3 bar menu

V6 Story IV – Part 11

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

They were her friends. They kept the truth about her husband’s death from her. But if what they said was true, Hina didn’t know anything about it. I pictured the hollow eye socket, the torn belly, the knife on the girl’s back. Itsuki was probably dead too. The tragedy might have driven him into madness.

“Why?! Why did you kill them?!”

Regardless of her reasons, what she did was inexcusable.

Hina fearfully clutched her chest. She cast her gaze down weakly.

For a moment, I felt as if I was the one mistaken. But that wasn’t possible.

The woman before me took the lives of many people. There was no doubt about that.

“Yes, I killed them,” she said. “I hoped you would understand.”

“How could I understand?! I will never understand! They loved you, and they were always there for you. Why did you do it?!”

“That’s precisely why I did it.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

My breath caught in my throat. It felt like my heart was struck by something.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Mayuzumi wearing a sinister smile.

“They stayed by your side, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish,” she said, watching Hina. “You couldn’t escape from them, till death do you part. Am I right?”

“Yes, exactly.” She clapped modestly in admiration.

I didn’t understand a word she just said. The marriage vow barely made any sense.

Hina gave me a bewildered look. “I was indeed far from lonely. They freed me from the terrible fate of the esper,” she explained sincerely. “Do you know how happy I was, yet how it all fell apart? They offered me comfort, but at the same time robbed me of joy.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears, cascading down her cheeks. Her clear eyes remained wide open as she tenderly brushed her cheek, allowing the tears to roll down her fingertips, trickling all the way to her wrist.

“Do you think a husband would be happy to have his wife’s friends living with them?”

Hina posed a very simple question. The image of Aoi, Itsuki, Akimasa, and Benihina flashed through my mind. They all cared for Hina, but it was hard to believe that they didn’t harbor any ill will towards her husband. They had been visiting her long before her marriage.

“That’s why my husband left. They loved me so much that he grew mad with jealousy. He suspected us of having sexual relations. I asked them to stop visiting, but they didn’t listen. They found my husband’s grievances ridiculous. So he called me a promiscuous woman and left. The person I loved the most, the person I had been waiting for since I was a young girl, left me.”

Hina wore a sad smile. She was left alone.

To comfort her, to save her from falling into the pits of despair, her friends began to visit her more frequently. But during those times when she was showered with affection, what was she truly thinking?

“Did you hate them for it? I asked. “Did you kill them for making your husband leave?”

“That’s right,” Hina confirmed. “But it’s not just that.” She pressed her chest. “I killed myself first.”

He faked her suicide. I was getting more and more confused. Why did she need to show her death? Why did she need to die?

“According to Itsuki,” Mayuzumi picked up, “after the esper’s death, the house and the crows are left untouched for a certain period of time. It will be difficult to choose a replacement after your suicide. There won’t be any potential heirs. The only option was to wait for the future generation. In other words, after your death, this house will be left empty for a long time.”

“That’s right. I was planning to wait here alone, as a dead person, for my husband to return.”

Hina smiled and looked around at the crimson forest. Her big eyes sparkled blood-red.

There was quiet madness in them. Her friends would never leave her until death, and so she chose to kill herself and take the path of loneliness. She chose to wait for her husband’s return in an empty house.

“The preparations had been made,” she went on. “With them around, my husband wouldn’t return, but if they were gone, he would surely come back. So…”

Her misconception bordered on religious devotion. There was no trace of doubt in her eyes.

Her words chilled me to the bone. I knew what had happened, how her plan had played out. Even in death, she couldn’t escape their hold on her.

“So… what?”

They loved her even when she was gone. Cared for her. They protected her home.

“Allow me to correct one thing,” Hina said. “It wasn’t all that bad.”

She uttered the words Itsuki wanted to hear. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

Her voice was filled with sorrow, like a confession. The memory of Itsuki’s soliloquy resurfaced in my mind, the cawing of crows resounding like a phantasmal chorus. Was their cry one of condemnation or consolation?

“I loved them too. I didn’t just kill them because they were in the way. Not everything was bad. Not at all. That’s just too tragic. Cruel.”

She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together.

Unable to endure the agony, she continued, “While waiting for my husband, I began to waver. Time gradually eroded my resolve. Whenever they spoke kindly to me, comforted me, pitied me, or showed me love, I desperately held on to the loneliness. But loneliness vanished quickly. Even after I died, they still thought of me. I couldn’t be alone. It was unacceptable. I wouldn’t be able to wait.”

Her husband and friends. It was a delicate balance that couldn’t coexist for a woman who believed in her husband’s return. If one side became heavier, the other would become lighter. Gaining one side would mean losing the other. As long as she hated them, the scales wouldn’t tip. But once she learned to love them…

“To continue waiting, I had no other choice but to get rid of them.”

She had no other choice but death.

I felt a chill run down my spine. Hina’s eyes were clear, her expression resolute. I now understood her insane motive. Sweat dripped down my body, and my heart raced.

But her husband would never return.

“After your death, they gathered in this house on their own accord,” Mayuzumi said. “You could hide their bodies and continue to live here, but that’s no longer possible. What will you do?” She was neither censuring nor ridiculing her.

Hina tilted her head slightly. “What do you mean?”

The red parasol twirled. The light of dusk was slowly fading.

“What I most wanted to ask you was that,” Mayuzumi added. “You heard what Itsuki said, didn’t you?”

Hina’s smile did not falter. She neither confirmed nor denied it.

I didn’t know the connection between the esper and the crows. But that giant crow might have had a close connection with her. I recalled its last moments: the crow burst into the red-filled room. Did Hina know that the crow would lose?

Or was she driven by fury, intent on killing Itsuki and Benihina?

“Silence, huh? Oh, well. I don’t intend to pry too deeply. It doesn’t matter either way. I just couldn’t sit comfortably without hearing your story. One side of the scale you broke will forever be empty. That crow also risked its life for you. But if this was your choice, you should have no regrets.”

Mayuzumi gazed upon the red forest, where the crow’s bodies lay. They all died with their beaks open.

“Itsuki learned who the culprit was,” Mayuzumi continued indifferently, studying the bloody forest. “Believing that you wanted to die, he chose to kill Benihina and then himself. And now there’s no one left.”

I remembered Itsuki’s weary gaze. Hina’s expression remained unchanged, but discomposure flickered in her eyes for a moment. She clenched her fist tight and cast a confused gaze at the woods.

Her immaculate smile faded. Cracks appeared in her contradictory charm.

On her face was the expression of an abandoned young girl.

“I will wait. I’ll keep waiting. If I believe, if I believe that he will come back, nothing will change. It shouldn’t change.”

“That’s impossible,” I muttered. “That would never happen.”

Hina turned her gaze to me. Her large eyes quivered.

She pressed her hands tightly together. The doubt in her eyes suddenly vanished, and she lifted her head high.

“I don’t care,” she declared firmly. “Otherwise, it would’ve been all for nothing.”

Killing them, destroying her happiness—all of that would have been pointless.

But she was wrong from the beginning. Murder was a deranged choice.