Koimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “Yeah… I bet you’ll succeed─for someone of your wit, Kaiki, or actually, for anyone, duping her should be a piece of cake.”

  A piece of cake.

  It was almost as if she’d been listening to my conversation with Senjogahara the night before. Maybe it was via Gaen-senpai.

  “But the risks if you fail are too great. Right now, Nadeko Sengoku has the divine might to wipe out something on the order of that town like it’s nothing. When she realizes you’ve tricked her and throws a temper tantrum…we’re not talking about just one or two victims.”

  “Temper tantrum… She’s not a kid,” I started to say, then shut my mouth.

  She was a kid.

  And one who was immature for her age, what you might call a “babified” child.

  “Even if the chance of success is nine out of ten, no one would risk it if number ten was a nuclear bomb, right? Gambling isn’t about your winning percentage, it’s about considering the risks and rolling the dice.”

  “Don’t try to explain gambling to me.”

  “You’re right,” Ononoki nodded in a rare moment of ready acquiescence. “Still, maybe Big Brother Oshino’s already got the whole stirring up placid situations and nosing around in things best left alone angle covered.”

  “…”

  She was comparing me to Oshino?

  That was the biggest insult imaginable.

  At the same time, if it were Oshino here instead of me─if Senjogahara had succeeded in finding him and asking him for help, surely Gaen-senpai wouldn’t be interfering like this. The thought made me feel abashed.

  Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, no mistake about that.

  “Then… Has Gaen-senpai been to that town, too? It certainly sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.”

  “I mean, spoiler alert, but it’s Ms. Gaen who’s been working hard to get that town back on track─though it’s news to me, too, and I don’t know the whole story.”

  “Back on track?”

  It wasn’t─back on track at all.

  With Nadeko Sengoku the way she was, and Senjogahara and Araragi’s lives at stake, how the hell─no, wait.

  Sure, on a micro level the town was massively out of whack, but when you really thought about it, with the advent of a deity at that air pocket of a shrine, maybe things were very much “back on track,” spiritually speaking.

  Was I getting in the way of that rectification?

  By meddling with Nadeko Sengoku?

  “I’m…confused,” I admitted. “Are you saying it was Gaen-senpai who set Nadeko Sengoku up as a god? That she’s pulling the strings─”

  “Well, not quite… Originally, a human being becoming a god wasn’t part of the plan. Ms. Gaen’s scheme seemed to be to turn that crusty old senior citizen…um, what’s her name, the former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, into a god.”

  “…?”

  Now I was even more confused. Gaen-senpai had tried to set up Koyomi Araragi’s loli slave as a god─to what end?

  What was it that hadn’t happened?

  “That vampire used to be revered as a god, so I guess she seemed right for the job, but something went wrong─apparently, someone intervened for some reason, and the position went to Nadeko Sengoku…”

  “Hmm.”

  Well, I’d had a hard time believing that some teenage puppy love was directly responsible for the birth of a god, even if I’d laid the foundation for it myself, but was I getting a glimpse of the real scene here? Or the behind-the-scenes─

  “It was the former Kissshot’s fault that the town got spiritually screwed up in the first place. I think Ms. Gaen just wanted to make her take responsibility…”

  “You say someone intervened, but who’s this someone? Gaen-senpai being who she is, she must have already figured that out.”

  “I think so, yeah. That is, I think she knows. But she didn’t tell me that much. I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t some sort of secret society.”

  “Oh, think whatever you like.”

  Nothing to be gained by playing it straight with this shikigami, so I left it at that. Gaen-senpai must have given her only the minimum amount of information, or not even the minimum.

  Maybe the aim here was to make me waste my energy milking Ononoki for info─though trying to work out what Gaen-senpai was thinking was itself a Sisyphean task.

  “The current situation is very much not what Ms. Gaen had in mind─still, however, she says the situation isn’t all that bad. Y─”

  Ononoki started to say something else but stopped herself. Probably yaaay. So she did have some capacity to learn.

  “─aaay.”

  Or not. The brakes had failed, it seemed, and the rest made it out. She narrowly managed to lower the scissor-fingered hand she had started to raise, though.

  I wondered if, as a man, I should knock the little girl on her ass like I’d warned, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed that it was involuntary, like a hiccup.

  It’s worth pretending to be generous sometimes.

  “So someone had to become a god in that spiritually screwed-up town, and anyone would do?”

  Senjogahara’s mysterious ailment dated back more than two years, so I found it difficult to lay the blame solely on Araragi’s loli slave’s shoulders─but that vampire was definitely responsible for my curse actually “manifesting” in Nadeko Sengoku’s body.

  Not that I didn’t also bear some of the responsibility.

  “Yup,” confirmed Ononoki. “Seems like Ms. Gaen came to that conclusion after Sis and I went there…but I don’t know the particulars. If you’re really desperate to know, ask Ms. Gaen or Sis directly.”

  “Neither of those options appeals to me.”

  “I feel you. Peons like us don’t need to know the details,” remarked Ononoki─lumping me in with her as a peon was hard to excuse, but I guess that’s how it seemed from her standpoint.

  Me, Yozuru Kagenui, Yotsugi Ononoki, we were all peons to Gaen-senpai─not a single person with any connection to Izuko Gaen was more than a “peon” in her eyes. She seemed friendly, but was magnificently dominant. If there was one exception, maybe it was Mèmè Oshino, whose whereabouts were currently unknown.

  “Anyway, she says to withdraw. My orders were simply to relay that message to you. So now, your own orders are simply to withdraw.”

  “Didn’t I already tell you? I refuse. If you can’t get that message to her, that’s fine. It’s not like this is a job interview, no need to go to the trouble of contacting her to inform her that I decline.”

  “I just remembered one other part of the message,” Ononoki said after finally finishing off the chocolate chunk scone. Maybe the sugar circulating in her brain had jogged her memory. “Should you fail to withdraw, you are no longer my junior, and I am no longer your senior.”

  “…”

  I had been told to “withdraw” many times in the past, and on those occasions, had sometimes withdrawn and sometimes hadn’t, but the message had never been presented in such a threatening manner.

  I even felt slightly betrayed to discover that she was the kind of person who’d say such a thing─foolishly, shamefully, even though I talk about how all-important doubt and suspicion are, somewhere deep down, in the heart that must be somewhere inside me, I’d trusted Gaen-senpai.

  I thought she wasn’t the kind of person who went to any lengths to push her agenda, and that whatever she might say, she respected personal freedom─and yet.

  There was a lesson to take home from this.

  But what was it?

  “What’ll you do, Big Brother Kaiki?”

  Ononoki addressed me thusly again─but it seemed less like a slip of the tongue due to my injunction slipping her mind than her own way of being considerate, a concession, or something like that. Or was she giving me, contrarian that I am, a nudge in the right direction so I wouldn’t make the wrong decision?

  A reminder, making certain I understo
od that I belonged to their side.

  I considered it. I had already considered it, but this time I considered it more deeply. I recalled Senjogahara’s face from the night before, puffy from crying, and recalled her words of gratitude, directed at none other than me.

  Then I considered my relationship with Gaen-senpai, and my stake in all this.

  I recalled the figure that had been indicated, three million yen.

  “Ononoki,” I said. This time it didn’t take thirty minutes. “Sure, I’ll withdraw.”

  023

  Naturally I had no intention of withdrawing, and after taking the three million from Ononoki, I headed directly to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine.

  Right off the bat, the money covered the costs of securing the attentions of my hostess, I mean the deity─the alms required to draw her out of the shrine. I was happy not to have to worry about my Sengoku Pilgrimage anymore. At 10,000 yen a day, I could make three hundred visits. Even if I went to the shrine every day until graduation, more than half the money would be left over.

  And I was ecstatic to have all my travel and accommodation expenses taken care of. True, the price was making an enemy of Gaen-senpai, but upon consideration she was already something of an enemy, so in fact I was somewhat relieved that the onerous cord was finally cut. Getting a severance package to boot? Hip hip hooray. Were things going a little too well for me?

  I felt like a new man as I ascended the mountain and worshipped at the shrine─and by “worshipped” I mean put a 10,000-yen note into the offertory box.

  “Here’s Nadeko!” The serpent god appeared in exactly the same way she had the day before. It reminded me of a piggy bank they used to sell at Tokyu Hands. “Ah, Mister Kaiki! You came!” she greeted.

  “Well, I am your very first believer, after all.” I’d taken a shine to the ridiculous turn of phrase and was keeping it going for a second day. Nadeko Sengoku looked pleased (how starved was she for believers?), but at the same time I felt like it hadn’t quite done the trick, so I added, “The truth is there’s something I want desperately, so I’ve decided to make a hundred-day pilgrimage to this shrine. I’ll come every day until my wish is granted.”

  “A hundred-day pilgrimage, huh? Nadeko…might’ve done one of those before…or not?”

  She cocked her head along with the vague pronouncement. Probably it wasn’t that her memory was vague; it just didn’t matter to her. Maybe she’d made an attempt but hadn’t had the will to keep it up.

  “So, what’s your wish, Mister Kaiki? Is it something Nadeko can grant for you?”

  “Ah, it’s a little hard to sum up.”

  She was so lacking in majesty that I lost track of the fact that she was supposed to be the object of my pilgrimage, but if I was going to make a hundred-day commitment, sooner or later I needed to tell her what my as-yet-nonexistent wish was.

  It seemed that for the first time in my life (or maybe not, but anyway, for the first time I could recall), I’d be praying to a god.

  “Hard to sum up? Like romantic stuff? That kind of thing?” She was probably conflating my wish with what she was dealing with─or had dealt with. “At your age, Mister Kaiki, does it mean you’re hoping to get married?”

  “Not a chance.” I could feel my tone getting overly serious. I had to wonder why I was being so vehement about it but couldn’t stop myself from continuing, “Have you ever played a game called Dragon Quest?”

  “Hm? Played, no, but Nadeko’s heard of it.”

  “Then maybe you’ll understand. It’s an RPG where you save up gold pieces on your way to beating a demon lord.”

  “Okay…”

  “But if you get killed by a monster, you lose half the gold you worked so hard to save up.”

  “Right, right.”

  “When you get married, the same thing happens,” I said, giving her a significant look. “So marriage is the same as death.”

  “Um…” Nadeko Sengoku smiled in seeming perplexity. Maybe she really was perplexed. “Th-Then, how about marrying someone who’s richer than you?”

  “You don’t get it, do you? I don’t want to lose any of my own money. It’s not about gaining more from the other person than I would lose.” My voice was taking on a fevered tone, so regaining some of my composure, I wrapped things up: “Anyway, I’m not interested in getting married. It’s impossible to sum up in a few words, like I said.” Forget summing it up, I could expend every word at my disposal and still not be able to convey a wish that didn’t exist yet… “If I have to, though, let’s say commercial prosperity.”

  “Co-mersh-ul-pro-sper-uh-tee,” Nadeko Sengoku repeated my words back to me as though she was struggling with the spelling. That’d be one thing, but if she didn’t know what the words meant, we were in real trouble. “Um, what’s your job then, Mister Kaiki?” she asked.

  “That’s also a little hard to sum up.”

  Actually it was easy. All you needed was one word: swindler. But telling her that would ruin my plan. She may have forgotten the name Deishu Kaiki, but I was pretty sure she remembered falling victim to a “charm” because of a swindler.

  Maybe she’d forgotten, but putting it to the test was too dangerous.

  “I’ll be making one hundred visits─ninety-eight more, to be precise. So there’s no hurry, I’ll explain it little by little.”

  “…Okay! Sounds good!”

  Even Nadeko Sengoku seemed to find this a little suspicious, but apparently the prospect of ninety-eight more visits won out, and she was all smiles.

  Was she the type where a negative emotion gets erased as soon as a positive emotion comes along? I envy how simple life must be for such a person. Well, she was no longer a person, and as a human, she must have been much more negative.

  But─now.

  Now, at last.

  “Tell me about yourself, Mister Kaiki, a little bit at a time! Nadeko will listen! Because that’s what gods do!”

  “…”

  She could quit harping on the god thing.

  Maybe she was just excited because she was new at it─or was it not being human anymore that excited her, that she wanted to emphasize?

  Either was fine by me, but both surpassed my comprehension. Fortunately, I didn’t have to get it.

  “Okay, for today just teach Nadeko some more cat’s cradle! Like you promised! Nadeko pretty much mastered all the tricks from yesterday!”

  Nadeko Sengoku came down from the main hall, leapt over the offertory box in a single bound, and landed beside me. Quite the athlete─and tomboy.

  Had she been like that as a human being?

  Leaping over the offertory box, a receptacle for cash, was nothing short of blasphemous. Then again, she’d removed the 10,000-yen note I had tossed in there, and if it was empty, it was probably the god’s prerogative to jump over it or do anything else she damn well pleased.

  “Right, cat’s cradle,” I nodded, inwardly preening. My practice had made perfect. I could reproduce all these moves flawlessly in my mind. The book itself, I had (hidden but ultimately) given to that shikigami girl as a present (I hadn’t yet memorized the whole thing but was feeling generous). The evidence was gone. There was no danger that my pretense would come to light.

  “Sure. Get out the cat’s cradle I gave you yesterday.” By which I meant the impromptu loop of string I’d made.

  “Oh, that? Nadeko played with it so much it broke,” Nadeko Sengoku reported, without a moment’s hesitation, the overnight destruction of my gift. I wasn’t even sure where the piece of string had come from, so it wouldn’t be very mature of me to get mad─but what to do?

  If only I’d stopped somewhere and bought a proper cat’s cradle, but I’d come straight to the shrine from Starbucks. Not that I knew how a proper one would be better.

  “So Nadeko’s been practicing with this instead!” she said, producing a loop of string. She made a new one with some string that was lying around? Great, then there’s no problem─I thought, but there was a big pro
blem. The loop Sengoku produced wasn’t made of just any piece of string, but from a white snake presumably plucked from her own head.

  The slender serpent was holding its own tail in its mouth like a mini-ouroboros. And Nadeko Sengoku was handing this horrifying cat’s cradle to me with a big smile on her face.

  “’Kay, Mister Kaiki! Do it, do it!”

  “…”

  I felt an urgent need to re-program my mental simulator. I was ashamed at my own lack of foresight for coming this far without ever expecting to perform cat’s cradle with a snake, and I needed to adjust my understanding of Nadeko Sengoku.