Monogatari Series - Volume 26 - Chapter 1.22

022

It was rather rare for someone to be attacked by a jacket on the same day he was attacked by a blanket, but this wasn’t the time to be proud of it—I’d said it was “too late”, but it wasn’t in vain that I had just barely noticed. And it wasn’t in vain that I’d been attacked by a blanket a few hours earlier on the same day.

Just before the sleeves of the jacket wrapped around my neck, I managed to insert one arm into the gap… The trauma of not wanting to be strangled by cloth again moved my body by reflex.

However, its power was so strong that I was easily knocked backwards into a suplex. To be more precise, as soon as I felt the force of the pull, I thought, “Oh, this is impossible,” so instead of bracing my legs, I deliberately let myself fall down—it was probably contrary to the idea of taking ukemi in judo or something, but I was hoping that, by falling on my entire back, the damage would be distributed and dispersed, and I would also be able to make a loud noise.

I was hoping that the reliable Ononoki-chan would hear the sound and come to my rescue (if she felt like it), but unfortunately, the sound didn’t come out as I had hoped.

The jacket that pulled me down was underneath me, so as a result, the sound came out muffled—the damage had also been mitigated by that much, but even so, it was pretty bad to get knocked down like this.

You could say I’d deftly managed to avoid being strangled, but you could also say this position meant one of my arms was sealed… If the jacket kept squeezing me with this power, it would break my arm and my neck together.

The power to bend iron—but no, wasn’t that supposed to belong to the Iie-chan doll? It wasn’t even the father doll. Why was my own jacket attacking me—it wasn’t like I’d abused my own jacket before!?

Or had that guess been completely wrong?

It wasn’t that the blanket of the Iie-chan doll was special, but that Room 333 of this apartment building was a place where all types of cloth attacked people—but let’s think about that later, right now I needed to call for help!

If not, I was going to be constricted to death, quietly, without a sound… Even though the only thing that needed to be constricted was Hanekawa’s narrow waist. I opened my mouth to scream for help, not just to reach the living room, but throughout the apartment. The thick sleeves of my jacket were still trying to choke me, but luckily, I was still able to open my throat—and into that open throat.

My cap jumped in.

It was my ski cap.

The same one I’d taken off a while ago because it was too hot—even my cap!?

“Mmf… Mmgh…”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Was I going to die from eating a hat?

No, but, at this rate, it was going to stuff my windpipe and suffocate me—to think my jacket and cap would attack my neck from both inside and out.

My clothes were rebelling.

I had no idea that the heavy clothing I wore to endure a high-speed high-altitude flight would backfire in such a way… This wasn’t just hypoxia, it was anoxia.

It wasn’t about saving myself on my own, it was about dying on my own.

At this point, it was no longer about thinking about myself as uncool or shameful. I could at least use my free arm and legs to slam against the floor and send a message to Ononoki-chan via Morse code—no, just slamming against the floor was fine.

But no matter how long I waited, no help came.

What happened, Ononoki-chan?

Was she really that uncomfortable with coming to the rescue of a man who asks braids for advice?—or was there just no sound being made at all? I was wearing out a lot faster than I expected… I thought I was kicking the floor as hard as I could, as if beating a big drum, but in reality, I was probably only making a noise akin to shuffling on the floor.

And, regardless of Ononoki-chan, not even Shinobu was helping me at all. It was true that I may have missed the opportunity to turn on the Bat-Signal, but Shinobu-chan, you’re free to come save me whenever you want, you know?

Was I supposed to get over a crisis of this level on my own?

Just like when I’d been locked in that cage?

No, she was probably just sleeping peacefully… Although I think that young girl would be shocked to discover that her partner died because of a reason as simple as “oversleeping”…

But was it really like this when you died?

Even Hachikuji Mayoi, who was killed in a car accident (and later became a god)—her accident only appeared to be dramatic, but fundamentally, it would have been an abrupt and sudden death.

Accidents, incidents, illnesses, and lifespans. Human deaths were always abrupt and a bit of a letdown—that was probably the case, but that “abruptness” was not something I was going to let happen this very instant.

So that Shinobu won’t have to regret oversleeping.

I’d thought that I was going to die because I ate my cap, but it was just the opposite—I was saved because I ate my cap.

As I continued to squirm, I felt the ski cap in my mouth slowing down—the ski cap was moving like a drill trying to get down my throat, and it almost made me think it would be better to just swallow it altogether, but that twisting screw was weakening, weakening, weakening… And it stopped.

“!? Guh, ptoo—hah!”

Without even knowing why—well, in terms of not knowing why, I didn’t even know why the cap jumped into my mouth in the first place—I was able to spit out the ski cap from my mouth.

The jacket was still strangling me, so I couldn’t expect to fully recover my breathing, but this was a huge relief.

Of course, I couldn’t help but fear that the vomited hat would try to deep kiss me again, but the saliva-covered hat remained limp and motionless on the floor—it looked like it was just a ski cap again.

Did, did I finish it off…?

Even though I didn’t do anything? Just by struggling on my back? Was it because I was a former vampire, so my bite was pretty strong…? Or maybe… My saliva? I hadn’t used it lately, so I wasn’t sure if the aftereffects still held, but the bodily fluids of vampires held healing abilities… No, no, what would the point of healing be?

Then, if it wasn’t that.

“Water… Is it water?”

Were these weak to water?

It was just a wild guess, but the characteristics of cloth and fabric seemed to coincide with that weakness… It dove into my mouth to suffocate me, but, because it got covered in my saliva, the oddity-turned ski cap was tranquilized.

No one wants to wear a wet hat, right?

Then, the same could be said for the jacket, so maybe it was worth a try—it was hard to gauge that because of my oxygen-deprived brain, but it was the only plan I had.

Well, when I became a vampire, I wasn’t able to swim, either—perhaps water was a common weak point for oddities. Although, it would be a different story for crabs…

So, I poured as much saliva as I could onto the jacket—or so I’d like to say, but I unfortunately couldn’t spit out two liters of saliva. If I was still taking advantage of my immortality, I would have pulled out my tongue with my fingers and stained the whole room with my blood, but right now, doing so would be nothing more than a cruel suicide.

Also, that was one of Risuka-chan’s tactics.

Araragi Koyomi was a bit less cool—resisting the tightening of the jacket as much as I could, I used my free arm and legs to crawl across the apartment floor on my back to the bathroom.

Fortunately, I’d gotten a grasp of the floor plan when I’d first visited… If anywhere with water was fine, I nearly resigned myself to heading for the toilet, but my sense of hygiene prevailed.

I was surprisingly fastidious.

I was the kind of person who died in a survival situation.

And I was moving like I was cleaning the floor with my entire body… Was this some sort of snake curse?

So, after erratically driving myself across the floor, I tumbled into the bathroom and took a full-body shower with my clothes on, as if I’d mistakenly turned on the faucet while preparing to bathe—with the audacious fashion choice of wearing outerwear as a scarf.

Basically, if I’d made the wrong assumption, I would’ve suffocated to death while soaked to the skin, just like the ski cap earlier. A college student passed away in the bathroom after trespassing in the apartment of a missing associate professor during his summer vacation… I’d asked something like, “was it really like this when you died?” But I would like to make a correction. I really didn’t want to die in such a strange way.

And as you can tell from the fact that I was able to retract my previous statement, it seemed that the idea that water was a weakness, my own little unprovable Riemann hypothesis, was correct—and the only thing that went limp was my jacket.

My breathing was pretty ragged… And if the shower had been a mist shower, I might not have made it. Even though I’d been released, I didn’t feel like standing up at all… It was a hassle to even turn off the faucet, so I simply basked in the stream of water. Like meditating under a waterfall.

How refreshing.

No, not in the least.25

“Ah… Umm…”

Umm.

What had I been doing just now? Oh yeah, keeping watch… Making sure the scraps of the father doll didn’t start moving individually or trying to reform… I had to keep watch…

“Oh, so this is where you were, oni onii-chan, or for short, onii-chan. Sorry for disturbing you in the middle of your shower. I came to warn you—that clothes will start to attack you, so don’t ever open the wardrobe.”

When I realized, Ononoki-chan was standing outside the bathroom, looking down at me thoroughly soaked—even though her expressionless face hadn’t changed, the hem of her maxi dress and shoulder straps were in disarray, and her neck and arms were clearly bruised, so it was easy to perceive that she had been through a fierce battle.

I’d perceived it, but what the hell happened?

If I had to guess, it would be that during her investigation of the other rooms, she naturally opened the wardrobe to look for something and was ganged up on… Unlike me, the god of destruction would have been able to use brute force to escape… Which explained why she couldn’t come to my rescue despite me making so much noise.

To think that our battle sounds were canceling each other out.

“Got it. I’ll be careful.”

I stood up.

Break time was over.

Now that I’ve showered and refreshed myself, let’s continue.