Epilogue and Next Prologue - Part 1

[cleopuffer]

Epilogue & Next Prologue
Inside = Outside = Between   “Izaya Returns in Triumph @ Möbiusloop”

Chatroom

Private message: Saika [Really, thank you so much.]
Private message: Gaki [No problem, don’t worry about it.]
Private message: Gaki [Ah, though I didn’t think that you would be the first to private message me.]
Private message: Saika [Excuse me. Sorry for the inconvenience.]
Private message: Gaki [Stop apologizing (laugh).]
Private message: Gaki [Speaking of which, I have something I wanted to ask.]
Private message: Saika [What is it?]
Private message: Gaki [Anri’s nickname, how should it read?]
Private message: Saika [SAIKA.]
Private message: Gaki [What does it mean?]
Private message: Saika [This, ah, was a name from a fairy tale that my mother told me as a child.]
Private message: Gaki [Ah ah, I see…. Did I make you remember bad things?]
Private message: Saika [No, don’t worry.]
Private message: Gaki [Ah, sorry, my colleague is calling me, I’ll leave first.]
Private message: Saika [Sorry for bothering you.]
Gaki [I was in a private chat with Saika for a while.]
Gaki [The others haven’t seem to come, then I’ll just say goodbye first.]

------ Gaki has left the chatroom ------

※※※※※

Somewhere in Awakusu-kai, main headquarters
“Akabayashi, you alright?”
“Yes, I just finished….”
On hearing Shiki’s voice, Akabayashi put away his cell phone.
“Is there some business?”
“Ah, not really. Speaking of which, Shiki, what are you here for?”
Akabayashi replied back to Awakusu-kai’s executive, Shiki, very carelessly.
Akabayashi appears happily relaxed slouching on the sofa, while tapping his cane rhythmically on the ground. Shiki, on the other hand, looks serious and says.
“Do you understand a lot about Dollars?”
“No, I know about as much as you do.”
A few days prior -
During a meeting, someone suddenly brought up the subject of Dollars.
They were told Dollars is an organization formed in an online network, and is being exploited for the trading of illicit drugs. Sometimes even challenging Awakusu-kai territory.
Someone even asked what the purpose of Dollars was -
“The matter of Dollars, give it to me to settle.”
Akabayashi volunteered.
“Have they made any suspicious movements lately?”
Answering Shiki’s question, Akabayashi monotonously replied.
“I think they’re doing some sort of internal cleansing, I let the people in ‘Jan jan jan’ investigate, Dollars are kicking out the members involved in illegal businesses. Recently the focus has been centred on Hijiribe Ruri’s stalker.”
“Ah…… Kazamoto had bad luck on that, his own staff were accused of being the stalker, and pictures of them have been distributed online.”
“That’s right, you can even find pictures of them on sites that have nothing to do with Dollars, hilarious.”
“It’s not that funny.”
Shiki lit up a cigarette while mumbling this to himself, Akabayashi simply shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah, as things stand, it’s not so good…. but really, I don’t think Dollars is going to pose a problem.”
After this statement, he continued saying.
“Though, it does seem that their internal cleansing movement is a bit rushed, I just hope it doesn’t become some sort of strange cult.
In response to Akabayashi’s explanation, Shiki drawled.
“Yes, though whatever happens. If a problem arises….. it’s up to you to solve it, Akabayashi.”
“Shiki-san, you also have to take care yourself.”
“?”
Shiki furrowed his brows, Akabayashi continued talking.
“That young informant, isn’t he under your territory?”
“………..”
Shiki was silent, Akabayashi recalled a conversation that happened a few hours ago.
A messenger from ‘Jan jan jan’ with a wristband shaped like a snake came to them.
 While touching his wristband, he reported their findings to Akabayashi.

• From their observation of Ryuugamine Mikado, it seems he was the one that started the internal cleansing movement. There is another organization called the blue squares that is actively involved.

Using some subordinate’s at the police station, they managed to collect some information concerning the Dollars leader after interrogating a man called Horoda. At first, Akabayashi simply thought that Dollars was an organization formed by a high school boy and that meetings only occurred online. He would never have thought that the leader would join up with the remaining members of Blue Squares in order to start an internal cleansing. Akabayashi has to start taking this Dollars leader more seriously.

• Also, though this may be of no importance.
• During our investigation of the Dollars leader, members of ‘Dragon Zombie’ that haven’t appeared recently were seen.
• Those guys are also spying on Dollars.
• Though we don’t know if they have any connection to each other…..
• We have someone in Ikebukuro that have spotted Izaya’s whereabouts…. It seems that guy is planning something.
• There’s a rumour that he’s also a Dollars member, we have no information whether the two have any connection.

Overall, though Dollars was not doing anything abnormal in itself, there are so many different circumstances and events surrounding it, that Akabayashi has to keep a close eye on both Dollars and Ryuugamine Mikado.
Another piece of information that is duly noted -

• The young female student with glasses that you’ve previously taken care of….
• Though she and Ryuugamine Mikado are not lovers…. they are quite close. We have observed that they often walk to and from school together.

This, to Akabayashi, was a very personal problem.
Sonohara Anri is the daughter of his first love, she’s like a sister to him, albeit one very young.
If she is involved with the leader of Dollars, then this goes beyond the boundaries of his work, it’s become his personal problem.
If it were someone who did not have Akabayashi’s kind of character, this would not pose as such a big problem.
“……..Now that I look at it, the surface of Ikebukuro is not that peaceful.”
Barely catching Akabayashi’s soft self-spoken words, Shiki asked from the side.
“What did you say?”
“No, just a personal problem. Speaking of which, is there really no problem with that informant? I heard there was a time no one knew where he went, now he just appeared again?”
“…..Yes, you probably already know. In fact…. we already have someone spying on him, though Aozaki-san is against it.”
“His disagreement is understandable. Aozaki-san has always thought that ‘lock’ shouldn’t move about freely.”
“I’m simply doing my job….. but, I’m also against letting it move freely.

※※※※※

Nerima somewhere, Nebula Medical Research Facility
When Kishitani Shinra once again recovered his consiousness, he realized he was laying on a bed in the research institute his father, Shingen and his step-mother, Emilia, belonged to. It’s already been more than 12 hours since he was taken here, during that time, most of the dangerous incidents have already past.
At the time he awoke, his conciousness was still a bit fuzzy, the people around him also seemed not to have noticed the fact that he was awake.

• What’s going on?

Though his head was gradually becoming more coherent, his body couldn’t move, and it seemed he was entirely wrapped with a restrictive blanket.
But after his head managed to almost completely recover, Shinra started to understand his situation and the reason behind it.

• Ah, that’s right. I was beaten up by a strange man.
• I went through a violent attack.
• Huh? What?
• How come I can feel something soft on my body?
• Heavy but soft….. like 2 mountains….
• Could, could it be…… Celty?!

At this point, Shinra’s consiousness was fully alert, and like his life depended on it he forced open his eyes.
A wave of pain spread throughout his body, but still he resisted the overwhelming feeling and managed to open his eyes - the vision he was met with was of a white gas mask.
“How disappointing! Filled with all that anticipation and it turned out like this?”
Shinra, in his despair, yelled this out loud.
But because his lungs inhaled too much too quickly from the excitement, and air rushed through his trachea, he started coughing painfully.
His body shook from the motion, rocking the body with the gas mask lying on top of him.

• Huh?
• How come the mask’s position is so strange, isn’t this father?

When he could finally see more clearly, the white mask person wasn’t his father -
But was the wife of Shingen’s second marriage, Kishitani Emilia.
From the way the mask fell down her face in the direction of Shinra, he could tell she was still soundly asleep.
Apparently, while taking care of him she had fallen asleep directly on top of him.

• So it was Emilia.
• No wonder the feeling of her breasts felt much larger than Celty’s.
• But, my ribs are broken, pressing on my body like that…. really hurts.

If it were any other typical male, and they were pressed up against Emilia’s soft breasts, they would definitely become excited, but for Shinra, not only is she his step-mother, he’s also only interested in Celty. Therefore his face was neither red, or his feelings stirred.
Then, he nudged Emilia awake.
“Stepmother, get up get up! Where’s Celty?”
“....Ahhh, Shingen, I won. I got the three great scholars, now take off your clothes.” (3 great scholars, something to do with Mahjong.)
“What kind of dream are you having! ..…Aiya, it hurts, it hurts ouchouchouchouchouchouchouchouch!”
The anesthetics seem to have faded, right now Shinra could feel every inch of his body in burning pain.
Only at this moment when he gave up trying to wake Emilia-
The room’s door suddenly slammed opened, in one second, Celty flew into the room.
“Oh, Celty, it’s not what it looks like, when I woke up Emilia was already like this!”
Shinra tried to quickly clear the situation to Celty, believing that since she’s the type that liked getting jealous, it wouldn’t be strange if she grabbed a knife and started stabbing him -
But Celty continues to make a beeline towards him, and throws herself above Emilia to encircle Shinra’s head into her arms.
“Oh?!”
 In response to this over-emotional action, Shinra’s body experienced severe pain.
But even so, Shinra’s face was filled with a happy expression, though along with that his low blood pressure also elavated.
“Just then, hearing Shinra’s voice.... thank goodness.... really, really, thank goodness!”
Celty handed shinra her PDA to read, while continuously stroking his cheek.
It seems she isn’t even aware of Emilia’s existence, she was completly immersed in her joy for Shinra’s regained conciousness.
“I was so worried! Terrified that you’d really die.... if that happened, I might have just abandoned searching for my own head and bring your head back to my hometown instead....”
“….Though I don’t know if what your saying is true or not, Celty, but hearing that is truly terrifying.”
Though shinra was smiling with tears, in his heart, he actually felt very happy.
In spite of the feeling that all the bones in his body were going to fall apart, Shinra opened his arms for Celty to rest on his chest while he held her.
However, because of all this tossing about, his hospitilastion time was extended another 5 days.
After everyone agreed that Shinra’s condition was stable, Shinra asked.
“In the end, how did the stalker situation go?”
“I’m also not sure, but it’s said that several people surrendered, there were also some that were beaten up by Shizuo and arrested by the police, and then clues were followed up to capture a lot of suspects.”
So the stalker wasn’t only one person, this fact was suprising enough - but the one thing Celty is most agitated by is that the principal offender, Adabashi still hasn’t been captured.
“Also, that guy is the one that attacked you, the prime culprit who caused you all this suffering...”
Though these words were only written on the pda and she showed no expression, Shinra still thought that something inside her changed, and unable to help worrying he asked.
“Celty?”
“What?”
“Don’t become a murderer because of some unnnecessary reasons.”

• You almost died, how could you say it’s an unnecessary reason!

Though, inside celty, these thoughts were boiling, but aware of Shinra’s reasoning, she calmly typed on her PDA.
“Don’t worry, I only want him to be found, I dont want to kill him.”
Then slowly Celty stood up, and continued typing on her PDA.
“Only I can’t guarantee that I can control my temper enough to hand him over to the police without a few wounds.”
Though this didn’t turn out into that serious a situation.
It was in this incident that Celty’s unexpected ‘weakness’ was discovered.
Whether she was shot by a gun, or stabbed with multple knives, or even chased by police officers, her heart had never wavered so badly, this kind of Celty -
In facing the scene of Shinra’s attack, her suffering was exposed to the people surrounding her that had never thought she had a ‘weakness’. In fact, till Shinra was dropped off at this place, in the time during his unconsciousness, Celty felt she couldn’t do anything at all, not even form her common sickle from her shadow.
Shingen, who could immediatly see this, said a few words ‘your love for Shinra is different from the love human’s feel. Instead, your love compared to that of humans is much more pure.”
He then turned around to leave after checking Shinra’s condition once more. But Celty kept thinking about the matter of her own ‘weakness’, and also thought a change had occurred in her.

• The first time.
• …..From the bottom of my heart ….the feeling of wanting to kill…..
• But, it’s unforgivable, the one who’s weak is me.

Celty felt such despair and remorse over not being able to protect Shinra. This incident has left a knot in her heart that couldn’t be untied. Harbouring these kind of feelings, she left Nebula’s medical research facility.

• Though Shinra said those words….
• But if Adabashi appeared before me right now… will I really be able to hold myself back….
• Would I really severe his body in half using my shadow sickle?
• …….I can’t ….I don’t even have the confidence to control myself…

Celty distresses over this while running alond the evening’s street.
And had not even realized, the fact that she herself has been followed for some time.

※※※※※

Previous | Next