Monogatari Series - Volume 21 - Chapter 0.05

005

You just treble the number of yous.

The number of yous.

I had no idea what Ononoki-chan was talking about.

‘As I’ve been saying, three including yourself… no, that wouldn’t inspire confidence. Then let’s say, five. That would make the rotation easier.’

She continued, fiddling the sums as she went.

I stopped sketching.

All things considered, what is this kid trying to make me do?

Colour me befuddled.

‘No, no, that’s what I’m saying, you’ve just said a manga artist is also somewhat dependent on their assistants. So it is not a solo effort, but more a member of an organisation, a group.’

‘M-Mm. Teamwork is important, so you need good communication in order to make it too…’

‘Which means you have no idea if you have what it takes to lead a group, let alone be an assistant — we’ll save that problem for the future. But, no matter how introverted you are, if you are facing yourself, then you’d have less trouble communicating, right? So all you need to do is prepare four of yourselves as assistants.’

This is getting even more confusing.

Seeing that I have stopped sketching, Ononoki-chan stopped her posing, and jumped off the table.

She landed without a sound.

Her unparalleled body control can be gleamed from this small move alone.

‘Apologies for being blunt, but this is part of my specialty — did I mention before, that apart from being a doll oddity, I am also an onmyōji’s shikigami?’

‘Shikigami —’

Uhh… I have heard of that quite often.

More accurately, I see it in manga all the time.

I have no idea what a shikigami is technically supposed to be though.

Nor do I know much about even onmyōji.

Ononoki-chan being an oddity is something I heard from her the first time we met, but come to think of it, I had never asked about her origin story. Though the fact that she straight up told me probably means it’s no secret.

‘To call myself “shikigami” in front of a former kami [god] is quite disrespectful. I’m okay with being called a familiar, though. But basically, I am a faithful and loyal servant to my master — however, unlike a vampire’s kin, a shikigami acts more as an agent. If kin were family, then a shikigami would be more a butler or a maid;’

In my case, my master, onee-chan, cannot walk on the ground, so my job is to do all her footwork and go all over the place — Ononoki-chan explained plainly.

Whilst plain, I did not quite understand it fully.

She may say I was a god, but I don’t know much about oddities — a lot of it I have already forgotten.

Onee-chan? Who cannot walk on the ground?

‘I’ll introduce her to you when we get the chance. If it was onee-chan, she would definitely give you a good talking-to the moment you meet her.’

I do not want to have a good talking-to the first time I meet someone.

Ononoki-chan refers to her as ‘onee-chan’, but from what I am hearing, it does not sound like her blood-related sister.

A doll’s sister is merely an abstract concept, after all.

‘Anyway, just as onee-chan has me, a shikigami, to do her bidding, what I propose is you make your own. Given that you cannot do it alone, if five of you co-operate, then no matter the effort or the results, you could achieve something within the year.’

Mmmm.

Even if I don’t quite get it, I think Ononoki-chan is trying to tell me something… when she says ‘to make shikigami’, does she mean pursuing another dream?

‘If you cannot even achieve this kind of dream, what makes you think you can become a manga artist? Is that really what you are thinking?’

No, that’s exactly what I am thinking.

Please don’t say it like it’s a cool line.

‘Let’s do the sums.’

Ononoki-chan grabbed the sketchbook I hugged and reached for a G nib pen from my pen holder.

Why a G nib…

But all is well as long as she doesn’t use my spoon nib. {D}

‘We are ten months away from graduation, which is about three hundred days. Divide ten thousand by that, take out the remainder, that makes a hundred hours every three days. Meaning you need to work thirty-three hours a day.’

At this point, the sums clearly do not add up.

It is nine hours over.

But Ononoki-chan continued writing — handling that G pen, which is difficult for beginners, quite well.

Although she held it with her fingers curled up like a fist.

‘We distribute these thirty-three hours amongst the group, a group of five. Let’s divide labour like worker ants do; the ones who do the work versus the benchwarmers form a ratio of eight to two, so that means four of them work whilst one of them rests. Every person works eight hours, eight times four equals thirty-two. We’re still one hour short, so let’s tack on another fifteen minutes to everyone to make thirty-three — and there you go, ten thousand hours.’

‘I see…’

I cannot help but feel I am lied to by these numbers, but if my work is rotated amongst five people, then I can get a full ten-thousand-hour total before graduation.

Obviously, this is only on paper, and there will be days when I am tired or when I get sick, or when something happens that renders everybody incapacitated, so it will probably not go to plan, but I am not known for lack of trying. Factor all those in, and it should work.

But, compared to the first proposal, something else is making me very uncomfortable with this proposal.

‘Ononoki-chan, I don’t want to have others do the labour for me… because all my life, I’ve been forcing this upon Tsukihi-chan or Kaiki-san, which was why I ended up here in the first place.’

‘Mm, I think so too, wholeheartedly. You are completely correct. You have finally said something right.’

The lady doth agree too much.

It appears she was getting frustrated at me, too.

‘That’s why in the end it has to be you who puts in the hours — you should be the one putting in the effort. Which means all your shikigamis have to be Sengoku Nadekos — that was what I meant when I first said it, didn’t I? For the user, shikigami are their agents, they do things for them, such are their existences. Therefore…’

Ononoki-chan flipped the sketchbook to a blank page, and gave it back to me.

‘What you need to do is draw four self-portraits in this sketchbook — four Sengoku Nadekos. Then I’ll help you turn them into three dimensions.’

Materialise them.

And build four shikigami.