Monogatari Series - Volume 26 - Chapter 1.35

035

The epilogue; or perhaps, the punch line.

After yet another week had passed.

“So? What happened this time? If you’re okay with me, I’ll hear you out, Araragi-kun.”

“Oh, get lost… Hanekawa!?”

My former classmate who had set off on a journey wandering overseas after graduating from Naoetsu High School, Hanekawa Tsubasa, was sitting right in front of me—huh!?

What happened to Gahara-san, who’s usually in charge of the endings!?

“Hitagi-chan is going on a trip to Kushiro with friends from her dorm this week, so if I may be so presumptuous as to take her place.”

“She’s going to Hokkaido!? That Hokkaido that I have yet to visit!? With her new friends!?”

Don’t do things that will hurt your boyfriend!

Well, I was highly in favor of her expanding her circle of friends… But if she really went and ate crabs there, we might have to have a serious talk about breaking up.

“But, Hanekawa, if you’re taking her place… When did you even get back? How long have you been here?”

“I actually got back just now. Since it’s summer break, I thought I’d spend some time with Hitagi-chan, but she rejected me. She assigned me to you, Araragi-kun.”

It was also a bit of a shock to hear Hanekawa speak as if she had no intention of meeting me… But oh well.

I wouldn’t normally be a fan of breaking up the rhythm of our regular interactions, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t happy to be able to talk with Hanekawa—even if the subject was a tragicomedy about child abuse.

The location was, as usual, the cafeteria on the university campus—it was Hitagi who called me out, so I faithfully rushed over, thinking it was the usual thing… So this was quite the surprise.

Hanekawa Tsubasa, whom I hadn’t seen in several months, now had long, straight gray hair. It wasn’t braided, but it was close to the length that it had been when I first met her… However, she didn’t have bangs, so I guess she just kept growing them out. I didn’t know what country she just got back from, but her style, with her sturdy-looking backpack and hat, seemed like she’d just come back from climbing a mountain.

Her golden-brown skin made it seem as if she’d gotten a tan at the beach or something, but was that mismatched impression just how Hanekawa was like, now?

If there was one thing that bore a resemblance to when we first met, it would be that, though she had been wearing contact lenses since the second term of her high school senior year, she had gone back to wearing glasses—it wasn’t for the sake of changing her image or her character, but simply that it was more convenient for travel.

Thinking about it, wasn’t this the first time I saw Hanekawa Tsubasa in plain clothes? Since she was no longer a high school girl, I suppose it was natural to see her in plain clothes… I hadn’t been mentally prepared in the slightest, so even her mountain climbing clothes left me flustered.

I didn’t know if I should call it a cameo appearance or a stunt double, but, well, maybe Hanekawa was more suited for the ending than Hitagi was, as far as this case was concerned.

Not just because of the character for “hane“.

Although, that’s where it all started.

“Ahaha, that’s pretty careless of you, Araragi-kun. Anyone with the character for ‘hane‘ is usually good for nothing.”

“They’re good for something! There’s something good for all of them! Don’t involve the entire population of people with ‘hane‘ in their name just because of your own self-deprecation! As soon as ‘hane‘ shows up in your name, you’re guaranteed to live a long and wealthy life! You score a hundred points in name-based fortune-telling!”

“Araragi-kun, were you always that defensive of a person…? I never said anything about economic conditions or life expectancy, either.”

It’s not like you get scored in name-based fortune-telling, too, pointed out Hanekawa in a dumbfounded manner—damn, after not seeing her in a while, it was like she was pointing out how dull I’d become.

Name-based fortune-telling, huh.

“You really know everything, don’t you.”

“I don’t know everything, I just know what I know. Also, sorry about this, but we’re no longer in high school, so if you don’t mind, can you stop calling me ‘you (omae)’ so brusquely?”39

“We’re totally not on the same wavelength!”

It was like a failed attempt at a nostalgic handshake—well, I guess such awkwardness is also part of what a reunion tastes like.

“I wouldn’t say you’ve gotten dull. In fact, I’m impressed by how much you’ve grown. I never thought you’d save a teacher. I’d love to tell Hoshina-sensei all about it.”

“Well, I really caused a lot of trouble for that homeroom teacher of mine… Teachers, huh… If I’ve become a fine person, then what have you… Er, what have you (anata) been up to lately, Hanekawa?”40

“I didn’t think you’d be this awkward. I’m just kidding, it’s fine to keep using ‘you (omae)’. Well, I’ve finally finished the first stage of clearing out the mines around some national borders.”

The scale was way too different.

In that case, her mountain climbing clothes today might actually be work clothes, or more specifically, military clothes… In other words, I guess it was my fate to never see Hanekawa in plain clothes.

It made me feel like the adventure that Ononoki-chan and I went on was nothing but a small trifle.

“There’s no such thing as too big or too small when it comes to helping people. You’re not your sisters, Araragi-kun.”

“Now that you’ve said that, I’m sure even Ononoki-chan can rest in peace.”

“D-did Ononoki-chan die!?”

“Well, she was already dead. Well, I’ll talk about that later… I have things planned out, you see.”

“Surely not. It doesn’t seem like you’d plan things out, Araragi-kun.”

Well, maybe I hadn’t.

And that was true today as well.

“If you’ve only finished the first stage, does that mean there are still some mines left?”

“No, they’ve all been completely cleared out. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come back. By finishing the first stage, I mean that I’ve been freed from my debt.”

“Debt? For what?”

“The debt from chartering a fighter jet to take down Ougi-chan the day before our graduation ceremony.”

Oh yeah, there was something like that.

I see, so while I’d thought that everything had been finished back then, Hanekawa had been suffering from debt hell ever since… Though it wasn’t as bad as my hellish spring break.

Still, I don’t know if you could say “as expected”, but she repaid her debt quite fast.

What an amazing girl.

“So, from here on out, Hanekawa Tsubasa is free to do whatever she wants… Free to clear out mines of her own volition.”

“……”

She was saying something pretty good, but it was kind of scary… When I was back in high school, I never thought I would end up worrying for Hanekawa’s future.

“So?”

Hanekawa asked, switching back to the main topic.

“What happened this time? If you’re okay with me, I’ll hear you out, Araragi-kun.”

“There would be no better person to hear me out than you.”

It had already been in the news, and since she was the class president that knew everything, I didn’t think there was anything I could add. But I told her the full story in chronological order, without cutting anything.

“—Ah, I guess you’re not a class president anymore.”

“Well, I’m still a president. Of the International Landmine Removal U-20 Committee.”

“That’s insane. I never thought that my prediction that you would be a class president for the rest of your life would be fulfilled like this.”

“But, I see, hmm. So it was something like that. You sure had a hard time, didn’t you, Araragi-kun? But I think I understood most of it.”

“You ‘understood most of it’ that easily, huh? The truth about the oddity incident that almost killed me several times.”

“Did you really almost die?”

“By my estimate, at least twenty times.”

“Don’t exaggerate. It’s an oddity story, after all. It could end up spreading.”

At the very least, it was just once—when I was almost choked to death by my own clothes. At most, I’d say it was two times… With the time when I was locked in a cage.

I wasn’t counting the two flights I made with “Unlimited Rulebook”, since those were more like gags.

In that sense, perhaps I wasn’t involved in that big of an adventure this summer… It didn’t turn into anything like a demon-world-like summer vacation that could rival my hellish spring break and my nightmarish Golden Week.

Right.

In the end, this was reality.

“Honestly, maybe it would’ve been better if it had been you. If you were the one that Associate Professor Iesumi asked for help. If it had been you, you wouldn’t have had the ‘replacement child’ misunderstanding when she first called you into her office, and you would have completely dispelled her suicidal impulses, wouldn’t you?”

“Mm. Mmm. If it were up to the current me, I might have just let her die.”

“……”

“It might have been impossible for the me of the past, too. The thought of helping an adult might not have even occurred to me… And I don’t think I could have remained calm in front of an abusive adult. You remember, right? What I did to the people who raised me. Although I’ve forgotten… So, Araragi-kun, you’re incredible.”

Even though she said that, it didn’t really feel like I was being praised.

If anything, I felt like a traitor. As if she was asking me how I remained so calm.

“I think all I could’ve done was call the cops at the very beginning, which would have complicated things further. So, Iesumi-san was right to choose you following Oikura-san’s recommendation. Isn’t that why Oikura-san told Iesumi-san about you?”

“Oikura would badmouth me to anyone.”

Even if her words becoming the catalyst ended up being a good thing… I couldn’t say that I had really been very helpful, just like with Oikura’s case.

Rather than being helpful, I was completely helpless.

At least, that’s how I felt.

“On the other hand, how much do you understand right now, Araragi-kun?”

“I barely understand anything. It’s the same as always, just me regretting that there must have been a way to do this better.”

In fact, the “past Hanekawa method” of reporting the abuse of the three-year-old daughter as soon as I heard about it wasn’t so bad… At the very least, Associate Professor Iesumi would not have to be admitted to a police hospital for malnutrition, in this gluttonous country of Japan.

Her consciousness, which was already hazy on the rooftop, had been completely lost at this point… The doctor’s assessment was that not only was she unconscious and in critical condition, it was unbelievable that she was still alive to begin with.

How was she still alive?

That was the one thing even the person herself didn’t understand.

I may have managed to save her life, but her life was the only thing I managed to save… Other than that, I hadn’t been able to save anything else.

The basic necessities of life—when I thought about how she hadn’t been given any of that, and about her life from this point on, it didn’t just leave me depressed.

“It’s no wonder Shinobu didn’t help me at all this time. What I was doing hasn’t changed from what I did back then. If there’s someone dying, I just can’t help but reach out to them.”

Shinobu probably had her own excuses… At the very least, it wasn’t fair to say that she didn’t help “at all”. We hadn’t made it to the parking lot in time, but once the sun set, it was her time to shine—when it came to the repairing and purification of Room 333, Shinobu had done a great job on all fronts.

“Wasn’t Iesumi-san actually seeking help, too? She just couldn’t say it like that in front of a child.”

“What, is she a tsundere? An adult like her? I may not be a specialist of child abuse, and I may not be a specialist of oddities, but I am a specialist of tsundere. Well, it does make me feel a little better to think that way, even for a moment.”

But I wonder.

I had also wanted to die in the past, and it was Hanekawa’s words that had kept me alive at that time, which was what troubled me so much. Wasn’t it just cruel to admonish a person who was suffering and tell them that “suicide was sinful”?

After being torn to shreds, it was like I was being attacked for wanting to die—wasn’t that more sinful?

It was really hard to believe she was seeking help… That person may have just wanted to die.

“Then, if I unravel the mysteries that have been left behind, will that make you feel better, Araragi-kun?”

“Well, a little.”

“Then, it might be a bit much, but this humble president would like to be of assistance.”

Hanekawa grinned.

So that’s why she was here—unabashedly showing up on a university campus that was off-limits to outsiders. Perhaps that was all according to my girlfriend’s plan, as she looked forward to going to Kushiro.

But I wasn’t going to let her off easy…

“Let’s start off with something easy. How about the little bear doll on the roof?”

“Is that something easy?”

“I mean, it’s a bear that’s the size of a key chain, right? So wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that it was originally attached to a key?”

“A key…”

The only key that appeared in this series of events would be… The key to Room 333, Associate Professor Iesumi’s territory… Was this about that key, which I’d finally been able to return to her that day on the roof?

“Non, non.”

“A, a Parisienne?”

“There’s one more key, isn’t there? There was a lock to the second door, as you called it, that could only be opened from the hallway side.”

“Ah… The door that Ononoki-chan kicked open.”

Aha. While I’d tried to fix the hinges on that door, I hadn’t performed a search for the key itself—and even in the subsequent (half-finished) search, I hadn’t found it.

“From the fact that it’s a teddy bear, isn’t there a good chance that it was attached to the nursery key? And then—there’s a good chance she threw it onto the roof.”

Thanks to Ononoki-chan, my imagination had gone in the direction that it was a memory of Associate Professor Iesumi and her parents that she couldn’t easily get rid of, but it could also have been a memory of Associate Professor Iesumi and the Iie-chan doll.

…And she threw it away onto the roof.

Littering towards heaven, not earth.

“Since she didn’t find it cute anymore—right? Though, like Ononoki-chan said, you can get the feeling that she didn’t throw it away, but failed to completely get rid of it. Considering the damage to that bear, it would’ve been about a year ago, right?”

“……”

So she felt the same way about the key chain as she did with her “own child”… The key that was detached must have been used without a key chain, like the key to the front door, or else she would not have been able to open and close the nursery door.

In the end, considering that she confined the Iie-chan doll and then left the second door locked, she may have even thrown away the key onto the roof… Perhaps we would have been able to find it under the rubble from Ononoki-chan’s destruction.

That worn-out little bear.

In a way, it was also a remnant of affection, like the interior of the nursery.

“Even if it was a state of emergency, I would have felt bad if we turned the bitter memories of her parents into an oddity, but since it was a doll that Associate Professor Iesumi bought herself…”

“If it had been a gift from her parents, I think you would’ve been in big trouble, and not just in terms of your feelings. It would’ve been bad if it had been handmade, too—but Ononoki-chan is a professional, so I’m sure she wouldn’t make such a misjudgment.”

There was once a time where I created an oddity, too—said Hanekawa, lost in her memories.

Was she talking about Black Hanekawa?

No—it must be about Kako.

It was something that happened while I was away, so I didn’t know all the details… But, regardless of good or bad, the fact that she created an oddity without even being a specialist made her one hell of a girl.

How long would I be able to drink tea at the same table with her, as she continued to raise her status as president ad infinitum?

“When it comes to Ononoki-chan, I gotta say I think she was making plenty of misjudgments… According to her, ‘Ever since I came to live with Araragi Tsukihi, my clumsiness has shown no signs of stopping.’”

“Hm. Then, next is…”

“Can I ask something? It might be a little trivial, but…”

“You’re talking about that, right? If it’s a trivial matter, then you’re asking why the weakness of the clothes and fabric that attacked you and Ononoki-chan was water, right?”

Hanekawa spoke as though she were completely aware.

“But, isn’t it obvious if you check the contents of Iesumi-san’s letter?”

“Um. No… That wasn’t the question I had, but that’s fine.”

It seemed the definition of “trivial” differed for me and for Hanekawa… I didn’t even care about something like that anymore. I’d crudely assumed that all oddities were fundamentally weak to water or something…

“Since they were oddities created by Associate Professor Iesumi, who was raised with ‘water’ as her ‘staple food’, the oddities’ weakness ended up being water? But if that’s the case, I would think they would grow even stronger when being doused with water…”

Like putting dried foods back into water, I guess?

No, when I found her on the rooftop, Associate Professor Iesumi declined the water I offered her… If you suddenly drink water after not eating or drinking, then was it fatal…? But then, what exactly would be the right way to treat such a thing?

“Rather than refeeding syndrome, maybe Iesumi-san just refused to be satisfied with water—”

“Satisfied?”

“Rather than your ski cap and jacket just becoming immobile after getting soaking wet, isn’t it more like they drank their fill and fell asleep on a full stomach? Like a baby with a full tummy after being breastfed.”

“……”

It wasn’t their weakness—it was their staple food.

The feeling of not wanting to be satisfied was something I could understand… If the vampire on a hunger strike, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, were here right now, perhaps she would have something more profound and more significant to talk about here.

“Breasts, huh… Have I unexpectedly become a man that enjoys raising children? It’s true that I’ve always been thinking that men should be more proactive in childcare.”

“Araragi-kun, when you say the word ‘breasts’ so wholeheartedly, it sounds like you mean something else.”

“So was that what you meant when you asked, ‘Did you really almost die?’ When I was in that crisis, it was more like a starving baby clinging onto me, so my life wasn’t actually in danger…”

“No, I think that was definitely an attack. Most likely, one made out of self-defense… Still, if it were me, I would have never put back on a jacket and ski cap that almost killed me… How afraid of hypothermia are you? You’re way too paranoid.”

When she said that, I couldn’t say anything in response.

But it really is scary, getting pulled along by “Unlimited Rulebook” without even a seatbelt…

“I would think that, when your clothes attacked you while your focus was on the destroyed father doll, they attacked rather systematically. Otherwise, the professional Ononoki-chan probably would not have had a hard time. It wasn’t that opening the closet was the trigger condition, but rather they aimed for the exact moment that Ononoki-chan’s hands were full with opening the closet. So, what was the question you wanted to ask, Araragi-kun?”

Hanekawa came down to my level… It was an exchange that reminded me of when she was helping me study.

I really was a baby. Goo goo ga ga.

“Don’t say that as if you’ve resigned yourself to it. What kind of baby are you trying to be?”

“Rather than my question, it’s a doubt that Ougi…kun raised. The difference between the quality of the construction and the quality of the drawing for the Iie-chan and father dolls… Because of the imbalance between the balloon-art-like technique and the ‘henohenomoheji‘ scribble, Ougi-kun suspected that two people were involved in the making of the stuffed animal, placing the ‘estranged husband’ on the chopping block.”

Though it was Associate Professor Iesumi who locked up the doll, it was the husband who stabbed the doll in the back with a fruit knife—I had acted with that reasoning as a basis… No, it was more supplementary.

Well, unlike Ougi-chan’s deductions, Ougi-kun’s deductions were a bit more sloppy—or rather, it was designed to confuse the person he was talking to and cause havoc. So it wouldn’t be weird if it wasn’t necessarily correct, but still, that raised some concerns regarding the discrepancy between the construction ability and the drawing ability.

From reading the letter, it seemed that both the Iie-chan doll and the father doll were made by Associate Professor Iesumi alone… Could we just say that “Associate Professor Iesumi was good with crafts but had no talent in art”?

“Oh, something that simple… I mean, that really is mysterious. All right, let’s think about it together!”

“You’ve gotten pretty bad at backing me up. Think back to the time when you were such a patient private tutor!”

“Ougi-chan—or rather, Ougi-kun? He didn’t know about the existence of the father doll at the time, right? Then it made sense that he thought that way. But if he’d seen the doll on the bed in the next room beforehand, he would surely have thought something like this. ‘This girl looks just like her father.’”

“…Aah.”

Instead of thinking in terms of the creator being the same… If I thought about it in terms of parent and child resembling each other, then the “henohenomoheji” face being shared was completely natural… Though it was more of a folk belief that girls took after their fathers.

I’d thought that the “henohenomoheji” face was too lacking in either skill or affection for a stuffed doll made to represent one’s own child, but if it was actually an imitation of the doll that was the father figure—but, if that was the case, we’d have to figure out why the face of the father doll was a “henohenomoheji“.

Was it skill, or was it affection?

That was lacking—

“—I guess it has to be affection.”

A forged marriage for the sake of a visa.

It was not a marriage for money or fame, but a marriage for citizenship, a marriage solely on paper—Associate Professor Iesumi, who did it all on her own, probably didn’t even know what her spouse looked like.

Unlike the Iie-chan doll, who she at least tried to raise for two years, she didn’t even give a name to the father doll.

All she wanted was a family register.

“Even if you can’t draw a good picture, you can still draw a bad one—but something like that is just a paradox for people who don’t know how to draw… Couldn’t she have drawn on the face of her ideal man, or something?”

“She probably didn’t even have any ideals. Or wanted to have any.”

The letter had said that it was a simulation for the sake of pretending to be married… Of course, I assumed it meant more than that.

Some special reason why she had to do something like that, like emotional attachment or nostalgia—but if it truly was nothing but performing a criminal act, then it was true that there was no need for ideals.

You could even say it was a hindrance.

Although, even in that simulation, she ended up failing—

“I suppose it means that even before she was unable to love her daughter, she didn’t even love her husband. To read a bit deeper into it, she may have used her parents as role models… If she thought that the strong bond between her father and mother was the reason for her long years of confinement.”

“…For the sake of loving the Iie-chan doll, she chose to ‘separate’ with the father doll? Although, since it’s a doll, you can’t really separate from him…”

Unlike the little bear doll, it wasn’t big enough to be thrown onto the rooftop, either… For Associate Professor Iesumi, who had grown up in a cage all her life and never known the world “outside her house”, it was probably inevitable that Room 333 had become her whole territory.

Her home, which had turned into a hangout for “bad things” like the former Kitashirahebi Shrine—a 3LDK of swirling emotions.

Her saying she was separated from her husband was not a narrative trick found in mystery novels—it was simply the biggest form of separation she could think of, as her knowledge only consisted of that strong bond between parents. She was at an absurd loss.

“Even though she had no choice but to do so, the fact that she destroyed those bonds from within the cage may have determined the rest of Associate Professor Iesumi’s life. Maybe she left Switzerland, not because she wanted to get away from her mother, but because she wanted to escape from her sense of guilt.”

Even if she was able to realize her great ambition of getting stabbed by her father after five long years… She surely didn’t want to make her mother stab her father or even turn into a fugitive.

“…Ah, I see. I should’ve asked about that first. It’s something that I asked Associate Professor Iesumi about on the roof, though I didn’t get a clear answer.”

A simulation that barely lasted two years, let alone twenty—with it becoming harder to love the Iie-chan doll, her arriving at separation and finally at neglect, let’s just say it was another form of a bad ending different from reality. However, if there were differences between the “recreation” and reality—

“Then who was it that stabbed the father doll? As for who stabbed the Iie-chan doll… Was it Associate Professor Iesumi?”

If the doll-making was not a collaborative effort, but hers alone, then did that mean that Ougi-kun’s theory about the abuse and the stabbing was way off, and it was actually the same criminal?

It was that conversation with my junior that became the catalyst for my subsequent actions, so the truth or accuracy of the statement wasn’t really important anymore, but…

“I think you can just think that it happened normally. What you first assumed, Araragi-kun,”

said Hanekawa.

“In other words, the father doll stabbed the Iie-chan doll in the back, and then the Iie-chan doll stabbed the father doll in the face.”

“…That’s not normal at all, though?”

Rather than it being what I first assumed, it felt like it was completely at odds with what I assumed… At that point, it wasn’t even a recreation of what happened in Switzerland, right?

It was only when I thought that the “estranged husband” was real that I thought that it wasn’t Associate Professor Iesumi that stabbed the Iie-chan doll. And there was certainly a time when I thought that the moving Iie-chan doll had stabbed the father doll, but after reading the letter and interpreting that Room 333 was a crime scene recreation, then I would’ve guessed that it was Associate Professor Iesumi that stabbed the father doll in the face.

The fact that the father doll moved and stabbed the Iie-chan doll… Well, it wasn’t impossible. The reason Ononoki-chan destroyed the father doll on the bed was because she’d been wary that the doll would start moving—“just in case”.

Thus, it wasn’t impossible to assume that the father doll had already “moved”, long before that… Rather, it could even be assumed that being stabbed in the face by the fruit knife caused that stuffed doll to “stop moving”.

However, if you went even further… If Associate Professor Iesumi stabbed the doll in the face for the sake of the recreation (?), then the Iie-chan doll needed to have already been stabbed in the back.

The order of events was messed up.

Twisted up, like balloon art.

I’d certainly seen the Iie-chan doll stabbed in the back—in other words, I’d seen the fruit knife. At that point, the fruit knife was in the nursery.

As long as Associate Professor Iesumi was already on the roof of the university building, not moving the slightest bit as if locked in a cage, attempting to commit an impractical suicide—she could not have pulled out the fruit knife and stabbed the father doll in the next room.

Was it a remote-controlled trick?

If she used the oddity that controlled cloth, it wouldn’t be impossible… But I didn’t think at all that my jacket and ski cap, the clothes in the closet or the carpet, and especially the Iie-chan doll were under the control of Associate Professor Iesumi.

The attacks had been extremely primitive.

It was true that, like Hanekawa said, the most suspicious of them all was the Iie-chan doll, who’d displayed a high learning ability… But if so, it would not be an accurate recreation.

Although, if you told me that there was no need for it to be an accurate recreation, then I wouldn’t be able to respond… In the first place, it wouldn’t have been a recreation starting from the fact that the country was different…

“You don’t have to make it so complicated. Let’s assume for a moment that it was indeed a recreation. In that case, what would be wrong?”

“…Well.”

I wanted to say that trying to argue about what was right or wrong in that situation was already wrong, but that might be being too critical.

“Are you saying that it’s actually the letter that was wrong? It was written in the narration, though?”

“Don’t act like some clever reader of mystery novels. Also, don’t say things as if the victim is always trustworthy.”

It was something I wouldn’t say, no matter what.

Narration or otherwise, the content of the letter was highly questionable—even if it wasn’t groundless, it was a piece of writing meant to ascend to heaven.

From the beginning, heaven and earth had already been reversed.

It had even said something like she didn’t really believe that the abused Iie-chan doll was her own child, but it was highly doubtful if Associate Professor Iesumi really, truly didn’t believe that.

Though it surely wasn’t a disease where she denied everything.

If anything, there were probably days she knew and days she didn’t… Of course, even a guy like me had good days and bad days.

Even if the day she wrote the letter happened to be one of her best days out of the whole year, there was no guarantee that those three days she left the doll locked in the cage were at the same level of energy.

“There were probably some translation errors that came from deciphering from four different languages.”

“There’s no way. Meniko would never mistranslate something.”

“Oh, that’s some confidence you have in her. You should introduce her to me, that Meniko-san.”

“Eh? Ah, all right, well, if the opportunity arises.”

“So you’re trying to protect her not only from Hitagi-chan, but from me as well… You’re way too defensive of the new friend you made in college. It’s overprotective.”

However, if the crime scene that was recreated was correct, then how did we need to amend the letter’s contents?

If the Iie-chan doll escaping from the cage and stabbing the father doll was the correct version of events—

“Then was the one who stabbed the pediatrician father actually Associate Professor Iesumi herself, after being stabbed and escaping from the cage? As legitimate self-defense—”

No.

More correctly—it was revenge.

“—B-but, regardless of a doll doing it to another doll, there’s no way a three-year-old without any accountability could kill an adult, right?”

“It would be impossible even as dolls. But she wasn’t a three-year-old without any accountability, right?”

She was a twenty-year-old adult.

Declared Hanekawa—and that was right.

In the letter, she had written it as if she’d been a baby for twenty years, but that couldn’t be the case… Like how a bound foot can still grow, a person didn’t stop growing just because they were raised in a small cage.

As long as they were alive, they would grow.

Just like me.

“But… Hanekawa… Let me just say this one thing…”

I tried to come up with a counterargument as I spoke, but no matter what, I ended up being convinced.

With the words taught to her by her father, she ensnared her father and prayed for him to “kill her” over five years—but what if her ultimate goal was not to simply be stabbed in the back?

What if being stabbed was just a step in the process?

What if her objective was to obtain the knife—it made perfect sense.

And if there was something else that made sense, then the reason her mother fled… It wasn’t because she was the culprit that stabbed the father—the only assumption was that she was trying to flee from her daughter’s revenge.

She saw her husband killed by her daughter and ran away… She finally gave up on raising her daughter after twenty years of being there for her.

“There’s another way to look at the mother’s behavior. She’s still on the run in order to cover up for the crimes her daughter committed… As long as she herself is on the run as a murderer, she wouldn’t arouse any suspicion against her daughter.”

“…So there’s still love there?”

“A child will grow even without love. Like me.”

She spoke rather defiantly.

“After all, whether she was three years old or twenty years old, Iesumi-san at the time could not be held accountable,”

Hanekawa continued.

That’s right. Even if it wasn’t self-defense, there was no way that case could be judged, whether under Swiss law or Japanese law.

Even if she was a fake teacher who had illegally infiltrated a national university and was a felon who would be imprisoned without probation, she would still be innocent of that one case. After all, who would remain normal after being locked up for twenty years? Even I had given up after just half an hour.

But Associate Professor Iesumi hadn’t been given that “normalcy” since the day she was born… It was something she had no choice but to acquire herself, even if she had to lie to do it.

Experiencing the loss of normalcy was something I’d felt countless times… But what would it feel like to never have a sense of normalcy to begin with?

Locked up for twenty years—

“…Anyway, the last thing would be that. The number one mystery.”

“Saving the question you want to ask the most for the end… That’s a habit you’ve had since your high school days, Araragi-kun.”

“Ah, because I’m a coward. I’m afraid to hear what the answer will be.”

“Isn’t it because you already know the answer to the question, even before you ask it? But, go ahead. I love it when you ask me questions, Araragi-kun.”

“You love… Araragi-kun? If you’re going to go that far, I guess I have no choice but to ask my final question.”

“I think that joke is going a little too far for our current sense of distance. I’m going to tell Hitagi-chan.”

Oof. Gauging our sense of distance was hard.

How does it go between you and Hitagi, Hanekawa-san?

Anyway, now that I’ve warmed things up with this lighthearted exchange…

“Fundamentally, is it even possible to keep a human being locked up, from when they were a baby, for twenty years—without letting them eat or drink?”

I wasn’t a specialist of child abuse, and of course I wasn’t a specialist of childcare… Calling myself a man that enjoyed raising children was presumptuous. However, no matter how ignorant I was, I knew that a baby was a living thing that could die from the slightest mistake… A weak existence that could die even if you didn’t make any mistakes.

Could that state have been maintained for twenty years?

The fact that her father was a pediatrician wasn’t enough for an explanation… Or rather, I could sense from the letter that she was trying to avoid that question by mentioning her father’s occupation.

The explanation that the blade did not pierce the heart because it was so thin was almost comical… If she was in such a condition, wouldn’t she have simply died from even the slightest amount of blood loss?

It was unclear to what extent Associate Professor Iesumi intentionally or unintentionally embellished that letter… But it could even be a lie that her father was a pediatrician and her mother was a fashion designer for children’s clothing. Those occupations seemed to fit too perfectly, as if balloon artists had twisted them into place.

“If you start to doubt that much, you won’t be able to trust anything—but at least for that point, I agree with you, Araragi-kun. In Ononoki-chan’s words, ‘That’s the first time you and I have agreed on something.’”

Unlike with Ononoki-chan, that statement might actually be true with Hanekawa… We’d been having a lot of disagreements because of the misunderstanding of distance, so I’d been preparing myself for the possibility that we might not agree even now, but…

“Yeah. I think she turned into an oddity. Iesumi-san herself,”

said Hanekawa, which was a relief… No, the statement itself wasn’t exactly something to be relieved over, though.

An oddity.

Just as how the Iie-chan doll became an oddity.

Just as how the father doll, my winter clothes, and Associate Professor Iesumi’s clothes and carpet became oddities—and just as how we turned the little bear doll into an eyeball-attached oddity.

If Associate Professor Iesumi herself was turned into an oddity by her parents—then she would be able to stay a baby until she was twenty.

Indeed.

After all, I knew a young girl that was six hundred years old.

I knew a little girl that was twenty-one years old, and a tween girl that had been used for a hundred years—therefore, a twenty-year-old baby wasn’t too inconsistent for me.

If she herself was an oddity, it would have been even more strange if oddities didn’t continue to form in her territory, Room 333—if they didn’t attack the two trespassers like immune cells with self-preservation instincts, I would think that they were actually sabotaging themselves.

It was a natural protection.

That would explain why I, a slowpoke, was able to make it in time—in other words, why Associate Professor didn’t die even though she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for a week on the roof of the university.

If she was part oddity.

Then that wouldn’t allow her to ascend to heaven.

Because for oddities, there was no heaven or hell.

“Her parents locked her in a cage and used her as a dress-up doll—that’s more than enough to meet the conditions for becoming an oddity. I don’t know how much of what she said were lies—but at the very least, she herself has no awareness of this one thing. Once she was out of the cage, she wouldn’t have had a chance to use her abilities… After all, if she could use her skills freely, she wouldn’t have needed to commit any crimes. It was when her crimes came close to being exposed that her defensive instincts began to run wild…”

However… The best example of this was the trespassing that Ononoki-chan and I often did, but weren’t crimes basically about skipping due process and cheating to make things easier? It was disheartening to think that Associate Professor Iesumi’s blood-soaked efforts were poured into a crime in order to obtain something that should be taken for granted, like human rights.

It wasn’t just her parents. The world, the law, ethics, rules—everyone had neglected her.

They’d ganged up on her, and abused her.

Of course, distributing the fault among everybody was just evading responsibility by faking collective responsibility… Not to mention, she probably had people that helped her, too. Of course with regards to her rehabilitation, but her criminal activities would not have succeeded if there had not been someone that showed sympathy to her. However, even someone saying all these sympathetic things like me was probably contributing to the abuse of someone who was trying to make an effort.

Unconsciously.

If you get involved in a different way; if the person was not someone above you; if you were in a bad mood because you fought with a friend; or if you were irritable because you were hungry—you might find yourself saying that she should atone for the crime she committed against her parents, even if she could not be held accountable; or that it was too much to flee the country based on a strange assumption; or that she should have obtained a work visa the proper way even if it took a long time.

Unconsciously.

“Right. Unconsciously. Rather… Yeah, everything was just done unconsciously. Even if she was conscious of the fact that she was her father’s murderer and that her mother wasn’t really a murderer, I don’t think she would admit it… In order to protect the self, she abandoned it—like throwing it away onto the roof. She became so good at lying to herself that she completely fooled herself.”

When Hanekawa said it, the words seemed to hold greater weight.

Words as heavy as feathers, from Hanekawa to Hagoromo.

It could be said that she survived by becoming an oddity, but she couldn’t be saved from the fact that the source of the passion that turned her into an oddity was her parents’ love. The thing that killed her was the thing that kept her alive—so much so that she couldn’t even kill herself.

In that case, when I first spoke to her at the lab, she’d seemed like such a solid, decent adult that I couldn’t believe she was abusing her daughter—but that was probably because she felt so guilty about her position that she took great pains to make herself seem decent and solid. Wherever I go, it’s that same “using misfortune as a springboard” that I hate, huh.

“A cloth oddity—a yokai like the ittan-momen or the shiro-uneri or the nikujuban, perhaps? Maybe the power to manipulate fabric was a talent she inherited from her fashion designer mother. In Scotland, they say that each family has a unique tartan pattern. Well, when I became the sawarineko, it’s true that I never had any dreams or nightmares, but it’s still troubling that the person herself has no awareness of her oddity nature.”

“It’s not troubling. It’s her only salvation.”

Even though she thought she’d finally become human once she escaped from the cage, if she found out that she wasn’t—at that point, Associate Professor Iesumi would certainly give up on trying to live.

And I didn’t have the confidence that I would be able to stop her then.

“I suppose we’ve come full circle, and it’s time for the specialists to step in… Gaen-san should be able to at least seal away her powers,” I said.

That would be best.

I thought I’d successfully been able to break things off with that friendly onee-san, but it seemed my debts continued to increase… Since I no longer had the opportunity to pay off my debts, a ridiculous amount of interest kept piling up.

At this rate, I’d be forced to pay back a huge sum of money after graduating from college. It was a little too late to realize that I’d been set up… But since she could wait as long as four years, I guess she really was an adult. Even though she was dressed like that.

A solid adult, huh.

“Speaking of specialists, Araragi-kun, the fact that you paired up with Ononoki-chan from the start this time surprisingly ended up being the best match. Nice badi—if it had been a ‘replacement child’ or a ‘moving doll’, it certainly would have been out of Ononoki-chan’s area of expertise, but an immortal oddity is right in her strike zone, isn’t it?”

That was a pretty fresh point of view.

It may be a bit rough to describe Associate Professor Iesumi as an immortal monster, but considering her track record of “not growing up” and “not dying” over a period of twenty years, it would not be an exaggeration to say that she had eternal youth.

In that case, we had better get it taken care of before Kagenui-san finds out—that violent onmyouji of justice might be the only one who would enact judgment upon Associate Professor Iesumi, for the crime of killing her father.

What in the world could have happened in the past to make her dislike immortal oddities so much…? Would the day I learned about it ever come? Was it related to the curse she received for creating Ononoki-chan?

“By the way, Araragi-kun. Now that we’re on the topic of Ononoki-chan, are you going to tell me any time soon? You’ve managed to smoothly set it aside, but what happened to Ononoki-chan after that?”

Regardless of whether or not the topic of Ononoki-chan was brought up, Hanekawa somewhat forcibly placed the trolley on the rails of the corpse doll… Many things had happened in high school, but there shouldn’t have been any direct contact between Hanekawa and Ononoki-chan.

What an admirable class president, worrying about a tween girl she’d never met.

Compared to that, I was good for nothing.

I’d said that I planned things out, but in reality, I just put it off because it was hard to say… Because, as her client, I felt a sense of responsibility for the treatment she received.

“When Ononoki-chan created that eyeball-attached bear doll… That oddity, it seems Gaen-san got angrier at her than I imagined. She scolded her so much that I thought even the expressionless Ononoki-chan would start crying. I said ‘more than I imagined’, but I can’t even begin to imagine it. Gaen-san snapped.”

“Th-that Gaen-san!?”

Hanekawa wasn’t acquainted with Ononoki-chan, but she was certainly acquainted with Gaen-san, so even she was taken aback—I was finally able to succeed in shocking Hanekawa.

Surprise.

If possible, I would’ve preferred to shock her with how much I’d grown—but, well, I understood how she felt.

There had been times where that onee-san had gotten mad at me and scolded me before, but she’d never snapped.

“Even though she didn’t even yell at me when she saw me with a reference book that had pictures of an older woman that looked like Gaen-san…”

“Learning that fact makes me want to yell at you for it, Araragi-kun, but I don’t have the authority to do that right now, so I’ll just stay seated and keep listening. So what happened to Ononoki-chan? Don’t tell me… She was disposed of?”

Hanekawa half-smiled and said it as a joke, but honestly, it wouldn’t have been weird if that had happened—but rather, you could assume that Gaen-san unleashed her fury for the sake of avoiding that “disposal”.

If it had been Kagenui-san that found out about it first, then as the “owner”, she might have had to dispose of her shikigami… As Ononoki-chan had said, Kagenui-san was responsible for everything about her, including killing her.

If Gaen-san only flipped out as part of an exaggerated performance, then that would certainly be a kindness that was “typical” of her… But her style of using kindness and anger as tools of communication was rather incompatible with me.

But I’m sure that Gaen-san was defending not only Ononoki-chan but also me, so I had to approve of her way of doing things this time… Especially if I had to ask her to ensure that Associate Professor Iesumi was rendered harmless.

Maybe it was about ten billion yen?

The amount of debt I owed to Gaen-san.

It was as if Hanekawa, who had finished repaying her debts, passed me the baton of the debt king… A helpless relay.

“…Then, Ononoki-chan received a scathing lecture, but got off scot-free after that?”

“No way. Naturally, Gaen-san thought that a visible form of punishment was necessary, so for the time being, the problematic eyeball was confiscated from her.”

I never thought she’d actually become an eyepatch character… It was way too visible, Gaen-san.

And, that wasn’t all.

Rather than the confiscation of her eye, which would surely be returned to her when things calmed down, I would say this was a much bigger “disposal” from my point of view.

“The order was given for her to withdraw from the Araragi household.”

“Hmm. Hmmm. Hmmmm?”

“A restraining order was issued against me and Shinobu… And she was told to leave her current assignment immediately. In other words, this is the end of her long freeloading lifestyle.”

It would be a lie if I said that I wouldn’t miss her.

But she had stayed for longer than I’d expected… She started in February of this year, so about half a year?

It was another clever thing that Gaen-san was able to do. By punishing her, she was able to relieve her of her current duties… Instead of being sent to the penalty box, she was probably on her way to her next job. She probably couldn’t keep such a talented shikigami by my side.

By my side, with no problems at all.

“I see… I’m glad she wasn’t disposed of, but I wonder if the restraining order meant that Gaen-san realized the danger of keeping Ononoki-chan in the Araragi household, since she’s an oddity that’s easily influenced by her surroundings.”

“She’d have known that all along. Since she’s an onee-san that knows everything… Although you’re making my house sound like a danger zone.”

“But it is a danger zone, the Araragi household. It’s full of landmines, and as landmine committee president, it’s not something I can leave alone.”

Were you actually called the landmine committee president?

As for me, I was optimistic that this meant that the probation period for Shinobu and me was finally over… But the commander’s resources and strategy were yet unknown.

Her true intentions surely numbered three, or four…  Or even a hundred or two hundred.

“And so, I gave Ononoki-chan a hug goodbye.”

“You didn’t really hug her, right?”

I didn’t.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye… Perhaps she inherited the personality of Oshino Meme, who wasn’t good with goodbyes, but after explaining the situation, the corpse doll departed from the house, as if she were only taking a break to go and buy some ice cream. It wasn’t like I wanted her to leave in a flashier way with “Unlimited Rulebook”—well, I didn’t want Ononoki-chan to leave in the first place, flashy or otherwise.

But, it’s fine.

It wasn’t like we were saying goodbye for good.

In a hundred years, we’ll bump into each other somewhere.

“Nevertheless, after being relieved of her duties, on top of losing one of her eyes, I’m sure Ononoki-chan will be tasked with something even tougher than living in the Araragi household… It’s pretty rare to get an ending where nobody’s happy.”

“Too bad. I guess that unraveling the mysteries didn’t serve as much of a distraction. But I didn’t come back to Japan just to see you all depressed, Araragi-kun.”

So, shall I bring you happiness?

Said Hanekawa with a roguish smile.

Like that of a cat.

“What a vicious joke. You can’t just go and misunderstand our sense of distance now. Regardless of whether I was influenced by Ononoki-chan, if I were a landmine, I would’ve exploded. Should I let Hitagi know?”

“It shocks me to hear that you’re taking it as a joke. I’m a specialist in helping you, Araragi-kun, don’t you know?”

“A specialist in helping me… What a crazy specialist. You’re not my babysitter. Well, if you insist, then all right. I’ll take advantage of your generosity and let you help me.”

“Have you thought about it? After locking you in the cage, where could that flying blanket have gone?”

“Dunno… If it was just Associate Professor Iesumi that turned into an oddity, and the stuffed doll was just one of her thralls, then I imagine it would run out of time at some point and turn back into a blanket—on the other hand, if it were recreating what happened, then wouldn’t it be in Switzerland by now? Like its mother, who came to Japan to escape from her mother.”

“Or perhaps, she went to visit Iesumi-san in the police hospital, sleeping as though she were dead—”

“To strangle her?”

“—To drape over her chest like a blanket, as though it were a baby snuggling up against her mother.”

“…Hanekawa, that’s…”

It was the most untenable hypothesis she’d made today—it was untenable, as a hypothesis, and even as just an idea.

It was almost repulsive.

Who in the world could relate to such a forced and contrived “happily ever after”? If “there are no parents that don’t love their children” were words that contained no love, then “parents are everything to children” were also words that contained no love. Even if it’s a baby’s instinct to cling to the mother—it seemed like a much healthier wrap-up to have the blanket slowly strangle her.

“There’s no way. For people like us, who are far from being bedtime stories… Did we ever once see such a happy ending that was so meaningful?”

“That’s exactly why it’s about time something like this happened. If the simulation doesn’t pursue ideals, then reality will only get worse, you know?”

I suppose so.

Associate Professor Iesumi had been thorough in her simulation of the reality she knew, which was why she’d failed in both her marriage and her child-raising. As long as you learn from reality, you can only bring forth reality… It was an endless cycle of reproduction.

Even if it wasn’t there, even if she didn’t want it, what she needed to have were ideals.

Even if it’s run-of-the-mill to aim for the best and end up with the worst—if you don’t aim for the best, you won’t even reach the next best.

“But, even if you say that, it’s too—”

“No, no, I’m being completely serious. I’d like to think that I’m contributing to a world like that. I want the Iie-chan doll to stop the negative cycle of abuse begetting abuse. I want it to be able to clearly say ‘no’ to this unacceptable reality. Just as Iesumi-san wished.”

Despite being given the name for “helping”, it’s something I was unable to do41—said Hanekawa.

“Now, time for a multiple-choice question. Choose the one you think is the correct option, Araragi-kun,”

she said, as though she was recalling being my private tutor in high school.

“Choice A. While Hitagi-chan is away, secretly go on a date with me without any aftermath. Choice B. Go with me to visit Associate Professor Iesumi to check if the blanket is there. Now, which do you think is correct?”

“…I was wondering what you’d give me, but it seems the difficulty of this is C.”

I’m saved.

With those two choices, there was no way I could get it wrong.