He became a completely different person in the time since then. When he looked at me, his eyes were cold and…resentful, almost.
“You’re the only one who can stop him, Sho-chan.”
“Can I…?”
Kanba vowed to make our parents’ dream come true. Instantly, I knew what he meant by that. But what made him start to think like that? Why did he think saving Himari’s life was inseparably tied to the bombing?
“Find him. Find his heart. He’s all alone right now, and he’s crying.” Her voice was soft and warm, like my mother’s. “Hey, Sho-chan? Do you hate Mom and Dad?”
“Well…” Searching for Himari, I followed Kanba up onto the rock, struggling to keep my balance in the face of the wind.
“They’re still our family, Sho-chan. That’s why I wanted you to remember them.”
And I did. I remembered the feeling of my dad’s burly hands, and I remembered how my mom was always sweet and a tiny bit overprotective. Thanks to them, the three of us had a family and a place to call home.
“Please don’t curse our fate. It was our precious fate that brought us together at all.”
“Himari!”
Kanba’s shout brought me back to the beach. And as the incredibly vivid dream played out in my mind, we found her all over again, all curled up. When she looked up and saw us, sure enough, she burst into tears.
“It’s all right now, Himari.” That was how I always spoke to her at the time.
“Are you hurt, Himari?” Kanba asked. But Himari was too busy sobbing to answer. “I see you found a lotta shells. You know you can’t eat those, right?”
I laughed in spite of myself.
“Daaaad! Moooom! We found Himariiii!” he shouted into the distance, waving them over.
Yes, I dearly loved my family. No matter how far they wandered, no matter what they did, I couldn’t possibly hate them—not now, not ever.
As I slowly, gradually awoke, the first thing I noticed was the morning sun streaming in through the open window of the hospital room. On the floor was a white bullet the size of a ping-pong ball. Still, I told myself Kanba didn’t try to kill me.
“Kanba!” I bolted upright. Himari wasn’t in her bed, and all the medical equipment was put away.
“Good morning,” a voice said suddenly.
“Huh?” I looked around the room. “Who’s there?”
“I’m over here.”
My eyes landed on the penguin hat on the bedside table.
“I see you’re finally awake, Takakura Shoma-kun.” The hat’s eyes gleamed faintly. “Hurry. The train of fate will soon depart, and you must board it.”
“Who are you? You’re not the penguin queen.” I hopped off the cot and walked over to it, rubbing my eyes.
“It was your sister’s power that helped me. I’m sure you accepted her help as well.”
The hat’s voice was high-pitched like a child’s, but with a degree of elegance to it that reminded me of Oginome-san. I grabbed the hat and dashed out of the room.
“Takakura-san?”
“Takakura-san, wait!”
The nurses at the nurses’ station called after me, but I ignored them and bolted out of the hospital with Penguin No. 2 in tow.
Kanba actually took Himari, and today, he was planning to recreate the bombing from sixteen years ago. I couldn’t afford to get bogged down in hatred. I needed to stop him and get her back.
“You mustn’t miss the train. The black rabbits are trying to destroy the world, and you two are the only people who can stop it.”
“You two?” I asked the hat in my hand.
“You and Kanba-kun.”
“Kanba? But he’s…”
I raced through the chilly city without a coat on. I just needed to get to the subway—the same place and time as sixteen years ago.
“That train is where you’ll find it,” the hat explained as I gasped for breath.
“Find what?”
“Your Penguindrum.”
I looked down at Penguin No. 2 jogging along at my feet. Likewise, it glanced up at me. Would I recognize the Penguindrum when I saw it?
Even without a coat on, I was already sweating up a storm from all the exercise. I dove into the crowd of commuters and students and followed them through the turnstiles. When I reached the Nishi-Shinjuku Station platform, I boarded the subway.
If the penguin hat was to be believed, then Kanba was somewhere on this train.
Ogikubo, Higashi-Koenji, Nakano-sakaue, then Nishi-Shinjuku. As the train followed its route, the men boarded with black teddy bears at each station, camouflaged among the crowd. Likewise, Kanba and Sanetoshi stepped aboard together, waiting quietly for the big moment to roll around.
Sanetoshi was smiling, pleased to have a second chance at this challenging endeavor. No one could stop him this time—even Momoka was cursed into inaction. The people around them were heading off to start another ordinary day, wasting their precious lives being packed into a box. But now he was finally going to set them free. Soon, they would all take the first step toward a just society.
“We humans are such sad, pathetic creatures. We spend our whole lives refusing to set one foot outside our bubbles,” he whispered to Kanba, who listened closely. “We simply can’t cross that line, not even to connect with the person right next to us. We’re all loners at heart. But we’ll never gain anything from staying in these cramped little cages.”
Kanba’s expression didn’t shift a fraction. Instead, he glanced around at the other men holding teddy bears in the train car with them, keeping tabs on them.
“There’s no exit and no one who can save them. The only option is to destroy it all. The cages…the people…the world!” Sanetoshi declared, suppressing the chuckle in his throat. His long hair shook, and a yellow ring rippled outward through the train car.
“Kanba!” Shoma shouted hoarsely.
Kanba slowly turned in the direction of the voice. Shoma was standing there amid the passengers, bedhead in full force, staring him down.
“So you showed up,” he replied, unsurprised, as if he’d predicted it.
“Let’s settle this, Kanba.”
Shoma was clutching the penguin hat tightly in one hand. She believed that the two of them could do it—even if it wasn’t exactly according to fate.