Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.08

008

The opposite direction.

The words stopped me in my tracks─Kanbaru might not have known the park’s name, but as we discussed earlier, she at least had some familiarity with the area. Given that they went to the same middle school, Kanbaru’s home was geographically close to it, anyway.

That must have been why she could tell if we were going in the right direction─had I parted ways with her at the abandoned cram school, now the burned-out ruins, I probably wouldn’t have noticed until later. Maybe not until dawn, in the worst case.

The fact that I was lost─

“Huh…what? But…”

─puzzled me.

True, my one and only concern at first was getting away from the scene of the fire. I wasn’t particularly trying to head toward the park─but I thought I’d course-corrected once we were far enough away.

Straying a bit was to be expected, but…it’d been a while since I corrected course.

Speaking of turfs, the area around the park certainly wasn’t mine, nor was it a place I frequented. Still, it stood out in my memories─and not only did it have a strong link to my memories, my fate was connected to it.

Was it really okay for Koyomi Araragi to get lost on his way there?

“Maybe you had a hard time navigating there on foot because you’re always going around on your bike? I was seriously starting to wonder where you were trying to take me.”

“Oh…”

“Hold on a second, I thought, there aren’t any popular date spots in that direction.”

“I have zero reason to take you to a popular date spot.”

Well, if she was going to say I got lost because I always rode a bike, I didn’t have a counterargument─of the two bikes I owned, one was destroyed by Kanbaru in May, and the other I’d lost just a few days ago. I’d be living a pedestrian life for some time, so this wouldn’t do.

“I guess we’ll turn around and figure out the best route… Sorry, Kanbaru. I feel bad for making us late.”

“Oh, it’s nothing serious. I’ll leave it up to you. Do as you see fit.”

“…”

I was glad that she was being generous, but she sounded so arrogant when she was trying to be humble. I wondered how she spoke to her teachers.

She acted like she expected others to do things for her─or maybe I should say to carry her through life, given her current perch.

In any case, as a senior who’d been entrusted with the reins, I’d do everything I could to turn around, change course, clear my name, and regain my honor.

My cell phone didn’t have any map or navigational features (maybe it did, but I didn’t know how to use them), so we’d march along checking whatever road signs and street maps we found. I may have wasted some time by failing to do so until now, but we wouldn’t get lost again, we’d hurry and make up for it, I thought─but.

No.

“Hm?”

Ononoki’s words came to mind─those cutting words.

You think you can always make up for it, don’t you?

Even if I mess up.

An hour later… Naturally, an hour spent chatting about all kinds of stupid things with Kanbaru─a conversation I have no choice but to edit out whole…

I found myself in a completely unfamiliar location─not that we’d wandered into a jungle or a wasteland, it still had to be the town we lived in, but you could call it bizarre.

You could call it inexplicable─the degree to which we were lost.

“Do you have a bad sense of direction?” asked Kanbaru. “Or are you taking me on the scenic route because you want to spend as much time with me as possible?”

“I’d never go about it in that inconvenient of a way…”

My stamina wouldn’t last.

I didn’t think I could keep walking around like this for much longer. I did have an entire person on my back─it was past midnight at this point, too.

The date had changed.

August twenty-fourth.

Four days since the end of summer break. Was I ever going back to school? Of course, when I thought about the scolding from Senjogahara and Hanekawa that awaited me over my unexcused absences, I wasn’t eager to go even if I could.

That said, it wasn’t as if I could tell them what was up. I’d gotten Kanbaru mixed up in this already. How could I allow myself to add Senjogahara and Hanekawa to the mix?

Talking with Kanbaru was fun enough that the fact nearly slipped my mind, but we were knee-deep in a crisis─still, lost?

What was I doing? How could I so carelessly take the wrong streets in this emergency?

It was such an unbecoming mistake, idyllic in a way, and it aggravated me─but it was none other than Suruga Kanbaru who managed to calm me down.

“Now that you mention it, didn’t you say something about maybe, or maybe not, or maybe getting more lost than not before? You know, with Hachikuji?”

“Hm? Oh.”

I didn’t recall ever saying getting more lost than not, but everything fell into place when I heard those words─they should have sooner.

Right. That’s what it was.

This was the second time I was experiencing this phenomenon.

Three months ago.

In May, on Mother’s Day, I, along with Mayoi Hachikuji and Hitagi Senjogahara─got lost.

The Lost Cow.

That was the name─of the aberration.

“An aberration that makes people lose their way─hm. But why would the Lost Cow show up now…”

No, hold on. Don’t jump so quickly to conclusions─it made sense that I wanted a logical explanation for getting lost at this precise and extremely inconvenient moment, but there was a far more likely possibility. I’d simply lost track of where I was going because I felt shaken.

The Lost Cow was gone by now.

That day, Mèmè Oshino─resolved it for us.

The aberration that had been making people lose their way in this town for eleven years would never lead another on these streets astray─I should know that better than anyone.

I keenly felt it more than anyone.

So it couldn’t be right─Kanbaru’s point was nothing more than a irrelevant memory.

Still, I couldn’t help but recall it.

The armored warrior’s message as it howled with laughter in the fire.

Ye too, do not dally and make thy way home at once!

That’s what it said.

No, strictly speaking, the “message” came later─which is why I hadn’t paid attention to the preceding bit, assuming it was just a setup…but come to think of it, wasn’t it odd?

Why would it warn me about my trip home, in that situation? Even if those flames were irregular and not caused by the warrior, why would someone who’d been choking me say that?

The thing wasn’t some principal warning the student body that they represented their school while in public─if there was any hidden meaning to the statement, those words it pronounced.

If it had an opposite meaning.

“…”

Hm?

Wait, no… Wouldn’t that be a pretty lame thing for the armored warrior to do?

It would contradict its dynamic image so far─its boldness as a phenomenon, if that’s the right term. It revived itself despite shattering to pieces, withstood all our attacks, absorbed our energy, stole my voice─then turned to mist and disappeared.

Roaring with laughter.

It’d be a mean-spirited prank, not even bullying. Would something like that really do this to us? If that armored warrior was the opponent I thought it was─that went doubly so.

It didn’t line up at all with my image of a heroic warrior.

Even if it was responsible for us being lost, what could its goal be? What good would it do to make Kanbaru and me lose our way─and not know where we were? Or did it have some sort of deeper plot in mind that the likes of me could never hope to fathom? Assuming the armor had a mind, of course─

“Kanbaru. I’m putting you down for a second.”

“You’re going to insult me?”

“On the ground,” I said, making us both sound like idiots, as I got Kanbaru off my back at last─even she wasn’t going to cling to me in resistance this time.

Maybe it was thanks to the for a second, promising her a next time, than Kanbaru understanding the gravity of the situation─but in any case, she stretched, jumped, and otherwise checked her physical condition now that she stood on solid ground with both feet. It seemed that being carried on my back involved a bit of work on her part as well.

It’s not easy being good at being spoiled.

Meanwhile, I took out my cell phone.

It lacked both map apps and navigation features, so taking it out now was faint-hearted, an act of giving up early.

Giving up very early.

But whether you want to call me faint-hearted or lacking in self-reliance, my only choice seemed to be to call Miss Gaen.

She’d given me her phone number when we parted ways.

I’d also sought help in May when a snail led me astray, but it ended up being a pretty roundabout affair because I was trying to contact Oshino then, someone without any communication devices. This time, though, I was getting in touch with Miss Gaen, who walked around with five of them. The act of contacting her itself would be easy.

At the same time, I found myself in my troublesome situation precisely because I needed to pay her back for helping me. Contacting her was easy, but asking her for help wasn’t. That’s why I hadn’t tried until now, but I needed to nip this situation in the bud.

Of course, it was already too late for Koyomi Araragi, if you believed Ononoki…

“What’s this, my senior? Sending a goodnight text message to Senjogahara-senpai, are you? What a couple of fools in love you are.”

“You’re the only fool here. Hey, Kanbaru…” I began, but decided not to finish.

It was a small detail, but the armored warrior had said make thy way home at once, seeming to refer only to my home, not our homes─if it was causing us to stray, maybe its effect was limited to me.

In other words, if Kanbaru and I moved separately, at least she might be able to escape this strange situation that felt like being locked inside of being lost─the thought almost got me to encourage her to go ahead, but I couldn’t see any way my junior would agree.

Her heart was so astonishingly loyal to me that she wouldn’t even leave me behind in a burning building to save herself. I couldn’t imagine her leaving my side to act on her own just because we got lost on the road.

Hmm.

Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but loyalty taken too far doesn’t seem that different from dependence… Senjogahara sometimes complained about my relationship with Kanbaru, and now I felt like I understood why.

The problem here, though, was that Suruga Kanbaru possessed a strength of character generally greater than mine or Senjogahara’s.

“Hm? What’s wrong, Araragi-senpai?”

“Oh, it’s nothing… Could you be quiet for a second? I’m about to make a call.”

“Fine with me. I’ll do anything for you, no matter how unreasonable.”

“Um, this is one of the few times I feel like I’m not making an unreasonable request…”

But to be fair, Kanbaru spent pretty much every waking moment talking, so perhaps asking her to shut up was a big deal.

“Phew…”

I calmed my breathing to refresh my mind, summoned up my courage, and selected Izuko Gaen’s name from my phone’s address book.

Just as I thought.

Before the phone could finish ringing a single time.

“Hey there, Koyomin─I’d been waiting, and I could barely wait anymore. I thought it was about time you called.”

A voice.

From the other side─came a reply.

Brimming with boundless cheer, like it wasn’t the middle of the night.

Nothing about the voice sounded serious, which made me think: Yeah, I guess she’d be Kanbaru’s aunt.