Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.30

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From there, all the actors assembled at Naoetsu Private High School’s athletic field on the night of August twenty-fourth─or so I wish I could say, but a number of them were still missing.

We can touch on this later, but it also marked my first time going to my high school in the four days since summer break ended. Now that I thought about it, my school didn’t make us show up at any point during summer break like some others do (or maybe it does, but not to my knowledge), making this my first attendance in the thirty-seven or so days since first term ended. The fact that I’d come in the dead of night, when every student, teacher, administrator, and more had already left, was very much in character for me.

I still hadn’t done my summer vacation homework, I realized only now. That had been the start of this whole string of incidents continuing on from the last day of summer break, but that homework would be so far in the past by the time I got back to school that I might dodge the bullet.

You know, I had some pretty serious guts on me too.

Anyway, now that a barrier had been constructed around the field, just like during spring break, intruders and third-party interventions were no longer a worry.

“All right, then. Let’s get this started nice and quick, then ended nice and quick,” Miss Gaen said.

It did feel like she was acting a little distant from me, but that had to be my imagination. Miss Gaen was an understanding adult.

Episode stood by her side.

His massive cross didn’t stick out from the ground the way it did in Kita-Shirahebi Shrine (it’d have left an awful mark if it did), but rested instead on his shoulder─probably a sign that he was ready to fight at any moment.

It must have been because they were both that type of person at their core, but the two maintained a relaxed attitude─that, or they weren’t too interested. Still, you could tell they took their job seriously.

I doubted either of them ever showed the kind of frivolity that Kaiki or Miss Kagenui wouldn’t think twice about flaunting as they worked─perhaps it was understandable coming from Kaiki, a con artist, but Miss Kagenui being that way showed just how unusual she was.

Could that have been why Miss Gaen didn’t get Miss Kagenui involved, even though this case involved immortal vampires? That was as much speculation as I could engage in as someone who’d fought and been spared by her.

In fact, the duel that would soon take place might not be that big of a deal, compared to how recklessly I’d gone to face off against Miss Kagenui─of course, one very big condition differed between that time and this one.

On that note, the tween doll girl and tsukumogami who acted as Miss Kagenui’s shikigami, Yotsugi Ononoki─wasn’t present.

Unbelievable! Ononoki, not here?!

No tween girls around?!

What did I bother coming here for, then?!

The fact made me want to scream all this and more (I’m joking here), but it seemed she’d been asked to handle another task after reporting to Miss Gaen about our interaction and was now off on a trip elsewhere.

Yet another task…

I’m not going to continue talking about the degree to which Ononoki is overworked, but where could she be going at this point and what would she be doing there? They said this job would come to a conclusion here no matter what. Curious, I asked Miss Gaen for details.

“She’s tying up the loose ends now that we’ve set things straight with this job─a job’s not over just because you set things straight, you know. Especially the way I do things. I make sure that things can never happen again by eliminating any potential reproducibility─I’m thorough about prevention. If an incident happens, I take it into account for the future. That’s what she’s doing.”

Apparently, that’s what Ononoki was doing.

I didn’t quite understand, but in any case, Miss Gaen already had her eye on what would take place after tonight. Maybe that was natural from her perspective, but I did wish she’d stop pretending to act tough by folding her arms in front of her as she spoke when she really just wanted to block my view of her chest.

I did also wish she’d stop treating what I was about to attempt as garbage time─or wait, was it the first pitch?

“You’re right. Don’t worry, I’ll undo Yotsugi’s stamp─though it might not be possible to restore your link without the other party in question around,” Miss Gaen said a bit cynically.

Yes.

That was right.

When I said there were missing actors, I meant Shinobu as much as Ononoki─Shinobu Oshino ended up not leaving the shrine.

I called out to her and knocked on the entrance once it was time to go, but she still didn’t come out─this time it really was like me needing to wake a sleeping god, but no ritual I attempted had any effect.

She’d decided not to see the first Aberration Slayer, after all─in that case, I just had to respect her decision. Right. My determination didn’t have to line up with Shinobu’s resolution.

In that case, I just had to win the duel at any cost, so that Shinobu wouldn’t have to see the first Aberration Slayer─not that any bald attempt to redouble my convictions mattered. Even if what seemed to be the predetermined outcome played out and I lost, Miss Gaen and Episode weren’t going to let him see Shinobu anyway.

Even so, there was meaning in me doing this.

Just as she’d declared, Kanbaru hadn’t tried to pull Shinobu out from the shrine proper where she’d confined herself─but as my junior, she did take part in some of my slapdash rituals, possibly because she just found it amusing.

“Why don’t we get going already?” she urged nonchalantly─even adding, “Don’t worry. If anything happens, I’ll protect you.”

What a reliable junior I had.

Not that I could stand to give her any more work after all she’d done─another reason I needed to give this my all.

I couldn’t look lame in front of a junior like her.

And so, with the four of us, myself included, gathered─the last to appear was the man at the center of this series of affairs.

The first Aberration Slayer.

Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s first thrall─a vampire who’d returned over the course of four hundred years.

An expert from olden times.

Out of nowhere─he appeared clad in armor.

“…”

The armored warrior─showing almost no trace of the boy I’d met this morning appeared, clad in equipment utterly foreign to our modern age.

The suit of armor somehow felt even bigger than before, possibly because he’d showed himself to me as a child─no, in fact, it must have been bigger.

He said he will have made a full recovery─that he’d be fully restored.

He’d have used his energy drain to further power himself up before appearing at this field─and he’d lost whatever talkative nature he had as a boy.

He appeared on time and said nothing.

He stood there in his thick suit of armor.

He wasn’t the only one to grow quiet, either. So had Kanbaru to some degree once he appeared─before then, despite the feeling in the air, she’d managed to chatter on.

She must have felt the noxious force of all those “bad things” the first Aberration Slayer brought along with him─just as she felt ill before at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine and during our last visit to the abandoned cram school.

No. Even worse than those times.

As someone who shared a common vampiric origin with him, it didn’t affect me, nor did it affect the two professionals, Miss Gaen and Episode─but the amount of careful preparation he’d put into this moment was as clear as night.

As Kanbaru’s senior, I worried about her body and her mind, but it wasn’t as if she’d leave now even if I told her to… Just as I wondered what to do─

“All right, then. Let’s get this started nice and quick, then ended nice and quick,” Miss Gaen said to break the ice.

Nothing about her tone suggested any real concern for her niece’s condition─you didn’t have to be me to recognize that her interest in ending this nice and quick had nothing to do with any consideration for her.

“Araragi, and First─this friendly lady who knows everything right here is gonna be in charge of your duel. I’ll make sure it’s a fair fight─and you’re going to let me act as judge.”

“Our promise,” the First spoke.

Not with the voice he’d taken from me.

It had turned into one of his own.

An elegant voice, profound and even entrancing.

“Thou shalt uphold our promise─Lady Izuko. As a fellow expert, I trust ye would not break such a promise.”

Sad words to hear spoken to someone as willing and ready to break promises as Miss Gaen─but he couldn’t have been serious when he said them, either.

He too was a sly and tested expert.

Someone not to be trusted, who wouldn’t think twice about handing someone─not poisoned, but consecrated tea.

“Oh, of course. I’ve never broken a promise in my life before, and I’ve never lied, either. Miss Izuko right here is all about integrity.”

I could tell by the way she refused to use her last name that she was being thorough when it came to hiding her identity from Kanbaru. Was she really that set on keeping her in the dark, though? Maybe the reveal of the fact that Kanbaru was her long-separated niece deserved a little more gravity, but seeing her go this far started to make me suspicious…

It even felt like it wasn’t about her relationship with Kanbaru so much as with Kanbaru’s mother, which is to say, Miss Gaen’s older sister.

Not that I needed to be thinking about that right now.

“Sir Araragi,” the first Aberration Slayer then said to me. “It seems Kissshot is not here─am I right to think that I will meet her once I defeat thee in this duel?”

“Do whatever you want,” I replied. The two of us were close enough that, looking at him with sober eyes, I was overwhelmed by his intense presence─still, I didn’t drop my affectation. “I don’t intend on surviving a loss to you, so go ahead, meet her as much as you feel like.”

That is, I stopped myself from saying, if you can. Miss Gaen wouldn’t have wanted me to say that, not to mention the first Aberration Slayer.

If you can.

Facing him now, I couldn’t see him meeting Shinobu just to give her an honest apology─Kanbaru seemed mistaken when it came to that.

It wasn’t love.

It wasn’t gratitude.

It wasn’t loyalty.

Yet it wasn’t pure hate, resentment, or rebellion, either─as much as I hated to admit it, his feelings towards Shinobu were probably very close to mine.

To the point that they might be the same.

As my relationship to her─of love and hate.

I loved her, and I hated her.

So, in fact, the first Aberration Slayer wouldn’t know himself until it came down to it─he probably wouldn’t know until the moment he saw Shinobu.

How would he act then?

Would he love her, or would he kill her?

Was he being honest─or deceitful?

Wouldn’t the answer to that question be decided in the moment?

…Not that the moment would ever come.

Even so, it was wrong to sympathize or empathize with him─perhaps I was complicit in the deception, but I only needed to win this duel to turn it into honesty and sincerity.

It was wrong.

To feel sorry for him.

You have to respect a being who spent four hundred years coming back to life, no matter who he is─Mèmè Oshino would surely say.

“You don’t intend on surviving? Gotta love it. Don’t say such alarming things, thrall of Heartunderblade…which is I guess both of you,” Episode stumbled over his words─he must not have remembered my actual name. Miss Gaen now called me Araragi (not “Koyomin”), but he probably didn’t remember names unless he had a specific interest in doing so… Not that I was any better, since I only knew him as Episode.

And what about the first Aberration Slayer’s name?

This would probably end without me ever learning it.

“He’s right, Araragi,” Miss Gaen continued where Episode left off. “That is alarming. You shouldn’t say that─haven’t you been listening to us? What’s about to take place is like a ceremony of sorts. You could call it a duel dedicated to a god─not something either of you will be dying from.”

Come over here, she beckoned me with her hand.

I suppose enough time had passed since the accident in the open lot that she was finally allowing me to approach her. Miss Gaen touched my face.

“Okay. Now you’re set,” she said.

It didn’t feel like anything had happened, but she must have undone Ononoki’s footprint from the left half of my face.

The protection had been removed.

Now no footprint was there to defend me.

“The preparations are complete. And now you’re ready to fight too, Araragi. Aren’t you?”

“The preparations, complete? With that? Hold on one moment─what of thy link, Sir Araragi?”

The first Aberration Slayer was the one to voice his doubts.

“Surely ye have no intention of dueling me─in such a weak state?”

“…”

“My word, it seems thy bond with Kissshot was nowhere as strong as I’d feared─I find it hard to believe she would dare send her servant to battle while so powerless.”

I couldn’t see because of his face guard, but he must have been sneering, not that I could blame him for thinking that.

Had I wanted to cover all my bases for this duel, I’d have restored my link to Shinobu, then had her drink my blood, strengthening my body to its limit before arriving here.

There lay the difference between this moment and my battle against Miss Kagenui─which actually made all the difference, but in any case, I’d be facing off against an aberration in an almost entirely human state.

This might have been my first time heading into battle at this much of a power disadvantage.

But there’s a first time for everything.

Yes, Shinobu had holed up and refused to leave, but that wasn’t the only reason our link hadn’t been restored─this was, in its own way, something I wanted.

I didn’t want to win using Shinobu’s strength.

I wanted to win and become her strength.

Of course, it wasn’t as if I’d shown up with neither prospects nor plans─even if my opponent claimed to have made a full recovery, he had to be far from fully restored.

And─even if I was wrong.

No matter what happened─win or lose, love or hate, I knew my opponent’s intentions would never come to fruition. It was the least I could risk in a duel against such an adversary.

People should never get into fights they think they can’t lose.

Of course, I wasn’t sure if that held for vampires…

“Very well, then─however, Lady Izuko, in this case I would ask thee to compose a form for this duel that would properly handicap us. And I’ll have no objectionable excuses coming from thee.”

“Of course not. My plan was to go with a universal dueling format that’s existed throughout the ages─one that would allow you two to compete on pretty fair terms,” Miss Gaen proposed as she walked toward the stand used for morning announcements─from which she took a cylindrical object that she must have placed there beforehand.

A bamboo sword. The kind the kendo club used.

“I guess you could call it an imaginary version of the enchanted blade Kokorowatari─though there is of course some spiritual energy flowing through it. Yeah, just think of it as a stun gun that you can use on each other,” Miss Gaen said─plunging it into the ground.

As bamboo swords are built with round tips, she shouldn’t have been able to do this, but she pierced the ground like it was a peg using only one hand.

I was surprised by the strength in her slender arms, but then realized it was thanks to the sword’s spiritual energy.

“We’re going to have you two stand on both sides of this bamboo sword, backs turned to each other. From there, you’ll take ten steps forward on my count─and the battle will begin after the tenth. Run towards this bamboo blade, and whoever scores the first sword strike on his opponent wins. I guess you could call it a setup out of a Japanese-style Western,” Miss Gaen explained, letting go of the sword. “Or maybe an unusual variation on beach flags. Of course, you shouldn’t just give up if your opponent is the first to grab the hilt─you can still take the sword from him and score a strike. The match will only be judged by who can score the first sword strike─fair enough? First will have longer to travel because ten of his wide strides will take him farther than ten from someone as short, and short-legged, as Araragi. Not to mention that armor.”

“Indeed, this armor is not light,” the first Aberration Slayer responded.

Still, he was a vampire─even if you took the weight of his equipment into consideration, he’d have to be nimble… And also, it felt like Miss Gaen was kind of insulting me there with that comment about my short stature and legs…

Did I do something to make her dislike me?

“Allow me to confirm─a glancing blow from this bamboo blade will not count as a strike, will it? May I assume that this battle will be decided only by effective, decisive strikes?”

“Of course. I’m going by the standards of modern kendo when it comes to that─though the rules themselves are anything goes. A strike to the legs is still a strike.”

“So you mean to say,” the armored warrior continued with a shrug, “what ye’ve in fact set forth─are not rules to ensure a fair fight, but rather considerations so that Sir Araragi doth not perish in our duel. Quite astute.”

“Well, I don’t want my big brother Mèmè getting mad at me. He’s scary when he’s mad,” Miss Gaen said, not explicitly denying the observation. “Any other questions?” she rushed to change the topic.

“No─what objections could I make to such a simple agreement? I do suppose ’tis preferable to a jumble of rules. Though I must say─in my hands, a glancing blow from any sword, even one made of bamboo, could bring Sir Araragi close to death. Would that then be considered an effective strike?”

“Sure, we can say that,” Miss Gaen nodded without a moment’s hesitation. “I guess that would be the more convenient arrangement for you─is that fine with you, Araragi?”

“Well, not really,” I replied as she turned her attention to me, “but I have to say I am.”

“Excellent─any questions from you, Araragi?”

“None about the rules… I’m an amateur when it comes to swords and fighting, though. Do you think I could get some expert instruction on at least this ten-pace run you’re talking about?”

“Expert instruction?”

From me? On swords?

Miss Gaen tilted her head in confusion, but I wasn’t referring here to any experts on the supernatural.

I wanted an expert when it came to full-tilt sprints.

An athlete who specialized in straight-line movement.

Japan’s best short-distance runner─Suruga Kanbaru.

In other words, my junior, who was off to the side feeling sick.

“Okay. I think it’d be fair to add a handicap on that level. It’s half past seven right now, so…the duel can begin at eight on the dot. Go and get warmed up, the both of you.”