pursue his love. And while he still felt guilty toward the Dollars and Mikado, it didn’t seem like learning those details was going to get him any closer to his desire.

Since then, they’d simply treated each other like classmates. Yes, there had been that strange hot-pot party at the Headless Rider’s apartment they had both been invited to for some reason, but other than that, they weren’t really friends. Just plain old classmates.

But even then, or perhaps because of it, Seiji had his misgivings. It was strange that Mikado had suddenly brought up the topic of the Dollars without being asked.

“Yeah…I can’t forget what happened that night, either,” Mikado said, unprompted. Who was he talking to? By the time Seiji decided that it was probably to Mikado himself, the other boy was already walking off and waving a hand.

“So long, you two. If you ever need anything, just let me know.”

“Huh? Uh…yeah, sure,” Seiji replied weakly, taken off guard.

“Mikado,” Mika said, picking up Seiji’s slack and removing her smile for once.

“Huh?”

“Don’t ever make Anri cry, okay?”

“…”

“?”

Mikado fell silent, while Seiji was just confused. The stern look on Mika’s face melted away, and she giggled and waved. “Well, see you at school, then.”

“Er…right. Later.”

Mikado smiled gently as he left, and then the couple resumed walking to Russia Sushi.

“…Did you think he was acting weird?” Seiji asked casually.

Mika nodded without batting an eye. “Yeah. He didn’t seem like the usual Ryuugamine.”

“And his face was all messed up. Wonder what happened,” Seiji added, turning back to look in Mikado’s direction.

Mika took him by the hand and started pulling him toward the sushi place. “Well, it’s nothing we need to worry ourselves with! Shall we go?”

“Huh…? Oh, yeah, sure.”

If anything weird happens, I guess I can ask him about it at school, Seiji decided and followed Mika away from Sunshine 60 Street.

But there was just a whiff of strangeness about the activeness with which Mika was leading the way, too.

From the shadows, a lone woman watched the couple.

“…Seiji…”

Namie gazed at her little brother’s back with an expression of ecstasy in her eyes. She was so relieved to see him looking hale and hearty that her body was undergoing a mild episode of intoxication.

Oh my God… How can he be so cute? And I’m only looking at his backside!

It wasn’t an act; Namie really did feel dazzled by the sight of her brother’s back. As a matter of fact, there were at least ten other young men of about the same age and with a similar hairstyle as Seiji in the vicinity—but within a single second of arriving, tipped off by the twins’ report, Namie had correctly identified Seiji from the crowd.

Unfortunately, that also meant spotting the girl walking with him.

“…Mika…Harima…,” she murmured, biting the inside of her cheeks. She used enough force to pierce the flesh just a bit, flooding her mouth with the tang of blood.

Namie narrowed her eyes, tasting the iron on her tongue.

This…is the taste of that little cat burglar’s blood…

She was imagining the sensation of leaping out and biting Mika on the neck until her head ripped loose. Biting her own cheek was merely a way to make the illusion more real.

Namie trailed the couple, driven by an insane love for her brother and furious hatred at her romantic rival.

“Hey, pretty lady! You doin’ anything right—?”

In the last several minutes, several men had tried to talk to her, either trying to pick her up or scout her for some modeling job or other.

“…Get lost.”

In each case, Namie’s expression froze, and she turned her lethal gaze on them with frosty precision. A man might react with hostility when treated with derision or annoyance, but Namie simply gave them a mechanical, truthful message of “You’re not wanted here,” without emotion.

In each case, the men instinctually understood. She was a woman who could kill out of habit, out of practicality, without even wanting to—and they were the only candidates in target range.

“…Whoops, coming through!”

Fortunately for these men, they were practiced enough to sense when a woman was trouble and could withdraw instantly to look for safer prey.

The process repeated several times as Namie tracked her brother and the girl, until she saw them go through the entrance of Russia Sushi—at which point she turned on her heel and strode back through the crowds down Sunshine 60 Street.

Meanwhile, her eyes burned with the flames of cold madness and lust as hot and sticky as magma.

Russia Sushi

“Here, you get crab sushi. Eat raw, eat boiled, eat cooked. People good, town good, flavor good. Crab makes world go round.”

“I think you mean ‘cash.’”

“Not good for young person to talk about cash, cash, cash. You get cashed out. But if crab goes round, cash goes round. You trade my crab with your boss’s cash. Round and round, merry-go-round. Russian crab and Japanese cash exchange. Revolving sushi. Good deal all around.”

“…”

Seiji lifted the boiled crab nigiri to his mouth and shook his head.

Russia Sushi was famous for sticking out, even in Ikebukuro. It featured a traditional Japanese interior that clashed with Russian decor and was run by a white chef and a black waiter.

Seiji had been here with Mika several times now and was a loose acquaintance of the staff, but today was different.

“Who’s that, Simon?”

There was an unfamiliar young white woman among them, dressed in a traditional Japanese uniform, like Simon. The combination was somehow mildly erotic, because even to Japanese sensibilities, her looks were undeniably attractive.

Yet there was an unpleasant pout on that pretty face, and she simply stood inactive in the corner of the restaurant. She stared into space with murder in her eyes, ensuring that no customer would have the courage to approach her.

“Oh, young master Yagiri, you like her? Her name Vorona. You take her to go, A-OK. Then you have girlfriend and mistress, one in each hand. Best to eat with those you love, makes everything taste good. Plus ten orders of sushi,” Simon joked, but the woman was not amused.

“…Negative. I am under no obligation to sell my own flesh for the profit of the company. I request a boycott. But if your words are meant in the spirit of contract job, I confirm.”

“Ohh, this is famous Japanese sexual harassment trial. Sexual harassment bad, no sekuhara. If you do sekuhara, then you do hara-kiri. And after cutting stomach, sushi all fall through hole. Our business go up in flames,” Simon lamented as he returned to the kitchen.

Seiji continued to stare at the woman he called Vorona, until Mika tugged on his bicep, her cheeks puffed in comical anger.

“Stop that, Seiji. You’re not supposed to look at other women!”

“Huh? Oh yeah,” he said, but something weighed on his mind.

That’s strange. Usually, she wouldn’t care; she’d just say, “I’m not worried, because I’m hotter than her, anyway!”

I wonder if it’s because she’s foreign. The head has a foreign face, too… Maybe it’s a sore spot for her. Probably not worth worrying about, though.

That was about the depth to which Seiji considered the strange, subtle change in his false girlfriend before he moved on to another thought.

After that, Mika continued the meal in her usual way, teasing and chatting with Seiji the whole while. She clung to him like a brand-new girlfriend, excited and naive, while he maintained an aloofness that was cool but never cold.

It was an odd, artificial mixture of personalities, but at a glance, they appeared to be a fairly close romantic couple.

Later, the woman named Vorona spoke to the chef about something and then slunk into the back with a nasty look on her face, but by that point, Seiji had stopped having any interest in her.

“…You know, I think it’s incredible that Yuuhei Hanejima keeps doing these Carmilla Saizou movies. He’s a big enough star that he doesn’t have to stoop to doing that silly role, but they say he’s already signed on for another sequel.”

“What’s the next one about? Is that where his rival Dracule Sasuke comes back to life?”

“That’s the one. Y’know, for being such dumb movies, they get really great makeup effects from Tenjin Zakuroya. I really liked the way they did up Ruri Hijiribe in the first one.”

“Aren’t Ruri Hijiribe and Yuuhei Hanejima going out now?”

They continued their meal, engaging in simple watercooler talk.

“Even coming from a guy, I think Yuuhei Hanejima’s a pretty cool, good-looking actor. I know not everyone loves the pair, but I think they suit each other.”

“Well, I think you’re way better than Yuuhei Hanejima,” Mika interjected in typical fashion.

“Mika, your phone’s ringing. Mika, your phone’s ringing.”

Suddenly, a ringtone recording of Seiji’s voice went off somewhere in Mika’s bag, and she rustled around and pulled her phone out of it.

“…You sure that ringtone isn’t too creepy?”

“You think so? I don’t mind it at all.”

“When did you record me saying that, anyway?” Seiji grumbled. Mika looked down at the screen.

Unlisted number.

She narrowed her eyes, then pressed the call button anyway and held the speaker up to her ear.

“…Hello?”

And at the moment she answered the call, her holiday did an about-face.

“…Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hang on.”

Mika got up from her seat with a smile on her face. “Sorry, Seiji, it’s a call from a friend. Mind if I go outside to take it?”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said easily. She waved to him, exited the sushi restaurant, and stood to the side of the door to continue her call.

He watched her go, then glanced down at the sushi menu and thought to himself, It’s really rare for Mika to take a call from a friend. Is it Sonohara? You know, that reminds me—I seem to recall Sonohara and Ryuugamine talking about new cell phones recently.

Speaking of which, I don’t really get their relationship, either. I can tell that he likes her. I said something about that to him at the end of our first year, but I don’t know what happened after that, if anything.

Mikado Ryuugamine was very close with a girl named Anri Sonohara, who was Mika’s friend.

Their relationship was famously visible within the school, but it was hard to say if they were really lovers or not. They were close enough that a student who didn’t know them that well might be surprised to hear that they weren’t a couple.

But until recently, there had been another member of their group.

I suppose Ryuugamine would know the reason Kida left school.

Masaomi Kida was Seiji’s schoolmate until he dropped out at the end of the last school year. They were in separate classes, so they’d hardly ever spoken, but Seiji knew that Kida hung around with Mikado Ryuugamine and Anri Sonohara all the time.

Some people said Kida had left due to the shock of the other two hooking up, but given how vague and uncertain their relationship continued to appear, there was a lack of evidence to support the rumor, and it soon died away.

But if Mika’s got even a single friend, that would be Sonohara.

And even that girl had hardly ever called Mika on the phone. She recognized that his relationship with Mika had its own peculiar circumstances and was considerate enough not to bother Mika about the details—but that only made this call all the more suspicious.

After a while, the young woman came back into the restaurant. She wore an awkward smile, winked, and held up her hand sideways in apology.

“Sorry, Seiji… I agreed to help a friend with a problem, and now I’ve got to go meet them,” she explained, bowing her head.

He leaned toward her and asked, “Are you talking about Sonohara?”

Maybe it’s like that other time when they asked her to teach them how to cook fish the way she does, he wondered.

Mika beamed and said, “Yeah, that’s right. She’s got some kind of family thing to talk about. Honestly, I’d prefer to just hang out with you, but…”

“Listen, it’s fine with me. I was thinking that you ought to treasure your friends a little more, in fact.”

“Aww, really? As long as I have you, Seiji, I don’t need any of my friends.”

“Stop being macabre and just get on with it,” he muttered.

Mika bowed again, smiled wistfully, and then announced, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then!”

“Yeah.”

She set down three thousand-yen bills on the sushi counter as she headed for the door.

“Oh, hey, I’ll pay for it. Hey! Wait!” Seiji said, grabbing the bills, but she either didn’t hear or simply ignored him as she left the building.

He was about to chase after her when the waiter returned with his order. “Hi, here your food, miso soup with crab.”

Seiji hesitated and then decided to stay and finish his meal alone.

I can give her the money back tomorrow.

Fifteen minutes later, Tokyo, warehouse

“…Hello.”

They were on a block near the national highway route, distant from the shopping district.

After separating from Seiji, Mika made her way here, to a building labeled YAGIRI PHARMACEUTICALS, STORAGE WAREHOUSE NO. 3. For being a warehouse, the building was surprisingly clean and orderly. In fact, from the outside it looked like nothing else but a research facility. The exterior was a pure white, with large gateposts like the entrance of a hospital.

But that was only in terms of the exterior. On the inside, it was—sure enough—a warehouse, with a central storage room the size of a small gymnasium, surrounded by hallways, a few airtight little rooms, a bathroom, and a small break room with running water.

The warehouse itself was split into sections with screens, each area containing a stock of materials—tools or pharmaceutical products—effectively carving the large room into a bewildering maze.

The warehouse floor appeared little used; spiderwebs gathered in the corners of the space, and tufts of dust and debris littered the floor. Light from the outside entered the building through the glass doors at the entrance, but the interior illumination was not on. Even the location of the switches was a mystery, creating an eerie gloominess to the structure—a far cry from the clean, updated image of an advanced pharmaceuticals company.

Near the entrance, Mika leaned forward and called out loudly and sternly, “Hellooooo?”

Her voice echoed off the hospital-like entrance. Yet there was no reception area of any kind, just a door to the main storage area farther on and walls of stacked cardboard boxes and other supplies in between.

Mika took a step inside and glanced down the hallways branching off in either direction, but there was nothing down them until they ended. It was as though this building had been completely removed from the normal routine of the rest of the city.

She headed carefully down one hallway to the open door leading into the building’s center. But no sooner had she taken a step into the storage area than a loud clicking sound came from the antechamber behind her.

Mika spun around to see a woman standing before the glass doors that led into the building, locking them shut.

An elegant woman with long hair hanging down her back. Mika recognized her at once.

“I’ve been waiting… Or should I say, I’m afraid I’ve been keeping you waiting…Mika Harima.”

Something in the way she spoke put Mika into a poetic state of mind. If ice could burn, it would emit the kind of air this woman spoke—such was the freezing cold burn of Namie’s voice.

“I’m so sorry, my dear. You’ve been enjoying a very, very long dream…of the kind that can never come true for you.”

Raw, overwhelming emotion was apparent to any who might hear that voice.

But Mika Harima was not frightened. If anything, she glared back at the woman with a challenge in her eyes.

“It’s been a while…Sister-in-law.”

grikk

grikk

grrk grik

A strange sound emerged from the front room.

Mika recognized it as the sound of Namie’s teeth grinding.

Namie stood before the glass doors. The light from the outside silhouetted her, shrouding her expression in shadow. Mika couldn’t make it out from where she stood, but the facial expression made no difference. The teeth grinding was all the information she needed to understand that the situation was dangerous.

She was probably smiling. On the surface for sure, but it was quite possible that she was smiling with all her heart, too.

At least, that was how it seemed to Mika.

“One year…”

As a matter of fact, there was indeed a note of bliss in the words that next came from Namie.

“It’s been one year and one month since Seiji left me. In that time, we’ve both had dreams to tide us over. I’ve been having a nightmare, and you’ve had the briefest, most ephemeral dream of fleeting pleasures… Oh, I’m sorry. Ha-ha, would an ignorant little girl like you even know what the word ephemeral means?”

“…Don’t assume I’m uneducated.”

“Why, I have a hard time imagining any truly educated, cultured person forcing their own fantasies onto Seiji and shamelessly picking the lock to his house,” Namie retorted, her words dripping with sarcasm.

Mika merely chuckled and shot back, “I’m amazed to hear a line like that from the woman who was going to dump my dead body and then decided to give me plastic surgery for her own devices the moment she realized I was still alive.”

“…”

“As a matter of fact, I’m quite grateful to you, Sister. Thanks to you giving me this face, Seiji and I are finally able to be together.”

gcrakk

A louder crunch echoed off the walls this time.

They stood feet apart, but Mika could very nearly feel the boiling loathing of the other woman on her skin.

Unperturbed, she tilted her head back to offer a condescending challenge: “After all, as long as I can love Seiji the way I want, I don’t need education or culture.”

The grinding was no longer audible. Namie unwound her arm from around her waist and held it up. “Don’t you dare…call me ‘Sister-in-law’ again…”

In her hand, she held a shining silver object—surgical scissors.

“Don’t you dare…say Seiji’s name…without the respect it deserves!” she screamed and hurled the scissors.

They flew right at Mika’s face like a particularly large dart.

The scissors cut through the air between Mika and Namie with incredible speed…

And then an ugly sound filled the space.

It was the cell phone call that had summoned Mika Harima to this location.

“Hello?”

As soon as she answered the call in the middle of her lunch at Russia Sushi, the female voice on the other end had said, “I want to talk to you in private about Seiji. I’d prefer if he didn’t hear about this. Is that all right?”

The caller gave no name, and Mika did not ask for one. She played along and responded in a breezy tone so that Seiji could hear.

“…Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hang on.”

Once she was outside the restaurant, the woman on the other end continued, “I’m guessing you managed to fool him. You really are despicable, the way you can just lie to Seiji like that.”

“Says the woman who messed with my face for the express purpose of deceiving her brother,” Mika replied, fully aware that she was speaking to Namie.

The other woman didn’t miss a beat or take the bait. “I didn’t lie to Seiji. I loved him,” she said, a bizarre excuse. “If you want that head the two of you are looking for…I could give it to you.”

“Huh?”

“However…I want to talk to you in person first.”

A lie.

Anyone who knew Namie even the least bit could instantly understand that she was lying.

“…Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“Listen, I’m not sure what to do, either… If I hand over the head to a foreign company, I have a guarantee that the police and Yagiri Pharmaceuticals’ muscle will protect me…but I want that to be my final resort.”

“…”

“But if I give Seiji the head, it will steal Seiji from me. I want to avoid that. If there’s anything where our interests are aligned, it’s that, isn’t it? So…I want to discuss what to do with the head—without Seiji knowing about it.”

Nothing in what Namie said was trustworthy. Nothing.

But Mika took her up on the offer, anyway.

As suggested, she came alone, without informing Seiji.

And now there she was, staring down the oncoming point of a pair of scissors…

But Mika was neither stupid nor ignorant enough to come without caution nor preparation.

Still, even though she was neither stupid nor ignorant, her choice of preparation was a rather odd one for a teenage girl.

Metal twanged awkwardly.

The next moment, the scissors were stuck in the ceiling, and a silver object in Mika’s right hand reflected what little light there was in the entrance.

“…What’s that?” Namie asked, glancing at the object.

“Isn’t it obvious? You did receive an education, didn’t you?” Mika mocked.

Namie snapped, “Of course I know what it is. The implication of my question was why you are carrying such a thing.”

Her eyes were narrowed, staring at the tool in Mika’s hand.

It was a trowel—the kind used in gardening, with a pointed tip. At first she’d thought it was a kitchen knife, based on the size and shine; but no, it was just a compact hand shovel.

The item was totally out of place in Mika’s outfit, in this location and situation. And yet she had swung it out of nowhere, deflecting Namie’s scissors in midair.

Why is she carrying that thing around? the other woman wondered. The question was only natural.

There were two women in an unoccupied building. One threw a pair of scissors, and the other deflected them with a hand shovel. The sequence of events was patently bizarre.

But the girl at the center of this abnormality merely grinned and said, “A part of me believed.”

“?”

“I knew this was a trap, but a part of me wondered if you might actually have a good reason to give me the head. I mean, you’re still Seiji’s sister.” Mika chuckled. But her eyes were not laughing. “Just by being related to Seiji, you have the gift of my unconditional trust. Isn’t that great? You’re so lucky! You should be much, much, much more grateful to him! You should be grateful to God. You should be very, very, very, very grateful that you were fated to be born in Seiji’s family!”

“Enough jokes. I want to know why you have that trowel,” Namie demanded.

Mika looked up at her and smirked. “Well…if I actually get the head, I’ll need a shovel, won’t I?”

“…?”

“I’ve been doing lots of tests, assuming that it’s about the size of a watermelon. I packed meats and bones of different sizes and toughness inside, did some tests…”

“What are…you talking about…?”

There was no abnormality in the girl’s voice. That was what helped Namie realize that she wasn’t bluffing or attempting to rattle her with nonsensical threats.

Mika was speaking the truth, nothing more.

“I figured that an edge this big…would be about the right size. But I can’t imagine the taste. I can’t imagine how a dullahan’s head will taste.”

A nasty, cold shiver ran down Namie’s back. An ordinary person would have trouble instantly processing what the girl was saying. But Namie, who had already ventured into the realm of the abnormal, understood what she meant within seconds.

Because she knew that if she were in that position, she would do the same.

So, she’s— Yes, I understand now.

“Are you claiming you intend to be one with the head? That’s totally illogical.”

Mika beamed, satisfied that the other woman understood her plans, and admitted, “That’s right. But so what? What’s your point?”

“…I have no point.”

Namie Yagiri’s frown softened somewhat. She took a moment to consider things.

Yes, she would do the same thing if she were in Mika’s position. If Seiji loved nothing but it, then just getting rid of that head wouldn’t be good enough. It would only become eternal within his own mind that way.

She had to be the head.

She would attempt to be one with the head, no matter how preposterous and illogical that might be.

Well…I suppose the difference is that I’d shave the head’s face off and place it over my face instead.

In fact, Namie was in a position to do exactly that. The reason she wouldn’t and hadn’t was because she still had pride in her position as his big sister. She couldn’t abandon all the love she’d built up that way.

It was this understanding of her own nature that made the presence of Mika Harima unforgivable to Namie.

“I need…to reassess my opinion.”

She reached down to her waist belt, running her fingers over an object attached to it. Then she pulled it loose from its case, revealing an eerie silhouette to Mika.

“Before, I just assumed you were a pesky nuisance…but from now on, I’ve upgraded you to the level of rival.”

In Namie’s hand was an aged medical saw, its blade rusted here and there.

She took a crisp step forward and, like flowing water, accelerated toward Mika.

With the tool in hand as her weapon and her twisted love for her brother her source of energy, Namie Yagiri turned into a hunter, closing in on her prey of Mika Harima.

“But in either case…what I do to you will be the same.”

A few dozen minutes earlier, on a cell phone call

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Dr. Kishitani? It’s been a while.”

“Oh? Ohh, ohh! It has been a while! You’re still alive—should I be congratulating you on that?”

“…We can skip the pleasantries. I’d like to schedule an emergency surgery—can you come to Yagiri Warehouse Three? It’s easy to get in there still because Nebula hasn’t started clearing it out yet.”

“Goodness me, has someone shot you? You certainly sound well enough over the phone.”

“…Actually, I’d like to request the same operation as last year. I want you to re-create a woman’s face. It’s the same girl as the last time, so it should be familiar enough, I believe?”

“Uhh…I’m not going to ask about the circumstances. Is tomorrow night all right?”

“You can’t do it now?”

“I’m afraid I’m off duty today. I’m not in Tokyo at the moment.”

“Ah…that’s too bad. She was unlucky.”

“…She was?”

“Yes.”

“If you don’t show up, I’ll be forced to carve up her face myself…and I’m guessing it will be quite painful to her.”

“And I suppose the humane thing for me to do is stop you?”

“It’s too late for you to do anything now, Doctor. But you were never the type to be concerned with things like this, were you?”

“Well, in this case, that girl happens to be Celty’s cooking teacher.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. If my intent was just killing her, I wouldn’t bother to call you.”

Namie ended the call there but continued speaking into the dead receiver.

“However, on your express request…I can make sure her tongue and right hand still work.”

Present moment, warehouse interior

“Knock it off and play nice… I was planning to leave your tongue and right hand functional…but if you keep darting and sneaking around, I can’t even guarantee that.”

The piles of wooden crates and cardboard created a simple maze in the warehouse, like miniature stacks of shipping containers on a dock. Namie prowled among them with her bone saw, taunting and threatening.

“I’m an amateur at plastic surgery, you know.”

They’d been playing tag for nearly ten minutes already.

Namie was on the prowl, reveling in her hunt like a monster.

After Mika just barely managed to block the first attack with her trowel, she knocked Namie over and escaped into the warehouse. Amid the gloom of the mazelike interior, lit only by the outside light coming through the open hallway, Mika’s voice echoed, “I’m surprised! I would have assumed you were just coming to kill me!”

“If that were the case, I would have just piped in poison gas the moment you entered the building.”

The queen of envy strode boldly, steadily, like the guardian of the labyrinth. In addition to the case for the saw, she had a number of other waist pouches equipped on her belt.

“I don’t want you to disappear; I want you to regret trying to steal Seiji from me. Plus, if you go missing…Seiji might take it upon himself to search for you, won’t he? He’s kindhearted enough to do that… I don’t want him to waste his time like that, but I also don’t want to show him your dead body, if I can avoid it,” Namie said, trembling slightly as she envisioned her brother’s face. “He’s just such a good boy… You can easily imagine him racked with grief over your death, even if you were just a stopgap solution. And I wouldn’t want you to confuse that emotion with love.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Well, at least we agree that Seiji’s full of kindness!”

“Don’t you dare…use his name so casually,” Namie menaced, her voice’s pitch suddenly lowering. She twisted and swung into a reverse roundhouse kick, aimed at a cardboard box on a steel shelf. The movement was as precise and deadly as a metal-cutting machine.

The box shot off the other side of the shelf.

There came a short, sharp gasp from close beyond.

Damn, I missed.

Namie wasn’t a master of any particular martial arts, nor did she have the brute strength of a fellow like Shizuo Heiwajima. But she had been trained in self-defense methods since a young age—and when her emotions got the best of her, she could employ her body’s full potential to deliver lethal blows like this one.

As a matter of fact, she could have easily broken her leg. She’d be feeling the damage in her muscles and joints tomorrow.

But all that aside, Namie was not the type of fool to let her momentary opportunity escape.

She instantly launched herself off the floor and through the box-sized hole she had just created. It was not the superhuman movement of a gymnast or of a daring thief limboing through laser security, nor was it the sort of thing that an ordinary human would ever do without some amount of hesitation or preparation.

Namie could easily have significantly hurt herself in the attempt, but she was fearless, sliding across the long shelf and popping up to peer around the spot where she’d knocked off the cardboard box.

She’s not here?!

But she had heard the gasp come from right around this area. It was only seconds ago.

She glanced down both sides of the makeshift hallway bounded by standing shelves of materials but found nothing.

Where…?

Her ears, laser focused by the tension of the scene, picked up the sound of something shifting, scraping. Not from the left, right, front, or rear—but above.

“…!”

She looked up and tried to leap out of the way, but it was too late.

“Hi-yah!”

Mika, who had held her breath and climbed the shelving after that kick to the cardboard box, leaped onto Namie from above.

“Hi-yah”? Who are you acting cute for, you little bi—?

“Ah!” Namie gasped as she was slammed to the floor. Mika was sitting atop her chest, practically straddling her. The skin of her thighs beneath the skirt pressed against the swell of Namie’s breasts, soft flesh against soft flesh.

It would make for an erotic pose—if it weren’t for the hand shovel held menacingly against Namie’s throat.

“Don’t move now  ,” the girl said impishly, staring down at the demon woman. She prodded her throat with the tip of the trowel.

Namie’s chest rose as she inhaled, rubbing against Mika’s thighs through her shirt. The girl on top grimaced and noted, “You’re hiding more under those clothes than I thought, Sister-in-law. Ha-ha!”

But her eyes were not laughing. Or rather, they were—but with a tinge of madness that was a far cry from ordinary good humor.

“So, how about it? Are you going…to tell me…where to find the head?”

Bit by bit, the end of the spade prodded harder into Namie’s throat. Despite being in danger of losing her life, her first instinct was to offer praise: “I’m…impressed. I didn’t think you were physically capable of this.”

“Let’s just say I’ve had experience climbing up apartment building walls and over fences.”

“Now you’re just bragging about your criminal record. Why don’t you save your stories for a blog? Then you can get flamed, tell Seiji you’re leaving him, and kill yourself,” Namie spat mockingly.

Mika merely put more weight on the blade. Bit by bit, bit by bit. But suddenly, the pressure stopped, and the shovel fell out of her hands.

“Wha…? H-huh…?”

The tool rolled off Namie’s throat to clatter against the floor of the warehouse.

“Why…can’t I…squeeze…?”

“About time it started working,” Namie grumbled. She held her left hand up so Mika could see. It was holding an object, likely taken from one of the pouches on her belt, just like the rusty saw.

“It’s a painless injector I bought from Nebula a while ago. You didn’t feel a needle, did you? Maybe more like…being grabbed by fingers trying to pry your leg away?” she taunted, tossing the injector onto the floor.

Powerless to stop itself, Mika’s body toppled and rolled to the left, allowing the other woman to switch places with her.

“That’s an old muscle relaxer I cooked up years ago. Don’t worry—it won’t kill you,” Namie said, taking a seated position over Mika’s waist so she could stare down at the girl. “What a horrid, hateful face you have. That doctor did good work,” she murmured, stroking Mika’s cheek.

“Ah…”

“Now, out of curiosity…how far have you and Seiji gotten?” Namie asked suddenly. It was the kind of question a close girlfriend would ask another teen. Only in this case, there was no curious, excited grin on her face—there was no smile at all.

“Please…don’t make me say it out loud,” Mika said in embarrassment.

“Have you…kissed yet?”

“…”

Mika merely looked back at Namie and then averted her eyes again.

“…So you have,” the older woman said, taking the girl’s response as confirmation.

“S-so…so what if I— Mmph?”

Namie leaned closer and covered Mika’s mouth with her own.

“Mm! Mmm?!”

Mika tried to struggle, to flop her limbs around, but her body wouldn’t take orders. After several seconds that felt like an eternity, Namie slowly pulled back. Her eyes were cold, full of hatred and disgust.

“I cannot stand the thought…that your face still bears the sensation of kissing Seiji. I feel sick doing this with another girl, but focusing on the fact that I’m indirectly kissing him almost puts me in a trance…”

Namie’s mouth curled into a mocking smile, triumphant now that she had paralyzed her opponent. Then it took on a crueler note, and she pulled a bottle of medicine from another pouch.

“You know, I could have just carved it off with the bone saw,” she said, holding up the unlabeled brown bottle, “but instead, I think I’ll use this fast-acting solution designed to melt human skin off without being fatal. It’s not my own formula, but it’s just so hard to work with sulfuric acid without killing the patient, you know?”

“…”

“Whoever made this sure was a sicko…but it seems like the perfect medicine for your problem, no?”

There was no bluff, no threat in Namie’s eyes—only truth.

Mika instinctually understood that the woman was about to obliterate her face. But without being able to control her body, there was very little she could do to protect herself.

“Go on—cower in fear. I want to see that face of yours twist and contort with terror,” Namie taunted, holding the bottle over the girl’s head. But Mika did not scream or beg for mercy.

Namie sighed and went for the bottle’s lid. “Do you have any last words while you’ve still got that face?”

Was that question meant to be an act of mercy or merely a demonstration of her superior position in the situation?

In either case, that question succeeded in drawing a macabre answer out of Mika Harima.

“Ephemeral and fleeting are words applied…to the vicissitudes of life. The rise and inevitable fall of all things.”

“…Huh?” Namie squawked, pausing in surprise.

Mika smiled lazily up at her, so easygoing that it might have been the effect of the muscle relaxant, and it was in that tone of voice that she continued, “When we first…came into this building…you asked if I knew the meaning…of the word ephemeral. Well…I do know it. I know…a whole lot of things…”

“…And? Is that your final statement?”

It was just empty bravado. One last act of futile defiance.

Namie knew it was so. She wanted to believe it was.

She wanted to believe that the rising foreboding within her was nothing more than a figment of her imagination.

It took only seconds for Mika to shatter this futile hope.

“Kanra…is Izaya Orihara.”

Huh?

For a moment, Namie couldn’t process what she’d just heard.

Kanra was the username that her employer Izaya used to interact with a specific chat room online.

Why would she mention…?

Then she paused.

Wait…how does this little bitch know Izaya’s username in the first place? And has she ever…even met Izaya…?

“Tarou…is Ryuugamine.”

“…”

“Setton…is Celty. Saika is Anri. Bacura is Kida. Mai and Kuru are Izaya Orihara’s sisters, Mairu and Kururi.”

This time, an undeniable chill ran through Namie’s body.

Mika continued, her smile beatific, “And the username that both Izaya Orihara and you use when manipulating people…is Nakura.”

“Wait…”

“Ryuugamine is the founder of the Dollars… Anri is possessed by a demon blade named Saika… Kida is the leader of the Yellow Scarves. But I suspect that none of the three is aware of the others’ secrets.”

Namie wanted to stop her, but now her body wasn’t reacting. Was it instinct? Curiosity? Or just plain fear?

“The people who tried to hurt Anri yesterday and the day before…are a pair of Russians…Vorona and Slon…which mean ‘crow’ and ‘elephant,’ respectively. Izaya Orihara…hired them…”

How does she know this? Namie wondered. This creeping question eventually made every muscle of her body tense. How much does she know?

“Slon’s connection to Izaya Orihara…is deeper than Vorona’s. So Izaya heard about the Awakusu-kai’s contract for Slon through him…and tried to entrap Shizuo Heiwajima. Someone stabbed him last night…and now he’s in the hospital.”

“…!”

Every single sentence was a definitive blow.

The last one was something Namie herself had only learned this morning—but none of it should have been in Mika’s personal range of information.

“How…do you know these things?”

“Don’t be silly… It’s the same way…as always. Do you know…how cheap…and incredibly small bugs can get…nowadays? So I’ve…been placing them around…all the people who are likely…to get involved with Seiji. And I know a few things…about hacking…”

“…!”

“Izaya Orihara was the only one…who found the bug right away…but as long as whomever he talks to on the phone is bugged…I can still hear from him… Shall I reveal some things that don’t involve you? Like last night, Mikado took a ballpoint pen, and…”

“Enough. Be quiet.”

Planting bugs…? That can’t be, Namie thought. She was frozen in place.

“What do you think…? I know lots of other things…such as the fact that you and Izaya…are also connected to the Asuki-gumi…”

“This…this can’t be… You’ve never shown any sign of this before… In fact, if you always knew all the things you just said…you could have stopped them from happening!”

“Huh…?”

“The stuff with your friends! When that idiot Izaya led your friend on and screwed everything up…if you knew all about that—in fact, if you knew about Saika!—then you could have helped avert all that disaster! That ugly business! Before Masaomi Kida got hospitalized!”

“…”

Mika looked just a little bit sad. “Anri doesn’t know…that I know,” she said. “I don’t think she’s aware that I’ve been brushing up on her and Ryuugamine…the same way that I planted a bug in Seiji’s room.”

“But…that shouldn’t matter…”

“If I told her that I knew everything…and helped her directly…that would mean getting personally involved in all that mess. It would be one thing if that was just me. I don’t care about Anri and Ryuugamine being disgusted with me or getting arrested. But…”

She closed her eyes. That brief pause was all Namie needed to understand what she meant. Sure enough, the answer was as expected.

“If Seiji learned about Ryuugamine’s secret circumstances, he might claim he owed that boy a favor and get involved with it… He mustn’t know. Seiji might seem brusque and aloof at first…but at heart, he’s extremely kind. Just like the time he saved me and Anri from those thugs…”

“…”

“So…I decided to learn and learn and learn and learn and learn and learn and learn about everything, even the people around him. So that I could make sure Seiji doesn’t get involved in any of the danger they pose…”

Mika fell silent. Namie said nothing for a while, too. Silence fell upon the warehouse, as if time had frozen.

But…

“…I understand how you feel. And I understand now that you are far more capable than I ever gave you credit for…and far more abnormal,” Namie murmured, unstopping the glass bottle.

Mika glanced at it, smiled, and then thought, I wonder, if I blow really hard when she tips over the bottle, will some of the liquid splash back on her? That way I can take her down with me… Actually, never mind. Seiji would be sad if a family member was terribly hurt.

Meanwhile, Namie slowly twisted the cap on the bottle. She had no idea what selfless thoughts were running through Mika’s mind, but even if she did, it wouldn’t have stopped her hand.

And yet, just at the moment that the glass bottle was about to open, Namie did stop. Not of her own will—but because a very familiar hand suddenly reached in to grab her by the wrist.

“…That’s enough, Sister.”

“S…”

The moment she heard the voice, Namie felt that her heart might stop as well.

Her shock might have been from haste, joy, or twisted love—or perhaps all three.

“Seiji!”

“Seiji?!”

Both women were stunned.

“Why…?”

Why is he here? Mika wondered—but Namie had no doubts whatsoever. She cast the bottle aside, stood up, and clenched Seiji’s body tight.

“Seiji…oh, Seiji! I’m so glad…I’m so glad you’ll still call me ‘Sister’!”

“Ow, ow— Sis, you’re hurting me,” he said, prying his way loose of the affection. “Are you all right, Mika?”

“Y-yes…”

“I see. That’s good,” he said simply, then turned to Namie. “Sis…”

“S-Seiji…?”

Gone was the demonic possession from just moments ago. Now Namie gave him a look like a puppy caught in the rain.

He sighed and muttered, “I don’t know what happened here…but I think you understand you crossed a line.”

“Um…”

“If you had damaged Mika’s face just now…I would have hated you for it.”

“…!”

Namie knew that. She was prepared to undertake her plan and suffer that consequence. But as soon as she heard it from his own mouth, she realized how brittle her determination had been. Terror ran through her.

“H-how long have you been watching…?”

“…Since about the moment you kissed Mika.”

“…!”

If anything, it was Mika who looked shocked at this. The fact that she had known all the secrets of Mikado and the others had itself been a secret—from Seiji. And now he had heard all about it. He knew that she had bugged not just him, but all his friends.

“Ah…aaaah…”

“I saw you two kissing, and I had no idea what was going on, so I kept watching…and then it seemed like things were getting dangerous, so I stepped in to put a stop to it,” he said. His expression was dark, just like the warehouse itself, so he could have been exasperated, or he could have been mad.

Both Mika and Namie looked away uncomfortably. Eventually, Namie broke the silence to ask, “H-how did you know where we…?”

“I left the sushi place and went home…and I met Sonohara out in front of that old curio shop that went out of business.”

“Huh…?”

“I asked her, and she said she hadn’t called you. So then I called you and got your voice mail, and I started getting worried. I called everyone we knew, and that got me nowhere…so eventually I got desperate and tried the people we met at that hot-pot party…”

Seiji paused, scratched his cheek, then continued, “Dr. Kishitani said you’d probably be here…”

Namie suddenly pictured the face of the man she’d talked to no more than an hour ago.

That…that four-eyed freak! I swear…I’ll get rid of him one day—along with that Black Rider!

She began to plot how she would get back at the black market doctor, magma bubbling in her heart—when something covered her raging, quivering lips.

—?!

Her sight went black. It felt like something was touching her cheeks and nose as well. She heard Mika gasp much louder than before.

…?

Suddenly, light came back—and she saw Seiji’s face, pulling away from hers.

“See? It’s really unpleasant to have something like this happen from a person who isn’t your lover, right? So you ought to apologize to Mika besides since way back that’s—to female friends of mine and you’re always ”

Less than half the words that Seiji was saying were reaching Namie’s brain.

…?!

Because she suddenly realized that the sensation she’d felt was a kiss from Seiji.

…!—?!—?—!—!—?!

The next thing she knew, Namie Yagiri was running from the spot.

“Huh?! Sister, wait! Where’s the head—?!” Seiji called out after her, but she was already out of hearing range.

Impulses exploded within her, fiercely pumping from her heart and through all the muscles of her body.

Like a living engine, Namie Yagiri could not help but sprint at full speed for the next five minutes, before the muscles collapsed with fatigue at last.

Five minutes later, Ikebukuro

“Why are you so angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“You are angry.”

Seiji and Mika were arguing as they walked away from the Yagiri Pharmaceuticals warehouse. Technically, he was the one walking, carrying her on his back and hoping to hail a taxi while she recovered from the effects of the drug. But something was wrong with her attitude.

“Fine, fine, you aren’t angry. At least tell me what I did.”

“…You have no idea how a woman feels, Seiji,” she said, turning her head so that her cheek rested against his shoulder. “I know that you really love my face, not me…that you love the real head…but that just makes it even more important if you’re in love not to kiss your own sister…”

Mika never cared how much Seiji spoke to other women, but for some reason, her way of thinking was different at this moment. Was it because this was Namie Yagiri, the woman who declared herself an official rival for his love?

…I’m the worst. He learned my secrets; he should be far more angry with me than the other way around…

She felt disgusted at the way she was taking it all out on him. She buried her face into the middle of his back, ready to let the tears flow—

“I didn’t.”

“…?”

He openly admitted, “When I grabbed her face and pulled it closer, I put my fingers in between our mouths, just like this.”

He held out two fingers and laid them sideways over his lips, then craned his neck and wondered, “For some reason, she assumed it was a real kiss… Based on the way she raced out of there, it must have really creeped her out. Funny, given how much she used to hug me…”

Mika’s mouth was hanging open in shock. Eventually, she closed it and scolded, “Even still…that’s terrible.”

“Really? It is?”

“Yes. This sort of thing doesn’t work on logic,” she said, practically sulking.

“Ha-ha!” He couldn’t help it.

“…What’s so funny?”

“You finally did it.”

“…Did what?” she asked, looking up.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and happily explained, “Normally, you just go ‘Yeah, yeah!’ and play along with whatever I say. So this is…kinda fresh.”

“Seiji…”

“Plus, there have been lots of surprises today.”

“…!”

Mika tensed. She’d been placing “spies,” so to speak, on all the people Seiji knew as a tool to keep him out of danger. It was an action she didn’t want him to know about, a side of her that even she knew was abnormal.

Mika Harima did not think that sneaking into the home of her beloved and placing bugs there was abnormal. It most certainly was, but not by her standards. However, she did understand that spying in this manner on people she did not love was abnormal by most people’s standards.

Only she knew where her arbitrary, vague boundary between what was normal and abnormal lay—but what mattered now was that Seiji had learned about the thing she herself recognized as abnormal.

“Umm…”

She knew she had to say something, but no words came. Normally, she could talk about her love for him without ever running out of words, but now she found herself at a loss.

Thankfully, he spoke before she needed to.

“Sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t try to pretend I’m a saint or anything. I’m just nosy. If I find out someone I know is in trouble, I suppose I might be inclined to stick my nose into it, too.”

“Seiji…”

Why…? Why is Seiji the one apologizing?

She tried to say something, but once again, Seiji filled the gap.

“But…I’m not going to deny what you did for me, Mika.”

“…”

“I’m starting to lose my grip on what exactly love is. All I know is that I love the head. I can’t explain it. There’s no logic to it. That’s all I can say. I don’t love you, and I only care about my sister as my sister—whatever she happens to feel.”

“Yeah…I know.”

She’d heard that speech many times before. His words were unbearably direct, but there was no lie in them.

After a while, he continued, “But the one thing I won’t do is deny you. I might try to stop you, but I won’t deny your thoughts. I respect your love. I just might not accept it.”

“…!”

“If you caused trouble for someone else out of your love for me…I don’t have the right to stop you from doing it. I heard you mentioning Ryuugamine’s name and some weird words like Kanra and Saika or whatever—but I’m not going to worry about it.”

He doesn’t love me.

“You can tell me the details of that stuff later. Then we can discuss what we should do. After all, maybe something in all that trouble you don’t want me to get involved in has a connection to the real head.”

“…Right.”

But he’ll allow me to love him.

She nodded with a smile, and he sighed. “And despite all this selfish stuff I just said, somehow you still love me. What is it about me, anyway?”

The same question as always. But today, Mika had a different answer than usual.

“I’ll tell you if you decide to love Mika Harima!”

“…Can I love you as a friend?”

“No, only as a lover.”

“Then I guess I’ll never know the answer.”

Mika could pour all her love into him. That was enough for her.

What she truly cared about wasn’t Seiji’s heart. It was her own love for him.

It was an abnormal girl’s eccentric love.

On the other hand, Seiji’s lack of love for her and his acceptance of that abnormality also made him a resident of the abnormal side.

For now, Mika felt that her love was blessed and celebrated.

For now.

Seiji shuffled through the town with Mika on his back, the sun making its slow descent toward the horizon. They continued their nonsensical discussion while ignoring the curious gazes of onlookers, existing only in their own little bubble.

“Still can’t move your limbs?”

“Nope.”

“Liar.”

“Yep.”

“Whatever. Guess I missed the chance to ask her…where the head is.”

“I don’t think she even knows anymore.”

“…Maybe. Maybe that Izaya Orihara you mentioned has it. I’ve heard that name in rumors before—maybe I’ve actually met him somewhere. I could try finding out where he lives and sneaking inside.”

“There’s no need to do that.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve found three different apartments Izaya Orihara has and snuck inside them multiple times…but I never saw any heads.”

“…Oh. Well, there goes that option.”

“Yep.”

“Also, I don’t think sneaking into people’s homes is a good idea.”

“Yep.”

“…What would you have done if you found the head before me?”

“Eaten it.”

“What?”

“If I become one with the head, then you’ll love me, won’t you?”

“Probably not. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible in the first place.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’d stop you.”

“By killing me?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew it.”

“…Do you hate me now?”

“Huh? Why would I?”

“Never mind.”

“What about me? Not my face, but Mika Harima? You hate me now?”

“Not really…”

“Then…you love me?!”

“Not really…”

“Aww…”

“Don’t ‘aww’ me.”

“Okay, I was kidding. That was a fake ‘aww.’”

“Wow, you gave up fast.”

“…”

“…”

They vanished into the bustle of the city, continuing their endless conversation.

Her love was abnormal.

His sister’s love was abnormal.

But in a way, the boy who bore their love and shrugged it off without batting an eye might have been the most abnormal of all.

The city of Ikebukuro accepted even this abnormal love triangle, playing the same tune it always did.

Swallowing them into its grand flow.

In ways slow, gentle, and majestic.

Night, Shinjuku, apartment

In the usual apartment, its owner still absent, Namie took a shower.

“Seiji…”

How many times had she murmured that name today? It had been at least a hundred times during this shower alone. She pressed her lips and then clutched her body.

I suppose that counts as the first time I’ve ever kissed a man…

The qualifier kissed a man either meant she was disregarding her prior kiss with Mika or that she had experienced it with other women in the past—but in any case, there was nothing in her mind but the image of her beloved brother now.

She let the cold water wash over her, trying to chill the burning fervor of her flesh. If she didn’t, her very sense of reason might crumble into ruin.

Seiji…

“Ha-ha.”

Seiji!

“Ha—ha-ha, ah-ha… Ah-ha-ha-ha… Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”

Maniacal laughter spilled out of her mouth as his name repeated and echoed in her mind.

There was a saying that love lasts three years while marriage gets stale in three days—but Namie’s love for her brother would never get old.

There was a reason for that, of course; loving her brother was as natural as breathing for her. No human being grows “tired” of breathing.

And just like breathing, Namie could not survive without loving him.

She would continue living, subsisting on her love for her brother.

She would do so tomorrow and the day after that…until the day Seiji no longer existed. Perhaps even beyond that day…

“Seiji…”

She exhaled that breath of desire, the heat of it dissipating into the Ikebukuro night.