Otorimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “Y…Yeah. Atone,” Nadeko still says.

  As if doing everything i can to explain might improve the situation in some little way─like Nadeko mistakenly believes that she can do something about a situation that’s already finished.

  “i…i’m not a victim… Nadeko isn’t a victim… She’s a victim, but she’s also guilty…”

  So.

  i need to atone─wait.

  Is something wrong here?

  “I see. You’ve been carrying all kinds of burdens. I’m sorry I never noticed.”

  I heard about what happened at school too, he adds─hold on, at school?

  Does he mean when Nadeko became Naughtyko?

  Why would Koyomi have heard─no, maybe it’s not that mysterious. Nadeko’s middle school is full of students who are friends with Tsukihi and Karen, so they hear about it whenever any kind of incident happens, and that was easily big enough to call an incident.

  If word of it got to the Fire Sisters, then Koyomi would find out about it─especially after what happened this morning.

  Is that why he came back home?

  Because he found out that Nadeko left school early? No─that might have been part of it, but it can’t be everything. He wouldn’t have been able to guess that Nadeko was coming here.

  So there has to be something.

  Something Nadeko doesn’t know but Big Brother does.

  …But so what?

  How does that matter?

  It doesn’t mean anything anymore.

  Whatever Big Brother knows, whatever Nadeko doesn’t─now, it doesn’t mean a thing.

  Because─he already knows.

  The one feeling Nadeko didn’t want him to.

  So nothing else matters to her anymore─it’s all over.

  If everything is going to come to an end─then let it.

  “I never noticed, I’m sorry,” Big Brother says─but i don’t really know what he’s talking about.

  He never noticed for Nadeko─he says.

  But Nadeko didn’t want him to notice.

  She wanted him to leave her alone─she didn’t want it noticed. Big Brother Koyomi was the one person i didn’t want knowing what an awful girl Nadeko is.

  i wanted to stay a girl who’s just cute.

  “I promise I’ll apologize properly─so for now, Sengoku, I need you to give me that talisman.”

  “…”

  “You─” Big Brother says, with the smallest bit of sadness in his tone. “You always─act annoyed when we talk.”

  “…!”

  Wha?

  Hold on a second.

  That’s not true.

  That’s not how it is. That isn’t why Nadeko lowers her eyes when we talk, Nadeko─

  “Are you that way with everyone? Do you find it annoying anytime anyone approaches you? Do you see everyone as an enemy? If you do, I think that’s fine, too. If you hate me─then there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  There’s nothing he can do, he says.

  Please don’t.

  Did you not hear Nadeko? Didn’t i just say it?

  Or were you not listening?

  To the way that Nadeko feels about Big Brother─

  “Even so, Sengoku, that talisman─”

  “Have ye had enough of this dragged-out affair?”

  Just then, Miss Shinobu, who’s stayed silent the whole time until now, interrupts Koyomi. Her tone is terribly mean, without any trace of sympathy in contrast to Big Brother─she’s being so combative toward Nadeko.

  “There’s no need to pay heed to the feelings of this clueless, spoilt child. Smack her and take it from her, that’s all ye need to do. Give her all the reasoning and explanation ye want later. Nay─there’s not even a need to bother with that then. What thou ought to do with this ignorant waif is to sell her off somewhere. Pitiful and cute. ’Twould be mercy to allow her to continue being a victim.”

  “Shinobu…” Koyomi reacts to her words, but Shinobu continues bluntly.

  “There’s no need for thee to give any consideration to some waif who can think only of herself even in a situation like this. As is thy custom, ye try to save anyone and everyone for any and every reason─but, while I’m at it, ye can’t even answer this waif’s selfish emotions in kind.”

  Her words are so cold─that i can’t tell who she’s being cold to.

  An ironblooded, hotblooded, yet coldblooded vampire.

  i think that was Miss Shinobu’s catchphrase─but coldblooded is all she’s being right now.

  Like a snake.

  Coldblooded.

  “All this brat is, is cute─all that’s cute to her is her, and thou ought to abandon such a brat. Enough with thy philanthropy─crimes deserve punishment. She ought to learn this─just as I did.”

  “W-Way to talk,” Nadeko can’t stop herself from retorting.

  All Nadeko is, is cute?

  All that’s cute to her is Nadeko? There’s no way i can stay quiet after being treated to all of that.

  i can’t stay quiet.

  “Th-That’s not true… Y-You might be right, but… Nadeko’s doing it for herself because she has to, but… She’s atoning, papering it over, but, but─”

  Mister Serpent.

  He lost his energy and was like a candle in the wind─and to save him.

  A tiny little part of Nadeko might really feel that way─

  “S…Say something, Mister Serpent,” Nadeko addresses the aberration on her right wrist─the god there. “Don’t be silent…please─help Nadeko. Cover for Nadeko.”

  You.

  Aren’t you a god?

  “Enough, forelocked girl,” Miss Shinobu says like she’s fed up.

  It’s not a suitable name anymore, but Miss Shinobu probably couldn’t care less.

  Trivial differences in humans don’t mean a thing to Miss Shinobu, an aberration. She’s even a specialist at devouring aberrations─

  “Rather than rely forever on this Mister Serpent, some god who hasn’t even been resurrected─hurry up and give us that talisman. That charmed talisman entrusted by Izuko Gaen to my master─”

  Wha?

  Hearing this, Nadeko looks at the talisman with the snake drawn on it.

  And at her own right wrist.

  And enwrapped around it is─no.

  Wrapped around it is.

  A plain old white scrunchy─it’d do a very good job of holding together your hair.

  022

  “Shinobu, don’t say anything that might provoke her─Sengoku!”

  As i hear Koyomi’s yell, Nadeko takes the talisman in her left hand─and eats it.

  She swallows it.

  She puts the talisman with the snake drawn on it in her mouth.

  She puts the whole thing in her mouth like a snake─and swallows it.

  “Stop it, Sengoku! It’s not too─”

  “’Tis too late!”

  i sense Miss Shinobu leaping towards Nadeko after she loudly erases Big Brother’s line─i sense it all right.

  Because now Nadeko can see the world using something other than sight.

  She feels with heat.

  The heat of human bodies.

  The warmth of human skin─i can see it.

  Because─Nadeko is now a snake herself.

  “I must devour her! It’s─too late for this woman!”

  “T-Too late? Th-That’s─”

  Nadeko turns around─with her whole body this time.

  No, to be precise─it happened before i could turn around.

  A change.

  They were late. They were too late.

  “That’s something I know better than anyone!!”

  Snakes.

  Snakes, all of them─the hairs on Nadeko’s head are snakes─what’s more, they’ve turned into white snakes.

  It isn’t a hallucination.

  Physically, in reality─a hundred thousand snakes have nested in Nadeko’s hair. No, nested is a strange way to put it─because those
hundred thousand snakes, these hundred thousand snakes, are all Nadeko─they’re all me.

  Snakes like Nadeko.

  And Nadeko is like a snake.

  “Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!”

  The snakes─lengthen.

  As if they’re living, growing creatures, or maybe as if they’re the hair they once were─they lengthen at an incredible speed to entangle Miss Shinobu, who’s now trying to bite into Nadeko’s neck.

  They entangle Miss Shinobu.

  And they bite her.

  “Gah…you damned…reptile!”

  She’s forced back.

  While i can’t tell from her appearance just how much power she has now─i understand that there are times when her age changes according to her power and other times when it doesn’t─the sheer number of snakes are at least enough to physically force her back.

  The growing snakes.

  Nadeko’s growing hair.

  Her bangs grow back in an instant, too─Mister Serpent said he would make Nadeko’s hair grow once he got his power back, and it looks like he wasn’t lying.

  It’s just.

  Mister Serpent’s existence was a myriad of lies, that’s all.

  One of the myriad gods─was a myriad of lies.

  “Unh, aah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  The hundred thousand snakes push Miss Shinobu to the floor before going on to bite her─plunging their fangs again and again into her tender, pale skin.

  “Guh… Gah…”

  They even make Miss Shinobu cry out in pain.

  Come to think of it, i remember someone saying in June─that poison is effective even against an immortal vampire’s body.

  Does that mean there’s poison in Nadeko’s hair?

  Is there poison in Nadeko?

  Or is it Nadeko─who’s poison.

  “Shinobu…!”

  Big Brother Koyomi moves in to rescue Miss Shinobu─he shakes the snakes off to pull out the buried vampire.

  She’s ridden with painful-looking holes, and he shoves her straight into his shadow, seeming to shelter her in that sanctuary.

  Once she’s in there.

  There’s no way for the snakes─for Nadeko to get her hands on her.

  To get her hair on her.

  i can’t bite her anymore.

  “Why…”

  It’s at this point─that Nadeko finally finishes turning around.

  She’s even on one knee, so the pinup magazine falls and hits the floor.

  Meanwhile, the talisman─hits the spot in Nadeko’s stomach.

  “Why save Miss Shinobu─Big Brother?”

  “Sengoku…”

  “Especially when you didn’t save Nadeko!”

  i pull out a hair.

  One of the snakes. Nadeko holds it in her right hand─and at that moment, the white snake thickens and thins─turning into a hard, straight rod.

  It’s like a fang.

  A large fang. A sharp fang.

  A poisonous fang.

  “Big Brother Koyomi─Big Brother Koyomi, Big Brother Koyomi─Big Brother Koyomi─Big Brother Koyomi, Big Brother Koyomi, Big Brother Koyomi─”

  Nadeko hoists the fang into the air like she’s unsheathing a blade─and screams.

  Deliriously.

  Resentfully─i scream.

  “What about Nadeko.”

  The fang makes direct contact with Big Brother’s flank.

  The impact’s sensation is awful.

  “What about Nadeko─what about Nadeko.”

  But that isn’t enough to stop Nadeko, who continues to swing the great fang─Koyomi doesn’t even try to dodge.

  Why not?

  Is it Miss Shinobu? Is he─giving her cover?

  Why. Why would he?

  “What about Nadeko? She loves Big Brother too!”

  The tip of the fang i’m swinging around─

  Sinks into Koyomi’s skin.

  Nadeko’s poison, her deadly poison.

  It courses through Nadeko’s dear Big Brother’s body.

  023

  ─And now our tale returns to where we started.

  Welcome back.

  Did you have fun?

  i’m glad to hear that.

  The grounds of Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─there’s no building left here on this rotten and decayed mountain trail, with only a red torii gate giving any indication of the nature of the place, and this is where Nadeko stands all alone in a downpour so fierce she can’t even see an inch ahead of her.

  Alone.

  Overwhelmingly alone.

  Nadeko is the only one standing.

  The other two have fallen─Big Brother Koyomi and Miss Shinobu have been filled with poison from head to toe, turning them a murky black─and as for Koyomi, his shattered heart has yet to regenerate.

  But that’s an immortal vampire for you.

  Every bit as imposing as you hear.

  It seems like they’re somehow still alive. Neither has met death─though i realize it’s laughably funny to talk about someone immortal as still being alive.

  And─they’re only “alive” if that’s how you describe the physiological reactions they seem to be having to the pouring rain, like frog torsos twitching and convulsing after being electrified.

  “You shouldn’t have come after Nadeko,” i mutter as Nadeko swings the fang in her left hand, cutting through the air. “You should have just let her run away, there’s no need to bother─not if you aren’t going to save her. If you weren’t going to, Big Brother, you could have at least rid the world of Nadeko─at least killed her.”

  Too weak.

  Even i shudder at how cold Nadeko’s words are as she looks down at him with sober eyes─it might have been because of the chilling rain, but that couldn’t be all.

  By now.

  Nadeko must be completely coldblooded.

  Even more than Miss Shinobu─far more.

  Nadeko’s body and mind, her blood and heart, must be cold.

  Running out of Big Brother’s room after landing a blow and staggering him─

  Running all over the place, i ended up here at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, where it all started. Nadeko was hiding under its floor when, sure enough, Big Brother Koyomi came after her.

  Even if he had some idea, he couldn’t have found Nadeko blindly.

  Was he looking for her the whole time?

  Just like that night─yes, probably.

  He must have been.

  Because Big Brother, the one Nadeko fell in love with, is that kind of person.

  That sort of person and─only that sort.

  “You said you were here to kill Nadeko…and to go ahead and eat her… But i bet you weren’t really going to kill her or let her be eaten. By the time you blew away the shrine hall, you must have been trying to figure out a way. Because you’re always─all talk.”

  Sure, if this were a case of possession, there might be a way of driving it out.

  Nadeko continues.

  Her words are only getting colder.

  “That’s how you always are… It’s how you always behave. You don’t think about winning, let alone your odds, you do whatever comes to mind and hope for the best in a battle…”

  It’s just that he’s immortal, and as he is now, Big Brother─Miss Shinobu, too─isn’t exactly strong. He’s not even fully immortal, and especially in a bad match-up, against snake venom, for instance─yes.

  You can see the results. It’s a “retched” sight.