Previously:
"We may not be the first people to be trapped in here," Hitomi said.
"D… Don't scare me like that," Mai told her.
"Sorry. It was just a thought," Hitomi said. Truth be told, she was getting scared, too.
"Let's look around the school," Naru said, standing up. "All of us are going."
"Huh? We don't have to watch here?" Mai asked.
"It doesn't seem safe to leave the fire alone..." Hitomi said.
"There are more dangerous things," Naru said. "You better be careful. Don't ever be alone."
The Forgotten Children (Part 3)
They all walked down the dark hall together. Mai held onto Hitomi's arm. They started with the faculty room/classroom.
'It's so dusty…' Mai thought, covering her nose and mouth with her hand. Hitomi covered her nose and mouth with her kimono sleeve. They moved on to the next room. And the next.
"This is… so lonely," Mai said as they stared at the abandoned sports equipment.
"Yeah," Ayako agreed. Hitomi quietly agreed. They came to the old home ec. class. They took a closer look at the aquarium tanks. They were full of gunk. Uninhabitable for the animals they might've once held. "This is gross."
"It smells like something rotten," Mai said.
"Shibuya-san. Look here," John said, calling his attention to a cardboard box in the corner.
"What is this?" Mai asked. "It's so fluffy… a blanket?" There was a chain leading from the wall to the box.
'That looks like a leash… It's still hooked up to the wall,' Hitomi thought. Her eyes widened slightly in horror. "Is that a… dog?"
"Eh?" Mai said, looking at her, also horrified by the thought. Naru carefully lifted the chain, and a collar rose up from the pile of fur.
"A collar!?" Ayako said.
"Like Hitomi said, from a dog or something. Probably a puppy," Naru said. He set the collar down. "Lin. Give me..." He held a hand out. Lin handed him a pen. Naru used the pen to probe the pile of fur.
"Hey… Naru, what are you doing?" Mai asked. "What are you..." She gasped. 'I wonder why the collar is still in a circle? If they were keeping a dog, they would take it if the school was closed. And if someone took him, the collar wouldn't be here. And If they undid the collar… it wouldn't still be in a circle.' From the grim look on Hitomi's face, Mai could see she was thinking the same thing. Naru held up something small.
"… That's..." Mai said as she and Hitomi leaned closer for a better look over his shoulder.
"A bone?" Hitomi said.
"Yes," Naru confirmed.
"So this fluffy pile..." Mai said sadly.
"It seems the mayor really tricked us," Naru said.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Mai asked.
"They said the school closed down. But I don't think it was just about the students moving," Naru said, brushing his hands off. "If the school closed down properly, they wouldn't just abandon the animals. And let's say this dog… if it was a dog… died because of hunger or something, do you think it would die without a fight?"
"!" Mai said.
"The box is cardboard. It's light, so if the dog struggled it would move," Naru said. "Butt it's still here in the corner of the room. This dog died without having time to struggle and get hungry."
"But why?" Mai asked.
"Who knows?" Naru said.
'Was it smothered?' Hitomi wondered. 'No… the dog would struggle then, too.'
"Then… the animals that were in those aquariums and cages, too?" Ayako asked.
"So cruel..." Hitomi said. Mai shivered.
"Uh. Let's get out of here," Mai said. "Let's move on." The next room had desks in it.
"This looks like a room that was actually used as a classroom," Naru said.
"There are eighteen desks. So there were eighteen students," Hitomi said.
"According to the materials the mayor gave me, fourteen out of those eighteen students moved away because of the dam construction and they had to close the school," Naru said.
"I see. They didn't clean the room," Mai said. "Oh?" She noticed something odd. "Hey. All the supplies are still in the desks." Hitomi, Ayako, and John began checking other desks.
"Here too," Ayako said.
"Here too," John said.
"And here," Hitomi said.
"Their school supplies are still here. Would they leave their supplies if the school was closed down?" Ayako asked.
"So it means we really can't trust what the mayor told us," Mai said. There were drawings and calligraphy sheets pinned up on the wall. There were toys and other personal belongings in the cubbies. "They left everything behind. It's like… everyone died suddenly." 'May 18 (Wed) Day Duty: Takeuchi' was written on the black board. "It was May when the school closed?" Mai asked.
"Yeah..." Hitomi said, also looking at the board.
"I found the attendance book," Ayako said. They checked the last page.
"All eighteen were there," Mai said. "The last date is May… urgh. It's so dirty I can't read it."
"It's probably the same date as on the board. The eighteenth," John said.
"It might not be," Hitomi said, still looking at the attendance book.
"Sometimes we would write the date and duty at the end of the day for the next day," Mai agreed.
"So the attendance might be accurate through the seventeenth," John said.
"It's the sixteenth," Hitomi said, squinting at the number at the top of the chart.
"Are you sure?" Mai asked.
"The eighteenth is a Wednesday, so… and the 15th is a Sunday," John said. "… Oh, she's right. It's only for up till the sixteenth."
"So that means… something happened after they took attendance on the sixteenth," Naru said. "Something that would make them leave their supplies and animals."
"But you would think that even if something happened to the kids, the parents or someone else would come for their belongings and have the animals brought out," Hitomi said. "To just leave them there..."
"Yeah," Mai said. "Oh?" she noticed another book on on of the desks. "It's a daily log." She tried to open it. "Wow, it's stuck together." She pried it apart. "I wonder if this is the last page? I think I can read it. 'May 16, Monday, Day Duty, 4th grade, Michiyama Ayumi.' So I guess the sixteenth was their last day. Let's see. 'Tomorrow is our field trip.'"
"I see. The seventeenth was the day of their field trip, and they probably met somewhere else," Ayako said. "Since they knew they weren't coming to school until Wednesday, they wrote the eighteenth on the board."
"And something happened during the field trip?" Mai asked.
"Maybe. Look here," Hitomi said, reading over her shoulder. " 'We fought a little regarding where we all sat on the bus.'"
"Could it be… that the bus got into an accident?" Mai said. "And all the students died… and the school closed down?" The room was silent except for the sound of the rain falling outside.
"Do you really think that's what happened?" John asked.
"..." Naru said, holding his chin. "But, like Hitomi said, it's still odd that the supplies and everything else were just left here..."
"That's right. Like Hitomi-sempai said, you would think their families would come and get it. They're mementos," Mai said.
"And they wouldn't leave the animals either," Ayako agreed.
"If the students really died… It wouldn't be a surprise if their spirits were wandering here. Maybe that is what's happening," Hitomi said. "And maybe they took the animals' spirits too."
"But if the problem was only about children's spirits appearing, why would the mayor try to hide it so much?" Mai asked.
"I wonder if what they said is true," Ayako said.
"What?" Mai said.
"Building a resort here," Ayako said. "I don't think that geographically this place is good for a resort.
"We can't trust them, of course," Mai said.
"Right? Then why did they come ask us, traveling psychics, to investigate? If it's just a spooky appearance there's no need to go so far," Ayako said.
"Maybe… There are many people who couldn't get out just like us," Mai said, sweating nervously.
"Then it's be faster to just block the entrance," Ayako said.
"Better yet, if they were worried about people getting in regardless, they could have demolished the place," Hitomi said.
"Oh yeah," Mai said. "You're right."
"Aaah. Aaahh."
"What's wrong?" Ayako asked when Mai suddenly looked in another direction.
"I heard something..." Mai said.
"Aah. Ahhh. Ahhh."
"Aaaah."
CREAK.
It sounded like someone was walking on the floor above them.
CREAK. CREAK. CREAK.
"There's something upstairs..." Mai said.
"Let's go," Naru said. They left the room and headed for the stairs. They walked up and through the 'folding doors' barricade they they had set up on the landing.
"I'll go check it out," Lin said.
"We shouldn't split up," Naru said.
"But there's a door. If all of us go and we're locked upstairs, the situation will be worse," Lin said. "Brown-san, can you take care of here? And Matsuzaki-san?"
"Sure," John said.
'You're only asking me second?' Ayako thought, frowning.
'At least she has the energy to get mad,' Mai and Hitomi thought. They opened the door. Lin crawled through. Once again, Mai sat in front of the door to keep it from closing.
"Aaaaah."
CREAK. CREAK. CREAK.
"Aaaaaah."
"We'll be right here!" Mai said.
"Thank you," Lin said. She watched him walk up the steps into the darkness.
CREAK. CREAK. CREAK. CREAK.
"Aaah. Aaaah."
Lin disappeared around the corner.
"Hey. Was it really okay to let him go alone?" Mai asked.
"He should be fine," Ayako said. "He's not you or me."
"Yeah, but..." Mai said. 'Lin-san is much more amazing than I am. I know that, but… why do I have such a bad feeling?'
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
"What the…!" Mai said when the whole school seemed to shake like they were in the middle of an earthquake. Hitomi and Naru bumped heads as they were knocked off their feet. Mai slammed into the floor. One of the shoe shelves fell with a loud thud, almost crushing her. Mai shivered. That was a close one!
"What's going on!?" Ayako asked.
TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP.
"Hee hee hee."
CLOMP. CLOMP. CLOMP. CLOMP.
"Hee hee."
TAP. TAP. TAP.
"Heee heee heee."
TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP.
"Hee hee."
"Hahaha."
"Hee. Hee."
CLOMP. CLOMP. CLOMP.
'The laughter of kids?' Mai and Hitomi thought. Hitomi rubbed her sore head.
"Lin-san..." Mai said. They looked at the door and saw that it was closed. "Lin-san." Mai pulled the door open. "Lin-san! Lin-san, are you okay!? Come back! Lin-san!"
"Lin-san!" Hitomi called.
"Lin!" Naru said, standing in the doorway. There was nothing. No sounds. No Lin. "Let's check upstairs." Hitomi followed him.
"We can't leave you here," John said as he started up the stairs after them. "Please come with us."
"But the door…" Mai said.
"It'd be better," Naru said. They all walked through the second floor, checking all the classrooms as they went. They reached the last one.
"No way… Lin-san is nowhere," Mai said, worried.
'He must be somewhere,' Hitomi said, concerned.
"Naru! Look at this," Ayako said, calling his attention to a red liquid on the floor. Naru touched it.
"It's blood," he said, examining it.
"Blood? Is it Lin-san's?" Mai asked.
"I don't know," Naru said. "But it's fresh."
"Why… are you so calm!?" Mai yelled.
"Mai!" Ayako said.
"We can't help Lin-san if we panic," Hitomi said. "Let's look again."
"Maybe we missed an area," Ayako agreed.
"Yes. And we should check the windows, too," John said.
—∞—
In the end, there was no sign of Lin, and the windows still wouldn't open. They all stood in silence.
"Hey. If it's Lin-san, he'd be okay even if he's alone, right?" Mai said.
"I don't know," Naru said.
"You don't know!?" Mai said incredulously.
"That's a fact," Naru stated calmly. "I don't know what happened or where Lin went. We just know that Lin is not inside the school."
'We shouldn't have let him go alone,' Hitomi thought. 'If someone went with him...' She could see Mai regretted it too. She had her eyes squeezed shut and her hands were together, as if she was praying. Hitomi knew Naru, despite his calm face, must be regretting it as well. 'No. We shouldn't have let anyone go...'
"Don't worry," Ayako said. "He has his shiki."
"Yeah… That's true," Mai said.
"Anyway, we need to be careful," Naru said. "Don't ever try to be alone. Try to stay around someone else and be within eyesight of the others. If something happens, grab the arm or clothes of the person near you."
"Okay..." Mai said.
SPLASH. SPLASH.
The sound was coming from outside. They ran to the window.
"It's Bou-san and the rest of them!" Mai said excitedly.
"Yes!" Ayako cheered. "We can ask that crasher monk to open the door from the outside."
"—Shoot," Naru said.
"Huh? What's wrong?" Mai asked as he turned to run down stairs.
"Wait, Naru!" Hitomi said, following him so he wouldn't be alone.
"What if the door opens?" Naru asked.
"!" Hitomi gasped as her eyes widened in realization. "This is bad!"
"Bad?" Mai said. "If it opens..."
"Oh!" John said, and he started running too. "If the door opens and they get trapped inside, too..." Mai was startled.
"Let's go, Mai!" Ayako said.
"Yeah!" Mai agreed. As soon as she lifted her foot, the whole building shook again. Mai and Hitomi remembered Naru's words.
Grab the arm or clothes of the person near you.
"Naru…! John…!" Hitomi said, reached her hands out. He hand connected with John's, but Naru was just out of her reach.
"A… Ayako..." Mai called, reaching out to her. Hitomi and Naru's fingertips were just touching each other when the building shook again.
THUD. THUD. CREEAAAK. THUD. KABOOM! THUD. THUD.
And then, it stopped. John and Hitomi let go of each other and looked around. Everyone was still there. John was the first to get back on his feet. Hitomi's heart was pounding in her chest from the scare she got when Naru's hand was pulled away from hers, but he was unharmed and already getting up.
"Can you get up!?" John asked Mai as he helped Ayako.
"Yeah..." Mai said.
"Hitomi," Naru said, holding his hand out to her. She took it, and he helped her up. They went over to the door, which had shut, and were trying to open it. Even the two of them together couldn't get it open.
"No way… It won't open?" Mai asked.
"Please get out of the way!" John said urgently, opening his bottle of holy water. He splashed some on the door, and Naru kicked it off its hinges.
'We need to hurry,' Hitomi thought. One by one, they crawled through the door, always keeping each other within eyesight, while they moved as quickly as they could. 'Before they close the door...' They rushed down the stairs and saw Bou-san, Yasuhara, and Masako waiting for them inside.
"You all are excited to see us, aren't you?" Yasuhara said, judging by the way they were running to up to meet them. Mai and Hitomi stared at the shut door with wide eyes.
"Bou-san. The door," Hitomi said.
"Huh?" Bou-san said.
"The door! Open it!!" Mai said. The three latecomers all looked at each other.
'What's going on?' Bou-san wondered as he tried to open the door again. "—Huh?" he said, confused when it wouldn't budge. Mai ran forward and started struggling with the door again.
"I knew it," Mai said.
"Oh?" Bou-san said.
"It won't open," Mai said.
"There is no way," Masako said. "We just came in..."
"It won't open. We're trapped inside! It was like that after everyone left! The windows won't move and the glass won't break either!" Mai said anxiously. Yasuhara, Bou-san, and Masako stood in silence for a moment as they processed what she said.
"That's a problem," Bou-san said calmly. Mai deflated a little, sweat-dropping. He was so cool and collected compared to her. "And so what's up? There are a few missing. Where are… Lin and Ayako?" Mai and the others' eyes widened. They looked back over their shoulders and realized Ayako was gone.
"Ayako… No… way? When?" Mai asked shakily. "When we were in the hallway, she was still..."
"She was still with us when we were running down here," Hitomi said, furrowing her brow, appalled that they had lost another person.
"She was sitting down from that commotion, so I helped her up… and then helped Mai-san..." John said. "Shoot." He looked distraught. "I let go and went ahead."
"It's not your fault," Mai said. "I tried to grab her hand, but then I let go..." A heavy silence settled over the room.
"There's no point in regretting what's passed," Bou-san said.
"But..." Mai said.
"We should do what we can do now," Bou-san said. "We need to go look for Ayako."
"—Yeah," Mai agreed.
"What should we do, Naru-chan?" Bou-san asked. "Should we split into two groups?"
"We shouldn't," Naru replied.
"Okay. Then let's head for the second floor," Bou-san said. He took the lead, and they all walked single file up the stairs. When he reached the next level, Bou-san stopped. Mai bumped into him.
"Whoa!" she said. "What's wrong?" she peered around him and saw that the wall was decorated with dirty, old paper flowers and a broken paper chain framing the message 'congratulations Ayako-chan'. Mai gasped and covered her mouth. "Oh my gosh..."
"They have bad taste," Bou-san said.
"There's no mention of Lin-san," Hitomi observed. 'We really need to find them!'
'Lin-san! Ayako!' Mai thought anxiously.
—∞—
They regrouped around the fire.
"I see," Yasuhara said after everything was explained. "We were tricked."
"I figured," Naru said.
"Actually, it's worse than I thought," Yasuhara said. "I asked around at the market where we bought our stuff. Then… I saw that most people didn't want to talk about it. Even if they spoke, they only told us to 'stay away from the school.' I figured something was up, so I went to the local library. Since the date the school closed was suspicious, I looked at all the newspapers around the time. I found it easily. Dry avalanche."
"Huh?" Mai said.
"Do you remember?" Yasuhara asked. "Five years ago there was a landslide and many cars and homes were covered up. A lot of people died."
"Ah, that..." Hitomi said. She could recall hearing about it at the time. That was tragic.
"Oh, I think I remember now..." Mai said.
"I'm sorry?" John said.
"Oh yeah, you wouldn't know," Mai said.
"If it was five years ago, I wasn't in Japan yet," John said.
"This cliff facing the road crumbled," Yasuhara explained. "The soil was loose because of deforestation, and the rain made it worse. Several cars and buses, as well as houses near the road were swallowed up. And a field trip bus was one of them, and everyone died. And since it was the entire school population, that school was closed down."
'Field trip bus...' Mai thought, recalling what they read in the daily log.
Tomorrow is our field trip.
There was a little issue about our seats.
"Hee hee hee."
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
'Could it really… be true?' Mai wondered. "So then, that incident five years ago was near here, and the buried school bus was from this school…?"
"So it seems," Yasuhara said. "And since there wasn't a single first year student to start at the school the next year, this branch was closed."
"Since the dam was finished within the year, surely the village had at least one child move in..." Naru said.
"The dam being finished and the entire situation with the school's closing have nothing to do with each other," Yasuhara said.
"… Then everything they told us was a huge lie!" Mai said.
"One mass memorial service was performed for all the students," Yasuhara said. "Then in the vicinity of the actual spot, a large memorial was also built. And, as far as we can tell, that accident appears to be the reason incidents started to happen at this school. The problem is, we can only say with confidence what happened afterward. While we were at the library, we asked around with the young people there… They said things like 'That school is dangerous!' and 'The dead elementary students are lonely, so they collect new friends.' and 'Because those strange children are in the mountain, a lot of people who have entered the mountain have gotten lost and disappeared.'"
"No way..." Mai said.
"We also checked the newspapers since that time, and there certainly have been an incredible number of cases of people disappearing around here," Yasuhara said. "In addition to that, they've been more frequent in the past five years. Specifically, it began in June five years ago. Over three or four months, the number of people disappearing increased rapidly. And actually, last year the reports suddenly stopped. To be exact, the last one occurred in October last year. According to the newspaper, in the last year and a half there haven't been any disappearances reported. For some reason it's rather suspicious, isn't it?"
"Suspicious, you say..." Mai said.
"The disappearances haven't actually stopped, have they?" Hitomi asked.
"No. Or so we've been told," Yasuhara replied.
"Eeh!?" Mai exclaimed, shocked.
"That must be why the headman came to us with his request," Naru said. "I get the feeling that recruiting us was an attempt to keep from having such a thing end up completely out in the open. Stories of mysterious disappearances wouldn't be good information to spread around, after all."
"Exactly right," Yasuhara said. "And then coming back from the village, what kind of person do you think we ran into? They said, 'Now that you mention it, another child disappeared recently.' 'Did you happen to find them?' I asked, '… What would you do if I told you we had?' No one ever told us that a disappearance had happened before that.
"I see… at least calling us out here now had an acceptable reason, with there being a case recently," Naru said. "And the whereabouts of the children?"
"From the first time a child disappeared, everyone came out to search, and the corpses were found," Yasuhara replied. "That was since June five years ago, and continued for about one year."
"And after that?" Naru asked.
"They didn't search anymore," Yasuhara said.
"… Did you ask them if there was a particular place where the corpses were found?" Naru asked.
"Oh my, that would have been terribly insensitive of me!" Yasuhara said. "—I asked."
"Where?" Naru asked.
"In Katsuya village in Katsyua township, Sanbuku of Shinoda."
"?" Mai said.
"And that is consistent with this school's location?" Naru asked.
"It is," Yasuhara replied.
"… I see. So that's how it was," Naru said.
"… Umm—excuse me, but… What are you talking about?" Mai asked, raising her hand.
"You really are stupid, huh," Naru said bluntly. "Five years ago in may, due to an accident, every single student from this school died. One month later children started disappearing. And their dead bodies were all discovered here at this school. After those tragedies, useless searches of other places weren't done. The school was closed, the disappearances and following searches were hidden. They just used the well known accident as the reason for the closing."
"… Yeah," Mai said.
"For approximately one year, there was an unbroken string of the same kind of incidents at this place," Naru said. "If that's the case, there should seem to be no way that the local people wouldn't find it strange. Invariably, the bodies have been found somewhere in Katsuya-Shinoda, so there would have to be people taking an interest in the situation. Because of the discovery of the corpses, it was decided that something had to be done."
"… And the thing about not searching…?" Mai asked.
"Or possibly, they may have also simply pretended not have discovered the bodies," Yasuhara said, consulting his notes.
"Furthermore, at this place disappearances are still continuing," Naru said. "They want to be able to pay for the village's finances using the revenue from tourism. This could cause customers to leave, and for gossip to spread around among those from the outside. But still, the cases are continuing."
"… Because of that, we were recruited?" Mai asked.
"That's what it looks like," Naru said. "In that case, the headman and the others would want to do anything possible to prevent the true state of affairs from being known. They were scared to go searching for psychics, but also needed to find skilled people without revealing the reason they needed to come. Just as they were wondering what they could possibly do about this place—only by chance, some outside psychics came around."
"Wha—… Because of that, we were sent out here and set up with only lies!? That's cruel!" Mai exclaimed. "To come and explain those exact circumstances, and then be imprisoned here and possibly torn apart, despite that!" 'Lin-san and Ayako could still—!'
"—Yasuhara-san, shouldn't there still be something else?" Naru asked.
"Exactly," Yasuhara said. "They are certainly as much as possible limiting the passage of information about the disappearance victims to the tourists. But they said that before they knew it, children from the camp ground and from the ski resort had vanished, and there was a pattern to it."
"… I see. That is certainly going to make an impression among the customers, isn't?" Naru said.
"—And then, it seems that some of the people that became victims didn't end up here," Yasuhara said.
"No matter what, there's no way that the discovery of the corpses could be willfully overlooked. And much less for them to be hidden away somewhere around here, I expect. Searching around in the school building, there might possibly be corpses, but no searches were attempted since discovering them also wouldn't be a good thing… —is what you're trying to say, right?"Hitomi said. A heavy silence fell over their group.
"—Certainly, the possibility is large that the corpses of the victims from the past four years are inside this school building," Naru said.
"No way…!" Mai said, shooting to her feet.
"Now, now—" Bou-san said. "If there were rotting corpses here, there's no way we'd miss the smell. We've patrolled throughout the entire inside of the building, right? We would have discovered them long ago if they were here, unfortunately."
"Perhaps we had better search everywhere one more time though," Naru said.
"Eh!?" Mai said.
"If it's like in the animals' case, we could assume that somewhere there would be one place where all the spoils or trophies would be collected," Naru said. "There's also the possibility that both Lin and Matsuzaki-san will be there."
"Ah!" Mai said. "So that's wha—" 'That's assuming the living are taken there sometimes? Or is it—' her heart felt like it was being squeezed. 'Waaaah! No, no, no, no, no, no, no!' Mai thought, going into high speed denial.
"Hara-san, can you sense anything?" Naru asked.
"… Yes," Masako replied. "I can feel them distinctly, however the spirit presences are very weak. They are probably the victims of the disappearances… There are at least twenty of them."
"If you're able to so quickly provide the answer when you're put on the spot, you should have told us a long time ago, Masako-chan," Bou-san said with a smile.
"Hmph!" Masako said, blushing a little as she turned away from him.
"Are they all children?" Naru asked.
"Since there isn't much presence, I'm not sure," Masako replied. "If it gets a little darker they should become stronger, and they should become more distinct. They are spread around throughout the entire building as well."
"And the rest?" Naru asked.
"..." Masako held her head. "I feel a very large distortion. The group of spirits must have a strong connection to this place. However… All of their presences have been mixed together chaotically, so I can't really separate each of them out. I'm also not sure of their location. They appear to be very skilled at concealing themselves."
"How about Lin and Matsuzaki-san's presences?" Naru asked.
"I haven't been able to sense them for some time now, but I think that they have been contained..." Masako said.
"Hitomi?" Naru asked. "I saw you take your eyepatch off earlier."
"And then I had to put it back on," Hitomi said. "Like Masako said, this place is really distorted, and it appears that way. I couldn't see clearly with my eyepatch off."
"How about when you cover your green eye and look just with the blue?" Naru asked. Hitomi removed her eyepatch again and covered her green eye.
"How is it?" Mai asked.
"There are spirits everywhere in here," Hitomi replied, looking around and above. "But I can't say which are the…!?" She gasped.
"What is it?" Naru asked.
"That's what I'd like to know..." Hitomi said, staring above them with a wide eye. "Remember how I said before that I saw faces that weren't entirely human? I'm seeing all of them now..."
"What do they look like?" Bou-san asked.
"It's hard to tell, because it's still distorted, but… they're definitely about the same size as a child… and they look emaciated, except for their stomachs, which are big and round… Ah!"
"What?" Mai asked.
"They vanished…" Hitomi replied.
"You think they're gone?" Mai asked.
"I think they're hiding from me somehow," Hitomi replied, holding her chin. "When I looked at them, it felt like they were all staring back at me." Mai shuddered.
"What you just described sounds like a gaki," Bou-san said.
"A gaki?" Mai asked.
"It's a demon about the same size as a child," Bou-san replied. "In Sanskrit, there's a term known as 'preta'. The literal meaning is 'one who is gone forth'. If it's translated correctly from Chinese classical literature, it was simply called a 'ki'. The actual meaning of the word 'ki' is the spirit of any deceased person. At a memorial service, it's traditional that the deceased's relatives will offer food. If they fail to do this, the spirit can become what is called a 'gaki'. That's where they can start according to Buddhism. Or, if the person accumulated bad karma while alive, one punishment that a spirit can receive is to end up in the 'gakidou', the 'hungry ghost realm'. There, spirits are subjected to the unending anguish of hunger and starvation. Their bodies become emaciated, and their throats turn into something similar to a stinger or a needle. If they find some kind of food, it can't pass through the top of their throat if they try to eat—and not only is it impossible for them to eat, if they do pick up any food it turns into fire and thus also cannot be eaten."
"That's awful—" Mai said.
"For that reason, these spirits exist in a permanent state of excruciating hunger. Their limbs look like twigs, and their stomachs are bloated to the point of looking like a drum. They're usually drawn with the appearance of a small demon," Bou-san said.
"… And those gaki are here? In this building?" Mai asked.
"That's what it looks like," Bou-san said. "Right, Hitomi?"
"What I saw certainly fits the physical description of a gaki..." Hitomi said.
"For children to have committed sins severe enough for them to be punished seems unlikely, though," Bou-san said. "Particularly enough to be cast into the hungry ghost realm. These are just my guesses, though. —However, if the dead children were starving or thirsting for something, then possibly they may have come to such a state..."
"Are they still hidden?" Naru asked Hitomi. She covered her eye and looked around again.
"Yes," she replied.
"Can you see Lin and Matsuzaki-san?" Naru asked.
"No," Hitomi said, shaking her head.
"I see. We have no choice but to search randomly, huh…" Naru said. Hitomi put her eyepatch back on. "Everyone, what do you have with you?"
"Eh?" Mai said. "Only these..." She held up her watch and a roll of tape.
"Just holy water and a rosary, that's it," John said.
"Only this, and an oil lighter," Bou-san said, holding up his vajra.
"A mala and a little salt," Masako said.
"Only this omamori charm," Hitomi said, holding it up.
"I don't have anything!" Yasuhara reported with a smile, holding up his empty hands.
'Ah! We're dead meat!' Mai thought.
"This means we have very minimal equipment then," Naru said without making any offerings himself, which Hitomi took to mean that he was as empty-handed as Yasuhara. Naru stood up. "Let's go examine the classrooms one more time. We should also check to make sure there aren't any abnormalities of the walls and floor."
"And if we don't find anything?" Mai asked.
"In that case, we'll have to consider the possibility that the corpses are being stored outside of the school somewhere, and that the way to get to it may also be a means to escape from here," Naru said.
