Monogatari Series - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.15

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One week later─on Sunday, to be precise, five days after the Tuesday when I found out that Numachi had gone missing, I got on the train and left my town for the first time in ages.

I was going to an open campus at the local college─it wasn’t the school I hoped to attend, but Higasa was dragging me along with her. It wasn’t the school she hoped to attend either, but this was “a dress rehearsal for going to an open campus at her dream school,” which sounded like rehearsing for a rehearsal, a calculated move very typical of the cautious Higasa.

For me, well, the road ahead wasn’t as clear, but I assumed I’d end up going to college, so saying that Higasa was dragging me along makes me sound more unenthusiastic than I was. It gave me the chance to simply enjoy an alien space known as a college.

Even though it wasn’t the school I hoped to attend, experiencing that kind of place and seeing it with my own eyes did bring home that I was studying for entrance exams.

Around this time next year.

What in the world will I be doing?

…Up until recently, I couldn’t picture that kind of future─but now that my arm was back to normal, I might even spend the next four years of my youth as a basketball player.

My comeback was a realistic reality.

There was always the concern that my arm returning to human form might just be a temporary phenomenon, and that tomorrow or the next day it might revert to a monkey’s paw, but after five days there was no sign of that happening.

Having been restored without warning, it wouldn’t be at all strange if it became a monkey’s paw again without warning, so I couldn’t afford to let my guard down─not that there was any way for me to be vigilant or negligent─but for the moment, it seemed like I could let myself believe that my arm had in fact become “human” again.

So there they were.

There before me─choices.

Options.

Whether the road would be easy, normal, or hard─or boast an even higher difficulty level, who could say? In any case, a path to a place I thought had been closed off forever appeared before me.

I thought it only stretched behind me.

Now it appeared before me.

All that remained was to decide whether or not to take it.

There wasn’t much time left─but before I could make my decision, there was something I had to take care of.

Roka Numachi.

I needed to be clear on her role─if I discovered that she had nothing to do with it, that’d be fine.

Until I settled the matter, I absolutely couldn’t report it to my dear seniors.

Still, there was a limit to keeping Araragi-senpai off the scent with pervy texts.

There was a limit to keeping our pervy conversation limited.

In various senses.

Keeping secrets from my savior was exacerbating my feelings of guilt.

Nevertheless─during the past five days.

I’d exhausted every means at my disposal and yet found no clue to help me get to Numachi.

How could it be?

I mean, her jersey aside, it was impossible that there was no information about a girl with such conspicuous hair.

Bleached to that unnatural brown.

In a way, it should have been easier than finding Shinobu, with her natural blond hair─but the fact remained that I couldn’t.

It was as though when she gave up being Lord Devil, she exited the world altogether.

It was like trying to grasp a cloud─no, grasping a cloud might have been easier.

It was yuckier, like trying to grasp a bug, and that should have made me draw back my hand, but I didn’t know when to quit.

I could always go to Karen for info, but only as a last resort. Not that I thought she’d tell her brother that I was asking questions─but making her promise not to would be odd, and furthermore, I had some qualms about enlisting a defender of justice like her in dealing with Numachi, who hadn’t actually committed any “evil deeds.”

Hmm, when I put it that way, defending “justice” is such a quandary. I mean, most people aren’t particularly offended by evil.

At this rate, though, the last resort was becoming my only option…

“It’s your job to impose on people. Anyone who doesn’t impose on others is just plain creepy.”

My mother’s words, which I recalled at crucial moments, seemed pregnant with meaning but never really served.

They seemed like nothing but twisted self-affirmations.

She was the one who entrusted me with the Monkey’s Paw, with the Devil’s Hand, in the first place, but why did she do it?

She told me not to ask (I think).

Did she really think it wouldn’t cast a pall over her child’s life? Did she really believe it wouldn’t warp me?

Look, I don’t mean to blame my mother about my left arm─even now I believe that the responsibility for having turned to a devil lies squarely with me.

I don’t know.

I seriously don’t know.

What that person was thinking when she entrusted the “hand” to me, when she bequeathed me her hopeless inheritance.

Nor did I know where the arm had gone─when I used the “hand” in elementary school, it was back inside its box the day after my wish was granted.

This time, when I managed to dig out the box─it was empty.

In which case, where the hell did the devil─

“At last we meet, Gaen’s legacy.”

When we were done with the open campus, Higasa and I convened a meeting at a fast food restaurant and discussed our impressions of the day, then parted ways at the station─she was returning to town by train, while I was going to run─directly after which.

I was addressed thus by an ominous-looking man.

“Ominous” was, what, just the impression he gave; there was nothing specific, but I’m confident that he is perfectly summed up by that word.

A funerary suit.

A beard, his hair slicked back, shadowy eyes behind silver-rimmed glasses.

His appearance was darkness itself.

I’d never actually met him and knew about him only secondhand through Araragi-senpai─and I’d only heard anecdotes and never had his appearance described to me─yet I recognized him in an instant.

This man.

This middle-aged man who was suddenly before me, an expert in aberrations who went to college with Mister Oshino, but first and foremost a swindler─

“Deishu…Kaiki.”

“Oh?”

Hearing his name come out of my mouth, he raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise─but if that was how he felt, the expression was all too moderate.

Not much different from a blink.

“You know who I am─I see, you must have heard about me from Araragi or Senjogahara. That’ll speed things up. It saves me the trouble of introducing myself. How fortunate. The lesson for me to take home from this is that you can never predict where and how your ties will come in handy.”

“…”

I drew in a breath─then turned my back on him and began to walk away.

“Whoa there, hold on now, Gaen’s legacy. I’ve been waiting for you─”

“……nkk!”

As he spoke, I sensed him moving to put his hand on my shoulder, and broke into a run. I was wearing running shoes, naturally. I hit my top speed with the first step, rocketing out of the gate fast enough to gouge holes in the ground.

It had been five days already since my arm had returned to normal.

Almost a week.

Plenty of time to get used to my fully restored bilateral balance.

Without so much as a glance over my shoulder, I took matters into my own hands (feet) and strove to make a clean getaway from Kaiki─

“Don’t take off running like that. It’s dangerous.”

“……nkk?!”

I hadn’t gotten away.

Which is to say, he overtook me.

In his snug-fitting suit, his leather shoes kicking up a terrible racket, the man passed me on the left with incredible speed, cut around in front of me, and spread his arms like a roadblock.

“Guh…”

I reversed my momentum with enough torque to tear my Achilles tendon, thinking that this time, this time, I would leave him in the dust.

I was absolutely sure I would leave Kaiki in the dust.

I must have unconsciously gone easy on him, but my running speed was my absolute identity, my raison d’être, and my one defining character trait. Getting outpaced by an ominous man who looked like he’d never exercised in his life was exactly─

“You’re not on a track, so don’t take off like that or you’ll stumble and fall. Quite the little tomboy, aren’t you? Be careful.”

─Was exactly what happened.

It was Kaiki in a low stance who left me in the dust like it was nothing, and as before he set himself in my path like a roadblock.

“…”

I didn’t have it in me to reverse direction again.

Having cranked my motor too high, severe pain was shooting through my thighs, and even if that weren’t the case, I could only stop.

No way…

No way in hell…

My legs, which had undergone training that was beyond rigorous since grade school, utterly surpassed by…a humanities type.

I couldn’t chalk it up to it being a long-distance run or anything; he’d passed me in a matter of seconds, so it was nothing but a short-distance contest.

I’d lost in a sprint.

It was a massive shock, and I literally crumpled to the ground.

“Whoa there, you’re a confusing kid. Do you normally prostrate yourself when you’re chased by a guy and fail to escape? Do I really look so villainous? Maybe I do, at that.”

“…”

I lacked the energy to rebut Kaiki’s words, which were delivered in an extremely earnest and not particularly mocking tone.

Was this going to be bad?

The first wish I’d made on the Monkey’s Paw was “to be able to run faster,” so if anyone proved to be faster than me, did that mean─no, maybe it’d be okay. My left arm was no longer a monkey’s arm, after all─but while that eased my mind a little, it did nothing to mitigate my overwhelming sense of defeat.

I had lost…

To this swindler, of all people…

A con artist who’d broken up Senjogahara-senpai’s family and set an aberration on Araragi-senpai’s little sister, and who even exerted his malice on Shinobu utterly surpassed me in the one and only arena where I excelled, thrashed me so thoroughly there was no room for excuses…

I felt crushed by my own incompetence.

I was ashamed. I wanted to die.

The world could just go ahead and end…

“Tsk, what are we going to do with you. Are you really Gaen’s legacy?”

Sounding pained at the sight of me staring despondently at the ground, Kaiki grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me to my feet like he was picking up a cat, or raising an anchor.

Being subjected to my foe’s compassion made me want to disappear all the more.

I wanted to cry.

If I went ahead and bawled now, though, my sob-fest five days earlier would become a lie, so I mustered my last reserves and held back my tears.

“What’s your problem? You’re making a hell of a face.” Kaiki, who apparently hadn’t had compassion in mind nor any intention of treating me kindly, readily let go of my neck with those harsh words and threatened, “Don’t try to run away. Like I said before, we’ve met at last. Being as how Araragi and Senjogahara have run me out of your town─I’ve been waiting here ever since last summer for you to leave.”

“Waiting…for me?”

“Yes. Though I’m lying, of course.”

With this swindler-like pronouncement, he started walking. It’s not like he’s grabbing my arm, he isn’t even looking in my direction, so this time I can run away if I want─even yours truly isn’t that optimistic, and didn’t think so.

In fact, it was because he was absolutely convinced that if I took off running he could catch up and cut me off that he could take his eyes off me without restraining me.

That was how big the discrepancy was.

Between his legs and mine.

I didn’t want to admit it, but that was the fact of the matter.

“What’s wrong with you? Come on.”

“Araragi-senpai told me that if I ever saw you, I should run away without speaking a word.”

“Ah, that’s why you suddenly took off─such a kind senpai you’ve got. But I’d say it was unkind not to advise what to do if you couldn’t get away. The lesson you should take home from this is that some things can’t be solved just by running away.”

“…”

Some things can’t be solved─just by running away.

Time.

Does not heal all wounds.

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of deceiving you, or of using you. And of course I have no intention of doing anything unseemly to a high school girl. I just need to talk to you, Gaen’s legacy. Here in front of this busy station wouldn’t do, though, and I want to invite you to a coffee shop─it’s ordinarily unthinkable for me come hell or high water, but I’m making an exception just for today, and just for you, and will even treat you to a tea.”

Treat me to a tea.

From what I’d heard, he wasn’t lying─I understood exactly how rare and unprecedented a concession it was for this man.

“…Fine, I’ll come. Happy?” I assented reluctantly.

It was terribly humiliating, but I had no choice.

If I didn’t go, my loss would stand─and I hate to let a loss stand.

Even though I seemingly couldn’t match him in speed─there was no way I could head home without giving this swindler some kind of payback.

I wouldn’t be able to face my dear seniors otherwise─and there was something else. He had said “Gaen.”

He had called me “Gaen’s legacy.”

Gaen was my mother’s maiden name.

In other words─the man knew my mother.