Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.28

028

This is out of chronological order, but─

The fight between Suruga Kanbaru and Shinobu Oshino ended at around noon, so if you wanted to know what happened after that, it went in a direction that diverged a little from the “emotional climax” Ononoki expected.

First off, once Shinobu finished receiving all of Kanbaru’s dressing-down and urging-on, her next act was to sulk and go to sleep─she stood up to get off of Kanbaru’s body, then trudged to the rear of the shrine. Kanbaru didn’t continue to follow her at that point. The nocturnal Shinobu was in part too sleepy to continue, but I’m sure being defeated in an argument by a high school girl hit her unexpectedly hard.

When I thought about it, going to sleep whenever anything annoying happens is a coping mechanism she’s used for four hundred years now─in response, Ononoki, who’d seen their exchange from nearly the beginning, said by my side:

“Hah. Lame.” (Again, what kind of character was she supposed to be?) The shikigami shrugged her shoulders, stood, and continued, “What a boring fight that was. I’m leaving, monstieur. I need to report to Miss Gaen about this. Once I’m done reporting to her, I think I’ll delete my boring memories of this boring fight.”

“What did you experience over the last twelve hours to make you like this? Also, were you listening to me? This sign and seal on me…”

“Sign and seal? Could you not use such old-fashioned terms? Please, call it where others fear to tread.”

“I’m not humoring your joke. What kind of bootlicker do you take me for? And you stepped on me with your bare feet, anyway, not your shoes.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll take it off tonight. I’ll add that to my report, too.”

“I’d appreciate it. Oh, and if you’re going to meet Miss Gaen─”

“Your link, right? I guess you do have to restore it if you want a fighting chance,” Ononoki said as she walked off and left Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─walking straight down the mountain instead of using the stairs.

To be honest, I was at a loss as to what to do now that I was alone. I had so little idea about how I should face Kanbaru or Shinobu after seeing that exchange up close. I felt like climbing right back down the mountain, but it wasn’t as if I could.

I did also want to take a look at Kanbaru’s head. She was bleeding, though not severely─I may not have been able to treat her wounds now, but still.

I went back the way I came, passed through the torii gate once more, and with my best unconcerned look, tried to walk naturally (in truth probably a little faster than usual) before arriving at Kanbaru. I’d made a rather long detour.

“Hm? What’s the matter, Kanbaru? What’re you doing on the ground there? You’re bleeding from your head, are you okay?”

“Huh? You know, don’t you? You were watching from right over there until a second ago.”

“You knew?!”

So she’d been having that conversation with Shinobu knowing I was close by?! Her heart was so tough that she actually needed to see a cardiologist!

Ononoki could hide her presence perfectly (or rather, she didn’t have any presence to begin with), so it seemed as though Kanbaru hadn’t noticed her, but she must have sensed me in the bushes, even if she couldn’t see me.

You really shouldn’t underestimate an athlete’s sixth sense…

“Don’t worry, Shinobu didn’t notice you. So, did you buy me that book?”

“Hold on a second, you can’t just brush that topic aside! You’ve gotta let us discuss what just happened a little more!”

“? But you already heard everything. More importantly, the book…”

“You’re way too fixated on it. Just how important is it to you? At least let me look at your head wound.”

Of course, what went on inside it worried me way more than any external injury…

“Mmf,” Kanbaru thrust her head out toward me.

I didn’t expect to find the gesture so adorable… Well, as long as I ignored the fact that it was a result of holding her novel’s two volumes tightly in either hand.

I parted Kanbaru’s hair, grown long ever since she quit the team, and took a look at the lacerations on her skin created by Shinobu’s Iron Claw.

Hmm… Well, it seemed fine…

It looked bad, given how easy it is to bleed from your head, but when I wiped up the blood, I found the wounds minor enough. I could leave them be and not use any kind of vampiric ability…

“It’d be neat if you could play with my hair while I read this novel…”

“Could you please not amuse yourself with a novel while I’m concerned about you?”

“You don’t need to worry, injuries like this come with the territory if you play sports. Anyway, could you keep touching my hair like that for a little longer?”

“What would be the point? Um…”

What was it again? I needed to talk to her about something…

“Eh, I guess it’s fine.”

“Hm? What is?”

“Nothing.”

It’d be strange to thank her here, and things were fine for the time being now that I knew she wasn’t seriously injured… That’s all there was to say. I mussed Kanbaru’s hair.

“Yup, nothing. C’mon, Kanbaru. Let’s have lunch.”

“Yeah, I’m starved. I’ll just keep reading this book, so you feed me, okay? Aahh.”

“Don’t aahh me. No senior would ever spoil his junior that much.”

“Hm? There doesn’t seem to be much here.”

“I ran into budget problems… I did buy some donuts, too, but Shinobu…” I looked over at the shrine, wondering what to do. It almost felt like I was going to have to wake a sleeping god. “What’s next for her?”

“If she’s sleeping, I say let her sleep. She’s nocturnal, after all. Shouldn’t she wake up once it’s night?”

“Yeah, but… Um, are you not interested, Kanbaru? You laid it on that thick to her and yet you don’t care about what she does next?”

“Whether I’m interested or not, it’s up to her. I already said what I wanted to say, so I’m satisfied.”

What I’m interested about right now is how the savage garçon is going to huff and puff and blow this half-boy down, Kanbaru said, engrossed in her book.

I wanted to let her know just how much trouble this savage garçon of hers had gotten me into, but this too was a part of who Kanbaru was─social people like her also have a solid line that divides them from others.

Meanwhile, people with as few friends as me have a tendency not to differentiate their own business with the business of others nearly as much as they should, which leads to trouble.

Something Shinobu and I may have in common.

“So, my senior? My bra?”

“Like that’s what you really wanted me to buy. Yeah, I bought you one. Here.”

“My bra?”

“Here!”

It was a cheap one from a discount store and not a lingerie shop due to my budget…but it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

Whether it comes to heads or chests.

“Okay, I’m going to keep on reading, so you put it on for me. Aahh.”

“Stop trying to ‘aahh’ like it’s some kind of double entendre. Anyway, Kanbaru. Don’t you have anything for me?”

“Hm?”

“Some kind of advice you’re willing to put your body on the line for?”

“What’s that? You want me to put my body where?”

“Sorry, no. You can keep it right there. Just give it to me orally.”

“I don’t know about that one, either… But no, nothing really.”

“Really? Nothing?”

“Oh, I could never be so forward as to dare give advice to my esteemed senior. I’m just a little girl,” the little girl who’d unflinchingly argued with a five-hundred-plus-year-old vampire said as she kept her eyes laser-focused on her novel.

Readers like her were an author’s blessing… I did wish she’d spare a little bit of her blessings for her senior, though.

“You just have to be the same senpai you always are. Don’t try extra hard or anything, just be yourself. Treat practice like the real thing, and treat the real thing like practice. That’s what athletes live by,” Kanbaru said, almost like a captain speaking to a teammate the day before a big tournament. “If I gotta keep going, it’s all about DIY.”

“DIY?”

“Do your best.”

“…”

That would be DYB, and not the term she’d used for amateur artisanship, but I decided not to make any quip.

Because─“do it yourself” was actually the exact advice I needed to hear.

After this, I took a nap in preparation for that night─Shinobu had monopolized the space inside the shrine proper, so I was basically sleeping rough. Lacking my physical enhancement, I needed to sleep, but had trouble getting any. Not just because I was outdoors though, I’m sure. Kanbaru kept reading her novel the entire time─did athletes never run out of stamina?

Episode visited the shrine in the evening and gave me the details about the duel Miss Gaen had set up.

Naoetsu Private High School’s athletic field.

The school where both Kanbaru and I were enrolled.

Sure, Episode would see it as fate─it was where he fought a legendary vampire he’d chased after, as well as her thrall.

At the same time.

It was also where Shinobu and I, where Koyomi Araragi and Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, fought to the death.

He was right. It did follow precedent, and it was a suitable location.

For a duel between the First and the Second.

For a schism between slaves.

For a conclusion─so suitable I could barely stomach it.