Otorimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “So, anyway,” Nadeko says without taking her eyes off of the two.

  Still staring them down─there’s no point in looking at her right wrist anymore.

  “What was all this? What was this about? Mister Serpent─why did it end up this way?”

  “Like I’ve told you again and again, dear, it’s all your fault─hmmmm?” the Serpent answers in a cynical tone as always, like he’s picking a fight.

  No─“as always” is the wrong way to put it.

  Mister Serpent─the aberration called “Mister Serpent,” was resurrected when Nadeko ate the talisman only a few hours ago, and is a god.

  No aberration by that name existed until then.

  He was only in Nadeko’s mind.

  “Usually, that’s enough─an aberration, even a god, only exists inside each person, anyway, on the inside, not outside. This image you forced on me is already a creed.”

  “A creed… So Nadeko used an image to create an aberration called ‘Mister Serpent’ in her mind?”

  “Right, and then you went and revived a long-dead faith all on your own. Well, I ended up being based on a weird character thanks to that… Sheesh, talk about a delusion.”

  A delusion. The word sticks in Nadeko’s heart.

  “A delusion… So even though Nadeko thought you were her partner, she really was just seeing things, and hearing things?”

  “Yep. Seeing what isn’t there to see, hearing what isn’t there to hear. Taking them to be messages and believing you’re the chosen one─what do you call someone who does that, Nadeko?”

  Hmmmm? the Serpent taunts.

  i have no words.

  A pitiful girl.

  A painful girl.

  Nadeko Sengoku.

  “Fantasizing that the divine speaks to you… Whatta make-believe Joan of Arc.”

  No wonder i knew what i felt in the shoe cupboard was a snake, a white one at that, when Nadeko couldn’t even see it from her angle.

  It was her very own delusion, so how could she not know?

  The reason why the white snakes only came out of closed spaces and Mister Serpent wasn’t able to leave the shrine couldn’t be any simpler: the delusions wouldn’t add up otherwise.

  Closed spaces─it’s in the cracks and shadows we can’t see that we’re able to imagine an aberration, where we’re able to be surprised.

  Sounds kind of stupid, doesn’t it, this talk?

  Well, it’s not talk, it’s a tale─

  “Still, it’s pretty impressive you actually resurrected me, a god, like that─hsshh, hsshh. In short, Nadeko, you fabricated a narrative to make it happen.”

  “Fabricated─a narrative.”

  “If you want to know what kind of story this was, there wasn’t any story to begin with.”

  “…”

  “You made it up out of whole cloth, concocted a tale that never existed, and played out a grand adventure in your fantasies. The real Nadeko was just living her everyday, unstoried life. You’ve always been good at escapism, and this has got to be your biggest feat yet.”

  “But…” Though i’m fully aware that Mister Serpent is telling nothing but the truth, Nadeko keeps struggling against it. “If you were her delusion until now, Mister Serpent…you still knew things Nadeko didn’t.”

  Drawing on her knowledge, seeming to read her mind─the easy-to-understand and far-too-specific analogies too─all of that might be explained away by him being Nadeko’s delusion. But Mister Serpent also knew things that she didn’t, there was no way she had any expert understanding of aberrations─

  “Hsshh, hsshh. Are you kidding me? I was your delusion back then, how’d I ever possess any sort of knowledge that you didn’t?”

  “Th-Then why─”

  “You forgot about it, that’s all. You acquired a bit of expertise in June reading in that bookstore’s aisles to get rid of the charm placed on you. Of course, like when you cram for a test, you’ve forgotten most of it─but human memories aren’t consigned to total oblivion. No matter how much you think you’ve forgotten─it’s etched into your brain. Just like how you never forget your sins.”

  “…i see.”

  Nadeko must have seemed ridiculous, like someone watching a taped sporting event again and again and feeling thrilled every time. If Nadeko can reread and enjoy the same book endlessly, how low-maintenance is she?

  “But how did you know about Big Brother, about him and Miss Shinobu using spiritual energy at this shrine or something, the stuff that Nadeko wasn’t aware of─”

  “You knew that too, dear,” the Serpent declares.

  i can’t keep asking him after such a forceful declaration─but seriously, how?

  There’s no way─Nadeko could have known.

  Who could i have heard it from? Who…

  “i’m confused in so many ways…but could you tell Nadeko, Mister Serpent? What happened to make things turn out like this?”

  i’m not trying to turn back the clock. Not now.

  i’ve gone and done it, and that’s all there is to it.

  But i do want to know how i got here─as a matter of responsibility.

  As the responsible party, or maybe in the way of atonement.

  As the victimizer, at least.

  Even i─don’t feel like trying to run away from reality anymore.

  …

  Not like there’s any need to now.

  “Nothing worth calling a happening happened. Your memories got jumbled up and twisted around by your fantasies, that’s all─like a big, winding snake.”

  “Enough with the metaphors… Since when has Nadeko’s understanding been jumbled up? Just answer that. You must know─Mister Serpent.”

  Wouldn’t he?

  Now that he isn’t Nadeko’s delusion but truly resurrected.

  But that’s also why this entire conversation is silly─because Mister Serpent now equals Nadeko.

  Surpassing a delusion, surpassing a possession, one and the same.

  The Mister Serpent sealed in that talisman─has been resurrected in Nadeko after she swallowed it.

  Mister Serpent is.

  Nadeko.

  Which is why everything from here is just Nadeko talking to herself─as usual.

  “Did the delusions start when i saw a white snake at the shoe cupboard?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the exact point of origin─in terms of when it started, for you, I’d say around the beginning of the month before last.”

  “The month before last… The beginning of September?”

  The beginning of September means─

  “Around when you found out that Big Brother had a girlfriend─when you witnessed him walking happily with her. That’s when it all ‘started’ for you.”

  Or maybe that’s when it all ended─revises the Serpent.

  The end.

  “You sure tried to sound like an adult when you spoke to his little sister─but really, Nadeko, you broke a little.”

  “Broke?”

  “Well, that probably isn’t the right way to put it. It’s normal, after all. It’s the regular way to feel. Just like your friend did towards you, dear, you simply became jealous─of his little lover.”

  “…”

  Jealousy. Envy.

  Love and all the possessiveness that comes with it─possession.

  Oh.

  So that’s when Nadeko─was bitten.

  By a snake.

  By a poisonous snake.

  When she was smitten─not by love but by a god.

  “And then… And then what did Nadeko do?”

  “Why are you asking me that about yourself? You see, you just thought the same thing that your friend did. Like attracts like, don’t you agree, hmmmm?”

  “The same thing…”

  Having heard this much, there’s no need for more questions, no matter how jumbled Nadeko’s memories─the bit about fabricating a narrative should have done it, but i still needed to make sure.

  F
rom the Serpent’s mouth.

  That’s how i have to hear it─which makes sense.

  It makes sense.

  Because Nadeko relied on Mister Serpent for that purpose alone─resurrecting him after he lost his faithful, fell into obscurity, and got sealed away to rest in peace.

  Fabricating him.

  “If i thought the same thing…i tried to use a ‘charm’ to get rid of that person─Big Brother’s girlfriend.”

  “No, no, stuck in that class of yours, you knew better than anyone how unreliable a ‘charm’ can be─that’s not what you did. But you’re right about trying to get rid of her. Wow, you really nailed it.”

  “…Well, this is about Nadeko.”

  “You didn’t try to take his lover’s place, of course. It was just that her existence posed an obstacle to you─for your continued devotion to Koyomi.”

  “How selfish.”

  Well, Nadeko is talking about herself.

  i go on like it’s someone else’s business.

  “Wallowing in a love that can’t be fulfilled because falling in love is tiresome…and after everything it’s done for you, feeling jealous because that person finds a girlfriend.”

  “The feeling might not be jealousy─but what could you do? You couldn’t stay in love with someone who had a girlfriend, but then you weren’t ever going to go after him.”

  “Right, what could i do…”

  Nothing, probably─

  That must have been what Nadeko told herself.

  “But…if Nadeko didn’t rely on charms, what did she do?”

  “You chose a more reliable method,” Mister Serpent explains. “In other words, you prayed to a god.”

  “A god?”

  In other words─to Mister Serpent? Is that it?

  “After learning that Koyomi had a girlfriend, you visited this shrine whenever you had the time. Do you really not remember at all?”

  “…i don’t. So i made the traditional hundred visits?”

  “Well, no, not a hundred.”

  “You said reliable, but…”

  Is it really? i mean…

  “Right. Just praying to a god─shouldn’t actually be reliable. That’s what anyone would think. But it was different for you, dear, wasn’t it? Because this is the same shrine where you were freed of the ‘charm’ your friend placed on you in June.”

  “…”

  Meet an aberration and you’ll be drawn by aberrations.

  Is that─what that means?

  In other words, knowing about aberrations you end up believing in aberrations─

  “Oh. So Nadeko learned then─that turning to the gods works.”

  Which is why─she made the hundred visits.

  Well, more like fifteen, i guess.

  That was about as often Nadeko could have visited given her daily routine.

  “Still, i can’t believe i was able to forget that… So did i erase the memories because they were inconvenient?”

  “You think you can do something that convenient? You’re not a certain someone.”

  A certain someone? Who could that be.

  Mister Serpent and Nadeko don’t share the same knowledge anymore, so i don’t know who he’s referring to.

  “You’re just pretending to have forgotten, dear. And that’s more than enough.”

  “…”

  Pretending to forget… As in lying.

  So i lied?

  Then Nadeko─was the liar.

  Well, why wouldn’t she─tell lies?

  Since she lies to Big Brother, she would to herself too.

  “But even if turning to the gods works…even if it does, there’d be no point in doing it here,” i observe.

  This shrine, after all─fell into ruin.

  A shrine deprived of faith. There were no gods here.

  “Right. Which you, dear─were told by a woman named Ogi Oshino. That morning.”

  That morning─the day i was nearly run over by a bicycle.

  The morning of Tuesday, October thirty-first.

  (Say, Nadeko. I just happen to have seen it many times, and you always seem to be going up to that shrine, and I don’t know what you’re praying for, but─there’s no point.)

  (You didn’t know? There’s no god at that shrine.)

  (It functions as a place, sure, but it’s finished as an abode for the divine.)

  (You can pray all you want, but it’s not going to do anything.)

  (Well─it might be a different matter if it got back its object of worship.)

  (By the way, Koyomi Araragi has its object of worship now─Miss Izuko Gaen entrusted it to him, just a few months ago. It must be somewhere in his house. Given who we’re talking about, it can’t be stored just randomly.)

  (A talisman.)

  (You could say its god is sealed in that paper─by the way, did you know that the onmyoji who sealed the god in that talisman a thousand years ago is the same person who made the amulet Araragi-senpai used when he saved you? That’s all you need to hear to understand just how valuable and terrifying that talisman is, right?)

  (And how mighty the god is.)

  (If that god was resurrected─if the seal was undone, I’m sure he’d easily grant any wish of yours─no, really.)

  (How to undo the seal? How would I know?)

  (It’s a snake god, so maybe you just need to get some snake to swallow the talisman whole─)

  “─You got that tacky scrunchy from that high school girl that morning, too. As a ‘token of your budding friendship’…”

  If we were that “deep in conversation”─

  Then no wonder time passed so fast.

  “…And that got you started on fabricating a narrative.”

  i did first see the white snake, yes, right after running into Miss Ogi.

  “So Nadeko atoning for killing the snakes… Even that was just a pat excuse. A tale i spun so i could search Big Brother’s room for the talisman─Mister Serpent’s object of worship…”

  Nadeko even exploited her crime for the purpose.

  A delusion. A fabrication. A bald lie.

  Nadeko tried to resurrect a god just to have her selfish wish granted.

  And to resurrect that god─i forged a god’s voice.

  Not only was Nadeko hallucinating─she wasn’t looking at reality.

  With a tale of her own creation as a decoy─

  Nadeko plotted behind its cover to restore a god.

  “…But how did i unlock the front door of Koyomi’s house from inside? That has to be the doing of an aberration. A hallucination can’t explain that.”

  “You used an actual key, that’s all,” the Serpent replies dismissively. How sober and unromantic. “Why did you leave home the previous night in a way your parents would notice, resulting in Tsukihi and Koyomi being told about it? To enter the Araragi residence and borrow the key, of course─the plan must have been to return and take your time searching the house when it was empty in the afternoon. Sure, in the end, you could have tried looking for it that night, but there was no guarantee it was in Koyomi’s room, and there was no telling when his little sister might come in.”

  “Tsukihi really did end up coming in.”

  That being said, despite all of Nadeko’s calculations, having not just trespassed but burglarized the home, she got caught red-handed anyway by Big Brother and Miss Shinobu.

  i don’t see Nadeko becoming a pro burglar.

  i don’t see anything in her future.

  She just stares at the ground, after all.

  “Uh-uh, you were able to resurrect me, Nadeko. I do see something in your future.”

  “You do… What?”

  “Being a god.”

  “…”

  “That’s no joke─you’re a god now. When I was sealed away in that talisman, that object of worship, you resurrected me in you like this, bodily.”

  “It wasn’t like i…”