Monogatari Series - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.19

019

As soon as Numachi left the classroom, all the other students came swarming in as though they’d been lurking right outside the door.

I say “as though,” but I wondered if maybe they actually had been. In that case, it was pretty cold-blooded of them to watch from a safe distance as I was confronted by an obviously dangerous individual. Thankfully, that wasn’t it; by coincidence every single one of them had happened to get a late start that day, and they’d all made it to school just in time.

Weird, right? Bizarre.

One of those coincidences that almost seem planned.

Reminds me of a story I heard, where lightning struck a church during mass but no one was hurt because every single one of the usually punctual faithful happened to be late that day for one reason or another.

Okay, God might strike me down for making that comparison.

Because if someone was pulling the strings, it was neither God nor an angel, but Lord Devil.

Which was no longer just a name for attracting clients─since her left arm, at the very least, had been transformed into that of a devil.

And I suspected that her left leg, too─

“What’s the matter, Ruga? You’re looking grim.”

“Higasa…”

I couldn’t bring myself to inform my friend, ebullient as always, that my former archrival had been in our classroom until moments before, let alone describe how utterly, tragically transformed she’d been─to the point that both inwardly and outwardly she was barely human.

“…It’s nothing. That open campus yesterday was fun, huh? Maybe not that college in particular, but it really made me excited about college in general. Gotta put my nose to the exam prep grindstone from here on out─”

Higasa must have felt a little uncomfortable at my ham-fisted change of subject, but she let it pass without comment, like a true friend.

The curriculum was taken care of in what felt like the blink of an eye─and after school.

I went to the gym.

Where a lone figure stood waiting amid the cavernous emptiness─Roka Numachi.

The crutch that should have been supporting her broken leg was lying on the floor─and she was standing on that leg as though nothing was wrong with it, dribbling a basketball in an easy rhythm with the plaster-sheathed left hand that should have been holding the crutch.

She was waiting for me.

Roka Numachi was waiting for Suruga Kanbaru.

“How ’bout a little one-on-one?” she skipped the pleasantries.

Ah ha.

That’s why─she’d chosen the gym and not somewhere else as our after-school rendezvous point.

It was the only place around with a basketball court.

And just like that morning, she’d taken care of everything, clearing out all and sundry. The volleyball team, the badminton team, and of course the basketball team─each would have their own reason for showing up late.

And so I answered her.

Anyone who’d answer differently was no basketball player at all.

“Let’s do it.”