Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 13.04

004 

The epilogue, or maybe, the punch line of this story. 

Essentially, Sorakara-kun was not alone. The hero, clad in his “invisible military uniform” and waving around his “invisible weapon”, wasn’t alone—there was one other with him. 

They had been waiting at the doors to the classroom without making a sound, much like Cerberus waiting at the gates of Hell. Another hero, or to differentiate them, maybe a dark hero. 

Thinking about it more, there was no reason not to mass-produce the weapons that he was using. Well, there were ethical and moral reasons, but an organization like the Earth Eradication Army wouldn’t care about those. 

Just as a human wouldn’t give up a certain quality of life once it had been attained, a level of battle would not be relinquished—that was karma, that was destiny. 

Still, Sorakara-kun’s battle plan that used two invisible people against one, with the second invisible attacker remaining hidden until the very end, was certainly not normal. 

I do need friends. 

I’d be in a lot of trouble without them. 

So, I knew at least that it was not Chinou-san… The second attacker was most likely a member of the Sorakara-kun Harem (which is not on the same level as the Araragi Harem), which meant she was probably a member of the airborne troops. I had to give credit where credit was due, because whoever she was, she had waited there by the door with her sword ready, just waiting for the moment to strike. She never once entered into the back-and-forth that had taken place throughout the room. 

And so my head was cut off. 

There was no doubt about that. If I had actually been a member of this “Earth Army”, that is. Normally I would have said something about how “ironic” it was that my being a former vampire had saved my life, but in this case it truly was what allowed me to make my narrow escape from death. 

To explain what happened… 

After being chased into an enclosed space, Sorakara-kun had talked aimlessly to cover the sounds of his footsteps (and it turns out he was covering the sounds of his partner’s footsteps as well), but it was an incomplete method of concealing the sound he was making. He then blasted the room with sound to completely disguise his movements, which would trigger his lone, cornered target to flee in confusion. There in the path of the door to escape the room waited the second attacker, who would then drop their blade onto the target and put an end to their life—the plan had never been to corner the target but instead to funnel the target into the doorway to escape. That was the reality of the plan that Sorakara-kun had made. The only flaw in this cold, calculated strategy was the simple fact that, unfortunately for them, I had already perceived the second attacker. 

Not that I had everything figured out from the start. 

I never saw anything—from start to finish, I never once saw Grotesque or Gyakutai Tarou. 

But when the sound system in the room began to blast noise, literally in that moment, I realized the presence of the second assassin. 

And based on the shape of their hips, I also knew that they were a girl. Now you might be thinking, “Well, then clearly you saw her!”. 

Not to be annoying by saying it again, but I did not see her. 

I also had not splattered her with blood, so there was no way to smell that she was there. I also did not suddenly awaken a new power due to the stress and danger of the situation. 

I didn’t need to awaken a new power because it was one that I’d had all along. A vampire power—not of sight or of scent, but of hearing. 

It wasn’t much different from how I had listened to his footsteps and his speech to determine where he was standing. When Sorakara-kun blasted the room with noise, it certainly covered the sounds of his footsteps, but it also provided me with an image of not just where he was located, but where his friend stood. 

This was a skill derived from bats, with whom vampires had a long history. They can fire off high-frequency sound waves and perceive the space around them—and in this enclosed space with sound blasting from every direction, I too gained the ability to perceive the room around me from the way the sounds bounced and echoed back. 

Words had not been loud enough to echo in this room, but the sound system was. 

I was able to perceive the room in that moment, but at the same time I really did feel that I was in greater danger than before—because I had suddenly realized the presence of the second enemy. 

I was justifiably ignorant. 

If it hadn’t been for that, I would have been perfectly calm in that moment, but when I realized that I was a cornered rat, I faltered. I had prepared a million strategies for what to do next, but with this new information, there was only one path left to me. I had to escape before Sorakara-kun—no, before Sorakara-kun and his friend could notice that I had noticed. 

I abandoned any idea of retaliation and ran for the door to the classroom. They would no doubt aim for the moment when I reached the door to attack, and since I had determined that while two enemies were attacking me, they did not have anyone else to support them, I could pretend to not have seen their trap, and their own hubris would give me the chance to escape. 

And in truth, I had not seen the trap. 

I’d heard it. 

So after that, it became quite simple. I dodged the blade, then ran away until I had escaped from the two invisible attackers, and then I called my beloved support center, Ononoki Yotsugi-chan, and had her mediate between myself and Gaen-san. Due to certain circumstances, Gaen-san and I weren’t talking to each other. 

That I had sought help was proof that I’d grown up into an adult. Or rather, I was a university student—that was one difference between myself and my twin Sorakara-kun, well, aside from the whole hero thing. 

The sound strategy that Sorakara-kun employed to trap and kill me had instead saved my life. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, I talked to him about it, and he said that this sort of occurrence was a regular thing for him. A hero’s heroic actions had a tendency to awaken sleeping evil. 

Where there is light, there is shadow. The glimmer of a hero is not so different from the glint of a villain. It was a common trope among the stories of heroes. As I said before, the reason that I was not killed was because I was not actually a member of the “Earth Army”, but instead a former vampire. Looking at it from another angle, the reason I had been saved was because Sorakara Kuu was a hero. 

That’s how the ambiguous bat narrowly escaped death. 

Incidentally, after a mediator cleared the air between us, Sorakarakun apologized to me. 

“I was wrong; I’m sorry.” 

It was kind of amazing to be able to apologize after everything he did… He bowed his head and said the words, but they were so devoid of any sincerity that I found myself taken aback. Was I supposed to rejoice and say, “Yeah, that’s right!” when it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he straightened from his bow and immediately tried to strike me down once more? If he has no sincerity, then why would he bother to have ulterior motives? His apology was nothing more than a string of words. There was a limit to how insincere a person could be—but if I kept an open mind, then I couldn’t say with certainty that within that emptiness there was no invisible heart or inaudible scream.  

So I will look forward to the day when that boy chooses to step down from the throne of being a hero so that we can have a conversation without reservation. 

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6  A reference to Densetsu’s premise, where one day a scream killed one third of Earth’s population.