Tohko's presence, her warmth, came through my palm.

And the fact that Tohko was shivering.

"Are you afraid of ghosts?"

"N-no!"

"Your voice is squeaky."

"It's just because I'm cold."

She denied it, shaking her head from side to side, but it was blindingly obvious that she was terrified.

She hated ghosts so much she was trembling. But even though it was only natural that she would be afraid of going at night to a lake that a ghoul was supposed to haunt, she'd come looking for me because she was worried.

In the midst of rain and lightning, wearing a raincoat, dripping wet like a paper doll.

Each time Tohko's fingers flinched, I felt warmth swell up in my chest.

Tohko was stubbornly silent out of embarrassment.

"M-more importantly, what did you mean about being kidnapped?"

As I moved down the path illuminated by the flashlight, hand in hand with Tohko, I told her about everything that had happened.

"Mr. Takamizawa knocked you out and took you away?"

Tohko's eyes were round with surprise.

"I can't believe you got away and made it here. I'm glad nothing bad happened to you."

"Amemiya..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

If I told her that Amemiya had saved me, she would probably laugh at me. No, maybe she would get scared that a ghost had appeared and be even more scared than she was now.

"Today was definitely my lucky day."

I would keep the part about Amemiya my personal secret.

Tohko's smile seemed to spill out of her. A flower bloomed in the darkness of the night.

"Yeah. It was a five-star lucky day for Pisces."

"Isn't that your sign?"

"I had good luck, and that's how I found you, no?"

"I don't know about that."

"No, it's a truth of the universe. If you don't pay me even more respect and be nice to me, you're going to get punished."

"I can't respect a president who tears up my English notes on the sly and sneaks bites of Bradbury's 'The Fog Horn.'"

"Th-that was...I just-"

Tohko fumbled for words.

"And who was it that ate the erotic story someone dropped in your goblin mailbox in the school yard and got sick, so they had to skip fifth period to go collapse in the clubroom? I had to take care of you that day and I couldn't go to class, either."

"It's not a goblin mailbox, it's a love advice mailbox. And it's not like I asked you to stay with me. You decided to skip all on your own."

"When someone bitterly asks you, 'Are you abandoning your presideeeeent?' you have to stay."

"Well, um...that kind of thing might have happened once or twice."

What exactly were we talking about?

While we worked our way down every digression like usual, the mansion came into view.

The gloomy mood that the deformed building gave off stirred up our forgotten anxiety and fear.

"That's strange. There isn't a single light on."

"Maybe the power's out?" Tohko murmured timidly.

We opened the creaking gate and headed to the front door. We rang the doorbell, but there was no answer.

Tohko gulped and pushed at the doors.

With a grating creak, the doors swung open to either side.

At our feet crouched a dark something. The instant Tohko turned the light of the flashlight onto it, she shrieked.

It was Baron's corpse lying at the entrance, with foam coming out of his mouth and his eyes bulging out.

"B-Baron..."

Tohko whispered in a wavering voice, rooted in place.

I felt a shudder, too, as if a cold hand had taken hold of my neck.

The mass murder that had occurred at the mansion eighty years earlier-the man at the souvenir shop had told us that one of the five casualties had been a dog. That it had died with foam coming out of its mouth- When I came back to my senses, I realized the sprinklers, which were fixed on the ceiling, were whining in the darkness and spinning around. The water spewing out of them soaked the floor and stairs.

"Let me see your flashlight."

I took the flashlight from Tohko and shone it on the stairs. When I did, we saw several gashes cut into the wall by a sharp blade and a spray of red that could have been blood.

What on earth had happened?

There was a powerful gust of wind behind our ice-cold backs, and the doors we'd left ajar slammed shut loudly. Tohko jumped, surprised by the noise, and just then there came a noise from the second floor.

Tohko jumped again.

I felt a tremor run down my spine, too.

I pressed down on my chest, which was raging almost painfully, and listened hard. I definitely heard someone on the second floor!

I could clearly hear the sound of something falling, the sound of a chair scraping, the sound of steps on the floor.

Unsettling sounds, as if people were struggling-!

The sound of a gunshot punctured my ears.

We ran up the stairs as if drawn by it.

Now we heard the sound of glass shattering.

It was in Maki's room!

The moment we opened the door and shone the flashlight inside, the first thing our eyes caught was the back of a tiny figure wearing a white maid's cap, with her hair in two pigtails.

A long, black, sticklike object stuck out from her right shoulder. It trailed a thin line of smoke, and we caught a sour smell, as if something was burning.

As soon as I realized it was a shotgun, a chill went through my entire body.

What was Uotani doing with that?!

The window glass they had just replaced yesterday was shattered. Maki stood in front of it, biting down on her lip, her eyes narrowed, and a harsh look on her face. She pressed a hand down on her left arm to stop the blood flowing from it.

Had Uotani shot her?!

But why?

After a closer look, I saw that Maki also gripped a scythe in the hand of her wounded arm.

What was going on in this house? What had happened to the others?

"Stop it, Sayo!" Tohko screamed.

Uotani spun around. Her tiny face was pure white in the light of the flashlight, her hair disheveled, her lips cracked, and her eyes glinting like a savage animal's.

Seeing Tohko, dripping water from her raincoat, and me, soaking wet, Uotani's eyes widened in shock for only a moment.

"Miss Yuri! You and Mr. Akira are safe."

Miss Yuri? Mr. Akira? Was she confusing us for them?

Uotani gave a fierce smile loaded with madness and hatred, as if she were truly possessed by something.

"It's all right; this time I won't let you dirty your hands, Miss Yuri. I'll do it myself."

My skin prickled instantaneously. What was Uotani saying?!

"It's all the Himekuras' fault! Oath breakers!"

The muzzle of the gun was pointed at Maki.

"Sayo! I'm not Yuri! Please don't do this!"

It was as if Tohko's voice didn't entirely reach Uotani's ears. Panting wildly, as if in pain, she fixed on her target and put her finger on the trigger.

Maki glared at Uotani piercingly, then dropped both her hands and shouted, "If you want to shoot me, then do it! But I don't know anything about a promise! I have no obligation to keep it!"

Rage exploded over Uotani's face like fire.

Tohko shouted "No!!" and I surged at Uotani to pin her arms down from behind.

A gunshot so loud it seemed to rupture my eardrums rang through the room and gun smoke rose into the air.

The gun had shifted, so the bullet it released had ripped a hole in the wall.

"Stay out of it!"

It wasn't Uotani who shouted that at me, but Maki.

I watched in shock as Maki threw her sickle away, practically hurling it at the ground.

There was a thunk, and the sickle lodged into the floor.

She strode past it toward us, blood still flowing from her arm.

Uotani leveled the gun again.

If she shot from here, there was no question it would rip open Maki's chest. But despite that Maki's eyes were sharp and fierce, as if she was the one closing in on her opponent instead.

"Go ahead! Shoot! Your promise has nothing to do with me! I can't be bound by something like that!"

Uotani's voice trembled with spite.

"But everything-it's the Himekuras' fault...!"

"What promise did the Himekuras make?"

The air was so shockingly tense it prickled my skin. Maki's eyes were fixed directly on Uotani's. Uotani bit down on her lip, and returning Maki's glare, she said, "That as long as Shirayuki exists, they wouldn't lay a hand on the house."