Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.24

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Afterwards, it would have led to her panicking and calling us over through Ononoki-chan.

It had been a bit of a mystery why Ononoki-chan had suddenly appeared at that point, but apparently, when Ononoki-chan had made a mistake and been in trouble, Hachikuji had come to help her out, so this was returning the favor… It was hard to believe that Ononoki-chan could make a mistake at all, but it was hard to delve into that in front of Gaen-san.

“I see, I see. So that ancient vampire had already come to this town one week ago. Breaking through the barrier… Hmm.”

Gaen-san spoke as if slowly digesting Hachikuji’s words.

“Yes. For more details, please read the short story ‘Mayoi Welcome’. It’s a story that’s particularly difficult to obtain, but I believe the short stories will be collected in a book in seventeen years, so please wait warmly.”

“I can’t wait that long!”

It’s a case we need to settle by today or tomorrow!

Or rather, if we were still going to be doing stuff like this seventeen years from now, that in itself was a problem. We needed to seriously consider our future.

“Well, that was all within the range of my expectations. Including the reason for her visit,” said Gaen-san.

Indeed.

Though there was a difference in class, Suicidemaster and Shishirui Seishirou had indeed come for the same reason, with Shinobu as the cause, or perhaps the incentive—no.

That might not be it.

In Shishirui Seishirou’s case, the reason he’d come to see Shinobu had been related to the Demon Blade “Kokorowatari”—but in Suicidemaster’s case, the reason she’d come to see Shinobu hadn’t come up in Hachikuji’s story earlier.

For six hundred years, they had never once met, so why now? After all this time?

Without that clarity, we couldn’t be too careful… From what I could remember of my conversation with Princess Acerola, there didn’t seem to be a twisted reason like with Shishirui Seishirou, though…

However, even though she hadn’t come to hurt Shinobu, there was still a possibility that she was planning on pulling Shinobu back into the fold and conspiring with her on something untoward.

Presumably, even this was all “within the range of her expectations”, but Gaen-san continued like so.

“However, I’m more interested in the fact that she—broke through the barrier. Well, I didn’t think she’d be able to come to this town without Hachikuji knowing, but… How should I put it? I never expected that she would come right in from the front.”

Being a vampire, there would be plenty of ways to enter, like turning into mist or hiding in the shadows—said Gaen-san.

“‘Tis true that landing on top of a mountain from such a big jump is the horseplay of a show-off—the height of folly,” said Shinobu.

And whose mouth was that coming from?

Do you want to be shut up?

Not to mention that Suicidemaster had been sensible enough to try and avoid Hachikuji (putting aside how we should judge the fact she had died once as a result)—and because of those evasive actions, it seemed Hachikuji had placed a certain amount of faith in her and allowed her entry to the town.

“But if you ask me, Shinobu-chan, such a flashy and flamboyant way of appearing is what makes Suicidemaster, Suicidemaster, and that’s what I’ve heard from the rumors as well. But, as for the reason she managed to pass through the barrier—”

Huh? Wasn’t that just because she was a powerful vampire? It didn’t seem like it would be too hard for her to break it down by force, whether it was a barrier or hell itself.

“Well, perhaps. That’s something we can figure out by questioning the person herself—we won’t let the special remedy you brought back from the next world after your solitary struggle go to waste, Koyomin. We’ll make sure to do a proper interrogation.”

By saying “the next world” instead of “hell”, it could’ve technically included heaven, making me feel as if she’d completely seen through me—it really felt like she was the senior of Oshino, who’d been a master at seeing through people.

“If we were to make a hypothesis based on what’s most likely at this point, it would mean that Suicidemaster was sent off by Hachikuji-chan and headed out for the town, but before meeting Shinobu-chan, she began to cause all these incidents for some reason—and then she turned into a mummy for some reason. How perplexing.”

“How perplexing indeed.”

It really was.

It was probably best to partition the two “for some reason”s and think of them separately—thinking of the former from an ecological standpoint, then illogical as it was to attack only members of the girls’ basketball team, if you simply thought of it as a vampire’s picky eating, we could ignore that question.

The problem was the second question.

Why would the former master, who was supposed to be here to meet Shinobu, be found buried in the ground? And, if it weren’t for Hachikuji, the god who rules over this town, and if it weren’t for Hachikuji, who lives on this mountain, then it would have been a cover-up that would not have been so easily discovered.

They could have pinned the crime on her—

For that reason, they had her die—

And with the dying messages that would pique the interest of mystery maniacs… In that case, was the true culprit a vampire that was a fan of mystery novels?

That in itself seemed like picky eating, a strange kind of favoritism.

“It’s true that the only way to find out is to talk to the person herself. I have grown considerably curious, as well. It was already a shock to hear that she’d still been alive—but, my master. If you’re willing to change the plot of this mystery drama into a courtroom drama, then I would like to act as the defense for the accused.”

The little girl was using words she had just recently learned.

Act as the defense—Oshino Shinobu would stand on Suicidemaster’s side.

Rather than being within the range of expectation, it was more like the situation that I’d feared, but before either I or Gaen-san could say anything—“After all, this fellow is not the culprit. I believe I was about to tell you this earlier, my master.”

Shinobu continued.

“Right now, this fellow cannot consume anything but the food known as me.”