Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.27

027

Anyone looking back from the future and passing judgment on the situation would probably think that Kanbaru was right─but as someone living in the same time and the same place as her, Kanbaru’s opinions were just too severe.

She’d been excessive, no matter how you look at it.

From the perspective of someone with a personality that’s not particularly extroverted like myself, she, with her master’s degree in sociability, acted in an utterly incomprehensible way.

It was as if she’d gone into a fairly settled situation and not just rocked the boat, she’d capsized it─I almost got a headache when I wondered why she would knowingly refuse to work everything out in a peaceful manner.

It made me want to throw everything I had at each of her sound arguments.

This was Suruga Kanbaru, after all. Someone with the distinguished record of having gone over to play at the homes of every girl in her class during her first month of school when she first entered Naoetsu High.

She approached her relationships with other people in a fundamentally different way from me, someone who couldn’t even manage to join an extracurricular club or sports team─and when I thought about it, Shinobu hadn’t made a single thrall until four hundred years ago, living all on her own, and she’d only had a total of two thralls in her five hundred years alive (six hundred, really). That didn’t mean she was chaste and well-behaved so much as it meant she showed a striking lack of communication abilities.

It wouldn’t be right to speak of my solitude as being on the same level as Shinobu’s, of course─but if you were to keep this in mind, both she and I would have a hard time understanding what Kanbaru was saying, nor would Kanbaru be able to understand how we felt.

We couldn’t understand one another.

On a fundamental level.

But if I was going to say that─then maybe Kanbaru best understood how the first Aberration Slayer felt out of us all, or perhaps she was the only one who understood.

Middle school.

When Suruga Kanbaru had a pseudo-sisterly relationship with Hitagi Senjogahara─known then as the Valhalla Duo, she was one half of the best-known relationship in school, according to Hanekawa.

Kanbaru must have assumed that it’d last forever─but Senjogahara, one year older than her, proceeded to high school one step ahead of her.

And then she changed in high school.

Though Kanbaru had drawn on her inherent diligence to work hard and enter Naoetsu High despite her somewhat lacking academics, she found herself flatly rejected by a changed Senjogahara.

From what I hear, she said some awful things.

“I don’t think of you as a friend or even as my junior─not now, nor did I ever.” ─ “Being friends with a talented junior like you would boost my own reputation, and that was the only reason I was nice to you.” ─ “I only acted like a caring senior.”

And after that, the two didn’t interact for over a year.

It wasn’t all positive for Kanbaru when they started interacting again─because a hard-to-understand, thoughtless, stupid boy who lived a frivolous life appeared as well.

Me.

Koyomi Araragi.

I, this vague, nonsensical guy who could just as easily be replaced by anyone appeared as a partner of this changed Hitagi Senjogahara.

I can’t imagine how Kanbaru must have felt then.

An average high schooler with no redeeming qualities actually stands out as its own strong personality, but I wasn’t even that.

It was this person who seemed to have swept in and snatched away Senjogahara, her adored senior─and Suruga Kanbaru couldn’t stand it.

She couldn’t stand it, and so.

She made a wish to a monkey.

It was unlike a girl as honest and straightforward as her─but perhaps it was very much in character, since it was the only way she could keep herself from running away from how she lived her life.

That’s the kind of girl she is.

Which is why she understood how the first Aberration Slayer felt.

How it felt to be someone’s first─and how it felt to be the runner-up.

The scale was different, of course─equating the two situations might actually bother the first Aberration Slayer. It’d be like calling Shinobu’s solitude and mine the same thing. Kanbaru’s relationship with Senjogahara had been cut off for about the year it took for Kanbaru to finish middle school, two at most if you included the time after that─compared to that, what scale could there be for four hundred years?

Shinobu’s relationship with the first Aberration Slayer couldn’t have been anything like Senjogahara’s relationship with Kanbaru─and if you were to say this, no one could understand the true relationship between the first Aberration Slayer and the second.

Not a single person existed who knew of that time.

Every one of them had been swallowed by the Darkness.

Still, Suruga Kanbaru sympathized.

She sympathized, but she didn’t commiserate.

She empathized─and aligned with him.

That’s why she hounded Shinobu─she couldn’t stand there not saying a single word as Shinobu tried to avoid meeting him, to avoid facing him, and she couldn’t keep herself to only a single word, either.

It wasn’t something I could do.

I’d grown too close to Shinobu. I couldn’t reject her way of thinking or way of life. I couldn’t fight with her the way Kanbaru did, either─nor could I argue with her.

I couldn’t confront her opinions with my own, nor could we engage in heated debate─that’s just what it means to be soulmates, but maybe I should have been the one to say the kinds of things that Kanbaru said to Shinobu.

Not that I’d ever think about it, being so unsocial─honestly, just how much work was I going to pass off onto my junior?

Even here at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, during Nadeko Sengoku’s case, I had Kanbaru dirty her hands in facing the Jagirinawa.

To make matters worse, I’d handed most of the comic-relief duties off to her this time around, which is why I needed to face the first Aberration Slayer─at the very least to repay this girl who’d faced off against Shinobu alone.

That’s what I thought.

That was my decision.

“It’s not like you have to fight, you know.”

Gotta love it, he added.

Episode, the half-vampire expert who had appeared at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine in the evening, smiled as he rested against the massive cross sticking out from the shrine grounds.

Apparently he wasn’t able to keep this cross of his in some other dimension the way enchanted blades and the like were kept. It was a cross, after all, so maybe he couldn’t use any vampiric abilities on it.

“All you had to do was get him to agree to a duel, and now Miss Gaen’s plans have all fallen into place─now that we’re able to summon the first Aberration Slayer to an established location, your role is basically done, thrall of Heartunderblade. Pretty sure Miss Gaen planned on me fighting him. Pretty sure that’s why she wanted me.”

“Maybe. But still.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine─I’m not gonna argue with you on that one. I’m a mercenary. I care less than anyone when it comes to who fights─I’ll gladly let you handle it, so long as it means one less vampire in this world. In fact, I’d even be happy if you, Heartunderblade, and the first Aberration Slayer all died.”

I doubted this was a simple quip.

I was generally considered harmless─plus, he’d lost to me in the game set out by Oshino over spring break. He said he couldn’t lay a hand on me and Shinobu, but inside, he saw all vampires as his enemies.

A half-vampire.

He hated humans and vampires alike.

“Are you done with whatever ‘formalities’ you had?” I asked, hesitantly.

He nodded. “Yes─of course. She’s meticulous when it comes to that stuff. We tracked down the first Aberration Slayer and properly negotiated with him─just as Mèmè Oshino negotiated with me. Though I doubt Miss Gaen is as sincere as Mèmè Oshino.”

“…”

I never imagined Oshino would ever be described as sincere, but to be fair, maybe he was in comparison to Miss Gaen─everything’s relative, huh?

Should we be comparing everything, even the incomparable?

“Oh─Episode, I have to admit, I wondered what was going to happen after we let the first Aberration Slayer get away in that empty plot, but you tracked him down? You really are professionals.”

“We really are professionals? That miracle you pulled off was no amateur feat.”

At least, that was the first time I’d ever seen Miss Gaen let an opponent get away, Episode said─it didn’t feel bad to hear that, though I felt sure it wasn’t meant as a compliment.

“All that’s left for us to do now is to wait for night, then you and the first Aberration Slayer can face off in a one-on-one duel─but just to help you relax a little, I’ll tell you now. You can lose.”

“…?”

“You losing would just mean me stepping in─and in the worst case, Miss Gaen will make a move. That’s all. Sure, we’re calling this a stage for a duel, but really, it’s like the site of an exorcism. A real dead end this time, one he can’t get away from. Do you see that as cowardly?” Episode asked as if to preempt me. “Didn’t I tell you before? There’s no such thing as cowardice when it comes to expelling aberrations─not to mention that we’re up against another expert this time around. He knew that when he accepted this, and I’m sure he’s doing everything he can to escape from the boundaries of our stage. Call it a battle of wits, if you want─it’s not as much about strength as duel might make you think. So you don’t have to win─all you have to do is not die.”

“Not die?”

“Duh, because Heartunderblade will be completely freed if you did. Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“…”

It’s not as if I’d forgotten.

But at the same time, I wouldn’t have to worry even if something happened to me in the duel─as long as the first Aberration Slayer took on the role I now played.

“No, because I bet that’s the one scenario Miss Gaen fears─Heartunderblade linking back up with her original thrall is the most worrying outcome of all. How could it not be bad? Two vampires out there like Heartunderblade? You need to be more conscious of the fact that you’re holding back a monster that could destroy the world ten times over.”

Being told that I’m Shinobu’s safety valve didn’t feel quite as good as what he said before, given how powerless and useless I was.

It almost made me feel like some guy whose special ability was to scatter adult magazines everywhere.

What kind of exorcist was I?

“There might not be any point in asking, since you don’t seem to expect that much of me, but what happens to him if I do win this duel?”

“He’ll be wiped out. He’ll be so killed by either me or Miss Gaen that he’ll leave no residual effects behind. It’s too bad there’s no bounty on his head, seeing that his existence as an aberration isn’t recognized, but Miss Gaen will pay me a bonus. So don’t worry about it─the result’s gonna be the same whether you win or lose. Your duel with the first Aberration Slayer is, you know, like an opening act, a performance… Like throwing out the first pitch.”

Throwing out the first pitch.

I understood this was him trying in his own way to get me to relax, but it was deflating─well.

Even if it was the first pitch, I didn’t know who was the pitcher, and who was the batter, not to mention that it’d be a weird opening ceremony if the batter was allowed to swing. Maybe you could call it a chance for me and the Aberration Slayer to show off.

“So, well…”

Finished with his explanation, Episode pulled up the cross he rested against and plopped it on his shoulder─he handled the silver cross, which could have weighed as much as a ton or so, with ease.

A half-vampire.

His powers as a vampire were halved, but so were his weaknesses─which meant this expert in a white traditional school uniform could use his powers even during the day.

“So, well, as you know, my mom and my dad were a vampire and a human, respectively.”

“…?”

“But I don’t want that example to lead the likes of you to think that humans can form bonds with aberrations, or get along with them, okay? If anything, I want you to think of my existence as a sad sort of failure.”

Failure? It was unlike Episode to use such a word about himself. It couldn’t have been modesty.

“I mean, my mom and my dad were killed afterwards─wiped out by humans and eaten by vampires not long at all after they got together.”

Even I’d have been in trouble if I hadn’t been taken in, he said, his tone unchanged. He spoke a truth so shocking that for a brief, fleeting moment, I forgot that I’d once been in a battle to the death with the guy.

“Gotta love it, right? But that’s how it is─so don’t get any weird hopes. Not about your relationship with Heartunderblade.”

“But, that─”

Flustered, I turned to him.

I couldn’t swallow that as the truth─wasn’t his case a special exception? Though I saw why he’d become an expert with his private reasons.

If his father was sucked dry by vampires, and his mother was killed by humans, then of course─

“Hm? Oh, no, you’ve got it all mixed up. My human dad was exorcised by humans, and my vampire mom was eaten by vampires. Both of ’em were treated like traitors by their own kind. But I can’t say I blame them. I’d think the same about a traitor.”

“…”

His shocking truth…had only become more shocking.

How could I, with my peaceful upbringing, say anything to that? This youth in a white traditional school uniform who I once saw as nothing more than a hated enemy suddenly felt so familiar and distant at the same time.

“Who took you in? Who protected you when both humans and vampires were against you?”

“I dunno if I’d say protected─they probably had all kinds of plans for me…” Episode hesitated for a brief moment. “It was Guillotine Cutter’s church.”

Guillotine Cutter…

One of the three experts who’d visited this town over spring break to eliminate Shinobu…

“So…that makes you─”

“Oh, no way. That god freak wasn’t some kind of parent to me. All I’m saying is that as someone with my own private reasons, I just can’t take Heartunderblade’s side here. I think she’s getting what she deserves, stuck in the middle like this riding a fence. Gotta love it!”

Episode began to leave Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─to make his own preparations, no doubt. I nearly watched him walk off, but spoke out to his cross-bearing back at the last second.

“Hold on, I never heard the most important part.”

Episode didn’t care one way or another about whether I took part in this duel, so it must have slipped his mind… But I needed him to tell me.

“Where are these dueling grounds you set up? Where should I go tonight?”

“Oh, about that,” he turned and said. He’d cheerfully told me about the way his parents were killed, but now he looked gloomy, as if he’d recalled something unpleasant. “We’re following precedent here. A spot you’re pretty familiar with─I’d call it fated.”

“Fated?”

“Naoetsu Private High School’s athletic field.”