Monogatari Series - Volume 12 - Chapter 1.11

011

“He fought against aberrations… W-Wait, so you’re saying he was an expert?”

Mèmè Oshino. Deishu Kaiki. Yozuru Kagenui.

Authorities on yokai and the like.

No, maybe not.

Somehow it didn’t seem like they “fought against” aberrations─true, Kagenui felt pretty violent to me, but at the end of the day, they were experts.

They acted as mediators between two sides─as negotiators.

That was a better description of their station.

Something about the word “fighting” felt wrong.

In that case, wouldn’t he be more like─

“A vampire hunter─”

Dramaturgy.

Episode. Guillotine Cutter.

That kind of person.

“Well, I suppose─while I’m sure negotiators similar to that Hawaiian-shirted boy existed in those times as well, he was different from that type. The descendant of a storied line of those who made yokai extermination their calling─may be what he said, or maybe not…”

“What, your memory’s fuzzy about something that important?”

“I cannot help it. Memories are worn away by time.”

“Worn away…”

Um.

Listening to her speak, I was beginning to wonder. Didn’t memories ever get idealized in her case?

My memories of the hell that was spring break and the nightmare that was Golden Week weren’t pleasant, but when I actually tried to think back to those events, I found myself putting them in a fairly good light…

It didn’t feel like she was altering her memories as much as simply forgetting them.

She was speaking like someone who was struggling to remember what she ate for dinner a week ago…like someone who was going back and recalling everything she ate to figure out what caused her food poisoning, for example…

But this was four hundred years ago, not a week. Maybe there wasn’t anything left to see through any rose-tinted glasses… Still.

“This is an important episode about you and your first thrall, right? Even if your memories have gotten worn down, would they really get that vague? I mean, fill in whatever’s missing with your imagination. Sentimentally. You told me to get jealous, but nothing about your words just now would make anyone jealous.”

“Is that so. But now that ye mention it, he was a fairly different type of man from thee, and different too was the situation. Perhaps a direct comparison is misguided… Also, by now, if I may make something clear, and not out of any thoughtfulness for thee, the impression he left is not as strong as thine.”

“Hm? Really? But wasn’t he your first?”

“Being my first thrall does not mean he must be more memorable than my second… While ye may now be dating that tsundere girl and practically speak of her as thy first love, I’m sure that most strictly speaking, thou had a crush on thy dry nurse in kindergarten or the like. But ye’ve simply forgotten that─see?”

“…”

Well, I understood her logic.

But it did seem more suspect if you were to ask me if I thought my time in kindergarten matched up with Shinobu’s experiences at two hundred.

No, wait, was this really about impressions and not memories?

In terms of romances, people always wanting to think that the love they’re experiencing at the moment, first or not, is the best─the psychology of wanting to think so…

It seemed clear the story Shinobu was sharing with me wasn’t a pleasant one for her─but even then, something still bothered me.

Did it matter so little?

Shinobu’s first thrall?

“Didn’t you call him something like a man you could entrust your back to?”

“I did, but then I came to know thee. He feels a bit lacking in that regard, looking back.”

Hmmm.

She was being way too candid.

She still treasured his enchanted blade, carrying it with her in her belly, and yet─

“Also, doesn’t your moniker ‘aberration slayer’ originally come from what people called your first thrall’s sword?”

“Aye,” confirmed Shinobu. “A sword passed down from generation to generation…among a clan of yokai exterminators. A sword that had slain aberrations since time past─that must have been worshipped like a god in its own right. I call it an enchanted blade, but ‘divine blade’ might accord better with reality.”

“Divine blade…”

“And the human who wielded it would have been like a god─may have been a living god in his own right.”

“I can’t help but feel like you’re putting a veil over everything you’re talking about. You keep on calling this guy he and him…but don’t you think it’s about time you told me the name of your first thrall? I can’t picture his face if you don’t.”

“Who knows.”

“Huh, that’s a weird name. Hunose? But maybe it wasn’t that weird back in those days…wait, what?”

“Stop with thy surprise. Have I not told thee again and again? I recall the human world’s proper nouns but vaguely, and call none by name. Listen when people speak to thee.”

“…”

No…I was listening.

And yes, she did say that.

But I assumed there’d be exceptions…or rather, a limit?

How could she not even remember the name of someone that important, the name of the main character? Just how in the moment did she live her life?

“And I always called him Aberration Slayer─as I am called now,” she said. “He was easier to distinguish from other humans as he held that blade, and he had the unique air of an expert about him as well.”

“He was unique and special so it made him easy to distinguish…which was paradoxically why you didn’t need to call him by his name?”

I could understand the logic there…

But it was too much of a stretch.

It sounded like an excuse, or simply too cold by anyone’s standards─wasn’t that just too cold-blooded?

Where did her iron blood and hot blood go?

“Look, ye’ve got it all wrong,” Shinobu chided me. “Thou art an exception among exceptions for myself─as thou art the only one in my over five hundred years to whom I owe my life.”

“…”

“Compared to that, my relationship with the man who was my first thrall was casual. When I think back to him now. That is also why I thought I may be able to arouse thy jealousy, but it appears as though I could not─perhaps jealousy for a man whose face thou cannot see, whose name thou dost not know, is a tall order.”

“You’ve been living a lot more casually than I thought…”

In fact.

I was amazed she’d managed to survive for so long.

Maybe it just proved how powerful of an aberration she was…

“Then for convenience’s sake,” I proposed, “why don’t we call him Aberration Slayer I? The First Aberration Slayer would be too long.”

“’Tis the exact same length when ye say it out loud.”

“Never mind.”

She wasn’t wrong to point that out, but “the first aberration slayer” sounded too impersonal.

Maybe it didn’t reflect his personality if Aberration Slayer was originally the name of a blade (it might be like calling me “School Uniform”), but I wanted to do at least that much for my predecessor.

Forget jealousy, I was starting to sympathize with him…

You had to wonder.

“And then what? Did your slacker lifestyle change a bit when Aberration Slayer I came along?”

“Well, to some degree.”

“If he was an expert in yokai extermination…that has to mean he showed up to exterminate you, right? He heard rumors about you from somewhere then appeared to attack you─”

“Nay. Not in the slightest─we did battle once, but he hadn’t come to exterminate me. Think upon it, now. I was being venerated as a god in those rumors he heard. Not scorned as some target he needed to exterminate.”

“Is that…how it works?”

Even if there weren’t any legends of vampires in Japan at the time, there must have been aberrations that sucked human blood─so it felt like an expert would be able to detect that Shinobu was a vampire and not any kind of god.

“Oh, wait─I guess he found out in the end if you made him your thrall,” I noted.

“Indeed─so why don’t I focus in on that bit.”