Durarara!!, Vol. 2 (novel) (20 page)

She’s the girl I always see with Mikado Ryuugamine…

Mikado Ryuugamine.

The founder of the Dollars was one of the few people who was aware of Celty’s nature, one of the most secretly influential people in the neighborhood. And yet, hardly anyone actually knew that Mikado had created the Dollars.

She spotted him in town every now and then, and he was usually in a group of three.

There was the girl with the glasses right here and another boy with dyed brown hair and earrings. They were almost always together, so she didn’t know the full nature of their connection.

The girl looked up at Celty and said sadly, “Umm…thank you for saving me…”

Despite the timid look on her face, the girl took a major step forward into the incident that had just engulfed her.

“Um, can you tell me…what’s happening in this neighborhood?”

Ack.

Celty wasn’t hoping for thanks to begin with, but she’d have much preferred if the girl had just thanked her and run off. But she did have one question of her own.

Why had the slasher under Saika’s control decided to go after
her
at the very end?

Perhaps it was just a desperation move, or maybe he had some other reason. If that was the case, she couldn’t just ignore the girl.

After a long time to think, Celty shook her helmet in resignation and began typing away on her PDA, explaining all about the serial slashings happening in Ikebukuro and even the demon blade Saika…

But once she had finished typing out the whole story, the girl named Anri asked her something completely unrelated to the incident.

“So, um…about your…”

That question again. Celty inwardly snorted at her own luck. Recently, every single person who would talk to her asked the same thing. The TVs were obsessed with the topic of the Headless Rider, so when people found out that she was actually quite easy to talk to, they all got curious. They couldn’t help themselves.

She wants to know if I really don’t have a head.

Celty typed out, “
Don’t be scared
,” imagining the timid girl screaming in terror, then yanked the helmet off without any fanfare.

Well? Your move.

But Anri was completely silent. As though she were waiting for Celty’s next comment.

“…You aren’t startled?”

“Uh, well, I know that you didn’t have a head because they said so on TV…so I wanted to ask
why
you didn’t have a head…and then I realized what a rude question that is! I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t anger you!”

The girl bowed in apology, tears in her eyes. Now it was Celty’s turn to be taken aback.

Shinra, Mikado, the kids in the van, Shizuo…

Are all young people like this now?
Celty wondered. She leisurely typed into her PDA.

“It’s a very long story… If you give me your e-mail address, I can tell you in detail later.”

She meant it to be considerate to the girl, but Anri replied, “Oh, um…I don’t have an Internet connection…”

“Oh…too bad. Well, we can’t just stand around here all night…”

Celty was beginning to wonder if she should just go home and leave this all behind, when Anri lifted her head and spoke with determination.

“Actually…my place is just up ahead. Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea?”

Late night, near Kawagoe Highway, apartment building

“Welcome home, Celty.”

“I’m back.”

She walked inside to find Shinra waiting for her. It looked like he had nodded off on his desk while looking something up.

“Man, the researching I did! I was looking up all this different stuff on Saika. It was really complicated. Very hard to put all the text together into a coherent picture.”

“I see… Thank you, Shinra.”

“But of course, I’d do a millennium of work in a day for your sake, Celty. After that, they’ll have to change the definition of the word
millennium
!”

He laughed excitedly while Celty regretfully typed, “
But it’s all over already. I’m sorry.
”

“Huh?”

Celty explained everything that had happened in the day and carefully placed the shadow-wrapped knife on the table.

“Don’t touch it, you might get possessed.”

Shinra stared at the object on the table with fascination in his eyes. Ten seconds later he turned to Celty, a question mark floating over his head.

“This…is Saika? It’s just a knife,” he muttered, wide-eyed.

“I know, I was taken aback, too…but the man who was holding it had bloodred eyes, and he was going on about love and other nonsense and speaking like a woman,”
Celty typed regretfully.

“Ahh… I guess this must be it, then.”

“But what’s the connection between attacking people on the street and love? That’s the thing I don’t get. Is Saika just a sadist or what?”
she asked. It had been on her mind before, but she didn’t expect to bring it back up, given that the incident was over now.

“Oh…I guess I didn’t go over that part, did I?” Shinra said, as though it were obvious or trivial. He made a show of clearing his throat, then leaned back in his desk chair and began to describe Saika’s desires.

“What Saika wants…is to love a human being.”

The same time, Anri’s apartment

My heart is still racing.

She’d hardly ever had people over at her home. The only ones in the year that she’d been living here were Mikado and Masaomi.

And today, she had granted entrance to someone she had barely shared introductions with—and not human, to boot.

This was quite an adventurous move for Anri, but she couldn’t resist her curiosity about the otherworldly being. Her debt at being saved added to her momentum, a few other emotions rolled into the mix, and before she knew it, the Headless Rider was inside her home.

The rider explained many things.

The reason for coming here, what a dullahan was, various experiences in Ikebukuro, and what little of the homeland remained within the corners of those memories.

All of these things were vivid and fresh, and Anri noticed that they made her excited.

They talked about many things, up to the moment the rider left. Anri told her a bit about herself, but it probably wasn’t very interesting. She didn’t even remember the things she had said.

I wonder what she thinks about most days. I wonder what she thinks about human beings.

Even after the excitement faded, Anri thought back on all the things Celty said.

She said a dullahan knows when a person’s death is approaching…but does that include unexpected accidents?

She thought back on the incident that changed her life five years ago and looked down.

If I’d known about it ahead of time…could I have stopped it from happening?

She could wish, but there was nothing she could do about it now. And she could see her parents every night in her dreams. There was nothing to agonize over now.

But there was one thing that made her sad in what they talked about. She thought of bringing it up on numerous occasions, but ultimately, Anri was never able to bring herself to tell Celty. Once the dullahan left, she felt a terrible regret.

Why couldn’t I bring it up? The topic…of…

Suddenly, her doorbell rang.

Huh? It’s so late!

For a moment, the image of Nasujima’s face floated into her mind, and she twitched with fear. But then it occurred to her that Celty might have come back, so she looked through the peephole, careful not to make any sound.

Huh? A…woman?

It was a young woman wearing a uniform.

Anri didn’t recognize her, but she checked to make sure there was no one else with her, then unlocked the door. She opened it up to reveal an incredibly beautiful girl with long hair.

She had an adult figure but a face with a hint of innocence left. Her black, lustrous hair went halfway down her back. In all, she created a tiny little space of fantastical beauty in the middle of the plain apartment hallway.

“Um…can I help you?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Sonohara.”

The long-haired girl smiled gently in replying to Anri’s hesitant question.

But then she introduced herself.

“My name is Haruna Niekawa.”

Near Kawagoe Highway, apartment building

“Saika loves by cutting? So she is a sadist, after all.”

“No, it’s not quite the same thing. To put it simply, she’s a cursed blade. Her voice can only reach her master, the one wielding her.”

“Right. So why doesn’t she just love her master?”

“The thing is, Saika wants to love all of humanity.”

“…?”

“Not a specific human. She fell in love with all of humanity as a species. For us, it would be like a dog lover. A dog person doesn’t just love one specific dog, they love all dogs. But that hardly ever advances to feelings of romance. No matter how much you love dogs, hardly anyone wishes to get married to their dog, and anyone who gets sexually turned on by a dog is a pervert. Then again, some people
are
like that…”

“Don’t get distracted.”

“Sorry, sorry! But don’t you see how crucial this is? Anyway, Saika fell in love with people. At first, it was just something she kept to herself. But after loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving and loving…thinking of just one human no longer satisfied her. So she began loving all of humanity, but that sentiment eventually came to a standstill… She wanted to express her love through action.”

“Action?”

“Yes, action. Humans express love in various ways, right? Through words, actions for the sake of the other, risking one’s life, offering protection, luring with money, giving in to lust, doing nothing, picking on or teasing, even killing them to ensure that they’re yours forever.”

“…And the latter is supposed to be ‘love’?”

“Twisted or not, as long as someone considers it a form of love, then it is. But Saika is a demonic blade. It has no body with which to love.”

“…”

“All she wanted was to touch someone. She wanted to unite herself with the flesh of the humans she loved. She wanted to sink into them. She wanted to insert herself into them.”

“This is starting to get vulgar. But…wait, doesn’t this mean…?”

“Yes.”

“In order to express her love, Saika chose to simply slash all of humanity. That moment of dissection is the only moment in which she is able to touch humankind. From flesh to blood to heart to life. See?”