Tsukimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  Even a student as lazy as me has heard people talk about the wisdom of realizing your own ignorance. It’s the Socratic Paradox: “I know that I know nothing.” But it’s virtually impossible to articulate the actuality of this aphorism.

  Probatio diabolica, the so-called Devil’s Proof. If some stubborn middle schooler pressed Socrates, Do you really know everything that you don’t know? he’d have to admit defeat─though of course, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have middle schoolers in Ancient Greece.

  Now, what was I talking about?

  Oh yeah.

  About how maybe people don’t actually know anything about the things they think they know─because they don’t know what they don’t know. And about how maybe some chance encounter is what it takes for them to realize what they don’t know.

  Hanekawa might put it like this: “I don’t know anything about what I don’t know.”

  If you know what you don’t know, then maybe you can learn about it, but if you don’t know what you don’t know, then you can’t act to remedy the situation─now I’ve gotten myself all confused, but anyway.

  The message contained in the string of cranes that Tadatsuru Teori left in Suruga Kanbaru’s alcove indicated that the appointed place was Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─apparently the message employed some kind of code used between experts, so that no matter how smart you are, you can’t figure it out unless you know the keyword.

  I’m only going to reveal the bare minimum about how Ms. Kagenui deciphered it, though, out of consideration for everything she did on my behalf.

  First she performed the maddening task of unfolding all the cranes one by one─flattening them back out into simple sheets of origami paper, an unproductive activity if there ever was one, never mind that there were a thousand of them.

  Given the scale of the endeavor, it seemed like I could’ve helped, and I even offered to, but she refused me flatly, and rather impolitely at that. Ms. Kagenui seemed to be the kind of person you encounter in school sometimes, you know the type, who hates being helped no matter how banal the task─in fact, Senjogahara used to be exactly that type. And it’s easy enough for a person like me to understand not wanting someone to throw off your rhythm, even if it’s less efficient.

  Though given the circumstances, it made me antsy to watch someone doing something so obviously inefficient─as luck would have it, Ms. Kagenui was at least adroit at it. She briskly unfolded the origami cranes with an almost mesmerizing dexterity. To the point that it actually did seem more efficient for her to do it without my help, after all.

  The majority of the one thousand unfolded sheets of origami paper (and there really were a thousand. Exactly one thousand. Usually a string of a thousand cranes is only about half that) were just that, sheets of origami paper.

  No, majority isn’t the right word; nine hundred ninety-nine of the thousand cranes were plain old origami paper, plain old paper cranes.

  But the other crane.

  The other sheet of paper.

  Had a message written on the back in felt-tip pen─and deciphering this message, which looked to me like nothing more than a hasty scrawl, yielded: Kita-Shirahebi Shrine.

  “Seems like there’d be no way for an ordinary person to even realize that this message was here… Leaving a code on one paper crane among a thousand, it’s so inefficient it makes my head spin…”

  “Now, that there is precisely the warped aesthetic sense I’m talking about─it’s a question of patience. The pursuit of efficiency alone is hollow, and it ain’t no picnic to make one of these, a string of cranes.”

  Tadatsuru made these all himself, finished Ms. Kagenui, sounding protective of Tadatsuru Teori for the first time─probably completing the task had relaxed her, or she’d let her guard down a little in the glow of accomplishment she felt for unfolding a thousand paper cranes. She’s human after all, I thought to myself.

  “It doesn’t say anything about a time?”

  “’Fraid not. Just a place. But I reckon it’s got to be tonight─otherwise the police would be apt to get involved. Three young fillies getting kidnapped is clearly a criminal matter.”

  “What would Tadatsuru do then?”

  “What, meaning?”

  “Um…meaning, in that case, what would Tadatsuru do to my sisters and my friend?”

  “Well.”

  One short word.

  But that one word was more than enough.

  “The one thing I can say for sure is that Tadatsuru knows I’m here─knows I’ve come to this town. Because otherwise he wouldn’t have used a code that only other experts would understand, an inefficient means of communication that you, young man, wouldn’t even have known to look for.”

  “O-Oh yeah. Of course. You’re right, of course.”

  It had taken me a while to get there, but once she said it, it was obvious. If I’d been alone, I would’ve just picked up the crane and jumped when it became a string of a thousand, and that would’ve been the end of it.

  If Ononoki hadn’t been there to tell me it was an “advance notice,” I might have let my anger take over and crumpled the whole thing up into a ball.

  Folding a thousand paper cranes was hardly worth it for Tadatsuru if the objective was just to startle me.

  Interesting.

  That meant that just as Ms. Kagenui already knew about Tadatsuru from Ms. Gaen, Tadatsuru somehow knew that Ms. Kagenui was here in town, and probably also that she was accompanied by her constant companion, Ononoki.

  In which case.

  “Hm? So is this Tadatsuru calling me out knowing full well that you two are my sort-of allies? Knowing who you are, he’s antagonizing you? No way. Would anyone really do that?”

  “Come now, young man, how dangerous do you think we are?”

  Well, incredibly.

  More than anyone else in the world.

  Was not something I was about to say.

  That would’ve been like sticking out my head so someone could chop it off.

  “I’ve told you a thousand times, I use violence only in the service of slaying immortal aberrations─never against human beings. Generally speaking.”

  “Generally speaking? That’s a terrifying caveat… But how do you plan to apply that? Oh, wait, is that what you’re saying? That even if Tadatsuru antagonizes you, he has absolutely nothing to worry about?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, monstieur. Since I don’t operate under the same constraints as Big Sis,” Ononoki interjected as placidly as ever, “I’ll fucking blow Tadatsuru to smithereens.”

  “Watch your language.” From atop Ononoki’s shoulders, Ms. Kagenui kicked her in the head. Again with the violence. But then, Ononoki’s an immortal aberration, so maybe it was okay? “Say, I’ll respectfully encourage him to become smithereens.”

  “Come on, who’s ever heard of such a genteel character,” muttered Ononoki, before turning to look at me. “Listen, monstieur. It’s not like little old me doesn’t have some small connection to your sisters. So you can count on my complete cooperation─provided that you under no condition commandeer Big Sis Shinobu’s power, of course.”

  “I intend to abide by that condition, sure…but why go to the trouble of bringing it up again right now?”

  Did she have so little faith in me?

  Well, I didn’t have much faith in myself either, but it was a straight-up shock that a character as ingenuous, as unworldly, by which I mean as gullible as Ononoki, wouldn’t have faith in me.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s because I have no faith in your powers of restraint or self-control… And the truth is, I don’t relish the thought of Big Sis and me having to fight you and the former Heartunderblade because you turned into a vampire, a full vampire.”

  “…”

  She threw that in without changing her intonation at all, so it took me a minute to understand that all she meant was, I don’t want to be your enemy.

  And while it may have been no more than Ononoki’s personal tak
e…it was really heartening that someone would say that to me under those circumstances.

  What the hell was wrong with me? I found it so heartening that I wanted to cry.

  “Then again, I can only assume Tadatsuru has taken precautions against me. Taken every precaution he can. Originally─”

  “No need to finish that sentence, Yotsugi. Sometimes it’s easier to keep it on the need-to-know. Anyway, we know where he is, and we know where he’s coming from─nothing to do now but act.” Ms. Kagenui, having cut off whatever Ononoki was about to say, looked at the watch on her left wrist. The band was a slender chain. I’m relatively conscious of the fact that I wear a watch, so I end up being conscious of other people’s watches as well… In any case, apparently it indicated that it was “after one in the morning. We’d best have this settled before daybreak─any way you slice it. In other words, young man, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to have your two little sisters and your friend, Gaen-senpai’s niece, back home and snug in their beds before daybreak.”

  Hmm.

  Summed up like that, it all seemed so simple─and even “better” than its simplicity was the fact that the mission didn’t include an obligation to defeat or even fight Tadatsuru Teori─in other words, it was feasible for us to come up with a plan to outwit Tadatsuru and get the hostages back without bloodshed.

  Not just feasible, that was the whole idea.

  That was what we needed to do.

  Since I couldn’t currently use my vampiric power─the whole idea was for me to face my travails using only human ingenuity.

  To do my part as a human being.

  “But once they’re back home and snug in their beds, I can’t just leave them with the traumatic memory of being assaulted in their sleep and getting kidnapped by some stranger.”

  “Then make them forget. I reckon five or six blows to the head should do the trick.”

  “…”

  Jesus, lady.

  Well, Tsukihi had no memories of a similar experience she’d had over the summer…but I had to wonder.

  Would it go that smoothly this time around?

  No, I could worry about that later─first I had to weather tonight’s storm, or there’d be nothing to worry about to begin with.

  Given how meticulously our opponent had prepared that code, not to mention all those cranes, that would be no mean feat─but I had to do it. I had to, because I was a person.

  Because I was a human being.

  “Okay, Ononoki. I’m sorry to ask, but do you think we can take another hop to Kira-Shirahebi Shrine? It’s located…”

  It wasn’t going to be so easy to look up that spot up in the mountains on a smart phone, and we needed to be pretty precise in our landing point, so it was going to be tough, but considering how little time we had and how long it would take to get there otherwise, we had no choice but to travel to our appointed meeting under Ononoki’s steam.

  With that in mind I started explaining where the shrine was, but Ms. Kagenui cut in. “You might as well stop right there. Tadatsuru sent us this message knowing full well that Yotsugi is here, so approaching from above is out. An aerial assault what comes from the clear blue sky’ll leave you too exposed, it’ll be over before it starts.”

  What would be over and why wasn’t clear to me─what, were we going to be picked off by anti-aircraft fire? However, she was definitely correct that if we wanted to catch him unawares, arriving at the appointed location from the open sky (the fact that it was night notwithstanding) was not the most advisable strategy.

  “Fine, then Ononoki can jump to somewhere near the mountain, and we go on foot the rest of the way…”

  Going mountain climbing with Ononoki again?

  We had a strange habit of getting lost in the mountains together.

  Maybe we should join Wandervogel?

  “I’ll take the normal route,” Ms. Kagenui declared, “and join up with you by and by─but don’t delay on my account, start the rescue operation when you see fit. Act on your own judgment. Even once I’m there, I probably won’t be able to help out the team anyway.”

  “…”

  No, probably not.

  Plus, if we waited for Ms. “can’t touch the ground” Kagenui to get there, the sun might come up already.

  “Roger. Okay then,” I said, putting my arms around Ononoki’s waist.

  It occurred to me each time I did that it must be kind of an indecent sight.

  “By the way, Ononoki. Do you think you might be able to keep to a lower altitude? Just a teensy-weensy bit?”

  “Can’t do a lower altitude,” Ononoki said.

  Expressionlessly.

  “But I can do a lower velocity. Want me to?”

  “No.” With my face buried in her side and my arms wrapped around her in a bear hug, I shook my head. “That’s okay. Blast off!”

  015

  “Well─what took you so long, Araragi-senpai? My dear Araragi-senpai. I was getting tired of waiting for you.”

  As Ononoki and I alit from the sky at the foot of the mountain beneath Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, who should be crouching there by the red light at the intersection of the road and the footpath, bip-booping away on her cell phone (I guess she had never changed the factory settings, so the typing sounds were still enabled), but Ogi Oshino.

  Ogi Oshino.

  She was a freshman who’d transferred to Naoetsu High at the end of last year.

  I had no idea how much she meant it when she said, I was getting tired of waiting for you─I wasn’t even sure what she really meant by it in the first place. But a glance at the screen of her cell phone showed that Ogi wasn’t texting away like your average high school girl. Instead, she seemed to be reading an e-book.

  Man, people use their cell phones for literally everything these days.

  It was no time to start quibbling about why the nickname for smart phone is sumaho and not sumafo─plus people don’t even say smart phone anymore, lately they call them smart devices or whatever.

  But maybe it’s actually a pretty good idea to start making smart-phone screens large enough for e-books─readers care about what kind of tool they use to read “works” that are, ultimately, only data, and when it comes to hardware, familiarity’s more important than portability.

  “Ogi, hey…”

  I released my grip on Ononoki’s waist and, getting her to stay there, trotted over to my junior.

  Given the current situation, I didn’t have time to stand around shooting the breeze, but I couldn’t just breeze right by the “I was getting tired of waiting for you” part.

  Especially not when it was Ogi Oshino who said it.

  Mèmè Oshino’s niece.

  “It’s dangerous for a high school girl to be out here alone this time of night. Always living on the edge, huh? Come on, I’ll get you home.”

  “Hahaha, the same way you just arrived, Araragi-senpai? In a single bound? I’m all set, thanks. Not that I have a home to go to anyway─forget about that, totally didn’t mean it, and you’re in a hurry anyway, aren’t you, Araragi-senpai? I just wanted to give you some words of encouragement on your way to the front lines and have been waiting here since morning.”

  “Since morning?”

  Morning.

  This morning it was still up in the air whether I had a reflection or not─well, she was probably just kidding like always. It was obviously one of Ogi’s inflammatory jokes. She loved throwing people off balance with a steady stream of flamboyantly outlandish and bizarre humor.

  Even if it wasn’t since morning, though─she’d probably been there since around seven in the evening. That was the kind of kid she was.

  The kind of niece.

  Who put people off balance even without making jokes.

  As a firm believer in the Nuance Proposition, I assumed that all nieces were also nice, but I guess she was the exception that proved the rule.

  “Huh? What happened to your little blond loli slave? I never see
you without her. Seems odd, according to your character background, you can’t accomplish much of anything without her, Araragi-senpai.”

  “I didn’t use to think that was true,” I answered. Honestly. “But yeah, I do now. That’s how our characters were written. And you know what? I’m not ashamed of it─nothing wrong with getting a little help from your friends.”

  “But you overdid it, didn’t you? My uncle kept telling you, didn’t he? Let’s see…what was it again? You know, that catch phrase my uncle is always spouting, um…that one, that one, that one, that one.”