Durarara!!, Vol. 5 Read online

  Let’s play a game.

  Don’t worry. It’s a very simple wager.

  As easy as whether a coin lands heads or tails.

  That’s how straightforward it is.

  Your odds are basically even; you just have to guess which of the two it will be.

  For example, let’s say you punch the first person to walk past this apartment building.

  We’d be betting on whether the person gets angry and fights back or whether they run off crying instead.

  See? A simple bet, right?

  In this game, the piece you’re playing with is the human mind.

  Anticipating the actions and emotions of a human being.

  …

  Oh, come on, don’t just clam up on me.

  Let’s say I ask you this question: “Can every person be bought or not?”

  The crux of the question is the word every.

  The answer is “Sometimes they can and sometimes they can’t,” right?

  Sometimes people would choose their pride and conscience over ten billion yen, and sometimes they would kill for a single yen. Isn’t that right? Even the same person can be wildly different, depending on the time and place.

  See, the people who lose the game of life are generally the ones who decide on an answer to that question. Those who continue choosing the same answer with firm belief are one thing, but the people who unthinkingly answer either “You can’t buy love” or “Even love can be bought with money” are the ones who lose the game because they can’t see any other possibility. Belief in a single answer illuminates what is in front of you, but it also narrows your view. Those are simple pros and cons, wouldn’t you say?

  In that sense, the human mind becomes more of a bet, doesn’t it?

  Naturally, knowing or not knowing the target beforehand will influence your decision, but that’s no different from having information about the horses in a race before it starts.

  You might be affronted and claim that the human mind doesn’t have the same odds as a coin flip—but the results might as well be the same thing. The only way to know for sure is if you understand the contents of the person’s mind perfectly, and no one can fully fathom a mind that isn’t their own.

  Let’s say the bet is that a certain person will commit murder or not.

  The people who would say “I can’t believe they’d do such a thing” in an interview are the ones who guessed heads before the flip—they thought the odds were higher that this person would never take a life. Let’s assume they’re not just putting on a good face for the TV camera. This is only an example, after all.

  You see, the problem is, you just don’t know until you open the lid.

  It’s impossible to completely manipulate another person.

  I’ve done a lot of that sort of thing for fun as an information broker, but I can’t control a person’s mind to 100 percent certainty.

  All I do is give them a push.

  Not into the road when the light is red. I mean it in a different way.

  When someone is treading an extremely dangerous boundary and might step on either side, I just…push. To make sure they take that next big step in life without hesitation.

  I’m kind of a philanthropist, really.

  But it’s not a business, so I make no guarantees about what happens after that.

  So with that in mind…let’s begin the game.

  Now, when I play, I give my piece a little push on the back. Just to make sure I get the result I want.

  You might be able to protect the piece’s back. What do you say?

  Don’t make that face at me.

  It’s like you’re saying I’m incorrigible, unrepentant scum.

  Games are meant to be enjoyed.

  Isn’t that right?

  The Black Market Doctor Gets Sappy, Part One

  Am I a bad guy?

  Well, obviously.

  I think that lying to you is the worst thing I could do, but as I said before, I don’t regret it at all.

  What’s wrong? Why is your neck getting red?

  I’m just kidding, Celty. I mean, you don’t even have blood to— Ow, ow, ow, that hurts, sorry, I’m sorry.

  Anyway, every time I say that I love you, you always have the same response.

  “You must have been a very lonely youth.”

  And that’s very mean of you. I wasn’t lonely at all. Because I had you, of course.

  What’s that? You wish I would use the same first-person pronoun in Japanese rather than mixing them all together?

  Oh, Celty. Don’t you know the saying “Spend three years scrubbing a soapberry, and it will still be black”? It means that you can’t just ask me to change my nature and expect a sudden change. The different first-person pronouns are meant to be switched between depending on the person you’re talking to, of course.

  Since the world is full of different people, I have to change my pronouns constantly…but to me, you are all of humanity, my entire world. That’s right—I always show you each and every side of myself, including the ones I show others as well as the ones I save just for you!

  …Um, what were we talking about again?

  Oh, right. About evil people. Why would you bring that up out of the blue?

  Aha, the movie you watched. Yes, the kind of story where all the characters are essentially good and yet they all end up committing evil deeds due to circumstances out of their control.

  That’s so cute that you came to ask me if I’m evil because a movie moved you.

  I love that direct, honest side of you. I hope you watch a dreamy romantic movie next and say that you wish you could have a torrid romance like that.

  …“Only if it’s The War of the Roses?” You know…sometimes you can be very cruel, Celty.

  Let’s get back to the discussion of evil.

  If it’s for the sake of my love for you, no matter how horrific, I’m confident that I can be as evil as necessary.

  Don’t use love as an excuse? C’mon, don’t be like that. The emotion of love is completely unrelated to good and evil.

  Anyway, you often hear the phrase such and such of love and good, but you never hear about the such and such of love and evil.

  The villain with love deeper than the ocean.

  How many of those people exist, do you suppose?

  If you narrowed the target down to you, I suppose it would be me.

  Don’t be embarrassing?

  But around you, Celty, embarrassment and kinkshaming are my bread and butter.

  “Stop it, I’m the one being embarrassed”? It’s fine! There’s another saying that goes “The fallen petal rides the flowing current.” It means that if you are embarrassed, I’ll hold your bashful body and vwuh!

  Hey, you didn’t have to hit me. Seems more like this flowing current doesn’t want to carry the flower petal!

  Still, I like that contrarian side of your personality, Celty; it’s very cu— Owwww! Aha, you’re pinching my cheek to hide your shy-ai-ai-ai-aiiiie! You’re gonna pull my sheek offfh! Youw gowwa puwwa weew waww!

  Chapter 1: The Fighting Puppet Subtly Frets

  May 3, Sunshine, Sixtieth Floor Street, Ikebukuro

  Sunshine 60 Street, one of the most famous in Ikebukuro.

  Commonly called “Sixtieth Floor Street,” it heads from the east exit of the train station toward the Sunshine building, a stretch of shops that is one of the biggest destinations for visitors coming to Ikebukuro by train.

  It’s a shortcut from the station to the Sunshine building and is occasionally lumped in with the adjacent Sunshine Street, but they are in fact separate roads.

  The time is Golden Week, the cluster of holidays within a week of each other in the spring.

  Given th
e start of the long holiday, the foot traffic on the street was more bustling than usual.

  Families on their way to Sunshine City, couples headed for one of the countless movie theaters in the area, youngsters seeking new clothes, hungry salarymen, Akiba nerds heading to specialty shops like Toranoana and Manga no Mori, women on their way to Animate or the butler café Swallowtail—people with varying destinations crossed paths on the sidewalks, where they were set upon by barkers of similarly varying stripes: handsome men from host clubs, women hawking art, even towering foreigners.

  Along this street, right as you enter from Ikebukuro Station, there is one spot that draws the attention: the Cinema Sunshine building with its massive street-facing monitor and gaudy movie posters.

  The video arcade on the first floor has numerous entertainment machines on display, most notably a line of “UFO catcher” crane games at the entrance, where youngsters like to hang out and kill time before their movie starts.

  “Hey, Rocchi! Get that one next! That one, the plushie!”

  “Aww, no fair! He already got one for you, Non!”

  At the entrance to the arcade, a group of girls was congregated around a UFO catcher, their squeals of delight setting the peaceful and lively scene.

  “Hey, Rocchi, I wanna try it, too.”

  “Oh, then while Kanacchi’s playing it, let’s go and buy some drinks, Rocchi.”

  “Wait a second, you’re just going to leave me here all alone?”

  “Yeah, why not? You’ve got a Yukichi today, Kanacchi. Why don’cha cash it out and do your alien thing surrounded by Hideyos? Ew, I just brain scanned that image! What a freak factory. Total GB.”

  “…Um, Kiyomin, what did she just say?”

  “If you want it translated into Japanese, she said, ‘Kana, you brought a ten-thousand-yen bill today, so just change it for smaller bills and play the UFO catcher and get left out by the rest of the group. I just imagined it. It was a very weird picture to imagine. I got goose bumps.’ …Or something along those lines. Creepy. I wish she’d just speak in Japanese.”

  “Eww, Kiyosuke, don’t translate it all weird like that. It’s such a buzzkill. And, like, if anyone’s being an alien, it’s you.”

  With that rather typical conversation, the group of ten or so left the arcade behind—but then the ordinary scene was pierced by an unordinary sound.

  “Move it, damn you!” snorted an agitated man among the paradise of pedestrians.

  The crowds automatically turned to look in the direction of the disturbance and saw a middle-aged man wearing a hat, trying to race down the street and pushing aside anyone standing in his way.

  The crowds weren’t as dense as a station platform during rush hour, so with a bit of well-considered coordination, he could have darted and slipped his way through cleanly, but he was so agitated that it was essentially a straight beeline down the concrete.

  Far behind him, a woman was in pursuit, limping and shouting something after him. What she was yelling was unclear, but she appeared to be wearing a retail uniform. Based on the desperate look on her face, it seemed likely that the man had committed a robbery or had shoplifted.

  The people milling around were paralyzed with confusion in the moment, but as understanding sank in, a few tried to block the man’s path.

  “Outta the damn way!” he slurred, frantic and out of breath. He bowled his blockers over; up close, he was not tall, but quite muscular, and charged through anyone in his way like a football linebacker.

  “Whoa, crap! Look out!” “Where’s Shizuo and Simon when you need them?”

  “Let’s get outta here!” “Call the cops!” “He’s coming this way!”

  “Hey, snap a pic!” “Come on, have some respect!”

  “No, I mean to get a shot of his face for evidence!” “Oh, right.”

  “Yikes, it’s too late!” “Who is that, Daddy?” “Stay close to me.”

  “Что случилось?” (What happened?)

  “Нет проблем.” (No problem.)

  “Huh?! What’s this, Kuru?! What’s going on?!”

  “Silence.”

  “I didn’t notice because I was busy reading a dirty mag. What’s the commotion?”

  “Quiet.”

  Wildly different voices collided and intersected, creating an instantaneous buzz throughout the street—the perfect stage for another abnormal figure to appear.

  The group of girls just leaving the arcade pulled backward so as not to get stuck in the uproar, and a single man emerged as he strode forward.

  At first glance, he seemed like any other young man. He wore a number of thin, light layers, like a fashion model who sprang right out of the pages of a magazine. His style was more mature and less wild, more fitting of the Daikanyama or Omotesando neighborhoods than Ikebukuro—but what set him apart was his face.

  It was not particularly notable for its beauty or lack thereof. If anything, it was hard to tell which of the two his visage would be considered.

  In the shade of the straw hat, bandages covered his forehead, their surface blotted with red blood. There was a medical eyepatch covering one eye, the kind used to cover up a sty, and a large Band-Aid on his cheek. A dark bruise extended from the edge of the bandage. He looked like he’d either been hit by a bat or tumbled down the stairs and smacked his face on the ground.

  “Umm, Rocchi? Watch out, you’re already hurt,” one of the girls started to stay, but the man named Rocchi was already walking straight into the escape path of the barging tackler.

  “I told you, get the f—” the muscular man bellowed, lowering himself and speeding up to overpower the youth.

  But the injured young man only lifted up a foot to kick at his assailant.

  The move was a “yakuza kick” in pro wrestling parlance, in which the bottom of the attacking foot is planted firmly on the target. There was once an old-school giant wrestler who called it the Size 16 Kick, a flashy attack that knocked the target backward.

  If the kicker’s foot made contact with the charging man’s shoulder, it should have thrown him off-balance and tossed him backward. In fact, everyone present assumed that the young man on one leg was going to be hurled off his feet.

  But they were wrong.

  An ugly scraping sound rent the air.

  The source of the sound was evident after considering the young man’s new position several feet back, still in the same pose—and a black line extending from the tip of his grounded foot.

  The young man had stopped the muscular man’s charge with the bottom of his raised foot and merely slid back a short distance. The shift in momentum that had occurred within his body must have been tremendous.

  The instantaneous, phenomenal transfer of force left a line of black, charred shoe sole on the asphalt. The trail was practically smoking.

  And the tackling man did not attempt to take another step.

  If he’d planted one more step at his original speed, he could have tossed the youngster aside, as everyone imagined. But right at that last step, the point at which he’d have put the most power into his charge, he couldn’t.

  The young man’s kick had thrown his heel directly into the mouth of the charging man, flattening it into his face.

  “You just knocked over three women?” the young man growled coldly, but the man could hardly have heard the words.

  “Grgh…guh.”

  His front teeth were no doubt broken already. He could only groan in uncomprehending pain, the heel of the shoe jammed into his mouth.

  The young man’s good eye narrowed.

  “Three times.”

  He swiveled his toes left and right thrice, all his weight pressing on the man’s face. He was stepping on the man, trampling him as he stood.

  With fine little cracking sounds, the man’s nose turned like the knob on a gas stove.

  “Aaaa— Aaa— Aaa— Aaaah! Aaah! Aaah!”

  The fresh wave of pain must have brought him to his senses. The man scream
ed and wailed helplessly, covering his gushing nose and rolling on the pavement.

  The young man looked down at him as if he were a mosquito felled by bug spray.

  Meanwhile, the group of girls looking on from a safe distance did not seem particularly shocked or surprised.

  “Why’s Rocchi so fired up?”

  “Didn’t you see the employee chasing after that guy was a woman?”

  “Another woman. It never ends with him.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do? Rocchi’s a womanizer.”

  “It’s part of what makes him so charming.”

  “Exactly.”

  But Rocchi was more focused on the female employee approaching him than the conversation of the girls behind him.

  “Th-thank you… He was shoplifting from our store,” the uniformed employee panted. Her voice was trembling, either from the exertion of running so long and hard or from fear of the young man standing over his bloodied victim.

  The young man doffed his hat and gently took her hand, murmuring, “Not at all. I only did what anyone would do.”

  His voice was so soft and sweet, it was almost silly. The facial features peeking out from behind the eyepatch and bandages softened into a smile, and he was suddenly an entirely different person from the one who had just kicked a grown man to the curb.

  The suddenly benign young man glanced down at the woman’s leg with concern.

  “Why, miss. Your leg is scraped.”

  “Huh…? Oh, er…that happened when I tried to stop him, and he pushed me…”

  “…”

  Without removing the pleasant smile from his face, the young man spun around on his heel—and leaped.

  “?”

  The woman flinched, momentarily bewildered by his action.

  But she understood what he was doing right after.

  Right at the point where his feet landed was the attempted shoplifter’s leg, still lying on the ground. He landed directly on the man’s knee with all his weight.

  The ugly crunching sound was only briefly audible before the man’s scream drowned it out.

  “Dabaaah! Ah! Dah! Aaaga-ga-ga-ga-a-ga-da-da-da-dah!”

  “Shut your mouth, scumbag,” the young man commanded in a chilling tone. He kicked the man hard in the crotch.