Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 14.04

004 

The epilogue, or maybe, the punch line of this story. 

To start with the conclusion: the Tsuganoki branch of Rai-kun’s “Reasonable Doubt” chain was closed—in other words, the ball finally came to rest in a white space. 

I believe it was 23 white. 

But whether or not that was a victory for me was still something that I questioned. Yes, I had placed my bet on white, and the result had been white, so if you went based entirely on those facts, then it was without a doubt my win... But it didn’t feel like a win. 

Was this just how it felt to win? 

It was something I had to wonder about… After all, in my life I hadn’t exactly experienced many moments that I would call victorious. Maybe that was why it felt so strange, since I had no frame of reference for what winning should feel like. 

I thought that, in one aspect, it was a good thing. I didn’t get a high from my beginner’s luck and become a gambling addict. When it was unclear if I had really won or if I had somehow lost, it was hard to get addicted. 

So yes, that was good. 

What would not be so good is if the closing of the casino only meant that the middle school students of the school moved on to doing some other kind of nighttime recreation. Of course, the “patrol officer of justice” Karen would never allow that, so she continued to keep an eye on the school, and from what she reported back, the students of Tsuganoki Second Middle School all speak of the casino in the same way. “Yeah, that was really fun! But… What even happened?” It was as if they’d been bewitched by a kitsune.  Bewitched by a kitsune, huh…. 

That sounded like an aberration. 

You wandered into what looked like the Dragon Palace  and spent the night there, only to wake up in the morning on a bed of leaves. And when Karen tried to trace anything from the casino, she was unable to find any trace of Fudatsuki Rai, the pretty girls, or the punks that worked for him. 

Was it a dream, or was it reality? “Reasonable Doubt”. 

At that point, it was time for someone to get to work and let the rumors drift away on the wind; the Rumors Squad. They’re a segment of the public offices that had been created by Gaen-san. 

“Fudatsuki-kun probably never intended to win against you at all, Assistant Inspector Araragi. Just as you intuited, his purpose for being there was most likely not to make money, and from the moment you entered in disguise, he had probably already decided to withdraw. The reason that he challenged you to a game anyway was most likely to help you save face as an inspector going undercover and to create a more smooth closing of the casino.” 

It was too late to tell me that. 

After I had made my report to my reliable senior at the Rumors Squad, Inspector Kizashima, that was how she interpreted the events. 

And just for reference, Kizashima-senpai is a golem. 

That means she’s a clay doll that contains a human soul. 

The golem had been created by her grandfather after she passed away during her middle school years, and after that, it had been impossible to change the design of the doll, which meant that Kizashima-senpai had the outward appearance of a girl in her early teenage years. If I had asked her for help at the start, the investigation would have been much easier, no doubt. 

Well, not that I could have come to her and said, “Please put on this middle school uniform and infiltrate that middle school for me”. 

“So he lost on purpose? But… Why?” 

It wasn’t as if I had never considered that possibility. In fact, that had been one of my first thoughts… After all, this was the boy who had boasted so proudly about winning and losing coexisting. Just as I had decided, “Whether I win or lose, this won’t end here”, he must have also decided, “Whether he wins or loses, let’s end this here”. It made sense that he had seen my arrival as a turning point—a signal that it was time to put an end to the games. 

It wasn’t because I was an enemy who had infiltrated. 

I was nothing more than the bell signaling the end of the school day. 

... But if that were the case, then in a single round of roulette, the odds of losing were 18 out of 37, and the odds of winning were 19 out of 37. That was basically a 50/50 chance. It seemed to me that winning would have been just as good as losing in that situation. 

“No. From what you’ve told me, Assistant Inspector Araragi, that boy was absolutely certain of the outcome and purposefully chose to 

lose. After all, the result was 23 white, wasn’t it?” 

“Y-Yes, if my memory is correct.” 

“Your memory is always perfect, Assistant Inspector Araragi”, she said sarcastically, then continued, “There is no white 23. On an official roulette, the number 23 is red.” 

Huh? 23 is… red? 

Um… But I was certain that it was white? … Was my memory wrong? Had I seen it incorrectly? There is no white 23… on an official roulette… Ah, but wait, that roulette was a special design. It used a red-and-white color balance. Of course, there was no black 23 either; if 23 is a red color, then black would be 22, 24, 26, 28, 30… 

“29 is also black. And 30 is not black. In both the American and European styles, on a roulette, red and black do not perfectly alternate—that’s the source of the confusion. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 30, 32, 34, and 36 are red, and the other numbers, in other words, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 33, and 

35 are black.” A perfect memory. 

Well, I suppose it’s common sense for people who know, but I had assumed they alternated back and forth, so it caught me off guard. But then again, if red had all been even numbers and black all odd numbers—or the opposite—then surely I would have noticed it. After all, in roulette, one could bet on odd or even numbers, so if the numbers were cleanly divided into red and black, it would be no different from betting on the color. 

“Umm, then, if in this ‘Reasonable Doubt’ version of roulette the black numbers were instead white—” 

But that couldn’t be, because 23 had been white. Which meant they swapped red and white? 

“But if that were the case, it wouldn’t allow him to create a defeat to have his victory. They were not reversed from the start; they were reversed later on.” 

“So you mean the color was changed from red to white after the ball landed on it? No, no no…” That was impossible. 

The entire roulette table couldn’t simply change color like a chameleon. Even if there had been some kind of trick built into the table, I would have had to notice a change like that. 

“Is it really such a drastic change? Colors can be changed as simply as turning a light off or on.” 

“Turning a light off or on? I was sitting at the table; I’m not so blind as to not notice lights right in front of me.” 

After all, I had a vampire’s excellent vision. 

I hadn’t been able to trace the path of the roulette with my eyes, but that was because I’d been slacking off and gotten rusty; the ability to notice a light was nowhere near as difficult. 

“What if it wasn’t direct light, but instead reflected light?” 

“Huh?” 

“The table surface doesn’t have to emit a light; the light could have been hidden in the ceiling above to shine down on the table.” That was why. 

That was why the table had to be red and white—that is what Inspector Kizashima was saying. 

“Black is, regardless of the light that you shine on it, still black. Red and white can be created. Or at least you can make them appear close enough to what you want. The three primary colors of light.” 

“… The cameras on the ceiling.” 

I had assumed that they were cameras placed to prevent cheating, but they were directly above each of the tables, and could be the source of the light. The ball and the chips for betting hadn’t been black to match the original color scheme, but because if they changed color as well, it would destroy the effect—black was darkness. 

And it could coexist with light. 

And of course, not being allowed to place your hands on the table after he said “No more bets” was for the same reason... If I had looked down and seen my hands washed with color, I would have realized that something was going on. 

“Since there is no way to view any of it myself, I can only hypothesize based on what I would have done, but the ceiling light disguised as a camera wouldn’t have to cast light over the entire table but could instead shine specifically on the place where the chip had been set or where the ball landed on the roulette. It was likely designed to shine light in very specific, small areas. It might be that the roulette, which acted as a projection screen, remained in its base form until a change was needed, and then in those specific circumstances, the light would shine down and change the color. Of course, that only really applies in this case, where the bet was based on color, so in reality there may have been a more complicated system in place—but in any case, it was some kind of projection machine.” 

“That’s beyond illegal…” 

You can’t do something like that and then say it was just a game— but then again, you could only pull off something so lawless with a game of this sort. And it wasn’t only illegal; it was brazenly so. He had no conscience about doing it at all… Even if I was a beginner with roulette, I was still an active police officer sitting at the table where he changed the red and white. 

“So you say, but I think he did his best to distract you from it. When the light changed—as the ball landed on 23, he said, ‘You really are a happy-go-lucky person’, to draw your vampire eyes away from the table and the roulette, which I think shows considerable skill.” 

“Should you really be praising skill at cheating?” “Is it really cheating to lose on purpose?” Guh. 

That was the only way that I could respond to that question. The noise and the gaudy lighting of the place started to seem like they had been designed to throw me off and make me susceptible to the illusion. 

“I can’t believe it… Having the bunny girls wander around the table perimeter was no doubt part of his plan to distract me as well.” 

“No, that’s simply a lack of focus on your part, Assistant Inspector Araragi. And I realize that it’s late to say this now, but as an officer of the law, it was your duty to contact and notify myself or section chief Kouga as soon as you saw middle school girls dressed as bunny girls, 

Assistant Inspector Araragi.” 

That was a well-deserved scolding. 

If I tried to say that I wanted to do exactly that, well… I was just making excuses. 

... Setting aside the bunny girls, it seemed likely that the roulette table that I chose at random was not the only game that was rigged in the casino. They were probably all set up with similar tricks. Rather than being a trick to make the house always win, it was a trick to coordinate wins and losses so that the “guests” went home feeling fuzzy and unsure, just as I had. 

Beyond casinos, any sort of game or form of gambling, including lotteries and drawn lots, would be most addictive if it had a 1-in-5 chance of winning big. At that ratio, the players were most likely to continue indulging. 

To put it another way, if there was a ratio that was most addictive, then surely there was a ratio that was least addictive. And perhaps that was what the Tsuganoki branch of “Reasonable Doubt” had been trying to manifest. A form of gambling addiction countermeasure. Perhaps the true objective had been to test and prove the efficacy of their system. 

Test and prove—as in human experimentation. 

But that made it even more unbelievable. To not only use their “guests” as experiment subjects, but even an undercover police officer… It was the exact opposite of the big-boned path that I had chosen and instead demonstrated the flexibility of a mollusk, which cannot be fossilized. 

I could only admire that, even if we were enemies. 

So maybe we weren’t enemies. 

A gambler who didn’t want to be in conflict but instead wanted to coexist. 

Considering my position, I couldn’t exactly praise a criminal, but I could say that I found that inconsistently-consistent stance to be beautiful. 

I didn’t mean it in an ironic or challenging sense. 

I meant only to convey that it was beautiful and maybe even innocently good-natured. 

“What kind of adult will Rai-kun grow up to be?” 

Even with the mystery solved, I continued to feel that strange floating feeling. In response to my final question, the indestructible golem that would never age beyond looking like a child began, “It would be a miracle for that boy to survive to next year”. She spoke in a cold and indifferent voice. “Child and adult, life and death, perhaps for Fudatsuki-kun they coexist in the way that light and darkness do.” 

The winds that blew this time carried rumors that changed colors at a dizzying rate, much like a roulette wheel, and much like a ball thrown into destiny, it settled where it was meant to be. 

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3  In Japanese folklore, kitsune (狐) are fox youkais that can shapeshift into human form to trick people, as well as create illusions, among other powers. 
4  The Dragon Palace (竜宮城, ryuuguu-jou), or Palace of the Dragon King, is the supernatural undersea palace of Ryuujin, a dragon god from Japanese tradition. It is well-known for being featured in the fairytale Urashima Tarou.