by Nisioisin
I have no background, no motivation.
One could say that I am nothing but a flame.
I am a white flame.
I have been given neither consciousness nor will. While I may appear to be speaking my thoughts, I am only feigning to, only pretending to.
I am a natural phenomenon.
I simply burn what needs to burn.
No.
There is nothing in this world that cannot burn.
I must burn everything.
Inside, I am jealous of everything.
I am jealous of fathers, mothers, friends, juniors.
They ought to disappear.
They ought to vanish.
They ought to suffer, they ought to lament, they ought to feel down.
They ought to mourn, they ought to languish, they ought to feel worthless.
They ought to cry.
They ought to cry like me.
Perhaps those tears will help abate the flames.
Now, what should I burn this evening.
Though all may go up in flames with time, there is still an order to be followed.
There is still a process.
So I suppose for now, this building will be next.
As I thought this, no, before I thought it, I was already there.
I have no will. I have no intentions.
This is I.
I am this.
There is no getting there ahead or behind.
I appear anywhere.
My fires spread anywhere.
I looked carefully at the target, inspecting it.
Hm.
I see.
It seemed easier to burn than a house or a building.
But whether it would be simple or difficult, it was all the same.
Hesitation was meaningless once I acquired a target.
Everything was the same.
I do not know everything.
But everything burns.
I opened my mouth wide, baring my fangs.
And then the flames.
The flames─
“Mrow!”
Then in that moment, standing between me and my target─was a cat.
A single silver kitten came flying from the sky as if it had grown wings, and seemed to stand in my way.
063
Just like I expected, the Tyrannical Tiger was nyow right in front of the Tamikura Apartments, where Hitagi Senjogahara and her dad lived. Even if I was wrong, I was planning on just climbing up to the roof and searching the town like I did last time─but it’s nyot like I wasn’t certain about it.
I nyew.
After all, the Tyrannical Tiger and I used to be one and the same.
The same thing, born from the same place.
So.
“Hey there, tiger,” I said. In greeting. “I’m here to get you. C’mon, let’s head back together.”
<……>
But, once again like I expected, the Tyrannical Tiger was nyot even going to answer me.
She was just silently glaring at me.
Ah.
Nyow that I was facing her, it made me realize all over again just how huge tigers are. Nyo, she was a monster─real tigers weren’t ever supposed to be that big.
It almost felt like I couldn’t tell how far away she was.
I nyew this wasn’t a fairy tale like Pinyocchio or anything, but it made me feel like the best way to defeat her might be getting swallowed and then fighting my way out of her guts.
I could try that if I was going to defeat her.
But that’s nyot what I was here for.
“…Hah.”
I didn’t nyoh exactly why─but I laughed.
Maybe it was a chuckle? Nyo, it was a snicker.
It was weird, this tiger looked so huge and was so intimidating, which made everything she said feel so solemn─and even last time we met, that was enyough to scare me on the inside as we talked.
But nyow I realized it was different.
She─wasn’t solemn at all.
She just lacked any sentiment.
She didn’t have the tools she needed to speak and communicate, like a nyewborn baby─that’s why we couldn’t have a discussion.
I guess it’s obvious that she was a nyinfant since she was only born a few days earlier─but an originyal aberration, huh?
An originyal, one with no history.
That’s what had been cut loose from my myaster’s heart.
A new breed of aberration.
Actually, though, originyal aberrations, aberrations made by individuals, aren’t that uncommon─an old painter named Sekien Toriyama who made his living by drawing yokai apparently snuck in some of his own among all the other “traditional” ones.
Nyo matter what age they live in, every creative person must dream of making something of their own that can rival tradition.
Of course, it must take an enyormous amount of talent, nyo, enyergy to create something that can rival a traditional yokai.
So what was it in my myaster’s case?
Her stress and dark emotions, nyo doubt─though I guess it’s a little ironic for the Tyrannical Tiger, nyewly born from that, to be lacking any sentiment.
Or maybe nyot?
Maybe it wasn’t that she lacked sentiment because she was nyewly born. Maybe my myaster unconsciously but intentionyally created the Tyrannical Tiger to be that kind of aberration.
Purrcisely because it was born from emotions─
The tiger was shorn of emotion.
It was lacking as a creature.
“You nyoh that’s not what our myaster wants.”
Nyo.
It was hard for me to believe she even understood what my words meant.
I didn’t think she was as stupid as me, but she was even less flexible than me.
The spring from which my need to burn arises, the Tyrannical Tiger finished.
“The spring from which your need to burn arises… That’s a mixed myetaphor,” I quipped.
Nyot that it made any sense to.
Sure enough, it didn’t seem to land at all.
So I was right, she wasn’t trying to be funny.
But still.
“You nyoh she’s nyot nyothing to you, tiger─she’s our birthparent.”
You couldn’t call this a conversation we were having.
“Oh, you might be right.”
Nyow that one hurt to hear.
I guess it went to show just how monstrous our myaster was as a “spring” if a nyewborn aberration could be so sharp.
“Maybe that’s why our myaster called us her little sisters and nyot her daughters.”
“I don’t nyoh how it works, but apparently they’re a real hot commodity these days. According to what that little human told me.”
Nya-haha, I laughed.
“So it myight be a perfect tag for you, since you’re a real hot oddity, sister.”
Hard-headed, through and through.
“Oh.”
Hmm.
This conversation was really going nyowhere.
And I felt like I was trying pretty h
ard─in fact, I’d say I tried pretty hard the time before the culture festival, too.
I nyoh you might nyot believe me, but I do feel like I went too far during Golden Week.
So if we could bring this to a peaceful end, that’s what I wanted─but when I faced that annyoying little human before the culture festival, I was dealing with a human, while we were two aberrations this time. Nyot only that, we were created by the same myaster, and we still couldn’t commyunicate. It was really getting me down.
It seemed like I couldn’t blame it all on the Tyrannical Tiger, though.
Well, nyothing I could do about that.
Nyot that it seemed like my myaster would be able to convince her. So I guess I was the right cat for the job.
Someone had to bring this runaway girl back home.
And it seemed like that was my task.
Unlike me, the Tyrannical Tiger didn’t share memories with my myaster─or emotions, either.
While I said we were similar aberrations, she was still a different breed.
And that’s why.
I had to use words to commyunicate with her, but─
“Hey, tiger.”
“I should go ahead and tell you that I personyally don’t intend to say one thing or anyother about the stuff you’ve done until now. I’m nyot planning on criticizing you and saying it was a crime to burn down that home or that building. Arson being a crime is a human idea, after all.”
If they went around cracking down on that kind of thing, they’d be purrsecuting most aberrations out there, and that included me during Golden Week.
And anyway, while there might be a decent nyumber of tiger aberrations, you can find even more fire aberrations out there. A countless nyumber, even. Seriously, there’s so many you might start to think that you could just group them all together.
You can’t possibly crack down on all of them.
Just like how you can’t crack down on every parking violation in the world.
“But,” I interrupted the Tyrannical Tiger mid-sentence.
I cut her off─and glared at her.
“I told you before, nyo? I’m nyot going to forgive you if you hurt my myaster.”
The Tyrannical Tiger had a puzzled look on her face. Nyot as though my words weren’t getting through, but as if she truly didn’t understand them.
“……”
Yeah, pawbably.
That was the truth to this tiger.
Nyo─it was the absolute truth.
My myaster envied the Senjogaharas’ home.
To the point of wanting it to burn.
That was the truth.
And it was also the truth that she envied those two organyisms known as her “parents” that I’d sent to the hospital over Golden Week. And she was envious that the little human asked only the monkey girl for help.
But still, you nyoh.
“Her feelings of trying to hold back that envy were also true─tiger. And you’re ignyoring that fact.”
They can only burn. They burn.
As if to wash it all away, as if to sweep it into the sea.
They can only reduce everything to nothingness─as if it never existed.
They can only make it so that it never happened.
Saying this, the Tyrannical Tiger took a step toward me.
Meow.
Surprisingly, she seemed to be the furst one to get all hot and bothered─then again, she was rooted in flames.
“Well, between us two aberrations, you’re in the right here,” I said.
There was nyo denying it.
I was the one who wasn’t acting like a nyaberration─I mean, I used to be an Afflicting Cat, which is supposed to be more about getting payback than paying anyone back.
If you thought about it, at furst I was the one who’d been trying to harm our myaster.
I just happened to have a change of heart.
And nyow─I was risking life and limb for my myaster’s sake. You nyever nyew.
It was almost like.
I─was a human or something.
“Our myaster’s friend lives in the apartment you’re about to burn down─and at this hour, I don’t think it’s going to happen to be empty like with your other two fires so far.”
They were pawbably sleeping in there.
That woman might have talked about how she was concerned that her home or the Araragis’ could catch on fire, but I nyew that wouldn’t keep her from going to sleep.
I nyew that from going through my myaster’s memories.
That’s how much she trusted my myaster─
I nyew.
And that’s why I nyeeded to fight.
As Black Hanekawa.
As Tsubasa Hanekawa.
“I nyoh our myaster will cry if that woman dies. And I nyeed to do anything I can to keep that from happening.”
She’ll only continue to live that way.
Giving birth to countless monsters.
Keeping only herself pure and white─clean and pretty.
Never hating another, never resenting another.
Kind and loving to all.
She will live a beautiful life.
Ever the real deal.
Said the tiger.
“Nyo.”
And then I─
Hold on.
This was nyot me speaking─that’s not who it was at all.
It was me.
I─
Tsubasa Hanekawa─denied it.
“No. I decided to stop already. I want to become someone who hates others. I want to become someone who resents others. I want to be unable to be kind and loving to others the way I have been until now. I’m sure people will start to dislike me and detest me. I’ll probably become short-tempered and unforgiving. I think I’ll start getting frustrated and annoyed. I might become dumber. I might not be able to laugh anymore. I might start weeping and sobbing.”
Yes.
Araragi would be really disappointed.
I’d no longer be able to overlook the way he messed around, I bet─oh, but maybe that would still make him happy.
Because that’s the kind of person he is.
A kind person.
I really did feel─so jealous.
“But that’s fine. I’m fine with that.”
I’d looked away from reality.
I’d forced you two to do all of my dirty work. And I’m sick and tired of it.
What I was doing to you.
How was it any different from what had been done to me?
“I don’t want to be the real deal, I want to be real,” I said. “I don’t need to be beautiful. I don’t need to be white. I want to get dirty, just like the two of you.”
