Intention 2.7

—hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded—

I paced around the abandoned classroom that Oshino had made his hideout, walking from wall to wall endlessly as I waited around for Taylor to arrive. Emma was right, in a way - I couldn't keep this from Taylor. Not because of what she would do to me, but because this was what she had asked me to do. She had asked me to find her best friend, Emma Barnes.

Well, I found her, Taylor-san. Unfortunately, it seems your best friend has lost the plot a little. ごめんなさい、 as they say in the language of my people. Please forgive me.

"You don't look very lively, Araragi-san," Oshino commented, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, "Did something… bad happen?"

I stopped in my pacing to look at him.

"How long have you been waiting to say that line?"

"Maa… You don't wait to say lines, Araragi-san. Brevity is the soul of wit, as they say."

"What does that have to do with your negative line of questioning!? Actually, going that far off your character makes me worried that something bad is going to happen!"

Oshino sighed, stretching out his arms leisurely as he lounged in a discarded school chair, kicking his feet up on the tower of desk chairs in the center of the room.

"Bad things will happen because bad things want to happen, Araragi-san," he said in an admonishing tone, waggling a finger at me, "Even Shinobu-chan knows that much."

I flinched at the name.

"You should try talking to her more often, Araragi-san," Oshino said quietly, "you know, it's not good to keep everything bottled up inside."

Oshino was right, but the problem here was entirely mine. It wasn't that I despised Oshino Shinobu, or even that I hated the fact she existed. It was my fault she existed, and as such, my continued spurning of her would only result in a lonely child raised by an absent parent. Could I follow in my parents' footsteps?

"So you're saying I should become an absentee parent. Like her stepfather or something," I said, snapping my fingers and nodding my head with a smile, "Yeah. I get it. I can come by, give her some gifts, tell her not to do bad things, and leave."

"Maa, Araragi-san, I don't think Shinobu-chan would do very well with absentee parenting, you and her are, what was the phrase again…?"

Oshino cracked his neck and grinned at me as he flicked his unlit cigarette into the distance.

"-Simply made differently?"

"Oy, are you implying my parents are absent?"

"Well, Araragi-san, I don't think they're entirely there, if you're ending up here."

"I'll have you know my parents are righteous upstanding citizens! It's only me who's been corrupted!"

"Isn't that a bit worse, Araragi-san?"

I chuckled, placing a hand over the bangs that covered one of my eyes, looking at Oshino.

"Kufufu, you would think so, right? You would think 'Ahh, their son was raised really poorly', right?! Well you're wrong! My little sisters turned out totally fine, so that means it's a fault of my character, okay!?"

Oshino nodded sagely.

"Ahhh, I see. So in the case of 'nature' versus 'nurture', you're saying you're 'naturally warped'."

"Yeah! Exactly!"

"So it's 'only natural' that you wouldn't nurture Shinobu-chan."

"You got it in one!"

"Because, naturally, she reminds you of someone you betrayed."

"Yeah, that's righ-"

I stopped, and looked at Oshino. He looked at me and sighed.

"Araragi-san, judging from what you've told me about Emma-chan, I will be perfectly honest with you:"

He clapped his hands together as he stood up from his chair, inclining his head.

"Please make up with Shinobu-chan, otherwise you'll probably die!"

I'll die? Oy, Oshino, aren't you overreacting a bit? It's not like Emma's super strong or anything. She's barely even functional, really - all that's keeping her together is this obsession with Taylor. They're both like half of a complete human - thin and stretched, barely there at all.

My eyes flicked to where Shinobu was, her legs pulled up to her chest with her arms around them, wearing a motorcycle helmet that was too big for her and a white sundress with a red stripe. It's not just them, either. Shinobu and I – nobody could call us a complete existence either.

In a fight between so many half-assed existences… What are we really trying to prove here? That we all deserve to exist? Don't we? Isn't that just the baseline assumption of 'being human', that you assume other people deserve to live just as much as you do?

"...I can't," I confessed, more to myself than to Oshino, "everytime I look at her I want to cry."

"You know, Araragi-san, everytime she looks at you she wants to cry."

Yeah, Oshino-san. That's the entire problem. We're both designed too similarly to be in a relationship where we can interact without hating each other and ourselves. When I look at her, I can feel self-loathing begin to rise up through my entire body like a wave about to hit an already sinking ship; and I imagine it's the same for her.

We can't communicate on a fundamental level, like I could with Kiss Shot. When I reach out to that space she once occupied in my brain – it's an entirely empty place. There's nothing there at all, not even a sliver of what she once was.

Hey, Kiss-Shot… What the heck was up with all that ridiculous stuff you were saying? This isn't even an ending where nobody is happy, is it? It's just something that doesn't know how to end.

I turned towards Shinobu, and took a step forward. Then I took another. Step after step, I moved towards someone I wanted to avoid.

"Araragi? Are you in there?"

–And naturally, someone I wanted to avoid show up.

"Hey Taylor," I said, turning around and looking at the girl. Her eyes had deep, dark circles underneath them, and her skin was more pale than usual; she was more pallid than anything close to healthy, "you're looking… well?"

"Why do you say it," she said, crossing her arms and fixing me with a withering stare, "like it's a question?"

To be perfectly honest, it was because you were looking like death warmed over. But I wasn't about to tell that to a girl, you know? As a high school boy, I naturally understand the dichotomy between the sexes. It's something you can only truly understand if you are a high school boy, in my opinion.

But to bring such things up in public is to court death. It's totally unfair and completely absurd, right?! Right!? It's not as if I'm expecting everyone to look their best all the time, but every flag I'm raising right now with Taylor is screaming death!

"O-obviously, because you're looking so amazing you stunned me for a second. It was like when you use a really powerful technique in a JRPG, and then realize it has an additional status effect!"

She stared at me suspiciously for a moment. I stared back with all the honor a blatant liar could possibly muster.

"...I don't believe you," she said, showing that the honor of a liar isn't really worth all that much, "but I'm going to let it slide. You said you found Emma?"

"Yeah," I looked away from Taylor, towards a small blonde girl sitting in corner with no expression on her face, "she seems to be doing well."

"Well by your standards, Araragi, or by my standards?"

Obviously by mine, Taylor! I don't really want to put myself into the mind of a high school girl, you know!? Obviously, knowing how high school girls think would naturally allow me to continue my speedy pace towards such youthful endeavors like 'having a girlfriend', 'going on dates', and maybe even 'doing adult things', but to be perfectly honest, I'm totally clueless how they think!

"By yours, of course," I said, lying.

"I don't believe you," she said, truthfully.

I nodded sagely, patting her on the shoulder. Yeah Taylor. I wouldn't really believe me either.

I told Taylor where Emma was, what she had become, and how she'd tried to kill me. Taylor nodded politely in reply, gasped where appropriate, and frowned when I told her Emma tried to kill me.

"That's a pretty weak murder attempt, Araragi," she said, undercutting how incredibly painful it is to have snake fangs scrape the bone of your arm, "are you sure she was really trying?"

"Honestly? No. If Emma had killed me, then she'd never get to see you," I said, looking Taylor in the eyes, "and she wants that more than anything else."

Taylor smiled, one of the few times I'd ever seen her to do so. It was like a flash of sun on an otherwise cloudy day, gone as quickly as it came. But for that brief moment that it crossed her face, I felt a shiver crawl down my spine. Emma smiled like that, too.

"I figured," Taylor said, sighing as she closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose, "Emma was always pretty clingy, until whatever made her what she is now."

"Ahhh, nature versus nurture… I really get it."

"No. You really don't."

I kind of did, but I didn't really want to push her any further. I sighed, scratching the side of my cheek. Oshino was uncharacteristically quiet so far, but when I turned to look at him he just gave me a lazy smile and waggled his eyebrows. Oy, you bastard, do you think I'm having fun over here!? Do you think this is me enjoying myself, Oshino-san?! I'm drowning! Lifeguard, please! Throw me a life preserver to prevent my inevitable demise!

"What do you want to do?" I asked Taylor, arching an eyebrow, "I found Emma, just like you requested. If you want to take care of it yourself, I won't allow it."

"Won't allow it?" Taylor said in reply as she folded her arms across her chest, "do you think I'm like a dog to be ferried around, Araragi? That I don't have opinions and beliefs of my own?"

"I think you do, but a lot of them probably aren't worth that much. I could buy them for less than 3000 yen at a convenience store."

"Yen? What's that, some kind of weird oddity thing?"

"Japan's not so far-gone that you can just pretend our currency doesn't exist! We were the Tiger of Asia, you know!? It's about the people, the people!"

"And do the people of Japan know what this… 'Yen' is worth? 3000 seems like a lot… Is inflation really that bad…?"

"One yen coin is worth 100 American dollars! No, 1000 American dollars! Actually, even 1,000,000 American dollars couldn't compare to a single yen coin! That's the power of Japan for you in action!"

Taylor looked at me pityingly, and patted me on the arm.

"Don't worry, Araragi," she whispered to me, eying Oshino, "I won't tell Panacea you're bad at economics."

"Oy oy! My understanding of economics is top-of-the-line, you know!? That's why I know this crazy aloha guy definitely overcharges on interest!" I pointed a hand in an accusatory fashion towards Oshino, giving him a withering glare, "more than a 20% rate a month… Sometimes seven surcharges in a day…!"

"Maa, this is why you can't just trust any random loan shark, Araragi-san," Oshino said as he leaned back on top of the desk he was sitting on, placing one hand behind him as the other held an unlit cigarette, "I've taught you an important lesson - one that you'll never forget. Aren't I nice?"

I stared at him, and he smiled lazily back at me. I had struggled to get a handle on Oshino for a long time, and even now a lot of who he was as a person eluded me. This debt… hey Oshino, is it even real, or is it just a way to keep me attached to you? You know I'd solve these cases for free, right? It's not like you've ever asked for anything from me even once before.

This one too, Oshino-san. You sure it isn't on the house?

"You're going to fight the snake, right?" Oshino said, cracking his neck as he hopped off the desk, flicking his cigarette into the massive tower of desks towards the back of the room, "It's gonna be pretty difficult. She's got a lot going for her, and you two, well…"

He looked over at the two of us, shrugging his shoulders as he closed his eyes and shook his head. The sun was slowly fading in the background, and streaks of orange streamed through the hole in the roof, painting Oshino with its colors as he paced around the center of the room, stopping to look over his shoulder at both of us.

"You reek of death."

"How rude…" Taylor muttered, staring at the man in the Hawaiian shirt.

"Maa, it's not like its a bad smell, right?" Oshino said as he turned to face us, sticking a finger in his ear, "Araragi-san is 'half of a vampire', so it's only natural that half of his soul 'smells like it's already dead'. That's just the nature of being a creature that lives in eternal darkness, right?"

It was true, as I'd already sort of known. Even as a half-vampire, my sire is Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. In the world of oddities, the king of oddities is the existence known as a 'vampire'; a thing that can eat oddities, devour their essence and it to their own. And the king of kings - the pinnacle of the existence known as a vampire - was Kiss-Shot.

I looked at Shinobu, and hoped my heart would stop. It didn't.

"But you," he said, staring at Taylor as he leaned forward, scratching his jaw with one hand as the other fished around for something in his pocket, "I don't have any explanation for you. And something that 'devours' will always beat something thats 'ready to die', right?"

"I don't want to die," Taylor said, her brow furrowing.

"Come on, Taylor-chan," Oshino said, shrugging his shoulders as he fished out another cigarette and placed it in his mouth, "we're already living in sin. We don't need to stack on anymore."

She took a step back like she was struck.

"Even if you, intellectually, don't want to die, what about your soul, you know? If the 'existence' that you persevere for is something chasing after death, then 'reality' attempts to reflect it. You take on qualities of the things you look into."

He stopped smiling, staring at Taylor as he tilted his head to the side. The light danced across half his body, and the rest was covered in shadows.

"The abyss looked back, Taylor Hebert. And it liked what it saw."

"Just me, though, right?"

"You sound almost concerned."

She crossed her arms, fixing Oshino with a fierce glare.

"I am concerned," she hissed like a snake, "I'm concerned about Emma. I'm concerned about myself. I'm concerned about this fucking city, which seems to be festering with more oddities than parahumans! Aren't they supposed to be secret!?"

They don't mix. That's what everyone says, right? Parahuman power and the supernatural – they're two separate things that can't interact with each other on a foundational level. But human ingenuity is different. If a parahuman power can't detect something, but a human sees something clearly off; that's different.

While Victor may not be able to 'perceive' what made me so strong, he was able to attack me. He didn't need to understand the conceptual background behind oddities in order to fight.

But Taylor… isn't she a parahuman? So why…

"A secret's only a secret as long as nobody tries to find things out, Taylor-chan," Oshino said in reply, putting his hands behind his head. The unlit cigarette dangled from his lips like a fish-hook, somehow hanging on even as he spoke, "the more people try to uncover the reality behind reality's curtain, it's obvious that there's nothing that can prevent them from discovering it."

She took the supernatural in stride, right? But that could just be who she is as a person. I was also able to take the supernatural in stride, because I'm abnormal. But all parahumans… don't you have to be abnormal to get powers in the first place? Slightly twisted and off-kilter in a way that prevents you from being able to be normal?

"That's irrelevant," she said, waving a hand, "we know where Emma is, right? Who gives a damn about any of the rest of this? She hurt me, but that doesn't mean I want for her to die or anything. So come on, Araragi,"

Taylor turned walking out the door.

"Let's go and save her."

I moved to follow, but Oshino was talking behind my back.

"Maa, leaving so soon? Well, good luck out there, alright? Make sure you come back safely."

I looked over at him, but he wasn't looking at either me or Taylor. He was staring downwards, where the dying light of the sun through the door had sent my shadow careening towards the center of the room where he stood in the middle, his lazy smile covering his face as he held up a hand and waved cheerily.

"Remember - don't give up!"

I looked around the room, but couldn't see Shinobu anywhere. I messaged Sophia to meet us at the mall, and left.

—hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded—

i dont have anything to put here this time or a good joke, sorry

i was workshopping one but realized belatedly that referencing semi-artsy anime from 10 years ago is kind of a bad way to relate to my audience! I bet most of you wouldn't even get it if I told you to remember to laugh seven years from the day I started posting this niche anime crossover! Tune in next time for when I reference filler movies from shonen anime that nobody watched!