Bakemonogatari: Hitagi Crab 007

The time line.

I'd got the time line confused.

I'd assumed Senjogahara met the crab, lost her weight, and that led to her mother being crazy enough to join a cult. But it was the other way around; Senjogahara's mother had joined the cult long before Senjogahara encountered the crab, and it took her weight away.

I should have guessed.

While staplers and utility knives were things you might have lying around the house, cleats were definitely not. The moment she mentioned them, I should have realized that this had happened when she was still on the track team -- in junior high. By the time she started high school, and did not participate in PE, let alone track team, she would never have owned a pair of cleats.

Apparently her mother had first joined the cult when Senjogahara was in the fifth grade. Well before even Hanekawa knew her.

At the time, she'd been a frail kid.

Actually sick, not just believed to be.

She had something bad -- you'd know the name if I mentioned it. Her odds of surviving it were less than ten percent, and the doctors were ready to give up.

Things were so bad...

Senjogahara's mother needed some respite.

They took advantage of it.

Senjogahara's operation defied the odds -- a fact that most likely had nothing to do with the cult, although Oshino pointed out that we had no way of being sure. When I was at Senjogahara's house, if I had chosen to inspect her naked body closely, I might have noticed the faint operation scars on her back...but obviously, I had done no such thing.

And the way she'd faced me, and put her shirt on first...well, I guess I'd been wrong to suggest she was showing off her body.

She'd asked for my opinion.

At any rate, when Senjogahara's life was saved, her mother...sank even deeper into the cult's clutches.

Believing they had saved her daughter's life.

They had her hooked.

A classic pattern.

But the family stuck together. I knew nothing about the cult's actual practices or beliefs, but for the most part, they did not seem to upend their follower's lives. Her father earned enough, and they'd been rich to begin with, which helped; but as the years passed, her mother's beliefs deepened, and their hold on her increased.

They were a family in name only.

Senjogahara was no longer speaking to her mother.

When she was still in elementary school, they'd remained close, but things had grown increasingly strained after she entered junior high. From the way Hanekawa described her then, it was hard to imagine something like that eating at her.

Perhaps it created her.

Made her great.

Forced her to try and be as perfect as she could be.

To show her mother how perfect she could be, to prove she could be great without help from any cult.

Despite not talking to her.

She had not naturally been inclined towards sports.

Certainly not when she'd been sick.

She must have forced herself.

But her efforts had backfired.

Made things worse.

The better Senjogahara did, the more perfect she managed to be, the more convinced her mother was it was all the cult's influence.

And the final result...

In her third year of junior high.

With graduation looming just ahead.

She'd joined the cult for her daughter, but her priorities had grown so out of whack she offered up her daughter to one of the cult's leaders. Perhaps she even thought it was for her daughter's own good.

Senjogahara fought back.

The cleat's spikes drew blood on the leader's forehead.

And the result...

...destroyed their family.

Ruined them.

Everything was taken away from her.

Money, house, land. Huge loans were taken out.

The divorce was finalized last year, she said; she'd moved to that apartment with her father when she started high school. Everything was over before she graduated junior high.

Over.

And...

In the interval, the space between junior and senior high...

...she met the crab.

"A crab of burden is basically a god of getting even," Oshino explained. "Omoshi for weight or burden, omoishi for revenge and retaliation. Thoughts, feelings, bonds, attachments, and the causes of them. You could say that losing your weight is like you're no longer really there. When something traumatic happens, people's minds seal away the memories -- you see it all the time in movies or TV. It basically works the same way; the god takes what's troubling you away."

In other words, when she met the crab...

She severed her bonds with her mother.

She stopped thinking about how her mother had offered her to the cult leader, how she had not saved her, how this had destroyed their family. She stopped wondering if she should have let it happen.

She set down her burden.

She lost what weighed her down.

She chose...

...to hide it.

She needed some respite.

"A simple trade. An even exchange. Crabs have all that armor, they're pretty tough, right? We think they are, anyway. Got a shell on the outside. Protect what really matters in that exoskeleton. Blowing bubbles. Can't eat them easily."

He really seemed to hate them.

Oshino could get oddly hung up on things.

"The kanji for crab is understanding over insect. Same understanding as in the word for dissection. Anything living in the water gets classified that way in kanji, but these ones have two big claws."

In the end...

Senjogahara lost her burden -- her weight and her feelings. She was freed from suffering, no longer tormented. She threw it all away.

And this...

...made things much easier.

It really had.

Without her burden, she had no real problems. But like the boy who sold his shadow, there was never a day that went by when Senjogahara did not regret it.

Not because she did not get along with other people.

Not because her life had few luxuries remaining.

Not because she no longer made friends.

Not because she'd lost everything.

Simply because she had lost her feelings.

Five con artists.

None of them had anything to do with her mother's religion, but like Oshino, she'd only half trusted them...but the fact that she trusted them at all shows how much she regretted it. The fact that she kept going to the hospital did as well.

All wrong.

I'd been wrong about everything.

Ever since she lost her weight, Senjogahara...

...had not given up on anything.

...had not tossed aside anything.

"She didn't do anything wrong. Just because something bad happens doesn't mean you have to face it. Facing it doesn't make you better. Running away is always a valid option. Especially with a mother that abandoned her in favor of her religion. Given the circumstances, recovering her burden won't change anything. Only difference is her burden weighs on her again. Her mother won't come home, and her family won't recover."

It changed nothing.

Oshino did not say this to mock, was not being sarcastic.

"A crab of burden takes your weight, takes your memories, takes your identity. But it isn't like vampires or the sex cat. She chose this fate, and it was granted to her. A fair exchange. The god was always with her. She never once lost anything. And yet..."

And yet...

Even then.

All the more.

Senjogahara Hitagi wanted it back.

Wanted it all back.

Everything she remembered about her mother.

Her memories, and the pain they caused her.

I could not really know what that meant, and I would probably never know, but like Oshino said, little would come of it. Her mother would not come back to them. Senjogahara would suffer more than ever.

It changed nothing.

"It does change something," Senjogahara said.

Her eyes red and swollen.

"It was not a complete waste. If nothing else, I've found a good friend."

"Who?"

"You."

I knew the answer. But I was taken aback by how simple, direct, and unembarrassed she was about it.

"Thank you, Araragi-kun. I am very grateful to you. I apologize for anything I've said or done. I'd be happy if you'd continue to be my friend."

Despite myself...

This unexpected sentiment sank deep into my heart.

We'd promised to eat crab together.

Winter seemed a long way away.