035
Though we’d settled on Kanbaru’s place for our choice of location, it would be effectively impossible to clean up my junior’s disastrously messy room before sunset, and, even if she’d told me to use the house however I liked, it certainly wouldn’t do to infringe upon the territory of her grandfather and grandmother, so we ultimately decided upon using the Japanese mansion’s garden for the revival of Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.
Much like at Ryōan-ji, it was a Japanese rock garden.
Well, even if it was a measure of desperation, the mansion gave off much more of a castle-like impression when viewed from outside rather than being inside.
Yesterday, it had felt like I’d greeted nightfall feeling like I’d run out of time without doing everything I had to do, but today, it felt like I’d done everything I could and was greeting the night having run out of material. Now, I wonder what will happen?
“Thanks for waiting. So, shall we begin?”
At the moment the sun had set about halfway, Gaen-san appeared with a one shou bottle—the ones to welcome her were me; Shinobu, who had woken up early and crawled out of my shadow; Hachiku-jin, our witness; and Suicidemaster, who had been laid down—it seemed a little too pitiful to lay a restrained little girl on the bare ground, so I’d put down a rush mat (I’d found the rush mat in Kanbaru’s room—why did she have something like that?).
All the actors were in place.
The show must go on.
“I’ve set up a barrier going all the way around the mansion, so if by some chance a battle breaks out, we’ll be fine.”
“That ‘some chance’ is what I’d like to avoid… But, Gaen-san. What’s with that bottle?”
“Well, I am a specialist, after all. Wine would be better for vampires, but I figured we could do this the Japanese way, with sacred sake for a demon.”
I guess I couldn’t rely on crosses and holy water in a Japanese mansion with a shrine’s god present… Her behavior was as if she’d come to a late-night drinking party, but in this Japanese mansion it held an air of sophistication.
“You should’ve come in full dress, then.”
“Did you want to see me in shrine maiden’s clothes, Koyomin? Unfortunately, I don’t respect formalities and ceremonies as much as Meme does. I may be a pacifist, but at the same time, I’m a rationalist.”
Indeed, now that I thought about it, that careless-seeming middle-aged Hawaiian shirt guy was surprisingly pretty picky about arrangements and whatnot to the point of irrationality… And looking closely, Gaen-san’s bottle was just a bottle of cheap sake from a discount store… It was a bit difficult to call that sacred sake.
I guess it’s the Gaen way to push through what’s difficult.
“Goodness, I never thought I’d be visiting the Kanbaru house that rejected my dear sister like this—the wheel of fate sure turns.”
As she spoke in an amused manner, Gaen-san casually turned over the one shou bottle and poured it over the body of the little girl.
Rather than an occult ceremony, if anything, it seemed more like the “magic kettle” thing they did in rugby clubs.
Good, judging from that composed demeanor of hers, it seemed Gaen-san had managed to safely get through the murky swamp of the high school girls.
“Ooh. White clothing getting wet and sticking to a little girl’s body… Kind of erotic, don’t you think?”
Hachikuji made a vulgar remark, unbecoming of a god—for the record, though I hadn’t touched upon it (double meaning) out of kindness, when you were meditating under a waterfall for a joke yesterday, you looked the same way, y’know?
Putting that aside.
“By the way, Shinobu-sama.”
“…… Hm? Ah, you mean me, my master?”
She wasn’t getting into her role at all.
Her servile disposition was so deeply ingrained in her.
“I mean, my servant. What is it?”
“Even if you catch it right away… Well, it’s fine. Listen, Shinobu-sama. My master. Would you allow me the honor of inquiring about something from you?”
“If you bring that quality of acting to the real thing, it’ll be your fault if we get found out, my mast… my servant.”
I think it would be both our faults.
But since we didn’t have time, I continued instead of retorting.
“I haven’t really thought too deeply about this until now, but… What’s it like, living for six hundred years?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, if I may be permitted to speak for myself, I believe I have undergone quite a few changes, just looking back over the past year.”
“Speak normally. I can’t tell what you’re saying at all.”
Right.
I didn’t even know what I was saying at all.
“In the course of our lives, we change our opinions, change our minds, realize our mistakes, and learn right from wrong, right? I won’t make friends, because my strength as a human would decrease—when I used to say that, I really believed it, and I don’t think I could have believed back then that I would have normal friends in college.”
And that was in just a single year.
If that had been six hundred years—I’d ended up suddenly wondering how I would feel when I looked back on the past.
“I can’t tell what you’re saying at all, even when you’re talking normally—after all, I’ve been quick to cast away the past that I can’t remember.”
Was it because she couldn’t remember, or because she didn’t want to remember? She probably didn’t even remember that.
Well, it’s fine. I just wanted something to say at the last minute—not even I, speaking normally, could tell what I was saying at all.
Just because they were meeting again after six hundred years, didn’t mean they had to make the same decisions they made six hundred years ago—is that what I wanted to say? However—if I ran into Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade on the verge of death in an alleyway again, what if I would offer up my neck again, just like I had done a year ago?
“In the first place, before oddities are immortal, they’re unchanging, universal. They don’t change so frequently, like humans do.”
“Then, let me ask you the same thing I did in that spring break. Shinobu, to you…”
To you, what are humans?
When Oshino Shinobu had not been Oshino Shinobu, when she had been the vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, she had responded immediately.
She’d responded—“food”.
But for Shinobu now, that was incorrect.
Even under the premise that she was sealed—but when you took that out, it was still incorrect.
However, what she would respond was another matter entirely—and it was as if Shinobu had been caught off guard, because for a moment, she fell silent. But, as if aiming for that moment…
“O devourer, o imbiber, o lurker! Now that the holy sun has set, tear open the coffin and rise! Boil the flesh in blood, and stir it with the bones!”
Gaen-san started chanting something like a magic spell that had taken the world by storm a few decades ago—it seemed like a joke, but it was for real, right?
“Come together with the night! Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster!”
It seemed like the sort of hackneyed incantation that I would’ve been convinced if she’d said, “Just kidding,” but in that instant, the little girl soaked in cheap sake began to glow gold—or so it seemed.
But it was just my imagination, and my misunderstanding.
In actuality, the girl who had been sleeping as if she were dead had suddenly opened her eyes—the blindfold flew open, revealing two eyes as golden as her hair, and it had felt to me as if they were glowing.
Miss Suicidemaster’s facial features, who had previously appeared as expressionless as Ononoki-chan’s, became clearer as she awoke—though they had the same golden hair and golden eyes, she gave off a different impression from Shinobu.
The sake that had been sprinkled over her evaporated in an instant—not only the shackles on her arms and legs, but even the sash of her white clothing flew off, just like her blindfold.
Had Gaen-san broken the seal, or had the little girl herself broken it? It wasn’t clear from afar—but if anything, my impressions were more towards the latter, and I couldn’t help but think, “What part of her is weakened?”
I was just beginning to regret my thoughtless act of treatment, which made me recall my actions last spring break, and was wondering if it would have been better to leave her as a mummy, but then…
Creak!
The little girl’s face turned towards me.
Lying on her side, only her head turned to look towards me—no.
Not me. Those golden eyes had fixed their gaze upon the one standing in my shadow, the other little girl in this garden—within moments of waking up, the ancient vampire had sensed her former thrall.
And then.
“Ha.”
She said.
“Ha.” “Ha.”
She said.
“Ha.” “Ha.” “Ha.”
She said.
“Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
She said—sprawled out on the ground, from the lowest position imaginable, her laugh rang out louder than I could have imagined.
And in response to that loud laugh, Shinobu, who had borne vivid witness to her former “master“‘s revival—
“Ha.”
She said.
“Ha.” “Ha.”
She said.
“Ha.” “Ha.” “Ha.”
She said.
“Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
She—laughed in return.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
If it weren’t for the barrier, their loud exchange laughter would surely have disturbed the neighbors—it was like microphone feedback. How long had it gone for?
Six hundred years. A thousand years.
Did it go on for eternity?
It was quite the uproarious bout of laughter, as if Gaen-san and Hachikuji and I weren’t even there in that garden, but it was finally brought to an end.
“Somehow or other, it seems I’ve died again.”
That was the remark from the little girl on her back.
And, hearing that, Shinobu shrugged her shoulders.
“It seems we’ve both grown old,” she said.
The two little girls had reunited for the first time in six hundred years.
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