The tea is hot, so I take a small sip first. Apple flavor, delicious.
Shizuka is sitting on the floor cushion next to me, legs crossed both hands wrapped around her cup. Every so often she turns her head toward the bed to check on Meiko, and when she sees she's still breathing fine, she turns back to face front.
"Meiko-chan. She really is doing better."
"Yeah."
"All the shock she's going to feel when she wakes up... poor thing..."
She sighs quietly and goes still, watching the steam rise from her tea.
I watch mine too.
Shizuka might seem scatterbrained on the outside, but on the inside she notices everything.
I've known her for years. I used to live on the streets, and even though she never knew it, whenever I crossed paths with her in front of this house, she'd grab me by the arm and bring me inside.
"Here, Arata-chan. I don't fit in this shirt anymore, do you want it?"
She'd use excuses like that to give me clothes. And not just me, but other kids too, even though the clothes still had the tags on them and were sized for children.
So when it comes to family, I know a fair bit about hers.
I know her parents had another child, long after her. A boy. And for some reason that boy was abandoned. Shizuka told me about it a while back, when I asked why she gave away clothes. Turns out she does it as a way to atone, somehow for her mother's sins. And back then all I thought was that the abandoned kid's situation sounded a little like mine, so I just kept quiet and listened.
Looking back now, it was pretty obvious.
In the original High School of the Dead anime, Shizuka has no siblings. Not a single one mentioned.
And yet, in this world, she does.
—Slurp.
I take another sip of tea.
The truth is I don't exist in any anime. I'm not a character I can remember from Tokyo Ghoul, or Hellsing, or Parasyte, or High School of the Dead, or Owari no Seraph. I'm nowhere. But here I am and I have parents who abandoned me at birth.
It'd be pretty dumb if I still hadn't figured it out by now.
That abandoned kid is me.
It seems that when I appeared in this world, I was forced into a family. And the family I was thrown into was Shizuka's. That's why she has a brother who didn't exist in the original.
"Arata-chan, are you okay?"
I look up. Shizuka is watching me with her head tilted.
"Yeah. I just zoned out for a second."
"You got so quiet. You scared me."
"I was thinking about something you told me a while back."
"Me? What did I tell you?"
"About your brother."
She raises her eyebrows.
"Aaah... You still remember that?"
She sets her cup on the floor and shifts to get more comfortable, her expression going little nostalgic.
"Honestly, I barely talk about it anymore, Arata-chan. My parents didn't want me knowing either. I only found out because I found some papers in a drawer."
"Hospital papers?"
"Exactly. It said they'd had a baby. But the baby didn't stay with them."
"And they never told you why?"
"They said that child was the devil's son."
Saying those words, Miss Marikawa presses her lips together.
"Calling your own child the devil's son... they must have their reasons. Still, it's cruel, you know?"
I don't know if I'm the devil's son or not, but seeing me born looking like a zombie, that was probably their most honest thought.
She raises her cup again and takes a sip.
"Sometimes I wonder what he's like. Whether he's alive, or if he died. Whether he'd have my face or not. If I saw him on the street, I wouldn't even recognize him, you know? It's sad to think about it that way."
I'm right here, oneechan. Right here, with the cup of tea you made me. But I'm not going to tell her that, because knowing wouldn't do her any good, and it would only bring her problems. If life ever leads us there, we'll see.
Shizuka looks at me with that half-suspicious expression people get when they can tell you're thinking about something but not saying it out loud.
"Arata-chan, your eyes are shining weird."
"Hoh? Really?"
"You're plotting something, aren't you? Also, your eyes look... softer? That's strange... your onee-chan feels a little moved."
"I'm not plotting anything."
"Mmmh... your onee-chan is not convinced."
Just as she leans in a little to get a better look at my face, a sharp pain shoots through my head.
"Ngh..."
My hand goes up on its own and presses against my forehead. The cup almost slips, but I catch it in time with my other hand.
"Arata-chan?!"
"I'm fine."
"What happened? You went pale."
"It's just a bit of a headache."
She looks at me with worried eyes, but after I settle her down with a few words, she stops pushing. She goes to the kitchen to get me a glass of water.
While she's gone, I lower my hand from my forehead and breathe slowly.
One of my All-Seeing Eyes was destroyed.
That's how it works. When someone finds one of my eyes and destroys it, I get a sharp pain in the head because the eyes are linked to my brainwave frequency. It doesn't last long.
In the past the pain was a lot worse, but as I get stronger it doesn't hit as hard.
And from what I can tell, this eye wasn't in Tokyo. It was in Osaka.
At the Hiragi Family's estate.
Hoh.
So that's why I hadn't found them before. They weren't in Shibuya.
Ever since Kiriko told me about Owari no Seraph, I'd been scattering my Eyes all over Tokyo, especially Shibuya, one of the 23 wards, or in this case, 24 wards of Tokyo.
Shibuya is supposed to be where most of the original story takes place. I sent about ten eyes across the whole area and spent days checking. But I found no trace of the Hiragi Family or Guren's.
That gave me a bad feeling, so I sent some eyes to other cities. Yokohama, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya. And well, looks like it paid off. A few hours ago I tracked the Hiragi Family to Osaka and left an eye near their estate to keep watch at my own pace.
But I moved the eye inside the house, and someone destroyed it.
That doesn't surprise me much. The Hiragi Family has powerful people, and they can probably sense strange things. It was only a matter of time. At least now I know where they are.
So why are they in Osaka and not Shibuya like in the original?
Tokyo is probably too crowded.
In this world, Tokyo is a mess. Ghouls everywhere, and the CCG hunting ghouls everywhere. Any organization with half a brain wouldn't want their main base in a place like that. It makes sense that the Hiragi Family moved to Osaka.
Wait, actually.
From what I remember, the Hiragi Family is an old Japanese clan, probably with at least a thousand years of history. So isn't it possible they were based in Osaka from the beginning, and not in Tokyo, and that has nothing to do with ghouls or the CCG?
Well. That doesn't matter much.
Now that I know where they are, I can keep watching little by little. Find out how far the events of Owari no Seraph have gotten in this world.
Whether Mahiru Hiragi is already dead or not. Whether Guren has already made his demon contract or not yet. And most importantly, whether the experiment with the virus that kills all humans above a certain age is close to being released, or still a long way off.
If it's close, I'm going to have a lot of work to do.
Though first of all, can I even be sure my knowledge of the manga is useful? It wouldn't be strange if events played out differently in this world.
I need to be careful.
Come to think of it, the Hiragi Family probably isn't the only one aware of these things. The other factions must have their own plans and goals circling around the Seraph of the End too.
"Arata-chan, here."
Shizuka comes back with the glass of water. I take it and drink slowly.
"Thanks."
"Is your head feeling better?"
"Better. It's barely there now."
"Don't you want to lie down for a bit? The guest room is free."
"I'm fine here, really."
This woman worries way too much.
She stands beside me for a second, staring at me with a look that says she's not convinced. Then she sighs and turns toward the bed.
"I'm going to check on Meiko-chan again. Stay right there."
"Umu."
She goes over to the bed and kneels beside Meiko. She takes out the small penlight, lifts her eyelids, checks her pupils, takes her pulse, and puts her hand on her forehead.
While she does that, I sit there looking at my cup.
My expression shifts, and reflected on the surface of the liquid is a smiling face full of teeth.
Hiragi Family in Osaka.
I'm curious about you.