After Hanaka and Kanbara vanished, the teacher and other adults who went to the Kanbara home had said it was totally trashed, turned upside down. However, they’d also mentioned it didn’t look like anyone had even lived there. Everyone believed it was messy because the Kanbaras had run out in the middle of the night, but perhaps it had resembled the apartment Mio had seen today.
“He played baseball,” said Mio, her voice trembling. She didn’t know why she felt like crying.
Yukiya Yasuda. Just a normal boy.
Suddenly, she wanted to hear about him. Kanbara-senpai had been very athletic and talented at track. The pain in her heart was becoming unbearable.
“Yeah,” Kaname muttered. “Keiko Kashiwazaki—the previous Kaori Kanbara—killed her mother in Akita Prefecture and was wanted by the police. The authorities think she intended it to be a murder-suicide, and she was pushed to it because she couldn’t bear the pain of keeping the old woman alive.”
“Wha…?”
“Apparently, she was the kind of person who always put herself last, no matter how bad her problems got. It was like she always got the short end in life. According to a newspaper article from the time of the incident, she was constantly stressed from timidly watching to see what other people thought first. Before she vanished, the Kanbara family showed up in her town. The family at the time had a mother who said, ‘Me too, I’m the same,’ always agreeing with her target. I heard she told Keiko Kashiwazaki, ‘Me too. I killed my mother, too, so you’re just fine. Strangling her? That’s nothing. Everyone does it. You’re fine. Me too.’”
Goose bumps formed on Mio’s arms. “So the family just continues like that forever? Constantly changing members and sucking up normal people?” Fury swirled in her heart. “They use people like disposable pawns. That’s horrible.”
Despite Mio’s righteous anger, when she voiced her thoughts, the words felt trite. She bit her lip.
“What is the Kanbara family? Two children, a mother…”
“And a father,” Kaname finished firmly. “A father, a mother, and two children. Four in all. The current members are all they have.”
“Current?”
“The family has lasted indefinitely. They appear at some point, and sometimes they have children. They grow older like normal families do, passing through generations. If the Kanbara family children bring in wives and have kids of their own, those babies will grow, too. They’ll get older, start school, go to middle school, then high school, find others to drag down, and spread their darkness. They make other people go insane and kill them.”
Mio didn’t immediately understand everything Kaname said. It wasn’t particularly confusing, but she had difficulty accepting it.
The phrase “sometimes they have children” crawled into her ears. Kids born from manipulation, a need to replenish the family. “Bring in wives” also felt eerily lurid. The older son, Itta Kanbara, could have brought her in.
Mio thought back to an earlier remark.
Kanbara-senpai, when he was still Yukiya Yasuda, had met the Kanbara family through his baseball team. The family got older.
“When you say they appear at some point…”
“They’ve existed for ages. Those who inherit the Kanbara family. They have identities and histories of their own, and they go all the way back. They’ve been among us the entire time, spreading their darkness.”
“So when they change people, they can still operate under that other identity?”
“When the people around them start to realize that it doesn’t make sense, the Kanbara family members just force their way through. When their ages are off, or genders aren’t right, they simply bend the logic and say, ‘This is how we are,’ somehow making it acceptable through sheer force of will. It distorts reality for everyone around them, and makes people accept it as normal. That’s what makes them so difficult to deal with.”
Kaname stopped for a breath, then continued, “Because their distortion helps them blend in with their surroundings, it’s tough to find them again after we lose them.” His eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “We should probably leave now, Miss Harano.”
“Huh?”
“This afternoon, around the time that we freed Ritsu and Hanaka at that apartment complex, my companions pulled Niko Kanbara out of the school he attends.”
The name Niko Kanbara was new to Mio, but based on context, she could sense he was probably the second son of the Kanbara family.
Kaname confirmed it for her. “The younger child of the Kanbaras. A boy fills the role currently, but it might have originally been a girl. That’s only going on the assumption that ‘Niko’ sounds like a girl’s name. It could be the reverse of what happened with Hanaka. What was originally the younger sister turned into a younger brother, forced to assimilate into the family.”
He was almost muttering to himself, and his lips formed a brief smile that vanished promptly.
“Niko Kanbara is asleep in another room at this hospital. And so is Ritsu. We’ve got three of them here right now. So I think he’ll come to get them.”
Ambulances were still wailing outside the hospital. They had been more distant before—the noise was coming closer. Kaname looked Mio right in the eyes.
“It’s the first time he’s lost three at once, so I’m sure he will. We’re waiting for him now.”
“Waiting for whom?”
“Father.”
There were equal parts force and nervousness in Kaname’s voice. Mio was stunned.
“If we do this the normal way, he’ll probably escape again,” he explained. “So we’re going to set a trap.”
“Is he the root of all of this?”