"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.
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?"
Heb, 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.