[Sushi-Y]

Originally Posted by Freakman

Wow. Just finished reading through Minagoroshi.

Spoiler:

And finally some suppositions about Satoko/Satoshi (which may be obvious though, but then I'm pretty slow)
Satoko has gone to level 5 once. Which means that if she didn't commit suicide, she at least committed a violent act.
So she must have killed the aunt. But there are some couple issues with time tables (iirc, Satoko was at the Matsuri ?), but it sounds the most likely. Considering the Rika-Satoko exchange after Rika tells the truth about the Syndrome, it sounds believable.
After that, Satoshi tries to cover for his sister but as a result gets suspected by the police (I'll assume he was at the scene).
At this point the commando intervenes, pulls up the insane-gets suicided-hannin and onikakushies Satoshi (because he had seen Satoko kill the aunt, or because he was suspected by the police ? Had Satoshi not been suspected, they would have onikakushied Satoko ? Although that's doubtful because at that point research was still ongoing I guess. So they had to onikakushi Satoshi to cover all tracks.
But the one point that doesn't work with this theory, is that Takano refuses to reveal whether she killed Satoshi or not.

Spoiler:

For the most part, I agree, although reaching the terminal stage doesn't automatically means you have to suicide or kill anyone, that's simply a tendency caused by the symptoms. The report on Hinamizawa Syndrome clearly states that the symptoms for a terminal patient include delusion and psychopathy, especially complexes about being victimized. The tendency to suicide is mainly due to the itch that occurs in the lymphatic gland, and that the patient would literally scratch their way to it, usually breaking the artery in their neck or wrist in the process.

But in any case, we know that Satoko has reached this stage once before, and it's likely that it lead up to the death of her aunt (refer back to what I quoted Rika saying to Satoko during the school siege in Tsumihoroboshi). And yes, when Satoko was crying about her condition after Rika revealed the truth to her, Rika said "That was an accident. It's not Satoko's fault.", which strongly suggests that Satoko may have been the one who killed her aunt. After that, things get fuzzy. It's possible that Irie took Satoko under him for treatment, and prevented Takano from getting her hands on Satoko. Throughout this, it's possible that Satoshi learned the truth, and got erased by Takano's squad for it.

As for your negative "comments", it can really be argued either way. Since Rika never remembers the events leading up to her death, and her relationship with the police has always been bad, she had no way of knowing that Takano's dead body was actually a fake. Add to that the fact that Rika has "given up" trying to survive for a good portion of that 100+ years, it CAN be argued that it's reasonable for Rika to not know the identity of the true mastermind (by the way, 黒幕=kuromaku, not kurotobari). As for Rika trying to prevent the deaths of all the previous years, we can use that simple argument Rika gave "I tried to _____ before, but it didn't work". As for Hanyuu, read my other post about her true potential as a perfect spy, I'm almost 100% certain it'll play a part in Matsuribayashi.

On another topic, the injection that Rika tried to give to Shion and Rena must've been the treatment medication that Satoko received. I believe it was called treatment C120? The interesting point raised at the end of this chapter was that C120 must not be used on a healthy person. If used, it would cause "full body rashes, fever, enlarged pupils, and delusions", which sounded awfully like what Rika experienced when Shion forced the injection on her... hmm... Just something to think about.