Artisan
Chapter 9

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Keiichi came home and saw the redness of her cheek.

She should have foreseen that, really. Keiichi was pretty good at seeing things around him (but not so good at the introspection, though who could blame him? Looking inside oneself was rarely fun). And red against the pallor of her skin was hard to miss.

Her brain simply wasn't functioning. Numb with shock or something. But not so numb because hadn't you seen this coming? Wasn't that why you'd already been backing up the stairs?

Who'd been the one who'd started, she wondered. Her or Ichiro.

''kaa-san?' Keiichi repeated. He touched the warm cheek gently. His fingers felt cool and there was another thing she'd forgotten. Putting some ice on it. Or a cool towel. And then maybe some makeup so Keiichi wouldn't have noticed so easily unless she perspired and the makeup ran or Keiichi tried to kiss that cheek or Ichiro did – but maybe she didn't need to worry about Ichiro. Or maybe she did.

He'd gone back into his little dungeon basement after the little incident. Fled back in, she might've thought, if she hadn't been busy fleeing herself. And wondering, over-thinking – How could she have startled him so badly? Her? Or was she just so intolerably disgusting and he could hardly bear to look at her anymore.

'Must've got a bug bite,' Aiko mused to her son. He was still there, waiting for an explanation and she couldn't give it to him, truth or no. An outright lie she could do but that was all. At least she didn't have to worry about being called out on that lie. The Ichiro she knew would stew in guilt and apologise, but in a way so nobody else had to know. Did the same with Keiichi as well. The city baying for blood never knew who the person who'd haunted the streets were. Just knew they were a minor and there wasn't a hint of anything that would give them away. People moved all the time, after all. In and out. The city changed so drastically, compared to this little country side that shouldn't have changed at all.

Shouldn't have changed at all but losing two people every year. But this time they were both dead. Did that mean two people would be spirited away by the demon as well? Or was that Nurse Takano and they'd just happened to find her body this time, carefully hidden but not carefully enough. Questions and theories that had been fascinating to think about and plot outside the realm of reality but now it was all real and not all real mysteries were solved. The most interesting ones were, but that was just because the interesting ones were the ones that had solutions, the ones that were written up and published, the ones that people tried to puzzle out and if they gave up, could simply get to the end of the book and discover the outcome of.

But not all mysteries in reality had a solution, did they? And did magic and the curse of Oyashiro even exist? Did Gods exist? That changed the entire ball game – or maybe it changed nothing. If no-one was spirited away by the demon this time, that pointed to a human being the culprit. An imperfect human who could make mistakes and had made one in having Nurse Takano's body discoverable –

And that clawing inside of her was grief. Grief and worry. Just that.

'Does it hurt?'

Keiichi was asking about the bruise, of course, but her mind was elsewhere. 'Yeah, it hurts.' And then, after a pause. 'Going to play with your friends?'

'They're busy,' Keiichi replied, somewhat absentmindedly. 'And the fridge is almost empty.'

She'd forgotten. Grocery shopping. 'Come help me, then. We'll go now.'

'What about 'tou-san?'

Ichiro was still in the basement. Always in the basement, these days.

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Rika wandered, like the lost and drifting soul she was. She stayed near the temple where she'd grown up at first, but then she drifted down. The elders were in their homes, in their rooms, thinking. Mion was thinking as well, and maybe wandering too. Rika had her own job. The shrine had been broken into and so she had to pray to the Gods.

But Hanyu floated behind her and so she didn't bother. Instead, she drifted in the last few days of this life, this world. Decided she could splurge herself on spicy food and wine because she didn't need to keep her head on straight (or Hanyu's) when all that was left to do was wait for the end to come.

No amount of traps stopped them. She'd tried. In the first few worlds (not the original where she'd been oh so oblivious, after all), she'd tried. They'd tried. She'd been so frantic and they'd taken every measure a bunch of kids could take but it still wasn't enough. They needed knowledge on their side as well and even now, knowledge favoured the enemy more than her.

It wasn't fair. But until she solved the riddle, gained the knowledge, she was doomed to wait for the checkmate when her moves ran out. Like now. Now she just wandered: up on the hill, then down to the town. Waved to Rena passing by with groceries. Waved to Keiichi and Keiichi's mother doing the same –

And then she froze. There was proof of her failure, blossoming on Maebara Aiko's face.

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His mother was acting rather jumpy. And his father was still wrapped up in his work in the basement. For some reason, it reminded him of when he'd confessed his sins. Those days after, as though his mother knew he'd explode without his outlet, and even if he didn't, the world could so easily explode around him: turn into a bomb of ridicule and hatred. Turn into something worse, from the parents of all those kids he'd scared, and hurt.

It was probably Nurse Takano's death. It had shaken her and why wouldn't it? Nurse Takano had been steadily becoming a good friend of hers. But then what about his father? Wrapped up in that painting of his. He did that sometimes. But he should have been done with the painting if that was the case. He tended to work quite fast when inspired.

And the red cheek – somehow, he knew she was lying about that. But tomorrow would tell, whether it was a bite that had swelled or something else. A bruise would darken over time: go black in a way insect bites wouldn't. Unless they were poisoned, perhaps, but different. Still different. All the excuses people made to hide punches and slaps and being grabbed. All the simple ways they could unravel.

But that begged its own question. Who had hit her? She hadn't gone out since the Watanagushi festival and it hadn't been there then. He was sure it hadn't. He would have noticed, and it had been almost a week since.

Which meant she'd gotten it at home. And that meant…

'Have we had any visitors this week, 'kaa-san?'

'No,' Aiko replied distractedly, and not needing to think very hard on her reply.

Then the only two people left were him and his father. And neither of them were conceivable.

But it was so much easier to accuse someone else than himself. Or something – He brightened at that. Could've easily been a door knob or the corner of a cabinet – but then why lie about it?

Silly. You know that's just as common a lie. And why cover the truth with an even less believable lie?

Which came back to the same conclusion again?

Why? Weren't we supposed to be happy and free from expectations here?

He shivered. The streets of Hinamizawa seemed colder, suddenly. Shivered and scratched. Red blossomed from his fingertips. Stretched across his skin. Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions. Maybe whatever had bitten his mother had bitten him as well, and that was why he itched. Maybe –

'Keiichi.' And Rika was suddenly there, holding one hand.

The itching eased. 'Rika?' He blinked in surprise.

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'I thought you were all busy?'

'I was.' Rika smiled. 'I prayed to the Shrine Gods. But now I'm free. And Keiichi and Keiichi's 'kaa-san are shopping?'

'That's right.' Aiko smiled at the girl, ten and adorable, even in her shrine maiden outfit at the festival. 'Would you like to join us?'

She smiled and hummed a little, as though considering it. 'Is your cheek okay, Maebara-san?'

Her eyes dimmed a little and she brought a hand to it before she replied. 'Y-yes, it's fine. Just got bit by an insect, I think. A bit warm and itches a bit, but –'

Keiichi seemed to both tense and relax at that. Believe it and not believe it.

Rika was in the same conundrum, but for different reasons. The heat and warmth… Those came from Hinamizawa Syndrome. She had no doubt about the source pf that forming bruise. Aiko's recollection she could doubt, though. Or, if not that, then the source of her lie. And Keiichi too. Scratching at skin when he'd seen him.

You were too late, Hanyu's words from before echoed. And she could see it. See it all too clearly now.

She'd left them both to that fate.

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Satoko was the first person she knew to reach level five of the Hinamizawa Syndrome. Satoko was the reason she knew about it at all. And the reason the vaccine had been developed. Doctor Irie had felt for her. Tried to cure her. Succeeded in forcing it back into stage three, into a sort of remission. Succeeded in staving it off.

And then there was Satoshi. They suspected it. Rika and Doctor Irie and Nurse Takano. With the stress of his home life, it was pretty much inevitable. He'd hidden it well though. Too well. Only Rena had known enough and Rena had confused it with her own experiences, her own too true but not well explained experiences.

If only Rena had known back then that it wasn't Oyashiro who'd cursed her but the parasite in her mind. If only Rena had known, then she could have told Satoshi and Satoshi could have told. Or if only Rika had been close enough, in any world. She hadn't. She'd saved Akasaka Mamoru's wife on occasion but not Satoshi. Never Satoshi.

Poor Satoko. The parasite had ripped her apart in too many ways. Whether Satoshi, mad with the parasite, had escaped, died or been killed, he was gone. It didn't matter. Gone too far too far to come back. Satoko was still there, at least. Still living. Still trudging through – but she'd die with the rest of Hinamizawa in every world she failed. Like this one. There was on saving her too. Just like there was no saving Mion, or Rena. Keiichi, sometimes. Shion, sometimes. If they're lucky enough to never come to Hinamizawa but even Shion's fate was sealed. Without a queen carrier, the parasite would eventually consume her. Only the Keiichi who never left the city was safe – but who knew what would happen to that boy, clawing at proverbial cardboard walls?

Better than what was coming, she surmised. It could end so many ways. Violence gone too far. The madness that led so many to claw out their own throat. Or would it be the mass effect that swept them away, whatever happened after she departed from the world?

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Afterwards, she watched the Maebara house, too far away to help but watching all the same. Not that she'd see much, if disaster struck inside. Close enough to bear witness, like she'd born witness to scores of other sins, other atrocities. One day they'd become innumerable…or they might not, but hope slipped further each time the cycle began again, each time she was killed and reborn. How long before she cut off the hopeless worlds with her own hands. How long before she stopped waking up in new worlds, just let herself die at ten years old. How long before the ultimate failure that no-one except Hanyu would have the right to begrudge her of, because only Hanyu would know…

And Hanyu wouldn't begrudge her at all. Do you want to give up?

The answer was still no…but for how much longer would it remain that no?

How many more cycles of this could she take?

How many more –

Her thoughts seized, then tumbled to a stop. Her body jerked as well, from the blow to her head, before she fell.

She was too far from the Maebara house to be seen by them. But even if she'd been closer, it was doubtful they'd have noticed, lost in their own haze as they were.

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They bundled her up, almost gently. Gagged her and tied her wrists and ankles and injected her with a sedative strong enough to keep her out cold and numb for hours.

And they took her to the shrine. Silly symbolism, in Okonogi's view, but he was simply the hired help. He did as he was commanded. And he had to admit, the ritual sacrifice would make quite an impression. And Takano was a scientist about all else. She missed the politics, the power-play that went on in Tokyo. But if nuking the quaint little country town was going to get them all what they wanted, then who really cared what misunderstandings went on?

And now they were at the final stage. Kill the little shrine maiden with the queen bee in her brain, and then the town would be nuked and the God that caused the madness immortalised in history without a name. Tokyo would have washed its hands of the Hinamizawa Syndrome. And he could find a new opponent, since the excitement would be all gone.

It was a pity that this tale was ending so soon though. But oh well.

He nodded to Takano as she came, and then left. He was no longer needed. They were no longer needed and he didn't plan to die with Hinamizawa when it went down. It might be a few hours. It might be a day. But Furude Rika would soon be dead in a couple of hours after she slowly and sluggishly bled out, and the rest of Hinamizawa would follow, choked on gas.