“So, what did you do after that?” I asked her. “Are you saying that you went off to investigate this strange state of affairs, just like I went to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine to ask for help?”
“You went to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine… Huh. Tell me about that later, will you?”
“Oh, so you don’t know what I’ve been doing.” The offhanded way she’d brought up Shinobu’s name made it feel like she knew every last thing I’d done today.
“Hey, don’t be holding such high hopes for me. My head’s pretty messed up right now because I put too much into reforming my personality─I assumed you were off doing something, monstieur, but it was just about as likely that you were off buying a present for Sodachi.”
“How likely is that? Zero percent?”
“Well, she kept asking you. ‘Koyomiii, you have to buy me one, buy it for me! Please! I’m not letting you go until you say yes!’”
“I’ve really been spoiling her, huh…”
What had she begged me for?
And just what kind of person was I in this world, trying to take off Ononoki’s pants and indulging Oikura when it wasn’t even her birthday (I felt pretty certain it wasn’t)?
“Ah. Sodachi’s going to feel so let down.”
“Stop, don’t pressure me like that,” I said. “Any idea of letting her down is painful to me. Don’t pile more tasks on top of what I already have on my plate… So, after surveying the town…you decided to have me and Shinobu meet?”
“Right. Of course, the former Heartunderblade is different from the former Heartunderblade you know. I’m not giving you the details yet, I want to enjoy seeing your reaction when you meet in person… Just be ready for it.”
“Yeah, okay… Wait, you just want to see my reaction? That’s your reason?”
“Yup. What’re you gonna do about it?”
“Why are you even doubling down?”
Hmph.
While we didn’t have a particularly good relationship back in my original world─let’s just call it a long and bumpy ride─going back and forth with Ononoki “like usual” did help soothe my nerves.
Only, I had to think about Shinobu being different, as Ononoki put it. Maybe I needed to be not just ready, but on alert─because I couldn’t begin to imagine what the other side of Shinobu was like, who her inner self was.
If she existed in this world, we could solve everything just by getting her to open a gate from this side─my line of thought went, but it was an optimistic one that ignored such issues.
Though it wasn’t in this mirrored land, I’d met another iteration of Shinobu in another timeline─I’d encountered the aberration known as Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.
She resented and abhorred me.
Enough to destroy the world.
That probably wasn’t the exact form of Shinobu’s other side, but no one could deny the possibility existed in her.
She’d lived for around six hundred years. There had to be many “other sides” to her─and to be frank, I wasn’t confident I could accept them all.
This was no time for pathetic whining, though… So long as that monkey demon protected the Kanbarus’ wood bath, we needed to try a different approach, if any existed.
“I know nothing,” Ononoki said, “about the circumstances on your side… Do I get along with Big Sis over there?”
“Hm? Er, well,” I stammered. I didn’t really know the answer to that one. When I’d asked Miss Kagenui about their relationship─for whatever reason, she’d deflected the question.
“Hm. Well, I’d imagine as much.”
Ononoki shrugged, taking my silence for an answer─her face showed no expression, so I couldn’t tell if she felt any way about that.
It wouldn’t have been Ononoki any other way, of course.
I felt a little bad─when I thought about it, I’d taken this world’s Ononoki, who’d been living a peaceful, expressive life as a doll, and turned her into a flat, emotionless, doll-like doll. Maybe I needed to reflect on what I’d done.
It may have been her professionalism, but she didn’t need to act just because she noticed this land of mirrors wasn’t logically consistent.
“So, monstieur. Where did you go today, and whose pants did you take off?”
“Can’t I get at least a little sentimental over you? If you want to know, ask me like a normal person.”
“What was it? You went to Kita-Shirahebi first thing to take off Miss Mayoi’s pants?”
“Imagine the kind of divine punishment that’d get me. Instant karma.”
Bantering like this, I gave Ononoki a rough outline of my day. I was afraid it’d take a while─we might arrive at our destination before I was done (she still wouldn’t tell me where we were going. Did she want to see my reaction to that, too?), but my fears proved groundless.
Then again, only two things had happened: I’d failed to enter the Kanbaru estate, and Black Hanekawa had saved me. My surprise over the personality differences I witnessed today was a subjective matter.
“Hm. So you met Miss Mayoi, Big Sis Monkey, Big Sis Cat, Big Sis Snake, and Big Sis Sodachi today, and took off their pants.”
“At this point, you obviously mean their underwear too?”
“Oops. I forgot to include the Fire Sisters.”
“No need for that.”
“Wow, monstieur, impressive. Your little sisters’ pants don’t even count.”
“Am I not impressing you in any other way? If that’s what you took from everything I just said, even I’m gonna be depressed.”
“Well, to me it just sounds like the regulars I know in the regular way I know them─but I do agree with you about one thing.”
“Huh, what’s that?”
“Looks like we’re on the same page for once…”
“We’re not in some kind of buddy-cop movie. We’ve agreed plenty of times before. What is it?” I asked again.
“Black Hanekawa saving you─is almost impossible if we went by my understanding of her.”
Oh… I’d wondered if an “inside-out” Black Hanekawa also felt differently about me, but if that was the professional opinion of this world’s Ononoki…
Then was my initial guess correct? She’d saved me on someone’s request? I’d suspected it was Ononoki, but that seemed unlikely after this exchange.
“Who could it be, though? Who’d ask Black Hanekawa to save me?”
“Indeed. Who would ever want to save you? Certainly not me.”
“That’s not what I meant─the kind of person who’d go to Black Hanekawa with that request. Certainly not you? How about you stop being so hurtful? You’re helping me right now, aren’t you?”
“I want you to think that, just so I can abandon you at the last possible moment and enjoy the look on your face.”
“How unbelievably nasty are you? Start over and remake your character again.”
In any case, I’d hoped to glean some kind of clue from Ononoki, but she didn’t seem to have any idea either. The mystery persisted.
Not that it had deepened─I was now able to talk to Ononoki like this, and it was by pushing forward that we’d make progress.
“Does Shinobu know I’m coming? I won’t pepper you with questions if you don’t want me to, but I’m just curious. Did you, uh, make an appointment?”
“I did. Don’t worry, I’m not sure how it is in your world, but that woman and I are friends in this one.”
“That absolutely can’t be true. Even the phrase that woman and I sounds hostile… Hm?”
And then.
After coming this far, I knew where we were headed. Normally I’d realize sooner, but between it being nighttime and the streets being flipped around, it took me a little longer. I’d visited the location countless times over the past year.
The ruins that the vagrant expert known as Mèmè Oshino once treated as his castle and keep─the building beyond us was that former cram school.
In the world I knew, it had caught fire last summer and burned to the ground, but it still had to be fine here if that’s where Ononoki was taking me.
Maybe in this world, instead of dwelling in my shadow, Shinobu continued to live in that classroom ever since she was there together with Oshino?
In that case, she might not be too amicable towards me…or rather, Koyomi Araragi.
I didn’t think my life was in danger, especially with Ononoki around, but maybe I needed to get my guard up a little higher.
“What’s wrong, monstieur? You suddenly went quiet. Did you die?”
“No, why’d I die? I was just thinking. Maybe I shouldn’t be, since everyone keeps telling me I’m overthinking things, but I just can’t help it.”
“Teal, don’t mink, as they like to say.”
“You mean feel, don’t think.”
“It’s the same thing─reach for the skies and don’t stay too grounded. Your thoughts need to be free. As an outsider, you might find the right balance that I can’t as someone who’s always lived in this world…or you might feel sorry that you got me involved in this and get on all fours to lick my boot.”
“I do feel bad, but not that bad.”
“Works for me. I don’t want you licking my boot.”
“Now it sounds like something else.”
“Don’t mind. I knew this day would come.”
“…”
Huh? Another one of those cool lines you’d expect from an unlikely duo of crime-fighters? As in, it was clear we’d fight side by side eventually─but when I tried to ask her what she meant, it was a bit late for such questions.
We’d arrived at our destination.
My prediction turned out to be half right, half wrong─no, I’m grading myself too easily.
Objectively speaking, I was ninety percent wrong. I’d only gotten the location right.
Of course, it was sort of impressive that I’d gotten the location right at least: where the abandoned cram school Mèmè Oshino once treated as his castle and keep used to stand.
That much was right.
In my world, it’d caught fire and turned into a burnt-out field, leaving no traces behind. The same wasn’t true in this world.
In fact─a completely different building stood there.
“Daze…”
I was so dazed that I actually said the word. I mean, I wouldn’t be this surprised if I’d seen an office complex, a house, a store─simply another building.
Actually, it didn’t matter where. I’d be just as surprised if this stood anywhere in town, former cram-school site or not.
“…”
There, on the real estate Mèmè Oshino once treated as his castle and keep, was an actual castle for goodness’ sake.