Monogatari Series - Volume 14 - Chapter 1.09

009

Shinobu might have lost her power, she might have become a little girl, but in spite of it all she was still proud of her blond hair, and having it trod upon so rudely must have been quite a shock because she ended up sequestering herself inside my shadow.

You could also say that by ditching me like that she was abandoning her role as my buddy, or bodyguard, which would be inexcusable behavior for my trusted partner, but when I considered what a shock it must have been, I didn’t have the heart to blame her for it.

Shinobu had been interposed between us, but even if she hadn’t been, I’m not so fragile that I’d feel insulted by a woman standing on my head. Nevertheless, the fact is that I was startled─the fact is that I was so startled I jumped.

I’d shot up, shrieking gaaah, but Ms. Kagenui’s balance hadn’t been thrown off in the slightest, she’d remained perched atop Shinobu’s head with a composed look, not moving a muscle─

But hang on, she didn’t weigh a thing.

It was like she was floating.

Not like when I say, Shinobu’s so tiny, she’s light as a feather─nor like Senjogahara, when she’d been stripped of her weight─it just seemed like Ms. Kagenui didn’t weigh anything at all. This might not be a particularly apt metaphor, but it was like physically experiencing trompe-l’œil.

If Shinobu was made of paper.

Ms. Kagenui was a paper balloon.

Maybe as a master of the martial arts she can erase her weight by shifting her center of gravity─indeed a match for Karen’s sensei, I thought, trying to force the situation to make sense, but it felt too illogical.

The reasoning was unreasonable, unremittingly unrealistic.

Well.

This was an illogical person I was dealing with.

Despite being more human than anyone─

She was more un-human than anyone.

“First off, mightn’t we up stakes and take ourselves someplace else, young man─seems this department store’s fixing to close. And darn if I don’t have just the place. The ruins of that cram school where you and I had a ball slaughtering each other─”

She didn’t seem to be psyching herself up or prettying things up as she said this in her Kyoto dialect─even the disturbing part about “slaughtering each other” came out of her mouth as naturally as could be.

I guess that’s how it must be for her…

That’s how it is.

Just another day.

Good enough for me, I decided to go along with her suggestion. Having a conversation about aberration-related phenomena after hours in a department store seemed somehow unappealing─it would be a hell of a setting for a ghost story. But the security guard would be coming around, so we couldn’t stay there either way. Well, I imagine Ononoki and Ms. Kagenui could, but…

I preferred to avoid a fight scene.

It would be an unmitigated disaster if this turned into a battle. I’d much prefer if we could figure things out calmly and maturely, without incident indecent or otherwise.

That sentiment, that laudable sentiment, might have gone to shit the second the pair showed up, but─anyway.

We left the department store arcade and headed to that ruined cram school so redolent with memories.

That ruined cram school.

The adjective “ruined” had taken on a slightly different nuance after summer break─before, the spot had been occupied by “an abandoned building that used to be a cram school,” still standing even if it was totally rundown (it was inside that abandoned building that Ms. Kagenui and I, and Shinobu and Ononoki, had done battle); but at the end of August, it had burned to the ground, and been reduced to ashes, leaving no trace behind, not even a ruin─so at present, it was what you might call a vacant lot.

Empty land with a “No Trespassing” sign.

Either way, though, visiting that place at night was not for the faint of heart. That much, at least, hadn’t changed─but it was also still devoid of human activity and remained a good location for a confidential conversation.

On the way there, I sized up Ms. Kagenui as she walked ahead of me─or didn’t walk, didn’t set foot on the ground; she rode the whole way on Ononoki’s shoulders.

When you were little, didn’t you play that game on the way to school where you pretend that “the ground is an ocean, and if you step on it you’ll drown”─and the one rule is that you have to stay on top of walls or benches or whatever?

I didn’t know why she did it (I was pretty sure she didn’t really believe she’d drown), but Ms. Kagenui absolutely would not set foot on the ground─the first time I met her, she was standing on top of a mailbox.

At that moment she was riding on Ononoki’s shoulders─not the way I’d been carrying Shinobu a little earlier, but standing dexterously on tiptoe astride them.

When I saw it for the first time over the summer, I was floored by Ononoki’s inhuman strength, but having now personally experienced Ms. Kagenui’s ability to nullify her weight, I realized she was the extraordinary one. Granted, Ononoki was by no means ordinary herself, but─that said.

Whatever impression it might leave me with and however it worked, aside from her decidedly oddball habit of “taking the high road,” which was pretty much impossible to leave aside, the impression I got of Yozuru Kagenui was the same one I’d gotten when I first met her: that of “an attractive woman who was my elder.”

Like a dignified teacher.

Or a diligent businesswoman.

At least, she didn’t appear to be of the same ilk as the middle-aged man in the Hawaiian shirt and the ominous guy in the funerary suit─she didn’t look at all like she would’ve been friends with them in college.

She didn’t, but strictly in terms of dangerousness, she far outstripped either Oshino or Kaiki─far transcended them. Unlike Oshino, who was open to conversation, and Kaiki, whose attention could be bought, there was no dealing with Ms. Kagenui.

And that made her more trouble than any aberration or anyone else─which was precisely why she was an aberration-slaying, aberration-employing onmyoji, I imagine.

The fact that her very appearance on the scene could drive the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, once the king of aberrations even if she had lost her power, into hiding so easily, so disappointingly quickly─forcing her back into my shadow, spoke to the extent of Ms. Kagenui’s true power.

Shinobu was the Aberration Slayer.

But Ms. Kagenui was an expert, known as the Aberration Roller─and specialized in immortal aberrations.

“I─” I began when we reached the vacant land, er, wasteland where the ruins of the cram school had been. There’d been an awkward lack of conversation on the way there. Though maybe I was the only one who found the total silence awkward. “─bid you welcome. You. To my place. Ms. Kagenui.”

“Mm-hmm. Kakakak.”

Her policy of “taking the high road” seemed to allow walking inside buildings (the floor isn’t the ground), but this was just a wasteland, very much the ground, so while she stopped, she didn’t alight from Ononoki’s shoulders, and when she responded she did so from that position.

Ms. Kagenui herself had suggested this place for our talk, and I figured it had probably been her idea of a “fair suggestion”─conducting our consultation in an open space where she couldn’t touch the ground created a “difficult combat environment” for her, so there’d be no sudden eruptions of violence─though if push came to shove, it seemed like that ball was entirely in her court.

Or maybe I was just overthinking it.

But this lady─

“I go wherever I please, my young friend─where I please throughout Japan or this here entire world of ours. Slaying immortal aberrations, as is my wont.”

“…”

Yup.

All this lady wanted to do was kill immortal aberrations.

I didn’t understand why, I didn’t know why, and in fact I didn’t even know if there was a reason in the first place, but Yozuru Kagenui hated immortal aberrations with a passion─despised them.

So consulting with her on this matter was extremely risky, even if I kept various aspects of the situation to myself─she’d come to see me personally, but I’d have felt much more at ease if she’d just sent Ononoki to act as a kind of carrier pigeon.

It’s a sad fact, though, that human beings know the things they hate better than the things they love, which meant that at the moment, whatever form this might take, Ms. Kagenui was unmistakably the most appropriate and logical choice for a consultation.

She of all people could do something.

About my unnatural transformation into a vampire.

Naturally I had high expectations.

“Though of course I’m here now because Gaen-senpai was keen I should come─you’ve caught her fancy something fierce, I reckon, young man. What’d you do?”

“Nothing…worth mentioning. I haven’t done anything, or, I don’t remember doing anything. In fact, it’s more like she did a bunch of things to, I mean, for me…”

No good.

I sounded way too nervous.

I was obviously on my guard─that is, I was shaking in my boots.

Over summer break, Ms. Kagenui had beaten the living shit out of me right here, though at a different altitude, and I guess my body hadn’t forgotten.

Well, since I was asking her for help, I was in no position to be anything but humble towards her, whether I dragged our past enmity into the present or not…

“Hmm… Well, fair enough, I reckon. No need to fuss ourselves over it. You have yourself whatever relationship with Gaen-senpai your little heart desires. And yet, a body─never mind.” Ms. Kagenui gave a little shake of her head.

Like she was about to say something but thought better of it.

Or like she cut herself off?

“Enough of that, I’ll not speak on it any further. Whatever plans Gaen-senpai may have, whatever her motives─a body’s just keen to slay immortal aberrations. So long as I’m allowed that, I reckon I’ve no complaints.”

“…”

I doubt she was going to say anything good, but it always nags at me when someone breaks off in mid-sentence, you know?

“Well then? What seems to be the trouble? I find I’ve yet to hear the whole story─I heard tell of an immortal aberration in these parts, so I just dropped everything and hightailed it here.”

“Oh…”

She was operating on some seriously vague information.

To put it another way, this lady seriously wanted to kill some immortal aberrations─she seemed less like an expert and more like an executioner.

Though when it comes to facing a vampire─just like with that trio of specialists─maybe that’s only proper.

But this was really going to make things tough, just like it had been with those three.

“It’ll take a long time to explain everything…or maybe not actually all that long, but can I ask you something first?”

“Anything you please,” Ms. Kagenui said with seeming satisfaction, her overwhelming gaze pouring down on me from on high. Just the difference engendered by Ononoki’s height was enough for it to feel plenty oppressive, and I was like a deer in the headlights.

I had half a mind to call for Shinobu and cajole her into coming out of my shadow so I could make myself taller than Ms. Kagenui, but I gave up on the idea. I could see at a glance that even if I stood on Shinobu’s head, I wouldn’t measure up to Ms. Kagenui.

“You and Ononoki are, well, experts?”

“I reckon we are. Though strictly speaking, it’s me that’s the expert, and Ononoki here is a shikigami, my subordinate, you might say.”

“Which means that you have─a price, don’t you?”

A price.

Oshino used to talk about it all the time.

Not that he was an extreme miser like Kaiki, but when it came to the price of his labor, Oshino was severe, or you could say he lacked a spirit of volunteerism, or maybe that he was a stickler─he pretty much never did anything for free.

Ms. Gaen wasn’t after money per se, but she demanded payment in kind, which was an even more troublesome bargain than money─and this time was no exception. Her price was returning the favor─a price of some sort or another was the rule in their business, as far as I could tell.

And if it was a rule, I assumed that even the iconoclastic Yozuru Kagenui would abide by it.

“I won’t beat around the bush… How much will you need? To be frank, I don’t have all that much money.”

“Eh? I’ve no use for filthy lucre, what’s more trouble than it’s worth. I reckon I’m no good with such fiddly calculations. It don’t make no nevermind to me, so get on with your jawing.”

“…”

Total anarchy!

What the hell kind of attitude was that?!

Even an easy-breezy lifestyle has its limits!

Not having to pay was a godsend for a student like me (whatever Shinobu might say, using up a thousand yen on the UFO Catcher was a hard blow), but danger lurked in that unsociability, and I didn’t want to accidentally get too close.

It wasn’t that she had no material desires.

She was wearing classy clothes, after all.

Ms. Gaen’s payment in kind was plenty frightening, but this “make no nevermind” attitude was frightening in its incomprehensibility. Kaiki’s obsession with money was “insufferable,” but insufferable was something I could wrap my head around─this was simply “inscrutable.”

Insufferable, and inscrutable─similar according to the Nuance Proposition, but…

“Young man, seems as though you’ve been spending a good deal of time with Yotsugi here, which is plenty good enough for me. But if that won’t do for you, then, well, I’d reckon it a kindness if you treated her to some ice cream again next time round.”

“Häagen-Dazs.” Ononoki had remained silent up to this point, but here she unexpectedly joined in─no need for her to give in to her desires quite so fully, but yeah, when you just come right out and say it like that, it’s clear as day. Easy to get.

Made me want to throw in a Klondike Bar along with the Häagen-Dazs.

I wonder, though.

In that sense, Ms. Kagenui’s “desire” seemed to me like nothing but the overt bloodlust of wanting to kill immortal aberrations─which was maybe what freaked me out.

“Do you also have a favorite food or anything, Ms. Kagenui? If you do─”

“I don’t. So long as it’s edible, I’m not fussed about it.”

“…”

There was no way in, that is, she acted disinterested in a way that made me think, She really isn’t interested in anything but “that,” is she.

When most people say they don’t have any preferences when it comes to food, you’ll turn up an ingredient they really like or a something that puts them off if you hassle them about it long enough, but Ms. Kagenui’s curt response gave no such impression, not even a crumb.

Ultimately, she was “scary” not because she was violent or hard to talk to─it struck me at that moment that it was because she lacked the little things that make people human.

Un-human─was that it?

In which case, closing the distance through small talk or attempts to create a friendly atmosphere would be totally futile with her… Sure, not paying a price, not needing to, made me feel ill at ease, but forcing money on someone who didn’t want it would be no less weird.

Deciding that my malaise was a personal problem that I would just have to deal with (along with treating Ononoki to some Häagen-Dazs sometime. And I’m not talking about a cup, but a cone), I broached the real subject with Ms. Kagenui.

“It’s mirrors.”

“Huh?”

“Mirrors─there’s no reflection. Of me. In them.”

“…”

From that point on, Ms. Kagenui listened to what I had to say without giving any polite encouragement, but also without making fun of me, basically with a serious expression─she heard me out about my half-baked transformation into a vampire that didn’t correlate to Shinobu Oshino.

The Aberration Roller was totally absorbed.

“Now I’ve got the picture,” she nodded, after I finally finished speaking. “Your sister. Your little sister. Sounds like she’s fit as a fiddle. Tsukihi Araragi, little Tsukihi.”

“Uh, no, that’s not the point…”

“After listening to you jaw on about all that, how could a body not be concerned about your deviant bath time with little sis? That’s one long bath, I reckon.”

But that aside, said Ms. Kagenui, changing the subject even as she jabbed me where it hurt.

It seemed that even she couldn’t resist quipping about The Battle for the First Bath, but apparently her interests really were confined to immortal aberrations, because she changed the subject almost immediately.

“I’m fixing to ask a few questions, that all right with you?”

“Please do. Ask me anything at all.”

“Just answer best you can remember. When was the last time you reckon you saw your reflection in a mirror?”

“?”

“Listen here, there was likely a mirror in the changing room─when you stripped down to your skivvies out there, did you have a reflection? And in the bathroom itself, surely the mirror wasn’t fogged up right from the get-go. What about when you first got in there? When you were giving your sister a pompadour, for instance, you reckon there was anything then? Or if you don’t remember that too well, how’s about before bed last night? When you were brushing your teeth, or─”

“…”

Now that she was asking these questions, I realized I should’ve thought of them right away. I was so fixated on the mysterious phenomenon of my lack of reflection─that I hadn’t thought about when in the world, when in hell it had started.

Even if I was panicking, that was still pretty negligent of me.

I searched my memory.

I searched─but came up empty. Humans take “having a reflection” for granted, after all, so we don’t pay it any mind.

Even if we’re aware of it in the moment, it’s not going to form a lasting memory─though of course, if I hadn’t had a reflection while I was brushing my teeth the night before, you’d think I would have noticed then and there. I figured we could say I’d still had a reflection at that point.

And probably also when I undressed in the changing room─if I hadn’t had a reflection then, I would’ve noticed. So, I guess.

“We should assume that the last time I had a reflection was right before it happened…I think. Before the mirror got fogged up… So I think the moment in question was the first time I didn’t have a reflection.”

“Hmm…your toenails.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your nails. Let’s see ’em.”

I let my hands droop like a ghost’s and displayed them to Ms. Kagenui─who grimaced in displeasure and said, “Your toenails.”

Oh right.

Why would Ms. Kagenui be interested in my nail art?

They weren’t even decorated in the first place.

That being said, I honestly didn’t know how to show her my toenail when I was standing in the middle of a vacant lot and she was up in the air on the shoulders of a tween girl.

Well, nothing for it but to improvise since I didn’t have time for a rehearsal… I took off my sneaker, removed my sock, balled the sock up and put it into the shoe─then, taking a pose like the Y balance in rhythmic gymnastics, I extended my foot towards Ms. Kagenui.

“That’s just about the strangest pose I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

What’s that supposed to mean, you’re the one who asked me!

But before I could even think that, Ms. Kagenui grabbed hold of the foot I’d raised partway off the ground (I hadn’t actually made it to a full Y balance. I’m not that flexible) and pulled it close to her face─I thought I was going to go head over heels, which is to say I almost did go head over heels, but Ms. Kagenui kept that from happening, by brute force.

In other words, she was able to support my entire body weight simply by holding my ankle with one of her hands─just how strong was she?

Maybe they hadn’t exaggerated her brutality in the anime after all.

“Mirrors─”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s plenty frightening not to have a reflection─sure enough it is, but there’s an aberration what only appears in mirrors as well, I reckon.”

“Ah…you’re right.”

I couldn’t bring a name to mind─but I did recall hearing about ghosts that only appear in mirrors, evil spirits that live in mirrors, aberrations that are themselves mirrors.

There were too many to count.

I don’t think that had anything directly to do with the matter at hand, though, I imagine Ms. Kagenui just brought it up to fill the time while she was examining my toenail.

“What’d that child─that vampire, the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, have to say about this here toe?”

“Let’s see… That little girl, who’s sulking now thanks to you…said there’d been an infinitesimal fracture that slowly sealed from the inside out, and that the bone was fully healed─that was this morning’s diagnosis.”

“Was it now? This morning, eh? Well, take a looksee.”

“Sorr…eeeeee?”

Ms. Kagenui pulled my leg up even further and shoved the nail right up to my face. My stance was now well past a Y balance, and more like an I balance.

Yes, it hurt.

The joints in my crotch groaned.

Or maybe it was just my voice I was hearing.

“See there. All better.”

“…”

To be frank, the pose was neither stable nor settled enough for me to ascertain the state of something as small as my pinky toenail, but when I forced my eyes up to look at it, sure enough, it seemed to be just as she said. The split in the nail had repaired itself, and the scab was gone.

This may sound a bit overblown when all we’re talking about is a pinky toenail, but─it was definitely a full recovery.

Yes, as though…as though a vampiric healing factor was in effect.

“It’s hard to tell from a purely external examination whether or not a fracture has healed, but we don’t need an X-ray to see that the nail, at least, is back to normal… And it’s definitely out of the question for a nail to repair itself like this in just one day,” I summed up the situation for everyone’s benefit, recapping the parts that added up, and the parts that didn’t. “But the weird thing is, Ms. Kagenui─when I was putting on my socks to leave the house, my toe wasn’t in nearly such good shape. It was pretty much like it’d been this morning when Shinobu made her diagnosis… Superficially, at least, it hadn’t gotten better at all.”

“The reason’s obvious, oblivious monstieur.” This response came not from Ms. Kagenui but from below her, from Ononoki. She extended one finger (probably just out of habit, but knowing the power inherent in that finger made it a terrifying gesture) and pointed at the sky.

At the sky─the night sky.

The dark night sky, the sun having already set.

“Oh, I get it. A vampire’s power gets stronger at night─”

“And you’ve probably gotten plenty of moonlight. Moonbathing, not sunbathing, salves a vampire’s wounds. Yaaay.”

The instant she said yaaay she got a kick from Ms. Kagenui. It was a violent form of discipline, but I can’t say I didn’t see where she was coming from.

Not that I’m in much of a position to talk, being partially to blame for that yaaay.

“So that means Shinobu’s diagnosis was right. Her deduction that I’m currently in vampire form means…”

It wasn’t just regular healing, it was creature-of-the-night healing─vampire healing, in other words. No question about it.

“Well, I’ll not render judgment quite yet, I reckon─not having seen the original wound and all. Here now, Yotsugi.”

“What is it, Big Sis?”

“Take a gander.” With that Ms. Kagenui tugged me around by my ankle once more─not back to my original position, but to an angle slightly lower than that of a Y balance, somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety to a hundred degrees.

And just like that she jammed my bare foot up to Ononoki’s face. Right up to it. She pushed the sole of my foot onto the tween girl’s face and rubbed it around, which was pretty kinky in its own way.

I wondered what the onmyoji was doing, if it was to please me or something, but then Ms. Kagenui instructed her familiar to “investigate.”

“Okay, okay.” With this somewhat recalcitrant response, Ononoki took my ankle from Ms. Kagenui─come on, guys, my leg isn’t a relay baton.

Realistically, having it held by Ononoki instead of Kagenui should’ve been scarier, beyond scary in fact, but at that moment I was somewhat relieved that the baton had passed.

My relief only lasted a few seconds, though, really just the time it took for Ms. Kagenui to pass me off to Ononoki, who quickly put my toe into her mouth like a pacifier. This made even an inveterate veteran like myself quake with fear.

Shinobu tortuously torturing my foot was one thing, but putting it in your mouth and sucking on it? That was something else entirely.

It didn’t even tickle.

“It’s crunchy.”

“Hey, no teeth! No biting, no biting!”

“Don’t get so cranky, it’s just a pinky toe.”

“Cranky─!”

Sensing imminent, potentially fatal danger, I pulled away my leg─while Ms. Kagenui’s hold had been so tight that my leg probably would’ve torn right off, Ononoki, despite holding it with both arms, was so intent on sucking on my toe that I was able to extract myself easily.

“What d’you reckon, Yotsugi?”

“Results pending.”

“Well then, Araragi, my boy. While Yotsugi’s processing the flavor of your foot, how’s about we move on to the next step? Your hand, if you please.”

“My hand?”

“Uh huh, just make believe I’m a fortune teller.”

I’d mistakenly offered her my hands when she wanted to see my toenail, couldn’t she just have checked then? Proper sequence is crucial, was that it? Actually, Oshino might have said something along those lines at one point.

Ms. Kagenui’s next step, however, didn’t refer to any crucial sequence.

It was probably about time to stop assuming that she and Oshino had anything in common.

I put out my hand like she asked.

And she took hold of it gently, softly, indeed much like a fortune teller would─so much so, in fact, that I wondered if she actually was going to read my palm, like maybe my palm could elucidate everything about my current situation. But that wasn’t what was going on.

“And a-one, and a-two.”

Ms. Kagenui took my outstretched hand and held my index and middle fingers. Then she bent them back to an untenable angle. So it wasn’t my fingers that she’d counted…

“G…Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“What a ruckus, I do declare. Well, I’ve put up a barrier around the place, so you can writhe and scream all you like, it won’t make a lick of difference.”

When?

It didn’t seem like she’d had an opportunity to put up a barrier, but I guess that’s the kind of skill you should expect from a disciple (?) of Ms. Gaen’s. Not that I had the leeway to be impressed.

I couldn’t even work up the energy to ask what she meant by a barrier.

Now, since I’ve been wounded so many times, and who even knows how many times I’ve died, you’d think I’d be accustomed to pain. But pain isn’t something you ever get accustomed to. When a vampire’s wound heals, it “goes back to the way it was,” just like for a normal person; when you break a bone, it’s not like it gets stronger than it was originally.

So I didn’t hold back. I collapsed and, just as Ms. Kagenui had offered, writhed screaming on the ground.

“Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Wh-Wh-What are you doing, Ms. Kagenui! You can’t suddenly owowowow─”

“Now this won’t do at all. Don’t only writhe around down there─turn your mind to healing those fingers for a spell. Believe that they’ll heal. This is a test of your healing ability.”

“T-Test?”

So then─

This act of violence, this unforgivable brutality, was just Ms. Kagenui’s version of Shinobu scratching me with her claws─just a trial of my body’s ability to heal itself?

Fine, I saw how this step couldn’t come first, but hold on a goddamn second.

She was more ferocious than any aberration.

“You’ve got to put your mind to the grindstone. Think of your fingers healing, conceive of it. Look here, those fingers are on your right hand, aren’t they? And the way I broke them, the way they broke, it’ll take them plenty more than a few piddling months to heal. You won’t be able to get back to a little thing called exam prep with fingers like that, now, will you, unless you heal them yourself.”

“Guh…”

Not exactly the best motivation.

In fact, broken fingers were a great excuse not to study─well, I’m injured, nothing I can do about it.

Never underestimate a high school student’s desire to slack off.

Plus, without a better motivation for wanting to heal my broken fingers ASAP─I could die from the pain. Maybe broken fingers didn’t kill you, but the pain was killing me.

I mean, the fucking color they were turning.

What did you do to them, Ms. Kagenui?

Forget a few months, these fingers wouldn’t heal in a lifetime.

“G…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!”

Think about it.

Think, think, think.

Picture it with everything you’ve got.

If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal.

“If these fingers don’t heal…I won’t be able to fondle Hanekawa’s breasts!”

Well.

Even if they healed, I still wouldn’t get to.

Apparently, though, this incentive was more than adequate; it was perfect. My two fingers, which had turned a blackish purple thanks to internal hemorrhaging, healed instantaneously─went back to normal.

“Just how pubescent are you?” Ms. Kagenui said, smiling despite her words.

Wasn’t she a broadminded sis. Not even appalled.

“But thank you kindly for demonstrating your healing factor, your manner of regenerating. Now, Yotsugi, a body’s keen to hear the results of your inspection.”

“Results still pending…I’m about 84 percent done. I’ve got the basic picture, though. Big Sis Shinobu’s interpretation that he’s become a vampire is probably correct. But…”

“But?”

Thanks for the worrisome conjunction.

“But─no, I can’t say the rest.”

“Hey, you’re making me worry,” I butted in. “Why’re you acting like that?”

“For my part, I’d rather talk to your parents first if possible.”

“…”

Ononoki was as expressionless as a doll, as a corpse, so it was always impossible to tell if she was being serious, but I really hoped this was a joke.

I felt like I was being sentenced.

“So…that’s a joke, right, Ononoki? You’re kidding,” I tried to confirm.

“Um, the bit about your parents, yes… But maybe you’d better call Big Sis Shinobu. Get her out of her hidey-hole in your shadow. I’d like to get that demon’s opinion on this one.”

“I reckon that’s a good idea,” seconded Ms. Kagenui. “If I ruffled her feathers by standing on her head earlier, I’ll happily apologize, so come now, young man, summon the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.”

“Okay…”

That all made good sense. I had some things I wanted to ask my buddy as well, so I had no reason to refuse their request. But then, I’d already used up my trump card that morning.

If I lured her out with fictitious donuts twice in one day, I really might end up donutized─when night fell, she would’ve regained some of her power, maybe enough to put a hole in me if she wanted.

Therefore.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Kagenui, but if I’m going to do that, do you mind if I make a quick run to Mister Donut first?”

“What in tarnation?!”

A comeback in Kansai dialect!

Now, that was a treat.

“Don’t waste my time, young man, call her out of there lickety-split. I’ll not wait around. If it seems like it’s fixing to take too long, I might just stick my hand into your shadow and pull her out like some intestines.”

“Like some intestines?”

Was that a common figure of speech to go with “pull out”?

“I’m of a mind to rip that whole head of blond hair out at the─hm?”

Before Ms. Kagenui could complete whatever disturbing thought she was about to express, Shinobu Oshino finally appeared from within my shadow. Good timing, almost as if she’d heard what Ms. Kagenui was saying.

Unlike this morning when she popped out all lively with her fist in the air, this time she rose out solemnly with great pomp and circumstance. She’d even revamped her outfit into some kind of classy dress.

Her eyes seemed puffy, and knowing her as I did, I wanted to ask her if she’d been crying herself a river in there, but as she made her entrance, arms folded, her chin thrust high in the air so she could look down her nose at us, that gruesome smile plastered on her face, there was no way I could rib her about it.

“Ah, the former Heartunderblade. Sorry ’bout having the audacity to stand on your head earlier and all.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Man, could she not read a room.

Some grown-up.

Sorry ’bout? Come on. And she didn’t seem the least bit contrite… This is just a guess, but I bet Ms. Kagenui never once in her life admitted that she was wrong.

“K…Kakak.”

Nevertheless, Shinobu did her best to laugh.

Such courage, it brought tears to your eyes.

“Kakak. It seems as though thine investigation of my master hath reached its conclusion. Ye have my thanks for carrying it out in my stead. I suppose ’tis true what they say, that to everything there is a season, if even ones such as you can be of use to my lord.”

“Hahaha, my apologies. Truly, for having driven you to such ludicrously untoward posturing. That was never my intent. Your head simply seemed a likely place to come in for a landing.”

“…”

Enough already.

Daring to read other people’s minds when you can’t even read the room.

Seemed a likely place to come in for a landing… This was probably the first time in her almost six hundred years that someone had made that particular remark to Shinobu, and there was no question that it was an almost unthinkable insult.

“Ka…kak.”

And yet she laughed. What backbone. Or she’d missed her chance to back down, more like.

“W-Watch thy tongue, human─an expert ye may be, and an expert in immortal aberrations at that, but do not for a moment think that means thou knowest aught of me. Forget not, the only reason I have not slain thee on the spot is so that thou might help resolve this physical malady that besets my lord and master. Kakak.”

“Which is exactly why I’m apologizing to you, for stepping on your head and all. For someone so short, you sure are long on pride. Come on, now, let’s bury the hatchet. You nightwalkers are such gloomy folk. I’m real sorry, I’ll be sure never to step on your head again.”

“…”

Gritting her teeth, Shinobu finally fell silent.

This was where I put on the brakes, worried that she might stay silent for months like she did last time. “Stop it, Ms. Kagenui, please.”

At this, Ms. Kagenui looked stunned─apparently, she hadn’t been trying to be mean and just didn’t have a clue. What an unpleasant person.

Everyone─and I mean everyone, even Kaiki─disliked her.

“You too, Shinobu, let it drop. No sense in opening up old wounds.”

“Y-Yet…”

Don’t clutch my sleeve with those tear-filled eyes.

It’s simply too pathetic. And adorably sympathetic.

“You bravely volunteered your own head,” I told her, “to protect mine from the tread of Ms. Kagenui’s feet. That was a selfless act of devotion and personal sacrifice. You can rest easy, your pride is intact, okay?”

“Huh? Oh, aye! ’Twas just as thou sayest, I protected thee, my lord. I am badass indeed!”

Her mood improved in an instant─pathetic, adorable, but also a pain in the ass and kind of a dodo.

“I can’t believe I lost to her…” muttered Ononoki, but Shinobu seemed to be on cloud nine and didn’t hear her. Thank God for small favors. Favors both large and small aside, everyone besides Ms. Kagenui was having a shitty time.

“Well now,” she said, “we have all the players, we have all the information─time for all the answers, I reckon. It won’t do to leave the readers with a mystery, so let’s get to the solution, shall we? Time to solve the riddle.”

“Solve the riddle…”

Something about her words bothered me.

My lack of a reflection wasn’t a riddle, it was just something that was happening…

“Excellent. Proceed,” urged Shinobu.

Her mood improved, she seemed to be feeling generous─well, she’d tasted the humiliation of being stepped on, but I imagine that the erstwhile king of aberrations still had so much self-confidence, not to say self-conceit, that Ms. Kagenui and Ononoki had nothing on her. Whether or not her self-image held water was a different question.

“Koyomi Araragi─kind monster sir,” Ononoki began. “You are, at present─or in the present progressive, turning into a vampire little by little by little. That’s, well, the situation.”

“Turning into a vampire…”

“From human to vampire, little by little. I believe it’s what biologists call metamorphosis, Latin mutatis, Japanese hentai. Hmm, only too appropriate for you, monstieur.”

“…”

Was I supposed to laugh?

Not on your life.

My turn to be expressionless.

But it didn’t come as a surprise, Shinobu’s inspection that morning having already told me as much, and Ms. Kagenui’s inspection (if that’s what you want to call that outburst of violence) having just confirmed it.

“Turning into a vampire… Mm-hmm.”

“How now, young man. You don’t seem particularly put out.”

“Well, I’ve become a vampire so many times at this point… I’m obviously not going to be as freaked out as I was the first time, over spring break. I don’t want to brag in front of experts like yourselves, but I’ve had more on my plate over the past year than you might think…”

The past few months in particular had been pretty extreme.

The stuff with Hachikuji, the stuff with Sengoku─

And.

That transfer student.

“I’m sure you have,” Ononoki agreed.

In an insinuating tone.

“You held that plate out like a moron.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” the familiar shook her head.

Her barb, loaded with a scathing sarcasm that could only have come from Kaiki, was too indirect, too roundabout, for me to understand what she was getting at.

When I said I didn’t want to brag, was I actually bragging? Had an expert been offended by the remarks of a noob who was still in high school? No, Ononoki wasn’t the type.

Whatever the case, the fact that her personality was different every time we met made her tricky to deal with. It’s hard to get accustomed to such a mercurial character.

“Don’t be so harsh on the boy, Yotsugi. I’ll not deny the young man here may have behaved moronically, but I reckon some part of that responsibility lies with us,” Ms. Kagenui covered for me, if that’s what she was doing, for whatever reason─okay, fine, I have no clue what she was pulling there.

Suddenly I realized it was past nine o’clock.

Sure, everything had taken a while, but our meeting had been set for seven.

Could we get to it already?

“As for why you’re metamorphosing, monstieur. As for why the hentai is being perverted into a vampire…”

Not gonna let that one drop, huh?

What’s the deal, got a bone to pick with me?

“It has nothing to do with your interrelationship with the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade─I think you probably already knew that, but it’s important enough that it bears repeating.”

“Nothing to do with Shinobu…but can I really be turning into a vampire independent of the fact that she used to be one?”

“You can. There’s one last thing I want to clarify. Sis,” Ononoki turned to Shinobu, “do you really not have some inkling? Of why─this is happening to kind monster sir, your lord, your master?”

Shinobu seemed displeased. “Had I, I would not stoop to asking the likes of thee for aid.”

“And Oshino never said a word about it?” asked Ms. Kagenui.

“Nay. ’Tis true that I cannot recall everything he spoke of─most of it washed over me like a cool breeze, but had he touched on something of such dire import, I would remember.”

“I reckon you would,” Ms. Kagenui took Shinobu’s somewhat cocky remark in stride. “Yes indeedy, I reckon even Oshino missed this one. It was irregular, or, an oversight. If he’d known things were going to go this way, he’d never have let such misgivings go unheeded.”

“An oversight? Oshino? Is that even possible? How can that be, how can a guy who acted like he saw through everything─”

An oversight.

Just thinking about it freaked me out.

“He didn’t really,” Ms. Kagenui corrected me. “And for what it’s worth, he might see through to the truth of the matter but not take care of it for you. He’s like Gaen-senpai in that way. Strict, or businesslike when it comes to that sort of thing, wont to operate solely on the basis of profit and loss. If’n you ask me, even a capricious contrarian like Kaiki at least has a little more warmth to him.”

“…”

I had some reservations about calling it “warmth,” but true, while a pain in the ass about money, Kaiki’s petty accounting was also very human.

“Still and all, I reckon this time around it was nothing but a plain old oversight─in other words, it was opaque to Mister All-Seeing, to Mèmè Oshino.”

“Opaque─to Oshino.”

Saying those words out loud made me realize just how anomalous they felt. Maybe it was plausible to Ms. Kagenui, who’d known Oshino since college and seen her share of his failures, but to me, after everything he’d done for me this year─after watching him “see through” everything time and time again, it sounded like a bad joke.

A bad joke. A bad reality.

A bad─paranormal phenomenon.

“Isn’t that a big deal? Something that’s never happened before is happening in my body─something unprecedented, something that my accumulated experience is useless in dealing with─”

“Keep your shirt on. It’s certainly unusual, that much is true. For Oshino’s predictions and judgments to be wrong, I mean─but still, young man, it’s a hoot to see you so shocked by it.”

“A h-hoot?”

I guess from Ms. Kagenui’s perspective as a fellow specialist and old friend of Oshino’s, my level of shock seemed pretty ridiculous─no need to come right out and say it, though.

It hurt my feelings.

Man is she oblivious, I started to think, but apparently that wasn’t what was going on since Ms. Kagenui went on to say:

“But the fact that this particular matter was opaque to Oshino was entirely your fault.”

“…? Huh?”

I was shocked again, if you want to talk about shocked, but more than that, I was bewildered.

I simply didn’t understand what she meant, but if she was saying that Koyomi Araragi was opaque to Mèmè Oshino, that was impossible.

I was like a flimsy piece of tracing paper to him─so transparent you could see right through to the other side.

I had always been the insubstantial, weak Koyomi Araragi to him.

Always and forever, consistently─I had never once stymied his predictions. I’m not like Hanekawa. And not even she threw him off all the time─

“Please tell me what you mean, Ms. Kagenui. How did I throw Oshino off his game? I think you must be wrong about that… But if something of the sort happened─I need to know.”

“I’ll let you know the moment I do. That’s what I’ve come here to find out─but one thing’s certain, there’s trouble brewing. We could very well─that is, if things keep on this way…”

Me and Yotsugi here. We might have no choice but to kill you, she stated.

She did so without lowering her voice or changing her tone perceptibly, as though it was just part of the natural flow of the conversation.

“…”

“No choice but to kill you─if things go south, that is. Now then, young man. It’s easy as pie to see why your body’s metamorphosing into a vampire’s─why you’re clearly headed in that direction. Honestly, it doesn’t take an expert, it’s so simple you should’ve figured it out all by your lonesome.”

You could’ve been self-aware enough to awake to the reality, she chided.

“What, do you mean?”

“You turned into a vampire too much.”

Ms. Kagenui said this in, you guessed it, the exact same tone─and from there, Ononoki took over, you guessed it, expressionlessly, speaking in her overwhelmingly placid voice.

“You just kept piling more on your plate─you moron. In the course of solving all those problems, you relied too much on your power as a vampire, and so, irrespective of the former Heartunderblade, your immortal soul inexorably ended up approaching vampiredom.”

“Approaching─”

“You’ve been literally transforming yourself into a vampire.”