“I can’t offer you help personally, but I can introduce you to someone who might be able to provide you with the information you seek,” he said.
“Y-you mean Orihara? I haven’t been able to contact him. It looks like he moved out of his office in Shinjuku…”
“No, I’m not speaking of an outsider. I mean someone within my organization.”
“R-really?! A-and what would I owe you for…?”
Niekawa was prepared to hand over everything he owned, what little there was. But even then, he wasn’t sure he had enough for the likely asking price. He could reach out to an expert from the publisher who knew about this exact kind of negotiation, but he wasn’t going to get others involved in his personal matter.
But the answer wasn’t a number.
“Don’t be silly. This is a give-and-take relationship, isn’t it, Mr. Newswriter?”
“Huh?”
“I cannot accept your money,” Shiki said, shaking his head. He leaned forward, placed his hands on his knees, and fixed Niekawa with the stare of a lion hunching toward its prey. A friendly smile crossed his face.
“Instead, the next time we need help, we’ll ask you for advice. That’s all that’s necessary.”
Based on the words alone, some might think Shiki a kind and generous man. Others might find him the chivalrous kind of yakuza who was rarely seen in modern times. But Niekawa was well aware that this did not describe the actual offer Shiki of the Awakusu-kai was making him.
They were going to use him, a tabloid writer, as part of the group’s shady business. Rather than making it a onetime financial transaction, Shiki determined that it was more worth his time to keep a connection to a writer at a magazine that circulated in convenience stores and bookstores, even if the publisher was tiny. The last time, he’d introduced an external information source, but this time it was to another person in the same organization. That was surely a sign that they intended to maintain a working relationship with him.
You’re going to be our lapdog, Shiki was saying. He’d probably get asked to write about them favorably in an article. In a sense, having that kind of personal connection to the Awakusu-kai was a much worse outcome than a simple financial loss.
But then Niekawa recalled just how abnormal his daughter had been acting over the past year. He took several long breaths, steeled his courage, and bowed his head.
“I understand. Your generosity is greatly appreciated, Mr. Shiki.”
“Don’t be silly. As I said earlier, this is a reciprocal relationship, Mr. Niekawa.”
The first use of his actual name rather than “Mr. Newswriter” didn’t inspire friendliness in Niekawa. He felt like icy vines were tangling around him.
“I’ll phone my colleague, then. He can be a…slippery fellow, but I bet you’ll get along with him just fine.”
“Um, a-and who is this…?” Niekawa asked, nervous about the new Awakusu-kai member he was about to become acquainted with. For the first time, Shiki gave him a wicked grin that had nothing to do with salesmanship.
“…Well, they call him the Red Ogre, but don’t worry. His horns and fangs have been well-rounded down by now,” he lied.
Apartment bar, Tokyo
“Ahh. A Mr. Niekawa, writer for the Tokyo Warrior. Understood. Well, I’ll be at the usual bar, so just send him my way.”
In the back of a bar built into an ordinary apartment, Akabayashi ended his call and sipped his plum sake. He swallowed, then gaped and murmured an apology.
“Oops, I didn’t mean to completely derail our conversation by taking that call. My bad. I must be getting old—I just assumed I was drinking alone, like always.”
“Please don’t let it bother you. We were nearly done anyway,” said a young man dressed in black despite the summer heat. His smile was as cold and jagged as though it were etched into obsidian—this was Izaya Orihara.
Akabayashi picked up where those chilly words left off and asked the info broker, “So are these materials correct…? Is this Mikado Ryuugamine the founder of the Dollars?”
“Yes. I was quite surprised when I found out. One of the students at my alma mater, a central figure of the Dollars!” he remarked theatrically.
Akabayashi swirled his cup and smiled. “Let’s not stoop to bullshit, informant. You knew that in the first place, and it was why you approached Ryuugamine at all, isn’t it?”
Izaya could only shrug and throw his hands up. “I’ll leave that to your imagination. You asked me for information on Mikado Ryuugamine, not information on myself, right?”
“Am I hearing this right? Are you willing to sell the details of your own schemes for the right price?”
“People’s thoughts and feelings aren’t a product to be sold, Mr. Akabayashi.”
“Ah. Quite. Accept my apologies, then.”
They chuckled without a hint of mirth.
He really is hard to get a handle on. The Red Ogre of Awakusu…
Because of his aloof attitude and the tinted glasses that hid his eyes, it was very hard to read Akabayashi’s mannerisms. It was a toss-up as to who was less forthcoming with information, him or Shiki, Izaya mused. But the two men were temperamentally different.
Shiki kept his mind locked behind hard iron, while Akabayashi was as impossible to grasp as liquid—except he wasn’t just harmless water but gasoline or some other unsettling substance that could explode at any moment.
Izaya was not afraid, however. He returned to their chat about business. “Isn’t that why you came to me in the first place? You knew he was an important figure to the Dollars.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I did hear a fascinating rumor from a guy fresh outta the clink.” Akabayashi put his finger on the picture of Mikado Ryuugamine sitting on the table and began to rotate it. “I’ll admit I thought you’d keep the Dollars’ boss a secret from me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, I figured that having an associate in my profession learn something like that might be inconvenient for a fellow in the business of selling information.”
“You think too highly of me. I’m not clever or powerful enough to orchestrate plots that involve keeping secrets from the Awakusu-kai,” Izaya said, not rattled in the least.
“Is that so? A guy like you ain’t living if he ain’t plotting, as far as I can tell.” Akabayashi lifted up the photo he’d been spinning and stuck it into the pile of materials that Izaya had given him. “The kind I’d have beaten to death without a reason in the old days.”
“Let’s not make any threats.”
“Please don’t worry. I’m not that young anymore. The old bloodlust is gone. Plus…” He paused and took another sip of his plum sake.
“Plus?”
“It looks like I don’t need to bother. That young fella in the bartender getup is trying to beat you to death himself. Leave the violence to the younger generation, I say.”
“…”
For an instant, the smile vanished from Izaya’s lips. Then he expelled that moment of weakness with a sigh. “Please don’t be silly. What can that beast of a man do?”
“It’s rare to hear about a human being who can beat a wild animal in a fight.”
“Which is why we have weapons. Individually and socially.”
Akabayashi considered this for a moment, and his gaze sharpened behind the glasses. “And are you planning to use the weapons of society?”
Izaya didn’t answer him. All he did was smirk.
Akabayashi didn’t seem annoyed. He straightened up the papers and stuffed them back into the manila envelope. “That’s all right. Well, you keep bringing me info on Mikado Ryuugamine. I’ll make sure you’re paid for the trouble. Did you want to order anything? The T-bone steak is excellent.”
“I’d love to take you up on that offer, but I’ve got business to get to…”
“If you say so. The downsides of being a hard worker! Just don’t work yourself into an early grave,” Akabayashi said, waving good-bye to I
zaya as the younger man stood. Something in that friendly advice sounded like a warning. “Information overload is bad for the constitution.”
“…I appreciate the advice.”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?” Izaya came to a stop.
“I’m sure you know there’s smoke coming from the Dollars lately,” Akabayashi said in his breezy manner. “Be careful. The Dollars are like an entire neighborhood to themselves, and the town’s beginning to smolder.”
“What’s this all about?”
“Even if you were the first one to light that fire, the sparks don’t stay contained to any one place,” he said cryptically, practically to himself, as he stared down at the surface of his drink.
“When an arsonist sits back in a safe spot to watch the fire he set, it ain’t rare for him to get burned by someone else’s blaze. Especially in our world, y’know.”
Night, Namie’s apartment
Namie Yagiri was on the run.
She’d stolen the head of a dullahan, an extremely precious secret, from her former company and had been on the run ever since. But she wasn’t trying to get as far away from Tokyo as she could. Even worse than being caught was the thought of being separated from Seiji Yagiri, her beloved little brother.
At first, she’d been living in an apartment arranged by her new employer, Izaya Orihara, but because she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, she now rented a different place under a false name.
She took the utmost caution that she wasn’t being trailed whenever she “commuted” to Izaya’s office and had never gotten sloppy about it once. If there was any way in which she was playing fast and loose, it was that she assumed nobody working for Yagiri Pharmaceuticals was going to cause a fuss in broad daylight, so she didn’t take any real pains to disguise herself. She was also forgetting that she had attempted to abduct Mikado Ryuugamine on the street once, but since it’d been well over a year since then, without any reprisal, the idea never crossed her mind.
But in the interest of upholding her good name, let it be said that she was otherwise exhibiting every last bit of caution, as usual. She arrived home absolutely certain that no one was following her.
This time, however, there was one factor that set off her sense of wariness. Normally, there was almost no traffic past the apartment building at this time of day—but now there was a single black van parked down the street. It was very large and seemed totally out of place in the cramped, dense streets of urban Japan.
“…”
With a mild uptick in her sense of caution, Namie glanced around the area without slowing her pace or stopping.
The next moment, all her senses went absolutely taut.
Right as she had turned to look behind her, she saw another black van emerging from the entrance of the alley she’d just been walking down.
They trapped me!
She hoped it was just a misconception, but that wasn’t a good enough reason for her not to take the next logical action. Rather than bolting into a sprint, she kept walking, feigning total calm.
If the people in the black cars were enemies trying to track her down, they’d be assuming she would bolt into action as soon as she realized it. By playing defenseless, she could wait until the closest possible distance to act.
With this idea in mind, Namie continued acting dumb, all her nerves on edge just enough to keep the strings from going completely taut, while she formulated the most effective way to escape.
But no sooner had she started on this bold idea than another man appeared near the door to her building. When she saw his face, the strings she’d been keeping as loose as possible tugged so hard they threatened to snap.
It was a face she knew very well.
“It’s been a while, Namie,” said the man with the graying hair, without much emotion. “Don’t tell me you thought we had no idea about this.”
Cold sweat trickled down Namie’s back.
“President…Yagiri…”
The man sighed and shook his head. “I have your severance papers all filed. You don’t need to use that formal title with me anymore. Just call me Uncle Seitarou, like you used to.”
He sounded wistful and disappointed. Seitarou Yagiri took another step toward his niece. “We’ve been aware of where you were the whole time. I just wasn’t sure if it was right to put pressure on my dear niece like that.”
Namie snarled and clicked her tongue at this ostentatious show of concern. “You used my father’s company like a sacrificial tool, and now you’re going to play the family ties card, Uncle Seitarou?”
“You’ve got a point,” he admitted and straightened his cuffs. After checking the time on his wristwatch, he reached a hand toward Namie. “We can catch up later, though. We don’t want to block the street here.”
“…Don’t you mean, we don’t want to attract attention?” she snapped sardonically.
“Precisely. We would appreciate your cooperation,” said an icy female voice, sending a shiver down Namie’s neck.
“?!”
She spun around to see a woman dressed in a business suit.
Who? When did she…?! Wait…I recognize her!
The businesswoman wore expensive glasses and a very sharp-looking suit. The cold gaze on her pretty face put Namie in mind of an emotionless cyborg from some kind of tokusatsu action movie with special effects.
That’s…the secretary of Yodogiri, the guy Izaya’s been investigating…
Namie recalled the name written beneath the long-range photo of the woman she’d seen on the computer screen and stared her in the face.
“Kasane Kujiragi…”
“I’m flattered you know my name.”
“What would the secretary of Jinnai Yodogiri be doing with Uncle Seita…?!”
Namie pretended to be stunned, then stopped in the middle of her sentence to throw a surprise palm right at Kujiragi’s face.
“…!”
It was true she’d been stunned at first, but the idea to do a sneak attack instead popped into her head.
I don’t know why Uncle’s with her, but I’m not putting up with any bullshit.
While Kujiragi’s line of sight was momentarily impeded, Namie used her other hand to pull the stun gun out of her open bag and swung it toward the woman’s solar plexus without missing a beat.
But before she could connect, Kujiragi twisted, evading the business end of the weapon and grabbing Namie’s wrist. The chilly texture of her leather glove froze the sensation in the wrist. The stun gun hissed and crackled just short of Kujiragi’s suit.
“Ugh…!”
“…”
Namie glared at the other woman with disgust, but Kujiragi was still emotionless in the face of her foe.
“You look quite smug about all this,” Namie spat. “Are you the frigid type, like that Russian mercenary girl?” This helped her put on a brave face while she shifted her center of gravity for a counterattack.
…? I can’t…move…!
But it felt as though the point on her right wrist where the other woman had her pinned might as well have been the center of her being. The pressure on that point alone caused pain and tightness all over her body.
“I’m under no obligation to answer that question,” Kujiragi said, ignoring the barb. She put her free left hand up to the elbow of her other arm, the one holding Namie’s wrist.
“?”
Namie was confused by this, wondering what it meant. Then there was a quiet click, and a jolt ran through her entire body.
“~~~!!”
Understanding came instantly. A very strong electrical current had just run through her captive wrist.
A stun gun… No, a stun…glove?!
It was a freakish chimera of leather glove and stun gun, with an electric cord connecting the glove to an external control mechanism. It was the kind of tool you’d see in a preposterous spy action movie—and Izaya Orihara had once bought one, mostly for fun. If the metal elect
rode was embedded in the palm of the glove, maybe that explained why her grip felt so cold.
Only because the surge of electricity had been a momentary pulse and not a constant current was she able to summon the concentration to analyze the situation this way. But while her mind recovered instantly, her muscles refused to respond.
Kujiragi ignored Namie, who was glaring up from her knees, and asked Seitarou, “What shall I do? I can knock her out, if you want.”
Either she was going to use another blast from the stun glove or some kind of drug. Namie tried to think of a way out of this, despite her uncooperative physical state. But Seitarou’s answer stopped that line of thought in its tracks.
“No, you can just tie her up. I’d rather not have to wait for her to wake up when we bring Seiji around.”
Something crackled at the back of Namie’s skull.
“We know that no other residents nearby are home. You can’t scream for help, Namie. And if the people at the top of the building happen to notice, nobody’s going to interfere with an uncle bringing his niece back home to her parents. There’s no lie in that.”
Namie ignored his mocking barb and repeated the name. “Sei…ji…?”
All the tension went out of her body. Slowly, so slowly, she glared up at her uncle, like the demon-possession subject of some kind of supernatural video footage.
“It’s the most effective way to get you to obey, isn’t it?” he said. “It’ll only hurt Seiji a little bit, but if you don’t want that…”
Instantly, on willpower alone, Namie ignited her paralyzed muscles and lunged at her uncle with fangs bared.
“Wha…?!” Seitarou faltered, frightened for an instant that she might actually sink her teeth into his windpipe. But she came up short.
Kujiragi wasn’t taken unawares by Namie’s sudden lunge. She kept firm pressure on the other woman’s wrist. Namie snapped back as though held in place by wires. Another current ran through her from the stun glove, sending her into convulsions.
“…! Ah…ghk…!”
Again, it only lasted for a moment, but the strength was truly gone from her muscles this time.
Durarara!!, Vol. 10 Page 6