Chapter 10 – Mai again
"What do you mean, they left?!"
Midori winced, cringing back at my tone. I hardly noticed. I was seething.
When I'd realised I lost Kara (Who loses a kid?! Only I do, that's who), I'd rushed around the building, looking for any trace of her. The kids caught on to my cries pretty fast and came to realise what was going on. Soon, everyone had jumped into the search, sparking a bigger reaction than any of the previous disappearances. After a good twenty minutes, I'd gone storming up to base, ready to give Naru the lecture of his life for not jumping up immediately to help, only to find the room mysteriously empty. Upon investigation, Midori came to tell me that both Lin and Naru had left not long ago, apparently on separate errands.
How dare they leave without telling me?! And to leave me alone in a place like this, it's as if they barely know me! And of course, they just had to be gone in the middle of a crisis!
I instinctively reached for my phone and flipped through my list of contacts until I found Naru's name. My finger came within an inch of the screen before halting, my anger giving way to uncertainty. Naru hates it when people call his personal number. Only a handful of people have it- namely, his parents, Lin, Madoka, Masako and myself. Out of those people, I'm pretty sure only Madoka and his parents have ever had the nerve to call him. When he gave it to me, he said it was only to be used in emergencies. Did this qualify? Or would he scold me for calling his personal number?
After another moment of hesitation, I decided to take the safer option and dialed Lin instead. He picked up immediately.
"This is Lin."
My anxiety spiked. Calling Lin may have been the safer option, but that doesn't mean I was comfortable with it either. "Lin, it's Mai." I answered. "Where are you? Where's Naru? The whole place is in a panic right now-"
"Mai, slow down." He interrupted in that calm, collected voice of his. "What exactly has happened?"
I took a deep breath. "One of the girls got possessed while Kara and I were out looking in the yard. I was able to convince the spirit to leave the body, but at some point while I was handling things, Kara disappeared. Everyone's out looking now, but there's… there's no sign of her." I choked a little on the last few words.
"All right. I'll be back shortly, I only had to pick up a few spare parts for the cameras." He answered. That wasn't too surprising. A couple cameras had been violently knocked over last night. "Naru had some research to accomplish. Have you called him?"
"No, I-"
"You should call him."
"But I-"
"You do have his number, right?"
"Yeah, but-"
"He should be informed. I should be back at the house within the hour."
He hung up.
I glared at the phone, not sure whether I should be mad or anxious or scared. That's basically how every phone conversation with Lin goes—straight to the point, with hardly a chance to get a word in on my end. I also knew he was right. Naru did need to know about this. It is relevant to the case.
But maybe… maybe that's why I don't want to call him. Maybe I don't want him to take Kara's disappearance as nothing more than a development in the case. I don't have the faintest idea how Kara's been affecting Naru, but I do know she's had a huge impact on me. Surely she stirred something in Naru, right?
I can always hope.
After a couple more agonizing moments, I steeled my nerves and called him.
-One hour earlier-
(Naru's POV)
After having sent Mai and Kara off to search the yard for toys, I'd retreated to the office once more in the hopes of pursuing an exciting new lead we'd only just discovered.
According to the official report I now had on file, the lead detective of the case had been named Tomoho Tsubashi. Like every other person from the initial case, he was long dead, and in my initial investigation I was unable to find any personal records he may have left behind. The man had been married twice, but according to medical reports and certificates, he never had any children.
However, earlier this morning, Lin had managed to dig up an old newspaper indicating that a Tomoho Tsubashi had claimed his illegitimate son following the death of the boy's mother when he was just 13. The man in question had been 67 at the time. Lin continued to follow up on this lead until he was able to verify the lineage and produce an address belonging to the child of the newspaper clipping, who was in his late sixties and still alive and well.
I tried calling but was only able to get a hold of the man's wife, who said that the man was helping out at the local police station. Undeterred, I immediately set out to find this man in person.
The drive out to the small town was nearly thirty-five minutes long, and with every passing minute I grew more and more anxious about those back at the orphanage. It kept crossing my mind that I had left Mai in a paranormal hot spot and that Lin would have to leave the house to get replacement parts for the damaged cameras. I couldn't shake the feeling that I should be back there with her, but I was already nearing my destination and I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity now.
The police station was a small, one-levelled building tucked away between a library and an apartment complex. I drove right past it and had to backtrack. This left me slightly disgruntled as I finally made my way into the building.
I approached the desk, airing my usual confidence and authority. In the instant the police spotted my approach, he perked up, narrowing his eyes at me and placing a hand on what I assumed to be a weapon tucked away at his belt. This didn't surprise me—I always seem to have that effect on cops. I came right up to him and asked "I'm looking for a man named Yuuto Tsubashi."
"What business do you have with him?" The cop responded curtly.
"I'm currently investigating a case which was initially handled by Tomoho Tsubashi. I'm looking for additional records he may have left behind."
The cop didn't seem any less tense. "All of Tomoho Tsubashi's case files are kept on record at the station he worked at. You won't find any additional records here."
In my usual fashion, I kept my composure and showed little emotion. I could tell that this cop was vigilant, but I could see his confidence wavering in light of my own. I pushed "The files I'm looking for would not have been kept with the official police records but with his personal records. Personal records which, following his death, would have fallen into the possession of his next of kin."
I could see the police man straining to find a reason to deny my request. He clearly didn't trust me. But as a police man belonging to this branch, he had no right to poke his head into a case belonging to a different branch, nor did he have the right to deny me a conversation with a fellow citizen. He could insist on a background check and could ask about my credentials as an investigator, but he must have been relatively new because he didn't do either of those things. Instead, he politely asked me to wait a moment and went to retrieve the man I was looking for.
The man that came out was a short, disgruntled-looking senior with an obscene amount of wrinkles but an inquisitive look in his eye. Like the first cop, he zeroed in on me and labeled me as a potential threat. His hand gravitated to his belt, but as a volunteer there was no weapon there for him to retrieve.
"What do you want?" He grumbled, jumping straight to the point. I was thankful for that—there would be no need for any false pleasantries.
"I'm looking for any files related to a case I'm currently investigating. The Furuka murders, to be precise." I answered.
His eyes narrowed, and he snorted. "The Furuka murders, huh? What are you, some sort of detective?"
I considered the question for a second, and decided that playing the part of a detective would be the best option to obtain the answers I'm looking for. "I am."
He smirked, and I got the eerie sensation that he wasn't buying it, which irritated me. "Yeah right." He said. "That case was closed years ago."
"I've reopened it."
"Yeah? What for?"
"I've been hired to do so." I answered him. I was careful to stick to half-truths in my answers. I could tell from the inquisitive look in his eye that he'd be able to see through a genuine lie right away. "Any reason beyond that is irrelevant to me."
Tsubashi glared me down for a full fifteen seconds. Finally, he gave a slight nod, as though coming to an agreement with himself. "Come with me, kid." He said. He turned and led me to a back room. A couple officers attempted to protest, but Tsubashi shooed them off. Even retired, the man still help plenty of authority.
The room Tsubashi led me to was clearly a storage room for what appeared to be a bunch of cold and closed case files. Tsubashi squeezed past the rows of boxes until he reached a corner of boxes piled behind a small wooden desk. He began to shuffle through the files.
"My father used to obsess over this case." Tsubashi said, still looking through the boxes. "After he retired and settled down, he'd spend the occasional Sunday looking over the evidence, trying to find what he missed. He said there was something wrong with the way those kids were killed."
"Did he explain what he meant by that?" I asked.
"Yeah." Tsubashi threw aside the box he'd been looking through and pulled out another one. "Those kids were covered in blunt force trauma wounds, but forensic specialists agreed that the wounds weren't caused by a person hitting them. Most likely, the kids had been thrown against the walls and furniture. My dad found plenty of blood spots on various walls and pieces of furniture at the scene of the crime, so that made sense, but the majority of them were just too high. He even found blood spots on the ceiling. No one in that house, not even the Furuka they convicted, was strong enough to do that."
I considered what he just told me. The police files I'd painstakingly searched through never mentioned these supposed blood spots on the ceiling. Most likely it was left out because of the inconsistency Tsubashi just mentioned. What Tsubashi didn't know was that there had, in fact, been someone in the house with the ability to do what he was suggesting.
A cold feeling gripped my heart.
"Ah, here it is." The old man pulled out a file from the box. "These are my father's notes on the subject. Putting aside the blood spots on the ceiling, he'd always suspected that it was someone else in the house that killed those nineteen kids."
I opened the file while Tsubashi was still taking and scanned the notes. They were jumbled and disorganised, but the man's suspicions were made very, very clear.
Of course. Why hadn't I considered it before?
Just them, my phone rang. I nearly jumped in shock. No one ever called me on my personal number unless it was an emergency (or Madoka pestering me). I pulled out my phone, only to see that it was Mai calling me. My stomach jumped to my throat.
I answered "Mai, what's wrong?"
"Naru!" she sounded shocked. She probably hadn't expected me to answer. "You need to get back here. Kara's missing!"
Kara's missing.
The words echoed around in my head. For a moment, I couldn't seem to process them. Missing? She couldn't be missing. She was with Mai. She was strong. She was safe.
Then the words did process, and the entire world swayed. Instantly, I was furious at myself for reacting so badly. I was also furious at myself for leaving the girls alone and letting this happen. "Mai, tell me exactly what happened."
Thankfully, I didn't have to specify. Mai knew what I meant.
She began "Kara and I were out in the yard looking for toys, but we couldn't find anything. We started heading back to the house when a couple girls ran out to get me. One of the girls had been possessed. They took me to her- she was in the basement- and I handled it, but when I was done, I couldn't find Kara anywhere."
I felt a swell of pride for Mai well up in my chest. The fact that she was able to handle a possession on her own like an expert medium—that's incredible. Then my mind processed the rest of the story. I had the bite my tongue to stop myself from asking Mai if she'd checked the yard, the attic, the basement rooms… of course she did, she adores Kara. She probably even searched through the kitchen draws.
"We're unlikely to find her then." I hated admitting it. "Mai, I need you to gather the children together and assign a system to keep them in groups at all times. If they stick together, they are less likely to be taken. I'm assuming that Kara and the other missing kids were pulled through a dimensional tear, but they must be holed away somewhere on the property. We will find them."
"Okay." She answered, sounding unsure. "You think that the one responsible is one of the ghosts on the property?"
That cold feeling of dread returned. "The one responsible is Ryou Furuka."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it was Ryou Furuka who murdered those nineteen children 73 years ago."
Okay, be honest—who was surprised? Because my grandpa's been reading this, and he'd figured it out by like, chapter 2. Did I get you? Did I?
