Monogatari Series - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.26

026

“You think it’s funny, shit-for-brains? I ought to kill you.”

When I recounted the whole business to Ononoki, she abused me with some filthy language─she’d never gone on such a tirade against me, in this world or the other.

She did maintain her expressionless face and affectless tone, but had she been this world’s original Ononoki, I imagine her look would have been anything but dashing.

“Who actually agrees to take a bath in that situation? With a married woman, at that. Who’s yet to follow her husband in death.”

“Um, I don’t know about that last part…”

If she was a ghost, she already was dead along with her husband. Ononoki also needed to be careful about her sexist assumptions─though among men, the same concept was called a pledge of eternal friendship, say, or the Oath of the Peach Garden.

We’d left the Kanbaru estate by now and moved to Shirohebi Park─not that we needed to be there, but I’d evaded the Rainy Devil the day before by coming here, so we rehashed the same pattern.

After getting out of the bath, I’d exited out to the yard, gotten on my bike, and jumped into Kanbaru and Ononoki’s battle, and the shikigami had taken that as her cue.

“Unlimited Rulebook─”

We’d shot into the sky.

As far as I could tell, the Rainy Devil hadn’t taken any significant damage, with just a few scraps missing from her raincoat.

Ononoki had managed to accomplish her mission, fighting to buy me time but holding back and not injuring her opponent─what a professional.

I wanted her to know that I, an amateur, had also done good work, so once we arrived at the park’s plaza, I related the ghost story I’d experienced in the wood bath─only to trigger the above verbal abuse.

“Sheesh… I feel like a kitty who caught a mouse and brought it to his master to be praised but who got yelled at instead.”

“What you did wasn’t so good.”

“The simile is, though.” I thought comparing myself to a feline when I didn’t care for cats expressed the depth of my shock.

“Also, casting me as your master? It violates good-faith principles. You’d be Big Sis’ sub-shikigami.”

“A sub-shikigami? Is that a real concept? Wouldn’t want to be under Miss Kagenui’s umbrella…”

I looked around the park as I said this─fortunately, there were no witnesses, or rather no one had overheard my exchange with Ononoki.

Anyway, I’d ended up taking a rather long bath, and it was already past noon. My plan was to visit Kita-Shirahebi Shrine again at night, and we still had the time for one other action.

“So, Ononoki. I was thinking of going to NAOETSUHIGH…er, Naoetsu High, but what do you say?”

“Hmm… Well, I guess that’s our only option if we don’t have any other leads. Meanwhile, if you want to know how I feel, I’m not terribly excited about following Miss Gaen’s sister’s advice.”

Feel, excited─words that didn’t quite suit Ononoki.

“Advice, it probably isn’t,” I said. “She told me she wouldn’t give me any─I think it’s a suggestion, or maybe a screening process…something like a hint that we’re free to discard.”

That just might be where she drew the line, I thought─just as Oshino had one when it came to saving others, she might be limiting her assistance on account of her cheat-grade skills, intentionally or not.

That was my impression.

“You keep on talking about these stigmata, monstieur, but you still haven’t shown them to me.”

“What? You wanna look? You’re telling me to strip here? I’m feeling a little shy…”

“You’re acting legitimately self-conscious when your story’s so phony that I can’t believe it without some kind of proof. Aren’t you just making stuff up to cover for the fact that you found nothing?”

“D-Don’t be ridiculous. I’d never cover up a blunder.”

I’d tried to come up with something, yes, but my dithering had led to getting my back washed by a married woman.

“Okay, turn around,” Ononoki said like a doctor─how funny, a doll was playing doctor with a guy.

I pulled up my shirt.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Huh? What? Why that tone? And why those words?”

“There’s not a thing there. Just a well-toned back.”

“I’m not sure how to respond to that compliment…but seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“No…”

I twisted my neck but naturally couldn’t see my own back. Still, how could Ononoki not see those impressive welts?

Yet now that she said so, the pain had vanished at some point… In the bath mirror, those nail marks had made me wonder if they’d ever disappear, but I suppose Ms. Toé had shown me some consideration. In that case, however, they’d gone away a little too soon…

“N-No, they were there until just now. NAOETSUHIGH, it said right on my back, in mirrored characters.”

“Wow. Desperate, aren’t you? A boy who gets trapped in his own lies about having a cute pen pal level of desperate.”

“No elementary school rom-com metaphors please, this isn’t a joke. I’m serious, Ononoki, look at my eyes! Are these the eyes of a liar?!”

“It’s the first time anyone tried that line on me. This isn’t a manga, looking at your eyes won’t tell me anything. That’s just called a staring contest. Want me to make a funny face while we’re at it?”

“Look at my pupils!”

“Are they dilated or something? A whole other kind of suspicious. Anyway, I’m not an ophthalmologist. But I wish the lady had gone for a nice, full sentence.”

“You’re traumatizing me!”

Like I’d let her scar me in essay form!

Capital letters were bad enough!

“…Um, Ononoki, are you saying you believe it now? My tale of adventure that unfolded as you were busy fighting the Rainy Devil?”

“Not sure if you should be calling it that, but…if you’re going to lie, try and tell a more believable lie.”

“Wait, are you criticizing me now?”

“Sorry. I meant to say that if you were lying, you’d try and tell a more believable lie… I’m afraid I blurted out my creed.”

“Your rephrasing was empty cant, then.”

“Whatever the case, it’s not like we have any other course of action. Right now I’m hung up on the fact that it was Miss Gaen’s big sister who gave you that advice…or hint, as you put it.”

Just like in my world, the name Toé Gaen carried that kind of connotation. Having met her, I could see why… Even apart from that, I didn’t particularly want to visit Naoetsu High.

I preferred not to, in fact. A place I thought I was done with─what sort of face was I going to wear walking into my alma mater when I’d gotten down on all fours and apologized in the teachers’ room on graduation day?

But at this hour, maybe school was out…and there weren’t too many people. Sure, a good opportunity to sneak in, but alumnus or not, I was an outsider now, and they might get really mad at me (I’d be lucky if it ended there).

“Let’s see… I’m one thing, but you’d stand out, Ononoki…”

“True, my cuteness attracts a lot of attention, wherever I go.”

“…”

No, I was saying that a tween girl couldn’t avoid standing out at a high school… If she was joking, it wasn’t really her brand of humor─there was somewhat of a deviation between this Ononoki and the one I knew after all.

Berating me earlier felt like another variant of that, but just as I was thinking about what to do─

“That’s it. Why don’t we split up?” she proposed. “If there’s no risk of the Rainy Devil coming into the picture, which is to say, of a battle erupting, I don’t need to be with you. I’ll try a different route while you head to Naoetsu High.”

“A different route? Like?”

“Well, I only thought of it just now… Searching for a good excuse not to go there, because I really don’t want to do as Miss Gaen’s sister says, I had an idea.”

“Are you being cautious, or do you just hate her? How unwilling can you be to visit Naoetsu High?”

“Let me try checking with Black Hanekawa─checking with her, or maybe finding her… Why she decided to save you is still a big question for me. I’m going to clear that up.”

“Any idea where she might be?”

“No, but it’d be negligence if I used that as an excuse and didn’t even try. Nothing wrong with looking for a lost cat now and then. I feel like a P.I.”

“Well…”

It did seem like a good enough reason to reject Ms. Toé’s hint─while I didn’t know what I might find at Naoetsu High, contacting Black Hanekawa would undoubtedly represent significant progress.

Even if Ononoki located her, it’d be no walk in the park getting anything out of Black Hanekawa. Still, I wanted to know who had asked her to save me.

“Also,” said Ononoki, “I probably won’t get anywhere with it, but I’d like to see Shinobu again first.”

“What? That’s kind of worrisome… Will you be okay?”

“Heh. Never thought you’d worry yourself over the likes of me.”

“There you go again, like we’re in some buddy-cop movie… It’s either that or a grade school romance, huh? Your repertoire’s way too narrow.”

“Don’t worry, you saw for yourself how Shinobu’s aura doesn’t really work on me. I’m not saying it doesn’t affect me at all, but it’s still better than you going. I might get to hear the final bit of a conversation that got cut short… Of course, that selfish princess is more stubborn than you’d expect, and she might not talk unless it’s directly to you, which is why I woke you up in the middle of the night, but I’ll figure something out. I’ll try reverse-prostrating myself and asking her.”

“Okay. Thanks for begging on my behalf─hold on, reverse-prostrating?”

“The esoteric technique known as a back bridge. Primarily, bending your body backwards.”

“Who do you think you are to assume such a cocky pose before milady… But how well do you think that’ll all go? You said you have no idea where Black Hanekawa is, and you might not get anywhere with Shinobu, but if it’s more promising than going to Naoetsu High, I could also─”

“Keep in mind that I only came up with these ideas because I don’t want to go to Naoetsu High… If you came with me, I’d have to accompany you to Naoetsu High as a show of thanks.”

She was telling me this to my face─did she hate Ms. Toé that much?

“Hence a plan you’d specifically have trouble coming along on. Your lack of mobility would only get in the way of chasing after Black Hanekawa, and you’d shrivel up and wither if you visited Shinobu─so. Give up yet?”

“I give up.”

Well argued on her part.

It was educational, the way she weaved logical reasons for not doing something she didn’t want to do. I hadn’t been making excuses, but in contrast, how nonsensical my account of seeing nothing on the bathwater surface, meeting Kanbaru’s mom instead, taking a soak with her, and receiving a message on my back must have sounded to Ononoki.

“In that case,” she said, “let’s meet back here in about three hours and then head to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine. We’ll squeeze the most out of our time if we join up at the last second and jump over with my Unlimited Rulebook, instead of meeting up there. You go gather firewood at Naoetsu High, and I’ll wash our laundry with Black Hanekawa and Shinobu.”

“Did you just try to broaden your analogy repertoire and fail miserably? Your folktale reference even managed to muddy your point… Well, I don’t think I’ll be in any danger, but you be careful. Shinobu’s one thing, but Black Hanekawa seems plenty dangerous in this world, too. I mean, she can drain your energy.”

“Her energy drain doesn’t mean much to me. I’m a corpse, okay?”

“Oh yeah? I didn’t know.”

“If we’re talking about danger, I think you’ll be in more of it, monstieur. You may not get in any battles, but doing exactly as Miss Gaen’s sister says? It’s bound to be costly─I think something is going to happen.”

“…”

To be honest, I wasn’t sensing any danger. What about Ms. Toé was making Ononoki this wary?

Of course, depending on how you looked at it, her intense caution was an expression of high esteem─if there wouldn’t be any battles, it seemed worth going there just on my own.

“Should I drop by my house first and change into my school uniform, in that case?” I asked Ononoki. “Would it be better if I pretended to be a high schooler?”

I hadn’t thought I’d ever wear my uniform again, but it looked like I had to one last time… Oikura should be out with my little sisters, so there was no risk of running into her even if I went back to my room.

“I think so. I’ll escort you. I feel bad about abandoning you, it’s the least I can do.”

“Maybe don’t abandon me and don’t feel bad in the first place?”

That said, her relationship with Miss Gaen was probably at play here. To begin with, Ononoki didn’t need to be helping me at all.

“Fine, please just take me home then. But you be careful too and don’t try anything reckless,” I warned her, knowing just how terrifying Black Hanekawa could be, and concluded our briefing…giving the matter no further thought.

But I ought to have given far more weight to Ononoki’s misgivings─I’d yet to see just how terrifying Toé Gaen could be.

At her guidance, I was heading to Naoetsu High─and while I’d lived to tell numerous tales of aberrations, just barely making it through, I’d be coming face to face with a hair-raising, supreme terror like none other.