Otorimonogatari

by Nisioisin

It wasn’t a corpse.

  It wasn’t a pile of bones, or even a mummy…

  That makes sense, it’d be easy to take away, to save, to hide like this─and it helps explain why Mister Serpent couldn’t find it despite his powerful dowsing skill. But…

  An image?

  “S-So people can worship this? i mean, it’s─paper-thin.”

  “They sure can.”

  Even if it’s─paper-thin, Mister Serpent answers Nadeko without so much as a pause.

  He’s shamelessly contradicting what he said before.

  “You humans don’t think twice about worshipping images.”

  “W-Well, true, we do fall in love and start admiring them, but that whole culture is pretty recent…”

  “No, no. That’s not what I mean.”

  “A-Are you saying like paintings and not just photographs?”

  “i’m talking about Rembrandt and Da Vinci, that sort of stuff.”

  “Ahh…”

  Okay.

  Now that he mentions it, that’s worship─isn’t it?

  “It doesn’t have to be an image,” the Serpent says. “It could be music, or literature─anything could end up being worshipped. And of course that includes corpses, rocks, trees, and the like.”

  “…”

  Nadeko takes another look at the talisman again when he says this─hm.

  It just looks like a plain image to Nadeko.

  Not the kind that gets worshipped, i think.

  It would still look like a bookmark if it never got referred to as a talisman…but maybe that’s exactly why this was the perfect hiding place.

  Normally, you wouldn’t expect a shrine’s object of worship to be hidden in the pages of a dirty magazine─in fact, isn’t that a good way to get yourself cursed?

  It might actually be why Big Brother’s luck has been so bad recently, and his life full of so many disasters…

  “Turning an existence, a concept, into an image to preserve it forever─I guess there’s wisdom in it. But to think that I, Master Serpent, could ever have a body so paper-thin─hsshh, hsshh. You’re right, Nadeko, knowing oneself is harder than you’d expect.”

  “…So does that mean everything’s okay?” Nadeko asks, looking at one side of the talisman, then the other─to check with Mister Serpent.

  A final check.

  “Now, Mister Serpent, you have your energy back… Which means you can keep on existing without having to worry about running out─”

  “Well, I doubt it’ll last forever─this piece of paper is only like a copy of the original, and it’s not like I’ll be able to regain all the faith in me that’s been lost. But I should be able to continue on for a few centuries─a lot longer than if I was an e-book. Come on, Nadeko. Hurry up and let me eat that talisman.”

  “Let me eat…”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my promise─I’ll make sure to resurrect your bangs. No, maybe I owe you more as thanks. If you have any other wish, I’ll grant it for you.”

  Mister Serpent is in a better mood than he’s ever been─you could even say he’s high.

  i don’t blame him.

  He finally found the thing he wanted, his body─his energy, the source of it.

  “…”

  “Hm? Nothing, Nadeko, no wish? I don’t mind how ambitious. Like reversing what happened at school today─I should have enough energy left over to pull it off.”

  “Ambitious…”

  Something─out of reach.

  A wish.

  Like i’m visiting a shrine─in that case, what does Nadeko want?

  What do I want.

  For the girl called Nadeko Sengoku.

  “i don’t need you to make it so that today never happened.”

  “Hmm? Are you sure, Nadeko? After all that talk about your life being over? Well, I’d only be erasing everyone’s memories, but still─are you really fine with everything being over, hmmmm?”

  “It doesn’t matter either way… You see, Nadeko is bad at working in groups.”

  “Huh. Sure, I’d assume as much.”

  “But sometimes i think about how arrogant it is to say that you don’t work well in groups, too─what you’re saying is that you don’t belong with the people around you. Nadeko is scared of the words ‘pair up with whoever you like’─because there’s no one she likes.”

  “…”

  “That’s why it doesn’t matter either way─for Nadeko, it’s been over for Nadeko from the start. It’s been over for her for a long time now. It’s just that I never saw that. It was already over, done for, and not about today, whether or not that charm was cast, but no matter what.”

  It was already over.

  “…So, what, nothing?” presses Mister Serpent. His good mood and all the excitement has vanished─he sounds serious. “Nothing you want to ask a god for?”

  “Ask for.”

  “Pray for, if you prefer.”

  i think.

  The question makes Nadeko think.

  It’s tiresome, but─i think.

  “My dear…”

  Nadeko speaks.

  Speaks the tiresome words.

  “My dear Big Brother Koyomi… If Nadeko asked for him to love her back…could you make even that come true?”

  “That’s asking for too much, Sengoku.”

  The voice comes from behind Nadeko─isn’t Mister Serpent’s.

  i don’t have to turn around to be able to tell.

  He’s here now─right behind Nadeko.

  Big Brother Koyomi.

  Koyomi Araragi is here.

  021

  Let Nadeko tell you just how cruel, how impossible, and how grave the current situation, which must be more or less the narrative’s climax─is for your reference.

  i doubt words can convey it, but Nadeko needs to try as hard as she can.

  It’s important to try.

  i don’t like having to work hard, but this is probably the last time in Nadeko’s life that she’s going to have to try─uhm.

  First off, Nadeko is in Big Brother Koyomi’s home right now, in his room. i’m trespassing, by the way. Nadeko opened the locked front door without asking and even placed her shoes in a plastic bag she brought with her in order to cover up what she’s dared to do, which is breaking and entering.

  On top of all of that, i’m rummaging through Koyomi’s room.

  Something i wouldn’t be allowed to do even if i were family.

  i have a debt of gratitude to him so big i can’t repay it─he, and i say this without exaggeration, saved Nadeko’s life, but this is how i’m repaying his kindness.

  Not only am i breaking and entering, i’m violating his privacy.

  If that were all─though i shouldn’t even be using that phrase─it would be one thing. To make matters worse, Nadeko has gone and found the dirty magazines Big Brother stores in his desk drawer, read the top two from cover to cover and tossed them to the floor, and has a third one open on her lap.

  And then, after all of this.

  After she’s been witnessed doing this─she says it.

  Dear Big Brother…

  Nadeko wants him to love her back.

  i’ve gone and said it─

  “……………………………nkk!”

  Between turning pale and blushing like her cheeks are on fire, Nadeko’s face must look like a marble.

  i can’t move. i can’t stand.

  i can’t even turn around─or blink.

  A dream. This is a dream.

  Nadeko is dreaming─tut tut.

  Tut tut, Nadeko.

  Remember what Tsukihi told you?

  i should be looking at reality instead─

  “Listen, Sengoku. Nadeko Sengoku.”

  Big Brother Koyomi’s voice continues from behind like he’s completely uninterested in Nadeko’s attempt to escape reality─he’s stifling any emotions, and i can’t guess what his expression is like.

  He won’t let Nadeko run from rea
lity.

  i can’t retreat into a dream.

  “I’m not going to do anything to you…so just calm down. Okay?”

  “…”

  Calm down? What an unreasonable demand.

  Big Brother is asking the impossible of Nadeko.

  Calm down?

  So in other words, die?

  “I want you to slowly─put it on the floor.”

  i don’t know what he’s talking about.

  None of his normally comforting words are making it to Nadeko’s brain.

  Why is Big Brother here?

  What about school? Saving people?

  What’s going on─well, i don’t know if he’s been saving people.

  But in that case, what’s he up to?

  “Can you hear me, Nadeko? Put that─on the floor. That’s all you need to do, it’s fine. Just do that, and it’ll solve everything.”

  “…”

  That?

  Could he be talking about the pinup magazine on Nadeko’s lap? Yes, he’s right, i should let go of it asap. It’s bad for Nadeko’s education.

  But please listen, Big Brother Koyomi, you have it wrong. Nadeko wasn’t tearing up your room to look for these.

  That isn’t why she’s committing a crime.

  But i’m in no situation to be mouthing excuses─however you look at it, right now Nadeko is a precocious, curious early bloomer.

  “Muh, muh, muh, muh, muh, muh, muh…”

  Nadeko’s quivering voice, her quivering tongue, her quivering lips.

  She’s never had more trouble in her life rolling out words, even as her vision is spinning.

  Still, summoning every bit of strength, i call out to him─to Mister Serpent, on Nadeko’s right wrist─to ask for his help.

  “I-It’s okay now, Mister Serpent… I-It’s okay if he finds out about everything…”

  It’s okay if he knows.

  That Nadeko isn’t a victim, and everything else. It’s okay if Big Brother finds out─so please, just explain it all to him.

  It’s fine now. All of it─it’s fine.

  “Muh-Mister Serpent─”

  But the Serpent doesn’t react.

  He doesn’t even budge there on Nadeko’s right wrist─as if he’s turned into nothing more than a plain accessory, the moment Koyomi shows up.

  “Wh-Why─”

  Why won’t you say anything?

  There’s no point anymore in our promise for Mister Serpent not to speak or move when other people are around─

  “M-Mister Serpent…”

  “Sengoku. Can you hear me?”

  Koyomi’s low voice continues as if he isn’t even registering Nadeko’s plea to the Serpent─

  “Listen to me. Put it down,” Big Brother says. “That talisman─put it on the floor.”

  So says.

  Big Brother Koyomi.

  “……………”

  ………………

  The talisman?

  That talisman?

  It was inserted into this pinup magazine─a bookmark.

  An image of the Ouroboros.

  He’s talking about…Mister Serpent’s object of worship?

  “B─”

  Hm?

  Is there something─wrong here? Am i mistaken?

  Hold on a sec─in other words…Big Brother knows why Nadeko is searching through his room?

  Even without an explanation from Mister Serpent─why is that?

  i mean, Big Brother Koyomi shouldn’t know anything─

  “B…”

  Nadeko─with the magazine still on her lap─just barely gets her neck to turn.

  “Big Brother… Wh-Why?”

  Then she asks him.

  “Why─do you always…know everything?”

  “I don’t know everything, I just know what I know.”

  Now that i’m looking, it’s not just Big Brother Koyomi in his school uniform─next to him is a little blond girl in a dress, Miss Shinobu Oshino.

  She’s by Big Brother’s side─

  Like she belongs there.

  With a gruesome smile on her face─she’s gazing at Nadeko.

  Her fangs bared and her chin held high, as if she’s looking down on Nadeko─scorning her.

  This girl who’s supposed to be nocturnal is gazing at Nadeko in the middle of the day.

  “…”

  “Sengoku─”

  In contrast, Koyomi looks serious as he stares right at Nadeko.

  It’s the definition of a piercing gaze.

  While it does look like he might be angry, even more than that─he seems worried.

  Worried?

  No─Nadeko is worrying him.

  She’s making dear Big Brother─worry.

  “That─” he points at the talisman.

  The “that” in Nadeko’s left hand─he calls it “that.”

  “That’s a lot more dangerous than you think it is─but it’s not too late. Yes, you made a small mistake─it’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes─and this time, it just happened to be you.”

  “…”

  A mistake? Not too late?

  This, the talisman Nadeko is holding, isn’t what she thinks it is─what does that mean?

  If it’s not what Nadeko thinks it is…then what is it that she doesn’t?

  Really, just how much─does Koyomi know?

  And what doesn’t he know?

  “i-i’m not…mistaken,” Nadeko asserts. Despite the situation, she says it straight to Koyomi’s face─i’m timid, yes, but something very precious in Nadeko might fall apart otherwise.

  How ridiculous.

  Something very precious in Nadeko─already fell apart, a long time ago.

  “N…Nadeko is doing…what she ought to do… It’s tiresome, but she has to… She doesn’t really want to…but she needs to…”

  She’s only forceful at the beginning─and even the beginning must not have sounded good to anyone else─before it gets more and more confused.

  Incoherent.

  Nadeko can’t stand Big Brother’s gaze…and turns her head back around to look straight in front of her again.

  If only i had bangs, i could just cast down my eyes.

  Now─with her back to Koyomi.

  It’s as if she’s defying him.

  It’s as if she’s opposing him.

  “i…i had to, i had to, i had to.”

  “Yeah. I know. It’s okay, Sengoku─”

  Big Brother Koyomi’s voice is nothing if not kind.

  It isn’t the least bit combative and seems to envelope Nadeko─i just want to leave everything to him.

  “─But that’s something very dangerous. That item couldn’t be any more dangerous. That item is cursed. I was fine with keeping it, being entrusted with it, but I didn’t know what to do with it and shut it in there. I wanted to forget about it, that’s how bad it is─Shinobu can’t even eat it. It’s not something you could deal with. So─”

  “…”

  It’s─probably true.

  After all, it’s a holy object of worship.

  Something that was enshrined as a god─normally it wouldn’t ever find its way into the hands of a middle schooler like Nadeko.

  But─

  “S-Still, Big Brother. Na…Nadeko does have to ‘deal’ with it…because that’s how Nadeko is going to atone.”

  “Atone?”

  Koyomi reacts to the word.

  He seems suspicious, in fact.

  Almost like he heard a word at odds with the situation─a reaction you’d have to seeing a sewing machine on top of an operating table.