DURARARA!! Vol.6 CHAPTER 4, PART II
♂♀
Somewhere in Tokyo, the rooftop of a building near the abandoned factory
"Oi, Vorona. Do you think this is how hunters feel when they're waiting for their prey's next move?"
The huge guy asked. Vorona didn't even nod; instead, she remained still and answered:
"Affirmative, negative, I cannot decide. My animal-hunting experience, nil. If the target is human, then the current situation is the same in manifestation. Comparisons are not applicable."
"I see. I don't really get it, but I see."
Nodding, Slon - the man - began to look around through his binoculars.
Through the lenses he saw the backside of the abandoned factory.
Right there a "being" in a pitch-black rider suit and a full-faced helmet was peeking inside the factory for some reason.
It seemed that the rider was interested in the moves of the delinquents gathering inside the factory. For Vorona and Slon, their next move had to wait till the Black Rider has made his.
In fact, the delinquents had been in that factory for almost an hour now.
As they waited for the opponent to make a move, Slon popped yet another pointless question with nothing to do with reality.
"Speaking of hunting, there's something I've been wondering about……"
Slon sounded dead serious; Vorona, however, did not move her gaze for an inch.
"Since the ancient days people have used poisoned arrows in hunting, right? They would treat the heads of arrows they used for their blowpipe darts and bows with poison. What's the deal with that? When they eat the prey that had been poisoned to death wouldn't they be poisoned to death too? I've been so wound up over that and I could do nothing about it. The question itself is eating up my brain like a poison. I'm probably going to die of that soon."
Her partner's serious question didn't elicit any bodily or emotional response from the woman. Like an electronic encyclopedia she recited the answer to the question in a flat voice:
"The poison used in hunting, mostly via circulatory system affects nervous system and brain. Animal instantly dies, alternatively is paralyzed. Pity, pity. Humans, intake them orally. Saliva, stomach, duodenum, break down poison as it passes. Neutralized. Happy end, happy end. Wisdom bred from experience. Grandmother's knowledge bag."
"I see! The human stomach is just as awesome as I thought! Of course, if they poisoned themselves with the poison they used for hunting it would have been ridiculous. ……Speaking of which, what happens if poisonous snakes bite their own tails?"
"Immunity to self-generated poison, exists. Most poisonous snakes don't have a problem. But, not completely affirmative for all. Snakes with stronger poison, poison triumphs over immunity. Only death awaits. Pity, pity."
"I see!"
This went on for several minutes while Vorona kept her watch on the Black Rider without moving an inch. Despite the fact the he kept popping stupid questions at Vorona, Slon never relaxed his watch on the surroundings either.
Was he going to stay still like that until every delinquent had left the abandoned factory?
Just as Vorona was starting to have such thoughts, the Black Rider suddenly made a move.
"?"
As she watched more closely to see what was happening, she realized that the Black Rider had just gotten a call on his cell phone.
Furthermore, the sound seemed to have made the people inside the factory aware of his presence. The Rider became visibly flustered.
"……A monster, but his actions remind one of humans. Comprehension is impossible."
"Yeah, comprehension impossible indeed. But look, there's something weird going on at the entrance."
As she turned her eyes in the direction indicated by Slon, she saw another dozen men gathered at the entrance of the abandoned factory. They looked like delinquents too; however, there was something strange about them.
They held steel pipes or wooden katanas in their hands, and unlike the boys in the factory they were dressed in something that looked like overalls.
- Are those tokko-fukus worn by specialized groups of delinquents in Japan?
By the time Vorona made this judgment the young men had already walked into the factory.
Some of them walked towards the back entrance, probably with the intention of blocking their opponents' way of escape.
"What do we do now?"
"Keep watching. Either way, Black Rider should move somehow. Our gazes cannot be averted when that happens. That is important."
They maintained their positions.
It was unlikely that they had foreseen the clash between the delinquents - but they were not worried in the slightest.
A fight between groups of Japanese boys couldn't have less to do with their world.
As if to accentuate that fact, they remained calm throughout.
Or at least had remained calm so far.
♂♀
Several minutes ago, an upscale apartment building on Kawagoe Highway
"It's so quiet all of a sudden."
Kishitani Shinra's apartment had been busy till the morning.
The patient was recovering fine, but the unexpected guests had nevertheless made his night truly hectic.
But now Shinra was by himself in the room.
Celty had still yet to return from her job. Tom went back to work, and Shizuo was off to destroy Izaya. Anri and the little girl had gone for a walk in the Ikebukuro streets.
"Everyone's so energetic, going outside first thing in the morning. Kids nowadays are not afraid of ultraviolet radiation at all."
Shinra was usually dressed in white even in his living quarters, making one marvel at what a complete indoor person he was. As he awaited the return of Celty, his roommate, he ran household errands like laundering the sheets the patient had slept on.
At that time, the doorbell rang.
"Oops, is it Shizuo? Or Izaya with every bone in his body broken?"
Humming as he muttered to himself, Shinra opened the door -
And saw several men standing there looking formidable.
Shinra did not look intimidated, however, as he spoke directly to the man at the center.
"Shiki-san, has something happened?"
"I have something I want to ask you."
Shiki had barely finished the sentence when he walked through the door and without a word towards the inner rooms.
"Wait, wait a second, Shiki-san?"
Ignoring Shinra's voice, Shiki stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. After that, he walked towards the kitchen.
"Looks like you had guests."
Shiki judged after seeing the various used cups on the counter.
Furthermore, he reached out his hand towards something that would never be seen on such a counter - namely, a steel cup crushed into a small ball next to the other cups.
Although he had no clue what Shiki was doing, Shinra laughed bitterly and began to explain about the cup.
"Ah, you know what happened just by looking at that, I'm sure. Shizuo's been here. All I did was joke a little and there he was, squeezing people's cups into something like that with only one hand……I just feel like I'm under the threat of death all the time when he's around."
"……"
Shiki pondered Shinra's words for a couple of seconds.
There were only a limited number of places Heiwajima Shizuo could go due to the fact that he was feared by the majority of people. Though he had also sent subordinates to look in Shizuo's own apartment, Shiki had come to Shinra's apartment hoping to find out more about Shizuo since Shinra was one of Shizuo's acquaintances.
Of course, he had more or less guessed that Shizuo would already have left this place. The reason he marched into Shinra's apartment without even exchanging proper greetings like he used to was that he had just seen parts of the handrails broken and twisted into impossible shapes as if a monster had torn them off.
That was probably what Shizuo did in his rage when he set out to kill Orihara Izaya. Although Shiki had yet to know that part of the story, it was nevertheless easy to associate what he saw with Heiwajima Shizuo.
Don't tell me Awakusu Akane is in this apartment too?
With such questions and hopes Shiki stepped into the apartment. But he did not sense the presence of any human being other than themselves and Shinra.
"? What happened, Shiki-san? Do you have another urgent patient? I've been dealing with Shizuo and other patients all last night, so I'm really exhausted. If you need an operation I'd suggest that you find someone better."
Judging by the way Shinra talked, he was unaware of the fact that Shizuo was being tracked down.
But Shiki remained quiet on the matter as he opened his mouth and inquired in a serious voice:
"……Shizuo's been in this apartment, right?"
"? Yeah. Did he do something? He can't have destroyed one of stores under Shiki-san's protection, can he?"
"Well, something like that. The victims really didn't do anything to deserve it, so even though we can't say for sure that he was wrong, we'd still like to talk to him. That's why we're looking for him right now."
"Ah, if that's all you want, you could have just called him."
Shinra, after hearing Shiki's explanation containing only a part of the truth, produced his cell phone from the pocket of his white coat.
"Hmm, there are a lot of text messages from Dollars. ……Whatever."
Shinra closed the text message inbox and opened the contact list instead. Smiling at Shiki, he said:
"I'll just call Shizuo to ask him where he is. He gets mad pretty easily, but it's never without reason, so I do hope you can forgive him for whatever he did. Also, did it happen today?"
"Yeah, it happened today."
Shinra sighed slightly as he heard Shiki's reply and pressed the shortcut key combination for Shizuo's number.
As he pressed the cell phone to his ear, he began to chat with Shiki.
"He's never been madder than he is today. Guess it couldn't have been helped."
"……Is that so?"
Even though what Shinra had said interested him, Shiki didn't let his emotions show. Instead he waited for Shinra to continue.
"I wonder where to start. He came to this apartment yesterday……and guess whom he brought with him?"
"Well, his star of a brother?"
Shiki had a guess.
But he voiced a different one and kept an eye on Shinra's expressions.
Yet Shinra kept smiling. In a casual tone, he said:
"Nah, nah. Actually, he brought a girl about ten years old with him, that guy!"
"……!"
"Huh? Shizuo's not picking up. ……Ah, right, after that, Shizuo……"
But Shinra had to stop here.
As he turned his gaze away from the cell phone and back to Shiki's face, he realized that the other man looked more stern than ever. Meanwhile, Shiki's subordinates surrounded Shinra with stony expressions on their faces.
"Huh? Eh? Did I say something really bad?"
It finally occured to Shinra for the first time that the situation was more serious than he had thought.
Shiki, on the other hand, pressured Shinra further with his sharp, unrelenting voice:
"That girl……where is she right now?"
♂♀
Ryuugamine Mikado was aware.
Aware of what exactly he had made up.
"Dollars" started off as nothing more than a practical joke.
"Let's make a virtual organization!" Mikado had proposed. A number of his friends online had found the idea interesting and helped him found this completely made-up gang.
"There are no rules for joining or staying in the gang."
Before they realized it, this bizarre organization had become an actual presence in the city of Ikebukuro.
Ikebukuro.
For Mikado, it was a city he had never even been to.
He had only seen it in magazines, newspapers or TV dramas; it was something that fell on the other side, separated from him by the wall between reality and imagination.
His co-founders were by now nowhere to be found.
They didn't even know that his real name was Ryuugamine Mikado. Mikado, of course, did not know their ages and looks either. Anyone who was not an Internet person would find their relationship ridiculous. But that didn't change the fact that they had founded Dollars together.
They had cut their online ties with Mikado.
Somehow it became a very real, scary presence.
The gang they had created half-jokingly was moving forwards, sometimes illegally, under the name they had christened it with - and the society began to see it as another one of those Color Gangs.
Fearing the consequences, the founders chose to escape.
They changed their handles online and never brought up the name Dollars again.
That was enough.
That was all they had to do to avoid their responsibility.
It should have been nothing more than fun. It shouldn't have affected anything in reality.
If someone drew a Frankenstein and it began to attack people, would it be the artist's responsibility to stop it?
It was a hard question to answer. But as long as responsibilities can be avoided, most would choose to avoid them.
That was probably these friends - whose faces Mikado had never seen in his life - thought when they disappeared from "Dollars" one by one.
But Mikado was different.
He accepted the presence of "Dollars" in his reality.
Telling himself that that was what he had really wanted.
- Someone has to be there to regulate it.
- It's an obligation of the founder.
Concealing his excitement in his chest, the boy told himself.
How much did Ryuugamine Mikado understand at that point?
Did he know what he had created?
Did he know what it meant to remain a founder of the gang named Dollars?
Whether he understood completely, or not at all -
His reality was now under merciless attack by everything that had to do with Dollars.
Ryuugamine Mikado was aware.
Aware of what exactly he had made up.
But the boy did not know.
Did not know exactly who he was himself.
Ryuugamine Mikado had yet to find an answer.
♂♀
Somewhere in Tokyo, an abandoned factory
The time was about one hour before Shiki arrived at Shinra's apartment.
"So, have you decided, Mikado-sempai?"
With a refreshing smile on his childlike face, Kuronuma Aoba asked in a tone that did not match his looks at all.
In front of him was Ryuugamine Mikado, with a face no less childlike than Aoba's despite being a year Aoba's senior.
They were sempai and kouhai at Raira Academy.
Or fellow members in the sea of an organization called Dollars.
At least that was the relationship they had when they first met each other.
But that was only from Mikado's point of view.
Aoba, on the other hand, knew everything from the very beginning.
He knew that Mikado was the founder of Dollars.
He knew about their clash with the Yellow Turbans and Mikado's relationship to Kida Masaomi.
He had even sensed part of Ryuugamine Mikado's concealed nature, of which not even Mikado himself was aware.
On the other hand, Mikado knew nothing about Aoba.
He had thought of him as merely a kouhai who admired Dollars.
The word "merely" had come from nothing other than his own imagination.
For Mikado, the use of the word "merely" was not saying that he knew everything about a person and felt confident defining him this way; rather, it showed that he knew very little about the person.
Yet this kouhai, about whom he knew very little, was suddenly giving him a lot of pressure.
He had told Mikado that he was the founder of Blue Square.
He had also told him that he had led the attack against Toramaru in Saitama.
The string of shocking confessions was already enough to sweep Mikado off his feet, yet -
Just as he was about to regain his composure, Aoba had assaulted him with another "plea".
"Be the leader of Blue Square."
An out-of-the-blue and surreal one.
He wanted to deny everything.
He was so sure that he was dreaming.
- I must be having this dream because I'm jealous of Aoba-kun being close to Sonohara-san and want to put him in a position inferior to mine.
- What a coward I am.
He thought, and struggled to wake up from the dream.
To escape the reality.
But what Aoba said made Mikado stiffen like a puppet whose string had just been pulled.
"Mikado-sempai, aren't you…
...smiling?"
- Liar!
- That's impossible!
He wanted to yell.
To yell from the bottom of his stomach.
But before he could make a sound, Mikado had realized something.
That he was for some reason high as a kite when he heard Aoba's words.
If it were anyone else in his place, they would probably have just yelled in anger without dwelling further on their thoughts.
But Mikado felt the impulse inside himself more vividly than anything else exerted upon him from the outside.
The shock from that impulse was so abnormally strong that it threatened to counter the impulse itself.
That was because - he had never been so high since he was born.
Not at Dollars's first gathering. Not when he talked to Yagiri Seiji's older sister.
Not when the Slashers attacked Dollars members.
Not even when he saw Masaomi heavily injured in the battle -
He was angry, but never so agitated that he would want to shout.
- What's……with me?
- Why am I feeling this heat from the bottom of my stomach?
What ended up escaping his throat was not a shout of denial, but rather a strong sense of nausea.
The boy had realized.
That the reason he wanted to shout a moment ago -
Was exactly because what Aoba had accused him of was the truth.
- Eh……huh……
Mikado touched his own face without thinking.
He wanted to know what expression he was wearing on his face.
However, now that he had come to, his face was without doubt not smiling any more.
But what about a moment ago, at the exact second when Aoba accused him of smiling?
- I……was I……
What exactly was I thinking?
He couldn't even remember how he felt a mere couple of seconds ago. Only cold sweat was continuing to trickle down his spine.
"Sempai, are you alright?"
Before he realized it, Aoba's face was looming close.
"U - Uwah!?"
His kouhai had become unfathomable all of a sudden. His smile looked as innocent as it did a moment ago, but Mikado found it no longer possible to be convinced by that smile.
"That was mean. How can you yelp like that when you see your cute kouhai's face? ……It's been about 10 minutes. Have you made a decision yet?"
"10……10 minutes?"
Had it already been that long when he was busy having been lost in shock and thought? Mikado took his cell phone out to make sure.
As his eyes fell on the screen he saw a notice that said "23 new messages". They were probably all related to the attacks on Dollars members.
"So many……"
Mikado felt his heartbeat accelerating at an impossible pace.
He also realized that his ears were ringing.
Shock.
He was in a state of shock now.
That was the only thing he knew.
He hadn't the slightest clue where to start to make sense of the situation.
The attacks on Dollars?
Or Aoba's confession that he was the founder of Blue Square?
Or that they were the ones who attacked the bousouzoku in Saitama?
Or that he knew that Mikado was the founder of Dollars?
Or that he had just asked Mikado to become the leader of Blue Square?
Or, more importantly then everything else, was he really smiling amidst the shock and confusion?
They were separate incidents, yet they were all inter-related.
Right now Mikado had not the slightest clue even as to where he should start.
"Wait, wait a second."
He said without thinking, but the words he finally said solved nothing.
Looking at Mikado, Aoba grinned innocently and muttered even crueler words:
"We've been waiting all along, all of us."
"……"
Aoba and Mikado weren't the only people in the abandoned factory.
Boys who were all Blue Square members according to Aoba were scattered throughout the factory doing different things. Some were playing with their cell phones like Mikado, some sitting on the steel drums yawning, making them look the furthest thing from a disciplined team.
Although no one in the factory had noticed, Celty was outside of the factory window keeping an eye on their moves.
"Well. You don't have to feel so pressured. Isn't your inbox fairly spammed by now? Wouldn't it be better to check the messages out?"
Aoba muttered as he, too, looked down at his own cell phone.
"Though they're mostly just reports that some members have been attacked. Looks like it's still nothing that important. I don't hear any sirens from patrol cars, and it's not like anyone seeking out the Dollars people would come to this place anyway since it's supposed to be a gathering spot for Yellow Turbans."
Mikado trembled as he heard his kouhai's nonchalant voice.
Aoba was basically saying "Calm down and think of how to deal with us."
"Can I go back home and give it a thought?"
"I don't think we can wait that long."
Aoba shook his head as two well-built delinquents walked towards the entrance and closed the gate of the abandoned factory.
The crackling noise as the gate was being closed sounded like a song of despair in Mikado's frozen ears.
"B - But, hey, aren't we supposed to be meeting with Sonohara-san pretty soon……?"
"Are you still thinking about that even in your present state, Mikado-sempai? How smitten are you with Anri-sempai, exactly?"
The kouhai smiled bitterly as he mocked him.
Had it been any other time Mikado would have blushed and retorted "I - It's not like that!", but right now his face simply remained deadly pale.
Aoba, however, was just about to say something to make his face turn blue.
"Either way, don't you think it's better not to meet with Anri-sempai today?"
"Eh……"
"Wouldn't that be risking involving her in this?"
"……!"
Anri had nothing to do with what was happening between them.
Mikado had more or less sensed that she was keeping a secret of her own.
She was wielding a katana when they went to rescue Masaomi from his former fellow Yellow Turbans. On top of that, she also knew Celty. That was why Mikado assumed that she had a secret of her own.
But regardless of what her secret was, or if she had one, Anri was his precious friend and the girl he liked. He couldn't risk involving her in this conflict - so he decided.
And then, the boy remembered.
In his call, Izaya had said to him, "If you don't want to be involved, just don't mention that you're in Dollars."
Before he got the call, Masaomi had also warned him of similar things in the chatroom.
He had been warned to avoid associating himself with other Dollars members.
Now that he thought about it, Masaomi had probably foreseen that things would turn out like this.
Mikado, in his confusion, came to something close to a conclusion.
Masaomi had access to information networks other than his own. It could be that he had already known about Aoba and his gang.
If that was the case, wouldn't he disappoint Masaomi greatly if he replied to Aoba "as a Dollars member"?
Yet at the same time, wouldn't he just be using his friend as an excuse to extract himself from this confusing situation?
Mikado couldn't sort everything out in the short amount of time he had. Nevertheless, he decided to answer the question posed by the boy in front of him. But that answer was still half-intended to convince himself that he was not doing what he was doing "as a Dollars member".
"If I don't mention Dollars……then she won't get involved. Isn't that simple?"
He was talking like an idiot who was too used to peace. Aoba would probably be disappointed.
So Mikado thought; but he couldn't bring himself to care.
He wouldn't even mind getting beaten up by these delinquents and going home with heavy injuries if that was what it had to take to get himself out of this situation.
That was just how much pressure Mikado was under at that time.
But the innocently smiling boy was not about to let his revered sempai escape like this.
"You won't be able to do that."
"……Eh?"
"Mikado-sempai, you will never be able to just abandon Dollars as it is being attacked and live your life like an ordinary person."
"……!"
The whispers of the devil sounded completely innocent in his ear.
"The solution is simple. If you want us to make those Toramaru guys living sacrifice on the shrine, just order us to do so. You won't even have to worry about getting hurt yourself, Mikado-sempai."
The suggestion was more meant to provoke than soothe.
Usually Mikado would jump at the mere suggestion ("I'd never do something like that!") and send text messages to all Dollars members to tell them not to hurt anyone.
But right now, Mikado's thoughts had come to a screeching halt right before that point.
Partly because he was reminded of the advice from Izaya, whom he trusted.
Furthermore, he was reminded of something Izaya had asked him over the phone: "What you're actually afraid of is that Dollars will move on without you, right?"
If he was to do anything here as a Dollars member, be it collecting information or coming up with a solution, he would be doing the exact things Izaya had predicted that he would do.
Also, if he was to do anything here as a Dollars member, he would be ignoring Masaomi's advice when the latter had cared about him enough to warn him.
More importantly than those, he was afraid that if he was to admit to being a full Dollars member through involving himself in this conflict, he would risk involving Anri and Masaomi again just like when the clash with Yellow Turbans took place.
But even so, he'd rather choose that path out of his own will than have it chosen for him by Aoba and his intimidating friends.
Ryuugamine Mikado was an individual easily wavered by those around him.
But about his own creation, Dollars, he had ideas that even he himself couldn't understand.
Even as he stood where he was right now, Mikado could feel the tide of nameless emotions ravaging his own insides.
It was a similar feeling to the one he had when he got into conflict with Yagiri Pharmaceuticals.
But he did not understand what exactly that feeling was.
That was why he failed to catch himself as he sank deeper and deeper into the quagmire of confusion.
"But still……I……"
- This is a curious sight to behold. Mikado-sempai is somewhat different today.
The one to notice the changes in the boy was no other than Aoba, the person who put him in a state of confusion in the first place.
Had this been the Mikado he knew, he would have already made some sort of "decision" after Aoba's provocation, be it straight-out refusal or something else.
Yet Mikado seemed to be hesitating for some strange reason. It was keeping him from making any decision at all.
- ……Did someone prep him for this?
Aoba did not know.
That Mikado had been warned by his most trusted friend, Kida Masaomi, to "not live the life as a Dollars member" just shortly beforehand.
Neither did he know that it was in fact not Masaomi but a complete impostor using Masaomi's handle to deceive Mikado -
- ……
But Aoba somehow realized.
- Was it Orihara Izaya……?
Realized that a certain man had put a little lock in Mikado's heart.
It was not that Aoba had caught any wind of Izaya's moves.
However, Ryuugamine Mikado's reactions were somehow strange. Of course, a person cannot predict how another person would act with 100% accuracy; but what concerned Aoba was that Mikado was not acting "unlike Mikado", but rather "unlike the founder of Dollars".
And there were only a limited number of people who could influence Mikado on matters related to Dollars.
- I can't say it for sure……
- But if it was indeed him, why would he do it? Was it just a strategic move to harass us?
- Or does Orihara Izaya want to use Mikado-sempai to his own end as well?
Thinking about his enemy Orihara Izaya, Aoba concealed his indignation as he smiled lightheartedly at Mikado and continued:
"It's OK. Please take some time to decide. Speaking of which, why don't we use the time we're meeting Anri-sempai as the deadline?"
"Eh……"
"If you don't decide by then, I will call Anri-sempai and tell her that Mikado-sempai has something urgent to attend to and can't seem to make it today. As for me, I will be there in 10 minutes."
"W - Wait a second!"
Mikado was more bothered by the latter part than he was by Aoba lying about him having other things to attend to.
"You're going to go……?"
"Ah, sure I'm going to go. Isn't that only reasonable? If it turns out that neither of us can go with her, Anri-sempai will feel uncomfortable too, won't she?"
With that, he cast a glance at his companions standing by the gate and blocking the way out, narrowed his eyes and said:
"Mikado-sempai, you can just wait here."
(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART III)
Somewhere in Tokyo, the rooftop of a building near the abandoned factory
"Oi, Vorona. Do you think this is how hunters feel when they're waiting for their prey's next move?"
The huge guy asked. Vorona didn't even nod; instead, she remained still and answered:
"Affirmative, negative, I cannot decide. My animal-hunting experience, nil. If the target is human, then the current situation is the same in manifestation. Comparisons are not applicable."
"I see. I don't really get it, but I see."
Nodding, Slon - the man - began to look around through his binoculars.
Through the lenses he saw the backside of the abandoned factory.
Right there a "being" in a pitch-black rider suit and a full-faced helmet was peeking inside the factory for some reason.
It seemed that the rider was interested in the moves of the delinquents gathering inside the factory. For Vorona and Slon, their next move had to wait till the Black Rider has made his.
In fact, the delinquents had been in that factory for almost an hour now.
As they waited for the opponent to make a move, Slon popped yet another pointless question with nothing to do with reality.
"Speaking of hunting, there's something I've been wondering about……"
Slon sounded dead serious; Vorona, however, did not move her gaze for an inch.
"Since the ancient days people have used poisoned arrows in hunting, right? They would treat the heads of arrows they used for their blowpipe darts and bows with poison. What's the deal with that? When they eat the prey that had been poisoned to death wouldn't they be poisoned to death too? I've been so wound up over that and I could do nothing about it. The question itself is eating up my brain like a poison. I'm probably going to die of that soon."
Her partner's serious question didn't elicit any bodily or emotional response from the woman. Like an electronic encyclopedia she recited the answer to the question in a flat voice:
"The poison used in hunting, mostly via circulatory system affects nervous system and brain. Animal instantly dies, alternatively is paralyzed. Pity, pity. Humans, intake them orally. Saliva, stomach, duodenum, break down poison as it passes. Neutralized. Happy end, happy end. Wisdom bred from experience. Grandmother's knowledge bag."
"I see! The human stomach is just as awesome as I thought! Of course, if they poisoned themselves with the poison they used for hunting it would have been ridiculous. ……Speaking of which, what happens if poisonous snakes bite their own tails?"
"Immunity to self-generated poison, exists. Most poisonous snakes don't have a problem. But, not completely affirmative for all. Snakes with stronger poison, poison triumphs over immunity. Only death awaits. Pity, pity."
"I see!"
This went on for several minutes while Vorona kept her watch on the Black Rider without moving an inch. Despite the fact the he kept popping stupid questions at Vorona, Slon never relaxed his watch on the surroundings either.
Was he going to stay still like that until every delinquent had left the abandoned factory?
Just as Vorona was starting to have such thoughts, the Black Rider suddenly made a move.
"?"
As she watched more closely to see what was happening, she realized that the Black Rider had just gotten a call on his cell phone.
Furthermore, the sound seemed to have made the people inside the factory aware of his presence. The Rider became visibly flustered.
"……A monster, but his actions remind one of humans. Comprehension is impossible."
"Yeah, comprehension impossible indeed. But look, there's something weird going on at the entrance."
As she turned her eyes in the direction indicated by Slon, she saw another dozen men gathered at the entrance of the abandoned factory. They looked like delinquents too; however, there was something strange about them.
They held steel pipes or wooden katanas in their hands, and unlike the boys in the factory they were dressed in something that looked like overalls.
- Are those tokko-fukus worn by specialized groups of delinquents in Japan?
By the time Vorona made this judgment the young men had already walked into the factory.
Some of them walked towards the back entrance, probably with the intention of blocking their opponents' way of escape.
"What do we do now?"
"Keep watching. Either way, Black Rider should move somehow. Our gazes cannot be averted when that happens. That is important."
They maintained their positions.
It was unlikely that they had foreseen the clash between the delinquents - but they were not worried in the slightest.
A fight between groups of Japanese boys couldn't have less to do with their world.
As if to accentuate that fact, they remained calm throughout.
Or at least had remained calm so far.
♂♀
Several minutes ago, an upscale apartment building on Kawagoe Highway
"It's so quiet all of a sudden."
Kishitani Shinra's apartment had been busy till the morning.
The patient was recovering fine, but the unexpected guests had nevertheless made his night truly hectic.
But now Shinra was by himself in the room.
Celty had still yet to return from her job. Tom went back to work, and Shizuo was off to destroy Izaya. Anri and the little girl had gone for a walk in the Ikebukuro streets.
"Everyone's so energetic, going outside first thing in the morning. Kids nowadays are not afraid of ultraviolet radiation at all."
Shinra was usually dressed in white even in his living quarters, making one marvel at what a complete indoor person he was. As he awaited the return of Celty, his roommate, he ran household errands like laundering the sheets the patient had slept on.
At that time, the doorbell rang.
"Oops, is it Shizuo? Or Izaya with every bone in his body broken?"
Humming as he muttered to himself, Shinra opened the door -
And saw several men standing there looking formidable.
Shinra did not look intimidated, however, as he spoke directly to the man at the center.
"Shiki-san, has something happened?"
"I have something I want to ask you."
Shiki had barely finished the sentence when he walked through the door and without a word towards the inner rooms.
"Wait, wait a second, Shiki-san?"
Ignoring Shinra's voice, Shiki stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. After that, he walked towards the kitchen.
"Looks like you had guests."
Shiki judged after seeing the various used cups on the counter.
Furthermore, he reached out his hand towards something that would never be seen on such a counter - namely, a steel cup crushed into a small ball next to the other cups.
Although he had no clue what Shiki was doing, Shinra laughed bitterly and began to explain about the cup.
"Ah, you know what happened just by looking at that, I'm sure. Shizuo's been here. All I did was joke a little and there he was, squeezing people's cups into something like that with only one hand……I just feel like I'm under the threat of death all the time when he's around."
"……"
Shiki pondered Shinra's words for a couple of seconds.
There were only a limited number of places Heiwajima Shizuo could go due to the fact that he was feared by the majority of people. Though he had also sent subordinates to look in Shizuo's own apartment, Shiki had come to Shinra's apartment hoping to find out more about Shizuo since Shinra was one of Shizuo's acquaintances.
Of course, he had more or less guessed that Shizuo would already have left this place. The reason he marched into Shinra's apartment without even exchanging proper greetings like he used to was that he had just seen parts of the handrails broken and twisted into impossible shapes as if a monster had torn them off.
That was probably what Shizuo did in his rage when he set out to kill Orihara Izaya. Although Shiki had yet to know that part of the story, it was nevertheless easy to associate what he saw with Heiwajima Shizuo.
Don't tell me Awakusu Akane is in this apartment too?
With such questions and hopes Shiki stepped into the apartment. But he did not sense the presence of any human being other than themselves and Shinra.
"? What happened, Shiki-san? Do you have another urgent patient? I've been dealing with Shizuo and other patients all last night, so I'm really exhausted. If you need an operation I'd suggest that you find someone better."
Judging by the way Shinra talked, he was unaware of the fact that Shizuo was being tracked down.
But Shiki remained quiet on the matter as he opened his mouth and inquired in a serious voice:
"……Shizuo's been in this apartment, right?"
"? Yeah. Did he do something? He can't have destroyed one of stores under Shiki-san's protection, can he?"
"Well, something like that. The victims really didn't do anything to deserve it, so even though we can't say for sure that he was wrong, we'd still like to talk to him. That's why we're looking for him right now."
"Ah, if that's all you want, you could have just called him."
Shinra, after hearing Shiki's explanation containing only a part of the truth, produced his cell phone from the pocket of his white coat.
"Hmm, there are a lot of text messages from Dollars. ……Whatever."
Shinra closed the text message inbox and opened the contact list instead. Smiling at Shiki, he said:
"I'll just call Shizuo to ask him where he is. He gets mad pretty easily, but it's never without reason, so I do hope you can forgive him for whatever he did. Also, did it happen today?"
"Yeah, it happened today."
Shinra sighed slightly as he heard Shiki's reply and pressed the shortcut key combination for Shizuo's number.
As he pressed the cell phone to his ear, he began to chat with Shiki.
"He's never been madder than he is today. Guess it couldn't have been helped."
"……Is that so?"
Even though what Shinra had said interested him, Shiki didn't let his emotions show. Instead he waited for Shinra to continue.
"I wonder where to start. He came to this apartment yesterday……and guess whom he brought with him?"
"Well, his star of a brother?"
Shiki had a guess.
But he voiced a different one and kept an eye on Shinra's expressions.
Yet Shinra kept smiling. In a casual tone, he said:
"Nah, nah. Actually, he brought a girl about ten years old with him, that guy!"
"……!"
"Huh? Shizuo's not picking up. ……Ah, right, after that, Shizuo……"
But Shinra had to stop here.
As he turned his gaze away from the cell phone and back to Shiki's face, he realized that the other man looked more stern than ever. Meanwhile, Shiki's subordinates surrounded Shinra with stony expressions on their faces.
"Huh? Eh? Did I say something really bad?"
It finally occured to Shinra for the first time that the situation was more serious than he had thought.
Shiki, on the other hand, pressured Shinra further with his sharp, unrelenting voice:
"That girl……where is she right now?"
♂♀
Ryuugamine Mikado was aware.
Aware of what exactly he had made up.
"Dollars" started off as nothing more than a practical joke.
"Let's make a virtual organization!" Mikado had proposed. A number of his friends online had found the idea interesting and helped him found this completely made-up gang.
"There are no rules for joining or staying in the gang."
Before they realized it, this bizarre organization had become an actual presence in the city of Ikebukuro.
Ikebukuro.
For Mikado, it was a city he had never even been to.
He had only seen it in magazines, newspapers or TV dramas; it was something that fell on the other side, separated from him by the wall between reality and imagination.
His co-founders were by now nowhere to be found.
They didn't even know that his real name was Ryuugamine Mikado. Mikado, of course, did not know their ages and looks either. Anyone who was not an Internet person would find their relationship ridiculous. But that didn't change the fact that they had founded Dollars together.
They had cut their online ties with Mikado.
Somehow it became a very real, scary presence.
The gang they had created half-jokingly was moving forwards, sometimes illegally, under the name they had christened it with - and the society began to see it as another one of those Color Gangs.
Fearing the consequences, the founders chose to escape.
They changed their handles online and never brought up the name Dollars again.
That was enough.
That was all they had to do to avoid their responsibility.
It should have been nothing more than fun. It shouldn't have affected anything in reality.
If someone drew a Frankenstein and it began to attack people, would it be the artist's responsibility to stop it?
It was a hard question to answer. But as long as responsibilities can be avoided, most would choose to avoid them.
That was probably these friends - whose faces Mikado had never seen in his life - thought when they disappeared from "Dollars" one by one.
But Mikado was different.
He accepted the presence of "Dollars" in his reality.
Telling himself that that was what he had really wanted.
- Someone has to be there to regulate it.
- It's an obligation of the founder.
Concealing his excitement in his chest, the boy told himself.
How much did Ryuugamine Mikado understand at that point?
Did he know what he had created?
Did he know what it meant to remain a founder of the gang named Dollars?
Whether he understood completely, or not at all -
His reality was now under merciless attack by everything that had to do with Dollars.
Ryuugamine Mikado was aware.
Aware of what exactly he had made up.
But the boy did not know.
Did not know exactly who he was himself.
Ryuugamine Mikado had yet to find an answer.
♂♀
Somewhere in Tokyo, an abandoned factory
The time was about one hour before Shiki arrived at Shinra's apartment.
"So, have you decided, Mikado-sempai?"
With a refreshing smile on his childlike face, Kuronuma Aoba asked in a tone that did not match his looks at all.
In front of him was Ryuugamine Mikado, with a face no less childlike than Aoba's despite being a year Aoba's senior.
They were sempai and kouhai at Raira Academy.
Or fellow members in the sea of an organization called Dollars.
At least that was the relationship they had when they first met each other.
But that was only from Mikado's point of view.
Aoba, on the other hand, knew everything from the very beginning.
He knew that Mikado was the founder of Dollars.
He knew about their clash with the Yellow Turbans and Mikado's relationship to Kida Masaomi.
He had even sensed part of Ryuugamine Mikado's concealed nature, of which not even Mikado himself was aware.
On the other hand, Mikado knew nothing about Aoba.
He had thought of him as merely a kouhai who admired Dollars.
The word "merely" had come from nothing other than his own imagination.
For Mikado, the use of the word "merely" was not saying that he knew everything about a person and felt confident defining him this way; rather, it showed that he knew very little about the person.
Yet this kouhai, about whom he knew very little, was suddenly giving him a lot of pressure.
He had told Mikado that he was the founder of Blue Square.
He had also told him that he had led the attack against Toramaru in Saitama.
The string of shocking confessions was already enough to sweep Mikado off his feet, yet -
Just as he was about to regain his composure, Aoba had assaulted him with another "plea".
"Be the leader of Blue Square."
An out-of-the-blue and surreal one.
He wanted to deny everything.
He was so sure that he was dreaming.
- I must be having this dream because I'm jealous of Aoba-kun being close to Sonohara-san and want to put him in a position inferior to mine.
- What a coward I am.
He thought, and struggled to wake up from the dream.
To escape the reality.
But what Aoba said made Mikado stiffen like a puppet whose string had just been pulled.
"Mikado-sempai, aren't you…
...smiling?"
- Liar!
- That's impossible!
He wanted to yell.
To yell from the bottom of his stomach.
But before he could make a sound, Mikado had realized something.
That he was for some reason high as a kite when he heard Aoba's words.
If it were anyone else in his place, they would probably have just yelled in anger without dwelling further on their thoughts.
But Mikado felt the impulse inside himself more vividly than anything else exerted upon him from the outside.
The shock from that impulse was so abnormally strong that it threatened to counter the impulse itself.
That was because - he had never been so high since he was born.
Not at Dollars's first gathering. Not when he talked to Yagiri Seiji's older sister.
Not when the Slashers attacked Dollars members.
Not even when he saw Masaomi heavily injured in the battle -
He was angry, but never so agitated that he would want to shout.
- What's……with me?
- Why am I feeling this heat from the bottom of my stomach?
What ended up escaping his throat was not a shout of denial, but rather a strong sense of nausea.
The boy had realized.
That the reason he wanted to shout a moment ago -
Was exactly because what Aoba had accused him of was the truth.
- Eh……huh……
Mikado touched his own face without thinking.
He wanted to know what expression he was wearing on his face.
However, now that he had come to, his face was without doubt not smiling any more.
But what about a moment ago, at the exact second when Aoba accused him of smiling?
- I……was I……
What exactly was I thinking?
He couldn't even remember how he felt a mere couple of seconds ago. Only cold sweat was continuing to trickle down his spine.
"Sempai, are you alright?"
Before he realized it, Aoba's face was looming close.
"U - Uwah!?"
His kouhai had become unfathomable all of a sudden. His smile looked as innocent as it did a moment ago, but Mikado found it no longer possible to be convinced by that smile.
"That was mean. How can you yelp like that when you see your cute kouhai's face? ……It's been about 10 minutes. Have you made a decision yet?"
"10……10 minutes?"
Had it already been that long when he was busy having been lost in shock and thought? Mikado took his cell phone out to make sure.
As his eyes fell on the screen he saw a notice that said "23 new messages". They were probably all related to the attacks on Dollars members.
"So many……"
Mikado felt his heartbeat accelerating at an impossible pace.
He also realized that his ears were ringing.
Shock.
He was in a state of shock now.
That was the only thing he knew.
He hadn't the slightest clue where to start to make sense of the situation.
The attacks on Dollars?
Or Aoba's confession that he was the founder of Blue Square?
Or that they were the ones who attacked the bousouzoku in Saitama?
Or that he knew that Mikado was the founder of Dollars?
Or that he had just asked Mikado to become the leader of Blue Square?
Or, more importantly then everything else, was he really smiling amidst the shock and confusion?
They were separate incidents, yet they were all inter-related.
Right now Mikado had not the slightest clue even as to where he should start.
"Wait, wait a second."
He said without thinking, but the words he finally said solved nothing.
Looking at Mikado, Aoba grinned innocently and muttered even crueler words:
"We've been waiting all along, all of us."
"……"
Aoba and Mikado weren't the only people in the abandoned factory.
Boys who were all Blue Square members according to Aoba were scattered throughout the factory doing different things. Some were playing with their cell phones like Mikado, some sitting on the steel drums yawning, making them look the furthest thing from a disciplined team.
Although no one in the factory had noticed, Celty was outside of the factory window keeping an eye on their moves.
"Well. You don't have to feel so pressured. Isn't your inbox fairly spammed by now? Wouldn't it be better to check the messages out?"
Aoba muttered as he, too, looked down at his own cell phone.
"Though they're mostly just reports that some members have been attacked. Looks like it's still nothing that important. I don't hear any sirens from patrol cars, and it's not like anyone seeking out the Dollars people would come to this place anyway since it's supposed to be a gathering spot for Yellow Turbans."
Mikado trembled as he heard his kouhai's nonchalant voice.
Aoba was basically saying "Calm down and think of how to deal with us."
"Can I go back home and give it a thought?"
"I don't think we can wait that long."
Aoba shook his head as two well-built delinquents walked towards the entrance and closed the gate of the abandoned factory.
The crackling noise as the gate was being closed sounded like a song of despair in Mikado's frozen ears.
"B - But, hey, aren't we supposed to be meeting with Sonohara-san pretty soon……?"
"Are you still thinking about that even in your present state, Mikado-sempai? How smitten are you with Anri-sempai, exactly?"
The kouhai smiled bitterly as he mocked him.
Had it been any other time Mikado would have blushed and retorted "I - It's not like that!", but right now his face simply remained deadly pale.
Aoba, however, was just about to say something to make his face turn blue.
"Either way, don't you think it's better not to meet with Anri-sempai today?"
"Eh……"
"Wouldn't that be risking involving her in this?"
"……!"
Anri had nothing to do with what was happening between them.
Mikado had more or less sensed that she was keeping a secret of her own.
She was wielding a katana when they went to rescue Masaomi from his former fellow Yellow Turbans. On top of that, she also knew Celty. That was why Mikado assumed that she had a secret of her own.
But regardless of what her secret was, or if she had one, Anri was his precious friend and the girl he liked. He couldn't risk involving her in this conflict - so he decided.
And then, the boy remembered.
In his call, Izaya had said to him, "If you don't want to be involved, just don't mention that you're in Dollars."
Before he got the call, Masaomi had also warned him of similar things in the chatroom.
He had been warned to avoid associating himself with other Dollars members.
Now that he thought about it, Masaomi had probably foreseen that things would turn out like this.
Mikado, in his confusion, came to something close to a conclusion.
Masaomi had access to information networks other than his own. It could be that he had already known about Aoba and his gang.
If that was the case, wouldn't he disappoint Masaomi greatly if he replied to Aoba "as a Dollars member"?
Yet at the same time, wouldn't he just be using his friend as an excuse to extract himself from this confusing situation?
Mikado couldn't sort everything out in the short amount of time he had. Nevertheless, he decided to answer the question posed by the boy in front of him. But that answer was still half-intended to convince himself that he was not doing what he was doing "as a Dollars member".
"If I don't mention Dollars……then she won't get involved. Isn't that simple?"
He was talking like an idiot who was too used to peace. Aoba would probably be disappointed.
So Mikado thought; but he couldn't bring himself to care.
He wouldn't even mind getting beaten up by these delinquents and going home with heavy injuries if that was what it had to take to get himself out of this situation.
That was just how much pressure Mikado was under at that time.
But the innocently smiling boy was not about to let his revered sempai escape like this.
"You won't be able to do that."
"……Eh?"
"Mikado-sempai, you will never be able to just abandon Dollars as it is being attacked and live your life like an ordinary person."
"……!"
The whispers of the devil sounded completely innocent in his ear.
"The solution is simple. If you want us to make those Toramaru guys living sacrifice on the shrine, just order us to do so. You won't even have to worry about getting hurt yourself, Mikado-sempai."
The suggestion was more meant to provoke than soothe.
Usually Mikado would jump at the mere suggestion ("I'd never do something like that!") and send text messages to all Dollars members to tell them not to hurt anyone.
But right now, Mikado's thoughts had come to a screeching halt right before that point.
Partly because he was reminded of the advice from Izaya, whom he trusted.
Furthermore, he was reminded of something Izaya had asked him over the phone: "What you're actually afraid of is that Dollars will move on without you, right?"
If he was to do anything here as a Dollars member, be it collecting information or coming up with a solution, he would be doing the exact things Izaya had predicted that he would do.
Also, if he was to do anything here as a Dollars member, he would be ignoring Masaomi's advice when the latter had cared about him enough to warn him.
More importantly than those, he was afraid that if he was to admit to being a full Dollars member through involving himself in this conflict, he would risk involving Anri and Masaomi again just like when the clash with Yellow Turbans took place.
But even so, he'd rather choose that path out of his own will than have it chosen for him by Aoba and his intimidating friends.
Ryuugamine Mikado was an individual easily wavered by those around him.
But about his own creation, Dollars, he had ideas that even he himself couldn't understand.
Even as he stood where he was right now, Mikado could feel the tide of nameless emotions ravaging his own insides.
It was a similar feeling to the one he had when he got into conflict with Yagiri Pharmaceuticals.
But he did not understand what exactly that feeling was.
That was why he failed to catch himself as he sank deeper and deeper into the quagmire of confusion.
"But still……I……"
- This is a curious sight to behold. Mikado-sempai is somewhat different today.
The one to notice the changes in the boy was no other than Aoba, the person who put him in a state of confusion in the first place.
Had this been the Mikado he knew, he would have already made some sort of "decision" after Aoba's provocation, be it straight-out refusal or something else.
Yet Mikado seemed to be hesitating for some strange reason. It was keeping him from making any decision at all.
- ……Did someone prep him for this?
Aoba did not know.
That Mikado had been warned by his most trusted friend, Kida Masaomi, to "not live the life as a Dollars member" just shortly beforehand.
Neither did he know that it was in fact not Masaomi but a complete impostor using Masaomi's handle to deceive Mikado -
- ……
But Aoba somehow realized.
- Was it Orihara Izaya……?
Realized that a certain man had put a little lock in Mikado's heart.
It was not that Aoba had caught any wind of Izaya's moves.
However, Ryuugamine Mikado's reactions were somehow strange. Of course, a person cannot predict how another person would act with 100% accuracy; but what concerned Aoba was that Mikado was not acting "unlike Mikado", but rather "unlike the founder of Dollars".
And there were only a limited number of people who could influence Mikado on matters related to Dollars.
- I can't say it for sure……
- But if it was indeed him, why would he do it? Was it just a strategic move to harass us?
- Or does Orihara Izaya want to use Mikado-sempai to his own end as well?
Thinking about his enemy Orihara Izaya, Aoba concealed his indignation as he smiled lightheartedly at Mikado and continued:
"It's OK. Please take some time to decide. Speaking of which, why don't we use the time we're meeting Anri-sempai as the deadline?"
"Eh……"
"If you don't decide by then, I will call Anri-sempai and tell her that Mikado-sempai has something urgent to attend to and can't seem to make it today. As for me, I will be there in 10 minutes."
"W - Wait a second!"
Mikado was more bothered by the latter part than he was by Aoba lying about him having other things to attend to.
"You're going to go……?"
"Ah, sure I'm going to go. Isn't that only reasonable? If it turns out that neither of us can go with her, Anri-sempai will feel uncomfortable too, won't she?"
With that, he cast a glance at his companions standing by the gate and blocking the way out, narrowed his eyes and said:
"Mikado-sempai, you can just wait here."
(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART III)