“But well, it’s not like I could take back my pregnancy,” Sayuri continued. “I had my daughter, and raised her. I had enough money that I could play around my whole life and still not spend it all, so raising her wasn’t a problem. That was Torii, my daughter, whom I shared my blood with.” And she was dead. Repeating that over and over, the reality of it settled heavily over Sayuri’s shoulders. She had thought that she’d lost everything, when Hanemori Joururi retired— Sayuri had died, once. Even though that was wrong, even though she had her daughter. From Sayuri’s belly, which had felt like anything and everything had been torn out of her, came a small speck of life. And even that had been stolen. Right now, Sayuri had nothing left to her but her own flesh and life.
“No one would help me,” Sayuri remembered. “Even my own parents disinherited me, saying that I had a lack of filial piety. I had trouble, but well, I did my best in raising my daughter. I wasn’t doing a great job of it, though,” Sayuri finished, before muttering under her breath, “She died, after all, that girl.” Getting unexpectedly sad, Sayuri cried. Letting out a sob, her tears spilled forth. It was like a hole had been opened up in her stomach; she’d never thought, never imagined that she would feel like this.
To Sayuri, her daughter was her entire life. Of course, she also resented her child, at times. Because she had housed her daughter in her belly, she fell from the path of glory. But, that kind of thing... Her daughter should have been precious enough to easily trade the fame and vacant shine of being a super idol. If only Sayuri had loved her more. It’s too late to regret now.
“Sorry.” Hitomi apologized for some reason, using a paper napkin to wipe Sayuri’s face. She was a good child. Her parents had probably taught her well. If Torii had been born into their house... Would she have been happier? If she hadn’t been born as the daughter of a dropout from life, a worn-out woman. She would never have come to an end as cruel as becoming a meal for an eerie monster in another dimension...
No. When humans died, they would just go to the dimension where monsters ran rampant. And there, they would be food. Is this the world’s providence? If so, it’s unpleasant, to say the least. There were no hopes or dreams. To think something like that was the world after death. “It’s a weird way to say it,” Hitomi said, “but there’s a lot I understand, now.”
After hesitating a little, Hitomi patted Sayuri’s head, saying, “There, there.” She was being comforted by someone the same age as her daughter; Sayuri was feeling considerably pathetic. Even though Sayuri was supposed to be the one to listen to Hitomi talk, before comforting her. Even though Sayuri was older than her by a generation. This girl probably got a little stronger, after experiencing such harsh events in the other dimension. Unlike Sayuri, who acted as if she hadn’t grown at all since she was just an ignorant girl. “Your daughter—” Hitomi began. “Torii-san, was being bullied at school.”
“Yes. You did say that,” Sayuri agreed regretfully. “Really, I’m a failure as a mother, aren’t I? I didn’t know. That is, until you told me.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it too much, please,” Hitomi requested, hanging her head sadly. “There’s no point in doing that anymore, after all.”
That’s right, Sayuri realized. Her daughter was dead. it’s too late now. Her daughter had been bullied at school. There had been signs: her daughter lost things, or got hurt. She’d just thought that her daughter was a fool, and didn’t think too very deeply about it, even though her daughter was living in hell. “She was being bullied by Utena-chan, you said,” Sayuri said at last. She could figure out the details on her own. Utena was the daughter of the Kagamimoris. She was a child from a previous marriage of the spouse of the head of the family, who was the childhood friend of Sayuri, and a person she loved in her own way. That’s why she wasn’t related to Sayuri by blood at all, though.
It was probably sheer coincidence that Utena had learned of Sayuri’s existence. It might have been that her father had lingering attachments, and kept an album of their memories. Utena had embraced her curiosity, researched the subject, and come out of it with the name of the super idol, Hanemori Joururi. And so, she admired idols.
“Someone her father had once loved” was not something Sayuri could say with certainty. But she had been a partner with a deep enough relationship to leave behind a child. Therefore, Utena might have felt a bond of fate with Sayuri. She must not have known that she was a child from her mother’s previous marriage; that she might just be the daughter of Hanemori Joururi, was probably a delusion of her youth. She might have thought something like, Because my relationship with my mother isn’t good, I might have an actual mother somewhere else. But since Utena was already dead, Sayuri could only imagine her thoughts. It seemed that Utena had called Hanemori Joururi, “Mother,” so she must be at least mostly on the right track. While misunderstanding something fundamental, the girl adored Hanemori Joururi, and thus aimed to be an idol to follow in her footsteps, all while hallucinating a blood bond that didn’t exist.
Sayuri could also understand the great joy Utena felt when Kurashima Yuudai offered to introduce her to a talent agency in the city. From a remote town, to getting discovered by someone from a TV station by chance, to being a magnificent success in the city; it would have been like re-tracing the events of Hanemori Joururi’s debut. Utena must have thought that she, too, could become like that. Sick of her boring life in a rural town, Utena had dreamed of a Cinderella story.
In reality, it was unknown if Kurashima Yuudai had connections to a talent agency, and if he was in a position to scout anybody. It might have just been some appropriate lie in order to trick Utena, who had believed him. So, in order to fulfill her dream, she’d treated her meeting with Kurashima Yuudai as an opportunity, and was delighted. But in the end, Utena had been betrayed, and she had died. It was a story cruel enough to make Sayuri hesitate to simply sum it up as being pitiful. One could also say that Utena simply got her hopes up based off of a selfish assumption, spun her wheels fruitlessly, and met with misfortune. To think that she had admired someone like Sayuri... Sayuri couldn’t even pity Utena, who lost her life so young. She only felt more hopeless.
If that was the case, then the log house crammed full of idol goods that Sayuri found deep in the mountains must have been Utena’s. That place was a palace that Utena had built for her dreams. Utena had admired Sayuri that much, and yet Sayuri hadn’t even exchanged a word with her. Even after knowing that Utena had been bullying her daughter, Sayuri couldn’t find it in herself to hate the girl.
If they were going to do it, Sayuri wished they had done it to her. Both Kurashima Yuudai and Utena, if they were going to hurt her daughter— even kill her— then Sayuri wished that she had been the victim, instead. Kurashima’s revenge for the idol that Hanemori Joururi once trampled over could be said to have been successful. Sayuri was feeling just awful. It would have been better if she was dead.