Monogatari Series - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.18

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<Afflicting Cat… No, you are no Afflicting Cat. But nor are you anything else. Explain yourself. What are you?>

The tiger─too impossibly big to be a real tiger, so enyormous it threw off your perspective─tilted its head at me, confused as it said this.

A tiger tilting its head in confusion was a pretty rare sight.

I wanted to snyap a photo and post it to my blog.

“Afflicting Cat is close enough─nyot quite if you went into the details, or if you went into the fundamentals, but well, you’re nyot too wrong,” I replied with the biggest smile I could make to show my friendly intentions, but─

<Is that so? You seem to be something else entirely to me.>

The tiger nyarrowed its eyes and didn’t even grin.

Hrmm.

I nyow you shouldn’t judge aberrations by appearances, but my furst impression was that we weren’t going to get along.

<─The aberration I know as the Afflicting Cat is a slight one, one with so little presence it may as well not be there. But you─>

“Well─cat argue with that.”

Nyothing I could say there.

Afflicting Cats have so little there there it might be better to call them nyarrations than aberrations─and even if they didn’t, I got the feeling that in this thing’s view, most aberrations may as well nyot be there.

Because as I assume you nyoh, tigers are sacred beasts.

“We’ve all got a lot going on. Even someone like me.”

<I see,> the tiger nodded.

Looking unyinterested.

Like it couldn’t care less about a nyaberration like me.

<Well, I don’t really care about you.>

It really said it.

Nyow that was annyoying.

<But I must ask what it is you want of me. I am a tiger. You, as a kindred aberration, must know what it means to block my way.>

“A kindred aberration?”

Nyow it was my turn to tilt my head.

This one and me shoulda come from completely different places─nyo, maybe that’s nyot what it meant.

Kindred as animals, simply.

Cats and tigers─is what it musta meant. Nyow I understood.

“Well,” I said, “of course I nyoh─but I’m nyot here to block your way or anything. Nyot one teeny-tiny bit. I’m nyot very smart, but I at least nyoh where I stand here.”

<Indeed you must not be─but I am not so sure you truly know where you stand,> the tiger said. How rude.

It really did like to talk for a nyaberration that wasn’t even humanyoid, though.

That actually made me worry more.

<So, then. Why do you stand there?>

“Well, I’m just here to announce something─I don’t care one bit what you came to this town for or why you’re still here. Go ahead and do whatever you nyeed to do. I’m nyot interested one bit in what you really are, either. Because that’s how aberrations are. But─” I said.

Maybe I wasn’t making an announcement.

Nyow that I think about it, I should have called it a declaration of war.

“─if you do anything more to harm my myaster─I’ll kill you.”

<…I see.>

The tiger took in my words.

And then─it silently nyodded, like it understood.

Like it was chewing it over.

Like it was chewing─a piece of meat between its teeth.

It nodded.

<I thought I had seen you somewhere before… So you’re that girl. That girl─has been possessed by you.>

“Nyo, I wouldn’t say possessed─maybe if I was a nyormal Afflicting Cat. But I’m, like, her,” I helpfully explained to the tiger who finally remembered me, or rather, my myaster. It’s nyot something you’d be able to understand without an explanation─even that Hawaiian-shirted expurrt didn’t understand it all.

Nyo one can understand the truth of a nyaberration.

“It’d be closer to call it assimyalation, or no, mewnification. I am my myaster, and my myaster is me─my myaster’s personality is the dominant one, of course, but I might actually have more control over our actions. Because I’m the fundamental, primitive core of my myaster’s psyche.”

<Hm. I don’t care.>

It went and said it again.

It’s nyot like I purrticularly wanted this thing to like me, but it woulda been nyice if it had a little more interest in me.

<An aberration who assists a human, then. Remarkable─you are not. But then you ought to know better than any other aberration. An aberration’s traits cannot be suppressed. The problem lies with the seer, not the seen.>

“……”

<I am a tiger, and this master of yours saw me─that is all that matters.>

Saying so, the tiger─glared at me hard.

That very instant, I leapt.

Nyuh oh, I thought─like we were just about to get into a fight.

This tiger was awfully violent─awfully simplistic─

And so I leapt.

I flew.

Nyot a step backward, much more than that. I took off with everything I had─like I really wanted to soar, to fly over a meowntain.

But.

Once I tumbled onto the ground somewhere on the outskirts of town after more than five minutes of airtime, I have no idea how it got there first, but in front of me─

There stood a tiger.

<Futile.>

“……”

<It is all futile. I am a tiger─and that woman has seen me. That alone is essential, and that alone is of import. I am a tiger─and have already begun.>

If I’d made a declaration of war.

The tiger’s words were an ultimatum.