"Starting from yesterday," Kotori put down her chopsticks and began to trace the timeline. "Early yesterday morning, he left home extremely flustered and appeared near the night market, acting strangely, as if searching for something. Given the chaos Chinatsu, or rather, her secondary personality, caused at the night market the night before, we speculate that his target is likely related to Chinatsu. Whether there is an unknown link between them or if the memory erasure was incomplete is currently impossible to determine."
"Then, last night, the lights in his house came on. It seemed like someone had returned."
"That doesn't seem like anything special," Shido interjected, finding it quite reasonable.
"That's the problem." Kotori's eyes sharpened. "The abnormal point is—not a single city surveillance camera captured footage of him returning home."
"What?" Shido was stunned.
"After he was last captured near the night market yesterday morning, the entire public surveillance system of Amamiya City recorded no further sign of Koushi Hōoin. Until the lights in his house turned on in the evening, it was as if he had materialized inside his home out of thin air." Kotori emphasized the strangeness of the situation.
"Could it be... that Chinatsu used spatial power to send him straight back?" Shido offered a possibility.
"That possibility isn't ruled out," Kotori agreed. "But the bigger problem is—since this morning, we have lost track of him again."
"Again?" Shido was perplexed. "Shouldn't he be at home?"
Kotori shook her head, dropping an even more confusing piece of news: "According to our continuous external surveillance of their house, there was no sign of him leaving. However, we urgently deployed miniature reconnaissance robots capable of infiltrating the interior..."
She paused, her voice tinged with disbelief:
"The footage returned shows—Koushi Hōoin's house is completely empty."
"W-what is going on?" Shido was utterly bewildered. "He has no record of leaving, but his house is empty? Did he... vanish?"
Kotori crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair, and wore a rare expression of deep confusion. She looked at Shido and finally shook her head:
"I don't know either."
Hearing Kotori's final "I don't know either," Shido felt the food in his mouth lose its flavor, becoming hard to swallow. An invisible pressure seized his throat.
Koushi's disappearance was too bizarre, far exceeding a normal Spatial Quake or Spirit manifestation, carrying an inexplicable sense of abnormality, as if originating from the very rules of the world.
This made him instinctively uneasy.
"Hey, Idiot Older Brother." Kotori tapped Shido lightly on the head with the end of her chopsticks, making a sharp sound that broke his daze.
"Even if the sky falls, you have to eat first. Your brain needs sugar, and your stomach needs fuel. That's basic common sense. Only when you're full do you have the energy to solve problems, or are you saying..."
She changed tack, her signature impish smile creeping onto her lips. She picked up an enticing piece of meat with her chopsticks and teased him in an overly sweet, cloying voice: "...that you need your adorable sister to personally 'Ah~' and feed you?"
"W-wah! N-no need!" Shido was instantly dragged back from his heavy thoughts, looking at Kotori's mischievous smile, which was a mix of concern and mockery. He frantically waved his hands in refusal, his cheeks slightly flushed. He definitely didn't want to be fed by his sister in front of Reine; that was too embarrassing.
Watching Shido restart his efforts to eat, though still somewhat distracted, Murasame Reine, who had been quietly eating, wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin and slowly spoke. Her voice had her characteristic steady, almost-asleep quality, yet it cut straight to the core of the issue:
"...Regarding Koushi, perhaps we should consider revealing everything to him."
Shido and Kotori simultaneously stopped their movements and looked at Reine.
Reine continued her calm analysis: "The current situation is that Classmate Koushi clearly has not escaped the vortex caused by Chinatsu. His abnormal behavior yesterday, and his bizarre disappearance now, both prove that there is a profound connection between him and Chinatsu that we do not yet have Understanding of. This connection is an ideal target for DEM, which is constantly searching for and capturing Spirits."
She paused, the gaze behind her glasses sharpening: "Chinatsu's power is immense and unique; DEM will never let her go. And Koushi, as the only currently known ordinary person with a strong connection to Chinatsu, is highly likely to become a hostage that DEM uses to threaten, lure, or even control Chinatsu."
"Hostage..." Shido repeated the word, imagining the scene of Koushi being captured by DEM, his stomach churning.
"Furthermore," Reine presented another crucial piece of information, the core reason for her suggestion to reveal the truth, "based on our latest gene sequence comparison and analysis results, there is a confidence level of over 99.7% that... Koushi Hōoin is the biological older brother of Phoenix-in Chinatsu."
Silence fell over the laboratory. Only the low hum of the instruments remained.
"Older brother...?" Shido was completely dumbfounded. He recalled Chinatsu's complex personality, her deep-seated sadness and violence, and Koushi's anxious, confused figure searching for "something." If they really were siblings...
Reine nodded, confirming Shido's guess: "Yes. Although Koushi seems to have completely forgotten having this sister due to Chinatsu's influence, the blood tie and the potential deep connection objectively exist. His involvement might provide a crucial breakthrough for us to gain Understanding of Chinatsu and deal with her. His perspective, the memory fragments he might still retain but is unaware of, could potentially solve the mystery of Chinatsu's split personality and power rampage."
She looked at Shido, her tone carrying a subtle hint of guidance: "This is a direction worth trying, both for us, for stabilizing Chinatsu's emotions, and even for protecting Koushi's own safety."
Finally, Reine added softly, a phrase that struck Shido deep in his heart:
"...At the same time, for Classmate Koushi himself, it might also be an opportunity. An opportunity to... recover the sister he lost, and fill that void in his life."
Shido fell silent, putting down his chopsticks. The feast on the table was still tempting, but his mind had completely drifted to the missing boy and the complex existence who was both a Spirit and a sister.
Reveal everything? Tell that boy, who knew nothing of this, all of it—the Spirits, the Spatial Quake, the threat of DEM, and the sister he had lost?
This would undoubtedly drag Koushi completely into this dangerous world. But... just as Reine said, he might already be in the center of the vortex without knowing it. Keeping him in the dark might, paradoxically, lead him into greater danger due to his ignorance.
And the chance to recover his sister... Shido took a deep breath, looked at Kotori and Reine, his eyes slowly hardening with resolve.
"I Understand. So, our primary mission now is..."
Kotori took over, her commander mode fully activated, biting on her precious jewel, her tone decisive:
"Exactly! Before we reveal the truth to that idiot, we have to drag him out of his 'inexplicable disappearance' state! All personnel, raise the alert level, deploy every available resource. Even if we have to turn Amamiya City upside down, we must find Koushi Hōoin!"
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