by Nisioisin
Again, all that hope in her eyes! It made her harder to blame.
“Umm…I want you to calm down and listen, okay?”
Subtlety has never been one of my strong points, nor am I any good at euphemisms. As someone who’s avoided relationships with others since entering high school, my ability to carry a conversation is unusually poor.
Anyway, how Dramaturgy, Episode, and Guillotine Cutter─all three─ended up attacking me at the same time.
How I wasn’t able to recover her limbs as a result.
And how Oshino got me out of a tight spot.
I frankly explained it all to her.
By the by, Oshino took that time to gather all the school desks in order to make what appeared to be a bed.
Was he planning to sleep there or what? How carefree could you get?
“Hmph.” Kissshot listened to the end─but didn’t seem particularly let down.
I’d almost forgotten. It was easy to get confused by her ten-year-old appearance, but in fact she was far more grown up than me. She wouldn’t just throw a tantrum. Even if she was, maybe, dim.
“What a predicament… So those three still act as a unit, do they? Now that they have me cornered, I was sure they would separate and engage in some free competition.”
“So you did have a plan.”
“They seem utterly determined to destroy me. What ridiculous obstinacy. Haven’t they damaged me enough already?”
“They were talking about a bounty or something.”
“Hrm? Ah, I see… That was how this age operates. Of course. How heartless,” Kissshot said. She snickered, apparently remembering something. “I can’t allow myself to be this addled. Perhaps it’s due to the time difference.”
“You sound like a frequent flyer or something…”
Hm?
Oh, right─I could use the opportunity to ask her. I had been so busy caring about myself that I’d forgotten.
“Kissshot, why are you in Japan in the first place? And in this town in the middle of nowhere, too?”
“Hm? For a spot of tourism.”
“……”
“I want to see Mount Fuji, the Golden Pavilion, and whatnot.”
She said it awfully casually.
I thought there was no way she could be telling the truth… How was our town going to greet weirdoes who brandished deadly weapons in public that she might end up bringing with her on such a visit? Not to mention that neither Mount Fuji nor the Golden Pavilion was anywhere near our town.
But on the flip side, it was hard to follow up on a lie that blatant.
“You’re not plotting to take over Japan or something, are you?” I said just to make sure before continuing, “Whatever. In any case─those three working together took you down even when you were in full power mode, right? Then how am I, your thrall, supposed to be able to beat them?”
“…As I said, face them one at a time.”
“I can’t do that if they’re working together. You said we’d be fine as long as we laid low, but there’s no telling when they’ll find this─”
“That’s not a problem,” Oshino suddenly interrupted me. When I looked over, he was lying down on top of a makeshift bed he had finished building.
There was such a thing as being too free-spirited.
“I quietly went ahead and placed a barrier here while you two were asleep.”
“A barrier?” He had used the term earlier, too. But what was it supposed to mean? “Like a force field or something?”
“Well, something like that.” His tone made it clear that it totally wasn’t and he’d only agreed because explaining it would be too much work. “It’d be a different story if they had an amazing sense of the territory, but those three foreigners won’t be finding us here.”
“…Listen, you,” I said, making my suspicions clear, “what are you planning?”
“What am I planning?” he said, laughing frivolously. So sleazy.
How old was he, anyway? He had to be over thirty, but…was I, too, doomed to turn out like him after living for thirty years? Didn’t people all become proper adults past thirty?
“Why are you helping Kissshot…and me? I’m starting to understand that you’re not an enemy─even though I can’t see you as an ally.”
“What a terrible thing to say.”
Oshino finally took out the cigarette he’d had in his mouth the entire time and returned it to his pocket.
“But like I was trying to tell you─I’m not out to help you two. There’s no reason or need for me to help you. It’s not even a matter of friend or foe. If it’s a help, then you went and helped yourself.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“What I’m trying to do is balance things out,” Oshino said something more like it at last. “You could call that my job.”
“……”
“An intermediary between here and there.”
But, he continued─“Vampires may be a bit of a nuisance. They’re too powerful, even for that side. Not only that, I have the aberration slayer on my hands. Hearing you talk about this, Araragi, you seem to be implying that those three attacking her all at once was a cowardly act, but that’s not the case at all. That’s what the girl─Heartunderblade there─is worthy of.”
“Such praising words. Ye’ll make me blush,” Kissshot said, puffing out her chest, the one that was pointless to puff out.
It didn’t quite seem like praise to me, but I decided I’d ignore that. The question now was finding out who Oshino truly was.
“Now introduce yourself. You said you would.”
“Mèmè Oshino. A free spirit with no permanent address,” he said. “Well, you can just think of me as an authority on yokai and the like─ha hah. Though unlike those three, I’m not particularly good at slaying yokai.”
“Not particularly good?”
“To be a little more honest, I don’t like it.”
“But─it’s your specialty?”
“Balancing things is my specialty, like I said. Standing in between and finding a happy middle ground. If you had to, you could call me a negotiator.”
A negotiator?
An intermediary─between here and there? Where was “here”─and where was “there”? Here being humans, and there being monsters? But in that case─which side was I on now?
“Monsters. I like it. Though I call them aberrations.”
“Aberrations─”
“And that girl there is known as the aberration slayer─you get what that means? She’s the rare kind of vampire able to drain the energy from aberrations. And that’s why the kid’s famous─”
“I’ll have thee know that I did not choose to be famous,” Kissshot said, sulkily this time.
Ten is a pretty difficult age, I began to think, but remembered that she wasn’t as young as she looked.
They say not to judge people by their appearances, but getting used to this would take time… Another reason I hoped she’d return to full power mode soon.
“Do not presume to know me, boy,” Kissshot said to Oshino.
Calling that dude “boy”? Though if she really was five hundred years old, it wasn’t exactly wrong. In fact, it was Oshino calling her “kid” and “girl” that was endlessly disrespectful.
But Oshino didn’t seem to give a damn, and apparently no minding being called “boy” in turn, he replied, “You’re right, Heartunderblade. I shouldn’t judge others based on rumors─whether they’re human or not. But listening to a bit of your exchange just now, the two of you seem to be in a pretty tight spot. I never would’ve expected complications.”
“There isn’t a thing complicated about it. In fact, ’tis quite simple.”
“Maybe if you looked at it from a vampire’s lifespan─but it spells trouble for humans like us. Right, Araragi?”
“Wait.”
Wow. This guy understood the situation─yet spoke like I was human, like I belonged to this side.
“�
��…”
“Hm? What’s the matter, why that reaction? You want to return to being human, don’t you, Araragi? Am I wrong?”
“Well, I do, but─”
“If you want to stay human, then you’re human.”
Oshino added, Basically speaking. Then he looked at Kissshot next with a sidelong glance.
“And Heartunderblade, I’m pleased. You made Araragi your thrall, but you do intend to turn him back into a human.”
“Hmph.”
While Oshino seemed to be offering Kissshot unqualified praise this time, she responded with a pout.
“Negotiator or whatever thou may be─do not speak when it is not thy place to do so, boy. I have never liked busybodies.”
“Busybody? Oh, I’m anything but. Honestly, I’m the introverted type. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t mean to be a busybody, but─” Mèmè Oshino said, still lying down, his posture sapping all credibility from his words, “if you’d like, I don’t mind interceding.”
“I-Interceding?”
Between…here and there?
“Between us─and those three?”
“Who else?” Oshino nodded. “Honestly, I think that showing you this ruined cram school plus constructing the barrier was more than enough, but maybe we’re tied by some kind of fate.”
“S-So you’ll save us?”
“I’m not going to save you. Just lending you a helping hand,” he said. “The balance still seems a little off as things are─like you’re being bullied. As I said earlier, I don’t really like the kind of ‘slaying’ that they do.”
“Does that mean…you’re on our side?”
“Again, no. I’m not a friend, and I’m not an enemy,” Oshino said. He was neutral. “I said I’d intercede, right? In other words, I’ll stand in between. What happens after that is up to you. I’m not the one who’s going to act. When life gives you the boot, you’re the one who has to pull yourself up by its straps. I don’t get involved in causes or results. All I do is tinker with the process in between.”
“……”
I looked at Kissshot, but she seemed just as dumbfounded by Oshino.
What was with this guy?
Aloofly and airily─he’d manage this situation?
“Oh, but of course, this is my job, so I wouldn’t do it for free. After all, I’m a wanderer, going from journey to journey. You don’t want to run out of change on the road. Say, how does two million yen or so sound?”
“T-Two million?!” I shrieked.
Meanwhile, Oshino remained calm. “You can pay me when you have it. I won’t ever bother you for the money. But I need to at least charge that much─or else it won’t all balance out.”
“B-But…”
I had no choice but to believe him. Even so─could I really believe him?
This passerby dude?
Between telling Kissshot about this abandoned cram school and saving me from those three─putting the stuff about the barrier aside─he did seem to have done enough to earn our trust.
Still. Something about him just seemed shady.
“…Tell us your exact plan.”
It was Kissshot who, unlike a kid with only seventeen years of time on this planet such as myself, demanded the particulars.
“Ye speak of negotiation, but it could not be easy─there is no way to persuade those three. Given thy position as a neutral party, I cannot expect thee to return to me my limbs, can I?”
“Well, I couldn’t do that much─I’d be a busybody. I haven’t thought much about a plan, either,” Oshino said.
As deflating as this was, it inspired more confidence in me than any talk that proceeded at a good clip. Because the guy seemed relaxed about this.
“All I can do is bow my head and ask them nicely. In good faith, too─if they don’t listen, I’ll have to fall back on dangerous ideas, but if we’re lucky and they do, the game will be on.”
“The game…ye say?”
“But the first order of business would be to split up those three. They pose no problem faced one at a time─isn’t that your take on it, Heartunderblade? Then we just need to make that happen,” Oshino said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “It will require taking on a little bit…well, quite a lot…of risk on your parts─but go along with that for me.”
“I’ve been prepared to do such from the start. Ye can count on our resolve─mine, of course, as well as my servant’s.”
She’d gone and resolved for me, too. Hey, that’s my resolve…
“Still, boy, how do ye plan on negotiating with those three?”
“Like I said, I’ll bow my head and ask nicely─those three seemed like the type you can talk to,” Oshino replied with what sounded like a joke.
Those three who didn’t listen to a word I said were, of all things, the type you can talk to?
Just how much of a pacifist was this guy?
“The details are a trade secret, but…I’ll ready the battleground. Then Araragi, you will get Heartunderblade’s limbs back from them. If you recover all four─Heartunderblade regains her power, and you go right back to being human.”
“…Recover, huh.”
In the end, I had to handle the hard part. They posed no problem faced one at a time─but we were talking about those three.
Dramaturgy, Episode, Guillotine Cutter.
Wavy dual-wielded greatswords, a giant cross, an unfathomable man.
Honestly, I didn’t feel like I could win…
It was something I had to do, since it was for my own sake, but I wouldn’t be able to challenge them completely unprepared like I had that evening.
Then again, for the entire day, I’d done way too little thinking. I’d pretended to be calm when I was actually flustered. Not just me─Kissshot, too.
So if I was going to go fight them again, we needed some sort of measure.
“My servant,” Kissshot said to me.
“What, Kissshot?”
“I can’t provide human currency─I’m unsure how much of a debt two million yen is, but is it a sum ye could take on?”
“……”
“Worry not. The boy’s skills are real─even if we ignore the fact that he taught us of this place and that he rescued thee. I can tell that much even in my weakened state.”
“But─he’s neither an enemy nor a friend. He’s neutral.”
“I’d never any expectations for an ally, and if he, privy as he is to my current location, were foe, then we are done for. There’s no use worrying over it… If he says that he is a neutral party, then we shall not wish for more.”
“…Oh.”
That was one way to look at it. A reasoned, or rather, a harsh view. And furthermore, while there was no point in my saying so outright, it wasn’t as if we’d be in any worse of a position if Oshino’s negotiations failed.
It wasn’t just her eyes that were cold, then.
In that case─there was only one question left unanswered.
The passerby dude.
Just passing by.
But the question was─
Did Oshino really happen to pass by?
He was there when Kissshot was at a loss as to where to go, and he was there when I was being attacked─wasn’t that a little too much to call a coincidence?
Even if it was intentional, it didn’t change a thing, and I didn’t think Oshino had anything to gain by it─but passing by that often?
Yet─maybe that was it.
Observing a coincidence that had come to be, I was perhaps ascribing motive after the fact. Going down the same line of thought, even my encounter with Hanekawa, who left the school gates the afternoon after closing ceremonies while I was wandering around near school, seemed not to be a mere coincidence.
Come to think of it, if I hadn’t run into her, I wouldn’t have snuck out of the house that night to go to the bookstore, which is to say I wouldn’t have run into Kissshot─or was I begining to overthink it?
Maybe I ne
eded to call it all a lucky coincidence and be done with it.
For the time being.
Then again, “lucky” definitely wasn’t a word I wanted to apply to encountering such a sleazy dude…
