Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel) (6 page)

“I told you…traffic cops aren’t gonna back down from a little show like that!”

No, that’s just you!

The bikers pulled back to a safer distance, startled by her shadows, but her mortal enemy, the determined traffic cop, steadily closed, not intimidated in the least by her monstrous form.

“Goddammit! Stay outta this, pig! Shit!” one of the bikers yelled, swinging his pipe closer. The officer easily evaded the blow—

And Celty pretended not to see what happened next.

I didn’t see that, didn’t see that. Didn’t see anything.

The officer pushed the parallel gangster’s bike over until the driver’s face was nearly scraping the asphalt, holding it in place for nearly five seconds before pulling him back upright.

Celty did witness the absolutely irrational action but spontaneously decided that it was in her best interest to immediately forget about it before she contemplated what it meant for her.

I didn’t see that! I didn’t see anything!

The biker slowly coasted to a stop, drool dripping from his mouth, his eyes empty. The other bikers watched the entire display in disbelieving silence but only for a moment.

“Wh…wha…what the hell you think you’re doin’, cop?!”

“Kill him!”

The biker gang switched targets to the officer on his white motorcycle and promptly surrounded him.

What ensued was a battle at sixty miles per hour.

Vehicles racing between the law-abiding traffic, separated into the prey and the pursuer, and the one who intended to arrest them both.

Celty took advantage of the conflict between the cop and the bikers to slip down a side street. But all she found there was yet another biker gang.

Am I really going to make it home today?

She spun her motorcycle around and raced back to the main street to avoid the new gang of twenty-strong bikers. That only succeeded in adding yet another large group to the absurd chase.

She heard a chopper noise overhead.

The Headless Rider raced through the evening light, wondering if even the helicopter above was chasing after her. If she had a face, it would be tear streaked by now. Celty envisioned the face of her love—and then remembered something.

She hadn’t dissolved the shadow cocoon that Shinra was trapped inside.

Oh, Shinra. I’m sorry.

If I don’t make it home…I’m so sorry!

As for the target of that message, Shinra was up on the top floor of the apartment building, lying on the floor of the living room, grinning happily and staring vaguely into nothing as he talked to himself.

“Ohhh… Is this one of those kinky abandonment things?”

“Everything gets refreshed in the spring!

A new life and new encounters in a new town!

Have you found new people since your move to Ikebukuro?

If you have, leap up to the next step by following this guide to enhance your Ikebukuro life and meet the perfect partner!”

The boy skimmed through the article, then promptly took the magazine to the register.

His name was Mikado Ryuugamine.

He was a student entering his second year at Raira Academy, a private school in the heart of Ikebukuro. It was his second year in Ikebukuro, but for some reason, he was searching for articles about starting a new life in the neighborhood. There were already three such magazines in his bag.

The boy left the convenience store and headed right into the karaoke place next door. It was well known for serving restaurant-quality food and having an ample selection of songs available to sing.

Mikado walked inside, looking nervous, and told the employee at the desk that he was meeting someone, then gave the room number.

In a large room on the sixth floor, he found that several people were already waiting inside.

“Yoo-hoo! How you been, Mika-poo?”

“You’re late. We already ordered a big ol’ pitcher of oolong tea!”

The first two to speak were a boy and girl in casual, stylish outfits. They looked as sharp as fashion models, but that image was ruined by the mountains of manga, books, games, anime DVDs, and merchandise stacked around them.

Next to them was a blushing girl wearing the same uniform as Mikado, holding a figurine of a girl wearing a scandalously revealing outfit. When she noticed that he was there, she shrieked and quickly returned the figurine to Karisawa.

“Uh, err…may I sit next to you, Sonohara?”

“…Um, yes!” the quiet girl with the glasses said, her face red. In truth, her own proportions were worthy of the figurine’s. “W-welcome, Mikado.”

“Sorry about showing up late. Sorry to you, too, Karisawa and Yumasaki,” Mikado said, dipping his head. The other boy and girl smiled kindly.

“It’s okay. We’ve got plenty of time around midday.”

“That’s right. Essentially, we’re free to hang out during the business hours of any bookstore.”

Unlike the relaxed street-clothes duo, the uniformed couple was awkward. An employee came into the room to take a drink order, the door shut, and then they were ready to get down to business.

“So, what did you want to ask us?”

“Well…I feel awkward even having to ask…,” Mikado began, sighing heavily and looking for the right words before continuing.

“Can you…teach us how to guide someone around Ikebukuro?”

Two hours earlier

Raira Academy was brimming with new students after its official entrance ceremony.

Mikado and Anri were in the same class again and voted to be the representatives for the second year running. After they attended a brief meeting with the other student body representatives, Mikado was hurrying to catch up to Anri when he was stopped from behind.

“Um, excuse me! Are you Mr. Ryuugamine?”

He turned around to see a boy wearing the Raira Academy uniform.

“Uh, and you are… Let’s see, we just had introductions. Aoba?”

“Yes! Aoba Kuronuma, first-year student!”

The sparkling-eyed boy had a girlish face and short stature, which made him look like a middle schooler at a glance, if not outright elementary school. Mikado knew that he himself skewed young in appearance, but the boy here had him beat in that regard by a mile.

“I was so surprised to overhear you introducing yourself! It’s really you!” the boy chattered excitedly, but Mikado was confused.

Who is this? Have I met him somewhere before?

If that was the case, it would be rude to have forgotten his face, even if he was a lower-ranking student. Mikado’s face scrunched up as he tried to remember, but nothing was coming to mind.

The boy named Aoba Kuronuma recognized the troubled look on his face and smiled gently. “Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t worry. It’s our first meeting. I only just learned your name a minute ago!”

“Oh, I see. Wait…why were you so surprised, then?” Mikado asked, a perfectly reasonable question. The boy’s eyes lit up with excitement.

“Because…oh.” He shut his mouth for a moment, looked around cautiously, then whispered.

“Aren’t you…
in the Dollars?
”

“…!”

Mikado’s eyes went wide, and his mouth worked soundlessly.

“Wh-what do you mean?” he finally squeaked, just as he heard the vibrating of his cell phone from within his schoolbag. Based on the length of the sound, it had to be an e-mail.

“Oh, you finally got it,” the boy said, grinning.

Mikado hastily pulled his phone out and saw a message from the Dollars’ mailing list. It was a message to all from one of the hundreds of
people on the mailing list that read,
“I’m recruiting new members from Raira Academy! Please tell me how it’s going at other schools!”

Mikado noticed the username “Wakaba Mark” and looked back at the other boy.

“Wait, are you saying…?”

“Yes, I’m Wakaba Mark! I was just about the six hundredth person to join the Dollars, but you remember how the registration site got trashed and went down? So my name’s not in there anymore…”

“H-how did you know I was one of the Dollars?” the older boy asked, clearly rattled, while the younger just showed off a cheeky, confident smirk.

“I didn’t know for sure. But…remember when we had that Dollars meetup in real life a year ago? You were there in the middle, talking to that woman who was our target, right? The image just stuck in my head ever since!”

The Dollars were a unique organization that increased its power through the Internet.

They were ostensibly categorized as a color-based street gang, but the ties that bound the group together were loose at best, yet extremely wide ranging. They had been in a state of conflict with another gang called the Yellow Scarves until recently, when the hostilities abruptly cooled, and now both sides were keeping calm.

If the Dollars were a color gang, the color they repped was either “colorless” or “camouflage.” They blended into the town with alarming ease, never gathering with a unified color to announce their presence.

They were connected through cell phones and the Internet—hidden bonds that rarely took physical form in modern society.

The teenage girls or housewives you passed on the street could be Dollars. The ability to plant that seed of doubt was the Dollars’ shield. And the possibility that it was true was the Dollars’ sword.

The Dollars were a gang with an eerie form of expansion. Their founder was shrouded in mystery, and almost none of its members knew who the leader was.

And at this precise moment, the very founder and source of that mystery was sweating buckets at some uncomfortable questions from a new kid at school.

“Umm, uhh, you don’t have the wrong idea, do you?”

“You got that e-mail.”

“Ah, ahhh. G-good point.”

“So you
do
keep it hidden! Don’t worry. I can keep a secret! I’m very good at protecting others’ secrets, in fact!” Aoba said, his eyes shining with reverence. Mikado was frozen still, completely at a loss for how to respond.

In fact, Mikado had found himself in trouble a year ago, when a huge company was—

“But what was so special about that night? Mr. Ryuugamine, are you actually an officer of the Dollars or something?”

“No, no, no! The Dollars don’t have those! I-I’m just an errand runner, that’s all!”

“Oh, really? Well, anyway, I’m just excited to know that someone from the Dollars is so close nearby!”

His childlike impression extended to his actions, not just his looks. From a distance they looked like middle school brothers, but they were both fully fledged high schoolers.

Mikado wavered on how to respond, then gave up and, with a careful look around, told his younger schoolmate, “All right. But you shouldn’t talk about it at school, and I’d appreciate it if you kept this as secret as possible.”

The words were cold and distant, but Aoba’s face broke into a delighted beam. “Sure thing! But I have one request of you…”

“Request?”

“I don’t really know much about Ikebukuro. So can you show me around the city?”

He conferred with Anri after that but still didn’t feel confident in his ability to give a tour, so he resignedly turned to people he knew who were more knowledgeable about the area—and that turned out to be Yumasaki and Karisawa.

Man, if Masaomi were still here, I wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble
, Mikado grumbled to himself, then banished the thought.

Masaomi Kida was a longtime friend of Mikado’s who had vanished on him and Anri. As a major figure of the Yellow Scarves, who were feuding with the Dollars, he decided he needed to get out of town after they learned each other’s secrets. It didn’t really matter to Mikado, but Masaomi had his own thoughts about the ordeal, and Mikado wasn’t going to pry.

Don’t even start. If you can’t handle this without relying on Masaomi, then you can’t hold your head up and smile when he comes back.

Mikado waited for Masaomi’s return for his own reasons. Praying that on the day the three of them came together, they could laugh and smile again.

“Mikado! Mikado, what’s up? Hellooo?”

“Huh?!” he said, snapping back to attention as he heard his name.

“Are you sleepy? Should we give you a wake-up call with some anime songs?”

“Uh, er, aaah! S-sorry!” Mikado stammered, back to reality after his long contemplation of Masaomi and the Yellow Scarves.

When they got down to the details, Yumasaki and Karisawa were more gung ho on the idea than he expected. They began to argue among themselves about which spots were best to show a young man around Ikebukuro.

At first, the pair was recommending Animate, Toranoana, Yellow Submarine, and other hard-core nerd spots, but Mikado was relieved that they eventually settled into more mainstream, recognizable names.

Suddenly, Karisawa looked up at Mikado and suggested, “Why don’t we just go with you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not going to have much time to learn detailed info about the places we’re listing off for you. So shouldn’t we just go with you? Plus, we don’t know what this younger kid is like. It might be best to make adjustments to the plan on the fly after we meet him in person.”

“Well…”

Mikado wasn’t sure how to respond. It would be a huge help, of
course, but he didn’t know what kind of impression they would leave on a relatively normal schoolmate. They
looked
normal, sure, but all they had to do was open their mouths to reveal their status as ambassadors from the 2-D realm. What’s worse, they had no intention of meeting people halfway in that regard.

It didn’t bother Mikado that much, but what would Aoba Kuronuma think?

Well, they’re approachable, and they’re pretty nice. It shouldn’t be a problem
, Mikado thought, an eternal optimist who blindly believed in the concept that if you just talked to someone, you could find common understanding.