Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.03

003

Bam.

Bam, bam.

Bam, bam, bam─I heard a knocking at the door.

A knocking at the door of the classroom we were using as a meeting spot─a, well, standard sliding double door that creaked the way you’d expect an abandoned building’s door to when you opened or closed it.

It seemed that Kanbaru had conscientiously locked it behind her upon entering─giving you a glimpse into her good upbringing, but then, after so properly closing the classroom door, she’d proceeded to land a tooth-shattering flying knee on my face. But I could grill her, or rather rebuke her about this, later.

Bam.

Bam, bam.

Bam, bam, bam.

The sound of knocking at the door, but not a violent one. Polite, if anything─a quiet, regular knock. But hearing such propriety, I couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong.

Of course I did. A gentleman can be as proper and dignified as he wants, but it only makes him seem creepier if you’re meeting him deep in a dark forest─likewise the polite knock I now heard in an abandoned building in the middle of the night.

It was more than enough to make me nervous.

“Huh? What’s this, a visitor? Come in,” Kanbaru said.

…She wasn’t nervous at all.

A heart of iron, despite only being a second-year high school student. You could tell she used to compete at the national level.

“Hm? My senior Araragi, isn’t it this acquaintance of yours? You invited someone other than me here?”

“No, you’re the only one─”

A visitor?

What, did she get impatient because Kanbaru and I were spending more time than I expected enjoying our pointless banter? Had she sent someone for us? Was that it?

The thought crossed my mind, but it seemed impossible.

It wasn’t as if I’d spent that much time talking to Kanbaru, after all─yes, we’d rambled, but mostly in terms of topic, not length─and even if we’d rambled on for a long time, I couldn’t imagine her ever getting impatient.

Her perception of the world involved spans of time different from mine─so then, who was it? Who now visited this classroom?

My foolish self got excited at the off-chance that maybe it was Shinobu. My link to her was down after having been severed, but maybe she’d used some other method to track me down?

That of course wasn’t the case─but I’d later learn that while my notion missed the mark, it wasn’t by far, in more ways than one.

In any case.

With Kanbaru’s permission, the creaking door opened and into the classroom entered─toward us entered a suit of armor.

“…!”

Armor?

Nope, armor─undoubtedly armor.

Armor is the right word.

But was it right for this armor to have appeared?

What exactly was the context─what exactly transpired for an armored warrior to appear? Just moments ago, Kanbaru and I were enjoying a nice little conversation─so why?

My mind, according to its standard and proper routines, began to process this armored warrior who had suddenly appeared. Is this some sort of anachronistic cosplay? My thoughts started to lumber forward with optimistic, almost tortoise-like steps─but meanwhile those of the famously swift and agile Suruga Kanbaru were as quick as a hare’s.

No.

To be more accurate, I doubt she thought at all─Suruga Kanbaru started to move the moment the door opened and the armored warrior came clanging in.

She held high her bandaged left arm.

And leapt toward the armor.

“K-Kanbaru!”

“Get down!” she yelled, even taking my safety into account─and slammed her left fist into the armor’s torso, at the center of its trunk.

Though technically speaking, the left fist wasn’t hers.

It was an aberration’s.

And so while a normal bare fist would be liable to break if you used it to punch a suit of armor, it was the armor that broke in this case─one straight punch from Kanbaru was all it took to reduce it to pieces.

All in the blink of an eye.

It did seem a bit extreme to punch it, no questions asked, before we knew what the hell it was, but the sheer speed of Kanbaru’s reaction to a suspicious figure was praiseworthy.

Lacking the courage to slug an armored warrior in any situation at all, I could only follow her request (order?) and reflexively lie down (my hands behind my head without a second thought, like some civilian surrendering to an army). It was then that I witnessed something even more shocking than her decision-making abilities.

The scattered armor.

I assumed the person wearing it would be exposed, their identity clear, no matter who they may be.

But─that didn’t happen.

Inside the armor─was nothing.

“…”

This was enough to put even Kanbaru at a loss for words─she silently stepped backwards until she reached me. You could say she ran backwards. Super-fast. Honestly, when it comes to her physical abilities, what deserves special note isn’t so much the destructive power of her aberrational left fist but everything about her from the waist down that she tempered and trained through her own stubborn, steadfast will.

“Hold on a second,” she objected. “Could you please not focus on everything about me from the waist down at a time like this? At least consider reading the room here.”

“Well, then stop reading my mind. I specifically said everything you trained, meaning your legs. What else would I be talking about?”

I rose from my defensive state as I bickered with her─my eyes never leaving the scattered armor, of course.

A full set of armor.

Kanbaru’s strike had sent it flying into pieces─but when I looked closely, none of the parts were damaged or broken. Like a set of toy blocks that had fallen over. The armor had gone flying a little too easily, no matter how powerful Kanbaru’s strike, but it made perfect sense if the suit was empty.

“I’d say it was more like a shell,” Kanbaru remarked. “It was strange how little of an impact I felt. I nearly thought I’d missed─what is that thing? Your friend?”

“I don’t have any friends who are armor.”

“I wonder, what kind of friends do you have?”

“…”

I couldn’t answer her in a timely manner.

I just didn’t have many friends she didn’t know already.

In any case, I didn’t know any walking sets of armor that were empty too─as a friend or otherwise.

I didn’t know.

Even any aberration.

“So, at the very least, this armored warrior isn’t the person you wanted to introduce to me.”

“Wait…you punched it when you weren’t sure?”

What was she planning on doing if it really was cosplay or someone’s idea of a surprise?

“What was I planning? Well, I’d apologize. I simply did what I had to do at the moment to provide you the protection you deserve.”

“…”

What a scary junior. She was never rattled.

Still, her powers of judgment and combat were equally reliable─I didn’t know what she wanted from Kanbaru, but with my link to Shinobu severed, I certainly wasn’t the more useful teen of us two.

In any case, whatever aberration or frightful apparition this was, Kanbaru had settled things before they could even get started─okay, scattered more than settled.

She really sucked at keeping a room tidy.

Was this related to her request? Did I need to let her know about this?

“Hm?” Kanbaru tilted her head. “Let’s see…what do we have here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Well, I thought it was a full set of armor, but upon closer inspection, it’s missing something.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. We’ve got a few suits of armor at my home─compared to them, this guy is short a vital piece.”

“…”

A few suits of armor? What kind of a home was that?

Well, it was a grand Japanese-style estate… A few might be an exaggeration, but it wouldn’t be surprising if she were familiar with at least one set.

“I didn’t notice anything myself, Kanbaru─hmm, okay. If you know so much about suits of armor, could you put it back together?”

“What? Me?” She pointed at her own confused face.

Despite all the business about pledging her loyalty to me, Kanbaru wasn’t used to being put to work for the most part. Not a useful teen at all in that sense, she was a diva.

I said, “It’s not like I know how a suit of armor fits together.”

“Then I’ll give you instructions. Why don’t you give it a shot?”

“You don’t even think twice about putting your dear senior to work, do you? But fine. I’ll show you I’m a man, capable of more than lying prone and taking cover when he’s told to. I’m just as capable of being supine.”

“If there’s anything I don’t want to see, it’s a senior I respect demonstrating that ability in public… But why put this thing back together anyway?”

“Well, if we did, it just might start moving again…”

We needed to get ourselves over to our next meeting spot once we’d convened without incident. As things stood, though, our meet-up was hardly “without incident.” To be frank, I didn’t want any additional trouble and considered pretending that none of this stuff with the armor ever happened, and walking off─but I was fresh off a first-hand experience of what happens when you walk away from seeds of trouble and allow them to sprout.

I lacked any sort of knowledge or wisdom about our situation but still needed to do everything I could. It couldn’t take that much time to build this suit of armor back up if Kanbaru knew how it fit together.

“No, I think it’s gonna take a while… Don’t you know how heavy a suit of armor is? This isn’t like putting together a toy model or something.”

“Ah… Not that I’ve ever assembled a toy model.”

“Hm, really? I’m surprised to hear that from you, given your many interests.”

“Don’t laud my many interests just to keep on chatting. It’s not like I never touched one, I just never completed one.”

“Oh, I get you. I buy model kits all the time, but never take them out of the box.”

“Okay, in that case, don’t lump me in with your ilk.”

And so on.

If anything was a waste of time, it was these kinds of conversations─but as a result, I was spared the onerous task of reassembling the scattered armor (in accordance with my junior’s instructions). Not because she did it herself─our diva never labors.

It moved.

Without us laying a finger on it─in fact, without us even approaching it. Each of the scattered pieces began moving on its own nonetheless.

Like a video being played in reverse.

Moving on its own─it put itself back together.

As if the empty armor had been a lifeform─it creaked and clanged itself back into consciousness.

Forming itself back into life─like a lifeform.

The helmet, the chestplate, the robes, the gauntlets, the greaves, the mask, the shoulder guards, the socks, the straw sandals, and the riding shoes came together─completing the armored warrior we had seen.

In that abandoned building with no electricity, lit only by the moon and stars, I hadn’t gotten a good look at the armored warrior earlier─but now that I had another chance.

Now that I saw it again, I realized just how loud and flashy it was.

Bright red armor.

What was this kind of armor called again─akazonae?

No, the color almost seemed to go beyond red, as if it was blood─I could only watch dumbfounded at something so unbelievable, but I did notice one new thing.

A new discovery, or rather, I understood Kanbaru’s remark─that it was missing something. Now that I could view its full figure, the missing piece was clear.

What the armor lacked.

Putting aside that there was nothing inside it, of course, what the otherwise full set of equipment lacked was─

“…■■■■”

Huh?

It spoke?

The empty suit of armor─the shell─devoid of any contents?

No way, impossible. Some breeze must have passed through the hollow suit. It sounded far too muffled to be any kind of voice…at…

“Get back!”

all─once again Kanbaru moved faster than my synapses could fire. Nimbly. She brandished her left arm anew─then entered the armor’s space without a moment’s hesitation and smashed it square in the middle.

An empty set of armor not only moving but automatically putting itself back together was shocking to say the least, but Kanbaru reacted to the anomaly at a speed that sent a shiver down my spine. I did as she bade and got back.

It was a great mystery why she stayed so devoted to a senior like me (in my defense, I didn’t back up because I was scared of the armor, my body just obeyed Kanbaru without any mental input─maybe that’s even more pathetic?); whatever the reason, she had the kind of unhesitating personality that stepped on the gas in the face of danger.

But.

This time─the armor didn’t come crashing apart.

Rather than scattering─it staggered back, unable to absorb the entire impact, but stood in place.

No.

It didn’t just stand in place─it lurched back and used its left arm, its empty left arm, to try to grab Kanbaru.

Its movements sluggish.

It tried to grab Kanbaru’s head from above─she’s by no means a short girl, but the armored warrior was easily a foot and a half taller than her. Not having balked at their height difference in the first place, she of course didn’t cower when that left arm reached out in reaction.

She avoided it by a hair’s width─and slipped past to deal another blow, as if to counter, aiming not at its torso this time but at its chin. Not an uppercut─a laser-straight punch from below.

Naturally, it wasn’t clear if aiming at what would normally be a weak spot meant anything up against an empty suit of armor─but Suruga Kanbaru’s movements, far more familiar with brawling than mine, were enough to make me swear: Crap, I need to make sure I never piss her off. She’s got my unconditional obedience as her senior.

Why was an athlete like her so comfortable in a brawl? Maybe you couldn’t make it to the top in jock-land without being at least a little tough…

I’d fought her in this very classroom after she’d been poisoned by an aberration, and come to think of it, her movements then were pretty skillful too.

I doubted they were at the level of the Fire Sisters’ designated brawn, but simply having full control over her body impressed my still-stunned self to no end.

This was no time to be impressed, though.

I think that goes without saying.

The armor’s movements were dull, while Kanbaru’s were swift, and not even relatively. While one blow might not have been enough to scatter the armor again, I wondered if it’d break after two or three.

The armor’s missing equipment also encouraged this thought─but that isn’t what happened.

Though Kanbaru dodged its grabbing arm, even a punch to the jaw did nothing but shake the warrior’s helmet. She tried to hit it with a third shot─but suddenly fell to her knees.

She slumped over.

And collapsed.

“?! Kanbaru?!”

“S-Stay back!”

I could tell from her voice that she felt just as perplexed, but that’s what she said. Pinning me in place with those words, she rose from her position on the floor, on one knee, before charging at the armored warrior’s legs like a runner from a crouch start.

This wasn’t a body-press, it was a tackle.

The armor wouldn’t fall to punches, so now she tried to take it down by brute force─indeed, even if she couldn’t send it flying into pieces, its own weight could scatter it if she smashed it against the floor. That must’ve been her goal, but even a rocket-propelled double-leg takedown, powered by Kanbaru’s muscles, ended in failure.

“…!”

This time─it didn’t waver one inch.

It didn’t sway, nor even shake.

It didn’t need to adjust its footing─the armored warrior withstood the tackle and merely stood at attention as if roots had grown from its feet.

What? It almost felt like…

The thing was getting tougher and tougher.

One strike broke it apart at first─then it only staggered─then it was only shaken─and then it didn’t budge an inch? The progression was far too quick to be explained away as the armored warrior acclimating to Kanbaru’s attacks. That seemed, if anything, untenable given its dull movements.

Yet, just ten or so minutes after its appearance─the armored warrior had clearly grown stronger.

I’d grasped one side of what was going on, but only the one. At that point, I should’ve been paying attention to the other.

“A─” voiced Kanbaru.

Still clinging and pushing into the armor following her double-leg takedown.

“Araragi-senpai─” she said, clinging on tight.

No.

Even her gripping arms now fell in vain─it was Kanbaru, not the warrior, who collapsed despite it having done nothing to her.

“─Run.”

It was the one order I couldn’t obey.