"How did you do that?"

"I made a phone call."

"Where?"

"You'll find out soon."

Tohko chortled and puffed out her chest.

"At any rate, our original goal of reaming Maki out hasn't changed. You're going to be cutting your heart pretty deeply on that front, Konoha. You can't go soft on her."

"What are you talking about, 'our' goal? I never made any goal like that!"

"We should shower and come back to this. We'll have another strategy meeting after we're refreshed."

She got off the chair with a lighthearted look and walked toward the door.

Ugh, am I going to be forced to stay with her tonight, too? The fact that she had been shaking over Shirayuki's appearance last night seemed to be beyond forgotten.

"Right. In the suspense movies, they always get murdered when they go to take a shower," I muttered, and Tohko leaped into the air.

"Ack! Th-that's just a superstition!"

She was instantly blubbering and left the room trembling.

I knew that she would be worried beyond belief of what was behind her while she was showering. I wanted her to get scared good.

I imagined how it would be and was feeling a little gratified when a scream came from the hallway.

It was Tohko's voice!

Had she run into a ghost right away?!

I opened the door and rushed down the hall.

"Tohko!"

I ran as I called her name.

I heard the sounds of other doors banging open and several footsteps approaching.

"Uggggh, wh-what is this?"

I heard Tohko's voice again.

She was around that corner!

The instant I got there, my feet slipped out from under me-"Ack!"

"Konoha!"

A concussion hit my hips abruptly. I'd fallen unceremoniously to my butt. I felt a cool liquid on the palms of my hands. There was a big puddle in the hallway, and it was making a stain on the carpet.

What was it doing in a place like this? Was there a leak in the roof?

"Konoha, are you okay?!"

Crawling along the floor, Tohko peered into my face worriedly.

At that point, the people who staffed the mansion came in. The butler and the housekeeper and the gardener and the cook, plus the maid Uotani-all of them in a line.

They saw the stain spreading on the floor and apparently thought it was blood because a big commotion started.

"Eee! Th-there's blood-"

"It's the ghoul's curse!"

A hint of madness colored the air and seized hold of normal thought. Tohko stood up and calmed everyone down.

"No, it's not. This isn't blood, it's just water!"

I touched the liquid again, too. It was soaking into the carpet so it was hard to tell what color it was, but it was definitely not blood. It didn't feel sticky.

Tohko was right. This was water...wait, what?

Looking closer, I saw something like grass was scattered around. When I realized what it was, all the heat was sucked out of my body in one pulse.

"Hey, are these rushes?"

The old gardener picked up a thin, limp weed with his fingertips and held it at the end of his nose to look hard at it, and then his expression turned horrified.

"It is!"

"You don't think they're from the pond, do you?!"

"Shirayuki really has been here!"

Tense shouts rose up all over. Uotani put her hands over her mouth, staring in horror at the rushes scattered like the corpses of insects over the dark stain.

Just then, the lights went out.

Darkness fell over us and several screams pierced my ears. People ran into each other, their voices mixed together, and my heart began to shudder with fear. Even when someone plugged in a lamp, it wouldn't turn on, and the chaos intensified.

"Hey! Do you hear something?" someone shouted. Everyone gasped and there was utter silence for a moment.

In the taut, cool air, our ears pricked fearfully, and there came the sound of water flowing from a faucet.

"It's in the kitchen," the housekeeper murmured in a choked-off voice.

Who had turned the water on? Maki? No, she should have been on the second floor...Had someone else snuck into the house?

I recalled that eighty years ago there had been a mass murder over the course of one night, and a shudder ran up my spine.

And then we heard the sound of running water from another direction, as well.

"It's the first-floor washroom!"

The cook's voice was shaking. The bath on the first floor was next. And then the second-floor washroom, the second-floor bath...We heard the sound of raging water all over, as if there was a cascade besieging us.

Every faucet in the house was open probably. It was suffocating, just like being shut inside a cage of water. What would I do if I had an attack right now?

"W-we have to stop the water anyway. The water bill will be outrageous," Tohko said pragmatically, pressed close up against my back. I didn't mind, but I wished she would quit trying to nudge me forward. Was she telling me to go investigate?

A cold hand brushed along my ribs all of a sudden, and I was struck with terror. When I looked to the side, Uotani was gripping the hem of my shirt in one hand.

She was probably scared. She was shaking.

We all formed into a clump and held our breath as we headed toward the second-floor washroom. It felt as if something was lurking in the darkness, and we moved forward step-by-step, terrified.

Someone shouted, "Augh!"

"H-hey! Don't make any weird noises!"

"Th-th-th-there's another puddle."

On the pitch-black floor, water shone slickly. This hadn't overflowed from a faucet; there was a trail of water, as if someone soaking wet had passed through here.

Tohko whispered over my shoulder breathily.

"Let's see where the water goes."

Uotani, still holding my shirt, jumped.

Someone voiced the opinion that it might be dangerous, but Tohko said that it would be fine since we were all together, and we moved in the direction of the water trail.

If someone slipped now, all of us would fall down. That's how closely packed we were. We walked on, stuck together, picking out our next step.

The air was filled with a clinging humidity, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

Everyone had fallen silent along the way, so the sound of the water gushing out of the faucet felt even louder.

I wondered what Maki was doing. The atrocity she'd told us about before came to mind.

"...Not a single person...was left alive."

"...There was one body that had been split open the entire length of their face with a sickle."

"...One that was impaled through the chest with a spade."

"...One who'd been shot in the head with a gun."

"...One who'd fallen down the stairs and broken their neck, and one who was lying there with foam coming out of its mouth."

The puddles led toward the book room in the western part of the first floor.

The door was partially open.

We held our breath and drew nearer and were instantly assaulted by an intense stench.

"Urk!"

"That stinks!"

Everyone covered their noses. On an impulse, I threw the door open.

Uotani gave a little cry-Ah!-as if to stop me.

The instant the door was fully open, the smell of blood turned rancid hit us like a wall.

Then there was a spsh-spsh of something flopping- Behind me, I felt Tohko swallow a shriek. Still clinging to my shirt, Uotani stiffened.

Fear was mounting in the core of my brain and my entire body was cold.

This was a total nightmare- On the floor, a huge number of fish lay scattered about.

There were some fish that were still alive, but most didn't move, their wet scales letting off an unsettling glow in the darkness.

But this was supposed to be Yuri and Akira's holy sanctuary- Darkness and confusion and fear had replaced the peaceful, gentle backdrop where the lovers had grown closer in their shared feelings. It spread like a bottomless bog before us, letting off a stench that sliced through our gray matter.

Beyond the door was an absolute hell!

Suddenly a light struck us from behind.

Every one of us probably felt as though our lives had been cut in half.

But it was Maki standing there, holding a pocket flashlight. In the face of our tension, she nonchalantly stated, "This is such a circus. I figured bodies would be everywhere like eighty years ago. Looks like everyone's okay."

Actually, her face seemed to suggest it was a shame that there hadn't been any deaths. She slipped past us in our openmouthed shock and went into the room, then pointed her flashlight at the floor. When she did, we could make out the fishes' mouths and fins flapping. We could even see that their clouded eyes were rolling in their sockets to look at us, and everyone hurriedly looked away.

But Maki walked around calmly, pointing her flashlight and staring around piercingly, seemingly unfazed by the fish scattered on the floor, the chaise lounge, and table or by the stench they were giving off.

Just as I felt a chill go down my spine since Maki acting like that was the scariest thing of all, the housekeeper shrieked.

On the other side of the chaise lounge, a translucent human figure bobbed up mistily.

The fear of planting your eyes on something alien seized us all.

The woman, clothed in a white kimono, stood with her back to us. Pure-white hair fell to her waist.