Nisenmonogatari Part 1 Read online

  001

  Karen Araragi and Tsukihi Araragi─my sisters. I doubt there are many in this world who would be interested in hearing their tale in the first place. And even, supposing, there were a class of people so peculiarly predisposed, given the choice, for my own part I’m quite certain I would not be interested in telling their tale. If I were to explain why I’m sure most anyone would understand, but by and by, and by and large, few these days care to bare every last detail of their home lives, and I certainly have no interest in bucking that trend. But even putting such general objections aside─Karen and Tsukihi are an unusual case. If it weren’t for the fact that they are my sisters, I’m sure I would have never had anything to do with them. And even supposing we did come in contact, they’re the type of people I would have almost certainly ignored. Due to the odd experiences I’ve had these past few months, I’ve made more than my share of strange acquaintances─for instance, Hitagi Senjogahara, Mayoi Hachikuji, Suruga Kanbaru, and Nadeko Sengoku─but if there’s something in me that has allowed me to go more or less tit for tat with them, the attribute can be traced back to having been raised under the same roof as my sisters.

  Of course, I suppose it wouldn’t be fair if I wasn’t up front about the fact that feelings of inferiority and jealousy might be coloring my view. While I spent my high school life slacking off and wound up a loser, Karen and Tsukihi always had their act together─they’re still in middle school, though, and up through middle school I had it together too, so there’s probably no need for me to be so hard on myself. But looking back from my current vantage point, I have to admit that they have promise. Whenever the relatives get together, almost like clockwork one of them is sure to say to me, “Koyomi, you must be so proud of your sisters.” Yes, they’re those kind of sisters. By the way, I’ve never heard anyone tell my sisters, “You must be so proud of your brother.” Then again, with a brother as shabby as me, I suppose that would be asking for too much.

  However, let me make one thing clear, loud and clear.

  My sisters may not be losers, but they’re still problem children. They may be girls of character, but that character is bankrupt.

  As their brother, I have the habit of always speaking about them as if they were a set, but obviously they each have their own distinct personality and idiosyncrasies, so let me take a moment now to explain them individually, in turn.

  First, the older little sister.

  Karen Araragi.

  Currently in the third year of middle school, Karen turned fifteen at the end of June─and back to being just three years younger than me. Ever since elementary school she’s generally kept her hair tied back in a ponytail. But apparently, once, around the time she entered middle school, she had actually dyed her hair─a garish shocking pink, too, like some character out of an anime. Or so I heard. I still don’t know why she did it, but the predictable consequence was that our mother smacked her upside the face (for the sake of my mother’s honor, let me just state that it was the first and last time the mild-mannered woman ever raised a hand against one of her daughters) and Karen re-dyed her hair black that same night (with calligraphy ink, of all things). Since Karen’s hair was actually only shocking pink for a few hours, from when she dyed it in her own room to when our mother came home, and I was at school at the time (still in my first year, I was teetering on the brink of loserdom but still scrambling to hold on), I unfortunately never got to witness that look. As much as I wish I had, if it had been me who discovered her hair instead of our mother, honestly I might have been the one to smack Karen upside the face. So who’s to say? In this remote country town, hardly anyone even lightens their hair, and just unbuttoning the top button on your school uniform is enough to brand you as a delinquent, so in light of the kind of off-the-wall middle-school debut Karen was looking to make, there’s probably no need to say any more about her personality, all things considered.

  The figure she cuts is, to be blunt, not cute.

  If anything, I’d say she’s more handsome or cool.

  She’s a bit taller than me, which might sound vague, but just how much qualifies as “a bit” I will leave up to your imagination. I don’t want to give away too much about my own height, which I’m using as a standard of measurement. Whereas I stopped growing in my second year of middle school, in her second year, Karen shot up like a leaf. This has developed into an unfortunate complex for us both. Honestly, it’s mortifying. I have to look up to my little sister. Can you imagine a bigger humiliation? To make matters worse, Karen does martial arts so her posture is magnificent, making her look about two inches taller than she really is. As a result, Karen refuses to wear skirts. She says they “make her legs look too long.” Instead, she always wears a baggy, loose-fitting sports jersey to school. The jersey actually suits her, boosting her tomboy image.

  By the way, the martial art Karen studies is karate. Ever since she was a kid she’s been the sporty type, but apparently the best outlet for her talent was violence. She took her black belt in no time. There’s a picture of her hanging in our living room, dressed in her gi. The black belt is tied around her waist and she’s making the V sign at the camera. Both the outfit and the pose suit her way too well. There isn’t much femininity to Karen. I wouldn’t go so far as to call her mannish, but there’s definitely something boyish about her─her hawkish, slanted eyes are probably a factor. If I were to compare her to anyone else I know, I’d probably say that Suruga Kanbaru is the closest match. If you took away Kanbaru’s respect for me, maybe you’d be left with Karen─although, the thought is kind of chilling.

  And then there’s the younger little sister.

  Tsukihi Araragi.

  Currently in the second year of middle school, Tsukihi’s birthday is in early April. In other words, she is currently fourteen─unlike her older sister, Tsukihi’s hairstyle changes from mood to mood and season to season. Honestly, since she never seems to keep the same hairstyle for more than three months at a time, I’d be hard pressed to tell you whether her hair is “her thing” or she actually just doesn’t care. Not long ago she was keeping it long and straight, but at the moment she has it in a shaggy Dutch bob. I’ve never been interested enough to ask, but apparently she has a favorite salon she goes to. Maybe that sounds a little precocious for a middle-school student, but then again, these days that might just be what kids do. Besides, in Tsukihi’s case it’s not the exterior that’s her problem so much as the interior. Karen’s insides more or less match her outsides, but Tsukihi’s outsides belie her insides─her insides, however, do not belie her outsides, which is an important distinction. Tsukihi has gentle, downward-tilted eyes (a contrast to her sister) and a small frame (an even bigger contrast to her sister), as well as a slow, distinctive way of speaking that is nothing if not girlish. But deep down she’s even more aggressive than Karen, with a temper to boot. When Karen gets into some fight, listening to the story afterward, more often than not it was Tsukihi who was behind it. She has a temper that borders on hysteria. The sharp contrast with her gentle appearance tends to leave people scratching their heads in bewilderment─her one saving grace, I suppose, is that when she does get angry it is only ever on someone else’s behalf.

  For example, there was an episode that occurred when Tsukihi was in her second year of elementary school. During recess, a ball kicked by one of the older students landed in the sunflower bed tended by Tsukihi’s class. When the older student came to get his ball, Tsukihi’s classmate, who had been watering the flowers, tried reprimanding him, but the older student got nasty and made her cry. Not that unusual of an occurrence for an elementary school. But as soon as Tsukihi heard about it she sprang into action, ascertaining which class the boy belonged to and then launching
a full-out attack on the classroom (Karen, by the way, went with her). By the time the commotion, which later came to be known as the Ikedaya Incident (the assassins of the late shogunate and restoration era were popular at the time and I doubt the name was chosen for any special meaning) died down, the older student had been sent to the hospital and nearly all of the fixtures in the classroom had been destroyed. And then in a finishing touch, they sent a get-well bouquet to the hospital. Sunflowers.

  Any way you looked at it, they had gone overboard. Maybe the girl stopped crying, but she probably did so out of pure fear. The whole incident was atrocious.

  Tsukihi joined the tea ceremony club at her school, but only as an excuse to wear a kimono─she has such a thing for traditional Japanese clothing that she even wears a yukata to bed instead of pajamas. Supposedly they’re teaching her about the peaceful spirit of tea, but sadly that doesn’t seem to have translated to a change in her personality. Then again, any art form that was dominated by a difficult, short-tempered priest who’d go nuts just because someone sprinkled sugar on a watermelon probably just fans her hysteria instead.

  Either sister, as you can see, would be a handful on her own, but matters are complicated by the fact that there are two. Forget about just handfuls, it takes feet and shoulders to juggle them both. As their extraordinarily bland older brother, I’m constantly at a loss over how to respond in the wake of each new scandal they cause. The real problem may be how well each sister complements the other.

  The older sister: always ready for a fight. The younger sister: always ready to find a reason to start a fight. It’s why they are known as the Fire Sisters of Tsuganoki Second Middle School.

  According to Sengoku, my sisters are quite the famous duo among other junior-high kids in the area. Tsuganoki Second Middle School is private, while Sengoku attends a public school (my own alma mater), a little further away by bus. If the rumors had circulated that far, it was certainly no laughing matter.

  I never heard this story from Karen herself so I can’t speak to its veracity, but apparently on her first day of school she earned a name for herself among junior-high kids by challenging and defeating, in a one-on-one throw-down, the juvie boss leader who’d lorded over the middle schools in our area─no, there’s no way that could be true. I mean, just look at how many weird phrases there are in those three little lines. Those kind of words don’t belong in the twenty-first century. Someone had to have made that up. Still, I suppose the fact that a rumor like that could float around, unchallenged, is proof enough of Karen and Tsukihi’s fame.

  The Fire Sisters of Tsuganoki Second Middle School.

  Karen Araragi, the enforcer, and Tsukihi Araragi, the strategist. As a pair, they spent their days…I don’t know. Running around rescuing those in need? Righting wrongs and making the world a better place? In any case, playing at being make-believe defenders of justice. Of course, if I said that to the girls, I know how they’d reply.

  Karen: “It’s not make-believe, Koyomi.”

  And Tsukihi would almost certainly add: “We aren’t ‘defenders of justice,’ we are justice itself.”

  But as their flesh and blood, I can confirm that their activities are not nearly so lofty. It’s just an outlet for their excess energy. And if they keep it up they’re going to get themselves into trouble someday─at least that’s what I kept telling them, but the one who keeps getting into trouble these last few months has actually been me. And since I haven’t been able to get my own act together, I guess nothing I say sounds very persuasive─then again, knowing it all probably goes in one ear and out the other, I can say it loudly and repeatedly.

  Karen and Tsukihi Araragi. In the end, the Fire Sisters are nothing more than make-believe defenders of justice.

  My sisters, whom I must be proud of.

  The truth is, they’re just hopelessly fake.

  002

  The development seems so entirely out of context that I can only apologize, but apparently I was kidnapped.

  The date was July twenty-ninth, approximately ten days after the start of summer vacation─well, I had a feeling that I’d been unconscious for some time, so I suppose it was possible that it was already the thirtieth. In fact, for all I knew the thirty-first had come and gone and it was August. If I could see the watch strapped to my right wrist, I’d be able to ascertain the date and hour, but with my hands bound together behind a steel beam, that was easier said than done. Nor could I extract the cell phone sitting in my pocket. Which is not to say that I had no estimate of the time─it was pitch black outside the window, allowing me to surmise, at least, that it must be night. I say window, but in reality the glass was missing, and the wind blustered into the room. Midsummer or not, the location was far too exposed. I could probably manage to stand up if I tried since my feet weren’t bound, but there didn’t seem to be much point in doing so. I kept my butt planted on the floor and stretched my legs out instead.

  I can’t believe Oshino and Shinobu lived like this, I thought absently to myself.

  That’s right. I was being held captive in a location I knew all too well, the ruins of the former cram school. It was a four-story affair strewn with garbage and rubble and on the verge of collapse. To someone unfamiliar with the building, every floor and classroom probably looked the same, but if you knew the place as well as I did, small differences were apparent. I could tell that the classroom where I was being held was one of three on the fourth floor, the one farthest on the left viewed from the stairwell.

  A fat lot of good it did me, though.

  Oshino, of course, was no longer in town, let alone in these ruins, and Shinobu had left them to take up residence in my shadow. Perhaps, at this very moment, she was feeling nostalgic. Or perhaps she wasn’t feeling anything at all. How was I to know what a five-hundred-year-old vampire might be thinking.

  So, what to do?

  Despite a throbbing pain in the back of my head (I must have been struck there when I was abducted), I went over the situation with a calmness that seemed at odds with my predicament. People can be surprisingly levelheaded at such moments. After all, it’s not like losing your head got you anywhere. The most urgent task, really, was to take stock of the status quo.

  I had assumed my hands were tied behind my back with a length of rope or something, but it seemed it was actually a pair of metal handcuffs keeping them in place. If they’d been the toy variety, I probably could have resorted to brute strength to rip them apart─but I tried and they didn’t budge. I’d end up ripping my own wrists to shreds before I even put a dent in the cuffs. If there’s any distinction between real and fake in the handcuff world, these were clearly the real deal.

  “Still─vampiric strength would have let me escape without even breaking a sweat.”

  Forget about the cuffs, I’d demolish the steel beam, too. Hell, even if I mangled my wrists, the trademark healing skill would restore them soon enough. Six of one or half a dozen of another.

  “Vampire…” I muttered, sweeping my gaze over the ruined classroom once more. Even if I couldn’t use my hands, there might be something I could reach with my feet.

  My eyes fell on my own shadow. However dark the darkness, it always appeared a shade darker in relief.

  “......”

  Over spring break, I was attacked by a vampire.

  A beautiful vampire with blond hair who drained my blood.

  All of it. Every last drop. And as if that weren’t enough─

  Drained of blood, I became a vampire.

  Over that spring break I’d spent not as a human being but as a vampire, these cram school ruins had served as my lair where I hid from prying eyes.

  Usually, people who’ve turned into vampires are saved by vampire hunters, or Christian special ops, or even kinslayer vampires who hunt other vampires, but in my case, it was some older dude who was just passing by─Mèmè Oshino.

  Saved by another. Oshino never stopped disliking that presumptuous way of putting it.
r />   But that was how I became human again, while the beautiful blond vampire was reduced to a pale memory of her former self, robbed of her strength and even of her name (Shinobu Oshino was the one she received in exchange), to be sealed inside my shadow in the end.

  I suppose you could say we had it coming.

  Both Shinobu and me.

  That was all there was to it.

  Only, I couldn’t leave it at that─and so she and I existed as we did. There was no way for me to know how Shinobu felt about it all, but even if it had been a mistake, I don’t see what other choice we had.

  Anyway.

  The ruins were all full of memories for me. Maybe I should say awful memories, but that’s beside the point.

  The issue, at the moment, was that while I once possessed the strength of a vampire it was a long time ago, and only a faint vestige of that attribute now remained. Tearing through a set of metal handcuffs was only wishful thinking. If I were Lupin the Third, I’d dislocate the bones in my wrist and slip out of the cuffs as if they were a pair of gloves, but since I was just a high school third-year and not, in fact, Lupin the Third, such sleights of hand were beyond me.