Here is a wiki page.
Mary’s role in the story, however, is a little more complicated than what’s detailed there!
Once upon a time, there was a monster.
No one knows exactly how or when she came into existence – she just did, as soon as it occurred to her that she should exist. She travelled for hundreds of thousands of years encountering all manner of creatures, mankind included. The humans she met were the ones to decry her as a monster, and in response to their abuse, she killed them. She and her actions inspired many other myths and legends, the snakes that made up her hair creating stories such as Medusa’s. Naturally, all of this combined meant that she seldom crossed paths with anyone.
This left her deeply lonely as she continued her wandering, up until her meeting with a lone human who refused to harm her. The man, a soldier with white hair and clothes and skin, was considered a monster himself, and after he gave her a name (“Azami,” for her prickly, thistle-like looks and personality) the two of them became close, having a daughter together.
The man, Tsukihiko, and the girl, Shion, grew before the monster’s eyes while she remained the same. The realization left her distraught – until one night, a snake appeared to her in her dream, tempting her to make a new world, where time never flowed and she would never have to separate from her family. They would leave, she presented to them, after her wedding with the man.
But only the monster made it through to that world. Left behind, Tsukihiko eventually died and Shion, embittered by her experiences, was made to live alone loathing the world and its people – until she eventually experienced love of her own.
The result was Mary, who was born inside a cottage located deep within a mountain forest, to a happy mother (Shion) and father (Unnamed). Like is to be expected from such humble beginnings with nothing to compare to, she wanted for nothing and was cheerful and vibrant,
even though her father was oddly too weak and elderly to play with her properly.They raised her as warmly as they possibly could, save for two small requests:
One, she could never leave the house. People outside are afraid of her.
Two, she could never make eye contact with any people that she met, or they would turn to stone.
Time passes, and her father, a human (unlike his wife and daughter), dies of old age. Shion raises her as best as she can alone, reminding her constantly of what she’s meant to do. However, her purpose in the story involves breaking both of these promises. Several years later,
while her mother is busy brewing tea, she sneaks away and heads through the door. The sun is bright and warm on her skin, and she collects flowers, thinking that the distance is so short that she won’t even be missed. After all, she thinks, she’s certainly never seen a person other than her parents in the area!
Of course, this is when she breaks the second promise. A group of human boys come across her playing, and having never seen anyone who looked similar to her in age, she’s understandably excited, to the point that her hair starts to reveal her heritage -- she’s so happy it starts to wiggle, as if it were made of snakes.
This, combined with her clearly unnatural hair and eye color, spooks them, and they grab and torture her as a monster, despite her young appearance. Fortunately, it doesn’t take her mother long to notice her absence, and Shion comes to her rescue, turning them into stone -- but the strain of using her eyes and fighting with the boys is too much for her body and she dies as a result. Mary is then beaten to death. The definite end result is that they both died.
This is approximately where things start getting weird.
Mary’s grandmother Azami (
the medusa), wishing to save her only remaining family as best as she can, draws the two of them into an alternate space referred to as the Kagerou Daze (later, anyway). Azami, as a medusa, has hair that is made of snakes -- each of these snakes possesses its own power, symbolized by red-colored eyes, and when a person inside of this dimension is given one, they’re also given a second chance at life. This is originally given to Shion, who passes, believing that she’s lived long enough; as a result of her sacrifice, Mary is given the snake with the power of “Combining Eyes,” which is both the core of Azami’s power and the snake that controls the Kagerou Daze. Of course, being a child at the time, Mary can’t actually control this, and as a result, the Daze begins to pull in other pairs who died on the day that Mary did, leaving the one most worthy of a certain snake’s power possessed by it, and with new life.
Mary wakes up covered in bruises with no memory of dying, but her mother, on the other hand, is gone.
She searches every nook and cranny of the house, then waits outside until sunset before resuming her life indoors and waiting for Shion to return, but her hopes weren’t very high from the beginning, having seen her collapse.
Being as well-read as she can be in her environment, she’s able to put two and two together. Her mother has told her that the two of them were different from humans. Monsters are always defeated by humans in stories.
Although she would desperately like to see her mother again, she is aware that the odds aren’t in her favor at all, and over a few years, assumes that she’s probably died, and then that she’ll never see her again.
All because she broke the only two promises she’d ever been told to keep. After a century’s worth of time, she’s finally grown resigned to her fate of staying inside alone without contact from others. She still desperately wishes to go out, but a combination of fear and guilt and regular nightmares of people she loves (who she doesn’t really recognize, but she’s absolutely positive they’re important) dying stops her from even thinking about trying a second time.
And then she hears a knock on the door. Behind it is a human boy around her physical age, and, not wanting to be seen as a monster or anything else, she warns him away; he, however, recognizing them as similar people, mistakes her words for metaphor. Instead of being fearful, he shares some kind words with her, saying that he had lived his life with a similar fear of “turning to stone,” but that the world wasn’t so frightening as it seemed to be. He exposes her to technology (music, from his iPod) for the very first time, and kindness for the first time in
years. As a gift, he gives her his hoodie for her to use to shield her eyes from others.
They correspond on and off over the course of a handful of years as their relationship deepens, and he asks her to come live with him, which she accepts.
Life with Seto’s brother and sister, Kano and Kido, was difficult and took some getting used to, with the boy’s teasing and the girl’s gruff nature, but she eventually became close with them too, regaining what she had lost a hundred years ago: A family.
In some less pretty words, she joined a gang. But it’s a Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything sort of deal. Over time, they recruit even more members, most notably a girl by the name of Momo, whose phone she accidentally kills with tea. Whoops. They head to the local department store in order to find a replacement, which obviously leaves Mary dazzled, up until they run into a group of terrorists. Their sort of gang, under Kido’s orders as leader, couldn’t stand for this sort, and through the combined efforts of her, Kano, Momo, Momo’s elder brother (Shintaro), and Mary herself, the situation was diffused without incident.
Well. Maybe Shintaro got grazed by a bullet and passed out, but no one cares. When he wakes up, he’s strongarmed into the group along with a girl who lives inside of his phone, also complicit in taking down the terrorist group. Their next mission is far simpler: go to an amusement park. It goes swimmingly until Mary enters an ice house not realizing that she handles cold poorly (being part snake); it was embarrassing for everyone involved (read: mostly Shintaro) and they don’t speak of it anymore.
And this, where they start to head home, is where the mediums begin to branch:
Manga route: They walk home together and find they’re being watched by a guy wearing all black. He kills Kano, Seto, Kido, Ene, Shintaro, and Momo, in that order. They then wake up with no memories of the previous few days, save for Mary, who’s had an awful nightmare that people resembling Kano, Seto, Kido, Ene, Shintaro, and Momo were killed.
Novel route: They make it home safely, and meet with a young man whose hair and eyes are similar to hers, named Konoha, and a younger boy by the name of Hibiya. They are also forced into joining; a few days after, at Shintaro’s prompting, Mary reveals her backstory and Kido, having a clever thought in mind regarding the mystery of their red eyes, has her take them back to her old house. While there, Kido laughs for literally ten minutes at Mary’s old shame they discover the secrets behind their eyes and the heat haze that swallowed them up, as well as Mary’s grandmother. With that, they set off towards their final mission: to set free the others inside the Haze, and be rid of their powers.
Song route: The last is a combination of the previous two in that they meet both Konoha and Hibiya, but
also still die. Endlessly. Within a loop triggered, as mentioned earlier, by Mary’s mental state, by our black-clad friend for reasons we’re not entirely sure on yet. Chronologically, the very last song ends with Shintaro receiving eye powers and waking up in his bed, so this route can be assumed to take place very early on, if not first, but being songs and music videos, they’re so couched in metaphor it can be hard to get accurate details.
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