Kizumonogatari

by Nisioisin

  One after the next, they dug into the ground next to him. They dug pretty deep, so much so that I needed to go over the field later with one of those heavy rollers or whatever the baseball team used. But even pitches with that kind of impact didn’t serve their purpose if they missed.

  And it was such a big target, too!

  How would I ever climb the pitcher’s mound in the majors like this? Climbing Mount Everest seemed easier.

  “…You seem to be a man who is too clever by half and guileless at the same time.”

  Dramaturgy stood while I kept at it. He began running toward me again.

  “But that, too─will only work once!”

  “…..!”

  Dramaturgy and I were now thirty yards away from each other─or thereabouts? Considering his gait…he’d reach me in three seconds! In which case, being partway into the P.E. shed was a minus… Even if I wanted to run, I had nowhere to go!

  Out of desperation, half-resigned, I threw what would surely be my last ball─

  “Hmph! So long as I know they’re coming, one or two balls as squishy as those will do nothing to stop me!”

  Dramaturgy was saying this and charging straight at me when the ball crashed into his face.

  The ball stopped him in his tracks.

  Not that his previous statement was mistaken. No need for a retraction.

  Because the final ball I threw─wasn’t a squishy hardball.

  It was a hard hardball. Almost a cannonball.

  The shot used in the shot put.

  “……”

  Gosh, who left it inside a cage for baseballs?

  This did deal some damage─Dramaturgy was covering his mouth with his two wavy greatswords and groaning.

  Was it…taking some time to heal?

  Didn’t vampires heal wounds instantaneously, like with my left arm and my hands?

  Was it the shot put?

  No, why had I landed a hit with the shot put to begin with? Playing it back in my head, I seemed to have thrown it with some grace, if I do say so myself. But who normally threw a shot put like that?

  Why─ah, right, its weight!

  I should’ve remembered upon kicking down the steel door. Having turned into a vampire, I had greater arm strength. A regular hardball used in baseball must have been too squishy, and too light, for me. After the bit of beginner’s luck for the first one, that’s why my aim was so erratic.

  Something like a shot put was just right. No, even a shot put was on the light side.

  In that case…

  “Y-You!”

  Before Dramaturgy could lift his face─

  I’d gone to the back of the shed and dragged out the concrete roller they used to smooth the field.

  The roller the baseball team used.

  Grabbing and lifting it with one hand─I wound up.

  “If I can’t even hit a big target, I guess I’ll have to use a bigger ball!”

  Then, transferring my lower-strength strength to my upper body─swing my arm through!

  “………gh!”

  But the instant before I did─

  Nothing had hit him yet, but Dramaturgy crouched down where he was, his wavy greatsword hands raised toward the sky─and I stopped myself from swinging my arm through at the very, very last moment and instead slammed the roller into the ground.

  A huge dent formed in the athletic field. I’d nearly crushed my own toes…

  “What are you up to, Dramaturgy?”

  “It is as it appears. I surrender,” Dramaturgy said in his selfsame tone, his stern expression still unbroken. “Smashed with that thing, with your strength, the damage would be tremendous─it would take me two full days to regenerate.”

  “Wha…?”

  “You seem to have misunderstood something. Not many vampires have the ability to heal damage instantaneously. True, amongst vampires I am on the weaker side when it comes to regeneration, but you belong to a wholly different category. After all, you are Heartunderblade’s thrall.”

  W-Was that so?

  Still, I couldn’t take Dramaturgy’s words at face value, so I kept up my guard. I quietly reached for the roller I’d flung to the ground in the nick of time.

  “Did I not say that you were number one?”

  “……”

  “In spite of the gap in raw ability, I thought my experience gave me a chance, for now, to beat you─but it seems impossible. Netting you is beyond me.”

  “No─wait.”

  While he had me beat in experience─I had him beat in raw ability?

  That wasn’t how I saw it, and I still didn’t get that sense.

  “Would you be satisfied, then, if I said this? I will never lay my hands on you again, so please spare my life.”

  Dramaturgy said that without the slightest hint of a grin. The damage from the shot put appeared to have healed─he hardly seemed done for.

  Was pulling out now the mark of a pro?

  A professional. Quitting while both of us were still fine…

  “…Kissshot’s right leg. You’ll give it back?”

  “Yes.” Dramaturgy nodded, then returned the wavy greatswords that were his hands to their original shape. “I am keeping it hidden somewhere at the moment─but I will deliver it to that frivolous man as soon as I may. Is that enough to make you happy?”

  “…Yeah.”

  “Then we have a settlement,” he said─and suddenly began fading.

  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but they weren’t. While a vampire’s eyes could misrecognize, they couldn’t be deceived.

  His body─was melting away into the darkness of night.

  Shape-changing. Turning one’s body into mist─and just like that, Dramaturgy disappeared.

  But after he had vanished completely, his voice echoed across the field.

  “Thrall of Heartunderblade.”

  “What is it,” I replied into the darkness.

  “Allow me to invite you once more. Will you not join us?”

  “Ain’t happening,” I flatly turned him down. The answer wouldn’t change no matter how many times he asked. “That kind of thing doesn’t interest me one bit.”

  “……”

  “I’ve had my fill of superpowered school battles.”

  There was no reply to my line. He seemed to have completely melted away into the dark.

  Would he keep his promise? I felt a bit anxious, but then reconsidered. It was to make that happen that Oshino had arranged this. And either way, this Dramaturgy vampire seemed like the type to keep his word.

  Guileless and straightforward.

  Another formerly human vampire, was he?

  Well, in that case, it would’ve been nice to talk to him a little more─a part of me thought that, but nothing would have been more pointless.

  The two of us didn’t mix.

  They were trying to slay me and Kissshot─and I wanted to get her limbs back from them.

  It was that simple.

  “…That takes care of the right leg.”

  One fourth of the way there.

  It had only taken a few minutes, but it felt like I’d lived five lifetimes─my body may have been immortal, but this was rough work.

  Rough work─but only three quarters left.

  Right, time to tidy up and head home…

  It seemed that thanks to my powers of recovery once again, I wasn’t physically tired at all. But I was exhausted mentally. Clean up the balls, then flatten the ground…but what would I do about the steel door on the P.E. shed?

  I’d kicked it down.

  …Well, it couldn’t be helped. I’d try my best to force it back into place.

  “Um…so I guess I should start by cleaning up the balls I threw everywhere?”

  And then─just as I lifted my face─

  I think I’ve already hammered this point home, but─thanks to my vampire eyesight─I noticed someone in the shadows of the school building, far off on the other side of the at
hletic field.

  “Someone”? Who?

  It wasn’t Dramaturgy… Could it be one of the remaining two? Episode, or Guillotine Cutter?

  No, no way… I was supposed to face the remaining two at a later date. In that case… Could it be Oshino?

  Despite all his talk about being neutral, he was actually watching over me from the shadows?

  Just like the hero’s master in a boys’ manga!

  I didn’t remember ever agreeing to become his disciple!

  Ah, but the thought still made me a little happy─

  I even made such a mistake, but that someone wasn’t Oshino, either. I took a dozen or so steps closer at an angle to get a better view of the school building’s shadow, and finally, my eyes made out the figure.

  Pupils that silently looked in my direction.

  It was Tsubasa Hanekawa.

  “……Wha?”

  What? Why was she here?

  She hadn’t followed me, had she?

  Had she tailed me? Even after I’d chased her away so meanly?

  I was too confused to do anything and simply stood there like a statue─but despite the distance, Hanekawa seemed to realize that I’d noticed her and began walking my way.

  Stomp, stomp, stomp.

  I could almost hear her footsteps.

  Ack…

  She was three times as scary as Dramaturgy.

  Why are girls so scary… Or did I feel that way because I was facing Hanekawa?

  A model student. Tsubasa Hanekawa, class president among class presidents.

  “What was that just now?” she asked straightaway.

  In the time it took for Hanekawa to reach me, I’d decided that my best course of action was to play dumb, but her tone suggested that she wouldn’t let it go at that.

  She’d seen me…

  She’d probably…seen everything.

  Not that I’d be in the clear if she’d only seen the last minute…I’d picked up that roller with one hand.

  “I went looking for you after that. I lost track for a bit, but then I found this bag in front of the school gates.”

  As Hanekawa said this, she held up her right hand to show me the very bag containing the aikido manual, the baseball guide, and the book of classical music recommendations.

  “So I thought you might be inside school. I did have to climb over the gates, though.”

  “……”

  Awfully aggressive for a model student. Still─leaving the books outside the gates was a misstep, though I never imagined something that minor leading to this fix…

  “Hey, Araragi? I was too far away to see clearly, but…weren’t you just doing something out of a fantasy novel?”

  “…What’s it have to do with you?”

  It was all I could say.

  Dammit.

  Right when I thought I’d taken care of things for the time being by winning back Kissshot’s right leg and earned myself a breather, I had to do it again.

  I had to wound Hanekawa again.

  “And why are you tailing me, anyway? I don’t get it. I told you not to follow me around─stop pretending to be my friend just so you have an excuse to stick your nose in my business.”

  “…You’re not the type to say that kind of thing, are you, Araragi?”

  Hanekawa’s eyes were honestly frightening. They weren’t cold eyes, like Kissshot’s─if I had to describe them, I’d call them probing.

  Eyes that bore a hole, that saw through you.

  Eyes that forced you to recognize how shallow you were.

  “I feel bad that I’m making you say these things─it must mean you’re in such a tough spot that your only option is to say them, right?”

  Hanekawa held the bag in her right hand out toward me.

  I took it.

  If she was only here to deliver me some dropped items, our exchange would now come to an end.

  “I’m sorry for taking so long to notice. But,” she continued, “I want to help if that’s the case.”

  “You’re really pushy, you know that?” I said, squeezing the words out of my throat. “You’re reading too much into things. I was just bored of hanging out with you. I prefer to be alone.”

  “Liar. You’re not a misanthrope or the world-weary type, Araragi. I can figure that much out. At least, you seemed to be having fun when you were talking to me.”

  “Like I said, I was only after your fortune!”

  “And like I said, my family isn’t that rich!”

  “Then I was only after your toddy!”

  “I don’t drink, and you shouldn’t either!”

  Not what I meant to say!

  “No, I’m telling you I was only after your body!”

  “Which is it, my toddy or my body?!”

  “Your body!” I yelled. I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. “Fine then, I’ll make up with you if you show me your panties again!”

  “Okay.”

  Meanwhile─Hanekawa was utterly calm. Unperturbed, not even moving an eyebrow.

  In one fluid motion, she turned up her school uniform’s skirt, showing me the underwear it hid inside.

  The deep-gray article was made of a felt-like material. It had a simple design, featuring neither patterns nor decorations, but that served only to bring out the flavor of the material itself.

  “Is this okay? Can you see them all right?”

  “……”

  “Do you want me to take off my blouse, too?”

  Hanekawa said the words quietly, still holding her skirt upturned.

  Oh, I thought.

  Now, for the first time.

  I was finally meeting Hanekawa. We weren’t passing by each other─we had met, head-on.

  Right. She was a cool person─but that wasn’t all.

  She was a strong person.

  Compared to me─she wasn’t even in the same league.

  “…I said some horrible things. I’m sorry.”

  I bowed my head, bending forward as far as my body would let me.

  Hanekawa still had her skirt held up, but it should go without saying that I wasn’t bowing my head in order to get a better view.

  It was to apologize to her.

  And to ask her.

  “Please be my friend.”

  009

  There was something I had to do before explaining the situation to Hanekawa, though─not to mention the fact that it was already far too late at night. I had her go home for the time being, with the promise that I’d tell her everything tomorrow night.

  I then went back to the abandoned cram school. Oshino was out, but Kissshot was waiting in the second-floor classroom. I told her that I’d managed to get her right leg back for now.

  “Well done,” Kissshot said. “But of course, I should expect no less from my thrall. As one who has inherited my power, thou must have had no trouble handling the likes of Dramaturgy.”

  “I had plenty of trouble… He knows when to accept defeat, though.”

  “Hmph. Well, Dramaturgy is the most understanding of those three─I do not mean to frighten thee, but it won’t be the same with the other two.”

  “Yeah, I bet…”

  Episode.

  He even looked like bad news, with that gigantic cross slung over his shoulder─and then there was that priestly man…Guillotine Cutter.

  Whatever he wasn’t showing was bad news, no doubt.

  “Still, take this moment to rejoice. Ye’ve drawn a sure step closer to humanity.”

  “Have I really…?”

  If anything, I felt like I’d become less human.

  “Dramaturgy had superhuman strength, but my powers of regeneration seemed to outdo his. Anyway, I wanted to ask you just for my own reference─how many times can I die?”