Durarara!! SH - Volume 4 - Chapter 1.5

INTERMISSION

Dirty Private Business (1)

The previous night

Celty Sturluson was not human.

She was a type of fairy commonly known as a dullahan, found from Scotland to Ireland. She was a being that visits the homes of those close to death to inform them of their impending mortality.

The dullahan carried its own severed head under its arm, rode on a two-wheeled carriage called a Cóiste Bodhar pulled by a headless horse, and approached the homes of the soon to die.

Anyone foolish enough to open the door was drenched with a basin full of blood. Thus, the dullahan, like the banshee, made its name as a herald of ill fortune throughout European folklore.

At present, she had found a job in the faraway land of Ikebukuro, in the country of Japan.

This wasn’t a job in the sense of a stable occupation with a guaranteed minimum salary but a self-employed freelance business in which income varied by the day—and in her case, it was a courier job that often involved illegal activities.

Whenever she passed a legitimate shipping worker, especially one on a motorcycle of their own, Celty found herself thinking, That must be tough work. She was even somewhat jealous of those who could do their job proudly and openly in the daylight.

At the same time, she felt guilty. She didn’t even follow the rules of the road, and by carrying around illicit cargo, she made sums of money that normal couriers could only dream of. In terms of earning efficiency and work environment (as long as you ignored the danger), it was quite a cushy arrangement, but when you started discussing what was legal or illegal, it soon got very dicey indeed.

But on the other hand, I don’t have much else going for me…and my courier job is ultimately thanks to Shooter’s abilities, not mine, Celty thought, as she headed for the home of her client. I’ve got a good idea. If I’m going to do this again, I should at least do jobs that are helping people. Like carrying precious mementos or taking a client to the airport to confess their feelings to the one they love before their big flight. You know, the stuff dreams are made of.

It was with these ideas in her mind that Celty happily drove Shooter toward where she would meet her client.

“I want you to kidnap someone and bring them here.”

“No thank you.”

Celty promptly turned on her heel and made to leave the reception room.

What a joke! Why would I be an accomplice to kidnapping…?

“Aaah, wait, please! It’s not that! It’s not that! I know that was a confusing way to put it, but allow me to clear it up! You have fallen directly into my clever descriptive trap and are now laboring under a delusion! Beware, because you might be labeled a jumper to conclusions! By me primarily!”

“Yes, I think I’m leaving.”

Celty quickly headed for the exit of the room, dragging behind her the well-dressed middle-aged man clinging to her waist. Like she always did with Shinra, she was going to peel him off her and tie him up with shadow, but another person heard the commotion and came running before she could do anything further.

“What’s the matter, Fath…? Huh?!”

The gasp belonged to a young girl dressed in very fine casual clothing that made it clear she was from a rich family.

“Miss Courier?! Is that you?!” exclaimed the elementary school–aged girl. She possessed several distinctive features—such as her natural prettiness and the regal manner of her dress—but none with quite the visual impact of the huge white snake wrapped around her body.

“Thank you so much for your help back then!” the adorable girl said. The snake was still wrapped around her neck.

“I’m just glad to see that you and Hakujoushi there are doing well.”

It had been two years since the previous time they met, but Celty remembered the girl very clearly.

Her name was Awayuki Natsugawara.

The Natsugawara Group was a toy maker that had been in business since the Edo period, it was said. Awayuki was the descendent of that notable line and had once hired Celty to retrieve her kidnapped pet snake.

Rescuing hostages—even nonstandard ones—was not ordinarily part of a courier’s services, but the girl’s father, Byakuyamaru Natsugawara, had known Shinra’s father, Shingen Kishitani, since childhood, and that was how Celty got involved in the job.

That was a wild time, what with the armed helicopter and all…

There was very little about the incident that was ordinary, starting with this family’s home. It was a truly palatial mansion along the Arakawa River in Saitama, on a baseball stadium–sized estate in the middle of open farmland.

The building looked like the sort of mansion where European nobility lived, with a fountain in the middle of the courtyard and all.

They built a road all the way out into the middle of these fields… Did they clear all this with the laws on land use? she had wondered the first time she saw the building. But everything about this place was out of scale, not just the building.

This reception room alone is over half the size of our apartment…

The Kishitani family owned a very nice unit that took up almost an entire floor of an apartment building along Kawagoe Highway—they were undoubtedly bourgeois to begin with, and Celty understood that she was significantly blessed to live in such comfort.

But one look around this mansion was enough to quickly remind her of the old adage: There’s always someone richer than you.

While she was distracted by her surroundings, Byakuyamaru had taken a seat again and said, “I do apologize for all that. I am guilty of abbreviating the process a little too much. If anyone was being foolish, it was me. If it does please you, please call me Byakuyamaru the Fool from now on.”

“I will not,” she stated flatly and added, “I can see why you’re friends with Shingen, though.” She was concerned about the personality of her client but decided that arguing over this would be a waste of time and moved on to small talk in an attempt to smooth over the moment. “This is quite an extravagant home…”

“Ha-ha-ha, isn’t it? But the Natsugawara family is not from roots as noble as the Kisa clan, and we do not have the power of the Adamura Group, owing to their rise as coal tycoons—but we do have lots and lots of money! In the end, it is not breeding or power that gets things done—it’s money! The one man I revere above all others is the great American businessman Rude Gardastance, who once drove off a robber by throwing coins at him.”

This is not something to talk about in front of your daughter! And that’s not what people mean when they talk about the “power of money”!

She imagined her head, which was supposedly in America right now, and the way its cheek would be twitching with chagrin at this story.

“Um, can we talk about the job…?”

“Hmm? Ah yes, let us discuss business.” He noticed the way that her helmet was subtly turning toward Awayuki. He took the hint. “Now, now, Awayuki. Father and the courier are going to discuss business now, and we’re going to watch a disgusting, bloody R-rated horror movie while we do so. It’s time for good little girls to go to bed and shiver themselves to restless sleep at the thought of unknown horrors in the night.”

“R-really, Father? Monsters or ghosts?”

“Both, in fact. Also, when parents say that ghosts will haunt naughty children, that is only a lie. The truth is…they haunt good children, too!”

He really is just like Shingen! I should have known that anyone who can be friends with Shingen wouldn’t be sane and normal! Celty realized.

Awayuki’s face was getting visibly paler, so Celty typed out, “Don’t worry, Awayuki. We’re not going to watch any scary movies. We’re just going to talk about business.”

“Business…?” Awayuki repeated, then gasped. “Does that mean you’re going to search for Big Brother?!”

Big Brother?

The girl’s way of speaking had grown much more mature in two years. She was now a fancy young lady, and this was apparent in the way she expressed her gratitude to Celty.

“Thank you so much! Thank you ever so much! First, Hakujoushi, now my brother… Thank you for everything, Miss Courier!” There were tears in the girl’s eyes as she clasped Celty’s hands and looked up at her with both envy and reverence.

Uh, I…um…

Only her way of speaking had grown up. At the root, she was still the innocent little girl from two years ago—or at least that was how she seemed to Celty. She didn’t have the inner strength to say, Uh, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and crush the poor girl’s hopes.

And there was an adult, the very antithesis of innocence, who was all too happy to take advantage of the girl’s reaction.

“Yes, don’t worry, Awayuki. Rest easy and assured, my dear. The courier here will solve everything within a few days, I’m sure.”

“Miss Courier…!”

Celty could say nothing in the face of the girl’s relieved joy. She could only stand there silently as Awayuki thanked her again and again in the process of leaving for her bedroom.

As soon as she was out of sight, Byakuyamaru Natsugawara promptly said, without a hint of shame, “Ha-ha-ha—well, it seems that you don’t have much choice but to accept now. What do you think?”

Celty chose to forget that Byakuyamaru was one of the wealthiest people in Japan and used a rope of shadow to hang him from the ceiling.

“You don’t get to say that!”

Several minutes later

After hearing the whole story, Celty mentally assembled it all into one broad summary.

Byakuyamaru Natsugawara was the head of the Natsugawara Group.

I still can’t get over how ostentatious his name is…

This man was both one of the wealthiest individuals in Japan and a businessman whose toy company was active all over the world.

He looked so young that it was hard to see how he was the same age as Shingen, and the clothing he wore made him look exactly like an upper-crust rich guy from some movie.

The company was initially famous for its physical toys, but lately they had branched out into the arcade gaming business and social games for mobile phones; at this point, they were known as a multimedia entertainment company, if anything.

Because of the incredible money they were making worldwide, they had a proportionate number of enemies. That was how they’d been singled out by an international criminal group, which led to the incident Celty had to help out with. This time, however, it was more of a private family matter.

Byakuyamaru Natsugawara had three children at the moment.

Originally, it was just his firstborn son and Awayuki, but for certain reasons, he had taken in a foster child. That boy, who was treated as the second son, proved himself to be superior to the first in school and in every other capacity, to the point that people started to wonder if he’d been recruited and brought into the family specifically to be the official heir.

Naturally, the eldest son did not appreciate this.

He must have worried that his inheritance was in danger, because he attempted to stake his claim by antagonizing the second son—and was roundly rebuffed, which only made him more sulky and resentful.

Once he was truly frustrated with the situation, he gradually began to break until he had finally run away from home.

“So we’ve got a runaway son… You want me to find Awayuki’s brother and bring him back home?”

“That would be the essence of it. My wife has worried herself sick over him, and while Awayuki has put on a brave face, I know that she’s dreadfully concerned, too. So if we’re going to have an honest heart-to-heart, I’ll need you to bring him back home to us.”

“Why didn’t you just say that from the start? Why would you say you want me to kidnap him…?”

“Er, well, I…” Byakuyamaru stammered a bit, then continued in hushed tones, “The truth is, my son seems to be affiliated with some delinquent group by his own choice. I do not think he will decide to return just from some half-hearted attempts to talk to him.”

“So you want me to make enemies of this delinquent group and abduct your unwilling son, then drag him back home.”

“Ha-ha-ha. I do appreciate your quick understanding.”

“…Did you talk to the police?” Celty asked, a perfectly reasonable question.

Byakuyamaru averted his eyes. “No, I…haven’t told them anything.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

“…We don’t really need to get into it, ha-ha-ha.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

She didn’t bother to type a new message; she just kept the same one on the screen as she pressed it against his cheek. Her silent, continual pressure must have worked, because he started to talk, assiduously avoiding any glance in her direction.

“W-well…you see…when he ran away, he took a number of items with him…like a portable safe, some antiques, and…”

“And?”

“One of them secretly contained a micro SD card with some rather valuable data on it…”

“All the more reason for you to have the police looking for him, I’d think,” Celty argued.

Byakuyamaru’s eyes were rolling around in his sockets with admirable speed. He wore a very stiff smile. “I think having the police involved would be bad in various ways… Danger to the group’s existence and all… Might end with me taking a very long and solitary journey behind bars…”

Celty grabbed the man by his collar and shook him back and forth, using her shadow to lift the smartphone and jam it right into Byakuyamaru’s face.

“What have you been getting up to while you have that sweet young daughter back home relying on you?!”

“Ha-ha-ha… A true business manager must be a worldly man who associates with all types. I would gladly give up my life for my daughter—but on the other hand, I also live true to my desires… That’s right, I said it. I have equal measures of personal desire and love for my family!”

“Don’t act like you’re making some heroic stand! Also, that’s not at all what it means to be worldly!”

She pushed Byakuyamaru down against the sofa, then raised and lowered her shoulders in the mannerism of a sigh.

“I think I’m going to have to decline after all…”

“Please wait, Miss Courier. I mean, Miss Celty Sturluson. It would be one thing if I was arrested, but are you going to let my daughter be bullied at school for being the daughter of a criminal?!”

“A bold point for the criminal in question to argue! I mean, I know I’m not some saint, but still!” she typed bitterly, thinking back on all her many traffic violations. Once she had given herself a little time to relax, she continued typing. “I don’t know if we’re talking about tax evasion or fraudulent accounting, but I’d advise you to fess up while the wounds aren’t too bad, before the fire you’ve set spreads to poor Awayuki. Although if you’re saying that you had chief members of a rival company assassinated, I’m going to have to tie you up right here and hand you over to the cops…”

“No, stop! I haven’t hired any assassins, of course! No fraudulent accounting or tax evasion!”

“Huh?”

“My company makes toys, honestly… We sell dreams to children and those who are children at heart! Of course I couldn’t commit any crimes that would betray those innocent dreams!” Byakuyamaru protested, his gaze suddenly fervent. It was so striking that Celty took him at his word.

“Then what’s on the SD card…?”

“…Mostly the dreams of teenage boys. Meaning tens of thousands of images of sexy foreign beauties, free from the shackles of domestic mosaic standards…”

“Just shut up!”

She was ready to tie him up with shadow now, but Byakuyamaru screeched, “Please wait! Just let me say this one last thing! You must think I’m a hopeless fool with a great deal of money.”

“I don’t know about the money, but I definitely think you’re a fool…”

“The truth is, I’m only playing a clown. By choosing to make myself a laughingstock, I bring laughter and ease tensions among my shattered family in the wake of my son’s disappearance… What do you think? Don’t you feel more pity for me in this light? Doesn’t it make you want to accept my request?”

“Not when you state it like that!” Celty snapped.

Byakuyamaru trembled with apparent shock. “I don’t believe this… Shingen told me, ‘Celty’s the airheaded type, so she’s very easy to bamboozle’—aaah!!”

She strung him up at once without a word, then typed out her message to him in a loud, shouty font.

“Just so you know, I’m not going to be bamboozled by anyone stupid enough to take anything that gas mask says at face value!!”

“Wait, wait! All right, let’s do this. If you accept my request, the Natsugawara Group will produce an all-new Headless Rider line of toys. You will receive a profit margin on them, of course, and it cannot help but improve your image in society.”

Celty paused in the act of trussing him up with shadow; perhaps she was intrigued by his proposal. Hesitantly, she asked, “Like…what kind of toys?”

Byakuyamaru looked briefly taken aback—obviously thinking, Really? She’s biting on that lure?—but then caught a glint in his eye as he expanded on his proposal.

“…We’ll stuff you into a little barrel that you stick knives into, and if the player stabs the wrong spot, your helmet pops out of the top. We can call it Celty the Courier…”

“Are you trying to get sued?!”

Shinra’s apartment, late night

“…All I did was hear his story, and I’m exhausted… Once he started saying stuff like, ‘Eroticism is the shared dream of all humanity, male and female, young and old, so it’s okay,’ I finally tied him up and left him there. I got the minimum of information I need from the servants at the mansion after that.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Celty… They say that birds of a feather flock together, but I didn’t realize he was that alike to my father…”

“Thinking back on it, between the talent agency president who put a bounty on me, your dad, and the president of Yagiri Pharmaceuticals, I seem to be surrounded by incorrigible middle-aged men. Isn’t it crazy that the most sensible ones are Mr. Shiki and Akabayashi? They’re from the Awakusu-kai! That’s not normal!”

She took a moment to compose herself and continued, “Is this just one of those things…? Because I’m off from the rest of society, do I just naturally attract weirdos?”

“I suppose that would make me the biggest weirdo of them all.”

“Oh…sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Why are you apologizing? If loving you is proof that I’m eccentric, then I consider it a badge of honor. Listen—I know I’m always saying this, but no matter how out of sync you are with the rest of the world, I will always stick with you. So you should always do whatever you feel is right in the moment,” Shinra said without a hint of shame, his eyes locked on to Celty.

Then, still holding the same look in his eyes, he lunged for her. She twisted her body to evade his attack.

“Sorry, Shinra—I really appreciate what you said, but I’m not in the mood right now. I have to think of how I’m going to track down this spoiled rich boy.”

Shinra plunged headfirst into the couch. He rubbed his nose and said, “Oh, so you accepted the job after all?”

“I would have left him behind if it wasn’t for Awayuki.”

“When all is said and done, you really are a softy when children are involved. I think I should have sought your affection more when I was a little boy.”

“Trust me, you’re still a little boy,” she typed, a glimmer of enjoyment in her heart. But she tightened up after that and made plans for what to do next.

“For now, I’ll try getting in touch with Akabayashi. Then I’ll narrow down the groups the man’s son seems likely to be involved with and go hit the bricks to look for him.”

For now, she was still oblivious.

She had no idea that she was getting involved in multiple incidents that were unfolding at the same time.