Monogatari Series - Volume 2 - Chapter 3.8

008

The Rainy Devil is apparently a very violent devil─there’s nothing it loves more than human malice and hostility, vengeance and chagrin, jealousy and envy, negative emotions in general. It sees into the darkest side of a person, provokes it, draws it out, then makes it real. It listens to people’s wishes out of spite and grants them out of spite. The contract itself─is in the form of three granted wishes in exchange for a human soul. It’s said that once the three wishes are granted─it takes that person’s life and body. In other words, he or she becomes the devil by the end. That was its nature. So if Kanbaru had made a wish to resolve Senjogahara’s secret upon learning about it a year ago, it probably wouldn’t have been granted. The Rainy Devil can only grant violent, negative wishes.

The devil reads the flip side of a wish.

There’s always something─on the back.

She wanted to become faster because she hated her classmates.

She wanted to be by Senjogahara’s side─because she hated Koyomi Araragi.

Yes, it reads the backside.

Yes, it looks at the backside.

It sees into our unconscious desires.

The devil─sees through us.

She may not have regretted stepping away─but resented anyone stepping into that position. If someone could, why not her?

Why couldn’t it be me.

The Rainy Devil.

A devil told of in Europe since long ago.

It’s often depicted as a monkey wearing a raincoat.

In that sense, it might be correct to call that left hand a monkey’s paw─but either way, both the first and the second wishes had been Kanbaru’s own unconscious ones, clear but hidden.

Against the classmates who teased her.

And me.

Her classmates in grade school had gotten off with injuries, while I was nearly killed… Was that due to a difference in how strongly she felt, the volume of her negative emotions? What I’d posited about Kanbaru’s maturation as an athlete must have had something to do with it too, but there was also a greater psychological factor.

Well, anyway, Oshino was right.

Maybe I hadn’t given it enough thought.

If Kanbaru had really wished to the Rainy Devil to be by Senjogahara’s side, it didn’t make sense for her to feel concerned about my safety─given the grade school episode, her violent left hand would try to eliminate Koyomi Araragi, but how could Kanbaru, from her standpoint, know that for sure? Precisely how her left hand would grant the wish, in what unintended manner it would go about it, should have been opaque to her.

But she unconsciously knew what she unconsciously wished for.

She knew that I was in danger.

If the monster in the raincoat didn’t appear before me as soon as the aberration melded with her left hand, that was because Kanbaru was trying to control the impulse, according to Oshino. She was right on the edge, in conflict with it, struggling against it.

“Working hard to become faster is like the ultimate in self-regarding excuses. The paw wasn’t doing anything because she made her own wish come true─what a patently ridiculous idea. Missy herself might’ve believed it, might’ve wanted to believe it, and that was by no means wrong, but the wish the Rainy Devil violently granted was the backside rather than the front. Still, her stance of always having managed on her own had a good effect this time around…and while the aberration merged with her arm, she was able to suppress it. When you look at it that way, aberrations like these are really like items. The owner’s mindset is a factor…but to be realistic about it, in this case it’s just an arm, so the Rainy Devil must be unable to exercise too much of its power, a devil though it may be. It couldn’t draw out of her an unconscious to surpass her consciousness. In other words, her left hand didn’t activate while she was concerned about your wellbeing. All of her stalking since four days ago had exactly the effect she wanted, though it might not have been missy’s intention, since all of this occurred in the unconscious. But─yesterday, was it? She learned that you and li’l missy tsundere would be meeting all alone for a so-called study session. Until then, your dating was only a rumor, it might have been untrue, but that’s when, alas, missy became certain. And─she couldn’t hold back anymore. It’s exactly as you surmised, Araragi.”

The devil found an opening and wormed its way into her heart.

Oshino didn’t put it that way, of course.

He thoroughly despised that sort of spoiled weakness.

But─

It was jealousy, from beginning to end─and Kanbaru had been saying as much.

She’d been saying it.

“Mm, that ought to do,” I told Shinobu.

I’d had her suck my blood right up to the limit, locked in an embrace, and now I tapped her tiny back twice. Shinobu gently removed her fangs from the two holes in my neck─and licked clean the few drops of blood that dribbled in the process. Maybe I needed to start wondering if our embrace fell under Senjogahara’s definition of cheating, but since this was the only way the task could be accomplished, I’d have to beg her to let it go. Unlike during spring break, Shinobu’s figure was now so minute and helpless, and hugging her as I did felt like hugging fog or mist, there was so little in my hands.

“…Oops.”

I stood up from my crouched position─and felt a little dizzy. It was natural, of course, but I did feel almost anemic right after having my blood sucked─and this time, especially, I’d given her a lot.

Nearly five times more than the default amount.

I hopped up and down a bit.

Then again, my senses and bodily sensation didn’t feel much different from usual… All of my stats got raised across the board, so it wasn’t easy to discern exactly how I compared to my normal state.

Shinobu was already back to sitting on the floor.

Sitting there…with both of her arms wrapped around her legs as if to confirm her own presence.

She didn’t even look in my direction.

“……”

A good and kind person, huh?

I could insist that I wasn’t either of those things all day long, but when it came down to it, the prime victim was still this blond vampire… I supposed I couldn’t blame Oshino for his cutting remark.

Forget me. For Shinobu…

I grabbed her goggled helmet and gave it a good shake right and left. For a while, she ignored it and didn’t react, but it must have gotten legitimately annoying because she swatted my hand away.

Yeah.

Satisfied for the time being, I did as Oshino advocated and left without parting words, turning my back on her and climbing the stairs down to the third floor from the landing. I’d bring her a present next time, maybe donut holes or something, I thought as I bypassed the third floor and headed to the second.

Across from me, in front of a door on the opposite side of the hallway─awaited Mèmè Oshino, his arms crossed, leaning back against a wall, casually dangling one foot in the air.

“Hey. I’ve been waiting, Araragi. Looks like you took longer than expected.”

“Yup. I had a little trouble figuring out the limit. I might have shorted her…but it’s better than letting her go overboard. For me and for Shinobu.”

“Hmm. I guess that’s true, but you don’t need to be so sensitive about little Shinobu. Because her existence is bound by my name, nothing extreme is going to happen. Naming is taming. If anything, I’m more worried about her starving. You’re going to be grappling and fighting it out with a devil in a moment, Araragi, so you can’t afford such concerns, I don’t think? You don’t want to end up being the comic relief. Hitting the ceiling still wouldn’t give you good odds for this match, okay? Even if your opponent is no more than a left arm.”

…Our measure against the Rainy Devil.

An authentic exorcism is a major affair that takes lots of time and effort, and despite the Rainy Devil’s low ranking, it would be no cakewalk even for Oshino. This was coming from him, so I took it with a grain of salt─but I was convinced, at least, that he didn’t intend to partake this time.

Unlike with Senjogahara’s case.

You could call Senjogahara’s crab another kind of aberration that granted a wish─but that was a god, and this was a devil. Even an amateur like myself could tell it wasn’t going to be simple.

Kanbaru, with “god” in her name, and a devil.

It was not so much a hint as plain irony.

But─we didn’t have the time or the effort to spare.

If we didn’t hurry, my life might come to an end that very night. Me getting killed, or Kanbaru’s left arm getting cut off─unfortunately, I wasn’t so unattached to living as to accept the former manner of resolving the story. But cutting off Kanbaru’s left arm was flat out of the question.

Which left us with option three.

“The contract, huh?” I said. “Well, I hope that’s all it takes for the devil to go back to its demonic or spiritual or whatever world.”

“The demonic and the spiritual aren’t different worlds, they refer to ‘here’─but the complicated stuff will start to feel like an argument we’ve already had, so maybe next time. It’s going to work, I’ll guarantee you that much, Araragi. If the contract can’t be fulfilled─it becomes void. I won’t call it a ‘cooling off’ period, but missy’s wish will be properly invalidated too. The poor incompetent devil who didn’t cut it will slink off without a word.”

The devil will slink off.

If it can’t fulfill the contract.

“In other words─if the devil can’t kill me.”

“Hyup.” Oshino chuckled. “Having given little Shinobu as much blood as possible only means so much, though… If you went about it like you had a mere tenth of the power you manifested over spring break, when you were actually a vampire, you’d still be overestimating your capabilities.”

“…That’s a pretty bleak fraction.”

“But you’re facing just the left hand of that Rainy Devil─you’d have no chance against the whole thing, but with the ‘dead weight’ of a human being on top of it, I’d say you have a ten or twelve or fourteen to one chance of winning,” Oshino assured most ambiguously.

The Rainy Devil is a completely different type of aberration from the Monkey’s Paw─the only trait the two have in common is that they grant wishes, and the devil, as you can tell from its association with a raincoat, has a full set of body parts (how you define ‘body’ is relevant here, but let’s leave that aside). Yet I was facing just the left hand─and it had been mummified, too, probably thanks to a reliable seal, according to Oshino.

“Missy’s mother’s lineage seems to have been the issue─could it also have been why they ended up eloping? Well, I don’t mean to expose or nose around a stranger’s family situation with an offhanded guess. A mummified devil is actually quite a feat, though I’ve heard of mummified mermaids and the like. Hm, personally, if it only went down to the wrist when missy got it, what happened to the remaining parts does make me curious.”

Mother…

Hitagi Senjogahara, Mayoi Hachikuji.

Both of their aberrations─involved their mothers.

Suruga Kanbaru was continuing that trend, then.

Apparently, just like her father, her mother had been disowned by her parents after eloping and Kanbaru was completely estranged from that side of her family, so there didn’t seem to be any hope of finding out more…

“By the way,” I asked, “what if this Rainy Devil had all of its body parts? Could it even beat Shinobu at her peak?”

“Not a chance. It’s a low-level fiend at the end of the day, toothless against a real vampire. We aren’t even talking about Mephistopheles here, so it’d take her no more than a couple of seconds. She’d pulverize every one of its assembled limbs, slurp up every fluid in its body, and that would be it. Have you forgotten that our little Shinobu used to be a fearsome, legendary vampire? Of course it’d be no match for her. Given the Rainy Devil’s ranking, I’d say that even li’l missy class president’s lust-besotted cat was easily stronger than it. Oh, but don’t try to have Shinobu help out, okay? That may let us defeat the thing, but we’d have to cut off missy’s arm for real. You, yourself, defeating it─that’s the whole point.”

“The Rainy Devil takes over a person’s body by granting wishes, right? Every time it grants one, you get closer to the devil… The mummified hand must have grown from the wrist to the elbow because it granted Kanbaru’s first wish, but then what, Oshino? If her second wish, her murderous hatred for me, and some third wish were granted, what would happen to her? At that rate, wouldn’t taking over her just mean growing up to her shoulder or so?”

“I can only reply to that question like a bureaucrat: there’s no precedent I can refer to. But considering the ratio, it seems reasonable to presume as you just did that it’ll only go up to the shoulder even if it takes over her. Still, Araragi, that doesn’t change anything. Being usurped up to your shoulder is the same as being usurped whole. It’s like a publicly traded company having thirty percent of its stock acquired.”

“…I guess.”

“Her soul would get extracted either way, and she’d be an empty husk. Oh, I’ll hold on to your bag and any valuables, Araragi. It’ll be hard for you to maneuver carrying all that.”

“Oh, yeah… Thanks. Could you take these, then?”

I pulled my cell phone and house keys out of my back and jacket pockets, tossed them into my backpack, and handed it to Oshino. Okay, he said, slinging it over his shoulder.

“But Araragi─can I ask you just one question?”

“What is it?”

“Why help even someone who tried to kill you? It might have been unconscious, the flip side of her wish─but missy hated you. She saw you as a hated rival in love.” His usual mean jabbing─didn’t seem to be what this was. “To begin with, why did you decide to hear missy out when you learned that it was her in the raincoat? Normally, at that point, there’d be no more need for questions or answers─you ought to have skipped her right then and come straight to me.”

“…Everyone’s going to have someone they hate. That’s part of being alive. I don’t have any interest in being killed, but if Kanbaru was doing this because she pined for Senjogahara─”

For every aberration, there was a reason.

If that was her reason─

“─I can forgive her.”

If I was right from the start as Oshino said, then nothing had changed. I’d just gone back to the beginning, and Monkey’s Paws and Rainy Devils didn’t have anything to do with it. True, I hadn’t imagined that she saw me as her rival in love, but even then.

Underhanded calculations.

Scheming persistence.

Maybe I was a good and kind person, but I wasn’t exactly pure and virtuous like Hanekawa.

Tsubasa Hanekawa.

The girl with a pair of mismatched wings.

…If I was jealous of anyone, it was her.

I really was─envious, even.

“Oh. Well, if that’s what you’ve decided, Araragi, then sure. It’s fine by me and none of my business. In that case, get in there and help missy out. I should caution you, once you enter, you won’t be able to leave until it’s over. The door absolutely won’t open from inside. Brace yourself because escape is not an option. Think very well back to spring break about situations from which there’s no turning back, and be prepared, understand? …And of course, whatever happens, little Shinobu or I won’t come save you. Don’t forget that I’m an inordinate pacifist and an ill-timed humanitarian. I’m going up to the fourth floor to get some sleep once I see you enter this classroom, so the rest is up to you. No need to say bye to me when you leave, neither you nor missy. Little Shinobu will be asleep by then, too, so just leave on your own.”

“…Sorry for the hassle.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Oshino moved from his spot on the wall to open the door.

I slipped in without hesitation.

As soon as I did, Oshino shut the door.

I couldn’t leave now.

A classroom located in the back of the second floor─it was laid out the exact same way as the fourth-floor classroom but was the only one in the entire ruins whose windows were sealed. That isn’t to say that there weren’t shards of glass all over the floor here too. Rather, numerous planks of thick wood were nailed over the empty window frames just like people used to do when hurricanes came along. So single-mindedly many boards that it made you wonder why. Once the door shut, not a ray of light shone in─it was already the middle of the night, but not even starlight.

It was pitch black.

But─I could see.

Just having given plenty of blood to Shinobu, I could see through the darkness. In fact, in my current state, I could see better in the dark─and I slowly took in my surroundings.

I found it in no time.

It was there, standing in the not-so-large classroom─

Raincoat.

“…Hey,” I called out to it, but there was no response.

It seemed she was already─in a trance.

The body was Suruga Kanbaru’s─but its left arm, and for now, its soul was the Rainy Devil’s… If you’re wondering about the raincoat, Kanbaru ran off to grab one from the nearest general store while I was having Shinobu drink my blood. You could say the raincoat wasn’t necessary, or at least it was an optional, non-essential item, but it served as per usual a ceremonial purpose to set the mood and scene.

The desks and chairs in the classroom were in the way and had been removed─so now only Kanbaru and I stood there. The Rainy Devil’s left arm and a mock-vampire nonhuman.

Two beings that were not quite. It seemed like an even fight.

No─actually, I couldn’t let it be an even fight.

I had to overwhelm the devil.

Just like the night before, beneath the raincoat’s hood lurked a deep pit, and I couldn’t make out what was in there, let alone any expression─

“………”

The most standard measure against an aberration that grants wishes, like Rainy Devils and Monkey’s Paws, is to wish for something it cannot grant.

A wish that’s too grand.

Or a contradictory wish.

A wish that is completely impossible.

A wish that would put it in a double bind, between a rock and a hard place.

Like a bucket with no bottom, as Oshino put it. That lets you drive off the aberration, see beyond the aberration─or so he said.

But Kanbaru had already made her wish in this case─she wanted to be by Senjogahara’s side. And for that─Koyomi Araragi was in the way. She hated Koyomi Araragi, and she wanted to kill Koyomi Araragi, she ended up wishing unconsciously. The Rainy Devil was trying to answer to that wish as stated.

A wish can’t be canceled.

Since she did think it, even for a moment, it was too late.

In which case, the logic needed to be turned on its head.

The very same wish should be made impossible.

Koyomi Araragi should be an entity that no mere Rainy Devil could kill─

“I guess this is a case of being able to argue your way out of anything─a little on the sophistic side if you ask me, like we’re monkeying around with the rules, but hey, if it works… Oops!”

I don’t know what triggered it─but Raincoat suddenly leapt toward me. Suruga Kanbaru’s jumping chops─amplified by the intensity of her hatred. Normally, the speed would have defied my eyes like the night before─but things were different now.

I could see just fine.

And also react─

“Wait, wh-whoa!”

With a centrifugal twist of my torso, I dodged Raincoat’s left fist─a very close call. Completing the spin, I moved away─it was lame, but I needed to regain my footing.

What was going on?

I wanted to say it was even faster than the night before─no, my eyes were still adjusting, that was all. Anyway, if I evaded Raincoat’s left hand’s attacks and waited for my opening, then targeted the “dead weight” that was Kanbaru’s body, caught it, and pinned it down─

“………kk!”

It was already─on me.

Ridiculous, I didn’t expect to overwhelm Raincoat when it came to speed, but mine ought to have been enhanced far beyond last night thanks to Shinobu, and yet, as easily as this─Raincoat brandished its left fist at me. I couldn’t dodge to the left, I needed to get on its right somehow, outside─

The bared, dark and hairy arm grazed my cheek and missed. I felt like the gusts in its wake were ripping my body apart─but kicked at Raincoat’s exposed flank.

…I’m sorry, Kanbaru!

I apologized to her in my heart.

As expected, apart from its left hand Raincoat was fairly normal─its body flew straight in the direction of my kick, lost its balance, and fell on all fours to the linoleum floor.

Indeed, controlling just the left arm posed a disadvantage for Raincoat. It was horribly imbalanced and obvious that the rest of the package couldn’t keep up.

But then, what was up with its speed? Had Raincoat not been serious the night before? Did it get faster in response to my enhanced abilities? But what need was there for an aberration to hold back?

I didn’t get it.

I still didn’t─as Raincoat got up.

Hmm… Even ignoring the fact that the body was Kanbaru’s, I couldn’t bring myself to kick an opponent who was down…

I knew I had to, but I was reluctant, even though I couldn’t afford to be in this case.

A good and kind person.

Ugh, I hated that label.

How nice that your lack of personality was getting smoothed over.

In a beeline, Raincoat’s left fist smashed into my right shoulder this time─that catapult of a fist. It must have aimed for my median line, but I was able to avoid that…not completely, though. I couldn’t fully acquire it─it was too fast. I hurtled back about ten feet… With my sense of equilibrium, I flipped midair and landed on my feet. Raincoat’s left hand had turned my bicycle into a crumpled piece of paper and demolished a concrete wall, but unlike yesterday, my body neither flew an absurd distance nor got wrecked. I suffered some damage, of course, but not to the extent that I couldn’t move. My shoulder was dislocated and probably also fractured, but it was nothing that my vampiric regeneration couldn’t heal right away. The sharp pain went away in an instant, too. If anything felt nostalgic, this was it. Oh, I couldn’t wait for sunrise… Just how badly was I gonna get burnt?

But I didn’t have time to be thinking about that. Because Raincoat followed up where I landed─and follow up, it did. Raincoat knew no doubt. Its left fist now went for my head. The punch caught me right in my face with its eyes that had yet to adjust. I was treated to the sound of my nose snapping. That was in my current state, which meant a normal human head would have been blown to smithereens; the destructive force was that terrifying even to imagine. I pathetically crawled away to get some distance from Raincoat, and as I did, my broken nose healed. I loathed the feeling. It was as if I’d become an amoeba or something. And this was at a tenth─my spring break had been hell.

I was able to dodge the next punch.

But the one after that nicked me.

“……Dammit!”

Why?

Why couldn’t I dodge them altogether?

Though the strikes themselves described efficient straight lines, Raincoat’s overall attacking motion, merely thrusting out its left fist with such brute force I half-expected it to go flying off its shoulder like an anime robot’s rocket-propelled punch, was crude─it didn’t telegraph its movements, but that was all, and I should have been able to track it, so why couldn’t I? Why couldn’t I get out of its way? It was clearly several notches faster than the day before. Not so much its power…I could take one or two, no, a few dozen clean shots and still be in the fight with my current build, so why was just its speed so out of sight?

Something wasn’t like yesterday…

Raincoat…

The bared left arm, the beastly hand.

…Its right arm was bare too, but like whatever lurked under the hood, it had the air of some deep pit that you could and could not see─wait, no. That was what had changed. Raincoat had been wearing rubber gloves the day before─neither of its arms had been exposed. But what of it? Wearing rubber gloves shouldn’t have slowed it down.

And then I realized.

I realized my mistake.

Not the rubber gloves─the rubber boots!

Kanbaru had only bought a raincoat at the general store… She hadn’t gotten rubber gloves or rubber boots─not because we decided that setting the mood didn’t require the whole getup, but simply because we didn’t think of it. I didn’t know how the original Rainy Devil was depicted, but the raincoat had been enough of a hint to tip off Oshino. If just a raincoat did a good enough job of expressing the aberration and its character, then Kanbaru and I weren’t exactly amiss.

But─if Raincoat wasn’t wearing rubber boots, then that meant it was wearing sneakers. One glance was all I needed to confirm the fact. Its feet weren’t bare just because its hands were. Raincoat was still wearing the shoes that Kanbaru had on.

The unmistakably expensive sneakers.

Compared to rubber boots─they let you move at a different definition of speed.

Especially if you were an athlete of Suruga Kanbaru’s caliber.

“…Yikes.”

Openly shackling or binding Kanbaru’s feet or attaching any kind of weight to her body would have been out given our strategy, or objective─but a simple pair of rubber boots was certainly a feasible handicap… Why had we gone and created conditions where Raincoat could make full and unfettered use of its powers? Suruga Kanbaru’s body was supposed to serve as dead weight, to drag not her feet but her left hand down, but instead she was acting as a nimble attachment to that arm!

Urk…

I couldn’t believe how bad I was at closing the deal…

Just evading was no longer an option. Since my body wasn’t going to accumulate any damage, I wouldn’t be chipped to death like in a fighting game as long as I barely managed to avoid half of its attacks, but that wouldn’t complete my assignment of pulling off an overwhelming victory. It didn’t seem like an issue of my eyes adjusting. I needed to face Raincoat’s attacks head-on even if both of us might go down as a result. I lowered my hips and held my hands out like a goalie preparing for a penalty kick─or was a man-to-man basketball defense the more appropriate analogy?

However, another catapult strike, a clear violation of the rules of basketball (what would that violation be called?), shot toward the base of my neck, and I tried to stop it with both of my hands, my right hand meeting Raincoat’s fist, my left hand grabbing its wrist, and the rest of my body wrapping around its left arm─but didn’t make it in time. No, in fact, my right and left hands did make it in time, but I couldn’t stop the catapult. I felt a number of my finger bones breaking, then the left fist striking my collarbone immediately after. My body lurched backwards, but I somehow stood firm on my back foot─I hadn’t stopped the blow but at least reduced its force before it reached my torso.

Before Raincoat could pull back its fist, I used both of my hands, their fingers already healed, to grab its left arm─finally accomplishing my initial goal of halting its movements. At last, I had gotten ahold of Raincoat. All right, and now─

“I’m sorry, Kanbaru!”

Apologizing out loud this time, and pinning the left arm with both of my hands as Raincoat struggled to shake free, I attacked its legs, stomach, and chest with three successive sidekicks. It was an impossible attack for a normal human body to perform given the way we’re built. Unlike Raincoat, who could only attack with its left fist, I could use all four of my limbs and had to make full use of my advantage.

Raincoat’s left arm flailed like mad.

It was vulnerable.

Oshino was right. I probably didn’t stand a chance against a fully formed Rainy Devil as I was, but I could overwhelm it if I denied it its left arm─the fist’s damage, I could heal instantly as long as I didn’t take multiple hits in a row, which meant the bigger threat was Kanbaru’s boosted leg strength, and the bit about her sneakers was indeed unexpected, but having trapped it like this─all I had to do was kick the Rainy Devil into submission. If it wouldn’t cry uncle, then until it was no more. It was nearly like torture, the right equivalent of Suruga-toi, so it didn’t feel great, but we weren’t going to tear off Kanbaru’s left arm, and we certainly weren’t going to end her life, so my only choice was to continue attacking and inflicting pain until the devil left her─

Raincoat’s legs buckled.

My constant low kicks were finally paying off─or so I thought, but it wasn’t the case. The leg that I─no, that it threw off balance came arcing at my jaw along the shortest and quickest possible route. Not its left arm, but its left leg─Kanbaru’s long leg threaded its way past the rest of my body to land a high roundhouse kick right on my temple. The force of the blow was of course nothing compared to the left arm’s, but this was still Kanbaru’s dash burst converted into attack power, plus I had been caught completely off guard.

My brain was rattled and my vision blurred for a moment. Damaging the sensory organs of a (mock) vampire was definitely effective─an important lesson I had learned over spring break.

I had to let go of Raincoat’s left arm.

To defend against the kick that followed.

I held my arms out like a cross and took it, and while inferior to the left-arm catapult─the impact scrambled my thoughts due to its sheer inexplicability.

It could use more than its left arm?

But hadn’t Oshino said “dead weight”?

“…Does this mean what I think it does?”

I could only come up with one possible answer.

If the Rainy Devil’s source of energy was human negativity, then it was feeding off of Suruga Kanbaru’s jealousy toward me─if the left fist was a catapult, then Kanbaru’s body was the aircraft carrier itself. Her heated passions, her inflamed emotions created the high-pressure steam channeled into her muscles. That’s why her body wasn’t dragging the left arm down as dead weight─well, perhaps it did under normal circumstances but wasn’t loath to mount a defense when the Rainy Devil was in a pinch?

No, that was sophistry.

If I was going to say that I forgave Kanbaru, I mustn’t resort to arguments that circumvented the truth─it wasn’t fair to describe it as some spinal reflex, like an electrical current jolting a frog’s leg.

In other words.

Kanbaru’s legs moved of her own will.

Suruga Kanbaru’s will had a part in this.

Unconsciously, Kanbaru was─refusing.

To lose her Rainy Devil left arm.

To let her second wish go unfulfilled.

To let me live.

She wasn’t giving up─Senjogahara.

“…Scheming persistence.”

I understand how you feel.

So much that it hurts.

So much that I hurt.

Because─I lost, threw something away, too.

Because I’ll never get it back.

For some reason, Raincoat stood still. Having sent its left fist after me so tenaciously in simple straight lines, like a simple magnet being drawn toward an object, now it stood unmoving─almost as if it were puzzling over something.

Or maybe.

As if it were doubtful.

Raincoat’s unhesitant movements─had stopped.

…Suruga Kanbaru.

Hitagi Senjogahara’s junior.

The basketball star.

Please, just cut it off─she’d said.

Right after Oshino had revealed the truth, that her left arm wasn’t a Monkey’s Paw but a Devil’s Hand, that her wishes had been granted as she’d made them, after the awful truth that didn’t need to be exposed had been…she’d cast her eyes down for a few seconds, faced up bravely, and looked at Oshino and me in turn to say so.

“I don’t need this left hand.”

For once, without that smile of hers.

In a flat, plain, unemotional tone─oddly enough, the current-day personality of the senior she admired so.

“Please, just cut it off. I want you to sever it. I beg you. I know it’s a hassle, but I beg you. I can’t cut off my own arm…”

“S-Stop it.”

I hastened to push her outstretched arm back toward her. The hair felt disgusting as it brushed against my hand. It was creepy.

It was scary.

“Stop being ridiculous─I couldn’t ever. What about basketball?” I asked.

“It’s like Mister Oshino just said. I tried to kill another human being. I think it’s only fair.”

“N-No─really, Kanbaru, I don’t mind at all─”

Laughable. Clownish.

How far from the point could I get?

It wasn’t about whether I minded or not.

What’s more, whether I forgave her or not had nothing to do with it, either─the question was whether Suruga Kanbaru could forgive Suruga Kanbaru.

The girl who didn’t want to injure her classmates and so kept running.

Who suppressed and overwhelmed all negative emotions.

She who had sealed them away.

That strength of will─also bound her.

Castigated her.

“A-Anyway,” I said, “there’s no way we’re going to cut it off. Don’t be ridiculous. What are you thinking? You’re an idiot, a real idiot. Way to be simplistic about things. How can you take such an idea seriously?”

“Ah. You’re right, cutting off my arm isn’t something to impose on people. It’s not a favor you can carry out just because someone asked, is it? Okay, I’ll think of a way on my own. I’m sure it can be done with the help of a car or a train.”

“That’s─”

A car or a train?

That amounted to suicide.

It wasn’t suicidal─but plain suicide.

“If she wants to cut it off, there’s a good way, isn’t there,” Oshino interrupted with a reminder. “Why aren’t you telling her, Araragi? How inconsiderate of you when someone’s clearly in distress. You just have to get little Shinobu to cooperate. A heart under her blade─with that prized sword of hers, we’d be able to sever that left arm with no time for missy to feel any pain. Little Shinobu’s blade might not have the edge it once boasted, but cutting off a slender arm would be as easy as pie, or slicing tofu─”

“Shut up, Oshino! Hey, Kanbaru! Stop tormenting yourself about this! You shouldn’t be feeling responsible, not one bit─isn’t that obvious?! This is all because of the Monkey’s Paw…I mean, some aberration called the Rainy Devil─”

“The aberration only granted her wish, didn’t it?”

Oshino wasn’t shutting up.

Eloquently, loquaciously, he weaved his words.

“It only gave her what she wanted, yes? Wasn’t it the same with li’l missy tsundere? It’s not like what happened to you over spring break, Araragi. It’s nothing like little Shinobu’s case─Araragi, you didn’t wish upon an aberration.”

“……”

“Which is why─you don’t understand how she feels. Not her remorse, and not her regrets. Not in the slightest,” he told me. “By the way, in the original ‘The Monkey’s Paw,’ after having a first and a second wish granted, the third wish of the first person to use the paw was to die. I don’t think I need to explain the full significance of that?”

“Oshino─”

What he said was right.

But, Oshino, you’re mistaken.

Facing off against Raincoat─immobile like we were in a standoff, I took my time recollecting.

Because I actually do understand.

So much that it hurts, that my wounded heart hurts.

Hitagi Senjogahara’s feelings.

And Suruga Kanbaru’s, too, okay?

No, maybe I don’t, after all.

Maybe it’s nothing more than a conceited and misguided notion.

But─

We bear the same kind of pain.

We share it.

Who’s to say you won’t use a wish-granting item that presents itself to you? Like with my spring break, though it might not have been wished for. Even the pure and virtuous Hanekawa was bewitched by a cat due to the slightest discord and torsion─

At its base, my relationship with Shinobu was no different from Senjogahara’s relationship with the crab, or Kanbaru’s with the devil.

“I don’t mind, Araragi,” she said.

“Well, I do─how could I not? What are you saying? And what about Senjogahara? I wanted you and her to─”

“I’m done. About her too. I’m done now.” Her words must have literally pained her. “It’s fine. I’ll give up.”

No way.

Giving up isn’t fine at all.

Make your own wishes come true─that’s why your mother gave you that mummified devil. It couldn’t have been to teach you to give up on your dreams─

So don’t make that face.

Stop looking like a deep pit where your face should be.

You can’t ever give up on anything on the verge of crying like that.

A rainy devil─and a weepy devil.

Its origin is said to be a child who ran away from home after getting in a fight with his parents over nothing one drizzling day. He got lost in the mountains and was killed and eaten by a pack of wild monkeys. Mysteriously, no one from his family or settlement could recall the child’s name─

“…Bastard!”

Unable to take our standoff, mentally─unable to bear the shadow play of thoughts that beleaguered me, I charged Raincoat. Including the night before, it was the very first time I went on the offensive instead of just reacting. You could say that the pressure of maintaining an interceptive posture was getting to be too much.

Staying on our feet wouldn’t do. Even if I trapped its left arm again, a kick would follow without delay. I needed to go at Raincoat with a mind to pin it down like this was judo or wrestling─

I spread my arms out as though to clamp down on Raincoat, but I couldn’t catch it─had it moved left or right, I might have been able to respond, but that’s not what it did. Yet it didn’t back away, either─in that case I would have only needed to take another few steps.

Raincoat had jumped.

It jumped─and with both of its feet stuck to the classroom’s ceiling─stayed up there and dashed. Tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, it defied gravity─and dashed across the ceiling, ignoring the universal law.

Then it came down─and landed on the floor.

And jumped sideways next.

And landed on the rickety blackboard─and jumped again─and landed on the thick planks sealing a window shut─and jumped again─and was back on the ceiling.

Every which way, plus a few more.

With bewildering speed─Raincoat jumped.

Like a pinwheel firework, it went from wall to wall, from wall to ceiling, from ceiling to floor, from floor to wall─jumping on its two legs. Raincoat was jumping around on Suruga Kanbaru’s practiced legs.

Or like a super ball fired at high speed.

A raucous dance of reflected angles.

Bounding, then bounding again.

My eyes couldn’t keep up.

It was moving faster than my eyeballs.

It was accelerating like a body in free fall and going faster and faster, gradually, boldly picking up speed with every jump─the difference between rubber boots and sneakers a quaint detail, it gradually and boldly and unmistakably toyed with my vision.

Simply going from two to three dimensions had such a huge effect─the classroom had been turned into a sealed boundary by Oshino to limit the damage and to ensure a decisive outcome…and also out of a straightforward calculation that a narrow field offered advantages over a wide one in fighting the quick and agile Raincoat─but it was the complete opposite. That was totally backfiring.

Backfiring.

How could we not have foreseen it?

The reason Kanbaru had joined the basketball and not the track team─was that her legs shone most brightly as a weapon that made her faster than anyone else on the narrow field that is a basketball court! Despite her height and build Suruga Kanbaru had the jumping chops to dunk the ball with ease, and what did that mean in a constrained space with a low ceiling?!

It was backfiring, everything was.

I couldn’t have miscalculated more flagrantly. What was I, stupid?

I never gave up a good chance to be wrong.

As Raincoat jumped around making a fool of me, my heels seemed nailed to the ground and I couldn’t take a single step. In particular, the vertical movements from the floor to the ceiling, and from the ceiling to the floor, confounded me─it was a design issue in that the human eye was physically capable of handling lateral movement but wasn’t as prepared to shoot up and down. My vision couldn’t keep up with Raincoat’s movements.

Rapidly getting around behind me where I stood─

Raincoat jumped from the ceiling toward me at last. Spinning its body midair, heels over head like in a Sepak Takraw roll spike, it drove the tip of its foot into the crown of my head with the momentum it gained─I felt my skull collapse. As I lurched forward from the force of it, Raincoat, having already landed, met my jaw with a Muay Thai knee. The consecutive blows, the Sepak Takraw-Muay Thai combo, were nearly simultaneous timing-wise, and the impact of being sandwiched by a virtual pincer strike, something that exceeded pain, assaulted me. My brain felt dented along with my head, and I lost consciousness for a brief moment─suddenly comatose.

But I didn’t die.

My wounds healed immediately.

Man, it was hell.

Sañjīva, the Buddhist hell of revival.

Crushed into dust, then mended and restored by a gust of wind, crushed again, mended again, crushed, repeatedly, into dust, crushed for eternity, one of the eight great hells─it was exactly like my spring break.

“Tsk…”

I extended my arm─and Raincoat evaded me. Then it cocked its fist, and I reacted─no, I didn’t, my reflexes did. I’d focused on that left arm for so long that I was overly sensitive to its motion. What I ought to have taken more deeply to heart was Raincoat’s earlier attack, consecutive kicks delivered by choice despite its left arm being free. Or what the abrupt onset of its bewildering high-speed three-dimensional disruptive acceleratory movement, that terrifying footwork, meant. The significance of using not just the Rainy Devil left arm but all four of its limbs to maneuver.

Play with the devil and become the devil.

Forget whatever coming true, selling your soul, bodily possession, and all that─

Wish upon the devil and become the devil.

The left fist was a feint.

Only having mounted linear attacks at first─now Raincoat was finally employing footwork, combos, feints, that is to say, combat techniques.

No, not a feint.

A fake, was more like it. Because the tactic wouldn’t have been accessible to Raincoat without Suruga Kanbaru’s cooperation─

Bracing myself for the left fist fatally exposed my opposite flank, and the tip of Raincoat’s toes connected, thrice this time, and in the same precise location─and as my body folded in a sideways V thanks to an attack that contradicted the theory of relativity and struck the same coordinates simultaneously three times in a row, the sole of Raincoat’s other foot shot through my chest.

Like a catapult.

Overpowered, I fell over backward, but placing my hands on the floor as if to perform a back roll, I spun myself upright and put distance between myself and it─Raincoat immediately closed in.

The kick had struck one of my lungs.

It had probably collapsed.

It hurt to breathe.

Dammit, it wasn’t healing right away─did it mean that Raincoat’s kicks now had more power, more destructive potential than its left fist?

Did Kanbaru’s thoughts surpass the devil?

Jealousy.

Hatred.

All her negative emotions.

Why not me, then.

“…Because you just,” I said─with my still collapsed lung, “because you just won’t do, Suruga Kanbaru─!”

No one can ever replace someone else, and no one can ever be someone else. Senjogahara is Hitagi Senjogahara, and Kanbaru is Suruga Kanbaru.

And Koyomi Araragi is Koyomi Araragi.

The difference between me and Kanbaru.

Whether or not we knew Oshino.

Whether or not we stepped away.

Whether it was a demon or a monkey.

Random encounters, chance.

It did give rise to feelings of remorse.

I was remorseful, towards both Kanbaru and Senjogahara. But when it came to trading places if I could, I didn’t feel that way─I had no desire to cede my position.

Right.

If I’m your hated rival in love─then you were mine, and I’d have done better to hate you, Kanbaru.

Maybe my remorse sprang from there too.

I hadn’t considered Kanbaru my equal.

I’d condescended.

Made light of her.

Deigning to mediate between Kanbaru and Senjogahara to bring about their reconciliation, while I rested on an absolutely secure perch with consummate ease─how thoroughly repulsive a deed was that? Such a good, kind person. Such a bad, callous person.

If a wish.

If a wish is something you fulfill on your own, then─

Giving up on your own ought to be fine.

Giving up, provided you don’t forget─ought to be fine.

“…! …! …!”

Relentless attack after attack splashed across my body, each impact so intense it actually remolded me─I wasn’t able to dodge even one in four anymore. My body repaired and regenerated itself, destroyed part after destroyed part, but Raincoat’s assault now outpaced the process.

Before I knew, I was trapped in a corner of the classroom. As if invisible strings were binding me, I couldn’t move back or to either side. Raincoat no longer bothered with any footwork─if this were boxing, you’d say it was fighting on the inside, legs planted, and unopposed at that. No matter how nice the sneakers, the friction from the sustained, impractical acceleration would wear out the rubber soles, I’d vaguely hoped based on nothing, but even my optimistic projection was now bankrupt. Every permutation of fists, elbows, shins, toes, and heels tormented my body all over in quick succession. I wasn’t even allowed a moment to scream out in pain, it was the ultimate combo chain.

It no longer fell under the rubric of strikes.

Pure pressure.

It wasn’t just my bones breaking; the spots where I got hit were tearing, my skin and muscles were ripping and sundering. Raincoat’s stance was that much more rooted and weighted forward than before and seemed to add to its left fist’s destructive power by the moment.

Still─

Not to the extent of Suruga Kanbaru’s legs...

“Uni…form.”

My body may have been immortal, but my clothes weren’t.

They’d been torn to shreds by that point.

Ugh. I’d ruined yet another one.

My high-collared jacket, when we were only a few days away from changing into our summer uniforms…

What excuse was I going to offer my sisters this time?

“Guh…kk.”

At this distance…

At least, at this distance, if Raincoat offered me the slightest opportunity, I could render it immobile by hugging Kanbaru’s body…and force it down to the ground with all I was worth and turn around the fight.

I still had a path to victory.

Even now, while I was trapped in a corner in positional terms, I wasn’t actually cornered─attack me as Raincoat might, I had nothing to fear as long as my regenerative healing abilities were kicking in.

It was only painful.

Like Kanbaru’s heart, it was only painful─

Being in pain meant I was alive.

“I hate you.”

I heard a voice.

“I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you.”

It was the voice─of Suruga Kanbaru.

From the deep pit under the raincoat’s hood, as though appealing directly to my psyche, it resonated─and I heard:

“I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you.”

“………”

Hatred─more hatred than any one person could bear.

Malice, hostility.

The negative emotions of a positive junior.

It seemed to swirl─to be brimming in Raincoat.

Its surface tension stretched to the limit.

“How dare you how dare you how dare you how dare you.”

Along with the strikes, the voice continued.

The voice of hatred continued.

“I can’t stand you I can’t stand you I can’t stand you I can’t stand you I can’t stand you I can’t stand you I can’t stand you I can’t stand you─”

“…Kanbaru, sorry.”

Out loud again.

I apologized to Kanbaru.

“Me, I haven’t the least bit trouble standing you.”

Rivals in love though we may be.

You and I might not match up at all─but, you know?

Can’t we be friends at all?

“…■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■!”

Some sort of piercing shriek came from the deep pit─and Raincoat’s kick penetrated my abdomen. Penetrated. It wasn’t just that my organs ruptured, but rather, perfectly ignoring my joints and muscles, crushing my ribs and spine, it literally and non-figuratively penetrated clean through my belly so that the heel reached the wall behind me. I was skewered.

The damage─far outpaced my healing abilities.

It...

Zlrp, the leg pulled out.

It felt like my entire digestive tract was being tugged out.

The whole mess.

Dragged out─and my body was the deep pit now.

There was nothing inside the pit.

“Kanbaru─”

Uh oh.

With a large hole gouged in my abdomen─I couldn’t stand straight, and twisting my body even a little threatened to jerk apart my upper and lower halves. Which meant that I couldn’t make any more careless movements. I was still conscious, but one more blow in my state─would end it. It was me who’d gotten overwhelmed. How pathetic. At this rate, Kanbaru’s second wish was going to come true. That was the one thing I had to avoid at all costs…

Or maybe it was an option?

It was only her second wish.

If Kanbaru could…hold out and not make a third wish─wasn’t it fine? Her arm would go back to normal, and since a wish was a wish, she’d be by Senjogahara’s side─because putting aside the manner, the wishes came true.

I wasn’t ready to cede.

I wasn’t ready to cede.

But I was ready to forgive.

I was supposed to have died during spring break, in the first place…so as Oshino said, it was nice and simple as far as solutions go.

Yes, I did feel attached to life.

But it wasn’t like I was in trepidation over the thought of dying.

“Aa─ah, uh,” I moaned.

For no reason I simply moaned.

They were like death throes.

I wouldn’t be ruining my uniform again.

“Suruga, Kanbaru─”

That’s when.

Raincoat’s combos, which had gone on without a break for dozens of minutes already, ceased.

Abruptly they ceased.

It was─the opening I’d been waiting for.

But I couldn’t carry out my plan to pin down Raincoat. There was of course the fact that the damage from the large hole opened in my abdomen seemed inestimably far from healing, and also the fact that my consciousness, which I needed to execute the move, was already fading, but more than that─I, too, had frozen in place.

Probably for the same reason as Raincoat.

I found myself frozen.

“…You seem to be enjoying yourselves.”

The door to the classroom opened.

The door that never would from the inside opened, from the outside.

Allowing someone to enter.

Hitagi Senjogahara, in her street clothes.

“Looks like you’re having fun without me, Araragi. How unpleasant.”

Her emotionless expression─her flat voice.

Confronted with this awful spectacle, she merely narrowed her eyes somewhat.

She always─appeared without warning.

Wearing a pair of jeans with no belt, a tank top in the same color, and a comfy largish hoodie, her hair tied loosely behind her, as if she’d stepped out of her room without changing, Hitagi Senjogahara stood there in her street clothes.

“S-Senjogahara…”

I couldn’t speak well with the wind hole that had been opened in my abdomen─I had been left without a voice, and it was hard even to call out to her.

Why are you here?

I wanted to ask her.

But I already knew the answer without having to ask. Oshino had called her here, of course─what other answer could there be? But how? He had no possible way to contact her─as if Hitagi Senjogahara would give her cell phone number to Mèmè Oshino, whom she disliked. There shouldn’t have been any opportunity to do so, either.

A cell phone?

Oh, of course.

That asshole─not caring one bit about the sanctity of people’s personal info, he’d gone and messed around with my phone in complete violation of my privacy. Yes, that cell phone in the backpack I’d given Oshino to hold on to before entering this classroom… It wasn’t like I used a password to lock the thing, and no matter how bad Oshino was with gadgetry, given enough time he could surely find the contacts list or call history. Plus, Senjogahara would have given him a crash course on how to use a cell phone that time they met on Mother’s Day─

But why?

For what purpose did Oshino summon Senjogahara here of all places, to this situation of all situations─

In a flash.

Raincoat leapt backwards, and via a few stops each on the ceiling and walls, moved from one corner of the classroom to the other, diagonally across and far away from me.

Why would it do that?

One more blow and the fight would have been over.

The wish granted.

Was her consciousness as Suruga Kanbaru temporarily suppressing the unconscious she’d provided to Raincoat? Was it thanks to Senjogahara’s entry, and if so, had that been Oshino’s aim? But how would that serve as anything more than a temporary measure? The Rainy Devil fed off of a person’s negative emotions, and until we got rid of them, nothing would change. This wasn’t some old foreign movie, and the power of love wasn’t going to solve everything. Why summon Senjogahara when you could come in yourself, Mèmè Oshino?!

As if she couldn’t care less about Raincoat’s antics, however, Senjogahara glared at me with cold eyes as I hovered near death’s door. They were the eyes of a bird of prey zeroing in on a kill.

“So you lied to me, Araragi.”

“…What?”

“You duped me saying you ran into a telephone pole and also kept this stuff about Kanbaru secret. Didn’t we promise when we started dating? We said we wouldn’t do that. About aberrations at least, we wouldn’t keep any secrets from each other.”

“Ah, well…”

That─was true.

I hadn’t forgotten or anything.

“You deserve to die a thousand times over.” A chilling smile spread across Senjogahara’s face.

An enormous mass of fear like I’d never felt even while Raincoat was beating me senseless shot through my body like a bolt of lightning. Scary… Damn, she was scary. What was she, Medusa? How did she muster such a gaze…against her boyfriend, no less? And wait, really? She was telling me this now, in this situation, with me in the state I was in? Way to read the room, Senjogahara!

“…But, Araragi, I guess you already did die a thousand times.” With the door still flung open─Senjogahara sprang off her back foot toward the corner where I huddled. “I might let you off the hook this one time...”

Well.

A thousand times was probably an exaggeration.

Raincoat immediately reacted to Senjogahara’s advance─and likewise began dashing toward me. Out of nowhere, Hitagi Senjogahara and Suruga Kanbaru were having a foot race in lieu of the one they never did in middle school. In a straight line, Raincoat was about twice as far from me as Senjogahara, mathematically speaking, but the former track team star had a two-plus-year gap in her resume, while Raincoat was now drawing on Kanbaru’s leg strength─no, was the devil itself. The first one to get to my immobile form was, of course, Kanbaru.

Raincoat took the opportunity to wind up its left fist, ready to deliver me a final blow─but Senjogahara belatedly arrived to stand between it and me.

Watch out.

But I wasn’t even allowed the interval to think that.

A moment before impact─Raincoat was knocked away. Knocked away? Who could possibly do that, the way Raincoat was now? Not me, and Senjogahara even less. Then the sensible view was that, rather than being knocked away, Raincoat had leapt back of its own accord. Even if it did clumsily end up supine in the process.

I was dumbfounded.

That move─what was up with the unnatural move, as if Raincoat feared getting Senjogahara mixed into this, as if it eschewed hurting her above all?

Suruga Kanbaru’s conscious mind must have─no.

That would be far too convenient.

Aberrations are consistent.

They are rational to the bitter end.

It’s just that the rationality doesn’t always make sense to humans.

But in this case─

“Araragi. Knowing you, I bet you thought like an idiot that your death would solve everything,” Senjogahara continued to speak to me─her back still turned to me, her eyes not on me, but also paying Raincoat no mind. My wretched condition, covered in blood and wounds─wasn’t why she wouldn’t look at me, of that I was certain. “Don’t kid yourself. Your feeble self-sacrifice is totally uncalled for. If you died, how would I not do anything in my capacity to kill Kanbaru? I told you that once, didn’t I? Are you trying to turn me into a murderer?”

…She’d seen through me.

Oh boy, what a devoted woman.

I couldn’t even go and die cheerfully.

A wholehearted─twisted love.

“What infuriates me most of all is that you’d have thrown yourself into this even if your body weren’t that way. If you were being so stupid just because you could ride your immortal body through it, then I might as well tell you to do as you please, but you went with the flow like there was no choice and end up looking like this─I don’t know what to say.”

“……”

“But coming from you, I guess I don’t mind unsolicited favors and needless interventions and counterproductive meddling─”

Without gracing me with another glance to the very end, Senjogahara took a steady step toward Raincoat’s collapsed figure. Still on the floor, Raincoat began to crawl backwards as if it were terrified of her.

As if terrified…

As if terrified…why?

Come to think of it─faced with it now, it had been the same way last night. Raincoat had blasted me away then suddenly disappeared. That was because Senjogahara had shown up with the envelope I’d forgotten… But why should her entry usher Raincoat’s retreat? It seemed so unnatural when you thought about it. A human street slasher or thrill killer might─but an aberration wouldn’t care about witnesses. And anyway, Senjogahara couldn’t have presented an obstacle for Raincoat given its mighty left arm.

So then why did it run?

Because the person who came on scene was Senjogahara?

What did that mean?

Was it really the power of love?

Did Suruga Kanbaru’s feelings for Senjogahara outclass the devil, conveniently enough? Could earnest thought brush aside aberrations, the world itself, and open up a circuit to the heavens? No.

No.

That wasn’t it… Right. The thought.

Even after Kanbaru had made her second wish to the Rainy Devil left hand, turning hers into a beast’s─it still took four days for it to activate. That was because she just barely managed to suppress her hateful thoughts toward me. Her stance that you fulfilled wishes on your own suppressed the devil’s violence. The stance that had grown firm roots in her over the seven years since her first wish─Oshino had laughed and called it patently ridiculous, but not in the conventional sense.

She was by no means wrong─he’d said that, too.

Her thought.

Thoughts─Suruga Kanbaru’s wish.

The Rainy Devil sees through us to find our darkest emotions─it sees and reads what’s on the back. It sees the flip side of our wishes. You want to run faster because you hate your classmates. You desire to be by Senjogahara’s side─because you hate Koyomi Araragi.

But that was just the flip side.

Just as the front has a back.

The back─has a front.

If the Rainy Devil hurt Hitagi Senjogahara─then whether or not it could kill the target of hatred, Koyomi Araragi, Kanbaru’s obverse wish could no longer be granted… Right, it wasn’t anything moving or sensitive like the power of love but a more sober and primitive matter.

A contract.

A deal.

The Rainy Devil could only grant the flip side of wishes, but that didn’t mean it could neglect the top side. In fact, even when Kanbaru was in grade school─it granted her flipside wish of getting revenge on her classmates, but in the end, her topside wish of wanting to become faster came true as well. It properly came true apart from that whole causality. What was patently ridiculous was that this was exactly what the Rainy Devil intended─it simply interpreted the front as the back, but didn’t pull the latter out of thin air. The reverse couldn’t exist without the obverse. No, going again by what Oshino said, left hands didn’t have intentions. It was all Suruga Kanbaru’s unconscious mind─it established the causality between an obverse and a reverse side that never intersected, as a contradiction.

A contract with the devil.

In exchange for your soul.

A cooling-off period.

Wishing an impossibility.

A double bind─between a rock and a hard place.

Between the obverse and reverse.

That was why─precisely why the Rainy Devil couldn’t raise its hand against Senjogahara. That was the contract, that was the deal. As long as Senjogahara shielded me─it couldn’t raise a hand even against me, the hated, hated me.

It couldn’t raise that left hand against us.

If one method was for me to overwhelm the devil and make it impossible for the flipside wish to be fulfilled─then there was also another, which was to make it impossible for the topside wish to be fulfilled.

And now, Senjogahara even pledged in front of the devil that she’d kill Kanbaru if I died. Claiming ignorance was not an option. The Rainy Devil’s situation was already locked down.

Always acting like he saw through everything…

Like he saw through everything more than any devil.

Oshino, you… Your badness and callousness make me pale in comparison─!

“It’s been a while, Kanbaru. I’m glad you seem to be doing well,” Senjogahara said.

Then, she went over to Raincoat, who tried to slide away on its back─no, to her old acquaintance Suruga Kanbaru─and slowly covered her body with her own, pinning her down.

Even after getting in a wretched state─

I hadn’t been able to.

But finally she did what I could never do.

Taking that beastly left arm.

And the human right arm, and holding them, soothingly.

Senjogahara’s stapler─

Was no longer on her.

“…My senior Senjogahara.”

A mutter from beneath the hood.

The voice resonating, pleading.

What lurked under the hood was no deep pit. What lurked there was no face on the verge of crying. Not on the verge─it was crying. Reflected clearly in my eyes was the teary-eyed, crying, and cry-laughing face of a girl.

I─wracked with sobs, she voiced her thought.

“I love you.”

She voiced her wish.

“Oh. Me, not so much.” Direct, unfiltered, in the same tone as ever. Senjogahara said flatly, “Will you stay by my side anyway?”

Sorry I made you wait so long, she said, most flatly.

…What a fool.

The height of folly!

Jeez─I’d be lucky to call myself a tomato can here.

A master class on how to play the comic relief, if I do say so myself, and I’m pretty used to it. My uselessness was almost exemplary.

A good girl who can say sorry.

I thought I knew very well how greedy a woman Hitagi Senjogahara was. I thought I knew very well how bad at giving up she was.

If it really mattered to her.

Senjogahara would never give it up.

Unsolicited favors, needless interventions.

Counterproductive meddling.

Even so…I don’t know, all of these people around me are really warped─

They have two sides to them.

And the obverse and reverse are one and the same, like in a Möbius strip.

Well, I guess the power of love is one interpretation, then.

It’s pretty depressing to be forgotten by someone, after all.

Thinking such thoughts, waiting for the large hole in my stomach to close up, I just decided to watch, without wisecracking, the Sapphic spectacle unfolding before my eyes. If I were Oshino, I would have put on nihilistic airs as though they suited me, perhaps stuck an unlit cigarette in my mouth, and asked the two of them if something good had happened to them, but unfortunately, I was a minor.