What happened to the parents in Yomi no Tsugai?

Hiromu Arakawa has never met a parental backstory she couldn't turn into a war crime against your tear ducts (see: everything she's ever written), and Daemons of the Shadow Realm is keeping the streak alive. The single most quietly devastating question in this show isn't about daemons or dragons. It's: where the hell are Mine and Nagisa?

What we actually know

Yuru and Asa's parents were stuck with an impossible math problem. Their twins were the fabled children of day and night — which made the whole family less "beloved villagers" and more "assets with a pulse." So the parents ran. They took Asa and fled Higashi Village, leaving Yuru behind under the village's watch, presumably planning a reunion that never came.

Then they vanished. Asa ended up alone, taken in by the Kagemori family. Her parents' disappearance is officially "mysterious circumstances," which in an Arakawa story is a phrase that should make you very, very nervous.

Two parents tried to outrun a prophecy with one kid under each arm. The prophecy had a head start.

The manga's leading answer (light spoiler territory)

Anime-only viewers, avert your eyes and go hug a loved one. For everyone else: the most widely accepted reading of the manga points at Ivan Yosano — the smiling swordsman with faction ties — as the one responsible for the parents' deaths. Not a random tragedy. A calculated move in a power struggle where the twins were always the prize.

The anime, currently deep in its second cour, has been circling this wound rather than lancing it. And the cast knows exactly what they're sitting on: in an interview after episode two aired, Yuru's voice actor Kensho Ono told fans to keep watching, "including what happens regarding their parents."

That's not a tease. That's a threat. Bring tissues.