by Nisioisin
“That was the case four hundred years ago. I’m saying it’s different this time─while it’s only natural to take Shinobu’s story as a reference point, Koyomin, your deductions are pretty sloppy if you think something’s the case now because that’s how it was before.”
“…”
Hearing her spell it out, I had to agree, I’d been so desperate to figure out the mystery behind this unknown Darkness that I’d leapt to the easiest possible conclusion.
It was only based on experience.
That meant it was nothing more than a possibility.
If it was after Shinobu, why was it, anyway?
“Yeah… I guess that could have been random─maybe the Darkness doesn’t care who its target is. Strictly speaking, we can’t even be sure if it was Shinobu that thing was after back then─”
“Oh, no. I’m certain that phenomenon was after her four hundred years ago. That, I know─but I’m saying that this time and last time are different.”
“You know…” I couldn’t help but launch a jab at Gaen because she seemed to be giving me the slip, and throwing dust in my eyes, again and again. “You know everything─don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then you must also know who that phenomenon is targeting this time around.”
“Of course.”
I was sure she’d talk her way out of this one, too─so her affirmation took me by surprise. But I’d jumped the gun letting myself be surprised─because the real shock.
The true shock was still in store for me.
“It’s that exhausted, napping girl over there the Darkness is after this time.”
“…What?”
“In other words, Mayoi Hachikuji.”
“What?”
029
“H-Hachikuji?”
“That’s right. Which is why Shinobu is safe for the most part─your link being severed was like a random accident, but what amazing luck, there’s a legendary vampire for you. And she might get even luckier. You could die and she’d go back to being at her full power.”
I looked at Hachikuji.
Hachikuji, exhausted and sleeping─
The ghost of a girl I was best of friends with.
“I see,” Ononoki interposed then. “Yes─I thought that might be the case.”
“Really, Ononoki?”
“Well, like I said, I’d heard some things from my sister─but the possibility was there. Actually, it could even have been you, kind monster sir─anyone except me. I didn’t want to create any confusion by throwing unnecessary info into the mix, though.”
But.
Of all the possibilities, I thought it was most likely Miss Hachikuji, Ononoki said, her face utterly expressionless.
I couldn’t glean a single emotion─and it was her relentlessness that reminded me once again that she was an aberration.
Something decidedly different from a human.
Not something─I’d ever be able to understand.
“Don’t look at me like I’ve done something wrong, kind monster sir─I did speak a little bit to Miss Hachikuji about this while you were passed out… We were only discussing possibilities, of course. If we’re talking about probability, the likelihood didn’t alter by so much as ten percent.”
“What’s going on, then? To be honest, I could kind of understand why it’d go after Shinobu─she’s led a life so full of twists and turns that I could see anything happening to her. But not Hachikuji. She lived ten years as a human, then eleven years as a ghost─she’s not in any position to be chased by that Darkness, even by accident─”
No.
Hold on a second.
It did feel─like the Darkness was moving toward Hachikuji earlier.
It went after her, engulfing the desks she was sleeping on─or so it seemed.
That was the feeling I got.
“Let me answer that question,” Gaen cut me off just as I’d found myself grilling Ononoki. “It’s not like Yotsugi really understands the situation. She only has secondhand information. I don’t think even Yozuru saw what was actually going on─I don’t believe her, she only seemed to be listening to half of my story. Maybe only a quarter.”
“In that case,” I said.
My tension ratcheted up─while it was good news that it wasn’t after Shinobu, nothing changed in the end if it was going after Hachikuji.
No.
It only made things worse─if it was after Shinobu Oshino, a former fighting vampire whether or not she’s lost her powers, she had a better chance than if it was after Mayoi Hachikuji, your average ghost girl.
“I want you to tell me everything─not half of the story, but all of it. Tell me everything about the Darkness.”
“Of course─that’s why I’m here, after all.”
But speaking from my outlook on life.
I think it’s going to leave a bad taste in your mouth, warned Gaen.
While her words prefaced a story that clearly had a bad ending, just like Shinobu’s before she recounted what happened four hundred years ago─this wasn’t something I could afford not to hear.
Not now.
030
“I’m sure that Yotsugi and little Shinobu have already said this, and that you’ve felt it yourself, Koyomin, but that Darkness isn’t an aberration. It’s an existence that’s something other than an aberration─a non-existence.
“Actually, you could say it’s like a natural predator for aberrations.
“Or maybe the polar opposite of an aberration.
“While the Aberration Slayer and the Aberration Savior, the two blades Shinobu’s first thrall wielded, also existed as aberrations’ nemesis in a way, this is on another level─what’s important here is that it’s not an existence but a non-existence.
“It can’t be defeated.
“It can’t be killed, either.
“And eating it is out of the question─‘running,’ I guess you could say? ‘Putting some distance’ between it and you is really the most you can do.
“Though that’s only temporary, of course─it’s hard to always be running, a fact you should already know quite well.
“As you’ve encountered it two, even three times, Koyomin.
“Hm?
“What’s that? Shinobu did get away from it once? Oh, well, I guess you can say that. If she’s not its target now, it would appear as though she got away from the Darkness four hundred years ago─but that would be true in appearance only. It’s far from the truth. I know very well just how far.
“She didn’t get away from it.
“She succeeded in neutralizing the Darkness─by accident, though. She really does have incredible luck. It almost defies common sense.
“That’s right.
“You can’t defeat or kill or eat or run from the Darkness, but you can neutralize it.
“Yes, and I’m just about to tell you how to do that─but part of me is reluctant to, so forgive me for taking so long to get to it.
“At the very least, I’ll have to start from the top.
“Its name?
“Yes, its name. All things need a name─every being has a name. But that’s a nonbeing, not a being.
“No one can give that thing a name.
“Everyone calls it whatever they feel like, not just ‘the Darkness’─everyone who sees or hears about it.
“For example, take the way they called the phenomenon being ‘spirited away’ four hundred years ago─others call it the Balancer or the Neutral or the Eraser…some even call it a Black Hole.
“Well, it does look like one. It’s easy to get.
“You call it the Darkness─and there are some others who have called it that, too. It’s such a straightforward description that it really doesn’t express anything, but I like how simple and clean it is. I wouldn’t say it’s dull or mediocre.
“Personally, though, I don’t think I’d give that non-existence a name. You give something a name to make it easier to under
stand─but that thing isn’t going to be any easier to understand no matter how you try to frame it.
“It won’t get any easier to understand or more simple.
“There’s no way to tie it down.
“It’s unreasonable and absurd.
“That’s what that non-existence is.
“A thing that doesn’t exist─and a thing that erases existences.
“A thing that wipes out the existence of aberrations.
“Hm? Oh, yes, you’re right. It does also wipe out humans with no mercy…but I guess that’s just one method it uses to wipe out aberrations.
“Eliminating the witnesses, I suppose. If you want to make it sound like a modern-day crime, that is─I don’t think that’s its intention at all, of course.
“But you could say it’s like a hired killer.
“Imagining a hitman comes closest to it. Though closer or not, it doesn’t clear anything up. A hitman that wipes out aberrations─that’s what’s been targeting them. Shinobu four hundred years ago, and now Hachikuji.
“They’re being targeted.
“Not that it’s anything special─it’s something that happens all over the world, you just never notice.
“You don’t notice because this hitman does such a brilliant job─because normally you can’t escape from that non-existence.
“Normally.
“There aren’t many out there who can take action once that thing appears before them─and while Shinobu did get away, just about anyone, vampire or not, would die if three quarters of their body were consumed… And I’d say you were able to make the decision to immediately disengage thanks to your link to Shinobu, Koyomin. It was all thanks to your partner’s experience.
“What’s that? Your memories aren’t linked?
“As long as your hearts are linked, it’s enough.
“Oh, I’m being all doom and gloom? I could see how it might sound that way, but there’s hope, too.
“You can relax. Relax.
“Even someone who knows everything like me can only tell you a little bit about what you call the Darkness, Koyomin─not because I’m missing information, though. There’s nothing you can call information about the Darkness.
“You can’t say you’re missing something when it never existed in the first place, right?
“While I called it a natural predator for aberrations, you could also call it an anti-aberration, the way that anti-matter works on matter.
“Which is why you’ll disappear if you collide with it─you see?
“You could also say it’s not just the aberration, but also the non-existence, that disappears.
“You could, but they’d only be words.
“In any case, it’s all over for you once you meet it. It’s an all-powerful hitman─if you have a hard time understanding it as a hitman, then call it the Grim Reaper.
“No, I guess it’d be an aberration if you did─and once again, it’s not an aberration.
“It’s such a hard thing to represent, to talk about.
“You have to come at it from out around it.
“Not only that, you also have to talk about it exactly as it is.
“So, as for why a specific aberration gets targeted by this hitman. This part isn’t unreasonable or absurd. I think you’ll find yourself in agreement once I tell you.
“Maybe not in agreement, but at least you’ll understand─for a fact about a non-existence, it’s very easy to comprehend…or quite evident.
“You should be able to figure it out with some thought.
“In other words, you just have to think of something that Shinobu and Mayoi have in common. What do the two have in common, what’s their common denominator?
“Come on, try giving it some thought.
“They’re cute little girls?
“I’m so disappointed in you. Why would anyone or anything attack aberrations for such a borderline pedophilic reason? Well, that might be something you do, Koyomin, but it, at least, is different.
“They’re being targeted for a reason. Though I’ve been saying it targets aberrations─if we’re being more precise, what it targets are aberrations that have strayed from the path of aberrations.
“People who stray from the road of humanity get expelled from society, right? Likewise, aberrations that stray from the path of aberrations get expelled from the world─by way of a supernatural power. Yes, a supernatural power, one that some people might call fate. The inevitable force of fate.
“Fate. Do you like that word?
“I hate it. If you’re in a situation where you’re going to use such a word, I think it’s better to go for something more childish, like ‘supernatural’ or ‘power.’ I’m the only one who needs to be talking like she knows everything─I know that Mèmè often sounds like he’s seen through everything, but personally I’m not impressed by that.
“Of course, that’s something that I don’t like because it’s different from me─still, I’ll admit that this non-existence moves in ways that resemble fate.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for putting it in a touchy-feely way.
“Hm? You’re more confused by the idea of straying from the path of aberrations? I’d say that one is pretty straightforward… Okay, then try thinking specifically of what Shinobu did four hundred years ago.
“I’ll tell you everything, Koyomin, but that doesn’t mean you can quit thinking.
“Yes, that’s right. Exactly.
“Four hundred years ago, Shinobu─acted as a god.
“She’s a demon, but she acted as a god.
“That was the problem, and while it seems like she didn’t realize it at all, she should never have done that.
“Listen, I understand what you want to say─Shinobu never called herself a god, it’s just that the humans around her saw where her super jump landed and mistakenly thought of her as one. That’s what you want to say, right, Koyomin?
“But you see─and this is the case for a lot more than aberrations, in fact you could say it about life in general─not making an effort to correct a misunderstanding is no different from lying.
“While it may seem uninhibited and respectable to say, ‘Who cares what anyone thinks about me’ and ‘I don’t mind what anyone thinks about me,’ what you’re really saying is no different from ‘I’m going to fool everyone.’ Especially in this case. It was like Shinobu intentionally didn’t clear up the misunderstanding…I guess because she was enjoying her position as a god.
“On a whim, on a vacation.
“She put on a divine air.
“You wouldn’t be able to criticize her if she became a god─aberrations turn into other aberrations all the time.
“But you shouldn’t lie.
“Becoming a god is fine.
“It’s tricking people into thinking you’re a god─that’s a problem.
“And that’s why she was targeted for judgment─why that hitman went after her.
“And it went after more than just Shinobu─it went after everyone who ‘witnessed’ her as a god and not a demon─it corrected their mistake. Brutally, by force. Basically, this non-existence, the thing you call the Darkness, carried out its job of correcting mistakes─by making it so that none of it ever happened.
“By now you must see how Shinobu managed to ‘escape’ that non-existence. It should be clear. When she ‘ran away’ to the South Pole with her super jump─she acted as a vampire.
“She created a thrall.
“No, even before that, her absurd physical recovery─her super-regeneration, the expression of her immortality, might have been enough on its own.
“Because it exposed the lie that she was a god.
“That was all it took for the non-existence to no longer have a reason to act─I don’t mean to dredge up something that happened four hundred years ago, but if Shinobu had eaten an aberration or given in to her vampiric impulses while she was playing at god, I doubt the people of that village, those fifty experts
, and everyone else in the area would have disappeared─
