QUARANTINED

By

Mika Ryukante

MIKA

She walked into Raira in this slow, easily paced way. It was almost regal the way she held herself… like she feared nothing and felt nothing. Almost as though she didn't see or feel the stabbing, hateful glares, or hear the quiet whispers about her that started as soon as she stepped off the motorcycle she rode on. She reminded me of Izaya-kun… like she could kill you with one of those spooky smiles that looked like the Cheshire Cat…

"H-hey, Kida-kun…" I said to my friend Masaomi Kida quietly, "W-who is that?"

"Dude! Mikado you don't know?" I shook my head, "That's Mika Ryugakure!"

"W-who?" I stammered.

"Mika Ryugakure," I jumped about a mile high in response to Shizu-chan's voice, "A high school girl with a very dark past," I spun into the picture he painted with his deep voice, "As a young girl she was about as normal as anyone else but… when she was ten, her parents died in a fire. Ever since then she's been completely and totally insane…" My mind filled with an image of Mika-chan as a small girl standing outside the burning house, blood and the coldest smile imaginable on her face, "She brought switchblades to her elementary school and tied the children to the doors in the bathrooms and tortured them," A tiny child gagged and bound against a cold metal door, crying as the insane girl pressed a white hot switchblade to his arms and face, "As she got older she was admitted into insane asylums, always getting released after she 'got better'," he put air quotes around "got better", "She'd slice a few people, and get sent back, it was a never-ending cycle," Mika in a straightjacket fiddling with the buckles and smiling in a twisted kind of way, "She got into high school and started gathering information about everyone she knew-or didn't- it was well known that she wasn't anyone to fuck around with and so she was left alone. She was a quiet girl and this worked to her advantage. She found it much easier to learn information when no one even payed attention to the fact that she was standing well within hearing range," She stood in a dark corner while two oblivious men discussed the murder of a student at her school, a sick smile and the flash of a switchblade as she prevented their plan from ever going into action, "She came to Ikebukuro, and became a discount information broker. And was enrolled into Raira that very week," I stared at the now terrifying girl not more than three yards from me.

"S-so stay away from her?" Shizu-chan smirked and turned on his heel.

"No I wouldn't say that! I may not like her…but it's probably only because she's just like the flea…" I gasped a little and looked at Mika again; she was speaking with a certain fur-trimmed informant, and it appeared that they were not getting on very well. My Izaya-kun had just made another rival.