Little Busters! - Haruka Saigusa Route & Character Discussion

[Ganesh_Swami]

For Kanata i say she wasn’t much of a bitch until Riki started to show interest Haruka. Sure she chased her around with perfects but that wasn’t anything excessive, she just punished her appropriately for breaking school rules.

In the other routes Kanata has minimal interaction with Haruka, she keeps her distance. In Haruka’s route though shit hits the fan. She goes off the way to humiliate and hurt Haruka but was it really like that?.

If i think and examine things then I find that everything she did was so that Riki would leave Haruka alone and goes back to his own life. She constantly tells him to not involve himself with Haruka. When she broke the bench that Haruka loved, she did so hoping that Riki would hit her and that’ll cause him to be separated from Haruka because of the punishment but Haruka stopped him. At the council meeting where Haruka gets angry at them and she and Riki get beaten up Kanata lashes out at him again with words. Most of the time her malicious words are directed towards Riki rather then Haruka. It’s clear that she wants Riki to stay the Fuck away from Haruka.

Now why does she wants Riki to stay away? I’ve got one theory. She’s doing it to protect Haruka!.

Yeah this sounds a bit crazy. How is she protecting Haruka like this?. How could making Riki stay away solve anything? Well in Kanata’s route At the time when she finds out that saigusas were torturing Haruka she decides to give up her future to save her sister. She decides that the only one who can protect Haruka is her. I think she is weary of Riki because she doesn’t trust him. Maybe because she fears that Riki will leave Haruka alone at a later point and she’ll be heartbroken so she’s preventing that from happen. She’s preventing it so Haruka doesn’t suffer if Riki leaves her.

In other words she doesn’t want things to change. She wants haruka to live her life like before, like how she lived all these years while she keeps following the Futaki familys orders. She’s afraid of change.

I think there is some similarity from the point that was made in Kanata’s route "Over time Haruka forgot that it was a drama and they kept hating each other in truth that may also be a cause but i think that it’s a little less believable then the previous theory.

[Aspirety]

Can you explain this without replying on Kanata route? It was supplementary material added later on. Surely we should be able to understand Kanata without it.

[Zosonte]

Kanata is just as, if not more misguided than Haruka was. She had not only the school authority to bully Haruka but also the power of the family behind her, and she was desperate to get Haruka as far away from the family as possible. Though it does seem to suspend belief that this would include up to suicide; maybe Kanata thinks that even death is better for Haruka than this life forced onto her.

[Ganesh_Swami]

Kanata is just as, if not more misguided than Haruka

That one sentence sums it up perfectly. The family fucked Kanata’s mind as much if not more (she’s still in contact with the family). Misunderstanding gave birth to misconception.

she was desperate to get Haruka as far away from the family as possible.

From the family or any other people who could hurt her. In this case this applies to Riki.

it does seem to suspend belief that this would include up to suicide; maybe Kanata thinks that even death is better for Haruka than this life forced onto her.

I wouldn’t even try to say that can’t be true. With how much fucked up she appears in the bad endings this is totally believable. Kanata has some serious issues regarding to protect Haruka and bringing herself to trust someone(probably because of the family). She has some kind of overprotective syndrome.

[Nav]

She has some kind of overprotective syndrome.

Obviously. Although I feel like she’s not completely “protective”, with all the death and destruction, I would say she has more than a bit of “possessive” mixed in her feelings towards Haruka (Kinda like the mindset of a Yandere? Can’t say I’m too familiar with that character type).

With that out of the way I have three possibilities as to why she tried to separate Haruka and Riki.

The first is what I mentioned above. Her possessive mentality made her decide to get between the two.

The second is an extension to

death is better for Haruka than this life forced onto her.

Kanata uses a variety of methods to push Haruka past the breaking point, and this might just be another one. Hurting her loved one to indirectly attack her too.
(Suicide is NOT the answer, just putting it out here)

Finally, what you mentioned:

She’s afraid of change.

Being afraid of change is actually a really plausible motive, also connected to the “possessive” nature I mentioned up there. She doesn’t want anyone unrelated to her problems to interfere with her life right now.

Of course, it could also be a combination of the three, but I don’t believe that Kanata did this to protect Haruka. After all, she hurt Haruka the most, even if she did do it consciously to keep the family from extending it’s tentacles towards Haruka, trying to “controlling the damage done”, as one might say. If Riki really did hurt Haruka, it could potentially save Kanata some work, so she might “watch over” the two but direct interference is less than likely if her goal was to protect.

[Aspirety]

I really feel like we need some kind of chart detailing the Saigusa and Kanata families, it gets pretty confusing

[Ganesh_Swami]

It does but we don’t really have much information to go by. The only one we know by name is shou saigusa. The other father and Haruka and Kanata’s Mom are unnamed.

Also in the familys any significant character appearances are of their uncle’s. I think each of the uncle’s are the head of their family (Saigusa and Futaki). Another unnamed person is Haruka’s roommate who is also Kanata’s distant relative (cousin i think).

[Josef_Hare]

Haruka was by far my least favourite since I started the visual novel. I found her annoying, selfish and unlikable. I was wondering how her route would justify her personality to me and didn’t expect it to do a good job, but this has been my favourite route so far (I’m just up to Rin2 now). I totally understand why she is the way she is, and how she couldn’t have possibly grown up to be anything else. Now she’s one of my favourite Key characters of all time.

[Naoki_Saten]

Remember when everyone said Mio lacked confidence and hated herself because she’s introverted? Well, I hope Haruka taught you how people with those issues actually act. Trying to fake confidence, being noisy, annoying, constantly seeking attention or confirmation, and either fishing for compliments/praise or loudly devaluating themselves in hope of someone objecting and praising them. There’s also the option of acting self-derisive but then playing it off as a joke. Speaking of jokes, Haruka is always acting carefree, wearing that mask, even when she’s actually being serious. Unless it gets really really serious, which is when we see this sprite:

And I swear, this is by far her most important sprite. This is insecurity and fragility incarnate. Unsteady posture. Unfocused eyes. A hand seeking support, but only grasping her own clothes, weakly.
This is when the player’s alarm bells ring because as we’ve learned, when a happy girl looks sad, the whole world is just… wrong and needs fixing. I didn’t like Haruka initially. I don’t like noisy, annoying types. But this expression, it drew me in immediately. Because it defied everything I thought I knew about her. It added a new dimension to her character. And at the same time I knew I wanted to avoid seeing this expression as much as possible.

Indeed, Haruka is an insecure mess. She’s cornered, isolated, and fragile. Years of abuse have broken her and left her starved for love, but also cautious and on edge. She doesn’t trust her parents despite knowing she should. When they try reaching out to her, she bites the hand that feeds her. But it’s no wonder. Because the concept of ‘family’ has always had a negative connotation for her. It turns out Riki’s involvement is her last hope for salvation, but it’s also pushing her even closer to her breaking point. Trusting him, relying on him, hoping for her feelings to be reciprocated makes her even more vulnerable.

Here’s something I learned from Clannad’s equivalent of Haruka’s route, namely Kyou’s: Long, difficult routes are the best for portraying difficult and volatile situations. Mess up once and it’s all over. Numerous bad endings drive this point home. There is no easy solution. It’s hard for everyone involved and the reader has to keep suffering along with the characters as they’re groping in the dark, slowly approaching what they hope to be the answer. And Haruka’s route has nailed this atmosphere.

Being a perfectionist, I have checked out every bad ending. The ones that made me feel especially horrible about doing so were either entirely new or had some additions made to them.

1. Refusing to visit Haruka’s home. Because if you do visit it, Haruka admits in her flashback that she has a crush on Riki and that his rejection would break her heart. “My body and mind will crumble and I’ll be unable to think. To be thought nothing of by the person you like.” Yeah, it hurts. I’m sure you guys feel just as guilty as I do.
2. Not recognizing Kanata in disguise, agreeing to give up on the investigation, then finally recognizing Kanata in the nurse’s office. Riki had finally caught on, but it was too late.
3. Not recognizing Kanata in disguise, agreeing to give up on the investigation, not recognizing Kanata in the nurse’s office, either, then watching Haruka commit suicide. This one stings the most, realizing you messed up in the worst way possible, caused the most damage imaginable, and had not only pushed Haruka past her limit, but also hurt Kanata in the process, after Kud tried asking you to help her as well if she’s her roommate.

[Takafumi]

Remember when everyone said Mio lacked confidence and hated herself because she’s introverted? Well, I hope Haruka taught you how people with those issues actually act.

No, these things aren’t mutually exclusive. Haruka existing doesn’t discount Mio’s lacking confidence or enforce how she behaves.

[josemadv]

I don’t remember any ending where Haruka commit explicitly suicide, the only ending where she, supposely, died is her bad ending where she is supposely killed by someone of the family (if I well remember and, also, until I remember is not really completely confirmed that she died), there are some new bad end in the steam version where her suicide is confirmed?.

I already buyed the steam version but I don’t read it yet.

[cjlim2007]

It’s never explicitly stated iirc. It is heavily implied with the whole talk about an ambulance and flower of blood on the ground and various other descriptions.

[josemadv]

It’s never explicitly stated iirc. It is heavily implied with the whole talk about an ambulance and flower of blood on the ground and various other descriptions.

Well, in Kanon (mayor spoilers) when the Nayuki’s mother get involved in the car accident is almost the same and she is alive
I don’t want to admit the existence of an ending where she is dead

Edit: Even if she TRIED to kill herself there is always the possibility that she survives to that try and Kanata says Riki to not go with her or the same situation could be repeated

[Kanon]

MUST I.

Of course she kills herself, she already suggested the prospect earlier but Riki shuts her down.
When she does it Riki has been stolen. Explicit confirmation is not given, but there is not subtly about it.

Now can people please stop asking this so I can stop reading talk of that fucking bad end.

And at the same time I knew I wanted to avoid seeing this expression as much as possible.

[SLURPING NOISES]

YEAH THAT’S THAT GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD SHIT.

Must protecc.

Good post though, the duality of Haruka’s personality is definitely a fascinating thing. If I might add to it, there is another face that she shows with less frequency, most noticeably appearing in the CG in her room, and the CG with her phone.
The calm mellow Haruka, not screaming and meming, not wallowing in suffering, just talking in a quiet tone calmly about the things in life she enjoys.

That’s my favourite Haruka. That’s the Haruka whos found a moment to forget her horrible past and just enjoy life, not wearing the noisy smile, but a true one.
That’s the Haruka I want her to be forevermore.

I have a key point that has been bothering me.

Why was Kanata such a fucking bitch?

Also I’ll address this here since I already gave my interpretation of this in Spoiler chat on Discord.

I think a lot of you guys are overthinking it, justifying it in a twisted way of protecting her. I don’t fully disagree with this, Ganesh_Swami suggesting she doesn’t like the change Riki could bring isn’t something I can completely deny. I’d say calling Kanata ‘possessive’ or ‘intentionally hurting her to push her further way’ is the parts I can’t agree with.

What I think is Kanata wanted one thing, to live a school life disconnected from Haruka, and then to never see her again after it.

Haruka is the one who fucks this up. Haruka actively picks fights with Kanata, Haruka is the one who kills this plan, Haruka is the one who makes them enemies, in short I think part of the reason Kanata is such a fucking bitch is because Haruka is actively trying to piss her off and she’s tired enough of Haruka’s shit that she’s gotten nasty over it.

There is some semblance of love remaining in that twisted mess, and I do not wish to imply that Kanata is justified in everything she does(bench), but Haruka did, on purpose, provoke the retaliation and attacks back at her and to S O M E extent Kanata being a bitch can be chalked up to putting up with an annoying little shit baiting her.

[Naoki_Saten]

Why was Kanata such a fucking bitch?

Kanata does drop a few hints to explain her behavior, although those hints are scarce and pretty cryptic.

1. After the disciplinary committee meeting that ends in a brawl, Kanata approaches Riki, saying that the distribution of happiness in the world is a zero sum game. If someone is happy someone else must be sad

2. Kanata loses her composure when the flyers appear, twice. The second time after Riki confessed and the rumors keep spreading, Kanata almost screws up her act and calls Haruka just by her first name while confronting her in the courtyard. When Haruka leaves, she tells Riki "She’s going to destroy herself, that girl." She mocks Riki for assuming she’s trying to destroy Haruka. She says her goal is the exact opposite.

screenshot 1

https://i.imgur.com/v409axd.png

“I’m not chasing her out to destroy her. Rather, if I don’t do it, she will be broken.” She believes she’ll be happier that way. “Next one… It will have to be the next place where Haruka Saigusa finds her place in the world.”
“I’m a bully. Just like you’ve said so many times.” (they’re translating ‘Hitodenashi’ as ‘Bully’ again)
“I’m a bully… therefore I can do whatever needs to be done. But, Riki Naoe, you are also a bad person. And because of that, I hate you.”
“I’m not crazy about you either.”
“Oh, then it seems we match. Hmm? Why don’t you give up on Haruka Saigusa and go out with me instead?” “Oh dear. I was rejected. Well then, this heartbroken maiden will just take her leave.”

3. Rain scene bad ending.
   (Sorry, @Kanon, for bringing it up after all)
   Kanata, disguised as Haruka, reveals her identity.
   Riki blames her for “snatching it all away” from Haruka.
   "I told you before, didn’t I? My reason. That if I didn’t do this, that child would be broken."

screenshot 2

https://i.imgur.com/oKir1t1.png

She casts away her disguise and lectures Riki on happiness and negatives. That some people aren’t given a place to exist.That Haruka is one of those who always gets all the bad things. That she cannot be saved by anyone. But maintaining the status quo is enough.
"She held that hatred tight, and kept looking ahead… And maybe that way she was able to find a little bit of happiness.
Riki’s narcolepsy kicked in. Kanata’s voice is the last thing he heard.
“…Don’t get close to Haruka Saigusa. You can’t save that girl. You can’t even recognize her. Just by losing one thing, that girl gives up… She’s that kind of person. I’d rather not smell that stench of blood anymore. I don’t want to see that flower of blood on the asphalt. So, stay away from her… Don’t ever get close to her again.”

If you pick the right choice and get the non-bad ending rain scene, Haruka tells Kanata to die and comes really close to attacking her with a pair of scissors. Kanata gets mad over how Haruka is acting like a victim.

screenshot 3+4

https://i.imgur.com/NAbFBHz.png
https://i.imgur.com/RKuDYTF.png

Then Kanata gets mad at Riki for asking about her reasons all the time, but she explains. "If I take away everything she grasps onto, she’ll finally be forced to revert."

4. Finally, during the last confrontation and Kanata’s confession:

Kanata is eventually prepared to spill the beans, but gives Haruka one last warning:

screenshot 5

https://i.imgur.com/6SpVZZX.png

"If you find out, you won’t be able to go on like you have until now."

Then she tells her part of the story:

"If it turned out that neither of us was appropriate to be the heir, they had no use for either of the twins… that’s what they told me."
They promised her everything as long as she would hate Haruka. She refused everything. Then they threatened to make her ‘like Haruka’. Little Kanata couldn’t oppose them, then. She was too afraid. “‘One of you needs to be culled,’ they said.”
If she didn’t hate Haruka, Haruka would be killed.
“If I didn’t… Haruka would… Haruka would disappear…”
Therefore, she can’t help her. Therefore, she cannot allow herself to be helped by her.

Summing it up:
a. For Kanata, it’s a universal law that Haruka will always get the short end of the stick and cannot be saved. (Because she’s bad at everything ?).
b. Haruka’s actions will eventually backfire and destroy her
c. Kanata believes she must take away the places Haruka wants to belong to right now, so that she will find the ‘next’ one where she actually belongs. Also, she would be “forced to revert”
d. That by holding on to her hatred, Haruka could keep going and maybe even find a little bit of happiness. Therefore, the “Status quo” should be maintained
e. Just by losing one thing, Haruka gives up… She’s that kind of person. In this case, it ends with suicide.
f. The family threatened to kill one of the twins if Kanata didn’t hate Haruka.

---

Ok, so those were the hints. Here’s my interpretation:

Back after my first playthrough, I was convinced that Kanata deliberately played the villain so that Haruka could support herself with hatred. I forgot why but I guess it’s because Kanata pretty much said so in the rain scene bad ending.
How was the conflict of this route resolved? By Haruka accepting that she doesn’t need a person to blame for what’s happening. That’s her achievement, something she learned after numerous trials. She broke free from the teachings of her family, which blamed EVERYTHING BAD on Haruka. Now imagine Haruka, before learning to not blame bad things on people, coming to the conclusion that her sister is actually a great person. Remember that Haruka made it something like her life goal to sabotage Kanata and became a troublemaker for that reason. What would happen? If Haruka can’t blame Kanata for everything, she would blame herself instead. And the obvious conclusion to that would be suicide. That’s why Kanata went out of her way to be extra bitchy. It explains Kanata’s final warning, and why she gave in when Haruka decided to stop the blame game.
Then there’s the part about Kanata “taking away” things from Haruka. Things like her classmates’ favor, the school, Riki, the bench, and AHEM, the maintnance committee. I believe that Kanata wants to take those away before Haruka gets REALLY attached to them, because she could lose them easily. This fits with the “protecting from family” interpretation that’s been mentioned here several times. As long as Haruka is still in that school, she is within the family’s grasp. Even if they don’t attack her directly, they could easily sabotage her school life if they wanted to by flexing their power muscles or simply ordering Kanata to. The more attached Haruka grows to the things she’ll lose, the more she will suffer. It could even end tragically. Therefore, it would be better for Haruka to go somewhere else. ALTERNATIVELY, if we leave the family out of the equation, according to the universal law that Haruka will always suffer, she will ultimately lose the things she gets attached to.

Kanata’s methods sure are awkward, rough, and over-the-top. They also add to her feelings of guilt…

phew. That was a piece of work

[Pepe]

What would happen? If Haruka can’t blame Kanata for everything, she would blame herself instead. And the obvious conclusion to that would be suicide.

BAM there we go! That put into words everything I was thinking but couldn’t put into my own words. You da man, Nick

[TheGho7t]

I want to start off by saying I entirely agree what Naoki has pointed out here. Very well written, couldn’t have done it better myself. I’m not one to get super in depth but I thought you put it into a great way overall.

I always saw Haruka, especially heading into her route, as someone who doesn’t even remotely know who she is anymore. She puts on such a front that there are a ton of inner struggles going on, all the time and I can’t even begin to imagine how she feels after all those years of that horrific “life”. It was more of a nightmare than anything else and one that she couldn’t wake up from.

Besides the main route and Refrain, none of them made me feel more heartbroken than Haruka’s, mostly because I knew someone similar to her. Not to the extent of Haruka but with the same sort of problems. She was always cheery and giddy and loved to show off and for a long time, I thought that was just her. It took me a long time to realize that she was putting on a mask of some sort, almost all the time. At times you could tell when her true thoughts and feelings showed but they were few and far between. Haruka was the same to me.

The saddest part I was never really able to help her. We broke up but thankfully she’s doing good overall and living her life. I think one major point in Haruka’s route that I enjoyed as well is, family can come in the strangest of ways. Now obviously no spoilers with that but, it’s very impressive how they handled all of it and I cried like crazy with the ultimate ending. To add onto that as well, I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that would be to move on in a sense entirely. Not even beginning to mention all of the trust issues Haruka must have but all of her thoughts of what “family” was to her.

The only reason I mention her is because she was my first girlfriend and I spent a lot of time with her. I always tried to help but as said about the bad endings, one wrong step and you fell down a flight of stairs that you so desperately wanted to climb again but no avail.

I don’t know how to make the spoilers thing as this is my first reply on here other than my welcome message so I’m making this extremely long so people don’t see the SPOILERS BELOW THIS ENTIRELY

I don’t truly know where to end but I’m glad that they could both move on.

I loved the way Haruka and Kanata made up. I respected the way Kanata had gone about her life and truthfully, it’s a really cool thing to look at on the outside as seeing a younger girl deciding to put such a big burden on herself, and of course trying her best to make the right decision, is truly spectacular. It’s something I haven’t seen in anything else personally and I don’t know if the magnitude would be the same anyways.

I’ll end it by saying I loved, ABSOLUTELY loved this photo:

A lot of people do a lot of bad things in this world. A lot of people do a lot of wrong things in this world. Sometimes in both of those cases, they believe they’re doing the right thing. Does that make it better? Absolutely not but that quote really stuck with me. It’s not about pointing a finger. It’s not about getting revenge. It’s not even about trying to reason with incredibly hard if not impossible to understand ideals and thoughts. It’s about moving on, forgiving and forgetting. The ending made me want to believe that nobody truly has hatred in their heart and honestly with everyone here, and anyone else in the world, I think I do believe it now to an extent. I also wanted to believe in a world where no one is to blame.

There’s a lot of wrong reasons people believe they’re doing the right thing.

How this sweet girl who had such a rough upbringing, to see her become such a kindhearted and brave young woman, is incredible and I am extremely thankful to see it as well. (This includes two people for me)

(Here’s to hoping I worded this all properly because my thoughts sometimes get intertwined)

[Odinbeard_McSparkles]

Haruka is the one who fucks this up. Haruka actively picks fights with Kanata, Haruka is the one who kills this plan, Haruka is the one who makes them enemies, in short I think part of the reason Kanata is such a fucking bitch is because Haruka is actively trying to piss her off and she’s tired enough of Haruka’s shit that she’s gotten nasty over it.

I agree with this sentiment, as it definitely plays a part in things, but for different reasoning. It’s been bothering me for a while how nonchalant the route appears to be about this issue, as the focus is so heavily biased against Kanata (for admittedly obvious reasons) and her actions against Haruka. Riki tends to share an emotional level with Haruka as she goes through her struggles. There really isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this, (if I’m being fair), as Haruka is his friend and Kanata isn’t. Even if she isn’t being outright mean to Riki, she comes off unlikable enough that he never really seems to consider that Kanata could be just as broken as Haruka, considering how easily Kanata appears to shurg everything off. That being said, his interactions with her are relatively short and limited, and it would probably be unfair for me to say he should have tried to understand her better, and that could potentially have risked Haruka’s trust as well. (IE: Riki appearing to get too chummy with Kanata)

The only other explanation for Kanata’s bitchyness I’ve been able to come up with is that Kanata believes that you can’t save someone else: they must want to save themselves. Kanata is escalating the conflict between her and Haruka in order to force a resolution. She doesn’t seem to believe that a peaceful one is likely to happen, so she instead attempts to return things to how they were before by driving Riki and the Busters away from Haruka. That being said, I think she is hoping that she is wrong, and that Haruka will instead realize she must save herself and stand up to her. It’s possible that I could be just projecting, but I felt there were just too many inconsistencies in Kanata’s mean streak that something else was going on behind the scenes, something else we aren’t seeing here. For as composed and calculated as she appears, she gets careless far too many times for it to be a coincidence, the most relevant one I noticed being here:

And even Riki, in a way, mirrors this line of thinking at various points when supporting Haruka:

The reason she doesn’t want Riki to be responsible for saving Haruka is exactly the reason she pulls the swap trick: to prove that Haruka needs to be able to stand on her own, to have a reason to get up after being knocked down and not crumble when she loses something important to her. She needs to find a reason live, one that doesn’t rely entirely on hatred or the help of another. Kanata can drop hints, she can push her, but she can’t actively or directly help Haruka, as she needs to come to that conclusion on her own in order to create her own opportunities and reasons to move on and heal. Otherwise, it wouldn’t last. In that way, I think Kanata is actually doing the best she can, given the shit circumstances.

[machelmore]

I can understand and agree with this idea that Haruka needed someone to blame, and that Kanata was filling that position so Haruka wouldn’t push it on herself. I used to think that Kanata’s actions weren’t really defensible, but after reading @Naoki_Saten’s post, I can understand a little better. However, I don’t think all the questions have been answered.
First and foremost: Does it just not occur to Haruka to blame the family? I’m sure it can be hard to shake beliefs that were instilled in you as a child, but Haruka’s thought processes clearly show that she doesn’t accept/understand their bullshit. Does it really need to be a specific person, her sister at that?
And even still, I’m not entirely convinced that it was 100% necessary for Kanata to go so far. Given what Haruka had to go through up to that point, neglect on Kanata’s part would probably work fine rather than outright aggression.
Secondly, in response to this:

f. The family threatened to kill one of the twins if Kanata didn’t hate Haruka.

Makes sense and everything, but… Why is this no longer a problem? What about the end of the route frees them from this threat? I could understand it if the route’s end was portrayed more as a beginning rather than a resolution, and I’m not sure if other people maybe interpreted it that way, but that’s not how it seemed to me.

Really want the podcasters to discuss this: Is Kanata’s position defensible?

[Kanon]

tl;dr hello everyone welcome to the Kanata apologists thread.

First and foremost: Does it just not occur to Haruka to blame the family?

It’s easier to focus on a person rather than a collective. Especially when that collective has controlled and brainwashed you.

Makes sense and everything, but… Why is this no longer a problem? What about the end of the route frees them from this threat?

That threat was made when they were children completely under the shithouse, cut off from the world.

The current twins are ingrained enough in society that murdering one is more likely to cause a few problems.