The Series of Mysterious Deaths

Every year on the Watanagashi Festival, a strange pattern of deaths occur without fail. The pattern is that one person dies while the other is "demoned away" (literal translation of the phrase 'onikakushi') to calm Oyashiro-sama's anger. This is widely thought in Hinamizawa as "Oyashiro-sama's Curse", due to the fact that the victims are either directly or indirectly connected to those who supported the Hinamizawa Dam Project. In most scenarios, the main characters have no idea who is behind the murders, however the entire village or someone in the village is always suspected to be behind it, especially the Sonozaki family. The motive behind the killings is also never entirely clear, except revenge against enemies of Hinamizawa. As the years go by, however, the connections to the dam project become less clear. The deaths are one of the main triggers of anxiety for the protagonist in most of the arcs taking place in June of the 58th year of Shōwa (1983). The main questions pertaining to the deaths are: is it a curse, the work of people, or just coincidence?

Shōwa 54 (1979) The Construction Site Lynching Case

• Place of Event: Dam Construction Site

  

• Victim of Death: Construction Manager
• Victim of Disappearance: Dismemberment Leader

One year after the Dam Project was stopped on the night of the Watanagashi, a fight apparently broke out amongst the dam construction workers. According to news articles, the murderers had no intention to kill the victim at first. It was believed that the victim, later discovered to be the dam construction manager, attacked the workers under the Hinamizawa Syndrome. Using various axes and shovels, the workers tried to defend themselves by fighting back, beating him until he was unrecognizable. The workers, who really had no intention of killing the manager, became terrified of being labeled as murderers, and some wanted to turn themselves over to the police. However, the leader of the group came up with the idea to cut up the body into six pieces (one for each assailant to hide): the head, the torso, right arm, left arm, right leg, and left leg. This was done because the leader didn't want any of the other five to report to the police. Despite the leader's effort, his plan didn't work for too long, as one of the assailants went to the hospital to get treatment for the wounds he got in the fight that very same night, and there he confessed his crime. The rest of the group turned themselves in, but the leader still remained at large to the villagers, and the right arm was never found by the police. It is later revealed that both the arm and the leader were found by the Yamainu, and the leader subsequently became Takano's first live specimen in researching the Hinamizawa Syndrome.

To the people of Hinamizawa, this event was considered part of "Oyashiro-sama's Curse", as well as the start of the mysterious chain of deaths.

Shōwa 55 (1980) The Incident At Shirakawa Park

• Place of Event: Shirakawa Park

  

• Victim of Death: Hōjō Satoko's Stepfather
• Victim of Disappearance: Hōjō Satoko's Mother

​One year after the lynch murder, the father of the Hōjō family who was the leader of the dam support group and his wife fell from a high cliff viewing platform and down into a strong river, where they were believed to have been swept away to their deaths. They wanted to go on vacation during the Watanagashi festival, since the rest of the villagers disliked the Hōjō family so much it would be awkward to join the festival. It is believed that their fall was due to them leaning on an old guard rail. The husband's body was later found, however no one could find the wife. She was pronounced dead the next year due to the low expectancy of survival. Their daughter Satoko was with them at the scene. It is later revealed that Satoko herself was the one who pushed her parents through the railings while under an L5 state.

Shōwa 56 (1981) The Strange Deaths of Priest and Wife

• Place of Event: Hinamizawa Village

  

• Victim of Death: Furude Rika's Father
• Victim of Disappearance: Furude Rika's Mother

​On the third year of "Oyashiro-sama's Curse", the night of the Watanagashi, the head priest of the Furude Shrine died of an unknown illness. Some thought it was due to the heavy amount of stress that induced a sudden heart attack. His

wife believed his death was due to the curse, and it was believed that she drowned herself in Onigafuchi Swamp to appease Oyashiro-sama's anger. A handwritten suicide note was found by her slippers by the river, but her body was never found.

Some believe they were cursed, because the priest was relatively passive during the dam conflict and did not actively voice against the government. The Furude family were also sympathizers with the Hōjō family, who were ostracized by the Sonozakis for their support of the dam.

The third year's events were orchestrated by the Yamainu, under orders from Takano Miyo. This was motivated by Rika's mother's insistence on withdrawing her daughter from the Irie Clinic's study of Hinamizawa Syndrome. The head priest was poisoned at the festival, then rushed to the Irie Clinic under the guise of heart trouble. His wife was abducted from the clinic, with the note and slippers being planted afterwards. 

Shōwa 57 (1982) The Housewife Bludgeoning Case

• Place of Event: Roadside going to Okinomiya

  

• Victim of Death: Hōjō Tamae
• Victim of Disappearance: Hōjō Satoshi

​The next year on the Watanagashi, Hōjō Tamae was beaten to death by a baseball bat. Her skull was caved in so badly to the point where she was unrecognizable. The police suspected Hōjō Satoshi, since Tamae would regularly abuse him and Satoko. However, a police station in a neighboring prefecture reported to have caught the culprit; a drug addict who wanted to recreate the curse himself. The culprit later killed himself by choking on a spoon.

Satoshi vanished days later on Satoko's birthday. The investigative report showed that he withdrew all of his savings, supposedly going to run away. There was a report that someone who looked like Satoshi was boarding a train at Nagoya Station.

Hōjō Teppei, who was Tamae's husband, started to fear for his life. He fled to Okinomiya to live with his mistress.

It was later revealed that Satoshi did in fact kill his aunt. Five days after the murder, he went to Okinomiya to go buy Satoko a big teddy bear for her birthday, and he started show symptoms of L5 terminal phase of the Hinamizawa Syndrome. Irie rescued him by sending him to the basement of the Irie Clinic to get treatment. The Yamainu manipulated information that the murder was committed by a drug addict.

Shōwa 58 (1983)

Onikakushi-hen

• Place of Event: The dark road between Hinamizawa and Okinomiya, Gifu Mountains
• Victim of Death: Tomitake Jirō
• Victim of Disappearance:Takano Miyo

In Onikakushi-hen the fifth year's curse is the same as the previous cases. One found dead and one disappeared. In this year Tomitake Jirō scratched out his own throat and Takano Miyo went missing on the night of the Watanagashi festival (this is the only world where the "rule" [one dies, one disappears] actually happens).

There are even more forensic descriptions about the last few moments of Tomitake's life. Based on his internal bodily secretion, sweat, and hair, it is believed that he was in a state of extreme excitement right before death. A large piece of wooden timber was found next to the body, and one of Tomitake's arms received a self-inflicted wound by the very same piece of timber. However, other wounds and bruises on the body indicates that he might've been attacked. Several battered markings on the trees and ground were found around the body, which indicates that Tomitake may have been swinging the piece of lumber at unknown assailants. Tomitake's blood was also found splattered in every direction; no blood on the scene belonged to anyone else. The evidence suggests that he was swinging the piece of timber with one hand, and clawing out his throat with the other. 

Watanagashi-hen, Meakashi-hen, Tsumihoroboshi-hen

• Place of Event: The dark road between Hinamizawa and Okinomiya, Gifu Mountains
• Victim of Death: Tomitake Jirō, Takano Miyo
• Victim of Disappearance: None

In Watanagashi-hen, Meakashi-hen and in Tsumihoroboshi-hen the incident is different from the previous cases. Takano Miyo doesn't disappear, instead, she's found burned to death in an oil drum in the Gifu mountains, with some inconsistencies as to the identity and time of death. In these worlds nobody disappears.

Tatarigoroshi-hen

• Place of Event: The dark road between Hinamizawa and Okinomiya, Gifu Mountains
• Victim of Death: Tomitake Jirō, Takano Miyo, Irie Kyōsuke, Furude Rika
• Victim of Disappearance: Hōjō Teppei, Ōishi Kuraudo, Kumagai Katsuya

In Tatarigoroshi-hen Tomitake Jirō scratches out his own throat and Takano Miyo found burned to death, just like in Watanagashi-hen. However, thanks to Keiichi, this year's curse becomes completely different. Keiichi murders Satoko's uncle, Hōjō Teppei on the night of the festival and buries his corpse in the forest. However Teppei's corpse disappears so practically he becomes an "onikakushi". At the end of Tatarigoroshi-hen, Irie Kyōsuke supposedly commits suicide with sleeping pills and Ōishi Kuraudo and his subordinate, Kumagai Katsuya also disappear and Furude Rika's naked, disemboweled body is found at the Furude Shrine.

Himatsubushi-hen

• Place of Event: The dark road between Hinamizawa and Okinomiya, Gifu Mountains
• Victim of Death: Tomitake Jirō, Takano Miyo, Irie Kyōsuke, Furude Rika
• Victim of Disappearance: Kumagai Katsuya

In Himatsubushi-hen, a young public security officer named Akasaka Mamoru visits Hinamizawa at Shishibone city in June 1978 (one year prior to the first of the mysterious deaths) to investigate the kidnapping of the Japanese construction minister's grandson. In 1985, he goes to Hokkaido to visit the newly retired Ōishi Kuraudo, whom Akasaka met seven years ago at Shishibone. It's there that Ōishi revealed that Tomitake and Takano were killed on the night of the Watanagashi, and that his fellow subordinate, Kumagai Katsuya, also disappeared with his vehicle a few days after the Watanagashi and Furude Rika's naked, disemboweled body is found at the Furude Shrine.

Minagoroshi-hen

The patrol car marks the area where Tomitake's body is usually found in most worlds.

• Place of Event: Further up the dark road between Hinamizawa and Okinomiya
• Victim of Death: Tomitake Jirō
• Victim of Disappearance: None

In Minagoroshi-hen, the true events of the fifth cycle of mysterious deaths are revealed. After departing from the Watanagashi festival, Takano Miyo led Tomitake to the Irie clinic, where she injected him with H173. This substance caused Tomitake to lapse into LV5 Hinamizawa Syndrome. He was then placed into the trunk of Takano's car, while his folding bicycle was placed in the backseat. Takano then dumped Tomitake's body and his bicycle along the dark road where he would wake up in a huge paranoid frenzy, attacking imaginary enemies with a piece of lumber before tearing open his throat and bleeding to death.

The corpse in Gifu is revealed to be the work of the Yamainu, having switched Takano's dental records with those of a double beforehand. Although the Yamainu have mistimed the corpse's death, Takano lets the operation continue, feeling that the inconsistency will add to the mystery of Hinamizawa. Free of her previous life, she then begins to start the next stage of operations while she hides in a mobile command vehicle amongst other Yamainu subordinates.  

In this world however, Rika tips off Ōishi about Tomitake's death beforehand during the Watanagashi Festival. Ōishi orders a patrol car to monitor the road that connects Hinamizawa to Okinomiya. When Takano drives on this road to dump Tomitake's unconscious body, she spots the police's patrol car, and decides to avoid the police by driving on further rather than dump the body in that area as she has done in previous worlds. In the process, Takano's car is spotted by the police stakeout. Tomitake was not reported to be in the car with Takano, nor was he reported to have ridden his bicycle past the patrol car. Ōishi found this to be very suspicious, and he immediately began to suspect Takano as the culprit of Tomitake's murder.