Seiji smirked and swung the scalpel down. At the same time, a black shadow raced up from behind and struck his body.
“—!”
Celty had been waiting for the right moment and smacked his hand with the butt of her scythe to knock the scalpel loose, but despite the incredible pain in his wrist, he did not drop it. Instead, he swung at Mikado again from his bent position.
“My love will not be broken by the likes of this,” he claimed, trying to pull the girl along despite the odds against him.
Seiji gripped the knife and swiped sideways in a huge arc, trying to force everyone in front of him to back away. Celty quickly struck him again, but—
“That won’t work on me.”
“Dude, is this guy on something?” Kadota wondered aloud. Seiji’s expression was as strong and forthright as ever, without an ounce of pain or hesitation.
“It won’t work! I feel pain—I just shake it off! Me and Celty don’t need pain in our life together! So anything you do to me, I refuse to feel as pain!”
“You’re acting crazy!” Mikado shouted. Celty raised her scythe and prepared to cut the tendons in Seiji’s arm.
What is wrong with him? He needs to be stopped. Is this…the form his love takes? What in the world are his values? Does this mean that my views and humans’ are entirely different? I have, I have my own, my own, my own—
She swung the scythe in a tight arc, as much to drive away her own thoughts as anything else. Somehow, the double-sided bluntness of the scythe had given way to a razor-sharp edge. Noting this, Mikado and the other human beings in the vicinity took a wide step backward.
Just as Celty’s scythe was about to descend upon Seiji’s arm…
“Stoooop!”
Everyone went still.
Except for two: Seiji and the girl.
The girl with the scars on her neck was standing boldly in the path of the scythe—and seeing this, Seiji tried to shove himself in front of her. The blade of the scythe stopped just before it touched his body, hurting no one.
Meanwhile, everyone stared at the girl in shock.
The “head girl,” who called herself Celty, had leaped in the path of harm to save Seiji. Her attitude had changed 180 degrees from her previously quiet and reserved self. She boldly spoke out in Seiji’s defense.
“Stop it! Seiji might be harsh and violent and a little different from other people, but he saved my life! He saved me and Anri, but even then, he’s already in love with someone else, you see, so…you can’t kill him…”
Her voice trembled and lost steam until she fell over onto Seiji in a tearful mess.
No way—no way, no way—
And the dullahan realized:
No…this girl is not my head.
At the exact same moment, Mikado realized who she was.
She’s not the dullahan’s head! Her name is—
“Mika…Harima?” he mumbled. She turned trembling eyes on him. “It’s true, isn’t it? You’re Mika Harima, who was supposedly killed by Seiji, aren’t you?”
“That’s a lie,” said Seiji. The instant he heard her voice and name, the memories had begun flooding back into his mind. The stalker who looked so much like his beloved. The girl he had killed by smashing her head into the wall… “It’s not true, is it?”
“… I’m sorry!I’m sorry, I…I’m sorry…”
“I actually…wasn’t completely dead! I clung to life…and your sister asked…if I wanted you to fall in love with me! And even though you almost killed me, I still loved you so much… And then a doctor showed up…and said with a bit of surgery and the right makeup…I could look just like that head…the head that Seiji loves so much!”
Celty’s body twitched.
“But then…the doctor said, ‘Your name is Celty. That’s the head’s name.’ And I decided to try to be Celty for Seiji’s sake…but Namie said it wasn’t working, that I wouldn’t be able to fool him… She was going to erase my memory with surgery or drugs! But…I didn’t want to forget my love for him… I just wanted to tell him how I felt…so I escaped the lab!”
Seiji’s sister must have wanted to combine the head with a living human being so she could try to pry him away from it. But only Namie truly knew if that was to make him a normal human being again or if it was out of jealousy toward the head.
Various pieces were connecting together in Celty’s mind to form a complete picture.
There were only so many people who knew her name. And out of them, the only one who knew she was a dullahan was—
Shinra Kishitani. Celty’s living partner, the underground doctor who knew her secret.
Thinking back further, Celty remembered when she had considered seeking hints on the head’s whereabouts through the research labs of medical manufacturers or universities. But Shinra himself volunteered for that job, saying, “I know people in Yagiri Pharmaceuticals, so I can check on my own. It would be silly to owe Orihara a favor for something like this.”
He came back saying that nothing seemed suspicious or out of place—but looking back on it now, he must have known that the head was at Yagiri Pharmaceuticals all along and volunteered for the fact-finding mission to hide that from her…
She clenched her fists, all interest lost in Mika or Seiji, and bowed briefly to Mikado before hopping on her bike. The roar of the engine burst through the black of night.
It was its fiercest screech all evening, signaling the conclusion of the night’s festivities.
“No way… This can’t… I…I never…noticed?”
An evil shadow loomed closer to plant the final blow on Seiji’s defenseless back.
“Well, well. Looks like you couldn’t even tell the difference between the real thing and a counterfeit. I mean, if we’re being honest, that just shows you how real your love for that head is. Nice work, pal,” Izaya crowed.
Seiji’s heart crumbled to pieces. He fell to his knees.
“Seiji!”
His classmate raced to his side, stitching scars around her neck—Mika Harima.
From Mikado’s perspective, it was all an absurd comedy of errors, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to laugh about it. He thought for a moment, then approached and shyly spoke to the two.
“Umm…maybe you didn’t realize that she was an impostor, but you still risked your life to save hers. I think that’s really incredible,” he said, trying to cheer up Seiji, then turned to Mika. “And after I heard your side of the story, I realized that I was wrong about you. True, you’ve got some…character flaws…but you’re not a stalker.”
When he spoke again, it was more to himself than anything. “Then again…it’s probably about as bad. I think it’s a possessive urge that drives stalking behavior. But she put her life on the line for Yagiri’s sake. I don’t think you could do something like that if it was solely out of a selfish desire. Plus, the fact that she still loves the guy who almost killed her is pretty astonishing…in a variety of ways.”
And with one last unnecessary comment, Mikado left to join the night.
“I think you two are very, very similar.”
Near Kawagoe Highway, top floor of an apartment building, late night
The instant she turned the key in the lock, Celty kicked in the door of Shinra’s apartment.
“Oh, welcome home.”
Shinra greeted her with his usual smile, sitting in the living room at his computer. Celty did not bother to undo her shadow boots. She strode directly over to the young man in his white lab coat and grabbed him by the collar.
She wasn’t in the mood to punch at a keyboard, but punching him wouldn’t be enough, either. She considered how best to register her anger with him.
“Let me guess: ‘What are you playing at?’” he said, putting words to her emotions. “Next you’re going to say, ‘You knew! You knew my head was in that lab for the last twenty years! You and your father have been working with Yagiri Pharmaceuticals from the start! Now that I think back on it, when you t
wo first laid eyes on me, you seemed too calm and accepting! Could it be that your father is the one who stole my head in the first place?! And then you chose to hide the truth, found work as a black market doctor, and mocked up a half-dead girl to look like me! I might be a monster, but you’re the true monster here!’ Does that cover it?”
“…!!”
“Oh, and just to clear up any confusion…I don’t know if my dad is the one who stole your head, and I don’t really care either way. Plus, that plastic surgery was done at the girl’s request. Perhaps the Yagiri people prodded her into doing it, but that’s no concern of mine.”
At last, Celty let her grip on his collar loosen the slightest bit. Her trembling fists fell still, stopped in time.
If I could speak aloud, I suppose I would have said each and every one of the words he just attributed to me.
“Let me guess, ‘Can you tell what I’m thinking?’ I didn’t think it even needed to be said.”
He didn’t need to wait for her answer. He knew what her answer would be.
“Yes, I can. I’ve loved you for twenty years. Of course I can tell that much.”
“…”
“If you ask me, people place far too much emphasis on the face when reading the emotions of others. Slight differences in the tension of muscles or the sound of footsteps can tell all you need to know to instantly sense how another person is feeling. And I’ve been watching you do this for years.”
Then why? Why would you keep quiet about the whereabouts of my head until now?
He saw right through her mind, and his voice was heavy with intent and emotion.
“Because I love you. That’s why I stayed quiet about your head.”
“…?”
“Once you got your hands on it, you’d have been gone. I couldn’t stand that happening.”
In short, he was confessing his own selfishness, but there was an optimistic shine to his words.
“I’m not going to say that I’ll give up if that’s truly what will make you happy. This is a battle of your love against mine. Remember what I said? I will spare no effort in seizing victory in our game of fate. So that poor girl—Mika, her name was? I used her in an attempt to make you give up on your head. I’m not going to let you go. I will use the love of others, their deaths, my own self, even your own emotions to keep you here—as contradictory as that sounds.”
In a way, his words were extremely twisted and insane, but there was no doubt clouding his eyes. That was what broke Celty’s will. If he’d played dumb or given her some lame excuse, she would have beaten him until he couldn’t stand and left, never to return. But after such a strong, direct statement of intent, Celty had no response.
She lowered Shinra to the ground again and tapped on the keyboard, trying to regain the sharpness of her anger.
“I’m not going to leave you just because I get my head back—”
“That might be your desire—but it might not be your head’s,” he answered gravely, without any of his usual playfulness. “I’ve given it a good deal of thought. Why is it that in this wide, wide world, you’re the only one who has shown herself to mankind? What is the boundary that separates you from the rest of the dullahans? I think it’s your head. Perhaps losing your head was what allowed you to materialize in our world—made you what you are now.”
He took on a fateful, lovelorn expression, as though reciting a tragic monologue he’d written.
“What if you get your head back and regain your memory, and then you disappear like mist in the morning sun, as though your entire existence until now had been nothing but a hallucination? That thought terrifies me.”
Celty gently lowered herself onto a nearby chair and sat still for several moments.
The sound of the keyboard echoed off the walls of the still room.
“Do you believe what I tell you?”
“I trust you. In fact, I don’t trust anything but you.”
Satisfied, Celty slowly typed out a confession of her own.
“I’m scared, too.”
“I’m scared of dying.”
“I know that I am invincible. I understand it as a simple truth that there is not a human being in the world who can kill me. That is not a boast but pure fact. I register no joy or emotion in this fact. But that’s what is so scary. As I am now, there is no part of my body that is in charge of my death. There’s only one explanation: that my head is that part. Somebody could destroy my head without me even being there. And completely isolated from my own will or circumstances, I would…”
She stopped typing there, paused for a moment, then continued tapping the keys.
“Would you believe me? I have no eyes or brain, but I dream. Would you believe that I tremble in fear of this nightmare? It’s this fear, the selfish desire to control my own death, that leads me to search for my head. If I told you that, would you believe me?”
Shinra read every single letter of the confession as it appeared on the screen. When she stopped typing at last, he answered instantly.
“I told you—I don’t believe in anything but you.”
And with that, he smiled happily. Smiled like he was about to cry.
“I am utterly and truly lost. I guess we’ve both been stubborn, working off of nothing but assumptions.”
“So stupid.”
The dullahan slowly got to her feet and leaned over to type with one hand.
“Hey, Shinra.”
“What?”
“Let me punch you.”
“Sure,” he replied without missing a beat—and just as quickly, Celty put her fist through his face.
The tremendous sound of the impact echoed off the walls, and the man in his white coat sprawled across the floor. Blood streamed from his mouth, and he lay prone for several moments. Eventually he got back up and faced Celty again.
“Then let me return the favor.”
Celty had done nothing to deserve being hit back, but she nodded her assent anyway.
As soon as he saw the empty helmet tilt forward, Shinra swung a powerless fist and knocked it off.
Her helmet clattered and spun on the floor.
—?
She had no immediate response to that meaningless, confusing action. The doctor grinned and rubbed his smarting hand.
“There, see? You’re at your most beautiful in your natural state, Celty,” he said, staring at the empty space over her neck. “That punch was our version of a promise kiss.”
She hunched her shoulders down and leaned into his chest—so she could deliver a sharp jab to his gut.
“Bhurgh!”
But she stayed where she was, leaning against his chest.
Meanwhile, her left hand typed, “You’re such an idiot.”
There was no need for words anymore. Shinra held her close in silence.
The little shivers that wracked her slender frame told him that she was crying.
Shinjuku, early morning
It was all for her brother’s sake.
Actually, there was no benefit for Seiji—it was entirely for the sake of her desire to see him smile—but she had no personal awareness of this fact.
Immediately following the scene on 60-Kai Street, Namie Yagiri took the head out of the lab. As she expected, shortly after she left there came a report that the Black Rider—the dullahan’s body—had rushed the lab. But she already had the head. If the dullahan got its head back, either Seiji would fall into the depths of despair, or he’d claim that his fated lover was finally whole again for him.
Neither of those options Namie wanted to see.
She had to control the head at all times. It was the only hope she had to keep her brother’s attention on her.
But when she called her uncle hoping to employ his help, she received news that she certainly wasn’t expecting to hear.
There had been an emergency meeting of senior management to confirm the merger with Nebula. Both the company and Nebula must have been observing the incidents surrounding t
he research lab, not just tonight, but the last several days. Whichever side suggested it, the intention was clearly to finish the deal before any more nonsense occurred.
Naturally, Nebula wanted the dullahan’s head.
Namie slammed the phone down and had the driver turn the car around. She swore never to return to the company and headed off for a group that could help her hide the head.
She couldn’t expect help from the mob; they didn’t have any use for a head like that. If she brought it to another lab, they might prioritize her treatment while they needed her data, but eventually she would be removed from control.
Pushed to the brink of despair, she turned to one last person.
“This is the first time we’ve met in person. Did that list of illegal immigrants help meet your experiments’ needs?”
She was standing in the apartment of Izaya Orihara.
“But then you had to be stupid and screw it all up. You ruined everything thanks to your brother’s twisted love—or was it your twisted love for your brother?” Izaya wondered, placing an Othello piece on the board. He was speaking to Namie, who sat directly across from him, but his eyes never left the game board.
“Your superiors aren’t going to like this, are they? Nebula’s a major foreign corporation—hell, they’re a mega-conglomerate. They push people around over in the United States.”
He placed another Othello piece, trapping a shogi pawn between two black pieces.
“And this piece is promoted.”
He flipped the pawn over, turning it into a king. To anyone else, it was a baffling sight, but it clearly meant something to him.
“Kinda dangerous for you, isn’t it? What if they send the mafia after you? Perhaps a crack sniper, hired through a Swiss bank, to put a bullet through your eyes, blam! And check.”
He slid the king one space forward, placing the other king in check.
“Why can’t there be a rule that kings can capture each other?”
For the first time, Izaya looked up at Namie. Her eyes were empty with anxiety and irritation—she was in no mood for his games.
He opened the special case sitting next to the shogi board and stared at the head inside. Then he turned to Namie and began to propound an odd theory.
Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel) Page 17
