DURARARA!! Vol.8 EPILOGUE & NEXT PROLOGUE, PART I
Translator's note: the story of Vol.8 takes place in July, some 2 months after the events in Vol.5-7. Akabayashi, Saki, Sharaku and other new members have joined the chat, Mikado has started his "internal cleansing" of Dollars with Aoba's help, and Izaya has returned to Tokyo with the girl who tried to assassinate him in his hospital bed back in Vol.7.
EPILOGUE & NEXT PROLOGUE
"Inside=Outside=Between Izaya Returns in Triumph@Möbiusloop"
CHATROOM
[Private mode] Saika
Thank you so much
[Private mode] Gaki
No problem
[Private mode] Gaki
I'm a little surprised that I'm the first to know how to use the private mode between us two, though
[Private mode] Saika
I'm sorry
[Private mode] Gaki
Why are you apologizing lol
[Private mode] Gaki
By the way, I was curious
[Private mode] Saika
About what
[Private mode] Gaki
How do you read the kanji for Anri-chan's handle?
[Private mode] Saika
Sai-ka
[Private mode] Gaki
What does it mean?
[Private mode] Saika
Um It's the name of a fairy tale my mom used to tell
[Private mode] Gaki
Ahh, I see......did I remind you of anything unpleasant?
[Private mode] Saika
No Please don't feel like you did
[Private mode] Gaki
Oops, excuse me, gotta go. A colleague's coming for me
[Private mode] Saika
Cheers
Gaki
I was talking to Saika-san in private mode.
Gaki
Looks like no one else's coming so I'll just see you later.
Gaki-san has left the chat.
♂♀
Somewhere in Tokyo, the Headquarters of Awakusu-kai
"Akabayashi-san, is it OK for me to interrupt?"
"OK OK, I'll be done in just a sec - yeah."
Akabayashi closed his cell phone and answered as Shiki talked to him.
"Were you in the middle of some sort of business communication?"
"Well, I guess more or less. So to whom do I owe the pleasure of having Sir Shiki here?"
Akabayashi - who, like Shiki, was an executive figure in Awakusu-kai - asked with an airy sort of cheerfulness about him.
With a characteristic grin plastered across his face, Akabayashi was tapping the floor lightly with his ornamented cane. Shiki, on the other hand, remained standing as he asked forthright with a sharp look typical of him in his eyes:
"Have you found out anything about Dollars?"
"Nah, I know about as much as everyone else does."
A few days ago -
The name of the gang "Dollars" was mentioned out of the blue in a meeting of the executives.
Apparently an organization formed on the Internet, it was being imitated by certain people to sell drugs online and, occasionally, even undermine Awakusu-kai's authority in the area.
So they began to ask each other whether "Dollars" was the parent organization behind it all -
"If people think it's OK, I'll look into this Dollars matter."
Akabayashi had volunteered to be the head of investigation.
"So, are they doing anything in particular recently?"
Shiki asked. Akabayashi explained in an unconcerned voice:
"Apparently there's some sort of internal cleansing going on. I had the 'Jyan Jyan Jyan' folks look into the matter - turned out that Dollars has been sending people to patrol certain areas like yakuza do with their territory and expelling wrong-doing members from the inside. Speaking of recently, Hijiribe Ruri's mysterious stalker seems to be the focus of their attention."
"Yeah……Kazamoto-san was outraged because one of his subordinates got mistaken for the stalker. Pictures of him are all over the Internet right now……"
"True. I burst out laughing when I saw those photos posted in chatrooms that had nothing to do with Dollars."
"I don't see how this is laughing matter."
Shiki muttered as he lit a cigarette. Akabayashi shrugged and continued:
"Yeah, you have a point. I'm sorry……anyway, I think Dollars in its present state is not a threat to us."
After finishing that sentence, he proceeded to raise one concern:
"But still, their internal cleansing feels a little too radical to me. Hopefully they're not headed in the direction of becoming some sort of new cult."
Shiki said in a similarly unconcerned voice after he heard Akabayashi's airy analysis:
"Hm. I don't think it's going to matter either way - that is, as long as you have a proper solution no matter what happens, Akabayashi-san."
"It's not just me. If I were you, I'd watch out for certain things as well, Sir Shiki."
"?"
Shiki narrowed his eyes as Akabayashi went on to mention the name of a certain male:
"That informant kid is your responsibility, isn't he, if I'm not very much mistaken?"
"………"
Shiki fell silent. Akabayashi, on the other hand, recalled what had happened several hours ago.
His contact at "Jyan Jyan Jyan" came to him with a wristband shaped like a snake around his right wrist.
Stroking the wristband, he reported to Akabayashi everything he knew.
- "We've been watching Ryuugamine Mikado. Just as we thought, he was the one who initiated the internal cleansing. We think it's worth noting that another gang named 'Blue Square' has been active in it as well."
Akabayashi had had his subordinates at the police station interrogate Horada and extract from him information about Mikado being the leader of Dollars. Akabayashi had thought that he was just an average high school student, only "existing" online. But it turned out that with the help from Blue Square he had already begun to cleanse Dollars of unworthy members. Akabayashi couldn't help but marvel at what this young boy was capable of.
- "Incidentally, - although it appears irrelevant at this point - "
- "Just as we were spying on the leader of Dollars, members of 'Dragon Zombie' reappeared as well after a long period of absence."
- "They too might have been spying on Dollars."
- "We don't know if there's a causal relation between these two……"
- "But we spotted Izaya in Ikebukuro……he might have got a dirty plan up his sleeve."
- "Rumors have it that he's also a member of Dollars, so we wondered if there was some relevance after all."
In short, Dollars was not doing anything strange, but strange things were happening around it. Therefore Akabayashi still had to watch out for Dollars and Ryuugamine Mikado.
And there was this one more thing irrelevant to his work warranting attention.
- "The girl in glasses Akabayashi-san has once taken care of……"
- "She's not Ryuugamine Mikado's girlfriend……but they're rumored to be close. From what we gathered, they often go to school and go home together. "
It was a very personal concern for Akabayashi.
Sonohara Anri was the daughter of his first love. She felt like a very young sister to him.
If this girl had something to do with the leader of Dollars, this would become a personal problem instead of just a work problem.
Had it been anyone other than Akabayashi, they would probably not have cared this much.
"……Looks like Ikebukuro's brighter parts are not so bright after all."
Akabayashi muttered to himself. Beside him, Shiki asked:
"What is it that you're talking about?"
"Nah, just something personal. Speaking of which, is it alright to just leave the informant kid be? I heard that for a while he wasn't seen at all, but he popped up again recently."
"……Yeah, I think you're already aware of this, but anyway……I've put the 'lock' on him*, though Aozaki-san was very much against it."
* Lock: Shiki is most probably referring to Slon.
The look in Shiki's eyes was sharp as a javelin as he replied. Akabayashi's eyes, however, were smiling from behind his colored sunglasses as he said:
"Of course he was. Aozaki-san believed that under no condition should we ever let the 'lock' loose."
"I wasn't for burying him in the mountains per se……but I was against letting him loose as well."
(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II)