A tale from the Heian Period, where monsters are more polite than men… sometimes.
"Most snakes," she thought, coiling tighter, "aren't even that dangerous."
Crunch.
—CRACK!!
The man's scream was silenced with a wet, final pop! as his spine gave in like a snapped fan stick. His eyes bulged. His sword clattered uselessly to the tatami mat, the lacquered scabbard vibrating as if in horror.
A long, wet tail slithered across the floor. Blood soaked into the edge of the expensive rug like red ink into rice paper.
And the nure-onna—half-woman, half-serpent, full-time man-problem eliminator—gave a long, bored sigh.
"Honestly... this guy didn't even own a baby."
She rolled her eyes as the samurai's corpse slumped like a broken doll in her coils. His home was lavish—too lavish for a man who thought bathing once a week was the height of hygiene.
Her long hair, wet and clinging like seaweed, dragged across his fine floorboards as she slithered toward the open shoji screen. Moonlight painted silver ripples across her slick tail, still dripping from her appearance at the riverbank moments earlier.
"He called me a monster," she muttered, licking blood from her hand. "But he tried to steal my head for a bounty. Who's the real monster here, huh? HUH?!"
She looked around dramatically as if expecting applause. The house was very silent.
Except for the sound of a mouse running away in sheer terror.
She slumped forward with a groan. "Why is everyone in this period so dramatic?! I can't even show up for a peaceful bath without someone throwing a rice bowl at me."
Nure-onna, the weeping woman of the waters, feared in whispers by the riversides. Said to cry for help with a baby in her arms before devouring anyone who came close.
Of course, that version was so last century.
"I haven't used the baby trick in decades, thank you very much," she huffed, casually tossing the dead samurai over his own decorative indoor pond.
A soft meow made her pause.
From the shadows, a stray cat padded into the room, looking unimpressed.
"Don't give me that look, Neko-san," she muttered.
Meow. Judgy.
With a flick of her long tail, she launched a nearby bowl of pickled plums at the feline. It dodged with aloof grace and sauntered away, tail high, like she wasn't even worth hissing at.
"Tch. I eat one guy with a katana and suddenly everyone's a critic."
She dragged herself back toward the door, grumbling.
Outside, the night air was cool. Crickets chirped. A lantern swayed gently. The blood on her hands had already begun to fade into the shadows, as all inconvenient truths do.
As she slithered down the narrow garden path, she passed a whispering couple on the road, the man warning the woman:
"Beware the nure-onna! She'll trick you with her fake baby and suck your soul dry!"
She stopped, slowly turned her head, and gave them the most tired glare a thousand-year-old murder-snake could give.
"IT WAS ONE TIME!!"
They screamed and bolted down the street, dropping their geta in the process. She gave chase for two seconds, mostly for fun, before letting them go with a grumpy grumble.
"Fake baby this, fake baby that. No one remembers the real facts. That samurai was a creep, by the way. Tried to cut my tail off while asking if I was single."
She flopped down beside a quiet stream, coiling herself into a neat circle and letting her wet hair float like black ink in the water.
She stared up at the stars.
"...I'm not even venomous," she whispered.
The stars did not reply. Rude.
In the bushes nearby, the cat reappeared, meowing smugly.
"Say one more thing, and you're dinner," she warned.
The cat winked.
She hissed.
He sat on her tail anyway.
Another quiet night in Heian-era Japan, where the monsters we tell stories about are rarely the ones we should fear—and where the snake-woman just wants a little peace and not to be mistaken for a baby-toting psycho every other day.
But tomorrow?
Tomorrow, maybe she'd try the fake baby again.
…Just for old times' sake.
End of One-Shot: — The Clinging Truth
A classic lesson in: Never trust a samurai. Or a cat. Especially not a cat.