SPOILERS FOR PRETTY MUCH THE WHOLE MANGA❗❗❗
There had been multipe hints across the series, even as far as at the VERY beginning of the Hell of Mirrors (which is an arc with Mitsuba's introduction as a wonder) and I mean VERY beginning since the foreshadowing was shown in the very first page of the arc's first chapter.
In this page we see Kou with mirrors, and nothing else behind him, with his hand crawling up his exposed neck, observing it, as if something was supposed to be there. While on it's own the page doesn't say much (as suspicious as it looks) there is another panel wayyyyyyyyyyyyy down the line that gives it a completely new meaning.
Here, Sumire, No.6's yorishiro, is showing Yashiro the seal that marks her as such, and the seal is located, you guessed it, on her neck.
Now, this isn't just something random. AidaIro had made sure to give other parralles between Sumire and Kou, like the fact they both hail from the Minamoto clan (I was too lazy to search for the panel so here's the Wiki confirmation) or the whole getting cannibalised by a wonder thing in various degrees.
Since Mitsuba doesn't have Sousuke's memories (or more accurately, he knows of most of the memories but doesn't have the emotional attechement that should have come with them to the original Mitsuba) it isn't very likely that Sousuke's camera would be his yorishiro BUT just to be 100% certain I'm gonna rebuke this one as well. It cannot be Mitsuba's yorishiro because Mitsuba simply doesn't have access to it, since the camera is placed in Kou's room at the Minamoto residance to which no unwelcome apparition can enter (pic 1: after Mitsuba's "death", pic2: after severence, bottom of the panel, on the drawer, second shelf from the top)
Neither can the pinguin keychain from the nightlife arc, since it got destroyed.
Now, i'm gonna be honest and say, I do NOT like the theory about Mitsuba's yorishiro being Kou's earing. While it could make sense, I just don't think it would be all that good of an outcome in the current situation. A situation like that requires a more serious solution if you ask me and making the yorishiro an earing, a traffic safety charms as well, that Mitsuba CONSTANTLY made fun of, would be a bit ill mannered, all things considered. And, after the topic of Mitsuba's yorishiro had been put on such a high pedestal (with the whole Nutsuhiko situation), the yorishiro having no serious consequences would just be narratively dissatisfying.
But how do you make claiming an object (that was yours in the first place anyway) have major consequences? Well, you can't, really. Which is why it would make much more sense for Mitsuba's yorishiro to be a person, and let's be real there is a CLEAR devide between Mitsuba's attechement to Kou and his attechement to any other character, even including the broadcasting club before their betrayal, who were the people Mitsuba spent a majority of his time with.
On another note, judging from the dialogue during the trail in the school festival arc, it would seem that Mitsuba getting a yorishiro would put at least a temporary halt to whatever Tsukasa is planning, and let's be real, when Tsukasa is involved Kou is ALWAYS the first one to jump in and try to beat his ass *insert picture of Kou smacking the living shit out of baby Tsukasa in the alternate world*
Some people have also been saying that Sousuke's mom might be a candidate too but I personally find it far fetched. What Mitsuba feels for her is complicated and has barely been touched on. It would make MUCH more sense for an already long established candidate to take up the role (I also think that making Kou a red herring would be a really dissapointing outcome, considering how many people are hoping for him to be the yorishiro).
Going back to the serious consequences thing, because i didn't expand on it cause I was scared I would get lost in it and jumble everything up. It would be a really cool plot point, seeing how the Minamoto clan (especially Kou's closest family) would react to such a developement, especially after the staff that happened in the Red House in the most recent arc.
I suspect that Teru will very much hate at best, and downright want to murder Hanako at worst, for what he did to Kou in the alternate world (even if it was really the pit god that did it) and by association, his hatred for ALL the school mysteries (and apparitions in general) would most likely grow to insane amounts as well. That would create an interesting dynamic between him and Mitsuba. OBVIOUSLY Kou cares about Mitsuba DEEPLY and it's visible to other characters as well, including Teru (I mean, come on, he even saw their literal corpses, together, in that well). But Teru has had a history of assuming that Kou was naive and doesn't know what he's getting himself into, due to Kou's kind personality and general sympathy towards supernaturals, even though we, as the audiance have a look into Kou's thoughts and are aware that he knows damn well what he's getting himself into with Mitsuba, every time. But again, Teru does tend to let his biases control his judgment, so it would be interesting to see how his reversion into not trusting Kou to know what's best for himself would be handled in the series.
As for the other members of the Minamoto clan.
Tiara is the first one that comes to mind. She has been appearing more often recently (before the rescue mission of Aoi, after the facedown with no.6, at the school festival). It was also shown both in Afterschool Hanako-kun and in the normal series that she possesess A LOT of power, even suppressing BOTH of her brothers while being 5 years old, according to the authors (just to clarify, the moment I'm referring to when it comes to the normal manga is from the school festival arc, when Tiara is the first one to notice the plant cursed girl (most likely through spiritual energy) while a fairly old and experianced member of the clan didn't until she had pointed it out). It would be interesting how she would react to the revelation of her own brother being tied to a powerful supernatural, especially with how the Minamoto clan teaches their children to be weary and aggresive (there's a better word for what I'm trying to convene but my english isn't englishing today) towards supernaturals, as we see from Teru's (as well Kou's, at the very start of the series) behavior towards apparitions.
Next comes Kou's dad. We don't see him at all in the series (which BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! FUCK THAT DEADBEAT! HE'S GOING TO SUPER HELL) But the info that we do get is that he is VERY often busy with exorcism work and the more implied fact that he is NOT a good parent at all (except for the already mentioned child abondament it's pretty obvious that he, along with the rest of the clan, had pressured at least one of his children into becoming an exorcist, or made them feel like they had to do so). While he seemed pretty chill about regular stuff in the SINGULAR extra that he did make an appearance in, I cannot put it past him to do something horrible once he finds out about the whole yorishiro situation. But again, we barely have any information about him so it's hard to tell at the moment.
Going back to the well thing cause I JUST caught another parallel to Sumire. In the whole series we only see TWO pairs of characters truly die together at roughly the same time, and that is Sumire & Hakubo and Kou & Mitsuba. AND there's is also another parallel, with both Sumire and Kou.
Overall, I could talk about the many, MANY parallels between Sumire and Kou (including the ones in their behavior) for hours but this analysis is already long enough so I'm gonna end it at that for now :3
If there's any questions regarding anything I'd LOVE to answer so pls feel free to ask in replies
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