Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 13.03

003 

I was, unfortunately, already aware of the organization that fights against the Earth, which had turned bad: the Earth Eradication Army. I’d learned about it from a magical girl I met before named “Giant Impact”. 

She was a crazy magical girl who liked to play with people’s lives. Anyway, this and that happened with her, and some people were brought back to life or brought others back to life, and in all of that mess I learned about the “Earth Eradication Army” as well as the “Earth Army”.  

All of this information was apparently strictly confidential, so when she kept on blabbering on to me about the details of it, I was getting a bit indignant, but… 

“So the ‘Earth Army’ is like this group of monsters that pretend to be humans and infiltrate society to destroy human culture from the inside—to explain it in terms that your simple mind can understand.” The undead magical girl explained it like that so that even my simple mind could understand—and well, at the time, I figured this was all backstory for a world that had nothing to do with me, so I largely let it pass in one ear and out the other. If I were to be more specific, I didn’t catch about 90% of what she had to say. If I hadn’t done so, I would have died from sheer irritation. 

I should have listened. 

But then, how could I have known that I would be labeled as a member of this “Earth Army” and have the leader of the airborne troops come to kill me himself? 

“I heard about you from Chinou-san. She said that she met someone who didn’t seem quite human, and that that person might just be part of the ‘Earth Army’.” Sorakara-kun explained to me. 

I had no way of knowing what had happened to result in this, but it seemed that the magical girl from Shikoku, “Giant Impact” (real name Chinou Nomi), was currently serving as a member of the airborne troops under Sorakara. 

Hey, wait a second. She ratted me out! 

It was only a temporary thing, but for a while there, we had been like partners overcoming a trial together, and she went and sold me out to her new boss?? Was she some kind of far-less-erotic Fujiko-chan or something?   

Who are they calling a member of the “Earth Army”? 

I wanted to argue back in my defense, but… It wasn’t because most of the members of the “Earth Army” were covert operatives that were unaware of what they really were. Actually, the problem had more to do with an overabundance of awareness. I, Araragi Koyomi, certainly did fit the bill for “someone who wasn’t quite human”, since, well… I was a former vampire. I wasn’t a monster, but I was an aberration. 

“The Earth Eradication Army operates under the rule of smiting anyone we doubt. My apologies if we’re wrong, but that’s how we do things.” 

He said some terrifying things in a completely uninterested voice… And again, I couldn’t really say that he was wrong… 

While it had happened in a parallel world, I had actually destroyed humanity once… I couldn’t hold my head high and proclaim that I was a humanitarian. Instead, I had to look down awkwardly… 

But that didn’t mean that I was going to quietly let myself be exterminated either. 

One reason for that was, of course, that I was quite fond of my own body, but I didn’t want that to be my primary reason. After all, there were many others in this town who fit the bill for “not quite human”. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that more than half of the people I associated with fit that description, and I just couldn’t let this hero boy have so much extra work piled on. 

Which is why I needed to run away as hard and as fast as possible. 

If I could escape from this situation, there was a glimmer of hope waiting for me. Fight fire with fire and secret organizations with secret organizations. 

If I could make contact with the boss of the specialists, the “lady who knows everything”, Gaen Izuko-san, then I would be able to absolve myself of the suspicions that had been unfairly made against me… In order to save myself and those who mattered to me, I would have to get out of here alive. 

In any case, the “get cut on purpose and splash my blood to make him visible” plan was a failure. In spite of the great risk, there had been no reward… I tried to think of a way to salvage a solution from the failed plan, and I came up with the idea of trying to smell the blood that had been spilled to scent-track the enemy, but that was no more than an abstract and impractical hypothesis. 

The basis of the idea was that if I couldn’t rely on sight, then I could rely on smell. Unfortunately, while the iron-smell of blood might be coming from the blade that had cut me, it was also a scent that was emanating rather potently from my own neck. It would be impossible to smell the blood on his sword through the smell coming from my own body. I had considered an extension of the first plan, which was “get cut enough to leave puddles of blood, then track him through his footprints”, but I rejected that idea without trying it. 

Unlike with the idea of splashing blood onto the hero, in this case I would be perceiving the puddle on the ground, so it should remain unaffected by his suit. However… This idea might have worked back when I was a vampire, but I was only a former vampire, so if I tried to go through with the plan, he wouldn’t need to exterminate me because I would die from blood loss first. 

There was also the small issue of him being able to walk across desktops to approach me and avoid the puddle of blood altogether. Put all of it together, and it meant that I would have to continue as I had thus far, barely cutting through (not getting cut through?) by relying on sound. 

Sorakara-kun understood that already. 

“I really do think it’s amazing. I admire you, Araragi-san. You’re a man among men.” 

By continuing to babble on in that manner, he was able to disguise his footsteps—but given that he could be saying anything, did he really have to stick to this one line of dialogue? There was no emotion or inflection in his voice. 

There should be a limit to just how insincere a person can be. 

My friend the corpse doll had more emotion than this guy. 

So while he was able to use his voice to disguise the sounds of his movements, in exchange for that, I was able to hear his general location based on his voice instead. Up until now, that was how I had managed to stay alive. When it all began, I was shocked to discover that I was under attack, but it didn’t seem like he’d been fully prepared to kill me. 

Maybe they sprung the mission on him at the last second, or killing me was a quick add-on to some other mission, or maybe it was some political machination at work—it seemed like the kind of thing that would happen in the Earth Eradication Army. 

It’s truly frightening what people can demand without specifying their reasoning for it. 

So thinking about how this boy (soldier) was caught up in all of this, I could allow myself to feel some consideration for Sorakara-kun (and Chinou-chan as well), but no matter how considerate I might be, I wasn’t going to let myself be killed. So... I wondered what could I do instead. 

The thing that I feared most in this situation was for him to start swinging Gyakutai Tarou around wildly and just pressing forward in a relentless attack. There would be too much noise for me to hear any specific swing out of the flurry, which would make it impossible for me to dodge. 

But I knew that Sorakara-kun wouldn’t do that… That was the only thing that I was fairly confident that I’d worked out about Grotesque and Gyakutai Tarou. The only weakness I’d found so far for the invisible hero. 

Which was to say… 

He couldn’t see himself either. 

Neither his own gallant figure nor the large sword he was swinging around. If he were to start waving the blade around wildly, there was a good chance that he could end up cutting himself instead. 

Because he could not see, his Gyakutai Tarou became a double-edged sword—and it might literally have been a double-edged sword for all I knew, so that was like a quadruple-edged sword. His entire body was presumably covered in this Grotesque, but it seemed unlikely that the suit was all that protective. Considering the function that it was said to perform, it was probably quite delicate and sensitive to any sort of physical attack. 

Even if that were not the case, Sorakara-kun would still want to avoid any kind of close-quarters combat. Whether he was invisible or not wouldn’t matter much once someone got hold of him. Thus he maintained his distance and made measured attacks… Of course, he wouldn’t want to let the situation drag out for too long. 

The Absolute Peace League that Chinou-chan used to belong to had the mission of protecting humanity, and in order to achieve that goal, they wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice an entire city. If she used to belong to a dangerous organization like that, then what I had seen of this Earth Extermination Army had done nothing to convince me that it was any less dangerous. 

I needed to break the equilibrium and absolve the doubts. 

Looking back at that spring break when I became a vampire and was nearly exterminated, I couldn’t help but laugh at my current situation, because now I would have to try and save my life by declaring my vampiric nature to absolve myself of the accusation of belonging to the “Earth Army”. 

What a strange situation. 

“It’s never easy, is it, Araragi-san.” 

Sorakara-kun continued to talk idly in that same emotionless voice; the topics didn’t matter because the goal was simply to make noise. Neither of us stayed in one place; we both continued to move about the lecture hall. 

“Not easy? What is?” 

“It’s because you rely so much on your superior vision that losing sight of me has caused you so much confusion. But then, in my own case, if I did not use the bleeding edge of technology, I would be able to attack you much more directly. It’s interesting that an advancement in battle technology has resulted in suppressing my combat ability.” 

Was he going for a “great national powers develop weapons so great that they can no longer wage war” theme? That was a bit of a heavy topic for making small talk. Bringing up the achievement of peace through the development of weapons as a topic—that guy was really messed up. 

However, if we were to get into a battle of words, then I thought I would have the edge on him. If I could make this cold, emotionless hero laugh, then I would count that as my victory. 

I needed to change from heavy topics to something funny. 

“I understand how you feel. I think you’d call it justifiable ignorance. Sometimes I find myself thinking… If I had never known love, then maybe I would never have known this pain either.” “…” 

Huh. No reaction. 

He didn’t seem to be affected at all. 

“I understand how you feel. I used to be like you. ‘I don’t need friends, they’d lower my intensity as a human’ is what I used to say. You remind me of that period in my life.” 

“No, I do need friends. I’d be in a lot of trouble without them.” 

He wasn’t giving me anything to work with! Agree with me, even if it’s a lie! 

Sorakara-kun’s words had no effect on me, and my words had no effect on him… However, the fact that he said “need” and not “want” did indicate that he was the real deal—it made me painfully aware of how false I had been. 

I set aside those feelings and spoke again to the boy, “Oh, I understand. I know exactly where you’re coming from. I was going to say the same thing.” I made sure to express my understanding. I would close the gap… 

“It’s pretty strange. I think if we’d met under different circumsta—

HYA!” 

I just said “Hya!” 

I was indignant that the hero would try to cut me down while I was in the middle of talking, but thinking about it more, that had been his plan from the start. Use noise to distract me from the sounds of his footsteps, and then strike. 

And I went right along with it. 

How absolutely brutal. 

I think if we’d met under different circumstances, he’d just have killed me in a different way. 

I managed to dodge the attack, but the desk that had been behind me was cut clean in two—that’s one sharp blade. I tried kicking around the area, but I didn’t manage to hit anything. He had already finished moving. 

He might not have a heart, but he knew how to stay alert.  

“When wielding a sword, you lose every option but to use the sword—that said, you cannot simply toss it aside either. It’s not limited to science; even with magic, one must really be pushed to toss something aside. Even if their doom is obvious, humans don’t want to let go of their standard of living once they’ve achieved it.” 

For being the hero of humanity, he really said some harsh things about the ones he was supposed to be protecting. I couldn’t be sure if he’d stayed there, but I turned to face the direction of his voice. “Life might get a lot easier than you’d expect if you’d let go.” That was me. 

It wasn’t a bluff or a lie to try and buy time—and it also wasn’t my own story. I simply happened to know someone who had experienced just that. 

“I know someone. They’re the same age as you, a middle school student, and just like you they don’t go to school… That person gave up their position as god. They weren’t forced, cornered, or coerced; they gave it up of their own free will.” Power could be cast aside. 

If it was for your hopes and dreams. 

I said it to express the idea that he should toss aside his weapons and go home, though I didn’t say that part explicitly. I was sure that he understood. 

I was certain of it, but that was naive of me. 

Since the boy had no heart, it was possible that he didn’t even listen to what I said… If that were the case, then he was probably drawing near to make another attempt at cutting me down. 

Instead, he had moved far away from me over to the podium, where a lecturer would usually stand. It seemed that moving there had been his goal. Or rather, he had moved to the sound equipment that was built into the podium. 

Why would he want to do that? 

“BWOOOWWWWWW!!” 

A deafening sound erupted from the speakers throughout the lecture hall. No matter how loud I or Sorakara-kun spoke, our voices never echoed in the hall, but this sound did. The noise—it was a song— continued to blast out of the speakers as if an indie band had just started a concert. 

Aah, I thought. 

This had been his goal from the start. It was for this purpose that Sorakara-kun had chased me into this classroom. I had aimed for a large lecture hall to avoid getting trapped in a dead end, but for the hero boy, a classroom with a sound system was perfect. 

Now he no longer had to talk about topics that he didn’t care about or try to distract me. He was invisible as well as impossible to hear through the noise, and unlike before, when he spoke to cover his steps, now I had no hint of where he was. 

So he hadn’t gone quiet for a while because he was listening to what I had to say, but rather because it had taken time for him to take out some kind of transmitter device from inside of his suit and connect it to the sound system… The music was some kind of rock-adjacent genre, which was surprising for such a cold and emotionless boy, but I guess even with bleeding-edge technology they still try to build in a music player. 

“Oh, shi—” 

There was no time for that. 

Now, normally, the flow of this story would be for me to break the ice with this guy and find a peaceful resolution, but unfortunately the hero didn’t know how to read the room. 

A guy named Sorakara Kuu couldn’t read the atmosphere? What’s up with that?  So was it impossible to see eye-to-eye with this guy? And here I thought we could get along as fellow builders of non-existent harems!  

If I were to be fair to him, I would have to admit that, until now, not a single character has appreciated my narrative structure, so I couldn’t really blame Sorakara-kun’s heartlessness for failing to go along with it. I would have liked to apologize for my prior misleading statements, but I didn’t have time for it. 

The balance was broken. He’d broken it. 

Now it was time to act—it was no longer possible to hear his location, but I could know one thing at least. In order to turn on the music, he had to have been standing in one place. 

Near the podium. 

Before he could close the distance between us, I had to escape. I needed to run out of this music-filled lecture hall. 

With rock-like background music playing, it felt almost like a scene from an action movie as I began to sprint toward the door to the classroom. Sorakara-kun seemed like the athletic type, but it seemed to me that his suit was probably really tight and restrictive, so it should slow him down. 

It wasn’t that far away, so I should’ve had a chance. 

I hadn’t taken part in any battles recently, or even anything resembling a battle, so I had let myself get out of shape. Nevertheless, I flogged my legs for speed as I ran up the slope of the classroom, weaving between desks as I dashed for the door. I smashed through the door and propelled myself through headfirst— 

“And that’s a bingo. Just as Sorakara planned.” 

—and directly into the path of another blade I couldn’t see. I heard an elegant voice, like a rose covered in thorns, as the unseen blade sliced through the air toward my neck. 

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2  For more information, refer to the third arc of Mazemonogatari, Nomi Rule. 
3  A reference to Lupin the Third’s Mine Fujiko, a professional criminal who regularly partners with the protagonist before betraying him as soon as her goal is in sight. 
4  Visual pun between 心 (kokoro, “heart”) and 残心 (zanshin, a state of relaxed alertness in Japanese martial arts). 
5  Sorakara Kuu is written as 空々空, which is entirely made of the same kanji 空 with different pronunciations (the middle kanji 々 means a repetition of the previous kanji, like in 阿良々木 for Araragi). Pronounced as sora, it means “sky”, while as kara, it means “empty”, playing on his absence of emotions. As kuu, it usually means “empty air” or “sky” again, and it’s the start of the word 空気 (kuuki, “atmosphere”).