Chapter 44

CHAPTER 4 Keep Going, Leave It to Me Ikebukuro, mixed commercial building—Holy Article Hall, 4F There was an office building not terribly close to Ikebukuro Station. The first floor of the building, which did not have a wide footprint, was a business that dealt in imported Taiwanese goods. The second floor handled Taiwanese food, and the third, books. Each floor had a different kind of business in it, making for a lively atmosphere. The fourth floor was an event space for the use of the businesses within the building. When nothing was happening, it often served as a hangout space for Dragon Zombie’s leader, Libei Ying, a relative of the building’s owner. “So I wanted to ask, do you have any idea who might be doing these attacks?” Yahiro asked. Libei shook his head with annoyance. “No… Are you saying you came here just to ask me that?” “Yes.” “I’m surprised you knew where to find us.” “I asked Kuon,” Yahiro explained simply, eliciting a smirk from Libei. “Uh-huh. Kuon’s that kid with the green hair, right? And how would he know that? Well, whatever.” At Libei’s sides stood his two sisters. Elsewhere in the space lounged members of Dragon Zombies, watching Yahiro warily from a distance. “I was hoping you might be coming to ask to join our little group. I guess that was too optimistic of me.” “I’m sorry.” “You don’t need to apologize for that…but aren’t you scared? Coming here to the hideout of a big, scary motorcycle gang?” “I’m super scared,” Yahiro admitted honestly. “But letting the attacker roam the streets is scarier, so…” “Listen, maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, but from my perspective, you’re a lot scarier than this attacker. Right, Mr. Snake Hands?” “Please don’t. Why is everyone calling me by that nickname…?” Yahiro blushed slightly. Of course, Libei himself was the one who spread that practice, but he showed no acknowledgment of that as he shook his head. “It’s such a mysterious thing, isn’t it? But don’t worry—I think the nickname suits you.” “It does?” “Why wouldn’t it?” “Well, that’s good, I guess…,” Yahiro mumbled. Libei grinned. “Anyway, from our perspective, if you caught the attacker, that would help us out a ton. We’re even willing to help you with this, you know.” “Thank you very much.” “Now, we’ve done some research on this case. To be honest, some people suspect us, which is why we’re forced to take part in the whole exercise.” “Is that right?” “Some stories say there are two attackers…and that one of them is our work. Either us or the Blue Squares.” Yahiro was aware of that theory. Kuon’s sister was spreading that story on her websites that morning, but it also came up in conversation with Himeka and Aoba, so it didn’t come as a surprise to him at this point. “I don’t think those rumors about the Blue Squares are true. They’re on the hunt for the attacker, too.” “…Ah, yes. I believe you know someone who’s in with them.” “In a manner of speaking, yes. I don’t know them that well.” “Well, I’m not going to bother you about it, but I wouldn’t go around announcing that, you understand? Just saying that you’re friends with Blue Squares will make you a sworn enemy of Toramaru,” Libei warned, smirking. “What a nasty bit of forced cooperation, though. I mean, it’s still way better than teaming up with Jan-Jaka-Jan…but even so, we can’t do anything together publicly. If any story starts up about Blue Squares and Dragon Zombies doing the same thing, it’s gonna get everyone else’s hackles up. They’ll think we’re forming an alliance.” “Is that how it works?” “That is how it works,” Libei said, his tone playful. Yahiro felt like he’d had a similar vibe from a conversation partner earlier—with Aoba Kuronuma. “But you should be fine,” he said, thinking carefully, “because I’m not here asking you to do anything—I just wanted to talk.” “Oh, really? Maybe that’s what you think, but the kids you’re in with might want to use us, wouldn’t they?” Libei drawled ironically. “Hmm…I don’t really know how all that stuff works,” Yahiro said. Then he thought about Kuon, his client. “Oh, but at the very least, he’s definitely using me. He said so.” “Sounds like a bad boss.” Libei smirked. “But it’s fine. I don’t mind,” Yahiro reassured him. “Huh? Does that really make it better?” Libei stared at Yahiro for a while, then sighed and continued, “Anyway…if you don’t care, then I guess that’s that. In any case, neither Dragon Zombies nor the Blue Squares can make a big show about this. So there’s no using numbers to try to overpower the attacker or gang up on them like last time, got it? Then again, I guess you solved that one on your own, huh.” Libei thought about that one a bit more, then adopted a rather wicked grin and jabbed a finger right at Yahiro. “So I’m thinking…if another mysterious phantom like Snake Hands takes out the attacker, no one will have to suspect us or the Blue Squares of having any part of it. What do you think?” “…” Yahiro took some time to consider this, and then he nodded. “Yes, that does make sense.” “Wow, he actually bought it.” “Well…it does make sense. If a mystery phantom catches the attacker, nobody else gets blamed…and if the attacker has friends, you’re safe from them…,” Yahiro murmured to himself. Then his face lit up, and he bowed. “Thank you very much, Mr. Libei! I think I figured it out!” A few minutes later, Yahiro was on his way out, having finished the conversation. Libei watched him go, and when the boy was out of sight, his smile vanished. “He’s in trouble,” he said to no one but himself, his concern genuine but also wary. “He really needs a friend who can slam on his brakes for him—good or bad.” Kotonami apartment When Kuon returned home, he made dinner like always and left a portion outside his sister’s room, then went into his own and turned on the computer. He organized the information he found on the screen and considered what was to come. “Hmm…I think the moment is right,” he said to himself, lifting his arms to stretch with a little smile playing across his lips. At that moment, his phone vibrated. “Hello?” “Heya, Kuon. How are ya?” “Hi, Sis. I put your food outside the door. Eat up before it gets cold.” “Yeah, no worries. But before that, I wanted to tell you something.” It was an everyday event for the two of them to speak on the phone from adjacent rooms. It wasn’t because they were particularly distant. Kuon understood that this was the best way to close the distance with Nozomi. “What’s that?” “You gonna wrap it all up over the holiday? The street attacker thing.” “I suppose. It’ll be real annoying to do once school starts again…and Yahiro apparently went to the Dragon Zombies looking for info. If I let him wander off on his own any further, it’s going to get out of hand,” he said, sounding fatigued. “You’re worried for him,” Nozomi teased. “Am not.” “I get it. He’s your very first friend.” “No, he’s not! I’ve had friends before!” he snarled, gritting his teeth. Through the speaker, his sister teased, “Just so you know, Kuronuma and his gang don’t count as friends.” “Huh? They don’t?” “Not if neither side trusts the other.” “…I don’t think someone you trust in every regard is a friend, either,” said Kuon, sighing. “Really?” She chuckled. “At the very least, Yahiro seems to think of you as a friend.” “That’s not my problem. He’s just that naive.” After a moment’s pause, he told his sister, “After all, I’m forcing him to do all the dirty work on this one.” He smiled wickedly. On the inside, he remembered his encounter with a researcher one year ago. One year ago—Ikebukuro The moment he mentioned the name Izaya Orihara, a woman said with scorn, “You want to know about that idiot?” “I’ve heard that you know more about him than anyone else does,” Kuon said. The long-haired woman clicked her tongue. “And this is what I get for coming back to Japan on work. Well, I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, but either way, he’s got a skill for annoying me.” And with that, the woman who once served as Izaya’s assistant, Namie Yagiri, began to talk about her former employer. “How was he able to control the things that happened around town? Well, that’s where you’re confused,” she began. “Huh?” “In nearly all cases, he wasn’t actually controlling anything. He was just unleashing sparks. And he enjoyed the result, whether they started fires or went out right away. Whatever happened, he just gloated and acted like that was the ‘right’ answer, so from a distance, it just looked like he was manipulating things to his benefit.” “But I don’t think that’s all it was. I mean, there are people whose lives were ruined because he was pulling strings…,” Kuon insisted, dark flames burning in his eyes. At the time, he still looked like a model student; he hadn’t yet dyed his hair green. Namie seemed to take an interest in him after seeing the burning look in his eyes, and her attitude softened. “…Oh? So you’re not here to praise Izaya? You hate him?” “Uh, I didn’t say that…” “I like you. So I’ll tell you for free that he did indeed have total control over a few incidents. And a few people’s minds, I think. But there was a reason behind that. It’s the primary reason he was so crazy and not easily mimicked. Something that no sane person would ever try.” Namie sounded like she was reminiscing fondly on the past. “When he really, truly wanted to control everything, he always placed himself in the most dangerous position. Whatever event was happening, he made sure he was in the deepest, darkest spot. Wherever his life would be the most immediately in danger, he performed the dirtiest task.” “…” “In fact, it was when he did anything from a perfectly safe position that the results were the worst. I guess it’s the difference in the amount he was willing to sacrifice. They say things like, ‘Only those who are willing to be killed have the right to kill,’ but in Izaya’s case, it was more like he was willing to be killed to have the right to slap someone on the cheek.” She looked Kuon in the eyes, seemingly staring right into his mind. “If you want to be like him, it will come down to whether or not you’re willing to risk that.” “…” Intimidated, Kuon managed to stare back without looking away. Namie sighed. “Well, to be honest, whether or not you get stuck in the swamp and drown is none of my concern. If you get involved with him—whatever form that takes—you need to be on your guard, or you’ll get sucked in and spiral into your own downfall.” “So why didn’t you get sucked into Izaya’s whirlpool? How come you didn’t get brainwashed when you were so close to him?” he asked. Namie stared into the distance. A blissful look came over her face. “There is a support at the center of my being that keeps me sane at all times. I wouldn’t let someone like him drag me under.” That’s right. I’ve got my own support keeping me sane. The recollection of his conversation with Namie gave Kuon the resolve to make a decision. “Sis.” “What?” “I love you.” “I know.” As family? As man and woman? Neither one knew. But Kuon said it anyway and added, “I hate humanity. I love only you.” “Are you saying this to yourself?” “Yeah. Sorry, Sis. Just let me have this one.” “I don’t mind. We’re brother and sister,” she said, cackling with laughter. It brought a smile to Kuon’s face. Shortly after their call ended, Kuon clutched the phone. Then he rested his forehead against the wall to his sister’s room and muttered softly to himself. “I can be as evil as I need to be. I’ll do the things Izaya Orihara couldn’t do. I’ll use my friends and send them to hell.” The look on his face was just a bit mournful as he added one last comment. “…And if I make life harder on you, Sis, I’m sorry.” Ikebukuro—final day of the holiday week One of the street attackers, Shouya Ajimura, walked the evening streets with a pensive look on his face. “That was a close one yesterday… Didn’t think I was going to actually miss on that swing…” He’d been aiming to knock out his target in one blow, but the man with the dreads managed to dodge his swing. Then he lost his balance and got hurt anyway, but it was a far cry from the punishment Ajimura intended to inflict. “Dammit… Stupid thug…” It was the man who always hung around with Shizuo Heiwajima. Even Ajimura was aware of Shizuo Heiwajima’s superhuman strength. Which is why he chose to attack someone close to him, in order to deliver a mental blow to Ikebukuro’s symbol of violence instead. But the attack missed at the last second, and in the chaos that followed, he very nearly got destroyed. They might be scum, but it’s scary dealing with men who fight all the time. I didn’t expect that Horada guy to fight back the other day, either. Dammit! Dammit! “…” Ajimura paused in that line of thinking and reconsidered his actions. He lacked the self-awareness to realize he was the street attacker, but he had utter faith in his actions regardless. There was just one thing that Ajimura wondered about. When he swung his hammer of justice down upon Horada, there was one thing that felt wrong. After the first counterattack, when he got punched in return—for some reason, that Horada man was already bleeding from the head and was on the ground by the time Ajimura got back up. So who did that? He was acting alone. He told the people on his site, “That wasn’t a street attack—it was an act of justice,” but he still hadn’t told them that it was his handiwork. It was too early to reveal that yet. Still too early. Only after the unfairly poor reputation of the so-called random street attacks had been swept clean could he tell the world that he was the Dark Owl. Only then would he and OPD truly be one. The world would take on its true and proper form. With that inner monologue complete, he reached the answer to his suspicions. What if that was actually the work of a fan of OPD…a fan of me? Perhaps it was a like-minded fellow, a sympathetic comrade, who laid Horada out on the ground. He’d chosen Horada because he was a famous ruffian in the area, according to the stories the folks on his site repeated. Or maybe it was just someone who had a pure, personal grudge against Horada. But whether coincidence or fate, someone had come out of the shadows to help. What could that be if not evidence that the world had chosen him for its noble quest? Ajimura’s head bobbed with great determination. He was doing this for OPD. Even if he wound up arrested, the police wouldn’t charge him with much. After all, he was merely doing what the police should have been doing all along. He chuckled to himself as he packed up his Boston bag. He simply laughed. Man, this is fun. This really is my true life at last. Only by dipping into the thrill of attacking people on the street did he feel alive, for the first time in his life. And to keep that feeling going, he headed out once again—the weight of the wrapped-up hammer hidden in the second compartment of the bag pressing against the palm of his hand. Evening—outside Yahiro’s apartment Yahiro returned to his apartment building as the sun was going down. “Yo. Seems like you had a good day out on the town again,” said Saburo Togusa, who had been humming as he washed his van, upon seeing Yahiro’s arrival. “Yes, I did a lot of traveling around.” “Where’d you go?” “Ummm…to the Holy Article Hall and stuff like that…” Yahiro didn’t really feel a necessity to hide where he’d been. “Ah, the one with the Taiwanese restaurant? Dragon Zombie likes to hang out there, so be careful you don’t get dragged into a fight, hear?” “Uh, right,” said Yahiro vaguely, sensing that he probably shouldn’t mention who he was meeting there. “Hmm… They say people are getting attacked on the street, so watch out for that, too.” “Thank you, I will.” Yahiro soon realized that he’d never actually asked Saburo what he knew about the street attacker. “There was someone attacking people on the street before, wasn’t there?” “Hmm? Oh…you mean the slasher?” Togusa’s eyes narrowed just a bit. Yahiro did not miss it. It wasn’t the disturbed look of someone talking about violence but a look of deep, emotional connection. Huh? Does Saburo…know something about the slasher? He was considering how he might ask further about this, but it was at that very moment that his phone buzzed with an incoming call. “Hello, this is Mizuchi speaking.” “Oh, heya! This is Karisawa. You doing anything tonight, Yappy?” “Ah, good evening,” he said, realizing that Yappy was probably supposed to be her nickname for him. But he couldn’t be sure, so he offered a hesitant “Er, I suppose so?” “Oh, really? Well, the holiday week is over, so why don’t we meet up to compare notes?” “…Okay, that sounds like a good idea.” Yahiro figured it would be good to hear what others had learned, too. If the attacks kept happening, it really was going to have an effect on OPD sooner or later. “All right, cool. Well, I’d like to introduce you to some folks, so could you make it to Tokyu Hands soon? Kuocchi’s got something keeping him from making it today. What about you?” “Yes, no problem. Well, I’ll see you there.” Yahiro ended the call, then spun right around on his heel. “Sorry, Saburo, I’ve got to head out again.” “Damn, being a student is busy work, huh? Just watch out for the—,” Togusa started to say, until he was interrupted by his phone. He put it to his ear and said, “Oops, sorry about that… Who, them?” Yahiro didn’t want to interrupt his conversation, so he simply bowed and made to leave, except that Togusa said, “Okay, got it. I’ll head right over… Oh, hang on, Yahiro!” He ended the call and stopped the younger boy. “Are you heading toward Ikebukuro Station?” “Uh, yes. To Sixtieth Floor Street.” “Cool! Perfect timing.” “?” To Yahiro’s surprise, Saburo opened the door of his van. “A friend just called me over there, too. Hop in, and I’ll give you a ride.” Shinra’s apartment, evening As the six o’clock news played in the background, Celty offered Shinra a comment. “I know I’m not exactly finding the attacker, either, but you’d really expect the police to nab this guy by now.” For one thing, it would take a huge load off her shoulders if the police caught them first. She wouldn’t be able to fulfill the request from Yumasaki and Karisawa, but they couldn’t complain too much if the cops caught the bad guy. The same was probably true for Shizuo. There was still the faint chance that Shizuo might storm the jail and pound the culprit into dust, but he seemed to feel that he owed the police something, so she thought it was unlikely he’d do anything that drastic. Which meant that the most peaceful solution of all was for the police to make a clean arrest of the street attacker. That was her hope, at least. But Shinra only said, “Uh, sure. It’ll probably take a bit longer, though.” “Why? They just have to track down whoever’s bought those pajamas, right? And aren’t they in a better position to do that than anyone else?” “…Well, that’s the thing about those kigurumi pajamas.” “What about them?” she asked, not seeing his point. Shinra exhaled deeply. “They’re a big trend around Ikebukuro. I bet several hundred people have bought a set.” “…Huh?” “They sold the pajamas as fan merch, but when the first rumors of the incident started online, people bought a ton of them, fearing they’d all get taken down. And when some stores doing retail honored the request to stop selling, others with a huge stock started selling them online instead. Ha-ha-ha.” “Wha-wha-wha…?” She nearly fell to her knees, but Shinra wasn’t done yet. “On top of that, there are people online involved in some very unsavory games, knowing that you’ll really stand out by wearing them now. So when the police think they’ve found the attacker, it turns out to just be some teenagers wearing the outfit. It’s happened several times already.” “If they’re messing around like that, they should just be arre—” Only calm reason stopped Celty from finishing that sentence. I really shouldn’t be saying that and tempting fate, she thought, envisioning the traffic cop who always chased her, and she shivered. She revised. “…I can’t believe they don’t have anything better to do…” “Yeah. Apparently, there’s a bunch of online trolls who called themselves Underars.” “Underars?” Celty repeated. It sounded oddly familiar. “Yep. So the Dollars are gone, right? These are the kids who can’t seem to accept that yet, so they made a new anonymous online group to replace them. They throw tags on the street and call it guerrilla art; they scatter daikon radish seeds in empty lots around the city; they do all kinds of stuff.” “People do that?” “I’m guessing it’s a combination of Under, like ‘underground,’ and Dollars. Under-ars. Unde-rars. What’s rars?” “Plan.” “Huh?” Shinra said, baffled by Celty’s response. “There’s a word that sounds similar in Icelandic, ráð. It means ‘plan’ or ‘advice.’ Things like that.” “Wow, I had no idea! You’re so smart, Celty! You even know Scandinavian words!” “Yeah, someone I knew from waaaay back had a nickname that started with the same sound…but that’s neither here nor there. The issue at hand is the attacker,” she said, abruptly changing the topic and making a sighing gesture. “So the clothes have an excuse. But there’s no excuse for the hammer, right?” “Well, true. But there are ways to hide that, right? Attach something hard and heavy to the end of a stick and wrap it up with a bandage. You could make one with a pestle and a rock, as easy as that.” “…So it seems harder to search for than I thought…” “Now, if they catch the guy in the act, it’s a no-brainer. I could be bait, Celty,” Shinra suggested. She jabbed his forehead with a finger. “Well, how are you going to lure the attacker? And you’re not allowed to do something that dangerous, even if it works.” “Even though you do dangerous things, Celty? You’re so selfish.” “That’s right. I’m being selfish. Is that not allowed?” “Of course it’s allowed. But I might just be selfish in return,” he said with an impish grin. Then he smacked his fist into his palm. “That’s it! It’ll take time, but I know how to ensure we find the attacker!” “Really?” “Yep. First, I’ll use Saika on every person in Ikebukuro, then…” “Never mind,” she said, not bothering to listen to the rest. She was just going back to the drawing board when her notification alert went off. “Speak of the devil, there’s my employer.” “Yumasaki?” “That’s my client. My employer, as I mentioned earlier…is that Kotonami boy,” Celty explained, opening the message. The text was brief and simple. “I will capture the attacker tonight. Please come to my apartment building.” Ikebukuro—night Youko Shirobishi was panicked. Everything was supposed to go well. This was supposed to be the perfect target. How did it come to this? The young man’s voice cut through her confusion. “Heh-heh-heh, I never expected to be made a target… I guess I really am the chosen hero, guided by two-dimensional fate and destiny! It won’t be long until I get into a car accident and end up reincarnated into another world!” Standing before her was a narrow-eyed young man holding a fire-spewing fire extinguisher. Youko thought as hard as she could, while the man prattled on about nonsense she didn’t understand. How had she gotten into this predicament? Ten minutes earlier Youko was walking around Ikebukuro, searching for the day’s sacrifice, when she found the thing she hated most at the moment. Owl of the Peeping Dead. The wicked cause of all this evil continued to fill the city with its malevolent energy. While it wasn’t quite the smash hit it was at the start of the street attacks, the return of the live-action movie to theaters was a sign of its popularity, and there were still posters around the neighborhood. How can anyone be smiling while this is going on? she thought with outrage. The world was so unfair. She had to be the one to correct it. She continued on her way, glaring at her surroundings, seeking a sacrifice. On the final night of the holiday week, with the workday coming up in the morning, there was considerably less foot traffic than there had been the night before. Prior to now, she hadn’t chosen any particular targets—simply those who were easiest to attack. Could that have been a mistake, however? Maybe she ought to be acting with a firm, clear purpose. With that idea in mind, she murmured to herself, “Yes, that’s right… That’s true… It’s why that pharisee got ahead of me,” referring to her label for the other false attacker. Hatred shone in her eyes, hatred toward a singular target in the scene around her. A van parked in a lot. A van with a picture from some manga plastered on its door. Ugh, it makes me feel sick. Manga on the side of your car. Her hatred for OPD had developed into a hatred of all things anime, and she stared at the group surrounding the van with utter loathing. One of them, a young man with narrow eyes holding an OPD fan, was in a state of agitation. Look, there’s one of the scum now! She walked closer, until she could hear what the young man was insisting on. “My point is—! We need to get the word out that OPD isn’t at fault for any of this! The street attacker’s just an OPD hater! A hater trying to ruin OPD’s spotless reputation!” Youko abruptly felt as though someone had knocked the wind out of her. The man’s accusation was accurate, and it made her worry they knew who she was. Next, her head swooned. It was impossible for her to fathom that there were still people under the mistaken belief that OPD was innocent. How can there be such an idiot in Ikebukuro? The question of whether OPD was guilty or innocent had been settled long ago. Youko had delivered her verdict and found it guilty. How could Owl of the Peeping Dead possibly be more malicious? Its very existence had forced her into the act of attacking people on the street. If the thing that turned me into a violent attacker isn’t evil, then what is?! There might not have been a single, objectively logical thought left in her mind. Nevertheless, her brain worked as a system guiding her toward one goal. She made her choice. She chose today’s sacrifice—the street attacker’s victim. And then her logic completed its loop. This was not punishment but salvation. He had eyes for nothing but this evil malignancy, but her blow would awaken him. And then the foolish, wicked believers would finally learn their lesson. They would see what a tragic end awaited them by the example of their fellow. And then they would be saved. They would be redeemed. At least in her mind. She was already contradicting her train of thought from just a few seconds earlier, but she would not be dissuaded from her goal. Youko set her sights on the narrow-eyed man. She waited at a distance; her timing was good because their group was just splitting up, and within a few minutes, the man left them and headed toward the busier part of town. Ah, yes. Everything is working to make my quest easier. This is solid proof that I am doing the right thing. I should have been carefully choosing my sacrifices! The only thing she shared in common with the other street attacker was a belief that the world itself was on her side. She watched the man go and waited for her opportunity to arrive. Once he was in a reasonably secluded area, she began her preparations. The man received a call at that point, and he pulled his phone out and proceeded to hold a conversation. Youko considered this her chance. She took off her outerwear, immediately producing a different kind of fabric from underneath. Within just a few seconds, she was dressed in the Dark Owl costume she wore under her regular clothes, and she snuck up on the man from behind. She started slow. Then she got faster. Holding her breath to make as little noise as possible, she pulled out the bandaged hammer hidden under her outfit, then raised it high overhead. But in the next moment… “Look out!” A distant shout drew the narrow-eyed man’s attention toward his rear. “What?” he said, holding the phone, face slack—and that was when he met eyes with Youko, standing behind him, hammer raised. They both stared. “…” “…” “Die!” Youko snarled, after briefly drawing a blank. She swung down the hammer. “Whaaa—?!” the man yelped, dodging just in the nick of time and landing on his bottom in the street. I can get him! She glanced behind her and saw two figures running toward her, but they were still too far away. She had plenty of time to hit the man and escape. In fact, at this point she didn’t even need to get away. The most important thing of all was to turn this owl-worshipping scum into a human sacrifice. If she got caught, the police, courts, and society itself would be understanding. They would realize that the wicked owl caused her to do this. And that would lead to the necessary restrictions even faster. She had to create this final sacrifice in order to bring it all about. She earnestly believed this was necessary for a healthy future for Ikebukuro. That was why she did not hesitate to swing her hammer down at the man sitting on the asphalt. There was no point or need to worry about a nonfatal blow. All that mattered was to make sure her swing left the man unmoving. However… Gank! Something loudly struck the hammer in her hand. “?!” She looked at her target with shock and saw that the narrow-eyed man had instantly removed his backpack and held it up as a shield against her hammer. Still, something felt off about the impact it made. That unnerved and confused her. It was as though his backpack was full of metal of some kind. And in the next moment, her confusion thawed, and a new question arose in her mind. “The attacker…,” murmured the narrow-eyed man as he pulled something out of the backpack. …A…fire…extinguisher…? It was so out of place for the situation that she wasn’t sure what to think. Until the very next moment when flames poured out of the fire extinguisher. Just minutes before, the boy who later shouted the warning was seated in the back of Togusa’s van. “Man…I can’t believe you know them.” Saburo Togusa sighed from the driver’s seat. He’d driven to the meeting spot to drop Yahiro off, but the boy actually greeted Karisawa and Yumasaki first, which was Togusa’s first inkling that they’d all met already. “What?! Why is Yahiro getting out of Togucchi’s van?! Is that a magic trick?!” Karisawa exclaimed. “It might be sorcery…or some kind of psychic recognition-manipulation power!” Yumasaki said. “Huh? You guys know Saburo?” Yahiro asked. “Know him? We were planning to introduce you to him today!” “Oh, I see. Well, I’m actually staying at the Togusas’ apartment building…” “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait just a minute! What’s up with you guys?!” Once the dust had settled and everyone had a chance to explain themselves, Togusa finally accepted the situation. The group concluded brief introductions, and then Yumasaki and Karisawa kicked out the vehicle’s driver so they could hold a “secret discussion” inside, using the van as a meeting room. Togusa was chagrined, but he said it “always happened this way” and stepped outside with the last member of the group. Well, if he’s doing something with those two, it’s gotta be something otaku related. In fact, he low-key looks like a kid who reads a lot of manga. Maybe he’s doing doujinshi or cosplay or somethin’. Still…poor kid, catching their attention. Togusa felt conflicted about this development, knowing how dangerous the pair of them could be in the right circumstances. On the other hand, when they were just indulging their hobbies, they were well-behaved, and the pair were experts in their field. It’s not like I can tell him not to hang out with them. But if something should go wrong…what would I tell the family…? He walked around, thinking hard, and returned a while later to see that they had left the van after finishing their secret business. Karisawa was stopping by Tokyu Hands before going home, so Yumasaki headed off on his own. Well, there are plenty of folks making doujinshi who don’t tell their families about it, I hear. Guess I don’t need to bother him by asking about it. As he left the parking garage, Saburo spoke over his shoulder to Yahiro. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing with those guys, and I’m not gonna pry…but choose your friends wisely, okay?” “Thanks. This helped me realize that they’re safe and cool. I’m not a good judge of character, but when I learned you were friends with them, that settled it for me.” “Uh…well…,” Togusa stammered, no idea what to say. The guy in the passenger seat laughed. “Ha! He’s got you there, Togusa.” “Yeah, I know, but…” The other guy, who wore a bandanna around his head, was someone Yumasaki and Karisawa had already introduced to Yahiro. But because they took Yahiro out right afterward, he’d hardly spoken a word to the man. Kadota sensed that Yahiro was feeling awkward around him, so he turned back and said, “Let me introduce myself again. I’m Kadota. I’ve known this guy for years now. And I’ve been to your apartment building a couple times.” “Oh, I see. I’m Yahiro Mizuchi. It’s nice to meet you.” “Mizuchi’s a strange name. Where are you from?” “Akita Prefecture.” “Wow. That’s pretty far away from here.” Saburo chuckled and told him, “Get this. Right after he came here to Ikebukuro, he went out and got beat up by Shizuo.” “What? Are you serious?” “Yes,” Yahiro admitted. Kadota’s eyes bulged. “Why would you piss him off?” “Well…it was my fault. My friend from class coincidentally happened to make him mad… I tried to stop him, and then it turned into a fight.” “Ah, so that’s how it happened.” Kadota still found it curious that Yahiro described it as a fight, but he offered advice as a resident of Ikebukuro regardless. “Listen, he’ll get pissed real quick, but he’s not unreasonable. As long as you apologize, he’ll forgive you.” “That’s what Saburo told me. I want to give him a proper apology the next time we meet.” “That’s a good idea.” Saburo grimaced and explained, “The thing is, he got beat up by Shizuo, got right to his feet, and walked home, then went to school like normal the next day. That’s pretty impressive, don’t you think?” “Damn…that is impressive.” Kadota stared at him in amazement. Yahiro played it down. “No, it was just luck. I didn’t get hit in dangerous spots, I guess you’d say…” It was certainly the honest truth from his perspective, but Kadota was utterly confused; he wasn’t able to imagine this timid-looking boy having the hardy muscles needed to withstand that kind of punishment. “I dunno, though,” he murmured. “Then again, they say Shizuo’s mellowed out a lot lately…” Kadota was planning to drop the subject and talk about more mundane topics, when he noticed that Yahiro was turning his head, looking intently out the window. “What’s up? Did you forget something?” “No…” Yahiro paused for a few moments, looked around a little more, then asked, “Um, which direction is Yumasaki’s house?” “Huh? He’s right in the middle of the residential area north of here… Why?” “Is that a pretty busy area?” “Well, it’s residential, so at this hour…probably not?” It was already after ten o’clock. If you weren’t in the busy commercial areas, that was an hour of day when people were already home. “Do you mind letting me off here? And tell me the way to get to his house.” “Huh? Hey, what’s up? You’ve got school tomorrow, right? Don’t stay out all night,” Saburo warned, out of concern for his tenant’s school performance. But with some consternation, shouting quickly as though he had no time, Yahiro replied, “I hope I’m just mistaken about this…but I think someone’s after Yumasaki and Karisawa.” “Huh?” repeated Saburo, but Yahiro was already taking something dark out of his bag. He bowed and said gravely, “Please just let me out. I’ll explain later. And if you could, call Yumasaki and tell him to keep an eye out… I just realized I only exchanged numbers with Karisawa.” “Okay, but—,” Togusa stammered, but Kadota saw the look in Yahiro’s eyes and cut him off. “Stop at the corner up there.” “Come on—are you serious?” “I know where he lives. It’s quicker to run from this point than turn the car around,” Kadota insisted, removing his seat belt so he could join Yahiro. “I’ll show you the way. Follow me.” That was what led to the present moment. Youko batted at her clothes in a panic; she could sense that parts of them were burning. Then she gripped her hammer again, feeling a cold sweat break out over her face beneath the hood that hid it. What is this? What’s going on?! Meanwhile, Yumasaki’s palms were also slick. He really didn’t think he’d actually become the street attacker’s target. He’d modified a fire extinguisher into a homemade flamethrower and had been carrying it around ever since Kadota got hit by that car and the group had gone searching for the culprit. For the last few days, he’d been fantasizing about being targeted by the attacker, so when he walked the streets alone, he always had a counterattacking plan at the forefront of his mind. It was basically no different from being a student and thinking, If a terrorist came into this classroom right now, this is the coolest way I could possibly fight them off! There was never any terrorist attack on his school—but here and now, that fantasy had been realized. If a normal human being was faced with an actual terrorist or random street attacker, they wouldn’t be able to react according to the fantasy. They’d freeze up in a panic. But Yumasaki was not exactly a normal person. That was the only difference. On the one hand, you had the famous street attacker, carrying a hammer. On the other hand, a young man carrying a modified flame-throwing fire extinguisher, muttering bizarre statements to himself. Normally they would both need to be arrested, but that did not matter to Yumasaki. If he could stop the attacker’s spree of violence, it would be worth the arrest for excessive self-defense. As he pulled the lever on the weapon, he reminded himself that when he got arrested, he should claim he was definitely not a fan of OPD and that he enjoyed getting his sick thrills from watching disaster clips on the news and not from manga. Flame burst from the nozzle. The attacker’s limbs flopped and flailed as they backed away. “Now behave yourself! It’s time to face the music!” “What…what is this? It’s not fair!” said a woman’s voice, which was momentarily surprising to Yumasaki, but it did not stop him from pointing the extinguisher’s nozzle at her. “Not fair? How rude! Who decided that you couldn’t use a flamethrower with the Brawling skill?!” he bellowed. The attacker shrieked hysterically, “I don’t understand what you’re saying, you sick freak!” “Says the person attacking people on the street! Get arrested and face justice, and then you’ll look like the zombies you’ve disgraced! We’ll see how you like it then!” “What are you going to do to me, you sick freak?!” “I’ll be the one asking the questions…and I’ll take my sweet time doing it!” While they bantered back and forth, Yumasaki spotted people running in their direction. They were too far away to make out by sight, but from their outfits, he recognized Yahiro and Kadota. Yahiro was closer than Kadota, so Yumasaki shouted, “Yahi… Ah, watch out, it’s dangerous!” He very nearly let Yahiro’s name slip in the presence of the street attacker but had the quick thinking to switch to something else. He’d heard about Yahiro’s reputation, but he couldn’t tell a high schooler to help him fight the violent attacker—plus, he could handle this one by himself. So Yumasaki’s initial plan was to get her to drop her weapon, then have Kadota tie her up—except that he was caught off guard by what the approaching boy yelled back. “Look out! Behind you!” “Huh?” Yumasaki recognized extreme consternation in the boy’s voice, so he turned quickly, while keeping the nozzle of the extinguisher pointed at the attacker. And there stood a figure dressed in the kigurumi pajama outfit of the Dark Owl—raising a bandaged hammer in preparation to swing it at Yumasaki. That moment—Ikebukuro Shouya Ajimura leisurely followed his target: a delinquent youth walking down a secluded street without a care in the world. Walking the streets at night when the street attacker is out on the prowl? These delinquents are so stupid. Ajimura chuckled to himself as he approached. He had a very clear reason for choosing this boy as a target. It was because they bumped into each other in town, and the boy said to Ajimura, “Ow. Don’t rub your stank-ass sweat on me.” Despite the fact that the other guy had bumped into Ajimura, he had complained and insulted him in an arrogant manner. The boy was so much younger, he might have been an entire rotation of the Chinese zodiac behind Ajimura. He found it annoying but also gratifying. Could it have been a gift from God? Or was the city itself bringing him a sacrifice? It was hard to believe his luck, being greeted by a remorseless target for justice so directly and without hesitation. Ordinarily, he would have preferred to go after a more infamous delinquent, but it was best not to push his luck now. He’d just failed in his attack on Shizuo Heiwajima’s friend, after all. So Ajimura very carefully trailed the boy, until the area around them looked more and more like an ideal place for him to conduct his violent “fan activities.” They were far from the shopping district now. When the youth began to loiter alone in a nearby park, Ajimura stealthily slipped into the shadows. Apartment building fences left open. Narrow back alleys. Piles of materials left stacked at random. It would be nearly impossible to change outfits in the commercial area near the train station, but here in these secluded streets, it was a different story. Ajimura had put on the pajama onesie before leaving home. But he had the hood pulled back and hidden inside his jacket, leaving only the black bottoms of the kigurumi visible. The bottoms were made of completely black material, so it was hard to distinguish them from ordinary tracksuit pants or sweats. In a darkened street at night, that kind of distinction was impossible to make. It took only a second for Ajimura to remove the jacket, completing his outfit. Then he slipped the jacket inside of his onesie, making his stomach look bulged. Thus, by pulling his hood over his head, he turned into the Dark Owl just seconds after slipping into the shadows. Once he was certain there was no one else around, he approached the delinquent from behind, undetected. Just like always. There was no reason to hesitate. He had to make up for his failure to hit Shizuo Heiwajima’s friend. He squeezed the hammer, feeling its reassuring sturdiness in his palm. This is it. This is the sensation. The elation that grips my entire being. Like I’m not myself. But that’s wrong. This is the real me, the Dark Owl. I am the real Dark Owl. Step by step, he snuck closer. That’s right, I have a companion. He looked at the figure of the Dark Owl, standing next to the delinquent, and nodded firmly. A companion who will help…me… The Dark Owl was looking back at him. Me? …Me—me—me—me—me??????????? There was a Dark Owl there, a Dark Owl who was not him. Ajimura was baffled. Wh-who, who, who? The real thing! Is that…the real…street attacker?! Or are they a c-collaborator? A helper of mine? Which, wh-wh-wh-which? Even in his mind, he couldn’t keep himself from stammering. Sweat suddenly flooded from all his pores, making the inside of his suit a clammy mess. And while he stood rooted to the spot with mental shock, the other Dark Owl lifted their hammer high… And swung it down on the delinquent youth. After the briefest of pauses, the boy crumpled to the ground in the middle of the park. That was when Ajimura understood. Standing there across from him was a fellow agent of justice. The world was being born anew—for his sake. Ikebukuro Station—east gate exit “You sure about this, Mr. Horada? Didn’t they say you’d be hospitalized through next week?” “Don’t play games with my natural healing ability, shithead,” Horada snarled. Bandages were wrapped all around his body, and he walked with a very distinct and awkward limp. Around him, his younger companions shared worried, uncertain looks. He wasn’t in any state to be walking around, but if he stayed at the hospital, Izumii was likely to show up again, so he practically threatened the doctor into letting him leave. Belatedly, he realized that might tip off the police, but dealing with them would still be better than waiting where Izumii could sneak into his room at night and break his bones with a hammer. So Horada decided to leave and dragged his followers with him around Ikebukuro, in search of the street attacker in person. “But, Mr. Horada, you don’t think we’ll find the attacker hanging out right outside the station, do you?” “How the hell should I know? Some folks got hit by the slasher right near the station, don’t ya remember?” “Well, yeah, that’s true. But while a lot of the street attacks happened around Ikebukuro, they’re also happening in Shinjuku and Setagaya and stuff. I don’t think sticking to this one area is gonna turn up anything,” complained a companion who’d spent half a day walking around with him. Ugh…these idiots… I feel like they’re not takin’ me as seriously since Shizuo whupped my ass… The terror of nearly dying in that attack flooded back into his mind. It even made the bruises he got from the street attacker throb. But the youngsters had no idea what kind of hell (of his own making) he’d been through, and they remained skeptical. “Is it really true there were over five attackers?” “What? What are you saying? You think I was bullshitting about that? Huh?!” he snarled, menacing the younger guy. But because of his wounds, his movement was unsteady and unimpressive, undercutting the intended effect. “No, I’m just saying, if there are that many of them, they’ll stand out. If they were changing into the outfit off to the side, there couldn’t be more than one or two…” The younger guy stopped there, staring at the crowd around them with a slack look on his face. “Hmm? Hey, what’s up?” Horada asked him, then looked in the same direction. There was black there. It was right outside the station. In the midst of the bright lights, a black figure stood still. And the moment he saw it, Horada’s face paled. “Wha…ah…kah…” The Dark Owl. The attacker who smashed him with its hammer was standing right there. It was night, but the last train had not yet passed, and there were still a fair number of people coming and going from Ikebukuro Station. People glanced suspiciously at the Dark Owl, but they figured the attacker wouldn’t simply stand around in front of the station and treated it like some kind of tasteless attempt at an OPD promotional stunt. There was one other reason that the people thought it was just a prank or a promotion. “Th-th-th-th-there you are! H-hey, you guys, protect me!” Horada ordered. The fact that he said “protect me” instead of “attack” was an effective demonstration of his weakened state of mind. “B-but, Mr. Horada, look… There!” said another one of his followers, pointing. “H-huh?!” There was another Dark Owl. “A-and over there, too!” There was another. “L-look!” And another. Just in the vicinity of the station exit, there were at least five Dark Owls present. Wh…wh-wh-what’s going on?! Horada was in a total panic. A follower said, “Th-there really are a bunch of them… I’m sorry, sir! I’m sorry for doubting you, Mr. Horada!” “Huh? Oh yeah. Good. As long as you get it, that’s all that matters.” There was a saying in Japan about lies that turn into truth. This was one truth he really didn’t need. Horada began to wonder if he’d gotten himself into a situation that was truly dangerous. “Wh-what should we do, Mr. Horada?!” “Wh-what the hell can we do…?” he replied. A few heartbeats later, after a quick scan of the entrance area, he spotted several more Dark Owls and turned on his heel with alacrity. “Run for it!” “Hey! W-wait up, Mr. Horada!” Horada fled right back into the station, but because he was injured and could barely walk, his friends overtook him in moments. “H-hey! No, hang on… Don’t leave me behind, dammit!” Himeka’s room “What is this…?” After preparing her stuff for school the next morning, Himeka spent some time looking on the Internet for more information on the street attacks. On a social media app called Twittia, she spotted some very odd information being traded. At the moment, Ikebukuro was apparently overflowing with Dark Owls. In fact, there were smartphone pics here and there, which suggested that there were quite a number of people dressed up as the Dark Owl, strolling about the area. They didn’t seem to be doing anything, least of all getting violent, but the reaction online suggested that people found it to be a very nasty prank. “…” Himeka got her cell phone so that she could call Yahiro about it. She scrolled through her call history until she found Yahiro’s number, then pressed the call button. “The number you have called is not currently available. Please try again later…” “…” Himeka had a bad feeling about this. She looked out the window. In the distance, she could see the light from the Sunshine building. She balled her hands into fists with concern for her friend. “I hope nothing’s happened to Yahiro…” Kami-Ikebukuro—on the street At that very moment, Yahiro’s phone was not in any state to take a call—not after it had suffered a violent blow. It was no longer working. It was a smartphone and not a kind that was especially resistant to impact, so he didn’t know if it would ever work again. But he’d gotten a lesson from Kuon and taken out a cloud storage backup, so if he could get it repaired, he would probably be able to recover all his data. The repairs would be costly, but at the moment, Yahiro wasn’t worried about that. He was too busy focusing on the threat of the second street attacker in front of them. But the price of Yahiro’s smartphone paid for Yumasaki’s chance to dodge the attacker in the eleventh hour. A few seconds earlier, a hammer was going to swing down upon his head—but Yahiro’s phone hurtled at incredible speed and struck the weapon. Knowing that he couldn’t get there in time, Yahiro used the one thing on hand he could throw: his expensive phone. It was a flat, rectangular device, not a conveniently shaped ball. Whether his successful strike was out of innate skill or just plain good luck, the phone hit its target square enough and hard enough that the hammer bounced back upward out of the way. “…” The second attacker looked toward Yahiro in apparent surprise—then craned their neck with suspicion. Yumasaki, who’d slipped away from the attackers and brandished his fire extinguisher again, glanced at Yahiro and exclaimed with great surprise. “…Did you transform?!” As his words suggested, Yahiro was Yahiro, but he was not Yahiro. He didn’t want the attacker to see his face. Or if necessary, he did not want anyone else to see him committing great violence against the attacker. This cowardly idea came from his conversation with Libei, when the other man suggested that a mysterious figure defeating the street attacker would remove all suspicion of gang warfare. So as he rushed over here, he’d taken out something he always kept in his bag. It was a mysterious black fabric that had almost no weight at all. The fabric formed a black mask and overcoat, a present from Celty Sturluson. In combination with his black pants, it meant Yahiro was almost entirely covered in black. So if anything, he looked like a shadow man right now. Writhing, flickering shadow that moved like dry ice wreathed Yahiro’s body, as though it were competing with the Headless Rider’s suit of darkness. This figure looked far more alien than the attacker. The latest urban legend of Ikebukuro, Snake Hands, was not just a formless legend. It was here on the street, taking actual form—to face off against the street attackers. The irony was that he wore the mask of shadow as a result of his own cowardice, but it only gave the residential area a more distinct and memorable visual. Two Dark Owls. Snake Hands, the phantom. And a civilian with a flame-throwing fire extinguisher. Kadota showed up a few moments later, took in the scene around him, and uttered the only thing anyone could say about it. “…What the fuck?” But while the situation might have appeared absurd, Yahiro’s body was blaring with warning signals on the inside. Is it possible I’ve been mistaken about this? The concern shot through his body in the span of an instant. This wasn’t just some incident of a person attacking others on the street. At first, he thought that the worst possible answer would be that it was part of a turf war between punks. But what if the truth made that look like child’s play? What if these street attacks were something that had been intentionally orchestrated? What if the person he was looking at wasn’t even a real street attacker but something else? Various possibilities crossed his mind, and a chill similar to pain shot through all of Yahiro’s cells. The reason was simple. It was not because of the eeriness of seeing two attackers at once. This was something that went beyond just the street attacks. The problem was the second Dark Owl. Something about the way it stood there and acted set Yahiro’s entire being on edge. “Ahyeeaaaahh!” The original attacker who had gone after Yumasaki let out a screech and jumped into motion. “Oh! Hang on!” Yumasaki blurted out, trying to stop them—until the other attacker blocked his path. “Damn! Using clone techniques is no fair! I gotta sterilize you, impostor!” He pulled the lever of his tool without a second thought. If he’d used full pressure, the extinguisher was designed to spit fire between five and ten yards, but even Yumasaki had enough sense not to start a huge fire in this residential area. Of course, it was tempting to say that he didn’t have much sense for bringing a flame-throwing extinguisher into that residential area originally—or for creating a flame-throwing extinguisher in the first place. But that was one of the ways in which Yumasaki was missing a screw from the very beginning. The moderated flame shot toward the second attacker, but they ducked down and actually slipped forward into the range of the flame. “?!” To Yumasaki’s shock, the Dark Owl slipped past the flame. With inhuman speed and reflexes, they nimbly avoided the waves of fire and snuck right within reach of Yumasaki. From his perspective, it was like the figure simply teleported toward him. Could this be…? He was inclined to compare it to some technique from anime or manga, but the attacker didn’t give him enough time to think, attacking Yumasaki from below. It was a rising uppercut. An attack sure to knock him unconscious if it connected… But just before the blow struck home, Yahiro kicked the arm out of the way from the side. The kick threw off the path of the swing, causing the uppercut punch to only graze Yumasaki’s cheek and slip past him. …! I knew it! That was all the confirmation he needed. The Dark Owl he was now facing was an enemy on an impossible level. Yahiro’s kick was intended to bowl over his enemy sideways. But all it succeeded at doing was slightly budging the path of the punch. This fighter had incredible core balance and powerful limbs. When he lived in Akita, Yahiro had to deal with people who had martial arts training—this opponent felt reminiscent of those sorts of opponents. However, while their general style might be similar, the difficulty couldn’t be more different. The self-styled martial artists back home broke down very easily, but the Dark Owl here didn’t seem likely to back off from any number of kicks. The alarms that had been sounding in Yahiro’s mind were very similar to what he heard when facing off against Shizuo. I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared scared scared scared scaredscaredscaredscaredscared sc a r ed scared. It’s the same. The same as with Shizuo. He’s strong. Strong strong strong. This person might be able to kill me. That moment of recognition caused fear to overtake his body. For the first time in ages, a single sensation rose from his gut, overwhelming and undeniable: I have to finish him off before he kills me. When he fought Shizuo, he didn’t feel the same level of deadly malice. There was rage within the young man, that much was certain, and it was earned, but there was nothing like that from this figure. It was as terrifying as a naked blade jutting out of the ground. One wrong step and everything would be over. The identity of this Dark Owl didn’t matter anymore. “…Step back please,” he said to Yumasaki, then produced his next attack. It was a fierce chop toward the vicinity of the Dark Owl’s throat. But the Dark Owl did a huge backflip to avoid it, putting itself several yards away all at once. It looked like the figure’s upper half was bent backward at an angle over ninety degrees in the act of dodging the chop. The flexibility and control to take that into a backflip rather than straightening up was remarkable. Ugh, I want to run away. I want to run away, Yahiro thought. If he ran away and hid under his blanket and went to sleep, how reassured could he be about his safety? They hadn’t seen his face. They didn’t know his name. That was the key to his security. But if I run away now, he thought, gritting his teeth and stepping forward, Yumasaki and Kadota are in big trouble. And even if we all escape…it just means someone else I care about might be next. And that’s even more frightening than any of this. He drew that line in his mind and tightened the screws again. Then he took a leap. His feet launched him forward off the asphalt, attempting to catch his opponent off guard. Yahiro raced across the ground, feeling the fluid in his body collecting toward the back. He jumped at an angle. His feet hit the side wall, as though he were running sideways, and he used that surface to leap to a height of ten feet. The idea was to zoom toward his target so he could kick that head like a soccer ball. But the man ducked at the last second, avoiding the kick. Yahiro’s shoe grazed the top of the hood, sending a few fizzling and singed fibers flying into the air. And without stopping, Yahiro deflected off the far wall, bouncing toward the Dark Owl with all his momentum. It was a flurry of fists. With all his blows, including elbows and kicks, Yahiro’s opponent lost balance a number of times. But in each case, they regained poise and flowed right into a smooth counterattack. Yahiro’s experience and instinct and reflexes helped him manage the counter, but it was enough to tell him that this fight was evenly matched. If he lost his focus for even an instant, his foe would easily knock him unconscious. That was what had happened in the fight with Shizuo. But this Dark Owl did not have Shizuo’s strength, it seemed. Instead, whether natural or the product of fighting experience, Yahiro’s opponent seemed to have an unerring sense of guesswork and deflection that made it impossible to land a good hit, and they could still fight back at times. Think. Think, think, think. He might not have Shizuo’s strength, but he’s got something near its level! The fight felt life-threatening. And his foe still held a hammer; if that hammer hit him somewhere vital, it could be fatal. I have to stop him from moving. Despite the fever pitch of their combat, Yahiro was strangely calm. Stop his legs. Stop his arms. Stop his thoughts. Stop his senses. Stop his breathing. Stop his ___. Time moved slowly. Stop his ___. It was a sensation he never felt when fighting the thugs in Akita. Stop his ___. Stop his heart. As they traded blows, there was a brief moment when his hostility toward the opponent turned deadly. Instantly, Yahiro’s attacks got just a bit sharper, and he managed to land a punch to his enemy’s face, which made the hood slip off a bit, revealing the lower half of the man’s face. He appeared to be young, with a trail of blood flowing from his mouth. He was grinning. Huh? It made Yahiro wonder what his own face looked like right now. I wonder why. When it’s so frightening… When I might die any moment now… Conflicted and uncertain of how to feel, Yahiro was able to ascertain at least one thing: what kind of face he was making. Am I…smiling? At that moment, Ikebukuro “Y-yes! Got him!” Ajimura stomped on the back of the fallen delinquent with triumph and yelled happily at the other Dark Owl. “Ha! Ha-ha! Ha-haaa! Way to go, way to go!” “…” The other Dark Owl just stared at him in silence, but Ajimura chattered on without a care. “Y-you’re the one who helped me smash that Horada scumbag the other time! Weren’t you? That was a big help! He actually had the gall to hit me! When he’s the scumbag!” “…” The other one just stared, holding its hammer. For the first time, Ajimura felt a small amount of disquiet. “H-hey, say something.” “…” By way of an answer, the other one walked slowly toward him. “…H-hey, is this a joke? You’re not gonna get me next, are you? That’s not funny!” “…” Still there was no answer. Ajimura took his foot off the thug’s back and inched away. “H-hang on! Wait, please! Huh? Aren’t you…on my side?” “…” “…! I am you! You are me! We’re both the Dark Owl, aren’t we?! OPD is the story of our lives, right! C’mon! We’re both OPD fans; we should be getting along!” “…” The other Dark Owl did not react to his speech. They slowly, slowly closed the gap with Ajimura in silence. Almost like the zombies that featured in Owl of the Peeping Dead. “Aaah, aaaaah!” When the Dark Owl’s vibe matched with that of the zombies in his mind, Ajimura succumbed to the pressure and swung his hammer at the other one’s head. With an ugly crunch, it smashed in the hood covering the Dark Owl’s skull. “Eeep?!” The hammer dented the other Owl’s head much deeper than he expected, which filled Ajimura with sudden horror. He let go of the hammer and fell backward onto his butt. He looked upward, shivering, at the other Owl. He’d certainly felt that head cave in. It was a sensation he hadn’t felt before. But with the hammer going that far in, the other person couldn’t still be alive. “Aaaaaah, it…it wasn’t my fault. Y-you shouldn’t have frightened me like that. You know? Da…za…zo…zwah…aaaaaaaaaaaah!!” His stammered excuses switched into a scream of terror. The other Dark Owl, their head half crushed, began to move. The second Owl took a smartphone from their pocket, typed a message into it, then showed Ajimura the screen. “Sorry about that.” “…H-hwah?!” “I don’t really know that much about Owl of the Peeping Dead. I was planning to see the movie, though,” typed the other Dark Owl, despite their dented head. Ajimura could only open and close his mouth fruitlessly. At that point, the other Dark Owl pulled back their hood, and Ajimura understood why the Dark Owl was able to move with their head crushed. Because there was never any head there to begin with. Shivering and rocking, Ajimura spoke the name of the creature aloud. “H…H-H-H…Headless…Rider!” “This is for earlier,” the Headless Rider typed, then transformed its hammer. The bandages split and fell away, and the hammer underneath grew two sizes larger and transformed into a comically cartoonish bopping hammer, colored black. She used the same hammer technique she’d tried out on her domestic partner, only ten times more powerful, slamming it into Ajimura’s cheek—but as he fell unconscious, he had no clue of how she’d come to be there. Celty Sturluson was not human. She was a type of fairy commonly known as a dullahan, found from Scotland to Ireland—a being that visits the homes of those close to death to inform them of their impending mortality. The dullahan carried its own severed head under its arm, rode on a two-wheeled carriage called a Cóiste Bodhar pulled by a headless horse, and approached the homes of the soon to die. Anyone foolish enough to open the door was drenched with a basin full of blood. Thus, the dullahan, like the banshee, made its name as a herald of ill fortune throughout European folklore. Tonight, she wore a slightly different face. She dressed herself in store-bought kigurumi pajamas, making herself look just like the Dark Owl street attacker. Several minutes later “…I can’t believe I got dragged into this farce.” She was in the corner of the park. Once she had confirmed there was no one else around, Celty checked up on the delinquent nearby—Kuon. The unconscious street attacker was tied up with Celty’s shadow, lying on the ground just as Kuon had been moments earlier. In short, Kuon was a decoy. He lured Ajimura, the street attacker, to a secluded place, where Celty, dressed as the street attacker, was supposed to get rid of him. The operation worked out just as planned. Kuon “passed out,” pretending to get hit by Celty, but now he was perfectly fine and cheery. “Wow, that worked out perfectly. Thank you! Is him knowing you’re the Headless Rider gonna be a problem?” Kuon had called Celty up because he had an idea of who the culprit was. She showed up at the meeting spot, where he gave her a set of Dark Owl pajamas. “See, if it gets out that the Headless Rider defeated the attacker, it means he’s going to have a big grudge against you, won’t he? Plus, if the Dark Owl captures the Dark Owl…it kind of repairs the Dark Owl’s reputation, don’t you think?” he told her. She didn’t think it would work out that cleanly, but he was the one who hired her, so she decided to go along with the plan as he hoped. In any case, everything else was a trivial matter after stopping the attacker’s reign of terror. As a result, the street attacker himself found out she was the Headless Rider, but Celty didn’t seem to be that bothered by it. “It’ll be fine. I’m used to being hated by weirdos like him.” “Hmm, okay. Sounds like a pain, though.” “But you’re not disappointed by this?” “Huh?” Kuon said, feigning ignorance. “You put together the Dark Owl kigurumi for me,” she pointed out. “You were hoping to get some footage of the Dark Owl capturing the Dark Owl, weren’t you?” “…Well, damn. Where do you think I’d be taping something like this…?” “That pen in your chest pocket is a pen-sized digital video camera, isn’t it? They sell them online now. I was really excited about my favorite old spy movies coming to life, so I bought a few, along with a glasses-frame camera.” Kuon considered joking about what use the Headless Rider would have for a glasses camera, but this probably wasn’t the time. Instead, he admitted, “Okay, fine, you got me. I had a number of cameras ready; plus, I hired some folks to keep anyone unrelated out of the area. I also had a cell phone camera recording from a distance.” “Don’t act like you should be proud of it.” “…Are you angry?” “I’m not angry. I’m just giving you a warning that this isn’t very cool of you,” Celty typed, then shrugged her shoulders to look like she was exhaling. “You shouldn’t underestimate other people. Anyone could predict you might try something like this. You’re free to use me in your moneymaking schemes, but don’t spread any videos that reveal my identity or cause people to mistakenly think I’m a kidnapper.” “…In that case, I’ll edit the part where your head gets smashed.” “I can’t believe you still want to use that footage!” “I’ll make it up to you with extra pay. Please, just let me do this,” Kuon insisted without a hint of shame. Celty felt like she was getting a better and better grasp of what kind of person he was. “It’s fine if you use other people. I happen to believe that people get by in life by using one another, but it goes both ways. I knew someone who tried to always be the manipulator, but only a special few can pull it off, and everyone hates them.” “…You mean Izaya Orihara?” “You know him?” asked Celty, surprised. Her reaction was not so much about Kuon knowing Izaya—but about the way that his smile vanished as soon as he spoke the name aloud and how his eyes brimmed with an endless chilly rage. “We have a history…” “Then you should get it, shouldn’t you? He’s not a person you want to emulate.” “He’s a real son of a bitch and the one person I hate above all others,” Kuon said, gritting his teeth. For some reason, he looked chagrined. “But even a guy like him can do good things for people… That’s all.” The look on his face left Celty speechless for a bit. She ultimately decided to change the topic rather than pursue this one further. “I see. Well, I won’t ask more. I gave you my warning. But that wasn’t my concern anyway.” “…Then what is?” “How did you know he was the culprit?” she asked, her biggest question at the moment. How did Kuon know that this man was the one responsible? The decoy tactic wouldn’t have worked at all if he didn’t know this already. “It wasn’t me. It was my sister.” “What do you mean?” Kuon looked a little guilty as he described his family’s business. “Sis’s message boards picked up this guy who was getting really worked up once the street attacks started happening. He was posting all the time, saying, ‘The Dark Owl is a good guy; he’s cleaning up all the scum in our city.’ And he would make fake accounts that agreed with him and spam the same comments over and over. Of course, Sis could see he had the same IP address the whole time…” “And that was Ajimura?” “Yes. Out of all the sites my sister runs, one of them is an aggregate for OPD information, and the guy on there had the exact same address as the admin for this really infamous so-called fan site. We did some research, and after the incident with that Horada guy recently, he was out there stressing that Horada was a delinquent well before the cops even announced it was him.” “He seems like an idiot,” Celty typed frankly. Kuon smirked and nodded. “Well, when you get to know him, yeah. Maybe the fact that he’s so stupid is how he got to attacking people on the street in the first place,” he noted dryly. “Is that all?” Celty asked. “…About what?” “If that’s all there was to him, I feel like you would have let him continue or had someone like Yahiro handle it.” It was hard to tell because it was just writing, but Kuon sensed a dry sort of tone all the same. “What are you trying to say, Celty?” “I’m saying…something happened that either you or your sister didn’t expect… Am I wrong?” “Something unexpected…? It doesn’t have to be unexpected for us to want to catch a violent criminal. Although I guess I admit it was a surprise to me that a guy who was being a pest on one of my sister’s sites turned out to be the one responsible.” Kuon blithely chatted on, delivering scattered impressions of the case, but Celty put a pin in his reminiscence with a direct question. “When I was dressed up as the Dark Owl, he said something like, ‘You helped me earlier’… What did that mean?” “Hey, I wish I knew. I suppose the rumors are true, and there are copycat attackers out there, too. Maybe he was one of them. In any case, he was still one of the attackers,” Kuon stated, setting a foot on Ajimura’s back. “If there’s anything I can do, it’s hand him over to Karisawa and her friends.” He chuckled, then took out his phone—and placed a call to Karisawa’s number. It seemed very much like he was trying to distract Celty from her line of questioning. “…Ah, hello, is this Karisawa? Hi, it’s Kuon Kotonami.” “Huh?! Kuocchi?! What’s up? I thought you said you were busy today.” “Actually, it just wrapped up… Me and Celty caught the attacker.” “Huh?!” “I’d like to hand him over to you, so I was hoping to ask for your buddy…uhhh…the driver of the van, if he could come and pick us up?” “Um…well…that would be fine…but what’s going on?” “Wh…what do you mean?” “I mean, I’m with Togucchi right now, see…” She was apparently talking on the phone while running, because there were footsteps and heavy panting as she spoke. “Togucchi just called Dotachin…and he said Yappy…I mean, Mizuchi? He’s fighting with the street attacker now…” “…Huh?” A few seconds after hanging up, still entirely baffled, Kuon got a call from a different number. “…Tatsugami?” Once again, he was confused, by the timing in this case, but he answered the call anyway. “…Hello?” “Ah, Kotonami? Have you seen what’s going on online?” “Online? No.” “They say there are Dark Owls all over the city…” “…Huuuh?!” A few minutes later, Kuon had scrolled through his timeline enough to be reeling with the news. Celty stuck out her smartphone to show him a question. “What’s up? Something else ‘unexpected’ happen?” “…No. It’s nothing.” He smiled, pretending. “It’s harder than you think to get people to act how you want,” she typed. “Izaya didn’t actually control anyone. He loved and accepted the results, no matter what they were, and that just made it look like he wanted it to turn out that way… In any case, the results were always a pain in the ass.” Oddly enough, despite claiming it was a “pain in the ass,” Celty did not seem to be all that upset. Kuon gave her a piercing glare, then opened his mouth. “Don’t act like you know what…” Then he paused, stopped himself, and looked away uncomfortably. “No…maybe you’re right…” He fell silent and resumed looking at his online feeds. Celty did not criticize or comfort him any further. She knew that saying anything more would indeed be acting like she knew what she was talking about. And what she knew about was Izaya Orihara’s past, not whatever was happening in the present. On the street, Kami-Ikebukuro “…” By the time Karisawa and Saburo reached the scene, the fight had entered a kind of stalemate. Both sides had launched into a series of attacks, neither one finding a proper finisher. At the moment, they’d taken up some distance and were watching and waiting out the other side. Yumasaki pointed his nozzle at the attacker, thinking this might be his big chance, but Kadota held out a hand to stop him. “Don’t be an idiot. He’ll just dodge it and take advantage of Yahiro instead,” he muttered. Yumasaki saw the sense in that and lowered the extinguisher. Saburo came up behind them and saw a silhouette that resembled Yahiro. “H-hey, what’s going on here?” he exclaimed. “Huh…? What is that? Why’s he wearing that dark mask… Hang on… Isn’t that Celty’s shadow…?” “A transforming hero?! Incredible! If this were a tokusatsu show, that’d be some really high-end production! Just look at the way the shadow moves!” “Uh, hang on, Karisawa. I need a second. I’m having trouble processing it…,” said Saburo, getting confused by the way she was describing the scene. Then he heard the familiar sound of a siren. “Oh, it’s the cops.” Someone in the neighborhood must have noticed the commotion from their window and called it in. At any rate, there were police sirens coming this way—that much was clear. In reaction, the Dark Owl looked at Yahiro with disappointed longing—then grinned through the gap in the ripped hood and withdrew from the scene. “Huh?! He ran away!” blurted out Yumasaki, fumbling with his fire extinguisher. He did not get the chance to blow fire at the man, though. To his shock, the Dark Owl raced directly up the wall bordering a private home, then jumped to the first-floor roof, then the second, like some kind of wild animal. Within a few moments, he was on the other side of the roof and gone. “Wh-what is that guy, a wildcat?!” exclaimed Saburo. “Maybe…the real Dark Owl came to life out of the movie…,” Yumasaki murmured absentmindedly. Then Saburo noticed the fire extinguisher in his hands and yelped, “Hey, Yumasaki! Put that thing away! We gotta go!” “What?! But the attacker—!! Th-there’s another one! They ran off!” “That comes later! None of this matters if we get arrested first!” While the others bickered and shouted, Yahiro continued to stare at the roof where the Dark Owl disappeared. “He…ran…away…?” When that realization hit him, Yahiro felt a fresh wave of sweat seep from his skin. He couldn’t tell whether it was a cold sweat of fear or simply the heat from fierce exertion. He was still in a state of bewilderment, unable to process what he’d just experienced. Then a familiar voice said, “Hey, Yahiro! What are you doing? You gotta move, too!” “Oh…right!” He saw the flashing red lights of the police cars in the distance and turned on his heel and ran. As he rushed down the street, he removed the mask and suit of shadow, folding them up into a ball he tucked under his arm. In his heart, he felt a tiny bit of relief. The threat was gone. But the fear was not. It hadn’t completely vanished. Perhaps the attacker just pretended to run away and was setting up an ambush elsewhere. Perhaps the police had actually spotted Yahiro and set up a trap. Perhaps he’d get scolded by Saburo and kicked out of the apartment. Among those typical fears, there was a new one, something freshly sprung from the soil of his psyche. He was afraid of himself for feeling an elation during his battle that was even greater than during his fight against Shizuo Heiwajima. Despite being in the midst of combat, he was aware enough to reflect on himself and feel uneasy. So Yahiro fled toward the main street in a mild panic. And that was when he heard a voice behind him say, “Yahiro.” Spinning around defensively, prepared for anything, he saw something hurtling toward him. A knife?! Acid?! A bomb?! Many possibilities passed through his mind, but his visual cortex identified the object right as his reflexes kicked in and caught the smartphone. “You forgot that on the ground back there. It seems broken. Is that gonna be a problem right now?” Yahiro looked at the other person, who was shrugging, with confusion. “Kuronuma…? What are you doing here?” Ikebukuro—on the street “Wh-what should we do, Mr. Horada?!” “Look, just get us away from the station! It’s one o’ those, uh…strategic retreats! Yeah! Then we just gotta figure out somethin’ else!” Horada shouted, sitting in the passenger seat of his follower’s car and trembling with the pain. He’d managed to get through the station to the parking lot. Now they were driving away, trying to put distance between them and the building. They were taking smaller side routes to avoid the traffic on the main streets. “Dammit… What the hell was up with them?! These guys are worse than gangbangers!” Horada exclaimed. Then his phone went off. “What?! Who the hell is calling me…now…?” He trailed off and went pale when he saw the name Izumii on the screen. He answered the call. “H-hello, Izumii! It’s Horada!” “So here’s the question.” “Y-yes, sir?” “Why would young Horada, who needed a full week in the hospital to recover, already be out of said hospital?” Izumii’s quiz set Horada’s teeth rattling. Whenever Izumii started doing his quiz routine, it tended to be when he had more screws loose than usual. If he played it poorly, he might end up worse than hospitalized. But Horada couldn’t come up with a clever answer to the question. “Well? What’s up with the attacker?” “W-well…” Youko Shirobishi ran and ran. Oh, dammit. It’s all over. All over. Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. She was in utter despair—but not because her voice had been overheard and maybe the police could find her from that. It was because of the dark shadow that appeared just before she took off. It wasn’t at all like the black costumes—more like shadow itself that turned into fabric and writhed on its own. First, it was the Headless Rider, then that bizarre other person, showing up to interfere with her mission. Oh, it’s all over. Ikebukuro is done for. The gates to hell have been opened. And now the devils are here! It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my fault. It was those scumbags. Those scum-sucking, evil bastards, lower than maggots, impure cretins who exude filth worse than the refuse of *%&^, have accepted evil into their hearts and opened the gates to hell! This city is finished. It must be finished—by my hand. Nooo, there’s still time. I must save them by my hand. Burn them all. Burn all the heretical books. I’ll buy a lighter at the store and burn all of Ikebukuro. Burn, baby, burn, baby. Burn, burn, burn. All by my hand, my hand, me, me, me, me, memememememememememememememe… She ran on in a demented charge, saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth. There was clearly something wrong with her. Maybe it was fear, or a new mission she’d found for herself, or perhaps some other reason. The chaos paradoxically filled her with joy, and she felt no fatigue anymore. She was running for the sake of Ikebukuro. The woman was running, running straight toward her shining future… …into the path of a car that struck her from the side. “What’s wrong? That sounded pretty loud,” Izumii said through the phone. Horada was silent with agony, waves of pain surging through his entire body, thanks to the impact from the car hitting something. “It was…just the car…” “Uh, Mr. Horada? L-look at that…,” said the driver, who stopped the car in the street. There was a person crumpled on the ground nearby. Are you fucking kidding me?! I don’t need any more cops in my life! I didn’t do this one! I didn’t do it! He scrambled out of the car as hastily as he could, clutching his cell phone. At the very least, he wanted to see if the person was dead or alive. “…Burn it…burn them. Kill the scum, the scum, the scum,” the Dark Owl muttered, twitching with a bandaged hammer in their hands. Horada’s eyes bulged. “Hey, Horada. What’s going on? Talk to me,” said the voice on the phone, bringing him back to his senses. Horada quickly lifted it to his ear. “S-sorry about that! We got a situation here!” “Just answer the question. You dealt with your attacker, right? Huh?” “Y-yes!” “…What?” “Of course we did, Mr. Izumii! We found the street attacker, and we made quick work of ’em! We’ll take ’em to you right now. Hope you’re ready, sir!” “Nn…huh?” When Ajimura opened his eyes next, he was inside someone else’s van. “Ah. Rise and shine. Or in Dark Owl fashion, should I say, ‘Welcome back to the land of the living’?” “Not that you’ll be seeing anything but a prison cell for a long time.” He was greeted by a man with narrow eyes holding a bucket and a woman dressed in black with a battery-powered soldering iron. “Wh…what…? Who are you people?!” He realized his hands were bound. He writhed and rocked around. “Whoa, don’t struggle so much. The Dark Owl is supposed to be cool and collected,” the young woman said. “You’ve got to keep your body temperature down, like the real thing.” A moment later, the narrow-eyed man shoveled some dry ice from his bucket down into Ajimura’s clothes. “Aaaaaaah?! Ah…aaaah!” he screamed. “I’ll admit, I’m shocked you were attacking people on the street while carrying your ID around, but seeing your name was an even bigger shock. The admin of that infamous OPD site turned out to be the actual culprit?” “But considering how terrible that site’s reputation is, it’s not that surprising. Though I wouldn’t have expected you were using your actual name to run it.” “Wha…? Terrible reputation?!” Ajimura shrieked. “Screw you! I did this…to protect OPD! I was cleaning up the scum of this city like Horada and Shizuo Heiwajima! I was protecting the Dark Owl’s reputation!” The man and woman looked at each other—then sighed with matching expressions of utter exhaustion. “Cleaning up the scum to prove that you’re good? Don’t you realize that this completely contradicts the whole theme of OPD? He agonizes over killing zombies and refuses to consider himself the good guy when he defeats the bad guys!” “I mean, even the Dark Owl, the villain of the show, talks about how evil he is before he does evil deeds. What show have you been watching? You’re even dumber than the dumbest fans.” “Shut up! That’s all just surface-level stuff they crammed in there! WWW only wrote it that way to suck up to the commercial industry and get their series made! You’d have to be a total amateur to miss the secret, real themes that exist behind all of that!” Ajimura shouted, counter to all logic. The narrow-eyed man held him down. “Gaaah… What are you…? Aaaaaaah!” By being pressed against the ground, the dry ice inside of his suit burned his skin. He screamed and screamed, but the man and woman weren’t done with him. “Well, we aren’t actually fans. See, a real fan wouldn’t try to solve their favorite series’ problems using violence. But we will,” the man said. “That’s right. You know, at first I thought you couldn’t really see the true story…but then again, maybe you knew that the Dark Owl was originally designed to be blind?” The woman reached closer to his eye with the soldering iron. “N-no, stop… Stop, stop, stop—aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!” The rear door of the van opened just before the tip of the iron touched his eyeball. For a moment, Ajimura thought that help had come for him—but when he saw the cold look in the eyes that met his own, that futile hope was crushed. The man who had opened the door wore a bandanna around his head. He sighed and spoke to the man and woman. “Hey…don’t get our goals here mixed up,” said Kadota through the back door. Yumasaki and Karisawa hastened to explain. “It’s fine, it’s fine. We just want to find out how many others there are with him.” “Come on—you could stand to trust us a little bit!” “…Well, if you say so. But as soon as you get the information you want, we’re handing him to the cops. Don’t forget that,” Kadota warned before turning to Saburo outside. “What’s up with Yahiro?” “I sent him back home before we picked up the attacker. Didn’t want him to see this.” “I can’t believe he turned out to be this Snake Hands people are talking about.” “…Man, I don’t even know what’s going on anymore,” Saburo grumbled, exhausted. “You gonna give him a lecture tomorrow?” Kadota asked. “No? Maybe my family will, but when it comes to fighting, I don’t have the right to scold anyone else.” Saburo shrugged. Yahiro’s face appeared in his mind, and he looked up at the sky, grimacing. “There’s just one thought on my mind: It’s a violent world out there. The only thing I care about is that he goes right back to our apartment without any detours, safe and sound.” Rooftop of Kuon’s apartment—night “Shit…the plan’s a bust. Everything failed…” Kuon leaned on the railing around the rooftop, muttering angrily. “What the hell…? What was with all those Dark Owls showing up around the station…? That wasn’t a part of the plan. Who the hell were they…?” Whose work was that? The only thing he could think of was maybe that growing online group, the Underars, or some other group of pranksters doing a bit of a public art performance. In any case, this had totally changed Ikebukuro’s impression of the Dark Owl. If that lessened the impact of the video of the street attacker and Headless Rider, then that was that. But it was something Kuon couldn’t accept. My plans are all shot. I should have had an easier time using the attacker to my own ends… He clicked his tongue and sighed. Amid the blended sound of his breath and the wind blowing between the buildings, he heard the door opening behind him. “…Sis?” She was the only one who knew he was up here. But it wasn’t Nozomi. “Yahiro…?” It was Yahiro Mizuchi, dressed in his plain clothes, looking the way he always did. “What are you doing here?” “I came to visit, and Nozomi said you were up here.” “Look, if you want to talk, you could just call.” “Sorry. My phone is busted,” Yahiro explained simply. Kuon chuckled. “What do you mean…? I guess you fought the attacker?” “Well, I was fighting against the Dark Owl, and he was tough. I couldn’t tell who it was on the inside, but it seemed like Kuronuma knew.” “…Hang on—why are you mentioning Aoba?” Kuon asked, confused but still smiling. “He said that out of all those Dark Owls who showed up in Ikebukuro today…almost all of them were really Blue Squares.” “…Huh?! What the hell does that mean?! Why would he…?” “He said he wanted to mess with you.” “?!” Kuon was stunned, baffled. “Hey, Kuon…” Yahiro asked the question on his mind the same way he would say any other thing. “Did you always know that this Ajimura guy was the attacker?” “I’ve got the attacker, like we discussed. So I handed them over to Kuon Kotonami, a member of the Blue Squares. Whatever happens next isn’t my problem. I’ve paid you back for one favor,” read Celty’s message. Aoba smirked. “So that’s your angle.” She did, in fact, fulfill his request. She’d probably done it this way because she detected the uncomfortable relationship between Kuon and the Blue Squares. “So Celty knew that Kuon was one of us…? She’s oddly perceptive about subtle things like that.” “What are we gonna do about Kuon, man?” asked one of his friends. “He went too far this time, didn’t he?” “He could’ve destroyed the Blue Squares’ reputation with this stunt,” said another. But Aoba cheerfully replied, “It’s cool. We took a worse hit to our reputation by choice today, didn’t we?” “Oh yeah, I saw it made the news… I wonder how much Kuon’s sister will pay for the exclusive scoop from us?” “Yoshikiri did a good job on this one. Gotta send him a call of gratitude later.” Aoba cackled. The group continued to discuss the job they performed. “I wish I could see the look on Kuon’s face right now.” “He probably thinks it was the Underars’s work, not us. I bet he never considered the possibility that we’d gone over his head and set up the whole fake with Nozomi herself.” Aoba envisioned the look of gnashed teeth and frustration on his younger acquaintance’s face and sipped his beverage. “But as for what happens to him…I guess it depends on his friend. “I did tell the kid everything Kuon got up to.” “So Aoba…realized everything I was doing while it was happening?” “Apparently, he’s been monitoring you ever since the faked kidnapping last month or so. In secret. He watches a lot of stuff online, I guess.” “Whoa, that’s freaky. What is he, a stalker?” Kuon said, trying to pass it off as a joke, but with as stone-faced as Yahiro was, his smile quickly faded away. “…So what did he say about me?” “Hmm…I don’t know the full details, but he said everything fell into place in the last few days. Most likely, the attacker you knew about was this Ajimura person. And he thought that once you knew about him, you were working to blow it up into something bigger after that.” “…” “He said that on Ajimura’s site, there was someone pretending to be in with the group, handing out all kinds of details on delinquents and thugs. They were getting the folks riled up about Horada and some other rough types. Aoba said that was probably you.” He was right. Kuon learned about Ajimura in the way that he’d told Celty he did. However, the timing was off. His sister had told him that Ajimura was fishy before he’d made the contract with Yumasaki and Karisawa. He’d known who was responsible for the attacks. At the time, he asked himself, Can I use that to my advantage to gain something? Or can I somehow manipulate the attacker’s actions to make him attack specific people? Kuon had never had a goal in mind. If anything, he wanted to try accurately controlling the street attacker’s patterns. That had been Kuon’s biggest objective: to see whether he was capable of wielding that power or not. He’d considered it a good test case. He’d wanted to see if he had what it took to be Izaya Orihara. With that thought in his mind once again, Kuon stopped smiling and glared at Yahiro. “Yeah, that’s right.” “…” “I knew long before Golden Week. What’s more, I’m the one who egged that guy on to get him to attack Horada.” Up to that point, it had gone entertainingly to plan. Kuon accepted the offer from Yumasaki and Karisawa, playing ignorant despite knowing who was responsible, and then he offered the job to Yahiro. He also succeeded at sending the attacker after Horada, who seemed the most likely to interfere with the Blue Squares and Yahiro doing their job. It was almost like rigging a match; if Yahiro captured the attacker while acting as Snake Hands, it would help sell the name, and he’d be able to play that so Horada owed him a favor. And that was when things went off the rails; a third party had interfered. Another attacker appeared and helped beat Horada. The identity of this person didn’t matter. The problem was that someone outside of his control inflicted their influence upon Ajimura. Sensing danger, Kuon decided to withdraw his influence and observe for a bit. Next, Ajimura sought out Shizuo Heiwajima. Kuon waited, not interfering, for Ajimura to attack Shizuo. Of course, Ajimura would fail to do anything to him. And if he got smashed instead, Kuon could just hand him over to Yumasaki and Karisawa and complete the contract. But Ajimura did not attack Shizuo. He attacked his superior at work, Tom Tanaka. Kuon was there observing at the time, and that was when he determined that Ajimura could not be controlled anymore. And that was why he used Celty to eliminate Ajimura at the soonest opportunity. “Well? If this is all true, what do you think?” Kuon asked, challenging Yahiro. He probably could have lied and talked his way out of the situation, but he didn’t know how much evidence Aoba Kuronuma might have of what he was doing, so it would probably be wasted effort. “If, as you claim, I knew who the attacker was and stood back in silence while he went after Horada and Shizuo Heiwajima’s friend, what are you going to do about it?” That’s right. I decided I wanted to be like Izaya Orihara. Why do I have to care about how Yahiro sees me? Shouldn’t I expect to be loathed, despised, disdained? In fact—yeah. If I’m Izaya, then he must be my Shizuo Heiwajima. That works. That’s not bad. If the two of them ended up locked in a battle to the death right now, Kuon wouldn’t care. Or at least, that was what he told himself as he awaited his answer. However… “What a relief.” “…Huh?” “I just wanted to confirm things—that’s all. If it’s true, that’s cool. Thanks,” Yahiro said, reassured. Kuon’s mouth dropped. Then he gnashed his teeth with irritation and snapped, “How is that cool? What did you even come all this way for?” Yahiro’s tone of voice was the same as if they were discussing some mundane daily topic. “I was thinking, if it wasn’t true, I’d have to go right back to Kuronuma and tell him it wasn’t true.” “…Huh?” It was an answer so far out of the expected that Kuon couldn’t even be annoyed anymore. But he understood once Yahiro continued. “It hurts to have mistakes spread like that. But if it’s true, that’s cool. If it’s something you wanted to have happen, I’m not going to poke my nose in your business.” Yahiro led a solitary childhood, all because of the stories that spread about his “monstrous” nature, something he never wanted for himself. That’s where he was coming from. Did he…really come here…just for that? “Is that all you wanted, man?” “About what?” “You’ve got a sick bastard like me right in front of you, and you have the power to do something about it, and you’re just going to let it all slide?! Like it’s nothing?!” “…” “Or…” Kuon came to a stop and clamped his mouth shut. What…was I just about to say? “Or…do you not care about me at all?” When he realized how close he’d been to saying those words, Kuon truly paled. In the silence that followed, Yahiro considered the words that did get said—and put into words the thoughts he could consolidate. “Uh…Kuon, you’re trying to be like this Izaya Orihara guy, right?” “Sis just had to go and tell you… What about it?” “Isn’t that kind of a waste?” “…Huh? What does that mean?” Kuon snapped, his brow creased. He stepped closer to Yahiro. He knew that he didn’t stand a chance in a fight, but this was a line that had been crossed for him. “You think I’m wrong to do it? You think I’m wrong for wanting to save my sister?” “I don’t think that’s wrong. But I think you’re doing it the wrong way.” “…” Yahiro’s bluntness rendered Kuon speechless. “I can’t explain it very well…but it’s something I’ve been thinking about… You said she’s been through some tough times since Izaya Orihara vanished, right? So you want to be Izaya Orihara to help get her back to the way she used to be…right?” “…Right.” “But what will that do if you end up dying?” “…Huh?” The question caught Kuon like a sucker punch, like he lost the air in his lungs for a moment. Yahiro thought hard, choosing his words very carefully. “If you’re gone, then won’t the same thing happen to your sister as when Izaya Orihara was gone? How is she supposed to be happy without you around…?” “…” “So if you want her to be able to survive on her own after you’re gone…then I don’t think you should try to be like this Izaya Orihara guy.” It didn’t seem like Yahiro was sure of what he was saying; he sounded so hesitant, as if he was afraid he might be incorrect. But even still, Yahiro was being honest about how he felt. “I don’t think I’m explaining it very well…but I think you’ll have to be someone even more amazing than Izaya Orihara. You’ll have to be someone who can make your sister happy in the truest sense.” After he finished, he tilted his head to the side, as if asking himself, Is that really right? Maybe there was a better answer. Kuon watched him soundlessly. Eventually, the irritation faded from his features, and a little smile appeared in its place. “…Enough. Go home.” “Oh, sorry. I guess I’m being weird, huh?” “Yeah. So leave. I told you, I hate that goody-two-shoes side of you.” “…Okay. Sorry.” Yahiro was as expressionless as usual, but there was a subtle note of regret there. He turned his back on Kuon. “Ah…” Kuon was going to say something to him, but he couldn’t find the words. Once he could tell that Yahiro wasn’t going to slow down or stop, the fake smile vanished from Kuon’s face, and his eyes turned mournful. “…Wait,” he said. “What?” When Yahiro turned around, Kuon was back to his usual smirking self. And in his casual way, he said, “What did you say the other time? You’re always ready to hit me if you need to?” “Yeah.” In his usual way, Kuon gave him the go-ahead. “Now’s the time. You gotta hit me to stop me.” “Got it.” In the next moment, Yahiro’s fierce punch, as practiced as a pro boxer’s, smashed into Kuon’s right cheek, which was pointed just a little bit off center. He hurtled backward spectacularly, smashing back first into the fence around the roof. His conscious mind sank into darkness before it could register any pain. Twenty minutes later When Kuon awoke, the first thing he noticed was the dull but fierce pain that enveloped his face. The stars were out in the sky above, but the neon lights of the city blocked them, so it wasn’t exactly a curtain of starlight overhead. He looked to the side, where sitting next to him was Yahiro, his back against the fence. “You okay?” “Ow, damn…” Kuon tried to move, but it sent pain through his face. The sour, rusty taste of blood was in his mouth. “You don’t know…how to…go easy?” “Nope. You were smiling, but your eyes said you were serious. So I thought, I need to take it seriously, too,” Yahiro admitted. Kuon put up with the pain in order to smile. “If your aim was just a little worse, I could’ve been dead…” He spat something out into his hand. Along with a lot of blood, there were two pieces of teeth. “They’re broken.” “Yeah, you should go see a dentist,” Yahiro said, rubbing the back of his hand. He had plenty of scars there. Whether or not Kuon realized they were the marks from the broken teeth of people Yahiro punched, he grunted and complained, “Ugh…gah… Damn, man… You’re really clumsy, you know that?” Yahiro tilted his head and replied, “So are you, Kotonami.” “…Listen, man… After you’ve just beat the crap out of a guy to prove your friendship, it’s kinda weird to call me by my last name. Don’t sound so stiff.” “Is that how it works?” “That’s exactly how it works.” Kuon grimaced through the pain but smiled at Yahiro anyway. Yahiro considered this seriously. “All right. Then I’ll just call you Kuon.” With the same level of gravity, he continued, “I wonder if my friendship with Himeka will get closer someday.” “Uh…I dunno… Don’t get too close.” “Oh…sorry. I don’t know why you would be angry about it, though,” Yahiro said, deflated. Despite the pain, Kuon could only smile. He felt that if he let the smile leave his face, he would start crying. The awkward boy just stared up at the faded, murky stars and smiled for all he was worth.