by Nisioisin
“Don’t blame yourself. Then again, it wasn’t supposed to end up this bad─it’s because of that shrine.”
Because of that shrine.
“Oh yeah, Kanbaru. You’re probably going to start feeling sick again… A talisman’s effect isn’t immediate, or so I’ve been told.”
“Fine with me. Plus, I can be ready for it if I know it’s coming.”
“I see.”
What a jock.
All it took was guts, huh?
I’d normally refute it as unscientific but found myself believing it because it was Kanbaru. She was, after all, a formidable woman who’d gone from clumsy girl to national-level basketball player thanks to nothing but guts and the effort to go with it.
“Big Brother Koyomi, how much do you remember about before?”
“Uh…well, not much, to be honest. I don’t have a very good memory.”
“Oh…”
Sengoku was visibly disappointed.
“You, on the other hand,” I hastily turned the subject to her, “remembered me. I’m impressed because we’d only played together a few times when you were little. And I was just your friend’s older brother. You normally forget that stuff.”
“I didn’t get to play with people all that much,” Sengoku said haltingly. “Back then, the only friend I had who’d play with me after school was Rara…”
Rara must have meant my youngest sister. Right, the friends she brought over used to call her that. Her grade-school nickname, Rara, excerpted from our family name, Araragi. Now, though, she and my other little sister combined were Tsuganoki Second Middle School’s “Fire Sisters”…
How things change.
Of course people change.
But if we’re going to talk about those days, back then I was annoyed when my little sisters brought over their friends and made me play with them…
I’d felt shy about playing with girls.
That’s how it was at that age.
“Though Rara and I don’t go to the same middle school…all the times I got to play with her, and you, are my precious memories.”
“I see…”
That─made me feel better.
By the way, I hadn’t told Sengoku about the aberrations that Kanbaru and I bore, only giving her a whiff of the fact that we had anything to do with them. I certainly could share that with her, and maybe I needed to in terms of building a relationship of trust, but after talking it over with Kanbaru, I paid heed to the possibility that it might only accelerate a mental breakdown. So Sengoku probably didn’t understand why anyone would feel sick from going to the shrine, and perhaps thought that Kanbaru was spiritually sensitive, or something. Then again, that wasn’t altogether wrong.
“I’m an only child,” Sengoku said. “I was jealous─that she had an older brother.”
“………”
It sounded like a case of wanting what you can’t have.
Like someone without a little sister wanting a little sister.
At times I wished I had an older brother or sister, or a younger brother─and envied people who had them. But maybe it was different for someone like me, who had actual little sisters, and for Sengoku, who was an only child.
So─she was an only child.
“Hey, what about you, Kanbaru? You don’t have any siblings─do you?”
“Nope. I’m an only child, too.”
“I see.”
And so was Senjogahara. And Hachikuji, and Hanekawa.
Huh, so they were all only children.
And─Shinobu?
Did vampires have siblings?
“Okay─we’re here.”
I was leading the way, so I was, of course, the first to arrive.
The ruins of a shrine.
A desolate, barren sight.
The talisman was still─stuck to the door.
“Are you feeling okay, Kanbaru?”
“Yes. Better than I thought.”
“Try saying something stupid.”
“I like reading books on the road and making myself carsick.”
“Try saying something funny.”
“I couldn’t help it! He threatened not to pay me if I didn’t!”
“Try saying something perverted.”
“Just when I thought the girl I liked was a virgin, it turned out she was vermin.”
“Okay.”
That last one was a little weird, but she seemed fine.
Next to me, Sengoku was hugging herself and shaking. We’d tickled her funny bone.
She really was quick to laugh.
It seemed she was more amused by my interaction with Kanbaru than the actual content, but in fact that was a good audience reaction, so I couldn’t complain.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s get ready now… Let’s get ready already.”
Kanbaru asked me, “Why did you bother to rephrase yourself?”
We found an appropriate spot…which is to say a location that wasn’t too overgrown, then placed four flashlights, the three we held and one more in my bag, in each corner. They formed a square and illuminated the center.
The ground was dirt.
We drew lines in it next using a nearby tree branch and linked the flashlights into an actual square─a so-called spiritual boundary. It was pretty makeshift but would do, according to Oshino, because the simple fact that it was demarcated was what mattered most about these boundaries. We spread a plastic sheet on the ground to cover the square. Another purchase from the general store, naturally.
And then─Sengoku entered the square.
Alone.
In a school swimsuit.
“………”
The swimsuit wasn’t from the general store (they don’t sell them at general stores). Just like those volleyball shorts, Kanbaru had “happened” to have one ready.
I said to her, “You didn’t have the money to buy a flashlight, so what are you doing carrying around volleyball shorts and school swimsuits?”
“There are some things in this world that money can’t buy.”
“I completely agree, but volleyball shorts and school swimsuits aren’t among them.”
“I was trying to play to your tastes.”
“Well, don’t.”
“You’re not denying it’s to your taste?”
I checked to find that Sengoku was indeed chuckling to herself in the boundary… It was for the joke factor that she was wearing a school swimsuit in the middle of a decrepit shrine, but she found it funny too?
At any rate.
To see how the purification was proceeding, we needed to keep track of the scale marks on her skin, and Oshino’s instructions were that she shouldn’t stay in long sleeves and long pants, but we couldn’t have her in nothing but a pair of volleyball shorts outdoors. While showing us the Jagirinawa’s marks in my room, Sengoku had taken her hands off of her chest at one point, causing her to start crying all over again─a mishap that even an honest guy like me didn’t share with Oshino─so this was particularly necessary.
And so, a school swimsuit.
Instead of changing at the shrine, she’d worn it under her long sleeves and long pants like an elementary schoolgirl might. Though we could see the scale markings on her legs, the swimsuit hid her torso, making it difficult to gauge the extent of her affliction─and maybe I was just imagining it, but they seemed to have climbed up to around her neck. Had its grip on her tightened since the evening?
If so, we needed to hurry.
We simply didn’t see it.
But Sengoku’s body─was still in the grip of a giant snake.
I handed her the amulet Oshino had given me.
“Now, sit in the center…on the sheet. Hold the amulet as tight as you can, close your eyes, calm your breathing─and all you need to do is pray.”
“Pray…to what?” asked Sengoku.
“To something. In this case, probably to─”
The snake.
The snake god.
The Jagirina
wa.
“Okay…I’ll try my best.”
“Alrighty.”
“Big Brother Koyomi…you’ll watch over me?”
“I will.”
“You have to watch over me.”
“…Yup, I will.”
In any case─it was the only thing I could do.
Honestly, it was all up to Sengoku from here.
No matter─what happened.
People who get saved got saved on their own.
I exited the boundary, and together with Kanbaru, who had just finished lighting a mosquito coil, circled around at a distance to stand in front of Sengoku.
“Okay…”
Sengoku’s eyes were already shut.
Both of her hands─were squeezed tight in front of her chest.
The ritual had already begun.
Not even Oshino knew how long it would take─he’d said to be prepared to stay here all night in the worst case. Kanbaru and I were one thing, but I didn’t know if Sengoku’s psyche could hold out for that long. We’d just have to try. There was no rehearsing this.
The glow of the flashlights.
They gently illuminated her─from four corners.
“Hey,” Kanbaru spoke to me.
Her voice was so small I could have missed it, even though she stood right next to me. It must have been her way of being considerate to Sengoku, who was concentrating inside the boundary, but in that case, wasn’t it best not to talk at all?
“What is it?” I said. “No more banter from here on out.”
We couldn’t afford to have Sengoku laugh during the ritual.
It would all be for naught then.
“Yes, I know… But there’s something I was wondering about, now that we’re here.”
“What?”
“The serpent-slaying that she stoutly carried out on her own. What about all that?”
“That’s one hell of a way to put it…but yeah. You mean chopping up those snakes.”
“Yes. Wasn’t doing that, only in the proper way, the correct measure, rather than this onerous ceremony?”
“Well, yes…and I said the same thing, but it sounds like that way would take even more time. According to Oshino, that is. Apparently, when it comes to snake-chopping, what’s important is actually the locale.”
“The locale… And since bad things are gathered here…”
“Well, this spot is the absolute worst, but that doesn’t mean anywhere else would do. I didn’t have enough time to ask for details, but he talked about it not being very effective unless you use snakes from Tohoku, or something.”
“Regional differences?”
“Regional differences. Important when it comes to aberrations.”
They had to be spoken about, and all.
Sengoku had chosen this mountain because she’d heard she could find snakes here, but she’d needed to do a better job picking her mountain and her snakes for a ritual─supposedly. Of course, as far as that went, it would have been best if Nadeko Sengoku hadn’t done anything to begin with.
She chose this hangout, of all places.
This spot where bad things gathered.
But now, ironically enough─we needed to get those bad things on our side to help cleanse Sengoku of her aberration.
“Got it, makes sense,” Kanbaru said. “Mister Oshino keeps some pretty handy things around, doesn’t he? An amulet you can use to exorcise aberrations?”
“When I bothered him about it, he said it’s not that handy of an item. It’s useless except in cases like this one.”
It only worked because the aberration had been sent by a human.
And only because it was a snake.
“So we’re combating foul play with foul play,” Kanbaru commented.
“He described it as one heterodoxy for another.”
“I guess it’s fine if it saves Sengoku… Still, you really do try to help out every person you come across, don’t you?”
Kind to everyone.
Irresponsibly─kind to everyone.
“I wouldn’t say every person, but I do whenever I can,” I answered. “Especially if it’s someone I know.”
“I think that’s part of what my dear senior loves about you, and I, too, think it’s part of your charm. I─at this point, I’m glad that she’s going out with someone like you. But I do hope─”
Kanbaru paused before continuing.
“If─the day ever comes when you have to choose just one person, I hope you’ll choose her without a second thought.”
“……”
“You’re free to sacrifice yourself as much as you want, but please take good care of her… Not that I really have any right to be saying this.”
Kanbaru’s left arm.
It once tried to kill me.
Not because anyone shackled it.
With a firm will of its own, as an aberration.
“Kanbaru…I do think you have the right to say that. In fact─I think you’re especially qualified.”
“…Good to know.”
“I’m just as glad that you’re Senjogahara’s junior as you’re glad that I’m her boyfriend.”
“Hearing that from you─really helps. Oh…”
There, Kanbaru pointed straight ahead.
At Sengoku, who was there praying with all her heart and soul.
And when I looked at her.
The scale markings on the parts of her body that weren’t covered by the school swimsuit─those clear traces etched across every inch of her skin─were gradually fading. Oshino had said to be prepared to spend all night, but not even ten minutes had passed.
So─it was powerful.
It was going well, too.
The scale marks at the base of her neck─disappeared.
The scale marks around her collarbones─disappeared.
The Jagirinawa was leaving Sengoku.
“It looks like it’s going forward─without a hitch.”
“Yes,” Kanbaru agreed.
“Neat.”
Given my own presence, which tended to jinx everything, this state of affairs, quite honestly, could qualify as unexpected. Well, thank goodness. Now Sengoku needed to stay focused for another minute─
“Still,” I said, “it’s not like everything will be over once we rid her of the snake.” To avoid sapping Sengoku’s motivation, I hadn’t told her this ahead of time, of course. “At the minimum, her relationship with that old friend is going to be irreparably broken.”
“Well…you might be right.” Kanbaru nodded. “There aren’t too many people who could forgive such a thing. Nope… Not that Sengoku would want to mend the friendship, and the other party might not want to, either.”
“So a breakdown─in their relationship.”
Humans were scarier than aberrations.
No need to give voice to such a cliché, though.
“Romantic entanglements are so damn scary,” I said. “But I wonder who Sengoku has a crush on. I’m a little jealous to know that someone out there is the object of that cute a girl’s affections.”
Were this a rom-com manga, the love interest would turn out to be none other than me, but I highly doubted that was the case here. I was her “big brother” and nothing more.
Brother and sister─
While I said I was jealous, I had a girlfriend, so of course, if Sengoku really did have feelings for me, it would just be a headache… But using this opportunity to revive our ties perhaps wasn’t such a bad thing. It would be sweet, and she was precarious enough that someone needed to watch over her, though I had no idea what my little sisters would say…
“She is a girl, after all. And─she’s fourteen? Heheh,” Kanbaru chuckled. “Myself included, not every girl her age longs for a prince in a white coat to come in and swoop her away.”
