“Orders from Matsu-what?” repeated Mikage, who didn’t know any Russian.
Slon ignored her and took another step closer. Then he hurled the unconscious Izaya toward Mikage.
But she kicked Izaya’s body directly back at Slon, and while he was busy receiving the impact, leaped to the side. She kept launching herself—off the car, off the wall of the garage—gaining altitude until she could issue a vicious kick at Slon’s head. He only barely avoided it in time.
“Very good, young lady.”
“Don’t dodge, you big lummox,” she snapped back, glaring at Slon from the roof of the car. The man tossed Izaya onto the garage floor and took distance from Mikage.
Suddenly, pain shot through his lower back, like his internal organs had just exploded, and Slon fell to the floor without even a scream.
“…It’s over,” said a man with a shaved head to Mikage, clicking off the baton-type stun gun in his hand.
But she just surveyed the man with a grumpy look on her face and said, “Hey, I was just getting to the good part. Why’d you have to interfere, Kine?”
“Because it’s my job,” said the man, who removed a pair of thumbcuffs from his pocket and placed them on the hapless man now foaming at the mouth. A shot to the kidneys was said to be the most painful place to receive a zap from a stun gun, and Slon had taken one for several seconds. The only way you could tell he wasn’t dead was all the twitching.
Mikage sensed that their conversation wasn’t going to end in any consensus, so she gave up on complaining and hopped off the car. “You know, for being a master mercenary from Russia, he didn’t put up much resistance to your sneak attack. So should I be praising your skill instead?”
“Nah… He wasn’t using all his ability. Kinda felt like he was under something else’s control, so that probably dulled his senses a bit.”
“…True, his eyes were bloodshot. Kinda like the folks that Haruna beat, now that I think of it.”
Haruna Niekawa was originally a child of Saika, a victim of Sayaka Sonohara, but she had conquered the curse and learned to wield its power for her own ends. Later, Anri Sonohara cut her, too, placing another layer of the curse upon her—but she broke free of that as well and was now lurking somewhere in Ikebukuro as a collaborator of Izaya’s.
After a period of silence, Mikage suggested, “Do you think…she betrayed Izaya?”
“I dunno. But as far as I know, this house isn’t owned by the Awakusu-kai,” said Kine. With Slon’s feet cuffed up, too, he turned his attention to the other man lying on the floor. “Let’s hear what you think, Izaya Orihara.”
And then the man who was supposedly unconscious lifted his head and smiled at them.
“Oh, goodness, when did you see through my pretend-sleeping, Mr. Kine?”
“When Miss Sharaku there kicked you, I saw how you gritted your teeth. So how long have you been awake?”
“Since about when the car pulled into this garage. I figured it was better to stay down for the time being,” Izaya offered. He gave Mikage an awkward grimace. “I didn’t expect he was going to use my body as a physical diversion, and I definitely didn’t expect that you would kick me back at him. Er, sorry, I lied there—actually, I had a feeling it would happen, which is why I gritted my teeth in the moment.”
“Oh…should I have kicked you in a more painful way?”
“No, thank you. You might’ve cracked my ribs,” he said, laughing her suggestion off as he looked down at Slon. Then he cleared up their suspicions, as though being an info dealer meant he was obliged to explain: “Yes, Slon was under Saika’s control. But it was neither Anri Sonohara nor Haruna Niekawa who was in control.”
“Ohh.”
“It was Kasane Kujiragi. She also possesses Saika.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mikage wondered.
Izaya chuckled. “We’ll have plenty of time later for me to explain it to you.” Then he took a look around the garage and smiled. “This was quite a stroke of good fortune. The moment I declared war on Jinnai Yodogiri…er, on Kasane Kujiragi, I find out the location of one of her secret hideouts!”
“…I assume you’ll explain that part later, too.”
“But of course! One thing is certain: If we wait here, we should be able to meet Kujiragi in person eventually. She’s just expecting that Slon will have me trussed up and on the verge of death.”
“So with that out of the way…shall we set up a surprise party and hide?”
Kawagoe Highway—Shinra’s apartment
“Okay, so let’s put all this information together,” Celty typed, now that she had heard everyone out at last. She shrugged her shoulders to mimic taking a deep breath. “First of all, Yumasaki and the driver are searching for whoever hit Kadota. And because they were attacked on the way, they needed somewhere to hide for a moment and chose this place.”
Sweat drop running down his forehead, Togusa asked, “Um…do you not remember my name or something…?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“You could at least come up with an excuse! It’s Togusa, okay! Written with ‘crossing’ and ‘grass,’ because if you cross Ruri around me, your ass is grass!” he wailed, even getting a little bit teary-eyed. It seemed that receiving an honest apology was only making him feel more miserable.
Once she had properly apologized to him again, Celty continued, “So Namie Yagiri was attacked by her uncle named Seitarou and the secretary of someone named Yodogiri, because they wanted my head. And according to Shingen, it’s the secretary, named Kujiragi, who’s actually controlling this Yodogiri person.”
“Well, there was a real Jinnai Yodogiri who was the true mastermind, but he’s dead at this point,” Shingen added.
“I see,” Celty typed. “And Seiji and Mika sensed they were in danger of being taken hostage, so they came here.”
“That’s right. Mika warned me about this. And we thought that since Dr. Kishitani works in the black market, he might know good places to hide.”
“Okay… I’ll be honest, that’s very perceptive of you, Mika.”
“Yes. I had Yagiri Pharmaceuticals bugged, and when I heard them talking about that on the tape, I got so scared…”
“…Well, what you just said was scary in a different sense, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear it,” Celty typed, sensing her very mind sweating. “At any rate, we’ve learned that Izaya’s even scummier than I imagined. I need to track him down and squeeze the head out of his grasp.”
“Celty!” shouted Shinra in consternation.
“Don’t worry, Shinra,” she typed. “I’ll get the head back without touching it directly and have Shingen’s company hold on to it. I don’t mind a bit of research, but I’ll make sure we have a deal so that they’re not mutilating it.”
Then she stopped to think for a bit and added, “If I do take the head back for myself, it’ll be decades in the future. After I’ve already outlived you, Shinra.”
“Celty…!” he repeated, enraptured.
But the elder Kishitani tossed cold water onto the scene: “Now just a moment, Celty! I’ve got two problems with your idea!”
“…What are they?” she typed, infusing her motions with disappointment to make up for the lack of visual organs to side-eye him with.
Shingen puffed out his chest and boomed, “First! Are you confusing Nebula with some kind of unconditional storage safe that is at your disposal whenever you want?!”
“I said you could study it, so if anything, I’d expect you to be grateful…but fine, point taken. What’s the other thing?”
“You just called me Shingen! I seem to recall that I demanded you refer to me as ‘Father’ or ‘Papa’!”
“Shut up!”
Just then, Shingen’s new wife Emilia emerged from the other room, grinning, and exhibited some of her unusual Japanese. “Yes, most understooded. I have no problem of Nebula taking claiming of Celty’s head.”
“E-Emilia. You really shouldn’t—”
“It is fine. As long as enough coaxing is coaxed, all will be well.”
“Who’s going to do the coaxing? The company or me…?” Celty asked, then decided she really didn’t want to know. She turned her attention to Namie to ask about the man who had the head now. “What is Izaya actually plotting? Does he have collaborators working with him?”
Namie looked away as she considered this, then glared back at Celty with unconcealed disgust. “I’m under no obligation to answer that. I’m grateful to that freak dressed in white for saving me, but don’t forget that I have nothing in my heart for you but hatred.”
“Wait…what did I do to deserve that…? I know I helped Mikado and ruined your research team, but that was just what you guys deserved…”
“That doesn’t matter! I hate you because of how your head has seduced my poor Seiji!”
“That one definitely isn’t my fault!” she typed as quickly as if she had screamed it.
But that didn’t do a thing to extinguish the fires of Namie’s misplaced hatred. “If you demand that I produce the answers or leave, I will walk right out of that door without a moment’s pause.”
Then she pointed at Shingen and, as if to change the subject, said, “Oh, right. One more thing: That freak dressed in white was perfectly aware that Izaya had the head, too. He’s known for a while.”
“Wha…?! This is the precise situation where you play it cool and keep things like that to yourself, Namie!” Shingen protested. “I was successfully dodging around the topic by acting like a perv, and now you’ve gone and ruined it!”
Celty turned slowly. “Shingen Kishitani… You again…”
Shingen briefly tried to avoid her attention, then gave up and sighed through his gas mask.
“Well…I suppose there’s no use trying to hide it now. Yes, I knew where the head was, but I admit that I let Orihara go, because I was curious about how he would use it and what the results of his approach would be, coming from a different perspective than Nebula’s. Perhaps he could have gotten ahead of us!”
“Huh? …Oh, that was a pun. It’s hard to understand what you’re going for when they’re pronounced the same way, idiot!”
“I am not an idiot! I am your father-in-law, and you should address me as such!”
“Shut up, freak!”
Celty badly wanted to tie him up with her shadow, but it didn’t feel right to do it while Emilia was watching, so she kept her fury confined to words for now. That was the end of that topic, which left Celty uncertain of how she should bring up the topic of the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves.
How should I do this? Will talking about me and Mikado just make things even more confusing and chaotic here? After all, it involves Mr. Akabayashi and the Awakusu-kai, too. Namie and Shingen are one thing, but the kids like Yumasaki and Mika don’t deserve to be dragged into that.
When Shinra noticed that she wasn’t typing into her PDA anymore, he spoke up. “Well, in any case, the question now is, ‘What do we do?’”
“Shinra?”
“Look, we’re all here now, right? It must mean something. Shall the whole group of us gathered here collaborate on something? I know it’s a bit overblown, but we could be a team or a gang.”
“Like the Dollars?” Togusa asked skeptically.
Shinra shook his head. “No, we’re not a color-based gang. We’re not here because we wanted to be like the Dollars or Yellow Scarves, are we?”
“Yeah, if anything, it’s mostly coincidence that brings us together.”
“We’re here because we share certain interests. We ought to be able to provide helpful information to one another. We’re like a fraternal society with the same goals… Like a…ah yes, almost like a guild, you could say.”
“Sounds like you’ve been playing too many MMOs.” Togusa laughed, but Yumasaki’s eyes blazed as he shot to his feet.
“Yes! Agreed! A guild! It’s perfect! It has just the right level of fantasy to it! A guild! The guild of guilds! The rhythm just makes your heart sing!”
“Calm down, Yumasaki,” Togusa snapped, but his companion’s enthusiasm could not be dashed.
“But we should at least give ourselves a name, like the Assassins Guild or the Thieves Guild! Hey, we could take it from the name of the sorcerer’s guild from my online role-playing chat room and call it Shadows of the Emperor! Or maybe Queens of Nightmares! Or the Giantess Who Strides Across the Sky!”
Shinra laughed. “Well, we can figure that out later. But I think Celty should be our guild leader. Since like us, she doesn’t have any real power but does have the ability to get people to hear her out.”
“Huh?!” she typed, thrusting the message at Shinra while making a shocked gesture. “Hang on! I don’t get where you’re going with this! Why me?!”
“Well, Celty, you’re involved in a bunch of different incidents already, so it just seems like it’d be easier to have all the information gather around you.”
“B-but…I get the feeling that’s just going to bring down more and more trouble…,” she protested.
From his seated position on the wheelchair, Shinra bowed his head. “Please, Celty. I’ll take responsibility for the outcome.”
“W-wow, well, if you’re asking that seriously… But what will the other people say?” she asked, checking around the room. No one seemed to be protesting. Namie had no interest in the fraternal society at all and was staring at her brother’s face.
“Look, if you don’t like it, you can just quit. It’s only a tentative plan. I’ll help as much as I can. Please, Celty.”
“…All right. I guess I’m in, everybody.”
Yumasaki was the first to applaud, and after that, Shingen, Emilia, Mika, and Seiji joined in.
“Geez, you’re making me self-conscious…”
Celty felt like she’d been nominated to be class representative, a very unfamiliar feeling. On the inside, her body blushed.
It was the birth of a tiny organization that was not at all organized.
And a few days later, this organization would have an effect on the power balance between the gangs of Ikebukuro—but no one here could have imagined it yet.
Even Shinra, the very person who had proposed the group, was in no way prepared for the way it changed the situation.
Chat room
Mai: I don’t like being lonely.
Mai: Get fun.
Kuru has left the chat.
Mai has left the chat.
The chat room is currently empty.
The chat room is currently empty.
The chat room is currently empty.
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The chat room is currently empty.
The chat room is currently empty.
The chat room is currently empty.
Sharo has entered the chat.
Sharo: Heya.
Sharo: Dang, I showed up right after Kuru-Mai left.
Sharo: Well, that sucks.
Sharo has left the chat.
Mai has entered the chat.
Kuru has entered the chat.
Kuru: Oh my, finally someone else shows up, and it is in the little while we were gone.
Kuru: Why must Sharo be so impatient, one wonders? Ladies do not like an impatient gentleman.
Mai: Good evening.
Mai: It’s too bad.
100% Pure Water has entered the chat.
100% Pure Water: Good evening.
Kuru: Oh my, welcome. We were just so terribly lonely that the pangs of body and heart were reaching a peak.
Kuru: It would not have been long before Mai and I were left with no option but to caress each other’s mental scars. Thankfully, you have saved us from that.
100% Pure Water: Eww, geez, Kuru!
sed in public?
Durarara!!, Vol. 11 Page 4
