The hospital’s garden was on fire.
Sirens blared.
Ambulances brought in victims from the food company office bombing. However, the hospital that was their destination had suffered a blackout and fire of its own. All of those ambulances had to find alternate destinations in a hurry. The sirens continued.
The noises closing in on the hospital now belonged to fire engines.
With the blackout preventing the hospital PA from functioning, someone had to get the emergency megaphone out instead.
“Warning! Please do not leave the hospital premises! Lightning struck a tree outside the hospital and started a fire. I repeat, do not go outside. The building is safe. There was a boiler explosion earlier, but that fire has already been extinguished. There is no further danger of explosions. Please do not panic! The fire outside will also be put out soon!”
The messenger repeated himself, urging people to stay inside and remain calm. Windows were opened, and patients leaned out to see the burning tree. Some had their phones out to take pictures of the incident. The crowd was a captive audience to the fire department’s attempt to hose down the ignited tree, which had been split by lightning.
The announcement wasn’t a hollow one, the firefighters were indeed getting the job done. The blaze was steadily dying out.
It’ll be over soon, Mio thought.
She turned away from the window and back to the hospital room. Kaname hadn’t budged from his father’s side.
Not the Kanbara “father,” but his own.
A pair of glasses was next to the pillow; lenses cracked and frames warped. The charred stench still hung in the air. Or maybe that was from the fire outside.
Kaname’s father’s suit was the one oddity that proved difficult to explain. He’d only screamed. That was how it had appeared anyway. Yet the jacket was covered in soot like it had been engulfed in invisible flames.
Kaname had stared pensively at the father who screamed and crumpled to the ground.
Eventually, satisfied that the other man was totally immobile, he rushed to his side to pick him up. The man’s downcast face wasn’t frightening anymore. The indescribable sense of menace that it had carried when he’d first opened the door had vanished. Now he truly looked like an ordinary person, nothing more.
“Kaname.”
Someone entered. It was the people who’d stood outside the room earlier, the ones who’d warned him to be careful. They checked in on Kaname and asked Mio if she was all right.
Kaname, who knelt at his father’s side, asked them, “Is everyone okay?”
His tone was urgent. He looked to them, pleading.
“We didn’t let anyone get away? The mother and older brother are still here?”
“They are. It’s okay,” replied the oldest man in the group. Kaname’s body promptly slumped. He let out a long, heavy breath.
“Oh, I’m so glad.”
Just like with Hanaka, a room had been arranged for Kaname’s father in the hospital. Kaname’s companions left their fellow with his father, heading elsewhere in the still-chaotic hospital.
Mio ended up at Kaname’s side. She didn’t think it was appropriate for a relative stranger like her to remain present, but she wanted to know the whole story. And, although it was presumptuous, she felt it was wrong to leave Kaname alone right now.
Someone ought to be with him.
“Is he your father?” she asked, breaking the long silence. At last, Kaname tore his gaze away from the man’s face.
“May I ask what’s going on here?” Mio said. “Am I supposed to believe that you were previously absorbed into the Kanbara family and later escaped?”
Maybe Kaname was Itta Kanbara before Senpai. Or perhaps he was the true first son, from back when they were originally related by blood…
Kaname’s expression softened. He finally looked his age, in that state of half boyhood, half manhood. She hoped that his face would remain that way forever. The thought made her heart sting.
“No. This man is my real father, Minoru Shiraishi. Before he was absorbed by the Kanbara family, he was a doctor who worked in psychosomatic medicine.”
“A doctor…”
“He went to college with the director of this hospital. That’s how we got all this help. And it made a real mess of the place,” Kaname admitted. He took a moment to remind himself to apologize for that later. A rather lifeless smile showed on his face for a moment, but he composed himself as he prepared to reveal everything to Mio.
“The Kanbara family came around when I was just starting elementary school. It began when the father, Jin Kanbara, visited my father’s hospital for an examination.”
The air in the room was getting thinner. Kaname’s father, Minoru Shiraishi, looked pained in his sleep.
“Jin Kanbara told him he was having trouble sleeping. And while my father helped him, trying to get to the bottom of his issues, his wife started coming to the hospital, asking for medical help, too. Half a year later, my grandparents, older sister, and mother were dead. I saw many people around me die or vanish. Although maybe not as many as this time.”
Earlier, Kaname and Mio had briefly turned on the news again. The explosion at Yotsumiya Foods had claimed at least eleven lives so far. The number of injured was not yet known. The perpetrator, a member of the second sales department named Toshiya Suzui, was already confirmed dead.
The details on the news proved unbearable, and Mio had promptly turned it off.
The thought that the man lying on the bed, Minoru Shiraishi, had been involved in that blast made her throat seize up.
“They can only use words and actions, not some kind of psychic phenomenon, or anything like that,” Kaname had explained. Still, that lightning bolt out of nowhere didn’t seem like a freak accident. It was very clear to Mio that the family and Kaname surpassed the bounds of ordinary reason.
What about the fire in the boiler room? Was that something the father had caused on his own? Or had he whispered commands to someone else, pressured them, and manipulated them into doing it?
“I was the only one left that year,” Kaname mumbled. He touched his father’s hand, which dangled limply in a burnt sleeve. “I was in danger, too, when Yumeko and the others saved me. They’ve been my parents ever since. They taught me everything, made me stronger, and raised me.”
“Who are they?”
“Those who drive away darkness. They detect the presence of people like that family, things that spread darkness, and protect others from them. Some of them were born to families that have upheld that duty for a while, but these days there are many who’ve joined because they’ve lost family members, fiancés, and the like. People like me who want their families back.”
The light in Kaname’s eyes dimmed mournfully.
“My father was amazing,” he whispered. “That family replenishes itself. The father and mother can be replaced. And new members inherit their roles while incorporating parts of their innate essence. After taking over my father, who was a counseling doctor, Jin Kanbara became a very troublesome figure. Once my dad was the father of the Kanbara family, the damage worsened exponentially. It’s why I was so determined to stop him.”
Kaname’s father was still asleep. His son wore a pained look. Kaname had said he lost his grandparents, older sister, and mother. His father was his only remaining blood relative.