Chapter 1 - Part 2
Celty Sturluson isn’t human.
She is called the ‘headless rider’, a one of a kind Scottish or Irish fairy - she will visit the homes of the dying and inform them of their impending death.
She carried around her severed head and rode a carriage pulled by a Coiste-bodhar, a headless horse, to the homes of the dying. If they thoughtlessly opened the door, they would get splashed with a bucket of blood - because of this, the headless rider became widely regarded as an unlucky messenger. Along with banshees, their tales were handed down through generations of European folklore.
Some people believe that the headless rider was the form that a goddess from Norse myths took on when she fell on Earth, whether this was true or not, Celty herself did not know.
Or it's not that she doesn't know.
But she couldn't remember.
When Celty had her head stolen, she lost her memories as well.
In order to recover the 'head', Celty had followed the scent of her head to Ikebukuro.
She transformed her headless horse into a motorbike, her armor into a rider suit, and here she’s been wandering for several decades.
However from then until now, she still hasn’t gotten either her head or her memories back.
She knows who stole her head.
And knows who is keeping her from finding it.
But in the end, she still doesn’t know where her head is.
Celty thinks, right now it’s good the way it is.
Right now, she can be with the one she loves, and spend every day with people who accept her.
If this kind of life makes her feel happy, then she might as well continue like this.
The headless woman had made up her mind, she’ll show her determination through her actions in order to make up for her non-existent expressions.
This is - Celty Sturluson.
The moment Celty realized her heart rippled at the thought of the man living with her, she quickly composed herself and stepped on the accelerator.
Hearing a horse's neigh in place of the sound of an engine, she started to review her day’s work.
- I wouldn't have thought that a pet kidnapping would lead to a giant crime syndicate.
- Oh well, after all I’ve already tied up those guys and their guns and threw them in front of the police station.
- This is the first time I encountered a helicopter, thank goodness it wasn’t too much for me.
- I kind of felt like Angelina Jolie starring in a big production movie.
The way her enemies saw it, Celty wasn't just like any action movie heroine, she could virtually equal the likes of Jason or Freddy or more abnormal types. But Celty doesn't care about any of this, and her excitement increased till even her partner, the Coiste-bodhar reared up on his back wheels.
The scene was like howling at the moon, causing the drivers of the surrounding cars to drive away from its side fearfully-
However, a black silhouette actually defied the current and moved closer toward the ‘headless rider’, though Celty didn’t notice.
“Oi, headless.”
Along with the sound of a motorbike engine, a low and deep male voice reverberated around the inside of Celty’s helmet.
At that moment, Celty’s entire body broke out in goose bumps, she very slowly turned her head toward the sound.
Behind her was a man that she was familiar with but whom she ‘never wanted to meet again’ - the policeman mounted on a white motorbike, Kinnosuke Kusuhara.
"You have some guts traveling over 50 metres on your rear wheel. You should understand, right now you can’t just make up some flimsy pretense about your front wheel to muddle through this situation. Also, the body has a lot of problems.”
- !?
At the moment when his words stopped, Celty’s body broke out in a nameless fear. As if noticing her feelings, the Coiste-bodher immediately increased its speed.
- S-s-s-s-sorry!
Celty shouted out in her heart. Even when she was facing the machine gun, she didn’t feel this kind of extreme fear, and so she once again performed the same chase game as before.
Except this time her role was not as the pursuer - but as a powerless girl fleeing from a monster's evil clutches.
※※※※※
- An hour later, Kawagoe street, topmost story of a high-class apartment
"It scared me, it scared me…. I’m sorry, I'm sorry.”
Celty types these words on her PDA while leaning on her roommate - Kishitani Shinra’s shoulder.
Although Celty had no need to breathe, she looked to be taking deep breaths, her whole body couldn't stop quivering.
“Why, why can that white motorbikes avoid all my shadows!? I extended my shadow just like the time I stopped the helicopter, but the motorbike actually tilted horizontally till it was lying down and brushed past my shadow, and then he even made his way towards me along the shadow that extended from my arm into the air!?”
While fleeing around Tokyo, Celty jumped into a river from beside a tea station by creating a shadow tunnel, just like during the helicopter incident. It was only then she was able to escape from the white motorbike, the moment she reached home, Celty threw herself into Shinra's arms.
She was like this every time that officer chased her. Shinra skillfully and soothingly stroked the back of Celty’s shaking form and said.
“It must be intuition and experience. When he reached the river boundary he might have clearly seen your shadow.”
“It doesn’t even matter if he saw it clearly, who would normally drive on top of a shadow!? So, I thought I could use it to my advantage, I would just branch out my shadow to tie down the tires, but then he flashed his headlights at me, disorienting my eyes, by the time I recovered he disappeared!”
“Celty can still get disoriented without having eyes?”
“It wasn’t like subconsciously closing your eyes, it was more like losing your sight temporarily in the glare of a strong light…. don't make wild assumptions! What should I do, Shinra, though ‘Shooter’ might not like it, but if I add on headlights and a license plate, do you think he’ll let me off?”
It seems like Celty was still in a state of terror and confusion. Looking at Celty speaking so incoherently, Shinra simultaneously thought “How cute!” in his heart while outwardly calmly replying.
"Don’t worry, Celty, if he wanted to demand you put on headlights and a license plate, it’ll be the final play. Now calm down, you have a guest.”
“?”
- I have, a guest?
Celty tilted her neck to gradually recover her composure, and noticed a pair of female boots at the front door.
She then turned her head to look out towards the corridor--
A young girl - Sonohara Anri was gazing at Celty through a crack in the door, and made a bowing motion.
※※※※※
Same time, somewhere in Ikebururo
In an avenue full of commercial businesses far from the heart of Ikebukuro, there stood an ordinary building.
A detective agency, a website management office, a telephone club, a dating agency, a loan office, a real estate agency etc., it seems there are all sorts of signboards from every trade, but every company from the second level onwards to the highest level of this building was actually connected to each other.
Each of the various agencies on every level will interfere with each other when the situation calls for it, this entire commercial building is basically like a kind of comprehensive business organization.
At the topmost floor.
In an ordinary office, 3 people that just came back from being out chat with one another while packing up their things to go home.
“Seriously, suddenly breaking the rear-view mirror, even though that kind of thing can be fixed, but what happens if we accidently hit a kid because it was broken.”
“Sorry, I was muddle-headed for a while….”
“Speaking of which, I really lose to the kids these days, selling themselves on online dating sites for $500,000.”
A man with long braids - Tanaka Tom shook his head helplessly, while at his side a golden haired man - Heiwajima Shizuo tiredly responded.
“Yeah.”
At this time, the Russian female behind them - Vorona tilted her head and said.
“I deny. We smoothly collected the expenses from her parents, there is no need to admit defeat.”
“Er, no…. when I said ‘lose’ I didn’t mean…..”
Tom sighed in his response. This kind of conversation before leaving work wasn’t out of the ordinary, but-
The lady who was manning the front desk telephone pressed down the 'hold' button, turned to Shizuo and said.
“Heiwajima-san, it seems you have a guest, they’re already waiting in the reception room.”
“Huh? ......okay.”
Surprised, Shizuo moved towards the location near the office entrance that used a screen to separate it off as a reception room.
Tom watched him with surprise and exclaimed.
“Shizuo has a guest? How rare.”
“Calculating the probabilities, it might be because of the broken forklift from 3 days ago, now people have come to settle the score.”
“No, they would go directly to the boss for that…. Oh, could it be because of the broken rear-view mirror?”
Tom and Vorona who found Shizuo suddenly having guests strange approached the screen and peeked through the opening-in the reception room was a rarely seen smiling Shizuo - and an expressionless beautiful young male.
“Ah ah, there’s a face we don’t see too often, no wonder he had to go into the reception room.”
“I cannot say I don’t see it too often, I see his face on television and posters every day.”
Vorona used her strange way of speaking to respond to Tom’s mumbling.
However Vorona wasn’t wrong, the face in the reception room is constantly seen on TV.
“What’s up, Kasuka, specially coming all the way here.”
“I wanted to wait till you got off work…. is this okay?”
“There’s no problem, I was just about to go home. Is there something going on?”
Chatting with his little brother - Heiwajima Kasuka, Shizuo used a much more relaxed tone than usual to answer.
Expressionless as always, Kasuka looked toward the office entrance and said.
“Actually, I wanted to discuss something with brother…. first, I want to introduce you to someone… should we move to a different place?”
“There’s no need, this place is fine. Why, do you have someone waiting outside?”
“Yes…… it's better to be careful.”
Kasuka slowly walked toward the office entrance and opened the door leading towards the corridor.
What appeared before Shizuo - was a cloaked young girl, the girl entered the office gingerly.
“Ah, erm…. nice to meet you….”
The young girl greeted him using a tiny voice and bowed low - she is Heiwajima Kasuka’s colleague, with a very special kind of look in her eyes.
“! Hey hey, isn’t it Hijiribe Ruri!”
“Affirmative. I recall the photograph in the celebrity yearbook and her face are consistent.”
From where Tom and Vorona were situated, suddenly whispers could be heard from all directions.
“Is this real… it’s really them!”
“I just bought a photobook before this…..”
“It’s really Hanejima Yuuhei!? Can I take a picture?”
“I want an autograph.”
“Can we shake hands?”
“Since he’s Heiwajima’s little brother, then can he also fight?”
“Hijiribe Ruri, this is awesome! It’s said she's beautiful even without makeup and it's true!”
“Wah!”
Tom turned his head, he could see that a crowd of people had already gathered around the area near the screen. The office workers still in the building all ignored their work and instead crowded around the screen to look at the scene inside.
Not only this, but people from other floors had heard the rumor and also joined in.
“What are you doing!? Go away! Go away! Get back to work!”
Tom drove the crowd away in a low voice. Realizing that Shizuo might go crazy if he noticed the surrounding crowd, Tom decided to flee from the screen and return to his workbench.
Then it was only Vorona left pressing her stomach against the screen, adopting a ninja-like stance so she could continue eavesdropping in her position.
From her perspective, she merely wanted to understand Shizuo’s family in order to search for his vulnerabilities as much as possible.
But in other people’s opinion -
- “Oh, she’s very mindful about Shizuo’s family, it seems towards Shizuo she…”
This was the view of the general people.
“Ah….. I’ve read in the magazines, she’s your, that…..”
Shizuo started to speak but hesitated, Kasuka continued on lightly.
“My important person.”
“……..Right, right.”
Shizuo gently nodded, looking at Hijiribe Ruri.
“Are you trembling?”
Shizuo asked doubtfully, and as before Kasuka lightly stated.
“Ruri has seen brother when he fights.”
“Oh.”
These words seemed to be sufficient enough reason for her to be frightened. Shizuo looked away awkwardly, and after several seconds looked at Ruri again and said.
“Ah, that… it, it’s like that, it’s my bad.”
“Ah, no, no! I should be the one to…. apologize.”
A few months before -
To Ruri who had witnessed Shizuo fighting, in which it was completely possible to be pounded into the ground by a park bench he was wielding at that time, she was truly frightened by him-but what could she say, right now she could only try and stand firm. Despite Yuuhei saying ‘carefully explaining the situation will be enough’, her heart and soul experienced such a heavy trauma that she wished there were more time to prepare herself.
Besides fear, Ruri also felt a myriad of other emotions, Shizuo noticing her peculiar manner sighed and turned to his younger brother.
“Hey… I’m really happy that you thought about bringing her here to meet me, but you should really introduce her to father and mother first… also, right now you’ve only just publicly announced your relationship and people are making a ruckus, if you suddenly marry, will the situation ever settle down?”
“The thing I wanted to discuss with you isn’t that, brother.”
“Huh? Then what is it?”
Shizuo appeared confused. Yuuhei like a robot said with a flat and emotionless tone.
"Brother….. have you heard of Dollars before?”
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