I think we can say pretty safely that there are “good and bad on both sides” in Mononogatari.  It looked briefly as if it might be a humans vs. tsukumogami story, but that was always too simplistic.  If anything the humans we’ve seen here are dodgier in their behavior than the tsukumogami.  But as the one caught squarely in the middle Botan gets the worst of both worlds.  Her whole existence is centered on being the subject of attention of the sort no one would want.

I’m not quite sure why Aogi showed up at the mansion here, apart from exposition.  What was in that for him?  He gave Suzuri a lot of valuable information but he didn’t seem to be asking any questions himself.  He calls himself an investigator but it’s clear he’s more an information broker, so it seems odd to me he gave up as much as he did for free.  Among the tidbits: he basically passed along the cover story – Hyouma is just thereto train – but that’s not enough for some of the power brokers in Kyoto.  Three of them specifically are risks to act unilaterally, and the first to pop is the Kadomori faction.

One thing is clear – within the Saotome there’s not much respect for authority.  Kadomori Taiju is the head of the Kyoto Saotome group, but that group theoretically answers to Hyouma’s grandfather.  However, when Hyouma refuses Taiju’s “request” to do away with Botan (and that after only the barest pretense at civility), Taiju basically (though calmly) declares all-out war against him.  He’ll do his bidding one way or the other, the man says – it’ll just be a lot more painful if he doesn’t do it voluntarily.

In a sense, I get why everyone is so obsessed with Botan.  Taiju may or may not be right when he says that when her marebito awakens the most likely scenario is that she becomes the master of all Kyoto tsukumogami, but I assume he’s an expert and his guess is as good as anyone’s.  It’s easy to see why the tsukumogami wouldn’t want that, but not much harder to see why the humans wouldn’t either.  A new power player on that scale sucks power away from everyone else, and potentially presents an existential threat to humanity in the area.

Kadomori makes it clear how he feels – the Nagatsuki villa is “monsters living side by side with monsters”.  He seems pretty certain to be an antagonist for the duration.  His daughter Tsubaki less so – she’s a curious sort, she thinks Hyouma is cute, and her dad seems OK with her simply choosing not to fight if she’s not feeling it.  Maybe he’d feel differently if he knew (and he’s finding out quickly) that this rube kid is going to be a lot of trouble to dispense with.  I don’t expect Tsubaki to have to choose a side right now, but that’s a possible bit of development for the future.