Onimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  Being that way, she was only acting like a villain sometimes… She consistently cast herself in a bad light and said that turning him into a thrall was just a self-centered impulse, and she wasn’t lying, but she also seemed to be presenting it in far too one-sided a way.

  She’d reigned over a region as a god, even if she called it a whim─and he was its last survivor. Did she really, truly, unequivocally not want to stop him from dying? I wasn’t going to believe that.

  If she was that kind of woman─

  I wouldn’t be alive like this.

  I wouldn’t be alive─halfway vampire.

  “But he did not calm down. He was confused and deluded, he antagonized me at every turn, before flinging himself to his own death. Cursing me again and again, slathering me in words of remorse and resentment, he threw his body into the sun as I watched─and then he died.”

  I could not stop him.

  Nor could I save him.

  Indifferently, apathetically, in a flat tone, Shinobu described the outcome.

  “I even told him my true name after we reached the South Pole─and yet the only time he ever called me Kissshot was immediately before he cast himself away.”

  “…”

  Still─he’d called her Kissshot.

  Not Heartunderblade, not Acerolaorion─but Kissshot.

  Just like me.

  In that case…

  “And then he died─though ’twould be more accurate to say he met his demise, as his was an immortal body, but in any case, he died. Leaving behind as a memento a replica of the enchanted blade Kokorowatari that he worked himself to the bone to make. I am sure he made it with the intention of slaying me… I only happened not to have made a thrall before him, ’twas not as if I had remained resolutely single─but when I watched his corpse burn blue and fade away, I decided that I would never again create any─I swore that I would never drink human blood for any purpose other than nourishment.”

  To God, at that, she added.

  How ironic the words sounded─when she’d played at the role.

  I certainly wasn’t laughing.

  Nor did I find her words clever─because ultimately, both as a god and as a vampire, she hadn’t been able to “handle” humans.

  The demon’s monologue.

  Her tale of what was now past, four hundred years old.

  So did its curtain fall, on an unhappy ending.

  022

  “Or so I say, but four hundred years later I created a new thrall without so much as a second thought. It seems my principles aren’t much to speak of. In fact, I failed even worse than I did my first time around, causing even myself to lose power. I managed to get myself locked not in a god’s shrine but a man’s shadow. Hahaha, oh how splendid!”

  “…”

  Well, she was right.

  If you wanted to say that she hadn’t learned, you really could… Or rather, Shinobu must have seen what happened four hundred years earlier as something in her history, something from long ago, at most a lesson she should work to live by.

  Memories, mementos, they all get worn away.

  The follies of her youth─it had to have been a story from her past that she felt just a little embarrassed telling, a flashback scene. She wasn’t going to get emotional over it or let it burden her as if she still dragged it along to the present day─aside from one part.

  Right. In Shinobu’s story─not her, but her story─there was one issue that had yet to be resolved.

  One affair that hadn’t come to an end.

  That was─the Darkness.

  “In other words─you never discovered the identity of the Darkness, that thing that murdered your followers and your first thrall.”

  “Aye─I never did,” Shinobu humbly nodded. “After it all─in other words, after Aberration Slayer I disappeared from this world, it never again tried to come after me, nor did it ever follow me. Once the dust settled, I traveled to Europe─I’d been a bit traumatized by super jumps, so I swam there─but I never saw the Darkness even after I arrived. Quite the contrary, as negative energy began to gather around me once again…so I thought ’twas all over. But I’m no fool. I was constantly worrying about the Darkness for another five years, but it never once showed any signs of appearing.”

  And so I eventually forgot.

  That’s what Shinobu said─I wasn’t going to question her about whether she forgot by messing with her brain or if she did so naturally, but regardless, I was amazed all over again by the thoroughly happy-go-lucky way she lived her life.

  She really was incredible.

  She was able to forget─something like that.

  “And so I’ve remembered it for the first time in four hundred years─ahh. What a truly awful thing to recall. And ’tis all thy fault.”

  “My fault… Well, all I can do is apologize if you’re going to blame me like that.”

  “I jest, ’tis not thy fault. In fact, it must be my own─that Darkness has to have come chasing after me at last. Our game of tag that I’d arbitrarily decided was over had in fact continued on─and as one who’s been linked with me, thou art now its target.”

  How embarrassing to know that even Hachikuji has gotten caught up in this, Shinobu rued, this time sounding genuinely sorry.

  While I was one thing, as the two of us were nearly one in body and mind, it seemed she found it inexcusable that Hachikuji had gotten involved in this mess.

  It was odd. Hachikuji was a ghost, which is to say she was an aberration. Shinobu should have seen her as nothing but energy…but maybe she felt some sympathy for her.

  Who knows, maybe they were both members of a Koyomi Araragi Survivors Group.

  “I know not its cause, I know not its identity, I know not a thing about it─to be frank, I was powerless even at my peak against this Darkness, a mysterious phenomenon whose mysteries beget mysteries─but ’tis no excuse. So, now what?”

  “But─it didn’t come after you four hundred years ago, right? So it’s possible that we ended it again this time by getting away from it…”

  “Perhaps, but perhaps not─for as unlike last time, I cannot jump to the South Pole. We do need to put together a plan, and I’d even propose to attack it ourselves if we can─for ’twill be too late if we meet it only after the residents of this area are spirited away.”

  “…”

  Of course it would be.

  This issue went beyond Shinobu and me─we needed to act with the understanding that everyone living here in this town where I was born and raised could go missing.

  Hitagi Senjogahara, Tsubasa Hanekawa.

  Suruga Kanbaru, Nadeko Sengoku.

  And when I added Karen Araragi and Tsukihi Araragi, my two little sisters, to that list─I knew it was no time for me to be hiding out in a safe location feeling like everything was over.

  Even if it wasn’t an aberration.

  That phenomenon─wasn’t something I could ever let myself ignore.

  “Well, that thing is just as mysterious as it was before you began your story, but I at least have some ground to stand on now. Because four hundred years ago─the same thing happened, and you fell victim to it then as well.”

  “Indeed, thou art correct.”

  “In that case, we should start by gathering information, like Oshino would. We’ll start with data about the lake you eliminated and those villages that got emptied out, and then─oh, but─”

  Even if we were starting by going to the library to do research, I needed to leave Hachikuji somewhere first. She had run away with us due to the way everything had transpired, but if what Shinobu said was true, I couldn’t let her get any more deeply involved.

  In fact, now that Hachikuji had started showing a face that was weak to adversity, it felt like she’d be something like dead weight during any adventures we might go on in the future… She’d basically be a backpack.

  “Aye. I’d like to take care of this issue before thou goest to school tomorrow─so for now, le
t us explain the situation to Hachikuji once she awakens, then part ways with her to begin acting in earnest─”

  And just then.

  Right as Shinobu was beginning to put together our plan, a voice to my side interrupted her.

  “I think you should probably not do that,” it wedged itself in─like a bookmark. “Kind monster sir.”

  I looked over to find─though I didn’t need to look─a tsukumogami.

  Expressionless, in a cute outfit.

  It was─Yotsugi Ononoki.

  Standing at the entrance to the classroom, she gazed at us soberly.

  “Ononoki─”

  “You’re in for a nasty surprise if you buy into everything that geriatric is telling you. I do owe you for that time you bought me ice cream, kind monster sir─so I can’t turn a blind eye when you might find yourself in a fix after letting this foolish aberration incite you, which is why I’m warning you now.”

  “…”

  Wait, forget about that for the moment.

  How long had she been there?

  She interrupted our conversation like it was normal─and given the know-it-all tone she spoke in, did she actually finish her job and come back here because she was worried about us?

  Ononoki wouldn’t call something that only takes a few moments to settle a “job”─it would have taken at least one or two hours.

  Which would stand to reason that, um, how would you put it…

  “Yeah,” Ononoki said. “I heard everything. By coincidence.”

  “Coincidence…”

  “It was coincidence that I was standing in the hallway outside of the classroom with my face against the door and struggling to hear your every word. The world is just so full of coincidences, isn’t it.”

  “Not ones like that.”

  I felt like I’d been had…

  So she pretended to leave but had actually been in the hallway the entire time?

  But why would she…

  “Hmph,” Shinobu snorted─actually, she seemed downright grouchy.

  All of the wind had been taken out of her sails.

  Or no, maybe this would actually be wind to Shinobu’s sails.

  “I’m surprised ye still have the guts to call me geriatric to my face, tsukumogami girl─despite how much thou must be shaking inside. In consideration of that courage, I shall make a special exemption this one time and not eat thee alive.”

  “I don’t know. I think that might be hard for you in your current state…” Ononoki riposted confidently.

  She was right─Ononoki had been trounced by Shinobu in the past, but that was when Shinobu had some degree of her power back.

  Now that she was a little girl─she probably wouldn’t be able to kill Ononoki, Kagenui’s top shikigami, at least not without a fight.

  If anything, Shinobu would find the tables turned on her.

  “If ye insist, I wouldn’t mind taking thee on─of course.”

  “Hmph. A rematch─”

  “H-Hey. Cut it out, you two,” I reflexively jumped in to stop them.

  My body moved on its own to get in the middle of this volatile situation.

  “You know this is no time to be doing this─and anyway, Ononoki.”

  “Yes?”

  “Um, why did you feel like you needed to sit in the hallway and wait? You could have just stayed in the room if you wanted to listen, so why go to the trouble of lying about work and─”

  “It was a coincidence,” Ononoki stuck to her story, but she seemed to know quite well that her excuse was a stretch. And so, “I didn’t lie,” she corrected herself somewhat. “It wasn’t a lie that I had a job to do. I just delayed my plans─and anyway, that geriatric over there has a petty personality. I thought she might hold back if I were here.”

  “Hold on, do not misjudge me so. Do I really seem that small-minded to thee?”

  “…”

  “…”

  She did.

  My thoughts lined up perfectly with Ononoki’s.

  Shinobu must know the identity of this aberration─that was my prediction, and Ononoki must have decided to step out into the hallway in order to hear what Shinobu had to say.

  Which would mean that her little goodbye kiss was specifically meant to wake Shinobu up… Ononoki did know that our senses were linked.

  Oh. Just as I thought she’d fallen for me, it looked like I was wrong.

  That was depressing.

  It was going to take me three or so days to recover from this.

  “But it was worth delaying my work, since I got to hear a surprisingly interesting story─I had a feeling I might.”

  Ononoki was expressionless.

  But I could see in that lack of expression her clear feeling of having gotten one up on Shinobu─as if to say this was part of her payback.

  “Urgh!”

  Shinobu had noticed the same vibe, and not so good-natured that she was going to sit back and accept it─she crawled under my legs to get past me and dashed toward her target.

  Oops. I’d let my guard down.

  Crap, a fight was about to break out─I braced myself, but instead Shinobu went around Ononoki and locked down both of her arms from the back.

  “Now! Do it!”

  “You’re assuming that I’m going to be your accomplice.”

  “Ye can grab her chest to thy heart’s content!”

  “Um, it needs to be one-on-one for me…”

  With that, I actually took a step back to put some distance between me and Ononoki. Since Shinobu was linked to my shadow, I was essentially dragging her away.

  From there, I just kept walking away.

  Until we were at a good distance.

  “Still,” I said, “this is like a dream situation when I think about it. I’m here in a classroom where around me are a little girl, a young girl, and a tween girl. Hold on, is this Shangri-La?”

  “Dost thou know thou art uttering all of thy thoughts?”

  “Whoa, I need to be more careful. That was borderline dangerous.”

  “Well, thy words were indeed borderline.”

  Putting aside the issue of age with these little, young, and tween girls─you couldn’t deny that I was in an awfully lavish situation.

  Shinobu Oshino.

  Yotsugi Ononoki.

  And, though she still hadn’t woken up, Mayoi Hachikuji.

  Who could have ever imagined that these three would end up congregating under one roof?

  So there were benefits to dragging out a series.

  What an amazing bonus level.

  It was like every monster had turned into a coin.

  “What are you grinning about, kind monster sir?”

  “’Tis the kind of man he is. Thou ought to be careful, he’s the type who’ll follow thee around for life after a single kiss.”

  Look at that.

  I thought the two were irreconcilable, but was I starting to see signs of them making up thanks to a common enemy, better known as me?

  Heh.

  Looks like playing the villain was worth it after all.

  Actually, forget bonus levels. Being in a cramped room together with three girls was practically being in a dating sim.

  Not bad at all.

  “By the way, I’d hate to let this opportunity go to waste. Why don’t ye settle it once and for all. Which of the three among us dost thou like the most?”

  “What?!”

  Agh!

  Sure, it might have been a dating sim, but it was still about to turn into a bloodbath!

  Why would she ask me a question like that out of nowhere?!

  “You’re right. He really does need to make that clear.” I couldn’t believe it, but Ononoki agreed.

  She was letting herself get carried away.

  “Ah, um, out of the three of you? Well, of course that would be you, Shinobu, the partner I share a body and mind with─”

  “I’d like to hear thine answer were we not partners or of one body and mind,�
�� Shinobu backed me into a corner.

  Why even back me into a corner, at this juncture?