Monogatari Series - Volume 16 - Chapter 11.03

003

The expert Yozuru Kagenui.

The shikigami aberration Yotsugi Ononoki.

At this point there’s no need to reconfirm that the relationship between the two of them is that of an onmyoji and her familiar─the relationship between master and servant, between ruler and ruled. To Ms. Kagenui, Ononoki was property, a weapon to be used in the fight against aberrations, as well as a means of transportation.

If there’s anything else I can add to that, it’s that the corpse doll that provided the prototype for the tsukumogami Ononoki was apparently a sort of work of art, created in tandem by the Occult Research Club represented by Kagenui, Oshino, Kaiki, and Tadatsuru Teori, back in their college days─a work of art which Ms. Kagenui then took charge of, bringing us up to the present.

That much I know.

On the other hand, I only know that much─I have literally no idea why Ms. Kagenui and Ononoki have been acting in concert since then, after that point, up till now.

I mean, doesn’t it seem like kind of a contradiction? Ms. Kagenui, who specializes in immortal aberrations and considers them contrary to the natural order of things, carries on the fight against them night and day, or maybe every night would be a better way of putting it─for her to employ none other than an immortal aberration as her vehicle, as her good right hand, a being with no lifeforce, who wouldn’t even die if you smashed her into smithereens?

Isn’t that─just as much of a contradiction as me living life alongside the very vampire I sealed away because I couldn’t let her exist?

Isn’t that exactly the same thing, exactly the same contradiction?

At some point I heard something about how Ms. Kagenui uses Ononoki as her stand-in to avoid getting too involved in the world of darkness─but using darkness as a buffer against darkness, yup, that’s a contradiction.

I’ve tried to wrap my mind around it, but I’ve never come to any real conclusions─which is why I wanted to ask Ms. Kagenui directly.

Whatever the answer might be.

I had a feeling it might prove instructive down the line for me and Shinobu’s relationship─because her host body inching ever closer to vampiredom was, naturally enough, also having an effect on Shinobu herself.

There was honestly no way of knowing for sure at this juncture whether that influence was positive or negative─but I wanted to hear what Ms. Kagenui had to say, to ensure I could make it a positive one.

An expert living alongside an aberration.

Maybe that was just my idealized image of her─though I assure you, it’s not that I harbor some dreamy dream of becoming a half-human/half-fey expert, not at all.

“Me and Yotsugi?”

Asking about their relationship may have been kind of intrusive, but Ms. Kagenui didn’t seem particularly put out, only surprised─if she was put out, she might put me out of my misery, so upon reflection I had risked my life by asking that question.

And her surprise seemed to be surprise that I was asking her after all this time─like, We haven’t already talked about that? or You haven’t heard about it from someone else?

“As you well know, we’re master and s─onmyoji and shikigami.”

“Were you about to say slave?”

“I was about to say serenade…”

“Master and Serenade?” Sounded like the title of a crappy musical maid anime. “No, I mean, of course I know you’re onmyoji and shikigami…but look, Ononoki calls you ‘Big Sis,’ right?”

“That she does.”

“So I just kind of wondered if you guys had a sisterly relationship.”

“Well, when it comes to it, I reckon she calls most people big brother or big sister.”

She calls Oshino “Big Brother Oshino,” and she calls Kaiki “Big Brother Kaiki.”

“’Course, she does call Ms. Gaen ‘Ms. Gaen,’ but she’s an exception.”

“I see─but.”

Calling Kaiki “big brother”?

Bold…

“She calls you plain old ‘Big Sis,’ though. And me, she just calls ‘kind monster sir,’ or ‘monstieur’ for short.”

I cannot believe that nickname has stuck.

“But you’re the only one who’s just ‘Big Sis.’”

“Hmm.”

Finally getting the point of my more or less pointless question─Ms. Kagenui lapsed into a pregnant silence. Or, I thought she lapsed into silence. I thought so, and in fact she did, but she did something else at the same time─she leapt from atop the stone lantern.

So suddenly that for a second I saw an afterimage, her motion faster than the human eye could follow─I say she leapt, but from my perspective it was more like she just vanished.

Which stands to reason.

Since the place she leapt to was the top of my head─she was squatting just like she’d been squatting on the stone lantern, but now on the crown of my head.

“Um, Ms. Kagenui?”

It had really bummed Shinobu out that time Ms. Kagenui had landed on her head, and now I understood: having someone sitting on your head really does carry a piquant feeling of defeat, distinct from simple humiliation…

And thus was Araragi awakened to a new fetish.

Then again, she was nullifying her weight as she had on that previous occasion, so it’s not like she was a burden or anything…but isn’t manipulating your weight usually a skill for aberrations, like Shinobu?

Ononoki just explained away this habit of Ms. Kagenui’s with one word: “special”…

“An impressive reading─or intuition, maybe? I expect you must be acing the multiple-choice sections of your practice exams.”

“Nice of you to say so, but it’s just the opposite.”

“Hmm. Well, I reckon getting them all wrong is just as amazing, statistically speaking.”

“I don’t need that kind of amazingness in my life.”

“So, what do you think?”

“What do I think? Right, well, I’m really hoping your backstory is that the doll you and Oshino and Kaiki and Tadatsuru Teori used as the prototype, the model, for making Ononoki was fashioned out of the corpse of your actual little sister.”

“I’ll thank you kindly not to foist such a heavy past on a body.”

She ground her heel into my head.

It hurt.

True, while pain is pain, I have to say I got off lightly given how horrible my hope, I mean my conjecture, had been.

“Well, you guys don’t look like sisters anyway─though Ononoki has no facial expression, so it’s kind of hard to tell. Since expressions are even more important than faces in determining whether people look alike─”

“Ha. If that’s your deduction, you haven’t a lick of intuition after all. At this rate I’ll warrant it’s a sure thing you fail your entrance exam.”

“I mean, Ononoki’s origins and what not definitely won’t be on the exam.”

“Hm. Well, it’s nothing what needs hiding, I might as well tell you, but─” Atop my head, Ms. Kagenui looked to be giving it some thought─she was on top of my head, so I couldn’t actually see what she was doing. “─I dunno. Being asked all formal-like, it makes a body feel snooty. Not sure I want to tell you now.”

“…”

Whaaat.

Since Ms. Kagenui was such a straight shooter, I’d been under the assumption (in addition to being under her) that she wouldn’t try to extort money from me every time I asked a question, but I seemed to have accidentally brought out her contrary side.

Makes sense…

No way someone in the same cohort as Oshino and Kaiki would be a straight shooter through and through─not wanting to answer formal questions is an easy-to-understand disposition in its own way, though not an easy one to get along with.

If only I’d asked more casually.

If only I’d woven it in there with the rest of my barrage of questions─especially since she was all too happy to acquiesce to my request for a sparring match without even a guess as to the reason.

“So, you won’t tell me?”

“I never said that. Nor do I have any intention of squeezing you for work or money in return, so don’t you worry your pretty little head. By the by─how’s about the rest of our battle?”

“Huh?”

The rest of our battle?

Don’t be ridiculous.

Wasn’t our battle already…

“What, are you saying that if I beat you, you’ll tell me the truth about Ononoki? Because hold on a second there, that’s crazy, by which I mean, batshit bonkers…”

I’d sooner pay Oshino five million yen, or let Kaiki fleece me for every last red cent─based on my experience over the summer, and my experience of this duel, I was dead sure that I could never beat her in a billion years.

A billion years.

Even a vampire can’t live that long.

If I’m being honest, I did have a pretty strong interest in my housemate Ononoki’s origins, but I didn’t want to know badly enough to throw my life away when it’d just been spared.

“Hold your horses, I wasn’t fixing to suggest any such thing. I’d not demand that you do something no one else has ever accomplished.”

“…”

Wait.

Was she lifetime undefeated?

When Shinobu and I challenged her, did she just let us off the hook?

What a precarious path I’ve been treading…

“Once is enough,” said the lifetime-undefeated expert.

Still atop my head.

“If you go toe to toe with me─and hit me even once, I’ll give you the skinny on Ononoki.”