Durarara!!, Vol. 8 Read online

  Copyright

  DURARARA!!, Volume 8

  RYOHGO NARITA

  ILLUSTRATION BY SUZUHITO YASUDA

  Translation by Stephen Paul

  Cover art by Suzuhito Yasuda

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  DURARARA!!

  © RYOHGO NARITA 2010

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS

  First published in 2010 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen On

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Narita, Ryōgo, 1980– author. | Yasuda, Suzuhito, illustrator. | Paul, Stephen (Translator), translator.

  Title: Durarara!! / Ryohgo Narita, Suzuhito Yasuda, translation by Stephen Paul.

  Description: New York, NY : Yen ON, 2015–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015041320 | ISBN 9780316304740 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316304764 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316304771 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316304788 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316304795 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316304818 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316439688 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316474290 (v. 8 : pbk.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Tokyo (Japan)—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.N37 Du 2015 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041320

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-47429-0 (paperback)

  978-0-316-47430-6 (ebook)

  978-0-316-47430-6

  E3-20171020-JV-PC

  Prologue: Two Sides, Same Coin @ Ikebukuro

  Prologue: Heads

  July, Tokyo

  “The Dollars have changed.”

  That’s what someone mumbled in the corner of a coffee shop.

  Not long ago it was just a low-key club, but recently it’s started looking more like the color gangs—a real street gang.

  It all kicked off with a turf war incident during the extended holiday in May.

  Everything cleared up within just a few days…

  But deep, deep scars have remained unhealed in the two months plus since then.

  “Yo, mister. We were raised under the new education standards, so we don’t know Japanese so good. Let’s keep it short, yeah?”

  The shroud of night had descended upon Tokyo.

  In an alley removed from the center of Ikebukuro, a group of youngsters with ostentatious clothing had surrounded an office-working salaryman.

  The fortyish man had no idea what was happening to him, except that he’d gone from being pleasantly tipsy to being in an absolute nightmare.

  “Wha…what are you boys doing? Y-you’ve got the wrong man… Wh-what have I done…to offend you?”

  The salaryman quaked in fear at the youths, who were no older than his own son, and held his briefcase to his chest as a shield. It wasn’t very good armor when you were surrounded by four people.

  “Like I said, let’s keep it short. Yeah? You heard of us? The Dollars? Well, we’re doin’ a little fund-raising. Can I ask for your help? All we need is everything in your wallet,” one of the young men mocked, slapping the man lightly on the cheeks.

  The salaryman put on an obliging smile as the impact shook the alcohol from his mind. “Ah…h-ha-ha, why, yes. I know of the Dollars—I am one.”

  “What?”

  “Y-you know, online…”

  He started to take out his cell phone, but one of the hooligans grabbed his wrist and twisted it, laughing. The phone slipped out of his fingers and clattered onto the ground.

  “Ow…aiee! Ah…gah…!” he shrieked.

  The young man yanked his arm behind his back and drew close to his ear in order to taunt, “Well, in that case, couldn’t you spare a little allowance money for your fellow Dollars? Shouldn’t the elders be looking out for the kids?”

  The others jeered him on.

  “Thanks for all your hard work, fathers of Japan!”

  “We just want to repay our parents with loyalty!”

  The way that they threw their arms around his shoulders and lightly gibed him for money only made the salaryman more afraid. He would almost have preferred they’d threatened him with clipped, menacing demands for cash. At least that way, he could envision handing over the money and being allowed to leave without further trouble.

  He looked backward, gauging whether or not he should make a break for it—when he noticed more youngsters blocking the way. He fully gave in to despair.

  However, the ones sticking him up looked similarly upset at the sight of these new visitors.

  “…? Who the hell are you?”

  “This ain’t a show! Get lost!” the muggers shouted at first, but as the eeriness of the new group became more apparent, their apprehension and hostility rose.

  While the newcomers were a variety of sizes and shapes, they all wore the same masks. The headwear looked like knit ski masks but with embroidered spikes resembling shark teeth extending around the head in a creepy fashion.

  It was bizarre.

  They didn’t look like they’d gotten together just to threaten people. It wasn’t a prank to scare drunks, a creative new art exhibition, or a vigilante group.

  The first thing that the muggers thought of was the battle against the Saitama biker gang named Toramaru from a few months back. Could the bikers have come back to attack them, using the masks to hide their faces? The thought gave the thugs chills.

  After a few seconds of unsettling silence, one of the masked youngsters said happily, “We’re Dollars, too. Mind if we help out?”

  “Huh?”

  “…!”

  The muggers raised eyebrows while the salaryman quaked.

  “Why the hell should we split up our take like that? Get outta here!” a mugger said, bold again now that he knew what he was dealing with.

  But the masked newcomers first glanced at one another, then shook their hands in a negative fashion.

  “Oh no, no, you’ve got it wrong.”

  “What?”

  “We’re talking to the salaryman over there.”

  “Huh? What the hell are you…?” the criminals started to say, confused, when they heard a dull crunking noise.

  They spun around and saw another masked youngster with a baseball bat in his hand, standing over one of their companions.

  “A-asshole! …?!”

  Behind the boy with the bat was another group of masked men. At last, the muggers understood.

  They were standing in a lonely alley with no bystanders, completely surrounded.

  One of the masked youths spoke up. “We’re gonna need to borrow your phones so that we can log in to the Dollars website and cancel your memberships.”

  He cackled and tilted his head to crack the vertebrae in his neck. “Having guys like you in the Dollars is a bit of a problem, you see.

  “And our leader wants us to purge you from the
ranks.”

  “The Dollars have changed.”

  That’s what someone mumbled in a back alley.

  “The gang no longer has the freedom to lollygag.”

  Prologue: Tails

  Metropolitan Expressway, Ikebukuro

  “Things are looking extremely troubling, aren’t they, sir?” murmured the bizarre man in the white gas mask, sitting in the rear seat of the black luxury vehicle.

  “Not troubling, but certainly extreme,” replied the man sitting across from him from a decent distance away. He looked to be somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties, with graying hair held in place by pomade.

  He glared at Shingen Kishitani and remarked, “And it was you Nebula folks who put us in this extreme situation.”

  “Alas, it seems you still refuse to see the situation for what it is, President Yagiri.”

  “Stop it with the obsequious fawning, Kishitani. It makes you sound sarcastic.”

  Shingen slowly shook his head. A dry chuckle broke from beneath his gas mask. “You may still hold on to the title of president, but from the moment your company came under Nebula’s umbrella, Seitarou Yagiri, you have been a Nebula man yourself. You mustn’t forget that,” he said bluntly.

  Yagiri maintained a blank expression. “As people are wont to say to their kind, ‘Human beings are the real terror.’ It’s been a saying ever since I was a boy.”

  “Actually, everything in the world is a terror. Every kind of food is carcinogenic, and every species can pose an extinctive threat to others. But I didn’t invite you on this drive to trade barbs like this.”

  “Then why did you? I can’t imagine Nebula really has such a fixation on the head,” Seitarou Yagiri said.

  While he freely brought up the matter on his own, Shingen’s voice was muffled. “As a matter of fact, this isn’t me acting as a Nebula employee. I wanted to talk to you as an old friend. More specifically, to give you a warning.”

  “Warning?” Seitarou asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  Shingen looked down at the fingers he had crossed over his knees and, without looking up, said the name, “Jinnai Yodogiri.”

  “…!”

  Seitarou’s expression instantly soured, and he turned to look at the scenery streaming by out the window. Among the forest of high-rise buildings that rose in the distance over the expressway walls, Shingen’s faint reflection budged on the inside of the glass.

  “Based on that reaction, I take the rumors to be true. You have some connection to the man.”

  “…”

  “I will be frank with you. Yodogiri is dangerous. It’s for your own sake not to approach him. You might be thinking that you can use him to your ends, but it’s the other way around. What he’s doing is trite, but his skill at trampling all over others is exceedingly sharp. Well…calling it ‘trite’ may not sit well with those he’s already victimized,” Shingen mumbled.

  Seitarou grimaced and shook his head.

  “I’m surprised. They say you’re the dog off its leash at Nebula, and even you’re on guard around this Yodogiri fellow?”

  “Actually, I’m one of the better-behaved folks there. Remember, these are people who deal with fairy heads and vampires and the like—stuff too embarrassing to ever take public. Plus, if I was really the type to take any means necessary, I wouldn’t bother with this company takeover to get Celty’s head. I’d just steal it from your house.”

  “So you say.”

  “Besides, if anyone’s really ruthless, it’s you. You haven’t forgotten how you seized that head before it could be handed over to Nebula twenty years ago by threatening the life of my son, have you?” Shingen said accusingly.

  Without taking his eyes off the window, Seitarou replied, “After fifty, your memory starts to go a little fuzzy. But the vague pieces I can recall all featured you happily giving up the head for cash.”

  “Hmph! When I asked my boss, ‘Can we sell the head to another company so my son doesn’t get assassinated?’ I didn’t actually expect to get ‘You can’t barter with your child’s life, and we can’t get the police involved anyhow’ as an answer. Not only did they know it wasn’t something that could be made public, it was a division that never paid much attention to loss or gain in the first place.”

  “…What a ridiculous company. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that it’s one of the premier corporations in the world and the business I raised myself is now under its control.”

  “You mentioned fuzzy memory. Isn’t that convenient? You can just forget the unpleasant stuff,” said Shingen, probably sarcastically, but without being able to see his face, there was no way to be certain. Regardless, Seitarou leaned his head back, pressing his graying hair into the headrest of the seat, and looked downward.

  “I will not forget. Last year was the worst of my life. Not only did we get absorbed by Nebula, Namie ran off with the damned head.”

  “Knowing you, I’m sure you could track down your niece swiftly. Couldn’t you steal it back and make it look like a robbery?”

  “…No need to take such extreme measures. We already did every bit of research you possibly could on it. Our conclusion was that it was beyond the realm of modern science. Makes you wonder if you’d have better luck using occult means…but I’m certain that Namie only continued that pointless research as a means to keep the head out of Seiji’s grasp,” he said, exasperated.

  Shingen joked, “The fact that you knew all of this and let her do it says a lot about your love for your niece.”

  “Well, she was a very talented researcher. Seiichi…her father was useless. I merely made the judgment call that if we were going to continue examining the head, it was best to leave it with Namie.”

  “Hrm… But you didn’t think of the head as a target for study in the first place. The reason your nephew became so infatuated with it was because you kept her head at your own house, didn’t you?”

  “You certainly like to pry into other people’s private business,” Seitarou said, sounding more resigned than annoyed or affronted.

  Shingen cackled. “It’s nothing. And you’re like your nephew, aren’t you? Did you fall in love with that head, too? At your age? You were still a bachelor, and it turned out the object of your affections that led you to threaten me was the severed head of a fairy.”

  “Your conjecture is about fifty percent correct.”

  The car came across some traffic and gradually slowed. When it had come to a complete stop, Seitarou continued, “Of course, I think the head is beautiful. It has both artistic and feminine beauty. Enough to kindle feelings of longing and desire, as you said—even at my age. But I am no longer young enough to tie such feelings into romance. Seiji can be exasperating, but at times, I envy him.”

  He looked up at the ceiling of the car interior, as if cherishing the distant past, and muttered, “If you take my envy as a consequence of love, then I suppose I am in love—with the possibility of freeing my soul from the mortal world, just like that fairy.”

  “Now there’s a youthful fantasy if I’ve ever heard one. Though I suppose that once you learn of things detached from the accepted view of the world, you can’t help but be possessed by them,” Shingen muttered from behind the gas mask, shaking his head. “But allow me to give you a warning. Do not get involved with Jinnai Yodogiri.”

  “And I’ll ask you again. Is he really that dangerous? He’s just a middleman whose only skill is to suck up to the mighty.”

  “If his best skill was sucking up to the mighty, he wouldn’t make an enemy of the Awakusu-kai,” Shingen said, referring to a criminal organization in the city. “I know how arrogant you are. You think you’ll use him for all he’s worth, then cut him loose when you need to, like a lizard’s tail…but that’s a perilous idea. He might be the tail, but you never know when it’s actually the body that’s being cut loose.”

  “Your metaphors are as abstract as ever, but I shall keep your warning in mind,” said Seitarou, his face so stiff t
hat it was hard to tell if he really intended to heed the advice.

  Ten minutes later, after Seitarou had left the car, Shingen called up to the driver.

  “By the way, do you know anything about Yodogiri?”

  The Russian driving the car, a man named Egor, shook his head. “No. I do not know anything more than what you told me and have no interest in it.”

  “I see… By the way, you’ve been working for Nebula…er, as my private errand runner for over three months now. Don’t you need to get back to Russia by now?”

  “The vice president instructed me to watch Miss Vorona. I do not think it is worth such concern…but there is also a deal with the Awakusu-kai that should keep me in Japan for the time being.”

  “What about your visa? If we get pulled over by the cops and they take you, I’m stuck here. I don’t have a license,” Shingen pointed out with grave alarm.

  Egor calmly replied as he drove. “Have no fear. It is a long-term technical visa that claims I have been a jeweler since the age of fifteen. Denis and Simon appear to be looking for permanent visas, but I am not so enamored of this country as they are. It’s not bad, of course.”

  He paused, then asked his benefactor, “Is this man Yodogiri really as dangerous as you say?”

  “He’s a different type from you or Vorona or the Awakusu-kai. If your danger is represented by a knife edge, Yodogiri’s is poison…no, like radiation. If you aren’t aware of it, you’ll sink yourself into its rotting depths without ever recognizing the danger…and once you do know, it’s already too late,” Shingen said, using an analogy Egor would find easy to understand.

  “Egor,” he continued, “do you remember the serial killer I hired you to dispatch this spring—Hollywood?”

  “I couldn’t forget. I ended up with facial reconstruction because of it. You said that it was Yodogiri this Hollywood killer was going after, yes?”

  “Indeed. Hollywood the serial killer—Miss Ruri Hijiribe—should have killed him right off the bat, but for some reason, he evaded her grasp to the very end. That alone should tell you something about him.”

  “I see. But what does he wish to achieve by aligning himself with the president of Yagiri Pharmaceuticals?” asked the driver, a suspicious note of interest for one who worked as a detached professional.