Tsukimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  That being said, I honestly didn’t know how to show her my toenail when I was standing in the middle of a vacant lot and she was up in the air on the shoulders of a tween girl.

  Well, nothing for it but to improvise since I didn’t have time for a rehearsal… I took off my sneaker, removed my sock, balled the sock up and put it into the shoe─then, taking a pose like the Y balance in rhythmic gymnastics, I extended my foot towards Ms. Kagenui.

  “That’s just about the strangest pose I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  What’s that supposed to mean, you’re the one who asked me!

  But before I could even think that, Ms. Kagenui grabbed hold of the foot I’d raised partway off the ground (I hadn’t actually made it to a full Y balance. I’m not that flexible) and pulled it close to her face─I thought I was going to go head over heels, which is to say I almost did go head over heels, but Ms. Kagenui kept that from happening, by brute force.

  In other words, she was able to support my entire body weight simply by holding my ankle with one of her hands─just how strong was she?

  Maybe they hadn’t exaggerated her brutality in the anime after all.

  “Mirrors─”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s plenty frightening not to have a reflection─sure enough it is, but there’s an aberration what only appears in mirrors as well, I reckon.”

  “Ah…you’re right.”

  I couldn’t bring a name to mind─but I did recall hearing about ghosts that only appear in mirrors, evil spirits that live in mirrors, aberrations that are themselves mirrors.

  There were too many to count.

  I don’t think that had anything directly to do with the matter at hand, though, I imagine Ms. Kagenui just brought it up to fill the time while she was examining my toenail.

  “What’d that child─that vampire, the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, have to say about this here toe?”

  “Let’s see… That little girl, who’s sulking now thanks to you…said there’d been an infinitesimal fracture that slowly sealed from the inside out, and that the bone was fully healed─that was this morning’s diagnosis.”

  “Was it now? This morning, eh? Well, take a looksee.”

  “Sorr…eeeeee?”

  Ms. Kagenui pulled my leg up even further and shoved the nail right up to my face. My stance was now well past a Y balance, and more like an I balance.

  Yes, it hurt.

  The joints in my crotch groaned.

  Or maybe it was just my voice I was hearing.

  “See there. All better.”

  “…”

  To be frank, the pose was neither stable nor settled enough for me to ascertain the state of something as small as my pinky toenail, but when I forced my eyes up to look at it, sure enough, it seemed to be just as she said. The split in the nail had repaired itself, and the scab was gone.

  This may sound a bit overblown when all we’re talking about is a pinky toenail, but─it was definitely a full recovery.

  Yes, as though…as though a vampiric healing factor was in effect.

  “It’s hard to tell from a purely external examination whether or not a fracture has healed, but we don’t need an X-ray to see that the nail, at least, is back to normal… And it’s definitely out of the question for a nail to repair itself like this in just one day,” I summed up the situation for everyone’s benefit, recapping the parts that added up, and the parts that didn’t. “But the weird thing is, Ms. Kagenui─when I was putting on my socks to leave the house, my toe wasn’t in nearly such good shape. It was pretty much like it’d been this morning when Shinobu made her diagnosis… Superficially, at least, it hadn’t gotten better at all.”

  “The reason’s obvious, oblivious monstieur.” This response came not from Ms. Kagenui but from below her, from Ononoki. She extended one finger (probably just out of habit, but knowing the power inherent in that finger made it a terrifying gesture) and pointed at the sky.

  At the sky─the night sky.

  The dark night sky, the sun having already set.

  “Oh, I get it. A vampire’s power gets stronger at night─”

  “And you’ve probably gotten plenty of moonlight. Moonbathing, not sunbathing, salves a vampire’s wounds. Yaaay.”

  The instant she said yaaay she got a kick from Ms. Kagenui. It was a violent form of discipline, but I can’t say I didn’t see where she was coming from.

  Not that I’m in much of a position to talk, being partially to blame for that yaaay.

  “So that means Shinobu’s diagnosis was right. Her deduction that I’m currently in vampire form means…”

  It wasn’t just regular healing, it was creature-of-the-night healing─vampire healing, in other words. No question about it.

  “Well, I’ll not render judgment quite yet, I reckon─not having seen the original wound and all. Here now, Yotsugi.”

  “What is it, Big Sis?”

  “Take a gander.” With that Ms. Kagenui tugged me around by my ankle once more─not back to my original position, but to an angle slightly lower than that of a Y balance, somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety to a hundred degrees.

  And just like that she jammed my bare foot up to Ononoki’s face. Right up to it. She pushed the sole of my foot onto the tween girl’s face and rubbed it around, which was pretty kinky in its own way.

  I wondered what the onmyoji was doing, if it was to please me or something, but then Ms. Kagenui instructed her familiar to “investigate.”

  “Okay, okay.” With this somewhat recalcitrant response, Ononoki took my ankle from Ms. Kagenui─come on, guys, my leg isn’t a relay baton.

  Realistically, having it held by Ononoki instead of Kagenui should’ve been scarier, beyond scary in fact, but at that moment I was somewhat relieved that the baton had passed.

  My relief only lasted a few seconds, though, really just the time it took for Ms. Kagenui to pass me off to Ononoki, who quickly put my toe into her mouth like a pacifier. This made even an inveterate veteran like myself quake with fear.

  Shinobu tortuously torturing my foot was one thing, but putting it in your mouth and sucking on it? That was something else entirely.

  It didn’t even tickle.

  “It’s crunchy.”

  “Hey, no teeth! No biting, no biting!”

  “Don’t get so cranky, it’s just a pinky toe.”

  “Cranky─!”

  Sensing imminent, potentially fatal danger, I pulled away my leg─while Ms. Kagenui’s hold had been so tight that my leg probably would’ve torn right off, Ononoki, despite holding it with both arms, was so intent on sucking on my toe that I was able to extract myself easily.

  “What d’you reckon, Yotsugi?”

  “Results pending.”

  “Well then, Araragi, my boy. While Yotsugi’s processing the flavor of your foot, how’s about we move on to the next step? Your hand, if you please.”

  “My hand?”

  “Uh huh, just make believe I’m a fortune teller.”

  I’d mistakenly offered her my hands when she wanted to see my toenail, couldn’t she just have checked then? Proper sequence is crucial, was that it? Actually, Oshino might have said something along those lines at one point.

  Ms. Kagenui’s next step, however, didn’t refer to any crucial sequence.

  It was probably about time to stop assuming that she and Oshino had anything in common.

  I put out my hand like she asked.

  And she took hold of it gently, softly, indeed much like a fortune teller would─so much so, in fact, that I wondered if she actually was going to read my palm, like maybe my palm could elucidate everything about my current situation. But that wasn’t what was going on.

  “And a-one, and a-two.”

  Ms. Kagenui took my outstretched hand and held my index and middle fingers. Then she bent them back to an untenable angle. So it wasn’t my fingers that she’d counted…

  “G…Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

  “What a ruckus, I do declare. Well, I’ve put up a barrier around the place, so you can writhe and scream all you like, it won’t make a lick of difference.”

  When?

  It didn’t seem like she’d had an opportunity to put up a barrier, but I guess that’s the kind of skill you should expect from a disciple (?) of Ms. Gaen’s. Not that I had the leeway to be impressed.

  I couldn’t even work up the energy to ask what she meant by a barrier.

  Now, since I’ve been wounded so many times, and who even knows how many times I’ve died, you’d think I’d be accustomed to pain. But pain isn’t something you ever get accustomed to. When a vampire’s wound heals, it “goes back to the way it was,” just like for a normal person; when you break a bone, it’s not like it gets stronger than it was originally.

  So I didn’t hold back. I collapsed and, just as Ms. Kagenui had offered, writhed screaming on the ground.

  “Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Wh-Wh-What are you doing, Ms. Kagenui! You can’t suddenly owowowow─”

  “Now this won’t do at all. Don’t only writhe around down there─turn your mind to healing those fingers for a spell. Believe that they’ll heal. This is a test of your healing ability.”

  “T-Test?”

  So then─

  This act of violence, this unforgivable brutality, was just Ms. Kagenui’s version of Shinobu scratching me with her claws─just a trial of my body’s ability to heal itself?

  Fine, I saw how this step couldn’t come first, but hold on a goddamn second.

  She was more ferocious than any aberration.

  “You’ve got to put your mind to the grindstone. Think of your fingers healing, conceive of it. Look here, those fingers are on your right hand, aren’t they? And the way I broke them, the way they broke, it’ll take them plenty more than a few piddling months to heal. You won’t be able to get back to a little thing called exam prep with fingers like that, now, will you, unless you heal them yourself.”

  “Guh…”

  Not exactly the best motivation.

  In fact, broken fingers were a great excuse not to study─well, I’m injured, nothing I can do about it.

  Never underestimate a high school student’s desire to slack off.

  Plus, without a better motivation for wanting to heal my broken fingers ASAP─I could die from the pain. Maybe broken fingers didn’t kill you, but the pain was killing me.

  I mean, the fucking color they were turning.

  What did you do to them, Ms. Kagenui?

  Forget a few months, these fingers wouldn’t heal in a lifetime.

  “G…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!”

  Think about it.

  Think, think, think.

  Picture it with everything you’ve got.

  If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal. If these fingers don’t heal.

  “If these fingers don’t heal…I won’t be able to fondle Hanekawa’s breasts!”

  Well.

  Even if they healed, I still wouldn’t get to.

  Apparently, though, this incentive was more than adequate; it was perfect. My two fingers, which had turned a blackish purple thanks to internal hemorrhaging, healed instantaneously─went back to normal.

  “Just how pubescent are you?” Ms. Kagenui said, smiling despite her words.

  Wasn’t she a broadminded sis. Not even appalled.

  “But thank you kindly for demonstrating your healing factor, your manner of regenerating. Now, Yotsugi, a body’s keen to hear the results of your inspection.”

  “Results still pending…I’m about 84 percent done. I’ve got the basic picture, though. Big Sis Shinobu’s interpretation that he’s become a vampire is probably correct. But…”

  “But?”

  Thanks for the worrisome conjunction.

  “But─no, I can’t say the rest.”

  “Hey, you’re making me worry,” I butted in. “Why’re you acting like that?”

  “For my part, I’d rather talk to your parents first if possible.”

  “…”

  Ononoki was as expressionless as a doll, as a corpse, so it was always impossible to tell if she was being serious, but I really hoped this was a joke.

  I felt like I was being sentenced.

  “So…that’s a joke, right, Ononoki? You’re kidding,” I tried to confirm.

  “Um, the bit about your parents, yes… But maybe you’d better call Big Sis Shinobu. Get her out of her hidey-hole in your shadow. I’d like to get that demon’s opinion on this one.”

  “I reckon that’s a good idea,” seconded Ms. Kagenui. “If I ruffled her feathers by standing on her head earlier, I’ll happily apologize, so come now, young man, summon the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.”

  “Okay…”

  That all made good sense. I had some things I wanted to ask my buddy as well, so I had no reason to refuse their request. But then, I’d already used up my trump card that morning.

  If I lured her out with fictitious donuts twice in one day, I really might end up donutized─when night fell, she would’ve regained some of her power, maybe enough to put a hole in me if she wanted.

  Therefore.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Kagenui, but if I’m going to do that, do you mind if I make a quick run to Mister Donut first?”

  “What in tarnation?!”

  A comeback in Kansai dialect!

  Now, that was a treat.

  “Don’t waste my time, young man, call her out of there lickety-split. I’ll not wait around. If it seems like it’s fixing to take too long, I might just stick my hand into your shadow and pull her out like some intestines.”

  “Like some intestines?”

  Was that a common figure of speech to go with “pull out”?

  “I’m of a mind to rip that whole head of blond hair out at the─hm?”

  Before Ms. Kagenui could complete whatever disturbing thought she was about to express, Shinobu Oshino finally appeared from within my shadow. Good timing, almost as if she’d heard what Ms. Kagenui was saying.

  Unlike this morning when she popped out all lively with her fist in the air, this time she rose out solemnly with great pomp and circumstance. She’d even revamped her outfit into some kind of classy dress.

  Her eyes seemed puffy, and knowing her as I did, I wanted to ask her if she’d been crying herself a river in there, but as she made her entrance, arms folded, her chin thrust high in the air so she could look down her nose at us, that gruesome smile plastered on her face, there was no way I could rib her about it.

  “Ah, the former Heartunderblade. Sorry ’bout having the audacity to stand on your head earlier and all.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “…”

  Man, could she not read a room.

  Some grown-up.

  Sorry ’bout? Come on. And she didn’t seem the least bit contrite… This is just a guess, but I bet Ms. Kagenui never once in her life admitted that she was wrong.

  “K…Kakak.”

  Nevertheless, Shinobu did her best to laugh.

  Such courage, it brought tears to your eyes.

  “Kakak. It seems as though thine investigation of my master hath reached its conclusion. Ye have my thanks for carrying it out in my stead. I suppose ’tis true what they say, that to everything there is a season, if even ones such as you can be of use to my lord.”

  “Hahaha, my apologies. Truly, for having driven you to such ludicrously untoward posturing. That was never my intent. Your head simply seemed a likely place to come in for a landing.”

  “…”

  Enough already.

  Daring to read other people’s minds when you can’t even read the room. />
  Seemed a likely place to come in for a landing… This was probably the first time in her almost six hundred years that someone had made that particular remark to Shinobu, and there was no question that it was an almost unthinkable insult.