Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.12

012

Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t the first time I had heard the name—or rather, it was a name that I’d just heard that day.

“D/V/S”.

Somehow.

With that, I understood everything. No, not everything, but almost everything. That was why Gaen-san had ordered me to contain Shinobu for the night. It had felt like the kind of job that didn’t make sense, that I wasn’t really sure if it was a job or not—and if I may say so, a rather unrewarding role for how tiresome it was—but that wasn’t it at all.

There was no mission that was more important than this.

In the first place, it was because Shinobu had gotten in the way when it came to the resurrection of her first thrall, Shishirui Seishirou, whom she’d once been separated from by life and death, that Gaen-san was forced to make a difficult decision on whether or not to request her cooperation for this case—and even then, this time it was no longer her thrall, but her former master.

Not in the way that she called me “my master” half as a joke and half for fun, but a true “master” in every sense of the word.

It might not stop at just getting in the way—in the worst-case scenario, Oshino Shinobu, who was supposed to be certified as harmless, might end up actively joining the other side. If this little girl, broken down to the point that she’d be in a good mood just from eating donuts, were to once again become the bloodsucking legendary vampire…

A return to the dark side.

Well, because she was such a legend herself, of course there was no way that Gaen-san, the administrator of specialists wouldn’t know the name of the vampire that was the source of that legend—the onee-san that knew everything.

Therefore, as soon as the solution to the code was revealed to be “D/V/S”, she immediately had a hunch that they were initials.

This completely ordinary town may have had oddity stories occur one after another, but that was when there was no god presiding over it—and now, why was it that yet another vampire would appear so soon, as if mocking the peace that we had laboriously established here? I’d thought it was weird—I’d thought that it could only be an oddity story because it was weird—but if there was a reason like that, then it would explain the drastic change.

If the vampire named Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster had come to visit her former thrall, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade—just like Shishirui Seishirou, who had approached Shinobu to recover the Demon Blade “Kokorowatari”.

Well, originally, his case had the implication of him returning to his hometown…

“Hm? What’s the matter? Were you frightened? Did you get too scared to ask about what kind of a nightwalker would give birth to a strong, beautiful, yet fragile vampire like me? Ka ka, quite understandable. The story about the lord of a castle of corpses is so repulsive, it can chill your blood. Even I’m trembling with fear right here.”

Shinobu, deliberately making a gesture as if to give herself goosebumps, seemed to be somewhat proud of herself—this was a kind of excitement I didn’t see often, despite my close relationship with her.

Was it because she was talking about someone even closer to her, with an even deeper relationship? I felt the way I did when I watched Kanbaru and Higasa-chan play around earlier.

It felt similar to when I saw a junior that I was close with speak even more candidly with a friend that she was even closer with—it would be a lie if I said that I didn’t want to accuse Higasa-chan of being overly familiar with Kanbaru, despite her being such a capable junior that would actually treat me like a senior in this day and age. Though it was a little different from jealousy.

Thinking about it now, as equivalent thralls, I had definitely felt something close to jealousy when I faced off against Shishirui Seishirou—that had gotten me worked up, and it had also caused trouble for Gaen-san.

Back then, I had gotten in the way almost as much as Shinobu had—however, if it came to her vampire master, then they wouldn’t be someone to be jealous of.

That would be like being jealous of your girlfriend’s dad… If anything, I would even like to hear some of Shinobu’s stories from when she was human, and the fact that Shinobu had something she could speak proudly of would make me happy as well—if it only weren’t for the current situation.

If the main character of the oddity story that Shinobu was telling me about so happily was using their poisonous fangs—their demonic fangs—to bite into the female students of Naoetsu High one after another, it would be hard to just listen to her with a smile.

“Well, I’d even forgotten that I used to be a human until I got into this mess with you last year—I haven’t seen Suicidemaster in almost 600 years. Ka ka, she was a genuine vampire who lived quite the reckless lifestyle, so I’m sure she’s rotting away somewhere by now.”

“…Hey. Shinobu. When you say ‘reckless lifestyle’, what do you mean by that specifically?”

I asked timidly.

Of course, it wasn’t that I was afraid of the ghost story—what I was afraid of was facing the truth. Calm down—it was possible that everything was just me jumping to conclusions.

It was something that happened quite often, me jumping to conclusions.

“Indeed. Unlike me, who eats everything no matter if it’s an oddity or not, Suicidemaster was quite the gourmet. Once she’d decided upon her menu, she would stubbornly refuse to eat any other food.”

Oho.

So basically, if she decided that she would only suck the blood of female students belonging to a certain club in a certain high school, she wouldn’t even give other humans the time of day?

“In fact, at the time, Suicidemaster had almost starved to death when she decided to suck my blood while I was still human. Well, I’m the one who let her suck my blood out of pity. Nihilistically saying, ‘Dying like this suits me pretty well, so this isn’t so bad’…”

“You’re saying the same thing I did.”

“You can’t fight your blood.”

I wonder about that. If this continued, then it wouldn’t end at just fighting—it could very well turn into a bloodbath… It was in order to avoid this that Gaen-san diverted her policy and took on the formation that had me mark Shinobu…

But, in that case, I would rather not have known that fact… I should have been a college student that didn’t know anything, just as the onee-san that knew everything had arranged me to be.

Sure enough, Shinobu, who had been chattering away in a lively manner up until now, suddenly came to her senses.

“…Huh? Why was I talking about Suicidemaster at this point, all of a sudden?”

She tilted her head to the side—oh, crap.

“If I recall correctly, this originated from the question that you asked…”

“Good grief. Not slipping when asked, not slipping when talking, and yet slipping when asked again—I’m always so paradoxical, aren’t I?”

“No, I think you just normally let it slip when asked.”

Umm.

I’d already run out of the donuts from Mister Donut that I could have used in a pinch—whether he knew everything or knew nothing, now that he had become a college student, Araragi Koyomi could no longer use the method of a kiss to tide things over, like the Italians did. Not that it was any more justifiable as a high school student.

There was still plenty of time remaining until dawn, but just as I’d been backed into a corner, salvation descended upon me.

I heard a quick knock on the door to my room.

“Yes, yes, I’m opening it nooow. Could it be Karen? Or maybe Tsukihi? Or maybe the news that my child was born?”

“What if you opened the door like that and it was your mother?”

“If the news was that my sister had become a mother, how could I not congratulate her? Welcome, I’d say. Or perhaps, happy birthday.”

However, when I opened the door, the hallway was empty.

“Over here, oni onii-chan.”

A young girl appeared at the window.

“Happy birthday.”