Mion's words were stuck in my head.

If those two dead bodies were the result of the curse...

Then there should be two sacrifices to calm Oyashiro-sama's anger.

The four of us snuck into the shrine storage together.

It was a simple equation.

Did that mean that Keiichi and I were in danger?

I got drunk, fell asleep, and decided to stay overnight.

Was that because of the alcohol,

or did someone put a drug in my drink?

It's not like me to get drunk and spend a night at the hag's house.

I wanted to forget about what happened in that eerie storehouse, so I drank too much.

But it really was strange for me to get that drunk.

Maybe

it was a good thing I woke up in the middle of the night.

I could have been the one to wake up in a cell.

Sometimes it's hard to recognize danger when you avoid it accidentally.

A part of me wanted to just laugh at the idea but another part felt frightened that I was so close to being in Mion's position.

If my thinking was correct,

I wonder how Keiichi Maebara was doing right now.

I didn't see him in any of the cells.

But that didn't guarantee his safety.

Takano-san and Tomitake-san had been executed.

There was a possibility that Keiichi could already be dead.

But just like what happened to Satoshi-kun, it might only happen after a few days.

When the sun rose,

I was going to pretend to be Mion and head to her school.

I was going to check if Keiichi Maebara was safe.

If he had already disappeared, the enemy would come after me next.

I'd have to be a decoy for myself.

But if he was still safe...

I'd need to keep my eyes on him.

I was sure the enemy would come after that scatterbrain.

If I became Mion, Shion would disappear.

The enemy would think Shion had already been demoned away, and they'd concentrate on Keiichi.

If nothing happened to Keiichi...

That would also be fine.

It'd prove that nothing would happen to me either.

The hag was still sleeping in the wheelchair.

I was going to interrogate her...

but actually, I wasn't expecting to learn that much.

The woman who was also known as Empress Sonozaki...

Probably wouldn't say a thing even if her fingers were cut off.

Mion, her successor, was the complete opposite. She spoke readily but didn't know too much about anything.

Mion had said she was only a messenger

and that someone else was taking care of problems on the underside...

It was possible Mion had grown to be a good liar, and that she tried to deceive me with a straight face.

But at the same time, I could see the hag not letting Mion get involved in the underside of the village.

If I were her...

I wouldn't have used Mion for that either.

Unlike me, Mion was a nice person.

While there were only ones and zeroes in the world, she believed there were numbers with decimal points.

In other words, she could never be cruel.

If the hag thought the same way as I do...

It was very possible.

The one who took care of problems on the underside, X, was the one who actually governed the curse of Oyashiro-sama.

If the hag became concerned about something, X would deal with it, either directly or indirectly.

Or maybe the hag and X would discuss the details first.

But... did X really exist?

If he did, his place in the village hierarchy was a lot more important than that of the successor.

Unlike Mion, who was too nice,

he was discreet,

cruel

and cunning.

Furthermore, he was extremely close to the hag.

Someone who would have a lot of contact with her just before it was time for the curse...

Because of the way Tomitake-san died, it could be someone who regularly dealt with unusual drugs. He could be a member of a medical institution.

The director of the Irie Clinic...

Irie?

In this isolated village, Irie was famous for opening such a beautiful clinic, and for working so hard for the villagers' sake.

The villagers liked his mature personality, and really respected him.

There's nothing scarier than a doctor who's also a murderer.

If Irie was the person behind the curse, all the mysterious deaths could be explained.

However, there was only a slim chance of Irie being X.

The main reason being that the hag wouldn't trust him.

Like many of the elderly, the hag doesn't like young people. I knew she'd never trust him, because of his age.

Furthermore, she had openly criticized his behavior among the relatives once.

Although Irie was famous, he was an outsider, after all.

He wasn't born here.

He tried to maintain a good relationship with the villagers as the director of the clinic, but that was just on the surface.

I couldn't even imagine the hag telling him about her worries, or about the village's underside.

If she was as suspicious of others as I was...

Then she'd only gather trustworthy people to deal with that underside.

The first people that came to my mind were the leaders of the Three Families.

Leaving Rika-chama out, the head of the Kimiyoshi family was a strong possibility.

He was the only one who could advise Empress Sonozaki.

They were of a similar age, and everyone knew that they were very close outside the family councils.

Furthermore, as the mayor, he often went to the Sonozaki house just before Watanagashi to discuss festival preparations.

I could easily picture them talking privately.

The one who executed the curse of Oyashiro-sama.

The one who murdered Takano-san and Tomitake-san.

The mastermind behind the series of the mysterious deaths that had been going for the past five years.

Was he coming after me?

Did he get to Satoshi-kun?

When I thought about Satoshi-kun...

I felt elevated.

I was fearful of possibly being this year's victim until just a moment ago.

I was scared that X was after me.

But when I thought about it, I realized.

Whoever it was, this person had gotten Satoshi-kun.

I'd looked so hard, but I couldn't find him.

I'd almost forgotten about this enemy.

For better or for worse, he was going to appear before me again.

No matter how hard I'd tried, I couldn't find that enemy,

but now, he was trying to find me.

That was it.

I wasn't only being chased.

I was chasing too.

When I realized all this...

I was no longer afraid of dying to the fifth year's curse... It had become a game.

I wasn't only being threatened.

I was threatening too.

Now was the time to settle the score for Satoshi-kun.

Now was the time to awaken passions that had grown weak over the past year.

I could feel righteous indignation and courage flare up within me.

The only emotion that can defeat fear is anger.

When my anger completely overtook my fear...

I felt as if I were reborn.

"Why don't you wake up, Empress of Hags?"

I kicked her wheelchair rather violently.

But that didn't wake her up either.

"Are you just pretending to be asleep?"

I grabbed her hair and pulled her head up.

But even then, the hag still stayed silent with a straight face.

Then I noticed something.

I looked for an appropriate torture device.

They were all large-scale, none of them being particularly handy.

That's when I saw a cigarette lighter on a cushion in the tatami room.

One of the relatives must have left it there.

I lit the lighter.

A huge flame appeared.

I turned the lighter off and went back to the hag with it.

"Can you see it?

Can't you see it?

This is a cigarette lighter somebody left behind."

I lit it in front of her eyes.

"I'm going to burn your nose now.

You don't want that, do you?

I wouldn't want it.

So why don't you quit pretending to be asleep?"

...There was still no response.

I put the flame right under her nose without hesitation.

...The tip of the flame touched the tip of her nose.

The flame must have burned her nose hair. It smelled terrible.

I was already certain...

but I continued anyway.

I brought the flame closer to her eye.

...Her eyelid didn't move one bit.

The flame burned her eyelashes, making it smell awful again.

I turned the lighter off and then felt her throat and wrist.

......I didn't feel any warmth.

I didn't feel a pulse either.

"Did she......

......die from the stun gun?"

There was no way she could pretend to be asleep while being burned.

Even if she could endure the pain...

Anyone would reflexively move their eyelids if a flame came close to their eyes.

But she didn't.

I turned the sink water on and aimed the end of a hose at the hag's face.

The water pressure wasn't too high, but by squeezing the tip of the hose, I could make it squirt out.

The water hit the hag in the face, but there was still no reaction.

Shit...

You've got to be kidding me...

She's dead...

The one who was at the center of everything... is dead now...!

I knew she wouldn't talk.

But I didn't expect her to end up dead.

I'd never even thought of killing her.

I walked around the room restlessly.

I didn't feel guilty, but instead felt frustrated with what I'd done.

Come on,

I need to calm down.

What do I need to be afraid of?

Calm down

and stay cool.

Calm down.

Stay cool.

I could feel my brain starting to calm down,

and my emotions cooling down with it.

She was my true enemy.

It was just that I killed her before confronting her about it.

Sooner or later, I would have killed her anyway.

She wouldn't have said anything in the first place, so there wasn't really a reason why I should've let her live.

I didn't realize that until now, and that was why I got frustrated.

"............"

My revenge for Satoshi-kun started

with the unexpected death of my grandmother.

It was such a strange feeling, like I was wearing sopping wet clothes.

I replaced that feeling with anger.

I couldn't forgive her.

I couldn't forgive the hag for abusing the Houjou family, including Satoshi-kun, for so many years. She cornered him psychologically as well as physically.

She didn't deserve an easy death from a stun gun.

I picked up a whip that was hanging on the wall.

The whip was designed to make sure the person on the receiving end got seriously injured.

I swung it up... and then down.

The sound reminded me of when I was a child hitting things with a jump rope I pretended was a whip.

But unlike then, I'd made a purple mark on the hag's face, and reddish-black blood started oozing out.

I swung it up and then down again.

This time, the whip hits her in the head. Her hair flew in the air.

I saw a bunch of her hair on the tip of the whip.

At the end of the bunch of hair, there was a piece of her skin.

Seemed the whip had ripped part of her scalp off.

I continued to hit her with the whip. I didn't bother removing the hair beforehand.

The tip of the whip was divided into many points, with each point having a fish hook on the end.

Those hooks, added to the speed of the whip, not only scratched the victim, but tore their skin as well.

The hag's hair was all messed up and her face was getting bloody.

She'd started to look like a real demon.

I stopped the whipping.

Not because my arm was tired but because I couldn't stand the feeling of her hair on the tip touching me every time I swung the whip.

I threw the whip at the hag.

Breathing heavily, I realized I was covered in her hair.

It almost felt like thousands of maggots crawling all over me.

I brushed it off violently.

"Hah, hah... hah...

......You deserve this,

you fucking demon-hag..."

I put my hands on my knees and exhaled roughly.

It was then that I noticed it.

...I perked up and turned around.

............

There it is.

The person who had been watching me

since I snuck into the shrine storage.

I sensed this person sitting in the tatami room. It enjoyed watching me torture my grandmother.

An overwhelming emotion started to swallow me up.

I tried desperately not to feel it.

"How long have you been there?

...You should have said something."

It was just there.

Just like Satoshi-kun, it was just there.

It was extremely uncomfortable to have it just be there...

"I see... Rena told me.

Are you...

Oyashiro-sama?"

I smiled boldly.

...And yet, I could feel my body shivering.

"You can't fool me.

Are you saying that you're Oyashiro-sama, and that the curse of Oyashiro-sama really does exist?

...Come on!!!

Who would believe something like that?!

Huh?!"

It was just my imagination. It couldn't be the curse of Oyashiro-sama.

The curse couldn't be real.

Everything was done by humans. They made everything look like it was a curse!

"Well, I don't care if you saw what I did.

I won't charge you for it.

But if you're thinking about interfering, I won't hold back, you know?!!"

No matter what I said, nothing happened.

It was like trying to communicate with an insect.

I felt like I was staring at a spider in the middle of its web, and the spider was staring back.

"......Hmm..."

I turned to the hag in the wheelchair.

...I couldn't leave her body here forever.

...If I don't need to make her death known, then it should be quick, and it's best if a body doesn't exist.

Not even in this secret, underground torture room.

Whew...

I exhaled to try to calm myself down.

Oh,

I remember now.

When I was a little girl...

Kasai used to love making me feel scared. He often told me scary stories about various horrible things.

I recalled his story about the secret torture room of the Sonozaki family.

......According to

the story...

There was a well in the torture room for dumping bodies in.

There was a pile of tortured corpses at the bottom of the well, and resentful moans could be heard echoing from there.

And about halfway down the well, there was a different tunnel, which was a secret passage leading into the distant mountains.

That bit was from Mion's telling of the story.

It was probably an amalgamation of tellings from different relatives.

......The room was supposed to be a huge secret, but everyone got loose lips at the chance to have fun scaring the young successor.

"Mion...

do you remember one of our relatives talking about a hidden well a long time ago?

There's supposed to be a hidden well somewhere in this underground torture room, and it's connected to a secret passage..."

"..............."

"Did you hear some noise earlier?

That was me whipping the hag."

"............"

Mion didn't reply, but I saw her bite her lip.

"Don't worry,

I won't whip you.

But if you don't cooperate, I might punish her some more.

Next time I won't use a whip."

"Down at the end...

do you see a cell in the darkness?

It's in there."

Mion pointed weakly.

I walked down to where her finger indicated.

A light bulb lit up the cell. It was a lot smaller than the one Mion was in.

It was very shallow, and I didn't even need to open the door to see how tiny it was.

Of course there's no well in there.

I became angry, assuming that she lied to me. But after considering it, I didn't actually think she would at this point.

I opened the door and walked in.

I noticed something immediately.

There was an opening right in the middle of the cell.

This opening was naturally disguised.

The way the rocks and the shadows were positioned perfectly hid the well.

The tip of a rock inside of the cell concealed the entrance. Unless you went in, you'd never notice.

But it was such a shallow cell that nobody would even think of going in.

Besides, the bars allow you to see the inside well enough.

The cell is not even a few meters deep, so it would only take a glance to see everything.

Nobody would think of unlocking the door and walking in.

But walking in was the only way anyone could find the well.

Furthermore, there were many cells in this huge cave.

Who'd think that one of them was hiding a secret well?

The inside of the well was dark. I couldn't see anything.

But every little noise I made produced echoes. I could tell this was a very deep well.

I brought a flashlight from the torture room and shone it down the well.

It almost looked more like a vertical tunnel.

Obviously a man-made one, at that.

There were wedges on the wall, like a ladder, and they looked as if they were inviting me to descend.

It's kind of ironic that the secret escape route from an underground torture room ended up being a well that takes you even further down.

You had no way of knowing whether it would take you to freedom or to Hell.

Furthermore, there were the tortured bodies of past victims at the bottom.

Who would be able to go down this well without hesitation?

Nobody in their right mind could go down this well to look for a secret tunnel, hearing the voices of the dead all the while.

"Have you ever gone down that well, Mion?"

"I've never even wanted to..."

"Ahaha, I feel the same way.

Why would I go down the well where they tossed the victims of this torture room?"

I went back to the torture room and then returned to the cave, pushing the wheelchair containing the hag.

Mion screamed.

"Sh-Shion...

are you going to push Granny down the well?!"

"No, I'm not. I'm just dumping her body.

She's dead."

"............!!"

"Rest assured, I didn't torture her to death.

It was probably the stun gun.

Maybe her heart failed.

I could just leave her body here, but I don't want it to rot, you know?"

"How could you...?"

"Hey, do you want to take care of her even now that she's dead?

Maybe you can use chopsticks to pick maggots off her body.

Huh?!"

Mion covered her ears and shook her head.

Everything I said seemed to bother Mion. Her own life wasn't guaranteed at this point.

"...Shion... why... did you do this?"

"Let's see...

Why do you think?"

Nobody said anything for a while, but the silence was soon broken.

".........Satoshi...?"

"..............."

"Is this...... revenge...?"

"I don't know if it was really revenge

since it happened so quickly. I'm sure she died without even feeling a thing."

"........................"

"Hey, Mion...

Now that I think about it...... I did have a reason to kill grandma.

Do you know what it was?

...It wasn't just because she killed Satoshi-kun.

It's because she lied!!"

I slapped the hag's head.

"You said it too.

You told me that if I ripped out my nails, she would forgive everyone!!

That's why I ripped out three of my nails!!!

I did what you told me to, right?

But she didn't keep her promise.

She made Satoshi-kun disappear!!

Why?!

What was that for!?!?"

I continued to slap the hag's head.

Her blood was all over my hand by then, and it felt gross.

I tried to wipe it off on her clothes, but then her hair got on my hand.

I ran to the sink in the torture room and washed my hands with a brush.

When I was done, I went back to Mion's cell.

"After Satoshi-kun disappeared,

you came over and told me.

You said the relationship between me and Satoshi-kun was forgiven.

You also said

that the Sonozaki main house had nothing to do with Satoshi-kun's disappearance."

"...Yeah... I..."

"YOU LIED!!!!"

Lied!!

Lied!!

Lied!!

Lied!

Lied!

Lied...

Lied...

Lied...

My shouts echoed throughout the cave.

I was breathing heavily.

I felt like I used up all of the air in my lungs.

"I believe you don't know anything.

You aren't even sure if the old lady actually trusted you.

But... I don't know if she forgave Satoshi-kun because of what I did.

She wouldn't have told you the truth."

The hag didn't keep her promise.

She said she'd forgive everyone, but she lied.

She didn't forgive...

She didn't forgive Satoshi-kun!!

"Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar!

Damn it!

Damn it!!

Give me back Satoshi-kun!!!

I want him back!!

I want him, I want him, I want him, I want him!!"

I kicked the hag's leg repeatedly.

Each time I kicked, the wheelchair made a squeaky noise.

Hah, hah, hah, hah...

I ran out of breath and kneeled down.

Mion was still covering her ears, and was now shaking. There were tears in her eyes.

"Sorry to scare you.

Sorry about that.

...If you really don't know, I won't torment you.

Don't worry.

But... if... you were ever lying to me...

Well, you'll have to accept whatever comes your way.

...You know what I mean?

Hee hee hee hee...

Ahahahaha...

A

ha

ha

ha

hahaha ha ha ha!!!"