Monogatari Series - Volume 4 - Chapter 0.11

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Episode. A man with sanpaku eyes and a white traditional school uniform who carried on his shoulder, with one hand, a gigantic cross triple the size and the cube of the weight of his body.

Apparently, he was a vampire hunter. A man who slew vampires in order to collect bounties. A hit man, if you will.

And to add to that─he was supposedly a half-vampire.

Hunter of, and half.

Though he could even look juvenile, contrary to his appearance he was an expert hunter of vampires who’d taken Kissshot’s left leg from her. That was Episode.

“…He sure is late.”

Three days later─April 4th.

“Four” being homophones with “death” and an unlucky number in Japan, the date felt vaguely ominous to me, but I wasn’t complaining about such trifles.

I tried to check my wristwatch, only to realize that I’d forgotten to wear it─I thought I’d check my cell phone instead but had forgotten it too.

No good.

I wasn’t calm after all.

It was fine, though─like the vagabond he was, Mèmè Oshino, the man I’d most want to contact in a tight spot, didn’t own a cell phone.

To hear him say it, though, it was just that he hadn’t a clue when it came to gadgets. True, nothing seemed more far-removed from yokai and aberrations and such as a cell phone.

Either way, it was the night of April 4th.

I had once again come to the athletic field of Naoetsu Private High School at night.

For round two, of course.

To fight Episode, the second of the three vampire hunters.

I had been giving it a lot of thought over the past three days, but my ultimate decision was to show up empty-handed, like the time I battled Dramaturgy.

I’d accepted Hanekawa’s view on the matter.

“I think it would be better if you didn’t have any weapons. I mean, a normal weapon couldn’t handle your so-called vampiric strength, and even if we found one that could, what if the police pulled you over for a stop and frisk?”

“……”

She was all too right, but bringing it up at this stage?

“Hey, if that’s the deal, I think the authorities need to be stopping and frisking those three vampire hunters more than me.”

“But these people are professionals, aren’t they? They must have the know-how to avoid that sort of thing.”

“Hmph.”

Come to think of it, Dramaturgy could even turn his body into mist.

Plain human restrictions wouldn’t hinder them.

And so, that’s why I was bare-handed─and though it felt like I hadn’t learned my lesson from last time when I’d tried and failed to take on Dramaturgy’s dual-wielded wavy greatswords with my two empty hands, Hanekawa, her usual impressive self, had shared with me a number of observations she’d made simply by watching the battle from the shadows of the school building.

They were mostly red marks. But if I could put my experience to use this time…

As usual, Kissshot’s advice wasn’t very helpful─a flashback scene of how I sought it follows.

“A vampire hunter and a half-vampire─well, even I know that much vampire terminology, but couldn’t you give me some more details, Kissshot?”

Her body now a twelve year old’s, Kissshot had this to say in reply: “I forgot.”

She forgot…

She was puffing her chest out as haughtily as ever─having gone from ten to twelve, which meant the onset of puberty, her chest was budding─but it certainly wasn’t a reply to be dispensing haughtily.

“Mm. My powers of recall have weakened. Oh, had I already mentioned that?”

“I do appreciate the humor, but…”

“Hmph. Wait one moment.”

With that, Kissshot held the fingers of her right hand in a straight line by her head and, without skipping a beat, dug the four nails into her temple.

The blond girl’s tiny right hand vanished into her head down to the wrist. Blood began to spurt out, evaporating and disappearing each time.

“H-H-Hey…”

“One moment. I’ll remember in no time.”

Kissshot proceeded to rummage around inside her own head, which is to say she was mushing around her brain. Not only blood, but a liquid like spinal fluid was also shooting out of the wound.

“…!”

No no no no no no no no no.

Forget an anime adaptation twice over.

What’s more, maybe her fingers were getting caught up in her ocular muscles, because her right eye made idiosyncratic movements like she was under demonic possession.

L-Literally searching through her memories…

I’d heard of some strange mnemonic devices before, but this took the cake.

“Ah.”

Kissshot finally removed her reddened hand. She wore a refreshed smile.

“I remember.”

“What…” I prompted as I watched the blood that stained her golden hair red evaporate before my eyes, “What did you remember?”

“As thou could surely tell from his attempts to win thee over, Dramaturgy does not hunt vampires out of any sort of hatred. But Episode is different. The fellow detests vampires.”

“He detests them? Why? He’s half vampire, right? Well, he’s a vampire hunter, so I didn’t think he’d be on our side or anything─”

“No, though it is difficult to say decisively with such a small sample size, most half-vampires come to hate vampires.”

“Why?”

“Well, to put it simply, ’tis because half-vampires are not accepted into the world of vampires. Nor is that reason enough for them to be accepted into the human world. And so─they hate their vampire blood.”

“Wouldn’t that make them hate humans just as much, though?”

“They do not think well of them, but what use is it hating those weaker than you?” Kissshot replied bluntly. “They may be but half-vampire, but their strength is leagues beyond the average human’s. Episode in particular seems to have a strong hatred of vampires. I’ve no knowledge of his upbringing─but I imagine I would prefer to stay ignorant of it. So do not assume that he will give up easily. While work may have driven Dramaturgy, emotions move Episode.”

“Huh.”

So he was less of a pro than Dramaturgy.

“While a half-vampire’s immortality is not as strong as a vampire’s, their breed is notable for their near lack of vampiric weaknesses. They are even capable of walking in daylight─and of casting shadows.”

“Huh… They cast shadows?”

“In other words, in exchange for half of their strengths, they eliminate nearly all of their weaknesses.”

“Ah…”

Okay. I shouldn’t be too quick to draw conclusions─but him not having any weaknesses was kind of rough.

“So, how can I beat him?”

“Eh? Well, by being thy usual self?”

“……”

Thank you, Kissshot, for your excessive faith in me.

And thus─the night of the battle had come.

For the past three days, I had been absorbed in manga. I couldn’t blame any onlooker for thinking that I was goofing off of or at least slacking off, but I’d covered nearly every superpowered school action series in serialization.

Oddly enough, reading manga out of necessity meant taking it slow no matter how much of a page-turner it was… But every day including that day, Hanekawa came to the abandoned cram school right after the sun set to bring me more manga, so it wasn’t as if I could stop. I’d even received a gift card, but I was told that it’d be best if I kept from going outside too much.

It was Oshino who told me that.

On the night of April 1st, right after Hanekawa left to go home, Oshino returned─and that’s when he told me. I regretted just missing my chance to introduce Hanekawa to him, but then, he could have been waiting for her to leave, so I didn’t press the point.

“I know I’m supposed to stay neutral here, but that’s a pretty good idea. Li’l missy class president really has her wits about her,” Oshino said. “But I think I might have to oppose the idea of you walking around outside when you don’t even have a match. They might seize the chance to go after you.”

“Wait─but couldn’t you negotiate that?”

“One of the tricks to negotiating is to not give away any opportunities for free. I don’t think they’ll try to lay their hands on you, but you wouldn’t want them tailing you.”

“Even if they do, they can’t find this place, right?”

While it didn’t affect Kissshot and me, who lived within it, and barring Oshino, who’d put up the barrier in the first place, he’d said it was that effective.

“Of course I’m confident about the barrier. But I want to squelch any risks.”

“Risks?”

“Missy class president is coming by again tomorrow, no? If you want a wider variety of titles to read, try asking her then. Oh, and while I think the barrier will cause her to get lost even on her second and third trips here, that’ll just have to be part of the package.”

“B-But─”

“And of course I can’t help you, so if she says no, you’ll have to ask a different friend.”

I didn’t have other friends.

I had no choice but to rely on Hanekawa.

“Oh, and let me borrow them when you’re done.”

With that obnoxious parting remark, Oshino left.

He’d gone back out only minutes after coming home… When did the guy sleep, anyway? I saw him lying around often enough, but I couldn’t remember him ever sleeping. Was he hustling that much with his negotiations?

In that case, I supposed I could at least let him borrow some manga.

For her part, Hanekawa continued to be really cool─when I asked her during her visit to the abandoned cram school the next day, the second of April, she agreed to be my “shopper” right away. For three days straight, until today, the fourth of April, she’d gone and bought for me her recommended manga & my requested manga.

She was way too cool.

“Do your best, all right?”

Even today, as I left the school for the first time in three days, she sent me off with those encouraging words. Simple words that touched me.

“Jeez…if I do get to turn back into a human, how much thanking am I gonna be doing?”

At that moment─I was missing the mark completely.

Even at that point, the strength of the woman called Tsubasa Hanekawa, but also her precariousness, hadn’t registered with me.

“I wonder if she’s gotten home by now…”

Just as I muttered those painfully idyllic words, considering later developments─Episode finally appeared.

Appeared on the athletic field of Naoetsu Private High School.

Appeared─like a cloud of mist.

“……”

A vampire hunter.

A half-vampire.

No weaknesses as a vampire. Yet─though halved, endowed with the powers of a vampire.

A somewhat frail-looking man─with sanpaku eyes.

White traditional school uniform.

He could look juvenile─but the gigantic cross he slung over his shoulder with one hand worked to dash that impression.

Just like the other day, he wore a faint smile─and glared sharply at me.

Episode.

The man who had stolen Kissshot’s left leg.

“Gotta love it,” he started in. He offered no apology for being late. “Cracks me up, it really does─old Dramaturgy finding himself on the wrong end of a hunt going after a brat like you. How careless could he have been? I hate all vampires, even the ones that are vampire hunters, but I’d at least thought highly of old Dramaturgy.”

“……”

No shortage of hostility or malice. On top of it, he was making light of me.

Well, if he hated both vampires and humans, that would make me, a former human and a fresh vampire, his most hated type of all.

“So? What am I supposed to do, brat?”

“…Supposed to do?”

“We’re about to have a match, yeah? What sort of match will it be? It doesn’t have to be violent. I feel like I could beat the likes of you at anything.”

“Sorry,” I said, “if you take away the fact that I’m Kissshot’s thrall, I’m just a plain human─even a washout. The only way I could face you is as a vampire against a vampire hunter. The only other thing I could see myself beating you in is rock-paper-scissors.”

“Yeah? Gotta love that.”

I seriously made him laugh, Episode said.

“You’re being awful timid, aren’t ya? I’ve hunted my fair share of formerly human vampires─but they were all more cocky, y’know? Like they’d become omnipotent. They were acting like they were gonna rule the world when all they’d gained were the powers of a mosquito. Gotta love it.”

“……”

Maybe he was making a point of speaking “the language of the land,” but it felt really weird for a man who carried such a menacing cross to be saying “Gotta love it” over and over…

Whatever point he thought he was making.

“Of course, I brought ’em all back down to reality. There doesn’t seem to be any need to do that with you, though─saves me some work. So you get a special treat,” Episode said, closing one eye.

Maybe he was winking.

“I’ll kill you without doing any permanent damage.”

“…You used that line before.”

“It’s my trademark line. Gotta love it, huh? If you’re gonna imitate me, don’t just copy it─make it your own.”

Saying this, he held out his hand, the one he wasn’t using to support the cross.

A handshake?

Was this a pre-match handshake?

Maybe he was surprisingly polite in that way… Wondering, I reached to shake his hand, but just as I did, Episode quickly moved his─into the shape of a pair of scissors.

“There, I win.”

“……”

“You can’t even beat me in rock-paper-scissors─as a vampire hunter fighting you as a vampire, I’d win too.”

“People like Oshino make me uncomfortable,” I said, “but people like you─I hate.”

“Hey hey, if you’re saying that about me, you can’t duke it out with Guillotine Cutter. Even I get a little creeped out by how nasty he is. But lucky for you, I’ll be beating you here tonight, so you won’t have to face him.”

“You’re pretty confident.”

“Sure,” he said. “But I agree with you, that bastard Mèmè Oshino is a handful. Gotta love this little farce he set up─whether it’s formerly human vampires or true blue ones, I’ve never had to fight this fair and square.”

“…You know the conditions.”

“Yeah. If I win, you tell me where Heartunderblade is─and if by some freak chance you win, I give you her left leg back. Have I got it down?”

“Yup─that’s it.”

“By the way, do you actually know what those conditions mean?” When I nodded, Episode continued with a grin, “They rule out killing each other. I can’t kill you if I want you to tell me where Heartunderblade is, and if you want that woman’s left leg back, you won’t be killing me, either. It may seem like a rough-and-tumble way to settle things, but it draws the line at killing. How pacifist.”

“……”

A match─that’s how Oshino had put it. Not a fight to the death, but a match.

“And─you’re right. Old Dramaturgy, Guillotine Cutter, and I are all professionals. This is the only way you can win. We’ve managed to choose the single one.”

Was that…true?

Was that what he meant by “balance”?

Did that sleazy man think through all that in putting together these matches?

As a neutral─negotiator.

To the tune of─two million yen.

“Of course, if I knew where Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade was, I’d kill you and her both─once again, without doing any permanent damage,” Episode said, laughing. “I’m warning you, don’t think I’ll go easy. I hate picking on the weak─but I love picking on the evil.”

“Am I evil?”

“Of course you are. You’re a monster.”

“…Aren’t you─”

Aren’t you one, too?

But I couldn’t say so. He was─only half that.

“Huh? Aren’t I what? If there’s something you want to say, spit it out.”

“No, it’s nothing… There’s nothing I want to say. Let’s get started.”

“Yeah, let’s end this.”

And with that, the prologue came to an end.

In contrast to the time I faced Dramaturgy, I was the one to make the first move─above all, I was determined to act first.

I lacked actual battle experience. As soon as I was on the defensive, I’d be thrown off-balance and lose myself─I had to try to attack, at least.

Exactly as I had learned in a manga, I stepped forward and unleashed a punch with all my body weight behind it─but all it met was air.

Or more precisely─all it met was mist.

Episode had turned his body to mist in the blink of an eye─and you can’t punch mist, not to any effect. I staggered ahead, pulled forward by my arm that now traveled with an awkward amount of momentum.

Oops, he’s going to counterattack, I thought─and readied myself, but he was unable to harm me either, transformed into mist as he was.

“Sorry, but you easily outclass me in terms of raw ability, being a thrall of the aberration slayer─I don’t intend to fight a close-range battle,” Episode, still a cloud of mist, cross and all, said, before returning to his original body a significant distance away from me.

The cross returned, too.

Since it had turned into mist with him─was it a part of his body, just like with Dramaturgy?

No, something was different…it seemed to work more like clothes, both Dramaturgy’s and Kissshot’s.

“…What are you thinking of doing from all the way over there?”

“This!” Episode said─hurling that giant cross in my direction.

Carelessly─without getting into anything remotely like a pitching form, unlike me against Dramaturgy─he hurled it with sheer force.

“A…Agh!”

It caught me completely by surprise. I never imagined he’d throw that giant cross, three times his own size─sure, I did almost throw the roller at Dramaturgy─but what kind of vampire hunter tossed his cross?!

So little faith!

I’d figured the cross was a weapon─but I thought he was going to use it like a broad ax!

“…Ack!”

I barely got out of its way.

And when I did, I felt like kicking myself.

Stupid me, hadn’t I learned anything at all? There was no need for me to dodge attacks! Given my powers of recovery as Kissshot’s thrall, I could heal myself in moments─and my plan was to use that fact to my advantage! But thanks again to the common sense I’d acquired as a human, I could not but jump out of the way of what my vampire eyes were able to see. Yet─

Yet this time, it worked in my favor.

The cross I thought I’d dodged had barely grazed my right shoulder─and a moment later, my shoulder began to burn.

It was engulfed in flames.

It─evaporated.

Almost like the time I’d exposed myself to the sun─

“C-Cross!”

I mean─it was totally a vampire’s weak point! Even I knew that much!

Episode had been carrying it all too naturally, and its presence had been so overwhelming, that I’d been paradoxically blind to the fact─or rather, because its sight had caused me no problems whatsoever, I’d disregarded that fact.

Now I understood.

Episode being a half-vampire and not having a vampire’s weaknesses─also meant he was fine around crosses.

Crosses.

A giant cross.

Since seeing it appeared to do nothing, it must have been a weapon whose effect only manifested itself upon direct contact.

Its tremendous effect.

My skin had evaporated─and it wasn’t regenerating.

No, it wasn’t not regenerating─just regenerating at an abnormally slow speed. Even my powers of recovery as Kissshot’s thrall couldn’t keep up.

In that case, it was even worse─than the sun.

Because it involved direct contact, the effect was amplified. A mere graze─had me like this.

What would happen if it hit me for real?!

“Huh…?”

While I was worrying about my wound, Episode had turned his body to mist once more─and was moving while in that form.

I was convinced that he’d take the opportunity to press his attack, but exactly as he’d declared earlier, Episode wasn’t going to close in on me. Where he did go was to the gigantic cross he’d just hurled.

Having grazed the tip of my shoulder and flown another thirty feet or so, the weapon had stabbed half its length into the athletic field. Episode restored his body near it─then pulled out the buried cross.

“That reminds me. When you faced old Dramaturgy, you threw things at him from a distance, too─a good idea. If I ever had to go at it with a character like him, I’d probably do the same, like this!” Episode said─before throwing the cross again.

In my direction.

This time, I dodged it cleanly─but it didn’t mean I could relax. That’s because, at that moment, I perfectly understood Episode’s tactic at long last.

My previous fight with Dramaturgy. The red marks from Hanekawa, who’d been watching, came down to two points.

“What if your opponent tried doing the same thing to you?”

That was number one.

“If that big person with his brawn had caught the shot put or the roller you’d sent his way and thrown it back at you, what were you going to do?”

As for number two.

“The scariest thing with long-distance attacks is running out of ammo. You’re throwing your weapons─so even with a full cage of balls, throwing them thoughtlessly isn’t ideal.”

What Episode was now doing to me, a vampire, masterfully avoided both of those red marks.

For one thing, he was throwing that cross.

No matter what, I wouldn’t be able to throw the cross back at him─how was I supposed to hurl something that I couldn’t even touch? The moment I touched it, that body part would evaporate.

Furthermore, there was no risk of him running out of ammo. He could turn to mist, then go get the cross he’d thrown.

“H-Half vampire…”

He could touch crosses fine─and he could turn his body into mist.

Making the most of his own strengths─he was also exploiting the weaknesses!

“Gotta love it.”

As if to confirm my hypothesis, once again Episode reconstructed his body by the cross sticking out of the ground─and yanked it out.

“I’ll just whittle you down─please don’t mess up dodging it and take a direct hit to the heart. I can’t have you actually dying on─me!”

He threw the cross mid-sentence as though to take me by surprise.

I could dodge it─probably because, as he said, I outclassed him in raw ability. While a half-vampire’s arms could generate a fair amount of velocity, they were still no match for a full vampire’s vision and burst of speed.

But true─at this rate, he could whittle me down.

I had no hand to play─the superpowered school battles I’d read over the past three days didn’t cover this development!

I turned around.

Unsurprisingly, the cross was sticking out of the ground. It almost looked like a gravestone.

A giant cross sticking out of the athletic field!

Then, his body manifested next to it.

“You could surrender, too─not that I wouldn’t just slaughter you tomorrow instead. I don’t care if you think I’m being repetitive or uncreative, I’ll kill you using the exact same method. There isn’t a thing a vampire can do about its weakness to crosses, after all.”

“……”

He was a professional. While he may have been moved by emotions, he was still a pro.

I looked at the shoulder wound I’d suffered at the outset. It still wasn’t done healing─and the pain coming from it was still extreme.

No hand to play.

From the get-go, outside of a quick face-off, there was no way, given my total lack of experience, I was going to defeat a seasoned opponent. If he was going to take his time like this─there was nothing I could do!

I was done for then.

I could run to the P.E. storage shed, but why throw shot puts and rollers against an opponent whose body was mist? How was I to strike back against an opponent I couldn’t damage with physical strikes?

Just as I was coming to an oddly calm judgment that fear had fixed my body in place and that I probably wouldn’t be able to dodge Episode’s next attack, I heard a loud voice.

“A-Araragi!”

No auditory hallucination could be that loud─and upon looking in the voice’s direction, who do I find but…or actually, I already knew who it was after all the conversations we’d had. It was Tsubasa Hanekawa.

She’d appeared─from out of the school building’s shadows. Had she been hiding there, just like the other day?

Ridiculous, Hanekawa had gone home…

“You can’t give up yet! The opponent turns into mist─” Putting both of her hands to her mouth like a megaphone, Hanekawa continued to yell, completely ignoring my confusion. “He turns into mist, so that means─”

“…Gotta love it,” he said.

Episode didn’t even seem to hesitate as he threw the giant cross he’d readied towards me─in Hanekawa’s direction.

Hm?

Huh?

Why do such a thing, the bastard…

“H-Hanekawaaaaaaa!”

I’d heard that Hanekawa’s reflexes were by no means poor. She was a model student. Even her P.E. scores were appropriately off the charts─but of course, within the bounds of human common sense.

Needless to say for a vampire─she was no match even for a half-vampire.

She wasn’t blessed with the necessary vision or burst of speed to dodge the cross─and barely managed to get half a step out of its way.

One corner of the cross gouged her flank.

Naturally, since she wasn’t a vampire, she neither burst into flames nor evaporated from coming in contact with the cross, but the giant crucifix was still a hefty mass of silver.

What was a soft human flank to it?

“……gh!”

I ran over to Hanekawa using every ounce of strength I had in my legs. It felt like I was able to reach her in a split second─and in fact, I was able to catch her before she fell backward to the ground.

But─it was still all too late.

Hanekawa’s uniform was torn, her skin was torn, her muscles were torn, her ribs were torn, her organs were torn. Crimson blood gushed out from her─and wouldn’t stop.

The wound was simply too big to stop the bleeding.

Naturally, neither the pieces of flesh that had scattered from her body, nor the flowing blood, evaporated.

It just seeped into the field.

Taking its time staining it red, red.

“H-Hanekawa, Hanekawa, Hanekawa, Hanekawa!”

“…Hee-hee.”

She laughed─bashfully.

In this situation.

As if she were embarrassed that I’d seen her organs.

A shy smile.

“Be quiet, Araragi.”

“……!”

“Y-Your phone.”

Hanekawa’s complexion was growing worse and worse. But she didn’t let her smile fade.

She only continued to smile as she added, “Forgot your phone, didn’t you? I came─to give it to you.”

“Wh-Who cares about a phone!” I yelled.

But Hanekawa had to know that too. This bit about my phone was just an excuse for her.

Plain worried─she must have come here, instead of going home.

And unable to stand by and watch any longer─she’d showed herself.

She had to have known how dangerous that was!

“Get it together…you’re dealing with mist.” Though the ground grew redder and redder, Hanekawa’s tone remained firm. “Mist. Which means water.”

“…? …Ha-Hanekawa?”

“Araragi.” Her voice still firm, she slowly began to shut her eyes. “What’s your long jump record, roughly?”

Sink.

As if on cue, Hanekawa’s body suddenly grew heavy. But she’d lost so much blood─did human beings grow so heavy just from losing consciousness?

In that case…what happened when they lost their lives?

“Hah. Gotta love it. How long are you going to keep me waiting?”

When I saw him, Episode had already picked up the giant cross that had pierced Hanekawa─and had it readied in my direction.

“If you don’t move, that girl’s body is only going to take more damage.”

“Y-You…”

“Let me just say that you’re the one who broke our promise, thrall of the aberration slayer. This was supposed to be one on one. But I’ll agree to call it even since I laid my hands on a third party.”

“Hanekawa─is a normal human.”

She wouldn’t have counted. What could she have done?

“How could you, to a normal human!”

Or…are humans your enemies as well?

More than targets of hatred─but enemies?

Not just vampires─but humans too!

Still, why lay his hands on Hanekawa─even the advice she’d given me, in a firm tone to the very end before she faded into unconsciousness, sadly passed over my─

“……!”

Mist?

Water?

Long jump?

Oh. Never mind.

Never mind. I understood.

Yes─my “locational advantage.”

I take it back, Hanekawa did count.

Now I could beat him!

“Raaaaaahhhh!”

I screamed with all my might─and charged.

Having gently laid her body on the ground, I was taking Hanekawa’s suggestion and acting on it immediately without so much as revising it.

I drew a straight line from Episode’s current location to “that place”─and came to a halt atop it. It was at the exact same time that Episode hurled the giant cross in my direction. I’d made it─or no, not yet.

The conditions wouldn’t be met unless I dodged the cross!

Instead of leaping out of its way, I ducked─and passing above my head, the cross took a tuft of my hair with it.

Continuing along its path, the cross pierced “that place.”

“What, really? You get mad, but you’re just going to run away? Gah! Lame to the bitter end. Gotta love you!”

Wasting no time, Episode turned his body to mist and chased after the cross.

But I wasn’t idly staying where I was. Still crouched, I used my knees like a spring and leapt up into the air!

The impact from this didn’t simply cause the field to sink in─it cracked. I’d have to flatten it back out later again.

But now wasn’t the time to be worrying about that─it was my first time attempting to maintain my posture in mid-air, and it was fairly hard.

A vampire’s powerful leap.

I had probably jumped about sixty feet up.

And the same distance forward─sixty feet.

Exactly what I had aimed for.

“That place” is where I landed.

“That place”─like the P.E. storage shed, I couldn’t not know about it, having attended the school and taken P.E. classes for two years.

Namely, the sand pit at the edge of the field─I landed there.

With a long jump.

Though without a running start. Not that I needed one.

Either way, it was undeniably a long jump.

I landed right by the cross buried deep in the sand─once again, just as Episode reached the pit.

“Hah─gotta love it! That’s some real power, but you think such a sloppy kick would hit me when I’m a cloud of mist?”

Episode laughed, his body still transformed into mist─when it was no time for him to be laughing.

“You’re mist. Water, in other words,” I said. “What would happen if I dumped sand on you?”

Long jumps sent up magnificent sprays of sand when you landed. Even a regular one, but this was a vampire’s long jump. Nearly all the sand held by the pit danced up from the sheer impact of the landing.

Prior to this, the cross thrown by Episode piercing the pit had whipped sand into the air. My landing there dealt the final blow.

Indeed─Episode’s body manifested.

Just as Hanekawa’s blood seeped into the ground, one might say─not as an intentional act, but as a simple natural phenomenon, Episode showed himself.

“Wh-Wha?!”

“…Ah ha!”

Taking advantage of Episode’s bewilderment, I sprang on his frail-looking body─and as the flying sand began to rain down on us, I used my full weight to pin him down.

I was sitting on Episode’s back, but he still writhed and resisted─I continued to hold him down by force.

I held him down, and strangled his neck.

Episode wouldn’t be able to turn his body into mist for a while.

Then me, with my superior raw ability, would win.

Me.

Me. Me. Me. Me.

“……e!”

I’d kill him!

There was another me, detached and elsewhere, observing me as my mind went blank.

Completely blank.

That I had become a vampire, that I was facing a half-vampire, the stuff about Kissshot’s left leg─

All of it disappeared from my mind.

Just…

Just Hanekawa’s organs. They stuck in my blank mind─and that was why.

I had to do it to him.

This guy─I had to kill─

“Okay, enough.”

Plop.

Right then─a hand landed softly on my shoulder.

“Keep going and you won’t be a human anymore.”

“……!”

I turned around, my hands still on Episode’s neck─to find the man in the Hawaiian shirt, Mèmè Oshino.

As sand rained down, he just stood in it.

“A─Ah.”

For Dramaturgy as well─he said he’d been watching from somewhere. He must have been doing so this time too. I’d completely forgotten─but in that case!

“Y-You could’ve! You could have stopped Hanekawa!”

“Don’t yell. So spirited, Araragi. Something good happen to you today?”

Even at a time like this─Oshino laughed. He wore an obnoxious smile.

“Well, I’m sorry to dampen your spirits, but the fight’s been decided. Just look, he’s passed out.”

“Wha─”

I only noticed after he told me. Episode’s eyes had rolled back in his head. I let go of him, startled, but clear impressions of my fingers remained on his throat.

“Wh…Wha?”

What had I been about to do?

Had I been─trying to kill the guy?

This half-vampire…half-human guy?

But… But Hanekawa.

Hanekawa.

“Hanekawa!”

“Yeah, I saw.”

“Y-You saw? Why didn’t you stop her?!”

“It’s not included in the bill. I’ve only taken on negotiating with three vampire hunters. Anything beyond that requires a separate fee. I can’t get mixed up with ordinary people.”

Two million─his fee, his compensation.

The balance.

“Then tell me that from the beginning! If you had─”

“You would’ve paid another two million yen as missy class president’s fee?”

“Two million? I would’ve paid three!”

“How─how stout of you.”

“You’re joking around at a time like this, Oshino? What’s your deal?!”

“The one you’ve just proposed, Araragi. We have a deal. Three million yen,” Oshino said calmly. “I’ll give you a hint, then. Try using your head, Araragi─what’s that immortal body of yours for?”

“Huh?”

“You’re right, a lone human inserting herself into a battle between a vampire and a half-vampire is no call for murder. That’s going too far─so I’ll use my additional fee to teach you something neat. You shouldn’t be strangling his neck here. Try to remember?”

“Remember…”

What?

I didn’t have the time to be asking myself.

Like Kissshot had done earlier─I flattened my fingers and thrust them into my temple.

So what if we never see an anime adaptation!

I fiddled around inside my brain like mad, sensing every nauseating bit of blood, spinal fluid, and cerebral tissue until I felt sick. And then─

“……!”

Soon enough, I remembered.

A vampire characteristic─I made my decision on the spot. With my hand still stuck in my head, I left Oshino and Episode behind to run to where Hanekawa’s body lay.

Five minutes.

If no oxygen reached the brain for five minutes, it stopped functioning─but that meant if I made it before then, it would do even if her heart had stopped.

It would do. Not even three minutes had passed.

I pulled my fingers out from my temple─and then, I dripped the blood stuck to the hand into Hanekawa’s gouged-out flank, her oversized wound.

Yes, Kissshot had told me. Vampire blood has the power to heal─and in this case, it was my blood, that of the thrall of the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

Of course, being a vampire, my blood evaporated almost as soon as it left my body, and I had to wound myself over and over to keep bleeding─but as I did so, it happened before my eyes.

Hanekawa’s wound began to heal.

Her organs regenerated, her bones regenerated, her muscles regenerated, her skin regenerated─and finally, she returned back to the way she was, with hardly a scar left.

It didn’t even look like regen─more like someone had rewound her.

I tried touching, gingerly.

I stroked Hanekawa’s flank.

Pale, gently sloping, less fleshy than her age warranted─it was so soft and smooth that I was afraid it might crumble if I pressed too hard, but for all that, it existed, without a doubt.

“…Ah, aaah!”

All at once, the emotions that I had been stifling began to flow. My heart was brimming with them all of a sudden.

“Ha-Hanekawa!”

I clung to Hanekawa’s abdomen with everything I had. Even though I’d end up back where we started if I destroyed her slender body by hugging it with a vampire’s strength.

“…Araragi,” Hanekawa said abruptly, having regained consciousness.

No─she seemed to have come to a little sooner.

“Araragi, why are you rubbing your cheek against my stomach, and so fondly too?”

“Uh.”

“Also, my uniform is torn─should I chalk that up to you?”

They say people didn’t always remember the moments before they lost consciousness, and that seemed to be the case here with Hanekawa.

Forget her uniform, her internal organs had been torn.

“My bad, Hanekawa,” I replied without budging, my face buried in her flank.

She was alive, and I just wanted to feel it.

“Stay still for a bit more.”