“…Your buddy Mikado Ryuugamine is the one calling the shots now! Hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
✦ ✦ ✦
The rooftop of a mixed-use building
✦ ✦ ✦
After the gunshot, only the smell of powder was left in the air.
Within its midst, the two figures did not move.
“…”
There was still a faint trail of smoke coming from the muzzle of the pistol in Mikado’s hand. A little cut on Masaomi’s cheek trickled blood, from either being grazed by the bullet or just the shock wave of its passage.
The sound of the shot hit him directly in the ear, leaving the reverberation of its roar rattling around in his head. Mikado felt the same thing, so for the moment, neither of them could move or speak.
Physically, they were trapped in a stalemate.
“…”
“…”
✦ ✦ ✦
A moment ago, just before Mikado had fired the gun, Masaomi had bolted off the ground like a spring-loaded toy, racing for the other boy. He had tossed his crutch aside and leaped with one foot.
The knee Izumii had shattered screamed under the cast. The pain was dulled by the anesthetic, but the shock still ran through his spine and smashed into his brain.
But he pushed that unpleasant sensation down into his gut and reached over to grab Mikado’s wrist. The impact of that move caused him to pull the trigger, firing the gun just to the side of Masaomi’s cheek.
✦ ✦ ✦
They froze, locked in position, for almost a full minute.
The success of Masaomi’s insane one-legged jump was half thanks to good luck and half to something else coming into play. Mikado had given him an opening.
He’d moved his free hand, bringing it closer to add support to his grip on the gun. Masaomi spotted that chance and took it, rushing in to grab Mikado’s right arm. He did so gingerly—if he’d done it with all his strength, the arm might as well have snapped.
Shit… You know you’re not built for fighting like this, you idiot.
Masaomi gnashed his teeth, not from the pain running through his body but with anger at himself for having driven his friend to these lengths.
Once their hearing had largely recovered, his gun hand still held down, Mikado spoke. “You startled me. I wasn’t expecting you to come running at me.”
“…What did you do, look up how to shoot a gun online?”
“Huh?”
“Knowing how serious you are, I figured you would use both hands to steady the gun.”
In a sense, it was a bet that he could make, knowing what made Mikado tick so well.
“I see… Wow, you’re really something, Masaomi,” he said with a grin and tried to use his free left hand to push Masaomi away.
Masaomi smacked his hand away with his own, which was fixed in place with tape and bandages. Once he had cleared it out of the way, he slammed a head-butt right into Mikado’s face.
“Hng!”
Mikado stumbled backward, and Masaomi seized the opportunity to knock him over onto the roof with his foot. He wrenched Mikado’s right wrist, causing him to drop the gun. Awkwardly, he used his shattered leg to kick the clattering pistol away; it rattled into the corner of the rooftop area.
The next moment, Masaomi straddled Mikado and promptly punched him in the face. He used his right fist, with the broken fingers taped up and secured, not caring that it was already damaged.
The physical agony of it far surpassed his painkillers, and he could feel the sensation of bone pieces sliding and shifting. But he hit Mikado again, and again, and again.
“You idiot, Mikado! You idiot! You idiot!” Tears bloomed in his eyes, and with his other hand, he lifted Mikado by the collar. “Create a place for us to come back to? Why would you go and sabotage your chances of ever coming back, then?!”
“…”
“I know I ran away for a while. But Anri was always still here!” Masaomi shouted. “I don’t care if you forgot all about me, the guy who left you behind to fend for yourself! But you shouldn’t be putting Anri through this kind of pain…”
Mikado’s face was bruised and puffy all over from the beating. Blood dripped from his broken lips—but still he smiled.
“The Dollars…aren’t going to stop now…just because I do.” It was a smile not of joy but of resignation. “And that’s why the Dollars have to vanish.”
He reached with his free left hand and stuck it into his pocket.
“Hey, what are you—?” Masaomi yelped, thinking it would be a knife or something of that nature. The instant he looked in that direction, a sharp, heavy shock ran through his leg—and shortly after, he was hit by a wave of heat and pain unlike anything he’d felt before.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aozaki’s office
✦ ✦ ✦
“What the hell are you thinking, Akabayashi?”
“Something sneaky.” Akabayashi, who was leaning against the wall near the door, grinned.
Aozaki glared at him as he sat down heavily in one of the chairs in the reception room. “Sneaky?”
“Yeah. About how I’m gonna carve up the Dollars.”
“…Tsk.” Aozaki clicked his tongue, realizing that the info was already out.
“See, I had my eyes on the Dollars, too. Did you happen to hand anything over to young Mikado?”
“…I’ll explain things to the boss. I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.”
“Don’t be cold, Aozaki. It’s my jurisdiction handling the youngsters like the Dollars, right? So if I let this nonsense continue, it’s going to reflect poorly on what I do.”
“I never took you for the type to care about that.”
It sounded like low-key banter, but Aozaki’s subordinates in the room with them got a case of cold sweats from all the aural pressure that exuded from the two men. These were the Red Ogre and Blue Ogre of Awakusu, the two most ferocious of the group’s lieutenants. And they were not having a friendly little chat.
“Now, now, Aozaki. I didn’t come here to spar with you,” Akabayashi said with a smirk, scraping the cane that he used as a weapon along the floor. “Would you mind allowing me to handle the Dollars?”
“…What is this nonsense?”
“Let me guess what you’re thinking. You want to make Mikado Ryuugamine disappear, and you’ll sit some other kid with ties to our family in his place. They’re a weird group; it’s not even clear who calls the shots to begin with. So if you get control of the Blue Squares, the most powerful faction within the Dollars, we can use them as we like.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Aozaki insisted smoothly.
“Look, I’m not accusing you of meddling in my business,” Akabayashi continued. “My job is simply to monitor the young folks. It’s not to control them. As long as they don’t peddle drugs or sell to minors, I’m not going to complain. I’m just askin’ you to let me handle this—the one time.”
“Is this someone you want to protect?”
“…Now that’s something I don’t need to tell you.”
“…”
Aozaki thought it over, then shook his head. “No. Just with the business in mind, I can overlook one kid…but this kid tried to shame the boss. And nobody does that without retaliation. If you wanna beg for that kid’s life, go talk to the old man.”
Akabayashi sighed. If he pled his case to the head of their yakuza group, he might get Mikado’s life spared. But only if the boss and the other officers hadn’t learned the name Mikado Ryuugamine.
The kid was too closely tied to Anri. They didn’t seem to be romantically linked yet, but given that the name Saika was used in the chat room, it meant that Anri Sonohara could turn out to be a significant force in this situation.
He didn’t want to consider the possibility that Anri might become hostile to the Awakusu-kai as a consequence of searching for Mikado or trying to help him. But he said nothing of that here.
“You’re an old-fashioned type, you know that?” he said to Aozaki. “Shiki and Kazamoto are going to laugh at you.”
“Let them. I’m too set in my ways to live any other life.”
“Same goes for me.”
“Says the fool who’s gone soft. At any rate, the kid shot at the boss’s house. That means…”
At this point, one of Aozaki’s subordinates popped his head into the meeting room and approached. “May I have a moment, Mr. Aozaki?”
“What is it?”
The man approached and whispered into his ear, looking deadly serious. Aozaki’s brow furrowed. He thought over what he had just heard, then snorted.
“Looks like the both of us were worried for no reason.”
“?”
“Let’s say that I passed a gun on to the head of the Dollars,” Aozaki said coyly. “But from what my ‘friend’ within the police says…”