Chapter Kill- Lori Fugue
001
Mutou Iori is a demonic killer from the Zerozaki Clan. A demonic killer, as the name suggests, is a demon who kills people. Looking at her from that perspective, I think it’s safe to say that, among the many unique individuals that I’ve met so far, she’s the most dangerous. I can’t talk about it as easily as I could talk about an aberration, nor can I talk about it at length as I would for an urban legend. She is an overwhelmingly dangerous being.
Being.
Yes, the most important aspect is that, unlike a youkai manifestation, a demonic killer exists—but don’t worry, as of now it seems that Mutou Iori has been forbidden from killing humans—and I can therefore tell you a few things about her with great trepidation and care.
About her.
About the demonic killer in a knit beanie who I met.
It’s not so much a story, it’s more of a report… By the way, the Zerozaki Clan is something like a guild for demonic killers. According to her, they’re a lot like a family.
“As a member of the family they take very good care of me” is what she told me with a hint of embarrassment.
Just hearing that description, you wouldn’t be sure what kind of organization it is, but that thing, “family”, is something Hanekawa Tsubasa had wanted very badly, so when I learned that even demonic killers desired that same thing, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of closeness. However, when I learned that the strong bonds that connect the Zerozaki Clan consist of things like “Do not allow any to live who harm the clan” and “Kill anyone who opposes you”, that feeling of closeness faded away and I decided to pretend that I had never felt it.
Of course this “Killing Name” only came in third place in the ranking—for the “most disliked” ranking they were uncontested at number one, which the demonic killers as a whole were apparently quite proud of.
Mutou Iori is a part of this group—not related by blood, but rather bound together by the shedding of blood—and she is a new member.
She’s a seventeen-year-old demonic killer.
In gaining that title she also had to lose much—for instance her school record. Until recently she was a second-year high school girl, but now she’s lost that place in the world. For example, her friends. For example, her daily life. For example, her ability to rest.
And for another example, her hands.
When she became a demonic killer she ruthlessly had her hands cut off, left and right, at the wrist. It was reminiscent of having one’s arms taken off by the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.
Now of course this gave me that feeling of closeness once more, but when becoming friends with a girl who’s not a vampire but a demonic killer, a certain level of prudence and caution was necessary—at least in my case.
And that’s because, as I said before, she’s currently a demonic killer who cannot kill humans, which means that, strictly speaking, she is still a danger to me.
An extreme danger.
During that hellish spring break, as a result of having my blood sucked by a vampire, I became something that I’m not sure should be viewed as human or non-human. As someone who had, at least temporarily, ceased to be human, Araragi Koyomi possibly presented a convenient loophole to the “no killing humans” rule.
There was no guarantee that the impulsive serial killer Mutou Iori wouldn’t use the giant scissors called “Mind Render” that she inherited from her older brother to cut me in half.
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1 While 殺人鬼 (satsujinki) is a common word to refer to serial killers, it’s been used specifically in Zaregoto and Ningen to refer to members of the Zerozaki Clan as a way of contrasting them with other families of murderers. Other translators have conveyed this term using “psycho killer” or “cutthroat murderer”.
2 In Zaregoto and Ningen, the seven “Killing Names” (殺し名, koroshina) and their counterparts the six “Cursing Names” (呪い名, majinaina) are families of murderers, each one having a different way and reason for killing people.
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