“?” Izaya felt a bit of sweat break out on his skin. He didn’t know what Shizuo was doing. He’s not going to rip that guardrail out and fight me with it, is he…?
The problem was, Shizuo Heiwajima was exactly the kind of man who did the thing you assumed he wouldn’t possibly do. Sure enough, as Izaya dreaded, Shizuo clenched the hand holding the guardrail tight.
“…Seriously?”
He’d just have to stab Shizuo before he pulled it out of the ground.
The moment Izaya made up his mind to stab the other man, the smile vanished from his face. When Shizuo noticed that, his own smile got wider: “Do it, if you can.”
And just as the tension reached its peak, the face-off was interrupted by the sudden entrance of a shadow.
The black motorcycle appeared without a hint of sound and cut between the two.
“Well, well.”
“Celty…what do you want?”
She quickly waved Izaya back and showed her PDA screen to Shizuo. It was a copy of the chat log that she’d saved to the device.
He took some time to read it over. Eventually he squinted and asked, “The hell is this?”
Shizuo thought for several moments, and with an oddly calm look in his eyes, he turned back to Izaya. “Is this part of your plot?”
“I dunno what this means, but if I could have calculated that Celty would randomly show up here, I’d have dropped a meteor on your house by now.”
Shizuo kept watching Izaya for a while after that, then clicked his tongue in disappointment and got onto Celty’s bike without another word.
He really was hard to handle.
Ever since high school, Izaya had used everything at his disposal to get to where he was. There was only one person who never acted the way Izaya wanted him to, and that was Shizuo Heiwajima.
At first, I actually thought I could control Shizu, Izaya thought ruefully to himself as the motorcycle rode off.
“How does an amoeba like him get so sharp?”
His smile was one of both pure joy and irritation.
“This is exactly why I hate you so much.”
Anri’s place
“I’ve done some research on you,” Haruna said, knife in her hand. She slowly got to her feet. That angelic smile never left her face, but her eyes were a demonic red.
“What a stupid, pointless human. Ever since middle school, you’ve been like toilet paper stuck to Mika Harima’s shoe…and now you’ve begun seducing two of your male classmates, and you think you can manipulate Takashi as well?”
Her face wore a smile, but there was nothing but pure malice in her words.
Meanwhile, Anri stayed silent, taking in Haruna’s words. Perhaps she was frantically thinking of what action she ought to take next. But Haruna only continued her outpouring of contempt. She hurled words of despair and disaster at Anri, yet her face was as beautiful and holy as a saint announcing the girl’s end.
“On top of all this…a burglar broke into your home five years ago and killed your parents? Apparently you claimed that you didn’t see the killer, despite being in the same room the entire time… How can that be? How did you not see the killer? How did you survive?”
It was a fact that Anri hadn’t even told Mikado or Masaomi. But her face did not change expression. She didn’t even open her mouth. It wasn’t a simple enough matter that she could settle with just facial expressions or arguments, Haruna knew, but she continued her verbal assault anyway.
“Unless you even tried to seduce the burglar? A girl in elementary school? Do you suppose he was a pedophile?”
Even after that barb, Anri’s face was placid. It wasn’t that on the inside her heart was brimming with rage, either. There were only swirling questions.
Why is this happening?
She only wanted a life of peace and tranquillity. What did she do to deserve this chaos?
Anri tried to view the world within the customary picture frame, but the glint of the knife in the hands of the other girl did not allow her to withdraw entirely.
Her tranquillity was crumbling to pieces.
Was there no way to go back? Would her uneventful reality never come?
Would it all fall apart, including the eternal dreamworld she’d made for herself?
There was a solution.
She could just yell something back at the other woman who kept hurling bullshit at her. She could fight. She could crush her opponent.
But just being forced into making that choice was the greatest suffering of all.
I just don’t want to fight. I don’t want to fight with anything. I don’t want to compete with anyone. I just want to lead a peaceful life. I only fight when I want peace. I wasn’t born to waste my life with stupid battles like this…
“It must be easy, living by latching onto other people like a parasite,” Haruna muttered.
Anri finally found her voice. “…Not easy.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not…easy at all. Living off of others, trying to make sure just the right person likes you. I agree, parasite is a good term for me. But do you have any idea how much you need to sacrifice…to ensure the person you’re latching onto doesn’t drive you off?”
Now there was indeed a kind of strength in Anri’s eyes.
Most people who lived comfortably in the shadow of another person would become angry and deny it if called out for it. Even they would agree that it wasn’t a cool or admirable way of life. Anri certainly didn’t think that her choice was necessarily laudable—but it was a conscious choice that she made for herself.
She wouldn’t stand for that to be criticized by someone she’d never met until just now. It was this anger that finally wrung the words out of her.
But Haruna only smirked at her statement. Voice dripping with utter loathing, she spat, “That’s what you’ve been doing? Sacrificing yourself so that Takashi will like you…?”
“No,” Anri said, loud and clear. “Mr. Nasujima is not worth doing that.”
She was surprised at how forceful her own response was.
Meanwhile, Haruna’s face had gone stone-still. Her expression vanished entirely, her red eyes narrowed, and her grip on the knife tightened.
“Oh…? I see.”
Something charged was in the air now, but Anri did not take her eyes off of Haruna. Just moments ago, she was intimidated by the other girl, but now there was no hesitation in her actions.
But that didn’t matter to Haruna. All she felt was a desire to kill the girl who stood in her way and insulted her beloved Takashi Nasujima.
“Die, then,” she mumbled and thrust out the knife for Anri’s throat.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
It was nearly after midnight. Who would be ringing her doorbell at this time of night? Haruna set her own issues aside for a moment to marvel at this odd occurrence.
“Is it one of your little friends?” she wondered.
Anri had no idea. Could Celty have come back?
“Well, whatever. I’ll start by stabbing your friend before your eyes—and then take my time finishing you off afterward.”
The smile was back on Haruna’s face as she crossed the room to the door and pulled it open.
Time stopped as Haruna and the visitor came face-to-face.
“Nie…kawa?”
“Takashi!”
Anri looked out the door from across the room and saw with surprise that it was Nasujima.
What is he doing here?
In a way, his appearance was even more shocking than Haruna’s, but that didn’t matter at this point. Anri decided to stand back and watch what unfolded.
“Ohhh…ahh! Takashi…Takashi, Takashi, Takashi!” Haruna chanted, her features overcome with emotion and tears.
Nasujima’s reaction meanwhile…
“Aheaaaa!”
He let out a garbled shriek, turned ninety degrees, and raced down the hallway of the apartment building. He had run away at the first sight of Haruna’s
face.
Huh?
Anri was certainly confused about his appearance at her apartment and didn’t want to consider what he had planned, but this sight filled her with a different question.
Why did he run away? Weren’t they supposed to be a couple? She thought that Mr. Nasujima had forced the girl into it, but now it didn’t seem that way… So why did he run away?
“Wait, Takashi!”
Haruna started to rush out the door after Nasujima, but she immediately changed her mind and held back for a moment to warn Anri, “I was hoping to take care of you on my own…but it seems I don’t have time to deal with you anymore. So I’ll have everyone else kill you instead.”
“Everyone?” Anri repeated, unsure of what Haruna meant. A moment later, that clarity came to her in full.
“Actually, Saika wanted to get everyone involved to help love Shizuo…but I’m glad I convinced her to let me bring a few here.”
Anri realized that several men were now milling around outside the door. They all carried their own blades—X-Acto knives, kitchen knives, cleavers.
All of their eyes were red.
“These are Saika’s children,” Haruna announced, then raced off into the night after Nasujima.
All that was left in the now-silent room was Anri and a number of slashers with weapons held at the ready.
She backed away into the room as the men advanced, blades held high, ready to begin the slaughter.
South Ikebukuro Park
In the back of Celty’s brain—wherever that brain physically existed—the words that Shinra uttered after seeing the chat log for himself played back.
“…If you want me to analyze this situation, there’s one thing I can speculate.
“Lots of human beings desire signs and symbols of love when they’re in a romance. The so-called fruits of love.
“Once two people love each other, they desire something they both love together. The classic example of that would be children.
“That’s right… Saika’s giving birth. She’s leaving a child in the souls of the humans she slices.
“Saika really does love people, it’s true.
“She seeks a perfect fusion with man…with humanity.”
There was no way for it to be true, but this case had involved a succession of no ways happening one after the other. In a way, her own existence was another thing too bizarre to be true, so she had no right to complain.
Celty focused on her surroundings. She’d arrived at South Ikebukuro Park with Shizuo in tow. Once the bike was parked in the middle of the park, she looked around—and muttered to herself.
No way.
She’d thought the park was empty at first. Normally there was at least someone out there, even in the middle of the night, but there was no one to be seen at the moment.
Yet the instant that Celty and Shizuo entered the park, silhouettes began to gather in the corners of the area, seemingly out of nowhere.
Like germs, as the overall number rose, so did the rate of their multiplication. This pyramid scheme continued for about thirty seconds. Celty and Shizuo were completely surrounded by humans.
This is way more than fifty people, she noticed.
There was quite a variety to the crowd surrounding them: salarymen, street punks, young children, housewives, college students…
There were a number equipped with yellow bandannas, as well as several who looked like Dollars members.
Given the uneven collection of people, Celty and Shizuo immediately thought of the impromptu meeting of the Dollars that happened one year earlier. There were two key differences here.
For one, the Dollars probably had greater numbers.
The other difference was that all of these people had their own blades and their eyes were as red as blood, without exception.
The blades they held were as varied as the people: knives, scissors, extendable branch pruners, even chain saws.
They had to be the victims of the string of slashing attacks.
No wonder they’d never caught the slasher. Some of the people even had hospital gowns, as though they’d just escaped in the middle of the night.
All the victims were possessed by Saika and falsified their testimony…
As Celty pondered what to do next, one of the hundred or so people surrounding them, a teenage girl wearing a Raira Academy uniform, walked up to act as spokesperson.
“I’ve been hoping to meet you, Shizuo Heiwajima.”
Though Celty and Shizuo wouldn’t have known this, she was one of Anri’s bullies, the one who was attacked before the girl’s eyes. Her statement passed straight through Celty to Shizuo, who was still sitting on the back of the motorcycle.
“You’re so wonderful… I was watching from a distance when you beat my sister…”
Watching from where? Celty wondered. Then again, with this many of them, it wouldn’t have been that strange for one to have witnessed the attack. But did that mean they didn’t actually share consciousness among all of them?
“So I told my other sisters and Mother about your incredible strength… The Internet’s so convenient, isn’t it? In the past, it was so hard for us Saikas to share our minds. But now, all you need is a single e-mail,” the teenage slasher explained, revealing their nature. It was a revelation that she likely made freely, knowing that Celty and Shizuo would be powerless to do anything about it.
“At first, it was very difficult for our consciousness to understand words…but now we each have a will just as strong as Mother’s.”
With each word, the circle of people closed in. They were close enough now that they could all leap in at once and engulf the two, if they wanted.
“Shizuo, we want to know more and more about your strength. We want to see more of it. This time, in front of the group. Then, I’m sure we can love you even more than we do now…”
The enraptured girl—no, it was Saika possessing the mind of a girl—inched closer to Shizuo, waving around her butterfly knife.
Celty finally felt like she had a good understanding of the enemy.
I see… When the victim gets slashed, a new Saika is born within her that takes over her body. Then, she grabs whatever blade is on hand, and that blade becomes the means by which a new body is born.
The reason nothing happened to Shinra when he touched the knife was that the knife itself wasn’t cursed. Perhaps Saika wasn’t a monster or spirit at all, but a kind of hypnotism. By cutting another person, that fear became a medium through which to plant itself into another person’s heart. The seed then took root, just as it did in the attacker, multiplying endlessly. Perhaps that was how it worked.
So did that make Saika a life-form?
The question passed through Celty’s mind, but she didn’t have the time to spend considering that thought. She was too busy producing the black scythe from her hands and wondering how to incapacitate Saika’s victims without killing any of them.
The girl with the butterfly knife professed her love for Shizuo, mouth twisted. “Now! Shall we make love? We’ll keep loving you, no matter where, no matter how, even when you’re too tired to move! We’ll love you without end! And except for that monster over there, no one is allowed to interfere. Our sisters are making more and more sisters so we can keep loving the people of this city! The police will be too busy to stop us!”
The other Saikas followed the girl’s lead in cackling with delighted laughter.
Celty was plenty creeped out, but she was also honestly concerned for Shizuo’s safety now as well.
Yet the man behind her was not particularly angry or afraid in any way. He got off the bike and stood before the throng, his face a mask.
“Can I ask you one thing?”
“What is it?”
“Why exactly…do you people like me?”
Celty nearly fell off the motorcycle with the shock of his out-of-place question.
Get a hint! Are you seriously asking that now?!
But she had no ti
me for arguing at the moment. Meanwhile, the Saika spokeswoman at the front felt confident enough to indulge his question.
“Because you’re strong.”
“…”
“That preposterous strength…not derived from power or money, but the absolute extreme of human possibility, the most instinctual and violent strength possible. That’s what we want. Plus…what human being wouldn’t want to fall in love with a wild man like you? You’re scary. But we think we’re enough to love you.”
She broke out of her pose and started to explain their philosophy to Shizuo.
“We love all of humanity. But just loving isn’t enough for us anymore. Just creating more children with humanity isn’t enough for us anymore. If loving and loving and loving isn’t enough, we want to rule all of humanity. And to do that, we need excellent offspring. Powerful specimens like you, for example. Don’t humans try to leave behind the best possible genes for the future?”
She sounds like a certain dictator, Celty marveled. She checked on Shizuo, figuring that such a selfish and nonsensical speech would have him exploding with rage.
“Ha-ha…”
He’s laughing?!
“Ha-ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
It wasn’t the laughter of someone trying to hide his anger. It was simply pleasant, delighted laughter.
“Settle down, Shizuo. If it starts to look bad, I’ll do my best to make sure you escape.”
Was the fact that they were surrounded by a hundred assailants making him loopy? She waited for him to react. Eventually he stopped laughing and gave his response to the Saikas’ confession of love.
“Nah, Celty… To be honest, I’m actually happy.”
“Huh…?” This reaction was not what Saika expected, either. The people in the crowd gave one another confused looks.
“I’ve always despised this strength I was given. I thought no one would ever accept me for what I am,” Shizuo stated. There was a variety of emotions in his voice as he spoke of his past.
“The thing is…now I don’t have to worry anymore. Look at how many people love me. One, two…well, let’s just say ‘a lot.’ So…it’s all fine now,” he said, grinding his teeth with pleasure.
Durarara!!, Vol. 2 (novel) Page 14