Monogatari Series - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.24

024

I’d like to add a few words here about further disappointments that were to follow.

We first waited for nightfall, then enacted the plan we had discussed the previous night at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─to seek out renowned power spots in Japan to use their spiritual energy to leap into the past─and naturally our method of travel was to fly, with Shinobu cradling me in her arms. We’d developed a formula whereby I carried Shinobu while we were traveling on the ground, and Shinobu carried me when we were traveling through the sky─but I’m deeply ashamed to say that the only places I knew about were ridiculously famous ones like Mt. Osore and Mt. Fuji. Although we exhausted ourselves and the night trying every place we could think of (at a speed slightly above Perman’s “119 kph”), it all came to nothing.

There’s no question that Kita-Shirahebi Shrine couldn’t hold a candle to the numinous virtue of those places, but─

“’Tis no good. Each and every place has been thoroughly sealed off.”

Quoth Shinobu, giving her expert opinion.

“Perhaps ’tis only to be expected─’twas because that shrine had become an air pocket that the Aloha brat entrusted thee with the task of placing the sealing talisman in the first place. So ’tis only to be expected that these other places─especially such famous places, would be sealed, if not by the Aloha brat himself, then by some other specialist in yokai and their ilk.”

“Yeah? Yeah, I guess you’re right… It won’t do any good to check places just because they’re power spots, then. In addition to being power spots, they need to be newly formed ones that the specialists didn’t notice or know about. Otherwise we won’t find any gas there to power our time warp…”

“Their method of sealing is most perfect. When energy doth remain, they have rigged it such that none can make use of it.”

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

But it was a fool’s errand─though, as it happened, not entirely.

Since we’d been traveling at night we had of course been flying with our eyes trained on the ground below us─and once again, the zombies had appeared before we knew it, literally before we knew it, and we were able to observe their rampage─in truth they really were just night walkers, not destroying anything or doing anything else out of the ordinary. Our vantage point up in the skies also supported Shinobu’s supposition that the destruction was centered on our town and radiated outward from there.

The farther away we got.

The more traces of panic…the more indications of the disastrous scenes that had unfolded.

Traces from which I wanted to avert my eyes.

But from which I could not.

“Shinobu, how can I put this…”

“Mm?”

On the road back─or I guess I should say, on the flight back.

Shinobu and I had the following conversation.

“There’s a very old theme in stories─and more recently, too, it was a popular theme in YA literature for a while, where the protagonist has to weigh the fate of the world against the life of one girl, and he picks the girl. You familiar?”

“Aye, there are many such films.”

“It’s moving, right? And cool. It’s meaningless to live in a world without you, I won’t save the world if it means killing you, that kind of thing─but listen. In reality, if you’re forced to choose between the world and a single girl, you’d have to choose the world.”

“…”

“I don’t know, it seems like you’d be running away from a difficult decision otherwise. As a matter of ethics, weighing the lives of a hundred people against the life of one, anyone ought to choose to save the hundred.”

“Yet─dost not that thinking run counter to thine own principles? Thou hast ever─”

“Yeah, I have. But doesn’t it seem like a pain in the ass for the girl? Being saved in place of the entire world is like suddenly being presented with a Cadillac on your birthday, you’d be at a loss or… To put it plainly, doesn’t the thought of being loved on such a grand scale feel kind of gross?”

“Art thou regretting having saved the lost lass, my lord?”

“I mean, I don’t know! But if Hachikuji found out that her salvation led to the end of the world, I don’t think she’d ever forgive me. She was so against getting anyone else involved in her business over the course of more than ten years of wandering lost─”

I.

I’ve never seen her get truly angry, but─if she heard that I destroyed the world on her account, she’d probably flip her lid.

No.

Even then, she wouldn’t get angry─wouldn’t blame me.

She’d simply be sad.

She’d probably just cry.

“─But she probably died a few days after I saved her anyway, in a traffic accident or something, so she wouldn’t be doing any crying or any getting angry.”

“…Thy words are most unworthy,” Shinobu said.

She spoke─without slackening the pace of her flight.

“At spring break, when thou didst offer succor to me as I lay on the brink of death, I was glad. Thou didst offer me succor without another thought, sacrificing not the world but thine own life in exchange for mine, and I was glad.”

“…”

“Though in the end, thou didst regret thine actions─thou, who didst know nothing of what would transpire as a result of saving me, didst regret, and in regretting, tried to kill me─perhaps even now thou dost regret thine actions, but even if ’tis so, it doth naught to tarnish my initial gladness.”

I─had never known.

That Shinobu felt that way.

It had taken the end of the world for me to learn how she truly felt.

“Be that as it may, were I that lost lass, I would at the very least not want thee to harbor such regrets.”

“I don’t even know if I do regret it. I just…”

I just─felt emptied out.

By the disproportionate retaliation laid on me by history, by fate.

By my own foolishness.

“But what of this: hadst thou not saved me during spring break, the world would not lie in ruins as it does─wouldst thou rather ’twere so?”

“No…you’re right. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

That was a whole other question.

It was just as I’d told Ononoki.

There was misery.

But there was also joy.

So─regret was pointless.

“In the hopes that it will bring thee some modicum of relief, allow me to offer words of commonplace comfort. Wilt not such thoughts leave thee dead in the water?”

“Dead in the… What are you talking about?”

“Like as not, thou art thinking that by borrowing my power to carry out a time slip, an act as yet unencompassed by human ethics, thou hast committed a grave transgression─but is it not taken for granted among human beings that one dost save a child about to be struck by a car?”

“…”

“If someone is drowning, save them. If someone is in trouble, save them. ’Tis wisdom that humans have cultivated over the course of thousands of years. Didst thou not─save me in accordance with that wisdom?”

“Yeah…you’re right. I did, but…”

“Well then. None can deny that the saved child may grow up to become a criminal, a murderer. And likewise the child, saved from drowning, could go on to die a more horrible death.”

And the vampire I saved─could destroy the world.

“Canst thou really say that the decision to save them was then in error?”

“…”

“The opposite pattern also holds. Thy beloved former class president, treated cruelly by her various parents growing up, obtained exceptional skills as a result. Should she then be grateful to her parents? Thank you for tormenting me instead of loving me?”

“That’s─”

No way.

That would be like asking Senjogahara to be grateful to Kaiki─benevolence is benevolence, and malice is malice.

You can’t suddenly decide that sometimes the end justifies the means.

You can’t.

“On the flipside,” I noted, “sometimes people’s parents love them too much─they’re spoiled and turn out worthless… I still don’t fully understand what Oshino meant when he said that people can’t save other people, they just go and get saved on their own─but maybe it’s something like that. That you won’t know if saving someone really saves them until later on.”

Oshino.

If he could see me now─what kind of advice would he give?

Maybe none at all.

Even under these circumstances, he─might not save me.

“…Which reminds me,” I said. “Those spots were probably sealed away long before you went about destroying the world, and probably watched over through the ages, but the kind of specialist who can create such a seal─Oshino, or Kagenui or Ononoki, and though I don’t want to think about it, and he’s probably a bit different, Kaiki… Where the hell were all of them during the end of the world?”

“Like as not they were wiped out.”

“Wiped out… I wonder. Oshino was able to remove your heart when you were at the height of your powers, and Kagenui specializes in immortal aberrations─”

“Aye, surely specialists of their class would put up a hard fight, but only if I were alone. If ’twere after I had created so many, oh so many thralls, they would stand no chance at all.”

They are human after all, she pointed out.

Her tone had become a little haughty, but as soon as she noticed that indiscretion, Shinobu let out a sigh.

Like she was disgusted with herself.

If I may, Shinobu has a remarkably high opinion of herself, so I wasn’t just swallowing the idea that it would have been as easy as she made it sound, but─of the three experts I knew, Oshino, at least, couldn’t let something like this pass; he would have done something─and if this was still the result.

Then whatever transpired.

Whether it had been an epic battle or a crushing defeat.

Oshino must have lost.

He─had met defeat.

In the face of a vast army of vampires.

“And yet, frankly…” said Shinobu, “I do not wish to think on mine own actions. Creating thralls with such reckless abandon. Like a woman who sinks into desperation, heedless of all else, at the shock of being spurned by the man she fancies.”

“That’s an analogy, right?”

“Mm, ah, no, uh, aye, ’tis of course merely an analogy.” For some reason Shinobu lowered her altitude in seeming consternation. Night had already passed, so even if we’d crash-landed, it wouldn’t have been much of a problem. “In any event, those experts, too, must have been made into vampires and become zombies in the end.”

“Oshino a zombie…” Yeah, though he was kind of like a zombie all along. “It makes me feel really depressed to think that Oshino, for sure, and Hanekawa, likely the first to feel your fangs, and Senjogahara and Kanbaru and Sengoku, and Karen and Tsukihi─everyone became a vampire, and then ended up as a zombie…”

Friends and acquaintances might have been among the crowd of zombies who’d surrounded us at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine. With their faces and bodies, and of course the shape of their hips, lost in a sea of dripping flesh, I couldn’t recognize anyone, but─the possibility wasn’t low enough for comfort.

“’Tis indeed best not to think on it. Thinking on it will avail thee nothing.”

“I guess so─and if I had to find some kind of silver lining, at least Hachikuji wouldn’t have become a zombie, being already dead and all.”

Though that was cold comfort.

In exchange for keeping Hachikuji from becoming an aberration, I’d turned the entire human race into aberrations instead.

However Shinobu tried to console me, that fact almost made me lose heart. But if I actually did lose heart─Shinobu would probably get depressed too, so no matter how deeply conscious I was of my own guilt.

I couldn’t let it get me down.

…Maybe this was another instance of choosing one girl over the rest of the world─simply an instance of evading a tough decision.

“While we’re at it, I haven’t seen any cats or dogs either,” I said. “Do you think they’re all done for as well?”

“Aye, vampires are one thing, but ’tis doubtful that zombies appreciate the distinction betwixt humans and such lower beasts.”

“Hmm… Insects and plants seem to be doing okay, though.”

In that sense, did it mean the world hadn’t perished even if humankind had, and the Earth was doing fine?

I don’t really want to say this since spouting such a cliché will reveal the limits of my humanity, but homo sapiens’ downfall might just be a good thing for the planet.

Our conversation lasted all the way back to our town─back to our ghost town.

I say town, but it no longer functioned as one in any capacity now that society had utterly collapsed, by which token there was really no reason and no need for us to return. But you get attached to a town where you’ve lived for so long.

Whatever we did in the end, I wanted to be based there for a while longer.

…That is, the farther away we went, the more ruinous the cities became, so without question our town offered the best quality of life in the entire world.

Never in a million years would I have dreamed that our nothing little town in the sticks would achieve such a glorious distinction…

After we touched down, we made for the supermarket on foot, me carrying Shinobu as per our arrangement.

At last my hunger was reaching its limits, so it was a pressing concern to purchase some food and other essentials─though it was impossible, in this case, to purchase anything.

Naturally, I was carrying some currency appropriate to the era, but there were no employees at any of the shops to give it to. At night they might show up in zombie form, but I had a hard time believing they would be willing to accept my money.

They would just try to suck my blood, devoid of any sense of professional duty.

“Still, I feel endlessly guilty about just taking whatever we want…”

“Art thou so faint of heart?”

“I’m the kind of guy who can’t leave an arcade until I spend all of the 100-yen coins so they don’t suspect me of having used the change machine for business purposes, okay?”

“Far too faint of heart.”

“Let’s just leave the money on the counter and go.”

“Thy heart is so faint as to be imperceptible!”

Well, I wouldn’t be able to do that forever, but at least the first time.

The majority of the food was rotten and the store interior was filled with an overwhelming stench, but the canned goods, snacks, and drinks weren’t past their expiration dates yet, so we mostly grabbed those.

Then we wandered around looking through the other stuff.

We didn’t need clothes or anything at the moment.

Maybe we’d come back when winter came─no, the winter stock was never going to arrive, huh?

“I can simply create clothing with mine ability to generate matter, if need be.”

“Yeah… It’s just food supplies that I’m worried about. You can drink my blood for sustenance, but that won’t cut it for me. If we keep going back and forth drinking each other’s blood, we’ll eventually run out of energy.”

What a predicament.

Self-sufficiency was surprisingly difficult.

I could probably prepare food using a gas stove, but the tanks would run out sooner or later─did we have a lifetime supply? Not likely.

And there wasn’t all that much canned food, either.

What to do?

A vampire’s lifespan is pointlessly long.

Didn’t Shinobu say something to that effect at one point─that the majority of vampires die by suicide?

Not just the Shinobu from this timeline.

“The high we’re currently feeling, the kind of inappropriate thrill and pounding excitement of being left on a deserted island,” I submitted, “probably won’t even last a week… How much preparation we can manage during this week of high motivation is going to dictate the direction of our new life as castaways.”

“On the way home, ought we not stop by the bookstore and seek out tomes on survival? We must like as not abandon any pretense at a civilized lifestyle.”

“I don’t know, if the two of us can persevere for a while, maybe new life will appear at some point and evolve into human beings again, and rebuild civilization.”

“I do not think that even vampires are that immortal.”

“We won’t live forever, eternally youthful and undying?”

“Such is merely rhetoric. We differ from zombies and ghosts, dead as they are. Never forget that we are yet alive.”

“Oh… So my days of playing PS3 are over?”

“’Tis what I like about thee, that thy hopes for a new race of humans extend only to the development of the PS3… Yet whatever happens, should such a new race appear, ’twould be but the blink of an eye before they went extinct once more, transformed into zombies.”

“Oh…” That sucked. Humankind was not just down, but down for the count and not getting back up? “I’ve thought to myself before that Hanekawa made me who I am today─which is definitely true, but there’s more to it than that. I’m who I am now because of Hachikuji, and you─and Senjogahara, Kanbaru, Sengoku, and Oshino. Of course, without my parents I’d never have been born, and if not for Karen and Tsukihi… Even my dealings with Kaiki taught me a lot, my battle with Kagenui changed my values─that’s how it goes. This may be a super ordinary way to say it, but…I’ve been taking fate too lightly.”

“Taking it─lightly.”

“Fate is something we create together, and it was arrogant of me to think I could change it alone─it seems that way, at any rate.”

“I still think it avails thee nothing to ponder it overmuch. Though ’tis pointless to tell thee not to. But thou didst tell me not to apologize. Therefore, I ask thee, too, to refrain as far as thou art able from remorse, or regret. Such remorse, such regrets, will avail thee nothing in the future─all we have left is each other, so to blame one another, or ourselves, as we live on through eternity would be the height of folly.”

“Right, it’d be like ‘The Salamander.’”

Maybe I was unfeeling.

This situation.

Maybe I needed to be blaming Shinobu more, blaming myself more than I was.

But, somehow.

Yes, somehow.

The scale was just too big for the mind to grasp─a town where literally not a soul is to be seen during the day becoming infested with zombies at night was pure ridiculousness, and at the risk of being taken the wrong way, it all seemed like a joke to me.

History, fate, the world.

I just wasn’t equipped to handle stuff of that order.

Becoming a vampire, time slipping.

I’m still only a high school student.

Fate.

Not to mention reality itself─I don’t have the capacity to stand up to all that.

It was a lost cause.

“Shinobu.”

“Aye.”

“I don’t know if it’ll be a year down the line, or ten years, or what, but at some point I’ll probably lose my grip and try to blame you for destroying the world. But when I do, I won’t be in my right mind. So please don’t take it to heart, just let it go. Please just placate me if I get hysterical.”

“I understand,” Shinobu nodded. Solemnly.

“Okay. So, if we don’t need to buy clothes, then there’s not much we do need. I guess human beings can get by with surprisingly little, if need be. What was it, ‘Consider the lilies how they grow’? Though you and I are both half vampire. Anyway, what do you say we forget about the bookstore for the moment and borrow some educational materials from the high school on the way home?”

We’d do that.

Who knew if the high school, or the college I’d been planning on attending, was still even standing, but─thinking of what Hanekawa and Senjogahara would say.

Not only was it pointless, it was a complete waste of time, nothing more than an escape from reality, but I wanted to continue studying for just a little while longer.

To me.

That was my summer homework.

Then─“Hm?”

I stopped walking.

In front of a certain display case, on the third floor of the supermarket─I wasn’t even putting things in my basket anymore and was just ambling along, but in front of that display case, in an area with summertime merchandise, I stopped.

Stopped and─

“What is it, my lord?”

“Nothing, just…”

Without being fully aware of what I was doing, I reached out towards the display case─and took it in my hand. Come to think of it, I hadn’t done so once this summer─actually, for much longer than that.

So.

“There’s something I want to try.”