The "Dollars" had originally been nothing more than a joke.
It had been Mikado's idea, and a few people he'd met online had felt it was a pretty good idea and had thus agreed to help him out with it.
They made up things about a group which was based in Ikebukuro, and spread its name all over the next. And later, they made up even more things on top of that, and whenever anything happened, they'd spread rumours about how they were the doing of the "Dollars". They never claimed to be from the "Dollars", and would always say that they had heard it from someone else. And if anyone wanted to know their source, they'd just ignore them, and they had even made a fake site to fool people.
And when the rumours began getting out of hand, Mikado and friends decided that since they'd started it, they might as well just go with it to the end and started a Dollars website. The website required a password to enter, and even prepared many 'member posts'. Then they began spreading the website's address. If anyone wanted the password, they'd pretend and say 'someone I know who's a member secretly told me', and then email it to them.
And just like that, they'd made up an organization. As for their objective, all they'd written on the homepage had been "All are welcome." There was absolutely nothing about 'rules and restrictions' on it.
Of course, at first there were many people who said things like "There's no such group in Ikebukuro." But strangely enough, gradually there were people who began saying things like "Someone's pretty confused, ha!" or "Why is some brat who hasn't even been to Ikebukuro talking?" The original creators all said they hadn't done it. Which was to say, people who weren't the creators were starting to defend the Dollars.
At first, they'd all been pretty enthusiastic about a situation like that, but then they slowly realized that there was something amiss.
Indeed, it had been just a joke at first. They had intended to stir up some excitement at first, and then later just ignore it later. They'd just wanted to play a little prank-but then things started moving in a strange direction.
At first it was just a made-up organization, and before they knew it, it seemed to having some kind of impact in real life.
They had no idea whose doing it was. But apparently, someone had jumped out from the online world into real life, and was spreading things by word of mouth in reality and getting all kinds of people to join the "Dollars".
The joke was going too far, and was leaving their extent of control. Things had come to this, so they could just 'fess up. Thus, Mikado and his friends just slowly disappeared from it all. They believed that just leaving Dollars alone, just letting it vanish by itself was the best way.
And yet, Mikado was the only one who was desperately clinging onto this 'joke'.
Today the group was indeed possessing real power. And Mikado felt that, should there be no one to keep these people in check, it would definitely be too dangerous. Deep down, there was certainly a misguided sense of superiority he'd gained from that power. But he kept feelings like hidden in his heart. And when he finally realized it, he'd become the leader of the "Dollars".
No one had seen the one at the top of the Dollars before. And as absolutely no one had any idea that he was only a junior high student at that time, the group rapidly expanded.
Until tonight-a group that had been borne of fiction, had been embodied definitely in reality.
"This is really amazing-"
Izaya said that slowly, as he watched the situation that had passed its climax.
Celty had beaten up ten men in under three minutes, and then gone off in pursuit Namie who had fled in some unknown direction.
