"Barbara Ikai" 3

Flowers 2002 December


Kiriya is running in his dream. He is wearing a costume of Kagura. Kagura is a performance for the Shinto shrines in Japan. He can't tell if he is fleeing or chasing something. A stick he is holding hits something and it breaks. Many birds show up and they bite him. He wakes up in his room. A boy feels relieved that he's gone to a safe place.

Watarai Tokio visits Jujo Aoba's grandmother, Nanami, with Momota, a researcher. Nanami lives in Kamakura with her husband. Aoba's mother, Chana, was Nanami and her ex-husband's daughter. When Nanami was 32, she married Ezra Stradi, a 22-year-old researcher in Jujo Pharmaceutical Company. Ezra was half German and half Japanese, and had duel-nationalitiles. Nanami and Ezra got divorced when Chana was a baby because Nanami's aunt and Ezra eloped to Germany. Nanami's aunt was a 40-year-old learning disabled woman then. Nanami says Ezra has never seen Chana since they divorced. She says Ezra could be dead since she's never heard of his name in the medical world for these 46 years.

"TV shows speculated Chana or I had some problems and that caused the incident. However, I don't think we have any problem. Chana was a victim. Do you know something? Aoba took Chana's heart out of her body. Aoba got satisfied after eating her parents' hearts and she's been sleeping. She looks like a devil! " yelled Nanami.
Nanami's husband says Shizune, who went to Germany with Ezra, died two years after they eloped. "I wish Aoba will keep sleeping forever!" yells Nanami again.

Watarai gets sick after the visit and Momota decides to put off their plan to visit Chana's counselor to the next day.

Watarai goes to Tokyo to see Kiriya. Watarai sees Kiriya with a girl in a park. Kiriya is slapped by her. They seem to start a fight and some boys appear to support the girl. Watarai says hello to Kiriya to prevent the fight. The girl asks Kiriya who Watarai is. Kiriya says he's a stranger. A boy holding a stick tells Kiriya to apologize the girl. Kiriya takes his stick and hits another boy's arm with it. He wins the fight dancing a sword-dance like Kagura.

Watarai and Kiriya go to a restaurant. Watarai saw Kiriya wearing a Kagura mask three years ago, when he visited Ise, where Kiriya and his mother, Akemi, lived. Akemi's father is a Kagura musician. Kiriya says he's given up practicing Kagura performance because he was expelled. Watarai asks why. Kiriya says it was because he tried to kill Mr. Daikoku.
Watarai asked Daikoku to go to Ise and give Akemi a former-life treatment three years ago. He wonders if Kiriya didn't like the former-life treatment. He asks Kiriya why he tried to kill Daikoku. "I've forgotten. I was a kid and had a lot of problems then. I failed to kill him. He was stronger than me." says Kiriya.
The world has never reacted to Kiriya since then. Kiriya knows why. The world has abandoned him.
"Tokio, what do you do in Engaru? Did you see the girl in the photo?" asks Kiriya. "Yes, I saw her. Kiriya, why did you try to stop me from going to Engaru at the airport?" asks Watarai.
"Because she was evil. Didn't you think she was when you saw her?" says Kiriya. Watarai shows Kiriya the image of the island thinking Kiriya might have a kind of sixth sense as Watarai can get into someone else's dreams. Watarai tells Kiriya it's a phantom island.
Seeing the image, Kiriya shouts, "Shit, someone must have invaded my computer! This is an island I made. See, I scanned my right hand and filtered the image so it would look like an island." "Did you? Why? When?" asks Watarai. "For fun." says Kiriya, "It's for fun, but it's mine." Watarai asks,"Does the island have a name?" Kiriya answers, "Barbara!"

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