Monogatari Series - Volume 2 - Chapter 4.6

006

We were in the remains of the shrine.

That abandoned shrine atop the mountain.

It was the dead of the night, after we had been busy preparing for so long.

I considered waiting until the next day, but if we waited one more day, those scale marks, the Jagirinawa’s grip, might reach up to her neck (she wouldn’t be able to hide it if that happened since she couldn’t walk around wearing a scarf in this season─even if regular people couldn’t see those markings). The middle of the night or not, we decided to fight for every minute and second and do it as soon as possible. My family took a hands-off approach with me, and the same went without saying for Kanbaru. A slight issue arose regarding Sengoku’s curfew as an active-duty middle schooler, but she asked one of her school friends to come up with an alibi for her (a sleepover or something like that). It seems obvious, but Sengoku apparently had friends other than the one who had cursed her.

Having a lot of friends.

A good thing, I thought.

While I was more than a little worried at first about doing this at the same shrine ruins where everything began, Oshino gave us his stamp of approval, telling us it was fine. I thought he said it because we had already placed the talisman on the main hall, but it was actually a matter of process. Even if we were dealing with bad things, all we had to do was get them on our side─according to him. The Jagirinawa’s existence would be more conspicuous precisely because of the location─it would be easier to come in contact with─or something like that.

I didn’t get it, to be honest.

But, I guessed, it was an expert’s advice. I’d trust it.

Shinobu was in a room on the third floor so I gave her a casual greeting (She really had gotten in a fight with Oshino over Mister Donuts. He’d eaten all of her favorite flavors yet again. Mèmè Oshino, you’re not even immature, you’re just childish) before leaving the abandoned cram school and heading straight back home. Sure enough, Kanbaru hadn’t laid a finger on Sengoku despite sharing a room with her the whole time, nor had she gone after my little sisters, both of whom were now home.

“Great job holding yourself back, Kanbaru!”

“Yes…and hearing the earnestness in your words of praise, for the first time I’m wondering if I’d joked around too much in your presence, and am regretting it…”

Kanbaru seemed depressed.

She not only hadn’t tried to seduce Sengoku, but they’d been chatting.

“Miss Kanbaru was kind to me, Big Brother,” the introverted Sengoku jumped in to stand up for her. “She let me borrow her volleyball shorts, too.”

“That doesn’t count as kindness,” I played the straight man for Sengoku, a first.

A day for the history books.

In any case, talking to her was hard because our exchanges weren’t punctuated with jokes unlike with the rest of the bunch. Thanks to those bastards, I couldn’t have normal conversations anymore. Sadly for Sengoku, she’d have to go along with our style.

I had her and Kanbaru sneak out of my house while I kept my two little sisters busy, and then I stepped out, too, with nary an excuse. My sisters seemed suspicious (especially my youngest sister, perceptive girl), but I forced them away in the end and proceeded to the rendezvous point to meet up with the girls. We went to a general (and not a convenience) store that was open late to buy the needed tools (neither Kanbaru nor Sengoku had much money on them given how sudden this was, so I paid for it all) before heading to the mountains. We all walked.

“Sengoku.”

“Uh, yes…Big Brother?”

She’d twitched.

Maybe she thought I was going to yell at her.

So delicate, like she was made of glass.

“Those marks on you─I heard they actually hurt. Are you okay?”

“Ah…” All the color drained from her face. “U-Um… Please don’t be mad.”

“No, I’m not trying to blame you for anything.”

She probably thought I was about to scold her for lying. I didn’t know if she was timid, or too quick to see herself as a victim… Every time a character like her appeared in a manga, I’d wonder how irritating someone like that would be in real life, but it actually wasn’t that bad… I simply felt like protecting her, prior to whether or not I was a good person. Of course, the fact that she was quite a bit younger than me helped.

“I was just wondering if you were okay.”

“W-Well.” Sengoku tugged her hat far down her face. As if to hide it. As if she didn’t want to be seen. “It hurts, like something is tightening down on me, but…I can still bear it.”

Pulverizing the bones─to make it easier to eat.

Snake behavior.

“…Having to bear it is wrong to begin with. If something hurts─it’s okay to say so.”

“He’s right,” Kanbaru butted in. “Getting tied up is one thing, but staying tied up takes a surprising toll on your body. Whether it’s a snake or ropes.”

“Kanbaru, why you would gloss over getting tied up, and more subtly, the emotional toll of it, baffles me.”

This woman didn’t regret a thing.

Sengoku stifled a giggle at our back-and-forth.

Despite her timidity, maybe she was quick to laugh. In that case, talking about the thirteen-sign zodiac, which set off even Kanbaru, was absolutely off limits around Sengoku. She might laugh herself to death.

We sprayed each other with a bug repellent from the general store before going up the mountain. It was the middle of the night, which meant we needed to worry about bugs before any aberrations. While we were all fully protected in long sleeves and long pants, it was an additional safety measure for Kanbaru and me and could help Sengoku down along the line.

Once we finished, we got going.

It was pitch black, of course.

As we climbed the stairs, all three of us lit the way ahead with the flashlights we’d bought at the same general store. The wild animals and insects were horribly loud. It wasn’t that way in the afternoon, and I felt like we were explorers on some expedition. I was almost deluded into thinking I was lost in a jungle.

“You know, Sengoku,” I said.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering about something. Why did you turn that boy down? You didn’t have any idea your friend had feelings for him, right? So there wasn’t any reason for you to say no.”

“Well…”

She fell silent.

Someone with so little mental fortitude, who went quiet over just that much, rejecting a confession of love was even more perplexing…

“I-I’m sorry,” she apologized. For no reason.

“Um, it’s not something you need to apologize for.”

“Ah, y-yes, you’re right. I-I’m sorry. I’m…well… I’m sorry.”

She’d apologized twice between a single pair of quotation marks.

Three times in total.

She was over-apologizing.

“No, Sengoku─”

Kanbaru spoke up. “That was a rather insensitive question. It’s unlike you. Be more considerate.”

“Oh…really?”

“Yes, really. There are plenty of reasons to say no. In fact, why date someone you don’t particularly love?”

“Hmm…”

It was a legitimate point.

I also realized that Kanbaru making one came to me as a surprise.

“Take me, for example,” she said. “It’s because I love you that─”

“We’re not going out!”

“Huh…is that true?” asked Sengoku, puzzled. “You aren’t dating Miss Kanbaru?”

“No!”

“O-Oh… You seemed to get along so well that…I was sure you two were.”

“I’ll admit that we get along.”

About as well as I got along with Hachikuji.

Then again, unlike Hachikuji, at least Kanbaru never maligned me… In that sense, maybe I got along with her a little better.

…As for the girl I was actually dating, she only ever seemed to malign me…

“Kanbaru. Back me up and tell her no.”

“Mm. He’s right, we’re not going out.” She told Sengoku in an explanatory tone, “He and I are just having fun─we’re playing around.”

“That is very open to misinterpretation, isn’t it!”

“We’re such good friends that we could dismiss anything as a sort of accident.”

“Are you just being straight-up pernicious?! I hate you!”

“Hey. That kind of hurt.”

“Ack… Er, sorry. I love you.”

Wasn’t she going to receive anything I said with great joy? What a difficult girl.

Actually, I was the weak one here for apologizing.

Even as Kanbaru and I bickered, Sengoku mumbled, “Oh…so you’re not going out,” sounding relieved for some reason.

“I turned him down because there’s someone else I like,” she told us. Her apparent embarrassment was sweet. “But…that friend seems to have misunderstood me…and now this happened… I-I wonder if it was my fault…”

“Don’t blame yourself. Then again, it wasn’t supposed to end up this bad─it’s because of that shrine.”

Because of that shrine.

“Oh yeah, Kanbaru. You’re probably going to start feeling sick again… A talisman’s effect isn’t immediate, or so I’ve been told.”

“Fine with me. Plus, I can be ready for it if I know it’s coming.”

“I see.”

What a jock.

All it took was guts, huh?

I’d normally refute it as unscientific but found myself believing it because it was Kanbaru. She was, after all, a formidable woman who’d gone from clumsy girl to national-level basketball player thanks to nothing but guts and the effort to go with it.

“Big Brother Koyomi, how much do you remember about before?”

“Uh…well, not much, to be honest. I don’t have a very good memory.”

“Oh…”

Sengoku was visibly disappointed.

“You, on the other hand,” I hastily turned the subject to her, “remembered me. I’m impressed because we’d only played together a few times when you were little. And I was just your friend’s older brother. You normally forget that stuff.”

“I didn’t get to play with people all that much,” Sengoku said haltingly. “Back then, the only friend I had who’d play with me after school was Rara…”

Rara must have meant my youngest sister. Right, the friends she brought over used to call her that. Her grade-school nickname, Rara, excerpted from our family name, Araragi. Now, though, she and my other little sister combined were Tsuganoki Second Middle School’s “Fire Sisters”…

How things change.

Of course people change.

But if we’re going to talk about those days, back then I was annoyed when my little sisters brought over their friends and made me play with them…

I’d felt shy about playing with girls.

That’s how it was at that age.

“Though Rara and I don’t go to the same middle school…all the times I got to play with her, and you, are my precious memories.”

“I see…”

That─made me feel better.

By the way, I hadn’t told Sengoku about the aberrations that Kanbaru and I bore, only giving her a whiff of the fact that we had anything to do with them. I certainly could share that with her, and maybe I needed to in terms of building a relationship of trust, but after talking it over with Kanbaru, I paid heed to the possibility that it might only accelerate a mental breakdown. So Sengoku probably didn’t understand why anyone would feel sick from going to the shrine, and perhaps thought that Kanbaru was spiritually sensitive, or something. Then again, that wasn’t altogether wrong.

“I’m an only child,” Sengoku said. “I was jealous─that she had an older brother.”

“………”

It sounded like a case of wanting what you can’t have.

Like someone without a little sister wanting a little sister.

At times I wished I had an older brother or sister, or a younger brother─and envied people who had them. But maybe it was different for someone like me, who had actual little sisters, and for Sengoku, who was an only child.

So─she was an only child.

“Hey, what about you, Kanbaru? You don’t have any siblings─do you?”

“Nope. I’m an only child, too.”

“I see.”

And so was Senjogahara. And Hachikuji, and Hanekawa.

Huh, so they were all only children.

And─Shinobu?

Did vampires have siblings?

“Okay─we’re here.”

I was leading the way, so I was, of course, the first to arrive.

The ruins of a shrine.

A desolate, barren sight.

The talisman was still─stuck to the door.

“Are you feeling okay, Kanbaru?”

“Yes. Better than I thought.”

“Try saying something stupid.”

“I like reading books on the road and making myself carsick.”

“Try saying something funny.”

“I couldn’t help it! He threatened not to pay me if I didn’t!”

“Try saying something perverted.”

“Just when I thought the girl I liked was a virgin, it turned out she was vermin.”

“Okay.”

That last one was a little weird, but she seemed fine.

Next to me, Sengoku was hugging herself and shaking. We’d tickled her funny bone.

She really was quick to laugh.

It seemed she was more amused by my interaction with Kanbaru than the actual content, but in fact that was a good audience reaction, so I couldn’t complain.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s get ready now… Let’s get ready already.”

Kanbaru asked me, “Why did you bother to rephrase yourself?”

We found an appropriate spot…which is to say a location that wasn’t too overgrown, then placed four flashlights, the three we held and one more in my bag, in each corner. They formed a square and illuminated the center.

The ground was dirt.

We drew lines in it next using a nearby tree branch and linked the flashlights into an actual square─a so-called spiritual boundary. It was pretty makeshift but would do, according to Oshino, because the simple fact that it was demarcated was what mattered most about these boundaries. We spread a plastic sheet on the ground to cover the square. Another purchase from the general store, naturally.

And then─Sengoku entered the square.

Alone.

In a school swimsuit.

“………”

The swimsuit wasn’t from the general store (they don’t sell them at general stores). Just like those volleyball shorts, Kanbaru had “happened” to have one ready.

I said to her, “You didn’t have the money to buy a flashlight, so what are you doing carrying around volleyball shorts and school swimsuits?”

“There are some things in this world that money can’t buy.”

“I completely agree, but volleyball shorts and school swimsuits aren’t among them.”

“I was trying to play to your tastes.”

“Well, don’t.”

“You’re not denying it’s to your taste?”

I checked to find that Sengoku was indeed chuckling to herself in the boundary… It was for the joke factor that she was wearing a school swimsuit in the middle of a decrepit shrine, but she found it funny too?

At any rate.

To see how the purification was proceeding, we needed to keep track of the scale marks on her skin, and Oshino’s instructions were that she shouldn’t stay in long sleeves and long pants, but we couldn’t have her in nothing but a pair of volleyball shorts outdoors. While showing us the Jagirinawa’s marks in my room, Sengoku had taken her hands off of her chest at one point, causing her to start crying all over again─a mishap that even an honest guy like me didn’t share with Oshino─so this was particularly necessary.

And so, a school swimsuit.

Instead of changing at the shrine, she’d worn it under her long sleeves and long pants like an elementary schoolgirl might. Though we could see the scale markings on her legs, the swimsuit hid her torso, making it difficult to gauge the extent of her affliction─and maybe I was just imagining it, but they seemed to have climbed up to around her neck. Had its grip on her tightened since the evening?

If so, we needed to hurry.

We simply didn’t see it.

But Sengoku’s body─was still in the grip of a giant snake.

I handed her the amulet Oshino had given me.

“Now, sit in the center…on the sheet. Hold the amulet as tight as you can, close your eyes, calm your breathing─and all you need to do is pray.”

“Pray…to what?” asked Sengoku.

“To something. In this case, probably to─”

The snake.

The snake god.

The Jagirinawa.

“Okay…I’ll try my best.”

“Alrighty.”

“Big Brother Koyomi…you’ll watch over me?”

“I will.”

“You have to watch over me.”

“…Yup, I will.”

In any case─it was the only thing I could do.

Honestly, it was all up to Sengoku from here.

No matter─what happened.

People who get saved got saved on their own.

I exited the boundary, and together with Kanbaru, who had just finished lighting a mosquito coil, circled around at a distance to stand in front of Sengoku.

“Okay…”

Sengoku’s eyes were already shut.

Both of her hands─were squeezed tight in front of her chest.

The ritual had already begun.

Not even Oshino knew how long it would take─he’d said to be prepared to stay here all night in the worst case. Kanbaru and I were one thing, but I didn’t know if Sengoku’s psyche could hold out for that long. We’d just have to try. There was no rehearsing this.

The glow of the flashlights.

They gently illuminated her─from four corners.

“Hey,” Kanbaru spoke to me.

Her voice was so small I could have missed it, even though she stood right next to me. It must have been her way of being considerate to Sengoku, who was concentrating inside the boundary, but in that case, wasn’t it best not to talk at all?

“What is it?” I said. “No more banter from here on out.”

We couldn’t afford to have Sengoku laugh during the ritual.

It would all be for naught then.

“Yes, I know… But there’s something I was wondering about, now that we’re here.”

“What?”

“The serpent-slaying that she stoutly carried out on her own. What about all that?”

“That’s one hell of a way to put it…but yeah. You mean chopping up those snakes.”

“Yes. Wasn’t doing that, only in the proper way, the correct measure, rather than this onerous ceremony?”

“Well, yes…and I said the same thing, but it sounds like that way would take even more time. According to Oshino, that is. Apparently, when it comes to snake-chopping, what’s important is actually the locale.”

“The locale… And since bad things are gathered here…”

“Well, this spot is the absolute worst, but that doesn’t mean anywhere else would do. I didn’t have enough time to ask for details, but he talked about it not being very effective unless you use snakes from Tohoku, or something.”

“Regional differences?”

“Regional differences. Important when it comes to aberrations.”

They had to be spoken about, and all.

Sengoku had chosen this mountain because she’d heard she could find snakes here, but she’d needed to do a better job picking her mountain and her snakes for a ritual─supposedly. Of course, as far as that went, it would have been best if Nadeko Sengoku hadn’t done anything to begin with.

She chose this hangout, of all places.

This spot where bad things gathered.

But now, ironically enough─we needed to get those bad things on our side to help cleanse Sengoku of her aberration.

“Got it, makes sense,” Kanbaru said. “Mister Oshino keeps some pretty handy things around, doesn’t he? An amulet you can use to exorcise aberrations?”

“When I bothered him about it, he said it’s not that handy of an item. It’s useless except in cases like this one.”

It only worked because the aberration had been sent by a human.

And only because it was a snake.

“So we’re combating foul play with foul play,” Kanbaru commented.

“He described it as one heterodoxy for another.”

“I guess it’s fine if it saves Sengoku… Still, you really do try to help out every person you come across, don’t you?”

Kind to everyone.

Irresponsibly─kind to everyone.

“I wouldn’t say every person, but I do whenever I can,” I answered. “Especially if it’s someone I know.”

“I think that’s part of what my dear senior loves about you, and I, too, think it’s part of your charm. I─at this point, I’m glad that she’s going out with someone like you. But I do hope─”

Kanbaru paused before continuing.

“If─the day ever comes when you have to choose just one person, I hope you’ll choose her without a second thought.”

“……”

“You’re free to sacrifice yourself as much as you want, but please take good care of her… Not that I really have any right to be saying this.”

Kanbaru’s left arm.

It once tried to kill me.

Not because anyone shackled it.

With a firm will of its own, as an aberration.

“Kanbaru…I do think you have the right to say that. In fact─I think you’re especially qualified.”

“…Good to know.”

“I’m just as glad that you’re Senjogahara’s junior as you’re glad that I’m her boyfriend.”

“Hearing that from you─really helps. Oh…”

There, Kanbaru pointed straight ahead.

At Sengoku, who was there praying with all her heart and soul.

And when I looked at her.

The scale markings on the parts of her body that weren’t covered by the school swimsuit─those clear traces etched across every inch of her skin─were gradually fading. Oshino had said to be prepared to spend all night, but not even ten minutes had passed.

So─it was powerful.

It was going well, too.

The scale marks at the base of her neck─disappeared.

The scale marks around her collarbones─disappeared.

The Jagirinawa was leaving Sengoku.

“It looks like it’s going forward─without a hitch.”

“Yes,” Kanbaru agreed.

“Neat.”

Given my own presence, which tended to jinx everything, this state of affairs, quite honestly, could qualify as unexpected. Well, thank goodness. Now Sengoku needed to stay focused for another minute─

“Still,” I said, “it’s not like everything will be over once we rid her of the snake.” To avoid sapping Sengoku’s motivation, I hadn’t told her this ahead of time, of course. “At the minimum, her relationship with that old friend is going to be irreparably broken.”

“Well…you might be right.” Kanbaru nodded. “There aren’t too many people who could forgive such a thing. Nope… Not that Sengoku would want to mend the friendship, and the other party might not want to, either.”

“So a breakdown─in their relationship.”

Humans were scarier than aberrations.

No need to give voice to such a cliché, though.

“Romantic entanglements are so damn scary,” I said. “But I wonder who Sengoku has a crush on. I’m a little jealous to know that someone out there is the object of that cute a girl’s affections.”

Were this a rom-com manga, the love interest would turn out to be none other than me, but I highly doubted that was the case here. I was her “big brother” and nothing more.

Brother and sister─

While I said I was jealous, I had a girlfriend, so of course, if Sengoku really did have feelings for me, it would just be a headache… But using this opportunity to revive our ties perhaps wasn’t such a bad thing. It would be sweet, and she was precarious enough that someone needed to watch over her, though I had no idea what my little sisters would say…

“She is a girl, after all. And─she’s fourteen? Heheh,” Kanbaru chuckled. “Myself included, not every girl her age longs for a prince in a white coat to come in and swoop her away.”

“Well yeah, I’m sure…”

Because, for one thing, it would be a prince on a white horse.

Sheesh, white coat… Like a doctor?

Ophiuchus.

“Come on, Kanbaru, didn’t I tell you no idle talk? We’re not done yet, so we can’t risk breaking her concen─”

“Look!” Kanbaru suddenly yelled.

I was the one whose concentration had broken. Carelessly─I’d taken my eyes off of Sengoku. When I returned my gaze back at her─Nadeko Sengoku had collapsed face-up on the plastic sheet we’d laid on the ground─and was twitching freakishly, violently.

Her mouth.

It was open wide.

Her jaw was stretched as far as it would go.

Like a snake─swallowing an egg.

Like there could even be─a snake’s head inside.

“Wh-What happened?!”

“I-I don’t know─she suddenly…”

The scale markings on Sengoku’s body─were disappearing.

They were about halfway gone.

But─the other half remained.

They hadn’t disappeared.

And.

They were even on Sengoku’s neck, where they didn’t seem to be only moments ago. The snake─the Jagirinawa had her in its grip.

What happened…what went wrong?

Where had we gone wrong?

The illustration of the Jagirinawa that Oshino had said was in the Compilation of Snake Curses─of a man constricted by a snake that entered into his body through his mouth─not a deathly but a murderous, killing aberration.

A serpent god.

Possession by a serpent god.

“Did it fail?!” shouted Kanbaru. “Is that it?! It failed, and the purification ritual went out of control, ran amok─”

“No─this ritual isn’t supposed to be a risky stunt… It isn’t some powerful feat. That’s why it’s heterodox. It shouldn’t be double-teaming her, there’s no reason it would. Because this is supposed to be like a negotiation with the aberration─”

Ask it.

You need to ask it─Oshino had said.

Humble yourself before it.

And yet… Did Sengoku let herself get distracted, like in Senjogahara’s case? Even then…the aberration suddenly reaching its final stage like this…

It was going so well until we were halfway in, too!

“…Halfway?”

Crap, I realized belatedly.

Sengoku was writhing on the plastic sheet.

Her legs, still yet to fill out, that extended from the school swimsuit─the scale markings were half gone from them as well.

Half gone─in only the crudest way.

The scale marks had completely disappeared from her right leg─but remained on every inch of her left leg, from her toes to her crotch.

Not a single one had disappeared.

I didn’t know about her torso, but it was the same for her neck and collarbones, as clear as day once you noticed─

“Kanbaru…I had it all wrong. If only we could see, we’d have gotten it right away─”

“What do you mean?!”

“The Jagirinawa─it wasn’t just one of them. There were two.”

“………kk!”

Even so─

There were hints we should have picked up on.

The traces covered every inch of her skin aside from her arms and her neck up. Her toes, her shins, her calves─and she had two legs. For one snake to wind itself around every inch of both of her legs was structurally impossible. If there’d been only one snake, there couldn’t have been markings on her inner thighs.

From the tips of each leg’s toes.

A Jagirinawa had its grip on her─one for each leg.

As if they were constricting Sengoku’s body.

Two snakes.

“…Dammit!”

One of them─had been removed with the power of Oshino’s amulet.

The Jagirinawa had gone away.

Gone away here and there.

But then the amulet’s power was spent.

I hadn’t said enough─had I realized that there were two Jagirinawa, Oshino would have come up with an appropriate plan. Unlike every other time, there was no limit to how much he would help. Nadeko Sengoku was a victim, and he was pulling out all the stops. But because we’d premised our discussion on one Jagirinawa, he’d prepared a strategy for just one─

Which is why the other─was running wild. Of course it was─the other giant snake with which it had shared its grip on Sengoku had been exorcised.

“Kanbaru! Stay there─no, get back!”

“Shouldn’t we contact Mister Oshino─”

“He doesn’t have a cell phone!”

Not on principle─but because he failed at modern gizmos.

So─our only choice was a hardline approach.

I rushed into the makeshift boundary─into the square illuminated by the flashlights. I grabbed onto Sengoku’s body and sat her upright─she was hot to the touch. You could say burning. It was so bad I thought my hand might get scalded─

The scale markings at the base of her neck.

They were now digging so far into her skin that calling them traces would be ludicrous. They were eating into her to the point of altering her silhouette─gnawing in as if to pulverize bone and tear flesh.

As if to chop her up.

Eating into her.

I could almost hear her body─groan and creak.

“Sengoku…”

Her eyes had rolled back─she’d lost consciousness.

Swallowed whole─

“Nkk…!”

I laid her body, which I was holding, on the plastic sheet again. Then, I slowly reached my hands toward her.

No, not toward her.

Toward the Jagirinawa.

“Even if I can’t see it─I should be able to touch it.”

He’d said so.

Ever since spring break─vampire blood ran through my veins. Blood. You could say I was an aberration myself─and an aberration should be able to touch another aberration.

If I could touch it, I could peel it off.

Right.

The key was to imagine it. To visualize the Jagirinawa through the traces that its scales etched into Sengoku’s body─and to puzzle out the manner it exercised its grip. I couldn’t afford to be wrong. Dammit… Like the younger of my two little sisters, and unlike the older, I was ever the indoorsy type…so this was my first time touching a snake. The first one ever was going to be an aberration…

Courage, me.

Even Sengoku, who used to play with that youngest sister of mine, caught more than ten snakes on her own─what kind of big brother feared doing as much?

“Agh…hkk!”

Slither─

An unpleasant sensation, in both of my hands.

A sensation like sticking my hands into mucus.

A sensation like spiked scales stabbing into them.

It was plain disgusting.

What made it disgusting was that I was touching something I couldn’t see─I’d never thought that doing so would be as viscerally repulsive. I’d mustered such a strong will to touch it─but now wanted to take my hands off of the aberration as soon as I possibly could.

I tried to use its sliminess to my advantage by sliding my hands around it to get them in the right position. Grabbing its cylindrical body, about the size of what a musclehead’s thigh must be, I then─pulled with all my might.

It wasn’t like I had the physical prowess of a vampire as well.

Plus─it was slippery.

Because I was pulling in the same direction as its scales, I wasn’t putting my strength to much use. I changed my approach and dug my nails into the giant snake’s body (so soft it felt like my fingers sank into it) before pulling again─

To peel it off─!

“G…aaaaaagh!”

An unimaginable pain─ran through my right arm.

I looked at where the pain came from to see blood─spurting everywhere. My arm was flattened as if a machine press had gotten hold of everything from my wrist to my elbow, and two deep, deep holes had been bored into that flattened area.

“─A-Already?!”

The snake’s head had already pulled out of Sengoku’s mouth─my fingers burrowing into its torso had been understood as an attack, and it had exited her body to strike back at me. I didn’t notice until it bit me because I couldn’t see it─

“Oww…wwwww!!”

The overwhelming pain made me leap and roll away confused─meanwhile, Sengoku’s body seemed to flap and flop at random around the plastic sheet in the square, likely as a result of the Jagirinawa undoing its grasp on her body. I could only guess since I couldn’t see it, but it must have been the case, given the situation.

Which meant─that it was coming to grip and possess me next!

Before it could try, I slammed my flattened right arm on the ground. Even greater pain came over me─but a moment before my arm hit the ground, I could sense the buried fangs─the Jagirinawa’s, no doubt─sliding out. Realizing that my plan was to pin its head between my arm and the ground, it had preempted me. As a result, all I managed to do was bang my injured arm against the earth.

It almost felt like my arm had torn off.

A moment later, it was my leg.

My left ankle.

Scrush─a flattening sound.

As with my arm─it seemed this snake could crush a human body just with its bite… What monstrous jaw strength. Well, it was a literal monster’s jaw strength, but even so─

Estimating where the Jagirinawa’s head would be based on the fang marks drilled into my ankle, I nevertheless stuck my fingers between its mouth and my foot and pried them apart─though it was biting down on me with an absurd amount of force, I used the small gap I created to twist my leg out. It was shot, down to the bones, but the nerves still seemed intact. It was fine, it still moved.

It would have been nice if I could hold on to the snake’s mouth, but I reflexively let go when I felt a wet slap on my hand (the snake’s long, forked tongue must have licked me).

“Nkk!”

Still, the blind, haphazard kick I sent the Jagirinawa’s way with my other leg seemed to hit it, or at least it felt that way. It was the same sensation as kicking a rubber ball, so I doubted that I’d dealt any damage. I then rolled backward, two times, three times, to put some distance between myself and the Jagirinawa.

It was only the day before yesterday that I’d given Shinobu my blood.

That meant my body should have been able to heal itself even faster than normal─but my flattened right arm and left ankle weren’t recovering so easily. They didn’t even show signs of doing so. The pain wasn’t going away, either… Wait…was the Jagirinawa a poisonous snake?

Even vampires are susceptible to poison. All the more so considering how minimally vampiric I was. Shinobu in her prime would have brushed off such a wound─

I hopped myself back up on one leg. My right arm dangled uselessly at my side… It hurt too much even to raise.

It wasn’t as if I had no experience battling aberrations, and their kin and ilk, over the past few months. In fact, you could say I was fairly experienced for the short amount of time. But─I’d never fought an aberration that I couldn’t see. I’d always thought of the invisible man as a ridiculous concept in this day and age, not even good for a joke. I never imagined that an invisible enemy could be this dreadful!

I was up against a snake.

I recalled that snakes had some tissue called pit organs that allowed them to sense infrared radiation and to find prey via heat─which meant our eye levels’ height difference probably didn’t work to my advantage. It went past trying not to be seen by your enemy while seeing him.

Ssszzzsss…

I could hear a sound.

Of something crawling, creeping my way.

“……kk! A-Ahh!”

While I was able to stand on my left leg, I couldn’t use it for much else. My movement was now as inefficient as it could be, but─the Jagirinawa had probably tried to attack my upper body, and I dare say that I dodged it.

Turning around, I tried to guess where it landed.

The Jagirinawa’s landing point─

Was clear to me.

“I─I might be able to do this.”

I just might─be able to do it.

I stood on guard so I could confirm my guess.

I waited for the second strike, my eyes glued─I kept my eyes glued to the Jagirinawa’s current position. To tell what your opponent is thinking─you look into their eyes. Not that I knew whether I should be looking into the snake’s eyes or pit organs, not that the Jagirinawa was visible to begin with─

It moved!

I leapt aside and dodged it.

Clamp! came a noise from right beside me, as if a bear trap had been set off─no doubt the sound of the Jagirinawa’s mouth closing as it missed. It gave me chills─if that thing ever got around my head, it was game over. It’d be bitten straight off.

But…

I saw a way for me to win.

This arena─was my ally.

A dirt ground.

Overgrown with grass.

And snakes─were creatures that crawled on the ground.

That was true even if the creature was an aberration.

I might not see the Jagirinawa itself, but it left behind a clear trail─just like the scale markings etched into Sengoku’s body.

The churned ground sent up dust.

The grass parted like it was in the way.

On asphalt or concrete, I wouldn’t be so lucky. If the serpent exorcism were taking place at the abandoned cram school where Oshino lived, like in Senjogahara or Kanbaru’s case─I’d be toast. But wait.

Maybe this stage direction came courtesy of Oshino.

Right, come to think of it, this aberration could ignore clothes. It only made sense for it to be able to do the same for dirt or grass. Even its slithering sszss and the sound of its mouth snapping shut shouldn’t have been audible. If the Jagirinawa couldn’t ignore the field’s physicality─that was the arena’s doing. On these grounds, the serpent, too, merely invisible, existed.

Because it was an aberration.

Like me and Kanbaru.

Like a prank curse actually taking.

An air pocket─a hangout.

Where bad things─gathered.

Oshino had said to make allies of the bad things─which meant this must have been part of the measure. The basic stratagem was predicated on creating a boundary, but the abandoned cram school hadn’t been designated as the stage, just in case something unexpected like this happened─and maybe it was all thanks to the enhanced field that I could hear and touch the aberration.

Mèmè Oshino.

It hurt to feel so powerless.

The upshot was that for Senjogahara and Kanbaru too, I’d turned it all in to Oshino─I relied on him from start to finish. He wasn’t going to be in our town forever, and yet, in each and every case─this time too!

Maybe I was the one who wasn’t regretting a thing.

I’d learned nothing from all my time with Oshino.

I didn’t see─a thing.

“Nkk…”

I somehow dodged the Jagirinawa’s next attack, too.

Still…it felt like I was getting nowhere. If I focused on just dodging its attacks, then thanks to the power of the bad things that gathered on the premises, I could gauge the Jagirinawa’s position and movements with some degree of accuracy from how it disturbed the dirt and grass─but striking back was a pretty tall order. Attacking would require wild guesses, and my right arm and left leg were out of commission. How was I supposed to mount a proper attack?

It was like─my body wasn’t healing at all.

The pain was only getting worse.

It might have been my imagination, but it seemed to be spreading.

Could it really have been─poison?

Neurotoxins, hemotoxins, cardiotoxins.

A serum was─indispensable.

Would my attacks work on an aberration to begin with? Even regular snakes had such vitality that they seemed to refuse to die. Could a half-assed thing like me, a human with a bit of residual vampirism, hope to oppose it? It didn’t seem completely futile, given that the Jagirinawa started attacking me the moment I dug my fingers into its body─but at this rate, wasn’t kiting it all I could ever hope to do?

What would count as defeating this aberration?

No.

There was a more fundamental question… Was it even okay to defeat─this aberration? If I defeated it, would that be the end? Was it the handiest solution─as Mèmè Oshino might say?

Demons, cats, crabs, snails, monkeys─

Snakes.

Some saw snakes as holy─

“My senior Araragi!”

It was Kanbaru.

Suruga Kanbaru─was dashing toward me.

At full speed.

As if she were using her no-mere-high-schooler legs to─kamikaze me.

Idiot, I told her to stay away─no, wait!

“……!”

Right…maybe Kanbaru could!

Kanbaru’s left arm, the monkey’s paw, the monkey’s arm─had the terrifying attack power we needed to counter the Jagirinawa! Within her left arm─resided a catapult that could smash through concrete blocks unaided. The Jagirinawa could have a body of steel and still be helpless against Kanbaru’s unbridled strength.

But─if there was a problem, it was that unlike me, Kanbaru didn’t have any healing abilities. If the Jagirinawa dodged her attack and retaliated with a bite, there would be no way to undo the damage. It would be irreparable and irreversible─and if I was right and the Jagirinawa was a poisonous snake, her life would be in immediate danger under even the most optimistic of scenarios. How ironic. I had the ability to recover from attacks but couldn’t deal any damage, while the opposite went for her. Another factor I needed to keep in mind was affinity. This field was a bane to Kanbaru. Even now, she must be feeling pretty sick─

In fact.

However.

“─Forgive me!”

Kanbaru’s attack was aimed─at me.

Not the Jagirinawa. Me.

With that left arm, she grabbed me hard by the base of my neck and, drawing on her momentum, used her vaunted legs to all but leap─and shove me. I, with my one good leg, couldn’t hope to stand firm. Like a speck of dust in a raging sandstorm─I was blown away. Her left hand, still planted on my neck, wouldn’t let go. It didn’t let go. It held on. We flew about fifteen feet in the air like that─

Before slamming into the ground.

It may have been a soft, dirt surface blanketed with foliage.

But the full-body impact was so stunning that I couldn’t breathe for a moment.

Kanbaru had made good on her word and shoved me off my feet with her left arm alone─though it wasn’t down onto a bed.

I yelled, “Wh-What was that for─Kanbaru!”

She silently lay on top of me, in a full mount in grappling terms, using not only her left arm but her entire body to restrain me. I couldn’t begin to resist given the state of my right arm and left─no.

Not even if my body was in perfect condition.

Not even if Kanbaru’s arm wasn’t a monkey’s arm.

If she really tried to pin me down, there was nothing I could do about it. A jock on the national level against a washout whose only extracurricular activity was biking home. Being a year older or a guy didn’t matter one bit. Struggle as I might, I couldn’t even budge. My body was pasted to the ground, and though Kanbaru couldn’t be that heavy, I felt like she was crushing me.

“Kanbaru…you─”

“Stay still! Calm down!”

“Calm down?”

“The poison is going to spread through your blood if you don’t!”

Kanbaru was close to me─our faces were practically touching, but she shouted so loud I thought she’d perforate my eardrums.

“Snakes are savage but shy creatures─they won’t do anything if you don’t approach and assault them! Don’t provoke it! Just stay still, and the snake will go away!”

“………kk.”

Snake─behavior.

It was the same─even for an aberration.

Be it gripping or the use of pit organs.

Which meant─

Kanbaru was exactly right.

Even I─knew that much.

If I stayed still─the Jagirinawa would leave.

I’d already peeled it off of Sengoku.

The snake─would go back.

“…B-But, Kanbaru! That─”

It would only go back.

It wouldn’t be banished.

It would return.

Turning back on the caster of the curse─

When one is cursed, two holes are dug.

When one is cursed─two holes are dug.

Like a snake piercing the skin─two holes are dug.

“I beg you─” Kanbaru said in a pained voice. Like she was pleading with me. “Don’t mistake who you’re trying to save here.”

Ssszzzsss.

Ssszzzsss.

Ssszzzsss.

I heard it.

The sound of the Jagirinawa crawling on the ground─I couldn’t see the dust rising or the grass being parted from my angle. But─I could tell the sound was receding at a steady pace. The Jagirinawa─was trying to crawl away. Perhaps it had lost sight of me after Kanbaru’s left arm had transported me fifteen feet away in one go. Or maybe─the Jagirinawa hadn’t given a damn about me in the first place.

The snake─was going back.

Back to the one who had cast it.

Bringing back with it─its curse.

“………”

Slump─I could feel my strength leaving me. I wouldn’t make it in time. I could give chase, but what hope did I have of following a snake I couldn’t see? Its sound and its presence would vanish once it left the grounds. And, to begin with, there was no getting out from under Kanbaru.

Even if I could─I couldn’t see myself doing it.

“My senior Araragi…”

Kanbaru must have felt me slump powerlessly─there was concern in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized to her. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I’m sorry I forced that role onto you.”

“Please, don’t apologize… I wouldn’t know how to reply.”

“Yeah…sorry.”

“My senior Araragi.”

“I’m sorry, Kanbaru… I’m really sorry…”

Sorry─was all I could say to her.

It felt like I was always apologizing to Kanbaru when it mattered the most. I really felt bad. Burdening her…for being such a pathetic senior, I really did─feel bad.

Kanbaru’s decision was the right one. There was no denying it. I could have continued, but I had almost no chance of beating the Jagirinawa. How could I, a mock aberration, ever handle a real, live aberration? Frantically dodging the snake’s biting attacks and collapsing from the poison rushing through my body as a result was the best outcome I could have hoped for.

But─I just hadn’t been able to give up.

It was like I’d been throwing a tantrum.

That’s why it hurt so much.

The pain in my right arm, the pain in my left leg─

They were nothing compared to this other pain.

I was flimsy.

I was feeble.

I was─utterly powerless.

“Big Brother Koyomi…”

The snake gone─

Sengoku approached Kanbaru and me with faltering steps, having regained consciousness. The boundary was pointless now that the aberration had departed─and the scale markings eating into her flesh had vanished from every inch of her skin visible on her swimsuit-clad body.

Not half-gone.

Fully gone.

Her skin was fair, smooth, beautiful.

She wasn’t suffering anymore.

She wasn’t hurting anymore.

She wasn’t going to have to cry anymore─

“Big Brother Koyomi. Thank you for saving me.”

Stop it.

Sengoku.

Please…don’t mouth words like “thank you” that I can’t bear to hear. I don’t have any right to be thanked by you. Because of all things─I was trying to save even the person who cursed you.