Author's Notes: I think if you had asked anyone that had played Fatal Frame 2 what was the creepiest, scariest, most disturbing house of the entire game, most if not all of them would answer the [Kiryu House], aka "That-FREAKING-Doll-House".
And that's where we're going in this hour.
It was actually pretty difficult writing this chapter for a fanfic because the core of the story progression for this part of the game requires the camera and tons of backtracking... Now if you thought you hated backtracking in a game, imagine reading about it... So I had to take some measures in adapting this segment for Touma. Besides the lack of a camera obscura that's with Index, Touma also has to take care of Kurosawa Yae, who had returned to the village for reasons unknown- How she would ultimately play a part in this story remains to be seen but for now one problem at a time...
Btw, this was originally intended to last only one chapter, but little did I realize there's a lot of things to go through...
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{The twin's houses,}
{Over the bridge...}
{A locked house,}
{Connected by heaven and earth...}
{If Heaven is the roofed passageway...}
{Then Earth must be... Underground...}
{I have to meet him...}
{To say I'm sorry...}
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Yae explained the situation as they ran from the Kurosawa House.
"You friend, the silver haired girl, was ambushed in the underground passage from the Osaka house while she was looking for the key that opens your cell door..."
Damnit, this was my fault... If I didn't get myself caught in that trap... Kamijou cursed himself bitterly.
But now's not the time to wallow in self-pity.
Feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to get her back.
"Is Index still there?"
"I don't believe so, she probably made her way under the Tachibana House by now."
"So how do we get in?"
The girl wearing a white kimono shook her head.
"There is no way we can enter the house through the main door..."
"Why not?" Kamijou asked.
"See for yourself."
There surrounding the entrance of the old house was a large gathering of ghastly specters armed with pitchfork, black torches and other variety of farm tools.
At first Kamijou thought they were standing guard against any intruders that might try to get in; but on closer observations he saw that the spectral villagers were all watching the House rather than away from it.
They don't care about people getting in, they just don't want anyone getting out.
"Fukoda..." The boy with the spiky hair lamented.
"Fu...Koda?" Yae tilted her head sideways in confusion.
On top of everything that's going on, Kamijou Touma also found himself pairing up with one of the inhabitants of this haunted village. When his cell door opened, Touma had expected to see a silver haired British girl standing in front of him... Instead what he got was a Japanese girl with short black hair and a white kimono introducing herself as 'Kurosawa Yae'. The highschool boy immediately recognized that name; Kurosawa Yae was one of the twins that would be part-taking in the Forbidden Ritual on the very night that this [Death Echo] had been cast onto the village. Throughout the numerous scattered notes and diaries left around the Kurosawa House, both Kamijou and Index were able to deduce that the Twins had planned to escape the village with the help of Itsuki... If that's the case, what is this girl still doing here?
"Erm never mind... There has to be another way in right?" Kamijou asked.
But his inquiries about Kurosawa Yae's motives could wait, the most important thing now is to find Index.
"Yes, from the Kiryu House..." Yae pointed to the building beside it. "The Kiryu house and the Tachibana house are linked by a connecting corridor; it's because of this bridge that they're sometimes referred to as the "Twin Houses". The Twin Shrine Maidens will stay there before the ceremony and are apparently cleansed there too. During the cleansing they are not allow to go outside, but they may pass freely between the houses."
Yae pointed at the overhead bridge that linked the two houses together.
"What most of the villagers don't know is that there is a second bridge that connects the two houses; The walkway on the 2nd floor of the Tachibana house is called the [Heaven Bridge], but there is also an underground passageway in the basement of the Kiryu house called the [Earth Bridge]."
"Wait, you said Index was in the Osaka House's underground tunnel, so the [Earth Bridge] is somehow connected to the Osaka house as well?"
Yae nodded.
"Father once told me that the entire network of caverns under the Minakami Village was a gigantic underground tunnel that connected all the important locations in the village. It's used for travel between the houses during ceremonies, as well as a storage place for important items..."
"In that case, why can't we just access the Osaka House's passageway?"
The black haired girl shook her head.
"There was a cave-in when your friend was taken- it had sealed the entrance... In addition to that, the villagers are on the high alert there as well, the Kiryu House is the only place not guarded."
That didn't sound good.
"And... Why is that?" Kamijou asked calmly.
"The villagers are... Uncomfortable around it..." Kurosawa Yae looked pale, even for a ghost. "This was well before my time, but I heard stories that ever since the last Kiryu twins performed their ritual years ago, that house has never been the same again. The ritual affects all of us and we cope with it in our own way, but for the Kiryu family... The head of the house did something... Unusual... The results of his actions left the entire village to believe that the House had become... Haunted."
A haunted house that an entire village of ghosts are afraid of... Wonderful.
"Fukoda... So what did he do?"
The black haired girl smiled weakly.
"...As the story goes, the last head of the Kiryu family tried to bring his daughter back to life..."
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{A ritual... One sister kills the other...}
{Kill one half...}
{Fear The Remaining...}
{This is not a doll...}
{It is not my child, either...}
{It is a ghost...}
{I must kill it...}
{Even if it look like my child...}
{I must kill it...}
[The arms, the head and eyes...}
{...Where did you hide them?}
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THE SIXTH HOUR (Part 1) : Doll House
================================
After sneaking passed the ghostly mob, Kamijou Touma and Kurosawa Yae entered the Kiryu House.
"Well... This looks familiar..." The boy groaned.
It seemed almost pointless and trivial to describe the scenery as one haunted house looked pretty much the same as the next with its dim lighting, rotting wooden structure, occasionally you'll find a pot that had been left on the stone cooking stove filled with soot that doesn't look as if it's been used for a very long time. Even the atmosphere was the same as both the Osaka House and the Kurosawa House, Kamijou wanted to spice things up and say something cool like "There's something sinister lurking within" or "The fear that grips his heart felt stronger than before" but the honest truth was he's pretty much used to all this crap after the fifth hour of being stuck in this haunted village, and time after time again his Imagine Breaker proves to be more than a match to anything that could be thrown at him.
"So what's the plan?" He asked.
"We find the room that houses the entrance to the [Earth Bridge], then we go get your friend back."
"Simple enough, let's go."
With a confident demeanor, Kamijou slide open the neared door into the first room.
...They say confidence is what a man feels right before he learns all the facts.
"What the hell...?" His eyes widened.
There were three oriental dolls hung by a one meter long rope tied around their necks from the ceiling, physical appearance wise they all look the same with white expressionless faces and long black 'hair', except two of them were dressed in brown yukata while the third wore a dark gray one. They were swung ever so slightly by the breeze coming from the windows. Kamijou Touma can't help but felt that they were intentionally set up at that height (his head level) so that they would be the first things anyone saw when they entered the room.
On the floor were two more dolls laid out diagonally from one another, they had a much rounded face with clearer features as oppose to the hanging dolls above- though they were still just as expressionless.
Something else that Kamijou noticed was that none of the dolls had their eyes' pupils painted in.
For some reason that stood out to him, even if he doesn't understand the reas-
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
Kamijou nearly jumped as two spirits suddenly materialized right in front of him and ran towards the door at the far corner of the room.
They were small girls at least half the size of his size, dressed in black kimono and had waist length dark hair covering their faces, but the most chilling thing was their voice... They were far more distorted than the hollow voices of the memories that he had heard before... If he had to describe it, the voice sounded like it came from broken radios.
The two girls fled towards the door and vanished into it.
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
So naturally, the logical thing for Kamijou and Kurosawa to do was to go after them.
Brilliant.
Kamijou felt something tugging the back of his windbreaker.
"Er...Kurosawa-san...?"
He turned his head and saw the pale girl in the white kimono standing behind him while she grabbed his back to use as a human riot shield.
"Yes?" She answered meekly.
"Could it be... That you're afraid...?" Kamijou scratched his head.
"Of course not... I was just... Caught off guard..." Yae replied with a straight face.
"Right so could you let go of my...?"
"... Would it be okay if I didn't?"
"...I guess."
"Good."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"You go first of course, the man must lead the way."
"But this is the age of gender equality..."
"...The man must lead the way."
"..."
"..."
"...Fukoda."
With Kurosawa edging him onwards from behind, Kamijou slowly grabbed the handle of the door that the two disturbing looking girls had ran through and slide it open.
At the end of the hallway stood a single girl with pale hands and cheeks, she wore a black kimono with a long flowing hair that was just as black covering her upper face.
He could feel his heart beat racing as it threatens to explode.
She 'stared' right through him for a few long seconds before uttering those words...
The hair behind his neck stood straight up.
{KILL HER...}
And just like that she was gone, vanished into thin air.
"Okay... I'm getting that sinking feeling again..."
The two of them entered another narrow hallway; Kamijou could see three doors- one behind him and the other two against the wall on his left. At the end of the hallway where the disturbing little girl had stood was a large Tatami Room that looked like it was once the resting quarters for the inhabitants of this house, most likely the servants given the lack of consideration for privacy in the design of the room. The folding screens were beyond old and decrepit, in some places the wooden floor boards had rotted a hole right through.
Kamijou tried the first door to his left, but before he reached for the handle he heard a disturbing noise coming from behind it.
Is there somebody in there...? He thought.
Carefully, the boy placed his ear against the door.
It was hard to tell if it was words or just senseless murmurs.
The sound behind that door alternated between whispers and gutter talk.
The boy was unsure if it was just an illusion; while he was certain it was a voice of a man, it sounded as if it was fluctuating- like tuning the pitch of an old radio going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down...
Most of it sounded gibberish like a grunts, but that one line he was certain-
{ feaR thE remaininG...}
The firmly closed sliding door won't budge.
Perhaps the house was so old that maybe the whole room has warped?
Or was it locked from the inside?
Regardless, he's thankful that he don't have to go through it.
"Fear the Remaining? What's a remaining? A remaining of what?" Kamijou pondered out loud.
"..."
"...Kurosawa-san?"
"...The [Remaining] is the term we use to describe the twin that was left behind..." The pale girl with short black hair looked down to avoid eye contact.
She bit her lower lip.
"...From the ritual."
The Crimson Sacrifice.
A forbidden ritual performed when one twin kills the other.
And the one left behind was referred to as the [Remaining].
Kamijou immediately recalled reading something about that in the Ceremonial Master's notes where he referred to Itsuki as a [Remaining].
"...Let's skip this door first." Kamijou suggested.
Yae only nodded in agreement.
Next to the whispering room was a double sliding door made of wood like the previous one, minus the creepy mumbling voice.
Kamijou Touma opened it with little difficulty.
"Another altar room huh..."
Spider webs covering the large family altar that was the most distinct feature of the entire room, unless you count the decrepit wall with holes. There seems to be space on either side of the altar, but it's so dark that you can't see it.
Lying on top of the altar was a diary with a violet cover.
"This again huh... Maybe it has some clue as to where we should go-?"
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WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL? WHY MUST I KILL?
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The same words were written over and over.
Kamijou slammed the book shut.
"...You don't suppose the owner had some deep seeded issues?" Kamijou awkwardly asked his companion.
But to his surprise, Yae back away with him slowly with a hurtful look on her face.
"...Kamijou-san, are you the type of boy that has a habit of reading girls' diaries?"
"..."
He can't answer that.
Kamijou Touma DEFINITELY can't tell this girl that he's been reading her diary as well!
"D-Don't misunderstand! This is just for research! To better prepare ourselves!"
"...I see, if you say so..."
Looks like he dodged the bullet for now.
"...Did you ever read my di-?"
"ABSOLUTELY NOT! I ASSURE YOU I ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITELY, POSITIVELY DID NOT READ THE DIARY YOU AND YOUR SISTER WROTE TOGETHER!"
"Oh okay..." Yae blinked.
The spiky haired boy let out a sigh of relieve.
Just before they left the altar room...
"...How did you know me and Onee-chan wrote in the same diary?"
"...Fukoda."
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{I don't want to kill...}
{I don't want to kill anyone... So...}
{Let's stay together, OK...?}
{I won't kill anymore...}
{ I CAN'T KILL ANYONE ANYMORE!}
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After a quick sweep of the Tatami hallway and it's various rooms, Kamijou Touma and Kurosawa Yae was left with only one other door that wasn't locked.
"Ouch..." Kamijou rubbed the bruise on his shin from where Yae had walked up next to him and kicked.
The new room they've entered was much better decorated than the Tatami rooms with quality furniture and various little items, implying a strong importance to this particular room. It was also suspiciously well lit- there were two lamps on the floor that illuminates the place. A small mirror stands covered with red cloths are lined up here. Beyond them there's a pair of dolls. In fact, everything seems to come in pairs in this room...
Through the window you can see the opening of another room.
Old books and scrolls line the shelves. They all appear to be accounts of some ritual, but they're so old it's impossible to read them.
There's a beautiful folding screen standing beyond the chest of drawers with a picture of crimson butterflies fluttering below the flowers on it.
However, none of those things were what he was looking for.
"There doesn't seem to be anything the suggest the entrance to the [Earth Bridge] is here," Kamijou remarked as he head for the door on the other side of the room. "Let's move o-"
The highschool boy stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he felt Yae pulling back his shirt again.
Slowly, he turned around.
Sitting in front of the two mirrors which was empty just moments ago were the two same girls dressed in black kimono that he had seen in the hanging dolls room as well as the Tatami hallway from before.
They just sat there motionless for a few seconds...
Then vanished again.
Kamijou heard something fell onto the floor with a soft 'thud'.
At the exact same spot where one of the two girls had vanished was a book with a violet cover, similar to the one he had found in the Family Altar room.
"It's another diary... Kurosawa-san please stop give me that look, you know I have no choice but to read it..."
"I'm not giving you any look." Said Yae, as she was most definitely giving him that look. "...So what does it say?"
Kamijou hesitated for a moment.
"It's an account of one of the Kiryu twins performing the crimson sacrifice... And something else..."
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My hands closed around Azami's neck. It was soft, warm. Alive. My grip seemed
to cause her so much pain.
At the very end, the Veiled Priest came to help me.
But Azami said she wanted only me to do it. I became one with Azami...
But now she's gone. I can't talk about it anymore.
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Father brought Azami back. All I could do was apologize. She forgave me.
The killing is over now. No more. I'll never hurt anyone again.
I'll never let anyone kill again!
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...Father says Azami has been possessed, and he's trying to kill her. He's trying to kill Azami.
I won't let him do it.
I won't let that happen anymore...
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The room fell silent.
"...Kurosawa-san, are you okay?" Kamijou looked concerned.
"...H-Hmmm." Yae nodded nervously.
The experience recorded in the Violet Diary... One twin killing her beloved sister... This was the fate that Yae and her sister would be facing when it's their turn to perform the Crimson Sacrifice. Those thoughts and feelings... It might had been similar to her's or Sae's own once upon a time...
Looks like this answered one of Index's question- The style of death for this sacrificial ritual is by strangulation... I wonder what kind of deity that's for...? Kamijou pondered.
Come to think of it, how do they decided which twin would kill the other?
He was curious to find out, but this doesn't seem to be the best time to bring up such a touchy subject, instead he redirected their attention back to the diary.
"I'm guessing this book and the creepy one from before belonged to the Kiryu [Remaining] that survived the Crimson Sacrifice."
The same violet cover was a big enough clue.
The spiky-haired boy passed the book to his ghostly companion for safe keeping as they exited what he dubs as the [Twin Room], on the account of his observation that everything in it comes with an identical pair, and into a long and narrow hallway that is barely wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side.
"Kamijou-san, something is bothering me-" Kurosawa Yae frowned as she rereads the journal again. "What did she mean that her father brought Azami back?"
"Maybe Azami returned as a ghost? Remember that rumor you told me about the Head of the Kiryu House trying to bring back his daughter?" Kamijou Touma suggested.
"But why would he want to kill her ag-"
{WHY KILL?}
"?-!"
"?-!"
{WHY DO YOU KILL?}
"Oh crap...!"
They were too careless.
The door behind them slammed shut- sealed by a powerful force.
The path splits into two down the narrow hallway.
One girl dress in black kimono stood blocking their path to the left, while her identical twin blocked their path on right, cutting off all avenues of retreat.
He felt it in his guts that something was wrong.
It was almost like they were covered by a veil of darkness, embodied by the equally black Kimono that they both wore.
It was impossible to focus on it, as if it stood in a blind spot caused by a brain tumor or an eye disease. It was bleeding shadows like ink underwater, like a cloud of blood from a shark bite.
All the supernatural shows he watched calls it [ectoplasm], but now as he confronts the real McCoy, the boy knew exactly what to call it.
Malice.
Murderous Intent.
Without even a warning, the two of them started closing in on him.
That's when the adrenaline kicked in.
"KUROSAWA! MOVE!"
Yae yelped as Kamijou pushed her behind.
He charged up to one of the sisters, letting his brawler instincts take over.
There are a couple rules to fighting 2 on 1, most important of them was to never get sandwiched between two enemies- always maintain eye contact with your opponent and take the initiative to go on the offense first to get the drop on them.
The first girl didn't even looked surprised at him charging towards her.
BAM!
His fist made solid contact, but the result wasn't what he had expected. Instead of the relatively soft and bony impact distinct from hitting a fleshy target, what Kamijou felt was a stingy pain from his wrist as he made contact with a harden surface- like a door or a table. Even if they were ghosts, everyone that he had fought with up to this point still gave a human tactile sensation when he hit them...
The girl let out an eerie shriek as she sank down to the ground and slowly fade off, but she never gave off the 'blue sparks' that became the tell-tale signs that he had injured a ghost.
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
Kamijou spun around to see two girls making a lunge at him behind, he quickly side stepped one of them and instinctively pushed the other away with his right hand.
The girls vanished into the wall.
Kamijou spun around looking for sign of where they might appear next.
At the same time the girls' haunting chants echo throughout the hallway.
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
Without warning, one of the small girls charged from a wall behind him. Kamijou reacted by twisting his body and lowering his center of gravity to shift all his weight into his punch. It clocked her square in the jaw- this time it felt like he had hit a sack of meat. The girl screamed as the blue sparks shot out from where Kamijou had hit her with his Imagine Breaker.
But in that split second he had let down his guard, the second girl materialized behind him and slammed her body against him with full force.
Kamijou felt like like somebody had thrown a chair at him.
It definitely did not feel like he had just been hit by a soft human body.
Kamijou rolled out of the way and into the wall, the crash had left it's mark on his body.
"Damnit! What's going on?-!"
Something is definitely up with these girls.
Kamijou struggled to figure out what was their trick, but the Kiryu sisters aren't allowing him the opportunity to catch his breath.
It's not that they're particularly fast or strong, but rather it's the narrow hallway that was severely restricting Kamijou's ability to maneuver while the twins on the other hand were able to phase through the walls to ambush his blind spots.
Could it be...? All that time from the hanging doll room to the Twin room, they were actually just luring him and Kurosawa in to a killing zone? Into this narrow hallway where they possessed all the advantage by utilizing the terrain, as well as their numbers and phasing ability.
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
Once again, Kamijou had barely enough time to avoid a surprised attack from one of the twins that came through the wall.
Just when things are about to get worse-
"Kamijou-san! Over here! Quickly!" Yae shouted.
Somehow she had manage to slip past the Kiryu twins and ran for the red sliding door on the far opposite end of the hallway.
{WHY DO YOU KILL...?}
Touma scrambled to his feet and sprinted towards her, one of the black twins lunged from behind the wall in a sneak attack but he side stepped her perfectly. As fast as he could, the spiky haired boy dived behind the red double sliding door while Kurosawa shut it behind her.
"...That... Was too close...!"
The highschool boy let out a sigh of relief as he turned around-
And nearly had another heart attack.
The two Kiryu girls were there standing at the far corner of the room.
Except...
...One of them was missing her arms and head.
The room had an eerie and dark velvet with crimson-gold color setting about it. Flanking Kamijou and Kurosawa on all sides were a small army of Japanese dolls arranged onto what looked like stages on altar tables like spectators. The Stage-tables were covered in a silky red fabric with gold-orange patterns sewed on to it. On closer observation, they looked almost like the same set that he saw back in the Kurosawa Household that represented the Japanese imperial court of the old days. There were a pair of lit candles on each one of the tables.
"...Great, you couldn't picked a more creepier room from the last?"
"It was the only one unlocked..."
Once he had gotten his heart rate under control, Kamijou Touma realized that the twin girls in the room with him were just disturbing life-sized doll replicas of the real twin ghosts.
The resemblance was beyond intimidating; they looked exactly the same as the two girls that had attacked him in the hallway outside the room. The arrangement and length of their hair, the spine-chilling grayish 'skin' on their face, right down to the fine details of the black Kimono and the piercing look in the eyes... Well, at least for the one that has eyes.
There were two buttons carved with family crests on the box-like structure behind the dolls. The boy tried pressing them; even though he could hear the gears aching to move, nothing happened.
"Hmmm... Is the mechanism broken?"
It doesn't look like there's any obvious solution to that for now.
"Kamijou-san, look!"
Kurosawa waved at him- she was holding an aged tome that she had found on one of the doll tables in her hand.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Akane damaged the mechanism to access the passageway, and she took part of the doll.
I have to restore the twin doll to normal, and drop the possessed
doll of Azami into the -XXXX- , to send the spirit back to hell.
But that path was the only way to the -XXXX- ...
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I saw Azami in front of the Altar, even though she should be in the -XXXX- now... She was asking me to kill the 'Azami doll'.
I have made a grave mistake.
The twins had at last become one again... I was wrong to make that doll.
I think Azami was trying to tell me where the head and hands of the doll are
hidden. They're hidden in a box, somewhere in the house...
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~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
"I guess that solved a couple of mysteries; the passage way to the underground [Earth Bridge] that we're looking for is in this room," Kamijou Touma smiled weakly. "But that [Remaining] girl, Kiryu Akane, seem to have dismantled the doll which is the mechanism that opened the way to the it."
"So when Kiryu Akane was talking about her sister returning... It was actually a doll that her Father made? So the story about the Head of the Kiryu Family trying to bring back his lost daughter was partially true!" Yae gasped. "And when her Father wanted to kill the possessed doll, she did what her could to stop him because she thought she was protecting her sister... "
But her companion had other issues in mind.
"Great, living dolls..." Kamijou groaned as dark gloomy lines appear at the corner of his face.
"At least we now know what to do." Yae smiled as she tried to cheer him up. "Find the missing body parts that Kiryu Akane had hidden somewhere in this house and piece it back with this doll's main body."
"Where do we even start to look? This place is enormous! And not to mention a pair of angry little ghost girls are out to stop us..."
"Well, he said that his other Daughter, Kiryu Azami, was trying to tell him where her sister was hiding them... Maybe there's a clue in his Journal?"
As Yae flipped through the empty pages, something caught Touma's eyes.
"Hand on a second... Pass me that..." The boy took the Journal. "...Yeah that's what I thought; the Doll maker saw his deceased daughter in front of an 'Altar', how many rooms do we know that has an altar?"
"You mean... The family altar room? But even so, would Kiryu Azami help us?"
"It's the only play we've got now."
"I guess it couldn't hurt to take a look right...?"
"Nono... I'm sure it could hurt a little- it could also hurt a lot..."
For whatever reasons, the Kiryu Twins were no longer in the hallway waiting for them. Kamijou didn't intend to stick around to think about it as both him and Kurosawa made a mad dash across to the Twin Room, from there they had a relatively uneventful backtrack to the Family Altar room.
"What now?" Yae asked.
Unlike Kamijou, she didn't need a moment to catch her breath.
"We... Wait... I guess... For Azami to appear..."
There was no place for them to sit that isn't covered with a quarter inch layer of dust... Not that either of them felt like sitting.
The room was dry and somewhat stuffy, with little to no ventilation to circulate the air in the room.
And the fact that they're standing in front of an altar of the deceased Kiryu family memebers did nothing to lighten the mood.
Two minutes had passed and still no signs of any girl in a black Kimono.
"Maybe we got it wrong?"
"If we got it wrong, then I have absolutely no idea where to go-"
Kurosawa quickly cut him off.
"Shh! Did you hear something?"
The sound of murmur filled the still air of the room with unnatural tension.
It's coming from over there... She mouthed the words while pointing to the wall.
After giving her a slight nod, Kamijou Touma began to tip-toe towards the wall on the left side of the family altar table, taking every precaution not to creak the wooden floors or to bump into any furniture.
The murmurs grew clearer as he approaches the direction of it.
He notices a small gap at the corner of the wall.
Gently, he laid his head against it and peeked using one eye.
In the adjacent room, he saw an old man with long unkempt white hair talking to himself- his clothes were stained and dirty. The highschool boy could smell smoke coming from somewhere, implying that something was burning. The narrow gap in the wall was too small for him to make out what sort of room it was... He could only see a large wooden table in front of the old man.
{That is not a doll...}
{It is not my child, either...}
{It is a ghost...}
{I must kill it...}
{Even if it look like my child...}
{I must kill it...}
[The arms, the head and eyes...}
{Where did you hide them...?}
Slowly, the man started walking out of the boy's line of sight.
A moment later a loud click could be heard- signifying that the door to the room had been unlocked.
In an instant, all the cold uneasy feelings he had simply vanished.
"Come on."
Both Kamijou and Kurosawa left the Family Altar room and walked over to the door that they skipped the first time. The highschool boy carefully checked to hear if there's anyone still in there, once he's satisfied that it's safe to enter, he pulled the door open.
"I'm guessing this was the doll maker's workshop..." Kamijou commented.
The dozens of arms, legs and heads of dolls that had been thrown carelessly on the shelf was a big enough hint.
Every corner of the room was filled with unused or broken doll parts lying against the wall or sticking out of boxes and closets.
There are doll fingers, cords, screws and other small parts organized in the small drawer. But there isn't anything that looked especially useful.
At the far end was a fireplace burning away slowly at its supply of wood; Kamijou learned a long time ago not to bother asking questions like 'who light that fire?' in a place like this.
There's a mortuary tablet, a rosary and a prayer bell on the work bench in the center of the room. There's what looks like a sutra written in the open book, but Kamijou can't read it- this sort of thing leaned toward Index's area of expertise.
But at the very least he could still pick up a journal and read.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Last night, I heard footsteps. I thought it was Akane, but it was really 'Azami'-walking by herself.
Akane has spent so much time thinking of her sister,
a spirit must have taken over the doll. It is said that when a spirit takes residence in a doll, it can steal the soul of others.
Akane isn't a person anymore. She's like a doll. Controlled by 'Azami', she keeps repeating "I don't want to kill", over and over.
She looks so much like my daughter... Azami must be killed, again.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
"So that's it..." Kamijou Touma sighed. "I've more or less figured out this story..."
The Kiryu Twins, Akane and Azami performed the Crimson Sacrifice. Akane killed her sister by strangulation and was struck by guilt and grief as she became the [Remaining]. To comfort Akane, her father decided to build her a doll of her late sister Azami, for a moment everything was right again. But somewhere down the line her father, the doll maker, must have realized that something was very wrong. 'Something' had possessed the doll that he created and started controlling his daughter, taking over her body.
Then one night, the spirit of his dead daughter Azami appeared before him, urging him to kill the doll that he had created. Somehow Akane learned of this plan and removed the parts of the doll that was the mechanism that opens the path to the [Earth Bridge], to protect her 'sister' from her father- According to the doll maker, the only way to kill the possessed doll was to reenact the ritual with it... And to do that he needed to access the [Earth Bridge], which requires the doll mechanism to be whole again.
That means searching for the missing pieces somewhere in this house.
But where to even begin?
The answer had to be somewhere in the Doll Maker's writings, or some clue in this very room...
As Kamijou flips through the journals he and Yae had collect, a sudden stroke of genius hit him like a lightning bolt.
"Kurosawa, help me look for something to write with like a pencil...!"
"Pencil...?" The girl tilt her head at the unfamiliar word.
Damnit what age is this?-! Touma lament to himself.
"Erm, never mind... Help me look for charcoal! A burned piece of wood would do as well!"
At the corner of the doll maker's workshop was a pile of burned wood, probably used to destroy the works that went wrong. Yae simply reached in and pulled out a blacken piece of wood... Being a ghost does have its advantages.
"Would this do?"
"We can only hope..." Answered the boy as he took the charcoal wood and started shading the empty pages of the Doll Maker's journal that they had found in the room with the life-sized dolls.
Yae looked intrigued by his actions.
"What are you doing?"
It's an age old trick that even an elementary/primary school kid would know; shade the top of a stack of paper like a notepad and it would reveal the writings on the paper that was previously on top of it- there was a page torn from one of the Doll Maker's book. But since Kamijou doesn't have any pencil, he would have to improvised. Contrary to its name, pencil lead isn't really lead at all- it's actually made of Graphite which is a form of Carbon. But other than Graphite there were some pencils that were made from Charcoal- they're often fuller blacks than graphite pencils but tend to smudge easily and were more abrasive than graphite. And of course charcoal came from the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen, such as the fireplace in the workshop.
As the blackness spilled over the page, a clear outline and image started to appear on it. Slowly they begin to take rectangular boxy shapes and eventually words could be read- they were the names of rooms.
Suddenly, Kamijou noticed 'X' marks on some of these rectangular shapes.
There were three of them.
"There you have it; the map that the Doll Maker had torn off." He showed it to Kurosawa. "My guess is this was how Azami 'showed' him where to look... What are the odds that those three 'X' marks the location of our doll's body parts?"
"That's... Amazing!" Yae looked at him with starry eyes of admiration. "So where is the first 'X'?"
"Well lets see, we're in the workshop so the closest 'X' to us is..."
Touma's eyes widen.
"...Here?"
It felt like he was thrown off a bridge and into a freezing lake as his blood ran cold instantly.
The sound of the fireplace cracking and snapping went eerily quiet...
...That made the hollow breathing noise behind him much clearer.
With his heart in his throat, the boy turned around slowly.
A girl with long black hair in a black kimono.
Same as the others, but different.
He could see her face...Her black lips whispered grave messages from beyond...
But more importantly, he could see the bruises around her pale neck and the slight dislocation of the Hyoid bone. The image of her eyes with blood red veins burn into his mind...
These are clear signs of asphyxiation.
...Azami?
{Kill her...}
Just like that she disappeared.
Something that looks like a human's right arm was in a box on the table in front of where the girl was standing.
I guess that's one down... Touma thought grimly as he picked it up.
To be continued...
