Durarara!!, Vol. 11

by Ryohgo Narita

  “…Meow. Meow-meow.”

  Not only was she doing it without expression, she wasn’t even mimicking the wheedling tones of an actual cat, just saying the word meow in a deadpan monotone. It was like one of those computer-generated voices programmed to read your e-mail out loud.

  No one aside from her could possibly know what was going through her mind as she did this, but it did suggest that she viewed cats with some fondness. She began rifling through her pockets for some kind of food to offer them.

  She didn’t find anything and eventually realized that it probably wasn’t good to give food to stray cats anyway, so she gave up. But the one especially friendly kitten came forward anyway and rubbed its side against her ankles.

  “Mrow?” The kitten pressed its tiny pad against her heel.

  She crouched down and held out her hand to the cat, nearly at ground level.

  If you want to pet a cat, slowly approach under its chin…

  Just when she was about to make contact…

  A sharp metallic clash rang through the park.

  The cats, who had sharper hearing than humans and even dogs, flinched and turned to the source of the noise, then scattered into the bushes like a nest of baby spiders.

  “…”

  Kasane was left with her hand in the air and nothing to pet. She turned her head to observe, her expression unchanging.

  And there she saw the owner of the original Saika, stopping one of two knives with a blade growing from her palm, while the other knife was pressed to her throat.

  “That’s checkmate, Sonohara.”

  “…”

  “Consider the fact that I’m not stabbing a hole in your throat to be evidence that my offer wasn’t a lie.”

  Haruna grinned devilishly, her eyes burning red. The bloodshot color was deeper than the usual “children”—perhaps an effect of being slashed by the original Saika twice—and it was focused around her pupils. In the light of day, it was almost impossible to distinguish from Anri’s original red eyes.

  “You’re so nice. If you’d just attacked me without any warning at the start, it never would have reached this point,” Haruna continued.

  “…I might have a reason to cut you but not to kill you.”

  “Don’t glare at me that way.” Haruna chuckled. Like before, she tapped her forehead against Anri’s. “Why, it doesn’t even sound like you’re bluffing. As if you would kill me, even if you had a reason.”

  “…!”

  Anri felt her entire body tense. What had she been thinking that caused her to say what she did?

  I don’t have a reason to kill you.

  It was the sort of thing that a hit man or a trained killer bent on revenge would say to someone who wasn’t their ultimate target in an action-thriller movie.

  If she did have a reason to kill, would she have actually done it? Would she have swung at the other girl’s throat from a distance with her Saika and cut it open? Would she have impaled her through the heart?

  “You don’t still think you’re human, do you?” Izaya’s words repeated in her mind, stabbing at her heart once more.

  Was he right? Was she no longer human? She couldn’t be certain.

  A true nonhuman like Celty would probably hear out Haruna’s quip and boldly state, “You’re just playing with words.” Masaomi would joke something like, “Sure, I’ve got a reason to kill. How about my parents being murdered?”

  But Anri Sonohara only wanted an answer that came from within herself.

  Am I…am I really mixing…with Saika…?

  If Saika’s words were true, was this a phenomenon she ought to accept? She couldn’t even answer that question. She had nothing but confusion.

  Even sharper than the blade Haruna had pressed to her throat were the girl’s words, which tore at Anri’s heartstrings without any resistance—but it helped that Izaya had already scoured the places that were cut, to make it all the easier.

  “…What’s wrong? It’s like the old you who cut me was an entirely different person,” Haruna said, realizing what was wrong at last. Her anticipatory smile vanished. “So what now? Will you beg for your life? Or will you briefly withdraw your blade and emit it from a different place to pierce my chest? Shall we have a contest to see which of us can slice the other faster?”

  “I…I wish you would stop this.”

  “What? Wait, are you actually going to beg?”

  “No…I’m just not sure…what I should actually do now…”

  Despite having a blade at her throat with utmost malice, Anri showed no sign of actual fear. But she wasn’t exactly implacable, either. From her side of the picture frame to the other, she asked weakly, “Do you…think I’m human? Or…do you think I’m a monster…?”

  Haruna’s brows knitted. “You’re not human or monster. You’re a parasite… That’s what you said to me ages ago.”

  “Oh… You’re right. I did say that. I’m sorry…,” Anri said, with a forlorn smile. Then she closed her eyes and withdrew the sword back into her body. “That’s right… In any case, I’m not human.”

  “…?”

  Haruna seemed to find Anri withdrawing all her defenses eerie and didn’t press her advantage.

  “Then I choose to latch myself onto you, Haruna the human.”

  “Oh? What’s with the change of heart? The way you’re acting so nice and obedient all of a sudden is frightening me.”

  “I think that I’m not capable of processing things the way that a normal human would anymore. I can’t even tell if what I want to do is actually going to help Ryuugamine or Kida.”

  So in that case, would it actually work out better if she just followed all of Haruna’s suggestions? Would Haruna even be misled by Saika’s words?

  That’s wrong, Anri thought. If I let her call all the shots, things will go very bad, fast. The street-slashing incident will come back but all over the city, in a much more vicious way.

  “Please…just tell me one thing.”

  It was a decision made by the logical mind of no one else but Anri Sonohara, but after being consecutively shaken by Saika, Izaya, and Haruna over the course of a single day, it was nearly impossible for her to trust her own judgment.

  “Would you be able to save Ryuugamine and Kida…?”

  “…”

  Haruna didn’t expect that question. She fell silent.

  In fact, she found Anri’s sudden hesitation and timidity to be creepy. Wouldn’t it be better just to kill her and take Saika away? Or was this some kind of tactic?

  She pulled her second knife away from Anri’s neck and pointed it at her face instead, hoping to find out Anri’s intentions. The tip stuck in her cheek, nearly ready to slice—

  “The cats are running away.”

  A third party’s voice entered the scene.

  Apparently, it had been directed at Anri, whose mental grip was getting tenuous.

  Somehow, there was a woman standing right next to them. She glanced at Haruna, then at Anri, and said, “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a mother and child in a battle to the death, but you’re really just being a bother. Could you please do that somewhere else?”

  The new woman was unafraid to scold the two Saikas. While she and Anri were both quiet and wore glasses, the resemblance stopped there. She looked plain at first glance, but on closer examination, her skin was so smooth it was practically clear, perfect as porcelain.

  The one black glove on just her right hand was a bit eccentric, but aside from that, she looked like some pretty secretary enjoying a lunch break on her workday.

  “…Who are you?” Haruna glared, suspicious of the sudden interloper. “Can’t you tell we’re in the middle of something important?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, she thrust the knife that was not pointed at Anri’s face toward the new woman—not as a threat but an actual attack.

  Anri held her breath, and then she realized what it was that struck her about the woman’s words.
r />   Mother and child.

  Why had she used that description to refer to two girls wearing school uniforms?

  She came to the answer at the same moment that a dull metallic impact rang throughout the park.

  “…Huh?”

  It was Haruna Niekawa who gaped. The look on her face was much like the time that Anri first showed her the full form of Saika. She glanced back and forth from the woman to the thing.

  “What…is that…? Who are you…?”

  Something like metal fingernails had promptly jutted from the fingers of the woman’s left hand, catching Haruna’s knife blade. While it was not at all like a katana, each and every one of her nails was its own sharp little edge.

  With her eyes blazing red, the woman answered, “Forgive my late introduction. I am Kasane Kujiragi. This is an original Saika blade.”

  ““!””

  Both Anri and Haruna reacted to the woman’s simple revelation with shock.

  Saika. She had definitely said it.

  Before Anri could ask a follow-up question, Haruna leaped into action.

  With her one knife still tangled with the woman’s nails, she used the other to swing at the target’s neck—but it was forced to a stop partway.

  A silver wirelike cord shot from Kujiragi’s ankle and locked up Haruna’s body.

  “Rrgh…aaah…!” She winced, gritting her teeth against the pain of the silver rope digging into her skin, but never stopped trying to swing her arm.

  “I have no problem with resisting your mother. There are many reasons one might do so: rebellious phases, becoming independent. But I draw the line when it comes to open physical hostility,” Kujiragi said with clinical dispassion and grabbed part of the silver rope with her gloved hand.

  Then she deftly wriggled the tip of the rope and caused it to press a switch hidden on her arm.

  “~~~~!”

  Haruna let out a silent shriek, her body jolting. After a few seconds of convulsing, Kujiragi instantly undid the rope, retracting it into her body. Her finger blades were gone, too. All that was left was Kujiragi, standing normally, and Haruna falling to her knees.

  As a helpless bystander, Anri could only demand, “Wh-what did you do to Haruna?!”

  “Merely an electric current through my glove. It is not a fatal flow, but I did run it through her entire body, so she won’t be able to control her muscles for a little while.”

  “Aaa…au…”

  Haruna writhed on the ground, just barely clinging to consciousness. She looked up at Kujiragi with eyes full of hatred and suspicion.

  “Haruna, are you all right?!”

  Anri crouched down and tried to lift Haruna’s body, but it was still trembling and twitching, and the process was too difficult.

  “You should just let her lie there. She will recover soon.”

  Anri looked up at the woman named Kujiragi again.

  Who is she?

  Why does she have Saika?

  One of the “children” I don’t know…?

  No. That can’t be right.

  A normal “child” can’t do what she just did.

  Is she…a magician?

  …It can’t be.

  Thoughts came and went in a wave.

  Anri swallowed hard and tried to catch one of the countless questions swirling around in her mind to ask the woman. The best she could come up with was, “Um…why didn’t that electricity paralyze you, too?”

  With no affect whatsoever, the woman said, “Oh, it did. My right arm and left leg are temporarily immobilized, but it is not a problem.”

  But her right arm and left ankle, the places where she was connected to the silver rope, did not actually seem to be trembling.

  There was clearly something wrong with this woman. She was not an ordinary human. That much was apparent.

  “When you say Saika…what do you mean? Saika is inside me. Plus…what you just did didn’t look like Saika to me…”

  Fingernail blades and steel ropes—it just didn’t seem to add up to Saika when the woman said that name.

  But instead of answering Anri’s question, the woman said, “On the other hand, you don’t seem to be making full use of Saika at all.”

  “Huh…?”

  Kujiragi glanced down at her feet, where Haruna was still moaning. “Before I stepped in, you could have produced two Saikas and easily overcome this woman, it seemed to me.”

  “Two…Saikas?”

  “…Don’t tell me that you think Saika can only take the form of a single katana,” Kujiragi exclaimed without emotion. It put Anri in mind of something Saika said to her at the hospital this morning.

  “It’s how your mother was able to use me better. She could do a number of things that you cannot.”

  She had forced Saika’s voice down to where it didn’t bother her, but now she was curious about this.

  Something I can’t do? Use two Saikas…? Dual wield…?

  Were her nails and that rope…a different form of Saika?

  But Saika is inside me… How does she have that?

  She also noticed something else that bothered her: Just as had happened when she encountered Izaya, Saika’s endless chanting of love had vanished from her mind.

  As if afraid of this Kujiragi woman or disgusted.

  Kujiragi.

  Who…is she?

  And what was that about cats?

  The more she thought, the more questions she had to answer, filling her head and dragging her deeper into confusion.

  After watching Anri for a while, Kujiragi opened her mouth and said, “It was coincidence that I was in this park. I did not follow you here.”

  “?”

  “But I’m uncertain now. Perhaps meeting you so soon after gaining my own freedom is an act of fate,” Kujiragi said, unaware that it was the same cat-ear headband that had brought both of them to the same area. “And since you do not know how to utilize Saika, I have a question for you…”

  She paused there to recollect her thoughts and finally asked Anri, “Do you have any interest in giving your Saika to me?”

  Again, Anri was left nonplussed.

  She wanted Saika. The request sounded just like Haruna’s a moment ago.

  But this woman already had her own Saika. Anri had only seen it in her nails and rope, but the truth started to dawn on her as confusion faded.

  There isn’t just one Saika.

  Based on the remarkable nature of a cursed sword with a will of its own, Anri had always assumed that the “original” Saika she held was a one-of-a-kind thing.

  But it might have been a mistake to apply her own common sense to something like a cursed sword in the first place. On the other hand, if her opponent’s weapon had been in the form of a katana, she might not have believed that was Saika at all.

  It was the property that surpassed the laws of physics, the fact that she saw the fingernail blades appearing directly from the woman’s body that had convinced her it was Saika.

  The problem was, this understanding broke the logic of the woman’s last statement.

  “Why would you want it…? You already have your Saika, Miss Kujiragi.”

  “Yes. I already have my own Saika.”

  The next instant, a long blade grew from her left hand, until it fit in her palm in the form of a katana. It shone for an instant, then vanished back into her body.

  There was no longer any room for doubt. Anri asked, “Then why…?”

  “My home vehicle and my products are different things.”

  “Products?” Anri repeated. Her eyes widened, but on the inside, this didn’t surprise her that much. The truth was, she already knew. Saika was an item that had ended up at her parents’ antiques shop as a product.

  “Is Saika even something that can be bought and sold among different people?” she had to ask.

  Kujiragi nodded. “That was my business.”

  “?”

  The past form of the statement confused Anri.

&n
bsp; Kujiragi realized what she’d done and looked away for a moment. “Pardon me. I’m trying to decide if I should continue that business at all. But the last product for which I am under contract is Saika.”

  “?!”

  Saika, a product to be sold. So somebody actually…wants this thing?

  “At worst, I will deliver my own Saika as a product, so I am not forced to buy or take your Saika from you, but…”

  The blithe way she mentioned taking it away was alarming. Kujiragi looked into Anri’s eyes and continued, “Based on my observation, you do not control Saika the way I do, but you also haven’t been controlled by it, like past owners. Coexistence is a very rare case, but if you do not need that Saika, I am willing to buy it from you.”

  At last, Haruna began to rise unsteadily. She glared at Kujiragi with pure hatred, her smile completely gone. “What kind…of nonsense are you talking…?”

  “Are you all right? I wouldn’t force yourself to get up just yet.”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve, talking that way…for an assailant… But whatever. More importantly, if anyone gets Anri’s Saika, it’ll be me. Who do you even think you are? You just show up in the middle of our conversation, then say you want Saika. You little cat burglar.”

  “Cat burglar…” Kujiragi seemed to think this over and, without changing expression, said, “I like that.”

  “You like what?”

  Haruna was suspicious of her, and Anri was paralyzed with uncertainty.

  The grown woman thought for a bit, came to her own conclusion, and told the girls, “Well, let’s see… In order to make this a proper business deal, there are many things I will have to explain in detail. On the other hand, stealing it creates quite a hassle for me, so I want to avoid that option.”

  Then she reached down to pick up the magazine she’d dropped in the earlier bout with Haruna and flipped through its pages. “I’d like to tell you about Saika at a nearby café. Do you think I could borrow some more of your time?”

  Anri and Haruna looked at each other. Based on what had already happened, they expected the scene to head into a sword fight, resolution or no, but this suggestion had thrown them for a loop.

  In contrast, Kujiragi never broke her expression or made one in the first place.