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no reason to bicker with the Yellow Scarves," Kadota said, getting it all off his chest. Suddenly, he seemed to remember something. "Oh...actually, there is one person who knows the boss of the Dollars."

"Wh-who is that?!" Masaomi asked, leaning forward despite his best efforts to stay calm.

"Hang on... My point is, why would you even ask that? Let's say you get the boss's name out of that person. What will you do? Invite him out for tea and have a nice little chitchat? Or use your Yellow Scarves and stage an abduction?"

"I...I only want to track down the slasher. If the Dollars really are unrelated, I think it would be perfect just to talk it out."

"And is that the opinion of the Scarves as a whole?"

"..." Masaomi looked away from the pointed question.

"If it's like the old days, and you've got a tight grip on all of your people, then I can help you. But they changed while you stepped away from the Yellow Scarves. You can't tell me you haven't noticed," Kadota said forcefully, brooking no argument.

Masaomi listened with eyes shut tight and head down. He squeezed the words out of himself into groans. It was not the usual Masaomi with his self-absorbed, shallow gibberish, but a sympathetic, lonely boy pressured and at the end of his wits.

"I...I still think of them, of the Yellow Scarves, as my friends. But...it's true that I don't really want...to go back there permanently."

"I can imagine," Kadota said easily, draining the last of his tea. With the air in the room settled down a bit, he asked Masaomi, "You don't know what you should be doing, do you? You've found a different way of life. You don't know if anything you say will really reach them...and that's a big concern to you, isn't it?"

"..."

"Let's just assume there really is a squabble with the Dollars. What does that even have to do with you? You left because you hated the idea of gang warfare..."

"I ran away," Masaomi said, cutting himself down to size before Kadota could reach his point. But his eyes were slowly regaining the light, and the pathos that had racked him moments ago was easing.

"But this time...it's not just my fellow Yellow Scarves."

"Huh?"

"A good friend of mine from school was attacked by the slasher—someone who has nothing to do with the Yellow Scarves or the past. I can't get over that...so I'm only using the Yellow Scarves name as an excuse to solve a personal problem," Masaomi said, his voice full of strong will and intent, as Kadota listened. "Still, I want to know who the slasher is. That's all this comes down to."

"That's all?"

"...Yes."

"Then I'll say no more on that. What I will say again, however...is that you won't find the slasher in the Dollars," Kadota repeated, another tiny sigh escaping his lips.

"I don't—no— we don't agree with that."

"What?"

"Last night, we witnessed something beyond belief."

Masaomi began to tell a story.

A story of the grotesque, otherworldly event he saw in the rain the night before.

And the undeniable truth that the "intruder" riding behind that creature carried a katana, and dozens of the Yellow Scarves witnessed the whole thing...

"...I see."

Kadota held his cup, a look of troubled understanding on his face. When he realized the cup was empty, he grimaced and put it back down.

"I'm aware of the rumors that the Black Rider's participated in some Dollars meetups. The other Yellow Scarves know about it, too..."

"And the fact that she helped the girl with the katana get away means that the slasher and the Black Rider must be working with the Dollars, you're claiming?" Kadota said, sussing out Masaomi's point.

The other boy nodded gravely. "And a guy with us named Horada got attacked by the rider yesterday..."

"Horada? Horada..."

"?"

Masaomi was confused by the way Kadota repeated the name, but he was quickly distracted by the whispering of Yumasaki and Karisawa, who had been silent for the last several minutes.

"Hey, Yumacchi. Did you notice something strange about that story?"

"What's that?"

"The Black Rider finished off the slasher, remember?"

"Well, it was mostly Shizuo. Plus Togusa running him over with the van."

They were speaking quietly enough to avoid being overheard on the street, but not inside while seated directly next to other people.

"What was that?"

"Huh? Uh...well, um, just...how to explain?" Yumasaki stammered.

Kadota sighed and took it upon himself to do just that. "Are you aware that the slasher seems to be more than one person?"

"Well, there were fifty incidents that happened in a single night. So, yeah, that seems clear."

Kadota seemed hesitant to say what was on his mind, but he quickly gave up. "Well...now that you've seen something beyond belief, you'll be able to believe it."

"What do you mean?"

"There won't be any more slashings." Kadota tapped the rim of his empty cup with a finger. When he spoke, it was slow, in rhythm with the beat. "From what I heard on the grapevine, the slasher chose to pick a fight with—of all people—that monster Shizuo Heiwajima... Do I need to explain what happened next?"

Shizuo Heiwajima.

The instant Masaomi heard the name, something crawled from his back over his face.

Masaomi knew him well—he was a human bomb, someone people called the fighting puppet of Ikebukuro.

The slasher's mob versus one human being.

It was an unthinkable matchup, but there was only a single person who could grant it immediate credibility, and that was Shizuo.

"No...but... Who did it, then?" Masaomi asked in disbelief.

Kadota shook his head as he scratched it. "Well...whatever. If you just want to know about the slasher, then there's no use hiding what I know. As for the rest...ask the person who knows the boss. I'll leave the decision up to the two of them."

"Uhm," Masaomi mumbled, surprised that Kadota had broken so easily.

But at the same time, Kadota's eyes narrowed, and he delivered a warning. "However, if that goes awry and you have to declare the Dollars your enemy—"

"If we do, then what?"

"I'll be ready for that fight."

The supposedly calmed air between them prickled once again.

"..."

"Is that all you have to say? You're prepared for that outcome, too, aren't you? When you fly the flag of vengeance, it becomes more than just the usual hell-raising kids your age like to get into. You know that, don't you?"

"I—"

Once again, a sound stopped them at the height of the tension in the room.

Thunk.

With a pleasing sound, something embedded itself into the wall next to the table.

The group recognized that something had passed between them and turned their heads slowly toward it, anticipating what they would find.

What they saw sticking out of the wooden wall was a combination of silver and black.

"Gonna scare the other customers... Take that talk outside," said the Russian behind the counter in his brusque Japanese, working the sushi in front of him without looking at them.

One of his sashimi knives was missing from its customary spot. It was now stuck into the wall between the four.

"All ready. One Kremlin roll, two, three, four, just for you, boss," came Simon's cheery voice, breaking right through the chilly atmosphere in the room. "You hungry because you fight. Eat sushi, get full, full of dreams. Human stomach is dream factory. So you stop fighting, yes?"

The waiter neatly carried over four dishes of the rolls they'd ordered, balancing the plates in both hands.

"Uh...yeah. Thanks, Simon."

"I didn't realize kitchen knives could sink so deeply into walls."

"Doesn't this count as attempted murder?"

"Th-thank you for this food."

The combination of the chef's menace and Simon's easygoing charm having drained the tension out of the group, the four silently ate their sushi. The food was adeptly made and quite delicious, but with the desire to finish their food and get down to business lodged in their brains, they weren't able to fully appreciate it.

"So long, Kida. Don't get any half-cocked ideas."

Kadota's group paid their tab and left the restaurant. Yumasaki and Karisawa launched back into their usual chatter, as though they'd completely forgotten everything discussed inside.

As his old acquaintances drifted away into the distance, Masaomi sat alone in the little tatami enclosure, holding his head in his hands.

"I'll be damned?" Force jabbed.

"Let me ask you something else instead."

"What?"

"When we first met and everyone introduced themselves, why did you say your motivation for conquering the dungeon was to be popular with women? Isn't your goal really more like Erin's? To prove you're the strongest?"

"Nah, I got nothing to prove. Even if I don't make a show of it, I know I'm the strongest, y'know?"

"Well, I can't deny that..."

"I had a new dream after meeting Jin: fighting alongside the strongest people I could find and competing with them. That dream came true when I formed this party, so it's not like I can say that's my reason for dungeon diving."

"I guess not, huh?"

"So my only unfulfilled goal now is getting a girlfriend. That's all."

"I kinda get you, and yet I kinda don't..."

"It'll be easy enough once we conquer the dungeon and have more fame than we know what to do with. Really, pulling this party together was like killing multiple birds with one stone for me... Damn, I'm so good it's almost scary," Force mumbled with a self-satisfied nod.

His extraordinary assessment of his own worth wasn't all that far off the mark. We were only together now because he'd formed the Arrivers. So without his harebrained idea in the first place... we'd all be living much blander lives right now.

"Surprisingly, I'm starting to see why you're the leader of the Arrivers."

"Hey! You're only just now starting to see that?! And what do you mean, 'surprisingly'?!"

Force shouted loud enough that his voice carried on the wind, echoing in the forest around us.

His Role Within the Arrivers

It was like a scene out of a picture book. That was the perfect way to describe the landscape of floor 19.

Countless fish circled the transparent indigo expanse. Between the gaps of the rugged boulders at our feet grew filmy plants that were foreign to the outside world. A star-shaped creature of vibrant colors was crawling across the boulder to my right, and there was a shadow deep at the bottom of the valley below writhing like a snake.

It was almost like we were in some kind of ocean or vast lake, but we could still breathe the air here. Yet nevertheless, fish were swimming in the sky overhead. It was like we'd been transported to a miniature world where the creatures of the sea had adapted to life on land.

Enemy Search, however, alerted me to the dangers lurking amidst the beauty of it all—monsters. That's right; we were in the dungeon. This was no time to be admiring the scenery.

"Hahh... Hahh..." Erin was panting beside me. Sweat poured down her face, drenching her hair. "There're so many... How long are they going to keep spawning?"

Even as she complained, she charged her staff with magic energy and fired a blast of lightning. The fish closing in on us were all fried to a crisp, dropping lifelessly to the ground... yet we were in the middle of an onslaught, and there were still more coming. How many did this make now? The number of large fish monsters Erin had wiped out so far was well into the double-digits.

The most notable trait of the monsters on this floor was their ability to swim through the air. That made it difficult to approach them, which put our close-combat fighters—Force and Jin—at a serious disadvantage. That was why we were relying so heavily on Erin's ranged spells right now.