by Nisioisin
He didn’t seem like anything.
But a regular human being.
“Phew…”
Tadatsuru had a piece of origami ready in each hand.
Already folded, each in the shape of a shuriken─were those his weapons?
Well, aren’t we refined.
Guess I blew it, I thought to myself.
I felt like we’d had a pretty wide-ranging conversation─definitely wouldn’t have been surprised if five minutes had passed, but I hadn’t seen Ononoki blast off through the roof of the shrine. There was no way I could have missed it─and since the hall wasn’t particularly large, were the girls not inside after all?
Whatever the case, I’d bought all the time I could.
It was time to get started.
I wasn’t sure what to do─should I at least lead him on a merry chase around the grounds?
Even if I was done for, I hoped Shinobu could get away, but she herself had nixed that idea…
“Tadatsuru. Wait. Listen to─”
“Can’t wait any longer. I’m fed up.”
My vain protestations had no effect on Tadatsuru, who spread his arms wide as he spoke. Spread his arms? What was he doing, why would he leave himself so thoroughly open to attack?
Was he luring me in?
If he was, then sadly I lacked the means to take him up on it…
“I’m fed up─with being positioned like a chess piece, moved like a chess piece, and used as a chess piece. I don’t want to help turn you into a vampire,” he went on, an agonized look on his face.
Those words weren’t directed at me─what was directed at me was the advice he’d given me before, which he dispensed again now.
“Araragi. Find Oshino. If you don’t, then you’ll just have to be proper. And gain only to lose.”
“Tadatsuru, if you’re trying to tell me something, could you come out and say it? I’m dumb as a brick, beat around the bush like that and I’ll never get it. If there’s something you want to ask of me─”
If that was the real reason.
That you took those hostages─then go ahead.
“Just ask it.”
“I don’t want anything from you. You’re─a human being.”
“…”
“But I do have a favor to ask─of you,” Tadatsuru said, smiling. Faintly─ever so faintly.
A masochistic smile that didn’t suit his slender frame, that hardly went with it.
“I’m begging you, have mercy on me─and show no mercy,” he said quietly.
Ever so calmly, spreading his arms wide.
Leaving his back completely undefended.
“And while I’m at it, I’ve got another favor to ask. A once-in-a-lifetime request, so please, hear me out. Seems like you’ve stopped saying it, I guess you started to feel embarrassed or something, but I want to hear that line one more time before the end. I always liked how you, usually so expressionless, tried to be expressive with that line…”
“Understood.”
The voice came from behind the offertory box.
From within the shrine hall.
“Unlimited Rulebook─he said with a dashing look.”
She showed no mercy─which was itself a mercy.
I doubt he even had time to feel any pain.
Yotsugi Ononoki’s pointer finger, massively enlarged, smashed through the doors of the shrine and pierced Tadatsuru Teori’s body.
No.
Blew it to smithereens.
His slender form, like a withered branch, funeral shroud and all─evaporated despite the absence of great heat, like a vampire exposed to direct sunlight.
Not even a drop of blood was spilt.
A human being vaporized by a blunt-force trauma─a most bizarre paranormal phenomenon, aberrational, no doubt.
The sight of Ononoki, lingering expressionlessly in the hall.
Her pointer finger still extended, drove that point home.
A proper application─of the shikigami’s secret technique.
“Oh…uh.”
What happened?
I was perplexed at how Tadatsuru Teori’s body had vanished, almost as if the whole thing was a conjuring trick, but I knew perfectly well what had transpired; it was clear to me, I simply didn’t want to understand.
Ononoki ruthlessly said it anyway.
“I killed him.”
“…”
“I hit him with maximum force, at point-blank range─you don’t need to worry, monstieur, it was my act and mine alone. Even if you’d told me not to, I would’ve disobeyed you.”
“Wh─”
Why did you kill him? was what I wanted to ask, but my mind went blank and I couldn’t─no, that wasn’t it, the reason was clear.
It was to protect me.
It was to protect the hostages.
I had no right to be outraged─
“Wrong, kind monster sir. I’m sure there was a way to protect you, and to rescue them, without killing him. But I killed him anyway,” said Ononoki. Expressionlessly. “Because I’m a monster.”
“Ononoki…”
“Don’t end up this way, monstieur. If you ever live up to that nickname─you’re done as a human.”
019
The epilogue, or maybe, the punch line of this story.
The next morning, I woke up to my two little sisters Karen and Tsukihi kicking my ass out of bed─nah, I’d put them back into their futon at Kanbaru’s house where they belonged.
And of course I put Kanbaru into the other one. The other one, I made very sure of that.
No matter how thoroughly we searched the shrine afterwards, we couldn’t find the trio─it didn’t seem like Ononoki had planned to do what she ended up doing. She’d searched for the three girls, just as she’d said she would, just as we’d planned, just as we’d arranged.
But they weren’t there.
Karen Araragi, Tsukihi Araragi, and Suruga Kanbaru weren’t being held captive in the shrine hall, contrary to our expectations─but neither were they secreted in a thicket somewhere in the forest. As I’d predicted, no one with any decency would confine three girls to those dangerous, snake-infested mountain woods.
Though no one with any decency would have kidnapped them in the first place─let alone hidden them in the offertory box.
Yes, the three had been folded up and stuffed into the offertory box─no wonder the paper men were already spilling out of it. The Origami Clock had been padded from the start.
Much like the time I’d been folded up by Ms. Kagenui, the girls had been carefully folded up into the offertory box─and put to sleep.
Put to sleep.
In other words they were unconscious, but even the heaviest sleeper in the world would wake up if they were snatched out of bed, transported there, and folded up, so something special must have been done to sedate them─to my relief.
Because that meant the girls had been able to finish out the night happily dreaming away, none the wiser. Whatever had been done to them, I didn’t think they’d be able to take the change in pressure if we flew home on Ononoki Air, so we took the stairs. I carried Tsukihi on my back, while Ononoki took Karen and Kanbaru.
Ms. Kagenui joined up with us partway down─though she was standing on a tree branch, so “joined” might not be the right word.
She really was running through the treetops…
I had to admit it seemed fun, but it did change my view somewhat to know that she was doing it because she was cursed and not because she wanted to. Ms. Kagenui, however, seemed unaware that I’d found out and just asked Ononoki bluntly, “Did you do it?”
Ononoki’s response was equally curt: “Uh huh.” And that was all.
She’d done it.
That was all─and in fact, that was all that had happened.
After shamelessly lying that she couldn’t “do any heavy lifting,” Ms. Kagenui headed on up to the summit─there was neither hide nor hair left of Tadatsuru, but as the shikigami’s mas
ter, there must’ve been some mopping up left to do.
Surely she wasn’t running away because she didn’t want to carry someone on her back.
Afterwards, I parted ways with Ononoki in front of the Araragi residence─the sun had risen, but its dazzling morning rays hadn’t vaporized me.
“Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it, kind monster sir. Looks like your body can still withstand the light of day. I guess you belong where the sun shines, for the time being.”
That was all Ononoki said before she set off on foot toward the mountain. To return to her master, I imagine. It was probably out of consideration for me that she didn’t use Unlimited Rulebook to fly there.
I missed my chance to express my gratitude to Ononoki─she’d saved my life, and I should’ve at least thanked her.
But I hadn’t been able to say anything.
I couldn’t thank a killer.
And I couldn’t rebuke a savior.
I obviously didn’t feel like I could, but if I’d been able to rebuke her for killing Tadatsuru─I probably would’ve felt a lot better.
Still, how could I?
There was no way.
Having allowed Shinobu into my shadow─as a person, where would I get off criticizing Ononoki?
Being a monster, she’d killed someone.
That was all.
Somehow, though─I felt like I wouldn’t see Ononoki again. I asked myself what kind of tale this had been, this tale where Tadatsuru had been cast in a “role,” and the answer seemed to be that it had been a didactic one, told to make me see an adorable pet doll called Yotsugi Ononoki as a murderous monster.
And because, even if I understood this intellectually, I couldn’t overcome my instinctive revulsion, it was a tale that changed my view of her irreparably.
Somehow or other, through this and that.
Whatever finagling and tricks may have been involved.
Yotsugi Ononoki and I had ended up as okay friends, and opening up a rift between us must have been the very goal─of that “Darkness.”
Mayoi Hachikuji.
Nadeko Sengoku.
And now Yotsugi Ononoki─I’d become estranged from all of them.
Tadatsuru hadn’t resisted sacrificing himself─in fact he’d thrown himself, resignedly, on the funeral pyre.
That’s what happened.
And so.
“Here you go. Your Valentine’s Day chocolate.”
After I finished my morning studies, I went to Tamikura Apartments to have Senjogahara help me with my exam prep, but the moment I arrived she shoved a chocolate into my mouth.
“How is it? Do you like? Is it good? C’mon, Koyokoyo, is it good?” beamed Senjogahara.
Seeing her smile, it sank in that today was Valentine’s Day. I’d remembered yesterday, but realized as I chewed that with everything happening since then, I’d completely forgotten.
“Uh huh, it’s good.”
“Heehee. Yessss!” she exclaimed, pumping her fist.
A year ago she wouldn’t have pumped her fist even if you put a gun to her head. What a difference.
But I guess I had changed too. Until a year ago I’d hated special occasions like Valentine’s or Mother’s Day, or at least they’d been tough for me─this was no longer true, and insofar as human beings are social animals, such a change might be termed, well, growing up.
What I needed to share with Senjogahara that day, however, wasn’t that sort of change, but the other thing, which you’d be hard pressed to call growing up.
“Come on in, Koyokoyo, there’s more where that came from.”
“More, huh…”
I started wondering what Shinobu, obsessed as she was with Golden Chocolate donuts, thought about actual chocolates, but I remembered what I needed to tell Senjogahara, and it dragged me back down to earth. I hated to ruin her effervescent mood.
It’d be better to bring it up before we started studying, so when she brought me some tea, I said, “Listen, Senjogahara.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She listened to everything I had to say─the only thing I had told her thus far was that I didn’t have a reflection, so she was hearing the rest of it for the first time─and then she nodded.
Her high spirits indeed departed, but she didn’t receive the news as pessimistically as I’d feared. “So, what’s the problem with not having a reflection for the rest of your life?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I mean… Won’t it be really conspicuous? What if people notice?”
“If that’s as far as it goes, it doesn’t seem so bad. As long as you’re reflected in my eyes, who cares about mirrors?”
“…”
I wasn’t sure if that was a good line, but at least she was trying to be kind and comforting.
“Though…you are going to have to think about the future, that’s for sure. If it really is irreversible, I mean. I assume you’ve already talked to Hanekawa about it?”
“I wouldn’t do that before I talked to you. And actually, I wouldn’t know what to say… I don’t want her to think I’m a fool… Plus, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me from here on out. Right now I’m just down one reflection, but there isn’t any guarantee it’ll stay that way. Even if I don’t let Shinobu drink my blood, something else might upset the equilibrium.”
“Was their expert diagnosis dubious? Do you want to get a second opinion?”
“No, it’s how I go about my life that’s dubious. I’ll go through with the entrance exams, of course… But never knowing how long I’ll be able to maintain a normal life and the good old days is all that I’m sure of.”
“Good old days,” Senjogahara repeated back to me. “Listen, Araragi. About Kaiki.”
“Hunh?” Hearing the name out of nowhere made me jump. If nothing else, it was the first time she ever brought him up to me of her own accord.
“Kaiki was the kind of guy who’d say stuff like that to sound cool. He tended to dismiss things like stability or a quiet life─he never expected life or relationships to stay as they were. Maybe he just hated feeling like he was settling down. And I was stupid enough to think that his attitude was cool─but if that’s cool, then I’m glad you’re uncool.”
“…”
“Don’t you think Hanekawa would say the same now? She hasn’t been telling you to behave and act proper as much as she used to. She, too─”
This was some point my girlfriend wanted to make badly enough that she was bringing up Hanekawa and even Kaiki, but I’m not sure I understood her.
However.
It got across to me that Senjogahara was trying to get something across to me. That much at least.
I understood.
“Speaking of Hanekawa,” I said, “what do you think she’s up to today?”
“I dunno… Still on the hunt for Mister Oshino, I bet. It seems like there are certain circumstances only she grasps.”
“Find Oshino… That’s what Tadatsuru said, maybe it’d be best to talk to Hanekawa about that as well.”
There were certain things that only she knew, no doubt.
No mistake about that.
So whatever else was going on, I had to talk with her─however angry with me she might be when I did.
“So I think I’d better talk to her right away, maybe I’ll even see her on my way home today.”
“Sure. Then I have a favor to ask,” Senjogahara said. “Do it tomorrow. Please.”
She asked this with a smile, but I don’t know, her tone was unexpectedly forceful and compelling, which got across to me too, so I did as she requested and went straight home after we were done studying.
The shoes in the entryway suggested that Karen and Tsukihi were already home from school. They must’ve gone straight there from Kanbaru’s, and well, I’d yet to speak to my sisters since yesterday. So even though their faces were the last thing I wanted to see right after I got home, I thought I’d better check on them─there was a slim chance they might remember las
t night’s events in some kind of middle ground between dream and reality.
“Hey, Karen-chan, Tsukihi-chan.”
