Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.04

004

The armored warrior grew tougher and tougher─but I hadn’t noticed how Kanbaru was growing weaker and weaker in contrast.

She started by delivering a blow to its body.

Then another blow─she was on one knee when she punched its chin. I found it strange that she’d buckled then, but when I saw her collapse right after grasping onto it with her tackle, I knew.

I noticed at last, all but too late. I should have sooner, or rather, it’s strange that I didn’t. I’d witnessed the phenomenon time and again, and experienced it as often.

An energy drain.

The ability to suck away a target’s strength, vitality, and will through sheer proximity or by touch─an aberrational phenomenon that we were very familiar with.

In other words, there were two sides to it.

The armored warrior grew tougher and tougher, Kanbaru weaker and weaker─her sleek movements and judgment had worked against her.

She’d gotten far too close and touched it far too much before she could notice; had I been in her shoes, it couldn’t have drained more than one attack’s worth of energy.

No, maybe it was inevitable─try as we might, neither of us would have connected an armored warrior to energy drain. Whether it was me or Kanbaru, we wouldn’t have figured it out for sure until we collapsed.

Why?

Why would an old-fashioned, anachronistic armored warrior─use an energy drain like it was some sort of vampire?

What was going on here?

What was this thing?

There was no time for thinking, though─realizing that the armored warrior could drain energy didn’t change what I had to do. I had to retrieve Kanbaru, collapsed at the feet she’d charged into─that was all.

I didn’t know the precise type of energy drain the armor used, or the specific conditions needed to activate it, but couldn’t concern myself with that.

Unlike Kanbaru, who had an aberration within her left hand, I wasn’t even a mockery of a vampire now that my link to Shinobu had been severed. I could very well collapse in a humiliatingly instantaneous moment if I were hit by a powerful energy drain.

I could very well be sucked dry, but I’d use that moment for the sake of Suruga Kanbaru, who’d summoned her last bit of strength to squeeze out her final order─to run.

I still didn’t know why the armored warrior was here, why it had appeared, or anything about its identity─but she had come here for one reason alone. I’d asked her to.

She’d gotten caught up in this because of me and no one else.

If the worst were to happen to her, I’d never be able to look Senjogahara in the eye for the rest of my life─and so I charged at the armored warrior.

I wouldn’t say I had any, but if I had to pick one, the idea was to dash past its legs and gallantly scoop up the fallen Kanbaru over the course of the next three seconds. For the most part, though, my life hasn’t gone the way I imagine.

As all of you know very well.

My maneuver wasn’t all for naught─because the armored warrior, with Kanbaru right under its eyes, reacted. Not that it had any eyes at all in its helm─but I felt as though it glared at me.

Then it moved, too─seemingly having absorbed Kanbaru’s energy, it attempted a tackle like she’d done, oddly enough.

Imagine an armored warrior that feels about twice your size tackling you head-on. It looked to be going for a double-leg takedown by the way it moved, but naturally there was our significant height difference.

What was essentially a shoulder tackle smashed into my abdomen, and the impact made me wonder if my internal organs had all been torn apart. It wouldn’t have been surprising─who could find fault with this story’s punch line being me, deprived of vampiric regeneration, dying on the spot?

But maybe my lack of any half-hearted power was a blessing─because even a merciless fist that breaks ten bricks is surprisingly ineffective at piercing a thin scrap of silk floating in the air. In other words, I flew backwards, utterly unable to stand my ground.

I rolled along the floor, making a mess of the room’s desks and chairs and forming new bruises across my body, yet I wasn’t torn in half like I repeatedly have been.

I could’ve been the one left scattered across the room this time─but damn, had I gotten used to my vampiric immortality at some point? The dull pain in every inch of my body, and the blood oozing from all my scrapes, finally made me feel human.

How selfish of me. After spending all that time during spring break desperately wanting to turn back into a human, I desired those vampiric powers.

To protect Kanbaru─I told myself. I couldn’t even stand up. I’d get to Kanbaru even if it meant crawling my way to her, but to cut to the chase, there was no need. My pointless struggle truly had no point.

I say this because the armored warrior ignored Kanbaru’s collapsed form and began walking toward me─step by step.

While its pace hadn’t changed, it didn’t seem as sluggish as before─its walk almost seemed nimble, in spite of the heavy armor.

Had it absorbed my energy too when we collided? Nope, now that I was human, my juice wouldn’t even whet its appetite─I couldn’t believe it. In my own amateurish way, I’d faced off against a number of aberrations in quick succession, but never had I confronted one that got stronger the more it fought.

It got stronger the more it fought?

That basically made it my natural predator.

“■■■■─”

The armor seemed to mutter something else─but before I could decipher the sounds, only a step and a half separated us.

I thought it might continue on and just trample me.

It probably could, as if I were an ant─but instead, the armored warrior bent over slightly and grabbed me by the collar, as if to help me as I struggled to get up, and lifted me up like a tablecloth it was getting ready to put away.

It lifted me up─then looked straight at me.

Again, not that the armored warrior had any eyes─

“Wh…”

My words were halting.

The blows across my body as I rolled through the classroom─and the more direct damage to my abdomen─might not have been fatal, but they seemed significant, because I could no longer even struggle. I couldn’t so much as put my hands on the gauntlets on my collar.

“Wh-What’s your deal? What’re you trying to do? What’s your grudge─why are you doing this?”

I was being overly talkative, since talking was all I could do. Even if it was only air reverberating in the armor to make those whistling noises, I couldn’t deny the feeling that it spoke.

If it did.

If we could communicate─we’d be able to negotiate.

I didn’t think I could converse with an aberration the way these ruins’ former resident, Mèmè Oshino, could─but he might have said something like: All riled up and ready to fight. Something good happen to you?

Actually, we’d attacked first.

Sure, Kanbaru had acted in order to defend me, but you could also see this situation as us trying to bum-rush an armored warrior who politely knocked on the door before entering the room.

The shoulder tackle it gave me was just about its only explicit attack against us, and even now, you could say it helped me up─

“Gah!!”

Okay, you couldn’t say that.

It opened its hands, released my collar, and let me fall as gravity dictated, just to grab me again─but now that I’d fallen, it grabbed not my collar but my neck.

With one hand.

Strangling me.

I could feel it holding back, but it still showed little mercy─its hand around my throat as if to snap my neck, let alone stop my breathing.

“Guh…gah…ghaah!”

No, that wasn’t it.

And that’s why it was holding back.

The armored warrior was grasping my throat─to shut me up. The one thing I could do… By strangling me, it was cutting off my jumbled questions and keeping me from speaking to it. A clear rejection of communication.

Yet I also felt a kind of consumption.

A draining of energy.

Leaving me─through my grasped neck.

Stealing from me.

My vision grew blurry─my consciousness dim.

“…”

And then.

Over the armored warrior’s shoulders─I saw Kanbaru standing up again. Her feet were unsteady, but I could sense the will in her eyes as they met mine. Yes, Suruga Kanbaru was an experienced team player─indeed, but why was she making eye contact with me?

Don’t come this way…

If you can move, then get out of here already.

Or so I wished to say, but that too was impossible while being strangled. Although I didn’t know if I had it in me as a total non-athlete, I had no choice but to return her eye contact.

Run.

I’m not running, her eyes replied briskly.

I was a bit shocked that Kanbaru and I were at a place where we could converse with mere looks─but what was the point if she was going to shoot down whatever signs I sent her? Not that I had much ground to stand on, being the first one of us who refused to run…

You be the one to run. I’m gonna make its knees buckle from behind, so use that as an opportunity.

…She was stupid even when we were communicating through eye contact alone.

She wanted to pull a prank? There weren’t any knees in that armor to begin with─but at that very moment, as decisive as it was stupid─even as I had what might be my final thought.

The floor of the classroom burst into flames.

It emitted a pillar of flame as though an anti-personnel mine buried under the floor had exploded─and this pillar burned the warrior’s gauntlet grasping my neck.

The flame was unbelievably intense, to the point that I fully expected it to burn straight through the armor─to give a familiar example, it looked like a Chinese restaurant’s kitchen burner turned all the way up.

The armored warrior’s hand, which could have crushed my throat and Adam’s apple in the blink of an eye if it felt so inclined, reflexively let go because of the flames─allowing me, now free, to slam to the ground on my butt.

I had no time to celebrate my newfound sense of liberation, though─while I wished the sudden pillar of flame erupting from the floor had conveniently aimed for the warrior’s arm, that was not the case. The first pillar happened to scorch its gauntlet, that’s all.

One after another.

Like a dam had burst.

Like a chain reaction─flames came from below, all across the floor, spouting like fountains. These pillars piercing through the floor did not then sputter out, but continued on to the ceiling─given their force, they must have passed through the third and fourth floor ceilings, too, all the way to the roof.

These flames seemed like physically destructive hammers pounding their way up from below─in an aggressive game of Whack-A-Mole, if you want to put it that way.

Now on my butt, I more rolled than crawled to avoid the successive erupting pillars to make my way to Kanbaru─not that I and my scrap-of-silk uselessness meeting back up with her would accomplish anything. In fact, I could even expose her to danger if the armored warrior chased after me.

Kanbaru being Kanbaru, she stepped her way around the flames─her evasion skill, the way her body could move on its own in spite of not understanding what was going on, proved what a top-notch athlete she was.

What was going on?

Obviously, I assumed these piercing lances of flame were yet another aberrational phenomenon brought on by the armored warrior─but given how I had the pillars to thank for being freed from its hold, maybe not.

Even now, the cage of flaming pillars, the fiery fence I’d crawled through without an inch to spare, separated me from the armored warrior. Almost as if the flames were a wall protecting us─still, I had a hard time believing things were that convenient. Our side of the flaming cage was fiery enough.

So then?

What were these pillars?

“…Miss Hanekawa.”

Kanbaru muttered a name, but why─Hanekawa? Why bring her up all of a sudden?

Nothing about fire or flames said Hanekawa to me─if anyone, wouldn’t it be the Fire Sisters, my two little sisters Karen Araragi and Tsukihi Araragi?

But I was in no position to ask─the flames continued to burst forth in one place after another.

So many columns rose up that I barely had anywhere to stand─when a fiery lance climbed as high as it could go, that wasn’t the end of it. Naturally, the fire then spread from the opened holes.

Ruins are, in general, full of flammable objects─and the classroom we were in was already stained an irrevocable shade of red.

None of the earlier darkness was left, but even amidst the flames─the armor’s red shade stood out.

This wasn’t the kind of fire where you hoped the firefighters would make it in time.

I had to get to safety asap when it was bad as this─hadn’t I taken part in yearly drills since elementary school for precisely this moment?

Even I couldn’t joke around and claim that “R-A-C-E” stood for “Really Adorable Children in Elementary”─just as I’d learned, it was Rescue, Alert, Contain, and Extinguish.

But.

There was no hope of containing or extinguishing this.

Forget about rescue─but as the armored warrior and I glared at each other across the flaming fence between us─an alert.

“Time to give it up, alas!”

Clearly.

This time.

The armored warrior─spoke in a way I could understand.

“It appears as though a full-fledged nuisance hath introduced itself─perhaps we’ve tread on the tiger’s tail? I’ve no hope of handling this as I am now! It seems I’ve come at a bad time─my master appears to be away as well… I shall try again! Ye too, do not dally and make thy way home at once!”

Its words suddenly grown fluent.

Fluent, lively, even refreshing.

As though all its earlier muffled, instrument-like noises were a lie.

I tried to accompany my surprise with a reaction.

As I am now?

A bad time? My master?

What was it talking about?

I wanted to bombard it with questions─but couldn’t because my throat hurt.

…No, that’s not it.

This wasn’t about a sore throat or something.

When the armored warrior grasped my neck tight─it had absorbed my voice.

Energy drain.

Just as it reproduced Kanbaru’s tackle.

It now reproduced─my voice.

The fluent delivery made some amount of sense in that case, and so did an aged manner of speech that matched its archaic, even anachronistic attire.

Still.

Although the armored warrior was free to speak in any manner it wished─there was no way I could turn a blind eye to what it said next.

Given its traditional Japanese trappings─uttering a Western name called the character’s entire historical background into question.

“When ye meet Kissshot next, tell her this! I will be coming to retrieve my precious enchanted blade Kokorowatari after a little more recovery! Yes, no armored warrior is complete without a blade! Indeed, it has been four hundred years since I lent it to her, so tell her to be prepared for a late fee! Hahahaha!”

Hahahaha, the voice laughed─though the jaw of the helm maintained its expression of fury.

“Ha!”Ha!”Haha!”Hahaha!”Hahahaha!”Hahahahaha!”Hahahaha!”Hahahahahaha!”Hahahahahaahhahahahahahahahahahahahaha─!”