“If I was gonna get lost in a two-dimensional situation, I’d have preferred a sports manga over a horror movie,” Karisawa grumbled, in characteristic fashion. The entire reason that she was here was because she’d gone looking for Kadota after he’d left the hospital without warning. It was by coincidence that she’d spotted this sight.
The group of red-eyed people approached the occasional ordinary pedestrian who passed by them and gave their victims a simple, easy scratch, like a zombie. The pedestrian would spin around at the pain, angry—but within a few seconds, their eyes would be just as bloodshot, and they would promptly join the group.
Karisawa herself had been watching from a distance, until a number of the red-eyed gang noticed her and began to approach, forcing her to run and hide where she stood now.
Yumasaki called her a couple of times while she was hiding, but she declined the calls, wary that answering the phone might draw attention by the noise and cause her to lose concentration.
“And a phone going off? That’s such a death omen,” she murmured to herself. That kind of monologuing sounded confident, but in fact, she was nearly trapped at the moment.
He did send a text message, however. It said, “Kadota’s fine. He’s saying either come to the black market doctor’s place or go home and hide.”
It was a relief to learn that Kadota was okay, but that meant the bigger question now was if she could actually safely escape this alley or not. Careful not to get too distracted, she typed back, “Kind of stuck right now. If anything happens, you can have my hard disc and doujinshi, Yumacchi.” Then she went back to watching the crowd for a chance to escape.
It looks like the people are getting scratched by their nails… I wonder if I’ll be a slasher, too, if they get me, Karisawa thought, remembering Anri.
The other girl, unlike this mob with their bloodshot eyes, actually glowed from her eye sockets when she swung her katana around. It seemed certain that there was some connection between them, though.
Maybe that was why she was being singled out by the slasher. But Karisawa didn’t mistrust or bear a grudge against Anri. She simply smiled sadly to herself.
Rather than being made one of the zombie horde, I’d rather get sliced clean with Anri’s katana, so I could be a katana wielder, too. Actually, I’d rather have a giant scythe instead. Just like Death.
Whether she simply felt no impending danger or was acting blithe to drown out her fear, Karisawa was still being utterly herself.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What the…?”
A boy in an area not particularly close to Karisawa’s saw the gathering crowd and took out his phone. He was a Blue Squares member and was here scouting out the location of the “transaction” on Aoba’s orders.
“Hey, Aoba, is this a festival night?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a whole lotta people out at this hour.”
“Is it Toramaru?”
The boy glanced at the mob again. But none of them seemed to be members of a motorcycle gang. They were all normal types, like salarymen and young adults going home from drinking with friends.
“Nah, they’re all ordinary—businessmen, office ladies…a few kids in school uniforms.”
“This late at night? Well, watch for a bit longer, just in case.”
“Got it. I’ll call if I learn anything.”
The boy hung up the phone and approached Sixtieth Floor Street.
Then he noticed something. The density of the crowd seemed to increase as he went in one direction.
What’s going on?
The people were gathered between the intersection next to Tokyu Hands and the building with the bowling alley inside. Right around where those Russians ran the sushi restaurant.
The boy approached, wondering whether there was a hostage situation in there or something—when he passed by a pedestrian and felt a sharp pain on the back of his hand.
“Aah…,” he hissed. There was a little cut on the skin of his hand. He must have scratched it on something when he passed by.
He spun around, wondering whether he should yell at the man.
And then he realized that the scratch was throbbing, pulsing.
…
He stopped. Examined the wound.
……ve.
Just a little scratch. Nothing serious.
l ov e
The bleeding had almost stopped already.
ove lo e love l ve
But the itching didn’t stop. The pulsing was only getting stronger.
I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you Mr. Nasujima I lovelovelove
And then the boy noticed.
I love you I love your flesh your hair your soul blood voice memory future everything
The throbbing wasn’t pain; it was a voice that was echoing throughout his love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love love love love love love love lllllloooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeee……………………
✦ ✦ ✦
“…Hey, Aoba?”
The boy was back on the phone; this time his eyes were abnormally red with blood and shining emptily.
“What did you learn?”
“Turns out there was some kind of unannounced idol concert, so it’s just a bunch of people loitering about after it finished. If anything, it’s good cover for messing around.”
“Okay. Then I’ll tell Mr. Mikado about it.”
When the call was over, the boy looked to the man standing across from him.
“Well done,” the man said. “Very good acting.”
“Thank you…Mother,” the boy replied, then wandered unsteadily away among the throng.
The man, Takashi Nasujima, watched him go, chuckling, and said to a man and woman standing at his side, “This is interesting. Mikado Ryuugamine’s actually going to come right out here into the open. And with a motorcycle-gang leader from Saitama and Masaomi Kida, to boot.”
“Yes, Mother,” said the woman, Haruna Niekawa, with empty eyes.
But the man next to her, Shijima, was more confused. “What? Mikado Ryuugamine?”
Nasujima ignored his question. He smiled happily with the information he’d just gained. He’d been giving all the Saikas under his command a constant order—“Bring me any useful information you learn”—and the boy who’d wandered away had done the job admirably.
Nasujima, too, had his eye on Mikado Ryuugamine, the founder of the Dollars. He was considering whether to put him under Saika’s control tonight or threaten him into behaving, like he had with Shijima. But if the boy was going to come here all on his own, that was a happy surprise.
And not only that—there was another bird coming home to roost.
“Masaomi Kida. There’s a name I didn’t expect to hear tonight.”
When Nasujima was a teacher, Kida had caught him sexually harassing Anri Sonohara and used that knowledge to threaten him. He wasn’t a teacher anymore, but at the very least, he still felt the anger and hatred of being mocked and toyed with by a student.
“Sounds good. I can take him over and make him dance naked. I’ll record it, upload it to the Net, then undo his mind control and see how he reacts.”
Nasujima chuckled to himself over his trashy idea, then glanced toward Russia Sushi. “I was thinking of just tearing down the place all at once, but I wouldn’t want to cause too much trouble and put them on edge.”
So he decided to have the crowd lay low for now. More important was how he was going to get Shizuo Heiwajima’s supervisor under his control while inside the restaurant.
Nasujima had a few of his Saika-possessed victims standing outside of Russia Sushi with one of those old cell phone signal jammers that used to be popular years ago. In fact, it had been tampered with to augment the effect. If he walked a few yards closer, his own phone would stop working.
The restaurant’s landline had already been cut, and there were no signs of a broadband or cable TV wire.
Nasujima had cut off all means of contact with the outside world, putting him at an overwhelming advantage over whoever was inside of Russia Sushi.
But he wasn’t completely filled with confidence. Shizuo Heiwajima remained a source of anxiety and a target for his caution.
Not only did he have the trauma of being beaten by Shizuo in the past, but it also seemed that Saika itself viewed Shizuo as a special human being somehow. Therefore, he needed control over Shizuo’s boss—his Achilles’ heel—without drawing Shizuo’s attention. If that monster showed up now, it would all be over.
Nasujima placed a phone call to another number, but it did not get picked up.
“Tsk…damn info dealer. Can’t get him when I actually need him,” Nasujima swore, conveniently ignoring the fact that he’d stolen money from that same man’s office.
Next, he called the secretary of Jinnai Yodogiri, the man he was planning to betray in order to take over his business. As far as Nasujima knew, the secretary’s information network was trustworthy. She might even have knowledge on what Shizuo Heiwajima was doing right about now.
But she, too, did not pick up the call.
“Shit, doesn’t anybody around here answer their damn phone?” he snapped, ignoring the fact that he was calling in the dead of night.
But of course, he didn’t know that at this moment, both Izaya Orihara and Yodogiri’s secretary, Kasane Kujiragi, were in the same building.
Or that, more importantly, Shizuo Heiwajima himself was there with them.
✦ ✦ ✦
Building under construction—lower levels