Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) (25 page)

Apartment building, Shinjuku

Izaya opened the door and immediately spotted something out of place.

A pair of leather shoes that did not belong to him were left in the entranceway. Namie’s heels were next to them, so it seemed she had welcomed a visitor. But he hadn’t heard a word of it from her, and the shoes were far too big to belong to the girls like Saki or the Goth Lolis that made up his retinue.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, and he considered just leaving. But that tension was immediately swept aside by a muffled voice from the center of his apartment.

“Don’t you think that
fate
is a very convenient word?”

He couldn’t hear the owner of the voice, but it was clearly directed at him.

“A variety of coincidences reframed as if their existence was inevitable… A process both logical and illogical… Which brings me to ask a man like you: Should the concept of fate be considered inevitable…?”

“You know, playing up the word
fate
doesn’t actually make you sound cooler or smarter, Shingen Kishitani.”

“Oh ho! How did you know it was me? Did you remember my voice?”

Izaya proceeded in the direction of the voice toward the guest room, where he saw a man wearing a white gas mask and, next to him, an exceedingly grumpy Namie.

Shingen, the man in the gas mask, had a pistol in his left hand that he had pressed into Namie’s side. With his right hand, he was busy solving the crossword puzzle that Izaya had left open on his desk.

Izaya was not stunned or frightened by the scene in the least.

“Sure, the mask-muffled voice was one thing…but you’re also the only person I know who speaks in such a bombastic manner.”

“Ahh… I have to say, this crossword magazine does like its obscure answers. This one is a person’s name: ‘artist and herbalist who claimed to heal God’s illnesses through paint.’ That would be…uhh…I don’t remember. Starts with
ji
, ends with
ta
. Hmm…pass. Then, there’s this horizontal clue: ‘German artist from Gloerse Island.’ That sounds familiar, but I can’t recall it. Ka…Kar… Do you know that one? Go ahead and answer, and I’ll listen.”

“Would you mind not trying to complete my half-finished puzzle?” Izaya asked, grabbing the magazine away and sitting down on the sofa across from Shingen. “That’s quite a nimble trick there, doing a puzzle with one hand and pointing a gun with your other… But why are you pointing a model gun at Namie?”

“Oh ho… Well spotted.”

“?!”

Namie’s expression shifted wildly. Clearly, she had believed he was training a real gun on her.

“…Liar!”

“Hah! How would a normal civilian like me get a gun here in Japan? The law against owning a gun is much stricter than you imagine! But because Miss Namie did me the courtesy of being fooled, I was safely able to break through your apartment’s security system.”

“Good for you. So long now,” Izaya quipped lightly.

Shingen chuckled through his mask, unfazed in the least. “Please don’t be so cold to your old classmate’s father. I remember how you and my Shinra and little Shizuo used to get into trouble, hanging out together. Given how Shinra grew up to be so twisted, my analysis says that it was because he was trapped between the ultimate bad influences—you and Shizuo. What do you think of that?”

“So you think you have nothing to do with it? Plus, I don’t ‘hang out’ with Shizuo.”

“Ah, that’s right. Shinra always had to be the middle presence in between you two. You got along like cats and dogs.”

“So…to what do I owe the pleasure?” Izaya prompted Shingen flatly, in no mood to reminisce about the past.

Shingen noted his attitude and put the model gun away in the inside pocket of his lab coat. “Well, you should already have an idea, just from my presence here…”

“Where did you put Celty’s head?”

Ruined factory, outskirts of Ikebukuro

The yellow writhed.

Amid the gray factory interior with rusted highlights, the swarm of youths wearing yellow bandannas writhed eerily. The factory building was stuffed with even more members than a typical meeting, and in the center was a small space where well-known officers like Horada and Higa were living large over the rest of the group.

Horada sat on a leather desk chair they’d brought in, staring at the rest of the group like he was their king.

“What should we do with the Dollars’ boss, Mr. Horada?”

“We’ll just crush ’em one by one, starting with Kadota’s group and going up. Get rid of them and Shizuo, and the rest are nothing. We can take our time putting the screws to this Ryuugamine guy.”

Horada laughed crudely, the bandages still wrapped around his head, as he played with the black piece of metal in his hands. It looked like a cheap toy in Horada’s hands, but it was undoubtedly a deadly weapon.

Everyone in the building was unpleasantly aware of the fact that the gleaming black barrel was not that of a model gun, but a real, authentic pistol. Some of them had witnessed it in action yesterday when he shot Shizuo, and most of the others had realized by now that the other day’s convenience store robbery was achieved through Horada’s tool.

The reason that no one had bothered to report on him was that there was no hard proof and that he ran with a very large group, the largest faction within the Yellow Scarves at this point.

The faction would fall apart if Horada was arrested, but that would weaken the Yellow Scarves as a whole. Given that they were about to embark on a war with the Dollars, many assumed that such a loss would be fatal to the group—not to mention the fact that anyone with the conscience to snitch to the police probably wouldn’t have been in a gang like theirs in the first place.

Then again, the rest of the gang wasn’t exactly unanimous in support. When Horada told the group that Masaomi had betrayed them, those who knew Masaomi the longest didn’t believe him—but they were not present now.

Higa’s team had ventured out in the morning to crush them and steal their phones. They got Masaomi’s number that way, which was how Horada gave him the news about their little revolution.

As he hung up on the call, he stared out at the mass of Yellow Scarves under his command, drunk on his newfound power. As the new shogun of the Yellow Scarves, he mocked the gathering. “Is this the Yellow Scarves you all wanna be?”

He brandished his gun for effect and smacked it against the empty drum can next to his chair. The sound was not as impressive as he hoped, and the palm of his hand stung terribly, but Horada hid the pain by giving a speech.

“Listen up! We ain’t just a buncha scrubs like the Dollars! We’re a unified, organized force! So we’re gonna go and crush ’em and get revenge for the crap they’ve been pullin’ with the slasher!”

No one in the Yellow Scarves doubted him when he proclaimed that the Dollars were responsible for the slasher.

“If we take out the Dollars, we’ll be the kings of Tokyo itself, not just Ikebukuro! Can you imagine it?! Everyone in the entire city under our complete control!”

Of course, just being the top gang of delinquent fighters did not make them the equal of higher powers. There were the police, the
bosozoku
motorcycle gangs, and the yakuza, all of which would come down hard on them if they stood out, but Horada’s dream would not be suppressed.

He played tough on the outside, but on the inside, Horada was
terrified
.

He only hoped to forget that fear by growing drunk on power.

He knew the stories about Shizuo and thought he understood the danger the man posed. But as long as they could take him down, even if it required ambushing him with a group, they would be infamous. So he went after the man with a hit squad of twenty, which seemed like overkill.

It was not.

Half of Horada’s goons were wiped out in an instant, and he sensed impending and certain death from Shizuo’s approach—so in his fear, he pulled out the gun he intended to use for security and yanked the trigger.

About a year earlier, someone he knew had a plan to smuggle guns out of the Awakusu-kai, and Horada got him drunk enough to pry the weapons’ temporary hiding place out of him. He then snuck a single gun and a case of bullets out and snitched the location to the cops. The guys plotting the scheme went on the run from the Awakusu-kai and police both, and no one was any the wiser that Horada had pinched a single gun for himself.

Just as he had hoped, Horada was able to get up to all kinds of mischief using it as a tool to threaten others. It wasn’t until last night that he had actually shot someone with it.

The first shot tore a hole in the side of the bartender shirt, surprising him with the force of the recoil. He unconsciously lowered the gun slightly before firing the second shot, and it shattered against the asphalt, but the third one sank into Shizuo’s leg.

Shizuo lost his balance and fell forward onto the street. A man who had just been exhibiting superhuman strength had collapsed onto his face before him.

I killed him.

Certain of that fact, Horada instantly felt cold sweat on every inch of his body. He pried his trembling hand off of the pistol and spun around to survey the situation, only to see that the other unharmed Yellow Scarves were staring at him with shock and fear.

The gazes that had been trained on Shizuo just seconds ago were
now on him. That was the point that he first realized there was no going back. The possibility that the gunshots might have attracted attention caused a fresh wave of cold sweat to break out.

Can’t stay here now
, he thought to himself.

The man who seemed to be Shizuo’s coworker closed in, saying, “Wait a damn second… You sure you aren’t gettin’ yourself in hot water with that gun?”

“You want someone to blame? How about the guy who gave me the orders and the gun? Masaomi Kida’s your man!” he made up on the spot, then ran from the scene.

The rest of the boys picked up their comrades felled by Shizuo and scampered away. The man with the dreads was tending to Shizuo and wasn’t coming chasing after them.

Just as he was considering going on the run and into hiding, Horada’s phone got a call from an unfamiliar number. He answered, terrified of the possibility that it might be the police or the Awakusu-kai.

Instead, the person on the other end told him about the connection between Masaomi Kida and the boss of the Dollars.

That led him to the current point.

It was a lifeline to Horada when he needed it most. By using information and power together, it was all too easy to seize control of the Yellow Scarves. And if he could swallow up the Dollars next…

That’s right. With this many people, I can handle a few cops or yakuza barging onto our turf.

A few days was all he needed. If he could maintain his power, he could patch things up with the Awakusu-kai and “produce” the culprit who killed Shizuo Heiwajima for the police.

Horada even considered pinning the pistol on Masaomi Kida and burying him in the mountains somewhere. He glanced at the gun in his hand, grinning madly.

Suddenly, a rustling came from the entrance.

Is it the cops already?!

Horada scrambled to his feet and made to give orders to Higa and his other pawns. But he stopped with shock when he saw who had arrived.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Standing at the entrance was the very boy he’d just sentenced to exile and death, panting and wiping away sweat.

Masaomi Kida looked from face to face until he quickly identified the figure at the center of the group. Once he had caught sight of Horada, he glared with all of his power.

“Huh? This makes no sense. I just told you you were fired, and you’ve got a death sentence tomorrow.”

“Which means…I’ve still got today!” Masaomi said quietly, a confident smile playing across his lips. “I don’t like this revolution you’re throwing. If I’m going to be treated like a traitor, I’d like to at least get my ass kicked by the old-school members who remember me…”

He surveyed the gathering of youths again and boldly opined, “What’s going on here? I barely recognize anyone in this mob.”

He didn’t see any of the members whose cell phones he’d tried to reach just a little while ago. Masaomi wasn’t stupid enough not to understand what that meant. The smile slowly faded off of his face, and his voice got deeper.

“Unless…you’re telling me…”

The few people he did recognize were all shuffling at the back, looking uncomfortable, while those who eagerly surrounded him up close were all unfamiliar. Horada, pleased with his tactical advantage, stayed right where he was seated in his chair, confidently looking down on Masaomi. “It’s strange; everyone who was against me taking over got ambushed last night and sent to the hospital for some reason. Their phones were busted and everything.”

A spiteful sneer spread over Horada’s face. He wasn’t even pretending to hide the truth anymore. “Ooh, ain’t that scary? Must be those Dollars at work again! Right, boys?”

He raised his hands, and the Yellow Scarves surrounding Masaomi laughed together.

“So…what’s your plan?”

“Huh? Well, first we’re gonna jump you… And then I suppose we’ll use you as bait to lure your little buddy out.”

“You son of a…”

“Hah! What an idiot. Maybe you thought you were coming to help your friend out, but all you really did was turn yourself into a hostage!
Maybe I should try what
Izumii
did way back when! I’ll break your arms and legs and say, ‘Here’s your question!’”

Masaomi went still.

“What…did you just say?”

“Huh? I said I’m gonna use you to crush the boss of the Dollars! The real convenient part about how the Dollars work is that even the members don’t know who their boss is! So I can take over their information network; give whatever orders I want; and before they know it, they’ll all be my faithful pawns!”

“No, not that… Did you just say…Izumii?” Masaomi asked, eyes wide and fists clenched. Inside his head, he heard that crude voice and Saki’s screams over the phone.

Horada watched the change in Masaomi with glee and shouted happily, “Ha-ha! Oh yeah! After that, we’ve gotta think about all the bad deeds we’ve done as the Yellow Scarves! Maybe it’s time to change our image with a new team name and color. Maybe a nice pale blue…like the color of your face right now!”

“No…you…you can’t mean…,” Masaomi mumbled, his lips trembling.

“You finally figured it out? That’s right; everyone here,” Horada said, motioning to the crowd, “is your sworn enemy: the Blue Squares! Don’t bother to disparage us by calling us the ‘remnants’ of our old gang! After all, we sure managed to swallow the Yellow Scarves whole!”

“…”

“It’s sad, really… All we had to do was take off our blue gear and ask to join, and your pals accepted us all in as brothers. I was freaked a bit when you came back, but you didn’t notice a thing! I guess that’s all the Yellow Scarves meant to you in the first place. Ha-ha…hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The crowd rolled with laughter to drown out Horada’s, until it was a giant wave of sound crashing against Masaomi.

He held his silence amid the overwhelming mockery. Eventually he raised his head and stared down Horada, Higa, and the others in a different way. Before, his expression was one of rage—but now, there was quiet determination and understanding.

Horada cackled at the difference in Masaomi’s demeanor and asked,
“What’s up, then? You ready to get down and beg? Not that it’ll do you any good.”

“No… Actually, I feel relieved.”

“Ah? What?”

“I’m registered with the Dollars and a member of the Yellow Scarves,” Masaomi said mockingly, taking a step forward. “But I’ve been fired from the Scarves and can’t trust the Dollars. Now I’m just a flashy teenager.”

He took another step forward. Caution strengthened among the nearby youths. As they closed slightly on him, several of them went to lock the door so that Masaomi couldn’t escape.

But the frivolous-looking teen, with his brown hair and pierced ears, wasn’t bothered in the least. His voice was absolutely calm.

“That’s why I’m here.”

He took another step. And another.

“I’m just Masaomi Kida.”

As he took yet another step toward Horada, his words grew more and more powerful.

“That’s why…I’m here!”

Masaomi took another step—to protect those he cared about. No more reason than that.

With each quiet step, the tension in the crowd around him increased noticeably.