“It was only yesterday that I finally became free from some personal business.” Kujiragi looked him in the eyes. “After speaking with other Saika owners, I made a decision. If no one will love me, perhaps I ought to love someone else.”
“And you chose me? Well, I think that’s a much more positive way of thinking than deciding you don’t need love, but why choose me?”
“For one thing, like I said earlier…I am jealous.”
This made sense to Shinra. She was jealous of Celty, who wasn’t human but was able to carry on a happy life. So she decided that she would steal a part of that happiness from Celty.
Kujiragi added, “For another…I sought some kind of return.”
“Return?”
“Perhaps I was hoping that in exchange for loving, I would be loved in return. And since you are capable of loving a nonhuman…perhaps…”
She included suppositions and speculation in her statements as a sign that even she didn’t understand how she felt. Still, despite her awkwardness, she was busy putting her thoughts in order.
“As I researched more about your unique nature, I began to feel a kind of envy. That you were not like other humans and you might represent a kind of hope for me. When I saw how you continued your relationship with Celty Sturluson, even after being injured by Adabashi, I felt—though I bear some responsibility for your injury, I will admit—a kind of admiration for you.”
Adabashi.
He was Ruri Hijiribe’s stalker, the man who’d injured Shinra terribly. But the mention of that name did not cause any particular consternation in him.
Kujiragi paused and tilted her head in slight disbelief at what she was going to say. “I became a fan of yours. Is that an inadequate reason?”
“…”
“So I will broach the topic again. Will you consider accepting my feelings?”
It was a simple confession of love—so very simple.
Silence enveloped the two.
In the distance, motorcycle engines roared, and there were sounds of destruction as well—but here on this street, it was so quiet that time itself might have stopped.
Then Shinra broke the long silence.
“I believe a normal human being would be angry right about now,” he said, grinning lopsidedly, his eyes red. “You got me injured, abducted me for your own selfish reasons, and generally did a lot of awful stuff to me.”
“…”
“But I’m just not mad at you. And that’s only because I have Celty.”
“?”
Kujiragi stared at him quizzically.
Shinra went on, like a rambunctious, innocent child: “Because I have Celty, I don’t need anything else. It would be a waste of my time to hate other people. So it’s only thanks to Celty that I can even stand here and have a pleasant conversation with you.”
He looked down, then raised his head again to stare Kujiragi straight in the eyes. “The only reason the guy you like is here at all is because of Celty.” It felt as if he was saying that as much to himself as to her. “So…I’m sorry. I cannot return your feelings.”
“…”
Kujiragi closed her eyes for a few moments, then exhaled. “I understand. I am satisfied just having heard your answer clearly.”
She was as expressionless as ever, but Shinra gave her a serious look as he said, “I know it’s strange to say this to someone you only just met, but…you seem like a mysterious person to me. You’re demi-human, and clumsy, and yet oddly straightforward, and trying to change yourself so that you’re not so otherworldly.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I think that while you don’t match up to Celty, you’re plenty attractive yourself. It might be cruel to say this after I turned you down, but if Celty didn’t exist, I might have fallen in love with you instead.”
After a pause, Kujiragi said, “Are you consoling me?”
But Shinra shook his head. “I’m not that clever and considerate.” He walked closer to her. “There’s just one thing that I can do for you.”
“…What is it?”
“I can offer you proof.”
“…?”
She gave him a curious look, so Shinra leaned forward, withstanding the pain of his many injuries, and said proudly, “I am proof that an utterly ordinary human being and the world’s most wondrous Headless Rider, the most mismatched couple imaginable, can still find love together.”
“…”
“So I’m certain that you will find the right person for you. And until then, whether it’s family, or someone close, or even yourself—take good care of someone,” Shinra said with a gentle smile.
Kujiragi was silent for quite a while, until at last, she said, “You’re an awful person.”
With the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.
“How could you make me like you more after you rejected me?”
Togusa’s van
“I thought I heard it coming from the building on the left…but if the sound’s bouncing off the expressway, then there’s no telling where it came from…”
Togusa peered through the windshield up at the buildings looming over them.
The biker gangs were gathered just a few dozen yards ahead and had practically taken over the road. No cars were moving, of course, so all the drivers, noticing the gathering ahead, were desperately trying to trickle off onto side streets.
“And you’re saying the guy with the fancy hair was definitely out in front of Russia Sushi, Karisawa?”
“Yep, no question. He was with Haruna.”
“…”
Anri placed her hands on her thighs, clutching the hem of her clothing.
Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida—Izaya Orihara had likened their relationship to “balancing atop a rope on fire.” With the threat of Nasujima added to the mix, Anri was fighting a powerful anxiety over a situation whose full scope she could not ascertain.
“Do you think it would be faster to get out and run?” Seiji wondered.
“Yeah, but…if there really are as many people as there were at the first Dollars meeting…,” Karisawa replied.
Meanwhile, Togusa noticed a person walking down the center of the road, weaving between the cars caught in traffic. The figure’s movement was awkward and halting, as though they were hurt.
What’s that?
Huh? Where have I seen him before…?
As Togusa squinted ahead, the figure suddenly raised a hammer and brought it down on the van’s front windshield with abnormal force.
“Wha…?!”
It smashed against the glass, sending spiderweb fractures all across the surface and turning the driver’s vision through it white. There was a second impact, then a third, and big chunks of the glass fell loose.
“Y-you son of a bitch!” Togusa screamed at the man. He stomped on the gas, making to run over the attacker.
“Stop, Togusa!” Kadota shouted from the passenger seat, which was just enough to keep Togusa in his rational mind.
The attacker, meanwhile, leered at them and examined the group in the van.
“Oh-ho… Very nice… Real tasty bunch ya got in here, huh? Hey…what the hell are you doin’ here, Namie Yagiri?”
“Izumii…,” Namie said with undisguised loathing. A nervous silence ran through the vehicle.
“Huh? Izumii? Did he change up his look…?” Karisawa wondered.
Kadota grimaced. “Hah…you really slimmed down during your time on the inside. What happened to that regal pompadour you were so proud of?”
The air around Izumii seemed to chill several degrees. “Kaaadoootaaa,” he hissed with fury, staring daggers at the young man through his sunglasses. “I heard you got hit by a car, but you seem just fine to me… So I guess I oughta finish the job, huh?”
Those two statements didn’t add up at all, but Kadota reached for the seat belt to undo it anyway.
“Whoa, now. Who said you could move?” Izumii pointed the hammer right at him, a vicious
smile smeared across his face. “I’m puttin’ on a car-dismantling show. And you’ve got the best seat in the house, so don’t get up.”
At that point, about ten more thugs appeared from other vehicles to surround Togusa’s van. They all carried metal pipes, bats, shovels, and picks—implements that would indeed be useful in dismantling a vehicle.
“Hey, we’ve got women and children in here. At least let them out.” Kadota glared without a shred of fear.
Izumii cackled and shook his head. “C’mon, dumb-ass. You know the entire reason you betrayed me is because I don’t make those kinds of concessions. Right?”
“You son of a bitch…,” Kadota growled, his brow creasing. The other man glanced at the back seat of the van.
“Okay, Yumasaki, you’re in for it, too… Wait. Yumasaki ain’t here…,” he said curiously. Then he recognized one of the two girls back there. “Wha…?”
He opened his wide mouth into a malicious cackle. “Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You…you’re Masaomi Kida’s girl, huh? Okay, okay, I see. So Kadota saved your skin, and now you’ve been palling around with them ever since!”
“…”
Saki maintained her silence, only staring back at Izumii. As a matter of fact, they’d only just met again yesterday, but admitting so wouldn’t make any difference, so she didn’t bring it up.
“Hey, what if I tossed a Molotov cocktail into the van, like you folks did to me? Huh?” Izumii laughed. “I wondered what was up with the summons right after we split apart, but now it just means I get to see y’all again! I feel fate at work! Gotta thank Mikado for that!”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…?”
Aside from Mika and Namie, the entire group within the van froze.
“What…did you just say? Thank who?” Kadota grunted.
“Oops. I guess you didn’t know that yet?” Izumii said, shrugging theatrically. The action caused the sternum that Chikage had injured to creak, and he scowled in pain. But it lasted only a brief moment and did not dull his enjoyment of the situation.
“I’m not the leader of the Blue Squares anymore,” he said.
“What?”
“…Your buddy Mikado Ryuugamine is the one calling the shots now! Hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
The rooftop of a mixed-use building
After the gunshot, only the smell of powder was left in the air.
Within its midst, the two figures did not move.
“…”
There was still a faint trail of smoke coming from the muzzle of the pistol in Mikado’s hand. A little cut on Masaomi’s cheek trickled blood, from either being grazed by the bullet or just the shock wave of its passage.
The sound of the shot hit him directly in the ear, leaving the reverberation of its roar rattling around in his head. Mikado felt the same thing, so for the moment, neither of them could move or speak.
Physically, they were trapped in a stalemate.
“…”
“…”
A moment ago, just before Mikado had fired the gun, Masaomi had bolted off the ground like a spring-loaded toy, racing for the other boy. He had tossed his crutch aside and leaped with one foot.
The knee Izumii had shattered screamed under the cast. The pain was dulled by the anesthetic, but the shock still ran through his spine and smashed into his brain.
But he pushed that unpleasant sensation down into his gut and reached over to grab Mikado’s wrist. The impact of that move caused him to pull the trigger, firing the gun just to the side of Masaomi’s cheek.
They froze, locked in position, for almost a full minute.
The success of Masaomi’s insane one-legged jump was half thanks to good luck and half to something else coming into play. Mikado had given him an opening.
He’d moved his free hand, bringing it closer to add support to his grip on the gun. Masaomi spotted that chance and took it, rushing in to grab Mikado’s right arm. He did so gingerly—if he’d done it with all his strength, the arm might as well have snapped.
Shit… You know you’re not built for fighting like this, you idiot.
Masaomi gnashed his teeth, not from the pain running through his body but with anger at himself for having driven his friend to these lengths.
Once their hearing had largely recovered, his gun hand still held down, Mikado spoke. “You startled me. I wasn’t expecting you to come running at me.”
“…What did you do, look up how to shoot a gun online?”
“Huh?”
“Knowing how serious you are, I figured you would use both hands to steady the gun.”
In a sense, it was a bet that he could make, knowing what made Mikado tick so well.
“I see… Wow, you’re really something, Masaomi,” he said with a grin and tried to use his free left hand to push Masaomi away.
Masaomi smacked his hand away with his own, which was fixed in place with tape and bandages. Once he had cleared it out of the way, he slammed a head-butt right into Mikado’s face.
“Hng!”
Mikado stumbled backward, and Masaomi seized the opportunity to knock him over onto the roof with his foot. He wrenched Mikado’s right wrist, causing him to drop the gun. Awkwardly, he used his shattered leg to kick the clattering pistol away; it rattled into the corner of the rooftop area.
The next moment, Masaomi straddled Mikado and promptly punched him in the face. He used his right fist, with the broken fingers taped up and secured, not caring that it was already damaged.
The physical agony of it far surpassed his painkillers, and he could feel the sensation of bone pieces sliding and shifting. But he hit Mikado again, and again, and again.
“You idiot, Mikado! You idiot! You idiot!” Tears bloomed in his eyes, and with his other hand, he lifted Mikado by the collar. “Create a place for us to come back to? Why would you go and sabotage your chances of ever coming back, then?!”
“…”
“I know I ran away for a while. But Anri was always still here!” Masaomi shouted. “I don’t care if you forgot all about me, the guy who left you behind to fend for yourself! But you shouldn’t be putting Anri through this kind of pain…”
Mikado’s face was bruised and puffy all over from the beating. Blood dripped from his broken lips—but still he smiled.
“The Dollars…aren’t going to stop now…just because I do.” It was a smile not of joy but of resignation. “And that’s why the Dollars have to vanish.”
He reached with his free left hand and stuck it into his pocket.
“Hey, what are you—?” Masaomi yelped, thinking it would be a knife or something of that nature. The instant he looked in that direction, a sharp, heavy shock ran through his leg—and shortly after, he was hit by a wave of heat and pain unlike anything he’d felt before.
Aozaki’s office
“What the hell are you thinking, Akabayashi?”
“Something sneaky.” Akabayashi, who was leaning against the wall near the door, grinned.
Aozaki glared at him as he sat down heavily in one of the chairs in the reception room. “Sneaky?”
“Yeah. About how I’m gonna carve up the Dollars.”
“…Tsk.” Aozaki clicked his tongue, realizing that the info was already out.
“See, I had my eyes on the Dollars, too. Did you happen to hand anything over to young Mikado?”
“…I’ll explain things to the boss. I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.”
“Don’t be cold, Aozaki. It’s my jurisdiction handling the youngsters like the Dollars, right? So if I let this nonsense continue, it’s going to reflect poorly on what I do.”
“I never took you for the type to care about that.”
It sounded like low-key banter, but Aozaki’s subordinates in the room with them got a case of cold sweats from all the aural pressure that exuded from the two men. These were the Red Ogre and Blue Ogre of Awakusu, the two most ferocious of the group’s lieutenants. And th
ey were not having a friendly little chat.
“Now, now, Aozaki. I didn’t come here to spar with you,” Akabayashi said with a smirk, scraping the cane that he used as a weapon along the floor. “Would you mind allowing me to handle the Dollars?”
“…What is this nonsense?”
“Let me guess what you’re thinking. You want to make Mikado Ryuugamine disappear, and you’ll sit some other kid with ties to our family in his place. They’re a weird group; it’s not even clear who calls the shots to begin with. So if you get control of the Blue Squares, the most powerful faction within the Dollars, we can use them as we like.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Aozaki insisted smoothly.
“Look, I’m not accusing you of meddling in my business,” Akabayashi continued. “My job is simply to monitor the young folks. It’s not to control them. As long as they don’t peddle drugs or sell to minors, I’m not going to complain. I’m just askin’ you to let me handle this—the one time.”
“Is this someone you want to protect?”
“…Now that’s something I don’t need to tell you.”
“…”
Aozaki thought it over, then shook his head. “No. Just with the business in mind, I can overlook one kid…but this kid tried to shame the boss. And nobody does that without retaliation. If you wanna beg for that kid’s life, go talk to the old man.”
Akabayashi sighed. If he pled his case to the head of their yakuza group, he might get Mikado’s life spared. But only if the boss and the other officers hadn’t learned the name Mikado Ryuugamine.
The kid was too closely tied to Anri. They didn’t seem to be romantically linked yet, but given that the name Saika was used in the chat room, it meant that Anri Sonohara could turn out to be a significant force in this situation.
He didn’t want to consider the possibility that Anri might become hostile to the Awakusu-kai as a consequence of searching for Mikado or trying to help him. But he said nothing of that here.
“You’re an old-fashioned type, you know that?” he said to Aozaki. “Shiki and Kazamoto are going to laugh at you.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 13 Page 15