Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 7.03

003 

Youtou “Kokorowatari”.  

Personally, I wasn’t fully aware of how truly threatening it could be, so there were some parts that were difficult to explain, but to put it simply, it was a weapon made to cut down oddities, wielded by the legendary vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade. 

An oodachi  that could cut oddities and only oddities. 

As a result, it was known by the alias of “Oddity Slayer”, and that name carried over to become another nickname for the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire. 

In that sense, you could say that our gold-haired, gold-eyed vampire also gave off a mixed-Japanese-Western impression, but that didn’t mean that she would hit it off with this Princess Hitei here. 

If anything, it would be the opposite. 

Her wariness would probably max out. 

If she had really come to visit me because she wanted nothing else but that demon blade, then it really wasn’t the time to be swallowing tea. 

All I could do now was to do all that I could to feign ignorance. 

“Demon Blade? Hahaha, what could you possibly be talking about? Haven’t you been watching too much anime?” 

“I deny that. After all, in my age, there were no such things as moving pictures.” 

But you knew that they were moving pictures? 

Well, in the same way that her feigned ignorance was obvious to me, I’m sure she had easily seen through my attempts at deception— well, then, what should I do now? 

If it was like this, then it could perhaps be considered brilliant that she chose the tea room of Tsuganoki Second Middle School as our location. At first, I couldn’t understand why she had chosen to ambush me here of all places, but most likely, it was essentially the same as taking my sister as a hostage. 

I would have almost rather preferred that she had lain in wait at Naoetsu High or even my own home. I’d at least have the home-field advantage then—although, since it seemed like she also snuck in here, it was actually a neutral zone, but being in a neutral zone was still awful in terms of the playing field. 

But, even so, I couldn’t carelessly respond to the princess’s demands, either. 

“Right. That’s true—however, I deny that we’re in a deadlock. To be honest, ‘something like this’ is really in the domain of that unpleasant woman, but perhaps I’ll even deny that sort of limiting factor.” 

Koyomi-kun. 

Would you like to cross swords with me? 

The princess pulled out an iron-ribbed fan from within her clothes, opened it with a “clack!”, pointed it at me, and ordered me as such— and then. 

And then, thirty minutes later, Princess Hitei and I were lined up at the edge of Tsuganoki Second Middle School’s swimming pool. 

Going from the tea room to a swimming pool was quite a perplexing scene change, but what was more perplexing, what was all the more perplexing, was that, even though she still gave off an aura of gorgeousness, she was standing next to me wearing a school swimsuit. 

“......!?” 

I did a double-take. 

Eh? 

Hold on, were you actually the type of character that did funny things like this? Your agency didn’t ban you from wearing school swimsuits? 

Though I’d been bewildered at this unexpected encounter, I had at least tried thinking back to my circle of friends to compare with someone I was familiar with, and I’d come to the understanding that “well, I suppose she’s closer to Gaen-san than Kagenui-san” and come up with a way to approach her as a result. But despite that, why would she herself put on something that those other two adult women absolutely would not wear, even in derivative works? 

Up until now, the princess had bewitched me with her balance of Japanese and Western sensibilities... But due to some mistake, the imbalance from this blond beauty wearing a school swimsuit was... “I deny that. Because I don’t not do funny things, after all.” 

“......” 

A double denial...! 

Since she denied and denied things every time she opened her mouth, I had wondered how she’d gotten on in this world saying no all the time, but to think that she could deal with it like that. 

“Since I’ve come all this way to the future, and I don’t have any chaperones with me. It would be a waste to not play around a bit—in this world where I don’t need to fear dying tomorrow.” 

“I see... A world where you don’t need to fear dying tomorrow.” 

“If you’re able to overreact to me looking like this, then I can truly feel in my heart that this is quite an easygoing era, to the point of making me giddy.” 

... I couldn’t get a grasp of what era she’d actually come from just from listening to her talk, but if she was speaking like that, then it was hard for me to get a word in. Well, even if it had the word “school” attached to it, in shape alone it was just a normal swimsuit, anyway. 

Although, instead of tomorrow, if it was Kagenui-san or Gaen-san, they’d probably die before being seen wearing something like that. 

However, I couldn’t exactly overlook the fact that a nametag reading “Araragi Karen” had been affixed to the chest of that school swimsuit. 

In other words, this meant that it wasn’t the school swimsuit of my sister, Araragi Tsukihi, whose stronghold was the tea room, but the school swimsuit of my other sister—Tsuganoki Second Middle School third-year, Araragi Karen. 

In terms of the sizes of the swimsuits, it meant that she’d chosen to go for Karen’s swimsuit and not Tsukihi’s (Tsukihi was shorter than me, but Karen was taller than me. Even though she was younger)— but it was probably not as simple a reason as that. 

It felt like she was implicitly pressuring me by saying, I have the older of the two sisters in my grasp, as well—it was for the first time in my life that I was feeling intimidated by a school swimsuit. 

If we were talking about the size, then Princess Hitei would be about a head taller than Karen, so I’d expected the swimsuit to be too small for her, but it turned out that the extra height came entirely from her legs. And because the swimsuit had a design that only covered the torso, it was a perfect fit. 

“Well, the fact that I’m looking like this now is also a fate that was predicted in advance.” 

“There’s no way that’s true, right?” Incidentally, I hadn’t changed. 

I was still wearing my plain clothes that had been stained with matcha. 

“So... Putting aside your costume... What exactly are we doing here, Princess Hitei-sama?” 

“Like I said, we’re here to cross swords—that’s how that infuriating strategian went about gathering swords, you see. She went up to the owners and proposed a battle, with the swords being wagered. But it doesn’t feel like you want to even let me see Youtou ‘Kokorowatari’, Koyomi-kun, so for now, I can be flexible and propose a transaction.” 

Saying that—Princess Hitei jumped into the pool. 

Because she jumped in without doing any warm-up exercises, I felt a mix of shock and awe at the nerve she had to have to do something like that, but I still couldn’t see the logical reasoning behind her actions. 

Perhaps confusing the enemy in that way and “denying” them any understanding or comprehension was her style of keeping the high ground... 

However, watching her swim in the pool with some swimming style I’d never seen before (an old swimming style?), it was true that she just looked as if she was enjoying a vacation—she performed a splendid turn at the far end of the pool and stayed completely submerged as she returned. 

As she returned... but she wasn’t returning? 

She wasn’t coming back up after she dived down? 

Eh? Don’t tell me she was drowning? 

No way, she couldn’t possibly be drowning today, let alone tomorrow... Feeling the sense of responsibility that that was the one development that I had to prevent, I hurriedly took off my jacket to dive in after her—but, right when I’d taken off my shirt, the princess vigorously rose up with a splash at the side of the pool. 

Her gold hair had become stuck to her body, giving off a strange allure—it likely would have been even more alluring if not for the school swimsuit. 

As she moved her hair out of the way, she said, “Kuhum... gah. Ah, well, I guess I’m not cut out for physical work... Or rather, I’m not cut out for any kind of work. Koyomi-kun, stop stripping over there and come give me a hand.” 

“Give—give you a hand?” 

“Here, take this. I wouldn’t be able to carry it myself without the help of buoyancy.” 

I had been thinking that she wanted me to take her hand and pull her out of the water, but it seemed that wasn’t the case—I couldn’t tell what it was unless I came closer, but it seemed she was holding onto “something” with both her arms in the water. 

And the reason I couldn’t tell what that “something” was unless I came closer was that it was something that was transparent—if you held onto something that was transparent in water that was transparent, then of course it couldn’t be seen. 

A crystal...? 

Or perhaps, maybe even a diamond...? 

The reason she’d been underwater for so long seemed to be in order to pick up that “something” that had been hidden (?) at the bottom of the pool... But did this princess intend on trying to trade Youtou “Kokorowatari” for something of monetary value? 

Did she think Araragi Koyomi would be moved by money!? 

... Although, I wouldn’t not be moved. 

The experience of taking on several millions’ worth of debt to the specialist Oshino Meme during spring break was something that had left scars on my heart. 

However, to that expectation of mine, she of course denied it—the object she delivered to me through the surface of the water was neither a crystal nor a diamond, but a counterfeit. 

It was—a glass cuboid. 

No. 

More accurately, it was a glass “scabbard” that had a single Japanese sword sealed inside. 

“Toutou ‘Tetsu’ —it’s not a Perfected Deviant Blade, but it’s still one among the thousand Deviant Blades made by Shikizaki Kiki. It’s something that can rival Youtou ‘Kokorowatari’, or it’s at least something that’s a good match for it. Each of us will wager each of our swords—Koyomi-kun. ‘Now, let’s have a fair fight!’”  

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6  The “Youtou” part can be translated as “Demon Blade”. 
7  An oodachi (大太刀, “great sword”) is a type of traditionally made Japanese sword used by samurais in feudal Japan. 
8  Still using the Katanagatari naming pattern, this one is called 透刀『鉄』
(Toutou “Tetsu”), which translates to “Clear Blade ’Metal’”. 
9  The line usually said by Togame before battles.