Monogatari Series - Volume 4 - Chapter 0.14

014

Next day, April 6th.

Afternoon.

Night, in other words, for a vampire, so as usual both Kissshot and I were sleeping in the abandoned cram school’s second-floor classroom, the one with the blocked windows.

I was roused out of bed. By Mèmè Oshino, who hadn’t come home the previous night or even shown himself to us. Who knows where that humble attitude of his from yesterday had gone, as he was now laughing away in his usual, sleazy way.

“Morning, Araragi.”

“…I can’t begin to describe how sleepy I am.”

“Yeah, yeah. Over this way.”

I was pulled out into the hallway, my eyes still blurry─while Kissshot dozed away, not even turning over in her sleep, despite our chattering.

What a peaceful soul. Did she never worry?

“What is it, Oshino?”

“Hm? Er, I don’t know about the hallway… I’m sure Heartunderblade won’t wake up, but let’s go upstairs, just to be safe. Up to the fourth floor.”

“The fourth floor…” As drowsy as I felt, I was still capable of making judgments. “The windows are open up there. What do you think is going to happen once the sun hits me?”

“Don’t worry. It’s raining today.”

“Raining?”

Huh.

Now that I thought about it, it hadn’t rained in a while. Unless it had been while I was unconscious before turning into a vampire, this was the first time during spring break.

Or maybe it had rained during some of the twelve-hour afternoon stretches that I slept through… I wasn’t looking at the weather report, so I wasn’t sure.

“So it’s fine. And with your healing abilities, even in the off-chance that the sun hits you, it’s not like you’ll die on the spot, eh?”

“Tell me that after you’ve had your body evaporate once.”

“C’mon, let’s go.”

Oshino began to wander up the stairs, and I followed him, careful of my step. It didn’t seem to matter what classroom we went into as long as we were on the fourth floor, and Oshino chose the closest door. Once he finally got the thing, with its broken knob, to open, we were greeted by a tragically messy room. He didn’t have the luckiest fingers.

“Hup!”

But he seemed to ignore this fact entirely, dragging a random seat over and sitting on it backwards.

I did the same. Out of a vague impulse to imitate him.

“…That.”

I pointed at the Boston bag Oshino held. My eyes were focused at last. It was the same bag that had held Kissshot’s right leg and Kissshot’s left leg.

Which meant…

“Yep,” Oshino nodded. “Absolutely correct. Both of Heartunderblade’s arms are inside.”

“…I see.”

Relieved, I took a deep sigh. After Oshino hadn’t returned by morning, I was concerned that just maybe Guillotine Cutter didn’t intend to return Kissshot’s arms.

For her part, Kissshot barely seemed to care and went to sleep with a “Morning, is it? Time to sleep.”

A peaceful soul─without a single worry.

That, or I was faint-hearted.

But this was Guillotine Cutter, the man who had called both Dramaturgy and Episode “honest fools” for returning Kissshot’s right and left legs, respectively. It seemed entirely possible that he’d renege on his promises.

No matter how much I fretted, my only option was to hope Oshino could take care of it─

“Hm? Oh, I know what you want to say, Araragi. You’re surprised that Guillotine Cutter kept his promise, right?”

“Well, to be direct about it, yes.”

“That’s where my skills come into play. I am a negotiator, after all─though to spoil it, Guillotine Cutter didn’t actually seem to be interested in returning them.”

“After all.”

“He was being pretty stingy─no surprise there. Unlike the other two, Guillotine Cutter was acting out of duty.”

“Duty, huh.” I recalled the many lines he’d delivered. “Still, is that how you act when you think you’re one of the good guys?”

“Everyone has their own definition of good. You shouldn’t be so quick to repudiate others─he was a villain to you, that’s all. And, despite all he said, in the end…”

Oshino tossed the Boston bag in front of me. Roughly, like it was luggage.

“He did give it back.”

“I’m amazed he did.”

“Like I said, I had to convince him.”

“How? He’s basically a fanatic─or maybe a fantasist to my non-religious eyes. For him, isn’t returning a vampire’s limbs like abandoning his faith?”

“Like I said, these guys will listen if you talk to them. They’re pros, after all.”

“Pros, you say.”

“Yes, professionals.”

My cross-examination must have been starting to annoy Oshino; he tried to bring an end to it with that word.

“Specifically, I told him about how you wanted to turn back into a human after collecting Heartunderblade’s limbs─and how Heartunderblade had agreed.”

“…So you’re saying Guillotine Cutter backed down for my sake?”

“That’s one way to put it, I guess,” Oshino said somewhat vaguely. He seemed to be insinuating something, but then I remembered that this was a guy who spoke in an awfully insinuating tone no matter the time or place. It didn’t seem very meaningful to take it at face value.

His know-it-all pose could be just that─a pose.

In any case, it was a good thing that Kissshot’s parts had been returned. Normally, that would be all, no further discussion necessary. I didn’t want to have to think of Guillotine Cutter again.

I undid the zipper of the Boston bag. Inside were─her right arm, from the elbow down, and her entire left arm, torn off from the joint of its shoulder.

“I did at least make sure he could save face. Of course, I also gave him a very strong warning about kidnapping missy class president. If this were a game of soccer, that would’ve earned him a yellow card.”

“A red card, you mean.”

“Maybe a red card if he’d killed her. Episode would’ve received one if she’d died after what he did─but then, you tried to kill Episode, so let’s call it even.”

“It wasn’t like I was trying to─”

To kill him, I wanted to say, but stopped myself short of the end.

That was a lie, plain and simple.

I’d lost my temper and couldn’t help it─or actually, I didn’t even care what happened.

If Oshino hadn’t stopped me, I probably would have─killed Episode.

I did try─to kill him.

“Er, well.”

“What? You’re so spirited today, Araragi, raising your voice one second and muffling it the next. Something good happen to you today?” Oshino said as if to sweep things under the rug, before taking a peek at the arms inside the Boston bag and pointing to them with his unlit cigarette. “Anyway─I guess this makes all four of her limbs that you’ve fetched. Congratulations, Araragi. Mission complete. I’m as happy for you as if this concerned yourself.”

“A little more empathy, please?”

“Well, it’s not my problem, is it.”

“……”

Sure. It wasn’t his problem.

“I’m impressed, I really am─a mere high school student with no combat experience whatsoever took on three veteran vampire-hunting specialists and defeated all three in a row. I must take my hat off to you.”

“You don’t wear a hat.”

“It’s a figure of speech,” Oshino said, putting his cigarette in his mouth. He didn’t light it.

“…I know this might be a pointless question, but─Oshino, why don’t you ever light your cigarettes?”

“Hm? Well, if I did, it’d be harder to adapt into an anime, right?”

“……”

Why did he care so much about an anime adaptation? It was a complete mystery to me.

“Now now, Araragi. I’m telling you congratulations, but you seem awfully sullen. You accomplished your goal, that’s something to be happy about! It’s like you’re at a wake or something.”

“I still feel doubtful, Oshino,” I said.

It was about─one of the things that bugged me.

I’d been going back and forth on whether to ask Oshino, but now, face to face with his carefree attitude, it felt idiotic to be mulling it over.

If there was something I wanted to ask, I needed to go ahead.

If he wouldn’t give an answer, then that was that.

“It’s about Guillotine Cutter.”

“Hm.”

“Well, I understand in theory─he underestimated me in yesterday’s battle, and as a result I was able to beat him without even getting wounded. I understand that in theory, but Oshino, it’s like you just said. A single attack from a mere high schooler who’d transformed his body for the first time ever─that was all it took to defeat someone as dangerous as him? A man who stole both arms away from a legendary vampire?”

“Mm.”

“And actually, it’s not just Guillotine Cutter. It’s the same for Dramaturgy and Episode. They each took Kissshot’s right leg and left leg─but when you look at what ended up happening, they were easily defeated by me, someone who, as you said, has no combat experience, who’s only ever been in scuffles with his little sister─how could that be?”

I got lucky, you could say.

That it was a fluke.

But─wasn’t there a more constructive answer?

“Is it that they’re weak? Or am I─too strong?”

While I asked the question, I had no guess as to what the answer might be. It baffled me, plain and simple.

But─and I didn’t know why─I felt like Oshino knew the answer. Because he was more neutral than anyone else. Because he was someone who tried to maintain a balance─

“It’s both,” he said, sure enough. “From their perspective, you’re just too strong─and from your perspective, they’re just too weak. After all, you’re the thrall of none other than Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.”

“But is that really the only reason?”

“It’s the only reason,” he, Mèmè Oshino, asserted. “If you’re looking for a reason why an amateur like yourself was able to defeat them, that’s the only one─still, there was a very real chance you’d lose. In fact, the odds were heavily stacked against you. You were quite impressive out there, Araragi.”

“Heavily stacked against me? You brought the situation back to fifty-fifty, didn’t you?”

It was about balance.

I had been granted the locational advantage, killing had been forbidden─and when Hanekawa was kidnapped, I was alerted to a tactic to make up for Guillotine Cutter having that much of an edge.

He made sure that things were fifty-fifty.

But.

“But I’m saying it doesn’t make sense if that’s true. If you start off with that premise─it stops making sense.”

“Stops making sense, how?”

“I’m this strong as a thrall. If Kissshot was in full power mode─how could those three stand a chance against her even if they all attacked at the same time?”

That was my gut feeling.

Even if you went with the lowest possible estimation of Kissshot’s power as a vampire in her regular form, there was no way she could be weaker than me─and on top of that, she had five hundred years of experience.

Five hundred years of experience.

Combat experience.

Dramaturgy’s wavy greatswords, Episode’s giant cross, Guillotine Cutter’s fearsome underhandedness─even together, could they rob Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade of her limbs?

I could only arrive at one conclusion.

It seemed─impossible.

Like there’d be no way.

“You’ve got good intuition, Araragi─keep at it, and you might turn out to be quite the expert,” Oshino said with a sly grin.

Just as I thought that he had no intention of answering me seriously, he proved me wrong.

He continued─and answered my question. “You’re exactly right, Araragi. Those three must have decided to attack her together because they knew they stood no chance of defeating Heartunderblade individually, but even together, they still would have had no chance of defeating Heartunderblade. Only…”

“Only?”

“If Heartunderblade wasn’t at her full power at that moment─things would be different, yes?”

Not at her full power.

Those words began to summon something from within my memories. I didn’t even need to mess with my brain to remember─Kissshot had mentioned it herself.

She had felt under the weather─or something along those lines.

I had thought it was an excuse.

But what if it wasn’t?

“So when Heartunderblade faced those three─it was a fifty-fifty fight,” Oshino said.

“……”

“Well, I was planning on giving this to you whether you asked or not─but I’m glad, Araragi. Giving this to you after you’ve asked me makes things flow smoother. You can be pretty sharp sometimes, Araragi.”

Then, Oshino pulled something out of his Hawaiian shirt pocket and tossed it in my direction. I thought he was throwing his box of cigarettes at me, but that wasn’t it. At any rate, I couldn’t see how the pocket of Oshino’s Hawaiian shirt could fit something that big inside of it.

It was a chunk of bright red meat─it was a heart.

“Eek…!”

I cowered and nearly let it fall from my hands─but somehow managed to maintain enough composure not to. I maintained it but found myself frozen to the spot.

Yet while I stood there, frozen─

Badum badum, the heart continued to pound.

“The heart of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade,” Oshino said. “She’d fought those vampire hunters one-on-three without it─so it’s understandable that she got her limbs torn off.”

“……!”

Of course it was understandable.

Even I understood that a vampire’s power owed to her blood. So without a heart, the most vital element in the delivery of that blood─it was more surprising that all she did was lose her limbs.

“…She hasn’t noticed, has she,” I said.

“Probably not. She thinks that all she’s missing is her limbs─and probably that it really was her not feeling her best that had nearly gotten her killed. She’s too confident─the thought that the rug had been pulled out from under her would never cross her mind.”

“Ah…so that’s how it was.” Huh. “I knew Guillotine Cutter was a crafty one, but stealing Kissshot’s heart from under her nose? So they piled on her afterwards? Well, taking Kissshot’s heart without her noticing must have been pretty hard work. Maybe I should be more impressed by that?”

“No, no, Araragi,” Oshino disagreed. Pretty smoothly. “It wasn’t Guillotine Cutter who took her heart.”

“Huh? What? So did Dramaturgy or Episode steal it and give it to Guillotine Cutter for safekeeping?”

“No, no, no, no. It wasn’t Dramaturgy or Episode, either.”

“Then who was it?”

The spine-chilling thought ran through my head that perhaps a fourth vampire hunter would make his appearance─but Oshino’s reply consisted of a single syllable.

“Me.”

“……”

For a moment, I was speechless.

A number of lines came to me, but I kept them all to myself, none of them seeming cut out for the occasion. Then, without any prompt, Oshino began explaining─and he sounded like the villain of some historical drama giving his soliloquy.

“Yes, I did really start out as a passerby─wandering the streets at night, I found an incredibly powerful vampire, one who was certainly no laughing matter. It wasn’t hard at all for me to guess that she was the aberration slayer, so I plucked out her heart─in order to balance things.”

Because he also guessed, he noted, that a number of vampire hunters would have come to this town as well.

“I plucked out her heart─quietly, so that she wouldn’t notice.”

“You’re…up to such a task?” I asked, recognizing how stupid the question was as soon as it left my mouth─why, the proof was right in front of me.

Moreover, Oshino had stopped a triple attack from Dramaturgy, Episode, and Guillotine Cutter in a jokey pose, looking like a one-legged scarecrow.

It was because he had such skills that he could─negotiate with those three.

“I am,” Oshino replied. “I’m not saying that it was easy or anything─and it wasn’t just hard work, it was absolutely backbreaking. It was especially hard to do it so that she wouldn’t notice. I brought a cross, some garlic, and holy water as my weapons and somehow managed to conceal myself. But even after all of that, I still didn’t know how it would shake out. The odds were no greater and no lesser than fifty-fifty─the dice just happened to fall in the favor of those three.”

“…And after Kissshot, all four of her limbs torn off, barely escaped with her life─she met me.”

“And held onto it thanks to your blood,” Oshino said. “And you became a vampire.”

“…I see. So─it’s not strange at all that I could defeat those three.”

Forget about it not being strange, it made more sense. The difference in raw ability was absolute.

“So was telling Kissshot about an abandoned cram school she could use as a hideout your idea of atoning for it? Even going so far as to put a barrier around the place while we were inside─”

“Atoning for it? I didn’t commit any sin. Again, it was a question of balance. Your participation changed the state of the game.”

“The state of the game?”

“I never expected the aberration slayer to make a human her thrall. That was far afield of my expectations. I’d thought the story had ended for me at the point when I removed her heart, but that reset everything.”

“Reset…”

Now that he mentioned it─those three had said something similar. That it was totally unexpected for Kissshot to create a thrall─

A notion, or something. She had some notion about not creating thralls.

“But while the situation may have been reset, Heartunderblade had now become too weak. One against three, or two against three even if we included you, her thrall, wasn’t lending itself to any equilibrium.”

“…So, happening to pass by Kissshot as she dragged me, happening to pass by as I was being attacked by those three, that was all on purpose? Your coming on stage didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason, so I was wondering─but that was how it was?”

Teaching Kissshot about this abandoned cram school, saving me from those three, all in order to achieve a balance─so that’s how it was.

“Oh no, that was just by chance,” Oshino said in a teasing tone. “It just means you two were lucky.”

“……”

While I thought there was no way that could be true, part of me also thought that maybe it was.

A phenomenon could only be observed after the fact.

“So─even if Kissshot gets all of her limbs back, she won’t be able to return to full power?”

Even if she got them back. Her right leg, her left leg, both of her arms. If she still lacked her heart─that was fatal.

“But of course,” Oshino agreed with a nod. “Which is why you were going to get her heart back from me next─because even with the aberration slayer’s arms, you’d have been the more powerful vampire. It was with the fourth fight─the one between me and you─that the balance was to be restored.”

“…I-I have to─fight you?”

“You were going to.”

“Going to?”

“Constantly being referred to as ‘a slob’ by you, I turn out, in fact, to be the ‘last boss’─but my careful foreshadowing went to waste.”

“Where is the care in that?”

It didn’t pan out. Even if they had a number of letters in common.

Plus, I didn’t recall ever calling him a slob. Sleazy, maybe, but still not to his face.

I guess he knew he came across that way, without having to be told…

“I’m skipping that part.”

This time, Oshino lazily used his lips to move his cigarette, still in his mouth, downward to point at the heart in my hands.

“See, I’ve already given it back to you.”

“Wh-Whaa?”

“If you want to talk about atonement, now that’s atonement. I really am sorry about missy class president. I wasn’t joking when I said it’s rare for regular humans to get themselves this involved in a situation. Normally, humans run from aberrations. There’s something a little off about that girl. You can’t explain her actions through goodness alone─”

“……”

Tsubasa Hanekawa.

Not self-sacrifice─but self-satisfaction.

Even after she was nearly killed by Guillotine Cutter…

She was considerate.

After it was over, too, she didn’t have a single word of blame for me. In fact, she said something ridiculous like “Sorry for getting captured so easily, I should have kept my eyes open.”

“To be completely frank with you,” Oshino muttered, almost to himself, “I find that degree of kindness creepy.”

“…Seriously? That’s no way to put it.”

“I’m sure you feel the same way. Don’t you?” he asked, once again acting like he saw through me.

But yes, it was true. I’d said something similar to Hanekawa.

And despite the fact that I had─Hanekawa hadn’t changed a bit.

“…It’s like she’s forcing herself to be a good person. Of course, that doesn’t mean I can blame missy class president for what happened to her. In the end, it was my plan that saved her, but it was you who carried it out, Araragi, and I don’t believe yesterday night is enough to atone for it.” During the brief moments he spent saying these words, Oshino looked solemn─just like the day before. “What a blunder. That was so bad that you could hold every Oshino who lives in Japan accountable for it.”

“It was your mistake, don’t drag every Oshino living in Japan into it.”

“Ha hah. Anyway, consider that heart as reparations, Araragi. My way of showing you just how sincere I am.”

“Reparations…”

“It’s part of our trusting relationship. And with this, balance has been restored─though there are still a few kinks here and there.”

Saying so, Oshino stood from his seat.

“Her right leg. Her left leg. Her right arm. Her left arm. And her heart. Now you’ve recovered all of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s lost parts. In other words, now you can go back to being human. Allow me to congratulate you once more. It’s okay for you to be happy, you know?”

“…Honestly, I feel conflicted,” I said. “It’s almost like it was all fixed.”

“You’re overthinking it. If someone fixed this whole situation, then I probably belong to the fixed side.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Whether you do or don’t, that’s the reality. You overestimate me a bit in ways, Araragi. Even I have things that I can and cannot do. I may be the genius type, but I’m not actually a genius.”

“……”

What an annoyingly misleading type.

“I may have prepared situations, but I didn’t preordain them. Oh, and by the way. This is simply out of curiosity, Araragi, but haven’t you felt hungry lately?”

“Huh? No─I think I told you earlier, but I haven’t felt very hungry since becoming a vampire. I think it might be the immortality?”

“I see.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Hm? Oh, do mind.”

“So I should.”

“I think it’s time you started to feel hungry. It’s already been two weeks─ha hah. That was rough, eh… All right, Araragi. Be careful not to do anything rash again after you turn back into a human. Once a person has encountered an aberration, he gets dragged in more easily henceforth, so do be careful.”

With that, Oshino began heading to the exit, leaving behind me as well as his chair, which he didn’t even bother to return to the original position.

“Hey, what’s your deal? Don’t make it sound like you’re done with this place.”

“But I am done. My work here is over─it ended in failure, but what’s done is done, what’s over is over. Oh, Araragi. That’s right. About your two million yen and missy class president’s three million, five million yen in total. Consider it paid ’n done.”

“L-Lazy…bum?”

“No, that’s me. Paid. And. Done. Offset, canceled out. I’m making up for my mistake with Heartunderblade’s heart and─well, that might already be enough, but consider it a bonus.”

“……”

“No need to look at me like that, I don’t have any secret motives. I’m more generous than you might think when it comes to money. I’m not going to complain as long as we have balance. So send my regards to missy class president.”

“You’re going to go without ever meeting her?”

“Yep. I guess this is gonna end without us ever meeting─but there’s no need for us to go out of our way to meet each other.”

“Maybe so. But now that everything is over with those three, it’s not like there’s any danger of getting her mixed up in anything, is there?”

“Even so, it’d be awkward for us to meet at this point.”

Plus, Oshino added.

On top of that.

“That girl does creep me out,” he said, unambiguously─and harshly.

Oshino laughed a merry laugh as if to change the topic.

“Well, I still plan on wandering around this town for a while longer. Say hi if you see me. If you can’t stop yourself from feeling indebted to me because I called off your payment─well, why not look into tales of aberrations that have been handed down in this town, so you can teach me about them? That’s what my real specialty is supposed to be. I want to be done with all the hack and slash─it’s not my style, it really isn’t.”

Oshino kept walking at the same pace, opening the door with the broken knob, exiting out into the hallway, and closing the door again even as he said all that.

He didn’t say goodbye.

Now that I thought about it─I’d never seen him utter parting words to anyone. Even for the most innocuous of partings, all he ever did was chuckle and smirk.

“Is he serious?”

Feel indebted to him?

Was he serious?

Of course I didn’t feel indebted─whether or not he’d fixed everything, he was part of the reason we’d gotten into this fix.

Of course─he’d saved us too.

No. If I said that to him, I knew what he’d say in reply.

We just saved ourselves on our own.

“…So now I’ve got her right arm, her left arm, and her heart.”

Both of her arms from Guillotine Cutter.

Her heart from Mèmè Oshino.

All of the missing pieces had been collected.

At last, it was time for the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, the aberration slayer─to be fully restored.