Satoshi Houjou

Satoshi Houjou is the elder brother of Satoko Houjou and a member of the Hinamizawa Fighters baseball club. Quiet, soft-spoken and protective, he rarely appears directly over the course of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, yet his absence and disappearance quietly drive much of the plot, including the murders that unfold in the Watanagashi and Meakashi story arcs.

After their mother and stepfather died in an accident during the Watanagashi Festival, Satoshi and Satoko were taken in by their aunt and uncle, Tamae and Teppei Houjou. Rather than easing the children's grief, the relatives grew resentful and abusive, and Satoshi routinely took the punishment meant for his younger sister rather than let her suffer it.

The strain eventually triggers Hinamizawa Syndrome in Satoshi, bringing headaches, paranoid delusions and hallucinations. In a desperate bid to protect Satoko for good, he confronts his aunt and, in most tellings, kills her before vanishing from Hinamizawa. It later comes out that Kyousuke Irie hid him away, sedated, in the underground ward of the Irie Clinic to save him from the disease's final stage.

Satoshi's fate colors the people around him: Shion Sonozaki's grief over his disappearance fuels her killing spree, Mion Sonozaki secretly loved him too, and Rena Ryuuguu bonds with him over their shared brushes with Oyashiro-sama's curse. In the story's later, gentler tellings, he is finally cured and reunited with Satoko and Shion.