by Nisioisin
The first place that came to mind was Kanbaru’s home, but I shot the idea down internally before she could suggest it. Because Kanbaru’s room was so messy I’d call it lawless terrain, as hinted above─no, I’d go so far as to call it a warzone. I couldn’t show that kind of room to an innocent middle schooler. That left my home as the only option. And anyway, Sengoku would probably feel anxious if we took her somewhere completely new. My home was a place where she’d played more than a few times in the past.
“Okay then, why don’t we look around for some dirty books?”
“That’s what guys do when they go to their male friends’ rooms! Just sit over there!”
“I’d find it worthwhile to know your tastes.”
“Not only do I not find it worthwhile, I find it actively harmful!”
“Ah, so you admit owning books that are harmful to minors…”
“Says the living harmful book! Take your pick, Kanbaru, sit down or jump out of that window!”
“I’m just kidding, of course. I looked into your tastes long ago, when I was still stalking you. I know every dirty book you’ve bought lately.”
“What?! No way! I was certain no one else was in the store! I made sure!”
“Your tastes are quite out there, aren’t they.”
“You’re down to one option, jump out that window!”
“I’m sure most girls would, faced with that kind of fetish. Heh, but that’s like child’s play for me, I could withstand it.”
“She’s proud of it!”
When I looked.
Sengoku was snickering but trying to hide it.
She seemed tickled by our exchange.
Guh. I was embarrassed.
I’d been wondering the whole time on the way back: how friendly should I be acting with this old acquaintance of mine?
Not to mention─Sengoku was quiet, if anything.
She seldom spoke, and only ever did so shyly.
Since Shinobu, Oshino, Hanekawa, Senjogahara, Hachikuji, and Kanbaru were all voluble and garrulous despite their various inclinations (Shinobu: rampant arrogance, Oshino: frivolous sarcasm, Hanekawa: moralizing instruction, Senjogahara: bitter abuse, Hachikuji: two-faced politeness, Kanbaru: fawning flattery), dealing with this new silent character was refreshing. Of course, Shinobu had grown taciturn after becoming a child…
Was Sengoku quiet now just as she had been as a child? Yes, it did feel like she always had her head down─but honestly, I couldn’t recall the details vividly.
I couldn’t remember.
She was introverted, spoke little, and always faced down─
But.
She seemed to have remembered me.
Big Brother Koyomi.
Yes, Nadeko Sengoku─once referred to me in that manner. As for what I’d called her─well, I’d forgotten. Maybe Nadeko, maybe Nadeshiko. Either way, I couldn’t call her that anymore.
Sengoku─was Sengoku.
“Big Brother…and Miss Kanbaru,” Sengoku said at last, quietly of course. “Could you…please turn away for a moment?”
“……”
We silently did as she said.
We turned our backs on Sengoku and faced the wall.
While I may have told Kanbaru to jump out of the window, I felt relieved that she was with me after all. In fact, after I called out to Sengoku at the shrine, I was at a loss as she stood there stiffly, and it was Kanbaru who singlehandedly pulled off the feat of getting her to open up. Seducing any younger girl within ten seconds had been no idle boast. I was willing to admit that Big Brother Koyomi alone would have been useless. I’d have fretted miserably and that would have been it. Looking back on it, Sengoku hadn’t just frozen in place─her shoulders slumping as if the world were coming to an end, she’d gone completely blank. Drawing her back out would have been nigh impossible with my meager skills.
“My dear senior,” Kanbaru whispered as we looked at the same wall. She seemed to be hushing her voice so that Sengoku wouldn’t hear, and I replied likewise.
“What is it?”
“You might not welcome it, but my plan is to start livening things up.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you may have already noticed─but that girl, Sengoku, seems to be quite emotionally unstable. I’ve seen a lot of girls like her, both older and younger than me. She’s a serious case. The slightest shock could drive her to self-harm.”
“Self-harm…”
Those chisels.
I’d forgotten─to take them from her.
They were inside the bag around her waist.
Everything from a triangular blade to a cutting blade, a full set of five.
It didn’t sound exaggerated.
In fact.
If Kanbaru hadn’t intervened exactly when she did after I yelled Sengoku’s name─that totally could have been.
Even I could tell.
“You’re a kind person,” Kanbaru murmured, “so it might be hard for you to act merry when someone’s feeling down, but synching with her depressed state would only make things worse here. I wouldn’t say it’s like Maxwell’s demon, but I need to lift Sengoku’s spirit right now.”
“…Huh.”
So was that the reason for the earlier talk about dirty books? You know, it seemed I had underestimated Kanbaru. I’d wondered if she was just obtuse when she’d said that, but my judgment had been too superficial. Suruga Kanbaru gave more thought to her actions than I knew.
“Okay, then,” I said. “If that’s how it is, go wild. I’ll follow along.”
“Yes. I might get carried away and assault you, but I’d like your generosity to extend to that possibility, too.”
“I can’t be ‘generous’ about that! How exactly were you planning to liven things up?” I managed to pull off the impressive feat of yelling in a whisper. “Ack, now I’m starting to feel bummed out, too… The slightest shock could drive me to self-harm.”
“There’s no need for despair. You know what they say. Though it may be winter, the ice age isn’t far behind, and night is always followed by a century of darkness.”
“No one says that! What would those sayings even mean?!”
“No matter how bad things may seem now, it’s as easy as it’s ever going to be.”
“What a seemingly positive but horribly pessimistic message!”
“There is no rain that doesn’t turn to a flood.”
“Yes, there is! It rains without turning into a flood all the time!”
“Heheheh. See? Now you sound positive again.”
“Agh! You tricked me!”
I suddenly heard a stifled laugh from behind me.
Like someone was struggling to keep quiet.
It was Sengoku.
It seemed she just barely heard us.
If that was Kanbaru’s plan all along─
She really was something.
“It’s okay now. Please turn back around,” Sengoku said.
When I did, I saw Nadeko Sengoku fully in the nude─standing straight on the bed as she looked down in embarrassment.
No─she wasn’t completely nude.
She had taken her hat off, naturally, and even her socks, but was still wearing volleyball shorts. Other than that─there wasn’t a thread left on her body. Though she did use the palms of her hands to hide her modest breasts.
“…Wait, volleyball shorts?”
Huh?
Just as I’d guessed, Sengoku attended the same middle school that I graduated from, but hadn’t they retired volleyball shorts and introduced baggier athletic shorts by the time I started there?
“Ah well,” Kanbaru said, “I just ‘happened’ to be carrying those around and lent them to her.”
“I see. You just ‘happened’ to be carrying around volleyball shorts.”
“They’re a simple and tasteful part of a young lady’s life.”
“No, that’d be a sick and twisted plot on a young lady’s life.�
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“I had them ready in case something like this came to pass.”
“What did you think was coming to pass? What exactly did you think I wanted when I summoned you today? You’re making me doubt my own credibility. And where did you even get a pair of those things, anyway? If this were an old-timey manga, that’s the kind of item that would prompt lines like, ‘Impossible! That tribe was supposed to have been wiped out long ago!’”
“Yup. While I may not look like it, I have excellent foresight. I saw that the culture would some day be wiped out and decided to conserve a hundred and fifty pairs of them beforehand.”
“Isn’t that over-hunting, rather than conserving?”
Hadn’t she made them go extinct, to be honest?
“………”
A high school boy and a high school girl having a lively and jovial discussion about volleyball shorts while a nearly naked middle school girl stood there on a bed. An outside viewer might see it as a fairly serious case of bullying.
Sengoku’s bangs, hidden earlier by her hat, were longer than I expected, covering her eyes. Or maybe she was doing it on purpose out of embarrassment. The cuticles of her lustrous black hair shone. It seemed she’d hidden her clothes under my comforter after taking them off. The fact that she was wearing those shorts as per Kanbaru’s ministrations and that she’d taken even her bra off suggested that displaying her underwear was more embarrassing than baring her skin for this old female acquaintance of mine. She undoubtedly looked more provocative than she intended, there in nothing but volleyball shorts, but I didn’t understand middle school girls’ sensibilities…
But.
Unfortunately─I guess you might say?
Sex appeal had nothing to do with this situation.
“What is…that?”
It had taken me a while, but the surprised words found their way out of my mouth─when I saw Nadeko Sengoku’s skin.
Her skin─was covered in traces of scales.
From the toes of her two feet up to her collarbones.
Clear traces of scales─on every inch of her body.
For a moment I wondered if scales had grown directly on her body, but I looked closer to realize that wasn’t the case. The scales were imprinted onto her body, like with a woodblock print─pressed onto her skin as it were.
“Reminds me of rope bondage marks,” Kanbaru said.
Indeed, there did seem to be signs of internal bleeding here and there on her body, and the painful-looking markings made it look like she had been tied up─asking Kanbaru why she had such intimate knowledge of rope bondage marks would only complicate things, so I decided to let it slide for the time being.
No─maybe not rope bondage marks as much as…
Something going from her toes up through her legs all the way to her torso─
It was as if something was gripped around her.
Something we couldn’t see.
Traces of scales, on every inch of her body.
Gripped around her.
Gripping─possessing her.
The only parts of her body without those marks were her arms, as well as her head from the neck up. There was no need to go the extra step of having her show us her hips and lower abdomen, now hidden by those volleyball shorts.
Scales.
So if they were scales─fish?
No, these weren’t fish scales, but a reptile’s─
A snake.
Snake…serpent.
“Big Brother?” Sengoku said.
Her voice still vanishingly small.
Her voice shaking.
“You’re a grownup already…so you aren’t having any dirty thoughts seeing me naked, are you?”
“Huh? O-Oh. No way. Right, Kanbaru?”
“Yes? Umm…I…guess?”
“Hey, play along! Where’d all that loyalty of yours go?!”
“Sengoku, it might do you good going forward to know that some people think dirty thoughts when they see little girls nude precisely because they’re adults.”
“You’ve betrayed me! And we’d gotten along so well until now!”
“I don’t know, though. I think in this case, it only makes you more suspect as a man if you show no interest whatsoever in seeing her naked, or maybe, it’s just rude to her?”
Kanbaru seemed fairly solemn as she said this to me.
Thinking about it, I had to admit she was right.
While the situation was anything but sexual, and while there were snake scales imprinted along her entire body, it still felt impolite to see a girl naked and not feel a thing. I seemed to recall Senjogahara saying that providing some feedback was just good manners.
I turned to face Sengoku.
I spoke to her in the most serious voice I could manage.
“Let me correct myself. I do have a few little dirty thoughts seeing you nude, Sengoku.”
“……urr.” Sengoku’s shoulders began to shake, as though she were trying to stifle her anguish. “Uh, urrr…uurk.”
Tears began to stream from her eyes─and she began to cry.
“Hey, Kanbaru! I’ve made a middle school girl cry because I took your advice! A middle school girl! Do you understand? It’s all over for me! How are you going to make this right?!”
“No one could have guessed that you’d put it so directly…”
Kanbaru was looking at me, appalled.
It didn’t seem like she’d been trying to trick me.
“I,” Sengoku said, crouching down on my bed─her head bowed, mumbling so quietly it was barely audible─
And yet.
The words were certain.
“I─hate having this body.”
“…Sengoku.”
“I hate it… Save me, Big Brother Koyomi,” she said─in a tearful voice.
005
And then─
An hour later.
I was visiting a derelict building inhabited by Oshino and Shinobu that once housed a cram school with only a day separating me from my last visit on Saturday.
“You’re late. I’ve been waiting,” Oshino greeted me in his arrogant, all-knowing tone.
Mèmè Oshino.
An expert on the subject of aberrations.
A specialist, an authority.
The man who lifted me from the veil of darkness I found myself under during spring break after being attacked by a vampire and getting turned into one myself in this day and age─my savior.
A Hawaiian-shirted dude, age unknown.
An awful role model with no fixed address who went from journey to journey.
Tsubasa Hanekawa, when she was charmed by a cat.
Hitagi Senjogahara, when she encountered a crab.
Mayoi Hachikuji, when she got lost with a snail.
Suruga Kanbaru, when she wished to a monkey.
All of them─received help from Oshino.
I don’t know if I’ll ever fully repay the favor─but to be frank, if he weren’t my savior, I wouldn’t want to get to know his type very well. By no means.
He had an awful personality. He was no font of good will. He was like an avatar of caprice. While I’d known him for some time since spring break, I still couldn’t understand large swaths of his personality.
He sat cross-legged on top of a makeshift bed he had fashioned by tying together, with plastic rope, a number of desks that kids must have once used to study away. After I’d explained all of the above, Oshino said in a tormented voice almost as if he detested the name─
“A Jagirinawa.”
“A Jagirinawa, huh… Never heard of that one.”
“It’s pretty famous. I think it’s a form of serpent shamanism.”
“Serpent shaman? Not serpent-bearer?”
“Serpent-bearers are from Greek mythology. Serpent shamanism is domestic. You know, like serpent-god mediums… I guess there isn’t much point in talking to you about that. Still, a Jagirinawa… Hmm. So would that make this girl…your junior?”
“It
doesn’t really feel like it because of how much younger she is. So─she’s my little sister’s friend.”
