Kabukimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  Then again─

  “’Tis the ‘then again,’” Shinobu replied promptly.

  While I say promptly, there was no way she didn’t not want to answer─from her expression, it was clearly just the reverse, but nevertheless.

  She replied promptly.

  “Methinks the Kitty Cat definitely did not understand, lacking in wit as she is, but…that Aloha brat must have understood. Thou too must have heard it. That thou couldst regain thy humanity at any time, if didst but forsake me.”

  “…The flipside of which is that if I were to die…if I were to be killed, you’d regain all your power and blossom once more into a legendary vampire─the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire, mightiest of all.”

  In other words, in this timeline.

  Shinobu Oshino─magnificently, auspiciously blossomed once more into Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

  Like a flower blossoming out of season.

  “I didn’t see my granny bike anywhere… Hahaha…”

  At that fact─at that reality.

  I laughed, in spite of myself.

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Now I see. The whole if I was going to die with someone, it’d be you vow was on point from that perspective as well.”

  Won’t you share this coffin with me?

  It was one hell of a proposal.

  “Aye. And in this world, thou wert sadly unable to carry out thy vow to that effect─and I.”

  Really did bring the world to ruin, Shinobu said.

  With a truly grievous expression on her face.

  “And by that interpretation, ’twas Black Hanekawa─namely, that former class president─who was my first target.”

  Shinobu’s voice was so small as to be inaudible, as though it was the hardest thing she could ever have shared with me.

  But─of course.

  I couldn’t blame her.

  I ought to have been able to prevent it─with a minuscule bit of effort, I could have easily prevented it.

  I muttered, “Seems like there’s another way of putting it: this world is the Bad Ending world.”

  1. Asking for help.

  2. Not asking for help.

  I-me chose number one. The me from this timeline chose number two─or, he ran out of time before he could make the choice.

  A bad end.

  A dead end for Koyomi Araragi.

  “’Twas a bad end from the moment thou didst meet me. Directly after she slew thee, I must have attacked the former class president, and then I─I, who had regained the full majesty of my power, brought the world to ruin. Specifically─”

  The people of this town.

  The people of Japan.

  The people of the world.

  I made them all into vampires, Shinobu stated vigorously, quite unlike the way she’d delivered her earlier line.

  “Made everyone─into vampires.”

  “Realistically ’twas only the first few whose blood I myself drank, I should think. But as thou dost know─as thou dost know better than anyone, the creation of a thrall is the creation of a slave. ’Tis the creation of a servant. Because I was on the brink of death when I drank thy blood, I gave thee a certain amount of freedom, but essentially a thrall is an offshoot of myself.”

  “Offshoot?”

  “In other words, those few whose blood I myself drank became vampires who would bring the world to ruin along with me and continued to drink the blood of the surrounding populace. As zombiism spreads─so spreads vampirism. The vampires so created are also my thralls, and so on down the line. They too become vampires bent on the downfall of the world. And thus they breed like rabbits, proliferating in a geometric progression─and in a heartbeat, the world, or rather humanity, lies in ruins.”

  “…”

  “Because it began here, this town and the surrounding areas were neatly taken care of, like as not. But in the neighboring prefectures and beyond, ’tis probable that unfettered panic swept the land. If this be a ghost town, ’twould not be surprising if larger cities like Tokyo and Osaka have been reduced to ashen wastes.”

  “Well…”

  If there was panic on that scale, the Self-Defense Force would definitely be mobilized─not to mention what would happen overseas.

  Wouldn’t be surprising if it got as far as a nuclear war.

  But.

  “But they couldn’t stand up to you─to you and your thralls, could they… Those folks from the church that Guillotine Cutter and Dramaturgy belonged to probably went into action too, but…”

  Even if they did.

  No matter what action that crew of specialists might have taken─there was no way they could stop Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade at the head of an army.

  If anything could stop that legendary vampire, it was the fact that she was─the type of vampire who absolutely refused to create thralls.

  Who didn’t propagate.

  Only a lack of numbers could contain her threat.

  If that vampire, who over the course of her life had only made exceptions for me and one other, were to get serious about creating companions─no, about creating a community.

  Something unimaginably terrifying would occur─no.

  In this timeline.

  It did occur.

  “One night to subjugate this region. One day to take total control of Japan. Ten days, perhaps, to dominate the world─”

  “Hmm…”

  Just like that, huh?

  So I guess the entire world hadn’t gone down in a single night─but it had still happened extremely quickly.

  Well, rabbits do breed at an incredibly rapid rate… If it began with a few people, let’s say five, those five would lead to twenty-five, those twenty-five would lead to a hundred and twenty-five, those hundred and twenty-five would lead to six hundred and twenty-five, six hundred and twenty-five becomes three thousand one hundred and twenty-five, three thousand one hundred and twenty-five becomes─I can’t calculate past there in my head.

  It would reach six-and-a-half billion in a heartbeat.

  “And you’re saying that the very first one would have been Hanekawa─so, not Black Hanekawa, but Blood Hanekawa.” Man, I’d have loved to see that, though I probably shouldn’t admit it. “Knowing her, she was probably pretty industrious in turning people into vampires─she might even have taken command.”

  “In which case, the world may have fallen in a mere five days,” Shinobu said and sank into silence.

  Nope, she couldn’t do that just yet─we weren’t done talking.

  If this was all true, then we definitely knew how the world had fallen─and how all of humanity had been transformed into aberrations, a veritable pandemonium unfolding in the night, but─

  “Why do those aberrations look like zombies instead of vampires? Considering that they became thralls the same as I did, how did they end up as a completely different kind of vampire? My flesh never dissolved like that. On the other hand, if they’re true thralls, then shouldn’t they be able to fly like you? And while we’re at it, that means that I’m dead, but you’re not, right? What’s the you of this timeline doing right now, and where? The post-destroying-the-world you, that is. Let’s see, you’re here, so─”

  “I can answer both thy questions at once.” Shinobu seemed to have her reply prepared in advance, as though she’d anticipated my (naïve, true) questions. “’Tis likely that the me of this timeline is already dead.”

  “─Dead?”

  What?

  Whoa there, hold on.

  That overturned the whole premise.

  If this whole situation existed because she brought the world to ruin, then for her to be dead─

  “Nay, hearken to my words─I died after bringing the world to ruin.”

  “…? So you weren’t killed by chemical weapons loosed by the human resistance or something? You’re saying that someone killed you.”

  “That goes without saying. There is only
one who could slay me at the apogee of my might─none other than I.” Shinobu pointed at herself. “In other words, suicide.”

  “…”

  I couldn’t tell her, Don’t be ridiculous.

  Because from the start, Shinobu─Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade had come to this town in Japan to kill herself.

  A suicidal vampire.

  But because she encountered me over spring break─because I ended up saving her, she failed in her suicide attempt.

  So.

  So that was why.

  After I died─and after her rage had been spent, there was no reason for her to go on living.

  No reason─for her to go on living.

  As a literal bloodsucking demon.

  “And because I died, all of the vampires in my thrall became zombies.”

  “Huh, really? Wait, didn’t you say before that if you died your thralls would become human again?”

  “In thy case, bound to each other as we are, aye, ’tis so. For we are evenly matched in the balance between master and servant. Each of us is master, and each of us is slave─but thralls are different. True thralls are different. They are mere slaves, who cannot live without their master, though nor can they die.”

  “Six-and-a-half billion slaves…”

  The scale was mind-blowing.

  What an absolute monarchy.

  But if that monarch committed suicide─inevitably, the entire country, the entire world would descend into chaos.

  Into mayhem, everybody running riot.

  Or─vampiric bloodlust running wild.

  “A vampire could become human again by killing you with their own hand… But if you’re dead, there’s no way back. No choice but to let their blood run wild and take its course.”

  And the result─was zombies?

  The erasure of will.

  The healing factor run amok.

  Leaving behind only the goal─of destroying humankind.

  Which is why they had surrounded me and Shinobu.

  Both of us were half vampire, but we were also something like half human─so they’d come to drink that half of our blood.

  To turn us both into vampires.

  “If so, that’s completely idiotic. Never mind me, but you’re their master.”

  “There remains an ontological difference between this me and the me at the apex of my power, so─it cannot be helped. They are the servants of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, not of Shinobu Oshino.”

  “So─even if they drank your blood, they wouldn’t necessarily go back to normal.”

  “If they would, I would allow it gladly.”

  I had just kind of said it, but it seemed as though Shinobu took it seriously─her voice was full of sorrow.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  To Shinobu, humans were─some other species, a mere source of drinking water, but in spite of that.

  In spite of that.

  “I’m sorry,” she uttered that terribly uncharacteristic─ill-fitting line.

  To me.

  “I never intended anything like this─I only wished to be found by thee. To think that I brought thy precious world to ruin for such a peevish, childlike reason─”

  “Enough. Don’t apologize.” Unable to bear seeing Shinobu like that, I interrupted her for a second time. “Don’t blame yourself. The you in this timeline might have brought it to ruin, but that was a different you.”

  “A-Aye, ’tis true, but─I am no different from her,” remarked Shinobu, despondent.

  Geez...she really was weak in the spirit department.

  The fact that this timeline’s Shinobu seemed to have committed suicide only bolstered that impression.

  True, even if this timeline was composed differently, I guess it’d be even weirder to actually keep your cool when you literally, without exaggeration, destroyed the world.

  I was shocked too.

  Not by the fact that Shinobu destroyed the world, but at the existence of a me who let it happen.

  That day.

  It was very hard for me to accept that a version of Koyomi Araragi hadn’t been able to find Shinobu after she ran away that day, on June fourteenth.

  The notion hurt─far more deeply than the fact that the me in this timeline, in this chronology, was dead, seemingly killed, what’s more, by Black Hanekawa─or when you get right down to it, by Tsubasa Hanekawa.

  So we were in the same boat─after all.

  The guilt was ours to share.

  “Just the fact that you feel that way makes me glad, Shinobu.”

  “Even so, I cannot rest easy unless I offer thee at least a single rib from my body!”

  “Too freaky.”

  My fetish didn’t extend that far.

  I’d rather the bones stay inside the body, wrapped in skin and flesh…but anyway.

  Let’s talk about that some other time.

  There was no time for that now.

  “…Actually, there’s no such thing as ‘no time for that now’ anymore. In this ruined world, we’ve got nothing but time.”

  That’s what I realized.

  No reason to hurry.

  Literally─not a single one.

  “At any rate, Shinobu, no need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong, at least not the you who’s in front of me. From now on, we’re going to have to live just the two of us, in this ruined world, this terrifying world devoid of people, this horrifying world of millions of swaggering zombies. Even more than before, we’ve got to look out for each other.”

  “My lord─”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong, Shinobu.”

  It was true.

  If anyone did─then it was none other than the Koyomi Araragi from the now-vanished history, who didn’t finish his summer homework, the one who was here now.

  In other words, me.

  024

  I’d like to add a few words here about further disappointments that were to follow.

  We first waited for nightfall, then enacted the plan we had discussed the previous night at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─to seek out renowned power spots in Japan to use their spiritual energy to leap into the past─and naturally our method of travel was to fly, with Shinobu cradling me in her arms. We’d developed a formula whereby I carried Shinobu while we were traveling on the ground, and Shinobu carried me when we were traveling through the sky─but I’m deeply ashamed to say that the only places I knew about were ridiculously famous ones like Mt. Osore and Mt. Fuji. Although we exhausted ourselves and the night trying every place we could think of (at a speed slightly above Perman’s “119 kph”), it all came to nothing.

  There’s no question that Kita-Shirahebi Shrine couldn’t hold a candle to the numinous virtue of those places, but─

  “’Tis no good. Each and every place has been thoroughly sealed off.”

  Quoth Shinobu, giving her expert opinion.

  “Perhaps ’tis only to be expected─’twas because that shrine had become an air pocket that the Aloha brat entrusted thee with the task of placing the sealing talisman in the first place. So ’tis only to be expected that these other places─especially such famous places, would be sealed, if not by the Aloha brat himself, then by some other specialist in yokai and their ilk.”

  “Yeah? Yeah, I guess you’re right… It won’t do any good to check places just because they’re power spots, then. In addition to being power spots, they need to be newly formed ones that the specialists didn’t notice or know about. Otherwise we won’t find any gas there to power our time warp…”

  “Their method of sealing is most perfect. When energy doth remain, they have rigged it such that none can make use of it.”

  It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

  But it was a fool’s errand─though, as it happened, not entirely.

  Since we’d been traveling at night we had of course been flying with our eyes trained on the ground below us─and once again, the zombies had appeared before we knew it,
literally before we knew it, and we were able to observe their rampage─in truth they really were just night walkers, not destroying anything or doing anything else out of the ordinary. Our vantage point up in the skies also supported Shinobu’s supposition that the destruction was centered on our town and radiated outward from there.