1 The Iikari Family (Part 1)

I was born as a triplet. My brother and I were identical twins, and my sister was born to add to us being triplets. But, I didn't know I was a triplet, nor a twin, until a while after my 17th birthday.

We were born of the Iikari Household, of the First Branch and as our 800+ yearlong traditions follow, identical twins were separated at birth and sent abroad to live with distant relatives. The unlucky generation ended up living with strangers.

I was sent to South Korea to a relative who dealt in international trade and when I was four years old we moved to the United States of America, where we stayed until I finished elementary school, and then we moved north to Canada.

After entering high school and finishing ninth grade, I received a summons from the main branch in Japan and ended up attending an international private high school.

In my second year of school, I took an exchange program for one semester in Germany. That might have been a mistake.

The school I ended up going to for the exchange was the same one that my younger twin brother was going to. I later found out that he wasn't summoned back to Japan because his grades were too low to be accepted into the private school.

My first day of class in Germany was chaotic, with pointed fingers and surprised exclaims. The teacher thought it was a joke until he realized that my brother and I must have been twins separated at birth since we both did share the family name and were the spitting image of each other.

I got acquainted with and became fast friends with my twin. perhaps it was because we were identical and had the same genetic makeup, we got close fast.

It was through him that I learned about our triplet sister who alone lived in Japan with our birth parents.

Two years later, we decided to meet. All three of us. I was finishing up with my entrance exam studies, so our sister went ahead to meet our brother. My brother had recently gotten his own car and took our sister and a younger relative out for a drive that day in Germany. I had booked a plane ticket to arrive two days later, so I was oblivious to what would eventually happen.

As I was packing my bags, I got a telegram. I mean, a phone call. We don't use telegrams in this day and age. When I picked up the phone, I could hear a faint and raspy voice that sounded like my fourth great uncle who lived in Germany. He was sobbing and was apologizing. Then he hung up after what seemed like a while.

I got the news another day later.

There had been a major traffic crash, about six vehicles were involved. 9 people were killed, and 2 survived with some burns and injuries.

The good news was that the two who had survived were family.

The bad news was that my brother's car had three people.

...

When I got to the hospital in Germany, I met my cousin who seemed alright. She was covered in light burns and some bruises. Despite the car wreck, she was pulled out of, she was the least injured. My brother also came out mostly unscathed, but when he woke up he began screaming when he saw me.

Later I came to understand that my brother had developed a form of post-traumatic stress disorder combined with schizophrenia psychosis due to what the doctors believed to be a tremendous feeling of guilt. According to the inspector on the scene of the crash, my brother wasn't at fault at all, one of the dead was believed to be on drugs and the prime suspect of the crash. They managed to recover a text message sent by an untraceable number that gave orders for the crash, so the idea was that there was a mastermind behind the accident. Interpol eventually came to the scene because they believed that this case was among a series of cases that have been going on for decades. In every case, there was at least one death of a Japanese person. And the only other tie to the cases was that there were shreds of evidence left behind of orders but to that day still, they couldn't trace the evidence to the real mastermind.

After another visit to my brother, the doctors confirmed that my presence was a trigger for the traumatic memories suffocating my brother. So I was forbidden to visit my brother ever again.

Last I heard, my brother had been moved to a mental asylum in another country, but I was never given any clues or details on where.

After a year had passed, I had moved on. I got accepted to a university in Canada and immigrated to welcome my new life.