Monogatari Series - Volume 26 - Chapter 1.08

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I wanted the sensibility to be able to say, nihilistically, that there was no difference between abusing a stuffed doll and stabbing a stuffed doll, and that if anything, it was exactly the same.

However, as far as I knew, a fruit knife was not a tool for stabbing objects other than fruit. It should not be a weapon for stabbing a doll, especially a doll that was a substitute for one’s own child.

This completely changed the meaning of the threefold locked room—it was supposed to be a confinement incident, but it turned out to be a locked room murder.

Of course, even if it was in human form, a doll was still a doll… Even if you stabbed one, it wouldn’t scream or bleed… The expression of “killing a doll” had no mathematical truth to it.

A doll wouldn’t die. Because it was never alive in the first place.

Unless it was a corpse doll, it wouldn’t die from stabbing, cutting, or peeling.

That’s why it was so unusual, the act of stabbing a non-living, non-dead doll in the back—the act was not abuse by a long shot, but a heinous crime that could not be televised, on the level of plucking out shoulder blades.

Well, needless to say, if we took this as a locked room murder, then the killer had to be none other than Associate Professor Iesumi. She stabbed the stuffed doll, threw it in the cage, and bolted the lock. She left the room and locked the doll from the hallway side. Then she put on her shoes, went outside, and locked the front door—there was no mystery in how it happened.

The mystery was her motive.

It was contradictory… I might be able to understand if she had killed the doll after abusing it. It was rather unpleasant, but not incomprehensible… In the heat of the moment, either by escalation or by willful negligence, a fragile life can easily die.

If you locked an infant in a cage and left them there for three days, they would probably die from malnutrition or some other reason… It was a bit repugnant, but not contradictory.

But stabbing them and then locking them in a cage? The stuffed doll believed to be one’s own child… What on earth was the meaning of that order of operations, that contradictory combination?

The act of stabbing it in the back made it clear that there was an intent to kill, which made things even more confusing.

For what reason, for what purpose, did Associate Professor Iesumi do such a thing—was it according to her intentions that I, the “first to discover”, would end up confused like this, like a storm?

Had she expected it?

Even if she really believed that this stuffed doll was her child, she should know better than I do how bad it would be for me to witness this.

Or was it wrong to even try and understand it? It was true that if I really wanted to know, I had to ask the person herself.

If anything, it was the kind of psychological profile I didn’t want to know about. And, if possible, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore… I was determined to not attend a single Swiss German class in the second term after summer break.

…But, I couldn’t just do that.

I sighed as I finally left the room with Ononoki-chan, who made no comment about the fruit knife.

It wasn’t that I wanted the credits that badly, but I couldn’t afford to not return the key given to me by the professor… It was a bit much to suggest counseling to an adult who was almost ten years older than me, but no matter what the circumstances, no matter what darkness she held, as a person who had been asked for help, I had to report what I saw as I saw it.

I didn’t think anyone would believe me… But just to be safe, I figured I should have a third party present when I returned the key.

It was wise to avoid meeting one-on-one. It would be dangerous for both parties…

There was no guarantee that there wasn’t a fruit knife somewhere in that clean lab.

In order to not cause the creation of a perpetrator, I must not become a victim.

It was obvious that I couldn’t ask Ononoki-chan to accompany me that far, so if we were talking about responsibility, the third party who should be present should definitely be Oikura Sodachi… But I had cut ties with that sweetheart… Um, then, someone else I could rely on… Someone who was still at the university at this hour without having gone home, preferably someone who knew Associate Professor Iesumi…

With those thoughts running through my head, I drove my New Beetle back to Manase University with the tween girl in my back seat, but as it turned out, those thoughts were neither shoulder blade nor thighbone, but a total waste of bone.

You could even say the backbone had been taken out of it.

Though I didn’t want to say—it was a waste of bone-breaking labor.

Just a few hours ago, I had met with Associate Professor Iesumi Hagoromo, a university teacher and mother of a child, who’d been struggling with this and that. And when I visited her office again, she’d disappeared.

All of a sudden.

She’d disappeared—she’d vanished.

The next day, the day after that, the day after that, and the day after that.

She stopped showing up for work—she left me the keys to her house, locked her child in a cage, and then concealed her whereabouts.

It was almost as if she’d been spirited away.

But if so, what had she been replaced with?