Durarara!!, Vol. 13

by Ryohgo Narita

  It was from his daughter. And it was a very simple message.

  “Don’t worry, Dad. I’m with the one I love right now.”

  A very simple, worrisome message.

  Somewhere in Tokyo

  Hmm…? Where am I…?

  When Takashi Nasujima awoke, he was in a dimly lit room.

  “…Ah…gaah…!”

  He tried to get up, but his body wouldn’t move. Not only that, it was racked with horrible pain.

  What…? What happened…?

  Despite the agony that washed over his brain like a wave, he slowly began to remember, bit by bit, the events that happened before he lost consciousness.

  Fortunately for him, hiding in Russia Sushi out of fear of Shizuo meant Nasujima had escaped the binding shadows that afflicted everyone outside. From there, he wandered around in search of fresh pawns.

  It was at that point that he just so happened to witness Anri Sonohara walking on the sidewalk. Plus, her attention was on someone else who was injured, so she was completely vulnerable.

  Nasujima licked his lips and approached, excited to get the best pawn imaginable.

  That’s right. That’s where that stupid kid got in the way…

  He’d stabbed the boy several times in frustration, Anri Sonohara had screamed, and then she had produced a katana from her body and came slashing at him.

  And then…um…I didn’t get cut.

  Huh? Why didn’t I get sliced by her?

  He felt a deep creaking in his spine and tried to go back deeper into his memories.

  The moment that Anri’s Saika bore down on Nasujima, Haruna stepped in between the two and used the knife in her hand to block the sword.

  “…?! Haruna!”

  “No… You can’t, Anri… You might be my friend, but you can’t have Takashi,” she said, a mixture of fury and worship in her voice.

  Nasujima felt his skin crawl. “N…Niekawa…? I thought…you were under my control…”

  She was silent for a moment before she answered. As her eyes sparkled like those of a girl in love, she twisted her body around and curved her mouth as far as it would go.

  “Well…isn’t that what you wanted?”

  Either she was just acting, or she’d allowed him to possess her with Saika on purpose.

  “I’m sorry that I couldn’t always be who you wanted me to be…but I felt certain that I was about to lose you to that sneaking little cat burglar…”

  In any case, it was exactly the opposite of what Nasujima actually wanted. He uttered a pathetic sound somewhere between a yelp and a shriek and turned his back on Anri and Haruna.

  “Oh…! Wait, Takashi!”

  Shit! Shit! Goddammit! Why?! Why did this have to happen?! I thought I had the power now! Why is this happening to me?!

  Despite Nasujima’s being a teacher by profession, his mental dictionary was somehow missing the phrase you reap what you sow. He sped along the city streets, trying to put distance between himself and his pursuer.

  He spotted a van driving in his direction and stepped out into the street, waving his hands. “Hey! Stop! Let me in!”

  Whether it was an ordinary civilian or a gang member, he’d stab them and take them over as soon as they got out of the driver’s seat. All he had to do was stand in the road to make them stop…

  “Hey, someone just jumped into the middle of the street,” Togusa said, peering through the broken windshield as he drove. After the shadow descended on the city earlier, Izumii and his thugs wound up on the ground, tied up by the shadow ropes, but for some reason, Kadota’s group was left untouched, so they decided to drive off and get away from the scene.

  They had made it a reasonable distance away and were about to call Anri when a man suddenly stood in the road to block their path. From the back seat, Karisawa cried out, “Oh! It’s him! The boss of the red-eyes! He said he was gonna do some stuff to Mikado!”

  “Huh…?” Kadota grumbled. And then, “Hey…that’s the guy who made the slasher run me over.”

  Something inside of Togusa snapped.

  “Ah! Hey, wait, Togusa,” Kadota yelled, but it was too late. Togusa jammed his foot on the gas.

  There was a heavy thump—and Takashi Nasujima’s memory of the night stopped there.

  “That’s right… I got hit by that car…”

  The return of that memory made Nasujima cognizant of another anomaly. His limbs were tied down to the corners of a bed with leather restraints.

  “Wha…? Urgh…!”

  The pain was horrendous all over. It must have been from the impact of the car.

  “What’s going on…? What is this place?”

  From a corner of the room, a voice said, “Oh…you’re awake, Takashi…”

  “Huh…?”

  “This is one of the little hideouts Izaya Orihara kept for himself. Don’t worry. No one is coming here, and no one will hear our lovemaking, no matter how loud it gets…”

  “Hwa—?!”

  He turned his head and saw Haruna gazing at him with a blissful look in her eyes.

  “I wanted to slice up the person who ran you over…but I decided to forgive them. After all, it’s thanks to them that our bonds are about to become so, so much stronger…”

  A knife shone in her hand.

  “Aaaaah! Aaaaah!” screamed Nasujima, but Haruna just brushed his cheek with her fingers, taking it as a reaction to the agony of his injuries. Next to the bed, there was a locker which she opened up.

  “Don’t worry, Takashi… I’ll heal you.”

  There were multiple shelves in the locker containing a variety of supplies, from smaller tools such as a scalpel, scissors, and utility knife to larger ones like a saw, hatchet, and chain saw. The feature they all shared in common was that they were bladed.

  Haruna turned back to Takashi, carrying a bundle of the tools. “I love you, Takashi,” she said.

  “Ah…aaaah…”

  “I’ll make you forget all your pain…with the pain of my own love.”

  His screams echoed off the walls of the room—but this was only the beginning of a vivid and memorable period of time shared only by the two of them.

  Ikebukuro

  “Yes, so the head is in transporting by the recovery team to the airport. It is to be scheduled for shipping to the headquarters of Chicago as a specimen of a special human body,” said the voice over the phone in oddly structured Japanese.

  Shingen replied to his wife, Emilia, with annoyance. “You called a recovery team? I don’t understand how you can be so bad at cooking but so good at performing your job.”

  “I cannot be allowing for you to require extra workings, Shingen.”

  “Your sentiment is appreciated. Just stop mixing gunpowder into your cooking experiments.”

  Their strange form of flirting continued for a little while longer before Shingen finally ended the call and spoke to the woman in the room with him.

  “You heard that. What now, Namie?”

  “…I don’t know what you mean.”

  She could have strangled him to death right at that moment, but the Russian man with the watchful eyes behind her would have prevented any attempt. She’d been trying to recover the head before Seiji could, until Shingen caught her in the attempt and told her the spiteful news: “Nebula is in possession of the head now.”

  Before her irritation could dissipate, Shingen said shamelessly, “Well, regardless of what you do, your uncle was shocked into a near-vegetative state, so we drew the message ‘I love severed heads’ with a heart symbol on his forehead in marker, which at this point has gone past being humorous into just plain sad. We have little interest left in punishing you, as it happens.”

  “…And?”

  “From Nebula’s perspective, in fact, you had a longer and deeper fixation on that head than anyone. Wouldn’t we want your expertise?”

  “What? Is this supposed to be a job offer?”

  “Really? With as direct as I am being with y
ou, can’t you be certain that this is a recruitment pitch? Perhaps I was wrong, and you’re actually far stupider than you— Gu-gu-gu-gwaaah! Stop…stop pressing your thumb against my Adam’s apple! Don’t make me— Gu-gu-gu-guah…”

  Namie continued to attack and harangue him until Egor finally stepped in to stop her—and by that time, the black shadow that covered the sky had vanished.

  From there, the days trickled past.

  Seiji’s apartment—several days later

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Of course!”

  “You make it sound simple, but it’ll cost lots of money and time.”

  “I’ll go anywhere that you’re going, Seiji!”

  Seiji and Mika were not talking about where to go on their next date this time. They were discussing the idea of going to school in America.

  First, his sister had said she was going over to the United States; then Mika had told him the head had apparently been taken to Chicago. Immediately, Seiji began to plan a way to get there using a study abroad program, and thus Mika had joined in the preparation as if she were obviously welcome.

  “But…why did you tell me the head was in Chicago?”

  “Huh?”

  “I figure if you kept it a secret from me and went on your own, you’d have a better chance of destroying the head.”

  “Because even then, I’d rather be with you!” she said, giving him an utterly transparent smile.

  He muttered, “The thing is…I still love that head.”

  “I know!”

  It was a conversation they’d had a million times before, except that in this instance Seiji added, “But while I don’t think of you as a lover…you are kind of like family to me.”

  Mika did not reply to this. Instead, she hugged him tight around the chest. Seiji didn’t seem bothered by it, either. Their oddball relationship had them pointed together in the direction of the head.

  Both of them knew they were in parallel with each other.

  But they continued onward anyway, enjoying the warmth of their mutual proximity.

  Tokyo

  When her talent agency manager told her the rumor that a suspect in the case of the serial killer Hollywood had surfaced, Ruri Hijiribe prepared herself, thinking that the time had finally come.

  She’d done it to avenge her parents, but a crime was a crime. This was the time to atone for what she’d done, and she was ready for it.

  The only regret she had was that she’d let the ringleader, Jinnai Yodogiri, get away—but she was no longer of a mind to kill him.

  She would accept whatever happened. The only thing she wanted to do was make sure that none of it hurt Yuuhei Hanejima.

  But as her manager continued to explain the situation, Ruri was left feeling baffled.

  “Apparently, Jinnai Yodogiri and his secretary, Kasane Kujiragi, have been listed as suspects in the serial killings.”

  It wasn’t announced publicly, but the police were looking for them as people of interest, so since Ruri was a former member of Yodogiri’s agency, they might want to ask her some questions.

  That was all her manager had to say about it, so Ruri headed out to make the trip home, uncertain of anything anymore.

  I should talk to Yuuhei Hanejima, she decided and walked into the night streets around her apartment. Then she noticed a truck approaching in her direction. She moved to the side of the road to give it room to pass, but then she detected something wrong with it.

  Despite the narrow width of the road, it did not slow down a bit. If anything, it seemed to be picking up speed, rushing straight at her.

  …!

  She was a fraction of a second too late in reacting. For an instant, she fell prey to the obsessive fixation in the madness of the man driving the vehicle.

  But Ruri Hijiribe did not know that the man driving the car was a fanatical stalker of hers—the son of the man she’d killed to avenge her father: Kisuke Adabashi.

  “Ha-ha…ha-haaaa…ha-ha-ha-ha! Hya-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaa-ha-haaa!”

  Adabashi had escaped from Izaya’s hideout, dragging his broken leg behind him, and through sheer tenacity alone, he’d made his way to Ruri’s location, ambushing her with a truck he stole.

  Ruri had superhuman strength, but when faced out of the blue with the delusion of a man to whom love and destruction were the same thing, she was a moment too late to escape his aggression.

  Just before her body was at the mercy of the mass and force of sheer violence, the owner of a strength beyond hers scooped her up, then raced up the front of the oncoming truck and leaped clear over it to safety.

  The next moment, there was a horrendous crash behind them as the truck’s front twisted and deformed against a light pole. With the sound of the pole creaking and groaning in the background, Ruri recognized who had picked her up.

  “A-are you…Miss Kujiragi…?”

  It was Kujiragi, the secretary of that detestable Yodogiri, who had saved her. It was hard for Ruri to process in the moment; she was utterly taken aback.

  “Do you hate me?” asked the woman.

  “Wha…?”

  “Forgive the suddenness of what I am about to say… I am jealous of you,” Kujiragi confessed out of nowhere.

  Ruri summoned enough presence of mind to ask, “Um…what do you mean?” It was bafflement and curiosity that rose to the surface before hatred.

  Instead of answering her question, however, Kujiragi continued her announcement. “So I have decided to steal from you. I will steal the opportunity for the serial killer Hollywood to atone for her crimes.”

  “?!”

  “This is now my crime and my punishment to you. I will steal all of Hollywood’s sins. Now you will be unable to atone for what you have done, and you never will know that peace,” Kujiragi explained. She dragged the unconscious Adabashi out of the truck, hauled him over her shoulder, and turned away from Ruri. “And now, with that guilt eternally plaguing your conscience…do have a good life.”

  “What…do you mean? Why…why would you do this?”

  “You cannot turn yourself in,” Kujiragi continued, her eyes flashing red, ignoring Ruri. “I have fingers deep within both the police and the media.”

  Ruri flinched at the surreal look of her eyes but stood her ground. “No! Wait! What are you…?”

  But without offering a single firm answer to any of Ruri’s questions, Kujiragi leaped away with superhuman agility—leaving only one self-deprecating comment.

  “I am simply an irredeemable villain…motivated by envy.”

  Raira General Hospital—several days later

  “I’m terribly sorry about all the trouble Mikado’s put you through, Masaomi.”

  “But, Miss…Sonohara, was it? I’m very glad you didn’t wind up getting hurt.”

  Two adults were speaking to Masaomi and Anri in gentle tones.

  “Please, please…I hope you’ll be good to our Mikado.”

  “We’re so grateful to you for being his friends.”

  After Masaomi and Anri walked the man and woman back to the hospital room, they made their way slowly toward the entrance of the building.

  “Was that your first time meeting Mikado’s parents?” he asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re almost shockingly normal, right? But they’re nice. When I was a kid, I remember them getting us watermelon in the summer when I went to hang out.”

  The recollection sent Masaomi further into his childhood memories of Mikado’s parents.

  Mikado had said once that his father was the head of personnel at a printing company. He remembered the man being rather frazzled but essentially good-natured. His mother looked exactly the way that Anri imagined an “ordinary mother” would look, and she was kind enough to be concerned about Anri at a time when her own son was in critical condition.

  Everything that happened was explained as an early-morning hiking expedition that had turned tragic when they’d encountered a biker-gang turf
war, in which Mikado stepped in to protect them when someone turned a knife on the group.

  Because the wound in Masaomi’s leg did not have a bullet inside of it and the shadow had stopped the bleeding entirely, it was treated like a mystery—an injury with no clearly discernible cause.

  And while Mikado Ryuugamine’s life was stable for the moment, he still had not opened his eyes.

  “Knowing what his parents are like, I can’t help but feel like the reason Mikado turned out this way isn’t because of his home life…but that it was all my fault.”

  “No, that’s not…,” Anri said, trying to comfort Masaomi, but she was interrupted by another boy who passed the two.

  “Don’t be so self-absorbed.”

  “?”

  Masaomi glanced over and got a good look at who had said that.

  “You’re exaggerating how much influence you have over Mr. Mikado.”

  “Kuronuma…,” Anri mumbled.

  Masaomi gasped, recalling where he’d seen the boy before, and glared at him. “Aoba Kuronuma… What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m not going to start a fight with you in a hospital. Whether you believe me or not, I’m just here to visit Mr. Mikado. Am I not allowed to do that?”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve…,” Masaomi growled, trying to keep himself from punching him. “What’s wrong…you haven’t gotten him involved in enough shit already?”

  Aoba sighed. “Oh no. And a very scary man already came and menaced me about that. We’ve largely accomplished what we set out to do, so I have no reason to force Mr. Mikado to do anything anymore.”

  “What you set out to…?”

  “As we figured, all the uproar succeeded at getting the Dollars recognized as a dangerous, malicious group. All the ordinary folks freaked out and stopped associating with the group, and the co-webmaster named Tsukumoya deleted all the Dollars-related sites, so at this point, the name simply lives on as its own entity.”

  “…And in the meantime, you Blue Squares get to walk free. After all, that was the Dollars’ work,” Masaomi spat.