Monogatari Series - Volume 11 - Chapter 1.21

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 reality.

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.

“Y…Yeah. Atone,” Nadeko still says.

As if doing everything i can to explain might improve the situation in some little way─like Nadeko mistakenly believes that she can do something about a situation that’s already finished.

“i…i’m not a victim… Nadeko isn’t a victim… She’s a victim, but she’s also guilty…”

So.

i need to atone─wait.

Is something wrong here?

“I see. You’ve been carrying all kinds of burdens. I’m sorry I never noticed.”

I heard about what happened at school too, he adds─hold on, at school?

Does he mean when Nadeko became Naughtyko?

Why would Koyomi have heard─no, maybe it’s not that mysterious. Nadeko’s middle school is full of students who are friends with Tsukihi and Karen, so they hear about it whenever any kind of incident happens, and that was easily big enough to call an incident.

If word of it got to the Fire Sisters, then Koyomi would find out about it─especially after what happened this morning.

Is that why he came back home?

Because he found out that Nadeko left school early? No─that might have been part of it, but it can’t be everything. He wouldn’t have been able to guess that Nadeko was coming here.

So there has to be something.

Something Nadeko doesn’t know but Big Brother does.

…But so what?

How does that matter?

It doesn’t mean anything anymore.

Whatever Big Brother knows, whatever Nadeko doesn’t─now, it doesn’t mean a thing.

Because─he already knows.

The one feeling Nadeko didn’t want him to.

So nothing else matters to her anymore─it’s all over.

If everything is going to come to an end─then let it.

“I never noticed, I’m sorry,” Big Brother says─but i don’t really know what he’s talking about.

He never noticed for Nadeko─he says.

But Nadeko didn’t want him to notice.

She wanted him to leave her alone─she didn’t want it noticed. Big Brother Koyomi was the one person i didn’t want knowing what an awful girl Nadeko is.

i wanted to stay a girl who’s just cute.

“I promise I’ll apologize properly─so for now, Sengoku, I need you to give me that talisman.”

“…”

“You─” Big Brother says, with the smallest bit of sadness in his tone. “You always─act annoyed when we talk.”

“…!”

Wha?

Hold on a second.

That’s not true.

That’s not how it is. That isn’t why Nadeko lowers her eyes when we talk, Nadeko─

“Are you that way with everyone? Do you find it annoying anytime anyone approaches you? Do you see everyone as an enemy? If you do, I think that’s fine, too. If you hate me─then there’s nothing I can do about it.”

There’s nothing he can do, he says.

Please don’t.

Did you not hear Nadeko? Didn’t i just say it?

Or were you not listening?

To the way that Nadeko feels about Big Brother─

“Even so, Sengoku, that talisman─”

“Have ye had enough of this dragged-out affair?”

Just then, Miss Shinobu, who’s stayed silent the whole time until now, interrupts Koyomi. Her tone is terribly mean, without any trace of sympathy in contrast to Big Brother─she’s being so combative toward Nadeko.

“There’s no need to pay heed to the feelings of this clueless, spoilt child. Smack her and take it from her, that’s all ye need to do. Give her all the reasoning and explanation ye want later. Nay─there’s not even a need to bother with that then. What thou ought to do with this ignorant waif is to sell her off somewhere. Pitiful and cute. ’Twould be mercy to allow her to continue being a victim.”

“Shinobu…” Koyomi reacts to her words, but Shinobu continues bluntly.

“There’s no need for thee to give any consideration to some waif who can think only of herself even in a situation like this. As is thy custom, ye try to save anyone and everyone for any and every reason─but, while I’m at it, ye can’t even answer this waif’s selfish emotions in kind.”

Her words are so cold─that i can’t tell who she’s being cold to.

An ironblooded, hotblooded, yet coldblooded vampire.

i think that was Miss Shinobu’s catchphrase─but coldblooded is all she’s being right now.

Like a snake.

Coldblooded.

“All this brat is, is cute─all that’s cute to her is her, and thou ought to abandon such a brat. Enough with thy philanthropy─crimes deserve punishment. She ought to learn this─just as I did.”

“W-Way to talk,” Nadeko can’t stop herself from retorting.

All Nadeko is, is cute?

All that’s cute to her is Nadeko? There’s no way i can stay quiet after being treated to all of that.

i can’t stay quiet.

“Th-That’s not true… Y-You might be right, but… Nadeko’s doing it for herself because she has to, but… She’s atoning, papering it over, but, but─”

Mister Serpent.

He lost his energy and was like a candle in the wind─and to save him.

A tiny little part of Nadeko might really feel that way─

“S…Say something, Mister Serpent,” Nadeko addresses the aberration on her right wrist─the god there. “Don’t be silent…please─help Nadeko. Cover for Nadeko.”

You.

Aren’t you a god?

“Enough, forelocked girl,” Miss Shinobu says like she’s fed up.

It’s not a suitable name anymore, but Miss Shinobu probably couldn’t care less.

Trivial differences in humans don’t mean a thing to Miss Shinobu, an aberration. She’s even a specialist at devouring aberrations─

“Rather than rely forever on this Mister Serpent, some god who hasn’t even been resurrected─hurry up and give us that talisman. That charmed talisman entrusted by Izuko Gaen to my master─”

Wha?

Hearing this, Nadeko looks at the talisman with the snake drawn on it.

And at her own right wrist.

And enwrapped around it is─no.

Wrapped around it is.

A plain old white scrunchy─it’d do a very good job of holding together your hair.