Mikado and the rest, left behind on the rooftop and unable to speak their minds aloud, felt a terrible sense of powerlessness. But then a new voice joined the scene.
“Hey…was that Celty who just flew off?”
They spun around to the source and found Shizuo there, lacerations bleeding all over his body.
“Shizuo…?!” they yelped in shock.
Afterward, a single man rose to his feet and greeted him. “Hi there, Shizuo. Good timing.”
It was Shinra, who had somehow freed himself from the bonds of Celty’s shadow.
“Yeah, well, I saw you going up this building… Then I spotted what looked like Celty and Shooter on the roof, so I climbed up here… What’s going on?” Shizuo wondered.
Shinra chuckled. “What’s going on? Well, I’m about to become a villain.”
“What?”
“Shizuo, do you remember the promise we made back in high school?”
“…?”
Whatever Shizuo was expecting, it was not a reference to his school days. But behind his smile, Shinra’s eyes were deadly serious, so Shizuo decided to hear him out.
“…Remind me.”
“That if I became a villain for the sake of the woman I loved…you would smash me to the other end of the sky for her.”
“…Oh yeah. I remember that.”
“Now’s the time,” Shinra said, staring up at where Celty was vanishing into the dark of the night. “I’m about to do something terrible to Celty. But she’s so kind and gentle, I’m sure that she’ll forgive me for it.”
“…”
“So…will you fulfill your side of the agreement and hurl me into the sky?” Shinra asked. It sounded like a joke, but Shizuo did not laugh it off.
“…Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“If you fall, you’re 100 percent guaranteed to die. At that angle, I won’t be able to catch your landing. Speaking of which, are you trying to make me a murderer?” he demanded, thinking of Vorona.
Shinra was quiet for a moment, then said, “Yeah, if it happens…then I’m sorry. But I trust Celty. You probably don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I can put it in these terms: Do you trust me for trusting Celty?”
“…”
Shizuo thought it over, then grinned without a word. He grabbed Shinra’s leg and hurled him with strength that far surpassed human limits.
“Don’t regret this, you villain!” he bellowed.
And though he was injured all over and not anywhere near his peak condition, it was the most powerful throw he’d made that night, including his duel with Izaya.
✦ ✦ ✦
Sky
“…Don’t be so upset, Shooter,” Celty said to her mount now that they were alone in the air. “This was for the best. Now that all my memories are back, living here among the humans will only cause them more suffering…”
She climbed farther into the pitch-black sky that her own shadow had fashioned as she spoke to Shooter.
“Yes, it hurts. It hurts a lot, Shooter. I would rather never deal with human beings again if it meant not going through this feeling…,” she said mournfully, though her head still showed not a single hint of emotion on its features. “I just want Shinra to forget about me…but I don’t want to forget…Shin…ra…?”
She paused there.
In the sky of Ikebukuro, locked in abnormal darkness by a blanket of shadow, a blazing white light in stark contrast to the background shot right past her side.
And when she realized that it was Shinra, Celty’s mind went blank instead.
“Wha…?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hi.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wh-wha…wh-wh-wha…what are you doing?!”
As Shinra slowly arced and began to fall, Celty couldn’t help but stick her hands out. Dutifully reading her mind, Shooter charged forward on his shadowy path, racing faster to catch up to the falling man.
The head spilled out of her grasp, but that wasn’t a problem. Shadow tendrils extended from the severed head itself, attaching it to the sheer surface of her neck. If it wasn’t going to fall, she couldn’t lose it.
At this point, the soul of her head and body were completely reattached. Nothing—no saws or gunpowder—could separate her head now that it was attached by the soul that was her shadow.
✦ ✦ ✦
All except for one cursed sword that was said to separate the soul from the body.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…Celty,” Shinra murmured as he fell.
She lunged, reaching out for him. “Grab on!”
At this point, there was no use keeping up her act. She was in her natural, true element now.
“Sorry,” Shinra stated.
“What?”
He continued to plummet, with Celty chasing after him.
And then she saw: They were not bloodshot.
Shinra’s eyes were actually glowing with red light, as Anri’s had done.
And a sharp blade extended from the palm of his right hand.
“Oh, n…”
✦ ✦ ✦
Silver flashed briefly in the night sky.
And Saika quickly, powerfully severed the shadow connecting Celty’s body and head.
✦ ✦ ✦
More than ten minutes earlier
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, right…Miss Kujiragi.”
“?”
She stopped in the act of leaving and turned back to Shinra.
“If I wanted to rent out your Saika…how much would that cost me?”
Celty writhed and jerked in midair after the separation of her head and neck.
An abnormal volume of shadow spurted forth from the space where each side had been cut, and it spread through the sky over Ikebukuro with abnormal speed.
✦ ✦ ✦
Qrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……………
✦ ✦ ✦
Her body continued spasming a little bit, but Shooter’s fierce cry brought her back to her senses.
This was not the time to be asleep. As her thoughts spurred back into motion, the effects of the mental link being abruptly severed caused memories to flash back through her mind in rapid succession.
Aaah… Aaaaaaaaahhhh!
I…I…I…!
Countless memories, stretching back over decades and centuries, flooding through her, filling her mind.
She descended along with Shooter in her confusion—and as she did, flickers of a white shape began to appear in the rapid shuffle of images.
Despite the chaos, Celty reached out for the pale thing. As if to say that it was the most precious thing of all to her.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next moment, her blindly stretching hand caught something.
It was the arm of a man wearing a white coat.
Shin…ra. Shinra…
…Shinra!
Celty’s mind snapped back to consciousness again, and she sent out shadows in all directions. A cushion of darkness spread out below as they plummeted onto a corner of one of the Sunshine City buildings.
They bounced off the cushion and back into the air, and Celty still did not let go of Shinra’s arm. Without Shooter’s guidance, she might never have caught Shinra as he fell.
It was through a series of miracles that he avoided falling to his death. But Celty was not in the mind space to appreciate all this in the moment.
Shinra!
“Wake up, Shinra!”
Celty hopped off Shooter, pulled her PDA out of her armor—she’d been hanging on to it, just in case—and thrust it before Shinra’s dizzy eyes.
“Please! Wake up! Don’t die!” she typed and shook his shoulders.
He opened his eyes slowly. “No, Celty…you shouldn’t shake someone with an injury like this.”
“…Shinra!” She bopped him on the chest. “You dummy! You big dummy! You’re a big, dumb dummy!”
“Ouch, ouch… That hurts, Celty.”
“Why? Why would you do something so dangerous?! If something went wrong…you’d be dead… You would have died, Shinra!”
She thrust out the PDA for him to see, her body trembling.
“I refused to accept your determination,” he said with a smile. “I insulted the dullahan’s way of life…and the future you chose.”
The doctor traced a finger softly along the nape of Celty’s neck and grinned at her.
“So it doesn’t even out unless I risk my neck, does it?”
Celty typed into her PDA. Words she typed at the most important moments. Words she was more used to typing than any others.