Monogatari Series - Volume 5 - Chapter 6.11

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Tsukihi had sent a message asking for help. In other words, she was in trouble.

I decided to head home immediately─by the way, when I asked Senjogahara what had happened to my bike, she told me there just happened to be a garbage pickup spot nearby, so she’d parked it there.

Such a heartless thing to do. Was the Valhalla Duo in the bicycle disposal business or what?

I asked her where the pickup spot was and wound up having to swing back there on my way home─it was pretty far out of the way, but still faster than running.

Of course, I didn’t neglect to see Senjogahara home first. Even if we were fighting, she was my girlfriend.

Midnight. Dawn was still faraway.

In the afternoon, I’d had to sneak to my bike to avoid being spotted by Tsukihi, but at this hour, I had to creep in so that my parents wouldn’t notice… Well, they were generally hands off with me, and maybe I didn’t need to worry.

But I had to act the part. The least I could do was to appear guilty, for form’s sake… Damn, that sounds so small.

Anyway, I sneaked through the front door, down the hallway, and up the stairs to my sisters’ bedroom.

Karen and Tsukihi shared it.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” was the first thing Karen Araragi said.

She was sitting on the bottom bunk looking sullen, her cheeks puffed out and her lips in a pout, for all the world like she was being punished for a crime she didn’t commit.

Her face was slightly flushed. She seemed offended, if anything.

“What have I done to get you mad at me?” she questioned. “Tsukihi shouldn’t have said anything. It’s got nothing to do with you anyway so just leave me alone.”

“……”

Ahh, brother and sister.

Even Senjogahara would at least have said thank you.

Do you have any clue what kind of danger I escaped to get home, Tail Head?

She’d changed from her outdoor jersey to an around-the-house jersey. She could go join Hachikuji for being such a Jersey cow. But I’d been pestering her about it for years and now wasn’t the time, so I let that go.

“Karen…” said Tsukihi, sounding worried.

Tsukihi was acting pretty sheepish as far as I could tell─Karen must have given her shit for asking for my help. They almost never disagreed, but in the rare instances they did clash, just as you’d expect, it was usually the younger Tsukihi who backed down. I guess seniority ruled, and when push came to shove, it didn’t matter who was the enforcer or the strategist.

Putting that aside.

“First, just tell me what’s going on,” I demanded. “What in the world happened after I left? I thought you were going to regale me with your heroic deeds?”

I’d read the rest of Tsukihi’s message but was still in the dark. I only knew that Karen had gotten into trouble.

She wasn’t injured, as far as I could tell. But with these girls, that didn’t mean I could rest easy.

I urged; Karen ignored. Damn, I wanted to choke her.

“I’ll ask you again, bigger sister. What happened?”

“Go…get…bent!” Nyah, she stuck her tongue out at me. She didn’t forget to pull down the flesh under her eyes with her forefingers, either. A girl who was already in her third year of middle school!

I was so mad I raised my hand without thinking─

“Araragi.”

The person who stopped me was standing by the window and leaning against the wall. It was Hanekawa.

Tsubasa Hanekawa. She’d stopped me, with a single utterance.

“Araragi,” she said, “you got really mad on my behalf when my father hit me. Why would the same guy want to hit his sister?”

“……”

I had no reply. I stood still as a statue.

“I believe that corporal punishment has its place,” she admitted. “If you have an explanation that would satisfy Karen, then by all means, go ahead.”

“Sorry.”

“Why apologize to me?”

Guided by her words, I turned toward Karen. “Sorry. I lost it.” I bowed my head.

First Senjogahara, and now I had been made to apologize by Hanekawa… This wasn’t a case of seniority, but the power relationship was just as clear.

That said, Senjogahara succumbing to Hanekawa surprised me. I knew my girlfriend wasn’t comfortable with the class president but assumed it was just their different personalities.

But making Senjogahara issue even a stammering apology against her will when she didn’t think she was at fault─that went beyond any awkwardness.

Tsubasa Hanekawa, our ridiculously brilliant classmate, not only had the best grades in our year─this one time, she also came in first for the national mock exams.

Senjogahara once referred to Hanekawa as the real deal─and a monster. I strenuously object to the addendum but agree wholeheartedly that she’s the real deal.

She, alone─doesn’t smell the least fake.

Hanekawa really saved me during spring vacation. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’d be dead if not for her. I might be physically alive, but I’d have died for sure spiritually.

Calling her my savior doesn’t do it justice.

She’s like my second mother. Because as I see it, it wasn’t that I cheated death. Thanks to her, I was reborn.

Obviously, Hanekawa is our class president (I’m the vice president, by the way─she forced me into it) and a class president among class presidents. With her glasses, braids, and neat bangs, she looked every bit the part of the model student─until the culture festival.

Afterwards…she cut her hair.

Shoulder length, with a shag to the bangs.

She also switched her glasses for contacts, and while she didn’t mess with her uniform, her school-designated bag was adorned with accessories. So what? you might say, but it’s a huge event, as if the sun suddenly rose in the west one day.

Thanks to this transformation on the part of the brightest star in Naoetsu High history, our homeroom teacher had collapsed, the head teacher for our year had been hospitalized, and the principal had penned a letter of resignation, people were rumoring in earnest.

Whether any of that was true, a hornet’s nest had been dropped into our class. She hadn’t dyed her hair green or gotten a tattoo, but there was a commotion like Hanekawa had turned into a delinquent overnight.

“Thought I’d change my image.”

That was all she said in response to all hell breaking loose. She’d told them, and told them good. There weren’t to be follow-up questions.

Actually, I knew the reason for that “image change”─or rather, I had a fair idea, nothing more, just that, which is also precisely why I couldn’t ask her about it.

The other day, Tsubasa Hanekawa had suffered a broken heart.

Cutting your hair due to some romantic misfortune was no longer a thing─but Hanekawa could be an anachronistic woman that way. I doubted a haircut could wash away heartbreak, but she seemed to require such a reckoning.

Ditching the braid, getting rid of her glasses.

She didn’t seem like “an obvious class president” anymore, just an ordinary girl.

Which was fine. Just fine.

It was what she’d always hoped for─she was indeed “an ordinary girl,” after all, though I almost felt like she’d undergone an exorcism.

No, an exorcism wasn’t it…

Maybe she’d tamed what possessed her.

That was my impression. In any case, the question was what this new Hanekawa (I say new, but it was already a month since her image change so I was pretty used to it by now) was doing in my sisters’ room.

Then again, if she weren’t, she wouldn’t have called me at that moment. It’s not like her personality had changed. She was as serious as ever, not the type to call a boy in the middle of the night─so.

I was about to ask Hanekawa why.

“Tsubasa.” That was when Karen, for whom Hanekawa had just interceded, cut in. “Don’t scold my brother… It was my fault just now, and if he had slapped me, I’d have slapped him back.”

“Really?” Hanekawa shrugged her shoulders, jokingly it seemed. “Then I was butting in.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“I doubt you could slap him back, though.”

“Then I’d bite him. Just so you know, I’ve got teeth like steel, Tsubasa.”

Geez… Giving lip to her erstwhile protector was pure Karen, but when the hell did she start calling Hanekawa by her first name?

I turned toward Tsukihi.

“Don’t look at me, I call her by her last name,” Tsukihi tried to excuse herself.

That wasn’t the point.

It’s not even which name to use, I thought, you better start addressing her as “ma’am”! But that wasn’t the point, either.

Partly because Hanekawa tutored me, she and my sisters were already acquainted─but when did they get so close?

“Koyomi, just listen and don’t get angry. I know my brother won’t get angry about such a thing,” Tsukihi prefaced. “See, this time, the Fire Sisters enrolled Miss Hanekawa─”

“You did what?!” I shouted instantly.

What were they thinking?! They’d gotten Hanekawa involved!

“Araragi, don’t be so loud, you’ll wake your parents… And I never knew you were the type to intimidate your sisters by yelling at them.”

“……nkk.”

My hands were tied! I wanted Hanekawa to think I was a good boy!

“Miss Hanekawa, please don’t scold Koyomi,” Tsukihi pleaded, actually placing herself between me and Hanekawa. “He’s just worried that we inconvenienced you.”

What was with this scene where my sisters were covering for me? It seemed so unfair.

“Geez…”

After I calmed down a little, I realized something.

This morning─yesterday morning, actually, in terms of the date─Tsukihi somehow knew that my tutoring was cancelled. Figuring I must have told her when she’d woken me up, I didn’t give it further thought, but that hadn’t been why. She’d known beforehand that Hanekawa would have plans and that the session would be cancelled.

No wonder Tsukihi knew. She and Karen were behind it.

“Araragi, it was my own decision to help Karen and Tsukihi, so don’t be mad at them. The Araragi I know would never take it out on his little sisters.”

“Nrghh…” I was starting to feel manipulated. Not that I’d ever defy Hanekawa, manipulation or not.

Karen spoke next. “You know that expression, ‘wings on a tiger’? This is like Feathers & the Fire Sisters.”

What a clunky attempt to play on “Tsubasa Hanekawa.”

Sometimes I wondered if Karen really was my sister.

“Fine, fine,” I said. “I promise I won’t get angry.”

“And you won’t tell mom and dad, either?” asked Tsukihi, pushing it knowing that Hanekawa was in their corner…

They had another thing coming if they thought I’d honor any promise I made with them. I’d break it like it was made of brittle glass.

“It’s our secret,” I lied. “Now hurry up and explain. What happened? What’s going on?”

“Indeed. What is going on?”

I was this close to wringing Karen’s neck. She clearly wasn’t going to tell me.

I needed to ask either Tsukihi or Hanekawa, in that case… But Hanekawa was an accomplice, at most. If I wanted details, I was going to have to get them from Tsukihi.

Yeah…

I knew I’d lose my cool again dealing with one of my sisters. For now, it was better if I started with─

“Hanekawa,” I said. I needed to talk to all three of them, but first, her. I pointed my thumb at the wall─in the direction of my room. “Would you come to my room for a minute?”

“Oooh, he wants to take Tsubasa to his room.”

Karen was just delighted... One day, I’d kill her.

“Of course.” Hanekawa stepped away from the wall. “Karen, Tsukihi, it’s going to be fine. You did the right thing. Once Araragi hears what I have to say, I’m sure he’ll understand. Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything.”

“Miss Hanekawa…”

“Tsubasa…”

My sisters stared up into Hanekawa’s face with twinkles in their eyes.

They seemed to trust her very much.

Maybe that was just the natural response to Hanekawa.

“But, Tsubasa, you’ll be alone with Koyomi…”

Karen, shut up.

Forget about what’s happening now, I worry about your future.

“Don’t worry about that, either. I know I can trust your big brother,” reassured Hanekawa, patting Karen, who was sitting on her bed, on the head before exiting the room first.

Seriously…there was no living up to her example.

I let out a deep sigh and called out to Karen, “Hey, biggy.”

“What do you want, shorty?” she answered sulkily.

Strange… Karen returned my insult, but it seemed like her heart wasn’t in it. She was lacking her usual fire. Whenever I called her that, she tended to come flying at me in a rage regardless of the situation. But she didn’t even budge and just sat there with her legs crossed.

“What? Go stare at someone else,” she said.

“……”

I sighed once more and told her, “I’m sure you did do the right thing. You’re always right. I won’t deny that. But that’s all you are. You aren’t always strong.”

“……”

“……”

“Unless you’re strong, you lose,” I went on. “You do martial arts, you should understand that.” I looked at Tsukihi as well. “The first requirement of justice isn’t being right. It’s being strong. That’s why justice always prevails. It’s about time you saw that. Until you do, you’ll never change─you’ll always be make-believe defenders of justice─”

Fakes.

I left without waiting for my sisters to reply─stepping out into the hallway and closing the door behind me.

Hanekawa was standing there, waiting. Like she had nothing to do. But she also seemed amused.

“I know I shouldn’t say this,” she said with a faint smile, “but watching you with your sisters is entertaining.”

“Give me a break…”

“I think they’re good kids.”

“I think they’re brats.”

I led Hanekawa to my room. Unlike Kanbaru, I kept it in pretty good order, so I was ready for unexpected guests.

“You can sit on the bed,” I offered.

“I’m not sure it’s the right place to ask girls to sit.”

“Huh? Why not?”

That’s where Sengoku asked me to sit─in fact, I’d been told that I wasn’t allowed to anywhere else. Recalling that moment, I sat in my chair.

“By the way, Hanekawa, why are you dressed in your school uniform when it’s the middle of the night?” Yes, that’s what she was wearing. I’d been wanting to bring it up but hadn’t gotten the chance. “I know you wear your uniform even over summer vacation, but that aside…do you even own normal clothes? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in street clothes.”

“You’ve seen me in my pajamas before.”

“Pajamas aren’t street clothes.”

If we’re really being picky, I’d seen her in her underwear too, but that was that, and still not street clothes. What I wanted to see was Hanekawa in a casual outfit she’d chosen for herself! Was she ever going to oblige me?!

“Today is just a coincidence, actually… This is how I happened to be dressed when I met up with your sisters earlier in the evening. Maybe I should start there?”

“Please.”

“It’s kind of refreshing…”

“Hm?”

“Well, the way you worry about your sisters, compared to the way you worry about me, or Senjogahara, or Mayoi, or Kanbaru, or Sengoku, seems different somehow. I don’t know how to put it. It’s more desperate.”

“Desperate…”

“You’re like a different person when it comes to Karen-chan and Tsukihi-chan,” Hanekawa referred to my sisters using the diminutive suffix, giggling mischievously. “You were pretty strict with them just now. They’re right, but they’re not strong? Are you sure that wasn’t directed at yourself?”

“I hate people who’re like me?”

“Not that I imagine you want to be told that. But I’m not sure that’s how I’d put it. Plain ‘self-hatred,’ maybe?”

I sighed in response. Both because that was apparently how people saw me, and because it was true. It was a complicated sigh.

Justice Man, I’d been called by Senjogahara.

“Hanekawa. You’ve only known my sisters for about a month now so I don’t blame you, but me, I’ve lived with Karen-chan for fifteen years and Tsukihi-chan for fourteen. After all that time, I can tell you─”

“Pfft… Ha ha.”

I was only done prefacing what I was about to say, but something struck Hanekawa as being so funny that she burst out into laughter, so I broke off before I could get to my point.

“H-Hanekawa?”

“No, I’m sorry. But you just called them Karen-chan and Tsukihi-chan.”

“…!”

What a hideous misstep! What did I just do?!

Using “chan” with them was an old habit from when we were kids. That’s why I tried not to call them by name! “Bigger” and “littler” and all that was my way of playing it off!

I’d slipped up in front of Hanekawa, of all people!

“Gah… Ow, ow, ow.”

“Come on, Araragi, it’s no big deal. I do that with them, too, sometimes.”

“N-No,” I sputtered, “I was just imitating you. I was treating them like kids, rhetorically, but usually I just call them Karen and Tsukihi…”

Hanekawa gazed at me pityingly. This was so embarrassing…

“P-Putting that aside, let’s get down to the business at hand, Hanekawa. It sounds like this might be time-sensitive.”

“No problem,” she sweetly agreed.

Stop! Your kindness hurts!

“Anyway,” I continued, “I already know some of the background. They were looking for the source of these charms circulating among middle schoolers, right?”

“Oh. How do you know that?”

“Through Sengoku, actually. Unfortunately, my little sisters─”

“Karen-chan and Tsukihi-chan.”

“…My little sis─”

“You mean Karen-chan and Tsukihi-chan.”

Meanie Hanekawa. Maybe I was wrong, and her personality did change along with her hairstyle.

“Karen-chan and Tsukihi-chan,” I relented, “are like celebrities among other middle-school kids. Sengoku hears stories about their shenanigans.”

“Hmph─I see.” Hanekawa seemed to believe it. “Speaking of which, Sengoku fell victim to one of those charms, didn’t she?”

“She was the only one, to be precise.”

“Nope, she wasn’t. Just the one to suffer the worst consequences… Those charms are actually having all sorts of negative effects.”

“All sorts?”

“Mostly in terms of interpersonal relationships.”

………

Right. In Sengoku’s case too─she wasn’t the lone victim. Some relationships surrounding her had also suffered.

“When I looked into it,” Hanekawa said, “the so-called charms that are popular are mostly malicious─the tendency is clear. Karen and Tsukihi’s idea that someone spread them intentionally seems to have been a shot in the dark, but it didn’t fall far from the mark.”

She added that if it hadn’t been summer break, she wouldn’t have been able to investigate. True, an extended vacation was the only time for such an inquiry.

“By the way, when did you start working with them?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was working with them. I just lent them a hand every now and then. But in terms of how long, I guess since the beginning of summer break.”

“Huh, so…” I still hadn’t asked what I really wanted to know. “You helped them. Then you must have located the culprit.”

In other words…when Karen’s cell phone had rung earlier, it had been Tsubasa Hanekawa, herself. No wonder my little sister had prioritized the call over me.

“It pains me when you make it sound like this is my fault,” Hanekawa said.

She actually looked pained.

I didn’t want to inflict any pain on her, but I had to say it. “You know, Oshino was leery about this side of you. You’re too competent and can’t ever not arrive at the answer…”

It had saved me. But the opposite was also true. For instance─she hadn’t been able to save herself. Her own competence had stood in the way.

“True.” Hanekawa wasn’t denying it. She nodded, a vague smile on her lips. “But I couldn’t go about it half-heartedly, either.”

“Right. Just like Karen-chan, Tsukihi-chan, and I…”

Well. That ship had already sailed.

“Just like Karen-chan, Tsukihi-chan, and I have to accept our own weakness─you have to accept your own strength.”

Just as fakes have to admit that they’re fakes, the genuine articles have to acknowledge that they’re the genuine articles. Seriously─it’s not like we can cast our selves away.

“So,” I asked, “Karen located the ‘culprit,’ went to negotiate─and had something done to her?”

“Correct. I was acting on my own at the time and didn’t show up until later, so I never saw the ‘culprit’ in person… If I’d joined up with your sisters first, I might’ve been able to help.”

“Did Karen say anything about what this ‘culprit’ is like?”

“Let’s see…” Hanekawa shifted her weight, and the bed creaked a little. “His name is Deishu Kaiki─an ominous man, apparently.”