Monogatari Series - Volume 5 - Chapter 6.16

016

I watched Hanekawa until she disappeared from sight. Then I traced back our route and went straight up to my sisters’ room─Tsukihi had already fallen asleep, exhausted. She was only fourteen, an age where it was still hard to stay up all night─she’d probably been forcing herself to stay awake. I’d asked her everything she could tell me, anyways. She could rest for now.

Karen, on the other hand, had been asleep, albeit fitfully, nearly the entire time from when I was released from captivity to when I came home─she didn’t seem to be able to sleep now. Between that and the high fever, she had to be suffering.

Not wanting to disturb Tsukihi, I moved Karen to my room. I carried her in my arms like a princess and set her down on my bed.

“Argh, Koyomi, you’re making too big a deal out of this. This is why I didn’t want to tell you. Everyone should have kept their mouths shut. It’s just a little fever, what’s the big deal?”

“Silence. Just be a good patient and do as I say. Are you hungry? How about some canned peaches?”

“No appetite.”

“I see… Do you want me to let down your hair?”

“Run me a bath. I’m all sweaty.”

“What about your hair…”

“Do whatever you like.”

Karen lifted her head up slightly and tilted her ponytail toward me. It may have seemed like she was just being lazy─but the truth was, even such a small movement probably pained her.

Earlier, when I lifted her up─her body felt like it was burning up.

An inferno. The Cinderswarm Bee.

Karen had stopped trying to act tough, I guess because her condition was out in the open. Not that she’d let go of her last reserves of stubbornness.

“A bath is out of the question,” I said, setting the hairband by the bedside, “but I can wipe you down if you like.”

“Yeah… Please. Not that I’m thrilled.”

Although her speech was clear, talking seemed like a chore for her─perhaps her body wasn’t responding properly to her commands.

Or to her stubbornness, as the case may be.

“Tsukihi just wiped me down a little while ago, but I’m already drenched…though I guess a little while ago is already yesterday.”

“I guess it is. Well, get undressed,” I said, leaving Karen in my room while I went downstairs to the bathroom. I wet a towel, and then went to the kitchen to heat the towel up in the microwave. I figured it would be better if the towel was a little warm.

When I got back to my room, Karen was still wearing her jersey.

“Hey, I told you to take off your clothes.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Huh?”

“I’m too tired. Can you take them off for me? Then wipe me down and get me dressed.”

“Son of a…”

She just didn’t do cute.

Where the hell did the image of the “little sister” in manga and anime come from anyway? I guess it ultimately had to do with the observer─anything could be cute if you were ready to see it that way. Maybe there was a demand for Karen’s recalcitrance, too.

For my own part, I’d rather pass. But I could be nice if she was sick.

I did as Karen said, removing her jersey and rolling up the t-shirt she was wearing underneath. Although her body wasn’t tempered to the same ascetic level as Kanbaru’s (I never dreamed I would use the word “ascetic” in conjunction with Kanbaru), it was still quite toned. I began wiping her down carefully.

“Nggh,” Karen groaned. “My own brother is / seeing me with no clothes on / how embarrassing.”

“Why are you talking in haiku?”

“To hide how embarrassed I am.”

“Says the girl who dances around the house half-naked after a shower.”

“That’s not dancing… I was doing aerobics.”

“Well, you can dance by yourself during the anime ending.”

“If I’m gonna dance, it won’t be just for the ending song… It’ll be the whole thirty minutes.”

“That might be a little too avant-garde…”

The funny thing is, I was completely fine seeing my sister naked. It affected me even less than when Shinobu had been naked.

I guess when your genes are so similar, the brain’s response just shuts off subconsciously… If not, siblings probably wouldn’t be able to live under the same roof.

“Aghh,” Karen groaned again. What a crybaby.

“I’m wiping your back. Roll over.”

“I can’t, it’s too hard. Roll me over.”

“Tsk…” After I was finished with her back, I stripped her lower half and wiped her legs down. Obviously, I avoided the inside of her underpants. Either Tsukihi or my mom would have to take care of that.

“Damn,” muttered Karen. “I can’t believe I screwed up like this.”

“Huh?”

“Even I know that being strong is more important than being right, you didn’t have to tell me that…” vented Karen as I wiped her down. “But it’s not like I can just snap my fingers and become strong all of a sudden.”

I don’t know if it was the hot towel, but I was starting to feel like a massage therapist.

“What am I supposed to do─ignore all the injustice I see until I become stronger? Justice runs in my veins, and I can’t stand by while evil is afoot.”

“From where I’m standing, it seems like you just want to cause a ruckus.”

“Yeah, well, from where you’re standing, it’s all make-believe… But,” said Karen, biting her lip plaintively, “that guy doesn’t play by the rules.”

“……”

By “that guy,” she meant Deishu Kaiki. The ominous man in the suit, dressed as if in mourning. “It doesn’t make sense─how can someone just make me sick? It’s weird, it isn’t right. Like something out of a melodrama.”

“A melodrama?” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. I continued wiping the underside of her foot as I spoke. “Anyway, I’ll figure something out. You forget about all this and just rest easy. Leave the rest to me.”

“I can’t rest easy. The truth is I’m in a lot of pain.”

“Well, then rest hard. Either way, there’s no need to worry. I’ll have you as good as new in no time.”

“How? The medicine isn’t working.”

“……”

I still hadn’t told her─about aberrations. Apparently, Hanekawa had managed to finesse that part, too.

It was as I had discussed with Hachikuji, Sengoku, and Kanbaru. Better not to speak of that stuff if you didn’t have to─about aberrations or about Shinobu.

Or Deishu Kaiki.

If this could be settled without getting Karen and Tsukihi involved any further─then it was better not to involve them. They were responsible for what had happened, sure. But they weren’t accountable. Not in my mind.

They were still children.

They were fakes.

“From where you’re standing, this is all make-believe,” Karen spooled back our conversation. Maybe she wasn’t talking to me, and it was more like the fever speaking. “Still…Kaiki.”

“Hm?”

“Deishu Kaiki. You heard from Tsukihi, didn’t you? Why he’s pushing this mumbo-jumbo occult stuff─those charms─to middle schoolers?”

“……”

“Yeah. For money.” Desihu Kaiki, swindler, fake expert. Karen spit her words out with contempt. “He instills malice and anxiety and then takes advantage of the situation to trick people out of their money. In exchange for nothing. Ten thou, twenty thou. That’s what he said. He’s taking that kind of money from middle-school kids. I thought he’d feel ashamed when I called him out for it, but you know what he said? He wasn’t even shy about it. Children are easier to deceive.”

“Easier to deceive…”

“Tsukihi’s friend, that girl Sengoku? She was really tightlipped about it, but I got the impression you helped her out a lot. But she was lucky. There are other kids who went to Kaiki for help, not knowing he was the source of the rumors, and got arrested for shoplifting trying to steal the money he asked for. Could you really forgive something like that? Could you look one of those kids in the eye and say, ‘Sorry, can’t help you, I’m not strong enough yet?’”

Karen said that as if one of those kids were in front of her right now. As if here was where she had to stand tall and pass her test.

“Kaiki said that money is everything. That sounds like something some villain in a manga would say. I never thought I’d hear a line like that in real life. I mean, money is important, but there’s lots of other important things as well. Like love!”

Wow! We agreed.

My sister and I actually agreed on something.

I spoke up. “Money isn’t everything─it’s just almost everything!”

“……”

Never mind, I guess we didn’t agree after all.

“Koyomi,” Karen said. “Tsukihi and I are doing what we believe in. We’re not gonna learn the hard way, or whatever. If the same thing happens again, we’ll do the exact same thing, no two questions about it.”

“……”

“I may have lost in terms of the outcome, but I haven’t lost in spirit. Next time I’ll win. I won’t give up until I win. And even if I’m not going to win, I still won’t give up. It’s not…the outcome that matters, right?”

“You mean, you may have lost the match, but you’ve won our hearts? That doesn’t sound like much of a warrior’s code.”

“That’s not quite it─but I’ll say, it’s far from it.”

“So it’s totally not it.”

“You can lose the match and lose people’s hearts─but if you don’t lose to yourself, then you haven’t really lost. There, that’s my warrior’s code.”

“Okay… But as long as you follow that motto, people around you are going to suffer. That’s why…” If that was how she felt, then I’d use her own words against her. “That’s why─you never grow up.”

“I’m already grown-up… Just look at these tits.”

“What am I supposed to see? They’re not even half as big as Hanekawa’s.”

“Wha? Are hers really that…”

Yes. Yes, they were.

She looked much more slender in her clothes than she was.

“Hanekawa’s the real deal,” I said. “I don’t think I need to tell you that, though.”

“……”

“Honestly, for my own part, I don’t really like you guys and Hanekawa getting friendly…but it’s a good opportunity. You could learn a lot from her.” I know I had. Since meeting Hanekawa─I’d changed. “If you don’t want me to grow up without you, you’d better start growing up too.”

“I never said that… Did Tsukihi?”

“Her opinion is your opinion. She’s the strategist.”

“Ugh. True.”

Karen began squirming and groaning.

“Don’t move,” I ordered, “it’s hard to wipe you down.”

“That’s enough, already, I feel much better now.”

“I’ve come this far, there’s no need to get shy now.”

“Well, don’t blame me if you get sick, too.”

“Huh…”

Huh? If I get sick, too? My hand froze mid-wipe─I had an idea.

“O-One sec,” I said, setting aside the almost cold towel and stepping out into the hallway.

Tsukihi was asleep, and it would probably still be a little while until my parents woke up. But just to be safe, I headed to the downstairs bathroom and locked the door behind me.

“Shinobu,” I called to my shadow.

“What now?”

She hadn’t emerged. It was just her voice, but that was fine. It was all I needed.

“’Tis nearly time for my slumber. I may have lost my pith, but I am still a creature of the night. And I hate to be roused as much as ever.”

“Okay, then let me ask you just one thing.” It was the idea that Karen’s words had put in my head. “My sister’s illness─is there a way to give it to me?”

“Hrm?”

“I say illness, but basically it’s an aberration’s poison─it was deposited in her willfully in the first place. In that case, couldn’t we transpose the toxin one more time, from her to me?”

“You wish to shoulder her illness? Hmm…”

Shinobu seemed to be considering the matter─in my shadow.

Perhaps she was thinking of what Oshino had told her─even if she couldn’t fiddle around in her brain anymore.

“Well…thy constitution is still partially vampiric. ’Tis unlikely the rankle of a creature such as the Cinderswarm Bee would raise your temperature very much─”

“Right?”

Vampires belonged on a different plane from other aberrations and stood virtually unopposed, unless it was something like Hanekawa’s cat─in fact, even the cat had only proved formidable thanks to targeting an exceptional host, namely Hanekawa.

Regardless of what type of aberration the Cinderswarm Bee was, it basically couldn’t hold a candle to the might of a vampire. A bee sting did little against a demon.

“In that regard,” Shinobu said, “absorbing the Cinderswarm Bee’s rankle is an excellent idea. If I cannot eat the poison, why not absorb it? Thy notion has merit. But since we do not know by what means Kaiki inflicted the poison upon thy sister, we shall need to rely upon a method of our own to transfer it.”

“What? You mean you know a way?”

“I may. Yet…frankly, I do not recommend it. Well, it is not that I would not… I merely balk at the thought.”

“You mean it’s risky. I understand.”

“No, not risky, exactly… It may be no more than an urban legend. I believe the brat was talking about something entirely unrelated when he mentioned it.”

“You don’t seem very enthusiastic about this. It’s not like you. I’ll do it, whatever it is, as long as it’s not something weird like sucking her blood.”

“Like sucking her blood… Hmm, well, who is to say? I know not whether this is something ye would consider acceptable.”

“I have no idea what it is, but I’m pretty sure I’ll find it acceptable. If we don’t do something, the Cinderswarm Bee could kill her, right? And even if it won’t kill her, if there’s some way to ease her suffering, we should try, whatever it is.”

“True,” agreed Shinobu. However, she still seemed hesitant. I had to badger her until she said, “Fine, do as ye like,” and finally shared the method.

I returned to my room.

“Koyomi… If you were going to the bathroom or wherever, you could have at least dressed me first,” Karen said as soon as I entered the room.

“Karen-chan,” I called to her, ignoring her (very justified) complaint.

Feeling in a rush due to the circumstances, I’d accidentally uttered her name. But that was that. I followed up with─

“We’re going to kiss now.”