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Snakes Over Scarves / Kagerou Project Secret Santa Present

MERRY CHRISTMAS @melly-arts!

I’m your Secret Santa for @kagepro-secret-santa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Super sorry that this is so late; I’m a pretty slow writer ;_;

Also sorry if this ends up being a lot more than the things you originally prompted. I tried to write a bit more in depth than I usually do, so really super duper sorry if this turns out to actually be terrible.

That said, while still sorry for making you wait so long, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and just in general Happy Holidays! XD

Snakes Over Scarves

8477 words

Romantic KuroAya AU

Please enjoy!

:)

From as far back as she could remember, Ayano had never really liked it when things changed.

And why would she? Change was such a pesky thing, introducing the unwanted unknown into otherwise ordinary daily lives; disrupting schedules, plans, and missions: pretty much inconveniencing everyone involved.

With the exceptions of the very few times when change had brought good things such as family in the form of three precious siblings or introduced her to new friends as the elementary, then middle, and the final high school bell rung... nope, she didn't like it all, even one bit.

Her tests, for example, never came back the exact same. Sometimes they'd come back printed with a somewhat hopeful 73%, or a barely passable 51% or, if she had been really unlucky on that test day, a bottom-of-the-barrel, drudge-like 35%.

It was disappointing to say the least. She always studied for them, that part never changed, and yet during the last few weeks before... all of this, they always went even lower than on her unlucky days.

Oh, what she would have given to be like a certain calm, stoic boy who she used to follow around everywhere. Ayano sighed and stretched in her chair, looking at the desk on her right where (had this been the real world) he would have been sitting as she reminisced about his perfect score of 100% which never ever changed.

A smile easily grew on her face just by remembering it (him) along with memories of other things and people from that long-past, happy, unchanging time.

Shintaro, Shuuya, Kousuke, Tsubomi, Takane, H-

Until suddenly-

*ccrrreeeaaakkk*

-her thoughts were completely interrupted by the sound of a door sliding open and the steps of someone coming into the otherwise empty classroom, save for her.

-aruka... great.

Just like that, the small wistful smile ghosting on her lips halted its steady growth, shrinking down, down, down with every step the person (demon, creature, THING) behind her took further into the room until it became a large lifeless frown.

Why is it becoming easier to frown than to smile with every new loop... Ayano thought in dismay even though she had already known the answer a long time ago. She stood up from her chair and quietly walked a few steps towards the window at her left, reaching it just as the other person in the room had reached her desk.

It (not he, she, they, IT) had come to visit her again.

How absolutely wonderful.

Ayano counted the number of footsteps it took for it to reach her side by the window. Refusing to look it's way, she lowered her head deeper into the red scarf wrapped thickly around her neck and steeled her gaze into the fake fire-coloured sky just outside the window instead. Sadly though, it didn't stop her from seeing the person beside her open its mouth out of the corner of her eye, ready to speak vile words that a slimy animal like itself didn't have the right to even know; ready to remind her once again that change was not only super annoying, it also brought much, much darker things.

Like instability.

"Looks like you've failed again, haven't you?"

("Mum and Dad shouldn't have driven past that mountain, they shouldn't have gone away at all.")

Danger.

"How utterly pathetic, although completely unsurprising for a foolish human, don't you think?"

("Takane, Haruka, what is he trying to do...?!")

Sometimes even death.

"Oh, come on now miss Hero, say something. I mean, was this not what you wanted? What you wished for? What your little heart desired?"

("Shuuya...")

A lot of the time it brought death.

"..."

Exhaling out, Ayano finally turned to face her 'companion' and smiled again, yet this time it was not tenderly solemn. No, this time it was brimming with as much cheer and as much unapologetic contempt as she could put into it. Because no matter how much everything else changed around her, there was one thing that never did.

"I hate you Snake of Clearing Eyes."

But of course, three measly words were never enough to make it go away. It probably only amused the snake demon if anything, enticing it to stay even longer and say more nasty things. Ayano could only imagine what would happen if she ever truly expressed just how much she despised the monster, if she were to ever scream out the thoughts of 'leave my family alone' and 'please die' or 'I'd kill you if the Heat Haze would let me' that always followed after the initial 'I hate you.'

It would probably be rolling on the floor laughing in delight. The idea alone was enough to make Ayano go sick to her stomach; she could barely tolerate the image of its disgustingly smug smirk in her brain for more than a few seconds without shuddering, so she never permitted herself to say anything else and favored ignoring it instead.

This, of course, did not mean in any way that she was afraid of the monster.

No, no, no. Not at all.

Whatever great terror that the evil creature had first instilled inside her had steadily vanished piece by piece each time it made the queen snake do a reset. As the clocks were forced to wind themselves backwards again and again, they also seemed to strip away the fear that the snake was originally shrouded in until there was nothing left to be seen but a petty, selfish, despicable beast whose only goal it seemed was to endlessly torment her.

It surely never grew tired of it at least; always changing (agh) its ways of inflicting suffering, never staying consistent when visiting her in the small little classroom.

During some loops, the snake would appear immediately.

The moment right after she had gone through with her ultimate plan and jumped off of the building and snapping her neck as a result then woke up inside the small classroom-sized pocket of the never-ending world without a scratch, it would already be leaning against the doorway, wearing the skin of her loving father who's only true fault had been that he had loved his wife and family too much for his own good.

Suffice to say, Ayano had been brought to her knees in tears without fail during the first few loops where she had killed herself and then be forced to listen to her own father scoff at her lack of intelligence and attempt of being a savior, promising to fully carry out its own diabolical plan before leaving the room in malicious laughter.

She couldn't even bring herself to say the "I hate you" until at least loop #68, but even then it was only tearfully whimpered out and she was still left trembling on the wooden floor wondering if the poor, kind man who had gently raised her was crying as well underneath the cruel, red-eyed control placed onto him without his knowledge.

Other loops the Snake would appear during the very middle of the timeline, just to remind her of how bad things were going in the real world without her.

Unlike when it would come right after her death, the Snake didn't stick to just one exclusive form during these visits. Instead, it would take on a whole myriad of different (agh) shapes and bodies.

There were times when it took the form of Shintaro, his bubbly younger sister, a small brown-haired boy she didn't know, a small black-haired girl she didn't know yet reminded her quite a bit of her mother, Takane turned blue and virtual, and even the sweet white-haired girl that housed the queen snake that she hadn't ever met, but knew that Kousuke loved very much.

Then there times when it took control one of her sibling's bodies and they were, without lie, the only times in her entire life (and death as well, she supposed) that she actually struggled to restrain herself from giving into a blind rage. It would do no one any good if she tried to grab one of the grieving flower pots that had been placed on all of the desks but her own to throw at the loathful monster who dared to harm her family.

She would probably just miss anyway, so a wrathful "I hate you" would have to be enough.

Finally, there were loops when the snake would appear just before the next one would start, always right after it had murdered the Dan.

It only ever took one form during these visits, just as it did with her father when it came straight away. "Konoha" was what Haruka had named the form when it had still been a simple video game avatar... and yet, Ayano knew without a doubt that she hated it most when the Snake took control of it, even more than when it took over her siblings.

After all, it was the one thing Haruka had wanted so badly, the only thing (besides seeing the girl he loved one more time) he had wanted even in death. It was his wish turned sickly, just like him. His desire to be strong and healthy and normal abused and treated like some weapon to kill those he and she both cared about.

It was just such a completely blatant scorn of her friend's last hope that whenever the snake came into the room with blood-splattered black hair on white skin, twirling the still smoking gun around a finger and mockingly calling itself 'Kuroha' instead of the original name that the body had been given, all Ayano could do was glare at the creature in stoic loathing.

No sadness. No anger. Just uncomplicated, tranquil, steadfast hate along the three magic words that corresponded to it.

"I hate you," she would whisper under her breath, not caring if the abhorrent creature even heard her. All it mattered was that she heard it, knew it, and believed it.

Ayano swore to herself - actually swore - that she would never stop saying them, ever, that she would never change.

She would not.

Until one time... she did.

In all honesty, Ayano herself didn't know the reason why.

Maybe it was because of boredom; there wasn't exactly too much to do when one was trapped inside an alternate dimension besides wait for the next loop while remembering your past life.

Or maybe it was because she missed the sound of own voice beyond saying the exact same three-word sentence for what would probably have been centuries already.

Or maybe it was just because she had finally (finally) grown fed up enough of listening to the bastard Snake's endlessly boastful taunts that she could no longer stand being quiet, lest she go completely insane.

Or... perhaps it was because Ayano just wanted to. Needed to.

Just one change, one little shift and that's it.

Sucking in a breath of sweltering heat, ignoring the uncountable voices in her head exploding for her to stop what she was planning right now, she forced her eyes away from the window and spoke for the second time.

"Don't you... don't you ever get tired of this?"

Upon hearing her hastily said question, The Snake of Clearing Eyes paused it's bragging, blinking at her in genuine confusion. "What?"

"You heard me," Ayano said again, trying on a harder voice. "Haven't you gotten tired of this by now?"

Again the monstrosity (who had appeared after the end of what she could only guess was loop #440, and thus chose to wear the very much despised black android form) only looked at her, seemingly still surprised that the puny human in front of it was finally responding back. If Ayano really squinted, she could admit that the Snake looked distressingly like Haruka when it wasn't sneering down its nose at her.

Enough to almost be... innocent-looking, she supposed.

"And by 'this' you mean...?"

"All of this! Resetting time, possessing my father, hurting my loved ones over and over and over." Ayano balled up fists by her sides, not wanting them to start flying out of control. "Why are you not completely exhausted by now? Why are you even doing this?"

Slowly but still quick enough to be infuriating, the Snake crossed its arms over its chest and let a smaller version of its signature condescending smirk grace its lips. "I already told you, didn't I? I simply want to make the wishes of you humans come true, and this is the only way to grant your father's wish."

"Liar, you're worse than Shuuya." Ayano narrowed her eyes, the wind blowing in from the window and scattering papers all around the classroom. "You were never planning on bringing my mother back. All you ever wanted was to keep the timeline from going on so you could keep on living, no matter how many innocents you have to kill."

The pale-skinned, coal-haired snake being chuckled darkly. "Well... I won't deny that the living forever part of having an unachievable wish is quite the perk. But still, this is just how I'm granting his wish and if it takes forever to do so, so be it. Besides, I granted your wish at least, right? You wanted to be a hero, and you were one. All the way into the ground."

The Clearing Eyes flashed a razor-sharp grin and took a step forward. Ayano refused to take a step back.

"Y-you're wrong! This was not what I wanted at all! I just wanted to protect my siblings and my friends," she gasped, her chest hurting as the wind further whipped through her hair, almost dislodging the clips she always wore because she hadn't been able to handle just how drastically her mother's death had sent everything down hill.

"Living forever isn't worth hurting others. It isn't worth killing people and bringing so much suffering. Can't you see? Why don't you understand?"

It was the Clearing Snake's turn to narrow its eyes. All the amused haughtiness in its expression was replaced by an unreadable icy chill and for the first time in a very long while, Ayano could feel some of the original fear she had felt when she had first read those old diaries and learned about a monster with snakes for hair.

"No, I don't see and I don't understand," it muttered, neon yellow eyes piercing into her solid brown ones. Ayano wondered if this was what snakes looked like when they were about to bite their prey. The fact that she couldn't actually be harmed in this world barely soothed her. "Tell me then, Ayano, why are you even asking me all of this since you seem to have my character completely figured out already?"

"Because! B-because..." Ayano began to stutter much to her horror but pushed on regardless; she would not let her nerves break right when they had just become strong. "Because I don't understand! I don't understand how you can not care when you destroy lives and take over people! How you can be a thinking, living being and still be okay with everything you do. How you can be so cruel. I just... I just don't understand you at all."

"..."

For once the Snake of Clearing Eyes was silent, bloodlust evaporating away completely. Ayano used the time to catch her breath and slow down her heartbeat even though it had already truly stopped a long time ago. She then stared at the Snake fiercely, searching for the glowing eyes that were now obscured by black bangs. She never found them.

"You... are right. You don't understand me," muttered the Clearing Eyes Snake eventually. Turning around, its dark shadow flickering on the red sunset-lit walls as it walked towards the doorway out.

"And why would you?" It called over its shoulder brusquely, as if trying to restore the normal biting sting to its words, still without so much as looking at Ayano. "You're just a human after all. What with your pitifully short lives, how would you even begin to understand the thoughts of a superior, long-lived being... you really are such a fool."

When the Snake had reached the door and seemed to be on the verge of saying one last mean-spirited remark before walking out, it brought a hand up to touch the plainly wooden doorframe and paused. After what seemed to be a moment of consideration on the monster's part, it twisted its head back just enough so that Ayano could see the glint of one of it's shiny, lime eyes.

"A fool who should consider herself lucky that she doesn't need to understand the fear of disappearing forever."

Saying nothing more, the towering black-colored android walked out of the room unperturbed, but definitely less obnoxiously casual as usual. Likewise, Ayano had nothing to say either as she somberly watched the door begin to crumble away and the walls begin to disintegrate. Time was just about to reset again, right on schedule.

Not knowing what to feel (not pain, not confusion, not even hate), all that she could do as her memories ebbed away and the entire world swirled into a single hazy red void around her was wonder whether not if her small little change really had been nothing but a mistake.

As fate would have it, things only kept changing and growing more different as loop upon loop passed by. But unlike before, this time Ayano didn't even have a list of possible reasons why she was changing alongside it.

She had no clue at all.

For one thing, the Snake now exclusively came just before a route ended and thus always in the 'Kuroha' body, so much that Ayano could no longer clearly remember the last time it had shown up as her father or one of the Dan. Although she still held an immense scorn for the usage of this particular form, she was pressed to admit that this new sort of consistency wasn't the worst. At least now she could easily predict the exact moment when it would show up rather than be on her toes guessing all of the time, which was spades better than before.

(Should I start referring to it as 'he'? The Snake hasn't taken over any of the girl Dan members in so long...)

Another much more bewildering thing: the two of them actually started talking to each other. Like, actually talk, wherein Ayano would respond and remark back words other than "I hate you," and while the incessant ridicule the Snake always had sitting on top of its tongue never stopped coming (she didn't think it was spiritually possible), it was definitely lessening with each passing timeline, to the point that she could honestly say that their conversations were no longer entirely antagonistic.

"How were all the members of the Dan doing before you killed them this time?" she would ask at least once per visit, their current loop #563 being no exception.

It- he would always answer honestly, even if it most of the time wasn't polite at all. "The nine brats including this one?" He gestured at his own lanky, black-clothed body. Thankfully his hands weren't blood-stained which meant he had simply shot the teenagers instead of strangling them to death this time. "They were fine I guess, nothing out of the ordinary. Although... it was actually the Focuser who jumped in front of the Captivator when I shot them. Usually it's the other way around, so does that count as different?"

"...sure."

The Snake, in between bouts of his daily mockery, would ask her questions as well sometimes during routes where he seemed to be in more relaxed, indulgent moods.

"Tell me, little clumsy Hero, what's with the red?"

Ayano tilted her head in surprise. "Ahh? Why do you ask-"

"Don't play the idiot. Or at least don't play it more than you already are. I spent years looking out of your old man's eyes and I can't remember a single one where you didn't wear that scarf," he barked out brusquely. "While there's no doubt that it's the most superior color, I don't get why a mere child would wear it so often. Why?"

"...well, my mother certainly liked the color a lot," she started, gliding her fingers over the two pieces of red plastic in her hair before folding her hands over her skirt thoughtfully.

"But I don't know, I guess... I guess I wore this scarf every day because it made my siblings happy. Made them feel better about themselves; that it was okay to have their own red. I'm sure you already know this-" she bit her tongue to keep her words from sounding too bitter, "-but for most of Tsubomi, Kousuke, and Shuuya's lives... red wasn't the best color out there."

She had expected the Clearing Eyes to laugh at her and to take pride in the misery his fellow snakes had caused three poor children, but instead of sneering the black android instead tilted his own head just as she had. "And did it work?" he asked, sounding the most sincere and curious than she had ever heard from him.

It was... kind of amazing, Ayano couldn't help but blink in astonishment.

"Yes, I think it did."

"Hn."

Once the loop (this one being #828 if she recalled correctly) had ended the pale-colored, lime-eyed Snake left the classroom silently, not a single disdain-filled final comment making it's way out of his mouth and attacking her ears.

Ayano smiled the tiniest bit as the world started to deteriorate around her but hid it behind the tell-tale red scarf, all the while still pretending to be clueless as to the reason why.

It wasn't until many, many, many resets later that Ayano fully realized that her companion was changing just as much as she was and perhaps even more astonishingly, that she could actually call him 'companion' completely unironically.

"Hey," she said during loop #1365 while folding an origami crane with the paper of her failed tests just as she had done when she was alive, "Snake Of Clearing- Kuroha, can you tell me something please?"

"Hn? Okay Hero, shoot," he mumbled without opening his eyes, lazily sprawled in the chair and desk next to her's even though it wasn't his- wasn't his at all, Ayano knew all too well but still let him sit there regardless (I hope Shintaro won't be upset.)

"What was your family like?"

Now he cracked an eye open at her. "Excuse me?"

"Well, it's just that I've already told a lot about myself and my family and friends, probably way more than I should have considering what you always end up doing to them," she explained calmly as she finished the final folds of the paper bird. "And yet you don't really ever tell me about yourself or your own family. I just thought, you know, that it'd be fair if you did."

Kuroha scoffed, "I think you've lost even more brain cells than normal during that last time reset. If you didn't know this obvious bit of information already, I'll gladly remind you: I don't have one."

"Yes, you do: Azami, her husband, Mary-chan's mother, the other nine snakes. Tell me about them; aren't they your family?"

"What? No!" Kuroha jumped up and out of his seat in utter bafflement. "They are not my 'family'! My master was nothing but a naive, desperate fool and that simpleton of a husband she had was equally weak-willed. Their stupid brat-daughter was just another whiny child. And my fellow snakes? While they're still better than you humans they are nothing but unthinking, low-level pawns to be used for my plans."

He rose up to his body's full height, "So to reiterate this again human hero, I have no family," and glared down at her menacingly.

"..."

Or at least he tried to. It only took one beat, two beats, three beats before Ayano could no longer hold it in.

"Pfffft."

"W-what is so funny that you are laughing human?!"

She had to bring a hand up to muffle her chuckles. "I-I'm sorry. It's just... you sounded so much like what people would expect from an angsty teenager going through a rebellious phase and trying to disown their relatives."

"What!" He cried out in shocked indignance. "That is not it at all!"

"It was, it was! Complete with the whole 'I have no family' line too, hehehe!" Ayano only laughed harder as the literal snake monster in front of her actually went red in the face and started sputtering out weightless death threats. She couldn't help it, she really couldn't because oh gosh he (the Snake of Clearing Eyes for goodness' sake) just looked so flustered! It was, in all honesty, kind of adorable.

"For the love of- agh!" Kuroha slammed a black boot onto the floor hard, fully snapping Ayano out of her laughter, sending the paper crane tumbling out of her hand and onto the floor. "Don't speak as if you understand! Just because you have the Snake of Favoring Eyes inside of you doesn't mean you know what it's like to be one of us, to be like me. You don't know at all."

He whipped around and stomped over to the sliding classroom door, looking to be fully intent on walking out and cutting the visit extremely short. It was reminiscent of a child angrily marching away just after having thrown a tantrum; Ayano definitely would have found it cute as well if she hadn't hastily shot up from her seat and walked after him. She must have really struck some sort of nerve; the last time he had acted like this was almost a thousand loops earlier right after that infamous first change.

"Wait! Wait please, I-I didn't mean to sound so insensitive. Sorry."

The black android stopped just as he had slid the door open, not saying anything with only his back facing her.

"Kuroha? I'm sorry okay? Believe me, I am," she repeated again, a hand slowly outreaching to touch his shoulder only to stop midway as his voice returned. Softly.

"You don't know what it's like to be disliked by your master from the moment you were created. To be the only ability she didn't use. To have to fight and act out for attention yet still be cast aside the moment she met that damn white-haired human. To only be listened to when she wanted something even though you were her only ability that could speak and think, and even then it was just because she wanted to be with her precious new family longer than naturally possible, not you or your fellow eye abilities; her old family. You..."

He took a step forward out of the room. "You don't know."

"Then, t-then tell me!" Ayano cried out, successfully grabbing onto his elbow before he could run away and go where she couldn't follow. "Tell me so I can understand; so I can talk to you about it and you can share things with me like I've been talking and sharing everything with you! Please, tell me what you feel so I can help."

"...why do you want to, though?" he whispered. Slowly, he turned around to finally look her in the eyes. Seeing his face, Ayano couldn't find a single hard line or curl of a sneer. Instead, all she found was simple pensiveness, melancholy, and dare she even think it, vulnerability.

"You hate me, do you not? That's all you used to say after all and even I wouldn't be able to blame you. I know the things I've done; I'm the one who did them." He let out a small sigh as if in bittersweet nostalgia. "There isn't a likely chance that I'll ever stop doing them too, so why? Even after all this... talking we've been doing, why would you go this far? Why does it matter to you, Tateyama Ayano?"

After taking a moment of silence to get over the shock of him calling her by her real name without merely a hint of derision, she replied back in full, utter honesty:

"...because you're all I have now. It's true that I can't stop you from doing all of these terrible things, and I'll never be able to forgive you. But if that really is and will always be the case, then what do I have to lose?"

She offered a small, but open smile unobscured by the red scarf. "I still remember that route so many loops ago when I first yelled at you. I didn't say this during then, but I will now: I want to understand you, to know you, maybe even learn from you, but only if you'll let me. So what do you say, Kuroha, Snake of Clearing Eyes? Will you?"

One beat, two beats, three beats; ten, a hundred, a thousand passed by with nothing but unsure yet steady staring between eyes of both blazing yellow and determined brown. It almost reached to a million before the pair of yellow ones finally broke, blinking and sighing.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay you win Hero. I'll tell you what you want to know." He rubbed his temples in embarrassed agitation, then stuck out a stiff hand towards her. "But not in here; this room is way too stuffy for this kind of talk. I don't even now how you can handle it when yammering on about your precious 'Dan' so much already. No, we're going outside for this."

"Eh?" Ayano blinked dumbly, feeling perplexed just as she was beginning to beam and jump up in pleasant surprise. "But isn't the timeline about to reset again?"

"On the outside world maybe, but it doesn't restart in here until I say so. And I think I can keep it running for a while," he remarked with only a somewhat malicious wink.

"O-oh okay, but ah, that still won't work; I can't leave this room," she reminded him. "Didn't you tell me I'd turn to dust or something if I did during the first ever route?"

"I lied, obviously."

"HAH?! YOU REALLY ARE WORSE THAN SHUUYA, AREN'T YOU?"

The smug, robotic boy-wearing snake only chuckled a genuinely amused chuckle, his signature smirk finally back where it belonged. He stuck out his hand further towards her, albeit more confident and laid back. "So what do you say, Ayano, little human hero? Will you step out into the Neverending World? It's just as much your home as it is mine at this point."

She stared at his hand. Up until now, they had never actually touched skin to skin. He's a snake, Ayano knew, but the Konoha body used to be a full flesh and blood human.

In other words, would he be warm or cold?

Only one way to find out, she concluded and began to reach for his hand with a slightly bigger smile, once again ignoring the voices in her head telling her variations of ‘no don't do it’ and ‘this will make everything weird again!’ and ‘change is bad, remember?!’

It's just another little shift. Well, maybe a medium-sized shift. Still though, I doubt it will hurt anything.

...his hand was warm.

Ever since that medium-sized change at the end of that fateful route over a thousand timelines ago, there hadn't been another route afterward where the two of them didn't go out walking through the mystical haze. It was bigger than whatever Ayano could have imagined; twisting exact images of the city buildings she had grown up around as well as the trees of the very forest surrounding said city. There was no doubt in her mind that it had done the same with the rest of the real world as well.

The sweltering temperature was a constant everywhere they walked and while this lack of change probably would've pleased her say, five hundred routes prior, the only thing that would please her now would be to be wearing anything but her stuffy old middle-school uniform.

(Seriously, she couldn't fathom how Kuroha could stand it wearing his all-black outfit constantly. Bah, otherworldly snake beings were weird.)

So with the blistering never-ending sun high in the sky beating hard glints of light on her red clips and Kuroha's headphone-ear-things (she had asked about them during one of their first few walks. Even he didn't know how they worked) and the occasional god-sent breeze ruffling their clothes as they walked and talked, it became extremely clear quite early on just how empty the world really was. There was no one else on the streets, no moving cars on the road, no one else in the entire city besides the two of them.

"I thought lots of people came into this world. Thousands of people die every day and August 15th definitely isn't an exception. Why isn't there anyone else?"

"There is, idiotic Hero, you just can't see them. Everyone goes to their own version of the daze, your's being the classroom; the rest of the world is empty to them. The only other person they'd be able to interact with would be the person they died beside, but since you always insist on dying alone each and every time, well-"

"I see."

"Yeah. It's really only me and Master who can actually go and visit anyone we want, not that she ever has the will to do anything but mope for eternity. Have I told you that already?"

"Too many times... hey um?"

"What is it?"

"Do you ever go and visit anyone else besides me?"

"I used to. Usually only to check that things were going according to plan, that the ones who were leaving wished for the right things so as to get the proper snakes."

"Did you ever talk to them?"

"Sometimes, always just to laugh at them and bring out their despair, like with you before."

"..."

"...you were always the most fun to do it with, though, which is why I haven't visited anyone else in at least four-hundred-and-forty loops."

"Wow, thanks, hehe."

They talked and talked and talked about absolutely everything-

- Ayano's life before she even knew what a medusa was... Kuroha's life watching the world through Azami's eyes during the planet's earliest days... how honestly scared Ayano had been when she had first seen her sibling's powers, despite how much she had assured them she wasn't... how hard adapting to human life and modern day society had been for Kuroha in Kenjirou's body during the first thirty-eight or so loops... how much it truly hurt each time Ayano jumped and twisted her spine out of sisterly love... how much it actually did hurt whenever Kuroha took possession of someone, feeling all of their pain and sorrow and traumatic memories pass through as he forced himself to become them -

-they left nothing out at all, no piece of information kept secret, no part of themselves hidden away.

Huh. We're going to run out of things to talk about at this rate, Ayano thought and squeezed the large hand covering her much smaller one. Kuroha didn't squeeze back, but she could see the edge of his mouth quirk into a half smile underneath the spotted yellow dots up on his cheek.

For every single walk they took together at the end of a timeline, the steps they took side by side each other were always at the same pace, holding warm hands all the way.

Although... maybe walking in silence together like this wouldn't be the worst thing to do for eternity, she also thought. Soon enough her own half-smile was quirking onto her lips in return as they stepped through the heat daze's version of her old school, leisurely approaching the door of Ayano's classroom as the outside streets grew ever fuzzier from the impending reset.

It's almost nice enough to not want all of this to end...

Judging from everything that had happened and would probably continue to happen, that notorious first change was leaning on the possibility of not being a mistake more than ever before.

Their routinely outing for loop #2550 had been one of comfortable silence. Neither of them had found any reason to speak and disrupt the serenity from just being in the other's presence, despite Ayano noticing that the look in Kuroha's eyes seemed to be more hazed over and glassy than usual, as if he was looking for something in the distance but not finding it.

As if he was thinking very hard about something.

She had been planning to ask about it when they had reached the last stoplight that stood between them and the school building, but Kuroha beat her to the chase.

"What's it like to be real?" he suddenly blurted out as they waited for the traffic light to flash green (even though there were never any cars, Ayano always insisted on following the so-called rules of the road even though it always earned her a roll of the eyes from the snickering snake.)

She startled a little bit and looked at him quizzingly, not understanding the question. "Uh, what do you mean by 'real'?"

"Real as in real, Ayano. As in having a body from the moment of your creation and keeping it every time you're reborn," he explained, eyes cast into the hazy air in front of them. "What is it like to not have to force yourself into someone else; to just be you." He swung his eyes back down, locking into hers intently. "What is it like to be alive...?"

It took Ayano a good solid ten seconds to even begin to think of an answer. What is it like to be alive? How should I know, I'm dead after all. But, maybe I can remember if I try...

"It feels like... like you're normal I guess," she settled with, gently taking a hold of Kuroha's other hand so that she was holding both of them. "It's like you just know from the very start who you are, who you're meant to be. You go through daily life always as just one person; the same as everyone else around you going through their own lives. It feels like you're equal to them all, equal to the whole world."

"And- and that's what it's like to be human?" Kuroha asked in actual bright-eyed awe, clutching both her hands tightly.

"Yes-" she smiled tenderly up at him, "-that's exactly what it means. You're equal. You're weak. You're human."

"..."

"N-not that you would know or even want to know anything about that of course, hahaha," Ayano tried to tease a little, hoping to bring a blush or even a normal look of irritation onto his face.

She got neither.

Despite looking positively entranced by her words just a second ago Kuroha quickly resigned back into himself; eyes disappearing under bangs, his hands letting go of hers.

It was the first time they had ever let go of each other while walking.

"Kuro-"

"The light's red. Come on, let's go. Before time runs out."

Kuroha then cut ahead by himself and crossed the street without waiting for her, ("H-hey wait! Kuroha!") leaving Ayano scrambling to catch up behind him as they entered the school and navigated their way up the floors to the familiar old classroom, although she didn't know why he seemed to be in such a hurry. The world hadn't started to fade away into the new timeline yet, even though it really should have started by now.

Odd.

"Je- *wheeze* -jerk," she complained when they reached the well-worn out door, bent over with hands on her knees gasping for breath (gym hadn't exactly been her best subject in school, although she had still been much better than Shintaro at it, much to her secret delight) behind him. "I hope your gun jams when you kill everyone after the next route."

"It won't," he said matter-of-factly, not making any moves to slide open the door and let her in.

Odder.

"Hahaha, very funny all-mighty Kuroha. If don't mind now, I'm going to go inside so you can get started running the loop. Definitely be sure to tell me afterward how your gun definitely doesn't break~" She giggled and tried to walk past him to open the door herself, only to be stopped by his hand blocking her path. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"U-um, what are you doing? What's wrong?"

"..." Silence. Extremely odd.

"I take it back, this isn't funny anymore Kuroha. Why aren't you letting me in?"

"..." More silence. Okay, now this was just getting annoying.

"Kuroha, I said-" she began, ready to calmly but willfully ask to be let in. She didn't get to finish her demand, however, as Kuroha swung around to face her at a scarily swift speed. His eyes were ablaze with nothing but seriousness, shocking her almost as much as his next few words did.

"Do you want to be real again, Tateyama Ayano?"

It was her turn to be silent this time. "...what are you saying?"

"Exactly what I just said: do you want to be real again? Alive again? A normal, equal, weak human again?"

Before she could follow up with an even louder, more unbelieving "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" Kuroha suddenly turned around and slid open the door in one fluid motion.

What (no, who) Ayano saw inside stopped her right in her tracks, flitted the very words off her tongue and restarted her long-passed beatless heart.

It was Shintaro. Two Shintaros; one of them wore a black hoodie while the other one wore a familiar-looking bright red jersey.

Ayano's hands were positively shaking. "S-Sh-Shin..."

The one clad in an all-black hoodie looked extremely sickly like he hadn't felt the touch of the sun in two years, and seemed as if he were on the edge of a complete mental breakdown. The one dressed in red looked a lot better; less pale with fewer lines and bags of dark stress under his eyes. He looked much more alert and cautious, but also more stable.

...the jersey still suited him perfectly, just as she remembered.

"Shintaro!" she called out to the both of them. They didn't take notice or even react to her voice, meaning that they couldn't hear her and proving it very likely that they couldn't see her either, much less interact with her. Yet it was still painful for Ayano to stop her herself from outright running forward and crushing both of them into a hug.

They're both so much taller than me... what routes are they from... I can't believe this is happening... oh Shintaro!

"H-how?" was all she could hiccup out, still staring at the two versions of the same boy she had admired throughout all her school life.

"Well, it wasn't easy, believe me," Kuroha spoke softly behind her, not a single trace of ill intent or malevolence hidden away in his voice. She doubted that she would find any traces hidden in his features if she turned around either. "Had to do a whole lot of trial and error during the last six timelines... but I managed to finally get them both here on lucky number seven. That's what Dan number he is right? 7?"

Ayano nodded back, her legs now trembling as well but she couldn't tell if it was still from her sheer level of incredulity or from the ball of happiness growing at lightning speed inside her chest. Kuroha laughed, low and benevolent and melodic-like, sounding nothing like Konoha but almost sounding exactly like Haruka.

"Thought so. Now before you ask 'why', he said right at the exact moment she was literally about to ask why, why, oh god why did you do all of this for me, I'm so happy, "Let's just say... I remember that loop so many routes ago too; the one where you first yelled back at me... when you asked me if I was tired of all of this... tired of hurting others to get what I wanted... of lashing out at Master Azami because she chose to also love Tsukihiko and Shion instead of just us..."

He brought a hand to rub his neck awkwardly-

"Back then, I was so sure that I would never grow tired of it ever..."

-yet the smile he gave her was bright, toothy and kind.

"...but I think maybe I have now."

Still smiling warmly down at her, Kuroha motioned into the musty, sun-filled classroom where the two lost boys were waiting. "Go ahead, do whatever you like. Use one of them as a sacrifice to leave and be with your uh, family again or send either one of them off with a snake of their own. You'll either die for real or come back to life - I really don't know which is better at this point - but I can guarantee you that it'll be real."

The smiling Snake closed his eyes and sighed. Satisfied. Content. Tired. "Even if you don't do anything at all, if you still hate change as much as you've told me all of these rewinding routes, I want you to have the choice at least. The choice to stay the same... to ruin everything... to change. Whatever your final wish will be, I hope it makes you happy my small Hero."

Having heard him finish up his golden words, Ayano soon found that her entire body was quivering. She brought her hands up to cover her face, muffling away her overjoyed tears. Many beats passed, so many that they wouldn't fit properly in tens or hundreds or thousands. Eventually, Kuroha peeked open an eye.

"Hello? Earth to little red heroic Ayano? I said go ahead, didn't I? Listen, if you're worried about what might happen to me after this, it's okay. I'm not going to disappear without a fight and even I'm not sure what will happen exactly. So it's fine really, you can go and- huwah!?" he exclaimed as Ayano was suddenly moving again, unwrapping her red scarf and swinging it over the tall dark android's neck at a speed fast enough to break necks.

"Wh-what in the heat haze's name-"

She didn't give him even a second's time to finish asking what she was doing. With nothing but overwhelming gratitude in her restarted heart, she had practically already done it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you was all she thought as she pulled down the scarf ends entwined in her hands, pulling Kuroha's head closer to her as a result.

There weren't any voices in her head telling her to stop this time as she brought the ethereal snake being all the way down and pressed their lips together, turning on her eye power for the first time ever just so she knew he was feeling what she felt as well, not caring at all if this was probably the most devastatingly large change she could have done.

It was finally at this exact moment that Ayano knew that the first tiny, amazing one hadn't been a mistake at all.

Despite everything that had happened surprisingly, Ayano still wasn't too fond of change.

It was still a very pesky, unpredictable thing.

It had turned Tsubomi from sweet and proper to guarded and aloof, turned Takane from awfully moody to downright gleeful, and turned Shintaro into an even lonelier person in some of the really depressing timelines.

And yet it had also changed a murderous, unredeemable devil of a snake spirit into someone so wonderful that he had been able to claim the most precious place in her heart.

Change could make people lose their jobs, move away, drop out of school and even kill them, but it could also bring people together, make souls stronger, rebuild lives and help people to forgive.

Maybe it wasn't so bad as she had always forced herself to believe.

Whatever the case truly was, she would be deciding the fate of herself, her friends, the never-ending world itself in a very short amount of time. What would she do? Which copy of the boy with the perfect memory she had always envied would she be able to help? How could she change everyone's destiny for the better?

All these unanswered questions and thoughts swirled around in her mind, silent as time, and yet all Ayano could really do now was watch as her stubborn, flustered, beloved Snake gently slipped away from her as the all-powerful world without end around them went into limbo, even though she very much wanted to cling onto him like her life depended on it.

Whatever I choose now.

Whatever I end up fixing or ruining.

It's all because of you, Snake of Clearing Eyes.

Because you didn't leave me alone.

Because you changed.

And so had she.

Smiling the most joyous, radiantly happy smile she could present, red eyes of favoring emotions still intact and aglow, Ayano whispered her last true feelings before she went to go remake the world and change yet again.

"I love you Kuroha."

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