Monogatari Series - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.08

008

Like a predator snatching prey in the savanna─is probably what it was. From my perspective as the prey, I’d been scooped away a split second before Kanbaru’s left hand could sink into my heart. The predator, however, took me like it was nothing and might as well have been humming to herself.

The action centered around her─I should be treating her as the protagonist. Or maybe just as a cat.

In any case, once my eyes stopped spinning from the impact to my flank, I found myself completely elsewhere.

My self, completely elsewhere.

Kidnapped and taken someplace else─but also familiar. That is, if you accounted for the mirroring─this.

This was Shirohebi Park. Familiar to me even if I had only learned its true name the other day.

I was splayed out on the ground in its plaza.

Next to me was the BMX, its wheels klacking as they spun─thank goodness, it looked like Ogi’s ride was fine for now.

The bike was one thing, but I’d have trouble saying I was. No, Kanbaru’s fist hadn’t grazed me or anything, I had no injuries─but this incredible fatigue coated every inch of my body.

I’d pedaled with all my strength to elude the Rainy Devil’s pursuit, but that wasn’t why. Even I’m not that feeble. No, I’d been sucked dry as I was abducted─yes, by the cat.

The special ability of the aberration known as the Afflicting Cat: energy drain.

“Myahahaha.”

And then.

Opposite the bicycle, which was on either its left or right side, its right at least from my perspective─sat, on all fours with an amused look on her face…well, no need to put on airs now.

It was Black Hanekawa.

“…”

Though exhausted, I could at least move my eyes, so I looked her over─to find her with white snowy hair stretching to her back and large cat ears.

Also, she was in her underwear.

A polka-dot-patterned bra─something whose existence in the world is surprisingly difficult to confirm, a strapless one at that─along with black-and-white panties made out of a thick material and adorned with large frills on both the front and back. The clash between top and bottom gave off a different feeling from when they’d matched… No, this wasn’t the time to be contemplating her underwear.

How should I describe this Black Hanekawa? Was this the initial design? Not Black Hanekawa from before the culture festival or after summer break, but during that nightmare of a Golden Week, when she was at her most feral and untouchable…

Then it was extremely dangerous for me to be splayed out in front of her like a fish on the chopping block─or maybe a mouse being toyed with by a cat. I may have escaped from the Rainy Devil, but my life was still under threat.

“And taking a catnap after being kidnapped by a cat. Lame, even as a pun…”

“Myaaahahahaha!”

But Black Hanekawa, with her low laughter threshold, cackled with glee as I muttered to myself. Please, could you not use Hanekawa’s body to double over in hysterics in nothing but underwear?

“You really are an amewsing one, human─what a sharp wit you’ve got.”

After cachinnating for a little while, she stood up to look down at me where I lay. Wasn’t she aware that when she did that with breasts as large as Hanekawa’s, I couldn’t see her face?

“You nyoh, I haven’t heard any thanks from you yet. Can’t you at least try?”

“…”

I hesitated for a moment.

“Thank you,” I then complied─it was true that she’d saved me, whatever her intentions had been and whatever she planned on doing to me next.

Of course, from my perspective, I was thanking her pair of breasts…

“Myahahaha. Nyo nyeed,” Black Hanekawa said with delight after demanding my gratitude─the issue here wasn’t her character, but her brains.

It seemed her intelligence level hadn’t improved, and I was unsure of how to take the fact. Her idiocy was less a chink in her armor than a natural fort that made asking her for explanations pointless…

I didn’t know how to approach her.

“Nyactually, how long are you planning on nyapping anyway, human? I myight’ve energy drained you when we touched, but it was only for a split second. It shouldn’t have done too much damage.”

“…”

Seriously, cat? You’re far from the mark─I’m not staying down to get you to lower your guard or anything, I literally can’t move a finger…

Hanekawa liked to downplay herself as an innocent kitty and overestimate my abilities, and Black Hanekawa seemed to share that trait.

Despite my awful physical state, my mental state─my mind had started to clear. Perhaps thanks to having Tsubasa Hanekawa stand near me in her underwear even if it was in Black form.

Not an energy drain, but an energy injection─but now that my mind was clear, I found it full not of exclamation but question marks.

Not “Black Hanekawa! What are you doing here!”

But “Black Hanekawa? What are you doing here?”

?????

I mean, it didn’t make sense, did it?

Black Hanekawa had been accepted into Tsubasa Hanekawa’s heart back then, at the end of summer break, and should have disappeared forever.

Umm, hold on a second… That made it hard for me to stay calm for more reasons than one, but maybe the proper way to look at it was that Hanekawa’s mirrored form is Black Hanekawa, just as Suruga Kanbaru’s is the Rainy Devil?

Still. Hadn’t Hanekawa gone on a trip overseas?

Was even that fact flipped around in this mirrored land? Yes, it was possible. A world where anything goes, where anything is conceivable, where contradictions are fine─

“Myaahaha. Looks like a lot’s going through your head right nyow, human─but you’re nyoverthinking it. You just nyeed to accept things as they are and as they appear, nyohkay?”

“As they appear…” Echoing her for no reason in particular, I looked up at her─or meant to, but as I should’ve known, all I saw was a massive amount of underboob. What good did it do me to accept its appearance?

I was going to have trouble taking any of this seriously unless she stood a little farther back, but that’s when I noticed─and once I did, it almost felt strange that I hadn’t until now.

Her bra and its unusual design were no excuse, I needed to feel ashamed as a Tsubasa Hanekawa devotee.

Well, given that this was how things should be, it was quite pointless to reflect too much on my error after the fact─but her chest.

It was her chest. Black Hanekawa, or Tsubasa Hanekawa’s mammaries, taken not as a whole but divided into a left and right breast and observed thusly, revealed the right breast to be ever-so-slightly larger.

They say the left one is more likely to grow larger because of the heart’s placement on that side of the body, but in Hanekawa’s case, her right one is just a bit larger─probably because of all the use she gets out of her dominant hand while studying. The difference is minute, but my sharp eyes can’t be deceived.

Putting aside the fact that she would put something sharp in said eyes if I told her─the difference was the same despite us being in a mirrored land.

Just like Kanbaru’s “left hand.”

It wasn’t flipped around─hadn’t been reversed.

“Wait, relax… Vision can only get me so far. I can’t be sure and address this unease until I feel its root cause, those breasts, with my own hands.”

“I’m nyot joking when I say you’d die if you touched my breasts in your condition. It’d be your chest nyeeding emyergency attention, nyot mine,” quipped Black Hanekawa, taking a step back─allowing me to see her face at last.

“…”

I felt a little relieved.

Because her expression looked peaceful.

Although her design was the most ferocious and brutal one from Golden Week, her mood seemed closest to Black Hanekawa at the end of summer break.

I guess that didn’t match up, either… It felt inconsistent.

In that case, could I just think of this as a straightforward rescue?

“Hey, Black Hanekawa,” I said, able to talk clearly at last. “Can I ask you just one question?”

“Sure. If it’s something I can nyanswer.”

“Yeah, literally true in your case… Anyway. I just wanted to check, we’re in the land of mirrors now, right?”

To which Black Hanekawa responded, “Who nyohs,” with a self-effacing smile. “It’s nyot that I can’t give you a nyanswer to that one─but as someone who lives in this world, I can’t give you the one you want. Nyo matter what I say, it’s nyot going to purrove anything.”

“…”

“So I can’t nyanswer your question, but I can give you a piece of advice. Don’t go nyeer that monkey’s home─I can imyagine why you’d visit it, but you’re nyot going to get past that Monkey’s Paw.”

I didn’t need to be told. But now that I had been, the number of question marks in my head only grew. She could “imyagine” why I’d visit Kanbaru’s home? If anything, that’s what I wanted to ask this world’s Black Hanekawa…

“I’m going to reject that advice.”

“Who knew advice is something you can reject?”

“I have to get in Kanbaru’s bath, no matter what it takes.”

“That’d be quite a puzzling line nyout of context.”

“So let me change the question. Who exactly asked you to save me?”

“Wait a myanute, what makes you so certain that someone asked me to?”

“…”

Faced with this reply, I had no grounds to stand on and felt like I’d said something off the mark.

It was just that Black Hanekawa, this generation or any other, wouldn’t go out of her way to help me─if she did, I assumed someone else’s will had been involved.

“Nyahaha. I’ll take a pass on that question too─and give you anyother piece of advice to replace the one you rejected. I nyoh you’ll accept this one. If you have to go inside that home nyo myatter what, don’t go alone. Go with a partnyer.”

“A partner?”

“Hey, nyow, don’t expect anything from me─as you’ve guessed, I hate you, Koyomi Araragi,” Black Hanekawa said.

Using my name.

As far as I could recall, as an aberration she’d never spoken my, a human’s, name─though maybe it was natural for her in this world.

“Cat─no, Hanekawa, tell me. What exactly…do you know?”

“I don’t nyoh everything─I only nyoh what I nyoh.”

Nyahahaha.

In the end, she’d answered none of my questions─nor did she wait for me to recover.

Because with that, Black Hanekawa left Shirohebi Park─slipping away like a stray cat whose eyes had met mine for just a brief moment.