“…These weren’t the result of revenge.”
“What?”
In the same flat affect he’d been using all conversation, he explained, “When I’m getting them to leave the Dollars, if they don’t want to listen to me, it inevitably turns into a fight…but I’m not much of a fighter at all, so…”
“Hang on. Are you saying you’re the one getting into fights?”
“Huh? Of course I am.”
“Of course you…? I just assumed you were giving orders to Aoba and his little goons to make them do the dirty work…”
“It’s true that Aoba’s team works on my orders…but the Dollars have no vertical hierarchy. That’s my ideal, and that’s how I started it. It would be crazy for me to put the people I care about through danger for my own reasons,” he said, with a smile that suggested it was a very odd thing for her to insinuate. That only made the shiver running through Celty worse.
Mikado, what’s going on? What happened to you?
A number of things had happened to Mikado during the events of the Golden Week holiday. But Celty hadn’t been there for them, so it wasn’t until this conversation that she realized how the boy was changing.
Yes, something is wrong. It’s clear that Mikado is acting strangely. No wonder Anri’s worried for him.
After a bit of hesitation, Celty decided to make a bet.
“I wasn’t sure if I should tell you this or not.”
“?”
“Did you know…there are rumors this week about the Yellow Scarves reuniting?”
The Yellow Scarves were potential foes of the Dollars. They had clashed in the past. But this gang in particular held a very special meaning to Mikado.
“…I’ve heard the rumors. They’re going around and giving pitches to all their former members, apparently,” he said vaguely. He leaned through the empty window frame to catch the comfortable breeze. Celty sensed this gesture was meant to buy time or hide something from her.
“Things ended without a lot of resolution half a year ago. But you know what’s going on now, don’t you?”
“…”
“About the Yellow Scarves and Masaomi.”
Mikado responded to Celty’s blunt question with a pleading smile. “Celty, please pretend I haven’t noticed.”
“What?”
“That and the fact that I founded the Dollars. Sonohara’s secret, too… I’m sure you know about all these, Celty, but Sonohara and I have an agreement. We’re only going to speak about these things when the three of us are back together.”
“…Okay, but what if the Yellow Scarves attack the Dollars again?” Celty asked. She just wanted to know what Mikado was going to do.
The boy opened his mouth and replied, “I would fight them, of course.”
It was so simple and straightforward that Celty assumed at first that it must have been a mistake.
“What are you talking about? Are you insane?”
But it was just a sign of how far apart Celty’s hopes and Mikado’s ideas were.
Mikado Ryuugamine smiled—that same innocent, youthful smile—and revealed one extremely momentous fact.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve got Aoba leading an attack on them right now.”
Back alley, Tokyo
“Damn! I didn’t think they’d be coming after us this soon,” said one boy, leaning against a fence, breathing heavily. There was a yellow scarf around his arm, indicating that he was a member of the group of the same name. “Go figure, they’re making the rounds in broad daylight.”
There were three boys closing in on him. They had been at the abandoned building with Mikado last night. They wore the bandannas and ski caps of the Blue Squares, which stuck out like little else in the middle of the city during the day—but there was a black van stopped at the entrance to the alley, blocking the events within from witnesses.
Aoba peered through binoculars from inside the vehicle. He happily murmured, “Let’s see how faithful his oath to Masaomi Kida really is.”
“If you wanted to hurt him enough to get the answer, wouldn’t it be easier just to trail him there?” asked an older guy, sitting in the driver’s seat.
“If he doesn’t spill the beans, that’s fine,” said Aoba. “This is a declaration of war. We just need to make an example of somebody.”
“Y’know, it’s kind of weird how you talk down to me, when I’m four years older than you, but then you treat Ryuugamine with total respect,” grumbled the driver, who had a sporty, spiked haircut.
“Why wouldn’t I? Mr. Mikado is someone worthy of my respect,” Aoba replied, laughing in the face of the driver, who looked to be around twenty years old. On the inside, he considered a conversation he had with Mikado.
“Let’s hope you’re able to proudly go and visit Mr. Kadota as soon as possible, sir. Along with Miss Sonohara and Mr. Kida, too,” Aoba had said.
“That’s true. But in a sense…this was a good thing.”
“Good?” Aoba asked.
Mikado smiled like he always did around school. “I knew that if Kadota found out about what I was doing, he would absolutely try to stop me…and I don’t want to have to fight him. I know I wouldn’t win,” he had said bracingly. “Plus, now he doesn’t have to take part in this whole big thing I’m going to orchestrate…where we temporarily crush the Dollars into dust.”
“He’s gonna destroy as much of the Dollars as he can so he can rebuild it. By the end, I bet he’ll even offer up the Blue Squares as a sacrifice.” Aoba chuckled.
The driver’s eyes bulged. “Hang on, man—that sounds scary! Why are you letting him boss you around, then?!”
“Calm down. My purpose here is to expose the interior of the Dollars over the process. I’ll drag that pretentious info broker out into the open…and if I can sacrifice him to the Awakusu-kai, that would be the best outcome.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about…”
Aoba peered through the binoculars and said excitedly, “Mr. Mikado’s going to expand the sea we swim in beyond imagination. That’s what I’m saying.”
Ruined building
“What are you saying? Get a grip! Get a grip!”
“Don’t be silly, Celty. I’m perfectly rational,” Mikado said, laughing. She grabbed him by the shirt.
“No you’re not! What, do you think the Yellow Scarves are being manipulated by bad guys, like before?! If anything, that’s clearly your group this time! Do you really think Aoba’s that trustworthy?!” she typed, which was more bracingly honest than anything she’d said yet, but Mikado was utterly unshaken. It was as if he knew all that already.
“It’s not an issue of trust. Aoba uses me, and I use him. That’s all this is.”
“Mikado!”
“You know about me and Masaomi and Sonohara separately, but you wouldn’t know what exists between us.”
“Don’t try to mislead your way out of this with that adolescent garbage!”
Except…I’m the one who’s trying to mislead myself.
He was right that she had no idea what sort of bonds existed between the three kids. She couldn’t possibly know the feelings of each of them, as they clung to their individual secrets.
Celty was shying away from the inconvenient fact that she couldn’t speak to these things. She wanted to continue her argument, to play righteous in front of Mikado—except that the utterly familiar ordinariness of his smile stopped her in her tracks. The very same way that when Masaomi reunited with Mikado, that smile froze him in place.
“I think the strings between Masaomi and I are so tangled up that there’s no way for either of us to escape.”
He smiled. The kind of open, singular smile that one would say with a statement like Mmm, this ice cream is amazing!
“So my only option is to burn all the strings so we can start over again.”
“Mikado…”
Was there anything she could say to get through to him anymore? It seemed doubtful to Celty at this poi
nt. He bowed to her apologetically.
“I don’t know what it is that Aoba’s trying to make you do, but I know I don’t have the right to ask you to take part.”
“But…at the very least, it would be a huge help if you could look the other way while we do what we’re doing.”
Back alley, Tokyo
“So, what’s it gonna be? If you come peacefully, you might not even get hurt that bad.”
The three youths cornering a Yellow Scarves boy closed in menacingly.
“Seriously, why did you guys have to show up?” demanded the cornered youth, although he didn’t sound all that frightened about it.
“Huh?” they grunted.
“It’s just like Shogun guessed. Now I look like an idiot for saying this was a waste of time.”
“What…?”
Before they could process what he’d meant by that, a number of boys wearing yellow accessories appeared from the shadows of the alleyway.
“Wha…?!”
They showed up from the rear of the trio, who suddenly blanched. Even more Yellow Scarves came climbing over the fence, and very soon it went from three-on-one to eight-on-three.
“Shit,” said Aoba, who was watching the scene in the alley with his binoculars from the safety of the van.
“What’s up? Should we bug out?”
“No, better to stay put. If they realize we’re here, they could pop our tires,” he said, stone-faced, and then put on a sharp smirk. “Not bad. If they’re here on Izaya Orihara’s intel, this sort of plan makes sense.”
He turned to the boy sleeping in the reclined seat next to him and shook him. “Houjou, wake up. Houjou!”
“…Wuhh? Just gimme five more hours…,” mumbled the boy blearily.
He was quite large, practically a pro wrestler. He had well over twice the muscle on his significant frame than Aoba did; when he shifted his weight, the entire seat creaked. He had long black hair tied into a ponytail in a way that looked old-fashioned for one so young, like some kind of armored samurai.
Aoba smacked him on the cheeks and shouted, “You’re supposed to say five minutes, dumb-ass! We’ve got an emergency. Eight baddies! If we take too long, more will come, so the goal is to get outta here! Got that?”
“…Damn, why’s it gotta be me? Take Yoshikiri or Neko, man,” complained Houjou. He opened his eyes slowly, cracked his stiff neck, and sat up.
“Well, you fell asleep in the car, so you’re here now. C’mon, time to work,” said Aoba, opening the door and tugging on the arm of the giant. The sleepy boy allowed himself to be moved outside. He stretched, facing the sky, and cracked every joint he possibly could before glancing toward his surrounded companions down the alley.
“Damn, my family’s already got multiple generations of sleep loss… You’re a real hard-ass, Aoba.”
“The hell are you talking about? The only thing you like more than fighting is sleeping.” Aoba chuckled, then looked at the scene in the alley for himself.
“Then again, our gang’s full of guys who love fighting most of all, so maybe you’re actually smarter than the rest of us, Houjou.”
Five minutes later, karaoke place
“Oh, they got away? Okay, no worries. They had guys waiting in ambush—shit happens.”
Masaomi was taking the report over the phone quite well.
“More importantly, anyone on our side get hurt? Uh-huh…uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Well, tell them not to get carried away,” he said considerately and hung up.
Yatabe, who was sitting next to him, spoke right on cue. “So they did come after us… You think it was that Kuronuma guy’s decision?”
“No…that might have been on Mikado’s orders,” Masaomi replied.
Yatabe was shocked. “What?! Oh, but that’s only because he doesn’t know you’re the Shogun here, right?”
“The way he’s been acting, he might have done it knowingly.”
“Whaaat?”
“I know what Mikado’s up to, and I’m trying to destroy the Dollars. Turnabout’s fair play.” He leaned back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, remembering the way Mikado had looked earlier. The smile vanished from his face, and he made a silent oath.
Just you wait, Mikado. If you’re really in so deep you can’t escape, I’ll turn into a scumbag myself and dive into those depths until I find you.
It wasn’t just Mikado and the Blue Squares. Masaomi was silently formulating a plan to deal with the entirety of the Dollars. He narrowed his eyes venomously and envisioned one man’s face.
Even if I have to use the help of the most wicked, conniving bastard.
And if it turns out he’s actually behind all this bullshit, I’ll just destroy him myself.
Underground parking, luxury hotel, Tokyo
“That reminds me. We still don’t know where Izaya Orihara is?”
In the basement lot of a fancy hotel several train stations away from Ikebukuro, an old man walked with a young woman at his side—Kujiragi.
She bowed. “I’m sorry, Mr. President. Since we made contact with Namie Yagiri yesterday, we’ve completely lost sight of Izaya Orihara.”
“Hmph… Very well, then. He’ll trip one of our nets soon enough. And it’s about time we put Shijima into motion, I suspect. My word, but the food here was simply divine,” he added, changing topics on a dime as if to suggest just how little he really cared about Izaya Orihara. The memory of the hotel restaurant’s full course dinner put a blissful smile on his lips. “Freedom is truly a wonderful thing. Now I can dine in such luxurious surroundings without having to fear the Awakusu-kai’s retribution.”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
“Yes. However, the only way to truly experience freedom is to taste the lack of it first, you see. There’s no way to appreciate it unless you know how to yearn for it.”
“A profound statement, Mr. President,” his secretary replied robotically.
Yodogiri would have continued lauding the noble joys of freedom if not for the buzzing of the phone in his back pocket.
“Oh? How strange for my phone to go off instead of yours, Kujiragi,” he marveled and answered the call. The voice that spoke belonged to none other than the vanished man they’d just been talking about.
“Hello there, Jinnai Yodogiri. It’s been a little while.”
“…? And you are?”
“Oops. Was it a different Jinnai Yodogiri who stabbed me earlier? Then I’ll need to introduce myself again. I’m Izaya Orihara, just a humble little info agent in Ikebukuro. Is that okay?”
“Why, my word! We were just talking about you! But how in the world did you get this number?” Yodogiri asked, coming to a stop with a sticky smile on his face.
“One doesn’t get far in my line of work without being able to acquire such information.”
“And what did you want to speak to me about?”
“Oh, pardon me. I have a bad habit of letting the preface run long. I’ll be short and to the point,” Izaya said. He continued, “Where is Namie Yagiri now?”
“…What is this? I haven’t a clue what you mean.”
“I searched for her through Yagiri Pharmaceuticals and was getting nowhere. I wondered if she might be spending time with you instead.”
“Oh dear. But even if that were the case, would I have any obligation to tell you the answer?” Yodogiri replied smarmily.
“Hmm, I suppose not. This is the problem with Japan, you know. How can you not be compelled to give me information? Then I suppose I’ll have to ask nicely instead,” said the teasing voice over the phone. “If you’re not going to tell me, could you at least go to sleep for a bit?”
“Pardon?”
“Be a grown-up and don’t get yourself caught in the middle of fights between children, please. You’ll only get yourself hurt.”
“What is that supposed to—?” the old man started to say.
Then a shock ran through Jinnai Yodogiri’s body, and he fell unconscious without knowing why.
“…”
Kujiragi silently witnessed what had happened right next to her.
In the middle of the call, a car drove down the slope to the garage and struck Yodogiri. It probably took him by surprise because the driver had killed the engine, put it in neutral, and let the momentum of the slope carry it downhill.
It had rushed upon them without lights or sound. Yodogiri could be excused for not noticing it while he was on the phone. But Kujiragi had sensed it coming just before the impact.
She had enough time that she could have braved the danger to push him aside and save him, but instead, she simply watched as the violence unfolded.
“…”
The next moment, the car’s engine started again, and it raced back up the garage slope, leaving Yodogiri on the ground. For an instant, Kujiragi caught sight of the driver, who looked like your typical hoodlum—except his eyes were so bloodshot the white parts were entirely red.
Her only reaction was to take out her cell phone and place a call.
“Hello? What is it, Kujiragi?” said a voice, which sounded rather similar to the one belonging to the old man on the ground next to her.
“President Yodogiri Number Eight is injured. Please come and take his place, Number Five.”
“Injured? What hap— — — —?”
The voice on the other end cut off abruptly. An instant before the call dropped, Kujiragi heard another car engine and an impact just like the one that had happened next to her.
“…”
She still didn’t change expressions. Instead, she called a few other numbers—except that none of these even connected. The old man on the ground next to her was unconscious, but she didn’t bother calling a hospital. She just kept punching in numbers.
After a while, it was her phone that received a call. It was from a number she’d never seen before. She immediately hit the answer button and brought the phone up to her ear.
“Hello, Miss Kujiragi. Do you know who I am?”
“Mr. Izaya Orihara,” she said, still in the manner of a secretary.
Izaya chuckled to himself. “Well, your boss didn’t want to give me Namie’s location, but I was thinking that perhaps you might.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 10 Page 14