Durarara!! Light Novel Volume 07/Ordinary B

"You may be surprised to learn that people change and grow. I always assumed that I would be the same person forever after I hit twenty... but the thing is, shocking experiences have a way of changing you. Such as being attacked by a slasher on the street or falling in love with a woman at first sight for the first time in your life."

- Mizuki Akabayashi

Ordinary B: Outcast Concerto is the third chapter of the seventh Durarara!! light novel. The chapter skips between present day and six years prior to the events of the main story.

Synopsis
Six years prior, some of Shu Aozaki's men harass Sayaka Sonohara for debt payment and get themselves beaten up by Shizuo Heiwajima. The Sonohara family's debt is picked by the organization Mizuki Akabayashi works for. Akabayashi himself has a strong reputation as a man intoxicated on violence. One night, he is sent to threaten Mr. Sonohara for payment with permission to beat up his family but on the way is confronted by Sayaka, with glowing red eyes and holding Saika. He decides to teach her a lesson, but Saika stretches toward him and protrudes from various places on Sayaka's body simultaneously, reaching for him. In the moment that he is paralyzed by shock, she slices his right eye. Overwhelmed by Saika's words of love and stricken by Sayaka's eerie beauty, femininity, and strength, he manages to reject the voices long enough to proclaim his love for Sayaka. She rejects him out of love for her husband and daughter, and he promises to leave her family alone, with the guarantee that he will look after her and her daughter should she ever change her mind.

Mr. Sonohara pays back the debt before the organization can seize the land his house and shop stand on. The organization is upset that they lost the property, and they convince Mr. Sonohara to take out life insurance on his family and begin offering him drugs that make him more volatile and violent. Desperate for more money for the drugs, one day he attempts to strangle his daughter Anri, and Sayaka kills him and herself. Akabayashi is shaken by the news, and in the moment his boss admits to and laughs at his influence in their deaths, a young man with a personal score to settle confronts him. Akabayashi, acting as bodyguard, does nothing to prevent his boss' death.

Some time after these events, Akabayashi leaves the organization and joins the Awakusu-kai. Anri is passed around relatives until Akabayashi helps set up an inheritance fund for her and finds her an apartment where she can live on her own.

In the present day, Akabayashi visits a nightclub with ties to the Awakusu and interrupts a drug deal in the men's bathroom. After knocking the bodyguards and the three drug pushers unconscious, he has them taken to Takaaki Kazamoto for questioning and has the girls attempting to buy drugs sent home.

The following day, Akabayashi visits Akane Awakusu at her request. She asks him how she can become stronger and learn to kill people, so he brings her to the dojo Rakuei Gym where she can learn self-defense. During his visit, Akabayashi learns from Mikiya Awakusu that the drug pushers are part of a Raira College club modeled after the Dollars, with all information handed out online and no one knowing who sits at the top.

Dougen Awakusu receives a call from the members of Akabayashi's former organization, some freshly out of prison, who want a chance at revenge for their former boss, believing Akabayashi to be his murderer. Dougen allows the gangsters to target Akabayashi providing they keep the Awakusu out of the affair, and Shu Aozaki calls Akabayashi to say farewell. That night, Akabayashi posts his location on the Dollars board so that drug dealers looking for him will surround and attack it. Inside, Akabayashi is confronted by members of his former organization when they are attacked with a volley of Molotov cocktails. They return gunfire, and Akabayashi slips out the back as the police cars he called ahead of time rush to the scene and arrest the men on both sides. The following day, as he is thinking about the ambiguity of the Dollars and how it blurs the line between normal society and the underworld, he hopes that he can keep Anri and Akane safe but decides he will not stop them from making their own choices.

Cultural References

 * Dougen mentions selling copies of Ruri Hijiribe's photo album on the online marketplace eBay, mispronouncing it hee-bay.

Quotes
Akabayashi: "Years ago, I was in love with a lady whose old man did her wrong on account of these drugs. Ever since then, I've really, really hated 'em. And the reason I'm with the Awakusu-kai now is because my likes and dislikes can actually mean something."

Aozaki: "Miss Akane is the old man's granddaughter. If anything happens to her, we go to war."

Akane: "How can I... get good at killing people?"

Dougen: "You see, I can't betray my men... but I can abandon them."

Akabayashi: "I don't care if you're human, or a monster, or even some kind of Buddhist goddess. All that matters is that I love you as a woman. Even I know this is crazy to say, comin' right after we just met, and you sliced my damn eyeball... but I ain't pretending it's based on logic. Please - marry me!"

Akabayashi: " Yeah, the Dollars are useful. But truth is they're also pretty scary."

Akabayashi: "If possible, I'd like to at least keep the boundary between day and night clear - so that Anri and Miss Akane can avoid becoming collateral damage. ...But if the girls say they prefer the night... well, it ain't my place to stop them."