The arc opens with Koyomi Araragi and Shinobu Oshino musing about the true nature of Shikigami doll Yotsugi Ononoki. Koyomi supposes that as an apparition, Yotsugi isn’t well suited to life among humans, in spite of her attempts at being human-like. She was, after all, created from a human corpse, by other humans.