Bakemonogatari: Hitagi Crab 004

Spring vacation.

I was attacked by a vampire.

In an age filled with marvels like the linear motor, an age in which nobody thinks twice about travel overseas, I was attacked...by a vampire. Embarrassingly enough.

She was beautiful. A beauty that froze the blood.

A beautiful demon.

A very...beautiful demon.

I hide it under the collar of my uniform, but the marks where her fangs sank into my throat are still there. I'm hoping my hair grows long enough before it gets hot. Be that as it may -- usually, when attacked by vampires, one gets saved by a vampire hunter, or a Christian attack squad, or maybe even a vampire that works with a special vampire killing team...but in my case, I was saved by a filthy homeless guy.

I eventually managed to become human again -- sunlight and crosses and garlic are all fine -- but...there are a few lingering side effects. I retained none of the strength or speed, only my metabolism...my recuperative ability. I'm not sure if I could have handled the utility knife, but a staple wound will heal in less than thirty seconds. And all animals recover faster inside the mouth.

"Oshino...Oshino-san?"

"Yeah. Oshino Meme."

"Oshino Meme...sounds like a moe name."

"Do not get your hopes up. He's well over thirty. Middle-aged."

"Hunh. But I better he was a moe character when he was a kid."

"We're talking a real person here. And how do you even know the word moe?"

"Everyone knows that now," Senjogahara insisted, blithely. "They call people like me tsundere, right?"

I would have called you a tsundora.

Anyway.

The cram school was a bit outside the residential area, about twenty minutes by bike from Naoetsu High School, where Senjogahara, Hanekawa, and I went to school.

Was.

A few years ago a bigger and better school opened up near the station and it went bankrupt. The four story cram school had been a derelict building as long as I could remember, so all this is hearsay.

Danger.

Private Property.

No Trespassing.

Signs like that were all over the chainlink fence around the place, but there were gaps in it everywhere. You could walk right in.

Oshino lived here.

Without permission.

For a month now, since I told him about it during spring vacation.

"And my butt hurts. It throbs. I have wrinkles in my skirt."

"Not my fault."

"Keep making excuses and I cut it off."

"Cut what off?"

"I have never ridden two to a bicycle before, so you could have been nicer about it."

I thought being nice was a sign I was her enemy.

Not that that stopped her.

"Then, specifically, what could I have done?"

"Right...well, you could have let me use your bag as cushion. Just as an example."

"So basically, you only care about yourself?"

"I said it was an example. No need to be rude."

In no way did that count as a defense.

Even a dubious one.

"I swear, Marie Antoinette was more modest and self-effacing than you."

"She is like a student to me."

"Through time!?"

"Do not devalue my words with your cheap comebacks. You have become awfully familiar in a very short time. If a stranger heard us they might mistake us for classmates."

"We are classmates!"

Would you deny the fact!?

That's too much to bear!

"I'm gonna need to stock up on patience to survive your company."

"Araragi-kun. If you say things that way it makes it sound like I'm the one with the bad personality."

She actually said this.

"What happened to your bag, anyway?" I asked. "Didn't you have one?"

Come to think of it, I'd never seen her carry anything.

"I've memorized all my textbooks. I leave them in the locker. I keep my stationary supplies hidden on my person, so I need no bag. I don't need to change for gym, after all."

"Right..."

"And if both hands are free, I can fight any time."

Her body was a weapon.

The human weapon.

"I'm not fond of leaving feminine hygiene supplies in my locker, but that's the only real inconvenience. I have no friends to borrow things from."

"...I'd rather not have known that."

"Everything that comes out of the body is natural. Nothing to hide."

Nothing to bring up willy nilly, either.

In my philosophy.

I let it drop.

Odds were I should have been more appalled by the lack of friends.

"Oh, right."

Not something I'd ever have thought about, but Senjogahara had complained about the crease in her skirt, so, on the grounds that girls cared about that sort of thing, we were looking for a particularly large gap in the fence.

"You'll have to hand over the stationary supplies."

"Eh?"

"Give them to me."

"Eh? Eh?"

She acted like I'd asked her to do something illegal. Like I was absolutely out of my mind.

"Oshino may be a weird guy, but I owe him a lot."

And...

So did Hanekawa.

"Enough that I can't let him meet someone dangerous. Hand your arsenal over."

"You couldn't have said earlier?" Senjogahara glared at me. "You trapped me."

I didn't think it was that unreasonable a request.

But it took Senjogahara a good long while to make up her mind. She glared furiously at me for a minute, then stared at her feet, frowning. She didn't say a word.

Just as I was starting to wonder if she was going to turn around and leave, she finally made up her mind.

"Okay," she said. "Take them."

An avalanche of stationary supplies poured out from all over her body. I'd seen less impressive magicians. The array she'd shown me on the school stairs had been but a small fragment of her insane hoard. Her pockets clearly contained access to the fourth dimension. At the least, 22nd century technology. I'd said to hand them over, but I sincerely doubted they would all fit in my bag.

Allowing someone like this to remain at large was clearly a gross oversight on the part of the authorities.

"But understand, this does not mean I trust you," Senjogahara said, as she handed over the last of it.

"What do you mean?"

"If you've tricked me, and have lured me to a deserted location as part of some scheme to get revenge for the stapler incident, then you picked the wrong woman."

I singularly doubted I had.

"Know this -- if I do not contact them once a minute, then five thousand of my allies will descend upon your family."

"Don't worry, there's no need for that."

"You mean you can finish in less than a minute?"

"Do I look like a boxer?"

She didn't even think twice about targeting my family.

Unnerving.

And five thousand was obviously a lie.

She didn't even have any friends.

"I hear your sisters are still in junior high."

She knew I had sisters?

She might be lying, but she clearly wasn't joking.

Either way, showing off a little immortality trick had clearly not been enough to make her trust me. Oshino thought trust was pretty important in situations like this, so this was not ideal.

But there was nothing I could do about that.

This was Senjogahara's problem.

I was just a guide.

We stepped through the fence, onto the ground, and went into the building. It was still early in the evening, but it was already pretty dark inside. The building had been abandoned for a while, and there was a lot of rubble on the floor to avoid.

Oh.

If I were to kick an empty can, it would just be an empty can. But for Senjogahara, that would be an empty can with a mass ten times normal.

At least, it would seem like it.

Certainly, things weren't just ten times as heavy, and gravity wasn't just a tenth normal -- this wasn't an old comic, and physics wasn't that easy to understand. Lower weight did not immediately lead to feats of physicality, so I should try not to oversimplify. But it did explain why Senjogahara was glaring around the dark room like a wild thing.

She might be ten times faster...

But she was ten times as weak.

Now I saw why she'd been so reluctant to relinquish the stationary supplies.

And...her bag.

I knew why she didn't carry one.

"This way," I said, reaching out and taking Senjogahara's wrist. I began leading her across the room, so she soon worked out why.

"Don't expect me to be grateful," she said.

"I didn't."

"You're the one who should be grateful."

"Why!?"

"I deliberately stapled the inside of your mouth to avoid leaving a wound where someone else could see it."

Yeah, like punching your wife in the stomach to avoid explaining another black eye.

"What if it had gone through?"

"Araragi-kun, you have such thick features. I had a feeling it wouldn't."

"Wow, why does that sound so insulting?"

"And one out of ten of my hunches come true."

"That's it!?"

"Well," Senjogahara said, after a moment's silence. "I guess I needn't have worried."

"Fair enough."

"Would it hurt if I suggested immortality must come in handy?"

That was a question.

"Not any more."

Not now.

Over spring break?

Well, those words could have killed me. They could well have been fatal.

"It has its uses. And its downsides. It is what it is."

"Impressively vague," Senjogahara sighed. "Like how inflammable could mean either easily burns or doesn't burn at all."

"It means it doesn't burn."

"So you say."

"And I'm not immortal any more. I just heal a little faster. Otherwise, I'm ordinary."

"What a shame." She sounded disappointed. "I had planned on running a few experiments, but alas."

"Since those experiments would have boiled down to torture, thank god I said something."

"Don't be silly. I was just going to ████ your ██████ with a ████."

"What are those black bars hiding!?"

"Oh, this and that."

"Explain those italics!"

Oshino was usually on the fourth floor.

There was an elevator, but of course, it no longer worked. Which left us with the choice of breaking through the ceiling of the elevator and using the wires to scale the elevator shaft, or climbing the stairs. A choice all but a select few would not even stop to consider.

Still leading Senjogahara by the hand, I began climbing the stairs.

"Araragi-kun. Let me say one final thing."

"What?"

"While it may be hard to tell with my clothes on, my body might not be worth breaking the law to obtain."

Senjogahara Hitagi appeared to a firm supporter of abstinence.

"Perhaps I was being too euphemistic. Specifically, if you give in to your barely suppressed animal instincts and rape me, I shall do whatever I can to extract a Boy's Love revenge upon you."

So much for modesty and inhibition.

Also, terrifying.

"Judging by what you've just said, and your behavior over the last hour, you're kinda paranoid. You might even have a persecution complex."

"Oh, please. Some things are better left unsaid, no matter how true."

"You admit it!?"

"Anyway, this building looks like it could collapse at any minute. Hard to believe this Oshino person actually lives here."

"Yeah, well...he's a bit...odd."

If asked who was stranger, Senjogahara or Oshino, I would definitely have to think about it.

"Shouldn't we have called ahead? I mean, we are here to ask him for help."

"I am astonished to hear you suggest something so sensible, but nope, the man does not have a phone."

"He grows more mysterious by the minute. He has begun to seem downright suspicious. What on earth does he do?"

"I don't know, exactly...but he's an expert on things like what happened to me...and you."

"Hmm."

I knew it explained very little, but she let the matter drop. Perhaps she felt she'd find out in a few minutes anyway, or perhaps she simply realized there was no answer to her question. Either way, she was right.

"Hey, Araragi-kun. You wear your watch on your right hand."

"Mm? Yeah."

"'Cause you're a contrary bastard?"

"You couldn't have assumed I was left-handed?"

"Well? Which is it?"

I was a contrary bastard.

Fourth floor.

This had been a cram school, so the three rooms on this floor showed signs of having been classrooms -- but the doors were broken in, with nothing left to separate them from the halls. I glanced into the nearest room, searching for Oshino.

"Ah, there you are, Araragi-kun."

There he was. Oshino Meme.

Sitting cross-legged on a simple bed made by tying rotting desks together with plastic bags.

He sounded like he'd been expecting me.

The man always seemed to be one step ahead.

Senjogahara, on the other hand, took a step back.

I had warned her, but Oshino was a filthy man, well off what high school girls generally considered acceptable aesthetic presentation. Anyone living in an abandoned building would quickly start to look a bit run down themselves, but even to male eyes Oshino was obviously lacking in the hygiene department. To the point where it was impossible to accurately describe him without commenting upon it. But worse than that, the fatal stroke...was the psychedelic Hawaiian shirt.

Every time I remembered how much I owed him the fact that I owed him anything came as something of a shock. If you were as fine a human being as Hanekawa, you did not allow such things to get to you, apparently.

"What? Araragi-kun, once again, you're with a new girl. You have a different one every time I see you. Can't say I don't approve."

"Who are you describing and why have you confused them with me?"

"Hmm...oooh," Oshino purred, gazing in Senjogahara's direction.

From the sound of things, he saw something.

"Welcome. I am Oshino."

"Thank you. My name is Senjogahara Hitagi."

She had some manners.

Apparently not all of her being was composed of meaningless spite. At least with her elders she made an attempt at respect.

"Araragi-kun is a classmate. He told me about you."

"Uh-hunh," Oshino nodded sagely.

He let his head droop, shook loose a cigarette, and tossed it into his mouth. He let it rest between his lips, not lighting it. He waggled the end of the cigarette in the general direction of what had been windows, but were now just assorted fragments of broken glass.

After a long silence, he turned towards me.

"So you got a thing for girls with straight bangs, Araragi-kun?"

"Like I said, you clearly have me mixed up with some douchebag. Only pedophiles 'have a thing' for straight bangs, and you know it. I'm not part of the generation ruined by Full House."

"Ha," Oshino laughed.

Senjogahara scowled.

Perhaps she took offense at the word 'pedophile.'

"Um, well, I'm sure she can tell you more than I did, but a couple of years ago..."

"Do not refer to me as 'she,'" Senjogahara snapped.

"Then what?"

"Senjogahara-sama."

Had she lost her mind?

"Senjogahara-sama."

"No need to over-enunciate it. Speak properly."

"Senjogahara-chan."

She poked me in the eyes.

"You could have blinded me!"

"A fitting punishment."

"The punishment does not fit the crime!"

"My aggression is composed of ten grams of copper, twenty-five of zinc, fifteen of nickel, five of shame, and ninety-seven grams of pure malice."

"Mostly malice, then."

"And I was lying about the shame."

"That's the only saving grace!"

"Keep your voice down. Before I change your nickname to Menstrual Cramps."

"Are you trying to drive me to suicide!?"

"Don't be silly. It's a natural phenomenon, nothing to be ashamed of."

"Not when there's malice involved!"

Apparently she was satisfied with this, because Senjogahara turned back to Oshino.

"More importantly, there's something I want to ask you first."

She sounded more like she was addressing the both of us. She pointed to the corner of the room.

There was a little girl, her arms around her knees. She looked to be about eight years old, much too young to be in a place like this. She had white skin and blonde hair, and wore a helmet with goggles on it.

"What the hell is that?"

'What' indeed -- Senjogahara had accurately guessed that the girl was some thing. It didn't take a great deal of perception to detect something odd about the way the girl was glaring fiercely and incessantly at Oshino, with an intensity to that outdid even Senjogahara's most terrifying glare.

"Pay it no mind," I said, before Oshino could answer. "It's just sitting there. It can't do anything. It had no shadow, no form, no name. That's all it is."

"No, no, Araragi-kun," Oshino interrupted. "True, she has no shadow or form, but I gave her a name yesterday. She helped us out over Golden Week, so it seemed only fair to have a name to call her by. And the longer she goes without a name, the longer she stays evil."

"Oh? What name?"

We were leaving Senjogahara out a bit here, but I was curious.

"Oshino Shinobu."

"Shinobu...hunh."

A very...Japanese name.

Not that it particularly mattered.

"A heart beneath a blade. Sounds like her, doesn't it? And I let her borrow my family name. Which, by a fortuitous coincidence, happens to have the kanji for 'Shinobu' in it. Double the kanji, triple the meaning. I'm quite proud of it."

"Sounds fine."

Didn't matter anyway.

"I thought up a bunch, and eventually boiled it down to either Oshino Shinobu or Oshino Oshino, but I decided the pun was better than the echo. And the ever so slightly class presidential nature of the kanji won some points with me."

"I dig it."

I really didn't care.

But still, Oshino Oshino would have been out of line.

"So," Senjogahara said, as if she'd waited long enough. "What is she?"

"Like I said, nothing."

The remains of a vampire.

The shell of a beautiful demon.

There was no point in explaining. It had nothing to do with Senjogahara. It was my problem. A duty I would have for the rest of my life.

"Nothing. Very well."

She dropped that awful quick.

"My father's mother always said it was important to quit when you're abed."

"Abed? She having visions of her own death?"

Or had she just got the words mixed up?

Like my grandmother, who once said old socks when she meant orthodox.

"More importantly," she said again, shifting her gaze away from the little blonde ex-vampire, and refocusing it on Oshino Meme. "I heard you would be able to help me."

"Help you? That's impossible," Oshino said, as if teasing her. "You will simply help yourself."

Woah.

Senjogahara had narrowed her eyes.

She was radiating suspicion.

"Five other people said exactly the same thing to me. All five of them were frauds. Are you as well, Oshino-san?"

"Ha ha. You are a lively one, aren't you? Did something good happen?"

It was like he always went out of his way to wind people up. It worked well with people like Hanekawa, admittedly, but it was absolutely the wrong approach to take with Senjogahara.

She was the type to fight back. Violently.

"Okay, okay," I said, stepping in.

Forcing my way between them.

"Outta my way," she said. "Or you die first."

She sounded like she'd said that before.

Why did those sparks wind up on me?

This woman was like a fireball.

Impossible to contain in mere words.

"Ah, relax," Oshino said, scratching his chin. "If you don't tell me anything, we'll never get anywhere. I've never been much good at reading minds, you see. I much prefer talking. Conversation! But don't worry. I can also keep a secret."

Senjogahara said nothing.

"Um, I guess I could give a quick summary?"

"No, Araragi-kun," she said, stopping me. "Let me."

"Senjogahara..."

"It should come from me," she concluded.