Monogatari Series - Volume 13 - Chapter 1.38

038

“Sengoku─Kaiki?!”

Just at that moment, Koyomi Araragi appeared in his civvies. It was good timing. The best timing, perfect even.

If he’d come a little earlier, the hordes of snakes might have gone ahead and slain Araragi, while if he’d come any later, I wouldn’t have known what to do with the collapsed and unconscious Sengoku. If I left her she might freeze to death. But I suspected some of my bones were broken, and in that state I wasn’t at all confident that I could carry her down that snowy mountain path by myself.

So in that sense I was grateful for the arrival of the charming prince.

Nice of you to drop in.

But dropping in like that, in the middle of exam prep, with his secondary exams looming─had he had a premonition or something? Man, defenders of justice have excellent intuition.

Not that he’d ever been the kind of guy who’d put his exam prep before a middle school girl.

“Kaiki! What─the hell are you doing here?! What have you done to Sengoku?!” he shouted at me in utter consternation.

What to do? I was thoroughly exhausted, so I considered just laying it all out, telling him that thanks to Senjogahara’s request, I’d been in the throes of battle with Sengoku until a moment ago. If, as a result, things went sour between Senjogahara and Araragi and they broke up, what did I care, I thought─but instead, I lied effortlessly.

“Gaen-senpai asked me to come. I was exorcising this young lady. I’m here this time as a ghostbuster, not a swindler. I know it’s against the rules for me to be here at all, but you can give me a pass since I’m not here as a swindler, right?”

This brazen mouth of mine sure comes in handy.

Given that I was there as a swindler and nothing but, same way I live my life.

Excepting the last five minutes or so.

“Ms. Gaen…”

Hearing that didn’t seem to quell his confusion, but at least the situation started to make some kind of sense to him.

From my perspective it was an unthinkable prospect, any way you sliced it, but the explanation “Izuko Gaen is acting to put the situation to rights” seemed to be relatively convincing for Araragi.

Damn Gaen-senpai, and Oshino.

Always pretending to be righteous in front of these children.

Something I will absolutely never do.

“B-But…” Araragi cast his gaze down to my feet, where the unconscious Sengoku lay, and repeated, “What the hell have you done to Sengoku?”

It seemed he was letting the fact that I’d broken my promise slide for the moment and accepting the explanation that Gaen-senpai was behind my presence. I’d broken my promise before as far as he knew, so maybe he felt like that ship had already sailed.

“The same thing I did to your sister,” I said bluntly.

“The same thing you did, to Karen…”

“Yes. Though this time it’s not a bee. A killer bee was appropriate for your sister, but for Sengoku─for Nadeko Sengoku,” I corrected, having inadvertently used the more familiar mode of address, “it’s a slug.”

“…”

“In a three-way deadlock between a slug, a frog, and a snake, the slug beats the snake─hence Slug Tofu. Then again, given that it’s a fake aberration I cooked up, as is my style, it doesn’t have the power to seal away a serpent god on its own. If Nadeko Sengoku hadn’t been inclined to accept the slimy little guy, it never could have contended with the snake.”

“Been inclined, to accept… Kaiki. What─”

Have you done to Sengoku, Araragi started to say, but apparently he thought better of it. Maybe he realized that he was beating that particular question into the ground.

And in its place, he asked, “─did you say to her?”

“The usual,” I answered, ignoring Araragi and leaning over Sengoku. The job was nearly complete, and I didn’t want any kid interfering at this point. “I said the usual. Love isn’t everything, there are other things to look forward to in life, don’t throw away your future, everyone’s youth is embarrassing, someday you’ll look back on this and laugh… All the usual stuff that adults say to children. What have I done to Sengoku? Just the usual.”

So saying, I stuck my hand into her mouth, and gritting my teeth, thrust it in all the way to the elbow, so deep that I was a little worried her jaw might come off.

“H-Hey! Kaiki! What’re you doing!”

“Shut up already. Stay out of it, Araragi. Know that there’s nothing you can do for her.”

I started feeling around inside Sengoku’s body, and once my fingers held the “thing” I was searching for, I quickly pulled my arm free─and her little mouth closed back up normally.

And simultaneously.

Sengoku’s stark white hair, that full head of white-snake hair, turned jet black, which is to say, went back to normal.

From the aspect of an exalted serpent deity.

To that of a run-of-the-mill middle school girl─now that her hair wasn’t made of snakes anymore, I got the strong sense that, unlike in the pictures I’d seen in the album, her bangs were awfully short…too short, but maybe that was just my imagination?

And the white dress that oddly resembled a sacred vestment also turned back into a commonplace middle school uniform.

Three months ago.

That must have been what she looked like right before she became a god. She was back to her old self.

Sengoku was back.

Araragi must have recognized this too─and it seemed to reassure him. I displayed the talisman that was clutched in the hand I’d thrust down Sengoku’s throat.

The talisman of a snake.

The talisman of the corpse of an autophagous serpent.

It was dripping with saliva, or gastric juices, with bodily fluids anyway, almost like a slug had been crawling all over it, but either way, this was without a doubt the talisman that had bestowed divinity on Sengoku.

Might as well make sure, though.

“Is this the talisman Gaen-senpai entrusted to you?”

“Uh… Y-Yeah, it is…”

“I see,” I said, wondering what to do with it. My honest feeling was that it would fetch a hefty price, and I didn’t think Sengoku or Araragi could blame me if I just pocketed it…

But the thing had come from Gaen-senpai.

Better to let sleeping gods lie.

Or─a snake in the grass is worth leaving in the goddamn bush.

“Here,” I pushed the talisman on Araragi, acting for all the world like I was doing him a favor. Then I wiped my slimy hand on his shirt. “This time, don’t mistake who to use it on.”

“I’m not gonna,” Araragi declared. “I’m not using this thing.”

The same determination that started the whole mess─this guy never learned his lesson, not like it was for me to say.

Shrugging my shoulders, I walked past him, striding brazenly down the center of the path.

When I was about to pass under the torii.

“H-Hey, wait a sec, Kaiki! Where do think you’re going!”

“Nowhere, to do nothing… I’m not even supposed to be in this town. If she finds out I was here, Senjogahara will kill me.”

It wasn’t that I wanted to cover for her.

I was just using her as a clever excuse to make my exit.

“I’ve done my job. And made good money.” I walked off without looking back. “Get that kid home safe, Araragi.”

I made it sound cool, but basically I was just sticking him with the extremely dicey job of accompanying a missing girl on her return home.

Well, I couldn’t deny a prominent role to a guy who’d showed up conveniently at the eleventh hour.

“But be sure the girl never finds out it was you who brought her home.”

“Wha…”

“If she thinks you’re the one who saved her, you’ll be right back where you started. After all my hard work exorcising the spirit that possessed her…”

Though that was just happenstance.

“The Slug Tofu will leave of its own accord after three days, no lingering issues. If it absolutely won’t leave, throw some salt on her. And then never interact with that girl again for the rest of your life. Got it? Become nothing but a memory to her.”

“You really think I could be that irresponsible? It’s my fault that this happened to Sengoku, so it’s my responsibility to─”

“Do you really not get it?”

Ridiculous.

Why was I stuck doing all this preachy crap─I’m even less suited to it than Gaen-senpai or Oshino.

But it had to be said.

I had to say it.

“You cannot do a damn thing for that girl. With you around, that girl is just going to go to shit. Sometimes love makes people stronger, and sometimes it makes them go to shit─thanks to you, Senjogahara has gotten a little stronger. But with you around, Nadeko Sengoku will just go to shit.”

“…”

I wonder what Araragi’s expression was at that moment.

How did it feel, getting an earful from a guy like me? I imagined that, yeah, he might kill himself over it. Although I’d managed to conceal the fact that Senjogahara had instigated the whole thing, there was no hiding anymore that I’d rectified Araragi’s blunder. He probably even felt embarrassed.

Well, when was youth ever not embarrassing?

But I’d give him a little follow-up, on the house.

“Senjogahara went to shit because of me. And you made her stronger. This time around I happened to be the right man for the job, or maybe I was paying back that debt.”

“Kaiki─”

But Araragi didn’t finish his sentence. That was the extent of his protest.

I doubt he was convinced, but he had the good sense to leave well enough alone.

Then, as if in place, he asked, “You think that if I’m not around, Sengoku can be happy?”

“I wonder. She seemed happy until just now, but…being happy isn’t the point of life. Even if you can’t be happy, you can, say, become what you aspire to be,” I answered off-hand. “But either way,” I continued off-hand, “life’s got its bright spots, don’cha think?”

“…”

“See you around.”

The more I said that we’d never meet again or that I’d never set foot in this town again, the more I seemed to get drawn back here. I decided to be contrary and tried that instead, then passed under the torii and down the steps.

My entire body was groaning with pain, but of course I didn’t let on.