At a time like this I didn't know a place where to stay -- going back home is of course impossible, but on the other hand, even assuming there was another abandoned building like that cram school ruin, I didn't have any spirit left to search for it.
I was chased by time.
The moment of sunrise was getting closer hour by hour -- I was quickly driven to a corner.
In the end.
I thrust not one hand but both inside my brain, tampering it for tampering's sake, thinking for thinking's sake -- and I chose as a temporary shelter the PE storehouse of Naoetsu High School.
Temporary shelter -- it was really a temporary sheltering.
However, this windowless PE storehouse blocked by an iron door in itself seemed fit for hiding me, a vampire, during the day. I chose it in desperation, but it was not such a bad place. The day I fought with Dramaturgie, I didn't give up and I repaired the iron door by brute force, I am glad from the bottom of my heart I put it back, I thought -- no, I didn't think it.
There was not a thing to be glad for.
It got it all wrong.
"W......wwwwwwwwwwWwWwwwwWw"
My teeth keep chattering.
My body doesn't stop shivering.
Why.
Why.
Why didn't I notice that.
Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade -- is a vampire.
A vampire.
Weak against the sun.
Dislikes crosses.
Dislikes silver bullets. Dislikes holy water. Dislikes garlic.
Dislikes poison.
Dies when a stake is driven through the heart.
Doesn't project a shadow, doesn't have a reflection in a mirror.
Fangs.
Immortal body. Semi-perpetual recovery power.
Eyes that see well even in the dark.
Shape-shifting power.
Healing power in the blood.
And -- she eats humans.
"wwWWWW......waaaaaaaaaah!"
I moaned and moaned and moaned--
But I was feeling only a burst of regret.
I thrust a hand inside the head, and I continue to tamper with my brain -- where did I get it wrong, in what way did I get it wrong, so that it became like this -- I continue to think about it.
However.
I definitely got it all wrong.
"Wwww......wwwwwwwwwwww"
For vampires, humans are food.
For higher beings like them, lower beings like humans, in the pyramid of the food chain, are a step below.
That is.
Something I should have understood in the beginning, isn't it?
The truth is -- she tried to kill me, right?
She tried to eat me, right?
She tried to drink up my blood, right?
Like a worthless human being.
Originally even I--
Was food for her.
Even if she wanted to talk.
Even if I was one-sidedly feeling a bond.
In the end -- I am food.
"............"
For Kissshot -- any human.
Every human is the same.
Of course, she has a high opinion of Oshino’s skills.
But his skills are only on this level.
Or maybe I am talking about something I don't actually know -- I even thought, but still, a human is a human.
Food is food.
Even Oshino understood that.
As a proof of that -- before Kissshot became complete and got back her vampire skills -- he left the ruin.
And.
If I try to remember carefully -- Kissshot almost didn't speak with Hanekawa. She wasn't even noticing her -- far from it.
That's right.
For Kissshot Hanekawa was food.
She was not treating her as a friend of mine--
She was treating her as my portable food.
The portable food for me, a vampire.
Or maybe, if she met Hanekawa after she got back her blood sucking power, Hanekawa might have become a victim of that ability -- I think.
Like Guillotinecutter.
She might have been chopped to pieces and eaten.
"Clerics are said to be unappetizing -- but he was quite tasty. I did not think of having likes or dislikes, but hunger is the best sauce is a well said maxim"
"No......"
To the woman who was seductively using her tongue to wipe her mouth from blood and meat stuck to it -- trying to summon them, I said.
My courage.
And my terror.
Trying to summon them, I said.
"......Y-You -- mustn't eat humans"
"Hm?"
It really seemed she did not understand.
Kissshot greatly tilted her head on the side.
"But servant, if I do not eat them I die"
That's right.
She was right.
That was a reason extraordinarily easy to understand.
There was a limit even to simplicity.
And for that reason, Kissshot doesn't have any problem with it -- she won't even try to rebut it point by point to me, a former human who wants to turn back into a human after this.
She thinks it's general knowledge.
It is general knowledge.
For a long time -- she has been eating them.
She has been eating humans.
She continued to eat them.
Vampire.
A first subordinate -- and a second one.
Living 500 years, she shouldn't have sucked the blood of just us two -- and with the exception of us, the rest of the people have all been chopped to pieces, and eaten without leaving flesh or bones, like that.
That's her nutrition replenishment for the case when she doesn't create a subordinate.
In rumors.
When a vampire sucks blood, people without exception become vampires -- it seems it's not completely false. After sucking blood, if one doesn't deal with it properly, indeed everyone turns into a vampire.
If she sucks even a drop of blood.
One will always -- become a vampire.
And the proper countermeasure -- is to eat the body of that human without leaving even a piece of meat. Thanks to that, the vampire gets a much greater nutrition -- and the corpse of the human whose blood was extracted avoids turning into a vampire.
It seems it goes like that.
Just by having my blood sucked -- I became a vampire.
And Guillotinecutter.
As a meal -- was eaten flesh and all.
However it was not limited to Guillotinecutter, in this 500 years Kissshot continued to do this.
It is natural.
Since it was not even worthy to think about it -- without noticing it, without even wanting to notice it, I just kept averting my eyes.
That's right.
I never understood anything.
Even when I met her in the beginning, even when she was on the verge of death, why did I not try to help the dying Kissshot -- I didn't understand it at all from the beginning.
Why she couldn't receive help.
It seems I didn't understand it.
The edible human -- why doesn't he help the vampire.
The predator and the prey.
Despite we only have a relationship of that kind.
"W-wwww......wah"
Guillotinecutter.
He was a despicable man.
He was a man who was sneaky and foul, a disgrace to humans.
And yet--
He was not a person who should be killed.
Though he gave Hanekawa a terrible experience -- even that was my fault.
Because I was a vampire.
Guillotinecutter.
Whatever the reason, whatever the way, was just trying to exorcise a monster.
"N...... noo. I can't take this anymore......nooo. I don't want to think -- I don't want to think about it!"
I extract my hand from the brain -- and I hold my head.
"Noo!"
However, my brain didn't stop thinking.
It was not just Guillotinecutter.
Dramaturgie. Episode.
Even them, who already returned to their home towns, intended to exorcise a vampire -- and the one who prevented them from doing so was no others than me.
After all.
I took back from them -- the limbs they stole with great trouble from Kissshot. And then, of all things, I let that legendary vampire recover her complete form.
Needless to mention Guillotinecutter.
If from now on Kissshot eats a human -- if she takes a meal, it will be all my responsibility.
If Hanekawa is eaten.
If my sisters are eaten.
If my parents are eaten.
That will be all -- my fault.
Because I saved her.
It's not just the limbs and the heart.
To begin with, in that very first day, at that time.
Under that streetlight, if I didn't save Kissshot -- if I had abandoned her, with that the story would be all over.
At that time I didn't abandon Kissshot -- and I understand why it happened, it was the weakness of my heart.
It is different from the strength of Hanekawa.
Such weakness does not bear the slightest resemblance to Hanekawa's kindness that made Oshino feel uneasy, and made me thought she was scary.
That was self-satisfaction, not self-sacrifice.
Just because one lives thoughtlessly -- it doesn't mean that one can die thoughtlessly.
I was eaten by a vampire and died in that manner.
Did I think about what my sisters could have felt?
Did I even think they wouldn't have cried?
"--Bleargh!"
Somehow I resist the nausea.
I resist even the tears.
I resist, because if the dam fell apart for one moment I didn't really know what would happen -- I was afraid to lose control of myself.
For now.
I wanted to preserve at least a little of autonomy.
With Kissshot it became an argument, a verbal fight in which I didn't understand anymore what I said -- in the end I rushed out the cram school ruin without a place to go to.
And I finally arrived at this PE storehouse.
The only dark place I had in my memories.
Outside the sun must have already risen -- though Spring Break, the people who do club activities may have come to school, but luckily today is the last day of Spring Break. Club activities should have been forbidden.
I don't have to worry about pupils of sports clubs opening the door of this PE storehouse.
Obviously, just to be sure I am building a barricade from the inside.
"It's my fault"
My thoughts.
They come out from the corner of my mouth, without me noticing.
"It's my fault that even after all this people -- will continue to be eaten"
By that vampire -- who can't be stopped by nobody.
By that Iron-Blooded, Hot-Blooded, Cold-Blooded vampire.
By Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade!
"It's my fault -- my fault, my fault!"
If I think about it.
Obviously Oshino could read this development.
To begin with, he said it was about the balance, but when he stole the heart from Kissshot in the beginning, he shouldn't have received a request from anybody -- because he met with those three only later.
That means his was an autonomous decision.
It was an action that deviated from work.
A mediation between us and them.
That is to say -- at least he must have stolen the heart from Kissshot as a decision from the human side.
He didn't go as far as exorcising her.
Because his doctrine is to bring a balance.
An opportunist -- I remember Kissshot defined Oshino like that.
And the balance he brought -- I destroyed it.
If it was unexpected that Kissshot would have created a subordinate, it was also unexpected that a human would have saved a dying Kissshot.
My foolish idea, my foolish move--
Nobody expected it.
I thwarted the efforts of those three.
I got back even the heart Oshino stole.
I am the one who made the story troublesome, aren't I?
It seemed like somebody schemed it, wasn't it?
What silly thing was I saying -- the one who schemed it, after all, was myself. This state of affairs, in all its aspects, is completely and thoroughly -- my fault.
My rash action.
The payback for my heart's weakness of not abandoning a dying vampire -- resulted in this.
Guillotinecutter died.
He died, eaten.
His head was chewed, his brain was eaten along with the skull -- now there is no way he will revive. Even if I use vampire blood -- he won't revive.
He is dead.
Death.
There is nothing I can do to undo it anymore.
"Why did all this--"
And Guillotinecutter was not the end, but the beginning. For the vampire Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, this is nothing but a new starting point.
From now on she -- will 'routinely' keep having meals.
Routine is devastating.
I think I heard someone say those words.
I can't stop her anymore -- the crucial vertex of the triangle, Guillotinecutter, was eaten, not to mention that even the three together were no match for her.
Dramaturgie too.
Episode too.
No matter if it was for work or personal feelings, they won't fight Kissshot now that she has become complete -- thinking that, I was made to realize how impressive was the depth of the beliefs of Guillotinecutter who challenged her alone.
He was never an admirable man.
Still, that was the power of humans.
Even if rebuffed -- it doesn't pale.
The one who pales -- was me.
Oshino Meme -- Oshino, who managed to steal the heart from Kissshot without being noticed, might be able to stop Kissshot, but probably he won't.
The balance has been already brought.
The game ended too.
The scales too, are already tipped.
The humans lost.
They were defeated -- by Kissshot.
And also, at this point with what face could I, of all people, say it -- please stop Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.
There's no way I can say it.
Even if my mouth split, there's no way I can say it.
"--I can't stand it anymore"
This Spring Break.
I never had the thought that everything happened in this Spring Break was wrong. I had many vicissitudes, but in retrospect it didn't seem such a bad Spring Break -- it shouldn't have been such a bad Spring Break, and yet--
It was actually the worst Spring Break.
It was just a hell.
It was only a hellish joke.
I was just a fool who didn't understand anything.
"I loathe it"
Still.
Inside me -- there was still one thing smoldering.
Through regret and self-examination, somehow I am averting my eyes -- I have noticed a terrible truth.
Although at this point I couldn't avert my eyes anymore.
That's right.
That too was obvious.
"I loathe it, and yet I too"
It's so obvious it is glaring.
"Even I -- am a vampire"
Now matter how much I fear, loathe and detest vampires -- I am one of them myself.
Precisely.
Oshino's words weigh heavily upon me.
They weigh in my heart.
They weigh -- in my stomach.
--Ah, that's right.
-- Araragi-kun, I ask you this just out of interest--
--Lately, haven't you been hungry
".....................!"
I am becoming -- hungry.
Now I feel hunger.
--Ah, I see
--Well, I just thought--
--It must have been time for you to get hungry.
--At any rate, two weeks passed already.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit......!"
At the moment -- I can still bear it.
It's just a little hunger.
However -- if that allusion of Oshino was implying the current state of affairs -- sooner or later, I will want to suck other's blood.
I will develop the impulse of sucking blood.
And I will want to eat humans.
Because -- I am a monster myself.
Because I am a superior being.
"Shit!"
The first subordinate.
I have no way to know what kind of man he was -- but I think the reason he committed suicide after just some years was more or less that. Though we might be different -- in the end we are the same. He couldn't stand anymore being degraded to a monster -- no, being promoted to a monster. Obviously, it seems Kissshot didn't understand that emotion, but -- it shouldn't be comprehensible to her.
That was a human emotion.
And then, 400 years after then.
Even I, the second subordinate -- had to go through the same experience.
"Ha......hahahahaha"
At last -- a laugh came out.
I could only laugh.
If you think about it, this is quite a humorous story.
As funny stories go this was well played.
After all this running around in circles, in the end I was finally made to realize I got it all wrong -- if we imagine this story had an audience, I must have been quite the talented buffoon.
There is a limit even to stupidity.
I looked so goofy -- it was funny.
"What should I do about this -- I have no choice but to die"
That.
Naturally, was the most natural idea.
It was completely pointless.
At this point.
At this point I don't think I want to turn back into a human.
I can't think something so selfish like to be guilty of so much, and then think of having just my own wish granted -- wrong.
That sounded handsome.
Surely I don't have such admirable thoughts.
I am just -- afraid.
I am afraid that the moment I turn back into a human, Kissshot will eat me.
It is a given.
I just fear to fall below in the food chain.
However, I also can't stand being a vampire.
I hate sucking blood and eating people.
Even my immortal body at this point is repugnant.
Therefore.
"I have no choice but to die"
Not to die thoughtlessly -- to die properly.
It is the cause of death for vampires 90% of the time.
It is different from dying of boredom though.
However, the feeling of guilt can kill a man -- therefore.
Similarly to the first subordinate, I can only choose death -- that's the only path left for me at this point.
Well, actually -- why did I hide in this manner inside the PE storehouse? Why did I try to survive during daytime by doing this?
Yeah, for example.
For example if now I removed the barricade, opened the iron door and thrust my body into the sports field -- with that I would be able to die.
A deathwish -- I think she said.
Obviously there was the recovery power of a subordinate of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, even if I threw my body under the sun, I wouldn't die that easily -- there would just be a cycle of evaporation and recovery, and yet.
I should be able to die before the sunset.
If I take off my clothes, stand naked, and bask into the sunlight, certainly -- in all my life, the first and last attempt at streaking.
It's not king of Kaii <no-life king>, it's naked king <streaking>.
It's an unfunny joke, I think.
It is for this reason that I am basically a straight man.
"......Oh boy"
What a failure.
Really, what a failure.
I thought it could go much better -- I thought it was going well.
However, this is how things are.
What a whammy.
I have no choice left but to die.
"......Ah, yeah"
I just decided it.
As if I was dispossessed of an evil spirit, I could calm down.
I think I have to phone home.
It completely escaped from my head, but I told them I was going out in a journey of self-discovery -- actually, there was no such thing, I have only lost myself.
In fact -- is it better not to contact them?
In what way can I tell them that later on I will die -- I also absolutely can't say the reason. If that's the case then I even think that it's better to leave it like this, the older brother went missing while gone out in a journey of self-discovery.
I don't know how it would be received, but leaving my parents aside, for my sisters it might become a running joke -- the runaway boy.
It is not a small runaway, it is a real runaway.
Well, I think that's fine too.
"But I wanted to talk -- with Hanekawa"
And there is something I must tell her.
Hanekawa was so much affected and dragged into this, there is no way I could let her uninformed of anything like this -- unfortunately, because of the sunlight, at the moment I have no way to contact her from this PE storehouse I jumped into to run away from Kissshot.
I even personally erased her mobile phone number and e-mail.
In front of her eyes.
I erased them in order to wound her.
Since then, even after I met her again -- I didn't ask her contact address because it was awkward. Although that may be an awkwardness felt only by me -- at this point I regret even that.
How much a chicken and a coward I am.
Though I am good at math, it doesn't mean I am strong with numbers, I don't remember a row of 11 digits, and needless to say I don't stand a chance with an alphabetic e-mail. If I contacted her once it should be left in the history, but -- I didn't contact her even once, and she didn't contact me either. If you think about it, in that manner I won't transmit her my number and e-mail.
She still doesn't know my contact address.
If only I told her that time.
......If only I told her that time, what?
Would Hanekawa phone me right now?
How foolish.
Not even her is capable of an ESP-like feat like that -- no way such expedient developments exist.
If God was so expedient, I wouldn't have had to go through this -- I wouldn't have to be guilty of such failure.
While I think it is futile struggling, for the time being, even to look at the time, I took out the cellphone.
It was 5:00 PM.
It seems I have secluded myself here for more than 12 hours -- it doesn't feel real. However, even if this irrelevant time enters my field of vision, even if it enters my head, it just stops at that.
That aside, I opened the address register in a futile struggling, but -- it wasn't futile, it gave my heart a shock like being hit by a blunt weapon.
There.
Was Hanekawa Tsubasa's name.
"......Therefore"
I let out a voice.
Regardless of whether it was my own callowness or the circumstances I was in, I was deeply moved -- I never thought I could be deeply moved by watching the cold screen of a cellphone.
Although I thought there was not a thing to be glad for.
Although I thought it was just a bad Spring Break.
"Do not touch other people's phones without asking......!"
She always had the chance.
It could have happened at the time of my fight with Episode, when she came to deliver me the phone on the sport field, it could have happened anytime. I am basically very easy-going with the management of my cellphone, I didn't set a password.
That's because I hardly put in any personal information -- however.
In the address register that was empty.
Now there was recorded once again the name of Hanekawa Tsubasa.
Her number -- and her e-mail.
"............"
I was thinking I was fine with that.
I thought I wanted to talk to Hanekawa, and I had things to tell her, but a part of me was thinking that even if I couldn't talk to her, maybe I was fine with that.
Although there is no way I could let her uninformed of anything.
I was also thinking I didn't want to tell her anything.
Therefore -- talking about expedient, for me it might have been more convenient that way.
But that is impossible.
If it turns out like this, what I have to do is decided.
Actually -- I decided it on my own.
I sent a mail to Hanekawa.
Because on a call I might cry.
What in the world is Hanekawa doing in Spring Break's last day -- studying at the library? I don't know where the library is, but if that was the case, then there is the possibility she has turned off her phone.
Well, whatever.
Let's wait patiently for the answer.
I was thinking, but she replied immediately.
I check it, and the time I received that mail was perfectly identical to the time I sent my mail. Not even a minute of difference.
Unbelievable......
That was a reply within a maximum of 60 seconds.
I thought it must have been a very concise reply, but I checked the text and, beginning from "Dear" and ending with "Very sincerely yours", that was a full-blown letter.
Amazing.
Girls certainly seem to type mails quickly, but......
Come to think of it, in that day of the closing ceremony, even when she first registered in my phone her own personal informations, Hanekawa's keystrokes were quite fast...... once again, amazing.
That is to say, I didn't know because I mostly send mails only to my family, but were mails something that must be written with such humble expressions...... I thought they were a more frank tool.
Anyway, summing up the letter I got from Hanekawa, the content was 'I'll come immediately so wait for me'. In the end I couldn't wrap it up well, and I could send her only an outline of the matter, as expected of Hanekawa, she guessed it all with just that.
Really.
Though I would have liked better if it was Hanekawa, not me, who met Kissshot. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, was it? Although me and Hanekawa are the same concerning speaking of vampires -- the one who Hanekawa encountered was me, and it was me who encountered Kissshot.
A sudden thought.
Kissshot became a rumor between girls -- then excluding Hanekawa, could there have been among other girls, counting even the pupils that attend other schools, a person besides me who encountered Kissshot?
And if there was, what happened?
Did she just pass by her?
Or did she have her blood sucked -- and was eaten?
If such a thing happens it should become a serious affair, I think, but on the other hand if the body was eaten whole, without leaving any evidence, even if it became the talk of the family, or at most of the class, it might be a story hard to spread in the neighbourhood.
Self-discovery or small runaway--
It might just be thought as something like that instead.
Though if it comes to a large number of people it might not be the case -- that may be a problem of the vampire rank, but it doesn't seem Kissshot needs such a large quantity of 'food'...... this is a possibility.
"Two weeks, Oshino said. Therefore for Kissshot one person per month might not be enough...... then, even counting Guillotinecutter, the victims will be two or three......?"
Though it is not a problem of numbers.
If that's the case -- she won't be discovered.
"......What is it. I still feel like I am failing to notice something--"
Failing to notice.
Or leaving it undone.
Now that I contacted Hanekawa, there shouldn't be anything I left undone, I thought -- and.
In that instant Hanekawa arrived.