Onimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  Authorities on yokai and the like.

  No, maybe not.

  Somehow it didn’t seem like they “fought against” aberrations─true, Kagenui felt pretty violent to me, but at the end of the day, they were experts.

  They acted as mediators between two sides─as negotiators.

  That was a better description of their station.

  Something about the word “fighting” felt wrong.

  In that case, wouldn’t he be more like─

  “A vampire hunter─”

  Dramaturgy.

  Episode. Guillotine Cutter.

  That kind of person.

  “Well, I suppose─while I’m sure negotiators similar to that Hawaiian-shirted boy existed in those times as well, he was different from that type. The descendant of a storied line of those who made yokai extermination their calling─may be what he said, or maybe not…”

  “What, your memory’s fuzzy about something that important?”

  “I cannot help it. Memories are worn away by time.”

  “Worn away…”

  Um.

  Listening to her speak, I was beginning to wonder. Didn’t memories ever get idealized in her case?

  My memories of the hell that was spring break and the nightmare that was Golden Week weren’t pleasant, but when I actually tried to think back to those events, I found myself putting them in a fairly good light…

  It didn’t feel like she was altering her memories as much as simply forgetting them.

  She was speaking like someone who was struggling to remember what she ate for dinner a week ago…like someone who was going back and recalling everything she ate to figure out what caused her food poisoning, for example…

  But this was four hundred years ago, not a week. Maybe there wasn’t anything left to see through any rose-tinted glasses… Still.

  “This is an important episode about you and your first thrall, right? Even if your memories have gotten worn down, would they really get that vague? I mean, fill in whatever’s missing with your imagination. Sentimentally. You told me to get jealous, but nothing about your words just now would make anyone jealous.”

  “Is that so. But now that ye mention it, he was a fairly different type of man from thee, and different too was the situation. Perhaps a direct comparison is misguided… Also, by now, if I may make something clear, and not out of any thoughtfulness for thee, the impression he left is not as strong as thine.”

  “Hm? Really? But wasn’t he your first?”

  “Being my first thrall does not mean he must be more memorable than my second… While ye may now be dating that tsundere girl and practically speak of her as thy first love, I’m sure that most strictly speaking, thou had a crush on thy dry nurse in kindergarten or the like. But ye’ve simply forgotten that─see?”

  “…”

  Well, I understood her logic.

  But it did seem more suspect if you were to ask me if I thought my time in kindergarten matched up with Shinobu’s experiences at two hundred.

  No, wait, was this really about impressions and not memories?

  In terms of romances, people always wanting to think that the love they’re experiencing at the moment, first or not, is the best─the psychology of wanting to think so…

  It seemed clear the story Shinobu was sharing with me wasn’t a pleasant one for her─but even then, something still bothered me.

  Did it matter so little?

  Shinobu’s first thrall?

  “Didn’t you call him something like a man you could entrust your back to?”

  “I did, but then I came to know thee. He feels a bit lacking in that regard, looking back.”

  Hmmm.

  She was being way too candid.

  She still treasured his enchanted blade, carrying it with her in her belly, and yet─

  “Also, doesn’t your moniker ‘aberration slayer’ originally come from what people called your first thrall’s sword?”

  “Aye,” confirmed Shinobu. “A sword passed down from generation to generation…among a clan of yokai exterminators. A sword that had slain aberrations since time past─that must have been worshipped like a god in its own right. I call it an enchanted blade, but ‘divine blade’ might accord better with reality.”

  “Divine blade…”

  “And the human who wielded it would have been like a god─may have been a living god in his own right.”

  “I can’t help but feel like you’re putting a veil over everything you’re talking about. You keep on calling this guy he and him…but don’t you think it’s about time you told me the name of your first thrall? I can’t picture his face if you don’t.”

  “Who knows.”

  “Huh, that’s a weird name. Hunose? But maybe it wasn’t that weird back in those days…wait, what?”

  “Stop with thy surprise. Have I not told thee again and again? I recall the human world’s proper nouns but vaguely, and call none by name. Listen when people speak to thee.”

  “…”

  No…I was listening.

  And yes, she did say that.

  But I assumed there’d be exceptions…or rather, a limit?

  How could she not even remember the name of someone that important, the name of the main character? Just how in the moment did she live her life?

  “And I always called him Aberration Slayer─as I am called now,” she said. “He was easier to distinguish from other humans as he held that blade, and he had the unique air of an expert about him as well.”

  “He was unique and special so it made him easy to distinguish…which was paradoxically why you didn’t need to call him by his name?”

  I could understand the logic there…

  But it was too much of a stretch.

  It sounded like an excuse, or simply too cold by anyone’s standards─wasn’t that just too cold-blooded?

  Where did her iron blood and hot blood go?

  “Look, ye’ve got it all wrong,” Shinobu chided me. “Thou art an exception among exceptions for myself─as thou art the only one in my over five hundred years to whom I owe my life.”

  “…”

  “Compared to that, my relationship with the man who was my first thrall was casual. When I think back to him now. That is also why I thought I may be able to arouse thy jealousy, but it appears as though I could not─perhaps jealousy for a man whose face thou cannot see, whose name thou dost not know, is a tall order.”

  “You’ve been living a lot more casually than I thought…”

  In fact.

  I was amazed she’d managed to survive for so long.

  Maybe it just proved how powerful of an aberration she was…

  “Then for convenience’s sake,” I proposed, “why don’t we call him Aberration Slayer I? The First Aberration Slayer would be too long.”

  “’Tis the exact same length when ye say it out loud.”

  “Never mind.”

  She wasn’t wrong to point that out, but “the first aberration slayer” sounded too impersonal.

  Maybe it didn’t reflect his personality if Aberration Slayer was originally the name of a blade (it might be like calling me “School Uniform”), but I wanted to do at least that much for my predecessor.

  Forget jealousy, I was starting to sympathize with him…

  You had to wonder.

  “And then what? Did your slacker lifestyle change a bit when Aberration Slayer I came along?”

  “Well, to some degree.”

  “If he was an expert in yokai extermination…that has to mean he showed up to exterminate you, right? He heard rumors about you from somewhere then appeared to attack you─”

  “Nay. Not in the slightest─we did battle once, but he hadn’t come to exterminate me. Think upon it, now. I was being venerated as a god in those rumors he heard. Not scorned as some target he needed to exterminate.”

  “Is that…how it works?”

  Even if there weren’t any legends of vampires in Japan
at the time, there must have been aberrations that sucked human blood─so it felt like an expert would be able to detect that Shinobu was a vampire and not any kind of god.

  “Oh, wait─I guess he found out in the end if you made him your thrall,” I noted.

  “Indeed─so why don’t I focus in on that bit.”

  012

  “So as I said, he came not to exterminate me but to check things for himself. An entire lake had disappeared and a god had manifested from it… ’Twas not a situation that one with his pedigree could ignore.

  “Though I do feel it took him some time to arrive… True, information did not travel as swiftly then as it does in this age. His transportation methods were limited as well.

  “Now that I mention it, he arrived transported in a palanquin.

  “With a long retinue tailing behind─’twas a regular daimyo procession. Not that I’ve ever seen a genuine one.

  “Still, all of those followers.

  “He must have been as important as any feudal lord.

  “I suppose thou could call them his thralls─he may have been connected in some way to those with effective control over the villages in the area.

  “Perhaps he was even one of them himself.

  “The villagers did kowtow terribly to him─but hierarchies within human communities are not something I am familiar with.

  “What I am sure of, or rather, what was important was that he had come to my temporary abode─he posed no threat to me no matter how many humans came along with him, but something was different this one time.

  “I did not feel threatened by him.

  “Ye may think that odd, as he was an expert…or a hunter, but I had been dealing with those types year-round.

  “I could not even distinguish them from regular humans.

  “Call me too casual, but what am I to do when that is who I am? There’s no need for me to distinguish between hunters and regular humans, anyway─the two are alike.

  “Of course, the Hawaiian-shirted boy I met when I was weakened did leave a strong impression on me, as did Kaiki and Kagenui after I became a little girl.

  “’Tis simply how it goes. Don’t ye think poorly of me.

  “That said, it woke me up. I was awakened by their arrival─which is not to say I had been sleeping in the shrine until then.

  “He aroused my awareness of things for the first time in a while.

  “In others words, as I was living my lukewarm existence as a god, I found a fine stimulus. But again, ’tis not to say that he─or that gathering─was what excited me.

  “Those blades.

  “The ones he had─hanging off of his hips. The ones he wore, would thou say? I’m unsure of the distinction there…

  “In any case.

  “The two blades the man had as he left his palanquin, one large and one small─those are what drew me in.

  “Though it may sound a bit vulgar that my attention was drawn to a man’s hips. Thou and I would then share a love of hips belonging to the opposite sex, so perhaps in that sense our connection is age-old.

  “I jest.

  “Hm? Aye.

  “Two of them, two blades─the longer being the enchanted blade Kokorowatari.

  “The one whose replica ye’ve wielded─the true one is rather more dangerous.

  “The replica has been de-tuned some.

  “’Twas too dangerous.

  “Of course, ’twas not that effective of a weapon on me…but it did at least open my eyes.

  “’Twas enough of a stimulus.

  “Hm? What about the smaller blade? The short sword?

  “The second─of the two blades?

  “Ah, have I never spoken of it? I thought I already had… Mayhap ’twas my imagination.

  “Thou could say it was a backup…like something to keep the first, too dangerous Kokorowatari in check.

  “Perhaps we could call it a sheath… Well, both the original Kokorowatari and this short sword had their own, separate sheaths, so the metaphor would only serve to complicate the story.

  “A weapon that was too dangerous needed a follow-up, an accompaniment─my replica is but a replica, of course, so I’ve no need for the short sword.

  “The second enchanted blade─the short sword was known as t.

  “Dost thou find it odd that I recall the name of the short sword, in addition to the one that I still use? Well, ’tis no special exception.

  “That is simply how much of a set the short sword was with its leading blade Kokorowatari. The two, the heart and the dream, kokoro and yume, were one, and no sword could cut them apart, so to speak.

  “If Kokorowatari is the aberration slayer.

  “Then Yumewatari was─the aberration savior.

  “A divine blade that has been passed down through the generations becomes something like an aberration itself, so my own radar was pinging like mad.

  “I left the shrine the moment I felt its presence─well, to be precise, I blew the shrine to dust. Moving was such a bother that I chose to have the shrine disappear.

  “I compared it to a daimyo procession…but I would say he had, oh, fifty men with him? I believe he, its leader, was not the only expert, and that the other forty-nine were not mere underlings.

  “Well, doing away with a shrine might not be enough of a miracle─but ’twas a sufficient display of power. Though if I truly made use of my power, it would be the earth I could make disappear, not a simple shrine.

  “I suppose the sun is the only thing I cannot disappear. Aye, my one and only goal, which I continue to hold to this day.

  “Oh, don’t say thou would never allow me to. ’Tis my one and only goal… But in any case, I succeeded in surprising them, even if ’twas not the point of making the shrine disappear. ’Twas just too much of a bother to walk outside… To me, it was naught more than a structure I could rebuild.

  “Yet that, and no more, managed to suppress them.

  “For while they may have been experts in the field of yokai extermination, I was so far removed from any they’d known─the lot of them were gripped with terror.

  “They collapsed on the spot. How disgraceful. I found myself losing my own will to fight, in fact.

  “Only a few were able to continue standing in the face of my glaring countenance… Ah, I want to say about five of them.

  “Aberration Slayer I, if ye want me to use that name as well… Only he, as well as the men directly under him, his four knights as it were, managed to stay on their feet and look in my direction.

  “That probably is not to say they were unflustered.

  “And ’twas not as though they recognized that I was not a god but a vampire─if anything, they believed me to be a true god.

  “At least, one with enough power to be called such and venerated─and, as thou said, the color of my hair and skin were novel to the people of the land, so I must have appeared divine in the sun’s reflection.

  “Now. What do ye think I did next?

  “What did I do in the face of this continued misunderstanding? To be honest, I wavered for a moment. For as I said earlier, I sensed that they were hunters due to those swords.

  “I could see a battle unfolding were I to reveal my true identity.

  “Vacations are nice, but so is the occasional stimulus─so perhaps I should ratchet things up a bit.

  “I would be lying if I claimed not to have felt that way.

  “Hm? Nay, to jump ahead, I did not reveal my identity, nor was there any battle. I am a pacifist, as thou art aware. Aye, a pacifist─one who hates to fight, a humanist who believes in love above all.

  “I make myself want to laugh, taking on the title of humanist when I am not even human… ’Tis a white lie so audacious, I turn pale. My apologies, that was overdoing it, even as far as jokes go.

  “The reason we did not find ourselves in a battle next was simply that they did not seek one.

  “As a bunch of men who made yokai extermination their job, I would be the
exact type of creature they needed to kill. But in those days, as I just said, I was not yokai nor vampire, but a god. I was evidently on the level of a god, at least in terms of sheer power, so that was all for them.