Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.03

003

It was a mystery how Gaen-san, who was neither a doctor nor a staff member of this hospital, was able to walk around as if she owned the place, but after seeing that a similar-looking mummy had been laid down in the bed of the next room over, I decided to come to the conclusion that the director of this hospital was the one who made the request to this specialist.

With these patients who had had all the fluids sucked out of their bodies and yet for some reason were still alive, if two were brought in in quick succession, it wasn’t exactly something that modern medicine could do anything about… It had to be the work of the occult.

“This girl is called Honnou Aburi-chan. Another student of Naoetsu High—however, she’s a second-year, so it’s possible that even Koyomin knows her.”

Unfortunately.

During my high school days, I wasn’t exactly the sort that interacted much with my juniors.

Or rather, I hadn’t even gotten accustomed to school enough to remember the names of students in other years… If she was currently a second-year, that meant that when I was a third-year, she was a first-year.

It was possible that I’d at least seen her face before, but because she was a mummy, and because she’d been made to wear a patient gown, I had no way of identifying her by her appearance… If I had to be completely honest, I couldn’t even distinguish her from the mummy in the previous room.

“Harimaze-chan’s mummy, which had been lying on the road, was discovered by a passerby the day before yesterday. Honnou-chan, who’d been found as a mummy at home in her own futon, was discovered last night by her mother.”

“One person a day? That’s quite a fast pace.”

“It’s not necessarily one person a day. There could be more that just simply haven’t been discovered yet. Right now, it may just seem like only female students from Naoetsu High are being targeted, but there’s a possibility this is only two out of a hundred victims.”

Two out of a hundred. And that wasn’t totally an exaggeration.

As for the vampire I personally knew, she boasted that she could stay alive even if she only drank the blood of a single person every few months, but on the other hand, she still had an appetite where she could suck the blood of all of humanity if she lost self-control.

However, in this case, I suppose I had to consider things based on Gaen-san’s conjectures… There was some unidentified vampire targeting female students of Naoetsu High.

Unidentified… No.

The vampire I personally knew.

“Um, Gaen-san. Could it be possible that you’re suspecting Shinobu? It’s true that she’d been the subject of a rumor among the female students of Naoetsu High once before—”

“No, no, I’ve never once thought that to be the case. I only just realized when you asked me. It’s not for that reason that I called you out, Koyomin, when you’re enjoying your college life. I was just hoping to cooperate with you, as you know the lay of the land. So that we can prevent a 3rd victim, or perhaps a 101st victim.”

Of course, you aren’t a stranger to helping out a girl that you have absolutely no relation to—said Gaen-san, as if she were making fun of my personal history. Although I had nothing to say in response… It was because I got so desperate to help those I saw within range or within reach that I would end up troubling those who weren’t within range and weren’t within reach.

But, what should I do now?

After suddenly being shown not one, but two mummies in quick succession, and hearing that they were mummies of high school girls, I would inevitably be driven by a sense of moral obligation to help them, but fundamentally, a request made by Gaen-san wasn’t something I could accept so readily.

For an adult that I couldn’t know the true nature of, in a sense, she was scarier than a vampire.

Seeing that I stayed quiet instead of giving an immediate response, Gaen-san spoke.

“To be honest, the state of the board is such that I’d like to depend on Koyomin, too. A dependable Koyomin,” she said. “It’s a situation where someone like me, who likes working behind-the-scenes, had to be dispatched, you see. And if that’s not enough, I can even say this… Right now, I’m taking measures to call that Yozuru back here.”

“Eh… Kagenui-san?”

Perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised at that. However, I was still more than surprised—I was more surprised than I’d been after seeing two mummies in quick succession. At the very least, my reaction to Gaen-san’s statement had to be more than what she’d anticipated.

To call that Yozuru back here.

Certainly, Kagenui-san, Kagenui Yozuru-san, was an onmyouji that specialized in immortal oddities, although it was hard to say that she was a respectable specialist. If anything, she was the specialist in this world that strayed furthest from the correct path—once, in my high school days, when I’d worked with together Gaen-san on a job, even in spite of the fact that an immortal oddity had been involved, Gaen-san had stubbornly refused to rely on Kagenui-san.

That meant that Gaen-san was predicting that this current situation was worse than that time.

In that case, was this something I couldn’t ignore? It’s not like I particularly had any love for my alma mater (in fact, when I’d still been attending school, I’d absolutely hated it), I’d feel guilty about pretending that I was unrelated to it.

Plus, though I had had almost no interaction with students of other years, it wasn’t like there was absolutely no one I knew among my underclassmen… If I imagined one of them becoming the victim of a vampire and turning into a mummy, I couldn’t exactly keep calm.

“…However, the practical issue is, if Kagenui-san is going to come, then I don’t think that really gives me a chance to act. Or rather, I’d probably just become a hindrance to her. Maybe if I were still a high schooler with stronger aftereffects of my vampirism, but due to various reasons, I’ve gotten a lot more subdued after entering college.”

“That’s true. Though you were such an enthusiastic boy back then, it makes me feel lonely to see you all subdued like this.”

Yeah, yeah.

“However, Yozuru isn’t exactly nimble enough in her footwork to come as soon as she’s called. As you’re well aware, there are some special circumstances for her. No matter how much she hurries, it’ll still take a few days until she arrives in this town… And those few days could very well be crucial to the number of victims.”

I see.

If we went that far, then I was now a college student with more than enough time on his hands. If we were speaking of nimbleness in footwork, then I was even better than when I was in high school. Even today, I’d voluntarily skipped my algebra course to respond to Gaen-san’s summons.

To tell the truth, there were a lot of circumstances with Kagenui-san that made me feel that it was simply difficult to face her right now, but in that case, it was possible that we could end this oddity phenomenon before she arrived at this town.

And, needless to say, doing that was preferable for Gaen-san, as well.

“Oh yeah. If Kagenui-san’s coming here, then I’ll have to let Ononoki-chan know, as well… Or rather, Gaen-san, aren’t you going to inform Ononoki-chan about this?”

“Well, she herself is in the middle of work on a different case. But it’s a secret from you, Koyomin.”

“?”

I wonder what it is.

It seemed that Ononoki-chan had recently been hanging out with Sengoku a lot, but if that was the case, then it was hard for me to probe into it… Especially after being specifically told that it was a secret.

“It’s important to not sweat the small stuff. If anything, this is just foreshadowing for the next installment. Nonetheless, I have no intention of pressuring you to work with me like I’d done before. If you can state in minute detail a legitimate reason as to why you’d like to flatly refuse getting involved with an incident that could possibly be traumatic, then I’ll quickly drop the matter. If that happens, I’ll call Kaiki.”

“Leave it to me!”

No matter how I saw it, it didn’t make sense for Gaen-san to think that that con man would make his entry for a phenomenon of this type, but if she brought out that name anyway, then I didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

If it was to keep him as far from this town as possible, I’d do anything.

Con men were prohibited from entering this town.

“Well, con men are prohibited from most towns. Of course, I won’t have you working for free. In exchange for the considerable risk you’re about to take, Koyomin, this friendly onee-san will be sure to offer the right amount of compensation.”

A considerable risk, you say?

Well, it was quite likely that I would end up facing off against a vampire, and it wasn’t like I could nonchalantly linger in safe zones… Not to mention, if I was going to get involved in a case estimated to be more dangerous than the revival of Shishirui Seishirou, I would need to be prepared for that much.

However, if you asked me whether or not I wanted compensation that corresponded to that level of risk, then honestly speaking, I didn’t really want it… Frankly, receiving anything from Gaen-san was scary.

The deeper our relations or obligations get, the further into the depths I’d fall.

Being called out each and every time like this was almost like not being able to graduate from high school no matter how much time passed—but as I thought about it like that, Gaen-san spoke as if she’d accurately guessed the contents of my mind.

“If you decide to cooperate in the resolution of this oddity phenomenon, Koyomin… Until you graduate from college, that is, for the next four years or so, I won’t appear in front of you again, and I won’t even try to contact you. I swear it. You’ll be able to go ahead with your bright and happy campus life, free from oddities and specialists,” she said.

“For… For real?”

“Yes, for real. You’ll never catch me in a lie or in twintails.”

If it was Gaen-san in twintails, then I felt like I’d do anything to see that form, but this was a proposal that was even more attractive than that… Well, from another point of view it almost sounded like she was declaring that she’d cut ties with me, and if she swore that much it could even be a bit lonely (which sounded a bit selfish, even for me). But if it meant I could cleanly wash my hands of a life where I would be spoken to with an air of condescension whenever the chance arose, then there was no better compensation for me.

Well, it wasn’t exactly clear how credible an oath made by the senior of that con man really was (it was even possible she’d done her hair up in twintails before), but, well, regardless of whether that promise was there, this certainly wasn’t a situation that I could ignore.

All my reservations had been cleared up.

In the first place, for Gaen-san, I wasn’t exactly a card that was easy to use. And it wasn’t the same as with Kagenui-san. It was a problem of being too nimble in footwork. When it came to not moving within Gaen-san’s predictions or directions, high school third-year Araragi Koyomi had been especially bad, if I do say so myself—now that I was remembering it, I had better repent for my behavior back then.

If an incident that forced Gaen-san’s hand into using this worthless card was occurring in my hometown, then I absolutely couldn’t just overlook this… That’s right.

Sometimes, it was fine to help out people I didn’t know.

“Understood. I’ll do my best to work with you, to the extent that it doesn’t interfere with my schoolwork—however, I don’t want to cause trouble for my family, so I’d like for you to be considerate in that respect.”

“Ah. Of course, I can do something about that. I’d be well aware of the relationship between Yozuru and Tsukihi-chan even if I wasn’t an onee-san that knew everything—oh!”

Just as Gaen-san managed to successfully gain my cooperation, her cell phone began playing a ringtone—well, considering we were inside a hospital, the thing that received a call could be her PHS, her Personal Handy-phone System, instead. She was an onee-san that carried a large number, and various kinds, of telecommunications equipment.

“Hello? Yeah. Yeah. …Yeah.”

As she spoke on the phone, Gaen-san’s tone grew lower with every nod.

She was fundamentally an onee-san with a carefree style that didn’t suit seriousness at all, but it seemed that the radio waves had managed to deliver information that could make this onee-san stop smiling.

“I have some unfortunate news, Koyomin,” said Gaen-san after hanging up. “A third victim was discovered. Once again, a female student from Naoetsu High.”