A/N: Wow, it took me forever to work on this chapter. ^_^;; Sorry, guys~! Two years of block for a chapter written in about two days. _-_ I'm back on track with the story, though, so hopefully ch 10 won't take me too long to bang out. I'm also hoping to finish the fic by at least January. =X We'll see how well that goes.

Argh, since I cannot use my usual breaks, I'm going to be using zeros. =P Stupid, ugly zeros.

0000

With Cye missing and the thing that possessed Sage still on the loose, it was decided that they would split into pairs for better safety as they searched for their friend. Rowen and Sage took the first floor, while Ryo and Kento took the second. If one team found something, they would alert the other team by shouting. If that didn't work, they agreed that the spotting team should fetch the other; both members going for safety.

On the first floor, Rowen suggested starting back where he guessed the pantry was and working their way past the staircase. As it was as good a plan as any, Sage agreed and the two headed into the kitchen. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary in the kitchen, except that the water in the sink seemed to be running. Sage walked over to it to turn it off, but as he reached out for the knobs, there was no indication that it had been running at all. He frowned a little and raised his friend a 'what the hell' eyebrow.

Rowen just shrugged. "Probably one of the twins."

"I suppose so." He gave the sink, which was still waterless, another glance before starting again for the pantry. "I don't think they'd continue that now, though, considering."

"Oh...You have a point, there." The archer looked back towards the sink a moment, then just shook his head. "Maybe it was your imagination, then."

"Except that you heard the water running, too, right?"

"Oh, yeah. Weird."

It didn't take the pair long to find the pantry; it was written on the door, even. Rowen vaguely wondered why Cye had had so much trouble earlier... until they actually opened the door and found what looked like a janitor's closet. Cleaning supplies, a broom, a box labeled as 'CANDLES', a bucket or two, and a step ladder greeted them. Sage gave a small huff at the improperly labeled door.

"That wasn't very nice, was it?"

"Eh, maybe they ran outta room and had to move the food to a bigger spot."

"You are probably right, Ro. Let's keep looking."

After a few more minutes that nearly felt like longer, they managed to find the actual pantry. It was, indeed, a lot larger than the closet and held a lot of jars and cans whose labels have long since fallen off. Looking around, it wasn't hard to see why Cye had told them the food was spoiled. Rowen held up a jar and peered at the contents.

It peered back.

The blue haired archer let out a small yelp and nearly dropped the jar. Sage turned around to see what was up.

"Are you alright?"

"I-i-i-it looked at me!"

Sage raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure that's what happened? It was probably a trick of the light."

"I swear that's what happened." He gave the jar another, albeit at arm's length, look and quickly set it back.

The blond couldn't really argue more than that, as he remembered that he swore the faucet was running in the kitchen. Shaking the thought out of his head, he continued to look around the pantry. There didn't seem to be any other doors or hatches anywhere that someone could hide in and the shelving was flat against the walls. Since there wasn't anything further to note, the pair made their way back to the kitchen.

0000

The first room they checked out after ascending the stairs was a bedroom on the left. Ryo recognized it as the one he woke up in. It appeared to be a child's room, with two twin sized beds pushed up length wise against the two long walls. Both were made with faded pink bedding that had faint flower and unicorn designs on it. Ryo noted that both beds looked like they were never slept in and figured that one of the twins had made it sometime after they were all done with breakfast. The closet was to the right of the door, so he walked in to see if there was anyone hiding in it. There wasn't. In fact, there wasn't really anything of interest in this room at all. Deciding that no one could sufficiently hide in here, he walked out to see what Kento was up to.

The ashy haired teen happened to be one room down, peering under a chest of drawers. Ryo blinked and crouched down next to him.

"What are you doing?"

Kento jumped, nearly hitting his head on the brass handle of the bottom drawer. "Don't do that, man! I nearly had a heart attack."

"Sorry. So what are you doing?"

The teen sat up on his knees and gave Ryo a look. "I thought I saw something under there. Like eyes." He shrugged and stood up. "Something shiny, at least."

Ryo shuddered faintly, remembering the butler. "Creepy. Hopefully it was nothing."

"Yeah, really." Kento gave one last look at the bottom of the dresser, then turned away from it. "Anyway, no one's hiding in here. Let's try a different room."

"Okay."

The two left the room and Kento shut the door behind them. The next two rooms they tried were locked, but the third one wasn't. Entering this room, they saw that it was the nursery; the cribs lining the back wall helped that conclusion. There was a closet opposite and to the left, so Kento went to see if there was anyone hiding in there. Ryo decided to check the cribs, 'just in case'. _You never know what could be in there in this house._ He chose the farthest one on the left to start with and peered over the top of the lowerable railing. Nothing but rotting mattress and what appeared to be the remains of a blanket. The next one was just as promising. The one after that had a broken railing, making it easier to see what was inside. The contents were the same as the others, except this one had a shiny brass door handle in the middle of it. This item seemed familiar in a way and thinking back on it, he remembered Sage mentioning it when they had regrouped after their first inspection of the house. Curious to see if it was just a one time prank, Ryo picked up the handle and stared at its shiny surface. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He set the handle back down, mildly disappointed that he didn't see anything.

Since that crib held nothing, he wasn't really holding out hope for the last one, but took a full look inside, anyway. The teen instantly recoiled, letting out a disgusted cry. Kento immediately rushed over to see what the problem was.

"What? What happened?"

"Th-there's a... there's a..." Ryo took a moment to swallow and try to calm his gag reflex. "There's a rotted baby in there!"

"No way!" Kento moved closer to the crib and tentatively peered in. He blinked and turned to look at his friend. "Uh, Ryo...? There's nothing in there."

"...What?" Kento repeated his statement, so Ryo took a deep breath and looked back into the crib. It was, indeed, empty. He spoke softly. "B-but... I saw... it was..."

Kento patted Ryo on the shoulder, then started to lead him towards the door. "Come on, let's get out of here before anything else happens."

When they were safely back in the hall and that room's door was shut again, Ryo said, "It was there."

"I believe you, Ry. Honestly, I do." He started walking towards the last door on that side of the floor. "You think maybe it was that one twin who was doing stuff like that to us this morning?"

Ryo thought about it, then shook his head. "Nah, I don't think it is. From what we all recounted that time in the kitchen, this is more gruesome than what he had been doing."

"Oh... That's right. His stuff was more... mild compared to a rotting baby."

"Yeah." The teen shuddered at the thought of seeing that and did his best to shove the image out of his head.

0000

As his hiding place didn't overlook anything, the auburn haired teen used the room's mirror to spy on his 'friends'. The top half showed the two on the first floor, whereas the bottom half showed the other two. The four boys seemed to be finding both nothing and something at the same time. He knew for a fact that those wretched twins were not behind the pranks these boys were 'imagining' they were finding. No, he smiled a little to himself, he was. After all, what good is being stuck forever in an empty house without having some fun when live people somehow end up in it? He didn't realize that this same attitude was shared by one of the boys he hated so much. That didn't matter, though. It was almost time to make his appearance.

0000

They were at the last room past the stairs, and thankfully it was unlocked. Rowen opened the door and peeked in. Inside was pitch black and nothing really stood out to him at first...until he took a step and nearly fell into a hole. Luckily, he was quick enough to grab onto the door frame and stop himself. After planting both feet firmly on the floor outside, he knelt down a little and focused his vision on the floor.

"Are you alright, Rowen?"

"Yeah. Nearly fell to my death, but I'm alright."

"Another 'trick'?"

Rowen shook his head. "No... There really isn't a floor here." He gestured for Sage to take a look. "Come see for yourself."

Sage knelt beside him and reached out to pat the floor. "Oh wow. Imagine if you fell into that; you'd never be able to get back out." He paused for a second. "Unless maybe it went down into the basement and there were stairs nearby."

"I somehow doubt that's the case."

"True."

The two boys stood back up and Rowen shut the door. As it was the last room on their floor, they had to decide on what to do next. Sage suggested going back the way they came, rechecking the rooms just in case they may have missed something; skipping the floorless room, of course. Rowen agreed and the two walked over to the room before the floorless one. This room was a half bath, so there wasn't much to revisit in there. Sage did notice, however, that a hand towel had fallen onto the floor and took the time to pick it up. He folded it neatly and set it on the counter. The two then moved on to the next room, which was nothing more than a glorified storage area. There was a closet to the left of the door, so Rowen checked it out. The doors had been removed who knew when and the space was packed with a jumble of clothes, sheets, towels and some long forgotten tennis equipment. As there was no room for someone to hide in there, they moved onto the next room.

0000

Upstairs, Ryo and Kento weren't having much luck locating Cye, either. But, they had three rooms to go, so hope hadn't yet run out. The first of these rooms happened to be the one Kento had woken up in that morning. The ashy haired teen shuddered faintly as he remembered that stupid sword dancing in his face. However, this wasn't the time to be thinking of that, so he pushed the thought out of his head and stepped into the room. It seemed fairly large for being one of the smaller rooms they had seen, though Ryo just supposed that was because there was hardly any furniture in it. There was a bed, dresser, vanity with a small stool; basic guest room stuff.

As Ryo went to go open the closet, Kento walked over to the window on the other side of the room. The curtain was closed, so he pulled back one of the corners a bit. It was depressing, to say the least. All white, as though someone had taped a sheet of printer paper to the window, but there was a more 3D quality to it. He didn't see any headstones, so he surmised that the graveyard must be only in the front. Belatedly, Kento noticed that there didn't seem to be any panes in the window and, remembering that it was said if one ends up outside, they'd never get back in, he didn't want to stick his finger out there to see if there was glass and risk losing that finger forever.

"There isn't anything here, Ken. Let's check the next one."

"Okay." Kento let the curtain fall back into place and headed out the door behind Ryo.

The next room looked like another guest room, though more decorated than the last. Once bright yellow wallpaper with a white stripe and rose design was now dull and peeling in a few spots from the wall. The bed in the room was still beautiful after all this time and its four posts and small canopy looked pristine. Ryo ran his finger over one of the posts and gave Kento a surprised eyebrow.

"There's no dust on here at all."

"Maybe it's one of the twins' rooms. They're still pretty active."

"Could be. Maybe the one that got us breakfast."

"Which one was that, again?"

"I have no idea. I still can't tell them apart."

Kento agreed, then went to open the wardrobe that was standing against the wall near the window. Inside were a few dresses and a scarf or two. "Looks like a little girl stayed in here." He shut the doors and turned back to Ryo. Only, Ryo wasn't in the room any more. "Ryo?"

The teen hurried into the hall and looked around, hoping that nothing had happened and especially that he hadn't gone and gotten himself possessed. His fears were quickly dashed as he almost immediately spotted his friend staring down the hall towards their last room. Letting out a small sigh of relief, he walked over to Ryo and lightly slapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Dude, next time tell me you're leavin' the room."

"Ah! Sorry, Kento. I thought I heard a noise and wanted to see if it was anything."

"This ain't the house to do that type of stuff alone in, Ry. Remember that."

Ryo smiled apologetically at his friend. "I won't do it again, promise."

"Good."

The sound of a door opening brought their attention to the room Ryo had been looking toward. Kento thought that he had also heard a toilet flush somewhere in the background, then remembered that that room was the bathroom he had found much earlier in the day. Nothing happened for at least a minute. Ryo started to take a step forward, wanting to see if the door they heard was indeed from that last room or not. Before he got a full step ahead, a figure emerged from the bathroom and looked at them.

Kento gasped. "Cye!"