CHAPTER 5 A

The Envoy

Ikebukuro—outside of Sonohara-dou Secondhand Shop

The store on the outskirts of Ikebukuro didn’t quite blend in with its surroundings.

Situated in the middle of an ordinary residential neighborhood, a good walk from the shopping district near the station, was an old building combining a business storefront and the home attached to it.

Considering that it was a secondhand store, the run-down look actually suited its wares. Its exterior display window was cut directly out of the wall, offering a look at oddities such as a teacup with strange reddish-black coloring, paper currency that looked like nothing you’d ever seen before, and so on.

The door to the shop burst open, and a few young people emerged, wearing modern school uniforms.

“I’m glad I found a good radio,” said a shy boy—Yahiro Mizuchi—clutching his new purchase to his chest. “Tatsugami, thanks for recommending this place to me.”

The girl he was speaking to—Himeka Tatsugami—just shook her head. “Don’t mention it. The shop happened to be nearby.”

“Well, I got it for really cheap. That was a great bargain,” Yahiro said, gazing at his not-so-new radio.

The frame was made of wood pieces fitted together, and there was a carved insignia of a rising dragon on the backside. The radio’s dark mahogany finish made it look like it ran off a spring apparatus rather than batteries.

Despite the extremely rare and unique look of the radio, the woman running the shop gave him a stunning discount when she saw the Raira Academy uniforms.

“When I heard a graduate of Raira had just started this business, I thought it would be newer. I never imagined it’d look like it’s been around for a century! And the girl running it was pretty hot, even with the glasses and boring clothes. You think she’s got a boyfriend?” wondered a green-haired boy who had no interest in radios and little in common with the vibe of the shop—Kuon Kotonami. He thought back on the young store proprietor and continued to speculate inappropriately. “So does a girl that young really run the whole business on her own? That’s wild, right? Doesn’t she have a family?”

“Hmm…I’m not sure,” Himeka said. “Some people helped with renovating when the business opened, I know.”

“Are there lots of stores like this?” asked Yahiro, looking back over his shoulder at the receding building.

Himeka thought it over and replied, “Yes, I suppose there are a fair number of individually owned businesses. The general vibe is different depending on which station you’re near, and there are lots of fascinating places to visit, so I’d recommend traveling around.”

“Ohhh. Wow, Tokyo sure is incredible.”

“You know this isn’t just a Tokyo thing, right?” Kuon pointed out.

Yahiro shook his head. “Oh. Sorry. I’ve basically never been out of my hometown.”

“Oh yeah? I’m surprised you decided to come to Tokyo, then. That’s kinda weird,” Kuon murmured distractedly, his attention drawn to Yahiro’s radio. “So wait, you don’t even have a TV in your place, and you’re gonna let a radio be your only source of information?”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. I have a smartphone anyway.”

“You’d rather have a phone than a TV? Kids these days. What social media are you on?”

“Social media?” Yahiro repeated, confused.

Stunned, Kuon could only shake his head. “Y’know, online social networks?” he explained. “Basically, any major app you use to communicate with a bunch of other people at once. You know, like Twittia, or Facemagazine, or Nixi, or FINE.”

None of these rang a bell for Yahiro, however. Finally, he guessed, “Like chat rooms?”

“Oh…my god. I can’t believe I’m hearing the words chat room in this day and age. That’s amazing. Whatever. If you’ve got a phone already, I’ll show you some good, free sites after this…”

Kuon was going to continue, but the tap of a car horn behind him broke his concentration.

“Huh?”

The trio turned around and saw a van coming to a stop. The passenger-side window rolled down, and a boy stuck his head out.

He was wearing another Raira Academy uniform and, at first glance, was the same age as the trio walking on foot. But he was older, in fact.

“…Kuronuma.”

“There you are. Good thing your hair’s so easy to spot.”

“What’s up? You told me you were too busy today to hang out, right?” Kuon said jovially to his friend. Yahiro and Himeka shared a quick glance.

At first glance, Kuronuma seemed like a perfectly nice boy, but the menacing look on the man driving and the black tint on all the rear windows spoke to a more threatening possibility.

Yahiro was confused—uncertain of how he should take this development—and received the full attention of their upperclassman in the passenger seat.

“Hey, Kuon…who are those kids?” he asked. But despite the plural, he was looking entirely at Yahiro, who assumed he was simply noticing the cuts and bruises on his face.

“Oh, they’re from my class,” said Kuon breezily. “That’s Mizuchi, and that’s Tatsugami.”

“Ahhh. Well, I’m Aoba Kuronuma, third year. Nice to meet you.”

“Hi…I’m Yahiro Mizuchi.” He bowed. Himeka joined him and murmured a soft hello.

“Mizuchi, you said? You look hurt—are you all right?” Aoba asked, indicating the bruises on Yahiro’s face.

“Yeah, I just fell down the stairs…”

“The stairs? Where?”

“Ummm…,” Yahiro stammered, coming up short. He wasn’t expecting to get a follow-up question to that explanation.

Kuon quickly butted in to rescue his friend. “Oh, at the station! The station! He came to Tokyo from a little place all the way up in the mountains, and he’s not used to Tokyo crowds. He started feeling sick and just fell right down the stairs. I couldn’t believe it!”

“Er, uh, yeah,” Yahiro agreed, sanctioning Kuon’s extremely smooth lies.

“Oh? Where’d you come from?”

“A hot springs town in Akita… Um, if you go east from Hachirogata, it’s a village called Haburagi.”

“Haburagi,” Aoba repeated, committing it to memory, then beamed and said to Kuon, “So you’re showing your friend around today, then.”

“Yeah, basically.”

“That’s interesting. I didn’t realize you were so helpful to other people.” Then he turned to Yahiro and Himeka. “You should be careful. If you hang out with him, it’ll lower your grades.”

“Wha—? Aw, that’s messed up, man… I might have green hair, but I’m actually a pretty good tutor,” Kuon protested.

Aoba chuckled, ignoring his younger friend, and raised a hand. “Well, see you later. If you want to know about anything, feel free to ask me if you see me at school,” he said, rolling up the passenger window and playing the role of the cool older guy.

The trio watched the van drive around the corner of a side street. It was Kuon who broke the ensuing silence with a deep breath and a laugh.

“Phew! Yikes, that was close. I can’t believe the things he’ll say, true or false. Don’t worry too much about him, all right? I’m serious. For my sake, too.”

“Well, I wasn’t upset. He only made fun of you, not me,” said Yahiro.

“And it’s not like he said anything that was worth worrying about,” noted Himeka.

Kuon shrugged uncomfortably. “Anyway, my point is, keep your distance around him.”

Inside the van

“You think that was getting too close?”

The van rolled away from the younger schoolmates.

The driver chewed noisily, smacking his gum, and continued, “Also, is that really the guy who went one-on-one with Shizuo?”

“Probably. Kuon gets around with lots of people aside from us, so the possibility is quite high,” Aoba replied, looking bored. “I would have preferred to talk to him more, though.”

“That’s really him? The kid who fought Shizuo Heiwajima?” said Aoba’s friend Yoshikiri from the back seat.

“I’m not certain, but I intend to find out.”

“Yeah, but he just didn’t seem like a fighter to me. Too quiet, right?”

Yoshikiri enjoyed fighting, so he had a knack for identifying people who possessed that same air of danger. He did not get that sense from Yahiro Mizuchi, whoever he was.

But Aoba thought over what he’d seen and asked Yoshikiri, “Did you see his hands?”

“Huh? Nah. Can’t see ’em through the window.”

“They were covered in scars.”

To Aoba’s eyes, Yahiro’s hands were covered in aged scars, practically painted in them.

The boy couldn’t have ended up with hands like those from normal circumstances, but Aoba chose not to bring it up on their first meeting.

Another guy in the back seat laughed and teased, “Oh yeah, like what? Did he have a scar from getting stabbed by a pen?”

“Shut up,” snapped Aoba, his brows furrowed. He looked up at the ceiling of the car and murmured, “Kuon’s probably up to something, I’m sure. And I’d like to have a way to contact him on my own, just in case. But I couldn’t ask right then and there. That would’ve been weird.”

Instead, he pulled out his phone and began an Internet search.

“Haburagi…Haburagi… Ahhh, here we go. Haburagi Village. That must be it.”

The list of results had the home page of a hot springs inn on top, followed by tourism companies and personal blogs promising one of the “most overlooked spots in Japan for natural hot springs.”

It took quite a while before he spotted the page for the village office, which told him that there wasn’t much to Haburagi aside from its hot springs.

After that, he tried searching a few other keywords and made his way through user groups on various social networks, plus message boards for locals. A few minutes later, Aoba’s eyes narrowed.

“Bingo.”

He had found the message board of a town adjacent to Haburagi. In a thread for high schoolers to trade information, a post from about a week ago had some interesting information.

“The monster from Haburagi’s going to high school in Tokyo.”

“You mean Mizuchi?”

“Seriously?”

“I’m so glad. If he went to a public school, he’d be in ours.”

“Yeah, the older guys were freaked out about it.”

“This is great. Now I can actually enjoy high school!”

It was a very brief, informal kind of conversation, more like a chat room than a proper message board. But it was evidence enough for Aoba to feel confident about Yahiro’s identity.

Inwardly smirking at the proof of his suspicions, he didn’t let the smugness show on the outside. “Well, now the question is, what do we do? I’m curious about what Kuon thinks he’s getting up to.”

“What? If that kid thinks he can mess around behind our backs, we’ll just kick his ass and that’s that,” snarled Yoshikiri menacingly.

“Not so fast,” warned Aoba. “Don’t strangle the goose that lays the golden eggs.” His tone turned contemplative. “I suppose we could also wait and see how the others react. For one thing, I don’t know what this promising young warrior is after in the first place.”

The conversation inside the car dried up there and returned to the topic of their ordinary lives—at least, ordinary by their standards.

It was Aoba’s blaring ringtone that seemed determined not to let them lapse back into comfortable topics.

“Hmm, I wonder who this is,” said Aoba, glancing at the name on the phone display before he pressed the button to accept the call. He was briefly startled, then smirked to himself.

“Hello…? Yes, it’s been a while. Right…I’m fine. Good, good… Oh please, don’t sound so angry,” he said, quite happily. The other Blue Squares in the car with him shared glances. He sounded polite, meaning that it was someone in a superior position, but more than that, they hadn’t heard Aoba sound so delighted in ages.

A few of them assumed it was a call from Mikado Ryuugamine, but that idea quickly went out the window. Mikado had almost entirely cut himself off from people like them. At best, Aoba got to chat with him about harmless topics at school every now and then.

While they were busy guessing, Aoba smirked and leered. “Yes, if it’s the one I’m thinking of, I can send you a headshot in a second.”

But a second after that, a tiny amount of shock appeared in the midst of his smile.

Then he repeated the name, making sure he’d heard the other person right.

“You want…Himeka Tatsugami?”

Raira Academy—a few days later

Raira Academy was already into a normal school schedule by now. Yahiro found that he not only was taking part in classes but also was not being shunned by everyone.

The bruises on his face had faded quite a bit, and he had removed his bandages. He looked almost back to normal. Himeka and Kuon were shocked at the speed of his recovery, but Yahiro had been dealing with sneak attacks and the like since he was a tiny kid; injuries were a familiar occurrence to him. If anything, he seemed more weirded out by their reaction.

His other classmates were alarmed by the bruises at first, but they warmed up to interacting with him as the marks healed. Still, with the prickly-looking Kuon hanging around all the time, very few of them talked with him more than absolutely necessary.

With the Shizuo Heiwajima fight in the past, Yahiro was grateful for a nice, quiet start to his high school career—but on this day, that tranquility came crumbling down at lunch.

Just a few minutes into the lunch period, Yahiro was wondering where he should eat the boxed lunch he brought from home when a girl’s voice at the classroom door caught his attention.

“Miii-zuuu-chiii! Come out and plaaay!”

The other students still in the room looked up at the doorway, then back and forth between the girl standing there and Yahiro.

“Ah…ummm…Miss Orihara?”

“Bingo! Good job! You remembered me!” exclaimed the senior, sporting glasses and braids. She strolled right into the first-year classroom without any delay and plopped herself down right into Yahiro’s chair. “Anyway, you got some time after school today?”

“Ummm, I’m on after-school duty for the library committee…”

“Oh! Then I’ll go to the library to see you! There’s lots I want to tell you!” Mairu said, despite having never been in a solo conversation with Yahiro before.

“Um, that makes it sound like you’re just showing up to interfere with my job…”

“Hey, don’t sweat it. I’ll apologize to the library chairman for you. By the way, where’s Kuon?”

“Probably up on the roof, I’d guess.”

“Gotcha. Wonder if he’s eating with Aobacchi and his friends.”

Kuon was off doing whatever that was about, and Himeka had gone to the student store to buy lunch. Nobody else in the classroom was likely to bail Yahiro out of this situation—they just glanced at him from a distance across the room.

“I mean, if you want to talk, we can do it now…”

“Nope, not now. This isn’t something to rush,” she scolded and stuck her index finger vertically to her lips in a shushing motion. Then she held out the same finger and mashed it against his lips the same way.

“…?!”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. Let’s just wait until after school and talk about allll kinds of things we can’t discuss here, m’kay?”

It was hard to tell if her grin was mischievous or sultry. In either case, she was soon out the door and out of his hair.

“Mizuchi, do you know her?” asked a few of the girls in class once Mairu was gone.

“I met her briefly a little while ago. What’s she like?” he asked suspiciously.

The girls shared a look before answering, “Um…exactly the way she seems.”

“She’s pretty well known around school.”

“Her twin sister is the vice president of the student council…”

“Just be careful of the Orihara sisters. Their fans are like cultists—both boys and girls—so watch out!”

It was a lot of information for Yahiro to take in at once, but none of it was very specific, and he came away feeling like he didn’t understand her any better at the end of it.

The experience at the dojo and the conversation just now were enough to make clear what a chaotic personality she had. But what did a third-year girl want with him? Yahiro pondered this as he chatted with his classmates and prepared to eat lunch.

It’s probably nothing that serious. Like something about the Headless Rider or maybe an invitation to join her dojo.

He imagined it would be something harmless and not worth worrying about. He could not have been more wrong.

Library—after school

“So hey! How did you fight on even footing with Shizuo?!” she asked, eyes sparkling.

Yahiro couldn’t help but lean backward, his cheek twitching. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“C’mon, don’t play dumb. We know the story already!”

“…Pure…respond…” [Just answer honestly.]

The way his eyes were wandering was anything but convincing—because two older girls were staring right at him from either side.

It wasn’t just Mairu. Her big sister, Kururi Orihara, was with her, and they had cornered Yahiro in the library so they could pelt him with questions.

At the very least, they had a modicum of consideration for him and had avoided the busy hour at the library. Instead, they waited until nearly closing time, when virtually everyone had already left campus, before pouncing on Yahiro.

Meaning that he was attracting intense interest from two girls in the library after school, without anyone else around. Some people might find that to be a very appealing situation, but Yahiro was in anything but that kind of mood at the moment.

“Um, I honestly don’t know what you mean…”

“Look, people got all kinds of pics of you in the act. It was from a distance so your face was hard to make out, but when the boy next to you has green hair—well, that makes it clear, doesn’t it?”

“There are lots of people in Tokyo with green hair, aren’t there?”

“…Here…mistake…?” [Are you sure you have the right idea about Tokyo?]

Yahiro was a poor liar, so the best he could do was try to avoid the eyes of the twin sisters. He was in a panic because he didn’t think that anyone knew he’d been in a fight.

But he had sorely underestimated the information network of Ikebukuro.

Naturally, getting into a huge fight in the middle of the city was a big problem. But dealing with police was nothing unfamiliar to Yahiro.

No, the real problem was that this wasn’t his home. His family wasn’t here, and anything he did would come back on the Togusas, who were offering him a place to live. So in that sense, despite the lack of help from police, Yahiro was actually relieved they didn’t show up the other day.

Losing to Shizuo Heiwajima helped blow off some of the steam, but deep down, he was ashamed of the hardwired nature that led him to get into so many fights, and more importantly, he was afraid the altercation would lead to him getting kicked out of school and sent back home.

To Yahiro, this city was the one place where he could feel actual hope about his new self.

He was grateful to his hometown. It offered security. But the hope that existed there was of peace and stability. If he stayed, he’d only be treated like a monster, and that negativity meant he would have to abandon any hope of change for the better.

But in a new place, there was possibility.

There was the Headless Rider, a true monster.

There was Shizuo Heiwajima, whom he fought with all his strength and still couldn’t beat.

And there were friends who would accept him.

Yahiro was intoxicated with the dizzying pace of changes to his life.

But given his timid personality, it also terrified him.

Now that he finally had a new life, what about the possibility that it could all turn back into nothing?

“I…um…”

“It’s fine—you don’t need to hide it. We’re not going to blame you for fighting or tell anyone about whatever you say.”

“R-really?”

“…That…admit…” [Well, that counts as admission.]

“Oh!” he gasped, shocked at his lack of caution.

When he was back in Akita, his timidity made him extra careful, and he would never have answered that way. The realization stunned him; the culture shock of being in Tokyo had really softened up his mind.

Although in truth, it wasn’t really Tokyo, just the lingering high of his fight with Shizuo Heiwajima.

Yahiro closed his eyes for a moment, then exhaled with resignation and admitted, “Yes…it’s true. I had a fight with Shizuo Heiwajima…”

“I knew it!”

“…Surprise…” [That’s amazing!]

“What?” he stammered, unable to fathom why the girls would be so excited about this. Every time people found out he’d been in a fight, they looked at him with fear and naturally drifted away.

That was how it always went.

But the reaction of these girls was impossible for him to gauge, based on prior experience.

Mairu said, “Well, I mean, it’s incredible! You actually had a direct fight with Shizuo and held your own! It’s like there’s a brand-new hero in Ikebukuro or something, ya know?”

“Hero?”

“Yes, exactly. This place is always starving for the next story to talk about. If you announce your presence, you could be the entire talk of the streets!”

“I don’t really have any intention of doing that,” Yahiro said, his face darkening despite Mairu’s praise.

I don’t like being treated like I’m special, whichever way it happens to be. Besides, people called me a monster. It’s beyond silly that I’d suddenly be a hero next.

“You don’t? Well, that’s a valid choice, too. I respect that,” Mairu said.

“Thank you.”

“But I think it’s too late for that.”

“Huh?” He raised his face.

Mairu explained, “You’ve already had a vivid Ikebukuro debut! You can try to lie low and hide, but the city isn’t going to give you peace.”

Ikebukuro—outside of Tokyu Hands

“Yo, Yahiro. Took you long enough.”

They were at a huge intersection on the far side of Sunshine Sixtieth Floor Street, from the perspective of the train station. Nearby was the entrance to the Tokyu Hands department store, where the foot traffic was constant, day or night. It was a popular meeting spot because of its central location and easy access by subway along the way to the Sunshine City complex.

The trio decided to meet at six thirty and talk about what to do next.

“Sorry, I got caught in the library.”

“Ugh. Was it Kuronuma?”

“No, the Oriharas.”

“Oh, man, that’s just as bad!” Kuon exclaimed and made a rest in peace praying gesture. Then he straightened up and asked, “So what did they want to talk about? I know they’re all hot and bothered about some idol, so I assume they didn’t confess their undying love to you.”

“Yeah, we were just chatting,” said Yahiro breezily, glancing briefly at Himeka.

There was no reason to let her know about what happened with Shizuo, he decided. Kuon seemed to pick up on that and didn’t press the topic any further.

“Well, our school’s got a lot of problem students, past and present.”

“Oh, really?” Yahiro asked.

Himeka explained, “It was apparently rather famous for having lots of delinquents up until about a decade ago. It was called Raijin High School back then, but people say the school changed a lot when it became Raira Academy.”

“Ohhh…”

“Anyway, let’s get walking. I’ll just show Yahiro around the town a bit, so we can go for a stroll, then get something to eat later and hash out our plans. Sound good?” Kuon chuckled, patting their shoulders.

The pair didn’t really have a reason to refuse, so they let him push them along.

At this time, they didn’t yet realize that a shadow was watching them with clear intent.

More than one, in fact.

Ikebukuro—thirty minutes later

“There aren’t as many people around here, are there?”

The trio was on a street a bit farther away from the shopping center. Since they’d just gone through a big tourist spot, Yahiro was a bit surprised at the change.

“Well, yeah,” Kuon said. “Ikebukuro’s hardly the only place in the world where a different parallel street might as well be a different city entirely. And it changes completely based on the time of day, too.”

“Ohhh.”

Up until middle school, Yahiro’s village had been his entire world.

Because he knew every street like the back of his hand, the entire place was just my village in his mind, but now that he was in a new environment, even the smallest differences were novel and exciting.

His mind was occupied with thoughts of how the crowd density could be so different across such a small space—

—when an odd sensation caused him to stop in his tracks.

“What’s the matter?” asked Himeka.

He didn’t look at her. He was staring at the end of the street they were walking down.

“There’s…something.”

“Huh? Like what?” Kuon demanded, squinting.

It was just a normal alley, no different from any other. But…

“…Huh?”

In the darkness between streetlight and streetlight, there was shadowy space where it was truly empty, with no storefronts of any kind.

And within that darkness was an even deeper dark that stood out in relief.

“What is that…?” Yahiro wondered, squinting even harder. He noticed that something was floating within the gloom.

It was a yellow full helmet.

And thanks to online video sites, it was something that Yahiro recognized.

“…!”

His heart lurched.

The mass of darker shadow was coming closer to them, bit by bit. The thing took in the light of the overhead lamps, but did not reflect it. That just made the darkness stand out more clearly against its surroundings.

It was a shape anyone could recognize: a motorcycle.

Sitting atop a motorcycle without a headlight or license plate, dressed in a pitch-black riding suit, was something else.

The only extra detail of the shadow-shrouded thing was the helmet. In the darkness, it would have looked like a severed head floating in empty space.

There was no need to wonder about who this was.

Kuon recognized it, and gasped, “No way…”

Next to Yahiro, Himeka squeezed sweaty hands and said aloud what they all knew.

“The Headless…Rider…”

Her eyes were wide, and he could tell that her breathing had quickened. She watched with bated breath, and Yahiro worked through his clattering nerves to ask, “Um…are you all right?”

The note of quavering in his voice told him that he was quite agitated, too.

But though Yahiro and Himeka wore similar expressions, there was one fundamental difference between them.

Behind Yahiro’s shock was elation and hope.

And behind Himeka’s eyes was crystallized hatred and fear.

The reason he came to Tokyo was right here in front of him.

The thing she suspected of abducting her family was right here in front of her.

Neither Yahiro nor Himeka expected it would be this easy to find what they’d been searching for.

The Headless Rider. The living urban legend.

They couldn’t even be sure it was actually alive.

Some said it was the vengeful spirit of a motorcycle rider who died in an accident.

Some said it was a reaper of the souls of the dead.

Some said it was a kind of fairy called a dullahan.

Some said it was just a piece of performance art.

Some said it was a spirit that had possessed a cursed motorcycle.

Some said it was some students playing a prank.

Some said it was a fake stunt from a television studio.

Some said it was an annoying piece of live art put on by an artist troupe.

Some said there was no such thing as the Headless Rider to begin with.

It was both a fantasy and an undeniable fact.

While they might have had some extraordinary qualities, the three teenagers were just that: teenagers. And now these ordinary kids were faced with this…being.

“No way…are you joking?” gasped Kuon, sweat breaking out on his brow.

Those words brought Yahiro’s mind back to reality. “Is that…real?” he asked.

“What, do you need a fact-check or something?! Well, I suppose there were a number of fakes in the past…”

Yahiro glanced over at Himeka, who had regained her composure like normal but was also trembling, nearly imperceptibly.

For some reason, this helped him speak with a clarity that was so calm it surprised him.

“What now?”

“Huh?”

“Should we run away?”

“Uh…”

Some cool, collected words from her friend were just the thing to jolt Himeka into reason, too. “I’m fine. Thank you,” she said, swallowing and slowing her breathing. She clenched her fists and silently stared at the approaching Headless Rider.

Kuon looked back and forth between Himeka and the rider and squawked, “Huh? Hey, wait a sec… Is it coming right for us? What should we do? If we’re running, I’m running. But if we’re talking, what do we say?”

He seemed slightly more comfortable than the other two, probably because he was from Tokyo and had been familiar with the Headless Rider’s existence for years at this point.

But to Yahiro, it was just a fantastical urban legend, and to Himeka, it was the thing that had possibly stolen her sisters away from her.

Under those circumstances, there was one natural conclusion: It had come for the lone remaining sister.

Yahiro naturally found himself stepping forward in front of Himeka to protect her. At least that way, he would be ready, no matter what the Headless Rider did next.

Still, what do I do?

The sweat beaded up on Yahiro’s forehead.

If it really attacks…can I fend it off?

He’d dealt with plenty of human opponents. For as frightening as the thug with the katana was, he’d managed to get past him safely.

But in all his life, he’d never faced off against a giant scythe fashioned out of writhing shadows. What if it started swinging around like in the videos online? How should he avoid it?

The mental image of what would happen if he failed sent a horrible shiver down Yahiro’s back.

That instantly sharpened the concentration of the cowardly boy, revving his brain into maximum capacity and anticipating all possible situations to prepare for them.

But no sooner had it started than it stopped, just as quickly.

The action that the Headless Rider took next, barely six feet away from the teenagers, was completely outside of anything he was imagining.

“Um, excuse me.”

Out of the riding suit so unreflective that it seemed to be made of pure darkness, the Headless Rider pulled out a smartphone, typed a rather anticlimactic sentence in Japanese, then turned the phone around to show them.

“Do you have a little time? I promise, I’m not trying to recruit you for some cult. I won’t take long.”

“…”

“…”

“…Huh?”

Kuon and Himeka were frozen in place. Yahiro’s mind went momentarily blank.

It took several seconds before he realized that he was the one who had said something. Then, with a start, he reassessed what was happening around him.

The Headless Rider, that anomaly, had pulled out an undeniable tool of modern civilization: a smartphone.

Its smooth touch panel shone bright in the darkness, declaring its tiny presence. It seemed even brighter than usual because it was surrounded by unreflective pure blackness.

“Ummm…”

Yahiro still hadn’t fully recovered from his prior assumption of an attack, and the thought occurred to him that this could just be a ruse to lure them into letting their guards down.

Cautiously, he asked, “Wh-what is it?”

“Um, sorry, actually, I wanted to ask the girl there,” the rider typed, rather matter-of-factly. The next message was “Am I correct in assuming that you’re Himeka Tatsugami?”

“!”

She was shocked and briefly confused—but within a few seconds, she understood the implication of the question and glared with renewed wariness at the rider.

“Are…are my sisters all right?” she asked aggressively, assuming that this figure was either here to kidnap her next or to state the demands in exchange for freeing her sisters. “What…do you want?”

Her words suggested her default calmness, but Yahiro noticed there was just a slight tremble in her voice.

Still, the rider hastily waved a hand and showed them the screen from a distance.

“I had a feeling you’d say that. Please don’t get the wrong idea about me.”

Apparently, the Headless Rider had anticipated their suspicion and was maintaining a distance of six feet. The figure increased the font size to facilitate easier communication at that range.

“I’m very thankful that you didn’t run away.”

“…?”

“I’ll just state this first, for the record, that I am innocent of any abduction allegations,” the Headless Rider typed, cutting right to the point.

The situation was about as suspicious as it could possibly be. The group just stared at one another without a word.

A bicycle just so happened to pass by at that moment, but at the sight of the inhuman creature, the longtime resident of Ikebukuro merely muttered, “Whoa! It’s been a while,” before continuing on his way.

All the tension had gone out of the scene. Himeka murmured, “No way…”

“Yes way. I have no idea what’s occurred with the kidnappings.”

“That can’t be true. My sisters…,” she said, her voice hard but expression still the same. The Headless Rider’s disarming, friendly attitude must have left her feeling more confusion than anger or fear.

“That’s why I’ve come to see you, Himeka Tatsugami.”

“Huh…?”

“Will you tell me more…about your sisters?”

And then, once again, the Headless Rider typed something they were not expecting to read.

“I want to help you rescue them.”

A moment later, Kuon finally found his voice. “Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa! This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Kuon?” Yahiro turned to him.

“Hey, c-c’mon, let’s calm down! Everybody just chill out! Okay?”

“You’re the one who’s freaking out, Kuon.”

Kuon ignored him and tried to put the situation into context. “What’s the deal here? We were looking for the Headless Rider, right?! But it was actually watching for us and came to us first?!” Kuon was rambling on a mile a minute—probably due to anxiety. “And then it’s like, ‘Oh man, so it’s true that if you go searching for the Headless Rider, you get kidnapped by the rider! We’re done for! It’s all over!’ but then it pulls out its smartphone to talk to us?! And that’s the newest model, too! Is this really the real Headless Rider?!”

“It’s wearing clothes that don’t reflect light, riding on a motorcycle with no engine noise. There’s no room for doubt. No impostor is going to be able to get that kind of supernatural gear, and even if it was fake, the motorcycle seems legit. They’d have to be connected to the real thing and therefore worth talking to anyway.”

“Wow, Yahiro, you’re so rational it’s kind of infuriating!” Kuon said, exasperated.

“…”

Yahiro didn’t respond.

There it is again. It’s that feeling I got…that Kuon is putting on an act of some kind.

He’d noticed the way his friend could act unnaturally at times, but he hadn’t expected to feel it here and now, of all situations.

However, without understanding the point of it, Yahiro had no choice but to let it go for now.

“I’m glad you’ve decided to take me seriously,” said the Headless Rider, who hadn’t noticed anything strange from Kuon. It tilted its helmet into a quick bow, then showed the smartphone to Yahiro. “Thank you. Are you local? You appear unfazed by my presence.”

“Actually, I’m not,” Yahiro said, unable to bring himself to say that he had come all the way from Akita to see her.

What should I do? This isn’t what I expected would happen.

In fact, the mental image he possessed of the Headless Rider had come completely crumbling to the ground from this experience. But then another memory flitted into his head.

Oh, hang on…I feel like this actually matches up with the way Akane and Mairu described the Headless Rider back at the dojo. Plus…

He also recalled what Shizuo Heiwajima said, feeling a twinge from the bruises that he thought had healed by now.

“She ain’t the kind of person who abducts people and brings sorrow to the world.”

That’s right, he did say that. And if she’s the way he described her, that would do a lot to explain this situation right now.

Yahiro felt he was close to finding the answers to all his questions, but Himeka was only getting more confused. She wasn’t visibly fazed, thanks to her innately level personality, but that expressionless iron mask she wore still had tints of consternation in it right now.

“What are you saying? That you didn’t kidnap my sisters…?”

“Well, it’s the truth. I didn’t do it. I don’t have any proof of that, so you’ll have to believe me.”

“Then let’s talk with the police about it.”

“I can’t deal with the police. I don’t have a license. If I get arrested for these false charges, I’m in big trouble,” the Headless Rider typed, looking momentarily deflated. “Anyway, I want to rescue the people who’ve been abducted so that I can restore my honor. If there’s someone posing as me out there, I need to catch them and bring them to justice.”

There was no way to see the Headless Rider’s expression behind the helmet. In fact, there shouldn’t be one at all.

But somehow, Yahiro felt like he could sense the passion behind the Headless Rider’s text.

And above all else, the three teenagers shared one sentiment about the urban legend in the flesh: She’s…friendly. Surprisingly friendly!

“Well, anyway, what is it you want from Tatsugami?” asked Yahiro, who had the most composure of the three. The Headless Rider’s helmet tilted forward, and she started to type something.

However…

In the distance, there was a sound like a motorcycle engine revving, and then they could see something racing toward them at high speed.

“Huh?”

In fact, it was a line of three bikes front to back, weaving left and right like they were one long dragon as they rode down the street.

“A biker gang?”

The trio sidled over to the side of the alley, hoping to avoid any trouble as the bikers passed.

But instead, that seemed to be what the bikers were hoping for. The three motorcycles slowed down as they approached and stopped in a semicircle, blocking the teenagers against the wall.

The riders got off their wheels. The man in the lead looked to be about twenty years old, while the other two were young women.

At first glance, though, Yahiro thought all three of them were girls. When they pulled their helmets back to expose their faces, the man’s features were so fine and beautiful that it was enough to fool Yahiro. His shining black hair was tied at the back of his head.

After a brief, cautious examination, the bone structure and slight bulge of the Adam’s apple helped Yahiro identify the leader as a man, but the distinction was slight enough that it wasn’t just him—plenty of people would make the same mistake.

“…Ugh!” Kuon grunted as he focused on a completely different detail about the trio.

There were distinctive stickers on all their vehicles. Stickers like white snake bones—but which on closer examination had arms and legs. The design of a dragon skeleton.

“It’s Dragon Zombie…”

“That’s correct,” the man in the lead replied with a little chuckle.

The man had a dragon-themed tattoo around his neck, which was a much more menacing complement to his delicate facial features. He did not look like an upstanding member of society.

The man glanced at the Headless Rider briefly before turning to Yahiro.

“?”

When he became aware of the man’s gaze, Yahiro’s hackles rose again.

Then the man turned to the women behind him and said lazily, “This one?”

“Yes. That’s him, Libei.”

“That’s the boy,” said each of the women in turn.

The man they called Libei grinned and looked at Yahiro again. “Good evening, then.”

“Er…um, good evening,” Yahiro said, bowing politely on instinct. He could hear Himeka murmur, “That’s a man?” She must not have realized that until she heard his voice.

“It’s nice to meet you. And to think that we encountered each other for the first time right in the presence of the Headless Rider. What a strange connection we’ve made.”

He threw a glance at the rider again, sounding very casual. But he was about to send ice water through Yahiro’s veins.

“I hear you’re very strong.”

“Huh?”

“Strong enough to beat Shizuo Heiwajima in a fight.”