by Nisioisin
Wouldn’t the normal choice between the two be Miss Hankeawa─that’s what Hachikuji said. She wondered why I chose Miss Senjogahara─it struck her as odd.
Why.
How was I supposed to answer that one?
“It’s everything about Senjogahara, including her personality, that I love.”
I spoke the sentence in full.
Yes.
I love everything about her.
There’s not a part of her that I don’t love.
“It’s the first time in my life I’ve really fallen in love with someone.”
“Hmm. Really nyow.”
Black Hanekawa backed down─casually.
Like she knew from the start what I was going to say.
Maybe she did─she was Hanekawa.
Maybe she saw it all coming.
She knows everything.
No─not everything.
Only what she knows.
“And also, cat─even if a few months of exacerbated heartbreak surpassed ten-odd years of family strife…that still isn’t a reason for her to bring you out. She should have endured those headaches, like it or not. And not just this time, but during Golden Week, too─she relied on you out of weakness.”
She may not have been flimsy─but weakness was weakness.
Even if it wasn’t the result she wanted.
The weakness she ran to was the aggressor’s.
“It’s not you who should be saying those words to me, it’s Hanekawa─all she did was force the unpleasant work on you.”
Like the time with Sengoku’s snake.
That’s what I did to Kanbaru.
I put off a painful decision─and entrusted it to someone else.
That was just─having your cake and eating it too.
“You’re a Hindering Cat─an aberration. But an aberration that appeared out of Hanekawa’s weakness. She may not have wished for what you gave her─but what you gave her was what she wanted. Everything you did, Hanekawa did. I know, of course…Hanekawa has her reasons. And I know this isn’t something I should be saying, given that I share some responsibility for both times─but I’m pretty sure there are people in similar environments who manage to get out of them on their own, without relying on any aberration. The fact that Hanekawa relied on something like you is an insult to all of them.”
“Well, well. Listen to you,” Black Hanekawa sneered at me. “I guess ya have a right to say that─it’s okay for you. You’re a kind soul who’d even sacrifice himself to save a vampire on the brink of death.”
“……”
“Being kind to everyone means ya don’t have anyone special─I know, because my myaster is kind to everyone, too. Hmph. Well, okay, nyothing I can do. Ya can’t change someone’s feelings─I found that out last time. I found out, and learned.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” So we were just going to have to find Shinobu, after all. No surprise that there was no convenient solution. “But…I wonder if it’s also the case for Hanekawa. If it is, then attacking her like I just did might be a little harsh…”
“Hrm? Whatcha talking about?”
“Oh, you know─I might be a mockery of one, but I’m still kind of like a vampire. And vampires have this ability, the power of fascination…which is why I’ve been so popular with girls ever since spring break. You must know about this, Hanekawa was the one who told me.”
“We might share knowledge, but we don’t share meowmories. Like ya said, I only know about things related to her stress.”
“Oh, right.”
Still, I was already a vampire when I met Hanekawa. And not any mockery, either─it was before I became human again, during my genuine, full-fledged vampire days─you couldn’t begin to compare my powers of fascination and whatever else now to the ones I had then. Hanekawa fell face-first into the middle of that.
“She’s a serious girl,” I said. “If that’s why she started brooding over me, I think it’d make her a complete victim─”
“………”
“What’s wrong? Why’d you go quiet?”
“Nyo─that’s nyot true,” replied Black Hanekawa. “Yes, it’s true that vampires can charm people─but even among true vampires, only certain types have that ability. So there’s nyo way a knockoff vampire like you, who went from human to vampire, could ever use it.”
“What? But─”
“And fascination isn’t like some handy love potion ya might see in a myanga, anyway. The targets lose control of their will. It’s the power to make puppets out of people.”
“Make─puppets out of them? Not enthrall them?”
“Tell me, human. Is there a girl around you who’s purrfectly obedient to your orders? Someone that does exactly what ya tell them, never once defying you?”
“………”
There wasn’t a single person like that.
There absolutely wasn’t.
Even Sengoku, the most docile of the bunch, inflicted unthinkable acts on me like handing me volleyball shorts and a school swimsuit in front of my own high school’s gates.
But was the aberration saying that based on Hanekawa’s knowledge?
After all, it was Hanekawa herself who’d told me─
That was mean of me, wasn’t it.
Oh…that’s what she meant.
It was a lie.
A lie─something she claimed never to tell.
In that case, I knew what that meant about me and Senjogahara─but Hanekawa, too.
But given what I now knew, it seemed less like a case of being mean than a sort of lament─Tsubasa Hanekawa’s doleful wish for that to have been our reality. She’d have been able to relieve some of her stress had it been the case─because she could blame it on an outside force.
But there was no one else for her to blame.
“Ya can’t change someone’s feelings─meow. I see, though. That wasn’t like my myaster to do. Hmph, looks like not being able to lie caused me to let the cat out of the bag.”
“I guess it’s another instance of forcing the hard work on you.”
It wasn’t a good thing. The relief I felt, though, overshadowed that. It wasn’t thanks to any vampire’s, any aberration’s power, it was me, as myself─
It was because I’m Koyomi Araragi.
“So─I can feel proud.”
“Hrm?”
“That Hanekawa fell in love with me─”
What was that if not an honor?
I felt like that fact alone was enough to keep me going.
But to think that things would turn out like this… What would I have to do, at this point, to repay Hanekawa?
“Well, for now, we need to focus on tucking you away─damn it, where did Shinobu run off to? I haven’t heard a word from anyone helping, either… Oh, and I need to order Sengoku to pull back soon…”
Wait, how would I do that?
She didn’t have a cell phone.
Oh no. She could use a pay phone to contact me, but I had no way to contact her… What was I going to do? She could be stubborn in her own weird way, so she wasn’t going to head home of her own accord without finding Shinobu, no matter how late it got…
Maybe…Kanbaru?
I could get her to temporarily stop looking for Shinobu and try to find Sengoku instead. Was that going to be it? Agh, why was I always having to rely on her when it mattered the most… I wouldn’t ever be able to pay Kanbaru back at this rate. I was feeling ready to do anything she told me.
“Hey, human.” I had my cell phone in hand as Black Hanekawa spoke to me. Her tone seemed somehow different from every utterance she’d made so far. “There’s─one more way.”
“One more?”
“A quick and effective way to get me back in there without relying on any vampire─the easiest way is for ya to date my myaster, but this might be the second easiest.”
“I have my doubts about any plans you and your brain would come up with…but I’ll listen. What is it?”
“Walk for me a bit. Over there, to below that street lamp.”
“Like this?”
I did as she said.
I wasn’t getting my hopes up, but I needed to try any plan I could get my hands on. Still, I didn’t see what moving a dozen feet would do.
“Ah, a little to the front. You’d be right below it otherwise.”
“Right below?”
I tilted my head as she continued to talk nonsensically, but still took a step forward─and then.
She embraced me from behind.
There was no sound of her footsteps─there was no sound at all.
She had moved like a cat on the hunt.
She passed both of her arms under my armpits and wrapped them around my torso─as she held me. A sabaori, no, a sabaori is done from the front, and it’s used to bring an opponent to his knees, not to crush his internal organs─and.
It’s not used to drain an opponent’s energy.
And instantaneously─it was being absorbed.
Whatever clothes we may have been wearing didn’t matter.
Those two large cushions didn’t matter.
I could rapidly feel my entire body weakening.
“C-Cat─you─”
I didn’t have the energy to turn my head toward her. I didn’t even feel like I could scream the way Hachikuji had when I’d done the same to her that morning.
I couldn’t lift a pinkie.
But I didn’t need to look behind me to know─it was Black Hanekawa holding me. My moving away from her had been a ruse─all she wanted was for me to turn my back to her─
To let my guard down.
So she could suck me dry.
“Remember what I said? Don’t ever think ya’ve gotten nyused to us. Humans can’t ever get along with us, nyo matter what.”
“Guh… Urgh, urrg─”
“The more we play nyice with you humans, the worse off we are─looks like we know who the bigger idiot is nyow.”
It was true─I hated to admit it, but the Hindering Cat was right.
The situation was already hopeless. I could never put up a fight against the Hindering Cat even if I faced her head-on. All I had were some lingering aftereffects of being an aberration, I had no means to oppose an actual one. But to make it worse, she had come from behind─
It seemed ridiculous.
It seemed past ridiculous.
“B-But─what are you trying to do? Why do this to me here and now? It’s not as if absorbing just me would get rid of Hanekawa’s stress─”
“Like I said, it’s one more plan─about the second easiest. Of course, it’s the sharpest one from my purrspective,” Black Hanekawa said─before slurp, licking my nape. I say lick, but the feeling wasn’t what I’d call sensual─cat tongues are barbed in order to scrape meat from bones. The skin on my neck was torn from my flesh, and I could feel my blood gushing.
The cat monster drank that blood─and laughed.
“You’re the cause of the stress─it’s you who’s the stressor. Get rid of you, and I don’t nyeed to be here anymore. It’s not ‘just you’ I’m absorbing─you’re the only one I nyeed. Ya myight nyot be able to change someone’s feelings─but you can erase someone’s existence.”
“Th-That’s─”
Her ability to drain energy.
There’d been no case of it being bad enough to kill someone─but that by no means meant that it couldn’t. No human could have their energy and their core exhausted─and continue living.
But…would this make your master happy, Black Hanekawa?
“My myaster doesn’t remember anything I do─okay? She won’t think of it as something she did herself. She’ll be sad if you’re gone, of course, but even then─it’d be better than now. I can feel it─sucking ya dry like this is making me fade away─”
“I-I thought you said you’d learned─after you attacked Hanekawa’s parents over Golden Week… It still wasn’t enough? A person’s stress isn’t that simple of a─”
“Nyo, that’s nyot it─my mistake then was nyot killing my myaster’s parents. I went wrong when I tried to be considerate in some weird way to my myaster─not killing anybody was what I did wrong. That’s what I learned. And I’m nyot going to make the same mistake again─I’m killing you nyo matter what.”
“Kill me…”
I couldn’t believe the words.
I couldn’t believe the words were coming out of Hanekawa’s mouth─but perhaps even these were her own, coming from somewhere inside of her.
Flip it around, and the reverse was the obverse.
In that case.
Hanekawa, in fact─might feel happy about this. She’d never wish for this to happen─that thought might have been nothing more than an illusion I projected on her. It could have been─the result she wanted. She might be getting this─because it’s what she wished for. The Hindering Cat’s earlier proposal of going out with Hanekawa, even if it meant lying, had to have come from somewhere inside of her.
In that case.
“…Hanekawa.”
In that case─this would be a good way.
She’d saved my life.
I’d do anything for her sake.
I may not be able to change how I feel─
But I could think that I wouldn’t mind dying.
“Ya oughta be happy─ya get to die in the embrace of my myaster’s naughty body. Nyow shrivel in bliss.”
“……”
It was going to be hard for me to feel that way while all of the feeling was leaving my body─and anyway, my most immediate sensation was the pain in my torso─from the sharp claws at the end of those arms around me stabbing into my abs─but even then.
If I could die for Hanekawa’s sake.
“………”
No─I couldn’t.
I couldn’t do it.
There was what Senjogahara had said─so I couldn’t let myself be killed. If Hanekawa killed me─or even if Hanekawa’s body killed me, Senjogahara would kill her in turn. This was no projected illusion, this was certainty. Senjogahara wouldn’t hesitate, I knew that. And there’d be no way to prevent it when it came to that. Senjogahara wouldn’t even give Hanekawa the time to feel stressed.
So─I couldn’t do it.
This was the absolute worst way possible.
“L-Let me go.”
“Hrrm?”
“Just─let me go.”
I didn’t have room to explain. The Hindering Cat didn’t know Senjogahara─no, she’d have had some knowledge of her, but Hanekawa’s knowledge of Senjogahara was limited. Unless you knew her as well as I did, or at least as well as Kanbaru did, you wouldn’t recognize the danger Hitagi Senjogahara posed…but I’d be like a sheet of paper floating in the wind by the time I spelled it all out.
“Begging for your life? That’s good─I wouldn’t mind letting ya free if ya say you’ll go out with my myaster.”
“Gah… Like I said, that’s impossible─”
“I thought as myuch,” Black Hanekawa said─casually, once again. “Fine, then. Just die.”
“………”
“Or do ya want to try asking someone for help? You’ve saved so many people up until now─maybe someone myight come save you.”
“Someone?”
Like who?
Hachikuji? Sengoku? Kanbaru? Senjogahara?
“There’s no way─anyone could save me.”
“No? Why nyot?”
“Because people just go and get saved on their own─”