Outside of Russia Sushi
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“There you go! You’re almost through!”
Despite his hand-clapping enthusiasm, Nasujima’s face was still pale with fear.
For one thing, Shizuo Heiwajima was raging within visual range. Nasujima was beside himself with terror at the thought of that power being used on him.
On the other hand, if he was fighting over there, that meant that Nasujima could do more over here without worrying about attracting attention. So despite his fear, he chose bold action.
As long as he could gain control over the man inside the sushi place named Tom Tanaka, he could use him as a hostage and possibly even as a stepping-stone to taking over Shizuo himself.
The rest was just a battle against time.
But Nasujima was unaware that the door to Russia Sushi that he had his Saika-possessed tearing down at the moment was something like the entry to Pandora’s box.
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After many body blows, the front door to Russia Sushi finally broke.
“Good! Get in there and take control of everyone inside!” he said, a greedy smirk on his lips, as he approached the doorway himself.
In the next moment, the shine of that smile was completely overshadowed by literal light from the sushi restaurant’s interior.
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A few seconds before that, when the Saika-possessed made to pile through the open doorway, they heard something spilling onto the floor.
Before anyone could identify them as flashbang stun grenades, they were overwhelmed by light and sound, momentarily robbing them of vision, hearing, and the ability to think.
Suddenly, one of the low tables from the private booth areas of the restaurant was rushing upon them like a giant shield—and pushed the confused dolls clear out of the building like a bulldozer.
“Gaaaah!! Wh-what was that?! What happened?!” Nasujima yelped in a panic, hands over his eyes, as a number of canisters hit the ground around him.
He was blinded, his ears full of roaring echoes.
All around him, light and sound assaulted the shadowy portion of Ikebukuro.
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Outside of Tokyu Hands
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There was a flash in the corner of his vision.
And the momentary loss of concentration had tragic consequences for Izaya Orihara.
When he recognized it as the effect of a stun grenade, Izaya’s knowledge and experience taught him to instinctually be on guard.
The problem was, he was already dealing with something far more dangerous than a stun grenade and deadlier than potshots from a gun.
It took less than a second to refocus his every nerve on the superhuman creature before him—but even that was a fatal lapse in concentration.
Shizuo’s next blow, which he should have barely dodged, nicked him on the shoulder. And though it was just the slightest of glancing blows, it sent a tremendous shock through Izaya’s body.
“Gah…”
It was what you might feel if an express train passing through the station clipped you on the shoulder. The astonishing transfer of energy to Izaya’s body sent him spinning. By the time he had recovered his balance, Shizuo’s fist was careening toward him again.
“…!”
The timing made it impossible for him to evade it entirely. He crossed his arms to block the blow and jumped backward in hopes of deadening some of its force.
But this was not the kind of punch that commonsense actions could nullify. You don’t put your hands up to block an oncoming cannonball or jump backward with the impact, expecting the result to be any different.
The instant Shizuo’s fist met Izaya’s arms, everyone in the vicinity clearly heard the sound of those arms breaking.
Shizuo swung through, bringing his fist downward and throwing Izaya against the ground, which he bounced off several feet in the air, as though he’d been struck by a car. If it had been an uppercut instead, Izaya might have flown to the height of one of the surrounding high-rise buildings—or so it seemed to the witnesses, such was the power of Shizuo’s blow.
Izaya’s resistance was not entirely in vain, however. If he hadn’t given up his arms to the punch, it might have broken his sternum and obliterated his heart beneath it.
For the cost of his arms, Izaya Orihara stayed alive, leaving him capable of standing before Shizuo. But to everyone watching, it as if looked only he’d given himself a few more seconds to live.
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I’m still alive.
Izaya’s arms weren’t just broken, they were also dislocated and dangling from his shoulder joints, but he was conscious.
He stood on the strength of his legs alone, but the shock of being struck against the ground left him hardly able to breathe.
It was a stronger blow to his system than when he’d been struck by the metal beam and knocked into the building across the street. Blood spilled from his mouth as he stared at Shizuo.
His opponent’s body was trickling blood all over as well, and the overall damage seemed more than trivial. He approached, covered in red stains, step after purposeful step.
So if I’d just fought him like this from the start…I might have actually had a chance to win? The irony is rich, Izaya thought woozily as he observed his bloodied opponent.
At this point, the endorphins had kicked in, so that he barely even registered the pain in his arms and everywhere else.
Despite his frustration, Izaya smiled. He simply smiled.
More important than his own coming death was knowing that by sacrificing his own life, he would succeed at expelling Shizuo Heiwajima from human society, making him a monster.
The fact that he could prevent a future in which a monster wearing human skin strolled around society as if he were one of them was all the victory that Izaya could hope for.
This was all Izaya thought about as he stood—for standing was the only thing he could do.
Shizuo picked up the vending machine lying nearby and took another step toward Izaya.
“…Do it, monster,” Izaya said with the last bit of breath from his lungs.
A shock ran through his body before he could even tell whether Shizuo heard him say it.
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But the impact was not from Shizuo. He was still holding the machine. If anything, seeing what just happened to Izaya made him stop.
“Huh…?”
Izaya finally realized that something else had happened to his body. Something was sticking into his side.
At the same moment that he recognized the silver flash of a blade, he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye.
There, standing inside the ring of bikers and punks watching the fight, was the figure of Vorona, holding the handle of a knife without its blade.
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With cold eyes, she tossed aside the handle and brought her now free right hand up to support what she held in her left. When the crowd recognized the gun, they began to murmur uneasily.
The muzzle was pointed directly at Izaya. The people around her and behind Izaya screamed and darted to the sides to get out of its path.
“Vorona…?”
When Shizuo slowly turned to look at her, there was a troubled light in his eyes, mixed in with his battle fury. She glanced at him, then at Izaya, who was now on his knees.
“Sir Shizuo is human,” she said to Shizuo. She did not know what Izaya was thinking, but through sheer coincidence, she ended up contradicting his opinions. “Necessity to become a beast is nonexistent.”
Vorona pointed her gun at Izaya.
She was going to shoot him in the head and heart and eliminate him from the world forever.