Durarara!! SH

Chapter 1

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Durarara!!SH

PROLOGUE A
The Ruffians

“d.a.m.ned monster.”

There was a boy who had, until graduation from middle school, been called this countless times.
There was a hot spring village nestled in the mountains of Akita, far from human society.
As a well-hidden hot spring it was popular and received visitors throughout the year, but in the face of a declining population, it was a shrinking community.
The boy was born in this village perhaps fifteen years ago.
‘Perhaps’—for this information was uncertain.
As an infant, umbilical cord freshly cut, he had been wrapped in cloth and abandoned at the entrance of a certain hot spring inn.
Thereafter, taken in by the old woman who owned the inn, this infant was adopted by the owner’s daughter and her husband; and blessed with the same degree of love as any other child, and an environment twice as wealthy, grew quickly.
Yet, before he was fully grown emotion- and thoughtwise, there was external interference.
It was a commonplace situation: there appeared ones who were jealous of this boy, that despite the lack of blood relation was raised by these powerful figures of the village; and they sought to hurt him both mentally and physically.
But as a result, the village came to know of the abnormalcy of this boy.

When the boy had just entered elementary school, his seniors picked a fight with him.
All five who approached him to cause trouble were older than him and large-sized, infamous ruffians in the neighbourhood.
Back then he had not yet known he was adopted, and not understanding what they were saying of him, he had merely tilted his head in confusion.
But perhaps angry that he made no reply, the seniors began to get violent.
The senior punched the new student and grabbed his collar as he staggered; anyone would have guessed it would turn out as a one-sided bullying incident.
In truth, it did indeed end up a one-sided fight.
But the winner was opposite to what anyone had expected.

That was the first time he displayed his ‘ability’.
It was not that he had trained specially before attending elementary school.
It was not that he had a body of steel, and there was no way he could have any kind of monstrous, vending machine-lifting strength.
All he had was one thing that could even be called a ‘sense’.
The same way some carnivores can, by instinct alone, sense the whereabouts of their prey.
The very instant after his collar was grabbed by the senior, the boy retaliated.
He grabbed the senior’s ear, and wrenched it downward.
The senior, sensing instinctually that his ear was being torn off, let go of the boy’s collar and shrunk on himself unthinkingly—only to be headb.u.t.ted in the bridge of his nose by the six-year-old boy.
Of course, it was not a conscious decision.
The boy had simply intended to attack his opponent as quickly as possible with a hard part of his body.
Although it was, indeed, odd for a child who had just entered elementary school to think such things.
And the young boy had no concept of ‘mercy’ or ‘holding back’.
And if one were to give an example of a personality trait of this boy—
‘Cowardice’.
It could probably be summarised by this word alone.
The boy was a coward, and so detested fear.
That was all there was to it.
He had twice the average sensitivity to fear, and detested it twice as much as others.
As a result it could be said that by the combination of this cowardice and his ‘ability’, a ‘monster’ was born.
The senior who had spoken incomprehensible things and attacked him had qualified as an object of his fear.
He had to push the fear away from himself.
He had to remove the fear from before his eyes.
Following his instincts, the boy continued to kick the crouching senior.
Unmistakeably targeting his face.
Using the tip of his foot, crushing even the senior’s fingers covering his face.
Even as he saw blood drip to the floor from between those fingers, there was no hesitation.
Again, and again
unstoppingly.

With that incident as a starting point, the boy became feared by all around him.
As it was the senior who first attacked him, and also by the fact that he was the son of a powerful family in the village, they were able to prevent the incident from escalating—but the boy’s life was twisted.
Though in a sense there was no twist at all; for perhaps it could be said that he was simply obeying his instincts, walking forward on a straight path.

Despite the declining population of the village, other than the senior who the boy had severely injured, there were many problematic children.
There were older boys who intended to teach this brazen child a lesson, under the name of avenging their friend. With even middle schoolers in the mix, if he were to be ganged up on by such a group, he would most certainly be powerless.
Or so one would be led to think, but—
When the new student was punched by the first attacker, and straddled on the ground, in that instant—without hesitation, he thrust his fingers into his opponent’s eye.
Although the eye itself was not gouged out, at the sight of their friend screaming with blood dripping out his eye, for a moment, the seniors gulped in fear.
Their friend was yelling and sprawled on the ground; and it was a boy no more than six years old who picked up a nearby stone and made as to continue his attack.
At this horrendous scene, they thought one thing in unison:
That what was before them was something different from themselves.
It was a child more than one head shorter than themselves, who had not even hit p.u.b.erty.
In spite of that, it felt as if they were facing a wolf or a bear of that size.
If they were to recollect themselves and attack the child in a group there would be a significant chance of success.
However, bousouzoku or gangs, both used to fighting in groups, would be one thing; asking this of elementary and middle school students who were only acting tough was too much.
The first one to attack him next met with the same fate.
As they saw their friend having his teeth knocked out and broken with a stone, their legs were frozen.

As would be expected it was eventually regarded as a case of excessive self-defence, but as he was only six years old, after police involvement he was sent to the juvenile counselling centre.
After that no one else in the village attacked him, but when he reached the age where one would consider whether they could make it to middle school—people from the surrounding regions who had heard the rumours from the village’s delinquents appeared, and began to pick fights with him.
The reason was exceedingly simple.
The seniors from back then had grown up, and the area they moved within had expanded; while they had fights as well, they built new friendships—and in that process, by impulse, they mentioned the name of the boy who had tried to kill them in the past.
Their memory of their past trauma embellished in their minds, rumours of the boy spread as such: ‘At six years old he tore someone’s ear off, was completely unafraid even against ten people, and broke a whole set of ribs with a stone—a prodigiously strong child.’
And the delinquents from these foreign regions, who had picked a fight half out of curiosity, came to realise.
That just as the exaggerated rumours would imply, the boy had grown up, ominously enough.

‘f.u.c.king monster.’

Those were the words said by one who had been injured half to death by the boy, who had just entered middle school.
—f.u.c.king monster.
—Monster.
—He’s a monster.
To avenge their friends.
On occasion, to display their strength to those around them, to become part of legend.
Ruffians, each confident in their own strength, arrived one after another from the surrounding regions.
The boy met all of them with his own attacks.
The boy was only ever afraid.
Despite his intention to live honestly there was an irrational amount of enmity directed towards himself; this, above all, was terrifying.
The boy began to train his body.
To protect himself from the incomprehensible terrors that came down on him.
Even in this period the rumours continued to spread, to the point where even challengers from other prefectures appeared.
The days filled with fighting. The training to repel that terror.
With that, ‘experience’ and ‘diligence’ were built on his natural ‘ability’.

Nothing made sense.
He never made any provocation, but yet others picked fights with him; and on top of that each day the ones who did so feared him and called him, over and over, a monster.
In the third year of middle school, when the boy turned fifteen, he gave up on everything.
And as an orphan, by this age he had already come to understand.
While he felt grat.i.tude to the parents that had raised him, he no longer looked forward to anything the world could offer.
All he could do was most likely to continue living this worthless life, labelled as a monster.
After all, when it came down to it, that was how the world was; how life was.
To the point where he was made to believe this at only fifteen—the world had indeed treated him callously.
It was not that he had been made to suffer more than he should.
Despite all of the a.s.sault cases he incurred his family had never abandoned him, and the police, in light of the fact that the boys who attacked him wielded knives and metal pipes, judged his behaviour as rightful self-defence, and managed to spare him from having to enter a boys’ home.
But still eyes that looked upon him only held an unreasonable amount of hatred and fear.
The kindness of his family only made the boy lonelier.
He could only feel that he, who was so called a monster, was impinging on this family of decent people.
In this situation that seemed no more than being dead alive, the boy stopped holding on to hope, and without even despairing, continued to live a life where he could feel no meaning.
Thinking all along that this could continue for the remainder of his life.
At this juncture, the boy met a turning point.

On a day nearing the end of summer, a tourist from Tokyo came to the village.
On the way back from watching the Oomagari Fireworks Festival, he had come to visit the remote hot spring village of the rumours.
The guest, staying at the number one hot spring inn in the village, happened to witness a fight between the boy and some delinquents.
The guest gazed curiously at the horrible fight, and immediately after, smiled as he said to the boy:

“It’s nice for kids to have so much energy.”

The boy’s face was shocked.
Until then his fights had been witnessed by tourists numerous times, but all of them had watched with fear-filled eyes; none had smiled so happily.
To the boy who stood in the centre of the fallen, b.l.o.o.d.y delinquents, the traveller continued.
“It’s good to follow your human instincts while you have the energy to spare.”
To this man, who seemed to have no trace of morals, the boy spoke.
What did he mean by human instincts? Did he think he was a monster?
And then the tourist replied.
“? You’re asking strange things. If you’re not human what would you call yourself?”
With a gentle smile, the man continued to speak.
“It’s true you seem to be good at fighting, but doesn’t that just make you a human who can fight well…? There are people more inhuman than you in the world, and even supernatural creatures exist, after all.”

The boy was shocked at the tourist who spoke these strange things.
But he did not appear to be lying.
The boy felt himself a strong waver at being called ‘human’ in his current situation.
What exactly had this tourist seen before?
As the tourist stood to leave, unthinkingly, the boy asked.
He asked where the tourist had come to this village from.
And the tourist, with a bright smile, replied.

‘Ikebukuro.’

The boy had heard of this place.
It was one of the famous cities in Tokyo, but to the boy, who had hardly left his village, it was a feat to even know just the name.
Interested, the boy, with the web function on his barely-used smartphone, began to research ‘Ikebukuro’.
The sharply-taken videos of the supernatural creature known as the Headless Rider and the man who threw vending machines.
Time pa.s.sed as the boy grasped at this information.
He swallowed, and as if obsessed, continued to fish for ‘information’.
The Headless Rider.
The mysterious bartender.
The Slasher.
Keywords reminiscent of a manga surfaced and vanished from the screen.
He felt his heart pounding, loudly.
At a time where he had accepted the loneliness of thinking, ‘After all, I’m a monster,’—a new world had opened up to him.
The boy, who had spent his days fighting in and out, through the small screen of the smartphone, saw the world.
There was certainly ‘fear’ there as well.
The ‘cowardice’ that had rendered the boy a monster had eased to a certain extent as he grew, but even so, it had not disappeared.
The Headless Rider was scary.
The man who threw vending machines was scary.
The Slasher was scary.
Hundreds-strong gangs were, inevitably, scary.
But that impact forced his heart onward.
His curiosity surpa.s.sed his fear.
In a normal situation, this was where he would feel the need to put distance between the terrifying Headless Rider and himself.
He should have thought to avoid Ikebukuro at all costs.
But he realised his own true desire.
—To live and die as a monster, like this—
—The loneliness of giving up on the world and dying like that is the scariest thing of all.
Eventually, the information from that tiny screen grew insufficient—
And so when the time came where he had to decide his future, to the parents who had raised him, he made a selfish request.
Although he had only ever taken up fights from those who provoked him first, it was a fact that his fights had troubled the family greatly.
There had also been times involving the police where delinquents, in their resentment, had set fire to the hot spring inn.
Perhaps it was his guilt from those issues, or perhaps it was his grat.i.tude towards his family for never having abandoned him in spite of that; up till then the boy had never made a single selfish request of his parents.
Maybe because he had given up on the world, as opposed to his life that was inundated with fighting, he took a completely serious att.i.tude towards life, and had never demanded anything from his parents or grandmother.
And this boy, for the first time since he fought in elementary school—made a request for the first time.

I want to enter a school in Tokyo—in Ikebukuro.

His parents hesitated at this sudden request.
But to the boy who said, pa.s.sionately, that he wanted to learn more, his grandmother, the owner of the hot spring, spoke.
“Come, sit.”
Staring at the boy, who did as told, his grandmother continued, quietly.
“You’re a timid child, but… You’ve grown while we weren’t looking, haven’t you?”
His grandmother spoke in the village’s unique variant of the Akita dialect, and smiled at the boy.
In the end, afterwards, with his grandmother’s final say, the boy’s request was accepted.

And so the boy who was called a monster came to Ikebukuro.
To face the world he had given up on once more.
To meet the true ‘monsters’ he knew not of yet.

The boy’s name was Mizuchi Yahiro.
What he would see from now on remained unknown.
Who would the cowardly monster meet in the city of Ikebukuro?
And what would he accomplish, or not?
No one knew this, but the only certain thing was that—
The city itself would not reject any kind of person that came.

One and a half years past the end of the Dollars:
Ikebukuro now welcomes a new wind.

****CHAPTER END****

Durarara!!SH

PROLOGUE

B The Eccentric

A city, so long as people reside in it, changes often.
Ikebukuro was no exception, and being a place where many gathered, the atmosphere of the city was subject to minute shifts due o trends and occasionally economic or societal changes.
But the city and its people are, after all, one heart and body.
Just as how people change the city, people are, in turn, changed by the city.
Whether that change is growth or decay, or something entirely different – in the end, the result of that change varies between individuals.

“We’re full-fledged third-years already; Kuru-nee, have you thought of your career?”
Walking on a main road leading from Ikebukuro Station to Sunshine, dubbed ‘60-Storey Street’, a girl spoke to the person walking next to her, who wore a similar face.
“…Yes…”
With a voice no louder than a mosquito’s, the other girl replied to her younger sister who walked alongside her.
“Wow~. Kuru-nee, you’re so serious~. I was thinking if I should just be a NEET. Kuru-nee, go out and work and feed me~”
Bothersome
“…No…”
They were twins, but aside from their faces there was no resemblance at all
The younger Orihara Mairu had spectacles and long hair in braids, and was dressed like a quiet top student, but had a lively, active personality and was one to put action before words.
And the older Orihara Kururi, despite her boyish looks, had no energy in her eyes or her voice, and hovered with the air of an old doll.
This fashion was neither natural nor acquired.
Since they were children they had, whimsically, decided to have opposite personalities and interests. ‘Twins are a symbol of perfection; each twin can supplement the other’s shortcomings.’ With this in mind, to make up for one another’s faults, they had, at a young age, decided their fates by drawing lots
To decide who would live how.
And deciding that if either were to face trouble, the other would, unquestionably, come to her aid.
It might have been nothing more than a childish fantasy, but it was how they had grown to be.
The few commonalities of interest were that they were both fans of the young male idol Hanehima Yuuhei, and that they loved one another.
The twins’ eccentric presence was to some extent well-known in the city.
They were aimlessly, contentedly savouring the last dregs of their spring break of an Ikebukuro high school, Raira Academy.
“But we’re third-years already, huh~. Time flies~. Just a while ago it felt like we were just first-years, and now we’re already third-years, imagine. It felt like just three months.”
Time flies
“…time…”
“But the city changed in some ways too, hm~. Karisawa-san and her gang were in uproar when the Animate and Toranoana stores opened or moved, too. Looks like other new stores are coming up everywhere, too.”
Mairu shook her head as she said this, her braids swinging as she looked around the street.
“Ah, but there are things that haven’t changed. Like Cinema Sunshine over there, or the game centre…”
Mairu stopped there. She had spotted the face of an acquaintance at the entrance to the game centre linked to the cinema.
“Oh, look, Kuru-nee, it’s Aocchi. He’s with Yoshikiri-kun and gang, too.” Kururi looked to where Mairu was looking, and saw the figure of their male schoolmate – Kuronuma Aoba. Being a holiday the boy was naturally dressed in casual, and he gave off an air unlike the one in school. “Aocchi’s a third year too, huh~. He was kiddish when we first met, but he’s grown a bit taller since then~.” Mairu, speaking thoughtfully, sidled towards the group of boys. And without hesitation performed a chop on Aoba’s head.
“Ow — ”
“Yahoo! Aocchi, doing fine? You still alive?”
“Oh, Mairu. …what was that greeting for?”
Aoba sighed in resignation, and Mairu grinned as she replied.
“Cause see, Aocchi, we haven’t seen you for so long, so~ it was like you went off to do something dangerous and died.”
“Don’t say that so carelessly…”
Pinching Aoba’s cheek, Mairu continued.
“But you really are doing dangerous things, right? Just a while ago you clashed with Dragon Zombie again, right?”
“…Your ears are sharp, as usual.”
Kuronuma Aoba was a core figure in the delinquent group known as the Blue Square.
They used to don blue bandanas and balaclavas and operate as a colour gang, but had now cut down on the emphasis on colour, and made effort to be inconspicuous on the surface.
To the boy who on first sight did not look delinquent in the slightest, Mairu spoke, innocuously:
“But even like this we’re already out of touch, you know? Since Iza-nii disappeared and Namie-san went to America, it’s only the seniors at Rakuei gym who tell us these things.”
“Either way, it’s nothing related to you Oriharas.”
Aoba shrugged as he said this, but then Kururi leaned her face by his ear.
You can’t go off on your own and die
“…no …on your own…die…”
“Whoa?!”
At the sudden whisper by his ear, Aoba yelped unthinkingly.
Kururi thudded her forehead onto his shoulder, and smiled slightly.
“~~~”
After some gaping, Aoba’s face went red, and:
“Don’t threaten me,” he said, and averted his face.
But before he did so he met the eyes of one of his gang, and startled.
Because the person in question was glaring hatefully at Aoba, cheek twitching.
“Y, Yoshikiri?”
“You b.a.s.t.a.r.d… acting all lovey-dovey with a cute girl in broad daylight… With! A cute girl!”
The boy more than one head taller held Aoba by the throat.
“I’ll kill you! If I kill you at least some man in the world will get that share of girls surely!”
“Even so it wouldn’t be you Yoshikiri… Ugogogogoh all right! I give! I give!”
Seeing Aoba turning purple, the other boys snickered as well.
Just as the shade of his face began to turn to something definitely not a laughing matter, a boy looked out from a corner of the game centre, and cried in shock:
“Wait, Yoshikiri-san, what’re you doing to Kuronuma-senpai?!”
Prying the boy called Yoshikiri off of Aoba was a boy relatively young compared to the rest of Aoba’s gang.
“Let go Kotonami! If I kill him I’ll get girls too!”
“But there’s no way you’ll get girls Yoshikiri-san!”
“…Aah?”
“Ah…”
There was a crick as Yoshikiri’s temple twitched, and he let go of Aoba’s neck.
This time he reached for the younger boy, and locked all of his joints in a cobra twist.
“Popular guys don’t care for their lives after all, huh? Huh?!”
“Gyaa! I give up! I give up!”

A few minutes later, after Yoshikiri had attracted the attention of the game centre’s staff, the boy was eventually released, and rubbing his whole body, he asked Aoba:
“Kuronuma-senpai, are these pretty twin onee-san your girlfriends?”
“No!”
Yoshikiri interrupted instantaneously, but ignoring him, Aoba replied.
“No… Not my girlfriends, they’re my friends, just friends.”
He answered bluntly, but in that moment Mairu smirked and interrupted.
“Yep. We’re friends, just friends. Cause both Kuru-nee and I haven’t gone further than kissing with Aocchi yet.”
“O, oi.”
Aoba hurried to stop Mairu, but Yoshikiri hollered again from behind him.
“Uoooooh… I’ll kill you! You’ve kissed but you say you’re friends! And with two people! Is this luxury – is this what they call the luxury of a winner?! As I thought I must represent all the single men in the world to kill you Aoba, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d… Oi, you guys, let go! Let go dammit!”
Probably considering that the game centre could ban them permanently, the surrounding boys were suppressing Yoshikiri and dragging him off to some other part of the city. Aoba, left behind, sighed deeply, as he proceeded to introduce Kururi and Mairu to the younger boy.
“Let’s see, these two are girls from my school. Orihara Kururi and Orihara Mairu. As you see… Well, they give off completely different airs, but as you can tell from their faces, they’re twins.”
Then Aoba continued, introducing the younger boy to Kururi and Mairu.
“This is Kotonami. He’ll be coming to Raira this year; he’s our junior.”
“Hi, I’m Kotonami Kuon.”
“Kuon-kun? It’s kind of a cool name~”
“Really? Thanks.”
Kuon smiled and shrugged, and Mairu, scrutinising him from head to toe, and continued:
“But speaking of which, your getup’s very funky. Were you really in middle school up till recently?”
Mairu was frank in voicing her opinion, but it was not unusual for her to think this.
For his appearance was not one that could conceivably be linked to someone who had just graduated middle school.

Around his ears his hair was not only shaved close but had tramlines, and the rest of it had been grown out and dyed a shocking green. His ears were pierced with elaborate earrings, and were about as strikingly individualistic as his hair.
His face itself was well-natured, but were anyone to see him their eyes would certainly be drawn to his jewellery first.
The boy’s appearance was one where even in a visual kei band he would probably be the especially eye-catching member.
Mairu’s eyes glowed with interest, but – Aoba grinned as he showed her his phone.
“Him, from before last month.”
“Wait, Kuronuma-senpai! Sto…”
Dodging Kuon’s arm as he tried to steal the phone, Mairu took the phone from Aoba’s hand.
And seeing the photo on the display, of the spectacled boy with a black-haired bob who could only be some serious top scorer, Mairu clutched her stomach and guffawed, while Kururi shook as she desperately contained her laughter.
“Ahahahahahaha! Well done! Is this your high school debut?! Or did you start a visual kei band?”
It’s all right It matches you
“…peace…balance…”
At the reaction of the two, Kuon flushed bright red, and began to wave his fists.
“Ahhhhhh! You suck, Kuronuma-senpai! You’re terrorising me! It’s bullying! It’s like the mother-in-law picking on the new wife!”
“Come on, it’s easier to introduce you like this anyway.”
Going along with Aoba’s chuckling, Mairu laughed for a while – but abruptly, without any change of expression, she asked a question.
“But the high school debut’s just on the outside, right?”
“Eh?”
“You knew Aocchi before, and you’re still hanging out with him now; that means you were already indecent before, already had something broken somewhere, was already good-for-nothing… right?”
“…”
The boy fell silent at what the girl said. Mairu’s way of thinking was not because she was particularly twisted in some way.
Anyone who knew Kuronuma Aoba or the Blue Square well would probably think the same.
Unlike his face, Kuronuma Aoba’s personality was extremely malicious; he was the kind of person to use others as stepping stones for his own enjoyment. He was a boy who had, during his middle school years, formed the colour gang the Blue Square, and without taking responsibility himself, put high schoolers and others even older – even his own brother – up on a pedestal, and, from a safe position, posed as the one pulling the strings.
There was no way someone such a person chose to bring around could be simply a middle schooler excited about delinquency. There was a hidden truth. Anyone who knew of Aoba’s true nature would have arrived at that conclusion.

Although even with this in mind, Mairu, who broached this boldly right in front of Kuon, could be called eccentric herself.

After some time, with an air different from before and a smile from which coldness could somehow be felt, Kuon murmured. “…Your girlfriend’s an interesting person, isn’t she, Kuronuma-senpai.” “She’s not my girlfriend, I said. Even if I were to get one I’d definitely prefer Kururi…” “Ah, you’ll say something like that?! Aocchi?! Isn’t that a little rude?!” There was Mairu, making a loud fuss, and Kururi, who did not seem particularly moved. Kuon watched his seniors, and raising a hand, began to leave.
“Well, I shouldn’t bother you. I’ll be joining the rest to try calming Yoshikiri-senpai down.”
“Ah, oi. You don’t have to…”
“I wish you happiness, Kuronuma-senpai~”
The boy left, his voice light as ever, and Aoba, seeing this, sighed deeply.
“Hey, don’t say I never warned you – you shouldn’t get too deeply involved with him.”
“Eh~. Aren’t you contradicting yourself? You’re rather involved with him yourself, Aocchi.”
“No… How do I say – he’s a bit of an eccentric, so…”
Aoba mumbled incoherently, but then, as if finally having made up his mind, he spoke to the two again.
“That guy – he looks so showy, but I heard he topped Raira’s entrance exams.”
“Ehhh? Really?! What a genius, a professor!”
Amazing
“…shock…”
“Yeah, he was chosen to represent the freshmen to greet the school, but he looks like that, right? So they rushed to switch and choose someone else.”
Aoba averted his eyes as he said this, while Mairu, pressed on with more questions.
“Why’s a kid like that with your gang, Aocchi?”
“Don’t say it like we’re stupid. …Well, we have a bit of a give-and-take relationship… Put simply, he’s one of our major financers.”
“Ehh?! A sponsor?!”
“Don’t say it like that.”
Aoba smiled bitterly, while Mairu grabbed his collar with both hands and began to shake him.
“Wait! So that kid has a rich family and all of you are extorting him or something?!”
How cruel
“…evil…”
“Wai… no! No! It’s not like that!”
“Then what is it?”
To Mairu, who had for now stopped manhandling him, Aoba, after some coughing, began to explain.
“That guy, he has his own source of income. We help with that and get the leftovers. Well, it’s like we’re working part time at a store he runs… something like that. Though there isn’t actually a store.”
“You can’t be manufacturing drugs… or growing marijuana…”
“No, no, it’s not like that! It’s borderline still legal. …mostly.”
“Ahhh! I got it! I know!”
Interrupting Mairu, who seemed about to say something, Aoba said,
“I’ll say this first: we’re not a hub for refugees from the law or anything like that, okay?”
“Tch.”
“Isn’t this where you’re meant to be relieved…?”
Aoba sighed once more, exasperated, and Kururi moved closer to ask:
What kind of work
“…what…work…?”
“It’s hard to put it simply…”
Tell us
“…answer…?”
“…”
Worn down by Kururi’s persistent gaze, Aoba sighed deeply again, and answered.
“Honestly; you two really throw people off… Well whatever. In a nutsh.e.l.l, we do everything. In different situations we’ve acted as news reporters or faked things like on TV; we’ve started commotions in the city for that too.”
“? How does that become money?”
“He has the connections to turn that into money. And we’re holding on to his biggest source of cash. Though we don’t let him have at it so easily.”
“A source?”
Mairu caught on that this was one of Kuon’s ‘sources of income’; Aoba, bitter humour in his voice, replied. “You two should know as well, Mairu.”
“?”
“It’s the Headless Rider.”
“!”
At this familiar term suddenly brought up, Kururi and Mairu exchanged glances.
“Kuon’s really eccentric. Cause he isn’t dealing with bounties or anything of the sort; he tries to make money off the existence of the Headless Rider itself.”
“Make money from the Headless Rider?! What’s that even mean?!”
“…No, not just the Headless Rider.”
There Aoba thought of the gaudy face of his junior, and smiled with heartfelt cheer.
“He’s like a terrible snake.”
“A snake?”
Mairu puzzled, and Aoba continued:

“He wants to swallow Ikebukuro itself whole, himself included.”

***CHAPTER END***

Notes:

I was wondering why it was Aoba and the twins seemed so intimate, and I realised it was because Aoba doesn’t use honorifics with the twins. I never actively noticed this before.

On another note, Mizuchi’s name, while having different kanji, has the same p.r.o.nunciation as a kind of serpent-dragon hybrid (the link leads to Wikipedia).

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