No.
She already understood that was not the reason.
Was it because she was a bloodthirsty killer?
Technically, that was not the reason, either.
She did not really like defeating people.
She did not like killing people.
She just liked punching hard things and feeling them crumble.
Breaking through multiple layers of defense, cutting apart finely disciplined muscle with a knife.
Cracking through the fine seams in modern heavy armor—sometimes inserting gas, sometimes bullets—and shredding apart the fine, soft flesh inside the shell.
Confirmation.
All she wanted was to confirm.
It was a kind of desire for knowledge, perhaps.
Fragile. To her, humans were so terribly, terribly fragile.
But was that really true?
The first burglar she killed was far more fragile than she’d imagined, based on the books.
And so she thirsted.
Killing a person as a child had left a scar on her heart.
And just as some people cannot stand to let a wound go untouched, she could not go without picking at that scab on her heart.
Was it truly a human being she killed back then?
Are humans really so fragile?
Was she just as fragile as the others?
No matter how rigidly trained, no matter how heavily armed, no matter how experienced in battle—was a human being nothing more than a water balloon of flesh, hanging on bones as hard as quartz?
For whatever reason, she grew uneasy if she was not constantly seeking that confirmation.
She did not know why.
She just continued seeking out new foes…
And so she ended up working on her own, as a freelance jack-of-all-trades, in the biggest city of a country devoid of battlefields—but not by her own intention.
“Okay! As you just heard, I am everyone’s favorite idol, Eiji Takemo, and it’s time for today’s broadcast of Lightning Russian Paradise! My partner, as always, is this sweet bilingual baby speaking Russian and Japanese…”
“Я рад встретить всех вас сегодня! That means, ‘I’m happy to meet all of you today!’ It’s Kieri Murata! And why are you starting off with ‘baby’ right at the drop of a hat?”
“Whoa, whoa, what did you just say? ‘At the drop of a hat’ isn’t something a proper Russian would say! Kieri, you’ve got to eliminate that Edo Japan from your speech and work on exuding a proper Russian sexiness! You know, the way they do up north in the snow! Where you take off that heavy fur coat to reveal nothing but lingerie!”
“Замолчи Трилоби´ты!”
“Huh?! Wait! What did you just say?! You just said something in Russian!”
Vorona’s eyes opened slowly to the sound of a raucous radio program.
Half sleeping.
Slon must have turned on the radio up front. She looked at the clock to find that hardly any time had passed at all.
Through the wireless, she heard a familiar braying laugh drown out the radio.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Did you hear that, Vorona?! ‘Shut up, trilobite,’ she said! Even we don’t use the word trilobite as an insult! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Affirmative. But it is not worth laughing as much as you have. Also, I am slightly stunned by your knowledge to understand and translate ‘Трилоби´ты’ to Japanese.”
“Your dad taught me very thoroughly. He read tons and tons of Japanese newspapers and novels to me.”
“I escaped. Bond of family is cut. The next time of meeting, one of us will die. Too bad, so sad.” That shifted the conversation abruptly from mundane to deadly. But Vorona’s face was as devoid of expression as ever. “I have murdered the bodyguard riding the black motorcycle.”
“That’s good news.”
“When the child’s location is found, word will come. Until then, there is need to complete different job.”
“Right… You did accept another job, didn’t you? Do you really want to do it, though? I thought it wasn’t your style,” Slon asked.
Vorona pulled a book down off the shelf and flipped it open to where she had marked it. “There is no problem. We will act within the night.”
She picked up the photograph she had used as a bookmark.
This is the target.
It’s true. I don’t like this.
Hurting a normal girl, one with no training of any kind. I will feel guilty about it, and more importantly, it will be very boring.
Perhaps the client is putting the blame in the wrong place…but I cannot help it. It is my job.
Vorona resigned herself to the job and looked down at the photo again, committing its features to memory.
A girl with round glasses and reserved features.
Anri Sonohara.
The name written on the background sheet given to Vorona did not inspire any particular reaction.
It was only recently that she arrived in this city. And she had no particular interest in the neighborhood known as Ikebukuro.
Of course, even within Ikebukuro, there were very, very few who understood the true nature of the girl named Anri Sonohara.
But at this point in time, Vorona hadn’t the slightest clue what it meant to join that exclusive circle.
I am very disappointed by the Black Rider.
…On the other hand, I didn’t think he was going fast enough to knock his head off…
But what’s dead is dead.
Humans are weak, even the magicians.
She had only seen a brief snippet of footage from Yodogiri.
Which meant that she did not know.
She did not know what the Black Rider, Celty Sturluson, was called in breathless excitement by the national media of Japan.
The Headless Rider.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t sever a head that was never atop Celty’s shoulders to begin with.
But that information could not be found in any book she had ever read before.
That was why she didn’t know.
She couldn’t be wary of things that were beyond the bounds of common sense.
If she was going to go to those lengths, she might as well be clutching good luck charms as she carried out her jobs, hoping for protection against the vengeful ghosts of her targets.
Celty Sturluson happened to be that far outside the bounds of what she knew.
Furthermore, Vorona never once noticed the abnormality of her own motorcycle.
Tangled around the rear of her vehicle was a very fine line about the width of a hair.
The pitch-black thread continued outside of the truck and off somewhere into the night.
And she certainly did not know the very unnatural source of that string was currently in hot pursuit.
May 3, night, Internet café, Ikebukuro
“And now…”
The voice was very upbeat and pleasant.
At the risk of sounding corny, anyone who heard that voice might say, “It was like the blue sky above was speaking to me.” That was how crystal clear and harmonious it was.
“Things should be getting interesting,” the voice’s owner said, looking at the text on the screen of the cell phone.
A handsome young man, looking very pleased with himself, was lounging in the middle of the Internet café.
At first glance, he might seem mild mannered, but his features were on the bold side, a perfect manifestation of the term suave. In contrast with his all-accepting smile, his eyes held a disdain for everything that was not himself. His overall look, fashion and all, was unique, yet no single feature stood out—an odd man whose nature was impossible to grasp.
Despite the fact that Izaya Orihara was sitting in front of a computer connected to the Internet using the café’s facilities, he ignored it and fiddled with his phone instead.
He absorbed the information flowing out of the little world nestled
in the palm of his hand, filing it away inside his head, and muttered, “That takes me back to the high school days.”
He was giving a monologue, speaking his innermost thoughts aloud, but no one was there to respond.
The seats around him belonged to young people lacking a residence who rented those spots as a home for months at a time, but they were out working night jobs at this hour.
Izaya negotiated with the café proprietor to rent out his seat for a year. Whatever bargain he had struck with the business owner was apparently allowed as a special individual case.
He organized the information he’d just learned into a summary of the present situation and got to his feet.
It really does take me back.
Then again, my youth was a royal mess, thanks to Shizu.
If it weren’t for him, I would have done things so much better.
In fact, I think I must have spent half my effort in high school just trying to crush him.
Izaya waved to the front desk as he made his way out of the place. He chose not to take the elevator, savoring each and every step of the staircase as he descended toward the night street.
As the ground-level exit approached, a warm gust of spring air and the unique bustle of a shopping area enveloped Izaya’s body. He let the air permeate him and could not prevent a smile from twisting his lips.
I just can’t help it. Even imagining the scene makes me smile.
No matter how events play out…
Only I will be able to slip through the mosquito net.
* * *
One month earlier…
Izaya Orihara had been completely out of the loop for an incident that occurred in Ikebukuro.
He’d be lying if he claimed that this didn’t frustrate him.
He felt as if other people had left him behind.
Izaya Orihara loved people.
He did not love any individual person in particular.
He himself was human, and he loved the very thing we call “humanity.”
That might be considered a very grand form of self-love, but in his case, he did not count himself among the humanity that he loved.
No, more precisely, he was in love with “other people.”
That moment had been the perfect opportunity for him to observe the creatures he loved so much, but he missed it. During that incident when an enormous bounty had been place on Celty’s shoulders, he was left in the dust.
Calling this payback made it sound so petty.
It would be petty—but an undeniable part of the reasoning behind his actions.
He started this in the same way that a petty man would kick over a bicycle out of frustration at being left out of the fun—but the trouble with Izaya Orihara was that he was fully cognizant of that part of himself.
He was absolutely, objectively aware of his personal situation and emotions and continually chose the worst possible options for those people he loved so much.
Izaya Orihara was not an abnormal being like Celty or an invincible warrior like Shizuo Heiwajima. He was a perfectly ordinary human.
He was not even the calm and mechanical type, the sort who could kill without emotion.
He was a regular person through and through.
It was simply that he simultaneously possessed both the greed of a normal human being and the will to violate taboos if they stood in his way.
He was not some charismatic mad villain; he just lived true to his interests.
Back in high school, Shinra Kishitani told Izaya, “You know, you tend toward the evil side, but you’re not totally evil. But you don’t have a shred of goodness, either. If I had to sum you up in one word, it would be—sickening. I mean that as a compliment, though.”
Izaya snorted with derision at his friend’s comment, but he knew it to be totally accurate.
He forced his targets to be sick, spitting up their true natures, and he calmly observed from a distance safe from the splatter.
He just observed human nature.
Whether it was lofty ideals or contemptible bile that was spat up, Izaya loved and treasured all the answers equally.
They were all facets of the humanity he loved so much.
And today, he began a new game intended to expose the nature of people.
The players were assembled. The board was open.
He just had to roll the dice.
“Time to give those sweet, sweet kids at Raira a little present.”
“Just the right level of danger to promote a healthy level of personal growth.”
Izaya Orihara thought to himself…
It’s fine being out of the loop.
The people sleeping inside of the tent can’t kill the mosquito flying outside of it.
All I have to do is buzz my noisy little wings as loud as I can.
Over and over, without stopping, until the people inside slowly, inescapably go mad.
“A proper youth needs some thrills to spice it up.”
Izaya fiddled with his phone as he walked.
Shizuo Heiwajima, Simon, and his own two little troublemaker sisters.
He had numerous foes in Ikebukuro.
But he strode freely through the neighborhood’s streets—blending in with the city, silently, so silently.
The mosquito outside the tent began to ring his poison quietly into the night.
And for his first chirp, Izaya set off the ringtone of a particular young man.
After a few seconds, a timid boy’s voice came through the phone.
“Nice to talk to you again, Ryuugamine. Or should I call you TarouTanaka?” Izaya teased. He switched into a more serious tone to say, “I just checked the backlog of the chat room. I’ve heard a bit about this Saitama incident.”
“…Sounds like there’s some real odd business going on with the Dollars.”
May 3, night, Anri Sonohara’s apartment
The interior of Anri Sonohara’s apartment was truly simple; in fact, it was unbelievably tidy for the residence of a teenage girl.
It was typical for a serious, dedicated student to have a clean apartment, but in her case, this transcended clean into the realm of minimalism.
There was nothing to be found outside of living necessities. She didn’t even have any books or magazines to read for fun.
A TV and a radio also adorned the room, almost by obligation, while school textbooks were stacked on the room’s desk.
The interior was certainly lived in, but it was impossible to gauge the nature of the apartment’s resident just by looking at it.
Anri Sonohara was the sort of person who lived in such an apartment.
There wasn’t even a computer in the room, but she did have a cell phone, and she stared at the screen in silence, dressed in her pajamas.
It displayed a chat room that she logged into from time to time. The chat was managed by a woman(?) nicknamed Kanra, but Setton was the one who invited Anri there. No one had actually stated that Kanra was a woman, but as Anri was largely ignorant in the ways of the Internet and human communication, she did not know that there were men who pretended to be women online.
Celty wasn’t in the chat today. It was…nerve-racking…
Anri thought about the headless knight that went by the username Setton in chat and let out a long sigh.
Were there others in the chat who knew that Setton was Celty?
The question rose to her mind but did not lead to any further thoughts.
It was fun just watching the chat. But without Celty, her only actual acquaintance in real life, she felt more tension than usual being in there today.
Anri had been joining in at a Net café originally, but Celty recently taught her how to access the chat room on her cell phone, so she was doing her best with fumbling fingers to type in messages with the keypad.
As she didn’t have many friends, the chat room was a rare opportunity for her to communicate with others. It was a contact different from what she experienced at school, and she hesitan
tly, steadily dipped her toe into this new world.
Still, it was frightening to be there without the nickname Setton in the user list.
Realizing once again that she was a terribly weak person, Anri closed the Internet window and placed her phone in the charging cradle.
It was time to sleep. She reached out for the chain on her overhead light.
Just then, the doorbell rang, eerie in the night apartment.
She felt a nasty shiver run down her back.
It was eleven o’clock at night. Most people might not find the ringing of the bell to be eerie. But Anri did not know of any friends who would come by to ring it at this time of night.
Despite the eeriness, Anri couldn’t just ignore it, either. She headed over to peep through the hole.
She glanced around, but there was no one in sight.
“…?”
And then she did something she should not have done.
Under the assumption that she was safe with the chain on, she unlocked the door.
The instant she peered through the gap, an enormous pair of shears thrust itself into the doorway and clamped hard on the chain.
By the time the loud snap of metal echoed off the walls, it was already too late.
The door burst open to reveal…a woman.
Huh?
She wasn’t able to process it in the moment.
All she saw through her glasses was the figure of the woman.
The instant she saw the body shape under the tight clothing, she recognized that it was female. But the facial features were invisible to her.
The woman was wearing a ski mask with goggles over the eyes, completely hiding her head from view.
“Eeeh—” Anri started to scream—but the woman pressed the pruning shears around her throat before the cry could escape.
“Quiet. I will not kill you. You are relieved,” came a statement from the ski mask in perfectly accented Japanese that was nonetheless rather strange. “You will be immobilized for some days. Possibility of several months. But there is no need for death,” the emotionless woman said.
“Huh…?”
“I will avoid vital area. I will call an ambulance.”
“Umm…”
“You are very blissful.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 5 Page 10