June 8th, 2022

Mion had to remind herself not to clench her fists as she stomped through the ancient, creaking hallways of the family estate, not only because her roughened, ungroomed nails would bite into her skin, but also because three of them were still healing, her exposed nail beds raw. The stinging of air against her tender flesh came second to the stinging in her heart, however, and Mion slammed the sliding door aside so hard the decades-old wood almost splintered.

"Batcha!" she cried, refusing to buckle as the old woman looked up from her futon. Mion's grandmother was the terror of the family, exuding a presence that made even hardened yakuza want to weep, but Mion was of the same blood, had the same demon, and she stiffened her spine and filled the space under her skin with diamond-hard rage. She may have been born Shion, but she was marked as Mion now, the carrier of the demon, and this was the first time where she really felt it. "Where's Satoshi?!"

She had looked everywhere, asking everyone she could find, and no one had said anything. Villagers one and all thought he had been demoned away, and the members of her family had averted their eyes and said they didn't know, which could be true, but also meant that they had a very good idea of where he was. Mion had that same idea too, because she was a Sonozaki, and she knew about the rumors that floated around her family. She had seen the contents of their underground shelter in one of the mountains, forced her sister to rip off three of her nails and guiltily done the same on her own hand.

Mion knew where the dark, pulsing heart of her family was.

"Give him back!" she snarled without giving her grandmother a chance to answer, crossing the room in two swift strides and swooping down to grab Batcha by the collar. "Give him back to us!"

She was just about ready to strangle the answer out of her grandmother. She and Shion had mutilated themselves for this, for Shion and Satoshi to have their relationship, so how dare Batcha take him anyway!? If this was how she played the game, if this was the attitude with which she regarded the rules, then Mion was happy to break a few of her own. She was the heir, the one who would inherit the Sonozaki family. If she reached out and took her inheritance now, like some of her father's rivals had done when they were young, then she could root through the family secrets and find Satoshi-kun herself, bring him back to her sister and let them be happy.

"Let go of me, you fool girl!" Batcha barked, and the weakness of her body was more than made up for by the strength of her voice. Mion flinched back on impulse, the cotton of Batcha's kimono slipping through her fingers. "If you want to know that bad, then settle down and listen!"

Mion's lips compressed into a tight line as she settled back in her heels, betrayal skewering through her.

"So you did do something to Satoshi-kun?" she asked, hurt in her voice, and Batcha huffed, straightening her collar with sticklike fingers.

"I never said that." she croaked, and then…changed, somehow. The fire went out of her eyes, the menace faded, and the demon somehow shrank into a frail, hangdog old woman, her stringy grey hair hanging over her forehead like limp spiderwebs. Her voice when she spoke, though, was as caustic and cruel as ever. "I never said any of it, come to think."

Mion blinked, and shivered as Batcha turned those fierce old eyes on her.

"Mion." she said. "I'll tell you want you want, but in exchange, you're going to keep it a secret. No one is allowed to know this, not even Shion."

"But-"

"Swear, or you can die not knowing!" Batcha spat.

"I-I swear!"

Batcha nodded in satisfaction, then sighed, all the fight draining out of her again as she settled back. Her bony fingers crumpled on the edge of her thick blanket, and her head dipped.

"The Sonozakis don't cast or control Oyashiro-sama's curse." she said wearily. "I've got no more idea than you where that boy went."

Mion's eyes widened. "But-"

"Oh, I know. We've fattened on that table plenty." Batcha acknowledged, her mouth going even tighter. "It's an old tradition for the family heads: when something unknown and beneficial happens in Hinamizawa…we give a suggestive smile. That's all it takes."

She glanced at Mion.

"Our family rules Hinamizawa with an iron fist, and the eyes of a pack always go to the leader. When that minister's brat got himself kidnapped…I smiled to myself at a meeting, and lo and behold, everyone gave our family credit for the kidnapping. When that dam foreman was murdered, another suggestive smirk got everyone believing it was our handiwork. Same when those disrespectful parents of that boy fell off a cliff. Same when the Furude priest died."

"You…smiled like it was your idea." Mion said, remembering Batcha's expression at the village council meetings. Her grandmother nodded.

"So I did. My first thought, with the kidnapping…if one of ours had done it, they'd come forward to take the credit. But nothing happened." One fingertip restlessly smoothed over the blanket. "I was happy to ride the wave when that outsider got himself hacked to bits…but then the Hojos fell off the cliff, and I smiled my secret smile, and no one said anything. That don't add up. No one in our family would twitch without my order, and no one outside our family would be able to get away with it. So who killed 'em?"

"Maybe they just fell…?" Mion tried, and her grandmother glared at her.

"Did your wits go out wandering with that boy?!" she snapped harshly. "Once on the night of the festival is a coincidence, but nothing lines up that neatly twice. And three times, with the priest? Four, this year? That's the mark of something deliberate, girl, and it's not coming from our family. So what does that tell you?"

"It's coming from someone else." Mion said, and clenched her uninjured fist, already spinning out a complex vision of revenge. "Who?"

"I don't know."

The words floated out into the air –bald, unpretentious, unadorned– and for a few seconds, Mion literally could not understand them. She blinked, staring at her grandmother, and though finally she processed the words, she did not comprehend them.

"What- what do you mean, you don't know?" she faltered, feeling like the world had been yanked from under her feet. The Sonozakis were the youngest of the Three Families, but they were the strongest, the most numerous. They knew everything inside Hinamizawa, and the family head ruled with an autocratic power that was terrifying in its reach and breadth. Mion's grandmother could have someone shot in broad daylight on a public street and get away with it: the shadowy underbelly of society was hers to rule, so the idea of anyone else getting away with murder-

It wasn't to be comprehended.

If someone did something in Hinamizawa, Mion's family would know. It was as simple as that.

"If I knew what I didn't know, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Batcha said dryly. "When I said I don't know, I meant exactly that."

She coughed a little, then continued.

"I started my digging 'round about when the Hojos died, but I didn't start taking it seriously until the Furudes. Two sets of good-for-nothing getting murdered, that could be some of our people getting antsy." Batcha rasped, uncaring of how Mion scowled. "But the Furudes, fence-sitters or not, were Oyashiro-sama's priests. There ain't nobody in Hinamizawa that would dare, no matter how angry they got, so that made me sit up and take notice."

"So, what'd you find?" Mion asked with some asperity, not willing to forgive Batcha for the "good-for-nothing's" comment.

Batcha heaved a huge breath, her gaze sliding over the paper-and-wooden walls around them.

"Nothing." she said at last, the words dropping heavily into the expectant silence. "Neither hide nor hair of any kind of clue, any hint about who's behind this, whether or not it's a branch of our family gone rogue. I forgave your flibbertigibbet sister after she tore them nails off: she could have flaunted herself with that Hojo boy as much as she wanted, for all I cared. It was over and done. She proved her restitution."

Mion opened her mouth, tears stinging her eyes at the sheer unfairness of what had then occurred, but Batcha's next words made a cold, heavy stone settle in her stomach.

"I've got to wonder, sometimes…if this really was a curse. " Batcha muttered, as though forgetting Mion was there. She rubbed her forehead, every movement weary. "Woulda been willing to swear it's a person, but…maybe my old eyes are getting dim. If it is done by humans, then whoever they are, they're like a ghost. And we can't catch ghosts, Mion."

9.48 AM, USA Central Time

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