Monogatari Series - Volume 14 - Chapter 1.08

008

Night fell.

By “night,” I mean the time after the sun goes down.

Until which point I spent the entire day inside.

Thank goodness school was out for the moment─if I missed any more days, I actually wouldn’t be able to graduate. And it was also fortunate that I was studying for exams, and barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth at that─since no one thought it strange that I spent the entire day holed up in my room studying with the curtains closed. Nor would they invite me to go outside.

Once the sun went down and I’d eaten dinner with the whole family, I left the house─I used to have two bicycles, but I lost both of them in what you could call self-inflicted accidents, and they were now just a fond memory. Putting it that way really doesn’t sit right with me, but─but basically, what can you call dealing with such aberration-ness, such “darkness”-ness, other than self-inflicted, a self-fulfilling prophecy?

And so I walked.

To the station.

After I had left the house and walked for a while, there was suddenly a little blond girl beside me─Tsubasa Hanekawa once said that I looked like I was on Gmen ’75 when I walked, and having Shinobu by my side definitely gave me that kind of reassurance.

“Sorry about this. Thanks for coming with me.”

“I am not doing it for thee. We have ever shared a common destiny, we merely act as though ’twere otherwise.”

“Guess you’re right.”

I lifted Shinobu off the ground where she was walking beside me and put her on my shoulders. I figured it’d be tough on a little girl to trek all the way to the station and was being considerate in my own way.

Man, was she light.

Like she was made of paper.

But even if she’d become almost entirely human, there was no partner I’d rather have by my side.

“As a precaution in the face of the two we go to meet, wilt thou not make me a vampire? If ye let me drink only as much as would be taken for a blood test, we can at least flee should dire circumstance arise.”

“Ummm… But if I make you a vampire, then I’ll become vampirified as well, and my current symptoms will become indistinguishable from everything else… I might not be able to get an accurate ‘diagnosis.’ Plus, Ms. Gaen’s message only said that Ononoki would be waiting for us, she never actually said anything about Ms. Kagenui being there as well…”

“Didst bid farewell to thy lady?”

“No, I didn’t bid her farewell…”

But I’d gotten in touch with Senjogahara.

And after her instantaneous response of I’m coming too, it had been a backbreaking labor to convince her otherwise.

I definitely don’t think I was just being selfish in not wanting to let her meet that onmyoji & shikigami duo.

“To be honest, though, talking to her did make me feel a little better.”

“Hmm. Because─in comparison to her former ailment of weightlessness, thine own lack of a reflection is in fact of no great concern? My lord.”

“Umm, that wasn’t exactly it…”

Though maybe that was exactly it.

“I think it was more because Senjogahara gave me a bunch of advice─and also helped me confirm a bunch of details. Like what happens if I look in the mirror with clothes on.”

“Hmmm…”

“When I tried it, turned out my clothes were just floating there in the reflection, so it seems like I have to do everything in my power not to get near a mirror. She also told me to watch out for cars. If I don’t appear in their side-view and rearview mirrors, the chances of my getting hit increase drastically.”

“The lass truly doth take note of the smallest details… How cautiously she must have lived these two years gone.”

Saying this, Shinobu threw her arms around my head. Being as small as she was, embracing my head like that was enough to completely fill her arms.

Just as I was wondering what she was doing, she announced, “I shall sleep a bit more. Wake me when we encounter Ononoki.” And just like that she closed her eyes, her breathing slowing until it was clear that she was asleep. The thought did cross my mind that if she was going to sleep, she could do it in my shadow, but maybe she figured that with what was coming, events could turn on a dime. Sleeping outside would cut out the time it’d take her to emerge from my shadow.

That very morning Tsukihi had likened holding someone’s head in your hands to holding their life in your hands, but maybe by embracing my head like that, Shinobu was actually protecting my life with her hands.

“Now then…”

I’ve heard that in order to develop a refined posture, aristocratic young women practiced walking with a cup of water balanced on their head, and this was something close to that: don’t spill the water, don’t wake Shinobu.

And so, walking with my most refined posture, I arrived at my destination, the department store near the station, at 6:55 p.m., just before the appointed time─though depending on how long the elevator took, I might actually end up being a little late.

Picking up my pace, I entered the building.

I thought maybe it’d be faster to take the escalator or run up the stairs… Running up the escalators would be quickest, but they’re not for running.

So I chose the stairs.

Not that you’re supposed to run up the stairs either, but I couldn’t keep Ononoki waiting. I’d probably be out of breath after racing all the way up to the fourth floor─but while some people might be taken aback if the person they were waiting for showed up all out of breath, that wasn’t a concern with Ononoki.

She would let it go expressionlessly as always, guaranteed.

“She said the arcade, right? The arcade, the arcade… Is there even an arcade here?”

Wait, it was ringing a bell.

A while back Kanbaru was telling me about this game Love and Berry that she was addicted to, and I could swear she said it was this department store where she played it…

I arrived at the fourth floor and began wandering around with that recollection in mind─and hit pay dirt almost immediately.

Since it was in a department store, though, it was tiny, just a place for parents to put their kids while they shopped, patterned after an arcade but really an arcade in name only. In that sense you could say it was a fitting place for a rendezvous with Ononoki. Plus it wouldn’t be weird to have a little girl like my partner Shinobu with me.

“Hunh? She’s not here.”

I got there at seven sharp, but not only was Ononoki not there, there wasn’t a soul in sight.

“Of all the… Empty. I did exactly like Ms. Gaen said, followed her instructions to the letter…”

I started to worry that maybe Ononoki had gotten into some kind of trouble, but that somewhat paranoid concern vanished when my eyes fell upon the game next to a Love and Berry-like cabinet.

It was what they call a UFO Catcher.

The kind made famous by Toy Story.

Though they would probably be famous even without Toy Story.

The kind where you put in a coin, move the arm, and try to pick up the prize─and, all alone, inside the glass case.

Was Ononoki.

Her legs splayed out in front of her, like a doll.

Not even a twitch of movement, like a doll.

“…”

Huh?

Wait, it was Ononoki…wasn’t it?

It had to be Ononoki, didn’t it?

How did she end up as the prize inside a crane game? I wondered, approaching the machine.

Easy now. I was trying not to transmit my impatience to Shinobu who slept atop my shoulders. Easy does it now.

“Ononoki?”

I tried rapping on the glass, but no response.

No response.

No expression, no emotion.

It was weird, she looked like a real figurine.

No, a figurine is an imitation of the human figure, so maybe calling something a real figurine is itself weird. Plus, Ononoki was always expressionless and emotionless and unresponsive, so her lack of response didn’t prove anything.

“Yotsugi? Yo-o-otsugi-i-i!”

No response.

“Yotsy!”

No response.

Hmmm, maybe they’d just produced a figure of her and I’d missed it somehow… But this was life size.

Big enough that if we were talking Ichiban Kuji Premium, it’d be the Last One Prize… It seemed like there was nothing for me to do but play the game.

I took my wallet out of my pocket. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it with only a hundred yen, so maybe a five-hundred…

Nope, don’t have any. Okay, gotta break a thousand.

I went over to the change machine to break a one thousand-yen bill into ten one hundred-yen coins, and then hurried back over to the UFO Catcher.

Since there was no one else around, maybe I was just being overly anxious, but with this kind of machine you hear stories all the time about people poaching your prize while you’re running to get more change.

“Though I’ve never really played this kind of prize-type game myself… I wonder how it works.”

I should’ve brought Kanbaru after all.

Despite being a wildly talented athlete, she was deep into this kind of stuff─a perfect superwoman in a totally different sense than Hanekawa.

Musing about that, I inserted one of my newly changed coins into the cabinet. It wasn’t crunch time yet, but the department store did close at eight.

I didn’t imagine it’d take me an hour to get the prize, but still, no sense in dilly-dallying.

“Let’s see… First move the arm sideways with the ① button, then forward with the ② button… Mm-hmm. Got it. The rules aren’t too complicated. Awright then, let’s give it a shot.”

Apparently you started it by pressing the ① button.

I sent the crane arm flying over to where it could pick up Ononoki’s body─

Hm, I think that’s a little too far. That’s not gonna cut it, glad I noticed. Now, how do I bring it back?

Just a slight adjustment… Wait, you can’t make adjustments?

I couldn’t find a button anywhere with a reverse arrow on it…

Feeling abashed, I pressed the ② button─I’d blown it that time, but now that I knew there was no reverse button, I wasn’t going to repeat the same mistake twice.

Definitely seemed like the strategy was to stop the arm a little bit before the prize, then inch your way towards it─WTF? As soon as I took my hand off the button, the arm started to drop!

No, not there! Not there, I’m aiming for deeper in!

But my internal screams did nothing to control the arm, and it came up empty, tracing a path back along the route of my failure almost as if it was mocking me.

“Thou art an abject bungler, my lord.”

“Hmph. So you’re awake, huh, Shinobu?”

“’Tis the jangling of that obnoxious background music… My lord’s head is indeed a comfortable pillow, yet the constant racket renders it inferior to my usual place of repose.”

Did she mean my shadow?

Treating someone’s head and shadow as nothing more than beds… She might have lost her vampiric power, but her haughtiness still knew no bounds.

“But have a care, my lord. Approach not too closely unto the glass.”

“Huh?”

“’Tis reflective.”

Ah, in an excess of enthusiasm I’d sidled right up to the glass and was virtually pressed against it, and the light would cause me to be reflected there.

No─would cause everything but me to be reflected there.

Just my clothes would be reflected.

“Hm? Shinobu, you’ve got a totally normal reflection… Maybe not normal, since it looks like you’re floating in midair, but is it because you’ve lost your vampire powers?”

“At present ’tis so. But at the height of my powers, I could give myself a reflection whenever I so chose. No weakness is truly a weakness for one such as I.”

“…”

But of course.

The legend herself.

She left me speechless─but at that point, I should have picked up on what her words implied. True, I guess even if I’d picked up on “it” then, the timing wouldn’t have changed anything.

“It.”

By which I mean the difference between us as vampires.

Anyway, time for my second attempt.

“So basically, I only get one shot at going sideways and one shot at going forward?”

“Aye, ’tis so. Though ’tis written plainly enough, if thou wouldst only read the explanation.”

“I’ve always been hopeless at reading the instructions… Not that it matters.”

With any game, you’ve got to learn by doing.

I pressed the ① button with the utmost deliberation.

I backed away from the glass slightly so I wouldn’t be reflected there, so what wasn’t being reflected wouldn’t be reflected there. But if I backed up too much my sense of distance would be off─I adjusted my position until I was standing in the right spot, or at least a spot that I judged to be the right one, and released the button.

Yup, right there. No question.

“Heheh, I think I might have a gift for crane games.”

“Methinks ’tis too early to say, but even were it so, how might such a talent stand thee in good stead in the future?”

“I’ll become the mysterious old man who wins stuffed animals for little children in arcades.”

“Mayhap a little too mysterious.”

As the words Is that a sufficient future for thee, my lord? floated down from above, I pressed the ② button. This wasn’t some RPG, and I didn’t have time to mess around.

“Okay, right there!”

With the split-second timing of a god among master swordsmen, I released the button. The claws began to descend precisely where I wanted it, directly above Ononoki’s head.

“Hey! Look, Shinobu!”

“I am looking… However, should it descend as such…”

“Hm?”

Before Shinobu could finish, the wide-open claws struck Ononoki, or her figure─legs splayed out in front of her─directly on the noggin.

With a dull thud.

I unconsciously released a sighing “Ah…”

Dealt an overhead attack, the figure of Ononoki crumpled, her upper body losing its equilibrium and teetering before finally falling backwards. In other words, she ended up flat on her back in the glass case and was staring upwards with her arms and legs spread wide.

Her expression changed not at all.

I could observe no physical response.

She remained expressionless when the crane struck her, when she toppled over─well, since she was always expressionless, you could say like her usual self, but this expressionlessness really made me wonder if the prize in the game might not be a doll made to look like Yotsugi Ononoki, after all.

“’Tis not a question of her expression, her movements be utterly like unto those of a marionette…a doll. She made not the least movement to ready herself for the coming impact.”

“Uh huh… Ms. Gaen couldn’t possibly be messing with us…could she? I didn’t think she was that kind of person, it’s not like she said, ‘There’s a doll that looks like Ononoki in this department store.’ Man, that would piss me off. If all I get after blowing this wad of cash is a stupid doll…guess I’ll have no choice but to snuggle up with it when I sleep.”

“While ’tis true that mine own sense of money is a spot spotty, methinks thou canst not term a few hundred yen a wad of cash, my lord. Get thyself a clue. Truly, thou shalt end up as a mysterious old man who wins stuffed animals from crane games for little children.”

“You’re right. I’ve got to do whatever I can to avoid that fate, even if I’m the one who brought it up in the first place…”

Putting that aside.

And while I may have already become an extremely mysterious teenager with a little blond girl sitting on my shoulders, racing the clock in a closing department store to try and win a life-size doll of a young girl from a crane game, definitely putting that aside as well.

My second attempt had ended in failure─all I’d done was knock Ononoki down so she was splayed out flat─and the crane arm had returned to its original position. Third time’s the charm?

“Well, at least that blunder wasn’t a waste… I’ve learned something. Seems like it’s not as simple as just positioning the arm directly above the prize. You’ve got to consider the way the claws move too. I bet not a lot of people realize that.”

“Would not those of superior intuition realize it before they even made their first attempt?”

“Don’t you think the computer should just make those adjustments for you?”

“What would be the point of such a forgiving prize game?”

“Before, it would’ve been best to drop it around her thighs, but with the position she’s in now…her waist would be best, I guess. If I can hook her waist with a claw, I should pick her right up.”

“I wonder, be the arm powerful enough for that?”

“GO!”

I went.

I inserted the coin and started moving the arm─aiming for Ononoki’s waist. If everything went according to plan, the crane would pick Ononoki up by the waist, pull her up, raise her up, and provide the perfect angle for me to get a full view of the contents of her skirt.

I was planning to fine-tune my own position in addition to the crane arm’s, but in the end, my aim was thwarted.

The arm did begin to lift Ononoki by the waist, but her mass wrenched the claw open, and she fell back into her original spot─this time on her side.

And the arm returned to its original position.

“This arm’s got no strength at all!”

“Did I not tell thee? I believe I did. Thou shouldst heed my advice.”

“Sure, yeah, that’s true, but…”

I was all out of protestations.

Apparently I sucked at UFO Catchers (I take back everything I said), so maybe I should let Shinobu do it for me?

No, she was more of an armchair quarterback…

“Still, the crane just let Ononoki drop without even putting up a fight! It’s too weak! It didn’t even get her off the ground for a second!”

“Mayhap the screws are loose. Though that too may simply be a question of the generosity of the house, or lack thereof. The power of the arm is in truth theirs to dictate as they see fit.”

“You can’t be serious… That’s not fair.”

What the hell was I going to do?

The game was rigged against the player.

The only thing I could control was the movement of the arm─and that incompletely, while the house had full hegemony over the arm’s power. I was helpless.

“Nay, my lord─while ’tis true that the claws’ power to close, hold, and lift be paltry, there is yet one thing the house cannot control.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

“The power of the arm as it falls─its descending force. Erst struck Ononoki from above, did thee not? And that had, if nothing else, the requisite force to alter the lass’s position.”

“…And?”

“Ergo─” Shinobu pointed by way of explanation, “just as one might use a stick to push a rock into a river, thou canst use the arm to trundle Ononoki over to the hole without ever raising her up.”

“…”

That might be a “feasible” strategy for a UFO Catcher, but Shinobu’s phrasing made it a cheat without an ounce of affection for the doll in question.

Trundle.

“Well, I guess that’s the only hope we’ve got left…but I’ve only got seven coins left. I wonder if seven’ll do it?”

“My lord. By the by.”

“What is it?”

“It appears thou mayest play four times if dost insert three coins at once.”

“Why didn’t you say so sooner?!”

The battle certainly didn’t get any easier from there on out. We’d figured out a back door, but of course things didn’t go according to plan, and time and again the arm banged ineffectually against Ononoki’s body.

Her lack of reaction was somehow painful to look at.

It was just too pitiful.

Even when I did succeed, the distance she moved was so incremental that it was extremely unlikely I could pull it off with the coins, the credits, I had remaining─seven coins meant nine plays.

My coffers were slowly but steadily dwindling.

Trundling towards oblivion.

“Hrk… What am I gonna do when these credits are gone…”

“Change another thousand-yen bill. Thou art carrying that much, art thou not?”

“What’s with the lukewarm comeback? Heat things up for me, like in an arcade manga in CoroCoro Comics.”

“Dost such manga still exist?”

And while this banter was going on─at last.

At last, with my final credit, I succeeded in using the arm to nudge Ononoki into the hole─she landed in the retrieval drawer with a thud. It was more than just a dull sound, though, it sounded like something somewhere in there broke.

“I did it, Shinobu!” I pumped my fist, pretending I hadn’t heard that sound. “It’s a happy ending!”

“Why do I feel as though our original goal hath been forgot…”

“Original goal? Wasn’t our original goal to get Ononoki?”

“Nay.”

“That’s ridiculous. What higher goal could there be in this world than to win a tween girl?”

“If that is all thou desirest, my lord, then there, take the lassy and go. ’Tis nigh on the time for this store to close its doors.”

She was right.

I’d thought we had plenty of leeway, but all of a sudden it was past 7:45─any second now they were going to start playing “Auld Lang Syne” over the speakers.

Obviously not having forgotten my original goal─of dealing with the mysterious phenomenon afflicting my body─I moved to retrieve Ononoki. I mean, whether or not I’d forgotten, either way we weren’t going to get anywhere unless I got her out of there.

I pulled the handle on the drawer.

“Mph… It’s stuck, I can’t get it open.”

“Grit thy teeth and pull with all thy might. She may lose an arm or a leg, perhaps, but even so.”

“You think I can just ignore that ‘perhaps’?”

Ononoki, probably a little too big for the opening, had gotten hung up… If this was an ordinary prize, I could just call over an employee, but that didn’t seem like such a good idea if it was the real Ononoki.

Jiggling the handle back and forth, I pulled the drawer out little by little─kind of like sifting flour into cake batter.

That’s purely a metaphor, I’ve never actually baked a cake before─but nonetheless, my stratagem worked, and I was able to get the thing open.

Ononoki was stuffed in there in a crumpled heap─like one of those sponges that regain their shape when you add hot water.

“Yo-o-otsugi,” I tried calling to her.

Like I was on a children’s television program, for some reason.

…No reply.

The expression like a dead body was a little too fitting for Yotsugi Ononoki given that she’d been made from a corpse, but there you go.

“What took you so long?”

Finally she replied.

In a placid, emotionless voice that reminded me of the way Hitagi Senjogahara used to be─though it differed from Senjogahara’s voice in being totally mechanical, artificial in every way.

“How long could it possibly take to win me? You suck at games.”

“And you’ve got a big mouth for a doll…” I said, pulling Ononoki out and flipping up her skirt to make sure everything underneath was okay.

“Chop.”

Ononoki’s karate chop came down on the back of my neck.

And it was a backhand, like in tennis. A chop that wove skillfully between Shinobu’s legs.

“Don’t get fresh, kind monster sir. Monstieur.”

“No no no, I was just wondering what’s going on under the skirts of beautiful girl figurines like this one. I just thought I’d check.”

“If that’s your excuse, at least get it out there before I’ve spoken. While there’s still the possibility that I’m just a common doll.” This fierce retort was delivered in an endlessly placid voice─a monotone so unnatural it was almost like it was processed. “That is, I’m not just a common doll─but I am a doll. An uncommon doll, dolled up to look like a real person.”

“…”

“Yaaay,” she flashed a sudden sideways peace sign.

A sideways peace sign that said, To hell with the flow of this conversation. Her pose was ludicrously, lethally cute, but her expression was expressionless, totally unconcerned, and totally unchanged from when she was in the glass case. The gap was surreal.

Not gap moé, surreal moé.

“Anyway, haven’t seen you in a while, monstieur.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Haven’t seen you in a while either, sis,” Ononoki said, raising her gaze from my face to the space above my head─where I imagine it came to rest on the little blond girl riding on my shoulders.

“Address me not as sis. What meanest thou, what thinkest thou our relationship to be?”

“My apologies. I’m not ashamed to admit that I forgot what our relationship was like, Ma’am Vampire.”

“’Tis more like it, thou forgetful lout,” spat Shinobu.

I guess that first impression had been seriously negative, and Shinobu’s attitude towards Ononoki was severe─the little girl really knew how to hold a grudge.

While we’re on the subject, the tween girl standing before me didn’t hold onto much of anything. That is, her character was unstable. I knew as much from the time we’d spent together up to that point, but─her personality was totally indefinite.

Blurry as all hell.

Although she did have something approaching a characterization every time I saw her─or it appeared that way, anyway, but it could diffuse at a moment’s notice, evaporate like mist, and transform into something else entirely.

Which in a sense just marked her as an aberration, and maybe blurry wasn’t a very precise way to describe her.

Now then.

What the hell kind of character was she at the moment? Seemed like she had an acid tongue, or a bad attitude…

“Ah. I don’t suppose, Ononoki. Miss Yotsugi Ononoki.”

“What is it, monstieur. Kind monster monstieur.”

“Too much monster.”

“Aren’t you playing Dr. Kawashima’s Monstrous Training?”

“Since I’m studying for exams I do have an interest in the game, but forget the monster connection. Don’t connect us. Anyway, I don’t suppose,” I brought the conversation back around.

To my baseless supposition.

“That you’ve seen Deishu Kaiki recently?”

“I haaave,” Ononoki replied with a calm nod.

Interesting…

Ms. Kagenui had told me that the “ki” in “Ononoki” came from Kaiki─from that ominous swindler’s name.

This was apparently because he’d had a hand in her “production,” but I didn’t know much more than that.

So my conjecture had been more or less pure guesswork. But, to my surprise, bingo.

Not that it was a bingo I was pleased by.

Quite the opposite.

That swindler, exerting his malign influence on this innocent young girl.

“Well, fine. I’ll let that go for now.”

Influence was nothing but influence, after all.

Even a malign influence was still just influence.

Light-years better than the man himself.

“Haven’t seen you in─it actually hasn’t been that long, has it, Ononoki.”

“You’re right. How long’s it been, I wonder. And since the three of us were all together─oh, yeah, when snail girl─”

“…”

“Hm?” Ononoki cocked her head.

Not in response to her own insensitive words, seemingly─but that time, that time that brought together the little girl and the young girl and the tween girl, was definitely very memorable.

In various senses.

In many senses─in every sense.

Very memorable indeed.

“Well, we’ve got a lot to talk about. We’ve got a lot to talk a lot about, but this is no time for chitchat, is it, monstieur. I’m not here to hang out with my friend this time, I’m here on business. I’d forgotten, sorry sorry sorry.”

“Ononoki.”

I was secretly thrilled that Ononoki casually made it clear she thought of me as a friend, but it pretty much turned to ashes in my mouth with that last “I’d forgotten.”

I guess I’m a forgettable friend, I thought─but it was definitely true that this time around, we weren’t just hanging out and eating ice cream together.

To the outside observer, a teenager standing in the arcade at a department store with a little girl and tween girl probably appeared to be their babysitter (god help me if it looked like anything else), but that wasn’t the case.

I was there to ask this girl.

To save me.

This expert─this expert’s familiar.

This tsukumogami, Yotsugi Ononoki.

“So, Ononoki.”

“What is it, what is it? Yaaay.”

Even with Kaiki’s influence, her absurdly sunny disposition remained relatively intact, making Ononoki’s personality even more frustratingly complicated and strange, but I aimed my words between the spread fingers of that sideways peace sign. “There are two things I want to ask you.”

“Ask me anything. I want to answer my most favorite monstieur’s questions even if he doesn’t ask them.”

“…”

I hated to think that this part of her personality might derive from Deishu Kaiki…but it was the kind of frivolous thing he might very well say.

The same line could have a completely different effect coming from this lovely young girl’s lips rather than from that ominous man in his funerary suit, though.

There would be nothing charming about Kaiki saying it…

“Ononoki, why were you inside the UFO Catcher?”

“I was waiting for you. We had an appointment. Isn’t it common practice for businesspeople to arrive five minutes early?”

“Well…”

“Or are you an advocate of Hakata time?”

Hakata time refers to being slightly late for an appointment (apparently).

“Or heading a little further south, do you hold to Okinawa time?”

Okinawa time refers to being very late for an appointment (apparently).

“Sorry, monstieur, I don’t mean to brag, but I was here fifteen minutes early. Big Sis is like a drill sergeant when it comes to practical life skills.”

“Practical life skills…”

What I’d wanted to know was how she got inside that glass case (and furthermore, why she thought it was a good idea to wait for me inside a UFO Catcher), but before I could get an answer, the words “Big Sis” forced me to move on to my second question.

My second question.

Big Sis.

“Ms. Kagenui, she─” As I spoke, my glance darted casually all around. “Isn’t here, is she? In other words, you’re alone, right, Ononoki?”

“Nope,” she said, pointing her finger at me.

Why’s she pointing at me, I wondered, but her finger arced smoothly upward─to indicate Shinobu.

Which raised the question why’s she pointing at Shinobu, but Ononoki wasn’t pointing at her either.

That finger.

That finger, the vehicle for Ononoki’s finishing move “Unlimited Rulebook” and therefore potentially a most lethal weapon, wasn’t pointing at me, or at Shinobu─but even further above us.

Further above us.

Above us?

But there’s just empty space above Shinobu─I thought as I raised my eyes. The human body isn’t constructed so that you can look directly upwards, but it can look “almost directly up,” which in this case was enough.

Shinobu Oshino, riding on the shoulders of Koyomi Araragi.

A vampire, riding on the shoulders of a human.

And above them both─her.

Yozuru Kagenui.

The latter-day, ultra-violent onmyoji.

Standing on one leg atop Shinobu’s blond mane.

Ms. Kagenui hadn’t even bothered to take her shoes off.

“Make yerselves at home.”

You’re welcome.