Monogatari Series - Volume 31 - Chapter 44

Tsubasa Ranking

000

“Hanekawa, you always get rank 1 in our year for test scores, right? It’s hard for a rank 9999 like me to even begin to guess, but what the hell does that feel like? What is it like to reign at the top, looking over the common folk?”

“There’s no such thing as a rank 9999.”

We don’t even have 9999 third-years at Naoetsu High School—said the one reigning at the top with an amazed look.

“Well, it’s not much—I just think, oh, I guess it was my turn to be rank 1 this time. In the end, if we’re assigning ranks to people, then someone has to be rank 1, and that just happened to be me this time. There are times where I don’t end up being rank 1, and it doesn’t really bother me.”

She was talking about test rankings as if they were some sort of circular notice.

If she won three hundred million yen in the lottery, she’d probably say the same thing—"Oh, I guess it was my turn to win three hundred million yen,“ or something.

"But was there really a time that you didn’t end up rank 1? I’ve always imagined you as being rank 1, ever since our first year.”

“My, it makes me happy to know that you know all about my grades, Araragi-kun.”

Although it was Hanekawa that was more likely to know all about my grades—it wasn’t like my test results were good enough to be posted out in the hallway, but it wouldn’t be weird if she found out my true rankings through a different route.

“I don’t know everything. I just know what I know.”

After saying that, she calmly but firmly stated, “I haven’t always been rank 1.”

“When I think about getting rank 3, then I end up as rank 3, and when I think about getting rank 7, then I end up as rank 7. When I think about getting 1 point lower than Senjougahara-san, then I end up getting 1 point lower than Senjougahara-san.”

“You’re completely in control!”

Of her own capability.

It wasn’t just happenstance—it was like she was deciding the ranking list.

She was exerting her influence over Naoetsu High School’s top ranks.

“You know how the saying goes, there’s more worth in getting 99 points than there is in getting 100? There was a time where I got caught up in getting whatever score I wanted—so my grades ended up deviating a bit.”

“What in the world did you get caught up in?”

Also, ill-informed as I was, I’d never heard that saying before… Was it some sort of folklore passed around only among the top ranks?

“I mean, when you get right down to it, things like first place or a perfect score don’t really mean much… It all depends on where you look, doesn’t it? For example, I got the highest overall score in the exams the other day, but I made a blindingly careless mistake in the Japanese history exam, so I didn’t get a perfect score in that subject. In other words, I’m not rank 1 in the Japanese history category.”

Even so, I figured she was probably around rank 2… But I see, it was all where you looked.

Number one in album sales! But even if you said that, were you rank 1 daily, or rank 1 weekly, or even rank 1 monthly? Even if it was the same “rank 1”, the reality was a bit different… And even if you say “perfect score”, there was getting a perfect score on an elementary school test and there was getting a perfect score on a high school test. Even if it was the same “perfect score”, the nuance was different.

“And getting a perfect score out of 100 and getting a perfect score out of 20 is completely different…”

“No, those are the same.”

So they were the same.

On the other hand, if there really were more than 10,000 seniors in Naoetsu High School, I would be afraid of my ranking seriously being 9999, so it was true that, just looking at “first place” or “perfect score” numerically, there was no doubt that a change in units led to a tremendous change in values, or a change in the value system—even Hanekawa’s “top of the year” status only meant that she was rank 1 among Naoetsu High School’s third-years, not that she was rank 1 among students across the country.

Just as I might be ranked 100 millionth among all the high school third-years across the country, perhaps Hanekawa is merely one of the “top ranks” on the national level?

“That’s it, that’s exactly it, Araragi-kun. I definitely don’t amount to much at a larger scale. I’ve only managed to get rank 1 once in the national mock exams.”

So you did get rank 1 at least once…

For some reason, the nuance I felt from her words were something like, “Since I got rank 1 once, I don’t need to anymore"—like an athlete that didn’t just go for the gold medal, but thought, "I want to collect all of them” and aimed for the full set with silver and bronze medals, too. Though it was unclear whether or not that sort of athlete actually existed.

And even so, even that sort of rank 1 depended on what kind of national mock exams you were talking about—in terms of athletes, while I wasn’t referring to Kanbaru Suruga, whose leg strength was put to good use in basketball instead of track, even if you picked a single sport, there would still be many different champions coming from many different countries.

In extreme cases, the rules might even be different…

“Thre’s also the viewpoint that getting a perfect score under the curriculum guidelines of 30 years ago and getting a perfect score under the curriculum guidelines of today may end up being the same ‘rank 1’, but what’s written in the answer columns could be totally different. Since there would be new discoveries and rediscoveries… The law itself might change.”

Even the Center Test turned into the Common Test. With a wide variety of question formats.

Students preparing for exams sure had it hard.

“Araragi-kun, you’re also preparing for exams.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right.”

Though in my case, I was less a student preparing for exams [jukensei] and more living a life of suffering [junan no sei].

“Even in the field of mathematics, which is your specialty, Araragi-kun, things like Fermat’s Last Theorem and the abc conjecture have ended up being solved.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s my specialty. Although, it’s true that the one who solved those two complex problems was none other than me.”

“Sounds like lying’s your specialty.”

Regardless, it was an argument that could invalidate the idea of rankings, relatively.

If we went that far, then it almost felt like a misguided sense of equality… Even the ones in the lowest ranks could technically be considered top rankers if you started from the bottom.

“Mathematically, statistics-based values like rankings, average, or standard deviation can be artificially adjusted, so it’s not good to put too much faith into them—but even so, rank 1 is still rank 1, so it doesn’t leave me fully satisfied.”

“Then, Araragi-kun, you should just become rank 1 yourself.”

Thus went Hanekawa, saying something only a genius would say.

In other words, the punchline was that anyone could become rank 1 in something—or so I thought, but she continued after that, making me wonder what was going through her mind.

“I’m sure you can do it. Becoming rank 1 in someone’s heart.”

How thrilling.

Though that seemed like the hardest possible thing to do.