All the clues connected at this moment—the traits Akemi and Shiho shared with both herself and Kanjuro, Kanjuro's sudden appearance, him being with her daughters... Miyano Elena looked at Kanjuro, then at Akemi, who was clinging to her side and clearly dependent on him, and at Shiho, who remained silent but didn't dispute Kanjuro's identity. A clear and shocking truth surfaced in her mind.
Kanjuro was not just her buried first love, but the... biological father of her two daughters!
And this man, after disappearing for over a decade, had burst back into her life in this manner, bringing them with him.
Inside the wooden cabin, the joy of reunion had not yet dissipated before a deeper shock, unsolved mysteries, and complex pasts surrounded everyone like a silent tide. Looking at Kanjuro's eternally youthful face, Miyano Elena felt as if she saw her own youth—filled with sweetness, pain, and mystery—roaring back in a way she never imagined. Before the emotional tears of recognition could dry, the atmosphere of warmth and sadness shifted abruptly toward something subtle and tense as Kanjuro spoke again.
Kanjuro paced to the window, his gaze sweeping over the simple environment filled with professional equipment before landing back on Miyano Elena's lovely face, which was a mix of shock, nostalgia, and a hint of unease. His tone sounded like casual small talk, yet it carried a condescending scrutiny:
"It seems your life these past years has been quite 'fulfilling'?" His gaze pointedly drifted over the experimental equipment.
Miyano Elena barely managed to snap out of her shock, subconsciously following his gaze to her workbench. That was the spiritual pillar she had relied on for over a decade and the shell she used to escape reality. She took a deep breath, trying to mask her inner turmoil with calmness:
"Yes... I've been doing some research. It's... a way to keep myself busy, and also... a form of atonement." Her words carried deep exhaustion and a faint, hard-to-detect obsession.
Just then, Ai Haibara (Shiho Miyano), who had been observing silently, suddenly spoke. Her voice was cold, like a stone thrown into an already restless lake:
"Like Mother, I was also researching APTX4869." She paused and added, "Previously, while in the Organization."
"What?!" Miyano Elena snapped her head toward Haibara Ai, her eyes filled with unbelievable heartache and worry. "Shiho! You... you too..." She couldn't imagine that her youngest daughter had also been forced into that terrible drug research and had even stayed in that den of monsters! As a mother, she felt a piercing pity and intense guilt.
Seeing this, Akemi Miyano hurried forward to hold her mother's hand, trying to comfort her while speaking with a tone bordering on boastful: "Mother, don't worry! Papa saved us! If it weren't for Papa, Shiho and I might have been killed by the Organization long ago! Papa is very strong; even Gin and Vodka listen to him now!"
"Akemi!" Haibara Ai couldn't help but snap in a low voice, wanting to stop her sister's loose tongue, but it was too late.
"Gin... Vodka...?" Miyano Elena repeated the two names, her face instantly turning as pale as paper! Bloody and painful memories flooded her mind like a tide—the blazing laboratory, the resolute look in Koji Miyano's eyes (her nominal brother, but actually her comrade and protector) as he pushed her away, and... the vague sight of that cold, silver-haired killer (Gin) and that silent, burly figure (Vodka) amidst the flames and chaos!
Her body swayed slightly, and her gaze toward Kanjuro was filled with shock, anger, and extreme confusion: "Kanjuro! You... how could you be associated with Gin and Vodka?! Don't you know! Back then... among the cleanup crew the Organization sent that killed Koji, they were there! Their hands are stained with Koji's blood!!" Her voice was sharp with agitation and a sob; over a decade of endurance and hatred erupted at this moment.
Faced with Elena's tearful accusation, Kanjuro's reaction was chillingly calm.
He didn't even turn around, still facing the forest outside the window, his tone as indifferent as if discussing the weather:
"That was me, not you."
He tilted his head slightly, glancing at the agitated Elena out of the corner of his eye.
"Koji Miyano is dead. What does that have to do with me?"
His words were bone-chillingly cold, showing no respect for the deceased, let alone empathy for Elena's pain.
"What matters is—"
He slowly turned around, his gaze calmly sweeping over Elena, then Akemi and Haibara Ai, before finally declaring with an absolute, unquestionable tone, word by word:
"Gin and Vodka are my subordinates now."
"..."
A dead silence fell over the wooden cabin.
Miyano Elena stared blankly at Kanjuro, at the matter-of-fact, controlling, and indifferent expression on his face, as if her blood had frozen in an instant.
He didn't care about Koji's life or death.
He had even... recruited the killers who murdered Koji?
And her daughters seemed to... have accepted or even become dependent on this fact?
A massive sense of absurdity, betrayal, and a chill deep in her bones made it almost impossible for her to breathe. The joy of reunion she had initially imagined was shattered by the cruel reality. Kanjuro's reappearance brought not salvation, but a darker, more incomprehensible mystery and... potential immense danger.
She looked at Kanjuro, this man she had once loved deeply but who had now become so strange, her heart filled with endless confusion and fear. Meanwhile, Kanjuro accepted her gaze calmly, as if admiring her fragile state as her beliefs collapsed. The journey to find Miyano Elena seemed to have reached its end, but the true storm might have only just begun.
The day's shock, accusations, and cold confrontation left an invisible barrier over the atmosphere in the cabin. Miyano Elena locked herself in her room, claiming she needed peace. Kanjuro didn't force the issue, merely letting Akemi and Haibara Ai accompany their mother with a meaningful look.
Night fell, and the forest sank into a deep silence, broken only by occasional insect chirps and the rustling of wind through the treetops. Akemi and Haibara Ai tactfully created a private space for their parents, quietly retreating to the other side of the house.
Kanjuro pushed open the unlocked door to Elena's bedroom. Only a dim bedside lamp was lit inside, its soft light outlining the slender figure by the window. Miyano Elena wore a simple silk nightgown, her long hair loose as she faced away from him, looking out at the dark night. The moonlight fell upon her, draping her in a hazy, sorrowful veil.
Hearing the door open, she didn't turn around, but spoke softly with a trace of ethereal trance, as if traveling back through a dozen years of time:
"Kanjuro... do you remember? Many years ago, when we were still in high school..."
Kanjuro walked slowly behind her, close enough to smell the faint scent of forest and herbs in her hair. His gaze fell on her slender neck and soft profile, his eyes deep.
"Of course I remember." His voice was low and certain, carrying a strange, almost bewitching magnetic quality. "In those three years of high school, among so many girls... the one I liked most was you, Elena." His words were blunt and honest, acknowledging the reality of that youthful romance while also making no secret of his "fickleness" back then.
This blunt admission made Elena's body tremble almost imperceptibly. She slowly turned around and looked up at him. Under the dim light, her eyes were like violets stained with the night, filled with complex emotions—nostalgia, bitterness, deep grievance, and the exhaustion of having lived through many trials.
"I know... I know you were a playboy, fickle, like a wind that couldn't be caught..." Her voice carried a slight sob. "But... I still fell for you beyond recovery."
She took a deep breath, as if making a resolution, looking directly into Kanjuro's eyes—eyes so deep they made one's heart skip a beat—and revealed a secret buried in her heart for years:
"When I was pregnant with Akemi... and later, when I was pregnant with Shiho... I... purposely kept it from you."
Kanjuro's brow twitched almost imperceptibly, but he didn't interrupt her.
"I hid away, gave birth to them alone, and raised them by myself in those early days..." Elena's voice trembled slightly, an instinctive reaction to the hardship of the past. "I... I didn't want you to know they existed."
She looked up, tears shimmering in her eyes, yet with a sense of stubbornness:
"Because I was afraid... I was afraid that if you knew, you would leave them as easily as you left me. Or... or you would involve them in your mysterious world full of unknown dangers. I just wanted my daughters to grow up like ordinary children—safe and simple..."
This was her clumsiest yet most resolute way of protecting them as a mother in her state of helplessness and insecurity back then. Even if she had to bear all the hardships alone, even if her daughters lacked a father's love, she wanted to isolate them from everything uncertain related to Kanjuro.
She looked at Kanjuro, wanting to find a trace of emotion, or anger, or any reaction that could be called "human" on his face.
Kanjuro listened quietly, his face showing no ripples, as if listening to a story that had nothing to do with him. Only after Elena finished did he slowly raise his hand, his fingertips gently brushing over her wet eyes with an almost cruel tenderness.
"So, you took my daughters and married someone else? Let them call another man 'Father'?" His voice was soft, yet like a cold needle piercing the most sensitive part of Elena's heart.
Elena closed her eyes abruptly, tears falling again. "That was... that was for survival, to give them an identity... Koji was a good man..."
"A good man?" Kanjuro chuckled softly, his laughter unreadable. "Pity, good men don't live long."
He leaned down, close to Elena's ear. His warm breath brushed against her earlobe, his voice low and filled with an unquestionable sense of control:
"But now, I've found them. They know who I am, and they've returned to my side. What you tried so hard to hide back then has ultimately returned to the starting point."
His fingers gently tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him,
"Elena, whether you admit it or not, Akemi and Shiho have my blood flowing through their veins. This is a fact that can never be changed. And you... have also returned before me."
His words were like a final verdict, declaring the futility of all her past efforts and sacrifices, and announcing that she and her daughters had ultimately failed to escape the vortex of their intertwined fates with him.
Miyano Elena looked at the handsome face before her, both familiar and strange, and felt the powerful and dangerous aura emanating from him; her heart was filled with endless confusion and a sense of powerlessness at being toyed with by fate. She didn't know what the future held for them, but she was certain of one thing—Kanjuro's appearance had completely shattered the hard-won peace the mother and daughters had maintained, pulling them into an even deeper and more unfathomable unknown.
Kanjuro's words, like a final ultimatum, echoed in the air, declaring the inseparability of bloodlines and the unavoidability of reality. He watched the pain and struggle surging in Miyano Elena's eyes and, slowly but with unquestionable power, put forward his demand:
...0
"Elena, come back. Stay by my side with Akemi and Shiho. We... can be together."
These words were like a thunderclap exploding in Elena's chaotic mind. "Together?" she murmured, then as if thinking of some terrifying possibility, she snapped her head up. Her beautiful eyes were filled with horror and a fear that sought confirmation, her voice turning sharp:
"Kanjuro! You... tell me! Regarding Akemi and Shiho... have you already... 'laid hands' on them?!" She used an extremely implicit yet unmistakably clear term, her body trembling with fear, terrified of hearing the answer that would cause her to completely break down.
Facing her direct, almost desperate questioning, Kanjuro showed no panic at being exposed; he didn't even show a hint of guilt. He simply met her fearful gaze with a calm that bordered on cruel honesty and admitted faintly:
"They are my daughters; my blood flows in their bodies. In this world, no one is more qualified to 'possess' them than I am, right?" He didn't describe the process directly, but these words admitted everything.
"As I thought... so it really is like this..." Miyano Elena stumbled back a step, leaning against the cold wall. A smile that looked more painful than crying, filled with bitterness and realization, appeared on her face as tears fell silently. "I knew it... I knew you were this kind of person at your core... selfish, cold, following that twisted set of laws that belongs only to you... That's why... why I would rather suffer alone back then to secretly give birth to them and hide them from you... I was afraid this day would come..."
All her premonitions, all her fears based on her knowledge of Kanjuro's nature, were cruelly confirmed at this moment. Her escape and concealment years ago were not baseless paranoia.
Kanjuro listened quietly to her accusations and cries without refuting them. He walked slowly toward her, gazing closely at her tear-stained yet still moving face, ignoring the blame in her words to ask a question that struck even deeper into her soul:
"Then, Elena, putting all of this aside..."
His voice was low, carrying a strange and unavoidable penetration,
"Do you still love me?"
This question was like a key, instantly opening the emotional floodgates deep within Elena's heart—gates that had been sealed for over a decade but never truly locked.
All anger, fear, and accusations froze at this moment. She looked at this man, the one who first let her taste the flavor of love, who gave life to her two daughters, and who was the source of her endless pain and longing. In her decade of seclusion, through countless lonely nights, the image that refused to leave her mind—besides her concern for her daughters—was his eternally unchanging youthful face with that wicked smile.
The strength she had feigned for years collapsed in an instant. She closed her eyes, letting the tears flow freely, and with all her strength, with a desperate honesty of someone who has nothing left to lose, she choked out:
"Love... how could I not love you..."
Her voice was broken, yet it contained a staggering emotional power,
"I love you to death... all these years, the only person I couldn't forget... was you, Kanjuro..."
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