Kabukimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “Seems that ye do.”

  Well.

  We do have a student preparing for exams here.

  “‘Ho, that’s nigh on the Edicts on Compassion for Living Things!’”

  “Huh? Did he become all the rage with his grandpa’s dad jokes or something?”

  Don’t be wasting my time.

  Plus, the period was off… All things considered, didn’t this little blond girl, Shinobu Oshino, she who was once Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, visit Japan somewhat before Ietsugu’s time?

  “I caught wind of it overseas. Word of Ietsugu reached the four corners of the Earth.”

  “He was that interesting?”

  Wasn’t that during the era of national isolation?

  Maybe word spread through the Dutch traders at Nagasaki?

  “Don’t waste my time with this just because no one can confirm any of it. I’ve got my entrance exams coming up, and you’re going to throw my Japanese history all out of whack.”

  “Well, to tell it true, I don’t know Ietsugu from Adam.”

  “Oh no?”

  “I based my impression of Ietsugu on a recorded narration I heard at Nagoya Castle.”

  “…”

  In other words, before she came here, before spring break, she was sightseeing at Nagoya Castle?

  Hope you enjoyed yourself.

  And what’s the deal with this series’ references to Nagoya─Doala and the Chunichi Dragons and all.

  Before long I’ll be coming out with their local slang.

  Or eating the strawberry pasta from Mountain Café.

  “In any event, my master’s licentiousness makes me want to shield mine eyes. So ’tis with Miss ’Gahara, and so with Sister ’Basa.”

  “You’re a vampire, don’t be calling them Miss ’Gahara and Sister ’Basa.”

  Don’t get overfamiliar with the human realm.

  And “Sister ’Basa” is nowhere in the original.

  Go easy on the crossovers.

  “Wait a sec,” I asked, “does that mean that when Hachikuji was over here this afternoon, you were awake?”

  “I was half asleep, but ye were so excited that the other half was awake. Something like that exercise where ye stand on one leg with thine eyes closed.”

  “So you were testing your physical fitness in my shadow.”

  Hell of a gym to join.

  But because excitement─in fact any condition─flows between Shinobu Oshino and me, paired as we are via my shadow, when I’m all excited about something like the unthinkable occasion of Hachikuji being in my house, it was like the night before a field trip for her. No wonder she couldn’t sleep.

  While it isn’t a complete reversal of day and night, I’m still forcing a pretty irregular lifestyle on a vampire, about which I do feel bad.

  Not that I’m gonna apologize or anything.

  Then again, given that she didn’t bring it up, she must’ve been sleeping the whole time I was chasing after Hachikuji and having my ice cream date with Ononoki.

  I took solace in the thought.

  Shinobu and Ononoki were like oil and water; Ononoki felt traumatized by Shinobu, and Shinobu simply couldn’t stand Ononoki.

  I’d be helpless if she tried to take it out on me.

  …You know, I’m starting to think that maybe I should do something about my habit of making peace with my opponents just like that.

  Now that I’m saying it, though, Shinobu herself was my opponent once upon a time.

  “Fine, fine,” she said, “I jest about the standing on one leg part, but the closed eyes was not altogether untrue. Did I not tell thee? ’Twas a sight from which I would fain shield mine eyes.”

  “Well…”

  Sadly, I guess the sight of her “master” getting all woo-hoo over a girl doesn’t command a lot of respect.

  “Forsooth, that young lady was defenseless, asleep on thy bed─how could ye cop not even a single feel, thou chicken? ’Twas the perfect time to go for it.”

  “Is that what you expect from me?!”

  Although to all appearances she’s an eight-year-old girl, Shinobu is actually a 500-year-old vampire, a wily veteran. Even Kanbaru can’t compare to her when it comes to sexual profligacy.

  Age and gender have absolutely no bearing.

  The talk about Ietsugu aside, when you’ve lived through so many different ages, you know, it’s natural to, you know, get like that.

  “Ten is a fine age to be wed.”

  “Nope. Not in modern times.”

  “Do not take this amiss, but it seems to me that for the species to flourish, humans should wed upon the advent of menstruation.”

  “No character could be harder to adapt for anime than you.”

  No wonder she didn’t utter a single word.

  I hear they made her talk like a vocaloid for the drama CD…

  “Fine, fine, art thou saying my notions are better suited to a period piece?”

  “What, are you making dad jokes?”

  That wasn’t even funny.

  She could just go get restricted by the new statutes.

  Season Two will be proceeding without you.

  “But,” said Shinobu, smiling.

  A gruesome smile.

  The gap─or gape, was frightful.

  No way it could be adapted for anime.

  “Even if she cannot match my 500 years, that young lady is not so young as she appears, if I may. Her form remains as it was when she died, but in truth she must be older than thee.”

  “Well…”

  Mayoi Hachikuji.

  She died ten-odd years ago.

  Hit by a car while crossing with the green─and since then, she’s been wandering the streets of this town, on and on, for over ten years─

  I don’t know when her birthday is so I can’t say precisely, but either way she’s definitely over twenty, and therefore older than me.

  She was my big sis.

  “Indeed. And thus presents no legal issue, even in this modern world.”

  “Laws don’t even apply to ghosts.”

  Also, it’s not that simple.

  Her age got fixed when she died.

  When you look at it that way, Hachikuji is even more constant than Shinobu, more immortal than immortal.

  Not living on, not risen─she’s dead, so she can no longer live, or die.

  Even vampires age─even Shinobu has, and she’s 500 years old.

  But Hachikuji is Hachikuji.

  Eleven years old for all eternity.

  Dead as she is.

  “Fine, fine. Better than being pubescent for all eternity, is it not?”

  “What a distinction.”

  It wasn’t helping.

  What the hell was she talking about, pubescent.

  You talking about me?

  “First of all,” I said, “the most important thing isn’t legal blah blah, it’s Hachikuji’s feelings.”

  “One can never truly surmise a girl’s feelings towards marriage.”

  “Oops. The tables have turned.”

  “In any event, listen well. What I wish to tell thee is that worrying over it is fruitless.”

  “Huh? That’s what you wanted to say?”

  It wasn’t what she’d been saying at all.

  You were egging me on to assault Hachikuji just now, weren’t you?

  When the hell did you surmise what I was worrying about?

  Don’t act like you were being all serious from the start, it makes me look like a fool.

  “’Tis a waste of time for thee to consider what that young lady wants to do, or what she wants to be. Thou shouldst not even ask.”

  “Shouldn’t even ask.”

  “In any case, there is naught thou couldst do. Though in my excitement I did suggest that ye aid her in fulfilling her wishes, thou more than anyone must know the impossibility of doing so.”

  “…”

  “Thou wert unable to do aught for Miss ’Gahara, nor for
Sister ’Basa. In the end, those two overcame their trials on their own.”

  “What, did you become friends with those two behind my back or something?”

  Getting a little familiar, aren’t we?

  Really.

  I seem to recall nothing but hostility between you and Hanekawa, and as for Senjogahara, I’m pretty sure you’ve never spoken a word to each other.

  When did your character get so friendly?

  “Indeed, ’tis most peculiar. I cannot bring myself to hate those two, though I know not why. Likely ’tis due to our pairing, by dint of which thine influence extends even to my preferences, even to love and hate.”

  “Huh…”

  So we were that deeply connected─if it went that far, it was more like telepathy than pairing.

  “My desire to bang that young lady likely comes from thine influence as well.”

  “I have no such unseemly desire!”

  Always trying to pass the buck!

  You’re a succubus all on your own!

  “…Hang on,” I said. “If we’re really splitting hairs here, we were just a set before our pairing, before you got sealed in my shadow, in other words back during spring break. And originally, that came from you. Because in the beginning you were the master, and I was the servant. In other words, just as you’re under my influence now, I was under your influence during spring break. So does that mean my cool character crumbling back then─”

  “Gulp.”

  “Gulp, is it?!”

  Some unexpected truths were coming out thanks to the continuation of the series.

  I guess there were some benefits to prolonging this thing.

  “Fine, fine. But let us return to the subject at hand. We’ll lose our readers if we keep on with this idle chatter.”

  “Yeah? Well, I for one would like to stick with this subject a little longer…”

  It feels reaaaally important.

  Important enough to shake the foundations of the whole tale.

  “Yet if we do nothing but chatter away, there may be another coup d’état. Sister ’Basa got rave reviews as a narrator for always getting straight to the point.”

  “I suppose you’re right…”

  In fact, there was some push for Hachikuji to narrate this volume.

  I guess they really considered it.

  Incidentally, there were a lot of reasons they didn’t go with that plan, but apparently one of the primary ones was that they were concerned I would come off terribly if the tale unfolded from Hachikuji’s viewpoint (unlike, say, Hanekawa’s more forgiving one); they took pity on me.

  I’d been pitied…

  What a bummer.

  “Well, leaving aside things that haven’t happened chronologically speaking, you’re right. There really is nothing I can do for Hachikuji.”

  It wasn’t like there was an enemy to fight.

  If there were opponents, all I needed to do was defeat them, but as so often happens in real life, it wasn’t that kind of story.

  Defeating something, beating somebody, in dramatic, world-altering fashion─that only happens in video games and sports. It’s never that straightforward in the real world.

  What I─what we have to face is not even absurd, or preposterous─often, it’s just plain old reality.

  Reality itself is the enemy, is our opponent.

  And there’s no one who can beat it.

  Not a single person, in all of history.

  Everyone falls before reality.

  Life is a losing battle.

  “Well, if my master seeks to become the first, I shall not stand in his way.”

  “Nah, those are over-the-top expectations for your master…”

  “Best to let it lie,” Shinobu said, in a voice like ice. “Think not too deeply, nor too deeply involve thyself. ’Tis the same as for thee, or me─whatever will be, will be. In truth, it can be no other way. At the very least, ’tis not a matter for others to meddle in. In doing so, thou and I have failed utterly and often─even that former class president.” Understandably, Shinobu didn’t say “Sister ’Basa” this time. “Her meddling has brought nothing but pain, meow with the cat...”

  “You said ‘meow.’”

  “Now with.”

  “So it was a misprint…”

  If “me” could be mistaken for “n,” then this book wasn’t being written with a text editor or anything but with pencil and paper.

  How are they ever going to make it into a digital book?

  “Not to go off topic, but don’t you think denshi shoseki would do better if there was a cooler-sounding, English name for them? Despite all the talk, they’ve plateaued.”

  “Well, there are already some terms…e-booku, for instance, though thou speakest not of such half-baked nonsense, but rather a well-turned phrase?”

  “Yeah. We could give the characters denshi shoseki a cool phonetic reading, like they always used to do for the titles of light novels.”

  “Purazuma taipu.”

  “Awesome!”

  Super sophomoric, though.

  Especially the pun on “type,” as in classification and typeface.

  “Tekusuto.”

  “Concise, very sci-fi. I like it.”

  “Bakkuboudo.”

  “Emphasizing the point of view of the reader?”

  “Raito noberu.”

  “Yeah, just like that!”

  With that perfect punch line to wrap up the day’s entertainment (?), Shinobu shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well.”

  Not much of a segue…

  “Here is the meat of what I wish to say to thee. I simply think thou wouldst be better served in worrying over other matters.”

  “Ah.”

  True, no matter how much I fretted over Hachikuji, even if it wasn’t exactly a waste of my time, it was certainly an idle use of it.

  I knew that perfectly well.

  I didn’t need to be told.

  But other things I should be worrying about?

  What things?

  Nothing to worry about in my life.

  Everything’s peachy.

  “Hold there. Why dost thou cock thy head in confusion? Thou art a high school student, and the lot of the student is to study.”

  “…”

  Whaaat.

  You, saying something so pedestrian?

  What part of you was once a vampire?

  When did you become just another nagging little sister?

  Really brings me back to when Karen and Tsukihi were younger.

  “I’m studying just like I should be,” I said like a peevish older brother. “You should know better than anyone, you’ve been lurking in my shadow all summer long. You know just how hard I’ve been studying for entrance exams with Hanekawa and Senjogahara. Forget Ietsugu, I can name the entire Tokugawa clan, and every damn member of the Minamoto bloodline to boot.”

  “Whoa there, of course I know. And not just Japanese history, thou hast really been hustling in Japanese literature, math, English, science. Think thee I am not impressed? I have been behind thee all the way. Literally, in thy shadow. However.”

  Shinobu held it a beat, then said very─to great effect, very plainly:

  “Thou hast not done a single page of thy summer homework.”

  004

  “Who am I, Nobita?!”

  I piled up all my textbooks and notebooks on the desk, and when I grasped the full extent of the summer homework I had left unfinished─or should I say pristinely untouched─I toppled backwards and lay staring at the ceiling.

  Just like the hapless Nobita from Doraemon.

  It was August twentieth.

  The last day of summer break.