Chapter 23

Wings

A/N: Hello readers! I finally got the chance to watch DRRRx2 and I must say I'm pretty in love although I've only seen two episodes so far. I want to write about it, but with the events in this story it wont make much sense. Either way, I leave it to you guys. If you want it I'll give it to you. But anyway, this one is long, really long. And I'm not done with some of the surprises.

"Nai Hagane, how much do you know about your life?"

She was shaking too hard to answer the question, on her hands and knees and the room was really hot. She threw up, closed her eyes to take a nice long breath, and stood. Throwing up meant her head was still attached. But for how much longer? "T-that's got to be a trick question."

Celty…or rather Celty's head smirked at her confidently, "No trick."

The woman tried to wipe the sweat from her forehead and do something about her thick hair. It was so hot! She only just noticed she was back in her blazer and dress shirt when she tugged on her own lapels to straighten the jacket. "Where am I?"

"Between your realm and mine. Life and death."

Nai nodded slowly, "You're not Celty are you?"

"Not the one you know."

The dullahan shifted her stance a bit; adjusting her head and resting her scythe on her shoulder. Nai took a step back, "Why did she cut my head off?"

"She didn't actually cut off your head, obviously. I just had her sever your soul."

"Sever my…what? Why?!"

"I told her who was next. Who my warrior is."

"Warrior?"

"I'll ask you again, how much do you know about your life?"

The gangster bit the inside of her cheek and narrowed her gaze a bit, "I know I haven't done much with it."

"I've heard so much about you over the past six months and when I saw you for the first time, I had to have you."

"Saw me?"

"That Izaya man left a gap in the books and when you visited I saw you, watched you. This war he's been cooking up can only be won by you and when you die after your glorious victory I shall take you to valhalla, the heaven of victorious warriors."

She was going to die regardless of the fact that she just survived having her head chopped off.

Great.

"Why me?"

Celty approached her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, but the gangster jumped nonetheless. The head continued that uneasy smirk/smile, "Is this not your city? Do you not deserve it? Do you not want to fight for it?"

Nai's eyes burned, "How can I? I have no real power over what happens now. I don't even have a plan." She'd spent two nights doing what she had been doing earlier this evening. Sitting in the tub trying to think.

"You'll think of something. Trust me."

"You have too much faith in me."

"No. I've thought this through. I've had so much time, even before your arrival, to listen to what this city is becoming. Izaya's plans may have brought on this war but I realized that even with all his genius he wouldn't win it."

"How bad is it? This war?"

"He has managed to put the pieces in place, but you, my precious soldier, will be the one in charge of casualties."

The woman felt an uncomfortable sensation of throwing up, but the nausea was much deeper. And the pain almost as harsh as feeling her head being chopped off.

Maybe just maybe, her soul was being ripped out of her.

"Nai-kun!~ You've been very naughty!" The sweet ring to his words didn't do much to hide how Izaya was really feeling. His eyes burned in anger as he eyed the smashed reliquary on the floor. But he looked up at Nai in time to see her adjust her pristine blazer and watch her tuck round black sunglasses into the deep neckline of her black dress shirt and her lips turned up into a sinister smirk.

"Izaya, maybe you and I should talk."

"Celty!" Shinra shouted as the dullahan reappeared in their apartment.

The woman in question was still holding her scythe in one hand and her head in the other. It took the doctor a moment to notice the detached appendage and it's almost peaceful expression as it slept in the crook of Celty's arm. Her voice was clear although the head didn't wake, "Shinra, I found my head."

He fell onto the living room floor, "I-I see. W-where? How?"

"Did you hear me? This is what I've been looking for!"

The doctor shook his head and stood, "Celty how are you talking? Just-… can you just start from the beginning?"

"Izaya had it all this time…"

That made sense. Maybe he got it from that Namie woman. But still, "You vanished out of here without a word. What happened?"

Celty brushed the red hair away from her head's sleeping face, gently resting it on the coffee table and staring at it until Shinra called her name gently and asked her to please answer his question.

"It was like I had no control. I heard a voice, a familiar voice that I can only place as mine. It called out Nai's name and I knew instantly where she was and what I had to go and do."

Shinra was almost afraid to ask, "What did you do Celty?"

"I…I cut off her head."

"YOU WHAT?!"

A plastic container hit the floor and sushi rolls fell onto the rug. Masaomi's eyes watered as Mikado and Anri covered their mouths in shock. Celty frantically waved her hands, "No no! I didn't kill her!"

Masaomi made for the dullahan but his friends held him back, "Masaomi stop!"

"It killed her!"

Celty's feelings were a bit hurt. They never called her an "it" before. She didn't kill Nai. Although she was sure what her head drove her to do was much much worse.

"She's not dead. My head," she gestured to it, "my head may have done something to her though."

Masaomi stopped struggling, "What did you do to her?"

Shinra went over to the boy, squatting to his level, "I'm sure Nai is fine. I'm positive. I don't think Celty would have just left her if something was wrong." he looked back at his lover, "Right Celty?"

Her upper body moved in a general positive motion to signify a nod. The doctor sighed, "See. Everything is fine."

"Not everything. My head turned her into something."

"Into what!" Masaomi shouted.

"I'm not sure. But I am sure she's not just a human anymore."

"This is crazy." the blonde ran a hand through his hair before digging in his pocket for his phone. He wouldn't feel right until he heard from her. Until she could tell him exactly what was going on.

Saki wasn't exactly sure what she was seeing. There were papers, shattered glass, and a black clad Nai Hagane holding Izaya a full foot or so off the ground by his t-shirt.

The woman in question smiled at her and dropped the informant. "Well, that's embarrassing."

Something was different. Saki was intimidated by Nai before, but now, what she felt was pure terror. There was an aura about the woman that didn't seem all that human. She jumped violently when her phone started blaring in her pocket. She fumbled for it, keeping her eyes on the woman as she did so.

"Answer it."

It continued ringing as Nai suggested she answer the call. Saki took a split second to look down at the little blue screen and read 'Masaomi Kida' before answering the call and turning her eyes back to the gangster who was now amusing herself with watching Izaya stand up from the floor. "Hello?"

"Saki? Saki! What's happening? The headless rider cut off Nai's head! Is she ok?"

What? That made no sense, here the women was just before her, "She looks fine to me Masaomi."

"Are you sure? You sound strange."

"She's fine Masaomi, I have to go."

"But-!"

Nai sat on the couch and threw her arms over the back, putting her feet on the table. Izaya approached her, standing over her and smiling as if she wasn't just almost strangling him, "As I was saying Nai-kun, my plans for war centered solely on me being chosen by Celty."

She shrugged and rolled her neck, cracking it, "Celty decided a long time ago that you weren't the one. You made the mistake of thinking she was asleep just because her eye's were closed."

"I made no mistake!"

The gangster narrowed her eyes and a black smoke seeped from the sleeves of her blazer. It was thick and seemed to have a mind of it's own as it creeped around Izaya's thin frame. "Now the last time you shouted at me I almost threw you out the window…"

Saki couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. It was as if Nai wasn't human anymore.

"I've spent too long planning all of this to lose now."

She stretched and shrugged, "Oh well." her gaze fell on the girl again, "So, how is my Masaomi?"

"He's fine." Saki answered quickly and clearly. If human Nai didn't like her she could only imagine how this Nai felt about her.

"Oh Saki, dear, you look about ready to piss your pants girl. Relax. I won't eat you." The woman chuckled, "Although I've thought about it."

"Saki go to your room." Izaya dismissed her and she happily complied although she was sure she felt the creepy black smoke nipping at her ankles as she ran from the room to her own. "I must admit Nai-kun. That looks like great fun."

Nai continued smiling, "Oh it is. It's as if all my doubts and fears just sort of-" she flicked her wrists, "-poofed." Black smoke continued to just sort of hang around her. It was a thing now, she could get used to it.

The informant just looked at her. There had to be a catch to this, there had to be a reason she was snooping in the shelves. Something was different about the defeated Nai he'd left here and the confident one he returned to. "How did you find my little secret?"

"I was told there was something interesting on the shelf. At first I thought maybe it was a file, something you'd been keeping from me for four months, but this, this is much much better."

Namie.

He should have known that fucking with her would come back and bite him in the ass. Izaya felt breathing on his ear and smirked, "I may learn to enjoy this if it means you like me now."

Nai blew in his ear, "Oh, I've always liked you deep deep down Izaya. You're one of the few people that have never let me down although you do send me on a wild goose chase here or there. You gave me this opportunity. I now know what it means to live in clarity and confidence and I thank you for it."

Izaya turned to her, "Do you have a plan?"

"Naturally."

He smiled as she appeared in his desk chair and kicked her feet up on the surface. "This is going to be so much fun~!"

"You called for me?"

Daifu looked up from the gun he was examining, "Ah, Shizuo, yes I did call for you."

The blonde approached the desk and waited, somewhat nervously, with a hand in his pocket. He could only imagine what the man wanted.

"My brother's funeral is tomorrow. Have you ever been to a funeral Mr. Heiwajima?"

"No one close to me has died if that's what you're asking."

Daifu chuckled, "It was a simple question. Anyway, a yakuza funeral and a normal funeral aren't too different. The gathering of family to honor the dead… But tensions can get high when you bring together so many families with so many issues." The gun clicked, "There are rules. But someone else ends up dying anyway."

His chuckling was unwelcome as Shizuo didn't find that statement very funny. "What are you getting at?"

"I'm telling you, my dense puppy dog, that anything could happen tomorrow. Even another death in the family."

"You're going to kill Nai."

"Of course! You see the final step of my plan is to be rid of her. I can't leave her alive to decide to incite war, totally unacceptable."

Shizuo wasn't absolutely sure of how these rules or laws worked in the Yakuza, but killing people seemed to be the recurring theme when it came to acquiring power. "Why tell me?"

"Because you are going to play a pivotal part in it all."

"I won't kill her."

"I know. But you won't risk your life to save her either. Will you?" The blonde's expression gave it all away. Daifu hopped from his chair and excitedly moved around the desk, "I knew it! You won't die for her, you can't, you don't feel that strongly about her do you?"

"I care about Nai."

"But you don't love her."

"…"

"You will do what I tell you. You will follow through and I promise that after she dies all of this mess will go away. I'll even find you a nice foreign whore to take away the pain. It does wonders as long as you don't get them pregnant."