Monogatari Series - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.02

002

“Well, well, well, what have we here? You’re looking well, kind monster sir. I’m relieved, and jealous.”

Just so you know, I have no intention of trying to tell you that running into Yotsugi Ononoki that day─Sunday, August twentieth, the last day of summer break─was the start of it all.

She (if that’s the correct pronoun, which I’m not certain it is, but Ononoki sure looks like an adorable girl of tender years even if she uses the male one herself) was just there, nothing more. If, based on that level of participation, I’m going to lay some of the blame for the incident at her feet, then I ought to have just ignored her instead when she called out to me.

It’s not like Ononoki and I are bosom buddies, or close, or even particularly friendly─in fact, there was a bit of mischief recently where we tried to kill each other over my decidedly un-cute little sister.

Forget ignoring her, I wish I’d gone after her the second I saw her, thank you very much.

Naturally, it was the same for Ononoki, and though I imagine she’d have liked to come after me herself (not a hypothetical, she’s more than capable), and though as always, her emotionless expressionlessness told me exactly nothing about what she was actually thinking, I figured it might be okay to let myself be pleased to hear her voice, however little she seemed to have missed me.

Well, either way.

It’s a good thing when a cute young girl talks to you.

Even if she is an aberration.

Because she’s an aberration?

“Ononoki. What’s up,” I replied.

We were on a sidewalk, at an intersection not all that far from the Araragi residence where I live.

I suddenly realized that a familiar girl wearing a skirt that hid everything down to the ankles was right next to me. It seemed like she noticed me at virtually the same time (strictly speaking, I think she saw me a fraction of a second earlier).

The light was red.

No, in fact it turned green that very moment.

The color that indicates safety.

“Long time─but it hasn’t been that long,” I said. “Somehow, it feels like forever ago that we saw each other last. But that was recent, huh? Umm…”

I blush to admit that I scoped out our surroundings first.

It’s not that I was afraid passersby would witness me in flagrant conversation with a little girl (I’ve been wiped completely clean of that kind of oversensitivity). I feared a certain onmyoji who employed Ononoki as her shikigami.

Yozuru Kagenui.

She couldn’t possibly be─but if Ononoki was here, then the odds were extremely good that Kagenui was paying our town another “visit”… The thought made me nervous.

If it was true, then “onslaught” was the right word.

When she stands, mayhem; when she sits, destruction; her walk, like terrorism─if at all possible, I wanted to avoid ever laying eyes on her again.

A reunion was one thing.

A rematch was out of the question.

She wasn’t nearby, as far as I could tell. She wasn’t the type to conceal herself (Kagenui won’t even set foot on the ground, part of some who-knows-what-ism), so if I didn’t see her right off the bat, I could probably relax for the moment…

“You don’t need to worry, kind monster sir. Sister isn’t with me. I, Yotsugi Ononoki, am here alone.” Recognizing my precautions (perhaps “suspicious behavior” would better describe my actions) for what they were, Ononogi beat me to the punch before I could even ask. “It’s not like me and sister are together everywhere, all the time, so you can do me a favor and not always think of us as a set. Rather than one set, we’re a two-man cell.”

“Uh huh…” I certainly hoped that was true. Kagenui was, well… I guess she’s more a good person than a bad one (some even say she embodies justice), but given our natures, we’re hardly compatible. “In that case, though, you’re one free familiar. Speaking of which, Ononoki, when we first met, weren’t you also alone and lost?”

“I wasn’t lost. Don’t insult me. I was just asking for directions.”

“Isn’t that the definition of being lost?”

“If asking for directions is all it takes to be lost, then every child in the world is a lost child. People say it all the time, don’t they? To ask is a moment’s shame, not to ask, a lifetime’s.”

“I suppose so.”

“They also say that to answer is a moment’s smugness, not to answer, a lifetime’s.”

“No proverb is that nasty.”

Since Ononoki was always aloof, it was tough to tell whether or not she was joking, but just to be sure I played the straight man. She didn’t seem particularly thrilled, nor upset at having been corrected, so I still didn’t know if it had been the right move.

What a difficult kid.

I wasn’t asking her to be wildly expressive, but couldn’t she at least display a little emotion like a normal kid her─wait.

“Hey, Ononoki.”

“What?”

“I knew something didn’t feel right… When we met before, didn’t you have a weirder way of speaking? All your lines ended with ‘he said with a dashing look,’ if I remember correctly.”

“Shut your hole.”

A curt imperative, in a low voice─so low I couldn’t tell who’d spoken.

It dripped with emotion.

Regret, bitterness, whatever it was, a dark emotion.

“It’s a sore spot in my history.”

“…”

Right. All right.

She’d realized how painful it was. I had no idea if it had been on her own or if someone had pointed it out to her, but judging from how low that voice was, it seemed like the latter…

“I’m never, ever doing a dashing look again.”

“Well, you never did in the first place. But, Ononoki.”

I wanted to keep needling her, but I considered her feelings, refrained, and skipped ahead to the next topic.

Generously, you might say.

Gotta be kind to little girls, whether or not they’re human.

That’s the Koyomi Araragi way.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Why? Now, now, kind monster sir, where do you get off putting such a question to me? Is this whole town your backyard? I didn’t realize entry was prohibited without prior authorization. My apologies.”

“…”

I didn’t get her characterization.

She might’ve dropped her odd catchphrase, but her peculiar way of speaking was alive and well─or rather, thanks to that expressionless face, it would always be disquieting.

I’ll just come right out and say, it was like talking to a robot.

“Although it’s not my backyard,” I played along, generously, “it’s my town. So if you’re planning anything strange─”

“You’ll stop me?”

“Nope, I was thinking I’d give you a hand.”

“What a chump…” She looked appalled. Or actually, her face didn’t change. “Are you assuming I wouldn’t be up to any mischief?”

“I wonder. But apart from the fact that I’m an inhuman half-vampire and you guys are ghostbusters specializing in immortals, there’s really no reason for us to be enemies.”

“There’s no getting away from that fact, is there?”

I came because I was called, she told me.

She sounded completely indifferent.

It didn’t even feel like an explanation.

“You might say I was dispatched. I am a shikigami, after all. I don’t know the details. I’m not all that interested in whom I fight. You’re willing to trust me, but I butcher women and children without mercy if I’m ordered to.”

“Butcher…”

Why reach for such a crude word?

She didn’t sound used to mouthing it, at all.

Of course, her finishing move, Unlimited Rulebook, which consisted mostly of exceptions, really could “butcher” most foes.

“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re planning to do, or on whose orders, but just don’t bust up my town too badly.”

“Okay. Sister isn’t here this time, so no worries on that count.”

“Small comfort.”

“By the way.”

“Yeah?”

“How’s your master? Well, I don’t know if you’re the master these days, but…that…you know…”

“Oh, you mean Shinobu,” I filled in the blank─eyeing my shadow. “She’s asleep at this time of day. We’re a two-man cell ourselves, you see. Then again, there’s nothing we can do about being one set as well.”

“Indeed.”

Ononoki nodded, totally expressionless. But she clearly seemed relieved, on some profound level. That, at least, was plain. Kagenui had really put me through the wringer, but Shinobu had put Ononoki through the wringer too…

Not like we would actually admit it to each other, but we had both been deeply traumatized by the experience.

“That half-assed vampire doesn’t scare me one bit, of course.”

“…”

This shikigami was cute when she was bluffing.

When I glanced over, I saw that the signal had turned red at some point. Actually, we’d been talking like that for a while, so it had probably changed any number of times. In fact, it turned green again right then.

“Let’s cross.”

“Sure.”

I crossed the street side by side with Ononoki.

Not that we raised our hands or held them.

Uhmm.

What was going on here?

Whatever scenario Ononoki was involved in this time, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with me… In other words, anyway you sliced it, I shouldn’t get involved.

That said, parting ways just as I came to that realization would be kind of a shame. Though, true, if she were in town because of me or Shinobu, it’d be much safer to beat a hasty retreat.

“Ononoki. Just to be clear, you sure you aren’t lost?”

“You’re like a broken record. But I’ll go ahead and ask you for directions, if it’ll make you happy.”

“No need…”

“I’ll go ahead and let you buy me some ice cream, if it’ll make you happy.”

“Even less need.”

And way too transparent.

This wasn’t the big city, and there weren’t convenience stores selling ice cream on every corner.

But wasn’t there a shop just a little farther along?

Maybe they sold ice cream there?

It was summertime, after all.

“All right, I’ll buy some for you.”

“What the hell are you talking about, kind monster sir? The whole thing was obviously just a joke.”

“I’m not the sort of guy who gets jokes.”

“Nope, I can’t let you buy me Häagen-Dazs.”

“That joke, I get.”

“Chocolate Fondant, please.”

“Don’t bring up limited-time-only flavors. People are going to find out what a grueling schedule these books are written on.”

I did end up treating her to an ice cream bar.

Not that it cost enough to brag about.

They didn’t even have Häagen-Dazs.

Never mind eating it right there in the store, eating while walking is bad manners, so we sat down amidst a nearby shrubbery.

That would be just as unseemly for a lone high school student as eating while walking, but with a little girl beside you? A scene so charming, you couldn’t make it up if you tried.

Not like she was totally botching it or anything, but Ononoki was having some trouble unwrapping the ice cream, so I lent her a hand.

“By the way, kind monster sir. There’s something I want to ask before I say thank you.”

“I’d rather you just said a normal thank you, but what is it?”

“Actually, there’s something that’s been bothering me for a while… It wouldn’t be an oversight to say I called out to you because of it.”

“You mean an overstatement.”

“Did someone give you that backpack?”

With the hand that wasn’t holding her ice cream bar, Ononoki pointed at the backpack I was wearing.

Well, well. I mean, it was the perfect size for me─but too big for, say, a fifth-grade girl to wear.

In fact…

“Uh, no, it wasn’t given to me.” Careful to keep it away from the ice cream, I took off the backpack and set it down beside me. I don’t know what was in there, but it was plenty heavy. “Hachikuji left it behind.”

“Left it… Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. She’s gone, then.”

“No, not that kind of ‘left behind,’ nothing so dire. It’s not a keepsake or anything,” I explained. “She came to hang out in my room today. She’s so scatterbrained, she took off without her goddamn backpack.”

“Huh… It doesn’t suit you, kind monster sir.”

“Leave off. It’s not mine, of course it doesn’t.”

“The belt is all droopy. You look like an idiot.”

“Watch what you say.”

“Oh, sorry,” Ononoki apologized, and reconsidered her words.

That was unexpectedly straight of her.

“The belt is all droopy. People will know you’re an idiot.”

“Too unexpectedly straightforward!”

“So a big backpack is something you can forget.”

“Well… Granted, she rarely takes it off, but today she seemed tired. She even fell asleep on my bed. On my goddamn bed, okay?”

“Is that part really so important?”

“That’s when she took off the backpack and chucked it into the corner. And when she split, she just left it there. That’s why I’m out here, hot on her heels: so I can give it back.”

I’d meant to be hot on her heels, anyway, but I hadn’t so much as laid eyes on that sprightly little power walker. So really, I was just drifting along─I should have taken my bike.

To be perfectly honest, I’d pretty much given up on finding Hachikuji and was feeling pretty dispirited when Ononoki called out to me.

“But she haunts the streets, doesn’t she? Can a ghost like that really come and hang out at your house? Wow…”

“Yeah, wow. Even I have to admire how free she is.”

After the Lost Cow to-do, Hachikuji received a special two-rank promotion from place-bound ghost to wandering ghost, so even though she haunts the streets, she’s not bound to them (I think). In which case it wasn’t all that surprising.

“Wait a sec,” I said. “Rewind. You knew Hachikuji?”

“Don’t act like you don’t remember, kind monster sir. Or should I say, kind monstieur.”

“Enough with the weird nicknames. Monstieur?”

It might stick.

It was in character, so to speak.

“Brogre,” she suggested.

“Give it up already.”

“Wasn’t she right next to you the first time we met, kind monster sir?”

“Was she? Right, now that you mention it.”

“A monster-ghost duo. An extraordinarily rare sight, even for someone in my position─which is why I spoke to you that time, too. I was most definitely not lost.”

“…”

It came off as a total lie. It was hardly written on her expressionless face, but maybe she was just that bad of a liar.

Quite a contrast─with Hachikuji.

“Something left behind by a ghost, though, that’s the rarest of the rare,” remarked Ononoki. “How did she become a ghost in the first place?”

“Who knows.”

I knew, of course, but deflected the question.

That’s me, Koyomi the Deflector.

It’s not like it would have been so complicated to explain, but it involved Hachikuji’s private─no, more acutely, her identity.

Maybe it would have been fine to talk to Ononoki about it. After all, she was an aberration like Hachikuji, but on the other hand, maybe that was all the more reason to be circumspect.

“I started out human too.”

“Huh?”

I was totally caught off-guard by Ononoki’s unexpected declaration. Actually it felt more like a sudden confession than an unexpected declaration.

“Nothing to be so surprised about. You started out human, too, didn’t you? Or wait, according to sister, you’re still human.”

“Who knows? It’s a little ambiguous… But now that you mention it, it was never clear to me, Ononoki. Exactly what kind of an aberration are you?”

“That’s a tough one. I’m a shikigami, but sister made me on her own, with a lot of original components, so I─well, that being said, basically I’m a tsukumogami.”

“Tsukumogami? Like where a tool used for a hundred years develops a soul, or bears a grudge against its owner if it gets thrown away? Or have I got it wrong?”

“You’re more or less on the money,” Ononoki nodded her approval of my dimly recalled knowledge. “But I’m a human tsukumogami.”

“Come again?”

“A tsukumogami made from a human who was used for a hundred years…or perhaps I should say a corpse tsukumogami. Sister told me to keep it a secret, but oh well.”

Because if I told anyone, they’d have to die─was Ononoki’s unsettling follow-up.

Or is unsettling the wrong word?

Thanks a lot for providing me with that info.

You got a problem with me or something?

Maybe you do with Shinobu, but don’t take it out on me.

Give me back that ice cream bar.

“Um, so, Ononoki, even though you look like a kid, you’re really over a hundred years old?”

“Not a chance. I’m not some crusty old senior citizen,” Ononoki shook her head. Naturally, someone who treated Shinobu like an old hag would have some bizarre hang-ups about her own age. “This life of mine started when sister resurrected me.”

“Resurrected─?”

“Yeah, so I died once. I died, and came back. Onmyoji are well versed in the art of raising the dead, after all─and you know what, kind monster sir? Do you have any idea what the difference is between you and me? Not to mention that ghost kid, Hachikuji?”

“Difference? I mean, aren’t we completely different?”

Vampire.

Ghost (place-bound → wandering).

Shikigami.

All three could be classified under the aberration rubric, but as a category, that was like mammals…or even more vaguely, vertebrates.

The real question was, did we have anything in common?

“Of course we have something in common,” Ononoki asserted. “We were all human once.”

“Oh… I see. But if you factor it out like that, this time the differences disappear, don’t they? Me, you, Hachikuji, all three of us started out human, then died─”

“And I’m saying the way we died is different. You’re immortal. You became immortal at the moment of death. In other words, you were never strictly speaking dead.”

Immortal.

Without death.

So I don’t die.

“In other words, kind monster sir, it’s not that you and that other vampire died and came back to life. It’s more proper to say that you live on, undying.”

“Hmmm…”

Well.

Sounded like semantics to me, but maybe she was right.

“I, on the other hand, died. Really died. And I came back to life after I died. But my life, and my fate, are considerably different than they were before. In fact, I think it’s more proper to say that I was reborn.”

“Reborn.”

“Yes. I didn’t even inherit the memories of my old life─I’m a completely different being. And as for that ghost girl,” Ononoki went on, her eyes fixed on Hachikuji’s backpack, “she hasn’t come back to life─she died, and she’s still dead, no coming back. That’s what a ghost is. A ghost doesn’t go on living, it’s not reborn─if anything, I’d say it goes on in death.”

“…”

“Listen, kind monster sir. Think about what I’ve been saying, and tell me: which one of us do you think is happiest? Personally, I think all three of us are fortunate in our own ways─we’re all lucky. Most people die, and that’s it. To retain one’s consciousness after death, I’d call that good fortune.”

“…Can you really make a blanket statement like that?”

I─couldn’t answer Ononoki’s question.

I didn’t know what to say about who was happiest─and in the first place.

Can you really call that good fortune?

I don’t know.

I mean, didn’t I go through hell during spring break because of it? Didn’t Hachikuji wander lost for over ten years because of it?

And Ononoki herself─if she was asking me, I have a hard time believing she considered herself happy.

In fact…

In fact…

“Have you ever thought about why you were born?”

Since I couldn’t answer─

She just asked another question.

Not only did she not hold back.

She pressed even harder.

It almost felt like an accusation─even an interrogation, like she really did have something against me.

Why?

What was her problem with me?

“I thought about it a lot back when I was in middle school. Never found an answer, though.”

“I’ve thought about it constantly since the day I was born. Or more precisely, since the day I died? No, I’ve thought about it constantly since the day I was reborn. About how there must be some kind of meaning─and if not, how I perhaps shouldn’t be here.”

“…”

Because you’re an aberration.

Because you’re abnormal, irrational.

Every aberration has its reasons─was that something that Mèmè Oshino said?

Even if humans aren’t born for any reason, aberrations are…

“Or maybe it’s really the meaning of my death. I thought maybe you’d be able to answer me. You seemed to have some pretty badass stuff to say to sister, after all.”

“No…I don’t have an answer to that,” I said, choosing my words carefully. I said to the expressionless aberration sitting next to me eating ice cream and asking tough questions, “I don’t think Hachikuji could answer you, either. If that’s the reason you asked me how she became a ghost.”

“Of course that’s why.”

“She didn’t become a ghost because she wanted to, just like I didn’t become a vampire because I wanted to. Things simply happened as they did, that’s all.”

“Sure, same for me.”

“Not really. It sounds like in your case, it was thanks to Ms. Kagenui’s resolute intent.”

“Sister’s…”

“It didn’t simply happen… It wasn’t just the way things went, there was resolute intent. Although what her intent was, I can’t even begin to imagine… Is it really right for an immortal-hunting ghostbuster to go around raising the dead, anyway?” When she’s asked why she specializes in immortal aberrations, apparently Kagenui replies, Because there’s no such thing as going too far─(in my opinion, she did go too far even so)─and yet Ononoki, a familiar in her service, has experienced death. “Maybe raising the dead doesn’t create an immortal aberration? Feels like an arbitrary, or…convenient rationale.”

“It’s like I told you. When a dead human comes back to life, that’s very much not immortality.”

Which is why I want to know, she continued.

The reason I came back to life.

The reason I was reborn.

“Why sister─resurrected me.”

“I can’t answer that question, but I really don’t think you’d be satisfied whatever the reason, or meaning,” I said. This was a problem that didn’t have a correct solution, but at least─I could give a sincere answer. I said sincerely, “There are no satisfying answers to the big questions. Because life is just a parade of absurdities.”

Even if you haven’t become an aberration.

Regular life is preposterous enough.

Total incomprehensibility─that’s the world for you.

“Maybe,” conceded Ononoki. “It may well be that the world is absurd and preposterous. But if so, is there any reason to keep on living in such a world through death, through rebirth…besides some lingering attachment? That’s what I wonder.”

Ononoki had finished her ice cream bar─but kept chewing on the stick as if she was making sure of the flavor.

Bad manners, just like a kid.

And expressionless, as always.

But perhaps it also signified that she was getting irritated.

She added, “It feels like when a series that should have ended just keeps grinding along forever, like you’ve already watched the final episode but suddenly there’s a sequel.”

“What on earth could you be referring to…”

Why beat yourself up about it?

Why not just call it Season Two?

“I just can’t bear to watch a show go on when it seemed like it had wrapped up so nicely. Don’t you agree, kind monster sir?”

“Do I agree?”

That was a hard question to answer.

For a variety of reasons.

“If you’re asking me whether it’s better to go out on a high note or to tarnish your legacy, I’d go with the former, but maybe that’s just me. Speaking for myself, it’s not like nothing good has happened since I became a vampire.”

No.

In fact, there’ve been plenty of good things.

It terrifies me to imagine my life ending with spring break─what a lonely life that would have been.

I didn’t become close with Senjogahara or Kanbaru until after I became a vampire─and if I had died during spring break, I never would have been reunited with Sengoku.

And.

Meeting Hachikuji─

“So, what you’re saying, kind monster sir, is that Hachikuji became a ghost so she could get to know you.”

“No, it’s not like that at all… How does that figure? She had her own reasons, she got lost, lost in this world─though she already dealt with those reasons, achieved her goal, over three months ago…”

“Oh yeah? Then why is she still hanging around as a ghost? If she doesn’t have a reason, doesn’t have any lingering attachments?”

“Well…”

I really don’t know anything about that.

Seems like she herself doesn’t, either.

Or maybe it’s just an act.

“Come to think of it, my beloved class president said something… What was it, what was the occasion… That all life, not just human life, is the result of someone, or something’s, fervent desire.”

“The result of─desire.”

“Whatever it is, the feeling ‘I want that to exist’ gave birth to it─so saying you wish you hadn’t been born, or were different, misses the point entirely. Even if it’s not the result of your desire, the fact that it is there, in the way it is there, is the fulfillment of someone’s desire.” Was it over spring break? Or Golden Week? Or maybe after the culture festival? Tsubasa Hanekawa─said something like that. “A car driving along a road is there because someone wanted there to be a car─an airplane flying through the sky is there because someone wanted to fly through the sky.”

Ononoki was here because a violent onmyoji wanted her to come back to life.

Although I’d said things just happened as they did, that it was just the way they went, in that sense, I became a vampire because somebody wanted me to.

And Hachikuji─Hachikuji…

What about Hachikuji?

Even if she had been waylaid by a snail─of her own volition.

The fact that she is as she is now─whose desire─was being fulfilled─her own, in the end?

Or.

Then again.

“Reeks of hypocrisy, don’t it?”

Seemed like Ononoki wasn’t satisfied, after all. She was so unsatisfied that her speech got cruder.

Don’t say “don’t it.”

Young lady.

“I guess it’s less hypocritical than preachy. Just like something a class president would say. She should be class president for life, don’cha think?”

“Who’re you supposed to be? Go back to the way you normally talk.”

“Everything is the result of somebody’s desire─well, maybe it is. Even wars start because someone wants them to. It’s not just battle mania like with sister; someone’s profiting. Don’t you think?”

“Well… If you insist on putting it unpleasantly, then yeah, something like that.”

“Same goes for Backpack Girl.”

“Well,” I replied honestly, giving voice to what I’d been thinking, “I really don’t know. But by that logic, it must be the result of someone’s desire. Whether it’s an aberration or a ghost, nothing is born unless someone wants it to be.”

“Hmmm.”

Still sounds hypocritical, Ononoki objected.

“All right then, kind monster sir. Next time you see that girl, ask her for me. When you return her backpack, or on your next bedroom date.”

“Ask her what for you?”

“Haven’t we been over this?” Standing up, Ononoki said, “Whether she’s happy as a ghost.”

Like it was time for her close-up, she said it with a dashing look.

Still expressionless, of course.