Monogatari Series - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.12

012

The enchanted blade Kokorowatari, the Aberration Slayer─a blade made to do precisely what its moniker suggests.

Aberrations alone.

A lethal weapon made to kill aberrations and nothing else.

If you look at it the other way around, it’s a lethal weapon incapable of killing humans─no, not just humans. It can’t rupture any living creature other than aberrations, can’t fracture any implement other than aberrations.

It’s a renowned and unparalleled sword against an aberration, but it’s like a blunt blade against anything else, and some might even favor the blunt blade. The katana can’t physically collide with anything other than an aberration, slipping by and passing through like a formless ghost.

Of course, the girl vampire’s Kokorowatari possessed this trait because it was, strictly speaking, a replica, an imitation sword, the product of a wild fantasy created by vampiric, fantastic superpowers. As for the “real” Aberration Slayer, like Goemon Ishikawa’s Zantetsuken, there seems to have been nothing that it couldn’t cut, except konjac jelly.

Putting that aside.

If you want to know what this enchanted blade that killed aberrations and nothing else, sliced aberrations and nothing else, signified in this situation─it almost went without saying.

Using the Aberration Slayer would allow me to remove only the Afflicting Cat from Tsubasa Hanekawa─from the body and mind known as Tsubasa Hanekawa.

It would slice the cat and nothing else─sever it from her.

It could take the two sides of a coin, that dual personality of hers, and split it with a single stroke.

It could exorcise the Afflicting Cat on its own, leaving no wound whatsoever on Hanekawa’s body─an impossible-mode feat that even an expert in the field, Mèmè Oshino, couldn’t pull off, if you really want to hear me brag.

I alone could retaliate against the Afflicting Cat─against whom Oshino, the expert, had lost a total of a hundred fights over Golden Week.

I could do it.

It was a loaner, of course, and you can’t really call it bragging when I had to grovel on all fours before a little girl to qualify for the loan─and anyway.

I didn’t feel proud at all.

But.

I would be able to end this tale.

No arrangements required.

I could all but ignore any foreshadowing, twists, and turns, and place an indisputable period to this plot.

And─

That was enough.

“Well, it’s not like I can use that enchanted blade, it’s been customized for vampire use─you’re just going to have to do this thing. I like it. I think it’s a nice idea,” the expert gave his seal of approval.

With a certificate of authenticity on top─but that might be an overstatement if his mocking tone was any indication.

Even if the Aberration Slayer was customized for vampire use, it still felt like Oshino, an expert, might be able to wield it. But regardless─

He probably wouldn’t do it.

Using such a handy item─a tool that brought results at no cost─was nothing short of heresy to him. It was foul play, a cheat code, a rules violation─it said to hell with balance.

“Yep, that’s exactly right. So you do have some self-awareness. A lot better than not having any at all,” Oshino remarked with a smirk. “But that’s why even though, as an expert, I don’t have anything left to say to you, as a friend─as your best friend, there’s something I want to warn you about.”

“Warn me? What?” I decided to ask, creeped out as I was by his cloyingly friendly and familiar words.

Oshino then held up three fingers and said, “Maybe it’s not a warning, but you know how I like to complain. First off. Using that sword will allow you to separate missy class prez from the Afflicting Cat─it does seem at first glance the best way to give the Afflicting Cat its last rites. But it’s her strategy and tactics and knowledge that made me lose all one hundred of our fights. I can’t put a hand, leg, or tail on her because she’s able to preempt my every attempt. And if it’s that kind of Afflicting Cat you’re up against, don’t you think any kind of idea someone of your caliber comes up with would be one of the first things she thinks about and plans against?”

Oshino curled down a finger.

I wanted to say something about the “someone of your caliber” he’d snuck in there but decided to put it on the layaway shelf and answered, “Maybe… If we’re talking about possibilities, you’re absolutely right. But I’m confident about this─I’m sure it’ll go well. I can’t go so far as to say I’m certain, but I do have a plan up my sleeve.”

“A plan?”

“No─maybe not a plan. An expectation.”

In a way, it was wishful thinking─it’d be nice if things went a certain way.

I didn’t have any facts, but my opinion was good enough.

“…Hm. In that case, I guess I’ll trust you there. All right, then, if that’s good enough for you.”

“Stop making it sound like there’s some kind of deeper meaning in what you’re saying─so what are the other two warnings?”

“Oh─I’m taking back the second one. There was never any point in issuing it. Just let me share the third one.”

Oshino curled down his other two fingers together.

What’s with the last-minute indecisiveness─wasn’t the thought going through my head. I already had a good guess as to the second warning he wanted to give.

Yeah.

I know that, Oshino.

So if you aren’t going to say it─that does save me.

I know it’s not your intention to save me, of course.

Not now, not ever.

You’re not out to save me.

“Lastly, number three. This is the most important one, and I think it’s a practical one too, Araragi. It’s fine that you’re getting ready to go to war, and I’m not going to stop you─but realistically speaking, how are you going to find missy class prez when you don’t have any clue where in this town she’s hiding? While the results came out as straight losses, I could only fight her a hundred times over Golden Week because I’m an expert who’s learned how to track and discover aberrations─it’s because I’m able to understand what it considers its domain, its territory. And even then she shakes me off one time out of three. This is a hard case in part because we’re dealing with missy class prez, but it’s going to be even harder for an amateur like you. What are you planning on doing about that? How are you going to book this fight card? Don’t tell me your idea was to turn to me now and rely on me to do the tracking and discovering for you.”

“You sound so eager to help out, Oshino,” I said with a shrug. “Don’t worry. I have a real plan for that bit which isn’t just expectations or wishful thinking. I’m not making you go through any trouble for me. We should split up from here. You find the Afflicting Cat as an expert─and I’ll do it my own way.”

“Oh? Your─own way, Araragi?”

“Yeah. This is some more impossible-mode stuff that you can’t pull off.”

“Hmm. Then show me what you’ve got. Go ahead, I won’t stop you─I have no intention of getting in your way no matter how it turns out, bloodbath or bathos.”

And with that, Oshino made no attempt to inquire after the details of my plan. Some best friend he was─and then.

And then, thirty minutes after our conversation.

Exactly thirty minutes later.

I hadn’t gone outside to find the Afflicting Cat as Oshino had─I was in the center of a small classroom on the second floor of the abandoned building, probably its smallest room, standing completely still.

I had already done everything I needed to do.

So now I just had to wait.

There wasn’t much meaning in the location I had selected, I was just in the building because not only would the enchanted blade’s effectiveness begin to fade if it got too far away from the girl vampire, so would its existence, breaking apart on a molecular level. I wouldn’t have minded being in our school’s classroom─well, I guess we couldn’t be too conspicuous, though.

And anyway, the room seemed like a surprisingly good choice.

The window had been broken, maybe by a rock some kid threw or something, leaving only its frame─giving it a clear view of a beautiful moon that seemed cut out of the black sky, as if I was looking at a famous painter’s masterpiece, a snapshot of the night─

“─!”

And right next to that masterpiece.

Right next to it, a body hurled itself straight through the concrete wall, piercing it like a bullet─and the Afflicting Cat appeared.

She paid no mind to the scattering debris.

She smashed through the steel beams─and with a deafening roar.

The cat effortlessly landed on all fours directly in front of me.

Even the floor she landed on began to crack. The impact, so powerful I wondered if it might destroy the entire building, made its way through the air to me.

We were in the twenty-first century, but there she was, showing up by crashing through a wall like she was Shampoo from Ranma 1/2.

Now that I think about it─didn’t Shampoo turn into a cat if you splashed water on her? Meanwhile, Hanekawa had turned into a cat by spilling over. Similar in a way?

White hair.

A beast’s ears growing from her head.

Black underwear─bare feet.

A cat-eyed─Afflicting Cat.

Her existence was enough to make me tremble.

And yet I stood there, still, as the Afflicting Cat’s head shot up.

“Araragi! Are you okay?!” she called out, making no effort to hide her worry, so distressed she looked close to tears, ready to cling to me.

There was a ferocity to her, like she might pounce on me with the same force she used to smash through the wall─but she saw with her cat’s eyes that I was standing there normally, in more or less perfect health.

“…Oh. I get it.” She looked back down at the floor─and took her time standing up. “So─I got tricked.”

“Uh huh.”

That’s right, I said.

What I had done was simple.

Apparently in China, hide-and-seek is called “elude the cat”─but unfortunately, I had no interest in hide-and-seek, tag, or any other games from that family.

If anything, I was playing kick the can.

On top of that, I was the can.

All I’d done was send a single text message─“Save me, a vampire’s going to kill me” to Hanekawa’s cell phone.

I hadn’t written anything specific, making it a straightforward call for help that could be interpreted in whatever way you wanted─and that was enough for Hanekawa.

I was lucky enough to be a man with a cornucopia of causes for concern.

A fount of fret.

I knew that Hanekawa would go off and make full use of her knowledge and imagination to come up with all kinds of scenarios.

And─she would come for me.

That’s what she always did.

During spring break, too.

That’s how she came for me─as I was on the verge of death, as I was on the verge of being killed─as I was on the verge of killing myself.

You could even say that I’d recreated that situation─except the text was a total lie. I felt pretty awful about framing the girl vampire, but in terms of realism, she was the only one I could cast for the part.

I guess you could say it was a clever scheme. It was one that Oshino, who hated the idea of saving and being saved more than anything─and even if he didn’t, couldn’t use technology to save his life─would never employ.

If Hanekawa wasn’t going to seek my help─I was just going to have to seek hers.

If there was any fault in my plan that would be fair for a third party to find, it would have to be whether Hanekawa, having become an Afflicting Cat, was reading her text messages or even carrying her cell phone─but I wasn’t worried about that.

I mean.

High school girls─are possessed by their cell phones, aren’t they?

If she was going back home to change her underwear─she was going to use the charger plugged into the wall, too.

……

If you’re so inclined, just imagine that she was carrying it in between her breasts and enjoy that thought.

“Heh─I do have to say, Afflicting Cat. You got here fast. I’m impressed, it only took you thirty minutes to make your appearance. You really are something else.”

“You’re the worst, Araragi.”

The Afflicting Cat’s eyes swayed─and landed on me.

With a glare.

“You lied, you made me worry─you know you shouldn’t do that.”

“Kakhak!”

In the face of those words─I laughed.

Like a villain.

Like Asuraman.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

“What is it?” she tried to intimidate me in response. “I’m upset at you right now─what’s so funny about that?”

“Well, I mean…” I pointed at the cat, at the Afflicting Cat. “You’re talking all wrong─Hanekawa.”

I pointed at Tsubasa Hanekawa.

“……”

“What’s the matter, model student? Where’d all the kitty sounds in your words go? That’s one of the Afflicting Cat’s character traits…right?!”

Then the cat─Hanekawa─

She was silent for a good while after I made my point─finally, with a resigned tone, said, “Oh. I get it,” exactly as before. “No, I guess it’d be ‘Nyow I get it’─but whatever. Wait. What? When did you figure it out?”

She seemed oddly cheerful and showed no signs of guilt or embarrassment.

Yes, it was the same Hanekawa as always.

Hanekawa─seemed like the usual Hanekawa.

There was─nothing unusual about her.

No.

Hanekawa─was never once not herself.

Never unlike herself.

Never dissimilar to herself.

Never.

There was a lot of her consciousness left inside of her? No.

There was no front or reverse side, no black or white.

Flip over the reverse side and you had the obverse side.

We were getting the dark side of Hanekawa, but we were getting all sides of her too.

Twist it, turn it however you want, she was still her.

Hanekawa─was Hanekawa.

No matter where, no matter when.

All of the mayhem, all of the misdeeds.

All of the mischief.

All of it─was something she’d done herself.

Just as in the story of the Afflicting Cat.

She’d never changed places with anything to begin with.

Now here was a case─just as there was never any cat possessing Hanekawa in the first place─

Behind every ghost─was a silver tongue.

“I kind of had an idea from the beginning. I’m your friend, you know. I’m not going to mistake you for someone else. So─how could I not know?” I said flatly, without emotion.

Nearly in a monotone.

This exchange was so ridiculous that I couldn’t speak any other way.

What an utterly stupid dialogue.

“It doesn’t matter if some aberration takes you over or if you win one over─you’re still you, Hanekawa. Do you really think a simple change in personality is going to change who you are as a person? That’s you. It’s who you are. If a friend sends you a message asking for help, you’re going to rush to their side, no matter what you’re facing, no matter who you’re facing─it’s like an instinct for you, like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. You have to rush over! That’s who you are.”

“…This. This is who I am, huh?”

Hanekawa looked down at her own body.

Her body, transformed into an aberration.

Her monstrous form.

“That’s right,” I said. “Because even though you’re mad at me right now for lying, part of you is breathing a sigh of relief, isn’t it? You’re relieved─that I’m not dead, that no one’s killed me. Aren’t you glad that message was a lie?”

“……”

“You’re just so kind, and you’re just so strong. You’re too kind, too strong. You’re so overly kind that it drags the rest of your life down, and you’re so overly strong that you’d sell your soul to an aberration. You’re so right that it’s oppressive. I understand why you’d want to deny that part of yourself─I don’t understand, but I do. But listen, Hanekawa… Do listen, Hanekawa… Listen, Hanekawa, that’s who you are!”

Shoulder it!

Hold onto it!

Don’t let it go!

I take back what I said─goddammit.

There was no way I could maintain my monotone. I was nearly screeching, like I was in a heated argument with someone.

I couldn’t keep my emotions out of my words.

I couldn’t keep my passion out of my actions.

I couldn’t keep myself─from confessing to Hanekawa how I really felt about her.

“You’re going to live the rest of your life as the person you are! You’re not gonna be able to change! You can’t become someone else, and you can’t become something else, either! That’s the person you were born as, and it’s the person you grew up to be, so why do you think there’s something you can do about it? It’s already done, it’s over─sure, the past might be connected to the present, but it’s still the past─it’s simply your character background! Deny it all you want, but it’s not going away! Instead of complaining, you should just stick with it! You can do it!”

“What are you talking about, Araragi?”

Hanekawa─took in my shrieking.

Then, as if confused.

As though perplexed.

She tilted her head and forced a smile.

An awkward smile.

A painful smile.

“Stop being unreasonable─I struggle too, you know,” she told me. “Even I have things that I can and can’t do. Even I’m human.”

“You know you’re not human,” I interrupted her. “You entrusted your body to an aberration. Don’t you dare call yourself a human right now.”

“What an awful thing to say, Araragi,” chided Hanekawa─the smile still on her face. “You know why I turned out this way. And you’re still going to tell me I need to be doing everything I can? That’s awful. You couldn’t be any worse. Don’t you feel any sympathy for me?”

“Hell no,” I gave Hanekawa the same answer I’d given Oshino. “You don’t have any idea who your real dad is, your birth mom committed suicide, you got sent from one family to another before ending up with two unrelated parents you couldn’t connect to, you were raised in a cold household, but even then you forced yourself to act like it was all normal, and you actually managed to pull it off─you managed to breeze through a life under martial law. Talk about unlucky! You have got some bad luck! I know I shouldn’t say this, but what an unfortunate life! But you know what─is that really so bad?!”

Isn’t it fine?! What’s so bad about that?! You’re being so serious─come on, cut it out!

“Okay? It’s okay! Don’t worry about it! Just chill out! You don’t have to feel like you’re suffering just because your life is unfortunate, you don’t have to sulk just because your life hasn’t been blessed! What’s wrong with staying positive in the face of adversity? You know what? What you’re going to do after this is go home looking like nothing ever happened! Live the same old life with your father and mother who are out of the hospital now! You’ll never be able to reconcile with either of them, I guarantee that! Even if you somehow beat the odds and become happy someday, it’s not going to matter, because no matter how happy you are, it’s never going to erase your crappy past! You can’t pretend it never happened, you’re going to be dragging it around with you! No matter what you do, no matter what happens, that misfortune is going to sit in your heart forever! You’ll remember it just when you think you forgot, you’ll dream about it for the rest of your life! We are going to be having nightmares for the rest of our lives! That’s how it’s going to be─and since there’s nothing you can do about it, don’t try to look away! Playing a prank on some random passerby, playing streaker in your underwear is just going to take a tiny bit of stress off your mind, in reality it’s not going to change a thing!”

“…It’s not going to change a thing.”

It’s not going to change a thing.

It’s not going to change out a thing.

It’s not going to change into anything.

Put on a mask, take the cat out of the bag, turn into an aberration─it’s not going to change, it’s not going to change, it’s not going to change.

You’re still you.

“There’s no way I’m ever going to sympathize with you,” I repeated for good measure.

Like I was cornering her, steamrolling her with words.

I condemned Tsubasa Hanekawa.

“Weren’t you going to rehabilitate me? So what’re you doing becoming a delinquent?!”

Don’t make a cat your reason.

Don’t make an aberration your excuse.

Don’t make a ghost your catalyst.

Don’t use misfortune as your springboard to grow.

Because if you do─how is that any different from clawing at yourself in the end?

Aberrations─don’t really exist, you know?

Now if anything’s a lie.

That is it.

“But if you still want to relieve your stress, then I’ll take it all on. I’d be happy to feel up your breasts whenever you want, and I’ll look at any part of your body you want me to while you’re in your underwear. So─be satisfied with that.”

I’ll find as much time for you as you want.

We’re friends, after all.

She listened to my proposal in silence─and then Hanekawa.

Tsubasa Hanekawa said, “You really are the worst, Araragi.”

You’re giving me a headache, she said.

“Araragi… You might become a star, but you could never become a hero.”

“I can’t become a star, either.”

I shook my head.

“The only thing I can become is a vampire.”

And─I’d even messed that one up.

“Oh. So you’re not going to become─my hero. You’re not going to. I’ve always wondered, Araragi. Do you actually hate me?”

“Yup,” I nodded. “Actually, I hate you.”

“Oh. Well, I actually hate you too.”

And then.

“Just die,” she muttered, taking her eyes off of me, with what seemed like contempt, in a vanishingly small voice.

“Just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die, just die─I nyoughta just die.”

Mrow, Hanekawa said like a cat─and took to all fours once again.

All twenty of her transformed claws were digging into the concrete floor. She’d done something similar before in our classroom. Hold on, were a cat’s claws retractable?

They say the skillful hawk hides its talons─but it looked like the same went for cats.

So the talons themselves─were the talent.

“Mya-ha! You’re going to take on all of my stress nyow, Araragi? How wonderful,” Hanekawa said, maintaining her posture, looking up from below. “So you don’t mind if I mewder you?”

“Go ahead. It’d be a dream come true,” I answered, spreading my arms. “I want to die at your hands.”

“Oh.”

Then you’d better die.

Just after I’d barely recognized the words─or maybe just before.

I found myself silently blown backwards.

To be more precise, I found the upper half of my body being blown backwards.

I wasn’t sure what had happened.

Well, I was probably raked by her claws, or maybe pierced by her fangs, or she could have just slammed into me.

That’s about all the variety in attacks a cat has─and none of them should have been able to separate the top half of a human body from the bottom half with a single strike.

But this was why aberrations were aberrations.

This regrettable blow, with its heart-stopping impact, chopped my torso in two at around my hips, causing my back to hit the wall behind me so fast I could have raced a bullet train.

Actually, you know what it was like?

It was like Usui when he got hit by the Gatotsu Zero Shiki, or maybe Frieza in his last moments as he fought against a Super Saiyan. That’s what it felt like.

This was one hell of a Shampoo I was up against.

The bottom half of my body still somehow stood in place─as I trailed down the wall I’d been beaten onto and slid to the floor.

Ah.

My eyes were so low to the ground.

“Ow…”

And then.

After a slight delay─the pain kicked in.

I watched as my organs oozed and glistened out of the exposed section─and an almost comical amount of pain ran through not just the wound but my entire body.

“O-Ow─”

“OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!”

However─a scream that prevented me from expressing my pain echoed through the cramped classroom.

Like the cry of a cat in heat.

A howl─scratching everything else out.

“M…MYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

As if the silence during that strike had all been a lie.

This scream that seemed like it could reach the center of town, this shriek that seemed like it could roll across the world, was, of course─needless to say, Hanekawa’s.

No.

Maybe this alone─was the Afflicting Cat’s.

The agonizing death of an aberration.

“A-Araragi! What! What did you do─to me?!” asked Hanekawa in between the screaming.

When I looked over, her posture was the same as mine as she crawled along the floor. Asking the question now, a little late in the day, seemed like an act of pure curiosity─but the answer was clear.

I used my index finger to point straight at it.

The bottom half of my body, still upright.

“…! Wha-”

Hanekawa was left speechless.

Of course she was at a loss for words─sticking out of that half of my body, almost as if the only thing left there was my spine, was a single katana.

Well, I guess it would be more accurate in this case to say that the blade had stitched the lower half of my body to the floor.

A katana.

Its identity goes without saying─the enchanted blade Kokorowatari.

The Aberration Slayer.

“Th-That blade─before I got here, you─”

“That’s right. I swallowed it before you got here─like some old-timey magician.”

Just as the girl vampire had done.

No, strictly speaking, she and I had done different things─while the girl vampire used her vampiric power to generate matter and her own body was the sheath, I’d plunged the sword into my mouth and passed it through my stomach as if I were tracing my spinal cord, right through my left foot and into the floor, simply turning the blade into a shaft for my body.

You could say I’d skewered myself.

It would be an impossible feat for anyone without a vampire’s immortality─and even then, it was an endless cycle of death and regeneration, slain by the Aberration Slayer only to be restored, a living hell.

That’s why I’d stood for half an hour waiting for Hanekawa instead of sitting. A shaft had been placed in me along my spine, as my body’s axis, and so I couldn’t sit─and of course, it was in order to hide the Aberration Slayer that I’d done something so deathly painful that it felt like a long-awaited relief when the top half of my body had been divided from the bottom.

To hide it in my body.

So that Hanekawa would attack unwarily, unguardedly.

If you want an analogy, it was like filling a sandbag with shards of glass─that was what Hanekawa had attacked, which is why she was helpless.

The plan would have been meaningless if she’d gone for my arm again─and provoking her hadn’t been easy.

It hadn’t been easy for me to say all those heartless, obscene things, like that I’d touch her breasts or look at her in her underwear.

“Ugh, agh, uuuuuuurgh! B-But! But─but Araragi, this pain─”

“Right. It doesn’t hurt, does it? Not for you,” I said. “That sword buried in me is known as the Aberration Slayer─I borrowed it from the vampire. It’s an enchanted blade that can only cut aberrations. It’s not you it cut─just the Afflicting Cat buried in you.”

She was on the floor and holding the back of her right hand─which suggested to me that it was a kitty punch with her right arm that had blown away half my body.

But there wasn’t a single scratch on her hand.

Of course there wasn’t.

It couldn’t wound humans─the Aberration Slayer only sliced aberrations.

The Aberration Slayer only slew aberrations.

This was a lot more than the special trait of the Afflicting Cat that Oshino had so much trouble against─its energy drain, which could even turn a scratch into a fatal wound.

Not debilitation.

Not incapacitation.

It didn’t produce those kinds of half-hearted results.

There was no salvation faced with it.

A single scratch from it could kill an aberration─that was the enchanted blade Kokorowatari.

“Th-That’s─”

I’d given my explanation.

And Hanekawa looked utterly astonished.

“That’s ridiculous. How could a sword like that exist?”

“Yeah. You didn’t know about it, did you?”

I never told you about it.

Even I had only heard about the Aberration Slayer straight from the vampire’s mouth. It wasn’t like she’d been passing any legend down to me─it was just a confidence.

Spring break.

On the roof of this abandoned building─when I was with the girl vampire in her perfect form.

I heard a story from her while we spent time together.

That conversation with Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade was one of the few memories from my hellish experience that I treasured.

That’s why no one knew about the Aberration Slayer’s properties.

Not even you, Hanekawa.

’Cause I didn’t tell you, either.

“Even Oshino didn’t know she had this crazy sword until a moment ago, and he’s an expert. It’s quite literally─beyond our ken as humans.”

“E-Even Mister Oshino? He didn’t know about it?” groaned Hanekawa.

As she sat there, unable to hide her bewilderment, I continued.

Proudly.

“I’m sure you’d never have fallen for it if you’d known about the existence of this killer item─just about anyone could come up with hiding a sword in your body as a trap, and just about anyone might try it. It’s a superficial idea, not something you could call a strategy.”

And yet, Hanekawa fell for it.

How unexpectedly easy, how unsophisticated.

She fell for it like a lemming off a cliff.

Because she didn’t know about it.

Because─she didn’t know.

“Even so, it involved some wishful thinking─there was the chance that you knew about the sword’s existence even without me telling you. I’m relieved, Hanekawa─so even you don’t know everything.”

“……nkk.”

“Even you. Don’t know everything,” I said, gasping for air. “So stop acting like you know everything or like you’ve figured everything out─like, ‘just die’? ‘I oughta just die’? Come on, what do you think you’re saying?! Look, there’s still a lot out there you don’t know, even you! Come on! I don’t know everything, I just know what I know─say it! Say it like you always do!”

Korff.

A pool of blood had gotten mixed up in my last few words.

It was all-you-can-bleed day for my torso and my mouth, like I’d gone from being a sanguinarian to a hemophile.

No, this was no time to be making lame jokes.

It was clear that I was going to die.

I was just going to die a wretched death here.

Even though a single scratch from the enchanted blade was enough to make the Afflicting Cat disappear, my plan also meant I’d be hit with an attack powerful enough to pierce my torso (though I never imagined it would separate the top half of my body from the bottom half). And just like with my left arm, any attack from the Afflicting Cat came with an energy drain, meaning that my vampiric healing ability wouldn’t be effective. In fact, it didn’t look like anything was going to regenerate from my torso down─there was just an endless spillage of blood and guts.

Maybe if I was able to force the lower half of my body, still pierced by the enchanted blade, back onto myself, but that was not an option in this situation.

And anyway, the Aberration Slayer had dealt some amount of damage to my body both while I swallowed it and when my torso was blown away, and to be honest, that amount was quite large. Even so, that portion seemed to be regenerating already thanks to vampiric immortality, which said that death would not leave it dead, that killing would not leave it killed─but whatever the case.

I was going to die.

I was going to die by Hanekawa’s hands.

I was going to die for Hanekawa.

God─could I be any more blessed?

“……”

Yes, I knew.

I knew that my actions were those of a complete buffoon’s─that much was clear.

It was pointless.

This─this was frighteningly meaningless.

Yes, using the Aberration Slayer would let me exorcise the Afflicting Cat─but that was all.

The tale would come to an end, but the problem wouldn’t be solved.

It wasn’t like Hanekawa would be able to overcome her stress─it wouldn’t do anything about her family issues.

It would erase the being known as the Afflicting Cat, and that was all.

In other words, we would just be going back to before Golden Week.

There was no real difference between what I was doing and the cat’s attempt to get rid of her stress by attacking five hundred people─no, actually, that plan might have had a better chance of saving her.

If this solution sufficed─then would Oshino really have lost a hundred times? He’d have settled it during the first encounter. Talk about a compromise─that must have been the second warning or whatever it was Oshino tried to tell me earlier as my best friend.

I was trying to place all the blame on an aberration and completely reset the situation.

It was like I’d messed up in the process of beating a game and was moving to hit the power button to reload from an earlier save.

If this were Animal Crossing, Mr. Resetti would be yelling at me.

It was cowardly, and it was temporary.

Truly only palliative.

But that was fine.

It’s not like I’m trying to save you or anything, Hanekawa.

All that stuff about wanting to keep you from killing people or killing your parents is an afterthought now.

I don’t care if it’s meaningless, I don’t care if it’s pointless─I want to die for you.

That’s all.

Well, yeah. It’s…you know.

Ah… No, well, I guess I’ve said everything I wanted to say.

Yeah.

Like I just told you.

You can do it.

You can do it.

There’s a lot to do, and you’re not going to want to do a lot of it, and there’s going to be so much more of it, but─you can do it.

You can do it. You can become happy.

I’m going to die here─but I’m me, an aberration, a monster, a vampire, so it doesn’t have to count as killing a person. Just forget about it.

You’re going to be alone now─but do a good job of it.

“Mrr…YEOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!”

Just as I went to close my eyes with an air of nihilistic pretention, self-absorbed and self-satisfied─something happened that startled me.

Hanekawa’s form changed even further.

To look even more feline─as white fur covered her arms and legs.

Her fangs and claws shot out and began to protrude.

You could barely call what I was looking at a cat. It looked like a white tiger.

“MYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“……”

Just as a candle burns brightest in the moment before it goes out─the Afflicting Cat was manifesting itself.

So powerfully it might take over Hanekawa.

It didn’t matter if it was small fry or low-level.

Even if it was dying or disappearing.

It was an aberration to the end.

The dying cat was now violating Hanekawa’s psyche and ripping it to shreds. It lashed out, clawing at its host, driven only by the pain from the sword.

The enchanted blade had divided Hanekawa and the Afflicting Cat─causing what had been whole to split.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“MYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Hanekawa’s screams and the cat’s blended together.

They overlapped─and synchronized.

And with all that screaming.

There was no way─I could die in peace.

“…What are you doing, cat?”

You know that’s not what you’re supposed to be doing.

Why hurt Hanekawa? Don’t tell me you forgot? Why you possessed Hanekawa─why she won you over?

Or is a cat’s memory just not good enough?

I know it’s not some kind of feline fickleness.

And I know it’s not because it’s like you or not like you to do.

You’ve been pouncing at every opportunity to help her─you’ve been lending her all of your paws because when she saw you lying there dead on the street, she didn’t sympathize with you one bit.

She followed her rules. She hewed to her ethical notions.

There was no emotion there whatsoever.

That’s what you said, and you were exactly right─but it’s more than that.

It was the same with me─I’d been attacked by a vampire and turned into something inhuman, but Hanekawa didn’t have a shred of sympathy for me.

Not sympathizing, not commiserating.

She took absolutely no pity on me─didn’t look down on me.

She saw me as an equal.

Isn’t that right, Afflicting Cat?

Whether dead on the street or attacked by a vampire─

“There’s nothing sorry about us, is there?!”

I understand.

You weren’t being fickle.

You weren’t just repaying her.

You fell in love with Hanekawa for the same reason, didn’t you─so.

So quit attacking her like that.

Stop it.

Won’t you stop?

Please, stop.

Hear─my plea.

You’re going to make it so that I didn’t die for Hanekawa’s sake at all─

“Are ye a dunce, servant? Is it not obvious that cutting the power so recklessly will damage thy contraption?”

And then.

I suddenly heard─a voice in my head.

Thanks to the intense pain.

As I arrived on the brink of death─I heard a hallucinated voice.

Not Mr. Resetti’s.

I heard her voice─reprimanding me.

“………ngh?!”

Really, now.

It seemed like a little much, even by hallucinatory standards─it had happened so suddenly by the time I realized what was happening that not only did I not know when she’d shown up, I still wasn’t sure if she was really there, her presence so unclear that you could call her the definition of an aberration, this girl who appeared out of nowhere as she stepped over my head─of course she wasn’t going to talk.

Like an act of divine intervention─or rather.

Hers was a demonic intervention.

Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade─the husk thereof, a young girl with golden hair and eyes.

There was no way she was going to talk.

“Such was Musashi Miyamoto’s calibre as a swordsman that they say he once wielded an oar in place of a blade─but I see the complete opposite applies to thee. What reckless use of my famed sword, my pride. Some live carving ye’ve prepared of this aberration. I nearly feel like laughing.”

Just as I was thinking about what a glib and garrulous hallucination this was, I heard a krak as she plucked off her own right arm with the greatest of ease. Like it belonged to a model kit.

Of course, her arms are not pieces from a model kit or anything of the sort─and lively, red blood began to gush out of the cross-section.

As my eyes sat transfixed on this spectacle that reminded me of myself just eight days earlier, the girl vampire dangled her left arm from her right and showered my torso with the fresh blood it spilled.

“……nkk!”

As I’ve already discussed, a vampire’s blood possesses healing effects─and what’s more, this was the blood of a girl vampire who was once a pure-blooded, pure-bred vampire.

Those effects were dramatic─I watched as the lower half of my body grew from the open end of my torso like it was a lizard’s tail. Simultaneously, the half of my body skewered by the enchanted blade in the center of the room seemed to evaporate and disappear─leaving only my clothes, my shoes, and Kokorowatari’s overlong span.

But even then.

How could her blood have such incredible healing properties when she was nothing more than the dregs of─oh, right.

I quickly resolved my own doubts.

In short, after all was said and done, I’d given too much blood to the girl vampire over Golden Week─I’d been coming up with excuses for her to drink my blood, and I’d gone overboard.

Even when I received the blade from her earlier, I’d let her drink her fill of my blood, not as any kind of thanks, but really as a kind of farewell gift─and so.

And so now.

And so at this exact moment.

Her vampirism had returned, rather too fully.

While I wouldn’t say she was on the level she was at during spring break─you could at least draw a comparison.

Enough so that it surpassed the effects of the Afflicting Cat’s energy drain.

I’d misread the situation.

The amount of blood I’d given her was a total amateur’s eyeball measurement─I was too haphazard, I’d overshot it.

“As ever and always, I see that ye focus only on what stands before thee, my sad little servant. Best not think thou can keep me alive at thy pleasure─and then die at thy pleasure.”

Fool, she said.

She made no attempt to hide her displeasure as she said it.

That gruesome smile─showed no sign of appearing as she said it.

“I shall give thee a flawless example, so watch, watch in fascination. Ready? This is how the Aberration Slayer is used.”

And that was the last hallucination.

I hadn’t heard anything in the first place.

I had only imagined that she said any of it.

I was self-absorbed, excessively positive, and prone to wishful thinking.

But─I was fine with the words being a hallucination.

I couldn’t be any happier.

Just as long as she─wasn’t a hallucination.

So long as she was here.

If she’d come here.

It was so much more than enough─that I began to cry.

“Mrr─row?!”

Wordlessly─as wordless as she’d been the entire time, the girl vampire, her presence royal despite her child’s body, approached the Afflicting Cat; picking up the enchanted blade sticking out of the floor on the way like an afterthought, and storing it back inside her body with a quick gulp as if to say there was no need for such an ostentatious tool, she approached the Afflicting Cat.

And without saying a word of grace.

She bit into its neck in a show of bad manners.

She was dining.

Doing everything it could to withstand the pain from the blade, the Afflicting Cat couldn’t begin to shake off the vampire. The girl’s energy was being drained from the moment they touched─but even that had no effect.

As if energy drains worked on a vampire.

No matter how much vitality was sucked away, the vampire could suck it right back.

It was as if each was gnawing at the other, but the skill difference was just too great.

The beautiful white fur that now covered Hanekawa’s entire body gradually began to recede─the aberration that was the Afflicting Cat, and the aberration alone, was being sucked away.

It was being absorbed into the girl vampire.

Hanekawa’s stress─was being absorbed.

“It’s fine,” I mumbled.

My body had made a complete recovery, but I still didn’t feel like getting off the floor, and I mumbled like I was talking to myself.

But I wasn’t talking to myself.

My words were meant for Hanekawa.

“It’s fine, Hanekawa. I know we’re all screw-ups… I know it’s miserable for you, how you deserve better, how you’ll never be able to come back from it all… I know it’s going to be like this for the rest of your life, but it’s fine!”

The girl vampire had already disappeared somewhere without a trace as if the scene was none of her concern, leaving me and Hanekawa alone in the classroom.

Her cat ears were gone and her hair was black again.

Hanekawa was now fully back to normal, stretched out in her underwear like she was sleeping, having been freed from the girl vampire─

“No way it’s fine.”

She spoke as if she were moaning the words in her sleep.

Ha!

Right, of course.

You’re always right.

But whatever the case, as happily as in a reverie, as bloodily as in a nightmare, as crazedly as in a dream come true─

We were punting the problem.