Monogatari Series - Volume 22 - Chapter 1.06

006

After visiting the hospital, Suou-san and I grabbed lunch before once again returning on-site to the river—because the duties of the Rumors Squad were different from those of regular police officers, I was a bit bewildered at not being able to make use of what I’d learned at the police academy, but visiting the site a hundred times was finally something that felt police-like.

Although it was only the second time.

And it seemed that Suou-san intended on bringing this to a conclusion on this second visit.

“Since I have plenty of other matters to attend to, too. Even if my seat is off by the window in the office, I’m still pretty busy, you know.”

That was because, for reports that were on the level of rumors, they needed to perform a sweep of the entire area with the few people that they had in order to check things in detail.

It seemed that my training was invaluable to the squad, whether it was because I was male, because I was young, because of my vampire attributes, or maybe just because I was an extra helping hand.

Although I hadn’t lived up to those expectations just yet… so I’d better work hard.

“Kanbaru… That is, the junior I met earlier liked to come camping around here in the past, but she said she didn’t feel anything out of place. I won’t go into too much detail, but she’s not exactly someone that’s unrelated to oddities, so if there was really something lurking in the water, it wouldn’t have been unusual if she felt anything…”

“I see… But Araragi-kun, the little vampire in your shadow very clearly said that ‘there was something there’, didn’t she?”

“Yes. But that was all she said, and she wouldn’t tell me anything more than that, so…”

“That’s fine. That’s still good progress for us. And by the way, sorry about earlier, that I had to interrupt your conversation with your junior.”

“Ah, no, it’s all right. We made plans to meet up again later.”

Although I wasn’t sure if those plans would really play out or not.

Even though we had managed to talk quite a bit despite having run into each other by chance without an appointment, in reality Kanbaru was probably incredibly busy, balancing her studies with her work—probably even busier than I was. And even if she had a day off, she’d probably want to spend that precious day off with her friends playing basketball or going camping.

After her outlook was widened, I didn’t want her to narrow it again just for me.

She’d met dozens of scary people, but not one she liked more than Senjougahara—even though she’d said something like that, I did think that that could have been a form of consideration for me.

Consideration.

Perhaps I should be happier that my brash junior had learned consideration for others, but that consideration or tactfulness made me feel melancholy instead.

It would be a selfish desire of mine to want her to stay as the brash junior that I knew, and if I told her that, I’m sure she wouldn’t be able to continue seeing me as the senpai that she respected.

For forever.

Plus, for someone her age, it wouldn’t be weird if she was seeing someone that she was serious about—she wasn’t going to stay a 17-year-old girl forever.

As for Senjougahara Hitagi…

I wonder what she’s doing now?

“Hm? What’s wrong, Assistant Inspector Araragi? Making such a pensive face. Were you thinking of the girl you used to be with or something?”

She sure is sharp. As expected of a detective.

Although it felt more like a woman’s intuition than a detective’s intuition.

“Well, it’s not ‘used to be with’, since I’m currently still with her. We’ve been together since high school… We went to the same college, and we broke up twice, and got back together twice.”

“Huh. Then isn’t it weird to be yearning for her? Didn’t you two shack up together after graduating college?”

“We did shack up together once in college… But she found work at a company overseas, you see.”

And that was to follow her father.

I had been aware of the fact that Hitagi’s father worked for an overseas company, but what was surprising was that Hitagi went to work for a rival company—by picking the same trade but a different company, she wasn’t even trying to hide the complex she had towards her father, but, as if in revenge towards her the impoverished life she led at the Tamikura Apartments, she was now making waves as an up-and-coming financial trader, if I were to exaggerate a bit.

It’s pretty amazing what she was getting up to while I was in the police academy.

Really, everyone just loves going overseas, huh?

You’re all lacking in patriotism.

“Araragi-kun, it’s not like you came back to your hometown because you wanted to, either. You shouldn’t act like you’re being patriotic, either. If we go by Gaen-san’s motto, then Japanese people playing an active role overseas is something to be proud of. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we had a network like the overseas Chinese?”

Gaen-san’s final objective was probably something along those lines—with agents you can dispatch, like the FBI or the MI5—said Suou-san, though I couldn’t tell if she was joking or being serious.

“Well, I suggest you contact her frequently, so that the relationship doesn’t just die out naturally. Police detectives in particular have it tough in marriage—even I’ve had to break up with five or six people after getting this job.”

Although that could be just because of her personality. But I kept my mouth shut about that.

But whoops, I spoke too much about my private life.

Even if we were in an open workplace, I didn’t want it to be a place where I talked about everything and anything.

But I’ll take her advice to heart anyway. Not because she was a detective, but because she was my senpai in life.

Since I was ungrateful and bad at keeping in touch, and I’d cut several ties that way before—thinking about it now, I was lucky to have gotten back with her even twice. I needed to make sure it wouldn’t occur a third time.

“So, Suou-san. How did it look for that kid?”

In the end, while I spent my time talking in the break area, Suou-san had returned from the hospital room far earlier than I had expected, and I hadn’t been able to get a look at the final child’s face.

“I didn’t get a look, either. There were no visitors allowed. …Apparently that wasn’t the case yesterday, so they may have gotten worse. The situation may be more urgent than we thought.”

“……”

“Luckily, thanks to the nurse in charge, I got ahold of all their personal information. The parents both work, so they often have the child watch the house—or rather, they often leave their child alone. But you wouldn’t think that that happened with how cheerful the kid is, and they’re the type that likes to take the lead when with other kids, which is what led to the drowning.”

It was a topic that was difficult to broach inside the hospital.

It wasn’t because she had other matters to attend to that Suou-san wanted to hurry and finish up this case, although that was probably one of the reasons—though she always gave off the impression of finishing up her work quickly, it seemed her motivation had gone up after having been unable to see the child’s face.

“It would be awful if these cheerful kids were to lose their playground.”

I ended up coming up with a rather banal comment.

They were embarrassing thoughts that exposed my shallowness as a person, but the resentful thoughts I had of wanting them to close down the river to prevent camping had all but disappeared by now.

“This is just conjecture, but it does give off the impression that only children are being targeted. Since there are no victims that are adults… Even my sister recently went fishing here, but nothing went wrong then.”

“Karen-chan, right?”

“So you knew about her? The foolish but prideful sister of the Araragi family.”

“Well, she does stand out, after all. Mood makers like her give off a good impression.”

It would’ve been good if she joined the Rumors Squad, said Suou-san, but that would certainly be impossible—given her character, she herself could be considered a kind of urban legend or ghost story.

Frankly, without even me needing to deceive her, she stubbornly refused to believe that the damage she took upon her body from the con man was the work of an oddity—if I had had her strength, I probably wouldn’t have been reduced into being a vampire, either.

Or perhaps, as someone who’d been reduced into being a mermaid, it was because Suou-san felt that way that she sought out a mood maker for the Rumors Squad.

“Our squad is missing a mood maker, you see. So we had some expectations from that girl’s brother.”

“Well, sorry about that. For being a mood breaker.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Although, even though I’m not really in the mood, perhaps we should follow in Karen-chan’s footsteps and all go fishing together?”

And like that, Suou-san threw off her coat—and after giving it to me, she continued on by taking off her shirt, skirt, stockings, and garterbelt, one by one.

She was taking off her clothes as naturally as if she were in her own home.

Though I’d heard about it beforehand, this grandiose display made me a bit self-conscious—it was a grandioseness that made yesterday’s changing in the shadow of a tree seem almost shameful.

Of course, Suou-san naturally was wearing a swimsuit underneath it all.

It was a one-piece bathing suit like what Shinobu was wearing yesterday, but naturally, the impression given off by a young girl wearing one and by a mature woman wearing one was completely different.

Finally, she took off her high heels and began doing warm-up exercises.

“This time, I’ll be the bait.”

Though the line was probably a reference to the picture book in which Swimmy said, “I’ll be the eye,” it did eloquently sum up the strategy she had in mind this time—indeed, as she had become a mermaid after eating the “mermaid flesh”, her entire body was a bundle of deliciousness.

To the point that she wouldn’t even allow a vampire to be called in front of her.

Though it was me who had entered the river yesterday, the plan today was for Suou-san to dive in to lure the oddity out (if there was one)—since the “mermaid flesh” didn’t taste good to just vampires.

Mermaids could be considered food to any oddity.

If it weren’t for their eternal youth and longevity, they would probably have gone extinct long ago due to overfishing.

In that sense, Suou-san the mermaid was even more valuable than a vampire who had lived for six centuries—and of course, for her, it was a plan that she was reluctant to carry out.

The plan of becoming a mermaid and drawing out oddities by using herself as bait necessitated that she turned into the “half-fish person” that she detested—and, as you could tell from how careful she was around the water yesterday, it was hard to say that that was a trauma that Suou-san had overcome.

“That’s for sure. I can’t count how many times I tried to kill myself. And I would just come back to life anyway, so even doing that became a pain…”

“…I’ve heard that the cause of death for immortal vampires is 90 percent suicide.”

“Oh. I’m jealous that they’re even able to die—or at least, that’s what I would’ve thought in the past.”

Suou-san shrugged her shoulders.

Her swimsuit was off-the-shoulder, so the action of shrugging her shoulders stood out even more than usual.

“Half of my body becoming fish is, in other words, a retrogression, after all—having stuff like genuine sharkskin made me want to cry back when I was more sensitive. But if I cried, those tears would just make more scales appear, so I had to endure it until I stopped being so sensitive. At first, I would rip off the scales one by one. But that would just make me bleed, and then there would be even more scales. Half of my body became fish, but 70 percent of the body is water, so it was hard for me to do anything.”

“……”

“Ah, sorry. Did you get turned off by the self-torture? Don’t worry about it. I can take those tough memories and make the best out of them for work, now. It’s good to have a job that can make use of your strong points, but it’s just as good to have a job that can make use of your weak points—as well as a job that you can live a long life in.”

As she said that, Suou-san finished up her warm-up exercises and briskly approached the bank of the river—there was no hesitation in her steps. She had surely strengthened her resolve.

I did feel that I would take her place if I could, but unfortunately, as proved by the results of yesterday, vampires apparently didn’t make for good bait. As the Oddity Slayer, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire’s existence was likely to make itself known to other oddities, but if we turned that around, it meant that she was an existence that oddities could easily avoid. While she could use oddities as bait, she couldn’t become bait for oddities.

The only thing I could do was watch over her.

“All right, Araragi-kun. Grab on to this end over here, and if anything happens, pull me out, okay?”

Suou-san handed me a rope that she had tied around her body in a complicated manner. This was almost like fishing, or perhaps even cormorant fishing.

She hadn’t simply tied it around her torso—the rope had been complexly interwoven around her body and all four of her limbs. That was surely done because, when she turned into a mermaid, she didn’t just slip out of the rope.

It wasn’t something I should be imagining, but perhaps because I had just recently run into Kanbaru, it somehow reminded me of “Japanese bondage torture”1… Being handed the end of the rope made me feel nervous in more ways than one.

I could only pray that nobody witnessed this scene that looked like I was trying to torture Suou-san, because if we were reported—well, I guess it would be fine, because we were police officers.

None of this felt real to me, still.

“I’m counting on you, Assistant Inspector!”

As if she had read my mind (although it would’ve been really embarrassing if she could), Suou-san called out to me again using my rank.

“You might want to look away when my appearance changes, but keep your eyes open and fixed on me. If nothing happens even after I—after the mermaid becomes the bait, we should be able to conclude that these were just accidents. That won’t make that kid suddenly regain consciousness, and it won’t suddenly heal the injuries of the other kids, but at least we can rule out the irrational. Because we can at least confidently guarantee that there won’t be any more victims. For the two of us that have lost our futures, let’s protect the yet unseen futures of those to come.”

“…Understood.”

“All right. And incidentally, if anything does happen to me, don’t take any drastic measures in trying to save me. Just report back to the station. Since no matter how bad it gets, I definitely won’t die. As long as we’re at this river, who’s in more danger? The mermaid in her natural habitat, or the vampire who’s weak to flowing water? Feel free to leave me behind.”

This didn’t feel like something that should’ve been said incidentally, but without waiting for my response, Suou-san yelled “Here we go!” and leapt into the water. As if to substantiate her claim of having been a promising swimming athlete, she swam with a beautiful, streamlined form.