Kizumonogatari

by Nisioisin

  The story would be different if I had Dramaturgy’s force of will, or experience─but I was a beginner who had neither.

  “Normally, as thy mistress, I would be able to exert some degree of control over the actions of my servant─but I shall not do that either. I promise not to do such a boorish thing. We shall fight only with our refined, pure powers of immortality─that should negate any need for experience. We will stand here at this distance and fight to the death─would that not make it a fifty-fifty fight?”

  “…You must really be bored.”

  I glared at Kissshot’s face, which loomed over mine.

  “You’re going to do all that just so you don’t have to hold back? I mean, isn’t that exactly what we’d call letting your guard down?”

  “Letting my guard down? Unfortunately for thee, I am not so foolish as to let my guard down against my own thrall─but if I did not offer thee a fighting chance, there would be no game, would there? I do not wish to hold back. But my foe abandoning the fight in the middle of the match would not do at all.”

  Then she held out her hands, ready to fight. Her hands were open and flat, set to chop─she prepared herself to fight at our super-close range.

  I tried doing the same.

  An open hand was better for this situation than a closed fist. When you have the physical strength of a vampire, the difference in damage that a fist can inflict compared to a chop is practically negligible. In that case, an open hand is more versatile and easier to use─

  “……”

  I then looked at my surroundings.

  While the sun may have set, it was not late into the night─no one would be inside the school, but there was no guarantee that we wouldn’t have witnesses, as far as we were from houses.

  I had to settle this quickly.

  But as I thought that, Kissshot spoke.

  “What nerve, my servant─taking thy eyes off of me at this distance. Do not worry, those three are already gone, and as for any regular human, none could even approach me at my full power. If someone does see me, I shall be no more than a rumor around this town─”

  “─A rumor.”

  A street rumor. An urban legend. Idle gossip.

  Rumor would give rise to rumor─and rumors had a funny way of coming true.

  “Of course─that doesn’t go for those rations in the shed behind thee.”

  “…Kissshot. I have something to ask you too. One last question of my own.”

  “Oh? Then let us have it. A souvenir to take with thee to the underworld─I’ll answer anything. Just ask.”

  “What are humans to you?”

  “Food.”

  “I see.”

  She answered without a hint of hesitation, and the answer undid the final knot that held me back.

  “And I wanted to hear that from you, too─I wanted to hear those words come out of your mouth!”

  Then I moved─and so did Kissshot.

  “I need you to die, master!”

  “Prepare to die, servant!”

  Perhaps it was to keep the situation at fifty-fifty─though Kissshot appeared to move at the same time as me, she’d allowed me the first move.

  The edge of my open hand swept sideways toward her face─decapitating the top half of her head, sending it flying, blond hair and all.

  But then, as if she’d anticipated the move, Kissshot unleashed a chop that caused my skull to explode. We had both used the same technique, but the power she displayed seemed to be on a different level─while the point of impact was far smaller than Dramaturgy’s fist, that smaller size seemed to concentrate the force behind it to one spot.

  Each of us had sent the other’s head flying. Normally, the fight would end at that point.

  But─neither Kissshot nor I was human.

  We were monsters.

  It didn’t matter if our heads went flying or if our brains were destroyed, and there was no time limit. My consciousness and my vision were severed just for a fraction of a moment─and I immediately regenerated back to my original state.

  Neither of us showed any signs of damage.

  “Hyaa-hah!”

  Kissshot was laughing.

  “Hah!”Haha!”Ahaha!”Hahaha!”Aahahaha!”

  Joyfully she laughed, with such vibrato it sounded as if she was trying to harmonize with herself.

  “How wonderful! This is it─this is the thrill of two vampires fighting to the death! More, more, more, servant!”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  Chops crossed paths with chops.

  They were not only aimed at the head, but at the body and the limbs as well.

  My chops gouged pieces from Kissshot’s body─

  Kissshot’s gouged pieces from mine.

  Each of our bodies continued to barbarically bore through the other.

  Of course, I wasn’t numb to the pain.

  Pain came across to me as pain.

  My thoughts halted when my brain was destroyed, my breathing halted when my lungs were destroyed, and my circulation halted when my heart was destroyed.

  While I’d become a vampire, my body’s makeup hadn’t changed.

  My regeneration, recuperation, immortality─it was just that those things were something else.

  But. That was enough.

  “Raaaaaaaahhhhh!”

  “Haha! Yes, keep screaming! How I love to hear the virile howls of men!”

  Just as I’d expected, Kissshot’s breasts were bouncing wildly─but her barrage of attacks was even wilder. And throughout it all─she roared with laughter.

  I felt pain─and surely Kissshot must have too. It wasn’t as if she was divorced from her sense of pain. Yet she betrayed no signs of it, not even a blink of the eyes. She didn’t grit her teeth as I did, nor did she scream as I did.

  It didn’t matter what part of her I destroyed─

  Her brain I destroyed, her lungs I destroyed, her heart I destroyed, but she seemed not to care and continued her deafening laughter.

  Her eyes were cold, yet she looked happy.

  It was a gruesome laugh.

  “D-Dammit!”

  “Hold now, servant, it is too early to utter such a line─why so vexed when we appear to be evenly matched?”

  Did that mean she was used to the pain?

  Was the pain of her body being torn to pieces nothing more than a familiar sensation?

  If so.

  These last five hundred years.

  What kind of carnage and bloodshed had she seen? What did she survive?

  Our difference in experience─difference in combat experience!

  “Grraaaaaaaaaagh!”

  But!

  I would use my sheer willpower to close that gap─or at least, that’s how these stories usually went!

  “Aye, aye! That’s it, scream─I want to hear thy roar!”

  “Stop acting like this is easy for you, Kissshot!”

  “How sad it makes me to know that I’ll never hear ye call me that again!”

  Our fight went nowhere.

  No matter how much blood was sprayed, no matter how much flesh was scattered, it all evaporated before hitting the ground and regenerated in the time it took to do so.

  And so, neither of us incurred damage.

  For my part, death by shock from all the pain seemed within the realm of possibility─but perhaps a vampire’s immortality brought you back to life even in that case.

  Still…it was strange.

  Our powers of immortality were evenly matched.

  Kissshot had the edge in attacking.

  This in itself wasn’t strange.

  But honestly, I hadn’t thought my chops were capable of wounding Kissshot to such an extent. I’d been convinced that I was at an overwhelming disadvantage when it came to that─but in truth, my attacks were destroying her body without even landing that hard.

  It was like destroying a chunk of tofu.

  “Hahahahaha!”Haha!”Ahahahaha!”

  She
looked like a ghoul as she smiled with her cheeks torn away─and as she did, she answered my question.

  Master and servant.

  She seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.

  “In fact, my servant─a vampire’s defenses are not terribly high! Of course, they are leagues beyond our food’s─mere human defenses─but so low they seem inversely proportionate to our outstanding offensive powers! Were we to rate a vampire’s offenses at a hundred, our defenses are capped between ten and twenty! Guess why, my servant!”

  “……h!”

  Even Kissshot’s dress was being restored each time─because she was creating it at will. The same did not go for me, though─my clothes were plain clothes. My torso was now nearly bare.

  “Because our immortality equals our defense?!”

  “Exactly!” Kissshot said. “So there’s no need for thee to defend against my attacks in this battle─focus only on offense, and tear my body apart!”

  “What are you, a masochist?!”

  “I shan’t deny the charge!”

  At times, our hands would run into each other.

  When this happened, my hand was the one that was destroyed.

  There was no room for little tricks here─but that wasn’t to say there was any room for big ones.

  We would go until her or my immortality gave out.

  If not, we’d go until her or my spirit broke.

  That was how this battle was being fought─or no.

  Not really.

  This barren fight was nothing more than an opening skirmish─it was like play to Kissshot, and while it may not have been play to me, it still felt like I was only just getting ready.

  I knew.

  I understood.

  And─I could feel it.

  How I could kill Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

  The way to slay her.

  Now that I was actually facing her, my instincts told me how.

  Whether it was my human ones or my vampire ones, I didn’t know─but in any case, I intuited the way.

  Upon further thought, Kissshot had pretty much told me herself─which meant that the method would work for sure.

  I knew exactly what I had to do.

  But─I wasn’t being given the chance.

  Why, you ask? Because while it was the way for me to slay Kissshot, it was also the way for Kissshot to slay me.

  That was why this was fun for her.

  It was a game.

  Kissshot could probably kill me─whenever she felt like it. Of course, this didn’t mean she was letting her guard down─she just wanted to relish her famous full powers for as long as she possibly could.

  And that meant there was a chance─that Kissshot would show an opening.

  Until then, I needed to trade blows standing in place and keep up the futile exchange of death for death and regeneration for regeneration.

  “Hah! I like it, servant─ye’ve grown quite the backbone! Regardless of thy power as my thrall, most vampires with thy inexperience would not be able to disregard their lives so easily!”

  “That’s how it’s supposed to go, right?! Well, I’m happy to hear that you’re pleased!”

  “And all the more reason ’tis a pity! Perhaps ye could have become a legend like me!”

  “A legend? Why would I want to be a legend? Just the thought of someone I’ve never met knowing my name creeps me out!”

  “I agree with you wholeheartedly!”

  The two of us conversed as we continued to fight to the death. We talked as we gouged chunks from each other’s body.

  Almost completely unlike the previous day’s conversation, up on top of the roof of the abandoned cram school, this was a wild, reckless exchange where we seemed to be saying whatever came to mind.

  I wasn’t able to laugh.

  While Kissshot laughed, her smile, devoid of affection, was nothing like the night before’s.

  Though it felt like I was on the verge of being blown back by her attacks─I planted both of my feet and stood my ground.

  The punishment I took was hellish.

  My body, smashed into dust, was mended back to its original state by the time the wind carried it away, only to be smashed again, mended again, smashed once more, and eternally mended─that kind of hell.

  It was like one of the circles of hell.

  When I looked at it that way, it didn’t seem like an overstatement to say that I was in hell.

  “By the way, servant, perhaps ye’d be interested to hear this! There is no point in thy knowing, as ye’ll soon be departing this world─”

  “What is it?!”

  “Dramaturgy, Episode, and of course Guillotine Cutter─all of the vampire hunters who have ever tried to kill me, as well as that floridly shirted boy─never seemed to know, but in truth, I, too, am a former human!”

  Kissshot said this and laughed. She said the words as her head was severed and regenerated.

  “A former human─like thee and Dramaturgy!”

  “Wh-What? You weren’t a pure-blooded vampire?!”

  I’d been convinced she was. But now that she mentioned it─she’d never said so.

  “I’ve forgotten nearly everything that happened to me during my time as a human─but it seems I belonged to a reasonably well-off family! The aristocracy, as they say. And this dress seems to be a vestige of that time! Hah! Though once a vampire has been alive for over three hundred years, pure or thrall hardly matters!”

  “Okay─so what?!”

  “Well, I had forgotten for quite some time─and only remembered yesterday as I spoke with thee! I was reminded that, I, too, hesitated before eating a human for the first time!”

  “Yeah, and?!”

  “Thou, too!” Kissshot said as she stopped attacking me for a moment. “All it takes is eating one human─and thy guilt will vanish.”

  “……”

  I stopped attacking as well. The wounds we had suffered healed in the blink of an eye.

  “Dramaturgy was a former human as well… And while he was a hunter of vampires─he, too, ate humans. True, he stuck to the ones bound for execution provided to him by Guillotine Cutter’s church─”

  “Just because they were going to be executed doesn’t mean it’s okay to eat them…especially if they were only judged guilty by Guillotine Cutter’s church.”

  “Indeed. But if we are to speak of what is right to eat and what not, why limit that standard to humans? Thou shalt not eat cow, thou shalt not eat pig, thou shalt not eat whale, thou shalt not eat dog─not to mention Guillotine Cutter, do humans not disagree on these points across cultures? Furthermore, I am a vampire who slays aberrations. Eating one human is enough to sate me for a month─a mere dozen in a year. That is but six thousand humans over my five hundred years alive. Is that such a large number in view of history? How many humans have other humans killed in that time?”

  “…That’s just sophistry.”

  “I am by no means a threat to this world. The effect I have on it is miniscule. And yet, ye insist that I die because I eat humans?” asked Kissshot. “A human’s hunger is far more insatiable than mine.”

  We die if we don’t eat.

  Not just vampires. Humans, too.

  Not just humans, but animals too.

  Even plants, which I wanted to become.

  Unless you’re inorganic, unless you’re stone or iron─you sacrifice other lives.

  “That’s not the problem, Kissshot,” I said. “And you’re right, I insist. You eat humans, so you must die.”

  “……”

  Ah, Kissshot replied.

  And her cold eyes slowly began to narrow.

  “Kissshot. I’m human.”

  “I see. I am a vampire.”

  Then, our battle─was supposed to resume.

  We were futilely returning to our futile exchange of death for death and regeneration for regeneration─but then.