And then the flame of the match reached the layer of gas.
Red light flashed against the starless night sky.
Ikebukuro
Because it was late at night, only a very limited number of people witnessed a part of the night sky turning red.
But within the confines of a dense metropolis, even a limited number can mean quite a lot—in this case, several hundred people.
Mysteriously, however, the light vanished nearly as quickly as it appeared. From a distance, it was as though the roof of a specific building flashed, then returned to darkness in less than a minute.
But many of those witnesses failed to detect something off about the phenomenon.
The blinking aircraft warning lights atop the building in question had vanished as well.
Only a handful of those witnesses actually noticed what happened.
There were Shingen Kishitani and Egor, looking up at the building under construction from its base.
And also, watching from the window of a distant building, a man whose eyes were bloodshot red.
The man’s skin was peeled off here and there, his flesh scraped away, as if he had wrenched his way free from some kind of physical bondage. He had done a minimal amount to stop the bleeding, but there was plenty of blood on his clothing.
He watched the distant sight as if he were gazing upon someone beloved, with those bright red eyes. And he did know what happened.
On the roof of a building about two-thirds of a mile away, a shadow had plunged from the sky, scooped up a flame that was about to burst throughout the area, and extinguished it within its darkness.
At a brief glance, it was as if the light had rapidly dwindled. But the man, who had observed the freakish shadow longer than anyone and knew it better than anyone, understood immediately how it had extinguished the fire, even from a distance.
It was as though the night sky had a will of its own and had chosen to put out the fire.
And in knowing what it did, the man exulted.
Exactly because he knew what it had done.
Saika’s accursed words of love surged within him.
When Kujiragi possessed him with Saika’s power, she commanded him to stay put and behave.
But he used his own love to pin down both of these things—and spoke the name of the one to whom he dedicated his unstoppable love.
Moaning, singing, his own word of love escaping his throat.
“Cel……ty……”
It was just a name, but to him, it was a word of love.
He hadn’t driven out Saika’s curse, the way that Akabayashi once had, by gouging out his own wound. Instead, he had repeated Haruna Niekawa’s method, mastering Saika’s mad song of love from the inside.
He was able to overwhelm Saika much faster than Haruna had—perhaps because Saika loved “humans,” while what he loved was “inhuman.”
Did he even know what had happened to himself?
The man cut by Saika, Shinra Kishitani, faced the darkened sky with red eyes and smiled.
Full of love for what seemed to be the dark of the night itself that coated the city.
Raijin High School—in the past
“So if that tiger’s going to leave his skin behind, as a person, how will you leave your name behind? I’m kind of excited about the thought of you being remembered as a serial killer.”
“As a person…?”
The smile vanished from Shinra’s lips as he looked up at the light coming down from the rooftop door. He imagined a great shadow beyond that light, sucking up everything into its midst.
“I don’t need to leave anything behind.”
“But I thought people died and left their names behind. If you’re not a tiger or a human, then what do you intend to be?”
“Good question. If I’m not a person or a tiger, then I guess I’m going to be some kind of weird folklore monster,” Shinra joked—or made what could only be taken as a joke—smiling worriedly.
“But if I could be with her…then I wouldn’t mind not being human.”
Chat room
Kuru: Well, well. My, my. For claiming that she would flame TarouTanaka until he showed up, Miss Namie does seem to have given up posting all of a sudden.
Mai: Mysterious.
Mai: Maybe she got hungry.
Kuru: We can only hope the reason is as benign as that.
Kuru: But who do you suppose this “Rocchi” is? This message board is supposed to be accessible by invitation only, so I would assume that Rocchi must know one of the members. Or perhaps Masaomi Kida is in fact a member of the chat, and Rocchi threatened him into giving up the address. Who could this Masaomi Kida be…?
Mai: This is shameless.
Mai: Ouch.
Mai: I got pinched.
Kuru: Be that as it may, since neither Rocchi nor Namie has left the room, I would assume they’re still watching?
Mai: Exciting.
Rocchi: Yo, I’m here.
Mai: Yo.
Kuru: Oh my. So you’re still around. Very clever of you to stay quiet and spy on the chat, pretending that you are away.
NamieYagiri has left the chat.
Kuru: Oh my. Already giving up, Miss Namie? Or did she have some pressing business to attend to?
Mai: I pressed the trapdoor button.
Rocchi: Sorry about that. I was just planning a party with my friend.
Rocchi: Are you two girls, by the way?
Rocchi: Because I’ve got a bit of time until the party.
Rocchi: Do you mind if I hang out here and chat until then?
Rocchi: Is that okay with you?
Kuru: Oh my. Should you really be talking to ladies in such a forward manner online? You never know, we might be men pretending to be women.
Mai: Gender undisclosed.
Mai: Mysterious!
Rocchi: Nah, I can tell. You’re not pretending. You’re both girls.
Kuru: That’s a very entertaining guess, but do you have evidence? I believe that you might be better suited to writing rom-coms than playing detective. The Internet is the shining darkness of the modern world, where no one can see the other’s face. What makes you so certain of the fact that I must be a woman, just because my manner of communication is so blatantly feminine?
Rocchi: A hunch.
Rocchi: I can tell from the writing when someone’s a cute girl.
Mai: You’re scary.
Mai: You’re a philanderer.
Rocchi: Can’t deny that one.
Kuru: What a strange gentleman. Oh, pardon me. I did not take into account the possibility that you might be a woman.
Rocchi: Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Am I cool for bearing the burden of the shining darkness of the modern world?
Kuru: Anonymity is a thing of the past, after that previous outburst. Miss Namie has most crudely revealed the identities of those who inhabit this place. This entire chat room was predicated upon a delicate balance—made of a group of people who know each other but do not know each other’s aliases. Now it is ruined and must be reset. No score, no game, no future.
Mai: That’s sad.
Rocchi: I mean, it sure sounds like you know who everyone is.
Kuru: Yes, we had the pleasure of the superiority of knowledge, knowing all and being mere observers. Now this valuable place of play will be lost to us. It is a shame, but I suppose there is little one can do but chalk it up to the work of fate.
Mai: Very sad.
Rocchi: That’s not true, is it?
Rocchi: There are many things you can say when you’re not looking the other person in the face, but there are also lots of things you can say because you know who you’re talking to, right?
Kuru: Oh my. Such as what?
Rocchi: A confession of love.
Mai: Incredible.
Rocchi: Of course, you can also do that when neither party knows the other very well and get into a load of trouble because of it.
Rocchi: I mean, l
ook, I don’t know the first thing about this chat room.
Rocchi: But since I happened to be here for its ending, it would be nice to get to know you.
Kuru: You really will say whatever you want, won’t you? Who in the world are you?
Mai: Who are you.
Rocchi: Just a passing ne’er-do-well.
Rocchi: And I’m heading to a ne’er-do-well party in Ikebukuro.
Rocchi: I wouldn’t go outside until the night is over, if I were you.
Kuru: Oh my. You speak exactly like a certain someone I know. Just when I was preparing to head out into the city, to relieve myself of the loneliness of knowing this special place has been irrevocably broken.
Mai: We’re in sync.
Rocchi: Pardon me.
Rocchi: But in fact, this place isn’t special.
Rocchi: Out there, in here—it’s all the same.
Rocchi: I mean, when you pass people on the street, you both might as well be anonymous, right?
Rocchi: You never know where an acquaintance might be hiding in plain sight.
Rocchi: And that can break down out of nowhere, just like this message board.
Rocchi: Well, so long.
Rocchi has left the chat.
Chapter 11: Like a Dragon Given Wings
Hallway, Raijin High School—in the past
“Hey, are you ready to be up and walking around already…? Oh, why do I even ask?”
“…Oh, it’s you, Shinra. Where’s that cockroach? I’m gonna squash him like the bug he is, until he says he’s going to change schools,” growled Shizuo bitterly as he passed Shinra in the hallway.
Shinra shrugged and jokingly responded, “You got hit by a truck, and rather than worrying about your own health, your first priority is hitting others? But I guess you’ve grown as a person, since you’re not destroying the school campus itself until Izaya shows up.”
He sighed, then glanced at Shizuo’s hair. “To be honest, I was stunned when I saw you with blond hair after all that time. I thought you’d finally turned into a bad boy.”
“…Oh, shut up. I didn’t dye it blond because I wanted to.”
“Then why? You can get your way on anything with force alone. Why would you dye it blond if you didn’t want to?”
“It was an older guy in middle school who told me to do it… But whatever, that doesn’t matter. What class is that mosquito bastard in?” Shizuo demanded, his temple pulsing. He was seething with anger despite the fact that he’d just met the guy the day before.
“Are you intending to get kicked out of school? At least control yourself while in the building.” Shinra cackled.
Shizuo clicked his tongue but did as his schoolmate said, this time turning his anger upon Shinra himself. “And what the hell were you thinking, introducing me to that filthy little trash bug?”
“Oh, come on. He’s the only friend I made in middle school, so I wanted to introduce him to you, the only friend I made in elementary.”
“Let me give you a warning. Choose your friends carefully.”
“Really? You’re going to say that, Shizuo?” Shinra quipped to his old friend with a grin. “Look, at least take it easy at school. You don’t want to get expelled right at the start of the school year and cause your family a bunch of grief, do you?”
“…”
The mention of his family made Shizuo’s scowl even deeper. “Fine, fine,” he grumbled. “I guess I can wait until after school to kill him.”
“Can we at least remove ‘killing him’ from the options? What is it that has you so furious about him?”
“…I just hate guys like that, who talk around people in circles but don’t actually do anything on their own.”
“Ah, I see now.”
It was quite a bold statement for Shizuo to make about the personality of someone he’d barely met, but Shinra didn’t push back on it. He knew that Izaya was exactly the kind of person Shizuo described.
Instead of arguing, he smiled and said, “But if you’re going to go down that route, I’m also a person who’s all talk.”
“That’s true. You annoy me all the time, too,” Shizuo said with a mean glare.
Shinra backed away in a hurry. “H-hey, don’t look at me like that. Whoa, whoa—easy, easy. Let’s be cool.”
Shizuo’s brow stayed furrowed as he stared at his old friend. “The thing is, you might tell a lot of really stupid-ass jokes, but you don’t just lie for the hell of it. That, at least, makes you better than that fleabrain.”
“I think you’re confused. I’m not some pure, innocent soul, and I’ll lie if I need to.”
“…You’re dumb enough to talk about wanting to dissect people in broad daylight. Why would you even need to lie?” Shizuo said, intending it to sound like casual conversation. Shinra thought that one over.
“Hmm… Good question. I’m in love with a girl.”
“So?”
“If I needed to, I would lie in order to fulfill my love for her. I would be a villain.”
“Okay, fine. Hey, if you wanna be a villain for the sake of the woman you love, knock yourself out,” Shizuo shot back, annoyed at the sappy romantic talk.
But Shinra waved his hand in denial. “No, it wouldn’t be for her sake exactly. It would be for my sake.”
“What?”
“If I was going to lie out of malice, it would be to her.”
“What do you mean?” Shizuo’s brow furrowed even deeper. The other students were steering so clear of him, they wouldn’t even venture into the hallway.
“I mean, I really, really love her. In fact, it’s probably closer to a desire to own her than to love her. So if she was drifting away from me for some reason…I would do whatever it takes to keep her at my side, even if it meant being a villain. I might even kill a person.”
Even Shizuo had to take this admission in silence. Eventually, he said, “Nah…that’s no good. If you killed someone, she wouldn’t want anything to do with you anymore.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Which is why I’d keep it a secret from her. Or maybe I’d lie and say, ‘It’s your fault I became a murderer!’ and make her feel really guilty about it. Then maybe she’ll stay with me forever.”
“You’re kind of a piece of shit, huh?” Shizuo let out a huge sigh and looked at Shinra with pity in his eyes. “I think the reason you don’t have many friends is because you say whatever’s on your mind like that.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever hear that from you…but I won’t deny it.”
“What kind of love is it that makes life worse for the other person? If that’s love, it’s a pretty twisted strain of it.”
“Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t rather have it a different way, right? I’d prefer to lead a normal romantic life and be able to say stuff like ‘As long as I can pledge my life to you, I don’t need anything else!’ That would be best of all,” Shinra said, nodding to himself, as proper as you please.
Shizuo gave him a disgusted look. “I feel really sorry for whatever woman you fall in love with. Just don’t be surprised if she stabs you when she finds out what you’re like.”
“I don’t know… She’s really sweet, so maybe at the end of it all, she’ll actually forgive me.”
“At least you’ve got a field of flowers in that skull of yours…,” Shizuo said, shaking his head. He was tired of the topic. “But whatever. If it comes to that, I’ll smash you up into the sky so your woman won’t have to.”
He meant it as a way to tell off Shinra, but the other boy just smiled. Whether he was serious or joking, Shinra said, “I’d appreciate it if you did. And I’d appreciate it even more if you do it softly enough that I don’t die.”
“I’m not as tough as you, after all.”
Building under construction—present day
The flame of the match acted as a trigger, sending up a huge amount of heat and light from the flammable gas filling the area and causing dull sounds of destruction.
Izaya s
tood atop the beams, but he’d moved to a safer location away from the searing waves of heat after he dropped the match. But even then, the gusts of wind from the gas explosion sent jets of raging heat right past him.
He had to hold tight to the steel pillar to protect himself and ensure the gust didn’t knock him off. That was enough to pull his eyes off Shizuo for the moment.
There was always the possibility that Shizuo could be entirely burned to a crisp, without oxygen in his lungs, and still come after him. At the very least, Izaya expected, he wouldn’t be able to escape with his legs paralyzed like that…
But then he noticed something off.
The darkness around them had somehow gotten thicker.
“…?”
This wasn’t typical night darkness. The light of the flames was being sucked up directly into the sky—such was the abnormal dark around the building.
It was often said that the stars were invisible in the city because of the illumination around you, but in this case, it was as if the sky had snuffed out all the light on the surface of the planet.
And not just the light. The wind, heated and fueled by the fire—even the flames themselves—vanished into the darkness. A shadow reaching down from the sky was grabbing the fire and devouring it.
Izaya recognized this shadow.
“…”
And realizing that he knew what this mysterious shadow was, he narrowed his eyes and muttered, “I thought it had no memory… What does that monster think it’s doing?”
For just a moment, he gazed up at the sky. There were no stars above, nothing at all but unnatural darkness.
But he couldn’t afford to pay much attention to it now. He was in the midst of a battle for his life.
Out of the suspicion that the shadow might seek to interrupt or interfere with their battle, Izaya gave it a bare minimum of caution as he searched for Shizuo Heiwajima below.
The flame had not spread far but was collected into a small area, probably due to the effect of the shadow. Yet he did not see a human figure amid the fire.
Where is he?
Durarara!!, Vol. 13 Page 5