Durarara!!, Vol. 6

by Ryohgo Narita

  And if someone was exerting influence over Mikado’s connection to the Dollars, that left only a handful of possible names.

  I can’t be sure…but if he got to him, was it meant to be a nasty trick against me? Or does he seek to use Mikado for his own purposes, just like I do?

  Aoba silently cursed the meddling Izaya Orihara but kept the simple smile on his face aimed at Mikado.

  “It’s all right. Take your time. How about this? I’ll set your limit as our meeting time with Miss Anri.”

  “Uh…”

  “Once the time comes, I’ll go ahead and call her. I’ll say that something came up suddenly, and you couldn’t come today. But I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “W-wait a second!” Mikado stammered. He was more concerned about the latter half than the part about himself. “What do you mean…?”

  “Oh, I’m going. Of course I am. And if we’re not going together, she’s going to worry, you know?”

  He sent a glance to his companions guarding the front door of the factory and narrowed his eyes.

  “But you will be staying here.”

  Watching all this from outside the factory was a shadow.

  Being careful not to be spotted by the boys inside, Celty Sturluson thought feverishly.

  Hmmm. What should I do?

  Her intention here was not to spy on the goings-on of these street delinquents, of course.

  She was searching for Akane Awakusu on behalf of the Awakusu-kai, to bring the girl to safety.

  Right after receiving that job, she and Anri were attacked by a mysterious biker, so she had attached a shadow string to their attacker’s motorcycle and followed it here. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of the factory were keeping her from following the trail inside.

  I’m pretty sure their vehicles are in here. And these kids…don’t look like the types to kidnap the grandkid of the Awakusu-kai boss…

  Inside the building, Mikado’s face went pale as he examined his phone, and the boy who looked like Mikado’s underclassman smiled like he was invincible.

  Well, it doesn’t look like they’re going to start whaling on Mikado, so…this might take a while. It’s a good thing I muted my e-mail notifications.

  Originally, Celty had the notification sound on, but she got so many Dollars-related text messages that she generally kept it off now. It did vibrate, but with all the boys inside getting the same messages at around the same times, her own sound was well hidden.

  Partway through, she remembered that she could disable vibration, too, and promptly did that.

  She considered leaving the scene temporarily, but she was worried about Mikado now. They weren’t strangers—in fact, he was one of the few “friends” she had, who knew her identity and still treated her kindly.

  She also considered rushing in to help him, but Mikado might consider that a bad thing, and above all, this struck her as something he needed to answer on his own. Besides, if she raised a fuss here, it might attract the attention of her foe, the owner of the motorcycle, and put Mikado and all the other boys in danger.

  Celty continued to monitor the situation, unaware that she herself was under surveillance.

  Boy, he’s really got himself wrapped up in something here, hasn’t he? And that Aoba boy—he doesn’t look so tough, but he’s quite the evil schemer. Then again, the first time Shinra brought Izaya over, I thought he looked like an honor student… You can’t judge people on appearances.

  Celty was herself a member of the Dollars, but it wasn’t her definitive place in the world. Perhaps it would’ve been if she’d spurned Shinra’s love, but for now it was just one of many circles for her, and she considered the others no more than online chat friends.

  But she also knew Mikado in real life, and she wasn’t going to simply abandon him and find another place.

  I wonder what he’s going to do.

  Ordinarily, one would assume that asking a well-behaved boy like Mikado to be the leader of a gang had to be a joke. But Celty knew that Mikado was not as normal as he seemed.

  The first time she had met him, he fought against a high-ranking executive of Yagiri Pharmaceuticals and didn’t back down a step. Of course, it was an argument rather than a fistfight, but still, he fought all the same. She thought of him as someone with firm personal fiber.

  But the Mikado she was watching today was oddly hesitant.

  Perhaps he was indeed worried that Anri could get dragged into this mess.

  But he’d actually be safer if she was involved. In fact, it would be major trouble for whoever stood in her way.

  Celty knew that Anri was the host of Saika and admired her power. She hadn’t told Mikado this, of course, but he was beginning to get a notion of the situation. She tried to analyze his decision-making.

  I’m betting that even if he knew, Mikado would choose not to get her involved. Even if he was fully aware of Saika’s power. And yet, if Anri came to him and demanded to help, he wouldn’t say no.

  Celty recalled that Mikado knew what she was and realized that it was the abnormal and extraordinary that he desired above all else. If Anri wanted to dwell on the extraordinary side, he wouldn’t try to stop her.

  Then again, Celty had just taken a job from the Awakusu-kai and been shot at with an anti-matériel rifle; if anything, Mikado’s situation still seemed tremendously ordinary to her.

  All this gang and turf and warfare stuff… I know high school was tough for Shinra—is it like this for everyone? I wouldn’t know about this.

  Back when Shinra’s group was in high school over five years ago, Celty had witnessed a number of large-scale battles between the teens.

  But they weren’t these giant gang wars between teams like the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves, more like personal fights between adjacent individuals staking out their personal territory.

  At the center was always Shizuo, who just wanted a peaceful life.

  Controlling the strings from behind the scenes was Izaya, who stayed a step outside of the fights.

  And Shinra just wandered to and fro between them.

  Shinra would probably say something like, “Go ahead, apologize and get beat up. I’ll fix you up for free, and we can call ourselves even.” While Shizuo would say, “Quit askin’ me all this pain-in-the-ass crap!” and beat everyone up. And Izaya…

  What would Izaya do? That Aoba boy reminds me of him.

  And then Celty noticed something.

  Oh…I get it. Izaya wouldn’t get himself into this situation to begin with. They’re the sort of people who loathe their own kind, so they wouldn’t approach a kindred spirit and ask him to be their leader… Only if they were setting a trap maybe.

  Meanwhile, she continued silently watching the interior of the factory.

  Completely unaware of her enemies watching her every move at that very moment.

  It’s been a while.

  Still, nothing major was happening inside of the factory building.

  Mikado would look down, ask Aoba something, then gather information on his phone, but the process didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

  How long has it been now?

  Celty checked the time on her phone and found that nearly an hour had passed since she had arrived at the factory.

  Just as she was wondering if it was about time that she either barged in to help him or gave up and left, Aoba smiled and thumped a fist into his open palm.

  “Okay, I think it’s time to call Miss Anri now.”

  “N-no, wait,” Mikado started, but a large young man clapped a hand to his shoulder.

  “I don’t want you yelling out something inconvenient over the phone, so I’ll contact her through text. Actually, my apologies. I already did that five minutes ago.”

  “Wha…?”

  “Which means that I need to leave now if I want to make it in time. You stay here and think things over…while you’re watching the reports come in from the Dollars falling apart in this war.”

  “W-wait!
”

  Mikado’s shout brought Celty to a standing position.

  …Yeah, maybe I should do something about this now. It’s looking like that Aoba boy is about to leave, so I’ll help after he’s gone.

  As she watched Aoba go, Celty recalled how she felt about him earlier—specifically, his resemblance to Izaya Orihara. There was nothing concrete about her feeling, but it was more than enough to be wary of him.

  Something tells me I shouldn’t get involved with that Aoba boy. Also, once I take Mikado ahead to Anri, I should swing back to this factory. I’ve still got my thread connected to that bike.

  Just when she was gauging the best time to leap out—at the worst possible moment—something sounded off.

  “Da-dum, da-dum, dummmm~.”

  The descending jingle from the show Mysterious Discoveries of the World, whenever a participant answered a quiz question wrong.

  Coming from her own cell phone.

  Nwhaaaa—?! I forgot to turn off my actual ringtone!

  She’d muted her text notifications but forgotten to mute the incoming calls.

  A while ago she’d tried out a number of different ringtones, and when Shinra happened to overhear that one, he panicked and said, “Wait, Celty! Nobody else calls you but me, since you can’t talk! So what does this mean?! When I call you, it’s like getting a wrong answer?! Listen, if I’ve done something to wrong you, I apologize—just let me know what level of disappointment you’re at first!”

  She found that response so amusing, she set it to be the specific ringtone for calls from Shinra’s number.

  The ringtone was so out of place in the present situation that she couldn’t help but recall its genesis, but it was the very worst time to get caught up in memories.

  As she scrambled to stop the phone from going off, Celty noticed that through the factory window, Mikado, Aoba, and every other young man inside the building was staring out at her in disbelief.

  “Hello, Celty? Mr. Shiki’s here at the apartment now and wants to talk about the job you’re working. Do you have some time soon? Hello? If you’re listening, why aren’t you sending your usual secret signal? Hello? Hellooo?”

  But the voice coming through the phone speaker did not reach Celty’s ears.

  “…The Black Rider?”

  “Celty?! What are you doing here?!”

  For the first time, the smile was off Aoba’s face. Mikado’s voice was disbelieving.

  And immediately after their questions overlapped—

  “What are you doing here?” demanded the other boys, their angry voices echoing around the massive building.

  Celty put a finger to the mic on her phone and tapped to signify that it “wasn’t the right time for this,” taking out her PDA with her other hand.

  With countless little tendril-like shadow fingers from her left hand, she typed out a message and held the screen to the window for the nearest boy to read.

  “I am but a simple passing urban legend. Just pretend that you never saw me, or I’ll come to haunt your dreams tonight.”

  Near Kawagoe Highway, Shinra’s apartment

  “You think this is some kinda joke?!” bellowed a young man’s voice from the phone speaker.

  Shinra sighed and turned around. “I think Celty might be indisposed at the moment.”

  Across from him, Shiki was sitting in a chair with his arms folded, looking pensive.

  “…Please continue trying to get in touch with her. We really need all the help we can get right now.”

  “Sure thing. You believe me, right? I don’t think Celty knows that Akane was here, and I wasn’t informed of the nature of her job.”

  “I do believe you. If you really wanted to, you could easily remove all traces that Shizuo was here. And Celty would have kept her job private from you to prevent you falling into danger. I’m just…irritated at the unfortunate coincidence,” Shiki admitted. His expression grew a bit harder, and he returned to the target of his duty. “More importantly, you mentioned a teenage girl that took Miss Akane out to meet a friend… Any ideas on where they might be?”

  Something in the tone of Shiki’s voice and the glint in his eyes sent a chill down Shinra’s back, but he did not let it show in his response.

  “That’s a good question. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl that would know a hundred different meetup spots, so if I had to guess a few, I’d say in front of Tokyu Hands on Sixtieth Floor Street; the Lotteria on the other side; or, in terms of spots around the train station, the fountain near the Metropolitan exit, West Gate Park, or the Ikefukuro owl at the east gate.”

  “…”

  Shiki glanced over at his subordinates, and a number of them started for the door with their phones out. They were probably going to instruct other Awakusu-kai forces to head to all those locations.

  “To think that little girl was actually the granddaughter of the Awakusu president!”

  “…I don’t think I need to point out that everything happening here is—”

  “Nothing to worry about. You know how much I value confidentiality, don’t you? The only person I tell things to is Celty, and she’s aware of all of this already,” Shinra reassured him, looking for a sugar packet as he prepared some coffee.

  Suddenly, the sounds of destruction and the angry yelling of young men erupted through the speaker of the phone, which was still on the call in the kitchen.

  “?”

  Naturally, Shiki heard it as well. He raised an eyebrow.

  “…Sounds like there’s some trouble.”

  “You think this is some kinda joke?!” a broad-shouldered delinquent demanded. Celty easily shrugged her shoulders.

  If she still had her head, this was the exact situation that sighs were made for, she thought.

  She leaped nimbly through the empty windowsill and into the building, tucking her phone away into her riding suit and holding out the PDA as she approached Mikado.

  “…”

  Aoba Kuronuma watched Celty with suspicion as his comrades buzzed around him.

  It wasn’t his first sighting of the Black Rider. He’d been present in the van with Mikado just a month ago as she rode around them.

  That experience was enough to give him a suspicion that she was something else, something inhuman.

  She produced shadows out of her body, rode a motorcycle that made no engine noise, and—if you believed the footage on TV—there was nothing inside that helmet.

  Some claimed that she was a magician, but they probably didn’t know that for sure.

  If that’s all a magic trick, then magic tricks might as well be real magic spells.

  And he recalled that Mikado had referred to the rider as Celty.

  “…Eavesdropping? Or did Mr. Mikado summon you here with his phone to ambush us?” he asked, glancing over at the other boy. Mikado was staring at Celty wide-eyed, though. It seemed he was just as surprised at the Black Rider’s presence as everyone else.

  Celty, meanwhile, silently typed on the PDA as she walked over to the two boys without a shred of hesitation.

  “I was just passing by and happened to overhear you. But it feels like I shouldn’t be commenting on this.”

  “…”

  “…”

  Upon seeing the message, both Mikado and Aoba went quiet, but for different reasons. Celty continued typing without waiting for a response.

  “So don’t mind me. Please continue.”

  “…”

  “…”

  Their reticence deepened into silence. A seemingly unbreakable stillness filled the factory.

  “…Who…?”

  Who the hell do you think you are? one of Aoba’s companions was about to ask.

  Just then, the rusted metal doors slid open, shattering the silence of the scene.

  Standing in the light shining through the recently closed entrance were a number of men.

  They appeared to be a year or two older than the boys inside. Due to Mikado’s and Aoba’s b
aby faces, an impartial audience might assume they were five or more years apart instead.

  The men wore matching leather jackets with logos on the sleeve reading TORAMARU. A large version of the logo decorated the backs of their jackets, although Mikado and Aoba couldn’t see it.

  A number of them held two-by-fours and metal pipes. They weren’t here for a meeting, but a full-on war.

  “…Toramaru,” Aoba grunted, his smile completely gone.

  One of the jacketed men, his head bandaged up, stepped forward. His eyes widened when he recognized Aoba, and he told his comrades, “I found ’em… It’s them. These are the guys who jumped us and burned our bikes.”

  “Bingo,” a man in a flared uniform at the center of the group said menacingly, cracking his neck. “Once we’ve done all these guys, we’ll go back to report to the boss.”

  “What about our other guys patrolling around? Should we call ’em in?”

  “Nah… I think we’ve got enough here.”

  “Okay,” the associate replied, already on the move.

  He lifted his piece of wood and swung it down at the face of one of the delinquents stationed near the door. The boy recognized the attack just in time and crossed his arms in the path of the dry weapon.

  Wood cracked and snapped.

  The weapon broke quite easily, suggesting a crack was already present, but it was still strong enough to deliver a considerable blow. The boy was hunched in the same defensive position, his face a grimace of pain.

  That attack was the signal to begin. The teens inside the factory roared with anger, ready to strike back at the young men in their leather jackets—

  “Stay cool.”

  Aoba’s command was like a dose of cold water poured over their fury.

  It wasn’t a shout.

  Just a clear, loud statement.

  Everyone present, including the attackers, looked at Aoba.

  Once he was assured that he had their attention, he looked over—and said something that carried a very special significance to Mikado Ryuugamine.

  “We’ll hold them off here, Chief! Hightail it now while you have the chance!”

  “Eh?”