A/N: Two major references in this chapter, one to the older Persona games and the other to the Durarara! novels. Don't worry if you can't catch them, though. I will give a detailed Author's Note on all the references I made in this story, once this story is complete, so explanations will definitely come. (Someday...)
There's also another minor reference to the Persona series in general, which I think most of you can pick up on. Haha. :)
Thank you for reading/following/reviewing/favouriting this story!
April 17, 2013
"You sure you don't need me to send you there?"
For the umpteenth time that morning, Souji chuckled and shook his head. "Yes, I'm sure, Yosuke. I'll be fine going to the university on my own."
The brunet rolled his eyes. "Yeah, says the guy who couldn't get any sleep last night because of a diced back."
Souji was tempted to challenge him, but in hindsight, Yosuke wasn't wrong in saying that and expressing his concern. Even though Souji listened to Shinra's advice, he still couldn't get enough sleep anyway, since he wasn't used to sleeping on his sides; his body would instinctively shift such that Souji could sleep like he always did, but that was absolute murder on his patched-up back.
But something else about what Yosuke had said struck him as strange.
"How did you know I couldn't sleep last night?"
Yosuke seemed genuinely surprised. "What, so you were up all night for real? It was just a lucky guess."
...Well, that did make sense. While he had been trying not to show it, Souji was admittedly rather sleep-deprived so it wouldn't be all that unusual for him to slip up a bit. And considering that they were such good friends, even the tiniest tell-tale sign wouldn't go unnoticed.
"I see," Souji replied thoughtfully before he got up, his shoes properly put on. "Well, I'll be going off now. I'll text you when my lecture's over."
"Ah, right. Be careful, dude."
Souji nodded and waved back to his friend. Then, after closing the door behind him, he began to make his way to Raira University.
Stepping out of the apartment building, Souji was welcomed by the wet and cool air in his surroundings. As the breeze brushed against his face, he could feel the dampness present in it, a clear sign that it had rained heavily the night before. Almost instantaneously, his nose started to itch, so the adolescent quickly buttoned up his jacket and took out a piece of tissue paper, just to play safe.
The walk to his university was uneventful, thankfully. Unlike the previous night, Souji wasn't detecting any malicious intent directed at him anymore, neither was he attacked by strangers for no apparent reason.
But being extremely cautious by nature, the leader of the Investigation Team occasionally looked over his shoulder to see if anyone suspicious had been stalking him. The fact that he found no such person did little to reassure him. Sometimes Souji wondered if he had always been this wary of his surroundings, or if it was a habit he developed over the course of leading his team in a world fraught with unknown perils.
In the end, Souji made it to the School of Psychology campus safely, and felt more at ease, then. He slowly walked over to the lift, and got off on the second floor where his designated lecture theatre was located.
Souji was about to enter the lecture theatre when he noticed something glistening at the edge of his vision. Instinctively he glanced to his right, but found nothing except for another lecture theatre nearby. Shrugging, he lightly shoved the door open and stepped into his designated lecture theatre.
It was quite vast, capable of holding three hundred undergraduates, allegedly. And it was almost filled, too. But it didn't look like the lecture had already started, so Souji wasn't worried about his punctuality and leisurely made his way up some steps to a vacant seat when a voice stopped him.
"Ah, Seta-kun."
Souji turned around. "Oh, Professor."
Out of politeness, Souji walked down the steps and towards the elderly man who had taught him on his first day in this university. The professor stroked his now slightly hairier chin. "I see that you made it in time. I was about to begin. Good for you."
"Thank you," Souji replied with a natural smile.
"I hope you didn't get lost and enter the wrong lecture theatre on the way here." The man paused to chuckle. "Though that isn't possible, since this is the only lecture theatre on this floor."
'...? But, just now-'
"Professor, isn't there another lecture theatre just a few steps away from us?"
The professor raised an eyebrow. "No, not at all."
Souji frowned slightly. He was sure - no, absolutely positive - that there was another theatre. He even saw its number, in large blocked symbols that had been embedded into the wall. There was no way he could've had just imagined the presence of a whole lecture theatre that was even numbered.
"Forgive me for asking," the freshman said, "but...is there a LT21 in this school?"
Now both of the professor's eyebrows were arched. He scratched his chin absentmindedly, his eyes rolling to his left as he sifted through the memories archived in his mind. "Well, that sure does ring a bell... I'm certain that I've never seen a lecture theatre numbered as twenty-one, though. Perhaps it was one of those halls that got relocated to another school. I never did pay attention during staff meetings, after all. Hahaha! You really are quite the odd one, Seta-kun, to ask about that!"
Seeing the professor suddenly break into merry laughter, the other undergraduates present started murmuring to each other; from where he had been standing, Souji could hear hints of impatience, as well as tinges of confusion and amusement, all at the same time.
But more importantly, the professor himself appeared to be too distracted to notice if Souji were to slip out. Doubts flashing through his mind, Souji quickly but subtly turned around and pushed the theatre's door open lightly before rushing out of the hall. He stood by the entrance, pulling the door shut, and then directed his attention at what was across him.
And sure enough, there it was - the LT21 he had claimed to have seen.
It looked like any other ordinary lecture theatre: large doors; numbered plates dangling at its entrance and exit; its given number boldly painted across its width. Yet it gave off this mystical aura which felt...familiar, somehow, and to add on further, if his professor couldn't see it, that must mean-
Without any second thoughts, Souji placed his hand on the handle and pushed the door open.
"...!"
It was just as he had suspected, yet completely unexpected at the same time.
For it was much more massive than when he had last visited the place.
There was even a short flight of stairs leading to an elevated platform, where there were a few unfamiliar faces.
A long-haired man near the edge of the platform, appearing to be in his thirties or so and wearing a pair of shades, was standing before an empty canvas with a brush in one hand and a palette of paint in the other. He was wearing a simple-looking attire and a red beanie, and looked like a professional painter in every single angle possible.
Directly across him, on the opposite edge of the platform, was a woman covering her ears, and dressed in a low-cut gown, its top dyed a pale purple with a violet butterfly imprint, and its bottom a deep, soothing bluish purple. Her hair, appearing as alternate strips of blue and white, was slicked back. Her mouth hung open as she sang a soothing song, her melodious voice reverberating in the vast, velvety space.
Next to her was a navy blue-haired pianist, donned in a suit that shared the same shade of blue as his hair. A light blue cloth masked his eyes, acting as a blindfold. His fingers danced across the keys of a deep blue piano as he played the woman's accompaniment.
And sitting in a chair right in-between the two extreme ends, with a familiar blonde woman standing next to it, was-
"Well now... What an interesting turn of events."
A low, amused chuckle.
"It seems that you are destined for far greater things than I could ever hope to imagine..."
"I see... So that's what happened."
Resting comfortably on the doctor's sofa as he retold the story, Yosuke nodded.
Shinra hummed thoughtfully as he leaned back into his couch, taking a nonchalant sip of his tea, which had turned cold and stale. "To think that a serial murder case in a rural town like Inaba was of a paranormal origin... There really are a lot of mysterious things out there in this world."
Then he put down the cup of tea and redirected his attention to the younger brunet. "Well, let me recap what you just told me to make sure I heard it right. Basically, people who showed up on this 'Midnight Channel' were the next to be kidnapped and killed, yes? And you and your friends possess this power called 'Personas' that enables you to rescue the potential victims by entering through television screens and fighting creatures known as 'Shadows'?"
"...That's basically it, yeah."
The edges of Shinra's lips curled into a smile as his eyes sparkled with morbid fascination. "I would love to see you and your friends in action someday, then! It'd be such an honour to be able to study this amazing power and these Shadow creatures you speak of in greater detail!"
Yosuke immediately bolted upright. "Um, wait, you...you really believe me?"
Shinra tilted his head to the side innocently. "But of course! What's not to believe?"
Yosuke could only stare at the underground doctor in utter amazement.
While it was a relief that Kishitani-sensei didn't write his story off as a mere lie like what most people would do, Yosuke hadn't expected the man to accept it so readily. He even wanted to study about Personas and Shadows when he never even saw or heard of them before this day. That was just...mind-blowing, for lack of a better word.
"So, Yosuke-kun," Shinra continued excitedly, like a child on Boxing Day, "are you able to summon your Persona in this world?"
Yosuke flinched. His mind wandered to memories of the previous night, when he and Souji got attacked by those crazy red-eyed people, and then it drifted to the memories of that morning, when he went to visit Harima-chan in the hospital. The brunet considered his answer carefully.
Then he finally sighed, and said, "...I...I don't know."
"Hmm? You don't? Have you ever tried?"
Yosuke fidgeted. "Well...when I first got my Persona, I tried calling him out when I got out of the TV, and it didn't work, so I figured that it was just a TV world thing...but last night, when Souji and I got ambushed, our Personas... They appeared without us telling them to."
The unlicensed physician kept his eyes on the younger brunet, using silence as a cue for the younger brunet to continue.
"But this morning, I tried again. I-I thought he'd come out, after what happened last night, but..."
"...he didn't," Shinra finished.
"...he didn't," Yosuke confirmed.
Indeed. After Susano-O made such a showy appearance last night, Yosuke had thought it would be a lot easier accessing his other self now. So, as he had initially planned, he went to the hospital where Harima was staying at with the intention of healing her. But when he was there and mentally nudged Susano-O, the Persona just wouldn't appear.
He tried and tried, again and again, but to no avail. Yosuke even came close to literally begging Susano-O for help, but it all amounted to nothing. All he could do was stare helplessly at the unconscious girl lying on the hospital bed, listening to her pained wheezes.
Yosuke sighed. "I'm so useless..."
"Huh? Did you say something, Yosuke-kun?"
Yosuke glanced up. "Uh...n-no, it's nothing." He inwardly slapped himself for saying something so pathetic out loud. "Well, enough about that. We can discuss in greater detail some other time. Right now, I need to learn more about the case."
"Oh, that's right," Shinra replied, nodding, though he did seem slightly disappointed at the change in topic. "You want to know who the next victims might be."
"Yeah... Kishitani-sensei, you told us yesterday that you know who the people that appeared on last night's Midnight Channel are. So...who are they?"
"Well, it's not like I can tell for sure," the physician said. "But I definitely found those figures familiar. The shapes, their actions... They're oddly similar to Shizuo-kun and Orihara-kun, I find."
Finding the names vaguely familiar, Yosuke thought back to the events that had unfolded after he first moved to Ikebukuro. "You mean... Heiwajima Shizuo-san and Orihara Izaya-san?"
A momentary look of surprise swept across Shinra's features. "Oh, you've heard about them already? Hm, but then again, maybe that shouldn't come as much of a surprise..."
"Souji and I bumped into them a few days back. Not much later, Simon-san from Russia Sushi told us about them." Folding his arms, Yosuke leaned back into the sofa. "Now that I think about it, it makes sense for Heiwajima-san and Orihara-san to be the ones who appeared. After all, them being the witnesses who discovered that body is the talk of the town now." Then, the brunet lightly shook his head. "But, to have two people appearing at the same time...?"
Shinra looked at him curiously. "So being the talk of the town is related to the Midnight Channel? And no two people have appeared on the programme at the same time?"
"Well, in a way, yeah… And no, it's always been just one person." Yosuke's brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed slightly, painting a rather grave expression. "We'll tell you all the details about the Midnight Channel when there's more time. Right now, we gotta go warn Heiwajima-san and Orihara-san about them being the next targets."
"Warn? Shizuo-kun and Orihara-kun?" The underground doctor bit down on his lower lip. "Heh... I wouldn't worry about them if I were you."
"Wha-but they could be thrown in at any moment!"
"Relax, Yosuke-kun. They'll be fine." Shinra waved offhandedly. "I've known them personally for more than ten years, you know. And I've had the pleasure of watching them fight and treating their wounds for the past decade, so I know, very well, the extent to which they can protect themselves." He couldn't help but let out an amused chuckle. "Really, it's the killer you should be worried about, not them."
Yosuke shook his head. "No, Kishitani-sensei, you don't understand-"
"They'll be fine," Shinra repeated, the smile still plastered on his face. "Just ask Celty. She's seen them get at each other's throats, too. Right, honey?"
The doctor looked over his shoulder, expecting the Dullahan in the black rider suit to be standing somewhere in the living room and listening to the earlier conversation.
But Celty was nowhere to be seen.
And for some strange reason, the door leading to the main entrance was slightly ajar, as if someone from the apartment had dashed out in a hurry and forgotten to close the door properly.
Shinra stared after the door.
"...Honey?"
On the rooftop of Raira Academy, a private high school in West Ikebukuro, three students had gathered together to engage in an idle, friendly chat over their boxed lunches.
It was their own way of spending their usual lunch break at school, a habit that was cultivated during their first year in this school and now part of their normal everyday lives.
They hadn't always been together, though, with one of them leaving not only the school but Ikebukuro altogether towards the end of their first year. And while the remaining two tried their best to stay together as friends, the circumstances during their second year made it near impossible to do so, and they gradually drifted apart.
But after Masaomi came back and set things right...
To Ryuugamine Mikado, a person who sought a non-everyday life, something as ordinary as spending time with his two closest friends had become a jewel that had a special place in his heart. Something that, he felt, should always remain as part of his life.
Part of Mikado hoped that they could all stay out of the recent happenings in Ikebukuro, for once; it was a miracle that he, Masaomi and Anri could still remain as friends after everything that happened in the past two years. And Mikado really didn't want them to be caught in any more danger like they did in those two years, so when everything was finally settled and over and done with, Mikado was so relieved he couldn't ask for anything more.
Still...he wouldn't deny that there was another part of him that yearned to get involved in what was going on now.
"-ado? Oi, Mikado!"
"Uwah!"
The raven-haired boy gave a jolt when his childhood friend snapped his fingers right in his face.
Masaomi grinned. "What were you spacing out for? Oh! Lemme guess... Having dirty thoughts about our erotic and adorable Anri here, huh?" His brows raised up and down playfully as he hung his arm over the blushing Mikado's shoulder.
"M-Masaomi! Mou~" Mikado whined. "See? You're making Sonohara-san uncomfortable!"
"E-eh? I-I'm fine..." the bespectacled girl stammered, fidgeting. Her cheeks were tinted with pale shades of pink.
Masaomi gave an encouraging pat on his childhood friend's back. "Aww, look at you. I bet you have naughty, naughty thoughts about Anri all the time, but you're just too shy to admit it," he said as he poked Mikado's cheek lightly before he stole a glimpse of Anri's red cheeks. "Man, you two are too adorable for your own good."
Mikado and Anri flushed furiously at that comment.
Masaomi laughed heartily before waving it off. "Okay, okay. Seriously, Mikado, what got you thinking so deeply like that? It's not like you to space out when Anri is talking."
"...Eh?"
The raven turned to face his classmate, who avoided his gaze when she noticed that he was looking at her.
"She was telling us about..." Masaomi paused, his features slowly pulling into a light frown, "...something that happened last night. About her...well, you know."
Mikado's eyes widened slightly before a look of guilt and shame was plastered onto his face. "I...I'm sorry, Sonohara-san, I-"
"No, no, it's okay," came Anri's quick, but quiet, reply. "I-it's nothing Mikado-kun and Masaomi-kun should be concerned about..."
Mikado's heart sank.
Whenever Sonohara-san said something like that, it normally signalled the end of the conversation, and that never failed to make Mikado especially upset since it wasn't easy getting Sonohara-san to open up in the first place. Mikado could understand her difficulties. Really. It was just that after all the storms and tribulations they had weathered together, Mikado thought he had become someone Sonohara-san could depend on.
Like...like a close friend.
So even though she had some kind of demonic sword living inside her, that shouldn't stand in the way of their friendship. At least, that was what Mikado thought.
"Don't say that, Anri," Masaomi said. The blond flashed Anri a bright smile. "Me and Mikado - we're your friends. Of course it should be something we gotta be concerned about."
Mikado beamed. "Masaomi..."
His childhood friend gave him a thumbs-up.
Anri stared at Masaomi for a moment, appearing to be considering his words carefully, before she directed her gaze to the floor. "...Yes, I...guess that's right... I'm sorry, Mikado-kun, Masaomi-kun."
"Aww, don't apologise, my dear angel~" the blond replied chirpily.
"Y-yeah, please don't apologise, Sonohara-san," Mikado said. "So, um...what happened?"
"Right... Um...r-remember when we were doing our cleaning duty, Mikado-kun? Wh-when two people came and talked to you?"
"Talked to-oh, you mean..." Mikado paused. "...Seta-san and Hanamura-san, was it?"
Anri nodded. "On the day Harima-san was attacked...I saw them at the hospital where Harima-san was staying at. They heard about what happened...but it's strange. They were there before I was."
"Huh, so they somehow knew that Mika got hurt, even before you did?" Masaomi folded his arms, his frown deepening. "Sounds fishy to me."
"Yes, I thought so too...so, I-" Anri stopped and hung her head even lower than before, appearing as though she were withdrawing into herself like a turtle into its shell. "I...asked someone to...keep an eye on them... But then, it suddenly turned into a whole group that attacked Seta-san and Hanamura-san. And they didn't listen when I asked them to stop..."
Mikado and Masaomi's eyes widened.
Anri shook her head. "I shouldn't have... I shouldn't have made the request for someone to follow them..."
Mikado shook his head at that. "But you weren't in the wrong at all, Sonohara-san."
"Yeah, for all we know, they could be followers of the Slasher. You just wanted to play it safe," Masaomi agreed.
But despite the encouragement, Anri refused to look at either friend in the eye, and kept her eyes on the ground. "Still, if I hadn't done that, then...maybe Seta-san and Hanamura-san wouldn't get hurt..."
"You didn't mean for it to happen, Sonohara-san," Mikado responded. "Maybe the Slasher managed to take control of them to attack Seta-san and Hanamura-san."
That got Anri finally looking up. She, along with Masaomi, stared blankly at Mikado, as if he had just said something incredible.
"...Whoa, Mikado, why didn't I think of that?" Masaomi ran his hand through his dyed hair.
The raven-haired boy looked baffled. "E-eh? I just said what came to mind, though. I mean, it's not definitely true, right?"
"Well..." Anri spoke, her voice now slightly raised. "I did lose connection with the group that attacked Seta-san and Hanamura-san... And when I tried contacting them again, nobody responded."
Masaomi nodded. "Yup, that must be it, then." Raising a finger to his chin, the blond hummed thoughtfully. "The Slasher... Whoever this person is, they must have been targeting the Seta-san and Hanamura-san you two have been talking about. So when Anri gave that order, the Slasher took that opportunity to hijack it and tell a group of past Slasher victims to gang up on Seta-san and Hanamura-san."
Mikado frowned. "But...why wait until Sonohara-san gives an order? Can't the Slasher issue one on their own?"
"Hmm, no clue." Masaomi shrugged. "Maybe it's related to what happened last night too."
"Last night..." Anri quietly echoed to herself before she said, "Do you mean the TV?"
Masaomi tossed her a wink. "As expected from my smart and capable Anri~ That's exactly what I- Eh, wait, you mean you saw it too?!"
"Y-yes," Anri replied, a bit startled at Masaomi's outburst.
The blond turned to face his childhood friend. "Mikado, you saw it too, right?"
The raven nodded, then he spoke, "So you think the Slasher victims not listening to Sonohara-san and our TVs switching on by themselves might be connected to each other?"
"It's just a random guess." Masaomi sighed. "Man...it looks like weird things are starting to happen to this town again..."
"Weird things..." Mikado trailed off.
It was true. Things had become relatively peaceful when the colour gangs became inactive after Masaomi's return last year. Even though the Slasher did make a reappearance some time after that, it wasn't as serious as the case two years back, so generally residents of Ikebukuro all led rather normal lives.
But what shook up that peace first, triggering the subsequent chain of events, had been Yagiri-kun's murder three days ago. Of course, it was nothing compared to the Hollywood killings last year, but the position Seiji's body was found in was weird enough to garner some attention. And then, there was also a rumour going on in town...about Izaya-san and Shizuo-san being the ones who found the body.
What made the whole situation even weirder was the appearance of Seta-san and Hanamura-san. Prior to that day, Mikado had never met Seta-san before, not even during school hours, and then that Seta-san appeared along with another stranger named Hanamura-san, asking about Yagiri-kun's murder. They even mentioned something about rainy days and televisions. It looked and sounded as if they knew what was going-
'...Eh? Rainy days...and televisions...'
Were they...referring to what had happened last night? Was that the "strange rumour" Seta-san and Hanamura-san were asking about? After all, hadn't it been raining last night?
'Could it be...?'
That Seta-san and Hanamura-san really did know what was going on?
And then there was also the fact that they somehow knew about Harima-san's attack...and how, for some very strange reason, the Slasher victims only stopped listening to Sonohara-san when Seta-san and Hanamura-san were concerned. On top of that, Mikado distinctly remembered Sonohara-san looking...scared after meeting Seta-san and Hanamura-san that day.
It was too suspicious to chalk it all up as just a simple coincidence.
Yagiri-kun's death... Harima-san's amnesia and subsequent assault... Seta-san and Hanamura-san... The Slasher victims... Televisions coming to life on rainy nights...
"-do! Heeey, Mikado! ...Ugh, you leave me no choice. Mikado!"
"U-uwaaaah! Don't scare me like that, Masaomi!"
"You were spacing out again. What was I to do?" the blond replied, shrugging.
"Well, you didn't have to make that weird face at me..." Mikado pouted.
"The usual method didn't work well on you." Masaomi grinned cheekily. "Putting that aside...ehehe~ You were definitely having dirty thoughts about Anri, weren't you?"
Mikado groaned, "Oh, not this again..."
"That's the second time you've spaced out, you know," Masaomi continued. "And I caught you smiling this time, too, so don't bother trying to deny it! Why else would a young, developing man like you be smiling to himself for no reason? Huuuh?"
"Th-that sounds ridiculous," Mikado was quick to reply. He could feel the blood rushing to his face. "A-and look, you're making Sonohara-san all uncomfortable again!"
Anri jumped a little. "Huh? Oh. Um...it's okay, Mikado-kun."
"Ahh, changing the subject, eh?" Masaomi teased, winking at his childhood friend. "That just makes you even more suspicious... So what were you smiling for, if you weren't having dirty thoughts, hm?"
"That's…"
At Masaomi's question, Mikado fell silent, casting his eyes away.
Thinking back to what was going through his mind before Masaomi interrupted him, all Mikado had been doing was listing down the recent happenings in Ikebukuro that were most likely linked to one another in some way. He didn't realise that he had been smiling at all, for he didn't find anything about the current situation worth smiling about.
Yet Mikado was caught doing just that.
The Third Year felt an odd sense of déjà vu. Like he had been asked a similar question before.
That's right... Wasn't it just last year when-
"Because Senpai..." the face of a young boy flashed through his mind, "Mikado-senpai, aren't you..."
Sapphire eyes narrowed slightly.
"So what were you smiling for, if you weren't having dirty thoughts, hm?"
Mikado looked up, and saw a grinning Masaomi who was anticipating for an answer. The edges of his lips curled into a tiny ghost of a smile.
...What, indeed?
[...And that's what Yosuke-kun said.]
"Hnn..."
Celty stole a glance at her companion. [Um...] she started out hesitantly after erasing the previous message. [Shizuo, did you catch all that?]
The blond blinked, and then put a lit cigarette to his lips. He took in a deep breath, letting the toxic fumes infiltrate his lungs, before releasing it as a puff of smoke. "Well, I got the gist of it, yeah. I guess it sorta explains the weird shit I saw on TV last night." Shizuo turned to face the Dullahan. "You were going a little fast, though."
[Oh, I was? I-I'm sorry, I-]
"Nah, s'ok," the former bartender replied. "You were just..." A sigh. "Sorry... I shouldn't have made you worried."
Celty shook her non-existent head vehemently. [There's no need for you to apologise at all!]
"Yeah?" Shizuo took in another harmful breath from the cigarette.
[I'm your friend, Shizuo. It's only natural that I...] A pause. Then she erased her message and quickly typed out another. [You're not doing anything wrong.]
Shizuo merely hummed in response.
Knowing that the blond would say nothing further, Celty's shoulders slumped a little, before she changed the topic. [Anyway... What will you do? Now that you know someone out there wants to...]
The Dullahan couldn't bring herself to end that sentence.
Shizuo shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. It's not like that's anything new." He gazed at his burning toxic stick blankly. "...And it's not like whatever it is will actually kill me."
...Saddening as it might sound, what Shizuo said was true. She remembered that, back when Shinra was still a student at Raijin Academy, Shinra had often told her about how "Someone went after Shizuo-kun again" or "Looks like Shizuo-kun went off to settle a personal matter with some thugs or something" or even "Guess what, Celty? Shizuo-kun fought back this group of people who wanted to kill him! Singlehandedly!" before he would let out an amused laugh.
But Shinra never failed to end off by saying, "And you know what's amazing, Celty? Shizuo-kun's perfectly fine. Even after all that. I think...I think nothing can ever get him down and make him stay there, you know?"
The Celty back then would have only shook her head and brushed it all off nonchalantly, but after getting to know Shizuo personally and even becoming his confidant in a way, the Celty now felt...sympathy. And sadness.
In just a few years, Shizuo got slashed, shot, thrown into jail for crimes he didn't commit, and a whole list of other injustices that society had done to him; he spent his childhood in bandages and hospital beds, and his high school years fighting members of the underground world who wanted to kill him for all the wrong reasons. And now that Shizuo was finally enjoying the ordinary life he deserved to have, somebody just had to appear out of nowhere, murder a high school student, and make Shizuo their next target?
All her dear friend ever wanted was to live in peace, but fate couldn't even grant him that.
True, Shizuo could get knocked down multiple times over and still managed to get up like nothing happened, but Celty believed that Shizuo would rather he didn't have to get knocked down in the first place.
...But now that she thought about it...
Celty knew first-hand that nothing could ever keep Shizuo down for long. That was a fact.
So why was she getting this worried about him?
If a friend of hers was going to be killed, of course the normal response would be to worry about them, but Shizuo was different. There were countless people who had tried, and failed, to kill him, so why was her intuition telling her that this particular time would be an exception?
…The more Celty pondered, the more antsy she got, and the more she was convinced that something was very, very wrong.
[...I have a bad feeling about this, Shizuo.] The Dullahan finally wrote after a long moment of silence. [I think...you may be in a lot of danger.]
Shizuo blinked.
[I know it sounds a bit strange to you, but that's the feeling I get.] A pause. [This might not be as simple as we think. There's a lot we don't understand about this whole situation. Maybe we should head to Shinra's and ask Yosuke-kun for more details.]
Shizuo seemed to consider this. "...Yeah, it's a good idea, but…I can't just skip work now."
Celty's shoulders sunk. [Oh...that's right. I caught you in a bad time. Sorry. Um...I'll ask him and then tell you the details later?]
The blond nodded. "Yeah, that's fine with me." Then he brought the cigarette to his lips again.
[Yup, that's settled, then. So I'll go notify Izaya too?]
Shizuo's brow twitched.
Without warning, he crushed the cigarette in his hand, and gave Celty a sideway glance. "...What does the flea have to do with this?"
Celty tilted her helmet to one side confusedly.
'…Oh, right. I didn't tell him.'
[Well-]
KABOOM!
An explosion, and the series of screams that followed, interrupted them.
The Dullahan and bodyguard immediately turned in the direction of the uproar, where they saw thick haze slithering out from the entrance leading to the Ikebukuro Metro Line station.
People scrambled about, their cries and shouts of surprise piercing the soot-filled air; flames were beginning to lick the surroundings, and the ground near the entrance was about to crumble.
The electronic device in Celty's hand nearly slipped out of her grip.
'What... What just...?'
