“What do you mean…the Dollars will be no more?” Masaomi asked.
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Mikado answered. “As of today, the Dollars will vanish.”
“You mean break up? And this obnoxious biker gathering is just to commemorate the occasion?”
“Not exactly…but I suppose you might consider it something like that. It’s going to be the final in-person gathering, basically. It’s just that I want to show you and Sonohara what happens when people gather under the Dollars’ name… What the Dollars really are,” Mikado said mournfully, standing in the middle of the rooftop. “So you can see what I created.”
From the edge of the roof, Masaomi said, “You said you started the Dollars ages ago, because you were bored… Is this what you wanted?”
“I know… At the start, it was more exciting. I thought I was finally about to get what I was hoping for,” Mikado said, grinning like a schoolboy. He shook his head. “But now it’s different. So I thought I should make it a place where I could actually welcome you and Sonohara. I want to usher you into a Dollars that I feel proud of.”
“That makes sense. So why is it vanishing?”
“After the first meetup, Izaya said something to me.”
“…?!”
Izaya. The mention of that name froze Masaomi solid. He choked on his words, flashing back to all kinds of memories from the past.
Mikado reminisced about just one, however.
“After the Dollars’ meetup, Izaya said…you want to escape ordinary life, but you’ll get used to the extraordinary right away.”
“…”
“He also said, if you really want to escape the ordinary, you have to keep evolving. I thought I understood what he meant at the time, but I don’t think that the lesson really sank in until it came to this,” Mikado said, smirking at himself. He looked at the gun in his hand. “The Dollars became very ordinary to me…and I hit a block. Izaya was right.”
“Stop it!” Masaomi shouted. “That’s all his usual bullshit! He’s manipulating you! That son of a bitch tells you one thing, then goes to someone else and tells them the polar opposite, just to enjoy seeing what happens!”
“You might be right about that,” Mikado said, not denying Masaomi’s words. “But I think I would have noticed it even if Izaya hadn’t told me.”
“He made you think that! That’s what he does! Listen, no matter what kind of group the Dollars are, you’re still you! Did you think that me and Anri would change our minds and hate you, whether you’re just high school Mikado or the boss of a gang of stupid thugs?! Don’t insult us like that!”
He made to rush over to his friend. The young man couldn’t be right. Either he was full of himself, or as had been the case before, he was still under Izaya Orihara’s spell. Whatever the case, Masaomi knew he had to wake Mikado up.
He would grab his shoulder and shake him, and if that didn’t do the trick, he’d punch him in the mouth—except that he had to pause when he saw Mikado pointing the pistol at him.
“…Are you seriously pointing that gun at me?”
The answer was obvious; he didn’t need to ask. But the boy was holding it with one hand, the weight making its aim uncertain. He also didn’t have his finger over the trigger, so it was hard to tell what Mikado intended to do.
On the other hand, the fact that Masaomi might not know where the bullet was going made the situation that much more erratic and dangerous.
Masaomi stopped in his tracks, but he didn’t shy away in fear. Mikado kept the gun pointed at his old friend and said, “I thought you might come and try to hit me regardless of the gun…but I guess even you’re afraid of it.”
He wasn’t making fun of Masaomi; he was asking out of honest curiosity.
Masaomi clenched his jaws, stared Mikado straight in the eyes, and said, “Yeah, I’m afraid of it.”
But there was no fear in his eyes. They began to smolder with quiet anger.
“Obviously I’m going to be scared when I see something like that pop up out of nowhere.”
“Ah…yeah, that makes sense.”
“But.”
“Huh?”
Masaomi finally let all his pent-up anger explode into a howl of indignance.
“What scares me the most is this whole situation that would put the nicest guy I know in possession of something like that!”
“Masaomi…”
“Screw this! What the hell happened to make a kindhearted guy like you carry a gun?! It makes no sense! It’s not right! How did it get to this?!” he demanded, clenching his fists so tight the nails dug into his palms. Then, lowering his tone of voice, he continued, “Was it…my fault?”
“…”
“Yeah, I guess so… I mean, Rokujou just said as much to me.”
Now it was Masaomi’s turn to smirk self-deprecatingly, if only for a brief moment. He stared back into Mikado’s eyes.
“If I was putting that much pressure on you, then go ahead. I can’t complain if you shoot me,” he said.
“You shouldn’t get desperate, Masaomi. I was the one who chose to become this way. It’s not your fault.”
“Then why are you pointing that at me?” Masaomi asked him, the question of the moment.
Mikado was at a loss. “I’m…not really sure.”
“…About what?”
“About who I should point this at next.”
For a moment, Masaomi’s face went slack—and when the meaning of this statement sank in, he shouted, “If that’s the most commitment you can summon, then you don’t need that damn thing! Go and dump it in a river somewhere before you end up firing it! Or hell, I’ll go and get rid of it for you! You don’t need to be putting yourself in danger like this! At worst, as long as you don’t shoot it, you can always say you just ‘found it somewhere’! You know?”
Without pointing the gun away, Mikado said happily, “That’s the part that will always make you Masaomi. You’re so much kinder at heart than I am.” He shook his head, still not moving the gun. “I’ve already fired it.”
“…Huh?”
For an instant, it didn’t make sense to Masaomi. His brows creased.
So Mikado told him the simple truth.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I already shot it twice. On the way here.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Inside the van
✦ ✦ ✦
“We have details about a string of shootings within the city,” said the voice over the radio player in Togusa’s van. “One shooting happened at the entrance to the Ikebukuro Police Department and the other at the entryway of the personal home of Chairman Dougen Awakusu of the Awakusu-kai, an organized crime operation affiliated with the Medei-gumi Syndicate.”
The newscaster continued, crisply elocuting, detailing the unfolding situation.
“At the scene of the shootings were acts of spray-painted graffiti, put down before the guns were fired, with the police saying that the words written correspond to the name of a delinquent group active around the Ikebukuro area, which they are investigating now…”
“…What does that mean? ‘Delinquent group active around the Ikebukuro area,’” Togusa wondered. But he already had a very good idea of what it meant.
Kadota spoke that idea out loud for him, his expression grave. “I’m guessing…it must be referring to the Dollars.”
“So…what’s gonna happen, then?” Karisawa asked from the back. Kadota could only give her his best guess.
✦ ✦ ✦
“It means the Dollars just picked a fight…with both the law and the outlaws of this city.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Tokyo—office
✦ ✦ ✦
“…I’ll be damned. He’s cracked even worse than I imagined.” Aozaki, the Awakusu lieutenant, sighed after he got the report from a subordinate. He got to his feet from the leather chair and pulled his jacket off the hook.
“Wh-where are you going?” the other man asked.
“To the old man’s place. I’ve got to apologize for what just happened.”
When he heard about shots being fired at Dougen Awakusu’s home and the police department, the first thing to pop into Aozaki’s mind was the face of Mikado Ryuugamine. It should have been obvious, since he’d handed over the gun mere hours before, but even putting aside the matter of the firearm, only Mikado would come to mind so quickly as a suspect in such a self-destructive act.
Aozaki didn’t expect that after passing him the gun through Izumii, Mikado would cause an incident before a single night had passed. But he was experienced in the ways of combat and precarious situations, so this did not faze him.
“The front porch of the boss’s house might as well be the very face of the Awakusu. It was my action that led to this insult, so I need to be ready to sacrifice a finger or two,” he said. But part of the threat he represented was that in the same breath, he could order, “Seize Mikado Ryuugamine and bring him in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Personally, I’m not against that kind of wildness…but all that’s out the window if you go after the head of the organization. He might be a kid, but depending on circumstances, he could end up sleeping with the fishes.”
With his orders in place, Aozaki headed for the door of the office to make his way to his boss—until one of his men rushed through said door.
“Hey, what’s all the commotion?” he demanded.
The out-of-breath subordinate delivered his message, and the name he mentioned caused the otherwise calm Aozaki to furrow his brow.