In the forest of hesitation, legends are reality and daydreams, heartache.
An Ansatsu Kyoshitsu fanfiction
In this forest, even Mother Nature hesitates to tread.
For fear of the wrath of her fallen daughter.
He knows the rumors. All of them did.
He first hears of them when he's little more than a child. As did all the townsmen; it's one of the first things that they're forced to learn.
Even before they get to the actual history of the town itself, they teach their children about the forest that isolates them from the rest of the world and the monsters that trap them there.
And because Karma was already showing the makings of a troublemaker, they took extra time to beat the story in the brain. So he could recount it, word for word, in his sleep if need be.
The legend of the snake-woman that descended from the heavens. Who fell in love with a human as an angel and was then spurned by the human's wife. Who, in a fit of anger, cursed the nearest humans that she could find and turned them into stone and poisoned their waters so that they tasted forever sweet and caused them a slow, painful death that spans several years.
Of how she craved human blood and attacked any human that passed through.
For all the ways she could kill us, it's a miracle that we aren't all dead yet.
Many whispered it was because the village elder had sold his soul for a cloaking spell to keep the village safe...but of course, it never extended to the outside world. Anything beyond the border were good as dead were the rest of the people were concerned.
But children and stories never were a good mix.
Within the following week, Karma had snuck past the guards and entered the forest.
He hadn't even taken five steps before he realized it was a terrible idea. But he didn't want to go back either; he'd felt like an idiot even considering the idea. So he continued on, not noticing that the sun had set until the forest was plunged into darkness. When he did, he'd lost track of his path and couldn't find the village again.
Lost, alone and doomed to die of hunger and thirst. Just like every other victim of the snake woman.
He probably would have ended up just like them. No, scratch that, he definitely would have.
If not for the 'snake woman', that is.
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He hears the rustling of leaves, his heart is in his throat. He's stumbled backwards, his feet scrape at the ground, he moves backwards. Feels the scraping on the ground, the cold wet earth under him-
The rustling finally breaks into silence and a figure steps out into the clearing.
A figure in robes with long, wild hair and slitted eyes, like a cat's.
"...!"
He doesn't have the strength to scream, yell, run, do anything. He's powerless as the woman comes to a stop in front of him and closes his eyes a second before she meets his gaze.
"...A kid?"
...She sounds younger than he thought she would. Like a child...like him?
"What's a kid doing out here at this time of night? Is there someone else...?!"
He hears soft footsteps heading away from him.
"Wait!"
It takes him awhile to realize it was he himself who yelled out loud like that.
...Why?
"Eh?"
"Don't...don't leave me alone!"
He doesn't want to be alone.
Even if the person in front of him was a monster.
"Alone?" The monster asks, "You're alone?"
He doesn't answer, it's all he could do to breathe.
And even that's taken from him when he feels himself being picked up and wrapped in the monster's arms.
Is this how he was going to die?
"...Stop squirming." The monster says and she sounds as wary as he was, "You'll fall down if you do that."
"Let me go!"
"Don't you want to return to your village?"
He quiets down at that, staring up at the snake woman incredulously and she avoids his gaze. Return? To his village?
"You're not going to kill me?"
"...I won't."
"But...but didn't you kill all those other people?"
"Is that what they're saying?" Her body shakes and Karma thinks it's like a rumble. She's laughing? But it sounds sad, "I'm not in the mood for killing you."
"Huh?"
Something presses down gently against his head. "Don't look. If you meet my eyes, you'll end up like the others."
"Like the others? You mean turned to stone?"
"Yeah. Don't do it, ok?"
"It's something you can't control?"
He hears a soft hissing sound and something brushes against his arm.
The snakes...?
"No. I can't control them either. But they won't bite." The snake woman says dryly.
"Good to know."
When did he fall asleep? He wakes up when she shakes him gently. "We're here."
"Oh."
She sets him down without another word and in the light of the torches, he can see the snakes in her hair.
She closes her eyes. "I told you not to look."
"Right." Karma pauses here, "But I'm still not going to believe every word that the monster lady terrorizing my village says."
"...I'm a boy." Is all the snake wo...boy has to say.
Karma blinks.
"I'm just going to ignore that because it's dark." The snake boy says resolutely, "And...just stay out of the woods."
He turns and is about to leave when Karma calls out.
"Thanks for not murdering me, I suppose!"
That's enough to make the snake boy pause and as he turns around, Karma quickly averts his eyes.
The sound of laughter makes him look back up for just a little bit.
Under the torchlight, laughing like a child, he looked almost human.
"You're welcome."
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Karma wasn't allowed out of his house for a week.
Actually, it was for a month, but he snuck out. And avoiding the townspeople was harder now that they realized that one of their own had just narrowly avoided death.
But he didn't have to go too far past the border before he heard a sigh.
"What are you doing?"
He looks at the boy from the corner of his eye and sees him looking away.
Under the sunlight, he can clearly see the bright blue snakes that pooled over his shoulders, as blue as the sky. The scales over his skin and the strange robes he wore. The hazel of his eyes. And, like Karma figured, the snake boy appeared only a few years older than Karma was, somewhere in his early teenage years.
"Sneaking out." Karma says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"...Do all kids these days act like this?"
"Why do you sound like an old geezer?" Karma shot back, feeling a mite more confident than last time.
"...Because I am one?" The snake boy says. There's a slight smile on his face though.
"Huh. So the secret to eternal youth is human blood?"
"Unfortunately, it's one of the perks of being a gorgon. I'm not particularly interested in blood." The snake boy informs him. He's pinching the bridge of his nose now with his thumb and forefinger, looking halfway between annoyed and amused, "And you're definitely much more snarkier than you were yesterday."
"Not being lost and dying in starvation in a forest would do that for some people."
The gorgon laughs again. But he shakes his head, "Go home."
He starts to walking and stops when Karma follows him.
"Go home."
"No." Karma says with a grin.
"...Child, go home."
"No."
"...I'm not going to take you back if you end up getting lost again."
"Right." Karma says with a snicker and the gorgon sighs again but continues on his way, Karma following behind.
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"You didn't really change much from back then."
Karma looks up at him and Nagisa is the one who averts his gaze as per usual. "What are you mumbling?"
"Nothing, nothing." Nagisa says with a smile, "Just talking to myself."
"Hmm."
Karma looks back at the sky, watching the clouds and Nagisa peeks back at the boy again.
Though...he wasn't expecting him to grow up so quickly.
Ten years were like mere seconds to him.
Human lives were much more fleeting than he realized.
The thought leaves him with a strange pang in his heart.
"Hm? Oiiii."
Something pinches his nose and he just barely stops himself from looking up at Karma's face as a reflex.
"What's wrong? You've been acting weird for a while now." Is what Karma says before he blinks and squints at the gorgon's face, "...Hey. Are you alright?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"...Do gorgons usually get all red in the face?"
"...No."
"Too bad. It suits you, Nagisa-chan~."
In ten years, the child had grown up into a man.
And Nagisa had finally understood the reason that had made his mother fall.
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