Yet Shingen freely offered the answer: “He’s a broker. He merely uses show business as a refuge.”
“…From the way you say that, I’m guessing it’s the slave trade?”
“That, too…but he sells more things than just people.
“As a matter of fact, twenty years ago, he was the one who sold me the information on the cursed sword Saika and the dullahan’s hideout.”
The driver’s body shivered the instant he heard the name Saika.
Shingen caught that reaction. “Egor, I’ve been wondering something.”
“What is it?”
“Did you happen to get cut by Saika?”
It was such a direct question that Egor could only snort. “I will leave that up to your imagination.”
Through the rearview mirror, Shingen could see that Egor’s eyes were steadily filling red with blood. He shrugged and made a show of not being particularly concerned. “Then I shall say this…under the assumption that you are a ‘child’ of Saika and thus inhuman.”
“What is it?”
“You should stay away from Jinnai Yodogiri.
“You never know what distant land he’ll sell you to.”
Prologue: Edge
Chat room
Kuru: What I am saying is that Yuuhei Hanejima’s infinite range of acting means that he is, in fact, part of the overarching cosmos! In other words, the great Yuuhei is fused with every place in this world…and by closing your eyes, you can feel Yuuhei’s presence! With each breath, a bit of Yuuhei enters my body… So why don’t we drown in the pleasure of Yuuhei together?!
Mai: We can’t.
Mai: I see that woman’s face.
Mai: Ruri Hijiribe.
Kuru: Oh, Mai. You seem to be burning with jealousy over the news reports about Lady Ruri and Master Yuuhei, but think of it another way! Now Ruri Hijiribe is, like Yuuhei Hanejima, a single part of our greater world! Do not expend your energy on jealousy—love Ruri Hijiribe as you love Yuuhei, and let them both melt into you!
Mai: What?
Mai: You mean a threeso
Mai: Ouch.
Mai: I got pinched.
Kuru: Because you were going to use a vulgar expression. However, now that I see my thoughts written out, I must admit some degree of eerie, cultlike religiosity to them. But once I can convert that eeriness to pleasure, I will have nothing left to fear in the world!
Mai: I’m afraid of you.
Setton has entered the chat.
Setton: Evenin’.
Setton: You’re always pumped up about something, Kuru.
Mai: Good evening.
Kuru: Why, what a lovely encounter, Setton! In fact, the word pumped does not even begin to describe it. Our feelings for Yuuhei have transcended to a point beyond the range of mere words! But if words were required to suffice, there is only one needed or fit for the task: Love! Love! Love! My love for Yuuhei is the engine that drives my very life!
Mai: Scary.
Setton: Wow, how much do you like Yuuhei Hanejima?
Bacura has entered the chat.
Bacura: ’Sup.
Mai: Good evening.
Setton: Evenin’.
Bacura: Speaking of Yuuhei Hanejima, his rumored lover, Ruri Hijiribe,
Bacura: Is supposedly suffering the attention of a stalker these days.
Setton: Stalker?
Bacura: Someone’s going on and on about an old picture,
Bacura: And using that as a means to mess around with her.
Setton: Oh. I wonder what it is. Hidden camera photo?
Kuru: It is so lovely to encounter you here, Bacura. I have heard tell of this rumor as well. Normally, one would expect this photograph to be spreading near and far on the Internet, but I have not seen hide nor hair of it.
Mai: Dollars.
Setton: Huh?
Bacura: What about the Dollars?
Kuru: Ah, please do forgive us for Mai’s abrupt outburst. Rumor says that the stalker is affiliated with the Dollars gang.
Setton: Oh, I see.
Kuru: The rumor states that there is an extreme fan of Ruri Hijiribe among the Dollars who might have been gathering information from other fans and using it to stalk her… Normally, one would assume fans of idol singers lose interest when their romantic life is exposed, but that does not seem to be the case here. Or perhaps this stalker felt that their emotional investment was betrayed and started stalking out of hatred.
Mai: Scary.
Kuru: Indeed. And yet we would happily continue to love Yuuhei, even after he gets married!
Mai: But it was a shock.
Mai: Wow.
Mai: Ki
Setton: Ki?
Kuru: It is nothing. Mai seems to be in a state of disorientation. Please ignore her.
Setton: I see… I’d be worried about this stalker being violent and angry, though.
Setton: There were lots of people bashing Yuuhei Hanejima when the scandal happened.
Saika has entered the chat.
Setton: Oh, evenin’.
Kuru: What a lovely encounter, Saika.
Saika: hello
Bacura: Speaking of which,
Bacura: TarouTanaka hasn’t logged in anytime recently.
Bacura: Does anyone here know him IRL?
Kuru: I suppose that he is fine and not in need of concern. Perhaps he has grown bored of the online world or moved to a different social media platform. Is it not unreasonable to expect a person to be chained to a single chat room forever? As with history, the human heart changes and wanders where it wills.
Saika: i’m worried he’s sick or something
Setton: I haven’t spotted Kanra in here lately, either.
Setton: It’s too bad, because Kanra was always the one who knew about gossip stuff like this.
Kuru: Certainly, that person is entirely unnecessary to worry about. He will find his way back before too long. If you are feeling lonely without as many people in the chat, why not find someone new to invite in?
Bacura: Kanra is,
Bacura: Well,
Bacura: Doing all right, apparently.
Setton: Oh, are you friends with Kanra IRL?
Setton: Has anyone met TarouTanaka off-line, then?
Kuru: He is a sociable enough person online and seems to know what goes on in the city, so I do not expect that he is a solitary enough person not to have friends.
Mai: He’s not a loner.
Setton: A loner, huh?
Bacura: I see…
Kuru: Actually, if you are able to contact Kanra off-line, why don’t you try asking Kanra about him? I have the impression that he and TarouTanaka know each other.
Mai: Friends.
Setton: Wait, is that right?
Kuru: However, it would be a shame for the chat room to go quiet. I suppose Mai and I will consider inviting some acquaintances to this place.
Setton: Oh, that would be good. I’ll look around for someone to ask… Do you suppose it’s a good idea for us to pack the place when the admin, Kanra, isn’t around?
Bacura: You shouldn’t worry about what he thinks.
Bacura: I’ll try asking someone, too.
Saika: i will also invite an acquaintance
Saika: it seems like things should get lively
.
.
.
Rakuei Gym, Ikebukuro
At a gym in Ikebukuro that taught all manner of fighting styles, a girl still of elementary school age—Akane Awakusu—was receiving passive defense training in the middle of the tatami floor. There were other children and adults around the gym, too, giving the class a very inclusive and varied vibe.
But the space itself was still quiet and tense, broken only by the occasional fierce smack or shout.
Mairu Orihara was stretching herself as she watched Akane train. She turned to the man next to her. “Hey, Master, how’s Akane doing? Does she have potential?”
“You’ve asked that twice already: the
day she first came in and then last month,” replied the man from his position where the tatami mats and wooden floor met, which gave him a good view of the entire gym. He didn’t look at Mairu as he spoke. “My answer hasn’t changed. I can’t tell if she’s got promise or not. Her old man said she could take the same stick training that Mr. Akabayashi does, but I can’t tell if that’s best. Basically, if she’s tougher after her training, then it turned out she had potential. She can be as strong as she wants. As long as she’s still weaker than me.”
“You really aren’t very interested in teaching people things, are you, Master? For a martial artist, you seem pretty soft.”
“I’ll kick your dogi to shreds and give you a strip KO. Does that sound soft?” said the teacher rather shockingly. He was Eijirou Sharaku, one of the instructors at Rakuei Gym.
He was the second son of Eita Sharaku, the gym’s owner, and around thirty years old. Along with his hard-core older brother, Eiichirou, and his tomboyish little sister, Mikage, he taught at the family-run gym. In that sense, it was less of a gym than a proper dojo—but Eijirou was too lazy and sloppy for that proud, old-fashioned term to apply here.
Despite being just an instructor, Mairu called him “Master” and took every opportunity she could to tease him.
“If you did such a naughty thing to me and I cried myself to sleep, I bet Boss Eita and Sensei would chew you out.”
“Actually, Mikage would crush my nuts first… Brr! Just the thought made me shiver.”
It was hard to imagine a man with this attitude teaching martial arts, but Mairu didn’t mind at all. She popped up to her feet and attempted to ambush him with a sneak high kick.
He caught her kick with one hand and tossed it aside, then snarked, “Well, anyway, it’s true that I don’t know much about potential. But no matter who you are, whether it’s a yakuza grandkid, the prime minister’s dad, a good guy, a bad guy—as long as you pay us money, we’ll give you a sandbag. Even for slutty little girls like you.”
“You know that I could sue you for sexual harassment, right?”
“Shut up. The point is…it depends on her. But that’s just me; Dad and my brother think differently.”
He would have continued to explain, but a crisp smack near the window distracted him. The sound was coming from the training gym upstairs.
Smack, smack, the bursting noises went on a steady rhythm.
“That’s a nice sound. Who’s that?” Mairu wondered.
Eijirou craned his neck left and right and answered, “Adabashi, I bet.”
“Oh, the guy with the crazy eyes?”
“He’s not an official student here. Like I said, if you pay the money, we’ll let you whack at a sandbag for half an hour, registered or not… But Adabashi’s been coming around just about every day. I’ve met him a few times…and take my advice: He’s dangerous. Stay away.”
In contrast to his previous lackadaisical attitude, Eijirou’s warning was stern.
“What? What? Is he tough? Tougher than you? Than Sensei? Than boss? Than Coach Mikage? Than Mr. Akabayashi? Than Traugott Geissendorfer? Than Shizuo?!”
“No, he’s way weaker than me.”
“Oh…he’s even weaker than you…”
“The overwhelming note of disappointment in your voice makes me wonder how weak you think I really am! Just don’t take that statement as me putting myself in the same league as Traugott or Shizuo Heiwajima,” Eijirou quipped, his cheek twitching.
Mairu largely ignored his statement, wondering, “Then why should I stay away from him?”
“Well…maybe I’m just generalizing, ’cause this is only my impression,” Eijirou said, looking up at the ceiling and the source of the sandbag pounding, “but I don’t think he’s training for the purpose of being stronger…
“I dunno, I just get a much more dangerous vibe from him…”
Upstairs
A man was unleashing devastatingly sharp kicks to a sandbag.
A very thin man.
But no one would look at his exposed arms and legs and consider him to be spindly or willowy.
His muscles were as solid as bundles of thick wires. His legs could belong to a bird of prey or some carnivorous dinosaur.
Adabashi’s body coiled and sprang like a well-oiled machine to kick the sandbag in a rhythmic pattern.
“…”
Once he had finished his fiftieth kick, he smiled to himself.
He returned to the changing room then; an unregistered guest at the gym, he didn’t interact with any of the students around him.
On the bench in the corner of the changing room, Adabashi looked around carefully to make sure no one else was present.
He slowly undid the bandage wrapped around his ankle. From the folds of the white fabric, presumably there to protect his joint from the impact of the kicks, tumbled a piece of paper.
He lifted up the tattered paper, which was unable to withstand the many blows despite the cushion of the bandage, and stared at it with delight clearly etched into his cheeks.
It was a photograph of a person, probably cut out of a magazine.
The popular idol Ruri Hijiribe.
The photo looked like it was from an article or ad announcing the release of a pinup collection. Just as on the cover of that photo book, she was posing seductively with bandages wrapped around her body.
It was both bewitching and somehow youthful, a picture designed to capture her fans and never let go—but between the man’s sweat and the tattered state of the paper, there was nothing bewitching about it anymore.
Yet Adabashi stared at the shabby photo with joyous longing, licked his lips—and tore it in half with his teeth, like he was eating a sheet of dried seaweed. He chewed the magazine clipping, then tossed the remaining half of the paper into his mouth and continued.
His saliva seeped into the paper until it grew firmer. Still his chewing went on, and once the paper was wadded up into a large ball, he swallowed it.
“Kah!”
Whatever it was that he was imagining as he chewed the picture of Ruri Hijiribe, his vicious and insane eyes were actually pooling up with misty tears.
“Kah! Kah! Kah!”
The sounds burst from his throat, much like a cough. The wad of paper must have gotten stuck to the side of his gullet. After a few more hacks, he succeeded in swallowing the lump entirely.
This time he hissed: “Shhhheh.”
He hunched over, not vocalizing but pressing the air through his clenched teeth. “Shehhh, shehhh.”
The sound filled the changing room. It was like the respiration of some kind of man-eating movie monster. Nobody in the room would have known that this was the peculiar “laugh” that he made when he was excited.
It was so creepy that a student who was about to enter the room suddenly decided he would much rather return to his training.
The paper had absorbed all the moisture in his mouth, so his lips were cracked, with bright-red blood seeping out.
Adabashi licked his lips, a faint tinge of iron in the air, and continued smiling.
He reached into his bag.
There was a thick pile of papers inside of it.
All of them clippings from magazines or printouts from the Internet.
All of the pictures shared one thing: the presence of Ruri Hijiribe.
He took one of the papers out and stuck it to his ankle like a compress, then wrapped the bandage over it.
Once his leg was back to the way it had been before, he returned to the training room and began kicking the sandbag.
Smack, smack. With each loud impact, Adabashi could feel that the Ruri Hijiribe plastered to the top of his foot was steadily breaking down.
The lurch of thick excitement stayed deep in his gut where he could keep it hidden. As if fulfilling some kind of duty, he continued to destroy the image of Ruri Hijiribe between the sandbag and his foot.
The breath that seeped out of his mouth hung heavy with the heat of twisted desire.<
br />
Chapter 1: Vicissitudes @ Dullahan Rider
Kanto region, night
A number of cars raced along a seaside road.
The black vehicles had tinted windows, preventing anyone from knowing what was happening inside.
Yet following them was a single motorcycle. This one hung far behind the others, the rider clad in a suit that was even darker than the night. The lone rider trailing the caravan ahead drove at a speed well over the legal limit.
The chase might have been a scene from an action movie were it not for a few details that put it into a different genre.
For one, the motorcycle made no engine noise, only the occasional roar like a horse whinnying. For another, there was no headlight or license plate on the bike, which, like its rider, was completely black, of a shade that seemed to suck in all light.
Lastly, the figure riding the bike was holding an enormous pitch-black scythe that spanned at least six feet.
A reaper’s motorcycle that came to life from shadow art, it was ready to drag in the cars up ahead back into the world of darkness.
So if one focused primarily on the bike, it was more like a scene out of a horror movie.
There was no headlight to illuminate the way, but the vehicle found itself easily closing the gap.
No cars came the other way. Perhaps the road was little used.
This dramatic chase continued for a while until, just as the motorcycle was about to catch up to the last car in the row, one of the vehicles began to slow until it came level with the bike, window rolling down.
A red-painted bowgun emerged from the black maw of the window. It fired immediately at the rider’s chest.
But just before the arrow could land, the rider’s body produced a black shadow that grabbed it and transformed into a bow of its own, then shot the projectile back.
It stuck into the arm of the man inside the window, who shrieked.
Suddenly, another car slowed to approach the bike, and from this open window, a flaming bottle came hurtling. Again, the rider’s shadowy “suit” grabbed the Molotov, holding it in the air within a black froth that sucked the oxygen free until the flame went out.
Durarara!!, Vol. 8 Page 2
