Kishitani Shinra Episode

This is a story about the past.

A story of twisted history.

About 15 years ago. Kawagoe Highway. Shinra’s apartment.

One day, when Shinra Kishitani was still in elementary school.

‘Welcome back, Shinra.’

The boy replied with a childlike enthusiasm to the woman, who had shown him her words on a notebook.

There was nothing above the woman’s neck but black, wisping shadows; she was missing not only a voice, but her entire head.

“Thank goodness! You’re still here today!”

“I was so worried you might’ve suddenly decided to go back to Ireland…”

(*Renraku-chō: a notebook passed between teachers and parents for correspondence such as announcements.)

‘Don’t forget to rinse your mouth.’

Shinra said gleefully; Celty interrupted him with another push with her shadows and shut the door firmly behind him.

—How did this happen… Does this mean he’s as twisted as his father?

Bullying would be the least of their worries should she, a headless woman, be seen; it only showed that Celty’s understanding of human society was yet imperfect.

—Did something happen?

—Oh my.
She caught it instinctively and took a look, seeing the following:

Dear Parents & Guardians, Notice for Lesson Observation Session

—Ah, I see, elementary schools have this.

Shinra’s father, Kishitani Shingen, was not the most normal person, and even if he were, he was the kind of man that disappeared from their home half the time for work. Apparently he and Shinra’s mother Kaname were divorced; Celty had never even seen the woman before.

Even if Shingen were around right now, if such an oddball were to visit Shinra’s school, Shinra would probably end up bullied.

—I’m sorry, Shinra. I can’t replace your mother.

—Wait, why did she marry such a weird guy in the first place?

‘Being human is tough too,’ Celty mused, sympathising with Shinra’s mother, who she had never met, when suddenly the thought struck her. ‘It never bothered me before, but why hasn’t Shinra’s mother come to visit him at all?’

— Sigh. For all Shinra is her son, maybe she can’t stand that he’s Shingen’s son as well… They’re family, so it would be nice if it weren’t something so sad.

—It feels bad to probe about their family issues, but surely Shinra wants his parents to attend his lesson observation.

Due to that she had made the sweeping generalisation that Shinra, the central party, would want to meet his parents.

That sweeping generalisations had many exceptions when it came to humans, and—
That the perspective of love the boy Kishitani Shinra had was somewhat different from most humans.

Shinra’s apartment. Traditional-style room.

With Shingen gone for the time being, Celty had the traditional-style room all to herself.

Remembering that there was something like a diary in the pile, after checking that Shinra was asleep, Celty took a peek.

—Eh, it’s to find out more about your wife. Forgive me, you weirdo.

She fed her shadow into the keyhole and picked open the lock; only to discover the shocking news within the journal.
—What…

There, Shingen’s script documented several events.

—’She would always have violent mood swings before our child. I don’t know if it was a mental illness or a born inclination. But she could be hugging our son with a smile on her face one moment, and a few seconds later she would shove him to the floor with angry eyes, and then the next moment she would be sobbing like a child.’

—’Maybe that is why he is so taken with the Headless Rider.’

Having read thus far Celty closed the journal, and returned it to the pile.

—So Shinra had such a hard time before I came…

To take another look at the notice for the lesson observation.

The next week. Lesson Observation Day.

It was fifth period for the elementary schoolers.

Shinra, carefree as ever despite the atmosphere, asked his friend seated diagonally in front of him,

The black-haired boy he had called to—Heiwajima Shizuo—answered boredly.

“Ah, Kasuka’s smart unlike you, so they must’ve wanted to see their child getting praise.”

Shizuo glared at Shinra, but his anger was dispersed by the noise around them.

Shinra and Shizuo looked into the corridor, seeing a suspicious figure.

It appeared that she had been about to enter the class before being caught by the staff passing by, and she was now surrounded by teachers.

“What?”

“Oi, Kishitani, what’s wrong?”

But rather than a reply, his words were directed to the staff in the corridor,

“Eh? Kishitani’s…?”

“She had a throat surgery a while ago… She can’t talk right now.”

“Oh, so sorry…! This way, please!”

And with the teachers’ one-sided assumption that Celty was probably his mother or sister—family, at any rate—a strange black silhouette took its place at the back of the classroom.

In answer to Shizuo, Shinra’s face coloured, and, happily, happily, he replied.
“Yeah!”

Evening. Shinra’s apartment.

“Celty! Thank you!”

It was not in a perverse way; simply the way a child would cling to a parent.

Just as Shinra made as to refute that—

“What a horrid idea, Celty-kun; bluffing with a mannequin’s head? Just one slip and you could’ve been taken for a suspicious intruder, or entered the headlines as a global-scale discovery!”

Celty wrote the words with obvious dislike, to which Shingen puffed out his chest.

‘The kanji is different. But wait, does that mean you went to the school too?’

Ignoring the cries of Shingen, who had the unusual habit of wearing a pure-white gas mask, Celty softly pat the head of Shinra, who was clinging to her still.

“No way. I don’t even remember much about my mom.”

“Bad things?”

‘Ah… I mean… I’m sorry. It was nothing.’

‘Don’t talk about it! Who would say that in front of the victim?’

“You… youyouyou read it! You! What have you done! Damn it… To read the story I wrote in a padlocked journal, have you no heart or soul! You monster!”

Celty wrote on the notepad, before startling, and asking Shingen,

“A story indeed! It was a story I started in my journal with my life with Shinra and you as the models; I was planning to get a mountain of awards, too!”

“I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near a woman that unstable in the first place!”

Upon being asked, Shingen averted his eyes behind the gas mask, and mumbling more muffledly than ever, replied.

(*Reference to Saika.)
‘There’s no excuse!’

After Shingen had fled the apartment in embarassment, Celty wrote on the notebook, with an air of weariness,

“Maybe? Children don’t choose their parents. I don’t really know.”

“I’ve chosen my bride already, though.”

Unable to understand, Celty went back to their initial subject instead.

“No, that wasn’t parental* observation.”

‘Oh, you mean mother’s observation?’

“I’m going to marry you, Celty! So today was fiancée observation day!”

Celty wrote hurriedly, before she punched him, softly, on the head.

‘Yeah yeah. I’ll make your ‘kiss’ of marriage hurt much worse.’

Not knowing that little joke would seal their vows more than 10 years later.

This is a story of the past.

Just as the district of Ikebukuro has its past, so do people.

Even if it takes a winding path between.

A few days later—Shinra was on the way to school from the apartment.

“Ah, he looks well, that’s good. I hope he doesn’t grow up twisted like Shingen.”

Asking her mother in the front seat was a little girl, perhaps four or five, pressing her hands and forehead to the window.

The youthfully-dressed woman pushed up her sunglasses, smiling at Shinra as he walked past—and turned that same smile to her daughter in the back seat.
“He’s your big brother, so you have to remember him, okay, Kazane?”

And so the past weaves into the future.
To the footsteps of Kinomiya Kazane; Kishitani Shinra’s sister of a different father.

****EPISODE END****