Monogatari Series - Volume 5 - Chapter 6.12

012

Although it was only for half a day, I’d been held hostage in those ruins and was covered in dirt and grime. Right after getting the gist of the story from Hanekawa, and leaving my sisters in her care, I decided to take a bath. That might sound too relaxed, but I could tell from what I’d heard that panicking wouldn’t do any good.

To be honest, I was worried that if I didn’t take a short time-out, I’d wind up yelling at Karen and Tsukihi again.

Deishu Kaiki.

Ugh, of all people! Why get mixed up with a guy like him?

When I ran into him outside Kanbaru’s house, he did mention that “Araragi” was a name he’d heard very recently. He was referring to Karen. Well, it wasn’t a very common name, after all.

Dammit─what a coincidence.

Well, maybe it was a silver lining… I could get more info on Kaiki by talking to Senjogahara.

But he’d already gotten us into a fight. She might not be too keen on answering my questions.

By the way, after Hanekawa had finished filling me in, I’d taken the opportunity to ask her─it was thanks to her that I escaped my gruesome confinement, but what on earth did she say to Senjogahara over the phone?

“Oh, that? After Tsukihi texted you, she found it strange that you didn’t reply right away, so we decided I should call. I was reluctant, considering the time, but they insisted. They might not say so, but they clearly trust their big brother.”

“Yeah, I think I figured out that process. But how did you convince Senjogahara?”

None but Senjogahara.

“It wasn’t hard,” Hanekawa said. “As soon as I heard her voice, I more or less surmised what was going on, so I cut to the chase.”

“What do you mean, cut to the chase?”

“I told her, ‘If you won’t listen, I’ll tell Araragi that I’m in love with him.’”

“……”

Brutal. That was the biggest ace up Hanekawa’s sleeve in a way.

I could hardly play the same card in negotiating with Senjogahara for info on Kaiki, so I’d just have to ask nicely─though it might not get me anywhere.

Bur first, a bath.

I washed myself carefully and submersed my body in the tub.

Clink, clink…

The handcuffs, which I was unable to remove, remained on my wrists like gaudy bracelets and lightly banged against the side of the tub.

As if timed to coincide with the sound of the cuffs─gloompf.

From my shadow, stretching under the bathroom’s yellowish light─gloomph, emerged Shinobu Oshino.

It reminded me of a certain famous RPG.

Vampire A draws near!

Vampire A was looking at me.

“Um…”

Vampire A─Shinobu Oshino─spent most of her time concealed in my shadow. It was impossible to predict when she would appear, and as a result, by this point, regardless of when she happened to show, I was no longer very surprised. Still, the bath was a new one.

I suppose it was the setting, but she wasn’t wearing any clothes.

A stark-naked, beautiful blond girl.

As situations go, it was supremely terrible, even criminal…but Shinobu’s form was currently an eight year old’s, so unlike with Kanbaru, I was unaffected by her nubile, fair skin and just felt glad that she was looking well.

Shinobu, however, flashed me a broad grin.

“Now that ye have marked me in the nude, must I become thy bride─my master?”

She spoke in a childlike voice, but pompously.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I nearly sank into the bathwater.

She spoke… Shinobu spoke!

“Sh-Shinobu.”

“Khaha─what troubles thee? Ye look like a deer caught in the headlights. Or should I say, a vampire shot with a silver bullet? Is it so wondrous to hear me speak? Did ye presume that I had forgotten how?”

“……nkk.”

Well, no. I knew she could speak. I never thought she’d forgotten. While she looked like an eight-year-old girl, and though she’d lost most of her powers, that didn’t change the fact that Shinobu was actually a five-hundred-year-old vampire.

The surprising part…was talking to me. Being so kind as to talk to me.

Out of the blue. For no particular reason.

“Shinobu─you…”

Shinobu Oshino.

The vampire─the former vampire.

Now a pale shadow of one, the dregs of a vampire.

Unparalleled in beauty, cold as iron, and hot as blood─a monster among monsters, the king of aberrations.

Aberration slayer, they even used to call her.

She’d slain me. And I’d slain her.

That was why…ever since the end of spring break, dwelling in the ruins of the old cram school with Oshino─and sealed within my shadow now─she hadn’t spoken a word to me.

Not one syllable. Not to say she was angry, or unhappy, or suffering. Nothing.

And yet here, all of a sudden?

“Hmph. I grew bored.” Shinobu turned the shower spigot and poured hot water over her head. As a vampire, there was no real need for her to bathe─but she closed her eyes as if it felt nice. “I am loquacious by nature, as ye know. Just how much longer was I meant to bite my tongue? Ken as much on thy own, my master.”

“……”

Ack… I was completely lost for words.

No, it wasn’t that I was happy. Happiness didn’t seem appropriate. But─how else could I put it?

How could I not feel happy?

Unable to think of anything appropriate to say, I went for: “Thanks.”

“Eh? For what?”

Shinobu closed the spigot and glared at me, the water dripping off her body. Despite her childlike appearance, she was still a vampire, and her gaze remained as sharp as ever. It seemed even more bitter and piercing now than when she’d simply stared at me in silence.

“Oh─uh, I mean, this thing…” I hurriedly held up the cuffs and the broken chain. “You helped me snap it, didn’t you?”

Right after Tsukihi texted me.

Obviously, I hadn’t done it with my own strength─no matter how urgent the situation, I couldn’t have summoned enough adrenaline to break through steel. It had to have been Shinobu’s doing, from within my shadow.

“Did I? Khaha. I forget. In any case, thy taste in jewelry is atrocious. Come.”

Shinobu reached her tiny hand toward my wrists. This time she destroyed not merely the chain but the cuffs themselves, tearing them like a couple of plump doughnuts.

Her love for Mister Donuts was no secret.

Before I even had time to register shock, Shinobu tossed both of the cuffs into her mouth and chomped and smacked.

She may have lost most of her power─but she was still every inch the vampire, free from the slightest ounce of logic or reserve.

The same Shinobu that I remembered.

It was oddly comforting.

“Save thy thanks. I do as I please─before, now, and always. ’Twas pure serendipity that my deed accorded with thy wishes in this, my master.”

“Um, Shinobu─”

“My hair!” she cut me off before I could finish. She pointed toward her golden locks. “My hair.”

“Wh-What about your hair?”

“Ye may wash my hair. I wish to try this ‘shampoo’ as a lark. I have been watching from thy shadow for some time, and it always strikes me as diverting.”

“I’m allowed to…touch you?”

“How else will ye wash my hair?”

“Okay…I’ll include a conditioning treatment.”

I got out of the tub. I was naked too, of course, but in Shinobu’s case I didn’t feel very embarrassed─I had little shame left to hide from her eyes.

I cupped shampoo in my hand and passed my fingers through her hair.

It felt as I remembered─like a clear stream.

“I haven’t seen you without your helmet and goggles in a while,” I said.

“Ha! I am done with that.”

“You are?”

“’Twas lame. Unfashionable.”

“……”

I thought it had suited her. I suppose it was Oshino’s taste, and maybe she was never happy with it.

I worked her small head up into a lather (as a vampire, she equaled her image of herself, or in other words, didn’t get dirty, so I easily worked up a vigorous, frothing lather) and said, once again, “Um─”

“Shush,” Shinobu interrupted me again.

“……”

“Save thy breath. I shall not pardon thee─nor do I suppose ye’ll pardon me.” She spoke facing forward, staring at the mirror affixed to the wall, at her absent reflection. “So be it. We shall not forgive each other─so it shall be. We must not wash away the past. Still we may accost each other.”

“……”

“I have pondered the matter carefully these three or four months, and that is the conclusion I have reached─how do ye like it, my master?”

Shinobu closed her eyes, annoyed by the shampoo suds that hung down her face.

“I didn’t know you were bothering to think about it,” I said.

“Ye seem to have given it consideration as well─I would know, conversant with thy shadow as I am.”

“Haha.”

I reached over Shinobu’s head to turn the shower spigot and began rinsing her hair. Next I began applying the hair treatment. She had an impressive amount of hair, so I had to use ample conditioner.

“It’s not as if I can hold a grudge forever,” she remarked. “I am not so petty… Besides, I have something important to communicate that cannot be left unspoken.”

“Yeah?”

“While I do fancy Pon de Ring doughnuts─I much more favor the golden chocolate flavor. Know as much if ye would purchase two.”

“Of course…”

Well. She was a blonde vampire, after all─I guess “golden” suited her.

“Handle the rest yourself,” I said, getting back into the tub.

“The Cinderswarm Bee,” Shinobu uttered right then. “A giant hornet aberration.”

“Huh?” Hornet─Class Insecta, Order Hymenoptera, Family Vespidae?

“The particular variety is not found in my homeland so I know not the details, but they say that among bees─nay, among insects─nay, among all organisms, no stronger fighting regiments exist. In collective warfare, at least, none other compare. They are social, yet viciously fierce and aggressive.”

Though perhaps less so than vampires, Shinobu added.

“Wait…don’t tell me─”

That way of speaking, which reminded me so much of that dude.

“It is the aberration,” she confirmed, “currently afflicting thy dear, giant younger sister.”

“‘Giant’ seems like a bit much…”

After all, Shinobu was even larger in her true form. If I recalled correctly, adult Shinobu was nearly six feet tall.

“I give thee fair notice that none of this is my own knowledge─I may be the aberration slayer, but even I am not familiar with all such creatures. Besides, I specialize in devouring. I don’t concern myself with the names of my vittles─only with their taste.”

“So then…”

“Aye. This information is courtesy of that brat.”

As a vampire, Shinobu generally declined to distinguish one human from the next. The person she bothered to call a “brat”─was Mèmè Oshino.

“Do ye have any notion of how it felt for one such as myself?” complained Shinobu, grimacing. “Forced to give ear while that piddling excuse of a man expostulated incessantly, day in and day out, regardless of any personage but himself, and always with the most trivial of stories about aberrations?”

“……”

That did suck. I always wondered how Oshino and Shinobu passed the time when it was just the two of them─I guess now I had my answer.

“The Cinderswarm Bee was just one of the countless arcana he blabbered on about. If I am not mistaken…it is an aberration hailing from the Muromachi period. The long and short of it is that it is a contagion of unknown cause.”

An infectious disease. That was the truth of the matter. But the illness was interpreted as the work of an aberration. While that belief was in error, the important point was that it was thought of in such a way.

From there, aberrations bubbled out.

Just as the vampire phenomenon ultimately owed to a hematological affliction…

“The contagion causes a fever severe enough to immobilize its victim and eventually runs to death. In fact, several hundred perished─it was some time before a renowned shaman of the time was able to quell the outbreak─or so, I’ve heard, records an old chronicle. It was as if, stung by an untouchable bee, one’s body were enveloped in fire. Something to that effect.”

“……”

Karen─was just being brave, like always, and though I sadly hadn’t even noticed, she was physically exhausted.

Wracked by a fever so high it was like burning. Enveloped in fire.

She was feeling hot.

The long and short of it was that she was sick.

That was why she’d been sitting on the bed. That was why her cheeks were so flushed─not because she was cross. And the only reason she didn’t fly at me in a rage was that she could barely move.

Until I came home─she was asleep. Or more like passed out.

If not, Tsukihi probably wouldn’t have been able to send for my help in the first place─now I understood what Hanekawa meant when she said, “I doubt you could slap him back, though.”

She knew how sick Karen was, that she was exhausted.

“Tsk. No wonder Hanekawa protected her. But you know, Karen had it coming.”

“Had it coming?”

“The chickens came home to roost. Or maybe that should be ‘roast’?”

“Roast chicken?” Shinobu narrowed her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. “Thou art harsh on thy kinswomen… Not that it astonishes me at this point, as I have been watching thee from the galleys for some time now. Still, not to copy a phrase from the former class president, but I never knew.”

“Former?”

Hanekawa was still class president. Did Shinobu think the title referred to fashion choices?

“I don’t think I’m particularly harsh,” I retorted. “Anyway, it’s hard to tell from just Hanekawa’s account, but it sounds like this Kaiki guy infected my sister with an aberration’s poison.” Like with an illness…Karen had caught an aberration. “Not that I know if the toxin is from this Cinderswarm Bee aberration or if such a thing is even possible.”

“Perhaps. Such things are known to be,” Shinobu said. “But if thy tsundere maiden is to be believed, this Kaiki is a fake and a swindler, is he not?”

“True,” I agreed. Still…tsundere maiden?

Being in my shadow, Shinobu experienced everything that I did… She’d think that about Senjogahara. But thinking of Senjogahara as a run-of-the-mill tsundere amounted to a massive misunderstanding of human culture.

“Of course,” Shinobu cautioned, “being a fake does not preclude him from using true arts─the counterfeit often rings truer than the real.”

“Wise words.” I nodded. That hit home with me. “You can be suspect as an expert and still be an authentic swindler.”

The culprit was suspect? So much for bad jokes.

“Suspect…” Shinobu looked thoughtful. “If that is so, he might turn out to be more perilous than an authentic expert. Unleashing an aberration without the skills to control it seems devious, even by my standards. Speaking of suspect─I doubt he’s even human.”

“……”

“If our actions define us, he seems an aberration, himself.”

An aberration, himself. What exactly did that mean? What was our definition?

“Well, I’ll try asking Senjogahara,” I said. “I mean, what else can I do? The problem right now is the bigger─I guess there’s no point in playing games with you, the problem right now is Karen-chan. We have to find some way to alleviate her symptoms.”

Apparently, Hanekawa had taken Karen to the hospital first.

They had applied the most reasonable measures in the world for a person with a high fever─but it hadn’t helped. Even if Hanekawa had lost her memory of it for a while, she had some experience with aberrations─and was probably able to deduce that something wasn’t quite right.

“In that sense,” I observed, “Karen was right to choose to call Hanekawa after whatever happened. It was better than calling me, at least, like Tsukihi did.”

“Hmph. But if not for the former class president, thy sister would have likely never arrived at this Kaiki, no?”

“Well, no…”

When you put it that way, Hanekawa really went around starting fires so she could put them out… She always had the perfect response to any problem, but without her the problem might have never occurred in the first place.

During the incident with Shinobu, Hanekawa saved me. I was grateful to her, from the bottom of my heart, but if you thought about it, she was also partly responsible for my encounter with Shinobu.

The real deal.

Strong. Just, and also strong.

“The fever medicine isn’t doing anything,” I said, “and strangely, as painful as the fever is, her mind still seems to be lucid. My parents still think she just has one of those summertime colds.”

Maybe thanks to her everyday behavior? It was anything but exemplary, actually. But she could be glib.

“Shinobu. Can you─eat Karen’s illness?”

As a vampire, she ate aberrations.

That’s what she kindly did─with Hanekawa’s cat.

Well, “kindly” wasn’t right─in the end, Shinobu Oshino had simply had dinner.

“Unfortunately,” she said, shaking her head, “an illness is merely the effect─I could consume the hornet itself, and happily so, but I cannot devour the effects of its sting. Just as I can partake in an apple, but not the human sensation that it tastes delicious. The aberration is now past. The symptoms before us would not be disposed by consuming the hornet now.”

“I see. That make sense. Well, did Oshino say anything about how to deal with this Cinderswarm Bee?”

“Who knows? I have a feeling he may have, but his vociferations were always so rambling.”

Shinobu rinsed the last of the conditioner from her hair and slipped into the tub. It was a standard household bath, not large enough for two, but being child-sized she managed to just barely squeeze in.

It certainly wasn’t because I’m short!

“Come to think of it, I hadn’t taken a bath in some time…khaha.”

“Is that true?”

“Mm-hm. It has been four hundred years.”

“What a timeframe.”

That was incredible. Well, during spring break, when I was a vampire, I didn’t need to wash, either─it was no use applying human standards.

Be that as it may…

This was my first time taking a bath with Shinobu, obviously. I’d never even dreamed that such a day would come.

Was “moving” the word?

Sitting face to face with her like this was also a first─over spring break, I’d lacked the mental composure.

I stared at Shinobu, moved.

“What are ye gawking at? I had no idea ye were a genuine pervert who grew liver-veined at the sight of a naked little girl.”

“No, that’s not why.”

“Ha. The way ye ogle me has actually given me some funny notions.”

“Um?”

“No, no, ’tis nothing. But what if, for instance, I started to shriek so loud that everyone in the house could hear? Such notions.”

“Ack!”

Shinobu grinned from ear to ear. What a sick imagination!

But she did know that this sort of thing was taboo? Shit, did Oshino teach her? What an unnecessarily elite education!

“Yet if ye were to prepare a large tribute of doughnuts in requisition for my silence, I may be willing to boot a bargain.”

“Go ahead, scream…” I acted unfazed and even sat up straight. Dirty threats weren’t going to work on me. “You and I are joined at the hip─as long as you’re stuck in my shadow, you’ll pay for it. At the very least, you’ll never have Mister Donuts again.”

“Khaha! Well played. Ye have grown, my master─”

“Hey, Koyomi, how long are you gonna stay in there? I thought you wanted my story next…”

The glass door suddenly burst open and Tsukihi poked her head in.

At some point she had come downstairs. Entered the changing room. And opened the glass door.

“Umm…”

Now, let’s set out the situation!

Place: Bath!

Cast: Koyomi, Shinobu, Tsukihi!

Synopsis: Koyomi (a high school senior) and Shinobu (blonde, looks like an eight year old) are discovered taking a bath together by Tsukihi (little sister)!

So straightforward!

No need to set anything out!

“……”

Tsukihi─gently closed the glass door and strode away, without saying a word.

“……?”

What was she planning to do? Hell, whatever she was planning, I was lucky she’d walked away. Quick, before she gets back─

But.

Not even ten seconds had passed before Tsukihi returned. She threw the door open with a bang.

“Huh?” Tsukihi blinked in confusion. “Koyomi, what happened to that girl?”

There was no one in the bath other than me. Shinobu had returned to my shadow just in time.

“What girl? What the hell,” I chided. “We’re in the middle of a serious situation here, don’t talk nonsense, you idiot.”

What kept my voice from cracking as I spoke, of course, was the sight of a kitchen knife in Tsukihi’s right hand.

A carving knife. Apparently she’d gone to the kitchen.

No wonder I was as cool as ice. Despite the hot bath, my guts had frozen over.

“Huh…I guess I was seeing things,” muttered Tsukihi.

“You definitely were. There’s no flat-chested eight-year-old girl with dazzling blond hair, translucent white skin, and a pompous, archaic way of speaking here, move along.”

“Hmm. I see…” Tsukihi crossed her arms, baffled.

Watch the tip of that knife!

By the way, she was holding a lid to a soup pot in her other hand. Good to see she wasn’t neglecting defense.

“Fine, I guess… But Koyomi, this is some long bath you’re taking. When do you plan on finishing?”

“Ah…” Washing Shinobu’s hair meant I’d taken twice as long as usual. “I’ll be out soon. Go wait in the living room.”

“Okay!”

“And would you mind knocking next time?”

“What? I don’t remember you ever asking me to. You think you’re so mature now? Just because you’ve gotten all muscled lately, don’t go getting full of yourself!”

With that weird rant, Tsukihi exited the changing room. She’d left the glass door open, so I got out of the tub to shut it.

“Khaha!”

When I turned around, Shinobu was back in the tub. Since she was alone this time, she was resting her legs on the opposite rim, elegantly enough.

“That was alarming. Quite the hellcat thy sister is.”

“Give me a break…”

Hey, I was astonished too. Who immediately ran to the kitchen to grab a knife?

Thanks to Shinobu quickly slipping back into my shadow, we were able to dodge the bullet. If she’d tarried another second, we’d have had a bloodbath.

At least the cleanup would have been easy.

I pushed Shinobu’s legs out of the way and stepped back into the crammed tub, sitting across from her again.

“By the by, I don’t believe the brat ever broached this subject─in fact, I imagine he intentionally avoided it…” An impish, perhaps evil, expression flitted across Shinobu’s face─that gruesome smile of hers. “When will ye expire, I wonder?”

“What do you mean?” I didn’t understand what she was asking, or why. When would I die? How would anyone know?

“Well, that is to say… Ye may now be nearly human, but there is still a bit of vampire left, is there not? What will that mean in terms of thy lifespan?”

“Huh…”

I see. I hadn’t thought about that. Or rather─I’d been trying not to?

I said “the rest of my life” fairly often─but how many years did “the rest” actually refer to?

“Thy intensity may have reverted to a human’s, but thy lifespan may yet be a vampire’s─seeing that ye have retained a decent regenerative factor. Since thou will not be prone to illness or injury, an untimely demise seems unlikely, at least. Like a hermit wizard, or like me─ye might persist for four centuries, if not five.”

“……”

“Thy paramour, friends, juniors, and sisters─they will all pass, quenched in death, while we two remain. Whatever bonds ye build, time will see them rust and crumble.”

This was no hypothetical musing. Nor, certainly, lighthearted banter.

She spoke as if she were prophesizing the future.

Almost as if─she were recounting her own experience.

She stretched her legs out in the tub─as though to kick my belly.

Not sated with kicking─

Grind, grind.

She ground her heel─hard.

She might call me “master,” but she was just as domineering as ever.

“How does it feel? Even ye must be thought-sick at the prospect.” An inviting and befuddling lilt─as though to seduce me, domineeringly indeed, she said, “Yet I have a proposition for thee. Why not slay me and return at last to a human without disclaimer?”

“Get serious,” I brushed off her falsely casual offer. I made my refusal clear. “Your conclusion still stands. I won’t forgive you, and you won’t forgive me, period. That conversation is already over─there’s nothing more to discuss. We live, until we die.”

Take it as─my sincerity.

Take it as my resolution.

Take it as my atonement.

If you never forgive me, I’m okay with it.

Because─I don’t want to be forgiven.

“Hm, as ye wish.”

Shinobu laughed. Just as she used to back then─it was a thoroughly gruesome laugh.

“Pray, then, that I do not cut thy throat while ye sleep, my master. I merely live out my years, and have no care. I shall kill time in thy shadow for now─but I do not crave amity. Grow careless, and I shall kill thee.”

And so, having gone down a slippery slope─

Shinobu and I reconciled.