Chapter 4 (1/2)
DURARARA!! NICONICO SPECIAL EDITION PART 4: NICOCOCO!!X4
Due to some strange circ.u.mstances, Ikebukuro’s strangest phenomenon, Celty
Sturluson, had been dragged into Karisawa and her rival’s “Friend Video Showdown.”
A friend of Karisawa’s singing rival, Blizzard la Blizzadia, recorded a video of Celty
escaping from the motorcycle police and uploaded it. It had become an instant hit in the
rankings.
Now that she aware that she had put herself at such a disadvantage, Celty had to figure
out a course of action to respond but what——
Those answers, she herself didn’t even know.
A certain place on Kawagoe-Kaido - s.h.i.+nra’s Apartment
“I’m home~.” Returning in the middle of the night from his work as a back alley
doctor, Kis.h.i.+tani s.h.i.+nra stepped into an apartment filled with a dark atmosphere.
“Uwah? What the h.e.l.l? What’s going on!?”
Well, it couldn’t really be called an “atmosphere.” It was actually Celty’s shadows,
which spread out across the room like smoke, shutting out the light from the florescent
lamps and creating a very dark s.p.a.ce.
“A-ah…w-welcome back, s.h.i.+nra.” Pus.h.i.+ng her way through the gloom, Celty
unsteadily emerged from the room.
“What’s wrong, Celty!? Are you feeling sick!?” As s.h.i.+nra hastened over in concern,
Celty feebly typed out a response.
“No…I was just running myself down in various ways thinking about the
video…”
After finally calming Celty down, she finally told s.h.i.+nra what was going on. It seemed
like the video that had been taken of her fleeing the motorcycle police and uploaded to
Niconico Douga continued to spread far and wide over the social media networks, and
thus the number of views and number of MyList bookmarks only continued to increase.
“Ugh…I’ve been beside myself with worry about what Karisawa would say if I
don’t win this…And in the end I did what I must not do…”
“What you must not do?”
“J-just now, I took this video…”
“?”
Taking the handy cam Celty surrendered, s.h.i.+nra hooked it up to the computer and
played it back.
There, reflected on the screen, was a strange image. The footage was taken in a dark
park, sometime after the sun had gone down. The Suns.h.i.+ne Building could be seen far
away in the background so it was probably somewhere in the vicinity of Ikebukuro. The
image naturally panned over to the swing set, and there some dark shadows began to
appear.
“……”
The shadows slowly took human shape, changing into the form of a young woman
hidden by a broad-brimmed hat. Then, after giving a few creaky swings on the swing set,
the shape slowly faded away again.
As s.h.i.+nra stared at the images, he noticed that the shadows which made up the young
woman’s form extended out along on the ground beyond the frame in the direction of the
person filming.
“…Are those, your shadows?” As soon as s.h.i.+nra pointed that out, Celty jerked in
surprise. Then she raised her hands to cover what would have been her face on a normal
human, and dropped off the couch onto the carpet, where she began to roll around.
“Uwaaaah! s.h.i.+nra, I’m the worst! No matter how desperate I am, to fake a
supernatural phenomenon and record it with the intention of uploading it to
Niconico is just…!”
“Calm down, Celty. Hmm, well. While it’s true it’s fake, aren’t Celty’s shadows a
much greater supernatural phenomenon than an image that, at a glance, appears to be that
of a ghost? In that sense, it’s not a lie at all, but rather similar to those people who take
videos of themselves dancing…”
“I’m done for! If this video leaks out and people find out it’s a fake, everyone’s
going to blame me and I’m going to have to do a live broadcast apology for sure
aaaaaaaaah!!”
“Celty, relax, Celty.” But she continued to roll around and type out deranged ranting
on her smartphone.
“But even so, people are going to misunderstand and think I’m acting like a big
shot, or making a joke out of it all by taking on a challenging att.i.tude and being
unsociable and then they’ll all get mad, and afterwards I’ll forget to turn off the mic
and have some sort of embarra.s.sing conversation with you and
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh I’m finished s.h.i.+nra!”
“Uuuuum, I’m going to address these in order, but I have a hunch that if you receive a
lot of comments that say “You staged this” on Niconico, it has a different meaning
there?* Moreover, Celty, you can’t talk so how would you give live apology? Would you
put continue apologizing by putting a banner in the contributor comments? Also, even if
you forget to switch off the mic after the live broadcast, won’t they only hear my voice?”
After s.h.i.+nra had said all that, he took a deep breath, then, with serious eyes, opened his
mouth again.
“Well, actually, I’m interested in the contents of that embarra.s.sing conversation we
would have, so won’t you tell me~?”
“Eh, that’s, j-just stuff we normally talk, but that would be embarra.s.sing for others
to overhear.”
“Ah, it’s no use. Usually you would have already given me a blow to the kidney by
now, so getting a normal response is rather weird coming from you.” Patting Celty’s
shaking shoulders, s.h.i.+nra tried to cheer her up.
“Well, don’t worry about it. Even if that happens, I’ll still support you, Celty.”
“But I’ve already troubled you so much…”
*
The word used here can mean both performing in one’s own work and being a fake.
“It’s fine! If it’s for you, I would do whatever it takes to give you all your playback
and MyList numbers! Because I will be the only one dirtying my hands, all I ask from
you, Celty, is that you wash away my dirty heart with the power of love! Oh, isn’t what I
just said the perfect strategy!?”
“Uuuh.”
“Come now, Celty, let’s make a Niconico channel for just the two of us and bring the
R-18 tag to life!”
“Wait, that’s a bit…” Giving it only a couple seconds of thought, Celty delivered a
swift counterpunch to s.h.i.+nra, who had attempted to dive towards her.
Several Minutes Later——
“Thanks, s.h.i.+nra. Thanks to you, I’ve calmed down.”
“Nope…don’t mention it…After all it’s Celty…so I had to…” Compared to Celty’s
calm demeanor, s.h.i.+nra was in a cold sweat as he gave a weak thumbs up.
“A-are you ok? I’m sorry, I was fl.u.s.tered so I didn’t moderate…”
“I’m fine! It’s true it hurt where you hit me, but it’s just living proof that you touched
me!”
“Are you sure you’re ok? Especially your head…”
“Of course! On the contrary, my head is actually quite clear, all thanks to such a good
punch I think!” s.h.i.+nra nodded his head with a bright smile, before turning his eyes to the
laptop screen. While looking at the playback of the submitted Niconico video
“Motorcycle Police VS Headless Rider,” he continued to speak to Celty.
“The person who shot and uploaded this video, knew Karisawa-san’s rival…uuuh…”
“Blizzard la Blizzadia.”
“Right, this person is a friend of hers, right?”
“That’s what I understand…”
Giving the words on Celty’s smartphone a sidelong glance, s.h.i.+nra adjusted the slider
on the video and stopped it at a certain point.
“Look, here, during Shooter’s wild escape through the town…––just for a second, you
turn in the direction of the camera.”
“Ah, you’re right.”
“In other words…it seems to me that the camera you mounted where Shooter’s
headlight would be would have caught this moment in question and you should be able to
see the person who took this video.”
“…! I see!” Celty understood where s.h.i.+nra was going, but almost immediately thought
of a question and twisted her neck without a head.
“So, even if we figure out who he is, what do we do then?”
“Well, if you identify who it is, you may be able to figure out who Blizzard-what’stheir-name
is. From there, you can intervene and convince them to stop this worthless
video compet.i.tion. The important thing is that you get Karisawa and her rival to
reconcile!”
“Oh, I get it! …But I don’t think it will go that smoothly…”
s.h.i.+nra answered Celty’s uneasy words as he checked the video she had taken
previously.