Monogatari Series - Volume 24 - Chapter 2.29

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Setting aside the thought of the older sister using a nickname her younger sister didn’t much like as her password…having checked her browser history, Ononoki-chan said she’s sorry to report she couldn’t find where she was headed.

‘Hm? So that means Benikujaku-chan didn’t use the laptop after all?’

‘No, there are signs that she did. First, she wanted to know what was happening to her – she wanted to find a name for her symptoms, and searched the web for answers.’

Yeah, that makes sense.

Compared to looking for a new hideout, this would’ve been more urgent – having grown ten years overnight, the first conclusion one jumps to probably wouldn’t be ‘it’s oddities!’.

It’s not a conclusion one’d crawl to, either.

‘That’s right. However, she doesn’t seem to have the best of luck when it comes to web searches, including looking for the next hideout…even for someone who’s as bad at computers as I am, I could tell she doesn’t know how to search.’

‘Doesn’t know how to search?’

‘The first thing she put in was “puberty adults teeth”.’

You wouldn’t get what you’re looking for with that…‘teeth’ isn’t necessary here.

‘She then searched for “puberty breasts”.’

‘That’d give you something very different.’

The older sister’s in for quite a shock once she returns to Japan and sees her own browsing history.

‘And as for looking for an escape, she also searched with “map escape plan please please”.’

She’d be better off if she just went with ‘map’.

‘Escape plan’ wouldn’t help, and what was she thinking with ‘please please’…what, will Lord Computer grant you better results if you went pretty please?

Although I shouldn’t make fun of her.

I can also feel how serious she must’ve been, though it’s probably something bound to happen – whilst it’s practically impossible for a primary school kid to not have used a computer these days, given what this family’s like, she’s probably about as competent in front of the keyboard as Kanbaru is in front of a smartphone’s camera app.

Is that what happens if one is unfamiliar with a search engine…then again, there are things we can gleam from this search history.

It seems Benikujaku-chan was indeed stupefied by the changes in her body, and wanted a way to escape – the reason why she didn’t stay here for long must’ve been because she thought I was suspicious of her.

Well, I was suspicious of her, so…

‘True. At the very least, it is conclusive proof that the “Recruit Suit-san” Mister Vampy saw at daytime was indeed Transistor Slender. Actually, although this wasn’t exactly the recruit suit…she did search for ‘adults fashion’ too. Hence reaching the slightly off conclusion of women appearing in suits. Aside from that, she had also typed in “somebody help me”, “god please help me”, and “somebody anybody save me please”. Such pointlessly fruitless searches she repeated over and over, probably I’d say for about two hours.’

Ononoki-chan said.

‘But it does beg the question of how, with such search skills, little Transistor Slender managed to know of Mister Vampy’s existence. There’s no way she’d manage to reverse engineer the five circles like you’ve said, right? Nor would she get hold of Mitonon either.’

‘Mitonon’ seems to be catching on.

Even though it’s a weird nickname I’m not even sure if Higasa-chan uses all the time…yeah, that makes sense; Beniguchi Hibari can know of my existence the same way I knew of hers, but it’d be impossible for Benikujaku-chan.

The reason why she can disguise as her older sister is because, in the end, I’ve never ever seen Benihibari. And she would’ve been found out if she contacted Mitonon –

‘Ononoki-chan, have you checked her messages in addition to her browsing history?’

‘Eh? No, I haven’t. I wouldn’t step into something so private.’

Says the one who just broke into the flat and the computer…

‘You could probably find her contacting Mitonon in the chat logs…and the logs between her and her father…she probably saw the whole conversation unfold between her father in Japan and her older sister in Australia via this computer.’

That’s how she found out her father’s suspecting her older sister – and of who first found the scene she made in the staircase landing.

And that it turned from a missing persons case to a kidnapping case.

‘Er…I don’t know anything about this…but aren’t all your messages synced between computer and smartphone?’

If I could have someone joining our investigatory team right now, I would want it not to be Hanekawa Tsubasa, but an IT department – if someone knowledgeable overheard how these two troglodytes talk about technological thingamajigs, I’m sure it’ll only end in much guffawing.

The last people I want to know about our dismal, primary-school level digital literacy were the smooth texters Mitonon and Higasa-chan – but on the other hand, if I could figure it out, that means even a primary school kid could figure it out.

‘Okay, I’ll take a closer look. Mister Vampy, look away for a second. No peeking at a uni girl’s messages, Mister Vampy.’

‘Why the sudden moral shift? Besides, Ononoki-chan, how is it okay for you to read them?’

‘I am a doll, an AI-like existence. Think of it as an antivirus scanning the mailbox.’

Alright, alright, whatever you say.

Turning backwards, I collected my thoughts.

Why would she come to me at university specifically?

It’s clearly a high-risk move – in fact, it’s exactly what blew her cover – yet she carried that risk just to ask me about how the scene was when I found it; was it because she thought her older sister was a suspect?

Ah…so that’s why she escaped from this flat.

Even with something different troubling her, if we were to simply look at the facts, it’s indisputable that a missing girl is hiding in her stepsister’s place, where she is living alone; even if it didn’t turn into a kidnapping, it still wouldn’t be extraordinary to think that staying here long would eventually trouble her older sister.

It wouldn’t only make her worry, it’d cause trouble for her, hence the younger sister feeling sorry and getting out of this ‘hideout’ – if this hunch is correct, then everything up until now has been Benikujaku-chan’s solo act; then again, as someone who hid in the gym storage room after a hysteric fit, I understand how she feels.

One’s vision isn’t something you can expand willy-nilly – even if one perceives oneself as calm, or thinks of oneself as being capable in a pinch, there will be times when one is thrust into an untenable position.

If I could catch Benikujaku-chan using the computer in this room, I’d advise her to ‘just tell everything to her sister’; but this really is ‘something I can’t do’.

Furthermore, I haven’t mentioned anything about oddities to her family – the only time I’d say anything about oddities is if I knew the person in front of me through oddities.

I hope Benikujaku-chan could confide in me in the same way, but I failed to notice it during the daytime – it’s becoming one of my deepest regrets.

There wasn’t a need to ask Higasa-chan for her photograph; the clues were plenty obvious even back then.

‘Somebody help me’, ‘god please help me’, and ‘somebody anybody save me please’…

What results would that give?

If she somehow got in touch with a ghost-buster like Kaiki, then what kind of trouble is she getting mired in –

‘I’ve finished looking through. No conversations from Transistor Slender to either Mitonon or the older sister.’

Ononoki-chan gave her findings from behind me. So I was wrong in guessing she messaged somebody? 

‘No, Mister Vampy’s theory was worthy of a bingo. What I meant just now was she didn’t need to put on an act; the older sister herself had messaged Mitonon about it – whilst they’re probably not close enough to add each other on LINE, she did ask her about “the first witness” that is “Araragi Koyomi”.’

Oh.

I’m caught out by my name appearing all of a sudden…but I see what it is now.

‘Then, what followed was a lengthy exchange between the older sister and her father…it just went on forever. Eh, it’s always like that when it comes to authors’ correspondences; things turn sour more easily when it’s put to print.’

The same thing happened between Higasa-chan and Mitonon, didn’t it…

No, it’d have happened even if they were on the phone…and it’s more than the practical issue of international calls costing a fortune – the messages are evidence that Benihibari’s relationship with her parents is such that they couldn’t talk over the phone.

In the end, Benikujaku-chan sadly knew something she needn’t have known – then again, it’d be harsh to place blame on her reading her older sister’s private chat logs too.

As far as I can tell, this empty 2LDK flat doesn’t have a phone installed, so maybe she was trying to compose a message just to reach out for help – something that failed as miserably as her searches on the web.

Worse still, she found out something she wasn’t supposed to…call it a malaise of the information age, but now Benikujaku-chan not only has to look after herself, but the older sister she’s depending on.

Even though it’s the last thing she should be overthinking right now…

‘A malaise, huh. Well, not that it can be allayed with a simple allez!’

‘I can’t believe you can still find jokes to crack at this point.’

‘Then I shall stop cracking jokes and get cracking. The reasons Transistor Slender went to see Mister Vampy, that is, everything that happened up until now, has been known. Yet there are no leads from this computer regarding the present and the near future.’

Ononoki-chan said as she shut down the laptop – both power and lid.

‘With zero leads, then we can only guess with what we have…so right now, Benikujaku-chan’s wandering aimlessly around town at night, right? If she’s looking for places to go, that means she can’t decide on a place.’

Not a good piece of intel.

No part of ‘wandering aimlessly around town at night’ would lift any spirits up – if it’s a song lyric, that song’s a ballad.

But since we’re completely outside the school district, that is, a completely unfamiliar residential, or should I say, student residential district, and since she doesn’t know anybody around here she can rely on, doesn’t that mean she’d find somewhere temporary for shelter?

A karaoke bar, or a manga café, or a capsule hotel – she must have some cash with her…the way she sneaked into university shows that she may not be great at the internet, but she’s got initiative.

‘She looks like she’s at least eighteen, and in some angles she even looks like a fourth year; that means we can count out nooks and crannies in our search now, right?’

‘But wouldn’t she still have the flexible imagination of a year five schoolgirl? Maybe she’ll spend the night in the gutter.’

‘Hmmm…’

Much as it’s an image I don’t want to see, it’s not impossible…karaoke bars, manga cafés, capsule hotels, or twenty-four-hour family restaurants, bowling alleys…it’s difficult to tell if a year five schoolkid knows of these ‘typical temporary shelters’.

‘And since she’s got some cash, that means she can travel, no? Who’s to say she’s still nearby? Maybe she’s already booked a budget flight to Australia.’

‘Not without a passport she can’t…’

‘You never know. She could be a stowaway.’

I don’t think stowaways happen that often though…having said that, whilst I can’t imagine her on her way to Australia, I could imagine her not being around here.

Which does depend on how much escape money she has, but I can easily imagine her staying away from the flat out of not wanting to give her older sister more trouble…but if that’s what she’s thinking, she would’ve tidied up the living room and the bathroom first, to get rid of evidence…if that’s what she did, we could’ve caught her in time.

Maybe we could’ve saved her.

No matter what she wants herself – no matter if she wants to remain an adult, no matter if she doesn’t want to be a child.

Fuck, I’m the one who needs saving – I’m the one who’s trapped, with nowhere to go. Even if I ask Gaen-san now, there’s no guarantee she’ll take action –

Someone help me – god help me – somebody, anybody, help me, please –

God?

‘Uh, Ononoki-chan. Could she be headed to a shrine?’

‘A shrine?’

‘Shrines are something even kids would know about, right? Festivals are held there; you’d go there to pray when things go wrong; besides, she definitely has enough money on her to make an offering.’

‘That’s not a bad idea, but there’s tons of shrines, right? Never mind finding which one, we’ve only just now been – ah.’

‘Exactly. She might not have found it on the internet, but the shrine we were in up until recently – it’s a shrine that worships a god of lost children. It’s a very rare type of shrine.’

A shrine that worships the snail that only children unwilling to return home, children who are lost can see – the Kitashirahebi Shrine.

A new god.

‘If she’s wandering aimlessly around town at night, then wouldn’t the end goal of this young girl who’s left home be Hachikuji Mayoi?’

The search has gone back to where it started.

Like tracing a spiral – a vortex.