The four girls strolled along together as Twiggy explained her transformation ability.
She left out the part about being Ethereal, of course — though aside from Yuzuha, that particular secret wasn't exactly a secret to anyone else present.
The group made their way toward the Lemnian Hollow. This time, Yuzuha's ghost story destination seemed to be somewhere near the Hollow's edge.
Apparently, it was an abandoned apartment building with a murder case on its record.
"Why is it that every time a ghost story pops up, the setting is always either some abandoned school or a half-finished wreck of a building?"
"Isn't that obvious? How could something like a ghost story possibly take root somewhere with actual people around?"
Yuzuha led the way with the air of someone stating the self-evident. Kamanosuke was slung across her back, and she carried an umbrella in her hands — her weapon of choice, one she'd personally modified.
Lucia twirled her cane and hummed a little tune, brimming with anticipation, without so much as a trace of fear on her face.
Behind the two of them, the silver-haired and golden-haired girls — Alice and Twiggy (that is, Geno) — were pressed together like they'd been glued.
Alice had both hands locked around Geno's arm, her rabbit ears flattened tight against her head. Her already rosy cheeks had gone completely white, and the mood-displaying belt around her waist had shifted to a panicked shade of green.
"Are you doing okay, Alice? We can always turn back, you know."
Watching Alice look that terrified, Geno genuinely couldn't bring herself to push her any further. It had been her own idea to come in the first place — she couldn't very well just ignore how Alice felt.
Alice shook her head, though, signaling she could keep going. The problem was that her lips were pressed firmly shut, which made the whole reassurance rather unconvincing.
"Oh! We're almost there! Right over there!"
Yuzuha finally spotted the ghost story's unfinished building and lit up with excitement. Lucia was the same.
Seeing the two of them like that, Geno cast a slightly worried glance at Alice beside her.
What she found was that, though Alice still had that frightened look on her face, her expression seemed to flicker into a smile for just a moment — before quickly reverting. It happened so fast that Geno half-wondered if she'd imagined it.
"Come on, let's catch up."
Giving her head a small shake, Geno led Alice after the other two.
As Yuzuha walked point, she kept up a running commentary on the ghost story itself.
"Three years ago, a murder took place in this apartment building."
"The killer was brought to justice — but ever since, strange things have kept happening here."
"They say it's because the victim's vengeful spirit took up residence in a doll left at the scene of the crime."
"Wow!!"
"Eeeek! ε=ε=\(*.><)!!"
Yuzuha spun around and shoved Kamanosuke right into Alice's face. The little rabbit's complexion went chalk-white, and her grip on Geno's arm tightened by several degrees.
"Hehehe, already scared? That's all it takes?"
"'There are no ghost stories — only truths waiting to be uncovered.' Weren't you the one who agreed with that wholeheartedly?"
Yuzuha said it with a little curl of her fingers, mimicking rabbit ears.
At that, Alice's belt shifted from a frightened green to an indignant red. She puffed up her cheeks and huffed at Yuzuha, though it had absolutely zero intimidating effect.
After all, who could possibly be afraid of a timid little rabbit?
Geno couldn't help thinking exactly that.
Of course, Alice herself wasn't the type to hold a real grudge over something so small. If anything, inside the haunted house she was actually the one who got along best with Yuzuha — how on earth the two of them had built that friendship remained a total mystery.
"Twiggy! Yuzuha! Alice! Come here, come here! Look what I found!"
While Yuzuha had been making her detour, Lucia had ended up at the front of the group, and now she was calling out to the others from not far ahead, apparently having stumbled onto something interesting.
The three hurried over — and found Lucia standing beside an enormous Bangboo statue, practically glowing with excitement.
The Bangboo statue, however, was of a somewhat... indecent variety.
"Why... is there one here too."
It was a thoroughly classic Bangboo statue: a Bangboo caught in the act of pulling its pants down, accompanied by a pink pile of droppings scaled to match.
There was an identical one next to the toy shop on Sixth Street.
"Well, it's a classic for a reason, I suppose."
"Is it? I think it's hilarious!"
Lucia hadn't had much exposure to things like this. Even though she'd covered a lot of ground over the past year, most of her time had been spent at the edges of the city and inside the Hollows — the everyday novelties of urban life still had a way of catching her completely off guard.
"Since you love it so much, why don't we take a photo? All of us together — a proper souvenir!"
Yuzuha rallied everyone for a group photo, grabbing Lucia with one hand and Geno — who had Alice still attached to her arm — with the other. All four of them lined up in front of the droppings and threw up peace signs like tourists at a landmark.
"Three, two, one — cheese!"
The flash went off, and the four of them huddled together to look at the photo on Yuzuha's phone.
"Wait — aren't there only four of us?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Then why... are there five hands in this photo."
Lucia was the first to notice the anomaly in the photo, and then the others started counting too.
"One, two..."
"Five."
The more they counted, the worse everyone's expressions got — because there really were five hands throwing up peace signs in that photo. The extra hand was slender and pale, clearly a woman's.
"I — I just remembered... I think... that the victim... was a woman..."
Even Yuzuha had dropped her usual bright and breezy act. Her voice had started to tremble.
"Are you here looking for me?"
A voice drifted into their ears out of nowhere. Everyone froze on the spot — then turned around, slow and jerky, like malfunctioning robots.
There on the Bangboo statue, that slender hand was still holding its peace sign. And at the exact same moment, a wet, slippery sensation crept up from behind all of them at once, as though something were crawling up their backs.
Then the voice came again.
"Did you see where my hand went?"
"AAAAAAH!! Σ(っ><;)っ" ×2
"o(n_n)o Ha ha~"
"—△—"
After the chaos died down, Geno became aware of the soft pressure on both her arms and felt a wave of exasperation wash over her.
She looked helplessly at Yuzuha, who was still in hysterics, and deadpanned:
"Why did you team up with Yuzuha to prank us too... Harin."
"Because it was fun, obviously. And great material for my writing besides."
The voice came from behind the statue. Who else could it have been but Idehali?
"Harin?! It was you?! You — you actually teamed up with Yuzuha to scare us!"
____
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