Monogatari Series - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.28

028

Around this time, Yotsugi Ononoki, who was now acting independently, had gone to Shinobu Oshino─or Keepshot Castleorion Fortunderblade, that’s to say Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade in her peak form, but in her peak form as a human─and finished her audience and exited the palace. An impressive show of initiative when my own drama had been to wear or not to wear, her actions conformed to our expectations of an expert.

More than enough talent to make up for a nasty personality─and yet, she would regret to report that she’d gained nothing from the audience.

According to her subsequent explanation: “Well, she might make herself out to be important, but she’s no monster. The only unique thing about her is her charisma─it’s not as if she’s omniscient or omnipotent.”

Being a corpse made it harder for Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s grandeur to affect her, but it still did to some extent. Perhaps having no choice but to keep their conversation brief, she’d left empty-handed─unfortunate, but then her solo quest’s main purpose was not having to heed Miss Gaen’s sister’s instructions, so perhaps it was all the same to Ononoki.

As much as that pissed me off, nothing would be more futile than to comment on it. She hadn’t exactly strayed from her path and slacked off, and had done her job properly. Far be it from me to complain─in fact, it wasn’t her job in the first place.

All right, Yotsugi Ononoki said, wiping her memory of her fruitless audience and moving on to her next item─in other words, finding Black Hanekawa.

Who knew something. Maybe just what she knew─but she did know.

In which case, we needed to ask her. Lacking a single clue as to her location, the only option was to comb through our town─well, no, I wouldn’t say we didn’t have any idea.

Like we said, Miss Serpent─this world’s Nadeko Sengoku spoke as though she knew Black Hanekawa, and that might be considered a clue. Miss Serpent wasn’t interested in discussing the matter, and since I couldn’t bring myself to be assertive with Nadeko Sengoku, I’d had trouble digging into the topic. Yotsugi Ononoki, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

She could dive head-first if she wanted.

While we weren’t sure that Miss Serpent would answer─not to mention the obscurity of her own whereabouts─we couldn’t be any more certain about the location of her “friend”…or should we say successor.

A place Ononoki knew quite well herself, one she’d visited a number of times─Kita-Shirahebi Shrine. No need even to set any coordinates.

Unlimited Rulebook, was all it took. Uttering the words with no emotion, no expression─she flew.

Soaring at top speed now that she had no cargo, namely me getting in the way and weighing her down, she arrived at Kita-Shirahebi a dozen or so seconds later. Her body, her dead body, absorbed the impact so as not to destroy her destination─an impressive, environmentally-friendly landing that surprised no one, coming from her. But then…

Hm?

Yotsugi Ononoki’s expressionless face wavered.

She didn’t smile, nor did she put on a dashing look, but the expressionless one she’d settled on, so seemingly fixed, now cracked the tiniest bit.

Her current personality may have been a rush job, but what really surprised her was feeling perturbed at all while in full work mode. Well, chalk that up to this being another world and remaking herself to belong to the other side─she looked at what lay before her again.

In her defense, the sight would’ve surprised anyone, not just Ononoki.

The great god Mayoi Hachikuji and Miss Serpent─just the fact that those two people, or gods, were there was providential, as it meant skipping the preliminary step of talking to Miss Hachikuji to find Miss Serpent. Wary as Ononoki might be of such a convenient development, she’d take it.

But there, drinking hard with the duo, was a third individual─or rather, a little girl.

Who wouldn’t be stunned to see an elementary schooler with braided hair and glasses─scratch that, an elementary schooler joining in on a drunken revel?

Unbelievable, I thought the little-girl factor rested entirely on me this time, Ononoki muttered in a solemn (rather than flat) tone, appraising the little girl─whose cheeks were flushed but not out of bashfulness.

“Hnm? Mrowww?” the little girl slurred with a sloppy smile on her face. “Tsubasa Hanyekawa here. Myahaha.”

“…”

This actually allowed Ononoki to regain her composure.

It goes without saying that she didn’t know Hanekawa at six years old. In fact, the shikigami barely knew Tsubasa Hanekawa, and even her familiarity with Black Hanekawa was limited to what I’d told her.

But if anything, this scene was easier to accept if the drunken little girl claimed to be Tsubasa Hanekawa─it was at least less scandalous than a regular little girl getting drunk.

“Miss Hachikuji. What’s going on here?” the shikigami asked the lone individual present old enough to legally consume alcohol, who seemed to have a nice buzz going on too.

“Hm? Oh,” she replied, sounding surprisingly sober. She was sitting there cross-legged on the ground, but perhaps gods were best when they weren’t too uptight. “What’s going on here is that Tsubasa Hanekawa’s got more than one other side to her, though you still have her beat. Her early childhood is certainly one of her inner selves, while on the outside─well, since we haven’t seen that little tiger of ours yet, maybe it all got settled.”

“…”

Ononoki tilted her head in confusion at what purported to be an explanation. An outsider to the incidents involving Hanekawa, it didn’t mean a thing to her.

She didn’t know what was being said.

But ignoring what she didn’t understand was Ononoki’s specialty─her special move, even. She didn’t expect any correct information from a drunk, anyway, and decided to just go over the important points one more time.

“So Black Hanekawa─is another pattern of Tsubasa Hanekawa, yes? Of course, thanks to kind monster sir breaking me in, I can’t grasp this world properly anymore…”

Breaking in sounded a little too violent, but this was a real issue for her─she could no longer accept what was “obvious” in this world as such.

She’d modified her own personality into one that stressed logic and reason.

“Yep, you got it─hsshh hsshh!”

This of course was Miss Serpent, wasted too, nodding in reply. Ononoki enjoyed no real familiarity with Nadeko Sengoku either, but their ties were far from shallow. At least, in the world I knew─but those memories both existed and didn’t. How did that work in this case?

“Because Tsubasa Hanekawa’s an honest-to-god case of multiple personalities, unlike me. Hsshh hsshh hsshh.”

“I see…”

Though Ononoki nodded, she calmly determined that this trip was fruitless in its own way─Miss Serpent aside, leaping straight to discovering Hanekawa, the very person she was looking for, went beyond convenient and into too-good-to-be-true territory. Finding them all drunk here almost made it feel like her trail had been cut short.

She might have managed to extract info from the six-year-old Hanekawa, something like a double of Black Hanekawa, a double herself, if she weren’t inebriated─or maybe not. Talking to a six-year-old girl, whether or not she was drunk, wasn’t much better, she thought.

Ononoki was being a little naive, or as someone who didn’t know Hanekawa, committing an unavoidable error. (Six or not, drunk or not, Hanekawa was still Hanekawa. Asking her a question would still get you a response). Unwilling to return empty-handed, however, she chose to join the three-person ring and sat herself down. Not to take part in the booze-soaked revelry, of course─alcohol was nothing more than a preservative to a corpse like her.

A third party objectively examining this scene and hypothesizing the appropriate course of action would, we imagine, have her conclude her solo quest and meet with me at Naoetsu High, where I now headed─but Ononoki, who’d rather be drawn and quartered, pretended not to notice this option.

Or really didn’t notice. She just didn’t want to that much.

“Well, aren’t you all carefree, drinking like this when kind monster sir is in so much trouble,” Ononoki scolded the three females, two of whom were gods. Humans have a tendency to attack others when they feel guilty, and the same seemed to go for corpses.

Perhaps, in terms of social standing, this didn’t count as being disrespectful because as a shikigami, she was technically a god too.

“Oh, that stuff will be fine,” Miss Hachikuji answered─now that she was drunk, her already reversed voice sounded even more falsetto, but her words had a strange sense of certainty at their core. “I just heard from little Tsubasa here… That’s why we’re drinking to celebrate.”

“Celebration. Myahaha,” the girl laughed, though Ononoki didn’t know what was so funny.

“Hsshh hsshh hsshh hsshh,” Miss Serpent joined in.

Ononoki, unable to blend into the already established mood, felt left out and uncomfortable (she actually did), but it wasn’t enough for her to take a cue and leave.

Doing so meant going to Naoetsu High, which was out of the question.

“There’ve been various misconceptions, on my part, on everyone else’s─Koyomi Araragi included, of course,” Miss Hachikuji continued. “Maybe on your part too. No, that’s not it─you could say this entire world is the product of a massive misconception.”

“I’m not sure I get you…” Though wary about heeding the opinion of a drunk, Ononoki translated the remark and interpreted it as best she could. “Should I look at it like this? Judging by your calm…or loose demeanor, this situation, this case, has been settled.”

“To be precise, it’s heading toward a solution, mrow,” responded the six-year-old Hanekawa, her tone anything but settled. “It’s Araragi himself who’s nyow heading toward it─mew could say it’s always been that simple from the start. This is a tail of him coming to an understanding, and all we nyeeded to do was wait fur him to nyotice.”

“Notice?”

“Nyotice the existence of his partnyer─though that partnyer getting caged in due to a mistake made things a little complicated… It would’ve all ended on the first day, nyotherwise. This is like a continyuation of the end. That’s why I’ve had to run around everywhere, pouncing and pawing… Rolly-rolly.”

“…”

If she was saying anything important, Ononoki couldn’t quite figure it out. Still, she did get the vague nyoutline.

Or rather, outline─her job was over. It was an intuition that also sank into her. She could just stay here for the rest of this episode.

She understood─that she only had to wait with these three drunks for Koyomi Araragi to return via Naoetsu High.

This was far from the sense of accomplishment you felt after a job well done─in fact, the realization came with a sense of loss, like something had slipped out of her hands.

But never mind. She knew this day would come.