A/N: Here it is but I must warn you people, it's not that good. Seriously. I've been ill and this was done without even thinking of what to do, what to elaborate or anything like that. I decided on less history, more of the present. The content of this chapter does not please me so much. It's just too bland. Oh well, blame everything on global warming! Like the motto of my class: 'Eat a beaver, save a tree'. We're going green! LOL. I just hope you guys understand. And I gotta apologize for last chapter's scene breaker; I got confused and mixed them up! I also apologize for wrong grammar, misspellings and all that.

Dedication: To anyone who deserved this chapter. To trees?

Disclaimer: Things that don't belong to either me or Tecmo belong to Kamijyo. Things that don't belong to either me or Kamijyo belong to Tecmo. Things that don't belong anywhere in this world used in this story belong to me!! Movies mentioned in this chapter do not belong to me.

-

Hour Twenty-Three – Falling

-

If both of us were made from glass

Which would shatter at the first touch?

Is love such a scary thing?

I don't know what love is…

Who was that person?

That man with red hair and eyes

The one who sang to me

The song of the mask

His fingers moved and I listened

That flute made from bamboo

Shattered, injuring him

His blood fell to the ground

…what is 'love'?

-

Thunder struck outside the gloomy house, its light shattering as another joined soon after, creating a chain of unpleasant bells on the inky dark skies. Rain soon joined, pattering like millions of typewriting hands trying to finish an endless essay of the names of the ones who're chosen by Death. To Shiina Yuya, the noise was just merely sound, she stared outside the window, sitting on the bed with her head against the headboard, her back leaning against the huge pillow, her arms cradling a Japanese doll. The white curtains of her room shifted as a draft of wind materialized from the current of the sudden coldness produced by the sudden rise in temperature. She parted her dry lips and hummed, bringing the doll closer to her. The sound of rain echoed in her ears and like a lullaby, swayed her to sleep, her lids closing slowly.

Another chain of thunder accompanied by lightning screamed, illuminating Yuya's sleeping face. The sound of her steady breathing reverberated in her room, along with another foreign sound. The sound of a lullaby steadily resounded, the voice so soft that one had to listen really closely to make out what the words were. Yuya's eyes opened lazily, showing off a deep green shade of her eyes, the pupil dilated very widely, as if in a trance. She sat up on the bed and discarded the Japanese doll on the floor as she edged to the foot of the bed, her feet gracefully landing on the floor. Clumsily, she walked away from her bed, her hands limply hanging at the sides. Her feet seemed to be so light that not even the creak of the floor can be heard as she exited her room. Her feet didn't touch the ground at all, she floated.

A childish giggle filled the room.

…

The sound of a crash awoke Kyo from his light slumber. His eyes opened in surprise and he got off of the sofa he was dozing on and quickly left the study. He made his way to Yuya's room but was stopped by a sudden breeze passing by his neck and the quiet voice giggling softly. He turned his heels and made a turn to look at the bathroom but again, another breeze alerted him and the childish giggles became a laugh. Kyo finally agreed with his conscience to just go downstairs.

Kyo made his way to the stairs and was halted by a tug at his shirt. He turned, narrowing his red eyes at the intrusion. He was met with a little boy possessing the same red eyes as he. His eyes showed pain, loneliness and fear. He looked up at his towering form and frowned. His complexion was pale, the same pale as a ghost would have. Kyo knew the little boy was a spirit especially when he looked down to see no feet touching the ground. His eyes met the boy's again.

"What is it?" he dared ask as his ears were ringing with childish giggles. He winced as the giggles were like a sharp silver knife carving a whole in his ears.

The little boy reached out a small hand, showing his palm. His palm was bleeding from small blisters caused by excessive swordplay. He grimaced when Kyo made a gesture to touch it. He merely shook his head, finally pointing to the stairs. Kyo's eyes followed the boy's finger and lingered there for a while before he looked back.

The boy was gone.

Shrugging, Kyo walked slowly to the stairs. As he descended the steps, his surroundings suddenly turned monochromic and he could hear the sound of bells echoing throughout the household. He could hear humming of prayers and the voices of children singing. As he reached the floor in between the upstairs and downstairs, his eyes fell on the motionless body sprawled on the floor at the foot of the stairs. His eyes widened.

"Yuya!" he frantically called out as he ran down the stairs and hurriedly kneeled next to her. He cradled her seemingly lifeless body in his arms and tried to shake her body to life but to no avail. Her eyes were open, almost dead. Her body was cold and white, just like snow. She was stiff.

Yuya was dead.

"Hehe…" came a soft giggle. The giggle became laughs; the laugh became hysterical, as if laughing at a very funny joke.

A girl with short black hair stood stiffly at the top of the stairs, her hands at her sides, her maiden clothes covered in blood. Her eyes were a dark pool of ink and her smile was of an insane person. Her hands were reached out in front of her and she made the motion of pushing something…or someone.

"I pushed her! I pushed her! I pushed her! I pushed IT!" she confessed hysterically as Kyo's eyes darted at the little girl. His eyes were burning with anger towards the girl's evident amusement. His eyes burned even more when the girl clapped her hands happily and danced around. She stopped to look over her shoulder and watched as Kyo got to his feet and made a motion to ascend the stairs.

One…

Two…

Three…four…

Five…six…seven…

The little girl's eyes widened in fear as Kyo's eyes glowed as he grasped his right hand tightly, paling it. A drop of blood fell from his hand onto the floor…

…and materialized into a katana.

Kyo's eyes fell on the sharp blade and back on the girl's form. She trembled in fear and took a step back. She shook her head in fear as Kyo bent down to retrieve his 'blood'. He clutched the saya of the katana hard and he felt a sharp pain on his palm. He concluded that the pain came from blisters he knew he never had. He narrowed his eyes as he took another step towards the girl.

The girl paled instantly and ran upstairs as Kyo continued to ascend the stairs with dark eyes. A dark cloud of hands loomed over Kyo's form and grabbed a hold of Kyo's shoulders and tried to halt his movements. Kyo shook them off with a shrug from his right shoulder and continued with heavy steps upwards. The cloud of hands followed, occasionally trying to stop him.

In his head, only thoughts of killing ran through his mind.

…

Bon stared at the television in front of him, digging through the bowl of popcorn, occasionally popping one of them in his mouth. Keikoku sat with his legs to his chest, wrapping his arms around it, his eyes dazed. Akira just frowned as he cannot see anything but pretended as if he could. Akari leaned into Yukimura's chest, pretending to be scared as the protagonist of the horror movie was shocked with yet another one of those ghost traps in the movie. Their acting was terrible. Sasuke and Kyoshiro yawned.

Kyoshiro picked up the remote and muted the ugly piercing screams as he yawned again. "This stuff sucks…people don't scream like that when they see a ghost."

Akari nodded, withdrawing from Yukimura. "Hm, maybe we should change the DVD? I'm knda bored with this. We've watched this movie five times already and none of the attempts scared us!" he said as he went through the pile of DVDs collected from the seven of them.

"Correction: we've never finished watching it in those five times of watching it. We've watched every ten minutes of the movie before stopping, five times! That makes it fifty minutes of our sweet precious time. Who bought this DVD anyway?" Akira stated as he snatched the bowl of popcorn from Bon.

"Uh…I did…" Bon confessed ashamed. The others shook their heads.

"Next time, bring us shopping with you! With only one good eye, you can never spot a good horror movie!" Yukimura said in a sing-song voice as he downed another cup of sake.

Akira's vein popped, "Uh, what about me?"

"You're blind but you can still sense which horror movies are good!" Kyoshiro told him as he grabbed a handful of the DVDs and read through the summaries. "Well, we have here with us: 'Kakashi', 'One Missed Call', 'Ringu Series Complete Collection', 'Dark Water', 'Cello', 'The Wig', 'Ju-On Series Complete Collection', 'Tegami, 'The Voice', 'The Phone'…and some other foreign horror movies…that's in Malay."

"Well, who bought those?!"

Keikoku raised his hand. The others shook their heads.

"How do you read this…uh, 'Jan…gan…Panda…ng…Bel…a…kang'?" Kyoshiro asked, frowning.

Keikoku only looked up to Kyoshiro, "The English for that is 'Don't Look Back', heard from someone it was scary."

Akari took some of it from Kyoshiro and read the titles out loud, "What about this 'Ponti…'-" she was cut off by Keikoku.

"Don't say that…you'll get cursed. You'll get haunted by a ghost that will ask you where its baby is…that's what Miharu told me. All of these movies were recommended by her."

"Is it scary…?" Sasuke asked, curious.

"Sometimes, they say 'Don't Look Back' is the scariest movie ever made…I think." Keikoku told them a he scratched his feet. His eyes were dazed yet again.

The others shrugged and glanced at each other. Yukimura got off the sofa and stretched, heading off to the kitchen. "Anyone wants something from the kitchen?" he called out.

"Just some cheese would be nice!" Akari called out back. He frowned as he leaned back into the sofa and sighed. "The rain is getting heavier, hey?" he murmured as he looked out of the window. The others nodded.

Kyoshiro chose a random DVD and popped it into the DVD player. Pressing the play button, he sat back on his sofa, his leg resting on the armrest. He clapped his hand and watched as the menu loaded. He pinpointed the remote to it and selected the play option. The movie started as Sasuke dimmed the lights.

"Woohoo! I can already feel the Goosebumps!" Bon said ecstatically. He nudged Akira as Akira leaned in further to the sofa, clutching a pillow. "Aww! Aki-kun is scared!"

Akira blushed. "I am not scared!" he denied as he threw the pillow at Bon.

"Aww…you ARE scared!" Bon teased more. Akari joined in with giggling and Keikoku only smirked. Sasuke only chuckled. Akira blushed even more.

Yukimura appeared with nothing in his hands. This raised eyebrows. "What?" he questioned, crossing his arms.

"Where are the cheese and other food?" Akari asked, sounding mad. Yukimura backed away, his hands trying to calm him down.

"Well, there's none of the latter so there's no cheese."

"Really? When did we last shop, Keikoku?" Bon turned to the daydreamer. The said man only shrugged as he watched the movie intently.

"Hey, keep it down, there's a ghost behind the woman and I don't want her to know about it and spoil the fun! Shh! The ghost is already close to her!" Kyoshiro bit his nails in anxiety and stared at the television. His pupils dilated more as the television suddenly turned all black.

"Eh?"

-Pause-

"AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" the speakers boomed out.

"Yes!" everyone cheered as blood splattered on the wall.

"Finally! Something bloody after that stupid movie!" Kyoshiro happily said as he grabbed the bowl of popcorn and quickly indulged into it. Everyone nodded in agreement.

Yukimura looked at his watch and then looked up at the television again. He tapped his chin with his finger before finally making up his mind. He clapped his hands and scanned the surprised faces of his friends and laughed.

"I think I'll go and see Kyo-san at his house, get some food there and maybe invite him and Yuya-san to watch the movies with us?" he decided, grabbing his raincoat from the coat-hanger. The others only stared after him but didn't say anything. Their eyes fell on the television again and were too immersed in it to actually stop him. Only Sasuke decided to follow him.

…

Shinrei read through the newspaper, his legs crossed as he leaned back into the chair. His golden eyes flashed as he felt a breeze behind him, tickling his neck. He bit his lips as another breeze passed. He could feel Goosebumps even with his thick coat. He brought his eyes to look at the huge mirror given by his uncle and was shocked to see it glowing. He got up from his seat and stared at the mirror, trying not to tear his eyes away from it.

"What the hell is this?" He muttered to himself, approaching the mirror. The mirror glowed brighter the closer he came to it.

He blinked when the glowing suddenly disappeared under his nose. He shook his head, trying to dissipate the aftereffects. He frowned when he touched the mirror. It was warm.

"Hm…that was weird. Oh well, back to work, Shinrei…you got a big meeting tomorrow…" he turned his back to the mirror and made his way to his desk again when something stopped him.

"…don't look back…"

"What-" he said and he turned around.

CRASH!

-

A/N: Aiyaa…that was badly done, I know, I warned you guys, didn't I? Let's play a game and I've got good news (maybe)! This story will go on with maybe more than thirty-five chapters. I looked at the whole story and am surprised I lasted that long! It's because of you guys! Yay! Now, for the game: Guess which movies I have not watched (hint: there're two, minus the made up one) and one movie I made up. Just guess, you won't get killed if ya got it wrong! And oh, I'm just wondering a few nights before: what do you guys think of me from my writing? Am I a pessimist? Am I anti-social? Something like that! It'd be interesting for me to actually know what you guys think of me…am I a bitch? Do I bitch a lot in my notes? Yes! MCQ:

Which of these are my favorite subjects?

A) English, Malay and Biology

B) English, Biology and Art

C) English Literature, Chemistry and Additional Mathematics

Yes, I am bored. Anyway, R&R&R! I have to say, if I update any of my stories, it has to be short for now. I'm sure. Time to study, Mi-chan! Oh, do take the hint that someone is not dead yet! I'll try and update Love Doll and then three more during June, okay?