Character: Takano Miyo

In the first six arcs, she consistently disappears on the night of Watanagashi, and an incinerated body thought to be hers is found in the mountains (and the autopsy report states that she actually died the day before the festival). Later, however, it turns out that she is the mastermind of the events taking place in Hinamizawa who wants to murder Rika as part of her plan to have revenge on the people who spurned her grandfather's research. It is revealed that she fakes her death through the first six arcs of the story (the corpse in the barrel being a stolen corpse), and murders Rika in three of the arcs after which she also kills everyone in Hinamizawa. Her original name is Miyoko Tanashi, but she changed it when she was adopted by Hifume Takano after her parents died, who was the one who start Miyo on the path of medicine with his study of Hinamizawa Syndrome.