“Hey, Kadota…I’ll give your door right back.”
“?”
Before Kadota could respond, Shizuo put a hand on the van’s open rear side door and tore it off the hinges as easily as pulling a ticket apart.
Huh?
It was the opinion of every other person present.
Kadota, Yumasaki, and Karisawa.
Anri.
Celty.
Even the slasher.
He did it one-handed and didn’t show any sign of effort in the process. He didn’t put all of his weight into it, he just used his arm strength alone to pull the car door off.
As they all watched him in silence, Shizuo put his fingers through the inside handle and held the door aloft with his grip alone…pointing it toward the slasher.
“Uh…”
The slasher seemed to grasp Shizuo’s intention, and unease colored his features for the first time. His iai stance and his secret wild card that required only a scratch were rendered meaningless.
Shizuo Heiwajima was using the van door like a giant shield, protecting his front side from the slasher.
“I live a messed-up life. I ain’t nice enough to fight a man…with my bare hands!”
The instant he finished speaking, the asphalt at Shizuo’s feet seemed to explode. The asphalt itself was perfectly fine, but his speed was so great that it tricked all of the witnesses’ brains into viewing it that way.
The man with the door for a shield hurled himself at the enemy like a cannonball. Directly in a straight line. Simpleminded in its directness.
But the cannonball was too fast to be dodged. That’s all it came down to. All of the slasher’s tricks were nullified by sheer speed and strength. No one would ever know what those tricks were because he hadn’t been given the time to deploy them.
“No…wait…”
Collision.
First, a whud sound.
Just the sound alone was enough to cause serious damage to the slasher’s brain, but next came the actual vibration.
He might as well have been hit by an enormous hunk of metal. A vortex of strength thrust him upward. That hardy body, which had bounced right back from a collision with a van…
It’s an even stronger impact…than the car?!
But by the time he realized that fact, his body was already afloat on the current of force transmitted via the slightly upturned shield.
The slasher had no time to think of resisting or breaking free before he was crushed between the shield and the wall at the side of the street.
The deadly battle against the slasher ended far too quickly, and suddenly the street was as silent as if nothing had ever happened.
No one spoke for several moments, until Togusa stepped out of the driver’s seat and asked, “So who do I bill for the door repairs?”
Only then did they regain their senses.
“What do we do with him?” Shizuo asked, gently pulling the door away from the wall. Behind it was a man whose body was half-embedded in the crumbled concrete. He peeled off of the wall and crumpled to the ground.
Celty took out her PDA and showed Shizuo her opinion.
“Well, first we have to figure out if he’s being possessed by the blade or just an actual street slasher doing this under his own discretion. We should take the weapon away and tie him up until he wakes. If he’s only a puppet, it doesn’t seem fair to put him at the mercy of the police.”
Assuming he wakes up at all, she thought, examining the man’s face. Huh?
Suddenly, Celty felt as though she recognized that face. She beckoned Shizuo over.
“What?”
Shizuo was already cooling off from his fury. His face was calm as he looked down at the man.
The man’s eyes flew open, exposing the bloodred eyeballs.
“!”
Celty and Shizuo both leaped back. The slasher looked at them and groaned, “I suppose…I can’t handle you. I always knew you were abnormal…”
He seemed to have given up on beating Shizuo. Celty started to type a question into her PDA, keeping her guard up, but she barely had time to start.
“But if I can’t have you…I’ll settle for her!” the slasher cried, leaping to his feet.
Right for Anri Sonohara, who was timidly watching events unfold at a slight distance.
“…Uh,” she stammered, unsure of what was happening.
The man everyone assumed was in critical condition leaped for her, knife in the air.
Shudd.
A dull sound rang out, and the slasher’s knife plunged deep into her breast.
The breast of Celty Sturluson covered in black shadows.
“—!”
Anri shrieked soundlessly, her entire body tense.
But not a single drop of blood dripped from Celty’s chest. She clamped down on the wrist holding the knife and extracted it from her chest through arm strength alone.
Next, she flipped the slasher’s feet out from under him, pulled his hand with the knife around behind his back, and shoved him into the ground.
His joints locked, the slasher was completely immobilized. Once he realized that no amount of strength would allow him to move, the man spat with loathing.
“You…you’re not human, are you? Filthy! Abhorrent! How can my pure love be defiled by such a stupid-looking monster?!”
Well, excuse me, you piece of .
Celty tried out one of the insults she’d liked from the last Tarantino film she saw and increased her pressure on the arm held behind his back.
There was an odd grunch sound, and the slasher’s arm was suddenly not where it had been before. The knife fell out of his hand and clattered onto the asphalt. He had finally gone entirely silent, apparently unconscious at last.
Celty suddenly realized how angry she’d gotten and shook her head to clear it.
If Shinra found out I’d called this guy a piece of , he’d be so disgusted. I have to watch myself, she reflected idly.
Celty left the man sprawled out on the ground and looked up at the knife ahead.
Who would have guessed that Saika was just a kitchen knife?
She assumed that it would be dangerous to touch it herself, so she increased the shadow density around her hands to twice the normal level before pinching the handle delicately.
She still didn’t sense anything special from it. Either Shinra was right and the demon blade didn’t have a presence of its own, or there was no cursed sword to begin with…
I really should have just asked him if he was Saika.
But in any case, the slasher was dispatched. The only thing left was to wait for the man to regain consciousness. She could explain the situation to Kadota and Yumasaki and have them handle the rest.
But for now, the knife needed to be disposed of. If she used Shinra’s connections, she could probably find a blast furnace to toss it into. She fashioned a net of shadow to hang from the underside of the motorcycle and stashed the knife inside of it.
With that out of the way, she pulled out her PDA and started to explain the situation to Kadota, but Shizuo’s quiet monologue interrupted her.
“What the hell…? I just don’t feel satisfied… Why is that?” he wondered, his face growing more and more upset by the moment. “Ahh, dammit, I just don’t feel right… I’m gonna head to Shinjuku and kill Izaya.”
He tossed the shadow helmet back to Celty. It dissipated like mist in her hands, reabsorbing itself into her body.
Shizuo left the scene with no apparent concern for that otherworldly effect. No one made a move to stop him, despite his announced intent to commit murder. They knew that Izaya wasn’t the kind of man who would go down easily, of course, but first and foremost, none of them felt like they would be capable of stopping Shizuo.
Karisawa watched him walk away, her cheeks rosy red.
“I just knew Shizu was in love with Iza-Iza all along. I’ve always had the feeling that behind closed doors, they were actually—”
“Tha
t’s not true.”
The answer came from Celty’s PDA, Kadota, and Yumasaki all at once. Yumasaki covered her mouth with his hands, his heart quaking in his chest.
“If you ever say that within earshot, they’ll pound you into mincemeat!”
Celty tried to imagine the sight of Shizuo and Izaya making love. A feeling of nausea rushed up from deep within her. Then again, she couldn’t expel anything from her severed neck but shadows anyway.
It was surprisingly easy to explain matters to Kadota’s group.
She was expecting them to doubt her story, but the mention of a cursed demon blade got Yumasaki and Karisawa on board immediately with sparkles in their eyes.
On top of that, when she said that Saika was a demon blade with a female personality, Yumasaki shrieked something about “moe personification of inanimate objects” and tried to grab the knife from its storage space under her bike. The rest of the group battered him to a pulp and tossed him into the van along with the slasher.
They would be capable of handling the rest. She instructed them to call Shinra if they needed help, but otherwise everything should resolve itself. If he was being controlled, he was just another unfortunate victim of the incident—but given that he attacked Shizuo and still survived, perhaps he should actually consider himself to be fortunate, Celty tried to tell herself.
If we find out he did nothing wrong, I’ll have to send him some support money or something…
When she turned around, the girl with the glasses was timidly staring at her.
Oh, I forgot.
Celty stared at the victim and wondered what to do. How much should she explain? If she chased the girl away, she might call the police. Then again, the local residents might have heard the uproar and called them already. Celty just wanted to extract herself from the scene as quietly as possible.
But when she got a better look at the girl’s face, Celty realized something.
She’s the girl I always see with Mikado Ryuugamine…
Mikado Ryuugamine.
The founder of the Dollars was one of the few people who was aware of Celty’s nature, one of the most secretly influential people in the neighborhood. And yet, hardly anyone actually knew that Mikado had created the Dollars.
She spotted him in town every now and then, and he was usually in a group of three.
There was the girl with the glasses right here and another boy with dyed brown hair and earrings. They were almost always together, so she didn’t know the full nature of their connection.
The girl looked up at Celty and said sadly, “Umm…thank you for saving me…”
Despite the timid look on her face, the girl took a major step forward into the incident that had just engulfed her.
“Um, can you tell me…what’s happening in this neighborhood?”
Ack.
Celty wasn’t hoping for thanks to begin with, but she’d have much preferred if the girl had just thanked her and run off. But she did have one question of her own.
Why had the slasher under Saika’s control decided to go after her at the very end?
Perhaps it was just a desperation move, or maybe he had some other reason. If that was the case, she couldn’t just ignore the girl.
After a long time to think, Celty shook her helmet in resignation and began typing away on her PDA, explaining all about the serial slashings happening in Ikebukuro and even the demon blade Saika…
But once she had finished typing out the whole story, the girl named Anri asked her something completely unrelated to the incident.
“So, um…about your…”
That question again. Celty inwardly snorted at her own luck. Recently, every single person who would talk to her asked the same thing. The TVs were obsessed with the topic of the Headless Rider, so when people found out that she was actually quite easy to talk to, they all got curious. They couldn’t help themselves.
She wants to know if I really don’t have a head.
Celty typed out, “Don’t be scared,” imagining the timid girl screaming in terror, then yanked the helmet off without any fanfare.
Well? Your move.
But Anri was completely silent. As though she were waiting for Celty’s next comment.
“…You aren’t startled?”
“Uh, well, I know that you didn’t have a head because they said so on TV…so I wanted to ask why you didn’t have a head…and then I realized what a rude question that is! I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t anger you!”
The girl bowed in apology, tears in her eyes. Now it was Celty’s turn to be taken aback.
Shinra, Mikado, the kids in the van, Shizuo…
Are all young people like this now? Celty wondered. She leisurely typed into her PDA.
“It’s a very long story… If you give me your e-mail address, I can tell you in detail later.”
She meant it to be considerate to the girl, but Anri replied, “Oh, um…I don’t have an Internet connection…”
“Oh…too bad. Well, we can’t just stand around here all night…”
Celty was beginning to wonder if she should just go home and leave this all behind, when Anri lifted her head and spoke with determination.
“Actually…my place is just up ahead. Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea?”
Late night, near Kawagoe Highway, apartment building
“Welcome home, Celty.”
“I’m back.”
She walked inside to find Shinra waiting for her. It looked like he had nodded off on his desk while looking something up.
“Man, the researching I did! I was looking up all this different stuff on Saika. It was really complicated. Very hard to put all the text together into a coherent picture.”
“I see… Thank you, Shinra.”
“But of course, I’d do a millennium of work in a day for your sake, Celty. After that, they’ll have to change the definition of the word millennium!”
He laughed excitedly while Celty regretfully typed, “But it’s all over already. I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
Celty explained everything that had happened in the day and carefully placed the shadow-wrapped knife on the table.
“Don’t touch it, you might get possessed.”
Shinra stared at the object on the table with fascination in his eyes. Ten seconds later he turned to Celty, a question mark floating over his head.
“This…is Saika? It’s just a knife,” he muttered, wide-eyed.
“I know, I was taken aback, too…but the man who was holding it had bloodred eyes, and he was going on about love and other nonsense and speaking like a woman,” Celty typed regretfully.
“Ahh… I guess this must be it, then.”
“But what’s the connection between attacking people on the street and love? That’s the thing I don’t get. Is Saika just a sadist or what?” she asked. It had been on her mind before, but she didn’t expect to bring it back up, given that the incident was over now.
“Oh…I guess I didn’t go over that part, did I?” Shinra said, as though it were obvious or trivial. He made a show of clearing his throat, then leaned back in his desk chair and began to describe Saika’s desires.
“What Saika wants…is to love a human being.”
The same time, Anri’s apartment
My heart is still racing.
She’d hardly ever had people over at her home. The only ones in the year that she’d been living here were Mikado and Masaomi.
And today, she had granted entrance to someone she had barely shared introductions with—and not human, to boot.
This was quite an adventurous move for Anri, but she couldn’t resist her curiosity about the otherworldly being. Her debt at being saved added to her momentum, a few other emotions rolled into the mix, and before she knew it, the Headless Rider was inside her home.
The rider explained many things.
The reason for coming here, what a dullahan was, various experiences in Ikebukuro, and what little o
f the homeland remained within the corners of those memories.
All of these things were vivid and fresh, and Anri noticed that they made her excited.
They talked about many things, up to the moment the rider left. Anri told her a bit about herself, but it probably wasn’t very interesting. She didn’t even remember the things she had said.
I wonder what she thinks about most days. I wonder what she thinks about human beings.
Even after the excitement faded, Anri thought back on all the things Celty said.
She said a dullahan knows when a person’s death is approaching…but does that include unexpected accidents?
She thought back on the incident that changed her life five years ago and looked down.
If I’d known about it ahead of time…could I have stopped it from happening?
She could wish, but there was nothing she could do about it now. And she could see her parents every night in her dreams. There was nothing to agonize over now.
But there was one thing that made her sad in what they talked about. She thought of bringing it up on numerous occasions, but ultimately, Anri was never able to bring herself to tell Celty. Once the dullahan left, she felt a terrible regret.
Why couldn’t I bring it up? The topic…of…
Suddenly, her doorbell rang.
Huh? It’s so late!
For a moment, the image of Nasujima’s face floated into her mind, and she twitched with fear. But then it occurred to her that Celty might have come back, so she looked through the peephole, careful not to make any sound.
Huh? A…woman?
It was a young woman wearing a uniform.
Anri didn’t recognize her, but she checked to make sure there was no one else with her, then unlocked the door. She opened it up to reveal an incredibly beautiful girl with long hair.
She had an adult figure but a face with a hint of innocence left. Her black, lustrous hair went halfway down her back. In all, she created a tiny little space of fantastical beauty in the middle of the plain apartment hallway.
“Um…can I help you?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Sonohara.”
The long-haired girl smiled gently in replying to Anri’s hesitant question.
Durarara!!, Vol. 2 (novel) Page 12
