Durarara!!, Vol. 9 Read online

  Copyright

  DURARARA!!, Volume 9

  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!! Vol.9

  © RYOHGO NARITA 2011

  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS

  First published in Japan in 2011 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

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

  English translation © 2018 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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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.) | ISBN 9780316474313 (v. 9 : 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: 978-0-316-47431-3 (paperback)

  978-0-316-47433-7 (ebook)

  E3-20180227-JV-PC

  PROLOGUE: Schoolmate

  I’m sorry for taking up your time, Mr. Nakura.

  “Erm, Kujiragi, was it? What does an insurance broker want with me?”

  I’ll just be direct. Are you familiar with someone named Izaya Orihara?

  “Izaya Orihara? Sure. He went to the same school as me, and I wouldn’t forget a name that odd. Why, did he finally get himself into major trouble? Insurance fraud, maybe? He didn’t use my name again, did he? Let me just say that whatever it is, I’m not involved. Haven’t seen him in ages, either.”

  What do you mean, “finally”?

  “Oh, you haven’t met him in person? You would understand what I mean if you had. It’s clear from a glance that he’s abnormal. Then again…maybe he would act like a regular guy around a woman like you. He always did have a fair number of female followers who seemed to worship him.”

  You mentioned that he might have used your name “again.”

  “Yeah…see, I sold him my name.”

  Sold him your…name?

  “So, I was talking with him in person, and he said there was stuff he wanted to buy without his family finding out, so he wanted to use my name on the online shopping form. I declined at first, of course, but then he offered me a pretty hefty amount of money. I figured it couldn’t do any harm; it’s not like I was giving him my credit card or bank account numbers.”

  What did he actually do with it?

  “A couple of things got delivered to me. Orihara would give me advance warning they were coming, and I lived alone, so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings. But I was curious about the contents. There was one time I opened a box and told him it was by mistake.”

  What was inside?

  “Just normal books. Maybe a bit erotic, but in, like, an ethnic studies kind of way. And he wasn’t that angry about my excuse that it was a mistake.”

  Was he just an ordinary student at school?

  “Ordinary? Well, I hardly ever saw him attend any classes at Raira College. Not that he was unique in that regard, as plenty of people skipped class all the time. Every now and then, I did see him on campus talking to some weird guy wearing a lab coat. I thought it was a medical student at first, but apparently, he was from outside the school… Actually, scratch that. He’s the guy Orihara was joking about, saying that he was a black market doctor so if I ever got shot, I could see him without having to get the cops involved.”

  …

  “Oops, sorry, you were asking about Orihara. But like I said, he wasn’t your typical dude, and I kept my distance from him. As I mentioned, aside from the groupies, the only normal friend he had might’ve been that one guy in the lab coat. In fact, he must’ve been a friend, if he was bringing the guy onto campus.”

  Do you suppose he was isolated?

  “I heard stories about how in high school he fought all the time with some super-crazy badass guy named Heiwajima. He’s not actually that bad when you get to know him, though. But I’ll repeat, he was not normal.”

  And you decided to give this person you weren’t even close to the use of your name and address?

  “Yeah, it sounds bad when you put it that way…but it wasn’t just me.”

  Not just you?

  “He was actually borrowing the names of a number of different people during college. Most of them were women but a few guys, too. And I was kind of hard up for cash, so…”

  Is there anything else you know about him? His background, for example.

  “Look, I told you, I’m not the guy to ask about that sort of stuff! Seriously, if my work finds out that I lent out my name for these weird shenanigans, I’m going to get so much side-eye, you have no idea!”

  Pardon me for asking. I merely heard a rumor that you were close in college.

  “And who told you that, huh? Man, what a pain in my ass. I don’t even know…”

  Is something the matter?

  “Actually, now that I think about it…I don’t know a single thing about Orihara.”

  Is there someone else who might know more about him?

  “Well, now that I think about it, I wonder if anyone at that college actually knew about his past or his background. I doubt the groupies were anything more than shallow infatuations… If anyone actually knows personal details about him, it’d have to be the guy in the coat I mentioned.”

  And what is his name?

  “I dunno. I’m kinda getting shivers over here, realizing that I might’ve made a terrible mistake back then. Ooh! I just felt it for sure. Shiver down my back. Maybe lending him my name was actually a really stupid thing to do…”

  It’s all right. No one used your name to do anything. As far I know, at least.

  “Well, that’s good… But are you really trying to look into his background? Does that mean he actually did do something—?”

  I’m afraid I can’t discuss internal matters with you, other than to say
that his name popped up as the recipient of one of our insurance claims.

  “…Ah, I see. So you suspect some insurance fraud going on… Well, that does sound like something Orihara might do. He’s very good at taking advantage of people… Oh, right, that reminds me. I remember him saying that his hobby was human observation at some point.”

  Human observation?

  “Pretentious, right? Who says, ‘My hobby is human observation,’ as a college student? That guy does. But it’s not necessarily a condescending thing. It’s like…you know how when cat people see cats and just find them irresistibly cute? Whether the cat is angry, or sulking, or just sleeping, or whatever.”

  But wouldn’t you call that sort of cat-watching behavior condescending in the first place?

  “Not like that, really… Let me take the human-cat comparison a bit further…”

  …?

  “I bet that if he saw a cat get run over by a car, or the instant it died of illness, or if a cat tore out another cat’s throat, he’d still have the same reaction to it.

  “…Like, ‘Aww, that’s so cute.’”

  In a Dark Place 1

  “How do you feel, Mr. Info Dealer?”

  The place looked like a bar. But the open shelving for liquor display was empty, and the wallpaper was peeling here and there. It wasn’t in any state for business.

  “Or do you prefer that I call you by your full name, Izaya Orihara?”

  The voice in the darkened room belonged to a young woman.

  She looked to be in her midtwenties. She was dressed like an employee at a high-end boutique, her makeup light and her pixie cut just a tiny bit permed.

  Despite her mature looks, her tone of voice was on the young side. There was no response.

  Sitting in a number of rusted bar chairs around her were darkened figures.

  The significant majority of them were female, but some of the shapes were burly and male. If the lights had been on and the place were clean, the scene might look like hostesses, waiters, and their bodyguards.

  But it was the person sitting in the center of the establishment that totally ruled that possibility out.

  The man sat in a tasteful steel-frame chair. His outfit looked black in the gloom, but it was impossible to make out the design without more light. Still, whether the lights were on or off made no difference to him.

  His head was totally covered by a heavy burlap sack, the kind used to ship coffee beans, hiding his face and hair from view. The sound of his breathing was audible, but he didn’t respond to the woman’s question. His hands were tied behind his back, and without being able to see, he wasn’t in any state to get to his feet.

  “Ah, you can’t talk back. I guess that makes sense—you took a lot of heavy blows on the way here. Oh, did you break all his teeth?” the pixie-cut woman asked, turning around in her identical chair to the figures behind her.

  “We didn’t break him down,” one of the nearby women offered curtly. “It’d be a waste since he’s so good-looking.”

  “Ah, fine then. That leaves us with more fun ahead anyway,” the ringleader replied. Her voice was as youthful as a teenager’s, leaving her real age hard to discern in the darkness.

  Turning back around, the domineering, short-haired woman gave no explanation to the man in the hood as to the nature of her group.

  “So, Mr. Info Dealer, do you understand why it is that you’re here now?” she asked him once more, and again there was no answer. The only sound was heavy breathing through the fabric. He might not have even been conscious.

  “I’ll give you a hint. My nickname…is Earthworm. Does that ring a bell?”

  At the mention of that nickname—more of an insult, really—the sack over his head slowly rose.

  “Ha-ha! He reacted! Oh man, this is great! He’s like a puppet or something!” the woman named Earthworm cackled, like one of the weirdos in high school teasing a younger student, and prodded the burlap sack where his forehead would be. “I’m going to give you a piece of advice, Izaya Orihara.”

  “…”

  He remained silent, so she continued, “You might be a big-shot info broker or whatever, but I think you’ve been standing out a bit too much, don’t you?”

  “…”

  “We learned that there was some freak out there sniffing around after us, so we looked into it, and what did we find? You. You’re a real funny guy, aren’t you? About as funny as playing old maid with a deck of fifty-two old maids, from what I hear,” Earthworm went on, an analogy that did not make much sense.

  The man in the burlap sack breathed, nothing more.

  “Now, an info broker’s one of those guys who goes around talking to red-light ladies, cops, the errand runners for the really scary men, and the barkers trying to drum up business for their brothels…and then sells the things those folks know to others for a little side money, right?”

  “…”

  “Yet, that’s your main business, you proudly call yourself by the title, and you’re famous for it. Wouldn’t that make you the worst kind of info dealer?” She giggled. “I mean, the guys who sell secrets to the police and the scary men have to hide their identities, or they’re really in trouble, right? Otherwise, they get arrested or lose a joint off their finger. Or get fed to the fishes in Tokyo Bay, am I right? Huh?”

  It was as if she were telling a lurid fairy tale to a child. “Now, I’m going to give you a piece of advice: People who want to stand out like you do are the people least suited to this line of work. Have you learned that lesson now?”

  “…”

  “Are you listening to me? Okay, forget the hint. I’ll just tell you the answer. Those scary men at the Awakusu-kai paid you to snoop around after us, didn’t they?”

  Earthworm rolled her wrist around, drawing a circle on the forehead of the silent man through the burlap. His head rolled with it, loose and unresisting, as though he were totally drained.

  “Then again, I’m not sure if my ‘advice’ is going to help you very much.”

  “…”

  “You won’t ever be able to do this job again, will you?”

  Her youthful exuberance at the chance to be cruel clashed with her age.

  Who were these women?

  And what in the world was happening in this abandoned bar?

  That story began a few days earlier, when the info broker Izaya Orihara received a work order from the Awakusu-kai.

  Chapter 1: Information Broker

  Early August, Tokyo

  “Feels like it’s been ages since I rode in this car.”

  In the backseat of a luxury sedan, Izaya Orihara sat next to the left window, watching the city pass by. The young man wore a thin black summer coat over his similarly black shirt. He turned to the other passenger and said easily, “Your face is fond and memorable, too, Mr. Shiki.”

  “You think so? Feels like we met just the other day,” said an imposing man in his thirties or forties, with striking narrow eyes and an inscrutable expression. “I heard you took a blade to the guts—you all right?”

  “Yeah…it made the news, didn’t it? At least there were no photos of me.”

  “Who got you?”

  “I’m looking into that myself. There are plenty of people with misplaced anger at me, I’m sure…but I doubt you came all this way to ask me that, no?”

  “It’s half personal interest, half work obligation. I mean, if someone’s knifing an info source that we utilize, it could signal a hostile intent toward us, that’s all,” Shiki said, stretching his neck to the side. “By the way, Mr. Orihara, are you familiar with someone named Nakura?”

  Shiki was deferential, despite the obvious age gap. There was a chilly sharpness to his voice, however, and the interior of the car felt tense on account of it.

  Izaya was not affected, as far as his tone was concerned. “Nakura? Is that a last name or a first name? I feel as though there might have been someone named something like that in my middle school or college, or�
��”

  “Well, someone by that name put a bunch of funny ideas into the head of our boss’s little girl…”

  “She’s still in elementary school, right? Just because Ikebukuro is safe these days doesn’t mean you can allow her to mingle with bad guys. Or is this a woman you’re talking about?” Izaya asked, not alarmed in the least.

  After a few seconds of silence, Shiki moved on to the heart of the matter.

  “…Well, that’s enough chitchat. There’s something I want you to look up for us today. We can’t afford to be overt about this, and it’s a bit touchy to be hiring an ordinary detective for the matter.”

  “I can ascertain the sort of job it was just from the fact that you came to me. The Awakusu-kai don’t suffer in the least for cutting me loose to take the fall,” Izaya retorted.

  The man didn’t bat an eye. “Does the name Amphisbaena mean anything to you?”

  Without missing a beat, Izaya replied, “Amphisbaena… A legendary lizard said to live in Libya. A poisonous beast with two heads on the front and back end of its body. Various poets and storytellers have devised various evolutions for the mythical being, such as bat wings. It’s even been used as the centerpiece of Western noble sigils.”

  “…I didn’t know any of these things. The only thing I knew was that it was a dragon that showed up in Western mythology.”

  “I’d say that puts you in rare company all on its own. Its recognition in Japan is minuscule. If you had to look that up, then I assume whatever you want with me has to do with the word.”

  Shiki nodded. “There’s a group named Amphisbaena…or a business, if you want to call it that. They’re running an underground casino.”

  “Oh, really? That’s not the name of any gambling establishment the Awakusu-kai runs,” Izaya noted, which suggested he was aware of them all.

  Shiki neither confirmed nor denied this suggestion. He didn’t even make a face at the taunt. “I’m sure you’re aware our organization is finding it difficult to open such a business directly. If we try to do it the public way, and there’s even a hint of our name attached to it, there’s no way we’ll get a license. Now, a private apartment setup is a different story…but that’s not the point.”