Will stalked through the mansion, his hands in his pockets and a frown on his face. There were voices coming from the parlour, frightened, angry, confused voices, and he tried to block them out. He didn't pay heed to the sound his heavy footsteps made - no matter what he did, the people inside the parlour wouldn't be capable of comprehending his existence.

As he passed the portrait of the Blue Witch, feeling her smile burn onto him, Bernkastel appeared in front of him in a cloud of blue. 'What's the matter, Wright? Come back to the Hall.'

Will clenched his fists in irritation. He had come directly to the gameboard to avoid Bernkastel's sadistic glare, even if only for a brief moment - but it seemed she had already caught up with him.

'I'm just taking a break,' Wil muttered.

'Well, don't take too long, okay? And don't think of trying to escape. If you do, I'll throw you into Oblivion, remember?'

'Yeah, yeah,' Will didn't want to look at her face anymore. He turned his gaze to the Blue Witch in the portrait, with her clasped hands and the blue hair flowing over her back. He didn't want to think of Bernkastel as anything more than a monster, but he had to admit, the piece she had designed was quite had charmed him from the very start. He could spend hours looking at the girl, embracing her and the world she offered, if not for other blue-haired witches imprisoning him in their twisted bloody games.

This version of the Witch of Rokkenjima seemed relatively tamer than Beatrice as well, Will thought, gazing into the blue girl's face. She had also been drawn to be more lifelike as well, painted with infinite care and attention to even the most miniscule of details, making her seem like she was only a few shimmers of reality away from climbing out the portrait and shaking his hand.

She did just that.

As he watched, one eye on the Blue Witch closed, seeming to wink at him. The next thing he knew, she had lifted herself out from her chair and locked her sweet eyes on his.

Will jerked back. 'What the hell - ?'

She exited the portrait, practically launching herself out, and Will automatically found his hands rising up to catch her. Her soft weight seemed to lock onto his palms perfectly, and she threw her arms around his shoulders, embracing him. Her head came up, the blue hair falling from her shoulders, and he could see a mischievous smile on her face, the sort a four-year old kid would have from another time when she wants to play.

'Good afternoon, Willard H. Wright,' she sang, extending her hand. 'I'm the Blue Witch! Nice to meet you!'

'Er - ' Still supporting her delicate form with one hand, Will hesitantly returned her gesture with his other hand. Color had flushed to his cheeks, painting them an astonished red, and he didn't know why.

'Finally,' Bernkastel sighed. 'You're late, Blue Witch.'

'Sorry about that,' the Blue Witch chirped, jumping down from her perch and walking over to greet her master. 'But I'm here now! That's all that matters, right? You're so impatient sometimes, Bern, lighten up a little!'

'Hmph. Just for speaking to me like that, I could throw you into Hell, a thousand times over, you know...?'

'Hell's not so bad,' the Blue Witch said lightly. 'Besides, you won't be throwing me anywhere as long as you're fighting this handsome guy, right?' she pointed at Will. 'Hey, he's really gorgeous. Did you put pimple cream, Mr Willard?'

'You know who this is, right?' Bernkastel said, smirking at Will's discomfort.

'Yeah,' Will said, rational thought returning now that the witch's warmth had left his body momentarily. 'She's the illusion of the Blue Witch that everyone was talking about, right? The caretaker of Rokkejima, the kind witch who wants everyone to join her in the Golden Land. The one who everyone loves. In other words, like a perfect Mary Sue for each and every single individual person.'

'I'm a...personification?' the Blue Witch frowned. 'Bern, what's a per - personification?'

'Don't think about it too much,' Will grunted. 'You'll get a headache.'

'You have a nice face, Mister Will.'

'Er - thanks.'

'No, I mean it. It's like the face of those movie stars on tv!' she twirled round, her dress spinning around her in a white ring. 'You're like some Prince Charming!'

'Okay,' Will said.

'So I think I'll gouge your chest instead of your face,' she said, abruptly coming to a stop. 'But then you're lungs will be torn up and you'll be coughing blood everywhere, it's gonna be messy, right? Hey, Mister Will, how should I kill you?'

Will stared at her. 'Erm.' he said.

'Stop that,' Bernkastel sighed. 'He's my piece. He doesn't exist in this gameboard, remember?'

'Oh. Yeah.' she gave him a sympathetic look. 'Sorry about that.'

'I'd rather not be killed, thank you very much,' Will muttered, slowly backing away from her.

'Why?' she looked at him with eyebrows raised.

'Cause I'll...die?'

'Yeah,' she nodded vigorously. 'You'll die, and get invited to the Golden Land! Come on, haven't you heard of it? It's a forever ongoing party over there, and I'm the host,' she smiled, dancing towards him. 'Come on, Mister Will, you know you want to, right?'

Will, still frantically backpeddling, cast a dark look at Bernkastel. 'Are you serious?'

'What's the matter?' Bernkastel said, a perfectly innocent look on her face, 'She's the Blue Witch. Caretaker of Rokkenjima and the Host of the Golden Land. I thought you liked lovey dovey characters like these,' A smile curled up onto her face. 'Or would you rather see some guts?'

'Hmph,' Will grunted, and looked away.

'Anyway, you'll see some guts pretty soon, whether you like it or not. The game's still going on, you know...? It's about to reach the exciting part.'

As if a knob had been turned, the voices from the parlor became louder, allowing the three to hear the rage and desperation layered within each person's shout. The Blue Witch dropped her smile for the first time, clutching her side. 'They're fighting, aren't they?'

'People do that,' Will said.

'They shouldn't,' she frowned, all the warmth vanishing from her face. 'Bern, can I kill them?'

'No,' Bernkastel said. She clicked her fingers, and the Blue Witch vanished.

'What did you do to her?' Will asked, feeling curiously cold in her abscence.

'She can be such a pain sometimes, so I sent her away for a while,' Bernkastel raised her hand, and extended a razor sharp finger towards the palor. 'Besides, the second act of this game is about to begin, and we wouldn't want to have any distractions, would we? There's supposed to be silence in the cinema when a show's beginning, you know...?'

'Rudolf,' Hideyoshi cracked an uneasy grin, still willing to believe all this was a ghastly joke.

'Be quiet,' Rudolf smirked. 'Anything you say can and will be used against you.'

The three of them sat in the center of the room, at the center of attention, Battler, Rudolf, and Hideyoshi. Battler stared at his father, trying desperately to work out who the person he was looking at was now.

'Y-you're serious,' Hideyoshi stammered.

'Yeah. I'm serious. And you all...' he looked around at all the wide eyes faces turned towards them, before focusing his grin back to Hideyoshi, '..are probably damn near skeptical right now, so hear me out, will you?'

'Hideyoshi can't be...' Krauss began, back from his trip to the kitchen with Rosa. All the warmth of the coffee in his belly had dissipated immediately.

'Shut up for a moment, Big Bro,' Rudolf said, not bothering to take his eyes off his prey. 'All of you, listen. The six that were killed today - random killings, don't you think? Totally unconnected to each other. Two servants, three innocent kids, a woman - unrelated. So that might mean two things. The first is that the guy is a complete nutjob who wants to kill everyone he sees, but that's not possible. If he suddenly went axe crazy on us, then why did he stop at six? Why didn't he kill the four of us in the conference room while we were sleeping? So the possibility of a serial killer is out. The second possibility, is that it's a plotline murder.

'That's right, folks. In case you haven't figured it out by now, the murders are done according to the epitaph in front of the Blue Witch's portrait. Offer up the six sacrifices chosen by the key, sound familiar, anyone? Now the reason for this, I'll go into later, but for now let's focus on the fact that our culprit wanted to kill exactly six people. Now - '

'Wait,' said Rosa, turning pale. 'If the murders are according to the epitaph, then isn't one of the lines "And none will be left alive"?'

'He plans to kill us all?' Kumasawa moaned.

'Exactly,' Rudolf said, without so much as a backward glance. 'So all we need to do is get the killer before he gets us. Which is why there's no point delaying this further. As I was saying, the killer needed to kill six victims in order to fulfill the epitaph. So he picked a room he knew would have exactly six people in it. Namely, the room with the cousins and the servants. There should have been six there...but something went wrong.'

He glanced at Battler, and this time his smile really did drop a little, although it was back in a flash. 'Kumasawa tells me you were going for a walk or something, Battler, so you weren't in the room at the time. A close shave, huh?'

That thought had already occurred to Battler, but he had brushed it off easily when he thought of the bodies, and he brushed it off now when he saw his father's face. The way he leaned forward, his limbs stayed tightened and his grin grew wider, as if he were a wolf preparing to spring.

'So,' Rudolf said, switching back to Hideyoshi, who had been silent the entire time. 'Let's turn over the chessboard, shall we? The killer knows beforehand there should be six people in the cousin's room, so he goes in, starts going at it with the knife, and five people are dead. But the sixth is missing. THe killer panics, this is something he never saw coming, so what does he do? He goes to find the six person, and here's the clincher. He knew this particular sixth person would be alone, he knew exactly where to find her, and knew exactly the moment to strike.'

He paused. 'Who sent Natsuhi out of the dining hall in tears, again?'

A deadly silence hung in the air. Hideyoshi swallowed, and tried to smile again. 'Come on, Rudolf, ya can't think - '

'You needed a sixth sacrifice!' Rudolf roared. 'You needed someone you could kill easily, in a secluded place. There was some time before the conference, right? So just before the conference, either you or Big Sis went in, and killed the cousins. You found out Battler was missing, so you arranged a plan - '

'Dad - ' Battler began.

'Natsuhi doesn't normally rush up to her room in tears everytime, but Big Sis really seemed especially pissed at her. I'd always wondered about that, and now I know,' Rudolf's eyes blazed, going in for the kill. He hadn't appeared to have heard Battler at all. 'That was your contingency plan. You knew Natushi broke under pressure easily, you knew that she would rush to her room, alone, and that was when you two made your move! You left early, right, about some mumbo jumbo about being tired and all that. That was just an excuse! The real reason you two left early was to go upstairs and slit Natushi's stomach apart! '

'B-but the closed rooms,' Nanjo said desperately. 'They had chains on them...'

'Simple enough,' Rudolf snapped his fingers in a passable imitation of Kyrie. 'There was someone hiding in each room. Big Sis, for example, locked herself in Natsuhi's room, set the chain, hid, and waited for the others to discover the bodies and leave! Hideyoshi did the same for the cousin's room! It isn't even a locked room, at all!' He swung his finger round and stabbed it at Hideyoshi's chest. 'Checkmate, Hideyoshi.'

Hideyoshi looked like a balloon about to burst. His mouth was closing and opening rapidly, and he was breathing hard and fast.

'Of course,' Rudolf said lazily, settling back into his sofa. 'If you have anything to say to defend yourself, feel free.'

For a moment, it looked like Hideyoshi was about to explode. Rudolf leaned forward again, bracing himself for the blow eagerly. But instead, impossibly, miraculously, Hideyoshi's face cleared. He sat up straight. And then he smiled. A genuine smile.

Rudolf's own grin seemed to freeze on his face. 'Yes, Hideyoshi?'

'That's...that's a good theory, Rudolf, you're pretty smart.'

'Oh, I owe it all to Kyrie. Now, you have something to bring up.'

'Yeah,' Hideyoshi scratched the back of his head. 'Ya see - you know Eva, right? She - she may be a bit fierce, but deep down she cares for all of us, y'know?'

'Is that all you have to say?' Rudolf said incredulously.

'No - no, I mean - one of the victims was George - our son. And if you're suggesting Eva looked him in the eye and slit him in the throat like that - sorry, but I think you're theory doesn't hold much weight. We love George.'

The memory of his son's death was beginning to show on his face, but he continued talking in his normal, jovial tone, to the growing amazement of the onlookers. 'George...was Eva's son. A mother's love...you can't attach a price to it, whether it be money, the family Headship, or whatever, the love is still there. There ain't a thing on this earth that'll make Eva harm a hair of George's head.'

His simple, smiling face was all it took for sanity to return to the parlor. The tension dissolved in a snap, and hesitant smiles sprouted on everyone's faces.

'Oho,' Kumasawa said, chuckling, the vigor returning to her body. 'Master Hideyoshi could never - '

'Are. You. Serious?'

Rudolf's entire body was shaking. It was a while before anyone realised he was locked in a laughing fit. Wheezing chuckles escaped from his lips, and then when he finally looked up, the grin on his face was the grin of a demon. 'Ihihihihi...you're...really...serious?'

His body dropped forward again, until his blazing face was directly above Hideyoshi's knees. 'You're kidding me, right? You can't be the culprits because of a mother's love? You're joking, right?'

'Erm,' Hideyoshi said. 'I'm not - '

'Hey, Hideyoshi. There's something I'd always wanted to tell you.' Rudolf leaned in further yet, until he was almost nose to nose with Hideyoshi. 'Wanna hear it?'

'Y-yeah...'

Rudolf's eyes went wide and his grin stretched to impossible proportions. 'You're a fucking idiot.'

As Hideyoshi reared back, his eyes widening, Rudolf's voice shot up as he mercilessly plowed on. 'Are you, like nine years old or something? A mother's love is impenetrable, huh? A mother's love has no price tag, huh? Are you kidding?' He shot back into his sofa again, as if Hideyoshi wasn't worth the effort anymore. 'Nobody's going to fall for those fairy tales anymore, Hideyoshi. Love is a commodity, a currency, a business. Here, I need some love, but I'll only give you some if you love me back. A done deal, let's marry on it. Equivelent exchange. Conditional. So you can go take your mother's love and fuck yourself with it, Hideyoshi, cause I'm done playing around.'

'We couldn't kill George,' Hideyoshi said, his voice ringing hollow. He wasn't smiling anymore.

'Yeah, you could. Here's how it went down. The two of you planned a murder plot, in order to get the inheritance and the headship after everyone else was dead. You told George about it, but, being the poor young fool he is, he probably rejected it. In fact, he was going to tell the others. So what did you do? You made a business assessment. You weighed the amount of love George gave you against the headship, and you made a snap decision! You traded in his love for this entire plan to carry out!'

'What are ya saying?' Hideyoshi demanded.

Rudolf smirked, pleased that he had finally found a crack in his target's defences. 'I'm saying that you two could kill George, no problem. Eva probably did look into his eyes when she slit his throat. A heavy price, but, all's fair in love in war.' A cigarette was suddenly in his hand, and he slotted it into his mouth. 'Stop dicking around, Hideyo - '

'SHUT UP, OLD MAN!'

The cigarette fell out of his mouth and tumbled onto his lap, unlit. Battler was standing up, his hands clenched, his teeth gnashing in pure fury. He had sat there and listened to his father destroy everything he had known about him. Gone was the playboy prankster he had admired when he was little. In his place was a cold hearted villain trying to tear Battler's nicest uncle to bits.

'Battler,' Rudolf began uncertainly. 'Sit down - '

'Just shut up! You - just shut up. Fuck all your business dealings and all that bullshit!'

'I'm sorry, Battler,' Rudolf said, and the funny thing was, his expression had changed completely, now looking genuinely apologetic. 'Forgot you were in the room for a while.'

'Think I'm too young to be hearing these things, is that it, old man?' Battler growled, his father's earlier words resounding in his head with dark chimes. 'Well, you wouldn't want your son to know that his father's a sleazy, soulless, cocky little bastard - '

Everyone stared at him, wide eyed. Only Rudolf alone remained impassive. But his smile had been wiped off his face completely.

'Battler - '

'Shut up,' Battler snapped. He extended his arm and swung it at Rudolf, his finger pointing into his father's chest like a dagger. 'Aunt Eva and Uncle Hideyoshi can't be the culprits!'

'Do you think so? Rudolf said, picking his cigarette up. He didn't put it back in his mouth.

'I fucking well think so. You said Aunt Eva murdered the cousins before the conference, and that's fucking wrong,' Battler practically spat the words out. 'I left the cousin's room after the conference started! They were alive before Aunt Eva made Aunt Natushi leave the dining hall! In other words, if Aunt Eva was the culprit, she wouldn't have known there were only five people when she sent Natushi out to be the sixth one!'

'Then she sent Natushi out as insurance,' Rudolf said. 'Big Sis was always big on foresight.'

'Bullshit! That argument's as thin as fuck! You might as well say all of us are the culprits, then!' Battler thrust out his middle finger to join his second one. 'There's also another point. When I went to the mansion, a few minutes before Krauss found Natushi's room locked with the chain, I saw Eva and Hideyoshi from one of the windows in the mansion! They could not have hidden in and created the closed rooms!'

'They went into the rooms a split second after you saw them, then,' Rudolf replied. 'Though they would have to be pretty fast,' he added, almost to himself.

'Stop fucking around, old man!' Battler shouted, realising with a bitter taste that his father would never give in. 'Uncle Hideyoshi is the nicest person is this crappy family! Aunt Eva may be a bit sharp, but she's kind to me and she won't ever kill George! Don't you dare slander their names, you hear me!' He withdrew his hand and swung it back again, the words pounding at Rudolf's face in rapid succession. 'I won't allow anyone to insult anyone in this family! No one here would kill anyone, so don't make some bullshit up without any fucking evidence, old man!'

'But it is,' Bernkastel giggled, leaning in close to whisper into Battler's ear. 'The culprit is one of the 18 on this island.'

From next to Rudolf, Will uttered a warning growl. 'Stop that.'

'You're no fun, you know that?'

'I don't understand you,' Will muttered. 'Why did you weave such a heartless tale?'

'Everyone does it, Wright,' she brushed her blue hair behind her back. 'Deal with it.'

'You enjoy their pain. You revel in it,' Will shook his head. 'I've heard of such people, but I can't understand them.'

Bernkastel's tail twitched. 'Don't you dare try to understand me, Wright.'

'Sorry, but that's one of my philosophies,' Will said. 'I don't ever, ever neglect the heart.'

'You're making me want to throw up, you know...?' Bernkastel said. 'People like you are people that I don't understand, either.'

As soon as Battler finished his outburst, the entire room fell silent. It was broken quickly by various mutterings of assent. Then people started nodding their heads, and as one, they moved two steps towards Hideyoshi's side of the room, turning all their bodies to face Rudolf, leaving him alone on the sofa. Rudolf didn't seem to notice. All his concentration was locked onto Battler, his eyes searching his son for even the faintest hint of mercy. When he didn't get any, he stuck the cigarette in, lit it, and inhaled as deeply as he could. Then he finally looked around the room.

They were glaring at him like he was a criminal. Or worse, the culprit. He could read the emotions in their faces, feel the hate and rage bounce off him, and he realised he had lost. He sighed, and got up. 'Come on, Kyrie, let's...'

Kyrie wasn't there. The spot where she had been sitting next to Rudolf was completely empty. He stared at the spot, frowning. Now that he had thought about it, Kyrie hadn't uttered a single word since he had begun his attack on Hideyoshi. She must have slipped out while they were all otherwise occupied.

There was something else that was off. The cigarette still feeding smoke comfortably into his lungs, and no one was reaching across the room to try and wrench it from his mouth.

'Eva,' Hideyoshi said. 'Where's Eva?'

Rudolf jerked his head round to the spot where he had last seen his sister sleeping. Her sofa was completely bare.

'Where's Eva?' Hideyoshi cried, a note of panic creeping into his voice for the first time.

'S-she might have gone to the toilet with someone,' Rosa said, but all of them knew it wasn't true. No one would have simply gone on a toilet break when the fierce battle between Rudolf and Hideyoshi had enraptured everyone else.

'Did anyone see Kyrie?' Rudolf said, but no one was paying any attention to him.

'Did anyone see Eva leave?' Hideyoshi pleaded. 'Did anyone see her wake up?'

'The last I saw, she was still on the sofa,' Krauss said, his face pale. He collapsed into a random chair, and began muttering to himself incoherently. Everyone else began weakly looking round the room. All anyone knew was that Eva and Kyrie had been in the parlor one moment, the next time they had looked, the two women had vanished.

'They might be in danger,' Nanjo said. Everyone instantly turned to him.

Nanjo cleared his throat awkwardly. 'I am only suggesting, because the second line of the epitaph is "tear apart the two who are close", and erm, two people are missing, Eva and Kyrie...'

Hideyoshi sprang from his chair, and started to rush towards the door.

'H-hold it, Hideyoshi!' Nanjo held up his hands. 'We can't go alone.'

'Then follow me, then!' Hideyoshi snapped, already halfway out. Nanjo and Genji bustled after him, Battler bringing up the rear, and then suddenly everyone was stumbling out of the parlor, out of the light and into the dark confines of the rest of the mansion.