010
“Sorry, Tsukihi, but could you go back home on your own? Take my bike─I need to talk to your big brother about something very important. The combination on the chain is 1234,” Ogi said, getting my sister to leave. The trivial combination seemed so her to me by this point.
We were now alone in the classroom.
I’d faced Oshino time and again in these ruins but never expected to be greeting someone in his position. Not to mention entering a burned-down abandoned cram school─a place you could also call the start of it all, which made putting an end to it all here almost too perfect.
Overdirected, even.
“Ogi. How did you create this abandoned building? The same way you recreated Year 1, Class 3 the first time we met?”
“No, the method is a little different─I had to put more into that. Meanwhile, this building just took the ability to generate matter. You know, like Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade─Shinobu Oshino does so often.” Inspecting the tables lying around the classroom as she spoke, the germophobic girl selected a chair she deigned to sit in and dragged it up to me. “Not much care has been put into the details, so you can find rough edges all over the place, but it was a rush job. Please overlook them. Pray find warmth in the handmade feel of a papier-mâché structure… Ah, and speaking of Shinobu, what’s she up to? She should’ve regained her full powers, but she isn’t with you? Is she lurking in your shadow?”
“Not yet. Restoring our link─binding us to each other again is something we agreed to put off until it’s over.”
“Huh.” She sat down facing me, with her knees together and feet slightly apart. “Is that so─I was only asking if she’s here, but I see. So Shinobu wants to go right back to where she started. And you─after going to hell and back to exorcise yourself, not only stopping your transformation into a vampire but becoming fully human again─want to become a mockery of a human of a pathetic excuse of a vampire again. How masochistic.”
“What can I say. I love little girls,” I replied. Thinking how meaningless our conversation was.
“You’d throw your life away for a little girl─you may have exorcised your demons, but couldn’t do anything about the devil on your shoulder. Now, tell me, what will become of the young girl?”
“We make her into the god of Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─but that’s also going to wait until it’s over.”
“Hm. Tying up every loose end into a nice little bow, I see. What to do with that shrine, that massive hole opened in this town, was a serious problem, but what a convenient solution.”
“A problem─in other words, it was part of your job?”
“I suppose… I told you something of the sort, didn’t I─but come on, why take every little thing so seriously?”
Ha haa, she laughed with cheer.
Her stance didn’t seem to change in particular even now─the same Ogi Oshino as ever, her approach to life consistent from the time I first met her in October.
“Regarding your job─my little sister…” Wondering how I might segue into the topic, I gingerly touched on Tsukihi, who’d just left the scene. “Did you two have a nice fun talk?”
“We were only in the middle of talking─don’t worry, I didn’t get far enough to lay any trap. I had to leave my job halfway done, how disappointing.”
“Was I wrong to interrupt?”
“You were right to. I was trying to do the right thing as well, but it ended as an attempt. In any case, it’d have been in vain. We exchanged a few words on the way, but she’s a tough one. As overwhelming as you’d expect an undying bird to be. I have to wonder, how did Yozuru Kagenui plan on ridding the world of something with that much vitality?”
“Don’t we get rid of monsters─by revealing their true nature?”
“What I’m saying is that you can’t get rid of her even then, thanks to an older brother who knows her true nature and stubbornly loves her.”
“…”
“Hm. Maybe that’s why Yozuru Kagenui gave up on her─though I can’t see it going the same way for me.”
“…”
“Am I wrong? You’ll expose my true nature here and get rid of me. That’s what’s going to happen, right?” She stared at me, appraising me with her dark black eyes despite her defeatist words. “All in all, I did get pretty far─in fact, if failure was inevitable with Tsukihi, I left nothing undone even if it didn’t all go right. Maybe my existence wasn’t futile… Sorry, I hate to keep going back to this, but are you sure Shinobu Oshino isn’t here?”
“She isn’t.”
“With Yotsugi Ononoki already neutralized…I’ll skip over Mayoi Hachikuji if she hasn’t been deified yet…but Izuko Gaen, the lynch pin, isn’t here either?”
“Of course─” was a strange way to put it, but in any case, it was just me there. That’s probably what Ogi wanted to make sure of. “Making this a one-on-one duel,” I assured, my words insincere.
“Well, isn’t that exciting.”
Ogi broke into a big smile─I say so, but this was nothing new. She was always smiling.
I’d always thought of it as a show of composure, but for the first time I wondered if it brimmed with resignation.
Maybe, weary of the world and aware of its impermanence, hers was a poignant expression.
“What an honor it is to square off against the storied veteran Koyomi Araragi─my goodness. I was prepared to have Izuko Gaen get in my way, enchanted blade Kokorowatari in hand, in which case I’d have stood a chance of winning. I bet this is her secret to getting ahead in life, making her friends do the important stuff.”
“I’m sure it’s that too. But I think this is something I need to do myself. Something that only I can do, that I want to do alone.”
“You want to, huh? Are you sure an adult didn’t trick you into thinking that? Are you really working yourself to the bone for the sake of Shinobu and Hachikuji, or is it just inertia?” What a fool, mocked Ogi. “We tend to overvalue things that we nearly lost─but you’ll never arrive at the future if you let nostalgia tie you down. Oh, by the way, I’m begging for my life here.”
“…Begging for your life?”
“Don’t you remember? I asked if you’d side with me. I asked you to save me─but I guess you callously rejected me. Maybe I wasn’t charming enough.”
She almost seemed to be having fun. Her amused air was kind of sad too now.
“It’s the right choice, Araragi-senpai, right you are. Look at that, so you can do the right thing─though I wanted you to decline, unfortunately. Umm. Do you have any plans after this?”
“I told you. I’m putting Shinobu back in my shadow, and I’ll watch over Hachikuji’s apotheosis─there’s a lot of other straightening-out to do, so I need to have a discussion with Miss Gaen.”
“Oh. I was hoping we could go get food or something if you were free. Well, you seem quite busy, and I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck here forever, so shall we bring things to an end?”
“Yeah, I think.”
I didn’t want to draw this out. That’d just be nasty. I needed to end her with one blow─with one word.
I couldn’t side with her. I couldn’t save her. If I could do her any favors, that was it.
“Ah, right, there’s something I wanted to say, Araragi-senpai. About your entrance exams… You feel you did pretty well, but the section for your best subject, math? Partway through, you skipped a bubble and started filling them in for the wrong questions.”
“What?!”
“After everything, you must’ve been flustered─my condolences. With an accident like that in your best subject, your odds are hopeless. Keep at it through next year,” Ogi said meanly.
She’d landed a punch. At the same time, I took her encouragement at face value.
Because next year─did exist for me.
“Ogi. You’re actually…”
I said it, thinking back to every last event since I’d encountered Ogi Oshino.
“You’re actually me.”
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