Split
Yuto, Rin, Yuzu, Serena, Sayaka, Allen and now Yuya were walking down the dimly lit hallways of the mansion on their search for the missing Yugo. Luckily for them, they'd found Yuya alive and they were all in slightly better spirits than they had been before. Now they just hoped that they would find Yugo the same…
After allowing Yuya to change out of his blood-soaked clothes, they spent the last hour opening doors, searching thoroughly through rooms and panicking even more when they were running out of rooms to look through. Rin was, understandably, about to lose it.
"Where could he be?" Rin angrily threw a laundry basket across the room "It's almost like he's hiding from us!"
When Rin said that, Sayaka gasped. "Wait…"
"What is it?" Yuya asked.
"I-I'd hate to say this, more than anything, but…is there a possibility that maybe…Yugo is…"
"Don't say that!" There was a manic look in Rin's gold eyes as she grabbed the bespectacled girl's shoulders aggressively.
"H-hey!" The rest of the group lunged forward, shoving Rin off of Sayaka while Allen and Serena grabbed Rin from behind.
"Stop it, Rin!" Serena yelped.
"Are you okay, Sayaka?" Yuzu asked.
Sayaka appeared too shocked to respond.
"Rin! Calm down! Calm down!" Yuya urged her, taking both of her hands and running his fingertips over the skin around her knuckles. She was shaking, somewhere between furious and horrified, and Yuya gave her a hug to try to calm her down. It was a very Yugo-like move, Yuzu noted, but it was what Rin needed right now.
"Rin, it's okay" Yuya did his best to diffuse the situation "She doesn't mean any harm, but she's right. Someone in this house is a killer, and if we can't find Yugo anywhere, he's either dead or the killer. Or just ridiculously good at hiding and waiting for one of us to come find him."
"But Yugo's not the type of person to run from something like this" Yuzu pointed out "He's confrontational as hell and hates sitting still. He wouldn't just hide and stay there forever."
"Something's wrong either way" Yuto added "Rin, I know you're upset, but we have to stay focused, alright?"
Rin slowly pulled herself out of Yuya's hug, eyes averted to the ground.
"Sorry, Sayaka, I didn't mean to take it out on you" she apologised "I'm just…so scared for him."
Sayaka just nodded, eyes clouded with tears behind her glasses. It was clear the outburst had shocked her greatly.
"What are we gonna do if we search all these rooms and can't find Yugo?" Serena asked.
"We search again!" Rin said without a moment's hesitation "I'm not leaving Yugo to fend for himself!"
Surprisingly, Sayaka nodded in agreement with her. Allen too.
"But we need to get back to the others soon" Serena pointed out, a restraining hand hovering close to Rin's shoulder "We have to stay together so that no one else gets murdered."
Rin gritted her teeth. "Yugo, where the hell are you…"
"C'mon, let's keep looking. We won't give up now" Yuya said.
Everyone but Rin nodded. Rin just clenched her fists.
"Fine."
Meanwhile, Shun, Yuri, Dennis, Sora, Reira and Sawatari were still in the living room waiting for the others to return. For a while, no one spoke. There wasn't really anything to say. Three of their friends were dead, and two were missing. They were just hoping they would return with Yuya and Yugo by their side. Alive.
Then they heard footsteps. Everyone glanced over toward the hallway.
"Yuya!" Sora yelled relief when everyone entered the room. He jumped up and grabbed the taller boy in a huge hug. "You're alive!"
The others, except Yuri, got up and rushed to their side.
"Yeah, I'm okay" Yuya hung his head "But…Gongenzaka..."
"We know" Sora nodded, unusually solemn for one "We all know."
"Did you guys…find Yugo?" Sawatari asked cautiously.
No one answered for a moment.
"No!" Dennis gasped, bringing both hands up to his mouth in the most dramatic gesture he could think of. Because as if the situation needed more drama. "Don't tell me he's…!"
"We don't know" Serena explained with a strained look on her face "We couldn't find him."
"I'm not sure if that's good news or not" Shun frowned.
"Did you guys look everywhere?" Yuri inquired.
"Yes. Even in Ruri's room" Yuto nodded, shuddering at the mention of his dead friend's name "But we found out that Yuya saw the killer after they murdered Ruri and before they knocked him out in the bathroom."
"WHAT?" Everyone gasped.
"Who's the murderer?!" Dennis shoved Sora aside slightly and grabbed Yuya's shoulders "Who killed the others?!"
"I-I don't know!" Yuya stammered "It was too dark to see!"
"Wait, so you saw the murderer twice, but they didn't kill you?" Yuri asked, finding this a little difficult to believe. Yuzu and Serena shot him a glare. "No, I didn't mean it like that!"
"We asked the same question" Sayaka explained "The killer knocked him out but didn't kill him."
"Does the killer know that Yuya couldn't see him in the dark?" Shun asked.
"He didn't kill Reira either, even though he had a perfect opportunity to" Yuzu pointed out.
"Nothing's making sense" Sawatari frowned "At least everyone's together now, except for Yugo."
"What do we do now?" Yuto asked "Should we swap groups and search again?"
"I'm gonna go look for him again!" Rin stomped her foot decisively "Whoever's coming with me better hurry it up!" Sayaka leapt to her side immediately, Allen right after her.
"Everyone, hold your horses!" Yuto placed a restraining hand on Rin's shoulder to stop her "We can't just go blindly looking for Yugo again. We need to think of a plan."
"He's right, Rin" Yuzu looked at her friend "Why don't we split into two equal groups and take a floor to search? One group will take the third and fourth floors, one will take the second, and then we'll regroup and take the whole first floor together."
"Okay, that sounds good" Sawatari agreed "I hate to say this, but we need to act like the killer is among us. We're the only people left here and it would be difficult to trust anyone individually, so we need to stay in as big a group as possible in order to monitor one another. There are thirteen of us, so one group of six and another of seven. Let's decide the groups with a deck of cards."
Sawatari walked over to a side table and picked a deck of cards. "I'll remove one Ace, one one, one two and so forth until the King. I'll shuffle the cards I took out and everyone will pick one. Anyone between an Ace and six will be in one group and seven to King will be in the other group. That way the groups will be completely random. Any questions?"
Sora raised his hand. "Yeah, how the hell do you know so much about cards?"
Sawatari rolled his eyes. "Well, if it's that important, you know since someone's out there killing us off and all, before I tried my luck with darts, I was a pretty decent blackjack player. Is that it?"
After another question from Sora was shot down, Sawatari gathered the cards. He shuffled the thirteen cards and held them out, everyone grabbing a card one by one.
"Okay, show me your cards."
The groups ended up like this: Yuya, Yuri, Yuto, Sayaka, Sawatari and Serena were in the first group while Shun, Rin, Reira, Allen, Dennis, Yuzu and Sora were in the second group.
"All right, there are more rooms on the second floor, even if most of them are empty, so the second group can take that floor and we'll take the third and fourth floors" Sawatari announced "Let's go find Yugo!"
The groups were silent as they walked towards the stairs. They wished each other luck as they separated.
"Let's get started."
The first group reached the top of the stairs and stopped, as they had all been following Yuto. He turned around to face his group.
"We are all to stay together, understand?" he said intently. Everyone but Sayaka nodded. Yuto noticed this. "Sayaka? Is something wrong?"
"I-I'm just scared" she sniffled, sounded like she was about to cry. "I-I'm sorry, I don't mean to hold the group back…"
"It's okay, 'Yaka" Sawatari smiled at her to try to lighten the mood "Would you like to hold my hand?"
He held out his hand to her.
"O-Okay" she took it and squeezed. "T-Thanks…"
"I'd rather this was over quickly, but I want to make sure we search thoroughly" Yuto announced "Let's begin searching."
They began searching the rooms one by one, making sure to open every door, look under every bed, behind every curtain, in every wardrobe…
Finally, a half-hour passed. They were almost done with the fourth floor. So far, no sign of Yugo, even in his own room.
"Well, that does it" Serena declared, slamming the double doors of the wardrobe shut "Clearly he's gone through one of these into Narnia."
"I can't believe we can't find him" Yuto commented as they all wandered back into the hallway "Whether he's dead or alive, I don't understand how we can't find him."
Yuri nodded in agreement "I'm really starting to wonder about this...really..."
He glanced over at Yuya. He hadn't said a word since they began their search, which seemed unusual for him.
"Sorry about your birthday, Sawatari" Sayaka whimpered sympathetically.
"I don't care at, so long as we find Yugo" Sawatari told her, and he meant it. This wasn't the time for selfishness – people were dead. "We need to just focus on finding Yugo. We're not losing anyone else."
Suddenly, the lights turned off completely. The group was enveloped in darkness.
"Kyaaahhhh!" Sayaka screamed.
"Nobody move-AH!" Yuri shouted.
"Yuri, what happened?!" Serena asked urgently.
"Goddammit it's burning!" Yuri all but shrieked.
"What's burning?!" Yuto asked urgently.
The lights flickered back on. Everyone looked around at one another.
"Are we all still here?" Yuya asked.
"Yuri what happened?" Serena asked, jumping in between him and Yuto.
Yuri was gritting his teeth, trying not to show pain as he clutched his arm. Blood was seeping through his fingers. When Serena peeled his fingers away, there was a three-inch-long gash down his arm. Nearly everyone gasped.
"B-But, how?" Yuto stammered "You were standing in the middle of the corridor! Y-You...!" He gulped "You were standing right next to me!"
The second group was wary about entering Ruri's room to look for Yugo, since the younger Kurosaki sibling's body was still in there.
"Let's get this over with quickly" Shun breathed, not looking forward to disturbing his sister's body at all "Reira, Dennis, you two can stand in the doorway. Serena said they covered up her body, but…"
They nodded with understanding.
The rest of the group tore through the room quickly, carefully stepping over Ruri. A few minutes later, they exited the room, having still not found Yugo.
"I'm not sure what to say" Yuzu sighed "What do we do if we can't find Yugo?"
"We shouldn't give up, but…" Shun frowned "It's getting late, and we're all tired. After we finish up searching the house again, we might just have to all stay in a room and hope for the best. Yugo is tough. If he's not dead, he might be able to hold his own. Besides, if we're all together, it's not like anyone could go out to kill him anyway."
"Well" Rin admitted, worrying her lip with her teeth "If we can't find him, I doubt the killer could either."
"But there's also the possibility that, maybe, Yugo is the killer himself?" Allen suggested, eyeing Rin nervously.
"We shouldn't make any assumptions yet until we locate him" Shun suggested quickly before Rin lost it "Let's continue looking."
Before they could continue walking, the lights shut off, leaving the seven of them in the dark.
Reira squeaked and clutched Shun's hand.
Yuzu gasped "The power went out!"
"Oh no! I couldn't tell!" Sora shot back sarcastically.
"What do we do now?!" Dennis panicked.
"Don't panic!" Rin ordered "Just stand still!"
"We can't just stand in the dark!" Allen yelled.
"Ooph!"
Thud!
"Huh?"
"What was that?"
"What's going on?"
The lights switched back on. Everyone stared at one another.
"Wait, there's only six of us" Rin observed.
"O-Oh god!" Dennis gasped, looking down at the floor "H-He's…"
Everyone followed his gaze and everyone jumped and gasped in surprise.
"N-No… No!" Reira gasped, clutching Shun's hand even tighter.
Sora was lying on the floor, facedown, a butcher knife stuck two of the vertebra in his lower spine, a second stab wound higher up his back. He coughed up blood twice before the light faded from his eyes.