Monogatari Series - Volume 11 - Chapter 1.08

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It seems like Nadeko misunderstood Mister Serpent when he said there’s no such thing as a victim─no, maybe i ought to say i just interpreted it in a way that was convenient.

i thought maybe he meant that every victim shares the responsibility for what happens to them in some way, or that harm comes to us by chance and anyone could be guilty if only the circumstances were a little different─you hear these kinds of things a lot, and i assumed it’s what he meant.

i assumed so for Nadeko’s own sake.

But i was wrong.

That isn’t what he meant.

It was something more simple and plain and easy.

He meant exactly what he was saying.

Nadeko Sengoku─is guilty of a “massacur.”

She’s just another perpetrator.

There was no need to twist his words around.

It happened four months ago, in June─when those “charms” popularized by Mister Deishu Kaiki had their poisonous fangs in lots of middle schoolers.

Right in the middle of that.

A boy confessed his feelings for Nadeko.

When i say confess, i don’t mean it in the repentant way, like what Nadeko is now attempting, but about liking and loving and stuff.

He was on the baseball team.

i don’t remember his name. i forgot it.

Actually, i feel like i never heard it from the start─i don’t think he ever told Nadeko his name.

Maybe he thought i had to know who he was─it’s hard to believe, but a lot of popular students on sports teams are like that.

Kids who don’t doubt that they’re famous.

But Nadeko didn’t have any interest in sports, and most of all, she didn’t like stuff about dating and lovers and all─so she turned him down.

i wasn’t going to date someone i didn’t know.

Because Nadeko─had someone she loved.

But this led to trouble─the fact that Nadeko “rejected” this popular boy led to jealousy.

i know how you feel! i wanted to sympathize.

Because i knew exactly how those girls felt when they wondered why he’d ever confess to someone like Nadeko─no, i think that boy must have been mistaken somehow. He probably had the wrong person.

But the “verasity” of this was only clear to Nadeko─what hurt was that her best friend wouldn’t understand.

She ended our friendship. It was sad.

To be completely honest, though, i wasn’t surprised. i was always thinking that a girl as good as her would end our friendship one day.

Is that honesty?

Maybe you’d say i’m just acting tough.

But please, let Nadeko act tough.

According to what Nadeko’s other classmates said later (maybe it’s better to call it a feeling that was revealed to everyone because of Mister Kaiki’s “charms”), that friend became friends with Nadeko hoping to go out with the boy from the baseball club─so it seems there was something else going on that doesn’t fully make sense to Nadeko, but it’s all a mystery now.

The truth is shrouded in darkness─no, in rumor.

No one knows what the truth is anymore.

It’s in the past.

The game of love.

Well, i feel like no one involved was skilled enough to describe it as that─anyway, it only gets more confusing the more we talk about it. Skipping ahead.

When this friend ended our relationship, she said something─“I put a curse on you.”

In this case, the curse was one of the “charms” that Mister Deishu Kaiki was spreading around, and this girl had put a snake curse on Nadeko.

It seems like there were a lot of other variations, though.

Not just snakes, but bees, and frogs, and strangely enough, even shrimp─i wonder what a shrimp curse is.

Would it cause your spine to break?

In any case, Nadeko swallowed those malicious words hook, line, and sinker─even though their malice was only malicious.

The girl was hardly a villain, much less a demoness.

Nadeko went to the bookstore and looked for ways to undo the “charm”─in this case, normally the “right” thing to do would have been to go to Mister Kaiki, wherever he was in town, and pay him to undo it. Unfortunately, Nadeko wasn’t familiar with these rumors (Nadeko only learned about Mister Kaiki’s existence during summer break. i didn’t know yet that the charms were an artificial fad), and even if she did know, asking a stranger for help would have been too difficult for Nadeko.

That’s why Nadeko did her best to teach herself how to undo her curse─it backfired, and the sham curse that wasn’t supposed to activate ended up being invoked (which is why i asked Koyomi for help from the beginning this time, having learned from that), but well, let’s put that aside for now.

The method of undoing the curse that Nadeko tried─was to split a wild snake into five equal pieces and follow certain steps to crucify it on the trunk of a tree.

Nadeko used a chisel.

To take a snake─and hack it to pieces.

And instead of a nail, i used the chisel to pin the snake’s entire body to a tree.

i continued this massacur for about a week.

i was following the proper steps to undo a curse.

But the more i did it, the stronger the curse got and the more forcefully an invisible snake wrapped around Nadeko─if Koyomi hadn’t found her, she’d probably be…

“You’d probably be what now─hmmmm? You would have massacred even more snakes, huh?”

“…”

Nadeko has no reply for the colossal white snake─for the Serpent’s words.

That’s right.

Nadeko wasn’t a victim back then.

Because if Nadeko hadn’t done anything─the curse would have been harmless, and even if that wasn’t true.

As far as all the snakes Nadeko killed are concerned.

For the victims Nadeko sacrificed to save herself─

For those dozen-or-more lives.

All Nadeko is, is guilty.

“Well, be that as it may, mark me impressed─you killed all of those snakes as sacrifices, in vain too, but acted like none of it ever happened and played the part of a victim, going on and on about ‘Big Brother Koyomi’─you’ve got some nerve.”

“…”

“I’d be happy to remind you if you’ve really forgotten─exactly how you killed all of my brethren. The way you searched in the weeds for snakes, your valiant yet placid mug when you grabbed their heads, how it felt chopping them up with a chisel─”

“S…Stop it,” Nadeko finally says.

She recalls how her hands shook.

She felt anything but “vallyant.”

“i-i remember… i remember, so…”

“Oh. You do?”

“B-But…i had to.”

“You had to? Uh huh, I bet the friend who cursed you would say the same thing─she just ‘had to’ curse you, she couldn’t help it,” the Serpent jeers.

i can’t read his expression because he’s a snake─and because of just how big he is, but malice is all i sense in his words.

Just plain─

Malice.

The kind you can find anywhere.

“‘But I had to!’─that’s what everyone says, tossing their morals aside. They’re all infantile, such hopelessly simplistic brats.”

“…Nadeko is…”

“People don’t know who they’re trampling on as they go about their lives─everyone thinks they’re just standing on the ground. But no, what’s under your feet isn’t the ground, it might be ants, it might be caterpillars, or it might just be snakes─”

“!!”

As soon as she hears the words, Nadeko moves her leg away.

Because all of a sudden─she’s standing on a white snake, no, actually, it’s a hallucination, i wasn’t standing on anything.

But it just happened to be a hallucination this time.

People are always. Nadeko is always.

Stepping all over something.

“No, no, no, no, my dear, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not trying to criticize you─unlike me, the ‘living’ all need to claim other lives in order to live. Call it original sin, or maybe karma, or maybe nature─”

“…”

“Of course, hacking up all of those snakes means something completely different from getting your daily bread. Because the snakes you killed─that you not only killed but whose lives you left hanging, didn’t serve you any purpose at all. They died like dogs─it does sound strange to say a snake died like a dog, but it was worse than dying in vain. Because they only put you in a worse spot by dying─hmmmm?”

“…”

“But then, what? You were able to meet Koyomi again because of it, so maybe they, my slaughtered brethren, did serve some purpose for you─”

“P-Please stop,” Nadeko says.

She has both hands over her ears─but that’s not going to block out a hallucination.

That’s right.

She could probably close her eyes─and still see it.

The colossal thing before Nadeko coiled around the shrine.

“What are you…trying to say? What do you know about Big Brother Koyomi? He’s, he’s, to Nadeko he’s a very─”

“Well, I actually know a decent bit about Big Brother Koyomi─but it doesn’t matter. The issue right now, my dear, is what you ended up doing─”

What Nadeko “ended up” doing.

What i did─how i failed. i’d forgotten it all.

The original sin that i never even recalled.

“Wh-What… S-So do i need to apologize? Do you want Nadeko to apologize? B-Bringing Nadeko here…e-even making her hallucinate, and cornering her like this… Wh-What do you mean, atone? Nadeko’s…”

i frantically join one word to the next.

Because it feels like Mister Serpent is never going to stop attacking Nadeko once she’s done talking─and so Nadeko forces herself to speak.

“What does…Nadeko need to do?”

“What do you need to do?”

Heh, the Serpent laughs.

His fangs bared.

“Most people would normally beg for forgiveness─it’s pretty impressive that you haven’t even asked for it.”

“…”

“So you feel like you failed, but not like you did anything wrong, is that it? Because you ‘had to’? I suppose so, snakes are nothing more than lowly reptiles to humans.”

“…N-Nadeko doesn’t─”

“What?” the Serpent stops Nadeko from making excuses. “Maybe I shouldn’t have used a roundabout word like ‘atone’─it’s been a while since the last time I spoke to a human, so it’s hard to pick the right tone. Sorry, sorry─sorry about that, hmmmm?”

Now the Serpent is the one apologizing to Nadeko─though i don’t feel anything resembling sincerity in his speech.

If anything, it feels like he’s making fun of weak little Nadeko with everything he has─and if “making fun” is going too far, i guess it feels like he’s playing with Nadeko.

“Well, I just have a request for you, Nadeko. If you’re willing to feel the least bit bad about killing a dozen or so of my brethren─I just have a tiny little thing I wanted to request.”

“Request…”

“Oh, or maybe it’d be better to put it this way, my dear?”

The Serpent.

The colossal white snake─opens its mouth wide, and even though he isn’t supposed to have any kind of expression on his face─he gives Nadeko an amused wink.

It’s not cute at all.

“Won’t you save me, Nadeko?”

“…”

It feels like he’s asking for the impossible.

But saying no feels even more impossible.

“S-Sure,” Nadeko says.

With her ears blocked. With her eyes covered.

Nadeko says: “J-Just a little, okay?”

Now that i think about it though, this tale’s conclusion must have been set in stone at that point─even if i knew what Mister Serpent was trying to make Nadeko do, even if i knew what he was going to do to her─even if i knew the truth and the whole truth, Nadeko would have nodded yes all the same. i don’t think her fate would have changed.

The tale only being a tale.

A future where Nadeko and Big Brother Koyomi fight to the death.

Keeps inching closer.