Why can't humans do it too?

"Feeling bored after living too long? Notice how the people around you are getting old and dying? Unable to adapt to a world that's changing so fast?" Shinobu Meme shrugged lightly and said, "Who knows? I'm not a vampire."

Aside from the sound of people sipping cola, the dining table fell silent for a moment.

Oshino Meme's words served as a warning not only to Araragi Koyomi, but also to Sue, who couldn't help but ponder—after all, he too possessed eternal life. He wasn't tired of it now, but what about him when he was two hundred years old?

At two hundred years old, I fear the world isn't interesting enough.

"I think that if Araragi-kun chose to commit suicide, that vampire would be heartbroken, wouldn't she?" After a long while, Hanekawa Tsubasa said, pondering. "According to what Oshino-san just said, Araragi-kun is the second familiar she has created in the past five hundred years. So who was the first?"

In the past five hundred years, there has been no news of Kiss-Shot's first familiar. There are only things Kiss-Shot did. From this perspective, the first familiar whom Kiss-Shot turned from human to vampire probably... committed suicide.

Following this line of thought, even the reason why that strange king refused to create familiars was found.

'Is that so?' Araragi Koyomi couldn't help but think of the little vampire girl whose eyes lit up when he brought her donuts, and suddenly realized that she might be much gentler than he had imagined.

"And following this logic, we can also guess why Ms. Kiss-Shot, whom Mr. Oshino is curious about, suddenly came to Japan—could she have committed suicide?" Hanekawa Tsubasa said calmly. This intelligent girl always thought of many things.

"...Is that so?" Araragi Koyomi murmured, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He had a strong urge to rush to the Sue family and ask the vampire girl, but he suppressed the impulse for the time being.

"Well, there are always plenty of reasons to guess, we can talk about this later," Shinobu Meme waved her hand and said, "So, Araragi-kun, you can think about it first, okay?"

"So what does Mr. Oshino think?" Hanekawa Tsubasa suddenly launched an attack on Oshino, "Mr. Oshino, who raised this question, should also have a solution, right?"

"No, no, no, what can I do? The decision should be made by Araragi-kun, okay?"

Without any prior discussion, Meme Oshino said something similar to what Sue said: let Koyomi Araragi make the decision himself.

Looking into Araragi Koyomi's eyes, Sue calmly said, "What I said before still holds true."

"Hmm?" Shinobu tilted his head, but neither Sue nor Araragi Koyomi seemed inclined to explain clearly to him.

Ultimately, the frivolous blond man's stance remains uncertain, or rather, he only has one stance—to maintain what he calls the balance between humans and the supernatural, and he will repeatedly waver between the two sides because of this invisible balance.

Just as he would steal Kiss-Shot's heart for the sake of balance, he is now sitting with Sue and the others, strategizing together.

"Alright~, so it's settled then?" Ignoring the rebuff she'd received, Shinobu Meme picked up her Coke in front of her. "Let's set the date for seven days from now, and the location will be at Araragi's school—tonight."

"If you can defeat those two vampire hunters, Araragi-kun, they will return Kiss-Shot's limbs intact. And I'll return her heart as well," Oshino Meme said with a smile. "Then please do your best in these seven days!"

“…Hmm,” Araragi Koyomi nodded silently.

"What about me? Who will I fight?" Suer asked, a little curious.

"No, no, no, all that's needed is for Araragi to show up. Actually, they asked me to come here specifically to mediate so that you, Sull, wouldn't have to take action yourself. And, well, your partner shouldn't have to either," Shinobu Meme shook her head faster than a rattle drum.

"The reason you took so long to ask me to come to you is because of you, Brother Su. You were quite scared over there, weren't you?"

Chapter Thirty-One: Special Training?

Araragi Koyomi agreed to fight the vampire hunters, with the stake being Kiss-Shot's limbs... Even he himself didn't know how he could agree to such a request that required risking his life, when for the previous month he had been living in constant fear of being attacked by the vampire hunters.

However, the thought that Oshino Meme said Kiss-Shot would feel lonely because of the death of her family, and the thought that Hanekawa Tsubasa said Kiss-Shot came to Japan to find a place to be buried, made Araragi Koyomi feel uneasy. It was an indescribable sense of sorrow.

Why did you come to Japan?

Looking at the vampire girl in front of him, who was delighted by the donuts he had brought, Araragi Koyomi asked seriously.

"Hmm? I was trying to find a good place to die, but I gave up later~"

"……Why?"

"Because you didn't want to die?" The vampire girl looked back in surprise. "So you asked me for help back then? You really are so silly..."

Araragi Koyomi suddenly remembered the blonde beauty lying in a pool of blood, missing all four limbs, crying out that she didn't want to die after he refused to go there.

He made a decision.

--------------

Sue felt that Araragi Koyomi was very similar to herself. This similarity did not refer to appearance or personality, but rather to a similarity in their experiences.

They both encountered a fate that fell from the sky and they couldn't resist it; they both possessed eternal life; they both had companions with whom they couldn't be separated by anything; they both explored the path to immortality with their young lives—well, these words might make him, who was already in his fifties, feel a little uncomfortable.

But Sue was indeed looking forward to it, just like the question she raised when talking to Oshino Meme: What would Araragi Koyomi be like and what would he be thinking when he was two hundred years old?

And what about Sur?

This dark-haired boy will be a mirror in which Sull can see himself.

After assuring Suer that she would come to tell him something important once she had received definite news, Shinobu quickly left, as she still had to prepare for the duel in seven days.

"train?"

"Yes, please train me within these seven days!"

Looking at the boy bowing at a ninety-degree angle, Suer couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

Can he still train people?

While he can teach a lot about escape, stealth survival, and wilderness survival, when it comes to direct combat...

Not to brag, but Su Er's combat power has always remained at two extremes. He is either extremely weak or extremely strong. There is no situation where he is evenly matched or where he can defeat a stronger opponent. If he can beat someone, he can beat them; if he can't beat someone, he can't beat them. No matter how hard he tries, he can't beat them. It is impossible for him to break through his limits and defeat a strong enemy like in the comics.

Araragi Koyomi must have some misunderstanding about him.

Not only Sue, but even Jibril and Shinko couldn't help in this regard. Jibril's battles basically didn't involve close combat; she relied on high energy and strong attacks to fight back. As for Shinko, it goes without saying that Sue didn't look down on him, but Araragi Koyomi's intelligence was simply not enough to learn those magical formulas and theories.

But if he really refused, Suer would find it hard to bring himself to do so.

"I have an idea, come with me."

"Hey?"

Suer suddenly thought of a good place to go.

More rice, more dishes, more drinks, more atmosphere.

Evening breeze, startled deer, small pavilion, flowing water.

"...Why do I have this feeling that you're the one who's up to no good?" Nurarihyon stared with dead fish eyes as he looked at the man in front of him holding a huge bowl with enough food to feed an average person for several meals.

"Don't blame me, right? It's just that you Japanese put too little food on each plate. How can you possibly be full like that?" Su Er complained while eating. "No wonder you guys are all so short. I've already found the reason for you. You're welcome."

"The average has improved a lot! You know about the nationwide milk program? Even an old monster like me knows that!"

Nurarihyon Nura spoke out for the sake of young people in Japan.

"Huh? You surf the internet?" Su Er asked, leaning back slightly in feigned surprise.

Watching Sull and this... yokai joke around, Araragi Koyomi's gaze remained fixed on the incredibly long back of the head. For the first time, the young man had a direct impression of a yokai.

He thought that Sue was going to take him to some secret location for special training. At least that's how most of the novels and manga Araragi Koyomi had read had this kind of plot, like digging out a huge space like a plaza underground in his own house.

But Araragi Koyomi didn't expect that Sull would take him directly to an old town by taxi... and by the way, he paid for the fare.

It must be said that the ancient-style architecture and the clothing of the people inside perfectly match Araragi Koyomi's overall impression of yokai: eerie, antique, and bizarre.

Of course, they hadn't seen the truly bizarre Araragi Koyomi yet, but in Sull's perception, all the little yokai in the Nura Clan were currently hiding in the shadows or peeking through the cracks in the door at Araragi Koyomi, the stranger Sull had brought.

Having always mooched meals from others, Nurarihyon never imagined that he would one day be the one being mooched. He then secretly resolved to find an opportunity to sneak over to Sull's house for a visit.

After taking a sip of tea, Nurarihyon pretended not to see the guy across from him who was eating a large bowl of rice, and instead began to observe the young man who was still wearing a black school uniform.

With Nurarihyon's 500-year-old yokai eyesight, he could tell at a glance that this black-haired young man was not human. Although he looked somewhat thin, he could feel the taut flesh beneath the black uniform... cough, of course, Nurarihyon was not making a dirty joke, but rather referring to a kind of explosive power of muscles.

It's no exaggeration to say that he felt a sense of threat from this young man, even though he was sitting in a position full of openings. However, considering that Sull on the other side was also in a position full of openings, Nurarihyon accepted this exception.

More importantly, there is the energy contained within this young body.

"So?" Nurarihyon gestured towards Araragi Koyomi with his chin.

"Well... it might be a little embarrassing to say, but the reason I brought him here is to ask you to train him properly over the next seven days," Su Er said, taking a sip of tea. "In short, this kid is going to fight in seven days, so please make him stronger within those seven days. That's all."

"...You should really be embarrassed!" Nurarihyon shouted.

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Mutation of Modern Monsters

"Seven days?" Nurarihyon looked at Araragi Koyomi and pondered.

"Yes—please!" Araragi Koyomi suddenly realized, as if struck by a divine inspiration, what posture he should adopt at this moment. Referring to the novels and manga he had read, he prostrated himself on the ground and bowed to Nurarihyon, "Please let me become stronger!!!"

Suer: "..."

To be honest, he felt more and more like he was witnessing a shonen manga. With pre-battle training and lines about getting stronger, was this some kind of hot-blooded shonen manga?

And Araragi Koyomi, you're quite cooperative too!

"Well, it's not that I'm unwilling, but to be honest, you can't train anything in seven days," Nurarihyon stroked his chin. There were some things he had to make clear beforehand. "Neither fist techniques nor swordsmanship are skills that can be learned quickly."

"For ordinary humans, even without being proficient in these killing techniques, simply picking up a sharp sword is enough to easily kill other humans. But as you know, for us non-humans, simply picking up a sword without knowing those techniques is no different from picking up a toothpick. In fact, it might even make us weaker because it gets in our way."

“Don’t worry, I know all that,” Sull nodded, signaling Nurarihyon not to overthink it. “But what’s more important than swordsmanship and fist techniques is strength and speed, right? Plus reaction time.”

"Don't let his quiet demeanor fool you, he's a vampire, you know?" Sue patted Araragi Koyomi on the shoulder. "The one who transformed him from a human into a vampire was the strongest vampire in the world, so his potential might exceed your imagination."

"The strongest vampire? Hmm, the legendary king of monsters from the far west?" Even Nurarihyon had heard of Kiss-Shot's name, and he looked as if he had just realized something.

This made things much easier. Even though Nurarihyon had never faced the King of Monsters in person in his past life, other vampires had appeared on Japanese soil, and he knew something about these Western demons.

The power of a familiar must be weaker than that of the vampire who created him. The higher the seniority and the older the bloodline, the stronger the vampire. Each level is weaker than the last. If the master of this boy in front of him is that King of the Strange... then his current appearance, which looks very immature in every way but also contains a sense of threat, is explained.

Moreover, this is not necessarily a bad thing for mainland students.

“Okay,” Nurarihyon nodded readily. “Seven days from now, right? Leave it to me. But let’s make this clear first: it’s still impossible to completely transform yourself in just seven days. Is that alright?”