Monogatari Series - Volume 24 - Chapter 2.17

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Yikes.

– Is the thought that entered my head only after I began touching – obviously, it’s infinitely better than directly touching a small girl, but touching the belongings of a missing year five schoolgirl without wearing gloves is, whichever way you look at it, a big ‘yikes’.

Let alone all those exposed teeth.

‘Fingerprints…’

Too late for that now, are we?

I’ve already started picking them up.

For now, at least, hold in the urge to vomit; the last thing you want to do is to dirty the scene even further – make sure everything remains undisturbed. You are the son of police officers, aren’t you?

You’ve been through countless baptisms by fire, haven’t you?

You’ve fought a vampire, wrangled a cat.

A crab, a snail, a monkey, a snake, a bee, a swindler, a corpse, an onmyōji, an undying bird, a thrall, a puppeteer, a head of specialists – even a god or a darkness, you’ve faced them all before, haven’t you?

Don’t flinch, don’t panic.

Show them what grown-up you is like.

‘Although I guess it’s fine if you panic, Mister Vampy – I don’t feel so well myself.’

Ononoki-chan said, seemingly consoling more than myself – as she held me up after I slipped on the staircase, with a lone finger.

Having searched the multi-storey car park from bottom to top, I met with Ononoki-chan at my car up on the rooftop, before having a final look at the emergency staircase next to the lifts – starting from the basement floor, working all the way up, then walking down the stairs to the basement again.

That was the route we agreed on at the start, though frankly, at that time, I was about to give up – but right as I opened the creaking door and entered the emergency stairwell, I saw the landing.

‘Without any cover, and yet a blind spot…if people parked on the first floor, then they wouldn’t look, and even if people parked on the roof, they’d only use the stairs in an emergency.’

The key point being all of this was on the landing between the first floor and the rooftop…whoever did this may not have intended to hide it, but they certainly chose a blind spot.

And as far as I can see, there weren’t any security cameras in the stairwell at all – it’s a great hiding place.

It is however, not a great bed for a girl leaving home.

Could it be the kidnapper’s hideout?

Not that any of that actually means anything, they’re just my deductions, and, in the end, what I hope to be true – because even if they were in primary school, who loses all their milk teeth in one go?

There’s nineteen of them.

Making twenty in total.

So the front tooth that made its way into the Beniguchis’ postbox was only one of many that came out…were the rest going to be delivered one by one?

No, from what I can see, the kidnapper seems to have given up on that – how should I put this, this whole scene looks like the result of someone ‘getting rid of things in a hurry’.

Getting rid of things…

Benikujaku-chan’s belongings, clothings, and teeth.

They were likely forcibly taken out; everything in the backpack’s scattered, and the clothes are all torn…what the hell happened here?

Yanking all the teeth out, what’s the meaning behind that? It doesn’t look as if it’s to threaten the parents…or could it be an afterthought?

Could ripping out all the milk teeth be some kind of dental work?

‘I can’t believe this. I was only expecting to find a little girl leaving home, yet I’ve found proof that this was a kidnapping after all…what the hell am I doing?’

Calm down.

It is true to say I feel like I’m forced to witness the sum total of human despair, but I still have a sliver of hope – in the scattered belongings, and the nineteen teeth.

For those with a photographic memory, they’d probably live to never forget this image in front of them, but I am yet to see a girl’s dead body – whilst this is the least hopeful of consolations, it is true that that little girl can still be alive.

She can still be saved. Still can.

‘But this is as far as you’ll go, isn’t it?’

Ononoki-chan said to me as I grit my teeth (the teeth I still have), in her flat voice.

Whilst still holding me up with one finger.

‘That face is the face of someone who still hasn’t given up – but remember that promise you made? If the thing that “stays in this room” does turn out to be a kidnapping, you said you’ll “③: then leave it to the police and make a clean exit”. You remember that, don’t you? So you’ll call them and end this. Right?’

‘But, Ononoki-chan –’

‘Right?’

I – I don’t know what to say.