Durarara!! SH Vol 1 Chapter 3.2

Durarara!!SH

CHAPTER 3B

The Challenger\nThe next day. Raira Academy.

Classes were not yet in session on the second day of Raira Academy’s new year.

Up till a few years ago committee members were settled on the first day, but the school’s administration had taken a shift in direction to organise explanatory sessions for the committees also, and now it was postponed to the second day.

Yahiro had nominated himself to be the library rep, and as there were no other candidates, he was accepted uneventfully.

By the time it had all ended the sun was already setting, and when Yahiro returned to the classroom the stretch of sky outside the windows was dyed red.

“You couldn’t have been… waiting for me?”

Answering shortly, Tatsugami Himeka asked Yahiro coolly:

“Ah, I was nervous, but everyone was nice. The committee president seemed kind, too.”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Mm—that is.”

“What’s your plan? Will we be continuing the conversation from yesterday?”

Yahiro tilted his head and answered promptly, without a hint of irony; and to this Himeka sighed lightly.

“Really…? I’ll be careful. Thank you.”

Himeka tilted her head, still expressionless, but she did not ask further, and quickly returned to the root issue.

“…yeah. Right.”

“You see. I want to be sure. Whether I’m a normal human, or… a monster.”

“You see, I was called a monster back in my hometown, and I haven’t had friends since elementary school. The only ones who actively involved themselves with me were scary people who just randomly came to beat me up.”

Himeka appeared to be hesitant, but did not interrupt, and continued to listen silently to Yahiro.

“…and then you came to Ikebukuro?”

Smiling somewhat uncomfortably, Yahiro spoke his honest emotions.

“…”

What he had said was strange.

Yahiro had said he was called a monster, but nothing of his appearance seemed to warrant this, and although she felt his personality a little strange, it did not seem possible that that alone could make him an outcast.

Cruel bullying where he was treated as unhuman, and stoned by everyone.

The strange scars on the back of his hands must have been a result of that bullying.

The question of why he would go so far as to want to meet Heiwajima Shizuo still lurked, but Himeka could at least accept that the boy before her was worth the conversation.

“I see, that’s great. I thought you might not believe me.”

“But as I said… you shouldn’t chase after the Headless Rider, and you shouldn’t be too taken with it.”

Perhaps he did not want to push the matter; despite the fact that he had already spoken of his own secret, Yahiro phrased it as a question.

“I have an older and a younger sister. I’m the middle of three girls.”

“My older sister was a magazine reporter, and she always chased after the Headless Rider at work. The younger one in her own way had been squealing over the Headless Rider from when she was younger. She was air-headed in the first place—I felt that was why she was so obsessed over it, since it seems like something out of a comic.”

And finally, as though to prepare herself, she took a deep breath, and spoke.

“…”

Himeka’s voice remained calm to the end; it was as if she was speaking of strangers.

“Other people… who went missing?”

“…”

It was the first he was hearing of her older sister, but what had happened with her younger sister rang a bell.

—But.

With this in mind, Yahiro asked Himeka, nervously:

“!”

“Why… do you know her name?”

“I see… That’s true. Even if you don’t go looking for the Headless Rider, you’ll come to hear things like that.”

Yahiro bowed his head quickly, and made as to continue, but —

Just then, an intruder appeared in the classroom.

“Er…”

Yahiro spoke his name in place of Himeka, who seemed to have forgotten it.

At Kuon, who behaved brightly on the surface, Himeka narrowed her eyes.

“Ah, he showed me around at the martial arts gym. What I said happened just before that.”

“Ah, you mean what we heard from Akane-chan yesterday? The girl we were curious about because she had the same name?”

“Hey hey hey, no matter what, who would go straight up to her and ask about it?”

“Kuon heard yesterday, too… We ended up agreeing to help find that girl’s middle school senior… But see, your surnames were the same, so we were bothered.”

“Don’t do things like that on your own… I would say, but neither you nor that girl know about my situation, or anything, so that would be unreasonable.”

“No. I should be the one apologising. You shouldn’t have had to worry about that, sorry.”

There was no way she could be calm when her family had just disappeared.

Unconcerned with Yahiro, who had averted his eyes as he thought this, Himeka said to the two of them, promptly:

“Ah, just Kuon is fine. I’ll call you Himeka too.”

“Oh my.”

“Both my older and younger sisters got involved with the Headless Rider and disappeared.”

—?

In that moment Yahiro felt a flash of uneasiness at how Kuon was surprised, but unable to identify its source, he let it pass.

“Wait a minute, you’re calling Yahiro by his name? Even though you rejected me?!”

“Eh? Do I sense some dislike?”

—Ah, I know.

—It’s forced. On the whole.

Thinking this, Yahiro anxiously shook his head mentally.

—It’s possible everyone in Tokyo’s like this, too…

Even so, Yahiro had not been mistaken.

Himeka had once again been interrupted, but she did not mind and continued to deliver her warning to the two of them.

“Yeah… I understand, but…”

“I think, even if we say that… that girl probably won’t stop searching.”

“She said, ‘The Headless Rider isn’t a bad person.’ It’s strange to think of, but that girl… seems to know the Headless Rider. It looked like there were some private reasons, so I didn’t ask, though.”

Hearing that, Himeka thought —

“I see… I understand. I can accept that.”

“Whatever that girl thinks, I’ve warned you as I could. Anything that happens after is your choice, so I won’t be responsible. I’m sorry.”

As Yahiro said this, she stopped midstep, and turned towards them to speak.

And—hearing her next sentence, Yahiro’s back was drenched with sweat.

“I think… the Headless Rider is a cruel demon.”

In front of Raira Academy.

In front of Raira Academy, the sun had already set.

Amidst this was Yahiro and Kuon, who had finished exchanging information.

Towards Kuon, who sought agreement, Yahiro said, wearily,

“That’s my strength. No matter how heavy the topic I can be positive and aggressive, you know? Even if Himeka-chan’s sisters didn’t go missing and it was that their brutally murdered bodies were found, I’d be able to accept it positively. ‘At least Himeka-chan herself wasn’t the one killed’… I’d say.”

Even as Yahiro felt uncomfortable at the thought that Kuon might have just said something very low as a human being, he did not voice this directly.

“Ah, but Yahiro, I didn’t think you would really join the library committee.”

Yahiro asked this honestly, and Kuon quickly denied.

“Ah, I told Tatsugami-san about it earlier, too. Thank goodness all of the seniors were nice. The committee president seemed very mild, too.”

Kuon said this enviously, to which Yahiro asked:

“Me? I’ll pass. I want to do part-time jobs and stuff after school.”

“Eh, I’m a bit of a handyman. Just earning some small cash.”

Yahiro deduced it was probably something Kuon did not want to be asked about, and did not push the issue.

“Speaking of which… Kuon-kun, it seemed like you know about that… Heiwajima Shizuo?”

“…”

Not noticing this, Kuon began to shoot off information about Heiwajima Shizuo.

—To have everyone say, ‘don’t pick a fight with him no matter what’…

Even as Yahiro, who had only ever been provoked into fights, felt these twisted emotions, Kuon continued chattering on about Heiwajima Shizuo.

Midsentence, Kuon clapped his hands together.

“Ehh?!”

“S, sorry. Today’s not a very convenient…”

“Ehhhh?!”

“No, that’s bad! Sushi’s… Even if it’s conveyor belt sushi it’s…”

Yet Kuon smiled and began to walk, ignoring his feelings.

“! Wait, wait a minute, in that case I’ll just drop by the bank or a convenience store to draw some money, so…”

Could it just be three to five small servings?

Unheeding of Yahiro’s unease, Kuon took a leaflet from his bag, and waved it in front of him.

“It’s called Russia Sushi… It’s run by two Russians; it’s quite famous around here, you know?”

Along Kawagoe Highway. A certain apartment.

Awakusu Akane arriving at that apartment had been no coincidence.

It was also a place she had been slightly before that.

It was the day after the entrance ceremony for middle schoolers also, and in the afternoon now school had let out, Akane arrived at the apartment residence of the Headless Rider.

She remembered that the name of the doctor she had met at the Headless Rider’s house had been ‘Kishitani’.

Perhaps because the place was old, despite the fact that it looked expensive there were no security guards around, and anyone could make their way right to the door of any unit.

Pressing the doorbell yielded no reaction.

The electric meter by the door showed little movement.

Concluding that this level of inactivity could not be justified by the residents simply going out to shop or work, Akane felt a surge of uneasiness as she left the apartment unit behind her.

But there as well there were only a number of cars supposedly belonging to the residents, and no trace of the Headless Rider.

Not even a trace of the Headless Horse that had brought her here before.

Feeling an irrational sadness, Akane continued walking in the underground carpark.

Like this some time passed —

“Akane ojou-san, what’s the matter?”

“! Shiki-san…”

Their faces looked trustworthy, but the air around them announced that they were not upstanding members of society.

Even so, Akane had met the man standing between them, Shiki, numerous times before she knew about her parents’ and grandfather’s work; occupation aside, she understood that he was an acquaintance of her father’s and trustworthy in that capacity.

At this, Shiki heaved a small sigh.

“…”

Shiki gently told Akane not to interfere, to which she replied:

” I believe so as well. However, you see, if the Headless Rider is innocent, that would mean someone else entirely, someone completely unknown to us, is behind the kidnappings.”

“You should know what would happen if you met with a kidnapper like that, yes?”

But whether she could accept it and whether she would back down were two different things altogether.

“Mikiya-san is worried as well. That you might be getting yourself into danger.”

There was some sincere guilt, but Akane averted her eyes.

“Whether you’re in middle school or high school, or even if you’re an adult past twenty, danger is danger. Especially so when a kidnapper is involved here.”

“Everyone has their own role. Why don’t you let the police and I handle this case?”

“All right. Please take care of the issue with the Headless Rider and the doctor.”

“If everyone has a role, it should be fine if I ask about my senior around school, right? It’s possible she just ran away from home. I want to try looking in that direction.”

To Shiki, who had a complicated expression, Akane continued.

After looking in Akane’s eyes for a while, Shiki shook his head wearily.

“! Thank you so much! Shiki-san! I’ll contact you if I find anything!”

After watching her leave, Shiki called out to one of the young people beside him.

“Yes.”

Finally, as he affirmed that Akane had gone completely from the underground carpark, he cracked his neck, and—in a voice small enough his subordinates could not hear, he murmured bitterly.

Remembering Akane’s past self, he smiled bitterly as he continued.

“Back when she was kidnapped it felt like she was younger than her age, but she’s changed a lot in a year and a half.”

Russia Sushi.

Russia Sushi was a unique sushi restaurant in the downtown of Ikebukuro.

Its storefront gave off such a Russian feel that it seemed forced.

But the furniture inside of the store, the counter- and traditional-style seating, were spot-on for a sushi restaurant.

Seated at the counter, Yahiro glanced around nervously.

In general it was similar to the sushi restaurants he knew of, but the decorations were foreign, and there were dishes on the menu he had never seen before, like ‘Borscht Warship’, or ‘Kremlin Peak’.

With the sharp-eyed white man at the counter and the large black man receiving customers, the interior of the store made it seem more like a Japanese restaurant in Russia.

“Hey~, a delicious sushi celebration for the sparkling new freshmen. Sparkling students and sparkling rice, eat before the toppings dry up.”

(*Sparkling—pika-pika. Dry—kapi-kapi.)

Speaking in a way that made it hard to judge if his Japanese was proficient or just bad, a large black man, a tag on his breast reading ‘Simon’, carried the sushi over to Yahiro and Kuon.

There were easily more than ten pieces of sushi on the plate, and it was unbelievable that this could cost just 380 yen per head.

–What now?

–They couldn’t have… put anything strange inside…

Yahiro, who was timid by nature, hesitated for a moment before picking up the food with his chopsticks.

“…T, thanks for the food.”

Yahiro said this nervously, but—

“…it’s delicious.”

Eyes widening, he murmured this unthinkingly.

“I know, right? This store has lots of things to nitpick if you want, but the food is good, it is.”

“Yes, it’s really good. It’s like the sushi from Minato town.”

Hearing the students’ conversation, Simon smiled and gave them a thumbs-up.

“Oh~, Mr Director here’s a discerning customer. You can’t fight on an empty stomach, you know? If you win tighten your helmets*; if you lose loosen your belts and sleep full of dreams on a full stomach. Want a plate of dreamy sushi?”

(*Idiom; if you win all the more you should be on guard.)

Simon pointed at the store’s menu as he said this, but seeing that it said, ‘Cheap prices! All market price!’ Yahiro politely declined from ordering more.

After having a taster of all of the sushi, he spoke to Kuon again.

“Right, about that person Heiwajima Shizuo… Where should I go if I want to meet him?”

“Where… He’s always hanging around here, I’d guess he turns up once every three days? He’s very obvious with that bartender uniform and his hair dyed blond, so you’ll know when you see him, too. But you say you want to meet him, but what are you planning to do when you do, anyway. It’s really dangerous, yeah? If you say you’re just sightseeing you’ll get killed, you know?”

“I see…”

“Well, they say he’s softened just a bit now, but until the year before at least he was really something, you know? Apparently when he punched delinquents they’d fly ten metres away.”

Here, the store owner, who had been listening in to their conversation from behind the counter, spoke as he washed his knife.

“Boys, you’re interested in Heiwajima Shizuo?”

“Eh? Ah… yes.”

“I won’t say anything bad. But if you have nothing better to do it’s best for both parties if you leave him alone.”

Saying this, the storeowner stared straight at Yahiro and Kuon.

Unlike Simon, the storeowner spoke fluent Japanese.

Sensing the weight in his words, Yahiro and Kuon kept quiet and listened to him.

“Even he is only human. He’s not like some animal in the zoo that enjoys being looked at, and you don’t want to get hurt unnecessarily either, right?”

“That…”

Yahiro trailed off there, and Kuon looked away and shrugged.

Hearing what the storeowner had to say, negative feelings rose up inside Yahiro once more.

—I’m not planning to pick a fight with him, but… aren’t I just looking at this Shizuo in the same way those who called me a monster saw me?

“Though from what I see, you boys have some issues yourselves…”

“No matter what you choose to do, live straightforwardly. That’s the key to living without losing faith in yourself.”

What exactly had the storeowner sensed within them?

“Um… Thank you very much. I’ll be careful.”

The storeowner said nothing beyond that, and sliced his fish silently.

“Ah well, you see, right? He isn’t the kind you go looking for just for interest’s sake, that Heiwajima Shizuo.”

“Ah, yeah…”

Yahiro replied tonelessly, and as if to revive him from his lifeless state, Kuon brought up a new topic.

“Right, how should we do that…”

“Dollars?”

“Ah, the Dollars, they were a colour gang around Ikebukuro up till the year before… Well, some things happened and they broke up. We call it a colour gang, but it was based in the internet… There were middle schoolers and the average salarymen or housewives joining it as a kind of interest group.”

Thinking on it, he vaguely recalled encountering the term when he was reading up on the Headless Rider on the internet. However, as it was spoken of as a ‘hundreds-strong gang’, he remembered getting scared and not looking it up in too much detail.

“I see… Tokyo’s amazing, after all.”

Stuffing the last sushi on the plate into his mouth, Kuon swallowed and continued, scoffing.

And the smile suddenly vanished from his face, as he added, as if to himself:

“The Blue Square… might still make it.”

Somewhere in the city. An abandoned building.

It was a building in a place far-flung from the heart of the city.

In this building rang out the voice of a single man.

A man with his face and arm wrapped in bandages, who gave off the feel of a delinquent—Horada—provoked the boys obviously younger than himself.

In front of Horada, who sat on a sofa that must have been moved here from somewhere, were gathered the current members of the organisation he had once belonged to—the Blue Square.

Yoshikiri, who was next to him, had for a while now been glaring as if to ask, ‘Can I just kill this guy?’, but after suppressing him with a glance Aoba smiled pleasantly as he replied.

“Oh? R, really?”

“Ah, no…. Yes! Yes, exactly. Well, to say I was the pillar of the Blue Square back then wouldn’t be an exaggeration in the least.”

“Yes, I’ve always heard about you from Aniki, Horada-san.”

“Yes.”

Horada puzzled as he opened the can of beer in his hands, and Aoba smiled as he said.

“Huh~, and what’s his name?”

Horada spurted out the beer he had been drinking.

“I, Iii, Izumii… -san?”

“Yes; Aniki’s currently in the Awakusu-kai, but once he hears you’ve come out of jail, Horada-san, I think he’ll surely make his way to meet you as soon as he can, you know?”

The nature of his gaze towards Aoba changing dramatically, Horada slowly rose from the sofa.

His fear of the man Izumi fluctuating in his voice, Horada began to walk.

At those words, Horada’s shoulders shuddered.

“But if you would be so kind to be our backer, Horada-san, we would have the confidence to upscale our fight into a proper war.”

(*Ex-member.)

“Well, work hard, all right? I’ll support you from the shadows, too! ‘Kay? Bye!”

After he had disappeared, Aoba and the others began to talk.

Aoba shrugged as he replied,

“Anyway, even if he was in jail… If he doesn’t even know about Ei Li-pei, he’s pretty much an outsider already.”

Aoba snorted, and sat himself down on the sofa Horada was on before.

”Yeah, he got it when he was following his juniors from high school to pick up girls. And apparently the one they trying to pick up was Kururi-chan, what a joke.”

At Aoba, who had gone silent for a moment, the surrounding people pressed.

“Well, if that old man had touched her he’d be swimming in a sea of blood by now.”

“…I’ll kill you!”

“But well… Heiwajima Shizuo’s grown soft, too. To let him off with just that.”

At the frowns of his comrades, Aoba said,

Ignoring the fact that he himself was a high school student, Aoba spoke words of wisdom.

And after some thought, he sighed, as though somewhat bored.

“Ah, there’s no one to succeed Heiwajima Shizuo, though.”

A few hours later. On the streets of Ikebukuro.

—How did it turn out this way?

Various images flashed in his mind, and the feelings that accompanied them sent shivers through his body.

The unique smell of the onsen.

Life at the inn.                                                                      His first day at school.

And then the flowing blood, and the pain in his fists.

“Monster”                    “Monster”                    “Monster”                    “Monster”

As his life since birth appeared in his brain, he realised his life was flashing before his eyes, and quickly drove the images out of his head.

—What I need to think about is… what happened a minute ago.

Cold sweat dripped down his cheek. The scene of reality spread wide in front of his eyes was, in fact, simple.

Standing before his eyes—a man with blond hair and sunglasses, wearing his signature bartender uniform.

This living urban legend was not a product of rumours or fake videos on the internet.

Even from 3 metres away one could tell his temples were twitching with anger.

His eyes glinted sharper than those of a wild dog with its prey in front of its eyes; any ordinary person would’ve been rooted to the spot if they met that gaze.

—Why…

The gazes of the onlookers were split.

The other half were pitying, thinking, ‘That high schooler’s going to die’.

Because those who knew of his strength had long distanced themselves from this place to avoid being caught in the storm of violence.

Although being the target of the hostility of a man who threw vending machines around, he would have been the most terrified in any case.

He did not want to die. He was afraid. He wanted to survive.

Which is why he tried, desperately, to remember.

In order to think of a solution—some way to distance himself from the fear.

—The storeowner talked to me, so I was thinking I should stop looking for him…

—Ah, right. It was a coincidence.

It felt like a long time had passed, but in fact it had only been a few seconds.

Even if it was no more than an illusion, because he had this amount of time, Yahiro was able to recall what had occurred a minute ago.

That the reason why this hostility was being directed towards him—was without doubt no other than his own cowardice.

Lying on the asphalt—fallen on his back, was a green-haired boy.

That the first ‘friend’ he had ever made might disappear before his eyes.

He had only, only, only wanted to run away.

A few minutes ago.

That day, Heiwajima Shizuo was irritated.

—’The Headless Rider is kidnapping people.’

As it was a site that earned income from the advertisements around the articles, it often titled the articles dramatically so as to catch interest and hence boost viewership—

As Shizuo had no one to vent that anger out on, he had quashed that rage into his belly while he faced that day’s work.

“…yeah.”

Shizuo, who had somehow finished the day’s work with that gloominess, was heading towards Russia Sushi with Tom, but then—

A leisure facility containing a bowling alley, across the street from Russia Sushi.

“What’s wrong? All of a sudden.”

In the end, Kuon’s acquaintances had had no game-changing information, and so they had returned to the front of Russia Sushi.

“No, but you see… Akane, was it? That kid was so sure there was some misunderstanding and we had to clear it up… But the Headless Rider’s a monster in the end, after all, right?”

“You came to Ikebukuro just to sightsee monsters, yourself, didn’t you?”

Unable to answer this clearly, Yahiro mumbled his reply as he pressed the button on the vending machine.

“Twittia?”

“Reprinted in the news? That… Do they pay you money for that?”

Thinking he should take the time to ask about this, Yahiro waited for an answer as he slowly took his canned juice from the slot of the vending machine.

“?”

“Kuon-kun?”

Before Yahiro’s eyes, a blond-haired man, temples twitching, had Kuon raised midair, hand fisted in his collar.

When he realised that blond-haired man was ‘Heiwajima Shizuo’, countless questions rose within him.

—Heiwajima Shizuo…?

—The real thing?

—No, uh, why?

“W, wait! What are you doing?!”

“Stop; don’t go near him so carelessly, you’ll get hurt.”

The man with dreadlocks appeared to have no ill will; with a troubled expression, he called out to Shizuo.

But the man’s voice did not seem to have reached those ears, as Heiwajima Shizuo, temples twitching, ground out gravely:

“Agah… Wai… a minute…”

“I, I wasn’t saying anything bad about you, Heiwajima-san! Really! P, please believe me!”

With the barest grip on his rationality, Shizuo continued on, his voice as though echoing from hell itself.

“F, friend… Th, then, you’re really, friends with…”

It looked like despite brimming with anger, he was trying his hardest not to hit Kuon.

Upon hearing this exchange, Yahiro understood Shizuo’s anger.

It was not unreasonable to be angry that his friend was being treated like a kidnapper and that that rumour was being spread around to everyone.

With the combination of several factors, it was not unreasonable that Heiwajima Shizuo’s anger had exploded.

—And Kuon-kun, saying things like that, it’s like provoking him directly…

In his chest was a disturbance other than his fear towards Heiwajima Shizuo.

In the time Yahiro had hesitated, Kuon’s mouth had run off with excuses to save his own life.

“Oi, kid. You might think it’s unreasonable, but you should just apologise for now, okay?”

“Let’s all calm down! Okay?! S, see, if anything happens to me, won’t it cause trouble for your little brother?”

“I know, I do. Your brother’s really famous, right? If I spread this online it could even get his blog flamed, you know? Yeah?”

Because he knew what had come of the debtor who had said the same thing once.

“Eh…?”

“Huh…?”

“Wha, wai… OOOOooh?!”

More than the sound of impact, it was the sound of breakage that rang out into the surroundings.

Flying several metres, Kuon’s body tumbled to the asphalt.

Yahiro, anxious, tried to run over, but his legs tangled and he tripped over himself.

—H, huh…

Since his childhood, Yahiro had lived under the fear of many things.

“Good grief… He went and did it…”

Considering if he should call an ambulance, he decided to check on the condition of the boy who had been punched first, but as he raised his head he noticed.

That Shizuo was walking quickly towards the fallen boy.

Such a hopeful perspective passed through his mind, but Tom quickly dispelled the notion.

—Oi oi, no way.

“Oi, wait, Shizuo!”

But as if he had not heard, Shizuo did not stop.

—Oi?! Is he going to kick him?!

Tom ran forward to protect the boy.

Something rushed past his face with incredible speed.

Before the eyes of Tom, still stunned by the sound whipping past his ear, the ‘object’ slammed into the back of Shizuo’s head.

A dull thump sounded, and after an interval of about a second, the ‘object’ fell to the ground.

The can that had zoomed past had impacted the back of Shizuo’s head precisely, and just like that succumbed to gravity and fell to the ground.

It was a can still filled with its contents, thrown with the force of a baseball.

Shizuo, who had been an inch away from kicking Kuon, stopped, and turned, slowly, creakingly, like a clockwork doll.

Like the green-haired boy at Shizuo’s feet, he wore a Raira Academy uniform.

As he had frozen in a throwing position, it was certain that he had been the one to throw the unopened can at Shizuo.

“Just now… were you the one… who threw this at me…?”

The boy’s forehead was drenched in sweat, and his breathing erratic.

But the boy gulped, and then—with a shaking voice, he spoke.

And then the boy straightened where he stood, and to the ‘monster’ standing those few metres in front of him, clearly declared:

“If it’s a fight you want… I will—be your opponent.”

And with that, the present.

As he was drenched in the terrible murderous intent directed his way, Yahiro remembered, crystal clear, what had led to this.

—Me…?

He, who had had fights picked with him so much it was unfair, who knew that fear better than anyone else: what had he just done?

The murderous aura of the man standing before his eyes, and his disbelief towards himself.

The situation a moment ago, where his classmate Kuon had been assaulted by the monster Heiwajima Shizuo.

Had the one collapsed at Shizuo’s feet been Himeka, he would probably have done the same thing.

That it was a life-risking act he himself understood.

What he feared was the act of he, who had run away his entire life, abandoning the first people to have connected with him as an equal human being, and running away by himself.

It was not logic, but instinct.

The foolhardy act of stopping Heiwajima Shizuo.

Turning this way leisurely, Heiwajima Shizuo asked.

“…”

Believing this firmly, Yahiro answered honestly.

“Just now… you were saying you came here to sightsee monsters, or some damn thing… Do you think she’s some kind of exhibition…?”

Furthermore, here Yahiro’s logic began to work itself.

He had to direct the entirety of Heiwajima Shizuo’s hostility towards himself.

The boy who, by instinct, picked a fight for the first time in his life—

—Remember, remember.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“I… came all the way to Ikebukuro to sightsee monsters like you and the Headless Rider.”

But one could say those words were more than sufficient to direct the attention of the man Heiwajima Shizuo completely towards himself.

Shizuo stepped, slowly, this way – and when he stood before Yahiro, he slowly clenched his fists.

A holler reminiscent of the roar of a beast echoed between the buildings of Ikebukuro.

And as a result the boy from Akita tasted a fear greater than he had ever experienced.

Somewhere in the city. Yahiro’s lodging.

“Whoa, what happened to your face?”

He was a man with a completely different air from Jiro, a free-spirited person who loved his van and an idol known as Hijiribe Ruri dearly.

“Ah… Nothing, I fell down the stairs.”

The face Saburo saw was covered in bruises and scratches, and some places had begun to swell.

“What happened? Oi, you c