That is not actually how nim works, but Sora can see how you might come to that misunderstanding if you're looking for patterns in the game by computing the outcome of small piles by hand.

"Very clever," he says approvingly. "It doesn't matter to me which of them you eat."

"Liar. It hasn't been that long since a human challenged me to a game."

He's not going to say anything to that.

When they return to the board the fairy demands two of the light pink berries. He feeds them to her slowly, then pretends to take his time thinking about which of the berries he needs to take himself.

Two orange it is. His little excursion was about five minutes, and the twisting sick feeling hasn't much abated in that time. It mixes with the effect of the light pink berries in an intellectually interesting way, like watching a video of yourself getting into a car crash while getting into a car crash.

Sometimes the victims of especially venomous insect bites submerge the wound in boiling water to mask the pain. Maybe he can do something like that?

You are a loser, he tells himself. A hikkikomori, a failson, a NEET. You spend sixteen hours a day playing video games and the other eight being a useless sack of garbage. Dad is right about everything. The only thing you've ever been good at is looking out for Shiro, and you're about to fail at that too.

Sora is kind of trying to bandage a gunshot wound with razor wire here but go off I guess.

It was worth a try.

"Two of the orange berries, please."

The pastel orange berries have a similar flavor to the light pink ones. The consequences of eating them, which Sora is absolutely right to be watching out for, seem limited to a visual blurring effect around the outlines of objects.

Hooray. With only four orange berries left it's unlikely that eating all of them will render him completely blind, and although the beer goggles are unwelcome he's grateful that it wasn't far worse. He can still count the remaining berries and move unimpeded.

This is obviously a losing position. It would have been nice to win the game fair and square, but that never seems to happen. It also would've been nice if this human had given up by now instead of taking a break to go frolic through the woods, although she can't blame him. Who doesn't enjoy a good frolic in the woods?

Nevertheless, she wants to get on with her day. She requests the entire pile of light pink berries. On his next turn, the human will eat three of the four remaining orange berries, leaving one pastel orange berry and one jet black berry for her to pick from. After that, in theory, the human eats the last berry and she loses.

In theory. In practice, she's going to eat the orange one.

Sora passes her the five berries, then takes three of the orange ones himself.

"Saves some time," he says by way of explanation, popping one into his mouth.

The orange berries will make the aggravating visual distortion worse, though never to the point of obscuring his sight or preventing him from completing any sort of visual task.

"You know what the problem is? Turns out that anything that doesn't breach the Covenant is gonna appeal to someone. We still get humans out here sometimes, looking for older experiments. Heck, some humans like eating ones that do breach the Covenant!"

She eyes the two remaining berries. One orange, one black.

"So, do you want the black one?" Sora asks jocularly.

He pops the second orange berry of the turn in his mouth, along with a fistful of light pink berries picked from the excursion a few minutes ago.

"I haven't had any of them yet," the fairy muses. "Maybe… nah, I think I'll stick with orange. It's got an interesting aftertaste, don't you think?"

Sora is having an out-of-body experience. If he focuses hard he can still feel the ground underneath him and the afternoon breeze blowing against his skin, but otherwise he is verging on a disconnection. Too much ping, please close the program and try logging in again. The unbearable emotional agony is now happening to some other person.

Excellent.

"Not as interesting as the black one did," says the person playing nim with a fairy. One more orange berry, accompanied by the last of the light pink berries in his jacket pocket.

"Tempting, but I'll pass. Orange one please!"

Here you go, surprise drug fairy. Enjoy your surprise drugs. Sora certainly is.

"Last one," the fairy says glumly. "You can still forfeit if you want, you know. I'm not going to force-feed this to you."

"When I'm so close to winning? No thanks. I've already won—"

"Hey. Hey, wake up."