by Nisioisin
“Aren’t you being a little hasty? Or do you just have that much confidence in yourself? If something goes wrong today then the whole thing has gone wrong. You can’t possibly think you’ve already succeeded?”
“I can.”
Running the simulation in my head one more time, I felt even more confident than before that convincing Nadeko Sengoku would be a piece of cake. I wasn’t letting my guard down, and I guess I was kind of tense, but there was no need to tell Senjogahara.
“Don’t worry. By the time you get home from school, everything will be taken care of.”
“I see… Well then.” I assumed that meant she was about to hang up, but Senjogahara kept on talking. “Saying this after you’ve succeeded, after you’ve saved me, would be nasty, so I’m going to say it now, if you don’t mind.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t start feeling too good about yourself just because you’ve saved my life.”
“…”
“I mean, of course I’ll be grateful, of course I’ll thank you, and if you change your mind and want more money, I’ll pay. I’ll do whatever you say. I just don’t want you to think that this means I’ve forgotten about what you did to me. Because I’ll hold it against you for the rest of my life. I’ll always detest you. And h-hate you.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded, but only ambiguously. Why was she stating the obvious? Was it really something that needed to be said for the record?
I didn’t get her.
At all.
Though upon reflection, she’d been this way ever since I’d known her.
“And the promise is still in effect,” she reminded. “When this is over, you’ll never set foot in this town again. Don’t ever let me, Araragi or me, see your face again.”
“Sure, I’ve never broken a promise,” I maintained.
To which Senjogahara replied tonelessly, “That’s right, isn’t it. You’ve never once lied to me, not now, not ever.”
034
I hung up, then checked out of the hotel and walked outside. My luggage had proliferated considerably as I went about my business, what with the notebooks and changes of clothes, so checking out empty-handed wasn’t an option. I left pulling along behind me a rolling suitcase I had acquired.
There was no way I was going to drag the damn thing up that mountain, though, so I left it in a coin locker at the station. Or maybe coin locker is an outdated term─since I locked it using the chip in my cell phone.
Either way, since I was going to dispose of almost everything in the suitcase after the job was done, I probably could have gotten rid of it all right then, suitcase and all, but you never know what life is going to throw at you.
The teachers at school always used to say, “You’re still on the field trip until you get home,” which is more than just cautious and a little pathological, but there’s something to it.
And so I took one other precaution before going to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine that day─like I said, you never know what life is going to throw at you. And boy was I right about that.
After I put the suitcase in the locker and got on the train to that town─I’d missed rush hour, so it was empty─during that very trip, a little girl sat down next to me.
It was the shikigami Yotsugi Ononoki.
“Yaaay,” she’d said, flashing a sideways peace sign.
Expressionless as ever.
“What now?” I asked, facing straight ahead without so much as a glance at the girl beside me. “I thought Gaen-senpai disowned me.”
“Well, it was only ever Ms. Gaen who cut ties with you, not me. You’ll always be Big Brother Kaiki to me, nothing can change that.”
“Change it, already.” Call me Kaiki.
Okay, okay, she said, then went on impassively─exceedingly, and extremely, impassively─“But, so, you really do intend to defy Ms. Gaen. I thought, and hoped, that you’d change your mind at the last minute…”
“Are you sure Gaen-senpai didn’t send you?”
“Hunh? Definitely not. I’m just going to play with Le Monstieur.”
“…”
Was that another nickname for Koyomi Araragi? Not bad at all, for Ononoki.
“He always pampers me. Anyway, it’s just a coincidence that I happen to be sitting next to you like this, Kaiki.”
“Hell of a coincidence. The world’s a funny place.”
“Yup. It’s funny all right. Downright hilarious.”
I mulled things over.
Ordinarily, I’d suspect that she’d been ordered to come and issue a final warning, by Kagenui maybe, if not Gaen-senpai.
But maybe it was a coincidence.
Under any other circumstances I’d never believe it in a million years, but just this once I did.
Alternately, perhaps Ononoki, the corpse tsukumogami who supposedly had no will of her own to speak of, had come to warn me for her own reasons.
Which was impossible, but also, why not.
“Three million yen. Doesn’t amount to much in return for defying Ms. Gaen, I have to say… It’s going to get harder for you in the biz, Kaiki, even if that’s not what Ms. Gaen intended.”
“Life isn’t a free ride. I’ve often thought that my life is cheap, but a free ride, never.”
“…”
“Even Gaen-senpai has enemies─I’ll work my magic on them and ride things out for a while.”
“Is someone else’s girlfriend that important to you?” An odd thing to say─I guess hanging out with the wrong crowd warps your personality. “Someone else’s girlfriend─and your former woman?”
“Seems like you’ve got the wrong impression. Not that I care to correct you.”
Best to let people’s misunderstandings be. An aberration’s too, for that matter.
Ononoki, wrongheaded as she was, ran with her misunderstanding. “It’s not like you, Kaiki. No good can come of doing things that aren’t like you. It’s not like you haven’t made the same mistake before.”
“…”
“Oh, but maybe it’s not so unlike you after all─two years ago, was it? You bankrupted a pretty large-scale religious organization with your scams.”
“…”
“I remember because I was made to help, if only indirectly. Wasn’t that for Senjogahara’s sake, too? Her mother had fallen for a shady religion, or rather it had entrapped her mother, and you put them out of business even though you didn’t get much money out of it. For that girl’s sake, yes? Though in the end, her mother just transferred her allegiance to another group one step up the ladder, and nothing actually got solved.”
“Don’t go getting any funny ideas… It just happened to come to my attention in the middle of a job that this religious organization was trying to take a cut of my earnings, so I did what I had to do. But it’s true that I didn’t get much money out of it, and you can think whatever you like. It doesn’t do me any harm to be thought of as a good guy. As a business venture, the whole thing was a bust.”
“And is this time going to be any different? That’s what Ms. Gaen’s really worried about. Not some no-name town she has no ties to─it’s you that she’s concerned about. You doing something else that’s not like you.”
“I don’t care for such a patronizing attitude, not from such a patron.”
“You tore apart the Senjogahara household─and backed her parents into a corner from which divorce was the only way out─because nothing else was going to work, right? You judged that their only daughter would have no future if you didn’t cut her mother off from the family.”
“Uh huh, that’s right. That’s exactly right, I was actually a stand-up guy. A real sweetheart, just looking out for a kid. I was only putting on a show of being nefarious. You’ve got all the details, don’t you? You’re really well informed. But don’t tell anyone, okay, it’s embarrassing.”
“That was a bust too… You didn’t understand a daughter’s feeling for her mother.”
“You’re right, you�
�re riiight, I really didn’t get it back then, did I? Gotta be careful not to make the same mistake again. Well, life goes on, I’m going to try to do better.”
“Is that the sort of guy you are?”
“Yup. I’m that sort of guy.”
“Maybe you just don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Does anyone know what the hell they’re doing? Do you even know why you’re talking to me and telling me this?”
“You’ve got a very high probability of success. It should be a snap for you to dupe Nadeko Sengoku. Generally speaking. But─you always fail in these instances. You always have failed.”
“…”
“At least Ms. Gaen seems to think so…and that’s all I have to say.”
“I see,” I replied curtly. I didn’t have much of a reaction, didn’t tell her what I thought of that.
I spent the rest of the train ride listening to her talk about Kagenui’s recent exploits─sounded like she was the same as ever. Marching to the beat of her own drum, same as ever.
035
The first time I met Hitagi Senjogahara─two years ago, in other words─I thought to myself, What a fragile-seeming kid.
Of course, back then Senjogahara was afflicted with her mysterious ailment, which is why her devout mother had summoned me, flying the flag of the ghostbuster as I was. But even without the ailment business, I thought she seemed “fragile.”
That impression hadn’t changed.
Fragile.
Even now that her ailment had been cured, even though she had a boyfriend, even though she had turned over a new leaf─she seemed “fragile.” If Nadeko Sengoku was a “broken” girl, Hitagi Senjogahara was a “breakable” girl.
Fragile, on the edge of fragmentation.
Which is exactly why her current self was a miracle. A mysterious ailment followed by a miraculous achievement─for someone who seemed so breakable to make it so far without ever breaking, not two years ago, not now, for eighteen years─
The mother broke.
But the daughter didn’t─whatever the future might bring, at least right then, at that moment, she would not break.
Because I was going to hoodwink Nadeko Sengoku.
“Here’s Nadeko!”
As I inserted a 10,000-yen bill into the offertory box, Nadeko Sengoku made the same entrance she’d made every day for the last month─at this point I was tired of her funny pose, a little fed up with it.
At the same time, when I thought that I’d never see her again, I felt strangely wistful.
No, hang on. Although I did go and check out of the hotel, since I’d told her it would be a hundred-day pilgrimage, shouldn’t I actually visit for another seventy days? If I pulled an Irish Goodbye right after feeding my lie to her, the perceived reliability of the info might plummet.
Hmm…maybe not another seventy days, but how about thirty─whoa, whoa, whoa.
As if I was really reluctant to say goodbye to Nadeko Sengoku. As if I’m the type who doesn’t know when to pull out, to bow out…
Definitely best to call it quits today.
Sure, it might be better to keep visiting, but the more contact we had, the more likely that my lie would be exposed. And once she heard the shocking news that her “beloved Big Brother Koyomi” had died before she could lift a finger, I’d immediately become irrelevant, no doubt.
“Wow! Ten thousand yen, ten thousand yen!”
“…”
I was somewhat tired of Nadeko Sengoku’s eccentric behavior, but she evidently wasn’t tired of a 10,000-yen offering, and rejoiced as always.
Well, loving money is good and honest.
At that point, though, the total was over three hundred thousand yen, so she was quite an expensive woman─
I couldn’t just get down to business right away, so I spent a while playing at cat’s cradle and feeding her saké as usual.
Then, just as I was looking for an opening, Nadeko Sengoku struck: “Oh yeah! Mister Kaiki!” The bridge shape I’d been making with the string in my hands collapsed, but Nadeko Sengoku plunged ahead without even noticing. “It’s about time, let’s hear it!”
I had no idea what she had in mind─a new cat’s cradle technique? I’d shown her all the ones I knew, that well had run dry…
But that wasn’t what Nadeko Sengoku was talking about.
What she was talking about, what she was demanding to hear, was my dear wish, for which I was willing to perform a hundred-day pilgrimage.
“Right…my wish.”
“Yeah! It seems like Nadeko’s just getting a bunch of money, and that’s not fair! Nadeko only just became a god, so who knows if I can grant your wish, but come on, Mister Kaiki, at least say what it is!”
“…”
Ouch. I’d forgotten about it. I hadn’t even thought about it─having put it off for so long, not intending to complete the pilgrimage in the first place, I was stumped. Did I say something about commercial prosperity? I never should have. There was no way I could tell her the particulars of my business.
I felt like she’d found the chink in my armor─what to do?
Still empty of ideas, I said, “The thing about wishes is that they can’t come true if you share them with someone,” just to keep the conversation going. Inside, I was working feverishly to find a way to weasel out of my plight, though I’m sure I displayed no outward change.
“Huh?” Nadeko Sengoku cocked her head. “What d’you mean?”
“You’ll be the one to decide how things are done here from now on, but─in the case of New Year’s shrine visits, for example, your wish is something you don’t tell anybody. If you do, it can’t come true.”
“Why won’t your wish come true if you tell it to somebody?”
“Because words can’t be trusted.” I bet there’s a more pious explanation, but I decided to go with my pet theory─unprepared as I’d been for Nadeko Sengoku’s surprise attack, I’d use it as an opportunity to get down to the real reason for my visit. “The second you say it out loud to someone, it deviates from your true feelings. All words are lies, it’s all a scam. No matter how true, the moment you utter it, it becomes embellished. Words are only representations, so impurities find their way in. If you want to make a wish, to make it exactly as it is, you absolutely mustn’t say it out loud.”
“Okay, but,” she asked confusedly, “how can Nadeko grant your wish without knowing what it is? Plus, Nadeko’s talked out loud about her wishes a whole lot.”
Got her. I’d been afraid she might miss the point I was nudging her towards, but apparently she was at least that clever. Maybe she was smarter than a ladybug, after all.
“Nadeko’s been talking all along─about killing Big Brother Koyomi, and that person who’s his sweetheart, and the one who’s his slave.”
“Yes, you have. Which is why…” I mustered all the artistry and embellishment at my command to speak the false, empty words I’d prepared for her. “That wish won’t be granted. You talked so much about it, it can no longer come true.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about today. That’s what I’ve come to tell you. The people you want to kill, Koyomi Araragi, and Hitagi Senjogahara, and Shinobu Oshino─they all died last night in a car accident.”
Nadeko Sengoku’s eyes widened in surprise.
The eyes of the hundred thousand snakes on her head also widened─then.
With an enchanted smile, she said, “You, too, Mister Kaiki? You’d trick ‘me.’”
036
I had done an impeccable job. That, at least, I can say with confidence. I’d climbed the perilous mountain path to that shrine every day for a full month, gingerly laying the groundwork for today.
But Nadeko Sengoku saw right through my lie, which meant she’d never trusted me in the first place, not even a tiny bit.
She hadn’t believed in me.
She hadn’t been suspicious, but she hadn’t believed in me.
&
nbsp; So I hadn’t deceived her at all─in a sense, you could say that she was the one who’d fooled me.
Intellectually speaking, in terms of smarts, duping Nadeko Sengoku should have been a piece of cake. Comparing her to a ladybug might be going too far, but pulling one over on her should have been easy, for a con artist.
But it wasn’t. I ought to have given more weight to the emotional side of things─I hadn’t intended to take it lightly by any means, but nevertheless, I hadn’t realized just how closed off the girl’s heart really was.