Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Fanfiction

When They Cry Again

Disclaimer

I do not own Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (Kai) or anything like that. My characters are obviously mine, though. Though they accidentally ended up similar, my Maria is not related to the Maria from Umineko.

Note

Ahahaha...Sorry for not updating in ages. This arc will probably last two more chapters and I promise some gore! Feel free to guess the murderer starting next chapter!

It's probably not what you think.

The answer arcs have no solid order. So if there's one of the old arcs that you rrrreally want the truth behind then let me know!

Enjoy!

.ARC FOUR .

The Killing Lies Chapter

CHAPTER TWO : FORGET

It had been the summer before high school. Back then, Kazun and Maria had been neighbors, and she was not nearly as small to him as she was now; back then, her petite stature had been almost the same size as him, before his high school growth spurt that left her. For months before, she had worried him. Maria would switch suddenly from being cheerful and bubbly to shy and reserved, often coming to school with bruises and scratches. It seemed that she lived at his house, since whenever she could, Maria would stay over and study. If their study sessions ran late, she would spend the night, claiming to be too scared to walk to her house alone, despite the fact she lived right next door.

At school, she emersed herself in studies. Having recently transferred from a more rural village, Maria was far behind, and had a strange dialect that always made her classmates giggle and point. Kazun had been her only friend, and she was the only one who seemed willing to treat the rich boy as her equal; possibly because she was rich as well.

"Kazun?"

Her innocent voice broke his train of thought. Kazun glanced down, realizing he had been dazed while thinking about those times. Maria frowned, clearly a bit annoyed by how he had spaced out and left her alone in reality.

"Come on. We need to hurry." Her tiny, soft voice was scolding him, as if he were a small child. It made him laugh a bit to think the smaller girl was scolding the bigger boy.

"Right right. Sorry." He apologized, continuing the walk to class. Maria was following close behind him, though her walk seemed a bit off and sad; Kazun had noticed that she mimicked people's footsteps when she was sad to try and get her mind off of things.

"You okay?" He asked, now peering over his shoulder at the girl that walked in his shadow.

Maria glanced up, her footsteps falling out of the pattern from surprise, then smiled lightly. "It's scary… That they found him." She replied, "I don't know… what to think."

Maybe she had the right to have mixed feelings.

Back then, Kazun had been catching on to her family problems. Her bruises, her concrete smile, her fear of her own house… He'd been a bit glad to find that her parents couldn't abuse her anymore. The teachers at school had caught on too, but they were unsure of how to help; Maria wouldn't talk about the problem and they couldn't get her to confess, no matter how hard they tried. She was just too stubborn, and too busy trying to catch up with the city's education system.

"It was exactly four years ago, huh? June 19th." Kazun said slowly, "When it happened…"

Maria flinched a bit when the date was mentioned, hanging her head so her sad expression could be lost in the shadows. "Yeah…. We had summer then, right? Before they adjusted the school schedule to make up for our longer spring break."

"That's not the point." Kazun said firmly, stopping again and turning to face her. Obviously, they couldn't talk much about that disturbing, terrifying night in the hallway; students were passing with cleaning supplies every few seconds, and Kazun knew Maria might cry if the murder was mentioned, and that she'd be embarrassed to cry in the school.

Still…

"We brought it upon ourselves." Maria said quietly, "We left that village… They always said that he'd curse us if we left and dragged our sin outside. We turned his kindness away… So he cursed us to teach us we were wrong."

Kazun frowned. "You still believe in Oyashiro-sama? Even after what he did to you?"

After the incident, Kazun and Maria had visited the newly formed Hinamizawa for her family's funeral, since that was the location they had asked to buried at. While at the "utopia" village Kazun had learned that a God, "Oyashiro-sama", supposedly guarded the place...And they everyone was quite obsessed with him.

She nodded before looking up, her gaze hiding sadness, "You don't worship Oyashiro-sama in the city… You wouldn't understand… That was his special day, the day his curses kill… I have more reason to believe now than ever."

On that night four years ago, Maria had been home with her family. Kazun had honestly tried to find an excuse to invite her to his house, but her parents wanted to celebrate a festival unique to their old village, and Kazun wasn't allowed. He'd gone to play video games, and was oblivious to everything happening in the house next door until the phone call.

"I'm cursed!" Maria had whispered from the other line, her voice breaking under the pressure of sobs and shaking with fear, "K-Kazun….! Call the police… Please call them for me, I can't do it!"

Naturally, he'd called the cops. In the house, they'd found the girl's parents, dead from stab wounds. There was reason to believe they had been tied to chairs at one point, and that they had tried to escape. Maria was in one of the closets, soaked in their blood and sobbing, a cellphone in her hand.

The murderer wasn't there.

"Mom and dad wanted me to be happy." She said quietly, glancing up to her friend, "The man tied mom up. I had been going to get the cotton for the festival, so I wasn't there. He made Dad open the safe, and when they left the kitchen, I went to mom. She told me to hide, so I did… And then he killed them."

Kazun's gaze softened and he reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling his small friend into a hug. "You don't need to talk about it in school, you know."

"I do." Maria replied, returning the hug, her voice giving him reason to believe she was crying, "I can't forget it…"

"Yes you can. You can't let that haunt you forever." Kazun replied firmly, "It wasn't your fault."

She hiccuped and nodded, tightening her grip on her friend, "Kazun…"

"OI! You two! Unless they give away PDA awards this isn't the time!" It was Rina. Kazun blushed and let Maria go, and she did the same. They had completely forgotten that Rina's classroom was next to hers, and that she had planned to catch up after talking to Mark. Since she didn't know about the events four years ago, the hug was simply flirting to her.

"Good good. You can do that later, when I have a camera, okay?" She offered, grinning and beginning to push the two towards their classroom, "Don't forget about tonight, okay?"

"Y-Yes...sorry, Rina..." Maria stuttered. Her cheeks were flaring red and she was too embarrassed to look Kazun in the eyes anymore. He was just as embarrassed though, so never noticed that she wasn't looking at him. After Rina left, giggling and singing about young love, Kazun and Maria returned to their class to help with the cleaning. Kazun was excited about the upcoming evening.

~...~

"There! That's how you wanted it to look, right, Rina?"

"Mmm... No, I changed my mind. Move those desks again and then..."

"Dangit, Rina! Just say yes! I'm not playing this game all night!"

The club had started arranging desks, though Rina was having far too much fun ordering the boys around. Mark and Kazun had been moving desks back and forth for the past four hours while Rina came up with designs and Maria modified them to be stable.

"P-please move it, Mark... If you don't then it'll fall over." Maria pleaded nervously. Only because Maria was so desperate Mark agreed.

"Okay~! We're done! Good work, everyone!" Rina exclaimed happily, "NOW! Home!"

"FINALLY!" Mark sighed in relief and grabbed his bag before heading to the door. Kazun went to help Maria pick up her bag, since he planned to walk her to her Uncle's house, though Rina stopped his efforts when she came over and roughly patted his back.

"GOOD WORK, KAZUN! You're a lot stronger than I thought you'd be!" She commented loudly, "You were almost as strong as Mark! Isn't that right, Mark?"

Mark was standing at the door. He turned to the others, frowning. "Uh... yeah um... Hey guys, the door is locked."

Everyone fell silent.

"It's what?" Rina repeated, tilting her head cluelessly.

"Locked. L-O-C-K-E-D." Mark said with a sigh, "Looks like we might need to call for some help..."

Rina frowned. "My folks are busy until nine."

"Mine too." Mark agreed, turning to Kazun and Maria.

Kazun frowned. "I live with my grandmother and she's not so good at driving..."

Maria shivered. "M-my uncle...I..." She seemed to be searching for an excuse to not call him. Kazun couldn't help but frown, especially when he noticed that she was rubbing her arm.

"Well, maybe we ought to call the police and admit that we're stuck." Rina suggested. Maria gasped and shook her head.

"NO! I-if he... If I..." She shook her head. Though Mark and Rina just thought Maria was being weird, Kazun was guessing that the police brought Maria unpleasant memories.

"Why don't we stay here then?" He suggested, "How many kids get to spend the night at school?"

Rina and Mark wouldn't have been convinced if Maria didn't look so desperate for them to agree. And it was while Mark was looking at Maria that he noticed the bruise on her arm.

"Maria? Your arm..."

She flinched and tried harder to hide it. Now that Mark had pointed it out Kazun knew he wasn't seeing things.

"I-It's nothing... I slipped and fell and..."

Kazun frowned. He didn't believe the story at all.

It was Rina who pointed out the next worrisome detail.

"Now that I think about it...Maria, when we were changing for that volleyball game your shoulder looked really banged up too... And you've been putting on a lot of make-up lately..."

Maria was shaking again and backed away. Curious, Mark stepped forward and touched her cheek, trying to rub off some make-up. Like Rina, he suspected that she was hiding more bruises. But Maria yelped in pain,confirming the suspicion that she was hurt.

"Pataaaaa...." She whimpered. Mark moved his hand away quickly.

"I'm sorry, Maria! I didn't think it'd be that sensitive..."

"I-It's okay... I just got it yesterday so it still...ah!" Maria shut up, not wanting to admit to it. This made the three other members frown with concern again.

"Maria... Even if he's your only remaining family member, you don't have to put up with him." Mark said, clearly pitying her. It surprised Kazun and Maria that he knew her parents were dead, since neither had told him.

Rina blinked, confused.

"I-It's not... How did you...?" Maria murmured.

"I always wanted to be a detective so read up on the case." Mark explained, "It was an interesting case too...The young daughter,covered in her family's blood, is the sole survivor..."

Kazun twitched. The way Mark was emphasizing his words...It sounded like he was accusing Maria of being the killer. He wondered if Maria realized this too, because the poor girl was trembling more than ever. The fact that she looked so desperate to run away, and kept sending pleading looks in Kazun's direction, caused him to snap.

"Hey! Stop making Maria uncomfortable!" He yelled, "Why are you bothering her about that?!"

Was Mark smiling.. no.. smirking? Kazun gritted his teeth.

"I told you... I've always wanted to be a detective. I just want to help a friend rest easy knowing her beloved parents' murderer is behind bars." Mark explained.

Rina stared. "What's this now...?" She asked, a bit worried about being left out. Kazun marched over to Maria and shooed Mark away.

"It's nothing, Rina." He grumbled, letting Maria lean against him and whimper. "It's nothing."