“This is a small detail, but she must’ve introduced herself as a Suruga Kanbaru fan─as her junior─thanks to the element relating to Suruga’s left arm.
“It was almost necessary.
“Suruga didn’t know anything, of course.
“No way she could have─she barely knows anything about her own mother. Better that she doesn’t─it’s what my sister wanted as well.
“That’s why I used a fake name and pretended to be Mèmè’s little sister. I wasn’t trying to play tricks on her, you know? It just ended up backfiring.
“No point in laboring over what’s done─well, I’d love to be so glib, but we haven’t actually gotten to anything special yet.
“Given how many times Shinobu showed off her matter-generation skill, it’d be ‘okay’ in a way if she’d tried to create an aberration or a high school girl.
“Compared to the examples I gave─Tsubasa Hanekawa’s Black Hanekawa and Tyrannical Tiger─the logic is easier to understand since it’s rooted in my sister’s aberration. Likewise, Suruga manifested her own unconscious with the same Rainy Devil’s left arm, and Nadeko Sengoku birthed a fantasy in herself, Mister Serpent, even if it didn’t reach the level of an aberration.
“You didn’t do anything that was especially weird. But uniquely, unlike those girls─uniquely like my sister─the aberration you created was an aberration that attacked yourself.
“It wasn’t self-centered.
“It was self-critical─to the point you could call it, in a sense, autotoxic.
“Regarding Sodachi Oikura’s case.
“Regarding Mayoi Hachikuji’s case.
“Regarding Nadeko Sengoku’s case.
“Regarding Hitagi Senjogahara’s case.
“Regarding Shinobu Oshino’s case.
“Regarding Yotsugi Ononoki’s case.
“Ogi Oshino blamed you tenaciously, dark rather than black─she kept on pushing you into a corner. Are you okay with that, can you forgive yourself, did you really solve it, isn’t that all smoke and mirrors─she kept whispering into your ear.
“Not as a monologue, but as a dialogue.
“Nestling up close.
“…Putting it that way makes it seem like your conscience was trying to regulate you, and almost sounds praiseworthy. It must have been the same for my sister, but frankly, you’re just going about your life making excuses to yourself. Bumbling around saving people, always offering aid as if you only existed to help others, hit a kind of limit and twisted your mind.
“That’s nothing praiseworthy.
“To be blunt, it’s a roundabout kind of self-harm.
“More than anything, you want to feel remorse, to be blamed. Ever since spring break, some part of your mind, or more like your entire body, felt like you weren’t playing fair.
“You ended up saving Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade out of compassion─and sought to be punished for it.
“You formed a friendship with Tsubasa Hanekawa─and questioned your right to, since you couldn’t respond to her feelings in kind.
“You rescued Hitagi Senjogahara from her longstanding distress─and wondered if going on to date her was taking advantage of her debt.
“You respect Suruga Kanbaru─and develop a complex because you could never live as sincerely as she does.
“You saved Nadeko Sengoku─but it wasn’t just her that you really wanted to save then.
“You reconciled, little by little, with Shinobu Oshino─but is that forgivable? Speaking of forgiveness, the First was granted it in August by Shinobu─so aren’t you petty for not granting it to her yet? Aren’t you hoping to be just forgiven too?
“You pretend not to regret choosing a little girl over your girlfriend and your savior that one time, but aren’t you carrying that baggage around with you?
“To begin with, isn’t it cheating to make free use of immortality? Shouldn’t you be punished?
“Aren’t I─as terrible as it gets?
“According to Mayoi, you were mumbling about this stuff even in hell─and Ogi Oshino is the full and unfiltered expression of the critical eye you cast on yourself, a sort of Dark Koyomin. That’s why she attended to it all, one by one, almost dutifully, with Sodachi Oikura’s case as a blueprint─as if she was the Darkness.
“Moreover, as a spirit who’s distinct from you, she’s had dealings with others too. She’s been working hard to create an environment where you’d be barraged with criticism.
“Mèmè Oshino and Yozuru Kagenui.
“And probably Deishu Kaiki, after he cleaned up Nadeko Sengoku’s case.
“She shut them out of this town─because it goes without saying that their job as professionals got in the way of her own job.
“No, it wasn’t too difficult. No different from what I’ve been doing to this park─you put a barrier in place.
“If she then makes them lose their way, we can’t guide them to us─didn’t the First cause an aberrational phenomenon that made you lose your way? In which case Ogi Oshino, with roots close to his, could do the same.
“So don’t worry, Koyomin.
“Mèmè and Yozuru are probably fine.
“No guarantees about Kaiki, though, I don’t understand the exact process in his case… Anyway, it seems you’re concerned about them, but if they aren’t here, it’s only because you yourself refused the help of experts. While we might be in the dark about their whereabouts right now, once Ogi Oshino is defeated, we’ll have no trouble finding them.
“Hm? Oh. I’m able to be here because I’m an expert of a superior caliber─just kidding.
“I committed the ultimate rules infraction when it comes to aberrations.
“I chopped through the barrier with the enchanted blade Kokorowatari to make my way in, how else─I forged the blade so I could cut down any imitation Darkness that came into existence, but it ended up serving an unexpected use.
“In fact, I’m only here now because I forged the blade in time─boy, was it close.
“Just like I predicted? Oh, no. Even if you begat an imitation Darkness, I thought it’d be a little smaller in scale─I guess I underestimated you in that sense.
“If I’d known, I’d have taken other measures, and sooner. We’ve been having to play defense instead.
“So many experts, against an amateur like you─take pride in that if you want.
“But only after we’ve eliminated Ogi Oshino.
“Your self-critical mindset is praiseworthy in certain situations, and maybe people could borrow a page from you─but not in a town without a god, no thanks, it’s too destabilizing.
“Like I said yesterday, now that you’re finished with your exams, I can’t predict your moves at all─which means I can’t predict what Ogi Oshino will do next, either.
“So we’re setting a trap. A scheme to defeat her─to fence her in.
“Reading her next move while we still can, we’ll lie in wait─I’ve already explained that part. If she’s making a move, it’ll be today.
“It’ll be tonight.
“She, too, wants to avoid dealing with moves she can’t predict─we should assume that her job’s time limit is from now until they announce the test results, or until graduation.
“You get it, don’t you?
“If she is Koyomi Araragi’s self-critical mindset…if she surfaced as your guilt in face of the world, then she still has work to do.
“A job left undone.
“That’s right. Tsukihi Araragi─your little sister.
“Your little sister, and not your little sister.
“An immortal aberration─the Shidenotori.
“She survives to this day, despite being Yozuru Kagenui and Yotsugi Ononoki’s target, because you shamelessly and irrationally protect her─she survives mimicking a human, and a part of you, Koyomi Araragi, has to be wondering if that’s fine.
“You don’t hesitate to protect your little sister.
“But it’s not as if you live by a clear philosophy that won’t blame yourself for being unhesitant.
“So I’m going to use your sister as a decoy.
“The plan is to apprehend Ogi Oshino in the act of trying to do harm to your little sister, and to reveal the perp’s true identity on the spot─to compare it to a mystery novel, as she loves to do, we have no evidence so we’re going to have to catch her red-handed.
“Yep.
“That’s right, no evidence─everything I said is nothing more than conjecture. It just bizarrely makes a mountain of sense. If you argued, ‘No, that’s impossible. I can’t believe that she’s me,’ then there’s nothing I could do to convince you otherwise.
“But you understand, right? You must know.
“Better than anyone─what she actually is. That’s why you have to be the one to expose her.
“It won’t work if it’s me.
“If I’d gone ahead with my initial plan and forced Shinobu to become a god, I probably wouldn’t enlist your help, but because you brought Mayoi back from hell with you, I can entrust you with ending this all and breathe easy.
“Breathe easy.
“Yes, I mean it─breathe easy.
“Koyomi Araragi, who’s so harsh on himself that his self-criticism and self-negation birthed an aberration, can obviously defeat Koyomi Araragi, whom he hates so much.
“Win this battle against yourself.
“Easy, right? So far…
“For Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade’s sake, for Tsubasa Hanekawa’s sake, for Hitagi Senjogahara’s sake, for Mayoi Hachikuji’s sake, for Suruga Kanbaru’s sake, for Nadeko Sengoku’s sake, for Karen Araragi’s sake, for Tsukihi Araragi’s sake─going back to square one, for Sodachi Oikura’s sake, you’ve gone to the brink of death and come back numerous times.
“Sacrificing yourself. Killing your self.
“Killing it continuously─until you landed yourself in hell.
“Koyomi Araragi, so selfless and altruistic that there must be something wrong with his head─should find defeating Ogi Oshino, none other than himself, easier than taking candy from a baby, from himself.
“You, who have been tossing your life away like a piece of trash for other people’s sake, chucking any semblance of thought while you’re at it, just need to do your thing here. Kill yourself without a thought.
“Commit self-harm. Commit suicide.
“Kill yourself for the sake of others.
“It’s what you do every day.
“Nothing hard about it.
“Just kill yourself, show the spirit of self-sacrifice in your extreme but usual manner─what you’re facing is no high school girl or junior, certainly no savior’s niece, but yourself.
“So put an end to it.
“You end this, at your hand.
“That’s how your─youth ends.”