IYAMI's Seven-Day War: The End of the Counterattack Against the Sextuplets
"This is my final battle, zansu."
IYAMI, always the laughingstock of the Matsuno sextuplets, was never just a comical antagonist. He was once a respected gentleman in Parisian high society, a man who lost everything in a single, abhorrent incident.
The sextuplets' innocent cruelty awakens a genuine darkness within IYAMI. One day, a casual insult from Todomatsu ignites his fury. With a sinister grin, he declares, "For seven days, I'll fight you seriously, zansu. If you win, I'll disappear forev
IYAMI's Seven-Day War: The End of the Counterattack Against the Sextuplets - A Family in Ruins, Zansu—The Night the Matsuno Household Shatters from Within
Even after morning came, the second-floor six-mat room of the Matsuno house remained steeped in night.
Through a gap in the tightly drawn curtains, the fierce August sunlight pierced the tatami in a thin, sharp line. Inside that ribbon of light, fine dust drifted slowly, lazily. The copies of the victim case files they'd brought back from Akatsuki Park the night before still lay scattered across the center of the room. No one had cleaned them up. No one had even been able to touch them.
The sextuplets huddled on their respective futons, curled into themselves. They weren't sleeping. They hadn't slept a wink. The dark circles beneath their eyes told the story of their exhaustion. Outside the window, cicadas began their droning *min-min* cry. Today would be hot again — that premonition alone seeped into the oppressive air.
Todomatsu lifted his face from his futon. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips dry.
" ...Who's gonna be targeted next, I wonder."
A murmur to himself, yet unmistakably calculated. Someone other than himself should be the next target — that naked wish bled into the edges of his voice.
Osomatsu raised his head. He looked at Todomatsu with bloodshot eyes.
" Todomatsu, you..."
He opened his mouth, trying to say something. But last night's whiskey still lingered in his head. His temples throbbed with pain, his thoughts refusing to cohere.
Choromatsu leaned against the wall, clutching a job-hunting magazine to his chest. The corners of the thick magazine were warped and swollen with sweat. Head bowed, he spoke in a small voice.
" We're all gonna be targeted. One by one."
It was the voice of someone trying to convince himself.
At those words, Todomatsu's face twisted.
" I already got mine over with on the first day. The rest doesn't have anything to do with me."
A defensive line. *I'm in the safe zone* — by declaring it, he was trying to escape the terror of becoming the next target.
Choromatsu slowly lifted his head. His fingers, gripping the job-hunting magazine, turned white.
" You think you're the only one who's safe? If that's not self-serving calculation, what the hell is it?"
Todomatsu's eyes glinted sharply.
" Huh? Why don't *you* count how many times you've failed your job hunt? Which one of us isn't needed by society?"
The air in the room froze.
The color drained from Choromatsu's face. Twelve consecutive visits to the Hello Work Akatsuki branch office. Twelve consecutive rejections — that fact, now thrust before him by his own younger brother's mouth. His lips trembled. He tried to say something — and no words came.
" Stop it, both of you."
Osomatsu stood up. He was trying to mediate. But his voice carried no strength. He didn't possess the words, as the eldest brother, to settle this.
It was then —
Karamatsu picked up the sunglasses resting on the tatami and slowly put them on. Then, standing by the window, he turned around with the morning sun at his back.
" My brothers... Right now, I can see everyone's pain. That is my kindness, and at the same time, my solitude."
A tone-deaf, pseudo-profound pronouncement.
The room's anger ignited in a different direction.
Choromatsu glared at Karamatsu. His voice shook with rage.
" No one asked for that cringey Karamatsu-niisan act of yours. And the fact that he himself doesn't even realize it makes it so much worse."
Karamatsu's face twisted beneath his sunglasses.
" My aloofness... you who cannot understand it..."
He started to speak, then his voice caught. The fingers gripping his sunglasses trembled faintly.
In the corner of the room, Ichimatsu, who had been hugging his knees and facing the wall, stirred slightly. From beneath the hood of his black parka, a hoarse voice leaked out.
" I know I'm gloomy and dark."
Everyone looked at Ichimatsu.
Still facing the wall, Ichimatsu continued.
" But you guys have always treated me like some convenient *inkya* you could use. Made me a laughingstock, only talked to me when it suited you."
He raised his voice for the first time.
The room froze. No one could argue back. There was no way they could. Because Ichimatsu's words had precisely skewered the discomfort that every single one of them had felt somewhere in their hearts.
From the hallway, strange footsteps echoed.
*Thud-thud-thud-thud—*
Juushimatsu was running wildly through the hallway. Unable to comprehend the situation, he just kept running. That very innocence only made the heaviness in the room stand out more starkly.
Choromatsu murmured quietly.
" ...Have we ever once seriously asked what that guy is really thinking?"
In that instant, Juushimatsu peered into the room from the hallway.
Eyes opened wide. But there was nothing behind them. Just a bottomless emptiness, sitting there.
Everyone fell silent.
Juushimatsu tilted his head, then ran off down the hallway again.
Osomatsu stood rooted to the spot, biting his lip. As the eldest, he had to say something here. He had to pull his brothers together. But — the words wouldn't come. No matter what he said, it would just be laughing it off like always. That wouldn't satisfy anyone anymore.
Todomatsu stood up.
" You know, *aniki*..."
The eyes looking at Osomatsu were utterly cold.
" You always act like the big brother, but you've never actually decided a single thing. Isn't the reason we've all fallen this far because you just laughed everything off?"
A single remark that pierced straight to the core.
Osomatsu's face went pale. He couldn't argue back. He wanted to say *that's not true*. But the words wouldn't rise from his throat. Todomatsu's accusation had perfectly, exhaustively struck the truth that Osomatsu himself felt more keenly than anyone.
" ...That's..."
Silence ruled the room.
With each brother putting their deepest wounds into words, spitting out things that could no longer be taken back, the unity of the sextuplets had completely collapsed. Each one hugged their knees in a corner of the room, unable to meet each other's eyes.
Only time passed, heavy and slow.
Even when evening came, no one moved. They took no lunch, drank no water, just crouched in silence. Only the sound of the cicadas echoed relentlessly from outside.
Night fell.
It was past eleven o'clock at night —
*Knock, knock.*
The sound of knocking at the front door echoed through the quiet house.
No one moved.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
Again. Harder this time.
Osomatsu slowly stood up. He descended the stairs and headed for the front door. With a trembling hand, he opened it.
Standing there —
Was Iyami, dressed in a suit.
His black hair parted in a seven-three split, his characteristically pointed front teeth. His deep brown eyes quietly fixed on Osomatsu. The old silver ring on his left ring finger caught the hallway light with a dull gleam.
" Pardon the intrusion, *zansu*."
His tone brooked no argument.
Without being invited in, Iyami stepped up into the house and proceeded toward the living room. Osomatsu hurried after him, shouting toward the second floor.
" Hey, get down here! All of you!"
A short while later, all six of the sextuplets had gathered in the living room. Everyone sat down on the tatami with utterly exhausted faces. Karamatsu had removed his sunglasses, Choromatsu hung his head, Ichimatsu kept his hood pulled low. Juushimatsu had stopped moving in a strange stillness, and Todomatsu faced the wall.
Without any preamble whatsoever, Iyami pulled a bundle of documents from the envelope he had brought.
He spread them out on the tatami.
The first page.
Copies of the neighborhood association meeting minutes. Three years ago, five years ago, two years ago — on three separate occasions, a motion had been brought to place the sextuplets under an unofficial banishment order from the Akatsuki Neighborhood Association, designating them as problem residents threatening the safety of the community. Suspension of circular notice distribution, refusal of participation in neighborhood events, refusal of service at local shops — effectively ostracism. And the signature of the person who had blocked that motion every single time.
Matsuno Matsuzou.
The name of the sextuplets' father was recorded there.
The second page.
A copy of an invoice addressed to Matsuzou from a supermarket in the next town. Osomatsu's drinking tab at Izakaya Yamabuki — one hundred twenty-three thousand yen. In the payer field, Matsuno Matsuzou's signature.
Osomatsu's face went pale.
The third page.
A handwritten statement from the neighborhood association chairman, Miyashita (age 68), addressed to Iyami. Three sheets of letter paper, densely packed with writing.
— *Every time, Matsuzou-san put his head to the floor and repeated, 'Please, just give them one more chance.' Seeing that desperate figure, no one could push the banishment through* —
Iyami kept the documents spread out, saying nothing.
He simply waited quietly for all six of them to finish reading the contents.
A deep silence fell over the Matsuno family living room.
Osomatsu stared endlessly at the copy of the invoice bearing his own name and the figure of one hundred twenty thousand yen, unable to move. His fingers trembled.
Todomatsu averted his eyes from the documents and faced the wall. His usual calculating expression had vanished, leaving only a pale face behind.
Karamatsu, uncharacteristically, uttered none of his signature lines and covered his face with both hands. His shoulders trembled faintly.
Ichimatsu kept rereading the words on the documents. Again and again. His eyes held the color of someone looking at something unbelievable.
Juushimatsu, in the eerie stillness of the room, had stopped moving as if, for the first time, he had accurately sensed the atmosphere. His large eyes stared fixedly at the documents.
Choromatsu murmured in a hoarse voice.
" ...The old man never said a word. Not once."
In that instant, tears welled up in Osomatsu's eyes.
Iyami quietly opened his mouth. His voice was fluent, standard Japanese, stripped of all buffoonery.
" Your father, every single time, prostrated himself, rubbed his head against the tatami, and protected his children, *zansu*. That is the true cost of your laughter, *zansu* yo."
No one could say a thing.
" Behind the time you spent laughing, someone was bowing his head in your place. Someone was paying the money in your place. Someone was enduring the shame in your place. 'We didn't know' is no longer an excuse that will suffice, *zansu*."
Iyami said nothing more.
He gave no orders, demanded nothing, and simply walked toward the front door, leaving the documents before the sextuplets.
And then —
" I will come again tomorrow, *zansu*."
Leaving only those words behind, he closed the door.
The sextuplets left behind in the living room could not meet each other's eyes.
The scattered documents. Their father's signature. The figure of one hundred twenty-three thousand yen. Chairman Miyashita's statement — *'put his head to the floor'*.
It was then —
*Click.*
The sound of the front door key turning.
The familiar sound that announced Matsuzou's return home.
"I'm home—"
Their father's voice.
The sextuplets reflexively stood up and fled upstairs to the second floor. Taking the documents with them. As if hiding the evidence. As if fleeing from a guilt they couldn't face directly.
In the second-floor six-mat room, the six of them burrowed into their respective futons.
From downstairs, the quiet dinner conversation between Matsuzou and Matsuyo drifted up through the ceiling. Gentle voices, unchanged from any other day.
Osomatsu pressed his face into his futon.
He killed his voice and wept.
(*I... didn't know anything.*)
That the old man had been bowing his head. That he had been covering the drinking tabs. He hadn't known any of it. No — he hadn't tried to know. He'd laughed it off, pretended not to see.
(*And I'm supposed to be the eldest.*)
(*I couldn't do anything.*)
Tears soak
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.