Chapter Text

Credits 

Durarara characters and Izaya novels belong to Narita Ryohgo

Translation belongs to kaede726

Izaya belongs to trashcan (I am perfectly okay to keep him though. Behind the bars. Under my basement. I don't have basement? I will create one for him)

“Kazane-chan!! The hotpot party is about to start!!”

“Coming!!”

After closed her smartphone and ended her phone conversation with her acquintance*, a long-haired woman moved her legs toward that cheerful voice with the same cheerful attitude. Her name is Kinomiya Kazane, and she was in the Kishitani household to attend a hotpot party which was held every Christmas. When she entered the main room, her brother, Shinra, waved at her. In the center of the room, a tasty-looking, boiled hotpot became the star of the party. Shinra and his headless fiancee, Celty, opened the party with a big cheers. And soon, the atmosphere in the room turned cheerful. Shizuo-san had friendly conversation with Kadota’s crew, the Raira group which consist of Mikado-kun, Masaomi-kun, Saki-chan (honorary member), Anri-chan, Mairu-chan, Kururi-chan, Aoba-kun, Kuon-kun, and Yahiro-kun had a heated discussion. Their discussion was probably about Aoba-kun and Kururi-chan’s relationship, looking from their blushing face, and the teasing face from other kids. His brother Shinra and his fiancee Celty-san had a serious conversation with Shingen-san and Emilia-san (and herself included) about their upcoming wedding. While looked at the lively atmosphere of the room, Kazane recalled her phone conversation with his brother’s friend a while ago.

‘Aah.. if only Izaya-san had came to this party, this party would have become merrier’Kazane mused.

Kinomiya Kazane is an optimistic person.

*Ping!*

‘Ah, a message from Tsukumoya-san,’ she quietly opened her smartphone.

‘Congrats, Kazane-chan! You succesfully annoyed my beloved playmate! I know that’s not your intention, but your action and his reaction amused me nonetheless. So I will give you a little gift. Enjoy it with as many person as possible!”

‘Enjoy it with as many person as possible? Did he give me snacks or something?'

*ding dong*

The sudden doorbell distracted Kazane from the message. Shizuo rose from his seat.

“Let me open it. Perhaps Kasuka and Ruri are finally arrived.”

“RURI-CHAN IS HERE??!!” Togusa was about to hypervilanting. Kadota smacked him in the head.

Unfortunately for the Fortissomo of Ikebukuro and van driver guy, someone behind the door was not his brother nor his brother’s girlfriend, but a timid delivery man. With trembling hands, he handed a package to Shizuo.

 “Th-This package is fo-for Kino-Kinomiya-sama. Is-is she here?”

“Yeah, she is here. I will give it to her.”

“Ye-yes!! Th-Thank you!!”the devilery man hurriedly ran away.

“Yo Kazane-chan. There’s a package for you, from Tsuku-Tsukumoya-san?”

Some people who acknowledge that name, like Shinra, Shingen, Mikado and Walker raised their head.

“Tsukumoya-san?”

“You know him, Mikado?”ask Masaomi.

“Yeah, I once used his service for information about people who was misusing Dollars' name, when I tried to 'clean up' the Dollars”

“So he is a good person?” ask Anri.

“Honestly, I don’t know. He is an introvert person. I don’t even know his face”

“Shingen, you know that person?”Emilia asked his husband.

“Kinda, I once chatted with him on twitter. He is a weird person.”

If Celty had her head, she would have a shocked expression. Kishitani Shingen, the Kishitani Shingen who was a super eccentric scientist and wore his mask 24/7, called other people weird.

[I think I’ve ever heard his name somewhere, but I don’t remember anything else.]

Other people who knew Tsukumoya as an acquintance of Izaya, like Shinra, Saki, Mairu, Kururi, and Aoba wisely kept their mouth shut.

“Kuon, you know him?”Yahiro whispered.

“I’ve heard that he is an informant who is better than Izaya, and sometimes Izaya required his services.”

“Then why did you want to become like Izaya instead of this Tsukumoya?”

“Because my Nee-chan fell for Izaya, not Tsukumoya.”

“Ah..”

When other people on that room became either tense or curious, only Walker beamed.

“Oh my Asuna, that’s from the real Tsukumoya Shinichi!”

“Yumacchi, who is that Shinichi?”

“He is a famous professional writer! He already published many novels! You guys perhaps know Ikebukuro Strike Back series?”

“No idea”, said Shizuo.

“Well, the point is he’s an amazing writer! And the mysterious one, too! Kinomiya-san, how did you know him?”

“I...kinda...know him for my job. You know, I am a journalist.”

“Wait, you said that he published many novels? Because from the size and the texture, I think the content of this package is a book, perhaps a novel.”

Quickly Walker snatched the package from Shizuo’s hand.

“Then perhaps it’s his new novel!”said Walker. His hands started to tear the paper wrappers.

“Hoi, Yumasaki, stop it! That Kinomiya-san’s!”Togusa moved toward Walker, but suddenly-

“UWAAAAHHH!!!”

-Walker threw the package and jumped 3 meter back. The torn part of the package faced the floor, hidden from everyone.

“What’s wrong?”said Masaomi while walked toward the package.

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

Masaomi flinched back, startled because of Walker’s outburst. Shizuo moved toward the package.

“What? Is this package contains some dangerous thing? Then it will be safer if I open it first.”

“NO! Shizuo-san, you are absolutely should not open that package! You will lose your control over your body!”

“AAAHHH???!! WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??!!”Shizuo started to get angry. Kadota calmly took the package and opened it with one strong tear.

“Dotachin, watch out!”

“Aah.. so this is why.. but indeed in here his face look so menacing.”Kadota muttered. Then still with a calm gesture, he flipped the book and showed it to other people.

“The contents of this package is only this. You don’t have to be so afraid.”

On that second, every one in that room saw a cover of a book

And suddenly the hotpot bowl was forgotten, the new book became new star of the party.

“I can’t help it! I thought he was died!”

“He can’t be dead, I’ve told you someone came to me to interviewed about him a while ago!”

“Ah, he came to me too!”

[And YOU DIDN’T TELL ME??]

“I’m sorry Celty, but I thought you didn’t want to hear about him again..”

“Grrr... Growl.. That fucking flea..”

“Calm yourself, Shizu-chan..”

“THAT NICKNAME IS SO NOT HELPING!!”

“Ah, I heard Namie-san talked with him on a phone not so long ago, so he is indeed still alive. It’s kinda amazing for a normal human like him to survived at all, considering the destruction of that building... And Namie-san also said she tried to poison him many times, but always failed.”

“Perhaps he is not a normal human. Shingen, should we do experiment on him?”

“Mikado-senpai, is that really Orihara Izaya? Or a potrait of a demon?”

“I think this is really Izaya-san, Aoba-kun.”

“Shit.”

“So that bastard Izaya is still alive.”

“Izaya-san is amazingly durable, like a cockroach.”

“Saki, you indeed praised Izaya, but you also called Izaya a cockroach. As your boyfriend I am so proud of you.”

“So Iza-nii is still alive but he didn’t give us any words or notice! He is despicable!”

“Nii.. the worst...(Izaya-niisan is the worst brother ever).”

“So this person is Izaya.... Kuon, are you okay?”

“....I am okay.”

‘So he is still alive! And he easily left my sister and make my sister feel miserable!! That jerk!!’

“Is it only me but Izaya’s eyes kinda gleaming red? Like Saika’s possessed? Or it’s only trick of light?”

“No.. it can’t be.. He must not hold or be posessed by Saika. As a Saika holder I can’t allow it...”

“Tch don’t worry, it’s his natural eye color. In daylight his eyes is reddish brown, but sometimes in the dark his eyes can become gleaming red.”

“You certainly know about that alot, right Shizu-chan?”

“I’ve told you don’t call me that! And how could I not know, I keep my eyes on him day and night!”

“AHHHH, MY SHIP IS NOT YET SINKING, SHIZU-CHAN AND IZAYAN ARE INDEE-umphpwahumph!”

“Please forget everything that Erika said, Shizuo-san!”

“Guys, calm down, now the question is why Tsukumoya-san has a book with Izaya as the cover and why he gave it to Kinomiya-san. Kinomiya-san, please tell us- Kinomiya-san?”

Hearing Kadota’s question, Kinomiya Kazane who on that time used their chaos to leave the room, stopped herself from reaching door handle.

“Ah.. ahahahaha...”

[Kazane-chan, as your sister in-law I demand you explanation! What is the meaning of all this!]

“Ahahaha... you see.. actually... a couple of days ago, I requested Tsukumoya-san’s service.”

[What did you request?]

“.....Izaya-san’s current phone number. Ahh it’s supposed to be my secret!”

 “And why did you want to have Izaya’s phone number?”

“Because Nii-san, you said you will invite all your friends to this party so I thought... I thought Izaya-san must be invited too!”

“Well, we have a good reason to not invite him, because as you can see, some of my friends hate him.”

“You mean ALL of your friends.”

“Be quiet for a moment, Masaomi.”Saki elbowed him.

“Neee.. Kinomiya-san, you said you have Iza-nii’s number right?”

“Yes, I have it on my smart-“Mairu snatched Kazane’s phone and quickly dialed the newest number in Kazane’s phone log.

Sorry the number you have dialled is not in service

“Damn, this number is already inactive.”

“Nii... fast... hide (Nii-san is always fast to hide his track).”

“So what did he said when you invited him?”

“He said he was rather far from Tokyo. Also, he said his body is not in the best condition right now, so he won’t be able to rush back to Ikebukuro.”

“What’s wrong with his body?”

“Togusa-san, didn’t you notice from that photo? Izaya’s in wheelchair.”said Kishitani Shingen.

“A really fancy and expensive wheelchair, I must say. It’s price is more than 3 million yen.”Kishitani Emilia said with jealousy in her voice. But not many person heard her word, because the book was once again surrounded by majority of people in that room.

“Shingen-san is right! Look, this is the wheels!”

“I  thought it’s some kind of shiny chair or something!”

“So that means his legs are crippled?”

“But look, he can cross his legs!”

“Knowing that bastard, I think he forcefully crossed his legs to make himself look cool.”

“So he’s really can’t walk again, huh..”

“Can’t run either..”

“No wonder Iza-nii didn’t want to come to Ikebukuro..”

“Nii.. reckless.. not stupid..(Nii-san is sometimes reckless, but he is definitely not stupid).”

“No, he is stupid... If only he had quickly came to me after that fight, maybe I could do something to his legs..”

Shizuo put one of his cigarette on his mouth, inhales it deeply.

‘Izaya is now crippled. So he can’t do parkour like before. Flea who can’t hop around. Heh..’

Shizuo tried to laugh at his own joke, but he just felt heaviness on his chest. He remembered Izaya who skillfully dodged his punch and sliced him on the first time they met. Izaya who jumped around to avoid vending machine which hurled on him. Izaya who could run so fast that even with his abnormal stamina and his sensivity of (Izaya’s) smell he always failed to catch him. Izaya who looked at him on top of a building, those gleaming red eyes challenged him to climb higher and capture his annoying smirk. Izaya who...

... whom he think he never had to restrain himself to fight him.

‘No, he deserved it. He ASKED for it. It was supposed to be our death match. He tried to suffocate me too. But still, even though he’s alive, our chase is now meant to end, huh....

.....I desire a peaceful life. I WILL NOT miss it.’

Shizuo inhaled his smoked deeply with all of his breath, tried to ease the growing heaviness in his chest.

“But that didn’t explain why Tsukumoya-san gave you that book.”Shinra said sternly.

“Tsukumoya-san said that even thought I didn’t mean it, I succesfully annoyed Izaya-san, and Tsukumoya-san said that he was amused because of Izaya-san’s reaction. So he gave me that book. But actually, I don’t know how I made Izaya-san anoyed. Perhaps, because I said that sentence...”

[What sentence?]

“I said ‘How about if Shizuo-san comes to pick you up? Then you might get here faster that way.’”

‘COUGH!COUGH!’Shizuo desperately coughed the smoke out of his lungs.

“PICK HIM-COUGH! WHAT THE-COUGH!”

“I thought that was a great idea Kazane-chan!!”Erika exclaimed brightly.

“Just imagine, Shizu-chan come to Izaya’s hideout, carry him out from his wheelchair, and then said gently‘Let’s go back to our city together’ AHHHH!! AND THEN THEY HAVE A HOT MAKE UP SE-umphpwahumph!!”

 Walker and Togusa desperately tried to cover Erika’s mouth, and other people on the room shuddered badly.

Shizuo had a sudden urge to bash his head into the wall.

Or Karisawa’s head.

“Ehm.. so, because we got this book, why don’t we try to read it?”Kadota suggested.

“But, we still have the hotpot..”said Anri, only to find..

“OUR HOTPOT SOUP IS COMPLETELY EVAPORATED!!”

“The tofus, mushrooms, and vegetables are all become mushy..”Mikado said sadly.

“We are too busy to look at that book, no one remember to turn off the hotpot stove..”Aoba mutter, dejected.

“So, reading time?”asked Kadota.

“Alright, as the owner of this book, I will read it first. Lets start...”

A Sunset with Orihara Izaya

“Why does the title sounds like a title for romance novel?”asked Walker

“Maybe Izaya-san found a lover out there?”Togusa guessed.

“Yeah,  Izaya found his lovers. And his lovers is..”said Kadota.

A minute of silence.

“Humans.”answered all of them plainly, minus Yahiro and Kazane.

Introduction

An informant showing up in a town far from Tokyo.
All he does is facilitate the flow of information, and nudge people on the back —

“Of course that’s all he did. It’s more than enough for him to make a town got destroyed.”Kida muttered darkly.

“Don’t jinx it.”chided Anri.

“Seriously, human observation is pretty tough.”

[Then just stop doing it, honestly. No one forced you to do it anyway.]

Shizuo snorted.

“Since when that flea willing to do something that he is forced to?”

He is an informant. That is what this man calls himself. Whether or not the title is appropriate, one thing is certain: he has the power to obtain a great volume of information.

“Indeed, until this time, I sometimes wonder how the hell he got all that information from.”Togusa said.

Mikado, Aoba, and Kuon looked at each other, then smile playfully.

It’s not something that normal people can easily understand,though.

He is not an ally of justice; neither is he an abettor of villainy. It is not that he has no identity. It is simply equal treatment . He is, simply, being unwaveringly honest to his own desires.

“That’s true. Just like what I said to Mamiya-san.”Shinra said proudly.

[Who is Mamiya-san?]

“Someone who want to commit suicide, but got tricked by Izaya. You know, his usual shenigan, harassed her about what a fool she was, drugged her then stuffed her in trunks. Because of that Mamiya-san hated Izaya with all of her heart.”

[I should not be surpised. What a jerk.]

“But ironically, her hatred prevented her to commit suicide, because she didn’t want to die before watching Izaya’s suffering. So basically, the reason why Mamiya-san is still alive until now is because of Izaya.”

[So, he unintentionally save a person by become a jerk?]

Kuon chuckled darkly.

“Oh, you have no idea how many person stay alive because of that jerk’s attitude, and how many person live with their immense hatred to Izaya as their only lifeline.”

Other people who heard that shifted on their seat uncomfortably. Yahiro put his hand on Kuon’s shoulder, tried to comfort him.

‘Human’. Earnestly, he loves every one of the assortment this word encapsulates.
He merely loves. Even if it causes the object of his love to break. Because this informant can love even broken humans equally —

Kida gritted his teeth, remembered Saki’s incident. Saki pat his knees gently.

Kazane continued her reading

Next : Prologue 1

Chapter Text

Prologue A: Your Neighborhood Informant

Some people in the room snorted.

“Our lovely neighborhood informant, indeed.”Masaomi hissed.

“So I seriously have the chance to kill him, right?” A salary-like man wearing a worn out business shirt spouted these absurd words over the phone.

‘Yes, he will remain in the company’s office alone for certain today. The password code for the safe is correct; I guarantee it.’

“Ara ara...”Emilia giggled.

“Looks like that scroundel helped another murder huh..”Shingen sniggered amusedly.

“That flea, he didn’t change at all!”Shizuo snapped angrily

“Kuon, are you really want to be like him?”Yahiro asked Kuon with worried look.

“.....”Kuon just averted his face from Yahiro’s eyes.

“Alright...I don’t get it why he would be at the company when everyone, even security, is off the clock, but that’s fine with me.”

‘I want to ask just to make sure, but will you really do it? Murder.’

“What the.. he didn’t try to prevent someone to murder right?”asked Togusa confused.

“That’s impossible! That guy is the type of person who laugh when there are murder in front of him!”Aoba declared.

“Like you, Aoba-senpai?”Kuon asked teasingly.

“......depend of whom got murdered? For example, if my idiot brother got murdered in front of me, I will laugh with joy and give the murderer some money. I also enjoyed it if some idiots got murdered instead of me.”

Kadota and Celty (metaphorically) frowned upon hearing Aoba’s words.

Sadly for everyone, those two were the only sane adults in that room.

The man retorted in anger towards the voice on the other side of the cell phone: “Of course I will! What are you saying now?! We shared both good and bad times when we launched the company together, and yet he completely discarded me, a joint manager! He’s monopolizing all the research results to himself!”

‘Now look, some people have personal information they need to keep to themselves. Why not give up on revenge and begin to walk a new path?’

“Okay, this is freaky. Izaya definitely tried to prevent his client to murder.”Togusa whispered nervously

“Perhaps he had a change of heart after leaving Ikebukuro?”Erika gushed positively.

“Or perhaps Shizuo bashed his head strong enough so he became a new person?”Walker wondered with innocent smile, despite the fact that his thought were full with his former victims’s cracked skulls images.

Shizuo silently recalled his fight with Izaya. As far as he remembered, he didn’t even touch Izaya’s head.

....but again, he hit Izaya with steelbar until Izaya got flying into nearby building. Perhaps he got concussion on there?

“That’s out of the question! He was my best friend...No, I was supposed to be his friend! But I was actually just a mere stepping stone to him! He took everything from me! I have a family to support...I still have debt...He knew that! And despite that, he would leave me my family out in the cold! This time it’s my turn to steal everything from him. Right?!”

“Ouch, it’s indeed hurt when your friends betrayed you.”Masaomi muttered darkly, remembered when he was overthrown as leader and betrayed by members of his gang

Saki pat his shoulder gently.

“If your friend has capability to betray, that means they are not your true friend.”

The man kept raising his voice as though he was trying to convince himself. It was likely that he sought to hear the person on the other side of the phone agree with him.

‘This desire to kill is just,’ was all the other had said.

[Wait, he agreed with him or not?]

“It’s kinda ambiguous, isn’t it?”Mikado mused curiously.

“He was neither. I think he got excited over his client’s killing intent.”Shinra said amusedly.

[So he did want his client to murder at all!]

“Not really. If his client chose to give up on his revenge, I bet he will feel the same excitement.”

[What the.. What's that supposed to mean? He want his client to murder or to give up?]

“Celty, he love both of the option. It’s not his habit to agree on one certain situation. He love the action of murder as much as he love the action of save someone’s life.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Murder and save a life clearly two different thing.”Yahiro said, confused.

“It’s kinda difficult to explain it. Let’s just say that Izaya is indeed doesn’t make any sense to normal people.”

Yahiro frowned. He IS NOT normal people.

So Izaya-san’s weirdness surpassed him?

‘I think you’d still be able to support your family even if without a job. Well, regardless, if that is your stance, then I’ll respect it - no matter what end you’ll meet with.’

“Aah.. Kuru-nee, Iza-nii already said that. Perhaps the client-san’s fate was doomed right now.”Mairu told Kururi cheerfully.

“Nii.. knew..client (Nii-san knew something but he didn’t tell his client.)”

Instantly everyone in this room shot the twins with questioned look. Both of them just shrugged.

“Iza-nii is sometimes very stingy about informations that he collected. For example, someone ask him for informations about the password code for the safe like the salaryman in this book, he only gave him what his client asked, the password code, even though he maybe already knew what’s inside the safe or his target actually didn’t keep any money on the safe.”

“So there’s possibility that the safe is actually empty and his client will murder only for vain?”Anri asked hesitately.

“Perhaps... worse... (Perhaps. Or maybe something’s worse than that)”

“What do you mean? What can be worse than murdered someone for vain?”Anri retorted hesitantly

“Honestly, we also don’t know for sure. But he explicitly said about ‘personal information they need to keep to themselves’.”

“Indeed. To people who know him like us, that sentence alone can be a very huge warning when it comes from him. But this client was driven by his anger. I feared this case was worse than we thought.”Kadota said warily.

“That’s none of your business! When I succeed I’m only giving you half the pay! You better run as far as you can!” The man sternly yelled and hung up, having nothing further to discuss with him.

“Okay, he is an idiot. The kind of idiot whom I enjoyed to get murdered.”Aoba nodded his head.

“Well, he got consumed with desire of revenge.”Mikado responded with a calm face.

“The type of person like that is Izaya’s favourite to devour.”Kuon muttered darkly.

The question ‘will you really do it?’ bounced around in his head repeatedly.

Damn that informant. He tried to discourage me right before the act...

“He didn’t particulary intent to discourage him. I think he tried to tell him to think again about his action, to truly understand what he wants to do. But in the end, like he said, he respected his client’s action.”Shinra explained.

[When you put it like that, it sounds like he did a good thing.]

“Well, that depends on what’s our definition of good thing. Is it about intent? Or about the outcome? Is an action which has goodwill behind it but has bad outcome is a good thing? Is an action which has badwill behind it but has good outcome is a bad thing? Or the opposite?”

Celty tapped on her PDA, then became hesitate, and then put her PDA on her lap.

[I... I don’t know. But what he did were bad thing. ALL he did were bad thing. I... I know that’s sounds ridiculous but-]

“No! Not at all, Celty. It’s perfectly logical. Just like Celty to me.”

[!!!!]

“I mean, ALL you do are good thing to me. Even if you kill someone in front of me, I still think that you did a good thing. So after all...”

Shinra take Celty’s and, and stare at her with love-crazed eyes.

“The morale of good and bad is only the matter of opinion after all, and can easily be swayed by love and hate. So it’s perfectly logical if you thought that Izaya only can do bad thing for you because of your hate to him, just like you only can do good thing for me because of my love to you. ”

Despite his fiancee’s love proclamation, Celty felt uncomfortable feeling filled her chest. Shingen made a loud cough. Kazane startled from her dazed look to his brother and started reading again.

The man slapped his cheeks, refocusing himself to the task from the sharp pain.

This is a just revenge , he repeated to rouse himself. He slipped the knife into his pocket and took a step out into the night, believing that step would be the first towards his new life.

“Or maybe the step toward the end of his life.”Walker added playfully.

“Shh.. Yumacchi don’t jinx it..”

“Damn...why...why did it get like this...”

The man fell to his knees behind the alleyway, crestfallen, having finished with the kill smoothly a few hours prior. The spurt of blood stuck thickly to his business shirt, and fresh blood clung to the folded knife kept in his breast pocket.

“Ahh...what’s going to happen...? Why...would that-”

“What? What happened?”Erika moved her body toward Kazane.

“Is the safe really empty?”Walker asked excitedly.

“Hey, be quiet. Let Kinomiya-san read it.”Kadota scolded both of them.

Just as the man shook his head, his cell phone went off in his breast pocket. Without checking the screen, he answered the call with a hollow expression.

Shortly thereafter, a chirpy voice that was completely unfitting for the man’s current situation came through from the receiver.‘Hey, congratulations! If you were able to answer the phone like this, I assume that means you killed him without running into any problems nice and sound!’

“That jerk, he didn’t wait any second to harass him huh..”Masaomi chided.

 “Without…problems, you say?”

After grinding his teeth, the man spoke, his voice shaking, “I-...in the safe...there was hardly any money. Instead...there was the title certificate of the company under my name ...A-....a-, af-af-, after I killed him, I looked at his laptop and saw he had been writing his indictment to the company…”

‘Yeah, that sounds about right.’

“Ha...?”

“HAAA?”Kazane accidentaly let her voice got louder.

“So he knew???”

“It’s Izaya we’re talking about. Of course he knew.”Shingen deadpanned.

‘He remained at the company to write that today.’ The man on the other side of the call laughed at the dumbfounded man. ‘The president realized the large scale injustice the company’s workers were doing and tried to cover for you, his joint manager – you, his best friend.’

“...?”

‘Taking your personality into consideration, he probably figured if he told you the illegal activities he was conducting you would try to have you both take responsibility together. But since you had a family and unavoidable debt, he couldn’t let you be burdened by it. The president would have thought that, right? So he broke his friendship with you and then pretended to have stolen the rights for management. Once he was fired, it would have made his transgressions unrelated to the company.’

Indeed, there was a confession-like statement written for the media on the laptop: ‘Before the illegal activities are made public, I have discarded my joint manager as he would the possibility of noticing my activities.’

‘It looks like he had already wrote instructions ahead of time too. And after everything was taken care of, the company’s stock and benefits from the research results would automatically have become yours by the looks of it.’

The room fell into gripping silence.

“Wow.. This is much much worse than we thought.”Mairu hummed amusedly.

“So the salaryman’s best friend didn’t betray him.. He even tried to put all the company’s loss to him so his best friend can take over the company in peace.”Yahiro sighed.

“One night.. If only the salaryman can wait for one night..”Anri mumbled sadly.

“Or if that bastard tried to stop him..”Masaomi accused sharply.

“Hey, now that-“Mairu was ready to argue, but Kazane who didn’t want the kids to fight each other, resumed her reading.

“That’s a lie!”

‘If you saw the inside of the safe then you should already know that this is not a lie, right?’ The voice had said nonchalantly.

The man inquired, teeth chattering more than before, “You...knew...this? You knew everything, and yet you didn’t try to stop me!?”

“Hey, now that was unfair. He tried to stop him before.”Mairu continued her argument.

“But if he explained all the circumstances to his client, maybe his client would give up on his revenge..”Masaomi objected.

“I hate to defend that bastard, but he didn’t have any obligation to do that. His client only ask him about a chance to kill the company’s president and the password of the safe.”Aoba pointed out.

“Obliga-that’s silly! If you know that someone is going to do a bad thing, especially if they will regret it later, you must stop them! That what humans do!”yelled Anri.

‘You’re giving me some rather odd accusations. Didn’t I just try to stop you not too long ago? If you would like, I could have you listen to the recording.’

Really, really, didn’t like conflict, Kazane quickly resumed her reading before the argument escalated violently. But unfortunately, that next line connected perfectly , as if that was Izaya’s reply for Anri’s last accusation. Because of that, Anri felt slapped and fell into silence. As if Izaya himself appear in front of him, with his sharp smirk and his evil sneer. The same grin of joy, when he said he will burn Mikado and Masaomi’s rope only because he want to know what will they both do.

“Anri-chan! Anri-chan! What’s happened?! Anri-chan!”

Anri didn’t even realize that she trembled on her chair. She quickly recomposed herself.

“I’m sorry, I’am okay. Kazane-san, please continued your reading.”

Erika, who knew Izaya’s harassement to Anri on the hospital, gave her worried look.

Kazane shot her a guilty look, the resumed her reading.

Well, at least the argument didn’t escalated further.

“You’re...you’re screw-…”

‘The one who is screwing around is you, isn’t it?’ The person on the other end distinctly stated with enough force to cut off his yelling.

‘I’m an informant. If you had bothered to ask, I would have told you everything I knew. I normally would not have given a warning, but I went out of my way to give you an exclusive hint this time when I mentioned that there were people with personal information that they needed to keep to themselves.’

“That’s...”

‘You refused to understand him on your own.’

“I hate to admit it, but all Izaya said was the truth. The salaryman was already warned, but he chose to disregard it to fullfil his need of revenge.”Kuon noted grimly.

“But still.. what he did was just too cruel. He gave the salaryman warning, but at the same time he gave him a way for his client to murder. He was like a man who gave a child many candies, and then after the child accept it, he told the child that candies are bad for tooth. Then, after the child got toothache and started to blame the man, the man said that the child’s sickness is not his responsibility, because he already warned the child.”Masaomi reasoned.

“Indeed, but the salaryman here is not a child. He should know that murdering his best friend is a bad thing, especially when another person already gave him a warning.”Mikado objected.

“But-“

‘Uh, oh. The argument is about to start again’Kazane thought and the quickly resumed her reading.

“Th- There’s no way I could know! For something like that...! How was I supposed to know?! Wouldn’t he be at fault for not even saying one word to me?!” The man screamed like a child would as he forced down the rising nausea in the pit of his stomach.

A clear sneer could be heard from the other end of the cell phone: ‘No way. The president would also not have expected you - his best friend - to resent him enough to consider murder. In either case, you did not read into what he was doing in secret...or more precisely, since you did not even try to do that, it looks like the president was the only one to have thought you were friends.’

“I...That’s wrong! That’s a liiiiiiiieeeeee!”

“No, that wasn’t a lie. The salaryman was already lose his right to call the company’s president his best friend.”

Masaomi looked at Saki with troubled look.

“Saki, you want to defend Izaya too?”

“Not really, but Masaomi, I’ve told you before that if your friend has capability to betray, that means they are not your true friend. It’s the same as murder. If your friend has a thought to murder you, on that second they stop become your friend.

Especially on this case, the murder was not because a spontaneous burst of emotion, but a planned murder, he even hired an informant, and he only want to know two thing, a chance to kill his best friend and password for the safe. He didn’t want to talk nor demand explanation from his friend, nor want an apology from his friend. On that night, the salaryman only saw his friend as a thorn to be obliterated so he could access the safe.”

Saki pulled a small, mirthless smile, then spoke.

“A person like that didn’t deserve to called himself ‘friend’. Am I right?”

No one in that room dared to argue that. Kuon shot her a curious look.

‘So this is the power of someone whom directly under Izaya’s guidance for years?’

‘Don’t be so pessimistic. I told you earlier, didn't I? No matter what end you’ll meet with, I would respect your decision.’

‘I think the action you took was very human-like, you know?’

“You would think every action he took was human-like, isn’t that right, Izaya-san?”Saki mused with some adoration on her voice.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

At about the same time in a certain place in Kanto.

“In Kanto? Still on the same region as Tokyo.”Togusa remarked.

“Or maybe he is still in Tokyo.”Walker speculated. His slitted eyes opened slightly.

“Eeeh.. no way, if he is still in Tokyo, Shizu-chan should be able to smell his pheromone.”Erika objected.

“I’ve told you don’t call me that! And I can’t detect him if he was somewhere in Tokyo, I can sense his smell only if he enters ‘Bukuro. My sense of smell is not that wide. By the way, what is ‘peronon’? Is that means stink like flea?” Shizuo huffed.

“Ah hahaha, pheromone is only a kind of bad smell shizuo” Togusa explained sweatly while give Erika a warning look.

“Psst... Kuon, is Shizuo-san really can detect Izaya-san by his smell? What about other people?”Yahiro inquired curiously.

“I don’t know for sure, but indeed Shizuo-san always be able to tell every time Izaya enters Ikebukuro. About other people, there’s no record that tells Shizuo-san can do that.”Kuon answered him.

“Woah.. then, if I have the same advanced body as Shizuo, perhaps on the future I can detect your smell anywhere in Ikebukuro.”

“......don’t you dare.”

He could hear the scream from the other side of the phone. Immediately following it was the sound of a solid collision, and then the call had completely cut off there.

“What, he jumped in front of a truck or something?”Shizuo mused.

“Did he jump in front of a truck or something?”

“WHAT THE- THAT FLEA COPIED MY WORD!!”Shizuo roared angrily.

“Shizuo, this book happened in the past. No way he can copy your word.”Kadota reasoned.

“That means Shizu-chan and Izayan, even though separated far far away, their thought, their mind, and their heart still tightly connected! The true love of BL-umphumph Yumacchi!”Once again, Erika’s blabble of Boys Love was stopped by Walker.

“Kinomiya-san, please continue reading!”Walker asked desperatedly

The man who had the last conversation with the pitiful killer threw the cell phone he held into the trash.

“Now then, naturally when they get their hands on the cell phone the killer had they would look into his call history...so I guess that means it’s about time to move to another city.”

He whispered to himself as the sound of wheels moving squeaked in the room. The man sitting in the wheelchair turned his gaze to the ten-odd cell phones laid out on the desk.

[He is really on wheelchair.]

“He has ten phones?”Yahiro puzzled.

“...I lost quite a few. I guess I have to replenish the cell phones I threw away as well then.”

The man shrugged before muttering as he gazed outside the window with a self-ridiculing smile.

“Really, rehabilitation (human observation) is such a pain.”

“But you seems to enjoy that, jerk.”Aoba scoffed.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000

He was an informant.

There was one man who called himself that. Setting aside if he should be called “informant” for his occupation, the only certain fact was that he had the power to acquire a lot of information. He was never on the side of justice, but neither was he a subordinate of evil.

“But to me he was descendant of evil.”Masaomi grumbled angrily.

Saki smiled at him amusedly

Save the weak, crush the strong.

Trample the weak, flatter the strong.

Counsel the good, criticize the bad.

Ridicule the losers, rebuke the victors.

And while he had lived like that on one hand, on the other he would happily do the opposite too.

Save the strong, crush the weak.

Trample the strong, flatter the weak.

Counsel the bad, criticize the good.

Ridicule the victors, rebuke the losers.

He was not indecisive; he was just fair. He was only honest when it came to his own desires.

“Psst.. hey, what’s the meaning of indecisive?”Togusa whispered to Walker

“Uhm... I don’t know too...”

Shinra helpfully spoke.

“Indecisive means not good at making decision..”

“Ah.. so that’s the meaning.. thank you Shinra-sensei.”Togusa replied shyly

“Humans.”

He earnestly continued to love the mass of gems that revolved around everything associated with that term.

He just loved humans. No matter the result, even if the humans he loved broke as the informant could equally love a broken human.

“That was the prologue A. The next is prologue B. But my throat is parched, excuse me to have some drink.”said Kazane before she drank a glass of water.

“Poor Kazane-chan.. Now how about we take a turn to read? Let me read the next, Kazane chan..”

“Thank you, Emilia-san..”

Next : Prologue B

Chapter Text

 Prologue B: Welcome to Bunokura

“Bunokura? Where’s that?”Shizuo puzzled.

“Did you come to that town when you were on trip with Celty-san, Shinra-sensei?”asked Saki.

“No, I only visited some places which have interesting attractions, like Osaka, Kyoto, Akita, Sapporo, Okinawa, ......especially Okinawa. My first trip to Okinawa didn’t end well so I must tamper that memories with memories of sweet trip with my dear lovely Celty!”Shinra gushed.

“What happened on your first trip to Okinawa?”Anri asked curiously.

“Because, the first time I went to Okinawa was on my school field trip.”

“But isn’t school field trip supposed to be fun? Or you don’t like it because that makes you away from Celty-san?”Yahiro questioned.

Kadota sighed tiredly.

“Oh yeah that trip. It became total chaos.”

“Why, Dotachin?”

“Shizuo and Izaya joined that trip.”

“.....Ah.”Most of people on the room nodded undestandably, as if that sentence explained everything.

“They are on the same bus. And the same ryokan.”

“.....What the heck were your teachers thinking?”moaned Masaomi.

“Dunno, perhaps they thought the field trip could make Shizuo and Izaya became friends.”

“Ah, yes I remember when we were child, Iza-nii brought me and Kuru-nee to grandpa and grandma’s house because he would go to school field trip for 3 days-2 night.”

“Longer...(But he was gone longer than that).”

“It can’t be helped. All of our school’s buses were completely wrecked so we must wait for another transportation.”

“Ah.. what a crazy field trip. I heard even until now many of our classmate became traumatized to go to Okinawa. Except me, of course! Because I have Celty!”

“But what exactly happened on that field trip?”Kuon asked, still curious.

“Why don’t you ask Shizuo? He was the one who experienced every detail. We were just spectators.”

Soon all of people on that room except Kadota and Shinra looked at Shizuo curiously. Shizuo scowled, as if he recalled some bad memories.

“That flea schemed something and became so annoying. I tried to kill him. Then we had fight.”

“.....of course that what’s happened.”deadpanned Togusa.

On a three-lane prefectural road down-pouring with rain, a banner reading ‘ahead is the mining town’ was hung on the pedestrian bridge crossing over that street. Countless cars passed under the banner that was getting soaked by the onslaught of rain.

There was a certain multi-tenant building downtown beside the road where there was not much traffic spanning across its width. And on the rooftop, there was one man who symbolized the town getting pelted by the rain.

“Izaya?”Mikado inquired.

“No, it isn’t him.”Emilia replied.

Ryuuichi Adamura – he was the head of the mine managing the town and the eldest son of Jingorou Adamura. The man was promised to inherit the Bunokura mine and all the benefits attached to the company.

Silver, copper, lead, and zinc were extracted from the Bunokura mine in abundance, and while not as active as a working gold mine, the Bunokura was continuing to extract even a small sum of money for a mine’s standards frequent enough. It was called a “silver mine” instead of a “gold mine” due to its small ratio.

It was not just the mining though; the Adamura family had accomplished revitalizing the city as a side business. It was said the total assets the family established constituted to more than 15 billion yen.

“Wow, that’s a lot of money.”stated Erika, amazed.

“How many light novel can we buy with that money?”Walker wondered.

“Yumacchin! Let’s we dug a hole somewhere and make our own mine!”Erika bubbled excitedly.

“Let’s do it!”

“Stupid, do you guys think make a mine is that easy?”Togusa retorted.

“Mou.. don’t trample our dream, Togusacchi!”

“If we have 15 billion yen from the mine, you can buy a new van!”

“Idiots! As if I want another van! The van I have right now is the most beautiful, amazing, and perfect van in the world!”

“Shh guys, be quiet!”Kadota scolded sternly.

The Adamura family reigned supreme in this region – or more accurately it should be called the Adamura paradise –  as they developed further assets with most of the town’s businesses under their influence. The Adamura family was a presence that should be called even royalty within the restrictions of the city. Naturally with only 15 billion in assets, the family could not be listed in the top ten of Japan nor could it reach the level of standing to influence the country in comparison to big corporations. But if it was restricted to just Bunokura, that was another matter.

They were not just limited to money. If the base of personal connections developed over several decades were included, it was possible to say that the family had behaved like proper kings, if exclusive to just this town. But since they put too much investment into Bunokura, if they took one step out of there their influence would weaken. The Adamura Group was not even a famous corporation with national constituencies either. If someone from the Tokyo area were asked about them, they would probably say, ‘Adamura? Who’s that?’ The Adamura Group was like a big fish in a little pond.

“Indeed, I don’t know the name Adamura at all.”Mikado said, a little troubled.

“I fell like I’ve heard that name somewhere.”Shingen wondered.

“Me too.. That Adamura Ryuuichi name, sounds familiar..”said Kazane while tried to remember that particular name.

Influential people around the town had discussed that behind their back. But in exchange for the Adamuras resigning themselves to be the ‘big fish in the pond,’ the townsfolk had managed to save up large amounts of treasure they had found and chose the path to become the king fish, bouncing back against the ocean’s waves to build up a sublime, tenacious pond. The name Adamura was deeply and strictly engraved into the minds of the people residing in the land Bunokura.

To remind them they were the rulers.

To remind them they were the protectors.

To remind them they were the dictators.

To make them believe they themselves were living in a pond bigger than the ocean.

Through those circumstances, a large family that monopolized the town was born in a twisted town locally.

“So they’re like Awakusu family of Bunokura?”Shingen wondered.

“Seems like it.”replied Shinra.

The eldest son, the head of that family – Ryuuichi Adamura – was called the son of a noble. And he was currently confined to the roof of the building his family owned.

Why me? As if that kind of stupid thing would happen! Damn him...I’ll kill him! And I won't settle with any standard murder! I’ll expend an amble amount of money and time to kill him.

“Woah, for someone who was called the son of a noble, he didn’t hesitate to kill other person at all.”Kadota amazed.

“Did you know? Nobles person like him are usually like to look down on other people’s lives.”said Saki calmly.

For half a day since he was confined, he yelled nothing but that. However, his vulgar language had steadily changed to that of anxiety, accompanied by a starving sensation to his body.

Why isn’t anybody noticing? Damn it! Even though a full day has passed, what the hell is dad doing?

“So he’s the spoiled baby boy type, huh? The one who can’t do anything without his daddy.”Masaomi scoffed.

He was left alone in a store house beside the water reservoir tank on the roof, exposed to starvation and pain from his bound limb as a result of three full days of being there.

“He was bound for three days? Looking from my previous experiences, the captor didn’t intended to let the noble boy came out alive.”Walker smirked.

“You are right.”agreed Erika.

Yahiro looked at both at them puzzled.

His previous experiences? What does that means?

This was an Adamura coordinated leisure building. It was the greatest large leisure establishment in the city built as a part to the town revitalization with game centers, batting centers, bowling places, karaoke boxes and restaurants directed to young people.

Even though there were tons of people crowded on the lower levels, no one took notice of his confinement on the rooftop. He flung his legs about and yelled out for his unreasonable treatment, but there was no reply.

“Y-you bastard! It’s enough! Just take these handcuffs off already!”

Noticing the one who appeared was the person that trapped him here, he cursed it again, but his voice already did not have much strength left in it.

“Knowing that he was confined for three days without food and water, it’s kinda amazing that he can let out his voice at all.”Shinra complimented.

[Why? What happened to humans if they don’t have water and food for 3 days?]

“Well, it depend on each individual’s durability, but normally humans will die if they don’t have food and water for 3 days, and if you don’t drink anything for 2 days, your throat will be parched and usually become to dry to talk.”

[Oh... That’s why Yumasaki said that the captor didn’t intended to let the boy came out alive?]

“Exactly.”

“If it’s money I’ll give you any amount you want! Okay? Hey! Let’s rethink this! How much did you receive from that Kiyojima bastard? This isn’t anything petty like doubling or tripling it. I’ll give you as much until you’re satisfied, so come here, okay? Tell him I died. Call that Kiyojima out here and...”

The captor quietly approached Ryuuichi, who was crying out for some kind of negotiation –

“―”

and whispered something into his ears.

At that moment, Ryuuichi’s face paled even more so than before. For a moment the starving feeling and the pain in his limbs were blown away.

The moment he heard that whisper, he knew: that he would undoubtedly be killed.

“What? What did the captor whisper?”Mikado questioned.

“Umm.. It’s not written on the book.”Emilia responded.

“That means whatever the captor whispered it was something that only known between the two of them. Perhaps a reminder of Ryuuichi’s bad act or something.”Mairu guessed.

“Captor... Grudge....(So that means the captor may have some grudge at Ryuuchi)”

“W-wait! Please wait! Let’s ta-...gah”

Several thin papers were stuffed into his mouth when he tried to yell something; something like the tourist leaflets written with the same wording as the banner on the prefectural road the Adamura group made for the city hall.

“Why do you use paper as gag? That’s very unefficient you know! You must use cloth fabric instead!” complained Aoba.

“What’s the difference between paper and fabric as gag? They’re both can get wet right?”Kuon pondered.

“Indeed, but paper, unlike fabric, can shrink and torn if it got wet. That will increase the possibility for the gag to fall from the victim’s mouth.”

“But on the novel, the captor used tourist leaflets. Tourist leaflets are usually made with waterproof paper. They can’t get wet, they can’t get torn easily like normal paper.

Moreover, waterproof paper is not soft like fabric. If you make the paper into balls, there are many pointy parts on the paper ball, which if you stuff it to someone’s mouth, the pointy parts can puncture his inside mouth and make the victim feel more uncomfortable.”explained Mikado.

“ Ah.. you are right. As expected from Mikado-senpai.”

Kazane stared at Mikado, Aoba, and Kuon with troubled look.

Those teenagers carefreely discuss about how to gag someone, should I as an adult stop them?

But then, like all adult on that room, she chose to ignore it.

Although, Ryuuichi did not notice that.

Forever.

Something pierced into Ryuuichi’s face.

“—————”

The blade of the cutter knife was thrust into Ryuuichi’s face, breaking his nose, but the cut was not intended to instantly kill him. His scream could not be made into words with the leaflets packed into his mouth; the sound had caught in his throat, becoming a groan. Some of the noise resounded throughout the storehouse on the rooftop.

Some people on that room winced and instinctively touched their nose. Except Celty, of course.

Unnoticed by everyone, because they were all too engrossed at the story, Anri trembled slighly.

A rolled-up leaflet fell out of his mouth from the impact and onto Ryuuichi’s side.

‘Ahead is the mining town,’

Blood splashed fell onto the characters written on the leaflet.

Slash, slash.

Instead of a pickax, the cutter knife pierced Ryuuichi’s body multiple times. It made the body violently writhe causing more leaflets to fall out to his side.

‘Let’s dig up your hopes.’

Slash, slash.

“Umm.. honey? Your storytelling is impressive but it started to get scary.”cautioned Shingen.

Indeed, Emilia read that scene with cold voice, on some place like when she read ‘slash, slash’, her voice dropped so low until it almost became like whisper. No wonder all of people on the room, even previous torturers duo and the Strongest Man of Ikebukuro felt chill feeling running down on their spine.

“Ara, but this part is indeed scary scene. So I want to get in the mood.”

“I appreciate your efforts, love. But-“

“Hey, something’s wrong with Anri-chan!”mentioned Erika loudly. Indeed, Anri trembled hard on her seat. Mikado immediately rushed to Anri’s side and held her gently.

“Shh.. Anri-chan, are you okay?”

“Uhm.. I am okay. The ‘slash slash’ part remind me of The Slasher incident, that’s all.”said Anri after she composed herself.

“I am sorry for make you all worry, I am fine right now. Emilia-san, please continue..”

Blood splashed on new characters, as though digging up something from the body that was wrapped in large amounts of flesh and greed.

‘Let’s refine the town’s happiness.’

Slash, slash.

Blood spilled over the characters, staining the leaflets in pure red.

Finally, by the time the sound stopped most of the leaflet passages were unreadable –

One phrase arose, barely readable among the bloodstains.

‘Welcome to Bunokura!’

“What a... bloody greeting.”Anri rasped.

“Well, that’s the end of Prologue B. The next one is Chapter 1. But you guys probably want look at the clock for a moment.”

“Damn, now it’s past 10 o’clock!”exclaimed Yahiro.

“Already that late? My nee-chan will worry about me!”groaned Kuon.

“Then, how about we continue it for tomorrow? Kazane-chan can keep the book, because that’s belong to her. Tomorrow at 3 am, we’ll meet on here.”suggested Shinra. Everyone nodded in agreement. Then one by one, all the guest said their goodbye and went to their own house, until on the house only remaining by Shingen, Emilia, Shinra, Celty, and Kazane.

“Well, let’s we sleep, Emilia.”said Shingen before he and Emilia went to one of the bedroom.

[We should sleep too. Come on, Shinra]

Shinra walked to follow Celty, but then he turned around and looked at the book with a sad, longing glance.  

“Nii-san... You can keep the book for this night..”

[Shinra?]

Shinra shakes his head, the smiled cheerfully.

“No, that’s not needed Kazane-chan. Besides, if I hold the book, I will be tempted to read it before everyone does. So keep it carefully, Kazane-chan.”

The he run to Celty excitedly.

“Celty~ I’m comiing~ On this night, how about we had some se-OOFF!”

Kazane chuckled slightly at his brother’s antics, the looked at the cover of the book.

“Izaya-san..”

How many times she saw the picture, she always felt Izaya’s red eyes pierced on her. She went to her room, put the book on shelf, and laid on her bed.

“Good sleep, Izaya-san..”

"Wherever you are.." 

Next : Chapter 1 part A

Chapter Text

On the next morning, at 9 a.m, the crew already gathered on Shinra’s house. Why? Because on earlier morning, all of them received message from Kazane. On that message, she asked them to come to Shinra’s house at 9 a.m to continue read the book.”

“Honestly, I kinda surprised when receiving your message, Kinomiya-san. How did you know my number?”asked Aoba, slightly cautious.

“I asked Tsukumoya-san for that, and also other’s number. I actually didn’t think that he will agree. Apparently, he still likes me for make Izaya-san feel annoyed.”

“He even know my number. I don’t like him at all.”Kuon opined distatefully.

“He is indeed great at obtaining information.”Mikado mused, amazed at Tsukumoya’s ability.

“He reminds me of Izaya. It pissed me off.”Shizuo spited angrily.

“Kazane-chan, the Tsukumoya guys is not really a trustful person. I don’t think it’s wise to keep communicated with him. He has no sense of privacy. And secretly get people’s numbers without their consent is also violation of privacy, Kazane-chan.”Shingen chided.

Kazane immediately felt ashamed.

“Sorry to overstep your privacy, all, but my brother roamed in front of my room all morning, he looked like he want to quickly read the book.”

Celty shoved her PDA to her fiancee’s face.

[SEE? Even Kazane-chan realized it! You’re really impatient man.]

“Eeh~ But I can’t help it! I wanna know his actions outside Ikebukuro. He always make interesting things happened, so I can’t help but curious about what kind of chaos did he created outside Ikebukuro.”whined Shinra, then he was jabbed in the rib by Celty.

[Chaos is not for enjoyement!]

“Suddenly I can see why you’re friends with Izaya, Shinra-sensei,”grumbled Masaomi.

“But to be honest, I feel curious too. After all, unordinary things always happened when he’s around. Don’t we all? After all, that’s why we gathered here?”Kadota defended. All person in the room, even, Shizuo, sheepishly nodded. Mairu voiced a little hum of agreement.

Yahiro gave the most excited nod.

I want to know about him. The man who even after he was gone from this city, his name is often whispered around. With hatred. With amazement. With wariness. With adoration. With longing feeling. With uneasiness.

I want to know about that man who apparently can be destroyer of a life but at the same he can be the only support of others life.

I want to know about a single man who can cause that different reactions, but they’re all agree that the man named Orihara Izaya is not someone that can be igroned.

Because that man, even this city is contained with a headless woman, strongest man who can rip stop sign from the ground, and demon sword who can possess others....

..... somehow his name become Ikebukuro’s most tremendous urban legend.

“Then, shall we start read this book?”Emilia announced, while opened the book.

Chapter 1: The Man Who Came

Most people in the room gulped. As if to prepare themself for upcoming storm.

A certain day on a certain month, extracted from a portion of a region newspaper article.

'A body in Bunokura – determined as the missing eldest son of a wealthy family -'

'Last night the body found in Bunokura was identified to be Ryuuichi Adamura (age 28) who had disappeared three days prior. The police are investigating the case and accident -'

“He was 28 years old?”Togusa exclaimed

“He was even older than Dota-chin!”Erika followed

“From his monologue before his death, he sounded immature so I thought he wast 21 years old at best.”Walker responded.

“Well, everyone are immature if compared to Kadota-san.”Kazane teased.

“Should I feel flattered or insulted?” sighed Kadota

A man gazed at the article in a small mountain hut in a land far away from the town the newspaper article was written in. It was unclear how he obtained a regional newspaper from another prefecture, but the date was certainly today.

“If that man is Izaya, to obtain the latest newspaper from different country is a piece of cake for him.”Shinra mused.

“But how exactly did he do that?”Yahiro questioned.

“No idea. Every time I ask him, he always reply with ‘because I am informant’. As if ‘Informant’ is some kind of magic word that will grant you any information.”

“It’s certainly not,”grumbled Kuon.

The man smiled excitingly and threw the newspaper into the fireplace. He then also threw in various pieces for games one would amuse themselves with on a table from chess and Shogi pieces to Mahjong tiles and playing cards.

“Okay, that guy is definitely Iza-nii. His pyromaniac tendencies doesn’t change at all.”Mairu cackled.

“Love... Fire..Excited(Nii-san loves fire, so he often burn something when he feels excited.)”

 The season was the rainy season. The man continued to light the flame in the fireplace even on this sodden, gloomy day.

The black-haired man watched the newspaper and game pieces turn into ash before stroking the wheelchair left next to his rocking chair and taking out his cell phone. Then making a certain call, he happily began to speak.

“I will accept what we talked about before. I will bring some people and come to the town.”

“Oh damn..”Aoba moaned.

“Here he comes... here he comes...”Saki chuckled, felt amused.

“He followed  the smell of blood,  so much like blood-sucking flea,”snarled Shizuo.

He used polite words, but it was in a tone with not much respect. His words just contained a sense of uneasiness like a child, lacking ridicule.

“......Yes, this is not for your sake. It is nothing but for my own though.”

“Of course, God forbid Izaya do anything for other people’s sake.”Masaomi scowled.

Shinra unconsciously rub his stab scar.  

Mairu and Kururi suddenly remembered when their brother hired Celty to protect them. Even though then he said that he just wanted to distract Cerly for his own gain.

On top of the squeaking rocking chair the man gave a clear smile.

“It’s been a while...I missed people. That’s all it is.”

After dropping the call, the man pondered to himself as he rocked the chair.

– Now then, who should I bring?

“Namie-san is in America, Kine-san and Mikage-san won’t leave Ikebukuro, Ran-kun is with the Awakusu Group, Mamiya-san is annoying...

“Ran-kun? My stupid older brother? I can’t believe there’s someone who can call that bundle of foolishness with suffix –kun,”Aoba shuddered.

“Mikage-san? Is she a girl who drop out in our school year? Rumor said that she was one of Izaya’s admirer and he got her drop out.”Kadota wondered.

“Yup! And she is our matrial arts teacher! I think Iza-nii sometimes ask for her help.”Mairu announced.

“.....is she still in love with Izaya?”

“No.... Doesn’t hate... (I don’t think so, but she doesn’t hate Nii-san either)”

Fujiura-san is in prison, Neguro-san’s whereabouts in Germany are still unknown. Lisa-chan has come back to Japan...but to move for this case she’d stand out, so let’s stop there.”

“So Izaya have new people outside Ikebukuro.”Mikado mused,

“New pawn, you mean,”Masaomi grumbled.

“But he got himself an acquintance from Germany,”Kuon pointed, slightly unsettled.

The more he knows about Izaya, the more he thinks that become Izaya is a too hard feat for him.

“Well, he is multilanguage, I will not surprised if he can speak Germany too,”Shinra said

After listing off several names of acquaintances, the man smiled.

“Yep. That’s about right. First would be Sozoro-san...and those two I guess.”

The moment he decided on the acquaintances he would summon, the man in the wheelchair thought over the journey ahead, humming to himself.

“Woah, he sounded like summoner in anime,”Walker hummed.

“Ah, moving will take some time, so we have to do what we can so everyone doesn’t get bored.”

And then while watching the fireplace he let out a sigh as though he slightly regretted it.

“...I wonder if it was a bit of a mistake to burn even the trump cards?”

[He is an idiot]

“His spontaneous impulses are almost as worse as Shizuo. That’s why on the past I wanted Shizuo and Izaya to know each other. Because let’s face it, they have so many similiarity.”

[........but really, why do you think making 2 powerful persons with short impulses meet each other is a good idea?]

♀♂

A few days later in Bunokura

It rained in the town today as well. The darkened wall of the building stood like a gravestone under the thickly clouded covered sky. Even though the area was supposed to be the best entertainment district in this land, the atmosphere surrounding it was stagnant, and the bright voices seemed to have contradicted that.

At the entrance to the entertainment district, the man who had been splashed in muddy water by a car, Koshino, tutted in annoyance.

“Damn, seriously?”

“Oh yeah, it often happened to me too. I hate that.”Kazane complained.

“That remind me, one time a bus splashed muddy water to Shizuo. Then he chased the bus while yelled,’ YOU MAKE MY UNIFORM FROM KASUKA GOT DIRTY’. Then the bus driver got hospitalised for 1 week,”Shinra rambled, giggled slightly.

He was an underling of a gang in the local area and walked with newcomers below his position. He looked at the mud splashed onto his pants and saw the car dash off, but it was already turning at the corner. Suppressing his irritation, Koshino slowly headed for the place of his destination. It was on the fourth floor of an old building standing at the corner of the entertainment district. The third floor had brothels, and the fourth floor had become a small office for black-market lending.

The organization Koshino belonged to- the Futsuku Group – was backing it, and it was one of the meager sources for funding.

“...These are quite the numbers.”

Koshino had looked at the unsubmitted books in the office and made a plainly solemn face. Then a man from the same generation as him, thought to be an entrepreneur of the illegal loaning, said.

“With the current situation any more would be impossible. The number of guys closing the shop also increased.”

“Put in some more motivation. With not even a bit of money saved that rotten bonbon sensei will seriously take over the town.”

The door to the office opened as they were having that kind of conversation; a man showing his face inside.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Aren’t you making a pitiful face.”

“...Sasazaki-san. Hello.”

Koshino bowed his head without changing his expression while tutting in his mind.

“Is the Futsuku Group also unable to win against the waves of the recession?”

“No. Thanks to you, we managed to pull through.”

“Huh, is that so. If that’s the case, there’s nothing for me to hold back.”

The man called Sasazaki shoved out his hand as though expecting to accept something as he made that comment.

“...”

After Koshino made a signal with a glance to the other, the entrepreneur of the black-market pulled out a thick envelope from a drawer. Sasazaki took that, and after confirming the ten thousand yen stack of bill he grinned.

“Aah, well then, I’ll borrow this.”

“...Do the police have some plan on approaching the current case?”

“The current case? We have a lot, so which one?”

The middle-aged man having taken the envelope shrugged his shoulders, feigning ignorance.

Sasazaki was an active detective. Although, even if one could say he was active, he was actually a fellow hard-pressed to be called detective. He was someone on the criminals’ side, giving out disclosed information instead of raising bribes from the town’s black-market and brothels.

“So a corrupted detective.”Shingen pointed.

“It’s the murder case with Adamura’s child. Three days have gone by, but there has not been a follow-up report, so I’m interested in finding that out.”

“Hey now, don’t say something so reckless. It may still be a suicide, you know? After all the victim had a weapon thought to be a cutter knife in his hand.”

“Ugh, seriously? Suicide?”Togusa grunted.

“’After all the victim had a weapon thought to be a cutter knife in his hand’. This is maybe the shittiest police’s logic that I’ve ever heard,”mocked Aoba.

“And people wondered why we can’t trust police.”Kuon ridiculed, remember the time when he and his sister were tormented by their foster parent and no police cared about them.

“Hey now, not all polices are that bad. There’s many good polices out there.”Kazane protested.

“There is no way a suicide in which a man with marks of restraints on his arms and legs would gouge out both his eyes by himself with leaflets stuffed in his mouth, cut off his nose and ears and then jump off the building would even happen.”

“Who knows. Maybe it was the drugs that did it? Confused, he cut himself while laughing and jumped from the building. Maybe such a witness testimony will come out?”

“I see, so from the start you had no intention of seriously investigating?”

“Lazybones,”Erika huffed.

“Person like that doesn’t deserved to have salary earned from civilians tax,”Kadota noted.

The corrupt detective gave a bitter smile at Koshino’s sigh.

“No? Outwardly, I’m properly investigating into it. It’s been rowdy in even the media this time after all. ...Well, we’ll be investigating, but the whole case will die off once the excitement cools down a bit. The chief that came here half a year ago is naturally a kid of the career group. He’ll keep to his principle quietly until his promotion rather than going against sensei or the feudal lord.”

“In other words, the boss of the police will remain uninvolved in our meddling as usual?”

“As long as the media doesn’t make a fuss.”

Koshino also gave a bitter smile before speaking to himself.

“...Really, even if I say it, just what is up with this town?”

Bunokura, located on the land looking out onto the Japan sea, could be said to be a fairly large town as a provincial city. But there were not many people who would happily migrate to the town.

The adjacent Hagane city was spacious enough for it to make relations with German tourist cities and sister cities, but this town was filled with an enclosed atmosphere, existing in an area divided by a mountain. But it did not necessarily mean it was a town in a recession.

Being a town developed by the exploitation of the mine, it had continued to prosper even now by the hands of a family monopolizing the few silver mines actively working in Japan. Recently initiatives were taken to redevelop the city with the local born politician taking the lead and buying the land. But there seemed to be a large rift between the family that was the head of the silver mine and the politician, so that friction had caused further discord in the deteriorated town.

The corrupt town.

Evading the nickname the neighbors had given it, a large half of the influential people in the town would butter up to the mine owner or the politicians and try to line their pockets through the corruption.

“What a bad town. How can people feel safe to live in a town like that?”cringed Anri.

“No wonder Izaya-san want to come to that town,”said Mikado.

One such person, the corrupt detective Sasazaki, said with a sarcastic smile.

“This town is already packed of gas from rotten people.”

“So you say, sir.”

“I’m still not rotten.”

Naturally having to erase that much of a showy murder there is too much risk for us. It’d probably be better to save up money to get out of here already.

Sasazaki thought that in his mind, but not allowing himself to say anything about himself taking money under the table in front of Koshino, he said deceivingly.

“Well anyway, you guys be careful to not set off any sparks. With this many bribes, I can’t cover for you.”

“We understand, sir Sasazaki. We don’t have the time to do reckless activities. We have to search for new clients instead of chasing those guys skipping town.”

The corrupt detective shook his head with a coarse smile to make a fool of Koshino.

“There won’t be anyone coming to this town knowing the details now.”

All people in the room snorted.

“Clearly they didn’t know yet about a person named Orihara Izaya,”

“What a blessing,”

♀♂

A few minutes later

Koshino opened the blinds of the window with his finger and looked down onto the street. At that point, he watched the back of Sasazaki as he headed out of the building and walked through the city, clicking his tongue.

“Tch...That shitty bastard. He feels like he could escape just by saving small coin.”

“Shall we abduct him?”

Koshino frowned at his delinquent subordinate’s suggestion.

“That would be creating meaningless sparks. If that bastard betrays us, that’s another story.”

Koshino sighed and tried to avert his gaze from Sasazaki’s back, but then a strange sight caught his attention.

“...What the hell?”

Two children stood in front of Sasazaki, stopping him in his path. They were talking to him about something.

“...Today is a weekday, isn't it?”

No matter how Koshino looked at it, the boy and the girl were about the same elementary school age where they could both be admitted to junior high at most. From this distance he could not make out their expressions, but he was certain that they were children. They were dressed neatly, creating the impression that they were “wealthy children.” They were completely unsuitable in the entertainment district lined with saloons, especially at noon.

“’Wealthy children... Izaya’s kids?”Shinra guessed.

“Whaat? Izaya has kids? With who?”Walker questioned.

“Not blood-related with him, of course. Sometimes he adopts children who were on miserable conditions. But then after the children feel grateful for him, that scroundrel uses children for his ordeal.”

Kida gripped Saki’s hand tightly.

Kuon gritted his teeth.

“THAT BASTARD!”Shizuo fumed with anger.

“I know that he is maybe the worst person ever, but still.. To bring elementary school age children to do his shady bussiness..”

“Guys, calm down. It’s not yet confirmed that the kids are related to Izaya.”Kazane appealed.

 “Sasazaki shouldn’t have a wife or kids though...”

Koshino tilted his head to the side, watching as Sasazaki was being pulled by the hand by the kids towards somewhere. From the way Sasazaki walked, Koshino realized that the man himself was also perplexed.

“Just what is happening...?”

Koshino thought it was strange, but deciding those children had nothing to do with him he chose not to look into it further. From his experience of living in Bunokura for thirty years, he knew full well; that he would be better off than to recklessly poke his nose in matters where he did not belong in this town.

♀♂

Inside Bunokura at the royal suite of the hotel “Bunokura Grand Palace”

“Ah, this is a good view.”

The man remarked as he looked over the rain covered town from up high. He was at the highest towering hotel in Bunokura, the “Bunokura Grand Palace.” The man who reserved the room on the highest floor entirely continued to gaze out of the side window of the suite room down onto the scenery of the town.

The man with glossy black hair was dressed in black clothes. And he was sitting down in a black based wheelchair. Unlike normal ones, it was a wheelchair with a unique, comfortable design that gave an impression of a reclining chair.

“So of course he has the fanciest suite and the fanciest wheelchair,”Shinra pointed out.

“Really, what a rich bastard,”Shizuo grumbled.

[He always uses his money like water]

The man looked down on the city, crossing his legs slightly on the wheelchair, satisfied.

“I can sense the aroma of people just by looking. It’s a city entwined with a good feeling of violence and love. I like it.”

Shizuo growled angrily. Some word like ‘shitty flea’ and ‘loves stinks’ escaped his mouth.

The man continued to speak, chuckling with an earnest and pleased smile that stretched across his whole face.

“If it’s here, I think I can have a good time.”

The man moved his gaze to the side and addressed the bespectacled elderly man standing there.

“Don’t you think so? Sozoro-san.”

The elderly gentleman Sozoro was dressed in a little bit of a different designed suit that was primarily black and white. He had the demeanor of a butler or bodyguard from the sharp glint in his eyes reflected in his glasses and straightened posture. A bodyguard would be the most fitting impression for him, regardless of his old age.

“So he has a bodyguard,”Anri remarked.

“Of course. He’s crippled and he has infinite enemies. Izaya’s maybe reckless with his life, but he is not stupid.”Mikado responded.

“Is he the old person on picture of first chapter?”Emilia pondered.

“Huh? What picture?”

Emilia showed a picture of an old man.

“He doesn’t look strong,”Togusa noted.

“But you can’t rate someone’s power only by the appearance.”

“I think, I’ve seen this man somewhere, but I can’t remember it,”said Aoba.

“...I beg to differ. I am, unfortunately, a herbivorous man. This greedy air is difficult to breathe in.”

He used the soregashi first personal pronoun in a polite manner. Even though he seemed to be respectful, he actually was not at all. Rather, there was an attitude to his voice as though he looked down on the man, but the man in the wheelchair smiled heartily at the old man.

“You’re quite honest, Sozoro-san. Shouldn’t you pay your respects a bit more to me, your employer?”

“If you were not my employer, I would break that neck for the sake of the world.”

“Yes, that’s right, break his neck. Please, I will pay you,”insisted Masaomi to the book.

“I don’t think you can pay that Sozoro-san to kill him more than Izaya-san to protect him, Masaomi-kun,”Mikado replied.

“Damnit.”

“You’re trying to be quite bloodthirsty, Sozoro-san.”

The man in the wheelchair moved its body forward all the while smiling. And then as he gazed at the sky that had begun to turn darker than before he excitingly, excitingly uttered bizarre words.

“How exciting. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.”

“What kinds of sounds (humans) will play when this town is stirred up?”

“That town is definitely doomed.”Yumasaki remarked.

“Well, we know from the description that the town is bad and full of corruptions, so I am kinda glad that it is Izayan’s target to wreck.”stated Erika.

“Perhaps the town is deserved to be destroyed,”Yahiro pondered.

“Emilia, you already read too much, let me read the next,”

“Thank you, Shingen,”

The book was transferred to Shingen’s hand. With voice slightly muffled by mask, Shingen started to read.

Next : Chapter 1 part B

Chapter Text

♀♂

At the restaurant “Kongonsaikan”

“...You’re the one who called for me?”

Sasazaki questioned cautiously in a high class Chinese restaurant on the highest floor of the Bunokura Grand Palace. It was because of the strange children who had called out to him in the middle of town that he stood right here, having been brought by them half-forcefully.

“High class restaurant? It settled, that kids are definitely Izaya’s,”Shinra pointed.

“Grr.. that flea.. Using innocent children to do his dirty work..”fumed Shizuo.

– “Hey, mister, you’re a detective right!”

– “......Please come with us.”

After taking money under the table from the black-market lending company, Sasazaki was suddenly called out by a young boy and girl as he was walking around town. He felt disturbed that they knew he was a detective. He tried to chase them off with a joke, “how about school? I’ll arrest you.” However –

“You know, that’s a valid point. Why didn’t Izaya enroll them to school?”asked Kadota.

“Seriously? Him and school have never been best buddy since middle school. Do you remember how many times he skipped from school in our high school day? Even though some of it because of his injuries from Shizuo.”babbled Shinra.

“Huh! Serves him right! Everytime he come to school, he always pull some annoying shit!”

“And yet he always topped on his exams...”pondered Kadota with little jealousy in his voice.

– “Um, there’s a person who wants to bargain with you.”

– “It’d be best to follow...probably.”

The mention of the term bargain had startled him. He unconsciously looked around the area. He doubted it could be a trap, but at the present time he could not determine if that was the case for certain.

The children appeared to be around the same age, but they did not look like twins. They would be fraternal twins if they were twins at all since they were a boy and a girl, but even under that assumption they did not look quite alike. Not able to think of them as siblings, Sasazaki concluded they were probably not blood related.

Sasazaki followed them while remaining vigilant, considering the possibility of a trap. If a warehouse or a dark alley was ahead of them, he planned to immediately make a run for it. There was the possibility of people who did not think well of him or criminals who were arrested by him in the past; people who would murder him. Sasazaki may not have been so cautious if this was a normal town, but he understood full well that Bunokura right now was a land that would overlook those kinds of occurrences.

“Really, what a sad town. It’s all because corrupt persons are placed on the top and only do what makes benefit of them, and let normal people suffer with fear and uneasiness,”Anri noted sadly.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Izaya-san will change that,”Kazane reassured.

“Kazane-chan, you have faith on Izaya? That’s dangerous you know..”remarked Shingen.

“Besides, he is as corrupt as them, if not more. Why do you think Izaya can, will, or even want to fix that?”Masaomi protested.

“I have faith on Izaya-san’s ability. I think Izaya-san has unusual ability to drastically change people. No, he has ability to push person’s will to change.”

“You are right, Kinomiya-san. And whether that changes are to better or worse, no one, even sometimes Izaya-san himself, can know before the change happened. Isn’t that what makes Izaya-san dangerous?”commented Mikado, and with slightly admired tone, he added.

....and marvelous..”

“MIKADO!!”Masaomi immediately went alarmed. Up until now, he really doesn’t understand why Mikado never hate Izaya, but he instead feel impressed to him! That bastard destroyed Mikado’s daily life! He even made Mikado almost commited suicide!

Mikado himself who want an extraordinary life?

Mikado himself who decided to kill himself with gun?

No way!

There’s no way his timid, shy best friend want all of that!

Izaya must be bewitched him!

“Well, on my knowledge there’s only one person whom Izaya can’t change.”

“Who?”demanded Shizuo.

Kazane smiled amusingly at Shizuo’s curious and determined look.

“Sorry, Izaya-san was pretty upset when I told him about it. I don’t want Izaya-san to become my enemy.”

But the place he was brought to was a prominent high quality restaurant in the city. The moment he entered, Sasazaki froze up. It was because the moment he stepped in well-built men in business suits in the shop wordlessly stared at him.

It was not just one table. More than half of the tables occupied by these aggressive looking men were turned towards Sasazaki staring without a word.

“Whoa.. He hired dozens of bodyguard?”said Togusa.

“Of course, he would met a man who didn’t hesitate to maim another person to save himself. And he’s crippled.”responded Aoba.

“But still, to hire that many bodyguards, even they can fill more than half big restaurant, how rich is that bastard?”puzzled Masaomi

“He’s so rich. Even I don’t know how much money Izaya-san has, but he has so many assets and hideout.”stated Saki.

“He definitely got all that money from ruining other people’s life.”

These guys...who are they? Hey...wait. I believe I’m resented by sensei and the feudal lord...If the two forces in the town are keeping an eye on me, then would they try to kill me?

Sasazaki thought that, and while he was desperately thinking of an escape route he was pulled by the hand of the children. While considering at worst he could use the children as hostages. He was then brought into a room in the restaurant – a high class private room where people with black credit cards were guided to.

And there was one man.

“Hey, you’re Sasazaki-san, right? Nice to meet you. Let me introduce myself.”

The man then pointed to the business card left on the table which was faced towards him, making Sasazaki freeze. The man seemed to be without any businessman formalities.

‘Financial Planner, Izaya Orihara.’

Mairu and Shinra suddenly laughed hard. Kururi let out little giggle.

“Hee.. He still pull out that ‘Financial Planner’ facade..”

“Of course he is! Do you know, Shinra-san, even until now our dear dad still think that Iza-nii is a financial planner...pft!”

“Sorry...father... (sometimes that makes me feel sorry for father).”

His business card had that written on it, and following it only his cell phone number and e-mail address were given.

After seeing the name Izaya Orihara, Sasazaki observed him closely. He had glossy black hair and black clothes. There resided a clever shine in his eyes, and he had a well-arranged face. No, it would be more correct to say sly instead of cleverness. Sasazaki had met with murderers arrested in this town in the past face-to-face, but he felt this man had the same look in his eyes. It was not that he felt a killing desire in them. Rather, they told him a simple meaning: “I cannot tell what he is thinking.”

“That’s also my first impression when I met him. That’s why I immediately hate him,”chided Aoba.

“Hoo.. so you also hate him at the first look. Shizuo, do you think like Aoba-kun when you first met him?”Shinra questioned Shizuo.

“Haah? No, not really. I didn’t think about anything at all. I just saw him, and somehow I immediately knew that he will be someone whom I hate for the rest of my life.”

Erika suddenly screamed.

“AAHHHHH!!! MY SHIP IS SAILED!! IT’S FEELING AT THE FIRST SIGHT! HATE AT FIRST SIGHT! THE TWISTED FORM OF LOVE AT FIRST-umph!”

Togusa desperately tried to cover Erika’s mouth.

Emilia giggled.

“But indeed, when Shizuo put it like that, it kinda sounds romantic.”

[EMILIA-SAN!!!]

Shizuo went speechless.

“Wha.. Roman-“

Shingen, as a good husband who want to save his beloved wife from a certain beast’s wrath, hurriedly continued his reading.

If there was another unique quality to notice it was that the man was sitting in a wheelchair. At some point the boy and girl who brought him here circled around behind him, and each one of them stood by while placing a hand on the wheelchair.

The man’s complexion was good, so it did not look like he was seriously ill with something.

If that was the case, was he injured?

Sasazaki thought that and decided to try and ask him.

“You look healthy, but are your legs bad?”

“A while ago I got into a huge fight. If I tackle rehabilitation it seems I have the chance to heal, but according to the doctors, half of it seems to be psychological.”

Shizuo let out a big sigh of relief.

“So that is not permanent. He can heal..”

“Are, Shizuo-san, don’t tell me you feel happy because Orihara Izaya isn’t crippled permanently? I thought you hate Orihara Izaya so much and you want him dead?”taunted Kuon.

“I am! I hate him, I want him dead. Heck, I tried to kill him many times, and the last time I thought I have succeded! I just-“

But why when that strange interviewer told me that Izaya is still alive, I feel a little relieved?

Glad that Vorona didn’t become a murderer? No, Vorona is an assasin. And she is also my good kouhai, I don’t really care of the fact that she already killed many people in the past.

Glad that I didn’t become a murderer?

But I want to kill him.

I REALLY want to kill him.

Yahiro smacked Kuon’s head.

“Kuon, stop harassing Shizuo-san.”

“Ouch! Fine, fine. Shingen-san, please resume your reading.”

The man stroked the wheel of the wheelchair with a wry smile.

“Well, it doesn’t mean I can’t completely walk, but it’s impossible to jump and move around. For example, if you try to kill me right now, it’d be difficult for me to run away.”

“I’ll say this. Outside this private room there are a ton of people gathered.”

While Sasazaki may certainly be able to strangle him here, afterwards he would be killed. Besides the man might be concealing at least a gun somewhere on his person.

“...Now then, what does a financial planner want from a detective like me?”

Contrary to what he said, Sasazaki did not believe from the start that he was a financial planner. He had judged it was clearly a fake occupation and thought his name was probably a false name as well.

“He very rarely uses fake name. He uses Nakura-kun’s name on some occasion, but he prefers to use his real name.”stated Shinra.

“Humans.. know...(He said he want his humans to know his name).”

“Yeah! Really, that become a bother to us, a pair of fragile girls who are unfortunate enough to share our family name with him.”

Financial planners helped future plans for people’s lives and companies included with assets, but from the man in front of him he did not feel the indication that he would think of others futures upfront.

And then the man in the wheelchair, Izaya Orihara, said while smiling cheerfully.

“Of course, it is about the future plans. For this town.”

“Is that so...Under whose request? It isn’t something about your considerations for the future of the town with a volunteer, is it?”

“I cannot provide you a name; I can only say it is an influential person in this town.”

“...”

Sasazaki was able to read between the lines.

I see, so he’s someone from an organization employed by either sensei or the feudal lord. Which one? If I poorly back the wrong one I could already be targeted by the other party.

“You can’t guess it. He has no concept of loyalty.”pointed Togusa.

“Maybe he sided with neither of them and backed unsuspected third party.”guessed Walker.

“Or he moved entirely by himself and for himself.”Erika responded.

“No, on earlier chapter we knew that he was asked to come to Bunokura, so there must be someone behind his back.”corrected Kadota.

Thinking it would turn out bad for him, Sasazaki thought to try to not get involved with this man as best as he can. However, Izaya tossed over a thick envelope towards him.

“...?”

Sasazaki picked it up without thought, and after peeking into the opening he was shocked to see the roll of banknotes.

“H-hey, what is the meaning of this?”

“Really now. That’s a bribe.”

Izaya continued with a gentle smile.

“I can easily look up what you have at least been doing. Well, when I looked into the town under the assumption that there are people who would do that, I found your name...And as a result, you have been invited for a meal like this.”

Sasazaki doubted for a while, but after confirming the roll of banknotes were more than fifty he prepared for the worst.

“...So, what do you want from this middle-aged detective with nothing ahead for him?”

“For one, with the envelope I just gave you I would like you to pretend to not see the scope of things no matter what I do in this town from here on out. The other one...”

With a wide smirk Izaya took out another envelope.

There seemed to be more money than the previous one based off its thickness.

“So I can carry out operations smoothly, I would like to hear various topics from you who knows both sides of the town so well.”

“...In other words, I answer you honestly, and I could receive the contents of that envelope?”

Sasazaki swallowed hard. Izaya answered with a smile.

“Of course. Ah, there isn’t the punchline that the contents are actually just a newspaper or just a thousand yen bill or anything like that, so please be reassured.”

He flipped through the stack with his fingers, showing the banknotes from inside the envelope.

Sasazaki started to sweat once he confirmed the total to be one million yen.

“Woah, he is damn rich!”gasped Walker.

“Dota-chin, next time you meet him, please ask him to lend me some money! There’s many cosplay costums that I want to buy!”

“Me too!”

“You guys... You really want to borrow some money to your own enjoyment from Orihara Izaya? THAT Orihara Izaya?”Kadota notified.

“Don’t do that, Yumasaki-san, Karisawa-san. A former Haruna’s Saika man once told me, that Izaya can easily control Nasujima-sensei because he stole a case full of money from Izaya,”informed Anri.

“......”

“Dota-chin, I take back my request.”

“Good.”  

This isn’t good. I don’t know between sensei and the feudal lord which side this kid is employed by, but if I poorly let information loose it looks like I’ll be targeted by the opposite group.

Perhaps he noticed Sasazaki’s anxiety but Izaya started talking with a meek smile.

“Ah, I’m not saying to tell me some high class information here. I don’t mind even common knowledge of the human relations and organization charts of this town grasped even by slightly informed people. If you think it is inconvenient to you, then I’m alright with you intentionally hiding it on purpose. Although it’d be problematic if you just tell me nothing but lies.“

“...And you're fine with just that?”

“Yes, no matter who employed me I just want objective information whether it be from opportunists or even better people in a neutral position. Starting from that is the basis of my subsidiary business after all.”

“And what would that be?”

“Ah, well more than subsidiary business it would be my principal occupation though.”

Izaya answered Sasazaki’s question while slightly changing his smile to a devious one.

“I am an informant.”

– Is he messing with me?

“No way, that the occupation Iza-nii feel proud the most.”

“Nii...pride... (Informant is Nii-san’s pride and identity)”

Sasazaki thought that.

There certainly existed individuals who were called informants. But it was a general term for those people who gave out information of a town for small coin, sometimes existing as bookmakers at race tracks or hostesses at bars. Thinking from the perspective of the police there were many information providers called “informants” in the ranks of gang organizations or cult religions.

Sasazaki had not heard a man call himself an informant other than in dramas and manga. If someone looked into another person’s information, then they could be called an investigator or part of a detective agency.

What is he doing taking the name of such a shady occupation for himself?

“Indeed, one of the main rule to become informant is don’t tell others, especially your target, that you are an informant. People will not let themself to be open up and speak to a person that will sell everything you say to other people. They will think,’who is this guy? What side he’s on? If I tell him something, will that end up maiming myself.’ Like the Sasazaki guy,”explained Aoba.

“But Izaya-san always tell other people around him that he is an informant, and yet he always become a person who knows everything,”debated Mikado.

“Yeah, I don’t know how he do it.”

Mikado, Aoba, and Kuon turned their head to Saki.

Saki let out a little laugh.

“If I know that, I would become the best informant in Ikebukuro, and you guys didn’t have to force yourself to replace Izaya-san.”

Mikado smiled bitterly, Aoba and Kuon scowled hard.

“Ahahaha... Don’t give me that expression, I was just joking. But I really don’t know, though. The only thing I know is Izaya-san always know how to get information on the right place and at the right time. And he said that he loves human, so he always craves to know more, more, more of humans.”

Aoba and Kuon contemplated on Saki’s word.

“Well, that’s no use for me, because I hate humans.”declared Aoba.

“Me too,”added Kuon.

Sasazaki, perceiving it was too childish for a simple joke, shook his head with a cynical smile.

“Ooh, that’s amazing. If that’s the case if I asked you the details of what I ate yesterday you would know.”

Izaya kept his smile the same and answered him, shrugging.

“It was a brilliant dish of Tantanmen with black sesame seeds, right? You also asked for two helpings of kaedama.”

“Welp, you challenge him. Sadly he’s a type of person who loves to answer challenge,”Shingen said amusedly.

 “...”

Sasazaki felt the sweat forming on his palms.

No, he just looked into me. He probably shadowed me for about a day.

So he thought and tried to keep is composure with a fake smile. However-

“After the meal, you said some rather rude things to the new police chief at the Bunokura station, right? Hmmm, wasn’t it, 'I’m fine with turning a blind eye at what you are doing, but I’ll have you know when I’m around I’m not going to show my true self like an idiot.'”

“...!”

His smile froze at Izaya’s words.

N-no way. Why does he even know that!? Was there anyone else there at that time!? Was he also there!? No way! Was it bugs!? The police!? No, a betrayer in the police force!?

“Really, how? Even he can know informations from private conversation! He really stalked Sasazaki?”Shingen wondered.

“With his wheelchair, it’s impossible for him to sneak in and eavesdropping.”reasoned Kazane.

“So he must be plant some bugs or even hidden CCTY on Sasazakis’s room,”hypotized Emilia.

[I think to know the informations from a betrayer in the police force is more like him.] added Celty.

Various possibilities came to mind and then vanished, but as though to wipe away the conjectures he made in his mind the text message ringtone of his cell phone went off. The content of the text was short with the subject line being “from the man in front of you.”

“Aaaand now you know that he already knew your phone number,”pointed Kuon.

“Hah, I bet he already know all of informations about Sasazaki before he met him,”surmised Aoba.

“Poor guy.”

'How about you give me the names of the many patrons of yours in this town and the contents of the crimes they asked you to erase in person or through text?'

Seeing the written text Sasazaki comes to understand. The man called an “informant” had thrust in front of him a piece of information as a free service.

The worst information – that the man in front of him already had a tight grip on his fate.

“Ah.. how pitiful of him. My deepest condolence,”Masaomi sighed.

 “He’s a corrupted detective so he kinda deserved it,”objected Mikado.

♀♂

“Alright everyone, the shoot is done. Thank you very much.”

After Sasazaki left, Izaya came out of the private room in his wheelchair and called out to each person in the general seating. The well built men sitting there after looking at each other asked Izaya.

“It was Nakura-san, right? Is it really alright for one person each to receive 10,000 yen? We really only just took a seat and stared at every new customer that came in.”

“What? Don’t tell me...”blurted Yahiro.

“That men are not real bodyguards?”gasped Anri.

“Yes, it was the best. That’s the kind of research this is.”

“Is that so? Well, we don’t really get it, but good luck.”

The people who were in the restaurant’s general seating area were members of rooters and Rugby clubs at three universities out of town. They were employed by a man under the name of Nakura from one of the universities OB. They were told, 'we are studying the human responses of when they are stared at suddenly by a large number of people for praxeology research,' and they continued to “stare at a visitor” in the shop being filmed on the hidden cameras.

“That’s..... that’s so clever of him. By that, he can save more money than actually hire dozens of true bodyguard,”commented Aoba.

“But that’s so reckless! What if Sasazaki tried to attack him? Those students will not help him, and his companion on that room were only that two kids!”sputtered Anri.

“Sasazaki will not attack him. He already feel intimidated by the numbers of ‘bodyguards’ on that restaurant, so if he valued his life he will not dare to attack Izaya,”pointed Mikado.

“But what if Sasazaki is clever enough to know that those men are not real bodyguards?”

“The probability of he know those ‘bodyguards’ disguise is low. Izaya chose those students from Rugby Club. Anyone who see their bodies can tell that they have experience to ‘pounce’ people. On rugby, you have to use all parts of your body to protect and to snatch the ball from your opponent, so those students will have many muscles on their bodies. Especially on their shoulder. Because of the difference of rules on each sports, usually rugby player will have stronger muscles in shoulder than soccer or basketball player. If your shoulder is strong, your posture will look bigger and you will be more menacing on average person’s eyes,”explained Mikado.

“And also as rugby player they will unconsiously pay attention on opponent’s movement with strong focus, hence why Izaya told them to ‘stare at visitors’. If someone is stared by many people with that intensity, they can’t help but feel intimidated. They also well-coordinated with each other, because they often play as team. Then just give them some suits, they will look like a group of elite bodyguards,”added Aoba.

“With that, not only he intimidated Sasazaki so he would not dare to do anything to Izaya, he also gave impression to Sasazaki that whoever backed him has many power so they can give Izaya many bodyguard and bribe money.

.......I hate to admit it, but he really knows how humans work.”Kuon concluded.

Silence filled the room.

“Wow.. Amazing...”

The owner of the breathless whisper was, surprisingly,Yahiro.

While thinking it was a strange study, their interests were caught by the high daily wages, and they had thus participated in this part-time job without questioning too deeply into it. Even the ones who were suspicious and did not participate in it naturally did not ask the university’s side to look into the OB’s registry. If there was someone who did they would have realized there was not a graduate by the name Nakura. Although they were deceived, they did not lose out and left with the earnings they easily received with pleased expressions.

After everyone left, the boy asked Izaya, who had left the private room to make preparations.

“Hey, Izaya-san! Won’t the people of the store get mad for doing this?”

Izaya answered the boy’s innocent question.

“Yeah, it’s alright. I properly asked the owner beforehand.”

“...You threatened them.”

“Yep. That’s his definition of ‘properly asked’,”amused Shinra.

The girl remarked and averted her gaze. Izaya replied, shrugging.

“No way. As if I would threaten humans. When I brought up the matter of them hiding the producing area of the meat they use, they just mistook it as they were getting threatened.”

“It always pissed me off when he put innocent act like that!”snarled Shizuo.

“I don’t really get it.”

“......”

The boy tilted his head to the side while the girl made an impatient sigh.

“Is the boy retarded?”retorted Aoba.

“Hey, be kind of him. He’s just elementary kid.”scolded Kadota.

Hearing their responses, Izaya whispered half to himself after drumming his fingers against the arm of the wheelchair.

“Well, perhaps they didn’t see through the misunderstanding.”

“Why?”

Placing a hand on the boy’s head who further tilted his head in confusion, Izaya cheerfully answered.

“I like that cowardice side of humans too.”

Izaya chuckled. His laugh felt like it contained self-mockery rather than laughing at the cowardly humans.

“Yeah, because you are a coward too,”said Shinra.

“Humans don’t know when they will die, so they honestly have to live doing what they like.”

After making such an odd statement, Izaya stated as he began to roll the wheelchair forward.

“Yeah, but this place is a really nice city. It’s a good city. It’s overflowing with human qualities. Just from listening to Sasazaki-san it makes me want to stay in this city for a long time.”

Looking outside from the window the last time, Izaya slightly shrugged and sighed.

Happily, desolately.

“But because of just that...This city may not live that long.”

“At least he understands that he is harbinger of chaos,”scoffed Masaomi.

“Oh Iza-nii always understands. And he’s proud of it.”replied Mairu.

“The next part is, Interlude? And fairly short one.”remarked Shingen, opened the next page.

Next : Interlude 1

Chapter Text

Interlude: The Man Called Izaya Orihara ①

Izaya Orihara? This is quite a nostalgic name to ask about. Well, I guess it’s not that nostalgic. His name is sometimes brought up in the conversation with my friends and family. Each time a dangerous or odd event happens it’s ‘what did Orihara-kun do?’ or ‘was the one behind the black curtain Orihara-kun?’

“Orihara-kun... Wait a minute, Tou-san,”interrupted Shinra. Shingen stopped his reading.

“What’s wrong, Shinra?”

“I think that’s my words. I mean, I am the one who said that sentence, to the interviewer. Uwah, I didn’t expect my answers were written on this book.”

Kadota contemplated for a minute. Then he faced Shingen.

“Excuse me Kishitani-sensei, may I see the book’s index?”

Shingen gave him the book, and Kadota hurriedly opened the books index.

“5 interludes.. Perhaps my answers are included on this book as one of this interlude..”

“Wait a minute, that means mine too! Damn it!”Shizuo exclaimed.

“Are re.. Does Shizu-chan have some secrets about the interview?”

“No way! I just don’t like that they put my words on a book without my permission! And don’t call me with that name!”

Kadota handed the book back to Shingen.

That sort of discussion. You see, just from that you can tell he is a good-for-nothing kind of human being, right?

“Definitely,”huffed Shizuo.

“But really though, why did everyone bring his name everytime something strange happened? I mean, he already dissapeared from this city more than 2 years ago, right?”Yahiro wondered.

“That because everytime any odd or dangerous things happened, 99% of the time that flea’s behind it!”

“How about the remaining 1%?”asked Yahiro, which is wrong thing to say because that sentence brought back Shizuo’s memory about their confrontation on Izaya’s apartement.

“Would you be nice enough to believe in the remaining 1%? You wouldn’t, right?”

Then a flash of glinting knife appeared in front of him, accompanied by its master’s mischievous smirk.

The rest of people in the room shuddered, because suddenly Shizuo sprouted a big grin, veins popped on his face.

“Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill “

Kuon hurriedly tried to save his friend.

“Yahiro, you know The Shepherd Boy and Wolf tale, right? That’s the answer. Shingen-san, quick resume your reading!!”

What type of person is Izaya Orihara? Even if you say what type. In terms of occupation, he is an informant. Outwardly he calls himself a financial planner though.

An informant is an informant. He especially collects a lot of information regarding humans. Like the human relations in the city, someone’s true colors, or celebrities' love relationships . He knows most things of that nature if you were to ask him about them. He sometimes would know of the ordinary person’s love lives, but he looked into a wide range of topics for his hobby. He has also investigated love affairs too in a few instances.

“Alright father, just stop!”Suddenly, Shinra shouted.

“What’s wrong this time, Shinra?”

“Why do you make your voice like a chipmunk?”

“Eeh.. That’s because I try to make my voice sounds like you. I mean, this text is from your perspective, right?”

“You try too hard! My voice is not that squeaky! You do that to mock me aren’t you?”whined Shinra. Celty’s shoulder trembled, no need a head to know that the tremble is from her laughter.

“Celty!!!”

[Sorry, but your voice is indeed squeaky, especially when you whine.]

“If you don’t like the way I imitate you, why don’t you read it yourself?”said Shingen. Shinra quickly snatched the book.

“Just you see Celty, I will read this book with the most manly voice you’ve ever heard!”

“That reminds me, how about on next interlude we read our own answer?”suggested Kadota, didn’t want Togusa, Erika, Yumasaki, or the children pull the same prank on him.

“Haah? I don’t want to repeat the words that I said to shitty flea. One time was enough.”

“Shizuo, you really, REALLY DON’T WANT Erika to read your answer with her own tune. Trust me. Don’t take that risk.”

“......Fine.”

Shinra straightened his back and prepared his voice.

“Ehrm.. ”

When he occasionally saw couples that seemed to have an adultery relationship, he's the type of guy who would look into the couple between intervals of work and send a picture as proof of the act to the man’s daughter. In other instances, he would slip into suicidal online meetings even though he had no intention of dying himself and listen to their stories before making them fall asleep with sleeping pills and run away.

[Ah yes that job. He paid me alot for that but it’s still unpleasant]

“What job Celty-san?”asked Mikado.

[After he was done drugging those poor people he hired me to dump their sleeping body on the nearest park. Honestly, I don’t understand why he bothered himself to spend his time and money to pull those cruel and useless acts. I think he’s just an evil person who just want to see people’s suffering]

Shinra let out a big laugh, and Saki chuckled.

“My my Celty. I know that you always feel wary to him, but now you give Izaya too much credit. His reason for those actions is way way way more childish than that.”

[What do you mean?]

“Celty-san, when Izaya held his suicide meeting, did you ever enter and listen their discussions?”questioned Saki.

[No.. He only call me when the meeting is done, so I just get a suitcase filled with drugged victims and an order to bring them to nearby park]*¹

“You see, there are many people who deceived by Izaya-san’s ‘suicide meeting’ and ironically, become his followers instead. Of course, there are people who hate Izaya after that, and also there are people who treat the meeting as a big slap and move forward. You say that Izaya did that because he want to see people’s suffering. Yet everytime he finished he always had the dissapointment look on his face, and when I ask why, he said ‘their will to do suicide are gone. They are no longer useful for me.’”

“That’s even worse! So he did want those people to commit suicide!”yelped Anri.

 “Not like that Anri-chan. People who no longer have the will to commit suicide is useless to him because they can’t answer his question, about ‘what makes them want to commit suicide’”

Shingen hummed and stroked his chin. Behind his mask, of course.

“I see...”

 “Do you know something, Shingen?”asked Emilia.

“Yeah, Izaya is a coward you know. We are talking about a man who started a three-party gang wars because he wanted Celty’s head to awake and bring him to Valhalla, so he could avoid death.”

“He started a three-party gang wars for WHAT?”sputtered Kida.

[And why did he think I will bring him of all people to Valhalla?]

“The point is, I think he didn’t understand why there are people who wanted death, so he held those ‘suicide meeting’ to find the answer.”

“Shingen-san is right. However, he crushed their argument with his own logic so every suicide person he met lost debate against him. For example, a girl told him that she wanted to die because she can’t take her problem in life, and Izaya-san said ‘you know, when you’re died, your problem didn’t dissapear, only your existence.’ Or when he taunted them and they got angry he said ‘Why do you get angry? If you really want to die means you already don’t care about every aspect of life including your own pride.’ He wanted someone to encounter his argument and convinced him, ‘I want to die and I will not regret to die’. But, in the end, all of them lost their will to suicide, so Izaya-san’s answer was not solved, that’s why he dissapointed,”added Saki.

“That’s remind me of something. Someone from Do-I mean online forum once posted that he wanted to die because he can’t handle all sufferings he received on his life. He is atheis, so he didn’t believe in afterlife nor believe that he would go back to God. He just want to escape from his pain. Then he joined a suicide meeting held by ‘Nakura-san’. On that meeting, ‘Nakura-san’ said ‘I understand. You don’t believe in God, so in your perception there’s no hope in life and nothing to fear in afterlife, so you want to escape from your pain to the nothingness of death, when you get yourself free of everything. It’s very human-like of you, indeed nothingness is less painful than your sufferings in life. But you know, even the mildest torture method will be maddening if occure on a very long time. Do you know that many people become crazy because of one method of torture named sensory-deprivation? And they begged their torturer to just hurt them instead of the nothingness that wrapped them? If you’re still alive, even though you’re in pain, you still have a chance to ease your pain. But on death, you’re stripped from any power you have, and even though you prefer nothingness of death over the pain of life, it will last forever and you can’t do anything to escape from that. Even so, do you think that’s a fair trade?’ Nakura-san looked at him hopefully, waited for his reply, but he started to feel intense fear and he could feel that his will to suicide was dissapeared. After that, everything became black, and the last thing he remembered is Nakura-san’s dissapointed look. When he wake up, he laid on a yard near his parent’s home. On the post, he said that after the meeting, he couldn’t even remember why he wanted to suicide.”*²

After Mikado’s comment, silence filled the room.

“It’s a good thing, right?”Yahiro chirped timidly. Everyone in the room looked at Yahiro as if he was crazy.

“What?”

“I mean, sure his method is unethical, but in the end he made those people lost their will to suicide. So by the means, he saved their life.”

“But he deceived them and drugged them! And he has no intention to save them, he just wanted to use them to satisfy his curiousity! If in the end they still choose to commit suicide, I bet he will not stop them and just watch them with glee! It’s a bad thing to do!”Anri protested.

“Yet, of all 20 people who were invited to Izaya-san’s suicide meeting, none of them chooses to commit suicide.”*³ Saki interjected. Looking at their argument, Shinra let out a chuckle.

“Really, that’s the problem! You can’t discuss his action by the standard of good and bad. There’s one quote he likes so much, I think it said ‘it’s absurd, people are charming or tedious.’”

“Huh?”

“I think you mean ’It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.’ Quotes of Oscar Wilde, the author of Lady Windermere's Fan,” corrected Kadota.

“Right!  Orihara Izaya never judge person by the standard ‘good or bad’. He sees them as either a charming person or boring person. So let’s we leave the topic of good and bad and change the question. Is Orihara Izaya charming or tedious?”

The answer is obvious for all of people on that room. Even for Shizuo and Kida, who really hate Izaya, and for Kuon, who hate all humans except his sister because they’re tedious.

Orihara Izaya is charming.

Too charming.

That’s what makes him so dangerous.

Don’t you think he’s the worst?

If you thought that, then your sense was right. You shouldn’t approach that kind of person. If you can, it’s better to never get involved with him. For me, well look, my sense is wrong I guess. I’ve been friends with him for more than ten years. You should know that I’m not normal if you've come to me at this point, right?

“That reminds me of something. One day when I had a little chat with Izaya, I said that Shinra hung out way too much with him and Shizuo. That has to be where he got his twisted personality, from being sandwiched between two extreme types like him and Shizuo. He said that I was passing my buck to others. I think he is right.”Shingen pondered.

Shizuo snorted.

“I hate to agree with that flea, but your son has been batshit crazy since the day one. We don’t even have to do anything. I mean, where you can find an elementary children who had sparkle eyes when they see their classmate throw a table at him and then yapping about brain and adrenaline and stuff? And he has not change at all since that time.”

Wait a minute. Since when Izaya and I become ‘we’?

[Besides, you brought your own son to dissect me when he was only 4 years old! You’re completely at fault here!]

“It’s not a fault, Celty! It’s the best thing he’s ever done to me! Because of that, I can meet you, my angel, my goddess, my destined, the missing part of my so-“Shizuo whacked him to stop his lovey-dovey prattle.

Behind his mask, Shingen stared at Shinra with deadpan look.

‘Yep, that’s really my fault.’

Is he still alive? Yeah, that was a foolish question. He’s still alive and that’s why you’re asking. It’s just that everyone has said that he may really be dead, so, well, I guess it doesn’t matter either way. Whether he's alive or dead won’t really change the impact his presence has. He's not the kind of guy to stand in front of and face people ostensibly anyway.

“But you still asked that question, that means you’re worry for him,”pointed Emilia.

“Hmm... I don’t know if that’s count as worry, but I can’t help to feel curious about his state after the big fight.”

The first time I met him was in middle school. We were in the biology club together, but he’s a bit different from back then. That’s right; he changed just a little bit. It’s not like he is some cutthroat, and naturally he isn’t even some saint.

Good and evil, strong and weak, love and hate, hopes and despair, capitalism and socialism, conservatives and progressives, aristocracy and democracy…Well, aren't there many structures of antagonism? Like with love and hate being one in the same, you disregard the difficult to think those things out and consider the simplicity of it in the end instead. If there is a pendulum that swings between those two extreme ideals, then he likes to watch that swing.

His reason in living...No, if I went with that, it would just be one kind of illness then.

Nevertheless, just when you think the pendulum is stagnate, he would adequately make the pendulum sway, knock into other people’s pendulums, and afterwards he would then watch the reactions. He’s a guy that cannot live without doing that.

“’Make the pendulum sway, knock into other people’s pendulums, and afterwards he would then watch the reactions’. Hm.. I think that’s a perfect description for Izaya-san’s activity,”conceded Saki.

“Right? He’s like a kid who excitedly watch the movement of pendulums with big eyes of curiousity. Sometimes I think it’s kinda adorable,”joked Shinra with a fond smile on his face.

“It’s NOT adorable if WE ARE the pendulums,”snapped Aoba.

He’s also the guy who would use those logical people or even the police to see that. As a result, he doesn’t care if he gets arrested, hurt, or at worst dies from it. Honestly, it may be the same as breathing or eating for him.

“Fucking zombie flea,”snarled Shizuo.

Yeah, without a doubt it’s an illness. That guy has the ability to collect extraordinary information, so I think the world really is unreasonable.

Yeah, he’s certainly extraordinary. More than information collecting, what he does is accumulate. He may look at information as one piece to his collection. The amount of information he obtains is really, how should I phrase it...unconventional or sly. I guess you could call it a cheat if you compare it from a game of today. ‘If there is a god in this world, why does he not preempt it?’ is that type of feeling that comes to mind for a comparison.

“So Izaya-san is like a MC who fall into isekai world and because he is a bug of game system he went OP? And because he knows all the informations and items on game world, so he easily finish all the quests, become the strongest player in that world, and obtain many beautiful girls to enter his harem?”

“Uhh.. I don’t really understand most of thing you said, but something like that? i don’t know about harem though, even though he attracted many girls in our high school I don’t think he had any interest on them.”

Then the otaku duo started to discuss things excitedly, like ‘our world is maybe just a game,’ or ‘lets we search a way to enter isekai too’. Togusa just sighed tiredly.

[Ne, Shinra, what does preempt means?]

“Take action in order to prevent (an anticipated event) from happening. Basically because Izaya is too great at obtain informations and manipulating situation, I just sometimes think ‘if there’s god in this world, why doesn’t He create something to stop and control him?”

“But He already created someone strong enough to stop Izaya-san, though,”pointed Kazane.

Both Shinra and Kazane turned their head to look at Shizuo.

“I see...”

“So Shizu-Shizu was created by God to ‘control’ Iza-Iza?”

“HAAAAHHH??!! There’s no way I was created for that flea!”Shizuo growled angrily. To save his life, Shinra quickly resumed his reading.

(Little note : jokes on Shizuo, Narita-sensei once stated on his interview that he has no plan to put Shizuo on the story, but he didn’t want Izaya become untouchable, so he created Shizuo to become Izaya’s rival. So technically, Durarara’s God (Narita-sensei) created Shizuo for Izaya XD)

God, huh.

If normal people had about the same information collecting and processing as him, wouldn’t they assume the role of god and manipulate various things? I wonder about that.

Just because he outwardly does work with the layout of human lives, he doesn’t like managing all other people’s lives. He’ll manipulate events from behind the scenes, but he’s not that assertive of a man.

Although, he would happily accept it while making an expression as though it was all according to his calculations, regardless of what the end result would be. And everyone gets easily fooled by that.

“Just like Namie-san’s said,”muttered Kuon.

He sees through everything. Everything up until now was in the palm of his hand. Everyone misunderstands that and despair arbitrarily. He enjoys seeing those expressions on people. He would only be an ’evil spirit,’ a ‘mysterious existence the world has not seen' if we were just examining his personality.

I wonder if there are people who remember him with those impressions. It's not an impossible mistake to perceive him as such.

“I do,”whispered Anri.

I want you to try and imagine it. The man who suddenly appears before you know more about you than you yourself. In terms of the field of information, that fact should make him be called someone with an ‘adaptability’ or perhaps someone ‘broad minded and free in disposition.’ If it is something connected with life and death rather than being broad-minded, then it is the ‘power of life and death.’ Anyway, Izaya Orihara has that type of image for any human being he has troubled. Certainly with that meaning he may be a ‘miscreant.’

“Shinra-sensei, sorry but I have no idea what were you trying to say. You used too many idioms,”Mikado said sheepishly.

“Really? Then let me simplify. Izaya appear in front of you, and he knows about you more than yourself. If you saw him in the field of intel, he is someone who very capable to obtain information, but he is also someone who has no loyalty and easily adapts himself and ditch you depending on his own need. So you will either use him, like Shiki-san, or be very wary of him ,like Sasazaki in the novel. Instead, if you saw him for the life-threatening matter, he and his information wield power of life and death, because really with his information and how he use it, he can save someone's life (on this sentence Saki smiled and Kuon frowned) or doomed someone's life.”

But you see, it doesn’t mean he is a villain. This is the most troubling thing though… It’s not like he does all this with bad intentions. He truly does it because he loves humans.

“Yes, he just has that power. And with that power, every action he takes, whatever he saves you with his information or he doomed you with his information, he doesn't act with ill intent or in the name of morality. He does that because he loves humans, so he blessed the path that humans take, either the path will lead you to your happiness or your destruction, he still support them and loves both of the option. That makes him so troubling, like double-edge sword.”

He’s the ‘smoke and miasma’. He is the poisonous mist itself. Even if he means no harm to his opponent, he's harmful to people just by being around them.

“He means no harm, but he’s harmful to people just by being around him, huh...”hummed Shizuo.

Shizuo realized long time ago that Izaya is maybe as alone as him*⁴. And on that time, Shizuo let a piece of thought invaded his mind again.

What will happen if I and Izaya became friends instead of enemies?

But the troubling thing is…the misfortune for humans is that he follows them.

Love…

That’s right. He loves humans.

He loves, loves, loves, loves humans, so he just wants to see the various expressions humans make.

Of hurt, of joy, humans that sing of love, and humans that release hatred; and in his mind child birth and murder is considered the same. Perhaps when he was a kid he may have admired God or demons. He likes to prepare a wall on other people’s life rails. The people who cross over it and come to a happy ending, or the people who crash into the wall and end with a bad ending. He would say ‘either one is a wonderful human life. I love them.’

He said this before.

– “If there is a despicable or worthless life out there, then I feel like I have to give them love at the very least. I don’t mean to love them out of a sense of obligation. Really, how should I say it...to just genuinely like them”

“How noble of you,”spat Aoba.

Like that. Yeah. I think you already understand. If you want to have a normal life, not getting involved with him is the best answer.

There’s been times someone has abruptly been dragged into it by his whim, but that’s not always the case. Rather than suddenly throwing in a bomb in a peaceful place, it’s originally from the burnt land or incident.

It’s not like the proverb “wanting the mountain rain to come to fill the wind tower,” but in the surroundings where he is involved in, an ominous air swirls around in advance.

“So you can feel it too, Shinra..”accused Shizuo. That four eyes bastard always teases him about his super sense to detect Izaya’s shit, but he himself can feel it!

“I can, but to track him because of his scent alone, it’s only you who have that power,”said Shinra amusedly.

If you can realize even that, you should get away immediately. If you do that, I think you will be fine with not getting mixed in with that troublesome love or idiosyncrasy of his. If you don’t want a normal life…Well, I won’t stop you though. I bet there are a lot of people who get involved happily.

“Yes indeed..”hummed Mikado. Hearing that, Masaomi immediately went alarmed.

“NO! Don’t say that you want to get involved with him again!”

“Don’t worry, Masaomi. I’ve already learned that Izaya-san’s abnormality is too much for me,”

-Selected from listening to Izaya Orihara’s acquaintance, person K.

“Acquintance?! Person K?! How could he, I am his only friend!”fumed Shinra

“Calm down, Nii-san. It’s the interviewer who made that sentence, not Izaya-san. That person maybe a journalist. For journalist, it’s important to maintain the identity of the source,”pointed Kazane.

“Well, if you say so. After this, we enter chapter 2. Here dad,”Shinra handed the book to Shingen, but Shingen push the book back to Shinra’s hand.

“You read the next. I am tired.”

“Eeeehh??”

Next : Chapter 2 : Who is That Man? Part 1

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Who is That Man?

"Huh, it's weird to see that Izaya is very unknown while on Ikebukuro, his name is very famous.."noted Shinra. The he chuckled.

"I have a feeling that in the end of this book, his name will be popular in Bunokura."

There were currently two powers acting as they pleased in Bunokura.

One was the Adamura Group, who owned the rights to the mine and formed expansive connections in the town, overturning the general labor workers and even the local gangs. The people feared them, bestowing them the title ‘feudal lord,’ as they substantially reigned supreme over the town and could bend national law to their benefit behind closed doors.

The other force was the politician, Munenori Kiyojima. Unlike the Adamuras, he had pre-established, extensive connections that ranged from the neighboring cities and congress to every type of bureaucracy. Kiyojima’s power may initially be considered small compared to the large corporation, but he also collaborated with gangs outside the city and was an authority figure who could use his power and influence publicly and under the counter.

‘Bunokura.. Adamura.. Kiyojima... I am sure I’ve heard that name somewhere..’pondered Shingen.

Both parties maintained partial control over the city, but to the residents there was nothing between them, aside from their rivalry and mutual glaring. But over the years their standoff came to a head. The trigger was the redevelopment plans for this town’s port.

A wave pushing for an urban city development project swept through, backed by the support from Hagane City and other nearby cities, which included plans to build establishments like a national airport. If the project was approved, it would become a huge project yielding hundred billions in profits. It could be said the two families had deeply opposed one another in relation to its development at the time.

“AAHHH!!”suddenly Shingen screamed, shocked everyone.

“Gosh father, what’s wrong? You startled me..”

“Now I remember where I’ve heard Adamura, Kiyojima, and Bunokura before. Nebula was involved in Bunokura's redevelopment plans. I don’t really know about it because that case was handled by our economic departement, and I am a mere scientist, but I’ve heard that there’s huge chaos occured on Bunokura city, and that city was cracked beyond repair, so all redevelopment plans like national airport was canceled, and Nebula lost so much money. It turns out that scroundel had a hand on that!”

 Even though Shingen said those sentences with loud voice, his tone was more amused than angry. Then he snickered.

“Now I am really curious about what kind of shenanigans he pulled on that city.”

‘You don’t care about financial of your own corporation at all as long as you can do your experiments. Well, to be fair that’s why mother left you’, deadpanned Shinra, only on his mind, before he resumed his reading.

The Kiyojima side advocated for joint development at first, but Jingorou Adamura colluded with the port’s fishermen under the counter to promote the opposition against the fishing harbor’s development plans, raising the price of their goods. Once Kiyojima realized this, he used his influence and tried to control the quantity excavated from mines in the country. And in terms of shifting the value of the selection of rare metals and bits of gold collected on the market, he had some success, though naturally Adamura remained unmoving.

However their impassable proposals served as a distraction, and Kiyojima used the opportunity to obtain a portion of the town’s successions while the Adamura Group went after the decoy. Their feuds continued in various forms following this incident, a proper cats and dogs relationship forming between the two forces.

“Ah.. they have inner conflicts. No wonder Izaya can stir them up.”hummed Kadota.

“What do you mean, Dota-chin?”

“Even though we often say ‘Izaya planned all of that’ or ‘it’s started because of Izaya’, just like Shinra’s said, he can’t exactly conjure chaos from a peaceful land out of nowhere. He can’t magically create conflict from two loving person without reason. What he does is find unresolved problems or conflicts between his preys, fan them until they reach the peak of their climax, and watch their reactions.”

 Kida frowned upon hearing Kadota’s words. As much as he love to blame all of his problem to Izaya, in his mind he know that it’s also partially his fault.

He let his gang had unresolved conflict with Blue Square. It costs him Saki. And after that he ran away from her because of his own cowardice.

He let his gang had unresolved conflict with Dollar. It costs him Mikado. And after that he ran away from him because of his own cowardice.

‘Heh, as if I haven’t already blamed myself for that,’Kida thought bitterly.

There was some uncertainty towards the silver mine from the beginning, but now in more recent years there was talk of the mine’s supply drying up soon, causing the precarious balance between powers to further pull apart at the seams .

As time progressed, more and more people left  the city under the Adamura Group's control, leading Bunokura to a gradual decline. Despite this, the peace remained steady until a certain incident heralded the end of those days .

Ryuuichi Adamura, the recognized heir to the Adamura Group, had been murdered.

“Damn, the heir got murdered. It’s like the classic way to start a war..”commented Aoba.

“Did Izaya do that?”,wondered Anri.

“I don’t think so, from previous chapter we know that Izaya came to Bunokura after he saw news about Ryuuichi Adamura’s murder. But I am certain he will use that situation as best as he could.”

Kazane frowned, some thoughts from her time as journalist crossed her mind.

“Ryuuichi Adamura... Adamura Group... Bunokura... Murder... Chaos... Bom-AAHH!!”

“Now what? And are you sure that you’re my half-sister from same mother? Because your scream kinda similiar to my father.”

“So you say that I scream like a woman?!”

“Sorry nii-san, but I remember that case! It’s from half a year ago. That case is very sensational for me as a journalist so I wonder how I ever forget about it.”

“So do you know the killer? Is it Izaya?”

“No, in fact I don’t see a mention of Izaya-san’s name on the case.”

“Of course it is, he controls everything from behind the curtain,”huffed Kida

“Yeah, and no way Izaya-san is the culprit, because the killer is-“

Bzzttt!

Suddenly Kazane’s phone vibrated. She opened it, and saw a message from Tsukumoya.

What will you said is a big twist of his story. I advice you to not share it to other readers who don’t know. You know, to keep the suspense on.

“Is he spying on me or something?”pondered Kazane, finally thought that maybe Tsukumoya is some kind of a creep.

Too late, Kazane-chan..

“What’s wrong Kazane-chan?”

“Nothing! About the killer, I think it will revealed in the end of this story, so it’s best to us to just follow the story.”

“Eehh~ Kazane-san is so stingy~”teased Mairu.

“Fine by me, I don’t like spoilers,”said Yahiro.

♀♂

A few days later at the Bunokura Police Station - the chief's room.

“Well now. I didn’t expect sensei to pay me a visit,” a police chief who appeared to still be in his prime years commented.

He was in his mid-thirties, but with his hardworking nature he was inaugurated as the chief of this provincial city with his foothold towards a promotion.

The chief looked over obsequiously from under his glasses with a disappointed expression. The man nearing his fifties he had referred to as sensei - the parliamentarian Munenori Kiyojima - replied with,  “I also didn't want to come here.”

He reclined back with his legs outstretched on the visitor’s sofa, glaring at the chief standing beside the office desk. His hair that had a mix of white strands in it was tightly kept back, and his plump body donned a business suit.

“Wow, what an arrogant man,”Togusa commented.

“Well, he is one of two rulers in Bunokura city, so it’s kinda expected,”said Kadota

“No, he WAS one of two rulers in Bunokura city,”Kazane couldn’t help but comment. She realized her mistake when all pair of eyes looked at her with coriousity.

Her phone buzzed. There’s one email from Tsukumoya.

Really Kazane-chan, you must be careful with your mouth

‘He’s really a creep,’Kazane shuddered, and she made a mental note to block his number after they finish reading the book.

“Really? What’s happened to him?”ask Emilia curiously

“.....Izaya-san happened?”

“Ah..”

“I just wanted to hear the words from your mouth so I can be at ease is all.”

“At ease, you say?”

“Regarding the case from the other day. Adamura’s idiot son was murdered by someone.”

Kiyojima spat out the term 'idiot son' to refer to the dead person with; words that would surely cause an uproar if the media had heard it. However, the chief corrected him with his insincere smile.

“Well, it still hasn't been classified as a murder.”

“Wait, doesn’t he a police who has hardworking nature so he was inaugurated as the chief of this provincial city with his foothold towards a promotion? I thought he is a good police, but he holds the dumb suicide theories?”puzzled Togusa.

“Well ironically, usually there’s more bad cops who are on high position than good cops. His ‘hardworking nature’ maybe his hardworking to kiss seniors’s boots.”

“Then you’re going to treat it like a suicide? It might have worked in the past, but now it would be impossible for you to easily cover up the story in this developed society with the internet and all.”

“My apologies. That was not my intent.”

“I'd appreciate it if you could not direct it to the case. It would be the end for us if people start saying the police covered up Kiyojima's murder for joking that it was a suicide. Not to mention how the suspect would spew false accusations against my stupid son,” Kiyojima spat in annoyance.

“So he called other person’s son an idiot and his own son stupid? Is he some kind on old people who think that every young person is stupid?”scoffed Kuon.

“I don’t know, but if both of them are indeed stupid, he is justified to do that. For example, Kururi, you have an idiot older brother. And I have a stupid older brother.”

“Right...(Your words are very true, Aoba-kun.)”

“Eehh, you only called Kuru-nee, huh Aocchi~ I am hurt you know~”

“Then me too! Aoba-kun, you have an idiot older brother. And I have a stupid older brother.”Kazane added cheerfully.

“Kazane-chan! Ceelltyyy, Kazane-chan bullied meeee..”

[I can do it too. Emilia-san you have an idiot husband. And I have a stupid husband.]

“Really Celty-chan, you can’t say something like that to your father in-law!”

“Ahahaha.. He is indeed idiot but he has his own charm.”

“Emilia!”

“Celtyyy!!! You called me your husband! I am so happy!! Let me hug-ugh!”

[J-just resume your reading!]

“Your wish is my command, my angel..”

An enormous amount of smoke puffed from Celty’s neck.

There was a reason why he had said stupid son. His son Douma Kiyojima was by no means a boy of good disposition. He was a man who did as he pleased and enjoyed misusing his father’s power. He kept affiliating himself with a young gang called the Oukarengou, as he currently did not want to stand on the public stage either. However, it could be said the Oukarengou at present was also one of Kiyojima’s pawns since Kiyojima mediated for the crime organization.

After relocating to this town, his son bashed heads with Ryuuichi Adamura who was a big shot among fellow, local kids on a couple occasions during his academic days. There were a couple of instances where the two gangs clashed, nearly killing each other in some encounters.After getting dragged into the scandal, Adamura and Kiyojima mutually put in the effort to cover up the event, but the discord between Ryuuichi Adamura and Douma Kiyojima was left an open secret among the city’s residents.

And so, the rumor that 'maybe the one who killed Ryuuichi Adamura was Douma Kiyojima' sprung forth at once.

“That seems like logical explanation. You can’t blame other people for thinking like that,”Kadota pondered.

“So do you think that’s what happened Dota-chin?”

“I don’t know, but the fact that Izaya dipped his hands on this case means that this case is maybe more complex than we thought.”

“We’re holding back the mass media on covering it, but there are junk articles in magazines that mention the rumors too. We’re also incapable of fooling the internet these days. I would like you to put a stop to those worthless rumors going around.”

“Um...I would like to confirm one thing; for formality’s sake it may be necessary to ask for your son’s alibi to dispel any futile doubts. So please do not be alarmed if that comes to pass.”

The congressman Kiyojima nodded with a sour expression, “...As to be expected. It’s tiresome, but it is what it is. I’ll tell Douma he has to work this out too.”

“Thank you very much.”

The chief relaxed in relief as Kiyojima brought up another concern, “more importantly, the Adamuras may unjustly fall for those rumors and attack us out of anger...such a situation is in the realm of possibility. If it’s just a skirmish, we could use their scandal then; if they snap due to the shock of losing their son, then it’ll be problematic for me should they meddle with my sound truck.”

“I don’t think they resort to any extreme measures though...We’ll keep an eye on their activities.”

“Ah.. So he is a corrupt police,”Anri remarked.

“Well, this is a corrupt town after all,”pointed Mikado.

“Then that’s fine. Also, if you see my Nana and that bastard kid walking around town, I don’t care unless he’s with Nana. I’ll leave it to you so contact me.”

“Y-yes,” the chief replied while sighing heavily in his mind.

The last one will be nearly impossible. She’s not an elementary schooler.

The one other unique link between the Adamuras and Kiyojimas was the relationship between the third son of the Adamura household and the eldest daughter of the Kiyojima household. By nature, the two were not meant to cross paths. It must have been a twist of fate; the pair had fallen in love far before the relations between their two families went down hill.

“Uwaah.. Even the city has its ow version of Romeo and Juliet. Fancy~”intoned Mairu.

“Nii... favourite... (Romeo and Juliet is one of Nii-chan’s faourite story)”

“Yes, when we were child Iza-nii read it for us as our bedtime story. But then he ranted about the beauty of humanity in love tragedies, the side casts’s responses about their suicide, like Benevio or Mercurio or something.”

“Boring..... asleep...(Nii-san’s rant were so boring they make us asleep).”

Although they said it with annoyed voice, no one failed to notice adorations in their eyes. Shizuo looked away and told himself that he just feel guilty for twin’s sake.

‘The damned flea, if he has energy to wreck a shitty city like that, why doesn’t he just come home to the twins and reads some bedtime stories for them? Instead he completely disappeared from their life. There’s no way he doesn’t dare to come to Ikebukuro, that annoying bastard is and will never afraid of me no matter how hard I fight him.

Right?’

♀♂

In the living room of the Adamura’s Main House that same day .

“What the hell’s this ‘investigating it as both a case and an accident’ crap!? That’s bullshit!” One man yelled at the tablet screen, having seen the news on the net from the last days before.

Several men and women were present in the large living room. The one who shouted was the second eldest son of the Adamura family, Ryuuji Adamura. He was checking the details of the incident after finally managing to calm down again, the funeral having just concluded the day before, only to be enraged at the details in the article .

His height was probably more than 190 centimeters. And paired with his aggressive look, the young housekeepers in the corner of the room trembled in fear of him. 

“Over 190 centimeters? That’s so big! What did they feed him?”Yumasaki wondered.

“He is a son of rich family. I bet he gets every meals he wants,”replied Togusa.

A man, despite being shorter in height than Ryuuji, emitted an even more intimidating presence with his muscular body. The head of the Adamura family, Jingorou Adamura - raised his voice, “calm yourself, Ryuuji.”

“How the hell can I calm down over this, pops!? That Kiyojima bastard! Killed! My brother!”

 “We don’t know that for certain. An outsider could have plotted their mutual demise for all we know. If you act carelessly, the Adamura family will be crushed.”

“Is this the time to be calmly calculating things!? Wasn’t he important to you!?”

Adamura plainly told the animated Ryuuji, “He was. But you’re more important than a dead man right now.”

“Wow, that’s cold,”commented Shingen.

“Calling your own son dead man.. Perhaps he’s even worse father than Shinra’s shitty father.”

“Shizuo-kun, ‘Shinra’s shitty father’ is right here you know..”

“Hmph.. doesn’t make you less shitty..”

“Uh...”

“Don’t make such a fuss. And don’t show your impatience on your face.”

His broadminded words befitted his outward appearance, but his eyes had a piercing, chilling edgeness to them as he gazed at Ryuuji.

“You’re already the successor to the Adamura group.”

“...Y-yeah.”

Ryuuji’s mind was forced to cool down, feeling from the pressure crashing down on him from above.

“You know, what if the mysterious killer is Ryuuji, because he want to be heir of Adamura Group?” Yahiro theorized.

“I don’t think so, he was angry with his brother killer, even he was mad at his father for not doing anything to avenge Ryuuichi. Besides, looks lie he didn’t happpy when his father declared that he was now the successor of Adamura Group,”objected Kuon.

“Yeah, but what if it only his act? Ryuusei sounds like hot-headed man, what if he didn’t satisfied of his positions and want to ursups his brother’s birthright?”

“That....actually makes sense.”

Kazane wisely kept her mouth shut.

The head of the family, Jingorou, addressed everyone in the room - from the family and attendants to even the maids.

“At any rate, don’t show any weakness. For times like these, move more discreetly than usual. I’m not saying to do nothing either though. Open your eyes and strain your ears. Don’t look away from townsfolk’s reactions to this.”

“He sounds like commander in military than a father,”noted Kida.

“Yeah, perhaps he treated all his family member like they’re his underlings..”Mikado pondered.

“Poor them..”mused Anri.

“If there is the time we have to make a move, we will. So please rest assured,” a man likely around his mid-thirties spoke from a corner in the room.

He was the young leader of the gang, the Futsuku Group, that was associated with Adamura: Udagawa.

“Alright...but don’t make it obvious when you do as well. If your group is concerned about the profits, I’ll compensate for its decrease. Tell your boss that too.”

“I’ll greatly oblige.”

The young head of the gang bowed, while the father acted respectfully.

Comparing the two, Ryuuji considered his father to be more the Yakuza type, though naturally he did not mention it. If this was a normal town, having just the head of a gang directly enter their estate would have been enough to cause a scandal. But Adamura was able to call him and all the members to their main residence just fine. Although he did not call for the boss of the yakuza, the young head Udagawa was fairly well known in the underground of the town.

In other words, just that much would not become a scandal. The Adamura Group, at least in this town, had built up that much of a firm foundation.

 “This is in regards to gossip in town...I am uncertain if it is something related to Ryuuichi-san’s case directly, but a few days ago there were some strange rumors.”

“Rumors?”

“Yes, it seems there is someone intentionally spreading a rumor concerning the Adamura and Kiyojima families.”

Everyone in the room perked their ears. The name of a well-known nasty info broker appeared in their minds.

“Izaya?”

“Sounds like him.”

“There’s always guys doing that though. Such a disgusting bunch,” Ryuuji spat. He thought if it was just a false rumor meant for harassing them they could suppress their freedom of speech or just ignore them. However-

“No, this time it is bits of information being spread around that could put either side at an advantage or disadvantage...”

“This is right after the incident. The guys in town are just gossiping and giving their own guesses.”

“The problem is that there are many truths mixed in among those rumors. For these to occasionally be right and have some form of networking, they could be going after information even within our group.”

“...”

Everyone in the room fell silent.

“It’s funny. Izaya-san once told me that society’s reaction of rumors is like his sisters’s attempt to diet, if truth is like vegetables and lies is like meat. He said, they will reject whole vegetable because it tasted bad for them, but they will also reject whole meat like fried chicken because they didn’t want to get fat. So they made a pathetic attempt by sprinkle vegetable essence powder into meat and told themself that they DID eat vegetable,”infromed Saki.

“I see, it’s the same as rumors. People tend to reject whole truth because it doesn’t suit their taste, but they also don’t want to swallow pure lies. So they like to accept lies mixed with truth,”Mikado thought out loud.

“I don’t care about our brother’s weird philosophy, but how dare he spread lies like that about us!”

“Diet..properly.. (We are serious about our diet! We really eat vegetable properly!)”

“As someone who share blood with Orihara Izaya, you guys are really bad at lying..”notified Aoba.

“Aocchi you meanie!”

“No no, that’s supposed to be a compliment actually. And i don’t think you guys need to diet, bot of you are already pretty.”

“And Kururi is so sexy”whispered Aoba. But apparently his voice wasn’t low enough because Kururi blushed while Mairu grinned widely.

“Aocchi you pervert! Stop ogling Kuru-nee!”

“I-I didn’t- I just noticed, I mean I saw her body when she was swimming and wearing bikini so i can’t help-“

Now everyone looked at Aoba with either amused or stinky eyes. Shinra decided to help the poor pubescent teen and resumed his reading.

 “Also...if I am correct. There was a rumor regarding Kazuhisa and Kiyojima’s daughter as well.”

“Wha-...”

A man in the room startled. He was still around twenty years of age. His name was Kazuhisa Adamura. He was the third son of the Adamura family, and unlike his father and brother, he was neither tall or muscular and had a completely fragile and harmless air to him.

“So like Mikado-kun..”noted Anri

“Oh no..”Kida whimpered

“And Izaya-san was on that town...”

“That town is definitely doomed..”

“H-heeh? What do you guys mean by that?”

“Kazuhisa, you bastard...”

Ryuuji openly frowned towards his younger brother.

“It can’t be, you’re still dating that bitch?”

“...It has nothing to do with you, right?”

“Of course it does! You’re the origin of the rumors then!”

“I’m not making trouble. Even if it was me behind the leaks, I’m not in the position to listen to your and dad’s secret talks in the first place.”

He averted his gaze as he retaliated, but Ryuuji grabbed a hold of his chest and yelled, “your existence itself is an eyesore! Having the filthy blood of that whore...”

“He sounds like he cares so much about Ryuuichi, but his behaviour toward Kazuhisa is very different.”pondered Shizuo.

“Well, perhaps because Kazuhisa is only his half-brother.. It’s common for half-blood siblings to have strained relationship.”explained Kadota.

“Well, Kazane-chan and I are the exception! We have a good relationship even though we are half-siblings! Besides, Celty likes you, so I like you too, right Celty?”beamed Shinra.

[Yes, you are a good sister to Shinra and me, Kazane-chan. Sometimes I think that you are too good for him..]

“Thank you, Celty-san. I am also glad that we have such a good relationship..”

“Ryuuji,” Jingorou quietly called his name, silencing his son's words.

That alone had cold sweat forming on Ryuuji’s back, and he could not speak further. He sensed the apparent anger behind the callousness of his father’s words.

“A dirty woman? You’re calling the woman I chose and bought dirty?”

 “Ah...no...”

Everybody in the room realized the retort was misplaced, but no one could point it out. It was because everyone knew; to the man Jingorou Adamura, his wife he was arranged to marry and the mistress he copulated with through money were nothing more than property. And he viewed his sons Ryuuji and Kazuhisa as possessions instead of actual family.

“What the.. that’s messed up..”commented Togusa.

“A father who view his sons as mere possessions... Suddenly now I feel sorry for his sons..”Yumasaki added.

“I think I told you before; while he has a different mother than you, to me you and Kazuhisa are the same with half of my blood running through his veins. So Ryuuji, you just ignored the part of my blood in him and looked down on Kazuhisa?”

“N-no...”

“So are you indirectly insulting me? Me? Your father?”

“That’s his problem?! What an arrogant man!!”barked Shizuo.

Ryuuji shuddered at his father’s voice.

Ryuuichi and Ryuuji were notorious as miscreants since their student days, and they were never reprimanded by their parents no matter how many wrongdoings they did in the town. On the contrary, most of the events were erased by him. But when he threatened a man stronger than him who he got into a fight one day saying, “if I ask my old man, he’ll put your family out on the streets,” he was hit in the rear with a pickaxe.

– “You are my dear son. Even if you killed a person or two, I would cover up the act. But I don’t plan on letting you use my position as you please, nor do I plan to push you around.”

“What kind of parenting is that?”Emilia asked in disbelief.

“Arrogant rich man’s parenting..”Shingen answered.

– “Why should I put in the time to kick others out on the streets for you? Destroying a human life without the media getting in on it takes quite a bit of time, you know? Not to mention that you even used my name when you warned your adversary that, “we’ll put your family on the streets.” What will you compensate for me after making me do this absurd work?”

– “If you had the time to threaten someone with my name, then you should have taken care of that kid with a surprise attack. If you carelessly killed him, then I would have covered up the incident at that time.”

Ryuuji felt his old wound throb, recalling his father’s unique moral perspective.

“Please wait, pops. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I misspoke.”

“Did you? Good,” he responded to the pale faced Ryuuji before resuming the conversation, shifting his focus onto Kazuhisa.

“Now then, how about it? Are you still dating Kiyojima's daughter?”

“...We haven’t even seen each other recently. This isn’t the time to see each other, right?”

“Quite right. It’s not something I really know, but don’t act in a way to where Kiyojima could frame it as the Adamura’s weakness. Should the need arise, you will have to dispose of that girl.”

“Wha-...She has nothing to do with our problems!”

Kazuhisa brazenly glared at his father in the eye. 

“Ohoho.. he has guts to challenge his overlord father..”chuckled Kadota.

“That’s the power of love! Go Romeo, go!”cheered Erika.

Jingorou replied, “it doesn't matter whether you or that girl intend to or not; do you think Kiyojima would accept that in earnest? Even if I told you to do whatever you want, would you solve the problem on your own? There are already rumors regarding the house’s problems; how could you say she’s not involved?”

“...”

Kazuhisa fell silent but did not avert his gaze off his father.

“It doesn’t matter. Kiyojima would reject it, but I don’t give a damn about the girl; she's not a politician or anything for that matter. Just behave yourself until the mess is cleaned up.”

“...Understood, father.”

“Still, for you to stare me down head on...It seems you have more guts than Ryuuji.”

Seeing his father chuckling, Ryuuji looked over at Kazuhisa with grinding teeth. But he must have thought he would incur his father’s wrath if he made a poor choice of words again, so he made no attempt to speak up.

“Ah, I know right.. Love can make a son become so rebellious. I remember when Shinra had not yet met Celty, he was so obedient with me. He followed me around when I went abroad on my experiment, he comply with me when I told him to dissect something.. But since Celty came, he doesn’t want to listen to me anymore and prefer to live with Cety..”

“Of course, because Celty is the most important to me!”

“See?! That’s what I meant!”

[.......]

Probably for the first time, Celty felt grateful that she came to Shinra’s life. Heaven knows how corrupted Shinra would be if he continued to follow his crazy father.

After a brief lapse of time, Jingorou addressed each person in the room including the servants again.

“You guys, don’t get bothered by the ill rumors. Be even more careful to not behave like the origins of those rumors.”

“Ah, that’s right. I just remembered...”

Udagawa had waited for a moment to interject .

“What is it?”

“Do you happen to know the name Izaya Orihara?”

“Sadly, yes..”drawled Aoba.

“...No, that’s a first.”

He looked around the room, but Ryuuji and Kazuhisa also tilted their head to the side in confusion.

“That Orihara...whoever it is. What was it again?”

“It is Izaya Orihara. It was the name that kept coming up when I looked into the rumors. I found it curious. I do not know if he is the person who directly spread the rumors, and I admit it may just be a coincidence. But I thought to ask as I was unfamiliar with the name.”

“Yeah, Izaya is a very unique name. Even a random person can’t help but remember it,”Mikado pointed out.

“Seriously, as an information broker to control everything behind the curtain, why does he uses his real name, his unique unforgettable name at his schemes?”perplexed Kuon.

“And become so good at it, damn him!”

“Have you looked him up?”

“I checked with city hall. At the very least, he does not appear to be from this town. However, it is possible it could be a fake name... Even when I looked it up online, I could not really tell. At least if I had his name in kanji, I might have found different results.”

Udagawa and his men supposed “Orihara” was written as 折原 or 織原 ,  but they were unsure how “Izaya” would have been written. When they searched it under just katakana, no satisfactory results were found. They wound up with the same results even when they tried to search “Izaya” with the Kanji 伊座也 or 伊座夜 , so they gave up.

“Ahaha.. Thanks to our father’s sense of naming..”

“Difficult.. names.. (Father gives us difficult and unique name too..)”

“Yeah, but I don’t think our dad did that to support Iza-nii’s ‘career’, but indeed his difficult name is hard to track on internet..”

“Shocked.. Nii-san...(father must be shocked if he know that Nii-san use his given name that way..”

“In any case, the people who mentioned the name gave the impression they had heard it from a friend of a friend. It is unlikely they had met with him directly, but we will do more digging just in case.”

“Yeah. Don’t look over the trivial details. If some newcomer arrives into this town during this time, it could be someone under Kiyojima. Keep that in mind and be on guard.”

Among the people in the entire room, there was one person shaken up by Jingorou's words.

It’s already too late, master.

One of the maids – a young girl wearing an old style maid outfit – whispered in her mind.

Her name was Azami Niiyama. She was a new housekeeper who had not even been here for a half year.

Kazane tensed.

“What’s wrong, Kazane-chan?”asked Emilia.

“No-nothing. I just saw a crow near that window. I hate crow.”

“Really? Where’s the crow? I will take care of it..”

“I-it already flew away..”

She managed to keep a calm expression as she stood in the room, suppressing the impulse to show any disturbance on her face.

I can’t say it, right...? How Orihara-san came to know of the relationship between Kazuhisa-san and Kiyojima's daughter was none other than me.

“Damn, he already has a spy on Adamura’s household..”gasped Togusa.

“Considering him, probably he has more than one spy,”objected Kadota.

♀♂

Next : Chapter 2 : Who is That Man? Part 2