Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 1.19

019

Right when he’d said something so meaningful, Ougi-chan’s BMX ended up arriving close to his destination, so far from hearing about possibility #5, I didn’t even get the time to hear the details about #4. Chain of command, nor the oddity that it consisted of—I wanted to say that investigating all thirteen possibilities would have been impossible, but if anything, the half-baked nature of this was probably all according to Ougi-chan’s plan anyway.

Well done.

On top of that, his destination was also quite unexpected, and it made me feel really aggravated to learn that this kid really had me accompany him part of the way to such a place—I couldn’t just stick around after having been brought here, so I had no choice but to retreat gallantly, or rather, dejectedly.

Where we’d arrived was the Sengoku residence.

The home of Sengoku Nadeko.

“Ougi-chan, why in the world would you bring me to a place like this—there’s a limit to bad taste. When you brought up that episode of Sengoku saying sorry, was that just foreshadowing? You haven’t had enough, so you’re planning on meddling with Sengoku again?”

“Oh, don’t call it meddling. If anything, I’m here to atone for my sins. I have been doing a bit of reflection on my actions, since I feel like I went a little too far last year when it came to her—ha ha.”

This may also be an apology in its own way, boasted Ougi-chan.

“It’s an apology demonstrated through my attitude. Although, from Sengoku-chan’s point of view, she probably doesn’t think that I’d done anything. But you can relax, Araragi-senpai. While my destination might have been here, the Sengoku residence, Sengoku-chan herself has already left this house.”

“She already left? She ran away again…?”

How could I relax at that information?

It made me nothing but anxious.

“It wouldn’t be running away, but shedding her skin—after all, she was once a snake god.”

That didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but personally, even if Sengoku wasn’t around anymore, I still didn’t want to loiter around the Sengoku residence. The reason being that I had effectively had a restraining order placed on me.

With Ougi-chan assuming an air of importance, it almost made me stick around just a little bit longer, but I needed to make my escape—I had no choice but to scurry away in retreat. Perhaps it was luck, or just a twist of fate, but since Sengoku was a friend of my sister from elementary school, the Sengoku residence was naturally within walking distance of the Araragi residence. Even if I were let off here, I could easily return on foot—considering Ougi-chan’s personality, it wouldn’t have been strange if he stranded me on a mountain somewhere, so you could say this was a real blessing. With my legs having gotten too weak as a result of this car-based society, I couldn’t walk long distances anymore.

“Ha ha. There’s no way the legs of a vampire would have gotten weak at all.”

“I’m a ‘former’ vampire, Ougi-chan. …I’m still going to be running away, but Ougi-chan, what business do you have at the Sengoku residence without Sengoku? I doubt you’re going there just to greet her parents.”

“If I were here to greet them, it would make much more sense for one Koyomi-onii-chan to greet them first.”

“Oh, screw you.”

“I just had a small request to pick up something that she’d left behind in her closet. From Sengoku-chan herself, you see… Even she herself doesn’t want to get too close to her parents’ home, so I was singled out—or rather, snaked out.66 For more details, please start from the second row of page 193.”

“‘Please start from the second row,’ my ass.”

Well, at least the youngsters were having a good time. Kanbaru and Higasa-chan, Ougi-chan and Sengoku, all of them—it made me plainly realize that, in this town, it wasn’t my era anymore.

Not that it was ever my era to begin with.

Feeling an oddly pleasant sense of alienation, I parted ways with Ougi-chan and returned home… From behind, I heard the loud sound of glass breaking, but I pretended that I didn’t hear it. It sounded much like a gakuran-wearing scoundrel had thrown a rock through a living room window, but there was no way such a phenomenon would arise from a request as peaceful as, “Please go and pick up something that I’ve left behind.”

Speaking of it no longer being my era, it was a bit of a shock to discover upon returning home that I no longer had a room there. More precisely, the space that had previously been my room up until several months ago had been taken over by one of my sisters… Perhaps she had been dissatisfied with the single room that had been allocated to her, for she moved to expand her territory as soon as I moved out… Of course, the sister that took over my room was not the bigger one, but the smaller one.

So, even if I returned to my parents’ home, there wasn’t really a place for me anymore. But it was getting late, so I would have to make do with any open space, whether it was the sofa in the dining room or the floor of a hallway. It wasn’t that I was unwilling to drive at night as a new driver (if anything, my eyes were especially strong at night), so I could return to my apartment if I wanted to, but there still remained one more location I wanted to visit during my homecoming.

Whether there was a place for me or not, since I’d returned to this town, I couldn’t just leave without visiting her… And I couldn’t leave without visiting that place—so, the next day, early in the morning, I pretended to go on a walk before breakfast and set off towards the Kitashirahebi Shrine.

Incidentally, the night before, where I’d slept was in my sister’s bed, in my sister’s room that was formerly my own room, together with my sister… I was fully aware that it was because I did these things that Shinobu kept saying all that about me, but, well, habit is second nature.

“How obnoxious. You should be imprisoned.”

I even heard her say something like that, but eventually, with my weakened legs, I was able to steadily climb the local mountain (that was by no means gently sloped) and finally arrived at the shrine at the mountaintop.

Since it was early in the morning, the shrine grounds were unattended… To the point that it made me worried. Compared to the ruined state it had been in when I’d first visited, the Kitashirahebi Shrine had been splendidly reconstructed and still appeared sparklingly new, but when no one was around, there was a different sort of eeriness from the ruined shrine.

That reminds me, even on the year’s first shrine visit, I didn’t see any other visitors… Was this shrine really getting by properly?

It would be awful if it turned back into a hotspot for oddities.

Anyway, I wanted to hear what she had to say, so regarding the god that didn’t dare draw near the couple tensely discussing breaking up the other day, how should I go about calling her out… From my pocket, I pulled out the eight 10-yen coins, one 5-yen coin, and four 1-yen coins that I had prepared—in other words, a total of 89 yen.

And, in order to call out the snail god Hachikuji Mayoi, the new god that had inherited the shrine from the snake god, hesitating67 in front of the offertory box over whether or not to toss in 89 yen was an unavoidable ritual passed down since ancient times.

“Um, please don’t randomly make up your own rituals for my shrine. For something as little as 89 yen, please just toss it in right away. ‘Since ancient times’? It hasn’t even been a year since I took on this position—Kararafu-san.”

“It’s an honor to have my name flubbed for the first time in a while, especially by a god, but Hachikuji, don’t say my name like it’s a university report card.68 My name is Araragi.”

“Indeed. Araragi-san’s report card would be all Fs.”

“Don’t make me repeat a year!”

She appeared in a rather lukewarm manner this time, huh.

Not to mention, from the shadow of the offertory box… Strictly speaking, she was still hiding in the shadow of the offertory box rather than showing herself, but her characteristic twintails were peeking out. The god that was hiding her head without hiding her hair…69 With her crouching down over there, she seemed less like a god and more like an offertory thief, though. She was in her usual attire, too, looking as though she were trying to carry the offertory box on her back as opposed to her rucksack.

“Sorry. I flubbed it.”

“No, it was on purpose.”

“I fwubbed it.”

“It wasn’t on purpose!?”

The full version!?

Hold on, I didn’t actually remember what the full length exactly was.

“Well, what can you do? Everyone’s had a time where they fumbled their words at least once in their lives. Or are you trying to tell me, Araragi-san, that you’ve never flubbed a word since the day you were born?”

“Uh… Um? I can’t say that I’ve never flubbed before, but I would never flub in such a weird way, you know?”

“Then, please repeat after me. Can mew imyagine an imyaginyary mewnyagerie mewnyager imyagining mewnyaging an imyaginyary mewnyagerie?”

“Your memory is faint, too!”

You’re mixing it up with other bantering with other characters.

But, well, more than anything, I was glad that she was still going strong… I was apprehensive that I wouldn’t be able to see her this time, since I hadn’t been able to see her on the first shrine visit (even if it was a bad habit of mine to move haphazardly without making an appointment, how would you even make an appointment with a god—write it on an ema?70), but it was a groundless apprehension. Although it was a mystery why Hachikuji was sitting behind the offertory box in the first place.

“No, I figured we would be better off without seeing each other’s faces. Considering the reason for your visit, Araragi-san.”

“? My reason? If anything, I came because I wanted to see your face…”

“There you go again. Araragi-san, whenever you come to visit me, aren’t you always carrying some sort of hopeless burden with you?”

Hold on, you were never a character that held the position of a smart person that I could rely on in my time of need. If you’d been one, I’d say you should’ve shown your face during the first shrine visit—but even now, you were still hiding.

“How discerning of you. It’s actually something that Ougi-san requested of me. He told me about how his Araragi-senpai was troubled over something, and wanted me to lend you an ear.”

“Huh? Ougi-chan came here?”

“Yes. In the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness.”

Quite literally operating in the shadows, huh.71

As expected of the title role—after stealing from, that is, retrieving what had been left behind in the Sengoku residence, that kid must have gone on to visit the Kitashirahebi Shrine. It seemed he’d anticipated my movements… Sheesh, acting like he’s seen through me, just like his uncle.

If he was going to do all that, then I couldn’t help but think that he could have just come directly to the Araragi residence, but that roundabout way of providing backup really was just like his uncle.

“Actually, apparently he did visit the Araragi residence at one point. He’d been planning on breaking in through a second-floor window, but he spotted you and Tsukihi-san sharing a bed and was so turned off that he left.”

“Whoops, you’ve got me there.”

“You can’t just pass it off with a ‘whoops’.”

You can’t just pass it off as her brother, either, said Hachikuji, which was pretty clever.72 Then, “So, what happened, Araragi-san?” she prompted.

“If you’re okay with me, I’ll hear you out, okay?”

“Don’t just suddenly come swinging with an imitation of Gahara-san. But really, how much have you heard from Ougi-chan? Hachikuji, what exactly do you know?”

“I don’t know anything—you’re the one who knows, Araragi-san.”

“A chain of imitations!”

“Considering the theme, this is a perfect fit, isn’t it? For this situation.”

“? Aah.”

For a moment, I didn’t understand what she was trying to tell me, but then I understood.

I’d been wondering why she was crouching in that hiding place and not showing her face, but it turned out she was using the offertory box as a confessional. That was from a different religion, but… Confession.

If so, it would’ve been easier to understand if she had entered the offertory box. A girl walking around carrying a confessional on her back sounded like some other oddity.

“Now, Araragi-san. Don’t you have something you need to apologize to me for? Please go ahead and confess your sins.”

“Heheh. I can confess my love, but I have no sins to confess. For as long as I’ve been alive, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t keep any reasons to bow my head, since it lowers the worth of my soul.”

“Because you forcibly pulled me out of hell, Araragi-san, I have to carry out my duties at this shrine for near-eternity, you know?”

“You’re only saying that now!?”

Oh my goodness!

I was sure that I was going to be condemned for randomly hugging Hachikuji from behind back in the past, but this was serious!

This wasn’t just playing around!

“Serious or not, Araragi-san, it’s your fault that I’ve been rigidly tied down to this mountain, yet you’re the one who gets to leave this town and head to the capital! Isn’t that weird?”

“Well, maybe, but…”

Even if you talk about it like Kachi-kachi Yama.73

I’d been egotistically assuming that she didn’t show herself during the first shrine visit because of the awkward tension between me and Hitagi, but it was actually because she was mad at me for moving up to the capital?

Although, even if we called it “the capital”, it wasn’t like I went to Tokyo.

“That’s right. It would be more like a little Kyoto.”74

“That makes Kyoto the standard for cities, though… But Hachikuji, didn’t we talk about that matter already…?”

We should have already talked about it.

Or rather—I should have already apologized for it.

“Yes. However, I’m still allowed to change my mind.”

“Change your mind?”

“I may have forgiven you for it back then, but thinking about it now, I decided that I couldn’t forgive you. It would be like I got mad at you all over again, or like I started wanting to enact divine punishment on you. Just thinking that everything is resolved with a single apology is proof that you aren’t actually sorry at all.”

“That’s kinda scary.”

Hachikuji was only capable of enacting divine punishment because I kidnapped her from hell in the first place, but when she spoke like that, it felt like she really wasn’t mincing her words, or it felt like I was losing everything…75

Ah, is that it?

In the cases of Hitagi and Oikura, I’d been thinking, “Why are you bringing all that up now?” But when you flip around the victim and perpetrator, it turns into a situation like this.

I may have believed that I’d been forgiven, or maybe I’d even believed that I’d been innocent from the beginning, but afterwards, it’s possible for going to the capital, er, the situation76, to change—at the moment that I’d snatched Hachikuji out of hell, it wasn’t like I’d made any detailed plans for leaving the town.

“Well, it’s a small-scale problem.”

“Uh—small-scale? No, this is actually a huge problem, isn’t it? After all, the matter with Sengoku had already been settled…”

“Sorry, I flubbed it. I meant to say, it’s a problem of scale.”77

“The meaning is completely different!”

“I used myself as an example to make it easier to understand, but for another example, Araragi-san. Hanekawa-san, whom you love and respect, has had her life veer off in a crazy direction after meeting you, correct? Though she was once an honors student among honors students, a class representative among class representatives, she ended up renouncing university for some reason. Even though Araragi-san, the dropout, was able to attend university without a care in the world. Even though he got to go to the capital.”

If she was going to dig that deep into me going to the “capital” that was more a little Kyoto, it wasn’t really just an example anymore… Well, it wasn’t like I didn’t understand what she was trying to say, as that point was a vital point and a weak point for me.

Plus, Hanekawa’s whereabouts were presently unknown.

I figured she’d send a postcard soon, so I wasn’t worrying too much, but with that in mind, I felt like I wanted to give her a formal apology. No matter how Hanekawa herself felt about it, I felt one-sidedly apologetic—the ayamarei.

“All right. It’s my bad, Hachikuji. It was selfish of me to bring you out of hell without making any advance arrangements. And I also feel sorry for leaving town without talking to you about it first.”

“Well, even if you apologize after all this time.”

“Eh? Is that how you’re going to respond?”

When you’re the one bringing this back up after all this time?

At least, that was what I wanted to say, but considering I was the perpetrator in this situation, I couldn’t retort like that to the victim complaining…

“That’s why it’s a problem of scale, Araragi-san. In actuality, Araragi-san, if you were to obsequiously apologize to Hanekawa-san, that looks-obsessed girl would surely look taken aback.78 She would probably think that she’d been hit by an incredible locust plague, with you being the locust.”79

“Since she might have actually experienced a locust plague before, it’s hard to laugh at that.”

When I was talking with Higasa-chan at the Kanbaru estate about secret gadgets we wanted, perhaps I should’ve thought of the Bow-Bow Grasshopper—putting aside the fact that Hanekawa was made into a looks-obsessed girl for the sake of a pun, if I were to classify it under Ougi-chan’s categories, would this be #2. Self-punishing tendencies? To the point of ignoring her feelings, I wanted to apologize to Hanekawa in order to reduce my own feelings of guilt… Objectively, it was pretty disgraceful, but for me, that could actually convey my sincerity better.

Even if the other party were to be hurt even further by my apology, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself without apologizing.

“And that may be why confessionals are necessary. Instead of apologizing to that person, you can apologize to a god. You may rest easy, Araragi-san. For I will forgive your sins.”

“How generous you are.”

Even though you were the one to bring it back up.

Speaking of which, this was just the leftovers of my knowledge from studying for entrance exams, but was it True Pure Land Buddhism that “evil persons were the targets of salvation”? “Even a good person will be received in Buddha’s Land, so how much more an evil person?”—as a good person that was lacking in discipline, it was hard to readily accept, but this could also be a problem of scale.

“I will forgive all your sins, so first, please put all your wrongfully-obtained possessions in this offertory box. For they will become offerings.”

“That’s just a corrupt religion!”

I couldn’t laugh at that, either. After all, the Senjougahara household had had their possessions entirely taken away from them by that kind of corrupt religion. Her wealthy family fell to ruin, she lost her mother, and as for Hitagi herself—I didn’t know for sure exactly what she thought, but it was probably something she would never forgive. Hence why it was wrongful conduct.

And on top of that—there were five con men, weren’t there?

Even if, for example, the unlikely event of all those perpetrators apologizing were to occur… That would just be a new act of harm. A secondary act of harm called the apology. Even if their intent was either #2. Self-punishing tendencies or #3. Self-sacrifice, the result would effectively be #1. Asymmetrical warfare.

Well, in reality, all those perpetrators apologizing would never happen unless they were forced to do so by a court, so it would really fall under #4. Chain of command.

“...That reminds me, Hachikuji. Did you happen to hear from Ougi-chan what #5 was supposed to be? Also, if you happened to hear what kind of oddity the ayamarei is, it would save me the trouble of having to look it up in the university library.”

“My, my. Even though you could have just called it a library, the fact that you went out of your way to call it the university library, Araragi-san, shows that you’ve completely fallen prisoner to this society obsessed with educational backgrounds. Not like a vampire, but as stuck-up as a tengu.”

“What an unpleasant way to say it… It’s as unpleasant as how Ougi-chan would say it…”

“But yes, I’ve heard about both those things.”

Darn it, Ougi-chan, you didn’t tell me anything, but you went off chattering away to Hachikuji… In the first place, wasn’t it weird that the two of you were close? I didn’t want to bring this back up, but I kind of got the feeling that Hachikuji falling down to hell was partly Ougi-chan’s responsibility…

“Ougi-san is fine. It’s Araragi-san who’s no good.”

Even though she’d just forgiven me, what she was saying was a mess… But even so, I suppose this was also the truth.

The truth, or perhaps, her state of mind80—a problem of scale.

Higasa-chan had said something like this, but in the end, it was people that forgave, and people that were forgiven—and it was people that apologized and were apologized to. It might be against the spirit of the law to change your standards depending on the other person, but even the law has room to consider extenuating circumstances.

It’s even why there’s the clichéd phrase of “giving off a bad impression”—not even I would forgive everyone and anyone that stapled my inner cheek with a stapler.

“Indeed. You could only forgive Senjougahara-san because she was a closed-off young lady.”

“No, that’s wrong.”

“But if a brawny and rough-looking rugby player that was two meters tall and weighed over two hundred kilograms were to staple your inner cheek with a stapler, would you be able to forgive him, Araragi-san?”

“Um, on the contrary, that’s a situation where I have no choice but to forgive him…”

I’d probably have to end up forgiving him while forcing some weird smile.

But, with that in mind, then it was true that the numerous behaviors that Senjougahara Hitagi placed on the chopping block at the start of the year were indeed barbaric acts that necessitated formal apologies—and I didn’t want to say it, but I was probably only able to forgive her because, well, I loved her. Whether or not that barbaric nature of hers was included in what I loved was, of course, another matter entirely.

“To think there would come a day when Araragi-san would speak of love. They sure do teach a lot of things at university, don’t they?”

“It’s not like I learned about love at university. I learned about love, primarily, from young girls.”

“That’s quite the problem—but that’s exactly it.”

“Um… What exactly about young girls do you mean?”

“Not young girls, but love.”

Hachikuji paused for a moment, then continued.

“#5. Pushing boundaries.”81

“...Pushing boundaries?”

Ah, it’s the fifth possibility for the apologies. The word didn’t seem to have any connection at first, so it didn’t click at first, but… Pushing boundaries was something I’d heard before, wasn’t it? It wasn’t knowledge from studying… Uh… Did it have to do with parenting?

“That’s right. As expected of a specialist in child abuse.”

“Will I never be able to peel that label off of me?”

That sticker that was being used to seal classified information?

Then, rather than apologizing for her past actions, I wanted Oikura to apologize in real time for that. Of course, I would forgive her in the end—goodness, if it was pushing boundaries, then what Oikura and Hitagi were doing was exactly that.

“When we’d just met, I used to playfully bite at you, right, Araragi-san? That’s another easy-to-understand example of pushing boundaries.”

“No, that’s wrong. That wasn’t playful biting, that was serious biting. You were trying to bite my finger off.”

I’d completely forgotten about that battle, but now that I’d been reminded of it, I wanted her to apologize for it… I really hadn’t done anything wrong when she bit me, you know?

But minds could change.

And the law could be changed, as well… Legal reform.

“So basically, it’s like apologizing because you want to receive forgiveness? It sounds obvious when I put it like that, but after intentionally acting out and being unreasonable, you can really feel the love from the other party when they forgive you—”

“When you think of it like that, doesn’t it make sense for them to bring up old disagreements and make completely haphazard apologies? The idea is that they’re going to be forgiven anyway, so if they’re going out of their way to apologize for something that they would be forgiven for, then they must be doing it because they want to be forgiven. Receiving forgiveness for the sake of entertainment, or pleasure.”

Considering the sincerity with which they would test one’s love, calling it entertainment or pleasure was clearly mocking it too much—especially for acts that were a kind of self-acknowledgement, or self-actualization, using others as a barrier.

If we apply this to the case of Boyfie-kun, then it would be that he intentionally went for such a blatant apology for something that wasn’t night-crawling, or at least something that Meniko didn’t consider night-crawling, because he knew the game was rigged towards his forgiveness. In other words, he was waiting for Meniko’s reply that “they were making love”.

A reaffirmation of their love.

If that was the case, then in the end, as a result of Boyfie-kun pushing Meniko’s boundaries, she conclusively stopped having feelings for him, which was an ironic yet expected result… There was no one that liked being tested. Even if you loved someone, if they were to continue to perpetuate such things, then you’d surely get tired of it eventually.

And it was the same for me.

If Senjougahara Hitagi had continued to remain a verbally-abusive character that brandished a stapler, then there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t think, “Enough already, I can’t keep dating you like this.”

I wasn’t a saint, after all. If anything, I was an unholy being.

“The desire to be forgiven can thus be fairly strong. However, you may rest easy. This Hachiku-jin will forgive all those worldly desires.”

“It feels like that’s crossed from being godlike into becoming whispers of the devil.”

“So, Araragi-san, please forgive this devilish little me.”

“That’s codependence!”

But if she had said that forgiving someone was like entertainment or pleasure, then I might be inclined to agree… I couldn’t deny that it felt good to act like a generous person of high caliber. And maybe forgiveness as a form of asserting dominance could fall under #1. Asymmetrical warfare… You often hear about abusive relationships where one side commits a ton of violence and then tearfully apologizes for it afterwards, but I could imagine that the situation was pretty tangled up in that respect.

And it was a huge problem if it seemed as though they were messing around in a lovers’ quarrel, but the trouble between Meniko and Boyfie-kun was even a step further away from that.

So, to look back on Great Detective Ougi-chan’s theories,

#1. Asymmetric warfare

#2. Self-punishing tendencies

#3. Self-sacrifice

#4. Chain of command

#5. Pushing boundaries

It would be those five… Hmm.

Though Ougi-chan had estimated it as having a low probability, personally, the most likely one seemed like the oddity-related #4… But even so, it wouldn’t be strange for some other components to be intertwined, so it wasn’t as simple as bubbling that in on an answer sheet… It wasn’t like Senjougahara Hitagi, Oikura Sodachi, and Boyfie-kun had any noteworthy points in common between each of their cases.

The missing link, so to speak.

“Are you sure these cases are limited to only the three names you mentioned? Fortunately, myself included, I haven’t seen any of this town’s residents display any similar tendencies, but it’s possible, contrary to expectations, that these apologizing symptoms have started to spread here and there at your university. What if Manase University became Ayamarase University…?”82

“Unusually for you, that’s not very clever… Don’t make poor jokes with people’s universities’ names.”

“This is just another example. By intentionally making a boring pun and having you forgive me with a forced smile, I wanted to reaffirm my worth.”

Weren’t you just forcibly making an example out of it because the joke didn’t land?

But still, it was true that boring puns and extremely sarcastic jokes had an aspect of pushing boundaries to them… I’d already brought up her verbal abuse, but couldn’t Hitagi’s reckless, innocent-feigning wit also be one example?

“...But y’know, I don’t like it. I really don’t like it. If I had to say it, I don’t like that we have to come up with a theory with this level of detailed psychological analysis for a mere, ‘I’m sorry.’ It feels like nitpicking at the molecular level.”

“If I made you feel that way, it was because I was inadequate. If I were to apologize like that, it would be #3. Self-sacrifice, I suppose? Of course, Ougi-san would have been able to explain the nuances better.”

“You sure are showing a weird amount of faith in Ougi-chan.”

If it were Ougi-chan, I would think he would give a much more unpleasant explanation of #5. Pushing boundaries. Perhaps he himself was aware of that, and so he adjusted the speed of his bicycle accordingly to leave the explanation to Hachikuji.

“Then, would you like to finally start telling me about what kind of oddity the ayamarei is? From the favorite to win, #4. Chain of command. I have to go soon, you see.”

“You have to go? My, my. From where are you leaving, and to where are you headed?”

“I’m leaving this town to go to university…”

You’re just making me say it out loud, huh.

What a nasty leading question.

“What, did you not hear about the nature of the oddity?”

“No, no, I’ve heard it. However, Ougi-san never said that #4 was the favorite to win.”

I knew that, but it would be a problem if it was anything else… Our breakup, which had been put on hold, might actually come into effect.

Even if it wasn’t the favorite to win, my life was still on the line.83

So I had no choice but to push the conversation forward, little by little.

“It’s definitely a ‘favorite to win’ that you wouldn’t want to gamble on.”

“Shut up. I’ve bet on #4. So what kind of animal is this ayamarei? Is it a crab, or a snail, or a monkey… Or a snake, or a cat? Or even a bee, or a cuckoo…”

“The ayamarei isn’t an animal. It’s not even a living being.”

“Hmm… Then is it like a vampire, or a corpse?”

If it was in that strength-based category, then we might actually be able to deal with it… But it was because that wasn’t the case that I had come all the way back to my hometown and was enduring all your snide remarks.      

“As a matter of fact, even before Ougi-san spoke to me about it, I had already been aware of the ayamarei. When I’d been undergoing my godly training under Gaen-san, it was something that was taught to me as part of her curriculum.”

“Is that so? Then, is it something like a god?”

If so, that was pretty tough.

There was the line of thought that all oddities were a kind of god, though.

“Among the oddity stories that you’ve experienced, Araragi-san, the closest one would be neither a demon nor a corpse, nor even a god, but the ‘Darkness’.”

“The ‘Darkness’—”

“So, Araragi-san, you were more correct than you were thinking when you came to visit Ougi-san… Out of a score of 100, you get 120 points. But, depending on how you look at it, it can be even nastier than the Darkness.”

He had said something like that.

That not even a vampire could contend against it—

“The ayamarei is a command. It is quite literally an order, and an ordinance.”

“An ordinance?”

“Yes. Like debt relief ordinances84, or the Ordinances on Compassion for Living Things.85”

In the sense that they both didn’t exist, it was like a ghost.

A restricted, shared illusion in our present-day constitutional state.