Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.47

047

While Araragi Koyomi was getting the inexplicable and hopelessly amusing answer from Higasa Seiu that she didn’t own a bicycle but did own a unicycle, a golden-haired, golden-eyed high school girl was breaking into the Kanbaru family’s Japanese mansion, as if having crossed paths with the college student and the specialist who rode away in the college student’s car—the golden-haired, golden-eyed high school girl, dressed in only a jet-black cloak over her naked body and not even wearing shoes, tried to enter the house without the owner’s permission, but…

“Well, well. Not over there, but over here. Been a while, high school girl. Glad to see that you’re doing fine.”

A voice called out from the garden, and she turned to look at it—on a large rock in a large garden, of which the purpose was not clear to the basketball-obsessed girl, was the little girl she had encountered about a week ago.

The golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl.

Her name was Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster—the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, the ancient vampire.

The person responsible for having turned her into a vampire.

No—the demon responsible.

“…You seem to be fine, as well. I could’ve sworn I buried you, though.”

Without showing much surprise, the golden-haired, golden-eyed vampire asked the golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl, who for some reason was wearing white clothing with the front open in a rather dashing manner—well, she was an immortal vampire, so it’s not like it was worth getting surprised over when she came back to life.

But this was a rather ironic set-up.

She herself, draped in a black cloak, with the little girl in front of her wearing a white cloak in a similar fashion—in vampire terms, would that little girl be considered “Master”?

Master—Suicidemaster.

“Yeah. Somehow or other, it seemed I’d died again—because I drank your blood, or rather, your poison. Good gracious, seems like I’ve gotten old—to think I can’t even drink human poison now.”

“Don’t make it sound like it’s my fault. You’re the one who went off and died on your own, you know? All I did—was bury you.”

“You didn’t just bury me. After that, you went and used my name to do whatever you wanted, didn’t you?—thanks to that, things’ve been pretty hectic, being accused of dining and dashing by specialists. Even though I want to go home now, I’m being detained here.”

Her words were quarrelsome, but she didn’t seem particularly mad that her name had been used like that—rather, the little girl seemed like she was enjoying such adversity.

An enviable sensitivity.

If she had even one thousandth of that sensitivity, or even one year out of those thousand years of her life, perhaps she wouldn’t have felt those murky feelings in her club activities—perhaps things wouldn’t have ended up this way.

Apparently, becoming a vampire hadn’t “optimized” her personality in any way.

Or perhaps, at best, this was the extent of the personality of “me”.

“Even if it was for the purpose of derailing the investigation, I do feel bad about using your name. But when I buried you in that mountain, I didn’t do it with any bad intentions.”

The golden-haired, golden-eyed girl spoke honestly.

“Because I felt nothing but gratitude to you. I was intending on giving you a proper burial.”

“A burial? Ah, so that’s it. That’s what it was. Interment, huh?”

The golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl then laughed, “Ka ka.”

“However, how did you end up doing it at that mountain? I’m pretty sure that’s not where I sucked your blood. It wasn’t even close to there.”

Why would she care about such a small detail, was what ran through the high school girl’s mind. “I heard that there was a shrine on top of that mountain. Kita… something Shrine,” she responded.

“If I was going to bury you, I figured it would be better to bury you closer to the shrine, so that it would turn into something like a memorial service… Although it’s not like I didn’t have the intention of burying you to hide you, I guess? I couldn’t just leave you as you were, after you’d become a mummy.”

“No, no, I don’t really mind. Thanks to your half-assed concern, you could say I ended up actually being discovered earlier.”

“?”

“By the way, I’ve asked the first person to discover my body to step out for a moment—since I failed to suck your blood, it’s hard to say that you’ve become one of my thralls, but still, unlike the completely independent Kissshot, I can at least detect when you approach.”

The high school girl was troubled by those incomprehensible words, together with that dandy smile that you wouldn’t think a little girl would have.

“Does that mean you have something you want to say to me, then? Suicidemaster. Don’t tell me, not that again? Something about ‘Thanks for the meal’ and ‘It was delicious’ or whatever—”

She said it in a rather brusque manner, but that topic was actually pretty interesting to her—it was interesting to her, as someone who’d fallen prey to her club activities—so she’d been able to put it to good use in her acts of violence.

The puzzled faces of her teammates were a sight to behold.

“If there’s something you’d like to ask—”

“No, no, there’s nothing I have to ask. The former thrall of the former Heartunderblade has more or less told me about what you’ve done—he seems like a promising guy, but he has the bad habit of letting his guard down around everyone too easily. He’d chatter away at anyone, even someone like me, as long as they played the fool.”

“……”

The former thrall of the former Heartunderblade.

The golden-eyed, golden-haired high school girl guessed that she was referring to the alumnus Araragi Koyomi—she had heard some information about the investigation by the specialists, but not the full picture, and she didn’t have the ability to analyze the information she had acquired, as she didn’t know anything about that world until she encountered that golden-haired, golden-eyed girl just a week ago.

The details could only be imagined, and there was no guarantee those imagined details were correct—however, it seemed for certain that the famous senior was actually a vampire.

“What, then. If you don’t have a question, do you have a complaint, then?”

“I don’t have a complaint, but there’s something I’m not quite satisfied about. To think a bearer of my tough and cool blood would be strutting down the streets at night for such an uncool reason like revenge.”

Is that why?

Is that why you became a vampire?

The golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl raised her small chin and spoke in an amused tone, still contrary to the words she was saying.

“You wanted to become a vampire because you wanted to do stuff like that?—Is that why you wanted me to eat you?”

“…………”

“Ah, I haven’t told the people who are after you about this yet. I don’t plan on covering for you, but the only reason I sucked your blood was to put on airs for my old friend—after talking to her, it seemed like she thought the same thing, and, well, to borrow your words, it’s not like I didn’t have that intention, either.”

At any rate.

I didn’t tell them that when I was merely asking for directions, you suddenly groveled and begged me, “Please turn me into a vampire”—said the little girl, condescendingly.

Perhaps that was just the way she was, but it was irritating. Just as the high school girl always felt when she was participating in club activities.

Or maybe it was like in her rebellious period, when she’d cried to her mother when she was a human, “I never asked you to give birth to me!” But then again, the golden-haired, golden-eyed high school girl did indeed grovel and plead with the young girl—she’d asked her to give birth to her.

“It’s not like I was fasting to stay faithful to Kissshot—to Princess Acerola—so if you asked, I had no reason to refuse. I was taking it easy to the extent that I didn’t really care if I failed, but it was outside of my expectations that I would be the one to become a mummy. Even after living a thousand years, I guess there are still things outside of my expectations.”

So it’s like that even after a thousand years.

Then it was natural for a teenager, too—or perhaps, it became more natural the longer one lived.

The golden-haired, golden-eyed high school girl became fed up with that thought—fed up to the point that she wanted to die, even though she was currently immortal.

“…Was it just new to you, then? Someone like me. An idiot that would ask to become a vampire herself. An idiot who’d do it without even pretending.”

“Nah. There was someone like that six hundred years ago—ka ka, I wonder if I just got sentimental because I remembered that?”

“Sentimental—”

Vulnerable.

“The former thrall of the former Heartunderblade seemed to be having a lot of tedious opinions on the issue of eating—but if you ask me, he’s missing the most important point. He’s only able to see eating and being eaten in terms of perpetrator and victim—it’s not so wrong that I absolutely need to point it out, but from the point of view of someone who’s lived for a thousand years, it’s shallow, shallow.”

In his assumptions about the side being eaten.

He’d left out the case where they desired to be eaten—said the little girl, sticking out her tongue.

“Maybe it’s easier if I put it in terms of plants? There are these things called ‘bananas’. No matter how you look at it, it’s a fruit with a structure designed to be eaten by you primates. It’s handy, easy to hold, comes with a wrapper, and full of nutrients. You can even expect a punch line where someone slips on the peel.”

“Are you saying that the ‘banana’ wants to be eaten?”

Are you saying that because I wanted to become a vampire, I’m a “banana”?

It was like the reasoning that livestock was born to be eaten, so it’s not cruel to eat them—or the same influences that say without question that castrating your pet was for the pet’s own good.

Questions were necessary—even if they were childish.

“What is it that makes flowers bloom so beautifully and produce sweet nectar, high school girl? It’s to get the bees to ‘suck it up’ and spread the pollen, right? Fruits taste good in order to spread their seeds, right?”

“But that’s just plants, right? As if there are any animals that want to be eaten.”

Only me.

“There’s no way.”

“You sure? Wouldn’t you say ‘earthworms’ are in the perfect shape to be eaten?”

“I don’t eat ‘earthworms’.”

“Ah, is that so. It’s good to have likes and dislikes, and preferences. Even disliking a certain food even if you haven’t tried it. But, there are plenty of people who go and make themselves unhappy on their own, right? I’m talking about the ones that drive themselves into a corner and make themselves out to be victims.”

“That’s—”

Only us.

“—Even if there were, there’s no way there’s a creature that willingly asks to be eaten.”

“And like I said, there was one, six hundred years ago. A creature like that—a human like that. A princess like that. Of course, unlike you, it’s not like she was trying to become a vampire for something as disgraceful as revenge or a grudge. She tried to become a vampire with lofty ideals that a tough and cool vampire like me couldn’t understand—unlike you, she was exceedingly productive.”

“……”

Not stillborn—is that what she was trying to say.

“Now that I see she’s completely forgotten and utterly lost those lofty ideals, it seems she’s accomplished them. From the bottom of my heart, I’m relieved. But what about you? Do you feel like you’ve accomplished what you set out to do, eating those humans with your mighty power?”

Being compared to a precursor she’d never met before—the golden-haired, golden-eyed high school girl felt like she’d been completely seen through.

She felt absolutely no sense of accomplishment. If anything, she felt hollow.

Revenge was futile—she had never thought those cheap words would turn out to be the truth.

From the bottom of her heart, she felt empty.

All dried up, like a mummy.

Having said that, she couldn’t just quit now.

Right.

In the first place, she hadn’t carried it through just yet.

For that sake—she’d slipped past so many eyes to get here.

“Slipped past? Don’t try to show off with your use of words, high school girl—or are you trying to make me laugh myself to death? Scheming, playing tricks, weaving facts with falsehoods, and finally coming here after darting around from place to place like a cockroach. And as far as living goes, the cockroach is superior to you.”

“…I suppose so. In that sense, it was a disappointment. A let-down. I thought being a vampire would be better than this. In the first place, doesn’t being weak to sunlight make us the worst?”

She’d intended to be sarcastic, but the golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she spoke with an attitude full of composure.

“That’s for sure. We’re not all that great. It’s like a diet—continuous self-restraint. For the last hundred years, I’ve been on the run as much as you, scurrying and sneaking around—and now I’ve been captured here, like it’s time to pay the piper. I called you disgraceful, but I’m just as disgraceful.”

“…Don’t dishearten me so much. This is where you should show off the good points about being a vampire. Should I prepare a whiteboard for you? You can give a presentation aimed at the young people that will soon have the right to vote. Ten reasons why you should become a vampire.”

“But for you, you’ll never have the right to vote. And what you’re feeling now isn’t disappointment, it’s despair. How befitting of the walking dead.”

“The non-walking dead… Are you saying it’s better to be a mummy, then?”

She naturally remembered her former teammates, the ones she attacked—although, in the first place, she’d never thought of them as her teammates.

But just as her thoughts grew darker than the night, the golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl made an offer. “I have something good to tell you, you desperate bastard. There’s nothing good about vampires, but I have something good to tell you.”

“Something good? Like a moving tale?”

“There’s no such thing as a moving tale for a vampire. If anything, this is a business negotiation. Right, basically, rather than something good, it’s something tasty.”

“Tell me.”

She bit at it. A prompt decision and a prompt action.

It didn’t seem like she would be able to fulfill the purpose of her visit to this Japanese mansion—but she didn’t want to go back empty-handed.

The investigators were steadily closing in on her.

It was only a matter of time before the cockroach was smashed—she didn’t deny that she was drowning in the power she had gained through her pleading, but that didn’t mean she was so stupid she couldn’t objectively judge her situation.

Her grades had been good. Until she joined the girls’ basketball team.

“So, about that tasty something.”

“You can go ahead and eat me.”

Without an air of importance, the little girl spoke.

“If you, perhaps, wish to return to being human, then you should still be able to do so by sucking out my, your master’s, blood.”

“…Did I ever say anything about wanting to return to being human? I know I said it wasn’t a good thing to be a vampire, but I don’t remember saying it was a bad thing, either.”

“You said it was the worst.”

“That was a figure of speech. Don’t find fault with my Japanese. I don’t remember saying that being a human was the best—or that being a high school girl was the best.”

“If you think like that, then you don’t need to drink my blood—just go ahead and gobble me up. Bite into me and break me down into flesh and bone. If you do that, then you can go from being an incomplete vampire to acquiring even further power than now, as the killer of your master. Um, what did they call it again? In terms of smartphone games… A two-stage evolution?”

Not lacking in kindness, she made an analogy that would be easy for teenagers to understand. But a vampire talking about smartphone games…

The gourmet, hungry, and dandy vampire was apparently not very good at presentations.

“Either way, there are no drawbacks for you. If you want to go back to being human, you can. If you want to become an even stronger, more frightening vampire, then you can—at the very least, you won’t have to scurry around secretly like you’ve been doing now. So, what’ll it be?”

“…But what’s in it for you, then? That ‘something good’. That ‘something tasty’. That business negotiation.”

As soon as she heard the two choices, she could have decided right away, but the golden-haired, golden-eyed high school girl cautiously withheld her answer—it was too good to be true, to the point that it was rather suspicious.

She felt like it was a bad idea—to bite at it without closer examination.

“Whether I suck your blood or eat you up, you’ll die. After living a thousand years, despite being so tough and cool, you’ll die. What’s with that. Some sort of self-sacrifice? The death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire is going to die just for my sake?”

“As if. A business negotiation should be killing two birds with one stone.”

Even with her lower Japanese grades, she knew that “killing two birds with one stone” did not mean that both sides benefited from the deal, but, well, it would be childish to find fault with the freedom of expression of a vampire who’d come all the way from overseas.

“Even if you don’t suck my blood or eat me up, I’m still going to die anyway. Like this.”

“If things keep up like this, you mean?”

“No, I’ll die like this. Whatever I do, whatever I don’t do, I’ll die. Apparently, I’m at my limit. It wouldn’t have been strange if I fell into an eternal sleep after being mummified by your poison—if you hadn’t buried me where you did, I would have. By the grace of heaven—or perhaps by heaven’s design—I was able to swell back up again, but this is still like a vision I’m seeing on my deathbed.”

“You’re talking like you’ve drunk water from the Sanzu River.”

“Indeed. The water of a mirage.”

For some reason, the frivolous chatter seemed to flow freely.

What was it that she’d drunk?

“I’m starving to death. I’ll die of anorexia. Isn’t that really lame? That’s why, I want you to kill me—this time, I want you to kill me. I want you to kill me again.”

“……”

“The truth is, I thought I’d ask this of the former thrall of the former Heartunderblade, but he just didn’t seem like that kind of character. So I had no choice but to switch to the idea of fleeing the country, but now that you showed up, there’s still hope. Hope for a vampire in despair.”

“So are those suicidal tendencies, then? I’ve heard that the cause of death for eighty to ninety percent of vampires was suicide… Right?”

It was a hypothesis she came up with based on her own analysis of the internal information she’d obtained, so she wasn’t too confident about it—but it seemed it was half right, as she got the response, “Yeah. Everyone kills themselves.”

“Both Kissshot and her first thrall chose to end their lives in this country—but if you ask me, suicide is even lamer than anorexia. It’s not even remotely suitable for the conclusion of my tough and cool story.”

So.

Before I start wanting to commit suicide, I want you to kill me.

“So you want assisted suicide—no, euthanasia, then?”

“Death with dignity. That’s the only way to die that befits my sense of pride. To die nobly and harshly. I did pretend to be vigorous and in good health with Kissshot—but I was just putting on airs.”

It’s about the right time to end things, now.

That was what the golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl said—but end what? Scurrying around in secret? Or, perhaps, the vampire race itself?

Was she being lectured by her predecessor that, in a world with science in its golden age, there were no shadows or crevices for oddities to live? That such traditions were now tapering off?

She even got a little angry.

The offer certainly didn’t have any drawbacks for her, but it felt like she was being forced to quit while she was ahead—could that be called a dine and dash?

“Why me, then? Why did you choose me, then?”

“You’re the one who’ll choose. I made it sound like there were just two options, but you don’t have to suck my blood or eat me up—even in my weakened state, there aren’t that many people that can kill me, but I’m not in a hurry. I’m in no rush to die. But I have no more regrets. I’ve seen with my own eyes how my old friend is enjoying herself, lazily and comfortably.”

She had no regrets.

To the ears of the girl who had left behind so many false messages around the high school girls she had attacked, those words echoed with a bitter irony that was even close to abuse.

“So—for that reason, just for that reason, you came to this country, then? So that you wouldn’t have any regrets?”

“Yeah. Like, ten things I want to do before I die. If I didn’t confirm the safety of the friend I’d fallen for, then this tough and cool me wouldn’t be able to die even if I tried.”

She couldn’t understand.

She couldn’t even try to understand.

For her, who’d chosen to become a vampire, the feeling of “not having any regrets”—far from it.

She had nothing left.

No room for decisions. Not even a self.

“I see. I’ll kill you, then. Now we’re even. I chose to be killed, so now I choose to kill you. Die with pride. Die nobly and harshly.”

“Well, thanks for that. I guess my begging paid off.”

That pompous attitude you had up until now was supposed to be begging? Far from prostrating herself, she was practically leaning back.

“By the way, what did you choose? Are you going to kill me by sucking my blood? Or are you going to kill me by eating me up?”

“I wonder.”

Perhaps sensing that she wasn’t going to bother telling her, the golden-haired, golden-eyed little girl said, “Well, it doesn’t matter either way, as long as you don’t fail,” and changed her question.

“Oh, yeah. Do you mind telling me your name? I’d like to know the name of the vampire that killed the magnificent me.”

“…Fine. I’ll tell you that much. The name of your killer is—”

The moment she was about to give her name, and the moment she was about to kill her—

“Harimaze Kie.”

Said a voice.

Tactlessly interrupting her from behind.

She turned, and there, gasping for breath, was a twintailed college student wearing what appeared to be high-quality women’s silk pajamas—Araragi Koyomi.

In other words, me.