Monogatari Series - Volume 4 - Chapter 0.17

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Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

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

The legendary vampire.

The slayer and empress of aberrations.

A vampiress.

Adorned with dazzling gold hair and a chic dress, a beautiful, blood-chillingly beautiful vampire─no other words were needed, but if I were forced to find them─

She was the final nemesis of her thrall, yours truly.

“Kissshot…”

I shoved the barricade away and opened the P.E. shed’s steel door─only to find that the sun had already set outside and that she stood there in the middle of the athletic field.

The ground under her feet was cracked.

It must have been from the impact of her landing.

In fact, the field had caved in around her to the point where her ankles had been swallowed by it.

Those bat-like wings were nowhere to be found on Kissshot’s back─as her thrall, I could intuit that she must have traveled from the abandoned cram school’s roof to here in a single, standing leap.

She’d waited for the sun to set.

And then─she’d jumped to where I was.

Still, her feat could only be described as tremendous. I’d congratulated myself for a standing jump of a measly sixty feet─but Kissshot had jumped miles like it was nothing at all.

Of course, it wasn’t fair to compare her jump to mine since I’d been aiming to land in that sand pit, not trying to break any records─but if you asked me if I could jump from the field back to the abandoned school, my answer would be no.

I closed the shed’s steel doors behind me.

With Hanekawa still inside.

The door probably didn’t pose even a minor obstacle to Kissshot─but closing it still afforded some comfort.

Don’t say a word, I whispered to the other side.

Then, I took a step forward. Toward Kissshot.

“…Hey,” I said as I approached her. “I didn’t think you’d be the one coming to find me.”

I’d assumed it would be the hardest part.

Figuring out a time, figuring out a place.

Unlike my bouts with Dramaturgy, Episode, and Guillotine Cutter─Oshino wouldn’t be there to mediate.

But we were both vampires.

A master and a servant─her thrall.

That Kissshot came to me at almost the exact moment the sun set seemed to mean that in her perfect form, she was thoroughly aware of my every deed.

Where I was.

What I was thinking.

She was thoroughly─aware of it all.

Kissshot now looked at me with even colder eyes than usual─and began by pulling her legs out from inside the field, first right, then left.

“But once, my servant,” she spoke next. “I understood thy feelings in the time the sun was out─the cause of thy anger too. While I wished to sleep, I forced myself to think. I believe I acted thoughtlessly─and that I had not paid thee the consideration due a former human. And that is why I will apologize to thee but once.”

“……”

“Return to my side,” Kissshot said.

Her voice was beautiful.

And it was with that alluring voice─that she tempted me.

“Live with me. I had my life saved by thee─and while I may think thee a strange creature, that is precisely why I trust that we could live together. Rather than return to being human─will ye not live with me, for eternity?”

“…I refuse.”

I looked back into Kissshot’s cold eyes, preparing myself for the worst─and said the words.

“You ate a human. That on its own is enough for me.”

“Had ye known that─would ye not have saved me? Ye’d have abandoned me, leaving me for dead?”

“Kissshot─I didn’t know anything then. No…”

I shook my head.

“I did know from the beginning. I was just keeping myself from looking at the facts. I had thought to die for your sake─which meant that I was permitting you to eat humans. But I didn’t actually picture other people dying. While my actions may have been beautiful, they weren’t right.”

It didn’t matter if I died─but it felt awful when other people died.

That was an idiosyncratic view, come to think of it.

How could I possibly expect it to stand up to scrutiny?

“…I thought ye might speak thus,” Kissshot said with a smile. “Those were the words I wished to hear from thee.”

“Kissshot…”

“And now I am free of doubt, my servant. I, too, had an inkling from the very beginning─that thou were such a one.”

“Such a what.”

“I had known─that thy kindness would only last while I was weak.”

I’d have no interest in her once she became a perfect existence, she had suspected.

There was even a tinge of bitterness in Kissshot’s words.

“It was not because of who I am─ye’d have saved anyone, so long as they were weak.”

“……”

I don’t go this far for everyone I know. You realize I’m doing this because it’s you.

That was what Hanekawa had said.

But me? Even if it wasn’t Kissshot there, I would have─

“And so, aye─I had thought it may turn out like this. Incidentally─know that I saved thee as thyself. A heroic soul ready to cast away his own life for my sake deserved better than death by my hands.”

“…I deserved better?”

“And my gratitude is thine for doing thy share to repay the favor. Now come closer, my servant. Do ye know already, to judge from thy expression? Indeed. By slaying me with thy hands, ye return to the ranks of humans that ye love so.”

“……”

I gulped.

I realized anew that she saw through me─and also just how vast the difference in power between us two was.

Facing her here, one on one─would be different.

It wouldn’t play out like any of my fights against the trio─I felt intimidated and overwhelmingly tense, like I was being strangled by the air around me.

That was it.

The battle that was about to unfold was, in no uncertain terms, a fight to the death─the biggest difference of all.

Nothing prevented it now.

On top of that─I was facing the aberration slayer.

“Don’t feel too despondent, my servant,” Kissshot said.

She looked the slightest bit…happy?

“I’m in the best condition I’ve been in during my five hundred years alive─when I faced those three at the same time, not only was I under the weather, they took me by surprise. I certainly hadn’t expected my heart to have been stolen… It is rare for one of my class.”

“…What is?”

“Having to try,” she said, beckoning me. “In all honesty, even I am unsure of what will happen─but as I face the most powerful of all the foes I have fought until today, there is no need for me to hold back. It is that I am happy about.”

“I can’t promise I’ll be able to meet your expectations.”

I worked up my courage and began to walk toward her.

Normally, I would have run away instead─but this was different. I had a dear friend at my back, sitting inside that P.E. shed. There was someone I needed to protect─I couldn’t run away.

I had to face it.

Just watch, Hanekawa. I’m not going to look pathetic in front of you.

“After all, I’m a former human─formerly food for you.”

“…Fret not. While I will be killing thee with malice and enmity, I shall give myself a handicap─what was it that boy liked to say? Ah, yes, a fifty-fifty fight. I shall set such rules.”

’Tis a game.

Kissshot hopped as she said the words.

A moment later, she was directly in front of me─so close our legs nearly became entangled.

In her perfect form, she was taller than me. She looked down on me from where she stood.

“I will not fly. I will not hide myself in the shadows. I will not turn to mist. I will not turn to darkness. I will not vanish. I will not transform myself. I will not use the power of my eyes. I will not even generate matter. Needless to say, I will not use my enchanted sword Kokorowatari…the aberration slayer. In other words, I will not use any of my active abilities as a vampire─ye have my word. Of course, feel free on thy part─but transforming thy body from the arms forward is about all, is it not?”

“……”

And that I was only able to do because Hanekawa had been kidnapped─now that my mind was closer to the human side, it seemed unlikely that I could even transform my fingers.

The story would be different if I had Dramaturgy’s force of will, or experience─but I was a beginner who had neither.

“Normally, as thy mistress, I would be able to exert some degree of control over the actions of my servant─but I shall not do that either. I promise not to do such a boorish thing. We shall fight only with our refined, pure powers of immortality─that should negate any need for experience. We will stand here at this distance and fight to the death─would that not make it a fifty-fifty fight?”

“…You must really be bored.”

I glared at Kissshot’s face, which loomed over mine.

“You’re going to do all that just so you don’t have to hold back? I mean, isn’t that exactly what we’d call letting your guard down?”

“Letting my guard down? Unfortunately for thee, I am not so foolish as to let my guard down against my own thrall─but if I did not offer thee a fighting chance, there would be no game, would there? I do not wish to hold back. But my foe abandoning the fight in the middle of the match would not do at all.”

Then she held out her hands, ready to fight. Her hands were open and flat, set to chop─she prepared herself to fight at our super-close range.

I tried doing the same.

An open hand was better for this situation than a closed fist. When you have the physical strength of a vampire, the difference in damage that a fist can inflict compared to a chop is practically negligible. In that case, an open hand is more versatile and easier to use─

“……”

I then looked at my surroundings.

While the sun may have set, it was not late into the night─no one would be inside the school, but there was no guarantee that we wouldn’t have witnesses, as far as we were from houses.

I had to settle this quickly.

But as I thought that, Kissshot spoke.

“What nerve, my servant─taking thy eyes off of me at this distance. Do not worry, those three are already gone, and as for any regular human, none could even approach me at my full power. If someone does see me, I shall be no more than a rumor around this town─”

“─A rumor.”

A street rumor. An urban legend. Idle gossip.

Rumor would give rise to rumor─and rumors had a funny way of coming true.

“Of course─that doesn’t go for those rations in the shed behind thee.”

“…Kissshot. I have something to ask you too. One last question of my own.”

“Oh? Then let us have it. A souvenir to take with thee to the underworld─I’ll answer anything. Just ask.”

“What are humans to you?”

“Food.”

“I see.”

She answered without a hint of hesitation, and the answer undid the final knot that held me back.

“And I wanted to hear that from you, too─I wanted to hear those words come out of your mouth!”

Then I moved─and so did Kissshot.

“I need you to die, master!”

“Prepare to die, servant!”

Perhaps it was to keep the situation at fifty-fifty─though Kissshot appeared to move at the same time as me, she’d allowed me the first move.

The edge of my open hand swept sideways toward her face─decapitating the top half of her head, sending it flying, blond hair and all.

But then, as if she’d anticipated the move, Kissshot unleashed a chop that caused my skull to explode. We had both used the same technique, but the power she displayed seemed to be on a different level─while the point of impact was far smaller than Dramaturgy’s fist, that smaller size seemed to concentrate the force behind it to one spot.

Each of us had sent the other’s head flying. Normally, the fight would end at that point.

But─neither Kissshot nor I was human.

We were monsters.

It didn’t matter if our heads went flying or if our brains were destroyed, and there was no time limit. My consciousness and my vision were severed just for a fraction of a moment─and I immediately regenerated back to my original state.

Neither of us showed any signs of damage.

“Hyaa-hah!”

Kissshot was laughing.

“Hah!”Haha!”Ahaha!”Hahaha!”Aahahaha!”

Joyfully she laughed, with such vibrato it sounded as if she was trying to harmonize with herself.

“How wonderful! This is it─this is the thrill of two vampires fighting to the death! More, more, more, servant!”

“Shut your mouth!”

Chops crossed paths with chops.

They were not only aimed at the head, but at the body and the limbs as well.

My chops gouged pieces from Kissshot’s body─

Kissshot’s gouged pieces from mine.

Each of our bodies continued to barbarically bore through the other.

Of course, I wasn’t numb to the pain.

Pain came across to me as pain.

My thoughts halted when my brain was destroyed, my breathing halted when my lungs were destroyed, and my circulation halted when my heart was destroyed.

While I’d become a vampire, my body’s makeup hadn’t changed.

My regeneration, recuperation, immortality─it was just that those things were something else.

But. That was enough.

“Raaaaaaaahhhhh!”

“Haha! Yes, keep screaming! How I love to hear the virile howls of men!”

Just as I’d expected, Kissshot’s breasts were bouncing wildly─but her barrage of attacks was even wilder. And throughout it all─she roared with laughter.

I felt pain─and surely Kissshot must have too. It wasn’t as if she was divorced from her sense of pain. Yet she betrayed no signs of it, not even a blink of the eyes. She didn’t grit her teeth as I did, nor did she scream as I did.

It didn’t matter what part of her I destroyed─

Her brain I destroyed, her lungs I destroyed, her heart I destroyed, but she seemed not to care and continued her deafening laughter.

Her eyes were cold, yet she looked happy.

It was a gruesome laugh.

“D-Dammit!”

“Hold now, servant, it is too early to utter such a line─why so vexed when we appear to be evenly matched?”

Did that mean she was used to the pain?

Was the pain of her body being torn to pieces nothing more than a familiar sensation?

If so.

These last five hundred years.

What kind of carnage and bloodshed had she seen? What did she survive?

Our difference in experience─difference in combat experience!

“Grraaaaaaaaaagh!”

But!

I would use my sheer willpower to close that gap─or at least, that’s how these stories usually went!

“Aye, aye! That’s it, scream─I want to hear thy roar!”

“Stop acting like this is easy for you, Kissshot!”

“How sad it makes me to know that I’ll never hear ye call me that again!”

Our fight went nowhere.

No matter how much blood was sprayed, no matter how much flesh was scattered, it all evaporated before hitting the ground and regenerated in the time it took to do so.

And so, neither of us incurred damage.

For my part, death by shock from all the pain seemed within the realm of possibility─but perhaps a vampire’s immortality brought you back to life even in that case.

Still…it was strange.

Our powers of immortality were evenly matched.

Kissshot had the edge in attacking.

This in itself wasn’t strange.

But honestly, I hadn’t thought my chops were capable of wounding Kissshot to such an extent. I’d been convinced that I was at an overwhelming disadvantage when it came to that─but in truth, my attacks were destroying her body without even landing that hard.

It was like destroying a chunk of tofu.

“Hahahahaha!”Haha!”Ahahahaha!”

She looked like a ghoul as she smiled with her cheeks torn away─and as she did, she answered my question.

Master and servant.

She seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.

“In fact, my servant─a vampire’s defenses are not terribly high! Of course, they are leagues beyond our food’s─mere human defenses─but so low they seem inversely proportionate to our outstanding offensive powers! Were we to rate a vampire’s offenses at a hundred, our defenses are capped between ten and twenty! Guess why, my servant!”

“……h!”

Even Kissshot’s dress was being restored each time─because she was creating it at will. The same did not go for me, though─my clothes were plain clothes. My torso was now nearly bare.

“Because our immortality equals our defense?!”

“Exactly!” Kissshot said. “So there’s no need for thee to defend against my attacks in this battle─focus only on offense, and tear my body apart!”

“What are you, a masochist?!”

“I shan’t deny the charge!”

At times, our hands would run into each other.

When this happened, my hand was the one that was destroyed.

There was no room for little tricks here─but that wasn’t to say there was any room for big ones.

We would go until her or my immortality gave out.

If not, we’d go until her or my spirit broke.

That was how this battle was being fought─or no.

Not really.

This barren fight was nothing more than an opening skirmish─it was like play to Kissshot, and while it may not have been play to me, it still felt like I was only just getting ready.

I knew.

I understood.

And─I could feel it.

How I could kill Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

The way to slay her.

Now that I was actually facing her, my instincts told me how.

Whether it was my human ones or my vampire ones, I didn’t know─but in any case, I intuited the way.

Upon further thought, Kissshot had pretty much told me herself─which meant that the method would work for sure.

I knew exactly what I had to do.

But─I wasn’t being given the chance.

Why, you ask? Because while it was the way for me to slay Kissshot, it was also the way for Kissshot to slay me.

That was why this was fun for her.

It was a game.

Kissshot could probably kill me─whenever she felt like it. Of course, this didn’t mean she was letting her guard down─she just wanted to relish her famous full powers for as long as she possibly could.

And that meant there was a chance─that Kissshot would show an opening.

Until then, I needed to trade blows standing in place and keep up the futile exchange of death for death and regeneration for regeneration.

“Hah! I like it, servant─ye’ve grown quite the backbone! Regardless of thy power as my thrall, most vampires with thy inexperience would not be able to disregard their lives so easily!”

“That’s how it’s supposed to go, right?! Well, I’m happy to hear that you’re pleased!”

“And all the more reason ’tis a pity! Perhaps ye could have become a legend like me!”

“A legend? Why would I want to be a legend? Just the thought of someone I’ve never met knowing my name creeps me out!”

“I agree with you wholeheartedly!”

The two of us conversed as we continued to fight to the death. We talked as we gouged chunks from each other’s body.

Almost completely unlike the previous day’s conversation, up on top of the roof of the abandoned cram school, this was a wild, reckless exchange where we seemed to be saying whatever came to mind.

I wasn’t able to laugh.

While Kissshot laughed, her smile, devoid of affection, was nothing like the night before’s.

Though it felt like I was on the verge of being blown back by her attacks─I planted both of my feet and stood my ground.

The punishment I took was hellish.

My body, smashed into dust, was mended back to its original state by the time the wind carried it away, only to be smashed again, mended again, smashed once more, and eternally mended─that kind of hell.

It was like one of the circles of hell.

When I looked at it that way, it didn’t seem like an overstatement to say that I was in hell.

“By the way, servant, perhaps ye’d be interested to hear this! There is no point in thy knowing, as ye’ll soon be departing this world─”

“What is it?!”

“Dramaturgy, Episode, and of course Guillotine Cutter─all of the vampire hunters who have ever tried to kill me, as well as that floridly shirted boy─never seemed to know, but in truth, I, too, am a former human!”

Kissshot said this and laughed. She said the words as her head was severed and regenerated.

“A former human─like thee and Dramaturgy!”

“Wh-What? You weren’t a pure-blooded vampire?!”

I’d been convinced she was. But now that she mentioned it─she’d never said so.

“I’ve forgotten nearly everything that happened to me during my time as a human─but it seems I belonged to a reasonably well-off family! The aristocracy, as they say. And this dress seems to be a vestige of that time! Hah! Though once a vampire has been alive for over three hundred years, pure or thrall hardly matters!”

“Okay─so what?!”

“Well, I had forgotten for quite some time─and only remembered yesterday as I spoke with thee! I was reminded that, I, too, hesitated before eating a human for the first time!”

“Yeah, and?!”

“Thou, too!” Kissshot said as she stopped attacking me for a moment. “All it takes is eating one human─and thy guilt will vanish.”

“……”

I stopped attacking as well. The wounds we had suffered healed in the blink of an eye.

“Dramaturgy was a former human as well… And while he was a hunter of vampires─he, too, ate humans. True, he stuck to the ones bound for execution provided to him by Guillotine Cutter’s church─”

“Just because they were going to be executed doesn’t mean it’s okay to eat them…especially if they were only judged guilty by Guillotine Cutter’s church.”

“Indeed. But if we are to speak of what is right to eat and what not, why limit that standard to humans? Thou shalt not eat cow, thou shalt not eat pig, thou shalt not eat whale, thou shalt not eat dog─not to mention Guillotine Cutter, do humans not disagree on these points across cultures? Furthermore, I am a vampire who slays aberrations. Eating one human is enough to sate me for a month─a mere dozen in a year. That is but six thousand humans over my five hundred years alive. Is that such a large number in view of history? How many humans have other humans killed in that time?”

“…That’s just sophistry.”

“I am by no means a threat to this world. The effect I have on it is miniscule. And yet, ye insist that I die because I eat humans?” asked Kissshot. “A human’s hunger is far more insatiable than mine.”

We die if we don’t eat.

Not just vampires. Humans, too.

Not just humans, but animals too.

Even plants, which I wanted to become.

Unless you’re inorganic, unless you’re stone or iron─you sacrifice other lives.

“That’s not the problem, Kissshot,” I said. “And you’re right, I insist. You eat humans, so you must die.”

“……”

Ah, Kissshot replied.

And her cold eyes slowly began to narrow.

“Kissshot. I’m human.”

“I see. I am a vampire.”

Then, our battle─was supposed to resume.

We were futilely returning to our futile exchange of death for death and regeneration for regeneration─but then.

“Hold on a second!”

A voice rang out to my back.

It reverberated through Naoetsu High’s athletic field.

I knew immediately that it was Hanekawa’s voice─and now that I heard it, I realized that I’d also heard the steel door of the P.E. shed opening just moments earlier.

“A-Araragi! Something’s not right here!”

As Hanekawa spoke to me from behind, my only thought was that if anything, there was something wrong with her.

How could she leave the P.E. shed under these circumstances─did she have no sense of fear? I knew in my mind that my body was immortal, but even then I felt like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown just standing in front of Kissshot─hadn’t I told her Kissshot could destroy concrete blocks simply by looking at them?

So why? Why was she showing herself?

“Hanekawa! It doesn’t matter, just hide!”

I knew how risky it was, but I turned around.

“No, actually─run away! Just run away! Leave this place! Get as far away as you can from here!”

“N-No, Araragi─!”

Hanekawa─seemed flustered.

Hanekawa, always calm and composed, even when I’d done my best to hurt her, even when Episode blew a hole through her flank, even when Guillotine Cutter had her hostage─was clearly shaken.

“Something’s been all wrong, for a while now. Araragi, I-I think we’re still overlooking something hugely important─”

Overlooking?

Could we possibly be overlooking something even now? No, there was no way.

Only one thing remained for me to do─

“Shut up!” Kissshot yelled.

Kissshot seemed flustered as well.

This was quite the unexpected reaction.

Well, I’d seen Kissshot act flustered just once─that time when I was still human and made to abandon her.

That time when I made the right decision.

That was when she became flustered.

She cried, she pleaded, she apologized─

“This isn’t thy place to speak, ration!”

Kissshot glared.

And with that one motion, the steel door of the P.E. shed behind Hanekawa went flying.

That was the power of her eyes.

Unlike when I’d kicked it down, it seemed impossible to salvage─scrunched up like a ball of aluminum foil, the door had disappeared into the shed.

The ground around Hanekawa was now cracked into pieces. Everything around her and behind her had been erased.

Just by being looked at.

With just a single look.

The iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire─the aberration slayer!

“…Ah.”

This display left even Hanekawa speechless.

But I understood.

I already understood.

I knew.

I knew how precarious she could be.

Tsubasa Hanekawa.

I knew that something like that wasn’t going to stop her.

She glared right back─firmly, even─at Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

“Miss Heartunderblade. Could you be─”

“Stay out of this, lowly human!”

Kissshot looked at Hanekawa again.

She looked at her.

She was using the power of her eyes, the power of a vampire’s eyes─but!

An opening!

An opening, which hadn’t even been hinted at during our futile fight to the death─finally showed itself!

Of course, unlike me, Kissshot certainly had room to take her eyes off of our fight─but right now was different.

Now was different.

As she looked at Hanekawa─she was flustered.

Openings everywhere.

“…Kissshot!”

Screaming her name, I jumped in between her and Hanekawa.

I took the full brunt of her eyes.

As my entire body was blown away and scattered─

I sunk my teeth into her throat.

I sunk my teeth into her, my elongated canines, my fangs.

“……!”

A way to slay Kissshot.

A way to slay a vampire.

A way for a vampire to slay a vampire─

Once you thought about it, it couldn’t be more self-evident.

My instincts told me how.

I didn’t know if they were my human ones or my vampire ones, but still.

In fact, she’d told me.

Kissshot’s not-quite-advice to me before my fight with Dramaturgy.

─I doubt Dramaturgy would use the tactic─

─But do be careful not to let him suck thy blood─

─Vampires who have their blood sucked by another vampire will see their very existence wrung dry─

Back then, I wasn’t interested in sucking blood─but things were different now.

I was feeling a bit hungry.

Gulp.

I began to suck her blood.

I’d sunk my fangs into her soft, white skin.

No one had to teach me how to suck blood─I just knew.

Precisely as a human fed.

“Guhh─”

Kissshot began to moan.

While her spilt blood returned─her sucked blood didn’t.

It was because I was draining her energy.

One aberration was simply turning against another.

You couldn’t even call it feeding on her.

Sure, feeding on her was what I was doing, but you couldn’t call it that.

All I was doing─was slaying an aberration.

I’d used my body to block Kissshot’s glare─it shouldn’t have made it to Hanekawa.

If I could keep going and suck Kissshot dry─if I could wring every last drop from her, just as she did to me that day─

“Ha.”

Even as she fell backwards, with me leaning over her─Kissshot laughed.

“Haha”Hahaha”Hahahaha”Aahahaha”Hahahahahahaha”Haha”Hahahaha”ha”Hahahahaha”Haha”Ahahaha”Aaaahahahahahahahahaha─!”

So she was going to die laughing.

That was fine with me.

But I had to admit. Her blood─Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s blood─tasted better than anything in the world.

I felt like I could go on drinking forever no matter how much of it there was.

I wanted to go on drinking forever.

It was delicious.

Kissshot.

Just like this, without feeling a hint of fulfillment or an inch of accomplishment, but with unfaltering determination─

I will kill you.

The life I once saved─I would now end.

It was my responsibility. But even after she died and I returned to being human, I wouldn’t feel any sense of fulfillment or accomplishment─her death a bare result!

“…Huh?”

And then.

And then, it suddenly came to me.

Was I overlooking something?

If I was─then what was I overlooking?

If it was so important that Hanekawa had to leap out of the P.E. shed to tell me─what in the world could it be?

And why did Kissshot become so flustered? Why did the foolish ramblings of someone she considered no more than “rations” enrage her?

She’d shown so much composure up until then.

Plus, I’d heard her say that before.

“This isn’t thy place to speak.”

That line─I had heard one like it come from Kissshot’s mouth before─

─Negotiator or whatever thou may be─

─Do not speak when it is not thy place to do so─

─Boy.

That was it.

Kissshot had said that to Oshino─but what had we been talking about?

I remembered.

Oshino had said─

─And Heartunderblade, I’m pleased─

─You made Araragi your thrall─

─But you do intend─

─To turn him back into a human─

“……!”

I’d pushed Kissshot over and had her trapped between my legs─but suddenly, without thinking, I sat up. Of course, this meant removing my fangs from her neck.

Then I looked at her expression.

I looked at her.

Kissshot’s eyes were still cold but now blank, even seeming a bit cloudy─but she was still able to twist her mouth at me.

“What’s the matter, servant?” she said. “I still have nearly half of my blood left.”

“……”

“While I may not be able to move for now, having lost so much blood, I will recover in no time unless ye make haste.”

She was probably right.

Both about being unable to move and about recovering right away.

But more importantly─

There was something I had to ask her.

I thought I’d asked her my last question─but there was something I needed to ask her.

Even if it might not be a good idea to ask.

“H-Hey. Kissshot.”

“What is it?”

“How…were you going to turn me back into a human?”

Kissshot clicked her tongue and said, “What does it matter to thee now?”

“It does matter to me. It’s important.”

“That damned ration. She should have kept her mouth shut,” Kissshot castigated Hanekawa─then held her tongue.

The castigated Hanekawa─slowly walked toward me and Kissshot. She’d put her sweater back on and retied her scarf. Meanwhile, I could tell by her jiggling breasts, worthy of sound effects, boing boing, were this a manga, that she hadn’t had time to wear her bra.

But Hanekawa seemed not to care as she approached us.

“Miss Heartunderblade,” she said solemnly. “Were you…planning on having Araragi kill you from the very beginning?”

“……”

“So that you could turn Araragi back into a human?”

I’d overlooked something.

What if it hadn’t turned out this way─for example, what if I’d never witnessed Kissshot eating Guillotine Cutter?

How was Kissshot planning on turning me back into a human then? What method existed outside of the one that Hanekawa had discovered?

It had never even occurred to me.

I had overlooked it. Entirely.

“That’s enough foolishness from thee, ration. On what grounds─”

“Then could you please tell me how you were planning on turning Araragi back into a human? I looked it up─but I couldn’t find any other way of turning a vampire back into a human.”

Any other way.

Any way outside of killing one’s master.

Any way outside of causing the master-servant relationship to crumble.

“Hah. As if I would know─I never had any intention of turning this servant of mine back into a human. It was a lie I told to make him gather my arms and legs. I could not tell too many if it was to return to my perfect form─and indeed, I only made him my thrall for my own convenience.”

“That’s not true. You gathered your missing parts because Araragi wouldn’t be able to turn back into a human if you weren’t in your complete state, even if he killed you, right? It wasn’t going to work unless he killed you after you were whole again─”

I thought back to Kissshot’s excitement.

So it wasn’t because she’d returned to her perfect form─but rather because that meant the conditions had been met to turn me back into a human?

“Fool. It was nothing of the sort.”

“If that’s true─then why did you come here?” Hanekawa asked Kissshot in an utterly calm voice.

Predator and prey.

A greater existence and a lesser existence.

But Hanekawa spoke like an equal.

“Araragi had a reason to fight you, but you didn’t. I know you came up with some labored reason like wanting to use your full powers or whatever─but you came here to be killed by Araragi, didn’t you? That was all, wasn’t it? You even made it a fifty-fifty fight─you intentionally provoked him.”

“Ha-Hanekawa─”

“You stay quiet, Araragi,” Hanekawa interrupted me. “Of course, I don’t have any grounds for it─something just seemed strange, that’s all. But just now, when you didn’t try to kill me as I came to put a damper on your fight─that’s when I knew. Your─”

Kissshot had used her vampire eyes.

She blew away everything around Hanekawa.

Yet, she didn’t harm Hanekawa herself.

When Hanekawa had interfered in the same way during my battle with Episode, he didn’t think twice about hurling his cross at her─but Kissshot didn’t attack Hanekawa, the girl she’d called my rations.

All she did was try to intimidate her.

“Your plan is to die.”

“…Ye should have kept thy mouth shut,” Kissshot said, repeating herself. “What good will it do─ye think this servant of mine could kill me after hearing those words?”

“What?”

“As this servant’s mistress, I know quite well─he is the kind of fool who would rescue a vampire on the brink of death. Knowing what I ‘do intend,’ as that boy put it, do ye think this one could suck my blood?”

“W-Well─but─” stammered Hanekawa.

Kissshot gave her a cold look.

A cold look─with her two blank eyes.

“I had thought it would be the hardest step of all─I was vexed by how to make him kill me. That is why I kept mum about the way to turn him back for as long as I could. I was afraid we simply had to plunge into it… But in what I will admit was an unexpected turn of events, the stage was set thanks to Guillotine Cutter. Had I known that eating a single human sufficed to render him so irate, I’d not have worried so.”

Kissshot looked at me before continuing.

“─If only I could have simply been the villain, the despised, and slain thus. There was no need for thee to be privy to my intention.”

“Why not?” I muttered, stupefied.

But at the same time─if I looked at it that way, everything did check out.

“Why would you…want to do that?”

“My servant,” replied Kissshot, “I had been searching for a place to die.”

“A place to die─”

The cause of death for nine-tenths of vampires.

Suicide.

Boredom─killed vampires.

She was─so bored.

“And that is why I came to this country─I had not returned since the death of my first thrall. It was not for sightseeing─”

“B-But, you…”

She didn’t want to die.

That’s what she said─crying and screaming.

Her heart had been stolen─her limbs had been severed─

She’d just barely escaped with her life.

“I thought I was ready to die. That is what I had told myself,” Kissshot said.

But.

“At the very end, I grew scared of death.”

“……”

“The thought that after five hundred years alive, I would vanish─it began to scare me. That thought, that I would be gone, scared me so. That is when ye came along─and when I sought thy help.”

“And─I helped you.”

I hadn’t been moved by any grand notion.

What would happen next, what the future would hold─I’d had no notion.

I was moved by one thing alone.

Her crying face. I didn’t want to have to see it.

I couldn’t bear seeing it.

“It was the first time in my life that anyone helped me.”

“……”

“No one ever helped me, neither human nor vampire. And as I sat there, sucking thy blood─I began to wonder, what was I doing? And so─once I was done sucking thee dry, I decided against devouring thee and made thee my thrall. My second one ever.”

Though I’d taken quite some time to awaken, and she thought I’d go into a frenzy, Kissshot said.

She’d stayed by my side the whole time. She was there to nurse me.

“Yet somehow ye awakened. Of course, I would not have objected if ye wished to remain a vampire─but as I had expected, thy wish was to turn back into a human. While I had mulled it over while ye were unconscious, it was then that I decided.”

Her tone was infirm yet firm.

“I would die for thy sake.”

“…For my sake?”

“I would have thee kill me, restoring thy humanity while dying at last. I’d felt as if at last, I had discovered a place to die─a place I had been seeking for the past four hundred years.”

“Four hundred years─”

That was when─her first thrall.

She had told me.

About restoring his humanity.

─At the time I was in fact unable to turn him back into a human─

─And I plan to use the lessons I learned then this time around.

“I was unable to die for his sake. Unable to die for another. Unable to restore his humanity─and so.”

“You’d do it for me.”

She would do it to restore my humanity.

To help me.

For that, she was going to─give up her own life?

“But don’t let it get to thy head, servant. This was my responsibility from the beginning─none of this would have happened if not for my disgraceful behavior, and I would have died then if not for thy help.”

“……!”

Huh? Wait…hold on a second.

This situation─was impossible.

At this rate, my mental preparation─

I’d promised Hanekawa that I was mentally prepared!

“…What is it now? Crying, are ye?”

“Ah…”

Then I realized─my cheeks were wet.

Why?

After all, it didn’t matter. None of this changed what I had to do, right?

Even if she was trying to die for my sake─she ate people!

“What a crybaby I have as a servant. Pitiful.”

“N-No. These aren’t tears. This…”

This, I repeated.

“This is─blood.”

“Oh?”

“It’s my blood flowing─”

How in the world were things turning out this way?

Kissshot was a vampire.

She had eaten Guillotine Cutter.

She had eaten six thousand people until now.

But even so.

“─And it flows in you too!”

She was alive.

Wasn’t it the same, then?

What I had done.

What she was trying to do.

What she had done.

What I was trying to do.

All the same─wasn’t it?!

“Now look at this mess, ration,” Kissshot said. “I’d planned to show him an opening whenever the fancy struck me, so he could slay me─ah, but what does that matter. Because, my dear servant, the only choice left to thee is to kill me.”

“Wh-Why would you say that?”

My preparation.

My mental preparation.

“Kill me here, or starting tomorrow I shall eat, oh, let’s say a thousand people a day… Now that I’ve said that, ye must kill me. No? If I poached thy rations to prove that this is no idle threat, would it move thee into action?”

“……”

“Ye saved my life, so be the one to snatch it away. Isn’t that the ‘responsible’ thing to do?”

“Kissshot─”

“Only one other called me by that name before thee. And ye shall be the last.”

I looked toward Hanekawa, as if to ask for her help.

But─all Hanekawa did was bite her lower lip in response. It seemed to me like a sign of how hopeless the situation was.

Even Hanekawa was out of options.

Yes.

Kissshot was right.

She hadn’t had to divulge her plan until Hanekawa came leaping out of the P.E. shed─but her intentions didn’t change what I had to do. They only made the situation worse, as I could now see.

But.

Had I not found out─had I gone on being mistaken about Kissshot for the rest of my life─I would have been deprived of even regret and remorse.

It would be as a clown if I turned back into a human.

How was that acceptable?

My wish would come true, but that would be it.

It wasn’t a happy outcome for anyone.

It was just pinning everything on Kissshot.

“Come,” Kissshot said, laughing. “Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come─kill me, servant.”

“─Dammit!”

She was searching for a place to die?

She wanted to kill herself?

All she was trying to do─was escape!

It was proof she was trying to run away!

It didn’t matter how gallant she tried to make it sound, the real her─the real her was the one I heard that day under the street lamp!

No way, no way, no waaay!

I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die!

Help me, help me, help me!

Please!

I can’t die, I can’t die!

I don’t wanna disappear, I don’t wanna vanish!

Somebody,

Somebody, somebody, somebody, someboddyyy─!

I’m sorry!

“Oshino-o-o!”

And so.

I looked up to the sky─and screamed with everything I had.

I used the full capacity of my vampire lungs to release the loudest roar I could.

“Mèmè Oshino!”

And I called his name.

The name of that Hawaiian-shirted, frivolous, sleazy man.

The name of the man who had known everything from the start, but said nothing─brazenly, with an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

“I know you’re out there watching us─so stop acting so important and show yourself! I’ve got a job for you, bastard!”

Hanekawa was looking at me, shocked.

Kissshot was looking at me, shocked.

But I paid them no attention─and continued to scream.

“Oshino! I know you’re there─you’d have to be watching us, with all that crap about being neutral! Now I understand─I don’t need any more explanations from you! So come out here─now that I understand, I know damn well that I’m not the victim and that it’s my fault! So come out here─Mèmè Oshino!”

“─You don’t have to yell, I can hear you fine.”

And with the same aimless attitude as always─Oshino was there, sitting on top of the roof of the P.E. shed.

He sat there cross-legged and his face in his palm.

He looked like he found it all a big pain in the ass.

I don’t know when─but he’d suddenly appeared there.

“Araragi. Imagine meeting you here, what are the chances?”

“…Oshino.”

“Ha hah, how so spirited─something good happen to you?”

“I have a job for you,” I repeated.

I focused squarely on him─and repeated myself.

“I want you to do something.”

“‘Something’?”

Oshino jumped down from the roof of the shed and laughed sarcastically─while he didn’t look to be the least bit athletic, he made a clean landing without the slightest bend of the knees.

Then, he began to approach me with a carefree stride.

“That’s a tough one.”

“I’ll pay.”

“It’s not an issue of money.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“A personal one, what else?”

Stop trying to force this on me, he said, as if refusing.

Actually, refusing was exactly what it was.

“Hey there, missy class president.”

Oshino raised a hand to Hanekawa.

“This would be our first time meeting, right? Nice to meet you.”

“…Yes,” Hanekawa replied with a nod, “nice to meet you too─my name is Hanekawa.”

“It was a good thing I decided to stay around this town even though all that business with Heartunderblade had wrapped up. If I’d left, I never would have had the chance to meet you.”

“…Is that so? I was convinced that you hated me, Mister Oshino.”

“Oh, stop. I could never hate a girl. If Araragi told you something weird, take it from me─he’s just making up gossip,” Oshino said shamelessly.

How phony was this guy?

“You really are amazing, though─getting this deeply involved when aberrations don’t concern you? High school girls really are spirited─something good happen to you lately?”

“They do concern me,” Hanekawa asserted. “If it’s Araragi’s problem, then it’s my problem too.”

“Wow, ain’t that friendship.”

Oshino stifled a laugh. I didn’t know if he could be any more infuriating and insulting.

“Or maybe it’s youth.”

“Boy,” Kissshot said. “Stay out of this. Wasn’t that our agreement?”

“I don’t remember ever making an agreement with you, Heartunderblade─I just wanted to set things up well. You deciding to die so that Araragi could become human again was convenient for me, that’s all. And by me─I mean mankind.”

That was it.

It was probably the same with Guillotine Cutter.

When he meekly turned over Kissshot’s arms, I was puzzled, but Oshino told me how he’d explained the situation─Kissshot was agreeing to help turn me back into a human.

That’s why Guillotine Cutter returned them.

Oshino must have used that to forge a compromise.

It’s how he convinced Guillotine Cutter─that was why he agreed.

In that case, he could return her arms without going against his creed.

Plus, he’d be able to save face as his religion’s archbishop.

But, feeling sad about having to part with Kissshot, I took my time to talk to her, went to the convenience store, and so on─and because I kept dragging things out and made no moves to kill Kissshot, Guillotine Cutter, who thought he’d been tricked by Oshino, proceeded to march into the abandoned school alone.

Even Oshino’s barrier couldn’t conceal Kissshot in her perfect form.

“So things did play out more or less as I expected, but… You know, missy class president, you did make a grand mess of things. Araragi really didn’t have to know about that.”

“I─” Hanekawa said, still unfaltering, “I think that’s wrong.”

“Oh dear. Well, I’ve gotta admit, you do have one big chest on ya.”

“E-Excuse me?”

Hanekawa held her arms over her breasts, flustered.

Bounce, bounce.

Upon seeing this, Oshino laughed and replied, “Oh, my mistake. I meant to say you’ve got one big heart in ya.”

Yeah, right.

It was sexual harassment, plain and simple.

“Either way, that’s a very wonderful, model student-like thing for you to say. But in that case, li’l missy class president, what do you suggest we do here?”

“That’s for Araragi to decide,” Hanekawa shot back. “It’d be so awful if he were to end things without knowing the truth, to say the least.”

“You catch that, Araragi? What a tough spot you’ve been put in─missy class president is so kind she’s cruel. There really is something off about her. What exactly does she see in you that lets her trust you like that?”

“……”

“So, what’ll you do?” Oshino said, looking at me─and popping an unlit cigarette into his mouth as always. “My original plan was just to watch the aftermath play out─but it looks like just as I thought the ship had sailed, I found myself on it. So fine, I’ll listen to your request. This is a job for me as a professional, correct? The fee can be─ah, that’s right. That five million I called off, you can owe it to me again.”

He made a grin.

“So, what is your heart’s desire?”

“…I want you to tell me a way to make everyone happy,” I told him.

That was what I desired, from the bottom of my heart.

“A method that will keep all of us from being unhappy.”

“How could something like that possibly exist?” Are you stupid or something, Oshino shrugged. “There’s convenient, and then there’s that. That’s an essay topic for an elementary school ethics class. It’s unrealistic.”

“Oshino, I─”

“However,” Oshino said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and putting it back in his pocket. He looked at Hanekawa, then Kissshot, then finally me before saying, “I can think of a way that will make everyone miserable.”

As I looked at him, dumbfounded by this reply, he quickly went on to explain.

“In other words, the grief created by this incident will be split among everyone evenly─no one’s wishes will come true, but if you’re okay with that, there is a way.”

“……”

Everyone would be miserable─everyone would bear the misery.

It would be split.

Parceled out─and borne by everyone.

It wouldn’t be all forced onto one person.

“To be specific… Well, okay. Araragi, you’d stop just short of killing Heartunderblade. You’d take away nearly all of her traits and skills as a vampire─leaving just enough to keep her alive. For your part, Heartunderblade, you will come even closer to death than you were before. So close that you’ll be left with nothing─no shadow, no trace, no game, not even a name. You’d become like lowly human mockery of a vampire─unable to eat a human, no matter how hungry.”

Oshino continued, “And you, Araragi. That wouldn’t allow you to turn back into a human, either─but you’d be extremely close to one. You, Araragi, would be like a vampiric mockery of a human. You’d have a few traits and skills as a vampire left─and while you wouldn’t technically be able to call yourself human, you would be infinitely far from being a vampire, making you infinitely close to human. You’d of course be nothing like a half-vampire. Instead, you’d be an ill-defined, half-baked creature. How fitting.”

“‘F-Fitting’?!”

“And of course, you wouldn’t be able to eat humans if you got hungry, either. However… If that were the case, regardless of what happens to you, Araragi, Heartunderblade would starve to death from lack of nutrition. So, Araragi, you would have to constantly be giving Heartunderblade your own blood. The one source of nutrition that would keep Heartunderblade alive would be your flesh and blood, the very thing that will have reduced her to her vulgar state. You would need to devote the rest of your life to Heartunderblade, and Heartunderblade would have to spend the rest of hers nestled up to you.”

“In that case─” Hanekawa interrupted. “In other words, we humans─”

“Yes. We would have to give up on slaying this dangerous creature we call a vampire. Any plans to wipe out the aberration slayer, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire, as well as her thrall─would have to be abandoned. If her powers were taken away to that extent, then hunters like Dramaturgy and Episode wouldn’t even be able to locate her anymore. In other words, the risk would still remain. Heartunderblade and Araragi could become vampires, and they might begin to eat humans. That risk would still remain, and it would be very real.”

If we did that─

Everyone would be miserable.

No one’s wishes would come true.

Kissshot would be unable to die.

I wouldn’t be turning back into a human.

Two vampires would be left alive.

“…H-How dare ye spew such ridiculous thoughts, boy!” Kissshot yelled below me.

She was raising her voice. Since I’d already sucked half of her blood, she was unable to move─so yelling was all she could do.

“What do ye know, boy?! Ye’ve not spent a tenth of my time alive! I have had enough of thy self-serving nonsense─I have no wish to go on living in such a form! I will not abase myself and live in disgrace for all to see! This place is where I shall die! I have finally found it─I can finally die! I will die─for my servant’s sake! Allow me to die for his sake! Kill me, kill me─hurry and kill me now! No part of me wishes to live!”

“That’s what I’m saying, you’ll be miserable. Your wish won’t come true. Of course, Araragi is the one who gets to make the decision. Missy class president is exactly right.”

“Servant!”

Kissshot turned to me, apparently having decided that she’d get nowhere with Oshino.

“As I just said─do not fall for that boy’s cajolery. No part of me wishes to live.”

“…Yes, but I…”

I was clear-eyed and determined as I replied to her. I was fully aware of my responsibility, of what would happen next and in the future.

“I want you to live.”

“……”

And then─

I stroked her hair. Her golden, her soft, her gentle hair.

Yes, the certain proof─of my submission to her.

“I beg you─and I will as many times as you want, as your servant. So please, stop trying to die in style─live on, awkwardly. Stop trying to find a place to die, and look for a place to live.”

Kissshot’s expression was one of despair.

But she couldn’t move.

She couldn’t even struggle.

Tears began to well in her eyes─

Blood-like tears began to well in her eyes as she did the only thing she could, which was to plead.

“P-Please, servant…I implore thee. Please…find it within thyself to kill me. Find a way to kill me and become human again. Think of it as helping me─”

“I’m sorry, Kissshot,” I said, calling her by her true name.

A name I doubted I’d ever call her again.

“I’m not helping you.”

And that was how my spring break came to an end.

My nearly hellish spring break.

The curtain fell on the last spring break I would ever spend as a high school student─with misery for all and redemption for none, an unhappy ending that was a cruel sight to behold.