“Let them. I’m too set in my ways to live any other life.”
“Same goes for me.”
“Says the fool who’s gone soft. At any rate, the kid shot at the boss’s house. That means…”
At this point, one of Aozaki’s subordinates popped his head into the meeting room and approached. “May I have a moment, Mr. Aozaki?”
“What is it?”
The man approached and whispered into his ear, looking deadly serious. Aozaki’s brow furrowed. He thought over what he had just heard, then snorted.
“Looks like the both of us were worried for no reason.”
“?”
“Let’s say that I passed a gun on to the head of the Dollars,” Aozaki said coyly. “But from what my ‘friend’ within the police says…”
“…the gun that shot up the old man’s house and the police station was a smaller caliber than the ones I use.”
The rooftop of a mixed-use building
“Wha…? Gaaaaah!”
At first, Masaomi thought that he’d been stabbed in the thigh with a knife or an awl. But then he sensed something wrong with his ears and realized the truth.
When the shock ran through his leg, he’d also heard a gunshot that was notably quieter than the one he’d heard earlier. He looked down and saw a small hole in the thigh of his pants, which was turning red with blood. Within that hole, heat was spreading and raging through his thigh with a mind of its own.
“Aagh…hngg…”
The smell of blood—and more powerful, of fresh gunpowder—assaulted Masaomi’s nostrils. He could feel heavy sweat exuding all over his body as he tried to press down on the spot that was bleeding. Mikado chose that moment to twist loose, causing Masaomi to lose his balance and topple sideways.
“Mika…do…,” he groaned, looking up at the standing boy.
Through the haze of smoke, he saw a strange object clutched in Mikado’s right hand. At first glance, it looked something like brass knuckles.
“A terrorist in America used this once years ago. But…I can’t remember what it was called…”
A small but eerily shaped device was fit snugly into the palm of Mikado’s hand. In the sense that it fit within a hand and fired bullets, you could literally classify it as a handgun.
“It’s called an HFM. A hand…something or other,” Mikado said. His right eye was so swollen already that he could barely see through it.
“When I said I fired two shots, I was talking about this one,” he continued, smiling. “I wanted to test it out on the way here.”
And clutching that second gun—something Masaomi could never have predicted—he smiled down sadly at his friend, speaking as casually as if merely making small talk.
“I mean, there was no advice online for how to aim it.”
Outside of Russia Sushi
Shijima flinched when he heard the distant gunshot.
It was actually much quieter than the one just before it, but Shijima wasn’t able to tell the difference. He was in too much shock to use his mind that rationally.
That crazy Ryuugamine kid… Is he actually shooting it…?
Nasujima had given him orders to hand Mikado a gun. Technically, a “gun-like” object.
“I borrowed it from Kujiragi’s storage space,” he had said.
“I’m good at ‘borrowing’ things from the office.”
“It’s one of the concealed-type guns that you can fit in your hand. And this one’s an augmented model of one that an American terrorist once used. You can fire it normally with both hands, or you can just squeeze it in one and punch the target, which will fire the bullet.”
It was a firearm out of some spy movie. That alone didn’t exactly shock Shijima, who knew that there were all kinds of “hidden” guns people had invented—inside of lemons, cigarette boxes, cell phones, and so on.
But when he delivered it to Mikado and said, “I bought this for self-defense, but I’m too scared to keep it around, so I want you to hold on to it. Take it as a sign of trust,” he wasn’t expecting the boy to accept it with a smile.
It was clear from his mannerisms that he wasn’t misunderstanding, thinking it was a toy. That was the point at which Shijima recognized that Mikado Ryuugamine was a special kind of person.
Geez, man. If he actually shoots someone, then the Dollars really are in deep shit.
Nasujima said he had a few red-eyes among the police and could have them arrest someone at random to fan the flames of the Dollars’ reign of terror, but it wasn’t clear that he really had everything under control.
“Mr. Nasujima, I think Ryuugamine fired the…,” he started to say as he turned in Nasujima’s direction, but he stopped mid-sentence. Nasujima was trembling, staring down Sixtieth Floor Street, his face pale.
“…Mr. Nasujima?”
But he ignored Shijima and stuck a thumbnail into his mouth to bite as sweat beaded on his forehead and cheeks. “N-n-no, no… N-no, th-that c-can’t be… I…I th-thought h-he was in p-p-pri-pri-prison!” he stammered, the jittering extending even to his lips.
In the direction he was looking was a man with dyed blond hair. When Shijima heard the crashing earlier and saw the motorcycle skittering along the ground, he first thought some idiot of a biker had merely flipped his ride.
But now Nasujima understood.
He saw that the Grim Reaper himself had come bearing his downfall.
“Th-there’s no time! Hurry! Break down the door to the sushi shop or the windows! G-go and take control of the dread-head with glasses right now!” he roared, all his calm and confidence completely shot.
And so the Saika Army surrounding the restaurant converged on Russia Sushi all at once.
Intersection near Tokyu Hands
Izaya stood silently in the middle of the intersection after leaving Tokyu Hands, on the left-side crosswalk, where Sixtieth Floor Street and Russia Sushi’s street met. From there, Shizuo approached him, step by step.
“S-so that’s Shizuo Heiwajima…”
“Holy crap, he wasn’t an urban legend?”
“Did he just throw that motorcycle…?”
“Look, he’s dragging a vending machine behind him…”
The punks who had been so ready to pound Chikage were now hushed and awed by the threatening sight that was Shizuo.
“D-do you think that if we beat him, we’ll be known as the toughest guys around?” one of them suggested. Carried away by enthusiasm, he brandished his metal bat and rushed at Shizuo.
But when he swung, there was a crumpling sound—and the bat itself broke and twisted against the side of Shizuo’s skull.
“Ah, ah, aaa, aieeeee!!” the thug screamed. He stared at the bat, which was as mangled as if it were just a cardboard tube, and pissed himself.
With a rustling of air, the bikers all unconsciously drew themselves back, creating a path through the mass of humanity. But Shizuo did not pay them a single glance. His course was set. His feet moved with one purpose.
And now he stood before Izaya Orihara.
Chikage wanted to say something to Shizuo but thought better of it when he saw the man’s eyes. It was clear that this was not the time to interfere except for the gravest of reasons.
While all this was happening, Izaya Orihara did not make a single attempt to escape. He twirled a knife in his fingers and soaked in the brunt of Shizuo’s burning hatred.
It was only a few seconds that the two of them stood facing each other.
But it felt many times longer than that to everyone else present.
Those who knew Shizuo and Izaya and those who didn’t held their breath equally.
The man in the black intended to challenge the monster in the bartender’s uniform.
How would Shizuo Heiwajima’s overwhelming strength be utilized? And what would happen to the man on the receiving end of it?
In the face of this coming bloodbath, neither the thugs, nor Chikage and the Blue Squares, nor even Aoba Kuronuma could keep in mind
what they were doing before. They all waited, watching the scene before them unfold.
The pack of the Saika-possessed reacted largely in one of two ways.
The group with Nasujima as its mother was entranced by the appearance of the mighty Shizuo Heiwajima.
The group with Haruna as its mother quaked in fear of Shizuo, their Saika having been imprinted with the trauma of what he did on the Night of the Ripper.
So Nasujima, who was terrified of Shizuo, and Haruna, who was not, had Saika children with the exact opposite reactions—and the previously uniform actions of the Saika-possessed began to crumble spectacularly.
“…”
“…”
Izaya and Shizuo stood only six feet apart once Shizuo came to a stop.
A single step would put them within striking range.
Their eyes met.
The next moment, Shizuo swung the vending machine he was dragging vertically, like an iai quick-draw katana technique.
A sound of unfathomable destruction blanketed Ikebukuro.
Togusa’s van
Moments before all this—less than a minute before Shizuo and Izaya’s clash, in fact—Anri felt her body seize up at the sound of the man laughing in front of the van.
“What…did he…just say?”
Why would the name Mikado Ryuugamine come up in this context?
Was this man working with Nasujima?
Questions swirled within her mind—when a new, sharp sound pierced the broken windshield, snapping her back to attention.
It’s that sound again! Though it seemed a bit different this time…
This sound, combined with the new presence of Mikado’s name in her mind, made Anri suddenly feel very unsettled. She pushed it all down and mustered her silent resolve.
She would control these men with Saika and have them explain as much as possible.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash in her eyes.
“I’ll admit, I don’t know what Ryuugamine’s up to at the moment, but…hmm…?”
A few seconds before the light flashed, Izumii spotted something. A skinny man on the sidewalk, taking something out of his backpack.
“…Is that…Yumasaki?!” He couldn’t understand why the man wouldn’t be inside of the van, and he pointed at him for his followers’ benefit. “Hey, go get… Huh?”
Then he noticed that it was a fire extinguisher Yumasaki was pulling out of the backpack.
Fire extinguisher?
Smoke screen? Put out.
Yumasaki? No.
Fire.
Tiny thoughts, individual flashback images burst through Izumii’s mind, leading him to one answer.
“Yumasakiii! You son of a bitch…”
Yumasaki pointed the end of the extinguisher toward Togusa’s van.
And then…
“Here we go! It’s my ultimate attack! Innocentius, king of the witch-hunters!”
With that cry, Yumasaki’s fire extinguisher shot a maelstrom of flames from its tip. It was his own homemade flamethrower using the shell of an extinguisher. The flame lit everything in a red glow, covering a shocking range from sidewalk to van.
“Aaaaah!!” “Wh-what the—?!”
The thugs with their picks and metal pipes never saw it coming. They fled in panic from the van’s vicinity. Yumasaki didn’t specifically single any of them out for immolation, but he did spit fire bit by bit to push them back, clearing the space from one side of the van.
“Y…Yuma…saki… You bastard!” shrieked Izumii, who suffered from fire-related trauma. He hid behind a nearby car, still clutching his hammer.
“Now! Hurry! Get out of the van!” urged Yumasaki, and Kadota and the rest all poured out of the left side of the vehicle. Togusa was the slowest of them, being in the driver’s seat, but they all managed to get out soon enough.
“You…! Kadota! Don’t you run away from me!” Izumii hissed from behind the other car, cowering from the spray of Yumasaki’s flamethrower.
The drivers of the other cars nearby all fled from their vehicles when they saw the flames, which only increased the clamor and chaos of the situation.
Kadota came gingerly to a standing position and said to the others behind him, “Leave this to us guys. You girls run for safety.”
He, Karisawa, Togusa, and Yumasaki blocked the path of the thugs, creating a lane for escape.
“B-but…!”
“Just do it and leave this to the adults.” Togusa grinned.
“Aw, man!” Yumasaki cheered. “I always wanted to say that! ‘Go on ahead and leave this to me!’”
“Ha-ha-ha, that’s a death omen,” Karisawa said with a smile, despite the crowd of enemies surrounding them.
Anri still wasn’t sure what to do, so Kadota continued, “This is a squabble between people who haven’t grown up yet and need to get on with it. There’s no reason for you girls to get infected by this idiocy, too.”
He turned to Seiji, who was standing protectively in front of Mika, and said, “Take your girlfriend and get out of here. Make sure she stays safe.”
Seiji considered staying here to fight alongside them, but then he glanced over his shoulder at Mika—and Namie, who was glaring at her.
I’m guessing there’s no point in asking my sister to watch over her for me.
If he just told them to escape on their own, Namie was bound to attack Mika once they were alone again. Reluctantly, he came to the realization that the best choice for Mika’s safety was to escape with her.
“…I will. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us. I told you, we’re just a bunch of idiots having a fight on our own.”
Kadota turned and punched one of the oncoming thugs. It was a far more powerful punch than it had any right to be, coming from a guy who ought to be in a hospital bed. The other thugs shrank back.
He used that brief interval to yell to Saki, “Kida’s surprisingly weak on the mental end…so make sure you help soothe him when you see him again.”
“…I will!” Saki replied and squeezed Anri’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go.”
“…But…”
Anri was hesitant. If she used Saika’s power, she could easily defeat all these people and possess them with the blade’s curse. But Kadota saw through what she was thinking.
“They’re not worth the burden on your conscience.”
“…!”
“Just get going! Do whatever you need to do to protect Mikado!”
“Kadota…”
Anri bit her lip and bowed fiercely. Then she turned and raced for the sidewalk with Saki.
“Hey! Wait, you bitches!” growled one of the thugs. He made to chase after them but got in only a step or two before Togusa dropped him with a roundhouse kick.
“Gahk…”
“You asshole, you didn’t think you could mess up my car and get away with it, did you…?”
That kicked off a majestic round of chaos.
Fights broke out here and there in Ikebukuro.
It was like fireworks going off in a chain reaction.
They burst into motion, burning and flaming, only to go out with a whimper.
All the while unaware that a dark shadow was encroaching upon them.
The rooftop of a mixed-use building
“Mikado…”
Masaomi writhed on the ground in pain. He looked up at Mikado, who smiled down at him and said, “It’s all right, Masaomi. If you tie it off and call an ambulance, I think you’ll pull through.”
Then, while still staring directly at his friend, he began his monologue.
“…Ah yes. I shot him.”
“…?”
“I did it. I was able to shoot…Kida…”
“Mikado…?”
Masaomi kept his eye on Mikado as he fought pain all over his body—and he noticed that his friend seemed to be trembling.
“I wondered how far I would go in embracing the extraordinary. Even I didn
’t know what the answer would be. How far would I go, what would I have to do, to make myself stop?”
Mikado walked slowly over to the corner of the rooftop, where he picked up his first gun.
“But…even after you hit me, I didn’t stop. In fact…I went ahead and shot you.”
The faint smile he often wore was gone now, replaced only by deep sadness.
“If I can shoot you, then I’m sure I could shoot my mom and dad.”
“Uh…Mikado?” Masaomi gasped, crawling along the floor, though it wasn’t clear whether Mikado was even hearing the words.
He stared off into nothingness and continued, “I’m sure I could shoot Kadota and Yumasaki and Karisawa, too. And Kishitani, and Izaya, and Shizuo, and Harima, and Yagiri, and Aoba, and Takiguchi, and Miyoshi, and…!”
As he went down the list of close, familiar names, Mikado’s voice grew more and more strained. It sounded as though he was blaming himself. But then it abruptly softened.
“Oh yeah. It’s true, Masaomi… I’m certain that in the quest for my own selfish wants…”
He paused for a moment before continuing even slower and more deliberately.
“…I would even shoot Sonohara.”
Through what faint light there was on the rooftop, Masaomi saw that Mikado was crying.
Then Mikado raised the original gun, the full-sized pistol, to his own temple.
“W-wait, Mikado! What are you doing?!” Masaomi cried with alarm, forgetting even his own pain. “You gotta be kidding! This is the least funny joke you’ve told all day!” he screamed.
But Mikado only said, “I think…I shouldn’t be around anymore. I’m only going to attempt worse things…and make life worse for more people.”
Tears dripped from his eyes as he put on his old smile. “So I think that I should vanish along with the Dollars.”
The sight of him smiling and crying made Masaomi furious. “Don’t you dare think about dying to get out of this! Look, if you die, that’s not your own free will! You’re being manipulated! By that asshole Izaya! I’m gonna get revenge on him! I’ll kill him, even if it takes all my life!”
Durarara!!, Vol. 13 Page 16
