Monogatari Series - Volume 21 - Chapter 0.17

017

And just like that, I captured my second shikigami.

Hm?

No, this was not a timeskip.

Nor a flashback; this is a continuation.

A chronological continuation from the previous part.

The reason being, my wish of being a manga artist was not mere talk — I might not be bright, but I have read a lot of battle manga.

So I had in my mind a two-stage strategy.

If the office chair distraction and going for her via her blind-spot with my sketchbook sheet was stage one, then the Plan B in case I failed was stage two.

I say all this, but it was really simple.

Upon hearing Anti-Nadeko’s pronouncement that she would ‘split my guts’, I considered going along with it.

And use it against her.

However, this battle strategy was not a product of logic, but practically of instinct — if I knew, I should have worn chainmail armour beneath my sweatshirt; whilst such fantasies are once again an escape from reality, a thought so shallow it could not even be classified as regret, precisely because it was something I could not do, I decided to think through it more realistically; if I could hide that magazine beside me, it should work as armour.

But as loose (and lame) as a sweatshirt may be, a magazine probably could not withstand a stabbing from a chisel.

If I protected myself around the torso, as short-tempered Anti-Nadeko may be, she would aim somewhere else, such as the throat — be it the gut or the throat, they are more weak spots than body parts. Anyway, even though there may be a difference in character, they are all me; the moment I stretched my hand towards that bookshelf, she could already guess what I am about to do.

Being stabbed by a chisel in the throat is a harrowing thought.

It must be avoided at all costs — therefore.

I deliberately did not dodge her attack towards my stomach.

Then, with determination, I protected myself with the office chair, and as I was hiding behind the back, I tucked something underneath my shirt without her noticing.

The most I could tuck in was a couple shreds of paper.

Yes, in other words, with those scraps of paper, she got captured voluntarily — I took out every blank sheet of paper and fastened them underneath my clothes with the elastic down my sweatpants, save for one sheet that I held in my hand.

Like armour.

Not chainmail, but papermail.

When Anti-Nadeko stabbed me in the stomach with her chisel, she flew into the paper herself.

Not flying moths to a flame, but a flying Anti-Nadeko to paper.

One fold, and it is sealed.

Another shikigami vanquished, yay!

Obviously, I was not that happy about it — in fact, thinking back on it, I felt what I did was a life-threatening, nigh impossible gamble; all colour drained from my face.

What the hell was I doing?

Looking at my torn jacket, I nearly fainted.

Why would I initiate such fanciful combat… it was probably affected by the tension of the scene; maybe Anti-Nadeko’s mood really got inside my head. It was like an experimental idea in battle manga, and I was lucky that it worked, but it could have been more than my jacket that got ripped; it could have been the paper underneath as well.

The specialist Ononoki-chan would never adopt such a flawed strategy — Ougi-san would probably say ‘what a fool’ with his trademark grin.

I’ve become addicted to gambling.

Rather than saying this was a result of trying my luck, it might be better to say the image of me being dead here, being dead in this room, caused my rampage — I nearly caused a catastrophic transformation that must be avoided at all costs.

A dangerous idea such as this is plenty enough drawn on a manga, but in real life? — if someone accuses me of reading (drawing?) too much manga, and being unable to distinguish fantasies from reality, I have nothing to say back to them.

No.

Even so, it ended in success, so I can be forgiven for being happy over it for a moment, but those last words from Anti-Nadeko have pierced my heart more than any chisel could.

‘You’re the one who needs a break.’

‘You don’t like working like this either, don’t you?’

…Those words from Anti-Nadeko could be considered part of me too. The same probably goes for Fawning Nadeko then.

Given that a shikigami is an agent, a representative of their masters, then what they say were probably reflections of how I truly feel.

My true thoughts, said by my shikigami doubles.

Of course, that’s not everything.

The amount of effort I put in to realise my dream has undoubtedly brought jollity into my life. The real, visible improvements in my drawing, or the new, awesome ideas that pop into my head — it would be a lie if I said I did not enjoy it.

But if something else brings me greater joy and was also equally doable, then can I still continue at it?

It was not only those last words.

Hating putting in effort, hating work, hating work that I hate doing, those were probably not the words of ‘past me’, let alone the words of Kuchinawa-san — that thought alone really crushes me.

It is depressing.

Facing oneself is something very tough.

Without realising, yet thoroughly analysing what I hate about myself… come on, why would anyone call this me ‘cute’?

My inside, whether past or present, is a muddy heap.

It is impressive how disgusting it is.

I should have let her go ahead and split me open, shouldn’t I?

With that said, Present Nadeko should not sulk and wallow — Present Nadeko is a pragmatic dream-seeker. Right now, I am still illegally trespassing.

Now that things have settled, I have to make good my escape.

I must leave for my own sake.

But before that, a bit of cleaning up.

Cleaning up after ‘two people’ fighting is not too difficult, but I wonder what I could do with the skew chisel lodged into the floor.

Though I cannot leave it alone, taking the blade out would be a challenge even for Anti-Nadeko.

If I simply tried to pluck it out, I could end up snapping the blade… at this point, I had another lesson, a manga-esque idea.

Because no matter if it is critical or dangerous, I learn most of my lessons from manga — and also from exuberant friends or inglorious swindlers.

The paper that was tucked in my shirt has returned to my pocket; I took out another sheet, and gently placed it atop the chisel.

Just as I thought.

The chisel was sealed within the paper.

…This being the chisel of a shikigami, so I thought I could seal it all the same, but seeing it makes it almost look like magic.

From the way it is used, this special talent could come in very handy, but if I were to treat this as a crutch, a world of destruction awaits; that is what my instinct tells me.

I must use it in moderation.

In reality, this was the result of me thinking I could achieve the ten-thousand-hour rule with that sweet temptation.

I should save this for a party trick, and nothing more.

Anyway, I successfully retrieved the chisel.

The scar on the floorboard remained, but its depth aside, it was from a chisel after all; one has to look for it to notice it, such was its size (or lack of). If anything, the marks from Anti-Nadeko’s furious stomping with her wooden clogs would likely prove more noticeable. No amount of party tricks could solve that problem.

Regardless, with the damage done to the front gate, it is impossible to completely hide everything — I will just have to let that unbridled friend of mine, Tsukihi-chan, know.

Tsukihi-chan would say,

‘Alright, then I’ll tell them I did it.’

And help out without giving it any ounce of thought, such is her dangerous amount of generosity; I should be careful in how I word it to her, otherwise it might come back to bite me.

However, that has not happened yet.

That is epilogue content.

Right now, this game of pursuit continues.

This is today.

After some twists and turns, I have finally captured Fawning Nadeko and Anti-Nadeko, with two shikigami to go.

Gentle Nadeko and Divine Nadeko.

The road here has not been fun or easy, and I only got lucky so far, but even so, we were now halfway through the mission; surely the remaining half would come about eventually.

Which reminds me of the question ‘is the cup half full or half empty’, but for that, there is probably no correct answer.

When one is thirsty, then ‘half full’ would be the optimistic answer; when one is trying to empty the cup, then ‘half empty’ would be the optimistic answer — therefore, in my current situation, I was feeling ‘half empty’.

No, if one has to have an optimistic thought, then with me, an outsider, still managing to retrieve two shikigami, then surely Ononoki-chan, a professional, would have had further progress.

One of the two remaining shikigami, Divine Nadeko, would seem to be trickier to deal with than the other — Fawning Nadeko and Anti-Nadeko were at least based on humans, but Divine Nadeko was based on a god — things might not go to plan, so I will have to carry on.

I will have to carry on and be aware.

Even if I cannot think well, I can at least move.

I stepped out into the corridor after cleaning the room.

As for where to go next, I did not have anywhere specific in mind, but someone might notice the front door and call the police, so I had better leave the Araragi household quick.

Speaking of the odd front door, whilst I ended up fighting Anti-Nadeko as part of it, I originally came here to ambush Gentle Nadeko.

So from a strategic point of view, I can still hide in Tsukihi-chan’s room and wait for her to arrive… but there is no need to wait for Gentle Nadeko to stroll in; she is so timid that noticing that odd door would be enough to scare her off.

In the end, all of this is my own deduction, but it would be wiser to search somewhere else — like that, I wrung whatever ounces of intelligence I could from my head like a towel, and was about to go past Tsukihi-chan’s room, when I stopped halfway through.

When I looked down at my own sweatshirt.

‘Mmmm…’

It was torn by Anti-Nadeko’s chisel, and my stomach was in full view; considering Bloomer Nadeko was wandering around with barely anything, this exposure was not exactly disastrous, but to move about in this would still be, to some extent, very visible.

This is more than just lame, any middle school girl out and about in pyjamas would grab people’s attention — not a good state to be in when pursuing others.

Right.

I’ll borrow, then.

In for a penny, in for a pound. {P}

Tsukihi-chan likes dressing up, so I am sure she would not immediately notice if one or two clothes go missing.

Since I was already trespassing (which was the shikigami’s fault, in addition to destruction of property), I might as well go the extra mile and borrow somebody else’s things; a model case of a person spiralling into crime.

When one falls, one falls quick.

But if I was doing this, I had to do this blisteringly quick. Quicker than a fall. Now that I was in a phase of retreat, I cannot dawdle — I opened the door to Tsukihi-chan’s room.

This is somebody else’s home I am familiar with, no, somebody else’s room I am familiar with. So it seems she has this room to herself; I do not remember the room looking like this.

It would be a miracle if Gentle Nadeko was hiding in this room, but alas, my luck only got me so far — no sign of her in the walk-in wardrobe either. If this was a movie, this would be the time when a zombie pops up. If Gentle Nadeko was, as the rumours say, half-naked, it would be great if she could nick some clothes here with me too.

Anyway, I did not have high hopes.

The near-infinite choice of clothes I had at my disposal was very much like a bonus stage for me.

My measurements are about the same as Tsukihi-chan’s.

However, whilst I did have the wardrobe to myself, I cannot borrow her kimono — it would make me stand out even more.

I shall borrow the entire set of clothes Tsukihi-chan wears when she comes over to play.

I always thought it looked nice.

Ignoring her worries.

Thinking back on this past half year, when I discarded any semblance of being fashionable and worked non-stop on drawing, and only drawing, looking at Tsukihi-chan’s wardrobe, which must have took forever to organise, perhaps ‘not doing something’ does not count as putting in effort.

I would not say this is laziness, but when working towards something, it should be an active act.

Although whether burglary could be considered active is something I am not sure about… soon, I’ve finished changing.

A dress change… no, with this much, it was more a dress up.

I folded the sweatshirt and tucked it into the depths of the wardrobe. It might be discovered in no time at all, but Tsukihi-chan would probably think it was her old clothes and patch the holes.

Ta-da~

Short culottes, black knee highs, plus a blouse with floral frills. I even borrowed a cap to suit my very short hair.

I carelessly forgot to match the clothes with the sandals, but there was no way I could borrow shoes — if they start rubbing against me whilst in pursuit, it would be a big problem.

I checked myself with the mirror inside the wardrobe door; though it was a perfect copy, I could never look as good as Tsukihi-chan, but I have done well in terms of camouflage. If I pushed down my cap, nobody’d recognise me from afar.

Pushing down my cap… huh.

This reminds me of my Gentle Nadeko years.

Quite ironic that I was having to hide my face again to search for Gentle Nadeko.

Whilst trapped in this wave of self-deprecation, I still kept my head down on the main objective, as I closed the wardrobe and left Tsukihi’s room.

However, as I went down the stairs (tiptoeing again, just in case) to the ground floor, thinking I will leave this time, I heard a ring.

My entire body shook.

The first thing I had in my head was an emergency alarm, but this was not a middle school corridor — there were no sprinklers here.

Then could that be a security alarm?

Given their parents’ occupation, it would not be unnatural for them to install something like that… no, but why would an alarm that has not rung until now ring all of a sudden?

Don’t tell me it was activated by Tsukihi-chan’s wardrobe… if that is so, my abuse of friendship is about to receive its just desserts.

Do no evil.

Although honestly, when one thinks of the attitude Tsukihi-chan has given me, borrowing a hundred clothes still would not make it even between us — well, not that she would listen to me about this at all, but upon closer inspection, this was not the ring of a security alarm.

It was just from an ordinary telephone.

The noise was completely unlike a mobile phone ringtone — looking ahead, the corridor leading to the living room had a landline phone, its light blinking.

Realistically, this ringing would cease even if I ignored it, and go to voicemail, but I lost all sense of self-restraint, thinking I have to stop this noise, and picked up the receiver.

A product of my reflexes — a fat load of good they are, my reflexes.

‘Hello! It’s Sengoku!’

I straight up said I’m Sengoku.

The first thing the serial criminal did was declare her name.

The gall.

Communication even on the phone posed a problem for me — I can only pray that somebody had dialled the wrong number; however, this was not somebody dialling the wrong number.

This was a call that made me hope something was wrong.

‘Huh…? Sengoku-san?’

It was a voice I know.

It was a voice I could never forget.

It was Senjougahara Hitagi-san.