Monogatari Series - Volume 29 - Chapter 1.22

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“It pains me as a loving daughter to say that, before I can talk about my mama, I first have to talk about my aunt.

“You know of her, right?

“Gaen Tooe.

“Gaen Izuko’s older sister, Kanbaru Suruga’s mother, and Kaiki Deishuu’s private tutor—you can tell she’s no ordinary person just from that description, but that wasn’t even half the story. She was even greater of a personage than described.

“I don’t know if I could call her an adult, but she was certainly a personage.142

“It is truly regrettable that she has departed from this world.

“But, as Kaiki Deishuu might say, she has even taught us the harsh lesson that not even a great person can win against illness or traffic accidents—not even the Iriomote cat can be protected from becoming roadkill. I’m sure this is something you, Nadeko-chan, are fully aware of, having experienced an airplane crash of your own.

“No, no, this isn’t just small talk.

“It’s a completely serious ghost story.

“In the end, the sisterly link between Mama and my aunt was inseparable, even when separated—Mama probably feels ashamed about this, but if you had an outstanding, stoic, overpowered, cheat-like older sister, of course you would end up feeling some sort of complex as her younger sister.

“And Gaen Izuko was no exception.

“How do I explain it to you, Nadeko-chan, who’s an only child and has only seen the Fire Sisters, who had Araragi Koyomi for their older brother? From your point of view, Nadeko-chan, you might have been able to observe that Mama was someone who couldn’t fully become an adult, wild and childish, and even a bit hateful of a person. But that behavior of hers could just naturally be seen as a poor reflection of her deceased older sister.

“And it was inevitable that I would inherit that same personality—there were certain circumstances that forced me to inherit that personality, which I am going to explain to you now. The circumstances that caused me to become a reflection of my mama.

“Unlike Mama, I’m not some ‘onee-san that knows everything’, but as compensation, I’ll be a ‘daughter that knows everything’.

“‘If it’s about Mama’.

“Then I’m a ‘daughter that knows everything’.

“I’m aware that it wasn’t very appropriate to bring up Araragi Koyomi’s name in front of you, Nadeko-chan, but there’s a certain order I have to follow, so you’ll have to put up with me—oh, so it doesn’t bother you anymore?

“You really have grown. Perhaps it’s the result of your training.

“Or—you’ve already moved past it long before that.

“Maybe the experience of confronting your four alter egos was beneficial for you, Nadeko-chan—I envy you, as a daughter that’s prevented from confronting Mama.

“I envy the fact you were raised up.

“Anyway.

“Nadeko-chan, how deeply are you knowledgeable about the relationship between Araragi Koyomi and Oshino Ougi, or perhaps the relationship between Kanbaru Suruga and Oshino Ougi?

“As a high school girl, Oshino Ougi was Araragi Koyomi’s back side, and as a high school boy, Oshino Ougi was Kanbaru Suruga’s back side. But if I have to start explaining from there, then I will need you to stay for a night in this cottage—I hope it’s fine if I drastically cut that part short.

“Rather than referencing Volume 1, you’ll have to reference the volumes before that.

“Though you’ll need to go in with the same enthusiasm as rewatching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“What’s important here is that Oshino Ougi’s very being was strongly influenced by Gaen Tooe’s existence—I believe Kanbaru Suruga told you herself that, the night you were lifting the curse cast upon you by your friend, her left arm was actually that of a monkey’s.

“The fact that she can so casually bring up her circumstances to a girl she’d just met is yet another reason Kanbaru Suruga is Gaen Tooe’s daughter, but anyway.

“That monkey’s left hand—that mummified left hand. Have you already heard that it originated from Gaen Tooe? The domestic, private matter of the left hand having been a memento of her mother.

“Strictly speaking, it was not the left hand of a monkey, but the left hand of a devil.

“The Rainy Devil.

“A crybaby devil.

“And, even more strictly speaking, this Rainy Devil, who would ‘grant the underside of any wish’, was an oddity born from Gaen Tooe when she was a high school girl.

“My aunt in her youth was the embodiment of greed.

“The hidden side of my otherwise flawless aunt—it must sound like a familiar theme for you, Nadeko-chan, as someone who holds four alter egos. You know, it’s ‘the same as usual’. Like a self-portrait, or a likeness, or an abstract painting—or perhaps I should call it a disparaging picture aimed towards oneself. But of all things, for her to bring forth the Rainy Devil from within herself… There really was something wrong with my aunt.

“Ultimately, my aunt exterminated that oddity—a swift decision. There had to be a limit to how stoic one could be… But my aunt was strict on herself. And it was quite the abnormal action for her to leave a part of her alter ego, which had shriveled up as if it had spent time on an uninhabited island, to her daughter.

“Even though it was nothing like an umbilical cord.

“What could my aunt have been thinking?—leaving the devil’s left hand to Kanbaru Suruga, who was technically my cousin, remained a mystery even now, but to sum it up, that left hand’s essence made its way to Araragi Koyomi through Shishirui Seishirou, and finally produced Oshino Ougi.

“Oshino Ougi, the reverse side of Araragi Koyomi.

“Unlike my aunt, he chose not to exterminate Oshino Ougi, who was a manifestation of his obligations—and, with Oshino Ougi now being returned to Kanbaru Suruga, I’m very interested in seeing what she’ll do from now on.

“I’m sure she’ll be able to find an answer before her high school graduation—with the matter of Numachi Rouka, the collection of the remaining mummy parts, and the trouble with the girls’ basketball club, it seemed her third year of high school had been filled with just as much drama as Araragi Koyomi’s had.

“Well, regardless of that situation.

“It’s of little importance to you, Nadeko-chan, who has retired from the flow of those tales. When you had become enshrined as a snake god, Nadeko-chan, that was basically the consequences of your own actions, after all. It’s hard to say it was Oshino Ougi’s fault.

“However, if the Rainy Devil, the back side of my aunt, had ended up becoming the indirect cause of many tales in the future generation, there is no way that it wouldn’t have had any influence on Gaen Izuko, her real younger sister, right?

“When her real younger sister watched as my aunt gave birth to her alter ego—or rather, gave birth to her own self—Mama was still an impressionable young woman who could not remain impassive.

“She could not be separated.

“Mama hadn’t always been an ‘onee-san’—but she had been a younger sister since she was born.

“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? Or maybe, you don’t want to figure it out.

“Basically, I am to Gaen Izuko what the Rainy Devil is to Gaen Tooe, what Oshino Ougi is to Araragi Koyomi or Kanbaru Suruga, or what Gentle Nadeko, Anti-Nadeko, Fawning Nadeko, and Divine Nadeko were to you, Nadeko-chan. The back to the front, and the front to the back.

“The hard survival life, to the luxurious resort life.

“And it’s not wrong to say it was like the younger sister to the older sister, and the older sister to the younger sister—however, unfortunately, I couldn’t become Mama’s younger sister.

“Though that would have been best.

“If Oshino Ougi was a manifestation of Araragi Koyomi’s obligations, then Araundo Uroko was a manifestation of the young Gaen Izuko’s inferiority complex towards her sister.

“However, if I had become Mama’s younger sister, that would have been equivalent to becoming my aunt’s younger sister, as well—and so, instead of becoming my older sister, Mama instead became my mother.

“And I became Mama’s unforgivable daughter.

“The unforgivable daughter of my teenage mama.

“Needless to say, she was also influenced by my aunt having actually given birth a few years before I’d been born—perhaps that had had an even stronger influence than the Rainy Devil.

“Her older sister gave birth to Kanbaru Suruga and became a mother. There was no way that my own birth was unrelated to that.

“Just as her older sister had become a mother.

“She must have thought that she herself needed to become a mother.

“Her older sister, who she aspired to become. Her role model.

“Quite literally, a private tutor.143

“As someone who copied everything her older sister did, saying that the little sister went through a false pregnancy and a fantastical birth might be an overstatement. But these events occurred long before Mama realized that the correct thing to do was to follow a different path from her sister.

“Before she realized that her outstanding sister should not be her private tutor, but a bad example to learn from.144

“Of course, unlike my aunt, the fact that Mama gave birth not to herself but to a daughter when placed in the same position, she had already been on the fence—and so, I had crossed from being an inferiority complex, into a curse.

“Perhaps Mama thought she could have copied her outstanding sister and stoically carried out the extermination. But if I was her daughter, that wasn’t so simple—and, in a whirlpool of love and hate, this situation went on, leaving behind a trail for fifteen years.

“Like a snake.

“To be honest, I thought she was no longer acknowledging me as a daughter, so I was quite shocked when I heard that Mama was trying to settle things after all this time.

“It made me think, ‘Seriously?’

“I thought she was going to remain evasive, keeping me at an appropriate distance, for the rest of our lives—I thought she’d evaluated that that was the balance she needed to keep, as a specialist.

“In the same way Oshino Meme, a balancer, was fussy about maintaining that balance, I needed to continue casting curses, so Mama’s superior capabilities did not become disproportionally unfair.

“Friendship, romance, education, coworkers, sports, hobbies, economics, necessities of life, news, passage of time, conservation of nature, gossip, urban legends, social interactions.

“Monstrous apparitions, evil spirits, the night parade of a hundred demons.

“I had no choice but to keep cursing them.

“If Mama was going to help others, then I needed to do the opposite—like how Mama should be going the opposite way from my aunt.

“That was how I kept the balance.

“No—I was like ballast water.

“If you can’t be medicine, then be poison. Otherwise, you’re nothing but water.

“That was my aunt’s favorite saying.

“However, I’m sure you’ve realized over the past two weeks, Nadeko-chan, how important water actually is.

“In order for Mama to become the boss of the specialists, I needed to be the boss of the snakes—I was a daughter with no filial piety, and too much filial piety, all at once. As long as I existed, Mama would not sink.

“An unsinkable aircraft carrier.145

“And so, like magnetic repulsion, Mama made no attempt to approach her daughter in a constant rebellious phase—even though realistically, it would have been very easy for her to do so.

“If you ask me, it was a fixed game with eight hundred lies,146 a rigged race that was too well-rigged147—and perhaps, because of that guilt, she came up with the idea of producing the teddy bear of you, Ononoki-chan.

“What I’d said earlier wasn’t totally in jest. In order to maintain a reasonable distance from me without any near-misses, Mama had no choice but to become the ‘onee-san that knew everything’—you could say she was unable to become the ‘mother that knew everything’, and therefore, she had no choice to try her hand at forbidden magic.

“And that’s how Mama renounced her childcare duties for fifteen years—but that was fine. It’s much too arrogant to insist that one must always face their complexes.

“Especially so if the target of that complex were to become deceased—in order for Mama to become the boss of the specialists, she needed to cast her inferiority complex away from her.

“And yet, here we are in this showdown.

“Perhaps she had a change of heart.

“The fact that Araragi Koyomi did not exterminate Oshino Ougi likely served as the trigger—for Mama, that demise had been a sort of proxy war. Because she’d failed to settle things with me, she gave Araragi Koyomi her support—but she had completely missed the mark.

“Instead of settling things, Araragi Koyomi opted for the route in which he would rescue Oshino Ougi.

“This was an option that didn’t exist in Mama’s worldview. She’d probably pretended to be calm, but it would have come as quite the culture shock. The way of thinking of the new generation.

“The ethics of the new generation.

“Though I don’t think she ever thought that she could learn from Araragi Koyomi’s example. Putting aside his personality and his proclivities, there’s no way an adult could learn anything from a teenager. And she had her reputation to uphold.

“Not to mention, when she tried to approach him to win him over to her team, they ended up cutting ties, instead… From the point of view of her daughter, I don’t think there’s anyone in the world capable of forming a respectable relationship with Araragi Koyomi.

“I’m sure you can sympathize with that, Nadeko-chan.

“Ononoki-chan, too.

“Basically, Mama’s scheme to make Araragi Koyomi one of her own ended in failure, but beyond anyone’s expectations, the one to remain on that stage was none other than Sengoku Nadeko. An end where the remaining players profited.

“Perhaps her original plan had been to take Araragi Koyomi, who had ended up protecting Oshino Ougi, and meticulously train him in combat before assigning him to me… Dear me, from the point of view of her daughter, it was quite the terrifying plan.

“Normally, would you ever assign Araragi Koyomi to your fifteen-year-old daughter?

“It was a form of abuse that I’d never heard of before.

“When that plan ended up at a standstill, I couldn’t tell you how relieved I felt—of course, I had to acknowledge that I, Araundo Uroko, wouldn’t be able to put up any resistance against the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire and Oddity Slayer, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

“In reality, the moment that Mama began rating you highly, Nadeko-chan, was when you ended up intentionally drawing four alter egos of yourself—the keyword here being ‘intentionally’.

“After all, that was not even something that her outstanding sister, Gaen Tooe, could do—like how I had been an unwanted child for Mama, and how neither Araragi Koyomi nor Kanbaru Suruga had produced Oshino Ougi intentionally.

“That power of imagination.

“As well as that power of portrayal, those really were something to be valued highly—there’s no need for you to be humble or deprecate yourself.

“It’s something you should take pride in, to an almost tasteless level.

“Mama never once projected me on to you, Nadeko-chan—if anything, it was the reverse. To her daughter, who she hadn’t met for the longest time and renounced childcare duties for, she was scouting you not to cast a shadow, but a light.

“Of course, in order for this to happen, you first needed to be trained. Unlike Araragi Koyomi, you couldn’t be sent before Araundo Uroko as a completely raw ingredient. Not with just your own body.

“Thus, she needed to raise you.

“Unlike her real daughter, but like her real daughter, she needed to raise you by her own hand.

“Sometimes strict, sometimes kind, sometimes keeping her on you, sometimes pushing you away.

“It brings up the question of who was assigned to whom, doesn’t it? Was Nadeko-chan assigned to me, or did I end up being assigned to Nadeko-chan—rather than the relationship between the habu snake and the mongoose, this was more like the relationship between two habu snakes.

“Like a safety rope tying us together in a way that couldn’t be undone.

“What kind of a god of matchmaking was this?

“Now do you understand? That was what I really meant by training, Nadeko-chan. In order for Mama to make up for her karma in me—to make up for and subdue me, she needed you, Nadeko-chan, to awaken.148

“She needed to awaken you.

“And so, Nadeko-chan, that’s how you ended up here, in front of me—in front of my snake eyes. Namely, you’re completing the required course for specialists that was set by Gaen Izuko.

“So, I wanted to congratulate you.

“As the ruler of curses, I couldn’t stand by without praising you.

“Because you are now a splendid specialist, acknowledged by Mama—a daughter that has gained her recognition, unlike me. They say that raising a child is like raising yourself, so by raising you, Nadeko-chan, even Mama herself might have gotten some improvement—it’s a story of salvation where even adults can experience growth. And, as her inadequate daughter, along with my blessings, I’d also like to say some words of gratitude.

“Thank you, Nadeko-chan.

“For saving Mama.

“By meeting me like this, your work is now completely done, with nothing being overlooked—it’s impressive that a girl who was but one of my sacrifices, a girl who amounted to little more than one of my scales, made it this far.

“Without yielding to temptation, without being conceited by divinity, without falling to ruin, without fearing tribulations, without feeling shame for past transgressions, without brushing off your sins, without showing hatred for lack of understanding, without cursing your fate.

“Without being poisoned by a snake.

“You made it this far, to me.

“You reached your own heart.

“Overcoming your past self, your present self, and even your future self.

“A great achievement that Gaen Tooe, Gaen Izuko, and even Araragi Koyomi were unable to do—clap clap clap clap.

“Sengoku Nadeko has become a specialist.

“Now, all you need to do is become a mangaka.”