Monogatari Series - Volume 16 - Chapter 11.02

002

“Take that!”

“Gff!”

“And that! And that!”

“Gff! Gff!”

You might get the impression from these cute battle cries and grunts that the spectacle depicted here is nothing more than some friendly horseplay, but in fact they express an extraordinarily mild version of Ms. Kagenui beating the shit out of me. With a final “And that!” she released a back kick fit to tear off my entire flank─it felt as if a section of my torso popped out, like I was a Jenga tower or something, and I finally collapsed to the ground, ending our little back-and-forth.

“Well now, aren’t you out of shape─when we had that little dust-up over the summer, I reckon you had a mite more backbone.”

Not that I didn’t smash that backbone to splinters─noted Ms. Kagenui, leaping through the air and landing on a brand-new stone lantern.

Landing atop a lantern at a sacred shrine seemed like blasphemy, but she’d probably be forgiven at a shrine like this, where no god was currently present─though given that she couldn’t set foot on the ground, she might’ve done the same thing even at a shrine where a god was in residence.

For my part, I was lying flat on my back in the center of the ceremonial path, so I was obstructing any right I might have had to criticize her.

“Gk…” I moaned. Every inch of my body felt bruised. “This is ridiculous… I thought we agreed that fighting was out of bounds this time…”

“’Fraid not. The only restriction was on meta jokes.”

“Was that it? I really had the wrong impression…”

“That is, you were the one what invited a body here to fight, no?”

“Was I?”

I was.

I really had the wrong idea.

If you just heard that snippet, you might get the mistaken impression that I’m suicidal, but yes, on this particular occasion, I myself, of my own volition, asked Ms. Kagenui to spar with me─spar?

What, am I trying to become an MMA fighter or something?

And this wretched outcome─

“You know a body was going easy on you, right? Niiice and easy.”

“Yeah, I’m aware of that…”

Couldn’t she have gone a little easier on me, though? Niiicer and easier. Like a sponge filled with holes.

“I’m painfully aware of that…”

“By the by, what were you after? Challenging a body to a fight out of the blue like that.”

“…”

I had assumed that since she knew the circumstances, she’d be able to guess without a full explanation and accept my reckless challenge on those grounds…but apparently, Ms. Kagenui had beaten the shit out of me for no particular reason, without knowing the reason.

She’s really something.

That’s not the kind of thing just anyone is capable of.

Since she was Oshino’s classmate, I ended up unconsciously expecting her to be the “perceptive” type like him─but turns out she’s nothing like Oshino, or Kaiki.

Easy to understand in a good sense.

And easy to understand in a bad sense.

Though I guess they do have something in common, insofar as there’s nothing straightforward about dealing with any of them…

“Good question…”

February.

One day towards the end of February, I visited Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─that once-again-godless shrine where I’d almost died countless times, where there had recently been another casualty, was definitely not a place I went lightly, but this expert with whom I had business.

Ms. Kagenui, Ms. Yozuru Kagenui the violent onmyoji, had taken up residence there, so that day I had no choice.

Yes, just as Mèmè Oshino had lodged in the ruins of that erstwhile abandoned cram school while he was staying in town, Yozuru Kagenui was at present lodging at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─which took a you can’t be serious level of inner strength.

As an expert, she ought to know better than anyone what kind of a place that shrine is─I thought maybe she was there under orders from the ringleader of their little group of experts, but from what she said, it didn’t sound like it.

Apparently, and this makes perfect sense to me, or seems natural, but those two don’t exactly see eye to eye─even if she wasn’t raising a flag of rebellion, the fact that she was living at the shrine was at least done somewhat out of spite.

Though─there was the thing with Tadatsuru.

So calling it spite might be going too far─but Ms. Kagenui herself must’ve had some level of self-awareness about it, because rather than making her shikigami Yotsugi Ononoki stay there with her, she put her in my home as a kind of precaution.

Putting a tween girl in my home…

As a precaution?!

“…”

Well, anyway.

To give an update, or, a simple summary of my present circumstances: Last summer a legendary vampire drank my blood, and if you can believe it, I turned into a vampire myself, after which I somehow managed to return to being human, though with some lingering vampirism in my body─if that was all, it wouldn’t have been an impediment to me living life as a human being, but stupid me, I relied on that lingering vampirism to deal with the various difficulties that I encountered thereafter.

I don’t think I was wrong to do so.

If I hadn’t, I never would’ve been able to overcome those difficulties─and even my vampirism hadn’t been enough to overcome that incident involving the serpent deity.

So I’d had no choice.

Even if I had known how it would turn out.

But I do have to pay the price.

The price for relying on the power of an aberration─on the power of darkness.

As I continued to flirt with the darkness of my own accord, as I continued to stray into the darkness, I was once again suffusing my body with darkness─of my own accord.

Concisely put, the fact that I was turning into a vampire became plainly apparent─it was a transformation I hadn’t intended, and what’s more, it’s irreversible.

For now, I just don’t appear in mirrors or photographs─right, just a small bug, but if I keep relying on my vampiric power, I’ll start turning to ash under the sun’s rays, I’ll become unable to eat garlic, I’ll melt at the touch of holy water.

In return I get absolute, awesome power─but I have no hope of continuing to be part of human society.

In other words, from here on out I can’t rely any more on my vampiric nature, regardless of what I have to cope with─that’s the long and the short of it.

“Which is why, now that things have kind of settled down for the moment, I was thinking maybe you could help me with some practice, Ms. Kagenui. I was thinking how great it would be if from now on, when I run into difficulties, I could deal with them as adroitly as you do, without resorting to my vampiric power─”

“A-ha,” she clapped her hands.

Squatting there atop the stone lantern.

“So that’s what you’ve got in mind. But I reckon you’d best forget it.”

“Really?”

Had I best forget it?

I appreciated her candor, but then why the hell did she just…

“Firstly, my way o’ doing things can’t be learnt overnight, and secondly, it’s not exactly the orthodox method among us experts. Not something I’m fixing to teach to a youngster.”

“…”

Ms. Kagenui may not be in her teens, but I’m pretty sure she’s still on the young side of things for her business.

And, just between you and me, part of the reason I wanted to learn her methodology was that she seems to employ the terribly simple and easy-to-understand negotiation tactic of “suppressing aberrations through violence”─though maybe it can’t be learned overnight for that very reason.

The simplest things are always the most difficult.

It’s the same with studying.

“And finally, if you’re keen to learn my methods through actual combat like this,” continued Ms. Kagenui, “you’ll be dead before you learn them.”

“…”

Yup.

That’s a plenty good enough reason for me not to take her as my sensei.

The course fees are a little too steep.

I was completely helpless against her even in vampire mode, so I had no hope of matching her when I was mere flesh and blood─as I considered this, I finally got my breathing under control and stood up from where I lay sprawled out on my back.

Godless as the shrine might be, I still felt antsy lying around inside its precincts.

“Not exactly the time for this kind of thing, is it?” chided Ms. Kagenui. “The big exam must be coming up, everything you’ve been studying for─this ought to be the time for your, whatchamacallit, back-up-private-school exams.”

“Unfortunately, my parents don’t have such high hopes for me. The only exam I’m taking is for my first-choice school.”

“Hmmm…takes a certain kind of grit, I’ll give you that. Now, what’d I do when it came time for exams─can’t recall anymore. Feels as though I just woke up one day and I was in college.”

“I somehow doubt that…”

“Then I woke up one day, and I had graduated, then I woke up one day, and I was in this line of work─beating the daylights of anyone who rubbed me the wrong way.”

“…”

If that’s true, then she’s a fucking prodigy.

When she says anyone who rubbed her the wrong way, I assume she’s talking about aberrations…or is she including humans in that as well?

Hmmm.

I’d come to beg for instruction, but turns out she’s really not the type of person I want to get too close to after all.

“It’s no good to push myself too hard either, though, is it. At this point, things’ll just turn out how they’re going to turn out.”

“Almost sounds like you’re throwing in the towel. Eh, now that you’ve gotten a bit of an extension on your remaining days, s’pose a gap year might be looking A-OK to you.”

“No, I’d really prefer to avoid that. For various reasons.”

“All the more reason you shouldn’t be up here at this godforsaken shrine trading punches with the likes of me,” said Ms. Kagenui─what we were doing wasn’t exactly trading punches, since I was the only one getting punched, but anyway, for once she sounded like a proper adult.

“Why do you reckon I had Yotsugi infiltrate your home? I was fixing to make things so you wouldn’t be bothered by any aberrations, at least for a while.”

“No, I understand that… It’s just, being protected by little girls and tweens is a pretty sorry lifestyle.”

“By little girl, you mean the former Kissshot, I take it? That’s a six-hundred-year-old aberration you’re talking about─and that tween, well, Yotsugi’s a corpse doll tsukumogami.”

“When you put it like that, I guess I’ve got some pretty amazing guardians…”

A life where nothing happens means someone’s watching out for you. Was it Hanekawa who said that?

“Which is exactly why─that one can’t act rashly.”

“That one?”

“That one, or anyone─but enough about that. If you want to learn something from me, how’s this: it’s best not to overreach yourself. Not that there aren’t some folk who’ve tried to do more or less the same, and not that I haven’t acted the teacher on a whim now and again, but it’s never once gone well.” Ms. Kagenui cackled as she spoke─and trying to picture just exactly what she meant when she said, “it’s never once gone well,” it didn’t seem like these disciples she’d taken on a whim had gotten off lightly…

Hm.

It seemed like a good idea, but maybe I’d jumped the gun─that is, maybe this was a lesson that I shouldn’t act on impulse all the time. Though calling it a lesson puts me in mind of that swindler…

“Ms. Kagenui.” Abandoning my vain notion of getting Ms. Kagenui to teach me, I asked her a question out of simple curiosity: “How did you get involved in this world?”

“Hmm? This world?”

“Well, I mean, aberrations, or tales of aberrations, that world…”

“To be honest, I’m not too keen on such distinctions─I just mess up anyone what sticks in my craw.”

More or less the same thing she was saying before.

This struck me over the summer too, but seems like she operates on an even simpler behavioral principle than I suspected.

The dichotomy between justice and evil.

No, not justice─good?

Then again, if you ask the likes of Oshino, this world is overflowing with unpleasant goodness and insufferable justice─though that means there’s an equal amount of eagerly anticipated and compelling evil.

Is Ms. Kagenui actually living on the straight and narrow in a world where nothing is straightforward?

“I reckon it all started back in kindergarten, when I slugged some uppity brat─though looking back on it now, perhaps that brat was possessed by some no-good something. This was in the days before I specialized in immortal aberrations, of course.”

“Well, I would be surprised if you’ve been specializing in immortal aberrations since kindergarten…”

Ms. Kagenui’s kindergarten days…

Something I absolutely can’t imagine─I wonder if I could’ve even beaten her in a fight back then.

I wish nothing but happiness for that brat who got slugged by li’l miss Kagenui.

“And, you said the reason you choose to take on immortal aberrations now is that there’s no such thing as going too far─right? Conversely, that must mean that you’ve gone too far on plenty of other occasions. Is that why you chose your particular specialty?”

“Well, I reckon it is─my, but you’re full of questions. I don’t suppose you’re fixing to let me join this Araragi Harem or whatever that I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“…”

Why does she know about that?

About the Araragi Harem─no, I mean, no such tacky-ass organization exists. She must’ve heard about it from Ononoki.

What a blabbermouth.

The information leak’s probably only getting worse since we’ve been living under the same roof─but maybe that’s also a good thing?

Since it’s definitely not a negative for me if Ms. Kagenui is kept abreast of the fact that Tsukihi is living a problem-free life.

“I’d love to be a big enough man someday to be able to make a pass at you─though forget about bigness, the way things are going, I’m gonna end up not being a person at all.”

“And when that happens I’ll kill you dead, don’t you worry. Which is also why I’ve assigned Yotsugi to stick to you─I told her to show you no mercy if it seems you’ve strayed any further from the path of humanity.”

“…”

The path of humanity, huh?

I felt as if I’d walked the path of human decency in my own way, so how the hell did it come to this?

And the idea that Ononoki was an assassin…

The unbelievable truth slid into focus.

No, upon reflection it made perfect sense, I just hadn’t thought about it until she said it. It was easy to forget in the face of that adorable doll, but yes, Ononoki too was a professional who specialized in taking on “immortal aberrations.”

Ha─Ms. Kagenui laughed.

Still and all.

“I reckon there’s no need to be so negative─on account of if you can keep on with a normal day-to-day like this, you can live as a human being, no muss, no fuss.”

“…Even without a reflection?”

“Not having a reflection isn’t going to kill you. Turning to ash in the sunlight’s a whole other kettle of fish─it’d be scary if you didn’t know what was causing it, I reckon you might be crawling out of your skin, but you know perfectly well why it’s happening. And as long as your vampirification doesn’t cross the line, you’re fine.”

“Sure, I know all that, but─can I really live out the rest of my life like this without anything bad happening? It’s only been a year since I heard of aberrations for the first time, and already so much has happened─”

“It’s been mighty frequent indeed. That you’ve encountered trouble.”

“…”

One of those mighty frequent troubles was with her and Ononoki, but I’m not complaining. Even now we definitely aren’t what you’d call allies, but we’ve gotten to the point where she at least talks to me like this.

Giving me advice─is definitely not what was going on, but still.

“Well, no one lives out their whole life without some kind of trouble, do they? And yet most folk manage somehow, without becoming vampires─and without turning to heretics like me for help. They manage somehow or other, this, that, or the other way. To put it plainly, this awareness of aberrations and what not that you and I’ve ended up with makes us weak.”

“Makes us─weak.”

“We tremble in the face of the unknown, or we know that we can’t know what’ll happen. Or the unstable elements in our daily lives increase until we can’t concentrate on daily life. I reckon Oshino had the same worry.”

“Oshino…”

I can’t really picture Oshino worrying about anything.

I always think of him as a slaphappy happy-go-lucky chappy, that is, I’ve never seen him ruminating or anything like that.

Though, hang on.

It’s really just that I never imagined him that way─come to think of it, maybe his obsession with balance arose from his fear of the balance crumbling, of losing his neutrality.

Maybe he was afraid.

Pathologically afraid.

“Kaiki seems genuinely happy-go-lucky in that arena,” I remarked. “He just does whatever the hell he feels like, without a thought for the balance of the natural world.”

“Well, Kaiki doesn’t even believe in aberrations─though you might say he’s just protecting himself by adopting that stance. Hardly a lick of difference from Oshino’s balance-driven stance, really.”

Hardly a lick indeed.

Well, they did use to be friends back in the day─and while I’m the one who said it, there aren’t many men less suited to the word “happy-go-lucky” than Kaiki.

Happy-go-lucky is more or less the opposite of ominous, after all.

“But it’s impossible for folk like you and I to take such a stance, isn’t it. Be it balance or denial or what have you.”

“Impossible… How do you mean?”

“You yourself are something like an aberration─and me, I’ve got Yotsugi in my service.”

And maybe we’re more alike even than that, on account of you’ve got the former Kissshot in yours, Ms. Kagenui reminded me.

“Try as we might to maintain our balance, we lean toward the aberrations─we lean on aberrations. So any denial would be a denial of the truth of our own existences.”

“…”

What can I say, hearing it like that made my head spin.

Talking about the two of us as if we had anything in common─the brazen and supremely self-confident Ms. Kagenui, who enacts her eccentricity of never setting foot on the ground with neither shyness nor showiness, unwavering and rooted in her convictions; and me, flailing this way and that every time something crops up, going whichever way the wind blows, like a kite will if you cut it free, or a kite not cut out for free will… But maybe it was precisely because I unconsciously sensed that commonality that I came to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine to seek her tutelage, to this place I really didn’t want to come.

…Yeah.

Peppering Ms. Kagenui with so many questions like this, maybe it did seem like I was trying to persuade her to join the Araragi Harem─not that there is such an organization─but in spite of all that, if there was just one thing I wanted to ask Ms. Kagenui, maybe that was it.

Not how to fight aberrations with my mortal body─nor how Ms. Kagenui got involved in their world─nor how often she’d “gone too far” in the past, nor even how she knew about the existence of the Araragi Harem.

What I wanted to ask her.

What I wanted to ask Yozuru Kagenui was─

“Hey, Ms. Kagenui.”

“What is it?”

“What’s the deal with you and Ononoki?”