Monogatari Series - Volume 6 - Chapter 7.12

012

An ironblooded, hotblooded, yet coldblooded vampire, the king and slayer of aberrations, Shinobu had her existence robbed by me and her name bound by Mèmè Oshino, and lost nearly all of her combat skills─however, the truth was that it was incredibly easy for her to recover those powers.

She could do so at any time she chose. All she had to do was to drink my blood.

That would return her to her former vampiric glory─and liberate her from the girlish form she detested. She could reign once more as a mighty and invulnerable creature of the night.

It went without saying that the inevitable byproduct, a necessary side effect, of her doing so was that I’d become a vampire as well─as long as she did not suck me completely dry and leave me dead, that is.

On the other hand─and since she was now receiving energy directly from my shadow it needn’t be too frequent─if I refused to provide Shinobu with any blood, she would die before long. So easily that you wouldn’t know she’d once been immortal.

As the side effect of that, I would return to being completely human. No more after-effects, just a plain and simple human─it was a constant possibility, with which Shinobu tormented me relentlessly.

Shinobu becoming a vampire again.

Me becoming human again.

The two were depressingly equal.

But at the moment I wished for neither─neither the effect nor the side effect, neither the effect nor the counter-effect. I couldn’t fathom Shinobu’s heart, but for the moment at least, as far as I could tell, she was with me on this.

Therefore.

It was important─here─to limit the amount of blood Shinobu drew to a mere tasting, no more and no less.

Just like when we faced off against Kanbaru’s monkey─or further back when we faced off against Hanekawa’s cat.

Shinobu Oshino had to become a sort of monster.

Koyomi Araragi had to become a sort of monster.

It was just a matter of tuning up.

We weren’t going to be negotiating this time or talking things out. Unless we were more diligent about preparing for a fight, we’d wind up rehashing the battle at our front door─the conclusion to which would be far too painful for any amount of hindsight.

For my own part, I didn’t want to be folded up any more than I had to in one day─and it was unlikely Shinobu’s bluff would work a second time. No, even the first time, the bluff only prevailed thanks to the sympathetic vote.

To make matters worse, our opponent was an onmyoji specializing in immortal aberrations. There was no such thing as being too prepared─you might even say that no amount of preparation was going to be enough.

Shinobu and I fastened our teeth into each other’s neck, back and forth, draining our blood to and fro─until we got as close to the perfect balance as we were going to get.

And.

All prepared.

All ready.

All set─we arrived at the ruins of the former cram school to face off against Yozuru Kagenui and Yotsugi Ononoki.

“I see we have uninvited guests─Oshino would probably gab, ‘You’re late. I’ve been waiting for ages,’ but I’m not nearly the body for folk like he is.”

We were on the fourth floor of the building, in the classroom Oshino used most frequently as his den─out of the three on the fourth floor, it was the furthest one on the left from the stairwell.

The makeshift bed he’d constructed by joining together several desks with packing tape was still there, just as he’d left it.

It was also the classroom where I’d undergone my terrifying kidnapping ordeal the other day at the hands of Senjogahara before her subsequent rebirth.

Although Kagenui referred to us as uninvited guests, when I opened the classroom door, they were already staring in our direction as though they were expecting us.

Her rule that she couldn’t step on the ground only seemed to apply outdoors and not to the floors of buildings─the bottom of Kagenui’s shoes were in firm contact with the peeling, faded linoleum below.

Now that I saw her standing on two legs like normal─I began to understand a little what Karen had meant.

Something about the way she stood was unnatural.

It was even a little creepy.

The central axis of her body─was disturbingly straight.

There didn’t seem to be any degree of bend.

The way she was standing, if a bicycle ran into her─the bicycle would go flying while Kagenui, I bet, would remain perfectly still.

It wasn’t that she had good balance─she was completely affixed.

Her stance wasn’t the only thing… Probably because I’d increased my level of vampirism and narrowed the gap between us, I was able to sense how strong she was.

Now that I did, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed earlier.

Yozuru Kagenui, this seemingly sweet, friendly lady─bristled with danger.

Dramaturgy.

Episode.

Guillotine Cutter.

She emanated an incredibly salient bloodlust that rivaled that of the three vampire hunters─

“Oshino…” To avoid tipping off how nervous I felt─and to put up a bold front, I responded to Kagenui, “Oshino never gave off such a hostile vibe─not once.”

“Hm? Kakak, I bet he didn’t─not Oshino. But you know, fiendish young man─you’re one to talk. The way you’re angling for a fight now, what did you expect? To be welcomed with a banquet?”

Kagenui laughed in amusement.

From the looks of it, she was enjoying this chance to gossip about our mutual acquaintance.

“The vampire there, in particular─the erstwhile Heartunderblade, has certainly changed her feathers,” Kagenui observed, pointing at Shinobu who stood next to me.

That was true. Having drunk nearly as much of my blood as was safe, Shinobu Oshino no longer looked like an eight-year-old girl, a blond Lolita.

Which isn’t to say that she’d reverted to her fully adult version. That would have been going too far─she looked around my own age, about eighteen, if you asked me.

Despite not being able to tell humans apart even after remembering their names, it seemed that when Karen beat the crap out of me the other day, Shinobu had taken real notice (or real damage, since she suffered along with me from inside my shadow). Her hair was styled after the ponytail that Karen had sported until this morning.

She was also wearing a jersey of some sort.

Reflecting her aristocratic lineage, though, the needlessly gorgeous jersey somehow had a luxury, designer-brand feel.

The same went for the sneakers on her feet.

Shinobu Oshino’s golden eyes were fastened on Kagenui and Ononoki.

It was a quiet stare.

“You look pure slick, Miss Heartunderblade─you could hold a candle to my younger self. But I doubt you have my britches. It looks like you put all your effort into just the outwith, like a lion’s mane or a peacock’s train─or a mantis’ axe.”

“The only mantis axe here is thy little maiden. I advise thee, onmyoji─ye’d be wise not to wag your tongue too bravely now. I’ve not regained so much of my skills and power since I dealt with that vile cat─I am in the crucible of alarm and hunger. There is no telling what might prick me to kill thee.”

Shinobu sounded quite proud of herself. Her voice, too, was no longer the lisping one of a little girl─I was reminded, for the first time in a long while, just how meaningless outward form was to a vampire.

“I am not to kill thee─do not give me matter to do so. Do not give me motive─I have no mind to betray this one yet,” she said, pointing her thumb at me.

At me─as the one she did not wish to betray.

“I entreat thee, give me no cause to show my true mettle, my true nature, my true fangs─forbear, as I request, and I will drain only as much of thy blood as metes a fitting punishment.”

“You’re not to kill?”

It was Ononoki who reacted─even more than I did, to Shinobu’s words.

“Is that the resolve you came here with? You make me laugh. Isn’t that right, sister? We’re more than ready to kill─he said with a dashing look.”

As usual, there was no such look on her face.

Her features were as still as a lake surface on a windless day.

But she did seem to mean it in regards to taking offense at Shinobu’s speech.

“Now, now, Yotsugi, don’t say that─these folk are just obtuse,” interceded Kagenui, reinforcing the impression that her shikigami was indeed ruffled. “Right. You just don’t know─how dire heartless we can be. You have no damned clue how ridiculously far we’ve strayed from the fair path.”

“……”

I did have a clue.

I’d figured that much out for myself.

Kagenui and Ononoki─shot first and asked questions later, if at all. They’d attacked Tsukihi Araragi, along with the house in which she lived, without even a cursory interrogation.

I knew exactly what kind of humanity such people possessed.

What kind of aberrations they were.

They represented justice.

And nothing else.

“Well? What now?” Kagenui asked me─her tone was casual, as if we were about to get a deck of cards and play President like one big happy bunch, and she was just asking about the local rules. “We tend to welcome a showdown─I’m all for violence, I reckon it makes things simple. And just our luck, we’ve got a human and an aberration each─myself versus you, and the erstwhile Miss Heartunderblade versus Yotsugi. How does that match card strike you?”

“……”

“Hmm? You don’t like it? I can square off with Heartunderblade and you with Yotsugi, if you prefer─she’s the one who whupped your sister, after all. Well, fake sister.”

“No…”

The first suggestion was fine, I said, nodding.

In fact, it was what I had been hoping for.

That matchup was the one point I was most concerned about. I just didn’t know how to bring it up─it was almost as if she’d read my mind.

I guess she was feeling pretty confident.

Maybe she meant it as a handicap.

Either way, I could only accept─what other choice did I have?

“Good. Maidling, thou and I will fight downstairs,” Shinobu, who knew these ruins like the back of her own hand, invited Ononoki. “There’s a fitting room for our melee on the second floor─we should be able to fight to our hearts’ content there. Allow me to show thee the wisdom of age.”

She probably meant the classroom where I’d battled Kanbaru’s monkey─it did seem well-suited to withstanding a clash between two aberrations.

“Fine, I’m good with that. Acting like you’d taken me hostage to make my sister back down was annoying me to no end. Don’t fool yourself, even after powering up this far, you’re still not at my level. Respect for the Aged Day is still a month away, but if you’re going to rattle your old bones to try and show me the wisdom of age, then I see no harm in doing my civic duty today─he said with a dashing look.”

In response to Ononoki, I heard what sounded like a vein popping from Shinobu’s direction. I have to say, she had it coming once she brought up their age difference.

“Keh… That’s rich coming from a minor goblin of the Far East with barely a tome or treatise about her,” Shinobu retorted, her voice dripping with loathing. “When I’m through, ye’ll never make another dashing look again.”

Um, Ononoki only said that and never wore such an expression to begin with… But in any case, Shinobu headed for the door.

Now that she had my blood for a battery, she was no longer confined to my shadow─she still couldn’t go very far, but the second and fourth floors of the same coordinates were well within bounds.

Think of it like the relationship between Mobile Battleship Nadesico and the Aestivalis.

“All right, sister, I’m going to go do some volunteer work taking care of the elderly─he said with a dashing look.”

“I leave it in your hands,” Kagenui replied to her shikigami.

“In my hands?” Ononoki tilted her head. “Please don’t put so much trust in me─he said with a dashing look.”

She turned toward me, suddenly, as if something had sparked her interest.

“Kind monster sir.”

“Yeah?” I shot back.

“What do you think of the world?”

Without giving me time to answer, she told me her own opinion.

“I wouldn’t mind if this world of fakes got destroyed, kind monster sir─he said with a dashing look.”

Saying so with a not particularly dashing look.

Declaring so with rare conviction.

Ononoki finally followed in Shinobu’s footsteps─and the two aberrations departed from the classroom.

“……”

The bloody combat that was about to unfold between those two likely exceeded the human imagination─having restored herself to such an extent, there was no doubting Shinobu’s strength. Ononoki, meanwhile, was still an unknown factor.

At the very least, judging from how she’d pulverized our front door (and Tsukihi’s torso)─she could more than hold her ground against any aberration I’d encountered so far.

In which case… Shi─

“Is this any time to be gawking?”

In the blink of an eye, as I was glancing toward the door that Ononoki had shut behind her─Kagenui took her opportunity to close the distance between us, drawing so close I could feel her breath on my nose.

“Wha…”

“Our battle has already started. It began the moment we came mewling into this world─”

I didn’t even have the time to pull back my gaze.

The very next instance, Kagenui kicked my knee out─literally kicked it out.

No, excuse me.

“Kicked out” fell short.

You might think that she smashed my kneecap or broke my bones or something like that.

That would be misleading and a lie. Hypobole.

To be precise, what she did was to kick her heel straight at my knee─whereupon the force severed my leg from the knee down like a surgical scalpel, jeans and all.

Kind of like snapping a twig.

Or maybe─plucking the legs off an insect.

“Gha…kk!”

The surprise hit me more than the pain.

It was my astonishment that was the more blistering.

Letting her get so close was just incautious─I had to pay a price for getting distracted by things I had no business worrying about at the moment. I could hardly complain about taking a blow in exchange.

But did it have to be such a devastating blow?

How could one human kick another human’s leg off─especially when my body was fortified to the limit as it was now?

My bones, my flesh…

Heck, even my skin was tough as if it were coated in thick rubber…

“Did you reckon I’d go after your weaknesses as a vampire? Target your airways, maybe? Your internal organs? Bring crosses and holy water? Did you reckon I’d whip out a Super Soaker?”

As she spoke, Kagenui swung her left fist─diagonally across from the leg she’d just kicked with─at a dizzying speed against my jaw.

Her punch could set off an airbag, according to Karen─however, that assessment needed to be modified somewhat.

She had been surprisingly conservative in her estimate.

Forget about airbags.

If it was a compact, Kagenui could probably total the whole car.

My whole lower jaw popped off like I’d gotten hit by a major league fastball at point-blank range─this wasn’t early-stage stuff like getting a concussion because your brain shook in your skull from a punch to the chin.

My brain didn’t so much as tremble when my lower mandible was removed with pinpoint accuracy.

“I hate to break this to you, but I’m Japan’s first fighting onmyoji─I don’t care about the Komai arts or onerous erudite secrets or any mince like that. Aberrations or whatever they are? I just get pumped up and smash them like so.”

The next blow was a palm strike.

The palm of her right hand, which she’d been holding in reserve─came hurtling in on a straight line, at a debilitating, impossible angle, striking me on the right shoulder.

My right arm was jerked from my shoulder joint─leaving only the part from the neck of the humerus and up.

She hadn’t grabbed or twisted my arm.

She plucked it free with just the pressure of her palm.

Not even the greatest yokozuna in sumo history were capable of such a feat.

It was sheer force─and its concentration.

Power and skill.

The result of which─was extreme destruction.

Yozuru Kagenui, the Destroyer.

Back in front of our house, when she’d folded me up like a piece of origami, I had wondered what kind of submission hold she could have used─if only I had known. She’d simply used her freakish strength to stuff me into that position, as if I’d been reluctant to perform calisthenics and she’d forced me to.

Mere monstrous strength.

And now, that mere, monstrous strength was being unleashed and wreaking havoc.

Could this really be the handiwork of a human, and not an aberration, in the face of an aberration─no, actually, forget all that cumbersome talk, she simply wasn’t any sort of onmyoji!

Everything apart from her fighting skills had been subtracted from her as a person!

No wonder Shinobu had been so equivocal.

There was just no normal way─to describe such a person!

“Hur… Guh, uh, ahh!”

I could only pull away─I jumped backward as hard as I could on my remaining right leg to put some distance between us.

Kagenui made no move to follow me.

Not that she couldn’t keep up, but she seemed to know better than to chase me too far. She was clearly a pro.

There was no need for a pro to get sloppy against an amateur.

Kagenui had no reason to make a valiant, sustained charge.

As unserious as she could seem, she preferred slow, steady progress.

“Huff… Huff, huff.”

But I was lucky─the fact that Kagenui’s destructive power was so awe-inspiring actually worked to my advantage.

It hurt so much that it didn’t hurt at all.

This was so unrealistic that my brain couldn’t accept it.

The damage so surpassed the limits of my sense of pain that my nervous system refused to process it─meanwhile, my body, possessed of vampiric immortality, began to automatically regenerate itself.

My severed leg.

My removed jaw.

My plucked-off right arm.

They all began to be restored to their original state─like a system reboot.

Obviously, the regeneration didn’t happen in a heartbeat like when I was a full vampire. Nevertheless, everything was back in place sooner than you could say A-E-I-O-U.

Unlike Shinobu, my clothing wasn’t included in the scope of my recovery (I didn’t have the ability to create matter, my clothes were just normal clothes), so I was left looking a little bit punk.

But the damage to my psyche from my body getting so badly mistreated wasn’t healing.

“Huff… Huff, haah…”

Calm down, stay cool─and heat up.

Even this unexpected development was within expectations.

It was nothing I couldn’t endure.

This was a small price to pay for getting to grab my sisters’ tits all the time and continuing do so.

Anyway.

Back to square one.

“Kakak. You…”

My opponent, Kagenui, seemed to be enjoying herself.

Despite the fact that we were in the middle of a fight, her jovial attitude had barely changed─or rather.

According to her, our fight started the moment we were born, so it was only natural that her attitude wouldn’t change now.

She didn’t stop at always being ready for combat.

When she asked me for directions standing atop that mailbox, she was already standing on her battlefield.

“Do you reckon you know why it is I specialize in immortal aberrations?” Kagenui opened her mouth wide and lewdly licked her lips. “It’s because you can never go too far─”

“……nkk.”

I thought I was back to square one, but with one sentence, she broke my morale.

What was up with this lady?

The world was a big place… I’d never dreamed that it contained so intense a human.

I’d come here intending to fight and all─but only pictured a contest of unique skills.

Not that I’d doubted Karen’s guarantee that Kagenui was intense─but I thought once I was more than half vampire again, it would be a fair fight at the minimum.

And yet─what was this melee?

What was with the brute force?

This Kyotoite onmyoji was overwhelming an aberration─via sheer physical strength.

“Huff, huff, huff, huff…”

Regulating my breathing, throttling the thundering beating of my heart, I desperately tried to think.

No, don’t think. Remember.

This─right…

The former inhabitant of this room, the slacker in the Hawaiian shirt─if Mèmè Oshino had wanted, he could probably have gone nuts in this way, too.

He just didn’t.

He─no doubt could.

Even Shinobu at the height of her power had seen something in him. Whether it was the crab or the snail or the monkey or the snake, he probably could have dealt with them in a simpler way. The only aberration that had truly been too much for him to handle was probably Hanekawa’s cat.

Oshino.

“Ms. Kagenui… How do you know─Oshino?”

I wasn’t just trying to buy time.

Indeed, I was pretty sure that the only chance an amateur like me had against a pro like her was to try for a quick, decisive victory─but one way or another, this was something I needed to ask.

If I didn’t ask her─I wouldn’t be able to focus on the fight.

It would nag at me.

“You’re acquainted with that dude in the Hawaiian shirt…Mèmè Oshino?”

“Huh?” Kagenui cocked her head at my abrupt question. “What, you mean he’s still wearing those shirts? I thought that was just to flesh out his character, but I guess they really mean something to him if he’s still keeping the faith.”

“……”

“Well, nothing special─we’re just old mucks. Me, Oshino, and Kaiki were in college together.”

What?

Oshino was one thing─but Kaiki?

Kaiki?

Did she just say Kaiki?

“By Kaiki…do you mean Deishu Kaiki?”

“Sure, Kaiki. We were in the same department and the same club. There was one more of us above our year, and we used to play four-man shogi.”

“Shogi…”

Come to think of it… Kaiki had gone on a little digression with me and Senjogahara on the topic of shogi. I remember thinking it seemed a little strange for him…

“Kaiki never tried to win. He always fixed for profit. They say it’s bad luck, but he loved to get his pieces in a column.”

“……”

Why did he have to be ominous in every way?

That was worse than a stalemate.

“Oshino loved solving shogi puzzles. He was mean and loved to torment us with two-king problems. It wasn’t Microcosmos, but he did reckon up many a near-stalemate.”

“I don’t imagine that earned him a lot of friends…” So Oshino had been like that even way back in college. What an ass. “So the club you mentioned was a shogi club?”

“No, the occult research club. Though I reckon the only ones who took it seriously were Oshino and our sempai. We played so much shogi we forgot to recruit new members. Once we were finished, I’m pretty sure the club went under─I say finished, but Oshino and Kaiki both dropped out. The only one to actually graduate was me.”

“O-Oh…”

Only the one who seemed least likely to had graduated.

But putting that aside─she knew not only Oshino, but Kaiki as well.

Naturally, that meant Oshino and Kaiki─knew each other as well.

It was unexpected, but it also made sense─there’d been something odd about the way Kaiki spoke of Kagenui and Ononoki.

So after bilking me, a high schooler, out of my money, Kaiki didn’t even given me accurate information?

That is even less believable, he said… As long as you’re on the straight and narrow, you’re even less likely to get involved with them than with me, he said…

That son of a bitch.

If I’d known they were acquainted, I’d have asked more questions.

“Actually, it was Kaiki who kindly let us know that we had prey in your sister.”

“Kaikiiiiiii!”

So this whole thing was another one of your scams?!

This was all your doing?!

That ominous sack of shit was such a hopeless scoundrel.

“Of course, he set us back something fierce as is his wont. I figured it was all a bucket of pish before I got here, but I guess even Kaiki tells the truth sometimes. Fancy me pink.”

“First you take money from her, and then you take money from me? Business sure is booming, isn’t it, Deishu Kaiki?! Maybe next time we should crack open some champagne!”

What was it he said? “Coincidences” as they’re generally understood are a tricky affair─and, by and large, a product of malice.

A product of his own malice, clearly!

Playing dumb and spouting that line, when he knew damn well!

At this rate, Shinobu and I just happening to run into Kaiki at Mister Donut must have been intentional─malicious, even.

Kaiki was a conman, but he was also an expert. Maybe he knew just around when we would visit Mister Donut and was sitting there eating his muffins waiting for us, almost like Oshino─and come to think of it, the fact that he’d returned during Obon while Senjogahara was away also seemed a little too convenient.

“Dammit…I can’t believe it. Seriously, bastard?”

It made sense now how Senjogahara had gotten tricked by him back in freshman year─let alone a pair like the Fire Sisters, Karen and Tsukihi.

He played us like a fiddle.

Even Kagenui and Ononoki were dancing on the palm of his hand─it was so grand it wasn’t nasty anymore.

I should have never called him small-time.

Deishu Kaiki was biohazard level.

No wonder Senjogahara didn’t want me to have anything to do with him─in fact, I had to hand it to her again for mustering the courage to face Kaiki a second time despite her unpleasant experience with him.

“In fact, Kaiki was the source behind Yotsugi’s name─which I linked to his. The ki in Ononoki comes from Kaiki.”

The character meant tree. “You mean─you bound her with that name?”

“Right. Unlike Oshino, I haven’t the courage to bind an aberration using my own name.”

Ononoki.

So it wasn’t a mispronunciation of Araragi, after all.

What a yucky web─there was some twisted backstory and karma behind the battle going on beneath us now between Shinobu Oshino and Yotsugi Ononoki.

“Still─Karen and I met Kaiki, but I’m pretty sure Tsukihi, who’s at the center of this, never came face to face with him…”

“Kaiki was always obnoxiously clever. He’s in his element at seeing hidden angles─seeing two of three siblings was probably enough for him to sound out the third. Until today, I never reckoned there might be a connection between the vampire Oshino certified as harmless and Kaiki’s shide no tori. Unlike me, Kaiki must have known she was your sister, eh?”

“Well─probably.”

Right.

Unlike Kagenui, Kaiki didn’t think Karen and I just happened to have the same name─he was perfectly aware that she was my sister.

I doubted he grasped definitively that there were actually three of us─but it wouldn’t be so strange if he had.

“He’s cunning as ever not to have told us, fiendish young man─in fact, instead of just keeping it a secret, I suppose he actively led me into believing that you two only happened to share a name. Intentionally planted noise in his information. He probably reckoned that way he’d gin some money out of us both.”

I had to agree with her.

Araragi was an uncommon name, and it was pretty unnatural not to suspect blood ties─there had to be intent and malice at play.

It wasn’t by chance.

“You probably know this by now, but Kaiki’s specialty is fake aberrations… The shide no tori may fix under my specialty, but it fixes under his as well…”

Kakak, Kagenui laughed lightheartedly even though she’d been deceived by an old friend.

“The cleverest of us, though, was Oshino. Even though he was also the least serious, always messing with different girls, what a joker. No one ever saw him do any studying to save his life, but we all reckoned he was the biggest genius the club had ever seen. Even Kaiki kept his distance when it came to Oshino…”

“……”

That was amazing.

I had Oshino all wrong.

I could give two shits about him being clever or a genius or whatever, but if he could make Kaiki think twice, then the man had my undying respect.

But…messing around with different girls?

I found that unimaginable.

I didn’t want to be too hard on him because he’d been young back then, but men should strive to be honest and faithful with girls, you know?

Shame on him, I say.

“Heh, I can get ahold of Kaiki every now and again, but I never seem to get together with Oshino these days. Part of the reason I came to this building first is, I missed my old muck.”

“So when Kaiki was setting up shop in our town, he must have known Oshino was here…”

He just wanted to keep his distance.

But maybe I just didn’t know, and there’d been some contact.

Maybe the two old friends had met up.

The Gaen family, Kanbaru’s mother’s side, had something to do with this whole field─Oshino had known about them, and as for Kaiki, it was in front of Kanbaru’s house that we’d first met.

Plus, Oshino had mentioned some nonsense about having staved off a great yokai war during his stay─and it was right after he left that Sengoku got mixed up incidentally in Kaiki’s machinations.

In which case…

Perhaps something had happened─between those two.

Of course, even if it had, there was no way for me to know─Oshino didn’t tell me anything, nor did Kaiki.

It was less than half a day since our encounter at Mister Donut, but Deishu Kaiki must have left our town for real this time. After all, he’d already pulled off his revenge scam against me (actually, I doubt he was motivated at all by feelings of revenge, he just took what was there for the taking).

Geez.

We were all handing him our wallets.

“Well, this is a place of power─just the kind I can see Oshino fixing to make himself at home.” Kagenui glanced behind her at the makeshift bed made of school desks. “And then─there’s you. A sot who starts reminiscing in the middle of a battle seems like exactly the kind of body to be saved by Oshino.”

“Saved…”

“But I suppose he would have said, ‘I’m not saving you, you’re gonna get saved on your own.’ You know, fiendish young man…” Kagenui turned a sideways glance my way, as if changing gears. “I doubt even X-Ray Oshino realized your little sister is a fake─if he’d known, what do you reckon he might have said?”

“Oshino…”

For the three months he was in our town, he never once came into contact with the Fire Sisters. In fact, I wasn’t sure I had ever mentioned them to him─I didn’t think so.

Even someone as insightful as Oshino (I wonder if X-Ray Oshino had been his nickname in college) had no way of knowing something we had never even talked about.

Perhaps meeting me had something to do with Kaiki figuring out Tsukihi’s true identity, but I imagined his meeting with Karen was the bigger factor─the Fire Sisters.

The Araragi sisters were a set.

Since Kaiki had been targeting middle school students with his scams, naturally he must have picked up some of the rumors about these “defenders of justice.”

But, hypothetically speaking.

If Mèmè Oshino had known about Tsukihi Araragi while he lived here─if he’d noticed the existence of the Shidenotori, how would he have reacted?

What might he have said to me?

Mèmè Oshino’s approach.

Mr. Hawaiian Shirt always remained neutral and strived only to balance things out even if it meant becoming a double agent─

“Who knows?”

Asked by Kagenui, and pondering the question myself─I squared off into a fighting stance.

The time for talking was done.

I had already asked what I wanted to know─and this was obviously no time for another comic-relief segment.

I was ready for the battle to get well and truly under way.

“It doesn’t matter what Oshino would have said. If our opinions clashed, Oshino would have become my enemy. It’s that simple.”

I no longer claimed to be on the side of justice.

I was ready to be the enemy of justice or of whatever else.

In fact, ever since the last day of spring break─I was always my own enemy.

Not a day had gone past.

Not a single conversation.

During which I ever forgave myself!

“Ms. Kagenui. I am on my sister’s side.”

“Your sister is a fake.”

And not your real sister, Kagenui underscored─spreading both her arms wide as though to provoke me, unfazed by the fact that I had assumed a fighting stance.

“Not just a fake but a shide no tori, of all things. An aberration, a bird of omen. Hototogisu versus Araragi, the poetry of it is a damn hoot─how many years has it been? You’ve been deceived all this time by a filthy shape-shifter.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t. Only, cheers to my bumbling─or rather, cheers to Kaiki keeping the relationship between you two, the fact that you’re siblings, a secret, you’ve discovered the shide no tori’s true identity. I reckon that a huge mistake on my part, a grave error─but.”

Kagenui adopted a mean, testing tone to lob the question.

“Knowing that the dear little sister you thought was real is a fake, can you still love her like you did before today?”

“I can. In fact, I’ll love her even more,” I answered without hesitation, like Karen might have.

I dropped my hips low for a moment─and then rocketed forward, flying towards Kagenui with my hands outstretched in raking claws, screaming at her as I went.

“Because if she’s a step-sister─that’s just so moé!”

Screaming, body and soul, screaming as long as my voice would hold, I charged Kagenui.

Then I tried to clamp my arms shut in a pincer, with all my might─this was no time to hold back.

Unbridled devastation.

I was returning devastation for devastation─forestalling devastation with devastation.

I was ready to sponsor devastation day and night─however.

“Fine, then…”

Neither parrying nor dodging my arms, but instead grabbing my wrists head-on, Kagenui neutralized my attack.

Catching me, arresting me, foiling me─through sheer force.

If anything, it felt like the excess momentum I had built up was going to pulverize my own elbows─you’ve got to be kidding me with this.

Offense was one thing─but why did her defense have to be so insane as well?

Who ever heard of a strong-arm defense?

Partial or not, I was wielding the physical strength of a vampire, the most powerful aberration out there─I had the strength of the aberration slayer’s thrall.

How could she stop me with her two little arms?

And she was still joking around while she did it, not even gritting her teeth.

“I reckon your position─your feelings on the matter. For what it’s worth, a defender of justice like myself must admire you for them.”

Kagenui squeezed my wrists even tighter. Her grip strength was tremendous, and it was like being caught in a vice. My hands were being stretched apart like taffy.

“There is no reasoning with illogic─I’ll not try to persuade you anymore. I’m not Oshino or Kaiki, after all─the only way I know to gab is with my fists.”

“……nkk!”

“Still─I don’t know, even if you’re fine with it!”

Holding my wrists, Kagenui followed with an instant upward kick using the tip of her foot─I managed to sway backward, barely in time, but wound up getting a fair chunk of my face shaved off.

Thanks to my half-ass dodge, this time I felt real pain─but Kagenui’s assault obviously didn’t end there. Next, she brought the same leg back down in an axe kick.

Her strike traced the exact same arc as the one I had received from Karen the other day, but in terms of speed, force, even the way she reversed her upward and downward momentum, Kagenui’s technique was a whole different can of worms than Karen’s.

I wanted to bend my body backward even further to avoid it, but since she had a firm lock on both my arms, I couldn’t even do that.

My shoulders were ripped loose from the force of the blow, along with my clavicles.

By this point some of the damage to my scraped face had healed─but Kagenui’s next move was to punish that same face once more with a head-butt.

Quite a move.

Kagenui totally fought like a street brawler.

When it came to violence, slow and steady could go too far.

“Even if you’re fine with the way things are, what about the rest of your folk?!”

Kagenui finally let go of my hands, my two wrists─only to unleash a flurry of attacks, like a dam gushing forth.

She used her feet to sweep me like a scythe, but no sooner was I flying through the air than she hit my torso with a succession of rapid blows, like a storm of fireworks being announced in the sky─now I knew what a drum feels like.

There were sparklers shooting from my eyes.

I was pretty sure I even saw sound effects in the air.

“You may be fine with it─but you’ve already got the grounding for it. You’ve been an aberration yourself before and that’s coloring your views─you’ve been immortal before. That’s why you can forgive your sister for being a fake, an aberration and an immortal─it’s all peaches and sunshine for you, isn’t it! But what about the rest of your folk─the ones for don’t have bump to do with aberrations?!”

“…….nkk!”

“For instance, what about your wee Karen?! Do you think she could pure say the same if she knew her own sister was an aberration?! What about your mother! Do you think she could say the same if she knew the baby for whom she’d suffered pangs of childbirth was a monster?! What about your father!”

She was like a bone-knife working through a conger fish.

I could feel my ribs, or rather my ribs along with the meat around them, being crushed into pulp. Or rather, she was a hand mixer whipping my whole insides up into a milkshake or a smoothie.

I was still suspended in mid-air as Kagenui continued with her combo.

If this was some fighting game, my health bar would probably be long gone─surely “YOU WIN” would be flashing on Kagenui’s side of the screen by now.

“Most of all, what about the child, herself? If your fake sister knew that she was pure an aberration─would she honestly be able to live on?! Could she stay your sister like nothing had changed?!”

My sister.

Tsukihi Araragi.

Real─fake.

“It’s fine now because she doesn’t know─but what do you reckon it will do to her when she finds out?! There’s no way an immortal monster can adapt to its environment─you should know that better than anyone else!”

“Ngkk!”

“Or when, inhuman as she is, she still clamors after being a defender of justice? What is it they reckon themselves, the Fire Sisters? Think how uppity, how cruel an immortal monster can be in the face of human folk─that, too, you should understand better than anyone else.”

I did understand.

I knew─what Shinobu Oshino had been like before.

I knew the whole of her.

If an immortal aberration were to dedicate itself to justice, there was no telling just how obscene, how over-zealous that justice would be─

I knew that.

“It’s our job to take care of these things before something like that happens! You can’t quench a fire with oil. It must be stamped out quickly before it becomes a blaze─as Nobunaga Oda once said, if the cuckoo will not sing─it must be killed! You’re alone in your stance, in your feelings on this matter! Don’t fool yourself into believing that everyone is so open-minded! Whatever values, whatever sense of righteousness you hold, is your business─but don’t shove your ideals down strangers’ throats!”

I doubted Kagenui was really as angry as she sounded─I think she was just shouting to better punctuate her flurry of blows.

But.

It was clear that something in my words had set her off─had I said something wrong?

I could only imagine.

Since Kagenui was actually travelling with her own aberration and monster, Ononoki─there seemed to be some contradiction at play in her.

A familiar, a shikigami.

But also sisters─a two-man cell.

A step-sister.

“SHO─RYU─KEN!”

She just said shoryuken.

Almost like a finishing move for her combo, Kagenui released a flying uppercut, driving straight into my heart─naturally, since I didn’t even have a foot on the ground, I was tossed up from the momentum, heart splattered to goo, and my whole body struck the ceiling.

So hard that my clear impression was made in the concrete.

I almost expected to crash through to the floor above.

“Ngh…ugh…”

Urrk.

I remained that way, pasted to the ceiling for a moment─before finally obeying the law of universal gravity and dropping to the floor.

Obviously, I was unable to make a graceful landing. This time, I landed face up in a hard back-flop.

Now I knew what an over-easy egg felt like.

I’d go great on a piece of toast.

“Don’t relax yet─I’m not done!”

Relax? Who was relaxing? Kagenui didn’t even give me enough time to worry before she straddled my supine body─in what was known as the mount position.

“I wonder how Yotsugi is doing─what do you say we go take a look at what she’s up to?”

Take a look?

I wasn’t sure what Kagenui meant by that, but I was soon to find out.

Through hands-on experience.

Tactile experience.

Before I could even intuit anything.

Her comment was just an opening salvo. She began pounding on me with her fists─devastating me to a pulp with her fists of devastation.

Along with the floor beneath me.

Her punches were passing through my body, or I should say my flesh and bones, like that was only normal, and hitting the floor─until.

Kagenui’s fists pulverized the floor beneath us─they were like heavy industrial machinery.

I hate to bring up anime at a time like this, but you know how in Lupin III, the character Goemon Ishikawa XIII is always using his Zantetsu blade to slice neat holes through the floor?

It was pretty much like that.

Only it wasn’t neat or a circle─it was more of a ragged jigsaw-puzzle shape, as she sent chips of floor flying around crudely like a drill bit in every which direction.

Yozuru Kagenui punched straight through the floor of the abandoned building.

First the fourth floor, and then the third floor, in succession.

She was ruining our ruins.

Heck, I bet Kagenui could demolish this whole building with just her bare hands. We could turn it back into a vacant lot without even having to call in contractors.

She may have been human, but she’d long since surpassed human limitations.

This was combat art. It was like Karen’s omnidirectional approach to karate, which gathered various techniques, but instead geared towards total destruction. You know that karate oath, “We come unarmed.” Well boy, did Kagenui ever!

At this point, my body was acting like the dried towel laid across a stack of tiles in karate to soften the impact─I was acutely aware of all the bits of flooring getting mixed up in my flesh.

There was no time for me to heal.

If anything, it felt like before one round of damage could take shape, the next round was already starting─I bet I looked like a strawberry flavored McShake at this point.

Anyways.

After our preposterous elevator ride, Kagenui’s fists finally ceased moving and she stepped away from my body, leaving me splattered on the floor─along the way, she had planted close to five hundred punches on me (since I didn’t have anything else to do, I started counting halfway through to kill time).

We were on the second floor.

Ding! Second floor, arena─

“My lord and master, no wonder it felt like I was getting bobbed all over my upper body… Look at thee. Try not to hold me back so much. If it goes on for too long, it will get very irksome.”

A vampire with golden eyes and hair.

Shinobu Oshino, I realized, was staring down at me with a look of utter contempt.

Judging from her words, Kagenui had aimed well─the classroom on the second floor that we’d fallen into was the very space where the two aberrations, Shinobu and Ononoki, were facing off.

The four of us were together again after a journey across the shortest conceivable distance.

Shinobu feeling what I was feeling even after being separated from my shadow proved that the loss of her vampirism was no trifling matter.

Oshino’s approach was formidable, but it must have been very frustrating for her to have all these sensations thrust at her in the midst of a very serious battle segment.

However.

She wasn’t the aberration slayer for nothing.

“Kakak,” laughed Kagenui. “You were being such a loudmouth, but it looks like you took it fist and skull, Yotsugi…”

The scene was just as Kagenui teased.

In a corner of the dim classroom, opposite from where Shinobu and I were positioned, lay Ononoki. If not for the situation I was in, I doubt I could bear to witness her plight.

I didn’t look human myself at this point, but clothes, hair, every bit of Ononoki was bloody and beaten.

You didn’t have to look twice to see that, up until a moment ago, she had been on the receiving end of some very thorough abuse.

That is to say, Shinobu didn’t have a single scratch on her.

Not so much as a strand of blond hair was out of place, and there wasn’t a speck of dust on her jersey.

It wasn’t a difference in healing abilities.

This came down to a difference in their fighting skills, plain and simple.

That said, as aberrations go, I doubted that Ononoki could be considered weak and helpless. Having experienced Kagenui’s intensity firsthand, I could testify to that─there was no way any partner of hers could be a pushover.

Since I wasn’t in the classroom with her, Shinobu wouldn’t have been able to use her aberration-slayer blade… It made me realize afresh just how overwhelmingly monstrous Shinobu Oshino, the former vampire, was.

And just how utterly sadistic…

From the state of things, it looked like Shinobu had been toying with her… The stone-faced Ononoki’s eyes were actually tearful.

Geez, if she could tell that I was getting put through the wringer, why not finish up quickly and come help me instead?

She was pissed off about being called a hag, but come on… If she was going to emulate Karen’s style, she might try and be utterly masochistic as well.

Besides, this was a serious situation. It was no time for fun!

“I was just about to turn the fight around. I can handle myself, sister─he said with a dashing look,” Ononoki insisted as Kagenui approached her.

Um, that wasn’t what I called a dashing look.

That was a teary-eyed look.

“I see, I see. But how about you leave the climax to your big sister. Well, the erstwhile Heartunderblade, it seems the finals are between you and me.”

Stepping in front of Ononoki as if to protect her, Kagenui laughed and patted her shikigami on the head before drawing herself up to face Shinobu.

“Come, Heartunderblade. We fight.”

Kagenui showed no sign of being intimidated, at all.

No sign of wanting to flee even against a legendary vampire.

An expert on immortal aberrations.

Also known as the aberration roller─Yozuru Kagenui.

“Ha.”

Shinobu laughed too, in response.

“Ha!”

And again─and again, like a howl.

“Ha”Haha”Hahaha”Hahahaha”Hahahahaha”Hahahahahaha” Hahahahahahaha”

Loud and long─laughing as only an aberration could.

Uproariously.

Savagely, wantonly, illicitly, belligerently, and baring her fangs, Shinobu laughed and laughed and laughed in response to the onmyoji Yozuru Kagenui’s invitation until─

“No, I refuse.”

She spoke those words and raised her arms like a champion.

Kagenui and Ononoki both did a double take at Shinobu’s unexpected reaction. Ignoring their gazes, she helped me up─I had at least recovered enough to resemble a human being─and continued, “I fear my master is ill-pleased with me for bullying the maidling. I’d rather not purchase any more of his loathing. The finals, ye say? Do not be vain, human─my master has yet to be bested by thee. Is that not so, my lord?”

“Yup,” I replied.

Meeting the demand Shinobu placed on me─the fire she lit beneath me, I borrowed her shoulder to help myself stand. Since the eighteen-year-old version of her was taller than I was, that shoulder was located pretty high up, but I did my best.

“I haven’t lost yet─I’m not ready to submit. Neither your fists, nor your words, have done anything to persuade me.”

“I already told you.” Kagenui sounded fed up. She repeated, here on the second floor, the same thing she’d said to me on the fourth floor. “Whatever values, whatever sense of righteousness you hold, is your business─but don’t shove your ideals down strangers’ throats.”

“They’re not strangers.”

I─

Although my outsides had knitted together, without holding onto Shinobu I doubt I could have managed to remain standing, my insides shredded to pieces like I’d swallowed a cyclone. Yet, even though I could barely move─I gathered every ounce of strength I had to rebut Kagenui.

The same thought had occurred to me earlier.

Strangers?

That, no.

I couldn’t let that pass unchallenged.

“They’re not strangers. They’re family.”

“……”

“And I do shove my ideals on my family.”

Also…

I went on falteringly, hanging off of Shinobu like a wet sack. I was blatantly touching her breasts, but even such an act of God didn’t concern me right now.

For instance, Hitagi Senjogahara. Accepting the calamity that befell her, she suffered bravely, keeping the truth of that matter a secret from her family.

No matter how much her father worried about her, she never thought of opening up to him─she decided that she was her own responsibility.

Even after being deceived by five frauds, her resolve remained unshaken.

For instance, Suruga Kanbaru. She still had an aberration residing in her left arm. It wasn’t excessively harmful, but not exactly harmless, either─and yet her family knew nothing about it. If her sweet old grandmother, who was such a wonderful cook, knew, she’d definitely try to help, but Kanbaru refused to reveal the details─being thoughtful in her own way.

No doubt she wanted to reveal the truth and ask her grandma for advice─it had to be hard hiding such a secret from her family.

And yet.

Kanbaru was adamant about doing just that.

Not for her own sake, but for her family’s.

The two of them, the Valhalla Duo.

I respected them from the bottom of my heart.

“Ms. Kagenui, what self-respecting brother would air his little sister’s dirty laundry? I wouldn’t tattle on her like that.”

“……”

To say it like Mayoi Hachikuji.

The courage─to keep a secret.

“With your family, you lie. You deceive. You cause trouble. You inconvenience. Sometimes you incur debts and sometimes they can’t be repaid. But I think that’s fine.”

That was fine.

Because that was what family meant.

“Ms. Kagenui─defender of justice.”

I’d have loved to strike a pose and cut a cool figure as I spoke, but I still couldn’t move─I had to lean on Shinobu instead as I croaked out my words.

“If being fake is evil, then I’ll bear that burden. If faking is bad, I don’t mind being a bad guy.”

If my judgment was hypocritical.

If my resolve faked goodness.

If my feelings for Tsukihi Araragi were no more than that, then I would gladly be a hypocrite who wasn’t even a scoundrel─

I wasn’t Mèmè Oshino.

I wasn’t Deishu Kaiki.

I wasn’t Yozuru Kagenui.

I wasn’t the Fire Sisters or the Valhalla Duo, either.

Koyomi Araragi─was Koyomi Araragi.

“Fuck favorability ratings. I’m fine being the worst.”

He said─with a dashing look.

Big brother.

As long as Tsukihi continued to call me that.

It was all fine by me.

My healing was finally catching up with my damage─if I hadn’t upped my immortality beforehand, Kagenui would have killed me close to a thousand times already.

It wasn’t an exaggeration. It wasn’t hyperbole.

Each and every strike was unmistakably lethal.

She hadn’t used a single feint or setup or even a check─it was absolutely, one hundred percent, a striking style. Even her defense and submission moves were strikes, by the holy demon mother of Iriya.

Generally an opponent like that was the easiest type to face for a vampire─but she felt more like a natural enemy.

I moved away from Shinobu on shaking legs like a newborn deer─another five seconds and I would be all better.

But in those five seconds, how many times would I die again at Kagenui’s hands?

Now that I was standing alone again, I expected her to launch round two at any minute with another wave of strikes─but she didn’t.

“Man’s evil nature, huh,” she muttered instead, a sigh mingled with her words.

Her jovial attitude until just a moment ago seemed to have dissipated somewhat, which put me on guard.

Had I set her off again?

Man’s evil nature?

Say what?

“Hm. You’ve never heard of it? I gabbed about it with Oshino and Kaiki often enough.”

Kagenui gave her neck a few cracks, watching to see how I would react.

I read the movement more as a cool-down than a warm-up.

“As a high schooler, you must have heard tell of the doctrine that man’s nature is good. That’s what the Chinese philosopher Mencius believed. Folk are born with good inside. Benevolence is the heart of man, and righteousness the path of man─goodness is reckoned as the four beginnings, which are the feelings of commiseration, shame, respect, and conscience, and these can fix to grow into the four virtues of compassion, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom.”

“Umm…”

Why was she force-feeding me the classics all of a sudden?

I may have been studying for college exams, but I hadn’t chosen ethics as one of my subjects.

I did know Mencius, just his name─maybe from world history.

“So then…what’s this about man’s evil nature?” I asked.

“If the doctrine of innate good is an idealistic philosophy, then the doctrine of innate evil is a practical one. Our innate nature is greed, and greed governs human beings. That candid, faithless view was expounded by Xun Kuang─basically, folk are born with evil inside them.”

“People are born─evil.”

“Yes,” nodded Kagenui. “So if people do good, it’s not out of innate nature but rather deception─or so he proclaimed. Good is deception, fake─good is only done out of hypocrisy.”

“Hypocrisy…”

Deception.

Deceit.

“Fake─in other words, man-made,” Kagenui said.

The man-made, artificial.

Therein lay propriety─norms.

It was precisely man-made remedies that beckoned man to good, that led society in a better direction.

“Countering the prevailing notion of ‘ruling by righteousness,’ it equates to the principle of honor. All good is hypocrisy at its core, and precisely there─is an intention to be good.”

Or so it goes, Kagenui wrapped up jokingly.

Then─

“Let me ask you something,” she continued. “This is a thought game what Kaiki used to jaw about─fancy you have the real thing, and a fake that is so identical, in every way, that you can’t distinguish it from the real thing. Which do you reckon has more value?”

A natural and an artificial diamond.

They were identical down to their atomic structure─but treated as distinct.

Indistinguishable, yet treated as distinct.

One was rejected─simply for being a fake.

Omitted.

“The real deal and─the fake.”

“My reckoning on the matter was naturally that the real thing is more valuable. I think Oshino was of the opinion that they were of equal value. But according to the body what asked the question, we were both mistaken. According to Kaiki, the fake is far more valuable.”

Kagenui went on without waiting for my reply.

“Because it wills to become the real thing, the fake is more real than the real deal─kakak! He may be an incorrigible scoundrel, but what he says can be glorious. Well, if I have to, I reckon that’s the lesson I should take home from this. A lesson ten years in the making.”

Laughing, Kagenui spun about and turned her back toward me.

Then she spoke to the bruised, battered, and half-dead Ononoki.

“Let’s go. We’ve lost here.”

Abruptly, unilaterally, without telling us, Kagenui had announced that our battle was over.

The bow was back in its bag and the sword was back in its sheath.

So then.

So then…

“Uh…umm. Ms. Kagenui?”

“I’ve lost interest. We’re leaving. I would have loved to battle with the erstwhile Heartunderblade, but the peculiar way I’m feeling now, I don’t reckon my heart would be in it.”

Kagenui grabbed Ononoki by the hand and, dragging her, began plodding away─perhaps deciding that dragging was too hard, she switched to carrying Ononoki on her back before continuing once more toward the classroom door.

“W-Wait,” I stopped her without thinking.

My body, of course, had regenerated during her lecture on Chinese philosophy (my clothes hadn’t, so I was practically butt-naked), but it wasn’t like I wanted to stop her and continue our battle.

But I stopped her without thinking.

“What? Did you have a parting gift for me?” asked Kagenui, turning around casually as if someone had called to her just as she was leaving some get-together─a friendly smile on her face, always ready for battle.

“N-No… It’s just, where are you going?”

“To the next battlefield. There are plenty of immortal aberrations out there─they’re immortal, after all. I reckon I can turn a blind eye to one. ‘Rules consisting mostly of exceptions’─you bag the bird but you never bag the nest. Let’s just say that your sister is an exception to our justice. You guide her, with your mentor’s soul.”

It does mean the money I paid to Kaiki was pure wasted, Kagenui regretted.

She sounded regretful but also amused.

“Besides, I reckon you were never quite serious about our battle in the first place…”

“Wha… N-Not serious?”

“It’d be an understatement if I said I sensed no bloodlust. I doubt you were slacking off─but it were hard to get in the spirit after that.”

“If…”

In response, I began to say the first thing that came into my head. Until Kagenui mentioned it, I hadn’t honestly been aware of this, except subconsciously. I’d been serious─I hadn’t meant to be slacking off.

“If you didn’t sense any bloodlust in me─that was probably because you treated me as a human being.”

“Huh?”

“You said it yourself. We had one human and one aberration each─the only person who ever referred to me in this state as a human being was Oshino.”

So…

Speaking of not getting into the spirit─I was the one to whom that applied.

The peculiar way I was feeling, I lost interest.

Yes, like the times when I’d dealt with ol’ Hawaiian shirts himself─trying to get mad seemed a little silly.

“Hmph… So I accidentally took a page from Oshino’s book─how embarrassing. What have I done? Now I’m depressed. In that case, why don’t I end with something I reckon he would never say─”

There was a hint of nostalgia in her voice as she said it.

Just one word.

“Goodbye.”

Yozuru Kagenui pronounced it in such a natural and fluent way that I realized─she might not be a genuine Kyotoite, after all.