Tokyo
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When her talent agency manager told her the rumor that a suspect in the case of the serial killer Hollywood had surfaced, Ruri Hijiribe prepared herself, thinking that the time had finally come.
She’d done it to avenge her parents, but a crime was a crime. This was the time to atone for what she’d done, and she was ready for it.
The only regret she had was that she’d let the ringleader, Jinnai Yodogiri, get away—but she was no longer of a mind to kill him.
She would accept whatever happened. The only thing she wanted to do was make sure that none of it hurt Yuuhei Hanejima.
But as her manager continued to explain the situation, Ruri was left feeling baffled.
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“Apparently, Jinnai Yodogiri and his secretary, Kasane Kujiragi, have been listed as suspects in the serial killings.”
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It wasn’t announced publicly, but the police were looking for them as people of interest, so since Ruri was a former member of Yodogiri’s agency, they might want to ask her some questions.
That was all her manager had to say about it, so Ruri headed out to make the trip home, uncertain of anything anymore.
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I should talk to Yuuhei Hanejima, she decided and walked into the night streets around her apartment. Then she noticed a truck approaching in her direction. She moved to the side of the road to give it room to pass, but then she detected something wrong with it.
Despite the narrow width of the road, it did not slow down a bit. If anything, it seemed to be picking up speed, rushing straight at her.
…!
She was a fraction of a second too late in reacting. For an instant, she fell prey to the obsessive fixation in the madness of the man driving the vehicle.
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But Ruri Hijiribe did not know that the man driving the car was a fanatical stalker of hers—the son of the man she’d killed to avenge her father: Kisuke Adabashi.
“Ha-ha…ha-haaaa…ha-ha-ha-ha! Hya-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaa-ha-haaa!”
Adabashi had escaped from Izaya’s hideout, dragging his broken leg behind him, and through sheer tenacity alone, he’d made his way to Ruri’s location, ambushing her with a truck he stole.
Ruri had superhuman strength, but when faced out of the blue with the delusion of a man to whom love and destruction were the same thing, she was a moment too late to escape his aggression.
Just before her body was at the mercy of the mass and force of sheer violence, the owner of a strength beyond hers scooped her up, then raced up the front of the oncoming truck and leaped clear over it to safety.
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The next moment, there was a horrendous crash behind them as the truck’s front twisted and deformed against a light pole. With the sound of the pole creaking and groaning in the background, Ruri recognized who had picked her up.
“A-are you…Miss Kujiragi…?”
It was Kujiragi, the secretary of that detestable Yodogiri, who had saved her. It was hard for Ruri to process in the moment; she was utterly taken aback.
“Do you hate me?” asked the woman.
“Wha…?”
“Forgive the suddenness of what I am about to say… I am jealous of you,” Kujiragi confessed out of nowhere.
Ruri summoned enough presence of mind to ask, “Um…what do you mean?” It was bafflement and curiosity that rose to the surface before hatred.
Instead of answering her question, however, Kujiragi continued her announcement. “So I have decided to steal from you. I will steal the opportunity for the serial killer Hollywood to atone for her crimes.”
“?!”
“This is now my crime and my punishment to you. I will steal all of Hollywood’s sins. Now you will be unable to atone for what you have done, and you never will know that peace,” Kujiragi explained. She dragged the unconscious Adabashi out of the truck, hauled him over her shoulder, and turned away from Ruri. “And now, with that guilt eternally plaguing your conscience…do have a good life.”
“What…do you mean? Why…why would you do this?”
“You cannot turn yourself in,” Kujiragi continued, her eyes flashing red, ignoring Ruri. “I have fingers deep within both the police and the media.”
Ruri flinched at the surreal look of her eyes but stood her ground. “No! Wait! What are you…?”
But without offering a single firm answer to any of Ruri’s questions, Kujiragi leaped away with superhuman agility—leaving only one self-deprecating comment.
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“I am simply an irredeemable villain…motivated by envy.”
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Raira General Hospital—several days later
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“I’m terribly sorry about all the trouble Mikado’s put you through, Masaomi.”
“But, Miss…Sonohara, was it? I’m very glad you didn’t wind up getting hurt.”
Two adults were speaking to Masaomi and Anri in gentle tones.
“Please, please…I hope you’ll be good to our Mikado.”
“We’re so grateful to you for being his friends.”
After Masaomi and Anri walked the man and woman back to the hospital room, they made their way slowly toward the entrance of the building.
“Was that your first time meeting Mikado’s parents?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“They’re almost shockingly normal, right? But they’re nice. When I was a kid, I remember them getting us watermelon in the summer when I went to hang out.”
The recollection sent Masaomi further into his childhood memories of Mikado’s parents.
Mikado had said once that his father was the head of personnel at a printing company. He remembered the man being rather frazzled but essentially good-natured. His mother looked exactly the way that Anri imagined an “ordinary mother” would look, and she was kind enough to be concerned about Anri at a time when her own son was in critical condition.
Everything that happened was explained as an early-morning hiking expedition that had turned tragic when they’d encountered a biker-gang turf war, in which Mikado stepped in to protect them when someone turned a knife on the group.
Because the wound in Masaomi’s leg did not have a bullet inside of it and the shadow had stopped the bleeding entirely, it was treated like a mystery—an injury with no clearly discernible cause.
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And while Mikado Ryuugamine’s life was stable for the moment, he still had not opened his eyes.
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“Knowing what his parents are like, I can’t help but feel like the reason Mikado turned out this way isn’t because of his home life…but that it was all my fault.”
“No, that’s not…,” Anri said, trying to comfort Masaomi, but she was interrupted by another boy who passed the two.
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“Don’t be so self-absorbed.”
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“?”
Masaomi glanced over and got a good look at who had said that.
“You’re exaggerating how much influence you have over Mr. Mikado.”
“Kuronuma…,” Anri mumbled.
Masaomi gasped, recalling where he’d seen the boy before, and glared at him. “Aoba Kuronuma… What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m not going to start a fight with you in a hospital. Whether you believe me or not, I’m just here to visit Mr. Mikado. Am I not allowed to do that?”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve…,” Masaomi growled, trying to keep himself from punching him. “What’s wrong…you haven’t gotten him involved in enough shit already?”
Aoba sighed. “Oh no. And a very scary man already came and menaced me about that. We’ve largely accomplished what we set out to do, so I have no reason to force Mr. Mikado to do anything anymore.”
“What you set out to…?”
“As we figured, all the uproar succeeded at getting the Dollars recognized as a dangerous, malicious group. All the ordinary folks freaked out and stopped associating with the group, and the co-webmaster named Tsukumoya deleted all the Dollars-related sites, so at this point, the name simply lives on as its own entity.”
“…And in the meantime, you Blue Squares get to walk free. After all, that was the Dollars’ work,” Masaomi spat.
Aoba smirked and shook his head. “The truth is, I wanted to swim with Mr. Mikado. The fish tank got a lot bigger, and the visibility improved with it.”
“Hey…”
“But I don’t know if things are going to work out that well anyway. I’ve certainly attracted Chikage Rokujou’s attention, for one thing… And from what I hear, Libei Ying, the boss of Dragon Zombie, is back in Japan. And your least favorite person, Ran Izumii, is still up to something, so there’s no resting easy for us. Not to mention the Yellow Scarves.” Aoba shrugged.
Masaomi glared at him and declared, “If you try to drag Mikado into any more shit or use what he did as leverage to screw him over, I’m going to destroy you guys for good.”
“I’ll be careful.” Aoba sighed. Lastly, he gave Anri and Masaomi one true little smile. “And just so you don’t get the wrong idea… I really do have great respect for him.”