Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) (4 page)

“I figured that a little menace from my end would frighten them off, and that was always good enough before this, but today, the traffic cops chased me around like one single creature. Even when I brought out a scythe that was like thirty feet long, they didn’t budge. They just kept coming after me!”

“Calm down, Celty. You’re just repeating yourself.”

“I-I rode onto the highway, but the highway patrol already had an ambush waiting for me! I only got away by fleeing onto the Raira Academy campus…”

“Yeah… Speaking of the traffic patrol of the Metropolitan Police Department Fifth District…you were doing such a good job of zipping around evading them that they called in some real crack troops from elsewhere,” Shinra explained calmly, hoping to soothe her agitated nerves. “There’s the Kuzuharas at the police box just outside the station; almost the whole family are police. Well, one of them is named Kinnosuke Kuzuhara, and he’s a problem officer who often pressures his targets so much in traffic that they cause accidents. If you think of him as a new officer called here to be a rival to you, it makes you feel like your life has meaning now, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t need a rival to chase me around like Freddy Krueger to make things exciting!”
Celty typed, then calmed down at last and continued at a more even pace.
“It was scary. So scary. I got overconfident. Very overconfident. I promise I will live my life with humility and modesty. Please forgive me—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Who are you apologizing to?” Shinra wondered with a smirk, peering at Celty. “For being a headless fairy, you sure are a scaredy-cat.”

“Shut up… I’m not scared of ghosts or vampires,”
she rebutted unconvincingly.

Shinra cackled. “Is that so? You were afraid of aliens the other day, and I remember the way you were terrified out of your wits after reading that collection of horror manga short stories.”

“I can’t help it! Just think of that kind of horror happening in reality… Think of your own face flying through the sky and strangling you or slugs dripping out of your mouth! That’s scary!”

The thought of the manga made Celty’s body tense again. Meanwhile, Shinra stared at her with the care of one watching an adorable pet and sighed.

“It just sounds like a joke, coming from you. It’s strange, though… Maybe being such an abnormal thing causes you to mix up reality and fiction much easier than the rest of us.”

Celty sulked into her laptop.

“Aliens aren’t fiction! There are plenty of mysteries out there in the universe!”

“Well, you can stop trembling over harmless mysteries… Especially when you just laugh off the ghosts and goblins. That cowardly nature isn’t the Celty I know. The only time you need to show off your vulnerable side is in bed with m—
Hurgh!!
Y-yeah…that’s more like it…”

With one fist wedged firmly into Shinra’s stomach, Celty typed away with her free hand.

“Don’t get embarrassing on me now. At any rate… I bet I could win a fight against a ghost, but I have no idea what sort of super-science an alien might use. Who knows, those patrol officers could just be grays wearing human bodies.”

“Wow, you must have really been frightened… Well, I hate to bring this up after you were so scared out there,” Shinra said apologetically, slowly recovering from the damage of the body blow, “but would you mind going back out to Ikebukuro Station?”

A long silence.

Celty’s shoulders rose up and down as if taking deep breaths. She put on her trusty helmet and slowly typed out,
“Honestly? I don’t want to. I can probably avoid being spotted by the police, but…is it a sudden job?”

“I just need you to pick someone up.”

“Who?”

Shinra was uncharacteristically hesitant in answering his beloved’s question. “Someone who just came back from America. And…he’s going to live right next to this apartment.”

He took a deep breath, then finally gave her the answer.

“So, yeah… My dad’s back.”

Ikebukuro Station, west exit, outside the Metropolitan Theatre

Celty met Shinra Kishitani, her lover and roommate, shortly after losing her head.

It all started when young Shinra found her hiding spot on the ship out of Ireland where she was stowing away, following the trail of her head. After that, she got a place to stay in Japan, owing to the help
of Shinra’s father—but thanks to his so-called “research” vivisection, using anesthetics that didn’t even work on her, she did not have a fondness for the man.

In fact, at present Celty suspected that it was Shinra’s father himself who had actually stolen her head. She couldn’t corner him until she had proper proof of it, but she was always wary of him.

She wanted to tell him that he could get a taxi himself, but he had used the proper channels to call upon her services as a courier.

He’s always tried to needle me like that. Some things never change…

Celty made her way to West Gate Park, evading the watchful eye of the police. Once there, she cast her senses around the area.

Though it was nearly eleven o’clock, there was still a surprising number of people about. Those who noticed the now-infamous Black Rider stopped momentarily, but a quick turn of Celty’s helmet in their direction caused their gazes to dart away.

It was under these circumstances that Celty waited for her client.

“You’ll recognize him right away. He’s wearing his
usual outfit.
”

Shinra’s words as she left the apartment repeated in her head.

I always thought his outfit was pretty silly…but I guess I have no room to speak,
Celty thought, recalling the sight of Shinra’s father before he left for America. She made a head-holding gesture and shook the helmet left and right.

At the same time, she noticed one point of interest in her surroundings. There was a group of people with yellow heads visible through the darkness on the road bordering the far end of the park.

The yellow wasn’t bleached hair, but bandannas that the group of boys all wore tied around their foreheads.

Yellow Scarves.

They were a color gang that was growing rapidly in influence, based around a
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
motif. Celty could recall seeing them here and there in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku over the last few years, until the whole color gang fad seemed to vanish recently.

And now they’re growing again… What are they doing over there?
Celty wondered, focusing on the group.

A white shadow stood in the midst of the yellow.

Ugh.

Celty recognized the identity of that white shadow. Inside her mind, she heaved a sigh, then rode her Coiste Bodhar silently toward the gathering.

Trembling at the possibility of police surveillance all the while.

“Hey, pal. Real cool look you’ve got going on.”

“Real wicked. Or is that wacky?”

The young men wearing yellow bandannas surrounded a single, seemingly middle-aged man. They hobbled awkwardly due to their baggy pants.

“Blurp, blub!”

One of them even took a swig of juice and spat it out onto the ground next to him in an odd attempt at intimidation.

Meanwhile, the seemingly middle-aged man surveyed the youths around him with stoic placidity. He was “seemingly” middle-aged because the boy could not accurately guess at the man’s age.

They had picked their target and surrounded a man in white—a single man clad in white, like a polar opposite of Celty’s black.

Not every inch of him was white. Over his funereal black suit, he wore a white lab coat that was slightly too large for his height. In one hand he held a pure white briefcase.

Standing along the road outside the train station in a lab coat was strange enough on its own, but what truly set him apart and concealed his age from observers was the gas mask covering his face.

Again, pure white.

Even the filter affixed over the mouthpiece of the mask and the bands that strapped the mask to the head were all white. With his face hidden from view, the only detail the boys used to conjecture that he was middle-aged was the graying of about half his hair.

Both his transitioning hair color and the skin color peeking out here and there were overshadowed by the pure snow-whiteness of the gas mask.

Even the eyes of the mask were made of white glass, like negatives of sunglasses. It made him look like some sort of bizarre silkworm.

Within the setting of urban Ikebukuro, he looked nothing short of insane.

If you’re going to dress like that, at least save it for Harajuku or Akihabara…

Celty recognized the man from afar. It was clear that based on the manga, novels, and dubious tabloids she read, Celty thought of Harajuku and Akihabara as mystical places where anything goes.

And sure enough, he’s gotten himself into trouble…

There was no doubting it now.

Celty was sure it was him.

If anything, she simply wanted to believe that there were not multiple people who would dress like that.

So if her hopes were true, that meant the man in white was Shingen Kishitani—Shinra’s father.

The boys crowded around the bizarre, almost exhibitionistic man like he was some kind of creature in a zoo, totally unaware of Celty’s steady approach.

“Listen, pal, we’re in a bad mood ’cause we’ve been on the lookout for a slasher who’s in hiding. I mean, we’re crazy pissed. And you’re crazy suspicious.”

“So is it all right if we do a little inspection?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t—
blorp
—mind if we examine your wallet.
Blorp, blup.
”

One of the men approached him, spilling carbonated soda from his mouth. Shingen took a step away from him and spoke at last.

“The air in Tokyo is so dirty. Don’t you agree?”

“Huhh?” one of the boys growled.

Meanwhile, Shingen only shook his head in lamentation and mumbled through the gas mask. “Of course, those filthy faces of yours seem uniquely adapted to the wretched air. A form of camouflage, if you will. And not just that—the stain extends to your eyes. You do not even see the extent to which the filth penetrates you.”

“I dunno, I think this dude might be leakin’ something, if you catch my drift.”

The boys reacted to the man’s obvious insult not with anger, but suspicion and confusion.

“Yeah…no worries, though,” one of them said and poured the remains of his beverage onto Shingen’s head. Large stains grew on the pristine lab coat, and a sweet smell wafted through the air.

Shingen remained silent for a moment, then shook his head again and lamented, “Ahem. Well, it seems the time has come for you to understand what a grown man can do… You may think that being minors under the protection of juvenile law renders you immune from harm if you choose to kill another person—well, think harder! When you attempt to kill a man, you have to be fully aware of the possibility that
he
might kill you first!”

The instant he finished this imperious speech, the member of the group most difficult to label a “boy” grabbed Shingen roughly by the collar.

“Ah! Ow!”

“Yeah, I think this dude really is leaking brains.”

He stood on Shingen’s shoe and began jabbing his thumb into the man’s ribs.

“Listen up, I’m over twenty!”

“Agh! Ah! W-wait a minute. Ouch, that really hurts! I can’t get away because you’re stepping—ow!—on my shoe! Your thumb is—ow!—stabbing me really hard! Ow, ow, ow!”

“Huh?! I can’t hear you. Huh?!”

With every “Huh?!” the young man drove his extended thumb between the ribs. While unthreatening, the powerful and speedy attack caused Shingen to yelp in surprise.

“What are you doing just standing there, Celty? Hurry up and come to my aid!” he shouted over the boys’ heads, which caused them all to turn around.

They saw a black shadow.

Do I have to…?

Celty seriously considered responding to the cry for help by pretending she had seen nothing and going back home. All the while, Shingen continued yelping.

“Didn’t you put it together that the reason I spoke down to them
like this was because I saw you standing behind them and knew I was safe?! I know you’re not the kind of person who would betray my trust!”

I
really
don’t want to do this…

Celty was truly about to turn on her heel when she was stopped by a sudden shout from one of the boys.

“Hey! That’s the Black Rider!”

“That’s the one, Mr. Horada! It was the dude dressed like a bartender with the Black Rider who did us in!”

“You got a lot to answer for, punk. Yeah?!”

“How you gonna pay for what that bartender did to us?”

Are these the guys who…?

And then Celty remembered.

Several weeks earlier, on the evening of the great mass slashing called the “Night of the Ripper,” the friend she’d been escorting on her motorcycle had flattened a group of the Yellow Scarves who had dared to stare him down.

She didn’t recall the faces of the people he punched, but based on the way they were screaming, these had to be the same boys.