Monogatari Series - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.18

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I call it a castle, but it wasn’t the domestic kind found in Nagoya or Kumamoto. Western style─a massive edifice atop plenty of square footage towering over all.

It shot into the sky.

Grand enough to qualify as a certified cultural asset, in my amateur opinion─soaring high in a Japanese suburb in the middle of nowhere, it seemed too surreal to be true.

Like a poorly faked photo.

It was hard to accept, easier to buy as some sort of 3D graphics─its style and its ancient, austere mood suggested that it hadn’t been built on the site of that abandoned building but had stood there for many centuries─for six hundred years, so to speak.

“…”

This was a new one.

Over the course of the day I’d seen many humans, as well as aberrations, existing in a different way, but this was the first time any building or piece of scenery had transformed beyond being flipped around.

Did I need to gather something from this? It did tell me that my journey was entering the next stage.

“Shinobu…is here, right? She lives in this castle, doesn’t she, Ononoki?”

“Yes, kind monster sir. She’s here─she lives here. Heartunderblade, the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade. Now they call her Keepshot Castleorion Fortunderblade.”

“Liar…what a blatant lie. You’re not pulling that one on me.”

“Well, you’d have found a castle this fantastic even if I didn’t bring you here, but l thought I’d mediate between you two… Now, shall we?”

“G-Go in? This isn’t the sort of place you just stroll into.”

“A castle’s not going to have an intercom, okay?”

True, it’d be such a letdown─the solemn structure felt like it might have sentries on guard, but they didn’t seem to be around either.

It really was like a cultural asset in that sense, not a domicile. Then again, that seemed to suit a vampire.

I knew surprisingly little about vampires despite having turned into one and wasn’t too familiar with their types of castles. Still, I’d believe it if you told me a legendary vampire lived here.

Its presence in our Podunk town felt as wrong as could be─but I followed after Ononoki.

The castle’s halls and stairs were dark, and an eeriness overwhelmed any sense of majesty─did it not have electricity? To make it seem like the Middle Ages? This was more like actually from them…

“Speaking of which, Ononoki.”

“What is it, kind monster sir?”

“About my adventures that I just told you about… I’d been convinced that Shinobu didn’t exist in this world. Since vampires don’t appear in mirrors, there wouldn’t be any inside one, either. Miss Hachikuji thought so, too… Well, she didn’t out and say it, but seemed to imply it. So why is Shinobu here? Why’s she living in a castle she built?”

“There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding…on your part, and on Miss Mayoi’s. She only became a god recently and isn’t perfect. Of course, as immature as she is, and despite how it may look, she’s doing her absolute best.”

“How condescending… How high of a pedestal are you putting yourself on to look down on her that hard?”

“Hey, that’s part of what’s inconsistent about this world. Kind monster sir, I call you kind monster sir, don’t I?”

“Yep. That’s been your name for me for some time.”

“Do you know why I call you that?”

“Why? Well, yeah, I guess I do?”

“Oh. Because I don’t,” Ononoki said, making no sense at all.

“What’s that supposed to─”

“A mirror world, or the flip side… It falls into place when you explain it that way. From my perspective, of course, your world seems narrow and constricted. The reverse reversed is the obverse─you might say, but really, it’s still reversed,” Ononoki intoned. Our dark surroundings didn’t seem to affect an aberration like her, and she walked just as steadily as when we were outside. “Every coin has two sides…but you can also have a record with two A-sides. Don’t you feel this world is a lot fairer and squarer than a world where you have to put on a happy face to hide what’s underneath?”

“That’s, er, um.”

Don’t be ridiculous. Like I’d ever feel that way.

Or so I began to say, but my judgment kicked in and I thought better of dissing the ways of this world too harshly. I was talking to one of its inhabitants─but this itself was an example of the “happy face” she mentioned, a surface at odds with my inner self.

A surface, and what lurks below.

Discussing them as opposites tends to give off the impression that the surface is good, while what lurks below is bad, but that’s not always the case─smoothing over a mistake isn’t fixing it, and we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

But going on to argue that authenticity lies beneath the surface, or that surface appearances are always false, doesn’t seem right either─take Miss Serpent’s gruff, disheveled attitude. That might be Sengoku’s inner self, the real her, but the Sengoku I knew, who always had her eyes to the ground, was the real her too.

Inside, outside, both sides are you.

The quickest way to lose sight of yourself is actually to start going on about your true self─there’s nothing wrong with going on a journey of self-discovery, but how do you even take the first step if you lack a self to begin with?

I did wonder about Shinobu. I’d been focusing on her relationship with me, but I was curious about the “inner side” of her other facets…

“This way. The former Heartunderblade is waiting for you in her bedchamber─not that that’s what you should call her. She might not be Keepshot Castleorion Fortunderblade, but I don’t know about Shinobu Oshino either.”

“What do you mean? There’s nothing former about her?”

“You’re a sharp one. What a shame─one less thing for me to enjoy seeing.”

Stop trying to enjoy this. Keep your enjoyment quota at zero.

But hold on, it meant that right now─that in this world, Shinobu hadn’t lost what made her special as a vampire and was at the height of her powers.

Not the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, not Shinobu Oshino, but the genuine Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade?

I suspected she wouldn’t be in her little-girl form, but still…it forced me think of the Shinobu who destroyed the world in a different timeline. I needed to be even more on my toes than I was already.

Or so I thought, but when Ononoki finally led me to the bedchamber─a word that doesn’t do justice to how big it was─and I saw her there, waiting for me on her luxurious and magnificent bed, I realized that my resolve fell short.

This world wasn’t going to abide by my expectations─that said, while I didn’t expect this, it wasn’t an unbelievable, unfathomable twist either.

Seeing it, I could believe it.

Technically, I saw nothing. The bed was enveloped by a thin curtain, and I only saw dimly through it, but the silhouette was all I needed to figure out the rest.

I figured it all out.

“Thank you for venturing all this way, Sir Araragi, and well met. It is a pleasure to meet you─I suppose I should say. I am Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.”

Her cordial greeting sounded like something from another time.

But this elegant lady was no vampire.

She was human.