I wanted to complain if all of this was Ogi’s plot. This is way too fast for you to be coming for revenge, how obsessed with retaliation are you, I know it’s not on the heels of yesterday but this is still on the heels of the day before yesterday, I’d say, but what good would it do to make speculative comments to a person who wasn’t even present─though the fact that the girl known for appearing at the most unexpected of times had yet to show herself for once did make me feel very uneasy. If this world’s Ogi had been sent to the other world to take my place, that meant there were two Ogis over there, and well, just the thought was scary. The world I needed to return to would be enveloped in darkness. Two Ogis… I couldn’t think of any way to deal with that. I nearly felt glad I wasn’t present for it.
“True, Araragi, it doesn’t change what we have to do─somehow sneak over to the bath in Suruga’s place and communicate with the other world. I don’t imagine avoiding the Rainy Devil’s watchful eye would be easy, though.”
“Yeah…I guess,” I sighed.
“I know I’m repeating myself, but there’s no point in panicking… Go to bed for today. You only have a regular human’s stamina now, so resting is an important step in achieving your goals. What do you want to do? Wanna stay here at this shrine?”
“I appreciate the offer, but no, I think I’ll go home… There’s something I want to check there, anyway.”
“Oh. Well, Miss Serpent and I will keep on going, so come by again tomorrow, maybe in the evening. If you do get the chance to go back to the other side, though, you of course shouldn’t let it get away. Leave a letter behind or something if that happens.”
“Okay… I’m sorry for causing you all this trouble.”
“You haven’t caused any trouble at all─and it’s my job now to keep this town under control,” Miss Hachikuji said, with dignity. She only recently became a god in this world too, but seeing her so in her element was somehow very reassuring.
So this was what divine favor felt like─even if Miss Serpent added, “Well, you’re causing trouble for me, pulling me back in like this when I’ve retired.” Although she spat this venom at me (in keeping with her nature as a poisonous snake), she also said, “Eh. I’m curious about what that cat is up to,” hinting at something before going quiet.
Come to think of it, we’d never gotten to Miss Serpent and Black Hanekawa’s relationship, and the snake god started heading back before I could ask… Maybe she’d never meant to tell me─not that it seemed important. Logic suggested that a third party had gotten involved if I’d been saved by Black Hanekawa, who hated me, but logic had no meaning in this world.
“This might be turning into a drawn-out campaign, but I can’t stay here for too long,” I griped. “There’s paperwork I’ll need to do to enroll if I passed my entrance exams.”
“In the worst case, just have Shinobu take you back to the past once you’ve returned.”
“That’s the kind of obviously flawed solution from an episode of Doraemon…”
“By the way. In Doraemon, Nobita ends up getting married to Shizuka because he changed his own future. But that means Shizuka has to get married to someone she used to look down on, when she should’ve married Dekisugi, a way better guy who’s almost too good to be true. How are we supposed to feel about that?”
“…”
A view befitting a young woman. As a boy, I didn’t know what to say.
In any case, I walked down the mountain, got on the BMX, and headed back home─where was the owner of the bike?
The BMX existing in this world implied that Ogi existed in it until at least the day before yesterday, but I couldn’t say for sure… It was hard to live in a world that allowed for inconsistency.
It defanged all of my theories and reasoning.
I’m not clever by any stretch, but in my own way, I’d used my wits to get myself out of every situation thus far─so it felt like I’d lost a weapon here in a world with no use for wisdom. Even if that wisdom wasn’t much to speak of.
Even my line of thought that a Nadeko Sengoku unlike any Nadeko I knew proved this wasn’t a dream might be an instance of overthinking things─there was no rule saying that knowledge you didn’t possess couldn’t appear in a dream.
And even if this wasn’t my dream, it might be someone else’s─though that gave this story an SF tinge all over again.
…I suddenly wondered what Hitagi Senjogahara was like in this world. Oikura showed that you could be the complete opposite, and while I didn’t have the bad taste to desire it, what was Hitagi Senjogahara like in a world where your inner self came to the surface?
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.
Still, I had to admit it’d be in bad taste─even if it provided me with a hint on how to escape this world, it was only a pretext for sneaking a look at my girlfriend’s heart.
Anything that’d make me unable to look her in the eyes after I got back home was off limits─and as I swore this to myself, I arrived at the Araragi residence.
Half as a joke, I tried imagining how things might be for her. No harm in that, right? Maybe it was fine if a Hitagi still lived in the palatial estate that once stood, supposedly, near Shirohebi Park, where Black Hanekawa had taken me after kidnapping me.
The Valhalla Duo might be going strong, too, with no rupture between their time together in middle school and high school─it didn’t link up with the Rainy Devil’s existence, but consistency wasn’t a thing in this mirrored land.
While this world was nothing but trouble for me, that made me wonder if it wasn’t so bad after all─this place could even allow for a future where everyone’s happy, that idea mocked by Oshino.