Monogatari Series - Volume 30 - Chapter 1.14

014

The Fox’s Wedding.

It seems to refer to what is also called a sunshower—when rain falls while the sun is shining. While the sky over Nasu Highlands was cloudy tonight and so wouldn’t exactly fit this definition, the feeling of “something being off” was similar to the Fox’s Wedding, considering the clear weather during the day.

It was as if we had been cast down from a sky-reaching, delightful honeymoon to the ground below. Maybe this was also what prompted the thought of rain—the weather forecast had been entirely off, and apparently even Hachikuji’s prayer hadn’t reached this mountain.

Mountain weather was fickle, much like the hearts of people—or it could be more accurately described as utterly shallow.

Shallow and thin.

Thin and weak.

I couldn’t believe me. It was such a huge blunder that it made me want to hang myself.

I had called it Fox’s Wedding, but now I felt as though I were being doused in cold water by a nine-tailed fox, reminding me to cool my head.—Thanks to Shinobu, anyway, the story of the Killing Stone had become a minor concern, but now our honeymoon was also ruined.

The one saving grace was that I, who hadn’t given any thought to this point, hadn’t tried to surprise Hitagi with my thoughtless planning or casually proposed adoption in the car—at least in that sense, I hadn’t made any mistakes, and there was no way to express my gratitude to Oikura and Kanbaru.

As for Oikura, fundamentally, she would reject all of my proposals, and she wasn’t even aware of Shinobu’s existence as of now, so it wasn’t that she knew the outcome and stopped the surprise… Still, my attitude towards her was always one of gratitude.

It’s common to seek advice from someone when you want their support, but when I wanted to be challenged, I would turn to Oikura for advice… well, not really.

Imagine if, due to some bizarre twist of fate, I had brought up the suggestion of adoption—that would have forced the indomitable Hitagi into a most unexpected decision. She’s always possessed an astonishingly speedy knack for making choices and decisively seeing them through since high school, and now, as she thrives in the fast-paced world of trading, her alacrity might have only grown stronger.

It could have possibly led to a swift divorce.

Naturally, an enthusiastic agreement could have been a possibility as well… Regardless, I never intended to resolve her complex issues—and possibly even trauma—surrounding motherhood by having her adopt Shinobu.

Purely a moment of childish whimsy, the idea that we could all live happily together, despite the radical difference between accepting the existence of a vampire and becoming family with one.

This realization had eluded me.

Driven by guilt at having potentially erased her family name by adopting the modern practice of a surname-sharing couple, I had donned the role of a progressive groom. I arrogantly clung onto the pride of being a man whose values reflected today’s norms, a man who respected police regulations and moral obligations on the international stage, who knew he could no longer carry on brawling and fooling around with his sisters, a man who kept the company of adult friends who share a staunch dislike for the immature tastes of fifth-grade girls.

However, at the crux of it all, I was still Araragi Koyomi, a relic of the bygone Heisei era.

I tolerated the eating of people.

So, I tolerated murder.

It’s an antiquated mindset reminiscent of a nefarious villain who, without any explanation whatsoever, becomes a comrade-in-arms by the next season.

“……”

But that doesn’t mean it’s right to let Shinobu literally live a life in the sun, either. I just couldn’t accept that.

A crime is a crime, whether it’s committed by a beautiful woman or a cute little girl, it should never be forgiven. They should be punished for life, and should never become happy, let alone join the ranks of our allies. To consider their families and clans guilty and deserving of punishment as well might seem rather old-fashioned in terms of a worldview, don’t you think?

Yes, I admit that I am defending Shinobu.

I am indeed defending her.

It may sound nice to say that I am defending a powerless vampire, but in criminal law terms, this is tantamount to concealing a criminal, tampering with evidence, and can be considered complicity if Shinobu were to accidentally destroy the world—in a parallel universe, that is.

I might even become a principal offender.

After all, if a pet bites someone, it’s the owner’s responsibility.

If anything, I was in a position where I could issue forceful commands to Shinobu, and there’s no knowing when I might cross the line of the human world’s rules—who’s to say I won’t resort to underhanded tactics when things don’t go my way, or when I get frustrated with the world, or when I just want to cheat the system? What guarantee is there that I won’t bulldoze my way through such situations?

In high school, I did that… I took advantage of Shinobu’s immortality and, eventually, was sliced to pieces by Gaen-san as a repercussion.

Gaen-san, who had accumulated such countless experiences, assured me that Shinobu would never destroy the world again and that, despite my own limitations, I would not repeat the same mistake. Maybe that is what one might call an adult’s judgment.

The all-knowing big sister.

Her junior colleague, Oshino, was probably aware of this when he bound Shinobu—a way of dealing with a sinner, neither by judgment nor by forgiveness but by giving her a second chance.

I had thought of them as a group of moratorium specialists who were not quite grown up—wandering middle-agers in Hawaiian shirts or young leaders with bold fashion—but actually, they were quite admirable after all.

Incidentally, during spring break, Hanekawa Tsubasa didn’t openly state this to me but seemed to have a way of thinking like, “humans eat meat and vegetables, so it’s only natural that vampires eat humans too.”… Reaching that level of understanding must be the realm of enlightenment.

A second chance for sin.

No, if calling it a sin was one-sided, maybe it was more fitting to say, a second chance for the damaged.

And I believe Shinobu is doing a wonderful job with the second chance she had been given. Considering her past six hundred years, six years of confinement may seem insignificant, but, far from being biased, I can say with utmost certainty that she has been a model prisoner. Nevertheless, if we were to once again force her back into the shadows for the crime of eating a human, wouldn’t that be in defiance of double jeopardy, legally speaking?

Second chance, or double jeopardy—Good grief, I’ve really become entrenched in the thinking of law enforcement.

In high school, when I felt so passionately about my freedom and being liberated from my restrictions. I could say that I couldn’t forgive the unforgivable and, in fact, didn’t. I could declare the wrong to be wrong and the different to be different. At most, I just couldn’t admit I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

With an omnipotent sense of self, I judged the irrational.

Without any authority.

Now, I can no longer face criminals without considering the circumstances, the backstories, or the environment and customs that have shaped them. It wasn’t just a side effect of aging but the product of years of professional training.

In spite of the unsympathetic and flagrant acts they commit, I still believe that even the most heinous criminals deserve at least a moment’s consideration… One of the reasons I became a police officer, and a big one at that, was to capture that detestable conman with my own hands. But I was no longer driven by hatred and resentment to arrest that man.

I wanted to see justice done, to serve society.

Though apprehending the conman remains my objective, it’s no longer a burning desire—I now understand that the man had his reasons, circumstances, and motives, and the situation wasn’t entirely black and white. Regrettably, seen from another angle, the conman who brought about the downfall of the Senjougahara family could also be viewed as a savior, a fact that Hitagi herself couldn’t deny. 

While I may be far from comprehending predation as the natural order of things, like Hanekawa did, maybe blaming others for what they can’t control through their own efforts was a warped sense of ethics—such as condemning those who eat meat as uncivilized or lamenting the consumption of vegetables as unfair. 

We enjoy a casual cup of coffee in the workplace without sparing a thought for whether it’s fair-trade. We use smartphones that have rare metals built into them, mined by child laborers who have been coerced and exploited. I am not innocent, and no one can claim they are.

Ah, so that’s it.

I bet Kanbaru understands these feelings far better than I do—she, who nearly drowned in love and wished to the monkey paw.

Perhaps her aspiration to become a doctor was not only borne from noble sentiments for her late friend, but also from a desire for atonement. Whether I forgive her for the thrashing I received at the hands of the monkey paw she wished to probably didn’t matter.

In comparison, I felt as though my ramblings were like the superficial wisdom of an adult, and all I was doing was defending Shinobu with every means at my disposal.

I’ve listed many examples, introduced numerous perspectives, and attempted to put them into context, but still, the idea of eating people seems like a line crossed.

Even when compared to fraud, violence, child labor, and murder… I may have transformed into a vampire during spring break, but not to the point of wanting to eat people. I averted that conflict at the very last moment.

I didn’t even desire to drink blood.

The instinctual disgust for such an incomprehensible craving is probably insurmountable and as strong as the desire for food.

Shinobu said that she no longer desires to eat people, but how much torment did she go through to arrive at that point, then? 

In essence, I thought I understood the extent to which I’d been pushing Shinobu to restrain herself, but I had absolutely no clue. Despite this, I didn’t bear any significant demerits and played the role of a guardian—no, more like a probation officer. 

Observing keenly with my tunnel vision.

The very idea of adopting her seems laughable at best with such a mindset. In fact, it would be nothing short of reckless to bind her under the Araragi name. How could I have possibly thought that was a nice idea?

Ah, I see it now.

It just dawned on me.

It finally became clear to me why the specialist Oshino Meme had bound the nameless Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade with his own name.

If it was all about making me, the very culprit who had allowed her to survive as a vampire, take responsibility for my actions, Oshino could have bound the aberration using my name since then. 

Considering I would eventually have no choice but to use my shadow as a coffin, that would have made much more sense. However, it was in fact the complete opposite.

It was precisely because he was an outsider.

Only a third party could have bound the King of Aberrations.

Sure, binding her with my name might have made the seal more robust, but when the key to the lock lies within the family, the seal is rendered useless.

It’s similar to the sense that an alibi from a family member cannot be trusted. If I were to put it in medical terms, like Kanbaru did, it would be akin to the rule that doctors can’t perform surgery on their relatives.

It goes without saying that police officers are also not allowed to investigate cases involving their own family.

If we were to become family as a result of this bond, the situation would become even more complicated. As a professional and a third party who was neither a relative nor a parent nor a child, Oshino, who was wandering somewhere unknown to me, was still able to keep her in check.

The significance of changing her name was immense.

Uncannily so.

It was precisely because she was now Oshino Shinobu, not Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, that I found myself willing to forgive her. Despite my words claiming otherwise, my actions betrayed the truth that I did.

Had her appearance changed without the name, maybe I could not have conveniently justified my feelings… If I really think about it, it seems everything was dancing in the palm of his hand.

Even after eighteen years—or rather, six.

To this day, I remain unable to surpass the machinations of Oshino Meme. I’m certain that even my current state, holding my head in my hands at a free stop in the Nasu Highlands Killing Stone site on my honeymoon, had been foreseen by the man in a Hawaiian shirt ever since spring break.

And the rain showed no signs of letting up.