Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.20

020

To be precise, it wasn’t a kiss, but mouth-to-mouth feeding.

I had wondered what was going on in heaven when Princess Acerola kissed me out of the blue, without any preamble—I even wondered if I had developed an elegance that could charm even a princess, and I simply hadn’t realized how attractive I really was, but that wasn’t it at all.

It was true that it was a thesis-like kiss to try and bring me back to life (being brought back by Demon Blade “Yumewatari” was an explanation that only applied in this world, and there needed to be an explanation in the next world—essentially, the same thing as what Teori Tadatsuru had done with me in hell), but there was yet another reason.

The princess had, of all things, entrusted it to me via mouth-to-mouth—that is, the wonder drug.

The medicine in place of the soup from the Blood Pond Hell.

To go even further—the food.

Though that gourmet vampire would even refuse treatment for the sake of her epicureanism, there did exist food that she would absolutely take into her mouth.

For example.

Princess Acerola’s blood was the prime example.

After all, she’d already partaken in it once before—but just as heaven had no place for a Blood Pond Hell (or perhaps, no place for me to belong), neither could bloodshed occur in heaven.

So the “gift” entrusted to me by “Princess Beauty”, as a further generic drug to replace blood—was saliva.

Not blood, but saliva.

However, saliva did hold the same characteristics as blood, and I had personally treated Hanekawa Tsubasa and Oikura Sodachi before, using a treatment of saliva based on a vampire’s recovery powers.

You could also say it was the easiest medicine to transfer by mouth… So, for that reason, even though I was embraced by a girl, even though I was cried at by a young girl, and even though I was reprimanded by an adult, I could not open my mouth to console or apologize without first getting rid of the liquid that had filled it.

From mouth to mouth to mouth.

It was like I was mediating an indirect kiss between Princess Acerola and Suicidemaster, and I had some mixed feelings about it, but anyway, I placed a kiss upon the mummy that was way out of my strike zone.

Seriously, if it weren’t for this life-saving procedure, I didn’t want to play the role of this laughingstock again.

“M-my master… So your degeneracy has finally gone that far…”

Shinobu, who seemed to have stopped crying from shock, did not seem to understand that my action, which I carried out as soon as I came back to life, was a noble medical procedure—but I was eager to expel every drop of saliva that had been stored in my mouth.

I’d gotten a taste of what it felt to be a squirrel hoarding acorns in my cheek pouches… Well, what I’d really gotten a taste of was the saliva of a princess.

There was still a small amount of vampire in my composition, so it took a lot of strength to keep from swallowing it myself.

I wanted to praise myself for my impressive self-control.

If I may say so myself, as someone who had the privilege of tasting it (maybe that’s why I was able to come back to life), it was a soup that would surely satisfy even the most discriminating gourmet vampire… Well, as a result, there may have been a little bit of my own saliva mixed in, but then again, I was a man that had once been a thrall of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, the future form of “Princess Beauty”.

Perhaps she could think of it as a spice to enhance the flavor.

And so, the mummy, who had been force-fed the medicine by me, showed no signs of spitting it back out.

Quite literally—she drank it.

And then,

“Oh—ohh! It’s kind of like that, isn’t it? When you put dried wakame back into water—”

Though Hachikuji Mayoi’s voice was still tearful, her comment seemed truly pertinent, as one would expect from the girl with a reputation for her powers of expression.

The mummy began to regenerate.

Dried-up skin and bones were gradually returning to youthfully dewlike skin and flesh—like an overly-CG-enhanced commercial for hair treatment, even her hair was becoming springy and shiny.

It most likely didn’t have to do with the fact that she was the progenitor who birthed and named the golden-haired, golden-eyed Kisshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade—but her hair was dazzlingly gold.

“How splendid—but the same thing won’t work on the mummified high school girls. Because this ‘reversion’ is basically vampirification.”

Gaen-san came in with her specialist-like commentary—and, as always, it was spot on. It was true that, if we used the same form of treatment on the victims of this case, then the girls who had failed in becoming a vampire would instead become “successes”, putting us in a tight spot.

That would be putting the cart before the horse.

“—Suicidemaster. So it was you, after all,” muttered Shinobu to the mummy in super-recovery.

It seemed she’d decided to put aside her shock at my treatment for the time being. Although it would be nice if she could just forget about it entirely, as she did with her past self.

Even though she’d called out her name at first glance, she could still not be one hundred percent sure in that mummy state—but now that she was on the mend, it seemed she was finally convinced that it was her former vampire master.

“Though you haven’t changed—that you’re still a mess.”

…? What did she mean by that?

As far as I could see, the naked little girl’s mummy had finished her “reversion” to a naked little girl, without any defects—I didn’t know if all vampires were like this, but she turned out to be a cute little girl, as if the mummy form she’d been in before had just been a lie. She was a cute, naked little girl.

Naturally, it was hard for me to lay my eyes on her, so I took off my jacket and covered her with it.

We weren’t in paradise. This was a holy shrine.

“About six years old—I’d say? Her appearance, that is. So there are child vampires, too.”

Her size was such that it would fit perfectly in a child seat.

Well, if I inferred from what Shinobu told me, this vampire had lived for almost a thousand years, so her age surely didn’t correspond to her appearance.

Just as dog years are different from human years, vampire years must also be different from human years—although, I’d been under the assumption that vampires grew quickly.

If there was someone that didn’t look his age, then the half-vampire vampire hunter Episode looked to be about middle or high school age, but he was only about six years old.

“I wonder if she’s like a chibi jiangshi.”

Yet another analogy from Hachikuji (who was also someone who didn’t look her age), but to that, Shinobu said, “Nay,” and shook her head harshly.

Both her appraisal and her expression were harsh.

“This little girl form was not the form that Suicidemaster was in when I first met her—hmph. Now we’re both little girls, though.”

“…? What does that mean…?”

Shinobu didn’t seem like she wanted to speak further on the subject, so I had no choice but to ask the person herself about it—that was why I’d revived her in the first place. However, while the body had regained its moisture, there were no signs of her opening her eyes.

Had the treatment failed?

“It’ll take some time for the fluids to get from her capillaries to her brain. At this rate, it shouldn’t take more than a day. Hmm—I’ve gotten a pretty good grasp of what’s going on, now, Koyomin,” said Gaen-san.

As always, she caught onto things at a terrifying rate—surely not even this onee-san had caught onto the fact that I’d been honored with a kiss from a naked beautiful woman wearing a demon mask in heaven, but I couldn’t be too careful.

It wouldn’t take more than a day.

In other words, it would take… until tomorrow night or so.

“Then, before this vampire—before the first suspect on my list, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, wakes up, I’ll have you catch up on my end of things, too. To the point of no return.”

“Eh… Please wait. So are you saying that I’m not fired yet?”

“I have more faith in you than you think I do, Koyomin. And that faith won’t be broken just because you betrayed me once or twice.”

It sounded like praise, but she spoke with a hint of sarcasm.

But I had no choice to content myself with it… Even that sarcasm, and even that faith that felt a little too heavy.

“Hold on. What do you mean by suspect? My old pal?”

Shinobu had been left astonished—uh oh, the fact that she’d been kept out of the loop was about to be exposed.

So Gaen-san hadn’t actually explained any of that yet. It hadn’t really been the time for it, but she surely wouldn’t feel calm now after hearing that her old friend (old pal?) that had just escaped from the critical condition of mummification was actually a suspect in an oddity phenomenon.

“Heh.”

With a cool attitude as if she understood everything from the beginning, Hachikuji folded her arms and nodded, but it seemed a bit suspicious to me.

In her own way, she was at risk of being deposed from her godly seat—it was possible that Hachikuji was the number one person in trouble in this town.

After all, Hachikuji in trouble meant that this town was in trouble…

“It seems we’ll have to throw out both your feelings of not wanting to rely on Hachikuji-chan and my plan to keep Shinobu-chan at a distance. From now on, we’re going to have to band together, so let’s have a lively discussion—yes, with everybody. Even including the sleeping vampire, Suicidemaster-chan.”

Even including Suicidemaster?

As I was about to inquire into the mind behind this thought-provoking and unexpected statement, Gaen-san gently reined me and said, “First, a report,” getting the ball rolling.

“As she was sheltered here, naturally, I was unable to find the suspect and target of our search, Suicidemaster, no matter where I looked in the town… But until I was approached by Yotsugi, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t found anything.”

The fourth mummy had been discovered.

A mummy of a high school girl.

With the fact that it was not an achievement, but a loss—that was what Gaen-san told us.