by Nisioisin
Her rule that she couldn’t step on the ground only seemed to apply outdoors and not to the floors of buildings─the bottom of Kagenui’s shoes were in firm contact with the peeling, faded linoleum below.
Now that I saw her standing on two legs like normal─I began to understand a little what Karen had meant.
Something about the way she stood was unnatural.
It was even a little creepy.
The central axis of her body─was disturbingly straight.
There didn’t seem to be any degree of bend.
The way she was standing, if a bicycle ran into her─the bicycle would go flying while Kagenui, I bet, would remain perfectly still.
It wasn’t that she had good balance─she was completely affixed.
Her stance wasn’t the only thing… Probably because I’d increased my level of vampirism and narrowed the gap between us, I was able to sense how strong she was.
Now that I did, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed earlier.
Yozuru Kagenui, this seemingly sweet, friendly lady─bristled with danger.
Dramaturgy.
Episode.
Guillotine Cutter.
She emanated an incredibly salient bloodlust that rivaled that of the three vampire hunters─
“Oshino…” To avoid tipping off how nervous I felt─and to put up a bold front, I responded to Kagenui, “Oshino never gave off such a hostile vibe─not once.”
“Hm? Kakak, I bet he didn’t─not Oshino. But you know, fiendish young man─you’re one to talk. The way you’re angling for a fight now, what did you expect? To be welcomed with a banquet?”
Kagenui laughed in amusement.
From the looks of it, she was enjoying this chance to gossip about our mutual acquaintance.
“The vampire there, in particular─the erstwhile Heartunderblade, has certainly changed her feathers,” Kagenui observed, pointing at Shinobu who stood next to me.
That was true. Having drunk nearly as much of my blood as was safe, Shinobu Oshino no longer looked like an eight-year-old girl, a blond Lolita.
Which isn’t to say that she’d reverted to her fully adult version. That would have been going too far─she looked around my own age, about eighteen, if you asked me.
Despite not being able to tell humans apart even after remembering their names, it seemed that when Karen beat the crap out of me the other day, Shinobu had taken real notice (or real damage, since she suffered along with me from inside my shadow). Her hair was styled after the ponytail that Karen had sported until this morning.
She was also wearing a jersey of some sort.
Reflecting her aristocratic lineage, though, the needlessly gorgeous jersey somehow had a luxury, designer-brand feel.
The same went for the sneakers on her feet.
Shinobu Oshino’s golden eyes were fastened on Kagenui and Ononoki.
It was a quiet stare.
“You look pure slick, Miss Heartunderblade─you could hold a candle to my younger self. But I doubt you have my britches. It looks like you put all your effort into just the outwith, like a lion’s mane or a peacock’s train─or a mantis’ axe.”
“The only mantis axe here is thy little maiden. I advise thee, onmyoji─ye’d be wise not to wag your tongue too bravely now. I’ve not regained so much of my skills and power since I dealt with that vile cat─I am in the crucible of alarm and hunger. There is no telling what might prick me to kill thee.”
Shinobu sounded quite proud of herself. Her voice, too, was no longer the lisping one of a little girl─I was reminded, for the first time in a long while, just how meaningless outward form was to a vampire.
“I am not to kill thee─do not give me matter to do so. Do not give me motive─I have no mind to betray this one yet,” she said, pointing her thumb at me.
At me─as the one she did not wish to betray.
“I entreat thee, give me no cause to show my true mettle, my true nature, my true fangs─forbear, as I request, and I will drain only as much of thy blood as metes a fitting punishment.”
“You’re not to kill?”
It was Ononoki who reacted─even more than I did, to Shinobu’s words.
“Is that the resolve you came here with? You make me laugh. Isn’t that right, sister? We’re more than ready to kill─he said with a dashing look.”
As usual, there was no such look on her face.
Her features were as still as a lake surface on a windless day.
But she did seem to mean it in regards to taking offense at Shinobu’s speech.
“Now, now, Yotsugi, don’t say that─these folk are just obtuse,” interceded Kagenui, reinforcing the impression that her shikigami was indeed ruffled. “Right. You just don’t know─how dire heartless we can be. You have no damned clue how ridiculously far we’ve strayed from the fair path.”
“……”
I did have a clue.
I’d figured that much out for myself.
Kagenui and Ononoki─shot first and asked questions later, if at all. They’d attacked Tsukihi Araragi, along with the house in which she lived, without even a cursory interrogation.
I knew exactly what kind of humanity such people possessed.
What kind of aberrations they were.
They represented justice.
And nothing else.
“Well? What now?” Kagenui asked me─her tone was casual, as if we were about to get a deck of cards and play President like one big happy bunch, and she was just asking about the local rules. “We tend to welcome a showdown─I’m all for violence, I reckon it makes things simple. And just our luck, we’ve got a human and an aberration each─myself versus you, and the erstwhile Miss Heartunderblade versus Yotsugi. How does that match card strike you?”
“……”
“Hmm? You don’t like it? I can square off with Heartunderblade and you with Yotsugi, if you prefer─she’s the one who whupped your sister, after all. Well, fake sister.”
“No…”
The first suggestion was fine, I said, nodding.
In fact, it was what I had been hoping for.
That matchup was the one point I was most concerned about. I just didn’t know how to bring it up─it was almost as if she’d read my mind.
I guess she was feeling pretty confident.
Maybe she meant it as a handicap.
Either way, I could only accept─what other choice did I have?
“Good. Maidling, thou and I will fight downstairs,” Shinobu, who knew these ruins like the back of her own hand, invited Ononoki. “There’s a fitting room for our melee on the second floor─we should be able to fight to our hearts’ content there. Allow me to show thee the wisdom of age.”
She probably meant the classroom where I’d battled Kanbaru’s monkey─it did seem well-suited to withstanding a clash between two aberrations.
“Fine, I’m good with that. Acting like you’d taken me hostage to make my sister back down was annoying me to no end. Don’t fool yourself, even after powering up this far, you’re still not at my level. Respect for the Aged Day is still a month away, but if you’re going to rattle your old bones to try and show me the wisdom of age, then I see no harm in doing my civic duty today─he said with a dashing look.”
In response to Ononoki, I heard what sounded like a vein popping from Shinobu’s direction. I have to say, she had it coming once she brought up their age difference.
“Keh… That’s rich coming from a minor goblin of the Far East with barely a tome or treatise about her,” Shinobu retorted, her voice dripping with loathing. “When I’m through, ye’ll never make another dashing look again.”
Um, Ononoki only said that and never wore such an expression to begin with… But in any case, Shinobu headed for the door.
Now that she had my blood for a battery, she was no longer confined to my shadow─she still couldn’t go very far, but the second and fourth floors of the same coordinates were well within bounds.
Thi
nk of it like the relationship between Mobile Battleship Nadesico and the Aestivalis.
“All right, sister, I’m going to go do some volunteer work taking care of the elderly─he said with a dashing look.”
“I leave it in your hands,” Kagenui replied to her shikigami.
“In my hands?” Ononoki tilted her head. “Please don’t put so much trust in me─he said with a dashing look.”
She turned toward me, suddenly, as if something had sparked her interest.
“Kind monster sir.”
“Yeah?” I shot back.
“What do you think of the world?”
Without giving me time to answer, she told me her own opinion.
“I wouldn’t mind if this world of fakes got destroyed, kind monster sir─he said with a dashing look.”
Saying so with a not particularly dashing look.
Declaring so with rare conviction.
Ononoki finally followed in Shinobu’s footsteps─and the two aberrations departed from the classroom.
“……”
The bloody combat that was about to unfold between those two likely exceeded the human imagination─having restored herself to such an extent, there was no doubting Shinobu’s strength. Ononoki, meanwhile, was still an unknown factor.
At the very least, judging from how she’d pulverized our front door (and Tsukihi’s torso)─she could more than hold her ground against any aberration I’d encountered so far.
In which case… Shi─
“Is this any time to be gawking?”
In the blink of an eye, as I was glancing toward the door that Ononoki had shut behind her─Kagenui took her opportunity to close the distance between us, drawing so close I could feel her breath on my nose.
“Wha…”
“Our battle has already started. It began the moment we came mewling into this world─”
I didn’t even have the time to pull back my gaze.
The very next instance, Kagenui kicked my knee out─literally kicked it out.
No, excuse me.
“Kicked out” fell short.
You might think that she smashed my kneecap or broke my bones or something like that.
That would be misleading and a lie. Hypobole.
To be precise, what she did was to kick her heel straight at my knee─whereupon the force severed my leg from the knee down like a surgical scalpel, jeans and all.
Kind of like snapping a twig.
Or maybe─plucking the legs off an insect.
“Gha…kk!”
The surprise hit me more than the pain.
It was my astonishment that was the more blistering.
Letting her get so close was just incautious─I had to pay a price for getting distracted by things I had no business worrying about at the moment. I could hardly complain about taking a blow in exchange.
But did it have to be such a devastating blow?
How could one human kick another human’s leg off─especially when my body was fortified to the limit as it was now?
My bones, my flesh…
Heck, even my skin was tough as if it were coated in thick rubber…
“Did you reckon I’d go after your weaknesses as a vampire? Target your airways, maybe? Your internal organs? Bring crosses and holy water? Did you reckon I’d whip out a Super Soaker?”
As she spoke, Kagenui swung her left fist─diagonally across from the leg she’d just kicked with─at a dizzying speed against my jaw.
Her punch could set off an airbag, according to Karen─however, that assessment needed to be modified somewhat.
She had been surprisingly conservative in her estimate.
Forget about airbags.
If it was a compact, Kagenui could probably total the whole car.
My whole lower jaw popped off like I’d gotten hit by a major league fastball at point-blank range─this wasn’t early-stage stuff like getting a concussion because your brain shook in your skull from a punch to the chin.
My brain didn’t so much as tremble when my lower mandible was removed with pinpoint accuracy.
“I hate to break this to you, but I’m Japan’s first fighting onmyoji─I don’t care about the Komai arts or onerous erudite secrets or any mince like that. Aberrations or whatever they are? I just get pumped up and smash them like so.”
The next blow was a palm strike.
The palm of her right hand, which she’d been holding in reserve─came hurtling in on a straight line, at a debilitating, impossible angle, striking me on the right shoulder.
My right arm was jerked from my shoulder joint─leaving only the part from the neck of the humerus and up.
She hadn’t grabbed or twisted my arm.
She plucked it free with just the pressure of her palm.
Not even the greatest yokozuna in sumo history were capable of such a feat.
It was sheer force─and its concentration.
Power and skill.
The result of which─was extreme destruction.
Yozuru Kagenui, the Destroyer.
Back in front of our house, when she’d folded me up like a piece of origami, I had wondered what kind of submission hold she could have used─if only I had known. She’d simply used her freakish strength to stuff me into that position, as if I’d been reluctant to perform calisthenics and she’d forced me to.
Mere monstrous strength.
And now, that mere, monstrous strength was being unleashed and wreaking havoc.
Could this really be the handiwork of a human, and not an aberration, in the face of an aberration─no, actually, forget all that cumbersome talk, she simply wasn’t any sort of onmyoji!
Everything apart from her fighting skills had been subtracted from her as a person!
No wonder Shinobu had been so equivocal.
There was just no normal way─to describe such a person!
“Hur… Guh, uh, ahh!”
I could only pull away─I jumped backward as hard as I could on my remaining right leg to put some distance between us.
Kagenui made no move to follow me.
Not that she couldn’t keep up, but she seemed to know better than to chase me too far. She was clearly a pro.
There was no need for a pro to get sloppy against an amateur.
Kagenui had no reason to make a valiant, sustained charge.
As unserious as she could seem, she preferred slow, steady progress.
“Huff… Huff, huff.”
But I was lucky─the fact that Kagenui’s destructive power was so awe-inspiring actually worked to my advantage.
It hurt so much that it didn’t hurt at all.
This was so unrealistic that my brain couldn’t accept it.
The damage so surpassed the limits of my sense of pain that my nervous system refused to process it─meanwhile, my body, possessed of vampiric immortality, began to automatically regenerate itself.
My severed leg.
My removed jaw.
My plucked-off right arm.
They all began to be restored to their original state─like a system reboot.
Obviously, the regeneration didn’t happen in a heartbeat like when I was a full vampire. Nevertheless, everything was back in place sooner than you could say A-E-I-O-U.
Unlike Shinobu, my clothing wasn’t included in the scope of my recovery (I didn’t have the ability to create matter, my clothes were just normal clothes), so I was left looking a little bit punk.
But the damage to my psyche from my body getting so badly mistreated wasn’t healing.
“Huff… Huff, haah…”
Calm down, stay cool─and heat up.
Even this unexpected development was within expectations.
It was nothing I couldn’t endure.
This was a small price to pay for getting to grab my sisters’ tits all the time and continuing do so.
Anyway.
Back to square one.
“Kakak. You…”
My opponent, Kage
nui, seemed to be enjoying herself.
