Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 7.06

006 

And now for the epilogue, or rather, the punchline of this story. 

In the end, Princess Hitei took Youtou “Kokorowatari” back with her to her own era—except she didn’t. It felt like I’d been bewitched by a kitsune,  and I’d still harbored feelings of shame, but a loss was a loss, so at worst I’d resolved to hand over at least a replica of the sword—but, rather anticlimactically, it seemed she was satisfied with just being able to directly inspect the sword itself. 

She’d also left behind Karen’s swimsuit, so perhaps she had a rule that the only souvenir she could take back to the past was the information she gained. But really, if she had just said that from the start, then I probably wouldn’t not have cooperated with her and shown her the sword at no cost. 

“I deny that. Because I don’t believe that there’s anything to be gained for free—that’s why I spent a lot of money buying stuff on that toy from earlier.” 

“What exactly have you done to my cell phone? No wonder you were able to unify the entire country so quickly!” 

“First off, engaging in such decent negotiations was quite boring. 

It should be fun, after all!” 

So her real motive was a vacation, in the end. 

Well, it wasn’t necessarily just that, though—wearing a swimsuit and swimming in the pool, those were all done to guide my thoughts, too. 

Thinking about it afterwards, it was obvious. 

Those various behaviors hadn’t unintentionally given me a hint, but had ingeniously misdirected me—by having this battle by the water’s edge, she’d skillfully reminded me of the liquid nature of glass. It had been extremely skillful. 

Rather than simply not establishing a correct answer, she’d gone and established a fake answer—it certainly was something that Princess Hitei would do. 

Even offering me that bath towel at that timing seemed rather intentional, thinking about it now. In that case, did that mean she was already aware of the characteristics of the substance known as glass? 

She probably was. 

Yeah, she had to be. 

She definitely had to be, to the point that it made me want to kill myself for acting like I was all that for being a modern person, even going out of my way to stress things in italics. Because she’d come to this town through a form of time travel called precognition, she could even be considered someone beyond a modern person—a person of the future, that had come from the past. 

If she knew what moving pictures were, then she had to have known the characteristics of glass. 

And the trick that had been set up in that “scabbard” was the proof—after all, if that gamble of crossing swords had simply been out of an irrationally playful spirit, then she wouldn’t have tried to lead me on to make such a mistake and have an entire sword disappear. 

It wasn’t just a cultural difference. 

It was a difference in our civilizations. 

In solving the puzzle, Hanekawa Tsubasa (whom you all know as Araragi Koyomi’s motivation) took part—at that time, she’d even caught on to what I wanted to do to her clothes using Toutou “Tetsu”, but she didn’t especially interrogate me about it (what an angel). 

The answer ended up being some random tidbit that I couldn’t say that everyone in the modern era knew, and it certainly wasn’t something learned in high school classes. But apparently, “cutting the inside without cutting the outside”, like the special characteristic of Toutou “Tetsu”, was something that was actually possible scientifically. 

With a laser beam, was what Hanekawa had said. 

Laser technology that could penetrate through the surface of the glass and damage only the interior—just from hearing that, it almost sounded like some sort of technology out of science fiction, but it turned out to be real science that had actually been in use for quite some time. 

Now that I thought about it, I remembered seeing glass craftsmanship like that before... A work of art manufactured within the glass, without damaging the surface or leaving any traces of welding. 

I hadn’t even thought once about how works of art like that had even been made, but it turned out that it was the result of a laser beam being focused in the center. To destroy the glass deep within without damaging the outer surface, you’d need a high-intensity, high-speed laser beam. 

In the future, as technology advances, it was possible that we’d even develop laser scalpels to treat internal organs without having to cut open the skin or muscles—laser scalpels. 

In a sense, we could call those blades, as well. 

Even lightsabers, something that sounded like it came from a science fiction moving picture, were possible—so, if Toutou “Tetsu” was a sword with such an unheard-of nature, and if Princess Hitei was aware of what the future would bring, then she could take that glass cuboid. 

And it would be easy to carve the three-dimensional image of a Japanese sword within it—without damaging the surface, it would be easy to burn through the shape of a Japanese sword inside. 

It wouldn’t be hard at all. 

That “scabbard” had been empty from the beginning. 

It was a folding screen that simply had a tiger painted on it. 

Actually, I should have been able to realize that when I managed to lift the “scabbard” wrapped in the bath towel above my head even without the help of buoyancy—I shouldn’t have felt mildly proud of myself for being stronger than I expected, because I should have been sharp enough (like a Japanese sword) to realize that something was off. 

Because, if an unsheathed sword had truly been placed inside that cuboid, then it would have been far heavier than a lump of glass with the same volume. 

In other words, Princess Hitei hadn’t even placed the chip of a Deviant Blade onto the table in the first place—what she’d prepared wasn’t just a fake answer, but also the paper tiger known as Toutou “Tetsu”. 

To add on a minor detail, she’d chosen to hold the battle beneath the intense UV rays of the sun, not just because it was by the water’s edge, but because she wanted to take the three-dimensional image of the Japanese sword in the glass and pass light through it like a dispersive prism—that was probably it. At that point, it was no longer craftsmanship that was capable of being done in the modern era, so there would’ve been no way for a modern guy like me to see through it, but... Not putting Toutou “Tetsu” on the table and preparing a fake using that “sword that slipped through things” could just barely be considered fair play. 

Although, as the one who was on the receiving end, rather than it being “just barely”, the fair play was almost on the verge of harassment. 

I was really led around by schemes upon schemes. 

If that was supposed to be an imitation that she’d learned by watching someone else, then how far did the real strategian even go...? For someone like me who was born as a child in an era of peace, I sadly couldn’t imagine it at all. 

If anything, I should be glad that I was in such an era of peace that I couldn’t imagine something like that. 

Be that as it may, if I hadn’t been fooled simply by appearances, and if I had managed to discover that it was just a lump of glass with nothing inside, then it would have been my victory then and there, so it wasn’t a completely no-risk strategy, and I probably couldn’t complain about the fact that things turned out like this. Even if I wanted to complain, the other party had already departed, not just from this town, but from this era. 

What did she learn from determinedly gazing, with those blue eyes of hers, at that fearsome Youtou “Kokorowatari” that could cut down only oddities? And what sort of strange and curious swords would be made from simply taking that information back to the past? It was something I would never be able to guess, but if, as a result of that unbroken string of fate, it somehow ended up being connected to the manufacturing of Toutou “Tetsu” itself, then it would be delightfully ironic. And, as if being twisted around by schemes, if that information twisted back to the creation of Youtou “Kokorowatari” itself, then that would mean my loss hadn’t been for nothing. 

Even before that, from the princess’s point of view, because she considered it just playing around, she probably didn’t even consider it an actual battle against me. But even so, I couldn’t get rid of this sense of defeat. 

If I could see into the future—even if I could see into the future—I surely wouldn’t be able to see myself denying this crushing defeat. 

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18  Kitsune (狐, “fox”) can refer to the actual animal, but they’re a common subject of Japanese youkai folklore, in which they are highly intelligent spirits that can shapeshift into human form and trick people.