Karakuri-Zoushi Ayatsuri Sakon Written by Sharakumaro Drawn by Takeshi Obata Translated by Nataku Version 1.2, released 9th May 2000 p.5 The Demon Revenge of the Abandoned School [My dolls are good dolls. Their eyes are clear and pale with swaying white faces like those of paper dolls. My dolls are good dolls.] P.6 The Demon Revenge of the Abandoned School P.7 Ukon: For many years now, once a wind like this comes, the cherry blossoms' off-season flowering time.... P.8 Ukon: People's hearts also go a bit crazy when the blood-colored cherry blossom snowstorm flutters around.... Kid1: Wow, it really looks like the doll's talking. How do you do that? Kid2: Hey, where'd you buy this toy? Waa-! Ukon: Moron! I was made in the early years of the Meiji Era by a famous dollmaker--the child doll Ukon! I'm not like those toys you can buy! [Kid2: He's angry....] Ukon: Impertinent brat.... Kid2: If you were made in the Meiji Era, then aren't you an old man now? [laughs] P.9 Ukon: Anyhow, partner... She's been watching us since earlier. P.10 Ukon: Miss! Miss! Hazuki: Eh... who? Ukon: If you're troubled, you can discuss it with me. Hazuki: Eh?! Ukon: When I saw those lonely eyes at the doll play, I didn't like the way they looked. Especially since that girl was such a beautiful woman. P.11 Kazuki: Well, that's the first time I've been hit on by a doll. [giggles] But it was nothing. I just felt nostalgic about my elementary school days, watching the doll play. Your ventriloquism is very good. May I ask your name? Ukon: Me? My name's Ukon! I'm a masterpiece child doll created in the early Meiji Era! Kazuki: Early Meiji...? Then in a hundred years' course, you're now a grandfather doll. Ukon: This idiot partner is Sakon. He doesn't talk well, so he can't do anything without me. You'll have to forgive this worthless guy. P.12 Sakon: I'm Sakon Tachibana. Hazuki: I'm Hazuki Funasaki. Nice to meet you. Ukon: Nice to meet you!!! Hazuki: Haha... you're a strange puppeteer. Hmm... Then you two travel all over Japan, wandering from festival to festival. Where are you staying tonight? This village doesn't have an inn. Ukon: With no inn suitable for a homeless chivalrous man, we'll either have to put up with the elements, or the storage room of a temple or school will be sufficient. Hazuki: If that's so, then from here we'll go to a class reunion at the elementary school. It's been abandoned since its replacement, so please don't be shy about staying the night. There, it's just across the bridge. P.13 Ukon: It's really high. Sakon, walk carefully! I don't want to die with you in a double suicide at the ravine bottom!! Hazuki-chan, is there another path?! Hazuki: I'm sorry. There's only the one path linking the village and the school.... Ukon: *phew* This is a faded, desolate place. Hazuki: Oh, how reminiscent! P.14 Ukon: A worn-out place like this?! Pass the night in a place like this?! Hazuki: Please don't say that, Ukon-kun. Now that it's been abandoned it's become lonely, but to me it's the elementary school I remember. Ukon: I-if Hazuki-chan says so, we shouldn't scold. You'll just have to put up with it! Sakon.... P.15 Hazuki: It's so reminiscent. It brings me back to who I was then. Ukon: Oh, that's what you said about the doll play. Hazuki: It wasn't genuine, just seeming like children playing with dolls. There was a very good boy, a dollmaker named Osamu, in that club. He was always gently teaching me, who was so bad at hand puppets. That's what I remember the most. Ukon: Hmpf. Is he gonna come too...? P.16 Hazuki: Eh?! The only ones assembled are five people?! What should we do? [Hazuki Funasaki--Junior College Student] Kouji: Keh! That's what I asked!! [Kouji Kitamura--Salesman] Youko: Maybe today's the wrong day? [Youko Oka--Office Lady] Kenichi: There really is no one else in any of the classrooms. Strange. [Kenichi Saitou--College Applicant] Tsutomu: Well, it's according to the invitation. [Tsutomu Saeki--Art School Student] [Class Reunion Information. At this time, the destruction of our Wakakusa Elementary School has been arranged. For a last reminscence of our alma mater, let's all meet to talk over old times. Time and Date: March 30th, 5:00pm Place: the old building, 6th year room 1 The Class] P.17 Kenichi: Wa... Why're you here? Hazuki: Oh... I met him at the temple fair and since there's no inn, I invited him to stay here. Ukon: We'd be obliged if there was an empty classroom to spend the night in. Kenichi: What's with... Sakon: Please. Kouji: Yo... Why don't you give some kind of performance to pass the time, bigshot street performer. Heheheh. Youko: What should we do? About everyone's absence? Kenichi: Oh, you came too. You've become so sexy. Tsutomu: It's having only those low thoughts in your head that keeps you from getting accepted into college. I seem to have hit a nerve. Sorry. P.18 Kouji: Anyhow, we haven't met you since your transfer, Takahashi. S'okay, looks like you became a fine woman before seeing us, haven't you? Unlike Youko. Hazuki: Um... I.... Youko: Moron. Don't you know? After Hazuki transferred, her surname was changed. She's no longer a Takahashi. Hazuki: Because my parents divorced? Hahaha. Well, whichever. But don't be using my name too familiarly! I'm not your girl anymore, so it's nothing to you! Youko: Huh. You're pretty now that I take a better look. Your face is like a doll's. Ukon: THAT HURTS--YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!! Youko: Wh-what? All of a sudden, this doll...!! [Doll...] P.19 Youko: Speaking of dolls... The common ground of the five of us.... Tsutomu: Stop it. We swore we wouldn't speak of that again! [Silence] Kouji: Tch. In any case, who was the organizer. The organizer...!! [Slide. Twitch.] P.20 Eda: By any chance are you the ones who were lured to the strange reunion?! ??: Strange reunion?! Kouji: What does that mean?! Eda: Just now this was received at the police box. [Let's all talk about DEATH together. The Reunion of Death Organizer, Osamu Kusunoki] P.21 Hazuki: O-Osamu-kun...?! Eda: You know this manager Osamu Kusunoki? Hazuki: U...um... Tsutomu: Yeah... He's a classmate who died eight years ago... P.22 Eda: Dead?! Ukon: How'd a dead person send out invitations? Sakon: Shh. Eda: Haha... well, all of you... I was troubled for this mischief?! What do you think the police are for?!! Youko: N-no. Tsutomu: We wouldn't do this kind of thing. Kenichi: We really don't know who called us here! P.23 Eda: So then you just received invitations. Kenichi: We'll split up and look around too. Whoever's pulling this kind of sick joke needs to be stopped!! Kouji, let's go. Kouji: Moron. You go be good friends with the cop. Eda: Hm? What is it? You're... Ukon: Hey, Sakon. Let's stop getting involved in trouble. Kouji: Keh. They can do whatever. I don't like cops. Hm? WH... P.24 Kouji: WH-WHAT'S THIS... He... A headless... doll...?! This is a freaky joke! Tsutomu: Hey, how's it going? Youko: It looks like there's no one here but us. P.25 Speakers: M... My dolls are good dolls... Kouji: [If they die, it's not my fault.] [Not mine...] P.28 Speakers: My dolls are good dolls... The crowns and heads roll around; the sky reflects in their eyes. My dolls are good dolls. P.29 [That sudden death turned into blank amazement; for some time we weren't aware.... This sequential preliminary announcement was nothing more than the killer's prologue... And that even more, the collapsed bridge had completely isolated us from the outside world!!!] P.30 Eda: Th-this... it's been completely removed...!!! Sakon: This is strung piano wire. Ukon: Something else, Sakon; this... Sakon: Looks like someone cut the steel wires and left. Tsutomu: Th-there really is someone at this school! Youko: It couldn't be... h-he killed Kouji...?! P.31 Tsutomu: That's it! The P.A. room is weird!! Hurry back!! Ukon: Hey, hey, what're you thinking, Sakon? Sakon: Be quiet and look sharp, Ukon. Ukon: Tch. Being with you, I always end up in disasters. Youko: Ouch! Wait up! p.32 Kenichi: N-no one's here. It's a tape. It was previously set. Speakers: My dolls are good dolls. Mischevious mice are neglected, but laugh when the neck chances to bend. My dolls are good dolls. Hazuki: Oh, I have a bad feeling.... ??: A-a power failure...?! It's the criminal's act! Tsutomu: Do something, officer! People are being killed! It's your job to catch murderers!! P.33 Eda: I-I understand. Please be calm. R-right. The criminal is perhaps still in the school. We'll split up on the first floor and second floor to look for him. Hazuki: Huh? Where's Youko...? Yo... Youko's not here! Tsutomu: What?! Eda: A-anyhow, if you find anything, yell loudly! ??: Youko... Youko...! Where did she go at a time like this?! AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! P.34 ??: YO... YOUKO...!!!! P.35 Speakers: My dolls are good dolls. Mischevious mice are neglected, but laugh when the neck chances to bend. My dolls are good dolls. ??: Th... This time Youko... Hazuki: NOOOOOOO...!! Tsutomu: Both deaths are as according to that ominous children's folk song. And that doll is definitely... It's a doll Osamu made.... P.36 Tsutomu: With the bridge connecting to the village also totally destroyed, it doesn't matter where we run! Kenichi: Shut up! I can't forgive, so I'm definitely going to catch Youko's killer. Tsutomu: Oh, I shouldn't have come to this reunion!! [The art room key...?] How'd it get dropped in a place like this? P.37 Kenichi: What? Tsutomu: Oh, nothing.... Ukon: The phone line's been cut...?! The criminal did this too...?! Sakon: After the bridge is the phone lines.... Ukon: With this, we've been completely boxed in! What do we do?! Sakon: Heheh. This has become interesting, Ukon. Ukon: What's part of it's interesting?! Since the beginning I've had my doubts about that personality trait of yours being fixed!! P.38 Tsutomu: WE'RE CUT OFF FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD...?! What do we do? The culprit is maybe still prowling around inside the school building! Hazuki: Saeki-kun, please calm down.... Tsutomu: If we don't do something, we'll all be killed! Eda: Be quiet! Calm down!! Now definitely the criminal has made cutting us off from the village a special point by destroying the bridge and cutting the phone line. We're perfectly isolated. There's nowhere to run. Tsutomu: Unless you hurry up and catch him, it'll be bad! Do it somehow!! P.39 Eda: But I have a request. If we hold out until morning, the police will know of my absence and notice the bridge's destruction. They'll discover us here. Until then I want you to follow my instructions. I'm Officer Eda. I'd like you to give me in order your names and occupations.... Hazuki: Hazuki Funasaki, student at a junior college. Sakon: Sakon Tachibana, a puppeteer... Tsutomu: Tsutomu Saeki, a second year... art college... Kenichi: Kenichi Saitou, a college applicant.... Eda: A puppeteer, huh... Tachibana? Wait a minute. If my memory's not mistaken.... P.40 Eda: Your grandfather is Saemon Tachibana, a national treasure famous for bunraku dolls, right? Sakon: Yes. Ukon: I wouldn't've expected a rural officer to know that! Eda: [What's with that doll...] Sakon Tachibana, from outside the district.... Kenichi: Eh? Just a minute... Shouldn't you question him a little further?! He's obviously a suspicious outsider... The criminal is using dolls to announce the deaths! Isn't the grandson of a national treasure, a suspicious puppeteer, the most dubious?! P.41 Hazuki: Wait a minute, he's not that kind of... Eda: He's definitely suspicious as an outsider. But on the other hand, because he's an outsider I'd say he doesn't have any motives for killing. So first I have some questions for the rest of you. This event is obviously a false reunion whose attendees were aimed for. Why were you called here? What's your relationship to the dead Osamu Kusunoki...?! P.42 Tsutomu: No... we weren't very... Kenichi: Yeah... we didn't know him very well. But I remember even in class he was always gentle and happy, though I didn't play much with him... Hazuki: Uh... Um... Tsutomu: AAAAAAA, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE...!! Nothing anyone thinks is going to change what I say!! In this room, in here... someone in this room... P.43 Tsutomu: SOMEONE IN THIS ROOM IS THE CRIMINAL WHO KILLED THE TWO OF THEM!!!! Kenichi: What you're saying is that much rubbish! Tsutomu: Saying who killed isn't funny. You would have a motive. Since long ago Youko had been cruel to you, so you pushed her. Kouji always called you stupid, so you did that to him, didn't you? That's the root of why you killed them!! Kenichi: What are you saying, bastard?! Hazuki: Stop it, both of you...! Kenichi: There's no reason the criminal would be among us. Eda: No, I wouldn't necessarily say that... P.44 Eda: When we came inside the building and looked in every nook and corner, there wasn't even a person's shadow, and if the criminal had trespassed outside, there would presumably be traces left. Ukon: Yeah, after the rain there weren't any footprints on the school grounds but ours. Eda: And if the criminal isn't someone from outside.... Ukon: I'd say someone in here is probably the one committing the crimes! The first murder and the second murder both took advantage of everyone's unpreparedness because we were just moving towards realization. No one was thinking much. Thinking and not saying things and so on... honestly, humans are so weird! Kenichi: Th-that's not true! I was the first one in the P.A. room. The one who pushed Youko down was someone lagging behind!! Tsutomu: That's right! Even I.... P.45 Kenichi: For just a puppeteer, you have a bad habit of saying what you wish! Knock off that joking ventriloquism!! Ukon: Who was observing at that time? Everyone was caught up in panic. Hazuki: Wait, if that's so, then I wonder if the opposite wouldn't be that if we all stay together until the morning, we'd be safe? Eda: Eh... R...right. That's exactly it. If we hold onto the key and seclude ourselves in the classroom and eagerly stand guard on one another, I'd expect the culprit couldn't do anything. Tsutomu: Is that it? Is that the hand? But, sorry, I'm not staying in the room until morning with a murderer! I have the key to the art room! I'll be secluded by myself!! P.46 Kenichi: Saeki!! Why does he have the key...?! Open up! Saeki, open up!! He won't open...!! If we're split up, that's what the criminal wants!! Tsutomu: This way is the plan. Only I will keep living... only I... Ukon: Well, that's it. He's secluded himself along in the classroom. P.47 Tsutomu: [panting] Hm...? P.48 Ukon: What were you looking at a little while ago, Sakon? Sakon: The headless doll. It was dropped. The first victim definitely saw this. Ukon: In the first murder, the head flew off because of the stretched piano wire and because of the bike's speed and weight the bridge collapsed due to the previous work. In the second murder, the casualty was caused by being pushed down the stairs. Whoever it was took advantage of everyone's confusion so anyone could have committed the crime. Sakon: And then... somehow they were killed in the same way as the dolls. P.49 Kenichi: Shit, there was only one. He had the key from earlier, so he's definitely the criminal! Hazuki: Stop that. You were such good friends long ago when we lined up the desks to study.... Kenichi: Stop saying sweet things! I don't trust you!! Eda: Stop it, you two. We're all eagerly standing guard on one another like this. There's nothing safer than for him to be alone in a locked room. Ukon: Cheer up! For however long, I'll protect you! Hazuki: Thank you, Ukon-kun, Sakon-kun.... Tsutomu: Hi... Hii... stop.... P.50 Tsutomu: GYAAAAA!! IT'S A DOLL!! I'M GOING TO BE KILLED BY THE DOLL...!!!! Kenichi: That voice is Saeki... Eda: Shit, we've been outwitted...!! The inside's dark, so I can't see, and I don't have a key... Hazuki: Officer, hurry.... P.51 Eda: A...are you all right? Hazuki: Saeki-kun... Eda: Hurry and bring the light. P.52 Hazuki: KYAAAAAA... P.53 Kenichi: Again, the doll... [My dolls are good dolls. Playing alone in a room, they don't wake when father calls. My dolls are good dolls.] Eda: The door was locked, the criminal had to come from somewhere. Completely check the room.... Ukon: What is it, Sakon? P.54 Sakon: Why are there two dolls this time...? Ukon: Huh? You're right. There are two. Sakon: This is something... This means something. When we were running here, it was strangely inconsistent. This is what I don't clearly understand. Ukon: Don't understand? Tch, you're not communicating. Sakon: This is! [T...this doll is....] P.55 Eda: Strange, the windows and door are safely locked... Kenichi: And this is a safe, secret room. ??: Then, from where did he invade this secret room and to where did he vanish?! Moreover, everyone was in the science room in order to eagerly guard. While we were standing guard is when the murder took place.... The alibis are iron-clad and the perfect murder was in a closed room...!!! Kenichi: UWAAAAAA...!!! P.56 Kenichi: The other person's a ghost! Osamu's ghost is killing us!! Hazuki: Keep yourself together, Saitou-kun! Eda: Hm?! Wh...what's this?! Hazuki: What is it? Eda: Look at his fingertip. It looks like there's some kind of mark drawn on the floor... Kenichi: Well, I can't see anything. Ukon: You shouldn't see anything. Seems like it was drawn in this turpentine oil. It smells the same as the fingertip. P.57 Ukon: How are we going to read it with the dying message written in invisible oil, Sakon? Sakon: We should be able to see it like this Kenichi: There are letters burning in the flames!! If the initials are "H.F."... Those initals are The person who is "H.F." is... P.58 Kenichi: H.F.--Hazuki Funaho!! Hazuki: M-me...?! That's.... P.59 Kenichi: UAAAAAA!! She's the criminal; arrest her!! She killed them!! Eda: H... hold on. We haven't confirmed that she's the criminal!! Kenichi: Shut up! If you won't do anything, I'll kill her!! It WAS you...!!! Hazuki: N... no... I didn't... Ukon: S... stop!! P.60 Kenichi: That's it. Of the five of us, you were the only one who sympathized with Osamu. He suffered our torture to suicide. For the sake of avenging Osamu you gathered the one-time members of the doll play club!! Hazuki: Suicide...?!! O... Osamu-kun's death was suicide...?! Kenichi: Don't play innocent. At that time in doll play club it was popular to manipulate dolls together. But the timid Osamu was a first-rate target... P.61 Child-Kouji: Well, Osamu-chan, it's time to play with your beloved dolls. Today, let's all start by taking clothes off, Osamu-chan. Well, well, hurry up and be like the doll. Do you understand? Blockhead you is the same as this puppet doll. What we're doing is because you're our toy!!! Kenichi: The torture escalated every day until Osamu couldn't take it anymore and hung himself in suicide. You didn't know--thought it was an accidental death? Ukon: Enduring that... P.62 Kenichi: I would've thought you didn't know since you transferred... I don't know how you killed them, but only the two of us are left! I know I'm not the culprit... Eda: Stop! Kenichi: In short, the criminal is no one but you!! Hazuki: Officer! P.63 Kenichi: Aha-aha-ahaha! This time you'll die!!! Sakon: Stop...! Kenichi: [gurgle] P.64 [My dolls are good dolls. If you take away someone's toy, revenge is a thousand needles. My dolls are good dolls.] P.65 Ukon: Again, killed just according to the announcing doll and the announcing children's folk song. Only one left.... Hazuki: I... it wasn't me.... Sakon: Ah, hey! Wait a minute! Hazuki: [panting] P.66 Hazuki: [panting] Sakon: We ended up losing sight of her. Ukon: What happened. This incident's trick... ...do you understand it, Sakon? Sakon: To solve this mystery... ...we have to order what's happened and then consider it. P.67 Sakon: First off, the initial incident! Why did the criminal choose to seemingly cut off the victim's head in such a difficult manner? And it was in the same way the doll was killed... why...? Ukon: Well, if the criminal's objective was revenge, wouldn't he have wanted everyone to taste fear? Sakon: Is it just that emotional reason? The criminal's not a bloodthirsty felon. The demon called revenge lives in his heart, but his head is as clear as an angel's. Ukon: ...Well, then? Sakon: Wouldn't the criminal use the terror stirred up for the later murders? P.68 Sakon: The second murder? Who was it who pushed her down the stairs? Ukon: Dunno. That office lady was coming last, but it could've been anyone before her because everyone was in a state of panic! Sakon: I'd say that anyone could have committed the crime... Well, what about the third murder...? Ukon: Yeah! No one could have done that. It was a closed room murder!! Therefore precise clues should be hidden!! Sakon: You have a thought about that third murder? Ukon: There were two dolls. Sakon: Yeah. The key about the dolls is that there were two that time. Why should it be necessary that the closed room produced two? Then, why did that dying message confirm Hazuki-san as the criminal? There's something there. The inconsistancy of then... there's something strange there. P.69 Sakon: Grandfather said, "Manipulating a puppet is the same as manipulating a human. Ventriloquism is the same as mind-reading. Mimicking is not just the tone of voice, but the voice within".... Well, Sakon, become the victim of the third time. Please revive the victim's voice in the psychology of the closed room. p.70 Sakon: Tsutomu Saeki... are you in the art room? Tsutomu-Ukon: Yeah... Sakon: What are you thinking...?! Tsutomu-Ukon: I... I am confined alone in the art room and scared.... Thinking about the killed Kitamura people and the freaky children's song, I'm alone, shaking with fear. But... but the scariest is.... Seeing one of those death-announcing dolls is the scariest...!!! Sakon: A doll? Did you maybe see a doll...? P.71 Tsutomu-Ukon: I saw... That's right, I saw it! The room's corner... in the darkness, that doll.... Then... I screamed in fear.... GYAAAAA, I'M GOING TO BE KILLED BY THE DOLL!!!! Sakon: That's it... the mystery of the two dolls is solved.... P.72 Sakon: Wake up, Ukon...! We've solved one of the mysteries. Ukon: Mm... Really? Who's the culprit?! Sakon: Okay, the announcing doll was placed mischeviously in the art room by the criminal. We heard his cut-off shout in the science room and fell into the thought that he had shouted when he was being killed. But it was the cut-off shout of the instant he discovered the doll. In short, when we came flying to the art room, he was still alive!!! Ukon: So Hazuki isn't the criminal as according to the dying message. Sakon: But still, still something doesn't mesh. Something.... P.73 Sakon: T... that's it... Hazuki-san isn't the culprit! Hazuki: [panting] Ah... You?... Sakon: I know who the criminal is!!!! P.74 Criminal: Hold it there!! Heheheh... Ukon: Hey, hey, HEY! Don't touch Hazuki-chan with your filthy hands! I don't know what reason you have for killing people, but Hazuki-chan had nothing to do with Osamu Kusonoki's suicide!! P.75 Criminal: Now you're getting it backwards!! After I kill this woman, my revenge will be finished!! Sakon: So it was you. The first one flying into the closed room the third time, in the darkness you stabbed the knife into the still-living victim... You're the true criminal!!!! P.76 Sakon: Officer Eda!!!! Ukon: The policeman?! Huh...?! He was supposedly shot by the gun.... Sakon: The pistol was deliberately loaded with a red-tipped bullet in the first chamber, and the second chamber's cylinder hole was blocked, which let up to an explosion in the body cavity. The first time and the second time, using the dolls fanned up terror. The third time was difficult because the victim was cautious; the fourth time was the opposite, using that terror to murder. Eda: Quite so. But how did you know it was me...?! P.77 Sakon: That dying message. Hazuki-san's surname has been "Funasaki" since she transferred. When she met her classmates today, that was the first time they knew about that. In short, the dying message was written "H.F." A dying art student would probably not call her by current circumstances and write "H.F."; he would have called her, and probably written, "H.T." To get Hazuki-san to wear the crime, you took the pretense of examining the body; taking the chance, you wrote!! Then, when I solved the mystery, I kept thinking and the shape of the inconsistancy became clearer. P.78 Sakon: When we ran to the art room, you took out your pistol, shot the lock, and put it away. Why?? There was probably still a villainous murderer in the art room. It was because you knew there wasn't a murderer there-- Then in the darkness you used the knife you'd put in your breast pocket and stabbed him to death!!! P.79 Sakon: That's how I knew you were the criminal!!! Eda: Huh. Exactly as you've shown.... Solving a crime by the victims' psychology chattering from a doll's mouth, coolly giving judgement, is your own way of furthering your reasoning. At first glance, disguised as an eccentric puppeteer, the whole is one person in two roles, a calculated, admirable technique. P.80 Sakon: You, too, with that brain and nerve, should have had a successful career inside the police force. Eda: Heheheh... certainly that kind of life might have been possible... But... MY LITTLE BROTHER'S DEATH CHANGED MY LIFE!!! Ukon: The older brother of the suicided Osamu Kusunoki...?! Eda: Because of a delicate constitution, since we were children I'd always been hospitalized in the town's hospital. For that reason I lived apart from Osamu. But Osamu often came the long distance to visit and talk and play. P.81 [I learned about making dolls.] Osamu: Well, didn't I do good? Eda: Yeah. Your kind feelings really came through. It's a good doll. What's with the scars? Osamu: Oh, nothing. So that you'll hurry up and get better, I'll show you a doll play. [Thinking on it now, at that time there was already cruel torture. But he was never concerned in front of me. The thought of that kind of thing never entered my head. And then, when the cherry blossoms were chaotically blooming in a flower snowstorm, Osamu killed himself. Ironically, they transplanted my dead brother's bone marrow and I kept living. I resolved to live in the landscape Osamu had last seen, and came to be a policeman in this village.] P.82 [When I first came to this village, none of the villagers were concerned that I had been Osamu's brother. There was, of course, hatred towards the ones who had tortured Osamu. But still, I came to believe and strongly accept the reason of Osamu's death, and thought I would be able to live a quiet life in this village. If I hadn't heard that.... It was the day of last year's village festival.] Kouji: Yo... it's been a while. You guys look pretty good. [It's been a long time since you came back to the village....] P.83 ??: Here, have another glass. Oh... you're drunk. It's disappointing, isn't it? These members meet on purpose and the star isn't here. Kenichi: Oh, Osamu. Well, you can't invite a dead person. Hehehe... Youko: He was a guy who just made dolls and was always sobbing in the dark. Tsutomu: Well, we should be glad he's dead. Alive, he was a person without much value. Kouji: Stupid. He wasn't a person. A puppet, a puppet! Our T-O-Y!! [laughter] Kenichi: But it was an easy and simple suicide. Tsutomu: Playing so much with the toy finally broke it. ??: Really, it was just like that, his situation! Ahahahahahaha P.84 [I didn't stop the flames of revenge from burning high in my heart.] Eda: Understand how I feel, you who had my only little brother killed!! That gentle little brother whom you.... Osamu was twelve then. He died before he could know his first love!! Ukon: Really, that was a cruel clique. Sakon: Is this doll also of your brother's...? Eda: That's right. It's a memento doll of Osamu's. Sakon: You didn't notice? This doll alone has a different head, bigger than the others'. P.85 Hazuki: T-that's?! Sakon: Didn't your brother also love someone? It looks just like Hazuki-san. Eda: O-Osamu.... Hazuki: Ah... [O....] Osamu-kun.... P.86 Eda: So it was like that.... Ukon: He really was a pure guy, the guy named Osamu. Sakon: Everything was according to plan. Eda: You're a strange puppeteer. If you hadn't been here... But I'm glad. The last one living committed a terrible error.... Thank you.... Sakon: Ah! P.87 Eda: Osamu.... Y-your brother also.... [Like this, the curtain closed on the revenge of abandonment play.] P.88 Ukon: Huh. Osamu. Where he was pure, this Ukon-sama got the worst of it. Hazuki: This doll. Being a memento of Osamu-kun, it's precious. I wonder if we'll meet somewhere again. Ukon: We'll de-finitely meet somewhere again at a festival!! Hey, Sakon, you say your good-byes too! Hazuki: Goodbye. Ukon: Oh.... Goodbye, sayona... Mph... P.89 Sakon: Goodbye. Ukon: Hey, Sakon, you touched your filthy hand to hers, but I won the goodbye...!! Hazuki: Someday, somewhere, we'll meet again.