014
Sixty-two out of a hundred.
A harsh score that tormented an entrance-exam taker like me, but it was a perfectly fair evaluation of someone who’d fallen over not just twice but thrice in a park. In other words, Shinobu had sat there on the swing and fancied herself a spectator because she wanted to see how much I could do on my own.
See, or maybe ascertain.
No wonder she was so quick to lend me an enchanted sword that I once had to beg on all fours for days to borrow.
“Just about perfect for a test of thy strength, no?”
This was her excuse.
I wanted to let loose on her─this isn’t the time for such notions, didn’t you just get saved by Ononoki, and so on, but according to Shinobu, that too was a matter of perspective.
From my ignorant, amateur point of view, a monkey-crab chimera was visibly frightening and appalling, but from Shinobu’s, it was a patchwork of ready-made aberrational phenomena.
Alone, she’d struggled against the monkey, coming away from it covered in scratches, but Ononoki had blown away half of its body. The “bad things” that compensated for the missing half with other aberrational phenomena were nothing to fear─an uneven hodgepodge that could barely move, after one cheap rip-off was stuck to a broken rip-off.
“Its specs seemed to have been lowered as well,” she said. “When it came upon me as a whole monkey, it could make use of rain. What a bothersome skill that was.”
Rain?
Now that she mentioned it, the crab half, for its part, seemed to be unfettered by gravity─by weight.
Specs that did make me think─similar but not the same as what I knew.
Likewise with the snail earlier─in any case, the half-monkey had lost even this ability to “use rain.”
Ononoki’s Unlimited Rulebook had left it weakened.
In other words, Shinobu had left it to us to handle the persistent aftermath of a bothersome phenomenon─no, the real aftermath started here. And it was Shinobu’s turn.
I say that because she started chomping away at the divided monkey and crab, as well as the snake’s crushed heads. Nutrition for a vampire, the king of aberrations, but it was still a hard sight to bear…
Even Suruga Kanbaru, grand pervert, looked away─I guess it was like accidentally seeing a kitten toying with and eating a mouse?
They say it’s impolite to stare at a vampire taking her meal, so to distract Kanbaru I asked, “Everything okay? Are you hurt?”
She’d avoided every swipe of the monkey’s claws from the looks of it, but the damage to her track jacket was evident. You could tell how much of a healthy and beautiful sportswoman she was from the curious fact that all her exposed skin didn’t come across as erotic.
Even so, I couldn’t leave my junior in such a state, so I took off my sweater and lent it to her. Originally, of course, this was a hoodie that Shinobu had manifested for me.
“Yeah, I’m not hurt─heh. It’s warm. It smells like you.”
“Um, could you not say things that make this feel like a rom-com?”
“More specifically, it smells like your sweat stains.”
“Don’t be specific, either.”
Well, it had been days since Shinobu created it for me, and I hadn’t changed yet… Kanbaru would just have to put up with that.
“Are you sure, though? You’d be topless.”
“No, I won’t be. Don’t think everything you say will be automatically true just because it’s the printed word.”
I was wearing a T-shirt.
That said, it might have been a little chilly for summer, now that it was the middle of the night.
“Hmph. Hold on a second,” Kanbaru said, zipping the front of the hoodie before wriggling around for some reason. She pulled her arms out of the sleeves─it looked like she was preparing a magic trick or something.
After a moment, she extracted the track jacket she wore under the hoodie straight out from around her chest─she’d skillfully taken it off.
“A must-have skill for any girl jock,” she noted, handing me her jacket with a “Wear this.” Ah, so we were trading tops. “Since you’re not braless, it shouldn’t be an issue if you wore a torn-up-feeling jacket.”
“I’m not sure not braless is the best way to describe me.”
A torn-up-feeling jacket didn’t seem right either, but that was more of a vocabulary problem so I wouldn’t nitpick.
I’d never worn a girls’ track jacket before, but then again, I’d half-forced her to wear my clothes first… I couldn’t simply reject her kind offer.
It did feel a little embarrassing, but trading uniforms might have been a more common occurrence for an athlete like Kanbaru than I imagined.
A very small-minded senior who didn’t want his junior to sense the sort of inexperience that getting flustered over indirect kisses or eating off of the same plate suggested, I tried to show zero resistance to the idea whatsoever as I passed my arms through the girls’ track jacket.
“Whoa, you look,” Kanbaru said, “like a rock star.”
“Rock stars don’t wear track jackets.”
“Whaaat? It’s expensive, though.”
If Kanbaru called it expensive, it had to be.
I felt bad all over again that this expensive jacket was feeling all torn up.
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this, Kanbaru. I know fighting is the last thing a basketball player is supposed to do, too.”
“Enough already. Apologize that many times and I’m going to start wondering if you’re being sincere.” She sounded broad-minded but was in fact being quite stern. “You don’t need to worry. I may be a basketball player, but before that I’m the top general of Araragistan.”
“Hold on, when did you form a bizarre nation like that? As far as I know, you’re the only person who’s stanning me.”
Not even Senjogahara was.
If I had to name someone else, it’d be Ononoki these last few days.
“No, don’t worry. Every member of my fan club has automatically been drafted into Araragistan.”
“What a terrifying system. And we’re talking about your own fan club, then. You’re your own boss fan?”
I did feel like joining them after she’d been such a stud all night. Yes, that organization that my little sister Karen Araragi apparently belonged to…but wait, wasn’t it unofficial?
“True, I need to avoid violence, but I don’t know if you’d call that a fight,” Kanbaru muttered, glancing in Shinobu’s direction─just as she finished her meal. No trace left of the monkey-crab-snake that stood at three to four times Shinobu’s size.
“I just hope the rare meat doesn’t give her a tummy-ache,” Kanbaru voiced a needless concern. “Oh, and by that, I don’t mean how uncommon a catch a monster is.”
“Yeah, that clarification really was needless… Hey, Shinobu.”
“Hmm?”
When Shinobu turned around, the scratches on her body had disappeared─the energy she’d drained from the aberration by eating it must have healed them. Getting better thanks to a hearty meal seemed like a pretty healthy system to me… Still, energy drain.
Pulling the enchanted blade Kokorowatari, plunged into the ground like a large turnip, Shinobu stored it in her body as if for dessert.
Gulping down a great katana that was longer than she was tall─this too seemed like a magic trick but was by no means a must-have skill for little girls.
No.
It wasn’t even a must for vampires─because originally, the enchanted blade didn’t belong to her iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded self.
It was a weapon wielded by an expert exterminator of monsters.
Shinobu Oshino originally belonged to the side of those the sword was meant to cut.
“Many thanks for waiting. I’m stuffed.”
“Well, I’m sure it was filling.”
“Now then. Let us continue our conversation.”
“Continue our conversation… Um, what were we talking about again?”
“Weren’t we talking about why she was sleeping under the swings?” my junior butted in to enlighten me.
Now that she mentioned it, we were.
“By the way, swing in Esperanto is balancilo,” she added.
“No need to enlighten me on that point.”
“By the way, park swing set is an anagram of twinks pagers. That’s why my heart always starts singing when I see skinny young men playing on a swing.”
“You really didn’t need to enlighten me on that point.”
“‘Wait, might those guys actually be…’”
“No, they aren’t.”
“My heart’s singing!”
“Me, I’m screaming on the inside. You’ve got so many hearts in your eyes that you just can’t see straight.”
“Who needs to see straight when they’re doing a number on my heart rate?!”
“You know, maybe you’re the one who needs a pounding.”
She was making me question in the worst ways the fact that Karen still loved to play on the swings.
Shinobu sat there, waiting for our conversation to end.
She seemed just as uninterested in speaking with Kanbaru, a human, as before, but apparently had enough consideration to wait for us to finish our banter.
After experiencing a battle that dangerous (for me at least, regardless of how Shinobu saw it), part of me didn’t care why she was sleeping under the swings… But it’s awkward telling someone, Never mind, I don’t give a damn now.
“Again, ’tis our link. We spoke of how my pairing to thee must be restored, did we not? Else we will be forced to struggle against even poor excuses for aberrations such as those.”
“Hm? But what does that have to do with you sleeping under a swing? As far as restoring our link─that’s something we need to ask this expert to do.”
“Listen, ye. Practice makes perfect─why not try laying thyself a-sprawl, over there.”
“What?”
“Thou ought to see something. Come now.” Shinobu trotted over to the swings─now unbound from my shadow, she could move freely.
Still, just because she went over there ahead of me didn’t mean I’d follow. I wasn’t doing this. Lying under a swing? Not something you do past second grade.
Sorry, but I’m eighteen.
That’s what I thought as I followed Shinobu, who hopped on top of the swing again. I say again, but instead of sitting, as she’d done like a conceited spectator during my battle alongside Kanbaru, this time she stood on the plank.
She stood and swung back and forth.
This might be somewhat of a tangent, but just for reference, Shinobu wore a one-piece dress.
A skirt bottom.
She stood on the swing and swung attired thus─creaking back and forth at a significant height.
“I’ll handle this, my senior.”
“I could never force a precious junior to. You’re not ready for a mission like this. Let me take care of it.”
We were fighting for the spot under the swing.
The number of bidders for this plot of land with zero interest until moments ago had shot up─though the competition wasn’t too fierce, with just the two of us, it still represented a shocking increase.
Zero multiplied by anything is still zero, yet Shinobu had turned zero into not one, but even two. Yes, only a vampire from feudal times was capable of such unfathomable alchemy.
“No, my senior, if you really feel bad about getting me wrapped up in nonsensical battles all because I accepted your ridiculous invitation, let me handle this.”
“Why suddenly so assertive? Where did the unselfish stance you’ve been taking this whole time go?”
“I demand a barter. I seek a memorable experience.”
“See? You’re just a bunch of desires on legs. I’m a year older than you, though. How about respecting seniority here, eh?”
“Respect seniority, when we’re fighting over a little girl? This, senpai, is about juniority.”
“Is that even a word? Whatever, we’ll settle this with rock-paper-scissors.”
“Oh? The version where it’s okay to hit each other?”
“When has there ever been a version like that?”
“You know, like Goku early on in Dragon Ball.”
“I admit that takes me back, but no.” Too bad Goku never used that move as a Super Saiyan…
“Fine, rock-paper-scissors it is.”
“Okay. No shoot.”
“That might be tough.”
“Are you planning on shooting me with something?”
“Rock, paper─”
Scissors.
Kanbaru put out scissors, and I put out rock─since she wasn’t that crab, it meant she’d lost. Scurrying over to the swings before any shooting could take place, I slipped under them like a runner on second sliding to third on a delayed steal.
Agh… Terrifying!
Scarier than any aberration! What was going on?!
Shinobu wasn’t swinging that quickly, but even then, a solid pendulum swinging back and forth only a few inches from your face had such a mental impact on you!
The speed of a pendulum is determined by its length, not its weight, so in the case of a swing, you can control it based on where you hold onto the chain─Shinobu seemed to be shifting tempos on purpose, keeping my eyes from focusing.
The angle was off by ninety degrees, but it made me think of that contraption where an executioner’s sickle is attached to a pendulum─I couldn’t even see no little girl!
What exactly did Shinobu want here, what did she want me to understand? Now that I thought about it, she probably meant seeing is believing, not practice makes perfect, but─hm?
That was when.
I noticed─even as I fought the terror of a heavy object coming and going in front of my face, it struck me, when I used my dynamic vision to its fullest. Impressive, considering that my eyesight was now just an average human’s─I may have only scored a sixty-two on brawn, but my vision was 20/20.
Stuck there under the swing was a picture from a photo booth. It showed Miss Izuko Gaen, the expert we were to meet, making a cute pose (how youthful of her).
The following words were written by hand on the sticker:
“Change → Kita-Shirahebi Shrine.”
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login