Monogatari Series - Volume 19 - Chapter 5.03

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“All right…so, what’s going on here?”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Mister Pervert.”

“Mister Pervert? Really, Hachikuji? How’s that a slip of the tongue? It neither rhymes, nor has the right number of syllables. Has it been too long? Or did your inexhaustible vocabulary finally run dry?”

“My tongue didn’t slip at all. It might not rhyme or have the same number of syllables, but you’re Mister Pervert himself. Mister Araragi and Mister Pervert are identical.”

“Heh. As harsh as ever, I see.”

“You can’t wrap all of that up with a cool line. Nothing’s wrapped up here, look at my clothes.”

Persistent!

I thought we ignored the previous chapter once we were in a new one? Ghost or not, she needed to follow the rules.

Yeah, hadn’t breaking them mired her in a world of trouble─wasn’t a quip I could make jokingly.

“Jokingly doesn’t cut it, we have a case here. This is going to end up in court. Show some maturity for real, Mister Araragi. What do you think you’re doing in the final volume’s opening pages?”

“Oh, shut up. If you think a final volume has to start off melancholic, then you’re badly mistaken.”

Just not my style─a policy statement from Koyomi Araragi. We’ll laugh and laugh until the bitter end.

“You’re hopeless, Mister Araragi. Well…I guess it’s very you. Wears me down, though.”

Hachikuji shrugged and nodded.

She understood me.

And schooled me on how to wrap things up with a cool line.

It hadn’t been too long, then─but now that we’re in a new chapter, honestly, while I was elated to be reunited with her, logic be damned, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any questions at all.

Logic has its own importance.

Why was Mayoi Hachikuji here?

Having passed on from the world and ascended to the next─what brought her to the grounds of Kita-Shirahebi Shrine? That was August twenty-third, and it was now March thirteenth, so─having said her final goodbyes to me six months and twenty-one days ago, to be exact, why was she back here?

To repeat, I was glad.

A bliss so supreme I almost didn’t care─but coming back after all this time to tell me she hadn’t passed on wasn’t the sort of weirdness that I, for one, could accept.

How do I put it? Perhaps Miss Gaen, who’d given me advice back then, had taken some measure to safeguard Hachikuji─that’s the kind of theory I could put together on the spot, but Mèmè Oshino, who acted like he saw through it all, was the expert who’d do something like that, while Miss Gaen seemed the least likely to resort to such plots and means.

She did scheme a lot, so it wouldn’t be strange if she’d done something behind the scenes when Hachikuji passed on, given later developments─but I didn’t see her as the type to plan such a surprise.

She was strict, or maybe realistic─looking back on him now, Oshino was something of a romantic, if a frivolous one, and operated in a somewhat different manner from Miss Gaen despite being her junior in college.

Which meant…what exactly?

I had to interpret this as the late Hachikuji returning to our world─yet, for all the various aberrations I’d encountered over the past year, I couldn’t say on the spot if returning to our world after passing to the next was normal for them.

I mean, isn’t it called passing on because you can’t return? Because it’s irreversible? But a priest who’s renounced worldly pleasures can return to a secular life, and the Obon festival is all about welcoming back your ancestors… Even Senjogahara visited her father’s hometown during Obon, didn’t she?

True, Obon is in August, not March, but maybe my exam prep fell short and there’s some annual event that takes place at this time of year.

So, was this okay?

Being reunited with Hachikuji like this?

This happy and convenient a turn─taking place in my life?

“…”

“Deep in thought, huh, Mister Araragi? I can only imagine…but while you were going berserk, you did mention that things have been tough for you since we said goodbye. Maybe you’re having trouble trusting other human beings at the tender age of eighteen as a result.”

Of course, I’m a ghost and aberration and no human, Hachikuji noted.

Hm. Her remark implied that she hadn’t revived─though the feel of her skin just now made me think she might have.

Dead people don’t come back to life, that piece of common sense still worked─I regained at least some degree of composure because right then, even that fact seemed to be standing on thin ice.

But wait.

Wait a sec─think back and remember.

I had to be forgetting a lot of things. It felt like I’d recalled various stuff but they weren’t linking up; there was still a big disconnect between meeting up with Miss Gaen and being reunited with Hachikuji.

Miss Gaen safeguarding Hachikuji might be a delusional flight of fancy, but that lady must have had some sort of hand in this.

“Terrible, Mister Araragi. The pub dates have gotten a little spread out, but totally forgetting something like that being done to you is living your life a little too gracefully, don’t you think?”

“…”

Leaving the meta comment aside…

If the current situation was Miss Gaen’s doing, I couldn’t just celebrate seeing Hachikuji again─as much as I wanted to, alas, I had to do more than that.

I had to make sense of this.

I looked up at the sky─where the sun climbed high.

Dazzled somewhat by its blazing rays─I realized I wouldn’t make it to my exams in time, at the very least.

Late…was an understatement.

I didn’t have to check my watch to know that I’d forfeited my seat─not tardy, but absent. What a royal waste of the grueling days I’d spent with Hanekawa and Senjogahara.

I felt drained, or maybe despondent…

Like I’d really messed this one up.

I didn’t make it all the way to despair because, to be honest, some part of me wasn’t surprised.

Yup.

Since saying goodbye to Hachikuji─I’d been through far too much.

Enough to have trust issues not just with humans, but everything.

Enough to believe nothing.

Maybe my heart had gone numb─to pain and to sorrow.

I guess it was still open to joy─but who knew for how much longer, if my pain poisoning continued.

Poisoned.

“You know… That’s right. Ever since you went away, Shinobu’s first thrall showed up, Oikura came back, all of that stuff happened with Sengoku at this shrine, I met Kaiki, I turned into a vampire all on my own, and I let Ononoki kill one of her parents… Right, I guess that happened at this shrine too. And it was also here that Miss Kagenui went missing. It’s been one awful thing after the next… I’ve been panicking this whole time, and sure, some good things did happen, but not the kind of half-year you could expect to come out the other side of as a more mature person. I’ve taken nothing but steps back, in fact. I’ve been describing those two weeks of spring break as hell, but you know, the real hell might have been these last six months.”

And it all started when I lost Hachikuji─my life had fallen into ruin like a home had lost its guardian spirit. I don’t want to sound like I’m asking for more than my due, but if I was going to meet her again, I wish I’d been a version of me that could do so proudly.

In a different kind of situation.

As a different kind of me.

“You’re wrong, Mister Araragi.”

Then.

Hachikuji spoke.

“Wrong─Mister Araragi.”

“Hm… Uhh, about what?”

“Mister All-too-lucky.”

“A six-month hiatus might mean a six-month backlog of tongue slips, but I was talking about how incredibly unlucky I’ve been, so of all the ways your tongue might slip, why in such a merry and happy way? Mister Unlucky, at the very least. Also, my name is Araragi.”

“I’m sorry. A slip of the tongue.”

“No, you did it on purpose…”

“A quip from the stung.”

“Or maybe not?!”

“A chip of the lip of the strip of the flip of the hip of the blip of the drip of the grip of the quip of the rip.”

“You can say that without your tongue slipping?! I’ve heard of speaking in tongues, but that beats it!”

“I’m not trying to become a voice actress just for show.”

“That was never part of your character, was it, now. Don’t add things this late into the game.”

“You’re wrong, Mister Araragi,” Hachikuji repeated.

Please just accept that it takes us a bit of time to get our conversations started.

“You’re wrong.”

“Wrong… About what? I got something wrong?”

Well, probably a lot of things.

Though not about wanting to be a different me if I was going to see her again.

“Oh, that’s not where you’re wrong, it’s not about your feelings or anything sentimental─but something more real, or maybe material… Simply put, you’re wrong about our location.”

“Our location? What do you mean─”

“You keep on saying this shrine, but this isn’t Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, Mister Araragi.”

“What?”

Hearing this, I looked around.

Now that she mentioned it─I’d only been looking at Hachikuji and the sun, but now that she mentioned it.

We weren’t at Kita-Shirahebi, or at the summit of a mountain.

This─was where Mayoi Hachikuji and I first met.

The plaza of that one park.

“Huh? Wait, huh?”

How could I not panic at this point?

Encountering Hachikuji was entirely impossible on its own, but I’d also moved without realizing it─and teleporting from Kita-Shirahebi Shrine to this park made me lose my calm.

All the cool-headedness I’d been working to regain.

Gone.

“Wh-What? How did I wake up in a totally different place? Hm? Did someone carry me here while I was asleep?”

Hachikuji? No, she couldn’t have.

I’m hardly on the larger side, but I’m not so petite that an elementary schooler could carry me somewhere by herself.

From here, Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, to there, the park─no, the other way around, from there, Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, to here, the park─a pretty significant distance. Hachikuji couldn’t carry me that far.

But if not Hachikuji…then Miss Gaen?

No, her doing that kind of physical labor? I guess that left Ononoki, working under her orders, as the only candidate?

She had the physical strength, no question.

Still, why?

“Why would Ononoki carry me to Namishiro Park?”

“You’re also wrong about that, Mister Araragi.”

“Huh? I must be wrong about all kinds of things… So, she didn’t carry me? I suppose not…”

“Correct, it wasn’t Miss Ononoki. Also, this isn’t Namishiro Park.”

“Oh, right. I still don’t know how to read the name of this park… Huh? Hold on, Hachikuji. Do you actually know the correct reading? If it’s not Namishiro, then what is it? Rohaku?”

“It isn’t Rohaku Park either.”

“?”

Neither Namishiro nor Rohaku?

Those seemed like the only options. How else would you read it?

The name of the park…no, that wasn’t important.

“Wrong again─it’s very important. To begin with, Mister Araragi, while it might look identical, which is to say it’s been recreated here, strictly speaking this isn’t the park where we first met.”

“Huh?”

My confusion only grew.

What was the truth here?

Actually, being at the mercy of Hachikuji’s statements was nothing new, but this was a little excessive─what was she trying to say?

If not that park, where were we?

What exactly was going on?

“Please calm down and listen, Mister Araragi,” Hachikuji stated─almost like an able doctor telling her patient about an intractable disease he’d developed. “There seems to be a chance, or rather, it’s clear you believe that I, after passing on to the next world, have returned to appear before you. But in truth, in reality, that’s not so.”

“What?”

“I haven’t appeared before you─you appeared before me.”

“Whaaat?”

“I’ll be blunt. I was hoping you’d remember─but Mister Araragi, early in the morning on March thirteenth, you visited Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, where you met Miss Izuko Gaen.”

And got killed.

Mayoi Hachikuji announced─the truth.

Her words made me remember.

On the grounds of the shrine─on the path to its sanctum.

Miss Gaen cut me into pieces─killed me.

The solution is for you to die, she had said. Everything will be solved if you die─everything will come to an end.

And with that, she sliced me up using the enchanted blade Kokorowatari.

The Aberration Slayer’s very own.

I wasn’t sure how Miss Gaen had come by the greatsword of a legendary vampire─or to go further back, the first thrall of a legendary vampire, but in any case.

Miss Gaen killed me.

Without mercy.

She slaughtered Koyomi Araragi.

And if this was the result─hm?

Wait, if I was here as a result─was I killed only to come back to life? Did I revive and appear before Hachikuji in the process?

Then I’d need to ask where she’d been─but no, that’d be the park, however you read its name.

“You’ve gotten so close, Mister Araragi. It’d be great for you to go all the way, but if the last volume is a little too thick, it’ll seem like we’re having trouble letting go. Let me wrap this up due to space concerns.”

“Way too late to be saying that when there’s already been a Part 1 and Part 2… I’d appreciate it, though. It’s not like I’m invested in coming to an answer on my own.”

“What an attitude in a student about to sit for his exams.”

“Quickly abandoning problems you can’t solve is an important part of being a good test-taker.”

“Sounds like you’re more interested in preparing for tests than studying for them. How lacking in ambition. Of course, they’re assessing high schoolers in new ways now that they’re abolishing the national entrance exam.”

“Don’t turn this into a discussion about testing. How ’bout you pick a different topic, like the situation I’m in right now.”

“Fine, I’ll stop picking at your wounds. You said trouble befell you since we parted ways. Knowing that you’re only in for more pain at our reunion makes me feel so bad, I can’t bear to look at you. If you’ve been visited by one tragedy after the next, and these past six months, not spring break, was the true hell for you, I feel terrible about piling onto that.”

“Hold on, your preface is scaring me…”

“I should hope so.”

Because this─Hachikuji said.

Mister Araragi, she said.

“Is hell.”

“Excuse me?”

“The deepest hell among all─this is Avīci.”