DURARARA!! Vol.6 CHAPTER 4, PART III
♂♀
A "shadow" had been keeping her watch on the things going on inside the abandoned factory.
Taking precautions to avoid being seen by the boys inside, Celty Sturluson continued to think.
- Hmm.
- What should I do now?
Her goal was of course not to stalk this group of delinquents.
She had been asked by Awakusu-kai to look for and bodyguard Awakusu Akane.
After she got the job, she and Anri were attacked by a mysterious rider. Celty had attached her shadow thread to the back of her opponent's motorbike and came all the way here to find people she never expected to find inside. By now, she had completely missed the chance to go inside.
- Their motorbike should be parked inside the factory.
- These kids don't look like they would be after the granddaughter of the head of Awakusu-kai……
As Celty continued to watch, she saw Mikado's face turn pale at some text message on his cell phone. Before that, the boy who looked like his kouhai was smiling unflinchingly.
- Anyway, it doesn't look like Mikado-kun is going to get beaten up any time soon, but still……
- Looks like this is going to take long.
- It was the right move to have turned off my own ringtone for incoming text messages.
Celty had had it on until text messages from Dollars became too many for her to handle. Now she usually kept it in the OFF mode.
At the beginning it was in the vibrate mode, but the boys inside the factory had been too distracted by the ringtones of their own cell phones to notice hers since the messages from Dollars were sent to everyone.
Celty remembered that she should turn off the vibrate mode as well and did so quietly.
She had half a mind to leave, but she was still somewhat worried about Mikado.
He was not a stranger to her. In fact, he ranked among her few acquaintances who remained on friendly terms with her even after he came to know her real identity.
She thought about rushing inside to help him, but she feared that it might turn out to be adding to Mikado's troubles. It seemed like he had been presented with a question he must find the answer to on his own. Furthermore, if she caused a commotion here she would risk drawing the attention of the owners of the motorbike - her enemies - and involving all the boys in the factory, including Mikado, in this mess.
Unaware that she was already being watched herself, Celty kept her watch on the boys from outside the factory.
- Speaking of which, it looks like Mikado-kun is in some real trouble this time.
- That kid, Aoba-kun, doesn't look like a delinquent but might be a scheming bastard.
- ……Ah, but then when Shinra first brought Izaya home I had thought he looked like a good student too……one can't judge a book by the cover.
Celty was a Dollars member. However, Dollars was for her not an indispensable home. Had she turned Shinra down it might have become something close to that, but right now it was only one of her multiple "homes". She didn't even know her fellow Dollars members any better than she did her chatroom companions.
But Mikado was her acquaintance in real life. She couldn't leave him to his own devices when he was in danger.
- But what will you do, Mikado-kun?
Usually mature kids like Mikado would think it was a practical joke when they were asked to become the leader of a gang.
But Celty knew that Mikado was not that simple a kid.
When she had first met him, he had been in a face-to-face "battle" with a high executive at Yagiri Pharmaceuticals. Although it was only a verbal exchange rather than a physical battle, it was a fierce "battle" nevertheless. From what she saw that day Celty decided that Mikado was a courageous person.
Yet Mikado was hesitating today.
Was he worried that he might risk involving Anri in this?
- If it's Anri-chan, he really doesn't have to worry since it would spell more trouble for the party who dared to involve her than for her.
Celty knew that Anri was the host of "Saika" and was very aware of Anri's strength.
Mikado didn't know about this; however, by now he would have had a clue or two.
- But Mikado-kun will eventually choose not to risk involving Anri-chan, I guess.
- Even if he knew about "Saika", he would probably choose to do the same.
- However, if Anri-chan offers to help him it's unlikely that he would turn her down.
Celty was reminded of the time when Mikado had first come to know her real identity. She had realized upon that meeting that Mikado had a greater thirst for "unusual" things than anyone else. If Anri expressed her wish to "go over to the unusual side", there was no way he would refuse.
Although for Celty, who was on a mission for Awakusu-kai and only half a day ago had been fired at by an anti-material rifle, what was happening with Mikado probably had to fall on the "usual" side of things.
- This gang business was pretty out of hand when Shinra went to high school. Is it like that for all high school kids? I just don't really get that.
The fights she remembered happened more than 5 years ago when Shinra was still a student. Celty had witnessed several times high school students fighting each other on a large scale.
Those fights were not like the ones between Dollars and Yellow Turbans; they mostly consisted of high school kids in the same neighborhood fighting over certain territories.
In the eye of the hurricane stood Shizuo, who simply wanted to live a quiet life.
The one who pulled the strings was Izaya, who made sure that he stayed outside of the ring of battle.
Shinra stayed neutral and kept himself unaffected in-between the fighting parties.
- Shinra would probably smile and say, "So! Hurry up, apologize to them and let them beat you up. I will treat you guys afterwards for free and we'll call it even, OK?". Shizuo would go "DON'T ADD TO MY FUCKING TROUBLES!" and put an end to this by beating everyone into the ground. Izaya would……
- What would Izaya do?
- That kid called Aoba, he's kind of like Izaya.
As this thought came to her mind, Celty realized something.
- Ah, right.
- Izaya wouldn't have done something like this in the first place.
- A person his type harbors unusually strong animosity towards people who are like him, so he wouldn't have asked someone like him to become the leader in the first place. ……Unless his intention is to lure the person into a trap, of course.
Celty kept juggling such thoughts on her mind as she kept her silent watch on the things going on inside the factory.
Without realizing that her enemies' eyes were, at the exact same time, focused on her back.
- It's been a while.
Afterwards nothing much had happened inside the abandoned factory.
Mikado had lowered his face, asked Aoba something and collected information on his cell phone. But nothing attention-drawing had happened.
- How many minutes have passed?
Celty checked her cell phone and realized that it had been almost an hour since she arrived at this abandoned factory.
Just as she was seriously considering either rushing inside to rescue Mikado or leaving on her motorbike, inside the factory Aoba suddenly smiled and clapped his hands.
"So, it's about time I called Anri-sempai."
"Wait, wait a second!"
A well-built delinquent grabbed Mikado's shoulders as he was about to say something.
"I'm worried that sempai might shout unnecessary stuff into the phone if we called her, so I think we'll be sending her a text message instead. Actually, I should apologize. I already sent one to her 5 minutes ago."
"Eh……"
"So I kind of have to go right now, I don't want to be late, you know. Mikado-sempai can wait here and take all the time you need to think it over. ……While reading text messages from Dollars members being beaten into the ground, I guess."
"W - Wait!"
Celty lifted her waist a little on her motorbike as she heard Mikado yell.
- ……Looks like I will have to do something about it after all.
- That Aoba kid is going to leave soon, so I can probably go in and get him out later.
As she watched Aoba turn his back towards Mikado and make a move to leave, Celty was reminded of the feeling in her stomach a moment ago.
That boy was like Orihara Izaya.
That feeling alone was enough to put her on her guard against this boy.
- I don't really know why, but I feel like it would be better not to have anything to do with this Aoba kid.
- When I've taken Mikado-kun to Anri-chan, I'll return to this factory since I still haven't taken the thread off that motorbike.
At the exact moment when she had just decided on the best time to get out of her hiding spot and charge into the factory -
"That sound" reached her ears at the worst time possible.
"♪♪ ♪♪ ♪~~~~~~~"
It was the famous "Confiscated!" music clip from "Wonders and Discoveries"*.
* "Confiscated!": or "Bosshuuto!", is a well-known line used by Kusano Jin, the host of the TV show "Wonders and Discoveries" aired on TBS. Kusano says this line every time a participant places his or her bet on the wrong answer and subsequently must let one of their "Hitoshi-kun" dolls be "confiscated". The color of the dolls taken away from the participant vary according to the level of "disappointment" at their getting the answers wrong.
It was doubtlessly coming from Celty's own cell phone.
- Huh!?
- I forgot to turn off the ringtone for incoming calls!
Though Celty had turned off the ringtone for incoming text messages, she had forgotten to turn off the even more important one for incoming calls.
When she had played with her ringtone settings, she had tried setting this music clip as her ringtone for fun. As soon as Shinra heard it he had jumped and said "Wait, Celty! I'm about the only one who would call you since you can't talk, right!? What's with this!? Does it mean that every call from me will scream 'Confiscated!'!? Wait a second! If I did anything wrong I will apologize! If you're taking a Hitoshi-kun doll from me then at least tell me what color it's gonna be*!"
* Hitoshi-kun: see the translation note for "Confiscated!".
Since she had Shinra really funny when he was saying this, Celty had set this ringtone as Shinra's default.
The sound of the ringtone was so out of tune with the atmosphere in the factory that Celty was reminded of how she had come to use it. But there was no time for her to reminisce further.
Just as she hastened to turn off the ringtone on her cell phone, the shocked faces of almost every boy in the factory, including Mikado's and Aoba's, were already turned towards her.
"Hello, hello, is it Celty? Shiki-san's come all the way to visit us. We just got to know something really important that concerns this job you're doing. Do you have time right now? Hmm? If you can hear me just answer me with our usual secret code. Hello, hello - ?"
Celty had no ears right now for the voice that was speaking on the other end of the phone.
"……Black Motorbike?"
"Celty-san!? Why are you here!?"
She heard the voice of Aoba, whose smile had disappeared for the first time, and the voice of Mikado, whose astonishment couldn't be made any more obvious.
Right after the two voices had finished asking -
"Who the hell are you?"
The voices of the boys who had at last recovered from the shock ricocheted throughout the factory, demanding an answer.
Celty tapped the code for "Now is not the best time" at the microphone part of her cell phone and took out her PDA with the other hand.
And with her countless "shadow fingers", she typed something onto the PDA and showed it to one of the delinquents who had walked to the window.
[I'm just a passing urban legend. If you don't pretend you have never seen me I'll attack you all in your sleep tonight.]
♂♀
Shinra's apartment on Kawagoe Highway
"You messing with us!?"
Voices of boys Shinra had never heard before sounded from the other end of the phone.
Shinra sighed and turned around to say:
"Um, it looks like Celty is in some sort of trouble."
The person on whom Shinra's eyes fell was Shiki, who was sitting in the chair with a troubled face, his hands crossed.
"……Please keep trying to get in touch with her. We are understaffed as it is."
"No problem. Ah, please believe that what I'm telling is the truth. Celty didn't know that this Akane-chan was in our apartment, and I never heard Celty talk about the job she was asked to do, either."
"I believe that. If you want to, sensei, you could have erased all traces that would let us know that Shizuo's been here. Celty-san must have avoided telling you about her job because she didn't want to risk involving you. This asymmetry of information does bother me to some extent, of course."
Shiki voiced his own opinion straightforwardly in a calm tone. His expression darkened slightly as he mentioned the name of the person of grave importance to him.
"……So, that high school girl who took Miss Akane for a walk, you said she was going to meet up with her friends……any idea where she would be going?"
Shinra felt his spine tremble involuntarily as Shiki asked him the question with an unrelentingly sharp look in his eyes. However, he managed to maintain his usual attitude as he reasoned:
"Yeah, I wonder. She doesn't look like she's the type who would know a lot of meeting spots in the city. My guess is that it's going to be either in front of Tokyu Hands on 60-Story Street, or the Lotteria on the other side of the street, or the fountain in front of the entrance of Metropolitan or West Gate Park if they're planning on taking the train, or Ikefukurou* in front of East Gate. Something like that."
* Ikefukurou: the name of the statue of the stone owl in front of Ikebukuro Station's East Gate. It is a portmanteau word combining "Ikebukuro" and "fukurou" (Japanese for "owl").
"……"
Shiki cast a look at his subordinates, several of whom hastened to take their cell phones out of their pockets.
Awakusu-kai men were probably heading for all of the places Shinra had mentioned right at this minute.
"But still, I wouldn't in my wildest imagination expected that the kid was the precious granddaughter of Awakusu-kai's Manager."
"…….I don't think you'd need reminding, but on that matter……"
"Please rest assured. You know how good at keeping secrets I am. The only one who can pry my mouth open is Celty, and she's no outsider on this matter anyway."
Shinra poured coffee into his mug with a smile on his face and looked around for sugar packs.
At that exact second - noise of destruction and young boys shouting was heard coming from the cell phone, which had been left in speaker mode on the kitchen counter.
"?"
Of course, the noise had also reached Shiki's ears. Frowning slightly, he said:
"……Looks like there's something troublesome going on."
♂♀
"You messing with us!?"
One of the taller delinquents yelled angrily at Celty, who shrugged slowly.
Had she a head above her shoulders, she would have sighed.
As she toyed with such thoughts on her mind Celty sprang effortlessly from the ground and climbed over the factory window, landing on the floor inside.
Putting her cell phone back into her breast pocket, she walked towards Mikado with her PDA in her outstretched hand.
"……"
While his companions remained still and stared at her nervously, Kuronuma Aoba eyed Celty with an alarmed expression on his face.
It was not the first time Aoba had seen her and her black rider suit.
Only a month ago he had been there with Mikado and the others when they had watched her from the van.
He had already had a sense that she was something "not human" just from that experience.
She conjured shadow from her body, and rode on a motorbike that did not make any engine sound.
If the video clips aired on TV could be trusted, she had nothing above her neck.
Some still insisted it was a magic trick. But even those people should be aware by now.
- If that was indeed a magic trick, it would still have been magic.
On top of that, he recalled that he had heard Mikado refer to that rider as "Celty-san" before.
"……Are you spying on us? Or did Mikado-sempai call you out to ambush us?"
Aoba muttered. As he turned his gaze towards Mikado, however, he saw that the latter was staring at Celty with eyes the size of saucers. It looked like he was genuinely surprised to see Celty - the Black Motorbike - here after all.
Celty, on the other hand, typed words onto her PDA silently as she walked without hesitating towards Mikado and Aoba.
[I heard what you have been saying to each other. But I don't feel like I am the one to talk on this matter.]
"……"
"……"
Mikado and Aoba kept their own respective emotions inside and remained silent as they saw the words typed onto the PDA.
Ignoring their lack of reaction, Celty continued to type more words.
[So please just pretend that I am not here, and continue.]
"……"
"……"
The silence was followed by more silence. Inside the factory no one seemed like they wanted to say anything.
"……Wha - "
- What the hell are you doing here?
Just as one of Aoba's companions was about to break the silence -
The rusted gates made noises as they were forced open, and the silence in the factory was dispelled like mist.
The factory gate, which had only just been closed, was opened wide to reveal a gang of men standing in the sun outside.
They were probably one or two years Mikado's senior. But since both Mikado and Aoba had childlike features, these men looked like they were more than five years older.
They wore the same leather jackets, at the sleeves of which the logo of "Toramaru" had been embroidered. Though Mikado and the other boys couldn't see it from their angle, the same logo was featured in the conspicuous design of the backs of their jackets as well.
Many of them were carrying timbers or steel pipes; it was obvious that they were here not for a gathering but for a fight.
"……Toramaru."
Aoba muttered as he wiped the smile off his face completely.
A man with bandages over his face walked out of the group of men in leather jackets. Eyes widening as he saw Aoba and his gang, he turned to inform his companions:
"We found them……it's these guys. These are the ones who attacked us and burned our motorbikes."
"Bingo for us."
A man who wore a tokko-fuku amidst his companions who were in leather jackets flexed his neck audibly as he said so.
"……I guess we're just going to beat everyone in this place into the ground and report to Captain afterwards."
"What about the people in other places? Should we tell them to come here as well?"
"Nah……with our numbers I don't think we'll need reinforcement."
"Yes."
The men in leather jackets answered in nonchalant voices, already prepared to attack.
The timber was swung high aimed at the face of a delinquent who had been guarding the gates.
The delinquent detected the danger just in time to use his hands alternately to stop the dry weapon in its tracks.
The timber broke with a sharp crack.
It looked like there had been a fissure in the timber, which explained why it cracked so readily upon the impact. However, it was still enough to inflict pretty serious damage on the delinquent: he remained in the same position after stopping the timber with his hands, his expression distorted by pain, his body apparently unable to move.
As if taking cue from that, the delinquents yelled in anger at the leather jacket gang and was about to pounce upon them when -
"Calm down."
Aoba's timely order cooled their hearts down as if it were icy water.
He did not shout.
But his voice was chilly and sonorous.
Everyone in the factory turned towards Aoba's direction including the leather jacket gang.
Aoba, after making sure that everyone's eyes were on him, turned towards Mikado with a serious face -
And said something that would turn Ryuugamine Mikado's life upside down.
"We will stay here to take care of the situation. Please run, Captain."
"Eh?"
Having no idea what Aoba had just said, Mikado turned around with a dumbstruck face.
Two seconds later, when what Aoba had just said had finally registered, he hastened to raise his eyes to look at the faces of the gang men at the entrance.
Every one of them was looking straight at him.
"Wait, this is a misunderstanding……"
"Listen, all of you!"
Just as he was about to say something, Aoba cut in loudly as if to drown his voice out.
"Don't let them lay a single filthy finger on Captain! Go!"
"Yeees!"
"Go!"
"Die, bastards!"
"Don't mess with Dollars!"
The delinquents responded to Aoba's order with gusto as they pounced upon the leather jacket gang.
"Interesting……let's settle this once and for all!"
"Yeah!"
"If you're the Captain, don't fucking run away and come fight me one-on-one!"
The Toramaru men shouted as they, too, charged forwards to fight the delinquents.
"W - Wait! Wait!"
Mikado's voice was completely lost in the subsequent chaos.
The only ones who heard him were Celty and Aoba, who was standing right in front of him.
Aoba turned around swiftly and smiled as innocently as ever at Mikado.
"Please leave it to us, My Captain☆"
"W - Wait……"
Angry voices reached Mikado's back as he was just about to say something.
"Die! You fucking Dollars filth!"
"Eh……"
As he turned around he saw a steel pipe coming directly at his face.
- !
He was ready to feel it with his face when the steel pipe was stopped by a black hand.
"C - Celty-san!"
"Who the hell are……ahh!?"
Using the "shadow" to toss the man in the leather jacket into the air, Celty showed her PDA to Mikado.
[I know this would be hard for you to do, but you'd better run for now. It will be hard to convince them that it was a misunderstanding.]
"B - But - "
Mikado still looked eager to say something, but Celty had decided that further conversations would be pointless. She picked Mikado up and jumped out of the window.
Mounting the Black Motorbike parked outside the window, she used her shadow to tie Mikado tightly to her back and started the motorbike.
"Dammit! Stand still!"
Voices of the men in leather jackets were still ringing in their ears from inside the factory. However, Celty kept soaring on her motorbike.
Meanwhile, she continued to show her PDA to Mikado, who was leaned onto her back.
[Anyway, we'll first go meet Anri-chan. The two of you can stay at our apartment until things have calmed down.]
"……"
Mikado remained silent as he saw the words on her PDA.
- This must be a complex situation for him.
Celty knew Mikado well enough to know that being told to "hide" was hard for him. But this was not the time to indulge his wishes or hear his protests.
Because Celty had other opponents she must fight amidst this chaos.
And Celty had still yet to realize that she was being watched by someone.
She did not notice that her motorbike had already been tapped with some sort of tracking device during the time she had been unable to pay attention to it.
Shooter might have tried to warn her of that fact, but right now his overwhelming priority was to get his master out of this place.
And just like that, Celty soared onto the Tokyo streets, almost forgetting about the fact that there were people out there who would attack her a second time when they got the chance.
Little did she know that at her destination yet another commotion awaited.
♂♀
Rooftop of a building next to the abandoned factory
After she had seen the Black Motorbike leave, Vorona looked at the display screen of the end receiver and nodded in satisfaction.
"The tracking device is installed. This way finding out the Black Motorbike's whereabouts is possible. Happy end, happy end."
"So should we nap for a while before he gets home?"
"Slon is simpleminded, that is affirmative. He is going home, that is negative. Same as us. Halfway he finds out about the tracking device. If thrown into a long distance freight train, we will be tired to the point our bones begin withering. Pity, pity. In order to avoid that, immediate tracking is the default option."
Slon shrugged as Vorona said in a voice more forceful than usual.
"OK, OK. You're usually not this enthusiastic about the jobs we do. But now you're like on fire."
"Half work, half hobby. Satisfying my own desire. Obtaining monetary reward on top of that. No problem exists. The world today is still permanently beautiful."
"Haven't got the slightest clue what you're saying, but well, if the beautiful Vorona says it's beautiful, then a beautiful world it is."
The unprofessional chatter continued as the freelancer duo descended the stairs.
"Still, I never thought it would be so easy to lure him here. That monster's kind of more thoughtless than I expected."
"Affirmative. But to say the opponent is simple, that is negative. Insulting and picking a fight with a bear fallen into a trap, such people largely do not exist. A stupid act equal to laughing at butterflies trapped in a spider's web."
"……Ah! That reminds me……speaking of spiders, why do they never get trapped in their own webs? The mystery ensnares me like a spider's sticky threads, making me so wound up that I probably won't be able to move another inch."
Slon didn't stop raising his questions even in the present situation.
Vorona didn't appear surprised or appalled. Instead, she said in her ever-mechanical and flat tone:
"Spiders. Two types of threads used separately. Able to be told apart by touching. Threads in center, adhesive power, nil. Threads emanating from center, adhesive power, likewise nil. Only spirally spun threads are capable of sticking to prey. The end."
"But when it begins to wrap the prey up in more threads, won't it end up being stuck to the threads itself?"
"Spiders, secrete from their own bodies special chemicals. Those chemicals, neutralize the adhesive power. In a certain range won't get stuck. Therefore, touching sticky threads OK if it's only occasionally. Happy end, happy end."
Slon looked at Vorona in admiration as she kept descending the stairs at full speed while answering his question. Looking satisfied, he put on a wide smile and nodded.
"I see……! So if Vorona were the spider, I would be the secretion. Both of us are needed in order to catch our prey!"
"The analogy is questionable. I secrete Slon. Too creepy, completely negative. I hope for the erasure of your existence."
"……I hope you chose to go with the more extreme expressions because you're still not used to speaking Japanese."
As this conversation came to an end, so did the stairs. They walked towards the open ground in front of the factory.
The moment they saw the road, several motorbikes soared out of the factory and past them..
Inside the factory the fight was still on-going. It seemed that the leather jacket gang had split forces, sending part of the men to go after Celty.
"……Speaking of which, that Black Motorbike took a boy on the back seat with him."
"Affirmative."
They were not good at estimating the age of a Japanese by his or her looks. With Mikado's childlike features, they would easily have mistaken him for an elementary school kid.
Vorona walked towards her newly delivered motorbike and replied in a nonchalant voice:
"Acquired him as food. That possibility exists."
"Are you sure that's not too wild of a guess?"
"Affirmative. A monster not recorded in any books. Point in trying to imagine what he would do, nil. Until perceived with these eyes, the truth remains in a vortex of darkness."
Vorona, speaking in weird Japanese, felt the slight bubbling of emotions as she mounted the motorbike. Putting her helmet over her head, she muttered to herself:
"My hope. ……Somehow, please make me happy. You incredible black monster."
A "shadow" had been keeping her watch on the things going on inside the abandoned factory.
Taking precautions to avoid being seen by the boys inside, Celty Sturluson continued to think.
- Hmm.
- What should I do now?
Her goal was of course not to stalk this group of delinquents.
She had been asked by Awakusu-kai to look for and bodyguard Awakusu Akane.
After she got the job, she and Anri were attacked by a mysterious rider. Celty had attached her shadow thread to the back of her opponent's motorbike and came all the way here to find people she never expected to find inside. By now, she had completely missed the chance to go inside.
- Their motorbike should be parked inside the factory.
- These kids don't look like they would be after the granddaughter of the head of Awakusu-kai……
As Celty continued to watch, she saw Mikado's face turn pale at some text message on his cell phone. Before that, the boy who looked like his kouhai was smiling unflinchingly.
- Anyway, it doesn't look like Mikado-kun is going to get beaten up any time soon, but still……
- Looks like this is going to take long.
- It was the right move to have turned off my own ringtone for incoming text messages.
Celty had had it on until text messages from Dollars became too many for her to handle. Now she usually kept it in the OFF mode.
At the beginning it was in the vibrate mode, but the boys inside the factory had been too distracted by the ringtones of their own cell phones to notice hers since the messages from Dollars were sent to everyone.
Celty remembered that she should turn off the vibrate mode as well and did so quietly.
She had half a mind to leave, but she was still somewhat worried about Mikado.
He was not a stranger to her. In fact, he ranked among her few acquaintances who remained on friendly terms with her even after he came to know her real identity.
She thought about rushing inside to help him, but she feared that it might turn out to be adding to Mikado's troubles. It seemed like he had been presented with a question he must find the answer to on his own. Furthermore, if she caused a commotion here she would risk drawing the attention of the owners of the motorbike - her enemies - and involving all the boys in the factory, including Mikado, in this mess.
Unaware that she was already being watched herself, Celty kept her watch on the boys from outside the factory.
- Speaking of which, it looks like Mikado-kun is in some real trouble this time.
- That kid, Aoba-kun, doesn't look like a delinquent but might be a scheming bastard.
- ……Ah, but then when Shinra first brought Izaya home I had thought he looked like a good student too……one can't judge a book by the cover.
Celty was a Dollars member. However, Dollars was for her not an indispensable home. Had she turned Shinra down it might have become something close to that, but right now it was only one of her multiple "homes". She didn't even know her fellow Dollars members any better than she did her chatroom companions.
But Mikado was her acquaintance in real life. She couldn't leave him to his own devices when he was in danger.
- But what will you do, Mikado-kun?
Usually mature kids like Mikado would think it was a practical joke when they were asked to become the leader of a gang.
But Celty knew that Mikado was not that simple a kid.
When she had first met him, he had been in a face-to-face "battle" with a high executive at Yagiri Pharmaceuticals. Although it was only a verbal exchange rather than a physical battle, it was a fierce "battle" nevertheless. From what she saw that day Celty decided that Mikado was a courageous person.
Yet Mikado was hesitating today.
Was he worried that he might risk involving Anri in this?
- If it's Anri-chan, he really doesn't have to worry since it would spell more trouble for the party who dared to involve her than for her.
Celty knew that Anri was the host of "Saika" and was very aware of Anri's strength.
Mikado didn't know about this; however, by now he would have had a clue or two.
- But Mikado-kun will eventually choose not to risk involving Anri-chan, I guess.
- Even if he knew about "Saika", he would probably choose to do the same.
- However, if Anri-chan offers to help him it's unlikely that he would turn her down.
Celty was reminded of the time when Mikado had first come to know her real identity. She had realized upon that meeting that Mikado had a greater thirst for "unusual" things than anyone else. If Anri expressed her wish to "go over to the unusual side", there was no way he would refuse.
Although for Celty, who was on a mission for Awakusu-kai and only half a day ago had been fired at by an anti-material rifle, what was happening with Mikado probably had to fall on the "usual" side of things.
- This gang business was pretty out of hand when Shinra went to high school. Is it like that for all high school kids? I just don't really get that.
The fights she remembered happened more than 5 years ago when Shinra was still a student. Celty had witnessed several times high school students fighting each other on a large scale.
Those fights were not like the ones between Dollars and Yellow Turbans; they mostly consisted of high school kids in the same neighborhood fighting over certain territories.
In the eye of the hurricane stood Shizuo, who simply wanted to live a quiet life.
The one who pulled the strings was Izaya, who made sure that he stayed outside of the ring of battle.
Shinra stayed neutral and kept himself unaffected in-between the fighting parties.
- Shinra would probably smile and say, "So! Hurry up, apologize to them and let them beat you up. I will treat you guys afterwards for free and we'll call it even, OK?". Shizuo would go "DON'T ADD TO MY FUCKING TROUBLES!" and put an end to this by beating everyone into the ground. Izaya would……
- What would Izaya do?
- That kid called Aoba, he's kind of like Izaya.
As this thought came to her mind, Celty realized something.
- Ah, right.
- Izaya wouldn't have done something like this in the first place.
- A person his type harbors unusually strong animosity towards people who are like him, so he wouldn't have asked someone like him to become the leader in the first place. ……Unless his intention is to lure the person into a trap, of course.
Celty kept juggling such thoughts on her mind as she kept her silent watch on the things going on inside the factory.
Without realizing that her enemies' eyes were, at the exact same time, focused on her back.
- It's been a while.
Afterwards nothing much had happened inside the abandoned factory.
Mikado had lowered his face, asked Aoba something and collected information on his cell phone. But nothing attention-drawing had happened.
- How many minutes have passed?
Celty checked her cell phone and realized that it had been almost an hour since she arrived at this abandoned factory.
Just as she was seriously considering either rushing inside to rescue Mikado or leaving on her motorbike, inside the factory Aoba suddenly smiled and clapped his hands.
"So, it's about time I called Anri-sempai."
"Wait, wait a second!"
A well-built delinquent grabbed Mikado's shoulders as he was about to say something.
"I'm worried that sempai might shout unnecessary stuff into the phone if we called her, so I think we'll be sending her a text message instead. Actually, I should apologize. I already sent one to her 5 minutes ago."
"Eh……"
"So I kind of have to go right now, I don't want to be late, you know. Mikado-sempai can wait here and take all the time you need to think it over. ……While reading text messages from Dollars members being beaten into the ground, I guess."
"W - Wait!"
Celty lifted her waist a little on her motorbike as she heard Mikado yell.
- ……Looks like I will have to do something about it after all.
- That Aoba kid is going to leave soon, so I can probably go in and get him out later.
As she watched Aoba turn his back towards Mikado and make a move to leave, Celty was reminded of the feeling in her stomach a moment ago.
That boy was like Orihara Izaya.
That feeling alone was enough to put her on her guard against this boy.
- I don't really know why, but I feel like it would be better not to have anything to do with this Aoba kid.
- When I've taken Mikado-kun to Anri-chan, I'll return to this factory since I still haven't taken the thread off that motorbike.
At the exact moment when she had just decided on the best time to get out of her hiding spot and charge into the factory -
"That sound" reached her ears at the worst time possible.
"♪♪ ♪♪ ♪~~~~~~~"
It was the famous "Confiscated!" music clip from "Wonders and Discoveries"*.
* "Confiscated!": or "Bosshuuto!", is a well-known line used by Kusano Jin, the host of the TV show "Wonders and Discoveries" aired on TBS. Kusano says this line every time a participant places his or her bet on the wrong answer and subsequently must let one of their "Hitoshi-kun" dolls be "confiscated". The color of the dolls taken away from the participant vary according to the level of "disappointment" at their getting the answers wrong.
It was doubtlessly coming from Celty's own cell phone.
- Huh!?
- I forgot to turn off the ringtone for incoming calls!
Though Celty had turned off the ringtone for incoming text messages, she had forgotten to turn off the even more important one for incoming calls.
When she had played with her ringtone settings, she had tried setting this music clip as her ringtone for fun. As soon as Shinra heard it he had jumped and said "Wait, Celty! I'm about the only one who would call you since you can't talk, right!? What's with this!? Does it mean that every call from me will scream 'Confiscated!'!? Wait a second! If I did anything wrong I will apologize! If you're taking a Hitoshi-kun doll from me then at least tell me what color it's gonna be*!"
* Hitoshi-kun: see the translation note for "Confiscated!".
Since she had Shinra really funny when he was saying this, Celty had set this ringtone as Shinra's default.
The sound of the ringtone was so out of tune with the atmosphere in the factory that Celty was reminded of how she had come to use it. But there was no time for her to reminisce further.
Just as she hastened to turn off the ringtone on her cell phone, the shocked faces of almost every boy in the factory, including Mikado's and Aoba's, were already turned towards her.
"Hello, hello, is it Celty? Shiki-san's come all the way to visit us. We just got to know something really important that concerns this job you're doing. Do you have time right now? Hmm? If you can hear me just answer me with our usual secret code. Hello, hello - ?"
Celty had no ears right now for the voice that was speaking on the other end of the phone.
"……Black Motorbike?"
"Celty-san!? Why are you here!?"
She heard the voice of Aoba, whose smile had disappeared for the first time, and the voice of Mikado, whose astonishment couldn't be made any more obvious.
Right after the two voices had finished asking -
"Who the hell are you?"
The voices of the boys who had at last recovered from the shock ricocheted throughout the factory, demanding an answer.
Celty tapped the code for "Now is not the best time" at the microphone part of her cell phone and took out her PDA with the other hand.
And with her countless "shadow fingers", she typed something onto the PDA and showed it to one of the delinquents who had walked to the window.
[I'm just a passing urban legend. If you don't pretend you have never seen me I'll attack you all in your sleep tonight.]
♂♀
Shinra's apartment on Kawagoe Highway
"You messing with us!?"
Voices of boys Shinra had never heard before sounded from the other end of the phone.
Shinra sighed and turned around to say:
"Um, it looks like Celty is in some sort of trouble."
The person on whom Shinra's eyes fell was Shiki, who was sitting in the chair with a troubled face, his hands crossed.
"……Please keep trying to get in touch with her. We are understaffed as it is."
"No problem. Ah, please believe that what I'm telling is the truth. Celty didn't know that this Akane-chan was in our apartment, and I never heard Celty talk about the job she was asked to do, either."
"I believe that. If you want to, sensei, you could have erased all traces that would let us know that Shizuo's been here. Celty-san must have avoided telling you about her job because she didn't want to risk involving you. This asymmetry of information does bother me to some extent, of course."
Shiki voiced his own opinion straightforwardly in a calm tone. His expression darkened slightly as he mentioned the name of the person of grave importance to him.
"……So, that high school girl who took Miss Akane for a walk, you said she was going to meet up with her friends……any idea where she would be going?"
Shinra felt his spine tremble involuntarily as Shiki asked him the question with an unrelentingly sharp look in his eyes. However, he managed to maintain his usual attitude as he reasoned:
"Yeah, I wonder. She doesn't look like she's the type who would know a lot of meeting spots in the city. My guess is that it's going to be either in front of Tokyu Hands on 60-Story Street, or the Lotteria on the other side of the street, or the fountain in front of the entrance of Metropolitan or West Gate Park if they're planning on taking the train, or Ikefukurou* in front of East Gate. Something like that."
* Ikefukurou: the name of the statue of the stone owl in front of Ikebukuro Station's East Gate. It is a portmanteau word combining "Ikebukuro" and "fukurou" (Japanese for "owl").
"……"
Shiki cast a look at his subordinates, several of whom hastened to take their cell phones out of their pockets.
Awakusu-kai men were probably heading for all of the places Shinra had mentioned right at this minute.
"But still, I wouldn't in my wildest imagination expected that the kid was the precious granddaughter of Awakusu-kai's Manager."
"…….I don't think you'd need reminding, but on that matter……"
"Please rest assured. You know how good at keeping secrets I am. The only one who can pry my mouth open is Celty, and she's no outsider on this matter anyway."
Shinra poured coffee into his mug with a smile on his face and looked around for sugar packs.
At that exact second - noise of destruction and young boys shouting was heard coming from the cell phone, which had been left in speaker mode on the kitchen counter.
"?"
Of course, the noise had also reached Shiki's ears. Frowning slightly, he said:
"……Looks like there's something troublesome going on."
♂♀
"You messing with us!?"
One of the taller delinquents yelled angrily at Celty, who shrugged slowly.
Had she a head above her shoulders, she would have sighed.
As she toyed with such thoughts on her mind Celty sprang effortlessly from the ground and climbed over the factory window, landing on the floor inside.
Putting her cell phone back into her breast pocket, she walked towards Mikado with her PDA in her outstretched hand.
"……"
While his companions remained still and stared at her nervously, Kuronuma Aoba eyed Celty with an alarmed expression on his face.
It was not the first time Aoba had seen her and her black rider suit.
Only a month ago he had been there with Mikado and the others when they had watched her from the van.
He had already had a sense that she was something "not human" just from that experience.
She conjured shadow from her body, and rode on a motorbike that did not make any engine sound.
If the video clips aired on TV could be trusted, she had nothing above her neck.
Some still insisted it was a magic trick. But even those people should be aware by now.
- If that was indeed a magic trick, it would still have been magic.
On top of that, he recalled that he had heard Mikado refer to that rider as "Celty-san" before.
"……Are you spying on us? Or did Mikado-sempai call you out to ambush us?"
Aoba muttered. As he turned his gaze towards Mikado, however, he saw that the latter was staring at Celty with eyes the size of saucers. It looked like he was genuinely surprised to see Celty - the Black Motorbike - here after all.
Celty, on the other hand, typed words onto her PDA silently as she walked without hesitating towards Mikado and Aoba.
[I heard what you have been saying to each other. But I don't feel like I am the one to talk on this matter.]
"……"
"……"
Mikado and Aoba kept their own respective emotions inside and remained silent as they saw the words typed onto the PDA.
Ignoring their lack of reaction, Celty continued to type more words.
[So please just pretend that I am not here, and continue.]
"……"
"……"
The silence was followed by more silence. Inside the factory no one seemed like they wanted to say anything.
"……Wha - "
- What the hell are you doing here?
Just as one of Aoba's companions was about to break the silence -
The rusted gates made noises as they were forced open, and the silence in the factory was dispelled like mist.
The factory gate, which had only just been closed, was opened wide to reveal a gang of men standing in the sun outside.
They were probably one or two years Mikado's senior. But since both Mikado and Aoba had childlike features, these men looked like they were more than five years older.
They wore the same leather jackets, at the sleeves of which the logo of "Toramaru" had been embroidered. Though Mikado and the other boys couldn't see it from their angle, the same logo was featured in the conspicuous design of the backs of their jackets as well.
Many of them were carrying timbers or steel pipes; it was obvious that they were here not for a gathering but for a fight.
"……Toramaru."
Aoba muttered as he wiped the smile off his face completely.
A man with bandages over his face walked out of the group of men in leather jackets. Eyes widening as he saw Aoba and his gang, he turned to inform his companions:
"We found them……it's these guys. These are the ones who attacked us and burned our motorbikes."
"Bingo for us."
A man who wore a tokko-fuku amidst his companions who were in leather jackets flexed his neck audibly as he said so.
"……I guess we're just going to beat everyone in this place into the ground and report to Captain afterwards."
"What about the people in other places? Should we tell them to come here as well?"
"Nah……with our numbers I don't think we'll need reinforcement."
"Yes."
The men in leather jackets answered in nonchalant voices, already prepared to attack.
The timber was swung high aimed at the face of a delinquent who had been guarding the gates.
The delinquent detected the danger just in time to use his hands alternately to stop the dry weapon in its tracks.
The timber broke with a sharp crack.
It looked like there had been a fissure in the timber, which explained why it cracked so readily upon the impact. However, it was still enough to inflict pretty serious damage on the delinquent: he remained in the same position after stopping the timber with his hands, his expression distorted by pain, his body apparently unable to move.
As if taking cue from that, the delinquents yelled in anger at the leather jacket gang and was about to pounce upon them when -
"Calm down."
Aoba's timely order cooled their hearts down as if it were icy water.
He did not shout.
But his voice was chilly and sonorous.
Everyone in the factory turned towards Aoba's direction including the leather jacket gang.
Aoba, after making sure that everyone's eyes were on him, turned towards Mikado with a serious face -
And said something that would turn Ryuugamine Mikado's life upside down.
"We will stay here to take care of the situation. Please run, Captain."
"Eh?"
Having no idea what Aoba had just said, Mikado turned around with a dumbstruck face.
Two seconds later, when what Aoba had just said had finally registered, he hastened to raise his eyes to look at the faces of the gang men at the entrance.
Every one of them was looking straight at him.
"Wait, this is a misunderstanding……"
"Listen, all of you!"
Just as he was about to say something, Aoba cut in loudly as if to drown his voice out.
"Don't let them lay a single filthy finger on Captain! Go!"
"Yeees!"
"Go!"
"Die, bastards!"
"Don't mess with Dollars!"
The delinquents responded to Aoba's order with gusto as they pounced upon the leather jacket gang.
"Interesting……let's settle this once and for all!"
"Yeah!"
"If you're the Captain, don't fucking run away and come fight me one-on-one!"
The Toramaru men shouted as they, too, charged forwards to fight the delinquents.
"W - Wait! Wait!"
Mikado's voice was completely lost in the subsequent chaos.
The only ones who heard him were Celty and Aoba, who was standing right in front of him.
Aoba turned around swiftly and smiled as innocently as ever at Mikado.
"Please leave it to us, My Captain☆"
"W - Wait……"
Angry voices reached Mikado's back as he was just about to say something.
"Die! You fucking Dollars filth!"
"Eh……"
As he turned around he saw a steel pipe coming directly at his face.
- !
He was ready to feel it with his face when the steel pipe was stopped by a black hand.
"C - Celty-san!"
"Who the hell are……ahh!?"
Using the "shadow" to toss the man in the leather jacket into the air, Celty showed her PDA to Mikado.
[I know this would be hard for you to do, but you'd better run for now. It will be hard to convince them that it was a misunderstanding.]
"B - But - "
Mikado still looked eager to say something, but Celty had decided that further conversations would be pointless. She picked Mikado up and jumped out of the window.
Mounting the Black Motorbike parked outside the window, she used her shadow to tie Mikado tightly to her back and started the motorbike.
"Dammit! Stand still!"
Voices of the men in leather jackets were still ringing in their ears from inside the factory. However, Celty kept soaring on her motorbike.
Meanwhile, she continued to show her PDA to Mikado, who was leaned onto her back.
[Anyway, we'll first go meet Anri-chan. The two of you can stay at our apartment until things have calmed down.]
"……"
Mikado remained silent as he saw the words on her PDA.
- This must be a complex situation for him.
Celty knew Mikado well enough to know that being told to "hide" was hard for him. But this was not the time to indulge his wishes or hear his protests.
Because Celty had other opponents she must fight amidst this chaos.
And Celty had still yet to realize that she was being watched by someone.
She did not notice that her motorbike had already been tapped with some sort of tracking device during the time she had been unable to pay attention to it.
Shooter might have tried to warn her of that fact, but right now his overwhelming priority was to get his master out of this place.
And just like that, Celty soared onto the Tokyo streets, almost forgetting about the fact that there were people out there who would attack her a second time when they got the chance.
Little did she know that at her destination yet another commotion awaited.
♂♀
Rooftop of a building next to the abandoned factory
After she had seen the Black Motorbike leave, Vorona looked at the display screen of the end receiver and nodded in satisfaction.
"The tracking device is installed. This way finding out the Black Motorbike's whereabouts is possible. Happy end, happy end."
"So should we nap for a while before he gets home?"
"Slon is simpleminded, that is affirmative. He is going home, that is negative. Same as us. Halfway he finds out about the tracking device. If thrown into a long distance freight train, we will be tired to the point our bones begin withering. Pity, pity. In order to avoid that, immediate tracking is the default option."
Slon shrugged as Vorona said in a voice more forceful than usual.
"OK, OK. You're usually not this enthusiastic about the jobs we do. But now you're like on fire."
"Half work, half hobby. Satisfying my own desire. Obtaining monetary reward on top of that. No problem exists. The world today is still permanently beautiful."
"Haven't got the slightest clue what you're saying, but well, if the beautiful Vorona says it's beautiful, then a beautiful world it is."
The unprofessional chatter continued as the freelancer duo descended the stairs.
"Still, I never thought it would be so easy to lure him here. That monster's kind of more thoughtless than I expected."
"Affirmative. But to say the opponent is simple, that is negative. Insulting and picking a fight with a bear fallen into a trap, such people largely do not exist. A stupid act equal to laughing at butterflies trapped in a spider's web."
"……Ah! That reminds me……speaking of spiders, why do they never get trapped in their own webs? The mystery ensnares me like a spider's sticky threads, making me so wound up that I probably won't be able to move another inch."
Slon didn't stop raising his questions even in the present situation.
Vorona didn't appear surprised or appalled. Instead, she said in her ever-mechanical and flat tone:
"Spiders. Two types of threads used separately. Able to be told apart by touching. Threads in center, adhesive power, nil. Threads emanating from center, adhesive power, likewise nil. Only spirally spun threads are capable of sticking to prey. The end."
"But when it begins to wrap the prey up in more threads, won't it end up being stuck to the threads itself?"
"Spiders, secrete from their own bodies special chemicals. Those chemicals, neutralize the adhesive power. In a certain range won't get stuck. Therefore, touching sticky threads OK if it's only occasionally. Happy end, happy end."
Slon looked at Vorona in admiration as she kept descending the stairs at full speed while answering his question. Looking satisfied, he put on a wide smile and nodded.
"I see……! So if Vorona were the spider, I would be the secretion. Both of us are needed in order to catch our prey!"
"The analogy is questionable. I secrete Slon. Too creepy, completely negative. I hope for the erasure of your existence."
"……I hope you chose to go with the more extreme expressions because you're still not used to speaking Japanese."
As this conversation came to an end, so did the stairs. They walked towards the open ground in front of the factory.
The moment they saw the road, several motorbikes soared out of the factory and past them..
Inside the factory the fight was still on-going. It seemed that the leather jacket gang had split forces, sending part of the men to go after Celty.
"……Speaking of which, that Black Motorbike took a boy on the back seat with him."
"Affirmative."
They were not good at estimating the age of a Japanese by his or her looks. With Mikado's childlike features, they would easily have mistaken him for an elementary school kid.
Vorona walked towards her newly delivered motorbike and replied in a nonchalant voice:
"Acquired him as food. That possibility exists."
"Are you sure that's not too wild of a guess?"
"Affirmative. A monster not recorded in any books. Point in trying to imagine what he would do, nil. Until perceived with these eyes, the truth remains in a vortex of darkness."
Vorona, speaking in weird Japanese, felt the slight bubbling of emotions as she mounted the motorbike. Putting her helmet over her head, she muttered to herself:
"My hope. ……Somehow, please make me happy. You incredible black monster."