Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.18

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“H-He came back? To this town?”

While I’d stayed silent as Miss Gaen went on and on, thinking that I shouldn’t interrupt her, I couldn’t hold back any longer when I heard those words, and reflexively spoke up.

Came back to this town? Really?

She didn’t mean to say─to this country?

“Oh, when the timeline says fifteen years ago, that’s a rough chronological estimate. It might not be accurate, but the number is meaningful─because it was exactly fifteen years ago, when I was still in college, that I came up with the idea to create, by way of necromancy, an immortal shikigami aberration named Yotsugi Ononoki using a human corpse that had been used for a century. And then…”

Miss Gaen looked at me with what seemed like a meaningful stare this time.

“That’s exactly when the phoenix came upon its next host─which is why your friendly Izuko thinks that the ashes making up the First must’ve gathered in this town right about then.”

“…”

Fifteen years ago.

That number wasn’t what gave me pause, by any means─but hearing her say fifteen years ago did bring one more thing to mind.

When Tsubasa Hanekawa was given the name Tsubasa Hanekawa─back when she was three, that was fifteen years ago, right? No, that couldn’t have anything to do with this. Was I reading too much into things?

The tsukumogami. The phoenix. The cat─no, but if I was going to say that, why focus only on fifteen years ago? If that’s what we’re talking about, I should think not of a point in time but a span of it, from fifteen years ago to this very moment.

The snail─first lost eleven years ago.

The monkey─whose wish came true seven years ago.

The crab─who stole a girl’s weight three years ago.

Even what happened with the snake just two months ago came into consideration.

“There’s no way… Are you really saying that all these stories of aberrations are the fault of those ashes riding into town or whatever?”

“Of course not. Yozuru and company didn’t make Yotsugi in this town, anyway.” Miss Gaen easily replied in the negative─but the denial felt so light that I couldn’t see it as total. “I’m just saying it’s an underlying cause. Or maybe I should call it a sign that should make you think. Every aberration has a reason─but this is nothing more than part of that reason. The aberrations you encountered were your own fault, generally speaking─I’m not letting you off the hook here. But,” she said, glancing at Shinobu with what somehow felt like sympathy. “Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade came to this town during spring break─because of those ashes, I have to assume.”

“What foolishness.”

At last, Shinobu─turned directly to Miss Gaen.

Either she couldn’t allow me to handle her business anymore, or she couldn’t keep her silence. Her eyes glinted with what could almost be called malice as she set them on Miss Gaen.

“And ye claim to be that Hawaiian-shirted boy’s little sister?”

That wasn’t who she was, of course.

“I visited this country then because I wished to see Mount Fuji.”

“Haha. Our sacred mountain? True, the forest in its foothills is a famous suicide spot. But this mountain isn’t Mount Fuji. We’re not even in Shizuoka or Yamanashi, we’re in the wrong prefecture altogether─did you get lost on your way there? All while three vampire hunters were after you? No, you didn’t get lost. You were led─to this town.”

“Led?”

“If you’d like me to give an example, take how that armored warrior happened to wander into the abandoned cram school where you and Miss Suruga Kanbaru were meeting. Though I’m sure the First had neither a consciousness or an unconsciousness when he so politely knocked on the door.”

“…”

Silenced, Shinobu grated her sharp teeth. She wasn’t even attempting to hide her anger, which suggested that Miss Gaen was right on the mark.

As for me, it wasn’t anger that I felt. It was disgust.

How to put it─Miss Gaen made it sound like all the travails visited upon me converged on one man, and I found it disgusting.

No.

Maybe it was just displeasure.

But when I thought about it, that wasn’t how I should be feeling. If I now had an answer to the nagging question “Why is this all happening to me”─shouldn’t I be glad?

So why did I feel sucky?

If the First had laid the groundwork for everything Shinobu and I did together─that would be no reason to feel displeasure. Why should I feel inferior?

It almost seemed like─I was jealous or something.

Even though she’d told me not to be.

“Impossible,” Shinobu said, after a long silence.

Her tone was direct, strong, and final.

“Impossible─’tis impossible. He died─that man died. Died a death. He was an utter fool who lent no ear to my persuasions, who chose to toss his life away. Thy words are nothing more than sophistry. Underestimate not my poor sense of direction.”

“Well, I do think your poor sense of direction deserves to be made fun of─ha ha ha, you sound pretty insistent there, Shinobu. You almost make it sound like it’d be a problem if the First was still alive, you know?”

Miss Gaen was undaunted by Shinobu’s intimidating demeanor─Shinobu’s former self, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, was no easy figure to take on, even for an expert, but Miss Gaen showed no signs of fear.

She only continued to provoke her.

“If anything, you ought to be celebrating that your beloved slave is still alive and trying to restore himself as we speak. I wouldn’t mind arranging for a party, you know?”

“Don’t ye tread too far, expert.”

Shinobu had allowed herself to be provoked, and her body shook with anger─even I found myself upset by Miss Gaen’s tone, but seeing Shinobu so shaken actually helped calm me down.

“Don’t ye tread too far into sensitive matters. What do ye claim to know about what took place four hundred years ago?”

“I know everything─there’s nothing I don’t know,” Miss Gaen declared. Then she seemed to shift the topic to something completely unrelated. “There’s even a reason I changed our meeting place from the park to this shrine.”

Now that she mentioned it─why did she change our meeting place anyway?

“I kind of feel like I’m being kept out of the loop here.”

Then…speaking of calmness, the calmest person present─though maybe she was simply confused by Miss Gaen’s words─raised her hand and spoke. Kanbaru.

“Is it okay if I ask a question, Miss Izuko?”

“Go ahead, Miss Suruga Kanbaru.”

“Um.”

Since this was Kanbaru, I wondered if she might be trying to smooth things over with a ridiculous line. I worried for her as her senior, but she asked the smiling Miss Gaen a proper question, and a surprisingly on-the-nose one at that.

“For four hundred years, this guy kept repeating a cycle of coming back, then getting turned into ash again because of the sun, right? That would mean he was still basically just ash when he came floating into this town fifteen years ago, wouldn’t it? Then what exactly caused the cycle to stop and let him present himself to Araragi-senpai as an armored warrior?”

Did this girl ever feel nervous? She was being talkative, even social with someone she was meeting for the first time. Maybe she unconsciously sensed their kinship? No, Miss Gaen was treating her niece the exact same way as me and Shinobu.

“Why do you think that was, Miss Suruga Kanbaru? Can you come up with a guess as to why the cycle ended─why the First was released from his barren karmic cycle?”

“I can’t, but…does the reason have something to do with why you changed our meeting place?”

A weird way to connect the dots, I thought, but Miss Gaen replied, “You’re a sharp one” with a quick lick of her lips. “Ah, what a waste of talent to let you roam free─but I’ll respect that eccentric’s wish.”

“What eccentric?” asked Kanbaru, confused.

“Don’t worry,” Miss Gaen said, “you’re not out of the loop. In fact, you might just be at the center of it─I might only be saying this because of how often people refer to me as their senpai, but Miss Suruga Kanbaru, it’d be nice if you could support your own senior.”

My juniors are all such good-for-nothings, the boss expert added, not in a half-joking manner but as a serious lament, shrugging her shoulders.

“Of course. Serving Araragi-senpai’s person from the waist down is literally my job.”

“Think you could serve me from the waist up too?”

Kanbaru looked surprised to hear this… Sheesh, like she didn’t know what I meant.

“Fifteen years ago,” Miss Gaen changed the topic, opening her timeline again. “The First returned to this town─his wanderings came to an end as he floated back into this, his hometown. What seemed to be his eternal trip through hell had reached its goal.”

Hometown? Having tossed the word in casually, Miss Gaen continued without placing any importance on it.

“And each of those grains of ash floated in and gathered in this town’s air pocket of a spot… Right here, in Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, built even then at the peak of this little mountain.”