"A zuso!?" Bou-san exclaimed, surprised, when Naru filled him and the others in on his latest theory once they had all arrived.
"Correct. Someone has been using spells to put curses on other people here. That's what has been causing all the psychic phenomena," Naru explained.
"Spells... is that really possible!?" Mai asked.
"Are you saying someone's been hammering nails into wara ningyō?" Bou-san asked.
"Close, but not quite," Naru replied.
"What does a zuso have to do with spirits?" Ayako asked.
"Spells caused by hammering nails into a doll originally came from the way of Onmyou," Naru stated. "To explain it simply, so Mai can understand..." A vein mark popped up on Mai's head showing she was clearly annoyed by his little barb. "In the way of Onmyou, there's a method of cursing people called 'enmi'. One must use a doll or a belonging from the person you want to cast a spell on. Actually, hammering nails into a wara ningyō is one of the enmi spells. Normally when you think of a wara ningyō, it's assumed that the grudge of the person hammering the nails gets passed on to the other person, and that is how they get hurt. A jusha, the person who is casting the spell, will hammer nails into a hitogata and call upon gods or spirits to deliver their curse. The gods or spirits then accept the request and will begin to torment, or even kill, the subject. Basically, by using enmi, a jusha calls for spirits of psychic energy, and eventually they end up manipulating the evil spirits." They all stared at him in astonishment.
"Then... the ghost in the art prep room and the hand that appeared at Yoshino-sensei's house were all caused by evil spirits summoned by this curse...?" Mai asked.
"Yes. I'm confident that the psychic phenomena happening at this school are happening as a result of the enmi," Naru replied. "Someone is putting curses on the school's faculty and students by using hitogata. I believe what Hitomi saw was actually the psychic energy that was used to summon the evil spirits, a manifestation of the energy of the curse. The evil spirits don't have the capacity to kill their subjects overnight, so they torment their victims little by little until they gradually drive them to their deaths. This is still just my theory, though."
"As a result of these psychic events, and after hearing the 'ghost rumors', many people at this school have become paranoid," John added. "Rumors like these can easily influence emotionally sensitive people, making them concerned something may happen to them next."
"Like the girl who was supposedly possessed by a fox spirit?" Hitomi asked.
"Right," Naru said. "And so, that's why the whole school has been thrown into a panic."
"... Then, who would do such a...?" Bou-san started to ask.
"The answer is obvious," Masako said. "It must be Kasai-san."
"What!?" Mai said incredulously.
"Let me see..." Ayako said thoughtfully. "Not only would the people here not believe she had psychic power, but they also punished her for it. Also, they're still punishing the teacher who tried to support her. And she threatened to kill someone with a spell, right? She must be performing zuso to put a curse on them."
"Ka-Kasai-san is innocent!" Mai said.
"How do you know that?" Ayako asked her. "Then, who else could have done it?"
"Ah... I don't... really know, but..." Mai said, beginning to falter. There was a tightening in her chest as she spoke. 'Huh? What was that feeling I just had?'
"Our primary suspect would be Kasai-san," Naru stated calmly. "One of those victims, Yoshino-sensei, was the very person who called her out in front of the everyone at the morning assembly."
"... But Kasai-san didn't do it," Mai insisted.
"Can you prove to us that it's not her?" he asked. "If we don't do anything to stop her, there may be someone who could really die from this. Do you understand that?" Mai flinched and lowered her head.
'I can't... prove it. There's no way I can prove her innocence,' she thought, frustrated. 'But... If I don't do anything about it...'
"Question," Hitomi said, raising her hand. "Out of everyone present, who here has spoken to Kasai-san the most?"
"That would be Mai," Naru answered.
"Then, wouldn't she have a better understanding of her character than those of us who have only spoken to her once, or not at all?" Hitomi pointed out. "What do you think, Mai? Knowing someone's life is on the line, is your answer still the same?
'Kasai-san is innocent,' a voice echoed in Mai's heart. 'That's right...' Mai thought, clenching her fists, as she steeled her resolve. 'Kasai-san is innocent. I can't prove it... but I feel it. Somehow, I know it...!' "... Kasai-san is innocent, definitely!" Mai stated firmly with determination.
"That's what she says," Hitomi said, glancing at Naru.
"Do you know that for sure?" Naru asked Mai.
"Yes, I do," Mai retorted.
"Is this your intuition again?"
"Yes, it is!"
Naru couldn't see any hesitation in Mai's eyes. She truly believed what she was saying. There was no doubt.
"Fine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time," Naru told her.
"Really!?" Mai asked excitedly, surprised and relieved to hear that. Hitomi smiled.
"I don't want to be responsible if anyone dies, do you understand?" Masako asked seriously.
"I do," Naru answered, equally serious. "I have to stop the zuso. We'll look for the jusha," he said, referring to the four official members of SPR. "I'd like everyone else to search for the hitogata."
"What now?" Bou-san asked, not liking where this was going.
"There are only two ways to break the enmi. One way is to turn the zuso back on the jusha. The other is to burn the hitogata being used for the curse," Naru explained. "The hitogata have to be buried near the cursed or the jusha. So if the jusha is somehow associated with the school, then it is likely that the hitogata will be buried somewhere nearby."
"Oi, oi! Do you have any idea how big the school grounds are? Do you expect us to search the entire area!?" Bou-san asked incredulously. "At least give us Hitomi!"
"In my case, at least, the culprit buried my hitogata sometime after Monday, when we started the investigation. Today is Thursday. You should still be able to tell where it was dug up," Naru told him. He wanted to see if Hitomi might also be able to see some sort of link between the psychic energy from the curse and the one casting it.
"Give me a break!" Bou-san said.
"Do you want to do this, or would you rather go home?" Naru asked coolly with a cold glare.
"Of course I want to do it..." Bou-san said, sweating nervously.
"Hey, are you losing the battle again!?" Ayako asked the monk in disbelief.
"... Maybe I could try a quick look before we split up?" Hitomi suggested with a wry smile, taking pity on them.
"Very well," Naru conceded. They watched as she removed her eye patch and placed a hand over her green eye so that she could only 'see' out of her blue, glass doll eye. Now that she had a better idea of what to look for and where, Hitomi began moving her head and turning around to look at the space around her to get a full view of the paranormal elements in the rest of the school from their base. She looked side to side, up and down, and all around before finally opening her green eye again to look at them. She saw that she was now facing away from the others, who had moved to avoid being bumped into while she was flying blind.
"It's hard to tell distance and angles of perspective without any sort of structure to serve as a reference, but I can see dots of light the same color as the desk and locker room here and there. They seem to be... lower than the track room, which is on the first floor, and they also seem to be somewhere outside the bounds of the actual building... so they're probably buried somewhere outside?" she said thoughtfully, tilting her head slightly to the side as she tried to make sense of what she had seen.
"Well, that narrows it down," Ayako remarked sarcastically. Couldn't she be more specific?
"Hey... Hey, Naru, what are you doing!?" Mai asked nervously as she, Lin, and Hitomi marched towards the class with the cursed desk, following their boss's lead. "That class is in session! You'll get in trouble..."
SLIDE.
'Whoa!' Mai thought, flinching at the force with which he abruptly slid the classroom's door open. He really didn't hesitate at all... 'Ah, oops...' she thought, sweat-dropping, when she saw that the classroom was actually empty. It looked like she had been worried for nothing.
"Looks like this is a roving classroom," Hitomi commented.
"Yeah... Hey, Naru!? What are you doing!" Mai said, flinching when she realized Lin and Naru were already inspecting the desk, emptying it of its contents.
"Isn't it fine as long as we put everything back?" Hitomi said, not seeing what the big deal was. She was sure whoever sat there would prefer a safe, messy desk over a neat, cursed one.
"Found it," Naru announced, removing the hitogata that had been taped to the very back of the inside of the desk. He handed it to Lin.
"So, that's the hitogata?" Hitomi asked, moving closer to get a better look. It looked different than the one Naru had used before. "It has the same aura as the desk." This meant those things she saw earlier really were hitogata, just as she had thought.
"It's well-made. It's enmi for sure," Lin said after taking a look at it. "However, this hitogata isn't for anyone in particular. It's for anyone who sits at this desk on a regular basis."
"Right," Naru said, straightening up. "This desk has caused anyone who sat in it to get involved in an accident. Therefore, people believed it was the desk and not the person that the curse was on. This also leads me to believe that phenomenon in the track team's locker room was placed on the team as a whole, and not on any individual member."
"Ah. The energy around the desk is starting to weaken..." Hitomi informed them. "Maybe the reason why I didn't see anything in some of the other areas you asked me to look at is because a hitogata wasn't there?"
"Perhaps," Naru said thoughtfully. "We should check the locker room next."
"The floor is concrete," Naru observed as they entered the room. "Wouldn't it usually be buried in the soil or beneath the floor?" he asked Lin.
"That's right. But sometimes, a hitogata may be hidden in the ceiling or attic," Lin replied.
'Hmm? Could it be, Lin is the one Naru learned this from?' Hitomi wondered. Was that why he was deferring to Lin for this?
"Let's check the ceiling first," Naru said.
"Um, if the last one was hidden in a desk, could this one maybe be in an unused locker?" Hitomi asked, while Mai started looking around.
"... That is also a possibility," Lin replied, pausing to consider it.
BANG.
"Ouch!" Mai hissed in pain when she bumped her shin on a box that had been left out on the floor, tripping. "Wh-Wh-Whoa!" she exclaimed, just barely managing to catch herself by putting her hand on a spot on the wall, next to the corner.
"Are you all right...?" Hitomi asked with a wry smile, sweat-dropping.
"Y-Yeah..." Mai said, blushing slightly out of embarrassment. "Hn? What's this?" she said, noticing there was a deep crack in the corner of the floor.
"What's what?" Hitomi asked curiously, coming over to see what she had found as Mai kneeled down and easily removed the loose piece of concrete.
"Ah... it comes out..." Mai said, glancing up at Hitomi. The two girls stared at the small patch of dirt it had been concealing. "You don't think..?"
"Naru!" Hitomi called excitedly as Mai began to dig. "Come see what Mai found!"
"I found it!" Mai declared victoriously, holding up the recovered hitogata for everyone to see.
"Good job, Mai," Naru said, taking it.
'Wow! He said 'good job', waah~!' Mai thought happily. That was probably the nicest thing Naru had ever said to her in real life!
"As expected. It's definitely an enmi," Naru stated decisively. "A curse placed on the desk and on the track team... The jusha is somewhere near us."
"Whaaat? What do our track team and that desk have in common...?" Yuko asked, repeating the question Naru had just asked after he had her called to be interviewed at the base.
"Who was the first student to sit at that desk?" he asked.
"The first semester... I can't remember who it was," Yuko said, thinking. "But someone named Murayama-san sat there the second semester."
"When did she start, and how long did she sit there?"
"Umm... we changed seats at the beginning of September and... at our school we change seats on the 15th of every month, so... I guess she sat there from July 15th to September 14th, with summer break in the middle."
"She was also involved in an accident. When was that?"
"Two or three days before we changed seats, I think."
"I see," Naru said, standing up. "That means the jusha probably hid the hitogata inside the desk sometime between July 15th and September 11th or 12th."
"Hitogata?" Yuko asked, furrowing her brow slightly in confusion. What was that?
"We don't need to worry about anyone who sat at the desk before Murayama-san, as the incidents have only been happening since mid-September," Naru continued. "Murayama-san must have done something to upset the jusha during that time. The jusha was upset with Murayama-san, so they must have met somewhere before. Which means we can rule out teachers from other classes and students that are in different grades."
"Not necessarily," Yuko said. "Sometimes we have different teachers come to our class as substitutes. Students from different grades also visit for extracurricular activities... Also, regarding Murayama-san..."
"What's wrong?" Mai asked when she hesitated.
"... Um... well... during the Kasai panic... my classmates and I asked Kasai-san to come to our classroom and show us how she could bend spoons," Yuko said a little hesitantly. "But right after, Murayama-san said... 'Will you please stop that nonsense, you make me sick! Psychic power! How stupid are you!?' And not only that, she complained to Ubusuna-sensei..."
"So Murayama-san didn't believe in psychic power at all, huh?" Hitomi said thoughtfully.
"Ah! By the way, now that I think about it, the track team didn't really believe in psychic power either," Yuko said. "The teacher in charge didn't believe in things like that. That's probably why the entire team was against it too. There were many students in Kasai-san's class who used to belong to the track team, and apparently they were pretty mean to her. The seniors weren't there because they had to retire from their extracurricular activities by the summer."
"... I knew it! The track team teacher was the one who saw the ghost while driving his car, and he ended up getting into a car accident," Mai said as they were reviewing the incident reports to see if they fit with the pattern of affecting mostly nonbelievers.
"Yes, it looks like everyone that Takahashi-san said had come out against Kasai-san have now come to some harm," Hitomi agreed.
"Based on the information we've gathered, the likelihood that Kasai-san is the culprit just increased..." Naru said thoughtfully.
"Wha...!" Mai said, startled. "Well, what about Ubusuna-sensei?" she asked. "I hate to say it, but doesn't she have a reason to hurt them too!?"
Hitomi was surprised. From what she had heard, Ubusuna-sensei was practically a saint. For Mai to accuse someone like that... That's not normally something that she would do at all. She must be absolutely 100% certain that Kasai-san was innocent.
"Zuso is not something just anyone can accomplish successfully," Naru said. "One has to have the power to succeed."
"Such as psychic powers?" Hitomi asked.
"Correct," Naru replied. In fact, Hitomi probably had enough talent to carry one out, if she wanted to. "Or someone who has had the proper training."
"... What's wrong?" Mai asked when he suddenly got very quiet.
"... No..." Naru said to himself, clearly deep in thought.
"'No' what?" Hitomi asked curiously.
"... Nothing. But anyway, why would she want to place a zuso on me?" he asked.
"Well... because you're in the way? Because you're here to solve the case? She must've felt she needed to get rid of anyone in her way," Mai suggested, hypothetically speaking.
"Then wouldn't she have put a curse on all of you?" Hitomi asked.
"I see," Mai said, sweat-dropping. So much for that theory.
"Hmm... a zuso comes from the way of Onmyou, right? So shouldn't an onmyouji be able to break it?" Hitomi said.
"Ah, that's it!" Mai said excitedly.
"Get to the point," Naru said, wondering where they thought they were headed with this.
"What she's saying is you're an onmyouji, aren't you?" Mai said. "That means you're especially in her way and—"
"Wait a minute," Naru said, slowing her roll. "What did you just call me?"
"An onmyouji," both girls replied together.
"What made you think that?" he asked.
"... You mean, you're not?" Hitomi asked, sweat-dropping.
"No."
"Oh," she said, feeling a bit sheepish now. So they had assumed wrongly, then...
"B-But you used a hitogata on our last case, and Bou-san said that's something you can only do if you're an onmyouji!" Mai protested, unwilling to back down so easily.
"Lin made that hitogata," Naru explained.
"Ah, I see..." Hitomi said calmly. That explanation answered a few other questions she had, too.
"... Eh? ... What? Then Lin-san is... an onmyouji...?" Mai asked, sweating nervously, as she tried wrap her head around that one.
"I guess you could say that," Naru said. "Either way, she wouldn't have mistaken me for an onmyouji. Even if I really was one, I don't think she would have a way to find out."
'Crap,' Mai thought as her head suddenly dropped forward. "... I told her..."
"What?" Hitomi said, blinking.
"I told Kasai-san Naru was an onmyouji..."
"..." Naru and Hitomi were really quiet.
"Uh..." Mai said nervously, raising her head to see what they were doing. They didn't look mad, just thoughtful.
"Then that means..." Hitomi said.
"There's even more reason to believe that Kasai-san may be the jusha," Naru finished.
"But... I'm just wondering... is it possible to perform a zuso unconsciously... without even realizing?" Mai asked tentatively.
"Not a chance," Naru answered immediately. "Especially with Enmi."
'He didn't even hesitate...' Mai thought, sweat-dropping. "... Then, as I said before, it's not Kasai-san. I know she's not that kind of person." Hitomi and Naru stared at her for a moment before exchanging a glance.
"... Fine, then," Naru said. "But I'm only giving you one more chance. If we find one more bit of evidence that would lead us to believe that she's the one, then that's it. I'm going to check up on something. Mai, Hitomi, please go help the others look for hitogatas."
"Roger~!" they said in unison with sparkling smiles, giving him a little salute.
"..." Naru stared at them. These two had obviously been spending way too much time together...