Kabukimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  Regret, bitterness, whatever it was, a dark emotion.

  “It’s a sore spot in my history.”

  “…”

  Right. All right.

  She’d realized how painful it was. I had no idea if it had been on her own or if someone had pointed it out to her, but judging from how low that voice was, it seemed like the latter…

  “I’m never, ever doing a dashing look again.”

  “Well, you never did in the first place. But, Ononoki.”

  I wanted to keep needling her, but I considered her feelings, refrained, and skipped ahead to the next topic.

  Generously, you might say.

  Gotta be kind to little girls, whether or not they’re human.

  That’s the Koyomi Araragi way.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Why? Now, now, kind monster sir, where do you get off putting such a question to me? Is this whole town your backyard? I didn’t realize entry was prohibited without prior authorization. My apologies.”

  “…”

  I didn’t get her characterization.

  She might’ve dropped her odd catchphrase, but her peculiar way of speaking was alive and well─or rather, thanks to that expressionless face, it would always be disquieting.

  I’ll just come right out and say, it was like talking to a robot.

  “Although it’s not my backyard,” I played along, generously, “it’s my town. So if you’re planning anything strange─”

  “You’ll stop me?”

  “Nope, I was thinking I’d give you a hand.”

  “What a chump…” She looked appalled. Or actually, her face didn’t change. “Are you assuming I wouldn’t be up to any mischief?”

  “I wonder. But apart from the fact that I’m an inhuman half-vampire and you guys are ghostbusters specializing in immortals, there’s really no reason for us to be enemies.”

  “There’s no getting away from that fact, is there?”

  I came because I was called, she told me.

  She sounded completely indifferent.

  It didn’t even feel like an explanation.

  “You might say I was dispatched. I am a shikigami, after all. I don’t know the details. I’m not all that interested in whom I fight. You’re willing to trust me, but I butcher women and children without mercy if I’m ordered to.”

  “Butcher…”

  Why reach for such a crude word?

  She didn’t sound used to mouthing it, at all.

  Of course, her finishing move, Unlimited Rulebook, which consisted mostly of exceptions, really could “butcher” most foes.

  “Whatever,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re planning to do, or on whose orders, but just don’t bust up my town too badly.”

  “Okay. Sister isn’t here this time, so no worries on that count.”

  “Small comfort.”

  “By the way.”

  “Yeah?”

  “How’s your master? Well, I don’t know if you’re the master these days, but…that…you know…”

  “Oh, you mean Shinobu,” I filled in the blank─eyeing my shadow. “She’s asleep at this time of day. We’re a two-man cell ourselves, you see. Then again, there’s nothing we can do about being one set as well.”

  “Indeed.”

  Ononoki nodded, totally expressionless. But she clearly seemed relieved, on some profound level. That, at least, was plain. Kagenui had really put me through the wringer, but Shinobu had put Ononoki through the wringer too…

  Not like we would actually admit it to each other, but we had both been deeply traumatized by the experience.

  “That half-assed vampire doesn’t scare me one bit, of course.”

  “…”

  This shikigami was cute when she was bluffing.

  When I glanced over, I saw that the signal had turned red at some point. Actually, we’d been talking like that for a while, so it had probably changed any number of times. In fact, it turned green again right then.

  “Let’s cross.”

  “Sure.”

  I crossed the street side by side with Ononoki.

  Not that we raised our hands or held them.

  Uhmm.

  What was going on here?

  Whatever scenario Ononoki was involved in this time, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with me… In other words, anyway you sliced it, I shouldn’t get involved.

  That said, parting ways just as I came to that realization would be kind of a shame. Though, true, if she were in town because of me or Shinobu, it’d be much safer to beat a hasty retreat.

  “Ononoki. Just to be clear, you sure you aren’t lost?”

  “You’re like a broken record. But I’ll go ahead and ask you for directions, if it’ll make you happy.”

  “No need…”

  “I’ll go ahead and let you buy me some ice cream, if it’ll make you happy.”

  “Even less need.”

  And way too transparent.

  This wasn’t the big city, and there weren’t convenience stores selling ice cream on every corner.

  But wasn’t there a shop just a little farther along?

  Maybe they sold ice cream there?

  It was summertime, after all.

  “All right, I’ll buy some for you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, kind monster sir? The whole thing was obviously just a joke.”

  “I’m not the sort of guy who gets jokes.”

  “Nope, I can’t let you buy me Häagen-Dazs.”

  “That joke, I get.”

  “Chocolate Fondant, please.”

  “Don’t bring up limited-time-only flavors. People are going to find out what a grueling schedule these books are written on.”

  I did end up treating her to an ice cream bar.

  Not that it cost enough to brag about.

  They didn’t even have Häagen-Dazs.

  Never mind eating it right there in the store, eating while walking is bad manners, so we sat down amidst a nearby shrubbery.

  That would be just as unseemly for a lone high school student as eating while walking, but with a little girl beside you? A scene so charming, you couldn’t make it up if you tried.

  Not like she was totally botching it or anything, but Ononoki was having some trouble unwrapping the ice cream, so I lent her a hand.

  “By the way, kind monster sir. There’s something I want to ask before I say thank you.”

  “I’d rather you just said a normal thank you, but what is it?”

  “Actually, there’s something that’s been bothering me for a while… It wouldn’t be an oversight to say I called out to you because of it.”

  “You mean an overstatement.”

  “Did someone give you that backpack?”

  With the hand that wasn’t holding her ice cream bar, Ononoki pointed at the backpack I was wearing.

  Well, well. I mean, it was the perfect size for me─but too big for, say, a fifth-grade girl to wear.

  In fact…

  “Uh, no, it wasn’t given to me.” Careful to keep it away from the ice cream, I took off the backpack and set it down beside me. I don’t know what was in there, but it was plenty heavy. “Hachikuji left it behind.”

  “Left it… Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. She’s gone, then.”

  “No, not that kind of ‘left behind,’ nothing so dire. It’s not a keepsake or anything,” I explained. “She came to hang out in my room today. She’s so scatterbrained, she took off without her goddamn backpack.”

  “Huh… It doesn’t suit you, kind monster sir.”

  “Leave off. It’s not mine, of course it doesn’t.”

  “The belt is all droopy. You look like an idiot.”

  “Watch what you say.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Ononoki apologized, and reconsidered her words.

  That was unexpectedly straight of her.

  “The belt is all droopy. People will know you’re an idiot.”

  “
Too unexpectedly straightforward!”

  “So a big backpack is something you can forget.”

  “Well… Granted, she rarely takes it off, but today she seemed tired. She even fell asleep on my bed. On my goddamn bed, okay?”

  “Is that part really so important?”

  “That’s when she took off the backpack and chucked it into the corner. And when she split, she just left it there. That’s why I’m out here, hot on her heels: so I can give it back.”

  I’d meant to be hot on her heels, anyway, but I hadn’t so much as laid eyes on that sprightly little power walker. So really, I was just drifting along─I should have taken my bike.

  To be perfectly honest, I’d pretty much given up on finding Hachikuji and was feeling pretty dispirited when Ononoki called out to me.

  “But she haunts the streets, doesn’t she? Can a ghost like that really come and hang out at your house? Wow…”

  “Yeah, wow. Even I have to admire how free she is.”

  After the Lost Cow to-do, Hachikuji received a special two-rank promotion from place-bound ghost to wandering ghost, so even though she haunts the streets, she’s not bound to them (I think). In which case it wasn’t all that surprising.

  “Wait a sec,” I said. “Rewind. You knew Hachikuji?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t remember, kind monster sir. Or should I say, kind monstieur.”

  “Enough with the weird nicknames. Monstieur?”

  It might stick.

  It was in character, so to speak.

  “Brogre,” she suggested.

  “Give it up already.”

  “Wasn’t she right next to you the first time we met, kind monster sir?”

  “Was she? Right, now that you mention it.”

  “A monster-ghost duo. An extraordinarily rare sight, even for someone in my position─which is why I spoke to you that time, too. I was most definitely not lost.”

  “…”

  It came off as a total lie. It was hardly written on her expressionless face, but maybe she was just that bad of a liar.

  Quite a contrast─with Hachikuji.

  “Something left behind by a ghost, though, that’s the rarest of the rare,” remarked Ononoki. “How did she become a ghost in the first place?”

  “Who knows.”

  I knew, of course, but deflected the question.

  That’s me, Koyomi the Deflector.

  It’s not like it would have been so complicated to explain, but it involved Hachikuji’s private─no, more acutely, her identity.

  Maybe it would have been fine to talk to Ononoki about it. After all, she was an aberration like Hachikuji, but on the other hand, maybe that was all the more reason to be circumspect.

  “I started out human too.”

  “Huh?”

  I was totally caught off-guard by Ononoki’s unexpected declaration. Actually it felt more like a sudden confession than an unexpected declaration.

  “Nothing to be so surprised about. You started out human, too, didn’t you? Or wait, according to sister, you’re still human.”

  “Who knows? It’s a little ambiguous… But now that you mention it, it was never clear to me, Ononoki. Exactly what kind of an aberration are you?”

  “That’s a tough one. I’m a shikigami, but sister made me on her own, with a lot of original components, so I─well, that being said, basically I’m a tsukumogami.”

  “Tsukumogami? Like where a tool used for a hundred years develops a soul, or bears a grudge against its owner if it gets thrown away? Or have I got it wrong?”

  “You’re more or less on the money,” Ononoki nodded her approval of my dimly recalled knowledge. “But I’m a human tsukumogami.”

  “Come again?”

  “A tsukumogami made from a human who was used for a hundred years…or perhaps I should say a corpse tsukumogami. Sister told me to keep it a secret, but oh well.”

  Because if I told anyone, they’d have to die─was Ononoki’s unsettling follow-up.

  Or is unsettling the wrong word?

  Thanks a lot for providing me with that info.

  You got a problem with me or something?

  Maybe you do with Shinobu, but don’t take it out on me.

  Give me back that ice cream bar.

  “Um, so, Ononoki, even though you look like a kid, you’re really over a hundred years old?”

  “Not a chance. I’m not some crusty old senior citizen,” Ononoki shook her head. Naturally, someone who treated Shinobu like an old hag would have some bizarre hang-ups about her own age. “This life of mine started when sister resurrected me.”

  “Resurrected─?”

  “Yeah, so I died once. I died, and came back. Onmyoji are well versed in the art of raising the dead, after all─and you know what, kind monster sir? Do you have any idea what the difference is between you and me? Not to mention that ghost kid, Hachikuji?”

  “Difference? I mean, aren’t we completely different?”

  Vampire.

  Ghost (place-bound → wandering).

  Shikigami.

  All three could be classified under the aberration rubric, but as a category, that was like mammals…or even more vaguely, vertebrates.

  The real question was, did we have anything in common?

  “Of course we have something in common,” Ononoki asserted. “We were all human once.”

  “Oh… I see. But if you factor it out like that, this time the differences disappear, don’t they? Me, you, Hachikuji, all three of us started out human, then died─”

  “And I’m saying the way we died is different. You’re immortal. You became immortal at the moment of death. In other words, you were never strictly speaking dead.”

  Immortal.

  Without death.

  So I don’t die.

  “In other words, kind monster sir, it’s not that you and that other vampire died and came back to life. It’s more proper to say that you live on, undying.”

  “Hmmm…”

  Well.

  Sounded like semantics to me, but maybe she was right.

  “I, on the other hand, died. Really died. And I came back to life after I died. But my life, and my fate, are considerably different than they were before. In fact, I think it’s more proper to say that I was reborn.”

  “Reborn.”

  “Yes. I didn’t even inherit the memories of my old life─I’m a completely different being. And as for that ghost girl,” Ononoki went on, her eyes fixed on Hachikuji’s backpack, “she hasn’t come back to life─she died, and she’s still dead, no coming back. That’s what a ghost is. A ghost doesn’t go on living, it’s not reborn─if anything, I’d say it goes on in death.”

  “…”

  “Listen, kind monster sir. Think about what I’ve been saying, and tell me: which one of us do you think is happiest? Personally, I think all three of us are fortunate in our own ways─we’re all lucky. Most people die, and that’s it. To retain one’s consciousness after death, I’d call that good fortune.”

  “…Can you really make a blanket statement like that?”

  I─couldn’t answer Ononoki’s question.

  I didn’t know what to say about who was happiest─and in the first place.

  Can you really call that good fortune?

  I don’t know.

  I mean, didn’t I go through hell during spring break because of it? Didn’t Hachikuji wander lost for over ten years because of it?

  And Ononoki herself─if she was asking me, I have a hard time believing she considered herself happy.

  In fact…

  In fact…

  “Have you ever thought about why you were born?”

  Since I couldn’t answer─

  She just asked another question.

  Not only did she not hold back.

  She pressed even harder.