Chapter Text
Ikebukuro is pitch black.
Darkness lies over the city like a blanket, dimming even the brightest of city lights. He can feel her anguish in the air itself as he makes his way step by step down the road, Mamiya Manami's arm round his waist for support. She continues to ask him about Izaya as they walk: about his weaknesses, about his failings, about what could break a man like that for good.
Shinra can't help but marvel at the way she demonstrates faint surprise at the things he tells her. It's easy, so easy for him to forget sometimes that not everybody knows Izaya the way he does. Izaya puts up a front of being untouchable, all-knowing so much that it's no wonder people get fooled by it. Not everybody knows the expressions he's capable of making beneath that mask: his most honest laugh, his quick temper when provoked, the bone-chilling form of his true anger.
Izaya somehow manages to get under the skin of most people but it's only Shinra who has been allowed the privilege of doing the same to him.
"Here is far enough," he says, quiet against the black of the night. They stand at the edge of the expressway that borders the west side of the city. "I have to meet someone close by."
Manami nods. "You know a lot about him, don't you, Kishitani-sensei?"
Shinra allows himself a small smile at those words. "I've known him for a long time."
"I can tell." She turns to leave before hesitating. "I…"
"Yes?" Shinra smiles patiently.
She sighs. "I debated whether to tell you this or not, but I'm guessing you probably don't know, and I want to get my revenge against him properly which I can't do if—"
"If… what?" A chill that has nothing to do with the temperature creeps down his back.
"I saw them, earlier," she says quickly. "Orihara and Heiwajima Shizuo fighting."
"They do that a lot," Shinra points out.
"I know that," Manami says, her tone turning defensive. "I've watched him for months. I know how they are. I wouldn't mention it if it didn't seem different this time."
"What do you mean by different?" Shinra asks sharply. The words he had said callously to Izaya in high school play back through his head like a warning.
Manami hesitates again. "I heard people say they were going to kill each other this time."
Shinra closes his eyes and lets out the breath he hadn't known he was holding. "So he finally decided…"
"Decided?"
He opens his eyes and meets her gaze evenly. "That one of them has to die."
Manami swallows. "That's what it looked like."
"Where are they," he says, his voice flat. Her eyes widen in response and he realises the anger running through him must be showing on his face. "Where?"
"The east side," she answers quickly before taking a step backwards. She points down the road opposite them. "That way. Not too far from here. But I don't know if they're still there or if they've moved somewhere else."
"Thank you," he says, finding it difficult to inject any sort of emotion into his voice.
Eyes still slightly fearful, she nods and crosses the road hurriedly, glancing back only once to see if he was standing there. Once she disappears down a side street, Shinra turns away and limps along the bridge to meet Kujiragi Kasane.
His meeting with her goes as quickly and as smoothly as he had hoped, complete with a confession that had taken him a little off guard but ultimately made him smile. He knows he and Kujiragi are similar in many ways. That she would seek out somebody so like herself amuses him a little. Shinra himself did the same thing, once.
He glances over the bridge. The lights of Ikebukuro's skyscrapers are duller than they usually are. Celty is up there, somewhere. He knows she'll wait for him. Her sentimentality won't let her leave unless she's able to say goodbye to him.
Making her wait on him wasn't what he planned at all. Just a little more. I just need a little more time.
He makes his way as quickly as he can down the street Manami had pointed to, his crutch clicking off the paved ground with every step. As he moves further into the main streets he can see a crowd gathering. Kuronuma Aoba stands at a narrow four-way crossing, gesturing wildly and speaking in a raised voice to the other members of the Blue Squares. His voice is still childish sounding, even as he shouts. Sometimes, Shinra forgets just how young these kids playing at gangs really are.
He looks to the left and sees the biker gang, fronted by their leader that Shinra had to patch up once.
Izaya is nowhere to be found.
Shinra slips between the crowd, searching. He considers asking someone if they've heard anything but he really doesn't have the time to get pulled into a however-many way gang war tonight.
And that's when he hears it.
Knowing Shizuo since childhood has given him the unique skill of being able to identify the specific type of crash a vending machine makes when it hits the ground. He turns, heart sinking with the fear of already being too late, and is almost knocked to the ground when Izaya comes sprinting by him from an alley.
He's so focused that he doesn't even notice Shinra standing there until he calls Izaya's name hesitantly. It's only then that his pace slows to a halt and he turns around in disbelief. His mouth is crusted red with the smear of drying blood and there's something distinctly wrong with the way he's moving, like something has happened to his legs.
"Shinra?" he asks, his eyes widening as Shinra takes a couple of slow steps towards him. "What are you—I thought you would be trying to find Celty."
Shinra gives him a small smile. "I will, soon. But I was told by a reliable source that you were going to do something really stupid."
"So you came to watch?" Izaya has never been particularly good at hiding his bitterness whenever Shinra is involved. For too long, Shinra had let himself be entertained by that. Now, it seems like some horrible habit that he waited too long to break.
He takes another two steps forward until Izaya is close enough to touch, if he were to just reach out.
"I came to stop you," he says, and he tries to sound as honest as he can while speaking through the fear thrumming in his veins. If Izaya detects even the slightest hint of a lie he'll never let himself be stopped.
"Why would you do that?"
"Izaya, if you go through with this—" Shinra swallows, surprised at how difficult it is to say the words. Has he ever felt such urgency, such deep-set terror on behalf of another person? His hand trembles around his crutch. "You're going to die."
The breath that shudders through Izaya is unmistakable, even from where Shinra is standing. He looks away, unable to meet Shinra's eye. It's the subject they've never addressed, the one thing even Shinra could never find the courage to speak aloud.
"I know," says Izaya, still staring at the ground.
"Izaya," Shinra tries again. "Please don't do this."
That surprises him. Taken aback, Izaya raises his head. "What did you say?"
"Just don't." He grips his crutch tightly. Sweat beads at the back of his neck despite the chill in the air. "Just walk away."
For a split second, Izaya looks like he might even cry, like nobody had ever said something like that to him before. Like he'd never even considered it as a possibility. Then the expression is gone, so fleeting that Shinra might even have imagined it. "I can't walk away now. I have to do this."
"You don't have to!" Shinra nearly shouts the words at him, the steadily swelling anger in his chest feeling like it might burst. A world without Orihara Izaya, Ikebukuro without Orihara Izaya in it—
He knows that what he says now matters. He knows that he's the only person who could ever influence Izaya, the only person Izaya would try to protect. The only person capable of stopping Izaya from going through with it.
What a horrible burden to bear.
If he were asked to explain it, he wouldn't be able to. He never bothered much with Izaya's desire to be close to him when they were teenagers. Once they graduated high school they rarely saw each other, crossing paths only when Izaya got roughed up or when Celty's work with him brought them into contact.
But he was always there – a permanent fixture in the city's landscape. The thought of no longer being able to feel fond exasperation whenever he heard complains about Izaya messing relentlessly with the people around him – Shinra never knew he could ache like this.
"I do," Izaya says firmly and takes a step closer to Shinra. For a moment Shinra thinks Izaya might actually be brave enough to touch him, but all he does is lower his gaze again and say, "I'm sorry."
He goes to sidestep Shinra and head back the way he came, undoubtedly to go and find Shizuo again, but Shinra grabs his arm. The crutch he had been holding goes clattering to the ground but he makes no effort to pick it back up.
"I don't want you to be sorry," he says, still holding on to Izaya's arm. "I want you to be alive."
Izaya's eyes widen again and he stands frozen for a second before wrenching his arm out of Shinra's grip and running off. Shinra watches him go, his heart heavy with fear. How long has Izaya planned this? How long ago did he draw up the blueprints for his own death? Acid builds in the pit of his stomach until he feels sick with it.
With some unfamiliar, uncomfortable emotion itching beneath his skin, Shinra gazes at the side street that Izaya disappeared down. In the distance he swears he can hear Shizuo's voice echo between the buildings but at this point he isn't sure if it's his own imagination or not. He knows what Shizuo is like when he's truly, intensely angry. Shizuo doesn't shout, or yell, or rage when that happens. He overflows with it quietly. Calmly.
There's no outcome of the fight that would leave Izaya standing as victor at the end. What Shizuo lacks in meticulousness and planning, he makes up for it in sheer brute strength that Izaya simply does not have. Izaya is strong, and fast, and far more intelligent than he has any right to be but Shinra knows, Izaya himself knows that he can't win this.
He imagines Shizuo after killing Izaya.
Shinra has known him since childhood, knows that Shizuo at his core is gentle and more than capable of kindness, and thinks about what that amount of guilt could do to a person like that.
Shinra has never had to worry about such things for himself.
He takes a deep breath of the cold air, barely even noticing that he's starting to shiver. Celty is up in the sky somewhere and no doubt she has at the very least a faint idea of what's going on down on the ground. She would tell him the same, he's sure: that he shouldn't abandon either of the two friends he has at a time when he might actually be needed.
He sighs and glances again down the street Izaya went. A lone streetlamp flickers between yellow and nothing, illuminating the white lines by the side of the road. The faint sound of sizzling electricity, the heavy scent of smoke. He knows he has to follow.
Shinra slowly lowers himself down until he can pick up his abandoned crutch successfully and then before he can hesitate any further, he starts moving.
It doesn't take long to find them. They hadn't gone far. He keeps to the shadows of the alley, one hand pressed to the tiled wall of the building next to him. There aren't many people around here, not nearly as many as there had been in the area surrounding the Blue Squares' leader and Toramaru. Shinra wonders if this is even what Izaya wants. If his plan is to make Shizuo into a monster in the eyes of the public then surely such a thing would be better done in a crowded area. Or perhaps that had been his original plan until he came barreling through the fray and found Shinra waiting there for him.
Had Shinra inadvertently screwed up Izaya's plan for his perfect death?
Shizuo hurls an air conditioning vent and Izaya barely sidesteps it, stumbling with the force of his own movement. Shinra narrows his eyes. Something has definitely happened to his legs: he can barely stand with them straight and moving quickly or with any kind of precision seems to be impossible for him.
But still, Izaya lunges forward with his blade open, slashing downwards and ripping open Shizuo's shirt in a way reminiscent of their first meeting. But that was then, and Izaya is wielding a much longer, more powerful knife so he strikes with more success. Blood spills out of Shizuo's chest, staining his white shirt crimson.
Izaya retreats a little, backing down a different street and Shizuo follows like a magnet. And then Shinra realises what Izaya is trying to do: to lead Shizuo back out into the open fray with hundreds of witnesses, back to what must have been his original plan. The pounding in his chest grows more pronounced still as he realises that his conversation with Izaya could have cost him precious minutes of movement that he couldn't afford.
He retreats further, still facing Shizuo with his knife held out in front of him before he turns and runs back to the main street. Shizuo reaches out a hand and topples the vending machine next to him, brilliant red in its colour. His hand finds the mouth of it and he starts to drag it forward in the direction that Izaya ran.
Shinra takes a shaking breath in and follows after them, keeping a safe distance so that he remains undetected. The last thing that Izaya needs is to become distracted by catching sight of him.
The main street is still ablaze with neon and crowds of people, but instead of watching Toramaru everyone has turned to stare at the unfolding war between Shizuo and Izaya.
Shizuo throws the vending machine at Izaya. Eyes widening, Izaya falls to his knees and lets it fly over him, his breath coming in hard gasps. He pushes himself back to his feet and wobbles a little, pain written clear across his face. As quickly as he can, he pulls out his knife again and darts forward, but Shizuo is one step ahead of him this time. He throws a punch and Izaya is forced to drop the knife to block it, throwing up his arms in a cross in front of him to protect his head.
The crack that resounds through the night is sickening.
Izaya goes flying backwards, crying out in agony. Shinra drops his crutch as his hands fly to cover his mouth in horror. Even Shizuo looks momentarily stunned.
For a second, Shinra thinks that this is the end, that it must be finished now. Izaya lies still on the ground, the fur of his coat matted with his blood. But then his fingers twitch and he slowly begins to push himself back to his feet.
He opens his eyes and stares directly at Shizuo. Shinra has never seen such hatred, such fear, such open excitement in anyone's gaze before.
Then Izaya laughs, blood dripping down his face, and he says, "Finish it, monster."
Unable to watch his friend die, Shinra leaves as quietly as he can and pretends that the wetness in the corner of his eyes is just a reaction to the horror coursing through him.
/
His heart still heavy, he makes his way through Ikebukuro by following the trail of Celty's shadows webbed across the city sky. She's closer than he thought, but even the thought of finally reaching her and bringing her back can't light any feelings of excitement within him. He still feels hollow from Shizuo and Izaya's fight. The loss rings throughout his entire being, like someone has hacked off one of his limbs in some sick surgical experiment.
Izaya won't survive and Shizuo will never be the same.
He trudges forward slowly, one foot in front of the other until the sound of his crutch tapping against the concrete becomes a steady rhythm. The Tokyo sky is still pitch black, punctuated only by the red aviation lights on the tops of the buildings. Sunrise is still a long way off.
When he reaches the building that he's followed Celty to, all he can bring himself to feel is a dull, muted relief. He climbs to the top more out of a sense of duty than any real excitement. Somewhere within himself he knows that he should be overjoyed to finally see her again after so long but between being haunted by the look in Izaya's eyes and moving around so much while injured he just feels exhausted.
At the top, he's faintly surprised that he isn't the only person there but Celty has always had a way of drawing people to her. Mikado and his friend from the Yellow Scarves are there, both looking worse for wear. Celty's shadows are wound around Mikado's wrist and the Yellow Scarves' leader has crusted tear tracks on his cheeks. Anri stands close by to them along with Harima Mika and her boyfriend and another girl he doesn't recognise.
Shinra's eyes follow the trail of shadows from Mikado's hand to Shooter. It doesn't escape his attention that Shooter has reverted to his original headless horse form and when Celty's movement catches his eye, he notices that she's dressed in her armour.
"Celty," he says loudly over the wind. Ikebukuro sparkles below them and Celty doesn't so much as look at him, the head in her hands facing away. "Celty!" he tries again, raising his voice a little more.
She still won't look at him.
"She's forgotten everything," Anri says softly behind him. "All of us, all the time she spent with us… She doesn't remember any of it."
That makes him smile, finally. He pushes himself forward. "You're telling a lot of lies today, Celty."
Her eyes widen a fraction but otherwise she remains silent. He takes a few steps towards her.
"I bet you're annoyed I showed up, right?" he continues. "If I hadn't you'd be able to leave easily and everyone would be convinced that you lost your memories and disappeared. Ah, sorry for making this difficult!" He beams.
"Who are you?" Celty asks coolly. "Shooter, let's go." The horse doesn't move. "I said, let's go!"
"Maybe he's not moving because he knows that if you're going to leave you should at least be honest about it," he tries again, softer this time. "Since you got all your memories back you think that you've caused nothing but trouble to everyone but nobody else feels that way."
Somewhere behind them, Anri agrees softly.
"I don't know what you're talking about, human boy," she replies and cracks Shooter's reins. "Go, Shooter!"
Shooter still doesn't move an inch.
"I'm the last person you wanted to see tonight, right?" he asks rhetorically. "You knew if I came here you wouldn't be able to lie any more. I know you too well, Celty. I can't let you leave because you think you've changed, or that you don't fit in here any more. So please—"
"Go!" Celty forces Shooter forward with desperation plain in her voice and he finally gives. They take off into the sky and Celty doesn't look back.
Shinra sighs in frustration.
"That thing that just left, that was Celty, wasn't it?"
Shinra turns around to see Shizuo standing behind them and smiles, some of the pressure in his chest easing. "Shizuo-kun, I'm about to turn into a villain but I need your help to do it."
"Eh?" Shizuo asks. His face is scratched and bruised, his suit in tatters where it was slashed multiple times by Izaya's knife but otherwise he seems completely unhurt. Shinra's stomach sinks further.
"Remember the promise you made with me in high school?" he asks. "That when the day came for me to do something really bad, you'd hurl me into the sky?"
Understanding dawns in Shizuo's eyes and he grins.
"I'd like you to finally fulfill that promise," Shinra says. "But—first—I saw the fight."
Something like shame falls across Shizuo's face like a shadow.
"I just need to know," he says. "What happened to Izaya?"
Shizuo shakes his head. "I don't know."
"You don't—?"
"Simon threw some kind of flash bomb that blinded everyone," he explains. "By the time I could see again, Izaya was gone."
"Gone," murmurs Shinra. "I see. Thank you, Shizuo-kun. Could you—?"
Shizuo nods. "Better not regret this, you damned villain!"
Seconds later, Shinra flies through the night sky. Celty's head turns in shock as he yells her name. She falters in surprise, drawing nearly to a halt as she watches him hurtle towards her.
His eyes glow red, Saika sings beneath his skin; "Celty, I'm sorry!" he says, and slashes downwards.
When he opens his eyes again it's to Celty shaking him and ramming her phone in his face. He squints, catching a trail of frantic question marks. "You shouldn't shake people who are injured," he says weakly, and then smiles.
He did it.
Celty's shoulders drop in relief. [You could have died!!!!] She waves her phone at him like he can read it at that speed. [Shinra, you could seriously have died!]
He shakes his head. "You would never have let me fall."
She lowers them both to the ground and turns away, stepping closer to where Shooter stands. The tightness of her movements reveals her unhappiness. Dread creeps like icy water into Shinra's chest. This wasn't how he was expecting it to go.
"Celty," he tries.
She types something quickly. When she turns back and holds out her phone, she does so with the rest of her body facing away from him. [You didn't have the right to do that.]
"Celty!" He bites his lip.
[I know why you did it,] she says. [I really do understand. But that doesn't mean I'm okay with it.]
"I'm sorry," he says, dropping his head to look down at his knees. But he isn't sorry enough to say he wouldn't have done it all over again if he had the chance.
[You know how long I spent looking for my head,] Celty says. She doesn't need a physical voice to sound accusing. [You were with me the whole way!]
He laughs but there's no joy in it. "I always knew where it was."
She takes a step back and he regrets his words immediately. If it had been any other night, if he hadn't just witnessed the death of his childhood friend, maybe he would have been more careful. But all that's ringing through him is the loss of both Shizuo and Izaya, and if Celty leaves too he has no idea what he'll do.
[You knew? All this time?]
If her head was still part of her, Shinra wonders if she would be crying. He looks down in shame, but not in guilt. "Of course I did. Izaya had it."
The phone clatters to the ground, its yellow screen beaming up and illuminating the darkness of her armour. When she picks it back up, her hands are shaking.
[Who are you?]
The words hurt so much more than when she said them through her own mouth on the rooftop.
[What else did you lie about?] she types. [We agreed to be honest with each other! You told me to be honest with you back on the roof!]
"If you got it back then you might have left," he says. "How could I be honest if there was the possibility you'd leave me?"
[There's always a risk with honesty!] Anger echoes through every line of her body. [That's why it's hard!]
"I'm sorry, Celty," he says hoarsely. "Please don't go."
She seems to soften a little at his words, her defensive stance loosening, but regardless, she says, [How can you ask me to stay after this?]
"Because I love you," he replies. "And you love me. Isn't that enough?"
[Sometimes, it isn't,] she says. Her fingers are tight around her phone as she holds it up. [I love you. But I can't forgive this so easily.]
"You don't have to," he says hurriedly. "Just… stay and we can work something out. Please."
[I'm sorry,] she holds up. [I can't. Not after this. I need time.]
"How much time?" he says hopelessly, realising that this is a fight he's losing fast.
[I don't know,] she replies. [I'm sorry, Shinra. I love you. But I have to leave after this. After everything that's happened here. I've made a lot of mistakes too and I think some distance from Ikebukuro is best.]
He closes his eyes at the telltale prick of tears. "If it's what you want then fine," he says roughly, afraid that if he says any more he'll do something rash.
She crouches down next to him and runs a hand through his messy hair. [Be safe,] she says.
"I will," he says, and then she's gone, leaving him staring blankly at the ground.
/
The car moves silently down the empty expressway, the gentle vibrations of the engine sending jolts of agony through every one of his injuries.
In the driver's seat, Kine drums his fingers against the wheel and sighs. His eyes are fixed firmly on the road ahead. "The Headless Rider is leaving Japan tonight."
Izaya glances down at the knife still embedded in his side, held there by thin tendrils of black shadows that spill out of the open window next to him. In pockets of fluorescent light, the buildings that line the expressway flash by him. The brightness pierces through him and sends more pain spiking through his head. He closes his eyes.
"Take me to Kishitani Shinra."