Monogatari Series - Volume 11 - Chapter 1.09

009

“Huh─so you don’t see it now? The white snake you were talking about?”

“Y-Yeah… It’s okay now. L-Looking back on it, the white snake that came out of the desk and the shoe cubby must have been a trick of the eye.”

“It tricked your eyes? Then it’s an aberration after all.”

“N-No. Just a trick of the eye.”

“Hmm… Well, fine then…”

“Y-Yeah. i’m doing fine. i’m doing great.”

Night.

Big Brother Koyomi called Nadeko at home right at ten─just like he promised.

He wasn’t even a second off.

Contrary to his reputation as someone who’s always late, Koyomi is surprisingly “punkchul.”

“S-Sorry. i must have worried you… i was probably just feeling down. I-It’s not good, is it─blaming everything on aberrations.”

“Well, true, but─hmm. Hold on a second, Shinobu’s right here…”

With that remark, he seems to move his phone away from his ear. Koyomi’s cell is sensitive enough that i just barely hear them.

“Hey, Sengoku’s saying she imagined it all─what do you think, Shinobu?”

“Imagining it all─at that point, ’tis already a manner of aberration. Hmph, yet this is the forelocked girl we speak of─so perhaps ’tis fine, to leave it be.”

“Really? The way I see it, we can never be too careful in her case given what happened last time. Don’t you think I ought to see her in person and hear her out, just to be sure?”

“Nay, I do not. At all. Not in the slightest. We ought not to dig deeper if the girl herself says she is fine. She told thee from the start the matter wasn’t serious, no?”

“Sure, but…”

They seem to be conferring.

i have to root for Miss Shinobu over Koyomi, as much as i hate to, on this issue.

Let’s go, you can do it.

“Okay, Sengoku,” he comes back to the phone after a bit. “If that’s the deal, then we’ll say it’s fine. They lived happily ever after. But if it turns out you were just imagining that it was your imagination, and this really is some kind of aberration, you need to let me know. Okay?”

“O-Okay, i will… Th-Th-Tha-Thank you, Koyomi,” Nadeko says before hanging up.

i’d normally want to talk for longer on a call from him, but even i realize this isn’t the time.

Just as i put down the phone and sigh─

“Hsshh hsshh hsshh!” i hear from Nadeko’s right hand.

Her right wrist, actually.

A white snake has enwrapped Nadeko’s right wrist like a bracelet─no, it feels more like a scrunchy against her skin.

Of course, it’s not really a bracelet or a scrunchy.

The white snake is─just that, a white snake.

It’s Mister Serpent.

He only looks puffy because his scales are bristling.

“Aww, you’ve gone and lied to your dear Big Brother─you sure about it? It’s almost like you’re trying to hide one crime by committing another. When you keep going down that path, you eventually find yourself past the point of no return─hmmmm?”

“P-Please don’t be so loud.”

Nadeko puts her hand over her wrist and sneaks up the stairs so that her mom and dad in the living room don’t notice.

Then i go into Nadeko’s room and lock the door.

i feel a little better, for the time being.

i can breathe a sigh of relief.

“There’s no need to sneak around─you’re the only one who can hear my voice, Nadeko.”

“…”

i know that.

Even then, i don’t want people to see Nadeko when she’s talking with Mister Serpent─they might not hear his words, but everyone’s going to notice Nadeko’s reactions to them.

And.

Anyone can see the Serpent─now that he’s the size of a scrunchy on Nadeko’s wrist.

“If you’re able to become this small, why make your first entrance so big you covered that whole shrine?”

“Hsshh, hsshh, hsshh!” Mister Serpent laughs at Nadeko’s simpleminded question before answering, “I was putting on a show, that’s all─a show, for my grand entrance. What’s the point of an aberration if it doesn’t surprise humans?”

An aberration─that surprises people.

That’s something Koyomi said.

“…How big are you really?”

“Listen, I don’t have a size─because all I am is an idea.”

“An idea…”

Hearing this reminds Nadeko of something she learned in first-year math.

A line isn’t something that exists, it’s an idea.

It doesn’t have any length or width.

If you give it a length or a width, then it’s called a line segment, while a line is purely the straight line that connects two points─if you had to say how long, it’s infinite, and if you had to say how wide, the width is zero.

i don’t really get it.

What was that teacher trying to say?

Did he even know what he was saying?

When it comes to half-lines, i don’t even know what they are─but Nadeko thinks what she heard about lines then matches up to what the Serpent just said.

In short, it exists only in the mind, for the sake of explaining an explanation─

“Anyone is able to see me enwrapping your wrist, Nadeko, but that’s only because you think of me as being ‘visible to anyone’─or to go a little further, what’s happening is that I’ve possessed you, my dear.”

“Possessed…”

Possessed?

Isn’t that pretty bad?

Was Miss Kanbaru’s left arm possessed, or was that something else?

“Oh, don’t you worry─it’s just temporary. You only have to put up with it until the job’s done─hsshh hsshh!”

The Serpent seems to be in a good mood.

It kind of comes across as him being happy to have a physical form─but do aberrations get happy?

Oh, right, apparently Miss Shinobu jumps for joy when she’s given donuts.

i don’t know.

Nadeko sighs and sits down on the cushion in the middle of the room. It’s a little lazy of Nadeko, but i’m tired.

i’m not tired of lying to Koyomi─Nadeko isn’t particularly truthful and sometimes lies.

Just like everyone lies.

It’s not like i’m lying to him for the first time…but i’m not tired because i climbed a mountain, either.

i’m not physically tired at all, really.

The future is what’s making Nadeko tired.

When i think about what’s to come, Nadeko can’t begin to free herself from the “lassietude” she’s feeling…

“Ngh.”

But i can’t stay like this forever─because if Nadeko doesn’t move the story forward, she’ll have to wear this tacky scrunchy forever.

“You dare call it ‘tacky’─hmmmm?”

“…Can you read my mind? i…don’t think i said that out loud.”

“No, I just guessed from your expression─I mean, anyone could figure it out if you gave them that disgusted look. But sure, of course it is a little easier to make a guess since you and I are mentally connected now.”

“…”

i was bothered by the thought that he could read Nadeko’s mind, just like anyone would be, but i feel a little let down to know that he can’t.

Just because Mister Serpent being a mindreader would make things easier for Nadeko since i wouldn’t need to talk…

“I-In that case─Mister Serpent.”

“Mister Serpent? Well─I would normally want to be called Master Serpent, but I guess it’s too much to expect a young, helpless little girl’s worship. Yes, my dear? What is it, Nadeko?”

“Wh-What does Nadeko need to do?”

Atonement.

Or the request.

Nadeko hasn’t heard─the details of either.

At the shrine, as soon as Nadeko accepted, Mister Serpent quickly shrank his colossal body─and enwrapped her right wrist.

I’ll give you the details tonight. I’m spent, he said immediately and went to sleep.

It seems like he used up a lot of his energy making Nadeko see and hear things─and not knowing what to do, Nadeko did nothing and just came back home.

Mister Serpent woke up a little bit after i got home, but before he could tell Nadeko anything, Big Brother Koyomi called her.

“Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh…” i have trouble saying the words─but Nadeko gathers her courage. This is something i need to do. “Wh-What kind of dirty things…does Nadeko need to do?”

“Where’d that come from?!”

The aberration plays the straight man for me, his fangs bared. Nadeko lurches backwards on her cushion.

It’s way too scary to be a comedy routine.

“Why would you even think that, Nadeko? You’ve got quite a future ahead of you.”

“N-No? B-But psychologically speaking, snakes are considered sexual motifs, so─”

“Don’t you lump me in with dime-store clichés─ugh, maybe you’ve been a little too influenced by Koyomi or Kanbaru or whomever, hmmmm?”

“…”

i’m left speechless.

i couldn’t be any more embarrassed. i feel like blushing.

“Th-Then…Nadeko doesn’t need to take off her clothes? She doesn’t have to wear a school swimsuit or volleyball shorts?”

“Right. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Oh…”

i let out a sigh of relief that Nadeko won’t become Nudeko.

Though i also think i can hear Miss Kanbaru’s dejected wail.

“…? B-But why do you know about Miss Kanbaru?”

“Like I told you, I know. About her, about Koyomi─hmmmm?”

“S-So you really are reading Nadeko’s m─”

“Like I also said, I’m not.”

“M-Maybe you’re reading Nadeko’s manga?”

“Why is a middle schooler collecting a comics zine for grade school boys, anyway?”

Why not?

CoroCoro is pretty funny.

“Either way, no. It’s just that I was watching─the ritual that all of you performed at the shrine that day.”

“…So you─live at that shrine, Mister Serpent?”

Is that it?

Is that how he knows about Big Brother and Miss Kanbaru─and Nadeko’s massacur there?

But in that case…

Hm? That means…

“Y-You’re…‘something’ to that shrine?”

“Don’t be saying that now like it’s some great discovery, my dear. The shrine’s name alone should have tipped you off.”

“The shrine’s name…” Kita-Shirahebi, so North Whitesnake Shrine… “What about it?”

“‘What about it’… Having seen me, a literal white snake, you still don’t have a clue? You really are dense, hmmmm?”

“…”

i can’t respond because he’s not wrong about Nadeko being dense.

What? But then, that…

So, is Mister Serpent a lot more important than Nadeko thinks?

“Mister Serpent, are you the person…the snake that shrine is dedicated to?”

“I’d like to say you’re right─but it’s been a long time since that shrine was dedicated to anything. All it is now is a hangout where bad things gather─no, it might be better to call it a dust heap than a hangout.”

“Now that you mention it, i think i heard someone say that before…”

It still functions as a place but is done for as an abode for the divine, or something─i’ve forgotten because it was too complicated. Or i guess it’s more accurate to say that i wasn’t listening from the start because it was too complicated.

“Th-Then─still, you’re important. E-Er, you’re still important, sir. Your Highness is most important.”

“It’s only going to be awkward if you start acting polite now─and I’m not important anymore. You can be casual around me. Let’s you and I be equal partners, Nadeko.”

“Partners…”

He used the same word when we first met.

A word to describe our relationship.

“I doubt calling ourselves ‘friends’ suits either of us,” he adds.

“…”

i agree with him there.

But even if he’s telling Nadeko not to act polite, it’s hard not to─i mean, if Mister Serpent lives at a shrine, that makes him (despite looking nothing like it now) a god.

Really, an actual god.

…Hm?

But i feel like Mister Oshino said at some point that all aberrations, conceptually, are like gods.

No, he argued that ultimately, whether it’s a being or a concept, anything that isn’t human is a god─that’s Japanese polytheism in a nutshell.

They’re everywhere.

That’s what he taught Nadeko.

Still─just because they’re everywhere doesn’t mean that i don’t need to be respectful to an obvious god… But then, Nadeko isn’t able to converse in a way that doesn’t seem rude no matter who she’s talking to, so her trying to act polite or not is somewhat beside the point.

If i’m hearing it straight from the horse’s (snake’s) mouth, i guess i can be “casual” with him.

So Nadeko begins with an Umm.

“In that case, Mister Serpent…if it isn’t anything dirty, what does Nadeko have to do? There’s nothing else that i can do.”

“I see you’re a very curious teen, Nadeko…”

And don’t be so hard on yourself, the Serpent chides.

As if to raise an eyebrow, he lifts his head from Nadeko’s wrist (probably the limit of his reaction whether he’s happy or sad) to stick out his tongue.

It does feel like he’s stuck his tongue out at me.

“But I’m going to have you do something else─honestly, dear, you’re the only one I can rely on. I’m going to be up-front and honest with you. I’m trying to prey on your weakness, to use my dirt on you, to exploit your guilt, in order to make a request─because that’s how much I want you to do this.”

“…”

“That’s not much of a reaction─hmph, so you understood all of this from the outset? All right─you aren’t as dense as you seem, are you?”

“N-Nadeko is…” i mumble, “dense. As a…brick.”

“I wonder about that. Whatever─in that case, here’s my request. Hsshh, hsshh, hsshh, a god begging a human for something, how times have changed.”

“…”

“Listen, what I want you to do─is to find something.”

For once, the Serpent doesn’t sound rough or violent. His words seem oddly direct.

Direct? No.

Maybe i should say─solemn.

“Nadeko, dear. I want you to find my corpse.”