DURARARA!! Vol.5 CHAPTER 3, PART I (updated)
CHAPTER 3
THEIR YOUTH, IT SPARKLES AND FALLS
Somewhere in Russia
"So, where were we?"
Lingerin banged the jars on his hands repeatedly against each other and inquired nonchalantly.
Despite his light-hearted tone, however, the bloody backdrop against which he said these words was the furthest from light-hearted.
The air was literally heavy with the smell of blood.
Worse than that, however, was the more pungent smell of explosives floating in the air. The denseness of the smoke made even the river of blood on the floor seem pale.
Legions of bodies lay at Lingerin's feet.
These had probably belonged to the group of illegal immigrants they had been talking about. They were all foreign-looking men bleeding terribly from their heads and torsos and slowly turning into smelly, lifeless lumps of flesh on the ground.
The faces of the men still standing didn't even change.
Next to Lingerin Drakon was carefully rubbing dust off his glasses. Around them the men dressed in special force-like attire remained silent and vigilant.
"We were talking about Vorona and Slon, Comrade Lingerin."
"Ahaha, that's right. These folks came and interrupted us when we were only halfway through that story. How inconsiderate of them. That's why they lost their lives."
Lingerin sighed heavily and muttered.
Raising his hands, which were still stuck in the jars, he said in a grand voice:
"That's right. It's very important that one be considerate. On some level, Denis and Samia are what I would call considerate people - since they escaped to Japan when we were about to enter a a life-and-death situation here."
"When you launched a preemptive attack as a warning on the armed force our rival had hired, you mean."
"I was so sure that I was gonna die. Good lord, I was actually the inconsiderate one back then. I'd never thought there would be so many former special forces soldiers among them. None of our shots were lethal since we only meant them to serve as a warning, but theirs, alas, they really wanted us dead."
Drakon, too, pushed up his glasses in a pretentious way and deadpanned in a cold voice to his cackling employer:
"Many former special force members lost their jobs during democratization and disarmament. When looking for alternative employment, a considerable number began working under private armed forces and mafia so we would have to watch out……I've already told you that 23 times since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but apparently Comrade Lingerin had ears that did not hear."
"Well, you can't blame me, every member I knew simply became mercenaries……speaking of which, it's not exactly the time to call me on this, don't you think? I didn't expect you to be so inconsiderate, Drakon."
"If you were trying to be considerate you would have first done something about your hands, Comrade Lingerin."
There was no contempt, scorn or displeasure on Drakon's face even at the sight of his employer's hands stuck in honey jars like a bear's paws. He simply stated the fact in a monotonous voice.
Lingerin averted his gaze and laughed as if to conceal his embarrassment:
"I didn't mean for them to……"
The next instant - one of the jars exploded with a huge noise.
A polished black pistol appeared from what remained of the jar on Lingerin's right hand.
The mouth of the pistol was still smoking while the shards rained down on the bodies on the floor.
The next second, something fell to the floor with a clang.
Drakon turned to find an illegal immigrant who had apparently only been pretending to be dead. A stream of blood trickled down the corner of his mouth as his pistol, which he had been aiming at Lingerin, fell from his now-lifeless hand.
"……Very well-played. That's all I'm saying for now."
Lingerin didn't seem to take notice of Drakon, who shrugged as he said this, and instead broke into a light-hearted smile.
"I see……all I had to do was pull the trigger! It was a pity that I had to break the jar, but the jar was cheaper than the pistol anyway……probably!"
"I would question first the necessity for you to put the pistol into the jar in the first place. Secondly, why didn't you let go of the pistol, retract your hand and take the pistol out afterwards? Thirdly, wouldn't it have been faster to just break the jar on the wall than to blast it open with a bullet?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Speak Russian."
"Did what I said just now sound like English or Japanese to you? I see. If this is a result of a dysfunctional Wernicke's area*, it has to be either yours or mine. Let's go to the hospital together and see who gets sent to the infirmary."
* Wernicke's area: the part of the cerebral cortex involved in the understanding of written and spoken language.
Lumps of dry ice were coming out of his mouth as he spoke -
Lingerin averted his gaze right away as this illusion almost took shape in front of his eyes. Instead, he steered the topic back.
"Yeah, we were talking about Little Miss Vorona, weren't we? She's twenty now, but mentally she's still a kid. She's damn capable, but compared to Samia and Denis she's not nearly as considerate."
"It's not a problem of whether she's considerate or not. They violated our unwritten laws, which simply were not to be violated. I will literally beat their brains out if I get the chance."
"God, you're scary. This is not something you say about your own daughter. I've decided to not be mad at them, I have. Let's just shut them up in the storage room and leave it at that."
"The storage, huh……well, I suppose starving them to death will make them more miserable than feeding them bullets."
Drakon said with a serious face. Lingerin broke out in sonorous laughter and chimed in as if amused:
"Oi oi, why are you assuming that we're executing them? Let it go. We're neither a mafia group or the military. Just live and let live. Plus it sounds sort of barbarian when you talk about killing people as if it's part of your routine."
Lingerin lectured on unashamedly while leisurely finding himself a place to sit amid the legions of slaughtered bodies.
"First off……I don't think that you, with your skills, can manage to shoot Vorona."
"Affirmative. I regret to say that I can't do the job. But that was why we sent Igor to Japan, wasn't it? We also told him he could seek Denis and Samia's assistance if necessary……but then, I heard Igor was seriously injured by a local just a couple of days ago."
"Looks like Japan is a tough country after all. I heard our Mr. President* is a master of the Japanese martial art called judo. Could it be that a judo master licked him? Ah, guess I might as well also break the other jar."
* At the time Durarara!!x5 was released the president of Russia was still Putin.
Lingerin said as he aimed the pistol in his right hand at the jar in his left hand. Drakon didn't turn to look at him; instead he put his hand on Lingerin's shoulder and said in a flat tone:
"I'll spare you the detailed lecture, but you'll wound your left hand if you do this. It's better to just crack it open with the grip. Japan is indeed tough, though. If Vorona hears that Igor's been licked by a local, she's going to be sure to do something about it."
"That's true. Little Miss Vorona has feelings, unlike you - you're just a robot. She always acts on her instinct and impulses and kills people easily. She kills for things other than food or self-defense, which is what makes humans different from beasts."
Lingerin slammed the pistol grip against the jar, which broke into pieces upon the contact and fell to the floor.
That revealed his other hand holding a slice of beef jerky marinated in honey. Lingerin put it in his mouth and said:
"Well, she's still a weirdo among humans, of course."
"It's probably not the most adequate thing to say in front of Comrade Lingerin, but Vorona is far from grown-up as a human being. She lost her mother when she was still a kid, and all I had given her was books. I've been leaving her to her own devices, and this is the only way it could turn out. She is extremely knowledgeable, but mentally she's still a child."
Drakon recounted calmly in a mildly self-reproachful voice. Lingerin, on the other hand, waved his hand and said light-heartedly:
"Isn't that good, though? She's young and blooming. Getting some exercise abroad will do her good. Japan's warmer in the springtime than Russia, isn't it? Just let her enjoy it."
"Though she did take with her too many toys not suited for underage kids."
♂♀
May 3rd, a certain road in Ikebukuro
Vorona, the woman in the rider suit, rode on as she watched from afar the figure rolling onto the floor.
"……"
At the same time there was a sound of friction, and a faintly glittering thread slid swiftly back into her belt.
But no one around her took notice of the faint glitter; every passer-by in the street was too busy looking at the overturned motorbike and the rider, who was thrown from his seat.
The vehicles following the motorbike had no choice but to stop or make a detour to avoid getting themselves into trouble.
Vorona disguised herself as one of "spectators" and steered her motorbike into a road that lay before her.
She looked into the rear mirror. Seeing that the commotion had officially started, she rode away into the night without casting the street a backward glance.
She knew very well why there was going to be a commotion.
She had seen it with her own eyes -
The moment when the helmet of the rider on the Black Motorbike was sent flying into mid-air and the now-headless body crashing onto the asphalt.
"……"
Vorona remained wordless inside her helmet and pondered things over as she kept riding on the night road - it didn't take her long to arrive at the destination.
Parked there on the road with very sparse traffic was a truck.
It was her private truck complete with the logo of a sham company.
Slon was already waiting for her in the driver's seat. As she approached the truck, its hazard lamps flashed briefly.
Vorona walked towards the truck in silence and made her way to its back.
The rear door opened on its own as she approached it and put down a steel slope like a plane's ramp.
Vorona stepped onto it effortlessly and walked straight onto the bed of the truck.
The rear half of the bed resembled a storage room; miscellaneous items were piled one upon another including a stand for the motorbike. The front half, on the other hand, was furnished like a camping car with its set of sofas and closets cushioned with soft white fur.
Vorona stood before the closet and took off her helmet as well as her rider suit. She only wore a thin T-shirt and a pair of leggings underneath, which allowed her well-proportioned figure to show under the fluorescent light.
This place had electricity supply just like a real camping car. Other than the fluorescent light, one could find a number of power sockets at the front.
Slon's voice came through via the transceiver on the table as she took off her T-shirt, leaving only her brassiere.
"Hard day, huh?"
The voice of the male was talking to her from the driver's seat. It inquired leisurely:
"Are you changing right now?"
"I affirm."
"Really. It's a pity that I can't watch."
"I don't find it a pity."
Vorona answered in a flat tone. She did not seem to find it embarrassing or annoying, for she simply changed into a new T-shirt without further ado.
Slon was at a loss as to what to say at her lack of reaction, so he chose to jump to a completely irrelevant topic.
"Speaking of which, I saw a car with a number plate that said 1313 driving past when I was waiting for you. And the question suddenly struck me……why is 13 regarded as an unlucky number? I'm so wound up over this that I feel like I could die. Is that a curse of the number 13 as well?"
"Many explanations exist. Famous one is at Last Supper, Judas was No.13 on the table. But origin is not limited to Christianity. Nordic Pantheon, harmony achieved by 12 gods. Loki appearing as the 13th broke the harmony. Ancient times, countries that used the duodecimal system, 13 broke the harmony of 12. The taboo number. Pity."
"I see. So it's still unclear. Also……could you just speak Russian with me? I was trained quite thoroughly before, so my Japanese is more or less OK……but yours is sort of awkward. Or simply weird. People may despise us if that gets in the way of mutual understanding."
"I negate. Communication is possible on matters of work, no problem. Being despised, no problem."
Vorona answered curtly. The man in the driver's seat replied with the same curtness:
"I don't quite get it, but since you say there's no problem, whatever."
Slon didn't dwell further on this subject and instead booted the accelerator to start the truck.
Vorona, who had by now changed into casual clothes, listened to the sound of the engine and muttered to herself on the sofa:
"Overly simple. Disappoint. Black Motorbike, was too weak."
"You said something?"
"Slon, no relevance."
"Not my business? Then whatever."
Having made sure that Slon's flirtatious voice had stopped bothering her, she began to ruminate on the matter.
- So disappointing.
- I had thought that the monster-like human being on the picture would have been able to satisfy me.
- His guard was way too loose. Like any other delinquent out there.
- He didn't even notice that the specially made steel thread on his neck was connected to a transceiver.
- Hunger.
- ……Hunger.
♂♀
If "youth" stood for "the spring of life", then the twenty-year-old woman's spring was still not in sight.
The woman named Vorona had never loved a single human being.
She had probably never even loved herself.
She could grasp the concept of love the same way she could other knowledge.
But she had no way to tell whether it was necessary for her life.
Because other than the second-hand knowledge from the books, she had never experienced actual love.
She grew up watching her father's back.
But it was not because she had harbored admiration for him.
Her father, code-named "Drakon", never turned his face to her. He kept giving her books to preoccupy herself with, kept his back turned towards her, kept his attention focused somewhere other than on her.
[It's his way of expressing love. He keeps his back turned to you, Little Miss, because he wanted to protect you from any harm in the world. Drakon is an awkward and stubborn guy, though, so he's never going to let it show on his face.]
Lingerin, her father's employer, had once said to the little girl.
It did little more than to perplex her: she didn't understand what love meant, so Lingerin's words went over her head.
But she did not feel lonely, either.
Her father kept a large amount of books at home, and she had full access to his collection.
Any book she wanted her father would also purchase for her without hesitation.
Lingerin also liked to bring her strange books from foreign countries since he found it intriguing that she could read several times faster than an average person.
Surrounded by her pile of books, she took in every necessary and unnecessary bit of knowledge and stored them in her brain.
The little girl was not loved by her father; neither had she loved anyone. But there wasn't discontent in her heart for her life.
She wasn't friends with any of the kids at her school. The kids around her had isolated her since they had all been warned by their parents not to "get too close to her" (they knew her father did something very dangerous for a living.) She had therefore spent her childhood in solitude.
But she did not mind. All she needed to be satisfied with life was books.
She had never felt hunger.
Until a certain moment came to pass.
The first time she felt hungry was when she first killed a human being.
With the knowledge she had acquired from books, she killed a robber who had broken into their house on a certain night.
Half of it was sheer luck; but on any account, she had managed to kill a grown man.
- Had managed it although she was a girl who had just turned ten and didn't even know how to pull a trigger.
The man stiffened instantly - it took far less time than what she had expected from reading the descriptions in the books.
An unfamiliar breeze began to blow through her heart at the sight.
It took her many years to put a pin on just what the strange feeling engulfing her heart had been - "hunger".
Her father returned home as soon as he could after she contacted him; the moment he saw the stiffened body of the robber - he locked his daughter in a silent embrace.
All along he had acted like a robot. Yet the warmth from this expressionless man's tight embrace remained unmistakable in her memory even after all these years.
The little girl had thought:
I don't know what happened, but Father has turned his face to me now.
And acted like he cherished his tie with me.
Why?
- Because I took down the bad guy?
- Because I killed someone stronger than I was?
- Because I am strong?
These were but childish and ridiculous theories.
In her little heart she had probably sensed vaguely - no, clearly, that "These are all wrong."
But she did not understand what love was.
That was why she never could understood why her father had hugged her.
She had hung on to the false reasons because she could not understand the real reason.
Or simply pretended to hang on to them.
After that, she began to learn things she could not learn from the books from Denis and Samia, her father's subordinates.
Denis and Samia were relatively young members of the group, yet nobody knew what they had previously done for a living. Lingerin, the head of the weapon company, did not care about such things. All her careful research had yielded was a trivial clue that said "Denis was in the army."
But this simple piece of information was more than enough for her.
After that, she asked the duo to teach her how to use various kinds of weapons as well as how to fight. Denis refused, saying it was "not the sort of thing to be taught to a girl". Samia was only willing to teach her how to work out her body.
Eventually, however, they began to teach her how to use weapons after she had proven herself capable of assisting her father in his job. The amount they had taught her was only meant to make her able to defend herself - yet the girl put these skills to use in a far more aggressive way.
She started out fighting the delinquents on the streets.
Moved on to armed drug dealers.
Moved on to former mafia members who had been in the army.
Began to fight two such opponents at once.
Three.
Four - five - six -
She kept upping the level of her opponents and reflecting on her own strength every time she survived from those fights.
One day, she caught wind that her father and Lingerin were planning to destroy this rival organization - she immediately set out to its lair and single-handedly killed its every member.
Lingerin, who got the report, arrived at the scene with his subordinates - and found the girl leafing through the dead's gossip magazines with gusto in a room filled with the smell of blood and explosives.
She was miraculously unhurt; yet her father, instead of pulling her into his arms, slapped her hard on the face.
At that moment - she at last realized.
That she was not shocked at all about the fact that she was slapped.
Rather, she felt from the bottom of her heart that it was only reasonable.
She had felt this way since a long, long time ago.
Perhaps from the second she had killed that robber.
At the same time, another realization hit her.
Why do I keep doing this even though I know Father will not praise me?
Not because I want to be loved.
It's very simple.
The happiness.
The delight.
The pleasure.
The bliss.
The ecstasy.
In short, she had been telling herself that she just wanted her father to pay attention to her and using it as an excuse to indulge herself in the joy of killing.
Ironically, she came to realize this when her father slapped her because he was worried about her. But it no longer mattered to her whether her father was willing to turn his face to her or not.
After the harness on her heart had been removed, her abilities as a fighter skyrocketed, but her mentality became increasingly twisted.
Lingerin, who noticed the change in her, had commented that she was "like a crow - smart, but for some reason just loves rotten meat." Laughingly, he gave her the code name "Vorona"* and made her a formal member of his company.
* Vorona: Russian for "crow".
She kept eliminating their rivals on Lingerin's orders.
Yet her hunger was far from satisfied.
Because her father did not hug her like he did the first time?
No.
She had already realized that this was not the reason.
So was she a blood-thirsty homicide manic?
To be exact, that was not it either.
What she enjoyed was not taking people down.
Nor killing them.
What she enjoyed was attacking the impregnable - and blowing it apart.
Tearing down multiple layers of defense and dicing the muscles toughened from years of exercise underneath.
Aiming at the weaker joints of the modern heavy-armed men, firing fuel-air explosives or bullets into their shield and seeing with her mind's eye the tender flesh inside the hard shell being torn apart.
Confirm.
All she wanted to do was confirm.
It was perhaps just another form of her desire for knowledge.
Fragile.
For her - humans were way too fragile.
But were they really?
The first robber she had killed was far more fragile than what she had pictured from reading descriptions in books.
That was the reason of her hunger.
She was slightly traumatized by the fact that she had already killed someone at such a young age.
But there were people in the world who would keep touching the old scars - even tearing them open when they were about to heal - and she was one of those.
Was it really a human being that she had killed back then?
Were human beings really that fragile?
Were they really that fragile, herself included?
No matter what kind of training they had gone through, no matter what heavy armor they put on, no matter how much fighting experience they had -
Were those so-called human beings in essence nothing more than lumps of flesh like water balloons supported by skeletons with the same hardness as quartz?
For some reason she did not know, she would feel restless unless she kept trying to confirm it.
She had no idea why.
She kept looking for new opponents with that thought on her mind -
And now, even though it was not entirely her intention, she was working as an individual "freelancer" to earn her living in this metropolis of a country far removed from war.
♂♀
< Alrighty! Let's start now with the greeting from me, everyone's idol - Takemoo Eiji! We'll be taking you as usual to the "Thundering Russian Paradise" today! Allow me to introduce my partner whom you may already know very well, the babe bilingual in Russian and Japanese!>
< Сегодня также рады удовлетворить всех! (Today is also happy to meet all!) I'm Murada Kiely! What was with the "babe"? That was completely out of the blue! >
< Oi oi oi, that's not right! "Out of the blue" is not a very befitting phrase for a Russian speaker! I think Kiely should do away with that strange choice of words reminiscent of Carlyle's era and go for a uniquely Russian brand of sexiness instead! Such as wearing something that's uniquely Northern! Like a single layer of lingerie under a thick fur coat! >
< Замолчй Трилобиты! >
< Eh!? Hang on! What did you just say? Oi, what did you just say in Russian!? >
Vorona slowly opened her eyes as a wave of noise reached her ears from the radio.
- She had been napping for a while.
It looked like Slon had been listening to the radio for the heck of it while driving.
She looked at the watch. It hadn't been for very long.
The sound of the radio continued; at the same time, a familiar voice howled with laughter through the transceiver.
"Hahahahahahahah! Vorona, you heard? The woman on the radio just said 'Shut up, Trilobite'! When do we ever call someone a Trilobite? Hahahahahahah!"
"I affirm. But I don't think it's worth releasing such a huge amount of laughter over. Also, Slon's language ability is capable of translating 'Трилобиты' into perfect Japanese, I am mildly shocked."
"That's because your father put me through a hellish amount of training. I can't remember how many Japanese newspapers and novels I was forced to read."
"I, fled. Parental ties, already severed. Next meeting, one of us will die. Pity, pity."
Vorona remained deadpan as ever as the topic suddenly ventured from everyday chatter into bloodier territory.
"Bodyguard on Black Motorbike, I murdered him just now."
"That's good."
"The whereabouts of the kid, the client will contact us once he knows. Before that, there's a necessity that we go do the next job."
"Ahhh……speaking of which, we did take another job. But is it really OK? You're pretty reluctant to do that one as well, I think?"
Vorona picked up a book from the shelf as she heard Slon say. Opening it to find the page where her bookmark was, she answered nonchalantly:
"Not any problem at all. We do it tonight."
And she took out the bookmark - which was in fact a photo she had stuck in there between the pages.
- This is the target.
- It's true that I don't want to do it.
- I don't want to hurt this completely ordinary-looking girl who doesn't look like she's been trained in anything.
- Even I won't be able help feeling guilty. And more importantly, bored.
- The client might have had his reasons, or just did this out of irrational hate……but it's not like I can do anything about it.
Vorona made herself come to terms with the fact and instead focused on memorizing the face on the photo.
It was the face of a girl in round glasses looking docile and reticent.
Sonohara Anri.
The name on her profile rang no bell for Vorona.
Vorona was fairly new to the city called Ikebukuro.
And not exactly that interested in it.
Of course, even among the residents of Ikebukuro, only a very select few knew what that girl was capable of.
As for what it would mean to step into the circle of these select few - Vorona could never have known.
- Speaking of which, I was so very let down by that Black Motorbike.
- ……But still, I don't feel like I was going fast enough to sever his head.
- He's already dead, though, so there's no point in ruminating.
- Magicians or not, humans are fragile.
Yadogiri had only shown her a very small part of the video clips being circulated on the Internet.
That was why she had no idea -
How Celty Sturluson, or the "Black Motorbike", was referred to and hyped in the Japanese media.
The Headless Rider.
Not even the most skillful of fighters could slice off Celty's nonexistent head.
But that kind of knowledge wasn't in any of the books she had read.
That was why she did not notice.
Of course, there was no way that she could have taken supernatural phenomena into consideration and watched out.
It would have been like holding on to a talisman while working to avoid being cursed to death by the opponent's ghost.
Unfortunately, Celty Sturluson simply happened to belong to that supernatural category.
In addition, Vorona failed to notice something unusual about her own motorbike.
A black thread that was thinner than a hair had already been attached to the back of her motorbike.
The black thread extended out of the bed of the truck and far, far into the night.
Of course, she failed to notice too that from the other end of the black thread - the origin of the "abnormality" was about to come for her.
♂♀
Night of May 3rd, a net cafe in Ikebukuro
"OK……"
It was a very refreshing voice.
To put it in a cliché way, it was a voice that would make people think that the blue sky was talking to them. Without doubt, it was an extremely clear and invigorating voice.
"I see it's finally getting more interesting."
The owner of the voice muttered to himself as he focused on the words displayed on the screen.
The dainty-looking young man with a refreshing face was half lying and half sitting in a net cafe swivel chair, totally relaxed.
At first sight he looked like a gentle-natured man of slender build; but his features had a relative sharpness in them, making him the perfect exemplification of the word "handsome". He was smiling as if willing to accept anything in the world as part of him; yet at the same time his eyes shone without mercy as if he held contempt for everything except himself. The way he was dressed was idiosyncratic, but it was hard to point at why. Overall, he gave an elusive and mercurial vibe.
Right in front of him there was a net cafe computer with Internet connection, yet Orihara Izaya - the young man - kept playing with his cell phone.
He silently processed the world of information steadily flowing out of the little outlet in his hand as he muttered in a low voice:
"Now that gets me all nostalgic. Reminds me of my high school years."
He seemed to be spilling his heart out, but no one - as only to be expected - was there to respond in this isolated space.
The cubicles around his were all rented by the month by homeless youths as their "living quarters". Those temporary owners were all out at work at this hour.
After some negotiation with the manager of the cafe, Izaya was able to rent this cubicle by the year.
It was unclear what kind of negotiation went on between them, but it seemed that Izaya succeeded in convincing the manager that he was an exception.
He summarized the situation in his head from the information currently available - and slowly got up from the chair.
- Really, it's getting me all nostalgic.
- Though my high school years were a complete mess, many thanks to Shizu-chan.
- If only he hadn't existed, I would have been able to carry out my plans so much better.
- Now that I think of it, half of my high school life felt like it was spent on trying to wipe him off the face of the earth.
He waved light-heartedly to the clerk as he passed the counter and left the net cafe.
Rather than taking the elevator, he chose to walk down the stairs in sprightly steps, heading for the street under the curtain of night.
He was almost at the exit when he felt the uniquely warm spring air beginning to surround him, and the hubbub from the crowded downtown streets reaching his ears. The young man let himself be submerged; as if no longer able to suppress his heartfelt happiness, his lips curled into a grin.
- God, I feel so entertained already just thinking about it.
- No matter how the situation develops from this point onwards -
- I alone will be "out of the mosquito curtain".
One month ago -
Orihara Izaya had been completely excluded from the commotion following a certain incident in Ikebukuro.
It would have been a lie if one were to say that he did not feel the slightest grudge.
- Because he did have the feeling that he was left out by everyone else.
Orihara Izaya loved humans.
But that was not to say that he loved any particular individual.
He was a human himself, yet he loved the beings called "humans".
One could interpret it as a grandiose case of narcissism, but he never included himself in the "humans" he loved.
To put it in more exact words, he was deeply in love with "others".
He had wasted an ideal opportunity to observe the humans he loved. He was trapped in passivity when the reward money was placed on Celty's headless body.
It would have sounded harsh if one were to say that he did it to vent his anger.
Yet it was harsh but true: a desire to vent his anger was part of what prompted his actions.
It was like kicking bicycles out of his way because he felt like no one wanted to play with him……at least, that was the sort of pettiness in his heart when he start to carry out his plan - but the hardest part to deal with about Orihara Izaya was that he knew himself, his pettiness included, like the back of his hand.
Taking into account with full objectiveness every single detail he knew about the situation and about his own impulses - he would deliberately choose the worst possible route for the "others" he loved.
Orihara Izaya was not an "otherworldly" being like Celty nor an ultra-mighty warrior like Heiwajima Shizuo; he was but an ordinary human.
He was not completely rational and calm like a robot or a cold-blooded creature that didn't feel a thing about killing.
He was a human through and through.
Harboring desires ordinary humans too would harbor, crossing lines ordinary humans too would cross on sudden impulses -
He just happened to possess these two traits at once.
He had not the charisma to lead an evil force; he was but a creature that couldn't seem to have enough of what intrigued him.
Kishitani Shinra had made the following comment about Izaya when they were both in high school:
[I'll tell you what you are. You're kind of on the bad side, but you are not completely evil. Yet there's not a single ounce of goodness in you, either. Hmm, how should I put it…if I were to try to sum you up in one sentence - it would be something like "You make me want to throw up." - And that was a compliment, you know.]
Izaya had merely laughed when his almost-only friend said this. But in fact, he too thought it was right on the spot.
He made his targets throw up last night's dinner along with their various "real selves" and observed them from where their puke could not reach him.
That was how he kept observing the real nature of humans.
Be their puke high virtues or lowly venom worthy of nothing but contempt, Izaya would cherish them and caress them with the same affection.
And today, just like any other day for him -
He began his "game" in order to make humans throw up their real nature.
The players have all shown up.
The board was set.
All he had to do now was to roll the dice.
"All right. Shall I send a little present to all my lovely lovely Raira kouhais?"
" - Namely, a crisis just the right size to be a necessity if they want to grow up."
Orihara Izaya fell into deep thought.
- Outside of the mosquito curtain. Isn't that just an ideal place to be.
- Mosquitoes outside the curtain cannot sting the humans sleeping inside it.
- All I will do is make some annoying sounds when I flutter my wings.
- Slowly, but persistently, until I drive the humans inside the curtain crazy.
"After all, what is youth supposed to be about if you don't add a little spice to it?"
Izaya continued to play with his cell phone as he walked on.
Heiwajima Shizuo, Simon, and his twin sisters who were born troublemakers.
For him, there were countless natural enemies in Ikebukuro.
Yet he strolled the streets of this city, completely relaxed.
Blending himself into the city, insidiously, insidiously -
The winged insect outside the mosquito curtain was spreading its toxins on the night street.
And -
As a first flutter of his wings, he dialed a certain boy's cell phone number.
Soon a somewhat sheepish voice sounded from the other end.
"……Yo, long time no see, Ryuugamine-kun. Or should I call you Tanaka Taro-kun?"
Izaya greeted him in a half-joking voice before switching to a more serious tone and bringing up a certain topic.
"I just checked out the chatroom log. I've caught wind of that incident in Saitama, too."
"……It looks like Dollars is in a very strange situation right now."
♂♀
Night of May 3rd, Sonohara Anri's apartment
Sonohara Anri's apartment was plain and undecorated.
Everything was arranged in order unlike what you would expect froom a high school girl's home.
Disciplined girls tended to clean their rooms regularly, but her room was overly clean.
There was nothing in her apartment apart from the absolute necessary daily items - not even a leisure book.
There was a TV set and a radio, but they looked like they had hardly been turned on. On the desk there was a pile of textbooks she used at school.
It was obviously that the room was lived in, but there was nothing one could infer about the owner based on the items present in the room.
Such was the living space Sonohara Anri had created for herself.
The girl in pajamas stared at her cell phone in silence in the room without a computer.
Displayed on its screen was the interface of an online chatroom she had been going to quite regularly recently.
It was a chatroom Setton had invited her to join some time ago. It was administered by a female (?) screen-named Kanra.
In fact, she had never been told unequivocally by anyone that Kanra was female. But for Anri, who was clueless when it came to the Internet and its interpersonal roles, it was only natural that the concept of "online genderswapping" had never occurred to her.
- Celty-san……is not here today.
- So nervous……
Anri exhaled deeply as she thought about the Headless Rider who appeared as Setton in the chatroom.
Did anyone else in the chatroom know that Setton = Celty?
The question kept popping up in her head, yet she couldn't keep pursuing it.
It made her happy to just watch others talk in the chatroom.
But she was more nervous than she usually would be since Celty, the only one she was acquainted with in real life, was absent.
Anri had always logged on to the chatroom from net cafes until Celty taught her recently to access it from her cell phone. Right now, she was typing rather awkwardly on the cell phone.
Since she only had a few friends, this chatroom was one of the few places in which she could socialize with other people.
She had had her doubts about this method of communication since it was drastically different from talking to classmates at school. Regardless of that, though, she kept stepping further and further into this world.
Recognizing yet again the fact that she was an easily wavered human being through and through, Anri closed the display with a small sigh and placed the cell phone on the charger.
It was time to go to bed again.
Just as she thought and prepared to switch off the light -
The doorbell chimed from the doorway and rang throughout the entire room.
A strange chill ran down Anri's spine.
It was 11 o'clock in the evening.
There were probably people who wouldn't feel surprised.
But Anri simply couldn't figure out who among her friends would come to her apartment at such a late hour.
Of course, she couldn't ignore the doorbell either; despite the heavy doubts swirling in her heart, she put her face to the door.
Her eyes sought for a standing figure through the peephole but found none.
"……?"
And then - she did something she "shouldn't have done".
Feeling that the door chain would keep her safe, she slowly turned the lock.
Just as she was about to try to see what was going on outside the door -
A huge pair of garden scissors was thrusted into the gap and cut the chain in half in a matter of seconds.
It was already too late when she heard the loud "clang".
The door was pushed open, and the one who stood outside it - was a woman.
- Eh?
For a second Anri was at a loss as to what had happened.
The only clear object in her bespectacled vision was the figure of a woman.
The curves more accentuated than concealed by the thin layer of clothing had immediately convinced Anri that the other person was female.
But it was impossible for Anri to make out her face.
In addition to a mask with eye holes she had worn a pair of snow goggles, which concealed her face completely from view.
"Uh…………."
Anri was about to let out a scream - but the garden scissors were already pointing at her throat.
"Quiet. Will not kill you. Rest unperturbed."
The voice sounding through the mask was speaking perfectly unaccented Japanese, yet somehow it still felt weird.
"You, several days, will not be able to move. Possibility of several months, exist."
The woman said in a voice devoid of emotion.
"But, no necessity to die."
"Eh……"
"Will avoid the fatal spot. And call you an ambulance."
"E - Excuse me……"
"You, are lucky."
Upon that word, the woman drew her garden scissors back like a bolt of lightning -
And drove them into the softness of Anri's abdomen.
♂♀
Several seconds ago, in the truck's driver's seat
- Really, why did he have to ask us to hurt such a little girl? He could have just paid any delinquent on the street to do it. Why us?
Slon sat in the driver's seat of the truck and looked at the photo of their target in resignation.
- But then again, an average delinquent could easily overdo it and kill her. Or hurt her in certain important parts if it's a male……so it might have been the right choice after all to ask Vorona to do it.
Slon lazily juggled such thoughts on his mind as he tried to kill some time on the truck whose engine he had kept running.
That was when his ears caught a strange sound blending into the sound of the truck's engine.
"……? I think I heard something."
At first he didn't pay a lot of attention to that sound, which seemed to be coming from afar.
But it bugged him.
Because the sound was one seldom heard in the city called Tokyo.
- That was……
And the same sound reached his ears again.
- I was right.
A bigger question mark popped up in Slon's head as he became convinced that his ears were not tricking him.
- Why do I hear a horse's neigh in such a big city?
What he had heard was an awe-inspiring yet strange neigh of a horse.
- Are there horse racing grounds or stalls nearby?
He attempted to explain it away in his head, but the fact that the sound was heard in the center of a metropolis still bugged him to a certain degree.
If he were in New York or the US in general, it could have been the neigh of a police horse. But such things were unheard of in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.
More importantly - it was the most bizarre, the most "emotionally charged" neigh from a horse Slon had ever heard.
- What the…?
- Was that really a horse?
He noticed something as his doubts were slowly becoming uneasiness.
The source of that sound seemed to be coming closer.
- …?
Cold sweat began to trickle down his spine.
Sirens rang throughout his brain.
Had it been any other day he would probably have told himself "Whatever, I don't care either way" and given up on thinking.
But his instinct sharpened through his life-and-death experiences under Lingerin the weapon dealer kept warning him.
- What is the……? What's coming for me?
Slon couldn't help but gasp; nervously, he looked into the rear mirror.
And what he saw in it was -
A pitch-black motorbike, too black to be missed even under the curtain of night.
And - an otherworldly figure riding astride on the motorbike with a giant black scythe in its hands.
♂♀
Same time, the doorway to Anri's apartment
The neigh of a horse was heard closer and closer to where they were.
Vorona, too, had found it strange - but she was quickly distracted by another sound.
A metallic one.
She should have been able to drive the garden scissors deep enough into the girl's abdomen to make it necessary for her to be hospitalized -
Yet what Vorona's hands felt via the garden scissors was not the girl's soft flesh -
But something as hard as metal. There was a screeching metallic noise as if what she had just tried to cut had been a steel pipe.
"……Что (What)?"
An exclamation in Russian slipped from her tongue as her mouth hung open.
She directed her gaze at the source of the sound - and there, she saw that the blades of her scissors were stopped just as they were about to cut into the girl's abdomen - by the blade of something else.
Японский меч (Katana)?
It was an elongated and streamlined blade.
The slightly bending curve was almost reminiscent of the shape of water drops in nature.
- What…..is this?
The girl had a katana hidden on her, so she used it to stop her first attack.
It was a conclusion from a bizarre premise, but it was the only one she could arrive at.
Yet Vorona was about to witness something still more bizarre.
"Um……excuse me, but…"
The girl named Anri - her target - had a katana coming straight out of her arm as she asked, sounding perplexed:
"I don't think I know you……are you sure you're not looking for someone else……?"
(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II)