Author's Notes. 1) Be warned that this chapter is violent. 2) Also, just in case, I'll say there's a suicide trigger warning. 3) A Santoku is a type of large Japanese kitchen knife similar to a Chef's Knife.

***Rika's Choice***

To subdue Mari, Rika attempted to hit her with pepper spray again. However, Mari shielded her face and Rika herself breathed in the cloud of spray. At the same time, I unintentionally switched to being Haruka. She took control and pushed Rika off her body right away. Standing and staggering a few steps backward, Haruka whipped out her Taser.

"If you want to play like that, fine!" Haruka shouted. She could completely ignore the burn of the capsicum, and though her eyes were blurry with the tears, she managed to keep them open.

Rika clambered to her feet and got into something like a fighting stance. She held the pepper canister in her right hand and the syringe in her left. Haruka found her center of balance and stood ready to defend. With her right hand she wielded the Taser, and she held her left at the ready to shield, strike, or grab as needed. For a moment, neither of us moved.

"Come on, Rika," Haruka shouted wildly, "you're starting to overstay your welcome! Make a move already! If you don't strike now, I definitely will, you damn brat!"

As she rushed forward, Haruka used her left hand to grab a stack of newspapers and throw them in Rika's face. As a result, the shrine maiden could not properly see Haruka's advance, nor stop it with another dose of pepper spray. Striking with the Taser, Haruka nearly missed, but enough voltage hit home to at least shock Rika into falling down. Then we drew back our right foot and kicked the side of the little girl's body with force. Not once, not twice, but three times. It had to have broken a rib. Rika dropped both of her weapons, cringing on the floor. Quickly and deftly, Haruka held down Rika's arm, picked up the syringe, and injected the shot into the little girl. She cried out with the sharp pain.

"Ha!" said Haruka triumphantly. "That'll teach you to mess with me! Now, let's see how that little drug of yours works, you goddamn brat."

Groaning with hurt and still coughing from the capsicum, Rika wobbled to her feet. She could no longer properly stand with the pain in her ribs, so she supported herself by leaning against the wall. To her credit, Rika was probably amazingly strong for being able to stand at all. However, Haruka was not one to give an inch of credit to a perceived attacker.

"Look at you!" we laughed. "You're so pathetic! That was too easy. All that's left for me to do is stand here and watch you die. But I was so looking forward to torturing you first. I hate to give that up. Let's change the stage a little bit. Let's take all this fun we're having to the underground torture chamber!"

Rika stumbled over to a cutting board island against the pantry wall. She picked up a large Santoku.

"Well now," Haruka smiled, "it looks like you have a little fight left in you. I guess it wouldn't be any fun if you didn't. I'm sure I'll enjoy driving the nails through your fingers much more if you're struggling while I'm doing it."

As Haruka spoke, Rika moved away instead of attacking. She clambered backward until we were five or six feet from each other. Did she mean to get into fighting stance again?

"Sorry," said Rika, speaking suddenly and clearly in a voice that did not sound like her own. "I'm going to have to turn down your offer. Go find someone else to torture."

"Now that's how the head of the Furude family should actually sound," Haruka remarked. "And yet, I have to wonder. How threatening do you think you can be, Rika, when you can barely stand? If you think you're going to be able to run away, you're very wrong."

"Maybe," said Rika, whose voice now sounded like that of an adult. "But maybe we have different views on what that means. I could stay here and let you torture me for days on end, or I could leave here right now."

"Leave here?" Haruka cackled. "Ha! I dare you to try!"

The little girl's eyes looked empty as lifted the heavy Santoku. Haruka, in kind, brandished the Taser again. But Rika did not move to attack. She pressed the end of the knife's handle up against the wall so that it stuck out horizontally, blade pointed outward. It was right at the same level as Rika's head. Before I knew what she was doing, the shrine maiden bashed the side of her head against the knife.

The point of the blade dug into her temple. She had stabbed herself in the head. Blood spattered as Rika silently pulled her head away, dislodging the blade, only to stab herself again. She did this a total of seven times, all in complete silence, all while blood gushed from her head and ran in rivulets down her body to pool on the floor.

Even for Haruka, it was shocking to see a healthy ten year old girl commit such a gruesome suicide. But expressions of terror or disgust were alien things to Haruka. She did the only thing that came naturally to her. She laughed. Inside me, Shion and Mari were screaming, but on the outside, my body, Haruka's body, shook with unrestrained hilarity. It was an absurd and uproarious amount of laughter.

"I did it!" Haruka exclaimed. "I won! I took down all the people who killed Satoshi!"

***Keeping up Appearances***

Haruka wanted to throw Rika's corpse into the well straight away. However, the phone rang, so she covered the dead girl's face with newspapers and hurried to answer the call. After all, keeping up appearances is the most important thing when one has a dead body in their house.

To our surprise, it was Satoko. She apologized for calling so late and asked if Rika was over here. A dreadful plan began to unfold in Haruka's mind. She told Satoko that Rika was indeed at her house. When Satoko explained she wanted to make dinner for the two of them, Haruka pretended to apologize.

"Oh, Satoko, that's totally my fault. I made way too much food over here. I kind of talked Rika into eating some of it. You should come by and have some too. There's plenty for everyone."

"Well, I'd love to, but…"

"Come on," Haruka urged, keeping her voice friendly. "Rika's already started digging in."

"Oh, that Rika," sighed Satoko, as if she wasn't twice as troublesome a child. "Ok, sure. I'll clean up here and come over. Again, sorry for calling so late. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Sounds good. I'll be waiting."

My consciousness again became fuzzy at this point. Shion didn't want any harm to come to Satoko, but Mari wanted to punish her, and Haruka meant to torture and kill her. Because of the conflict, I switched personalities rapidly, and can't remember exactly what I did. Jun might have turned the tide in Shion's favor in the battle in my head, but that personality would never surface again.

Anyway, when we became Haruka again, we knew that Satoko was locked in a cell in the underground dungeon. We planned to deal with her later. In the meantime, Haruka made Satoko watch while we dumped Rika's bloody body into the well. We also told her we had thrown Kimiyoshi down there. We ignored the cries from Mion, who couldn't see, and was asking who was dead and if I had killed her. She also begged for some water, and looked like she could barely move, but Haruka ignored her.

Back in the main house, Haruka nonchalantly cleaned all the blood off the walls and floor of the food pantry. While doing so, we decided to make another call.

Although usually distant from reality, Haruka did possess something like a survival instinct. She didn't want to be caught or even suspected of causing Rika's death or hiding information about her. So Haruka devised a plan—and not a bad one—to shift the blame away from Mion and Shion.

"Keiichi-kun." Haruka tried to channel Jun, using a soft feminine voice. The self that was sweet and kind was already dead, however. "Keiichi-kun, it's Shion."

"Hey, Shion. I'm sorry I lashed out at you on the phone last night. I was just nervous. Now I understand we're both in the same predicament."

"If you're sorry, then I forgive you." Haruka tried not to sound bored as she acted. "From now on, Keiichi-kun, let's try to let each other know about anything new. We're in this together. So, Keiichi. Is it really true? Did old man Kimiyoshi go missing yesterday evening?"

"Kimiyoshi?" asked Keiichi sleepily. "Oh, you mean the village leader. Yes, it's true."

Haruka let false panic creep into her voice. "Oh, no. I told the village leader about the break-in at the tool shed! It's my fault he's missing now."

"It can't be your fault," the boy tried to reassure us.

"No, it really is my fault! He went missing right after I told him! He vanished that same night! He was killed because I talked to him. He was killed because I told him about that night! One by one, they kill the ones you love. Then they kill you after you suffer the pain! That's what the killers are doing!"

Keiichi finally took me seriously. "I talked, too," he said in a voice of dread. "And I told her everything as well. Rika! I told her at school yesterday!"

The call ended there. It didn't sound like Keiichi had hung up. He must have been so shocked and frightened that he stood up suddenly, causing the phone to come unplugged. No matter. What an amazing idea, Haruka thought. Not only had we shifted the blame off of us, but we had also scared Keiichi out of his wits. He would become extremely concerned for Rika. He might call everyone together to search for her. If that happened, I would pretend to join them as Mion. This way, surely nobody would suspect us.

***That Girl is Cursed***

Haruka's prediction turned out correct. We, as Mion, met up with Keiichi and Rena near Satoko's house. It was already ten at night when we gathered on our bikes. Haruka thought conducting a search would be a simple task, but we didn't count on Rena Ryuugu trying to play detective on her own. If only Haruka had taken her more seriously, things might have gone very differently.

As we approached Rika's house, Rena quickly pointed out that the bikes of Rika and Satoko were missing. They were not parked at their usual place at the base of the stairs. When calling didn't work and the doors were locked, Keiichi suggested entering the house through one of the second story windows. He was desperate to confirm whether Rika was missing too, or whether she could just be sleeping inside.

Amiably, I helped bring a ladder to the house. Keiichi started cautiously climbing the rungs. Rena, meanwhile, went to check the main Furude residence. (This house where Rika stayed was not the same one where her deceased parents had lived, next to the Furude Shrine.) Haruka held the base of the ladder steady.

"Nobody's gone in the main Furude residence since Rika's parents suddenly died," we remarked.

"Oh, I'd forgotten about Rika's parents," said Keiichi, pausing.

"Satoko's parents are dead, too," Haruka said, feigning a sad expression. "The reason her parents fell off that cliff, and the reason her brother went missing, is all just a result of Oyashiro's Curse. That's why Rika and Satoko decided to live together."

What happened next felt out of character for Haruka. It felt out of character for all of us. For the first time, we began wondering if something else was driving our madness. Haruka felt a terrible sense of impending doom in her gut, her throat became insanely itchy, and it felt like something was eating away at her head. The words and actions we took made no sense. I could feel myself in them, though—Shion was trying to be heard. Shion was trying to make sense of the fact that so many people had died. She was desperately denying any part in it.

"That girl is cursed," we began. "I said that girl is cursed!" Savagely, we began to shake the ladder, ignoring Keiichi's confused protests. "Satoko Hojo is a monstrous girl stained by Oyashiro's Curse! Satoshi did everything he could to help that little brat, but in the end the only thing that ever got him was erased!" We continued shaking the ladder as we shouted, wearing the face of a crazed animal. "SATOSH DID EVERYTHING FOR HER ANG GOT NOTHING IN RETURN! I'm telling you, Satoko is EVIL! Anyone who goes near her will either die or be erased. If Rika had disappeared, then it's SATOKO's FAULT! It has to be her fault! It has to be her fault! It has to be!"

"Guys," called Rena, "the next door neighbor has a key! We don't need the ladder."

As quickly as it had come, the fit passed. I stopped shaking the ladder and realized I was Shion. The only thing I remembered clearly was that I had to be pretend to be Mion for some reason. I smiled up at Keiichi, who looked horrified, and had barely caught himself from falling off the ladder.

"Saved by Rena," I said. "Right, Keiichi-kun?"

Once inside, we found the place empty. I grimly speculated that it might be related to the disappearance of the village leader. (Even though Mari could recall vaguely, Shion had no memory of killing Kimiyoshi.) Everyone's fears shot through the roof, and villagers soon started a search party for Rika and Satoko. I led the effort, again playing the role of helpful family heir.

Keiichi wanted some time alone, and I felt sorry for him when I saw he was barely keeping his emotions together. I didn't bother to watch Rena. She comforted the weeping Keiichi, who felt that Rika's disappearance was his fault. Then, unbeknownst to me, Rena returned to the inside of Rika's house. It was there she would come up with her theory about the recent disappearances.

To Be Continued...