Don't forget to read the first or the previous part if you haven't!
In the last (half) part, I showed a few of the other choices we could have taken before the beginning of this route proper. There were some comedic scenes and a massive lecture, which we promptly ignored. Finally, I showed the choices necessary to turn logic on its head, and I don't say that lightly, some big changes immediately happened after this decision, although some dialogue remains the same. But, let's get to them, shall we?
"Mr. Kogure, there's something in this case that cannot be inferred using our common wisdom..."
"There's... something?" This vagueness came from my logical sense as a police officer.
However, if we suppress ourselves in such a way, we will never get to the bottom of this issue.
"Mr. Kokkuri's curse..." I uttered those words with trepidation.
"C-c-curse!!?"
"Even I'm not 100% convinced that there is such a thing as a curse."
"However, I think we have to accept the irrationality of it all if we are to resolve this mystery."
"I don't believe we'll be able to solve this case if we ignore the facts right in front of us...!" I ended up saying it. I can't back out now.
Mr. Kogure then fell silent with a grave look on his face.
I guess nobody, including the cowardly Mr. Kogure, would accept a man who says such outlandish things as a partner.
It can't be helped... I'll have to investigate by myself from tomorrow...
[Fade to black]
<Damn you, Yasuchika...>
<I loath, you humans...>
<Blood, insufficient...>
<Bestow me, your blood...>
<Virgin's lifeblood, satisfactory...>
"Mr. Kokkuri, Mr. Kokkuri, please come forth..."
<Who is it, that calls to me?>
<The fragrance, of repulsive desire...>
"Mr. Kokkuri, Mr. Kokkuri, please come forth..."
<It is pleasant, human desire...>
<Grown tired, of eternal idle slumber. Let us indulge, in wanton sporting, long since craved...>
<Come along... let us enjoy ourselves...>
Monday 2:09 PMMetropolitan Police Department
A night later---
It wasn't until around 2:00 p.m. that I was released from the hell of paperwork that had lasted since yesterday.
"Mr. Kogure, I wonder how he's doing...?" He was my first partner.
Even though it was only for a short time, I felt as if we had been partners for many years.
Now in solitude, I've been able to formally recognize how much I relied on him.
I feel like I have a gaping hole in my heart. A lifeless wind blows through it.
[Phone rings]
"Oy, Kazami! Your phone!"
...Who is it that would interrupt my sentimentality?
Reluctantly accepting the call, I hear a voice from the receiver that makes me feel nostalgic.
"Hello, sir. Where are we going to investigate today?"
"M-mr. Kogure?"
"Yes, sir. This is Souichirou Kogure."
"Mr. Kogure, why...?" I thought he had given up on me.
"I'm not planning on believing in curses. But, I do believe in you, sir!"
I was so moved that I was at a loss for words. I couldn't believe that he trusted me that much after only a few days of knowing me.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Kogure..."
We decided to meet at Hanamine High School's main gate in 30 minutes.
Monday 2:39 PM
Hanamine Private High School
Mr. Kogure greeted me with a smile when I arrived a little earlier than scheduled. His broad forehead was slightly sweaty.
When I silently held out my hand, Mr. Kogure looked puzzled for a moment, but then firmly accepted it with his large hand.
A firm handshake. I felt the joy of being partnered with Mr. Kogure again.
"Let's go, Mr. Kogure."
"Yes, sir!"
A staff member led me into the principal's office, which was an astonishingly imposing room.
The reception setup looks very luxurious, with a large, sturdy desk.
If it weren't for the trophies and certificates of commendation housed in glass cases, the interior would remind visitors of the CEO's office of a large corporation.
This room tells me that Hanamine Private High School is in extremely good business condition.
The police must be sensitive when investigating a private facility. Moreover, when it comes to schools, unrelated children could become involved. Naturally, careful investigation is required to avoid such cases.
Furthermore, this time the request for cooperation in the investigation was voluntarily accepted, so the permission and presence of the responsible party, the school principal, was required.
When the principal saw us, he blatantly frowned. Of course, no one would be happy to be visited by the police.
We didn't expect to be welcomed at the beginning either. But we couldn't just sit back and do nothing too.
"Can I help you?" The old gentleman, all gray from hair to beard, asked, not bothering to hide his discomfort.
{Shintarou Nagamine}. That is the principal's name. His record said he was 64 years old.
"I already told you everything I knew about the incident, didn't I?" Someone snorted a "hmph" as if to demean the principal's words.
It was Mr. Kogure. It seems he doesn't like the principal's complacent attitude. His reaction is quite understandable.
"Why, for a school where two students died, it's quite peaceful, isn't it?" He said with outrageously straightforward sarcasm.
Mr. Kogure apparently can make a mighty statement when he is dealing with a human being. As for the principal, his mouth twitches and spasms as he tries to suppress his anger.
"I greatly regret those girls' deaths as well. However..." The principal speaks indifferently, as if reading out a canned speech.
Theatrical expressions of heartache. Words denying responsibility. The dead students can rest in peace this way.
[SLAM]
Mr. Kogure banged on the glass table, interrupting the principal from continuing. Then he rebuked---
"Two students are dead! Those students should be no different from your own children! Or are they just another source of profit for you!?"
Amazing, Mr. Kogure. I almost applauded instinctively.
The principal thought about it for a moment, and then agreed to cooperate and be present for the investigation.
Now, here's the important part.
I---
>Ask about the curse.
>Show him the Ouija board.
We showed the Ouija board in the other route no matter what, so let's do the other option.
>Ask about the curse.
"I would like to ask you about this school, however..." I hesitated for a moment.
"Well... do you happen to know about that curse and such...?" I am not sure how to feel about saying these words.
Suddenly bringing up curses and the like, he'll only question if I have any screws loose in my head.
"Detective... who told you about that...?" Surprisingly, however, the words that emerged from the principal's mouth seemed to affirm the curse.
"You actually heard of it before!?" Mr. Kogure's face rapidly turns pale with surprise.
"...Please follow me. I have a place I'd like to show you."
The principal led us to the back of the school building, which was thickly overgrown with trees.
This is also where I witnessed the girl who was trying to burn the Ouija board.
Now that the word "curse" is rife, I can smell the scent of darkness in every place of this school.
"It's here?" What is there to see here?
"No, do you see that narrow forest trail over there?"
I didn't notice it the other day, but I do see a small path. Is this part of the school's campus?
When I looked at Mr. Kogure's face, it was completely pale and shivering slightly.
No wonder. What the principal was trying to guide me to was probably, no, definitely the root of the curse. I myself felt unpleasant sweat beading on my back.
Following the principal, we passed through a wooded area and came to a space that appeared to have been artificially quarried.
"Please look at that."
Following the principal's fingertip, I saw what looked like a stone monument. "The students call it the {Fox Mound}."
"Fox Mound..." Mr. Kokkuri, now the Fox Mound, foxes yet again, huh...?
It was a small standing stone with a strange presence. I don't know how to describe it, but it seemed to have a cold, raw atmosphere, making me feel restless.
It possesses a greatly bewitching charm that both obstinately rejects and entices humans.
Humans are utterly helpless creatures in the face of such invisible forces.
"Who!?" Suddenly, the principal berated someone, and we almost jumped up. No, Mr. Kogure actually jumped up.
With the sound of rustling and stepping on fallen leaves, a figure emerged from the trees.
"Who are you...?"
"I'm {Shouta Nozawa} from the third year."
The principal nods as he remembers.
The student, who identified himself as Shota Nozawa, was a tall, strong, sportsman-type boy.
Mr. Kogure sniffs like a dog with a puzzled expression on his face.
"I don't smoke."
"Ah, no, I absolutely didn't mean to suspect you... it's just that I have a duty to guide the young people correctly, and I..."
Instead of Mr. Kogure's slurred excuses, I ask him, "Nozawa-kun... was it? What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean?" Nozawa asks bluntly.
"Why would you come to a place like this if you didn't have any business here? What were you doing here?"
"A place like this!?" The principal rushes to intervene as the boy raises his eyebrows and tries to lash out at me.
"Nozawa-kun. They don't know what the mound stands for. Forgive them."
The Nozawa boy reluctantly calmed his anger after being chided by the principal. "...Who are these people?"
The principal hesitated for a moment before answering, "This is the police. They are investigating the incident from the other day."
Shouta Nozawa's eyes widened as he stared unblinkingly at me and Mr. Kogure. "Huh, they're detectives? Very different from the dramas, aren't they?"
Of course. Those are actors. You can't lump us together.
However, I swallowed the words that were about to come out of my throat, thinking that it would be unprofessional to correct a child at every turn.
"Mr. Detective, please catch the culprit." With that, Shouta Nozawa ran off.
Please catch the culprit, eh? He said he was in the third grade, but he might have been a classmate of the deceased student.
But when I asked the principal, I found that he was in a different class from both Narumi Hasebe and Kaori Itou.
"I asked his responsible teacher, and he told me that Nozawa-kun comes here every day to pray."
"To pray?"
"Yes. This mound is said to have a long history--- having existed since the Genpei period [late 11th to late 12th century], it was built before the construction of this very school, but at present, it's a {memorial} to the departed soul of a student named {Misa Sakita}, who passed away two years ago."
"It's a memorial for a student?"
"Correct, and there's a reason for this."
The principal, this time with a heartbroken look on his face, began to recount the events of two years ago.
"Ms. Misa Sakita passed away two years ago in a {traffic accident}. She was hit by a car on her way home."
"According to eyewitness reports, Ms. Sakita ran into the roadway as if she couldn't see what was ahead."
"The police were not sure whether it was a suicide or an accident, but in the end, the funeral was held despite the ambiguity, and a few days later, no one dared mention the incident."
"But just as I was beginning to forget about the incident, I heard a strange rumor."
The principal looked around and kept his voice down, even though we were the only ones there. And then, the first words that came out of his mouth were...
"Mr. Kokkuri's curse"
"The curse!?" Mr. Kogure overreacts. He's really sensitive. I never get tired of watching him.
Perhaps energized by Mr. Kogure's reaction, the principal's tone of voice became more enthusiastic. He's like a grandfather who's pleased to tell his grandchildren a ghost story.
"Yes... A rumor began to spread among the students that 'Misa Sakita died due to Mr. Kokkuri's curse'."
"Before her death, Ms. Sakita used to play "Mr. Kokkuri" with some of the other students at the school."
"Rumors spread throughout the school. After all was said and done, some students claimed to have seen Ms. Sakita's ghost, and some even stopped going to school for fear of being cursed by Mr. Kokkuri."
"In order to resolve the situation, we designated the mound as a memorial to Misa Sakita's spirit, and invited a well-known monk to perform a purification rite."
"After that, the gossip died down, and fortunately, it didn't spread outside the community."
"And to prevent similar tragedies, I have added a 'Mr. Kokkuri Prohibition' clause to the school rules."
When the principal finished speaking, he clammed up with a mysterious look on his face. "I see... So that's the Fox Mound."
Mr. Kokkuri's curse. It coincides all too closely with this case.
So much so that human instinct and reason refuse to go any deeper.
Could Misa Sakita, the student who died two years ago, also be a victim of Mr. Kokkuri's curse...?
Two years ago, a famous monk solved this problem, but now we have to deal with it ourselves.
To discover the nature of the curse, I mention---
>That Mr. Kokkuri is still being played today.
⬢ >The possibility that the accident of two years ago wasn't an accident.
These are the same options as last time, just with one less. Let's see if there's any difference between them.
⬢ >The possibility that the accident of two years ago wasn't an accident.
"What if the accident 2 years ago wasn't an accident..."
"Eh!?" Mr. Kogure and the principal stared at me at the same time.
"I'm only speaking hypothetically, but if the accident two years ago involved some kind of artificiality..." It would be most natural to assume that it's the cause of the curse.
"W-wait a minute, Detective! Are you saying that this case is not a suicide?" The principal asks with a flurried face.
"No, we are investigating this as a suicide case, but we have an obligation to consider all possibilities before resolving the case."
These words were of course a pretext to reassure the principal. If I were to reveal my true thoughts, the principal would surely have a stroke.
"Principal, sir. Do you know of any students who were close to the late Ms. Misa Sakita?"
"Oh, that would be Nozawa-kun from earlier. He's a {childhood friend} of Ms. Sakita's."
"Otherwise, no one would come to this mound, the one place nobody wants to go near, to pray every day."
"Childhood friend, huh...?"
[Sudden fade to black]
After leaving the Fox Mound, we asked the principal for permission to investigate the school.
"Mr. Kogure, let's look for Yuka Kamiyama." Yesterday, when we met her at the Kamone University Hospital, she certainly said,
---"Did Kaori really commit suicide?" She holds doubts over Kaori Itou's death.
I wasn't able to ask her right then due to that unforeseen accident, but if she is still on campus, I'd love to hear the rest of the story.
Yuka Kamiyama. She most likely knows of the curse's true nature.
The light outside the window is gradually fading, even though it is only a little after 4:00 PM. The clouds are getting darker too.
Classes have already ended and many students have gone home. The quietness of the after-school hours makes for a perfectly eerie atmosphere.
Mr. Kogure, who has been established as a scaredy-cat, is fidgety and restless. He wants to go home as soon as possible.
"...Sir. Did you hear something?" I listened carefully, and sure enough, I can hear a woman's voice coming from somewhere in the school building.
The voice was hysterical, but I didn't hear any sobbing in particular. Was she in a quarrel? "Let's go, Mr. Kogure."
[Cut to black]
"...Why!? Answer me, Nozawa-kun!"
I followed the voice and came to find the person I was looking for.
"Hey! Why are you so quiet!?" The one raising her voice was Yuka Kamiyama. She was like a different person from the one I had met at the hospital.
Her brow was wrinkled, her face was twisted, and her clenched fists were shaking. Her figure seemed to be angry at something.
And Kamiyama gazed at Shouta Nozawa, who was at the Fox Mound earlier.
"You still can't get over Misa!?"
"...That's none of your business."
This Misa is probably Misa Sakita. Kamiyama does know about her, huh?
(It seems that Yuka Kamiyama has {romantic feelings} for Shouta Nozawa.) Mr. Kogure looked at them and quietly commented on their situation.
A female student stands between them. Her name being Mari Horikawa. The girl I met on the first day of the investigation. I could never forget what she said to me then.
She spoke unfeelingly, even while knowing that her classmate, Kaori Ito, was dead.
"What of it?"
Mari Horikawa. Yuka Kamiyama. Shouta Nozawa. The relationship between the two women isn't clear, but at any rate, these disparate dots became connected as a line.
"Stop it. You're not going to change his mind by doing this." Horikawa chided with a cool-headed voice.
Compared to Kamiyama's hysterically angry stare, Horikawa has a composed and chilly gaze.
I get a sense of an unexpected power dynamic.
"Come on. Go home already, Ms. Kamiyama."
"...You said if I did just as you told, things would work out...!"
"I know. So, just be quiet as always and do as I say."
"......!!"
I could feel Kamiyama's body trembling violently. If I were a little closer, I might even hear the sound of her teeth clenching.
It was not just anger. It was a complex mix of emotions within her, an intense clash of reason and instinct. And the one that won was---
[Thunder, then pitch black]
At that moment, I heard incredibly loud thunder. I looked out the window and saw smoke coming from the wooded area where the Fox Mound was located. Lightning had struck.
"UWAAAAAAHHHH!!"
"Kamiyama!? What's wrong!?"
Was it shock from the lightning strike? Suddenly, Yuka Kamiyama collapsed to the floor and began to convulse.
Her eyes were white and she was foaming at the mouth. Even I, an amateur, could see that she was in an alarmingly unusual state.
"You guys! Call an ambulance! And get the school nurse here too!"
I gave instructions to Horikawa and Nozawa, who just stood there, unable to grasp the situation.
"Quickly!!" Finally realizing that my commands were directed at them, they rushed to accomplish their purpose.
"Sir! Kamiyama seems to want to say something!" Kamiyama's mouth, covered in bubbles and drool, opens and closes mechanically.
"Don't worry. An ambulance will be here soon." I encouraged her as calmly as I could.
"Uh, gh, uh, ah..."
But Kamiyama is still mumbling something. What on earth is she saying? Curious, I put my ear close to her mouth.
"Kihiiiii!!"
A high-pitched, piercing sound rattles my eardrums. "Uwah!?"
[Something strikes down, too fast for me to take a screen shot]
Ferocious teeth, like that of a wild animal, suddenly attacked me. I almost lost my right ear.
If Mr. Kogure hadn't pulled on my clothes, my ear would be...
"S-sir...! T-that's...!"
Eyes glowing with madness. Mouth wide open to bite its prey, drool overflowing.
It was just like a beast.
"Yuka Kamiyama...?"
"S-s-s-sir! What is this!?"
"You ask me, I don't know!" There is no way to explain it. How could a human being transform into a beast...?
---Mr. Kokkuri's curse. That was the answer I worked out through intuition.
I didn't want to believe in curses so easily, but how else to explain this situation?
Kamiyama, transformed into a beast, is about to attack at any moment. There is no time to calmly interpret this scene.
"Detectives!" Multiple footsteps can be heard from behind me. They must be Nozawa and Horikawa's.
"Don't come here!" I halted them without looking away from Kamiyama. But I could not stop them.
"K-Kamiyama...?" Confusion and fear. I didn't want to get them involved, but they too had stepped into the realm of darkness.
"Don't look... please... Don't... look... please..." Somehow, there was a sudden change in Kamiyama's movements. They were clearly agitated.
Little by little, Kamiyama's eyes regained their sanity. A single tear seemed to wash away the madness.
"Please don't look, Nozawa-kun..."
I fearfully approach Kamiyama, who has fallen, lying flat on the floor...
Could she have just pretended to be knocked out, and then suddenly attack me...?
I approach carefully so as not to make noise with my footsteps...
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
"SIR!"
[Single heartbeat is heard]
"W-what is it, Mr. Kogure...!?"
"No, well, you know, be careful, sir..."
Give me a break. I've definitely lost 3 years of my life because of this now.
I came closer to Kamiyama again, but there was no sign of movement. I saw her chest shifting slightly, she was breathing it seems.
[Ambulance siren rings]
The sound of an ambulance siren could be heard in the distance. Even this blaring wail sounded like the gospel of salvation for those of us who had left reality temporarily.
Ms. Kamiyama's unusual behavior made Mr. Kogure and me aware once again of the unusual nature of this incident. Was that the power of the curse...?
After that, an ambulance arrived and took Yuka Kamiyama to the hospital.
In order to take all possible precautions, we decided to have her brought to Kamone University Hospital, where we could have someone we trusted take care of her.
Kamiyama immediately underwent a thorough examination, but the results showed no abnormalities. These were Ms. Hitomi's words, so there can be no doubt about it.
In the end, there was no evidence to prove that the curse was real, except for what we saw.
Even I'm beginning to wonder if that horrifying experience was just a delusion brought on by my imagination.
At this rate, the case will continue to wander between reality and unreality. The investigation will eventually come to a dead end and end up becoming a cold case.
"What am I supposed to do...?" I cursed myself for my powerlessness.
Since this place coincides with another part's ending spot, I think I should stop here too. I can't wait to see how crazy things are going to become, but I should tell you about a difference in schedule first. Due to me now having to update two different translation blogs at once, I will still post every four days, but switch between them with each update. In other words, this blog will be updated every 8 days from now on, and the same will happen on the other blog. To make up for this waiting period, all posts will be much larger from now on, possibly even bigger than this one. Don't worry, I won't neglect either blog!
So, see you next week!
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