“…”
“So…will you fulfill your side of the agreement and hurl me into the sky?” Shinra asked. It sounded like a joke, but Shizuo did not laugh it off.
“…Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“If you fall, you’re 100 percent guaranteed to die. At that angle, I won’t be able to catch your landing. Speaking of which, are you trying to make me a murderer?” he demanded, thinking of Vorona.
Shinra was quiet for a moment, then said, “Yeah, if it happens…then I’m sorry. But I trust Celty. You probably don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I can put it in these terms: Do you trust me for trusting Celty?”
“…”
Shizuo thought it over, then grinned without a word. He grabbed Shinra’s leg and hurled him with strength that far surpassed human limits.
“Don’t regret this, you villain!” he bellowed.
And though he was injured all over and not anywhere near his peak condition, it was the most powerful throw he’d made that night, including his duel with Izaya.
Sky
“…Don’t be so upset, Shooter,” Celty said to her mount now that they were alone in the air. “This was for the best. Now that all my memories are back, living here among the humans will only cause them more suffering…”
She climbed farther into the pitch-black sky that her own shadow had fashioned as she spoke to Shooter.
“Yes, it hurts. It hurts a lot, Shooter. I would rather never deal with human beings again if it meant not going through this feeling…,” she said mournfully, though her head still showed not a single hint of emotion on its features. “I just want Shinra to forget about me…but I don’t want to forget…Shin…ra…?”
She paused there.
In the sky of Ikebukuro, locked in abnormal darkness by a blanket of shadow, a blazing white light in stark contrast to the background shot right past her side.
And when she realized that it was Shinra, Celty’s mind went blank instead.
“Wha…?”
“Hi.”
“Wh-wha…wh-wh-wha…what are you doing?!”
As Shinra slowly arced and began to fall, Celty couldn’t help but stick her hands out. Dutifully reading her mind, Shooter charged forward on his shadowy path, racing faster to catch up to the falling man.
The head spilled out of her grasp, but that wasn’t a problem. Shadow tendrils extended from the severed head itself, attaching it to the sheer surface of her neck. If it wasn’t going to fall, she couldn’t lose it.
At this point, the soul of her head and body were completely reattached. Nothing—no saws or gunpowder—could separate her head now that it was attached by the soul that was her shadow.
All except for one cursed sword that was said to separate the soul from the body.
“…Celty,” Shinra murmured as he fell.
She lunged, reaching out for him. “Grab on!”
At this point, there was no use keeping up her act. She was in her natural, true element now.
“Sorry,” Shinra stated.
“What?”
He continued to plummet, with Celty chasing after him.
And then she saw: They were not bloodshot.
Shinra’s eyes were actually glowing with red light, as Anri’s had done.
And a sharp blade extended from the palm of his right hand.
“Oh, n…”
Silver flashed briefly in the night sky.
And Saika quickly, powerfully severed the shadow connecting Celty’s body and head.
More than ten minutes earlier
“Oh, right…Miss Kujiragi.”
“?”
She stopped in the act of leaving and turned back to Shinra.
“If I wanted to rent out your Saika…how much would that cost me?”
Celty writhed and jerked in midair after the separation of her head and neck.
An abnormal volume of shadow spurted forth from the space where each side had been cut, and it spread through the sky over Ikebukuro with abnormal speed.
Qrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……………
Her body continued spasming a little bit, but Shooter’s fierce cry brought her back to her senses.
This was not the time to be asleep. As her thoughts spurred back into motion, the effects of the mental link being abruptly severed caused memories to flash back through her mind in rapid succession.
Aaah… Aaaaaaaaahhhh!
I…I…I…!
Countless memories, stretching back over decades and centuries, flooding through her, filling her mind.
She descended along with Shooter in her confusion—and as she did, flickers of a white shape began to appear in the rapid shuffle of images.
Despite the chaos, Celty reached out for the pale thing. As if to say that it was the most precious thing of all to her.
The next moment, her blindly stretching hand caught something.
It was the arm of a man wearing a white coat.
Shin…ra. Shinra…
…Shinra!
Celty’s mind snapped back to consciousness again, and she sent out shadows in all directions. A cushion of darkness spread out below as they plummeted onto a corner of one of the Sunshine City buildings.
They bounced off the cushion and back into the air, and Celty still did not let go of Shinra’s arm. Without Shooter’s guidance, she might never have caught Shinra as he fell.
It was through a series of miracles that he avoided falling to his death. But Celty was not in the mind space to appreciate all this in the moment.
Shinra!
“Wake up, Shinra!”
Celty hopped off Shooter, pulled her PDA out of her armor—she’d been hanging on to it, just in case—and thrust it before Shinra’s dizzy eyes.
“Please! Wake up! Don’t die!” she typed and shook his shoulders.
He opened his eyes slowly. “No, Celty…you shouldn’t shake someone with an injury like this.”
“…Shinra!” She bopped him on the chest. “You dummy! You big dummy! You’re a big, dumb dummy!”
“Ouch, ouch… That hurts, Celty.”
“Why? Why would you do something so dangerous?! If something went wrong…you’d be dead… You would have died, Shinra!”
She thrust out the PDA for him to see, her body trembling.
“I refused to accept your determination,” he said with a smile. “I insulted the dullahan’s way of life…and the future you chose.”
The doctor traced a finger softly along the nape of Celty’s neck and grinned at her.
“So it doesn’t even out unless I risk my neck, does it?”
Celty typed into her PDA. Words she typed at the most important moments. Words she was more used to typing than any others.
“You really are an idiot.”
Outside of Tokyu Hands
“So…should I assume that the festival is over?” Chikage wondered.
Aoba smirked and replied, “I suppose it might be. Never would have counted on an ending like that.”
“…By the way, how come I’m not tied up, but you are?”
Chikage had full, free motion, while Aoba, like the rest of his gang and all the other biker groups, had shadows twirled around his limbs, keeping him bound to the ground.
“Dunno. Never would have counted on finishing up our fight like this.”
In fact, Celty made the decision based on Chikage’s constant proximity to Masaomi, but Chikage and Aoba didn’t know that, so they just assumed Chikage was lucky, and Aoba’s gang wasn’t.
“Finishing up, huh…? To be honest, if I’d had to fight those two big guys and all the other biker gangs, it’d probably be me on the ground right now.” Chikage approached Aoba and pulled the ski mask off him.
“…!”
Aoba glared up at him, humiliated.
“But I ain’t stupid enough to beat the crap out of some kid in this condition and claim I won,” Chikage went on. “I’ve seen your face now. I’ll reme
mber it…I think. So the score between your gang and mine will have to wait until next time to be settled.”
Then he looked around at the red-eyed crowd stuck to the ground and put his hand to his chin.
“So…what’s up with these folks…? Their eyes are still red…”
Sidewalk
Mikado and Masaomi walked along on the sidewalk down on the ground, Mikado offering his shoulder to his friend for support.
They were worried about Shinra after he got hurled into the sky after Celty, but they’d managed to witness him making apparent contact with her. They chose to trust that she’d help save him and went on ahead to get Masaomi to a hospital.
Shizuo returned to the area around Tokyu Hands, claiming to be worried about his newer coworker, and Seiji and Mika ran off toward Sunshine City to “check out how Celty’s doing.”
So Mikado and Saki each offered a shoulder to Masaomi, and they began walking in the direction of Raira General Hospital.
For quite a long time, Mikado found himself unable to speak. Celty was the very cause of his slide into the extraordinary and abnormal, but after she told him their paths crossing was without meaning and that he shouldn’t die on account of her, he was left with no idea what to do next.
“Hey, Mikado,” said Masaomi.
“…”
Mikado flapped his lips without words.
“How are we going to explain the gunshot wound in my leg?”
“Huh…?”
“Think about it. If they identify it as a gunshot, that gets the police involved. What if we told them…that one of those bikers over there just happened to have a gun? Then they won’t know which group it was…,” Masaomi joked, despite the pain that was surely racking his entire body.
“…”
Mikado looked as if he was ready to cry.
“What’s this?” Masaomi continued. “Tears of joy that you got to see Anri? Better tell her you love her before I snatch her away.”
“Oh, Masaomi.” Saki snickered and gave him a light head-butt.
Seeing their teasing and the way Anri watched him with concern from a few steps away, Mikado looked down at the ground and muttered, “Maybe I just wanted someone to hate me. For someone to call me a villain and force me to stop…”
He felt the tears welling up and forcibly pushed his face into a smile. “It would have been nice if it were either Sonohara or Kida.”
“C’mon, call me Masaomi… I don’t want us going back to that awkward formal distance again. Not after everything that’s happened,” Masaomi said, dragging his foot while Mikado put on that forced, fake smile.
Anri felt relief flood through her at seeing them like this and managed a smile of her own, complete with tears.
“The three of us…are together again.”
“Well, four,” Saki pointed out with a grin. She closed her eyes. “Go ahead—I’ll be a statue over here. You three talk among yourselves.”
Anri smiled gratefully and took the lead ahead of the group. “We agreed that when we came together again, we’d talk about our secrets.”
“…We did.”
“What? You had a promise? Hang on—why am I the odd man out?” Masaomi protested. Mikado and Anri shared a look and laughed.
“Let’s see… Who should go first?”
“It’s gotta be Mikado, right?” Masaomi joked to hide the crippling pain. “I’d rather save Anri’s secret for dessert.”
Despite the agony of seeing his friend’s state, Mikado felt the pressure around his mind steadily easing.
The ticket to the abnormal that he’d gained on the night of the Dollars’ first meeting had turned into a one-way express pass after he’d stabbed Aoba Kuronuma through the palm during the Golden Week holidays.
It felt as though the things each of them had lost as the price for their actions were slowly coming back to their rightful place.
I get it now. Sonohara was right all that time ago.
Maybe a totally typical normal life that lasts forever is what’s really abnormal.
Mikado thought back on the past, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he looked at her. And then…
He noticed a man approaching her from behind.
“Huh…?”
A man with bloodshot red eyes and a small knife in his hand.
The man sported a fashionable, youthful haircut, but Mikado recognized his face.
Mr. Nasujima…? Why…?
As he watched, confused, Nasujima thrust the knife down toward Anri’s back, a cruel, sickening smile on his face.
Unconsciously, Mikado left Masaomi’s side and pushed Anri away.
Before either of them—Masaomi stumbling and Anri jolted to the side—could process what was happening, Mikado stood tall before Nasujima.
His blade dug into Mikado’s stomach.
“Aah…”
A feeble gasp was all he could manage. Heat and pain shot through him from the spot where he was stabbed.
“Shit! Got in my way!” Nasujima spat with a click of his tongue and thrust the knife into Mikado’s side a few more times.
There was a scream.
Was it Masaomi? Or possibly Anri?
He never found the answer.
Mikado Ryuugamine’s world was enveloped in shadow without light.
Chat room
.
.
.
The chat room is currently empty.
Mai has entered the chat.
Mai: See you again later.
Mai has left the chat.
The chat room is currently empty.
The chat room is currently empty.
.
.
.
Epilogue
At last, Tokyo greeted the morning.
But whether the hour hand passed six o’clock or seven o’clock, the rays of the morning sun did not alight upon Ikebukuro.
Pitch-black shadow hung over the city, far darker than any cloud could make it.
It was as if the night continued onward, striking fear and unease into the citizens and making huge national news.
By noon, however, the shadow was gone, and the rest of society neatly classified it a “natural phenomenon caused by a special dust storm” so that they could continue on with their day.
But for those individuals who were most deeply connected to that shadow, it was a morning of change.
Inside a car
“…”
Through dull wits, Izaya Orihara became aware that his surroundings were shaking.
Apparently, he was sitting in the passenger seat of a car with the seat back tilted down. He looked over and saw a man with a shaved head driving in silence.
“…Is that…Mr. Kine?”
“You’re lucky I happened to be nearby…if you want to call it luck.”
“…”
“I’d say that with the injuries you’ve got, there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll make it if I rush you to a hospital,” Kine estimated without a hint of emotion. “Frankly, the blunt impacts all over your body are worse than the knife wound in your gut. I’d guess you’ve got a couple organs failing right now. Can’t believe you were able to battle with Shizuo in that state.”
“…”
Izaya glanced down at his side. There was a detachable knife blade stuck in the flesh there. Only there was shadow stuck in the wound around it, holding his blood loss to a minimum.
“I wouldn’t pull that out. If you start bleeding, your chances of dying go from fifty-fifty to ninety-ten.”
“…”
“Before you die, thank the kid behind you. She helped carry you in here while Shizuo was blinded.”
“…?”
Izaya glanced into the rearview mirror, his face pale, and saw a girl with a cold expression on her face: Manami Mamiya.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I just wanted to see your end without anyone getting in the way,” she said, staring back at him through the mirror with open hatred and dismiss
al. “If you end up dying, I’ll say, ‘You got killed by a monster. Serves you right.’ But if that shadow in your wound saves you, I’ll say, ‘Your life got spared by a monster. Serves you right.’”
“…Ha-ha… Both of those are…horrible.”
“I was talking with Shinra Kishitani earlier. He told me the kinds of things you would hate.”
“Damn…him…”
He grimaced, exhaled, then gazed out through empty eyes at the black sky visible through the car window. He was silent for a long while.
“What now?” Kine asked. “I could drop you off at an emergency room nearby. Or would a black market doctor I have pull with be more convenient for you?”
Despite being on the brink of death, Izaya glared at the shadow covering the sky of Ikebukuro and said, “First…take me out of this city…as far as you can manage…”
“…”
“If I’m going to die…I don’t want my last moments watched over…by a monster.”
He put on a brave show of smiling, but his face was getting paler by the minute. Kine said nothing and continued driving, thinking of a route that would slip them past any checkpoints set up by the police.
Eventually, their car disappeared out of the area.
Izaya vanished from Ikebukuro, taking with him any information on his death or survival.
The very info dealer who would be in possession of that info was now gone.
In time, the darkness in the sky began to dissipate, and with it, the shadows that tied down the bikers and the Saika-possessed dispersed.
“…Huh?”
When Shuuji Niekawa became aware of his surroundings again, he was on the ground in the middle of Ikebukuro.
“What…am I doing here?”
He glanced around and saw many others looking equally befuddled.
“Let’s see… I…I found Haruna…and what happened after that…?” he wondered. Then his text message alert went off.
Durarara!!, Vol. 13 Page 19
