Chapter four:

The first twilight

Keiichi woke up to see Kanon opening the door to leave. The slightly older boy had a confused look on his face.

"What's wrong?" Keiichi asked. Kannon pouted.

"Six people have gone missing.... again..." The last part was whispered under Kanon's breath.

"Hey, hey, are you like Rika-chan?" Kanon frowned.

"I'm sorry but I do not understand you..." Keiichi grinned with only half of his mouth.

"Do you remember all the past repeating worlds?" Kanon took a step back.

"I-I-I can't say..."

"It's something to do with that whole 'furniture' thing, isn't it? Rika-chan could do the same. Remember past worlds, I mean. It was annoying for her, being the only one that remembers everything. That was, of course, until we got out of the repeating world. Now, that was one horrible set of flashbacks." Kanon tilted his head.

"I cannot understand..."

"Well, imagine finding out that you once killed two of your best friends, you were stabbed by another best friend whom was intent on torturing you, you cursed death upon people (that one was so weird and confusing.... I scared myself!) You had to fight to make sure that your slightly crazy friend didn't make the school explode, you've been poisoned... heaps.. and you clawed out your own throat. Wouldn't you be a little terrified?" Keiichi asked. Kanon nodded.

"The disease... that made everyone do all those things, didn't it... the disease that Satoshi-sama had..."

Keiichi grinned.

"You're pretty smart for someone who supposedly didn't have a proper education. Yeah, Satoshi was under extreme stress due to the fact that he and his sister were being abused repeatedly, not too mention he was wanting dearly to run away. This created self loathing amongst other emotions. He started to hear footsteps behind him and stuff, and then.... we don't know for certain, but he either killed his aunt or thinks he did. We know it's one or the other, but we dunno which. Then, of course, he started to see his aunt in the street. The doctor, Irie-sensei, found him, and took him back to the clinic. Satoshi was in a coma for over a year...So, yeah... Well, six people are missing. Ya probably know what happens next, but ya gonna need to act all surprised and stuff, so... see ya later!"

Kanon left the brown haired boy in a daze. He had just had a conversation with a human, whom has also lived in a repeating time. Well... A witch committing the murders was oh so much better then having those you care about... no... he as furniture... he was not allowed to care about anyone. He was to sacrifice his life to the master... What was wrong with him? He... he had become human in the last world... but.. that was the last world. Not this one. To think that he was acting human... it was despicable. Unforgivable.

But now for everything to start again...

Kanon knocked on the door to the servants room.

"Genji-san? Genji-san?" The older servant came out and sighed.

"Do you know where abouts?"

"No, I do not." Shannon came up behind the two.

"Then I guess that we shall have to search around. Kumasuwa-san and Ghoda-san are two of the missing people. Among them is Rosa-sama, Natsuhi-sama, Hideyoshi-sama and Eva-sama."

Kanon sighed.

"We know that they are not in the chapel or in the Shed. Where else only has one or less keys, not including our master keys?" He asked.

"....I know it's a stretch, and not hard to access, but.... I remember walking passed the dining room late at night, and hearing a large number of voices." Shannon answered. Genji nodded an they all ran off to the dining room.

As could be expected, there was a symbol drawn in blood on the door. Kanon took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole. Hanging from the roof were the six missing people, strung up like puppets. Hanging from various parts of their bodies was cotton, as if they had been stuffed like a teddy bear.

"I'll go get Nanjo-sensei." Shannon whispered, her lack of ability to stay in the room extremely obvious on her face. Kanon nodded, and his sister ran off.

Shannon walked into the parlor, and George knew something was wrong when she refused to look him in the eye. She alerted Nanjo to the problem, and the two ran off. Mion frowned.

"What was that about?" She asked.

"Dunno, but it isn't something good. Come on!" Battler said, and the four people in the room (Battler, George, Jessica and Mion) and followed the two servants.

The horror on their faces upon seeing the dining room was clear. Mion wanted to be sick... Jessica had started to scream that her mother was in there, and George screamed for his parents. Battler clenched his eyes shut, holding back his male cousin and trying to stop the tears falling from his eyes. He did not succeed.

Jessica's father came up behind her and began to comfort her, also averting his eyes from the scene. Shannon took George in her arms and comforted him, the rings on their fingers shining brightly.

"Now that murder is just unrealistic. I mean, how on earth did they get up there?" Battler asked. Beatrice cackled.

"The more unrealistic the murders are, the more obvious that they were committed by magic!"

"Magic does not exist!"

"Yeah yeah....."

Kanon gently put his hand on Jessica's shoulder.

"Miss, please come with me. You shouldn't be here... you need rest...." Jessica nodded, and Krauss and Kannon lead her away. Jessica did the same with George, which left Mion and Battler alone in the hall, watching Nanjo, Genji and a man that Mion suspected to be Battler's father deal with the bodies.

"How many doors are there into this room?" Mion asked.

"Two. Both were locked." Genji replied.

"Were the windows locked?"

"Yes."

"Any trapdoors or other ways of entering the room?"

"No."

"Whom has the key to both doors?"

"Only the servants and Natsuhi-sama, whose key was found on the table."

"Do the two servants that were killed have their keys on them? Or on the table?"

"Their keys are also on the table."

Mion sighed and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Let's join the others. We're gonna need a few brains to figure out this one."

When they cry

"Six people... how awful..." Rena said quietly.

"How would someone lock the door behind them, and then put the key back?" George asked.

"Genji-san, Kanon-san, Shannon-san, were you anywhere near the dining room after we all went to bed?" Satoshi asked. Genji and Shannon nodded.

"Was the door locked?" Keiichi asked. The two frowned then nodded.

"Did either of you return to that passage later on, and lock the door?" The two servants shook their heads.

"So, basically it's a toss up between the servants." Krauss said.

"Turn the chessboard over." Battler and his step mother said in unison.

"If the servants were the murderers, why would they place suspicion on themselves? Why not use their resources to make it look like an accident?" Battler explained.

"Because that way it would place suspicion on the others. It is so bizarre to place suspicion on yourself, that they would do it. That works, you know." Satoko said, suddenly. Keiichi nodded.

"Think of it as a trap. In the middle is a large pile of grass. Most obviously, the trap, so you would go to the sides. Then, if you turn the chessboard over, you would think that the middle is just so obvious and ridiculous that it is the safe path."

"However, the obvious path, the patch of grass is the trap." Satoko finished.

Battler blinked at his greatest strategy being pulled apart like that.

"But, there is one more problem. The sides, the trap that you would think of if you would turn the chessboard over, is the trap as well. In other words, someone may have been working with the servants. Or a servant was working with a group of people. Maybe two of the murdered servants help to commit the crime, and then were killed due to the end of their usefulness. There is many possibilities." Satoshi stated.

Everyone from Rokkenjima stared in shock. They had to admit, it made sense... kind of..

"Any theories? Like.. any culprit ideas?" Krauss asked. Shion sighed.

"Be prepared for weirdness, insanity, etc etc. But.... well, I hear that Eva-san was trying to keep George-san and Shannon-san away from each other. They may have killed her to get her out of the way, and then Hideyoshi-san and Rosa-san was in the room, just happening to see. Natsuhi-san and the servants could have come in, and upon seeing the murdered and the murderers, tried to alert the others, and were killed in the process. Kanon-san may have even been brought into this plot." Everyone looked aghast.

"That is a horrible way of reasoning!" Battler exclaimed. Beatrice cackled.

"It is a perfectly acceptable way of thinking."

"I will prove that they didn't commit the crime!!"

"Just how you did with Kannon?"

"I was right!" Beatrice cackled.

"I know."

"However, we know that Kanon-san wasn't involved, due to the factthat he was helping Me and Satoshi around this place. And we never went near the dining room." Keiichi piped up.

"Not too mention, Kanon-san, Genji-san and Shannon-san cannot kill their masters." Hanyuu said quietly.

"Yes, well, that is unless they had been ordered to. So, right away we have three suspects. Krauss-san could have wanted them all out of the way, and did not know that the servants and his wife would be in their as well." Keiichi theorized.

"Wait wait wait, why are you so keen to place the blame on us?! How do we know that YOU aren't the killers?!" Krauss demanded. Everyone nodded, and the higurashi group smiled.

"Because if we had killed them, then you would know easily. And the rest of us would know. If one of us was the culprit, we would be in a terribly unstable mental state." Satoshi said. Many of the Ushiromiya's began to argue with this, before Jessica noticed that Kanon was nodding.

"Kanon-kun? You mean, you believe them?" Jessica asked, startled. Kanon nodded.

"Keiichi-san told me all about it. And he had no idea what was going on."

"No offense to Kannon-kun, but couldn't you have been ordered to lie to us?" George asked. Kanon shook his head.

"Unless it was by a member of the Ushiromaya family, I could not have obeyed an order to lie to you."

"No offense, Kanon-san, but if you have to obey orders no matter what, then...you could have been ordered to lie and say that you cant lie to the Ushiromiya family. You may even not know you are doing it. None of you can sincerely account for your actions, because your memories could have been played with..." Keiichi said quietly.

Pale and shaking, Kanon quickly excused himself and burst out into the hall, running to the servants room. He had no idea what to believe any more.