Monogatari Series - Volume 12 - Chapter 1.04

004

We turned and it was right in front of us.

The Darkness.

Almost like it was a pit─a trap waiting for us there this whole time.

“…nkk!”

I couldn’t tell our distance from it.

Or maybe there wasn’t any from the start─with this phenomenon.

As if it was always right there, and far or close didn’t matter─crap!

I couldn’t change directions now, I’d just turned my handlebars as far as they could go. Believing that I was fleeing single-mindedly, unwaveringly, I ended up putting a period to the game of tag by plunging straight into the Darkness.

Self-ruin. Autodestruct.

A completely pointless escapade.

Running, confounded, from a confounding thing, caught up to in confounding fashion─it was confoundedly over.

“Urrg.”

But.

But Hachikuji, at least─

“Mrrgh, mrrgh, mrrgh.”

Was still munching on my back.

I might have made her, but what a thing to be doing at the end of the line.

She was wrecking the serious mood.

But I somehow had to peel off Hachikuji, who literally had her teeth in me, and let her escape─escape!

This girl, at least─

“─Unlimited Rulebook.”

And then.

I heard a quiet, droning voice from somewhere─and was blasted away.

Not the Darkness lying in wait.

Me.

Us.

It felt like a giant hammer had sent us flying─and maybe that described the actual phenomenon.

A brutally physical aberration far more defined than the Darkness.

By the time I realized it, Hachikuji and I had been blown into the opposite lane. Some sort of thing had happened─and rescued us.

Only our wheels didn’t make it, and my granny bike seemed to be swallowed up by the Darkness─disappearing without a trace.

“…!”

After all this time…

Having survived one crisis after another alongside me, my granny bike finally exited this world… It was quite a shock.

I was so depressed that I could die.

What was I supposed to ride to school the next day?

“Kind monster sir─over this way.”

And there, suddenly─was Ononoki.

Yotsugi Ononoki.

An expressionless tween girl─whose terribly frilly, cute, and visually quite striking outfit was all thrown out of balance by her expressionlessness.

Like a doll trying too hard to act human.

She can’t help it, though.

While she isn’t a doll, she isn’t human, either.

She, too, is an aberration.

An aberration known as Yotsugi Ononoki.

A certain violent onmyoji sorcerer’s familiar─

“Huh? Wait, Ononoki… Why are you here?”

“What do you mean. I met you just yesterday.”

Did she?

She did.

Thanks to my time travel, those memories were out of sync with reality─was it like jet lag?

Ononoki had appeared just as abruptly as the Darkness─but judging by the situation, she seemed to have saved Hachikuji and me.

“Th-Thank─”

“It might be a little early to be thanking me,” Ononoki practically whispered.

She was absolutely right.

The menacing Darkness was still on the street─not having vanished or anything, it continued to exist right there.

A Darkness we couldn’t see continuing to exist is a pretty weird formulation─but then it was that kind of phenomenon.

“Kind monster sir, what…is that?”

“Huh?” I was the baffled one at her question. “Really, Ononoki? Isn’t your role to appear out of nowhere, save me, and explain everything?”

“I’m not sure I can handle your spoiled expectations…”

Expressionless as she was, Ononoki sounded overwhelmed.

Well, no wonder.

Just saving us deserved our thanks.

Though Oshino might say that people just go and get saved on their own.

“Hachikuji…”

As for Hachikuji─

Her arms around my torso, still clutching my body and even biting into the flesh of my back, the ghost girl Mayoi Hachikuji had passed out, as far as I could tell.

How mentally weak was she, anyway?

I’m so let down by you.

“…”

I ripped her off me.

Regardless of what we were going to do next, about the only activity that suited her posture was riding together on a bicycle. Loosening her grip was one thing, but getting her teeth out of my back was pretty rough.

Maybe she did have ten thousand of them.

“Good grief…” Ononoki said.

It was hard to read her emotions from her toneless voice─she was like the old Senjogahara in a way. Which is why I feel some affinity for Ononoki.

“I carelessly saved you, but at this rate maybe I should’ve left you alone… Did I get caught up in some confounding business? Talk about hard luck, give a guy a break.”

That’s right, I thought about the kid, whom I’d chronologically met just yesterday but internally felt like I hadn’t seen in a good, long while, Ononoki applies male identifiers to herself.

“Don’t say you should’ve left us alone… Life is a valuable thing.”

“Says an immortal vampire?” shot back Ononoki. “And is that girl the ghost you mentioned yesterday? She sure is wearing a backpack… So you managed to return it. Good.”

“Yesterday…”

Did I mention Hachikuji?

It was so far back that I didn’t remember.

Well, in addition to being an aberration, Ononoki frequently worked alongside an expert, if only as a familiar, so I guess it was natural…but she could see.

Ononoki could see Hachikuji.

And just as naturally─the Darkness, too.

“Kind monster sir.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do?”

“With that,” Ononoki pointed.

With her index finger, at the Darkness on the street.

She pointed at the unmoving Darkness, which seemed to be observing us as though it was the one “witnessing” us.

Pointing.

For Ononoki, already an offensive maneuver.

Unlimited Rulebook.

She only needed to point to activate it.

Its power─was something my body knew first-hand.

Not my body, technically, so much as half of my body.

“Fight?” she asked, “Or flight?”

“Flight,” I answered immediately. “That’s not the kind of thing you try to fight.”

“Yes. I agree.”

I thought she might mock me for being a coward, but she lowered her finger right away. Almost as if that was her plan from the beginning─seriously, there was no reading this kid.

Inscrutable, just like the old Senjogahara.

“We’re running away. Hold that child, kind monster sir.”

“Got it.”

“As gently as you can, slowly, not making any noise. That thing might react to it and attack.”

“…”

Was it a beast or what? Well, true, aberrations might be animalistic, primitively speaking─and they do tend to have a creature motif.

Not that any beast could be darkness itself…

In any case, I did as Ononoki said and slowly picked up Hachikuji’s body. Without making a sound, I slipped a hand under her neck, checked inside her skirt, held her legs, and cradled her against my chest.

“I feel like you added an unnecessary action there.”

“Excuse me? What if there was an aberration inside her skirt?”

“Fat chance, bastard,” scolded Ononoki, somewhat abrasively.

I assumed it was her onmyoji’s influence on her, but the kid’s character traits could be pretty inconsistent.

“Okay.”

And then.

Almost the moment I stood up with Hachikuji in a so-called bridal carry─Ononoki grabbed me by the collar.

“Unlimited Rulebook: The Disengagement Edition.”