Monogatari Series - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.11

011

I ended up going back to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine without speaking to Ononoki─no, it’s not like Oikura refused to free me from the living room even after I solved all her puzzles.

If anything, I had an opening.

She’d headed to the bathroom, saying she’d take a shower to freshen up and shake off her strange mood─and I used it as my cue to visit my little sisters’ room.

Incidentally, she’d also issued a joking invitation: You don’t seem too well either, wanna join me?

I firmly declined. There are some lines that even I won’t cross.

Too scary.

This entire emergency owed to washing my face to freshen up in the first place─I did take a casual glance at the bathroom mirror during our exchange, but it was nothing more than a mirror, as you might expect.

So then, to my little sisters’ room.

Where Yotsugi Ononoki─wasn’t present.

There were plenty of explanations for this─a variety of interpretations, but the most standard hypothesis was that she’d gone outside on her own for a walk.

But I didn’t adopt the hypothesis.

Out of the variety of interpretations, I didn’t choose it.

Even if her dashing look pissed me off, even if she spoke in a haughty tone, Ononoki was still Ononoki, an expert, regardless of her flaws.

An expert disappearing in this situation seemed like cause for alarm─I’d never admit it to her, even with a gun to my head, but I admired her brisk work and sense of responsibility.

Which meant there had been something, that something had occurred and urged her to take action─dammit.

If I’d known, I’d have put a lid on my irritation and heard her out in the morning, no matter what it took─I thought as I left home.

“I’m going out for a bit, Sodachi,” I returned to the bathroom and told her from the other side of the frosted glass as she (judging by her silhouette) washed her hair, before taking off to Kita-Shirahebi on the BMX.

Miss Hachikuji should have returned by now; I needed to update my understanding of the situation and rethink my strategy.

A sudden plunge.

I’d been wrong to call this a lukewarm setup─I still didn’t get what was going on, but I was possibly in a worse fix than ever before.

This reality was unsettling and improper.

Maybe it entailed actual risk.

Right, this wasn’t some benign mirror country.

I’d asked if it was science fiction or fantasy, but come to think of it, weren’t there also lots of ghost stories that involved mirrors?

Urban legends.

Street gossip.

Tall tales.

For instance─hadn’t the mirror turned purple?

Agh, with my twentieth birthday not far away, I’d remembered the words: purple mirror.

How did the urban legend go again, were they cursed words that killed you if you still remembered them when you were twenty? I wanted to say there was another phrase to undo the curse, but I’d forgotten it.

Was it saying “Bloody Mary” three times?

No, that was a different mirror-related curse.

Not that any of this seemed relevant─it’s just that there’s no shortage of mirror-related aberrations. Even an ignorant fool like me could easily start listing them off.

In which case this world might be no land of mirrors, simply irrational and incoherent, but rather an aberrational phenomenon with a proper reason to it.

I returned to the foot of the mountain crowned by Kita-Shirahebi Shrine with the sense that I’d been sent back to the starting tile in a board game─not a good outcome in a game, but honestly? I wished I could start all over.

I all but dashed up the mountain as soon as I chained up the bike, a regular trail run. Sprinting up and down the stairs in such a short period of time reminded me of just the other day─not that those were the best memories.

Why would they be? Back then, the god enshrined at the shrine wasn’t Hachikuji─and so.

I walked through the shrine’s gate, indeed feeling like I’d returned to the very start─okay, that’s an exaggeration, but like I’d been sent back about five squares.

“Heya, Araragi! It’s Missy Mayoi! Looks to me like things haven’t been going so good for you, huh? But don’t worry! I thought that might happen, so just for you, just for you, just for you, Araragi! Your friend here used all her connections to bring over a super reliable helper!”

The great god Hachikuji pushily, and I really mean pushily, said this from her position in front of the shrine, to introduce a “god”─of all the people.

A girl I thought I’d never meet again, of all the people.

Someone I’d personally wounded, of all the people.

Of all the people, Nadeko Sengok─

“Hsshh hsshh hsshh! What’s up, Big Brother Koyomi? That’s right, it’s me! Been a while, huh? So? You been doing good all this time? Hmmmm?!”

“…”

Nadeko Sengok-who?