Psychedelic Chase!!

Chapter 1

Buildings, buildings, concrete, buildings, as far as the eye could see. The young woman with the white hair looked outside the window of the express train, her eyes scurrying around somewhere in the distance.

Again, the polite female speaker voice resounded:

{Next stop, Ikebukuro station}

The woman buttoned up her coat and collected her luggage consisting of a large suitcase, her handbag and a heavy looking duffle bag, the latter of which she heaved onto her back, then pulled her suitcase towards the exit. When the train came to a soft halt, the ticket inspector offered to help her with her luggage. "Yes, thank you", she accepted.
" No problem", he smiled at her. "Enjoy your stay and take care! It's a dangerous city for pretty ladies such as yourself!"

He said the last sentence in a surprisingly grave voice.

The train started moving again. She waited until she could see the city in front of her. Skyscrapers elevated themselves from a mass of concrete and people bustling about.

A few more seconds passed until it occurred to her.

>Who am I?<
>Why am I here?

She did not panic the slightest. All she felt was a cold sweat braking out. This sensation felt so familiar to her, it was like this happened all the time.
She rummaged about in her bag until she found a clue. On a piece of paper there was an address scribbled in black ink. Looking around, she found a map of the city and found the location from the paper almost immediately. She traced the path she was to take with her finger and left. She'd ask for directions at the park that was located half way to her destination.

On the way to that park, she saw things that reminded her of something, a movie that she'd seen, a book that she'd read, she could not recall. Gang members loitering around, teen girls flocking in front of new shops. She felt at ease when she reminded herself of the fact that she was not the main character of any story, that she was just one of the thousand people living in this city, minding their own business. She arrived at the park a little tired from carrying her luggage by herself, scanning the crowd for someone who wouldn't be bothered by a traveler asking for directions. Her gaze fell upon a man in a fur trimmed coat on a park bench, eating out of a takeout box, probably on his lunch break. She approached him, bowing her head politely.

"Excuse me sir, could I ask you for directions?"

The man stopped eating, a piece of nigiri hovering in front of his mouth.

"Of course, newcomer! Ask away."

She showed him the paper with the address.
"Did you come from the train station? Then, you're half way there!"
She nodded.
"Okay, just follow this road there, until you hear someone with a strange accent advertising a sushi shop, it's actually the best you can get, and follow that voice. Once you see the shop, treat yourself to some otoro, so you know what I mean. When you leave the shop, you'll see a broad avenue with trees aligned on both sides. Follow that and take the third exit to the right, don't miss it because it's a dark alley, OK?"

She nodded again.
"Right, so that's a shortcut, when you're through, cross the parking lot you see on the left, and a little further down that street, the building you're looking for is located. It's on the left side, I think."

"You know this city well, sir. Have you lived here a long time, if I may ask?"
"Aah~ I don't live here, sadly. Circumstances always seem to... chase me out of here, in a sense."
"I see. Anyways, thank you for your help! Have a great day!"
"You too, newcomer, I hope we meet again!", he said, continuing to eat what was supposedly the best sushi you could get.

>A new face, huh? Aah, this city is too dangerous, I hope it won't be too harsh this time~!
"Oh, if I may ask, what is it that's so dangerous about this city?"
"You're still here?"
"Yes, my apologies, I didn't mean to-"
"No problem. Who warned you? Well, it's not important. All you need to know, is that there are gangs in the area and they're quite ruthless at times."
"Thanks. I'll be leaving now!"
"Until next time~ Ja ne~"

The woman did not think, it'd be easy for strangers to meet twice in the area of Tokyo, yet to her, even tough the man had seemed *strange* he hadn't felt like a stranger to her.

By the time she heard a deep voice with an accent advertising sushi, she was still thinking of that man with his handsome smile and that cheeky glint in his brown eyes, that seemed to reflect the crimson of the afternoon sun.

" Hisashiburi, neesan!"

A bulky man handed her a flyer with a menu on it.
"Eat sushi! Sushi good for you!"
The woman decided that that wouldn't be such a bad idea, since she felt pretty hungry and quite tired from the trip, it was already late in the afternoon, after all.
She looked up from the menu to see the tall man still smiling at her.
"Do you still have otoro?", she inquired.
" Yeees, otoro still have, come, follow me! I help you with bags!"
She gladly let herself be helped and followed him into the shop. Before she entered, she noticed a sign.
"Russia Sushi...", she mumbled. " Odd."

After having an intensely tasty meal and discovering that she spoke Russian when talking to the shop owner and the tall man named Simon, she resumed traveling the path the man from earlier had told her to take.

She arrived at an apartment building just when the sun was going down and neon lights started to illuminate the city.
She entered the lobby.

"Damn, I should have asked where she was from!!"
Frustrated, Izaya Orihara sunk his head onto his desk and closed his eyes. He had been searching for any data available on the woman who had asked him for directions earlier that day. The only lead he'd gotten when hacking into the personal files of the landlord of that apartment building, was that she must be the new tenant. "Such an interesting name", he'd thought. Usually, a name was enough to find out all there was about a person. Except for this woman. This meant that she added to the abnormality of the city. It infuriated him even more because not only had she awoken his interest as a prey, being what seemed to be an ignorant, normal woman, but because she was anything but normal, a mystery. He was dying to figure her out.

"Of course she could be using an alias, which seems likely because of its oddness, but the information I got from the landlord's files state differently, unless he's an idiot that didn't require her to show him any identification papers."

The only thing he could find until he was sure there was nothing else stored on the entire internet, was a Swiss bank account.

"There is no way I can hack it with the equipment I have here in Shinjuku. They'd trace me back in a millisecond."

He threw the mouse down onto the desk and got up to get a beer out of the fridge.

He walked back behind his desk and looked outside the vast windows of his office sipping the cooled beverage. Suddenly, the corners of his mouth moved up and he let out a short but loud laugh. Sneering at the direction of Ikebukuro he challenged the woman with the white hair.
"How long until you make yourself noticeable? Ne, >Kaname Toshizawa