Your P.O.V
My knuckles lightly knock on the door. I wait a few seconds as I hear some fumbling inside and then the locks turn. A friendly face greets me with a smile as he adjusts the glasses on his face.
"(Fn)! What brings you here?"
"Is Celty around?"
His eyes widen, "Celty?"
"Yeah. We've never officially met, but Izaya has mentioned her quite a bit and, don't worry, I know enough to keep my mouth shut," I wink.
He looks relieved and opens the door wider to let me in, "she's out right now, but should be back here shortly. Was something bothering you?"
I nod, taking in the honey cleanliness of their place, "Sort of, I just wanted to talk to her about it and see how she feels about doing something for me."
Shinra nods then with a soft smile he adds, "Celty ran into a few thugs not too long ago, and Izaya had asked her for some help when he goes to confront this Ren person. She wasn't going to do it at first, because it was Izaya and usually nothing good comes from him."
He pauses as I look over at him, "but she told me she'd never seen him look so genuinely concerned over someone. And said the way he talked about you was quite astonishing coming from him. So she agreed on helping him obtain the explosives in such the short notice."
My eyes widen and my jaw drops, "He blew her up?!!"
His eyes widen, "Oh! I- er... I thought you knew!" He scratches the back of his head, exasperated.
Just then I hear the door knob twist and a woman with a yellow cat-like bike helmet in an all black motorcycle suit walks through. She twitches back for a second, seeing me in the apartment and then looks at Shinra.
"Celty! This is (Fn)!" He gestures to me, "she stopped by to see you!" He looks back at my still bewildered face.
I looks over at her, quickly adjusting my face to seem less like I just saw Shinra grow five heads, and wave, "Nice to meet you."
Celty gives me a small wave then types on her phone:
[Hi. What did you need? We can talk here or I wouldn't mind elsewhere.]
"I mean..." I look over at Shinra then back at her, "here is fine. Seems like everyone knows more than me anyway, so no harm in it."
Shinra grins, "I really thought you knew... sorry (Fn)!"
"Tell me though... is she... dead?"
I don't know if I really want to know the answer to that though. I'm not sure if I'd be relieved or upset.
"That part I don't know. I mean, I don't know what exactly Izaya did that night, but he simply could've just scared her off."
I tilt my head and give him the "this is Izaya we are talking about" look.
"Or... he might've killed her. I don't know."
I blink and shrug, "Well, this actually brings me to why I came here," I look at Celty, "I'd like for me and you to investigate and see if Ren is dead or alive."
•••
A black helmet forms around my head and I wrap my arms around Celty's waist.
I've never been on a motorcycle before...
So not only am I squeezing the air out of Celty, but my heart is beating rapidly out of my chest too.
She revs the engine and we take off. I feel the air caress my arms and legs as we glide through the streets of Ikebukoro. I peek over her shoulder to see where we're going, as it brings me some comfort.
We go underneath a bypass and weave around a few of the cars we drive up on.
Celty is taking me to where Ren's hideout was, or what's left of it. And so we take a few detours to avoid a few of the police. She mentioned to me that they are have been hunting her down and we have to keep out of their sight in order for our little "mission" to go smoothly.
Luckily, we arrive and the area is surrounded with caution tape. The helmet disappears from my head, being sucked into some unknown void, and I slowly slide off the back of the bike.
The area is in shambles and only chunks of rock remain, plus or minus a few lone survivors of walls and pipes.
"This is a lot of damage..."
And Izaya caused it.
I think back to the information broker and how he is playful and some form of sweet towards me. But this only makes me realize of how much power he holds.
How dangerous he is.
I walk underneath the caution tape and climb over some of the rubble. I look around and examine the leftovers. So far, I see nobody. And there's no trace that life or death even existed here.
I keep walking until I find a charred note laying on the ground. I can hardly make it out, but I can that it is Izaya's scribble.
I look down and see there's a big black mark on the ground and I have a sinking feeling in my gut that this is where it blew up.
I hear Celty come up beside me and she puts a hand on my shoulder.
I let the note go and flutter down to the ground, "she's dead... there's no way she, or anyone, could've survived this."
Ren is dead.