“I wonder if that’s really true. So he responds to messages, but he won’t answer the phone? I mean, what kind of boyfriend does that?”
“H-he’s not my… Ryuugamine and I aren’t…”
Karisawa had put countless cosplay outfits on her (“Just for a test!”) over the course of the evening—she was currently wearing a Halloween party costume of a wide tricorn hat and a black dress with exposed shoulders. She was already blushing and curling up, embarrassed by the exposure of the sexy costume, so Karisawa’s line of questioning was only turning her cheeks redder.
“Ha-ha-ha, I’m only joking! I get it. You and Mikapon are so shy. You’ve got your sense of propriety all figured out—like a brand-new butler and a klutzy maid, maybe? I think you’re a cute couple. You’re all moe and kyun, the swallow to the tail. Totally.”
“I don’t…know what that means…”
“And if you two are the butler and the maid, I’ll be the master. In that case, wanna try on a maid outfit next? Or a shrine priestess?”
“Y-y-you mean there’s more?!” Anri squeaked, but that didn’t stop Karisawa’s teasing. She reached for a wardrobe that was enormous for the size of the apartment it inhabited, pulled out a few outfits, and pressed the hangers onto Anri to gauge the attire.
“If your hair were a bit shorter, you could do a good version of the plain friend from Oreimo. But if I had your chest, I’d wear raised platforms and do Bajeena instead. Oooh, I know! If you wore a wig, you would be very suitable as Konoha Muramasa from C3! In a number of ways!”
“O…kay…,” Anri mumbled, uncertain of what any of these names signified.
“Speaking of which, Anri, have you grown even more in the last half a year?”
“I—I don’t think so,” she replied, blushing even harder as Karisawa ogled her chest.
“Don’t be shy now. Mikado’s the purehearted type, so you’ve got to use the weapons God gave you to clinch the deal, or you’ll never get anywhere! At least follow Kida’s example!”
“Ah…” Anri looked down at the floor at the mention of a familiar name.
“From what Yumacchi tells me, Kida’s back in Ikebukuro now, right? I hear he’s well these days.”
“Wha—?”
So Kida really is back.
A few days ago, while taking care of a cat for an acquaintance, Anri had found herself in a bit of trouble. She ran into Masaomi out of the blue, who said a few words to her before running off. She hadn’t said a single thing to him.
But that was enough for her.
She’d been worried about Mikado acting strange recently, but Masaomi’s return seemed like a sign that things would resolve soon.
I wonder if he’s met with Ryuugamine yet…
If possible, she’d like to be there to speak with them. But she couldn’t begin to guess what she should say when they met.
Part of her acceptance of Karisawa’s offer was the hope that the advice of another girl would come in handy—instead, Karisawa controlled the entire situation, and there was no easy way to broach the topic of her personal concerns.
Thankfully, Karisawa seemed to have a sense of Anri’s troubles, and the topic gradually turned to Mikado and Masaomi.
But she’s seen…what I am…
During the Golden Week holiday, she’d been attacked by a mystery assailant and wielded the alien power that resided within her—the steel blade born of flesh and blood, Saika—in front of a crowd.
A teenage girl swinging a katana around was obviously not an ordinary sight.
She thought Karisawa and her friends would be afraid and disgusted after they witnessed it. To the contrary, they were fascinated and even tried to get closer to Anri after that point.
Why is she so nice to me, when she knows I’m abnormal?
Like Karisawa, there were people who saw human beings with freakish powers not as things to be feared but the exciting advent of the 2-D world into real life. Anri couldn’t understand how their minds worked.
One reason for that was that she knew the power was ultimately beyond her control. Saika’s gradual attempts to escape from Anri’s control filled her with fear and made her more determined than ever to properly coexist with the cursed blade.
To Anri, Karisawa was one of the few older girls she could talk to about her problems—but she wasn’t quite sure if she ought to reveal the entire truth of Saika yet. There was another “older girl who could be talked to,” who wasn’t entirely human, just like her, so it seemed to Anri that the courier would be the better person to ask for advice first.
But even still, she might not want to hear about this stuff…
“…ri. Anri…”
And I can’t ask Mr. Akabayashi about this…
“Anri? Anri? Hellooo?”
“…? Y-yes?! I’m sorry! I was spacing out…”
Anri lurched backward when she realized Karisawa’s face was right up in hers.
“Ha-ha-ha, darn! If you’d spaced out a bit longer, I could have taken that off and put you in the sexy fallen angel maid outfit!”
“Wh-what?”
The words fallen angel and sexy were a bit of a shock to Anri, who summoned her courage to ask, “So Yumasaki met with Kida?”
“Yep. It was a shock to me, too, actually. It was happening right when I ran into you on the street earlier. Dotachin and them were eating at Russia Sushi, and they just happened across him right there. I haven’t heard any details about what actually happened, though.”
“Um, if you d-don’t mind, c-could you ask them about that when you get the chance? I’d really…”
“I get it, I get it! Wow, you’re really aggressive when it comes to Kida, huh? If only Mikarun inspired that kind of go-get-’em attitude.” Karisawa chuckled, swinging right back into the usual loop of teasing her helpless victim.
Just then, Karisawa’s cell phone buzzed on the table and emitted a soft and sultry “You have a call, mistress.”
“Yes, my butler, yes, até breve, obrigado,” she said, whatever that meant, and snatched up the phone to check the screen. “Oh, speak of the devil. It’s from Dotachin. True synchronicity!”
She hit the button in high spirits, ready to launch into a good chat. “Hello there, Dotachin! What’s up? …Huh? Er, oh.”
The smile vanished from her face. “Oh, you’re Kyouhei’s father! I see, of course… But what’s the occasion? Why are you calling from his…?”
“…”
It was clear something was wrong.
Both Anri and the other cosplay girls who had been quietly busying themselves around the apartment stopped and watched Karisawa.
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh… What?”
In that instant, everyone in the room innately understood that something bad had happened to Kyouhei Kadota.
They all witnessed Erika’s ever-present smirk vanish from her face.
“Kyouhei Kadota was in a traffic accident that put him into a coma.”
This fact left wide-ranging ripples, centered chiefly around the Dollars.
At a private hotel celebration…
“…Kadota did?”
Yumasaki had just finished carving an ice sculpture for his job. His narrow eyes opened wider than usual, and his work tools slipped from his hands.
In an apartment…
“You gotta be kidding me!”
Togusa answered the phone while he was sticking up a Ruri Hijiribe poster on the ceiling. The shock caused him to fall off the step stool.
Beside a river in Saitama…
“What? Kadota?”
“Y-yeah, man. So why waste your time collecting money from me when you could be payin’ him a hospital visit? What if you don’t get there in time? What if he dies and— Gbyaaa?!”
The man in the bartender’s outfit tossed the debtor through the air, then frowned. At his side were a man with dreadlocks and a young white woman. Both of his coworkers spoke to him in concern.
“That’s a guy you know, right? The one always
riding around in that van?”
“I have heard he’s senior management of the quasi–gang club group called the Dollars.”
The man in the bartender’s suit was breathing heavily. He shouted, “He was just a classmate from high school…but what I wanna know is…who’s the sick bastard who ran over a person I know and fled the scene?!”
He was so furious that he kicked the motorcycle the debtor had been trying to flee on. It skipped over the surface of the water like a pond skater and crashed against the far bank of the river.
On the top floor of an apartment building in Ikebukuro…
“So…what now, Mikado Ryuugamine?”
…an info broker who had abandoned his humanity in exchange for blinding pain in his right hand stared down off his veranda at the city, a cold smile adorning his lips.
Out in front of a convenience store…
“You gotta be kidding me!”
“Kadota got run over by a car?”
“Serves you right, biiiitch!”
…a number of hooligans whom Kadota had regulated upon in the past cheered and exchanged high fives.
In Russia Sushi…
“Hit-and-run… That’s some bullshit to pull on one of our regular customers.”
Denis sharpened his knife with no outward change in his demeanor at the news.
“Yes, I go pay him visit. Calcium good for broken bones. He eat pike with bones in, good for him. I take him one nigiri with whole pike inside,” said Simon, who seemed quite relaxed despite his concern.
They took matters of other people’s life and death in stride, probably because of past experience, but that didn’t mean they were being cold and callous. This was just how they expressed their concern for Kadota.
“That’s gonna be hard to eat. And there’s no point in taking anything to him until he wakes up again.”
“It’s okay. Boss Kadota tough, if not as tough as Shizuo. Health comes first, phone call second, three o’clock is snack time. When Kadota’s friends come again, we give them sushi on the house. I’m worried more of them than Kadota.”
“You realize how many people he knows? You’re gonna put us outta business,” the restaurant manager said, stone-faced, as he examined the knife he’d finished sharpening. “But if Kadota does get out, I can make him the best damn nigiri I’ve ever prepared.”
And somewhere in Tokyo…
A fresh-faced boy, Aoba Kuronuma, spoke in darkness. “Did you hear that, Mr. Mikado?”
“…Yes. About Kadota,” murmured a boy who looked utterly normal in every way—Mikado Ryuugamine—as they sat in the back seat of a van owned by one of Aoba’s companions. “I can’t believe it. How could he be in such a horrible accident…?”
“What’ll you do? Go visit him in the hospital? They might be refusing visitors still. Could even be in surgery.”
“…”
Silence.
No one spoke for a while, the sound of the van running only underscoring the heaviness of the moment. When it eventually came to a stoplight, Mikado spoke, eyes downcast. “I wish I could do that, but if I go now, I might come face-to-face with a bunch of different people.”
Emotions swirled through him. Eventually, he settled on a sad smile. “And I’m sure that would cause a bunch of trouble… Oh, but I think you should go. He did help you out of trouble once. I don’t mind being an ingrate, but there’s no reason for you to suffer the same infamy.”
“I see,” Aoba said, reflecting the heavy mood. He shrugged. “Sure, he saved me, but I was the entire cause of that fight with Toramaru and the chase that ensued. I earned it,” he admitted.
Mikado looked up slowly. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Huh?”
“Kadota saved you. It doesn’t matter why. He saved you, and that’s that. He did it to help you, regardless of if you started the problem in the first place. I don’t think you should downplay that.”
“…You’re right. I’m sorry,” Aoba said.
Mikado grinned easily. “No, no, I probably stated that more forcefully than it needed. My bad.”
Aoba didn’t know what about that qualified as “more forceful than needed,” but he decided to let it drop.
“Then I’ll go and visit him in the hospital soon.”
“Yeah. That’s good. Just remember it’s considered bad luck to bring camellia flowers or other potted plants to a hospital room,” Mikado advised him. The others in the van shivered, but Aoba didn’t seem to feel anything in particular.
“I hope you’ll be able to stand proud and visit Kadota in the hospital someday, sir. Along with Miss Sonohara and Mr. Kida.”
“Yeah. Speaking of which…”
Mikado mumbled something, then turned to stare out the window. There was a kind of sadness in his eyes but also a purity. His gaze was steady as he looked out toward some distant, unseen place.
Something in his eyes frightened Aoba as much as it reassured him. He smiled, his emotions conflicted and unknown to Mikado.
An abnormal situation descended upon their lives.
And this was only the start. After this day, the Dollars were plunged into a state of abnormality that many of them did not desire.
But in reality, a select few of them did want it—a period of sludge and piercing, bizarre circumstances.
Chat room
.
.
.
Kid: And that’s the basic mechanism for how loan sharks still operate in this day and age.
Sharo: Wow. That’s really something.
100% Pure Water: You sure know a lot about shady business, Kid! That story about backdoor school admissions fraud was entertaining, too. Are you actually a police officer or a prosecutor?!
Kid: No, I’m just sharing stories I’ve heard.
Kid: And an officer or a prosecutor isn’t going to have the time to hang out in chat rooms all day like this.
Chrome has entered the chat.
Chrome: Good evening.
Sharo: Evening.
Kid: Nice to see you again.
100% Pure Water: Eveniiing!
Saki: Long time no see.
Chrome: Looks like we have all new members tonight. Is there a single old member here?
Saki: Mai and Kuru were here earlier.
Saki: But they had something to do, so they left.
Kid: They seemed to be in their usual moods.
Chrome: It’s been so long since I saw TarouTanaka and Setton.
Chrome: Do you think they switched to posting on Mixi instead?
Chrome: Social media’s different these days. Chat rooms like these are dying out.
Kid: I’m not sure.
Sharo: They’re probably just busy, yeah? I mean, it’s been a while since we’ve seen you, either, Chrome.
Chrome: I’ve been hammered with overtime lately…
Saki: Well, congrats on getting free.
100% Pure Water: Oh, right. Saki, you’re Bacura’s friend or girlfriend in real life, right?
Saki: Yes. We live together.
Sharo: She admits it!
Sharo: Wow.
Sharo: What?
100% Pure Water: Eeek!
Kid: That sounds very passionate.
100% Pure Water: Then what’s Bacura doing today?
Saki: He’s busy with work. He’s been out all day.
100% Pure Water: Sounds like a hard worker! Just make sure you treat him well when he gets home so that he doesn’t work himself to death.
Sharo: What if you treat him a little too well and keep him up all night, and then he gets into a car accident in the morning from lack of sleep?
100% Pure Water: That’s dirty! You’ve got a dirty mind, Sharo! Diiiirty!
Sharo: Really? That counts as a dirty joke, Water?!
Saki: What do you mean by “treat him a little too well”?
Saki: Can you please explain that to me? ;)
Sharo: Sorry, forget I said it. It really was a bad joke.
&n
bsp; Chrome: Oh, speaking of asleep at the wheel…did you hear about the hit-and-run today?
100% Pure Water: Yikes! Where? Where did it happen?
Chrome: It wasn’t that far away from Ikebukuro.
Chrome: I mean, if it was in the middle of Ikebukuro, there’d be so many witnesses that they’d get caught right away.
Sharo: Was it on the news?
Chrome: No, I don’t think it’s been on the news. It wasn’t fatal.
Kid: Then how do you know about it?
100% Pure Water: Were you the one who hit and ran, Chrome?!
Chrome: Of course it wasn’t me.
Chrome: Haven’t you checked the Dollars message board?
Kid: Actually, I haven’t yet today…
Sharo: Oh, does that mean this is Dollars related?
Chrome: No, it’s much simpler than that.
Chrome: It was just a Dollars member who got run over.
Chrome: The problem is, it wasn’t your typical member.
Kid: Meaning?
Chrome: The victim was a fairly prominent person in the group, someone named Kadota.
Sharo: Hey, that’s a pretty well-known name around the Ikebukuro region.
Sharo: Are you serious?! Kadota’s dead?!
100% Pure Water: Don’t be morbid!
Sharo: Look, I wasn’t excited about it or anything like that!
Chrome: According to the info on the Dollars board, it’s not life-threatening.
Chrome: But he hasn’t regained consciousness yet.
Kid: Let’s hope he wakes up soon.
Kid: So if it was a hit-and-run, does that mean the driver hasn’t been found?
Sharo: It’s just a matter of time, I bet.
Sharo: There are some crazy motorcycle cops out there these days.
Sharo: Haven’t you ever seen them playing tag with the Headless Rider?
Chrome: Didn’t you say something like that before, Sharo? lol
Sharo: It’s a wild enough thing to bring up multiple times.
Sharo: You’ve got to be a real idiot to do a hit-and-run, though.
100% Pure Water: They probably panicked and drove off without thinking, I’m guessing?
Kid: That’d be better, at least.
Chrome: ?
Durarara!!, Vol. 10 Page 4