Monogatari Series - Volume 22 - Chapter 3.03

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After graduating from high school, when she left for her round-the-world trip on that very same day, Hanekawa had still been a teenage girl with an interest in broadening her horizons out of a thirst for knowledge. Putting aside the location scouting that she did as planning in the second term of her third year, her teenage years could be considered barely falling within the range of common knowledge—or so I’d thought, carefreely believing that she’d become something like a backpacker and return to Japan in a year’s time. Not knowing my own place, I resolved to not be someone that my benefactor would be ashamed of.

However, Hanekawa’s round-the-world trip did not involve an itinerary of visiting popular tourist spots, and it wasn’t even like backpacking, but “round-the-world” in a literal sense—it seemed she’d planned on going around visiting every country that existed on the Earth. Every single one. “Is she trying to do a stamp rally with her passport?” was what I’d said in retort, but I had nothing to say when I’d heard that she’d even managed to sneak her way into countries with isolation policies, that you couldn’t get into with just a passport.

It had gone past the scope of what I could play the tsukkomi for.

I’d gotten picture postcards that informed me about her current circumstances, but the tidings bore pictures of scenery so different from Japan that even abstract paintings were easier to understand, to the point that I even wondered, was there a worse way to communicate than this? And in the near future, I would come to learn about the current circumstances of my schoolmate from television.

She’d been splendidly picked up by the media as a young Japanese girl who was going around helping people by participating in volunteer efforts and NGOs, removing mines, digging wells, maintaining infrastructure, and building schools and the like—and all at once, she became famous as a Japanese Joan of Arc.

Regardless of the actual contents of the news, it didn’t seem very Hanekawa-like, because she hated standing out in ways like showing up on television, but apparently she’d even put herself on a billboard to quickly amass funds for her activities (according to Senjougahara Hitagi, who was close enough to her to call her by her given name).

Because of her unimaginable popularity, philanthropic movements increased explosively even within Japan. But that trend didn’t last for long.

It wasn’t that the fickle Japanese soon found a new idol to take their interest… Thinking about it now, I could even say that it was some incredible foresight for the media to dub her “Joan of Arc”.

Just before Hanekawa turned twenty, her activities turned from relief efforts for victims of war and recovery support for war damages to becoming a mediator for wars themselves, and her personality changed as well.

Whether you called it a mediator or a peacemaker—though it was supposed to be a trip across the world that was heavily influenced by the rootless wanderer and advocate for neutrality, Oshino Meme, she had arrived at an unthinkable destination.

A war mediator.

It had become far too heavy of a portable shrine to carry around and idolize for fun. What was all the more annoying was that such activities suited her perfectly—in places around the world, she indiscriminately settled things with peace treaties and armistices, triple alliances and bitter enemies in the same boat.

She was using an eraser on the borders of the world without leaving a single line.

That had become her objective—so at a glance it seemed she’d arrived at being a peace advocate, but some people thought of her actions as dangerous, along the lines of being on the path towards world domination. She’d crossed the point of idol treatment, straight past the point of VIP treatment, and reached the point of becoming a wanted person on an international level.

Though she’d once spoken on radio broadcasts on the warfront about how she wanted to make the five rings of the Olympics into one beautiful flower, she now had a charisma that could no longer be found on billboards but could be called one beautiful revolutionary.

Nowadays, even speaking her name in public was forbidden—there was even a country where sending the name “TSUBASA HANEKAWA” in an email was considered a crime (it should be said that that country later merged with a neighboring country without even its name being left). While Japan hadn’t reached that point, the public institutions were all keeping their eyes on her “people-helping”.

“■■■■■■ (a greeting in some language), Araragi-kun. Are you well? Today, I’ve erased my sixteenth national border.”

For some time, I’d been receiving picture postcards containing such messages, but before long, they’d stopped arriving—though I’d been worried that something had happened to her, it seemed that Hanekawa had begun to sever ties with me, whether she thought it’d start to be a bother for me or it’d be a hindrance to her activities.

Because it was her, I felt that she was trying to systematically alienate us, softly and gently, without trying to hurt us—and it was possible that this return to her country was the culmination of all of that.

A culmination (shuutaisei), or perhaps a final accomplishment (shuu taisei).6

As if she were entering a witness protection program, she was planning on completely erasing her existence and becoming a tool made for peace—as for what spectacles she would have seen to get her to make that decision, I had no clue.

As someone who unconcernedly described the world as peaceful, I truly couldn’t comprehend the meaning of her actions—would it have been so bad to spend a fun campus life with me and Hitagi?

It probably was bad for her.

Though I’d been able to become friends with that monster, I couldn’t become a kindred spirit—looking at the results, our friendship was just one of those boring associations that ended upon our graduation from Naoetsu High, but the fact that Hanekawa Tsubasa was returning to the jurisdiction of the Naoetsu Police Department at the same time I’d come back to town after four years seemed like a curious twist of fate.

Although we probably wouldn’t meet.

Wouldn’t, or should I say, couldn’t.

It wasn’t particularly uncommon to be called out for escort duty like Mitome-san was, but on the contrary, I’d been given specific orders to not come close to the hotel that Hanekawa was staying at—not just me, but all her former acquaintances (even her foster parents) were given such notice.

The only ones who could enter the hotel were the ones in charge of escorting her. Even its employees would be put on forced leave that day—although the truth was that if this ultimate pacifist were to stay for longer than a day, it could possibly turn into an emergency situation that wouldn’t end with an assault or an assassination.

It was even possible that the entire area that Hanekawa was in would be hit by an air raid just to target Hanekawa specifically—if they could prevent a mass panic, the government would probably even order an evacuation of the town.

Wherever Hanekawa was was considered both the ultimate peace zone as well as the most dangerous spot for all major world powers—just by her moving somewhere else, she could drastically affect international affairs.

I’d even had to be afraid of being forced to leave the country at one point. In the end, we arrived at the pragmatic approach of “doing work as usual” (although I figured that was in part due to Gaen-san’s arrangements—after all, Hanekawa was no stranger to Gaen-san, either), but compared to my friend from school who’d expanded her sphere of influence to a global level, the work that I was in charge of alongside Suou-san involved striking at the origin of certain “charms” that were being used by middle schoolers.

When you looked at it like that, my actions haven’t exactly changed much since I was in high school.

It was beyond just becoming someone my benefactor wouldn’t be ashamed of.

Even if Mitome-san wasn’t escorting her, I still wouldn’t be able to show my face to Hanekawa.