Monogatari Series - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.07

007

There’s a big hole in my memory after that.

In other words, the incredible pain from my arm getting torn off together with the anemia from massive blood loss caused me to pass out─but, in the way of making people think, You’ve got more guts than I knew! Hey, you’re pretty cool, I’ll mention that I apparently did a number of things I needed to do up until the moment I passed out.

I just don’t remember them.

The brain seems to work in such a way that we forget all our memories from right before going unconscious too, and that’s exactly what happened to me.

So I’d like you to know in advance that what follows is a mish-mash of vague conjecture, sketchy hearsay, and hollow, faint memories.

Anyway.

The very first thing I did once the Afflicting Cat left was to clean up after its mess.

I was still in the middle of things so “after” isn’t right, but I did need to take care of the site.

I used a cell phone to call for an ambulance─except I didn’t use mine. I made the call with the one I found on Hanekawa’s parents, in her dad’s pocket.

Maybe I was being overly cautious, but I didn’t want the emergency center to have my cell phone number. Blocking caller ID wouldn’t guarantee my anonymity, and anyway, I wanted to be sure.

They’d record my voice, but that couldn’t be helped─actually, I doubt I was able to think that far ahead. The blood that ought to have gone to my brain was splattered all over the pavement.

But that’s where being a vampire comes in.

Usually─putting aside what “usually” might mean in such a situation─you’d need a ton of water and a deck brush to take care of a residential street covered in blood, but aberrations are beings who transcend the laws of physics.

Around the time I had given the emergency center my current location (I tried speaking in a weird voice just in case. Like an alien or something. It must have made me sound so suspicious), my splattered blood had completely evaporated.

With no blood to course through my head, I saw this phenomenon and thought:

“……………”

I only looked at what happened, not really questioning it.

Questioning.

No, I wouldn’t have questioned my blood evaporating─I’d seen it so many times over spring break I was tired of it.

If anything.

The fact that it took so long for the blood to evaporate─that’s what I should have questioned.

The phenomenon that was the street staying not watered but blooded right until my phone call was finished─there was something clearly off about that unnatural phenomenon, and I should have noticed.

“……………”

Then again, I didn’t have the time to think it through. The ambulance I’d called would arrive in no time. You hear about ambulances getting sent from one hospital to another before being able to drop off a patient, but as far as getting to the scene of an incident goes, they’re pretty fast.

That meant I needed to run soon.

My body (especially then) wasn’t something I could show to a doctor─if I did need one, I was probably better off going to a veterinarian.

For an unorthodox reattachment of an arm torn off a shoulder, I’d have to catch Dr. Minoru Kamiya working on a day off.

Somehow, on my unsteady feet, I managed to get my mountain bike upright before straddling on it and taking off at full speed.

By this point, I don’t remember what I was thinking. But if you were to stick a monologue on it, I might wail:

“Aw shucks! This is the last time I bother with aberrations!”

Then a black circle would come in from the edges to frame me from the back as I biked away─but unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet.

It wasn’t even the commercial break yet.

It was dreadfully, and without pause…continuing.

I’ve forgotten everything that happened on the road too, but judging by the tears on parts of my clothes that the Afflicting Cat didn’t particularly assault─my knees, my right sleeve─it seems that I fell over multiple times while riding my bike.

Those scrapes had fully healed by the time I regained consciousness─hence I didn’t notice until Oshino told me later.

It was all so hazy to me that I’d fallen over and not noticed.

I couldn’t think about anything.

I didn’t want to think about anything.

And in that foggy mindset, I pointed the handlebars of my mountain bike not to my home where my little sisters slept but to the abandoned former cram school.

At that point, you could say, I’d unconsciously given up on being roused by my sisters in the morning─and.

And.

And here, at last, is where my conscious brain reconnects with the present.

Where it’s given continuity.

In other words, I completely blacked out once I reached the abandoned building─so maybe my effort doesn’t earn a “Great job!” scribbled on the top of an assignment but at least a “Good effort!”

“…Ah.”

The ceiling wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d seen it before.

I’m so often woken up that naturally waking up felt odd.

It was probably the first time since spring break.

But then─I couldn’t dwell on how strange it felt thanks to the far more distinct, intense feeling of pain that ran through my left shoulder as soon as I twisted my body.

“Ugh… Where am I?”

I could have dispensed with that kind of forced line.

I was on the fourth floor of the abandoned building.

The classroom where I’d fed donuts to a girl vampire the night before─

“Wait, whoa,” I muttered.

I wanted to react in a more exaggerated way (like falling backward and doing a handstand) but couldn’t with the cramping pain in my left shoulder.

The girl vampire was right next to my stretched-out body.

Right by my head.

Squatting, her arms around her legs.

Angle-wise, she was in a position where I could see her entire lower body from under her dress─and for a frightening aside, in the anime version, what this little girl wears under her dress─actually, let’s leave that aside.

The real issue was the gaze she had trained on me.

It wasn’t her usual look full of vengeance and hatred─and it goes without saying that it wasn’t the covetous look she directed at donuts.

How do I explain it?

It was like a look─of contempt.

It was more than a look that could kill. It made you want to kill yourself.

It definitely didn’t feel like she’d stayed by my side to watch over me, worried that I was still unconscious─she wouldn’t have felt obliged to do so.

In fact, her eyes seemed to be saying:

Pathetic.

Shameful.

A mere cat left thee in this miserable state?

And ye call thyself a vampire thrall?

…Ridiculous.

What was I talking about? She “seemed to be saying”?

As if she─would ever say something to me.

As if she’d ever say something for me.

Why was I letting myself make it out like we enjoyed a silent understanding? She had the same sour expression as ever when I really looked at her. It was just that we were closer than usual and that I was looking up at her. That’s why I ended up feeling like something was different.

A vampire was a vampire.

And a human a human.

Two straight, parallel lines, never to intersect.

The relationship that we enjoyed─was destroyed forever during spring break.

She wasn’t going to treat me as her thrall─not now.

She wasn’t going to do that for me.

In all likelihood, she was wondering if it’d be okay to suck my blood as I lay there unconscious─I was now nothing but the source of nutrition she relied on to continue living.

A battery charger.

Even so.

She was still trying to stay alive─and I had to content myself with that.

“You’re up, Araragi?”

And then.

With timing that nearly seemed calculated─the Hawaiian-shirted dude, Mèmè Oshino, opened the classroom door and came inside.

“Aren’t you mister sleepyhead─I’ve been waiting for ages. The sun’s about to set.”

“What?”

The sun was about to set?

What, was it already that late?

I had slept that long, that deeply? Flustered, I checked my cell phone, and sure enough, it read “April 30 5:20 PM.”

Whaaaat?

I’d been asleep for over twelve hours?!

“It’d be more accurate to say you were comatose─or even unconscious and in critical condition. I thought you might just die.”

Ha haa, laughed Oshino.

Contrary to his words, he laughed as if I’d simply overslept.

He was acting the same as ever, but right now─

“O-Oshino! Hanekawa, she─”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve already heard─missy class president turned into a cat, didn’t she?”

My concerns were spot-on, he nodded before facing the young girl.

“That’ll do, li’l vampire,” he said.

When she heard this, she lurched up like some moss-covered statue and dragged her body with an unsteady gait to exit the classroom.

She didn’t even close the door.

“Huh?” Question marks were flourishing in my head. “What’s going on, Oshino? And why’s she up at this hour, anyway? I assumed it was still dawn because she was awake…”

“No, no. Your wounds were just so terrible─that I had our li’l vampire help out a little.”

Look, Oshino pointed to my left shoulder.

When I did, I saw a bandage wrapped around it─a strange one with odd, magical-looking characters written all over it, but still a bandage.

“You two are so connected, you’re almost too connected─I’d even say linked,” Oshino explained. “Maybe paired, actually. Your healing abilities are coupled, too. So the closer you are, the more powerful the skill─which is why I had her be near you, to raise it.”

“Hunh…”

So that’s what it was.

Then I’d forced her to pull an unreasonable all-nighter (?)─maybe that’s why something about her seemed different.

Even if─she really wasn’t taking care of me.

I was still the one being recharged.

How awful of me to assume that she was wondering if she could suck my blood.

“You should thank her later. That arm probably would’ve rotted off without her.”

“As in…necrosis?” Of course, if not for her, it would have been over for me the moment the Afflicting Cat tore off my arm. “I’ll admit that I’m surprised. I know I can’t hope to recover the way I did during spring break, but I’d just given her my blood─I thought I’d heal better than that. Assumptions are a scary thing. I was sure I’d be able to repair an arm in no time if I stuck it back on.”

“Oh, so you took on the Afflicting Cat prepared to lose an arm from the start?”

“No, it’s not like that…” I hadn’t taken her on. I hadn’t planned to fight her─by the time I noticed, before I even had the chance to notice, my arm had been torn off. “…But I don’t think I would’ve let the Afflicting Cat get away if my arm had healed faster. I guess it was wrong of me to expect that much immortality out of myself.”

“No─where you went wrong, Araragi, was in your understanding of the Afflicting Cat,” Oshino said in response. “You can withstand some very considerable injuries with your current immortality. Like you said, you just fed her. You’d recover from anything short of a lethal blow in moments─you were just up against a tricky opponent this time. Or maybe not the opponent, but your compatibility was tricky.”

I was still close to flat on the floor, just barely having propped up my torso. Oshino approached me and continued as he unraveled the bandage (-like object) on my left shoulder.

“The Afflicting Cat─is no good.”

“N-No good?”

“You were afflicted by the Afflicting Cat─and when you suffer a flick from her, the damage isn’t normal. ‘Don’t come into contact with the cat, and you won’t get cursed,’ to paraphrase a saying about the gods. Hmm. What if I said ‘energy drain’?”

“Energy drain…” I’d heard the term before, but only in anime and manga, so it wasn’t like I really understood. “Um, isn’t that supposed to be a vampiric trait, if anything? I want to say that over spring break, I heard sucking blood is a way to absorb a human’s vitality─”

“Exactly. But it’s not like vampires have a patent on it─you could call it spiritual interference, too. Though the implications are a little different from what vampires do since it’s not a way to create thralls. In that sense, it’s an Afflicting Cat’s unique skill.”

“Huh─so when my left arm got torn from my body, she tore off my immortality as well?”

And that was why my wound took so long to heal.

Why the blood I’d spilled took so long to evaporate.

Our tricky compatibility.

Our abilities─intertwined and clashed.

Now it made sense.

Not just about my left arm─but about Hanekawa’s parents, too. The two had been weak, limp, and motionless like they were dead, but I’d seen no visible wounds.

I’d called the ambulance without understanding what had been done to them, what had happened at all, what had caused them to be in that feeble state─but I could understand if the energy had been drained from them.

Enfeebled.

Debilitated─via energy drain.

“Unlike a vampire’s ability to drain energy, there’s no need for the Afflicting Cat to drink a victim’s blood, so it’s more indirect─but as you experienced firsthand, the way it works is primitively direct and reasonably threatening. It’s not just her fangs you need to be careful of─a flick from her and it kicks in.”

“Hence─the Afflicting Cat.”

Incredible.

Oshino had finished unwrapping the bandage, so I looked down─my arm was fully healed, at least on the outside, without a single scar.

I had a strong feeling it was thanks to the weird bandage and not just the girl vampire staying by my side.

……

Had I helped him out to work off my debt only to get deeper into debt? Traces of that suspicion ran through my mind, but I forced myself to stop thinking about it. Anyway…

“I was pretty ignorant about Afflicting Cats,” I said, “but yeah, they’re definitely threatening if they can drain so much energy that it overpowers a vampire’s immortality. Good thing it was my left arm that got torn off. If it was my neck, I never would’ve been able to put it back on, and I’d be dead.”

“Ah, no. Sorry, Araragi, I guess I didn’t phrase it right.” While I’d mumbled a somewhat relieved reaffirmation to myself, Oshino waved it off. “By compatibility, I meant between you and the Afflicting Cat─it’s not as if their powers are anywhere near a match for a vampire’s.”

“Huh?”

“Vampires are the king of aberrations─the apex, royalty. Their energy drain is on a completely different level. There’s an unbridgeable gap between the two. If you think human society is stratified, you should see what it’s like for aberrations. An Afflicting Cat’s energy drain could never hope to compete with a vampire’s ability to suck blood. In terms of threatening, yes, Afflicting Cats are threatening to humans─but they’re nothing to a vampire, just small fry.”

“Small fry…”

That─was small fry?

That?

It definitely didn’t sound right to me.

But if Oshino, the expert, said so, then─it was probably true.

“Having fed our li’l vampire, you became somewhat vampiric, but that doesn’t mean much in a fight. At the end of the day, you were human. No way you could beat a full-blown aberration.”

“A full-blown─aberration.”

“If you were as immortal as you were over spring break─if you’d maintained that immortality, or in our li’l vampire’s case, even if she’s a shadow of her former self, no Afflicting Cat would stand a chance. Whether your arm is ripped off or your head is plucked off, you’d regrow it in an instant, and in the first place, it’d be too tough to tear off.”

“……”

No.

While that may have been an Afflicting Cat─it was also Tsubasa Hanekawa.

Did it mean that like me over spring break, she hadn’t simply been possessed by an aberration?

Had her whole existence become an aberration?

Turned aberrant.

Turned monstrous.

“We’re definitely dealing with an aberration that causes physical changes, but it’s hard to say. I’ll have to do some research on that─but either way, it’s clear we were too late,” Oshino said. “I went to the spot you told me about and desecrated that kitty’s grave a bit─but there was nothing buried there. Unless I got the wrong place, this is as bad as it can get.”

“I see.”

As bad as it could get.

I couldn’t find the will to go back out and check the spot─and it’d be pointless, anyway.

Because I’d seen for myself.

The proof that we were too late.

Because I’d─let her cast a spell on me.

Because I’d let her turn her tail on me.

“Hm. Still, your injury appears to be coming along well─while not everything seems to be connected on the inside, you’ll be better by tomorrow at this rate,” Oshino assured, smacking my left shoulder. It was just a light slap, but the (considerable) pain penetrated deep into my body. According to the expert, though, it seemed to be coming along well.

This seemed. That seemed.

I couldn’t be certain of a thing.

“Our li’l vampire─must be asleep by now, so thank her next time. Of course, it’s not in her interest for you to die, so sticking around for a measly afternoon was the least she could do.”

“I’m still glad she did. If she sees me as a source of needed nutrition, that means she’s trying to live.”

“Hmm. That’s not what it really means…”

Blockhead, Oshino muttered to himself.

What was that for? It felt like he’d told me off for no good reason.

“Well, fine. Araragi, you go home before your family starts worrying about you.”

“Huh?”

“The cell phone in your pocket was shaking around a bunch. Is that what they call ‘vibrate mode’?”

This made me check my phone again─I’d been too focused on the date to notice, but now I saw a ridiculous number of missed calls and text messages waiting for me.

Missed calls: 146.

Unread messages: 209.

Oh god!!

Yikes… I already knew, without checking, that they were from Karen and Tsukihi…

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god!

They were all one-second-long messages and subject-only texts by the end!

“This is just harassment.”

I couldn’t believe it.

No wonder I was feeling like going back to sleep.

How was I supposed to get any peaceful rest if my phone was shaking all over the place as I tried to sleep? I had to hand it to my sisters, they’d tried to wake me up despite being this far away, even if they weren’t successful. Man, they could just die.

“Unlike missy class president, you have a family that worries about you─so you need to go home, Araragi.”

“Oh, uh─they aren’t worried or anything…”

Wait, did he just say “unlike missy class president”?

What did that mean?

True, I’d scuttled back to this abandoned building and given him a report on the damage in my hazy state, but I couldn’t see myself telling Oshino about Hanekawa’s home environment─had a chance turn of phrase happened to hit the mark?

Or was he seeing through people again?

Since he did know that Hanekawa’s parents had fallen victim, was it just a normal thing to say? Maybe not?

There was something in the nuance of his─no.

I had other things I needed to do─first.

“Stop it, Oshino─this much of an injury’s nothing. I can’t go home with my tail between my legs with Hanekawa in that state. We have to capture her quickly and exorcize this Afflicting Cat or whatever it is from her─”

“Spring break.”

I’d started speaking to him in an excited tone─but Oshino interrupted me.

Interrupted me with his own words.

“So you want to save missy class prez this time─just as she saved you over spring break? Is that what this is, Araragi?”

“…Yeah.”

The strangely probing, strangely cocksure, snarky, malicious way he asked made me not want to answer in the affirmative─but I nodded yes.

Because that’s what it was, at least on an emotional level.

When he put it that way, it somehow felt a little off, but that’s what it was.

No, even if it wasn’t.

“You’re supposed to lend a hand to a friend in need, right?” I said, remembering my conversation, if you could call it that, with the Afflicting Cat.

“Hmph. Those aren’t your words, Araragi─they’re hers, if anyone’s. How did it go again? ‘I wouldn’t call someone a friend if I wasn’t ready to die for them’? It’s like she has the values of someone out of China’s Three Kingdoms era. ‘We may not have been born on the same day, but we swear to die in the same place’─was it? She’d make a great warlord if she’d been born back then.”

“Don’t go around comparing girls to warlords.”

“But you see, Araragi. That’s not possible.”

Distinctly. Decisively.

Mèmè Oshino spoke like he was delivering an ultimatum.

“You can’t do as missy class president does. I don’t mean just you─not me, not anyone. No one can do as she does. You need to understand that right now.”

Plop, Oshino put his hand on my shoulder again and continued.

“Sure, maybe you’re supposed to lend a hand to a friend in need. But Araragi, only a precious, select few can rise to the level of doing things you’re supposed to the way you’re supposed to. It’s not something an average person like you or a mediocrity like me can do. I understand how you want to emulate her and do this because you revere her and want to repay her─but that’s something you shouldn’t do.”

“Something─I shouldn’t do.”

“Forbidden games,” Oshino said. “You see, that girl is more of an aberration than aberrations. She’s more of a monster than monsters. You’re in for a bad time if you thoughtlessly try to imitate her.”

“Imitate… That’s not what I’m saying─”

“It’s what I am saying. So much for your idealism.”

Oshino moved his hand from my shoulder to the top of my head.

Almost like.

An adult comforting a child.

“In reality, it’s already begun,” he stated. “You need to leave the rest up to a pro. This isn’t an act that any amateurs should be making an appearance in, let alone a minor.”

“……”

“Araragi, I realize you might be feeling some sense of responsibility for whatever reason. If only I’d stopped missy class prez from burying that cat, or if only I’d talked to her more, or something like that. Nah, I don’t think that makes you responsible for a thing, though I wouldn’t say there’s nothing for you to be regretful or remorseful about, either. But you have to understand─even if you’re responsible for a situation, that doesn’t mean you have to be the one to resolve it.”

“What?”

“As a neutral party and a balancer, I respect where responsibility should lie, but human society, or the world for that matter, doesn’t always work that way. You shouldn’t take everything I say to be right. Things have a surprising way of working themselves out even when whoever’s responsible for them abandons that responsibility. I’m generalizing, of course.”

It’s not like you absolutely have to hustle. That kind of obligation─doesn’t exist, Oshino said dispassionately.

“When you became a vampire over spring break, you did hustle─but who knows, it might have all worked out even if you’d spent the whole time hiding out here not doing much at all.”

“Th…”

I─couldn’t accept what Oshino was saying.

“That─can’t be true. And even if it were─I still had to. This time, too─”

“It’s something you have to do? Maybe. But you can’t.”

“…”

“You can’t do a thing this time, Araragi,” Oshino said with force, with emphasis. “I might not look it given how easygoing I am, but I really do feel bad about letting you get mauled. Though I thought we were still at the prevention stage, I shouldn’t have asked for your help. I failed as a balancer. I ignored theory and contradicted policy. The damage you took was in large part due to my oversight. I feel like I need to apologize to your parents.”

You’ve done more than enough with this─Oshino didn’t particularly sound like he was trying to comfort me, nor did he seem all that serious, and if anything, he was amused by my blatant helplessness, but his tone grew stern at the end.

“Koyomi Araragi. From here on out─there isn’t a thing you can do. There’s nothing you can do for missy class president. Not even if you want to. This isn’t a question of feelings, it’s a question of technique, of ability. If I must─you’ve the important task of staying out of my way.”