Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 1.17

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“In English, when they say ‘I’m sorry’, it can mean two things: ‘I’m sorry for what I did’, and ‘I’m sorry for your loss’. But, between ‘please forgive me’ and ‘what a pity’, which apology rings deeper?—ha ha.”

That was what Ougi-chan said.

I’d forgotten to mention this earlier, but at the moment, Oshino Ougi was a dark young man clad in a gakuran, so perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to him as “Ougi-kun” the way Higasa-chan and Kanbaru did, but with things being what they are, please allow me to keep referring to him as Ougi-chan for now.

Though I’d like it if I didn’t sound like a senior calling his junior by an old nickname even after he’s grown up—that was what ran through my head as I sat in the back seat of Ougi-chan’s BMX.

Of course, there was no such thing as a back seat of a BMX, so I was really riding while standing on top of a metal foothold on the rear wheel, keeping my balance with my hands on Ougi-chan’s shoulders.

I’d ridden bicycles like that fairly often in high school, but this might be the first time I was the one in the rear—not to mention, behind my junior. Naturally, as the senior, I had suggested being the one to drive, but Ougi-chan had stubbornly refused to turn over the handlebars (and saddle and pedals).

In the first place, there was no reason that I needed to be riding double with Ougi-chan, but when he’d returned with Kanbaru, Ougi-chan had said,

“Well, I’m actually fairly busy right now. Even if you suddenly come to see me, I do have plans coming up. But I wouldn’t dare want to bring shame to Araragi-senpai, who I’d been much obliged to back then, so if you’d like to accompany me on my way there, I’d be happy to hear you out.”

And that was how I’d come to be astride his bicycle.

I’d wanted to ask him if he was some culprit from Columbo, but when he said he’d be troubled if I suddenly came to see him, I couldn’t exactly refute him.

But anyway—damn, Ougi-chan was coldhearted. Even though “back then”, he’d been a junior that was so attached to me—ah, well. Right now, Ougi-chan was Kanbaru’s buddy after all.

You couldn’t rely on old friendships.

That was something I’d already known, wasn’t it?

And so, to the fast-footed Kanbaru, who naturally looked tired after having kept pace with a bicycle for quite the distance, I kept it down to a light hug and air kiss before leaving the Japanese mansion behind me.

Of course, the hug and air kiss were just a charming joke, while what I actually kept light was the interview I conducted. I didn’t really need to confirm it, but just to make sure, there was nothing abnormal about Kanbaru, either—if, like Hitagi or Oikura, she were showing the same abnormality, exhibiting the same symptoms, then there was no way she wouldn’t be apologizing excessively for the destruction of my beloved mountain bike.

And Ougi-chan may have gotten more curt with me, but with the two of us riding double like this, I got the impression that his aloof behavior hadn’t changed.

Okey-dokey, hokey-pokey.58

However, at this rate, it probably wouldn’t be doable for me to subcontract the results of my investigation to Ougi-chan and then laze around at home—well, such a blueprint had always been a pipe dream even when this junior had been attached to me.

Ougi-chan’s uncle and the origin of the Oshino family name, Oshino Meme, didn’t help us without any conditions, either—or rather, he didn’t help us at all.

People could only help themselves.

Ultimately, he would only lend a hand.

But very well, I didn’t come here to bet on certain probabilities anyway—haphazard meetings without making appointments were the same as always. I decided that I would fix that bad habit of mine by the time I graduated from university, but for now, I would focus on the now. Right now.

But how to broach the subject?—I didn’t know what destination Ougi-chan was riding to, but I imagined that I didn’t have much time to spare. Even while keeping in mind preserving Meniko’s privacy, I had better be straight forward…

Even without the luggage rack on this bike, it would be a challenge.59

“Ha ha. But Araragi-senpai, I never thought last year that I would be riding double with you on the same bike like this.”

“That’s for sure. Thinking about it like that, it’s really moving, and even kind of nostalgic.”

“However, whether you’re standing or sitting, riding double is against the law, after all. As a matter of fact, riding a bicycle on a sidewalk like this is in itself a violation of the Road Traffic Act. Shouldn’t you be apologizing for this?”

He sure knew how to put a damper on my nostalgia. Well, everything he said was true—but considering he was demonstrating his lawful mindset after telling me to ride behind him, I wasn’t sure how serious he was.

And that mood was nostalgic as well, given our riding double.60

“Seeing as I don’t ride bicycles anymore, I don’t know what to say, but… When I did ride bicycles, honestly, it was an illegal activity that I didn’t really mind.”

“What a self-serving statement. After learning how to drive a car, have you completely flipped your opinion to think that bicycles on the road are just in the way?”

“That’s not it…”

If it was the question of if it was dangerous to ride bikes on the road, then that was something I’d considered even when I still rode bikes… But laws have changed, and the number of bicycle-only roads has increased, so safety and danger were not the same.

Consistency, and transience.61

“Speaking of observing the law, in police dramas and detective films, when they get into a car chase with the bad guy, people have pointed out that it’s a bit unrealistic to take the time to fasten their seatbelts, for both the one doing the chasing and the one being chased. Araragi-senpai, what do you think about this?”

I may have wanted to rekindle this old friendship that had cooled down, but I didn’t exactly have the time for small talk… However, it was true that, when it came to conversations with Ougi-chan, there was no such thing as small talk.

Everything got to the true heart of the matter.

Or perhaps to falsehood.

“Well, let’s see. Even the bad guy is scared of car crashes, and especially because he’s in a hurry, I don’t think it’s that weird for him to fasten his seatbelt… And there’s no need for the detective to risk his life, either.”

“I see. As expected of a car driver. Your faith in the seatbelt is impressive.”

“But if a bad guy without a driver’s license were to ride a bike with a helmet and protective gear, I’d definitely question that.”

“Ha ha. Indeed. However, Araragi-senpai, if your high school life were to get remade, then those famous scenes of you riding double with Senjougahara-senpai or Hanekawa-senpai would be completely and utterly cut, wouldn’t they?”

What do you mean by remaking my high school life.

I’d nearly made that retort and laughed things off, but it seemed that we’d long since gotten to the main subject.

Even though I hadn’t gotten the ball rolling at all…

“Ougi-chan. What—or how much—do you already know?”

“I don’t know anything. You’re the one who knows—Araragi-senpai.”

That was what Ougi-chan said as he faced forward—just as he’d done in the past.

“After all this time, Araragi-senpai, if you were to begin apologizing to everyone for your double riding in the past, it would seem rather questionable. Especially when those scenes left such good impressions on viewers like me.”

“Let’s at least discuss the novels, too?”

In the first place, you weren’t even here for those scenes where I was riding double.

“So what, are you wondering whether it would’ve been fine or not to rewrite those scenes when republishing them in paperback? In that case, then even if it didn’t go for a hundred pages, maybe I should’ve just gone and properly written that scene of fooling around with Karen and Tsukihi without cutting it.”

“However, if you were to ask if the director’s cut version is always better, then that’s not always the case.”

He was always coming up with counterarguments.

Like a junior with a hobby of stirring things up in debates.

Stirring things up—and flipping them over.

“The mythical last scene that was sealed away before publishing has now been included! But even if that were to happen, people will say that they liked their first impressions better. Or that it felt like an unnecessary change.”

“It’s pretty common for remakes to soften up the parts that could be provocative, so that probably means that there are a lot of people that want that.”

Actually, maybe not.

I might have just been assuming an invisible majority for the sake of follow-up.

“The decision-making process can be rather opaque. It’s often the case that, after much deliberation with many people, the conclusion that is reached is one that neither satisfies nor benefits anybody—since I am a boy right now, I’m in a position to give it my all in supporting the social advancement of women, but just because I’m in favor of gender parity, that doesn’t mean I think that they should change the genders of the characters in Doraemon to achieve that. It’s a matter of course that there should be less scenes of Shizuka-chan in the bath, but I wouldn’t say that one of Gian or Suneo should be a girl instead.”

Even before that, seeing as you’ve changed your gender with the start of the new school year, it’s a bit questionable for you to say that, but in any case, this wasn’t even an extreme argument. If we were to dig into the concept of changing gender, we’d find that there have been several cases in the past where the role of Watson was made into a woman in drama adaptations of mystery novels—but how would people feel about that now?

“Ha ha. It would be as shocking as if, in Lupin’s gang, Goemon were to be changed into a swordswoman. In the other way, the appearance of a male PreCure should be viewed positively, so there’s a balance to everything. Like the front and back sides.”

Front and back.

The front side is a part of the back side.

“Speaking of which, in Ojamajo Doremi, there was that one team of male wizards, weren’t there… It became a much bigger topic of discussion than when a female Kamen Rider showed up. In that case, would you argue that next year’s Sentai heroes should be a six-member team, with only half being male? Although you could say that we’ve already struck a balance with Sentai heroes and PreCures.”

“That’s something that Ishinomori Shoutarou-sensei has written about in his manga, 009-1. A true pioneer.”

“009-1?”

That title sounded like a parody that a new writer might have come up with for fun… Tokiwa-sou was kind of an incredible apartment building.

“When you pick up a manga by any of the members from Tokiwa-sou, you’ll almost always see something like this written at the end. ‘The depictions found in this work may not be appropriate in light of modern social values, but they have been published without alteration under the historical context of when the work was originally published.’”

“The conclusion being that, if we’re going to make changes, we should make them in the future, not the past, right? It’s an idea that you can apply to the lineup of Disney Princesses.”

“It’s like referring to those times as ‘the good old days’. But was that era in which the naked bodies of female characters were exposed in shounen magazines really all that good? Some people might refer to it as the Dark Ages.”

After becoming a boy, his examples had gotten cruder… But still, it was a tough concept. There was the criticism of, “Portrayals have become lukewarm nowadays,” but if you countered that by saying, “Portrayals in the past have had lackluster CGI,” it wouldn’t exactly be striking a nice balance.

The asymmetry was apparent.

Speaking from my own experience, the past and the future weren’t necessarily in perfect symmetry… Even without having been alive for six hundred years, it was obvious to me that they were a single, continuous thing.

Even if our lands weren’t adjoined, we were still connected by the same sky.

“Meanwhile, there are some people that would find the naked bodies of male characters to be stimulating… Ha ha. The reasoning that it’s fine for men to show some skin is ultimately just self-serving. But in conclusion, in regards to the question of if people in a car chase should fasten their seatbelts, all they need to do is ride in antique cars that don’t come with seatbelts attached. Would you accept this as a solution?”

“Er, no, that conclusion doesn’t work for me.”

That didn’t solve anything.

For one thing, I was driving a brand-new New Beetle.

“Under that reasoning, we’d end up remaking those riding double scenes using those funny tandem bicycles that have two saddles and two sets of pedals. They’d become funny scenes.”

“My, my. Then, shall the two of us continue this monologue a little more? Your concern is that, basically, Senjougahara-senpai and Oikura-senpai are stubbornly apologizing for things in the past, correct?”

“Huh? Did I already tell you about that?”

“You did. You told me about how the double heroines with crazy personalities have teamed up and are eager to remake their stained past.”

I didn’t think I’d already told him about that, and if I did tell him about that, then I didn’t think I would have used that wording, but if that was what Ougi-chan was saying, then it had to be true. It was quite the slip of the tongue to refer to Hitagi and Oikura as double heroines.

That was more cruel than “generic girl”.

“And you also mentioned how the only friend you were able to make in university encountered a similar situation. As your junior, it fills my heart with pride to hear you celebrate your university life, my dearly beloved Araragi-senpai.”

“If I’ve said that I only made one friend, I’m clearly not celebrating. Not to mention, I’m about to be breaking up with my girlfriend and childhood friend for some incomprehensible reason.”

I was in despair.

To think I’d reach a point even lower than I’d been in high school.

“Putting aside the case with your friend, your own cases shouldn’t be all that incomprehensible, Araragi-senpai. You already have enough of an idea of what’s going on, right?”

“If they hadn’t said what they did, then maybe. I could understand for either case if they were cutting me off because I moved in next door to Oikura, but right now, they’re talking about stuff from way back when.”

“However, there do exist crimes with no statute of limitations.”

“Are you saying that whatever was done to me was as bad as murder?”

“It’s up to interpretation. Personally, when it comes to the idea that Senjougahara-senpai and Oikura-senpai expanded their horizons after entering university and became ashamed of their past actions, I don’t think it’s that strange compared to you, Araragi-senpai. Oikura-senpai’s aggressive apologizing may have made you confident that this was an abnormal situation, but from my perspective, as someone who was graciously allowed to accompany you during her case, isn’t it simply likely that her unstable emotions caused her to experience flashbacks and behave unusually?”

“I considered that, too.”

“Even if you told me that she cut her stomach open with a ballpoint pen while apologizing, it would still be within the limits of acceptable behavior.”

“What exactly are you saying is acceptable for my childhood friend?”

That wasn’t something I could allow or condone.

In the first place, it wasn’t as though I hadn’t considered that worst-case scenario—even in my conversation with Higasa Christie, the idea of committing seppuku as an extreme form of “apology” had been brought up.

If your goal were to be the end of your life, that would be a big problem.

“However, Araragi-senpai, while the sequence of events is opposite from yours, it’s quite interesting to me that the circumstances and timing of your only friend’s case seem to line up. It makes me want to actually get this heavy body of mine into gear.”

“Your footwork used to be a lot lighter when you were involved with me.”

“I’m no longer in my prime, anymore. I can just barely keep up with Kanbaru-senpai’s pace—not to mention, just as you had been, Araragi-senpai, she will soon be graduating, too.”

“That’s true. I had better celebrate her graduation… In that case, can you start haunting that dropout Higasa-chan next?”

“When it comes to that type of person, there’s no opportunity for monstrous apparitions to take the stage. Whether she becomes a dropout or finds a job or embarks on a journey to wander the world, she’ll find her own way to go.”

“That last one is just Hanekawa Tsubasa, isn’t it.”

That’s someone who could’ve become a monstrous apparition herself.

“Anyway, now that I’ve become all old and decrepit, I don’t know if I’ll be able to resolve your concerns, Araragi-senpai, but through the wisdom that comes from old age, shall I at least perform a bit of analysis?”

“I don’t want to hear ‘decrepit’ and ‘wisdom of old age’ from my junior.”

“After hearing the results of your fieldwork achieved by your light footwork, Araragi-senpai, I’ve been able to come up with about thirteen possibilities.”

“Thirteen?”

That’s a lot.

And it was a bad omen.

“It’s thanks to you going all around and conducting surveys here and there, Araragi-senpai. Not just your friend, Senjougahara-senpai, and Oikura-senpai, but also Shinobu-chan, your little sisters, and even Higasa-senpai. As a result, I was able to squeeze the possibilities down to this much. Compared to when you used to relegate all those girls to my uncle, you sure have grown.

Relegate all those girls, you say.

Both your impression of me and your impression of your uncle are terrible, huh.

“Ougi-chan, even after squeezing, thirteen is too much. There’s still some pulp left in that fruit juice, so let’s make it more like a smoothie and smooth it down. If you’re going to praise my growth, then let’s squeeze it down a bit more. Throw out the ones that are the most unlikely, or combine the ones that are similar.”

There was no way I could remember thirteen.

If possible, I’d like it to be a single-digit number, or even a number that would round down to zero.

“It sounds like your brain has regressed after entering university. You should at least be able to memorize thirteen things.”

“I’ve always been bad at subjects that involve memorization. That’s why I enrolled in the mathematics department, since it’s my only strong suit.”

“And yet the fact that you can get along with those extremely humanities-oriented people means you’re not just phoning it in, huh, Araragi-senpai? But, understood. Since it’s a request from none other than Araragi-senpai himself, I’ll compromise and squeeze it down to five possibilities.”

That barely counts as a compromise.

So he had this side to him, too.

As high-handed as he was with his opinions, he would never really pinpoint anything—you could say that the way he eloquently avoided teaching you the key point of anything was something inherited from his uncle.

Very well, I’ll give up on rounding down.

“Ha ha. Speaking of which, the word for rounding is pretty amusing, isn’t it? It’s written as “four’s thrown away but five enters”, but why was “enter” chosen as the antonym for “throw away”?—it should be “pick up” instead.”62

“Is that also the asymmetry of the front and back sides?”

“Front and back—the asymmetry of perpetrators and victims, right? How very interesting. If you would allow me to speak frankly, in regards to the idea of the front side being a part of the back side, I would say I’ve been utterly taken in by it. As a backstage type of character myself, I’ve let myself be deceived by it. And it’s also true that I’m glad that you’ve made a good friend in university.”

If I were to be told that you, Araragi-senpai, were a part of me, then I might even agree—said Ougi-chan, shrugging his shoulders.

In other words, taking his hands off the handlebars.

It was something I absolutely didn’t want when riding double—since it was a BMX, I was afraid he’d start doing tricks like wheelies.

“In the first place, when it comes to the side that apologizes and the side that is apologized to, you can consider it a form of asymmetric warfare. That’s the first possibility.”

“Huh?”

“I’m saying that it’s #1. Asymmetric warfare. That’s a thought experiment you’ve already carried out with Higasa-senpai, right? Since you’ve referred to it as aggressive apologizing, it’s taken on a rather violent tone.”

Ah.

That thing about how the best defense is a good offense.

“In this case, Araragi-senpai, attacking you is what matters to those girls. Going on the offensive by excessively apologizing is what matters, so the idea is that the subject of those apologies doesn’t matter at all. If anything, the more irrational the apologies are, the more effective they would be. If they’re irrational, there’s no logic to them at all, so they can’t be refuted.”

“In fact, they really did put me at a loss.”

In a sense, I’d been at more of a loss than after I’d had my cheek stapled. I’d brought up the idea of apology harassment before, but it was astonishing to think that this pattern of domestic violence could exist.

“Of course, this is only if you’ve sensed any aggression in the roots of this abnormal phenomenon. But it is true, after all, that the two of them were displeased with the current love triangle, correct?”

“Our relationship isn’t exactly good enough to refer to it as a love triangle…”

Not that a love triangle itself was a good thing.

As for whether or not that sort of balance existed in Meniko and Boyfie-kun’s relationship… Considering the uninhibited nature of her relationships, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were.

In that case, it would imply that there was blame that lay with Meniko and me, but it made no sense to reject the idea out of hand…

As usual, he said the most unpleasant things.

“By the way, Ougi-chan, in terms of the order of these hypotheses, are we starting with the most likely one?”

“It’s as you say. You really do understand me—and so, #2 is, as you’ve said, #2. Self-punishing tendencies.”

“Self-punishing tendencies?”

“Perhaps it’s more accurate to call it self-destructive—as you’ve mentioned before, it’s the idea that, after broadening their horizons in university, they’re now repenting for their past wrongdoings that they once thought nothing of. It’s not that they’re dragging it back up again, but that they’ve finally realized that those things they did were unforgivable. In that sense, it’s a very human-like development.”

If you can grow just a little more, Araragi-senpai, you might even learn to feel apologetic towards your little sisters—said Ougi-chan, making some sort of snide remark towards me.

Whatever he was trying to insinuate, I hadn’t the slightest idea… Though I would prefer if my sisters would someday grow enough to understand my affection for them.

“Ha ha. That’s also an excuse that a perpetrator would make. However, Araragi-senpai, if your little sisters were to begin to commit seppuku in your home, it would be just as hard to accept, right?”

“Well, of course… But when it comes to Hitagi’s or Oikura’s tendencies, it feels like #2 is more likely than #1?”

“They’re actually neck and neck. According to my estimates, their self-punishing tendencies and your resentability are locked in a fierce battle.”

Some pretty unpleasant things were battling it out.

Among the possibilities that had been squeezed down, there could also be the case that the two of those were complexly entangled. And that would be an unpleasant entanglement.

“#3. Self-sacrifice,”

said Ougi-chan, continuing his presentation… Perhaps we were already getting close to his destination. If he had started with the most likely possibilities, then he surely wasn’t saving the best for last, so I didn’t mind if he took some shortcuts for the latter half… Not to mention that I was the one who requested a number that could be rounded… But, self-sacrifice?

“Araragi-senpai, you’ve already completely and utterly forgotten, but I still happen to remember Sengoku-chan. Back when she used to try and resolve everything by saying ‘sorry’.”

“It’s not like I’ve forgotten, really.”

Ah… But, it was as he said.

Her snake god transformation had left such a strong impression on me that her personality from before that had somewhat fallen from my mind.

Now that he’d mentioned it, Sengoku Nadeko was the kind of middle school girl who’d say “sorry” and resolve everything by apologizing.

“Ha ha. Sengoku-chan was so cute back then. Though she’s lost all that cuteness now—it might even be the dark history of her dark ages now. Something she might want to apologize for again.”

However, if you were to ask me if Sengoku was nothing but cute back then, then honestly, it was quite difficult to be on the receiving end of her apologies.

But it was still puzzling. Was that self-sacrifice?

Disregarding future confrontations, it was true that her aggressive apologizing back then had not been done with the intent of attacking me, and it didn’t seem like she’d been trying to punish herself, either…

“The apology isn’t the goal, but the method. It’s a way of taking responsibility by saying that you’re at fault for everything and anything, whatever it may be, in order to keep the peace. No, I suppose it’s more of a way of taking irresponsibility.”

“A way of taking—irresponsibility.”

“‘I’m very sorry, everything is my fault’—one secret to success states that you can easily reconcile everything by going all-out with a full-scale apology. Higasa-senpai likened an apology to a ritual or manners, but this would be like the abuse of that.”

It might be poor phrasing to refer to it as abuse, but when you’re in an argument, there is some strategy in being the first to back down. After all, when competing to see who is in the right, there would be no end to it otherwise.

You have to lose in order to win.

People say that apologizing means losing, but you can turn the game around by winning via apologizing.

“But self-sacrifice isn’t necessarily something beautiful.”

“You would be abandoning your relationships, after all. Self-sacrifice is such that it’s for the sake of the self. Devotion of both the body and mind to oneself. It’s almost like declaring, ‘I have no intention of holding a proper conversation with you.’ It’s the same sort of excuse as saying, ‘I’ll take it into consideration,’ or, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ It becomes pretty obvious that you’re really just thinking, ‘I’m apologizing, so just give it a rest already.’”

I didn’t think Sengoku was that evil in those bygone days… Since she was shy and faint of heart, it was more likely that Sengoku considered apologizing as a way to forcibly end a conversation.

By admitting your faults, you rid yourself of your faults.

“If you can resolve something by apologizing, then it’s a small price to pay” certainly was a secret to success—a secret to success that was much too adult for a middle school girl to use.

“She was, like, seriously annoying, right? That phony girl.”

“I didn’t say she was seriously annoying. I seriously didn’t say that. I didn’t say she was phony either. And this isn’t one of those cases where ‘If Ougi-chan is saying so, then I must have said so,’ either. Even though you’d just mentioned how Sengoku-chan used to be cute, for you to say this right after that… What a guy you are. But anyway, how does this apply to Hitagi or Oikura? If they don’t think I’m in the wrong, and they don’t think they’re in the wrong, either?”

“Beyond being right or wrong, it could be that they have some other reason for wanting to end the relationship. Perhaps even your change of residence is unrelated, like it doesn’t even matter anymore. Maybe they want to concentrate on their studies, or they want to work on a new hobby, or she found a new guy she liked, or she found a new childhood friend to hate.”

“What do you mean by a new childhood friend to hate. Are you trying to bring in a new character after all this time?”

However, in Oikura’s case, it was true that we were able to maintain our relationship because of how much she hated me… Perhaps she really had grown as a person after entering university and gotten tired of hating me.

Gotten tired. Of me.

That might actually be possible.

However, she wouldn’t be able to simply say that she’d “gotten tired of me”, so she dragged out past misdeeds that were irrefutably her fault and was misusing them as excuses or pretexts… And in fact, this reasoning was applicable to Meniko’s case, too.

Meniko herself had started to lose interest in that relationship, after all… So it wasn’t hard to believe that the other side was thinking the same way.

“It’s a common show of consideration between couples to try and end the relationship by making yourself out to be the bad guy. In that scenario, it’s more like, ‘Yay! I became the bad guy!’ Like a combination technique with #1. Asymmetric warfare.”

“It’s really amazing that there are explanations for this crazy situation that I’m in, without having to resort to oddity phenomena.”

“I haven’t said that there weren’t any stories of oddities involved. It would be less of a problem if they were individual cases, but the simultaneous nature of them is still a cause for concern—in that sense, while #4 may have a low probability, it’s the strongest candidate from an emotional standpoint.”

“The strongest candidate from an emotional standpoint?”

“#4. Chain of command.”

Unusually for him, Ougi-chan responded immediately.

“The case where they’re apologizing because they were commanded to by someone else. Since it can happen out of consideration from others, it’s a command in the broad definition of the word. The subject of seppuku has come up already, but isn’t seppuku basically something that you are commanded to do?—it’s not self-punishment, but a punishment that is given by someone else. With that in mind, it’s inevitable for your apologizing to become excessive. In order to prove that you have properly apologized, some level of performance is necessary, after all.”

“Performance—”

“From what I have heard so far, Araragi-senpai, it appears that you and Higasa-senpai, kindhearted as you are, have considered that apologies may be sincere or insincere, but that they are not compelled by a third party. But it is true that ‘having to write a letter of apology’ is a potential judicial decision that can result from a trial. There were times where you could only see words of apology as having been written unwillingly, or words of introspection as having been forced by a teacher, right?”

I understood—but were Hitagi and Oikura the kind of girls that you could give commands to…? If this were some time ago, then Hanekawa could have shouldered that burden, and speaking of which there had been a refreshing development where Hitagi had been forced into apologizing under Hanekawa’s command, but unlike the time when she was a class president, right now (with her current whereabouts unknown), she wouldn’t do something like that.

“Okay, so I agree that, no matter how much people say that it’s done for honor, the ones that willingly committed seppuku probably weren’t in the majority, and there’s no way people would be perfectly happy to accept punishment or liability—but chain of command?”

“Yes. The imperative form, and the chain of command.63 And it could be that an oddity is appearing within that—or, while it surely isn’t Sengoku-chan, perhaps it’s some sort of curse.”

“A curse—”

“As I’ve already mentioned, I myself do not estimate the possibility of this being very high, but such an oddity does in fact exist. Or rather—it doesn’t exist.”

Uncertain, odd—and bewitching.64

Ougi-chan turned his head around on the vertical axis to lock eyes with me sitting behind him—his dark pupils that seemed like they could suck you in met mine. Although this was also a violation of the law, in the form of not looking where he was driving.

The specialist’s nephew said,

“Ayamarei. The ‘phantom command’—or perhaps, the ‘phantom spirit’,”65

in a relaxed manner.

“...Is that thing that sounds like a bad pun supposed to be what I’m contending against this time around?”

“No, no, this monster is certainly no laughing matter.”

Depending on the situation.

Not even a vampire could contend against it.