Monogatari Series - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.19

019

Ah, well─in that case, sure.

In that case.

Vampires aren’t reflected in mirrors and therefore can’t enter them─that was my logic for why Shinobu wasn’t in my shadow. I’d accepted that my partner didn’t exist in this world, but there was a hole in that logic.

A hole, or rather, an opening. The fact that I, my vampiric nature deleted, existed here was already the answer. If the same phenomenon had visited Shinobu, she too could exist.

No, putting it that way was misleading. The Shinobu Oshino I knew, or the former Heartunderblade as Ononoki called her, had indeed been left behind in the other world─but that didn’t mean she didn’t exist in this one.

Just as there was no big Karen in this world, while a small Karen existed, it had its own Shinobu Oshino.

Now I understood Ononoki’s puzzling line─about why she called me kind monster sir, monstieur, and so on.

The reason was clear in the other world. Though it wasn’t exactly polite, calling a one-time vampire thrall a monster made sense.

Miss Hachikuji and Miss Serpent saw me in the same way, but if vampires couldn’t exist in this world, a vampire thrall shouldn’t either. There was an inconsistency─they knew I’d fallen victim to a vampire but also weren’t aware of any vampires, a contradiction.

Vampires indeed didn’t exist in this world, so there was no need to call me a monster, but no vampires didn’t mean no Shinobu Oshino. I’d forgotten until just now, but according to what I’d heard over spring break a year ago, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire, the Aberration Slayer Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, was once human.

Six hundred years ago, she was human.

Of the highest stock─yes, the kind of princess who might live in a castle, who’d see her castle as her extension. That─was her other side.

The flip side of Shinobu Oshino.

“Please, there’s no cause to feel so tense. Lift your head, Sir Araragi.”

Lift my head.

I finally noticed that I’d been having these thoughts on bent knee─I couldn’t believe it. I’d genuflected reflexively, not to the vampiric but human aura of nobility emanating from beyond the curtain.

I was no master of etiquette, but the pressure had prevented me from even standing up… No, pressure was too coarse a word. Frighteningly, it was something kinder─she’d soothed me to my knee from across the curtain.

Was this charisma? Magnetism?

I could raise my head after hearing her words, but awe filled my chest.

Meanwhile, Ononoki stood straight as a ruler next to me, which didn’t surprise me. Still, some sort of barrier seemed to prevent her from drawing any closer to the bed.

This was no aberration but a human. A human being.

This was Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, the human being, on the other side of the curtain─forget her golden age as a vampire, in terms of sheer power she was possibly weaker now than in her little-girl form. And yet.

As a human, she was nobler, more unapproachable than I’d ever experienced her. You couldn’t help but pay your respects, almost by fiat, as if a spell had been cast.

“Allow me to remain beyond these curtains like so. Forgive my rudeness, conversing thus without showing my face,” she said. If anything, though, it must’ve been out of consideration for me─of course it was. If I was feeling this way with a curtain between us, speaking face to face was too much for me. Unable to endure my own worthlessness, we couldn’t carry on any conversation─even on one knee, I was managing to be myself only because I knew Shinobu Oshino, knew Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade as a vampire.

Who knew what I might be doing in the moment otherwise? Obviously, as a human, she didn’t live in my shadow, but I saw why she lived alone on the outskirts of town. Exuding this kind of nobility just anywhere simply wouldn’t do. No wonder she resided in quiet seclusion in this world, even if this grand castle belied that expression.

This explained why Miss Hachikuji and Miss Serpent weren’t familiar with her… Did Ononoki know simply because she was an expert? No, maybe her investigation turned it up─I’d ask her about that later. I bet she was already plenty satisfied seeing me kneel the moment we met; she’d probably let me know.

For now, I needed to talk to Shinobu. As intimidating as the prospect was─

“It seems as though you have come from another world. Sir Araragi, from another world… To wit, you are the same, yet different from the personage I’ve come to know. Is that correct?”

“Y-Yes.”

It took everything I had just to nod. There wasn’t even a mirror around, but my stomach was turning inside out.

She’d called this world’s Koyomi Araragi a personage… Between this, trying to take off Ononoki’s pants, and heeding Oikura’s pleas, I couldn’t get any read on what he was like.

That’s who I was inside? Not Ogi?

“Fate has brought us together, and I interact with another world. I would love for us to speak at length over tea but fear that there is no time─Sir Araragi. Pray describe your predicament in a fashion that even I may understand. Though you see me as an untrusted stranger, met for but the first time, put your faith in me. I offer no guarantee but would yet be of use.”

“O-Okay,” I nodded without a second thought.

I’d obliged a dying vampire last spring break, but felt even more coerced now─no, that’s not the right word.

I wanted to serve her of my own free will.

How unbelievably dangerous.

This actually seemed to surpass being flipped or turned inside out, she felt like an altogether different person… That little girl carried this inside of her?

Her self-image was way too exalted.

This was no time for jabs, though, and the woman before me wasn’t to blame. I did as she requested and described the chain of events since the morning, in even more precise detail than I’d just done for Ononoki. I also took the opportunity to sketch out the other world─I fought off the urge to convey everything about it to her noble presence, and instead kept it to a sketch, but that wasn’t thanks to any feat of self-restraint. I simply didn’t dare tell her that in this other world, she was a little girl who seemed happy spending her life eating donuts and lazing around all day.

Her being a vampire in that other world, though. I couldn’t hide that one.

But even as I talked, a cooler part of my head determined that this Shinobu Oshino─milady Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade could never aid my lowly self. Noble or grand, a human is still a human. She was hardly a “fellow” human, but human all the same.

Shinobu could open a gate to another dimension even as a little girl because she was a vampire─the person before me, a human, wouldn’t have that skill.

When Ononoki offered to take me to Shinobu, I didn’t assume it meant an immediate solution, and my prediction seemed to have hit the mark… I could converse like this and seek her advice, but how could she, nothing but a human, succeed where not one but two gods had failed?

Well… That was no reason to cast aside someone’s good favor, and simply speaking to her might make me feel better.

Though I wondered─princess had slipped something in about there being no time. What could that mean? I’d prepared myself for a long and drawn-out struggle… Was it just that she had plans after this?

Wondering, and kneeling the whole time, I finished my story.

“Thank you kindly. You have come from a very interesting world,” princess shared her thoughts. She really did seem pleased, and perhaps wasn’t just being polite.

I felt like some kind of adventurer returning from a long journey to report his experiences to a noblewoman─maybe I’d be sent back with a few gold pieces as a reward.

Still. An interesting world, huh?

Miss Hachikuji and Miss Serpent had what you might call the composure that came with being a god and showed close to no interest in my world, but yes, it was “another world” for this one’s inhabitants. Endlessly interesting to a human, especially if you lived all alone in a castle.

“Our world must seem counterfeit to one such as you─still, to hear that I am a vampire. Truly, how interesting it would be, to be a demon.”

“…”

It felt rude not to respond, but what was I to say? I couldn’t reply with a casual Yup, it’s nice being a vampire.

“Yet, to me, that is the counterfeit─each of us must be a fake to the other,” princess echoed Ononoki’s sentiment on the way here. Or maybe this was deeper, weightier.

If you told me what’s on the surface, not underneath, is the counterfeit, an illusion that doesn’t really exist, I’d concede the point─while always being your natural self isn’t necessarily good, we live our lives falsifying so much about ourselves.

“Like the moon reflected on water,” princess remarked poetically.

Our Shinobu would never say such a thing. But a reflection on water was an apt comparison─it was what I was after when I tried to sneak into Kanbaru’s place.

Of course, I couldn’t say for sure that it was the ticket back to my world…but it was the only guide I had.

“Alas, with but a human body, unlike myself in your world, this feat of opening a portal to another world is not for me to perform,” princess lamented with what sounded like genuine regret. Please, I was not worthy─making such a princess feel bad was making me regretful. Should I take responsibility and crush my own throat?

…What the hell? Why was I even thinking about crushing my own throat?

“But I do believe I can provide some insight, if you would kindly lend your ear to the nonsense of one as naïve to the world as myself.”

“Y-Yes. I would be most grateful.”

Most grateful─that was part of my vocabulary?

“Heartunderblade,” Ononoki jumped in. “He’s holding on better than I thought, but can you hurry it up? Monstieur is gonna be in pretty bad shape soon. Your influence is growing in proportion to his resistance.”

What did that even mean? A terribly impudent tone to take with milady, but unusually for Ononoki, she was concerned about my health.

“Sure, Ononoki,” princess replied, using a more casual register with the shikigami─and just her name.

The versions I knew got along horribly, ignoring each other when they crossed paths at home, but surprisingly, that wasn’t the case here… So Ononoki wasn’t lying earlier─in which case, maybe there was mutual recognition in their heart of hearts. While that seemed like a good thing, I wished I’d found out some other way…

“Sir Araragi. It would seem wise for you to return to your own world as soon as possible─I understand Miss Hachikuji suggested you take a relaxed attitude, but she spoke from the perspective of a god. It would not be in line with human nature,” princess confirmed what I’d thought after her earlier aside that there was no time. What an honor that my thoughts were in line with milady’s─or no, daring to read them was so lacking in decency that I deserved death, many times over.

…Yikes, what was with my mindset here? I wasn’t part of her retinue or anything. I wasn’t so servile even as Shinobu’s vampire thrall.

“To wit, your existence in this world is exerting a massive influence. An influence…perhaps I ought to say, a negative influence. If you would excuse my rude choice of words, Sir Araragi, you are a calamity inflicted upon this weak world.”

Negative influence? Calamity? Inflicted?

Unconsidered, abusive words, ill-befitting milady’s pretty and polite language, but somehow, they didn’t shock me─and just seemed strange.

I mean, I felt like the victim, wrapped up here in some kind of massive calamity─but I was suddenly reminded of Mèmè Oshino.

─I can’t stand you playing the victim.

A line he uttered often.

That expert hated people going around blaming aberrations as soon as anything happened and shunting responsibility─it isn’t what I meant to do, but had I started to think that way at some point this time?

Was milady nudging me towards such an understanding?

What a blessing!

“This world may be counterfeit in your eyes, a place filled with contradictions that does not follow reason, but it exists by way of its own balance. You are threatening that balance. In truth…Ononoki may look to you as though she has returned to normal, but to me, she has transformed into something unusual.”

“!”

I reflexively looked over at Ononoki─who flashed a sideway peace sign.

Why?

But princess was right─even if the shikigami knew this day would come. And from the way milady was speaking, was I going to make not just Ononoki but others transform?

“I shan’t go so far, but it will inevitably cause strain. Sir Araragi, you are and are not Sir Araragi─yet we accept and understand you as him. For you and he are the same. The pending strain could very well undo our world entire.”

“…”

The world? The scale was starting to get pretty huge. Well, I guess we were talking about worlds from the start. I needed to be more aware of that.

I’d interacted with Karen, Tsukihi, and Oikura in a way that wouldn’t give away that I was from another world, but I couldn’t have lined up exactly with their image of Koyomi Araragi (I doubt I’m one-faced like Tsukihi)─they had to be finding me odd, just as Ononoki thought something was off.

In fact, Oikura had said as much. It could be responsible for that line of hers, This all seems like a lie.

Yet the girls recognized me as Koyomi Araragi regardless─because I was none other than Koyomi Araragi. Just like the person in front of me was Shinobu Oshino, however far removed her appearance…

“You must return to your world before this world suffers from cognitive dissonance─we would not survive that unharmed, nor would you, of course. Surely, it would be an alarming state of events. In fact, I have already started to be affected─my understanding of who Koyomi Araragi is already grows dim.”

“I…”

I want to know what kind of person I was in this world, I asked milady a question for the first time─more because it seemed like bad news if I didn’t than out of curiosity.

I felt so guilty I might off with my own head if I didn’t stay strong─but why? Yes, I was causing harm to this world, but that harm could still be rectified. Why was I turning so soon to the idea of atoning with my life?

Did I think it was that much of a sin to destroy her image of Koyomi Araragi?

“That─is something I will not tell you,” she answered.

“I-Is it because…you’ve forgotten so much already that you can’t?”

“No, it is not yet to that stage─though I fear it may come to that at this rate. I will not tell you because the knowledge may, perchance, have a negative influence on you. Ononoki, be sure not to say anything uncalled for yourself.”

“Of course. I haven’t said a word,” the shikigami blatantly lied.

She told me all that stuff about pantsing girls…or was she kidding? What a malicious joke. Of course, it’d be more malicious if it wasn’t a lie.

“B-But…I too wish to return as soon as I may.”

What was with my language? Had I come to beg for forgiveness for not making my yearly tribute?

“As I intimated, we lack a means,” princess noted. “We might near our lone prospect, the bathing tub at the Kanbaru manse, yet fail to contact the other side.”

True. We were clinging onto the legend about their cypress bath as our one hope when it was nothing more than a silly magic charm. It involved Toé Kanbaru, but the legend itself originated with the Kanbarus, not the Gaens. Seriously, should we be relying on it?

How dare I bother milady with such a tale, I promptly ought to end my life right─wait, why did I want to die so much?!

“No good. He’s at his limit, Shinobu.”

Ononoki grabbed me by the scruff of my neck from beside and forced me to stand.

Huh? What?

“Time’s up. I’m bringing him back with me. Wrap whatever you need to say up.”

What an unreasonable request to make of milady!

By my own death, this impudence ought─no, the sin was truly my lowly self’s for standing without princess’ permission, I would die, I would die, I needed to die─

“All right. Sorry for the trouble, Ononoki.”

“I don’t mind. Same old, same old.”

Ononoki sounded kind of cool. Her role here seemed downright unfair.

“Sir Araragi. You are not mistaken in proceeding down your path. But that will not suffice. Do not endeavor to carry this out alone, rather seek support. Be another’s light in this world, just as you became mine─”

“Unlimited Rulebook,” Ononoki said.

Before jumping─teal, don’t mink.