by Nisioisin
He’d hoodwink just about anyone if it was on my behalf─so he’d said.
Then just this once, I’d get on board with that ickiness.
I’d exploit every resource at my disposal.
…Nah, that hackneyed phrase just isn’t for me. After all, if I actually felt that way, it would have been most expedient to rely on my dear senior.
“So Kanbaru. That mummified head, the devil’s head─do you think I can have it?” asked Numachi. From her perspective, it must have seemed like a compromise, like she was cutting me some slack─she was nothing if not a pacifist.
Even at this juncture, she wanted to select a method where we’d both come out unscathed.
I don’t know if that constituted Easy or Normal or what, but it was a possibility. Just as it was plenty possible to avoid a clash, to kick the can down the line, and to leave it to the future to resolve the issue.
She just didn’t think like me, that’s all.
She was right.
She had to be.
But I was also right.
I had to be.
Neither of us was wrong─but when right collided with right, only one could win out.
“Not a chance,” I said. “I don’t want to be cold to my old archrival after she went to all the trouble of coming here to meet me─but I can’t give this to you.”
“Why not?”
“I wonder.” Half of me was genuinely troubled by Numachi’s question. “If I have to give a reason, then how about this: I’m worried that if you finish collecting all the parts of the devil, you’ll turn into the real thing yourself.”
“Play with a devil and you’ll become a devil, is that it? I’m not a weakling, unlike the rest of you.”
“Who knows? I mean, this is the head─the brain, of all things… But no, you won’t, you’re probably right. You’re strong. You don’t need to ask a devil to grant your wishes. If you have a wish, you’ll grant it yourself. So if I have to give a reason─” I tried to weigh my words, but they were too heavy. “I just can’t stand to look at you.”
“Can’t stand to look? That’s fine, just don’t look then.”
She seemed suspicious, and I shook my head.
Sure, totally.
But I can’t help it.
Because I can see you─whether I like it or not.
Whether it’s because we had both possessed pieces of the devil or because I was prey to the sort of unhappiness that made someone turn to Lord Devil for advice, or because we were archrivals back in the day, I can’t say.
But I can see you.
Since I can see you─I can’t stand to look at you.
“I think every event in the world comes down to that feeling,” I said. “I can’t stand to look, I can’t leave it alone, that kind of simple motivation is at the root. Even justice and evil must start out as not being able to stand it─we’re forced to look at things we don’t want to see, and we can’t bear it.”
“…”
“Let’s settle it with a match, Numachi.” I took the paulownia box out of my bag and flourished it at her as I spoke. “This is the showdown. On the court of this gym, one on one. If you win, I’ll give you this piece of our cultural heritage. And if you lose, you’ll give up collecting unhappiness and devil parts─forever.”
“…What the hell? That’s ridiculous,” she said as if it really was ridiculous, and out of the question. As if she wouldn’t even consider it. “There’s nothing in it for me, is there?”
“Sure there is. If you decide to take me up on my offer, at the very least I won’t smash this mummified head to smithereens with a hammer.”
“A hammer… You must be joking.”
“I’m not. As a collector, I don’t see how you can pass this up─but even more than that, if you really were a basketball player, how can you refuse?”
“I warn you…” Numachi narrowed her eyes in a glare that announced she was doing just that. “If that mummified head is on the table, this won’t be fun and games like it was last time. It’ll be an actual match.”
“Yeah? I was sure you were playing your hardest last time.”
“Actual means actually using this devil’s arm and leg─Kanbaru, do you really think that a regular human like you has any chance of beating me?”
“If I didn’t…I wouldn’t play, would I.”
My reply didn’t sound as confident as I would have liked, but I’d mustered as much bravado as I could.
Araragi-senpai would definitely have gone for a bigger bluff.
“So? What’ll it be?”
“I’ll do it,” answered Numachi. “Of course I’ll do it─but there’s something I want to ask you first. There’s clearly something in it for me, you’ve proved your point on that score. But what about you, Kanbaru? What the hell do you get out of this little contest?”
“I already told you. If I win, you’ll give up both of your collections. I can’t do much about the unhappiness side of things, but I’ll take responsibility for disposing of the devil parts you’ve collected so far.”
“Sure, that’s to my detriment─but it isn’t really to your benefit, is it?”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, laying the paulownia box on the floor. “Your loss is my gain.”
“Ah… Okay.” Finally grasping the situation, Numachi looked bashful. “You hate me.”
“Exactly,” I nodded. I, too, must have smiled shyly. “Though with a personality like yours, you can’t possibly have thought otherwise.”
“But Kanbaru… With this arm and leg, I can take that box from you regardless of the outcome of our game, no? I can just knock you down and take the devil’s head from you by force, no? Aren’t you─afraid of that?”
“Nope─I’m not afraid.” This time it wasn’t bravado, I was just telling it like it is. “You may be a thief, Numachi, but I don’t think robbery is your thing. You’re not that kind of girl.”
“…”
“At least, that’s what I want to think.”
The you I think is most like you.
As I said this, I started changing my clothes right there on the court.
I didn’t want to take the time to go to the locker room─and it’s not like anyone besides Numachi was watching anyway.
It wasn’t gym clothes that were in my bag─but the commemorative uniform I’d worn in the nationals my freshman year.
It wasn’t a superstitious thing.
I turned my room upside down to find it, out of the extremely realistic expectation that much like using a familiar ball, wearing it would elicit the best possible performance from Basketball Player Suruga Kanbaru.
I also wore the high-tops from my playing days.
Talk about an actual match─that’s how I saw it too.
It couldn’t be more actual.
“You’re so trusting,” Numachi observed. “Leaving the box on the floor like that, getting naked in front of me.”
“I’ve got a bit of an exhibitionist streak.”
“Then─it must have been hellish having to keep your arm hidden for a whole year.”
“Yup,” I readily agreed. I’m not much good at hiding things.
“All right, let’s get this showdown on the road. Once I get my hands on that devil’s head, the rest of the parts will just fall into my lap. As you put it yourself, it’s literally the brains of the operation─”
And so saying, Numachi busted open her casts just as she’d done the other day, revealing what was underneath, the truth of her devil’s body, for all the world to see. Not stopping there, she took off the jacket of her tracksuit so that she was sporting nothing but a Heattech shirt on top.
Ah ha.
Underneath that single layer of cloth─was a hellish sight.
There were pieces of the devil all over her body.
She somehow reminded me of a waxwork, just as her name implied─a poorly made one, in poor taste.
And one more layer down, under the skin─some of he
r organs almost certainly belonged to the devil as well.
She said she still had less than a third of them, but it looked like over half her body was already composed of devil parts.
Wanting more when she was already in that state went beyond the spirit of a collector, it could only be called the act of an obsessive monomaniac.
Or maybe in the beginning Numachi had been collecting pieces of the devil of her own accord─but now the devil was calling the shots?
Literally become its arms and legs.
Play with a devil and you’ll become a devil.
Numachi, herself, said that she wasn’t such a weakling─but who isn’t one?
If someone told you it would be granted.
Who the hell wouldn’t make a wish?
Anyone who wouldn’t─couldn’t possibly be human. They’d have to be a different order of being entirely.
A god, or a devil.
“Let’s keep it short and sweet, though, not like last time,” Numachi said. “A long, drawn-out game gives me too much of an advantage─in which case, I won’t feel like I actually ‘won.’”
“What, you don’t like having too much of an advantage?”
“It’s not that. I just don’t want you to call the result into question afterwards.”
“Gotcha…then let’s do it this way. Sudden death, with each of us playing to our respective strengths.”
“Sudden death?”
“One on one, one play, with me on offense and you on defense. If I can score a basket, I win, and if you can stop me, you win─like a fifty-meter dash in my old sprinting days, or a penalty kick when you played soccer.”
“That…” Numachi seemed wary and gave it some thought, but after due consideration she said, “still gives me too much of an advantage, doesn’t it?”
Just what you’d expect from the Poison Swamp.
Staggering self-confidence.
However─I had just as much of my own.
“Not at all. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t think it was to my advantage.”
“Yeah? Well, if we both think we’ve got the edge, then I don’t see a problem. The sooner we start, the sooner we’re done. I’d feel guilty if we kept holding up practice for all the active players.”
“Listen, Numachi.”
“What now?”
“Do you have qualms about passing on?” I asked as she moved to the free-throw line.
I couldn’t let our match begin without putting that question to her first─but.
But she responded with a “Huh?” and said, “Is that supposed to be some kind of metaphor since I’m turning into a devil? If it is, it’s a pretty crappy one. Shouldn’t you say ‘call up’ or something when you’re talking about a devil? ‘Pass on’ makes it sound like I’m a ghost. Anyway, Kanbaru, can you lend me some shoes? I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m not sure I can beat you barefoot. They don’t have to be high tops, regular sneakers are fine.”
“…Sure. Someone’s spares are probably in the locker room, help yourself.”
I can’t even picture the expression I must have had on my face as I said that.
I turned my back to her as fast as I could, so I doubt Numachi saw it, whatever it was─though I don’t think I could hide the fact that my back, my shoulders, my entire body was shaking.
“Okay. This way, right?”
Numachi left the free-throw line where she’d been standing and headed towards the locker room─the moment she was out of sight, my knees buckled under me and I sank to the floor.
Oh, my God.
The possibility hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Roka Numachi─didn’t realize she was dead.
She didn’t know that she was a ghost.
She wasn’t aware that she was an aberration that amassed misfortunes.
She’d forgotten─her own suicide.
“Is that even…possible?”
Well, it was.
When I thought about it, there were lots of old stories about ghosts who didn’t realize that they were dead.
I was desensitized after everything that happened last year─I’d come to accept aberrations as a perfectly normal part of everyday life.
Which they weren’t.
Not for most people.
So─it was no surprise if a lot of them had a hard time accepting the ludicrous proposition that they’d become residents of the afterlife.
By nature of the situation, there was no way to obtain statistical data─but they had to be in the majority.
Nobody.
Wanted to accept that they were dead, or to believe it in the first place.
However mentally tough Numachi was, however above it all, however much she liked to sound enlightened─it didn’t necessarily mean she could accept her own death.
She hadn’t been lying to me.
She really did believe that she was roaming around the country on the money from her insurance settlement, collecting unhappiness─it allowed her to make sense of her experiences.
Which is why she didn’t pass on or anything.
She was collecting unhappiness, gathering up the parts of a devil, like nothing had changed.
“I see… Got it… That’s what I’m about to do.”
This was beyond Hard Mode.
I was about to tell my old archrival that she was already dead─if this were Fist of the North Star I might be able to deliver the line in just the right way and make it sound cool, but here in the real world it would just be cruel.
Still, I’d do it.
And inflict that cruelty.
It was too late to turn back now─I’d already set my course.
If, as a result, I was able to liberate this wandering ghost, trapped in a cycle of unproductive behavior, this ghost with her two pathological collections─then in a certain sense, it might almost be an act of mercy.
But I couldn’t let that make me feel better about it.
That would be unacceptable.
A benevolent end in no way justifies the means─Numachi’s activities happened to help people too, and this was no different.
Benevolence and justice need to be willed, it mustn’t ever be any other way─I wasn’t trying to save her.
Simply put, I could very well have ended up like her─so yeah.
Since I couldn’t stand it.
I wanted to put her down. No more, no less.
“As her former archrival, I want to put an end to her.”
If I didn’t, someone else would.
Time would take care of it, just as it did the problems that high schoolers brought to Numachi. If I left it alone, Mister Oshino─or maybe Kaiki─at any rate, someone would take care of her.
But I was going to be the one to do it.
I wanted to.
I won’t say it felt like my duty, like I had to do it─no, when we really get down to it, it’s probably much simpler than that.
I just wanted to─properly beat the woman.
I wanted to beat Numachi.
I wanted to be sure─that she wasn’t me.
I had to make sure.
“Sorry that took so long. Ready to get started?”
Numachi came back from the locker room wearing a different basketball shoe on each foot─one of the shoes appeared to belong to a boy. She had to find something that fit her devil’s foot, so it was hardly surprising.
It wasn’t just her borrowed basketball shoes, though.
She was unbalanced across the board.
Unnatural.
Unstable.
And so, while I felt like I could find all sorts of reasons why I couldn’t leave her be─more would present themselves the more I thought about it─I only needed one.
Yes.
I wanted a showdown with her.
Despite the fact that I’m not much of a fighter, that’s what I wanted.
That and nothing more.
To settle, once and for all, the winner, the loser.