“I’ve got it!” Mizuhito declared proudly, after having watched the situation for a while. “The one to release Kyouhei’s hand at his pained yells must be the real little sister!”
“Who are you, Solomon?!” Kyouhei had to demand, in tears, as there was no one else to make the quip for him.
● ● ●
“Then, it is you?” Lorie checked.
“So it would appear,” Pamil agreed.
Several minutes after the Solomonic—or something like that—judgment, which happened just before Kyouhei had halved enough, the girls had finally calmed down.
They’d moved to Mizuhito’s jogging route: the artificial beach. The three had come to get the coffin that Lorie had been inside. They couldn’t leave such a fishy thing in plain sight; someone might connect it back to Pamil, and then to Shuuhei’s shady dealings.
Things had gotten annoying with Mizuhito, so Kyouhei had tempted him with possible fame if he went to Akiba in that getup, making him leap aboard a taxi in his goth-punk outfit. He was probably getting his picture taken in Akihabara as they spoke.
Back to the point.
“Then...” Lorie began, looking at Kyouhei regretfully, “you’re not my onee-sama...?”
“Obviously not.”
“You were so nice to snuggle into though...”
“That’s how you decide relationships?!” he exclaimed, holding in the full yell.
“It’s okay, Lorie,” Pamil said, putting her hand on Lorie’s shoulder as she slumped.
“Onee-sama...?”
“Kyouhei is indeed not your onee-sama. That is an unfortunate reality, and won’t change.”
Kyouhei resisted his yell of “Unfortunate?!”
“But,” she continued, flinging her other arm to point toward him, “there’s no need to worry, it is a tenet of Japanese law that you can snuggle into an onii-sama as well!”
“Like hell it is!”
“Dear me!” As Lorie looked at Kyouhei, her eyes shone. There was clearly something wrong with their brains.
“But, Lorie, I’m your big sister, and I met Kyouhei first, so I get to snuggle first.”
“That’s okay, Onee-sama!” Lorie exclaimed.
“Ugh, forget it, do what you like...” he said, deciding to postpone the pointless conversation and prioritize retrieving the coffin.
Those thoughts in his mind, Kyouhei walked along the beach.
“Still...” he muttered, turning to watch the android sisters walk happily hand in hand, “I’m gonna end up looking after her too, aren’t I?”
Well, that was to be expected with how Pamil was brought into the country as luggage, and how Lorie drifted ashore—neither of them was here exactly legally.
Just the thought of it made him want to die, but he couldn’t just abandon them now...
“Kyouhei!”
“Onii-sama!”
The two of them gripped a hand each. He stiffened for a moment, thinking that they might be about to try and tear him in half again, but apparently they just wanted to hold hands.
“...Well... one person more, two people more... it’s all the same,” he concluded. He was feeling melancholic, but there was a certain excitement to getting more family. “At least I won’t be bored.”
Suddenly, he stopped the three of them.
“Kyouhei?”
“Onii-sama?”
They asked, seeing him stand there silently.
He remained quiet, staring forwards at it.
The ‘it’ in question was the water’s edge.
There was something within it drawing his attention. It was a large black box, big enough for a person to fit inside.
There was no mistaking it. While he couldn’t say for certain without seeing them next to each other, it was pretty much identical to the one Pamil had been inside. Indeed, there was a coffin there.
“...Why?”
...And nine others.
They were scattered down the beach, like a game of spot the odd one out.
“Oh, there’s a lot of them,” Pamil said in admiration.
“There’s too many!! Why are they all here?!”
Of course, however much of an idiot Mizuhito was, if there had been ten coffins there to start with, he would have mentioned it. So, when Mizuhito had been here this morning and met Lorie, the collection of coffins hadn’t been there.
Which meant...
“There are more now,” Lorie said, unconcernedly. “Perhaps they divided.”
“They ain’t gonna multiply through mitosis!”
As he yelled, he had a realization.
They were spread across the beach, so they’d drifted ashore, that much was clear. Consequently, they had probably come from a capsized cargo ship, or they’d been thrown overboard.
Off-shore nets held no meaning unless they were thrown into the ocean.
Therefore...
Perhaps the coffin Shuuhei had found in the garbage dump after the destruction of the Bergmann Kingdom should have been removed from the country and ended up there by mistake...?
In that case, those coffins were—
“Oh, look, Kyouhei!” Pamil cried out happily, pointing at the coffins as all of them (except Lorie’s) began venting steam.
“Wai—No...!”
The coffins—naturally, of course—paid no attention to the complaints coming from Kyouhei’s mouth and clattered as they opened.
The phrase ‘driven into a corner’ went through Kyouhei’s mind for several reasons.
Then...
Nine figures staggered from the coffins.
For some reason, they all looked to Kyouhei.
“Honey!”
“Dear!”
“Uncle!”
“Auntie!”
“Father!”
“Mother!”
“Cousin!”
“Sister!”
“Brother!”
They all cried simultaneously.
Kyouhei was dumbfounded.
The nine of them fell silent too, having realized something was amiss.
Pamil and Lorie kept quiet too, having realized what was happening.
One thing broke the bizarre silence:
“Hey, Pamil...”
“Hmm?”
“...Am I... going to... have to look after them all...?” Kyouhei finally managed in a quavering voice.