Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel) (5 page)

“Well, starting tomorrow things are going to get kind of crazy, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up.”

?

She waited for the answer, curious. On the other end, Izaya made a request.

“Until things calm down,
absolutely
do not come to my office. I’ll send you an e-mail with the details, but I didn’t want you showing up before you could see it.”

Huh?
Celty wanted to ask him what he meant, but given that it was just an audio call without text functionality, there was no way for her to convey her thoughts to him.

“Well, so long. Best of luck.”

“Best of luck?”

He hung up the phone call, without her expressing a single thing on her mind.

What’s up with him?

Completely bewildered, Celty decided that escaping the roof was
her top priority at the moment and stashed away her phone. But that left her with a strong feeling of
wrongness
.

Her shadow-made riding suit had a chest pocket for storing things. In normal circumstances, it didn’t hold anything other than her cell phone. But at this particular point in time, it wasn’t right for it to be empty.

She reached for her other chest pocket, feeling something cold stealing over her back. The other pocket held only her PDA, and her waist pocket had nothing but her apartment key, just like always.

It was all of her normal belongings.

Which meant that the one extra item she was carrying around today was not in her possession.

The plain brown envelope with “Payment—Celty Sturluson” written on it.

She fell to her knees in shock, realizing the unavoidable truth.

I lost the envelope full of my pay.

I dropped my envelope…of one million yen!

She looked around desperately, but the bag was not on the roof with her. Most likely, it had fallen loose while she was riding away from the motorcycle cop. But she had been so desperate and panicked in the moment that she couldn’t remember which route she’d taken.

The Coiste Bodhar, in its original horse form, nuzzled closer to comfort its owner, but the severed end of its neck merely bumped against her helmet. It created the illusion of two headless creatures fighting over which could use the helmet as a head.

Celty’s night passed quietly, locked in that comical pose.

Without realizing what effect her actions would have upon the city.

Without realizing the twists of fate that the envelope she dropped would bring about.

The headless knight, locked in modern times, mourned for a very human reason.

Chat room

Next morning, near Kawagoe Highway, top floor of apartment building

“I’m home. Wow, what a terrible day.”

The luxury apartment was larger than your average one-story home.

Shinra Kishitani, the owner of this extravagant living space—which boasted five rooms in addition to the kitchen and over 1,600 square feet—returned home in his extremely recognizable white lab coat to see his loving partner.

“Uh, where are you, Celty? I’m so, so exhausted. I got wrapped up in this very strange business. You’ve heard about being the one ‘left holding the bag’? Well, I just got stuck with one of the biggest bags of all time, and… Celty? Celty? What’s the matter? …Are you home? She said the session would be over by the evening…”

He walked down the hallway curiously, then noticed that something in the apartment was wrong.

Despite all of the lights being on, the living room was oddly dark.

“?”

He trotted over and spotted a black cocoon in the corner of the room.

“Wha—?!”

Celty had fashioned herself a huge cocoon out of her own shadow, like some kind of gigantic silkworm. Sensing that she was inside of it, Shinra forgot his fatigue and leaped onto the shadow.

The cocoon immediately cracked open and swallowed Shinra’s body like a carnivorous plant.

“Whoa…hey!”

Shocked and bewildered by his unexpected entrance to the cocoon, Shinra found it to be a world of pleasure.

As he imagined, Celty was inside the cocoon. She clutched him tight. It was dark inside, so he couldn’t see, but he recognized the familiar feeling of her body.

“Wha…?! They say, ‘Time and tide wait for no man,’ but I feel like my sense of reason is crumbling and putting me ‘on cloud nine,’ and…uh…what…?” he babbled flippantly in his usual way but quickly came to his senses when he noticed that Celty’s actions were uncharacteristically stiff.

Suddenly, a light blinded him. He figured out that it was Celty’s PDA screen and narrowed his eyes until he could read the letters.

“Sorry. Just stay with me for a bit.”

“Actually, I would be perfectly delighted to…but what’s the matter, Celty? You seem rather upset.”

“I’m not rather upset. I’m inconsolably upset. So console me.”

“You are the most depressed dominatrix I’ve ever seen.”

Relieved that at least she wasn’t openly discussing suicide, Shinra held her gently and decided to hear her out.

“…So you lost a million yen and then earned yourself a bounty ten times that amount?”

“Yes, so now I can’t just ride around outside. It would be very bad if people found out I was here.”

Relatively relieved after getting her troubles off her chest, Celty released her cocoon at last. Shinra was a bit disappointed that their private haven was gone, but he was wise enough not to comment on it.

He continued to console her, offering her a reassuring smile. “Just relax, Celty. The apartment building has tremendous security, and we can choose to believe that one way or another, that money will find its way back into your hands. As they say, ‘Sadness and gladness succeed each other.’”

“Yes…but I’m sorry, I really am.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

“I was going to buy some electronics with that money. And…well, I was going to buy you a present of some kind, but so much for that. It’s all gone. Sorry. Oh, I wasn’t saying that to demand gratitude from you… I don’t know. Just forget I said it.”

She folded up the PDA and bashfully looked away. This gesture pierced Shinra directly through the heart, and he embraced her again.

“Celty! You’re the bes—
Mfgfgfg!
”

“Thank you, Shinra. But don’t get carried away, because I’m not in the mood.”

She pulled away from him right as he attempted to fondle her breast, leaving Shinra alone in the middle of the shadow cocoon. Unperturbed, he happily announced, “Ha-ha-ha, I’ll be waiting for the moment when you
are
in the mood.”

“So will I.”

She pulled his head out of the cocoon so he could see the PDA, and
his face lit up with youthful delight. As if prompted by the moment, Celty’s cell phone rang. It was a text message, which she read, then picked up her helmet off the table.

“I’ve got work. I’ll be right back.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should stay back and lie low for today…”

“Trust is the biggest element of a courier’s work. Don’t worry, I won’t cause trouble for you.”

“Oh, you can give me trouble. We’re family; you can make all the trouble you want,” Shinra said. His smile caused her heart to leap momentarily. Regretting that she had no smile to return to him, she awkwardly attempted an emoticon on her PDA.

“Thanks. (^^)
”

Shinra’s waiting for me at home. That’s enough to give me the strength of a hundred.

She left the apartment with confident strides, feeling power course through her.

“Well, that seems to have cheered you up. I’m glad.”

All that she left behind was a solitary man, wrapped up inside a black cocoon with his head poking out.

“Huh…? Wait, Celty, I don’t think I can get out of this shadow cocoon. Hey, Celty? Hello? Hey, I can’t get out of here!”

Half a day later, Ikebukuro

Yes, Shinra’s waiting for me at home. That’s enough to give me the strength of a hundred.

Celty raced along on her bike, recalling her bold determination early that morning.

But…I don’t know if I can get home through this…

All around her was engine roaring and horn blaring.

She concentrated her senses in all directions without turning around. She could sense at least twenty around her.

The men straddled specially modified motorcycles and wore special gang uniforms with striped patterns. Their vehicles were triple seated with amplifying mufflers, gaudy stickers, and various options that did not seem at all necessary.

Nearly all of them were modified to fall into the category of “gang bikes,” flashy and obnoxious—which meant that, needless to say, this was an honest-to-god motorcycle gang.

“
Uraaah!
I said stop the bike!”

“You want us ta run you off the road? Huh?!”

“
Uhyo-rrra!
Tah! Tah! Dahh!”

A two-man bike that stuck close to Celty swung over, the man in the rear seat waving metal pipes at her.

Oh man, I didn’t know there were still people this stereotypical in forward-thinking Tokyo!

Of course, Celty herself was not exactly normal in appearance. She was dressed in her usual style, but she had fashioned a pitch-black sidecar to carry her payload.

Sitting in the seat was a black container about the size of a large golf bag, attached to the Coiste Bodhar via the temporary sidecar, which was made out of Celty’s shadow. The long bag was seated upright in the car.

Celty didn’t know what was inside of it, but based on the size and shape…she was very certain that she didn’t want to try to imagine too hard.

About thirty minutes earlier, Celty was reading a tabloid on a bench, waiting for her client to finish her afternoon job.

Wow, Shizuo’s brother is getting into mischief.

There was a massive headline on the front page reading “Yuuhei Hanejima and Ruri Hijiribe in a Late-Night Tryst?!” accompanied by an article that didn’t add much more to that. Two of the biggest young stars in the nation were caught meeting secretly at night.

And they were spotted right outside of Yuuhei Hanejima’s apartment at that.

Even though it had happened right there in Ikebukuro as well, the article about Celty from last night wasn’t even top billing. Society
seemed to have more interest in the practical romance of a man and woman than in some unidentified monster.

Ruri Hijiribe? Who would have thought?

Ruri Hijiribe was one of the hottest pop idols in the nation and had rocketed to the top of everyone’s attention a few years ago, through participating in a variety of media.

They sold her as a reserved, laid-back, and slightly weak-willed character, and despite being fully Japanese, there was a kind of Scandinavian beauty to her features, to the extent that even Celty couldn’t deny that she found the girl very cute.

Both Yuuhei and Ruri were adults over twenty but looked younger than their real age. So a passionate affair between the two held an irresistible romantic sway—at least, judging by the way the papers were trying to depict it.

Before she could read further into the article, her client appeared, and she took off with the payload as instructed.

She hadn’t been set upon by the cameramen or police officers she expected. The morning job concluded without trouble, and things went so smoothly that it was almost a letdown after all of her fearful anticipation.

However…

Just when she was ready to feel relief, she ran into the obnoxious motorcycle gang on the main road. At first she was confused, but when she heard the cries of “That’s our ten million yen right there!” she remembered her current plight.

Before she even had time to sigh, the neighborhood of Ikebukuro became the setting for a spectacular car chase.

“Raaah!”

“Don’t mess with Toramaru, sucker!”

The men on motorcycles, decorated with gang stickers bearing a name that seemed to remind her of a manga title, swung their weapons wildly. The average age of motorcycle gangs was rising, she’d heard, and sure enough, all of these men appeared to be in their twenties from what she could see.

Damn… Shouldn’t you be old enough to have grown out of this bounty-hunting nonsense? And isn’t Toramaru a gang from Saitama?
What are they doing here?! This must be the power of a hefty bounty at work!

Ten million yen was indeed a preposterous reward just for capturing Celty. So much that even she was considering turning herself in to gain the money. It was only the sinking feeling that it would not be worth it in the long run that convinced her to ignore the bounty.

On the other hand, that didn’t stop other people from coming after her. There were flags from other teams aside from Toramaru in the mix now.

“Th’ hell you doin’?!”

“Fuck off! That Black Rider’s ours, dammit!”

“Don’t mess with the Pylori Kings!”

“We’ll give you chronic gastritis, bitch!”

Celty decided to pick up her pace while the gangs turned on one another.

Aw, crap. I could just fight all of them off…but that’ll only make the situation worse for Shinra, and I don’t want that. I should try to get away for now and ask someone for advice. But who do you go to for trouble like this…?

Just then, one of the bikers she was about to leave in the dust swung his metal pipe wildly. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere!”

The tip of the pipe ripped through the edge of the bag holding Celty’s payload.

A human arm rolled out of the tear.

…

“…” “…” “…” “…” “…”

Celty and all of the gang members around her fell silent as a group.

Ah yes. As I feared. I had a feeling this was the case. I should have known!
Celty thought, squeezing her helmet on tight and holding back tears.

The other riders followed along in silence, not sure how to react. In that empty space, a single voice could be heard.

“Oh, this isn’t good. This is very bad news for you.”

It was a voice she’d heard only a few times before. But Celty knew whom that voice belonged to. It was engraved into her soul.

“This is more than just traffic violations we’re talking about now.”

It can’t be.

It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be.

You’re kidding! Not now! You can’t do this to me now!

She looked over, not praying as much as cursing the rest of the world—and witnessed her worst fears come to life.

At some point, a police officer on his white motorcycle had cut through the gangs to pull up alongside her.

“I’ll give you one warning… Pull your bike over to the left shoulder.”

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—?!

Celty’s entire body burst with shadows, which she tried to use as a smoke screen to escape. But the cop made his way through them somehow, staying tight to her side.