“Using yourself as bait? You are a strange man.” Seitarou sighed, but Yodogiri never lost his thin smile.
“Using yourself as bait is the best way to handle, kill, and sell off the supernatural. If Adabashi gives up my name, she’ll go to the ends of the earth to come after me. She’ll chase me and corner me. That is when you’ll see me at my best,” he proclaimed, then scratched his head in embarrassment. “But I suppose I miscalculated a bit. I haven’t had tabs on Adabashi’s whereabouts since last night.”
“…”
“I’m fairly certain I know who’s responsible… After all, he’s got a grudge against me for stabbing him. It’s not good for young people to be tied down to their past, don’t you think? Ha-ha-ha.”
Seitarou merely stared at his conversation partner, unable to determine where the boundary was between joke and truth. Then a thought occurred to him, and he asked, “I noticed that you look different from the way you were in the paper. Did you get surgery?”
“Yes. Well…the Awakusu-kai and the police are both after me. Wearing a recognizable face is no recipe for survival, after all. Ha-ha-ha.”
Seitarou looked at him with pity, but he wasn’t concerned enough to press further. However, unbeknownst to him, the man who once hired Vorona to kidnap Akane Awakusu and the man talking to Seitarou now were, in fact, completely different in both looks and voice.
What was more, if Seitarou had happened to be listening to the phone conversation between Yodogiri and Adabashi several days ago, he would have noticed that the voice of the man sitting next to him now was also completely different.
But as he was not aware of these things, Seitarou Yagiri felt little caution toward his riding companion. Instead, he reflected upon a conversation with a friend wearing a gas mask.
It was just a day ago that the friend had called him, right when the man’s son had been grievously wounded.
“You’ve really done it now.”
“Why, what a perceptive fellow you must be. Except that I haven’t done anything at all.”
“If you knew what was going to happen and did nothing about it, you are in essence an accomplice. With what has happened to my son, there’s one thing I can do for you as a friend…and that is to punch you as hard as I can.”
“Well, what are friends for? Then, the next time we meet, you’ll get your punch in. But I have no intention of allowing anything more than that, even to you.”
That was the end of the phone call, and the man hadn’t contacted him since then.
But Seitarou knew Shingen well and understood that he was not the type of man to back down and leave things at that. With that in mind, Seitarou chose to prioritize his own greed and made his twisted deal with Yodogiri.
He was more concerned about interference from Shingen than the man sitting next to him. He sat back, wearing a confident smile, and predicted his friend’s next move.
“He is a man who will use any means necessary. I wonder what he’s got planned…”
One day earlier, Rakuei Gym
In fact, Shingen moved quickly after calling his friend.
He chose his destination immediately after the call and headed there by foot. When he arrived, gas mask still attached, he proudly and confidently announced his entrance:
“For reasons that are private, I owe my longtime friend one good punch. However, you may be surprised to learn that I’ve never thrown a punch in my life! I want you to teach me a very good killer knockout punch—preferably one that is easy to learn!”
“Piss off,” grunted Eijirou Sharaku, cheek twitching.
But the man in the white gas mask who barged into the gym did not back down. He pulled out his wallet to continue the negotiation.
“I have money! Plenty of money! If you doubt me, it would please me to slap your cheek with a wad of bills!”
“It wouldn’t please me! And if you need a killer punch, why don’t you just use that? See? Problem solved. Piss off.”
“Damn… Well, I’ve been called a man who will use any means necessary…”
“…Whatcha gonna do?” the instructor asked warily.
Shingen leaned in and whispered, “You can wear my mask and turn into me, then wallop Seitarou with a Russian hook! How about that? Perfect, isn’t it?! And I’ll pay you to do it, too! One hundred thousand yen in cash!”
“…Actually, that is kinda tempting…gwuah!”
A fierce chop swung in and caught Eijirou on the side of the head.
“Stop this nonsense conversation and take over. I’m done already, so you’re in charge now, Brother.”
The attack came from a young tomboyish woman. She sneered at Eijirou and turned to leave the gym.
“Hey, Mikage! You better watch out, because I’m detecting a serious lack of respect for your old broth… Hey, what about dinner?”
“I’ll eat out.”
The woman’s appearance stood out thanks to her short-cropped hair and rippling abs showing through the part in her shirt, and if not for her face and the unmistakable swell of her chest, she could easily be taken for male. One might describe her as “active” or “sporty,” but “tomboy” really said it best.
After she left the building, Eijirou lamented, “I dunno what it is with her, but she always packs up early these days. I swear she found a man. Anyway, why am I telling you this?”
“Well…the finer points of your situation aren’t my business, but might I say one thing?”
“What?”
Eijirou waited with bated breath for the man in the gas mask to dispense his wisdom.
“I wouldn’t mind if that boyish girl there were the one to pass off as me. In fact, the idea of a woman dressed as me punching someone else is actually a turn-on, in a somewhat perverse way… What do you think?”
“Piss off!”
“Now, just a moment. As a matter of fact, my son is currently in the hospital. It occurs to me that if his father comes to visit having turned into a young woman, the sheer surprise of it might actually speed his recovery. Could you see your way to helping out a concerned citizen and—”
“Piss! Off!”
A short while after that odd-couple comedy routine played out at the fighting gym in Ikebukuro, Adabashi returned in a daze to his home, burns running from his back to his ears.
He parked his car in the lot and headed to the door, wincing in irritation at the pain in his back—but the injury wasn’t the only thing annoying him.
It was that his sacred love for Ruri Hijiribe had been interrupted by another. And on top of that, on his car TV, he’d just caught the press conference put on by her agency.
That picture of Ruri, the one he’d been preparing to send to all the media outlets, was already there on the screen before he was able to send it.
“Photos of Ruri Hijiribe’s latest movie leak online!” the segment raved. “Leak suspected to have occurred due to a virus on Max Sandshelt’s computer after he was browsing pornographic movies on the Internet!”
The shocking photograph was being passed off as a still from the filming of some top-secret horror suspense movie.
What? What the hell is that? How dare they… How dare they all try to block our love…
The combination of irritation and frustration filled him with a sudden impulse to destroy someone—anyone would do.
He clenched his teeth audibly and then saw a man waiting, standing before the building staircase. He was young, but he stood with his back to the light so that his face was mostly obscured.
“…”
Adabashi had enough sense to realize that causing an incident in front of his own place of residence was not smart, so he reeled in his raging desire and prepared to pass by the man.
But then the man addressed him first.
“Yo. Are you burned or something? Because you reek like charred hair.”
“…?”
“What was that from? Lighter oil or a Molotov? It doesn’t feel hot at first, but once your clothes are ablaz
e, that’s when it gets bad. By the way…who did it to you? It wasn’t that squinty-eyed otaku, was it? Hya…hya-hya-hee-ha-ha-ha-ha!” the man said, clapping his hands in delight.
Adabashi raised an eyebrow, not understanding what he meant, and made a simple decision.
I will destroy him with a kick.
He launched a full-frontal kick, ignoring the pain in his back—and in the next instant, Adabashi’s foot bent at a horrible angle with a tremendous sound.
“?!?!?! G-g-gaaah?!”
There was a thick rubber mallet in the man’s left hand, which he had swung right at Adabashi’s foot, timed to the rhythm of the kick.
Adabashi rolled and writhed on the ground, screaming in agony, while the man beamed down at him. It was the same kind of smile Adabashi wore when he smashed photos of Ruri Hijiribe to dust.
Through his seething moans, Adabashi focused enough to look up at the man’s face, dimly lit by the streetlight.
He was maybe twenty years old at most—and covered in deep, dark burn scars that ran from the right half of his face down to the end of his arm.
“I’ll…kill…you…” Adabashi grunted, reaching and straining for the man.
Then something slammed into the back of his head, instantly knocking him into deep darkness.
In the post-screaming silence, a woman’s voice said, “What kind of game are you playing? Do you really want to go back to juvie?”
It was a woman with close-cropped hair and boyish features: Mikage Sharaku. She was the one who had kicked Adabashi in the back of the head to knock him out as he was rolling on the ground.
The man with the hammer said, “Shut the hell up… You don’t tell me what to do! Ha-ha… Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Heee-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
The burned man laughed and laughed, though it wasn’t at all clear what was funny.
Behind him, a number of men appeared, wearing bone-motif riding jackets. They lifted Adabashi’s unconscious body and hauled him into a van parked in a corner of the lot, then drove it away just as quickly.
“Well, whatever. C’mon, let’s go,” she said to the laughing man, and they left as well.
The only evidence of the scene was a few bloodstains from Adabashi at the entrance of the building.
Chat room
Sharo: And it took thirty minutes to get the guy in the gas mask out of there.
Chrome: What a disaster.
Saki: A white gas mask? That’s really something.
Kanra: Was this guy actually real? You aren’t pulling our leg, Sharo? lol
Sharo: Absolutely serious.
Mai: I wanted to see it.
Mai: I should have practiced late.
Kuru: It is a true modern urban legend. We should create a rival legend to match the Black Headless Rider. Call him, say, the Gas Mask Freak. I daresay his true identity is made of gas. If he removes the mask, his body dissipates into a gas and vanishes into thin air!
Kanra: Scary!
Chrome: You know, there was that old movie called The Human Vapor.
Kanra: Oooh, are you a movie buff, Chrome?!
Chrome: I like movies as much as anyone else does.
Sharo: The Human Vapor is a pretty old one…
Kanra: You’ll have to give me some suggestions, then!
Chrome: That’s a good idea…
.
.
.
Luxury apartment building, top floor, Ikebukuro
Namie Yagiri was stunned.
She tensed up and nearly dropped the documents she was carrying.
At her old company job, she was famous for having ice in her veins, but now she was nearly on the verge of tears.
She was facing a laptop computer and a small netbook set up on the desk—and seated between them, taking turns typing at each one, was a man.
The same chat room was displayed on both computers. He was logged in as Chrome on one computer and Kanra on the other, holding a conversation with himself and even humming. For the very first time, Namie found herself feeling sympathy for the man.
I could always tell he didn’t have any friends…but I didn’t think he’d turn to chatting with himself online…
She shook her head, pretending she hadn’t seen this, and turned away. Then Izaya Orihara leaned back toward her and cackled, “Ah-ha-ha. You’re probably thinking that the guy with no friends is up to something weird, huh?”
“It’s not weird. It’s pathetic.”
“Call it whatever you like. Having multiple personas out there on the web just makes it easier to manipulate the collective opinion, see…”
He had each account announce that they were logging off, then shut the computers and stood up. “Plus, it’s very rude of you to say I have no friends. I love all the people of the world, and everyone is my friend and lover, okay?”
“Forcing your love on people is just how a stalker thinks.”
“Really, now? Coming from you?” he shot back.
She glared at him. “And why did you rent this huge place in Ikebukuro, anyway? You’re actually going to get yourself killed by that bartender this time.”
The mention of the word bartender brought a brief scowl to Izaya’s face, but it soon vanished as he explained, “Well…the reason I came back to this neighborhood was to provide some troubled youths a life without relief or solace, I suppose.”
“Huh?”
“You see, relief is what stalls development. Take Shinra, for example. No matter what he gets involved in, he has the relief of knowing that Celty and Shizu are out there to help him out of it. And that attitude ended up getting him into the hospital this time. So I intend to be very harsh to my friends now. Out of friendship. If Shinra calls me up to tell me he’s been hospitalized, I’ll say, ‘Oh,’ and hang up on him.”
“That’s not harsh. That’s just being an asshole. And would he ever call you on the phone, anyway?”
Izaya ignored Namie’s comment and leaned back on the desk to take in the room around him.
“Of course, I consider everyone in this room to be a friend, too.”
In fact, there was quite a variety of humanity there with them:
A girl loitering next to a bookshelf and staring daggers at him.
A number of men and women in leather jackets with the backbone pattern of Dragon Zombie on them.
A smiling woman with red eyes and thin black hair down to her waist.
A large man dressed in bandages, who was at least six feet tall.
A thin man passed out on the ground, his leg broken.
A number of men with shaved heads near the entrance of the room, their demeanor marking them as mobsters.
There were other men and women of varying degrees of eccentricity elsewhere in the room, all of them listening to Izaya with different facial expressions.
One man who bore ugly burn scars on his face leered viciously. “Well, I never considered myself a friend of yours… All I can say is that I wanna kill Yumasaki and Kadota, I wanna kill Aoba, I wanna kill Masaomi Kida, and then I wanna kill you at the end before I can really be happy.”
“Knock it off, Izumii,” said Mikage Sharaku, who was next to him.
But Ran Izumii continued, “That’s right, Yumasaki…Yumasaki… Ooh, that otaku fuck… I’ll kill him so bad… Roast that smirking face of his until he looks just like me… Ha-ha… Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
The others around Izumii watched him as he went from muttering to full-blown laughter. Izaya stared right at him, still smiling, and said, “For having such a cute name, you approach things in the most extreme manner, Ran. But that just makes you more human to me.”
Then he paused, spread his hands, and addressed the entire room.
“Welcome to the Dollars. The Dollars will welcome you all equally.”
Then he turned to the wall-spanning window and gazed down at Ikebukuro, full of wonder.
The girl in the shadow of the bookshelf spat, “Get sniped,” b
ut he ignored that curse and lifted something from the table.
He tossed it up into the air like a basketball, then caught it before pointing it toward the view of the city.
“It’s a familiar sight to you, too, isn’t it?”
And so the man who waltzed back into Ikebukuro held Celty’s head up in the palm of his hand with great delight—and showered the beloved people in the room with one of his most beatific smiles.
“So, as a sign of our close friendship…why don’t we have a little hot-pot party, everyone?”
AFTERWORD
Hello, it’s nice to see you folks again for the first time in a while. I’m Ryohgo Narita.
So, that was Volume 8 of Durarara!! for you… I technically did wrap up the case here, but it was really more like a long prologue for the story of Mikado, Anri, and Masaomi.
At the end, I felt like I was setting myself up for angry comments like, “You just ballooned the cast and made things all crazy and out of control!” But have no fear, I intend to keep the books ahead focused on just a few characters each. Instead, there won’t be any scenes for anyone outside of each book’s main cast of five to ten characters (think Mika/Seiji from Volumes 2–6), but you never know—your favorite might end up getting the focus in the next book! Although…I don’t think I’ll ever say the words “The next Durarara!! will feature Horada as the protagonist!” But then again, Horada was used to great effect in the anime, so I have to admit I might be reluctant to leave him out.
…Yes, the anime!
We’ve received rave reviews from all around, and I am beside myself at the wonderful anime it turned out to be… The TV airing just ended this month, but there are plenty of ways to enjoy it still, including the Bandai Channel, MovieGate, downloads on PS3 and PSP, on demand from Animax, and the usual DVD method, of course. Please check it out!
I cannot overstate my gratitude to Director Omori, the voice actors, and everyone else on the anime staff. Just as I felt with Baccano!, the anime has gained so much from those who came to the table.
One of the benefits is reverse importation of character designs. Togusa is an example: He’s become much more versatile for me after the anime. At the start of this book, I was planning to have an epic stalker versus Togusa scene, but I didn’t feel right about taking a design that was inspired by the anime and making it the centerpiece, so I tucked him away in his usual spot.
Durarara!!, Vol. 8 Page 18