Upon reaching the café they agreed to meet at, a familiar-looking man could be seen sitting at a table in the corner.
Among the teachers that had taken care of her at Ryusei School, he was the one that had left the best impression on her.
“It’s been a while, Mr. Ishibashi.”
Mari flashed a smile and sat down on the seat opposite him.
She had a bad feeling when he called saying that he had something important to talk about, but now that she was seeing him in person, she could feel a warm sense of nostalgia.
“You seem to be doing well, Sonoda.”
For as long as she had known him, he was never the type to openly show his feelings on his face, and that still hadn’t changed even now.
He could be looking at a carton of expired milk and he’d still be making the same face as he was now.
Mari took a good look at Mr. Ishibashi’s face. His beard was as thick as ever and his large hands stood out like always.
A few white hairs could be made out in his beard, but his hands were still as big as she remembered.
Mari’s head was often stroked by those large hands in the past.
“I’d love to hear about what you’re up to these days, but I’m afraid I don’t have much time right now.”
He immediately got to the point. This was another part of him that hadn’t changed.
But Mari preferred that over drawn-out idle talk.
“I want you to tell me about what happened when you got adopted. Tell me as much as you can.”
“Why are you asking that?”
Mari responded defensively.
Everyone has something they wouldn’t want to remember, something they wouldn’t want to tell others.
Mr. Ishibashi pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to Mari.
Masato Kusaka, Saya Kimura, Shouji Inukai, and many other familiar names were listed, along with their addresses and phone numbers. Of course, the name Mari Sonoda was there as well. They were all names of students from Ryusei School.
“What is this?” Mari asked.
“The names listed here are all students that were adopted from Ryusei School. What’s important to note is that each and every one of them returned to Ryusei School afterward.”
Mari remembered that as well.
Ryusei School’s students were all orphans that had lost their parents. But those orphans were often fortunate enough to find new parents as well. Whenever an appropriate adopter was found, they’d leave the school to begin their new life.
Whenever a student was to leave the orphanage, there would always be a farewell party.
Those that did the sending off were always filled with sadness and envy, while the one leaving would often feel anxiety rather than happiness.
Mari often felt lonely from those parties.
Whenever one of the students left with their new parents, it felt like they were abandoning those left behind.
But mysteriously enough, everyone that left Ryusei School always eventually came back at some point.
What could have happened?
Those that returned always remained tight-lipped about the matter and never delved into details.
Eventually, Mari became the star of one of those farewell parties as well.
Mari had found her new parents, too.
“Why did everyone come back to the school… Haven’t you ever thought it was strange?”
Mr. Ishibashi continued.
“Well, yes. But that sort of thing just happens sometimes, right? Maybe they couldn’t get used to their new home, or maybe the foster parents ended up running into problems.”
“That’s not it. They were killed. Each and every one of the foster parents.”
“What…?”
A chill ran up her back.
Killed?
Every single one of them?
But why? Is something like that even possible?
“Yes, it’s rather peculiar. Right now I’m trying to investigate as much as I can on the matter. You see, there’s something that’s caught my attention.”
“What do you mean?” Mari responded.
“Anyway, I want you to tell me. What happened when you got adopted?”
Mr. Ishibashi stared deep into Mari’s eyes.
Mari was in her teens when she was adopted by the young married couple that had yet to have a child.
When Mari first arrived at the mansion in the forest at the outskirts of the city where she would be beginning her new life, she was filled with both fear and excitement for what was to come.
At first, Mari couldn’t get herself to like the young couple. They were especially naggy.
Clothes, table manners, studying, and so on. For someone like Mari who had an especially lazy attitude towards studying, her everyday life felt suffocating. She felt like it was pointless to learn how to use a knife and fork. All that mattered was the end result of the food entering her stomach. She didn’t need to study anything.
I’m going to become a hairstylist.
Obviously you can’t become one by being an idiot, but that doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of genius.
The only thing Mari liked about them was that they didn’t force her to call them Mom and Dad. Mari simply called them by their names.
Masashi Kuwata and Reiko Kuwata… So she called them Masashi and Reiko.
Masashi and Reiko would always leave home early in the morning and come home late in the night. It wasn’t that uncommon for them to not come home until the next morning, either. It was understandable that being stuck in a huge mansion in the forest during the night all alone ended up being quite lonely for her.
Mari once asked Masashi and Reiko what their job was.
They only told her that they were researching something important.
Reiko added that if their experiments were successful, they’d prove to be of much help to society.
Mari was a little happy upon hearing that.
Maybe they’re really important people.
One night, Masashi and Reiko came home late as usual and headed to Mari’s room.
Upon hearing the sound of a knock, Mari rushed to put away the book she was reading and pretended to be sleeping.
Masashi and Reiko quietly approached the side of her bed.
“I wonder if it was really the right thing to adopt her,” Reiko whispered.
“Sometimes I think that we might just end up making her feel even lonelier…”
“Yes, I feel the same way.”
Masashi responded.
“That’s why I think we should do everything we can for her. But maybe we wind up being too hard on her by doing that.”
“Hey, how about the three of us visit an amusement park together next Sunday?”
“You’re right,” Masashi replied as he gently stroked Mari’s head.
“I’m sure the world will be going through some tough times by the time she grows up. I want her to be happy.”
While still feigning her sleep, Mari prayed that she’d grow to love these two people more. In either case, she couldn’t wait for next Sunday.
But that fun Sunday never came.
Mari began waking up at 6:30 every morning to eat breakfast together with Masashi and Reiko.
On that day, Mari happened to oversleep by half an hour and rushed to get dressed before heading down to the dining room.
That’s a little weird, Mari thought.
Normally Reiko would come to shout at me to wake up if I overslept for even five minutes.
Upon stepping into the dining room, Mari froze in shock.
The room was in a complete mess.
The curtains were fluttering from the wind blowing into the broken windows.
“Masashi! Reiko!” Mari began shouting out of fear.
But no one responded.
She ran into the garden and once again began screaming their names.
The wind was especially strong. It drowned out the sounds of everything else.
The harsh wind threatened to even send Mari’s tiny body flying at any second.
Mari then noticed Masashi and Reiko’s clothes lying in the garden.
They were the suits they often wore when heading to work.
Those clothes were fluttering from the wind.
What happened?
Mari couldn’t understand what was going on.
It was like Masashi and Reiko were carried away by the wind.
Leaving behind only their clothes.
She never saw the two of them ever again.
Mari returned to Ryusei School.
The police suspected that Masashi Kuwata and Reiko Kuwata had gotten caught up in some kind of incident and began investigating, but they failed to find any clues.
For a long time, Mari regretted that she never called the two of them Mom and Dad.
That must had been what they truly wanted.
A month after the mysterious disappearance, a man that claimed to be Masashi Kuwata’s older brother came to Ryusei School to see Mari.
He handed her a black briefcase.
“This is from Masashi.”
He then left without saying anything else.
Upon opening it up, she found a belt of some kind that she had never seen before.
It wasn’t until later on that she found out that it was a device for Faiz.
After hearing what Mari had to say, Mr. Ishibashi stood up without saying anything.
“Mr. Ishibashi?”
“You were lucky. You didn’t have to see the moment your foster parents were murdered.”
“What do you mean by that…?”
Murdered?
Masashi and Reiko were… murdered?
Of course, it wasn’t as if Mari had never had that thought come across her, but it was still somewhat of a shock for her to hear that so bluntly. And what did it mean for every single one of the foster parents of the students of Ryusei School to have been murdered? It was too much to just be considered a coincidence.
“I can’t say anything right now,” said. Mr. Ishibashi.
“I need to hear what the rest of the students have to say first.”
Mari asked him to take her along with him.
Even if he refused, she was determined to do everything she could to follow him.
She knew there would be sleepless nights ahead of her otherwise at this rate.
Shouji Inukai, a man about one year older than Mari, lived in a rundown wooden apartment away from human eyes. He was open enough to have Mari and Mr. Ishibashi come into his house, but he wasn’t very happy being questioned.
Shouji Inukai was one of the kids that often bullied Masato Kusaka during their time in Ryusei School, and he also got into fights with Mari occasionally.
He was the quiet and gloomy type.
“Like I mentioned over the phone, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
He asked him the same question he asked Mari.
I was wondering if you could tell me about the time you were adopted…
The question came out while Shouji was serving tea to Mari and Mr. Ishibashi.
The teapot suddenly rolled onto the table.
Shouji’s hands had been turned into ash.
His entire body instantly crumbled into a pile of ash.
An Orphnoch!
Mari internally yelled out those words.
“T-They’re here…!”
Mr. Ishibashi, who usually never showed his emotions, had fear clearly written across his face.
“Run, Sonoda! Hurry!”
Mari ran right behind Mr. Ishibashi. She then tripped at some point and lost sight of him.
Mari called out his name while looking for him.
An extremely exhausted Mr. Ishibashi then stumbled out from behind a telephone pole in front of her.
He waved his hand towards her.
That hand then turned into ash and was carried away by the wind.
That large hand that had often stroked Mari’s head in the past was now gone.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 