05 Town, Backroads / An Encounter, Many Encounters

The Aberration keeps its distance from the camper van.

Pacing back and forth. Out perhaps of what the transfer student assumes is not so much fear or trepidation or any such caution but rather an invitation, the issuance of some unspoken challenge which the four Banishers arm themselves now to meet.

The cowgirl readying her revolvers.

The gyaru and the stoic her skewers, bamboo sword.

The driver his stub blade.

"(I told you, it's called the Vernal Blade, man …)"

And though the monster can be descried plainly now in the direct light of the vehicle's low beams the illumination reveals nothing further about the creature. Nothing sighted beyond that grotesque shadow which seems neither its own nor that of any other's. As though the very shadow of it is the shape of it itself, in all its demented curvatures, its baffled geometries.

The transfer student wonders truly if one lone Aberration warrants the combined force of four whole Banishers.

"Be not deceived, shounen. The presence of one Aberration more often than not portends its brethren in tow."

"Sakaki-chan's right, don'tcha know. I reckon there must be a few more of them creatures out there, lyin' in wait. Crafty little varmints."

"Ugh, totally. The minute you let your guard down around these things, that's when they get you. Gross. Kimoi. Maji kimoi."

"It's probably safer if you stay in the van," Hikage tells the transfer student, the side door half open.

(… Not that the transfer student was planning to do anything else, thanks.)

Hikage scratches his chin. "Listen, if, uh—if my sister shows up, just, um … Just honk the horn or something."

A long silence. The van still.

"The horn is … it's the big button on the steering wh—"

The transfer student knows what a horn is.

"Right, yeah. Of course. … 'Kay."

And then the four Banishers step out into the night. Side door creaking shut behind them.

Alone now in the camper van the transfer student takes stock of his surroundings. The lived-in cabin. The side bench, faint sleeper's impression. Sink, minifridge. Each surface slightly worn, traces of habitation clear in their weathering. Window mesh screen, frayed. Patched over with foil.

He moves to the front of the van. Driver's seat. Empty konbini food containers, fast food wrappers. Half-empty energy drink sitting in the cup compartment. On the dash a small plush figure of a cartoon character he has never seen before.

He looks out the window.

The four Banishers, in the van's headlights, carefully approaching the Aberration.

~

At what precise moment the skirmish began, or even by whose hand, he cannot say for certain.

Whether the commencement lay in the firing of that first purple shot, or the launching of the first metal skewer, or the bending of air from the bamboo sword, the transfer student remembers not.

He knows only that he is leaning over the dashboard now, awestruck, watching in rapt amazement as the four hunters contend with the sinister thrashing of some shadowy, ill-formed creature that seems not even to possess in its many grotesqueries the least pretense of coherence, the swiping of its limbs and charging of its horrid immensity so incompatible with any semblance of order from the world the transfer student has heretofore known that in the Aberration's constant flickering and warping of its own abstract contours he can only see the struggle of a thing attempting to coalesce itself firmly in a dimension of space which at every turn attempts to reject it.

That black entity twisting. The surface of what might be considered skin on something more cognate with reality quivering as though on the edge of being unmoored from an existence which wants nothing to do with it. As if definiteness were some thing wholly alien to its existence.

… Yet still they are fighting it, the Banishers.

Seemingly without fear, without hesitation.

Misa stabbing with her skewer-claws. Sakaki launching slices of air with her bamboo sword. Rina's purple blasts. Hikage, slashing at the creature's not-limbs with his Vernal Blade.

That the three high-school second-year girls move in such practiced synchronicity is no surprise to the transfer student. One might expect as much from a group with such a storied history.

But the owner of the Vernal Blade moves among them, with them, so in tune with the rest of the unit, that if the older Himekawa brother has truly only hired these three mercenaries prior to Banishment Night then the transfer student sees no evidence of this being so.

And before long the battle is over.

The creature vanquished.

Its Banishers standing victorious over the now-lifeless (if what it possessed could even be called life) husk of the felled Aberration. The shadow shrinking now, receding back into the interstices of whatever eldritch realm might birth such a thing.

The final shrinking of it yielding a handful of shadow gems, like the ones Misa had shown the transfer student earlier.

The cowgirl Rina spins her revolvers, holsters them, and then bends down to pick up the gems.

And then the Banishers return to the camper van.

~

And how many other Aberrations do they encounter on the road to the first stop of what Hikage calls 'tonight's itinerary'? How many of them routed? How many shadow gems added to the growing bounty in the gyaru's satchel?

For what ultimate purpose?

"That's easy, blondie. Ya see, Banishment Night is an opportunity. It's closest thing in this here town to makin' 'yer dreams come true," says Rina, as she fans the hammer of her revolver, unloading into the side of an oncoming beast.

The transfer student doesn't understand what she means.

"Ugh," answers Misa, throwing out a volley of skewers. "She means this town is a total bummer. Like, maji."

Hikari's words, echoing through his head. Nobody ever leaves.

"Do you think it coincidence, shounen," intones Sakaki, swinging her bamboo sword in long arcs that send ripples of air from its wooden length, "that Fuyu-no-kage-machi is so entirely characterized by decay? The rust that stains every railing and water tower. The dead factories that produce nothing. The shuttered storefronts and the edifices sitting half-constructed as nothing more than artifacts of a time when our predecessors still believed in a brighter future for those who would come after? The rail station that leads nowhere. The mall sitting empty far longer than it'd ever been open. Doors closed not even two years after the cutting of its inaugural ribbon."

Nobody ever leaves.

Okay, fine. So Fuyu-no-kage-machi is the quintessential podunk town.

… But what does Banishment Night have to do with rising above it?

Hikage explains, "Banishment Night is more than just a night where the Aberrations come out in full force. It's a full-on competition, transfer student. Banishers compete against each other to prove their worth. Collect as many shadow gems. Emerge as the single victor."

Collect? … But then, doesn't that imply the existence of a reckoner? Some keeper of ledgers?

And if so, then in whose tallying does the winner emerge from Banishment Night triumphant?

At which question the four Banishers look uneasily at one another.

Until the answer comes, from Hikage, in a hushed, fearful tone.

"… The Adjudicator," he says. "The Adjudicator reckons."

~

"Thing is, transfer student—you only get about three Banishment Nights to prove your worth. For most Banishers, that means your high school years. Because, you see … (How do I explain …) See, adults don't see Aberrations. They can't. When you grow up, when wonder and imagination and the endless possibilities you entertain, and fear, in youth fade from your mind … Well, so do Aberrations. No exception. Even for those who were among the most fervent Banishers in his youth."

("Or 'hers'!" adds Rina, helpfully.)

But isn't Hikage well past high school?

"Well, yes—I'm the exception to the rule. There have been others like me. But eventually my time will come too. … Have to grow up someday, after all."

Himekawa Hikage. The neotenous one.

"Eventually, it won't be that I simply can't see Aberrations. I won't know of them, I won't believe in them. The experiences I have Banishing, those will be corrupted. Not so much forgetting as … not understanding. Not able to reconcile my past with the adult I'll be."

He sighs.

"… Well. I still have fight left in me. I haven't—I haven't grown up, quite yet," he says, forcing a smile.

~

So adults can't be hurt by Aberrations?

"Not so directly, the way they can wound us. But just because the adults can't discern their presence, doesn't mean they're not there. The Aberrations can still affect adults, in more … insidious ways."

Meaning?

"Meaning," says Sakaki, "Aberrations stick to them like curses. Melancholia, misfortune. Sickness. Just because the Aberration cannot directly pierce their skin, does not preclude them from injuring their prey by other methods."

"In some ways," adds Rina, "I reckon bruises and cuts might be more merciful than what adults go through."

"And at least we can still fight back against them," says Misa. "As adults, you're totally helpless. Totally yabai."

"So you see, transfer student," Hikage says, "Banishment Night is the most important night in all of Fuyukage. The most dangerous one, too. And with my sister on our tail, we'd best gather all the strength we can before we have to face her again."

~

And how will they do that?

Where are they going now, that this end might be furthered?

Hikage, driving down the dark road, answer in hand, pointing out the windshield to—

"—that old book-house lying yonder."

(Rina, side-eyeing the driver, "'Yer makin' fun'a the way I talk, ain't ya?")

Book … House?

Hikage shrugs. "Or tome repository. You know, a library. Whatever. … Aw, you Tokyo city slickers and 'yer fancy-schmancy words."

(Rina, pouting, "I knew it. You are makin' fun'a me …")

And the building comes into view now.

The old abandoned library.

Three stories, hollowed from the inside out. Remains of a conflagration. Night the sky turned orange, sometime after Hikage's exile. Pillar of black smoke that could be seen from all across Fuyukage, sound of fire trucks blaring. What little salvaged from the stacks relocated across town, near the shopping arcade, in what used to be a store that rented out yukatas for the summer festival. The same paper sign on its doors designating the new location as 'temporary', going on for three years now.

The camper van pulls now into the former library's parking lot, where weeds now grow untamed through the cracks in the pavement.

The transfer student takes it all in.

Boarded up windows. A glass dome on the roof, somehow intact. And charred walls forever entombing, without prejudice, the decades-long silence of studious pursuits past, and the screams that ended it.

And … This is where the first Vernal Blade fragment is?

"Ya got that right, transfer student," says Hikage. "… You'd better believe it."