Aoba entered Sonohara Hall first. Kida hesitated and stayed outside even as the door closed in front of his face.
"Hello." Aoba greeted Anri with a smile, approaching the counter.
"Hello, Aoba-kun." Anri answered hesitantly.
She had not seen him since her graduation. It might have only been a few weeks but it somehow felt longer because of how much her life had changed during that time. Meanwhile Aoba was still wearing the same Raira uniform and the same unwavering smile as before. His face was bruised as if he had been in a fight some time ago. Anri now knew he'd been in a gang all the time she'd known him but she couldn't remember seeing him injured ever before.
"How do I call you now? Anri-senpai? Anri-san? Sonohara-san?" He asked.
She realized how for some reason his words hurt. For all the time he had spent waiting around to be encouraged to call her Anri-chan he didn't mention that now.
"Where's Kida-kun?" She asked before it occurred to her how she made things worse with that kind of question.
"I'll settle on Sonohara-san, then." Aoba said without missing a beat.
Just like that, two years of friendship wiped out.
"Kida-senpai's mustering the courage to face you, I guess." Aoba replied. "He's in a bad shape now, too. His girlfriend left him."
The door finally opened and Kida entered the antique shop.
"Hi, Anri-chan." He said in a neutral voice.
She nodded in acknowledgment.
"Why did you call us, Sonohara-san?" Aoba asked, rubbing the arm that she had once cut.
She went out from behind the counter and walked up to the door to lock it. Kida sidestepped to let her pass.
She turned around and faced them once the door was locked.
"I don't like what you're doing." She said seriously.
"And what are we doing?" Aoba inquired.
"You cut someone, Aoba-kun." She pointed out.
She knew things like that. She could feel the ranks of her children expanding every time it happened. She always regretted it, too.
"Yes." Aoba admitted.
"Why?" She asked. "Did you expect that it would give you control over someone? It doesn't work like that for you. Please don't do that ever again."
Aoba felt the unusual influence her words held over him physically, in the burning pain in the site of his stab wound and in the red mist starting to cloud his vision.
He fought the need to answer 'Yes, mother' tooth and nail in his mind, not wanting the embarrassment in front of Kida and Anri with the way she had been treating him. He regained his wits in the end and breathed a sigh of relief as the redness dissipated from his eyes.
"I only cut Kotonami so he wouldn't be able to hurt Kida-senpai if he turned on us." Aoba spoke up once his own thoughts were allowed to come to the forefront of his mind. "Which is your objective, Sonohara-san. Isn't this the only way this could have been possible? I don't think I can do anything you don't want. Isn't this why I am by Kida-senpai's side now even though *I* hate him so badly?"
Anri blushed even though she knew what Aoba was saying was not really true, not in that way precisely.
Kida gave her a quizzical look.
She thought how things would have been different if only Mikado was still around, realizing how acutely she felt his absence whenever she met Kida after his death. Without Mikado there, she didn't know what to do about Kida at all so she just chose to stay away. But enough was enough and she wasn't going to allow both of them to do whatever until they were as dead as Mikado.
"You're behind Yellow Scarves, right?" She asked, carefully not looking at Kida and not really looking at Aoba either. "There is this website that started describing all kinds of things they do a few days ago."
"Most of this is not true, Sonohara-san." Aoba pointed out.
"Then why it's out there?" She asked.
"Some kids playing around, most likely." Aoba sighed. "It might have been Orihara Izaya's website until recently but now it's not so kind to him either."
"But you really do run a gang." She observed. "Why?"
"We may need the manpower." Kida spoke up. "To kill Izaya. That's all there is to it."
"Yes, pretty much." Aoba agreed. "You know what he did, Sonohara-san." He said, looking at her pointedly.
"I don't see how killing him will undo any of it, though."
"There's no point to such conversations." Kida said impatiently. "You know how many times Saki told me such things? It didn't change my mind anyway. It's for the best if nobody but me and Kuronuma gets involved in this. We really do hate each other so our mutual well-being doesn't concern us. But you should stay away. Just like Saki." He said and headed towards the door.
Aoba's insides clenched painfully when Saika emerged from Anri's hand and her eyes turned red and deadly.
"And I will not just let you cut me, Anri-chan." Kida said over his shoulder. "You will have to fight me." He turned around with a knife in his hand. "Do you honestly want that?"
"Don't start this, Sonohara-san. He's really good." Aoba warned her. "You may lose. And we all know well enough it's not beyond him to hurt a girl."
Thinking was starting to become tricky but the few thoughts Izaya still had while drifting in and out of consciousness centered around the fact the curse had never encompassed natural death, at least as far as he knew.
The darkness gradually overwhelming his mind as his pneumonia got worse was enjoyable in light of that fact. Hopefully it could have stretched forever and just swallowed him whole soon.
His ability to breathe was reduced at this point to the whizz of the mechanical ventilation. There was a way out at last and the exit seemed to be so close he was already wondering how dying like this was going to feel compared to his previous deaths. Going to Hell scared him but with the way his life had turned out to be it might not have been a bad alternative. It was surely better than risking getting stuck dying, something he truly feared and that was not out of the realm of possibility.
"Why does he just keep getting worse?" Shizuo asked.
He was nearly healed himself. Shinra deduced his physical strength was going to increase compared to before once he was back in peak form but he was not there yet. The scarring was quite extensive but his usual clothes hid all of it. It was like every other injury in his life. Unimportant. It didn't really change anything.
"I think it's because he's been rather frail since he got all these injuries but didn't really take good care of himself." Shinra explained. "It seems he pretty much just ignored a lot of issues he had and went on despite the pain and the further damage he was doing to himself. It's not so strange he became sick or that his body doesn't have much resources left to fight the disease. Also, it seems he's giving up now for whatever reason." Shinra sighed. "Though I can imagine quite a few. That's why he deteriorates so fast. It's probably what he wants. Celty explained certain things to me, too, that she has so far kept secret. You could say he also had some supernatural problems some time ago, if you're willing to believe that. His sisters' deaths actually had something to do with that. I'm not saying this lightly but maybe he's just done. The doctors here say he may not live to see tomorrow with how things are going. His parents are going to be devastated if he dies as well, though. They will come over in a while. So I guess we should leave shortly."
Shizuo put his hands into his pockets so it couldn't be seen how they clenched into fists. It was so very much like Izaya to start dying right when he no longer wanted him dead. And Shinra had a point there that whatever was the true story behind Orihara sisters' death killing Izaya as well wasn't going to make his family any happier.
"Hello, Shiki-san." Shinra greeted the man who had entered the room, some more suspicious looking men who were following him around staying outside.
Shizuo felt himself tense. The guy had some nerve to show up here just like that.
"Shall I introduce…?" Shinra offered.
"There's no need. We know each other already." Shiki said. "Can you two leave me here alone, Kishitani-san? Heiwajima-san?" He asked politely.
The amount of resolve required of Shizuo to stop himself from beating the yakuza to death right there and then in Izaya's hospital room was possibly unlike any he had ever amassed before.
"Well, I'm not sure about that." Shinra hesitated. "Now that I think about it Izaya-kun told me you beat him up, Shiki-san, right before he ended up like this, though I don't understand at all why you would do anything to someone disabled like him, regardless of what was the situation. Hopefully Izaya-kun has not run into some problems with your organization and you're not here to finish him off but..."
"You can stay, then." Shiki decided.
Then he walked up to Izaya's bed, looked at his unconscious face and at the machines keeping him alive, reached out to brush his hair off his forehead and leaned down to kiss it.
Shinra paled. He had heard some rumors about Shiki and Izaya throughout the years but it was not good for anyone that they were suddenly turning out to be true.
"I let you stay here but I hope you understand that this is not to become some kind of public knowledge." Shiki pointed out.
Shizuo's breathing by Shinra's side grew ragged. The fury he was exuding seemed to fill the room like some kind of physical presence, a thick if invisible mist clinging to everything.
Shiki stared at Shizuo with an unreadable expression.
Shinra thought how he had Izaya's type figured out at this point. Dangerous men in elegant clothes, it seemed. He didn't like this situation one bit but in the end who was he to judge anyone's love life.
"You lied to her." Kida said after he and Kuronuma left Sonohara Hall. "About why you're here, about the website and about me being able to hurt her. I wouldn't have gone all out in a fight against Anri-chan."
"So you would have preferred to actually fight her instead of talking your way out?" Aoba asked incredulously. "She's a friend and a girl and she wields a possessed katana so the rules are skewed in her favor because if she cuts you once, she's already won. If there's a way to avoid fighting her, I'm all for it."
"You lie to me as well." Kida noted.
"Yes, you should assume as much." Aoba agreed with a smile.
"What was the point of meeting her anyway…" Kida wondered. All it amounted to was another fight, just like with Saki, he thought.
"We've learnt she would have most likely not let me hurt Izaya. Therefore I should never approach him in person." Aoba observed. "I presumed as much but she confirmed it for me now. That means I really do need you, Kida-senpai. And that is good news for you."
Kida looked at him and nodded. He didn't plan on trusting him though. If Heiwajima Shizuo, the man known far and wide for hating Izaya, who had already nearly killed him in a fight, could have turned out to have been his lover and showed up to stop Kida from finishing him off, it meant anyone could have been actually on his side.
After all, Kuronuma brought Kotonami into the fold. And Kotonami Nozomi used to be Izaya's follower. And Kida didn't believe in that condition ever fully resolving for its sufferers, not after what he'd been through with Saki.
Who knew what kind of a twisted plan Kuronuma might have come up with to get rid of him despite his inability to actually hurt him, Kida thought. Who knew if it didn't involve working with Izaya. He wouldn't have put it past the little liar.
They went to take care of gang business, with Izaya on their minds and his connections seemingly everywhere around them but his actual condition unknown to them for now.
