Kizumonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “…‘It’s a great honor to have my breasts fondled by you, Araragi.’”

  “It’s a great honor…t-to have my breasts fondled by you, Araragi…”

  “Okay… ‘I’ve worked hard to grow these lewd breasts all so that you could squish them one day, Araragi.’”

  “I’ve worked hard to g-grow these l-lewd breasts, all so that you could…s-squish them one day, Araragi.’”

  “Huh. You know, I never expected you to be this dirty.”

  “…Y-Yes, I’m a very dirty girl. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, there’s no need to apologize. It’s not like you’re causing anyone any trouble by being dirty.”

  “I-I guess you’re right, heheh!”

  “So, how exactly are the breasts of our dirty yet hard-working class president lewd ones?”

  “I-I take pride…in my belief that their s-size, and their s-softness…could not be any lewder!”

  Oh.

  Now I saw. I understood.

  Like many adolescents, I, too, once struggled with the question of why I’d been born into this world. But now, at the age of seventeen, I was shown the answer.

  Enlightened.

  I was born for today.

  My life existed for this moment in time.

  The human known as Koyomi Araragi was born into this world solely in order to experience this day… No, it was bigger than that. It was wrong to speak of it on merely a personal level.

  This world must have existed to this point so that I could experience this day.

  The rest of history would be nothing more than an afterthought!

  “Hold on, squeezing a friend’s boobs? That kind of thing just isn’t supposed to happen!”

  I ran away from it.

  I was the one who threw up my arms, who took three steps back and begged for mercy.

  I was nearly prostrate.

  “No, it doesn’t happen! This kind of thing shouldn’t happen!”

  “…Chicken,” Hanekawa said in the deepest of voices.

  She didn’t even turn to look at me.

  She didn’t so much as attempt to look at me as I kneeled there nearly prostrate.

  “Chicken. Chicken. Chickenchickenchickenchickenchicken.”

  “Yes, I am a chicken. I am a loser. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can say to you right now. Seriously, please forgive me. It was my fault. I got carried away. I let myself take advantage of your kindness, but it was your fearlessness that made me snap out of it.”

  “You think that’s all it’s going to take? Do you have any idea what kind of determination it took for me to sit here like this?”

  “N-No, a measly being such as myself could never begin to understand, but w-well, if I may entreat you to share with me the depths of your determination…”

  “Honestly, I was convinced you were going to do more to me than just squish my breasts… Oh, I thought, so that’s how it’s going to be, my first time is going to be here, in a P.E. shed, on top of a gym mat.”

  “Don’t you think you were being a little hasty in making up your mind?!”

  “I actually figured it’d be okay.”

  “You did?!”

  I knew that girls tended to be better at making up their minds about these things when it came down to it, but…really?!

  “And despite all of that, after you teased me and humiliated me, you didn’t lay a single finger on me!”

  “A-And that’s why I’m apologizing.”

  “So that’s all it takes, an apology. Huh. So that’s where I stand. I’m supposed to forgive you as long as you apologize. Huh.”

  “I am so sincerely and honestly sorry about this. Please forgive me, my stylishly bespectacled class president!”

  “…I’ve never been this insulted in my life.”

  “Eeek!”

  Did she mean the stuff about her breasts?

  Or was it the stuff about her glasses?

  Or could it have been the class president thing?

  “Araragi…am I that unattractive to you?”

  “………!”

  Stop it, stop it, stop it!

  Please, don’t torment me with that perfect of a line!

  “B-But if I fondled your breasts like this, I’d probably regret it for the rest of my life!”

  Though I might regret not fondling them too.

  Still, I made my decision. If to fondle would be to feel lost, then better never to have fondled at all!

  “W-Would it be acceptable if I were to touch your shoulders instead?”

  “My shoulders?”

  “Yes. Your shoulders. I’d like to rub your shoulders, Miss Hanekawa.”

  “…Okay, we have a deal.”

  We came to an agreement.

  I rubbed Hanekawa’s shoulders.

  Rub, squeeze, rub.

  I was amazed. They weren’t even remotely stiff.

  I’d heard that people with poor eyesight were more likely to get stiff shoulders, but…she really must have been a healthy one. In that case, getting a shoulder rub from someone with no talent for massages like me probably didn’t feel the least bit good…

  Well, I could definitely say there wasn’t any meat to squeeze around her shoulders.

  I could feel the shape of her bones─were those her collarbones?

  Urk… In its own way, this wasn’t so bad.

  Wait, no. Focus.

  Rub, squeeze, rub.

  And then, sixty seconds had passed.

  “Th-That’s it. Thank you very much.”

  Not only did I find myself rubbing her shoulders, I was even thanking her.

  Talk about a slave mentality.

  “You’ve had enough?” Hanekawa asked.

  “Y-Yes. To be continued on our website.”

  “I don’t see an online back rub feeling very nice.”

  “Th-Then, to be continued in the new school year.”

  “Yeah. That sounds good.”

  Hanekawa nodded, shaking her braid in the process.

  “So now that you’ve made a girl do this much for you…”

  As I let go of her shoulders, Hanekawa stood and walked back to the mat she’d originally sat on. But instead of sitting, she turned to face me.

  “You wouldn’t dare lose, would you?”

  “I will win, Miss Hanekawa.”

  It felt like if I didn’t go back to how I normally talked, I’d end up speaking politely to Hanekawa for the rest of my life.

  But even so. I was able to say it clearly.

  “I’m gonna win. I’m returning to you victorious. I’ll come again! I swear to you, on your chest!”

  “No, it’s fine. You don’t need to do anything on my chest.”

  There seemed to be a bit of a gap between how excited each of us were.

  “Anyway,” Hanekawa said. Clearing her throat, she continued, “So this time is really going to be the final battle.”

  “That’s right─the big finale of our superpowered school action story.”

  And then, just as I said that.

  From outside the P.E. shed─roared a thunderous noise.

  017

  Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

  The iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.

  The legendary vampire.

  The slayer and empress of aberrations.

  A vampiress.

  Adorned with dazzling gold hair and a chic dress, a beautiful, blood-chillingly beautiful vampire─no other words were needed, but if I were forced to find them─

  She was the final nemesis of her thrall, yours truly.

  “Kissshot…”

  I shoved the barricade away and opened the P.E. shed’s steel door─only to find that the sun had already set outside and that she stood there in the middle of the athletic field.

  The ground under her feet was cracked.

  It must have been from the impact of her landing.

  In fact, the field had caved in around her to the point where her a
nkles had been swallowed by it.

  Those bat-like wings were nowhere to be found on Kissshot’s back─as her thrall, I could intuit that she must have traveled from the abandoned cram school’s roof to here in a single, standing leap.

  She’d waited for the sun to set.

  And then─she’d jumped to where I was.

  Still, her feat could only be described as tremendous. I’d congratulated myself for a standing jump of a measly sixty feet─but Kissshot had jumped miles like it was nothing at all.

  Of course, it wasn’t fair to compare her jump to mine since I’d been aiming to land in that sand pit, not trying to break any records─but if you asked me if I could jump from the field back to the abandoned school, my answer would be no.

  I closed the shed’s steel doors behind me.

  With Hanekawa still inside.

  The door probably didn’t pose even a minor obstacle to Kissshot─but closing it still afforded some comfort.

  Don’t say a word, I whispered to the other side.

  Then, I took a step forward. Toward Kissshot.

  “…Hey,” I said as I approached her. “I didn’t think you’d be the one coming to find me.”

  I’d assumed it would be the hardest part.

  Figuring out a time, figuring out a place.

  Unlike my bouts with Dramaturgy, Episode, and Guillotine Cutter─Oshino wouldn’t be there to mediate.

  But we were both vampires.

  A master and a servant─her thrall.

  That Kissshot came to me at almost the exact moment the sun set seemed to mean that in her perfect form, she was thoroughly aware of my every deed.

  Where I was.

  What I was thinking.

  She was thoroughly─aware of it all.

  Kissshot now looked at me with even colder eyes than usual─and began by pulling her legs out from inside the field, first right, then left.

  “But once, my servant,” she spoke next. “I understood thy feelings in the time the sun was out─the cause of thy anger too. While I wished to sleep, I forced myself to think. I believe I acted thoughtlessly─and that I had not paid thee the consideration due a former human. And that is why I will apologize to thee but once.”

  “……”

  “Return to my side,” Kissshot said.

  Her voice was beautiful.

  And it was with that alluring voice─that she tempted me.

  “Live with me. I had my life saved by thee─and while I may think thee a strange creature, that is precisely why I trust that we could live together. Rather than return to being human─will ye not live with me, for eternity?”

  “…I refuse.”

  I looked back into Kissshot’s cold eyes, preparing myself for the worst─and said the words.

  “You ate a human. That on its own is enough for me.”

  “Had ye known that─would ye not have saved me? Ye’d have abandoned me, leaving me for dead?”

  “Kissshot─I didn’t know anything then. No…”

  I shook my head.

  “I did know from the beginning. I was just keeping myself from looking at the facts. I had thought to die for your sake─which meant that I was permitting you to eat humans. But I didn’t actually picture other people dying. While my actions may have been beautiful, they weren’t right.”

  It didn’t matter if I died─but it felt awful when other people died.

  That was an idiosyncratic view, come to think of it.

  How could I possibly expect it to stand up to scrutiny?

  “…I thought ye might speak thus,” Kissshot said with a smile. “Those were the words I wished to hear from thee.”

  “Kissshot…”

  “And now I am free of doubt, my servant. I, too, had an inkling from the very beginning─that thou were such a one.”

  “Such a what.”

  “I had known─that thy kindness would only last while I was weak.”

  I’d have no interest in her once she became a perfect existence, she had suspected.

  There was even a tinge of bitterness in Kissshot’s words.

  “It was not because of who I am─ye’d have saved anyone, so long as they were weak.”

  “……”

  I don’t go this far for everyone I know. You realize I’m doing this because it’s you.

  That was what Hanekawa had said.

  But me? Even if it wasn’t Kissshot there, I would have─

  “And so, aye─I had thought it may turn out like this. Incidentally─know that I saved thee as thyself. A heroic soul ready to cast away his own life for my sake deserved better than death by my hands.”

  “…I deserved better?”

  “And my gratitude is thine for doing thy share to repay the favor. Now come closer, my servant. Do ye know already, to judge from thy expression? Indeed. By slaying me with thy hands, ye return to the ranks of humans that ye love so.”

  “……”

  I gulped.

  I realized anew that she saw through me─and also just how vast the difference in power between us two was.

  Facing her here, one on one─would be different.

  It wouldn’t play out like any of my fights against the trio─I felt intimidated and overwhelmingly tense, like I was being strangled by the air around me.

  That was it.

  The battle that was about to unfold was, in no uncertain terms, a fight to the death─the biggest difference of all.

  Nothing prevented it now.

  On top of that─I was facing the aberration slayer.

  “Don’t feel too despondent, my servant,” Kissshot said.

  She looked the slightest bit…happy?

  “I’m in the best condition I’ve been in during my five hundred years alive─when I faced those three at the same time, not only was I under the weather, they took me by surprise. I certainly hadn’t expected my heart to have been stolen… It is rare for one of my class.”

  “…What is?”

  “Having to try,” she said, beckoning me. “In all honesty, even I am unsure of what will happen─but as I face the most powerful of all the foes I have fought until today, there is no need for me to hold back. It is that I am happy about.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll be able to meet your expectations.”

  I worked up my courage and began to walk toward her.

  Normally, I would have run away instead─but this was different. I had a dear friend at my back, sitting inside that P.E. shed. There was someone I needed to protect─I couldn’t run away.

  I had to face it.

  Just watch, Hanekawa. I’m not going to look pathetic in front of you.

  “After all, I’m a former human─formerly food for you.”

  “…Fret not. While I will be killing thee with malice and enmity, I shall give myself a handicap─what was it that boy liked to say? Ah, yes, a fifty-fifty fight. I shall set such rules.”

  ’Tis a game.

  Kissshot hopped as she said the words.

  A moment later, she was directly in front of me─so close our legs nearly became entangled.

  In her perfect form, she was taller than me. She looked down on me from where she stood.

  “I will not fly. I will not hide myself in the shadows. I will not turn to mist. I will not turn to darkness. I will not vanish. I will not transform myself. I will not use the power of my eyes. I will not even generate matter. Needless to say, I will not use my enchanted sword Kokorowatari…the aberration slayer. In other words, I will not use any of my active abilities as a vampire─ye have my word. Of course, feel free on thy part─but transforming thy body from the arms forward is about all, is it not?”

  “……”

  And that I was only able to do because Hanekawa had been kidnapped─now that my mind was closer to the human side, it seemed unlikely that I could even transform my fingers.