Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.50

050

The epilogue; or perhaps, the punch line.

It’s a common scene in gourmet shows that a Japanese person travels to the United States, eats the California rolls served there, and proudly says that this dish is not sushi, but surprisingly, Japanese people who talk like this do not give much thought to what Indians think about curry bread.

One man’s fault is another man’s lesson, and treat others as you would have them treat you—but even so, it is very difficult to see ourselves and others in the same way, and sometimes people want to be treated in ways you don’t want to be treated.

In the first place, there was no way that I, who had voluntarily offered my neck to the vampire, could lecture Harimaze-chan about this, but at that time, instead of just playing innocent, I should have dug deeper into myself.

If I had taken a step in the wrong direction, I might have ended up like Harimaze-chan—was a line that was nothing but arrogance, and to be honest, I couldn’t really empathize with that girl to that extent. But there had been a lot to learn from confronting that golden-haired, golden-eyed vampire.

I couldn’t say I got much out of it, but I did learn a lot.

“So? What did you learn this time, Koyomi? If you’re okay with me, I’ll hear you out.”

“Oh, shut up. Don’t just appear as soon as it’s safe to do so. If that’s the only way you can make an appearance, then just retire already. Make way for the next generation.”

In the university cafeteria, while having tea with my girlfriend from high school, Senjougahara Hitagi, I told her about the series of events that had happened—aside from her annoying pattern of appearances, it had been a promise established some time ago, since we’d started dating, that we would not keep secrets from each other in the event of some oddity-related happening.

It was hard to say that I’d completely kept that promise, but, well, it was a promise that was still valid.

After entering college, Senjougahara Hitagi had gone to a hair salon to dye her hair brown, had gone to a nail salon to decorate her nails, had joined a club to go on trips and concerts, and, unlike me, had become very cool and stylish, but fundamentally she was a serious college student.

She was lodging at a women’s share house where many international students lived, and she was aiming to learn five languages by the time she graduated—perhaps this was because of Hanekawa’s influence, but she was no ordinary person to be looking ahead to her graduation despite being a freshman.

Even though I was still in the process of looking back on the past… Right, I’ll cry about this inferiority complex together with Oikura next time.

“So anyway, a princess in heaven fed me her saliva via mouth-to-mouth…”

“Even if this was occuring during your near-death delusions, aren’t you a bit too candid? I know you couldn’t have gone as far as drawing blood, but couldn’t you have gone with something more romantic, like her tears?”

“And then I ended up participating in Kanbaru’s pajama party as a surprise guest…”

“That’s certainly a surprise to hear, being your girlfriend. What in the world are you doing with my junior?”

Retorting appropriately with a jab after every comment, Hitagi-san finally finished listening to my entire story.

“So, what happened to that high school girl after that? Harimaya-chan, was it?”

We’d entered the Q&A session.

But who the heck is Harimaya-chan.

I was telling you this in shame, so listen properly.

“How rude, I was listening properly. Ah, this lamb sandwich, delish.”

“Is that comment the result of you listening to me properly? In that case, I’m never going to tell you things again. If you’re talking about Harimaze-chan, then I assumed she’d ended up getting absolutely slaughtered by Kagenui-san, but.”

For this time alone, I wasn’t sure I could stop her when that happened—after all, what Harimaze-chan had done was way too atrocious. Hospitalizing as much as four high school girls was basically just a normal crime—I didn’t think the spirit of the Juvenile Act would get through to Kagenui-san.

“In order for the four hospitalized girls to recover, there was no choice but to give her a special pardon, which feels more like adult matters than applying the Juvenile Act. After all, if we didn’t turn her back from a vampire into a human, those four would remain mummies forever.”

“Oh? But, once you became a vampire, in order to turn back into a human, didn’t you have to perform the act of parricide? Although, as a fathercon, that’s quite the repulsive word to even grace my lips.”

“Isn’t it more repulsive to proclaim yourself to be a fathercon? And I never said anything about parricide—it’s true that, during that spring break, that was the only way, but these days, we can thank advances in technology.”

Rather than advances in technology, I could venture to say that it was one of the few contributions I had made in my high school days—well, no, I suppose it was more of a fluke.

If you recall, the method making use of two demon blades, which had been carelessly used to make me “fall to hell and come back to life”.

It turned out that, if we applied that method to a human who’d just been turned into an oddity, we would just barely be able to turn them back into a human—since the technique was still in the experimental stage, I suppose Harimaze-chan would be able to get her sentence reduced for participating in that human experimentation (or rather, demon experimentation).

I guess it was like doing community service for a punishment.

I couldn’t help but smile bitterly at the fact that the fruits of my folly were now becoming an established tradition, but it was one of the few things I was able to do for Harimaze-chan as her senior, so that’s that.

From the perspective of Kagenui-san, who had come all the way back to Japan, it must have been rather incomprehensible, but with Suicidemaster so weakened, and the actual vampire responsible having been knocked out in a single blow, it probably wasn’t all that exciting for her sense of justice.

It was ironic that Kagenui-san’s arrival, which I had been fearing so much, had ended up saving my life—so ironic that it made my shoulders feel weak… It was probably more of an anticlimax for that violent onmyouji who’d ended her training at the North Pole for this, but it seemed she’d concluded things with owing Gaen-san one—I suppose that was also adult matters.

“I see. So what happened to the naked little girl?”

“In the end, they settled on expelling Suicidemaster from the country—forced deportation. Apparently Gaen-san herself will be sending her off, which is quite the heavy security for one little girl, but I suppose it’s unavoidable.”

Of course, the decision had been made by Gaen-san, but I could assume that it was also the arrangement of Hachikuji, who was in charge of the town… As the new god to rule over the peace of the town, she wished for the visitor she’d invited to receive a peaceful exit.

After that, we prepared another chance for Suicidemaster and Shinobu to talk things out, just the two of them—and I have no knowledge of what Oshino Shinobu talked about with her friend from six hundred years ago.

Just as I had no knowledge about Suicidemaster and Harimaze-chan talked about—one day I might end up learning about it, but it seemed that day wouldn’t be today.

“It seemed they parted ways refreshingly, though. I don’t know if that’s due to vampire senses, or their vampire sense of time, or what.”

“For sure.”

“Don’t just say ‘for sure’. Don’t just show understanding when I don’t know something. I do get it a little bit. Well, it’s probably not their last farewell or anything, and I’m sure they’ll meet again.”

“……”

Why are you staying silent now? Did you figure something out?

Come to think of it, Shinobu also seemed to know something that she was keeping from me… I had no right to blame Shinobu for that, seeing as I hadn’t told her I had met Princess Acerola in heaven, but what she’d been hiding was eventually made evident in the comment she made afterwards. It was a late response to my question, “what are humans to you?”

“They’re monsters, right?”

Was she referring to Harimaze-chan, or the girls’ basketball team members in general, or Kagenui-san, or humanity as a whole?…

“Koyomin. In the end, does that mean your verbal agreement with Gaen-san is fulfilled? That’s where it all started, right?”

“I thought it was denied after I betrayed her once, and at some point I didn’t really care anymore about that, but it seems that the agreement was fulfilled after all.”

Or perhaps she just normally dumped me. Perhaps it was the case where, being someone who acted arbitrarily on their own against the chain of command, she had to lay down a judgment as a commander.

However, it seems that, even for Gaen-san, this was an incident that she had a lot to reflect on.

“Whether it’s lies, deception, or fakes, when the human nature of humans gets involved in this way, establishing a Rumors Squad has become pretty urgent. The time has finally come.”

That was what she’d murmured before leaving this town together with Kagenui-san—they’d left Ononoki-chan behind again, but was that all right?

How long is she going to stay at our place?

“Well, this goes for Harimaze-chan, too, but the fact that she allowed it means that, in the end, I’m pretty much still just a kid.”

“My, my, how modest of you. Aren’t you the one who got to the bottom of the truth, Koyomin? I used to think that Tsubasa-chan was suited to be a detective, but Koyomin, aren’t you more suited to be a police detective in the future?”

“You can only call me Koyomin once per day.”

I should have made my promise be that she would stop calling me Koyomin, instead of breaking off relations for four years.

“I don’t want to be a cop. With a future like that, I know I’ll never be able to surpass my parents. To tell you the truth, I have other dreams. So I’ll leave that kind of thing to Meniko.”

“…You should introduce me to Hamukai-san already.”

“Ah, just, well, wait a little longer. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but yeah, the timing just doesn’t seem right.”

“How annoying. I won’t do anything to her. What do you think I’m going to do to your new friend? I’m not Oikura-san.”

“Hitagi-san, who likes to bash Oikura at every opportunity… For the record, in my mind, you’re not that far off from Oikura, you know?”

It’s just that you’ve been rehabilitated now. There was a time where you were in much worse shape.

“Is that so. So the other me that could have been me, was actually Oikura-san, huh?”

“Don’t act like you were listening to me against your will.”

Incidentally, it seemed that the codes that Meniko solved had both been made by Harimaze-chan… Even the book by Ellery Queen that had been in Kuchimoto-chan’s bag had been slipped in by Harimaze-chan as a petty trick.

Anyway, as if sensing that the flow of the conversation was becoming inconvenient for her, she looked at her watch as if she’d just realized.

“Oh dear. I’m going to be late for my next lecture,” she said, getting up from her seat. “Then, some day, in the near future. If I need something from you, I’ll contact you.”

“That’s just a stock phrase for when you’re not going to contact me…”

“Oh my.”

At that point, Hitagi noticed the strap I had affixed to my cell phone.

“You’ve got something cute there, don’t you?”

Whoops, I should have kept this hidden.

I didn’t feel guilty about it, but it was embarrassing.

It was a strap with letters of the alphabet—the letters “F C”.

It was a non-existent fake, “F C”.

That day, I had asked Kanbaru to make this for me. No, it had just been a quick request that I’d come up with as an excuse to distract Kanbaru, who had started to suspect something, but it was true that it had been a clue.

So, after the incident, I put the finished strap on my cell phone—however, I didn’t put it on with a sense of pride, as if I were wearing a medal on my chest. Rather, it was a lesson. A bitter lesson.

You could even call it a wound.

That is because the hypothesis that “wasn’t Harimaze-chan the only one to not have a strap” which was the main reason for going back to the Kanbaru residence was, frankly speaking, completely off the mark—later, I confirmed with Gaen-san that Kiseki-chan’s cell phone, which had been found in her personal locker, did not have a strap with her initials on it.

So the “pro-strap, anti-strap” structure that I had envisioned didn’t actually exist… Based on a false assumption, I had arrived at the truth.

In mathematics, it was like getting the proof wrong but the solution right, which made me neither a great detective nor a decent cop.

In a sense, it was just like me, and the results were all right.

It was possible that the constantly-faking Harimaze-chan had removed Kiseki-chan’s strap when she put it in her personal locker, so I couldn’t say it was completely incorrect…

“Koyomin, were you also a member of the girls’ basketball team?”

“Haha. Well, I’ve gone too far to turn back now. I’m happily cooperating with Kanbaru and Higasa-chan with their plan to do something about the current situation.”

“Isn’t that what makes you still just a kid, Araragi-kun?”

Neither affirming nor denying me, Hitagi-san smiled and headed off to her lecture—strangely enough, even though we were in the same department, my girlfriend and I rarely shared the same classes.

Maybe it’s because I’m taking so many bizarre classes—I’m still just a kid, huh.

Those words reminded me of the question that I had asked Kagenui-san that night. This was what I had asked her.

Kagenui-san, don’t you ever get lost?

Even though what she’d done was an unforgivable crime in terms of both human and demon law, I had to take into account Harimaze Kie’s circumstances—just like with Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, and going back, just like with Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

I would think about it, and I would get lost.

I couldn’t think that I was right. I couldn’t believe in myself.

It was absolutely impossible for me to kick a target on their head like that, down in a straight line like a laser beam—I would wobble this way and that.

Once again, this was a series of conflicts, decisions, and mistakes.

I didn’t think it was the only correct solution at all, but it seemed as if there had been no process to Kagenui’s knee kick that came out of nowhere—in retrospect, when she and I had duked it out, she did whatever she wanted, and when she quit, she quit without hesitation—she didn’t quit too far.

There was no hint of remorse, no taste of regret.

How was she able to do something like that?

I wasn’t thinking that I wanted to become like her, but I couldn’t help but ask anyway. And in response…

“I won’t get lost. ‘Cause I’m an adult,” she responded curtly.

Even in her unique response, which surely did not represent the majority opinion, there was no hesitation—but, I understood.

If that’s an adult, then I was certainly still a kid. Nothing but a kid, even younger than a little girl.

Like the vampires who were granted a stay of execution—whether it was becoming immortal, going to hell, graduating high school, or becoming a university student, Araragi Koyomi was still in the middle of a moratorium.