When you wanna post something for Kagerou Day but you didn't have the time to prepare anything for Kagerou Day... you go with a fic you've had sitting around waiting to be posted.

Though it was not the way that humans would use the word, he was quite certain that he did love Marry.

She was exactly as he wanted her, nothing more and nothing less. She was such a beautiful, terrifying, delicate creature. Just as gullible as her grandmother had been, and just as willing to believe in a promise that was so easily ripped away. She had so much power to cling desperately to that hope with.

The very memory, the very thought of her thrilled him. She, who always granted the wish for both of them. For everyone. She was so generous, really. As they reached the end each time, everyone around her always wanted to go back to before. The strength of all of those desires, of her desires, were what sent them back to do it all over, time and time again.

He would gladly die for her.

The first time he'd had to confront that fact, it had unsettled him. That had been so many loops ago that it only remained in his memory because of how important that moment had been to him. She'd been… in danger, from something, he didn't recall what any more. But he remembered seeing her, seeing the look of fear cross her face as she stared at whatever it was. He'd already moved, he'd already pulled her back, and something hit him—he'd been in a weak body at that time, though which one it was in particular had also been forgotten. But he remembered the way her expression had been different, as she stared down at him, not fear but upset, the look he'd seen on her face so many times before and so many times since as she'd come across the dead bodies of her friends, under various different circumstances. The way that look brought a smile to his face, a twisted smile, because that look meant that they were about to go back once again.

He didn't remember if his host had died at that point, but he remembered not worrying about it until he surfaced again through the original queen's wish.

It wasn't that he'd wanted her dead, or hurt, or anything like that. But he hadn't given any thought to what it would mean to protect her. How he would react to seeing her in danger, actual danger.

It was too much like an instinct, he'd thought. Surely the other snakes would unquestioningly protect their queen, but he, he had a will of his own. He had thought he was aware of himself enough to not fall for that stupid order, but was he, in the end, no better than the rest of them? Even as he acted on his own, was he only an extension of her will, like all the others? The other snakes, mindless and blind…

But he watched the scene play out again, this time with a fresh set of eyes. The way his master, his first master, clung so desperately to her wish. The way she stretched her power to the very limits for that family of hers. The way that she was willing to even destroy herself, if it would save the ones she left behind. How even in its corrupted form, it represented her happiness.

"What the hell are you laughing at now…?!"

Ah, she was glaring at him. Before she had given away her strongest power, that glare of hers could always strike an instinctive fear in him, even when he knew it was toothless. But now it couldn't even do that. She was a helpless creature now, overwhelmed by her own power that she couldn't even control anymore. Any bite she could have once mustered was now completely gone.

"Falling in love is such a ridiculous, stupid thing, isn't it?"

Her glare intensified at that, and she gave a futile struggle once more against the prison she herself had created. "Shut up! You don't know anything!"

"… Truly, how ridiculous."

But it seemed even he wasn't immune to such ridiculous things.

That was fine, though. After all, without Marry, none of this would have even been possible. She who made the most foolish, desperate wish of all… perhaps it was only natural that she would become the thing most precious to him. And he was alright with that. He would covet her, care for her, give her the best possible happiness, surround her with friends who were drawn to her by a force far beyond their control… and then, one by one, he would break them for her to watch.

After all, the happier she became, the more devastated she was when it was all torn to shreds.

And ah, the other snakes, so mindless and obedient. They only made it easier for him. They drew their hosts towards their master with a magnetism that made it impossible for the wills of those children to override it. They gave them such empty confidence; 'ah, with these abilities, surely no one will be able to hurt all of us.' And they instilled that exact same instinct into all of them: protect the queen to the death.

With his ability to nullify that confidence of theirs, it was all so easy. They threw themselves at him, time and time again. Each one of them died thinking "at least I protected her," and in the end when all of her pawns were stripped away, the queen remained as the one damaged the most of all. It was a deep scarring that would have been completely irreparable if time continued to flow forwards.

She was the most beautiful creature in that moment.

Ah, how she always wailed at that point. She was not like her grandmother. She was so young and naïve. She had had a single taste of how terrible the world could be, but she had completely forgotten it until now. While her grandmother's agony was also delightful, she always deigned to suffer in stoic silence. But Marry, Marry would scream. She'd cry, she'd plead, she'd exhaust every last option she could think of to return her happiness. She was a graceless, pathetic thing. And when she finally reached the last moment, the moment when she allowed herself to accept, for just an instant, "I'm all alone again"…

That was when she broke. Her rationality left. Instinct would take hold. The power that she regained from gathering all the snakes around her gave her one moment to break the laws of the world itself… and in her madness, she seized it and clutched tight. She refused to let it go. Even when she'd gone back far enough, back to before her own birth, she couldn't loosen her grip. It was only when she'd reached the very genesis of the medusa's power, when her control was ripped from her grasp, that she finally stopped and let time flow forwards once again.

Until the next time, he would bide his time. He would wait, eagerly anticipating her birth. He would watch her grow. He would cultivate her happiness, and he would protect her with every life at his disposal. And then, at his bidding, she'd reach her most beautiful moment for him to witness once again.

The next time, he would love her even more.