Monogatari Series - Volume 28 - Chapter 1.18

018

I’d said that so pretentiously, but what I wanted to administer was not my own love—my love was reserved for Senjougahara Hitagi with no room to spare. Along with Oikura, Hanekawa, Kanbaru, my sisters… And a golden-haired young girl.

There really was no room to spare.

That had been the direction for my evolution.

So naturally, the one to wield, not the scalpel, but the cutlery, was the shadow of the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderlade—Oshino Shinobu.

The love between sworn friends.

It would probably be harder to convince her compared to Kagenui-san… In her own way, she might hold to the principle that not saving her sworn friend on the verge of death was cooler.

“Rather than being unwilling to, the idea simply sounds unpleasant. I really should have left you behind in Japan, my master.”

Shinobu had been dragged out from within my shadow, and given that she’d been the King of Oddities and a princess, perhaps I could describe her as being in a royally bad mood.129 But she did not particularly try to hide the dent in her attitude, nor did she try to shut herself away, as she’d done during the case with Shishirui Seishirou—if she were going to reject the specific methods that were presented to her, she wouldn’t have come to Europe in the first place.

It wasn’t the time to act cool.

“Hmph. Do not misunderstand, my master. I simply believe that ‘tis Deathy’s true desire to die like this. However, if that hypothesis, if that super-hypothetical hypothesis of yours really is on the mark, then your life would be in danger, after all. So that you do not get infected, I shall have no choice but to take preventive measures. Goodness, against my master or against diseases, I simply cannot win.”130

So she was trying to act cool, this late in the game.

But if she was saying that, then Shinobu herself, the ultimate destination of this contagious disease, was in far more danger—no matter how much she wanted to show off or respect the wishes of her sworn friend, as her partner, I couldn’t allow it.

If Shinobu wasn’t going to do it, then I would have to.

“There is no way, my master. That I would let you do something like that. She is my sworn friend!”

“Shinobu-nee-san. Don’t forget about me, too,”

said Ononoki-chan, who was also present at the treatment ward. If Shinobu was like a masked plague doctor, then right now, this tween girl’s position was that of an operating room nurse.

An impressive multitasker, once again about to snatch away the title of Best Supporting Actress.

“If the aim of the disease is to make multiple layovers on its way to a specific target, then who knows when I’ll be included in that itinerary, even when I’m not a vampire.”

As an artificial oddity, Ononoki-chan was a unique existence not part of a race spread across the world, so that was probably not something to worry about. But considering that my logical reasoning of “the contagious disease’s layovers” had its roots in her “Unlimited Rulebook”, it was true we couldn’t completely rule out that risk.

“I could not care less about you.”

“How awful. Even though I already consider you, Shinobu-nee-san, to be a sworn friend.”

“I shall kill you until you die.”

“That means I’d die, though.”

That artless, loveless banter was completely ignored by Kagenui-san, who pulled away the curtain without care, without even so much as a knock.

As though it were a refreshing morning.

Perhaps it really was.

I’d been assuming the one that would be even harder to convince was the one actually receiving the treatment, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster herself—for that true ancestor who’d so clearly declared that she needed no help, even in that hoarse voice of hers, how would we get her to sign the consent form?

She did technically say, “I would’ve gone with that, too, if I could,” but it wasn’t as though those frivolous words were actually committing to the idea.

Before that, how was I going to explain that the cause of the disease was the memorial service held for the thrall under her supervision, Tropicalesque—no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t figure out a way.

I had no choice but to leave the convincing to her sworn friend.

Though I’d pathetically thought that I had to shoulder everything as the proposer of the idea, in the end, I ended up having to foist that role onto Shinobu.

Fortunately, was not a word I could say here.

Because, on the other side of the curtain, Suicidemaster, sleeping together with the break of dawn, was no longer just on the verge of death.

The death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire.

Was in a near-death state.

To the point that she wouldn’t have been able to respond, whether we’d knocked, spoken to her, or even shaken her body—Suicidemaster’s body was being drained away.

If we really did shake her body, it might have crumpled to dust.

There was not a trace of how she’d looked when I’d faced her last spring—there might not be nirvana for vampires, but that mummy resembled one of those Buddhist living mummies.

It was crazy to me that she was still alive in this state, but her remaining lifespan was a matter of hours—or maybe only a matter of minutes… It would not be unusual if she were to lose her life in a matter of seconds.

Perhaps she had already ceased to breathe on her own…

“Shinobu.”

“I understand. You cannot show me such a sight and expect me to leave her be.”

Stepping beneath Kagenui-san’s arm that was holding back the curtain, Shinobu huffily marched towards the throne that acted as a sickbed.

Though she had been acting pretentiously, it was likely true she knew that it was absurd to be unwilling at this stage.

There were no tough and cool developments that occurred, the ones that Shinobu, or perhaps Suicidemaster, were fond of.

“Even before the disease, I suppose I was infected by your softness, first. Dear me. If Deathy does survive this, I am sure she will completely cut me off after this.”

Even as she complained, Shinobu did not stall as she moved to sit astride Suicidemaster’s mummy on the throne—and, into the neck of her sworn friend, who now looked less like a withered tree and more like just a branch, she sank her teeth without a moment’s hesitation.

As she had done with me.

Or with Shishirui Seishirou—she mercilessly thrust her fangs in.

For a vampire, there was no form of contact that could be closer.

Feeling like I couldn’t bear to watch, I flusteredly averted my eyes—I didn’t want to think of this reaction as jealousy, though I had been the one to suggest this in the first place.

It surely wasn’t anything like the feelings of Senjougahara Hitagi when she suggested that I go on a date with Kanbaru Suruga.

But, I’d recalled something she’d said, back when Shinobu hadn’t yet been Shinobu—that it was a breach of etiquette to stare when a lady is eating.

“Is there even any blood left to suck? In Suicidemaster’s veins,”

said Ononoki-chan, coming closer to me.

Had she finally stopped trying to keep me at a distance?

Or perhaps she’d felt some awkwardness in her own way.

“Watching like this, it feels less like bloodsucking and more like bloodletting. But I hope your overly-optimistic plan goes well, oni onii-chan. Or onii-chan for short. Your flimsy, overly-optimistic plan.”

“Well, me being flimsy is the same as always. As well as being even less significant than a virus. So, as always, I figured it was something worth trying, even if it ends in failure.”

“Is it fine to say something like that? Onee-chan is on standby over there so that she can immediately wipe out those two demons if it ends in failure.”

Really?

Well, it was a natural position to take for a specialist—we could not simply have her turn a blind eye. If this treatment, or this clinical trial, were to fail or turn for the worse, then it could mean the return of Shinobu as the King of Oddities.

And it could mean even her sworn friend could regain her old power as well.

Though it was possible that the battle-crazy Kagenui-san agreed to try my plan because she wanted that to happen—however, if I had read things correctly, this clinical trial would have the exact opposite result as what that violent onmyouji desired.

“Oni onii-chan, has there ever been a time where you read things correctly? Aren’t you always misreading things? You seem like you’d misread the word ‘misread’, too. Like, ‘mis-re-add’.”131

“As if I’d do that!”

But, just as she’d said, it was rarer for my readings to be correct—despite how many times Hitagi had told me, “Don’t misunderstand,” I was still piling up misunderstandings, day after day.

As I piled up my sins.

However, it wasn’t necessary for my hypothesis to be completely correct—if anything, it didn’t even matter if almost a hundred percent of what I’d spoken with Kagenui-san about turned out to be a misunderstanding.

Because the anti-vampire virus.

Did not affect humans.

If there was one unmistakable fact that the specialists could agree on, then it may as well be this one—because the crux of my proposed diet therapy was to make Shinobu suck out Suicidemaster’s blood up to its limit, degrading her from being a magnificent true ancestor to being a mere human.

Just as I’d done to the King of Oddities.

Just as I’d made that young girl into a young girl.

“...Excuses aren’t going to work here. I can’t pin the blame on Oshino for this. It was entirely my idea. And I haven’t even fully thought through what the results could be—”

However, just like how the strained-out leftovers of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, after having her blood sucked by me, had no risk of being infected—though she’d taken on some unnecessary risk by growing to a thirteen-year-old form—if Shinobu completely sucked away all of Suicidemaster’s vampiric skills, Suicidemaster would no longer be a vampire and instead be something close to human. And the anti-vampire virus that lay dormant in her body for six hundred years would not take effect.

A host that was “human” would not be attacked.

“But wouldn’t what’s left of Tropicalesque migrate into Shinobu-nee-san’s body? In that case, Shino-nee may as well be drinking pure poison.”

“For that, I’ve already explained it to Kagenui-san.”

“And I’m telling you now to explain it to me, too. Want me to bite you for no reason?”

“Scary… But all she needs to suck out is the component of the curse that was cast upon ‘Princess Beauty’. While leaving Tropicalesque’s genes behind.”

After all, if she sucked out everything, her sworn friend would die.

If anything should be left, it would be her devoted butler—if only the curse that had been filtered through Tropicalesque’s direction were to be sucked out, then, well, that had originally been Shinobu’s, anyway.

Just like six hundred years ago, when she had still been “Princess Beauty”, the curse would not affect herself—of course, it would not affect others, either.

As if it could.

The sight of Shinobu crudely slurping away at her sworn friend’s blood, which probably didn’t even amount to a few drops even if you reached into the tiniest capillaries—what about that was beautiful?

"............”

My anxieties increased all the more.

I’d called this love, but this was really a passionate camaraderie.

It was neither charity nor goodwill.

Though it was hard to watch directly, I couldn’t keep myself from stealing glances at the site of her meal—when I’d sucked the blood of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, could I have done so with such passion, with such enthusiasm?

…Maybe this really was jealousy.

Perhaps I’d been possessive, with a desire to hold control over her, as the only person capable of rehydrating that golden-haired young girl… This was forcing me to confront my own ugliness.

“Pwah.”

While I was having trouble deciding if I was uncomfortable staying here or if the curse of “Princess Beauty” was making it hard for me to be still, Shinobu finished her meal—it had felt like a long time, but she had probably only licked up the few drops of blood that remained within the mummy.

“‘Twas delicious. Now, who knows if what shows up will be a demon or a snake132—though ‘twould be a problem if a demon shows up. It had better be a human. Ka ka.”

Perhaps she was feeling refreshed after finishing her meal, or perhaps her own “curse” having returned to her body after six hundred years gave her an effect similar to blood doping, but Shinobu’s face displayed an oddly happy expression as she descended from Suicidemaster, who did not appear any different at a glance.

“Did it go a’ight? Former Heartunderblade. Or, Princess Acerola?”

“Hm?”

Maybe because Kagenui-san’s dialect had been particularly pronounced with that question, Shinobu seemed momentarily puzzled—or, maybe it was because she’d been so abruptly reminded of the times when she’d been the princess of a now-ruined country.

“Who knows? I shall leave you specialists to make that judgment. All I did was get a taste—like a poison taster, I suppose.”

As she spoke, she came back down to us.

Unlike the huffy way with which she had marched up, she had daintily pinched the hem of her cloak to gracefully descend the stairs. She might not have realized that she was acting that way, but her conduct was much like the steps of a princess.

“But, just one thing. There was just one thing wrong with your deduction, my master.”

“What?”

There was no way I only got one thing wrong, right?

That was what I’d started to think, but Shinobu continued with a nonchalant expression—though I should say, it wasn’t like she hadn’t eaten at all.133

“You had said that the anti-vampire virus, with the curse at its center, had mutated with the goal of killing me, but that was not the case.”

“Eh? If that was wrong, then that’s basically saying everything was wrong—”

“Truly, they had fused together quite murkily, and they had mixed together quite chaotically. I was unable to completely separate out the Tropicalesque component—‘tis like having removed the peppers from Chinese pepper steak, but the bitter taste is still there.”

So, his intentions ended up being more or less conveyed to me—said Shinobu, licking her lips coquettishly.

“His motive had not been to kill me.”

“Well then, why the hell’d he put on such a global act? In the end, was it just destructive impulses, and he was just ventin’ his anger at all the other vampires?”

“That would just be describing you, no? They were far from destructive impulses—‘twas correct to say that he regretted being unable to kill me six hundred years ago, but his ultimate objective was not to kill me. It might be odd for me to speak in defense of him—but primarily, he was trying to keep me and Deathy apart.”

Jealousy—love.

Though unintended, I could understand those feelings now.

“In other words, he was lamenting the fact that his mistake—his suicide—ultimately led to Deathy and I forging an even stronger bond. To the extent that, after his death—he could not fully die. And, six hundred years later, when he once again encountered me, whom he had failed to kill, still alive, his regret skyrocketed to the extremes.”

He must have thought something like this.

This girl.

I cannot accept her as my master’s thrall—

“...I was not exactly her thrall, but technically speaking, that is nothing more than an understanding between me and Deathy. ‘Twas much like being unable to accept his new ‘little sister’.”

Not only was it a common example, it was a familiar one.134

I had once been in Shinobu’s position.

With Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s first thrall, Shishirui Seishirou, I had been on unbearably bad terms—we were fundamentally incompatible.

“Not to nitpick, Shinobu, but in the end, wasn’t he trying to kill you, after all? In order to kill you—”

“He was not trying to kill me, but turn me back from vampire to human. Just as I had tried to do to you two years ago—and just as I have done now with Deathy.”

From vampire to human. Turning a vampire into a human.

When she said that, I suddenly understood.

It had been a hole I’d been unable to fill until the very end, but the remaining mystery of why Tropicalesque’s contagious disease turned the infected vampires into mummies was not due to a failure or a mistake—so why did the vampires’ corpses remain, instead of being reduced to ashes, bursting into flames, or returning to the earth?

I’d come up with perfunctory ideas like, it was to leave the remains to continue spreading the virus, or it was to keep them as preserved foods, but that wasn’t it, it wasn’t it at all—if anything, my original instincts had been closer to the answer.

The mummies of the high school girls.

The ultimate dried-out forms of the ones who’d failed to become vampires.

It was true that they were different enough to consider them completely different things when comparing them visually, but if they were that different, why hadn’t I been able to consider the opposite?

In the opposite direction, they were.

Mummies of vampires that had failed to become humans—that was the direction that the evolution had failed in.

If anything, it was like the evolution had become a lost child.

Therefore, if the anti-vampire virus were to be given an official name—

“The Human Disease,”

I said.

“Tropicalesque wanted to turn you back into being human… So that was that butler’s final objective at the end of all those layovers.”

“Indeed. In order to tear apart me and Deathy once and for all.”

Tear apart?

That didn’t seem right.

I probably wasn’t going to be very convincing when I’d already been wrong on such a massive, crucial point, but if that was true, he may as well have just tried to kill her—considering the atrocious properties of the original “witch’s curse”, that would have been simpler.

However, if the evolution was directed to turn Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade—or the shadow of her, Oshino Shinobu—back to human, then it could be because Tropicalesque himself had been a thrall who was a human that had turned into a vampire.

He couldn’t recognize her as a fellow thrall—as a “little sister”.

But perhaps, as a “person”.

“But, in the end, even that failed. The infected vampires all became mummies, with not even their shadows remaining. In terms of their vampiric natures, it’s like their shadows and forms did remain. It didn’t go well at all.”

Ononoki-chan spoke bluntly, without masking her intentions or any shadows or forms.

In actuality, the coffins did have something to contain, and thus the “Corpse Castle” had been filled to the brim with them.135

“Ain’t necessarily the case that they all failed. It could be that we only discovered the failed mummies—if there’s a proportion of the infected that became humans as intended, then they would have mixed into the population of 7.7 billion, and there’d be no way to find them.”

“And Deathy will now be one of them, I suppose—regardless, ‘twas indeed a fearsome virus, to try and lead vampires to their extinction.”

Shinobu had referred to it in the past tense.

It felt a bit hasty of her, but she had completely cut off the origin of the curse in the end. And now that the origin itself was completely clear, it was possible to come up with measures to contain it—there could even be the possibility that, like how the high school girl mummies could be reverted to high school girls, the mummified vampires in the morgue could be resuscitated into their original forms.

Even if they were dead, they were still immortal monsters.

Of course, my hopes might be too high, and that might be nothing more than a pipe dream, and whether or not the specialists would do that in the first place was beyond my power… But at the very least, there was no doubt that the pandemic of the anti-vampire virus was showing its first signs of being concluded.

The ghost, when viewed closely, is just withered silver grass.136

Flowers before a grave.

Even this unidentified disease of unknown origin, after all this, might end up as nothing more than a research subject—and.

“Mm—mmm.”

As Shinobu came down the stairs with a relaxed pace, a groan could be heard from behind her. From the throne sickbed.

“Deathy?”

At the sound of her sworn friend’s voice, Shinobu turned her head.

I thought that she’d regained consciousness rather quickly after receiving Shinobu’s diet therapy, as would be expected of a true ancestor vampire that had lived for a thousand years, but her groan continued into a, “Mmnyah mmnyah…. Zzz…”137

Well, of course.

She was a true ancestor vampire no longer.

Now, more than Oshino Shinobu, and more than Araragi Koyomi, she was closer to human—as though the arrogant and pompous, tough and cool demeanor of the old days were just lies, in a pure voice like that of a newborn baby, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster murmured.

“I can’t eat anymore… Tropicalesque.”

With her head still turned towards the throne, Shinobu made a face as though she’d swallowed something that was more than just bitter—not that I could see from where I was standing, but I could declare with the utmost confidence that she was making that sort of face.

A face that was not beautiful at all.

“Her sleep-talking is as sweet as dessert, I suppose—yes, yes, ‘twas delicious.”

It had been a quarrel between siblings in which no one would dare get involved, but it was like a hell that swallowed up the whole world, or a demon world that swallowed up an entire race—and now, this was its conclusion, which could not be told to anyone.