“Shizuo Heiwajima, right? Yes, he’s a very close friend. To me, at least.”
“I see.”
“He can be scary when he’s mad though.”
There we go. Now we’re talking—er, typing.
I tried to keep my excitement to a minimum, calmly getting to the point of my questioning. “Interesting… Well, as a matter of fact, I’m taking statements for an article where I’ll be figuring out who the number-one fighter in the neighborhood is.”
“Ahh, your magazine likes topics like that, doesn’t it? You did that motorcycle gang ranking, and the ones who got left off the list tossed Molotov cocktails at the company office, didn’t they?”
“Well, that wasn’t my article… But from what I’ve heard so far, some people claim you might be the strongest in town…”
For a moment, Celty went quiet, shoulders trembling. Based on the way the helmet was shaking, I judged this to be laughter.
“Me? No way! They’re just afraid of the way I look.”
After another moment, Celty typed away at the PDA with great confidence.
“Shizuo’s much stronger than me. I doubt there’s another person in this town who can beat him in a pure fight.”
“He’s that tough?”
“Oh yeah, real tough. He’s so dangerous, it’s almost moving. It’s not just a brawling or martial arts thing—it’s like he lives in a different world from the rest of us. If you told me he was a werewolf or a lizardman, I’d believe you. Oh, but I hope he’s not an alien. Those grays are traumatic to me.”
Celty’s typing was even faster than a spoken conversation. The text almost struck me as…excited? As though Celty was bragging about this friend, Shizuo Heiwajima.
“It’s not that he does some MMA thing or anything. It’s like, you know how even the toughest combatant will go down if they get shot? How to explain this…?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Celty increased the font size on the PDA.
“That’s it—his strength is like the power of a gun. Even comparing him to others makes no sense.”
After discussing a few other topics, I finally learned where Heiwajima worked. Once I was certain that my article research was done, my discipline finally cracked.
I got curious.
“Um…”
“What is it?”
“I don’t need this for a story, it’s more of a personal curiosity thing, but…do you mind if I ask what you are? Um…might I see under your helmet?”
It wasn’t so I could expose the rider’s identity or report it to the authorities. It was just simple curiosity, a desire to know the gender and age of the person I was talking with. I certainly didn’t think there would be no head underneath, like the silly paranormal shows suggested.
“Er, sorry, didn’t mean any offense. I’m just curious,” I stammered.
Celty began typing on the PDA without any hesitation. “Sure thing. If I take this helmet off, you’ll see exactly what I am. Plus, you still won’t be able to write an article about my true identity… You won’t even be able to tell anyone about it.”
“Huh?”
I was about to ask what that meant when the rider put a hand to the helmet…
I was sitting on the ground, completely paralyzed, as the shadow walked away.
Celty must be an illusionist, I thought. I figured that wasn’t actually true, but I was desperate to convince myself.
This was what happened when you let your personal interest get the best of you.
It’s why you can’t let your curiosity take control in this line of work…
Satisfied that I’d bought my own lie, I continued with my interviews.
Next was the color gang wearing yellow bandannas. They took the name Yellow Scarves and had been consolidating power within the city since last year. They appeared just at the moment that it seemed the color gang fad was going out of style, and now they wielded a quiet presence throughout Tokyo. They weren’t suffering any crackdowns, as they hadn’t shown any propensity for criminal activity or turf warfare, but the simple fact that they were a color gang was enough to intimidate plenty of folks.
Even the people inclined to scoff at the idea of color gangs still existing would be overwhelmed by the sight of several dozen clad in the same colors walking the streets—not that anyone who talked trash was dumb enough to pick an actual fight with them.
According to Mr. Shiki from the Awakusu-kai, the Yellow Scarves didn’t seem to have a working relationship with any of the criminal syndicates. They weren’t interfering with the business or causing trouble with the motorcycle gangs under the syndicate’s umbrella, so the Awakusu-kai had little reason to care about the group.
I made contact with one of them and succeeded in getting introduced to one of the group’s officers. What I heard from him, put simply, was the same thing I’d been getting all along.
“We’re not beefing with anyone. We just exist… A big group of friends getting along. Oh, but the Shogun gave us the name Yellow Scarves—we gotta call the boss ‘Shogun,’ that’s the rule. All the guys at the top love manga about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, see… Oh, sorry, got distracted. Anyway, I’m pretty sure we’re more than a match for the Dollars when it comes to numbers, but the Yellow Scarves’ Shogun always says there are two guys never to mess with. One of them is a guy you should never let talk you into anything, and that’s Izaya Orihara…”
I was a bit surprised to hear Orihara’s name, but I’d been doing this long enough to predict the other name he mentioned.
“The other one is this guy named Shizuo Heiwajima, who wears a bartender’s outfit and sunglasses. We’re not supposed to go near him… I’ve seen that guy in a fight once, and he was a freakin’ monster.”
Finally, I got a statement from someone in the mysterious Dollars organization.
“We’re not trying to pass ourselves off as big shots in Ikebukuro… And even if we wanted to, we don’t have a team color, so there’s no way to rep ourselves.”
The Dollars seemed to have zero interest in or connection to the “strongest” qualifier. Once I’d figured this out, I was ready to wrap it up early, except he dropped a bombshell right at the very end.
“Oh, but there is one thing we can brag about! The Dollars have this guy named Shizuo who’s a real monster! And Simon, and Izaya, and even the Black Rider are in the Dollars! I’m serious! Isn’t that nuts?!”
No way.
I was going to laugh it off, but—Simon, Izaya, Black Rider, Shizuo. I already knew for a fact that these four were connected personally, so I couldn’t just shrug it away, but I didn’t feel like presenting it as fact, either. I ended the interview early.
Through the magazine’s connections, I was also able to speak with someone connected to the police.
It wasn’t an actual officer, which made me wonder how exactly they were connected. When I asked about this, the only answer I received was that the nature of the connection was confidential. Probably just someone involved with stocking equipment for them, I guessed.
“The kids in Ikebukuro these days are all up to no good, between the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves… It’s all trouble, if you ask me. On top of that, you’ve got this serial slasher and the Black Rider. Well, at least it’s still better than when Izaya was in Ikebukuro… Sorry, just talking to myself. At any rate, you gotta keep an eye out for the yakuza and foreign mafia while handling the weirdos and the kids. It’s hard to be an active officer on the force these days.”
I wanted to get back to the topic of my article, not that I wasn’t interested in what this so-called police-related figure had to say.
“What’s that? The biggest problem child out there? Excluding the slasher? Hmm…well, in terms of crime, that’s Izaya Orihara, not even close. But the biggest pain in the ass would have to be Shizuo Heiwajima, I’d say.”
The man started describing Orihara, but when informed that I’d already met him, he launched straight into Shizuo’s exploits
instead.
“Once there was a time when the cops were closing in on Izaya Orihara…and they got Shizuo’s name as an accomplice. Shameful as it is to say, the guy in charge of that case got fooled on that one. It was a frame job. Anyway, they were bringing him in as a minor, and he ended up proving the charges were false, but he got locked up anyway for obstruction of justice and property damage in the process.”
“Property damage?”
“I actually thought it sounded far-fetched, but I’ll tell ya… As he kept resisting arrest, what do you suppose he destroyed?”
“I don’t know… A bicycle? Windshield on a patrol car?”
“A vending machine.”
???
That one baffled me. Didn’t your average middle school delinquent trash a vending machine with a baseball bat? All these stories built the guy up to be a monster, but it sounded like your run-of-the-mill street vandalism.
But what he said next had me at a complete loss for words.
“He threw it.”
“Huh?”
“He threw the vending machine—at a cop car!”
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
When I asked people around town who the strongest person in Ikebukuro was, I got a whole variety of answers. But when I asked the same question to the various “strong” people mentioned, they all spoke of the same man.
Shizuo Heiwajima.
If everything they said was true, I’d never heard of a guy who lived up to his name less. There was no hint of the “peace” and “tranquillity” from the kanji characters in his name.
But how was it possible that the random people I met who claimed to be in the know didn’t actually hear about these Shizuo rumors? I began to wonder about that and turned back to contact some of the first people I asked.
Every single one of these well-connected people, when asked about Shizuo, had the same answer.
“I didn’t want to get involved with him.”
Simple as that.
And now I was attempting to meet with that very monster.
I could tell that my inner boy was knock-kneed with excitement at seeing this guy in the flesh. But the adult me was trembling with nothing but fear.
It was a strange sensation that filled me as I stood before the small building. It was the kind of place that had a vibrant, constant flow of tenants in and out. There was no sign outside.
“You the dude who wants to see Shizuo?”
A man came out of the building. His tanned skin and dreadlocked hair suited him well, and his face made him look like a host in a nightclub. He wore typical street fashion clothes, which made it hard to gauge what he did for a living.
“He’s upstairs, so he’ll come down if you want…but don’t you dare piss him off.”
“Okay…”
Despite his obviously Japanese heritage, the man introduced himself as Tom Tanaka. I found out that he was Shizuo’s supervisor at his current job, where they went around collecting fees from members of a dating/hookup website.
I didn’t bother asking if the site was legal or not. Usually my interest would run straight to that topic, but Shizuo Heiwajima was a far more pressing matter at this point.
Now I wasn’t just exuding curiosity, I was gushing it.
“Seriously, don’t piss him off. It’s a huge pain in the ass,” Tom repeated.
I’d heard about Heiwajima’s dangerous nature from many different people at this point. But the more times the same thing got repeated, the more I felt like I was being treated like an idiot.
“Here’s my advice: Don’t talk. Ask what you want to ask, then shut up and look like an idiot while Shizuo talks. Wrap it up with a simple ‘thank you very much,’ and even Shizuo shouldn’t be too angry with you.”
What was that supposed to mean? If I didn’t talk, I couldn’t ask what I needed to ask. It was the role of an interviewer to take the subject’s statements and expose their contradictions. Also, I wasn’t stupid enough to tick off a person I’d never spoken with before. When Izaya Orihara got angry, that was because of his antagonism toward Shizuo Heiwajima. It wasn’t my fault.
But I chose to be patient and not raise any of these issues to Tom. Speaking of which, he looked like a pretty decent fighter himself. I definitely didn’t want to cause any trouble here…
Tom disappeared back into the building as I mulled it over.
It was showtime.
The man I was about to meet was the toughest fighter in Ikebukuro. That was the only title he had to his name. There was no public record for this, and he wasn’t making any money off of it.
In modern Japan, there was nothing to gain from a full-grown man boasting about his fighting skills. If he really felt confident in his ability, he could go into professional fighting—if his skills matched his boasts, he could find money and fame that way. But Shizuo Heiwajima was just a collector for a pay website. In society’s view, it was hardly a position that anyone cared about or lauded.
But the curious boy inside of me had been up late with excitement for three straight nights. I could tell that my instincts had my heart hammering away in my chest.
The real question: Was it excitement or fear?
“Um.”
It would all be clear once I met him.
“Hi…I’m Heiwajima.”
Hmm?
I was so busy trying to calm my own excitement that I completely failed to realize that someone was already standing in front of me.
The young man wore luxury-brand sunglasses on his slender, gentle-looking face. And as I stood there dumbfounded, he had introduced himself as Heiwajima—
Hmm?
Heiwajima?
“Shizuo…Heiwajima?” I asked, confused. He nodded flatly.
Uh…
For an instant, I was unable to believe the situation.
That’s him?
That’s the…strongest man in Ikebukuro? The most fearful man in town?
Shameful as it is to admit, I had built up my own mental image of the monster named Shizuo Heiwajima. His body was covered in steel muscles as thick and huge as tires, with the icy expression of a movie assassin, not to mention scars. On top of that, a full-body tattoo of a dragon…
About the only part of my image that matched was the height. The sunglasses that hid his gentle eyes didn’t match the man’s atmosphere at all. They looked like a sad attempt to add cool character to his look.
I was prepared for something a bit different than I imagined, but this was such a huge shift that it suddenly cast all of the stories I’d heard into doubt.
This was not the kind of man that yakuza would avoid, and he certainly couldn’t pick up and throw a vending machine.
I knew that appearances could be deceiving, but there had to be a limit to that cliché.
Had I been set up? Did that yakuza Shiki or someone else get the sushi place and the information agent and the police connection all to match their stories and fool me…?
No. The color gangsters I had chosen at random. They couldn’t possibly have coordinated to arrange that somehow.
So was this a different man with the exact same name?
No, this office was the very place the Black Rider told me.
So what was different, then?
What was it…? Where did I go wrong?
Is this guy just hiding his true nature at the moment?
…No, that wasn’t it. I’d seen a lot of people in my life, and I could tell right away when someone was lying or hiding his true ability from me. But the man here seemed to be gentle and well-behaved to his core. He wasn’t lying or on guard around me in the least.
What did it mean?
What was this all about?
Was it some kind of martial arts? Did he have really good special attacks?
What if that slender build disguised the fact that he was actually an aikido master… Nahh.
A person might be able to throw another using the target’s own strength
, but that wouldn’t be enough to throw a vending machine.
This was a troubling development. If I wrote up an article proclaiming this fellow as the strongest man in Ikebukuro and anyone saw him in real life, I would look like a flat-out liar.
At this point, there was only one choice left to me: I had to assume that he possessed some hidden power that he was sealing away from me at the moment. It seemed too silly to be true, but I couldn’t possibly get into the mind-set of the interview unless I told myself that.
Hey, maybe I should find some way to work that hidden power out of him.
Half-desperate now, I held my external agitation in check to speak to the man. At first I’d been planning to move over to a café for the interview, but I no longer had the patience or consideration.
“Well…there are two or three things I’d like to ask you, Shizuo…”
“’Kay,” he grunted.
Was he really that tough at fighting? I felt I could probably take him myself. I’d put myself in danger a number of times on assignment. I’d investigated shady bars, been threatened by street thugs, and even been surrounded by foreign mobsters.
I’d made my way around some dangerous fights, even if it hadn’t been through actual fighting prowess. I had courage to spare.
“I’ve heard lots of stories about you, Shizuo… Are you often involved in fights and confrontations?”
“Um…no?”
He had a look on his face that said, Why would you even ask that?
“Really?”
“Actually, I detest violence.”
Oh, brother, are you kidding me? The guy’s a dud.
My inner boy went right to sleep. The human instincts within me no longer felt any kind of fear or expectation toward the man.
I was ready to wrap this interview up, so I finished as quickly as I could.
“What do you think of the town these days?”
“Not much… It’s a nice place.”
“I hear you know the famous Headless Rider.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 2 (novel) Page 5
