Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) by Ryohgo Narita

changed into her normal clothes before leaving again.
    She already had two of the Yellow Scarves who were her children volunteer to guard the entrance so that she could sneak onto the grounds undiscovered.
    In the end, she saw the last thing she wanted to see.
    She saw Masaomi…but a different Masaomi than the one she knew.
    His actions and attitude were the same, but the air surrounding him couldn’t have been more different.
    And then, Anri realized.
    That alien feeling she’d sensed since she wound up in the hospital was pouring out of Masaomi right before her, and she’d only picked up hints of it leaking out into his ordinary behavior.
    And now that she knew everything, she was hiding in a crevice of the factory’s scrap material, drenched by the rain in the darkness.

    How had it come to this?
    Her emotions roiled in confusion.
    The rain beating her body grew harder and colder over time, churning her confusion into something greater.
    Kida…
    I have to escape…
    Why is Kida…doing this…?
    Who knows what’ll happen…if they catch me…
    She was full of fear and questions at the sight of her friend in a state she’d never seen before.
    Meanwhile, she was being hunted by an unfamiliar army of yellow.
    What would Masaomi say if they caught her?
    Would he free her?
    Or would he stay the unfamiliar Masaomi, the stranger?
    Even if he spared her, what would he tell his companions?
    And more importantly, if he learned the reason that she’d come, would it only cause him to change further?
    Was she actually causing him great anguish by doing this?
    What would happen with the Dollars group?
    What was Masaomi planning to do?
    Countless questions popped into her head and vanished.
    The only thing that stayed behind was anxiety. She listened intently to her surroundings.
    Most sound was swallowed by the rain, but she could hear a few people running around.
    When she sensed the running sounds getting closer, Anri slid farther back into a tighter gap in the mountain of scrap metal.
    The rain was perhaps both a help and a hindrance to her attempt to hide, but she didn’t have the wherewithal to determine which it was. The only sound was the words of love.
    The accursed voices knew the present situation.
    It’s so simple.
    I’ll love everyone.
    That boy Masaomi.
    And the other children in yellow.
    I’ll love them all equally.
    Since you cannot love others,
    I will love for you!
    Deeply, deeply, deeply!
    Anri immediately pushed the voices and their deal with the devil alike deep into the picture frame.
    Everyone cut by Saika was implanted with Saika’s voice somewhere in their minds. For that reason, while they retained their own wits, they were all under a form of brainwashing in which they couldn’t disobey the mother’s orders.
    Yes, using that ability might easily allow her to break out of her predicament by force.
    But then…Kida…
    Hurting Masaomi was out of the question, and Anri did not want to unnecessarily hurt anyone, period, including his friends. Normally those who hosted Saika were forced into slashing strangers, but Anri kept her mental control by forcing the voices inside the frame.
    That was how she was able to completely ignore Saika’s bargain, but that might not last forever in the current situation.
    Even with Saika’s children on her side, there was no telling what might happen to those boys after this was over, and taking them
all
over was out of the question. She would be no better than the slasher in that case.
    Plus, if she did choose to force her way out…
    Kida will recognize me.
    It was an obvious and predictable outcome, but it was the worst kind of despair to Anri at this moment.
    She didn’t want to ruin the place she’d found for herself.
    That was why she was here. But if Masaomi learned that she was not an ordinary person—if he learned that she was Saika…
    Perhaps she ought to present herself and apologize. But she would still have to explain the situation—and that meant