“Mr. Akabayashi came here alone, says he wants to talk to you…”
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The rooftop of a mixed-use building
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“Hey…what are you thinking?! You really are gonna destroy the Dollars…and more importantly, you’re going to get yourself killed!” Masaomi shouted after hearing exactly where Mikado had shot the gun. He prayed it was just a bad joke.
But Mikado only agreed with him. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“That’s all you have to say about it?!”
“But it does mean that the Dollars will cease to exist as a real thing.”
“What…?” Masaomi gasped.
Mikado explained, “When word of this gets around, nobody’s going to want to join the Dollars, and the people who have been part of it will all want to hide their pasts.”
This was true, of course. Nobody would want to be associated with a group considered an enemy of both the police and the yakuza, especially when there was no actual benefit to being a member.
The only people you could imagine doing so would be tried-and-true rebels full of spite and attention-seeking idiots with no ability to foresee consequences, and both of those groups would earn what was coming to them.
At the very least, the people taking part for entertainment or out of a sense of obligation and the people who thought the Dollars were just some fun, harmless college-club type of gathering were going to be the first to distance themselves.
Like rats fleeing a sinking ship, they’d jump into the sea, withdrawing into anonymity and keeping their heads low for quite a while.
And then, perhaps inappropriately, Mikado said, “The Dollars will become an urban legend.”
“Urban…legend?”
“Yes. Just a stupid urban legend,” he repeated, eyes sparkling like a child. Masaomi recalled where he had seen that look before: when Mikado was new to Ikebukuro and watched the Headless Rider go past. It was a look of awe and horror, buoyed by overwhelming joy.
“But the thing is, urban legends evolve over time. They turn into rumors and take on more rumors as they go, spreading throughout the city,” Mikado said, elaborating on his theory with some of what Izaya told him mixed in. “When the actual body is gone, only the name stays behind, continuously giving birth to false legends.”
And with full self-assurance and pure delight, Mikado made his declaration.
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“That is my ideal for the Dollars, I realized.”
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Masaomi felt like the background in the distance was warping, stretching.
“You mean…you shot a gun at a yakuza office and the police station…for that nonsensical reason?”
“Yup. The Dollars itself is a nonsensical idea. But if they were born from nonsense, then it makes sense that they’d disappear into nonsense,” Mikado said with resignation.
“Even then, people will use the name for mischief,” Masaomi argued.
“That’s fine. Those people aren’t Dollars anyway. They’re just people using the Dollars’ name. I figure, if anything, they’ll help fuel the urban legend, hopefully,” his friend said, smiling. Masaomi felt a chill run down his back.
Was this boy across from him really Mikado Ryuugamine?
Gun pointed in Masaomi’s direction, Mikado said casually, “So…what are you going to do? Stop me?”
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“Or are you here…to settle the Blue Squares versus the Yellow Scarves?”
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Outside Tokyu Hands
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“I’m grateful to you, Mr. Rokujou,” said Aoba, still wearing his ski mask.
The motorcycles were coming to a stop at the start of the street, keeping the sound of all that engine noise distant, so that it was quiet enough for them to have a conversation.
Chikage Rokujou stood in the middle of a semicircle of motorcycles. The bikers around him realized very quickly that it was the leader of Toramaru, and they began to buzz among themselves but didn’t immediately pick a fight or start taunting him. For one thing, given that they’d all been coerced by force or by dirty tricks into taking part in the Dollars’ group, none of them could say for sure that Toramaru wasn’t also among their number.
Chikage glanced at the punks surrounding the end of the street around him and shrugged. “Well, well, another bunch of nobodies showin’ up. I don’t even see anyone on the level of Dragon Zombie or Jan-Jaka-Jan.”
“With enough time, we might have gotten them in the group, too.”
“That’s a big play. Who else…? I don’t see Nuimura from Big Dog Stars here. If you had an idiot like him around, I’d have to start expecting trucks to come roaring through here,” Chikage said, mentioning names of other notable bikers as he surveyed the scene.
Then he turned back to Aoba, who seemed to be the one calling the shots for the guys in the blue caps.
“What does your boss think he’s gonna do with all these people?”
“I don’t think he means to do anything,” Aoba admitted, to Chikage’s confusion.
“Uh…meaning, let the chips fall where they may?”
“Our boss has no ideals. No beliefs. All he’s got is sentimentality and curiosity. And he’ll do stuff like this based on those things alone. When you factor in luck, this is why I have such respect for him.”
It was as though he was happy to be a supportive victim of Mikado Ryuugamine’s wild rampage. Then, like a child excited to show his friend the latest toy, he explained, “You need guts to have ideals and beliefs and even dreams. But he doesn’t have that. His group just ballooned up on him, and he got puffed up with some empty ‘conviction’ with nothing behind it. Mr. Mikado had nothing to put his feet against, but he spun and spun and spun those legs, until he finally reached this point.”
Aoba shrugged, and when Chikage said nothing, he continued, “Maybe that’s something that you wouldn’t understand, if you’ve always had these things.”
Chikage had been silently listening to this speech. At last, he cracked his neck and said, “I don’t like it when people try to cover up the truth with some embarrassing poetry shit like that. Though I do have a girlfriend who likes that stuff, so I’m not gonna say it doesn’t have its place.”
Rokujou glanced over in the direction of the mixed-use building, then smirked. “I just heard that Kida wanted to save his friend who went crazy, and so I decided to help him out on a whim.”
“Oh, come on, that’s a gross oversimplification.” Aoba chuckled, his eyes shining with mirth. “There are some things only a crazy kid can pull off.”
“Yeah, whether you’ve got some big, fancy reason behind it or not,” Chikage said with annoyance. But as a matter of fact, he’d heard the general version of events from Masaomi already.
Even knowing that this was just the result of a kid named Mikado pushing himself into a corner with no better way out, Chikage said to Aoba, “I’ll tell you one thing.”
“?”
“It doesn’t matter your reason. At the point you rustle up the night like this, the point you cause hell for other people, there’s no difference. Everyone who does it is scum. And that includes me. And you guys,” he said, coming clean. “Are you gonna go around to all the people you’ve fought and the folks whose sleep you disturbed and state your case for them? ‘Look, these are the tragic reasons we’re doing this!’”
“…”
“Whether you’re mugging people to get cash to blow or mugging them to buy medicine for your sick parents…”
Behind Chikage, a Blue Square approached, brandishing a bat. But Chikage merely twisted a few inches and smashed the other guy in the face with a backhand. He looked over to see the thug crumple to the ground, then sighed and finished his sentence.
“…there’s no difference to the innocent people you’re beatin’ up and robbing. It’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise.”
He turned on his heel and began to walk, not even bothering to look in Aoba’s direction. “I’ve lost interest here… If he already knows everything that’s goin’ on, then I guess Mikado Ryuugamine must have gone to Kida by now.” He headed back for the mixed-use building he’d come from.
Aoba was not in any particular rush. “Sorry to tell you this after your moving speech, but we can’t have you going back there.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, Mr. Mikado and Masaomi Kida are back there. But it’s only the two of them,” Aoba said with a cocky smile, typing something into his phone. “It’s not for any of the rest of us to interfere. Including me and you.”
Two large shadows loomed in Chikage’s path. They belonged to Houjou and Yoshikiri, well-known for being the two biggest and burliest of the Blue Squares’ fighters. Chikage looked up at them, one a man yawning as he approached, the other a very tall boy with squinty eyes, and smiled.
“Oh, so you finally brought out someone worth my time. That’s much better.”
But those two were not the only ones in his way. Suddenly the guys sitting on their bikes began to pull out their phones. While the engine noise largely drowned it out, Chikage could faintly hear their ringtones going off.
“…Is that a notification of a mass text message?”
“Well sleuthed. I just sent them a very short, simple instruction.”
The bikers got down off their vehicles and turned vicious expressions toward Chikage. In the face of this malevolent aura, Aoba told Chikage what the rest of the group already knew.