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"Ah, and one more thing. There was a key in the drawer in Takahiro's room. I think it's probably a spare key for the kitchen..." My words trailed off, merging into a muddy current.

"Want me to check now?" Yuna asked, getting up.
"Yeah, good idea," I replied, leaving the task to her.

Yuna pulled the key from my yukata sash, which I was using like a *haramaki* belly band. It felt strangely intimate, like my reflection in a mirror reaching out and fiddling with my body, raising faint goosebumps.

Yuna took the key and headed off toward the kitchen.

Natane watched her back but made no move to stop her. I suppose there was nothing left to hide anymore, no need to guard that place. Even if the fridge's contents became public knowledge, it held no value that could evolve the situation into anything more shocking.

Then, Yuna returned faster than Fushimi and Kouzou's oncoming nausea could subside.
"It opened," she said, tossing back the key whose origins had been fished from the mire. Since my current specialty is soccer, I naturally went for a header. It struck my forehead, feeling like it might just open my chakra.

The key free-fell onto the carpet and lost its freedom of movement.

"...If this works for the kitchen, then my theory is mostly correct, I guess."
Meaning, Takahiro could get into the kitchen.
And that product label... it must have been evidence, left behind exactly as Keiko instructed.
So that the person she envisioned could function as the 'Detective.'
Though that turned out to be a spectacular failure.

Even though no one asked me to, I resumed the explanation I'd paused.
"For example, you can't just flush daikon radishes or green onions down the toilet whole. But if you chop them up, you can manage somehow. That's why Takahiro obtained a knife."
And he used it for his suicide too. Stabbed himself with the knife, then let go. That's all it took. It requires considerable strength, making a man suspect. That much was true. And since Takahiro, besides Kouzou, was one of the people who hadn't locked his door that night, it was simple subtraction.

"Most of the food was thrown out by Keiko on the first day, before the mansion became a sealed room. So what Takahiro flushed down the toilet was just the leftover portion of one meal that had been in the fridge. Keiko wasn't exactly a great cook, nor did she seem to be in charge of the Ooe family kitchen usually. So she probably couldn't accurately judge the amount for a single meal. Plus, if there was too little food, it might interfere with the plan she'd envisioned. That's why she must have instructed Takahiro to throw out the ingredients Natane had saved through economizing on the second day, right before he killed himself. You could maybe shove ingredients out the window through the bars, but it would be trouble if someone happened to see them falling."

Wouldn't want someone visualizing raw meat falling from the sky like it's a real possibility. Just kidding, though.
"By doing that, Keiko needed to back Natane into a corner, to steer her towards murder."
All just to satisfy a purely selfish desire completely unnecessary for survival.

*Another primitive, yet clever, way to dispose of food would be to ingest it orally and store it in the stomach, but the problem is there’s no particular reason to process it that way. Meat would likely be troublesome to chew and swallow.*
*Furthermore, though it's a digression, there's a high probability that the stew Keiko made while she was alive contained sleeping pills. Being seen by someone in the house trying to go out with a garbage bag slung over her shoulder like Santa Claus, stuffed with udon in bags (special sale, 105 yen for three bundles) and beef (special price, origin not even listed), would be a matter of life and death. Claiming she was hungry and wanted a midnight snack wouldn't fly, even with Natane. Natane might even tearfully demand to know if her cooking was really that unsatisfactory.* *There's the number seven associated with lies, but that comes from the old custom that people make false declarations at least seven times a day... Lies pile up like a snowball, so I cut that thought short. Right, back to working overtime.*
*I theorized that Keiko made the meal under the pretext of treating us, having Takahiro serve it, but it's better not to mention this aloud. There's no proof, so it could unnecessarily create an opening for accusations of falsehood.*

"Um..."
Seeing several people not sitting up straight and ready to listen, I paused temporarily. It seemed the shock of cannibalism was sending ripples of anguish conducting through their bodies.
Watching even Fushimi—who, thanks to luck and the flow of events, hadn't ingested Takahiro—struggling mightily with nausea, my brain cells buzzed in unanimous agreement that *I* was the deviant one here.
If you break it down and accept it, it's like Emily being forced to eat an octopus. Not really, though.
Hmm, alienation.
I thought I could at least understand the *moments* when people felt pain, even if I couldn't grasp the pain itself.

"So, that concludes my explanation of Keiko's crimes up to Takahiro's suicide..."
Someone else's actions sprouted then, so I cut myself off again. Fushimi left her chair and stumbled over to my side on unsteady legs, collapsing onto the well-cleaned carpet. Had the effects of her mental reinforcement started to wear off? It was hard to tell if the small pinch on my leg was out of fear or some kind of expectation.

"Well then, next up is,そろそろ"
"That's it!"
This time, Kouzou shoved his chair back with his rear and interrupted the concluding line I was aiming for, roaring in a screech unfitting for the silent, dark mansion. His pupils were dilated; his expression was far from someone who'd arrived at the truth.
"There's no way everything you're saying is right!"
"Huh." Well, now *that* hits the mark. Are you properly paying your broadcast reception fees?
"That thing... what I ate! It wasn't necessarily Takahiro! Where's the proof of that?!"

Triumphant, Kouzou even pointed his finger at me. It seemed less like joy and more like this was the only shred of hope he had left to cling to for survival. He glared at me, raged, and pressed me with the intensity of an all-out battle, looking like he might foam at the mouth any second. *He's really cornered,* the empty thought piled up, but I felt no obligation to sympathize whatsoever.

"You don't have to ask me. Why don't you just confirm it with Natane?"
Since this wasn't customer service, I replied quite haughtily. For someone who'd boasted about getting everything right, abandoning my role like this was, I had to admit, pretty typical for me, given I lie all the time—or so I convinced myself.
*But I'm a fake liar. I'm aware of that much. Not even a real one.*
"Natane! How about it, Natane? Natane!"

Kouzou pressed Natane with enough intensity to suggest he might strangle her and squeeze oil from her any second. But the words Natane murmured weren't directed at Kouzou at all.
"That's true, isn't it~?"
Natane's palm lightly tapped her thigh.
"Regarding that, I haven't given a well-founded explanation yet, have I~?"
Her friendly way of speaking sounded like she might playfully poke my forehead and call me a scatterbrain. Though it was an act, it was incredibly elaborate craftsmanship. Her laugh, her gestures, all served to conceal her own power of resistance, acting as a primer to draw trust from others.
Except one person.
Whatever you do, gaining trust is effective. Whether you return equivalent faith to the other party is a separate matter.

"You're quite willing to play along with this farce, aren't you? The Radio Wave Detective has been booming since episode one, my tongue hasn't had a moment to dry."
"Well, in this mansion, it's terribly difficult to use time, you see~? So I just end up joining in the games like this~. There's nothing to do but eat and sleep, after all."
While making such commonplace conversation bloom like everyday sundries, I could sense her wariness towards Kouzou. You never knew when he might lash out; the atmosphere was touch-and-go over here, after all.

"...Right."
The meaning of my actions, which I'd forgotten, revived. I, too, was just going along with this to kill time. That's the basis of conversation, isn't it? For a student, I haven't even made a habit of such things. Guess I really am a delinquent.
"I was locked up alone in the basement. When I woke up, Takahiro's body wasn't there. And wasn't the task of carrying Takahiro's body to the basement your job, Natane?"
Natane remained silent. No confession, but her eyes widened slightly. *She probably never moved it to the basement in the first place. The risk of moving it back to the kitchen would be too great. Still, she seems to have genuinely optimistically believed someone might not notice in the dark.*
...The fact that she projects such an impression even onto me, someone she's known for less than a week, is quite something. Not worthy of admiration, perhaps, but I might be able to pray for her soul eventually.

"Since no one seems to be wondering, it feels a bit weird to bring it up formally, but... you were the one who killed Kiyoshi, weren't you, Natane? If you went into the basement together, Kiyoshi would naturally notice Takahiro's body was missing. At that point, maybe you could have persuaded him there was no need to unnecessarily increase anxiety by talking about it. But if he later thought a bit about how the body was being used and made it public, it would lead to the situation the mansion now faces, the one you feared."
Out of consideration for Natane's efforts so far, I won't mention the specifics of that 'fear'.
"What I mean is, even without definitively blaming Kouzou's cowardice, Kiyoshi's murder was triggered by it.
From your perspective, Natane, I was an obstacle, wandering the mansion and potentially stirring things up, so you had Kiyoshi cooperate in a surprise attack under cover of darkness to restrict my movements.
However, my being sent to the basement must have been outside your calculations. In the basement, one dies of dehydration within a matter of days. You probably couldn't read Kouzou's mental state—how desperate he was to propose that without thinking it through deeply. Human fear psychology isn't deeply involved in cooking, laundry, or cleaning, so it'd be cruel to criticize you for being unstudied in it," I forgave Natane from the arrogant perspective of a saint. Just kidding, though.

Even after hearing me out, Natane said nothing about her crimes. Neither admitting nor scrambling to deny, she feigned naturalness. That disqualified her for the role of culprit, but it was the right way to act as a human being.
Honestly, it doesn't matter if my interpretations of all the murders don't perfectly match what happened.
For the living, I can't imagine the final moments of the dead are *that* important...

"Hey, can I ask something?"
A statement from Akane, who we hadn't heard from in a while. As expected, she didn't raise her hand this time. I didn't call on her by name either, just waited silently for her to continue.
"Maybe everyone forgot, but... who killed Touka?"
Oh? A surprising child brought up an important matter.

"...It was Natane."
There was no blood in Touka's room. Strangulation or bludgeoning come to mind as possible methods, but the likelihood she was killed in her own room is low. Considering the trouble of hiding the body, it's less work to have the victim walk to the hiding place under their own power before killing them. That makes the kitchen a likely candidate. About the only place we forgot to check was the inside of the freezer. And the only person likely able to lure out the suspicious Touka would be her mother, Natane, who held her interest in various ways. And the person who could lure her to the kitchen without raising suspicion is the one in charge of meals. If it were Akane, taking her to the locked kitchen would just be met with a "Why?". I'm somewhat curious how Natane leveraged her position as a mother and what sweet words she used to bait her daughter.

Hearing this, Akane's eyes turned to Natane. She didn't blame, didn't question. For a girl never taught methods of attack, confusion was the only option left.
"Truly, a foolish little girl, aren't you~?"
Natane assessed Akane accurately, without personal feeling. I might have patted her head in addition, but Natane didn't extend a hand, let alone a foot. Akane, in turn, could only make a vacant expression, as if the very concept of insults couldn't be constructed within her.
Knowing Akane's nature, there probably aren't many adults who wouldn't pity her.
This is why kids need to be sent to school. I don't plan on having children, but it's been educational. Might be useful for persuading Maa-chan someday, too.

"Looks like the date's changed. I'd like you to start wrapping things up soon," Yuna said, letting out a yawn.
And then, so did I. *What are you copying me for?* My brow furrowed. Naturally, when that happens, you stifle it—no, the opponent is highly likely to do the same, meaning the way to gain an edge here is to continue supplying oxygen to the brain.
Yes, we both thought that, and both yawned properly. How utterly ridiculous. We're not even playing a card game, what's the point of peering into each other's minds?

"Right you are, Sanae Rika-san."
Without being prompted by anyone, just because I felt like it, I called Ooe Yuna back by her 'real name' to solve the remaining mystery.
"My," Sanae Rika said, amused, revealing a natural smile that twisted spectacularly.
"Oh my~," Natane let out a voice brimming with obligation, as if just reacting for the sake of it.
And the one most blatantly injected with 'fear' as fuel for terror was Kouzou. Sorry to interrupt while you're angry.
Since it was an unfamiliar name to Fushimi, she looked to me for confirmation, her surprise painted with a ["pen name?"] ["question mark?"].

"Nope, it's her perfectly fine real name. Though, we've never met."
But I *had* seen Sanae Rika on TV.
Kouzou turned pale, as if all the heat and tears from moments ago had been wiped away.
"You know quite a nostalgic name, Amano XX-kun."
Since my arms weren't available to cover my ears, I had no choice but to substitute teeth-grinding as an expression of regret, offering an awkward smile. How polite of her to use my original surname. I wonder if Keiko told her.

"Six years ago, in a place separate from this town, a young girl went missing. In the end, the case became ambiguous, never distinguishing between kidnapping or murder... That was you, wasn't it?"
And the kidnapper was either Kouzou or Keiko. Or both as accomplices.
I realized her identity the moment I first saw her. Her face was clearly printed in the newspapers, after all. Her age was listed too, so thankfully I didn't have to use polite language with someone like her—a genuine version of someone like me.
Still, every time we met face-to-face, I got the feeling I was viewing a bizarre museum exhibit. It's strange.
The later lives of children treated as kidnapping or missing person cases. While there are many cases where their trail goes cold, apparently there are also cases like this, where they live comfortably and freely, like a village girl carried off by piglets. It's an indescribably baffling feeling.
Well, maybe she was just blessed with unremarkable good fortune—not having her corpse burned and turned to smoke, not buried under the dirt, not turned into food.

"That's right. And the child with the mysterious past, who suffered abuse and confinement by their own father eight years ago, and was ultimately freed from the incident only when the involved adults died... That's you, isn't it?"
"Indeed it is," I puffed out my chest. But I couldn't maintain it for long and slumped back into a slouch.

Judging by Natane's calm demeanor, the residents of the mansion must have already known about the kidnapper and her victim. And yet, they didn't treat her like a fragile thing needing careful handling, nor did they report it.
Shall we describe it as equality, or perhaps indifference? For his and her honor.
But Kouzou, rejecting cannibalism while accepting kidnapping... what a humane criminal he is.

""Well, each other's identities,""
""don't really,"" We even overlapped in the timing used to try and outwit the other. ""matter"" ""any"" ""way!""
......What's the point of adjusting our volume to harmonize?

The similarity between me and Yuna must have been unexpected for Keiko, for better or worse.
But why are we similar? It's not a matter of personality.
The reason we wear the same human shape.
Did simply drifting through similar circumstances give birth to identity? Like a stone rounded by flowing down a stream. Well, who knows.

*Ahem, ahem.* Two coughs, performed as if lodging a complaint: "Don't just bring up daikon radishes whenever you feel like it." After spitting out some self-made dust for a moment, Yuna casually asked, with enough force to blow away dark history, "Since when did you start thinking that Mother's and Takahiro's deaths were, so to speak, close to suicide?"
"When I was locked in the basement. Standing on the edge of impending hunger and fear, I mulled it over and finally realized."
That's a lie, though.
"Oh, is that so?" Yuna smiled vacantly, seeing right through the lie.

"If you'd realized earlier, maybe you couldn't have saved Touka, but couldn't you have saved Kiyoshi?"
"That's true too. But there's no point saying it now."
"Yes, it's quite 'now'," Yuna agreed.
And just like that, consigning any hint of reflection to sepia tones, our words were flippant.
Even though now is precisely when judgment should occur.
However, no one to judge people has been prepared here.
*Though there is someone who carves people up,* setting aside the joke.

A detective's job isn't to pass judgment, but to point out to those gathered under one roof, based on one's own values, 'You are tainted.' Inflicting punishment upon the commission of a crime is impossible without a license. Surely there are no judges whose formal attire is a woman's yukata.
This mansion respects individual values. Humans lacking societal ethics adapt easily. The fact that my life here these past few days hasn't been painful in itself probably isn't just my imagination.

"Then, the final mystery. What was the origin and intent behind making this mansion a sealed room? Why did Mother and Takahiro commit suicide?"
"Because it *had* to be suicide. That's all." I answered just the latter part first.
Explaining things to someone who already understands really kills the fun. It's just peak absurdity.
"Honestly, as for why Keiko engaged in this 'game,' her motive is hard to verify, so I can't confidently declare my answer correct." Though I feel like I vaguely understand it.
*That's just how she chose to use her life, I suppose.*
"However, I *can* explain the reason Keiko died first."
At least the death motive of the true culprit who elevated this beyond a simple murder case.

And for Ooe Yuna, who was taking it easy as the listener, the explanation was simple.
Both up till now, and from now on.
Originally, it probably would have been just right if one of us had died before reaching this puzzle-solving chapter.
Even our bad luck is equally strong...... No, that can't be right. Not between me, covered in wounds from reaching this point, and the high-spirited Yuna.

With one exception, gazes were thrown at me from the front and left.
Kouzou had been constantly, as if trying to deceive his own guilt, staring daggers at Natane with minimal blinking, plotting to shoot her dead with his eyes. Never mind the lies about him being an uncooperative middle-aged man, that misplaced resentment is hard to watch. I felt a sudden apprehension at his teeth-baring glare but didn't intervene particularly.

I took one conscious breath.
The ingested air took the initiative, racing through the afflicted parts of both my arms and turning into material for pain.
That reminded me just what a pathetic state my body was in.

When was the last time I really breathed?
I'd freeloaded an vexingly excessive amount of air and traded out my body's garbage.

"First, the 'Mother' died."
My lips twitched, as if humming a bit of a Mother Goose rhyme.
"Next, the 'Eldest Son' committed suicide. And then, furthermore, the 'Younger Sister' disappeared... Don't you get it now? Especially you, Kouzou-san."
You like this sort of thing, don't you? Enough to buy the entire plot of land where something like that happened, after all.
"Huh?" Kouzou's fierce gaze pierced me. A few moments later, "Ah... ah," the fire of understanding lit within him, his tear-streaked face crumpling further. Then, "Aah!" He clutched his head, realizing his wife's actions and all the groundwork laid until now.

"The kidnapper 'Father,' the 'Brother' who loved his parents, the kidnapper's 'Child,' the 'Girl' with messed-up recognition of people, the 'Sister' with a different mother than the brother. She really gathered them well and educated them retroactively."
And she meticulously, obsessively researched other people's family structures. Family stalking—what a novel fetish. The fact that Keiko served double duty as Mayu's mother *and* the kidnapper's wife must have been the result of swallowing a heartbreaking compromise due to a lack of personnel. For a perfectionist to give up requires immense effort, after all. I learned a bit about that from associating with Koibi-sensei.

"In this case, I guess Fushimi and I were treated as the two kidnapped elementary schoolers... And with that, the personnel were assembled. From Keiko's perspective, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had landed in her lap. That's why she went ahead and started the performance of the plan she'd long been nurturing. A playful procession of malice, imitating the way the family who once lived on this land died out. The full picture of the incident this time... that's the end of it."
Though explaining the synopsis midway through the performance really shows what a third-rate play this is.