Durarara!! Vol. 12 Page 3

  Because he was human.

  Because he could not get rid of his emotions.

  Because he was dragging his past behind him.

  His fear and anxiety all converted into rage, and he screamed the name of his opponent.

  “Izumiiiiiiii!”

  He launched forward.

  This time, he was truly putting his life on the line.

  In that moment, the real determination to fight with his very life welled up from deep within. And at the same moment, it birthed another kind of determination.

  When one offers up one’s life, it is often life that is sought in return.

  The sheer force of the powerful emotions raging within brought about a kind of secondary, imitation determination. He was prepared to kill the interloper, if need be. The difference in numbers was stark, and if anyone was going to end up dead here, Masaomi was by far the most likely.

  But still he ran.

  Not like a man with tunnel vision.

  He saw the obvious suffering ahead of him and chose to throw all his rising emotions into overcoming it.

  Masaomi was not a very tall man. He was used to fighting, and he had a pretty decent physical build, but he didn’t cut the sort of figure that struck fear into others with a glance.

  But he did cast off a demonic fury that was unlike your typical teenager, and it caused the thugs around him to subconsciously shy away a bit.

  In their midst, the very source of Masaomi’s nightmares, Ran Izumii, smirked at his foe through sunglasses and raised his hammer.

  “…You mean Mr. Izumii, yeah?”

  And just like that, he swung it down at Masaomi’s head.

  Masaomi avoided the swing by a hair’s width, putting him right inside his opponent’s defenses.

  “”

  There was nothing to say.

  As if to make the point that nothing could be worth saying to this man, no words of hatred even being worth the effort, Masaomi put all the strength and emotion he could summon, all the regrets about his own weakness, and every other thing that had built up inside him into a clenched fist.

  He twisted his body, putting rotation into the greatest possible blow he could muster, and then tensed and paused for an instant.

  Just the slightest, briefest moment.

  It was enough time for Izumii to recognize Masaomi’s stance and the distance between them and hastily attempt to evade. But rolling his upper half backward did not create enough room to avoid impact.

  Masaomi’s fist hurtled with maximum speed and weight at Izumii’s unprotected face.

  The next moment, the sound of violent impact echoed off the walls of the parking garage.

  In the past

  Ran Izumii was once the head of the Blue Squares, but he was not the kind of person you would consider a mighty brawler.

  For one thing, he got the position only because it was left to him by his little brother, Aoba Kuronuma. So in the sense that he was never meant to earn that leadership position, it was true—because he didn’t build that throne for himself.

  However, it was under Izumii’s lead that the Blue Squares actually expanded their power. So it was more accurate to describe him as a true scumbag.

  He relied on numbers in battle, and out of an inferiority complex to his popular and charismatic brother, he tended to try to keep people under control with fear instead.

  He would focus on annihilating enemy gangs, keeping them under his thumb with violence, and using his followers as the limbs that did his bidding. Kadota criticized him for his methods on many an occasion, but Izumii never intended to take that into account.

  He knew that if he stopped growing the Blue Squares his brother had built and he allowed it to be comfortable in its own skin, it was bound to implode instead. And once that happened, he would be the first one its members turned against.

  So he committed himself to atrocity: He wielded violence like a cudgel. He indulged in all his desires. He painted the back alleys of Ikebukuro in sticky, ugly fear, grinding the city rough and raw.

  Because as soon as he stopped, that fear would crush him in return.

  On the other hand, Ran Izumii was not some victim whose life had been sent off the rails by his brother’s actions. While he was unable to stop the relentless march of his gang, it was also by his own desire that he traced this path.

  If he were really some sympathetic victim, he would have handed the gang over to someone else, retired from the position, and left the ugly, bloodstained back alleys behind.

  In fact, if he had left it in the hands of Kadota, for example, the team might have come together well. A guy like him had the potential and the character to lead. He might even have altered the fundamental nature of the gang.

  But Izumii refused to do that.

  The power and money and influence he gained were all his, and the thought of giving them up to another person was unfathomable. Izumii was steering them down the path of madness because he wanted to do it.

  In other words, he was a real scumbag.

  But there were dangerous storm clouds around his path.

  There was a street gang, supposedly set up by middle school kids, that wore yellow bandannas. This group, the Yellow Scarves, was somehow holding its own against the Blue Squares’ overwhelming advantage in numbers.

  This inexplicable situation did not stop Izumii. When their relentless guerrilla assaults were proving to be impossible to overcome with his power of numbers, he began to get impatient—until a certain man made unexpected contact with him and gave Izumii some information.

  That the leader of the Yellow Scarves was Masaomi Kida.

  And that he had a girlfriend by the name of Saki Mikajima.

  And how they could get her alone.

  Izumii didn’t trust him, but he was willing to take any help he could get and accepted the man’s offer. They succeeded in kidnapping the girl, and all they needed to do after that was use her to lure Masaomi Kida to a place where they could crush him.

  But as a result, Izumii lost his status, his power, and even the tiny bit of freedom he possessed. All he gained was the facial-burn scar from Yumasaki’s Molotov cocktail.

  Izumii benefited from not having a significant prior arrest record, but he was still sentenced for his assault, and he spent time in juvenile detention.

  While he served his sentence, he coincidentally learned about the trickery involved in the warfare between the Blue Squares and Yellow Scarves. That he had been placed on his throne by his brother and manipulated in the palm of a man named Izaya Orihara, who wanted to throw a wrench into the gang war.

  At last, Izumii understood just how powerless he really was.

  If he was the type of person to learn humility, his story would likely have taken a different route at this point.

  But he was not.

  He was not meant to inspire others with leadership, but he was indeed a bona fide scumbag.

  Not for a single second did the emptiness consume him. Rather than reflect on his failings or look ahead to his future, he simply doubled down on the simmering, obsessive hatred within him.

  He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.

  So Izumii punched the wall of the facility’s gym. He kicked it, screamed, and even head-butted the hard surface. It was identified as self-harming behavior, and he was placed in a solitary cell.

  But he wasn’t trying to hurt himself at all—Izumii just wanted to destroy something, anything, that was within reach.

  Since he wasn’t Shizuo Heiwajima, he did not destroy the prison wall, of course. His limbs did not break and heal again with superhuman speed, like Shizuo’s.

  Instead, Izumii became a quiet, model inmate from that point on. He kept the fury and hatred he felt for the world suppressed deep down, so that they seeped into each and every cell of his being.

  Izumii didn’t engage in any special training. There was no human drama that changed his outlook on life, and he did not gain any superhuman powers. He j
ust quietly served out his sentence.

  But there was a slight change in him.

  That is, if you can call erasing something that was once within him a “change.”

  All he did was extend the one remarkable characteristic he possessed.

  Toward the act of destruction, he no longer felt any hesitation at all.

  In other words, he no longer had any kind of braking mechanism to prevent him from engaging in destruction.

  He didn’t care about destroying his own body.

  He didn’t think about the risk of going back to prison.

  He didn’t consider the danger that someone might lose their life.

  Ran Izumii simply dedicated himself to destroying.

  Not in spontaneous bursts of anger, as Shizuo Heiwajima did—but with the full variety of all kinds of hatred that he harbored within himself.

  He could swing that hammer of destruction at anyone and anything.

  That’s all he did.

  Present day, parking garage

  Time passed, and at last, Ran Izumii and Masaomi Kida came face-to-face in violent conflict.

  Red blood dripped to the ground between the two, accompanied by the sound of bone cracking. Izumii and Masaomi paused in the moment of connection between fist and head.

  This frozen moment made one thing clear.

  It was that Masaomi had thrown a straight right powerful enough to damage the bones of the neck—and that Izumii’s body did not fly off its feet from the impact.

  “…”

  It was Masaomi who winced from the pain.

  His fist did indeed make contact with Izumii’s head. But it was not direct to the face; rather, it was above the forehead, near his crown. Izumii had been bending backward, seemingly to avoid the punch, but now his torso was leaning forward.

  The bending wasn’t to avoid the punch; it was so that he could head-butt Masaomi’s fist. Izumii had swung his upper half around like a spring, striking Masaomi’s punch with the top of his head.

  It broke Masaomi’s fist and sent blood dripping from his lacerated flesh. Even the injuries to his fingers looked worse than simple fractures or dislocations.

  Paralysis instantly turned to heat, and heat instantly turned to pain, which shot through his spine, amplifying into agony.

  But while Masaomi winced at the pain, the strength did not leave his eyes and mouth. Izumii leered at him, earning a fierce glare in response, and asked in a rasping voice, “Did you think…I would be a pushover?”

  Masaomi didn’t answer. He pulled his fist away and leaped off the ground, intending to drive his knee directly into Izumii’s downturned face.

  But this move was already anticipated. The hammer came flying in from a blind angle and struck the cap of Masaomi’s knee.

  “…!”

  The hammer blow broke the patella, and Masaomi’s kick hit nothing but air.

  He tried to land on his feet, but the pain in his knee caused him to topple over. As Masaomi lay on the ground, Izumii leered over him.

  “Did you think that because I have all these thugs following me, I was the kind of wuss who needed them to do all my dirty work?”

  He promptly kicked Masaomi to punctuate his sentiment. The boy, prone on the ground, turned on his side and crossed his arms to absorb the blow.

  But Izumii’s kick was too strong. He could hear his arm bones cracking, and more blood flew from his crushed fist.

  If he’d turned the other way to show his back, it might have caused less damage. But Masaomi’s emotions were at such a high that he refused to do so—and for two different reasons.

  One, because he sensed that taking his eyes off the man for any reason would be extremely perilous; and two, because he felt that he could never show his back to this man again in his life.

  “Izumii…,” Masaomi groaned, leveling an extraordinary amount of loathing through his eyes. The man just laughed it off.

  “Did you think I was no better than Horada at this, Masaomi Kidaaa?”

  “…”

  “Did you think that acting like the tragic hero and letting the adrenaline take over was gonna do the trick to get you over the hump? Nah, the tragic part is that you earned all of this yourself! Hya-ha-ha-ha!”

  “Shut up…,” Masaomi grunted, getting to his feet despite the pain in his knee—if he even felt it at all.

  Izumii threw his hands wide and shouted, “And now, your question!”

  The other thugs around him began to stir on that cue. The circle surrounding him broke, but only to bring a new fact to light.

  “If you don’t let me kill you right here and now, what’s going to happen to your beloved little shitheads, hmm?”

  Masaomi was looking at his fellow Yellow Scarves, who had been on the rooftop all along. Now each one of them was subdued by at least two of Izumii’s goons and unable to do anything.

  “You bastard!” he swore, eyes filling with even more hatred and rage.

  But like Izumii was hoping, Masaomi did stand down at this point. One of his followers called out in a tremulous voice, “Sh-Shogun! Forget about us! Just get outta here!”

  Izumii turned slowly to face the one who’d spoken up. “Ooh, very cool. So you’re a tragic hero, too, huh?” He tossed his hammer back and forth from hand to hand, strolling casually toward the captured boy. “Let me guess… You think you’re safe from bein’ killed over some stupid fight between kids?”

  “Knock it off!” Masaomi shouted, trying to bolt forward, but his leg gave way, and he fell to his knees again.

  “It’s because it’s a stupid fight between kids that you’re gonna die just like that. Moron.” Izumii gleefully clenched the hammer in his right hand and lifted his arm up high.

  “Stop it, Izumii!” the Yellow Scarves leader yelled, part rage and part plea. “If you’re gonna kill anyone, kill me! They’re not part of this!”

  Izumii paused and turned back. “Not part of this? They’re wearing your yellow bandannas, and you wanna claim they have nothing to do with you? Is that right?” He chuckled and traced his burn scar with a finger. “Well, the answer to the quiz I just gave you was ‘They’re gonna die either way’! Hya-ha-ha-ha! Why would I ever let any of the Yellow Scarves get off easy?!”

  “Because…they don’t have anything to do with me and you!”

  The fact that there were hostages was like cold water poured over Masaomi’s boiling emotions, allowing rationale to make its way into his head.

  Now that they were having an actual dialogue, Izumii rolled his neck, popping the vertebrae, and let the corners of his mouth curl upward in delight.

  “Yeah. You’re right, huh? I personally don’t got nothin’ to do with these small-time Yellow Scarves, I suppose. And the score I got to settle with you ain’t nothin’ to talk about compared with guys like Kadota and Yumasaki.”

  “In that case—!”

  “But the thing is…I’m in the Dollars, see? And once I come across our rival group, I got an obligation to destroy ’em…”

  Dollars.

  The mention of the word was even icier water over Masaomi’s mind. Unease and fear grew within him to balance out his raging fury.

  Izumii spun the hammer between his fingers. “If I don’t, then I got to answer to our boss, Ryuugamine, don’t I?”

  The word boss was delivered with mockery that lacked even a shred of respect.

  And yet, the mention of the name threw a number of reflexive emotional switches inside Masaomi.

  “What…did you…just say?” he demanded, getting unsteadily to his feet. But while his voice was thick with anger, there was also a note of pleading, of hoping that he had somehow heard something wrong.

  Izumii grinned sadistically, perhaps picking up on this, and rapped the end of the hammer against his own shoulder. “Mikado Ryuugamine, our leader. What’s it to ya?”

  “He’s not—!”

  “What about him?”

  “…!” The right answer didn’t immediately pop int
o Masaomi’s head.

  Izumii cackled. “What’s wrong? What’re you so scared of? You knew this already, didn’t cha? It’s why you came back to play the big boy and lead the Yellow Scarves again, yeah? So you could pick this fight?” He cracked his neck again and spat. “With us Dollars?”

  “You’re…Dollars?”

  “Yeah, what’s your problem? Thanks to Kadota and y’all, my gang broke up, remember? So here I am, rising up the ranks from the bottom, like a dedicated worker should. I think I deserve props for that,” Izumii mocked.

  But it was no joke to Masaomi. Was the cold sweat running down his cheeks from the pain in his hand and knee, or was it more of a mental thing?

  “What are you going to do…to Mikado?”

  “Do? Dunno. I never met the guy in person. But from what I hear, I don’t even need to do nothin’ to him. He’s hauled off and gone crazy on his own.”

  “Oh, screw you… What would you know about him—?”

  “What would I know? I don’t know shit, dumb-ass!”

  Izumii’s kick caught Masaomi on the shoulder. He lost his balance and fell over. Izumii stomped on him and continued, “Now, your question! If you know everything about your buddy, then surely you can tell me why Mr. Ryuugamine has lost his mind! And whose fault is it that your friends over there are going to get destroyed, and whose fault is it that your precious girlfriend’s legs got broken…?”

  He paused, smirking gleefully. When Masaomi only glared back without a word, he raised his hammer again.

  “The answer is…obviously, every last bit of it is your fault, moron!”

  And he swung it downward, no hesitation, toward Masaomi and his gritted teeth.

  But…

  “That’s enough of that.”

  …a hand grabbed Izumii’s wrist just below where he held the hammer.

  “…Wha…?” He glared through his shades at this interruption.

  It was a man, standing right behind him.

  “Hang on… Aren’t you the guy who was fightin’ with this kid just now?”

  “Well, seems you’re already caught up on the situation.”

  The men around Chikage Rokujou buzzed and murmured. He had stridden through their circle so boldly, they initially assumed that he was just another member of the group.