Hmmm...here I am on Chapter 3. Thanks to bryangzc for the first review. And the cookie! Yumminess. Also thanks to Steeple333 for the second! People like it, yay! And, yes, answers are in this one. Such as why Kirie's back.

So I'll switch my writing again, with this whole chapter being dedicated only to Michiko, her memories and her conversation with Mafuyu. Also, the flashbacks might remind people of Fatal Frame 2. Consider it a crossover idea then, even though it's not. It has nothing to do with Crimson Butterfly. Ok, now I'm rambling, here's outline:

Michiko dwells on the past with everything that's happened. For some reason, it feels like a strong case of déjà vu. Mafuyu tells her the whole history of the mansion. Why Kirie comes back and why another Maiden needs to be chosen sparks a forgotten memory in Michiko...


Chapter 3

Reiko ran up ahead, her white dress flowing behind her. Michiko tried to catch up to her, but it was impossible, she was too fast.

"Reiko, slow down! We don't want to get lost here!" Michiko shouted.

Michiko grabbed onto a tree and looked around. It was too hard to see anything with all the trees here. She heard Reiko laugh far away, so she trudged forward slowly on the dirt.

"Reiko, we really need to go back to the village. Mom and dad are probably worried about us. We've been gone for two hours. Reiko!"

Exhausted, Michiko came across a bend and a small clearing in the trees. She turned into the open area and saw her younger sister across a faded wooden bridge. She was going up the stairs that led to a giant mansion. The mansion was a giant in her ten year old mind and Reiko was like an ant going to the mound.

"Reiko, what are you doing? We shouldn't be here! Let's go back, please!" Michiko pleaded to her sister, realizing where they were. The' haunted' mansion.

Reiko acted as though she couldn't hear her sister. Frantically, Michiko ran over the bridge and up the stairs to her. When she reached her, Michiko grabbed her hand and jerked her backwards almost sending her toppling. Reiko steadied herself and she tore her eyes away from the building.

"What?" Reiko asked sleepily. "Michiko, what's going on?"

Michiko blinked at her sister's reaction. 'She doesn't know what's happened? How?' She tugged at her sister's hand. "Let's go. Our parents are probably worried."

"Do you know how to get back?"

Michiko sighed and shrugged. "No idea. But we'll get back," she added, seeing her sister's sad face. "It can't be that hard, right? Besides, they're probably looking for us right now."

Reiko smiled brightly and skipped down the stairs and over the bridge with Michiko following closely behind. Michiko took one last glance at the old building. She could have sworn that she saw a woman wearing white in the doorway. She blinked and the vision was gone.

"Michiko?" Reiko asked skeptically.

Michiko turned around to face Reiko. "I'm coming," she said smiling.


Michiko looked away from the door as the memory faded away. 'Why did I remember that?' she thought. 'We were here when we were younger? Strange. I never thought of it till now.' The ipod clicked over again, but Michiko was ready to ignore the voice in her ears. The device clicked over almost every thirty seconds now, but she didn't seem to care much anymore. The thought of getting Reiko back and getting out of the mansion was all that she cared about now. No ghosts were going to dent that thought.

"I don't want to die!" a voice cried through the earphones.

Michiko started slightly at how near the voice was. It had to be right next to her. She turned to her right but didn't see anything there. In the corner of her eye, she saw a small note fall from the drawer as she started to turn back around. Michiko stared at it apprehensively before sliding across the floor to pick it up. As soon as she grabbed it, she felt a throbbing in the back of her head, as if something smacked her hard. In pain, she yelped out and her vision went cloudy again, just like it did in the walkway. Michiko backed away to the wall and grasped the handle of the small door for fear of the woman coming back.

"No way can she be here! She just can't!" Michiko muttered. "There's just no way! She hasn't found me for hours."

Michiko glanced up but saw a different 'person' than what she had expected. This girl wore a pure white kimono and her black hair went almost to her waist. Her hands cupped her face so that Michiko couldn't see it. Her voice was choked when she talked through her sobs.

"I don't want to die! And that man…the priests had no right! I can't die now…not after everything that's happened. I don't want it to fail…"

The vision disappeared and Michiko stared in confusion at what had just happened.

"Who…who was that?"

Michiko looked at the note in her hand. 'Strange, it looks a lot like Reiko's writing. But the extra curls aren't there.' She tried to read what it said but she couldn't, the writing was smeared. 'Is that…blood?' Michiko wondered, looking at the dark blotched stains in the paper. She put the paper in her bag, carefully, not wanting to fold it since it looked quite old.

"Where'd you get that?" the man asked.

Michiko turned around, surprised. "Can you not do that! It freaks me out! I don't know if you're that woman or not! Open a door or something."

He took a step back from Michiko and watched her warily, in case she started yelling again. She looked down at his feet before she looked up to talk again.

"Wait, where's Reiko? You said you'd bring her back here."

"I said that I'd try to bring her back. It didn't work. Kirie found her, and now she probably has her."

Michiko stared in disbelief. "Kirie? That lady in the kimono? The one I saw in my dream?"

"Were you paying attention when I first talked to you?" he asked irritably. "I gave you her name. I told you that you wouldn't be able to hear her with your…thing. Only her memories."

Michiko frowned. 'What is he? He's like a genius or a smartass. Or both. Yeah, I'd go with both.' She looked at the ground absentmindedly. So many thoughts were in her head, so many questions. Which one to ask first?

"You never told me your name," she muttered. "I think I should know that. And what's going on here…and why I and my sister are 'chosen.' You didn't say what that meant either."

"We'd be here for a while if you want to know all of that." He said, tiredly. 'Can ghosts get tired?' Michiko wondered.

"It's not like we're going anywhere. So, I think you have more than 'a while.'" Michiko said, leaning against the wall to get comfortable.

The man sighed. "Mafuyu. That's my name. Mafuyu Hinasaki."

Michiko blinked. She remembered being in the library, reading old newspaper transcripts, and finding one about the Hinasaki case. She had looked at a picture of the man before her with his name underneath. 'Why didn't I remember the name, but I remembered the picture? Typical me, remember how people looked but not what their name was.'

"That's why you looked familiar," Michiko explained to him as he looked confused at her expression. "I saw your photo in the library when I was researching for my report."

"Oh, with my disappearance. I never thought they would put me in the paper. A picture anyway," Mafuyu paused. "Your second question was about what's happening here. Do you know about the rituals that were performed here?"

"Uh… there's one about blinding and one about strangling. That's why I came here, to find out about them."

'Guess I will now, huh?' she thought. 'Least I don't have to read.'

"The blinding ritual was performed to find the next maiden who would be the sacrifice in the strangling ritual." Mafuyu explained. "The strangling ritual was used to seal the Hell Gate, so Malice wouldn't spill onto the earth. When it was Kirie's turn to perform the ritual, it failed." He paused. "The maiden is cut off from the world, to make sure that she has no attachments to it when she is sacrificed. Only a pure maiden's sacrifice could assure the fact that the ritual wouldn't fail and the Malice would be prevented from tainting the earth."

"Why did Kirie's ritual fail?" Michiko asked, thinking back to the memory of the woman in the white kimono.

"Because, she fell in love with a visitor to the mansion. Shortly after, the priests were ordered by the master to kill him. Kirie felt so guilty that she believed that she had caused the man's death. With that thought haunting her, the ritual failed. She came back with the Malice as the ghost you see now, filled with anger. She killed everyone in the mansion then, and killed anyone who visited this place afterwards."

"But," Michiko interrupted. "I thought that the killings stopped when Miku left this mansion." She remembered reading another article a few years later that reported no one had died in the mansion when another research group visited it.

"They did," Mafuyu said calmly, trying not to lose his temper with the girl. "But something changed nine years ago…when you and your sister wandered here. Reiko…something about her made Kirie come back as she had in the past, even though she finished the ritual when Miku and I were here. The Malice was strong when your sister came near the house, and all the ghosts felt it. They all stayed near the entrance as Kirie stood outside. I did too. All of us could feel Kirie's anger as it was in the past. Something changed," he repeated quietly, as if to himself. "I was the first to realize it. Could I have prevented this?"

Michiko stared as Mafuyu continued to talk to himself. 'What is he talking about? This is all my and Reiko's fault? No way. It can't be our fault, we did nothing wrong.' Michiko let her head drop and she closed her eyes. She wasn't tired, but the pain in her head was coming back and it was worse than before. Mafuyu looked over to her and saw her clutch her head.

"Hey, you alright?" Mafuyu asked stepping forward. "What's wrong? Michiko?"

Michiko wondered how he knew her name, but the pain was too excruciating for her to even think straight. She felt the pain in her wrists too. 'Is she near?' Michiko felt a cold on her shoulder and it chilled her. Her eyes snapped open and the gray colored memories poured into her head.


The woman in the white kimono was held against a large door with ropes tied to her wrists. Every time the door tried to open, she would scream and it would close. The process kept repeating as Mafuyu stood near her and watched in sadness at it.

"Why did you stay?" Kirie asked. "You could have left with your sister...not stay and watch for all time."

Mafuyu smiled. "I couldn't leave. I knew that Miku would be fine, but I had to stay with you. You can't be expected to do this by yourself. I've told you this so many times, Kirie."

Kirie smiled before she screamed again. "Someone's here."

Mafuyu looked at Kirie in confusion. "How do you know?"

"I can feel the power from her. It's so familiar."

"Power?"

"Of a Shrine Maiden. Each has a noticeable...power. It's...hard to describe. Power might...not be the best word...to describe the feeling."

"Like a sixth sense?"

"I...it might be." Kirie paused in thought. 'With her...it might finally...the both of us...could leave.'

A loud rumble from behind the door caused Mafuyu to back away. He went through a large pile of rocks, but came back a minute later, struggling against the rumbling.

"Kirie? What's going on? It's never rumbled like that before. Are you alright?"

Kirie looked up at the rocky ceiling and smiled slightly. Her mouth moved but no sound came out. Mafuyu walked to the door and looked up at her, yelling her name. Kirie looked down at him with the same smile. The ropes holding her broke loose and the door crashed open. Mafuyu was forced backward by the darkness and he flew through the rocks, almost falling off the edge of the thin walkway. He pushed himself to the opening and saw that Kirie was nowhere to be seen.

"Kirie?" Mafuyu shouted, holding his side. "Where are you?"

A strange feeling washed over him. It wasn't a good feeling. He disappeared from the caved-in area and appeared in the entrance. He turned around and very briefly saw Kirie's kimono go through the door. He ran toward it to follow her but stopped and looked around. The hall was suddenly full of all the ghosts who died here. He looked over them and saw the same expectant expression on their faces.

"Reiko!" he heard a girl yell from behind the door.

Mafuyu tried to go through the door but couldn't. The door wouldn't open either. On the other side he could sense anger, the same anger he felt when he first encountered Kirie in the rope hallway.

"Kirie!"

He stepped back as she came through the door. Every ghost around him vanished leaving the both of them alone. Kirie's eyes were glued to the floor and the same smile she had from under the house was still there.

"I've found one...the perfect replacement. She'll come back...I know she will, and when she does..." Kirie muttered softly.

Mafuyu stood in front of her but she walked around him absentmindedly. He turned around and saw her flash into the same being he saw years ago. Mafuyu stepped back in surprise and watched Kirie pass through the wall.


Michiko took a deep breath and almost fell onto the floor. Her eyes closed again as she tried to control her shaking. 'A replacement? Is Reiko the replacement?' Michiko stood up shakily and leaned against the drawer. She looked around the room, but didn't see Mafuyu.

"Mafuyu," she said weakly. "Where are you?"

Without Mafuyu, Michiko felt unprotected for some reason. It was the same feeling she had when she and Reiko were younger and Reiko would run off. Michiko waited for her heart to stop beating as rapidly as it was, before she went to the little door. She opened it and walked into the stairwell. The ipod clicked over yet again, but she ignored it as she could barely hear the noise. Michiko turned the corner and looked in front of her to see a small set of stairs she never saw before. She looked up from the ground, to see where they led and to her shock saw someone standing at the top of them. Michiko blinked to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Reiko stood in front of her.

"Reiko!" Michiko shouted happily, running up to her. "You're ok."

As she reached the top step and held her hands out to hug her sister, Reiko's image blurred. Michiko stood frozen on the last step as her sister's image changed into Kirie's. Kirie smiled at her, from under her hair that covered her face, and grabbed her outstretched wrists, sending shooting pain through Michiko's body.

"You cannot stop the ritual…it's already begun…"


Yep, finally an answer or two, or three. Well, the next chapter will be all Reiko's. That's going to be insane. Well, is it still likeable?