Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 12.04

004 

Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. 

These are the zodiac animals. 

Indeed, a new year brings a new zodiac animal—inevitably. 

“I’m kinda feeling snakey, so shall we go with the Snake again next year?” It doesn’t work like that—after the Snake, no matter what happens, it will be the turn of the Horse. 

“Yeah. It became a snake and a horse too. With every year that passed, the sculpture inside the cage changed and took an infinity of shapes!” 

“Come on, an infinity is way too many,” Atemiya retorted. 

This must be a recurring story they were forced to hear about all the time. She was already lethargic to begin with, but now she didn’t hide how bored she was. 

“Right. It only happened twelve times, after all.” 

On the other hand, Emoto seemed to be having fun just by seeing Mikoko having fun; she was smiling—how can I put it...this trio was well-balanced. 

The complete opposite of the Araragi Koyomi-Senjougahara Hitagi-Oikura Sodachi trio, which was built on unbalanced foundations. 

“True! But technically it wasn’t twelve times either—it would be eleven times. Because it never looped around. On the twelfth New Year, the Boar didn’t transform—it disappeared into thin air and was gone!” 

“Disappeared—” 

Right. She’d said it. 

That the rat ultimately escaped from the cage. 

An unrestrainable soul—even imprisoned, staying still in one place, or not even trying to move, even so, it couldn’t keep itself from changing. Its disappearance might also reflect how death is inevitable. 

Of course, as a tale enshrined in the cultural canon (albeit from a temple and not a shrine, as I’m used to)  it’s more likely to be a myth than something that actually happened (it’s even debatable whether that “certain famous monk” existed. It’s kept too vague to tell), but it seemed full of life lessons. 

Urban legends. Ghost rumors. Second-hand teachings. 

Aberration tales—huh. 

“Being able to change even while trapped inside a cage—I see it as a pretty positive message, personally. Rather, I can’t believe that story comes from Ikkun,” Atemiya shrugged. 

“I like this story, it’s nice and scary. Changing every year means that it doesn’t have a fixed self, doesn’t it? I feel like that can fuel hope as much as it can fuel despair.” 

“I totally get it! It’s like how we come up with a different resolution every new year! It’s like, ‘My dream is to become a bride, except, within the year’!” 

I couldn’t see how what Mikoko had said matched in any way with 

Emoto’s interpretation, but that’s just how interpretations are, they differ for everyone—well, and if I had to choose a camp, I would have been on Emoto’s side. 

It being restricted to the zodiac animals gives it a sense of unity, of a single chain of changes occuring over twelve years, however, abruptly transforming from a rat to an ox after the first year frames it as an aloof character. 

How come it went giant from the get-go? 

Talk about an abrupt process. 

But continuing on that train of thought, the third year was the Tiger’s. 

From an ox to a tiger—from a herbivore to a carnivore. 

Victims turn into assaillants; a ruthless arrangement—now that it had made the people looking from outside the cage feel society’s transiency, it became a cute bunny in the fourth year. 

What the heck? 

Fur clothes are exploding in trendiness this year. Did people awake to their cuteness? 

And the next year was the Dragon’s. 

It finally entered the realm of fiction in the fifth year. 

When one of my little sisters—the bigger one—was in her first year of middle school, she started claiming to be the reincarnation of the demon lord (we, as a family, dedicated ourselves to rehabilitating her. Afterwards she started calling herself an “ally of justice.” Now, whether that was an improvement or not...); this transformation reminds me of that excessive ego inflation. 

For the metamorphosis into the Snake in the sixth year, you could interpret it as a wake-up call to abandon delusions and return to reality, however, then I wouldn’t be able to explain the Horse in the seventh year—a horse? 

Do people ever wish to become horses? What could push one to think that way? Would a rat wish that? No, I couldn’t even be sure its first form was really a rat after this many transformations—at this point I pictured it more like a Nue. 

Then it would really...be devoid of any integrity. 

From a horse to a goat (awakened to fur yet again? Did the trend loop around before the zodiac could?). From a goat to a monkey (I shudder at the lack of common points). Then from a monkey to a dog, stopping by a rooster for some reason (dogs and monkeys are said to be on bad terms, so did the rooster come in to cushion their conflicts? And did it feel like returning to the mountain?). And from a dog to a boar (why did it go back to the mountain?). 

After all this, interpreting the eventual escape from the cage as it having “escaped from itself” seemed like the most apt to me— changing haphazardly doesn’t get you anywhere. 

It’s important to find what truly defines you. 

...Still, this is yet again an excuse. 

I—we thought from start to finish that there was something defining what was unique to us in our high school days and inspected that under every possible angle, but I don’t think anyone managed to 

come up with a conclusion that wasn’t “I am myself.” Hanekawa Tsubasa—a cat. 

Senjougahara Hitagi—a crab. 

Hachikuji Mayoi—a snail. 

Kanbaru Suruga—a monkey. 

Sengoku Nadeko—a snake. 

And—a demon. 

We were all kind of running away from ourselves, and the answer to the question “What are you fighting against?” has only ever been “Myself”—not your enemies, much less aberrations. 

We didn’t even have enemies. 

And aberrations simply existed where they ought to exist. 

Normally—most normally, exceedingly normally. 

“Thinking about it, how was the order for the zodiac animals even decided? It’s so random. Do you think they held a mixer?” Aoii was still drifting away with her weird ideas. 

As far as I could tell, she hadn’t made much effort to gain anything from this story herself—and frankly, I felt like such a shallow perspective might be the best way to go about it. 

There is no need to force yourself to change, and there is no need to force yourself not to change. 

“Some people start ‘searching for themselves’ after entering university, but while some end up finding nothing, others might come across a miserable self. Like, ‘What, am I that horrible of a person!?’ You might get disappointed at your real self—isn’t Ikkun a perfect example of that?” 

“Not at all, Muimi-chan. Ikkun isn’t like that in the slightest, gee. He’s the one who told me this story to cheer me up, remember?” 

And I don’t think it cheers you up at all... It’s definitely not clear what that gloomy guy wanted to convey, but at least I could see Aoii didn’t get the message. 

“‘Feelings of wanting to change are suicidal.’” Then. 

Emoto said that. 

No—these weren’t Emoto’s words. 

“I remember him saying that. Ikkun that is.” 

“...” 

This too—felt cryptic. 

I had barely spoken with said “Ikkun” during the main party, but the more I heard about him, the gloomier my idea of him became. 

“Isn’t that maybe a roundabout way of saying that, even if one consciously tries to change themselves, they will not have changed at all?” 

“But aren’t there parts of yourself you can’t change unless you consciously try to? Stuff hidden by habits.” 

“But still, when habits continue for too long their meaning can change! Like how a fun smartphone game can become a time-waster before you know it! And you don’t want to leave it even so because staying there feels comfortable!” 

“Doesn’t it just mean that when something comfortable becomes uncomfortable you have a hard time parting with it?” 

“Right. Even if you live in a nice house, you might end up surrounded by tall buildings and blocked from the sun, after all—a perfect community can go extinct in a single blow, so to handle any trouble, in the end, diversity is necessary.” 

“If you ought to change even when you’re not dissatisfied, then should you want to change even more when you’re dissatisfied? It’s like, ‘Freestyle 400 meters, except if it was truly free they would run on the poolside’!” 

“If change is inevitable, it’s natural to aim in a good direction. A good change might be nice, but a bad one is terrible. Going from a rat to an ox is good, but from a dragon to a snake feels...you know?” 

Goodbye telephone game, now they were excluding me from the conversation. 

They never passed me the ball. 

Mhm...I knew it would end up like this. 

I prayed the same situation wasn’t unfolding in the neighboring room too...I was a bit worried about Oikura’s chanting seeping through the wall never stopping. To begin with, those two sucked at communicating even more than me. 

They were just experts at pretending to be on good terms. 

And even that is merely ancient history—from when Senjougahara Hitagi was part of the Valhalla Duo and when Oikura Sodachi was Class 1-3’s president—and although I’m not in a position to say this, these statuses were probably tough to maintain for both of them. 

It must have been way easier on them after their friends left. 

And I know from first-hand experience that this “ease” is the same as the one that comes from laziness. Being alone wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t painful either. 

I don’t need friends. It would just lower my intensity as a human. 

Thinking back on it now that I was in university, that claim was indeed not correct—however, it wasn’t completely wrong either. 

Making friends increases the intensity of one’s life. 

Life turns into hard mode—and it goes without saying that playing on hard mode is more fun. 

Though that too is up to preference. 

It was as though Senjougahara Hitagi and Oikura Sodachi, whose social skills had once relaxed—or even lapsed —were on the verge of collapsing a second time, yet were still trying to stand back up on their feet—they were both amazing. 

These two who had turned from dragons into snakes were trying to make their way back to being dragons. 

Thinking back on it, as someone who knows about Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, I couldn’t quite call dragons the higher form of snakes, but well, that also shows how changing isn’t an end in itself. 

Ultimately, nobody says “You’ve changed” with a positive connotation. 

It’s painful when someone throws a “Man, you’ve changed!” to your face, while on the other hand, “You haven’t changed one bit” is generally meant in a good way... 

“But even the value judgment to decide what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ doesn’t stay the same, does it? In elementary school people called me a ‘lethargic kid,’ but in middle school that changed to being ‘wellmannered’—even though I hadn’t changed at all.” 

“If only we could assert whether something is good or bad regardless of what anyone could say... Long ago I thought Mikoko-tan was a strange name, but recently I feel like it’s actually pretty good, you know?” 

People don’t even need to stick to their beliefs to produce split opinions. 

Well, that might ultimately be unrelated to changes—someone can be a best-selling author all they want, they’ll always be hated by some... Even if one aims to be liked by all, that earned likeability alone can become a reason for others to criticize you. 

All opinions are mixed, and both sides will talk out loud. 

It’s what Oshino Meme would call keeping a good balance. 

If one isn’t as thorough as him, they will fail at staying in the middle ground and will sooner or later side with one party—the problem is when that judgment switches sides all the time. 

All is constantly in movement—actually, here it should be: All goes through an endless cycle. 

Twelve animals changing shape frequently might be hinting at the cycle of reincarnation, and not a lack of integrity—still, someone must have decided on them. Same for constellations. 

Even if they are fabricated tales... I guess that’s the point. 

Changes cannot be avoided, so one ought to make efforts to change themselves—in that sense, this mingling was beneficial to me. I might have gotten the slightly shorter end of the stick, but the initial suggestion wasn’t mistaken. 

Even if humans’ instinct is to preserve the status quo—a homeostasis reminiscent of an immortal vampire—they also tend to escape from reality and deny themselves. Otherwise we wouldn’t have progressed that much, we would have gone extinct ages ago. 

The problem is: 

Not when one changed, but when they were made to change. 

When someone didn’t change intentionally but was forced to do so by others—sometimes into a rat, sometimes into an ox, sometimes into a tiger, sometimes into a rabbit. 

Or a dragon, a snake, a horse, a goat, a monkey, a rooster, a dog, or a boar. 

If one was made to change so much. 

Whether that was in a good or a bad direction, whether that change was inevitable or unavoidable—wouldn’t that run counter to one’s “sense of self”? 

It’s not that their changes lacked integrity—they had no self. 

Those changes weren’t good for them—they were deemed good by others. 

“Mm? Is something wrong, Araragi-kun?” 

Noticing my long silence, Aoii asked me, a bit worried—and yet, I couldn’t muster the courage to answer her. 

I was the worried one. 

Earlier I’d thought, “It’s definitely not clear what that gloomy guy wanted to convey,” but if he had told Aoii the story of the morphing sculpture when she was troubled about her lack of changes with that intent—then, that “Ikkun”, then in the same room as my dear HitaSoda Duo, wasn’t merely gloomy. 

He was darkness. 

In our worldview, I guess he would be close to Oshino Ougi? 

Should I warn these three college girls—I wondered for an instant, but no more than an instant before choosing silence. 

That would be, as mentioned above, change forced by outsiders. 

I bet they accepted his existence with full knowledge of the “changes” he would bring to them—it was not within my duty to change that, nor was it within my power. 

The only thing I could do was go home, unchanged. Muster my courage, cut this mingling short, and take my small community out of the neighboring room. 

After all, by nature, this daydream-like mingling might not have even taken place, and I might not have met these girls. 

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3  The word for “myth” (神話, shinwa) shares its first kanji with the word for “(Shinto) shrine” (神社, jinja) while “(Buddhist) temple” is just 寺 (tera). 
4  A pun between 楽さ (rakusa, “ease”) and 落差 (rakusa, “drop”).