by Nisioisin
“I wonder…”
I wondered.
Modern society’s headlong rush towards increased connectivity, in the form of cell phones and email and whatever else, made it increasingly difficult to get in touch with people who chose not to rely on such tools.
Or maybe we just surrendered to convenience and let those skills atrophy.
It would’ve made things a lot easier if something like Monster Mail actually existed, but it didn’t, so─yup, it seemed like getting in touch with Ms. Kagenui and Ononoki would be just as tough as finding Oshino, now that he’d skipped town.
“What of Kaiki? Could we not contact him? Mayhap he could put us in touch with Kagenui.”
“You can’t be serious.”
I knew how sour my expression was even without a mirror, a reflection. Sure, that swindler was more cell phone-savvy than your average youth─but he’d used that savvy to pull a massive, outrageous con on the people of this town.
“Well…yeah. Though I obviously don’t have Kaiki’s digits, there’s a good possibility that Senjogahara would know how to get in touch with him, even if she didn’t have them either… But that’s a last resort, or a resort I wouldn’t even use as my last, Miss Shinobu.”
“Refrain from calling me ‘Miss.’ And wipe that pathetic look from thy countenance, ’twas clearly said in jest.”
However, noted Shinobu, “that leaves but one candidate.”
“It does? Who else is left? Oh, you mean Hanekawa?”
“That lass is indeed sagacious, but she is no expert─’tis rather Gaen to whom I refer.”
“Gaen.”
“Izukogaen. Is she not the ringleader of these experts?”
“Izuko Gaen…”
Right.
Now that Shinobu brought her up, I realized she was the first person we should’ve thought of─Oshino and Kaiki, and even Ms. Kagenui, referred fondly (?) to her as “Gaen-senpai.” An expert among experts.
And very much their ringleader.
She’d saved my skin before, and we’d also joined forces─and she carried plenty of telecom devices. It seemed like she carried five or six of the things in her pockets, from feature phones to smart phones.
And I felt like I had maybe gotten the number for one of them─
“I wonder, though. I find myself feeling more and more reluctant to ask her for help… Ms. Gaen’s a good person in her own way, but…”
I.
I know everything─she’s the type who can make a declaration like that with a straight face and no hint of shame, and rashly relying on her for help could lead me to a horrible end.
If Ms. Kagenui was scary for being so violent, and Kaiki for being so ominous, then Ms. Gaen─
Scared me by being too clever.
“Indeed, ’twould be no surprise for one who seemeth to know everything as she does to know a way to tackle the problem which now besets thee, and yet I cannot council thee to rely directly upon her. Even if ’twas not said in jest, ’twas nonetheless said merely to try the idea on for size. Therefore the most amenable option available to us at present is to send word to Gaen and ask to be put in touch with Kagenui after all.”
“…”
After giving it some thought, I said, “Okay, I’ve got no objections,” and reached out for my cell phone where it was plugged into the charger. “Domo arigato, Shinobu.”
“’Tis not a question of thanks. ’Tis a question of donuts.”
I guess she bore a grudge.
Her love of donuts was just too deep.
Not just deep, almost dark.
I picked up my cell phone.
“Mm─”
Mm?
When the display came up, I turned pale. That may sound like an exaggeration for literary effect, but psychologically it was entirely accurate. And it might sound contradictory, but I felt like I’d been headed off at the pass by someone I’d been chasing after furiously.
There was a message in my inbox.
The phone number itself I didn’t recognize, but the body of the message went like this:
Go to the arcade in the department store by the station
Fourth floor
7 p.m. tonight
I’ve arranged for you to meet Yotsugi there.
Please repay this favor with your friendship at some point in the future.
Your friend
Izuko Gaen
“…”
Speaking with the forced composure of hindsight, maybe it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Knowing Izuko Gaen’s sui generis character and generally peculiar characterization, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Since “heading people off at the pass” was her credo.
If─Oshino was the kind of guy who saw right through you.
Then─Ms. Gaen saw inside you.
She was penetrating.
She perceived exactly what my situation was─and knew exactly what to do about it. She must have.
“Nay, my lord. My lord my lord. Attempt not to force a rational explanation upon this. ’Tis merely creepy, this message which smacks of such omniscience. Seemeth it not almost as if she hath heard the very words of our conversation?”
“I’m doing my best to come to a realistic understanding of this bizarre occurrence, but don’t you go getting all realistic on me…”
I was terrified by the nonchalant request that I pay her back with my friendship, but at the same time, a path had opened before me─apparently, if I went to the department store by the station at seven o’clock that evening, Ononoki would be there waiting for me.
I hadn’t seen Ononoki…for about a month, maybe?
So it was not like I hadn’t seen her in a long time, but back then, things had been in crisis mode with Sengoku, and it was all lost in the maelstrom.
Then again, I was in one now─though I was “merely” dealing with my lack of a reflection this time.
“Oh yeah, I have to tell Senjogahara… We promised each other not to keep secrets when it came to aberrations.”
“That promise hath been broken not a few times.”
“Shut up… There are some things you can’t say no matter what, even if you don’t mean to keep them secret. But this is something I can’t not tell her─”
I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.
Was honestly how I felt─but then, this “I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily” business often ended up becoming a source of worry for her.
“As for Hanekawa…I guess I won’t tell her yet. And even though Ms. Gaen’s involved, or precisely because she’s involved, it’s probably best not to tell Kanbaru either.”
“Indeed. On the occasion of thy previous alliance with her, Madam Ringleader desired to keep her true identity from her own niece─which might even turn out to be her weak point.”
“Quit looking for people’s weak points.”
“The wench might become a foe at any moment. Discerning her weak point could save us from hardship later on.”
“That’s my point! It’s precisely because she might become an enemy at any time that I don’t want you to do anything inflammatory, like, oh, search for her weak point. We definitely want to keep her on our side.”
“Aha, I see thy point.”
I checked the screen of my phone one more time.
Reread the message.
I was apprehensive that another penetrating message from Ms. Gaen might’ve appeared right then, but it hadn’t─maybe I didn’t need to be so scared?
Either way, the arrival of this lifesaver of a message was a positive development for me.
However frightening.
It was a positive development.
She was a terrifyingly pragmatic person─a nightmarish realist, so if there was nothing to be done about my current situation, she wouldn’t have sent me the message. The fact that Ms. Gaen was putting me in touch with Ononoki meant that there had to be some means of solving my problem.
That was what
I thought.
Though maybe I just wanted to think it.
And as I was thinking that despite the early hour, I should call Senjogahara, whose path to higher education was already set in stone, and who was consequently spending her days loafing since she didn’t have to go to school anymore─
“Biiig brotherrrr!” the door to my room flew open and Tsukihi barged in.
It’s not that she didn’t knock, but her knock was so violent that it was part and parcel with the “flew open” bit.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, running away and leaving me behind like that?! Do you have any idea how badly Karen thrashed me after you left?!”
Maybe because she was so incensed, Tsukihi busted into my room in nothing but a bath towel. It was only wrapped around her waist, leaving her upper body completely exposed.
A hell of a fashion statement. A little too cutting edge.
Shinobu was used to my sisters barging into my room like that, so she dove instantly back into my shadow.
“What the? Why are the curtains drawn, big brother? You becoming a shut-in? Or were you planning to go back to sleep? As if I’d let that happen!”
“No no no. The sunlight was just too bright.”
There was no way I could properly explain, so I just told her a little white lie─not that she bought it or anything, but nor did I think she was in a place to really get into it with me about my curtains being closed.
As I expected, Tsukihi let it drop, with a satisfied hunfnyaan…
Hunfnyaan? What even is that?
What a way to express your satisfaction.
“Anyway, big brother, you owe me an apology. Come on, apologize. Apologize with words. Apologize out loud. Say you’re sorry. Admit your mistake and apologize to me.”
“Look at the attitude on you… Fine, come a little closer.”
“Oh? You’re going to apologize to me? O ho ho, fine by me.”
The topless girl with the towel around her waist trotted towards me. What was it about my little sister that made her so surprisingly unseemly even though all that was going on was that she was fresh out of the bath?
I embraced that unseemly little sister.
Tightly.
“Hunfnyaan?!” Tsukihi shrieked in surprise─no, was it surprise, satisfaction, or something else? I wish she’d hurry up and standardize that one already.
Her character was too peaky and too vague.
“What kind of an apology is this?! What culture says sorry like this? In what country do they express their regret by embracing a naked woman?”
“The naked part isn’t my fault,” I whispered.
Into her ear.
I guess we really were the same height now, given that I could whisper directly into her ear as we embraced without having to lower my head at all.
“Just let your big brother make one request.”
“What? You’re going to ask for something instead of apologizing? You really are perverted… Look down your shirt and spell attic!”
That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
My melons gaffe notwithstanding.
“Just consider yourself lucky that what I want entails a request, and not a demand.”
“Did you say ‘Wanton Tale’?”
“Tsukihi, listen, okay? I want you and Karen to stay at Kanbaru’s place tonight.”
“Huh?”
Tsukihi looked taken aback like I’d just said something totally nonsensical─no, from her perspective I had said something totally nonsensical, so her reaction was right on the money.
“What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask me why. Please don’t ask. I’ll talk to Kanbaru and Karen about it too, so just do it… Please.”
The home of Suruga Kanbaru, daughter of Izuko Gaen’s older sister Toé Gaen─the safest place I could think of on the spur of the moment.
Ononoki was one thing, but if I was going to make contact with Ms. Kagenui─I had to get Tsukihi far away, at least from our house.
If I didn’t.
It would be summer break all over again.
“Hmph,” grumbled Tsukihi.
Judging from how she didn’t say hunfnyaan, she was going along grudgingly. “Fine. And if I do, it’ll be okay?”
“Yeah. If you’ll do it, I’ll apologize.”
Still embracing her, I said in the present tense, not the past tense:
“Sorry I’m doing this to you.”
But I really blew it.
I was a fool.
Because given what was to come─I should’ve apologized for something else entirely.
008
Night fell.
By “night,” I mean the time after the sun goes down.
Until which point I spent the entire day inside.
Thank goodness school was out for the moment─if I missed any more days, I actually wouldn’t be able to graduate. And it was also fortunate that I was studying for exams, and barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth at that─since no one thought it strange that I spent the entire day holed up in my room studying with the curtains closed. Nor would they invite me to go outside.
Once the sun went down and I’d eaten dinner with the whole family, I left the house─I used to have two bicycles, but I lost both of them in what you could call self-inflicted accidents, and they were now just a fond memory. Putting it that way really doesn’t sit right with me, but─but basically, what can you call dealing with such aberration-ness, such “darkness”-ness, other than self-inflicted, a self-fulfilling prophecy?
And so I walked.
To the station.
After I had left the house and walked for a while, there was suddenly a little blond girl beside me─Tsubasa Hanekawa once said that I looked like I was on Gmen ’75 when I walked, and having Shinobu by my side definitely gave me that kind of reassurance.
“Sorry about this. Thanks for coming with me.”
“I am not doing it for thee. We have ever shared a common destiny, we merely act as though ’twere otherwise.”
“Guess you’re right.”
I lifted Shinobu off the ground where she was walking beside me and put her on my shoulders. I figured it’d be tough on a little girl to trek all the way to the station and was being considerate in my own way.
Man, was she light.
Like she was made of paper.
But even if she’d become almost entirely human, there was no partner I’d rather have by my side.
“As a precaution in the face of the two we go to meet, wilt thou not make me a vampire? If ye let me drink only as much as would be taken for a blood test, we can at least flee should dire circumstance arise.”
“Ummm… But if I make you a vampire, then I’ll become vampirified as well, and my current symptoms will become indistinguishable from everything else… I might not be able to get an accurate ‘diagnosis.’ Plus, Ms. Gaen’s message only said that Ononoki would be waiting for us, she never actually said anything about Ms. Kagenui being there as well…”
“Didst bid farewell to thy lady?”
“No, I didn’t bid her farewell…”
But I’d gotten in touch with Senjogahara.
And after her instantaneous response of I’m coming too, it had been a backbreaking labor to convince her otherwise.
I definitely don’t think I was just being selfish in not wanting to let her meet that onmyoji & shikigami duo.
“To be honest, though, talking to her did make me feel a little better.”
“Hmm. Because─in comparison to her former ailment of weightlessness, thine own lack of a reflection is in fact of no great concern? My lord.”
“Umm, that wasn’t exactly it…”
Though maybe that was exactly it.
“I think it was more because Senjogahara gave me a bunch of advice─and also helped me confirm a bunch of details. Like what happens if I look in the mirror with clothes on.”