Monogatari Series - Volume 16 - Chapter 12.05

005

“Ms. Gaen…what do you mean, dealt with?”

“Dealt with. Though I doubt Kagenui, for her part, would feel things had been dealt with satisfactorily─well, strictly speaking she wasn’t here on business, so it wouldn’t be fair to take her to task for that.”

By “here,” I assume she meant both Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, and, in a broader sense, the town as a whole.

Ms. Kagenui’s “business”─her business as an expert, had been about eighty percent wrapped up the moment she gave her opinion on my physical abnormality. The subsequent stuff with Tadatsuru was just something she might as well look into since she was already here, and staying in our town even afterwards was simply irregular.

“Private business, you might say─personal interest, not professional. Though curiosity…is not something that motivates her, is it. Well, there’s no question that the presence of Tadatsuru, motivated as he is by aesthetic rather than intellectual curiosity, made her a little sentimental… There’s no way she stayed here because she was worried about Yotsugi being at your house, Koyomin…or at least I’d like to think not.”

That’s what you’d like to think, huh?

Don’t try to tell me it’s “unlikely but conceivable,” Ms. Gaen.

“Sending Yotsugi to your place kept things unpredictable, Koyomin, not to mention that, as a purely artificial aberration, she could protect you─but apparently there was someone who wouldn’t stand for that.”

“Wouldn’t stand for it…”

Someone.

“Yet, they still couldn’t take action against Yotsugi herself─because she’s a purely artificial aberration. And so they took action against her master. The reason there was someone who took action against her─the reason someone took action against her, was this.”

Someone.

Someone who wouldn’t stand for it─someone who took action against her.

Ms. Gaen kept repeating these phrases─almost like she was trying to implant some kind of suggestion in me.

“We can divide the subsequent story into roughly two possible paths: Yotsugi is rendered powerless as planned, and remains by your side as a meaningless bodyguard─or she surprises us by awakening to her humanity and tries to protect your bonkers-ass self of her own free will, Koyomin…losing sight of her proper role as an aberration in the process.”

“…”

“I don’t need to tell you what happens if she loses sight of her role as an aberration, right, Koyomin? Since you’ve seen the consequences of that with your own two eyes─”

In that case.

Yotsugi Ononoki will no longer be a purely artificial aberration─and she’ll become vulnerable to any action taken against her, she’ll no longer be anything to fear.

Ms. Gaen concluded her lecture─once she explained it that way, I finally got it, and Ms. Kagenui’s sudden disappearance also started to make its own kind of sense… Not to mention.

That business with Tadatsuru.

That time, too, there’d been two possible outcomes: I further vampiricize myself in order to rescue the “hostages,” or Ononoki comes out swinging to forestall that eventuality─and in so doing displays her full aberrationhood to me.

And with that display.

She destroys the relationship that might’ve been between us, or that might’ve grown between us─in the event, it was this latter option that occurred, but that’s, how can I put this, that’s just about my psychology.

My frame of mind.

Ms. Kagenui averted that state of affairs by having Ononoki come live with me─and that’s exactly why this past month passed without incident, one might say.

But speaking of exactly why.

That’s exactly why Ms. Kagenui was removed─thus transforming Ononoki into nothing more than a doll─by this “someone” Ms. Gaen keeps talking about.

…But I don’t get it.

It doesn’t quite add up for me─why the hell would anyone go that far? It’s almost like they were trying to keep me from doing something…or to make me do something?

Either way, I don’t like it.

Feeling like an attack could come at any moment─like they’ve rigged it so I stand alone.

Starts to make me wonder if the vampirization of my body, my transformation into an aberration, hadn’t been planned all along─at the very least, the idea doesn’t seem entirely delusional.

Since if it weren’t for everything with Sengoku─and this shrine, I wouldn’t have relied so heavily on Shinobu─and what about her?

Where does Shinobu stand in all this?

She’s more of a bodyguard to me than Ononoki ever─oh, I see. Since I can’t rely on Shinobu anymore without exacerbating my physical transformation into an aberration…in a certain sense, she’s been rendered just as powerless as Ononoki.

Since the fact that I can’t power myself up.

Means that Shinobu can’t power herself up either.

At this point she’s the dregs of an aberration, in the truest sense, a shadow of her former self. Just a little blond girl─she can’t be my ace in the hole, or even her own.

Neither an ace in the hole nor a sword in the sheath─

“Is Miss Shinobu…”

She seemed to have picked up on the fact that I was thinking about Shinobu─or rather, Ms. Gaen had probably guided my thoughts in that direction.

In fact, she’d been periodically glancing away from me and down at my shadow.

“Fast asleep at the moment, Koyomin?”

“Yeah…lately she’s been a total night owl.”

I didn’t say, Because of Ononoki. If anything, Shinobu was avoiding Ononoki more than the other way around─

“She’s usually asleep around this time.”

“Heheh. Well, I guess that’s her version of setting her mind to something─actually bringing her lifestyle closer to her essential nature as an aberration, just in case? Then again, seeing as how she’s barely an aberration anymore, seems pretty pointless…and it’s not like that’s going to allow you to become human again, Koyomin.”

Seems like our Miss Shinobu is a real optimist, or should I say hopeful, or…clinging to hope, maybe─said Ms. Gaen. The way she said it sounded somehow sympathetic, but at the same time sober, as if she was just relating a factual truth.

As if she was just relating that Shinobu’s actions and whatever passed for Shinobu’s feelings were nothing more than a worthless waste of time─though even if that were so, I was in no position to give her a hard time about it, having totally failed to notice Shinobu’s uncharacteristic hyper-vigilance on my behalf.

“Not only that─it’s liable to get you into an even worse predicament than you’re already in, Koyomin.”

“Huh? An even worse predicament?”

“Heheh. Though it’s not like the current Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, being neither fully immortal nor fully a vampire, could guard you around the clock anyway─tough to prevent an assassination. To put it in shogi terms, that’s as crazy as trying to achieve victory without losing a single piece. Even the greatest shogi player of all time playing against a child who doesn’t understand the rules couldn’t win a game of shogi without losing a single piece. Even a proud, compassionate commander is forced to sacrifice pieces─that’s what we’re dealing with here, Koyomin.”

“Like, trying to protect a pawn and losing your king─that kind of thing?”

“Not necessarily a pawn. They say the fool prizes his rook over his king─but whether it’s a rook or a bishop, or even a gold or silver general, sometimes you’ve got to sacrifice them. The king is the only piece that can never be sacrificed.”

“…”

“Shogi’s an amazing game when you think about it─even if you lose every piece on the board other than the king, you can still win as long as your king is alive. That’s quite a balance for a game, don’t you think? It’s a good design. Or a good reflection of reality, maybe─now then, Koyomin. Do you think you’re the king?”

Caught off guard by the question, I didn’t have a chance to think at all before responding reflexively, “Oh, no─not a chance.” Maybe I should’ve given a more considered answer, but I’m not nearly cheery enough to be able to call myself the king. Even if the vampire is the king of aberrations. “The king? That’s absurd.”

“That’s what I thought, you’re such a humble guy. And at the moment, there’s no king in this town─you’re not the king, and neither is Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade. And Nadeko Sengoku─”

Just as she’d done before.

Ms. Gaen turned and looked at the shrine building behind her.

“─is gone.”

“…”

“Right now this town’s throne is empty─which is causing certain inconveniences. In other words, it’s like playing shogi without a king. Haha, I’ve heard of playing with a handicap of a rook and a bishop, but playing shogi with your king as a handicap is a rare bird. How would you even determine the winner?”

“In that case─no one would win, and no one would lose. Since there wouldn’t be any parameters for determining victory or defeat─”

“Exactly, a situation where no one wins and no one loses. That’s what you’d call anarchy… It’s not like the king has to be the strongest piece, it just has to be there. As long it’s there, the land is under control─even if that land is a battlefield.”

“Comparing the town to a game of shogi isn’t really enlightening me any. Let alone calling it a battlefield,” I told her how I honestly felt.

Expressing how I honestly felt was apt to─no, I’m not sure that was how I honestly felt.

Maybe I just didn’t want to be sure.

Vacancy.

I’m pretty sure it was─Kaiki who said something about the vacuum that precedes the chaos.

“Though that reminds me, Ms. Kagenui was talking about shogi as well…about how she and Kaiki and Oshino used to compose shogi problems for each other or something.”

“Haha. Shogi problems are tough without a king as well.”

“But with those, all you need is one king, right? It’s okay if the other throne is empty─”

“There are dual-monarch shogi problems too, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Perhaps instinctively sensing danger, I’d tried to nudge the conversation away from the topic at hand─but Ms. Gaen brooked no such digressions.

“The shogi metaphor was just me being pretentious. I wasn’t really trying to make it easier for you to understand,” she said.

“…”

“And comparing the king to a god is, well, pretty customary─there’s no god piece in shogi, after all. Now, if you’ll allow me to continue with what I was saying, Oshino tried to spiritually stabilize this town without filling that vacancy─but I tried to put someone on the throne, even if it was just for show. I entrusted you with that task, Koyomin, and you failed. That’s more or less how things went, right?”

“Well…I guess if you want a simple summary, that’s about the size of it. But all the stuff that’s been happening around me hasn’t been quite so simple─”

“Not simple, no, but not complicated, either. Or maybe I should say, it didn’t end up complicated. I thought putting Yotsugi by your side would make a good diversion if it went well─but it doesn’t seem to have gone all that well. Kagenui’s AWOL─Kaiki’s in hiding─and no one knows where Oshino is. We’re up against the wall, and the situation is untenable. So I had no choice but to act personally.”

“By act, what do you…”

Ms. Gaen was not one to act unless it was absolutely necessary.

It was the same when she came to our town before.

The fact that she’d been waiting there for me─meant there was some reason she absolutely had to do so. There was no chance in hell she’d come just to give me a nice, thorough explanation of my town’s current state of affairs.

Sure, I might be the kind of completely clueless guy someone would want to give a nice, thorough explanation to─but this particular person would never come all the way here just to do that.

“Casualties are mounting, Koyomin, and I want to put a lid on the situation. So maybe instead of act, I should say I had no choice but to put a stop to it. To stop you, in particular, from acting.”

“Me? No, I mean…I have no intention of acting. And isn’t that why Ms. Kagenui dispatched Ononoki to my place? As a bodyguard-slash…watchdog, or…”

“Yup. So even you managed to figure out that much, huh? But Yotsugi can no longer carry out that task, Koyomin. Now that the chain of command has fallen apart, you know? If Yotsugi can no longer protect you─then she can’t stop you, either. She’s literally a puppet.”

Uh oh, doesn’t the character for puppet have the character for demon in it too?─Ms. Gaen said.

“So you can act. You can act, now─and there’s no one to stop you. And unfortunately─when you act, they act.”

“They?”

“You don’t need to worry about who they are. ‘Someone,’ that’s all.” Ms. Gaen’s words put the kibosh on my train of thought. Then she continued, “The problem is─that it’s dangerous for you to act. Or rather, they’re waiting for you to act─it’s the kind of standoff where the first one to move loses. A dilemma of sorts.”

“A dilemma…between what and what?”

“The solution is clear, though it will cause me a smidgen of heartache.”

Solution?

Solution, to what?

Sure, all kinds of things had been going on around me─but ultimately, all that stuff got resolved.

Everyone who resolved those things was missing, and that was the problem, but─what action could I take?

“You worried about what it’s the solution to? Well, that’s got nothing to do with you anymore─”

Ms. Gaen moved.

One step, towards me.

She moved, came towards me─it must have been necessary, of course─but I didn’t know why.

I still couldn’t read her true intentions.

Right up to the end.

“It’s the solution to the problem of the Darkness that’s been coiled around this town for so long now─and the solution is for you to die.”

“Huh?”

“Sacrifice your rook to strike at the king─is not what I mean, though.”

“Huh? Huh?”

“Don’t worry, it’ll only hurt for an instant,” Ms. Gaen said as she swung her sword.

I felt like I’d seen that sword before.

No, not quite─not at all. I’d never seen that particular sword before in my life, but it resembled one with which I was familiar.

Resembled?

That’s not right either.

That makes it sound like the one I know is the real thing─the sword I’d seen in the past, that’d I’d known in the past, that I’d cut and been cut with, was the replica.

While the katana she was presently swinging─was the real deal.

A katana─known as the Aberration Slayer.

The Aberration Slayer.

The original Aberration Slayer, supposed to have vanished long, long ago.

That katana.

That real-deal katana─slashed through me.

Through my fingers, my wrists, my elbows, my biceps, my shoulders, my ankles, my shins, my knees, my thighs, my hips, my waist, my belly, my chest, my collarbones, my neck, my throat, my jaw, my nose, my eyes, my brain, my scalp─it cut all of them.

Into slices.

In an instant.

I tried to scream─but my mouth, my throat, my lungs, had all been sliced into rings like the kind you use for a ring toss.

The instant part hadn’t been a lie, but Ms. Gaen had told one, and a whopper at that─because that sword moves so fast.

So blazingly fast.

That I didn’t feel any pain at all.

“…”

The sword was just suddenly in her hand.

Why does she have the Aberration Slayer?

Without finding out─I was pulverized, and spread about the grounds of the shrine. Hey, that reminds me, didn’t Sengoku do this to a snake at some point─cut it into slices?

With that recollection.

I, my various component parts, went flying every which way across the grounds.

“It’s a shame it had to come to this. I really do feel that way. But I want you to understand that I waited until the last possible moment─I waited until the day of your exam. Once the exam was over, your constraints would’ve been lifted, and I couldn’t be sure how you would act once you were liberated.”

I felt like I could hear her voice, but that must’ve been a delusion─how could I hear it, when my auditory organs and the brain that received their signals had been slashed to ribbons?

“No need to worry that Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade will be restored after your death─maybe that just sounds like empty consolation, but I’ll say it anyway. She’s already seen that ‘future’─that ‘world’ once before. So that action─that road is blocked. I don’t think she could go on that kind of rampage even if she wanted to. There’s no path for her to run amok, so even if she did─it’d be suicide.”

A suicidal vampire.

Not sure what kind of existence that was for an aberration─at this point I’m not sure if it was appropriate or not─but even if it wasn’t, maybe it didn’t matter when you were dying anyway? Though it wasn’t clear to me whether or not dying and getting swallowed up by the Darkness were the same thing.

“And this I can guarantee is not just empty consolation: I will personally take responsibility for minimizing the shock to your family and lover and friends when I tell them about your death.”

Ah.

As long as Ms. Gaen takes responsibility─it’s probably fine. Though that said─to devote the vast majority of my time to exam prep over the course of six whole months, and then see that come to nothing…that was a shame.

Just as Senjogahara had said, it wasn’t the exam itself that was the real hurdle for a guy like me, it was getting myself to the exam in the first place─and in that, I hadn’t made the grade.

So, like cherry blossoms, fell Koyomi Araragi.