Monogatari Series - Volume 26 - Chapter 1.25

025

As someone who’d rather involuntarily become a vampire and been turned into a thrall, it was an idea that I could have never conceived of.

The idea of creating an oddity.

Even if she said it with the mood of, “I’m going to make an origami crane,” I wasn’t going to slap my knee and go, “So there was a method like that!”

If anything, it was such a shocking suggestion that it felt like I’d been shot in the knee…28 After all, it took me so much effort to become human again, and to state it clearly, even over a year later, I was still suffering from the dependence, aftereffects, and rehabilitation from that experience.

Even though it may not seem that way…

“B-but, is it really okay to do that? Creating an oddity is a pretty big deal, isn’t it? I thought that you specialists were here to prevent that from happening… I was sure it was some forbidden act.”

“Yeah. It’s a black that’s pretty close to gray.”

“So it’s still black!”

“Yep. Well, everyone gets all spooked when they hear about how forbidden it is, but don’t you think it’ll end up being not a huge deal when we try it out?”

“Spoken like an idiot just before they make an irredeemable mistake!”

In the first place, Ononoki-chan herself was an oddity that was created—revived—through a taboo.

As mentioned previously, Kagenui-san and Teori Tadatsuru (then college students) bore witness to that revival, and thus sustained appropriate curses…

The curse of not being able to walk on the ground.

I was a college student like them, but I didn’t want to meet the same fate as them.

“It’ll be fine. For you, oni onii-chan, isn’t it similar to the difference between a life surrounded by walls and a life spent on top of walls, right?”

“A life spent on top of walls? Speaking of which, my bigger little sister used to do that a lot, while doing handstands.”

Although she didn’t do that as much anymore.

Since she’d entered high school, she’d stopped going out in a jersey.

I wonder if she became fashion-conscious.

“Okay, listen up, Ononoki Yotsugi. Once upon a time, Shinobu and I kept going along with a mood like that, traveled through time, and ended up destroying the world.”

“The result of that is too extreme for me to use as reference. Besides, weren’t you in a similar mood when you saved the dying Heartunderblade in spring break?”

“Hell no I wasn’t! I was completely serious at the time, and it was a serious mistake!”

“Anyway, I want you to listen up. Oni onii-chan, are you so sensible that you’d get discouraged after one or two mistakes? What would you even do with that? How pathetic. Didn’t we used to do stupid things together? Nadekou has also been making some mistakes recently, but she still hasn’t gotten discouraged yet.”

“I know it’s not my place to say this, but what the hell are you doing with Sengoku!? Don’t do stupid things with her! If you’re going to, do them with me!”

“That’s why I’m going to do this with you right now, oni onii-chan.”

It’s fine, it’s fine—said Ononoki-chan, making an empty promise.

But I sensed nothing but danger.

“Though I say ‘turning it into an oddity’, it’ll only be a temporary change. A temporary and restricted monstrous change… It’ll just be like a shikigami making a familiar.”

“A god making a demon?29 What kind of situation is this… It definitely has to be forbidden…”

“Didn’t you say back in the bathroom that you were ‘ready to take anything on’? Was that a lie? Did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t realize that even a lie of that level was unforgivable in our relationship… I meant that I was ready to take anything on, as long as it doesn’t anger Gaen-san, doesn’t destroy the world, and doesn’t dissolve my certification as harmless.”

“If this little bear once belonged to sensei, then you could say it was simply ‘left for safekeeping’ outside of the territory. In other words, it should still have the makings of an oddity. I’m just going to accelerate that process. When you make a vaccine, you induce a virus to grow, right? It’s like that.”

“It sounds persuasive, but is that really the same?”

I’ve often read stories in suspense novels about a virus that grows out of control and destroys the human race…

“Even if this tiny little bear gets out of control, I’ll be able to take it down in no time.”

“Those are the words of the researcher that dies first…”

“Nothing but complaints, huh, oni onii-chan. You should have a little more faith in me. You’ve hired a specialist, so just leave it to me.”

“Even if you tell me to leave it to you in that monotone of yours…”

She sure had guts to say something like that after those acts of violence in Room 333.

She definitely wasn’t a specialist when it came to renovations.

“In the first place, creating oddities isn’t even your specialty, right?”

“That’s not true. Actually, there was a time when I used to live with a very skilled doll maker.”

Teori Tadatsuru, huh… Well, even if the only corpse doll he made was Ononoki-chan, he’d certainly made lots of other dolls as well.

“If you absolutely can’t trust me, then I don’t mind throwing things over to Teori onii-chan?”

“That would be a problem. When it comes to relying on him, he’s second to Kaiki in terms of how reluctant I am.”

“Rather than being reluctant, you just hate them, don’t you? But it relieves me to know that even you have someone you hate, oni onii-chan… I’m not trying to cover for my creator, but considering I was the one to blow up Araragi Tsukihi—wouldn’t you say there isn’t much difference between relying on me and relying on Teori onii-chan, who kidnapped your two sisters and your junior?”

The difference is marginal—but as she said that, even if it was true, it was still a matter of feelings.

It was a contradiction that Ougi-chan had heavily criticized me for.

“That guy’s still going after me and Shinobu, ignoring our harmless certification, as well as my sister, isn’t he?”

“It’s the same for me. I’m always thinking about killing all of you if I can get the chance.”

“I hate Teori. I like Ononoki-chan. These feelings of mine will not change just because my life is threatened. I’ll protect Shinobu and I’ll protect Tsukihi, so that I can continue to like you, Ononoki-chan. All right, fine. I’ll leave it to you. You’re free to do as you like.”

“How embarrassing.”

You’ve given me more faith than I was expecting—said Ononoki-chan, hiding her face behind her hands. It was a cute gesture, but behind those hands, I knew she was as expressionless as ever.

In the end, it felt like I was taken in by Ononoki’s smooth-talking, or rather, the cajolery of a specialist… However, as long as I didn’t have a plan of my own, Ononoki-chan had carte blanche to do anything she wanted.

It was true that, if I couldn’t count on her here, I shouldn’t have relied on her in the first place. I didn’t have any other choice, but right now, it wasn’t like I didn’t have another choice but to rely on Ononoki-chan this time.

This time, I chose, deliberately, to rely on her.

“So… What do you plan to do, specifically? Is it something we can do at this park? Or, if it’s rituals, we can go to the Kitashirahebi Shrine…”

“Ah, yes, the well-known Kitashirahebi Shrine, where Nadekou writhed around in a school swimsuit.”

“Don’t make it sound like an indecent shrine.”

“That place has already become spiritually cleansed, thanks to my all-around great efforts. It’s no longer an air pocket or a hangout for bad things.”

She was taking more credit than she should be, but that was certainly true… Plus, I had been the one who practically got in the way of those efforts.

“So it doesn’t meet the requirements. Creating an oddity isn’t just something you can do anywhere. You can’t just go pon, pon, pon and pop out an oddity.”

“I can only imagine you popping out an oddity like that, though… But, on the other hand, now that it’s a shrine with a proper god, isn’t it more suitable for ceremonies?”

“If that god finds out, we’re doomed.”

So you’re trying to do something that will doom us after all… How about we don’t do something that could get Hachikuji mad at us?

That’s what I wanted to say, but after having expressed that level of trust, it was kind of hard to take it back, even as a man with no guiding principles… But, if we wanted to do it without Hachikuji finding out, then it probably wasn’t a good idea to do it here in Shirohebi Park, either.

Or rather, it was a bad idea to continue this fruitless discussion here. Since this was where Hachikuji and I had first met, this park was practically her territory.

“Yes. We’re going to use that concept of ‘territory’.”

“Mm. What? What do you mean?”

“If we assume that the abused doll and the clothes became oddities because Room 333 was sensei‘s territory, then turning this little bear into an oddity should also be done in her territory.”

“…So we’re going to return there? By this point, a commotion has to have started by now.”

“Even if there wasn’t a commotion, we shouldn’t go back there. If you’re making a vaccine, you wouldn’t want to use a virus with the same potency as the actual virus.”

Well, yeah.

Even the flu shot was made up of an extremely weak version of the virus, injected so our body could produce antibodies… Well, I heard that even a weakened virus could make you feel unwell, so we couldn’t be too careful.

“In other words, territoriality… The best place would be somewhere with a less ‘private’ feeling than her home. Do you have any ideas, oni onii-chan?”

“Of course, that would be her workplace. What about the office where I first talked with Associate Professor Iesumi?”

“Her office is still a private office, right? That’s still pretty high in terms of territoriality… I’d prefer a more communally used space, where other people might go. Like her favorite restaurant, or something.”

“The university cafeteria… But I don’t know if Associate Professor Iesumi ever ate there. In the first place, we shouldn’t be doing this around other people, right?”

“I don’t really mind if anyone sees, though? What’s wrong with showing off our relationship?”

“Don’t act like we’re on a secret date. …What about a lecture hall? The lecture hall where I take the associate professor’s language course, that is.”

“That would be too weak for territoriality. After all, there are a lot of other classes that go on, and isn’t that more of the student’s territory?”

That was how it was in university, huh… If it were a high school, I’m sure the classroom area would be fine as the homeroom teacher’s territory.

“Darn, I can’t believe that the fact that I moved onto higher education would come back to bite me like this… If only I were still a Naoetsu High School student!”

“If you still were, then I bet nothing in particular would happen. You’d live a life where nothing happened, except for breaking up with Senjougahara Hitagi.”

How harsh.

But, again and again, I deeply realized that I’d taken on a request from someone I knew absolutely nothing about… I couldn’t think of any territory for Associate Professor Iesumi at all.

I guess it was because she was that kind of person that she was able to disappear without a trace, except for a single little bear left on the roof…

“That’s for sure. Normally, no matter where you disappear to, you would usually go home at least once to prepare yourself. The fact that she disappeared directly from work makes me think that she must have been preparing this for a long time,”

said Ononoki-chan.

For her, it was just an offhand comment, possibly not even something she really believed, but those words made it click for me.

“Ononoki-chan! What did you just say!? No, before that!”

“You didn’t even let me respond. What part? The fact that she disappeared directly for work?”

“No, before that—no, that was it. Sorry, sorry.”

“You’re just starting to sound like a guy that likes saying ‘No, before that’. But what is it?”

“How about inside her car?”

I asked.

“If you close the door, it gives off a private feeling, and even though it’s not a common place, she wouldn’t be in it all the time, so it’s not as territorial as her home or her office, right?”

“Mm… It’s not bad, but I dunno. That would mean we’d have to go back to the apartment, but is that all right?”

It would certainly be bad if we went back.

On top of the tires of the cars in the parking lot all having been slashed, my New Beetle was also parked there, making it an unfavorable situation. I didn’t think I wanted to return without wearing a mask of some sort.

However…

“If she disappeared directly from her office without returning home, then wouldn’t Associate Professor Iesumi’s car still be parked in the university parking lot?”