CHAPTER 17

THE WAR

The two Hiiragi twins still stood in their deadly game of chicken. Tsukasa still pressed the large knife blade against Kagami's neck and the two continued to stare into each other's eyes. Tsukasa could see her older sister was hell-bent on her killing her; it was then that Tsukasa began to tremble. It was real. Too real. For the first time, Tsukasa could truly see the hurt in her sister's eyes. Was she responsible for all this? Was it her that drove Kagami to the brink of insanity and made her mutilate her once majestic long hair?

Tsukasa took a step back and her fingers wrapped around the knife's handle quivered until it slipped from her grasp. The knife landed on the floor away from them and Tsukasa took another step back. She felt open and vulnerable. Tsukasa had just shown her sister that underneath her hard-assed exterior, she was still a cold-footed baby.

Fighting the urge to tremble, Tsukasa cleared her throat and once again reared her dark side. "You're not even worth killing, Kagami. I can tell you're dead already."

"But you're not, Tsukasa." Kagami whimpered with hope in her voice. "I can see it in your eyes. You didn't want to kill me. I believe a part of you is crying for help but you don't want to because you're afraid that if you do, you'll be admitting defeat and that you're still the family's baby."

Tsukasa squinted at her older sister. She suddenly felt sweat begin to form across her head and she tried to quell her rising panic. Tsukasa felt surrounded and suffocated…just like the night she was raped. So many emotions flared in her mind. Kagami was truly keeping up her efforts to bring Tsukasa back into the light, but every time her sister got a little closer, Tsukasa panicked even more and began to reminisce about the last time someone forcibly plowed their way into her life.

Before either of the twins could make their next move, something erupted downstairs. The first shots exploded in the kitchen when they heard Tadao scream, "How could you do this to us?!"

Kagami's instinct to be there for her family kicked in and she abruptly abandoned Tsukasa in her room to investigate. Tsukasa meanwhile was only motivated by curiosity and slowly followed her estranged sister towards the kitchen where the clatter was coming from. She heard Miki's voice retort angrily to Tadao's as Tsukasa continued to walk and as she passed the bathroom, the door suddenly swung open and she nearly collided with Matsuri. Matsuri was fresh out of the bath and fully clothed, her hair still a little wet. When the two sisters met each other's eyes, they quickly looked away and kept their distance from each other as they entered the kitchen.

"What you did was a crime, Miki! And not just a crime against us, but a crime against innocent children!" Tadao screamed. "What are we going to do now?! What am I supposed to tell the charity now?!"

"I stand by what I did! I'm a mother and I put my child's life over everything else!" Miki screamed back as the married couple continued to fight in the kitchen. "Why couldn't you do the same?! When Tsukasa was taken away, I was the only one that ever seemed to care!"

Kagami entered the kitchen and to her horror, she saw Inori sitting under the dining table and hugging herself into a ball while her mother and father were nearly face-to-face. Each one looked like they were about to get physical with the other as Kagami quickly scurried under the table and grasped Inori.

"What's happening?" Kagami whispered in a high-pitch tone.

Inori, who had a look of sheer panic, glanced at Kagami. "You remember when Tsukasa was arrested for fighting Matsuri?"

Kagami nodded.

"Mom stole the charity money to bail her out." Inori whispered back.

Hearing the news sent a new and massive wave of pain into Kagami's body. It felt as if a hand had reached into her ribs and ripped her heart out as she clutched her chest and she continued to breathe hard. She joined Inori under the table and hugged her oldest sister in an attempt to find comfort but her panic rose when she discovered that Inori had no more love or support to give. She was scared that on this day, Miki and Tadao would separate.

"You never knew what it was like to grow up not knowing what love was and to always feel fear and anger! The only time my father would show any affection to me at all was when he would beat me! My father hated me! His own daughter! He hated me! I stayed up late nearly every night crying and praying that I would die so the pain would stop and I could finally be free! My brother Itou never gave a damn about me! He always threatened to kill me if I didn't help him fuel his drug addiction! Even when I was a kid all I would ask from Santa was to know what love feels like!" Miki shouted, tears drenching the sides of her face. "I always swore that when I would become a mother, I would never do what my parents or brother did to me and I would always be there no matter what! Tsukasa is still my baby and after I called the police during the fight I felt that I betrayed her! That's why I stole the money, Tadao! Our children come first! Why can't you see that?!"

"How dare you say such things about me, Miki?!" Tadao yelled back as he stepped forward and inched closer to his wife. "You think I don't love my children and you think I feel nothing?! Tsukasa was my baby, too! But she has made it clear she doesn't want anything to do with us and you stealing from a charity isn't going to stop her! You stole food out of the mouths of other children in Tokyo so was it worth it?!"

"I got my child out of jail!" Miki screamed as Matsuri entered the kitchen. "You're damn right it was worth it! I couldn't live with myself knowing that I sent her to that place!"

"And you never once thought of Matsuri or your other daughters! What if Tsukasa pulled a weapon on any of them or even one of us?! You know what she did to that foreign girl in her classroom with that chair!" Tadao coughed as his mouth now felt like a sandbox. "Listen to yourself, Miki, you're obsessed! And your obsession didn't do anything for Tsukasa! It's made her worse! She's just like your damn brother now with a drug addiction and a violent side like your father! We could've saved her, too! If you didn't bail her out or release her from the hospital after she tried to kill herself in that tub we could've put her in Dr. Hirukawa's program! Now look what your lies and deceits have gotten this family! Look at it!"

Miki's anger grew. "I didn't want Tsukasa to feel the same way about me as I do about my own mother! My own mother abandoned me to stay with my worthless father! You think I would just leave my daughter in a prison cell or send her away to some nut hospital like she was a broken television being sent back to the factory! She's a human being and more importantly she's my human being! I'm still her mother!"

"Well congratulations, Miki, because you got your wish! Tsukasa is your daughter, no scratch that, Tsukasa is you! A basket case just like her mother!" Tadao thundered, triggering Miki's anger to vanish and it was replaced with a look of utter shock. "Because of you and all that you allowed Tsukasa to do, she's going to turn out just as screwed up in the head as her mother is!"

The rage in the Hiiragi housewife quickly returned and she rushed her husband and stopped when her chest made contact with his and their faces were only inches apart. The shouting match continued and it became a white noise tidal wave that shook the whole house until it became too personal. Mustering all her strength, Miki pushed Tadao back, taking him by surprise and he nearly lost his balance as he caught himself on the counter.

Her eyes leaking massive amounts of water and her teeth gritting as she panted with exhausted anger, she cried, "You'll never make me regret taking that money for my daughter! I still love her unlike you! No matter what she does to me or to anyone else, I will always be there for her! To hell with those children in that charity! None of them are my Tsukasa!"

Tadao could see it in her eyes. She didn't care, just like his youngest daughter. Miki had committed an immoral crime by stealing from the homeless and the starving to allow her troubled daughter to continue her dysfunctional and self-destructive patterns. Not knowing that Kagami had tried a similar tactic to measure Tsukasa, Tadao stared deep into his wife's eyes. The only thing he could see was anger and hate. Two things he never saw in his wife, not since he first met her in such a broken state. Miki was no longer the woman he married.

Feeling his innards twist and turn as he was forced to vocalize his decision, he opened his mouth and said it for everyone to hear, except for one of the Hiiragi daughters.

"I want a divorce."

The Hiiragi family had weathered some awfully quiet and silent moments in the recent trend of travesties that had befallen them, but this was by far the worst. February 1st. The day the once renowned Hiiragi family would split. What would become of them from now on? Inori and Kagami reemerged from under the table and slowly rose and showed their crying faces to their parents. Tadao tried not to look at them, knowing it would only gut him further.

Glancing back at Miki, her expression changed very little. Her face was still flushed and bright red while tears continued to slide down her cheeks and she trembled with uncanny fury. She opened her mouth and said, "Fine. I'll divorce you, Tadao Hiiragi."

"Mom, dad, don't do this!" Matsuri exclaimed.

"You be quiet!" Miki snapped and continued to breathe hard. "The last thing I need is more trouble!"

No one knew what to do next. The Hiiragi family had faced many challenges in their time, but none as great as this and it all started with the rape of their youngest and most innocent family member. It all went downhill from there. Matsuri scanned her broken family with piercing eyes and took in everyone's reactions. Miki was still rearing for a tougher fight, Tadao held his head low in shame that it had to come to this and Inori and Kagami held onto each other as they cried quietly in each other's arms.

Where's Tsukasa?

The youngest Hiiragi daughter still stood at the top of the stairs with her back against the wall and her arms folded across her chest. Her permanent scowl was still tattooed across her face as she continued to listen to her family's collapse until she felt something within her. She felt pain in her chest and as she clutched it, she realized it wasn't a physical pain. Her heart was hurting as she heard the cries of her sisters. Another new emotion began to present itself in her while she rethought the events of the past forty-eight hours. She felt deep guilt.

The phone suddenly rang, nearly making everyone in the household jump. As the family members downstairs continued to glance at each other, nobody knew if they should answer it or let it go to the answering machine. It was probably another pervert asking to rent "the slut of Saitama" and those phone calls were still not letting up.

Tadao sighed loudly and walked over to the phone and slowly picked it up knowing that all the eyes of the family were on him. He answered it again with the standard "Hiiragi residence" and believed that it couldn't possibly get any worse.

He was wrong.

The Hiiragi women could hear a voice on the other side but that wasn't what they were interested in. Tadao's face was solid. No emotion whatsoever and that could only mean that there was trouble. The phone call only lasted thirty seconds but it might as well have lasted thirty lifetimes. When Tadao said, "Thank you, sir. Goodbye," it made everyone jump as he slowly put the phone back on the receiver.

Tadao stood motionless over the phone and nobody knew what to expect. It was obvious something had happened and it wasn't good. What else could possibly happen? What was left for fate to take from the Hiiragi family?

Kagami could feel Inori gulp as she continued to hug her big sister and Inori slowly let go and took a step closer to her father. "D…dad…? Who…who was it?"

Silence. Dead silence. That was his only response as he continued to stand with his back to his family.

"Dad…didn't you hear her? Who was on the phone?" Matsuri asked with more firmness in her voice.

With his back still turned to his family, Tadao replied. "That was Yoshimizu-sensei."

"Your spiritual mentor in college?" Kagami added her voice.

Tadao nodded, still with his back to his family.

"What did he want?" Kagami added another question.

Still keeping his back turned, Tadao slowly gave his response. "Whoever vandalized the shrine with those pictures of Tsukasa also posted them on billboards all across Saitama. Yoshimizu-sensei called to tell me the Prime Minister's office also found out about them. They think it's best that they find another shrine for the wedding."

It somehow became quieter. The last chance for the Hiiragi family to save themselves from the depths of despair was now gone. The only thing Kagami could do was to resume her crying as Matsuri folded her arms across her chest and shook her head with a serious frown. Inori slowly approached her father. She slowly outstretched her hands and they trembled as they approached Tadao's lifeless standing body. Miki's anger began to subside upon hearing the latest and most devastating development for the family.

"Dad…it's okay. There'll be other weddings and ceremonies. We can't lose faith—" Inori started but was interrupted.

"Don't, Inori, just don't." Tadao suddenly snapped.

The sudden and harsh retort frightened the oldest Hiiragi daughter and drew more attention to Tadao. A few seconds turned into an agonizing minute, which was followed by second and once again, nobody knew what to do from here on out. The pictures of Tsukasa's performance had reached national level and the humiliation was now officially in all corners of Japan. The world became smaller for the Hiiragi family as they found themselves becoming more isolated and quarantined from the rest of the population. None of their friends called them anymore, no one visited them anymore. Even Matsuri and Inori noticed their own friends from college were becoming more distant.

"It was all a lie." Tadao finally broke the silence again. "Everything that is sacred, everything that is honored, everything in that shrine is a lie. My whole life has been one big lie."

Inori's heart pounded in her chest. Her father was losing faith at an alarming rate and it hurt Inori the most. Second to her father, Inori was the most religious member in the house and it hurt her when she heard this from Tadao. Hearing it from Matsuri was one thing, but to hear it from the spiritual leader was remarkably painful. Once again, she tried to comfort him and as she approached, the collapse of the Hiiragi family was finally set in stone.

Tadao grabbed the phone and with a quick thrust, he ripped it out of the wall and threw it across the room and yelled with all his might. He stomped through the dining room and kicked over chairs and overturned the table, creating a racket and sinking his family into panic. The outbursts resurrected memories of Tsukasa's and Matsuri's fight and they immediately tried to intervene. Inori rushed to stop her father but when she wrapped her arms around his chest, he pushed her violently, knocking her off balance and making her fall.

"This is the reward we were given by the gods! Tsukasa was raped and she was turned into this…this thing! This thing that has caused us nothing but pain and grief! She drove Kagami to near insanity, she disgraced us with these pictures, she's nearly killed herself twice, she's been arrested, expelled, in fights, and all I've done for her is pray!" Tadao continued his rant that brought more tears to his daughters' eyes. "My whole life I've dedicated to the gods and this is how they repay me! I didn't deserve this! We didn't deserve this! To hell with those rapist pigs! To hell with religion! To hell with that shrine!"

Tadao suddenly stormed into the backyard and to the tool shed where all the gardening supplies for his home and his shrine were kept. As his family watched with helpless eyes, their panic deepened when he reemerged from the shed with an axe and murderous eyes. He ran around the side of the house as his family pursued him through the hallway and they tore through the front door and into the public for the passing neighbors to see.

"Dad, what are you doing?!" Inori cried as she followed her father.

Tadao eyed the shrine as he gripped his axe and looked back at his oldest daughter with the eyes of a shattered human. The look scared Inori so much she thought she too had followed Kagami into a world of insanity.

"Something I should've done a long time ago!" Tadao yelled and continued his charge toward the shrine.

Despite her fear, Inori ran after her father as Kagami and Matsuri pursued, also calling for their father to stop. Miki also continued but at this point she didn't care. She had a feeling she knew what her probable ex-husband had in mind and she had to say that in her heart, she wholeheartedly approved. There was nothing sacred or good about that shrine anymore. Everything that was once peaceful and pure about it was destroyed the night their youngest daughter was raped. It would be best for the Hiiragi family if the whole structure would disappear.

Tadao finally arrived at the shrine and bypassed all of the sacred setups that were once vandalized by the pictures and graffiti and targeted the holiest building, the Honden. He tore through the sliding wood door and immediately went to work. Taking his axe, he chopped into one of the portraits of the Shinto gods before pulling it back and continued to slice through the structure's interior when his family finally arrived behind him.

"Dad, please stop!" Inori wailed in horror as she charged forward and tried to stop his massacre of the sacred building. She hugged him around his chest as she buried her face into his back and continued to cry.

The notion didn't stop Tadao. He wedged free of his daughter's grasp and continued to chop into the side of the building as Miki felt the need to add more. She glanced at the kerosene-fueled candles that would keep the shrine lit and saw a small box of matches sitting next to them. The candles were always meant for ceremonial purposes but all that was old history now as she quickly lit one of the candles that held a glass bottle encasing the kerosene beneath it. When it was lit, she picked the candle up and when Matsuri and Kagami saw what their mother had in mind, they too screamed for her not to do it.

It was too late. Miki hurled the candle with all her might further into the Honden and when it crashed, flames spread quickly and began to char the sacred shrine. Inori quickly abandoned her father as he continued to break the shrine down and she tried to extinguish the flames as they quickly spread to the tapestries. Kagami helped her oldest sister by dashing to a box kept in the corner of the shrine that held a fire extinguisher and she quickly readied it. Inori stood clear and Kagami blasted the flames and they quickly subsided in a wave of white mist that surrounded them and the situation worsened.

Tadao kicked over a table that held sacred artifacts that would've been used for the Prime Minister's granddaughter's wedding and began to stomp them to pieces while continuing to chop through the rest with his axe. With the flames out, Inori quickly returned to her father and again began her futile attempts to stop him from destroying the symbols of her most sacred beliefs.

"Daddy, please, I beg you!" She cried as she tried to physically stop him but her strength was no match for his as he continued to swing. "Think about the rest of us! Think about me! Please stop destroying our family shrine! You worked too hard to get this property! For the love of God, please stop! Please! Please!"

Watching the horrific scene made Kagami's eyes pulse in her head as she slumped to the floorboards and trembled with fright. Tears flowed from her eyes as she felt another mental breakdown coming and Matsuri quickly bent down to her. The middle daughter hugged Kagami tightly and rubbed her back as the noise of a melting family continued to plague her ears but Matsuri remained tough.

Matsuri turned to her mother and yelled, "Mom, do something goddamn it!"

"I am. I'm letting your father perform his duties." Miki snapped as she continued to watch with hateful eyes.

Hearing such a statement from her drove a spike through Matsuri's rock hard exterior. "You're our mother! You're supposed to love and protect us! Make dad stop doing this before he hurts somebody!"

Miki remained placid and watched her ex-husband destroy the Honden from the inside-out. Matsuri's heart sounded like a massive drum and she turned her head back to Inori, who had given up on stopping her father and was curled into a ball on the floor crying her prayers and her pain. She gripped her head as the tears shot out of her eyes and her screaming voice echoed in the building with the axe cuts. Matsuri looked back down at Kagami again, who continued to tremble in fear and the middle Hiiragi daughter could see the same look of insanity returning to the former twin-tailed girl's eyes. The same haunting feature in her eyes when she slipped into lunacy after she butchered her hair to resemble Tsukasa. Matsuri feared that at any second, she would lose Kagami again.

Movement suddenly caught Matsuri's eyes at the open doorway of the Honden and her blood boiled when she saw Tsukasa standing there. The cause of everything that was happening to the Hiiragi family and over the cries of her older sister and the chomps of her father's axe and his shouts, Matsuri felt something inside her snap. Her anger exploded like a bomb and she quickly rose to her feet and charged.

Tsukasa observed the anarchy in her family until she felt Matsuri tackle her and the two sisters rolled themselves down the wooden steps and into the cold weather and began to fight again. Matsuri pulled Tsukasa close as the two struggled relentlessly until Matsuri's angry strength proved dominant and she held Tsukasa down as she rolled on top of her little sister and added her emotions to the mix.

"You did this, Tsukasa! You killed us! We're a broken family now because of you! Now what are we supposed to do?! Mom and dad are splitting up because of you!" Matsuri cried loudly as she swung her fist down and punched Tsukasa on her cheek, triggering a complete reversal in Tsukasa's personality that was beginning to show hope.

Tsukasa's brightening eyes darkened again and her violent side reared its ugly head once again as she fought back. Tsukasa grabbed a handful of small loose stones that surrounded the Honden and threw them into Matsuri's face, distracting her. The youngest Hiiragi twin took advantage of the confusion and punched Matsuri in the mouth and it allowed her to push her off and gain the upper hand. Tsukasa rolled on top of Matsuri and with the look of a cornered animal on her face, Tsukasa fought back.

"You think I give a damn, Matsuri?!" Tsukasa yelled and landed another punch onto Matsuri's mouth, opening her lip and drawing blood. "I was the one that was fucked on this sacred ground! What are you bitching about?! This family was broken after I was raped! The only person who saw it was me!"

Tsukasa landed another slap across her sister's face until she felt someone else tackle her. When the two sisters fell into the loose stones, Tsukasa looked up and readied for another fight when she saw it was Kagami who tackled her and was now on top of her. It happened in the blink of an eye. Tsukasa's and Kagami's eyes met again just like in the bedroom only this time, it was different. Kagami could only see her sister's eyes for a brief second until Tsukasa launched a violent punch to the side of Kagami's head. The force knocked Kagami off Tsukasa and Kagami released her mental breakdown when she saw the mild amount of humanity in Tsukasa's eyes only a few minutes ago was gone.

Tsukasa planted herself on top of her fraternal twin and suddenly wrapped her hands around Kagami's neck and squeezed with all her might. Kagami didn't even know that the sister she once loved and played with was trying to kill her. Her mental stability was shattered like glass as she cried and thrashed on the ground and uttered a slurred language that wasn't clear. It only showed how far gone Kagami's mind was at this point. Her body was so entrenched in stress that she was having a seizure.

Tsukasa tightened her grip around Kagami's neck and her constricting fingers began to break blood vessels inside her older sister and form bruises. A sharp pain suddenly ripped through Tsukasa's body when Matsuri grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back with all her might. Tsukasa released Kagami from her grip and was forced to stand up, only to take another punch to the nose from Matsuri, only deepening the civil war.

The distraught youngest Hiiragi daughter wiped the blood from her nostrils and charged Matsuri again with unquenchable fury and tackled her to the ground yet again. As round two of their fight persisted, Miki charged out of the Honden and witnessed the horrific scene before her. Tsukasa and Matsuri once again found themselves on their feet and Matsuri pushed Tsukasa into one of the red wooden Toro lamps, breaking it and making the two sisters collapse on top of each other again as their blood continued to spill.

Miki disregarded the seizing Kagami and rushed to Matsuri and Tsukasa who continued to wail on each other. Tsukasa had the momentary upper hand as she held Matsuri's fists with her hands and the middle Hiiragi daughter tried to squirm and wiggle her way out from under Tsukasa's body weight. Miki wrapped her hands around Tsukasa's waist and tried to pull her off but it was a mistake she soon regretted. Tsukasa shot off Matsuri's body in a split second and suddenly turned and faced her mother, knowing who it was that tried to intervene.

Time suddenly froze for Miki and Tsukasa. As Tsukasa formed a fist and began to swing it around, Miki looked at her angry daughter and saw everything. She saw her birth once again replay in her mind, her first day of school, all the times they spent in the kitchen together, the laughs they shared, the bonding moments that cemented them together, and the love that she felt for her youngest daughter. All those moments disappeared when Tsukasa's fist swung and made unforgiving contact with her own mother's cheek.

The brutal punch knocked Miki off balance and she fell to the cobblestones and was in shock. Before Tsukasa could attack her own mother further, Matsuri tackled Tsukasa again and threw her and herself into the cobblestones as Matsuri held a firm grip on Tsukasa's hair while trying to subdue her thrashing sister.

Miki was stunned at what just happened. Her youngest daughter attacked her and she held her palm to the burning and pulsating spot on her cheek. Sitting on her knees in the middle of the family's civil war, Miki looked around. She saw Matsuri still held a tight grip on Tsukasa's hair but Tsukasa also was able to latch onto Matsuri's scalp as well and they were in the midst of a painful tug-of-war. Miki slowly looked back at the Honden and heard her husband continue to destroy the inside of it as Inori continued to scream and cry. Turning her head again, she saw Kagami in the midst of a panic seizure as she thrashed and cried on the ground.

Broken and distraught, Miki slowly crawled over to Kagami and collected her second twin daughter as she continued to thrash. She cuddled the crying Kagami's head in her lap and began to gently rock back and forth as the fighting went on. Miki couldn't pretend anymore. Tsukasa hated her, as well as everyone else. All her love and support as a mother couldn't reach Tsukasa, even when she broke every moral code in the human handbook by stealing from the homeless in a futile attempt to save her. Now, her marriage was over because of it.

Kagami slowly began to slow her seizure of panic and to Miki's horror, Kagami opened her mouth and whispered, "I'm Tsukasa…I'm Tsukasa…"

Feeling tears fall from her eyes, Miki joined Kagami in a mental breakdown and cried out loud. "Help us! Please help us! Somebody…! Anybody…! Help…!"

As Miki announced her distress call to the world, the chopping in the shrine abruptly halted and Tadao stormed out of the Honden. He was drenched in sweat and no longer gripped his axe and when he spotted the fight between Matsuri and Tsukasa, he charged towards them. He blew past his crying wife and seizing daughter and grabbed Matsuri with all his might. He lifted his middle daughter off Tsukasa and callously threw her aside, allowing Tsukasa to finally jump up and she was still ready for a fight.

Tsukasa turned and before she could continue fighting, her father's hand flew through the air and smacked her across the face. It silenced everything. Just like that, the civil war that sank the Hiiragi family to the bottom was over. The all-too-familiar silence returned to the family as Tadao grabbed Tsukasa by the collar of her dark top and dragged her violently to the Torii gate. With one final show of affection, Tadao pushed Tsukasa with all his might past the red scared gate and she fell on her side.

Turning her face back up to her father with a malicious glare, she was met with the same face from Tadao. Her father was breathing hard, sweating profusely, and his eyes were narrowed in anger. Trying to catch his breath, he yelled, "I want you off this property now! I never want to see you here again! If I ever see you here again, I will call the police and have you sent away!"

Tsukasa sprung to her feet and stared her father down one last time. Their ties were severed, their history erased, and all feelings of love and sympathy for each other was turned to dust. The rogue Hiiragi twin fixed her collar Tadao ruffled in the process with a huff, slowly turned, and began to walk down the street, her face still bruised and bleeding. Tadao watched her become smaller and smaller in the distance until she disappeared completely over the hill. She didn't look back once.

The civil war was over for the Hiiragi family. Blood had been spilled. Property had been destroyed. Lives had been shattered. A family was splitting up. It truly hit home for the Hiiragi family that they were alone in the world when no one called the police or fire department to help them. Clearly the stigma of the Hiiragi family had entrenched itself so deep that the neighbors didn't want to be involved with them in any way, shape, or form, even if it meant helping them. They didn't want to associate themselves with the family of "the slut of Saitama" or the rest of them.

Tadao was a broken man when he packed a few bags full of his clothes and toiletries. He took one of the family's credit cards with the intent of calling a motel room his new home until he and Miki could meet a lawyer. Because he was still the man he was, he thought it was appropriate that he left so that Miki and the rest of the girls could live comfortably, or as close to it as they could now.

Inori isolated herself in the Honden for the rest of the day and could only pray nonstop. For her father, for her family, for herself, for everything she had ever cherished or loved. Every prayer was complemented with a fresh tear from her eyes as she sat in the destroyed building. Matsuri meanwhile left the house to go out with the few remaining friends she had left. She had fresh bruises and scrapes across her face to showoff and to symbolize the depth of her family's dysfunction.

Miki sat on Kagami's bed. The former twin-tailed girl rested her head on her mother's lap, still dripping tears from her eyes. Silence was dividing Miki and Kagami as Miki stroked her ailing daughter's head, trying to snap her back to reality.

"Are you okay, now, baby?" Miki asked with a choke in her voice as she stared into space and stroked Kagami's short hair. "Do you know who you are again?"

Kagami sniffled. "Today was like a horror movie, mommy. I don't like horror movies…I don't like horror movies…please make the scary go away mommy…"

Miki's face puckered again as she kissed Kagami on the head and said, "You should rest, Kagami."

Drained of her energy, Kagami fell asleep nearly in an instant as Miki tucked her ailing daughter into bed. She left Kagami's room and suddenly felt cold and sought comfort in Tsukasa's former bedroom. The distraught Hiiragi housewife, now considered single, wobbled into Tsukasa's dark room and over to her bed. She sat down and released her tears and slumped over and allowed her head to land on Tsukasa's pillow. Miki buried her face in the pillow and inhaled as much as she could through her nose to smell her daughter again. It only brought more tears.

Miki slowly slid her arm under the pillow and nearly jumped in fright when her arm suddenly struck something. She grasped the thin item and pulled it out from under the pillow and when she looked at it, she was able to identify it as a notebook. It was a rather simple notebook that had no distinct markings or doodles on it of any kind; it was just a simple composition book. Miki slowly opened the cover and saw the first entry.

It was lengthy. Very lengthy. There was no date or time marked anywhere on the top of the page, just the entry itself. Perked by curiosity, she began to read it. It didn't take long for Miki to figure out that she was holding Tsukasa's private diary. The one she had been keeping and updating to document her slow and gruesome transcend into the darkness that now corrupted her soul.

It also didn't take long for Miki to figure out what she was reading. She didn't make it past the second paragraph until she realized she was reading the transcript of her daughter's rape. She began to sweat. Her grip trembled and fear swallowed her mind as she couldn't stop reading. Miki would now feel the same thing Tadao did when he saw the video at the police station.

Miki didn't make it past the third paragraph until the book finally slipped from her grasp and it landed on the floor with a bounce and remained open. She could only vocalize one word from her mouth on her pale-white face. NO. She screamed it at the top of her lungs and her stomach tightened. Forcing her hand to cover her mouth, she leaped from the bed and tore through the hallway and stormed into the bathroom.

She vomited relentlessly into the toilet after reading not only a quarter of what those monsters did to Tsukasa that night in the Kagura-den. When she was finished releasing the spew of shattered emotions, she slumped onto the tile floor and continued to scream and cry. "My baby! My baby! My baby! That's my baby! You monsters!"

The diary still sat in Tsukasa's bedroom and open to the first entry, revealing its contents to the world. It was truly an open gate into Hell itself.