Monogatari Series - Volume 16 - Chapter 12.04

004

“’Sup, Koyomin─g’morning,” said Ms. Gaen.

Ms. Izuko Gaen.

Just a normal greeting, nothing out of the ordinary─I get the sense she greets people like that no matter where or when she runs into them, whether she’s walking down the street or at a shrine on top of a mountain.

It’s doubtful anything qualifies as a special location or special circumstance for her─for all I know, maybe nothing in this world is special to her.

Since if you know everything─then everything’s the same, it’s all blasé.

“Been a while─when did we last see each other? Oh yeah, that time in September, right? Heheh, though I’ve heard a thing or two about what you’ve been up to since then.”

“…Good morning.”

I gave a quick bob of my head.

Well, we’d been through a thing or two ourselves─but basically, I owed her a lot. Just as I did her junior, Oshino.

No.

It wasn’t just about returning a favor or something. Insofar as I’d been pretty damn ungrateful─betrayed her, even─I owed her an even larger debt than I did Oshino. Even if I wouldn’t go so far as to call it guilt, I can’t deny that I felt awkward, or sheepish, around her.

So to be confronted by her like this, without warning─nope, couldn’t look her in the eye.

By contrast, Ms. Gaen didn’t seem to harbor any ill will whatsoever and was grinning same as she had been the last time we met─though her grin never slips even as she uses, abandons, and bleeds dry the people around her, so that part didn’t make me feel any better.

And considering what happened to Sengoku and Hachikuji─Nadeko Sengoku and Mayoi Hachikuji, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if I were angry at her…but some part of me knew that that anger would’ve been misplaced.

Part of me, but.

“Seems like you went through some serious shit─physically, I mean, Koyomin.”

“No…I mean, it wasn’t that serious.”

“Heheh. Guess you’re right, I mean, considering everything you’ve done, the crazy crisis you’ve been through, maybe your current physical situation…your state of health, isn’t something to be all that worried about. I guess if anyone’s situation is serious─”

Ms. Gaen looked behind her.

The only thing behind her at the moment was the brand spanking new shrine building─though it was just an empty structure, with nothing doing in the object-of-worship department.

In which sense, it wasn’t all that different from that shed thing I’d made in class way back when─though the carpenters who built the shrine might be pretty offended by the comparison.

“It’s Yozuru.”

“…”

“Yozuru Kagenui─my dear junior. The very idea that someone would go after her─I mean, this is unexpected. Even for me.”

“I didn’t think that was possible?”

Go after her.

I couldn’t let that flagrant phrase go without some kind of reaction─but hearing the word “unexpected” come out of Ms. Gaen’s mouth was way more startling.

No, not startling.

It just seemed like a lie.

“I thought you knew everything.”

“Come on now, you going to be sarcastic towards a friend you haven’t seen in so long? Koyomin. Nobody actually knows everything. That’s just rhetoric. A bit of a bluff, to be honest─”

“…”

I couldn’t get a read on her true intentions.

I also couldn’t figure out what Oshino was thinking most of the time─and Kaiki and Ms. Kagenui were both somewhat unfathomable to me, but she really took the cake, as befitted their senpai.

No…

She was kind of, different, somehow.

Ms. Gaen was unreadable in a different way from Oshino and the rest of them─hers was not the same type of unreadability at all.

Even if I can’t put it clearly into words, the junior class all had something in common─Mèmè Oshino, Deishu Kaiki, Yozuru Kagenui.

I didn’t know what they were thinking.

And so─I couldn’t read them.

But…with Ms. Gaen, it wasn’t just that I didn’t know what she was thinking─I didn’t want to know.

And so─I couldn’t read her.

I wouldn’t read her.

I didn’t want to read her─though I’m not saying I “didn’t want to read her” because her mind was full of abominable malice or something.

On that score, it’s Kaiki’s mind I’d much prefer not to read─it’s simply that the inside of Ms. Gaen’s head is too convoluted and strange, and if I tried to get a read on it my own brain would blow a gasket.

Which is why.

I didn’t want to read Izuko Gaen’s true intentions: as a means of self-protection, so to speak─in the same way that no one would choose to take a punch from a heavyweight boxer if they didn’t have to.

But…this was maybe a situation in which I did have to.

Coming here like this.

Coming personally to see me─since if she came to see me, there was something she needed to see me about at the very least.

Whatever the case, Ms. Gaen was lying in wait for me, taking it for granted that I’d come to the shrine regardless of the fact that it was the day of my exam, almost as if we shared a Google calendar or something─I would’ve felt much more at ease if she’d said “there’s nothing I don’t know” as usual, rather than informing me at this late date that “there are some things I don’t know.”

In fact…it freaked me out.

Rather than knowing there was something afoot in our little backwater that even Ms. Gaen didn’t have a grasp on─I would so much rather believe that that part was just rhetorical, just a mean little joke among friends…or plain old humility.

Please let me believe that.

“Don’t look at me like that. That’s no way to look at a friend, Koyomin─when I say unexpected, well, when you roll a die with 1’s on five sides and it comes up 6, that’s unexpected, isn’t it. You know perfectly well that it’s statistically possible for it to come up 6…but one thing I do know is that it’s hard for statistically unlikely things to happen.”

“…”

“I never would’ve expected there to be someone who would take action against Yozuru Kagenui, violence personified─which is exactly why I sent her here to cope with the abnormal situation occurring in your body.”

“Someone who would take action against her─is a phrase that doesn’t sit well with me, I have to say.”

In response to this doubt that I nervously, and (in my own way) cautiously raised, Ms. Gaen cocked her head with a theatrical hm?

“What do you mean, Koyomin?”

“No, uh…I’m very grateful and everything that you sent Ms. Kagenui here on my behalf.”

Yes.

Grateful to the point that I should’ve thanked her for it the second I saw her─though, with the Ms. Kagenui in question missing at present, maybe I should’ve apologized instead.

The blame for the fact that Ms. Gaen’s junior was currently M.I.A.─could certainly be laid at my feet. At least, if it weren’t for me, I doubt Ms. Kagenui would’ve ever come to this town again.

But right now, more than apologies or gratitude.

I had questions.

“Hahaha, gimme a break, Koyomin. They say a hedge between keeps friendship green, but come on, you and I can dispense with the formalities. So, what do you mean?” Ms. Gaen danced around my words and repeated her question, totally focused on the topic at hand. It felt more like protocol than the art of conversation, though.

“Someone who would take action against her─seems out of line with my impression of Ms. Kagenui. I was just thinking that in her case, it’d have to be more like someone who would take her out.”

“A-ha. Sounds like you’ve got absolute faith in Kagenui’s strength─seeing as you’ve actually fought her, maybe you’re in a position to raise that doubt. You recklessly challenged her over the summer, so in that sense, there was already someone who took action against her.”

“…”

“Come now, you can’t have forgotten about that─but I don’t have quite as much faith in Kagenui’s strength as you seem to. Another thing I know is that there’s always someone better─or rather, that there are no absolutes when it comes to strength. Even if it’s statistically unlikely─you know?”

Ms. Gaen beckoned to me.

Beckoned?

What’s the deal, I wondered, but it seemed like she simply didn’t want to have a conversation with the torii between us.

I girded my loins and passed under it.

Was there someone stronger and more violent than Ms. Kagenui, or was there a way to render her strength ineffective? Ms. Gaen’s words took on a different implication in each case, but regardless…

“Are you saying you can’t believe anyone would take action against Ms. Kagenui given the risk?”

Yes.

I had my doubts on that score.

What would it take for someone to face off with Ms. Kagenui? To face off with violence personified─in my case, my little sister’s life had been on the line.

That probably fell under Ms. Gaen’s “statistically unlikely” clause… But that was maybe just down to a simple lack of prudence on my part, and I might’ve opted for a different strategy if I’d known what Ms. Kagenui was capable of. Be that as it may─without Shinobu, I never would’ve plucked up the courage to take on the violent onmyoji.

And the price I had to pay for relying on Shinobu like that was the loss of my humanity─my physical, if not my mental, humanity, anyway.

…

Yeah. Maybe what I should be trying to work out wasn’t the reason someone had taken action against Ms. Kagenui─but the price this supposed someone had paid for doing so.

Someone.

Ms. Gaen used that word, which gave such specificity to its referent, as if it was a given─under normal circumstances, maybe it would just be a figure of speech, or an unimportant, even misleading statement, but since it was Ms. Gaen who said it, I didn’t think so.

In other words, any hope that Ms. Kagenui had quit her HQ at the shrine of her own volition was hereby completely─thoroughly eliminated.

Someone─a word you usually use to describe a human being, but which you could also use to describe an aberration─or even something else.

Just what exactly was Ms. Gaen referring to─when she said “someone”?

“Well, as an expert who lives as she does, fighting as she does─there’s no question she has a way of incurring people’s enmity. But she doesn’t invoke justice on a whim, or as an affectation. People may bear grudges against her, but I don’t think anyone does so without justification.”

“…”

As someone with not one but two little sisters who invoke justice on a whim, and as an affectation, that really made my ears burn, or it gave me heartburn.

“In other words, you think that Ms. Kagenui herself wasn’t the source of the trouble.”

“It’s not a question of what I think, Koyomin, that’s just the fact of the matter─by the way, how’s Yotsugi?”

“Huh?”

She changed the subject so suddenly that I was taken off guard─but since it was Ms. Gaen doing it, it must’ve been a necessary protocol, had to be.

I answered her fully aware that it was dangerous to go along with someone’s protocol when you didn’t know where it was heading─or were unable to, not wanting to read her true intention. Obviously Ms. Kagenui was Ononoki’s primary guardian, but in light of Ononoki’s origin, Ms. Gaen was also one of her guardians, broadly speaking─and guardians have the right to know how their charges are doing.

“She’s…doing well. Since she’s totally expressionless, I don’t actually know how she’s feeling about this particular matter…but that girl knows Ms. Kagenui better than anyone. And she doesn’t seem to be concerned─at the moment.”

Judging that there was no need to provide detailed information on her fiendish desire for ice cream and so forth, I summarized Ononoki’s status report as such.

I mean, I imagine that’s what Ms. Gaen wanted to know.

“Yotsugi knows Kagenui better than anyone? Haha…seems like you don’t know much of anything, Koyomin.”

“Huh?”

“Well, as long as you aren’t weirdly pretending to know all about Yotsugi the aberration, then it’s all good─”

And incidentally, since I know everything, naturally I know about Yotsugi too, Ms. Gaen said─she’s surprisingly self-congratulatory. Though when it comes to Ononoki, she’s pretty much right on the money when she says I don’t know a damn thing.

We’ve been living under the same roof for almost a month, but I don’t know much about that little tween other than the fact that she likes ice cream. And that information is all but useless.

“Then again, given how your own transformation into an aberration is progressing, it’s not like you wouldn’t understand someone else just because they were an aberration─though some vision of mutual comprehension based solely on the fact you’re both aberrations would be a fantasy.”

“Uh huh… Well, Ononoki and Shinobu definitely don’t see eye to eye…”

By virtue of which things are currently pretty tense in the Araragi room at the Araragi residence─at first it was constant fighting but now it’s more like a cold war, with Ononoki doing her thing during the day and Shinobu remaining nocturnal, keeping out of each other’s way and living a life of non-communication.

Honestly it was stressful, and you can imagine how little progress I was making with my exam prep lately─it was down to the wire.

“Not to mention the fact that Yotsugi’s peculiar even among aberrations─being artificial and all.”

“Artificial…”

“I imagine she was even totally calm when she confronted Tadatsuru, right? I tested her once─I made her fight Kagenui.”

Ms. Gaen just tossed off this mind-blower like it was nothing.

“I wondered if she possessed anything like human compassion, you know? At the time I didn’t think it was so unlikely that she might, but she attacked her ‘Big Sis’ without a moment’s hesitation.”

“...”

“The match itself ended with Kagenui victorious, though. It was just like her not to order Yotsugi to stop, even though she could’ve─oh, but don’t worry, Koyomin. I’m not telling you this all of a sudden because I think Yotsugi Ononoki is the cause, the culprit, behind Kagenui’s disappearance or anything.”

Such a suspicion had only barely crossed the back of my mind, but Ms. Gaen quickly brushed it away─the combination of nonchalance and a zero tolerance for wasted action reminded me of the kind of shogi problems they set in the newspaper.

“Since she wouldn’t make a move like that unless she was ordered to─unless she was directed to.”

“Sure─I guess you’re right.”

The fact that she purposely phrased it that way, that she said Ononoki wouldn’t make a move, demonstrated that Ms. Gaen wasn’t completely denying her individuality, her free will─but looking back on how Ononoki had seemed when she confronted, when she took on Tadatsuru… Ms. Gaen definitely seemed to be onto something.

Just as Ononoki has no expression.

She has no emotion─and so, of course, no compassion.

“Then again, that’s exactly why─Kagenui was removed.”

“Uh…removed?”

I was getting fed up with reacting like that to every word Ms. Gaen said─I may not be able to read her intentions, but I’d rather retain my composure and dignity while I was facing her.

Was that impossible without the gravitas of, say, a Hanekawa? Though it beggars the imagination to try and picture the two of them having a conversation.

“What do you mean, removed?”

“Like I said, Kagenui’s disappearance has nothing to do with Kagenui herself, Koyomin─she was essentially unconnected to the series of stories that unfolded in this town. She almost got involved on account of your little sister, but that was avoided thanks to your efforts.”

More declined than avoided, really, glossed Ms. Gaen. “Which is precisely why I sent her in this time…but I guess the problem was more deep-seated than I expected.”

“Even if it was more─more deep-seated than you expected, I’m sure you knew about it?”

“Don’t take it out on me, Koyomin─it’s not like I’m not broken up too, my adorable junior was your collateral damage.”

“…”

“Kagenui may have been collateral damage, but it was Kaiki who got entangled in it─I really do wonder what happened to him. There’s a mess of intel, and I know all of it─but the problem is that it’s probably all false. He probably spread most of that himself, though─a wayward junior is a senpai’s woe. As for Oshino─haha.”

Ms. Gaen started to say something about him, but lightly laughed it off. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing to laugh about─whether she was talking about Oshino, which goes without saying, or Ms. Kagenui, naturally, but even Kaiki.

“Hm? No, no, Kaiki gets what he deserves, so don’t let that bother you─though given your nature, Koyomin, I imagine that’s impossible. But really, don’t let it bother you. Nor Oshino─but as far as Kagenui is concerned, let me make something clear right now, for the sake of the future. For the sake of your future, Koyomin, and that of this town.”

“My…future?”

“Mm-hm. For your sake, now and to come. Though when it comes to the town…that’s not all on you. The reason Kagenui was removed,” said Ms. Gaen, “was simply that she was in the way─not Yozuru Kagenui herself, but her familiar Yotsugi Ononoki. The very Yotsugi Ononoki─who’s been installed by your side, Koyomin. Point is, in order to render that shikigami, that tsukumogami, that little doll, powerless and ineffectual, her master was dealt with. Yotsugi Ononoki, a shikigami who does exactly as directed, who only follows orders. If her master, the person at the top of the chain of command, is gone, then that dashing-look tween is nothing to fear─”

Dealt with.

That blunt expression─panicked me.

Pained me.