“…”
“…”
Stun gun in the right hand, club in the left. It sure was a nasty-looking double-sword stance.
For an instant, the already eerie quiet surrounding the parking garage turned to absolute silence. It was broken by the leader’s questioning grumble.
“Wait…you kidding? I thought you were gonna use your kung fu on me.”
The words were lighthearted and jocular, but the voice itself was thick with tension and unease. They should have just ganged up on the thing all at once, but it was too late to turn back now.
The thug in the rear couldn’t move a step. If this was some other gang or the police, he’d have leaped in to help without hesitation. The four of them would have all jumped the target at once.
But the thing before them was too eerie and otherworldly for that. Their nerves weren’t ready to react in the usual way. It was just a human being wearing a riding suit. But the atmosphere surrounding it was so creepy, so alien, that he couldn’t help but feel that he’d been sucked into some alternate universe.
Aware of the thug’s unease or not, the leader ground his teeth and rolled his tongue.
“You’re fightin’ dirty! All I got is a knife! Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?!”
The shadow turned to the leader, responding to his pointless question with silence.
In the next moment, the thug saw something take clear shape.
{What is it, then?}
[Just an idiot.]
{Dotachin?}
{Who’s Dotachin?}
[Did you tell the police?]
{… Am I being ignored? Who’s Dotachin?!}
{… }
{?}
{Kanra? What happened?}
[I think he got disconnected.]
{What?! But he was in the middle of the story! What came out of the body?!}
{And who is Dotachin?!}
“…?”
The shadow began to move strangely as the thug and his boss watched.
It reached down to pick up the stun gun, then placed it on the seat of the bike.
I guess it must be too difficult to use two weapons at once, the thug decided. In the next moment, the shadow gripped the special police club with both hands.
And twisted it.
“Wha—?!”
At this, the two men could not contain their shock, and they shared a look. What kind of sleight of hand could possibly bend a police baton like that? If anything, the shadow’s frame was slender, not the kind of body that suggested feats of great strength.
In any case, the shadow had now given up the weapons it had just gained—but rather than providing relief to the men, they were even more confused. The level floor of reality that moored their minds was being removed.
Now that the thing was empty-handed again, the thug reached out for a metal pipe leaning against a fence. The leader noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye and brandished his knife again.
Cold sweat dotted their foreheads. Only that unpleasant sensation kept their minds anchored to the reality before them.
“What the hell was that…a threat?” the leader growled, eyeing the bent club. A drop of sweat trickled down into his mouth, and he swallowed it. The thug barely noticed, gripping his pipe and panting heavily. His breathing grew steadily worse, until he realized that his legs, back, and chin were all trembling. The ostentatious club-bending performance had admirably served its menacing purpose.
The shadow started to walk closer, as though to confirm the effect of its show.
“Hand to hand, eh? At least you’ve got guts,” the leader boldly declared. Unlike the thug, he’d made up his mind to fight. Eyes flashing, he approached the shadow, knife in hand.
It was three yards away. Two more steps, and he would be close enough to stab.
Gassan’s a man who can use a knife when the time calls for it, the thug knew. He followed his leader, ready with his metal pipe.
The leader would take one more step, his hostility shifting to bloodlust, then with ultimate malevolence, he would stab the opponent. Only the knowledge that his boss was the kind of man to step across that line gave the thug the courage and security to follow behind him. There was no feeling of taboo about murder at this point, and the shadow itself was so unreal that the recognition of killing another human being didn’t even apply here.
Sensing impending victory within his companion’s aggression, the thug clenched his metal pipe harder. But the next moment, their hope for triumph was completely demolished.
The shadow seemed to reach around its back, and in the next moment, a part of its black form swelled up.
It was like stygian smoke erupting from the shadow, writhing with a will of its own. Black masses squirmed like black snakes out of the black shadow’s black gloves.
The trail traced a vivid, eerie path through the air, like an inky brush dipped into a bucket of water. Eventually, the movement consolidated, building a form—a shape with meaning.
The two wide-eyed men finally saw, bathed in the light from the streetlamps and parking garage, that their foe was not human. They couldn’t help but see.
In the instant when the black blob broke free from the shadow’s body, something like charcoal soot escaped its form. It was as though the riding suit was melting away into the air, making everything aside from the helmet indistinct and hazy under the light.
Their brains were in a greater panic, now that they were fully isolated from the reality they’d known their entire lives. But with escape impossible, their bodies could only faithfully carry out the last orders they’d received. His expression locked in a nightmare rictus, the knife-bearing leader pulled back his weapon, pointing it at the shadow before him. After a moment of hesitation, he thrust the knife forward at the shadow’s midriff, but…
The arm holding the knife shook with a dull shock before the blade reached the shadow. He did not drop it, but the impact rocked his stance enough to put him off-balance.
“?!”
The sharp, black form that hit the point of the knife began to take shape in the darkness.
It was dark, so dark. Darker than the darkest black. It absorbed the light around it, writhing and squirming like a living thing. Its nebulous, roiling form was terrifyingly hideous and primal, out of place in the modern streets of Japan.
But as soon as the shadow in its riding suit grabbed the thing, it began to blend into the scenery with an eerie awfulness.
The object in the shadow’s hands was a dark, sunken hole in the midst of the night, an unmistakable symbol of death to anyone who saw it.
It was an enormous, double-sided scythe, nearly as long as the shadow was tall.
—KANRA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—
[Night.]
{What about the rest of the story? And who’s Dotachin…?}
The thug was truly trapped now.
There was no escape from the interior of the parking garage.
He didn’t know what happened to the leader. He was not a bold enough man to stand around sussing out the details in a situation like that after what he’d just witnessed. On the other hand, he didn’t see that giant scythe anymore. It occurred to him that it might’ve been nothing more than an illusion, but the answer was irrelevant to his circumstances at the moment, and he pushed the thought from his mind.
A powerful kick caught him on the neck. It sounded like something snapped, but there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the
bone. Instead, the pain of a terrible stiff shoulder, concentrated into one acute spot, throbbed at the base of his neck.
But at this point, that detail mattered very little to the thug.
“Um, um, hang on, please, ple…please…p-p-puh-please, just hang on a second.” The polite, pathetic stammering of one who is already beaten.
He knew what was happening to him. His senses were still unnerved and uneven, as though trapped in a dream, but the base, instinctual fear kept his mind locked into place and aware.
What he didn’t understand was the reason. What was this shadow? What had he done to deserve this experience?
The most likely answer had to do with the job. Danger was an occupational fact of life, and enemies were a natural result. But those enemies were usually the police or mobsters or perhaps the targets of the job: illegal immigrants and runaway kids.
He knew the risks, and he conducted his job with the proper attention to potential danger. But the shadow in the riding suit was completely outside the realm of expectations, and he had no idea how to react. He’d quickly lost the best and safest option—retreat—and was now trapped on all sides.
The only options he could think of were going down in flames or surrendering, but neither was a real choice as long as he could not grasp the enemy’s intentions. Desperate for any means of survival, the thug wheedled and begged in his most pitiful whine. Perhaps using his voice was the only way to avoid being overtaken by fear entirely.
“P-please…spare me, you got the wrong guy, I didn’t do nothin’, forgive me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
He bowed and scraped, covered in goose bumps, as though faced by a yakuza with his gun drawn. In contrast, the shadow simply stood silently as the thug shattered the illusion of his menacing appearance. It seemed to be searching for something—then abruptly turned its back on the thug and walked toward a van in the middle of the garage.
It was the kind of vehicle that often drove past Ikebukuro Station in the dead of night, rear windows tinted black, contents completely inscrutable to the outside.
The shadow walked straight for the van with unmistakable purpose, apparently seeing right through the black mirror.
Huh? Wha?! Oh, shit!
It was their “work” van. He still didn’t know what the shadow wanted, but this made it clear the thing was after them. There were plenty of other vehicles in the garage, but it was heading straight for their car.
Wait! No, not that! Anything but that!
The thug’s brain froze cold at the shadow’s unpredictable actions. He’d been filled with a kind of primal fear at the presence of the shadow, but there was an entirely different kind of fear welling up in him now.
Aaaah, aaah, aaah! Wait, wait, waitwaitwait! You can’t look in that van—we’ll be done for! Shit, man, what do I do? What do I do? Shitshitshitshitshit—what is that? What is that thing?!
Two opposing fears wrestled for space in his conscious mind—the terror of the unreal sight and a much more grounded, realistic kind of fear.
If someone sees into that car, forget the police. I’ll get buried!
His legs trembled even harder at the thought of his murdered corpse being disposed of in the forests at the foot of Mount Fuji.
There’s gotta be something. Something I can use to murder that Kamen Rider freak…
The thug desperately searched for a way out of his situation now that he had ironically conquered his momentary fear of the shadow. What caught his eye was what he’d driven to the garage to report for work—his convertible.
Ten yards away from the van, the shadow stopped in silence.
From behind it came the faint sound of a car door opening and closing. As it turned around to see, the garage echoed with the blast of an engine revving.
“…”
At the end of its turn, the shadow caught sight of a bright red convertible speeding toward it. The car accelerated with surprising speed, and the shadow had no time to dart behind a pillar for safety.
After a moment of hesitation, it decided to run in the opposite direction of the approaching car. It was hoping to draw the car along and leap to the side at the last moment, but the terrified thug was using every ounce of his concentration and did not fall for it. The instant the shadow’s foot turned to push it sideways, he yanked the wheel.
The sound of collision.
The shadow flew hideously through the air.
And crashed in a heap atop the concrete.
“Yeaaaaah! In your face! Ha-ha-haaa! In your ugly face, dammit!” the thug crowed, savoring the sensation of the shock that shuddered through the vehicle. He quickly braked and leaped out of the driver’s seat before the car had even come to a stop, then raced for his victim, metal pipe in hand, when—
“?!”
He noticed a black blob rolling on the ground, much closer than the prone figure of the shadow.
There was no mistaking that distinct design—it was the full-faced helmet the shadow had been wearing just moments ago. But what shocked him was not the helmet…but the body of the shadow upon which it had been resting.
“The…the head…”
There was nothing atop the body where the shadow’s head should be.
Did it come off in the crash?! No way can’t be murder I didn’t self-defense
but no why hang on wait hang on
It was the latest shock in a long series. His brain was at a critical mass of confusion.
And because of that, he failed to notice that the body, now headless, had not shed a single drop of blood.
The thug hesitantly approached the headless body…
When without warning, the shadow leaped to its feet, still without a head.
—KANRA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—
“Aaaahhh!!”
This sudden horrifying sight did not inflict fear on the thug as much as simple shock.
A trick? A suit? A robot?
A costume party? A hologram?
A dream? An illusion? A hallucination? A fake?
Various words floated through his mind, popping like bubbles before his brain could grasp them.
The true shock was that it had been hit by a car yet was standing without any sign of harm whatsoever—but there was not enough conscious wit left in the thug’s mind to dedicate to this fact.
As it had before, the black mist began to seep out of the shadow’s back, taking shape as that gigantic scythe.
His shock shifting once again into fear, the thug began to let out a scream of terror and desperation. At the very moment his throat let the first bit of breath through, it was split by a sudden, sharp shock.
Every shred of his senses went black.
—SETTON HAS LEFT THE CHAT—
—TAROU TANAKA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—
; The headless rider quietly picked up the helmet and stuck it atop its dark neck. A faint shadow bled out of the collar of the suit, then melded into the bottom of the helmet, fusing it together.
Eventually, as though nothing had ever happened, the headless rider turned and silently strode toward the van.
Back at the entrance to the parking garage, having completed its business, the headless rider silently left the scene. Several men were lying in the street, but there was no sign that anyone else had passed by. If they had, they’d pretended not to see.
The pitch-black motorcycle waiting in the shadows sprang to life, welcoming its master home. The engine, which had worked soundlessly as it rode the streets, now roared without a key in the ignition.
The headless rider stroked the tank of the engine, like petting a beloved steed. The engine purred and hushed, satisfied, and the rider swung into the seat.
And the black mass, without so much as a headlight, carried its headless master away.
Beneath a starless sky.
Soundlessly melting into the darkness…
Chapter 2: Headless Rider, Objective
Center gate, Tobu Tojo Line, Ikebukuro Station, Toshima Ward, Tokyo
“I want to go home,” the boy mumbled.
The statement was far too simple to encapsulate the myriad conflicting emotions he felt, but there was no other way to express his overall sentiment that directly.
Stretching out before his eyes were people. People, people, people. And more people. Basically people. His vision was overflowing with people as far as he could see. It was just past six in the evening, the time when many people started commuting home from work and school. It wasn’t quite at peak levels yet, but the crowds were easily dense enough to be considered swarms.
He was so overwhelmed by the presence of people crammed into that vast underground space that the boy momentarily lost sight of his purpose for being there.
Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel) Page 2