DURARARA Vol.2 Shizuo's past, and conversation with Celty.
*
Crack.
Crack crack crack
Crack crack crack crack
Noises.
Noises of joints and muscles cracking.
Distasteful sounds and severe pain eating at his body.
The boy simply endured this eternal hell.
Because he knew it was nothing other than the materialization of his own anger.
Heiwajima Shizuo came to know that he was abnormal when he was a third grader.
Shizuo, who got into a trivial quarrel with his brother and lost his temper, tried to throw the dining room refrigerator - which was way taller than he was - at his brother.
Of course, it proved impossible for him at that age. The boy ended up suffering multiple dislocations and extensive muscle damage.
More incidents followed.
During a fight at school, another boy threw a pair of compasses at him. That was scary enough in itself - yet Shizuo's response was even scarier, blowing away the very boundaries of necessity defense.
With the tender arms of a nine-year-old, he lifted a school desk full of books, swung it around, and threw it at that boy.
- Who was lucky to have survived.
The desk flew past him leaving mere scratches on his wrist. The next second, something crashed into the wall right behind him.
He turned to look with weak knees and saw a school desk framed in a hole in the wall, none of its feet touching the floor.
There is something called the "adrenaline power-up" - which occurs often when one is trapped in emergency situations like fires.
Even if you think you're giving something your 100 percent, you usually are not.
Because your muscles place natural limiters on themselves, which makes you think you're giving it your 100 percent when you're really just giving it a fraction of that.
But once you need to get away from a fire, the brain removes such limiters and allows you to be much more powerful than you usually are. That's why people have been able to lift impossible weights, jump impossible heights and thereby save others from the fire in seemingly hopeless situations.
But Heiwajima Shizuo is "different".
He is able to give it his true 100 percent even when he's not in a crisis situation.
You would probably think that's a highly desirable gift - actually, it's the exact contrary.
There's a reason that our brains place limiters on our muscles and joints: to protect them. The limiters are just what they literally suggest - they mark the natural limit above which our muscles and joints will have to suffer damage.
He was endowed with this gift in exchange of his ability to control his own power.
As long as he needs them to, his muscles will give it their 100 percent even if that destroys them.
And his overwhelming power turned him into Anger itself.
That power - that untamable power of his muscles would manifest itself any time with his fury.
His brain, dominated by his overwhelming power, would command his body to use it.
Lift the greatest weight he could land his hands on. Destroy everything. Destroy people. Kill people.
And Shizuo decided to succumb to this natural impulse.
Destruction.
Since the goal was absolute destruction, it usually commences with the destruction of his own body.
The vulnerability of his body and the relentlessness of his own power.
The boy's heart was slowly falling into disrepair in-between.
He had given up trying to contain his own anger since he forgot when.
There was no "trying" to speak of; since he would end up destroying himself either way, the much easier choice was to break the limiters on his heart as well.
The boy gave up self-restraint.
He removed the limiters on his everything, ready to let his entire life go to waste.
And he continued to cause damage.
Endless damage.
To his own body.
Every day was filled with damage.
His own damaged body made him angry; so he rages - and damages it some more.
Repetition of the same fruitless vicious cycle.
There was nothing to gain, except for the evidence of his rampages, which continued to accumulate.
His muscles injure themselves over and over again - damaged anew before they had a chance to evolve into something more resilient.
The boy kept falling towards the bottom of the hell that was himself.
Struggling, wrestling, but unable to break apart from himself -
And time elapses -
“My dad and mom have been really caring parents."
Shizuo, eyes half-lidded behind his sunglasses, whispered softly.
"Even my brother, who quarreled with me a lot, was really caring. When I lay there unable to move after trying to lift that fridge, he was the first to run and fetch an ambulance screaming, not to mention he took care of me until the docs arrived......ahhh, I had a caring family, I really did. I don't feel like I've ever been neglected. On the contrary, I was raised happily in a warm family."
Celty simply sat next to him listening quietly as Shizuo poured himself out.
Bartender suit was sitting with rider suit on a bench in a South Ikebukuro Park bathed in sunset. It was such an absurd scene that none of the other park-goers approached these two.
“Really......why on earth did I turn out like this, then?"
Shizuo smiled in a self-torturous way. Looking into the imaginary abyss before his eyes, he raised the question in a lonesome voice.
"Why did I turn out like this? At least it wasn't my family. There was no childhood trauma I can think of. I never watched any violent anime or read violent manga. Didn't watch movies either. So that leaves only myself, doesn't it? It's gotta be me, right?"
Celty kept silent. Not that she was ignoring Shizuo; she simply let his confessions sink into her own shadows.
"I wanna grow strong..."
He said this in a tone that evoked sympathy, but was nevertheless powerful.
"If I'm the reason, I would never forgive myself of all people. I don't care how good I might be at fighting. I just want to be able to control my own power."
Shizuo spoke his real feelings in a serene manner.
He said them because he knew Celty wouldn't make unnecessary objections or over-interpret what he said. Moreover, he trusted Celty from all these years of acquaintance.
Shizuo was very aware that every person in this city feared him. Which was why Celty, who did not fear him and was willing to listen, was especially important to him.
If a person did not know Shizuo to begin with - he or she would probably infuriate Shizuo at some point for some reason, and, like everybody else before, would remain fearful of Shizuo all his or her life. Shizuo was aware of that as well.
But just because he was aware of it didn't mean he could control it.
The same pattern repeated itself, and it was only natural that after some time, only a handful of people remained around him.
His current boss, who knows how to deal with Shizuo.
Simon, who is able to protect himself from Shizuo's transcendent violence.
Kadota, Yumasaki and their friends, who know to keep their appropriate distance from Shizuo.
Orihara Izaya, who stayed close to Shizuo exactly because he hated Shizuo's guts.
And - the Headless Rider, who was quiet and never made him angry.
He had known all along that Celty was the Headless Rider. But it didn't matter to him. He had been talking to an empty helmet, but as long as it wasn't a garrulous helmet, he didn't care.
Shizuo was actually not sophisticated at all. Although not driven by ideology or faith, his mind would immediately divide the world in two.
Those who irked him, and those who didn't - two kinds of people, and only these two kinds.
"Sorry, I made you listen again."
Shizuo smiled apologetically. At times like these he looked like any other polite young man you would find on the street.
"So what is it that you wanna talk to me about today? There's gotta be something if you came looking for me."
"......"
Celty produced her PDA and began to sum up the information she intended to pass on into sentences as concise as possible.
That the Slashers had been active in the city.
That a user in the chatroom with the screenname Saika kept typing Shizuo's name.
That Saika probably had something to do with the Slashers.
That the reporter who interviewed Shizuo was a attacked by a Slasher.
And that the reporter was attacked on the exact same night Shizuo's name came up in the chatroom.
Shizuo, who had finished reading off the screen, frowned one eyebrow and muttered.
"What is it about? You're not thinking that I was the one who did it, are you?"
Celty shook her helmet in answer to Shizuo's question.
Had Shizuo been the one who slashed people with the katana, those people would never have survived. Moreover, there was no motive she could think of for Shizuo to ambush people that way. If Shizuo had been infuriated to the point of initiating an attack, he would have broken those irksome necks then and there.
Though Shizuo was unable to control himself, he had yet to kill anyone with that immense physical power of his. It was nothing short of a miracle.
It could also have been that he had already killed people who were unknown to her, however.
Thought Celty as she kept typing.
"I heard that some Dollars members have also been attacked."
"Oh, that I know. I got the message as well."
Shizuo replied dispassionately as he reached for his own cell phone.
"Honestly, I do want to help...but I only joined because Simon asked me to. It's not like I'm close to any of the other Dollars people......which is probably why they let me stay in Dollars in the first place."
Shizuo smiled in self-irony and raised his eyes towards the setting sun.
The sky was drenched in red and almost unnecessarily beautiful.
"Tsk. Makes you forget you're in the heart of a city...thought I'd only ever see skies like that in the countryside."
As he muttered such irrelevant trivia, Shizuo rose from the bench and got ready to leave.
"That's it. I'm sorry, but I don't have a clue. ......And you, you don't wanna work yourself too hard for Dollars. Would be bad if you hurt yourself that way."
Celty typed quietly in response to an uncharacteristically worrying Shizuo.
"It's not just for Dollars. It's also for my own revenge."
"?"
"I was attacked by a Slasher a while ago. Sliced my neck in a single move. If I had a head I would've been dead now."
She had half an intention to make it sound funny - but as it turned out, these words changed lives.
Not Celty's. But Shizuo's life and the fate of Ikebukuro were indeed about to change.
"Bastard......"
"Hm?"
"That's what you should have said first thing you saw me! Idiot! You idiot! I know calling people idiots makes me the real idiot, but even if it does I have to say it! Idiot! Should've said it first! There was no point in wasting time here! No point at all!"
Heiwajima Shizuo feeling angry for other people was a rare sight.
Was it because his friend was hurt? Or, at some level, was he also feeling angry for himself? Anyhow, he was now filled with pure unadulterated anger.
"Good. Must kill'em. Kill'em all. Kill'em absolutely. Kill'em in one breath!"
"But...you know, I don't have a head...so it was no big deal, really."
"No no no. That's not what it was about. Usually, they show you the knife, means they wanna be dead."
The only reason that his anger hadn't exploded yet was that the target was not right in front of him. For now he just charged his body with his anger, awaiting release.
"You know something, Celty? There's power in words. So what I'm doing now is holding myself back with words so I don't start destroying just about everything."
That was exactly why Celty felt scared.
"Kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em......"
If this was to go on for a while and then the Slashers were to appear before his eyes -
- They were probably...no, they were absolutely going to be killed, the Slashers.
There wouldn't even be time for them to repent. If Shizuo was to give it his fullest, they'd be lucky to escape with only a flattened skull. Otherwise the bones in their necks would be crushed and the flesh ripped apart - and they'd become "headless", just like she was.
Well, if it turned out they were humans, they'd be dead.
Celty felt a rush of sympathy for the Slashers - and saw Shizuo mounting the back seat of her motorbike.
"What about work? Aren't you taking a break from work?"
"Don't mind that."
"Hey! There's no way I'm letting you get fired because of me. And much more information is needed before we go looking for the Slashers. Anyway, you just go finish your work and wait, and use that time to get yourself ready."
"......"
Shizuo considered this for a while before eventually caving in.
"Got it.....but make that quick."
He had to make breath for every word he said in-between the incessant whispers of "kill'em kill'em kill'em kill'em......"
As if he were an exorcist fighting for control with a demon in his own heart.
"These emotions in me, they're pressing me to let them pour out and out......if I try to ignore them any longer - "
"I'll probably start from destroying myself with my own hands."
*
Note:
I started this before the Mairu and Kururi part, but somehow didn't pick it up until now. Celty had an interesting scene with Izaya right after this, which I'll probably translate as well. The second half of Kasuka's introduction will also be done - I'm just getting stuck on certain details and finetuning.
Picking the right segment to provide the background for Ruri is proving more difficult. So basically, Shizuo, Ruri and Vorona are the three characters that follow the "destruction impulse" pattern in this series - yet their impulses are manifested in such different ways that they're all distinct and interesting characters in their own right. I have to give Narita credit for that.