Monogatari Series - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.07

007

After getting the middle schooler’s name and contact info (address and telephone number), we went down into town. But we didn’t have to confirm it with anyone else, or do any relevant fieldwork, or pretend we were on some cutesy program about exploring our own provincial city, to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that what the girls broke to us was true.

I’ve been living here for eighteen years, after all.

The scenery was naturally burned into my brain─and eleven years into the past, it looked like a completely different place once we were no longer up on a mountain.

That said, it’s not as though there was a specific difference I could point to.

There were, of course, concrete changes here and there: buildings unexpectedly present, or absent─in other words, if pressed I’d say that everything was different, but that wasn’t it. The air itself was different, that was how it felt. No point in harping on the differences. And I don’t mean from an ecological standpoint, air pollution or anything, I’m talking drastically, fundamentally.

Even though it was the same townscape─

The town lay before me like I had never seen it before.

It greeted us with the face of a stranger.

Greeted us as outsiders, estranged from its affairs.

Though I’d already recognized this in my heart, we visited the Araragi residence in a last vain act of hope, where verification became verity.

I never thought my house looked particularly old─but seeing it now, freshly built, I could no longer deny that it was eleven years ago.

I felt like a culprit being presented with irrefutable evidence.

Only recently, Ononoki had destroyed the front entrance with her Unlimited Rulebook, but now it lay before me looking just as it had in the good old days, before we rebuilt it, as though nothing had happened. My notion that Shinobu was lying evaporated instantly.

Although her vampiric powers included the ability to create matter, there was just no way she could create something on the scale of an entire town.

And speaking of Shinobu.

Speaking of my personal idol Miss Shinobu.

“…”

She hadn’t met my eyes or spoken a single word for quite some time.

She was like her earlier characterization.

She’d reverted.

No, back then, she used to glare at me with piercing eyes, but now even that was gone, and she just averted her gaze, weakly, awkwardly. She had a “Hey, don’t talk to me when I’m obviously this upset, you really ought not to take me to task” aura turned all the way up.

“…Gosh,” I said.

Gazing at my own home from a distance.

In the end, the bookstore didn’t even exist (it hadn’t opened yet), so I still couldn’t determine if this was type A or type B, but since I maintained my eighteen-year-old form even though it was eleven years ago, I guessed that it was a type A time warp where “the person in question is there.”

Because if it was type B, it would be odd that I hadn’t turned into a charming seven-year-old boy.

Thinking about it more carefully, I probably should have figured this out when my cell phone displayed the time from “the future” (and my clothes didn’t return to yesterday’s), but it was a bit late for that now.

That is to say, if I was too brazen, I ran the risk of encountering the counterpart of “the person in question,” in other words Koyomi Araragi, the me from this point in the time stream. It was one thing if we’d gone back to yesterday, the day before, or a few months ago, but the eighteen-year-old me and the seven-year-old me might fail to identify each other even if we met.

It also meant that I didn’t need to worry about being spotted─no matter what I did at this point in the time stream, there wouldn’t be anyone to wonder, “Huh? Two Koyomi Araragis? Which one is the copy?”

So I loitered around my neighborhood.

Pretty brazenly.

Holding hands with Shinobu.

To be clear, I was holding hands with her not as a mark of deep affection, and certainly not because I was about to try time warping through a black wall again, but so that the war criminal of a little girl couldn’t run away. While it was true that she couldn’t leave the contours of my shadow, if she sunk into its depths there was no way I could pull her out again.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Shinobu, really. For doubting you and all.”

“…”

“I was an idiot, not believing what you said. Even though I know better than anyone how amazing you are. Of course you can time warp, it would be strange if you couldn’t. Nothing is impossible for Shinobu Oshino.”

“…”

“I mean it, your actions reflect the best vampire-kind has to offer. Not that vampires have reflections, but, you know. Wow, you really did it, eleven years in the past. The fact is, I was anxious. About whether or not I’d actually be able to finish all my summer homework if we went back only a day or two, that is. To be honest, I was terrified. Could I finish thirty days’ worth of assignments in only two, even if I pulled an all-nighter? I was worried that all of your good intentions would be for naught.”

“…”

“But that’s Shinobu for you. Didn’t even need to discuss it with this old scaredy cat, you just thought it all through for me. My anxieties were an open book to you. With eleven years, I can definitely finish. Plenty of time. I can even state with certainty that I could finish eleven years’ worth of summer homework assignments. Well, that might be going too far, actually. But thank you, Shinobu. You reaaally pulled my fat out of the fire, and I’m truly grateful. Any thanks I give will be insufficient, but let me say it just once more. Thank you so much!”

I bowed my head low.

Shinobu didn’t even look up.

“By the way─” I raised my face. Wearing a furious look, I imagine. “My little friend can take me back home, yes?”

“O-O-Of course.” It was the first time I’d heard Shinobu’s voice in quite a while, and it was clearly trembling. “’Tis all going according to plan. I thought it might take thee eleven years to complete thy homework, so I took it upon myself to be considerate.”

“Eleven years? Am I that much of a slacker?”

I was too tired even to look furious anymore and just sat down on my haunches right there. You could say I was at my wits’ end.

“Hold on what are you an idiot hold on what are you an idiot hold on what are you an idiot,” I blathered, literally at my wits’ end. “If it was only a day or two, we could cope even if we couldn’t get back. I’d take full stock of the difficulties and grapple with the crisis. Assuming it was type B, of course. But eleven years? Even the currency is different. Who the hell is Soseki Natsume, anyway?”

“Thou shouldst know the illustrious name even if his portrait no longer remains on the currency. At any rate, ’tis type A, so it makes no difference.”

“Eleven years? It makes all the difference. I can’t even use my cell phone.”

Cell phones had already been developed, I think, but there was no base station way out here in the boonies─and the system was probably totally different anyway.

Let’s get real, I don’t think my cell carrier even existed eleven years ago.

“If those middle school girls hadn’t given us some of their tea, we wouldn’t even have anything to drink!”

“Thine interpersonal skills are surprisingly robust. Only when it comes to girls. I understand thy sentiment, but do not act as though ’tis my fault.”

“How is this situation anyone’s fault but yours?”

“No, no, no, harken to my words, ’tis my fault, but I am telling thee not to act as though ’tis my fault.”

“…”

What a peach.

Oh wait, I said almost the same exact thing just the other day, didn’t I? Was that influenced by our pairing?

Birds of a feather.

Though it might predate our pairing for all I know.

“Understood? Thou shalt not blame me.”

“I don’t remember going that far…”

“I shall cry. I shall cry my eyes out. Just one word of blame, and I shall be wailing at the top of my lungs that this high school boy abducted me. Heheh, and what will happen then? Thou shalt be apprehended by the police, without any means to identify thyself. An eighteen-year-old thou canst not exist eleven years ago. As a minor with no job and no fixed address, thou shalt be confined for all eternity.”

“You don’t have any means of identifying yourself, either.”

She was just as suspicious a character as I am.

And the fact that “I’ll cry” was the best threat a legendary vampire could muster made me feel like crying.

It was too depressing.

“Phew… Okay then.”

“My my, what’s this? Thou hast forgiven me? Thou art most generous. In that case, I shall deign to forgive thee as well.”

“That’s not what I meant by ‘Okay then.’ And what do you have to forgive, anyway?”

“Hmm, ’tis a fine point. Well, I shall grant thee forgiveness for what happened during spring break.”

“You can’t forgive me for that in exchange for this stupid blunder!”

She was being too blithe about it.

Spring break needed to be left as is.

Even if things feel totally chill between us.

You’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

Got to take it seriously.

“Actually, this could be a valuable experience,” I said. “A one- or two-day time slip wouldn’t feel like the real deal, but coming back this far, now this is interesting. I might just have to forget about my summer homework, but it’s not so bad to immerse ourselves in the world of eleven years ago.”

“’Tis kind of thee to say so.”

“Assuming we can go back.”

Spending the rest of my life in this time would be more than unpleasant, it’d be…impossible?

Mission Impossible?

“Unfortunately, I don’t think those middle school girls will just go on taking care of all my needs.”

“To hear thee consider such an outrageous possibility affords a glimpse of the depths to which thy humanity has sunk.”

“When we get back to the present, how old do you think those girls will be? I wonder if they’ll remember me.”

“Mayhap.”

Be that as it may, Shinobu said.

While she seemed sincerely downhearted about her big blunder (so much so that I might not be able to start calling her Shinobu the Blunderer), she seemed to have recovered somewhat from the initial shock.

Her recovery was surprisingly quick.

Though it might’ve been for show.

“Speaking in earnest, I…believe that I can return us to the present?”

“Yeah?”

“Allow me to explain it step by step, beginning with Kita-Shirahebi Shrine. I made use of that place’s spiritual energy to bring us hither, but ’twas by reason of my arrival that such energy had accumulated in that ‘hangout’ for aberrations in the first place, as ye know.”

“Right, I remember.”

To review: because she, the king of aberrations, had come to this town, “bad things” were drawn to that place as if to a magnet─and if Oshino hadn’t noticed, a Great Yokai War might have broken out.

But that was another story.

Since Shinobu wasn’t arriving in this town for another eleven years (she was likely somewhere overseas, wandering around looking for a suitable place to die), Kita-Shirahebi wasn’t a hangout for aberrations or anything else, it was just one more moldering shrine─

“So it’s impossible, then. We can’t go back.”

“Jump not to such conclusions. Verily ’tis impossible to pursue the course of employing its spiritual store, but that merely dictates that I must needs draw on my own internal energy.”

“Internal energy… But you’ve lost almost all of your vampire power, so that energy doesn’t amount to much, does it?”

“’Twill be fine if thou canst but allow me a taste of thy blood. If thou so doest, I may open a gate with my own strength, and we may return the eleven years to the future.”

“Oh…”

I see.

So that was the plan.

“To travel into the past would be difficult even at the height of my powers, but even without my full strength I should be able to return to the future. If ’tis too trying to jump eleven years at a go, we may hop three years at a time and rest in between. Feel free to praise and admire me. A kiss of gratitude is also acceptable, if thou art so inclined.”

Shinobu closed her eyes and protruded her lips.

Going full tilt on the nymphomaniac highway.

“By the way, my lord, people toss off a word like ‘nymphomaniac’ as though ’twere nothing, but pondering the term and its implications leads me to fear for its continued use. Might it not get censored?”

“I’d like to joke that you will be, long before the word is, but your point is well taken. Though honestly, I don’t really want to get into it…”

It’s a wonder that Lolita is still widely available.

Masterpiece or not.

“Ah!”

“What, my lord?”

“I just realized something. Now, I mean eleven years before the present, the regulations were more relaxed. So if we go to the bookstore, I can get my hands on all the classic masterpieces that are hard to come by these days!”

That large bookstore didn’t exist yet and we needed to go a little farther afield, but the valuable lineup of titles was worth it.

“Ha! Classic masterpieces? Surely ’twill simply be pedo smut that ye purchase in this era of lax regulation.”

“Nope, nope!”

“Were this period’s boys’ magazines permitted to show tits?”

“Stop steering the conversation in that direction!”

Regulations aside, I would have no problem getting my hands on valuable out-of-print manga.

And the font in mass-market paperbacks won’t be so large that they’re hard to read!

And the font in mass-market paperbacks won’t be so large that they’re hard to read!

And the font in mass-market paperbacks won’t be so large that they’re hard to read!

And the font in mass-market paperbacks won’t be so large that they’re hard to read!

…There, I ended up repeating it four times for emphasis.

In any case, knowing that we could get back opened up all kinds of possibilities.

Should I buy stock?

Get rich?

If I bought stock in IT companies now, before the computer bubble, wouldn’t their value go through the roof?

Ahh, no good, I didn’t have any cash on me.

More than that, it was shameful for me to be dwelling on financial gain.

Got to be better than that.

“Well, whatever we do, since we’re here, we might as well have a little fun for a couple of days before we go back. What do you think, Shinobu?”

“If it works for thee, it works for me…but does it work for thy summer homework?”

“Frankly, now that I understand that the risk is so great, jumping back eleven years when we just wanted to go back a day, I don’t care anymore. I give up. Let’s put it on hold for now, and if we get back to our time safely, I’ll think about it then.”

“Hmph. Giving up? ’Tis more like thou art shelving the problem, but I suppose that’s only… Huh?”

When Shinobu trailed off in midsentence, I followed her gaze, wondering what was wrong─and saw that she was staring directly at the gates of the Araragi residence, where a little child was standing.

I take back what I said before. I take it all back, every scrap of it.

I identified him all right. It was plenty possible. Even at seven years old. Even eleven years in the past.

They say you know yourself better than anyone does─and the child standing there was Koyomi Araragi.

“Whoaaaa! Super adorable! Might I pounce on him from behind and give him a big hug?!”

“Go ahead and get yourself arrested already.”

Turns out that even in this era she was a dangerous little girl, liable to be censored at any moment.

Whose influence could it be?