Durarara!!, Vol. 7

by Ryohgo Narita

I wonder if it’s because she’s foreign. The head has a foreign face, too… Maybe it’s a sore spot for her. Probably not worth worrying about, though.

  That was about the depth to which Seiji considered the strange, subtle change in his false girlfriend before he moved on to another thought.

  After that, Mika continued the meal in her usual way, teasing and chatting with Seiji the whole while. She clung to him like a brand-new girlfriend, excited and naive, while he maintained an aloofness that was cool but never cold.

  It was an odd, artificial mixture of personalities, but at a glance, they appeared to be a fairly close romantic couple.

  Later, the woman named Vorona spoke to the chef about something and then slunk into the back with a nasty look on her face, but by that point, Seiji had stopped having any interest in her.

  “…You know, I think it’s incredible that Yuuhei Hanejima keeps doing these Carmilla Saizou movies. He’s a big enough star that he doesn’t have to stoop to doing that silly role, but they say he’s already signed on for another sequel.”

  “What’s the next one about? Is that where his rival Dracule Sasuke comes back to life?”

  “That’s the one. Y’know, for being such dumb movies, they get really great makeup effects from Tenjin Zakuroya. I really liked the way they did up Ruri Hijiribe in the first one.”

  “Aren’t Ruri Hijiribe and Yuuhei Hanejima going out now?”

  They continued their meal, engaging in simple watercooler talk.

  “Even coming from a guy, I think Yuuhei Hanejima’s a pretty cool, good-looking actor. I know not everyone loves the pair, but I think they suit each other.”

  “Well, I think you’re way better than Yuuhei Hanejima,” Mika interjected in typical fashion.

  “Mika, your phone’s ringing. Mika, your phone’s ringing.”

  Suddenly, a ringtone recording of Seiji’s voice went off somewhere in Mika’s bag, and she rustled around and pulled her phone out of it.

  “…You sure that ringtone isn’t too creepy?”

  “You think so? I don’t mind it at all.”

  “When did you record me saying that, anyway?” Seiji grumbled. Mika looked down at the screen.

  Unlisted number.

  She narrowed her eyes, then pressed the call button anyway and held the speaker up to her ear.

  “…Hello?”

  And at the moment she answered the call, her holiday did an about-face.

  “…Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hang on.”

  Mika got up from her seat with a smile on her face. “Sorry, Seiji, it’s a call from a friend. Mind if I go outside to take it?”

  “Yeah, whatever,” he said easily. She waved to him, exited the sushi restaurant, and stood to the side of the door to continue her call.

  He watched her go, then glanced down at the sushi menu and thought to himself, It’s really rare for Mika to take a call from a friend. Is it Sonohara? You know, that reminds me—I seem to recall Sonohara and Ryuugamine talking about new cell phones recently.

  Speaking of which, I don’t really get their relationship, either. I can tell that he likes her. I said something about that to him at the end of our first year, but I don’t know what happened after that, if anything.

  Mikado Ryuugamine was very close with a girl named Anri Sonohara, who was Mika’s friend.

  Their relationship was famously visible within the school, but it was hard to say if they were really lovers or not. They were close enough that a student who didn’t know them that well might be surprised to hear that they weren’t a couple.

  But until recently, there had been another member of their group.

  I suppose Ryuugamine would know the reason Kida left school.

  Masaomi Kida was Seiji’s schoolmate until he dropped out at the end of the last school year. They were in separate classes, so they’d hardly ever spoken, but Seiji knew that Kida hung around with Mikado Ryuugamine and Anri Sonohara all the time.

  Some people said Kida had left due to the shock of the other two hooking up, but given how vague and uncertain their relationship continued to appear, there was a lack of evidence to support the rumor, and it soon died away.

  But if Mika’s got even a single friend, that would be Sonohara.

  And even that girl had hardly ever called Mika on the phone. She recognized that his relationship with Mika had its own peculiar circumstances and was considerate enough not to bother Mika about the details—but that only made this call all the more suspicious.

  After a while, the young woman came back into the restaurant. She wore an awkward smile, winked, and held up her hand sideways in apology.

  “Sorry, Seiji… I agreed to help a friend with a problem, and now I’ve got to go meet them,” she explained, bowing her head.

  He leaned toward her and asked, “Are you talking about Sonohara?”

  Maybe it’s like that other time when they asked her to teach them how to cook fish the way she does, he wondered.

  Mika beamed and said, “Yeah, that’s right. She’s got some kind of family thing to talk about. Honestly, I’d prefer to just hang out with you, but…”

  “Listen, it’s fine with me. I was thinking that you ought to treasure your friends a little more, in fact.”

  “Aww, really? As long as I have you, Seiji, I don’t need any of my friends.”

  “Stop being macabre and just get on with it,” he muttered.

  Mika bowed again, smiled wistfully, and then announced, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then!”

  “Yeah.”

  She set down three thousand-yen bills on the sushi counter as she headed for the door.

  “Oh, hey, I’ll pay for it. Hey! Wait!” Seiji said, grabbing the bills, but she either didn’t hear or simply ignored him as she left the building.

  He was about to chase after her when the waiter returned with his order. “Hi, here your food, miso soup with crab.”

  Seiji hesitated and then decided to stay and finish his meal alone.

  I can give her the money back tomorrow.

  Fifteen minutes later, Tokyo, warehouse

  “…Hello.”

  They were on a block near the national highway route, distant from the shopping district.

  After separating from Seiji, Mika made her way here, to a building labeled YAGIRI PHARMACEUTICALS, STORAGE WAREHOUSE NO. 3. For being a warehouse, the building was surprisingly clean and orderly. In fact, from the outside it looked like nothing else but a research facility. The exterior was a pure white, with large gateposts like the entrance of a hospital.

  But that was only in terms of the exterior. On the inside, it was—sure enough—a warehouse, with a central storage room the size of a small gymnasium, surrounded by hallways, a few airtight little rooms, a bathroom, and a small break room with running water.

  The warehouse itself was split into sections with screens, each area containing a stock of materials—tools or pharmaceutical products—effectively carving the large room into a bewildering maze.

  The warehouse floor appeared little used; spiderwebs gathered in the corners of the space, and tufts of dust and debris littered the floor. Light from the outside entered the building through the glass doors at the entrance, but the interior illumination was not on. Even the location of the switches was a mystery, creating an eerie gloominess to the structure—a far cry from the clean, updated image of an advanced pharmaceuticals company.

  Near the entrance, Mika leaned forward and called out loudly and sternly, “Hellooooo?”

  Her voice echoed off the hospital-like entrance. Yet there was no reception area of any kind, just a door to the main storage area farther on and walls of stacked cardboard boxes and other supplies in between.

  Mika took a step inside and glanced down the hallways branching off in either direction, but there was nothing down them until they ended. It was as though this building had been completely removed from the normal routine of the rest of the city.

  She headed carefully down one hallway to the o
pen door leading into the building’s center. But no sooner had she taken a step into the storage area than a loud clicking sound came from the antechamber behind her.

  Mika spun around to see a woman standing before the glass doors that led into the building, locking them shut.

  An elegant woman with long hair hanging down her back. Mika recognized her at once.

  “I’ve been waiting… Or should I say, I’m afraid I’ve been keeping you waiting…Mika Harima.”

  Something in the way she spoke put Mika into a poetic state of mind. If ice could burn, it would emit the kind of air this woman spoke—such was the freezing cold burn of Namie’s voice.

  “I’m so sorry, my dear. You’ve been enjoying a very, very long dream…of the kind that can never come true for you.”

  Raw, overwhelming emotion was apparent to any who might hear that voice.

  But Mika Harima was not frightened. If anything, she glared back at the woman with a challenge in her eyes.

  “It’s been a while…Sister-in-law.”

  grikk

  grikk

  grrk grik

  A strange sound emerged from the front room.

  Mika recognized it as the sound of Namie’s teeth grinding.

  Namie stood before the glass doors. The light from the outside silhouetted her, shrouding her expression in shadow. Mika couldn’t make it out from where she stood, but the facial expression made no difference. The teeth grinding was all the information she needed to understand that the situation was dangerous.

  She was probably smiling. On the surface for sure, but it was quite possible that she was smiling with all her heart, too.

  At least, that was how it seemed to Mika.

  “One year…”

  As a matter of fact, there was indeed a note of bliss in the words that next came from Namie.

  “It’s been one year and one month since Seiji left me. In that time, we’ve both had dreams to tide us over. I’ve been having a nightmare, and you’ve had the briefest, most ephemeral dream of fleeting pleasures… Oh, I’m sorry. Ha-ha, would an ignorant little girl like you even know what the word ephemeral means?”

  “…Don’t assume I’m uneducated.”

  “Why, I have a hard time imagining any truly educated, cultured person forcing their own fantasies onto Seiji and shamelessly picking the lock to his house,” Namie retorted, her words dripping with sarcasm.

  Mika merely chuckled and shot back, “I’m amazed to hear a line like that from the woman who was going to dump my dead body and then decided to give me plastic surgery for her own devices the moment she realized I was still alive.”

  “…”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m quite grateful to you, Sister. Thanks to you giving me this face, Seiji and I are finally able to be together.”

  gcrakk

  A louder crunch echoed off the walls this time.

  They stood feet apart, but Mika could very nearly feel the boiling loathing of the other woman on her skin.

  Unperturbed, she tilted her head back to offer a condescending challenge: “After all, as long as I can love Seiji the way I want, I don’t need education or culture.”

  The grinding was no longer audible. Namie unwound her arm from around her waist and held it up. “Don’t you dare…call me ‘Sister-in-law’ again…”

  In her hand, she held a shining silver object—surgical scissors.

  “Don’t you dare…say Seiji’s name…without the respect it deserves!” she screamed and hurled the scissors.

  They flew right at Mika’s face like a particularly large dart.

  The scissors cut through the air between Mika and Namie with incredible speed…

  And then an ugly sound filled the space.

  It was the cell phone call that had summoned Mika Harima to this location.

  “Hello?”

  As soon as she answered the call in the middle of her lunch at Russia Sushi, the female voice on the other end had said, “I want to talk to you in private about Seiji. I’d prefer if he didn’t hear about this. Is that all right?”

  The caller gave no name, and Mika did not ask for one. She played along and responded in a breezy tone so that Seiji could hear.

  “…Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hang on.”

  Once she was outside the restaurant, the woman on the other end continued, “I’m guessing you managed to fool him. You really are despicable, the way you can just lie to Seiji like that.”

  “Says the woman who messed with my face for the express purpose of deceiving her brother,” Mika replied, fully aware that she was speaking to Namie.

  The other woman didn’t miss a beat or take the bait. “I didn’t lie to Seiji. I loved him,” she said, a bizarre excuse. “If you want that head the two of you are looking for…I could give it to you.”

  “Huh?”

  “However…I want to talk to you in person first.”

  A lie.

  Anyone who knew Namie even the least bit could instantly understand that she was lying.

  “…Do you really expect me to believe that?”

  “Listen, I’m not sure what to do, either… If I hand over the head to a foreign company, I have a guarantee that the police and Yagiri Pharmaceuticals’ muscle will protect me…but I want that to be my final resort.”

  “…”

  “But if I give Seiji the head, it will steal Seiji from me. I want to avoid that. If there’s anything where our interests are aligned, it’s that, isn’t it? So…I want to discuss what to do with the head—without Seiji knowing about it.”

  Nothing in what Namie said was trustworthy. Nothing.

  But Mika took her up on the offer, anyway.

  As suggested, she came alone, without informing Seiji.

  And now there she was, staring down the oncoming point of a pair of scissors…

  But Mika was neither stupid nor ignorant enough to come without caution nor preparation.

  Still, even though she was neither stupid nor ignorant, her choice of preparation was a rather odd one for a teenage girl.

  Metal twanged awkwardly.

  The next moment, the scissors were stuck in the ceiling, and a silver object in Mika’s right hand reflected what little light there was in the entrance.

  “…What’s that?” Namie asked, glancing at the object.

  “Isn’t it obvious? You did receive an education, didn’t you?” Mika mocked.

  Namie snapped, “Of course I know what it is. The implication of my question was why you are carrying such a thing.”

  Her eyes were narrowed, staring at the tool in Mika’s hand.

  It was a trowel—the kind used in gardening, with a pointed tip. At first she’d thought it was a kitchen knife, based on the size and shine; but no, it was just a compact hand shovel.

  The item was totally out of place in Mika’s outfit, in this location and situation. And yet she had swung it out of nowhere, deflecting Namie’s scissors in midair.

  Why is she carrying that thing around? the other woman wondered. The question was only natural.

  There were two women in an unoccupied building. One threw a pair of scissors, and the other deflected them with a hand shovel. The sequence of events was patently bizarre.

  But the girl at the center of this abnormality merely grinned and said, “A part of me believed.”

  “?”

  “I knew this was a trap, but a part of me wondered if you might actually have a good reason to give me the head. I mean, you’re still Seiji’s sister.” Mika chuckled. But her eyes were not laughing. “Just by being related to Seiji, you have the gift of my unconditional trust. Isn’t that great? You’re so lucky! You should be much, much, much more grateful to him! You should be grateful to God. You should be very, very, very, very grateful that you were fated to be born in Seiji’s family!”

  “Enough jokes. I want to know why you have that trowel,” Namie demanded.

  Mika looked up at her and smirked. “Well…if I actually get the head,
I’ll need a shovel, won’t I?”

  “…?”

  “I’ve been doing lots of tests, assuming that it’s about the size of a watermelon. I packed meats and bones of different sizes and toughness inside, did some tests…”

  “What are…you talking about…?”

  There was no abnormality in the girl’s voice. That was what helped Namie realize that she wasn’t bluffing or attempting to rattle her with nonsensical threats.

  Mika was speaking the truth, nothing more.

  “I figured that an edge this big…would be about the right size. But I can’t imagine the taste. I can’t imagine how a dullahan’s head will taste.”

  A nasty, cold shiver ran down Namie’s back. An ordinary person would have trouble instantly processing what the girl was saying. But Namie, who had already ventured into the realm of the abnormal, understood what she meant within seconds.

  Because she knew that if she were in that position, she would do the same.

  So, she’s— Yes, I understand now.

  “Are you claiming you intend to be one with the head? That’s totally illogical.”

  Mika beamed, satisfied that the other woman understood her plans, and admitted, “That’s right. But so what? What’s your point?”

  “…I have no point.”

  Namie Yagiri’s frown softened somewhat. She took a moment to consider things.

  Yes, she would do the same thing if she were in Mika’s position. If Seiji loved nothing but it, then just getting rid of that head wouldn’t be good enough. It would only become eternal within his own mind that way.

  She had to be the head.

  She would attempt to be one with the head, no matter how preposterous and illogical that might be.

  Well…I suppose the difference is that I’d shave the head’s face off and place it over my face instead.

  In fact, Namie was in a position to do exactly that. The reason she wouldn’t and hadn’t was because she still had pride in her position as his big sister. She couldn’t abandon all the love she’d built up that way.

  It was this understanding of her own nature that made the presence of Mika Harima unforgivable to Namie.