translation by popsiclete @ tumblr/blogspot! i just compiled the rooftop of a mixed-use building scenes.
Otowa street. Roof of the mixed-use building.
“Mikado… It’s really you, Mikado…?”
Rather than gladness at their reunion, the emotion predominant in Masaomi’s voice was confusion as he failed to digest the
situation.
Mikado smiled, awkwardly, at Masaomi, who was in a shocked daze.
“Is that a question?”
And then, as though having thought of something, he continued.
“This would be the point you’d say, ‘So, who might I be?’, Kida-kun.”
At what he said, Masaomi suddenly remembered, and said:
“Multiple choice. ...One - Ryuugamine Mikado. Two - Ryuugamine Mikado. Three - Ryuugamine Mikado... Like that?”
Remembering the day Mikado had come to Ikebukuro, Masaomi involuntarily let out a bitter smile.
“Back then you ignored the joke I put so much effort in, didn’t you.”
“Masaomi, I don’t think it was funny at all even now, you know?”
“√3 points, huh?”
Slowly, the bitter smile on Masaomi’s face turned to a normal smile, and his eyes began to fill with tears.
“Oi… Mikado, you’re really Mikado…”
“If I’m not me right now, who could I be exactly?”
“I mean… I can’t believe it. I couldn’t have known you were just behind me, could I…!”
Masaomi, having eventually registered the situation, felt rising joy at their reunion, as he shook his head.
“Ah… I see, did Rokujou no danna speak to you already?!”
In other words, that would mean the location he had instructed Mikado to receive the hostage was, in fact, where they were right
now. That was what Masaomi inferred -
But Mikado’s following words disproved those pleasant thoughts.
“Rokujou-san should be fighting Aoba-kun and his friends over in front of Tokyu Hands, I think.”
“...Mikado?”
“They brought bats just in case, but he isn’t someone easily beaten, is he.”
Mikado spoke such dangerous words even with his normal smile, and Masaomi, in the midst of his joy, felt a flash of uneasiness.
“Oi… What are you saying…”
And then Masaomi remembered.
Back to the time the boy before him had set fire to the man who had assaulted Anri.
At the time Mikado, just after burning a person like that, had smiled.
And, with the same expression as back then, Mikado spoke.
“Rokujou-san isn’t the type to hold a hostage. So he might be pretending to be the bad guy to let Masaomi and I meet, was what
I thought.”
“...”
“With the information network of the Dollars we found you and Rokujou-san quickly. I had Aoba-kun’s friends tail you. And the
ones we sent to the Hands building said it didn’t look like Toramaru was waiting to ambush us, so.”
“Haha… The Dollars are really amazing, huh. It’s the middle of the night, you know?”
“It just means there are plenty of members still loitering the streets at night.”
With Mikado saying such things, Masaomi remained unable to take even a step towards him.
If it were as always, at this point he might have perhaps been rejoicing at his reunion with his friend, and running up to him.
Perhaps he would have been acting as it was in movies about youth, beating up Mikado with all of his strength, asking to be hit in
return.
Perhaps he would have simply, simply pat Mikado’s shoulders, happy at his being safe.
But Masaomi could not move.
His experience as the leader of the Yellow Scarves.
Masaomi, with his experience - his instinct wavered against running towards Mikado.
The one standing before his eyes was, unmistakably, Ryuugamine Mikado.
But despite that, Masaomi sensed something completely different from the Mikado he knew, and his joy was slowly overcome by
doubt.
--No, this is wrong.
--If I run away now, it’ll be just the same as before, won’t it.
Masaomi halted his steps, and decided, in his heart, that he would not run.
“If you knew, then you wouldn’t even need to turn up as you agreed to, would you?”
Masaomi asked this, shrugging, as he decided to continue the conversation for now.
But Mikado shook his head slightly.
“I thought it would be just right.”
“?”
“There was something I wanted to show you, Kida-kun.”
“Wanted to show me…?”
It was worrying how Mikado alternated between ‘Masaomi’ and ‘Kida-kun’ as he addressed him, but Masaomi was more
concerned over what he had said.
“You see, Masaomi, you didn’t see the first gathering of the Dollars directly, right?”
“...Yeah. Though I heard rumours. Come to think of it, going all, ‘Did you hear, Mikado,’ and telling you all excitedly about it, I
must’ve been such a clown.”
Masaomi said this self-deprecatingly, and Mikado said:
“Yeah… Sorry, Kida-kun.”
“?”
“I think it’s a little late to say this, but I’m the founder of the Dollars, so far as it goes.”
“Oi, that really is late.”
It was something he had long known, but even so, hearing the truth from Mikado it firsthand weighed down his heart.
“Actually, I promised to talk about it only when Sonohara-san was here, too, but…”
“Then why don’t you call Anri too? You just got a call from her, didn’t you?”
As he said this, Masaomi looked at the screen of his own phone.
It had already stopped ringing, but displayed on the screen was ‘Missed Call: Mikajima Saki’.
--Saki?
At the exact same time Anri had called Mikado, Saki had called himself.
As Masaomi questioned the meaning behind this, Mikado spoke.
“Though I wanted to call Sonohara-san to show both of you what I’m about to now… I thought it would be dangerous after all.”
“Oi, what are you planning to show? If it’s porn I’d gladly see it.”
Masaomi shrugged, and Mikado continued:
“The gathering of the Dollars.”
---
Roof of a mixed-use building.
“Oi… what’s going on?”
From the deafening noise of motorcycles from the roads around them, Masaomi stuck his head from the roof to look down.
The expressway still blocked the view to the ground, but from the sound of the motorcycles it could be gathered that something
unusual was happening.
“Shit… I can’t see… Just how many bousouzoku are there gathering… This…”
And then, from behind him, he heard Mikado’s calm voice.
“Not just bousouzoku.”
“...Mikado?”
“I’m not sure if they could be called gangsters, but those types, they’ve gathered here, from even as far as Chiba or Saitama.”
MIkado said this evenly, but it felt as if his voice was tinged with scorn and contempt, and hatred.
“Are you saying… you gathered them?”
Masaomi whirled around to Mikado.
“No matter how… But isn’t it strange?! Because… Mikado, you hate those kinds of people, you…”
“Yeah; I went around crushing them with Aoba and the rest, you know? But we could barely do a thing.”
Smiling self-mockingly, Mikado spoke.
“I’ve always kicked those types out of the Dollars… But I realised it wasn’t enough.”
“What?”
Despite Masaomi’s confusion, Mikado continued.
“That’s why I investigated them.”
“?”
“It’s strange, isn’t it. They beat people up so easily, but those guys, they get so nervous when you bring up information on their
families. And when we made ‘requests’ of just those few who seemed like the leaders, the people around them followed along.
Yeah, in the end, those people… It’s because they’re following someone that they can beat people up and cause trouble.”
“No, what… are you saying?”
Masaomi failed to understand the meaning of what Mikado said.
No; to a certain extent he could imagine it, but he did not want to accept it.
In other words, Mikado had grasped the weaknesses of the people he despised, and called them here as his pawns.
There was no need to know the weakness of every member. If just one person acted, similar delinquents would follow and go
wild.
If the motive was to have them rampage, that was likely more than enough.
There were two reasons Masaomi could not accept it.
The first was that he did not want to think of Mikado as a person who would do something so low.
The other was that there was no reason he would go so far as to do that.
“I don’t understand… Even if the whole of Toramaru came, you wouldn’t need so many…”
“Ah, you’re wrong; it’s nothing to do with Rokujou-san or Toramaru. I thought it was bad of me to have involved Rokujou-san, but
I’m the leader of the Blue Square in the end, so…”
“Oi, Mikado, what are you saying?!”
Mikado was not in his right mind right now.
Masaomi concluded he could only beat Mikado up to return him to his senses, and focused on Mikado - and noticed.
Mikado’s dangling right hand was gripping onto something.
Mikado - gripped the handgun Izumii Ran had passed to him.
He did not have his finger on the trigger yet.
The muzzle of the gun now faced the ground.
He was not wielding it with both hands, and so it was a situation where Mikado, an amateur, could not possibly take aim.
Because he was an amateur, it was impossible to know where the bullet would fly.
“Mikado…?”
Even Masaomi understood clearly that it was a gun.
And at the same time, he thought.
Mikado was not the kind of person that would whip out a model gun at this juncture as a false threat.
As he considered various factors, the hunch that it was a real gun slowly became a certainty.
“You… Where did you get something like that?”
“Somewhere.”
But perhaps his anger at his close friend exceeded even his fear of the gun, for Masaomi did not turn his back on Mikado.
“Mikado, what is it you want to do? Making such a stupid mess, bringing out something like that… What are you planning with
the Dollars?!”
“...”
“I pity myself! I thought of you as a friend, but I don’t even know what you’re doing now…”
Masaomi yelled angrily at himself, and Mikado shook his head slightly.
With the gun still hanging loosely from his hand, Mikado smiled troubledly, and spoke.
“It’s all right; it’s not your fault, Masaomi.”
“If it can’t be reset, the Dollars are better off not existing.”
“Eh…?”
And then he said, clearly, the answer that he had found; the end he wished for.
“Today, the Dollars will disappear.”
---
Roof of a mixed-use building.
“What do you mean… the Dollars will disappear?”
Mikado replied to Masaomi’s question.
“It’s as I said, literally. The Dollars will vanish.”
“You’re disbanding? So the noise of those motorbikes are from the disbanding meeting?”
“That’s not how it is, but… Maybe that’s how it’ll turn out. I think it’ll be the last meeting, too, so… I just wanted to show you and
Sonohara-san where people gather under the name of the Dollars… what the Dollars is, Masaomi.”
From where he was in the middle of the roof, Mikado looked towards Masaomi, who was at the railing, as he continued.
“What I made.”
Mikado spoke somewhat morosely, and Masaomi asked in return:
“The Dollars… You said a lot in the past that ordinary life was tedious, but… Did you want this?”
“Yeah… At first I was thrilled. I thought I’d finally received what I always wanted.”
Mikado smiled like an innocent child, and shook his head with that expression.
“But things have changed now. That’s why I thought - I should make a place I could welcome you and Sonohara-san back,
Masaomi. That I wanted to bring you into the Dollars I made, with my chin up.”
“Yeah... Then what’s with saying it’ll disappear?!”
“Izaya-san said to me, after the first meeting.”
“...?!”
Izaya.
The instant his name was mentioned, Masaomi stiffened.
Facing Masaomi, whose memories had awoken and rendered him speechless, Mikado began to reminiscence, evenly.
“After the first meeting of the Dollars, Izaya-san, he said… ‘You might want to escape from the ordinary, but you’ll get used to the
extraordinary soon enough.’”
“...”
“And then he said, ‘If you really want to escape the ordinary, the only way is to keep evolving.’ At that time I thought I understood
what Izaya-san said, but I don’t think I did until it actually happened.”
Smiling self-deprecatingly, Mikado gazed at the gun in his hand.
“The Dollars will become ordinary in the blink of an eye… It’s a dead end, after all. It was just as Izaya-san said.”
“Stop!”
Masaomi yelled unthinkingly.
“Those are all his lies! He’s manipulating you! With the same mouth he tells you those things, that shitty bastard’s having fun
telling someone else something 180 degrees different, Mikado!”
“That might be.”
Mikado made no denial of Masaomi’s words, but even so, he continued.
“But I think even if Izaya-san hadn’t said those things, I would have realised it.”
“Making you think that way is his trick! No matter what kind of group the Dollars is, you are yourself, you hear?! Whether you’re
just a high schooler, or the boss of some useless punks, don’t think Anri or I would hate you! Don’t look down on us!”
Masaomi began to run towards Mikado then.
As he had thought, Mikado was not thinking clearly.
It was not clear if he was drunk on himself, or caught by Izaya’s hints like Masaomi himself had been in the past, but Masaomi
had decided he had to be woken up.
Masaomi gripped one shoulder and swung his arm, thinking that even if he could not open MIkado’s eyes, he would at least
punch him for now; and he took a step forward -
But as he realised Mikado was pointing the gun at him, he stopped in his tracks.
“...Oi, are you seriously - pointing that at me?”
Without question, the gun was pointed towards him.
But Mikado was holding it with only one hand, and with the weight of the gun, his aim was unsteady.
Furthermore, he had not yet placed his finger on the trigger, and so his intention was unclear.
On the other hand, it was a dangerous situation, where if the gun was fired, they would not know where the bullet would go.
Masaomi stopped, but he did not turn tail in fear.
At his childhood friend, Mikado, still pointing the gun, asked.
"I thought you might ignore it and just beat me up anyway, but… Even you’d be afraid of a gun after all, huh, Masaomi."
He was not making light of the situation; his face was purely curious as he asked this.
Masaomi ground his back teeth, and then stood right before Mikado, looking straight at him as he answered.
"Yeah, I’m scared."
But his eyes held no trace of fear.
Only - a quiet anger had begun to fill them.
"Bringing out something like that all of a sudden - there’s no way I wouldn’t be."
"I see… That’s true."
"But…"
"Eh?"
The anger that had accumulated in Masaomi erupted, and he yelled angrily, as if wailing.
"What I’m scared of, most of all, is what kind of situation it’d have to be, if even someone too kind, someone like you’d
have something like that!”
"Masaomi…"
"Don’t mess with me! What’s the hell’s going on that a nice guy like you’s got to have something like that! Something’s wrong,
isn’t it! It’s not okay!"
Masaomi clenched his fists till his nails dug into his palms, and lowered his voice to a moan.
"…was it - my fault?"
"…"
"Yeah… Rokujou no danna said it just earlier, too.”
This time it was Masaomi who smiled, self-mockingly - the smile cleared from his face, as he looked into Mikado’s eyes and
spoke.
"If I pushed you into this, Mikado, it’s fine. I won’t say anything if you shoot."
"You can’t give up on yourself, Masaomi. I turned out this way by my own choice. It’s not your fault, Masaomi."
"Then why are you pointing that at me?"
It was a perfectly natural question. Mikado answered, troubled:
"I’m not sure, either."
"…huh?"
"About who I should be pointing this at, from now on."
Masaomi was struck for a moment by this answer - but slowly, as he swallowed the meaning of the words he yelled:
"If you’re being so half-hearted about it there’s no need to have it at all, is there! Go throw it in some river while you haven’t
shot it yet! If anything I’ll get rid of it somewhere! You don’t have to take any more risks! In the worst case say you picked it up
somewhere and just settle it that way, isn’t that all right?"
Then, Mikado, still pointing the gun, said, happily:
"In the end, that makes you you, Masaomi. You’re much kinder than me, much more of a nice guy."
Without lowering the gun, Mikado shook his head slightly.
"I shot it already."
"…ah?"
For an instant he could not understand Mikado’s words, and Masaomi creased his brow slightly.
In response, Mikado only spoke the truth, evenly.
"Twice, before coming here."
---
Roof of a mixed-use building.
“You… What are you thinking! If you did that, the Dollars would really… No, before that - you’re putting your life in danger!”
Having heard from Mikado where he had shot the gun, Masaomi yelled at Mikado, as he prayed his friend was only making a
bad joke.
But Mikado replied, promptly.
“Probably, I guess.”
“Probably, you say…!”
“But this way, the Dollars itself will disappear.”
“What…?”
As Masaomi frowned, Mikado began to tell him of his own hopes.
“When word gets out, no one will think of joining the Dollars, and those who were using the name of the Dollars up till now can
only try to cover up, I think.”
That was certainly to be expected.
No one would want to be perceived as a member of an organisation that had garnered hostility from both the police and violence
organisations, and was practically unprofitable.
There might be ones who remained staunchly in the spirit of rebelliousness, or showoffs who utterly lacked the imagination to
consider the consequences, but whatever came on those people would be deserved.
It was believable that those who joined for fun or for their own righteous purposes, or those who had believed the Dollars to be a
healthy organisation like a university group, would escape for their own self-interest.
Like rats escaping a sinking ship, they would jump into the sea, sink into the anonymity of an information society; one could
imagine most would not dare to even breathe.
And then Mikado spoke a term that was, on some level, inappropriate.
“The Dollars… will become an urban legend.”
“An urban… legend?”
“Yeah, just a useless urban legend.”
As he saw Mikado, eyes shining like a child’s, Masaomi recalled.
Mikado’s eyes right now were the same as when the Headless Rider had passed by him when he had first come to Ikebukuro.
It was a face fearful; yet one that hid an overwhelming joy.
“But urban legends evolve. New rumours build on the old. They never stop spreading in the city.”
Mikado linked back to what he had claimed Izaya had said, and expanded on it with his own theory.
“It’ll lose its physical form, and live on only in name, a made-up legend.”
And then, doubtlessly, with pure happiness, Mikado proclaimed.
“I realised that was my ideal of the Dollars.”
The scene before his eyes had suddenly twisted; Masaomi felt such an illusion.
“You… for something stupid like that… you shot at the yakuza’s office and the police?”
“Yeah. The Dollars is a rather foolish thing, I think. But the Dollars were formed for a silly reason; it can’t be helped that it’ll
disappear for a silly reason as well.”
Masaomi refuted those jaded words:
“But there’ll still be guys using the name to do evil, you know.”
“It’s all right. Those people won’t be members of the Dollars anymore - they’ll just be people using the name of the Dollars. It’d
be nice if they could at least be fertiliser to the urban legend, I suppose.”
Mikado smiled as he said this, and Masaomi felt a chill run down his spine.
Was the boy before his eyes truly Ryuugamine Mikado?
With the muzzle of the gun still pointed towards Masaomi, Mikado asked, casually:
“So… What will you do, Masaomi? Will you stop me?”
“Or… Did you come to put an end to everything between the Blue Square and the Yellow Scarves?”
---
Roof of a mixed-use building.
“Yeah.”
--“What will you do, Masaomi?”
Digesting Mikado’s question, Masaomi went quiet for a while, before he replied, clenching his fists.
“I couldn’t do anything for you. No - even now, just talking about doing anything at all for you is absurd, from an outsider’s
perspective.”
With the muzzle of the gun still towards him, Masaomi took a step forward.
The hand Mikado held the gun with shook.
Even so, without stopping, Masaomi stepped across the floor of the roof.
“I’m not very smart, and I’m a coward. It’s pathetic, but all I can do, at most, is fight, a little… That’s about it.”
In Masaomi’s heart rose the conviction for two things.
The first, as with when he had faced Horada, was to stake his life.
Not in vain, but to open the eyes of the boy before him.
And the second, also to open the eyes of this boy -
Was to make a friend his definite enemy.
“That’s why, at the very least, I’ll fight you.”
Masaomi’s smile as he said this was the same one from their childhood.
“If you want to run riot, I won’t stop you. But I’ll do the same, the way I want.”
“Masaomi…”
“I will drag you back - to the ordinary life you hate so much.”
There was no longer hesitation in Masaomi’s eyes.
“I’ll beat you up, make you cry, make you remember.”
As if he would reject the boy before him truly becoming something unhuman, if it came down to it: Masaomi declared.
“That you are not an urban legend like the Headless Rider. That you’re an ordinary, pint-sized guy… honest, and kinder than
anyone else, Ryuugamine Mikado!”
Mikado’s face was wiped of expression for a moment, as if he were shocked at what he heard Masaomi cry -
And next, with tears in his eyes, he murmured.
“You’re strong after all, Masaomi.”
“...”
“I always was envious. That’s why I wanted to really win against you.”
The words the boy spoke, from the bottom of his heart, were filled with certainly not jealousy, but envy.
“That’s why, now, no matter how… Even if I’m called a coward by everyone else…”
Gazing at his childhood friend with respect, Mikado slowly put his finger to the trigger.
“...I’ll reject what you say with all I have, Masaomi.”
And seconds later.
A gunshot echoed dryly across the sky of Ikebukuro.
---
Mixed-use building. Rooftop.
After the deafening gunshot, the scent of smoke remained in the air.
The two at the centre of this did not move, for a moment.
“...”
Smoke still wisped from the muzzle of the gun Mikado held.
Perhaps grazed by the bullet, or due to the shockwave from the gunshot: there was a cut bleeding on Masaomi's cheek.
The gunshot had entered his ear directly, and the echoes still ricocheted in his head.
It seemed Mikado was in the same state; and so for a while neither of them moved or exchanged conversation.
Though, conversation aside, the reason neither could move was because they were stuck together.
"..."
"..."
Earlier, just before Mikado fired -
Masaomi had kicked off the ground like a clockwork toy, towards Mikado.
He had abandoned his crutch, essentially making a leap with one leg alone.
The knee Izumii had cracked had creaked under the cast.
Analgesia reduced the pain, but even so, the shock had reverberated in Masaomi's brain.
Masaomi had pushed it down into his stomach, and grabbed Mikado's right hand with his left.
Squeezing the trigger under that force, the bullet had passed beside Masaomi's face; which led to their current situation.
The two remained in that position, frozen, for tens of seconds.
His one-legged jump - practically reckless - had succeeded half due to luck, but half of the reason was another factor at work.
Mikado had left a certain opening.
In order to grip the gun he had held single-handedly till then with both hands, he had begun to move his left arm.
Masaomi seized his opportunity in that one moment, and was able to succeed in grabbing Mikado's right arm.
Mikado's arm was so frail it felt as if it would have broken had he grabbed it with his full strength.
--Shit...
--You aren't even built to fight, idiot.
Masaomi gritted his teeth; not at the pain rippling through his body, but at his anger towards himself, for having driven Mikado to
this.
And when their hearing recovered - his right hand still pressed down, Mikado spoke.
"I was surprised. You ran forward so suddenly."
"...You searched up on the internet on how to shoot, right?"
"Eh?"
"I thought that if it was someone as serious as you, Mikado, you'd hold it with both hands to shoot."
In a way, it was a bet he had only been able to make because he knew Mikado well.
"I see... You're amazing after all, Masaomi."
Mikado said this and smiled, and tried to push Masaomi away with his free left hand.
Masaomi moved his right arm, that had been set with bandages and tape, and brushed away Mikado's hand with the strength of
his arm alone; and headbutted Mikado’s face.
"!"
Taking advantage of Mikado’s momentary daze, Masaomi tripped him with a leg, sending them to the ground.
Then he twisted Mikado’s right wrist, forcing him to drop the gun.
With the leg in the cast, Masaomi clumsily kicked away the gun on the ground.
With a clatter, the handgun rolled to a corner of the rooftop.
The next instant, Masaomi straddled Mikado, and without a second’s pause punched Mikado’s face.
His right fist, its fingers broken, set stiffly.
With that broken fist, Masaomi punched Mikado.
The impact exceeded the buffer the painkillers provided, and the sensation of his bones shifting accompanied the vicious pain,
attacking Masaomi.
Even so, he continued to punch Mikado once more, and yet again.
“Idiot… Mikadoo! You idiot!”
His eyes filled with tears, Masaomi grabbed Mikado’s collar with his left hand.
“A place we can go back to, you say? What if you couldn’t come back anymore!”
“...”
“I ran away, but Anri’s still in this city!”
Speaking the name of the girl who was not here, Masaomi yelled.
“I don’t mind if you forget someone as thoughtless as me! But you can’t make Anri sad…!”
At Masaomi’s yelling, Mikado, his face swelling and mouth dripping blood from being hit - moved his split lips, and smiled.
“Even if I stop... the Dollars can’t be stopped anymore.”
It was a smile filled with not mirth - but resignation.
“That’s why the Dollars must disappear.”
And then Mikado moved his free left arm, taking something from his pocket.
“Oi, what - ”
The moment Masaomi turned to look, considering it might be a knife or something like it:
A sharp, strong impact hit his leg -
And slightly later, a heat and pain he had never experienced hit him.
---
Mixed use building. Rooftop.
"Wha... Guaaaaah!"
At first Masaomi had thought a thousand knives were gouging at his thigh.
But as he noticed something off with his ears, Masaomi realised.
At the same time the impact hit his leg, he had heard a gunshot somewhat softer than the one just before.
Looking, his pant thigh had a small hole through it, and red blood was seeping into the cloth around it.
It felt as if, on the inside of the hole, heat itself had taken up sentience and was raging in his thigh.
"Gah... Ah..."
The smell of blood - and above that, the smell of fresh smoke - filled Masaomi's nostrils.
As he felt cold sweat break out over his whole body, Masaomi tried to press down on the bleeding.
At this point Mikado twisted his body, and Masaomi, unable to control his position, fell to the side.
"Mika... do..."
Masaomi moaned in pain, and looked up to Mikado, who had stood.
Through the thin smoke a strange object appeared, gripped in his right hand.
On first sight, it seemed to be - something resembling brass knuckles.
"American terrorists used this in the past, apparently. Uh... I forgot the name..."
A small device of a disturbing shape, resting in the palm of his left hand.
"The HFM... it's called. Hand... What was it, I wonder."
With the bruise swelling around it, Mikado's right eye was most likely incapable of much sight.
"I said just now that I shot it twice, right?"
Even so, Mikado was smiling.
"I wanted to test some shots on this one."
He looked down at Masaomi with a lonely smile, and continued conversationally.
As he held a second gun, an object completely beyond Masaomi's expectations.
"Because even the internet didn't have anything on how to aim it."
---
Mixed use building. Roof.
“Mikado…”
Masaomi groaned in pain, sprawled on the ground.
The Mikado he saw smiled gently, and said.
“It’s all right, Masaomi. I’ll tie you up and call an ambulance; you’ll be fine, I think.”
And then Mikado, his gaze still on Masaomi, began to speak to himself.
“...Ah, I shot him.”
“...?”
“I see, just now, I just, shot him… Kida-kun…”
“Mikado…?”
Masaomi endured the pain in his body, and continued to look towards Mikado - and noticed he was quivering.
“I was wondering how much I hoped for the extraordinary. I didn’t know, myself. How far I would go, what I would do, before I
could stop.”
Mikado walked, slowly, to the corner of the roof where the first gun had landed, and picked it up.
“But, I… Even when Masaomi beat me up, I couldn’t stop. And instead… I shot him.”
“Hey… Mikado?”
Masaomi asked this as he crawled on the floor, but it was unclear if the words had gone through to Mikado, who looked into the
emptiness as he continued.
“Even if it were Kadota-san or Yumasaki-san or Karisawa-san, I would surely shoot. Even Kishitani-san or Izaya-san or Shizuo-
san, or Harima-san or Yagiri-kun, or Aoba-kun, or Takiguchi-kun, or Miyoshi-kun…!”
As he listed the names of his close ones, Mikado’s voice escalated.
It was as if he was reproaching his very own self.
But his voice suddenly softened.
“Ah, yeah, yeah, Masaomi… I’d, surely, for my own selfishness…”
And there Mikado went silent for an instant, before slowly, he uttered a name.
“I would shoot even Sonohara-san, I think.”
In the faint light, Masaomi realised that Mikado was crying.
And then, Mikado -
Slowly turned the gun in his right hand, the first gun, to his own temple.
“?! Oi, Mikado?! What are you doing?!”
Masaomi shouted at Mikado’s sudden action, as even his own agony left him.
“You’re kidding me! It’s the most unfunny one today, idiot!”
As he heard those desperate screams, Mikado spoke.
“Surely… I’m beyond hope, now. I’ll surely want to do things crueler than what I just did… And bring trouble to way, way more
people, I think.”
Tears falling from his eyes, Mikado smiled the same smile as before.
“That’s why I have to disappear as well, with the Dollars.”
Mikado was smiling and crying at the same time; and Masaomi yelled, angrily:
“Oi! I won’t let you die to run away! And even if you died, it wouldn’t be by your own will! You’re completely under his control! It’s
that bastard Izaya’s fault! I’ll definitely take revenge! I’ll kill him, even if I’ve to put my whole life into it!”
“...”
“So, so stop, Mikado… Don’t make me waste my life for you like that…”
As he yelled pleadingly, he punched his bandaged right fist into the ground.
A spike of pain wracked through him, but Masaomi’s eyes never left Mikado.
“...”
“...”
A moment of stillness enveloped the space between them.
Mikado closed his eyes for a moment, and then, with a happy face, he spoke, sorrowfully.
“Thank you, Masaomi. ...I’m sorry.”
“Mika… do…?”
“Even at a time like this… I’m a little excited. About what there’ll be after I die. About how I might be able to go to a world I’ve
never seen before.”
As he pressed the muzzle of the gun against his own temple, Mikado smiled, as if to reassure Masaomi.
“Celty-san… The Headless Rider exists, so there might be a world after death. ...No, for all I know I could become something like
the Headless Rider…”
After mumbling quietly, he spoke to Masaomi again.
“Thinking things like that… I’m not in my right mind after all, I think.”
“Oi… Wait, stop! You’re perfectly normal! We’re the ones who pushed you into this, we’re the ones who aren’t!”
Desperately trying to persuade Mikado; mustering all of his body’s strength to stop him.
He seemed to be just nearly able to stand, but -
Mikado, having gauged this, looked at Masaomi as he spoke.
“Masaomi… I’m sorry.”
And just like that, the boy squeezed the trigger, as far as it would go, without hesitation.
The third gunshot echoed in the surroundings, and -
The world of Ryuugamine Mikado was engulfed, without even the slightest light, into darkness.