She descended from the sky.
Straddling a headless horse instead of a motorcycle.
Wearing pitch-black armor instead of a riding suit.
And holding a head at her side, under an arm.
✦ ✦ ✦
QRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
✦ ✦ ✦
When he saw her descending to the roof down a path made of shadow, her headless horse whinnying somehow, Masaomi forgot about the pain in his leg and simply stared in wonder.
“What…is this?” Then he looked at the head she was holding and shouted, “H-hey…that head! Isn’t that…Mika Harima from your class, Mikado?!”
“No…it’s not, Masaomi. It looks like her, but it’s not her.”
Stunned, Mikado addressed the woman who descended near the edge of the rooftop: Celty Sturluson.
“Is that you…Celty?”
“…”
The eyes of the head under her arm turned to Mikado. Without emotion, her mouth opened. The words that emerged, unlike the ones earlier, were not addressed to every person touched by the tendrils of shadow. They were audible only to the young men on the rooftop with her.
“Human boy. You are…Mikado Ryuugamine.”
“Huh?”
It was as though she’d never met him before. Mikado was confused.
Celty used her shadow to draw the guns closer to her. Within moments, the shadow essentially dissolved them.
“I do not know what my body said to you, but my existence is not a reason for you to desire what comes beyond death.”
The separated weapon parts scattered across the rooftop.
“It would seem that the presence of my body in this city registered the strongest effect upon you.”
“Effect…?”
“So, human boy, I choose to make a parting statement individually to you,” Celty said, her shadow writhing around her. “After I recovered my consciousness, I spread my shadow through the sky over this city so that I could collect information. I could not have guessed that I’d spent the last twenty years wandering about this distant, foreign land.”
“Celty, what do you mean…?” Mikado asked, baffled.
Just then, the sound of fresh footsteps came from the emergency stairs.
“Ryuugamine…and Kida?!”
“Masaomi!”
Both of the boys turned toward the new voices.
“…Sonohara?!”
“Saki?! Why…why are you here…?”
And they weren’t the only ones. Seiji Yagiri and Mika Harima were coming up behind them.
✦ ✦ ✦
The group had been trotting down the sidewalk, as Kadota had instructed, but weren’t sure where they should be heading. Should they leave Saki and the other noncombatants somewhere safe, then head to Russia Sushi, where Nasujima was located?
It was at this time that they heard a third gunshot overhead.
“?!”
And after that, the scream of a boy’s familiar voice.
“Mikado!”
At the sound of Masaomi’s voice, they looked up and around—until they spotted the shadow looking especially thick over one building rooftop. They rushed toward the building’s exterior emergency stairs, fighting against their own unease.
And when she reached the roof, Anri was finally there. She saw Mikado, the person she wanted to see most, and felt relief flood through her. In fact, she threatened to burst into tears.
But the situation she saw there prevented her from having the moving reunion she wanted.
“Masaomi…?”
He was crawling along the surface of the roof, while behind him stood a headless horse.
Sitting on the horse was a knight, carrying a head under its arm with the same face as Mika Harima, who was just behind Anri at the moment.
“Is that…Celty?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Outside of Tokyu Hands
✦ ✦ ✦
When Shizuo’s vision recovered from the blinding flash, he saw a bizarre new sight around him:
A crowd of red-eyed people and bikers were tied up, their limbs tangled in black shadows. For some reason, however, he was unfettered and free. After a brief glance around, he saw that there was no Izaya Orihara present, just a bloodstain on the ground.
“…”
That briefly rekindled the rage that Vorona’s interference had stilled, but the thought of her put her at the forefront of his mind. The place where she’d been standing a moment ago was now occupied by Tom, Simon, and Denis—caring for an unconscious Vorona.
“Vorona!” he shouted, rushing to her side, ignoring the blood dripping from all over his body.
“Shizuo… Hey, man, you all right?!” Tom asked.
Shizuo nodded. “I’m fine. But Vorona…,” he prompted.
Simon and Denis offered their reassurances. “Oh, she only knocked out. When she wake up, I give her hot cup of tea.”
“She’s hurt here and there, but nothing life-threatening. That stun grenade hit her when she was already exhausted. Apparently, it was too much for her to handle at once.”
“Why…why would she do this…?” Shizuo wondered, recalling what she’d been doing before the grenade went off.
“Well, I only saw a bit of it,” said Denis, “but I’d say she didn’t want you to have a murder on your conscience.”
“…Oh.”
This put many different thoughts into Shizuo’s head. If he had killed Izaya, perhaps she would have thought that he had become a murderer to avenge her.
…I’m…still weak…
I’m sorry, Vorona.
Shizuo breathed in deep and exhaled slowly, and this time, he pushed his smoldering hatred of Izaya deep down into his gut.
But if I happen across him loitering around, I can’t guarantee I won’t kill him out of sheer momentum, he thought to himself, giving the scene another examination. He found his eye drawn to one sight in particular.
“…What’s that?”
He was looking not at Izaya—but at an old friend in a white lab coat, walking down the middle of the street with the aid of a crutch.
✦ ✦ ✦
The rooftop of a mixed-use building