Monogatari Series - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.06

006

This is going to sound horrible, but I really hadn’t placed that much importance on that.

After all─if I was with Hanekawa, it was practically a daily occurrence for me to do something like minister to a dead cat on the street.

I’d done that kind of thing tons of times.

Just like the way she had saved me during spring break.

Hanekawa─buried the cat, that was all.

Like it was the obvious thing to do.

Asking, “Will you help me, Araragi?”

In the same way she’d always ask, with the same smile, as if she’d forgotten all about any gauze that might’ve been on her face.

She held in her arms the cat’s dead body, run over so many times that I couldn’t tell what color its fur was. It could have once been so white it shined, but now it was something else, maybe blood red, maybe dirt black.

Like she loved it.

Like she cherished it.

She held it.

There are enough people who love cats that “as though loving a cat” is an expression in Japanese─and I don’t hate them, either─but even if it hadn’t been run over, I doubt many people would be able to cradle a dead cat in their arms.

When I considered that.

When I thought that.

I felt─agitated again.

I wanted to say something.

But I couldn’t in the end.

“A Sawarineko. An Afflicting Cat.”

I don’t know, would you call it fate? My plan had been to give the girl vampire my blood, hand the donuts to Oshino, then go right back home so that I could rest my lazy bones, but that wasn’t happening.

I ended up getting stuck helping Oshino with his job.

No, I probably shouldn’t phrase it in a way that makes me sound like some kind of victim─I had to heed a request from someone I owed five million yen, especially if it had something to do with Hanekawa.

In fact, helping him wasn’t enough.

I practically wanted to take the lead.

“A mammal belonging to Carnivora Felidae,” said─Oshino.

A cat.

“Afflicting Cats are one of the aberrations I’ve been collecting stories about here in this town─that is actually what I was out until just now looking for. I guess this is what you’d call a coincidence─but it’s not a very welcome one if it is. Borrowing from an old friend of mine, I can’t help but sense some kind of malice.”

“Wait─hold on, Oshino.” His words left me a bit confused─or rather, I barely understood a thing at all, and I could only reflexively and thoughtlessly argue about the surface details. “Maybe I didn’t do a good job explaining? The cat Hanekawa and I buried wasn’t any aberration. It was a real, living─formerly living─cat. An actual one. Not a nonexistent one, but one that exists. It looked like it had been run over by a car─like you described, it didn’t have a tail, and now that I think about it, its fur was a silverish white─but it wasn’t any aberration or yokai, but an honest-to-goodness─”

“Right. It wasn’t.”

I would agree with you. Normally, Oshino said.

He didn’t get riled up and shut down my objection─he was being just as frivolous as ever. Always trying to maintain the balance, always trying to stay neutral─Oshino’s Oshinoesque behavior encapsulated who Mèmè Oshino was.

He was the same as always─and yet.

When I looked at his mouth, the unlit cigarette hanging out of it, I thought I saw the slightest bit of gravity there.

I thought I saw some bit of truth there.

And it probably wasn’t my imagination.

If I had to say why─it was because of Hanekawa.

“But Araragi─missy class president isn’t normal. We’ve had more than enough arguments on that point and I don’t want to go into it now, but─that girl is seriously dangerous.”

“Sure, I do understand why you might be wary of her.”

“This isn’t about caution. What about our li’l vampire?” Oshino deftly used the cigarette in his mouth to indicate the girl in the corner of the classroom. “Yes, it’s on you that she’s in that not-alive, not-dead, half-and-half state─but at the very bottom of the root of it, it’s something missy class prez arranged for, too.”

“Well─yeah.”

Spring break.

Yes, I had been saved by Hanekawa─no one would save me, but Hanekawa did. I could never be too grateful to her for that.

Yet─however.

Logically speaking, if not for Hanekawa, what happened over spring break might never even have occurred.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t will or intend for any of it to happen─that she had no purpose or motive─still, even I had to admit that she’d put out a fire of her own setting.

“Exactly,” Oshino approved. “She put out a fire of her own setting. She’s a dreadful girl, like the living embodiment of the butterfly effect─chaos without reserve. What a talented director. What a terrifying producer. Such a trivial, cliché, and even heartwarming little episode like burying a cat that had been run over is liable to turn into an incident that shakes heaven and earth if she gets her hands on it. And─it’s especially bad that it’s a cat. Missy class prez and an Afflicting Cat are made for each other.”

“……”

This Afflicting Cat or whatever aberration he was pursuing─I didn’t milk him about it. Mostly because we didn’t have the time, but I think that deep inside, a part of me didn’t want to ask.

Right.

Right, me too.

I’d had a bad feeling from the start.

From when?

From the time we buried the cat? No.

From the time I saw the gauze on the left side of her face? No.

Probably─from the first time I met Hanekawa.

I must have known.

And so.

“Oshino,” I said─omitting any more pointless objections. This was no place to argue. “In that case, what do I need to do? If, say, something is happening right now─”

“No, chances are nine out of ten nothing’s happened. And I’d like to leave it that way, with nothing happening. I’m just being prepared. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, that’s all─the chances aren’t even a tenth, more like one in a million. But when you think of the risks, it’s better to over-prepare. No need to look so worried, Araragi.”

Oshino finished with a jab at how alert I must have seemed, but I wasn’t sure. He sounded like he was only trying to ease my mind for the time being. Like it wasn’t what he thought at all, and it wasn’t just a tenth or a millionth for him.

No, maybe those really were the odds.

But─one in ten or one in a million, it didn’t matter. There was a common understanding between me and Oshino that Tsubasa Hanekawa was the kind of woman who could beat those odds without breaking a sweat.

She─maybe not others, but she─was seriously dangerous.

“You know, the fact that it’s a headache has been worrying me too, personally,” Oshino shared. “It’d be nice if it’s a meaningless red herring. Well, Araragi, why don’t we go ahead and split up here? I’ll go dig up the white cat you two buried. I guess I’ll be desecrating a grave.”

“D-Desecrating a grave…”

“Yes, it’s the kind of thing that gets you cursed─but I do think it’s the least I should do. If the cat buried there is just a regular cat, then fine. Happily ever after, all’s well that ends well. Any punishment that comes my way won’t be a problem. I gladly accept it. I’ve always been like a drum, anyway.”

“I don’t know if you’re a drum─in fact, I don’t even know what you’re trying to say─but basically, I just need to tell you where we buried the cat? I just need to take you there?”

“Of course you’re going to be telling me, but there’s no need for you to act as my guide. Just tell me roughly where it is, and I’ll manage to get to the little kitty’s grave.”

“Huh─”

So all that living as a vagabond wasn’t just for show.

He didn’t even need to be familiar with the terrain─no wonder he’d taken these ruins that even locals weren’t familiar with and made them into his headquarters.

“I don’t mind telling you, of course,” I said. “But it’s not a place I spend a whole lot of time around, so it’ll be hard for me to pinpoint the exact spot. Actually, I think I can only give you a rough location, is that going to be okay?”

“It’s fine,” Oshino nodded.

He didn’t so much as attempt to make a sarcastic remark in reply to my unreliability─which ended up telling me just how pressing the situation was.

Still─a pressing situation?

Maybe nothing at all had happened yet─but the situation was already pressing?

Was it like wartime?

“You’re going to have a very important responsibility instead, Araragi.”

“Hm?”

“Remember what I said? This is why we’ll be splitting up─you’re going to approach missy class president directly.”

“D-Directly?”

“You’re going to visit missy class prez’s house right now. Then you’ll actually see her and look at her face and into her eyes and talk to her, and you’re going to make sure she’s okay.”

Oshino went on like he was saying something obvious─but I was left speechless.

What? Visit her house?

“Hey, don’t be ridiculous, Oshino. What time do you think it is?”

“Nighttime. The middle of the night, too. That’s precisely why you’re going─in a way, it’d be meaningless at any other hour. I don’t think I need to bring up the witching hour and whatnot for you to know that aberrations are most active right now. In other words, it’s easiest to tell a positive from a negative.”

“Sure, I know that firsthand from spring break, but…” There was this thing in the world called having common sense. Visiting the house of a classmate of the opposite sex in the middle of the night was a clear example of lacking it.

“It’s fine for you to use uncommon sense here since we’re in an uncommon situation. In fact, you need to be using it. Worst case, she looks down on you in contempt.”

“That really would be the worst.”

Well.

Maybe she already did after this afternoon, and on that note, she very well might have been holding me in contempt since spring break. Come to think of it, now was a strange time to start worrying about it.

Disdained to begin with.

What a tragic fact.

“I guess it’s not like we could reverse our roles,” I admitted. “I wouldn’t be able to judge if the buried cat is a regular one─”

“Right. And you’re probably the better judge as to whether there’s anything unusual about missy class prez.”

You are friends, after all, he appended with a touch of cynicism or a hint of sarcasm─even so, I found the words oddly motivating.

Yes.

Aberrations were one thing─but when it came to Hanekawa?

I was more of a specialist in that field than Oshino.

“Oh. But Oshino, I don’t know where her house is.”

“Huh? Really? That’s weird. Aren’t you two in the same class? Don’t you have a student directory or something?”

“What year do you think it is? They’re careful about managing personal information these days─even if you’re friends with someone, you’re only going to have their cell number and email. It’s normal to not even know what station someone lives near.”

“What an awful age. How’s a leisurely luddite like me supposed to keep up?” The leisurely luddite furrowed his brow like he was honestly upset. If you were so bad with gadgets that you didn’t even own a cell phone or a PHS, I guess it really was an awful age. “Still, you and she have been pretty close for a month now if you count spring break. It’s not like you have no idea at all, right? You must have figured out roughly where she lives from bits and pieces you picked up in conversations, or how long it takes her to meet you somewhere.”

“Stop it, you’re making me sound like a stalker…”

Sure.

I did have a rough idea.

Who wouldn’t? (Whistles innocently)

It’d be a disgrace to the name Koyomi Araragi if I couldn’t pull off that much.

The girl vampire, her blond head buried in her knees, seemed completely indifferent to our conversation─and with that.

I raced through the dark town on my mountain bike.

I did have my headlight on, but I didn’t need it. Since I hadn’t forgotten to give the vampire my blood on my way out (She somehow seemed to savor the donuts more. That did hurt), my body was now reasonably vampiric. I could see far into the distance whether I was in a dark room or the dark of night.

True, a headlight was also a sign that told pedestrians, “There’s a bike here,” so I would be a hazard if I didn’t turn it on eventually.

“Sheesh. This is getting bad─and how am I supposed to see Hanekawa at her house so late?”

The sooner, the better─and nighttime was best.

But it was still pretty unreasonable.

That was true for any household, but Hanekawa’s in particular was troubled and warped─the way she’d described it that afternoon didn’t make it seem like the kind of environment that would welcome a classmate visiting in the middle of the night.

And if things really went wrong.

“Hmm, I did hide that part from Oshino─but I don’t see him changing his mind on what has to be done because of that.”

And either way, we couldn’t switch jobs. Putting aside whether he’d notice anything different about her, visiting a girl’s home in the middle of the night was a tall order even for that crafty old veteran.

He was a sketchy older guy to begin with, but when you added all the wear and tear from living in an abandoned building, he looked even shabbier than he did when they met over spring break.

He was exactly the kind of suspicious person they teach you to look out for.

Maybe a drifter.

Maybe a tofu delivery boy.

If someone called the police, then in my case, they’d see me as a kid playing a prank. I would use my privileges as a minor to the fullest extent.

“Plus I’m a chicken, according to Hanekawa─I could never do something unholy like defile a grave.”

We wanted the right man in the right place.

And as I’d convinced myself of that, I came to a stop.

Judging by the address hanging under the stoplight, I was in the area I surmised to be Hanekawa’s neighborhood─her home turf.

I’d play it by ear in terms of conducting myself during the visit─that wasn’t the immediate issue.

I had to locate which house was hers first.

…Don’t be ridiculous.

“First”?

Talk about an ordeal.

No matter how remote our town was, this was still a residential area─on the way, I’d foolhardily pictured going through and looking at every nameplate on every house, one by one, but I realized how much work that would be.

It was like being forced to open a four-digit combination lock using nothing but patience.

You’d definitely lose heart at some point.

No, with the lock, at least you were guaranteed to arrive at the right combination if you kept at it. Here, though, there was a strong possibility that my initial assumption was wrong─I merely believed that Hanekawa’s home was in this area.

We’re talking about Hanekawa. Maybe she’d made it difficult to figure out this info─wait, just how distrustful of me was she if that were true?

She’d have been treating me like a stalker.

“Ugh. A cat with no tail? Though I’ve heard that cats don’t need their tails,” I muttered as I got back on my mountain bike.

If I wanted to be especially careful, I’d proceed at a deliberate pace and check every single nameplate, but there was no need for that. A vampire’s powerful sight applied to dynamic vision as well─and it seemed like my visual field had grown wider, too. Though I wasn’t going to be quite so lazy, I felt like I could ride my bike at a real speed and not miss a single nameplate on either side of the street.

I psyched myself back up to do at least one pass through the entire area, from corner to corner, and kicked myself forward.

This was a one-man blanket search.

Yeah. So what if I lost heart?

When I thought back to what Hanekawa did for me over spring break, it didn’t matter if my heart got tossed into a sinkhole, never to be seen again. It didn’t begin to match up.

And.

All of that determination still ended up fruitless.

Any determination I ever had always came out to nothing.

I was way too late.

If I were really concerned about Hanekawa, if I really wanted to do something for her, then whether she rejected me, silenced me, or even, yes, looked down on me─I should have stormed into her home that afternoon.

I’d been racing the clock.

And the clock won.

“─Oh.”

Just as I’d reached the end of a wide street and turned the corner.

I’d been rolling along sure that I’d never pass anyone at this hour, but then, in front of me, a surprise.

A surprise…

A surprise attack.

Improbably.

Improperly─it appeared.

Totally absurdly─it appeared.

No, it happened to be there─it was just there, so suggesting that it chose to appear in front of me, like it was lying in wait for me, even, was unfair.

That would be far too self-absorbed of me.

Not everything revolves around me.

It wasn’t destiny, and it wasn’t even fortuity.

Our paths crossed simply as a matter of course─because to it, I was an insignificant, stunted little thing not even worth being aware of.

As─humans were to an aberration.

It was so late at night that even the streetlights seemed hazy and distant.

There, illuminated by the LED stuck onto the handlebars of my mountain bike, was none other than─

The class president among class presidents you know well.

It was Tsubasa Hanekawa.

“Huh? But…”

But. However.

Almost no one who saw her then would have puzzled out and posited that it was Hanekawa.

Not even her parents.

Though I realize just how ironic that last observation is─

“Hanekawa…is that you?”

She was white.

She was white.

She was white.

Her very being─seemed to be pure whiteness.

White as a wedding dress.

It might be an odd comparison to make during Golden Week, but it was what people mean when they say white as snow.

Hanekawa’s hair, usually a beautiful jet black, as dark as a raven’s feathers, was now a nearly transparent white─and her already-fair skin was now almost sickly white.

A change.

I was overwhelmed by her attire, too, as she was there in nothing but a bra and panties, not even shoes or socks, like she’d leapt straight out of the bathroom─but that underwear alone, in contrast to the rest of her, was black.

Conspicuously.

Extremely─black.

But the black was one I could personally recall. I was sure it was the color Hanekawa had worn that afternoon─how could I ever forget?

A dark black that seemed to suck you in.

It’s not as if it was the deciding factor, but I was convinced that the being in front of me was Tsubasa Hanekawa.

The shape of her hips was─no, forget about that.

Even if we shouldn’t, I’m putting it aside.

The question.

More than why she was in her underwear, or why her hair had changed color too completely and naturally for it to have been dyed─the far more salient question…

“Mrow.”

Was that cat ears had sprouted from her head.

An Afflicting─Cat.

“Mrow,” she─purred.

Purr, her throat said.

“H-Hanekawa.”

“Ah─and who are you? Are you one of my myaster’s friends?” asked Hanekawa─no.

Asked the Afflicting Cat.

The tone, the voice, indeed, even the expression─was nothing like Hanekawa’s.

They had little in common with her.

The Hanekawa in front of me only happened to be her and wasn’t her at all.

She’d never speak in such a sweet kitty voice, nor ever wear the savage expression that stood in contrast to her purring, as if she was ready to bite me at any moment.

What could─this be?

This phenomenon?

She was Hanekawa─but seemed totally different.

So utterly different that she acted as a contrast.

No, not a contrast, this was the polar opposite.

The complete flip side─and therefore identical.

“Myaa-haha! Ya know, I do think I myight remember ya. I saw ya with her when she buried me─hmph. That’s purrfect, then,” the Afflicting Cat said with a grin, paying no heed to my confusion.

Eyes narrowed to a point.

“I don’t understand the furst thing about how this works, but you’re supposed to lend a paw to a friend in need, yes? In that case, I’ll let ya deal with these guys,” she continued.

Then thud─threw something at my feet.

No, she’d actually thrown two objects my way, so I guess the sound effect was thud, thud?

But it seemed like a single, unified mass.

A lone clump.

“Wha─”

My mind wasn’t working anywhere close to normal after those successive shocks─but maybe that was actually a good thing.

Not even this could surprise me now.

Right.

Even two humans─being thrown at my feet.

“……nkk!”

Okay, I was surprised.

So surprised that my voice stuck in my throat.

I thought I was going to fall over, bike and all.

But─from where had the Afflicting Cat brought these two?

Did she have them with her from the start?

Given the situation, it seemed like the only possibility─the impact of Hanekawa in cat ears and underwear was so powerful that the Afflicting Cat dangling two humans managed to slip past me.

Or.

Was it because the two remained so still as to seem dead, and continued to be? Had my subconscious pushed their existence beyond my conscious mind because they were like corpses?

“What was it nyow─ahh, right. Those are my myaster’s ‘parents’ or something. I don’t really nyoh,” remarked the Afflicting Cat.

With a wicked grin.

She seemed to be enjoying herself─but that was all.

There was nothing else there.

“I guess that means these are people my myaster doesn’t need. Nyot even worth killing. Nyot even worth tormenting. Totally worthless. So, friend, you take care of them as ya see fit─go ahead and kill them if ya wanna. Get mad and take ’em to task for what they did to my myaster.”

Then, the Afflicting Cat turned her back to me.

Maybe my thoughts were poisoned by too much anime and manga because I expected her to have a cat’s tail to go along with the ears she’d grown─and I don’t know if I should say “sadly” or “unfortunately” about this, but her rear was nothing more than a smooth, gentle curve.

Of course it was.

The Afflicting Cat─was a cat with no tail.

“H-Hey! Wait a second! Hanekawa!”

I nearly kicked my mountain bike to the side as I got off of it─and yelled after her. My arm outstretched. She seemed to be going back the way she came, and I wasted no time in chasing after her─but that wasn’t happening.

Hanekawa.

She.

The Afflicting Cat─suddenly turned around.

“‘Wait’?” she muttered.

With honest spite─and malice in her voice.

My thoughtless words.

They’d made her snap.

I could see the veins on her temples bulge─and her pupils turn red.

She bared her fangs.

“Stop expecting my myaster to do every little thing ya want, ya dumbass!”

It’s because of people like you that my myaster’s ended up like this!

And as soon as she said that─the Afflicting Cat leapt toward me.

No, describing what she did as leaping toward me rings hollow. It’s a lie as pale as that cat, and quite vain of me. The accurate way to describe it is that she’d finished leaping.

But that’s a terrifying fact.

So terrifying it made me want to avoid grasping it accurately─after all, as I mentioned earlier, I’d just given the girl vampire my blood. In other words, my body, and my vision in particular, had been enhanced─the Afflicting Cat was moving at a speed that I couldn’t perceive even in my current condition.

Nothing should have eluded my vision at that moment.

And it wasn’t only her speed that was terrifying.

Her power was just as immeasurable.

As a cat would catch a mouse─she bit down on my left arm and, with just the force of her fangs and jaw, took everything from my shoulder down, sleeve and all, and tore it from my body with a meaty crunch as if she were plucking a piece of ripe fruit from an overburdened branch.

“Ah… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!”

In the center of this residential area, in the middle of the night, I let out a pathetic, lame scream like a girl being attacked by some weirdo. But who could blame me─I’d had a lot, and I mean a lot, done to me over spring break, but no one had ever ripped my arm off through sheer force.

Not to mention that I wasn’t as immortal as I was over spring break.

I no longer had the kind of healing ability that would let me recover a lost arm in the blink of an eye─my shoulder began to gush a fountain of blood.

There was so much blood I was surprised how much of it I contained.

“Ow… OWWWWWWWWWWWW!”

“Stop making so much nyoise. I barely did a thing.”

No human could blame me.

But there was a cat who did─who stepped on my head with her bare feet as I keeled over against a street light, my torn left arm still in her mouth.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t fight back.

I couldn’t even shove away the foot that was stepping on me.

Moreover, I felt like I was growing weaker thanks to it─a strange illusion.

In fact, it was as though being stepped on was beginning to ease the pain in my left shoulder─unbelievable!

How much of a pervert was I that Hanekawa stepping on me eased my pain?!

And it wasn’t so much easing as getting numb─

“Your slight pain─is a mosquito bite compared to the suffering my myaster bore for all this time.”

“…Your master.”

Do you mean Hanekawa? I tried to ask the obvious question─but couldn’t.

It was because I didn’t have the strength left to talk, true─but it was so obvious that there was no need to ask, anyway.

It was too pellucid, too spotless, too unimpeachable.

I knew it so well─I knew it too well.

“You got it, human.”

Which is why the Afflicting Cat─answered the question without having to hear it.

“My myaster has me now. So she doesn’t nyeed you. She doesn’t nyeed her parents, or her friends, or anyone else. She doesn’t even nyeed─herself.”

Then, the Afflicting Cat spat out the arm in her mouth─like it was a piece of garbage. It thumped to the ground right in front of my face.

“I-I don’t need it,” I said.

“I’m going to set my myaster free─freer than anyone else. You know that’s something you people could nyever do. All you did was tie her down and keep her from being free─”

So first.

I’m going to start by freeing her of this Earth-sized stress.

With that, the Afflicting Cat─leapt into the air.

“Flew” might be a better term.

She soared more than she jumped.

Barely bending her knees and only crouching for a moment, she bounded upward─past the telephone pole, past the power line, and past the roof of the home in front of us─disappearing into the black night.

That wasn’t called jumping.

It surpassed human capabilities─it seems a little late to be saying this, but it was clearly the act of an aberration.

Almost like she’d grown wings.

She wasn’t “a tiger with wings”─but a winged cat.

“…Hanekawa.”

Tsubasa Hanekawa.

The girl with a pair─of mismatched wings.

Whatever led to things turning out this way─I barely had the first idea, but Oshino’s concerns had been completely on the mark.

Bull’s eye.

With every one of his shots.

And─and.

Once again, I hadn’t made it in time.

I was─too late.

“Ah… Guh.”

I stood up, sluggishly, and used my remaining arm to pick up the one the Afflicting Cat had dropped. Though I was surprised by just how heavy my own arm was, I brought it to where it had been sliced off─it was messier than the clean cross-section implied by “slice”─and stuck wound to wound in an attempt at regeneration.

Since I couldn’t hope for auto-regen, my only option was to recycle this junk─it wasn’t a treatment I’d ever attempted over spring break, but according to all the trivia about vampires in anime and manga, I’d be able to reconnect my flesh and nerves or whatever that way.

“……”

There were no traces of Hanekawa or the Afflicting Cat left in the hazy blur that was my vision─just my mountain bike that had collapsed on its side, as well as the two human beings, also collapsed.

Two human beings.

Parents─a father and a mother.

Hanekawa’s parents.

Hanekawa’s dad, Hanekawa’s mom.

Her parents who weren’t related to her by blood─whose hearts were unrelated to hers.

Family.

But why was it?

Even though I’d been so infuriated by them that afternoon, as I saw them there, collapsed on the ground like they were lifeless, like they were dead─I didn’t feel anything in particular.

I didn’t get any angrier.

I didn’t gloat and feel better.

I didn’t feel the smallest bit of anything.

I couldn’t get mad at them or blame them.

All I could do was feel─bad for them, normally.

I just felt sorry for them.

From Hanekawa’s perspective, they deserved nothing but blame─yet somehow they looked so much like victims to me.