Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel)

by Ryohgo Narita

  “Why does my head have a body that isn’t mine anyway?”

  “Well, I didn’t see it for myself, so nothing I say can be taken as fact. But if you don’t mind completely baseless speculation, I can tell you my guess.”

  Shinra paused for a moment, then delivered his ghastly theory in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “They probably found a girl with a fitting body and simply replaced her head with yours.”

  Celty had imagined that possibility, but it was horrifying to hear stated so bluntly. She was left without a response, so Shinra added further speculation.

  “Let’s say that a country—or even better, a secret military agency—got its sinister hands on the head in the hopes of creating a legion of undead soldiers. They cloned a fresh new body from the head’s cells, then replaced the clone’s head with the real one in the hopes of unlocking the dullahan memories hidden within. What do you think?”

  “Sounds like a surefire Razzie winner to me,” Celty wrote, comparing his idea to the infamous awards for worst movies of the year. Half of her completely disregarded his idea—but the other half thought a secret lab was quite possible.

  “Okay, the cloning angle might be a stretch, but it’s possible that they could have sewed it onto a corpse. Either that or they kidnapped a living human, then put the head on right after killing it to see if that would bring it back to life. Logically, it’s an absolutely absurd idea, but logic also says that you and your head are impossible to begin with. Maybe it could take over a dead body.”

  “This makes me sick. I can’t imagine anyone would go that far.”

  “True, it’s not the kind of thing a sane person would do. But people will do just about anything under the right circumstances. Perhaps our mystery person lost a daughter whom he or she wished to keep alive in perpetuity. Or maybe they wanted to conceal an accidental murder victim by using the body for research.”

  In a way, that idea was even more gruesome than the human experimentation he joked about earlier. Celty typed in a new message, simply to stop him from saying any more.

  “Anyway, I want to speak with my head once more. We can talk more after tha—”

  Shinra cut her off before she could finish. “And that’s how you’re going to delay coming to an actual conclusion?”

  His voice was deadly serious; there was no trace of the tickled, playful air from just moments earlier.

  I know. I get it. Now that I’ve found my head in this state, I just have to give up.

  She let that resignation sink in for a moment, then reluctantly typed, “I just don’t want to admit that everything I’ve done over the last twenty years has been for nothing.”

  She stared sadly at the string of text. Shinra, who had been talking to her from the other side of the apartment, finally came over to Celty’s room. He sat down next to her and looked directly at her screen.

  “It wasn’t for nothing. The last twenty years of your life haven’t been for nothing. Nothing you’ve done is a waste as long as you make use of it in your life ahead.”

  “And how will I make use of that?”

  “Well, for example…if you marry me, you can simply consider the last twenty years the cornerstone of our marital bliss.”

  Celty had no instant response to his shameless nonsense. Normally she’d ignore it as a joke, but it seemed like Shinra took this topic rather seriously of late.

  “May I ask something?”

  “Please do.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was right to just ask her question straight out, but after a few moments, Celty summoned her courage and tapped away at the keyboard.

  “Do you really love me, Shinra?”

  Shinra read the sentence and gaped up at the ceiling in disbelief.

  “Why would you ask that now?! Ahh, there is a reason that terrible pain in the chest brings tears to one’s eyes! What is my sorrow? The fact that you have not believed everything I’ve done and said to you! My sorrow is that my love for you does not reach your heart!”

  “I don’t have a head.”

  “But I’m in love with what’s inside! There’s more to a human being than looks, remember?”

  “I’m not human.”

  In the end, I’m not a human being. I’m a monster in the shape of a human. The problem is that with my memories trapped in my head, I don’t actually know what I am or why I was born and why I exist.

  Complex sentiments and unrelatable thoughts. Countless fragments swirled through Celty’s heart, but the only thing she could impart were simple words on a computer screen.

  “Aren’t you frightened of holding affection for something inhuman? How can you say these things to a being that doesn’t even follow the same basic laws of physics?”

  The letters sped up across the screen. In response, Shinra’s voice grew harder and stronger. He sounded exasperated.

  “I can’t believe you’re asking me that after twenty years together… Why would you even think about this? We share a mutual understanding—if we love each other, what’s the problem? If you decide that you hate me, I guess that’s that… But we’re not just forced to live together out of cold mutual dependence, are we? Can’t you have some trust in me?”

  It was rare for Shinra to sincerely plead his own case, but the abundance of ten-dollar words said that he was not yet at the end of his rope.

  “I do trust you. If there’s anyone I don’t trust, it’s myself.”

  She decided to reveal some of her own insecurity while he was still feeling in control.

  “I have no self-confidence. Even if I was in love with you or some other human being, would our romantic values actually be the same? Yes, I probably do love you. I just don’t know if it’s what a human would call romantic love.”

  “That’s something every human being goes through in their youth. It’s not as if every human being shares the same views and values. Love to me may not be the same as love to the great writer Osamu Dazai. In fact, it’s probably different… At any rate, I can say that I love you, and you just said that you love me, so where’s the problem?”

  He sounded like a teacher explaining something to a student. The dullahan’s fingers stopped moving.

  “Yesterday I said I wanted to understand your values as a dullahan—but whatever your answer is, it won’t change the fact that I love you,” Shinra said in a voice free of shyness or hesitation. His expression was completely serious. Celty thought this over for a moment, choosing her words carefully.

  “Give me some time to think.”

  “I’ll wait as long as it takes,” Shinra replied, his smile serene. Celty had to ask one other thing.

  “Is it really me you want? There are so many human women out there, why would you choose a headle…a nonhuman woman? Why?”

  “Ha-ha. There’s no accounting for taste, right?”

  “You’re one to talk. And don’t make it sound like you have to be a weirdo to like me.”

  Even as she typed back her snappy response, Celty felt something hot swirling in her chest. She knew that it was her feeling for Shinra.

  If I had a heart, I’d hear it pounding away in my ears.

  But that thought, that contradiction, plagued Celty even more. It only underscored the great differences between her and Shinra.

  Dullahans had no hearts. According to Shinra’s father after he dissected her, she was constructed much like a human being—but the organs were all for show and did not actually function. There were veins, but no blood running through them. Without any red blood, her meat was the color of pure flesh, like a model of a human body. He didn’t know how her body worked and moved. He didn’t know what she used for a source of energy. And despite that, any wounds she suffered healed at incredible speed.

  After the dissection, Shinra’s father asked her, “How do you actually die?”

  Ten years later, Shinra said, “You must be a shadow. You’re just the shadow of your head or an actual body in some other world. The source of your energy to
move means nothing to your shadow.”

  It was nonsense to think of a shadow moving of its own will, but then again, nothing about her existence made sense, so she followed Shinra’s advice and stopped thinking about it. She needed to spend the next few days focusing on her head. And depending on the results of that period, she would make a decision about her life.

  Celty clenched a fist and pictured the faces of the two students she saw today.

  They both looked serious. The first one glared back fiercely, without a hint of fear toward Celty or Shizuo. The other one showed obvious signs of fright at Celty, but he still had a smile on his face when he looked at her. It was the expression of one looking at a demon or monster worthy of fear and respect.

  She then thought about herself.

  But perhaps that’s all just my own selfish interpretation.

  She took her interpretation of the others’ feelings from their expressions, including the eyes, but she couldn’t be certain that it was true. She did not have her own eyes or face with which to express delight, anger or sadness. She didn’t have a brain to process human emotions. She didn’t even know where her thoughts or feelings were coming from. How could she accurately sense the emotions of others?

  Angry eyes, sad eyes, human morals—these were all pieces of knowledge she had picked up in this city. TV shows, comics, movies—Shinra’s tastes biased her selection of these things, but her actual experiences in town and news reports helped to balance that out. The problem was that all these things were just information gleaned from elsewhere. She wouldn’t know if they were true or not unless she was a human being herself.

  That was why she was always plagued by the insecurity she revealed to Shinra earlier. She didn’t know if she truly had emotions. It was a thought that constantly troubled her.

  In the past, she didn’t care about these things. She was too busy seeking her head. But in the last few years, as the Internet gave her increased opportunities to contact people, she couldn’t help but wonder how close her feelings and values were to those of humans.

  At first, she found it frightening and needed Shinra’s help, but now Celty was at the computer at virtually all times when not working or searching for her head. Once she got a model with a built-in DVD drive and TV tuner, she could get her movies and TV shows there, which only increased the time she spent before the computer.

  Celty increased her contact with others over the Internet. People separated by their PCs did not know each other’s faces or pasts. Which was fine with her, because she didn’t even have a face. And yet, the connections were real. In real life, she only knew a few people through Shinra, and only he and his father knew exactly what she was. Rumors had spread about the headless rider, but the rumors didn’t identify her as a woman or a dullahan.

  She didn’t feel a particular need to hide these things, but neither did she plan to reveal them.

  Even after what Shinra said, I still want to have human values. If the persona that I own now is “human,” I don’t want to lose that.

  Celty was not a human being. But she still felt anxiety. If she got back her head but the memories did not return, what should she do? What kind of face would a human make in this situation?

  Her knowledge contained the answer, but she herself could not say what it was.

  Chapter 10: Dollars, Opening

  The Yagiri Pharmaceuticals lab

  In the meeting room of Lab Six, seated on a chair in the corner, Seiji grumbled to himself, head downcast. His sister Namie gently embraced him in an attempt to ease his discomfort.

  “Everything’s fine, Seiji. Leave this to us. We’re going to get her back. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  The police dragged Seiji to their box station after Shizuo knocked him out, but without a victim to finger him or even a firm consensus on who was the victim, he was released without any charges or punishment.

  Maybe it was my sister pulling strings. She did arrive to pick me up extremely fast, Seiji thought. It didn’t actually bother him. I know she’s in love with me in some kind of sick way. It only comes out of a weird possessiveness. But I don’t mind. No matter who else loves me, it won’t change my own choice. I live for my own love and nothing else.

  And if I have to stomp all over the love others give me in order to do that, so be it. I’m sure she’d be happy knowing she served as a stepping-stone for the sake of her beloved.

  Meanwhile, Namie could read Seiji like a book. But she didn’t mind. As long as that head was in her possession, Seiji needed her. That head, the very target of her darkest jealousy, was the key to the equation. Namie grinned in self-mockery at the irony of it all.

  The sight of her shamelessly doting on her brother put a kind of fear in the minds of everyone who witnessed the scene.

  One of her employees overcame his consternation and called out for her attention.

  “You don’t need to worry about a thing, Seiji. Leave everything to us.”

  And with that, his sister quietly left the room.

  “Do we have details?”

  “We’ve got the address of this Ryuugamine that Mr. Seiji spoke of. It’s a run-down apartment building right next to Ikebukuro Station.”

  Namie was receiving the report from her subordinates slightly down the hallway from the meeting room. The fact that the employee was giving Seiji that title spoke to the strength of the Yagiri family within the company.

  Unlike her warm, loving manner in the meeting room, Namie was as cold as ice as she gave the orders.

  “Then gather up the underlings and retrieve the target.”

  “That’s a conspicuous place for a daylight operation—”

  “I don’t care,” she stated flatly, brooking no further discussion.

  If we wait for nightfall, my brother’s going to run off and try to find this Ryuugamine on his own.

  Namie cared more about Seiji’s safety than the danger of the situation. But she was professional enough not to show the tiniest ounce of this priority when Seiji wasn’t around. She was all business.

  “Inform all of our available muscle at once. I don’t care who’s there or if they’re taken dead or alive. Depending on the circumstances, I may want you to dispose of them on the spot.”

  There wasn’t a shred of humanity in her eyes. The other men felt cold sweat trickle down their backs.

  Today was the start of normal classes for Raira Academy. But even then, it mostly consisted of teacher introductions and guidance on the course of the entire school year, and the only classes with real lectures were math and world history.

  Nothing else noteworthy or problematic occurred. The first day passed by.

  If anything weighed on Mikado’s mind, it was the absence of not only Mika Harima, but now Seiji Yagiri, the Health Committee representative. After Anri had explained what happened between the two of them the day before, it was hard not to feel a connection in their absences. An uneasy murmur rose in his chest.

  On top of that, there was also his unease over the girl with amnesia back at his house.

  She did not remember anything more after waking up this morning and refused to go to the hospital or police. The suggestion of the hospital, in particular, brought a look of terror into her eyes.

  “Oh…I’ll be fine! I’ll just stay here and wait for you!” she said, looking far calmer today than she had the day before. In fact, she looked quite secure and focused for someone suffering memory loss.

  That at least gave Mikado enough confidence to leave her behind while he was at school, but he still had no idea what to do with her after that. Without knowing her identity, there was no getting around the fact that she’d need to be handed over to the police at some point. He thought about the option of Masaomi’s house, but Masaomi commuted to school from his family’s home.

  Mikado spent the entire day mulling over what to do, and before he arrived at an answer, the day was done. There was a brief introductory meeting for all of the class reps, after which he h
eaded outside with Anri, hoping to ask for any updates on Mika Harima.

  “Have you heard from her?” Mikado didn’t have anything else to talk about and felt awkward not saying anything, so he decided to be direct.

  “Actually, I haven’t heard a thing from her since yesterday afternoon…”

  “Oh, I see…”

  He shouldn’t have asked. Now he was even more worried about the fact that Seiji was absent as well. He began to wonder about the possibility of some kind of murder-suicide but didn’t dare say that out loud to Anri.

  Masaomi’s presence would have helped out a lot, but from what he heard, the Discipline Committee was still busy with introductions. Apparently, Masaomi and the representative from Mikado’s class had launched into an argument that no one else was quite able to stop.

  He decided his best action was just to go home for today and was preparing to say good-bye to Anri at the ornate Western-style front gate when someone shouted at them from the side.

  “Aha! That’s him, Takashi, right there!”

  A girl was pointing in Mikado and Anri’s direction. It was the one whose cell phone had been stomped by Izaya yesterday, and she was escorted by a burly looking guy.

  Before he could even register a sense of dread at the unfolding situation, Mikado was lifted up by the collar.

  “I hear you know the guy who busted my girl’s cell.”

  “I don’t know him know him—”

  You should be telling the police about this, not your boyfriend, Mikado wanted to yell at Bully A next to the guy, but he couldn’t speak with a hand pulling him up by the collar.

  “So where’s this dick you were standin’ around with?”

  Straight as an arrow—he asked about Izaya directly, without allowing Mikado any say.

  Elusive as quicksilver—a pitch-black bike silently appeared behind the man.

  Swift as the wind—still on the bike, a humanoid shadow kicked Takashi to the ground.

  Survival of the fittest—out of nowhere, Izaya Orihara landed on the fallen man’s back with both feet.