Monogatari Series - Volume 11 - Chapter 1.05

005

If you asked Nadeko whose fault it is, I’d say no one in particular…but if we had to vote anonymously on who caused this situation, i think the unanimous answer would be Mister Deishu Kaiki, the swindler.

He’d be elected for sure.

Well, i know i’m making it sound like we’re acquaintances, but Nadeko has never met that man.

Still, we’re more than acquaintances.

If i were to describe our relationship, i’d say he is a Very Important Person to Nadeko. A VIP.

Aside from Nadeko’s family, Big Brother Koyomi, and Tsukihi, he’s left a bigger impression than anyone else in her life─i mean, it’s his fault that Nadeko’s life went the wrong way.

That it slipped off the tracks. And fell to pieces.

…

Wait, is this what they call making yourself out as the victim?

Uh oh, let Nadeko correct herself.

It was everything around Nadeko that went the wrong way.

And slipped off the tracks. And fell to pieces.

Not Nadeko, but everything around her.

Nadeko has always lived her life the way she lives it now─from long before Mister Kaiki ever visited this town.

Only.

The classmates around Nadeko got─just like Nadeko. That’s really all that happened.

So if i had to say, the victims were Nadeko’s classmates.

This might be getting off topic, but i think it’s important, so i’m going to talk a little bit about the past.

We’ll keep it simple.

It was June.

Actually, it was a page out of Mister Kaiki’s Fraud Files, with which Nadeko isn’t too familiar─so some of this will be what i heard from Tsukihi and her sister, the Fire Sisters of Tsuganoki Second Middle School.

Mister Deishu Kaiki is a psychic who calls himself a ghostbuster.

The easy way to explain it would be to say that he’s in the same line of work as Mister Oshino, but their natures seem somewhat different, and apparently Mister Kaiki uses his psychic powers for the sole purpose of making money.

Calling him a fake spiritualist would be “brayzen.”

But i ought to be brayzen here.

This year, he put down roots in the town that Nadeko and the rest of us live in─and he decided to target its middle schoolers.

To put that in a brayzen way too, he didn’t put down roots, he made his nest here.

His scam was selling fake charms to a large number of random middle schoolers─as far as money goes, he honestly didn’t ask for much.

A price you could manage on an allowance.

It was the Kaiki way of doing business, low margins and high volume.

There were of course some kids who took it too far, which became a problem and made the Fire Sisters act─but as time passed, it was the majority of scams, affordable on an allowance and not particularly problematic, that became the true problem.

Yes.

It would have been better if they’d turned into actual cases─like with Nadeko.

i think that’s why Nadeko has been able to live the same way (still gloomy) before and after the case─with no changes to her personality.

Resolving something that has become a full-blown case serves as an important, they say, “richual”─and so.

And so those of Nadeko’s classmates who didn’t experience it as a case and never partook in a richual─who were vaguely able to manage it, are living out their school lives still feeling uncertain.

Being “obscur” like this won’t get across what i mean by “feeling uncertain,” so i’m going to be kind of straightforward about it. In a nutshell, things about the class like─

Who likes who

Who hates who

How someone feels about someone else

What someone wants to do to someone else

─and other kinds of “thoughts about everyone” that go beyond even the level of personal info were all “dievulged.”

The “charms” that Mister Kaiki turned into a fad were for middle schoolers and were all basically about relationships─yes.

The phony charms Mister Kaiki sold were so fake that they were barely effective─meaning, terribly enough, that they brought no results and left the causes lying around.

Finding out how people they thought were friends really felt, learning the true motives driving people who were nice to them─how could that not affect a relationship, and how could that not affect the way you socialize?

…You can guess how the rest went, for the most part.

Mister Kaiki’s goal wasn’t to ruin relationships, of course─the only thing he was after was middle schoolers’ money.

It was business.

And of course, Mister Kaiki didn’t specifically target Nadeko’s class─he was targeting all the middle schoolers in town.

But i guess you could call it a trick of fate? No, i don’t think it’s anything that overblown, it’s just a plain old coincidence─but for whatever reason, the charms Mister Kaiki sold were a gigantic hit in Nadeko’s class.

If it had been the flu, our whole class would have had to stay home.

The result of it all is Nadeko’s current meloncholic school life─a class where everyone’s stiff and uncertain, where no one can speak from the heart, a peaceful class in appearance only.

No matter what you say, people think you’re lying, that you’re saying it for show and actually feel a different way─

A class without cases.

Where nothing happens.

Where everyone pretends to be asleep.

Where no one wants to do anything.

Everyone must be looking forward to their new class assignments next year─it can’t get any worse than it already is, and Nadeko can’t deny feeling the same way.

i do wonder if anything can be done about it.

But i also think nothing can be.

There’s nothing to be done anymore.

“…”

Good morning─i consider uttering the words but can’t as i enter the classroom, silent as always─some students looked Nadeko’s way as she entered while others didn’t react, but that really doesn’t bother her much anymore.

i’m used to it.

It feels like boarding a train from a station platform, and i am now used to the mood.

Slouching so that she doesn’t stand out, Nadeko heads to her seat.

There’s going to be a quiz during homeroom this morning, so she needs to prepare.

“………”

…i don’t scream this time.

It’s the third time, after all.

i’m in class, too─screaming on a train would draw people’s looks, wouldn’t it?

Well, this did make three times that i was on the verge of screaming, but it was only the second in terms of snakes.

From inside Nadeko’s desk─appeared a white snake, this time in plain sight.

It crawls and squirms out, baring its fangs.

But it disappears a moment later.

Nadeko sits down in her chair like nothing happened and starts preparing for the quiz─then again, Nadeko might not have screamed even if it were the first time.

After all, this class is already being constricted by something like a snake.

i’m not going to scream just because a snake wraps itself around Nadeko─so long as it doesn’t bite her.