Monogatari Series - Volume 19 - Chapter 5.06

006

“Shi-Shinobu!”

I ran to her side─no thought needed on my part. Rushed over as soon as I saw it. With neither the time nor the composure to consider why she was here, why our meeting during spring break was being recreated in hell─I just ran to her side.

What did I plan to do, I wonder? In retrospect.

In any case, in any event, I ran to her─and had no idea what to do next. Was I in my right mind?

Didn’t I feel bitter regret for those past actions? I couldn’t have forgotten─unthinkingly rescuing her then, lured in by her beauty, and about the tragedy that befell me as a result.

But all I could do was rush over─or more accurately, I tried to.

Our eyes met.

Or so it seemed, but that moment, a smile even more gruesome than her state spread across Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s face─as she disappeared.

Vanished.

When she did─the darkness lifted as well, the sky that suddenly shifted suddenly shifting back. The foreboding night street seemingly arranged for her returned to being a plain, run-of-the-mill road.

“…”

A hallucination? An illusion? A mirage?

Doubtful─who needed them in hell?

Let alone the ghost of a vampire.

Had Miss Gaen gone on to use the enchanted blade Kokorowatari on Shinobu to put her in such a state? Except, true vampires wouldn’t end up in hell. Maybe as a demon tormenting the damned, but…

What was that, then?

What did I just see?

“Did your body just move on its own, Mister Araragi?”

Hachikuji jogged over to catch up to me.

She didn’t look too surprised by the strange occurrence─as if she’d foreseen it.

Foreseen it.

Or rather, she knew?

She’d been─told?

“Strange. You so regretted how you saved Miss Shinobu over spring break. Why do the exact same thing in an identical situation?”

“Because…well, um, my body moved on its own?” Although Hachikuji wasn’t being openly critical, my reply sounded like an excuse. “R-Rushing over doesn’t necessarily mean I’d save her like during spring break. Who knows, maybe I was trying to finish her off?”

“Even a child can see through that lie. Please don’t forget that we’re in hell. Around here, you get your tongue plucked out for lying,” Hachikuji warned mischievously as she passed me─to lead me once more. I followed, flustered.

“Well, even if I wasn’t going to finish her off…” Perhaps doing so meant helping that suicidal vampire noble─but even if I wasn’t going to. “I do wonder what would’ve happened if I’d ignored Shinobu…if I’d run scared from a beautiful, blood-soaked woman. I see it play out in my dreams.”

I never expected to see it play out in hell, though.

No chance in hell─but it was exactly where I chanced upon her.

“Come to think of it, by that point, Shinobu’s first thrall had gathered as ash in my town─so who knows, maybe that armored warrior would have arisen to save his master as the three vampire hunters moved to kill her. Shinobu and the First, reunited for the first time in four hundred years…who parted ways with their relationship still in ruins, might have reconciled.”

“That’s what I’d call too good to be true.”

“Yeah. And getting in the way of it─is an unbearable thought.”

“This-a-way.”

Hachikuji simply kept walking, and it was hard to tell if she’d heard my, shall we say, griping─not much of a guide given the origins of her character. Of course, I’d waddle along like a spot-billed duckling if it meant being brought back to life, but how could I get my bearings if she wasn’t going to be a bit kinder as she led the way?

As proof of her ill-suitedness, she’d taken me through town and strayed into a nearly impossible location─a Naoetsu High building.

How do you proceed from a sidewalk straight into a school hallway? And wait─something was clearly strange.

This was more than being lost.

Sure, it was already strange the moment day flipped into night, but…

“So, Mister Araragi, the school where you take your classes─well, technically, a recreation. Even having wandered all over that town, this campus is like holy ground. Being at a high school is a first for me. Would the teachers get mad if they found me?”

“The trouble will be all mine if they see me walking around with a ten year old… My exams will be the least of my worries then.”

I’d be looking at a battery of investigations, not examinations.

Heaven forbid.

That said, I wasn’t running into any sinners or persecutors in this Avīci, so teachers seemed even less likely… But an abandoned hell?

Had the system changed? Was Avīci now a hell of solitary confinement? Regularly awful, but Hachikuji greeting me turned it into more of a paradise…

My perse-cute-or?

“But why was the street connected to a school hallway? I don’t see the street we were on behind us, either. Just the usual school building…”

“Well, it’s not a road unless it leads everywhere.”

“Hm… But─”

“Oh, Mister Araragi. A perv. Be careful.”

“A perv? Uh oh, Hachikuji. Quick, hide inside my clothes, that’s to say behind me.”

“I’m not sure that was a rephrasing.”

We hastily slipped into a nearby classroom to avoid encountering this perv whom Hachikuji had spotted, but it was none other than me ambling in a school building I’d assumed was empty.

Koyomi Araragi.

A handsome youth, not any pervert.

Hachikuji had mistaken me for someone else.

Thinking that silly thought, I saw, walking next to me, another individual─Tsubasa Hanekawa.

First-gen, too. Tsubasa Hanekawa with glasses and braided hair.

Just one braid, as first-gen as you could get─single-braided Hanekawa and I walking side by side at Naoetsu High never took place in reality, as far as I knew.

She wore her hair in two braids after spring break, then stopped wearing glasses and cut her hair short. What’s more, it was a tiger-striped, black-and-white pattern now─but there was no mistaking her.

…And wait, hold on a sec.

Was that how smiley Koyomi Araragi looked talking to Tsubasa Hanekawa? I wanted to say I’d been striking a more manly look, but no.

They left my sight as I thought this─maybe they were headed to a classroom for a president-vice president meeting. To discuss the culture festival or something.

“Sure, you led a tumultuous life after you rescued Miss Shinobu─but coming to know Miss Hanekawa just before that was also significant. She’s had a massive influence on you. What do you think about that?” Hachikuji asked abruptly.

The question came so unannounced that I couldn’t process it for a moment. Excuse me? Are you saying─I’d be better off if I hadn’t gotten to know Hanekawa?

“In hindsight, she made a mess of the situation with Miss Shinobu, didn’t she? And quite terrible things happened to you over the course of your two encounters with Miss Black Hanekawa.”

“…”

“If you’d never become friends with her, you wouldn’t have been dragged into that long string of troubles─no one could blame you for feeling that way.”

“Well, I won’t deny that she’s to blame for a lot. The girl who doesn’t know everything, just what she knows, revealed so many truths that could’ve stayed hidden, and forgot so many truths that could’ve stayed remembered, sending me through reckless shortcuts and down impossible detours─but.”

The question was liable to send me off into a fit of rage if anyone other than Hachikuji asked it, but since this was her, I could answer in a strangely serene, matter-of-fact way.

I wasn’t sent anywhere. Persisting in the here and now, I answered─

“I’m still genuinely glad that I became friends with her.”

“…”

“I’m beginning to get a vague idea about this walking side by side… So, what, do we need to follow them?”

“Hmm. There’s no strict route, but sure, this way please. It’s like Alice in Wonderland and I’m your White Rabbit.”

“Wonderland, huh…”

For now, it did feel more like a wonderland than hell─not that I could say, with my shaky recollection of the original.

Hachikuji called it a recreation.

The park─and this Naoetsu High.

A recreation and vicarious experience.

From spring break to here─I followed Hachikuji out of the classroom, but Koyomi Araragi and Tsubasa Hanekawa were nowhere to be seen.

If we were going after them, we needed to go upstairs. Whatever the meeting was about, they were heading to our third-year class─I thought, and looked toward the staircase.

Then.

I saw a girl frozen in midair─posed like she was flying, but sure enough, there in stop motion was my girlfriend whom I knew so well.

“Senjogahara…”

“You could’ve not tried to catch her after she slipped─the choice wasn’t as dire as saving a beautiful woman collapsed on the street, dying. Catching a falling person is just plain dangerous too─depending on how, the faller could get injured in addition to yourself. Miss Senjogahara weighed barely anything at the time, so I doubt she’d have suffered if you’d let her be. You know, the way small, light animals and bugs can fall from high places and somehow be fine.”

“…”

“But you, Mister Araragi.”

“If Senjogahara fell towards me? I’d catch her─every time.”

She’d told me.

That she was glad it was me who’d caught her─and I felt the same way.

I was glad to be the one to catch her─only by chance, just by coincidence, but aren’t those chance coincidences also called fate?

Duty, even?

“Hypothetically,” Hachikuji said, climbing the stairs and glancing to the side, at Senjogahara, as she fell─or was in a bizarre state of motionless falling. As though the words meant nothing in particular. “If you hadn’t caught Miss Senjogahara─she might’ve suffered minor injuries, but I doubt anything serious would have happened. She’d have continued to live her scornful life of defiant pride. That conman would come to this town a little later, correct?”

“You mean─Deishu Kaiki.”

“Yes, a man with fateful ties to her. Perhaps they would have their destined showdown. As things stand, you prevented it during summer break…but I wonder, what might have happened if you hadn’t gotten in the way, if her boyfriend hadn’t butted in?”

“What would have happened?”

“Might they have gotten back together?”

Miss Senjogahara seems to be hiding it, but even you must have figured out that they once had something between them, Hachikuji said.

I followed after her and passed by Senjogahara.

Though motionless, her position was so precarious that I felt like grabbing and planting her down, but who knew. I might throw her off balance the moment I touched her…

“Their old flame may have been reignited then─life, love, it’s all too much to know how to handle,” commented Hachikuji.

“You, talking about love? Who’s going to take you seriously?”

“Oh? You’re interested in hearing my romantic history? Do you have any idea how precocious elementary schoolers are these days?”

“I don’t want to know… About your romantic history, even less.”

“What do you say, Mister Araragi? To the idea that you interfered with Miss Senjogahara’s romance with the conman?”

“What do I have to say? What else but hah, serves you right.”

The situation with Kaiki was a little different from the one with the First.

Not that I could discuss it with Senjogahara…

“I’ll admit, Kaiki helped me out with Sengoku…but that’s separate. Completely separate. I can honestly say I wish I’d never met him.”

“Ah. True, there are people like that in your life─you can’t get along with every last person. Well, why don’t we end by going over the name you just brought up, Miss Sengoku. Let’s bon voyage.”

“Let’s bon voyage… I get what you’re trying to say, but where do I even begin─hm? Wait, what about Kanbaru?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, Kanbaru. Suruga Kanbaru.”

I’d convinced myself that the packed itinerary starting from a park and heading to who-knows-where was a sort of hellish trial─my soul resting on a scale against opposing evidence.

Or maybe feathers, not evidence (source: Tsubasa Hanekawa).

I thought we’d be looking back at all of my conduct since spring break, or all that happened to me, everything that assaulted me since, in a kind of pilgrimage.

Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade during spring break, Tsubasa Hanekawa during Golden Week, Hitagi Senjogahara after the holidays…

I could understand skipping over Hachikuji since she was with me, but chronologically, Suruga Kanbaru came before Nadeko Sengoku.

This hell was silent for the time being because my sins were still being judged, and I wasn’t undergoing the fiery torments that filled Avīci because my punishment was pending, or my case was ongoing─so went my arbitrary interpretation.

If it was correct, I’d fall through flames for two thousand years after this pilgrimage, so if it wasn’t, I’d be totally fine with that…

“Oh, yes. Miss Kanbaru. She’s a special case.”

“A special case?”

“We’re passing over her, or skipping her turn─her case is slightly different from everyone else’s.”

“It is?”

Wasn’t that truer of Nadeko Sengoku, the individual she proposed we visit next?

Kanbaru and her aberrant left arm were on the standard side as far as aberrations go…

“Oh, no, this isn’t about aberrational phenomena, Mister Araragi. The issue is their relationship to you─and in Miss Kanbaru’s case, you couldn’t help but get involved.”

“…What does that mean?”

“Miss Kanbaru, with her characteristic assertiveness, decided to stalk you─and acted on her own initiative to kill you. You could be faced with that situation a thousand times, and your option would still be limited to taking appropriate measures.”

Hachikuji sounded appalled, as if to say, or could you have sat there and let her kill you?

Hm, she had a point.

Even if stalking or coming to kill me didn’t neatly summarize her behavior, minor initial choices in relationships with stronger communicators like Kanbaru, who come straight at you, probably don’t make any difference down the line.

She held the reins.

Naturally, she wouldn’t have stalked me if I hadn’t started dating Senjogahara─and since I’d vowed to catch my girlfriend no matter how many times she slipped, you could say some sort of relationship with Kanbaru was as unavoidable as family ties.

In that sense, I understood ending with Sengoku─no point in visiting Karen or Tsukihi.

Even so, skipping Kanbaru after all that brouhaha was somehow hard to accept─it’s not the exact same, but it felt like excluding an important friend without meaning to.

“Still, Miss Kanbaru’s personality is unique in the Araragi harem. In fact, it’s baffling that you get along so well. What could ever connect you, with your isolationist policy when it comes to people, and Miss Kanbaru, a human tax heaven?”

“Tax heaven…”

Paradise, huh?

At her core, though, Kanbaru isn’t that much of a natural optimist─she has her own baggage. She carries it around with her.

Otherwise─why would she have wished upon a monkey?

“She had a unique upbringing too,” I remarked.

“Did she?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? Her parents eloped─and when they did…”

Kanbaru was raised as neither a Kanbaru nor a Gaen as a young child─she didn’t know what family was, in the extended sense. Hence her estrangement from Miss Gaen, who was technically her aunt.

Miss Gaen had made no effort to reveal her identity even as she’d roped her older sister’s daughter into her work last August.

“Hmm, how distressing. To have all of Miss Kanbaru’s mental and physical strength, and not have life go the way you want─makes me wonder just how many people out there live as they wish.”

“Who knows… Too heavy for a high schooler when we let it get that big. I’m sure everyone’s stressed, though, to some degree.”

Of course, that sentiment wasn’t free of a desire akin to jealousy─wanting the winners to experience their fair share of suffering.

Still, how do you sympathize with: Oh noes, I need to earn another ten billion yen but this isn’t working. So cruel! I’m getting stressed out!

“Well, aren’t your own tribulations pretty luxurious too? Not all kids studying for college exams get the kind of fortunate, or exceptional, treatment that you enjoyed.”

“You’re right. I’ve got nothing to say in return.”

“You can think about that once you’ve returned to life, though. You’ll have plenty of time.”

Hachikuji twirled around on the landing, then continued up to the next floor─or so I thought, but suddenly the stairs weren’t Naoetsu High’s, but rather…

On a steep mountain, surrounded by nature─steps I’d been climbing more often than those at school lately.

The long path snaking up toward Kita-Shirahebi Shrine.

This felt more like warping around than teleporting─as if space itself was twisted. The scene change wasn’t traditional fantasy, but all-out phantasmagoric, but it no longer felt unusual to me.

I’d grown numb, or rather, acclimatized.

Acclimatizing to hell is a strange notion, I admit─but I did cross paths with Nadeko Sengoku on these stairs in June… If this wasn’t some cosmic trial of my soul, my life was flashing before my eyes in my final moments after Miss Gaen cut me down.

Maybe I was just looking back─with regret.

…Yup.

Whether it was Shinobu, Hanekawa, or Senjogahara, not to mention Hachikuji, I’d take the same actions no matter how many times I found myself in the same situation─but I couldn’t deny that maybe I could’ve done better.

“You did quite well, Mister Araragi. At least when it comes to me.”

“That’s comforting, thanks─but as far as Sengoku goes, I failed.”

“You did. And how humiliating that your archnemesis, that conman of all people, cleaned up after you.”

“Yeah, and so─”

So.

I continued to climb the stairs as I spoke─and sure enough, or as guaranteed in advance, Sengoku came walking down from the summit, as I thought she would.

Her hat pulled down deep to her eyes─a petite middle school girl wearing a fanny pack. With brisk steps, she hurried down the mountain as if running away─and in fact, that must have been her state of mind.

Run away.

She must have wanted to.

Of course, when I crossed paths with Nadeko Sengoku on the mountain─in reality, not in this recreation─I didn’t recognize her.

Nor was I able to sense her pain.

If there’s anything I wish I could’ve done better with Sengoku, that might be it…

“I wonder. I think the standard you’re setting for yourself is a little too high. It’s not as if you’re omnipotent. Be more modest, like Miss Hanekawa.”

“If I were as capable as her, I could afford to be ever humble─a guy like me is stuck wanting more.”

“Miss Sengoku had a strained relationship with a friend back then, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. Even if that conman’s bulk-sold ‘charms’ were at the root of it.”

No…his charms were a minor detail. The roots ran deeper─

“Well,” I continued, “if you can call someone who’d put a snake curse on you a friend. I forget who said it, maybe Oshino? That’s why I don’t make friends.”

“Quite the opinion itself─Miss Sengoku’s case may have ended in failure, but don’t elementary and middle school troubles usually turn into fond memories once you’re an adult?”

“Dunno about that. I feel like nothing turns into an adult’s baggage more than childhood memories. Maybe it’s because I’m not an adult yet, but at least…my memories of not being better for Oikura back in elementary and middle school are nothing but painful.”

“Miss Oikura.”

“Oh… Right, Oikura started coming to school after we went our separate ways. You haven’t heard? From ‘her’?”

“Well, to some extent, but I never met Miss Oikura. I can’t say I have a full understanding of the situation based on a game of telephone.”

I just know the things that I know, Hachikuji said coolly. A line that would have landed if someone like Hanekawa had said it─regrettably, it just sounded pretentious coming from Hachikuji.

A game of telephone, though…

Would that be her wording if she’d heard it straight from Miss Gaen? I felt like it implied there was someone else in the chain. Was I reading too much between the lines?

“Actually, your home environment is rather unique too. I did hear about that. Your parents took in and sheltered misfortunate children, so you spent a good amount of time with them as an elementary schooler, et cetera. Perhaps that environment fostered the Fire Sisters’ sense of justice, as well as your own.”

“You know, I’m starting to think that maybe Sengoku played that kind of role in Tsukihi’s life. I’m not saying there were any issues in Sengoku’s family environment…”

“I don’t know if any family is free of issues. Only they know about their home─I should let you know that any independent body would be creeped out by you and your little sisters.”

“Could you not run an independent audit of my life? How about ‘from an objective viewpoint’?”

As we shared this exchange, Sengoku passed all the way by us─but showed no signs of noticing us. It was of course a recreation, so maybe she couldn’t see us─I forget, did she notice me when we crossed paths in reality? Even if she had, she wouldn’t have said anything to me, given the situation. Especially since I was with Kanbaru…

In any case.

Not saying anything to Sengoku─made this another repeat of my actions. Later (the next day?), I’d see her in a bookstore, chase after her, then…

“Well, I might have failed with her, but I can’t think of any better way I could’ve gone about it. Even if I was never directly harmed, it was an emergency.”

“Yes, it was. If people could redo their lives from the start, maybe they’d just rehash their behavior again and again. With luck, I thought we might hop onto the time-loop-story bandwagon that’s all the rage.”

“I think that already passed.”

“Booms are cyclical. If anything is a loop, that is. They do say that history repeats itself.”

“We’ve been talking about me this whole time, but what about you? In your case─if you could redo your life, where would you start?”

“Hard for me to say. I won’t deny that I used to want to mend my parents’ relationship. But when I think about it, I’m not sure how right it would be to reconcile two people who’re on bad terms. Breaking up on a whim is sad, but so is making up on a whim.”

“I don’t think you could build any relationship if you saw things that way…”

“As their daughter, I want to complain to them that they shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place if they were going to get divorced, but then, I wouldn’t exist─I admit that’s an extreme example.”

“…”

“I guess you can only go to war with the army you have. What about you, Mister Araragi. You fought with everything you had in the moment and the circumstance─so maybe even in hindsight, you’d just keep on doing the same thing if events looped over and over.”

Even if you didn’t do the optimal thing every time, you surely did your best, she said.

“And…as far as Miss Sengoku’s case goes, I do think that outside interference played a significant role. Blowback─might we say?”

“What? Outside interference? Blowback?”

“Right. You’re unable to grasp that part well. Don’t worry about it much, then. I’m only saying that extreme actions cause reactions.”

“Hold on a second,” I began to ask, curious. “Why are we still climbing this mountain? You said Sengoku was our last stop, and we’ve crossed paths with her. Shouldn’t that bring this walking side by side to an end? Haven’t we reached our mecca?”

“Oh, no. Didn’t I tell you? The goal of Mayoi Hachikuji’s Massive Hell-Cruise is to bring you back to life. We can’t stop here─if anything, we were on a detour.”

“A detour.”

“We were lost, if you prefer.”

“…”

“Don’t worry. This is like a ceremony we need to carry out─initiation might be the better word.”

“Bringing me back to life… I thought that was something you could only do with Yumewatari, the companion blade to Kokorowatari… Am I wrong?”

Kokorowatari, the enchanted blade Miss Gaen used to slice me up.

A blade that kills only aberrations, once wielded by an expert at slaying them─a blade to cut aberrations which should not, must not exist.

Paired with it was another enchanted blade, Yumewatari.

The Aberration Savior, though that’s a bit of a stretch.

A second enchanted blade with the power to resurrect an aberration slain by Kokorowatari─was how Shinobu described it to me.

If Miss Gaen’s scheme, the intent behind her uncharacteristic savagery, was to bring me back to life after killing me─I assumed the Aberration Savior was the only way.

My read didn’t address the all-important question: how would she swing a blade that was supposedly engulfed by the Darkness four hundred years ago? Hm, did someone say something about that?

My memory was just so unclear…

“No, you’re right. But that’s a ceremony for the world of the living─hell has its own way of doing things.”

“You’re making this sound pretty cool…”

We were just on a walk.

We were taking a stroll together, that was it.

Walking with Hachikuji brought back such good memories that it was like walking on clouds, another world─I guess it was, since we were in hell.

This hardly felt like being in hell, though.

“It’s fine, don’t worry, Mister Araragi. There’s no trial to best or barrier to overcome in order for you to come back to life. Nor any classic trick, like not being allowed to look back. Your resurrection is a guaranteed certainty, so relax and just get ready to go out there.”

“…”

“Hm. Is something the matter? You look dissatisfied.”

“Dissatisfied?”

More like gloomy.

Well, dissatisfied wasn’t wrong─I felt that way too.

Because my dim, blurred memories started to coalesce as we climbed the stairs to Kita-Shirahebi─to early in the morning of March thirteenth, when Miss Gaen sliced me up.

The way things were going, did it mean I’d climb up to the shrine, find Miss Gaen waiting for me, be cut to pieces again, this time with the enchanted blade Yumewatari, to revive? Yeah, the thought of getting sliced up again wasn’t exactly thrilling.

I had to wonder about hell’s so-called way of doing things.

“Speaking of,” Hachikuji said, “is Miss Ononoki doing well?”

“Hm.”

“Is it because they’re colleagues? That person didn’t talk up Miss Ononoki, but during that business with the Darkness, Miss Ononoki helped me out big time. I was hoping to ask you about her when we met at last.”

“Ononoki…”

Right, now that Hachikuji mentioned it.

They were only in contact for those few days when we faced the Darkness, but maybe journeys like those were a bonding experience. Or maybe, as aberrations of a similar age, they just clicked─either way, my impression was that they got along fairly well.

In contrast to the bad terms Shinobu and Ononoki were on.

That shikigami acts in pretty mysterious ways, so you can’t let your guard down around her just because you’re friends─I always forget because she’s saved me so often, but she and I were at total odds when we first met.

Shinobu’s continued animosity was actually the right stance.

I was the weird one, in effect living under the same roof regardless of our past─it was abnormal.

By all rights, I should be scolded.

“Well, she’s been lively─though I guess she’s dead. Maybe that isn’t the right term… But in any case, she’s doing well.”

“Is that so. Having named her my successor, that’s a relief to hear.”

“Ononoki’s your successor?”

“Yes. Officially approved.”

You two must be having plenty of witty conversations, Hachikuji said─and maybe she meant it.

“During our treacherous journey, I asked her to take care of you in my place if the unthinkable happened to me.”

“That’s a surprise…”

Ononoki didn’t have to listen to her request, but if it was valid, the shikigami was doing a better job than Hachikuji imagined.

And not just regarding our banter.

“But Ononoki isn’t included in this Massive Hell-Cruise of yours?”

“There are time considerations at play here.”

“That’s why?”

“Yes. It was a difficult producorial call. I think it should be fine. She got so much attention in the anime.”

“Can you really balance things out like that?”

Balance─I got hung up on the word as it left my mouth.

No, maybe not hung up. It was more like a flash of inspiration.

Lighting up a darkness that had lingered ever since Hachikuji told me about coming back to life─it had obscured my vision and senses even as we approached the end of our pilgrimage, even as we drew closer to my resurrection, that dawn of a new day. It became clear, so late it might not make a difference, as the word left my mouth.

Ah. That’s what was weighing on my mind─balance.

“When you think about it, Mister Araragi, you really are lucky. You not only have a pretty girlfriend, a kind and wise friend, a talented junior, and two energetic little sisters─now you’re also cohabitating with a reliable tween.”

“…”

“A life anyone would envy. Lived in the lap of luxury. Someone in your position shouldn’t be too self-deprecating─in excess, modesty turns to sarcasm, you know? It’d be like saying you want to die because you can’t earn ten billion yen.”

Was it so enviable to be living with Ononoki? But it was true that I was blessed in a host of ways.

That was exactly why, though.

I sought balance.

Emotional balance.

Who was it that first kept going on about balanced designs─Mèmè Oshino? I’d been worried about that old bastard’s negative influence on Hanekawa, who planned to roam the world, but maybe I’d been poisoned by his ideology too.

“The right thing…”

“Excuse me? What was that, Mister Araragi?”

“Oh, it’s just that I remembered an argument I had with the Fire Sisters, with all their talk of justice─it came to me out of nowhere. Maybe it’s because I’m in hell that I’m thinking of a topic I’d rather avoid.”

“Hm. We’ll be at the summit soon, so keep it short if you have something to say. This could be the last time we ever talk, after all.”

“What…”

Then I’d rather talk about something else.

But the topic had come to me precisely because I was in hell. I’d wanted to ask for Hachikuji’s opinion, and decided to continue.

“It’s hard to do the right thing.”

“Hard. What would it be in this case? Quite a lot of standards can determine what’s right and what’s not.”

“In this case, a simple kind of rightness, so simple you don’t even need to think about standards. It’s so right that no one would ever disagree, but surprisingly, I sometimes can’t bring it about, or realize it. No need to relativize─”

“Aha. This is like the discussion that at their core, humans are evil. I like talking about that kind of thing.”

“No, I’m not trying for the kind of dialogue you get stuck in as an adolescent… How do I put it… It’s not about evil, it’s just that we’re immature.”

“Immature, you say.”

“Maybe that’s why people spend so much energy on Fire Sisters-like stuff. Okay, my sisters just go from one extreme to another, but don’t a lot of people get more worked up about righting wrongs than doing the right thing?”

“Righting wrongs isn’t doing the right thing?”

“They’re similar on the surface, or maybe close but not quite the same─to correct my own error, so to speak, maybe the right word isn’t right but smite.”

“…”

That’s confusing spoken out loud, Hachikuji opined with a vague expression─true, like her look, what I was saying was difficult to parse.

Not just my phrasing, but the point itself─I was talking about justice, evil, and right in a far from probing way. Maybe splashing around in the shallow end only made things harder.

“You mean people preferring to criticize the words and deeds of others who’re trying to do the right thing, just finding fault instead?”

“Mm, I guess?”

Not exactly.

Though she was correct for the most part.

My key point was that righting wrongs makes people feel like they’re doing the right thing─which is why distinguishing between the two can be so hard.

Not just for the person in question, but for everyone else. Even an independent body’s judgment might fall short of the task…

“What do you think, Hachikuji?”

“What do I think? ‘Boy, it’s been a while since Mister Araragi has said something this misanthropic. The regular programming, is it? Glad he’s okay,’ is about it.”

“I’m getting a little worried about your image of me…”

“If you’re being critical, then allow me to point out this contradiction. Calling people out for mixing up ‘righting wrongs’ with ‘doing the right thing’ is just another instance of the same.”

She’d complicated things.

What a tangled mess.

If she was right, then I was contradicting myself, grandly at that. Fortunately, that wasn’t my point at all.

I wasn’t being critical.

I was being supportive, if anything.

“If you keep on righting every wrong and stamp out every last mistake, are you going to be left with a pure, bright rightness? Maybe it’ll be a pure, dark rightness, but anyway, if you boil it down, that’s what I want to know.”

“…”

“When you remained in the world of the living, Hachikuji, you were doing something wrong…or at least, something you weren’t supposed to be doing. And like nature’s providence came─”

The Darkness.

“You got burned─you nearly became a wandering soul, unable to pass on to heaven or hell.”

“I nearly ceased to exist altogether. Yes, I was in danger there.”

She sounded unmoved, but it was harrowing─so much so that she felt indebted to Ononoki.

“No, no, I’m grateful mainly because she let me ride on her shoulders so I could kiss you.”

“Can’t you show a little more tact?!”

I was trying to avoid the topic! I thought we had an unspoken agreement to just kind of gloss over it!

“You know what? It’s a very Japanese way of thinking, that not failing is the easier way up the ladder to success than succeeding.”

“…”

I’d say it’s surprisingly global.

“You’re preparing for college exams that grade you based on how many questions you get wrong. I can understand why you might be attracted to these ideas, and I myself wouldn’t reject them outright. It’s just that living your life that way means never getting what you really want.”

“Never getting…what I really want?”

“You’re assuming that someone is going to evaluate you. You’ll only ever receive what others give you in that case. It isn’t a bad thing, of course─but going about life that way, you’ll never exceed yourself and your capabilities, which is what you’ve desired.”

You have to make a lot of mistakes.

You have to fail a lot of times.

You have to try again, and again, and again.

You have to hesitate and get frustrated.

To go through round after round of trial and error.

And after all the blame and criticism─

“Only then can you succeed, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wasn’t…trying to put the spotlight on me. But maybe it is like that─no, that’s how it should be.”

“If you live your life only righting wrongs, then before you realize, you’ll need other people and the world to be wrong─and frankly, that’s a dangerous line of thinking. Nothing admirable about it.”

“Hm…”

“You said this wasn’t about you. In which case, who might you be speaking of?”

“…”

That was a hard one to answer.

The Fire Sisters, those defenders of justice? No, this discussion didn’t even apply to them─nothing ran through their heads.

In that case, was I talking about Oshino?

The man who stressed balance, always mediating between right and wrong, good and evil, here and there─was I talking about a guy who declared that people just go and get saved on their own?

No, the person I had in mind.

That I wanted to discuss─was that girl.

The transfer student, his niece.

Ogi Oshino─I wanted to talk about her.

How odd that her name hadn’t crossed my mind, that I didn’t recall her─the most important individual in the second half of this year of my life.

Was she another exception in this pilgrimage? Hachikuji showed no signs of bringing up her name.

Of course, Ogi’s stance toward me was very different from Senjogahara’s or Hanekawa’s. She had her way of appearing reserved even as she constantly pushed herself onto me. In that sense, maybe she was treated by this place like Kanbaru.

Similar to Kanbaru?

I’d never thought of it that way… Huh, so they were in the same category… Ogi might be glad to hear that since she’d called herself a devotee of Kanbaru’s.

I considered bringing up that transfer student, and how I might do so, but I ran out of time before I could find the right words.

The stairs ended.

We walked under Kita-Shirahebi Shrine’s torii gate.

As we did, a new scene─didn’t appear before our eyes. Just Kita-Shirahebi Shrine.

The shrine before it was rebuilt, though.

In a state of crumbling disuse, disrepair, and decay─a forgotten place, a sorry sight. The grounds of a shrine you wouldn’t recognize as such unless someone told you.

The same state as when Kanbaru and I first visited it together, though no snakes had been nailed to the surrounding trees.

The missing detail may have been a flaw, given that Sengoku had come down the stairs. Of course, crucified snakes aren’t a pretty sight, so I felt only relief over that detail being omitted.

Even without it, because I’d gotten used to the current, restored─or more like freshly built from the ground up─Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, its decrepit state felt grisly enough.

My guard, down thanks to bantering with Hachikuji, went back up. The fact that we hadn’t walked into another space or dimension seemed to indicate that we were at the end of the nonsensical route that began at the park.

Correcting what was out of position.

No, Hachikuji had been downright opaque─she was going to dislodge us from the correct position. Was she going to explain what she meant already?

Then.

Ahead of us on the shrine path.

In front of the collapsed shrine’s sanctuary─around the offering box.

Someone was waiting for us.

Unlike the others─Shinobu and Senjogahara, Hanekawa and Sengoku─this person’s eyes were trained on me, clearly awaiting me.

I did expect to see someone at the shrine─though maybe it was more premonition than expectation.

Or a case of déjà vu.

March thirteenth.

I’d climbed the stairs like this only to be sliced into pieces by Miss Gaen, who’d actually been lying in wait─but no, another part of me thought there might not be anyone.

Because when I tried to meet Miss Kagenui a month ago─when I tried to meet her as promised and visited our meeting spot, Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, I got stood up.

Yozuru Kagenui.

That violent onmyoji─was still missing.

Ononoki never made any meaningful comment on the subject, which was normal given her personality─if she has a personality at all─but as someone who’d been left hanging by Miss Kagenui, and who’d taken in her shikigami, I couldn’t help but worry about her safety.

Which is why.

I had a premonition that someone would be lying in wait at the shrine, even if it was just a set located in hell─and simultaneously a premonition that no one would be there. Having both premonitions meant that one of them would be right, but still.

I couldn’t help but be shocked─I couldn’t hold back my surprise at the identity of the individual waiting for us.

Sitting atop the elegant offering box, so twisted and creaking that it seemed ready to burst, was─neither Izuko Gaen nor Yozuru Kagenui.

Like them, an expert.

But an expert unlike them.

An expert who was dead.

A doll-user who’d been smashed dead to pieces.

Tadatsuru Teori.

“Hello─Araragi. I’ve been waiting.”