Continuing tomorrow with days 4 through 7...


*********************

Azuringu Dai-O!


Azumanga Daioh! is owned by Azuma Kiyohiko, Media Works
Ringu is owned by Koji Suzuki.
Ringu/The Ring, Asmik Ace, Dreamworks SKG.


*********************


---
Friday, September 12
Day 1



If there was one thing that Chiyo disliked about large houses, it was the
silence. Houses such as hers should always be filled with friends and
family; people running through the halls, laughter at somebody else's
joke, relatives getting into heated arguments over the silliest things.

This morning, even though Yomi was there, Chiyo's footsteps were the
only sounds in the hallway. She wished that her parents had let her bring
Tadakichi-san over for this trip; at least, she would have had some
company.

"Yomi-san?" she called, knocking on the guest room's door. "I'm... I'm
going to the hospital now. I'm leaving you some tea and rice cakes out
here, okay?" There was no reply. Yomi was probably still asleep; she had
arrived pretty late last night, even though Chiyo hadn't expected her for
another couple of days. Sighing, Chiyo set down the tray she had been
carrying, touching the small porcelain kettle on it to make sure it was
still hot. "I'm going now!" she called again, heading down the hallway.
"I'll call if something happens!"

Chiyo then hefted the backpack she had left lying by the stairs, and
hurried out the front door. It was still early, yet the overcast skies
promised rain for later in the day; she was taking an umbrella from a
stand next to the door when the bell rang.

She pressed a button on the intercom. "Hello? Ah, Tomo-san! Wait a
moment, please."

The gate at the end of the compound slid open slowly, and Chiyo saw
Tomo, who was grinning back at her despite the bags under her eyes.
"Yo, Chiyo-chan!"

"Good morning!" said Chiyo. "Um, I think Yomi-san is still sleeping. I'm
going to the hospital to be with Sakaki-san and Kagura-san."

"O-K," Tomo flashed a thumbs up, then watched Chiyo run down the
street towards the hospital. With a yawn, Tomo pressed a button on the
outer wall, closing the gate, then headed slowly for the front door. "Dumb
Yomi, dragging me out of that neat resort and now getting to oversleep
when poor Tomo-chan misses her beauty sleep." She stretched and
yawned again.

Yomi, however, was not asleep. As a matter of fact, she hadn't slept a
wink since last night, when she arrived at Chiyo's house and threw the
damnable tape under a pile of clothes in the guest room. Now, all she
could hear going through her head was that distressingly sweet children's
song; it would be annoying if it weren't so gosh-darn-it cute.

Sitting down on the bed, Yomi went through yesterday's events in her
mind. Sakaki and her classmates had probably seen that same video, thus
leading to the grim results of last Sunday. However, she couldn't help
thinking that, as bizarre as the images had been, they had instilled her
with both dread and adoration for them. If anything, she still blushed at
how cute some of the scenes had been.

That brought the issue of Chiyo's appearance in the tape to the forefront.
Whoever had made the video obviously knew the girl, but what possible
reason could they have for making her such a prominent figure? And who
was that woman that first appeared brushing her hair, then screaming at
the camera before dropping into the ball pit?

She fished the tape out of the clothes that buried it. Did she really
believe the legend? Would she have her own obituary by next Thursday, or
end up in a coma, like Sakaki?

"Yo, Yomi!"

Tomo's voice in the hallway derailed her train of thought. Panicking,
Yomi juggled the tape in her hands before finally hiding it behind her
back, then cursed herself for not finding a better hiding spot once Tomo
entered the room.

"Yo," Tomo said again, lifting a hand in greeting and seamlessly turning
the greeting to a yawn. "What'cha up to?"

"Uh, nothing, nothing, I just woke up," lied Yomi. "Did you get our
appointment with Kaorin and the doctors?"

"Aw, we just got here," Tomo complained. "I'll TRY to get it today, OK?
What's the rush, anyway?" A telltale motion behind Yomi's back made
her blink. "What's that?"

"Uh, what's what?" Yomi backed away, trying to hide the tape from
Tomo's view.

"Hee-hee..." Tomo grinned. With a cry, she pounced on Yomi and tackled
her to the ground. The two of them wrestled for the tape for a moment,
until Tomo headbutted Yomi and ran off, giggling maniacally.

"Tape! Tape!" she chanted. "I knew you'd find it! It's Cursed Video
time!"

"Wait, you idiot!" Yomi staggered to her feet, and chased after Tomo.

"Waai, waaai!" Tomo kept cheering as she ran all over the house, looking
for a TV of any sort. She was finally rewarded when, upon arriving at the
game room, she came across a wall-screen armed with surround-sound
and a cat-shaped popcorn machine.

"Uuooooooooh!" Tomo breathed, then laughed excitedly as she jammed
the tape into a VCR set under the screen. When Yomi finally caught up, it
was to see a ring of light proudly dominating the room.

"Ah," Yomi stood there, paralyzed, as the video played once again. But as
she had seen it once before, at least her mind was alert enough to try to
make sense of the images this time around.

Tomo, for her part, was entranced, giggling in excitement all the while.
However, by the end of the "feature," her face had taken that same look of
absorbed adoration as Yomi's had the day before.  Her visage completely
flushed red, she simply stayed frozen as the shot of the ball pit in the
classroom appeared, a popcorn kernel hanging from her lips.

"C-cute," she finally said. "Can I get a copy?"

Yomi fell over.

"A copy?! Why the hell would you--"

*riiiiiing*

Both girls stared at a nearby phone, neither daring to move. It rang four
times before the answering machine picked up. "Hi!" said Chiyo's
recorded voice. "You reached the house of the Mihama family! Please
leave a message after the beep, please!"

The machine beeped. There was an awkward silence from the other end
of the line, then a frustrated sigh. The line went dead.

"Damn it, Tomo!" Yomi said, finally getting a grip on her nerves.

"Ah, you said you didn't believe in this story anyway," Tomo defended.
"What's a video gonna do? Trip me up with the tape so I fall down the
stairs and crack my head open and leave gooey and squishy brain stuff all
over the floor for people to slip on and go, 'Hey! The video did it!'?"

Growling in frustration, Yomi looked around the room and spotted a
digital camera nearby. She grabbed it and forced it into Tomo's hands.
"There!" she said. "Take your picture and see if I'm worried over
nothing."

Tomo looked at the camera, then at Yomi, and at the wall-screen that was
showing mute static while the tape rewinded. Then she took a picture of
Yomi.

"Not mine, jerk!"

Tomo turned the camera around, and snapped her own picture. "Eheheh...
Yomi's such a scaredy-cat..." She switched over to the camera's image
viewer, then just about fell backwards when she saw the results.

"Yo-yo-yomi!" she exclaimed, "You have Chiyo-chan's pigtails! And a
really weird face!"

Yomi sighed. She hadn't expected a different outcome, but had still held
hope. She took the camera from Tomo's hands, and ascertained the
inevitable: Tomo also had the infamous pigtails. And was making the
horrifying-joy expression as well.

"See? That's why I didn't want you to watch this tape!" Yomi
reprimanded. Tomo just looked downcast, shuffling her feet.

"B-but," she said, "That tape was cool! Pleeease make me a copy, Yomi-
chan!"

"Gah! You *still* want a copy?!"

"Sure! It's weird and cute and scary and it had Chiyo-chan in it! And I
wanna show it to Kagura!"

Yomi slapped her upside the head, "Fine, have your copy, but you're
NOT showing it to anyone else!"

"Awww..." pouted Tomo. "Thanks, Yomi-chan! I'll go reserve the video
rooms!"

"Video rooms?" Yomi wondered. "What for?"

"Well, we're investigating, right?" Tomo assumed her smarter-than-thou
posture. "We'll need to analyze this tape down to the last second! And we
have just the equipment back in college!"

Yomi stared at Tomo with a mixture of horror and admiration. "That's...
that's actually a pretty good idea. Try to get them as soon as possible,
and I'll make a copy for us to work with."

"O-K!" Tomo grinned and gave a thumbs-up. "I'll let you know how it
works out!"

"Right," Yomi said. "Now let's go visit Sakaki-san."



---
Saturday, September 13
Day 2



As much as it pained her to admit it, Yomi had to agree on one thing:
Tomo's explosive cheer could be amazingly persuasive.

Despite all video rooms in campus being reserved for weeks in advance,
somehow she had managed to grab one right when they needed it the
most. Even better was the fact that Tomo had already picked up on many
of the skills needed for this sort of work, an unsettling thought in itself.
Yomi had initially despaired at the idea of Tomo taking the same
Journalism classes as her, but now it seemed like the luckiest coincidence
in her life.

"So this is the console, you can do all sorts of stuff with it," said Tomo,
pointing at a control panel set beside a pair of monitors and cassette
decks. "You can copy from one tape to another, print images, and make
the principal look like he's dancing backwards! And record that too!"

"Ah. I was wondering who had made that," Yomi arched her eyebrows.
Tomo grinned and stuck out her tongue. "Anyway, here's the copy you
wanted. I left the original back at Chiyo's place."

"Uwaaah!" Tomo stood up, "Chiyo-chan's gonna watch it! And I'm going
to miss it!" She started to race out of the room, but Yomi caught her by
the arm. "Kagura's right outside with Chiyo, dummy. And I hid the tape
so she wouldn't find it."

"Aww..." Tomo sat back down. Disappointed, she took the copy of the
video and fed it to one of the tape decks.

The pair watched the bizarre sequence once more, only this time they
actively sought any kind of rhyme or reason for the images. They still had
to fight hard against the urge to whisper "Cute..." whenever Chiyo
appeared on-screen, though.

All of a sudden, Yomi gasped and said, "Stop!" Tomo complied out of
sheer reflex, pausing the image exactly at the moment when the long-
haired woman was about to toss herself into the ball pit. "Back up a
little," Yomi said, frowning. Using a dial knob, Tomo rewound the video
slowly, past the woman's hysterical rant and into a scene of a disturbingly
familiar cat costume.

"There, freeze!" said Yomi. "Where did that come from?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Tomo asked. The image on screen was that
of the white, fluffy cat suit she had worn herself during the Culture
Festival, but it looked as if it were being worn by someone much, much
smaller. The effect was creepy rather than cute.

"That wasn't there when I watched it," Yomi explained, frowning. "When
I saw it the first time, it went straight from the image of Chiyo-chan
smiling at the camera to the angry woman screaming. The cat was not
there."

"Aaa..." Tomo raised an eyebrow. "You sure you didn't just forget about
it? Maybe you blinked and missed it? It came up pretty fast when I saw it
at Chiyo-chan's house."

"You saw it..." Yomi shook her head. "No, I'm sure it wasn't there before.
And even so, what is it doing here in the first place?"

"Heee, it IS a creepy picture," Tomo chuckled.

"Yeah, but look at all this. It has Chiyo, it has Maya, and now it has this
cat suit you wore back then. It even has that cat-thing Sakaki told us
about." She narrowed her eyes. "It's almost as if this video was tailor-made
for us."

Tomo shuddered, "Waaah, that's even creepier." She paused for a second
to look at the image on the screen again, then resumed playback. The cat
disappeared almost instantly to be replaced by the hysterical ranting,
which was then followed by the ball pit scene. This time, both girls
reached for the pause button almost at the same time.

"Ah." They stared at each other, and then glanced at the image. Without a
word, Tomo rewound almost up to the beginning, where they found the
shot of the woman in the mirror. Tomo snapped her fingers.

"They're the same!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, I think so too," said Yomi. "They have the same hairstyle. And
look," she pointed at the little bit of shoulder that was visible in the
mirror
scene. "I think that's the same sweater, too."

"Huh," Tomo nodded. "Hey, that sweater looks..."

Yomi's eyes widened. "It couldn't be... Forward! Move forward!"

Tomo did as commanded, and advanced the tape up to the ball pit again.
Indeed, it was the same woman in both shots. But it wasn't that which
interested them. Tomo stopped the advance, then rewound just a couple
of seconds. The extreme close-up of the angry face stared back at them.
Paused as it was, the video presented said face with extreme clarity.

"Yukari-chan!" Tomo tried to stand up so suddenly that she fell
backwards along with her chair. Yomi just stared.

"Wh-what..." she mumbled. "Chiyo-chan, Maya, and Yukari-sensei?
What is going on? Who made this?!"

"Hey, guys," Kagura asked through the locked door. "We heard some
shouting in there. Everything all right?"

Tomo and Yomi looked at each other, eyes wide. "Yuh-yeah," Tomo
managed to say. "We... we're just watching the news, right?"

"Right!" Yomi nodded forcefully. "Just the news!"

"Ah, OK," Kagura said. "I just thought I heard you shout something about
Yukari-sensei."

"Er, we did! We did!" Tomo said, standing up. "She flew her car off the
Tokyo Bay Bridge and ended up on a garbage boat! Uh, yeah!"

Kagura was too stunned to respond to that. Yomi winced and whapped
Tomo. But Chiyo...

"Waaaah! Not again! Yukari-senseeeeei!"

Yomi fell over.

"She's... she's all right, Chiyo-chan!" Yomi said, motioning for Tomo to
stop the tape completely before opening the door to comfort the younger
girl. "Tomo was just joking, seriously."

"Really?" Chiyo looked up at her, eyes wide as saucers and leaking like
faucets.

"Y-yeah, really," Yomi forced a smile, making a mental note to never,
ever ride Yukari's car. "In fact, we were about to call her now. Right
Tomo?"

"Huh?" Tomo stared blankly at her. "We were?"

"Yes, we were," Yomi repeated through clenched teeth. "And Kurosawa-
sensei too, just in case. Come on."

"Ah! Right, right, I got it!" Tomo replied enthusiastically. She patted the
relieved Chiyo on the head while Yomi retrieved the tape from the video
room. But as the group headed out in search of a phone, Kagura drew
Yomi closer and whispered, "Hey, does this have to do with Sakaki and
Kaorin?"

Yomi nodded just enough to be noticed, "We're not sure what's going on,
but keep an eye on Chiyo-chan." At Kagura's bewildered look, she
explained, "I think we'll have to look much deeper into this than I
thought. She really would be safer with you than us."

Kagura flinched, "Whoa, whoa. Safer? What do you mean, safer?"

"It's hard to explain, but I think the videotape is related to her... to
us in some way. Just... watch for anything unusual."

"Dammit," Kagura swore. "All right, I'll do my best." She sighed, "Really
lousy coincidence that we can't find Osaka right now. She'd probably help
you figure this out."

Somehow, Yomi found herself agreeing. "Hmm... I'm sure she would."


-   O!   -


"And then, just when she thought she was safe..." Tomo narrated in a
dramatic voice before a terrified Chiyo, "she looked back at her
apartment... and saw her daughter come out!"

"B-but I thought they were both in the elevator!" Chiyo had never really
liked horror movies, even a badly-narrated synopsis of one.

"Ah, so did she!" Tomo loomed over her, "But then she looked back at
the little girl with her... and it was the ghost of the missing girl!"

"AAAAAH!" Chiyo cried and hid behind Kagura. "I'll never watch that movie!
Waaah!"

"You're cruel," the tanned girl glared at Tomo, who had to hold her belly
as she laughed. "Hey! Yomi! Don't you think you've been waiting
enough?"

"Just one more try," Yomi called back from the phone booth. So far, there
had been no answer from Yukari's home. It could have been any number
of reasons, really --she could be sleeping, she could be hunched over
some video game, she could be drunk, she could be sleeping off the
drunkenness while dreaming about video games... Yet, after having seen her
in the tape, the reasons going through Yomi's mind were of an entirely
different and morbid nature.

"Dammit," she cursed, hanging up. She considered calling the school, but
knew better than that. If anyone could know where Yukari was, it had to
be Minamo.

She retrieved her address book from her purse and rifled through it for the
number, finally coming across it (as well as a scribble in Tomo's
handwriting, correcting the entry as "Nyamo.") She picked up the phone
and dialed.

After three rings, the line was picked up. "Hello?"

"Kurosawa-sensei?" Yomi called.

"Yes? Ah... Yomi? Is that you? Hi!"

"Y-yes, hello. Er... this is a little strange, but... do you know where
Yukari-sensei is?"

"Yukari? Hmm..." Yomi could hear Nyamo tap her nails over the phone a
few times. "No, I can't really say. Summer vacation started early this year,
and I haven't seen her since."

"I see..." So, she could have gone missing without anyone noticing? "Did
she say she was going somewhere for the summer...?"

"I don't think so, I... wait, actually, she did mention something. I think
she said she was visiting some distant relatives in Osaka."

"Hmm. When did she leave?"

"A couple of Weeks ago, I think." Nyamo paused for a second. "Is she in
trouble again?"

"N-no, not really," Yomi lied. "We just need her for... a video project."

"Heh. Careful with those!" Nyamo chuckled, "Did you hear the one about
the cursed video?"

Yomi considered strangling the phone. "Yes. Yes, I have," she deadpanned.
"Anyway, thanks for the info, Kurosawa-sensei."

"You're welcome! Tell everyone I said 'Hi!'"

They exchanged good-byes, and Yomi hung up. Having traumatized
Chiyo enough for one day, Tomo approached and asked, "What'd Nyamo-
chan say?"

"She doesn't know where Yukari-sensei is either," Yomi replied. "But she
said that the last time she heard of her was when Yukari-sensei went to
visit some relatives in Osaka two weeks ago, so that's a start."

"Aaaa..." Tomo considered this. "Are we going there too?"

Yomi paused. The trip to Okinawa had been quite a blow to her savings,
but maybe she could wiggle out a sponsorship out of the college's
Journalism department. Still, they couldn't just fly around the country
under such a pressured schedule. If this "lead" turned out to be a bust...

"We'll try to contact her over the phone first," she said. "You'll keep
trying her house to check with her parents, if they're home. I'll look for
any Tanizakis in Osaka." She picked up her backpack. "In the meantime,
we have the appointment at the hospital. Let's see if we can find out more
there."


-   O!   -


Hospitals were rarely considered cheerful places. The cold sterility of the
surroundings came off as inhuman, a sentiment that was only bolstered
when one entered the psychiatric ward.

"Who knew Kaorin would just go nuts like that?" Tomo wondered aloud
in the ward's waiting room.

Yomi covered her face with one hand at her friend's bluntness. "We don't
even know what happened to her yet. She couldn't have seen the video,
because I did and * I'm* all right. It had to be something else."

"Um, I watched it too, and..." Tomo said, trailing off. "You said she was
with Sakaki-chan when it happened, right?"

"That's what Kagura said, yes," Yomi nodded. "Even if we don't know
who made the video or why, we can find out what it does after the seven
days are up."

"And why Sakaki-chan wasn't killed by it?"

"Exactly. Maybe there's a way to break the curse after all."

"Aa..." Tomo sat back and crossed her arms. "I know!" she said suddenly,
slamming her fist on her open palm. "You gotta make as many copies as
you can and show them to other people, and then they have to do the
same!"

Yomi glared at her. "What kind of ridiculous idea is that? Passing the
curse to someone else?"

Tomo deflated, "Yeah, you're right... But maybe the guy that made the
video just wants to be heard, sooo..."

A nurse walked into the waiting room. "Takino-san? Mizuhara-san?" The
two girls stood up. "The patient is ready to see you now."


-   O!   -


A chilling sound of scraping metal echoed through the hall, coming ever
so closer to the visitors' room. It came from the worn wheels of a moving
screen, a vertical wall of white cloth set on a steel frame, which was
currently being pulled along by one of the hospital's orderlies. Screens
such as this were often used to keep patients out of sight from their
companions in this part of the hospital. This time, however, it was being
used to block the patient's view of a much more dangerous object in the
common room --a television set.

Kaorin walked slowly beside the screen, her gaze cast downwards and her
feet shuffling slowly over the cold tiles. The orderly that pulled the
screen
for her moved just as slowly, well aware of what would happen if she saw
the TV set in the room they were now crossing. Thus, it was with a sigh of
relief that she delivered her patient safely to the room where her friends
awaited.

"Hello, Kaorin," said Yomi.

"Yo!" Tomo raised her hand, enthusiastic.

Kaorin seemed not to notice them.

"Maybe if we cut right down to it..." thought Yomi, then spoke. "Kaorin,
we know you were with Sakaki the other day. Do you remember what
happened back then?"

Still, there was no answer.

"Yeah," Tomo prodded, "you know, like the TV suddenly going to static
and pulling you inside or something?"

Yomi calmly slapped a hand over Tomo's mouth. "Kaorin, we know
Sakaki watched a video..." She reached with her free hand and took hold
of Kaorin's. "Do you know anything about that?"

As if a light had been turned inside her, Kaorin's eyes focused. Slowly,
she faced upwards to look into Yomi's eyes. "You watched it."

Yomi gulped. "Yes, we watched it." She leaned forward. "What is going
to happen now?"

Kaorin looked down at Yomi's hand, spreading out the fingers into a
number. "She'll show you," she said. "Four days."

Tomo pulled Yomi's hand off her mouth. "Actually, she watched it two
days ago. I did it yesterday."

Kaorin blinked. "Ah. Um..." She spread Yomi's hand open again. "Five
days?"

"Who?" Yomi asked. "Who will show me?"

"She'll show you..." Kaorin drew back, shrinking into herself, "...the
cute."

Yomi and Tomo stared at her as she grinned a little and blushed. Yomi
tried to take her hands again, but that was all Kaorin would say for the
moment. Nothing else would bring her out of her reverie.

As a pair of nurses came back with the blinding screen to return Kaorin to
her room, Tomo grasped her hands behind her head and said, "Well, that
didn't help much."

"No, it didn't..." Yomi sighed as she watched the nurses guide Kaorin
away. "But she reacted as if she had seen the video herself, so it has
something to do with its images."

Ahead of them, in the hall, Kaorin steadily shuffled along with the screen,
until they reached the common room. In truth, the screen itself was little
more than a bedsheet stretched squarely over a frame; light could filter
through it easily, whether it came from the windows... or the TV.

It only took a moment for Kaorin to look sideways, and catch a glimpse
of the glowing blue square beyond the translucent screen. A moment
which caused her to stop instantly, letting the screen continue ahead
without her.

"Huh?" only Yomi noticed that Kaorin had stopped. "Kaorin?"

As soon as her eyes made contact with the glow of the TV, Kaorin went
into a trance all too familiar to those that had watched the cursed video.
Her eyes widened and unfocused; her face blushed up to the ears; and her
mouth contorted into an unbelievably wide smile. Almost simultaneously,
the TV screen flickered and flashed with static; the few mental patients
that had been idly watching it shifted in their chairs and whined.

Yomi started running towards her. "Kaorin!"

But it was too late. The image on the TV finally settled on a quiet, frozen
shot of the stone well in the middle of a classroom. Kaorin then clasped
her hands and drew them up to her chin, and, eyes closed, nearly shrieked
out, "How cuuuuute!"

If Yomi had turned to the TV at that moment, she would have seen a
ghostly female figure, all in white, standing just outside the well. The
other, luckless patients, did not miss the image.

"So cute!" some of them started to cry, then the rest followed, and almost
instantly a deafening chorus of "Cute!" and "Adorable!" filled the entire
ward. The nurses, finally realizing what had happened, immediately
called for help to control the situation. For her part, Kaorin had collapsed
on the floor, unconscious from the sugary overload.

"Kaorin! Kaorin!" Yomi knelt by her, then shook her by the shoulders in
an attempt to wake her up.

Tomo stood a few feet away, aghast, staring at Kaorin's face. "Oooh!
Shell-shocked!" she exclaimed.

Yomi winced, then had to back away as a team of nurses came by to carry
Kaorin off on a stretcher. The TV had gone back to normal, as though
nothing had ever happened, yet all patients in the room sported the same
expression of joy on their faces.

"Now we know one thing for certain," said Yomi grimly. "It's not the
terror that kills you."

She looked at Tomo in the eye.

"It's the cuteness."



---
Sunday, September 14
Day 3



"Aa, I can't believe this..."

Yomi looked up from her notes, just as a slight breeze ran through the
sidewalk cafe called "Morgan's Pony House." A red-leafed tree rustled
around them, casting jigsaw shadows on the ground and tables. Breaking
free from its branch, one of the crimson leaves floated down from its
tree, coming down to rest on the bridge of Tomo's nose.

"What?" Yomi asked, sipping at her coffee.

Tomo blew the leaf upwards and caught it between index and
forefinger. "We got four days left and we still don't know anything
about this stupid video."

"Actually, I think I've figured out what we need to do now," Yomi
corrected. "Listen, this is what we know so far."

Tomo shrugged, playing with the leaf by blowing it into the air again
and again. Yomi frowned at her.

"First of all, whoever made this video is leaving a trail for us to follow.
No one could make a video like that without expecting some kind of
interpretation of the images. And from what we know, from the people
that show up in the images, I figure he or she wants us in particular to
decipher it."

Tomo yawned a bit, nodding away.

"Second, we know for a fact that the tape does something to you after
seven days. We don't know what yet, but it involves something 'cute,'
and it has already killed four people." She frowned. "We have to find
out why Sakaki survived.

"Third, it's the images themselves. Starting with the cat creature in the
playground..." She adjusted her eyeglasses. "Who do we know that kept
fixating on that plush doll?"

"I dunno, Osaka?" Tomo blew on the leaf again.

"No, not Osaka. Sakaki." Yomi flipped through her notes. "That and
Maya are too big to be coincidences; I think those images were meant
specifically for her." She looked down at her notes. "Just like you and
that cat suit from the festival, or Chiyo and the girl with the hiccups are
for Osaka."

"Okay..."

"So maybe," Yomi continued, "the video itself is targeted at each one
of us in particular. The trick is to figure out what our parts mean."

Tomo yawned again, but this time she breathed in too strongly and the
leaf went flying straight down her throat. She gagged and coughed
while Yomi just slapped her forehead and offered a cup of coffee.

"Gak. Eww." Tomo spat out in disgust. To wash away the taste, she
quickly snatched Yomi's melon bread and coffee, gulping them down
almost at the same time.

"Hey! That's mine!" Yomi protested.

"Huh?" Tomo stared at the half of the bread that remained. "Oooh,
that's right! This is one of the first images, so it must be for you!" She
stretched her arm back and close to the ground, dangling the bread from
her fingers. "Yooooomiiiii... I waaaant you to eeeeeaaat me..." she said
in a ghostly voice. "Ooonly that will saaaave you from the eeeeevil
taaaaaape..."

"Hah-hah. I'm laughing," Yomi glared at her, then noticed something
moving on the ground. "Hey, that's... HEY!"

But before Tomo could react, a familiar black cat had bitten into the
melon bread and taken off running at lightning speed. Tomo fell off her
chair and scowled.

"Damn it!" she clenched her fist and shook it vigorously. "You're not
getting away with that!" And then she sped away in hot pursuit.

"Tomo! Tomo!" Yomi stood up at the table, frustrated at Tomo's flighty
mind. "Oh, dammit!" she slammed a few yen notes on the table and
joined the chase.

An ordinary housecat would normally be no match for a young college
student, not when it came to a flat-out dash through the town's back
streets and alleys. Kamineko, however, was the farthest thing from an
ordinary housecat. He zipped through the streets like a cat-eared bullet,
almost letting himself get caught but coming up with bursts of speed at
the last second. And Tomo just kept right on his tail, unaware that the
feline was playing with her.

With the grace that stood for all cats worldwide, Kamineko smoothly
leapt onto a garbage can, a fence, and finally a telephone pole,
ricocheting off it and onto a fence on the other side of the street. Unable
to stop, Tomo merely opted for jumping onto the can and crushing the
lid, wiping her face on the side of the fence, and getting her sleeve
stuck on the pole's climbing pins --which caused her to spin on her axis
and fall flat on her back. When she caught up, Yomi instantly thought
that Tomo had tried to wrestle a Mazda.

"Little help...?" a faint voice called from the ground. Yomi rolled her
eyes and pulled Tomo out of the spilled garbage, freeing her sleeve
from the pole in the process. "Lousy cat, thinking he can beat me!"
Tomo winced. A dark and swift object caught her eye. "Aha!" she
pointed at the evil-looking cat that grinned at her further down the
street. "There you are!"

Kamineko shook as if laughing, then took the bread into his mouth and
ran away once more. Tomo did the predictable thing and followed.

"Not again, Tomo, wait!" Yomi yelled after her, just as they entered a
small park. "It's just a stupid piece of bread!"

"Not anymore! That cat owes me my honor!" Tomo retorted, peeling
half a squashed banana off her shoulder. "He's going under that shade!
I'm gonna get him, I'm gonna get him... TOOU!"

Just as Tomo pounced on the cat, he made an instant left turn and
avoided the attack. Tomo noticed this at the last second and realized too
late that she had been led into a trap.

"Wai-wait no, NO!" she cried as she dove headfirst into a playground's
massive pit of multicolored balls. The makeshift roof that covered it
shook ever so slightly.

"Tomo!" Yomi cried after her. "You all right?"

"Waaah! Waaah!" the other girl yelped in panic. "Get me out! Get me
out!"

Yomi grabbed hold of one of the flailing hands, "Hold still! You're
going to pull me in there!" Then, unbidden, came the image of Yukari
swan-diving into the ball pit in the video. For just a moment, Yomi
froze in her place, letting go of Tomo and dropping her back inside.

"Uwaaaaaaaaah!"

"Ah! Tomo!" Yomi finally fished her out of the pit, laying Tomo down
on the ground beside it. The shorter girl breathed heavily for a second,
eyes closed, the same image of the video also echoing in her mind.

Then Tomo opened her eyes, and screamed again, pointing at the sky.
"YAAAAAAAAH!"

Yomi winced and looked upwards. A lazy cloud drifted by... shaped
exactly like Sakaki's famous orange cat. The recoil in Yomi's mind
knocked her onto the ground.

"C-calm down!" Yomi leaned over Tomo and shielded her view of the
sky. Then they both froze as they heard a sound not unlike, "Ip!"

Both of them turned slowly to the side. They stared at the long-haired
little girl that was walking by, hiccups shaking her body.

"AAAAAAH!" Tomo pointed and screamed.

A group of children also walked by, singing and happily munching on
their cotton candy.

"IYAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

"S-shut up, dammit!" Yomi stood up, pulling Tomo along. "Quiet
down!" When Tomo wouldn't stop screaming, Yomi reared back,
opened her hand, and slapped her so hard she spun three times before
falling down.

"OW!" Tomo nursed her poor cheek. "What'd you do that for?"

"You were screaming like crazy!" Yomi yelled back.

"Well, what do you say to that!" Tomo pointed at the ball pit. Almost
on cue, a little girl in white and with long hair covering her face pulled
herself out of the pit. Yomi and Tomo stared in shock. Then the girl
brushed her hair back and happily went off to her mother. The two girls
went slack in relief.

"Stupid, stupid video!" Tomo bellowed to the skies. "You don't scare
me! I don't believe in you!" She clenched her fists and threw a couple
of punches at the air. "C'mon! Try your worst!"

"Tomo..." Yomi tried to pacify her.

Tomo continued ranting, "Think you're too tough 'cause you took down
Sakaki-chan! Well, you're not gonna get me! Nyeaaaah!"

Just a few yards away, a group of children that had been drawing on the
ground simultaneously finished their work. They grinned, and let out a
cheerfully sweet, "It's done!"

Tomo fell over.

"The video is now stuck in our minds." Yomi narrowed her eyes,
grimacing at the shock etched on Tomo's face. "If it follows us around
like this, we might not last the seven days."



*********************

Azuringu Dai-O!

End of Day 3
Four days left

*********************





Jorge A. Pratt

00709382@academ01.ccm.itesm.mx
terbril@rocketmail.com




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