DURARARA!! Vol.5 CHAPTER 1, PART I
CHAPTER 1
THE FIGHTING DOLL*, HE IS IN SLIGHT TROUBLE
* The Fighting Doll: short for Shizuo's nickname, "Ikebukuro's Automatic Fighting Doll".
May 3rd, Sunshine 60 Street, Ikebukuro
The street was Sunshine 60, one of the most famous in Ikebukuro.
Usually referred to as the "60-Story Street", it connects the East Gate of the Station to Sunshine City. To those who commute to Ikebukuro by train, it's the most familiar one among Ikebukuro's many crowded streets.
It is the fastest route from the Station to Sunshine Building. Though it is often confused with the street named "Sunshine Street" right next to it, they are actually completely different streets.
The time was Golden Week.
The street was more crowded than usual since it was the beginning of a long holiday.
People passed each other by in the streets heading for all sorts of destinations - families headed for Sunshine City, couples walked towards cinemas, young people were about to shop for clothes and salarymen craved their meals. Akihabara-style young men were heading for Toranoana and Manga no Mori. Young girls, on the other hand, had Animate and the Butler Cafe "Swallowtail" in their minds. Pimps looking for easy targets, men who looked like hosts, women selling paintings and even well-built foreigners could also be found in this holiday crowd.
When one walked on this road from the Ikebukuro Station, there was something quite impossible to miss.
Namely, the huge LCD screen and the numerous posters on the walls of Sunshine Cinema.
Inside the game center on the first floor, game machines like UFO claw cranes lined the walls. Young people were often seen killing their time here while waiting for the movie to begin.
"Ne - , Rocchi! Go for that one next! That one! The stuffed one!"
"Eh~that's not fair! Non just got one, didn't you, Non?"
A throng of girls stood in front of the entrance to the game center. The afternoon looked nice and peaceful.
"Ne - , Rocchi! I want a minute on that machine too!"
"Ah, OK, then we'll just leave Kanacchi here when we go buy juice, won't we, Rocchi?"
"Hang on! Are you guys dumping me!?"
"What's the big deal, Kanacchi? You got plenty of Yuukichi-sempais on you today. Change them into Hideo-kuns and play your alien. Wow, I just tried picturing it, and it freaking rocks! Though it's kind of TR."
"……Um, ne, Kiyomin, what the hell did she just say?"
"......If you try to put that into Japanese, it'll be like 'Kana, you have plenty of 10,000 notes on you today, so why not just change them into 1,000 ones, go have fun on your UFO claw crane and let us watch you act all stupid? I just tried picturing it, it's so bad that it's amazing. I'm getting goosebumps'......something like that. This is sick. Why can't she just speak Japanese?"
"Oi, Kiyosuke! Your translation weirded me out. You're no fun at all like an alien."
A crowd of about ten people walked out of the game center accompanied by their usual banter. Then, out of nowhere, a voice broke the peace of this routine scene.
"Get out of the wayyyyyy!"
The brusque voice of a male who was breathing heavily sounded within the crowd on the road that had almost transformed into a pedestrian street.
People turned in the direction of the voice out of reflex. A middle-aged man in a hat was pushing through the crowd forcefully, looking eager to get out.
The street was less crowded than the train station at rush hour. Had the man been a little calmer he would have been able to find his way out with relative ease. However, the man didn't look like he had the luxury; he simply charged forwards in a straight line, scaring people out of his way.
Looking more closely, people saw a woman trying to catch up with the man with a dragging stride while yelling something.
It was hard to hear what she was yelling about, but from the way she was dressed it was easy to tell that she was probably a clerk from a nearby store. From her expression, one could guess that the man trying to get away from her had probably shoplifted or robbed her store.
The crowd was flummoxed for a couple of seconds - but some people quickly realized what was happening and tried to block the man's way out.
"I told you to get out of my wayyyyyyy!"
The man who looked too fired up to catch his breath yelled unclearly on the top of his lungs while knocking people out of his way. Once people got closer to him, it became obvious that despite his modest height, the man had extremely firm muscles all about his body. His fierce determination to knock everyone out of his way reminded one of a professional football player.
(Ooi, that guy's dangerous!) (How come neither Shizuo nor Simon is here!?)
(Run fast!) (Call the police! The police!) (Uh! He's heading this way!)
(Wait! Take his photo!) (Stupid! It's not the time!) (You're the stupid one! You got the photo, you got the evidence!) (Ah, I see.)
(Uwah! I can't get away!) (Dad, what's that guy doing?) (Don't walk away from me!)
(Что случилось?) [What happened?]
(Нет проблем.) [No problem.]
(Eh!? What's up, what's up, Kuru-nee!? What's going on!?)
(Quiet [Don't shout].)
(I didn't even notice, I was too busy looking at porn! Why's everyone shouting?)
(Shut [Shut up].)
Voices drowned each other out and the street was in a commotion -
However, an even more bizarre human being was just about to make his appearance.
The gang of girls who had just got out of the game center retreated in fear of getting involved in whatever was going on. But a man had walked out - flippantly - from the center of the gang.
At first glance he looked like any average young man.
Dressed in several thin layers of clothes, he looked like a model who had just walked off a casual male fashion magazine.
Rather than Ikebukuroian, his appearance struck one as better suited for Daikanyama* or Omotesandou*. His face stood out in contrast to his rather modest dress style.
* Daikanyama: a district in Shibuya, Tokyo. Omotesandou: a road in Shibuya and Minato, Tokyo near Harajuku Station. Daikanyama and Omotesandou are both upscale shopping areas famous for fashion flagship stores such as Louis Vuitton and Prada.
- Which was not to say that he was extremely pretty or ugly; in fact, at present it was hard to tell on which side he fell.
On his face shaded under the straw hat there were layers of bandage wrapped about his forehead, part of which was still drenched in blood. One of his eyes was covered under a medical eye mask used to relieve swelling, and a huge Band Aid was plastered across his cheek.
Around the eye mask his skin looked slightly blue as if he had been recently hit with a bat or fallen down a staircase.
"Ah, Rocchi, it's dangerous! You're already wounded."
One of the girls shouted, but it was already too late. The young man who had just been called "Rocchi" had situated himself on the exact escape route of the man who was charging towards him like a bull.
"GET OUTTA MY WAY AHHHHHHHHH!"
The masculine guy yelled and accelerated while sinking his body lower, ready to knock the young man out of his way -
The young man with the injured face did nothing but deliver a direct kick at the man right when he was about to crash into him.
This move was dubbed "kenka kick*" in professional wrestling; basically, it was like stomping on the opponent without mercy, only horizontally. It was the illustrious move that enabled Kyojin wrestlers to send their opponents flying with one single kick.
* For a visual example check out this picture.
Usually the sight of the man's shoulders as he was charging forward like a bull would have been enough to make anyone lose their balance and get knocked out of his way.
- And that was exactly what everyone in the spectating crowd had expected would happen to the young man standing on one foot.
But their speculations failed completely.
A screeching sound came from the middle of the road.
The origin of that sound was obvious to anyone once they cast a look at the the young man who had moved noticeably backwards from where he had been - and the black line extending from under the one foot he was standing on.
It was impossible to tell what kind of energy flow inside him had enabled him to stop the charging man with the sole of his foot and simply skid backwards a little bit on his other foot instead of getting knocked into mid-air.
The instantaneous impact must have been horrible for the young man judging by the way thin smoke seemed to come out of the black line left on the asphalt - which was actually molten rubber from the sole of his shoe.
The man who had charged at him with the full might of his body didn't advance another inch.
Had he kept his momentum and added to it with a push of his foot, he would probably have been able to send the young man flying with ease. However, the man seemed unable to make the last stride which should have been his most powerful one.
As to why - it was because with that "kenka kick" the young man had stuffed the man's mouth with the heel of his shoe. His foot was now deep in the man's face as well.
"You......knocked three women out of your way just now, didn't you?"
The young man said in a cold voice as if to himself, not seeming to mind that the man could hardly have heard him.
"Gabu……gah……"
His front teeth must have been broken.
The man with a shoe heel in his mouth had hardly any idea what was going on. He simply groaned.
As he listened to the man groan, the younger man narrowed his uninjured eye -
"Three times."
And, with the whole weight of his body concentrated on his foot, he move the tip of his shoe three times.
To put it simply, he ground the man's face rather forcefully.
A slight screeching noise came from the man's nose which was quickly being ground out of its place like a control knob of an electric stove being turned.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! ARGH~! ARGHHH!"
The man finally seemed to realize what was going on under the refreshed attack of pain.
He continued to scream nonsensically and roll on the floor with his hands over his bloody face.
The young man looked at him as if he were a mosquito he had just finished off with a spray of insect repellant.
The girls who had been watching him from afar began to chatter anew without sounding worried in the very least.
"Rocchi looks pretty mad, doesn't he?"
"Of course. The clerk who had been chasing this old guy was a woman."
"So it's for women again? How naughty."
"But Rocchi is a playboy. There's nothing you can do about it."
"That's why he's charming."
"Exactly~!"
The female clerk had appeared in front of "Rocchi" before he could hear what the girls were saying about him.
"T - Thank you so very much......this guy stole from us......"
The woman's voice was shaking. It could have been out of fatigue because she had run all the way here with dragging feet, or out of sheer fear of the man who was lying on the ground with blood all over his face and the young man who had put him into that state.
The young man took off his hat and grabbed the female clerk's hand with tenderness.
"It's nothing. I just did what I should have done as a human being."
The words he said sounded so good-natured that it was surprising.
The smile he gave the woman from in-between the eye mask and the bandages was soft, making it hard to believe that he was the same young man who had just kicked the man in the face.
The young man with a refreshing air about him noticed something about the female clerk's foot and looked worried.
"Look, my lady, you're injured."
"Eh......ah, not really......I tried to stop the guy but he knocked me away......"
"......"
The young man kept smiling - but suddenly, he hopped backwards.
"Eh?"
The female clerk shuddered involuntarily, not realizing what the young man was trying to do.
She did soon enough, though.
The young man had landed on nothing else than the leg of the shoplifter who was lying on the ground. He had stomped on the man's knee with all his weight concentrated on his feet.
The man's scream soon drowned out the bone-chilling noise coming from his knee.
"Dahbahhhhhhhhhhhh! Argh! Dahhh! AHHHHRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Shut up, scum."
The young man said in an icy voice and kicked the man mercilessly in the balls.
" ---------------------- Uhhhh......"
"I'll spare you your life for now since I don't want to make your wife and daughters cry if you do have them waiting for you to come home. But how dare you hit a woman when you're a man? Hmm?"
" --------- ! ---------------- ! ----------------- ! "
The shoplifter seemed to have exhausted all the air he had in his lungs. He couldn't move a finger, and simply kept twitching on the ground.
Everyone in the street who had witnessed this scene stood frozen. The young man, on the other hand, didn't look bothered in the very least as he smiled and said:
"Everything's OK now, don't worry. I've avenged you."
"......"
The young man began to talk non-stop once again in front of the completely dumbstruck woman.
"A beautiful lady like yourself is really not carved out for revenge. No, not at all. That's why it's better to leave to me such lowly labor that does nothing but dirties your hands - "
One of the girls standing behind the young man cut in.
"Rocchi."
"Yo, what's up, Non."
It was the shortest girl out of the throng that had come with him.
The girl who had just been called "Non" was pulling at his sleeve and saying in a nonchalant voice:
"Kiyo-nee said you kind of overdid it for it to count as self-defense. You'll be in trouble if you don't run right now."
"Eh? Is that so?"
The young man answered just as nonchalantly as he eyed the unconscious man twitching on the ground. He turned his gaze to the female clerk once again.
The clerk was blinking without saying a word. She looked even more afraid now then she did when she thanked the young man.
"......What should I do, Non? It looks like I traumatized her."
"You'll be in trouble if you don't run. Look, the police's almost here."
"Oops, that's true."
He spotted vaguely several police officers in their uniforms in the crowd waiting for the traffic light to turn green at the crossing in front of the Station.
"Bye, beautiful lady. I'll excuse myself for now. You better find someone to check on your foot, just to make sure there's no aftereffects from - "
"Enough, Rocchi! Just go!"
"Oi! Wait a sec......Non, since when are you acting like a big baby……got it! I'm coming! I'm coming, OK!? Hey, lady! If that man wakes up, you tell him! Tell him that if he wants a rematch he can come find me any time on Saitama's prefectural highways......that hurts, that hurts! I'm coming! Here, I can walk on my own, so stop pulling at my ear, would you, Non!? Non-chaaaan!"
The young man had been dragged back into the throng of girls and hurried away from the scene.
Some of the people who remained behind tried to take photos of him with their cell phones, but had to be content with taking photos of the shoplifter (though by now it was hard to tell whether he was the criminal or the victim) instead since the young man had quickly concealed himself in the throng of girls.
♂♀
After that commotion, when everyone was wondering just who that young man was -
"So they're here......"
A man sitting in a Lotteria nearby who had witnessed the entire event murmured to himself.
"Goodness...now the city's gonna be in some real trouble."
Just as the bespectacled debt collector with dreadlocks looked deeply disturbed -
A man who was somehow in a bartender suit despite being in a hamburger chain restaurant walked towards him and said:
"Tom-san, I got us coffee. ......Is something wrong?"
"Ah, thank you. ......It's nothing. I just spotted a face I happened to know."
Heiwajima Shizuo - the man in the bartender suit - sat down in front of his boss Tom and replied with a calm expression, either because he didn't hear the noise from the commotion or because he simply didn't care.
"A friend of yours?"
"No, not really......"
Tom sipped at his black coffee and frowned.
"They're not my friends. But they might be looking for you."
"?"
"Look, didn't you give those Saitama bousouzoku the hell of their lifetimes last month?......Or the heaven, since you practically blasted them into the sky."
"......Ah, yeah, the scums who damaged my clothes......"
Tom reminded himself to avoid provoking Shizuo further as he saw Shizuo's face turn dark. He continued:
"The head of 'Toramaru' was there a minute ago."
"......"
"His name is Rokujou Chikage. He may look like he's nothing more than a guy with a gaggle of girls at his heels in the day, but he's not the captain of Toramaru for nothing. Not that he's the type who would set fire to your home or anything, but it's still better to watch out."
Shizuo pondered this over for a moment after he heard what Tom had said.
"Are you talking about the guy in the leather jacket with the white heart-mark print?"
"Hmm? You know him? That's actually a tokko-fuku of sorts, but they only wear them at night."
"Yeah. He came looking for me last night."
"Huh?"
Tom's hand stopped in mid-air with the coffee cup in it as he heard Shizuo's sudden reply. He frowned and stared at Shizuo.
Shizuo chewed his hamburger and began to tell Tom what had happened last night.
"Well……a guy on a motorbike kind of came looking for me for some reason when I was on my way home yesterday."
♂♀
Night of the previous day, somewhere in Ikebukuro
"Yo, what up?"
"?"
Shizuo turned around as he heard somebody talk to him - and found a young man standing in front of a motorbike with its engine stopped.
"You're Heiwajima Shizuo, right? Well, it's not like there are that many guys who walk around in bartender suits anyway. I heard you're famous in the neighborhood."
"......?"
"I also heard that you gave my team the hell of their lifetimes recently."
"Your team?"
The young man - Rokujou Chikage - said in a bright voice to Shizuo, who was looking surprised:
"Well, I also heard that they picked on you first, so I gave them quite the lecture myself as well. But anyhow, they did end up having to be hospitalized, all of them. Even though it was our fault to begin with, that was still kind of overdoing it, don't you think? So I came here to file a complaint."
The young man who was about five inches shorter than Shizuo walked straight towards him with a fearless smile on his face - until they were so close that they could almost sense each other's breath.
"So I asked the guys in their hospital beds, and you know what they told me? They said you uprooted an entire street lamp! At first I thought they were just funny in the head, but when I got here today I did find a street lamp with new concrete around its base."
"And?"
"I'm the Captain of the team, you see. Plus I'm interested in getting to know just how strong you are......ah, by the way, are there women who would cry if you don't come home?"
"Huh?"
Chikage grinned light-heartedly as he saw Shizuo frown, and continued:
"Well, I can let you off the hook today if there are. I don't enjoy making women cry."
At that instant, anyone who knew how Shizuo was usually like would have expected his fuse to burn out and his demon fist to land on the young man.
But he didn't look angry; in fact, he looked like he was finally beginning to understand what the young man had meant.
"......Ah, I see. I got it now."
"Got what?"
"So basically you came here to pick a fight with me?"
"Basically, yes."
Chikage shook his head in a sort of resignation as he heard Shizuo ask him the belated question.
Shizuo took off his sunglasses and put them into his pocket while saying in a nostalgic voice:
"I see, I see. The last time I've been picked on this straightforwardly, I was still in high school. Speaking of which, I'm already working, but you're still a kid, aren't you? You don't even look like you're twenty yet. Even if you get to beat me up it's nothing to flaunt at school about."
"Fighting has nothing to do with age. Have you gotten better at talking thanks to your bartending job?"
"I wish."
Shizuo chuckled slightly and flexed his neck.
"Anyway, I don't hate people who come to pick on me directly. It's still better if nobody comes to pick on me, of course."
"Sorry about that."
"By the way, there's something I should tell you first."
They were already way too close, but Shizuo still tried to say more. At that instant -
Shizuo, who had taken off his sunglasses, became momentarily blinded by the soles of the other man's feet.
Accompanied by a heavy sound of impact, Chikage's feet were now in Shizuo's face.
Just when Shizuo opened his mouth to speak, Chikage had used the guardrail on the sidewalk as his springboard to deliver this seemingly impossible kick with the weight of his body concentrated on his feet.
Yet -
- I got him!
Though that was the feeling that was washing over his body, Chikage couldn't help but notice that something was different.
- What?
- How come this guy's not falling to the ground?
Chikage felt as if he had just delivered a kick at an extremely thick stick of bamboo. An eerie chill ensnared his body.
He nevertheless managed to maintain his balance as he landed, kicked the ground forcefully and swung his fist straight at his opponent with all his might.
But something still felt wrong.
- ......
- ......What exactly is this?
- ......Did I just hit the ground?
Although he did feel the softness of flesh with the front of his fist, he was unable to make his fist advance another inch.
It was like punching the ground with his fist; he couldn't sink his fist any deeper.
Question marks swirled in Chikage's mind along with the chill. Then - Shizuo's unchanging voice reached his ears.
"There's something I should tell you first......what I want in my life is just what my name says - to spend my days in peace."
"......Huh?"
Chikage's eyes couldn't help but widen.
His fist did reach his opponent's face.
But all that did was make Shizuo tilt his face a fraction of an inch; even his expression remained unchanged.
Shizuo, on the other hand, looked as if he didn't even feel the series of attacks and continued to express his wish in a flat voice:
"Therefore...how should I put it......"
"Uwah......!?"
Though the younger man was an expert at fighting himself, the flesh-colored hump still broke through his defense line with ease.
" G O T O S L E E P "
And the fist sank, with an amazing lack of further ado, deep into Chikage's face.
(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II)