20th Century Boys: 12

Volume 12 picks right up on the “Where is Kiriko?” thread, as Kanna tries to locate her mom. The other missing player is Dr. Yamane, both fairly high up in the Friend organization, having developed the virus, and 2015 is rapidly approaching. The search leads them back to their childhood home. It’s nice to finally catch up with Maruo, who we see with singer Haru Namio, both ostensibly supporting the Friend regime, but actually subversives loyal to The Kenji Faction. In fact, with Namio’s direct access to Friend, his assistant Maruo is in a position to detonate explosives near him, but heeds Kenji’s words and decides not to at that precise moment. We seem to be going down this path that indicates there were 3 individuals involved with the creation of The New Book of Prophecy, Friend, Yamane, and… someone. Yukiji and Yoshitsune, along with Koizumi, also detect an anomaly in the virtual game, a discrepancy between events in 1970 and 1971. They seem to revolve around what exactly happened in the Science Lab, what Donkey saw, which led to Fukube killing Donkey, and even Mon-Chan being killed to protect the information. Finally, we get some sort of answer! Friend is Fukube, and is shot by Yamane – who is in turn shot by FDP forces, after having a change of allegiance. Also – FRIED RICE!