Koyomi Araragi had agreed to fight the vampire hunters. The stakes: Kiss-shot's limbs. Even he didn't know how he'd agreed to a request that required staking his life, especially after a month of living in constant terror of an attack.
But the thought of what Meme Oshino said—that Kiss-shot would be lonely if her thrall died—and Hanekawa theory that Kiss-shot came to Japan to find a place to die... it made Araragi restless. It was an unspeakable, heavy sensation in his chest.
"Why did you come to Japan?"
Watching the vampire child before him brightening up over the donuts he'd brought, Araragi asked seriously.
"Me? Originally, I came to find a good place to die~ but I gave up on that later, you know?"
"...Why?"
"Because I don't want to die anymore?" The vampire child looked back at him in surprise. "That's why I called out to you for help back then, wasn't it? You really are a big dummy..."
Araragi suddenly remembered the blonde beauty lying in a pool of blood, missing her limbs, crying out that she didn't want to die after he had initially refused her.
He made a decision.
Sū ěr felt that Araragi was very much like him. Not in appearance or personality, but in experience.
Both had been struck by a fate that fell from the sky, both possessed eternal life, both had companions they couldn't be parted from, and both were exploring the path of immortality as young men—well, that last part felt a bit awkward coming from someone in his decades.
But Sū ěr was genuinely curious. As he'd asked Oshino: what would Araragi look like, and what would he think, when he reached two hundred?
And Sū ěr himself?
This black-haired youth was a mirror. Sū ěr could see himself in him.
After promising to return with crucial news once he had it, Meme Oshino left quickly to prepare for the duel in seven days.
"Training?"
"Yes! Please train me during these seven days!"
Looking at the boy bowing at a ninety-degree angle, Sū ěr fell into deep thought.
Can I even train people?
If it were escape tactics, stealth, or wilderness survival, he had plenty to teach. But as for head-on combat...
Sū ěr wasn't bragging, but his combat power was binary: either dead-weak or god-strong. There was no "evenly matched" or "overcoming the odds" for him. If he could win, he won; if he couldn't, no amount of effort would change it. He couldn't "shonen-power" his way through a limit break like a manga protagonist.
Araragi clearly had some misconceptions about him.
Furthermore, Jibril and Think couldn't help much either. Jibril combat was rarely melee; it was all high-energy output and high-speed assault. As for Think... well, Araragi simply didn't have the intelligence to learn magical formula theory.
But Sū ěr couldn't bear to just turn him away.
"I have an idea. Come with me."
"Eh?"
Sū ěr had thought of the perfect place.
Extra portions of rice, extra meat, extra drinks, and an extra-thick atmosphere.
The evening breeze, the shishi-odoshi [deer scarer], a small pavilion, and flowing water.
"...Why do I get the feeling that you are the Nutanurarihyon?" Looking at the man holding a massive bowl with enough food for several people in front of him, even Nurarihyon, with his legendary thick skin, couldn't help but stare with dead-fish eyes.
"Don't blame me. It's your fault Japanese people put so little food on each plate. How is anyone supposed to get full?" Sū ěr roasted him while eating. "No wonder you're all short. I've found the reason for you. No need to thank me."
"The average height has increased a lot! National milk programs, you know! Even an old monster like me knows that!" Nurarihyon defended the youth of Japan.
"Oh? You surf the web?" Sū ěr leaned back in mock surprise.
Watching Sū ěr and this... yōkai trade barbs, Araragi gaze couldn't leave that incredibly long back of the head. It was the young man's first direct impression of a yōkai.
He'd expected Sū ěr to take him to some secret location for special training, like a giant plaza dug out under a house—that's how it usually went in novels and manga.
Instead, Sū ěr had taken him in a taxi to an old district... and, by the way, Araragi paid the fare.
The traditional architecture and the clothing of the people inside matched Araragi image of yōkai: eerie, antique, and bizarre.
Of course, Araragi hadn't seen the truly bizarre ones yet, but Sū ěr could sense the small yōkai of the Nura Clan hiding in the shadows or peeking through door cracks at the stranger.
Nurarihyon, who usually spent his days freeloading off others, never expected to be the one providing the free meal. He silently vowed to find a chance to sneak into Sū ěr house for a "visit" later.
Sipping his tea, Nurarihyon ignored the man devouring food across from him and turned his attention to the youth in the black school uniform.
With the eyes of a five-hundred-year-old monster, he saw immediately that this black-haired youth wasn't human. He looked thin, but beneath that uniform was a body of tight, explosive muscle.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say he felt a sense of threat from the boy, even though he was sitting in a posture full of openings. But considering Sū ěr was sitting the same way, Nurarihyon accepted it as an outlier.
More importantly, there was the energy within that young body.
"So?" Nurarihyon gestured toward Araragi.
"Mmm... it's a bit embarrassing to say, but I brought him here to ask you to train him over the next seven days," Sū ěr said, gulping down tea. "In short: this kid has to fight for his life in seven days. Please make him stronger. Over and out."
"...You call that being embarrassed?!" Nurarihyon shouted.