022
“Shinobu, don’t say anything that might provoke her─Sengoku!”
As i hear Koyomi’s yell, Nadeko takes the talisman in her left hand─and eats it.
She swallows it.
She puts the talisman with the snake drawn on it in her mouth.
She puts the whole thing in her mouth like a snake─and swallows it.
“Stop it, Sengoku! It’s not too─”
“’Tis too late!”
i sense Miss Shinobu leaping towards Nadeko after she loudly erases Big Brother’s line─i sense it all right.
Because now Nadeko can see the world using something other than sight.
She feels with heat.
The heat of human bodies.
The warmth of human skin─i can see it.
Because─Nadeko is now a snake herself.
“I must devour her! It’s─too late for this woman!”
“T-Too late? Th-That’s─”
Nadeko turns around─with her whole body this time.
No, to be precise─it happened before i could turn around.
A change.
They were late. They were too late.
“That’s something I know better than anyone!!”
Snakes.
Snakes, all of them─the hairs on Nadeko’s head are snakes─what’s more, they’ve turned into white snakes.
It isn’t a hallucination.
Physically, in reality─a hundred thousand snakes have nested in Nadeko’s hair. No, nested is a strange way to put it─because those hundred thousand snakes, these hundred thousand snakes, are all Nadeko─they’re all me.
Snakes like Nadeko.
And Nadeko is like a snake.
“Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!”
The snakes─lengthen.
As if they’re living, growing creatures, or maybe as if they’re the hair they once were─they lengthen at an incredible speed to entangle Miss Shinobu, who’s now trying to bite into Nadeko’s neck.
They entangle Miss Shinobu.
And they bite her.
“Gah…you damned…reptile!”
She’s forced back.
While i can’t tell from her appearance just how much power she has now─i understand that there are times when her age changes according to her power and other times when it doesn’t─the sheer number of snakes are at least enough to physically force her back.
The growing snakes.
Nadeko’s growing hair.
Her bangs grow back in an instant, too─Mister Serpent said he would make Nadeko’s hair grow once he got his power back, and it looks like he wasn’t lying.
It’s just.
Mister Serpent’s existence was a myriad of lies, that’s all.
One of the myriad gods─was a myriad of lies.
“Unh, aah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The hundred thousand snakes push Miss Shinobu to the floor before going on to bite her─plunging their fangs again and again into her tender, pale skin.
“Guh… Gah…”
They even make Miss Shinobu cry out in pain.
Come to think of it, i remember someone saying in June─that poison is effective even against an immortal vampire’s body.
Does that mean there’s poison in Nadeko’s hair?
Is there poison in Nadeko?
Or is it Nadeko─who’s poison.
“Shinobu…!”
Big Brother Koyomi moves in to rescue Miss Shinobu─he shakes the snakes off to pull out the buried vampire.
She’s ridden with painful-looking holes, and he shoves her straight into his shadow, seeming to shelter her in that sanctuary.
Once she’s in there.
There’s no way for the snakes─for Nadeko to get her hands on her.
To get her hair on her.
i can’t bite her anymore.
“Why…”
It’s at this point─that Nadeko finally finishes turning around.
She’s even on one knee, so the pinup magazine falls and hits the floor.
Meanwhile, the talisman─hits the spot in Nadeko’s stomach.
“Why save Miss Shinobu─Big Brother?”
“Sengoku…”
“Especially when you didn’t save Nadeko!”
i pull out a hair.
One of the snakes. Nadeko holds it in her right hand─and at that moment, the white snake thickens and thins─turning into a hard, straight rod.
It’s like a fang.
A large fang. A sharp fang.
A poisonous fang.
“Big Brother Koyomi─Big Brother Koyomi, Big Brother Koyomi─Big Brother Koyomi─Big Brother Koyomi, Big Brother Koyomi, Big Brother Koyomi─”
Nadeko hoists the fang into the air like she’s unsheathing a blade─and screams.
Deliriously.
Resentfully─i scream.
“What about Nadeko.”
The fang makes direct contact with Big Brother’s flank.
The impact’s sensation is awful.
“What about Nadeko─what about Nadeko.”
But that isn’t enough to stop Nadeko, who continues to swing the great fang─Koyomi doesn’t even try to dodge.
Why not?
Is it Miss Shinobu? Is he─giving her cover?
Why. Why would he?
“What about Nadeko? She loves Big Brother too!”
The tip of the fang i’m swinging around─
Sinks into Koyomi’s skin.
Nadeko’s poison, her deadly poison.
It courses through Nadeko’s dear Big Brother’s body.
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