by Nisioisin
“That’s nyot your own opinyan, is it?” she retorted, gently. “Those are just words─nyot how you feel. If you’re just parroting the words of others, it barely means a thing─the question is how you feel, meow.”
“…Guh, gurrh─”
“Yes, people do go and get saved on their own─but why should people who help others care? They can go and save as many people as they please.” The cat’s voice was throaty. “Tell me, how many people do ya think are out there─who want to help you? And are ya gonna reject every single one of ’em─?”
The strength─left my body.
I couldn’t stay standing anymore.
It was like Black Hanekawa’s arms, wrapped around my body, were the only thing supporting me─like I’d entrusted my body to her completely.
My mind grew hazy, too.
I could do nothing.
I could do nothing─on my own.
It made me want to laugh, but I didn’t have the strength for that, either. I didn’t have the strength─but still, I wanted to laugh.
Yeah.
I guess…she would be sad.
Hanekawa…and Senjogahara, too.
And Kanbaru, and Sengoku.
Maybe even Hachikuji.
If I died.
“Help…”
I mustered the words.
I mustered the words together─and spoke them.
“Help…Shinobu.”
At that moment.
A single girl leapt out─from my own shadow.
A blonde.
A helmet with goggles on top.
She had a small build─but she tore Black Hanekawa’s hug from my body in the blink of an eye. A breath later and she’d sent Black Hanekawa’s body flying. The cat couldn’t even turn its body in the air and slammed into the lamp on the opposite side of the street. The streetlight bent─no, it wasn’t that hard, but the impact was enough to make it sway.
Then she landed.
Shinobu Oshino leapt out from the shadows─
And landed as she shook her blond hair everywhere she pleased.
Shinobu.
She was hiding…there?
But when I thought about it─that was about the only possible place left. It was impossible not to have received so much as a report of a sighting after searching this town for so long─and the Hindering Cat’s sense of smell shouldn’t have failed so utterly.
So.
I should have assumed what followed, that she was using some kind of vampire ability─but I’d convinced myself that she couldn’t because her abilities were limited.
No.
There was a hole in my logic.
I’d known, hadn’t I? She could use a little bit of her powers if she was near me─which meant she had to be hiding near me. That was all there was to it.
A psychological blind spot─one of the fundamentals of the mystery novel.
If you want to hide something, hide it in plain view.
Not only that, the hiding spot was extremely effective against a cat’s sense of smell, too─because her scent would be masked by mine.
My presence was weak and in the background─
Shinobu took advantage of that.
It was probably in the afternoon─or maybe the morning. As I was looking for Shinobu─she found me first. To make a random guess, I’d say it was around the Mister Donut. And that’s where Shinobu─hid in my shadow. She belonged to the world of darkness, and hiding in someone’s shadow was a vampire specialty─but that was the old her. Now mine might have been the only shadow she could hide in─
Oh.
Right below it─that’s what she meant.
Because that would cause my shadow to be directly below me─so telling me to go under the streetlight… It was obvious who would win in a fight between a Hindering Cat and a mockery of a human like me, and there was no need for her to go to the trouble of attacking me from behind. She didn’t have to toy around with any complicated plans, she needed only to attack me fair and square. Which meant─
I looked over to Black Hanekawa as she sat cowering under the streetlight.
Black Hanekawa─grinned.
But that too was only for a moment.
Shinobu had no mercy─the moment after the Hindering Cat landed, Shinobu sprung toward her and attacked. Extending her short limbs as far as they could go, she entwined them around Black Hanekawa’s body─and sunk her teeth into her neck.
Black Hanekawa never stood a chance.
From there─Shinobu sucked.
If a Hindering Cat had the ability to drain energy─so did a vampire. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an aberration for an aberration, an energy drain for an energy drain. Even then, Shinobu’s vitality was being sucked away by the Hindering Cat simply because the two were touching─but Shinobu was sucking away even more vitality from the Hindering Cat.
As utter food.
As aberrations, a Hindering Cat and a vampire are made from different stuff.
As aberrations, a Hindering Cat and a vampire are made of different stuff.
The scene was a rehash of what I witnessed during Golden Week─a perfect recreation. Though it took quite a fitting amount of hardship that time to force her into this position…Black Hanekawa wasn’t fighting back this time.
Because she had neither the chance nor the will now.
While there was no way to prevent her always-on energy drain─the Hindering Cat was surrendering to Shinobu. If she felt like it, she had the strength, endurance, and mobility to take on Shinobu as she was now (and only as she was now), and yet─
For Hanekawa.
It was for─her master.
Of course, I shouldn’t pretend that I understood. Just as Black Hanekawa said, I couldn’t act like I was used to them, too familiar or over-familiar─and I find it hard to believe that it was what Black Hanekawa wanted from the beginning.
While her intelligence might have been that of a cat, she must have realized that Shinobu could be hiding in my shadow─and also that there was no easy way to lure her out. To that end, she’d used me as bait, as a hostage, moving me under a street lamp where my shadow would be isolated even at night, before using her energy drain on me. That much was clear─but.
Would Black Hanekawa not have minded really killing me there? If Shinobu wasn’t hiding in my shadow and truly had left town, would she have been fine sucking up my entire existence?
It only happened to end up this way.
She didn’t have the brain to tell a lie.
Everything the Hindering Cat said─she meant.
It was how she really felt.
And─it was also how Hanekawa felt inside.
The hard work─that she was forcing on the Hindering Cat.
She was right.
Looks like we knew─who the bigger idiot was now.
“…Ah.”
Black Hanekawa’s hair─gradually regained its color.
It turned gray, then brown─then black.
Her cat ears, too, slowly dwindled.
That existence, the aberration─was being sucked away by Shinobu.
Aberration slayer.
That was the curse spat at Shinobu until spring break.
Whether it was a Hindering Cat or anything else, she sunk her fangs in and sucked─ripping its very existence out from the world. A genuine, full-fledged aberrant creature─
A vampire, the king of aberrations, the ruler of unlife.
“Time to stop─please, Shinobu. Stop,” I said. “If you keep sucking, Hanekawa will be gone too. And I─don’t want that.”
And when I said those words.
Shinobu moved away from Hanekawa’s neck with surprising nonchalance. Hanekawa’s neck─had two clear fang marks carved into it, but I didn’t need to worry about those. It was different from the bite mark on my own nape. Unlike with me, Shinobu only sucked the Hindering Cat’s vitality, in order to feed─she was simply eating.
Vampires suck human blood─but it m
eans different things when they suck it for food and when they suck it to create thralls.
Maybe that was why Shinobu ran off.
So said the Hindering Cat.
The aberration that had just been sucked away.
Shinobu plodded back toward me, done with her meal─and sank right back into my shadow.
Had she taken a liking to it?
Living in my shadow?
And then─
It was just me and a black-haired Hanekawa.
She wasn’t conscious─her eyes shut, she was sleeping.
She probably wouldn’t wake up until the next morning.
“………”
And with that, the incident was settled.
But─that of course didn’t mean the problem was solved. We had rid her of the Hindering Cat, but nothing else had changed─we had only eliminated the Hindering Cat, and not her stress itself. Not only that, this new stress had taken shape over little more than a month─so there was no small chance it would reappear. Even if it didn’t, Hanekawa had her longstanding family issues, so─
No.
That wasn’t true.
Putting her family stuff aside.
What happened this time─was an issue I could do something about.
I could make things a little easier for Hanekawa starting from the very next day, all depending on how I behaved. Of course, I didn’t think I could change the way I felt─but those feelings of wanting to repay her were certainly my own.
I wanted to save Hanekawa.
Her given name conjured up images of taking others under her wing, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take her under mine.
I’d go and save her as I pleased.
No matter what anyone said, just as I pleased.
“Phew…”
A sigh left my lips.
I did have to admit, though, I was tired… My energy had been drained down close to its limit, after all. Even my mock-vampire body seemed like it was going to need time to recover. I doubted I’d be able to budge until the next morning, too. Sheesh, and I needed to be thanking everyone who’d helped me out…
Well, it would be fine.
I did get to see Hanekawa in her pajamas.
Going back to “The North Wind and the Sun,” this made me closer to the North Wind, but…there was no better sight than a black-haired, slow-breathing Hanekawa in her pajamas under a street lamp, as though a spotlight had been placed on her. Not only did her present state make me twice as happy, it felt like you could double my joy again on top of that. As compensation for the day’s hard labor, it was bliss. Spending the night with Hanekawa there, as I saw her from the side of the road, didn’t seem so bad now…
The stars in the sky.
They were so beautiful, after all.
“Mm, mmmh,” Hanekawa made a sound.
Like she was talking in her sleep.
“Araragi…”
Or maybe─she wasn’t talking in her sleep as much as words were spilling from her mouth in her hazy state of mind. Shinobu had sucked only the Hindering Cat’s existence from her, so perhaps she still had trouble separating Black Hanekawa and Hanekawa in her head, putting her in a state where the two intermingled.
So she wasn’t talking in her sleep─she was giving voice to her feelings.
Tsubasa Hanekawa’s unadorned, honest feelings were spilling from her lips.
“What do you mean, paying me back is more important to you than our friendship─don’t say that. What a sad, lonely thing to say.”
“……”
Hanekawa kept her eyes closed─as she murmured the words.
“Araragi… You need to shape up.”
And then─she fell back into a deep sleep.
My goodness, even when she sleeps.
Serious until the end─a master in the field.
It was no time to be worried about someone else.
Even so, my reply to her was immediate and candid, like a conditioned reflex. I hadn’t been trained by Hanekawa in the two months since becoming a third-year for nothing. Despite it all, I knew how I needed to reply.
“Okay.”
008
The epilogue, or maybe, the punch line of this story.
The next day, I was roused from bed as usual by my little sisters Karen and Tsukihi. Hm? I thought, tilting my head─which is when it came back to me. Right, I ended up not spending the night there on the side of the road. While that was dangerously close to happening (“dangerously” feels like the wrong word when I think about Hanekawa in her pajamas─maybe I should use a word that better celebrates my fortune instead), Suruga Kanbaru came storming in at an incredible speed using takkyudo or a flash step, while holding B to dash, or whatever it was she did, after a bit of time passed. After doing everything in my power to stop Kanbaru’s throbbing heart─so this is Hanekawa, that senior I’ve heard so much about─I asked her to take Hanekawa back home. With how complicated her family situation is, it would be easier to come up with an excuse if a second-year girl took her home instead of me, a boy─saying it had something to do with the culture festival should be enough of a reason. No…even if that weren’t the case, I didn’t have the strength yet to walk her home. So I asked Kanbaru, Could you call my two sisters? I’ll give you their number. I also asked her to look for Sengoku, but Kanbaru had met her a little earlier and had her go home because it was getting late. So, she was pretty sharp herself. When I asked to make sure she hadn’t seduced Sengoku, Kanbaru showed me an embarrassed smile─hold on, that kind of smile wasn’t the right answer.
And so, just as Kanbaru and Sengoku had done for me on Monday, my two little sisters supported me from both sides as we headed home, and then I slept─you’ve been getting into too much trouble lately, Koyomi, the older of the two reprimanded me. There was nothing I could say in my defense. Though at the same time, those two are the last people I’d want to hear that from…
Anyway, the next morning.
I headed toward the abandoned cram school before going to school─to deliver Shinobu, who’d been hiding in my shadow ever since, back to Oshino. I never did figure out why she absconded in the first place. I could ask her but she wouldn’t reply, and she of course wasn’t saying anything on her own. I could come up with a whole list of guesses, but it also felt like all of them were wrong. It could have even been that she wanted to make me sweat for troubling her too often lately─but that might be another wrong guess.
Oshino wasn’t at the abandoned cram school.
He seemed to be out.
Come to think of it, I didn’t know what Oshino’s intentions were, either─why did he let the Hindering Cat get away? Maybe she really did slip away when he wasn’t looking, but he also could have turned a blind eye. Either way─it was the one time I found it impossible to believe he could have seen every single twist coming. He might have predicted that I’d act as a mousetrap by going out to find Shinobu and that she’d hide in my shadow, but why would he want the Hindering Cat to bite me? Black Hanekawa had the intelligence of a cat, so what was the probability that she’d arrive at the truth of the situation?
However.
I had to say there was one thing he must have known─the root of Hanekawa’s stress. He already knew by the time he asked his first question.
It wasn’t that Oshino was special─it was just that I was so dense.
I was obtuse.
Less acute than anything I’d come across all day.
But if he wasn’t around, he wasn’t around.
If you can’t help it, you can’t help it.
And so I headed toward school, with Shinobu still hiding in my shadow. I did feel hesitant about bringing her to school, but I hesitated even more to leave a vampire who now had a record of absconding alone by herself.
I met Hanekawa in class.
“Oh. You’re later than usual,” she said.
“Well, I took a detour on the way.”
“Feeling well?”
“Feeling g
reat.”
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.
