Monogatari Series - Volume 19 - Chapter 6.03

003

“A date? Tomorrow? Hold on, you need to report this kind of thing sooner. This is really sudden. I have plans of my own, okay? Oh, fine, I’ll figure out a way to make some time. Anything for you, kind monster sir.”

“Wait, why are you acting like you’ve been invited? What kind of position are you in, here?”

After seeing Senjogahara off, I at last entered the Araragi residence and dragged myself up to my room on the second floor only to find yet another individual waiting for me: the lodger and current freeloader in my home, Yotsugi Ononoki, the shikigami tween.

Being a doll, she was supposed to be staying under the guise of being my little sister’s stuffed toy, but as of late she was moving around more or less for all to see. Today was no exception─she’d come on her own to my room and made herself comfortable on my bed, even reading a manga I’d bought before me.

Make some time? She looked like the world’s most idle tween.

There was some strange woman outside the house, but I left her alone because it seemed like she was waiting for you, monstieur. Who was she? asked Ononoki, and I replied with the plain truth─but actually, if she saw a strange woman outside our home, the familiar should’ve checked it out, having been placed with me by her master Miss Kagenui to be my personal bodyguard.

In fact, I needed to tell Ononoki a lot of things─it didn’t make sense to be leading off with a report that I’d booked a date.

What should I tell her, though, and how much? Miss Gaen didn’t seem too interested in keeping me quiet, and Tadatsuru even wanted me to apologize to her in his place… But could it hinder whatever plans Miss Gaen was putting together if I revealed everything about my morning trip through hell? I couldn’t let go of that concern, but I also felt that Ononoki needed to know about what happened with Tadatsuru, given her involvement. What to do…

“What’s the matter, kind monster sir, monstieur for short? You’re staring at my face. Are you admiring it? Do I look all dolled up? You know, being a doll and all.”

“Well, it’s just…” I made up my mind, then spoke before the tween could say anything too amusing. Even if it didn’t clear things up, I needed to settle what I could before my date tomorrow. “Ononoki. I want to talk about something serious, is that okay?”

“I’m always serious. I’ve never talked about anything unserious. I’m so serious, they call me the brightest star.”

Despite saying this with a deadpan look and tone, I picked up nothing earnest about her words, not to mention the disqualifying pun─it sounded like an utter lie anyway, but ignoring that, I briefly gave her the highlights of my adventure that morning, beginning with my trip to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine. I tried to be mindful of the fact that I’d be talking for way too long if I told her everything, but the story wrapped up quicker than I thought when I actually summarized it.

It felt like a two-thousand-year journey to me, but it did in fact all happen in a flash. Maybe that’s how describing stuff goes─your emotional attachment to the events says nothing about their length.

“Huh.”

On top of that, Ononoki barely reacted. What an unrewarding listener to recount your adventures to.

“You’re telling stories to a stuffed toy and expecting it to be rewarding? My only reaction is annoyance that you got yourself in trouble as soon as I let you off the leash.”

“Hold on, even hearing all that about Tadatsuru, one of your creators, doesn’t do anything for you? He told me to say hi to you.”

“Not in particular. I’ve told you, haven’t I? Don’t expect human emotions from me. Whether he was dead from the start, or immortal in a way, or a living doll, it doesn’t change the meaning of what I did,” Ononoki shrugged. “As in, what it means to you, monstieur.”

“…”

“I’m sure you have your own thoughts on the matter, and maybe you feel redeemed. But if I had to come up with some sort of opinion…personally, I guess it just sounds fishy.”

“Fishy? Like how?” I never quite agreed with the nuances of fishy (what’s wrong with fish?) but of course knew they were negative. Ononoki’s expressions were so deadpan, which is to say impossible to read, and conversing with her demanded a high level of communication skills.

“In no particular way. I just wonder how much of it went as Miss Gaen planned. Most of my dealings with her have been through Big Sis, so I’ve no clue how calculating she is or isn’t… Maybe even bringing Hatchy back with you was part of her plan, and she only pretended to be surprised.”

“Hatchy…” Why was everyone getting influenced by the audio commentary? Having fun behind my back, are you?

“Well, to be blunt, there’s more audio commentaries at this point than books.”

“Stop. No one asked you to be blunt.”

“I don’t believe in hell anyway… Are you sure it wasn’t a hallucination you had while you were on the verge of death?”

“A hallucination? Like a near-death experience? But─”

“A hallucination Miss Gaen made you have or something. Kinda scary to think about.”

“…”

It was kinda scary, true… But why was this doll going out of her way to scare me? Did she get a kick out of frightening me, or what?

“Come on,” she said. “Frightened people are fun to watch, in general.”

“You’re terrible. Cut it out, you’re gonna make me mad.”

“Nothing’s more fun than making people mad. So exciting. Whenever people lecture me it’s like, whoa, this guy’s so mad, he’s totally lost control! I put on a meek look, but am all smiles inside.”

“Well, I’m genuinely sorry I was about to get mad at you!”

Not that she ever looked meek or smiling.

Forget about deadpan, her expression was rigor mortis.

What a troublesome kid─though I was sure she’d only enjoy it if I looked troubled.

“Anyway,” Ononoki said, “the flip side is that hearing that I might meet Tadatsuru again someday doesn’t bother me. So thanks for the info.”

“Oh… Well, that makes it feel worthwhile.”

“You died for a noble cause.”

“Now I’m not so sure.”

“But that’s not what matters to me,” Ononoki changed the subject─and perhaps she was right. If we were going to talk about Tadatsuru, one of her creators, we also had to discuss another: Miss Kagenui, her master as a shikigami.

Whose whereabouts were currently unknown.

She wasn’t even in hell─not that it helped brighten the mood, or so I assumed Ononoki felt. I was way off.

“Tell me more about Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s complete recovery,” Ononoki said. “The issue has a direct bearing on my safety.”

“…”

“I bathed her in verbal abuse because she was a little girl, the dregs of her former self, but I need to change my tune drastically if she’s complete again. Please teach me how to speak to others in a respectful manner, monstieur?”

A-ha!

Okay, she was right about the joys of watching someone fret─all the more so when it was a cheeky shikigami tween.

“Might your mistress Heartunderblade be listening to us now from your shadow?”

“I’m not sure that came out right.”

She really didn’t know how to address people with respect.

But she wanted to know if Shinobu was in my shadow─and minor linguistic errors are fine as long as you get your point across.

In other words, I was no longer preparing for exams.

“Nope, she isn’t,” I replied. Sure, I wanted to watch her fret for a little longer, but bullying her wouldn’t get me anywhere. “Shinobu is with Miss Gaen, along with Hachikuji. They’re having a meeting about what to do next, or maybe a discussion.”

“Maybe a destination.”

“Okay, now you’re just getting the meaning of words wrong. Could you please keep your mistakes to respectful language?”

“I’m pretty sure I know what I’m talking about. They’re talking about our fate.”

“You mean our destiny.” Or our destino, which can mean both─I learned that over the course of my exam prep, and it seemed useless at the time, but I guess not.

“I wonder what’s next for us. You turned back into a regular boy at last, but are you gonna keep going? Even if you’re dancing in the palm of Miss Gaen’s hands?”

“Um, I don’t think I gave a clear answer one way or another…”

But.

I felt like I couldn’t stick my head in the sand and play dumb now─regardless of what happened next, I needed a helping hand from Miss Gaen to take care of Hachikuji and Shinobu’s problems. And she didn’t allow debts to remain unpaid─any reimbursement I could make now, I needed to attend to.

“And there’s Miss Kagenui,” I had no choice but to nervously bring up the name since Ononoki was refusing to.

I could be so considerate sometimes…

Yeah, I was showing consideration to a doll, but I couldn’t remain indifferent about Miss Kagenui. In fact, I was most interested.

Yozuru Kagenui.

And─where was Mèmè Oshino?

“Well, isn’t he just living like a vagrant as always? That’s what I think,” Ononoki said.

“I feel like the time to be that easygoing about his situation has passed… I mean, we’ve been looking and looking for him and still don’t know where he is. You realize that Hanekawa, of all people, can’t find him.”

“Ah, yes. The girl who dozen snow everything.”

“It’s doesn’t know everything.”

“She’s not a professional bounty hunter, okay? But how you view her is none of my business… As far as Big Sis goes, I assume she’s off on a journey to perfect her martial skills.”

And with that, Ononoki tried to go back to reading my manga.

She knew she couldn’t end the conversation like that, right?

No one could be that nil admirari.

She’d grown way too uninterested the moment she learned that Shinobu wasn’t present─but in her prime, Kissshot could travel anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice, in essence teleporting for goodness’ sake.

“Listen, I’m a free spirit,” Ononoki said. “I can’t do anything without instructions from Big Sis, so I can’t help out with whatever you do next. Just keep that in mind.”

“…”

Geez, I knew that without being told, why say it in such an aggravating way?

“But if you insist, I could join you on your date tomorrow.”

“Why are you so interested in coming along? Stop trying to block the path of Cupid’s arrows. This is going to be my first laidback episode in a while.” Okay, I was hoping for one, but let’s be real, it was going to be produced by Hitagi Senjogahara…

“Whaaat? But other people’s dates are such a riot. Nothing dumber than someone else’s romantic relationship.”

“I can’t lay into you because my little sisters are unmistakably to blame for your character just now…” Having yet another person in my life with that kind of a personality wasn’t so much rough, as sad─how badly did I mess up as an older brother for them to turn out that way? Both of them, but the littler little sister, Ononoki’s current owner, seemed to be getting worse by the day.

“I mean, isn’t it amusing to watch people getting worked up about something that everyone else just finds hilarious? Nothing gets me more excited than that ‘you might be serious about it, but you know I don’t give a damn!’ feeling.”

“As someone tasked by Miss Kagenui with taking care of you, I’m starting to think I need to separate you from my sisters as soon as humanly possible… But Ononoki. Does a girl like you ever feel serious about anything?”

As an expert on immortal aberrations, Miss Kagenui approached their extermination with a pretty serious air. You might assume the same of Ononoki, who acted alongside her master, but that couldn’t be what really motivated her when she was an immortal aberration herself.

In which case, what did make her serious?

“Isn’t there anything you want to do, or want to have?” I asked.

“No way.”

“How about just ‘no’?”

“I’m just a combat machine that fights as Big Sis tells me to. Aren’t you keenly aware of that already?” replied Ononoki, without even looking up from my manga. It really did feel like dealing with my little sisters… “You’re asking a mug which makes it happier, coffee getting poured into it or tea.”

“…”

Was it just me, or was she bad at coming up with examples? I got what she was saying, but it was a little confusing.

“Anyway, I’m immersing myself in the arts this time around, far away from your mundane affairs. Go ahead and dance away, monstieur. Whether it’s on Miss Gaen’s hand or someone else’s.”

“I’m not trying to drag you into it, personally…” But regarding a different matter, I indeed was curious─what her intentions were, or if dolls have no intentions, then what her function was. “In any case, Ononoki, what’re you going to do if Miss Kagenui never comes back─if she never picks you up?”

The question was cruel in a way, and asking it did pain me. It had to be asked, though. Yet Ononoki herself, stone-faced, deadpanned, “In that case─I suppose I’ll just have to spend the rest of my life here. If you get married and leave, I’ll follow you, of course.”

“You need to come up with a more realistic life plan than that. What do you mean, ‘of course’?”

“Would you have preferred an ‘or else’?”

She turned around threateningly, but her face remained blank─what a surreal image.

It was such a shame that she looked so emotionless even when she pulled off excellent reactions. Save the poker face for the poker table.

“My current mission is to monitor you, though… I can’t leave you until it’s rescinded. In other words, if Big Sis doesn’t come back, you and I will be a couple for the rest of our lives.”

“The rest of our lives?”

“Hey, could you not act so freaked out? I’m the one who’s suffering thanks to this mission. I feel like I’ve been locked in a cage with a wild animal.”

“I feel the exact same way… We’re of like minds, huh?”

We needed Miss Kagenui to return as soon as possible─yeah, I couldn’t hope for this situation to last forever. For the sake of my own future too.

“By the way, monstieur. By the by the way, monstieur. How did that test-taking business of yours go? I’ve been pretty concerned, you know.”

“You have been? Me, I’m a little concerned by your condescending tone, but I guess I appreciate the concern?” After all, Senjogahara ended up leaving without so much as touching on my test performance, and I didn’t know if that signaled trust. “Well, I did everything I could. I appreciate all the support you gave me.”

She was the first person to hear these words from me for some reason, when it should have been Senjogahara and Hanekawa─but I guess Ononoki did feel concerned about me, a test-taker living under the same roof. I wasn’t wrong to express my gratitude.

“You’re welcome. Okay…in that case, why don’t we get straight to checking your answers? Try telling me what kinds of questions you got. I’ll double-check them for you.”

“…”

As if she could.

Expertise was one thing, but sorry, academically she must be a twelve year old just like her appearance suggested.

“The material you were tested on won’t stick with you unless you double-check your answers the same day.”

“I bet that’s just something you heard, don’t pass it off as your own advice…”

“You need to start preparing for next year as soon as possible.”

“You’re also assuming I’ll have to retake my exams.”

She was getting in on this too?

I can take care of myself.

“But really, how did it go? Weren’t you in pretty bad shape after going through a massive trip through hell in the morning?”

“I won’t deny that, but we’ll say it’s a miracle that I managed to take them at all.”

“You make it sound like the experience alone was worth it─you know they aren’t free, right? Try not to cause too much trouble for your mom and dad.”

“Scolding me on my parents’ behalf? You? Anyway, I know it might sound like I’m bragging, but I feel pretty confident. Even outside of math, to some degree…”

“Hmm.”

“Well, it’d be pretty awful if I came out empty-handed despite a setup as blessed as Senjogahara and Hanekawa looking after me… I feel like I did a good enough job not to get any mud on their faces.”

“I have to say, though─mud wrestling is delightful. When do you get your results again? Before or after graduation?”

“After.”

“Okay. Then maybe hurry up and go on that date. It’d be awkward if one of you didn’t make it in.”

Nah, that wasn’t why Senjogahara picked tomorrow for our date…

“Oh, because it’s White Day? You took an excuse like that at face value?”

“How’s that an excuse? If anything, she’s being sincere.”

“True, any girl sincerely wants to be repaid threefold.”

“Threefold? Oh. I guess that’s the custom.”

As someone who didn’t care for special events, I didn’t know much about the details of White Day─but yes, I’d received chocolates from Senjogahara a month ago, on Valentine’s Day.

Threefold…

A pretty impressive interest rate for just a month when you thought about it, but if those were the rules, I wasn’t flouting them─I didn’t have that kind of spine. What did I need to buy to be ready for tomorrow, though?

“Remind me… Do I just need to give candy and marshmallows and stuff?”

“I’m fine with ice cream.”

“You didn’t give me any chocolate last month. Triple of nothing is still nothing.”

“Are you sure? Have you proven it?”

“Um.” When you phrased it that way, it was the math-lover’s sad fate to feel momentarily uncertain.

Not that I needed to prove it. The answer was obviously zero.

“We’re meeting tomorrow morning, so if I’m going to buy her something, I need to go shopping today… I’m really tired, though. I’d like to rest.”

“Right. And I’m occupying your bed, you poor thing.”

“Not an issue, I can always move you by force… What should I do, though─maybe I’ll ask my little sisters?”

“Wouldn’t they lack your heartfelt emotion? I think presents are something you need to pick yourself.”

“Hm, can’t argue with that…”

If anything, I should have prepared sooner for an important event like White Day, but it was Senjogahara who’d been telling me to give my undivided attention to test prep─she’d been freed after summer break, but I guess the last few months had been ascetic for her too.

It made me want to be that much more thoughtful about my return gift─let’s see.

“I don’t need to be so hung up on the candy part, right? This isn’t Halloween.”

“No, but be very hung up when it comes to ice cream. As opposed to frozen yogurt.”

“That’s just what you want.”

“Can you believe that Haagen-Dazs is closing all its stores here? The cups are fine, but where am I going to get cones that taste that good?”

“I don’t know… Somewhere that isn’t Japan?”

By the way, how did Halloween suddenly become so ubiquitous in our country? Perhaps people like Oshino, who cared much more about those kinds of yearly rituals, saw it as a reason to celebrate.

In any case, asking Ononoki for advice didn’t seem very productive, and I was beginning to wonder which of the forty-eight sumo techniques I should use to toss her off my bed, when she fell flat all of a sudden.

Letting go of the manga in her hands and slumping, sinking into the bed with her face down and limbs splayed, as if her batteries had run out.

Almost like an invisible enemy had landed a powerful shot to her chin─I’d been thinking sumo, but had she been boxing with an unseen foe?

No, of course not. As a shikigami aberration, her senses were hundreds of times sharper than a regular human’s─which is to say my own at that moment in time. She simply noticed that someone was approaching the room before I ever could.

In other words, she’d entered stuffed-toy mode.

A moment later.

“Big brother!”

Kicking my door open and bursting into my room like some special-forces unit was─my littler little sister, in fact. Namely Tsukihi Araragi.

A girl with the longest of hair who was wearing Japanese clothes.

Her hair so terrifyingly long that she looked like a yokai after a bath─if she wasn’t careful, she could trip on it.

“You took my doll out of my room again, didn’t you?! Oh, there she is! I knew it! You need to stop going into other people’s rooms without asking!” said the enraged girl, who’d just entered my room without asking─and while it’s not like I never enter my little sisters’ room without asking, in this case it was the doll who’d perpetrated an unauthorized entry.

As for Ononoki, she was committed to the stuffed-toy act.

She’d fallen to her face in a position that no body with a will could manage.

“You even put her on your bed? I hope you didn’t do anything weird with my precious doll.”

“You could say I was being hospitable…”

“I’m not big on stuffed animals, but I feel a sense of sympathy with that one for whatever reason. That’s why I keep on telling you that you’re not allowed to take her out of my room.”

“Sympathy, huh?”

Then again, knowing something about my sister that she herself didn’t, I had to admit that Tsukihi Araragi and Yotsugi Ononoki did have a connection. I could only praise my little sister’s instincts if she felt that way about her doll.

Of course, though Tsukihi had forgotten about it, Ononoki had come to kill her once. If her instincts were going to kick into action, they needed to run in the opposite direction instead.

“Still, Tsukihi, if you’re calling it yours and really care that much about this doll, why not give it a name?”

“Hm? Oh, no. If I gave her a name, I’d get attached to her and might hesitate when it’s time to throw her away. If you feel sympathy for someone, what you need to be thinking about is what you’ll do once that sympathy runs out.”

“…”

I couldn’t believe this little sister of mine…

Ononoki was expressionless to begin with, and now she was in stuffed-toy mode on top of that. I couldn’t tell what went through her mind, but I thought she looked appalled by her owner Tsukihi’s mindset.

I could’ve been projecting, of course…

“When that day comes, though,” my sister offered, “I’d be happy to give her to you as a hand-me-down instead of throwing her out.”

“A hand-me-down? You’d be handing her up to me…”

“So you were back,” the recently irate Tsukihi observed, calm all of a sudden─the intensity of her mood swings gave her a one-of-a-kind personality… “Now that your exams are over, you can have all the fun you want! You’re gonna be a college student starting next month! This calls for a celebration! I’ll start getting ready for one! I’ll get all the middle school girls in the area together for a party tonight!”

“How positive of you…”

Surprisingly enough, my little sister had more faith in my test-taking abilities than anyone else─but a party with every middle school girl in the area could wait, given the incalculable amount of damage it’d do to me in the off-chance that I didn’t get in.

“And Karen’s going to be a high schooler next month too. I’m going to feel left behind, all on my own. Maybe I’ll go ahead and skip a grade!”

“Is it that easy to skip a grade?”

In fact, Japan didn’t let you skip grades, as far as I knew.

Maybe with Tsukihi’s academics, though.

“Joking aside, what do you say? Why don’t we have a full day of fun tomorrow, celebrating you and Karen’s start at new schools? It’s been so long since we’ve done something like that with just the three of us.”

“Hm. Not a bad suggestion, but sadly I have a prior engagement tomorrow.” A prior engagement that had only come to be thirty minutes ago. “But if you want to do something this month, I wouldn’t mind making some time.”

I’d caught Ononoki’s haughty speech.

The idea of speaking to Tsukihi in a way influenced by Ononoki, who herself was strongly influenced by Tsukihi, made for an Ouroboros-like image.

“Hey, you sound so relaxed now,” she said nevertheless. “Until pretty recently, you’d punch your little sister if she came up and asked you to go play.”

“I was that rough of a brother?!”

I didn’t remember anything like that.

True, I wasn’t on as bad of terms with my little sisters as I’d been in the past─perhaps both people and your relationships with others never stay the same?

Especially over the last year. So much had happened.

Yes─with Karen, and with Tsukihi.

Tsukihi in particular, during summer break…I thought as I turned to Ononoki, but she lay there on the bed like a corpse.

Well, she actually was a corpse.

“Okay, then we’ll go somewhere this month,” Tsukihi said.

“Sure. I’ll leave the planning up to you,” I let the moment carry me away. Entrusting her with plans to have fun made me about as anxious as entrusting Senjogahara to come up with a date plan─there was something alike in the two, after all.

“Broadly speaking, which would you rather go to? The mountains or the sea?”

“I’d like to go to a mountain in the sea.”

“What, like the Castle of the Undersea Devil?” she shot back, not missing a beat. “I see. But you’re going on a date with Miss Senjogahara tomorrow? I’m so jealous, you’re such a passionate couple. Me and Rosokuzawa have been dating so long that things between us have quieted down. I mean, I invited him to go somewhere on White Day and he ended up vaguely turning me down.”

“…”

It seemed like only a matter of time before my little sister broke up with him. Vaguely? What a pathetic kid.

“Wait, did I ever say my plans were with Senjogahara?”

“You didn’t have to. Plans on March fourteenth? It has to be either your girlfriend or Einstein.”

“It’d be a huge deal if it was Einstein. People would start celebrating that on the fourteenth instead of White Day. Though I’d love to chat with him if we could…”

The story is that Einstein’s last words were in German, and his nurse didn’t understand what he said. I doubted the likes of me could keep up a conversation even if language wasn’t a problem, though.

Thinking that Oikura’s choice would probably be Euler, I continued, “Well, you’re right. I guess I want you to tell me…to ask you what’d make you happy if you got it as a White Day gift.”

“Some loving, caring cash.”

“…”

Greedy little sister.

She wasn’t any help. And it wasn’t some appetizer of a joke preceding her real answer, but the main course itself, served from the heart, because Tsukihi switched topics.

“Okay, then. In that case, I’ll pay Nadeko a visit tomorrow to see how she’s doing. She’s out of the hospital now, but still recovering at home. She said she’ll start going to school once the new term starts. She must be lonely stuck at home all by herself, so I’ll head over and make some noise!”

“You’ve been visiting her a lot, haven’t you,” I replied point-blank. It was my honest thought. “Frankly, I’m surprised. I knew you and Sengoku were friends, but I never thought you two were that close.”

“You’re wrong! We’re best friends!”

Tsukihi snickered, showing no signs of being serious, but it seemed pretty clear that Sengoku had her to thank for somehow finding her way back into society after everything that happened.

The conman wasn’t to thank for it. I of course hadn’t done anything─unable to.

Impressive.

Then again, I suppose it wasn’t for nothing that Tsukihi served as the brains of the Fire Sisters and had the support of all the area middle schoolers.

“She even told me a secret the other day.”

“A secret? Like what?”

“I can’t tell you, it’s a secret.”

“…”

“Listen, just leave Nadeko to me and go have a lovey-dovey time with Miss Senjogahara! I’ve got an airtight alibi for you!”

“Um, when did I ask for one?”

“Transfer trains multiple times!”

“A timetable-based alibi…”

What kind of a date was that? Maybe if you were a rail fan─not that I knew if Senjogahara was one.

“By the way, what’s Karen doing tomorrow? With, um, what’s-his-name.”

“Mizudori.”

“Right. Is she going on a date with what’s-his-name?”

“You really have no interest at all in learning your sisters’ boyfriends’ names, do you? Mm, no, Karen said she’d be going to her dojo tomorrow. I guess to celebrate her graduation, rather than starting at her new school? Her master had a cool idea, and she’s getting to go through a hundred-man kumite.”

“Why on White Day…”

Romance was a foreign concept to both of my little sisters. They were making it seem like I was the only one floating in air.

Putting Karen aside, I admit it weighed on my conscience a bit that Tsukihi was visiting Sengoku…

“She’s done a hundred-man kumite before,” Tsukihi said, “but Karen wants to win every match this time around. If she does, she’ll be granted a full-contact match with her master.”

“Wow, she’s been living a tale of her own…”

She ought to be the main character instead.

I felt like an improviser, the way I let my situation dictate my actions. Most of my story seemed ad-libbed.

“As the youngest sibling, it makes me proud that you and Karen are moving forward and growing, one step at a time,” Tsukihi then said. “I guess I’m the only one who hasn’t changed.”