Monogatari Series - Volume 4 - Chapter 0.01

Chapter 0- Koyomi Vamp

001

I suppose I need to get around to talking about Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade. I probably have a duty to do so. During the spring break between my second and third years as a high school student─I met her. It was a shocking meeting, and it was a catastrophic one. In any case, I must have had terrible luck─of course, in the same way that I was unable to avoid that bad luck, even if I somehow had, I doubt someone else would have met that fate. It actually seems extremely irresponsible to talk about my bad luck here. Maybe I should just be upfront and say that it was my fault. In the end, I think it was a chain of events only made possible because I was me.

A chain of events.

Actually, while I used those words just now without giving them any particular thought, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what events bookend this chain. Where this incident began, what path it took, or how it ended─I can’t declare the precise truth of the matter. It could be that it has yet to end, even now, or perhaps it hasn’t even started. And I say that not as a form of pretention or wordplay; that is what I honestly believe.

Ultimately, I can only observe the incident from my own perspective, so I will never be able to know what that chain of events truly meant to anyone else─or what it didn’t mean. Asking “them” may allow me to come to some degree of understanding of the circumstances, but even then, there’s no way for me to know if their words are true.

What I have is not the truth, but an understanding.

And perhaps that’s enough.

But to begin with (and this is the one thing I can say definitively), such is the nature of the girl at the center of this all─Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

Someone who only holds meaning for the observer.

Someone whose meaning changes depending on the observer.

Someone whose meaning cannot be agreed upon by her observers.

A vampire.

Of course, I probably don’t need to give you a detailed explanation of what a vampire is. Whether in comics, movies, or games, that is a vein long since mined dry. The majority of Japanese people must be closely familiar with them, even though they aren’t creatures born from the culture of this country. You might call them a bit of an old notion.

Still, spring break.

I was attacked by a vampire, one of these notions we now consider dated twice over.

You could say it was stupid.

In fact, I think I was stupid.

And it was due to the stupidity of none but yours truly that I ended up experiencing two weeks of hell─a hell that took up the entire stretch of spring break, end to end.

If it was one big joke, it sure felt like hell; if it was hell, it sure felt like one big joke.

Like I said earlier, it will forever be a mystery to me when this chain of events began, where and how it transpired, and in what manner it ended. But while that may be an unsolvable dilemma, I am absolutely certain of when my own personal hell began and when it ended.

March 26th to April 7th.

Spring break.

I would come to learn that creatures such as her─Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade─are known as “aberrations.”

Aberrations.

Monsters.

Inhumans.

In that case, the one thing above all others that caused me to experience hell was the fact that I observed her─at that moment, at that location, in that fashion.

I was a woefully unsuitable observer.

And yes, a stupid one.

While telling you about her would, by necessity, entail fully exposing my own stupidity─an act you may see as masochistic─I do think I have to talk about that vampire.

About the story of the wound I received from her.

About the story of how I wounded her.

I have to talk about it.

I have a duty to speak.

That is my responsibility.

…This preamble has gotten quite long, but I’d like to ask for your understanding here─though I’ve pompously gone on about responsibility and whatnot, it’s merely the responsibility of a stupid jester. There’s no telling when I’ll founder─while it’s a timid thing to say, I honestly do not have the confidence to finish telling this story. That is why I’ve been dragging out these proper-like preliminary remarks.

Even so, I couldn’t possibly go any longer. And after I finally begin the story, it could become like a rock rolling down a hill so that it’ll be harder to stop. But to be sure, just in case it turns out that I lack the resolve, allow me to divulge how it ends here in advance.

This story about a vampire has an unhappy ending.

It concludes with everyone becoming miserable.

And that’s just the hell’s ending. The chain of events may not yet be over, and in any case, my responsibility to her will be a lifelong affair.