Shinra’s father grinned beneath his gas mask and stealthily strode out into the hallway. “Ah yes. I have a feeling that a guest will be coming for me, so when they arrive, give them my phone number and tell them I’ll be in hiding for a while. So long.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Shingen started heading toward the emergency staircase on the opposite end of the hallway from the regular stairs.
“Um, what kind of guest, Dad?”
“You’ll find out.”
Shinra sighed as his father proceeded down the hall without turning back.
Ultimately, he did not stop the man.
Shinra sensed a change in the sound around him and peered over the railing outside.
It had just begun to rain. The low buzz of the rainfall smothered the night city.
Damn…where did he go?
The elevator had already arrived on the ground floor by the time Celty got there. She determined that he couldn’t have gone far and ran around to scan the area—but she found no trace of Shingen.
If I let him escape from under my nose, he’ll flee the country in no time. I have to track him down and put him through what happened in that horror manga I read last night!
She was about to leap onto her motorcycle and race off in a rage when the cell phone in the pocket of her shadow-leather jacket beeped the text message tone at her.
The sound brought Celty back to her rational senses. She checked the phone quickly, in case the message was from Shinra—and when she saw it, she took off running at once for the parking garage and her trusty Coiste Bodhar.
There was no city noise around the apartment building anymore, just the quiet carpet of rainfall.
Chapter 5: I Love You.
The accursed words echoed.
They screeched and cried within her head at all times, like the sound of cicadas.
And just like cicadas, as if trying to compress a lifetime of love into the single week they actually lived…
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—I love humanity—I love you. I love you. I love you.—I love all of the human race!—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—I have the confidence to love every human being equally—I love you. I love you.—You don’t have the confidence to do that, do you?—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—And I want to love you, too—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—But no, I can’t—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—Because you are my host—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—So I will love—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—I will love humanity for you—I love you. I love you. I love you.—So love me—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—You can’t live without me anymore, can you?—I love you. I love you.—So love me. It’s the only option—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—I know that this is selfish—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—But there’s no way to stop it—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—I shall teach you—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—About this emotion—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—About this passion—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—About this exultation—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—Oh, oh!—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—Since you cannot love humans, I shall teach you—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.—About the great wonder and beauty of humanity—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love I love I love I love I love I love I love love love love love love love love love love lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovevelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovevelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove
The only thing that made these voices different from cicadas was that rather than a single week or a single summer, they continued on endlessly, never to cease.
On this day, like any other, the voices sounded in Anri Sonohara’s head.
But she was not particularly insane. At least, not that she was aware.
Perhaps she had already gone mad, but they said that often people who are insane don’t realize that they are insane, so her ultimate decision was not to pay any mind to the thought of whether she was insane at all.
The words of insanity chanted from the vicinity of her right arm.
If anyone heard those words, they would assume right from the start that something was wrong—but the voices did not actually stem from her mind, her brain.
They were an abnormal thing, neither physical nor mental.
“Saika.”
Known to the rest of the world as a “cursed blade,” it was in fact the thing that plagued the body of Anri Sonohara—and formed the central role of the recent serial slashings.
However, that did not mean that Anri was responsible for the slashings—if anything, she was purely a victim.
Saika desired “children” that would prove the love between her and humanity. Those children were created by implanting Saika’s consciousness into her victims by the act of cutting them. In that sense, it truly was a curse.
Before Anri was chosen to be the host, she was just another girl who had been slashed. The child Saika implanted into her sought twisted love for humanity, just as its mother had. An uncontrollable episode after that resulted in the incident in question.
The incident was brought to an end when Anri managed to control all of the “children.” The slashings stopped, and the minds that Saika had taken over were returned to their hosts—except for when they needed to fabricate details about the slashings themselves, to make sure all of the ends met properly.
In other words, everyone who had been attacked claimed that they “couldn’t remember the face” of whoever attacked them.
After that, nothing ought to have changed.
As usual, the accursed voices spoke inside of Anri, echoing through her heart without end.
But she did not consider that to be a big problem.
She just observed both the world she saw through her eyes, and even her own mental state, from outside the picture frame.
Objectively. As if it was not her own concern.
If anything bad happened, she would be feeling it from a removed position where it didn’t hurt as much.
Every tragedy
was as distant as a painting of a massacre in an art gallery.
That was the only part of this that made her think that perhaps she was insane.
Perhaps it was why she was able to put up with the screams of love without going mad herself.
The slashing incidents should have been buried in the darkness of mystery so that she could return to her normal life.
But since it all happened, something had indeed changed in her life.
At first she couldn’t tell what it was—this vague feeling that plagued her with anxiety.
Normally she could ignore such a nagging feeling as something within the picture frame, but she just couldn’t brush it aside this time.
After a long period of searching, she realized the answer.
The source of her trouble was actually outside of the frame.
Masaomi’s…different somehow.
Two boys had emerged from the painting within the frame, reached out, and touched her heart.
Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida.
After suffering an injury with one of her “children” and spending several days in the hospital, Masaomi had changed gradually.
It wasn’t a clear and obvious change.
Even his best friend, Mikado Ryuugamine, hadn’t noticed anything was wrong.
But as she was accustomed to viewing the world from outside of the painting, Anri was always aware of the subtle change that was blooming within Masaomi.
After several days of this evolution, she came across an unpleasant topic in the chat room.
There were two groups of youths called color gangs, and each of them believed that the other side was responsible for the serial slashing attacks.
When she became aware of this, Anri was plagued with guilt.
She did not cause the attacks, but she had been relieved under the assumption that the incident was over. This leftover resentment suggested otherwise.
Something had to be done.
She summoned the “children” that her “children” created—in other words, from Saika’s perspective as the progenitor, the grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
She did not want to use Saika’s power to control anyone’s mind, but she told herself that the use of force was necessary to stop pointless conflict.
She paid the price for this soon after.
She reached out to some of the boys known as Yellow Scarves among the slashing victims, hoping to use Saika’s power to learn more detailed information.
What she heard from one of them shocked her.
“Our boss is Masaomi Kida. I’ve seen him together with Mom before.”
She was stunned into silence.
“Um, he said he would avenge the girl with glasses, living vessel of Mom.”
The children all thought of the original Saika within Anri as their “mother.” While it was Anri who wielded control, they clearly only saw her as the host for their mother.
For a moment, she didn’t even process what the child had said.
Several minutes later, when Masaomi’s face finally flashed through her mind, she realized that a tremendous amount of cold sweat was trickling down her skin.
“It…can’t be…”
It was a lie. It had to be a mistake.
But Saika would not lie to the original, the mother.
Which meant the child had to be mistaken.
It was obviously just a boy with the same name who happened to also look like Masaomi.
It wasn’t possible for bright, cheery Masaomi, who claimed that he loved her, to stand at the head of a dangerous gang. She didn’t want to believe it.
Especially not that he had returned to the group in order to take revenge on her.
That was why she came.
To the ruined factory that was the gang’s hideout.
When Masaomi received the call, she decided to sneak after him, just in case.
After saying good-bye to Mikado, she went home and changed into her normal clothes before leaving again.
She already had two of the Yellow Scarves who were her children volunteer to guard the entrance so that she could sneak onto the grounds undiscovered.
In the end, she saw the last thing she wanted to see.
She saw Masaomi…but a different Masaomi than the one she knew.
His actions and attitude were the same, but the air surrounding him couldn’t have been more different.
And then, Anri realized.
That alien feeling she’d sensed since she wound up in the hospital was pouring out of Masaomi right before her, and she’d only picked up hints of it leaking out into his ordinary behavior.
And now that she knew everything, she was hiding in a crevice of the factory’s scrap material, drenched by the rain in the darkness.
How had it come to this?
Her emotions roiled in confusion.
The rain beating her body grew harder and colder over time, churning her confusion into something greater.
Kida…
I have to escape…
Why is Kida…doing this…?
Who knows what’ll happen…if they catch me…
She was full of fear and questions at the sight of her friend in a state she’d never seen before.
Meanwhile, she was being hunted by an unfamiliar army of yellow.
What would Masaomi say if they caught her?
Would he free her?
Or would he stay the unfamiliar Masaomi, the stranger?
Even if he spared her, what would he tell his companions?
And more importantly, if he learned the reason that she’d come, would it only cause him to change further?
Was she actually causing him great anguish by doing this?
What would happen with the Dollars group?
What was Masaomi planning to do?
Countless questions popped into her head and vanished.
The only thing that stayed behind was anxiety. She listened intently to her surroundings.
Most sound was swallowed by the rain, but she could hear a few people running around.
When she sensed the running sounds getting closer, Anri slid farther back into a tighter gap in the mountain of scrap metal.
The rain was perhaps both a help and a hindrance to her attempt to hide, but she didn’t have the wherewithal to determine which it was. The only sound was the words of love.
The accursed voices knew the present situation.
It’s so simple.
I’ll love everyone.
That boy Masaomi.
And the other children in yellow.
I’ll love them all equally.
Since you cannot love others,
I will love for you!
Deeply, deeply, deeply!
Anri immediately pushed the voices and their deal with the devil alike deep into the picture frame.
Everyone cut by Saika was implanted with Saika’s voice somewhere in their minds. For that reason, while they retained their own wits, they were all under a form of brainwashing in which they couldn’t disobey the mother’s orders.
Yes, using that ability might easily allow her to break out of her predicament by force.
But then…Kida…
Hurting Masaomi was out of the question, and Anri did not want to unnecessarily hurt anyone, period, including his friends. Normally those who hosted Saika were forced into slashing strangers, but Anri kept her mental control by forcing the voices inside the frame.
That was how she was able to completely ignore Saika’s bargain, but that might not last forever in the current situation.
Even with Saika’s children on her side, there was no telling what might happen to those boys after this was over, and taking them all over was out of the question. She would be no better than the slasher in that case.
Plus, if she did choose to force her way out…
Kida will recognize me.
It was an obvious and predictable outcome, but it was the worst kind of despair to Anri at this momen
t.
She didn’t want to ruin the place she’d found for herself.
That was why she was here. But if Masaomi learned that she was not an ordinary person—if he learned that she was Saika…
Perhaps she ought to present herself and apologize. But she would still have to explain the situation—and that meant explaining about those who had let her into the factory grounds.
She could just say that she snuck in, but Masaomi would come to the conclusion that she couldn’t have climbed over the walls on her own. As a matter of fact, she could do it with the extra help of Saika, but again, that would reveal her abnormality to him.
Why…why did it come to this?
She just didn’t want things to be ruined.
If Masaomi learned about the secret of Saika, he might tell Mikado, too.
Perhaps he would listen to her if she begged him not to tell anyone, but she wasn’t in any position to make such a demand.
Please let the night pass without anyone spotting me, she wished to no one but the rain. No sooner had the wish come to her than a voice from nearby crushed it without remorse.
“Hey! Don’t you think someone could hide in here?”
They had found the crack in the piled-up junk that she used to slip back to her spot. She was hidden farther back, but if they started looking into the crevice, they would find her momentarily.
“Shit! It’s too narrow for me to fit!” growled a deep voice.
A different voice hit Anri’s eardrums, cutting him off.
“I’ll go.”
!
Even in the rain, there was no mistaking it.
That was Masaomi’s voice.
Masaomi circled around the factory from the opposite side to narrow down the search, but no intruder appeared.
He searched through the scrapped material and vehicles one by one, assuming that she had to be hiding somewhere. Eventually he reached the largest pile of scrap, which a number of boys were gathered before.
It was a mountain of rust and rubble, junked cars and metal, so large that it made him wonder if the factory was treating industrial waste. Or maybe this had served as shelter for some homeless for a while, and they’d added to the pile.
Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) Page 8