by Nisioisin
“As Mister Oshino said, it’s Goethe’s masterpiece, and…well, to mention a simple characteristic, it’s a story split into two parts. Urfaust and Faust, a Fragment led to Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two. It’s a massive accomplishment that took him over sixty years to complete. I can only bow to it. Goethe is also famous for The Sorrows of Young Werther and Elective Affinities, but if we were to pick a single work he put his whole body and soul into, the unanimous answer would be Faust. The protagonist, Doctor Faust, sells his soul to a devil, Mephistopheles, in order to gain all knowledge─and that ought to do for an introduction. I won’t go into details because I don’t want to spoil it, but Part One is about his romance with the commoner Gretchen, while Part Two depicts the establishment of an ideal nation. It’s generally read as a sort of philosophy or, I should say, a narrative about the pursuit of knowledge. I’m sure you’re aware, but it even gave rise to the expression ‘Faustian impulse,’ which describes the drive, the intellectual desire to know and experience everything.”
“……”
Why in the world did this jock junior of mine think that her senior who hadn’t heard of Faust knew of any “Faustian impulse”?
Oshino took it from there. “The heart of the story is that he sells his soul to the devil─Doctor Faust tries to fulfill his namesake impulse by having his wish granted that way… Of course, if you want to learn what happens in the end, Araragi, I recommend that you head to your nearest bookstore. But yeah, that’s what it is. Missy’s explanation is what you’d consider common knowledge, so if you know that much, it makes my job easier. I’m impressed that she was able to give such an eloquent speech about it despite not having read the book. If there’s anything I should add, it’s a bit that surprisingly few people know about─you’d find it in any commentary about Goethe, of course, but people these days don’t read the classics. I’m not talking about you, missy, but people think there’s no reason to go through and actually read a famous story when they feel like they already have. So yes, you can’t blame people for not knowing, but the Faust story is based on a real person.”
“What? Really?” Kanbaru sounded surprised.
As her Faust-ignorant senior, I didn’t even know why that should be surprising.
“Johann Faust. It’s said he lived during the Renaissance period… While I say he was real, there are different theories about that, but stories about him ended up turning into folklore. A wandering physician or magician who, yes, sells his soul to the devil Mephistopheles, and in exchange for all kinds of knowledge and experience, promises to act as an enemy of Christians, for twenty-four years he lives according to those ‘Faustian impulses’─and the moment the contract expires, he meets a sad end. Look it up yourself, you can find the details in Doctor Faustus.”
“Huh…I didn’t know.”
Kanbaru sounded impressed by Oshino’s trivia. Putting aside Faust, the story did have to do with folklore, his field of expertise, so this level of erudition was nothing new, but at this rate was she going to start flattering him, too? In fact, I didn’t understand Kanbaru’s standards for that. It wasn’t like she indiscriminately bombarded everyone she met with praise…
“I was convinced Goethe had come up with the whole thing himself,” she said. “But he’d based the thing on local legends.”
“Well, he arranged a lot of the story in his own way, so at the end of the day, it’s the Goethe edition of Doctor Faust. It’s similar to Dazai’s ‘Run, Melos!’ or Akutagawa’s ‘Rashomon.’ The medieval folktale and Akutagawa’s version feel pretty different, don’t they? Same deal. The Faust legend has been turned into stories by lots of other people, too. A famous instance would be the English author Marlowe. Do you know Marlowe? Not Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe. Christopher Marlowe. He’s often spoken of as a forerunner of Shakespeare, but he did write Doctor Faustus.”
“It’s kind of interesting that it was Faust who was the doctor,” Kanbaru noted, a bit of bashfulness sneaking into her voice.
Huh, Oshino tilted his head in puzzlement, and I could tell that the reason for her bashfulness was lost on him.
“But…Oshino,” I attempted to wade into their exchange, afraid that we were getting off track, though I still didn’t know much about Faust. “So what? I don’t mind that you’re as frustratingly longwinded as ever, but I don’t see how it has anything to do with Kanbaru’s current predicament. I think we’ve gotten derailed and are skidding sideways. Yeah, the part where the devil grants wishes in exchange for your soul resembles the Monkey’s Paw, but it’s not like Kanbaru’s arm is the arm of this Mephistopheles from Faust, right? As if it’s not a Monkey’s Paw but the hand of the devil─”
“Well, that’s exactly it, Araragi. You’re on point today.”
Oshino─
Pointed his finger at me pretentiously.
“The hand of the devil on missy here, whose name starts with the character for ‘god,’ seems to line up a little too perfectly, but it’s not as bad as a crab-monkey spat or what happened with that lost girl the other day. It’s just a plain old hint this time around. Mephistopheles isn’t particularly terrifying, as far as devils go─he’s more of a vulgar one. Low-ranking, or maybe not part of the rankings at all, just a familiar. That would normally make it extremely difficult to identify its exact category, but a raincoat-wearing devil with a monkey arm narrows it down, of course─and if it merges with its owner, then it’s a Rainy Devil.”
A Rainy Devil.
“It’s not a Monkey’s Paw, it’s a Devil’s Hand. Ha hah, isn’t this much simpler if you think of it that way? I mean, why would an ape grant human wishes without asking for anything in return? It’s said the Monkey’s Paw grants them because an old Indian ascetic imbued it with mystical power, but you don’t need any explanation or reputation if it’s a devil. Of course it’ll grant wishes, it gets a soul in return.”
“A soul─”
“What kind of devil wouldn’t grant three wishes in exchange for a soul?” Oshino puffed a laugh through his nose. He was in full mockery mode. “Anyway, the Monkey’s Paw is a right hand, not a left hand.”
“…Really?”
“It’s an item you hold with your right hand to use, so I assume that it’s a right hand itself. But a Devil’s Hand. It might not be a devil, taxonomically speaking, but I’m still surprised. You might not be shocked by much these days, Araragi, since you already encountered a vampire…but it’s incredible to come across such a devil in Japan. It’s a notable find. Though, of course, there’s no shortage of Japanese yokai that would grant wishes in that manner. I don’t know, what with li’l missy class president, li’l missy tsundere, and our li’l lost girl…this is one strange town. Seriously. How’s it all going to end, with someone summoning the ruler of all hell to this place? …Missy, you said your mother gave you that left hand, yes? Kanbaru must be your father’s surname. Do you know your mother’s maiden name?”
“In fact─um, it’s a bit of an unusual name.” Kanbaru spoke slowly as if she were trying to remember. “I think it was ‘Gaen.’ Ga as in the phrase ‘hell or high water’ and en as in ‘smoke screen.’ Toé Gaen was her full maiden name.”
“…Huh. Oh, all right. And Toé must be written with the characters for ‘far’ and the one for ‘river’ used in Yangtze. The same way you’d write Totomi, the name of the old Japanese province. So that’s where your name comes from. Ha hah, nicely done.”
“Of course, after she got married, she was Toé Kanbaru. Why does that matter, though, Mister Oshino?”
“Why does it matter? Did you just ask me that? Oh, no, it doesn’t matter at all. I was trying to fill some time, it doesn’t have anything to do with your situation. And who cares about that background stuff in this case. So, Araragi, and you too, missy. Now you know everything. Whether that hand is a Monkey’s Paw or a Devil’s Hand might not make a difference to you, but having come here to visit me, what’s your plan going forward?”
“What do you
mean─”
“You see, Araragi, I am what you might call an expert in this field. As a semi-passable excuse for an authority, in situations like these, I’m not opposed to helping out.”
“You─” Kanbaru leaned forward. “You’d save me?”
“I’ll do no such thing. I’ll only help out. You’re going to get saved all on your own, missy. You’ve come to the wrong place if you’re seeking salvation, and it wouldn’t be my scene. But considering the situation─Araragi, what should I do?” Oshino asked in a mean-spirited tone─but then fell silent, as if he hadn’t meant it rhetorically and were really waiting on my answer. Why was that? What should he do… Wasn’t it obvious?
“Hey, Oshino…”
“I’m wondering how exactly I should help, Araragi. Should I help missy’s second wish come true? Or should I help annul it? Should I help turn her left arm back to normal? All of the above? That might be a little too greedy─but what I can say is that none of the above is going to be simple.”
“Well…um.”
If I said all of the above─would that come to pass?
But.
“There are two easy ways to solve this phenomenon for the time being,” Oshino said. “The first is for you to be killed one night by the monster in the raincoat─the Rainy Devil. That will turn missy’s arm back to normal and probably grant her wish. The other is to take that beastly left arm that’s turned into an aberration and to lop it off.”
“L-Lop it off?” I started fretting at Oshino’s alarming proposal. “…Can you cut off just the part that belongs to this monkey─or devil? Will her old arm grow back?”
“It’s not a lizard’s tail, so it’s not going to be that convenient. Still, an arm is a small price to pay to solve this whole situation,” he said casually─but it was no joke.
You got what you paid for, with a vengeance…
Plus, it would be bad enough for anyone, but even worse for Kanbaru. If we did that, she’d never be able to play basketball again. Given how the sport had saved her, and how it continued to sustain her, the proposal really didn’t bear voicing even if it came to mind.
“A-Ah,” Kanbaru spoke up. “That, I don’t think I could─”
“You tried to kill another human being, all right? It would only be fair,” Oshino tossed the harsh words at her when she immediately balked at the idea─he was merciless at such moments. He’d acted the same way with Hanekawa and Senjogahara─
“Then again,” he said, “Araragi getting killed is nice and simple as far as solutions go.”
“H-Hey, Oshino, I take your point, but hold on. She tried to kill another human being… That’s me you’re talking about, right? But that’s not what she wished for. She only wanted to be by Senjogahara’s side─”
“Only to be by her side? What a riot,” Oshino continued to me in his harsh tone. “You’re so kind, Araragi. You’re a good, kind person─what a good and kind person. Makes me sick, really. How many more people do you have to hurt with that kindness until you’re satisfied? It was the same with little Shinobu. Only to be by her side? Did you believe those saccharine words just the way they came out of missy’s mouth?”
“…You’re saying that wasn’t it?” I asked Oshino and glanced at Kanbaru. She was silent. “Hey, Kanbaru─”
“For example, Araragi. You don’t find it odd? That story of her first wish when she was in grade school. Why do you think the left hand didn’t just make her faster and roughed people up instead?”
“Well─that’s because the Monkey’s Paw grants its owner’s wishes in an unintended way─”
“But it’s not a Monkey’s Paw,” Oshino declared. “This was in exchange for a soul. The wish ought to be granted exactly as it’s made. The Rainy Devil may be a low-level demon, and it may have a nasty habit of rushing to violence, but a contract is a contract. A deal is a deal. If your wish is to be faster, that’s normally what should happen. How does roughing up her classmates make her any faster? Doesn’t that causality seem off? It’s obvious that beating them up would only get her placed in another group.”
“……” I couldn’t argue with him if he put it that way. “Then why? Why did the monster in the raincoat go to her classmates and─”
“Because she wanted to beat the shit out of them, of course. Unable to fit in at her new school, missy was constantly being teased. She says it wasn’t what you’d call bullying, but that’s what bullied kids say. If you’ve just had your parents die on you and you’re persecuted at school on top of that, wanting revenge isn’t weird at all. If anything, it’d be weird if she didn’t want any.”
“I…” Kanbaru said─then fell silent.
How had she wanted to explain herself?
Why did she decide not to after all?
What did she realize?
Oshino went on. “I’m sure it wasn’t a conscious decision. I do think it was in the realm of the unconscious, okay? If it had been intentional, she’d know. I’m sure the way she saw it, she made a wish to become faster. On the face of it, yes, but not on the flip side. Behind her wish was a dark desire to get back at her classmates─to beat them up. That’s what missy wished for, even if it was unconscious. The devil saw through to that desire. It read what was on the flip side. But deep down, missy must have known that, all right? It might have been unconscious, but those were her honest feelings all the same. But not wanting to accept that, she sought a different interpretation for the phenomenon…and arrived at the Monkey’s Paw. Not the stuff about granting a wish, but defying the owner’s will─that was the axial part, wasn’t it? A psychological excuse that it wasn’t her intention at all to attack her classmates. Well, that kind of thing is important.”
A psychological excuse.
A question of interpretation.
“It’s not just true for the Monkey’s Paw, most cases involving aberrations that grant wishes end horribly for the protagonist─and in that sense, when missy looked them up in grade school, she could easily have found a different one. She just happened to come across Jacobs’ ‘The Monkey’s Paw.’ But what would you say? Have things turned out horribly for missy? Is she miserable because her wish came true? Araragi, would you say missy is truly miserable because those classmates who teased her were made to suffer? Isn’t the normal response to that a quick and tidy ‘serves them right’?”
“The normal response… But Oshino─”
“Ha hah, Araragi, are you wondering what evidence I have to be so sure? Well, it’s obvious if you actually listen to her story. Clear as day. That arm of hers…how was it in grade school, again?”
“………”
Now that he mentioned it.
The mummified hand that only went down to its wrist at the time─how was it then?
“I heard nothing about bandages─” pointed out Oshino, “and until she went to class the next day and found out those four were absent, she didn’t notice that it had happened, right? If her left hand turned out like that, she surely would have. What does that mean? You see, when her classmates got beaten up that night, her wish came true. The aberration merged with missy’s left hand overnight without her realizing it, and likewise unattached overnight. It unattached with a bit of her soul equivalent to the wish─and grew from the left wrist into a forearm, I bet.”
“…Wait, Oshino, that would mean─”
It made sense.
But his argument suggested...
“Your initial thinking was on the mark, Araragi. You’d actually arrived at the right answer for once. Didn’t I tell you? You’re on point today. There was no need to get tied up into knots, you just had to use your common sense to think it through. You’re such a chump to believe your assailant’s excuses. You’ll never make it onto a jury, Araragi. You stole away her idol for yourself. It’s hardly bizarre if she felt murderously jealous. There’s no way missy’s own intention had no part in this, all of it was exactly her intention. Left hands don’t have any.”
So said Oshino.
008
The Rainy Devil is apparently a very violent devil─there’s nothing it loves more than human malice and hostility, vengeance and chagrin, jealousy and envy, negative emotions in general. It sees into the darkest side of a person, provokes it, draws it out, then makes it real. It listens to people’s wishes out of spite and grants them out of spite. The contract itself─is in the form of three granted wishes in exchange for a human soul. It’s said that once the three wishes are granted─it takes that person’s life and body. In other words, he or she becomes the devil by the end. That was its nature. So if Kanbaru had made a wish to resolve Senjogahara’s secret upon learning about it a year ago, it probably wouldn’t have been granted. The Rainy Devil can only grant violent, negative wishes.
The devil reads the flip side of a wish.
There’s always something─on the back.