Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.19

019

“As you can see, this shrine has fallen into ruin─with no one taking care of it, it’s become an absolute mess. Of course, it wasn’t always this way, but we’re not here to talk about the founding and history of shrines, we’ll discuss it another day if the opportunity presents itself.

“I do hope it does.

“In any case, this shrine was still being properly maintained fifteen years ago─seems like it was a nice and tidy little place. And I don’t mean that as an insult, that’s praise─it needs to be nice and tidy because this place is an air pocket.

“An aberrational air pocket.

“A place where it’s easy for them to appear─easy for them to gather.

“A place where those ‘bad things’ gather before becoming aberrations.

“As well as a place where aberrations─come to an end.

“Geographic conditions have a lot to do with this kind of thing, you see. Like with locations that people call ‘haunted highways’ or ‘suicide spots’─taken together, they’re all places where ‘that kind of thing’ tends to happen. If you can pin down all of these points and all of these places, you can prevent accidents from ever happening─you can avoid them. Mèmè, my big brother, has the job of gathering stories of aberrations, but as far as my job goes, it’s supposed to be more of this sort. Prevention, in other words, tidying up things before they happen─unless you clamp down on these spots, each of these hotbeds of scenes that dot everywhere you go…you can’t prevent accidents.

“Hm? What? No, I said hotbeds of scenes, not hot beds obscene─what would that even mean? That sounds like a pretty awful accident, too. I don’t want you and your junior going to any of those, okay? You two partner up in other ways. That’s not what I mean by supporting your senior, Miss Suruga Kanbaru.

“Well, I’m just making things complicated by bringing up such specialized topics. To radically simplify, this is one of those kinds of places, which is why an onmyoji sorcerer so famous that I dare not speak my name in the same breath once built a shrine here, deified a god, and clamped down on it.

“It went well for the most part.

“The place functioned as a proper defense─those ‘bad things’ gathering here that could form into an aberration were properly scattered.

“The shrine had a good god, you see.

“But there is a limit to everything─um, Koyomin? You’re studying for entrance exams, right? Do you carry a good-luck amulet, in that case?

“A good-luck amulet.

“Did you know those things have an expiration date? They expire when the paper charm inside of them rips─those wondrous and miraculous items aren’t effective forever, and neither was this shrine or the god deified here.

“Fifteen years ago─that limit was reached.

“But it’d be too harsh to blame the shrine’s managers, to say nothing of its god─how could they see it coming?

“The ashes of the first thrall of a legendary vampire gathering here from every direction─that’s just too much.

“It was too much.

“It’s not as if he came parading back home triumphant─but what did happen is that Kita-Shirahebi Shrine collapsed once, fifteen years ago.

“Both in spiritual and physical terms.

“Your thrall really is something, Shinobu. Destroying an entire shrine as nothing more than ash─though I’m sure his former life as an expert had something to do with it.

“Hm? What’s the matter, Koyomin? It looks like something just clicked for you. Ah, it’s suddenly making sense to you that Kita-Shirahebi Shrine was even more ruined eleven years ago, when you time-traveled to a past world the other day.

“That’s right, that─was the First’s doing.

“The shrine that should have held this spot down─couldn’t hold down a vampire thrall.

“Just for reference, they tried to renovate this shrine not once, not twice, but three times after that─but there’s nothing shakier than repairing an empty shrine with no god.

“It collapsed each time they tried to renovate it─it broke down and withered away.

“The problem is Shinobu─or rather, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, or the First, her thrall, have such power that their very existence brings aberrations to them.

“So let’s go back to eleven years ago.

“When you visited this shrine then, weren’t these ruined grounds filled to the brim with ‘bad things’? You thought it was strange for them to be here in such an intense concentration, but there was nothing strange about it. Those were the building blocks of aberrations that the First’s ashes had gathered here.

“The building blocks of aberrations─and of his diet.

“After all that exposition, I assume that even someone without specialized knowledge such as yourself can guess what happens next, Koyomin─you can guess the reason why the First’s ashes, gathered here, managed to escape his karmic cycle.

“That’s right.

“If this shrine is a place where bad things easily gather, and if the First is an aberration that is easily gathered─that means all the conditions were in place for an accident to occur.

“Accidents─overlapped.

“The First, on the grounds of this very shrine.

“Here on the grounds of this godless shrine…he ate and ate, restoring his strength.

“It was barely anything at all, of course─I wouldn’t call it drinking the mist, but maybe like eating plankton. As a thrall, and as a pile of ashes at that, he couldn’t gather the massive amount of ‘bad things’ that Shinobu did. He couldn’t gather food on a scale that could risk the breakout of a great yokai war in this town. He only made it a little easier for aberrational phenomena to take place here.

“Just the difference of a five-percent chance turning into six percent, or maybe seven percent at most.

“Of course, that’s significant from an expert’s point of view─life gets hard for us once you’re past the five-percent mark, but we’ll put that aside for now and just say that his environment changed.

“Just by a little, yes, but he could now feed─his existence of cycling between ashes and nothingness ended here.

“What began then unfolded over the next fifteen years─this tragic figure’s dramatic return.

“A drama of return.

“Or just maybe─a drama of revenge.”