Chapter 55 - Last Piece of the Puzzle

Risa's office was as pristine as Kusuo remembered.

A cherry-wood desk, neatly arranged pen and pencil in a black ceramic holder, a blank tablet of yellow legal paper, a black computer screen with an open sliding drawer for a keyboard. A decorative plant was artfully placed in a corner. Framed certificates, ones that boldly declared all of Risa's capabilities and societal recognition of her accomplishments covered a wall. The floor was wood, in contrast to the drab linoleum outside, an allowance granted to someone of such prestige like Risa. There were a couple of guest chairs opposite the office desk, as well as a faux-suede three-seater sofa.

Kusuo had been here a few times, early on.

It had been an aimless thing, teleporting into her office late at the night, after he called it a day at Psi Industries and had checked in on his parents. As irritated and tired as he was, after a full day looking over Kuusuke's crap, the preoccupation to resolve his limiter problem kept him awake. So he found himself showing up at Risa's location. Taking account of the time differences in Kusuo's world travels, it meant that he usually caught her around midnight local time, right as she was finishing up work.

Though Risa was tired by the end of the day also, she took note of him like she took note of any supplicant at her door, with an appropriate distance as her voice flowed.

Needless droning, as far as he was concerned, Risa's words did serve a strange sort of comfort. His parents rarely talked to him about anything serious as the biggest elephant in the room had always been his psychic powers. In Kusuo's memory, his parents saw Kusuo's abilities as parlor tricks, meant to bemuse and amuse. Plus, he could read their thoughts. There was no point in long-drawn-out narratives and he even told them so.

To listen to Risa talk at him, about anything and everything, was a bit like being surrounded by his troublesome friends at school. His innate nature reacted automatically with annoyance, but it put him at ease. Better yet, Risa was older, wiser, and manipulative, shamelessly using social techniques to put people at ease.

Those early sessions Risa reminded Kusuo of the times when he, disgruntled by the lack of success with whatever problem he was toying with, begrudgingly went to the only person he knew who could help, Kuusuke.

Thinking back, Kusuo never had to provide Kuusuke with the details of whatever issue was at hand, Kuusuke always knew whatever was on Kusuo's mind in advance. Kuusuke would distill don the issue to its main point, skipping over hours of plot, make a pretense to ask Kusuo if the guess was correct, and then divulge the solution that Kusuo would ultimately execute.

The best example Kusuo could think of was the final solution to Mount Owari. Kuusuke had known about the problem without being told. Then taking into account Kusuo's unique resources, primarily the clones and Aiura, provided Kusuo with a successful solution.

Funnily enough, Kusuo did not think he ever told Kuusuke about Aiura and the clones.

In hindsight, such a fact should have tipped Kusuo off early on to Kuusuke's ESP.

For years, Kuusuke always explained away the phenomenon as being Kusuo's older brother. Kusuo was Kuusuke's most-studied lab rat, after all. Why shouldn't Kuusuke have near ESP-level type of knowing what Kusuo was thinking?

It was no different from Teruhashi's dedication to studying people and memorizing the details of their male classmates to the point that she could guess, word per word, what they were thinking. Some people were simply so dedicated to a craft that the seemingly impossible was truthfully, only a clever sleight of hand.

Yet, there were hints throughout the years. The ones that stood out the most were the festival games that they ended up playing.

Kusuo scooped up a sackful of goldfish in the fish scooping game. Kuusuke scooped the ultra-rare mono black killifish.

Kusuo won boxes upon boxes of toys and games. Kuusuke somehow won trading cards depicting adult actresses, which are not even supposed to be a prize.

Come to think of it, had Kuusuke ever touched him directly? Outside the installation and usage of the limiters? Even during their very last spat at Kuusuke's lab, Kuusuke had worn a power armor.

-Damn you!- thought Kusuo to himself as he felt an unmitigated rise in his chest as his thoughts touched upon those memories

Kusuo desperately clung to that rise.

It was much easier to blame someone dead, someone who could not talk back, for all his misfortunes. He even forced his mind to change his opinion on the journals that Kuusuke left behind. As glad as Kusuo was when he first realized that he had been left instructions, that flashover was not so certain anymore, that gladness had faded away to something darker. As Kusuo dived deep into the study of the journals, the more Kusuo understood the blatant evidence of Kuusuke being something other than an annoying, genius masochist, the more conflicted Kusuo became.

-Why haven't you told anyone? Especially me?-

No. That was not right.

Kuusuke did blatantly admit to such a thing, but only in the context of fortunetelling quackery or cavalier facetiousness. Kuusuke had done this to, in Kusuo's recollection, most obviously to Toritsuka, fully admitting to being telepathic. However, Toritsuka was too dumb to run away and Kuusuke wanted Toritsuka as a plaything. Toritsuka never had a chance.

Everyone else ignored Kuusuke's grandiose declarations since Kuusuke was a verified mad scientist who lived on a different plane of mental existence. Sure, half of the things he could do were amazing, but not outside the realm of possibility.

But when did extreme talent cross over to ESP?

Kusuo should've known, the moment that Kuusuke indirectly proved that even Nendo's mind could be read.

Thinking back, Kusuo could recall it well.

It was during that first time loop, when an errant baseball struck and broke the power controlling device. One thing lead to another, resulting in the first time that Kusuo saw his annoying older brother for the first time in four years and of course, one of Kuusuke's dumb inventions, the telepathy canceller, and a challenge to a childish game of tag.

Kuusuke, that cheating jackass, even though along a couple of Kusuo's friends as collateral to ensure good behavior.

Kuusuke lost, of course.

Afterward, Kusuo got his sweet treat, ate a big dinner, and slept for a long time. Without his control device, sleeping had proved difficult as he heard too much noise. The sleep was a much-needed one, dreamless and strangely a completely silent one.

At the time, Kusuo had just gotten up from oversleeping, gone through his morning routine, and found Kuusuke needling Kusuo's two friends the morning, to distract himself from being so upset by the loss of a simple game of tag.

In the upscale hotel room, Kuusuke was being chatty, filling the air with his irritating, scratchy voice like a cloud of miasma. He shot off rapid-fire questions at Kaidou, trying to get Kaidou to personally deny the existence of "Dark Reunion."

Kuusuke explained to Kusuo that he was so distraught with the loss at the game of tag that he had to occupy himself by needling Kusuo's friends instead.

Then Kuusuke, not wearing his telepathy canceller at the time, proceeded to think of the grossest thing he could think of. Kuusuke cackled inwardly about how much pleasure he was about to feel from beating Kusuo at something, in a clear, deliberate effort to unsettle Kusuo.

At the time, Kusuo had sarcastically replied that Kuusuke should wear the telepathy canceller, forever, to spare Kusuo the annoyance.

Nendou was there, though Kusuo found the ogre-like oaf quaking in the corner of the hotel room. The big gorilla of a man was shocked into submission by the one random thing that Kuusuke had said to him. It was something about belly buttons.

In hindsight, that should have been the moment that Kusuo should have probed further.

Even Kusuo couldn't do that to Nendou even if he tried.

Well, Nendou did melt into a puddle of tears when Saiko attempted to leave PK Academy. So Nendou's outward exhibition of emotional affect wasn't so strange.

Still...

-Now that's a thought. Kuusuke was an ESP-level sociopath,- considered Kusuo with a resigned shake of his head. -Was that why our parents never said a word? They loathed the idea that their son is so messed up?-

Kusuo frowned at the next thought. -But...if Kuusuke knew about flashover, did I almost...flashover, then? Was that why he didn't bother our parents for the flight and arranged it himself? Then fixed the limiters first? Without much fuss? Then proceeded to check its effects? Indirectly, creatively, through a game instead of rote testing of abilities?-

Kusuo pressed on his temples as he felt a strange sort of heat in his head.

Grandmother Risa was right. Kusuo did need to rest. The days, weeks, of nonstop work were taking a toll. His thoughts had begun to stray, going down various possibilities on subjects that encircled upon itself like an ouroboros, never evolving to a solution.

At the same time as he noted the heat in his head, he noticed that he had spaced out. During that time, he had placed Kuusuke's journal on a side table and sat down on the sofa. Without too much thought, he had placed his hand on the upholstery of the sofa.

And was immediately assaulted by psychometry.

Oh no.

He hadn't adjusted the sensitivity on his new set of limiters that he made. He had let his guard down, using only his nanometer-thick gloves instead of wearing his usual full effects with leather gloves.

Simultaneous with the psychometric assault, Kusuo caught a glimpse of the memories that had occurred on the mundane piece of furniture.

There were the treatments of VIPs, including the prime minister of Japan, known members of the Diet, and yakuza bosses and soldiers. Sprinkled in there were mundane human resource discussions regarding budgets, layoffs, hires, disciplinary actions, kickbacks. Nuri-sensei, who appears to be Risa's right-handed physician, seemed central to carrying out Risa's commands.

But there was another, interesting, recent memory.

-Dad's been here...?- thought Kusuo to himself as he pressed his palm to the sofa with a little more strength than he usually did, trying to probe deeper.

Psychometry was a tricky thing, to be sure.

It could prove useful. Effectively human downloading, it allowed him to quickly know and experience the memories of people, objects, within a certain limit. Psychometry was a useful ability with his PK Academy Psychiker friends more recently, where he could quickly peek into their experiences, see their point of view, and understand why his friends had decided to be so stupid in trying to dabble in the occult and summon a such a dangerous spirit as Kuusuke.

Other times, psychometry was overwhelming. Allowing him to see and feel things that he'd rather not know, from something as minor as manga and book spoilers, to being assaulted by unfamiliar, experiences that left him momentarily shocked by the newness of the sensation. If he was careless, even experience pain at the tolerance of a human.

In any case, psychometry was an effective conduit for knowledge, without the thought-filtering effects of telepathy, as long as Kusuo did not mind the risk of the more unpleasant effects.

Kuniharu being here wasn't so unusual. Risa was the man's mother. Though, Risa appeared to be the type to strictly adhere to the tradition of separating work and home. As a professional woman in a highly visible position, in a field dominated by men, she had a reputation, an outward projection of herself that she had to maintain. She had only indulged Kusuo since Kusuo only ever came late at night, after regular working hours.

But the psychometric memory though. Kusuo felt the unfamiliar combination of 'grief' and 'dad' together.

That was right. Outside of Kuniharu explaining something that happened a long time ago, on the night that Kusuo told his parents that Kuusuke had passed, Kusuo had not spent any appreciable time with Kuniharu, nor had Kuniharu reached out.

It'd be silly to think that Kusuo's dad did not grieve as deeply a mom did. As much as both of the Saiki children were very much mama's boys, between the two of them, Kuusuke was closer to dad. Kusuo supposed that the phrase 'familiarity breeds contempt' was true, since the relationships among the four of them did become better, once Kuusuke had the good sense to move far away.

Their father was lucky, in a way. Preoccupied with a job, one that Kuniharu barely kept by groveling like a serf before his lord, Kuniharu had no time to spare to cared for someone else. In that, their father had a modicum of financial responsibility, even if there was no danger of falling into abject poverty in their society of many social safety nets. Kuusuke's incredible wealth, now Kusuo's wealth, also made sure that if Kusuo deemed it, their parents could live a grand life on a level similar to the heir of Saiko Conglomerate, unfettered by concerns of money.

Unfortunately, human comforts and luxuries were unappealing to psychics, much less ESP-level sociopathic psychics.

How much of Kuusuke's peculiarities did Kuniharu know? Not the obvious, outrageous, sociopathic behavior, but more of Kuusuke's quiet psychic effects.

Risa didn't say anything of the meeting, either.

Kusuo closed his eyes, trying to probe deeper into the psychometric memory, before the memories of the object itself are spent. He parsed the thoughts, the feelings, the scenery from the myriad of events that occurred in this office and focused exclusively the ones related to Kuniharu. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, since the object memory of Kuniharu was so brief in comparison to the memories of everything else. Daunting at first glance, but a couple of tweaks could quickly target the one memory that Kusuo needed to witness with clarity.

Unfortunately, the best tweak that Kusuo could determine was the memories of his parents and the intense anguish experienced via the loss of their eldest son. That was the problem with psychometry, as the search was not by subject, but by feeling.

Kusuo focused his search on sadness, by drawing on what he saw in his parents.

With Mom, her initial sadness had been agonizing, overwheming, and desperate. It was incapacitating, all-consuming where nothing could console her. Despite how later, in the shadow of the mind control that manipulated her, that she became twisted, culminating in a moment of clear madness, Kusuo still remembered the deep ache he felt as he watched her sob inconsolably. The deep canyon that ache dug and took root when he realized that the mother he knew, the reason he attributed to deciding to be good, was never truly there, nor will ever come back.

Found it. The faint psychometric memory was less than a whisper.

Dad was here...for Kusuo? Dad was here to ask a question, with the purpose of deciding whether to tell Kusuo something.

Why?

What was it?

And the feelings from Dad were unlike Mom. The grief was accepting, resign, almost wistful. It felt like someone expecting the pain, like getting corporeal punishment at a flogging post back when it was still legal, and only wished to get it over with.

Kusuo thought back to the day of June 16th, when he overheard the surprising fact about Kuusuke. Of how awful the rural physician had been to predict such a horrible life expectancy. Of how the gods had blessed Kuniharu and Kurumi with an unexpected boon of an impossible lifespan milestone, not knowing that doctor's prediction had proven true.

How Kusuo hated the memory of that day. He was not himself. He was so confused, shocked, and angry. But what most infuriated him was the guilt. As much as he hated Kuusuke, Kuusuke was still family. Why had Kusuo not immediately jumped to doing everything he could to save Kuusuke? Even if he knew, now, that it was unlikely to change anything.

Kusuo felt the guilt, even now.

Still, Kusuo forged on within the psychometry.

Within the swirl of Kuniharu's grief, was also the unfamiliar contempt, against Kusuo's tsundere Grandpa, Kumagoro.

Odd.

Kusuo had thought Dad did not mind being on the receiving end of Kumagoro's waspish temper. Dad was submissive and gutless. Dad took Kumagoro's criticisms like the suggestions of an overly critical boss man, appease temporarily by shameless but insincere groveling if needed. Dad was strangely confident of his imperfect self, never once feeling the gnawing self-doubt that demanded that he devote a lifetime of work to obtain the approval of strangers.

Had Dad also been a victim of Kuusuke's mind control?

It was a possibility, in light of what Mom was like. However, that had been the lesser of his recent concerns and he had not devoted the time to analyze the situation.

Stupid psychometry. Why were the memories not be as precise on objects like Kuusuke's written diatribe on the creation of limiters?

-Kuusuke had abilities. He deliberately imbued memories into those journals. It's the only reason that it's so clear.- Kusuo held the one journal that he was studying earlier to his chest momentarily. -Knowing that I would need this someday.-

Kusuo paused at that thought.

-Dad knew this day would come, didn't he?- Unconsciously, Kusuo covered his mouth as his jaw dropped a little. -There was never any chance...-

Things in the office started to rattle as if the place was haunted by poltergeists.

Kusuo took a deep breath and swallowed as he felt the hated burn to his cheeks and eyes, his heart speeding up. He coughed as he choked back an unbidden bodily reaction to uncontrolled thought.

His psychic powers had reacted to a sudden spike in brain activity, back-feeding onto itself into his sympathetic nervous system. It caused uncomfortable physical hot liquidy sensations in his eyes that annoyed Kusuo to no end. More disastrously, the effort to control his physical response also inadvertently activated psychokinesis and a whole host of other water related abilities like hydrokinesis and cryokinesis.

Kusuo wasn't stupid. He knew he had some responsibility in causing some of the more recent weather-related difficulties both in Hidariwakibara and England, the two places he most frequented. Nothing irrecoverable. It was inconvenient for the people who lived near him, and a boon to umbrella salesmen than anything. It made him all so much warier with his current train of thought, as now, he did not seem to have control over that either.

Suddenly, one of the Kuusuke's words, in the lilting child-like voice, from a long time ago popped into Kusuo's mind.

-"We do not allow any family member to become criminals."-

The shock of such sudden, intrusive, completely non-sequitur thought almost knock Kusuo off his feet.

Sleep. Yes. Kusuo needed sleep. He needed things to go back the way it was. He needed his parents to be lovey-dovey again. He needed his friends to irritate him. He needed to return to PK Academy. He needed his disastrous daily life in Hidariwakibara. He needed to be taken care of, before he imploded.

Still, there was a sense of being on the cusp of understanding something extremely profound, a discovery that would put everything into its place. It was in this room.

There was no logic in that feeling.

It was...frightening, almost.

Kusuo felt as if he was caught in a confluence of thought, where too many disparate ideas, freed from the confines of routine logic, crash against the shores of his sanity like tsunami waves. The sands of his self-awareness were eroding, swept away by the strongest rip currents, allowing the waves of thoughts to ripple and swell into a synchronous eruption of atrocious heights.

No. It was not frightening at all.

It was exhilarating.

He recognized it now.

Intuition.

Thoughtless arrival to a solution for a problem that he did know existed.

Was this why Kuusuke slept so little? Kuusuke needed the perfect storm of genius and insanity, to come up with the limiter in the first place. Because to defeat psychic powers with science, to have assured victory over flashover, he needed true, flawless intuition to derive the necessary inspirational mathematics to a win.

Was the telepathy canceller Kuusuke's very own limiter?

And to invent that, did Kuusuke dabbled in recreational drugs? Kusuo felt like that was an impossibility, though. Outside of each other, both had taken pains not to harm normal people and that meant complete control at all times.

A thing that Grandmother Risa had said suddenly popped into Kusuo's mind.

-"Do not disrespect your mother by being so careless with the body she's given you."-

Kusuo immediately banished all thoughts of Kuusuke daring to partake in illicit substances, determined to fully stop such useless mental gyration. Kuusuke was dead. It didn't matter anymore.

The waves of intuition were pulling him toward something near Risa's desk.

Trusting the intuition, Kusuo only observed, looking for anything out of place.

The x-ray vision revealed everything Risa had hidden in cabinets, drawers, in the false drawer bottoms. There were things of the mundane, like a change of clothes, shoes, sensitive hospital administration papers, a broom, and dustpan.

There was a fire-proof safe behind one of Risa's many certificates. There were items of unusual, like a little handgun, a ream of cash probably worth 100,000 yen, a large orange envelope of what appeared to be a bunch of documents.

There was something else too. Another safe. It was located in the floor, supported by a specialized arrangement of structural steel. It sat underneath Risa's office chair, beneath a glass chair mat. Unlike the bank vaults that Kusuo had been in, even he could not see into this safe.

It was lead-lined.

Lead-lined objects were not unusual in a hospital setting, as radiation had its uses in medicine. Radiation imagery and radiation treatment were standard tools in the art of healing. It was not unimaginable for Risa to obtain a container of sorts that was lead-lined.

Normally, Kusuo would had left it alone. Nothing good could be found by involving himself in the private affairs of others. Grandmother Risa was a recent reconnection anyways. Outside of the respect for their blood ties, Risa might as well be a stranger.

This one object, though, captured Kusuo's interest. The safe appeared to be specially made, with exotic metals in the lanthanides and the actinides family, metals that had to be specialty refined.

Having studied Kuusuke's journals in depth, Kusuo knew materials that affected psychic powers tended to be a blend of semi-conductors and superheavy metals. Grandmother Risa must have done her own studies too, seeing how flashover had so devastated her family members.

Careless of what could be considered as bad manners, Kusuo did a coursey check for cameras and that window blinds were closed before lifting the glass floor mat and chair to the side with psychokinesis.

The floor underneath was flawless, like everything else. there was no trap door, no hidden switch to open up the floor to access the safe underneath. Whatever was inside the lead-lined safe, Risa had no intention of ever opening it again.

The full of intuition was there still. Amplified by psychic abilities, Kusuo, proceeded to use psychokinesis to break the the floor open.

The safe underneath was dark gray. It looked to be a standard safe, with a dial and key lock.

The door to the safe was welded shut.

The universe must be laughing at Kusuo. How was this something that did not stir anyone's curiosity? A safe where his x-ray vision required probably an hour of unblinking stare to see into and was weld shut. It was practically begging him to rip it open.

Without caring about how Grandmother Risa would react to seeing her office floor so shamelessly torn up and into a safe that she felt needed to be more hidden than her stash of cash and handgun, Kusuo took hold of the edge of the safe and gripped.

Damn...it's harder than it looked. It must had been the lanthanide heavy metals.

No matter. Kusuo's natural strength had far exceeded whatever the natural world could throw at him.

A testament of Kusuo's natural strength, the metal edges of the safe deformed and separated like cake before it was peeled back like a layer of fondant.

Inside the lead-lined safe was a mess of paper confetti.

Upon closer inspection, there were words on that confetti.

Now, this was even more interesting. This was not normal confetti, the type thrown at weddings, parties, in celebration. This was the remains of a criss-cross cut shredded document.

Normal paper shredders used a stripe cut. Useful for quick shredding of paper that most people wanted to destroy, like financial records, business confidential documents. It was enough to provide a peace of mind, but if necessary, can still piece it together again.

Whatever this was, Grandmother Risa deemed that it needed to be completely unrecognizable, impossible to put back through human patience, by making sure that the paper was cut cross-wise.

Now, why in the world would Grandmother Risa deliberately place a bunch of criss-cross shredded paper in a safe that had been welded shut? It was not like it was a time capsule. Even if it were, how would someone in the future put the pieces back together?

Or, maybe this was not even Grandmother Risa's doing. Maybe it was just something that someone had stowed away and forgotten.

What was the saying? Curiosity killed the cat?

Luckily, the cat had nine lives.

As Kusuo reached down to tentatively see what he could glean from just psychometry or otherwise, a jarring unbidden memory of something Kuusuke said a long time ago bubbled up in Kusuo's psyche.

-"It's like learning to ride a bike. You can't ever forget. For this trick, you'll have to separate psychokinesis from the directional, tangential, gravitational, strong, and weak forces. Now. Focus. This is how you temper the time within a single object...See. Nothing to it. The store lady doesn't even know that this is broken. Mom and Dad won't have to pay for it, now you've fixed it. Let's try to help you control this by giving it a name...why don't you call it, 'Restoration?'"-

How in the world was that even relevant?

And what was that memory even about?

A nasty headache was developing too, probably because he had pushed his physical, human shell of a body to stay awake for so long. What horrible timing. As if he did not have enough problems.

The unbidden word did remind Kusuo that the easiest way to figure out whatever the original document was to use trusty ol' Restoration. Whatever this document was though, it must have occurred a little while, since Kusuo was sure that there hadn't been construction activity in Grandmother Risa's office. He had been here, sporadically, and been at the hospital itself on and off the last few days, trying to figure out a safe way to deal with the latest disaster caused by his friend's shenanigans.

After considering the Restoration idea for a split second, Kusuo removed one of his limiters, manually adjusting the time period of the Restoration ability. Moving slowly and deliberately now, he touched the bed of confetti.

The bed of confetti glowed, transforming quickly into a neatly stapled document, slightly yellowed by age.

Kusuo frowned as he read the first three lines.

Ikkoku Yama Rural Hospital Birth Record

Name: Saiki Boy A

Date: June 16, XXXX

Time: 0458

Mother: Saiki Kurumi

Father: Saiki Kuniharu

So, obviously, this was Kuusuke's birth record, when he was born, before their parents had decided on a name.

Why in the world would Kuusuke's birth record be here? Shredded into confetti, no less? What was in here that was so incredibly sensitive that had to be shredded, but kept in a welded-shut safe?

At least now that Kusuo understood that Mom and Dad probably lived with Grandpa Kumagoro and Grandma Kumi, in the small rural town in the boonies early on in their marriage. A needless data point, but interesting.

Kusuo glanced through, taking in the information as quickly as possible. There was no turning back at this point. He paused only momentarily at the remarks section.

Remark: Post natal resuscitation successful. Prognosis: lifelong cognitive, physical impairments, reduced lifespan. Estimate: less than 20 years.

Kusuo glared at the remark, resisting the urge to toss the stack of paper against a wall or burn a hole through the paper with laser from his eyes.

It was as if God was mocking Kusuo for Kusuo's efforts back in June, for so ignorantly stupidly holding on to hope against fate.

Then, there is was, as Kusuo came to the second set of papers.

Ikkoku Yama Rural Hospital Birth Record

Name: Saiki Boy B

Date: June 16, XXXX

Time: 0542

Mother: Saiki Kurumi

Father: Saiki Kuniharu

Kusuo stared at the record for several minutes, blinking several times, making sure he was not hallucinating the words.

-Kuusuke had a twin...-

In a hurry now, Kusuo quickly skipped through the data set stating the weight, the body temperature, mundane data collection.

Remark: Post natal rescuccitation unsuccessful. Stillborn

Kusuo felt his blood freeze.

Everything suddenly made sense.

'The name 'Kusuo' wasn't meant for me! It was a reused name. The naming of the firstborn is the right of the father. The naming of those who came after was the pleasure of the mother. Mom named me, but it was a name originally meant for this...this...thing!-

-The Occult Club did summon my 'older bother.' They summoned this damn cretin!-

Kusuo felt like laughing, in the manner of a mad egomaniacal villain.

Life could not be so ironic.

Who knew? Kusuo was not even supposed to have existed in the first place. He understood this now. The ideal Japanese family size was four people. Two adults, two children. The children were ideally spaced so the children had a sufficient playmate. In this case, Kurumi and Kuniharu got both in one shot. Had the second older brother lived, it's unlikely their parents would have tried for a third child and get the cursed pink-haired children destined for flashover.

The pink-haired Kusuo was only conceived as a replacement!

Too many perfectly aligned realizations fall in line at the same time.

No wonder the spirit that possessed Yumehara was so maddened and demanded a 'healthy body.'

The more Kusuo thought about it, the more exasperated he became at what loomed before him, and what responsibility he must bear in this matter. Because this cretin, this abomination of a spirit, had promised to come back.

And like the ouroboros, Kusuo felt the most familiar frustration when he first set off on trying to fix his limiter issue, a problem that only endlessly encircled upon itself, with no visible solution in sight.

With a flick of his hand, the document was quickly shredded again with psychokinesis. As the document fluttered back down into the safe like radioactive-laden fallout snow and the safe and floor fewl back into place via psychokinesis, Kusuo only had one comment for his incredibly shitty circumstances.

"Well...Fuck."