Manami Mamiya was an agent of vengeance.
She lived to make life miserable for Izaya Orihara in every way possible, you might say.
Her life should have ended in a real-life suicide meetup. But now, there was an engine that kept her alive—her hatred for Izaya, who had insulted and dismissed both her intentions and her despair.
So in a way, you could say that Izaya was the one keeping her alive. Manami knew this herself but didn’t particularly care about it one way or the other.
If she got the chance to see Izaya die a miserable death, his face twisted with horror and gloom, it would all have been worth it. And that conclusion allowed her to do many horrible things without a second thought.
For example, tossing a severed head into the open space in front of Ikebukuro Station in the middle of the day. This announced the existence of Celty Sturluson’s head to the world at large and stole one of Izaya’s advantages.
She hadn’t actually calculated how this would hurt Izaya. She just knew he would hate it, and so she did it.
Now, for the same reasons, she was engaging in a new activity without considering the finer consequences.
“…So this is the next one,” she muttered coldly to herself as she stared up at a small building in a residential area of the city.
It was one of the hideouts of Jinnai Yodogiri, a broker and enemy of Izaya Orihara’s—at least, according to the information recorded on the computer in Izaya’s office. She had stolen a plethora of information from that computer and copied it to a USB stick she kept in her pocket.
Now she was traveling to the various hideouts recorded in that list of information, hoping to hand over Izaya’s data to Yodogiri for free, if she could find him. But though she’d visited over ten of the addresses so far, none of them showed any sign of being occupied.
She even sneaked inside a number of them, but she had nothing to show for it. She knew this was an extremely dangerous thing to do, but she didn’t even care if Yodogiri spotted her and killed her.
As long as an enemy formidable enough that Izaya would be wary of him ended up with Izaya’s data—that was all she wanted. It would be unfortunate not to actually see Izaya suffering for herself, but if she died here, then that was as far as her energy to live got her, nothing more.
It was a very warped way to rationalize her own actions. And that rationale took her to the back door of this building, too. Through the clouded glass, she could see the lights turn on.
“…”
Cautiously, she focused all her senses. She heard the lock open from the inside, and then a young man’s face emerged from the opening door.
His pajamas were covered in red stains here and there, and he was dragging one foot in what looked like a cast. Whatever was going on, it was abnormal. He was either the victim of an attempted murder or perhaps the perpetrator, coated in the blood of his prey.
And then there were his eyes, clearly bloodshot behind his glasses.
“…It’s the Saika-possessed,” Manami muttered, though not out of fear. If Saika was controlling him, then he must be one of Haruna Niekawa’s pawns.
Perhaps Izaya had foreseen what she was up to and sent him there to Yodogiri’s hideout ahead of her. But as soon as the thought occurred to her, she realized it might not be the case.
She recognized this man.
She’d seen him in a photograph when studying every bit of information about Izaya Orihara she could find, for revenge.
He was…the unlicensed doctor…
Shinra. That’s right. Shinra Kishitani.
Izaya Orihara had any number of pawns to do his bidding, but she remembered that the only one he considered a friend was this black market doctor. But what was he doing here?
“…Why, good evening. Don’t be alarmed. There’s nothing wrong here,” said the bloodstained man. He smiled at her and approached, dragging his foot. He was holding a mop that he’d clearly found inside the building as a crutch.
“Shinra…Kishitani.”
“Huh? How do you know my name?” asked the red-eyed Shinra. So he wasn’t Niekawa’s cat’s-paw.
Izaya Orihara’s friend, Manami considered. Would he suffer if he learned that his friend died?
She concentrated on the ice pick she kept concealed on her person. Shinra, meanwhile, had the red eyes that were a dead giveaway of Saika’s possession, but he beckoned to her just as if he was normal.
“Have I given you a checkup in the past, perhaps? If so, I’ve got one little request,” Shinra said, approaching her.
Manami wasn’t sure whether she should pull out the ice pick yet and kept her hand on it. “Mr. Kishitani, do you know Izaya Orihara?”
“Hmm? Well, he is my friend. And?”
“I don’t know much about having friends, you see… What did you think when he got stabbed a little while back?”
It wasn’t the kind of thing you asked a man in bloodied pajamas. She seemed to be plenty abnormal herself—but Shinra considered the question seriously.
“Let’s see… I think I figured, He must have earned it.”
“…”
“When he called to tell me about it, I said, ‘Oh, cool,’ and hung up. Was that mean of me?”
“No. It’s all his fault. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable response,” said Manami. She exhaled and let go of the ice pick she was keeping concealed.
Everything Shinra said was indeed true, but it was so far from the typical concept of a “friend” that she saw no value in killing him. Plus, Izaya was the kind of person who would watch a friend die with a smile on his face.
It was why he filled her with such hatred, Manami knew. She asked the man in front of her, “Are you hurt badly?”
“Oh, this? I’m all right. Thanks. It hurts a whole lot, but I’ll manage,” Shinra said, not realizing that the girl whose concern he appreciated was the very person who threw Celty’s head before the eyes of the world. “Actually, this might be a strange thing to ask, but…can I borrow your phone?”
“…Pardon me?”
“I need to go somewhere, but I don’t have a phone to arrange a ride… I need to call a taxi and then either my mother-in-law or my dad… Actually, not my dad,” Shinra muttered to himself, eyeballs bright red.
Manami thought it over and decided to offer Shinra her shoulder.
“Oh no, it’s fine; I can walk on my own.”
“But it must be painful.”
“You know, a girl shouldn’t be giving suspicious people a shoulder to lean on in the middle of the night,” the red-eyed man said, which was a strangely specific piece of advice, but Manami’s expression did not change.
“No, it’s fine. All you have to do is answer something for me.”
“?”
“About Izaya Orihara,” she said, her voice flat and mechanical. “Tell me if you know anything that he really, really hates to have happen.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to kill him, and I want it to be awful for him,” she admitted freely.
Shinra smiled as he dragged his leg along. “What is that, jealousy? Or one of those emotions? No, that’s love.”
“You’re wrong,” Manami said flatly, neither angry nor pleased.
“Let’s see… Something he would hate… Ah! Ah!”
Shinra winced occasionally from the pain in his joint as he walked. But otherwise he maintained a thin smile that, combined with the red eyes, made him look like a creepy clown.
He decided to go to the main street to catch a taxi, and as they walked together, he reminisced about the past as a means of answering the girl’s question.
“Let’s see… Izaya is never disappointed or disgusted by people. So anything involving human relationships or the ugly side of people, like betrayal or death, isn’t going to bother him.”
“…”
“But actually, I don’t think that’s because he’s mentally strong or anything. Just the opposite, in fact.”
“?”
Manami gave him a questioning look. He leaned onto her shoulder for support as he made his way slowly down the street.
“People think of him like some cold-blooded monster, but he’s more human than anyone I know; he’s so fragile inside. If you pumped him full of love and betrayal and such, I think he’d fall apart. I think that’s why he decided to love humanity by letting everything wash over him. Do you see what I’m saying? He accepts everything, but he doesn’t take it in. He lets it wash over him.”
“Wash over…?”
“Yes. Think of those koinobori poles, with the carp streamers that blow in the wind. At first glance, they appear to have wide mouths and insides that happily swallow everything into them…but there’s no bottom to that container. It’s just a hollow tube. So of course they can accept everything into their mouths; they don’t actually hold it. Of course he can love everything.”
It was hard to tell exactly what Shinra thought of his friend’s disposition. But the little smile never left his lips.
“Oh, sorry,” he said to Manami. “You didn’t want to know his nature, just the things that he hates.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled quietly.