“Either she’s more cautious than I thought, or something tipped her off to impending danger. Maybe she was supposed to get periodic messages from Slon. Or maybe all the houses on this street are under her Saika’s control, and she’s had tabs on us the entire time.”
“Wouldn’t it be dangerous to stay here, then?” Mikage asked.
Izaya never let the smile leave his face. “Considering Saika’s power, you’re in danger no matter where you are. I will say that when one of the Yodogiris stabbed me while I was on vacation up north in Tohoku, that took me by surprise.”
“When I saw it on the news, I wasn’t sure how to react.”
“I was curious what you’d all think, too. I wish I could’ve had a good long chance to observe it. When I called who I thought was my closest friend to break the news, he said, ‘Oh,’ and hung up on me.”
“Can you…even call that a friend…?” wondered Mikage. It occurred to Izaya that she was still very much ordinary and in possession of a commonsense outlook on life.
“Well, in a way, I consider myself lucky to have been stabbed. It brought me back to my roots in many aspects, and I did get to meet Mamiya again.”
“Who’s Mamiya?”
From the corner of the room, Kine answered, “That young lady with the rather gloomy demeanor.”
“Yes! Well done, Mr. Kine! You remembered. She’s Manami Mamiya.”
“Oh, right, that girl who was staring daggers at you. What did you do to her?” asked Mikage suspiciously, but Izaya shrugged the question off.
“I didn’t do anything. I just lied and asked if she wanted to commit suicide together, then slipped her a drink with sleeping pills to knock her out.”
“…”
Her stare grew colder and colder, to which Izaya just laughed and waved his hand.
“Oh, come on, Mikage. I didn’t do the kind of things you’re thinking of. But as the girls were falling asleep, they did claim they’d kill me. One of the two of them saw my name on the news and visited my hospital within the span of a single day to come kill me… Don’t you think that’s lovely?”
“I wish she’d seen it through.”
“How cruel.”
“Don’t worry, I’d avenge you,” said Mikage, two clauses that were at odds with each other.
Izaya was going to tease her more, but Kine, who was looking at his watch, said, “Nine o’clock.”
“Oh? So it is. What is that supposed to mean?”
“The time the hospital opens. Go and take a visit,” he ordered.
“…Wait, are you talking to me?” Izaya asked. “Goodness, I know I got a little bruised, but the hospital would be a dramatic choice of action.”
“You hit the back of your head. That kind of damage shows up later. Go and get checked out,” said Kine, as he stared at nothing.
Izaya sighed and answered, “I told you, I’m fine. You’re such a worrywart, Mr. Kine…”
“Go and get checked.”
“I told you, I’m fine. I don’t even feel nauseous.”
Kine lifted his cold eyes up to fix on Izaya. He repeated himself.
“Get checked by a doctor.”
“…All right, I’ll do it. I feel like you’re going to kill me if I keep refusing,” Izaya said with a smirk, standing up to face the outside. “I suppose I could pay a visit to Dotachin while I’m there.”
Mikage parted the blinds with her fingers and watched Izaya as he left the house. Someone from Dragon Zombie was going to drive him close to the hospital, but any more protection than that was going to cause unwanted attention.
She sighed, removed her fingers, and asked the other man, “Kine, right? I dunno much about you. How’d you end up working with Izaya, huh?”
“Etiquette.”
“Huh?”
“When interacting with your elders who are still unfamiliar to you, utilize polite etiquette. Once you’re closer, then you can find out if it’s okay for you to speak to them as an equal,” Kine instructed.
Mikage looked away and scratched her ear guiltily. “Wow, you talk like my old man…uh, sir.”
“President Sharaku is strict on such things, isn’t he?”
“…You know about my old man?”
“My old partner learned something about fighting with a quarterstaff at your family’s gym.”
Something about that particular keyword gave Mikage pause, and a moment later, she asked, “Are you talking about…Mr. Akabayashi?”
“Yeah. Haven’t seen him in a while, though.”
“So…are you saying you came from that line of work…?”
“I got outta the business a while back. Now I’m a private eye. But it’s really more of an odd-jobs business most of the time,” Kine said, only relaying the minimum of necessary information. But after another pause, he did say, “I keep my work pretty cut-and-dried, but I will say this. A young lady like you with a future ahead of you would do best not getting involved with kids like Izaya.”
“Oh, I know. Believe me, I do,” Mikage said, cracking her neck and reflecting on the past. “I ended up quitting school because of him. Not that I regret it.”
“Actually, I heard about that one from Akabayashi.”
“…”
“You ought to be careful. The Awakusu-kai have their eye on him. That’s fine—the problem is when they decide to reach out. Akabayashi probably wouldn’t bother with you. He’d focus on Izaya,” Kine said, totally still, doling out basic truths like a stereo speaker. “But Aozaki would come for the throat of anyone, women and children included. Even an old associate like me. And Shiki and Kazamoto are probably somewhere in between.”
He paused for breath. “My point is, when the Awakusu-kai decides it’s time to act, Izaya is done for, no matter how he struggles. So my advice is just don’t leave your tail exposed in a way that makes them want to grab it.”
Then he looked right at Mikage and said flatly, “Are you going to stick with him anyway?”
She briefly considered that he might actually be concerned for her sake and produced an expression of considerable conflict.
“Look, I know he’s not up to any good,” she said with the faintest smirk, plopping into a nearby chair, “but the thing about Izaya is, he’s fair to everyone. He’ll march right into your business and toss around good things and bad things in equal measure. He doesn’t care if you like him or hate him. In that sense, I think that makes him more likable than the folks who are only obsessed with keeping up appearances.”
“…I see,” was all Kine said. He didn’t ask anything else.
But Mikage thought back on the past, her face a mask, and muttered, “I agree it’s better not to get involved with him, though. Like in my case, Izaya’s a kind of poison. Once you’ve got him in your veins, you just go kind of crazy… In my case, that poison saved me. But plenty of folks fall into ruin. I think of him as an extreme form of medicine.”
“Because such things, depending on how you use them, can save you or kill you,” Kine agreed. But he chose not to inquire further about her past. “Just keep in mind, he ain’t some bottle of pills without a mind of its own.”
“The problem is, at the end of the day, he’s as damn human a person as you’ll ever find.”
Raira General Hospital
“What’s the matter, Anri? You’re looking rather frightening.”
“Why…what are you doing here…?” Anri asked, her breathing heavy. Izaya Orihara shrugged.
“Is it that surprising to you that I would pay a hospital visit to Dotachin?”
Karisawa answered in Anri’s stead. “Surprising isn’t the word I’d use for it, Iza-Iza.”
She had noticed the change in Anri’s demeanor after Izaya showed up and pushed herself into the space between them. “It’d make much more sense if you came here to tell Dotachin a bunch of nonsense to get him worked up, or if you were involved in the hit-and-run and you were just coming to monitor how it was turning out,” she said.
; Although she was smiling, her eyes were slightly narrower than usual, as if she indeed believed those possibilities were valid.
“Oh, please. I don’t have a car, and I have no reason to hit Dotachin. But I do sell information, as it happens. I’ll contact you if I find out anything about who did it. Normally, I’d charge fifty thousand yen, but I can give you the acquaintance discount. Only forty.”
“You’ll take that forty thousand and donate it all to Dotachin’s hospital bill, I presume?”
“Oh, please. Don’t you know that the number four means ‘death’? Not an auspicious number to spend on a hospital patient, is it?”
As they jousted, not at all clear how much was a joke and how much was serious, Anri went through a furious routine of self-questioning.
Izaya Orihara.
Why is he here?
Did he come for me?
To visit Kadota? No, he wouldn’t.
He’s not that kind of person.
Is he involved? With what? How much?
Instantaneous questions floated into her head, and they all coalesced into one idea.
Mikado Ryuugamine.
Masaomi Kida.
Or put another way, the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves.
Two groups acting in inexplicable ways, and the two boys who seemed involved with them.
“Did you…do something?”
“Hmm? What do you mean by ‘something’?”
“Did you do something…to Ryuugamine and Kida…?”
A rare note of genuine anger in her voice caused Karisawa to turn toward her. “Anri?” There was just a bit of surprise in her expression.
Anri Sonohara was glaring at Izaya Orihara, her eyes wide with open menace—and tinted with a faint reddish light.
The light was faint enough that even a fluorescent would drown it out easily, but for that one moment, Anri’s eyes were most certainly glowing red.
But even then, this phenomenon only registered with Karisawa as a “bit of surprise.”
For his part, Izaya wasn’t startled in the least. He chuckled and answered, “Your suspicions are correct. They’re not misplaced. If I were in your position, I would be skeptical of Izaya Orihara, too. Although I wouldn’t be shining those inhuman eyes at people that way.”
“A-answer my question please!”
Was the cold sweat that ran down her cheek out of fear of Izaya or panic at the idea that she might not be able to control her own power?
Even she was shocked. Anri never considered that meeting Izaya again might bring such a churn of fierce emotion to her breast.
The moment that she had first met Izaya was also the time she had first met Mikado. It was the day she was saved when ganged up on by a trio of girls. (Technically, she had seen Mikado at the entrance test for the school, but that particular day was the first time they had actually talked.)
She’d felt something strange about Izaya since then. Even in that first meeting, she could tell that he was not like ordinary people. Then again, after the impact of Shizuo Heiwajima’s entrance, that initial impression had been all but forgotten.
Once after that, Anri had met Izaya in Shinjuku at night with the intent to slash him. But she did not succeed. In fact, he actually declared war on her that night.
“People belong to me. I won’t let a stupid sword take them away.”
And after that missive, he had left her behind and vanished into the night.
She did not think that their next meeting after that one would come in this fashion. If anything, she had hoped never to see him again.
But Anri was not so foolish or naive as to think that his appearance here was a simple coincidence.
Although, in the sense that he had come to a hospital at all, it really was a coincidence.
But Izaya could turn a coincidence into a matter of fate.
“Very well. I will answer your question. Yes, you’re right to be skeptical of me, but your timing is poor. I haven’t been directly messing with Ryuugamine or Kida lately.”
“…I can’t simply take your word for that.”
“It’s true. And I can tell you why.”
Without realizing it, Anri’s brows knitted.
She was ten feet from Izaya.
If she produced her katana from within, she could reach him in a single leap.
But she wasn’t interested in cutting Izaya and taking him over right now. Too much time had passed since that night in Shinjuku.
It was only half a year, but to a girl at a turbulent period in her life, it was plenty enough time for her emotions to settle.
She hadn’t forgiven him, and she wasn’t letting down her guard. But in order to cut him, she’d need another push, another reason driving her to do it.
If only she had the power to see through lies, she wished. But Anri could not read the minds of others. The only means she had was to control them with Saika and force them to speak their thoughts aloud.
And Saika was quiet now. Either she was figuring out how to treat Izaya Orihara, the man who challenged her to a war, or she was still full of hatred and disgust at him.
“Please explain why,” Anri said, quietly controlling her breathing.
Izaya shrugged again but grinned like a little boy. “Because that part’s supposed to come after this.”
“…Huh?” she said, blinking. In the moment, she didn’t understand what he meant by that. The words made sense, but what reason would he have to tell a joke about that in this situation?
Karisawa, however, had known Izaya a little bit longer than her. “Ugh,” she groaned. “What a bastard.”
The man dressed all in black cackled at the different reactions. “Oh yes, it’s true. Your suspicions are correct. Interesting things are happening with both Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida at the moment. If I had to use an analogy…it’s like they’re crossing a tightrope between two cliffs. Can you imagine that? Two friends, crossing on a rope, between two cliffs.”
Anri lost her focus in organizing how she should be feeling about this and allowed herself to be distractedly swept along by Izaya’s strange analogy.
“Do you have the image in your head? Here’s the next step. There’s another rope connecting each of their necks. If one of them slips, he pulls the other down with him. If the other one manages to cling to the rope, it just means all the weight is hanging from his neck. Rather hair-raising, don’t you think?”
“…”
Anri couldn’t say a thing. She imagined the vision that Izaya was painting, and the symbolism of it matched up perfectly with the anxiety she’d felt about Mikado for the past few months.
“Let’s continue this exercise. The people around them are reacting in myriad ways. There’s a guy trying to charge money to watch, some kids who are jumping around on the rope too for fun, some Goody Two-shoes dragging rescue mats around at the bottom of the cliff, even some folks just having a nice fistfight independent of the tightrope altogether.”
Izaya leaned against the wall of the hospital corridor, speaking just quietly enough to avoid the attention of the hospital employees. “And I’m watching this unfold and thinking to myself.”
After that whole descriptive detour, he finally brought Anri to the answer. “Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida are engaging in this meaningless rope crossing. So I wonder, How will they react if I light both ends of the rope on fire?”
“…?!”
Instantly, Anri felt as though something were clutching her heart. Her chest squeezed hard, like it was trying to force as much blood as possible to her brain.
Despite not moving an inch, her breath was racing as she asked, voice trembling, “Why…why would you do such a thing?”
His answer was very simple and the sort of thing that anyone who knew Izaya Orihara would consider to be totally true to his character: “I just want to see it. I want to know what they’ll do in that situation.”
This time, she really did tense up. The same chill she’d felt on that night in
Shinjuku raced up her spine.
“If they safely get off that rope, it just means the same old situation will continue. Yes, everything will wrap up nice and neat, but to me, that means we’re losing sight of their true human nature. I do love boys and girls living peaceful, safe lives, of course…but I want to see what might happen with Ryuugamine and Kida because of who they are.”
“I don’t understand. What…what meaning could there be…? What purpose are you fulfilling by…?”
Anri’s mind was full not of anger or despair but of pure confusion. She couldn’t understand Izaya. She was simply unable to fathom his logic of doing something because he “wanted to see it happen.”
It was like a serial killer saying, “I killed because the sky is blue.” Anri Sonohara could not adjust the signal of her logical antenna to pick up the channel that Izaya operated on. Perhaps their wavelengths were farther apart than different channels. Maybe they were more like analog signal versus digital or even television and radio.
“What meaning? Well, let’s see: curiosity, inquisitiveness, pleasure. You can call me whatever you want, but whenever I’m asked that question, I always say these things. In fact, I’m pretty sure I said this before.”
Then, with an invincible smile, Izaya revealed the pure, honest truth of his heart.
“It’s because I love people.”
“…”
In the absence of any response from Anri, he continued, proud and clear.
“I love people. I’m in love with humanity.”
With a smile of all-encompassing benevolence directed to empty space, he murmured, “When people all over the world do things, no matter how foolish those around them believe them to be, no matter how hideous and detestable, I will accept and cherish them all. With one specific exception.”
It was a monologue for the benefit of the world at large.
“So why wouldn’t I believe it’s okay to do anything to the people of the world?”
“The result is that I can love everyone equally—even the girl who so hated me that she sought me out to kill me in revenge.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 11 Page 6
