Durarara!! - Volume SS01 - Chapter 7

SIDE STORY 7

 NICOCOCO!! 

(NICONICO NOVEL SHORT-TERM SERIAL)

[Start]

This is a twisted tale.

A tale of twisted comments.

“Let’s take that video!”

“Gotta shoot for number one in the daily rankings!”

Walker Yumasaki and Erika Karisawa were equipped with a video camera and a laptop computer. If this were their usual banter toward Kadota and Togusa, they might have been ignored like usual. However…

“…Huh?”

Celty Sturluson was absolutely baffled by the unannounced visitors to her apartment building, tilting her head in confusion.

Or to be more precise, tilting the helmet that rested atop her body.

Because, you see—she had no head at all.

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.

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 in European folklore.

But that was all in the past.

Now she lived a life of love and happiness with a man named Shinra Kishitani, both as a living urban legend and as a woman.

It was this peaceful life that was broken by their sudden arrival.

“What kind of video…?”

“Oh, come on. If you’re in Japan and you’re talking about making a video, it’s gotta be for Niconico! Nico Video!” Karisawa stated.

Yumasaki beamed, the kind of smile that Niconico was named after. “That’s right! In fact, Karisawa was a regular user since back when it was Niconico Beta!”

“Uh, well…I’m aware of Niconico, but… Huh? If you knew it when it was in beta, then how old are you…?”

“All right, I think we’ve covered the boring details well enough by now!” Karisawa said, clapping her hands to bring the topic to a close. “So, what kinda video do you want to make, Celcchi? Wanna try commentary over a free game that’s okay to stream without any copyright shenanigans?”

“No, I think I might be the wrong person to ask…about commentary.”

“You’ll be fine; there’s text-to-speech software for that. Or if need be, you can just do a no-commentary playthrough. The only thing that matters is that the video is entertaining.”

“Hang on. Why are you doing a video, again? And why come to me?” Celty asked, quite naturally.

Karisawa shook her head sadly. “Aw, darn, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice… You’re too smart, Celcchi.”

“Notice what…?”

“Well, uh… Ya know? It’s my own personal issue, so I feel really bad bringing it up to you like this, but…,” Karisawa murmured, trailing off, so Yumasaki picked up the slack.

“The thing is, Karisawa has a rival on Niconico.”

“A rival?”

“Check out this video first.”

“W-wait, Yumacchi, stop! I can’t handle her watching it in front of me!” Karisawa begged, but Yumasaki ignored her and connected his laptop into a wireless router so that he could load a particular page on Nico Video.

The video was titled “I Tried Singing Opera in Cosplay @ Eternal de Charmonte,” and it featured Karisawa dressed up as some anime character, singing opera with a mask covering the top half of her face.

“No! Stop! Don’t listen to it!” Karisawa pleaded, struggling to stop him. Yumasaki put her into a pinion hold, so Celty focused on the sound of Karisawa’s singing on the laptop.

Though she had no ears, the shadow that surrounded her being could pick out the sound of the voice clearer than any human ear could. Overcome with emotion, she pointed her smartphone screen at Karisawa.

“You…you never told me…you were so good at singing!”

“I know, isn’t it something? Among all my anime-song friends, Karisawa’s practically a legend.”

“Auuugh, it’s not true. I’m so embarraaaassed…”

Her face was completely red now, and her eyes swam and roved. It was almost impossible to imagine her acting this way, based on her usual demeanor.

“Anyway…is this ‘Eternal de Charmonte’ your stage name or something…?”

“Oh, yeah! That’s right! Isn’t it cool?!” she replied, suddenly all sparkling.

Celty felt a cold sweat break out on the inside. “I see… So you’re not embarrassed about that part of it…”

It was another new fact for Celty to consider about the other woman.

Yumasaki continued, “So, this Charmonte in the video has a rival named Blizzard La Blizzardia. She’s really good at singing and does cosplay, so it’s a natural comparison…”

“And?”

“One day, they were on a Skype chat together, and the competitive hackles rose, until the other girl said, ‘I know ***, the famous game streamer. You don’t seem like you have any friends, though,’ and Karisawa snapped back, ‘I have lots of really famous and amazing friends!’”

“…And?” Celty prompted. She still couldn’t see where this was going.

“They went back and forth a little more and decided to have each friend upload their video to Niconico, so they could compete and see who got more views and bookmarks and smiles, from what I understand!”

“I see, yes. Compared to the opera singing from a moment ago, this turned out to have a much stupider reasoning behind it.”

After a pause, Celty increased the font size on her smartphone so that she could try shouting.

“You absolute idiot!”

The text flew fast and furious from her fingers. When she was done, she thrust the message toward Karisawa and Yumasaki.

“Why would you compete using a video?! Are you NPCs in a mahjong game that tell the hero that you have to fight using mahjong?! Are your brains on video?! Is this what younger kids do nowadays when they need to rebel?! Are you the kind of people who illegally upload DVD special features, then claim innocence because it’s for ‘promotional purposes’?!”

Her shoulders heaved up and down with exertion, then she resumed typing with great ferocity.

“Obviously, each of your followers is going to pretend to be one of the other and post insults and trash the other one, or try to pad the comments on your video until you get found out and raked over the coals, or try to buy big view counts! This is all wrong! Niconico is called that because it’s supposed to make everyone smile!”

“Well, I can reassure you that I’m a mature adult, so that won’t happen with me.”

“Mature adults don’t torture hooligans in their friends’ vans!”

“Let’s just set that aside for now… I came to ask you for help because I thought you might be able to make some truly exciting videos. I’m just asking your opinion. It won’t be a hassle,” Karisawa promised, ignoring the more salacious details that Celty was pointing out. Oddly, this helped Celty calm down a bit.

“I didn’t want to say this, but the motorcycle officers have their eye on me, so if the video ends up with revealing information in the background, and someone figures out my address, and it causes the word to go out on social media that ‘the Headless Rider got arrested because she posted a video of herself online,’ I would never live it down.”

“Well, that’s probably your own fault for catching their eye. You’ll just have to live with the consequences.”

“Yeah, that’s true. You’re the one committing the most criminal acts, Celcchi.”

“Y-you know, when you put it that way, I feel terrible about it…”

Now that they had her over a barrel, Celty realized she would just have to play along…

“I’ve heard your tale of woe,” said the owner of the apartment, Shinra Kishitani, as he opened a nearby door. “You leave me no choice. In order to help you prove that your friend Celty is truly amazing, I am willing to help.”

“Do you know how to make videos, Shinra?”

It better not turn out to be something like, “I Tried Surgery: A Black-Market Doctor Attempts to Heal Himself,” or whatever, Celty thought nervously.

Shinra beamed and said, “I’ll release a portion of the hidden videos I’ve been taking of you for the past ten years! I can’t do all of them, because I’m greedy and want to keep you to myself…but knowing your charms, Celty, I’m sure it’ll break a million views in no time!”

A few minutes later, Shinra had been trussed up with Celty’s shadow weapon and left to dangle, while she typed out a message to Karisawa and Yumasaki with obvious exhaustion.

“All right… I’ll give you as much help as I can, as long as you forget what Shinra just said.”

Hours later

Of course, having said that, she thought, setting up her laptop after Karisawa had left, what am I actually able to help out with when it comes to making a video?

She looked at her homepage on Nico Video.

She had registered under the username Setton. Celty started out by watching the lone video she’d uploaded in the past.

The video’s title was “[Beautiful Stuff] Rooftops with Great Views, twelve in all! [Rooftop videos]”

She had recorded footage from the roofs of buildings she liked and edited them together.

I haven’t seen this in a few years…but with the way I named my video, I don’t think I can make fun of Karisawa’s handle name, either. What if they’re all bashing my clip and saying it’s really boring?

Nervous, she checked the stats on the video.

Views: 12 Comments: 0 Bookmarks: 2

Oh…ohhhhh…

“Whatcha watching, Celty?” said a voice, causing her to flinch.

Shinra came and looked over her shoulder at the video on the screen.

“Wow, Celty, I didn’t know you uploaded a video! You could have told me. I’d have spent fifty thousand yen on turning it into an ad!” he exclaimed. When he took a closer look, his eyes lit up. “Wow! The comments section is packed!”

He was looking at the great volumes of comments that, in typical Niconico fashion, were displayed scrolling over the screen from right to left, and saying things like “It’s so beautiful,” “Perfect scenery,” and “I love being on the roof.”

“Really? Well, it’s nothing special, anyway,” Celty said, trembling slightly.

Shinra grinned and said, “Well, Celty, this is rather strange. Can you tell me why every single person is commenting using black text, rather than the default white?”

“I…don’t know.”

“Also, there’s something about these black text comments that looks different from the black text I’m used to seeing…”

“Must be your mind playing tricks on you.”

If Celty were human, she would be drowning in nervous sweat by this point. Shinra could see right through her story, and his grin got even wider.

“Listen, Celty, even if you were, say, creating shadow letters and running them across the screen to fool me, I would still love you,” he said, tenderly consoling his frozen partner. “That oddly small-minded part of you is just one of the many reasons I’m so fond of you.”

Celty scrunched up the black text scrolling across the computer screen and thrust her smartphone into Shinra’s face.

“Don’t react like that! It’s only making me feel more pathetic!”

This was how Celty got embroiled in Karisawa’s video rivalry.

With the Dollars gone, and Ikebukuro taking on a different color in their absence, a new story was unfolding.

A low-stakes tale of the Headless Rider as an urban legend completely entrenched in the foibles of the modern world.

[Expand]

Days later, Kawagoe Highway, apartment building

Celty Sturluson, Ikebukuro’s Headless Rider, was in a panic.

Her friend Karisawa had asked her to do the impossible—upload a video and get onto the daily ranking—and she had shortsightedly agreed.

While there was still time before the deadline, Celty’s previous attempt at making a video was a catastrophe with twelve views and no comments, and she couldn’t begin to guess what to go for next.

Hmm… Maybe I should watch some popular videos and take notes.

She decided that it would be best to see what worked for others, so she opened her laptop and started viewing the most popular spots in the Niconico rankings.

Number one on the list is…a game commentary video. Yumasaki and Karisawa were talking about that, too…but I’m unable to do vocal commentary. Plus there are issues with distribution rights, and I don’t know the difference between a game that’s cool to upload and one that’s going to get me in trouble. Plus, now there are games that the companies are okay with people uploading videos of, as long as they abide by certain conditions… Ugh, this is giving me a headache.

Realizing that she was already hitting a stumbling block before she even got to the issue of a video’s popularity, Celty felt more aware than ever that she was in over her (absent) head.

I guess I’ll start with a free game. What’s popular in the horror sphere…? Blue Kappa. Hmm, let’s go with this one.

She found a horror game that had been in and out of the rankings for the past few years and downloaded it.

I hear it’s super scary, but I’m not bothered by ghosts and youkai and things like that. Heh-heh-heh. Kappa are actually kinda cute.

Excited by the thought of playing the game and blasting through scenes that would have other players trembling in terror, Celty started up the program.

One hour later

“Celty? Celty, your favorite show is coming on!” called out Shinra Kishitani, the Headless Rider’s live-in partner, popping into the room.

But she was nowhere to be found.

“Huh? That’s weird. Where could Celty be?”

He glanced around the room curiously—then strode right up to the closet and pulled the door open.

“Heeeere’s Celty!”

An enormous fish about three feet in size, made of pure shadow, thrust itself forward and clobbered Shinra.

“Ogopogo!”

He rolled across the room until he came to a stop, then saw Celty crouching and shivering in the closet, vibrating like a phone notification.

“…Celty?” he said, still sprawled out on the floor. She finally turned toward him and hesitantly emerged from the closet. Once she was certain that no suspicious shadows were around, she hurried over to Shinra and shoved her smartphone in his face.

“S-sorry, Shinra! Are you all right?!”

“Of course I’m all right!” he said, immediately bouncing up and giving her an energetic thumbs-up. “I would be fine, no matter what kind of unfair and one-sided violence you committed against me! The entire world could revile you as a needlessly crude and abusive heroine, but I would and will always be on your side! I won’t let anyone else have you, and if I have to become a masochist for you, I’ll do it! Now step on me! Do Hindu squats on my stomach!”

“All right, all right, I’m sorry. Just calm down,” Celty said, trying to get Shinra to stop rolling around on the ground with his cheeks flushed with excitement. She checked around for anything amiss.

“So what’s the matter, Celty? Why were you hiding in the closet?”

“I-it was the game.”

“What game?” He glanced at the desk, where a game was currently on the screen of the computer there. “What is this?”

“It’s a g-g-game called Blue Kappa, and I assumed it would be like the kind where you run around a mansion trying to escape from the kappa,” she explained, hiding behind Shinra’s back, “but the blue kappa wasn’t a youkai at all; it was an alien, and every day a few more of the townsfolk get abducted and taken over by the aliens! And at the end, the entire town itself turns into an alien…and the walls and floor are blue kappa alien faces! Aieeeee!”

“…Is it an adventure game? Or a visual novel?”

“No, it’s a farming sim.”

“Oh, that’s horrifying. Who comes up with that crap?” Shinra remarked, feeling fear for a different reason. He shut down the game that had terrified Celty so badly. “There, you’re safe now. There are no aliens.”

“R-really?”

“Really. None. Nobody’s here. Nobody’s here. Nobody’s here… Peekaboo!” he shouted, launching himself toward Celty—but she had seen it coming. She easily avoided his lunge and slammed him into the closet.

“Oooh, ouch… Anyway, you really don’t like aliens, do you?”

“It’s outer space! When the Grand Cross happens and all the planets of the solar system are arranged in a straight line, it means a black hole will be photon-belted right into our midst!”

“Celty, calm down. First of all, it is categorically impossible for a Grand Cross to coincide with all the planets lining up.”

“O-oh…”

At last, Celty seemed to be regaining her nerve. She stopped trembling and put her arm around Shinra’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Shinra. I don’t think I’m cut out for commentating on horror games.”

“Ahh, this is for Yumasaki and Karisawa’s thing?” Shinra said, realizing at once that it was about the Niconico video upload. He beamed at Celty. “Well, if you really like games, maybe you should move away from horror and try beating a really, really hard game instead.”

“A hard game…? Like the kind where you die over and over, memorizing the layout and growing ever more paranoid that everything is a trap?”

“Yes, exactly. Of course, you’re not going to make a splash by playing a famous, well-known game at this point. You’ll need to play some super-hard obscure game that no one’s heard of.”

“That no one’s heard of? Are you sure one even exists?” Celty wondered, tilting her helmet.

But Shinra had just the person in mind.

“Yeah. It’s a game that Orihara made. I guarantee the difficulty is legit.”

Back in high school

“What are you doing?” Shinra asked curiously.

His classmate, Izaya Orihara, had a laptop open on his desk. “I’m just killing time. Making a little video game on my own.”

“Video game?”

The boy wore a full black gakuran uniform, but his smile was even darker than the fabric as he handed Shinra a CD-ROM.

“Here’s a copy of it, if you want to try.”

“Are you sure? What kind of game is it?”

“It’s meant to test the limits of human perseverance. It’s not that good, though, so I’m not planning to put it up online.”

Present day, Shinra’s apartment

“Oooh, hey, it still runs on the latest OS,” Shinra murmured happily. Celty, however, felt anxious.

“Is this safe? I don’t trust a game he created…”

“Yeah, totally fine. There were no viruses when I ran it.”

“Oh, so you played it before,” Celty commented.

He smiled breezily and nodded. “Yeah. And I stopped playing after ten seconds.”

“What the heck? I have no idea how bad this game is supposed to be, but ten seconds seems too short,” she said, paying attention to the start screen.

Bedeviled! Izaya’s Castle! Or, Izaya’s Challenge

“I take that back, Shinra. I’m already irritated,” she said, having felt so strongly that moments after seeing the title screen, she had already created a text file and typed her annoyance into it.

“I know. The more you know Orihara, the more obnoxious it feels. And I’m sure that he wouldn’t have given this game to anyone who didn’t know him very well.”

“He’s the worst.”

“It’s just our luck that Shizuo didn’t have a computer of his own. If he’d played this, he might have destroyed every single computer within a three-mile radius.”

The thought of her wild bartender-vest-wearing acquaintance made Celty’s spine freeze. But for now, she started the game.

After clicking the start button, a man appeared on screen who seemed to be the player character. The arrow keys moved him left and right, while the space bar made him jump.

All right. Seems like an orthodox action game.

“Or so you’d think, right?”

“Stop reading my mind, it’s creepy.”

But whatever. It’s a game made by Izaya, so I can already guess how it goes. There’s probably a really hard quick time event or something in the middle, or it turns into a racing game, then a mahjong game, then an RPG, then a deductive adventure game—all these detours and sidetracks meant to annoy the player, right? As long as I know what I’m getting into, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

But as soon as she started to move the character…

Oops, already with the pits, huh?

A hole opened at the bottom of the screen, and her character fell through it.

But it was not a game over. The background turned black, but the character continued to fall, onward and onward at the center of the screen, leaving a visual trail that went upward.

Ah. So it goes to a different screen. I wonder if there’s another path at the bottom of the earth?

…

………

………………How long is he going to fall?!

After about thirty seconds of this, the screen changed.

Beside the falling character, text began to rise from the bottom of the screen, moving very slowly.

The character you control is falling perpetually into a dark hole. He is not greeted by the shock and pain of impact, but is subjected to the fear of his ever-lengthening plummet. In time, the fear turns to uncertainty. Will there even be an end? Has he been trapped in a cycle of endless descent with no conclusion, fated to fall forever? Eventually, the uncertainty turns to loss. The fear and anxiety will be leached from his heart, and he will feel as though he is losing even his past experiences and emotions. Then again, maybe he has a different thought. Did he ever have those emotions in the first place? His life was over the moment he fell into the hole. Has he left all of his memories and feelings and reasons for existence up on the surface, in the light? So who is he? Eventually, even the concept of an attempt to derive the meaning of his existence as he falls will fade away, and he will wonder why he was even born, allowed as he is to do nothing but fall. His character will become a pitiable symbol of falling itself. If there’s any emotion he’s left with, it’s hatred toward you, the player. Why did you have me carelessly walk forward? You knew this game was made by Izaya Orihara, so why were you so deluded as to believe that the floor before you was what it appeared? This is your fault. I’ve lost everything and become nothing but a program that falls endlessly, and it’s all your fault. I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you… I’m sure that’s what he’s thinking. But you need not feel guilty. You’re just the same. That’s right, this character that expresses falling with nothing more than a mild vertical afterimage effect is depicting the life of you, the player. How many seconds, how many hours have you spent on this game? Have you discovered anything in this meaningless game that might actually enrich your life somehow? What are games for? Killing boredom? Does your boredom lie dead at your feet? Or have you merely enhanced it with further tribulations, increasing the minutes you’ve wasted of your life? And if there’s no way to alleviate the boredom than through pain, what makes you any different from this falling character—

The text continued, seemingly endless, at a painful pace of one line every five seconds or so, rising up the length of the screen.

At first, Celty patiently read each word of it, but eventually her endurance gave way, and she asked Shinra, “Hey…it’s not responding to any controls.”

“It was the same for me. I fell into the hole after ten seconds, and there was no way to keep playing after that.”

“So how long does this obnoxiously edgelordy text keep going?”

“I just let it keep running for an hour, and it was still going. Sometimes you just really have to hand it to Izaya’s restless energy.”

Celty had had enough. She clicked the X button at the top right corner of the window.

What’s this? Giving up already? Running away won’t solve your problems. But if you truly want to avert your eyes from reality, you can just open up Task Manager and end the entire process, can’t you? You’ll just know deep down that you admitted defeat and let me win.

The pop-up window had appeared instead of shutting down the program, and Celty barely held back the urge to smash the computer screen.

“Arrrgh! What the hell is this?!”

“Right? It’s hard, isn’t it? Hard to stay motivated to beat it, at least.”

“That’s not the kind of difficulty I’m looking for!”

“Yeah, but you had a feeling this was coming, didn’t you?” said Shinra, trying to dissuade Celty from flying into a violent rage. “Speaking of which, there was one person named Tsukumoya who actually managed to get to the end and send his thoughts about the game… Izaya was creeped out. I told him I didn’t know who it was or remember giving them the game in the first place.”

“Whoa, freaky. He isn’t an alien…is he?” She started to feel another chill run down her back and quickly changed the topic to dispel it. “First of all, how I even do commentary for something like this?”

“Well, guess what? You don’t have to! I’ve already filmed your reactions of anguish and barely suppressed rage, so the heavy lifting’s already been done!” Shinra said, his expression blissful. He gave her a thumbs-up; in his other hand was a high-definition camera. “Once I upload this to Nico Video, everyone will be smiling over your charms, Celty!”

“……”

Minutes later, having trussed up Shinra and left him in the corner of the room, Celty proceeded to consider what to put up on Niconico.

Hmmm. I don’t think game commentary is going to work out for me. There’s got to be some video that will serve as inspiration…

She stared at the screen until something occurred to her.

Oops, I nearly forgot. My Niconico points are nearly about to expire. I’ve still got 2,800 points left, so I need to use them up…

Considering this a good opportunity, she decided to use the online currency she’d stocked up to watch a movie and improve her mood.

Let’s see… I’ll watch a ghost movie, perhaps. Oh, hey, Dark Skies is on Niconico Channel right now. I was always curious about that one after I saw a poster of it on Sixtieth Floor Street. Apparently it was made by some of the people who did Paranormal Activity…and I’m fine watching ghost movies. This should be fun. Though Dreamcatcher is pretty tempting, too. That one looks horror-ish. I’m also curious about The Fourth Kind.

So, which one do I watch…?

Two hours later, having finished her selection, Celty was back in the closet, shivering and trembling for all she was worth.

What had she seen in the movie that made her react like this?

The answers can be found…on Nico Video.

“…Umm, Celty? You can undo your shadow ropes now. Celty? …Celty?”

[Twist]

Days later, Ikebukuro shopping district

Ikebukuro was the same as always on this day.

Shortly after seven in the evening, the crowds passing one another on the street included office workers on the way home, students enjoying a very long after-school period, and various people whose appearances didn’t immediately connect to a particular living.

Emotions of all types were etched into the faces of those who walked the streets, from bright laughter to exhausted sighing after work, all mingling into the atmosphere of a city that remained as lively as it ever was.

Except for one thing.

A suspicious-looking shadow astride a pitch-black motorcycle with no headlight and no license plate—the Headless Rider, wandering around with a camcorder in her hands.

“Hey, it’s Celty. What are you doing?”

The Headless Rider, Celty Sturluson, had been watching the city from the shadows until she was called over by a longtime friend, Shizuo Heiwajima.

With his bartender’s vest, he was a fairly visible person on the streets, but not nearly as much as Celty was. He had finished his work shift and was on the way home when he spotted Celty skulking around behind a utility pole and called out to her.

“Oh…Sh-Shizuo. It’s been a while.”

“Yo. What’s with the video camera? You doing a job?”

“No…it’s more like a hobby… I was wondering if I could capture some interesting footage, or maybe something weird and paranormal…”

“Paranormal?”

Given that Celty herself was a paranormal phenomenon, it was a strange thing to hear her say.

“Um, basically, I’m trying to take a video that I can upload to Nico Video, but I haven’t found many good opportunities.”

“What the hell is Nico Video?”

“…Umm…I guess you’d call it an online service that allows you to upload your own videos so that everyone else can comment on them and share them…”

She kept the explanation as simple as possible, since Shizuo didn’t know much about the Internet. It would’ve been pointless to go into greater detail, and her anticipation was accurate.

“Ah…it’s an Internet thing,” he said, disappointed, and scratched his cheek with a finger. “I don’t think I’m any good at that online stuff. If you get mad, you can’t just reach out and punch the other person, so I’d just end up destroying all my own stuff instead.”

“…That’s true. You’re probably better off not checking it out, Shizuo.”

Plus, he’s got absolutely zero ability to avoid and ignore trolling, she thought but prudently did not say. At this point, she figured she could just tell him what she was doing.

“At any rate, I’m trying to take a video that’s entertaining and will draw everyone’s interest. Sometimes I spot people doing strange things or doing some kind of street performance, but I can’t just film them without permission… What I’d really like to do is capture a freak occurrence. Like a dance between a pink elephant and white crocodile that escaped from the circus. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.”

“Uh, you think you might be losing it a little?”

“M-maybe I am.”

“First of all, you don’t just happen to capture rare events on film just by standing around,” Shizuo explained, taking a sip from the can in his hand.

“Yeah, I know that, but…”

While Celty continued to watch the environs around her with camera in hand, Shizuo finished his drink and began to fold the metal can with his fingers. “It’s best when nothing happens,” he said. “Take a video of the city at peace. Then you can watch it and relax. That’s the best thing of all.”

As he said this, he used only the strength of his fingertips to carefully stretch out the metal can.

“Well, if it makes people smile, that would be best of all, of course… So I guess it can be a peaceful video too, huh? Maybe if I got a video of someone with a really incredible skill that no one else can imitate…”

“A skill, huh?” Shizuo repeated, transforming the can in his hands. Even the thicker, heavier base of the can was like putty to him, easily folded without much resistance. “In that case, you can’t just hang around like this, huh? Not that I’m the best guy to give advice, but maybe you should take out your camera with a clear purpose in mind.”

Ultimately, his monstrous strength compacted the metal can until it had been compressed into a cube the size of a die. Not even a vise could have accomplished this; the material was so dense that it seemed the folded metal surfaces were pressed permanently together.

“Well, that’s true…and I doubt that I’m going to just find some person with a unique skill like that.”

“Probably true. I don’t know why you want to take this video, but good luck with it,” Shizuo said, tossing the cube into the nearby bin specifically for cans. He turned toward his home with the clattering of metal behind him.

Shizuo’s right. If it were that easy to come across something truly remarkable, everyone would be doing it all the time, Celty lamented. She put away the camera and headed for the motorcycle she’d parked nearby.

She seemed entirely unaware of the rather remarkable and inhuman feat that a man had just achieved, now resting inside the trash can just steps away.

“Oh! It’s the Headless Rider! Heya!”

“……”

Minutes later, while cruising through the city, Celty happened across a pair of familiar twins. It was the one with glasses who called out to her.

“Oh, uh… Izaya’s sisters…”

“I’m Mairu! And this is Kuru!”

“……”

In contrast to Mairu Orihara, the lively younger twin, the older one, Kururi Orihara, silently bowed her head.

“So what’s up? Whatcha doin’? Work?”

“Uh, not exactly… Oh, but this is good timing.” Celty had always had a connection of sorts to these sisters, and given how desperate she was for help, decided to ask for their advice. “This might seem like a strange question, but…do you know what Nico Video is?”

“Yeah, we do!”

“Could you tell me what kind of videos you like to watch on there?”

They were students in high school. Celty didn’t know what percentage of Niconico viewers were teen girls, but she figured that learning the tastes of young folks would be helpful to her quest. However…

“The dirty ones!”

“…Huh?”

“The ones where girls are going guhee-hee, guhee-hee and dancing half-naked!”

“I’ve never heard someone use the phrase ‘guhee-hee, guhee-hee’ before…” Celty replied, unsure of how to react to it.

Mairu continued, “You know that Kuru and I uploaded a video once? We were dancing together.”

“Oh, interesting.”

They were pretty to look at, and the novelty of them being twins would surely get them lots of views if the dancing was good. Celty was going to ask how many plays their video got, but Mairu beat her to the punch.

“Unfortunately, they deleted it.”

“Huh?”

“They said it violated the part of the guidelines about how ‘Sexual, obscene, or violent acts, as well as anything designed to be extremely unpleasant, are prohibited’…”

“You’re teenage girls; you shouldn’t be taking videos that violate the guidelines! In fact, nobody should be doing that!” Celty typed, flustered, much to Mairu’s delight.

“Nah, it’s fine. We didn’t get in trouble with the police…but it was a close one.”

“Nothing about this sounds fine!”

“It really was fine. We weren’t naked or anything. It was mostly Kuru’s fault for moving too sexily. As we were dancing, I was getting so turned on that I started drooling.”

“Fine, whatever. Sorry I asked. I really don’t want to know anything more about this.”

One thing you can say about them: they are definitely Izaya’s sisters, Celty thought, resuming her ride through the streets. But maybe that’s just the kind of standards kids these days have? I don’t really know any regular young people. They don’t even need to be young, though—I just want to know how ordinary people think. I’ll go around and ask for more opinions.

Russia Sushi

“A video? Perfect, you can shoot a promo video for our restaurant,” said Denis, the owner of Russia Sushi.

Celty said nothing, feeling a sudden chill run down her spine.

Simon showed up with a sushi platter and began to dance with it in front of her camera. “Hey! Sushi good! Very healthy, fill your stomach, fill your dreams. Eel, tuna, crab, urchin, roe, shad and perch and seared salmon. Eat sushi, good for you. More you eat, thinner you get: sushi diet. Eat sushi and get girls. You win lottery, win new job, travel to paradise. Russia Sushi is good sushi, number-one hit in America,” he said.

While she caught Simon’s truly nonsensical sales pitch and dance on camera, Celty sadly turned to the owner and showed him her smartphone screen.

“Actually…you’re not allowed to advertise a product or service on Niconico without the company’s approval.”

Denis sharpened his knife and briefly glanced up at Celty.

“I see… Well, you’ll just have to get that permission for us, then.”

“Don’t ask the impossible!”

Back door, Russia Sushi

Just after she had said goodbye to Denis and Simon, Celty spotted an acquaintance who had come around the back of the restaurant to deliver crab, so she decided to ask him for his opinion.

“Nico Video, eh? Yeah, I’m aware of it.”

His name was Akabayashi.

He was a lieutenant of the Awakusu-kai, a yakuza group that controlled part of Ikebukuro. In short, he was someone with a lot of weight in the underworld behind the scenes.

“For reasons I won’t go into, I need to upload a video that will garner a lot of attention…and I don’t know what kind of video to make…”

“Ah, I see. Well, if you don’t mind using one of mine, I got some videos that might be a hit with the right audience.”

“You do?!” Celty exclaimed, latching on to this surprise revelation.

“Yup. Secret videos that haven’t been made public in any way. You’ll only find ’em on my phone.”

“What kind of videos are they…?”

“…Once you’ve heard, you can’t unhear it.”

“Huh?” She suddenly felt a bit unnerved.

Akabayashi continued in hushed tones, “This is the kind of video that we deal in. If you wanna take it public, you gotta be ready to fight for your life.”

“What does that mean…?”

“There are many kinds of videos out there. Let’s say that there are freaks who really wanna see the moment that people die. Once they find out there’s money in that, some folks are gonna start makin’ those videos just for business reasons. I’m talkin’ two-hour videos, no fakes, no cuts, all deaths.”

Celty froze, so he went on.

“If you’re asking someone in my position if I have any interesting videos…it means you wanna see videos that you don’t see by the light of day…and if you wanna upload it to Niconico, it means you wanna mix the light and dark side of the world just a bit…even at the risk of your life… Do I take that as your intention?”

“S-sorry, I just remembered something else I need to do!”

“Maybe I went a little too hard on the intimidation,” Akabayashi muttered to himself after Celty scampered off.

He played a video on his phone. “Of course, this is just a video of a celebrity who tried to get a little too rough with one of the girls at a place in our territory, so we beat him down, stripped him naked, and forced him to grovel. Nothing more than that.”

Ikebukuro

“Um…videos?”

Celty had been fearfully hurrying home when she happened to spot Anri Sonohara on her way home from school, and called out to the girl.

“I’ve never filmed anything like that… Oh, but I do have just one.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it’s a video of a really cute cat… Mika took a video of the one you had at your apartment a while back, and she sent it to my phone.”

Anri pulled out her phone and started up the video to show it off. Although it was on a tiny flip-phone screen size, the video did indeed show a very adorable kitten with folded ears.

“Oooh, that’s it! That’s what I’ve been looking for!”

If push came to shove, couldn’t she just ask to borrow this video and upload it instead? Celty was starting to feel desperate, and she was willing to beg others for help to succeed at her task.

But as the video went on, she decided against this idea. The camera eventually pulled back, revealing more of where the kitten was playing.

What she had initially thought was a rounded cushion was actually the top of Anri’s body. The kitten was balancing carefully to not fall down the rather impressive slope, which was obvious even through the thick uniform jacket. The frolicking was having an effect on her chest as well.

“Ah, yes…thank you. This has been very helpful,” Celty said, returning the phone and continuing on her way.

That one’s going to attract more than just cat fans, Celty thought as she rode away. And after what I just told Izaya’s sisters… Plus, I don’t want to expose Anri to harm like that.

She reflected on what had happened today.

Ultimately, nothing really helped, aside from Shizuo’s encouragement… So I think I know my plan now. I’m going to make a video that only I can make!

She turned on the camcorder and used her shadow to affix it to the front of the bike, where her headlight would have gone if she had one. The engine produced a sound like a horse growling; Celty stroked the seat of the motorcycle to calm it.

Just put up with it for now, Shooter. It’ll only last a little bit. Honestly, I have to say that this is a pretty great idea. At first, it’ll just look like your standard motorcycle-mounted video…but along the way, I’ll create a road out of shadow and start riding through the air.

Creating a path to ride on out of her own shadow to travel through the air was a truly brazen and wild feat, but Celty had done this before on multiple occasions.

This is gonna be so mysterious. I’ll just make sure to put a couple effects on it to keep it vague and upload it as “special effects video flying through the Ikebukuro night sky,” and it’ll be perfect!

Heh-heh-heh… How should I tag it? Since I’ll be pretending to do some special effects, I could put it under the “Niconico Tech Club” category… Or maybe “mystery tech.” And for the affiliate ads on the side, I’ll pick out a Peter Pan storybook or something.

It’s perfect. The perfect plan!

Counting quite a few chickens before they hatched, Celty hopped onto her bike, feeling supremely confident.

“Yo,” said a familiar voice, very close by.

……

A bone-freezing chill ran down her back. She turned, very slowly, in the direction of the voice.

“What are you doing, attaching a camera to that bike? Did you get a side job filming street traffic?”

In contrast to Celty’s black, this large motorcycle was white.

And naturally, sitting atop the seat was a patrol officer.

Officer Kinnosuke Kuzuhara of the Metropolitan Police Department, Traffic Bureau, Mobile Division.

Rigid with terror, Celty awkwardly extended a bit of shadow to press the light switch on the camcorder. Then she reached out and showed her smartphone to the patrol officer, her mortal nemesis.

“…It’s my headlight.”

“……”

“……”

In her mind, Celty put on the most genial and friendly smile she possibly could.

“…You’re not gonna stick to that story, are you?”

“…No.”

And then the black motorcycle took off, quick as a rabbit.

Shinra’s apartment

“Wow, this is a great video. It’s really intense,” marveled Shinra Kishitani, watching the camcorder footage on the TV.

The imagery of Ikebukuro’s streets was flying past at incredible speed from the perspective of the motorcycle, which was fleeing wildly from the pack of white police motorcycles.

“The problem is that you can’t tell what’s what, and you start to feel sick after a little while. I don’t think people are going to want to bookmark this one, no matter how many effects you put on it to fix it up.”

“I’ve had enough… I can’t take any more of this city…”

Celty was thoroughly spent after two hours of frantic escape. She was sprawled out front-down on the sofa, reaching up to type into her smartphone.

“And the main issue is…I don’t actually feel like smiling when I watch that video…”

So Celty’s brilliant plan promptly fell apart, and her video had to be put on ice.

But she did not yet know that a part of her escape had actually been filmed by a friend of Karisawa’s rival, Blizzard La Blizzardia, and had already been uploaded to Nico Video.

It had the simple title of “Headless Rider vs. Traffic Cops,” and it was already at number seven on the overall rankings of the site.

Celty would eventually learn that she had accidentally gift-wrapped her foe a present, and the revelation would take all the wind out of her sails…

But not for a few more hours.

[End]

Through a strange set of circumstances, the freak of Ikebukuro, Celty Sturluson, was involved in a “friendly battle” between Karisawa and her rival.

A friend of Karisawa’s foe, Blizzard La Blizzardia, had captured footage of Celty fleeing from patrol officers, and managed to make it high into the video popularity rankings.

Now that she had put herself at a huge disadvantage, Celty had to wonder if there was anything she could do to salvage the situation—and at this point in time, she had no idea what the answer was.

Kawagoe Highway, Shinra’s apartment

“I’m hooome,” said Shinra, returning to the apartment late after a day of working as a black-market doctor, only to find the place filled with a gloomy, oppressive air. “Whoa! What’s this? What happened?!”

And it wasn’t just the mood.

As a matter of fact, Celty had spread her shadow all throughout the room like smoke, cutting down on the fluorescent lights and darkening the whole apartment.

“Oh…w-welcome back, Shinra.”

She came weaving her way through the darkness and wobbled forth to greet him.

“What’s the matter, Celty?! Are you feeling unwell?!” Shinra exclaimed, rushing over.

Her fingers ran weakly over the smartphone screen.

“Uh…I may have painted myself into a corner over this video thing…”

Shinra did his best to calm her down and hear out her story. From what he could tell, a video showing her escape from the patrol officers had been captured and uploaded onto Nico Video, then shared widely across social media. The views and bookmarks were still climbing rapidly.

“Sniff… Now I just feel horrible about what Karisawa might say to me if I don’t win… I think I’ve really gone and done it now…”

“What did you do?”

“I…I went ahead and took this video…”

“?”

Celty handed him a camcorder. He connected it to the computer and started up the video file.

Immediately, he was confronted with something bizarre. It was set in a darkened park after sundown with the light of the Sunshine Building in the distance, suggesting that this was in Ikebukuro somewhere.

The swings on the swingset began to rock; a shadow appeared upon them.

“……”

The shadow got darker and darker over time, taking the form of a human girl wearing a wide-brimmed hat. After a few creaking swings back and forth, her form steadily vanished.

Shinra watched the video with great fascination. The shadow lines coming from the feet of the girl-shaped shadow stretched longer and longer, reaching toward the camera until they extended out of the frame.

“…This is your shadow, right?” he pointed out.

Celty promptly flinched. She covered the place where her human face would have been with her hands and began to roll back and forth on the rug.

“Waaaah! Shinra, I’m the worst! It doesn’t matter if I was desperate, I can’t just shoot a video of some staged paranormal phenomenon and upload it to Niconico!”

“Calm down, Celty. Okay? Listen up. Yes, you created that phenomenon yourself, but just so we’re clear, your shadow is actually way more paranormal than some little glimpse of a ghost, all right? So in a sense, you’re not actually lying to anyone. It’s more like you’re filming yourself dancing, or…”

“It’s all over. If anyone finds out I made this video, they’re going to realize it was all faked, and they’re going to tear me apart, and I’ll be forced to go on the news and apologize in a live press confereeeeence!”

“Celty. Calm down. Celty.”

She continued rolling back and forth, wildly typing deranged thoughts into her phone.

“But then, when it comes time for the apology, I’m going to get the wrong idea and think, ‘Being aggressive makes me seem full of myself,’ and then I’ll make it a really off-putting and sarcastic apology with jokes that just make everyone even madder, and after the conference is over, I’m going to forget that the mic is still on and start having a really embarrassing conversation with you that everyone’s going to hearrrrrrr! Aaaaaahhhhhh! It’s all over! What do I do, Shinra?!”

“Um, to address your points in order, first of all, the ‘staged’ aspect of your video is not quite the same as the ‘staged’ videos people label on Niconico, okay? Also, why would you have a live apology press conference? You can’t even talk. Are you going to continually apologize with uploader comments in a banner at the top of the video? Also, even if you forget to turn the mic off after the conference, you realize the only thing people are going to hear is my voice, right?”

He paused there for a breath, then continued, looking more serious this time.

“Of course, I’ll admit that I’m incredibly curious about what kind of conversation we might be having that would be so embarrassing. Perhaps you could tell me more about that fantasy?”

“W-well, it would be things we normally talk about, but just more embarrassing because other people would hear them.”

“Oh, you’ve got it bad. Normally, you would have hit me in the kidneys for asking something like that, but since you just answered it normally, you must really be up against the wall right now.”

He reached out to stroke Celty’s trembling shoulder, trying to comfort his beloved.

“Look, you shouldn’t worry about this. Even if all of that does happen, I’ll still be the last person on your side.”

“But then I’ll be ruining your life…”

“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll do anything for you—inflating view counts, adding bookmarks, whatever you want! I’m happy being the one to do all the dirty work, as long as you cleanse my spoiled heart with the power of your love! Wow, now that I mention it, that’s basically a perfect plan, isn’t it?!”

“Umm…”

“Come, Celty! Subscribe to my private Niconico channel and attach the ‘adults only’ tag to my life!”

“Uh, hang on.”

After a few seconds of thought, Celty delivered a powerful counterpunch to Shinra’s torso when he tried to leap onto her.

Several minutes later…

“Thank you, Shinra. I feel much calmer now.”

“Uh…don’t mention it… This is the Celty…I’d much rather see…”

While Celty had calmed down, Shinra was giving a thumbs-up with a heavy sheen of nervous sweat on his face.

“A-are you all right? Sorry, I was really wound up, so I might not have held back…”

“I’m perfectly fine! The pain from you punching me is just more evidence that we’ve had physical contact!”

“Are you sure you’re all right? You didn’t hit your head, or…?”

“Of course! If anything, my head is clearer than ever. It’s helped me come up with a good idea,” Shinra said, smiling dazzlingly. He turned to the laptop screen.

It was playing back the “Patrol Officer vs. Headless Rider” video on Niconico.

He said, “The person who filmed and submitted this was Karisawa’s rival…umm…”

“Blizzard La Blizzardia.”

“Yes, Bli-what’s-her-name’s friend, correct?”

“That’s right, supposedly…”

Shinra glanced out of the corner of his eye at Celty’s text, then adjusted the time slider to stop the video at a particular point.

“See here, when Shooter is trying to escape into the air…for just a brief moment, he’s pointed straight at the camera, right?”

“Oh! You’re right!”

“Meaning that at this moment…the camera mounted in Shooter’s headlight position should show you the person who submitted this video.”

“…! I see!” Celty remarked, feeling positive at first, but she soon racked her nonexistent brain to find the answer to a question that occurred to her. “But assuming that is what happened…what then?”

“Well, if we’re able to identify who the person is, then we might get closer to this Blizzard-whoever. Then you can get in the middle and convince them both to stop this stupid video competition! Basically, you just need to help Karisawa and her rival make up!”

“Ah, I see! But…I have a feeling it’s not going to be that easy…,” Celty said nervously.

Shinra busied himself with checking Celty’s video and comparing the two.

“Don’t worry. We’ve already got a leg up on them; they were filming my Celty without permission. As long as we can worm our way into a conversation using that, it should work out.”

“Don’t think I didn’t catch that ‘my.’”

“Ah, but more importantly, I’ve found the filmer!” Shinra shouted, loudly and obviously, pointing at the screen. “Look, right there…wait… Haven’t I seen this kid before…?”

“Where…? Oh?!”

Right there was the image of a boy, pointing his smartphone camera at the screen.

And it was a face Celty recognized.

“That’s…Aoba Kuronuma!”

“…He’s come to our place before, hasn’t he?” There was a cold, eerie light in Shinra’s eyes. “He said he wanted to be friends, but then he secretly films you while you were afraid, and shows it to the entire world… I guess I should’ve sliced his carotid artery back then, shouldn’t I?”

“Don’t be macabre!” Celty scolded him.

I can’t believe it was Aoba, she thought. Which would mean that his friend…Blizzard La Blizzardia must be a Blue Square? No…I’m pretty sure Blizzard La Blizzardia is female. And now that I think of it, I don’t think I actually took a careful look at her videos.

Celty searched the tags on Nico Video, and decided to actually search out the videos of the masked singer and rival of Erika Karisawa’s Eternal de Charmonte.

…She’s…

…actually pretty good at singing and dancing.

But…

It was a girl dressed in a rather provocative style with a mask, dancing and singing. It wasn’t an idol-style dance, but something like out of a particularly dark musical play.

I don’t know what it is, but she looks familiar, too…

Shinra peered over her shoulder and remarked, “Oh, isn’t that…”

“You know her, Shinra?”

“Yes, and you know her too,” he said, so casually that it came as a surprise to her. “This is Izaya’s little sister, Kururi.”

The next day, parking lot, Ikebukuro

“…Now, I know you weren’t seriously fighting over this, but you gotta keep yourself from dragging others into the bullshit,” Kyouhei Kadota growled with disappointment. Karisawa and Kururi were standing side by side before him and lowering their heads with shame.

“Heh-heh-heh…sorree, Dotachin.”

“…Apology…” [I’m sorry.]

Kadota was a mutual acquaintance of both and had called them here to bring an end to the nonsense that had involved Celty and others. When she learned the truth, she asked Kadota to be a go-between and get the entire video contest between the two nullified.

“I’m sorry, Kururi. I wasn’t being very mature.”

“…Same…” [Me, neither.]

The two girls decided to settle the matter by joining together and collaborating on a special Niconico live stream.

And at last, Celty was freed from the heavy responsibility of being a content creator.

Days later, Shinra’s apartment

“Hey, the Nico stream’s about to start!” Shinra called out.

Celty moved in front of the computer to watch. On the stream, an oddly decorated table was host to a masked Karisawa and the Orihara sisters.

“Hi, I’m Eternal de Charmonte.”

“…”

“And I’ll speak for my reticent sister! Hey y’all! We’re Blizzard La Blizzardia and her little sister, Flame!”

“Mairu’s stage name is not nearly as fancy as the others,” Celty remarked in text to Shinra. “I can’t believe it never occurred to me… I ran into her in town not that long ago, and she told me about the videos she did with her sister…”

“I checked out the entry for Blizzard La Blizzardia on the Niconico Encyclopedia, and it does say that ‘they often perform extreme dances, and a video in which she danced with her masked little sister was once deleted.’”

“Do they ever get tired of riling people up?”

Now that she was free of the pressure to produce a video, Celty felt much more relaxed watching this stream.

“You know, it’s weird… Part of it is that I’d almost never heard her voice before this, but it’s really wild to think that such a quiet and reserved girl can sing and dance like that.”

“Well, Kururi gets extremely loquacious and provocative in online chats,” Shinra noted sagely. “Plus, on a site like Nico Video, you can show off a side of yourself that you don’t usually display. Sometimes the person you show off in your videos is more like your ideal self.”

“I see.”

“Plus, some viewers look up to them. When singers and dancers are really popular, they either have to live pure and upright lives themselves, or maintain a healthy distance from their fans.”

“What’s your point?” Celty asked.

Shinra’s features broke into a smile. “You work as an underground courier, and you don’t have the option of putting yourself at a distance from others. So I hope that rather than becoming some video idol, you stick to being my idol.”

Celty’s shoulders bobbed up and down in the gesture of a sigh. She ran her fingers over the tablet.

“You stole my line, black-market doctor.”

Then she leaned so that her shoulder touched his, and the moment was just right.

Until the masked girls on the screen began to say things that completely destroyed the mood.

“So, as a sign of our reconciliation, the three of us have decided to do live commentary on a game.”

“……”

“Yeah! And I brought a game that almost no one has ever heard of!” said the girl who looked like Mairu, waving a CD-ROM with her hand.

The top surface of the CD-ROM had the words State of Affairs, Izaya’s Castle etc. written on it in marker.

“This is a game that our brother made, ages ago! And we’re going to show it on-screen and talk over it!”

No…

With a silent cry, Celty frantically typed out a stream comment and slammed the cursor over the submit button.

“Not that game! Anything but that game!”

That comment, an inexplicable scream to a total stranger, was Celty’s very first live comment on a Nico stream.

This is a comment tale.

A tale of twisted comments.

After a number of smaller, personal incidents and events like this, Celty and Shinra left Ikebukuro for a time to go on a journey around all of Japan.

It was a long trip that took half a year. How did it change Celty—or not change her, as the case may have been? Even she couldn’t tell you.

Nor did she know what they would see when they returned after six months.

Or whether or not the Headless Rider could continue to smile…

The answer would not arrive until slightly later.

Fin