Durarara!! - Volume 7 - Chapter 4

Ordinary C: Collection Rhapsody

At first, the rumors were absolutely true.

“Hey, did you hear?”

“You mean Shizuo Heiwajima?” “It’s Shizuo.” “Him.”

“Walking around with a girl.” “Shizuo Heiwajima.”

“Maybe nine years old.”

“Heard he fought with yakuza.”

“Climbed a building with his bare hands.”

“Heard he kicked a car.” “Got stabbed by a girl.”

“But the knife wouldn’t sink in; it just clattered onto the ground!”

“They saw him jump from the car carrying a girl.”

“He threw a bike one-handed.”

“Dude’s crazy.”

The rumors spread through the Internet, phone calls, and even word of mouth.

Of all the events taking place during May’s weeklong holiday, there was a clear, odd pattern.

The topic of one man’s extraordinary feats stood out from the others, as though he were rampaging here and there throughout Ikebukuro without rest.

By default, he was a notable sight in Ikebukuro by virtue of being the “man around town in the bartender’s outfit.” Normally, that could also apply to street barkers and the like, but because he also featured blond hair, sunglasses, and a dreadlocked partner, he was always immediately identified as a man to stay away from.

However, the more someone got to know him, the more their approach and assessment of his character changed.

“Shouldn’t be approached” could turn into “Do not approach at any cost,” “Nicer than I thought,” “Run at first sight,” “Get down and beg,” “Give up,” or any number of other options—varied but always extreme.

In the same way someone might describe a monster that no one else had ever seen, these extreme opinions led to equally extreme rumors, placing severe stress upon the actual facts of the matter.

“Hey, did you hear?”

“You know that Shizuo Heiwajima guy?”“That monster.”

“I heard he died.”

“Got smashed by a car.”“Trying to protect a girl.”

“Hit by a dump truck.”“Shizuo.”“It was him.”

“Ran into a motorcycle.”“The yakuza pushed him off a rooftop.”

“He died from getting stabbed by a woman.”“No shit.”

“He has a kid.”

“Isn’t that crazy?”

All of it was nonsense.

And in terms of extremes, the one phrase—“Shizuo died”—was so shocking to most that it spread with incredible speed.

As that message outpaced the rest, the rumors underwent corrections.

Would Shizuo Heiwajima die from being hit by a car?

Clearly not, according to the people who knew Shizuo best or followed rumors about him the most.

Shizuo Heiwajima would not die from something like that, they knew, which necessitated a correction to the rumor.

Through the logic, biases, and desires of a great many people, the rumors were buffeted and sanded down to one unified form.

A rumor that has spread too far can become an urban legend.

And when an urban legend gains the clarity of form, it spreads even further and deeper.

For example, among young delinquents at a club.

“…Hey, you hear?”

“’Bout what?”

“Shizuo Heiwajima.”

“…What about that monster?”

“He…got hit by a truck, and he’s really hurt.”

“…For real?”

“Yeah. He was on the run from the yakuza, jumped off a building, and then…wham.”

“So…he’s all torn up right now, huh?”

For example, among drug dealers hoping to eliminate Shizuo and gain notoriety for themselves.

“But I heard he’s still up and walking around like normal.”

“I don’t care how hurt he is—I ain’t gonna pick a fight with him while he’s still got all his limbs.”

“I ain’t afraid, I’m just sayin’, you gotta be sure you can kill him…”

“In that case, I got something else for ya.”

“What’s that?”

“He got himself a girl.”

“No way?!”

“I hear he’s been walking around the city with a girl.”

For example, among the remnants of a street gang Shizuo once crushed.

“…If you ask me, Shizuo being weakened is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…”

“You don’t know, he might have just been showing that girl around town…”

“No, get this! Turns out that chick is damaged goods.”

“Huh?”

“I’m serious—Shizuo’s got a kid! A kid old enough to be in school!”

“Are you crazy?!”

“I mean, how old is that guy?!”

“I bet he went out with her back in high school, when he was the biggest player. Then she shows up after a few years and goes, ‘The kid is yours!’”

All of it was nonsense, but in the end, they’d all believe the rumors.

And that was because those rumors stimulated a desire deep within their hearts. It was less that they firmly believed the stories than that they clung to them, in their wish for them to be true.

Because the ultimate desire of all those who believed the rumors was…

“…Do you think…right now…”

“…we might have a shot at Shizuo Heiwajima?”

The rumors had only been around for a single day.

But they succeeded at spurring certain people into action.

Action that could only lead to their downfall, according to those who knew the truth.

May 5, day, Ikebukuro, old apartment

Loud rapping upon the front door disturbed the quiet of the apartment, a shabby place at least thirty years old.

“Mr. Sugawa? I know you’re there, Sandayuu Sugawa,” came a young man’s voice between the rhythmic pounding of the fist. After a brief pause, the door opened up, revealing a very sickly face.

“Good afternoon. I think you know why I’m here,” said the man with dreadlocks, grimacing, running through his protocol. Behind him, a man in a bartender’s uniform yawned. He had blond hair and sunglasses, making him look just like a bodyguard.

As the terrified young man stared out at them, the one who knocked said, “Well, let’s get that money, shall we?”

Tom Tanaka was a debt collector.

But it wasn’t for shady black market lenders. He belonged to a company that had contracts with a wide variety of slightly more reputable businesses: brothels, sex hotlines, singles websites, rental video shops.

Such businesses sometimes needed to collect late fees or unpaid bills from their customers, and so Tom’s company was called on to perform this step—all within legal boundaries.

Of course, some types of debt collection could only be performed through a lawyer, and as far as the video rentals went, they didn’t know if the shops actually had the permits required to do that business. So Tom operated in a kind of gray zone that was actually not that ambiguous in the least, much like the unsavory loopholes exploited by pachinko parlors to function as gambling dens.

If it was the type of job where they took money from seniors without families, Tom and the bartender-looking man with him, Shizuo Heiwajima, would have quit ages ago. But there was no common sympathy for those who failed to pay for their sex hotlines and porn tape rentals.

Perhaps if someone tried the hackneyed, old “I’m trying to find my long-lost sister” excuse for calling the hotlines, they would at least do their due diligence in trying to determine the truth, but Tom had never run across someone attempting to use that line.

They didn’t try to pretend that it was a social good they were performing, but otherwise, it was like pretty much any other job.

On the other hand, some of those late on their payments never intended to pay up, and out of that group, there was always a percentage engaging in illegal activities, so the job was not without its risks. Therefore, Tom regularly performed his duties with his bodyguard-slash-assistant, Shizuo Heiwajima.

“Listen, if you want, we can take this to court and have the whole matter cleared up. But neither of us have time for that, do we? We’re not ripping you off; we didn’t charge more than was explained to you. And come on, man—the money’s one thing, but at least return the tape, yeah? It’s two hundred yen per day, so how many tapes did you borrow to rack up one hundred fifty thousand in debt?!”

“W-w-wait, wait! I never said I wouldn’t pay up! I have the tapes I copied up in an online auction now! Once I get the money for that, I can pay you back!”

“Are you dubbing our—? All right, cut the shit and stop messing with the business model. Listen, I’ll ignore that for today, but I need one or the other: money or tapes.”

Tom got tired of arguing and tried to wrap up the process, realizing that he was dealing with a more miserable scumbag than he figured. He started to step inside, but the man pushed him back and wheedled, “W-w-wait, please! All right! I’ll pay, I’ll pay!”

“That’s better. And if you’re short, you can take out a high-interest loan to make up the difference.”

Wow, he sure broke quickly, Tom thought. But then the creep smirked over Tom’s shoulder toward the man standing out in the apartment hallway.

“Hey, what about you? Why don’t you pay the late fee for me, Shizuo Heiwajima?”

“Wait, don’t—” Tom panicked.

“What?” Shizuo asked icily, turning his head with an eyebrow raised.

Oh, shit. This can’t be good, Tom thought, sensing that Shizuo could explode in mere seconds. He stepped away from the door, sidling up to his partner and asking, “Let me just ask…do you know this guy?”

“Nope…never seen him before in my life,” Shizuo replied brusquely.

The man inside smirked. “You’re a famous guy—everyone knows you. I could tell immediately from the outfit.”

“Oh yeah…?” Shizuo said, clearly getting angrier. Tom inched farther away from the two.

The oblivious debtor was paving his own path to hell. “You’re Yuuhei Hanejima’s brother, isn’t that right?”

“…!”

Don’t—! Tom nearly screamed. …Wait a second, why have I never heard that?

“Oh yeah…? And what if I am his brother?”

“He’s superrich, isn’t he? I bet you get a little tiny cut of that fortune. You must have a little chump change lying around.”

Damn, if I knew this guy was suicidal, I would’ve had Shizuo wait farther away!

Tom retreated down the apartment steps until he had evacuated to the ground level—right around the time the man delivered his clinching remark.

“So if you don’t want all the tabloids to find out that he’s got a thug of a brother like you, you’d better pay my—”

The only thing it clinched was his own downfall, however.

There was the hollow sound of some piece of a whole being removed, right at the same time that the man stopped talking. Shizuo had grabbed the man’s face with one hand and instantly separated his jaw.

“…What was that about money?”

He let go, and the indebted man’s jaw hung loose. The mouth was gaping wide enough to fit a fist inside. His jaw quivered in the air like a cat’s cradle; he reached up to touch it but seemed not to understand yet what had happened.

“Ah, agagagah, agah?”

“I’ve heard enough from you. Now shut your filthy mouth.”

“Ah, agaaa! Agagagagah!” the man stammered, unable to actually close his mouth. Shizuo took a step forward.

“…I said…shut it!”

* * *

Tom heard him from outside the apartment building. The next moment, there was a violent crash. He looked up to see a second-floor window smash.

The reason why soon became apparent.

The body of the man who owed them money flew through the shattering glass, smashed into a tree planted on the apartment lot, and then fell next to Tom, breaking a few branches along the way.

His clothes happened to catch on the branches, so he wound up hanging at eye level with Tom, who surveyed the debtor with pity.

“Hey, you lucked out.”

“H-h-hewp… I—I’ll tell the cops…I—I—I’ll sue…”

His jaw was miraculously fitted back into place, so perhaps Shizuo had given him an uppercut. Tom looked at the ghastly man with the trembling voice and calmly asked, “And what story are you going to give to the cops?”

“…Eh?”

“Perhaps you’ll tell them, ‘I got in trouble for borrowing pornos and making illegal copies to sell online, so I tried to blackmail the collector and got beat up’? I’d pay to see that trial. We could invite your dad and mom to come see you plead your case.”

“…!”

“But if you’re smart enough to decide that you don’t want to be famous for the wrong reasons, we’ll be nice enough to pay for your broken window,” Tom said, brushing his dreads off his ears and shrugging.

“It’s only getting tacked on to your late fees, though.”

Ten minutes later, Ikebukuro

“Dammit, just because you’re not killing them doesn’t make this right.”

“…Sorry, Tom.”

They were on their way back to Ikebukuro Station from the collection spot, and Tom had been lecturing Shizuo about what went wrong.

“You bend a five-hundred-yen coin in front of their eyes to intimidate them so that you don’t have to resort to violence! In fact, I bet you could tear one of those coins in two with your fingers, right?”

“Yeah…but I’m pretty sure I heard that it’s against the law to bend or stretch coins like that.”

“What…? Oh, true. Good point. Well, we can think of another method,” Tom admitted, bringing the conversation to an awkward, temporary truce. They walked through the crowd, thinking hard.

“Man, that guy really was an idiot, wasn’t he? He knew who you were, and he went ahead and threatened you… In fact, it was kinda like he didn’t know anything about you except that you’re Kasuka’s brother.”

“…I suppose you’re right.”

“The funny thing is, any street punk worth his salt would give up just by looking at you…but lately, you get the occasional normal person who has no idea about what you’re like and feels foolhardy…”

“…Sorry,” Shizuo muttered.

Tom turned to him in surprise. “Why are you apologizing?”

“Uh…I just figured, if I was keeping control of myself better…”

“Yeah, but that has nothing to do with the fact that there are total idiots like that guy. I know I gave you that lecture, but honestly, you did pretty good back there. In fact, it kind of makes me sorry for getting you involved in this dangerous line of work,” Tom said, facing forward again.

Shizuo watched his boss from behind and said, “Thank you,” but he didn’t seem to be quite convinced himself.

Tom sighed and then checked his watch. “It’s a bit early, but I suppose we could get something to eat.”

“Let’s hit up Russia Sushi and have ourselves a feast.”

Russia Sushi

She was in a very bad mood.

There was sadness, anger, and frustration mixed together and brought to a boil, then pushed down where it couldn’t get out—until nothing showed on her face but the faintest trace of sullenness.

But thanks to her already attractive features, the look could also be interpreted as mournful.

The white man behind the sushi counter stared back at that grimace and said, “Hey, Vorona. This is a service business. Stop sulking, or you’ll drive our customers off.”

“…Negative. My face is not crafted in melancholy. It is as normal,” said the woman named Vorona, albeit in rather odd Japanese.

A large black man cleaning tables smiled amiably and said, “Oh, that no good, Vorona. That face bad. Customer is God. God must be forgiving. If patient Buddha only forgives three times, then God must forgive hundred times. One hundred trips to pray to Ebisu, god of luck and good business. So smile wide like Ebisu.”

“Meaning unclear. Semyon’s Japanese is a bizarre fantasy.”

The man behind the counter mumbled, “Look who’s talking,” but Vorona ignored him and looked away, stone-faced.

“Besides…I have just abandoned my partner. Impossible to reach that circumstance.”

Vorona was a freelance jack-of-all-trades contractor.

Since coming to Japan, she’d worked for a variety of people and committed every sort of crime. Assassination, weapons smuggling, kidnapping—if the police ever caught her, she’d spend the rest of her life behind bars or be extradited back to Russia.

With her partner, Slon, she’d been working primarily in Ikebukuro, but after drawing the ire of a local yakuza group, the Awakusu-kai, Slon’s legs got shot up. They took him away, and Vorona determined that it was best not to hold out hope that he was alive.

As for her…

…

Rather suddenly, she realized that her unhappiness was not out of grief for Slon.

The owner of the shop sharpened his knife and said, “But you must have known that this would happen. From what I hear, you lost three other companions before making it to Japan. If you didn’t bother getting vengeance for them, why get all worked up about revenge for this particular partner?”

“…If the time exists to perish, I am first. That was my assurance. In my home country, one foolish enemy was sloppy for the reason that I am a woman. As a result, Slon and I live,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. Her head dipped. “This time is further worse. In the instant we should have died together, I was allowed to live through Father’s benevolence… It is humiliation.”

In fact, she was under a crippling amount of stress—but not because she’d lost her partner.

If she were the type to treasure the lives of others, she wouldn’t have gotten involved in this business in the first place.

It was simply that she wasn’t able to forgive herself.

I want to destroy everything. Including myself.

She’d been overcome by the urge right after she woke up, mere hours ago. That initial impulse would have been carried out violently if it weren’t for the two Russia Sushi employees who were there to hold her down.

“Calm down,” Denis had told her in Russian. “Go ahead and get your revenge on the Awakusu-kai if you must, but don’t wreck up our place.”

Strangely, that brief statement was all it took for her to wrestle her impulse under control.

“Am I…weak?” she asked.

Denis said, “You’re not stronger than Drakon,” and Simon told her, “We’re not the ones to decide that.” Pondering the meaning of that helped to restore her sense of rationality.

She asked if it was possible to rescue Slon, knowing it wasn’t—and so the replies she got were unsatisfying. She understood why it was happening.

“Not having anything to do will fill your mind with pointless thoughts,” Denis and Simon said and told her to help out around the restaurant.

Vorona didn’t consider this to be a cold suggestion. When she worked for Colonel Lingerin, it was quite common for people to die during routine jobs, so even on the rare occasions one had time to mourn the dead, it was always while on the move.

She decided that letting her emotions rule her was pointless and unproductive and decided to follow their suggestion. However…

Me, a waitress? It’s ridiculous.

She surveyed the restaurant, wearing a feminine uniform. The interior should have been strongly reminiscent of home, but given that it was all in service of being a sushi place, there was no denying the alien feeling.

It was a wrong Russia, the kind of Russia you saw in a movie filmed for some far-off country.

President Lingerin would love it, but my father, Drakon, would be annoyed, she thought. Her eyes landed on the two Russians hard at work. And…why are they doing this in the first place? They must be crazy to set up a restaurant in a place like this.

All her memories of Denis and Simon were from the distant past. They each had their own history before coming to work for Lingerin’s arms company, and then a few years ago, they both abruptly moved here to Japan.

I’m certain that Denis made quite a lot of money working for President Lingerin…but setting up shop in this expensive place would have wiped out almost all his savings.

…Actually, I shouldn’t bother trying to figure this out.

After they held her down to calm her this morning, they hadn’t bothered to pry into Vorona’s business any further. If they weren’t going to be nosy, she should at least return the favor.

The problem was, once she drove those thoughts from her head, she had nothing left to do but reflect on the last few days’ memories.

What…am I doing?

All she wanted was to determine the strength of humanity. It was a question in her head since childhood that she could never learn from books alone.

And eventually, that question became her reason for living.

But the events of the recent past brought her to a sobering realization: that she might not have the strength needed to learn that truth.

I am weak.

The Black Rider was a true monster and didn’t count.

She’d assumed the man in the bartender’s suit represented the best possible value for her test. But then, up against the Awakusu-kai man, she’d been utterly helpless.

Then was everything I’ve done pointless…?

It felt like her pleasure, past, and hope for the future had all been negated, taken away from her. She was filled with anger at her mental vulnerability for feeling this way and her physical weakness at being unable to save one man.

These thoughts swirled through her head as she stood in place.

Denis told her to “watch them work and steal their ideas,” but she didn’t know where to start with that. For one thing, she had zero service industry experience. She had read about some of its secrets in books, but she had never seen a business that combined Russia with sushi, in real life or in any text.

On the other hand…

She’d been merely standing in place, observing everything that happened from the moment the restaurant opened—and realized that the guests seemed to be extraordinarily preoccupied with her.

Is it so strange for them to see a foreigner? But that applies to Denis and Simon, too.

It never even occurred to her that it had something to do with her looks and feminine gender. Any regular would be surprised at the sudden appearance of an unfamiliar waitress, while a new customer would find it hard not to look at the beautiful foreign woman brooding in the corner with her hands on her hips.

Simon turned to a young couple, barely older than children, and said, “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.”

…I did not hear of taking to go. Is that part of the business plan here? I don’t mind doing the same job, assuming a customer respects my talents…but I’m certainly not going to sell my actual body, thought Vorona, who failed to take Simon’s comment in jest.

She scowled and said, “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 laughed, but Vorona did not understand what he meant.

The customers who had just been subjected to two very different but equally baffling forms of Japanese reacted with either awkward amusement or total confusion but otherwise kept eating. Vorona sensed their reactions and was coming to the acceptance that she probably wasn’t meant for this line of work when Denis spoke to her.

“Hey, Vorona. Collector’s out back, so get the white envelope off the office desk and hand it over.”

“…”

“If you can’t serve customers, you can at least give them the money in the envelope, right?”

“…Affirmative,” she admitted, reluctantly passing through the kitchen toward the back.

Next to the back door was a small office. She took the thick envelope off the desk and opened the door.

“Whoa.”

There was a familiar man standing there.

“…!”

Instantly, Vorona crouched and swung her leg up to kick at his groin.

“Easy, easy.”

He caught the kick soaring upward between his legs with one hand and pushed it back, simultaneously sweeping her planted leg. Vorona quickly found herself sitting flat on her butt, though the man had eased the pressure on her leg so that there was no pain.

“…!”

If only I had a weapon…

It galled Vorona that at this moment, the only idea that came to her mind involved relying on gear. Still, she stared malevolently at the man in the patterned suit.

“Ooh, scary. I figured I’d check in on you when I came to collect the crab money, but I didn’t think you’d be the one handing it over. I thought you’d still be bedridden. Suppose I’ll have to save the caviar sushi for another time.”

“Akabayashi!”

“What, you remember my name? That’s so sweet. A guy feels good when a fetching young lady like you is familiar with him,” he said, smirking wryly as he reached out to take the envelope from Vorona. Then he turned his back on her, totally unafraid.

“Sorry to disappoint you. I’d give you a little more time, but I’ve got another young lady to escort at the moment. Maybe some other occasion.”

“I request orders! Has Slon already been being killed?”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down. What if someone hears you talking about killing and all that?” he said, looking around hastily before continuing. “Well, I suppose it’s up to him whether he gets spared or buried.”

“…?”

“At any rate, there’s certainly going to be a price paid. Mikiya and Aozaki are pragmatists at heart. They’re probably weighing the value of either finishing him off to make things right or keeping him around to use as a pawn.”

He tapped his own shoulders with the walking stick, then turned his back on Vorona once again. “Ultimately, it’s the chairman who will call the shots. But if your buddy spills the beans on your client, that fella named Yodogiri…well, maybe the scales will tip toward a more amicable outcome.”

“…”

Should she rejoice in the possibility of Slon’s survival or find some new weapons and raid the Awakusu-kai to rescue him? Vorona couldn’t even be sure how she should react to Akabayashi’s statement.

Time simply passed. How long had it been?

She glared powerlessly in the direction that Akabayashi had gone, until a cheery voice said, “Oh, here you are. What wrong? Your tummy hurt?”

“…Denied. Woe is fruitless,” she replied, getting to her feet as if nothing was wrong.

Simon shrugged and asked, “Did you fight with Akabayashi? Fighting bad, you get hungry. And Akabayashi bring us cheap crabmeat. You make Akabayashi angry, crab get more expensive, us and customers go hungry.”

“Is that crab a smuggled good?”

“He said what he send us is national product. He don’t say what nation.”

“…”

While the conversation was not entirely satisfying, Simon’s voice did help her regain herself. She went back inside the building.

I suppose…it’s all over.

In that brief period, dark feelings swirled into her mind.

I abandoned plenty of companions on the way here…and I had to be saved by my father and President Lingerin, the men I betrayed and severed all connections to… How do they see me now? With disgust? Or pity?

Perhaps I have no reason to live anymore…

After her consecutive defeats and what Akabayashi just told her, even her motivation to avenge Slon was gone.

No, that was always an excuse. I wasn’t nearly as mad about Slon’s defeat as I was at my own uselessness. What should I do now…?

She made her way through the kitchen into the restaurant, pondering these heavy topics…

There were now two men sitting at the counter where the young couple had just been.

She recognized one of the men. Not by facial features, but by his distinctive dress.

Even Vorona, who found it quite difficult to distinguish the fine details between Japanese faces, could identify his features at a glance.

He had blond hair and wore sunglasses to go with a bartender’s uniform.

“Well, when both you and Kasuka get so famous, you can’t prevent guys like that from coming around. I think you ought to get used to this.”

“…Okay.”

“I know it wasn’t your idea to be famous. But I think if you keep that fact in mind, it’ll actually make a big difference in your life.”

“I guess so…”

Tom and Shizuo had picked up their conversation from earlier as they waited for their sashimi tray.

“By the way, did you thank that doctor from yesterday?” Tom asked.

“…Oh, actually, not yet.”

“Well, that won’t do. He helped you out in a pinch—I don’t care if you guys go way back, he deserves a proper thanks.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It slipped my mind with all the other stuff going on,” Shizuo explained. He took out his phone and called up the black market doctor. “Hey…Shinra? Sorry about yesterday. I wanted to thank you for your help… What? Oh…yeah. I’ll call you later, then.”

He was going to walk outside to continue the call but never got further than a hovering position above the chair.

“What’s up?” Tom asked.

“I guess he’s busy. He said to call back tomorrow. In fact…it sounded like he was gonna cry.”

“Oh yeah? Well, no rush, I guess. You can do it any…oh?” Tom paused when he saw a woman appear from the kitchen. “Who’s the babe? She’s staring holes in us.”

“…You’re right,” Shizuo added. “In fact, I don’t think she’s ever done a shift here before.”

Tom glanced at the woman staring at them while her mouth worked silently, then leaned over the counter to ask the chef, “Hey, boss, when’d you pick up that fetching lady? Is she Russian, too?”

“Correct. She’s in training—doesn’t even know how to carry out a fresh towel. Think of her as a Russian decoration for now,” he answered brusquely.

Tom grinned and asked, “How do you say ‘You’re adorable’ in Russian?”

“Вы очаровательны.”

“Vee, ocheravatenen,” Tom mimicked. Then he turned to the woman. “Hey, vee ocheravatenen.”

The white woman looked back at Tom with suspicion and then turned to the chef behind the counter. “What is he saying? It is unclear. Suspicion that words are not Japanese.”

The chef smirked and shook his head. “Вы очаровательны.”

“…Provide a clear reason that you would engage in such social pleasantries.”

“That’s just what that fella there said to you.”

“In the language of what country?”

Confused and surprised, Tom leaned over to Shizuo and whispered, “Was my pronunciation that bad?”

“I wouldn’t know the difference, but I guess a native speaker would.”

“Wow, I guess I embarrassed myself,” Tom said, trying to hide the redness behind his cup of tea. Just then, the platter of sashimi came across the counter to them.

Tom reached out with his chopsticks, glanced at the woman again, and wondered, “Is she glaring at us or something?”

He almost stopped himself from bringing it up, but he knew that Shizuo wasn’t stupid enough to accost a woman for staring at him and so it was safe to proceed.

“Really? Whoa, that’s harsh,” Shizuo said, his eyes tearing up. He had just eaten a bracing sushi roll stuffed with wasabi. His vision was so blurry that he didn’t even bother to look in her direction. “Probably because you did such a bad job hitting on her.”

“You think so? Well, yeah…I guess you’re right.” Tom sighed, grabbing a slice of yellowtail.

The chef leaned forward and said, “By the way…you two said you were short on help recently, didn’t cha?”

“Huh? Oh yeah. There’s been an uptick in folks trying to welch on their fees, so it’s getting hard for me and Shizuo to cover everything on our own.” Tom grimaced.

The chef nodded—then glanced over at the woman.

“Feel like taking that decoration off my hands?”

Ikebukuro, in front of a dojo

In a mixed zoning area near Zoshigaya Cemetery bustling with apartments, small homes, and industrial factories, two oddly clashing people spoke in front of a particular building.

“And don’t worry—you’re just stopping by to introduce yourself today. If you decide you don’t like it, you can tell me.”

“O-okay.”

The tall man was Akabayashi, and the nervous-looking girl standing next to him was Akane Awakusu.

Akane wanted to be stronger.

For the last few days, she’d been through experiences that few grade-schoolers—few adults, in fact—had ever faced. And in this case, she was not the helpless victim, but the agent causing the chaos.

Right after her return a few days ago, she received a tearful embrace from her mother and then got a lecture. But even in the middle of the scolding, she heard the phrase so glad you’re all right many times, so Akane felt less like she was in trouble and more that she was guilty of inflicting pain.

Yet there was a conflicted feeling inside of her still: Shizuo Heiwajima.

She was attempting to kill a grown man, and yet he had also saved her life. Even she was having difficulty deciphering exactly how she felt about him. While he may have saved her, Akane didn’t yet have an answer as to whether she should kill him or not.

It seemed that even this most obvious of questions was beyond her ability to answer.

The world she had known had turned out to be a facade, constructed by fear of the name Awakusu. This was all unbeknownst to her, and when she learned the truth, that facade had crumbled into dust.

The wedge placed there was preventing her from re-creating her world, leaving it—and her—broken. And like a bad drama, that was when she had gotten kidnapped.

On top of that, she had met the impossible Headless Rider on her headless horse, things that shouldn’t and couldn’t exist in the real world. All these details were enough to melt the pieces of her broken worldview into a sludge.

Things had settled down now, but Akane was still in pieces.

That morning, when Akabayashi visited at her request, the first thing she had said was “How can I get good at killing people?”

The man, an employee of her father’s, looked startled at first and then hid his surprise behind a tight smile. “What’s this all about? You got it in for somebody?”

“No. It’s not that…but I have to kill him.”

“…Sounds scary. Who are you talking about?”

“I can’t tell you,” Akane said, shaking her head.

Akabayashi didn’t get angry, nor did he get upset; he just smiled. “Why not?”

“If I say, you guys will go after him, won’t you?”

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked matter-of-factly.

Akane nodded. “He’s a good person. But I have to kill him.”

It wasn’t an answer that made a lot of sense, so Akabayashi kept trying to get to the bottom of her reasoning. “Do you want him to die?”

“No. I don’t want to kill him.”

“…Then why?”

“If I don’t kill him, he might kill people I care about…”

“Who told you that?”

“…I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes sorrowful. Akabayashi recognized that she wasn’t going to be able to tell him the answer, so he approached from a different direction.

“But what if that person is lying to you?”

“…I can’t tell.”

“But just a moment ago, you said this person you have to kill is good… Are you sure of that?”

“…I can’t tell,” she repeated. She shook her head, but it wasn’t a means of shying away from the question. “I can’t tell right now. Everyone, even my friends…my friend’s mother…the teacher…Father…everyone was lying to me. I don’t even know if I can trust you or not…”

“…”

“So I believe that he’s good, but now I can’t believe myself…so…umm…”

It was clear that the girl did not have it all straight in her heart. She looked down at the ground, as if ready to burst into tears, but the only things that emerged next were words. “But I can’t. I have to be stronger.”

“Why is that?”

“If it turns out he’s bad…and I’m weak, then that’s the end of me. I can’t just worry about what I should do if he’s bad… But I can’t talk to Father, either. Because they’re all yakuza, right? So he might die before I can even figure out if he’s good or bad…”

“This is quite a surprise. Does everyone your age nowadays think about grown-up concepts like this?” Akabayashi asked, impressed. He pondered for a bit, then grinned and said, “Well, I get your point. If you find out he’s a bad guy, and you’re going to stop him or protect yourself, you’ve gotta be stronger than him. And at your age… Well, I’d like to believe that us grown-ups aren’t impatient enough to kill a guy before figuring out if he deserves it or not…”

He shrugged and suggested, “Here’s an idea: Just because you might be up against a killer doesn’t mean you have to be stronger than them at killing.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a thing called self-defense. Rather than killing bad guys, it helps you get stronger so that you can protect yourself and the people you care about.”

Several hours later, Akane was here in front of this building, with Akabayashi as her escort.

The building had a sign on the front that read TRAUGOTT GEISSENDORFER’S RAKUEI GYM, and there was a poster of a tough-looking foreign man hung next to the entrance.

“It makes it sound like he owns or is affiliated with this place, but that Traugott guy actually dabbles in a lot of different fighting styles. What they teach here just so happens to be one of them, so they use that connection as a marketing gimmick. I guess he doesn’t mind them using the name, either.”

“Ohhh?” Akane replied. She didn’t seem to be entirely present. It was less that she failed to understand Akabayashi’s explanation and more that she was preoccupied with a great feeling of uneasiness.

An unfamiliar place full of unfamiliar people—these are certainly things that elicit anxiety. But to Akane in particular, there was a fear that even in this new place, she would encounter the same false smiles and words she’d been around all her life. Would they, too, be afraid of the shadow cast by the Awakusu-kai? Would they secretly hate her because of it?

Akane’s childhood mind grappled with this very adult apprehension. Her body trembled, and she was about to consider giving up and backing out when she heard an excited girl’s voice nearby.

“Ahhh! That Awakusu-kai mobster is abducting a little girl!”

“?!”

The mention of the name Awakusu caused Akane to start. But at the same time, she noticed something odd: The girl’s tone of voice was far too cheery for someone bringing up the feared Awakusu name.

She timidly turned around right as Akabayashi said, “Oh really, Mairu? Do I look like that bad of a guy?”

“How can you blame me for thinking that, Mr. Akabayashi? You couldn’t look any fishier if you tried!”

“Well, damn.” He smirked. The girl cackled.

She had to be about five or six years older than Akane, with braided hair and glasses. While those things might normally suggest a gloomy, withdrawn personality, this girl was lively and bracing. There was a bundle, probably a martial arts outfit, slung over her back, as if she were coming back from a workout.

“As a matter of fact, this girl’s name is Akane. She’s our chairman’s granddaughter.”

“Oh! Does that mean she’s gonna grow up to be the yakuza lady bossing the guys around?!”

“…! …!”

Akane was stunned. She assumed she would have to hide her background at the gym, but Akabayashi told the truth to the very first person there. Her mouth trembled in shock, and without a better idea of what to do, she began bopping Akabayashi on the back.

The girl named Mairu took a step closer and helpfully suggested, “Ha-ha! Best plan here would be a sudden attack to the privates!” She unleashed a quick, sharp kick at Akabayashi’s groin.

“Yikes!” he mocked, dodging at the last possible moment with a smile. “Man, I’ve never had two girls try to kick me in the balls in the same day before.”

“What? Twice? That must mean you made another girl cry this morning. You are a bad guy!” Mairu teased with a huge grin. She turned back to Akane and said, “Well, whatever. So you’re going to be my junior here! If you pay attention and obey my orders, I’ll make you my special henchman and even teach you my signature secret attack, the Thumbtack Special!”

“Cheap barrier of entry for a cheap attack.”

“Shut up, Mr. Akabayashi!” she shot back. Mairu was doing all the talking, and Akane hadn’t said a word yet. The existence of a person who knew her as the “granddaughter of the Awakusu-kai chairman” and still acted this way was extremely new and surprising to her.

“Well, in any case, you’ll be my little-sister fellow pupil, so if there’s any problem at all, you come and tell Sis! Here, come with me and I’ll introduce you to Master!”

“Great. I’ve already spoken with the manager, so you can take her through the rest of it. Personally, my recommendation is pole fighting, but I think the fundamentals should come first. Give Akane’s dad a call when you’re done, and he should send a car to come get her.”

“Um, wait, what?”

Akane was unable to wrap her head around how fast things were moving. Akabayashi waved and left, and Akane just watched him go as Mairu dragged her inside the building.

On the inside, a little flame kindled at the excitement of things taking an unexpected course.

Ikebukuro, apartment building

“…Can’t imagine what the boss is thinking, agreeing to this,” Tom grumbled as he climbed the rickety, old apartment stairs.

As usual, the person they were about to meet on the fourth floor of this particular building had abandoned his tab, and they were heading to collect from him—but unlike normal, there was another assistant in addition to Shizuo.

“I submit a doubt. I have not heard the contents of the job our group is performing,” said the white woman named Vorona, in her usual strange Japanese.

The chef at Russia Sushi had said she was too unfriendly to work in the service industry and asked them to take her for their job, as long as he called their boss. So here she was.

I figured he meant that she would go and do office work for him… Instead, she’s collecting with us?!

The only way Tom could imagine a woman collecting debt was if she was a landlord or the manager of a bar—the thought of traveling around with a woman as a coworker was one he had never entertained.

Vorona had changed from her uniform into plainclothes, and he had to admit that her figure had been accentuated by the change in a most bewitching way.

Damn… Yeah, it sounds nice working with a hot chick, until you actually have to do it…

In this case, the woman was supremely standoffish and seemed acutely disinterested in men. Tom answered her question by saying, “We’re collecting money from bad people who owe it and aren’t paying up. Got that?”

He tried to make it as simple as possible, since her Japanese was questionable at best. Vorona nodded to indicate understanding and said, “Collection of protection money. Roger.”

“No, no, it’s not protection money… You know what, never mind.”

Seriously, I’m not sure about this.

Would they fail to be taken seriously if there was a woman with them? Tom wondered. It wasn’t his intention to belittle women, but there was no guarantee that the targets they were going to collect from would feel the same way.

Actually, they could belittle all they wanted, but if that disrespect extended to Shizuo, and he got carried away and killed someone—well, that was the worst possible outcome.

Also, I feel like this babe keeps staring him down. Is that just my imagination?

As for Shizuo, he’d been traveling along in silence with his arms folded, apparently deep in thought. Perhaps he himself was trying to figure out what he might have done to deserve all the staring.

Just then, Tom reached the target’s apartment. He tried ringing the bell for starters and immediately heard the lock opening from within.

When the door opened, it revealed a man with an old-fashioned “punch perm” of the kind tough guys wore in the ’80s.

“…Who the hell are you?”

“I’m guessing you’ll understand if we say we’re here on behalf of the dating site Arachne?” Tom said by way of introduction. The permed man’s face froze for a moment.

“…! No idea what you mean.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. But your phone number has already used one hundred seventy thousand yen worth of services. It’s all in the contract, so the normal legal channel would involve having the lawyer collect, but neither of us wants to get the court involved, do we?”

“Shuddup! Quit talkin’ yer mumbo jumbo, or I’ll kill you!”

“If you found that explanation to be ‘mumbo jumbo,’ then we might need to bring in an interpreter,” Tom suggested, annoyed. The permed man found this amusing; he wore a crude smile.

“Sure thing…I got an interpreter.”

“What?”

“C’mon, boys!” the man shouted toward the interior of the apartment.

A number of men marched up to the doorway. They all had the appearance of tried-and-true low-class thugs, and they filed out to face Tom’s group in the hallway of the building. Years of experience and intuition told Tom that they were just ruffians, not professional criminals.

Triumphantly, the man with the perm returned to Tom and gloated, “What did you want interpreted? Were you gonna hand over that chick to us, maybe?”

Good grief, Tom thought. Normally, Shizuo would just snap and be done with it, but since we have Vorona with us today, I guess we should back down.

He turned toward the young woman. And if they won’t let us walk away, we’ll at least have to make sure she gets a…way…? Huh?

Vorona had been standing right behind Shizuo just a moment ago, but now she was gone.

“Huh? Whaddaya want, ba…buh?!”

He suddenly screamed.

Huh? Tom spun around to face forward again, and in the process, he noticed that Shizuo’s eyes were bulging. When his spin finished, Tom’s eyes bulged, too.

“Wha—?!” “Hey…you…ah!” “Hrg?!” “Whoa?!”

He saw the men groaning and collapsing, as Vorona spun and moved between all of them. It was like an action scene in a movie.

Vorona’s moves were just as flashy and brilliant as her appearance. She flowed from target to target, striking the men in the chins and throats with her elbows and toes, knocking them unconscious one after the other.

Once they were down and immobile, she started going through their pockets. Soon she was handing Tom a small pile of wallets. Sadly, the Japanese language of her statement was a far cry from the smooth, practiced action moves.

“Please teach the precise amount of money to be deducted. If it is lacking, shall we conduct a home search?”

Even then, at the very moment that Tom and Shizuo shared a glance…

…the rumors raced through the town.

“Hey, you see that?”

“Shizuo.”“That was Shizuo Heiwajima.”“With a woman.”

“Was that injury story made up?”“No idea.”

“There was definitely a woman.”“Maybe she’s with the dreads guy?”

“Nah, I saw them in town.”“She was hot.”

“And the whole time they were walking…she was staring at Shizuo.”

Several hours later, Ikebukuro, Kishimojin Temple

“I can’t believe I wasn’t expecting something like that, knowing that she was connected to Simon and that sushi chef,” Tom lamented.

They had visited a number of other targets after that, and every one of them had either tried to hit on Vorona or threatened the group—with the result that Vorona knocked them out so quickly and handily that Shizuo didn’t even have time to get angry once.

“Try to spare a thought for the guys who have to mop all this up…”

“Mop up? Do you mean to dispose of the dead bodies? I have heard the standard method of Japan is sinking into Tokyo Bay.”

“No, there’s no standard of the sort. Can you try to explain this to her, Shizuo?”

“…I’m not really in a position to say, actually,” he replied.

They came to a temple for revering Kishimojin, a Buddhist goddess of protection. It was on the route from a Toden trolley stop toward Ikebukuro Station. Their next job was close by, but they decided to stop here at the Kishimojin Temple and take a breather.

It was a quiet location in the middle of a residential area, with countless trees in the expansive temple grounds, their leaves catching and splitting the reddening light of the sun—an oasis of tranquillity in the midst of the vast, bustling metropolis.

The trio, however, was in a very strange mood when it decided to stop for a break. For his part, Tom was silent as he tried to think of how he should broach the topic at hand—but to his surprise, it was Shizuo who broke the ice with Vorona.

“You seem like you’re pretty tough. You practice some kind of fighting?”

“…”

She stared at him, clearly conflicted. Whatever emotional knot was behind the look on her face was completely beyond Tom’s understanding.

After a long silence, Vorona sighed heavily and said, “I have learned only the first of first steps in many things. In youth period, through texts. In puberty, through battle. Denis and Semyon…the one you call Simon, taught me self-defense.”

“Ahh, those guys… So if you started in childhood, does that mean your dad was a fighter, too?”

“My father was expert in a fighting style called Systema. Systema was the only style I did not learn. It is…similar to rebellion against Father. I would appreciate if you do not pry.”

“I won’t ask, then. In any case, you’re pretty incredible.”

“…It sounds like farcical jest coming from you,” Vorona insisted.

Tom jumped in. “Huh…? Wait, do you know about Shizuo?”

“In Ikebukuro, it is impossible not to hear rumors,” she lied. She had only learned of Shizuo’s prowess once she saw him in action the day before. But because she’d been wearing a helmet and they hardly spoke, Shizuo did not realize it was her yet.

Perhaps Vorona had heard a rumor or two about a man wearing a bartender’s outfit. But she would have laughed off stories about throwing vending machines one-handed as a joke.

After yesterday, she had experienced his strength firsthand.

Perhaps this man, she contemplated, recalling that moment and the sight of him kicking a car like a ball and overturning everything she thought she knew. Perhaps this man could prove it to me, I hoped. Perhaps he could give me the answer to the question of humanity’s frailty.

But the excitement of that moment had totally fizzled into nothing overnight.

It was me who was unfit all along. I am…weak. What is the point of striking a block of clay to determine how strong steel is? All this means is that the people I destroyed to get here…were weaker than clay.

This was total nonsense, of course, but Vorona had settled into another glare at Shizuo. She didn’t hate him. The fierceness in her eyes was actually directed at herself.

For his part, Shizuo didn’t realize he was being stared at. He gazed up at the sky over the temple and murmured, “I dunno what rumors you heard about me, but I think you’re more incredible than I am.”

“…It is unclear what you are saying.”

“I just happen to have physical strength. That has nothing to do with whether a person is really strong or weak. If anything, the folks like you, who worked and worked to train themselves, are way stronger people than I am. That’s worthy of respect.”

“…”

I am more incredible than him? What is he saying? Maybe I just misheard him, Vorona thought.

Tom spoke up to fill the silence. “That reminds me—you said there was some fighter you respected. What was the name again…?”

“Traugott Geissendorfer. He’s unbelievable.”

“See, that’s crazy to me. From my perspective, you’re the most ridiculous of all, Shizuo. If you wanted to, you could easily bulk up and win gold medals. And once you get a bunch of them… Wait, are the medals pure gold?” Tom wondered.

“Gold medals used in Olympics are not all pure gold. Consideration for host countries with poor economy. Over ninety-two-point-five percent pure silver with six-gram coating of gold. Only pure gold medals are Nobel Prize until 1980. Even modern Nobel medal is seventy-five percent gold with pure gold coat,” Vorona answered.

She’d meant it to distract from the previous topic, and it succeeded in surprising Tom. “Wow…I feel like I just saw another incredible side of you.”

“How come they stopped using all gold for the Nobel Prize? They didn’t have the money?” Shizuo asked. His curiosity reminded Vorona of Slon and briefly rattled her heart, but her instincts took over and produced the answer from memory.

“Nobel award has cash prize. But medal of pure gold is too soft. A simple bite leaves a mark. Even little accidents cause string of marks, distortions. Alloys prevent disfiguration.”

“Oooh, I didn’t know that…”

“Tough, smart, and beautiful. You’ve got everything,” Tom remarked, but it did not please Vorona.

“…Denied. I am not beautiful, smart, and certainly not—” she started to say, words intended to convince herself, but she paused partway. There was a girl near the entrance of the temple grounds, shouting with innocent excitement.

“Ohhh! Shiii-zuuu-ooo! How are youuu?”

The trio turned and saw a girl with braided hair and glasses, a rolled-up dojo gi slung over her back. Behind her was another girl who looked identical to her except for a gloomy expression, and then a little girl who was clearly several years younger than them.

Shizuo recognized them all. “Is that Mairu and Kururi…and Akane?!”

The little elementary-age girl hiding behind the twins saw Shizuo and trotted forward at a run.

“Big Brother Shizuo!”

“Hey, it’s me. Listen up.”

“The rumor was true!”“I was just watching Shizuo from afar!”

“This little girl ran over to Shizuo and just straight up hugged him!”

“Really?”“Shizuo’s kid?”

“So not only was the woman part true, so was the kid!”

The rumor raced through a specific class of people like a thunderbolt.

Cell phones and the Internet acted as a medium, giving shape to the rumor in real time—and provided these rumormongers with almost pathological excitement.

“How many people can we get here right away…?”

The rumor that was more wishful thinking than logic turned out to be true.

Of course, in reality it wasn’t true at all, but they were now convinced of its accuracy, anyway.

And that was because they needed it to be true, which meant that considering any other possibility was pointless.

Excitement overtook the gossiping gaggle’s bodies, gifting them with a dynamic agency they could never exhibit otherwise—no matter what their goals were.

“I dunno what’s gonna happen, but I want at least a dozen guys in some cars.”

“Once the girls leave Shizuo’s side, we’re gonna kidnap ’em.”

Why is Akane Awakusu here?

Vorona quietly scanned the area, surprised. She suspected that some of the Awakusu-kai were nearby.

I’m wasting my time, she realized. They could certainly be watching her now, but they would not do so from out in the open where she would see. And without any gear on her person, she would be helpless if anyone on the level of that Akabayashi man showed up.

No, wait… We already settled the matter. As long as I do not touch that Akane girl, the Awakusu-kai will not harass me. On the other hand, I don’t know how sincere they are about that deal, so there’s nothing wrong with being cautious.

In any case…I will not rest easy within the security Father bought for me.

Meanwhile, the three girls chattered and squealed, though the majority of the noise was coming from the one with glasses.

“Hey! Hey! Who’s that pretty lady?! Can I hug her?!”

“Don’t do it,” said Shizuo, grabbing the girl by the back of her collar and holding her aloft like a cat.

The other one, wearing a gloomy face, bowed to Tom. “…Earlier…bag…thanks…” [Thank you for the bag to hide the money the other day.]

“Oh, sure. Don’t mention it,” he replied.

“And since we got another three hundred thousand this morning, we were able to carry it around in that bag, Kuru!”

“Three hun—!” Tom gasped. He decided to tap the girls on the shoulders and advised, “Listen…this isn’t really my place to say, but…don’t do anything that would disappoint your parents. You’re such sweet kids—you shouldn’t sell yourselves short like this. I mean, three hundred thousand yen is a lot of cash, but it’s an asset you shouldn’t put a price on…”

“?” “?”

The twins looked confused. Tom’s lecture was based on an entirely mistaken assumption.

Akane, meanwhile, clung to Shizuo’s pants as she looked up at him with a beaming smile. “Thanks for yesterday, Big Brother Shizuo!”

“Hmm? Oh, sure, don’t mention it. Kids like you oughta be more free-spirited; don’t go dragging your obligations around with you,” he said with a grimace and stroked her head. Akane squealed and pressed his hand down with her own.

Seeing this, Vorona thought, She is so carefree. Especially for having been abducted by us just yesterday. Or…perhaps it’s actually a sign of strength that she’s already overcome her hardship. I suppose I really am weaker than anyone…

Next, Shizuo addressed the twins: “So what are you two doing with Akane, anyway?”

“We’re more surprised that you know Akane, Shizuo! Turns out that she just joined my dojo today! My training for the day is over, so once Kuru came by, I decided to give Akane a tour of the area!”

“Oh, your dojo? So it’s for self-defense? Not a bad idea, actually,” Shizuo replied.

“D-do you think so? Then I’ll give it a shot,” Akane said, smiling.

Shizuo’s grin faded a bit as he considered something. He turned back to the twins. “Speaking of which…what’s up with your fleabrain brother?”

“…Surprise…?” [Huh…?]

“Don’t you watch the news on TV, Shizuo?”

“What? Well, I left early to do the collection rounds. Why? Was there something interesting on the news? Did they finally arrest him?”

“It’s a secret. You should check the papers or the Internet when you get back home. You’ll be amazed!”

“…Brother…safe…” [Izaya escaped with his life.]

“?”

Shizuo wasn’t sure what she meant by that and was going to ask for more information when Tom cut him off: “Hey, Shizuo, we gotta go hit up that place already.”

“Right,” he grunted, switching back to work mode.

“This place will be a little delicate, as there’s a family involved, Vorona. Do you mind waiting this one out?” Tom continued.

“…I am on standby?”

“Well, we don’t want you putting on a big display like the last few. Why don’t you just stay here with these girls and chat over some tea? Uh, tea not included.”

Tom Tanaka’s best quality was his ability to adjust to any person’s needs. Once he got used to them, he could adapt and learn to get along with anyone, even people like Shizuo and Vorona, who normal folks would instantly be too afraid to approach.

One of Tom’s on-the-fly adjustments was recognizing that Vorona, who was more suited to action and not negotiation, was best left behind on this one. Of course, he was still going to bring along Shizuo as a valuable means of ensuring his own safety.

“Well,” he decided, “it’s a good thing we’ve got so many girls here to keep you company. Shizuo and I should be back in, oh, about ten minutes. You can wait alone if you really want, but I’d hate for you to feel lonely on your first day at the job. Can I ask you girls to hang out here?”

“Sure.”

“…Pleasure…” [I’d be happy to.]

“I’ll wait here until you come back, Big Brother Shizuo!”

With those approvals in place, the four women decided to remain on the temple grounds.

None of them realized that they were being watched.

“Hey, Shizuo just split off from the girls! You ready yet?!”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be less than a minute.”

“Also, I doubt they mean anything, but…there are also two teenage girls there who seem to know him.”

“So we’ll grab them, too.”

“Really? All of them? You sure, man?”

“Well, the rumor I heard is…”

“Yesterday, the Dollars abducted a group of, like, five girls, including some motorcycle gang boss’s lady.”

Several minutes later

“Ohhh, you know Simon? So does that mean you know Egor, too?!”

“…It is a surprise. It is outside of expectations that you would recognize Egor.”

“…Surprise…strange…” [This is quite a coincidence.]

Vorona and the girls found it no trouble at all to keep up a conversation after Tom and Shizuo left. She had assumed there would be a long silence with nothing to talk about, but the girl with the braids and her gloomy identical companion weren’t intimidated by her in the least.

To everyone’s surprise, they found they had some strange things in common. Vorona decided to obey her new boss’s orders and stay there so she could continue the conversation.

But what should I do after this…? I’m much closer now to the man in the bartender clothes, which is good. I know his name. But what now? Do I wait for my chance and attack him from behind? But…why?

Even the nature of the hope she clung to was beginning to evade Vorona. Suddenly, Akane tugged at her sleeve.

“…Are you a friend of Big Brother Shizuo?”

“Huh?”

It was the very girl she kidnapped the day before. Apparently, the girl did not recognize her. For her part, Vorona considered the girl to be merely an element of a past event and not worthy of any personal sentiment.

“…Friend…? Rejected. Shizuo and I are nothing but work companions.”

“Oh, I see,” Akane said, looking relieved for a reason that evaded Vorona.

But it didn’t matter, because in the next moment, the Russian woman detected an anomaly in the area.

A number of cars stopped on the adjacent street and opened their doors, almost entirely at once.

—!

Alarms went off in Vorona’s head. She crouched immediately and glanced around the temple grounds.

Emerging from several nearby vans was a group of men wearing ski masks, like bank robbers did. They didn’t have any visible weapons, but they did seem to be carrying ropes and sacks.

“Huh? What? What’s this? That doesn’t look good!”

“…Bad…?” [Kidnappers?]

Sure enough, the men were on a beeline right toward them. They were racing at full speed, their sacks rustling with a violence that would be menacing to an ordinary person.

But that was the key part: to an ordinary person.

They would spread out in a circle around the girls and put the sacks over their heads. Once the girls were blinded and panicking, they’d load them into the cars and drive off.

Very simple job.

But not an easy one.

The area happened to be empty at the moment, but a resident might pass by at any time. In order to minimize the risk of being witnessed, the men were going to have to be rough, if necessary. All they had to do was pull off this job, and then they could use or destroy the weapon that was Shizuo Heiwajima in any way they desired.

However, they certainly didn’t imagine that the women who were with Shizuo also happened to be deadly weapons, when handled improperly.

The white woman looked like the biggest and strongest of the group.

The man who attempted to throw his sack over her head was the first to taste the weapon’s bite.

“…You seek to target me?”

Vorona let out a short breath, leaped off the ground—and aimed her right foot squarely at the jaw of the man, with all the torque of a chameleon’s tongue flicking out. Her steel-plated boot passed right through his upheld arms, the high kick smooth and flowing.

Her toe connected with his chin with pinpoint accuracy. The man’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he passed out, unaware of what had actually happened to him.

“…Huh?”

The men who witnessed this action experienced a temporary mental fog, a void of experience. It was not fear at Vorona’s strength—it was simple lack of understanding of what they’d just seen.

But when the mind stops, the body often does not.

The men raced toward their targets, temporarily careless and preoccupied, only to receive a very painful counterattack—not just from Vorona, but all the girls.

“Goddammit, stop stru…gah!”

Mairu jabbed her fingers in the eyes of the man trying to hold her down. She didn’t crush the eyeballs, but it was enough to make him leap backward. She then used those extended fingers to grab his ski mask so that he yanked his head free as he pulled away. With his face exposed, she swung her hands forward to slap him right on the ears—the kind of dangerous, precise strike meant to rupture the eardrums.

One of the other men automatically looked over when he heard the sound of his companion screaming and rolling on the ground. That was enough time for Kururi to pull a spray can out of her pocket and deploy it.

It was a small can, like a purse-sized perfume bottle. It contained a self-defense substance of her own design, based on store-bought mace.

The reason it was only based on the common market product was so that it could be several times more powerful.

“Wha…wha…?!”

The largest of the attackers, seeing that his buddies were going down left and right, finally noticed that something was wrong.

“Dammit, screw this crap!” he ranted, grabbing the nearest girl, the slow-looking one with the spray can, so that he could subdue her through brute force. But because he was so tall, he failed to notice the youngest girl approaching his feet.

“…What?”

There was a brief crackle, and he looked down to see—

“Y-yah!”

Akane Awakusu hit him right on the leg with her stun gun.

She’d gotten the gun from Nakura the other day as a means to kill Shizuo. Fortunately for the man—and Akane—Shinra had modified the device while Akane was sleeping to ensure it wouldn’t be fatal.

Of course, nonfatal is not the same thing as nondebilitating.

Froth bubbled out the man’s mouth and nose before he could even scream. Akane switched the stun gun off immediately and hid behind Mairu.

Why does she have a stun gun? Vorona wondered. Well…after what just happened to her, I suppose she was given one for protection. But she seems very adept with it…

Vorona pondered this question as she knocked out the men one after the other. At first, she assumed that this was a hit squad sent by someone seeking revenge against her or perhaps some new group of kidnappers to abduct Akane Awakusu after she had failed.

“Sh-shit! What’s up with these bitches?!” the men wailed in panic.

“Who said kidnapping them would work against Shizuo? Whose bright idea was this?!”

At this, Vorona suddenly understood.

Aha… We’re supposed to be hostages against Shizuo… They wanted to take down Shizuo Heiwajima.

She suddenly realized she was smiling. Don’t make me laugh.

A man lunged for her from the side, and she stomped her heel hard onto the top of his foot. When he grunted and lurched forward, she spun and slammed her knee into the bridge of his nose.

You think you…are capable of toppling him?

Recall.

Recall.

Those who you destroyed in the past.

These men here are nothing but soft putty, a far cry from even those old victims.

But as she knocked them out left and right with her bare hands, Vorona began to recall other things.

Her own nature, forgotten after consecutive defeats.

Her pathological urges that she could not control.

It’s not enough. These men are not enough. Humanity is…not this frail. Shizuo Heiwajima…is not this frail!

The urge to destroy, which had given her so much pleasure, came to her under the guise of finding out if humanity really was a frail thing. But that urge, which meant nothing more to her than an excuse to kill for pleasure, was now changing in subtle ways.

Strong… I want to be strong.

Strong like that man, harder than diamond and vaster than the tundra forests! If I can destroy Shizuo Heiwajima, then perhaps…I can gain fulfillment I shall never find elsewhere.

These thoughts roared through her mind as she kicked, struck, toppled, and overwhelmed the men—a forced smile plastered across her face.

She told herself that it would only be a true smile when she defeated Shizuo.

“Uh, cr-crap! Let’s pull back!”

The men fled in panic, totally unprepared for the resistance they received. They raced for their vans, but one of them was already pulling away.

“H-hey, you idiot! Wait, don’t lea…”

But once they got to the street, they realized why the car took off. From the other end of the street, two men with distinctive appearances were approaching—one in a bartender outfit, the other with dreads.

“I-it’s…Shizuo!”

“Quick, get in!”

They piled into the remaining car as if they were fleeing from some horrifying dinosaur, some of them even hanging off the door handles as it pulled away.

Tom watched in confusion as the cars full of screaming men departed. “What the hell was that all about? Did they have a fight?”

Shizuo glanced toward the temple, saw that Akane and the other women were all standing around normally, then shook his head and remarked, “Fighting right in front of the goddess Kishimojin. Have they no shame?”

As a matter of fact, the men had been attempting something far worse than a simple fight; fortunately, their plot ended in spectacular failure.

The men raced off out of sight, too terrified to consider their good fortune that they were not spotted in the act by Shizuo.

“…There was a mistake in my answer to your prior question,” Vorona murmured as the man in the bartender getup approached. She was back to her usual stony expression, and her voice was so quiet that only Akane heard her.

“Huh…?” the girl said, confused.

Vorona didn’t bother to stay quiet. She came right out and said, “Shizuo Heiwajima. He is my prey. Eventually, I will destroy him. That is truth.”

“…! N-no! You can’t!” Akane pleaded. She tugged on Vorona’s trousers. “I’m going to beat Big Brother Shizuo!”

Young as she was, even Akane couldn’t have described exactly what emotion it was that had just risen within her heart. She simply heard Vorona say that she would destroy Shizuo, and that complex interplay of emotions delivered a single answer to her.

I need to kill Big Brother Shizuo. But I don’t want to… Umm, umm…

She wasn’t able to find a way to rephrase her words, so all she could come up with was a vague follow-up.

“I have to do something about Big Brother Shizuo!”

“…Answer is unclear. Please provide reason that you hold ownership of my prey.”

“I…I don’t know all that complicated stuff!” Akane argued back. Meanwhile, Mairu and Kururi simply watched the argument, wide-eyed. It was just then that Tom showed up.

“Huh? Where’s Shizuo?” Mairu asked.

Tom gestured over his shoulder with his chin.

“Just getting a can of coffee from the vending machine back there,” he said before noticing the argument going on. “Hey, what’s…?”

“Shizuo is mine.”

“No! You can’t touch Big Brother Shizuo!”

“…………? …?!”

Huh?!

This development was so abrupt and absurd that Tom’s eyes grew to the size of golf balls behind his glasses.

W-wait…what?! What’s going on here?! When did the situation turn into…this?!

Meanwhile, Shizuo finished up his coffee and reentered the temple grounds.

“Big Brother Shizuo!”

“Hey. Have you been getting along with them?” he asked Akane, rubbing her head. She turned and glared daggers back at Vorona.

Shizuo never saw the fireworks going off between them.

“Dammit! What the hell was that? Who were those chicks?!” one of the thugs ranted back at their hideout, yanking his ski mask off.

They were the remnants of a street gang crushed by Shizuo in the past. The few that remained back at the base rushed up to see what happened.

“What do you mean? You guys failed?!”

“Well, I guess I see why she’s Shizuo’s woman… Damn it all!”

“I wouldn’t worry too much. We can wait for that kid with the stun gun to start walking alone and nab her then.”

“Yeah, we left a few back there to keep an eye out. As long as they keep watching, the chicks’ll definitely split up, so we can get them one by one,” one of the returning men bragged. He hadn’t learned his lesson yet.

Of course, these were guys who’d been beaten by Shizuo once and were actually going for a second attempt—learning wasn’t their strong suit.

In this particular case, they weren’t going to get a second attempt.

“Are these your lookouts?”

There were some dull, heavy thuds at the entrance, where two large lumps of flesh were now placed. The men were unconscious, their faces red and swollen.

Then the people who brought them back to that pummeled state entered the hideout.

“What?! Who the…fu…?”

They were very menacing figures, over ten in total. These men wore a variety of outfits—black suits, sweat suits, work clothes—but all of them contained that air of deadly seriousness that marked them as being of a professional nature.

“Who was it you said you were going to kidnap?”

“Er, uh…”

“Going after Miss Akane, of all people? Did y’all want to be metal men that bad? Should we go take a trip to the smelting tank and see what happens?”

“Eh…? Eh…?!”

These men were all part of the Awakusu-kai.

Some members who had been secretly keeping watch over Akane saw that she was making contact with Vorona and called for backup—then the gang attacked and was promptly beaten, only for a few of them to return to the scene as lookouts.

The Awakusu men subdued them without drawing Akane’s attention and worked the location of the hideout out of the hapless lookouts. Naturally, the thugs had no idea who Akane was or what she represented, so this was all a terrifying mystery to them.

“Wait…! Hang on, we don’t know… We were just… Shizuo?”

“Save your breath. We can hear all the details back at the office. Get your story straight now while you have the chance.”

“W-wait, no…”

“See, if your story is bad, then the next step is coming up with your last will and testament—not that we’re actually going to pass it on.”

The Awakusu-kai men got right to work with clinical precision. Given that they were merely taking some punks who got beat up by a group of girls back to the office, it was a very, very easy job indeed—one they conducted without mercy.

And that was how rumor and hearsay contributed to the downfall of one particular gang.

Ikebukuro

Akane and the twins left, so the debt-collecting trio headed off to its next job.

Tom kept glancing toward Shizuo as they walked, occasionally offering a cryptic comment.

“…Well, given who your brother is, I guess you’ve got the looks…”

“What’s up, Tom? You’ve been acting weird.”

“Nah…it’s nothing. Ignore me.”

“?”

Shizuo was still curious, but he gave up asking Tom. Instead, he turned around to Vorona.

“By the way, Vorona…”

“What is it?”

“Have you and I met somewhere before?”

“…?!”

Did he figure it out? Vorona wondered, instantly tense.

She’d had her face covered, and the only words she’d said to him were “Motorbike is mine.”

The bike in question had been destroyed, and there was a firefight following that, but she’d been in her riding suit and full helmet the entire time, so he hadn’t seen her face. Still, a perceptive person might have noticed.

She decided to take great care with her answer. “It is secret. Do you mind that I wish to refuse the answer?”

“…”

Shizuo didn’t reply. He walked over to a nearby vending machine and bought a can of coffee. It seemed strange, since he’d just had one a moment earlier—but this one he gave to Vorona.

“?”

“It’s on me.”

“…”

“See…before now, I bounced around between a lot of jobs… It’s the first time I’ve ever had a junior coworker to mentor,” Shizuo said with a grin. “Tell you what, I’ll let go of the fine details. You seemed like you were getting along with Akane, and if Simon introduced you to us, I’m sure you’re a good person.”

“…”

It’s like he’s a completely different person from when he kicked that car. And I still can’t tell if he realizes who I am or not.

“Well, here’s to a good working relationship,” Shizuo said and pressed the can of coffee against Vorona’s cheek. It squashed the flesh out of shape, but her expression was still as blank as ever.

“…Fwank you.”

Shizuo Heiwajima… What a strange man.

As far as she knew, he was the toughest human alive. Yet she still knew nothing about him.

Over time, I shall learn more and more. And once I know everything, I will destroy him. That is my reason for living, Vorona decided and drank the coffee.

It tasted rich and dark, with just a little bit of sugar. Oddly, it seemed rather sweet to her.

Vorona turned to Shizuo, face as impassive as ever.

“…Thank you…sir.”

“H-hey, did you hear?!”

“The guys going after Shizuo got nabbed by the Awakusu-kai.”

“For real?”    “How come?!”    “Guess his bird’s an Awakusu relative.”

“What does that mean?”    “Is Shizuo the Awakusu-kai heir?”

The absurd rumors circled all over Ikebukuro, changing constantly.

“You hear? Did you hear, man?!”

“Shizuo’s the secret love child of the Awakusu-kai chairman?!” “Whoa, really?!”

“Yeah, with a Russian woman!”    “So that’s why Shizuo’s blond!”

“I thought that was hair dye?    “Crazy!”    “Okay, don’t mess with him.”

“I’m not scared!”    “But who wants to make an enemy of the Awakusu-kai?”

And once the rumors got truly absurd, those half-hearted ruffians immediately believed in them.

They had no choice. They had to believe them. Many wished it to be true with all their heart.

I really, really don’t want to have to deal with a monster like Shizuo.

This wasn’t the hope that they might actually beat him—it was even more powerful, something like basic animal instinct.

So they clung to the rumors. As long as the rumors were true, they had a valid reason to fear Shizuo. Where before they could not shy away from one man and retain their pride, the presence of the Awakusu-kai backbone gave them a proper rationale for not attacking the individual in question.

And that secret desire of theirs gave birth to more rumors.

Several months later, a third-rate tabloid took the story seriously and wrote an article proclaiming, “Yuuhei Hanejima’s Grandfather: Yakuza Boss?!” Not only did they get into trouble with his talent agency, it also attracted the attention of the Awakusu-kai, nearly putting the publisher into bankruptcy.

But that’s another story.

New rumors were born every day, racing through Ikebukuro—to serve as a bridge between the ordinary and extraordinary, between people and city.

“Hey… Did you hear?”