CONNECTING CHAPTER

The Outcast

The next day. Raira Academy.

Seeing Yahiro swollen-faced when he reached school, Himeka inched closer.

Himeka asked this expressionlessly. Yahiro, through a large bandage, rubbed at the wound on his face as he replied.

“Are you all right?”

“My bones were fine and all, so yeah.”

“Ah, no, that’s definitely not the case.”

It was not completely unrelated to the search for the Headless Rider, but that had certainly not been the cause of the incident.

“Yeah, thanks.” “?”

“…”

A strange atmosphere came on between them, and for a while both were speechless.

“Mo~rning! Doing well?”

“Hey, did you hear? Looks like the Headless Rider came back to the city last night, you know?”

“…!”

Kuon justified himself pre-emptively—but Himeka did not chide him, and only wore a complicated expression. Feeling obliged to change the pace,

“B, by the way, I wanted to get a TV or radio to put in my room. Is there anywhere nearby that sells cheap?”

“No… I say it’s boarding, but really I’m just borrowing one room at a house…”

“If you’re looking for that, there’s Sonohara Hall, it’s an antiques store near my place…”

“It was always closed before, but last month it renovated and reopened. It seems the store was put up for sale but no one bought it over, so in the end it was started up again. I think in the storefront there was an old radio that might’ve been made of wood. But the other things on display were all unusual; old katanas and strange vases… The lady running the store graduated from this school, if I’m not wrong.”

And Kuon replied:

“Don’t be so pushy.”

“All right.”

“I do want to talk to both of you more about the Headless Rider, too, so…”

Kuon clapped his hands together, but Yahiro said, anxiously: “Ah, but I have some work with the library committee after school today…”

“It’s all right. I’ll wait until you’re done.”

And with Himeka’s prompt answer, eventually, the three of them settled on traveling together after school.

After school. Raira Academy, 8th floor. The library.

“But is it really okay…? Though it should be fine if it’s not a bother…”

“He~y, Mizuchi-kun.”

The boy turned, thinking there could be a new task for him, and the senior pointed to the librarian’s room and said:

“The library committee president is calling you. He wants to talk or something.”

30 minutes later. The school entrance.

“I’m so sorry, I’m late.”

“Yo, was there trouble? Or just a lot to do?”

“Ah, the work was fun, but I got called out by the library committee president.”

Yahiro nodded slightly to Himeka.

“Oh? So… Is he choosing the next president?”

Yahiro changed his shoes as he said this, and Himeka said:

“Yeah. He really does have the feel of a committee president.”

“Ah, that committee president—he’s almost an adult already, you know.”

“?”

Yahiro and Himeka appeared puzzled, and Kuon answered, innocuously.

“Apparently he got badly injured and was hospitalised for many months or something—he’s a retainee.”

Raira Academy, 8th floor. The library.

“Ryugamine-senpai, where should I put these? They’re reports from library committee members.”

“Oh, I’ll move that to the librarian’s room. Good work.”

The junior said this, and seeing that they had stood and left, the library committee president—Ryugamine Mikado—looked down to the school’s main gate from the window.

As he saw their silhouettes, a memory awoke in Mikado.

A memory of himself from three years ago, walking the streets exactly like that, with another boy and girl.

In the past, the young man had made his way through the whole of Ikebukuro.

He had been pulled into all sorts of events, occasionally starting some of his own, had even been submersed in the extraordinary of the city.

“Mizuchi Yahiro-kun… huh.”

“To be able to fight head-on with Heiwajima-san, amazing.”

He had returned to the ordinary, only: information like this reached his ears faster than most.

Because he understood that he, himself, was already an outcast from the extraordinary of the city.

As he smiled at their backs as they pa.s.sed the school gates—Mikado murmured, softly.

“Welcome to Ikebukuro. I… wish you the best.”

And so the city of Ikebukuro began to writhe once more.

Currents new and old swirled together, to call forth a new wind between them.

And still, as to what would be born after the wind had pa.s.sed, even the city itself knew nothing.

***VOLUME END***

CAST

Mizuchi Yahiro

Tatsugami Himeka

Kuronuma Aoba

Orihara Kururi

Orihara Mairu

Awakusu Akane

Sharaku Mikage

Heiwajima s.h.i.+zuo

Celty Sturluson

Kis.h.i.+tani s.h.i.+nra

Ryugamine Mikado