Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 10.01

Chapter Invitation- Akari Triple

001 

Chiga Teruko, Chiga Hikari and Chiga Akari are triplet maids. Even if I strongly assert that they are “triplet maids”, I feel like I don’t understand the concept at all. However, since the three sisters are listed that way in the cast of characters of the mystery novel they appear in, I have no choice but to present them that way even if my worldview is different. 

Chiga Akari—triplet maid, eldest daughter. 

Chiga Hikari—triplet maid, middle daughter. 

Chiga Teruko—triplet maid, youngest daughter. 

What’s that? 

I get the triplet part. It means they are identical siblings sharing the same DNA. I get the maid part, even if it feels like part of a particular Japanese subculture, the origin of the maid traces back to England and is a fundamentally historical idea—they are loyal servants, I would summarize. But what’s a triplet maid? Are they both triplets and maids? Is that what they are? No matter how hard I rack my brain, I cannot find any deeper meaning… 

Well, for the people absolutely wanting to know the details, not a movie but OVAs are in production, so you will be able to witness the events of that gruesome decapitation case. However, generally, twins are an unavoidable part of mysteries. Triplets may be somewhat unconventional, yet there are sufficient prior examples… For mysteries fated to determine only one culprit, twins who constantly boast the benefits of being able to do one person with two roles or changing places are a taboo for forensic investigations, but they are surely appealing for mystery writers. 

That being said, realistically, twins, triplets, or even quadruplets cannot change places that easily. In the first place, even if their DNA is the same, their fingerprints are not. Even if their appearance is identical, their personalities are not—miraculous sympathy between twins is in fact nothing but a fantasy. If one of them falls and gets hurt, it is not like the remaining sibling’s knee will be scratched or ache. If I were to talk about it in accordance to my own worldview, “twins are a bad omen” is an absurd argument based on preposterous biases of a bygone era. So trying to get amusement out of such delusions must be a great bother for such men and women. 

However, that was merely an introduction. Returning to the main subject of this case, the three Chiga sisters, they are triplets created in a way to make changing and alternating roles possible—triplet maids. 

Deliberately raised similarly and closely. 

Brought about by a product of delusive delusion. 

This was prompted by the motto of the master they are currently serving… Exiled from the enormous Akagami Foundation, nowadays confined on Wet Crow’s Feather Island, an isolated and solitary island. 

Apparently that mistress was such a person. 

Akagami Iria. 

She should be a young woman not much older than me, but even hearing only half of what was told to me, she was completely crazy and far out of the norm. Not just for the case of the triplet maids. Despite being exiled to an island, far from a prison, she was living in a luxurious mansion and engrossed in dialogues with various eccentrics and oddballs from all over the world. 

Eccentric and oddballs—of the type that were also denoted as geniuses. 

Saying that much, I don’t even need to explain why those identical triplets came to visit our town… Right, the triplet maids were dispatched all the way here to invite a new genius to that island. Now, speaking of geniuses living in our town…?