Monogatari Series - Volume 4 - Chapter 0.18

018

Epilogue.

Or rather, my life from now.

The next day, Karen and Tsukihi, my two little sisters, roused me from my bed for the first time in a while, and I headed to school. My parents said nothing in particular to me, the eldest son of the family who’d allegedly returned from a two-week-long journey of self-discovery, and my sisters simply had a big laugh at my expense. Since what I’d been up to indeed went beyond words and invited ridicule, I felt like I had no choice but to accept their reactions.

In any case, the new school year was starting today.

I got on my bicycle and began pedaling toward school. It was also my first time riding one in two weeks, but I supposed it took more than a little trip to hell and back to forget how to ride a bike.

I arrived at school.

Class assignments had been posted in the gym.

“Whoa.”

It was a miracle. My name and Hanekawa’s were there inside the same box. Well, a miracle might be an overstatement, but my heart leapt a little. I hadn’t felt anything close to the same emotion looking at class assignments for my second year. Though I couldn’t describe the true nature of that emotion even if I tried, marvelously enough Hanekawa and I were going to be in the same class.

I picked out Hanekawa from among the throng of students scrambling to check what class they were in and called out to her─such textbook examples of model students were rare even at Naoetsu High so I had no trouble finding her.

She had changed her hairstyle.

Actually, all she’d done was split her one braid into two, one on each side, but even that had quite an effect on the impression she gave off.

“Oh, if it isn’t Araragi… Howdy!”

Hanekawa looked tired. Her shoulders were slumped, and she even seemed to be stooping a little.

What a torpid way to start off the new school year.

“I-Is something the matter, Miss Hanekawa?”

What could it be?

Did she not like our being in the same class?

Although I was beset by paranoia, that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Agh!”

Hanekawa pulled on the sleeve of my uniform to lead me outside the gym.

Once we reached a place where we could talk in private, she groaned, “I forgot my bra in the P.E. shed.”

“Okay.”

“They’ve probably found it by now…”

While I had tried to clean up the athletic field as best I could, there was simply nothing I could do about the door that had been crumpled up by a vampire’s eyes like a ball of aluminum foil, so I’d left it behind and gone home. I hadn’t gone to the field yet, but the door had disappeared entirely. How could there not be an uproar over that? They’d surely conduct a thorough investigation of the area around the shed.

And that’s what seemed to be causing Hanekawa distress.

“While it was no time to be worrying about that kind of thing, I, Tsubasa Hanekawa, made my mistake of a lifetime…and it will be my lifelong shame.”

“Don’t worry, Hanekawa.”

“? Why not?”

“I made sure to grab it.”

“What did you just say?!”

“I would never let you embarrass yourself like that.”

“How did you keep it in mind under those circumstances?!”

“Hey, hey, don’t say such sad things. During all of spring break, your underwear was always my top priority.”

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“So yes, top and bottom, together now as a set in my room.”

“Give them back!”

Hanekawa and I spoke there for a little while since we still had time before the first bell. The topic of our conversation was, of course, vampires. Hanekawa exhibited for me a tidbit of her vast knowledge on the subject.

“It’s just a theory,” she began, “but vampires sucking human blood─apparently means completely different things depending on whether they’re feeding or creating a thrall.”

“Yeah, I feel like I’ve heard that before, either from her directly or from Oshino.”

“When it’s for food, well, it’s for food, but it seems that creating a thrall is more like intercourse.”

“I-Intercourse?’

“I’m being serious,” Hanekawa said. “We speak of sexual appetites and those two desires being similar, don’t we? And when you think about it that way, doesn’t it make sense that vampires don’t like to create thralls too often? As far as her─just two in five hundred years. I don’t really know the vampire take on chastity, but she seems to be a very modest woman.”

“Modest?”

“It makes me wonder if her first thrall could’ve been her lover.”

A notion against creating thralls─

That’s how it had been put to me.

A modest vampire.

One who wouldn’t create a thrall just in order to survive, was it?

In that case.

When did she create a thrall?

That was the question.

“…But we’re talking about a human and a vampire,” I said.

“And couldn’t that be why she made him her thrall? The existence of half-vampires seems to confirm such couplings…or maybe those cases are different. Either way, this is just speculation. But isn’t that precisely why she tried to redo things with you? To atone for the other time, so to speak.”

“To atone─”

She couldn’t turn her first one back into a human.

Hence she overlaid me, her second─on her first.

That could have been it.

“I’m sure she didn’t want to be killed by those three expert vampire hunters─but maybe when she came across you, she truly did find the right place to die. It was when she encountered─her second thrall.”

“Place to die, huh?”

“When you think about it, the moment she relinquished almost all of her abilities as a vampire by making you her thrall─when she relinquished the ability to suck blood, she may have already been prepared to starve to death. I mean, vampires die if they don’t suck blood.”

“That’s…right.”

“But in order to turn you back into a human, she couldn’t allow herself to starve to death.”

“…You know, last evening, she started out by inviting me to live with her for eternity, but…if I’d accepted her invitation, I wonder what she had in mind.”

“Exactly that, I think.”

“Exactly that?”

“Even if you can’t live alone, if it’s with someone else, you can.”

“……”

“Two’s better than one─and apparently just two is better than three. That sort of thing.”

Dunno, Hanekawa said.

Ditto, I said to that.

“The wound.”

“Hm?”

“It’s still there,” Hanekawa said─looking at my neck.

The two fang marks on my neck.

“Oops. Isn’t my collar hiding them?”

“Hmm. People in the know might notice.” Crossing her arms, Hanekawa examined my neck from all sorts of angles. “Plus there’s gym class and stuff… I think it might be better for you to grow out your hair a bit.”

“Ah… Taking care of it’s gonna be a pain.”

“How vampiric are you still, anyway?”

“I still have to find out the extent for myself, but…well, my body seems to heal a lot better than before. I think my gums bleed less when I brush my teeth.”

“What a drab─”

“It is what it is. If we’re to give it a positive spin─I’d say I was able to turn back into a human, but not without some lasting side effects.”

“I see… Side effects, huh.”

“Well, whether or not I’m human now─just being able to be out in the sun like this feels like a world of difference.”

“How forward-looking.”

As she said that, Hanekawa’s bashful smile, too─looked much more dazzling under the sun.

“Well, don’t ever hesitate to ask me if you need help with something. I’ll be happy to lend you a shoulder to rub any time.”

“All right. I’ll let you know if I ever want to rub them. You bet I’ll be doing some research before next time, and I’m going to be emotionally prepared for it as well, because I want to make sure it feels good for you when I get my hands on them.”

“…W-We’re talking about my shoulders, right?”

“Huh? Er, yeah, sure, I guess.”

“That’s an awfully vague answer…”

She grimaced. But at any rate─Hanekawa held her right hand out toward me.

“Now that we’re in the same class, I’m gonna make sure you turn your life around.”

“What am I, a juvenile delinquent?”

“You lost your life and turned once, didn’t you?”

An apt expression for an undead guy, Hanekawa deadpanned.

“Let’s make this a good year, Araragi.”

“Yeah. And not just this year. Let’s make this good, for now and ever.”

Maybe not as long as an eternity.

But a good now and ever.

I clasped Hanekawa’s right hand.

We shook hands like true friends.

We then headed to class, where our homeroom teacher gave an outline of the school year and trimester to come─but that part was the same as ever.

He told us that class representatives would be voted on tomorrow, and that we should think about who would be suitable. Of course, I would be voting for Hanekawa─as for which of the boys was getting my vote, who cares.

And after class.

I headed to the abandoned cram school alone.

I’d told Hanekawa where I was going. I considered going together with her, but then, this was my responsibility and mine alone.

After about twenty minutes on my bicycle, I arrived.

I entered onto the property through a hole in the fence, as if it was a friend’s familiar house, or rather, my own. Come to think of it, this was my first time studying the building from the outside during the day.

Looking at it under the sun─it was even more dilapidated than I expected.

It was decaying and exhausted.

It was a corpse of a building.

So that’s how it appeared to human eyes.

Casting mine down, I entered the ruins─and then climbed the stairs.

I got to the second floor─and kept going.

I was headed to the fourth floor.

She was no longer vulnerable to sunlight.

Because She was no longer a vampire.

I checked the classroom with the hole ripped through its ceiling, but no one was there. When I opened the door to the next classroom over─though the door seemed to have its own mechanical problems─I found Oshino inside.

“Hey there. You’re late, Araragi─I’ve been waiting for ages,” he greeted me in a carefree tone.

He wore, as always, a Hawaiian shirt.

Lying on a slapdash bed made of desks, he hardly seemed to have been waiting for me, but there was no point in taking this guy to task about every little thing.

“Ha hah. That uniform suits you, Araragi. I thought you were someone else.”

“Well, I am a student, after all.”

“Oh, right. It’d slipped my mind. Yeah, yeah, you were the hero of a superpowered school action series.”

“That’s so long ago that I don’t even know if it really happened.”

And in any case, I wasn’t cut out to be the hero.

I wasn’t even fit to be the villain or the monster.

What I was now was a simple high school student.

After all, and all in all, I was a student.

Even if I wasn’t entirely human.

“I see. And missy class president isn’t with you?”

“Nope, I’m alone. Would it have been better if she came?”

“Nah, it doesn’t matter either way for this.”

By the by, continued Oshino.

“If you don’t mind me voicing my concerns, beware missy class president, Araragi─don’t take your eyes off of her. That girl is a little─too precarious. Even this time around…she gave every last one of us the run, you and me included. If things were to ever center around her, to be quite honest, even I don’t know what might happen.”

“Yeah…you don’t have to tell me to keep an eye on her,” I answered. “We’re friends.”

“Are you, now. Well, it’s not like I sold you a warranty on my services or anything, but I’d like to see how you’re going to hold up, so I’m staying here in these ruins for a while─I looked all around, but this abandoned cram school still seems the comfiest place. Come talk to me if you ever need help.”

“Your help is pretty expensive.”

“It’s not expensive. I’m properly compensated,” Oshino said before pointing to a corner of the classroom with his unlit cigarette. “All right, why don’t we get round number one started?”

In the corner of the classroom─

There sat a blond girl.

She held her knees in her arms.

A petite girl─who looked to be about eight.

Not twenty-seven.

Not seventeen, not twelve, not even ten─

A blond eight-year-old girl.

And.

She glared at me─with threatening eyes.

“…Really.”

I didn’t know what to call her.

This girl with no shadow, no trace, no game, not even a name.

A husk of a vampire.

The dregs of a beautiful demon.

And─

An unforgettable being, for me.

“Really… I’m sorry.”

I approached her.

I sat next to where she sat and hugged her.

“If you ever want to kill me, go ahead.”

She said nothing.

She wasn’t going to say anything to me anymore.

As if to sulk even harder, she struggled a little─but soon she calmed down and went for my neck, still not saying a word, and chomped down.

I felt a prick of pain.

Along with an intoxicating feeling.

“I don’t think this is right, either,” Oshino said airily behind me. “I guess you could call it human egotism? The disgust you felt over vampires eating humans is really no different from a cute little kitty eating a mouse turning people off. And now, in a way, you’ve chosen to keep a vampire as a pet─having filed down its fangs, plucked out its claws, crushed its throat, and castrated it. You, who were made a pet, turned around and made your master your pet. That’s all there is to this story. It’s certainly no heart-warmer.”

“……”

“A human who tried to sacrifice his life for a vampire, and a vampire who tried to sacrifice hers for a human. Sounds like blood begetting blood─but I guess blood is thicker than water. I don’t intend on inserting myself into this situation, since this is just work for me─but if you ever begin to hate yourself over this, Araragi, just let me know and I’ll do something about it.”

“I’m never going to start hating anything about this,” I answered as the girl sucked my blood. “I’m doing this because I want to.”

“Then do as you want.”

Even as Oshino’s uncaring repartee came from behind me, I embraced the girl’s petite body, which seemed so fragile that mere human arms might crush it if I held it too tight.

Having wounded each other, the two of us licked each other’s wounds.

Damaged goods both, we sought out each other.

“If you want to die tomorrow, I’m ready for my life to end tomorrow─if you care to live for today, then so will I,” I vowed out loud.

Thus begins the tale of the wounded ones.

A tale of blood that splattered red and dried up black.

The tale of our never-to-heal, precious wound.

I will tell it to no one.