Cautiously, Kawamura and Fuji headed out of the house. Kawamura went empty-handed after all, because if he had been holding a racket or any other weapon it would be too dangerous for Fuji, who was presently Kawamura's ally. Instead, Fuji was the one carrying kitchen appliances, ready to stuff them into Kawamura's hands as soon as anything happened. It would have been safer for them to lock themselves inside the house, but they headed out anyway because if Ryoma was attacked outside the house they should find him and offer help. As soon as they stepped out of the front door, Fuji locked it and slid the key into his pocket.

"Which direction?" Kawamura asked in a low voice, as if worried that someone would be waiting for them at the next corner with an axe in hand.

"I remember that the seventh line of the rhyme had something to do with paint," Fuji pondered, "and the storage room is probably the most likely place for us to find paint. Let's go."

Kawamura shuddered at the thought of entering the dark, creepy underground storage room, but he didn't exactly want to be left alone either, so he agreeably followed Fuji.

They never reached the storage room. As they turned a corner, they walked right into a bizarre scene. Yellow paint was splattered all over the grass and the wall of the house, and random red splotches were mixed with the yellow color, making a cubist painting that reminded Kawamura of Picasso.

If they were in a movie, they should have cried out something like "damn" and hurry over to investigate, but this wasn't a movie, and after a whole week of frightening occurrences, they knew better than to rush unheedingly into danger.

"Careful," Fuji warned Kawamura, gently grabbing his arm. They proceeded slowly and warily, eyes and ears alert. Fuji gripped his kitchen appliances tightly, preparing to pass them over to Kawamura any moment.

However, for the time being, weapons were not needed.

Both of them almost cried out at the sight in front of them. Even though they hadn't really been expecting to see Ryoma beaming at them and drinking Ponta amid the yellow paint, they hadn't quite expected to see his head —and only his head— standing there on the ground either. All his other body parts were absent, in their place a rough outline of a body had been painted. Their usually smug kouhai stared up at them with lifeless golden eyes, as if complaining that his senpai had not come to his rescue. A large bucket holding what was left of the yellow paint stood innocently beside Ryoma's head, with a look that said "don't look at me, not my fault."

"That's —cruel," Kawamura choked out. Well, it was not exactly the first day he had known that the murderer was cruel, but what else could he say? One couldn't actually expect him to say "don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" under such circumstances.

"Guess the murderer must be Oishi then," Fuji sighed, skillfully avoiding meeting Ryoma's eyes (not that Ryoma would care). "It can't be either of us, because we were together the whole time. It can't be the others, because when we last checked they were all dead in their beds. There's no one else on the island, and even though I still don't understand how Oishi could have sown off his arm or how he could do this to Echizen with one arm left, it simply can't be anyone else."

"But-" Kawamura stammered, "-but, why? Oishi had always been really caring and-"

"I have no idea why," Fuji explained solemnly, "but unless one of us miraculously managed to both murder Echizen and stay in the kitchen at the same time, or one of the others had put up such a convincing act of being dead, fooled us all along, killed Echizen and went right back to his bed to play dead in so little time, Oishi has to be the only logical suspect."

"But I don't believe that he could have done this to Echizen," Kawamura murmured, glancing at Ryoma's head and quickly turning away again.

"I can't believe that he could have done anything to all the others," Fuji whispered, "but I guess we'll have to admit that we were wrong."

"Yeah," Kawamura replied weakly.

"But we won't let him win though," Fuji changed his tone all in a sudden. "Now that we know it is him and have teamed up, he can't beat the two of us."

"True. Let's stay together from now on."

They smiled at each other. A new kind of bond had appeared between them. They had always been good friends, but coming together as a team in such a live-or-die situation was a different thing. It was good to know that he could completely trust his life with another person.

"Okay, so now the safest choice will be-" Fuji began, but stopped short when Kawamura abruptly jerked beside him.

"What?"

"Fuji, what's… that?"

Following Kawamura's pointing finger, Fuji saw a sign standing some fifty meters away. They had never noticed it standing there before. In fact, Fuji was quite sure that it had never been there at all.

"I think something's written on it," Fuji observed. It was too far for them to immediately discern the words, so Fuji took a few steps towards it.

"Could be a trap. Be careful," Kawamura muttered under his breath as he took a few steps towards the sign as well.

As they neared the wooden sign, a queer sense of foreboding crept upon both of them. Neither spoke, nor even ventured a look at the other. Unconsciously, Fuji let go of Kawamura's arm.

It felt strangely like the calm before a storm.

A few huge letters were sprayed in red on the sign: DOULIU. A big arrow pointed to the right.

The last two of the regulars remained silent. They wordlessly agreed to follow the direction of the arrow.

They had been walking for less than two minutes, but it felt like a century. They were still avoiding each other's eyes. The trusting relationship that they had just established was shattered by the appearance of the sign.

On the second day that they had arrived at this place, when taking a walk together, Fuji and Kawamura had noticed a cliff at the less visited grounds of the island. They realized that they were nearing the cliff now.

Another giant sign stood right on the edge of the cliff. On it was a single arrow, pointing downwards.

Kawamura almost took a step forward, having the sudden urge to look down even though it was pretty obvious what he would see anyway, but before he moved a sudden voice in his mind shouted at him that it was dangerous to stand at the edge of the cliff, where he could be easily shoved right over. Therefore, he stood rooted to the spot, while Fuji ventured forward to check. Kawamura concluded from Fuji's shuddering gasp that the sight down there was probably just like what he had imagined. Slowly, he leaned forward to peek downwards as well, though still cautiously staying a step behind Fuji. Oishi was indeed down there, appearing to have plunged down from the edge of the cliff to his death. Blood was everywhere. Both Kawamura and Fuji quickly averted their gaze, not so much because they hated seeing bodies but of what the certainty of Oishi's death indicated.

"We didn't leave the house yesterday; he had probably been here all along-" Kawamura took a deep breath, voice trembling. He wanted so much to hide the fear inside his voice, but he just couldn't.

Fuji nodded, looking directly into Kawamura's eyes. "Yes, and now we are truly the only two left on the island."

TBC. Thanks for reading xD Reviews are very welcome.:)

To Elyon: Thanks for the review. It makes me blush in happiness. (blushes)

To love it!!: Thanks for the review:D Actually I have to thank my cool beta for that sentence xD