“Mikado… Is that you, Mikado?!”
Of the many emotions in Masaomi’s voice, joy at their reunion was overshadowed by the confusion of not yet being certain of what was happening.
While Masaomi was dazed with shock, Mikado smiled sadly. “It has to be a question?” Then something occurred to him. “If I were you, I’d say something like ‘Then who am I?’”
Masaomi gasped with a start, chuckling. “Multiple-choice question. One, Mikado Ryuugamine. Two, Mikado Ryuugamine. Three, Mikado Ryuugamine…right?”
He grimaced, thinking back to the day that Mikado came to Ikebukuro.
“And you completely ignored that joke of mine.”
“I still think it was a terrible, embarrassing attempt at humor.”
“What was it again? √3 points?” Masaomi’s grimace gradually turned into a smile. Tears bloomed in his eyes. “Mikado… It really is you, Mikado…”
“Who else would it be?”
“I dunno… I just can’t believe it. I wouldn’t have expected to see you right behind me, out of nowhere…!” Masaomi shook his head, finally recognizing the situation, filled with joy at their reunion. “Oh…that must be it. I guess Rokujou must have cleared it all up already, huh?!”
That was how Mikado knew to come here. He’d been told this was the place where the hostage would be handed over, Masaomi guessed.
Except that Mikado immediately proved him wrong.
“I’d guess Rokujou is over by Tokyu Hands right now, fighting with Aoba and his friends.”
“…Mikado?”
“I did give them bats and stuff, but he’s not going to be that easy to beat, is he?” Mikado said, with that same familiar smile. Masaomi’s joy immediately flipped over into concern.
“What…what do you mean?”
Then Masaomi remembered.
He remembered when his old friend here had set fire to the man who’d tried to attack Anri. He had smiled then, too, right after he’d nearly burned a man alive.
With that same smile now, Mikado said, “Rokujou isn’t the type of person who takes hostages and demands a deal. I had a hunch that he was playing up the villain role in the hope that you and I would meet.”
“…”
“With the Dollars’ information network, I found you and Rokujou right away. I had Aoba’s friend follow you guys. And another person I sent to Tokyu Hands said that Toramaru didn’t appear to be setting up an ambush around there.”
“Ha-ha…wow, you Dollars really are something else. It’s the middle of the night!”
“It just means that many of the people wandering around the city at night are part of the group,” Mikado said.
Masaomi couldn’t even take a step closer to him. Normally, if he were meeting an old friend again, he might have rushed over to share in the joy. Perhaps they’d replay a scene from some movie about the inspirational struggle of growing up, where he’d punch his friend and then say, “Hit me back!” Perhaps he’d smack his friend’s shoulders, happy to see him safe and sound.
But Masaomi couldn’t move.
His experience as the leader of the Yellow Scarves, the senses he’d honed by living through street battles, caused him to falter and stay away from his friend.
That was Mikado Ryuugamine over there, all right. But something about him was fundamentally different from the Mikado he knew, causing Masaomi’s joy to steadily morph into doubt and suspicion.
No, this is wrong. If you run away now, it’ll be exactly the same as before.
He held his ground, swearing to himself that he wouldn’t flee this situation, too.
“Then I guess there was no need for me to have shown up as agreed over the phone, huh?” Masaomi said with a shrug, trying to keep the conversation going.
Mikado just shook his head. “It seemed like the perfect opportunity.”
“?”
“I wanted to show you something, Kida.”
“Show me…?”
Masaomi thought it odd that Mikado was switching between calling him Masaomi and Kida, but the content of his words was more pressing right now.
“Well, you didn’t actually see the first meeting of the Dollars, did you?”
“…True. I heard the stories, though. In fact,” Masaomi said self-deprecatingly, “considering it now, I must have looked like a real clown when I came to all excited, saying, ‘Hey, Mikado, did you hear about this?’”
“Yeah… Sorry, Kida.”
“?”
“I know it’s a little late to be saying this, but I’m technically the founder of the Dollars.”
“…Wow, that is really late.”
It was something that Masaomi had known for quite a while now, but when he heard it from Mikado’s lips, the truth took on a heavy mental weight.
“I told myself that I’d only say it when Sonohara was here, too…”
“So why don’t we call Anri up? She called you, didn’t she?” Masaomi asked. He looked at his own phone. The call he’d gotten was long expired. There was a message on the screen saying, “Call received: Saki Mikajima.”
Saki?
At the exact moment that Anri was calling Mikado, Saki had tried to call Masaomi. While he wondered what this could possibly mean, his friend said, “I would have liked to call Sonohara here so I could show her what I’m about to show you, but…I just think it would be too dangerous.”
“What is it that you’re gonna show me? I’ll happily check it out if it’s a dirty mag,” Masaomi joked with a shrug. But that was not Mikado’s answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
“A meeting of the Dollars.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Outside of Tokyu Hands
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hey, you got a moment?”
Chikage turned to face Aoba, his face red from the blood streaming down it from his skull.
“As far as I can tell, you seem to be the leader of these guys.”
At his feet were about a half dozen Blue Squares, victims of his fighting prowess.
“Don’t you find all those looky-loos out there kinda strange?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“…”
Aoba returned his question with silence.
He had noticed it, too, by the time he arrived outside of Tokyu Hands. The pedestrians around them were acting strangely. And unlike what his friend said over the phone, it did not look like “fans excited about a secret pop idol concert.”
But they weren’t interfering with his business, so he largely ignored them—except that now the brawl had broken out, they weren’t running or making noise or recording videos with their phones at all. That part was eerie.
Aoba was curious about the mob that was literally “merely observing,” but in all honesty, the eeriness of that was far outshone by Rokujou’s abnormal strength.
“What are we gonna do, Aoba?” asked one of his friends in a blue cap. “This guy’s crazy!”
“We’ll call for Yoshikiri from the van,” Aoba replied. “Oh, and wake Houjou up, too.”
Chikage looked lonely. “What, are you just gonna ignore my question?”
“I’m sorry. You’re so tough—I’ve got bigger problems to worry about.”
“Actually, I’m goin’ easy on you kids. After all, I don’t wanna accidentally beat Mikado Ryuugamine to death.”
There was no way for Aoba to tell whether he was bluffing or not about going easy on them. All he knew for certain was that the man before him had instantly incapacitated five of his followers.
“…I’ll admit it. I didn’t realize what we were up against with a Saitama gang.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Chikage, for his part, greeted the gang leader’s words with a shrug.
“Look, I’m not hoping to keep up this fight forever, y’know. If you could pay me back the money for the bikes you burned up as an apology, I’d appreciate it. And as far as the number of my guys you beat up, we can ante up the guys I’ve just beaten and call it even.”
“I get the feeling that you’ve already gotten us back twice over for what we did.”
“You took out ten of mine. So I’m only halfway there, but out of respect for Kadota…”
Chikage paused. He had heard a sound that any motorcycle gang member would recognize. It was the sound of engines revving, exhaust, and the obnoxious clamor of the musical horns that had long been outlawed.
Chikage didn’t make that kind of racket when he rode, because one of his girlfriends said she hated loud noises—but there were plenty of rival gangs who had a very strict code when it came to motorcycle noise: Bright makes right. They did everything they could to be obnoxious.
That sounds like…Gozumezu Guns from Nerima, maybe? No…I can hear the guys from Poliseum as well.
The sounds being played by the approaching horns were familiar to Chikage, who had to wonder what this was about. Would there really be a gang ride at this exact moment?
Chikage was an optimist at heart, but he wasn’t naive. This was not just a coincidence. Alarms were going off in his head.
But before he could do anything about it, they reached his view.
A number of bikes that even from a distance obviously belonged to a gang rounded onto Sixtieth Floor Street. Once he could make out some of their faces, Chikage was aghast.
“Wait a minute, it really is Gozumezu Guns and Poliseum together.”