Durarara!! SH Vol 2 Chapter 7.1

CHAPTER 7A
The Successor (Part 1)

Night time. Yahiro’s apartment.

When Mizuchi Yahiro reached home, the landlady’s younger brother Togusa Saburo was, as always, tending to his van.

“Sorry.”

Togusa smiled, to which Yahiro bowed his head again.

“Saburo-san, do you know about the Headless Rider?”

“What kind of person are they?”

Hesitating, Saburo chose his words carefully as he answered,

“A do-gooder?”

As he polished his van, Saburo continued, somewhat irately,

“Situation?”

Togusa continued hurriedly, as if to cover up what he had just said.

“Grateful…”

Saburo asserted, to which Yahiro said, promptly,

“You met!”

“So fast?!”

“Wait, what kind of high school life are you having…? Getting beaten up by Shizuo, making friends with Celty…”

“Yeah, well. If you mention Togusa Saburo they’ll probably remember me too.”

“Right. If you know each other. Celty’s friends with Shizuo. You can ask Celty to mediate a little.”

“Yeah, well, of all the people I know they’re best at talking to Shizuo. If you ask sincerely, Celty won’t mind being the middleman for you.”

Yahiro bowed his head politely. Togusa continued, dispensing advice as the older party.

“Okay.”

Perhaps something in those words had struck a chord with Yahiro, for he dwelled on it for some time before bowing his head more deeply than before.

Yahiro, smiling slightly, asked Saburo:

“Haha, it’s just that I go around fighting a lot. I don’t have many, exactly.”

“Well, they’re all very different. There’s an old-fashioned guy who’s like a reliable boss of justice, and then there’s an old guy who sells tickets who’s the epitome of suspiciousness… And then there’s…”

He had just discovered an anime decal casually slapped onto the rear window.
。And, the faces of the duo responsible surfacing in his mind, he ground out darkly,

“Anyway… Treasure your friends. But make sure you choose them well from the start, got it?”

Yahiro’s room.

Back in his room, on his bed, Yahiro remembered what Saburo had said earlier.

From the Headless Rider’s perspective, what did he, Himeka and Kuon look like?

Up till middle school, a lot of the people who had heard of him had attacked him.

Those who heard rumours of him and decided to bring him down would end up looking up at him in fear after being defeated themselves. But how much difference was there between what the rumours said of him and his actual self?

Heiwajima Shizuo was far stronger than he had expected, and also more human than he had imagined.

To be that genuinely angry to hear a friend being denigrated was to Yahiro something to be admired greatly.

—What about me?

—We only met a few days ago, so that might be unreasonable.

—If it does… I wonder, from now on, if I can be friends with those two… No, many more people, too…

Yahiro had yet to see Celty and Shizuo’s friendship in person, but had no reason to doubt its authenticity.

Both he had thought of as true ‘monsters’. No; both were more monstrous than he had imagined, yet seemed far more human than himself.

Perhaps there was truth in the rumours surrounding them. But it was certain those rumours
did not encompass all there was to them.

—Information spreads both in real life and on the internet, huh.

Saburo’s words returned Yahiro to the events earlier that evening.
To what Kotonami Nozomi had spoke of Kuon as a person.

A few hours ago. Kotonami Kuon’s house.

’Do you know of Orihara Izaya?’

Nozomi, still cooped up in the room, brought up one man’s name.

Yahiro answered with a look at Himeka, who shook her head as well.

“Huh…”

—Why does he sound familiar…

—Ei-san and the Headless Rider might have mentioned him in their conversation yesterday…

Yahiro and Himeka were puzzled as to how this informant was related to Kuon, but right then –

“Okay… …Eh?”

‘I say I was his slave, but at the time I was completely willing, so maybe you could say “fanatic”.’

‘Kuon and I, you see… We lost our parents when we were very young~. The family who fostered us treated us really badly. We were pathetic; they wouldn’t let us eat anything other than what we got at school for up to half a year, or they’d use our clothes as cleaning rags and make us wear them afterwards. They’d make both of us go without clothes, for example, and they did a lot of things to us I can’t tell you here. Anyway, it’s not unheard of.’

Nozomi spoke so nonchalantly of the tragedy that it put Yahiro at at a loss of words.

‘And I don’t know how he found out about us, but it was Izaya-san who helped us.’

‘Yes, he did. He called out to me one day, as I was going home from school.’

‘Izaya-san wrecked our family for us. He made it so that the people who abused us committed suicide, or got arrested, or got abducted and disappeared.’

‘It was Izaya-san who taught we who were left behind how to live. Kuon never met him directly, but I made sure to tell him every single day, just how amazing Izaya-san was, how incredible. I would say, we’re alive all thanks to Izaya-san; I would do anything for Izaya-san! If it was for Izaya-san, even my life is worth giving!”

Nozomi explained almost cheerily, as if there was some comedic element in the situation, and Yahiro and Himeka could only listen, unable to react.
‘Ahaha! You understand now, don’t you! Kuon, who had never met  Izaya-san, was so jealous, and so worried about this useless big sister of his! When I got a boyfriend he even started saying extreme things, like that he would kill Izaya-san, you know~?’

“? Boyfriend as in… Izaya-san?”

Nozomi rejected the idea outright and explained the somewhat complicated circumstances.
‘Mmm, there used to be a color gang around called the Yellow Scarves. About four years ago, I approached the right-hand man of the leader of that gang, got close to him, and eventually became his girlfriend.’

And her next words made both Yahiro and Himeka frown.
‘I did it because Izaya-san told me to.’

“…What?”
‘This girl, Saki-chan, became the girlfriend of the boy leading the gang, and I became the girlfriend of the second-in-command. Well, Izaya-san said to do as I please, so I just dated him for a while and dumped him soon after.’

“You really dated him because this Orihara Izaya told you to?”

‘Of course~! At that time it was a given I would.’

—’Was’?

Just as he thought this, she laughed again.

Nozomi chuckled, but her voice seemed to be shaking.

“Ah…”

Her voice dropped just slightly. Yahiro asked,

‘…’

‘It was maybe one and a half years ago. Izaya-san disappeared.’
“Disappeared?”

‘Yeah. He vanished from Ikebukuro like smoke. There were rumours that he was killed by Heiwajima Shizuo, or stabbed by a Russian mercenary.’

‘I’ve been a shut-in since then. It’s such a joke; when Izaya-san disappeared I just didn’t know what to do. I no longer knew how to talk to people, not even over the phone like this.’

‘I get the feeling I spent the whole time in the corner of the room just saying “Izaya-san Izaya-san Izaya-san”.’

Then, steadying her voice just slightly, she told them:

“Kuon-kun said…?”

Happily, and yet with just a hint of loneliness, Nozomi continued,
‘That’s why, since one and a half years back, my brother has been trying to be like Orihara Izaya. …No. Maybe he’s trying to be something even greater than Izaya-san.’

‘Neither Kuon nor I know whether this is for my sake or his anymore.’

Present. Yahiro’s room.

Looking up at the ceiling, Yahiro sighed softly.

He felt that he had known nothing about the world before

‘This is the world.’

With this thought, with neither hope nor despair, somehow he had simply gone on living.

But today, when he learnt about the path Kuon and his sister had walked until now, he could not help but think: Were they not far more pitiful than himself?

—Have I just been blaming my environment and throwing tantrums all this time, then?

Yahiro, now aware of the dark side to Kuon, who he had only thought of as a frivolous person before, now held true respect for him.
—I don’t think what’s he’s doing is right, but…

—Turns out… he’s an amazing person, huh.

—And it seems like Tatsugami-san’s family situation is complicated, too.

—I was only ever scared; my family was always kind to me…

Yahiro sunk into self-loathing, and looking at the newer scars on his fist, thought:

The excitement, the ecstasy, the enjoyment of the world that he had experienced for the first time, these feelings fighting Heiwajima Shizuo had left him with, were still there and trembling in his fist.

Murmuring this thought under his breath, he then got up, mind set.

When he searched on the serial disappearances in Ikebukuro, the first result was the news blog site IkeNEW!.

And also – the same site run by Kuon’s sister.

A few hours ago. Kuon’s room.

‘Let’s get back on track. Now Kuon and I run the website I mentioned earlier, “IkeNEW!”. Thanks to that we have our own income, and we can pay the rent for this apartment.’

“?”

Yahiro was unable to draw a link between ‘running a website’ and ‘income’ in his mind.

Despite not being able to see him, Nozomi seemed to detect the mood and began to explain about the site.

“Right, there were all kinds of ads…”
‘There’s the type that earn us money when people just click on them, and the type that only pays when people buy the product. Then there’s direct contracts with firms and sponsors.’

“Oh.”

‘Usually it’s something people do for extra cash, so about 10,000 yen in revenue per month is pretty good. But in my case, taking the recent average, it’s, maybe, 2.8 million yen a month?’

“Two point…?!”

‘Our site is special, though. Since I post news about Ikebukuro exclusively. …Ah, of course, that sum includes income from other sites I run, too.’

“Y… You can earn that much money online?!”
‘It’s hit and miss, you know? There are people serious about it that can make multiple times my income, and cases where they go overboard and get blacklisted completely.’

Nozomi said wisely. Yahiro asked further,

Nozomi became a shade more excited.

“Extortionists?”

‘Yep. At first they target companies, inviting them as sponsors, or luring them in by promising they’ll receive information before anyone else. And if the firm rejects them they publish lots of nasty news about them to pressure them, and say, “See, you’re real famous now, right?” In the end they’ll threaten not to stop until the company hands over money or information, so they get paid either way.’

“That’s awful.”
‘You’re free to write anything so long as you refrain from anything that actually counts as libel. For example, there was a time where this magazine launched a digital edition that was more expensive than the print version, right? At that time, there was a site that wrote an article complaining why it was like that when the digital edition had no printing costs involved.,

“?”

If that was the case, indeed it would be strange for the digital version to be more expensive.

‘But the digital edition turned out to be special and had tons of bonus pages the print version didn’t have, so it had almost twice as many pages! In other words, it was completely reasonable that it was more expensive.’

‘Of course, the original siteowner was aware of this, and omitted it when he wrote the article. So that even though it was actually better, the e-magazine was presented as a rip-off. After the article went around people who knew the truth would write angry comments on the site, but the viewership and comments only help to bring in cash~. Since that data alone makes it easier to hook up sponsors.’

Yahiro was shocked that such people existed, but Nozomi simply laughed and continued.

“Oh… But, Nozomi-san, you don’t do any of that, right?”

“Worse?!”

‘Yep.  Because we act as a source and sell our information to other sites, too~. And you know what’s the best way to get the scoop before anyone else?’

There Himeka realised.

‘Exactly~!’

As he heard Nozomi’s energetic voice – Yahiro suddenly felt uneasy.

“…”

Thus far she seemed to be a girl who was usually calm, so why was she disturbed by the answer she herself had uttered?
Although it bothered him, Nozomi was still talking.

‘Well, we make our own news, but it’s not illegal by any means~. Mostly, that is! Like we’ll scatter mysterious slips of paper all over Ikebukuro, or fly a remote-controlled UFO model, and then video it and put it up on Twittia! The weirder it is the faster it spreads.’

“So the article about Kuon this morning was staged, too?”

‘Yeah, it was! About thirty percent of our content are things we stage ourselves. We don’t bother with the celebrities living in Ikebukuro, though. Well, in any case, you can’t take anything we write too seriously! There’s a load of lies in there.’

Yahiro asked, frowning.

“Why would you…”

Nozomi paused, and spoke the name of ‘that man’ once more.

“?”

“Okay…”

So what was she trying to say?

It seemed tilting his head was becoming a habit of Yahiro’s since he had come to Ikebukuro.

‘There are many, many girls out there like me.’

‘Apparently Izaya-san created a lot of girls like me… There are plenty of them in despair now he’s gone. There was one who tried to kill herself and wound up in hospital… But these girls, they’re quick to notice our site, and that anagram.’

Realising Nozomi’s true intention, Yahiro grew ashamed of how dense he had been, thinking ‘So what?’ earlier.

Nozomi, for the sake of other girls who had been ‘fanatics’ like herself, was pretending to be the ‘sect leader’’ Orihara Izaya.
Himeka, contemplating the significance of her actions, then asked about what one could say was the crux of the issue:

“But, that means… Are you… going to keep lying to those girls? From now on?”

Nozomi said, somewhat sad.

For some reason, Yahiro could picture Nozomi shrugging on the other side of the call.
‘Eh, in the end we’re still fraudsters.’

‘But we’re a site that posts scams all the time, after all! You can only blame the people who fall for it!’

Present. Yahiro’s room.

“Ah.”

—I got featured too.

Apparently talk about him being perhaps able to defeat Shizuo was going around.

—I couldn’t even lay a finger on him…!

Even so, Kuon must have been fully aware of who he was.

—No, Nozomi-san knew me back there, so she knew after all?

Yahiro sighed, torn whether not having his name released to the public was something worth being thankful for. Despite being used as a news topic to generate revenue he was not particularly outraged.

—In the first place, I lost, so people will just think I was a brat who didn’t know better.

Rather, seeing the video, he was more worried about the owner of the green hair at the corner of the video.

Nozomi’s words came back to him.

　—’Kuon said… He’s not absolutely sure about the culprit’s objective, but if they’re trying to frame the Headless Rider as a criminal, he probably won’t be let free.’

—’But he’ll be fine. He did it with a plan in mind.’

—’You probably have your own opinion about this, but we won’t listen to someone who hasn’t even met Izaya-san.’
—’We’re fully aware that at the rate we’re going it won’t be strange to end up stabbed by someone, though.’

At that time he had been speechless, but now Yahiro felt a little angry.

And then she had said to Yahiro:

　—’Don’t be too depressed, Yahiro-kun. That boy only thinks of you as a pawn.’

Yahiro thought that was unimportant.

With a faint smile, Yahiro tightened his fist.

And, almost as if it was timed – his phone rang.

When he picked up, it was a familiar voice that came through the receiver.

“Oh… Why are you calling, sempai?”

‘Can you leave your house right now?’

Yahiro answered in surprise. Aoba said, calmly,

“Huh…?”

Before he could ask if it was a joke, Aoba continued,

“?!”

‘What about it? Will you join us to save her?’

****CHAPTER END****

Chapter end