The surveillance level? I didn’t need any more freeloaders. Ononoki was plenty on her own.
“Of course, walking away from this situation as it stands will have them swooping in and crushing it with all their might. Miss Gaen will get ready to face off against her sister, I’m sure─would you like that? I do think it’s a valid option. We could live in this inconsistent world forever.”
“Don’t make me weird offers. Why would I ever want that? I just want to hurry up and go home…or I guess that’s not how I should put it. I’m already home. Um…”
How should I word it?
Release the twenty percent of light I pulled into this world back through the mirror? How would I go about doing that? I didn’t even know how I pulled it here in the first place…
“I do want─to hurry up and proceed.”
“Ha haa. And again, that’s why I’m here─I take care of your mess-ups. Just as you take care of mine.”
“Kind of feels like an unfair peace treaty to me…”
No, I couldn’t say that as a fact. This could have turned into a genuine calamity─both Ogi and Shinobu called it a counterfeit, but when a screen is exposed to light for too long, that light can burn itself in. If I’d accepted Ogi’s offer just now─this world would be permanent.
She’d put a stop to it at the last second, and I sincerely owed her. I’d thought this might be her all-too-speedy revenge, but in fact it had been her payback that was speedy.
Her payback in a backwards world.
Though I wish I could come up with a better line than that.
“Um, could you please wait a second? I’m going to bring something out,” Ogi said, sticking her hand in her school jacket and fishing around before pulling out a bare Blu-ray─why stick it uncased in your uniform, I wondered, what if you scratched the disc, but no, it was no Blu-ray.
Because it was pure black.
Black like darkness.
A Blu-ray was a reflective silver on at least one side─while on both sides of the palm-sized, disc-shaped object Ogi held by the edges, as if to keep any fingerprints from getting on it, was a shade of black that felt like it could suck you in.
“Um…was that how PlayStation 1 games were?”
“Bingo. But this isn’t a PlayStation 1 game─I do have a PSX at home and would be happy to play with you, just not this. Because…”
Ogi threw it at me side-armed, like a frisbee─why make it so hard to catch when we were so close, I wasn’t a dog, I thought, but I somehow grabbed it, using my torso as a net.
“Look,” she urged.
And all I needed to do was look─because you couldn’t play this on a console when it had no donut hole.
A perfectly disc-shaped object, the kind you might expect to see in a math textbook─even a jet-black game disk might reflect something, but this one didn’t.
It reflected nothing to an excessive degree.
A flat, total black, like it had been painted.
Almost seeming to absorb any and all light that hit it─darkness.
“…”
I returned the black object to Ogi with trepidation, as if I were handling a bomb. “Don’t act so scared,” she said, taking it and raising it overhead before continuing, “Zero percent reflectivity─a mirror that’s a hundred percent absorbent.”
A mirror…that black?
Well, like she said─it was zero percent reflective.
“I was bored, stuck here in this classroom. Crafting something like this was about all I could do─using the blackboard.”
“The blackboard?”
I glanced over…and looking closely, found a chip missing from the corner. I had no idea what kind of tools and technology she’d used to create a disc out of it, though… That was some impressive DIY work.
I never imagined a piece of Year 1, Class 3 classroom’s ghost, which I’d fixed in place, could take such a form… Was it like plucking a four-leaf clover to keep with you?
“I guess,” affirmed Ogi. “It carries just as much supernatural power, if not more. You’re planning on visiting Kita-Shirahebi after this, right? In that case, I want you to offer it to the shrine there─it’s what you might call a votive object.”
“A votive object…”
This reminded me─as items that reflected the truth, mirrors were seen as holy since ancient times. Forget votive objects, they could even be treated like dwellings for the divine. Could Ogi’s handmade mirror, this black mirror, be one?
“Call it a gift to congratulate Hachikuji on her new post as god─it seems like she wasn’t able to fully deal with this situation, which is no surprise given that she only became a deity thanks to a sophistic technicality, but in reality, as the god meant to protect this town, she’s the one who needs to settle this all peacefully, not me. I suppose I’ll let her take the credit.”
“That shrine is the heart of this town. What’s going to happen when I place it there? If it has zero reflectivity, it doesn’t just show you nothing…it can even suck light into itself, right?”
“Well, it’s going to suck up that twenty percent of light that would have been lost if you hadn’t guided it here─lingering regrets and remnants that ought to have faded into obscurity. Part of a shrine’s job to accept those, right? Kita-Shirahebi is also an air pocket that attracts the stuff that aberrations are made of, and now that Mister Shishirui is no longer with us, it requires a tool to help it absorb wayward thoughts.”
True. It was asking too much of Hachikuji, who only happened to become a god due to the way everything progressed, to keep the town tranquil and pacified all on her own. We might have tied up those loose ends, all too neatly, but if there were any remaining openings, or maybe concerns, it was this.
Miss Gaen would surely continue to follow up on the situation, but it wasn’t as if she could spend all her time worrying about one town… I didn’t see the harm in bringing over one of these votive objects, or a cheat item.
“Okay. I’ll offer it to the shrine.”
“I appreciate it. By the way, you’ll know it’s time to swap it out once it’s turned completely white.”
“So it’s like a filter? How long does it last?”
“A few centuries, under normal circumstances…but then we’re talking about this town. A town once attacked by a legendary vampire, a town that you now grace with your presence─who knows, it might only last a few months.”
“You really know how to scare me.”
This time, Ogi offered the black mirror to me with care, and I took it with reverence─if what she said was true, offering it to the shrine wouldn’t fix everything. I needed to keep on frequenting Kita-Shirahebi, I thought─hm?
“What’s the matter, Araragi-senpai?”
Just as Ogi handed me the mirror and we both held it, together.
Just as Ogi and I faced each other, with what was still a mirror between us, even if it was zero percent reflective─a black mirror between us, its front side indistinguishable from its back, I thought, Hold on.
My doubts were reignited.
Ogi’s flowing delivery made me think that all the mysteries had been solved, that we even had countermeasures─but one vital point remained vague.
I got that I’d scooped up this lost twenty percent from the other side of the mirror at that moment─but still didn’t know why.
Rescuing these poor little regrets left lingering behind to fade away and giving them form sounded nice, but I hadn’t meant to do anything so noble.
In fact, I hadn’t known anything about reflectivity and the like until Oikura (’s residual thoughts?) bothered to school me.
Yes, I’d reached out to the mirror yesterday morning because something seemed wrong with the me I saw in it─my reflected self in the mirror. It had stopped.
“Unlike the reflection I saw in the sink, that wasn’t you, right? Then what exactly─”
“Come up with the answer to that one on your own, at least. Think about it, reflect on it.”
“You mean it requires self-reflection?”
“Yes, I suppose. Really, consider what you’ve done…or so I say, but we’d be back at square one if you started overthinking things again. I’ll borrow a page from my predecessors and just give you a hint.”
Ogi let go of the black mirror.
And said: “Who exactly are you?”
What, she wanted me to say it? My expression turned sober and austere, but I couldn’t reply to her question any other way. Even a lukewarm setup needed a reasonably serious conclusion.
So I answered her, looking into the dark black mirror.
“Koyomi Araragi here. Just the man you see.”
And then I understood.
Of course.
My own lingering regrets.