When God Nadeko is confronted by not one but two Nadekos dressed in Tsukihi’s borrowed clothes, she decides to whip out her red harpoons and kill both of them one by one so she can maintain her freedom. But the two Nadekos rushing her are actually Wrath Nadeko and a shikigami copy of Current Nadeko.
They’re merely decoys designed to draw God Nadeko to a position where Current Nadeko can seal her with paper. She accomplishes this by borrowing a page from Meek Nadeko, specifically her Topless Bloomer Mode, and hiding in plain sight. Before God Nadeko can react, she’s back to being a two-dimensional drawing, from which Yotsugi’s severed hand drops.
As Nadeko reattaches her hand, Yotsugi praises her and expresses her admiration for a living being to put themselves at risk, and tells her she’s “not the person she once was.” After all, God Nadeko, one of her former selves, was content to remain in a place of safety behind her wall of Bloomer Nadekos. She also encourages Nadeko to take her experiences and emotions today and draw them so she can preserve them as recorded memories.
After leaving the cleanup to a professional specialist in Yotsugi, Nadeko receives a ride to where she needs to go next, since she’s not convinces the real Meek Nadeko died in the bookshelf avalanche. The yellow Volkswagen New Beetle Older Araragi Koyomi drove Suruga around in makes another appearance in all its glory.
Nadeko reckons with how she played the “victim” at the expense of turning those around her into “wrongdoers,” and how Meek Nadeko, the weakest of the shikigami, was able to easily take advantage of the other Nadekos, making sure they distracted her while she went after what she wanted.
Ougi takes Nadeko to Senjougahara’s house, believing Meek Nadeko wanted to kill her rival for Araragi’s heart, but that’s not where she is. Instead, she’s at the front gate of Naoetsu High, waiting for an Araragi Koyomi who isn’t there anymore. While she admits to her past meek self that even just waiting and pining for the one she loved was fun, she, like everyone else, can’t remain in the same place forever.
She tells Meek Nadeko it’s time to leave her post waiting forever for her first love to come to her. She also promises she’ll fall in love with someone again, and vows not to turn her first heartbreak into failure. Instead, she’ll write and draw a story about it, and spark joy in her readers. Content with what her current counterpart is putting down, Meek Nadeko brushes her bangs out of her face, smiles, and embraces her, then turns back into a drawing.
Nadeko closes her tale by declaring that she’s still developing, growing, and straying off course. While she’s nowhere near ready to become a full-fledged adult, she admits that this experience definitely caused her to grow up a little. She was able to accept and reckon with her past selves and now vows to use her experiences as them in a productive way.
In the combination epilogue for what has past and prologue for what is to come, Tsukihi pays Nadeko a visit and falls asleep in her bed, only for Oshino Shinobu herself to pop out of her shadow. Nadeko is fearful, but Shinobu is just there to help her experiment with her ability to draw things. Turns out her drawn donuts don’t taste great, but there are plenty of possibilities going forward.
As Yotsugi announces upon her return to Nadeko’s room, those possibilities include working as a part-time specialist for Gaen Izuko, who is not only interested in Nadeko’s latent abilities, but in her calm under extreme duress. Nadeko was able to come up with a plan to capture all four of her escaped shikigami in a single day before they became hazardous apparitions the pros needed to deal with.
Nadeko is excited at the chance to put her newfound ability to use, while also remaining committed to making a manga. Indeed, you could say we just watched the anime adaptation of that manga, as she’s been narrating it this whole time, we’ve gotten chapter cards, and it ends with a message telling us to look forward to Sengoku Nadeko-sensei’s next work!
