They were easily beaten and subdued. The Awakusu-kai and the fighting gang members near the entrance to the mansion grounds heard the screams from the second floor and nearly wilted. The men upstairs, despite the dulling sensation of the Heaven’s Slave, were experiencing a fear so great that it overpowered the effect of the drug. “Hey, now! Let’s kill ’em!” said the Awakusu-kai’s young hotshots, who rushed among the kidnappers and began pounding them into the ground. “Die, bitch!” There was no stopping their momentum now. Once their opponents were on the ground, they kicked viciously at their ribs and heads. At the current rate, someone was certain to die—when an upstairs window burst spectacularly as the shadow man leaped through it. With unnatural speed, he reached the younger yakuza and darted right into their midst. “Wh-what do you want?! Whose side are you on?!” one of the men snarled, alarmed by the sudden interruption. He tried to punch the shadow. But the shadow man evaded the punch narrowly, grabbed the wrist, and twisted the attacker’s body. “Guah?!” “Aaah! Graaah!” The Awakusu-kai growled and shouted, ganging up on the stranger. He easily shrugged them off and rushed right into the chaos outside. He took part in whatever fighting he came across, whether Jan-Jaka-Jan or Dragon Zombie, kidnappers or Awakusu-kai. But he wasn’t just throwing punches at random; he went to the most violent fighting around at any one moment and struck at both sides, drawing their hostility toward himself. Almost as though, by making himself their mutual enemy, he was attempting to neutralize the hostilities happening all around. Wait, is that…Yahiro? Aoba wondered, staring through the camera’s viewfinder. He had realized that the absolute efficiency of the way the figure was fighting so many at once looked extremely similar to the video of the boy fighting against Shizuo Heiwajima. “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Did you hear that sound?” One other man had figured out the identity of the shadow—Libei Ying. He spoke with great entertainment to his sisters, who had approached at some point. “Listen to the delight in your voice, Yahiro…” Several minutes later, the shadow man had completed his run through the chaotic battlefield of flame and smoke, then leaped nimbly up the wall of the building and made his way into one of the rooms. There were two young women there: the sisters of Himeka Tatsugami. “What…are you…? What are you?!” Aya grappled with subliminal terror at the vision before her. It wasn’t the Headless Rider. It was some other monster entirely, something they did not know. “What are you to the Headless Rider…to the Great Celty…?” To Aya and Ai, who were under the delusion they were becoming part of an urban legend, the existence of this shadow had dumped freezing cold water over their heads. With his inhuman agility and appearance, he easily crippled their group. It was as though his very presence said, Normal humans like you are not fit for the Headless Rider. “What are youuu?!” Aya screamed and hurled her bottle. The shadow man grabbed the Molotov cocktail out of the air and used his blackened palm to extinguish the flame on the fuse. “As you can see…I’m a monster.” Ten minutes earlier, basement “Aaaaargh! Oh no…I’m the caaaause!” Celty typed dramatically. She rolled around on the floor. “Whaaat. What? Whaaat?! What does this mean?! A cult that worships me…? What is that?! I have no idea what that is! I’ve never even heard of it!” She was an undignified sight, far short of the glory of the legendary Headless Rider. Himeka and Kuon were dumbstruck, but Yahiro was more familiar with Celty’s human side and rubbed her shoulder, asking “Are you all right?” “Good grief. Every one of them would lose their faith if they saw you now,” Shiki muttered. Celty bolted to her feet. “That’s it! If I make an appearance and tell them to knock off all this nonsense, that should solve everything, shouldn’t it?!” “I’m not so sure. If the Heaven’s Slave is making them all irrational, they could probably tell themselves they have to destroy the real thing to protect their teachings. But I bet they’ll just say, ‘The real Headless Rider wouldn’t say that,’ and treat you like a fake.” “No! Then what should I do?!” Celty panicked. “The rest is our job,” Shiki reassured her. “The suspicions about you have been cleared. While you might have been the start of all of this, the Awakusu-kai isn’t going to hold you responsible for any of it. Don’t worry.” But Celty only felt more depressed after that answer; she picked up on the implicit threat that she owed him a favor now. “Wait a minute… What about my sister? Both of my sisters?” asked Himeka. “…I don’t imagine they’ll do anything as rash as rounding up a dozen or more civilians to whack ’em…but considering the chaos that’s about to break out, I can’t guarantee they won’t be hurt.” “Oh no…” Himeka wanted to do something to help. If he kept telling her not to go, she was likely to rush off alone to rescue her sisters. “What if I just tie everyone up to immobilize them before they start fighting? That way the Awakusu-kai won’t do anything drastic, right?” “…True, that might make it possible to hand over everyone but their ringleader Shijima to the police or hospital,” Shiki replied. But another voice disagreed. “I don’t think you should do that…” “Why not, Kuon?” Celty typed. Kuon grimaced wryly and said, “Listen…your sisters worship the very idea of Celty…and I know a girl who worships Izaya Orihara in the same way. And if she got treated by Izaya like he didn’t need or want her anymore, she’d probably kill herself on the spot.” Why is he bringing up Izaya here?! Celty thought with shock. But Kuon continued, “If Celty stops all of them directly, at least one or two, if not many more, are going to suffer permanent mental trauma. And your older sister has it especially bad, right?” “…I won’t deny it,” Himeka murmured, looking the tiniest bit downcast. Celty was trying to think of a better idea when Yahiro spoke up and suggested, “Then I’ll do it.” “Huh?” “I’ll subdue them all. Um, including Tatsugami’s sisters and, depending on the situation, the whatever-kai people.” “What are you talking about, Yahiro? You know you can’t…” But Yahiro just smiled at Celty’s attempt to talk sense into him. “Weren’t you the one telling me to do this? You said, ‘Be a monster.’” “That’s not the same thing…” But she couldn’t stop him. Yahiro was already taking off his jacket and warming up his shoulders. “What are you saying, Yahiro? Why would you do something so dangerous…?” “Hey, man, are you serious?” Yahiro paid heed to Himeka and Kuon, considered their words, and said, “See, I never had any special talents except for violence.” “…” “I’m not as strong as you two. I spent all my time trying to run away from reality.” It was pure honesty, straight from the heart. Now that he knew both Himeka’s and Kuon’s pasts, it occurred to Yahiro that he might not have been able to overcome what they did. They were strong at heart. But he was weak. All he had was a talent for violence. “But…how should I say this? If there’s an opportunity for me to connect with the rest of the world again, I think it has to be through violence.” “…” “Yeah, I think I’m just crazy.” He laughed to himself, accepting something he’d resisted. It was the most alive Kuon and Himeka had ever seen Yahiro look. “So at the very least…I want to live without regrets.” He carefully folded up his jacket and started to tie it around his head. Celty realized what he was trying to do. “Oh, you want to hide your face?” “I don’t want to worry my family or cause any trouble for them… I’m afraid they’ll get hurt in some way if people identify me.” “For attempting something so bold, you’re cautious in the strangest ways,” Celty typed, showing him the screen. Yahiro gave her a troubled smile and said, “…No, I’m just a coward.” The sight of that smile told Celty that it was pointless to stop him. She’d seen a number of boys like him in her life. This wasn’t the face of a person who would change his mind based on what others thought. She lifted and dropped her shoulders, mimicking a sigh—then exuded thick, writhing shadow fabric from her palms. “At the very least, I can give you a mask to hide your identity.” The moment she tried to hand over the mysterious cloth fashioned from shadow, she heard a heavy sigh behind her back. “So you’re just going to move ahead on this without consulting me?” “Oh…Mr. Shiki, this is, um…for the benefit of the Awakusu-kai, too. I mean, you know, it’s not good for you if these amateurs start killing one another, right?” Celty explained in a panicked rush. Shiki ignored her, stood before Yahiro, and assessed him. “Hey, boy.” “…Yes?” “You said you’d deal with everyone, including ‘the whatever-kai people.’ Do you understand what you’re saying there?” “…” Yahiro was silent, so Shiki continued, “Aren’t you going to consider what might happen if they decide to go after your family as retribution?” “If it happens,” Yahiro said, pausing momentarily. Then he concluded, “I’ll just have to finish the job…” It wasn’t sarcasm or a joke. It was just a truthful answer. Shiki met his clear, straightforward gaze with narrowed eyes. Then he smirked and said to Celty, “You’re right, then. He is a monster.” “…What?” “Well, I guess nobody can stop a mysterious, unidentified monster from doing its thing,” Shiki said, implicitly approving the boy’s plan. But he wasn’t done. “However, if ‘the whatever-kai people’ suffer any deaths or lifelong injuries as a result…” His voice was endlessly cold and unfathomably sharp. “If that happens…I’m going to skin your monster’s hide for a trophy, boy.” Present moment, mansion roof Shiki’s words echoed in Yahiro’s mind. Ultimately, though, it was the look in his eyes that was the greatest source of fear to Yahiro that day—and the last. It’s strange. With this shadow wrapped around me…so many things just don’t scare me anymore. When he accepted that he was willing to become a monster and wore the shadow Celty gave to him, the fear within Yahiro simply vanished. That was vital for him. It was the fear that always drove him to overdo his reactions to every opponent. But with the fear weakened, he was no longer desperate, and now he could hold back his strength, staying short of his maximum. Either wearing Celty’s shadow or taking her words to heart—or both—had an effect on him. He didn’t know the exact reason why, but now, in this moment that he was acting as a true, complete monster, Yahiro was freed from his fear. He subdued Himeka’s sisters, not hard enough to hurt them, and he tied them up with the bedsheet he found in the room before climbing back up to the roof. He was filled with great satisfaction, though it was a different kind than what he felt when fighting Shizuo Heiwajima with all his strength. It was probably just an illusion. Whether it was for the sake of another or not, violence was violence. He was using Himeka as an excuse to punch other people. Yahiro knew these things—but he was still happy. He was happy being evil, or a monster, or a hypocrite. The point was that, by becoming a monster of his own volition, he had taken a step outside of the world he’d been trapped inside his whole life. For the first time ever, he felt something like acceptance—and once again, he lifted his face to the sky and roared. “Wow. Amazing! Amazing, amazing, amazing! I can’t believe I just got to see a superhero in action!” The bikers had lost all will to fight after the sudden, overwhelming appearance of the monster—except for Libei Ying, who was in a celebratory mood. “Or is he more of a villain or fiend? Either one is fine. The point is, he’s cool.” Libei put his liuyedao away over his back and clapped and cheered like a child. “I want you on my team even more than before, Yahiro Mizuchi,” he said, suddenly serious. “Or…perhaps I should call you a nameless monster. One that shouldn’t exist…” Then he turned to his sisters with a smile, like he’d just come up with a great idea. “Hey, what do you think? Should we call that monster…Snake Hands?” “Oh, it’s really getting good now…” Aoba turned off the camera. A smile of pure glee tugged at his lips. “That monster—well, it’s just Yahiro—has now made an enemy out of every group in the city and also made allies out of every group in the city.” “What does that mean?” “It means that since the Dollars ended, there’s finally a new festival in town. Before, a gang made the city dance. This time, it’s the opposite.” Despite his boyish looks, Aoba Kuronuma wore an expression of great evil. He smirked at the monster on the roof and muttered to himself, “Now…how will you use your power to change Ikebukuro…?” Thus, on this night, the birthing cry of a new monster, raucous and raw, graced the streets of Tokyo. That sound, caught on film by Aoba, would spread like wildfire on the Internet—and, in the span of less than a day, would become the source of a new urban legend. As though the city itself were touting the existence of its newest monster.
Chapter 32
12 min read