SIDE STORY 6
DURARARA!! X√20
THE COMING-OF-AGE COMES AT ONCE
Ikebukuro, a different month and year
“Hooray! It’s the twentieth anniversary of the Dengeki Bunko line!” shouted Yumasaki, out of nowhere.
“Yaaay!” Karisawa applauded.
While they celebrated inside the van, Kadota and Togusa stared at each other in the front seat, then asked the two behind them, “Uh…why are you talking about this all of a sudden?”
“It’s not out of nowhere! This Dengeki Bunko anniversary has been twenty years in the making!”
“That’s right, it started two decades ago!”
“Um…weren’t you talking about the twentieth something-or-other last year…?” Kadota wondered, confused.
“You’re wrong, Dotachin!” Karisawa said. “Last year was the Dengeki Twenty-Year Festival! This is the Dengeki Bunko twentieth anniversary!”
“…It is?”
“The Dengeki brand was formed at the founding of Media Works twenty-one years ago! But Dengeki Bunko was created in the June of the following year!”
“That’s right. And between Crystania and Gokudo the Adventurer Gaiden, they were stacked with notable titles from the word go!” Yumasaki explained, not that it meant anything to Kadota.
“…If that’s their founding lineup, why is it named like a side story?”
“What?! You need us to explain that to you?!”
“It’s a long story.”
“Nah, I’m good,” said Kadota quickly, trying to change the topic. “Well, anyway, it’s pretty remarkable that it’s been going for twenty years. If it were a person, it’d be ready for a coming-of-age ceremony.”
“That’s right. Which is why we’re going to the Sunshine Building today to check out the Great Dengeki Bunko Exhibit, which is basically the coming-of-age ceremony of Dengeki Bunko!”
“Wha…!” Togusa had not heard a word of this ahead of time. “You told me to bring the van around to pick you up…for this?”
Karisawa and Yumasaki ignored his pointed glare and happily said, “The next Dengeki coming-of-age ceremony is the fall event!”
“We gotta start saving up for all the merch we’re gonna buy.”
“Gosh, twenty years go by quick. Twenty years ago, I was barely even able to read a manga.”
After a while of traveling down memory lane, Karisawa had an idea.
“By the way, Dotachin,” she asked, “what was your coming-of-age ceremony like?”
“Huh…? Mine?” Suddenly his expression darkened. “I, uh…I dunno… It definitely did contain a lifetime of memories, I guess…”
The very obvious way he was avoiding the question was intriguing to the others in the van. Their gazes bored into his skin until Kadota realized that he wasn’t going to be able to stonewall them. At last, he began to speak.
“Well, I mean… If it’s my coming-of-age ceremony…
“…then it’s also Shizuo and Izaya’s coming-of-age ceremony, isn’t it…?”
Years earlier, January
This year’s ceremony, which would be held in Toshima Ward, already had a disquieting air before it had even begun.
Shizuo Heiwajima, age nineteen.
Izaya Orihara, age twenty.
Because Shizuo would turn twenty on January 28, this was the year that he would come of age, too.
Of course, the likelihood that both of them would show up to attend the same ceremony was very slim. But it was not zero. There was a chance that they might both come to the same place at the same time.
Many who had graduated from Raijin High thought back on that time and shivered. Some of the guys who had been hardened delinquents at the time even chose to skip the ceremony out of fear of Shizuo.
There happened to be one graduate of Raijin who did not take the hint at all. Smiling, he called up one of his few friends on the phone.
“Hi there, Shizuo. What are you wearing to the coming-of-age ceremony tomorrow?” Shinra Kishitani asked.
On the other end, Shizuo Heiwajima replied brusquely, “What? I’m not going to that.”
“No, no, you can’t be that antisocial. Look, you got fired again, so you don’t have anything else to do, right? It’s a good opportunity to reassess how you’ve reached adulthood, growing from beast to man.”
“All right. I’ll show up tomorrow just so I can kick your ass.”
“Suit yourself, but what’s your plan? A formal montsuki hakama? Or a suit?” Shinra teased. It was easier to do that over the phone. He didn’t seem to think that there was the slightest chance that Shizuo would actually beat him up tomorrow, or whenever they met next.
“See you tomorrow outside the Metropolitan Theatre when the doors open, then!”
“Hey, wait! I didn’t say I was…”
Shinra hung up before Shizuo could finish his sentence, and promptly started entering another number.
“Hi there, Orihara. Are you doing well?”
“I was, until three seconds ago.”
“Why, you almost make it sound like you stopped doing well the moment I called you.”
“Not almost. I believe I was making the point quite clear,” Izaya said.
Shinra smiled gracefully, beaming into the phone. “So, what are you wearing tomorrow? Montsuki hakama? Suit? Full set of armor, perhaps?”
“Were you going to listen to a word I said?”
“Oh, I did. I just ignored all of it. You do that all the time, don’t you?” said Shinra without a hint of shame. “So! See you tomorrow outside the Metropolitan Theatre when the doors open, then!”
“What’s this? Did I say a word about—”
Again, he ended the call without letting his conversation partner finish their thought. Then he turned to his living partner and said, “What do you think is better, Celty? A montsuki hakama or a tailcoat? Or—I know! Maybe I should just go wearing this white coat, eh?”
His roommate sat up slowly and typed into her PDA, “I don’t care.”
“Thank you for saying that anything looks good on me! But I think you’d look better in a variety of clothing than I would, Celty!”
“Why do you say that?” she typed with apparent exhaustion, though she didn’t sigh.
She couldn’t, even if she’d wanted to.
His roommate, Celty Sturluson, was not human.
She was a type of fairy commonly known as a dullahan, found from Scotland to Ireland—a being that visits the homes of those close to death to inform them of their impending end.
(et cetera)
When someone back in her homeland stole her head, she lost her memories of what she was. It was the search for the faint trail of her head that had brought her here to Ikebukuro.
Now with a motorcycle instead of a headless horse and a riding suit instead of armor, she had wandered the streets of this neighborhood for over fifteen years.
But ultimately, she had not succeeded at retrieving her head, and now she was living out of Shinra Kishitani’s home.
While they would fall into mutual love eventually, at this point in time it was an entirely one-sided infatuation on Shinra’s part, and Celty was still unaware of the feelings that were slowly building within her.
Even still, she felt that she had picked up some amount of knowledge about the human psyche and its foibles—but these phone calls Shinra made were still beyond her.
“What was that about?”
“Huh? I was just inviting Shizuo and Izaya to tomorrow’s coming-of-age ceremony, that’s all.”
“Well, with the way you hung up on them, they’re not going to be motivated to come, are they?”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Celty. Shizuo and Izaya are actually more likely to come when you try to push them around like that. Shizuo will want to hit me, and Orihara will want to make snide remarks,” Shinra explained.
Celty thought that made sense at first, but after imagining the result, had to clarify with him. “Wait a second, doesn’t that mean that if they both show up tomorrow, they’ll see each other?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Shinra said simply.
Celty tilted what would have been her head in bemusement. “It is? You’re just going to…”
“Listen, Celty. They’re both twenty now. Twenty years old. It would be one thing if they were still in the throes of their teenage angst, but they’re adults now. They’re too old to just jump for the throat as soon as they see each other,” Shinra explained, eyes sparkling. “So I think it’s a good opportunity to have them make up. And aren’t I so mature for being the go-between to help solve this rift?”
“I…I guess so…”
He was so confident that Celty couldn’t bring herself to argue with his point. Maybe human beings really did mature after this coming-of-age ceremony happened. Did that mean that the rough-and-tumble men she saw on TV were actually more mature than they had been before? Maybe they had been even worse, threatening travelers with chainsaws and stealing their water and seeds.
Considering that very real possibility, Celty chose to believe in the potential of the human spirit and let Shinra do what he wanted without comment.
As it turned out, he was dead wrong.
The next day, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Ikebukuro
“And after an address from the ward mayor, we will introduce our special guest. You’ll get a greeting from a current member of Toshima Ward’s own Rakuei Gym, the German mixed martial arts champion visiting Japan to defend his crown, the one and only Traugott Geissendorfer.”
The Metropolitan Theatre was packed with newly matured adults, and the crowd was given a lively splash of color by the feminine kimonos.
The very large and imposing guest of honor gave an address to the crowd, and the rest of the event was proceeding without incident.
“Bet I’m stronger than you!” jeered a thuggish newly matured adult around the front row. He threw an empty beer bottle at the speaker.
But a moment later, the bottle had been cut clean in two with a hand chop, and the speaker hadn’t missed a syllable of his speech. The audience froze; the man who’d thrown the bottle immediately sobered up, and no one else dared heckle the guest of honor.
“Life is full of tribulations. You are free to run away from them. No one has the right to demand that you fight beyond your means and get hurt,” continued the fighter, unperturbed, in perfectly fluent Japanese. “However, if you only allow yourself to be swept along by outside forces, you will eventually lose the ability to make a choice. At least ensure you have the will to determine which direction to run, and the strength to move yourself toward that escape. Even fleeing requires courage.”
The speech continued quietly and without incident—until the occasional vibration and sound of destruction issued from outside the building, and what sounded like screams began to trickle into the mix.
The next moment, the doors to the auditorium flew right off their hinges, and a vending machine hurtled inside.
A mass of several hundred pounds shot toward the stage as though it had been launched by a catapult, eliciting a wave of screams from the audience that had just quieted down.
But Traugott merely snorted, collected his breath, and grabbed the hurtling machine with a spinning grab of his own style. Like magic, the vending machine’s momentum stopped, and it landed with a thud on the stage.
Traugott inspected the machine, which had landed right side up, and continued his speech.
“When standing before a vending machine, a person is faced with many options. What to drink, or whether to drink at all. If the same drink option has two buttons, do you press the right one or the left? Even in seemingly meaningless choices like this, the very act of choosing necessitates igniting the soul and burning its fuel—”
Now something else flew into the room.
It was a newly made adult wearing glasses and a white lab coat.
“Aaaaah…”
Rather humorously, the figure flew toward the stage just as the vending machine had, revealing itself to be none other than Shinra Kishitani. Traugott caught him, just as he’d caught the vending machine, and sat him down next to it.
“…Huh? Wait, I’m alive?”
Shinra had pulled through perfectly unharmed, much to his own surprise. He looked around for answers, but Traugott was once again forging ahead with his speech.
“You are all going to meet many people in your adult lives. Develop the strength to deal with how they choose to live, or at least the flexibility to accept whatever they throw your way. A hard fist is only one form of human strength. Choose the form of strength that best fits you and make the most of—”
But the screams outside got even louder, so Traugott finally broke off and bowed to the audience of young adults.
“…Pardon me, but I believe I will pause the speech for just a brief recess.”
He hopped down from the stage and sprinted toward the commotion outside of the theater.
The crowd was left stunned. This had to be an act of some kind.
It clearly wasn’t, but many in the audience chose to prioritize their peace of mind by assuming that it was all part of the entertainment.
Of course, those from Raijin High School were all perfectly aware of who was responsible for the uproar.
“…They really freakin’ did it this time,” grumbled Kadota, wearing a full formal and traditional montsuki hakama, as Shinra scurried off of the stage. “Not that I’m particularly surprised…”
Years earlier, on the street, Ikebukuro
“So what happened after that?” Tom asked.
Shizuo explained, “Simon happened to be in the area, so him and Traugott held me down while the fleabrain scampered off… The police were about to get involved, but somehow that Traugott guy managed to explain it as ‘part of the ceremony.’”
“Ahh, I see.”
“I don’t think he did it to help me. I think he just wanted to avoid making Toshima look bad… Anyway, he said to me, ‘Being weak is not a crime. Strengthen yourself, young man.’”
“…He called you weak…? I’m sure he meant mentally. That fighter’s one hell of a guy. I can see why you said you look up to him,” Tom said, flabbergasted.
“Yeah. I realized that I’m actually a weak person…and it feels like I just recently finally got a bit stronger.”
“I request a correction. Sir Shizuo has been strong from the founding of Heaven and Earth. It is a pre-ordained system,” Vorona spoke up from the back.
Shizuo just smirked. “If I am any stronger, it’s because of you and Tom.”
“?”
She just gave him a look.
Tom shrugged and rolled his eyes, choosing not to comment. He started off for the next collection point. Shizuo followed him, reminiscing on the past and muttering to himself.
“But if I ever manage to get my act together, I’d like to try that coming-of-age ceremony thing.”
Tokyo
“You know, if we’d kept going, I could have had Shizu sent to prison for good. That stupid Traugott fighter really messed things up for me,” Izaya reminisced, shaking his head sadly.
His assistant, Namie, replied, “At the very least, it sounds like you never belonged anywhere near a coming-of-age ceremony.”
“Are you trying to say that I’m immature?”
“You are a child and always will be. That’s why you keep teasing that monster Shizuo Heiwajima. You’re just like those kids who keep poking hornet’s nests,” she said coldly.
Izaya shrugged. “I happen to think that there’s no difference between adults and children. People remain children for as long as they live, and sometimes kids are more grown-up than the actual adults. We are always incomplete, and that in turn is what completes the human being.”
The usual smile was back on his face as he muttered to himself.
“It’s why I love humanity.”
Kawagoe Highway, Shinra’s apartment
“You know, I still remember that ceremony, even now. I literally could have died that day,” Shinra said casually
Exasperated, Celty typed, “I still regret taking you at your word and letting you go.”
“Maybe people don’t change as easily as I thought. There’s a Japanese saying, ‘The soul of a three-year-old lasts to a hundred.’ And there’s another one: ‘The sparrow still remembers its dance at a hundred.’”
“Do sparrows live to be a hundred?”
“That’s what you have a problem with?”
At this point, Celty and Shinra’s fairly typical conversation was interrupted by their uninvited visitor: Shinra’s father, Shingen Kishitani.
“Young folks these days are so pathetic. The coming-of-age ceremony is only a name now. They don’t have what it takes on the inside,” he said, wearing his white gas mask.
Shinra made a face and replied, “I don’t know, Dad, you’re nearly fifty and you certainly don’t, either.”
“You say that to your own biological father, Shinra?! When I was twenty, I’d done all the growing I’d ever need to do!” Shingen boasted.
Celty typed, “I see. Then I suppose your standards were just wrong from the start,” and showed it to him.
“You say that to your own father-in-law, Celty?!”
“Also, I have difficulty even imagining you showing up to your coming-of-age ceremony.”
Shingen stroked the inhaler part of his gas mask and nodded. “Indeed, when I was twenty, the ceremony was the last of my concerns…but now, the story can be told. The Twenty Great Secrets of my twenty-year-old self!”
“No, we’re good,” Shinra said.
Shingen ignored him, turning to the window and speaking in a slow, dramatic narration. “It was in the twentieth year of my life… As a twenty-year-old, I was a young man, and I celebrated the twenticity of that year. I was a true twentieth-century boy when I was twenty… Long live the age of twenty!”
“He’s doing a voice-over monologue!”
“How many times are you going to say the word ‘twenty’?”
Shingen ignored their comments again, rapt by the memories of his past.
“Yes…I was a research student in the medical college, traveling the world in search of a new elixir! From the wine of eternal life to powder that turns one into a werewolf, even the wriggling red liquid that can be found in Germany!”
“That’s not what a medical research student does.”
“Pay no attention to my subtle lies! You’ll never be an adult this way!”
“That was supposed to be subtle?”
Shingen continued to monologue for about twenty minutes after that. Celty and Shinra played a handheld game against each other and largely ignored him.
“And thus, I completed my coming-of-age by shooting the alien at the ruins beneath the South Pole and gained the treasure of the ancient Mayans: this pure white gas mask! But at the same moment, I had an incredible epiphany! Despite the incredible poisons the ancient civilizations created, none of them are as dangerous to humanity as modern man’s photochemical smog and exhaust fumes!”
He breathed heavily, panting behind the gas mask. Without taking his eyes off his game, Shinra said, “Yes, yes, very cool.”
“You know, Shinra, sometimes empty words of praise can hurt more than insults! Damn you…damn you… Just you wait! I’ll make up much better lies next time! I’ll show you the true power of an adult!” Shingen shouted, blubbering as he rushed out of the room.
Celty watched him go somewhat sadly, and typed, “A coming-of-age ceremony… There’s an event that I’ll never experience.”
“That’s not true.”
“Huh?”
“It’s been twenty years since you lost your head and were reborn as your new self, hasn’t it? Of course…it’s also been twenty years since you met me,” Shinra explained, grinning like a child. “I can guarantee that you’re a wonderfully mature adult by now. You’re more human and grown-up than any person, Celty.”
“Shinra…”
She felt herself being overcome by emotion—but also felt the creeping hand of Shinra working around her shoulder.
“Now, let’s celebrate by engaging in some adult-only activi—byuhurblp!”
A large fan made of shadow smacked him across the room. Celty shoved her PDA into his face.
“You’re the one who needs to grow up!”
“Shit, man. I’m not your personal taxi to take you to your nerd events…”
In the parking lot, Togusa grumbled behind the wheel of the van.
Kadota said, “Hey, it’s not that bad, right? Only happens once every twenty years.”
This earned him a retort from Karisawa. “What are you talking about, Dotachin? The twentieth anniversary is only just beginning!”
“What?” he said, lifting an eyebrow.
Yumasaki shouted, “Next year is the twentieth anniversary of the Dengeki Prize! The year of Oki-Den! And Criss Cross!”
“And the year after that is the twentieth for Dengeki PlayStation!”
“Oh, if we’re doing those, then it’s also the twentieth anniversary of Dengeki PC Engine…”
“And before you know it, they’ll be on the thirtieth!”
As the two of them got increasingly excited, Togusa’s head slumped against the wheel. He grumbled, “Are you telling me…you want to be hanging out in my van ten years from now…?”
The city still revolves to this day.
As if to celebrate equally all those who come of age within it.
Fin
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