Kizumonogatari

by Nisioisin

  I was moved by one thing alone.

  Her crying face. I didn’t want to have to see it.

  I couldn’t bear seeing it.

  “It was the first time in my life that anyone helped me.”

  “……”

  “No one ever helped me, neither human nor vampire. And as I sat there, sucking thy blood─I began to wonder, what was I doing? And so─once I was done sucking thee dry, I decided against devouring thee and made thee my thrall. My second one ever.”

  Though I’d taken quite some time to awaken, and she thought I’d go into a frenzy, Kissshot said.

  She’d stayed by my side the whole time. She was there to nurse me.

  “Yet somehow ye awakened. Of course, I would not have objected if ye wished to remain a vampire─but as I had expected, thy wish was to turn back into a human. While I had mulled it over while ye were unconscious, it was then that I decided.”

  Her tone was infirm yet firm.

  “I would die for thy sake.”

  “…For my sake?”

  “I would have thee kill me, restoring thy humanity while dying at last. I’d felt as if at last, I had discovered a place to die─a place I had been seeking for the past four hundred years.”

  “Four hundred years─”

  That was when─her first thrall.

  She had told me.

  About restoring his humanity.

  ─At the time I was in fact unable to turn him back into a human─

  ─And I plan to use the lessons I learned then this time around.

  “I was unable to die for his sake. Unable to die for another. Unable to restore his humanity─and so.”

  “You’d do it for me.”

  She would do it to restore my humanity.

  To help me.

  For that, she was going to─give up her own life?

  “But don’t let it get to thy head, servant. This was my responsibility from the beginning─none of this would have happened if not for my disgraceful behavior, and I would have died then if not for thy help.”

  “……!”

  Huh? Wait…hold on a second.

  This situation─was impossible.

  At this rate, my mental preparation─

  I’d promised Hanekawa that I was mentally prepared!

  “…What is it now? Crying, are ye?”

  “Ah…”

  Then I realized─my cheeks were wet.

  Why?

  After all, it didn’t matter. None of this changed what I had to do, right?

  Even if she was trying to die for my sake─she ate people!

  “What a crybaby I have as a servant. Pitiful.”

  “N-No. These aren’t tears. This…”

  This, I repeated.

  “This is─blood.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s my blood flowing─”

  How in the world were things turning out this way?

  Kissshot was a vampire.

  She had eaten Guillotine Cutter.

  She had eaten six thousand people until now.

  But even so.

  “─And it flows in you too!”

  She was alive.

  Wasn’t it the same, then?

  What I had done.

  What she was trying to do.

  What she had done.

  What I was trying to do.

  All the same─wasn’t it?!

  “Now look at this mess, ration,” Kissshot said. “I’d planned to show him an opening whenever the fancy struck me, so he could slay me─ah, but what does that matter. Because, my dear servant, the only choice left to thee is to kill me.”

  “Wh-Why would you say that?”

  My preparation.

  My mental preparation.

  “Kill me here, or starting tomorrow I shall eat, oh, let’s say a thousand people a day… Now that I’ve said that, ye must kill me. No? If I poached thy rations to prove that this is no idle threat, would it move thee into action?”

  “……”

  “Ye saved my life, so be the one to snatch it away. Isn’t that the ‘responsible’ thing to do?”

  “Kissshot─”

  “Only one other called me by that name before thee. And ye shall be the last.”

  I looked toward Hanekawa, as if to ask for her help.

  But─all Hanekawa did was bite her lower lip in response. It seemed to me like a sign of how hopeless the situation was.

  Even Hanekawa was out of options.

  Yes.

  Kissshot was right.

  She hadn’t had to divulge her plan until Hanekawa came leaping out of the P.E. shed─but her intentions didn’t change what I had to do. They only made the situation worse, as I could now see.

  But.

  Had I not found out─had I gone on being mistaken about Kissshot for the rest of my life─I would have been deprived of even regret and remorse.

  It would be as a clown if I turned back into a human.

  How was that acceptable?

  My wish would come true, but that would be it.

  It wasn’t a happy outcome for anyone.

  It was just pinning everything on Kissshot.

  “Come,” Kissshot said, laughing. “Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come─kill me, servant.”

  “─Dammit!”

  She was searching for a place to die?

  She wanted to kill herself?

  All she was trying to do─was escape!

  It was proof she was trying to run away!

  It didn’t matter how gallant she tried to make it sound, the real her─the real her was the one I heard that day under the street lamp!

  No way, no way, no waaay!

  I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die!

  Help me, help me, help me!

  Please!

  I can’t die, I can’t die!

  I don’t wanna disappear, I don’t wanna vanish!

  Somebody,

  Somebody, somebody, somebody, someboddyyy─!

  I’m sorry!

  “Oshino-o-o!”

  And so.

  I looked up to the sky─and screamed with everything I had.

  I used the full capacity of my vampire lungs to release the loudest roar I could.

  “Mèmè Oshino!”

  And I called his name.

  The name of that Hawaiian-shirted, frivolous, sleazy man.

  The name of the man who had known everything from the start, but said nothing─brazenly, with an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

  “I know you’re out there watching us─so stop acting so important and show yourself! I’ve got a job for you, bastard!”

  Hanekawa was looking at me, shocked.

  Kissshot was looking at me, shocked.

  But I paid them no attention─and continued to scream.

  “Oshino! I know you’re there─you’d have to be watching us, with all that crap about being neutral! Now I understand─I don’t need any more explanations from you! So come out here─now that I understand, I know damn well that I’m not the victim and that it’s my fault! So come out here─Mèmè Oshino!”

  “─You don’t have to yell, I can hear you fine.”

  And with the same aimless attitude as always─Oshino was there, sitting on top of the roof of the P.E. shed.

  He sat there cross-legged and his face in his palm.

  He looked like he found it all a big pain in the ass.

  I don’t know when─but he’d suddenly appeared there.

  “Araragi. Imagine meeting you here, what are the chances?”

  “…Oshino.”

  “Ha hah, how so spirited─something good happen to you?”

  “I have a job for you,” I repeated.

  I focused squarely on him─and repeated myself.

  “I want you to do something.”

  “‘Something’?”

  Oshino j
umped down from the roof of the shed and laughed sarcastically─while he didn’t look to be the least bit athletic, he made a clean landing without the slightest bend of the knees.

  Then, he began to approach me with a carefree stride.

  “That’s a tough one.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  “It’s not an issue of money.”

  “Then what’s the issue?”

  “A personal one, what else?”

  Stop trying to force this on me, he said, as if refusing.

  Actually, refusing was exactly what it was.

  “Hey there, missy class president.”

  Oshino raised a hand to Hanekawa.

  “This would be our first time meeting, right? Nice to meet you.”

  “…Yes,” Hanekawa replied with a nod, “nice to meet you too─my name is Hanekawa.”

  “It was a good thing I decided to stay around this town even though all that business with Heartunderblade had wrapped up. If I’d left, I never would have had the chance to meet you.”

  “…Is that so? I was convinced that you hated me, Mister Oshino.”

  “Oh, stop. I could never hate a girl. If Araragi told you something weird, take it from me─he’s just making up gossip,” Oshino said shamelessly.

  How phony was this guy?

  “You really are amazing, though─getting this deeply involved when aberrations don’t concern you? High school girls really are spirited─something good happen to you lately?”

  “They do concern me,” Hanekawa asserted. “If it’s Araragi’s problem, then it’s my problem too.”

  “Wow, ain’t that friendship.”

  Oshino stifled a laugh. I didn’t know if he could be any more infuriating and insulting.

  “Or maybe it’s youth.”

  “Boy,” Kissshot said. “Stay out of this. Wasn’t that our agreement?”

  “I don’t remember ever making an agreement with you, Heartunderblade─I just wanted to set things up well. You deciding to die so that Araragi could become human again was convenient for me, that’s all. And by me─I mean mankind.”

  That was it.

  It was probably the same with Guillotine Cutter.

  When he meekly turned over Kissshot’s arms, I was puzzled, but Oshino told me how he’d explained the situation─Kissshot was agreeing to help turn me back into a human.

  That’s why Guillotine Cutter returned them.

  Oshino must have used that to forge a compromise.

  It’s how he convinced Guillotine Cutter─that was why he agreed.

  In that case, he could return her arms without going against his creed.

  Plus, he’d be able to save face as his religion’s archbishop.

  But, feeling sad about having to part with Kissshot, I took my time to talk to her, went to the convenience store, and so on─and because I kept dragging things out and made no moves to kill Kissshot, Guillotine Cutter, who thought he’d been tricked by Oshino, proceeded to march into the abandoned school alone.

  Even Oshino’s barrier couldn’t conceal Kissshot in her perfect form.

  “So things did play out more or less as I expected, but… You know, missy class president, you did make a grand mess of things. Araragi really didn’t have to know about that.”

  “I─” Hanekawa said, still unfaltering, “I think that’s wrong.”

  “Oh dear. Well, I’ve gotta admit, you do have one big chest on ya.”

  “E-Excuse me?”

  Hanekawa held her arms over her breasts, flustered.

  Bounce, bounce.

  Upon seeing this, Oshino laughed and replied, “Oh, my mistake. I meant to say you’ve got one big heart in ya.”

  Yeah, right.

  It was sexual harassment, plain and simple.

  “Either way, that’s a very wonderful, model student-like thing for you to say. But in that case, li’l missy class president, what do you suggest we do here?”

  “That’s for Araragi to decide,” Hanekawa shot back. “It’d be so awful if he were to end things without knowing the truth, to say the least.”

  “You catch that, Araragi? What a tough spot you’ve been put in─missy class president is so kind she’s cruel. There really is something off about her. What exactly does she see in you that lets her trust you like that?”

  “……”

  “So, what’ll you do?” Oshino said, looking at me─and popping an unlit cigarette into his mouth as always. “My original plan was just to watch the aftermath play out─but it looks like just as I thought the ship had sailed, I found myself on it. So fine, I’ll listen to your request. This is a job for me as a professional, correct? The fee can be─ah, that’s right. That five million I called off, you can owe it to me again.”

  He made a grin.

  “So, what is your heart’s desire?”

  “…I want you to tell me a way to make everyone happy,” I told him.

  That was what I desired, from the bottom of my heart.

  “A method that will keep all of us from being unhappy.”

  “How could something like that possibly exist?” Are you stupid or something, Oshino shrugged. “There’s convenient, and then there’s that. That’s an essay topic for an elementary school ethics class. It’s unrealistic.”

  “Oshino, I─”

  “However,” Oshino said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and putting it back in his pocket. He looked at Hanekawa, then Kissshot, then finally me before saying, “I can think of a way that will make everyone miserable.”

  As I looked at him, dumbfounded by this reply, he quickly went on to explain.

  “In other words, the grief created by this incident will be split among everyone evenly─no one’s wishes will come true, but if you’re okay with that, there is a way.”

  “……”

  Everyone would be miserable─everyone would bear the misery.

  It would be split.

  Parceled out─and borne by everyone.

  It wouldn’t be all forced onto one person.

  “To be specific… Well, okay. Araragi, you’d stop just short of killing Heartunderblade. You’d take away nearly all of her traits and skills as a vampire─leaving just enough to keep her alive. For your part, Heartunderblade, you will come even closer to death than you were before. So close that you’ll be left with nothing─no shadow, no trace, no game, not even a name. You’d become like lowly human mockery of a vampire─unable to eat a human, no matter how hungry.”

  Oshino continued, “And you, Araragi. That wouldn’t allow you to turn back into a human, either─but you’d be extremely close to one. You, Araragi, would be like a vampiric mockery of a human. You’d have a few traits and skills as a vampire left─and while you wouldn’t technically be able to call yourself human, you would be infinitely far from being a vampire, making you infinitely close to human. You’d of course be nothing like a half-vampire. Instead, you’d be an ill-defined, half-baked creature. How fitting.”

  “‘F-Fitting’?!”

  “And of course, you wouldn’t be able to eat humans if you got hungry, either. However… If that were the case, regardless of what happens to you, Araragi, Heartunderblade would starve to death from lack of nutrition. So, Araragi, you would have to constantly be giving Heartunderblade your own blood. The one source of nutrition that would keep Heartunderblade alive would be your flesh and blood, the very thing that will have reduced her to her vulgar state. You would need to devote the rest of your life to Heartunderblade, and Heartunderblade would have to spend the rest of hers nestled up to you.”

  “In that case─” Hanekawa interrupted. “In other words, we humans─”

  “Yes. We would have to give up on slaying this dangerous creature we call a vampire. Any plans to wipe out the aberration slayer, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire, as well as her thrall─would have to be abandoned. If her powers were taken away to that extent, then hunters like Dramaturgy and Episode wouldn’t even be able to
locate her anymore. In other words, the risk would still remain. Heartunderblade and Araragi could become vampires, and they might begin to eat humans. That risk would still remain, and it would be very real.”