Like she did with Anri, Kujiragi jotted down her number on a blank business card.
““What?!””
Both Anri and Haruna were shocked by this. They stared at her, wide-eyed. But as usual, Kujiragi had no expression, making it impossible to detect what she was up to.
The only giveaway was that Anri’s faint detection of her mental state, when she’d gotten a whiff of sadness earlier, was now indicating what might have been a tinge of delight.
Haruna just stared at the exchange, dumbfounded, and sighed at the end.
“…I’ve lost interest. I’m going home. Maybe something’s finally changed by now.” Then she grabbed Anri’s phone and pulled out her own, and with a device in each hand, she performed a few operations. “There. Now we have each other as a contact. I’ll get in touch tomorrow, and we can meet up again.”
She never let go of her murderous hatred of Anri, but she was smiling as she left.
As though there was nothing in her future but bright, bright hope.
“Umm… So was that girl just, like, not interested in anime at all? I guess it was mean of me to invite her, too… I’m sorry if she acts weird around you after this, Anri,” said Karisawa sadly, much more under control now that she’d exchanged information with Kujiragi and the group was smaller.
“Oh, uhm, actually…thank you. You saved me.”
“?”
This threw Karisawa for a loop, who wasn’t expecting to be thanked. Then Anri asked, “Um, what brought you here…?”
“Oh, right! I got so excited I completely forgot!” the other girl exclaimed, her face breaking into a huge smile. Perhaps her earlier moment of excitement had been buoyed by whatever had her in a good mood already.
“Listen, listen. Dotachin’s awake again, and they say we can see him in person tomorrow!”
Tokyo—parking garage
A bit earlier in time, when it still wasn’t clear if Kadota would regain consciousness, Masaomi and Chikage were fighting on the roof of the parking garage.
Based on the present arrangement, it would seem that Masaomi had the advantage. He had landed several clean hits and continually avoided Chikage’s attacks by razor-thin margins.
But their expressions told a story just the opposite.
Despite blasting his opponent with many devastating blows, Masaomi didn’t seem to be doing any lasting damage. And each time the man’s strikes rushed past his head, Masaomi felt like his very life was being whittled away.
Holy crap. I’m not hurting him at all, and I feel like even a scratch from him is going to make me woozy.
Masaomi wasn’t blessed with stature. He wasn’t born tall, and he didn’t have a muscular frame.
But he’d been used to scrapping since he was a kid, throwing knees and elbows in unpredictable ways on the road to beating opponents who were much larger than he was.
None of the Yellow Scarves could beat him in a fight, and outside of complete freaks of nature like Shizuo Heiwajima, he was definitely one of the tougher guys around.
But Chikage Rokujou was so strong that it almost made Masaomi wonder if he was in the same category as Shizuo. There were multiple points in the fight where he felt a chill run down his back.
Still, as long as his fellow Yellow Scarves stood around cheering for him, he couldn’t let himself falter now.
I guess blows won’t do the trick.
Masaomi gathered his breathing and calmly switched tactics.
After just barely dodging one of his opponent’s attacks, he chose to swing around behind him rather than strike back. Since he moved into the blind spot of the attack, it would’ve looked to Chikage like Masaomi had simply vanished.
“Wha—? …Oofh!”
He launched himself onto the back of his opponent, working his arms around the man’s neck.
It was a standing sleeper choke hold. Masaomi leaned backward, trying to force his taller foe into submission. He dug his arm deeper under the chin, hanging onto Chikage’s back with sublime balance.
The Yellow Scarves were certain he’d just won. The more you struggled in that position, the worse it got. A professional fighter might know the trick to escape it, but an amateur brawler would be at a loss. They knew how Masaomi’s original sleeper hold worked and the effect it had.
However, Chikage Rokujou withstanding four punches from Shizuo Heiwajima was not a fluke. When he realized that he was soon going to lose consciousness, he did something that no ordinary human being would ever do.
With his neck in a choke hold, Chikage ran up the bumper of a parked car and onto its roof, then leaped for the fence surrounding the structure.
Huh?
Masaomi’s mind briefly went blank, and then he remembered that including the roof the garage had three levels.
They were going to fall from the roof of a three-story building.
Every cell in his body screamed out, and Masaomi instantly let go of the man’s neck. Right before he was about to pass over the fence, he grabbed the light pole fixed there.
For his part, Chikage simply fell straight downward without further acrobatics.
“Crazy asshole!” Masaomi screamed, clinging to the pole.
It was high enough to be fatal. He felt a cold sweat break out at first—and several seconds later, another one but for a different reason.
Chikage fell directly onto his back. And after a few coughs, he simply got to his feet, as simple as that.
“Hey, if you’re gonna grab me, don’t chicken out and jump off, yeah?”
Chikage laughed up at him from the ground. Yet another trickle of sweat ran down Masaomi’s back.
Well, damn. We haven’t even fought with the Blue Squares yet. Why am I throwing down with the ultimate secret boss first?
Masaomi climbed up the pole so that he could swing back over the fence. But the moment he reached the top of it, he met an abnormal sight.
His vantage point up high made the scene below quite easy to follow. And yet upon first glance, it made no sense to him. It was as though crossing the fence had warped him to a completely new location.
He should’ve been able to dispel the sight as an absurd hallucination as soon as he saw the other Yellow Scarves—but the problem was that they, too, were looking in that direction…
Toward the ramp leading down to the second floor of the garage…
Where a gang of a few dozen figures stood, clearly not affiliated with the Scarves.
Standing at the head of the rabble of thugs and mobsters was a man who cackled up at him. He held a hammer of hardened rubber in one hand, and his face featured a very visible burn scar.
At first, Masaomi didn’t know who he was or the rest of the group trailing behind him. It could’ve been reinforcements from Toramaru, but that was hard to imagine, given Chikage’s personality.
It could have been the Dollars, too, but he didn’t see any of the youth who looked like Blue Squares. If anything, these were more like the street thugs who were getting purged from the Dollars.
The burned man spoke up. “Heh-hya…I guess it’s true that idiots and smoke like to gather in high places, huh?”
Brrh.
The instant he heard that voice, the hair all over Masaomi’s body rippled.
He recognized it.
Before his brain could even recall the name, the other cells of his body surged with anger, terror, hostility, and anxiety.
“Hang on! I’m gonna climb back up now! Wait for me!”
Chikage was down on the ground. He didn’t realize what was happening on the roof.
But Masaomi didn’t hear him.
Then the burned man spoke again.
“Here’s your question! When I broke Saki Mikajima’s leg…who was the pussy who abandoned her and ran away?! Kee-hee-hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
And something in Masaomi burst.
The fear, anxiety, and regret in him all transformed into rage that surged up and out of his throat in the form of a name.
“Iz
umiiiiiii!”
Fury controlled all of Masaomi’s being. He leaped down from the fence and began charging toward the group of dozens without a second thought.
As though willing all the strength of his legs that he hadn’t used on that fateful night into this very moment instead.
Such was his possessed manner that the ruffians of the group subconsciously leaned away from him.
Ran Izumii leered through his sunglasses and lifted his hand with the hammer in it.
And then…
Intermediate Chapter: Trapped Like a Rat
After this day, a subset of residents of the city found themselves rolling down a hill toward chaos, unable to know where they were headed.
An incident that began with stare downs between the Dollars and Yellow Scarves, that should have ended in mutual confusion between teenagers, suddenly cast the profiles of a completely different group against its shadow. Thanks to Izaya Orihara’s little spark, they were all exposed to the darkness.
That wasn’t all.
As though whipped up by some unsettling wind through the city, others aside from Izaya cast their own sparks into the fray, steadily increasing the power of the open flames.
But the biggest spark of all, which Izaya had tucked away and Kujiragi had nearly extinguished altogether, still smoldered to itself, lighting nothing around it.
Practically waiting for someone to pour the gas over it.
Holding cells, police station—night
Shizuo Heiwajima lay on the floor of the cell, still dressed in his bartender outfit.
He’d been held at the Ikebukuro Police Station next to the train station many times as a student, but the interior before him now was completely different from back then.
Apparently, this wasn’t the Ikebukuro Police Station he’d met in his errant youth but a different branch nearby. Shizuo didn’t particularly care which station he was in, however.
He just needed to stay calm and maintain his composure until they let him out. So he decided he should just sleep the whole time, in order to avoid seeing or hearing anything that might set him off.
“Hey, I’ve seen you before, man! You’re the guy who was swingin’ the electric pole around, yeah?”
“…”
But there was a man in the adjacent cell. A thuggish fellow who’d been put in there not long ago.
“Hey, you know what? I bet you could totally break these bars, huh?!”
“…Got the wrong guy,” Shizuo claimed, trying to keep the man off his back.
“Don’t lie! I’d never forget a blond guy in a bartender’s vest!”
Shizuo was still wearing the work outfit he’d had on when they’d arrested him. Only the bow tie was confiscated, because anything with a string or cord might be used to commit suicide. The rest was still there.
“But actually, now that I think about it, today’s not a good day for it. Media’s goin’ freakin’ crazy outside this station right now.”
“Did something happen?”
“You bet. They found a woman’s head outside of the train station or something. They’re saying the rest of the body’s being brought here from the Ikebukuro headquarters.”
Shizuo grimaced at this grisly news. But something stuck out to him.
“…? What are they doing with the body? Whether they do an autopsy or not, doesn’t that get handled at the hospital?”
“That’s why the media’s all here. There’s a whole lot of strange stuff going on with this one. Like, when it originally got announced, it was ‘the head of what seems to be a dead woman.’ But by the evening, they were calling it ‘what seems like a woman’s head.’ Don’t that seem weird to you? The pictures people put online make it super-obvious that it’s a head.”
“Pictures of a body? Those people have no class,” Shizuo murmured, furrowing his brow. But he decided not to think too deeply into it.
He knew that if he thought about it, his rage would only intensify. Instead, he steadied his breathing and stared at the ceiling.
The man in the other cell kept babbling. “Of course, some reporter asked them about that. All they said was, ‘I can’t answer that question right now,’ so the press started getting the inkling that something was wrong here. Then some weird anonymous information leaked online from the Raira University Medical Hospital that did the legal autopsy.”
“Weird information?”
“The head is alive, they said.”
“…”
He couldn’t laugh it off as a stupid story or even get irritated.
A living head.
And Shizuo knew what might fit that description.
“Online, people are sayin’ it might be the Headless Rider’s head. From what I hear, they’re keeping it in this station right now. Wonder if they’re having a meeting about it. ‘Can we even declare a criminal case if the head’s still living?’ or something.”
“I see…” Shizuo considered this for a moment, then asked, “So are you under the control of that monster sword, too? Or is this something else?”
“…What do you mean? You’re not makin’ sense.” The man chuckled.
Shizuo’s temple visibly twitched. “Don’t play dumb with me. You really think I’m stupid enough not to think somethin’s up when a guy with all the info wanders into the clink and starts blabbing every last detail to me, knowing who I am? Do you?”
He got to his feet and took a step toward the man. There were steel bars between them, of course, but they might as well have been twigs to Shizuo.
Well aware of that fact, the man held up his hands and pleaded—his eyes eerily bloodshot.
“Sorry, sorry. My bad. You’re right. Mother told me to come here.”
“…So assuming you’re not trying to piss me off, why would you tell me this story about the head?”
“You’re smarter than I thought, so you probably know already, huh? You know what that head really is.”
“…”
The man didn’t wait for Shizuo to answer. “Celty Sturluson. The head that’s got the whole city buzzing today is a part of your friend that she’s been looking for, for years and years.”
“…Okay. And?”
“It’s simple. This is a deal. Next time they take you away for questioning, you just have to rage a little. Sure, it’ll add a few charges to your sheet, but as long as you don’t hurt anybody, you might just get parole or even put on bail. While that’s happening, I’ll sneak out with the head.”
“…I don’t see the point. Are you guys on Celty’s side? Or are you just trying to use her?” Shizuo demanded, his voice quiet but pregnant with the peril of imminent explosion.
“Neither, actually… But I bet we agree with this Celty person about not wanting the head to be turned into a public spectacle. Anyway, if you get good and rough, they’ll probably lock you up for that instead, and we can make sure the charges of beating a woman go away. It looks better for you that they questioned you for something you didn’t do, and then you snapped on them, rather than coming out with a proper record of having crushed a woman’s hand, right?”
“Why can’t you just use those hypnosis powers or whatever they are to steal the head? Should be easy.”
“…Mother doesn’t want us to create too many new children. Plus, if there isn’t at least a good distraction that would explain how the head got stolen, it’ll only look more suspicious.”
Shizuo considered this suggestion. Normally, he would have already snapped by now, but he was just barely succeeding at keeping his cool by envisioning his brother’s face and Celty’s helmet.
But there was no guarantee that this man would keep his word. And before Shizuo could come to a decision about what to do, his train of thought was derailed by an officer showing up.
Based on the way the man in the other cell immediately clammed up, he could guess that this officer wasn’t under the demon sword’s control.
“Shizuo Heiwajima? You’re being released.”
“
What?!” screamed the man in the other cell.
“Shut it, you!”
“Oh, er…”
The other man began to sweat, clearly in a panic. He returned to the corner of the cell, muttering under his breath, “What does this mean…? Did Izaya Orihara do something to…?”
Izaya Orihara.
Shizuo had made it safely through questioning while resisting the urge to explode. The instant he heard that name was the biggest test of his self-control all day.
One hour later—Tokyo
“What the hell’s going on…?”
Shizuo left the back door of the police station, his outgoing procedures finished.
Apparently, the victimized girl claimed that she was “mistaken” and that it wasn’t Shizuo. Assault wasn’t a crime that required a complaint from a victim to prosecute, so just retracting the claim didn’t make his charges disappear, but since the victim said he didn’t do it, and there was no clear evidence that Shizuo had ever used violence against the woman, they dropped the charges and released him.
Under normal circumstances, Shizuo would be unable to contain his fury, but right now he was simply happy that he’d protected his brother’s reputation.
But…Celty’s head, huh? Is that fleabrain up to something again? In any case, I’d better report back to the boss…
He pulled out the cigarettes they’d given back to him. As he walked, he glanced around for a good spot to smoke.
Some kind of police van passed him, heading down the road in a quieter direction. Shizuo watched it go as he checked his lighter for remaining oil. He hit the striker of the Zippo.
It produced a spark.
And a roaring explosion went off, right next to the police vehicle.
“?!”
Shizuo’s eyes bulged. The van that had just passed him rolled onto its side in the street, and a motorcycle raced up toward it.
When an officer opened the rear door of the van, the motorcyclist knocked him out with practiced ease, then stole a large box case right from the back of the vehicle.
Then the figure hopped back on the bike and took off in Shizuo’s direction. When the rider saw him, the bike came to an exaggerated, panicked stop, then went into a U-turn.
Durarara!!, Vol. 11 Page 17
