Heiwajima Shizuo didn't like violence.

This was an ironic, but true fact. Even as he pounded street gang members, yakuza, assassins, and even various others who may or may not have been completely human, this one fact rang through his mind.

Even as his eyes glazed over and became as narrow as a pin hole…even as his mind was completely wiped of any and all thoughts…even as his hands grabbed the nearest street lamp and ripped it clean out of the ground, accompanied by a ferocious yell that would have stopped a herd of rampaging wildlife in its tracks…

Yes, even as he very violently swung that street lamp like a bat and sent a dozen or so violent humans flying through the air, he remembered the one fact that held true at any time.

Heiwajima Shizuo didn't like violence.

"Damn it! He just took out half of us in a single second! Are the dead? Don't tell me they're dead!"

"Idiot! You think anyone could survive being hit by a lamppost?! Hurry up and kill this monster before you're killed first!"

"I-Impossible! It's definitely impossible! There is no way we can kill the strongest man in Ikebukuro with just guns and knives! That informant tricked us!"

"IIIIIIIIZAAAAAAYAAAAAA!"

Heiwajima Shizuo drowned out the panicked voices of his various assailants as he swung the lamppost in a wide arc in front of him, knocking away any unlucky person to be in his range. While in the height of his arc, Shizuo released his grip on the metal post and it went flying forward, spinning rapidly like a one-way boomerang, aiming to take down anyone in its way. However, the target narrowly evaded by bending his body back, letting the lamppost fly barely a centimeter over his face, barely brushing his nose and bangs before smashing into two cars parked by the sidewalk, shattering the windows, flattening the wheels, and setting off both alarms that blared obnoxiously in the air.

"Wow~ Shizu-chan is really out to kill me this time, isn't it?"

"I'm pretty sure Shi-kun does his best to kill you every time he catches a glimpse of you, Iza-kun. Just die already."

"Oh! I'm hurt! Even you want me dead, Ju-Li? Now I feel unwanted!"

[Quit with the sarcasm! Are you even taking this seriously?! You're always provoking him for no reason! Now look what you did!]

"So you're saying this is my fault? How about dreadlocks over there who is supposed to always keep Shizu-chan calm? Shouldn't he be blamed for not doing his job right?"

"Don't bring me into this! I take the boiling pot off the fire; I can't do anything if he's already boiling over!"

"Hey! Shizuo! Fighting—is no good! It make you hungry! Everyone is hungry! Everyone wants sushi for hungry! So no fight; eat sushi!"

There weren't very many people in Ikebukuro who could survive being anywhere near Shizuo when his rage exploded, though they certainly existed. A good number of them were on these chaotic streets now, yelling across at each other in the short respite as Shizuo tried to catch his breath. Most of them were his friends, or at least acquaintances with whom he held no quarrel. Normally, Shizuo would avoid putting them in danger at all costs. But Shizuo only had eyes for one person right now; the idiot with a smirk who he desperately wanted to kill.

"IZAYA!" Shizuo roared as he glared daggers at sly information broker. "You bastard! Are you trying to pin another crime on me?!"

"Well, Shizu-chan, it's been a while since the last time, so I figured it was high time to try it again. You seem unappreciative of my gift, though. Since when were you so cold to your own former classmate?"

The thin young man raised his arms up and shrugged sarcastically as he continued to smirk smugly at Shizuo, apparently comfortable with the current distance between the two of them. Just seeing that ugly smirk made Shizuo see red. He immediately reached out and grabbed the 'yield' sign sticking out of the sidewalk nearby, ripping it out along with a round piece of cement attached to its base, and gave another beast-like roar as he charged forward, aiming to smash the dangerously blunt object into the worm that needed to be killed.

Heiwajima Shizuo didn't like violence.

But violence sure liked him.

To explain the unfortunate series of events that put Heiwajima Shizuo in such an undesirable situation, we have to go back a bit. We also have to keep in mind that, though the story is centered around the so-called 'strongest man in Ikebukuro', the truth can only be understood if we look at the stories of others as well. Stories that ended up crossing and intertwining to ultimately create the undesirable situation.

We could start with the eccentric underground doctor who holds no interest in humans.

We could start with the china girl who works in the red-light district.

We could start with the urban legend who rides a black back through the city, performing jobs as a courier.

We could start with the big, black Russian who sells sushi.

We could start with the four friends who drive around the city all day in a van, consisting of two otakus, a vehicle obsessed driver, and a natural born leader.

Or we could start with the source of all problems, the ally of all humans, and the object of Heiwajima Shizuo's hatred; Orihara Izaya.

"Well? What do you think?"

"Hmm…There's no mistaking it. This is the exact same person. It's kind of creepy, you know? It's like looking at a zombie."

Orihara Izaya casually leaned against the wall of the small room as he watched a man in a lab coat carefully observing the motionless bodying lying on the table. The room would make anyone suffering from claustrophobia have a panic attack; there was not a single window and most of the space in the small room was taken up by lots of medical equipment. There was only one door leading to stairs that went straight up and out to the street, though it was well hidden. They were currently several feet underground in an underground laboratory that was not official in any way. The doctor himself was the type people would go to if going to a normal hospital would get them in trouble, especially if their wounds were a result of illegal activities. The doctor had a more or less unreliable face, complete with thickly rimmed glasses and a casual expression that held little to no stress.

This doctor was named Kishitani Shinra. Despite his appearance, he was a prodigy in his work and a friend of Izaya; the only one he'd kept since middle school.

Izaya didn't come bothering Shinra for things like this too often, though he didn't hesitate to when necessary. Izaya had even been kind enough to bring Namie, his 'secretary' that had worked in a corporation that ended up merging with Nebula, where Shinra worked. But so far, the two hadn't uttered a single waspish word to each other. Izaya didn't know whether they were simply that professional or if they just didn't care about petty things like that, but he was disappointed to see his effort go to waste.

"So even someone like you comes to that same conclusion?" The dark haired beauty named Namie peered down apathetically at the body that was dressed in nothing but underwear. It didn't seem that she was the least bit bothered or unsettled, though her lack of emotion was less ironic than the smile on Shinra's face that contradicted his words. "They definitely had their skull smashed up. I don't know how any doctor managed to save his life in time, but he's certainly breathing. There's no telling when he'll wake up, though."

"He probably will." Shinra sighed as he stood up, continuing to eye the body with child-like fascination. "This wasn't the first time he's suffered from mortal wounds."

Namie raised an eyebrow questioningly, so Shinra carefully pointed to specific parts of the body with one thin finger.

"There…there…and there. See them? They look a lot like healed bullet wounds. Each of them must have really messed up his innards. And this line here probably means he was almost bisected at some point, though god knows by what. It's hard to tell, but that tan line around his neck is probably representative of the amount of times he's been strangled…Well, I can only say that he's quite the trooper."

Namie's frown deepened as she noted everything Shinra pointed out with a skeptic expression.

"…I guess he had a really good doctor. An amazing one."

"That's definitely a possibility." Shinra shrugged as he continued to smile brightly. "But that might also not be it. Since he didn't die immediately from these wounds, you have to give his body some credit. He's a really sturdy human being."

Izaya chuckled lightly as he pushed off of the wall he was leaning against, striding over with an amused smirk on his face.

"We found him floating face down in the sewers, too. It really is incredible that he's not dead. Honestly, I'd even venture to say that he's a monster in his own right. We have more than enough of those in this city, don't you think?"

"What do you plan to do with him?" Shinra ignored Izaya's joking tone completely. "He'll probably wake up sooner or later."

"You know how I told you that the yakuza claimed to have killed him? Well, I see a golden opportunity to take advantage of this little mishap."

"You're going to mess with the yakuza?" Namie didn't sound like she was surprised to hear that from Izaya, though her brows knit together in annoyance. "I guess I'll have to make sure I stay away from you for the next few weeks."

"Oh come on, Namie-san. Do you really think I'd be so stupid as to let them know it's me?"

"Hey, hey, did you hear? Apparently, there is a zombie in Ikebukuro."

"No, no, no. When you hear about something like that, you think of a character infected with some disease that keeps their bodies alive, like from a post apocalyptic-style anime or someone reincarnated with the Edo Tensei."

"Really? When I first heard about it, Yuuko-san came to mind. A pretty girl wandering through the city, dead, no longer remembered, lost, only to be saved by love!"

Kodata Kyohei grimaced as he glanced up at the rear view to look at the two geeks sitting in the back seat, somehow managing to turn what should have been normal hearsay and gossip into a conversation he couldn't follow. Both Karisawa Erika and Yumasaki Walker had the same stupid grins on the faces as always as they were in their own little world, debating something on a level neither Kodata nor the driver, Togusa Saburo, could understand.

Well, this was pretty much the norm. But he heard something at the beginning that concerned him.

"...A zombie?"

"Don't you check the message boards on the Dollars website? The rumor spread fast. People have apparently spotted someone who was reported missing a while ago somewhere in Fukuoka wandering around in the city. Some people thought it was a ghost. Others figured it was just some look alike."

"And you guys think it's a zombie?"

"Get this, Dota-chin! Nobody's been able to talk to him. Whether or not it's coincidence, he has an air of mystery around him and no one has been able to clearly see his face. There's a thread in the forum where anyone who gets information on his whereabouts posts so that anyone in the Dollars who wants to can try and get a closer look."

Kyohei sighed heavily upon hearing this. Why did people have to be so reckless? No good could come from this curiosity. In fact, in the best case scenario where they turn out to be right about this guy being a ghost or zombie, what they? Will it eat them? Possess them? Suck out their soul? No; they were better off not thinking about this, letting it become an urban legend.

So first things first; he had to discourage the two who were no doubt actively lurking on the forum.

"Hey, you two...you aren't thinking of trying to track down this so-called 'zombie', are you?"

Both Erika and Walker returned Kyohei's warning glare with innocent smiles. He wasn't at all convinced.

"Forget about it." He spoke in a serious tone. "I don't care if you're curious, but there's no need to go looking for trouble."

"Oh come on, Dota-chin." Erika grinned playfully as she leaned against the back of his chair, poking his face with one prodding finger. Kyohei stubbornly ignored her, keeping his eyes focused on the road ahead with an expression of steel. "Where's your sense of adventure? We've already seen more than enough proof that this city isn't normal. Rather, can we even say we don't contribute to this factor? Instead of just letting danger find us, pushing around as it pleases, we should take the offensive more often."

"The stress of having danger find you every once in a while is better than the stress of deliberately finding dangerous all the time."

"How stubborn~ Are you saying that you're still stuck in the past, mister 'former delinquent'?"

A still silence filled the van in response to Erika's taunting words. Kyohei's grimace deepened as his hands tightened in their folded position over his chest, as if trying to hold himself back.

"I'm still a delinquent even now." He said at last as his hands relaxed. "And don't call me 'Dota-chin'."

Erika sighed as she sat back in her seat, giving Walker a bemused look that made it clear that she'd given up, which he returned just as ironically.

All of the sudden, the van jumped as if they had hit a curb or a particular large rock, which caught the three passengers off guard. They all glanced at the driver, surprised to see his hands shaking on the wheels as he struggled to keep himself calm enough to control the car.

"Hey, guys…" Togusa Sabura spoke in a small voice without looking up, much of his face hidden by his bangs. "Isn't anyone else bothered by the fact that people are seeing a living dead guy in the city?!"

Heiwajima Shizuo sighed as he stood in the center of a bustling crowd. Normal people were passing around him like the flow of a river and he did little to stemmy its flow. Conversation carried on as normal. Laughter or arguments over phones carried on uninterrupted. It was loud, but not obnoxious. It was like hearing the noise of every gear coming together to turn on large system. Shizuo felt at peace, looking up at the sky as he casually took a breath before blowing out a steady stream of smoke from his cigarette.

It was honestly difficult to understand how he didn't stand out from an objective standpoint. He was a tall man in a bartender outfit, standing just over six feet, with bright blonde hair that any normal Japanese person would attribute to a delinquent. Granted, he was twenty-five and lanky, lacking the bulk or bad attitude to make him equitable to a gang member. Nevertheless, he should have stood out. Under normal circumstances, he would have. He was one of the most abnormal beings in the city, after all.

But right now, he was a nondescript and colorless nonentity who just happened to have a few special circumstances. He was in something like a zen mode right now; he was calm and had clarity of mind. He was completely devoid of rage and anger.

Just fifty seconds earlier, he'd been the opposite. He had been chasing a couple of idiots with a motorcycle held aloft, aiming to smash them in to vent his rage. They weren't innocent bystanders; they'd tried to attack Tanaka Tom, the debt collector with dreads who Shizuo protected as a job. So beating the shit out of them was natural, though unfortunate for them.

He'd managed to knock out most of them, but two had gotten away. Shizuo had given chase at first, but gave up as soon as they vanished into the crowd of bystanders. So he stopped, lit a cigarette, and worked on calming himself down.

"...Looks like I lost him."

Shizuo glanced around and saw that Tanaka Tom was nowhere to be seen. He'd probably stayed behind after taking cover to protect himself as Shizuo went on rampage. He was a smart man; one who could be around Shizuo without dying, though not due to any strength of his own. He simply knew how to keep Shizuo's rage down, like turning down the heat of the oven before the pot boils over. When all else failed, he made sure to stay out of the way to ensure his own survival.

Shizuo was still on the job and should be protecting Tanaka Tom as his bodyguard, so there was little choice but to go and look for him.

"Ah! Shi-kun! What a rare opportunity, seeing you here!"

Shizuo turned slowly to find someone staring right into his face, their nose not even a full inch from his own. Shizuo paused, a little surprised from the sudden appearance of this person, so he wasn't able to properly react as they smiled playfully and touched their nose to his own before withdrawing and sitting comfortably on the mailbox they'd stood on to match Shizuo's clearly superior height.

"Ju-Li."

Shizuo muttered the name as he recognized the girl's face. She was about his age and wore a revealing cheongsam that reflected her heritage while baring her long, slender legs. She had flowing black hair that reached down to her shoulder blades and a lotus flower pinned near her temple. Next to Shizuo and his western clothing, her oriental outfit was in stark contrast. The only thing that broke that contrast was the large bag in her lap that looked like folded dry cleaning, all pristinely and carefully ironed out.

Ju-Li was one of the few people Shizuo was acquainted with in a positive way, and was even rarer in the fact that she rarely annoyed him. It might have had something to do with how she embodied many of the things he liked; her hair resembled running brooks that kept him calm, she was straight forward and honest, and she practiced martial arts, which—ironically enough—Shizuo enjoyed immensely.

Plus, she was the one who consistently returned Shizuo's clothes to their original form, after being ripped, burned, slashed, and soaked in the various hiccups in his what-should-be-peaceful life.

"Here you go." Ju-Li held the bag out to Shizuo with both hands as if offering him his wedding tuxedo. "All eight of them, all in perfect condition. I was just about to track you down and give them to you."

"Thanks a lot." Shizuo graciously accepted the bag and slung it over his shoulder for safe keeping. "Especially for always doing this."

"It's no problem. You may have a lot of them, but each one of these bartender suits represents the heartwarming bond between you and your brother. I'm honored that you trust me enough to handle them for any length of time."

"Hm, well, how can I say it?" Shizuo smiled slightly at the fond mentioning of his own brother. "Kasuka's a good person and I owe him a lot. He seemed to take a liking to you when you guys first met, and I definitely trust his judgment, which turned out to be right."

"Really? He liked me?" Ju-Li frowned as she pressed a finger to her cheek and cocked her head in thought. "He turned me down pretty harshly when I invited him into the shop. And he didn't blush or react in any way when I teased and flirted with him. Honestly; you two may appear to be opposites, but you should take pride in the fact that you're both two of only five people to never be reeled in by me."

So she said with a posed look.

Come to think of it, didn't she say it was rare to see him here? In other words, this was the red light district, where she worked, right? Had he really chased those goons so far east?

Ju-Li worked in a strange Chinese restaurant where true, authentic Chinese cuisine was served by tons of beautiful girls in cheongsams, who also performed 'additional service' to paying customers. Ju-Li was the most requested girl there and was famous, even in other parts of Ikebukuro. Everything else aside, the restaurant's food was excellent and the staff was trustworthy. If it was located in another part of Ikebukuro and didn't have the 'secondary service', Shizuo would probably visit there a lot. Ju-Li certainly tried to drag him in there often enough.

"Ah, don't worry. It's not my shift right now, so I won't pester you tonight."

Ju-Li smiled wryly as she saw Shizuo's expression. He'd only frowned slightly, but she'd gotten good at reading his candid expressions and body language.

"So I guess you're taking care of your other job, then?"

"Yep. Same old, same old—is what I would like to say. The job this time is a little weird, but I'll manage. Shouldn't you be working, too?"

"Yeah. I was just with Tom-san, but I had to chase away some idiots for a bit. Vorona should still be with him, so he should be fine until we meet up again."

"I see. In that case, do you mind if I come with you?"

Shizuo raised an eyebrow at Ju-Li curiously, but quickly decided not to ask. She'd tell him if he did, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know anything about what exactly her 'work' pertained to.

He already knew she was involved with the yakuza to some extent. That was enough for him.

"Sure."

"Let me start by asking you this; have you seen this person?"

Celty Sturluson scrutinized the picture held up in front of her carefully.

By 'scrutinize', that is not to say that she 'carefully focused her eyes on'. If you replaced the word 'eyes' with 'gaze', it might be somewhat truer, though debatably so.

Celty Sturluson had no head.

Everything above her neck was gone. Instead, an odd haze or fog that could only be described as 'shadows in gaseous form' floated from her neck. With it, she could 'see' whatever she focused her senses on, as well as smell, hear, and feel.

So, despite not having a head, Celty the Dullahan (supposedly) could see the face of the man in the picture.

After gazing at it for a few moments, her yellow helmet tilted down slightly to indicate that she had shifted her gaze to the PDA in her hand, which she typed on quickly to write out a sentence.

[Is the job to look for this man?]

She asked what seemed to be the obvious question, but Shiki, the man across from her, shook his head.

"Before I respond to that, I want to hear your answer. Have you transported someone who looks like this sometime today? If you have to lie to protect your client's right to secrecy, go ahead. I'll accept whatever answer you give me."

Celty would have frowned if she could. If her life partner had been there, he would have been able to tell what facial expression she was making even if her face wasn't there. Actually, Shiki could read her body language too, couldn't he? Lying would probably be meaningless before this man.

[Well, it wasn't for a job…but I did see someone like this, if only for a moment.]

Shiki's expression didn't change. He wasn't necessary 'void of emotions', much like a certain famous idol, but he had so much composure, his level wasn't too far from that.

"Where?"

[While riding through the streets…]

[Actually, do you have a map?]

[I think I was right around here. I saw someone in a work uniform with this same face slipping into the sewers.]

Shiki stared at the spot on the map Celty had indicated for a long moment, as if memorizing it.

"Hey."

Shiki called out and two men in suits immediately hurried over.

"Get a map of the sewers and find all the possible routes he could have taken. Send our guys over there and corner him. Fast."

The men nodded before hurrying off to do as they were told. Shiki sighed slightly as he shoulders dropped, as if he was relaxing a bit for the first time in a while.

[Just who is this man?]

Shiki didn't reply immediately as Celty held her PDA with her question typed on it in front of him. He seemed to carefully consider how to respond before opening his mouth.

"…A monster…is what I would say, but you wouldn't take too kindly to the word, would you?"

Celty cocked her head curiously, not understanding Shiki's meaning. He just waved it off indifferently.

"This is Honjou Suoh, a former member of the Awakusu-kai. Some complicated things happened—basically, another group killed him. The same thing happened several times after that. Cutting, burning, shooting, strangling…this man's gone through more hell than any living person can even fathom."

Shiki's placed the picture down on the table between them and carefully pointed to distinct marks on the man to prove his claims. Indeed; Celty could see all kinds of marks that indicated past damage of all kinds.

"And yet," Shiki continued with an exasperated tone. "He's not dead. Well, I say he was 'killed', cause technically, that's what happened. There's even one account where it was confirmed that his heart stopped beating. But later on, his eyes open. His heart beats. He breathes. He keeps the permanent scars, so he's definitely healing, but that actually makes it harder to understand. It's not something that can be explained with 'he has a strong body'."

Is he a zombie?!

That was Celty's initial thought. She wasn't frightened—she was no different herself. She'd met some strange people, both human and otherwise, in this city. It wasn't scary enough of its own to just know that something unnatural was happening.

Though, it would be different if it was an alien.

[What did he do to you to warrant so many attempted homocides?]

"Well, there are a lot of reasons, dating back for a few years; none of which I can tell you. But most recently, this guy tried to mess with our good relations that we have with the Chinese gangs. He happened to be in our territory, so we filled him with lead. He jumped out of a window—the eighth story no less—and vanished."

[So you assumed he was alive based on the previous stories?]

"I told the idiots who were in charge to be careful, but they didn't believe in those ghost stories. And now this has turned into a real mess. That's why, courier, I have a job for you."

Celty straightened up as Shiki abruptly moved on to the business matters.

"Find this guy, capture him—alive, obviously—and bring him here."

So he's using his own men to help corner this Honjou Suoh so I can catch him? Or am I the bait?

Either way, it didn't matter. Shiki dropped the envelope of money onto the table and gave Celty a start. Just the sound of it landing was enough to indicate that it was a large sum.

"This was a mistake on our part, so we should really avoid involving others." Shiki explained as Celty picked up the envelope and quickly fingered through the bills. "But with that freakishly skilled martial artist from the Chinese gang out there looking for Honjou, we can't take any risks. I guess this just goes to show our trust in you."

Freakishly skilled martial artist?

Only one person came to mind, but Celty's thoughts wandered in a different direction.

Speaking of which, Shizuo is out there at this time, isn't he? I definitely hope this Honjou doesn't run into him, but even so…could even a zombie like him survive an encounter with Shizuo?

Honjou Suoh acknowledged that his body was strange.

Ever since a young age, he'd had to deal with it. Of course, he hadn't been killed often when he was a kid. But he was born prematurely and had fallen out of a tree in middle school and knocked his head right onto a rock that pretty much pierced his temple. After that, he got into gangs where being in danger was common.

And yet, he was still alive.

It was no miracle. In fact, he was pretty unlucky. He seemed to attract fatal experiences to himself. Unnecessary events that could kill him practically followed him around. Even as he jumped out of the window to protect himself, he felt at least a dozen bullets enter his body before he fell to an altitude lower than the window. He was long since used to pain, so he just focused on grabbed at the side of the building, trying to hold onto anything that would slow down his fall. His hands and fingers ached under the force he put against the window sills he passed, but he couldn't find anything to complete stop his fall.

As it was, his landing was rough and painful, but he retained his consciousness.

He then set out to escape. He had no real destination in mind; anywhere the Amakusu-kai wouldn't find him was good. He pulled the first person he could into an alleyway and switched clothes with him, so he found himself in a random person's work clothes. It was fairly dull and generic—exactly what he needed. With this, he was able to limp toward the nearest manhole and painfully slip into the sewers.

NEEEEEIIIIIIIGH!

Before Honjou Suoh could slip beneath the streets, he heard a loud, unnatural horse's whinny that reverberated through the air, seeming to come from nowhere, yet everywhere at once. He paused for a moment and watched in wonder as he saw a black-clad figure glide across the roar in practical silence. He completely forgot his pain as he lost himself in the enigmatic figure of the so-called 'black rider' hat rode so close to him, even if for only a moment.

He'd heard rumors, but he'd never actually seen the black rider before. He knew what people thought; he was part of the dollars, he had no head, so on and so forth. But it was different seeing him up close. For a moment, Honjou Suoh felt a strange sense of kinship, different from something between friends or colleagues.

He's a monster, just like me.

Honjou Suoh quickly shook those thoughts out of his head as he slipped into the manhole and disappeared beneath the streets.

It stank in the sewers, unsurprisingly, but that was a relief. It distracted Suoh from his pain as he paused for a moment to assess his wounds.

As expected, the holes in his body were already closing.

Instantaneous regeneration was overrated. So long as you healed quickly, having it happen instantaneously was pretty much pointless. Even Suoh was disturbed by how quickly he recovered from his own wounds.

He waited just long enough to make sure that he could walk without limping, so he could jog through the sewers for a good distance. In just a few minutes, he came to a ladder that led up to another manhole, which would lead out near another street. Being that Suoh was from Fukuoka (and had been kidnapped from there, no less), his knowledge of Ikebukuro was pretty lacking. So it was difficult for him to believe that he could escape through the sewers without knowing where he was going.

So he climbed the ladder and pushed the manhole cover aside, carefully sticking his head out to look around.

As expected, it was another street, and with no yakuza around. It would probably be best to leave there and find someone safe to hid—

Suoh's thoughts were abruptly cut off as he turned around to see a strange van driving straight toward him at over sixty mph.

By 'strange', he was referring to the brightly colored anime character on the door.

Before he could come to his senses, that van collided with his head.

Shizuo found Tanaka Tom being harassed by several guys again.

Notably, they were different from before. They had different outfits and a completely different aura about them. Unlike the thugs from before, any amateur would have been able to tell that these guys were from an organized group.

But Shizuo didn't take the time to consider that clear fact. He didn't even take the time to wonder where Vorona had run off to—that Russian assassin should have been protecting Tom in his place. All he could think of was how hard he was going to smash the bodies of the assailants into the ground.

But before he could even begin to close the distance between him and the group of men, Ju-Li was moving.

She shot forward like a rocket, body low and streamlined, and she slipped into the ground of men virtually unnoticed. They all gave a start and released their grip of Tom's arms as they backed away in confusion, stunned by both Ju-Li's sudden appearance and her stunning outfit.

But they quickly regained their composure, like any professional wound, and aimed their weapons out.

The sight of so many blunt objects and guns would have been a scare to any lone person, but Ju-Li didn't hesitate. Her moved seemed to weave through the group of men as she grabbed at their weapons, primarily the guns, and quickly disarmed them, pulling them from their grip and tossing the weapons away. She then went on to lock their arms behind their backs and force them to the ground quickly, yet somehow gently, while knocking them out, leaving them on the ground with drool oozing from the lips.

The last man had just enough time to attempt to swing at the back of her head with a crowbar, but she easily evaded and backflipped in the air, landing on the man's head while balancing on one foot, jabbing her other foot into the back of his head, stunning him and forcing his legs to buckle. He fell flat on his face with Ju-Li sitting on his back, using her feet to keep her arms pinned where they were.

It had happened so suddenly, Shizuo had been forced into a halt. It was like watching a martial arts demonstration; not a single person had been dealt a blow that could really be called 'violence', so it gave him a sort of peace that helped his rapidly escalating anger cool down. With the problem solved, Shizuo sighed calmly as he headed over to Tanaka Tom to check if he was alright.

"Who gave you the orders to attack this man?" Ju-Li spoke in a low voice, directly into the ear of the man beneath her as she held his head up by pulling roughly on his hair, forcing his chin up. "Shiki-kun isn't a stupid man. He would never send you to attack this person, whose friends with the infamous 'strongest man in Ikebukuro'."

"T-That's not right! That man there isn't Tanaka Tom! We checked! He might be wearing those clothes and a wig, but he's definitely someone else! J-Ju-Li, right? You're that Chinese mafia girl, right?! That's the man we're supposed to catch! That's Honjou Suoh!"

That made Ju-Li pause for a moment as she slowly turned her head to look in Shizuo's direction. Shizuo was standing over the man who was significantly shorter than him, wearing a brown suit jacket and sunglasses, looking as if he had already given up on hanging onto his life. In Shizuo's hand was a well-made wig of dreadlocks that looked just like the style Tanaka Tom had, making it difficult to distinguish from a distance.

"We got information that he'd be here! The police are already on the way! They only know that he was kidnapped! If we don't catch him before—"

Shizuo wasn't listening to the man prattle on.

His rage had already boiled over.

"Hah! This is definitely a pleasant turn of events!"

Orihara Izaya grinned as he watched the horrific scene from inside the safety of a police car.

He alone had stayed behind the doors. The officers who had driven him to this street had already gotten out and joined their colleagues as they aimed their guns at true monster. The riot police had already gathered, fully armed with batons and large shields for protection as they focused on clearing the crowd. No doubt, more men with old-style spears shaped like prongs would be brought to help restrain the beast were on their way at that very moment.

Izaya was more or less pleased with himself. Gathering those clothes and getting that wig made so quickly was no easy feat, but he'd succeeded and making Honjou Suoh look like Tanaka Tom. At least, from a distance. After Suoh woke up from what should have been a fatal blow to the head, Izaya had told him that his best chance of going on noticed was the change his appearance. It 'just so happened' that the articles Izaya had on hand made the man look like a certain someone.

And now Shizuo was caught in the act. Izaya, the kind information broker and lover of humans, had tipped off the police about the whereabouts of a man who had gone missing in Fukuoka and had added some information related to a certain monster who had done the kidnapping and was trying to kill the man before things got out of hand.

And here they were, arriving just in time to see a tall, blonde bartender standing with a telephone pole in hand, standing over a bloody body that was crumpled to the ground.

"And to think—that annoyed Ju-Li is there, too! With her gone, finding a way to assassinate Shizu-chan will be a lot easier! Although, it would be best if someone accidently killed him in the struggle here."

Izaya chuckled to himself as that vain hope came to mind. Once he'd gotten enough of the chaos he'd set up, he decided that it would be best to slip away then so he could disappear and never be identified as the 'anonymous informant'.

So he reached over to the door handle so he could slip out of the police car. But before he could even touch the handle, the door opened itself wide. Izaya blinked in surprise as he struggled to focus on the figure that seemed to blend in with the dark nighttime backdrop. It was when he finally saw the yellow helmet sitting atop the black figure that he recognized the person.

The bright screen of the PDA was thrust into his face with a single, blunt sentence on it.

[This is your fault, isn't it?]

Izaya smiled vaguely with more wry sarcasm than anything else.

"What? Don't be ridiculous. I'm just an innocent witness~"

"Shi-kun, let's think this through. I doubt it was this man's fault for being tricked."

"Yeah, I don't think so either. It was that flea's fault. If I just kill him, everything will be fine."

A wonderfully straight forward conclusion. If only Shizuo hadn't uprooted a telephone pole and smashed it into Honjou Suoh before he came to it. Ju-Li prayed that the man's supposedly 'immortality' was able to handle monstrous force as well.

"Huh? Whoa! What the hell happened here?!"

A voice called out in surprise just as two people happened to walk out of a nearby restaurant. The surrounding riot police hadn't made it to that area yet, so the two were able to walk into the horrific scene unopposed.

Tanaka Tom's eyes were wide with shock as the large black man beside him wearing a sushi chef outfit looked visibly disturbed.

"V-Vorona! Agh, is she still in the bathroom?!"

"Yo! Shizuo! Violence no good! Why you do this?"

"Ah, Tom-san. And Simon. Sorry about all this. I lost my temper. It looks like a certain flea had been trying to cause trouble again."

Shizuo spoke calmly, but the sight was very alarming. Both Simon and Tom looked around at the police blocking both ends of the street, all focused on Shizuo, who was still holding a telephone pole as if it were his weapon. About a half a dozen men were collapsed on the street, with one covered in his own blood.

That was when Shizuo's eyes found him.

He could clearly see his friend, Celty Sturluson, using her shadows to drag an annoying face out of a police car into plain view. She had her PDA up so she could communicate with this person, but Shizuo didn't even try to read it from this distance. His mind was focused on something else.

"IIIIIIIIZAAAAAAYAAAAAAA-KUUUUUUUN!"

Shizuo's foot swung up like a baseball pitcher would when preparing the perfect throw and he adjusted his grip on the telephone pole so that he held it as if it were a javelin.

Without hesitation, he launched it with all his strength right at the person he wanted to kill most.

And that brings us full circle.

Chaos filled the street as Shizuo's friends struggled to stop him from making the damage worse. Izaya's irritating laughter filled the air as he evaded Shizuo's merciless killing blows and the police was forced to scatter for their own survival.

In the end, Shizuo didn't get the chance to kill Izaya. It took the combined efforts of Simon, Ju-Li, and Celty to pin down Shizuo, though Simon took quite a few blows in the process. Ju-Li muttered something about how she would have to call her father to have him do something about the criminal charges that would no doubt be held against Shizuo. Celty regarded the bloody body skeptically, wondering if he really was still alive.

Shizuo continued to roar angrily as he was forced to watch Izaya flee. Izaya had initially tried to approach and taunt Shizuo for his own fun, both Ju-Li's expression and the agitated shadows around Celty made it clear to him that coming too close would get him killed by two entirely different people. So he retreated while he still could, laughing off the hostility that was directed at him.

Once again; Shizuo didn't like violence. Aside from wanting to kill a certain flea, Shizuo desired a peaceful life free of violence.

Aside from the hiccups like this in his life, he wasn't too far from attaining his goal.