Monogatari Series - Volume 4 - Chapter 0.08

008

You can’t schedule a time or a place for vampire hunting.

The need can pop up whenever and wherever, and searching for the vampire to then slay is the vampire hunter’s way─but it’d be quite a problem if such an extraordinarily troublesome, ultra-pragmatic, and dangerous doctrine were put into practice in a modern-day provincial town in Japan.

An intermediary between here and there─Oshino managed to live up to his boast, selecting a location for our battle where not a soul would notice us even if we were to rampage around.

I had to say, the choice of a school’s athletic field wasn’t a bad choice at all. A school at night was like a blind spot, in a way. A place that noisy and boisterous during the day undergoes a transformation at night─and gets no one’s attention. It seemed made for vampire slaying.

Of course, we couldn’t enter into the school building. With the teachers’ room, the principal’s room, and other targets for burglars inside, it was protected by a professional security system.

However─as long as you could scale the school’s gates, its athletic field was accessible.

So, for a short period of time, there would be no witnesses.

An excellent spot for a battle.

“…But why Naoetsu High?”

“Because it’s where you go to school,” Oshino had answered me.

“Yeah, and I’m asking you why you chose the athletic field of the school I go to. I guess it’s far away from any houses, so it might be a suitable battleground in that sense. But doesn’t it seem obvious that it’ll be hard for me to fight there?”

“Hard? You’ve got it wrong. It’ll be easy,” Oshino said, wagging his finger. “It’ll be easy for you, Araragi. You’re a brand-new vampire who turned just the other day, and you’ll be facing an expert vampire hunter─wouldn’t you want to go around on familiar terrain?”

“Gore Round? Is that some kind of vampire ability? I don’t know how to use that.”

“Go around. With a locational advantage.”

It wouldn’t be fair otherwise so he threw that in for free─that was how Oshino put it.

I understood his point─but still, I didn’t like the idea of doing something as strange as this at the high school I attended…

Oh well. Let’s see some superpowered school action then, quite literally this time.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

My greeting sounded somewhat moronic. But my opponent had arrived before me, so it was something I had to say, even if I wasn’t late.

In the center of the field sat the mountain of a man, cross-legged. With his mouth shut and his eyes closed, he nearly seemed to be in a state of Zen meditation.

In response to my voice, the man─Dramaturgy─said, “■■■■.”

No, I didn’t know what he said.

Then─“Ah yes, the language of the land I am in,” he said as he stood.

He really was huge. It was like he had to be careful not to hit his head on the moon.

Hm…?

He didn’t have his flamberges? Those wavy greatswords?

Not even one?

Wha?

“Do not misunderstand─my brethren,” Dramaturgy began speaking to me in stunningly fluent Japanese, though he’d taken so long that I’d gone and entertained suspicions about his unarmed state. “I have not come here to slay you.”

“……”

What was this guy trying to tell me now? I flinched into a battle stance.

I mentally flipped through the index of Aikido from Step One! which now sat, with the rest of my bag, outside the gates. What moves could I use in a real fight… Umm…

As I was lost in thought, Dramaturgy repeated words to the same effect. “I did not accede to the pronouncements of that man─that frivolous-looking man─out of a desire to slay you.”

“If you’re not here to slay me─then what?”

That frivolous-looking man.

He had to be referring to Oshino. So he looked sleazy even to guys like Dramaturgy…

“I hope to recruit you,” Dramaturgy revealed, forgoing any formalities and cutting straight to the heart of the matter. “I put this to you. Why not don the garb of a vampire hunter─like myself?”

“…What the hell.” I put on a brave face in reaction to this unexpected turn of events. “Last time we met, you tried to chop me down, no questions asked─so why are you saying this now?”

“Episode and Guillotine Cutter were there at the time. I could not extend this kind of an invitation in the company of those two. But I would regret having to kill a being as rare as you─a thrall of Heartunderblade, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.”

“If I join you,” I asked, “you’ll return Kissshot’s right leg─is that the deal?”

“…You’re quite courageous to call that woman Kissshot, but your conjecture is incorrect. Your first job would surely be to kill Heartunderblade.”

“Then it’s not happening.”

There wasn’t any point in talking. In any case, I was going to turn back into a human─how could I become a kinslaying vampire?

Think about who you’re talking to.

“I see. That is unfortunate. Truly unfortunate. I currently have fifty-three brethren─and you seemed fit to join them, as someone whose mistress seems to have little control over him.”

Little control over me? Was it true, then?

Had Kissshot─failed to make me her servant?

“Fifty-three, that’s a pretty big number. If there really are that many vampire kinslayers, then I suppose Kissshot was right. If I’d agreed, I’d have been Buddy No. 54?”

“No. You would have become number one in no time,” Dramaturgy said with a straight face. “Incidentally, I am currently number one.”

“…Hunh.”

I’d never taken him for some grunt, so I wasn’t particularly surprised. If such a vampire was so eager to slay her─Kissshot really had to be something.

The iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.

The aberration slayer.

I see.

“I see why you wanted to have me join you, paradoxically enough─but next time, try a little harder with the invitation? Shape up or you’d never pick up a girl.”

It wasn’t as if I was endeavoring to imitate Oshino, but I tried delivering a sleazy line. It felt like the kind of moment where I needed to act cool.

“Ah.” Dramaturgy simply nodded.

Of course the quip didn’t land. How embarrassing.

…But this was my chance.

Dramaturgy had probably left those wavy greatswords somewhere in order to recruit me. Although I got that I was immortal, blades were scary, period─so I was grateful for this turn of events.

Dramaturgy’s greatswords─with which he must have had severed Kissshot’s right leg.

Of the four severed limbs, the only wound that had looked smooth, defined.

It actually seemed difficult to slice like that with a wavy edge─but if Dramaturgy didn’t have them with him, it was an opportunity for me.

The winds favored me─perhaps.

“Then let us begin, pitiful boy. Thrall of Heartunderblade. You have no time to waste, correct?”

“Wait, before we do that, let’s go over the conditions,” I said to Dramaturgy, who had begun to loosen his arms, rotating them around and around. “We need to be on the same page.”

“Very well. Then make sure we are.”

“If I win─you’ll give Kissshot’s right leg back to me, right?”

“Only if you’d tell me Kissshot’s location were I to win.”

“Fine by me.”

“Then it is fine with me, too.”

Let us get to it, he said, rotating an arm─and striking at me.

The sheer speed of it belied his massive physique, his fist barreling toward me with his whole weight behind it like a pro boxer’s punch.

I could see it.

I could see it with my vampire eyes.

But─even if I could see it, there was nothing I could do about it.

“Agh… Ah!”

A moment later─my left arm was gone. It hadn’t broken, nor had it been torn off.

The impact of Dramaturgy’s punch had blown it to smithereens.

“Ee…Eeeeeeeek?!”

It wasn’t a matter of pain.

Fear had instantly overtaken my body. I mean─I’d just lost a fifth of it!

Reflexively─reflexively, and instinctively─

I started to run away from Dramaturgy.

But after no more than two steps, I tripped over my own feet and nearly fell─and it seemed to be a good thing that I had. A gigantic fist swooped through the air where my head had been only a moment earlier.

I barely avoided tumbling over, supporting myself against the ground with my left hand.

But my mind was racing─left hand?

Huh? My left arm should have been blown to bits─but it was there?

“……….!”

Vampiric─regeneration!

But really, it worked that fast?

While the fabric that had gone flying along with my left arm didn’t regenerate together with it, my bare arm only emphasized the healing powers of vampiric flesh.

I had tried out my physical strength, but I hadn’t gone so far as to test my healing powers─so I was gobsmacked. Though upon further consideration, there was the time at the very beginning when I’d experienced pure hell after exposing my body to the sun─so there was nothing surprising about this level of recuperation.

“What’s wrong? Are you just going to run, thrall of Heartunderblade?!”

“Don’t call me weird names!”

I began to calm down after seeing my left arm regenerate. All of the fear I felt vanished. Yes.

Yes, indeed.

My opponent was a monster─but I was a monster too now.

What was there to be afraid of?

“Raaahhh!” I yelled as I did a backflip.

My athletic abilities had unmistakably improved as well. I’d always thought that you needed a trampoline or computer graphics in order to do a backflip.

Then─I struck a pose and faced Dramaturgy straight-on for the first time.

“Ah ha. So you’re ready to make a stand.”

“Thanks to you─so I won’t ask you to pay for the clothes you ruined.”

As I said this, I began to think.

Dramaturgy.

A vampire-slaying vampire.

Kissshot had told me that all I needed was a good grasp of the characteristics of a vampire. If I remembered correctly─

They were weak to the sun. They didn’t like crosses. They didn’t like silver bullets. They didn’t like holy water. They didn’t like garlic. They didn’t like poison. They died if you stuck a stake through their heart. Those were the weaknesses, right? What other characteristics were there… Well, first and foremost, they sucked blood, which resulted in energy drain. They didn’t have shadows and didn’t show in mirrors.

And indeed, even under the moonlight, Dramaturgy didn’t have a shadow.

Just like I didn’t.

Canines─or rather, fangs. I didn’t really notice them on Dramaturgy, who tended to keep his mouth shut in a straight line.

And─they were immortal?

They had semi-permanent powers of regeneration?

They had eyes that could see well even in the dark?

There was also that bit about shape-changing, where they could turn their bodies into mist or darkness among other things, as well as the healing powers of vampire blood─but none of it really seemed relevant at the moment, I thought rather belatedly.

I didn’t want to make light of Kissshot’s advice─but since both Dramaturgy and I were vampires, it appeared as though everything, both our strengths and our weaknesses, cancelled out.

If I was immortal, then so was he.

In that case─was it down to experience and raw ability?

In terms of experience, he had to have a slight edge on me─well, okay, maybe more than slight. I’d only read an aikido manual on the way…

“So be it!”

Maybe Kissshot was rubbing off on me, because I screamed an old-timey phrase that I never thought I’d utter during my lifetime, and charged like a kamikaze at Dramaturgy.

“I had expected some ruse. I commend you for your guilelessness,” Dramaturgy said, meeting me with his own guileless attack.

Guileless. Or to put it another way, one-note.

No matter how massive his fist, no matter its astonishing speed, three in a row was pushing it. Well, it might have worked back when I was human, but now with a vampire’s eyes, three times was enough for me to adapt.

Forward.

I ducked forward to evade his fist─then, as his log-like arm followed a beat later, I grabbed the earthen pipe of an appendage.

Using the momentum of my opponent’s fist, and in one fluid motion─I transitioned into an arm lock.

Aikido from Step One!

“① Take the opponent’s arm. ② Pull it toward you. ③ Slam down your opponent as hard as you can!”

Going back over the words, they seemed a tad breezy for explaining a technique to a beginner. But it worked.

The seven-foot-plus giant fell hard on the more or less unkempt field without so much as an attempt to break his fall.

Well─he couldn’t because I was making him fall.

From there, I pressed down on his back with one knee and stretched his joints as far as they would go.

“H-How’s that?!”

“…Too clever by half,” replied Dramaturgy, his face still buried in the ground. “Guilelessness served you better─it seems you are still clinging to the common sense you acquired as a human. But I suppose that is only natural─I understand as I was once a human too.”

“Wha? Cut the nonsense and surrender already! If you don’t, I’ll break this arm right now!”

Oops, wait a sec.

I sounded exactly like a character who was about to have the tables turned on him.

It smacked of a cue.

…The common sense I acquired as a human?

Common sense─as in my line of thought?

“Oh…”

Right─of course.

So what if I put an arm lock on him?

What good would that do?

I was going to break his arm? Really?

And even if I did manage to break it─he was a vampire. Wouldn’t it heal immediately?

“O-Oh sh─”

But that wasn’t what Dramaturgy meant, either.

I doubt I’d have been able to do anything even if I’d wised up sooner, but as it was, I only grasped the true meaning of his words after both of my hands, busy twisting his pipe-like arm, had been cleanly severed.

Severed by him?

No, I’d practically severed them myself. By gripping his hand, which had turned into a wavy greatsword.

“Ou… Hrnngh!”

This time, I did feel pain─real pain.

Lacerating pain.

I’d be using that figure of speech with some genuine feeling from now on.

I involuntarily leapt back, distancing myself from Dramaturgy’s body. My two lopped-off hands disappeared before they hit the ground. I looked again to find them attached to my wrists. They had come back into existence.

My physical regeneration didn’t feel to me like I had grown new wrists, like a lizard’s tail─it was as if my hands had simply returned.

And the severed ones disappeared… Or to be more accurate, it was like they’d evaporated.

It was a convenient system, so to speak. Leaving my severed hands on the school’s athletic field wasn’t an option.

Dramaturgy got back up slowly, unhurriedly─you might even say sluggishly.

It was no surprise that it took him time, though. After all, both of his hands had turned into wavy greatswords.

“……”

Shape-changing!

Vampires─could shape-change!

This guy turned parts of his body into weapons!

On that day, too!

It may have been at night─no, I could see fairly well at night with my vampire eyes─so my lingering human common sense was to blame. I’d dismissed the possibility because it went against common sense!

Putting his wavy greatswords away in order to recruit me had been an idyllic fantasy.

The two greatswords─had been one with Dramaturgy.

“What’s wrong? Finished already?” Dramaturgy said.

Despite his advantage, his stern expression remained unchanged─in fact, having bared his blades, he looked to be getting serious only now.

There was too much of a difference in experience. Too much of a gap in general.

We were both vampires─but I could never be like him. His size, the length of his swords… Now that we were squaring off face to face, it seemed impossible even to approach him. His giant body alone must have given him three times my reach.

“I asked if you’re finished. Are you not going to answer me? Was that not─the ‘judo’ of this nation?”

It was aikido.

But I wasn’t good enough at it to be able to say that in reply.

It had been a fluke─I wouldn’t even be able to repeat it, so if he asked about any variations, I wouldn’t know what to do!

Dammit, why had I shown up empty-handed to begin with?

I’d never imagined they were a part of his body, but I was quite aware that my opponent used greatswords.

I should’ve come properly armed, too! If I’d only brought a cannon…

“Only”? I didn’t have those kinds of connections!

“Hm?”

Hold on a second…

Maybe I did have a hand to play.

In that case─

“……”

“I see. So you’ve given up. Very well, then I will go next. And I will keep on carving up your body until your powers of immortality expire─or you cry out for death.”

Dramaturgy began to move─and so did I.

But while he moved forward, I moved backward.

I was making a retreat─in other words, I ran in the opposite direction from Dramaturgy.

“! You would run?!” he yelled.

But I hadn’t taken flight, nor was I routed. I was strictly retreating─retreating in order to set up a reversal.

A coherent plan had yet to take shape in my head, but I couldn’t afford to hesitate─“so be it,” indeed. It was somewhat inelegant, but I had no other hand to play!

I had Dramaturgy beat at sprinting speed if nothing else. By my rough estimate, Dramaturgy weighed over 400 pounds─and now that both of his arms had turned into those wavy greatswords, he could be closer to 650.

No matter how fast his fists, it didn’t mean that he could move fast. Punching was a question of shifting your body weight perfectly.

While I was sure that he could run faster than a human, there was no way Dramaturgy could match me and my pure body weight of 120 pounds. I had to use my advantage to its fullest!

Still, I wasn’t running away. And I wasn’t fleeing at random. I had a destination in mind─it was about “locational advantage.”

I wasn’t the most serious of students, but I’d spent two years at this school─so I at least knew where to find the P.E. storage shed.

I arrived at the shed having put a fair bit of distance between me and Dramaturgy still giving chase─and kicked down its sliding steel door. I knew it would be locked, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t have time to fiddle with the latch.

And─bingo.

Yes, P.E. class at our school included baseball practice!

I took one of the many balls from inside a cage and then tried to remember the contents─of that guide to baseball that I bought together with the aikido manual!

Thank goodness I’d flipped through it after reading the aikido manual just because I’d had some spare time. I would’ve been in trouble had my fingers itched for the classical music book instead!

“① Wind up. ② Transfer your lower-body strength to your upper body. ③ Swing your arm through!”

Again, this was too breezy for a beginner. It seemed like I had no talent for picking out reference materials.

Still─the ball flew in a straight line toward Dramaturgy.

As someone with no experience playing youth-league baseball, this was of course my first time ever throwing a ball in this way (unfortunately, baseball was an elective in P.E. class. I’d selected soccer), but as with the earlier aikido technique, this was what they called beginner’s luck─the hardball landed right where Dramaturgy’s lungs were.

“Guh…”

Dramaturgy, who’d been charging toward me like a freight train, crouched over on the spot as the ball rolled away. He may have been a vampire, but his internal organs seemed to function like normal internal organs, and he was having trouble breathing. Come to think of it, a stake through the heart killed a vampire, so it was natural for the lungs to work as lungs.

That meant an attack on the sensory organs would be effective, too.

Even in the face of immortality, there were ways.

Okay, let’s keep this up, I thought as I grabbed the next ball.

I had a full cage’s worth of them, an embarrassment of riches.

But my control was an embarrassment as in poor.

I seemed to have exhausted my beginner’s luck, as the next five balls I threw didn’t so much as graze Dramaturgy’s squatting body.

One after the next, they dug into the ground next to him. They dug pretty deep, so much so that I needed to go over the field later with one of those heavy rollers or whatever the baseball team used. But even pitches with that kind of impact didn’t serve their purpose if they missed.

And it was such a big target, too!

How would I ever climb the pitcher’s mound in the majors like this? Climbing Mount Everest seemed easier.

“…You seem to be a man who is too clever by half and guileless at the same time.”

Dramaturgy stood while I kept at it. He began running toward me again.

“But that, too─will only work once!”

“…..!”

Dramaturgy and I were now thirty yards away from each other─or thereabouts? Considering his gait…he’d reach me in three seconds! In which case, being partway into the P.E. shed was a minus… Even if I wanted to run, I had nowhere to go!

Out of desperation, half-resigned, I threw what would surely be my last ball─

“Hmph! So long as I know they’re coming, one or two balls as squishy as those will do nothing to stop me!”

Dramaturgy was saying this and charging straight at me when the ball crashed into his face.

The ball stopped him in his tracks.

Not that his previous statement was mistaken. No need for a retraction.

Because the final ball I threw─wasn’t a squishy hardball.

It was a hard hardball. Almost a cannonball.

The shot used in the shot put.

“……”

Gosh, who left it inside a cage for baseballs?

This did deal some damage─Dramaturgy was covering his mouth with his two wavy greatswords and groaning.

Was it…taking some time to heal?

Didn’t vampires heal wounds instantaneously, like with my left arm and my hands?

Was it the shot put?

No, why had I landed a hit with the shot put to begin with? Playing it back in my head, I seemed to have thrown it with some grace, if I do say so myself. But who normally threw a shot put like that?

Why─ah, right, its weight!

I should’ve remembered upon kicking down the steel door. Having turned into a vampire, I had greater arm strength. A regular hardball used in baseball must have been too squishy, and too light, for me. After the bit of beginner’s luck for the first one, that’s why my aim was so erratic.

Something like a shot put was just right. No, even a shot put was on the light side.

In that case…

“Y-You!”

Before Dramaturgy could lift his face─

I’d gone to the back of the shed and dragged out the concrete roller they used to smooth the field.

The roller the baseball team used.

Grabbing and lifting it with one hand─I wound up.

“If I can’t even hit a big target, I guess I’ll have to use a bigger ball!”

Then, transferring my lower-strength strength to my upper body─swing my arm through!

“………gh!”

But the instant before I did─

Nothing had hit him yet, but Dramaturgy crouched down where he was, his wavy greatsword hands raised toward the sky─and I stopped myself from swinging my arm through at the very, very last moment and instead slammed the roller into the ground.

A huge dent formed in the athletic field. I’d nearly crushed my own toes…

“What are you up to, Dramaturgy?”

“It is as it appears. I surrender,” Dramaturgy said in his selfsame tone, his stern expression still unbroken. “Smashed with that thing, with your strength, the damage would be tremendous─it would take me two full days to regenerate.”

“Wha…?”

“You seem to have misunderstood something. Not many vampires have the ability to heal damage instantaneously. True, amongst vampires I am on the weaker side when it comes to regeneration, but you belong to a wholly different category. After all, you are Heartunderblade’s thrall.”

W-Was that so?

Still, I couldn’t take Dramaturgy’s words at face value, so I kept up my guard. I quietly reached for the roller I’d flung to the ground in the nick of time.

“Did I not say that you were number one?”

“……”

“In spite of the gap in raw ability, I thought my experience gave me a chance, for now, to beat you─but it seems impossible. Netting you is beyond me.”

“No─wait.”

While he had me beat in experience─I had him beat in raw ability?

That wasn’t how I saw it, and I still didn’t get that sense.

“Would you be satisfied, then, if I said this? I will never lay my hands on you again, so please spare my life.”

Dramaturgy said that without the slightest hint of a grin. The damage from the shot put appeared to have healed─he hardly seemed done for.

Was pulling out now the mark of a pro?

A professional. Quitting while both of us were still fine…

“…Kissshot’s right leg. You’ll give it back?”

“Yes.” Dramaturgy nodded, then returned the wavy greatswords that were his hands to their original shape. “I am keeping it hidden somewhere at the moment─but I will deliver it to that frivolous man as soon as I may. Is that enough to make you happy?”

“…Yeah.”

“Then we have a settlement,” he said─and suddenly began fading.

I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but they weren’t. While a vampire’s eyes could misrecognize, they couldn’t be deceived.

His body─was melting away into the darkness of night.

Shape-changing. Turning one’s body into mist─and just like that, Dramaturgy disappeared.

But after he had vanished completely, his voice echoed across the field.

“Thrall of Heartunderblade.”

“What is it,” I replied into the darkness.

“Allow me to invite you once more. Will you not join us?”

“Ain’t happening,” I flatly turned him down. The answer wouldn’t change no matter how many times he asked. “That kind of thing doesn’t interest me one bit.”

“……”

“I’ve had my fill of superpowered school battles.”

There was no reply to my line. He seemed to have completely melted away into the dark.

Would he keep his promise? I felt a bit anxious, but then reconsidered. It was to make that happen that Oshino had arranged this. And either way, this Dramaturgy vampire seemed like the type to keep his word.

Guileless and straightforward.

Another formerly human vampire, was he?

Well, in that case, it would’ve been nice to talk to him a little more─a part of me thought that, but nothing would have been more pointless.

The two of us didn’t mix.

They were trying to slay me and Kissshot─and I wanted to get her limbs back from them.

It was that simple.

“…That takes care of the right leg.”

One fourth of the way there.

It had only taken a few minutes, but it felt like I’d lived five lifetimes─my body may have been immortal, but this was rough work.

Rough work─but only three quarters left.

Right, time to tidy up and head home…

It seemed that thanks to my powers of recovery once again, I wasn’t physically tired at all. But I was exhausted mentally. Clean up the balls, then flatten the ground…but what would I do about the steel door on the P.E. shed?

I’d kicked it down.

…Well, it couldn’t be helped. I’d try my best to force it back into place.

“Um…so I guess I should start by cleaning up the balls I threw everywhere?”

And then─just as I lifted my face─

I think I’ve already hammered this point home, but─thanks to my vampire eyesight─I noticed someone in the shadows of the school building, far off on the other side of the athletic field.

“Someone”? Who?

It wasn’t Dramaturgy… Could it be one of the remaining two? Episode, or Guillotine Cutter?

No, no way… I was supposed to face the remaining two at a later date. In that case… Could it be Oshino?

Despite all his talk about being neutral, he was actually watching over me from the shadows?

Just like the hero’s master in a boys’ manga!

I didn’t remember ever agreeing to become his disciple!

Ah, but the thought still made me a little happy─

I even made such a mistake, but that someone wasn’t Oshino, either. I took a dozen or so steps closer at an angle to get a better view of the school building’s shadow, and finally, my eyes made out the figure.

Pupils that silently looked in my direction.

It was Tsubasa Hanekawa.

“……Wha?”

What? Why was she here?

She hadn’t followed me, had she?

Had she tailed me? Even after I’d chased her away so meanly?

I was too confused to do anything and simply stood there like a statue─but despite the distance, Hanekawa seemed to realize that I’d noticed her and began walking my way.

Stomp, stomp, stomp.

I could almost hear her footsteps.

Ack…

She was three times as scary as Dramaturgy.

Why are girls so scary… Or did I feel that way because I was facing Hanekawa?

A model student. Tsubasa Hanekawa, class president among class presidents.

“What was that just now?” she asked straightaway.

In the time it took for Hanekawa to reach me, I’d decided that my best course of action was to play dumb, but her tone suggested that she wouldn’t let it go at that.

She’d seen me…

She’d probably…seen everything.

Not that I’d be in the clear if she’d only seen the last minute…I’d picked up that roller with one hand.

“I went looking for you after that. I lost track for a bit, but then I found this bag in front of the school gates.”

As Hanekawa said this, she held up her right hand to show me the very bag containing the aikido manual, the baseball guide, and the book of classical music recommendations.

“So I thought you might be inside school. I did have to climb over the gates, though.”

“……”

Awfully aggressive for a model student. Still─leaving the books outside the gates was a misstep, though I never imagined something that minor leading to this fix…

“Hey, Araragi? I was too far away to see clearly, but…weren’t you just doing something out of a fantasy novel?”

“…What’s it have to do with you?”

It was all I could say.

Dammit.

Right when I thought I’d taken care of things for the time being by winning back Kissshot’s right leg and earned myself a breather, I had to do it again.

I had to wound Hanekawa again.

“And why are you tailing me, anyway? I don’t get it. I told you not to follow me around─stop pretending to be my friend just so you have an excuse to stick your nose in my business.”

“…You’re not the type to say that kind of thing, are you, Araragi?”

Hanekawa’s eyes were honestly frightening. They weren’t cold eyes, like Kissshot’s─if I had to describe them, I’d call them probing.

Eyes that bore a hole, that saw through you.

Eyes that forced you to recognize how shallow you were.

“I feel bad that I’m making you say these things─it must mean you’re in such a tough spot that your only option is to say them, right?”

Hanekawa held the bag in her right hand out toward me.

I took it.

If she was only here to deliver me some dropped items, our exchange would now come to an end.

“I’m sorry for taking so long to notice. But,” she continued, “I want to help if that’s the case.”

“You’re really pushy, you know that?” I said, squeezing the words out of my throat. “You’re reading too much into things. I was just bored of hanging out with you. I prefer to be alone.”

“Liar. You’re not a misanthrope or the world-weary type, Araragi. I can figure that much out. At least, you seemed to be having fun when you were talking to me.”

“Like I said, I was only after your fortune!”

“And like I said, my family isn’t that rich!”

“Then I was only after your toddy!”

“I don’t drink, and you shouldn’t either!”

Not what I meant to say!

“No, I’m telling you I was only after your body!”

“Which is it, my toddy or my body?!”

“Your body!” I yelled. I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. “Fine then, I’ll make up with you if you show me your panties again!”

“Okay.”

Meanwhile─Hanekawa was utterly calm. Unperturbed, not even moving an eyebrow.

In one fluid motion, she turned up her school uniform’s skirt, showing me the underwear it hid inside.

The deep-gray article was made of a felt-like material. It had a simple design, featuring neither patterns nor decorations, but that served only to bring out the flavor of the material itself.

“Is this okay? Can you see them all right?”

“……”

“Do you want me to take off my blouse, too?”

Hanekawa said the words quietly, still holding her skirt upturned.

Oh, I thought.

Now, for the first time.

I was finally meeting Hanekawa. We weren’t passing by each other─we had met, head-on.

Right. She was a cool person─but that wasn’t all.

She was a strong person.

Compared to me─she wasn’t even in the same league.

“…I said some horrible things. I’m sorry.”

I bowed my head, bending forward as far as my body would let me.

Hanekawa still had her skirt held up, but it should go without saying that I wasn’t bowing my head in order to get a better view.

It was to apologize to her.

And to ask her.

“Please be my friend.”