by Nisioisin
Could it really have been─poison?
Neurotoxins, hemotoxins, cardiotoxins.
A serum was─indispensable.
Would my attacks work on an aberration to begin with? Even regular snakes had such vitality that they seemed to refuse to die. Could a half-assed thing like me, a human with a bit of residual vampirism, hope to oppose it? It didn’t seem completely futile, given that the Jagirinawa started attacking me the moment I dug my fingers into its body─but at this rate, wasn’t kiting it all I could ever hope to do?
What would count as defeating this aberration?
No.
There was a more fundamental question… Was it even okay to defeat─this aberration? If I defeated it, would that be the end? Was it the handiest solution─as Mèmè Oshino might say?
Demons, cats, crabs, snails, monkeys─
Snakes.
Some saw snakes as holy─
“My senior Araragi!”
It was Kanbaru.
Suruga Kanbaru─was dashing toward me.
At full speed.
As if she were using her no-mere-high-schooler legs to─kamikaze me.
Idiot, I told her to stay away─no, wait!
“……!”
Right…maybe Kanbaru could!
Kanbaru’s left arm, the monkey’s paw, the monkey’s arm─had the terrifying attack power we needed to counter the Jagirinawa! Within her left arm─resided a catapult that could smash through concrete blocks unaided. The Jagirinawa could have a body of steel and still be helpless against Kanbaru’s unbridled strength.
But─if there was a problem, it was that unlike me, Kanbaru didn’t have any healing abilities. If the Jagirinawa dodged her attack and retaliated with a bite, there would be no way to undo the damage. It would be irreparable and irreversible─and if I was right and the Jagirinawa was a poisonous snake, her life would be in immediate danger under even the most optimistic of scenarios. How ironic. I had the ability to recover from attacks but couldn’t deal any damage, while the opposite went for her. Another factor I needed to keep in mind was affinity. This field was a bane to Kanbaru. Even now, she must be feeling pretty sick─
In fact.
However.
“─Forgive me!”
Kanbaru’s attack was aimed─at me.
Not the Jagirinawa. Me.
With that left arm, she grabbed me hard by the base of my neck and, drawing on her momentum, used her vaunted legs to all but leap─and shove me. I, with my one good leg, couldn’t hope to stand firm. Like a speck of dust in a raging sandstorm─I was blown away. Her left hand, still planted on my neck, wouldn’t let go. It didn’t let go. It held on. We flew about fifteen feet in the air like that─
Before slamming into the ground.
It may have been a soft, dirt surface blanketed with foliage.
But the full-body impact was so stunning that I couldn’t breathe for a moment.
Kanbaru had made good on her word and shoved me off my feet with her left arm alone─though it wasn’t down onto a bed.
I yelled, “Wh-What was that for─Kanbaru!”
She silently lay on top of me, in a full mount in grappling terms, using not only her left arm but her entire body to restrain me. I couldn’t begin to resist given the state of my right arm and left─no.
Not even if my body was in perfect condition.
Not even if Kanbaru’s arm wasn’t a monkey’s arm.
If she really tried to pin me down, there was nothing I could do about it. A jock on the national level against a washout whose only extracurricular activity was biking home. Being a year older or a guy didn’t matter one bit. Struggle as I might, I couldn’t even budge. My body was pasted to the ground, and though Kanbaru couldn’t be that heavy, I felt like she was crushing me.
“Kanbaru…you─”
“Stay still! Calm down!”
“Calm down?”
“The poison is going to spread through your blood if you don’t!”
Kanbaru was close to me─our faces were practically touching, but she shouted so loud I thought she’d perforate my eardrums.
“Snakes are savage but shy creatures─they won’t do anything if you don’t approach and assault them! Don’t provoke it! Just stay still, and the snake will go away!”
“………kk.”
Snake─behavior.
It was the same─even for an aberration.
Be it gripping or the use of pit organs.
Which meant─
Kanbaru was exactly right.
Even I─knew that much.
If I stayed still─the Jagirinawa would leave.
I’d already peeled it off of Sengoku.
The snake─would go back.
“…B-But, Kanbaru! That─”
It would only go back.
It wouldn’t be banished.
It would return.
Turning back on the caster of the curse─
When one is cursed, two holes are dug.
When one is cursed─two holes are dug.
Like a snake piercing the skin─two holes are dug.
“I beg you─” Kanbaru said in a pained voice. Like she was pleading with me. “Don’t mistake who you’re trying to save here.”
Ssszzzsss.
Ssszzzsss.
Ssszzzsss.
I heard it.
The sound of the Jagirinawa crawling on the ground─I couldn’t see the dust rising or the grass being parted from my angle. But─I could tell the sound was receding at a steady pace. The Jagirinawa─was trying to crawl away. Perhaps it had lost sight of me after Kanbaru’s left arm had transported me fifteen feet away in one go. Or maybe─the Jagirinawa hadn’t given a damn about me in the first place.
The snake─was going back.
Back to the one who had cast it.
Bringing back with it─its curse.
“………”
Slump─I could feel my strength leaving me. I wouldn’t make it in time. I could give chase, but what hope did I have of following a snake I couldn’t see? Its sound and its presence would vanish once it left the grounds. And, to begin with, there was no getting out from under Kanbaru.
Even if I could─I couldn’t see myself doing it.
“My senior Araragi…”
Kanbaru must have felt me slump powerlessly─there was concern in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized to her. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I’m sorry I forced that role onto you.”
“Please, don’t apologize… I wouldn’t know how to reply.”
“Yeah…sorry.”
“My senior Araragi.”
“I’m sorry, Kanbaru… I’m really sorry…”
Sorry─was all I could say to her.
It felt like I was always apologizing to Kanbaru when it mattered the most. I really felt bad. Burdening her…for being such a pathetic senior, I really did─feel bad.
Kanbaru’s decision was the right one. There was no denying it. I could have continued, but I had almost no chance of beating the Jagirinawa. How could I, a mock aberration, ever handle a real, live aberration? Frantically dodging the snake’s biting attacks and collapsing from the poison rushing through my body as a result was the best outcome I could have hoped for.
But─I just hadn’t been able to give up.
It was like I’d been throwing a tantrum.
That’s why it hurt so much.
The pain in my right arm, the pain in my left leg─
They were nothing compared to this other pain.
I was flimsy.
I was feeble.
I was─utterly powerless.
“Big Brother Koyomi…”
The snake gone─
Sengoku approached Kanbaru and me with faltering steps, having regained consciousness. The boundary was pointless now that the aberration had departed─and the scale markings eating into her flesh had vanished from every inch of her skin visible on her swimsuit-clad body.
Not half-gone.
Fully gone.
Her skin was fair, smooth, beautiful.
She wasn’t suffering anymore.
She wasn’t hurting anymore.
She wasn’t going to have to cry anymore─
“Big Brother Koyomi. Thank you for saving me.”
Stop it.
Sengoku.
Please…don’t mouth words like “thank you” that I can’t bear to hear. I don’t have any right to be thanked by you. Because of all things─I was trying to save even the person who cursed you.
007
The epilogue, or maybe, the punch line of this story.
I was roused awake the next day as usual by my little sisters Karen and Tsukihi and began getting ready to go to school. Tuesday, June thirteenth, a weekday. My right arm and my left leg seemed to have healed to the point where everyday tasks didn’t pose an issue. With Kanbaru and Sengoku supporting me on both sides, pathetically enough, I had gone to the abandoned cram school afterwards to have Shinobu drink a bit of my blood so as to bolster my body’s healing capabilities. However hands-off my parents, I couldn’t come home with a crushed arm and foot. As ever, Shinobu didn’t speak to me. Perhaps she was appalled, perhaps she wasn’t thinking anything at all. Either way, she couldn’t have minded a surprise opportunity to drink even more of my blood and must have been in one of her better moods. As a matter of proper procedure I did give a simple report of the events to Oshino, but he didn’t say much either. Perhaps he was appalled─perhaps he wasn’t thinking anything at all.
After that, I spent the night with everyone in one of the abandoned cram school’s rooms. Sengoku had lied to her parents and said she was at a friend’s sleepover party, so she had to be somewhere that night. With no other suitable locations available to us, we slept right there in the ruins. We were excited at first like kids on a school trip, but all three of us must have been tired and fell asleep in no time.
If it’s winter, then spring isn’t far behind.
Night is always followed by day.
Kanbaru and I walked Sengoku home, promised to meet again, then parted ways. After putting together some plans for Senjogahara’s birthday party for a bit, I split up with Kanbaru too at a crosswalk. Then, once I finally got home and got to work falling back asleep in my own bed, I was roused awake by my little sisters. For no real reason, I asked Tsukihi, “Do you remember Sengoku?”
She replied saying she did.
Oh, you mean Sen?
When I heard that, I remembered─just as she’d called me Big Brother Koyomi, I’d called her Sen.
Even so─
I couldn’t call her that now.
Changing into my school uniform, I began to think.
About why there had been two Jagirinawa.
Why two snakes─had possessed Sengoku.
There was that girl, her friend, with her misbegotten grudge─she resented how the boy she fancied confessed to Sengoku only to get turned down. The girl turned to occult charms, a fad at her school, and to a top-drawer curse at that. It was her way of venting steam, and she must not have thought that it would actually work…
That incident alone offered up one more person─another character who might have resented Sengoku. Yes, the boy whom Sengoku had given the cold shoulder. As with Sengoku’s friend, I didn’t know his name─but it wouldn’t be shocking if he, too, held a misbegotten grudge against her. You could even call it reasonable, psychologically speaking. A simple case─of romantic entanglements. Of being head over heels. The girls didn’t have an exclusive patent on those charms that were a fad at their school. It was entirely possible for someone to attempt a curse without informing the target like an honest fool. Placing a curse in earnest─also a possibility.
When one is cursed, two holes are dug.
Well, that’s all just my conjecture. I don’t have any firm evidence, and even if I’m right, who the Jagirinawa went back to, the girl or the boy, and how a returned curse works is something I can’t hope to figure out.
Sengoku doesn’t need to know, either.
However you look at it, that would be shoes on a snake.