Monogatari Series - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.11

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For a second I thought I might still be dreaming, that I was having one of those “waking up from a dream” dreams, but that wasn’t the case.

“This must be a dream” is pretty much just a comic-book idea, and I’m not so dreamy a girl that I need to go around pinching my cheek─still, at the sight of my smooth, slim left arm.

Not beastly, but human.

I couldn’t help but gasp─and do a double take in disbelief.

I quite literally could not believe my eyes.

In a daze, I stripped naked and looked at myself in the full-length mirror standing in the corner of my room─and in my reflection, regardless of how I posed, my left arm.

My right arm in the reflection was a human’s.

My dear, departed arm─I’d almost forgotten what it was like.

…Come to think of it, there was absolutely no need for me to get completely naked, but that’s just how discombobulated I was.

It was only natural.

The sudden, abrupt, unexpected return of an arm that had been a beast’s ever since last May─the arm that had forced me to retire from the sport of basketball, which I’d played ever since middle school─was not something I could process just like that.

What the hell was going on?

I mean.

I did feel happy, of course.

It’s not like I hadn’t longed for the day when my arm would return to its proper state─though I’d convinced myself that it was my just deserts, that it was karma, as if I’d accepted it honorably, it had still made me sad to see that beastly arm every time I unwrapped it to change or take a bath.

I’d hidden my arm under a bandage to avoid people’s prying eyes─but I’d also been hiding it from my own.

Even when I was alone in my room, even when I went to sleep at night, I undid the bandage as infrequently as possible─so.

So it’s not that I wasn’t happy.

But bewilderment occupied a vastly higher proportion of my emotional pie chart than happiness.

Why?

Why had my left arm been─liberated?

Today, this day, all of a sudden? Without warning?

By the way, Mister Oshino did say that time would take care of the problem─his expert opinion was that my arm would be freed from the devil when I turned twenty.

Had he just been a little off about the timing?

Had it happened two years early?

Was that within the margin of error?

“…”

But, but, could things really turn out that conveniently? Was it really okay for someone like me, who’d perpetrated something so dire, to be blessed with such good fortune?

No, there was one other possibility.

A horrible possibility that I didn’t even want to consider.

This arm had become the Monkey’s Paw in the first place because I’d petitioned a devil─to “get rid of Araragi-senpai” because I hated him with all my being.

The Devil’s Arm was the plain and simple embodiment of that hatred─and it was because the matter was never resolved, because it ended without my wish being granted, that it got stuck that way.

If my arm changed back─that didn’t mean something happened to him, did it?

On that day last year.

That time.

The negative wish I had made back then─could that unforgivable wish possibly have been fulfilled out there somewhere?

That unthinkable possibility floated into my mind, and the moment it did, I reached for my cell phone where it was plugged into the charger.

I’d left it off since the day before, but now I turned it on in a panic─given that I run twenty kilometers every morning, I’m a much earlier riser than most high school students, and, well, at the moment it was more predawn than early morning, but that being said, I had to do it. I had to get in touch with him as soon as possible.

Just as I was running into trouble opening the contacts and finding his name, my phone showed a new message.

A new message.

From my dear senior.

Perfect timing, I thought, but in fact it seemed as though it had been delivered to the server while my phone was off, and I was receiving it only now.

That other message was a joke. How come you didn’t answer? Are you pissed? You’re not pissed, are you? Well, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean it, let me make it up to you somehow.

……

Pathetic!

If it actually was something worth apologizing for, such a casual message wasn’t going to cut it.

Hmm, as far as I could tell from the message, he didn’t seem to be in any sort of trouble…

It’d be just like him to meet some hideous fate immediately after sending the message, but at least it seemed like I didn’t need to be in a rush to call him.

Or rather, I didn’t want to call him.

If I was pissed at all, then it was now.

I mean, come on…

But if nothing bad had happened to him, why had my arm gone back to normal?

It was mysterious─I definitely felt more confused than happy.

Honestly, it was even a little unsettling.

For the chains that bound me night and day to suddenly be undone─was distinctly unsettling.

For this to happen─without a reason.

Didn’t Mister Oshino say that every aberration has its reason?

Time heals all wounds.

Is that all this was?

Could I really just go ahead and rejoice, could I just enjoy it─without having to worry, without overthinking it?

But what came to mind.

What popped into my head, was the girl loitering in that burnt field.

My old nemesis, Roka Numachi.