Monogatari Series - Volume 22 - Chapter 1.04

004

As it was only for four months, I had decided to live at my parents’ house during the training period.

For the first time in a while, I was back in this house.

However, the Araragi household that I had spent my teenage years in presently housed only a single individual: the eldest daughter, Araragi Karen.

It was unlikely that they had been waiting for the exact moment when all three of their kids had graduated. But when the second daughter, Tsukihi, entered college, my parents, who were at the head of the prefectural police, were called in to work for the national government.

Since the two of them were still together, it wasn’t necessarily the same as one of them being away from their family for work. But anyway, after that, I had left the house in the spring of my second year in college, leaving my two sisters there. But suddenly, a month later, Tsukihi quickly dropped out of college in order to re-apply to a college overseas.

Seriously?

Well, she was always the kind of sister that felt like she couldn’t be confined to the boundaries of Japan, so in a sense it was the perfect route for her. But as a result, it left Karen in the sorry state of being in the house all by herself, which really made me feel rather sorry for her.

Although, that made it sound like I should be visiting my home more often.

As such, I decided to treat Karen more nicely, at least for the next four months.

However, those warm feelings were brought to a halt as soon as I went through the entrance to my dear old home—for a house that was way too large for only one person to live in, Karen sure had made a huge mess.

It took three days to clean it up.

“It’s not my faaault, y’knooow. Unlike you, nii-chan, I’ve been working since last year!”

As her brother, I decided to hear out the excuse that she fired off.

In the first place, as I had left the house first, I had no right to complain, and Karen was technically my senpai in terms of employment—she had started working as soon as she graduated high school.

At the Naoetsu Police Department as well.

I never thought that she’d take that intense martial arts training and use it to make arrests… But Araragi Karen, former member of the Tsuganoki 2nd Middle School Fire Sisters in charge of combat, was now employed as a police officer in charge of public safety.

It really was the right person for the right job, but I never thought that I’d be beaten to the punch by my own sister.

Whether or not we were “chips off the old block”, the eldest son and daughter following in the footsteps of their parents to become police officers made Tsukihi’s freewheeling stand out even more. On the other hand, perhaps she had finally acquired a sense of independence at the age of twenty after having been so easily influenced by her brother and sister for so long.

“Eat up!”

“Thanks for the meal.”

Though her ability to keep things neat and tidy was utterly hopeless, at the very least, Karen had succeeded in acquiring some cooking skills when she was on her own.

That made it even harder to keep my head up.

It was pretty natural after being away for four years, but it really did feel like I was just a guest at my own home.

“So, how was it, nii-chan? Assistant Inspector Nii-chan.”

“Don’t call me that. And make fun of me. I’m a career man, now.”

“But weirdly enough, you don’t really have a good image. Is it because of TV dramas?”

To be honest, I had been thinking the same.

After studying so desperately, and twice as hard during college entrance exams, and then finally passing the public service exam, only to end up with a bad image…

I’d been told by my college classmates that I just seemed like a bundle of lust for power and career advancement.

As long as I wasn’t with someone I could feel at ease with, I probably shouldn’t describe myself as a career man.

I was already feeling anxious about being teased by the on-site officers after my induction… Why did I have to feel like this even after I’d become a working adult? I was glad that nothing like that happened at the Rumors Squad, although I did still get the elite treatment, in some manner of speaking.

The people of the Rumors Squad had all come into contact with oddities in some form or another and were housing oddities in their bodies, but it seemed that I was the only one who had actually spoken to an oddity and come to a mutual understanding.

Elite treatment, huh?

For someone who was basically at the bottom of the barrel in high school, I couldn’t exactly say I felt happy to say those words.

“Hahaha! That’s hilarious! So it’s like that? When guys who are all about anti-authority are suddenly thrown into positions of authority?”

said my sister, coming up with a cheeky example even as she took in twice the calories that I did. Considering she was basically twice my size (though that was exaggerating, she was only about twenty centimeters taller than me), her high metabolism, and her activities as a popular public safety officer, I was sure the calories she needed was an order of magnitude higher than what I needed (and that was surely not an exaggeration).

On-site officers, huh?

Hmm.

The kind of work I had wanted to do was something along those lines… But after seeing my sister’s sociability firsthand, I felt like I was personally experiencing Suou-san’s words of “people will only become what they’re able to become”.

I couldn’t become my sister, and my sister couldn’t become me.

“Well, people like you who work impulsively and emotionally aren’t really suited to working on-site, y’know? What’d suit you better would be like, leaning back and crossing your legs and being self-important in front of a mahogany desk.”

“I don’t think anything could make me more mad than hearing that from my own sister. If I’m so impulsive and emotional, I guess you’re just asking for me to beat you up!”

“Ooh! Do you want to fight it out, then? I even have a toothbrush ready to go if we need one!”

“Stop it! That was a rash decision made out of my youthful passions!”

And I made the small claim that I had actually been on-site today.

It was an elite claim to make.

“At least, it seems like the Rumors Squad is going to actually make use of me, instead of just having me sit around and do nothing. I actually was brought on-site, instead of just being treated like a bad rash.”

“Oho? Well, that entire squad is basically like a bad rash, y’know. In that no one wants to touch it. Since it’s sponsored by the higher-ups, there’s just a whole buncha rumors flying around the whole precinct.”

And so it was the Rumors Squad.

That’s exactly what Gaen-san wanted.

“If you came to the Public Safety Squad, then I would’ve spent all my time doting on you as your senpai, though.”

“If I had to go through something so painful, I’d probably just look for another job,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders.

I didn’t want her to take revenge against my youthful passions in such a way… Although, on one hand, I honestly did think that it might have been better if it went the way she’d described. But I’d keep that a secret. I had had the selfish idea of working, not through the connections of my powerful parents but through those of my skillful sister, and getting through my training period easily and safely, even if I did have to deal with Karen.

But it was good that that didn’t happen, since it was truly a very selfish desire.

“By the way, Karen-chan. You said there were a whole buncha rumors, but what exactly do you know about the Rumors Squad?”

I asked, keenly aware that I was still adding “chan” to her name despite her being over 180 centimeters and over 20 years old.

Even though I tried to stop, I never could in the end.

“Mm. Going to investigate any disturbing rumors that are appearing in the area, and stuff like that is what I’ve heard. Or taking care of things before an incident occurs… Since there have been cases where a disaster happened and people regret ignoring the warning signs. So in order to protect against that, the Rumors Squad was established… So instead of resolving incidents, it’s about preempting them. But there are a lot of coworkers who think it’s the opposite. That the Rumors Squad is there to prove that rumors are just rumors, and that incidents aren’t going to happen.”

“I see.”

I expected that rumors of oddities or youkai wouldn’t be circulating around the squad, but it was interesting to hear that it wasn’t some kind of secret agency, and that the rumors were pretty close to the truth.

They were almost asymptotic.

Maybe the experiment also involved gradually being more transparent about things?

Gaen-san had said something along those lines back when I was approaching my training period—and while at the time I had wondered how honest she was being, I can see now that, for this particular case, she really was being honest.

“It’s about time for the specialists who have hidden themselves from the public eye to switch over to forming an official organization, Koyomin—just like how the onmyouji were in the past. So I suppose in a sense, we’d just be going back to the starting point.”

Like Suou-san had mentioned, this wasn’t something that had just started now, but something she had planned far in advance—long before she even met me.

And it was very much like her to come up with this approach to forming the organization into something like the National Police Agency—instead of trying to persuade higher-ups, she would become “friends” with those involved with oddities and send them into the organization lower in the hierarchy.

When the people that were sent in gained a good reputation, the plan would begin in full force—so the fact that I had been employed at this time was certainly not a coincidence.

Pinning down the regional jurisdictions instead of the central headquarters was a lot like the clever strategy in Othello of taking the corners first.

It’s like I was dancing in the palm of her hand, no matter how far I went.

Well, if the implication was that Gaen-san had treated me well during my third year in high school as an investment towards this very moment, then I suppose I, like Suou-san, owed that much to her.

At the very least, I was going to serve out these next four months splendidly.

I’d do the best that I could.

Of course, I also felt that I wanted to show off my cool side to make up for all the pitiful sides I showed when I was in high school.

“And? Nii-chan, what did you mean by on-site? In the first place, what kind of work does the Rumors Squad actually do?”

“That’s classified for the sake of the investigation—or I guess it’s not.’”

If there was an element of danger, then I would definitely protect what was classified, even if the person I was speaking to was a police officer or my sister. But right now, the matter I was in charge of was proving that there was no danger.

And as a member of a squad trying to be transparent, I figured there wouldn’t be a problem to talk about it.

But you could also say that this was also an important form of police questioning—it wasn’t a good thing to bring your workplace into your home, but I figured Karen, who, unlike me, loved to go outdoors as a teen, would have played at that river before.

So I was going to ask her what it was like then.

“Karen-chan. Did you know that there was a huge river near Naoetsu High?”

“I don’t know everything. I just know what I know.”

“That’s really nostalgic!”

It was a line I’d heard a lot back in the day.

Speaking of which, Karen-chan had been pretty close with Hanekawa, hadn’t she?

“Although I haven’t heard from her recently. But that’s understandable. Are you still in contact with her, nii-chan?”

“Mm, ah, well, sometimes. Recently… Well, I guess it’s understandable…”

If we started talking about Hanekawa now, I was sure we’d never stop, so despite already being immersed in nostalgia, I forcefully turned the conversation back by asking, “So, did you know, or did you not know?”

“I knew about it, yeah. Or rather, the other day I went overnight fishing with everyone from the squad there.”

“……”

Forget loving the outdoors as a teen. She loved the outdoors even now.

She sure is active.

Even though she didn’t walk around outside with it on anymore, she still wore a tracksuit inside the house.

And she was still as sociable as she was as a student—it almost made me envy her.

And you could fish in that river? Huh.

Well, it’s true that when I dove underwater earlier today, I saw some pretty big fish in there.

“It seems that there’s been some kind of serial drowning accidents there. Children have been drowning there one after another, and a weird rumor is going around. So my main job is looking into that.”

“Hmm. Drowning accidents? That’s something I didn’t know about. And I camped out there without knowing about it. Should I not have done that?”

“No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

If you thought it was imprudent to go fishing at a place where kids had drowned, then pretty soon you’d start questioning your every move. It was true that there was some cause for concern as long as someone was still in critical condition, but since they were still alive, there was no need to take things that gravely.

“Anyway, Karen-chan. Did you notice anything strange when you were there?”

“Anything strange?”

“Well… Any points where it would’ve been easier to drown, or places where it would’ve been easier to slip… Or if someone suddenly got weaker while you were camping.”

Since the matter itself was rather vague, the questions concerning it also became ambiguous—for someone with a straightforward personality like Karen, it seemed it didn’t sit well with her, and she frowned and crossed her arms.

“I don’t think there was anything like that. We had lots of fun.”

“Is that so? …One more thing, just for reference. Were all the people that went camping your coworkers? Did anyone bring their family along? That is—anyone with kids?”

“Huh? Nah. Everyone was an adult.”

All right.

Well, as far as I understood, the victims were indeed limited to just kids.

I thought of what Shinobu had said.

“Out of the five cases, four of them were not accidents, but incidents”—despite being so terribly specific at first, she would not say anything more after that. Trying to tempt her with her favorite donuts didn’t help, either.

It seemed Shinobu had her own standards.

Standards for assisting me, not helping other people.

Even though the Rumors Squad had taken me on due to my mutual understanding with an oddity, at this rate, it felt like I wouldn’t be able to live up to that.

Speaking of which, was it three out of five people that had testified that they’d been pulled into the water by an “invisible hand”? Excluding the one that was still unconscious, it was three out of four—turning that around, it meant that one out of those four hadn’t given any such testimony.

If I took Shinobu’s words at face value that four out of those five cases were not accidents but incidents, then that implied one out of those five was not an incident but an accident—was that case the one kid who didn’t see the “invisible hand”?

If that was true, then I was more curious about what that kid’s testimony was.

If they had said that they had or hadn’t seen an “invisible hand” at the time, they might have just been written off as saying something weird, but, well, that was just how oddity stories went.

I decided to look into it properly, without dismissing it as “something that kids just said”.

I’d already sent a report in, but I decided to let Suou-san know what I planned on doing next after I finished eating.

It may not be putting old wine in new bottles, but I decided to follow in the footsteps of an old specialist and put in some legwork—because there was something you just couldn’t get from gossip and hearsay. Of course, it was also in my personality to follow through and look into even the smallest things, like who a “friend of a friend” was…

“What, nii-chan, don’t go to work now! I know your dream is to be on-site all the time, but when you’re in training, you’re totally free to just sit around and relax.”

“Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve been back here, so I figured I’d brush up on the lay of the land.”

“Even though you had no idea about that river? Why don’t you go meet up with some old friends instead? Hanekawa-san and Tsukihi-chan are both overseas, but there have to be some other people you wanna meet, right?”

I felt like Hanekawa being overseas and Tsukihi being overseas should have been treated with completely different nuances, but… For that matter, there were a lot of people that were around me that ended up going overseas, huh? I guess my high school days were full of people with talent that went undervalued in Japan.

Regardless, if I were to take this as a chance to reconnect with old friends… Well, it wasn’t like I didn’t have any friends, but… Even though it’s true now, I didn’t really have a good social network back then, did I?

Because having friends lowers my intensity as a human.

Was what I had thought.

Maybe I was just being ungrateful, but there were people I didn’t want to meet, and people that were just unpleasant to meet. There were plenty of them.

As I thought that, it felt like my teenage years had not been very good.

Though I had already been aware of that, this just served to confirm it again.

And I had a persecution complex that if I met up with people, they’d just despise me as some career-oriented rascal—I couldn’t get into the mindset of returning home loaded with honors.

Why did I have to feel like I was some criminal in hiding?

“I guess you’re right. Maybe I’ll go see how Kanbaru is, at least. What’s she up to these days? I know she got into a college for athletics… If everything went well, she should be a fourth-year by now? She didn’t quit like Tsukihi did, right?”

“As for her, she’s aiming to be a doctor,” was the response I got back from Karen.

Speaking of which, she was closer to Kanbaru than she was to Hanekawa, wasn’t she?

Since they were both sports-minded… That’s right, in the first place, it was me who introduced them.

That happened, too, huh?

It makes me feel all nostalgic.

“Hoh, a doctor? In that case, if she’s aiming to go to graduate school for a doctorate, then she’d probably be studying for entrance exams again right now. Well, from what I can remember, she had a pretty good head on her shoulders…”

“Ah. That ain’t it, nii-chan,” said Karen in an accent for some reason, correcting my thoughts. “Not that kind of doctor, but an actual doctor.”

“What kind of doctor?”

“Like, a physician.”

“A physician?”