Kizumonogatari

by Nisioisin

  Meetings and partings. That was life.

  It may have been two weeks full of horrible memories for Kissshot, but looking back on it, maybe it hadn’t been such a bad spring break for me.

  Maybe it hadn’t been so bad.

  And because I could think so─

  “All right.”

  I decided to follow up our get-together with our farewell party.

  Wanting to go out with as big of a bang as possible, I scraped together what money I had left to buy all the cakes and sweets I could at the convenience store, and then headed back to the abandoned cram school with a newfound spring in my step.

  On the way back, I swore I’d say my goodbyes to Kissshot─and then arrived at the second-floor classroom.

  The date was April 7th.

  The time was past two in the morning.

  “I’m ho-o-me!”

  Trying my best to sound cheerful, I opened the door.

  Kissshot was eating.

  Chomp chomp. Chew chew. Gnaw gnaw.

  Chomp chomp. Chew chew. Gnaw gnaw.

  Chomp chomp. Chew chew. Gnaw gnaw.

  Chomp chomp. Chew chew. Gnaw gnaw.

  She was eating─a human.

  “…Wha?”

  The convenience store bag fell out of my hands.

  The sound it made caused Kissshot to turn around.

  Still in her hands.

  A human head, gnawed halfway through.

  “Ah, my servant─back earlier than I expected. But did I not tell thee? Have some manners and excuse thyself when a lady is eating.”

  I had seen the head somewhere before.

  One of the three─one of the vampire hunters.

  The one human among them.

  It was Guillotine Cutter.

  His body, his flesh, had been torn to pieces─minced into bite-sized fragments.

  Served open and whole.

  “He came by as I awaited thy return─it seems that even this barrier fails to hide my presence now that my powers are at their fullest. Then again, he came at the perfect time, just as I was feeling hungry. A handy restorative.”

  And then.

  Kissshot seemed to be looking for someone behind me.

  She tilted her head quizzically.

  “What is this? Had ye not gone out to fetch those bespectacled, braided rations?”

  016

  I didn’t know of a place to put myself at a time like this─I couldn’t go home, of course, but I also didn’t have the mental or emotional composure needed to find another place like the abandoned cram school, if it even existed in the first place.

  The clock was ticking. Time was inching closer and closer to the moment day broke─inching me right into a corner.

  Eventually, I decided to stick not just one, but both hands into my head, mixing and messing up the brains it held, thinking of every possibility I could─until I decided to use Naoetsu High’s P.E. storage shed as a temporary shelter.

  A temporary shelter─for someone who needed exactly that.

  But the windowless P.E. shed, separated from the outside world by steel doors, seemed to be a suitable place for someone like me─a vampire─to hide even during the day. Not such a bad spot, considering my desperation. I found myself truly glad that I’d done everything I could to force the steel door back into working shape the day I fought Dramaturgy─okay, maybe not.

  There wasn’t a thing to be glad about.

  It was all wrong.

  “Uunh… Uuuuunnnnnhhhhhhh…”

  You could hear my teeth chattering.

  My body wouldn’t stop shaking.

  Why?

  Why?

  Why hadn’t I realized?

  Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade─a vampire.

  A vampire.

  Weak to the sun.

  Didn’t like crosses.

  Didn’t like silver bullets. Didn’t like holy water. Didn’t like garlic.

  Didn’t like poison.

  Died if you stuck a stake through her heart.

  Didn’t cast a shadow, didn’t show in mirrors.

  Fangs.

  Immortal.

  Semi-permanent powers of regeneration.

  Eyes that could see well, even in the dark.

  The ability to transform.

  Had blood with healing powers.

  And─ate humans.

  “Uuuunh…. Uwaaaaaaaaagh!”

  I moaned and groaned and wailed─

  But all I found myself with was regret.

  I stuck my hand in my head and kept messing around with my brain, thinking over and over─where did I go wrong, how did I go wrong, how did it turn out this way?

  But in the end…it was all wrong.

  “Uunh…. Uuuuuuuunnnnh!”

  Humans were food to vampires.

  As greater beings, humans were below them, located at the very bottom of the food chain.

  Didn’t I know that? From the very beginning of it all?

  In fact─she’d tried to kill me, right?

  She tried to eat me, right?

  She tried to drink my blood until I was dry, right?

  Worthless little human.

  Ultimately, even I─

  Was just food to her.

  Even if it did feel like I understood her.

  Even if I felt a bond between us, on my part.

  In the end─I was food.

  “……”

  To Kissshot, all humans were.

  Every human was the same to her.

  Of course, she did speak highly of Oshino’s skills. That’s just how impressive they were.

  Perhaps she’d discussed them with him when I wasn’t around─but still, humans were humans.

  Food was food.

  Even Oshino knew that.

  As proof, didn’t he leave the ruins before Kissshot could regain her perfect form and skills as a vampire?

  Plus.

  When I really thought about it─Kissshot had barely said anything to Hanekawa. It wasn’t just that she was ignoring her─

  Right.

  Hanekawa was food to Kissshot.

  Not my friend.

  She saw her as rations.

  My rations, vampire rations.

  Hanekawa could have fallen victim to Kissshot’s powers had the two met after she regained them.

  Just as Guillotine Cutter had.

  She could’ve been cut into pieces and eaten.

  “Ye often hear that holy men taste dreadful─but he was quite the delicacy. While I don’t have likes and dislikes, an empty stomach truly is the greatest sauce of all.”

  “Er…”

  As she coquettishly licked away the blood and meat stuck to her mouth, I mustered an answer. I had to muster my bravery and suppress my fear before I could tell her.

  “Y-You can’t─eat humans.”

  “Hm?”

  She seemed honestly confused as to what I meant. Kissshot’s head was cocked far to the side.

  “But, my servant, don’t ye know I’ll die if I don’t eat?”

  She was right.

  She was exactly right.

  It was such an obvious reason.

  Almost too simple.

  And Kissshot seemed to have no doubts concerning that reason─she didn’t even feel the need to persuade me, a former human who was trying to become human again soon.

  She thought it was common sense.

  It probably was common sense.

  I was sure it was something she’d always done.

  They’d always been eating humans.

  Vampires.

  Her first thrall─and then her second thrall.

  How could she have only sucked the blood of two people in her five hundred years alive? Every other human she’d fed on, she’d eaten like that. She tore them into pieces and left neither flesh nor bone behind.

  That was how she nourished herself when she wasn’t creating a thrall.

  I’d been told.

  Apparently, the idea th
at humans turn into vampires when their blood is sucked by another vampire isn’t entirely wrong. Unless proper measures are taken after their blood is sucked, people do turn into vampires.

  All it took was a drop of blood sucked.

  That was enough─it turned any human into a vampire.

  And those “proper measures”were to─eat every fragment of the human’s body. Doing so would nourish a vampire more than any other method─plus, it prevented the human’s body from rising as a vampire after the bloodsucking.

  That seemed to be how it worked.

  Because I only had my blood sucked, I turned into a vampire.

  But Guillotine Cutter?

  He was eaten as food─flesh and all.

  And not just Guillotine Cutter. It was something Kissshot had done over and over again in her five hundred years.

  An obvious fact.

  It was as clear as day─yet I hadn’t realized or tried to realize. All I’d done was avert my eyes, for all this time.

  Right. It was just that I’d been clueless.

  Even when I first met her, when I didn’t try to help Kissshot despite her being so close to death─she hadn’t understood right away.

  She didn’t understand why I wasn’t helping her.

  Why a human─food─might not help a vampire.

  Predator and prey. That was the only relationship between the two of us.

  “Unh, uuuunh… Aahh…”

  Guillotine Cutter.

  I hated him.

  A cowardly, base man that I was loathe to call human.

  But still─

  I hadn’t wanted him to die.

  Though he was awful to Hanekawa─it was my fault.

  My fault, for being a vampire.

  Guillotine Cutter. He didn’t care about the reasons or means just as long as it meant another monster exterminated.

  “N-No. No, no, no! No. I don’t want to think about this─I don’t want to think about this!!”

  I pulled my hands out of my brain and clutched my head.

  “No!”

  But my brain wouldn’t stop thinking. And not just about Guillotine Cutter.

  Dramaturgy. Episode.

  Even those two, who’d already gone back to their countries, had been here to slay a vampire─and it was no one else but me who’d gotten in their way.

  After all the trouble they went to.

  They fought to take Kissshot’s arms and legs from her─but I stole them back. And then, of all things, I restored the legendary vampire─to her perfect state.

  To say nothing of Guillotine Cutter, any humans whom Kissshot ate after this─every time she fed─

  The fault would lie entirely on my shoulders.

  If she ate Hanekawa.

  If she ate my sisters.

  If she ate my parents.

  It would all be my fault.

  My fault for helping her.

  It wasn’t just about her limbs and her heart.

  It started with that first day.

  If I hadn’t helped out Kissshot when she was under that street lamp─if I’d only been able to abandon her─the story would have ended there.

  I understood only now, but it was because I was a weak person that I couldn’t just leave her there.

  It wasn’t anything like Hanekawa’s strength.

  It was a kind of weakness that bore no resemblance at all to her kindness, which Oshino called gross and I thought was scary.

  That, if anything, was self-satisfaction masquerading as self-sacrifice.

  Leading a devil-may-care life─didn’t mean I should take the same attitude toward death.

  What if I’d been eaten there by a vampire and died?

  How would my sisters feel, for example?

  Did I really think they wouldn’t cry?

  “─Gurfft─!”

  I somehow kept myself from vomiting.

  I was about to cry, but I kept myself from doing that as well.

  I was able to hold myself back because I had no idea what would happen if I let my defenses crumble.

  I was afraid of losing control.

  At that moment, I wanted to maintain my autonomy. Whatever little bit I could.

  Kissshot and I had quarreled and argued until we didn’t know what we were saying─and I’d ended up storming out of the abandoned cram school despite having nowhere to go.

  And that’s how I arrived at the P.E. shed.

  The one dark place I could find in my memories.

  The sun had to be rising by now─while it was spring break, kids that were in sports teams still came to school to practice during vacation. Fortunately for me, though, it was the last day of spring break. Extracurricular activities were prohibited.

  I didn’t have to worry about any sports teams opening the door to the shed. Of course, I’d barricaded the entrance from inside, just to be safe.

  “It’s my fault.”

  I didn’t mean to speak out loud, but my thoughts began to escape from the edges of my mouth.

  “It’s my fault that more people are─going to be eaten.”

  By that vampire─whom no one could stop.

  That iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.

  By Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade!

  “It’s my fault─it’s my fault, it’s my fault!”

  When I thought about it, Oshino must have seen this coming.

  While he’d gone on about balance and whatnot, he hadn’t stolen Kissshot’s heart because someone had hired him to─her confrontation with those three came afterwards.

  That meant it had to be an independent decision on his part. An act that deviated from his job, his role as an intermediary between here and there.

  In other words─at least he’d made a judgment on behalf of the human side to steal Kissshot’s heart.

  He wouldn’t go so far as to slay her. Establishing a balance was his way of doing things. An opportunist─I recalled the term that Kissshot used to describe Oshino.

  And I had taken that balance that Oshino established─and destroyed it.

  If it was unexpected for Kissshot to create a thrall, then it must have been equally unexpected for a human to save her when she was on the verge of death.

  My being so foolish and toolish─

  No one could have expected it.

  I’d ruined all the work that those three had done.

  I’d even won over Oshino, who had stolen her heart.

  The one making everything complicated─was me.

  I felt like someone had fixed things? What was I going on about? At this rate, I was the one who’d put in the fix. Every last aspect of this situation, every nook and cranny─was all my fault.

  It was all because of my rash decision.

  I’d been too weak to abandon a dying vampire─and this was the result.

  Guillotine Cutter was dead.

  Eaten and dead.

  She’d bitten through his head and eaten his brain, skull and all─there was no way he was coming back. It didn’t matter if someone used vampire blood on him or not─he wasn’t coming back.

  He was dead.

  Death.

  There was no turning back the clock now.

  “How did this─”

  And Guillotine Cutter wasn’t the end, but just the beginning. He was nothing more than a new start for the vampire Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

  She’d continue to do what was normal for her─and eat.