ZOKU OWARIMONOGATARI

004

She’d always been made to wear a draped skirt that didn’t suit her, but today she modeled a pair of pants that reminded me of her master (or “Big Sis” as Ononoki called her), and they fit her surprisingly well. While you could chalk this up to Tsukihi, a good dresser herself, forcing Ononoki to change clothes, the dress-up-doll explanation didn’t address her tone or expression.

Don’t tell me her head could be swapped out like some kind of action figure.

She wasn’t getting off her high horse and continued to nitpick, “ ”

I walked outside, leaving her behind. Maybe I needed to be questioning her instead, since she had as many nits to be picked as Karen, but her dashing look was kind of unbelievably irritating, and to be honest, I left home to avoid getting into a fight.

I thought an expressionless character showing an expressive expression for the first time might be charming, but real life didn’t follow such dramaturgical rules.

It wasn’t like my conversation with Karen had gone well either. Asking someone experiencing an irregularity to account for her situation wasn’t going to yield a desirable answer─whether or not she was an expert on aberrations like Ononoki.

I went outside instead of back to my room because my shadow would be more distinct there at this hour. Shinobu didn’t wake up earlier when I called for her in the bathroom, and I was glad about it then.

I had no choice but to rely on her powers now, though─on the knowledge of the aberration-slaying vampire who resided in my shadow.

More precisely, a husk of a vampire. The dregs of an iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire─the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, whose current name, Shinobu Oshino, I called again, and loudly.

It did feel pretty contradictory to walk out under the sun to summon a vampire (another nit Ononoki would pick at viciously, I’m sure), but in any case, I called out to my shadow.

Yet no reply came─no response.

It seemed she’d fallen into a very deep sleep, though I couldn’t blame her.

I’d asked the little girl for way too much the day before when I skipped graduation, and I’d constantly been relying on her until just a day before that as well─there weren’t many events in my life I didn’t rely on her for. I’d caused her a lot of trouble, so of course she’d be slumbering deep enough to require more than a poke to wake up since things had finally come to a stopping point, or maybe a breather today.

I had no choice but to rely on her but could only yell at my own shadow right outside my house for so long, considering how it looked… I did also want to let her, my precious partner, rest.

At the same time, when there was no guarantee that she hadn’t been affected by this sudden change besetting my home, how could I wait until she woke up?

Was Shinobu not responding because something weird happened to her, just like with Karen and Ononoki? If that was why, how could I take it easy and wait until the cows came home? I’m no cattle rancher. Good things might come to those who wait, but that’s not what I needed at the moment. Sure, maybe I was worrying too much, given that Tsukihi hadn’t been affected at all.

In light of all this, I thought, Then what about me? As far as I could tell from the way I felt and what I saw in the mirror, there seemed to be nothing wrong with me, but what could be less reliable in a situation like this than a self-administered check?

Karen and Ononoki didn’t seem to find their changes odd─zero reported symptoms. If anything, they all but told me they’d always been this short, that their dashing look always had pissed me off this much.

Maybe something about me changed overnight, and I just hadn’t noticed. My suspicions threatened to be boundless once I got going.

Had I lost not just the title of high school student but something more important without ever noticing? Should I be taller, for instance, or more muscular or broad-shouldered, or smarter? Possible.

Quite possible.

I might even have been Tsubasa Hanekawa until yesterday… Okay, if I were her yesterday, I wouldn’t have committed a huge blunder like turning into Koyomi Araragi today. I could rule that one out, at least.

There’s of course Gregor Samsa, who woke up to discover he wasn’t just someone else, but a bug… By the way, speaking of Franz Kafka, the author of The Metamorphosis, according to his bio he asked his best friend to dispose of his novels posthumously. The friend went against his wishes and released them, thanks to which the author is famous today.

Could you really call someone like that your best friend? After learning about Kafka’s apparently difficult personality, though, I began thinking that “please dispose of my novels” might have also meant “but, well, you know.” If this friend understood the subtext, then he was a true friend indeed.

A regular Pythias.

In any case, while there’s an argument to be had about The Metamorphosis thematizing how wonderful and adorable little sisters are (please don’t have it), this wasn’t language arts class─wait, does foreign literature even go under language arts?

No good, I couldn’t focus my thoughts.

Proof of my confusion─maybe I needed to go back inside and ask Ononoki, an expert, for her opinion despite everything. Between that enraging dashing look and her arrogant tone, though, I wasn’t confident that me and my lack of maturity could stand her for too long.

Graduating high school hadn’t made me that much of an adult.

Somehow, her expressionless face and flat tone had done a good job of neutralizing her character and let her settle into the position of quirky girl. Once she stepped up to operate on the same level as everyone else, the girl just had a nasty personality…

And anyway, I probably couldn’t expect a satisfying answer from Ononoki when it was clear as day that something about her was off─physician, heal thyself.

That said, Oshino and Miss Gaen were no longer in town, and as for Miss Kagenui, she was at the North Pole─I couldn’t rely on any experts.

Strictly speaking, I suspected the phone number Miss Gaen had given me still worked, but if the lady who “knew everything” hadn’t called me, it probably meant I needed to do something about this on my own─not to mention, once you rashly asked her for help, she had a track record of demanding compensation so ridiculous you had to wonder out loud if she was being serious.

Leaning on a certain friend of mine who may not know everything but did know what she knew seemed like an option, but the thought of calling her when she was overseas gave me pause.

Not in the sense that it’d run up my phone bill. I didn’t even know if whatever country Hanekawa was in right now had cell service.

In which case, I had no choice but to wait until night when Shinobu would be active again. Yup, I needed to wait for the aberration-slaying girl, to whom Oshino had imparted some amount of expert knowledge through special tutoring sessions, unless I was going to turn to the gods.

“Hm? Oh, right,” I realized at this late stage. She was no expert, nor did I expect her to have any expert knowledge, but there was a god in this town now, wasn’t there?

Yes, the grand deity known as Mayoi Hachikuji─okay, maybe not a grand deity, but the young ghost girl who’d been newly deified at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine to quell the strange happenings in town. She must’ve received some schooling from Miss Gaen before being placed atop that mountain to watch over us all.

Maybe she knew something.

Actually, these abnormalities could be a kind of side effect of turning her into a god half by force─an accidental solution owing to an impulsive act on my part, it had seemed like a sharp idea. Thinking about it with a calmer head though, deifying a young girl who’d been sent to hell sounded like a stretch even for an empty shrine.

Hachikuji becoming a god and Karen getting shorter, or Ononoki starting to have expressions, had no clear causal link. The reason might be entirely different, but since I had no clues at the moment, talking to her was worth the trouble.

Abnormalities aside, I wanted to tease the young girl at Kita-Shirahebi for her divine antics. And scold her if she was getting carried away.

As a friend, of course!

Oddly enough, I now had a destination for my bike ride─and no sooner than I’d decided, I straddled the BMX I still had on loan from Ogi and began pedaling toward the mountain that the shrine presides over. While I wouldn’t be able to go up it on a bike (well, maybe on a BMX, since they say it can climb stairs, but not with my skills…), I’d still get to the entrance faster despite the slopes.

Or so I thought, but either I got flustered or wasn’t used to a BMX, not to mention the several-month gap in my riding career─because it took me longer than I expected. Was it a lie that you never forget how to ride a bike?

I nearly tipped over again and again and got lost too. I hadn’t heard about any barrier being placed on the mountain, but maybe, as someone with an aberrational nature, I was being prevented from approaching the shrine, holy ground where a god had alighted.

If that was the case, I couldn’t just drop by casually. Since a vampire dwelled in my shadow, maybe it was to be expected, but being kept out of holy ground is pretty depressing…

I thought this as I chained up the now-parked bike (who knew how gleefully Ogi would browbeat me if I let it get stolen) and began up the familiar mountain path, which I could honestly say was much easier than half a year ago thanks to my trips up and down it. Not a game trail, but a me trail. By the time I finished my hike and passed through the torii gate, the sun was directly overhead.

In other words, it was noon─the time of day when aberrations seemed least likely to appear, but then not every aberration is nocturnal.

No one was on the well-kept grounds of Kita-Shirahebi, rebuilt last year. Not many people would visit a location as secluded as this, god or no. We needed to come up with something for the shrine to be worshiped again… There was probably nothing I could do, but given the events that led to Hachikuji becoming a god, I wanted to help in some way.

Maybe they could try selling omikuji fortunes.

Hachikuji omikuji─I liked how that sounded.

So what if it sounds good, you may ask, but it’d matter to Hachikuji.

I ought to broach the subject with her after discussing my issue─but then the all-important factor, Mayoi Hachikuji, wasn’t even around… Maybe she was inside the hall? I’d met her in town only yesterday, so maybe she was out there observing, or just talking a walk? Something about a god who liked going out on the town seemed to lack gravitas, or to be too footloose…

“Hachikujiii? Hello-o-o?” I called out from in front of the offering box. Even if she was inside, I couldn’t just barge in. Maybe I shouldn’t be scared when I had an aberration living in my shadow, but I still hesitated, fearing the divine punishment that would surely come. If Hachikuji was delivering it, not only would she not go easy on me, she’d be merciless.

Ah, right─how about putting some money in the offering box? Thinking back to when we first met, her reaction to hard cash was anything but cold… Heheh, it’s not every day you come up with a novel idea like summoning a god with an offering.

How I’ve grown. Apparently, an unpleasant conman had visited this shrine on a regular basis since New Year’s, but what set us apart was that only I had these dazzlingly original ideas…

With that pleasing thought, I took out my wallet. Having grabbed it as I left home and stuffed it in my pocket, I didn’t know how much money I had…but yeah, this was a shrine.

The standard good-luck offering of a five-yen coin ought to do.

Alas, I happened to be out of five-yen coins─but did find four one-yen coins, which might serve as a suitable substitute. Four or shi is considered unlucky, given that it’s homophonous with the word for death in Japanese, but maybe it was fine because it also alliterated with shojo, girl? The greater number of coins made you feel like you’re getting more, yes?

I felt for a moment like I might be messing up, but pluckily refusing to be distracted by any figment of the imagination, I tossed the four coins into the offering box─then gave two bows, two claps, and one bow, or whatever. I’d been taught what to do but couldn’t remember, so I bowed my own way to get across at least the sentiment and rang the bell extra hard.

Nothing in particular happened.

Nothing like the shrine’s door opening and a god storming out─I almost wanted a refund but didn’t even have anyone to complain to.

Was she really taking a walk? She wasn’t the type to sit still, whether she’d ascended to godhood or descended to hell─my only option now would be to climb down the mountain and wander aimlessly around town.

Mildly despondent, I thought maybe I ought to see it as a good thing that she was being her active self even after becoming a god, and began to turn back when─

“”

Someone grabbed me from behind, tackling me. Not remotely ready for this full-body attack, I fell to the ground and panicked, only to be locked in a submission hold.

“Eeeek!” I shrieked, but the maneuver was in place before I knew it─what were these moves, military combatives? Every joint in my body had been locked into place.

I could neither resist nor run.

My opponent seemed to be about my size but was on a different level in terms of proficiency. I couldn’t find any opening I could use to move─the submission hold affected my entire body as though I’d been vacuum-packed.

“ ”

“Eeeek!”

No, forget about the joint lock. It was just creepy how my assailant didn’t hold back and glued fast until our cheeks rubbed, which is why I screamed. I felt like a slug was crawling along my body.

Wh-Who was it? What was it? What exactly was going on?

Paying no mind to my utter confusion, the criminal─I see nothing wrong with using that word here─pressed our bodies together even more tightly.

“ ”

“Eeeek! Eeeek!”

“ ”

“Eeeek!”

Wait… Lady?

My ears picked up this scrap of a word, and I tried to look behind me─only my eyes moved since my neck was locked too─but indeed, the perp who’d shoved me onto these holy grounds, and who was wound around my body, was a woman.

She had to be pretty muscular to have the strength, but actually, I did sense a kind of smoothness and softness as well─even if I was in pain more than anything else.

…Hold on, I knew this person.

“Graaah!”

“”

Biting the earlobe in front of my face finally made her get away with a (feminine) cry─and stand slim and tall.

Her hair gathered together in the back, her balanced features betraying none of the perversion she’d been guilty of─yes.

I’d met this person before.

I’d met her before─in a different timeline.

“M-Miss…Mayoi Hachikuji?”

“Yes,” she replied with a smile, her arms crossed as if to emphasize her developed bust. “Miss Mayoi Hachikuji, twenty-one years old.”