Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) (32 page)
Read Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) Online
Authors: Ryohgo Narita
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction
The white woman beamed as she trampled all over Celty’s human(?) rights. The dullahan withdrew all of her shadows and slumped to her knees.
I don’t want…a terrifyingly dangerous life, either…
She swore to herself that she would eliminate Shingen the next time she saw him.
The lazy and relaxing life she’d enjoyed up until yesterday was already becoming a wistful relic of the past.
Chat room
—KANRA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—
|Good evening|
[Hiya.]
[I don’t have the energy to do it.]
[…Let’s just say that today, I’m in the mood to murder anyone who puts on an affect like that, so stop it.]
(Um, so this is my first visit,)
(Is it okay to just rip on him with all I’ve got?)
[You’d just be wasting your time.]
(That’s not a problem, 90 percent of our lives consist of wasted time,)
(I’m ready to fill this entire chat with my wasted time, basically.)
(So with that,)
(I’d like to start ripping on him now, if that’s okay.)
[Another weirdo!]
(No comment on that one.)
—TAROU HAS ENTERED THE CHAT—
{Evening.}
[Evenin’.]
|Good evening|
{Oh, we have a new member.}
(Hiya.)
(Nice to meet you, I’m Bacura.)
{It’s a pleasure.}
(I got invited here by Kanra.)
|Is that so?|
[Oh? I met him over the Net. Did you meet him that way, too, Bacura?]
(No, I know him in real life.)
(When are you going to die, Kanra?)
|I think telling someone to die is very cruel|
(I’m sorry,)
(but Kanra just gets on my nerves.)
[So you’re not even a tsundere, you just plain hate him.]
Good idea,)
(Let’s see,)
(If I gave you a score, you would be…)
(√3 points.)
[Square root?]
(I’m saying you’re not appropriate for elementary schoolkids.)
(Oh, sorry, looks like this is all the time I have today.)
[No prob.]
|So long|
{Oh, Bacura!}
{Come again later! You’re welcome anytime!}
(I will. So long!)
[Night!]
—BACURA HAS LEFT THE CHAT—
Someone once said the Internet is a form of invisible communication that pales in comparison to meeting someone face-to-face.
That might be true…or it might not.
But at the moment, Mikado strongly rejected that idea.
Through the Net, he had just seen a familiar old friend.
Mikado closed his eyes and thought of many words.
Things he might say with Anri when they met Masaomi again.
About the Dollars, about Anri, about the Yellow Scarves.
There were tons of things he hadn’t talked about. There were tons of things he wanted to talk about.
Maybe when they actually met again, his head would suddenly go blank, and he wouldn’t know what to say anymore. It seemed more likely to happen if Anri were there.
Mikado thought these things over, jotting notes about what to say on his computer.
His place to return, his lost normal life…
These things did exist in the Internet.
At the very least, he hoped that whoever was on the other side of the screen felt the same way.
Hello, I’m Ryohgo Narita.
It’s been a year and a half since I put out a
Durarara!!
book, and for the first time, I wasn’t writing it in real time. So you’ll notice I didn’t include any of Yumasaki and Karisawa’s time-sensitive observations. I’m hoping to play it by ear from now on. Yeah.
For this volume, I want to make a clean break with the three high schoolers, so the next story should transition us to more of an Ikebukuro and Celty-centric story, as she is supposed to be the protagonist.
More after these messages!
Commercial break. (Spoiler warning for this book!)
“Why did Masaomi Kida vanish? No one can answer that question, and as if to fill that gap in everyone’s hearts, a new incident arrives in Ikebukuro.
Suspicious soldiers from Russia.
The girls that flock to Izaya.
The remnants of the Yellow Scarves.
The serial assaults return to Ikebukuro.
And a TV crew chasing Celty around.
The Ikebukuro idol, Yuuhei Hanejima, who teams up with a rookie female reporter.
When vivid images of Celty are shown to the world, what will happen in Ikebukuro…?
Durarara!!
, Vol. 4 on sale one day!”
Why would I do something like this? Well, because I got a number of e-mails and letters saying things like, “Is
Durarara!!
already over?” or “Don’t let it end at three volumes,” or “Is
Durarara!!
over? Good, now you can write more of
[another series I write],” or “Stop writing your other series and just focus on
Durarara!!
,” and so on.
…Where did these rumors about the third volume of
Durarara!!
being the last one come from? And then it occurred to me that it was
probably just people’s imaginations running wild, since it looks like a resolution to the story of Mikado, Anri, and Masaomi.
So I thought.
“Hmm… Are people forgetting that the true protagonist of
Durarara!!
is Celty? Even my editor thinks he can turn this into a heartwarming youth rom-com centered around Mikado and Anri. I’ve got to do something about this!”
So look forward to the continuation of the
Durarara!!
series!
As far as my plans ahead, I’ll have some more
Baccano!
books on the way, followed by the afore-advertised
Durarara!!
, Vol. 4 and
Vamp!
, Vol. 4. Once enough of the short stories I’m writing for
Dengeki hp
pile up, I might have short-story collections for
Hariyama-san
and
Etsusa Bridge
. Although the
Etsusa Bridge
series has already ended, it doesn’t feel like it made a dent in my writing schedule.
It takes some guts to tell a writer, “Finish your other series so you can just work on,” so I will be frank: If that happened, I would still only be writing one book a year. Just because I stop working on a different series doesn’t mean I’ll suddenly have more ideas for the first series… So I hope you will indulge my ongoing multi-series schedule…
This afterword will continue after these messages.
Commercial break 2.
“Tsun-tsun-dere-tsun, dere-tsun-tsun.
The first volume of
Yozakura Quartet
, the new manga by Suzuhito Yasuda, the wonderful artist who does the
Durarara!!
illustrations, will be going on sale in September!
It’s set in the town of Sakurashin. Four different fixers with the
sakura
kanji in their names put their lives on the line through the little tiles of pure soul we call mah-jongg. It’s a
tsundere
mah-jongg manga.
Just kidding.
It’s a brilliant work of entertainment in which kindhearted goblins team up with a strict town elder to protect their home, with battles, comedy, and heartwarming goodness galore! I’ll stop my advertising here so that I don’t get yelled at for peddling another publisher’s
product, but I urge all Yasuda fans and
Durarara!!
fans to pick it up. Oh crap, I forgot to mention the protagoni…”
Well, we’re running out of time (space) for this afterword. The phrase “will continue after these messages” is one of the least trustworthy of all time, but I’ve got enough for my usual thanks.
To my editor, who has to put up with my constant nonsense at all times, Mr. Papio. To Editor in Chief Suzuki and everyone at the editorial office. To the proofreaders, who I give a hard time by being so late with submissions. To all the designers involved with the production of the book. To all the people at Media Works involved in marketing, publishing, and selling.
To my family who do so much for me in so many ways, my friends, and the people of “S City.”
To Suzuhito Yasuda for bringing the Ikebukuro of my story to life with his illustrations.
And to all the readers.
Thank you all so much!
June 2006—“Planning to buy a Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360”
Ryohgo Narita
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