Monogatari Series - Volume 5 - Chapter 6.19

019

That morning, Senjogahara had phoned Kaiki, not as a client but as a past victim, in order to request a meeting─I suppose you might say a confrontation. When you thought about it though, it had been a bit of a gamble to begin with, since there was no way of knowing whether Kaiki would even pick up.

But in that wager, it seemed Senjogahara had prevailed.

As well as in the conversation that followed.

The result was─that they were now scheduled to meet in the afternoon. The other party, i.e., Kaiki, had accepted Senjogahara’s demand without objections.

Things had gone almost too smoothly, it was unsettling.

Unsettling─and ominous. Anyway…

“The meeting is scheduled for five p.m.”

“I see─in that case, I’m going to head home first,” I said. “There might be more I could learn from my sisters. Karen is still laid up, but Tsukihi should probably be awake by now.”

“Fine. Come back here in the afternoon, then.”

“Okay… Don’t go running off without me.”

“Of course I won’t. Have I ever lied to you before?”

“……”

Lying was all she did. She could play a ballad on a lie detector.

“I’m tired of lies, but they won’t leave me alone,” she said.

“I guess it’s all in the phrasing…and when I think about it, that makes zero sense.”

She was tired of lies? Then just tell the truth.

“Relax,” she counseled. “This is all about having you hear out my request─I might lie, but I’m promising you.”

“I see… Fine, then.”

“Heh, it’s called negotiating.”

“……”

Promising and negotiating were two very different things…

“I’m a little sleepy anyway,” she said.

“Ah. That’s right, you were up all night.”

All night. Sharpening pencils.

Except for the five hours, of course, when she was too depressed because Hanekawa had scolded her.

Senjogahara’s face was still as passive as cast iron, but under the circumstances I’m sure she must have been tired. It was impossible to tell just by looking at her.

“You were up all night too, Araragi, even if you were unconscious for some of that time. I don’t think you want to face a conman like Kaiki while you’re half-asleep─instead of talking to your sisters, wouldn’t it be better if you took a nap?”

“Well… When it comes to lack of sleep, I cope pretty well. Because of the vampirism.”

“Still, get some rest. There’s no guarantee you’ll get any sleep tonight, either.”

With that chilling piece of advice to chew on─I headed home. However our confrontation with Kaiki might play out, I probably needed to be in good shape going in. To be prepared, so that whatever scars remained afterward, there would at least be no regrets.

At the same time, I was telling the truth when I said I wanted to hear what Karen and Tsukihi had to say─no, maybe I should talk to Hanekawa again? I could head over to her house and get my bike back at the same time─but we’d already caused her enough trouble.

It was better not to get her any more involved─though perhaps that was just me being overprotective when it came to Hanekawa.

She was a good person─they didn’t come any better─but was never overprotective, not of anyone. You could say she valued personal responsibility for what it was worth.

Actually…she was too callous about herself.

Now that she’d cut her hair and decided to move forward, it would be nice if that side of her changed as well… But I was probably speaking out of turn.

I was going to take college entrance exams. I had made the decision in June.

Beginning to study for exams in June of my senior year─you couldn’t dally more than I had. Normally, I’d have to resign myself to taking a year out.

I was only able to give it a try thanks to Senjogahara and Hanekawa’s finely geared tutoring─as for their own studies, Senjogahara had some of the top marks in our year and would be getting into college on a recommendation (By the way, I’m hoping to get into the same school as her. The order of this explanation got flipped, but basically, I started studying for exams because I want to join her there), whereas Hanekawa, who had the top marks, wasn’t planning on applying to any university, truth be told.

The top of her year. Actually, if we’re being honest, one of the smartest people in the world.

The whole faculty had high hopes for her─but Hanekawa had chosen not to choose a college for herself.

The only ones who knew so far were me and Kanbaru─I suppose it was also possible that Senjogahara had heard it straight from Hanekawa, but I hadn’t said anything.

I couldn’t blab about it.

If people found out, an uproar would overtake Naoetsu High, the likes of which no haircuts, contact lenses, accessories, or bags could ever prepare us for─classes would be suspended, and the school would be boarded up until further notice. After all, it was said that if you added up the IQs of everyone else at our school, it still wouldn’t be equal to Hanekawa’s─well, I’m fully aware you can’t do that with IQs, but the difference between Hanekawa and the rest of us was so great that it surpassed the bounds of common sense.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’d never meet another person in my life as great as Hanekawa─but perhaps that was why passing up an obvious choice like going to college made sense for her.

Even if it made sense, it was still unexpected.

As for what she was planning to do instead of going to college, when you put it into words, it sounded incredibly banal─she was going to travel.

One long journey, around the world.

She had already worked out a complete multi-year plan as to her itinerary─in that sense, she was a typical model student.

“So whether I get into college or not,” I’d asked her when I found out, “once we graduate I guess I won’t be able to see you anymore?”

It was right after summer vacation started─we were studying in the library. I tried to sound casual, but that probably just made it seem more awkward.

“That’s not true,” Hanekawa replied with a bashful smile. “All you have to do is call for me, and wherever I am in the world, I’ll come running. We mean a lot to each other.”

“Okay, if you ever need anything, you can call me, too. I don’t care if I’m in the middle of midterm exams, wherever you are in the world, I’ll come running.”

“Ahaha. Say that again after you actually get in.”

Which is how the conversation ended.

I couldn’t help but wonder how her life might be turning out if she’d never met me─and had never gotten involved with aberrations.

If she hadn’t come to know the demon.

If she had never known that cat.

Her life probably would have never gotten thrown so far off track─not after all the time where staying on the straight and narrow was her only goal in life.

The real deal that she was.

“Yeah, I’ll leave her alone…”

I’d reached the decision by the time I arrived home.

I figured Hanekawa had probably told me everything that I needed to know, and even if there was more, if she found out Senjogahara and I were going to go meet with Kaiki in the afternoon, she might ask to come with us.

I couldn’t get her involved to such an extent. I didn’t want to.

If I could─I’d have preferred to go alone.

Of course, Senjogahara had likewise tried to keep me from going with her, so I guess my behavior was contradictory.

I just had to resign myself to contradiction.

Because that’s the kind of person I am.

“Koyomi!”

Tsukihi was standing near the front door. Noticing me, she’d yelled my name.

“Ah…you’re up. Good mor─”

“Karen’s gone!” she cut me off with a plaintive cry. “Wh-When I woke up just now, I couldn’t find her anywhere─she’s still sick!”

“Calm down, Tsukihi-chan,” I accidentally called my agitated sister by her name and grabbed her shoulders. She seemed like she might run off, at any moment, so I forced her to face in my direction. “Did you check my room? I put her to sleep in there.”

“Of course I did! Why are you wasting time with stupid questions?!” Tsukihi was getting hysterical. She was on the verge of tears. “H-Her shoes are gone, too─and it looks like she changed.”

“……kk!”

Perhaps absorbing half of Karen’s fever had been a mistake. Even if she wasn’t well yet, she was feeling well enough to be able to leave the house.

She’d just pretended to feel worn out and to fall asleep.

Then, after she saw me leave, she slipped out the door?

Damn, the kid was a handful!

“Mom and dad think it’s just Karen up to one of her usual stunts─obviously I can’t tell them the truth. Koyomi, what am I gonna─”

“Calm down. Think. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

“No…” The strength drained from Tsukihi’s body. She seemed to wilt. It was almost like─she’d lost half of herself. “She’d probably try to go wherever Kaiki is… But we don’t know where that is.”

“Are you saying…Karen does know?”

“I don’t think so. He already slipped through her hands once.”

“……”

Karen. That bumblehead.

It meant she, herself, didn’t have any idea where she was going─the idiot! She couldn’t stomach just waiting around, even if she had no clue, and so she bolted out of the house determined to do something?!

Stop faking it, for goodness’ sake!

“I’ll go look for her,” I said. “I’m sure she hasn’t gone far─she couldn’t have. You wait here.”

“What? I wanna go look for her, too.”

I figured as much. She was probably just about to leave when I got home. But…

“Even if you find Karen, chances are she’ll persuade you to join her,” I tried to reason with Tsukihi. “If things get any more complicated than they are already, I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it.”

“You really don’t trust us, do you…”

She was half laughing and half crying.

Of course I didn’t trust them. Day after day, they were all wrong. Or too right.

“Trust, no,” I told Tsukihi. “But I do worry about you guys.”

“……”

“But more than that, I’m angry!”

How many times did I have to say it?! Frustrated, I removed my hands from Tsukihi’s shoulder and turned on my heel─heading out the gate and onto the street. And then I started to think.

What to do? Where to look?

If Karen didn’t have a destination in mind, all I could do was wander around and hope for the best─she was the worst kind of missing person.

Unlike Senjogahara, Karen had no way of contacting Kaiki directly─even if she did, Kaiki wouldn’t agree to meet her.

It was a good thing I had lent Hanekawa my bicycle. If not, Karen would have almost certainly taken it without asking. Being on foot rather than on a bike made for a big difference in her movement radius─unless she got on a bus, in which case I was screwed. Unlike me, my sisters had bus passes.

Think.

If I were Karen, what would I do?

She’s not in her best shape, but she has something she needs to do. Other people want to stop her, but she can’t quit…

“First, she’d try to put some distance between herself and the house─because if we found her, we’d bring her back. That’s step one. But what next? What next…what next…”

What would Karen do next?

Gah, how would I know what an idiot was thinking?! Maybe she’d just gone to the store!

I gave up on that approach…but maybe she’d use her new phone she was so proud of to contact Hanekawa─sneakily, before even leaving the house?

No, I doubted it.

Karen and Tsukihi had kept it a secret that Hanekawa was helping them. They’d asked Hanekawa to keep quiet about it too. That meant they felt guilty, and Karen could at least guess that if she contacted Hanekawa now, it would get back to me. Ah, but then a knucklehead might make the call without bothering to think…

I could try calling Karen’s cell, but there was no way she’d pick up… The GPS feature on her phone could track her down, but I’d need to ask my parents.

Under the circumstances, I couldn’t go to them for help.

Besides, she might have switched off her phone─

“Will ye shut up?”

I couldn’t stop fretting, my thoughts all over the place, but in the middle of my panic, a voice spoke to me─abruptly, from the shadows.

From my shadow.

Before I even registered the fact…Shinobu Oshino was standing by my side.

It was like she had appeared even before she appeared.

She was wearing a kiddie dress that was whiter than a real one ever could be. It was tunic length and of a different design than the one she’d worn in the cram school ruins. No leggings.

For shoes, she was wearing mules over bare feet. The mules were also nearly translucent in their whiteness.

As for her helmet… She was skipping it─just as she’d said. Her blond hair was magnificently exposed.

She was staring at me with drowsy eyes.

“I cannot sleep amidst this clamor. Has it never occurred to thee? We are bound through thy shadow, and any vexation on thy part is imparted to me. To be forced to share in insufferable panic when one does not feel agitated is the worst, I say. Show some consideration and try to control thy madness…though I suppose ’tis impossible of one such as thee.”

“Shinobu… Do you know what’s going on?”

“More or less. These kinswomen of thine are foolhardy enough to give thee a run for thy money─ahhhhh.” Shinobu released a huge yawn, showing me her canines─her fangs. “Hrm, come to think of it, ye came seeking for me as well, when I went lost. Ah, such fond memories.”

“Would it be all right…if I asked you to help?”

“Kakak,” cackled Shinobu, in vampiric fashion. “Unfortunately, I am not in a position to deny thee─our relationship as master and slave may be complex, but in power ye exceed me. I told thee, long ago, did I not, that the vampire’s bond is a bond of the soul? If ye command I cannot but obey, however much I dislike the task.”

“It’s not a command. I’m in no position to be giving you orders.”

“Then I refuse, ye dunce,” spat Shinobu. “I am willing to help, but I do not wish to make the offer. That would be shameful. That is why I am telling thee to word it as a command, for appearance’s sake. Can’t ye even brain that much? Why else would I interrupt my slumber and show up at an opportune moment, if not to aid thee?”

“You’re more than a little tsundere, too…”

I couldn’t help but grimace at Shinobu’s words. When did she get so tinted by our world, anyways? After living for five centuries, five months was all it took for her to adopt our mores? This had to be more of Oshino’s elite schooling at work.

What was that aloha guy thinking?

“Fine then, it’s an order. Where is she? Find Karen for me.”

“Ah, woe is me, what a calamity, to be forced to obey such a lowly human. But if ye insist on being a tyrant, I suppose I have no choice. Hmph. How would ye ever manage without me? Dear dear, how adorable.”

Khaha, Shinobu laughed again and then pointed her thumb.

“Thy sisterling’s blood is similar in composition, so I can sniff out her general direction. Hmph. It seems she hasn’t roamed far, after all.”