by Nisioisin
“I know I’m supposed to stay neutral here, but that’s a pretty good idea. Li’l missy class president really has her wits about her,” Oshino said. “But I think I might have to oppose the idea of you walking around outside when you don’t even have a match. They might seize the chance to go after you.”
“Wait─but couldn’t you negotiate that?”
“One of the tricks to negotiating is to not give away any opportunities for free. I don’t think they’ll try to lay their hands on you, but you wouldn’t want them tailing you.”
“Even if they do, they can’t find this place, right?”
While it didn’t affect Kissshot and me, who lived within it, and barring Oshino, who’d put up the barrier in the first place, he’d said it was that effective.
“Of course I’m confident about the barrier. But I want to squelch any risks.”
“Risks?”
“Missy class president is coming by again tomorrow, no? If you want a wider variety of titles to read, try asking her then. Oh, and while I think the barrier will cause her to get lost even on her second and third trips here, that’ll just have to be part of the package.”
“B-But─”
“And of course I can’t help you, so if she says no, you’ll have to ask a different friend.”
I didn’t have other friends.
I had no choice but to rely on Hanekawa.
“Oh, and let me borrow them when you’re done.”
With that obnoxious parting remark, Oshino left.
He’d gone back out only minutes after coming home… When did the guy sleep, anyway? I saw him lying around often enough, but I couldn’t remember him ever sleeping. Was he hustling that much with his negotiations?
In that case, I supposed I could at least let him borrow some manga.
For her part, Hanekawa continued to be really cool─when I asked her during her visit to the abandoned cram school the next day, the second of April, she agreed to be my “shopper” right away. For three days straight, until today, the fourth of April, she’d gone and bought for me her recommended manga & my requested manga.
She was way too cool.
“Do your best, all right?”
Even today, as I left the school for the first time in three days, she sent me off with those encouraging words. Simple words that touched me.
“Jeez…if I do get to turn back into a human, how much thanking am I gonna be doing?”
At that moment─I was missing the mark completely.
Even at that point, the strength of the woman called Tsubasa Hanekawa, but also her precariousness, hadn’t registered with me.
“I wonder if she’s gotten home by now…”
Just as I muttered those painfully idyllic words, considering later developments─Episode finally appeared.
Appeared on the athletic field of Naoetsu Private High School.
Appeared─like a cloud of mist.
“……”
A vampire hunter.
A half-vampire.
No weaknesses as a vampire. Yet─though halved, endowed with the powers of a vampire.
A somewhat frail-looking man─with sanpaku eyes.
White traditional school uniform.
He could look juvenile─but the gigantic cross he slung over his shoulder with one hand worked to dash that impression.
Just like the other day, he wore a faint smile─and glared sharply at me.
Episode.
The man who had stolen Kissshot’s left leg.
“Gotta love it,” he started in. He offered no apology for being late. “Cracks me up, it really does─old Dramaturgy finding himself on the wrong end of a hunt going after a brat like you. How careless could he have been? I hate all vampires, even the ones that are vampire hunters, but I’d at least thought highly of old Dramaturgy.”
“……”
No shortage of hostility or malice. On top of it, he was making light of me.
Well, if he hated both vampires and humans, that would make me, a former human and a fresh vampire, his most hated type of all.
“So? What am I supposed to do, brat?”
“…Supposed to do?”
“We’re about to have a match, yeah? What sort of match will it be? It doesn’t have to be violent. I feel like I could beat the likes of you at anything.”
“Sorry,” I said, “if you take away the fact that I’m Kissshot’s thrall, I’m just a plain human─even a washout. The only way I could face you is as a vampire against a vampire hunter. The only other thing I could see myself beating you in is rock-paper-scissors.”
“Yeah? Gotta love that.”
I seriously made him laugh, Episode said.
“You’re being awful timid, aren’t ya? I’ve hunted my fair share of formerly human vampires─but they were all more cocky, y’know? Like they’d become omnipotent. They were acting like they were gonna rule the world when all they’d gained were the powers of a mosquito. Gotta love it.”
“……”
Maybe he was making a point of speaking “the language of the land,” but it felt really weird for a man who carried such a menacing cross to be saying “Gotta love it” over and over…
Whatever point he thought he was making.
“Of course, I brought ’em all back down to reality. There doesn’t seem to be any need to do that with you, though─saves me some work. So you get a special treat,” Episode said, closing one eye.
Maybe he was winking.
“I’ll kill you without doing any permanent damage.”
“…You used that line before.”
“It’s my trademark line. Gotta love it, huh? If you’re gonna imitate me, don’t just copy it─make it your own.”
Saying this, he held out his hand, the one he wasn’t using to support the cross.
A handshake?
Was this a pre-match handshake?
Maybe he was surprisingly polite in that way… Wondering, I reached to shake his hand, but just as I did, Episode quickly moved his─into the shape of a pair of scissors.
“There, I win.”
“……”
“You can’t even beat me in rock-paper-scissors─as a vampire hunter fighting you as a vampire, I’d win too.”
“People like Oshino make me uncomfortable,” I said, “but people like you─I hate.”
“Hey hey, if you’re saying that about me, you can’t duke it out with Guillotine Cutter. Even I get a little creeped out by how nasty he is. But lucky for you, I’ll be beating you here tonight, so you won’t have to face him.”
“You’re pretty confident.”
“Sure,” he said. “But I agree with you, that bastard Mèmè Oshino is a handful. Gotta love this little farce he set up─whether it’s formerly human vampires or true blue ones, I’ve never had to fight this fair and square.”
“…You know the conditions.”
“Yeah. If I win, you tell me where Heartunderblade is─and if by some freak chance you win, I give you her left leg back. Have I got it down?”
“Yup─that’s it.”
“By the way, do you actually know what those conditions mean?” When I nodded, Episode continued with a grin, “They rule out killing each other. I can’t kill you if I want you to tell me where Heartunderblade is, and if you want that woman’s left leg back, you won’t be killing me, either. It may seem like a rough-and-tumble way to settle things, but it draws the line at killing. How pacifist.”
“……”
A match─that’s how Oshino had put it. Not a fight to the death, but a match.
“And─you’re right. Old Dramaturgy, Guillotine Cutter, and I are all professionals. This is the only way you can win. We’ve managed to choose the single one.”
Was that…true?
Was that what he meant by “balance”?
Did that sleazy man think through all that in putting together these matches?
As a neutral─negotiator.
To the tune of─two milli
on yen.
“Of course, if I knew where Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade was, I’d kill you and her both─once again, without doing any permanent damage,” Episode said, laughing. “I’m warning you, don’t think I’ll go easy. I hate picking on the weak─but I love picking on the evil.”
“Am I evil?”
“Of course you are. You’re a monster.”
“…Aren’t you─”
Aren’t you one, too?
But I couldn’t say so. He was─only half that.
“Huh? Aren’t I what? If there’s something you want to say, spit it out.”
“No, it’s nothing… There’s nothing I want to say. Let’s get started.”
“Yeah, let’s end this.”
And with that, the prologue came to an end.
In contrast to the time I faced Dramaturgy, I was the one to make the first move─above all, I was determined to act first.
I lacked actual battle experience. As soon as I was on the defensive, I’d be thrown off-balance and lose myself─I had to try to attack, at least.
Exactly as I had learned in a manga, I stepped forward and unleashed a punch with all my body weight behind it─but all it met was air.
Or more precisely─all it met was mist.
Episode had turned his body to mist in the blink of an eye─and you can’t punch mist, not to any effect. I staggered ahead, pulled forward by my arm that now traveled with an awkward amount of momentum.
Oops, he’s going to counterattack, I thought─and readied myself, but he was unable to harm me either, transformed into mist as he was.
“Sorry, but you easily outclass me in terms of raw ability, being a thrall of the aberration slayer─I don’t intend to fight a close-range battle,” Episode, still a cloud of mist, cross and all, said, before returning to his original body a significant distance away from me.
The cross returned, too.
Since it had turned into mist with him─was it a part of his body, just like with Dramaturgy?
No, something was different…it seemed to work more like clothes, both Dramaturgy’s and Kissshot’s.
“…What are you thinking of doing from all the way over there?”
“This!” Episode said─hurling that giant cross in my direction.
Carelessly─without getting into anything remotely like a pitching form, unlike me against Dramaturgy─he hurled it with sheer force.
“A…Agh!”
It caught me completely by surprise. I never imagined he’d throw that giant cross, three times his own size─sure, I did almost throw the roller at Dramaturgy─but what kind of vampire hunter tossed his cross?!
So little faith!
I’d figured the cross was a weapon─but I thought he was going to use it like a broad ax!
“…Ack!”
I barely got out of its way.
And when I did, I felt like kicking myself.
Stupid me, hadn’t I learned anything at all? There was no need for me to dodge attacks! Given my powers of recovery as Kissshot’s thrall, I could heal myself in moments─and my plan was to use that fact to my advantage! But thanks again to the common sense I’d acquired as a human, I could not but jump out of the way of what my vampire eyes were able to see. Yet─
Yet this time, it worked in my favor.
The cross I thought I’d dodged had barely grazed my right shoulder─and a moment later, my shoulder began to burn.
It was engulfed in flames.
It─evaporated.
Almost like the time I’d exposed myself to the sun─
“C-Cross!”
I mean─it was totally a vampire’s weak point! Even I knew that much!
Episode had been carrying it all too naturally, and its presence had been so overwhelming, that I’d been paradoxically blind to the fact─or rather, because its sight had caused me no problems whatsoever, I’d disregarded that fact.
Now I understood.
Episode being a half-vampire and not having a vampire’s weaknesses─also meant he was fine around crosses.
Crosses.
A giant cross.
Since seeing it appeared to do nothing, it must have been a weapon whose effect only manifested itself upon direct contact.
Its tremendous effect.
My skin had evaporated─and it wasn’t regenerating.
No, it wasn’t not regenerating─just regenerating at an abnormally slow speed. Even my powers of recovery as Kissshot’s thrall couldn’t keep up.
In that case, it was even worse─than the sun.
Because it involved direct contact, the effect was amplified. A mere graze─had me like this.
What would happen if it hit me for real?!
“Huh…?”
While I was worrying about my wound, Episode had turned his body to mist once more─and was moving while in that form.
I was convinced that he’d take the opportunity to press his attack, but exactly as he’d declared earlier, Episode wasn’t going to close in on me. Where he did go was to the gigantic cross he’d just hurled.
Having grazed the tip of my shoulder and flown another thirty feet or so, the weapon had stabbed half its length into the athletic field. Episode restored his body near it─then pulled out the buried cross.
“That reminds me. When you faced old Dramaturgy, you threw things at him from a distance, too─a good idea. If I ever had to go at it with a character like him, I’d probably do the same, like this!” Episode said─before throwing the cross again.
In my direction.
This time, I dodged it cleanly─but it didn’t mean I could relax. That’s because, at that moment, I perfectly understood Episode’s tactic at long last.
My previous fight with Dramaturgy. The red marks from Hanekawa, who’d been watching, came down to two points.
“What if your opponent tried doing the same thing to you?”
That was number one.
“If that big person with his brawn had caught the shot put or the roller you’d sent his way and thrown it back at you, what were you going to do?”
As for number two.
“The scariest thing with long-distance attacks is running out of ammo. You’re throwing your weapons─so even with a full cage of balls, throwing them thoughtlessly isn’t ideal.”
What Episode was now doing to me, a vampire, masterfully avoided both of those red marks.
For one thing, he was throwing that cross.
No matter what, I wouldn’t be able to throw the cross back at him─how was I supposed to hurl something that I couldn’t even touch? The moment I touched it, that body part would evaporate.
Furthermore, there was no risk of him running out of ammo. He could turn to mist, then go get the cross he’d thrown.
“H-Half vampire…”
He could touch crosses fine─and he could turn his body into mist.
Making the most of his own strengths─he was also exploiting the weaknesses!
“Gotta love it.”
As if to confirm my hypothesis, once again Episode reconstructed his body by the cross sticking out of the ground─and yanked it out.
“I’ll just whittle you down─please don’t mess up dodging it and take a direct hit to the heart. I can’t have you actually dying on─me!”
He threw the cross mid-sentence as though to take me by surprise.
I could dodge it─probably because, as he said, I outclassed him in raw ability. While a half-vampire’s arms could generate a fair amount of velocity, they were still no match for a full vampire’s vision and burst of speed.
But true─at this rate, he could whittle me down.
I had no hand to play─the superpowered school battles I’d read over the past three days didn’t cover this development!
I turned around.
Unsurprisingly, the cross was sticking out of the ground. It almost looked like a gravestone.
A giant cross sticking out of the athletic field!
