Chapter's a little shorter, but on the other hand it came pretty quick, didn't it?

Can't believe no one seemed to have caught the video game reference in the last chapter.

Again, thanks to all who reviewed.

rainee: Yeah, I'm going to leave that a mystery until next chapter.

Eiswulf: Well, that's what happened in And Then There Were None, right?

AC195: Mystery, mystery...

Olivia: Well, keep in mind it's one of those doors where the lock is on the doorknob, so one could set it to lock and then close it.

wolfie: Patience, my friend.

ManiazAzn: ...thanks for pointing that out.

My-HiME is property of Sunrise.

2/15/08

Lunch was an even less of a social affair than breakfast had been, as the thought of the killer being one of them was an incredibly shocking and mind-numbing revelation for the gang. No one had told Mai or those in the kitchen with her about Alyssa's suggestion, as Natsuki felt Mai had more than enough guilt to live with, but even Mai knew something was wrong that couldn't be completely explained by what happened to Yukino.

After lunch, the gang went their separate ways and tried to enjoy their vacation as much as they could, though the feeling of fear had set in just as surely as the rainstorm that precluded any further searching outside. Akira finished her meal quickly and went upstairs to rest, with Takumi accompanying her to make sure she didn't have any more dizzy spells. Natsuki and Alyssa went to the bathroom where Yukino died to see if there were any more clues to her death. Haruka returned to the drawing room where the victims laid, with the Sister following to offer a shoulder to cry on. On Mai's urging, Yuichi had gone looking for Shiho, who had disappeared somewhere. Shizuru and a sober Midori left to discuss various matters regarding the group's plans, given all that had occurred. Nao skipped out before Mai could draft her into service, leaving just her and Mikoto to clean up.

"Whoever did this was very thorough," Alyssa said, looking at the wire. "No way to tell who used it."

"No identifying marks anywhere either," Natsuki added, kneeling on the floor to look for footprints or any other identifying marks. The two had suspicions that the killer had to have hidden in the closet and attacked just as Yukino flushed the toilet, but they had no evidence to support it, and after a fruitless hour they had called it quits. As Alyssa left she ran into Yuichi. "Hey, have you seen Shiho anywhere?" he asked.

"Sorry, I haven't" she replied. "I've been with Kuga the whole time. Have you tried her room?"

"I was just there."

"Ah," Alyssa said. "Hope you find her."

"Yeah, thanks," he replied. Yuichi spent, by his reckoning, an hour and a half wandering through the halls, looking into every room to find Shiho. He eventually found a closed door which had been open the last time he remembered passing by it.

"Shiho? Are you in here?" he asked, opening the door. Shiho was in there, but her only acknowledgement of her onii-chan's existence is her head turning towards the door momentarily before returning again to the window and the rain outside. "Hey. Are you all right?"

"Fine," Shiho answered unenthusiastically.

Yuichi noticed that Shiho's lip was quivering a little, though she was doing her utmost to stop it. He walked up and stood beside the chair she was sitting in. "You don't seem like it." Shiho grabbed Yuichi's arm and clung to it tightly. "Nope," Yuichi concluded, "you're not." With his free arm he managed to grab hold of a folding chair and pulled it up next to Shiho's so that he could sit. "If it's about the killer, don't worry. I'm not it, and I have faith it isn't you, either."

"It's not just that, onii-chan," Shiho replied, "although I'm glad you don't suspect me. I wouldn't be so scared if I could be with you."

Yuichi looked down towards the carpeted floor and let out a sigh. "Is this about Mai?"

"Yes,onii-chan. Ever since you stopped calling her Tokiha." Shiho paused, trying to find the right words. "I…I just…" She buried her face into Yuichi's bare arm. Yuichi felt liquid trickling from Shiho's face on it. He hoped it was only her tears that he was feeling. "Why, onii-chan? Why did you have to fall for her?" She took a breath. "Am I really that lagging in the three sizes?"

"What?" Yuichi then figured out what she meant. "W-well…"

"Don't lie to me. Please," Shiho pleaded.

"…All right. I'd be lying if I said what assets Mai has wasn't part of the reason. But that's not the only one."

"Is it because she's the same age as you and I'm still in middle school?" Shiho sniffed to clear up her nose.

"No, it's not that. It's just…"

"Then what is it?!" Shiho begged.

Yuichi glanced away, trying to buy time to come up with an answer. "Mai's become important to me. She's…been through hell the past year."

"She isn't the only one," Shiho retorted.

"Well, I'm not saying that what you and everyone else here went through was a walk in the park. But she's worked so hard just to be where she is now. And she keeps a smile on her face whenever she can. That's just…amazing, really." Yuichi sighed. Love isn't easy to put in words. He supposed that was why so many writers in history wrote so much about it. "I'm not going to say something idiotically romantic like, 'There was just this connection between us that formed'," he said. "I don't think love works like that. But…I guess when she's happy, I am as well for her."

"Are you saying you don't care for me anymore?" Shiho asked.

"No, no! Not at all! I don't want to see you hurt. Neither does Mai, I have her word on that. Nor anyone else here."

"Except for the one trying to kill us all."

"Well, yeah, but not because of anything you did. Whoever's doing this is seriously screwed up in the brain, so you shouldn't worry about him." Yuichi sighed. "Do you want to talk with Mai about this? I think we should."

Shiho let go of Yuichi's arm and slumped in her chair. "Maybe later. I want some time alone."

"You sure you don't want to at least come out where other people are? If the kid's suspicion is right…"

"I'll be fine," Shiho replied. "Really."

Yuichi leaned forward in his chair, his arms resting on his thighs. "All right. Let us know if you need something." He got up and left the room, closing the door behind him and leaving Shiho alone to her thoughts. For a while, the pattering of raindrops provided the only supporting music to her sad serenade. The Carnival made it obvious to everyone but her that Yuichi loved Mai, but unknown to all Shiho wasn't in the dark about Yuichi stealing glances at Mai. For weeks after the Carnival, her mind had assigned such incidents to onii-chan falling victim to his Y chromosome, but even that fiction began to crack even before the gang had embarked on their nightmare vacation. Shiho knew about Yuichi's clandestine meetings with Mai when he thought she was asleep or otherwise busy, and on a few occasions had followed him. She had a lurking suspicion that the questions she had asked earlier would go the way he had answered, but until he said those answers himself, she could always have dismissed those thoughts with the possibility that she was being paranoid, that the dream of her and him together forever was still alive. But now…

Simultaneously, the small portion of her mind that was not focused on the conversation she had with Yuichi was aware of some noise emanating from the next room. She could barely make out the voices of Nao and Natsuki, as well as the sound of what seemed to be plastic toys. Soon, the patter of raindrops was accompanied by hard rock guitar music and squeaky plastic, with intermittent plunks here and there followed by one of them yelling at the other for screwing up. A quick glance revealed to her that she could hear them due to an air vent that was shared between the two rooms.

You walk on like a woman in suffering
Won't even bother now to tell me why
You come along, letting all of us savor the moment
Leaving me broken another time

Shiho knew a few English words, but nowhere near enough to understand what in the world the singer was singing about, let alone try to do so with all that loud music distracting her, so she focused on the music itself. Ordinarily she would have likely gone over into the next room and asked them to turn it down, but at that point she wanted anything to distract herself.

You come on like a bloodstained hurricane
Leave me alone, let me be this time
You carry on like a holy man pushing redemption
I don't want to mention, the reason I know

From the second line as well as the music itself, it sounded to Shiho like the song of some angry American railing against the unfairness of life or something.

That I am stricken and can't let you go
When the heart is cold, there's no hope, and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will I run…

The beat of the song seemed inappropriately fast to Shiho, though. Almost like a military march or something, though what she heard of the messages of most rock music seemed to contradict that. She never understood American rock. The genre seemed to be too many things at once.

You don't know what your power has done to me
I want to know if I'll heal inside
I can't go on with a holocaust about to happen
Seeing you laughing another time

"Onii-chan…" she said idly, completely giving up on understanding the lyrics. Not wanting to return her thoughts there, and with nothing else, she immersed her self into the music.

You'll never know why your face has haunted me
My very soul has to bleed this time
Another hole in the wall of my inner defenses
Leaving me breathless, the reason I know

That I am stricken and can't let you go
When the heart is cold, there's no hope, and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will I run…

Into the abyss will I run…

A guitar solo followed, though there were more miscues than usual here. "You suck, Kuga," Shiho heard Nao say through the vent.

"Oh, you're one to talk, Miss I'm-A-Coward-Because-I-Pick-Bass," Natsuki rebutted.

Shiho ignored the banter and listened to the solo. In a strange way, it seemed like the music was wailing. Maybe she was looking too much into it, but somehow, even though she didn't know what was being said, the music felt both appropriate and out of place.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the music ceased in the middle. Shiho took that as strange. Then she heard (faintly) the voice of Mai, followed by the crash of plastic toys onto a hardwood floor and the running of feet. That she took as "something's wrong".

Shiho rushed out the door and caught sight of Nao and Natsuki rounding a corner to go up a flight of stairs. She followed them upstairs to one of the bedrooms, where she saw Natsuki standing just outside. "Kuga-san, what happened?" Shiho asked.

"Takumi said Akira wasn't breathing," Natsuki informed. Shiho glanced inside to see Mai attempting to do CPR on Akira, with everyone else no less than five feet away to give her space. Everyone present could only stand back and watch Mai try valiantly to prevent another death. But valor would not come at this hour, only futility. After a few minutes Mai gave up, crying for yet another victim.

Later, the remaining twelve sat around in the room where Nao and Natsuki were earlier playing video games. They had left Akira's body in the same room for the time being. Mai held Takumi in her grasp as he mourned. "So…" Yuichi began, "what exactly happened?"

"The sister and I were in the drawing room when Takumi busted in calling for help," Haruka said. "He said the ninja had a seizure and wasn't recovering from it. The sister went off to find Mai while I ran upstairs. When I got up there, I saw her not beating and tried splashing water on her."

"Copying a delinquent?" Nao half-teased.

"Hey, when someone's life is on the line, it's not the time to extricate," Haruka responded.

"Nao, not now," Natsuki rebuked.

"It's 'experiment'," Nao snarked before earning a death stare from Natsuki. "Continue, Haruka," Natsuki said.

"After that, I tried giving CPR, but I didn't know how, and I nearly passed out trying. That's when Mai came in."

Mai looked up, still hugging Takumi. "After Sister found me, I rushed upstairs to administer CPR while Sister went to look for anyone else she could find. I ran into Natsuki and Nao on the way up and told them about what happened. When I got there, I took Haruka's place."

"Right," Natsuki said. "The rest…we know."

"Yeah," Midori concurred.

Everyone was silent for a couple minutes, long enough for Takumi to stop crying. "D…does anyone know how she…died?" he asked. Hesitancy on the word "died" indicated that he still hadn't completely accepted the fact.

"Why didn't you get help as soon as the seizure started?" Nao asked.

"She had one this morning, and was fine afterwards," Shiho replied.

"Yeah…" Takumi concurred.

"Hmm…" Nao, for once, looked serious. "I guess I shouldn't blame you for that. Seizures have been known to occur in head trauma victims."

"Seems like your studies are actually helping, for once," Mai noted.

Nao blinked in realization. "Yeah…I suppose," she admitted.

With Mai busy, Mikoto had turned her attention to Alyssa, who was deep in thought. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

"Seizures…head trauma…apnea…" Alyssa mumbled.

"What's apnea? Is it tasty?" Mikoto asked.

"Apnea's just a fancy way of saying 'no breathing'," Alyssa explained.

"Oh," Mikoto replied. "Why do they use such a complicated word?"

Alyssa shrugged. "You know, I don't know either." Her eyes focused on the back of Takumi's head. "Wait a minute…Takumi, you said that you had left her to get an ice pack after giving her some medicine, right?"

Takumi nodded. "I just gave her a couple tablets of aspirin like what the instructions said."

"Where's the bottle?"

"I have it," Shizuru said, producing the bottle. "It was knocked over in the commotion, and I picked it up." Alyssa took it and poured out the contents onto the table. Using a pen, she sorted the pills. "Strange…" she said.

"What?" Natsuki said.

"These pills feel a little different from the others," Alyssa said. She picked one up and looked at it up close. Her head hung. "Of course."

"What is it?" Shizuru asked.

"Someone poisoned Akira," Alyssa said. "These are glass pills, and I'm willing to bet they have cyanide inside."

"Cyanide?" Natsuki asked. "Are you sure?"

"The symptoms Akira had are consistent with cyanide poisoning," Alyssa explained. "My guess is someone mixed these pills in with the aspirin. It was only a matter of luck." The announcement just made Takumi feel even worse, something which Alyssa noticed. "Don't blame yourself, Takumi: the pills could have been mixed in by anyone."

"Still," Nao asked, "how could neither of them have noticed that they felt different?" Her eyes glanced at Mai's little brother.

"Akira took the pills with water," Takumi said, not noticing Nao's glare of suspicion. "As for me…I guess I just never thought of it." His downcast eyes told the rest of the story.

Alyssa stood up. "What's up?" Mai asked.

"I want to see something," she said. Alyssa then walked out of the room and towards the drawing room. Everyone else followed her to see what she was doing. "I knew it," Alyssa said with a hint of resignation when she arrived.

"What is it?" Shizuru asked.

"Another pawn's missing," Alyssa said. Indeed, a second black pawn was not in its place. "When you factor in that cyanide poisoning is a popular method of murdering someone in mystery novels…" she added, trailing off to let them finish the thought. The clock struck 3 o'clock, as if the universe was ringing Alyssa's guess correct in its own, warped way. Even Alyssa wanted to be wrong, but there was little doubt at this point. One of their own was a serial killer.

Again, please R & R. Song is "Stricken" by Disturbed.