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“Yikes. Well…be careful.”

“Thanks,” Mikado replied, still smiling benignly. “It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year already, huh?”

“Hmm? Oh…yeah.”

Seiji understood what he was referring to. A year ago, an incident had arisen having to do with the head, and Seiji had caused a great deal of trouble for Mikado. Technically, it was his sister who had put Mikado in danger—but Seiji decided to apologize for his part in whatever his past actions had brought about.

“Listen…I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything. That was the Dollars as a whole.”

“I see.”

“And you and Mika are part of the Dollars now, so there’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

…?

That was when Seiji recognized what felt off.

Mikado almost never brings up the topic of the Dollars on his own.

The Dollars were a street gang that existed in Ikebukuro, repping the mysterious color of “nothing at all.” Seiji knew that the other boy was a member of the gang. And based on the way Mikado acted and the places he found himself after the incident, Seiji knew that he was more than just a rank-and-file member.

But Seiji had no interest in questioning him and finding out those details. He wanted only to pursue his love. And while he still felt guilty toward the Dollars and Mikado, it didn’t seem like learning those details was going to get him any closer to his desire.

Since then, they’d simply treated each other like classmates. Yes, there had been that strange hot-pot party at the Headless Rider’s apartment they had both been invited to for some reason, but other than that, they weren’t really friends. Just plain old classmates.

But even then, or perhaps because of it, Seiji had his misgivings. It was strange that Mikado had suddenly brought up the topic of the Dollars without being asked.

“Yeah…I can’t forget what happened that night, either,” Mikado said, unprompted. Who was he talking to? By the time Seiji decided that it was probably to Mikado himself, the other boy was already walking off and waving a hand.

“So long, you two. If you ever need anything, just let me know.”

“Huh? Uh…yeah, sure,” Seiji replied weakly, taken off guard.

“Mikado,” Mika said, picking up Seiji’s slack and removing her smile for once.

“Huh?”

“Don’t ever make Anri cry, okay?”

“…”

“?”

Mikado fell silent, while Seiji was just confused. The stern look on Mika’s face melted away, and she giggled and waved. “Well, see you at school, then.”

“Er…right. Later.”

Mikado smiled gently as he left, and then the couple resumed walking to Russia Sushi.

“…Did you think he was acting weird?” Seiji asked casually.

Mika nodded without batting an eye. “Yeah. He didn’t seem like the usual Ryuugamine.”

“And his face was all messed up. Wonder what happened,” Seiji added, turning back to look in Mikado’s direction.

Mika took him by the hand and started pulling him toward the sushi place. “Well, it’s nothing we need to worry ourselves with! Shall we go?”

“Huh…? Oh, yeah, sure.”

If anything weird happens, I guess I can ask him about it at school, Seiji decided and followed Mika away from Sunshine 60 Street.

But there was just a whiff of strangeness about the activeness with which Mika was leading the way, too.

From the shadows, a lone woman watched the couple.

“…Seiji…”

Namie gazed at her little brother’s back with an expression of ecstasy in her eyes. She was so relieved to see him looking hale and hearty that her body was undergoing a mild episode of intoxication.

Oh my God… How can he be so cute? And I’m only looking at his backside!

It wasn’t an act; Namie really did feel dazzled by the sight of her brother’s back. As a matter of fact, there were at least ten other young men of about the same age and with a similar hairstyle as Seiji in the vicinity—but within a single second of arriving, tipped off by the twins’ report, Namie had correctly identified Seiji from the crowd.

Unfortunately, that also meant spotting the girl walking with him.

“…Mika…Harima…,” she murmured, biting the inside of her cheeks. She used enough force to pierce the flesh just a bit, flooding her mouth with the tang of blood.

Namie narrowed her eyes, tasting the iron on her tongue.

This…is the taste of that little cat burglar’s blood…

She was imagining the sensation of leaping out and biting Mika on the neck until her head ripped loose. Biting her own cheek was merely a way to make the illusion more real.

Namie trailed the couple, driven by an insane love for her brother and furious hatred at her romantic rival.

“Hey, pretty lady! You doin’ anything right—?”

In the last several minutes, several men had tried to talk to her, either trying to pick her up or scout her for some modeling job or other.

“…Get lost.”

In each case, Namie’s expression froze, and she turned her lethal gaze on them with frosty precision. A man might react with hostility when treated with derision or annoyance, but Namie simply gave them a mechanical, truthful message of “You’re not wanted here,” without emotion.

In each case, the men instinctually understood. She was a woman who could kill out of habit, out of practicality, without even wanting to—and they were the only candidates in target range.

“…Whoops, coming through!”

Fortunately for these men, they were practiced enough to sense when a woman was trouble and could withdraw instantly to look for safer prey.

The process repeated several times as Namie tracked her brother and the girl, until she saw them go through the entrance of Russia Sushi—at which point she turned on her heel and strode back through the crowds down Sunshine 60 Street.

Meanwhile, her eyes burned with the flames of cold madness and lust as hot and sticky as magma.

Russia Sushi

“Here, you get crab sushi. Eat raw, eat boiled, eat cooked. People good, town good, flavor good. Crab makes world go round.”

“I think you mean ‘cash.’”

“Not good for young person to talk about cash, cash, cash. You get cashed out. But if crab goes round, cash goes round. You trade my crab with your boss’s cash. Round and round, merry-go-round. Russian crab and Japanese cash exchange. Revolving sushi. Good deal all around.”

“…”

Seiji lifted the boiled crab nigiri to his mouth and shook his head.

Russia Sushi was famous for sticking out, even in Ikebukuro. It featured a traditional Japanese interior that clashed with Russian decor and was run by a white chef and a black waiter.

Seiji had been here with Mika several times now and was a loose acquaintance of the staff, but today was different.

“Who’s that, Simon?”

There was an unfamiliar young white woman among them, dressed in a traditional Japanese uniform, like Simon. The combination was somehow mildly erotic, because even to Japanese sensibilities, her looks were undeniably attractive.

Yet there was an unpleasant pout on that pretty face, and she simply stood inactive in the corner of the restaurant. She stared into space with murder in her eyes, ensuring that no customer would have the courage to approach her.

“Oh, young master Yagiri, you like her? Her name Vorona. You take her to go, A-OK. Then you have girlfriend and mistress, one in each hand. Best to eat with those you love, makes everything taste good. Plus ten orders of sushi,” Simon joked, but the woman was not amused.

“…Negative. I am under no obligation to sell my own flesh for the profit of the company. I request a boycott. But if your words are meant in the spirit of contract job, I confirm.”

“Ohh, this is famous Japanese sexual harassment trial. Sexual harassment bad, no sekuhara. If you do sekuhara, then you do hara-kiri. And after cutting stomach, sushi all fall through hole. Our business go up in flames,” Simon lamented as he returned to the kitchen.

Seiji continued to stare at the woman he called Vorona, until Mika tugged on his bicep, her cheeks puffed in comical anger.

“Stop that, Seiji. You’re not supposed to look at other women!”

“Huh? Oh yeah,” he said, but something weighed on his mind.

That’s strange. Usually, she wouldn’t care; she’d just say, “I’m not worried, because I’m hotter than her, anyway!”

I wonder if it’s because she’s foreign. The head has a foreign face, too… Maybe it’s a sore spot for her. Probably not worth worrying about, though.

That was about the depth to which Seiji considered the strange, subtle change in his false girlfriend before he moved on to another thought.

After that, Mika continued the meal in her usual way, teasing and chatting with Seiji the whole while. She clung to him like a brand-new girlfriend, excited and naive, while he maintained an aloofness that was cool but never cold.

It was an odd, artificial mixture of personalities, but at a glance, they appeared to be a fairly close romantic couple.

Later, the woman named Vorona spoke to the chef about something and then slunk into the back with a nasty look on her face, but by that point, Seiji had stopped having any interest in her.

“…You know, I think it’s incredible that Yuuhei Hanejima keeps doing these Carmilla Saizou movies. He’s a big enough star that he doesn’t have to stoop to doing that silly role, but they say he’s already signed on for another sequel.”

“What’s the next one about? Is that where his rival Dracule Sasuke comes back to life?”

“That’s the one. Y’know, for being such dumb movies, they get really great makeup effects from Tenjin Zakuroya. I really liked the way they did up Ruri Hijiribe in the first one.”

“Aren’t Ruri Hijiribe and Yuuhei Hanejima going out now?”

They continued their meal, engaging in simple watercooler talk.

“Even coming from a guy, I think Yuuhei Hanejima’s a pretty cool, good-looking actor. I know not everyone loves the pair, but I think they suit each other.”

“Well, I think you’re way better than Yuuhei Hanejima,” Mika interjected in typical fashion.

“Mika, your phone’s ringing. Mika, your phone’s ringing.”

Suddenly, a ringtone recording of Seiji’s voice went off somewhere in Mika’s bag, and she rustled around and pulled her phone out of it.

“…You sure that ringtone isn’t too creepy?”

“You think so? I don’t mind it at all.”

“When did you record me saying that, anyway?” Seiji grumbled. Mika looked down at the screen.

Unlisted number.

She narrowed her eyes, then pressed the call button anyway and held the speaker up to her ear.

“…Hello?”

And at the moment she answered the call, her holiday did an about-face.

“…Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hang on.”

Mika got up from her seat with a smile on her face. “Sorry, Seiji, it’s a call from a friend. Mind if I go outside to take it?”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said easily. She waved to him, exited the sushi restaurant, and stood to the side of the door to continue her call.

He watched her go, then glanced down at the sushi menu and thought to himself, It’s really rare for Mika to take a call from a friend. Is it Sonohara? You know, that reminds me—I seem to recall Sonohara and Ryuugamine talking about new cell phones recently.

Speaking of which, I don’t really get their relationship, either. I can tell that he likes her. I said something about that to him at the end of our first year, but I don’t know what happened after that, if anything.

Mikado Ryuugamine was very close with a girl named Anri Sonohara, who was Mika’s friend.

Their relationship was famously visible within the school, but it was hard to say if they were really lovers or not. They were close enough that a student who didn’t know them that well might be surprised to hear that they weren’t a couple.

But until recently, there had been another member of their group.

I suppose Ryuugamine would know the reason Kida left school.

Masaomi Kida was Seiji’s schoolmate until he dropped out at the end of the last school year. They were in separate classes, so they’d hardly ever spoken, but Seiji knew that Kida hung around with Mikado Ryuugamine and Anri Sonohara all the time.

Some people said Kida had left due to the shock of the other two hooking up, but given how vague and uncertain their relationship continued to appear, there was a lack of evidence to support the rumor, and it soon died away.

But if Mika’s got even a single friend, that would be Sonohara.

And even that girl had hardly ever called Mika on the phone. She recognized that his relationship with Mika had its own peculiar circumstances and was considerate enough not to bother Mika about the details—but that only made this call all the more suspicious.

After a while, the young woman came back into the restaurant. She wore an awkward smile, winked, and held up her hand sideways in apology.

“Sorry, Seiji… I agreed to help a friend with a problem, and now I’ve got to go meet them,” she explained, bowing her head.

He leaned toward her and asked, “Are you talking about Sonohara?”

Maybe it’s like that other time when they asked her to teach them how to cook fish the way she does, he wondered.

Mika beamed and said, “Yeah, that’s right. She’s got some kind of family thing to talk about. Honestly, I’d prefer to just hang out with you, but…”

“Listen, it’s fine with me. I was thinking that you ought to treasure your friends a little more, in fact.”

“Aww, really? As long as I have you, Seiji, I don’t need any of my friends.”

“Stop being macabre and just get on with it,” he muttered.

Mika bowed again, smiled wistfully, and then announced, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then!”

“Yeah.”

She set down three thousand-yen bills on the sushi counter as she headed for the door.

“Oh, hey, I’ll pay for it. Hey! Wait!” Seiji said, grabbing the bills, but she either didn’t hear or simply ignored him as she left the building.

He was about to chase after her when the waiter returned with his order. “Hi, here your food, miso soup with crab.”

Seiji hesitated and then decided to stay and finish his meal alone.

I can give her the money back tomorrow.

Fifteen minutes later, Tokyo, warehouse

“…Hello.”

They were on a block near the national highway route, distant from the shopping district.

After separating from Seiji, Mika made her way here, to a building labeled YAGIRI PHARMACEUTICALS, STORAGE WAREHOUSE NO. 3. For being a warehouse, the building was surprisingly clean and orderly. In fact, from the outside it looked like nothing else but a research facility. The exterior was a pure white, with large gateposts like the entrance of a hospital.

But that was only in terms of the exterior. On the inside, it was—sure enough—a warehouse, with a central storage room the size of a small gymnasium, surrounded by hallways, a few airtight little rooms, a bathroom, and a small break room with running water.

The warehouse itself was split into sections with screens, each area containing a stock of materials—tools or pharmaceutical products—effectively carving the large room into a bewildering maze.

The warehouse floor appeared little used; spiderwebs gathered in the corners of the space, and tufts of dust and debris littered the floor. Light from the outside entered the building through the glass doors at the entrance, but the interior illumination was not on. Even the location of the switches was a mystery, creating an eerie gloominess to the structure—a far cry from the clean, updated image of an advanced pharmaceuticals company.

Near the entrance, Mika leaned forward and called out loudly and sternly, “Hellooooo?”

Her voice echoed off the hospital-like entrance. Yet there was no reception area of any kind, just a door to the main storage area farther on and walls of stacked cardboard boxes and other supplies in between.

Mika took a step inside and glanced down the hallways branching off in either direction, but there was nothing down them until they ended. It was as though this building had been completely removed from the normal routine of the rest of the city.

She headed carefully down one hallway to the open door leading into the building’s center. But no sooner had she taken a step into the storage area than a loud clicking sound came from the antechamber behind her.

Mika spun around to see a woman standing before the glass doors that led into the building, locking them shut.

An elegant woman with long hair hanging down her back. Mika recognized her at once.

“I’ve been waiting… Or should I say, I’m afraid I’ve been keeping you waiting…Mika Harima.”

Something in the way she spoke put Mika into a poetic state of mind. If ice could burn, it would emit the kind of air this woman spoke—such was the freezing cold burn of Namie’s voice.

“I’m so sorry, my dear. You’ve been enjoying a very, very long dream…of the kind that can never come true for you.”

Raw, overwhelming emotion was apparent to any who might hear that voice.

But Mika Harima was not frightened. If anything, she glared back at the woman with a challenge in her eyes.

“It’s been a while…Sister-in-law.”

grikk

grikk

grrk grik

A strange sound emerged from the front room.

Mika recognized it as the sound of Namie’s teeth grinding.

Namie stood before the glass doors. The light from the outside silhouetted her, shrouding her expression in shadow. Mika couldn’t make it out from where she stood, but the facial expression made no difference. The teeth grinding was all the information she needed to understand that the situation was dangerous.

She was probably smiling. On the surface for sure, but it was quite possible that she was smiling with all her heart, too.

At least, that was how it seemed to Mika.

“One year…”

As a matter of fact, there was indeed a note of bliss in the words that next came from Namie.

“It’s been one year and one month since Seiji left me. In that time, we’ve both had dreams to tide us over. I’ve been having a nightmare, and you’ve had the briefest, most ephemeral dream of fleeting pleasures… Oh, I’m sorry. Ha-ha, would an ignorant little girl like you even know what the word ephemeral means?”

“…Don’t assume I’m uneducated.”

“Why, I have a hard time imagining any truly educated, cultured person forcing their own fantasies onto Seiji and shamelessly picking the lock to his house,” Namie retorted, her words dripping with sarcasm.

Mika merely chuckled and shot back, “I’m amazed to hear a line like that from the woman who was going to dump my dead body and then decided to give me plastic surgery for her own devices the moment she realized I was still alive.”

“…”

“As a matter of fact, I’m quite grateful to you, Sister. Thanks to you giving me this face, Seiji and I are finally able to be together.”

gcrakk

A louder crunch echoed off the walls this time.

They stood feet apart, but Mika could very nearly feel the boiling loathing of the other woman on her skin.

Unperturbed, she tilted her head back to offer a condescending challenge: “After all, as long as I can love Seiji the way I want, I don’t need education or culture.”

The grinding was no longer audible. Namie unwound her arm from around her waist and held it up. “Don’t you dare…call me ‘Sister-in-law’ again…”

In her hand, she held a shining silver object—surgical scissors.

“Don’t you dare…say Seiji’s name…without the respect it deserves!” she screamed and hurled the scissors.

They flew right at Mika’s face like a particularly large dart.

The scissors cut through the air between Mika and Namie with incredible speed…

And then an ugly sound filled the space.