Read Online Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) by Ryohgo Narita - Free Book Online Page B

from a cat.
    In the cramped factory lot, there were only so many places to hide.
    She slid into the shadow of a pile of scrap material, shrank to lower her profile.
    The escapee judged that hiding would be a more effective option than running like mad.
    She couldn’t feel anything.
    The only sensation was the mental shock of what she had just seen.
    She spoke, only for the purpose of calming her frayed nerves.
    “Why…?”
    She knew that no one could answer her.
    “Why…why was Kida…in a place like that…?”
    The girl in glasses asked the void.
    The sky visible between the piles of junk was covered in dark clouds, silently dispersing her query to nothingness.
    By way of answer, a cold droplet hit her cheek.
    As she watched, rain began to fall around her.
    A curtain of water and sound, covering everything beneath it.
    Fshh, fshh, fshh, fshh.
    Anri Sonohara’s heart calmed itself into that wave of radio static.
    Fshh, fshh, fshh, fshh.



Chapter 4: Is There a Problem?
    Apartment building, near Kawagoe Highway, Ikebukuro
    It had been one very tumultuous day since Shingen Kishitani came to stay in Shinra’s apartment.
    There was no chance to speak with him on the previous night, as Shingen had immediately collapsed onto the sofa and began snoring tremendously.
    When Shinra came back from the convenience store, he found Celty silently absorbed in her online chat and his father sprawled out on the sofa, gas mask still in place.
    He sighed in a rare indication of lament at the bizarre, otherworldly sight.
    When his exceedingly self-absorbed father finally woke twenty hours later, he nimbly zipped into the bathroom with an agility that showed no sign of headache after oversleeping for so long. One hour after that…
    “Ahh, I feel much better after that shower. Gotta love new apartment buildings. The water temperature adjustments are very smooth and pleasant,” Shingen mumbled to himself as he emerged from the bathroom, white gas mask still in place.
    He took a look around the apartment, then finally noticed the figures of Celty and Shinra at the dining table, wirelessly playing handheld games.
    “By the way, thanks for coming to pick me up yesterday, Celty. Just put the cost for ferrying me on Shinra’s
tab
over there. Hmm? Oh, Shinra, you’re here. Hi. Also, I’m here.”
    Shingen was wearing his white coat over his underwear like a bathrobe. Celty flopped over the table, unable to even summon the energy to poke fun at his outfit. Shinra took his father to task in her place.
    “I see you haven’t changed a bit, Dad. If you want to feel fully refreshed, you should probably take the mask off.”
    “Isn’t it normal to make sure that nothing filthy enters the body? This is the Tokyo Desert, an accumulation of malice like a sandstorm. A gritty mass of teeming humanity. Get it, because sand is grit—”
    “If you have to explain the wordplay, it’s not a very good joke.”
    “Plus, I don’t think complaining about sand is very smart, Dad. Desert sands that get carried elsewhere can actually bring nutrients to the soil.”
    Shingen shook his head, unperturbed by Celty and Shinra’s cold responses. “You don’t understand… The world is full of unclean ruffians of the sort we saw yesterday. Didn’t they just say there was an armed robbery recently? Assuming all people are like them, this lowers the risk of them being able to identify my face. Long live the gas mask! I figured you would appreciate my consideration in painting the mask white so that you could identify me at a distance.”
    “Who else even wears a gas mask? Does this look like a chemical weapons war zone to you? In fact…isn’t it because of that stupid outfit that you got singled out for harassment?”
    “You may be right… But who were they, anyway? They wore yellow bandannas… Mimics of some American street gangs, perhaps?” Shingen muttered, rubbing his side as he recalled the boys who had harassed him the previous night.
    Shinra