Let's Dance with Ghost Stories, and You Dance on the Stairs Chapter 12

Top: Let's Dance with Ghost Stories, and You. 

Bottom: A shiver no one has felt before will assault you, the final chapter (Side-B), the climax to Ryukishi07's version of 'New Fantasy Fiction'

Top: Dance on the Stairs

Vertical words: Ominously enough, the 'Malice' continues to dance—endlessly!

Chapter 12

Officer Yuka Miyajima

TLed by: TanoshiKara

The faculty office was empty.

Excuse meeee, or so Yuka yelled as she knocked on the sliding door.

It was then that the door, leading to the principal's office, opened and the principal peeked out of it.

"Yes. May I ask who you are?"

"Pardon me, I am Miyajima from the Shishibone police station."

When she showed her police ID, the principal grasped the situation and led her to the prefab school building at the back of the school. Several teachers and about five police officers were in front of the prefab school building.

The vice principal noticed and greeted Yuka.

"Hello, good work. I am Shishibone police station's Miyajima. I see it is quite serious this time."

"Well......Hahaha......How embarrassing."

It seems like the vice principal could not sit still when they thought about the sort of responsibility they had to take.

When Yuka bowed to the police officers, they nodded and led Yuka up the external stairway.

"It appears that she fell from the landing on the second floor."

"Do you think this is an accident?"

"A little hard to say.........The girl fell from here all the way to there."

After they climbed up the stairs, the police officer pointed to the railing furthest away.

"I thought she tumbled down the stairs and fell off. So that's wrong? It was actually from the railing?"

"Yes. She then fell to the ground floor..."

The police officer proceeded to look downward. There was some sort of small vegetable garden managed by the gardening club

"Ohhhh. There's a garden below. The ground looks soft. So, what is it? Is the silver lining that she, unexpectedly, got away with light injuries?"

"No, you see........."

Yuka and the police officer climbed down the stairs and headed to the vegetable garden where Tanashi had fallen.

It had been ploughed, so the soil was soft. The rain had also made it muddy, so their shoes dug into the earth. This made them hallucinate; Made them feel as if they were playing by a lake or a swamp.

...The hole that was made due to Tanashi’s fall was still there, its slightly irregular shape made them imagine the state she was in as she lay there. The rainwater had built up in that hole and formed a puddle. The raindrops sent countless ripples across the puddle, forming a shape that stirred up feelings of unease.

"...What, is this?"

There was a small gardening shovel near that puddle.

"This shovel was buried here with its head sticking out for some reason......When she fell, that head seemed to have hit this part of hers......" The police officer said as they tapped the back of their head."

"I see......The Medulla Oblongata's bad...So, is that girl alright?"

"No, she is unconscious. According to the paramedic, there is a risk that this will drag on if she does not regain consciousness......"

"That is unfortunate......Is this shovel the school's?"

There was no need to ask. This is because 'Gardening Club' was written on its handle in permanent marker.

"......There is a high possibility that the shovel being buried is an unfortunate coincidence, but I cannot assert that the girl's fall is a coincidence."

"Right. It has been raining today since morning after all...Would someone really go out of their way to come to a deserted place like this...?"

"...Hard to imagine. She loved solitude, perhaps..."

"Kek, kek, kek, I wonder if there's such a literal literary girl nowadays"

Yuka, who was most likely the polar opposite of the phrase literal literary girl, cackled.

"Say, doesn't this place have the air of a perfect place for a secret meet-up? Those delinquents would frequently call people out to the back of the gymnasium and such, right? Wouldn't this fit for this school? See, the trees near these stairs have thick foliage that blocks the view from the windows of the school building's first to third floors. How about it, vice principal? Is there any talk about cigarette buds being found here or students using this place as a hang-out spot?"

"N-No......I have not heard of such cases."

"I apologize for being rude, but how long has it been since you came to this school vice principal?"

"Ah, well......I came here last year, so I am still not familiar with the inner workings of the school..."

"That's what I thought. Let's ask the other teachers."

Yuka turned back and went around to talk with the other teachers.

"Y-You did well knowing that the vice principal was new; How did you know?" Not knowing what allowed her to work out that the vice principal is new, the police officer asked, surprised.

"Eeeeeasy. Vice principals usually know the school best. It's normal for them to be brimming with confidence. If they’re meek, it usually means that they’ve just been assigned here!"

The police officer was a little impressed by Yuka's observation skills. However, Yuka, the person in question, paid no mind to that. She found a teacher who had been part of the faculty for a long time and hit them with a certain question.

"Excuse me, teacher. Is there any talk about this place being the hangout spot for students?"

"...No, there is not. If anything, it seems like the delinquents are using the back of the gymnasium as a hang-out spot."

"How about this place having some special meaning among the students?"

"You are saying?"

"Hmmmmmm, for example, a jinx that is popular among students. Your love will be realized when you confess here, ghosts may or may not appear in this place, and the like. Legends that will only work on students, I guess."

"......I recall that one of the Seven Mysteries goes: At midnight, the lights of the prefab school building will turn on and ghosts will wander the building."

"The actual situation?"

"Who knows, it is probably a baseless rumor. Or, some student might have spread word of it after seeing the light from the flashlight of a teacher who entered the building. After all, electricity no longer runs through the prefab school building."

"I see. So it is an ideal haunted school building. Have people broken its locks and trespassed before?"

"I cannot say no for certain, but there should be none over these two to three years at the very least."

"Can you think of a reason for a girl to come here, in this rain, during lunch break?"

"No......I have no idea."

"I know right......I know that much......" Yuka murmured as she went up the stairs once again. She then stood at the landing where Tanashi had fallen from.

"......Sure is dangerous for a stairway in a school. Isn't it easy to go over this railing? Sure isn't impossible if a malicious person wants to push someone off."

"I agree...It seemed like the faculty knew this as well; They cordoned it off with ropes and pasted off-limit signs to ensure that no one would go up. However, someone loosened the ropes at the time of the accident. It seems like there was nothing amiss during yesterday's rounds, so I deduce that they were loosened at the time of the accident."

"You can't loosen the rope in the rain if you have an umbrella in one hand, right? Two hands are needed to loosen the rope. ......You would get quite drenched, correct? It has been raining since morning today, so the person who loosened the rope should have been quite drenched. Let's find out if there were any students who were drenched after Tanashi's accident. ...Well, I have no evidence that they would surely be drenched, though. They would not be drenched if there were several culprits after all."

"Understood. I shall ask around."

"That also means they wanted Tanashi to climb up to the second floor's landing so badly that they would go through that much trouble. I don't know whether Tanashi, herself, wanted to climb up or the person who called Tanashi wanted her to climb up, though."

"......Did they call her with the intention of pushing her off from the start...?"

"Hmmmmmm, this external stairway is quite a good blind spot after all. The foliage of the surrounding trees is thick, making it so that this place cannot be seen from any of the school building's windows. That is the important point."

"The more interesting thing is that this place cannot be seen from the school's windows because of the trees, but it can be seen from the rooftop."

"That means the students who were playing volleyball or the like on the rooftop could have seen it...! Perhaps there is even a possibility that there are witnesses?"

"You sure are dumb. That's why it was done today. Do you think there would be students on the rooftop in this downpour? Isn't it obvious that there were none? That's why it was done today."

"Officer Miyajima...does that mean......this is an incident and the culprit lured her here knowing that this is a blind spot?"

"Yeap. That is how I see it. No matter how shoddy the railings are, would someone really fall off under normal circumstances?"

"...Perhaps she just so happened to slip so perfectly that she slid under the railing."

"From the hole at the spot she fell to until the edge here, isn't that a little over two meters? I don't think that she would land that far if she slipped, slid, and fell off. Also, if she fell like that, she would have scraped against the edge, so there should have been noticeable injuries, right? I didn't hear anything about that. Let me ask the doctor at the hospital later. ......We sure are unlucky that the victim is unconscious!"

"What should we do..."

Yuka slapped the officer's back when they said such pathetic words.

"Hey, you, doing something about it is the police's job. Don't say such pathetic things! I recall that the girl came to the station to consult us on a different matter. Should be about her facing bullying at school. Let's follow that line of deduction and try asking her parents. We also need to question the people in school about her situation. I'll leave you to question people about whether there were students who were drenched by the rain! ......Can't have a police officer in uniform roaming about a unique environment like a school, huh. Do it with caution. From what I have seen so far, this incident was caused by someone in the school. I think that the motive and the culprit are all within these premises. Alright, let's split up and begin!"

The police officers nodded when Yuka clapped her hands...

Beside the door to the intensive care unit was a plate with the patient's name on it.

"............Miyoko Tanashi. .........Ah, sorry! Hello, I am with the police. I am Shishibone's Miyajima."

Yuka could not visit Tanashi as no visitors were allowed. Even if Yuka visited her, she had not regained consciousness, so Yuka could not ask her anything...

Yuka was told that the middle-aged woman, weeping silently on the sofa, at the other side of the corridor, is Miyoko Tanashi's mother. When Yuka greeted her, she lamented that the situation had escalated to a point where even the police were involved, and the police were consulted at one point, so how was the tragedy today not prevented, or so she lamented even further

Yuka tried to calm her down by slowly pacifying her...

"...Officer... Did someone push Miyoko off? Who was it!? Who would do such a horrible......!!"

"It has not been decided that it is an incident..."

"There is no way she would go alone, to the deserted prefab school building, which is off-limits, on a rainy day!!"

"Right, it is as you say. I cannot deny the possibility that it is an incident. The police will uncover how it became like this, so please, Madam. I ask for your cooperation for the sake of Miss Miyoko."

"...Miyoko has been......facing bullying in school... The police had been consulted for that, right!? How horrible... To think they would break into someone else's house and scatter dirty bones in Miyoko's room...!! She also said that there were many more incidents in school, didn't she...!!"

"Madam. Did you hear anything about who bullied her or if she had any trouble with friendships?"

"......I remember her saying that there were people in her class that she did not get along with... But Miyoko was a child who did not do anything that warranted her to be bullied!! She is just slightly more soft-spoken than the other children, and the bullying has not stopped since elementary school for some reason...!"

As I expected, her friendships at school will be the key to the investigation... Also, the records from the incident when bones were scattered after Miyoko Tanashi's house was broken into clearly indicate that she was facing bullying with strong ties to the word 'Bone'. ......The stories about the 'Curse of The Bone' that I heard countless times from my niece, who commutes to the same school... I had known that something resembling a prank, called the 'Curse of The Bone', was trending in that school. But I had concluded that this was the 'Stress-relief type', which had no specific target. An example of 'Stress-relief type' bullying would be throwing eraser bits from the back, a harmless prank that the bully would likely do. However, something as risky as calling someone out to a location and pushing them off, the bully would definitely refrain from. After all, being anonymous and having no risks are the very reasons they can easily bully the scapegoat as if they are teasing them.

If Miyoko Tanashi's accident is an actual incident...I feel like it has a slightly different feel than the game-like bullying feel that the 'Curse of The Bone' has.

"..............................Hmmmmmm."

Yuka went through several pieces of information in her head, but she could not quite derive anything meaningful from them......

The rain showed no signs of stopping. It would likely turn dark without the rain stopping.

"Is Officer Yuka here?"

"Ah, yes!"

After she had been made to wait for quite a while, she finally got to meet the doctor who performed the medical examination.

"Then, you are saying that there are no other suspicious wounds, except the wounds from the fall?"

"That is correct. I did not notice anything suspicious except the impact and sprain at the time of the fall and the injury from the shovel."

"Although I think the girl was covered in mud when she was brought in, was there anything about her that stood out to you, Doctor?"

"No, not at all. There were no wrinkles on her clothes that showed signs of struggle. I also think that there were no suspicious marks on her clothes."

"The girl is now wearing a hospital gown, right? Are her clothes still in the hospital?"

"I think so. Please check on your own later."

The forensics division had already retrieved the clothes that Tanashi was wearing.

"How is it? Did anything suspicious come up?"

The person in charge shook their head silently.

"They were in the rain after all. Drenched in the rain and covered in mud. You could say that there were no signs of scuffles, but..."

"In other words, no leads whatsoever, huh."

"Sorry..."

"How about the soles of her shoes? Wonder if we will know something from the mud stuck to them!"

"On it. I will let you know if something comes up."

Yuka had no intention of indulging in the idea that a lead would conveniently turn up, so she said that she would be waiting without any expectations and left.

"There are noooo leads at all. Looks like this will get quite troublesome if Tanashi does not regain consciousness......"

Yuka was in front of a coffee vending machine. After brooding over whether to add sugar, she selected black and gazed at the unending rain while sipping her coffee.

There were no leads, but that was not all. Yuka had suspected that there was a student drenched in the rain during lunch break, but someone like that had not been found. It seems like finding the culprit was trending even among the students, and it has long been deduced that the culprit must have been drenched as the incident took place outside. In addition, she had asked for the student body to be questioned on whether there was a student drenched during lunch break, but even they had no inkling of such an individual.

......That is only natural, though. If this were an incident, it had clearly been planned out. The culprit would have known ever since this morning that they were going to get drenched. I guess they wore something they didn't mind getting drenched in, pushed Tanashi off, changed their clothes, and wiped their hair before nonchalantly returning to their classroom.

.........Rather than that, something has been bothering me. That would be the height of the landing Tanashi fell from. The height of the two floors was questionable. It was a height from which one cannot be certain of their victim's death after pushing them off. If they had a clear intent to murder, then pushing the victim off the second floor's landing does not click in my head. Preparing a knife and stabbing the victim is a more surefire and reliable method.

A shovel was coincidentally buried at the point of the fall, so Tanashi got seriously injured and fell into a coma. If not for the shovel, she might still have gotten seriously wounded, but it would not have been life-threatening. If so, I could immediately get her testimony on who the culprit was. The culprit would not have been able to get away at a moment's notice.

.........The culprit did not have a clear intent to murder...? There was a small fight, and Tanashi accidentally fell off in the middle of the scuffle. Seeing Tanashi motionless, the culprit got scared and ran away......

...That is the most feasible possibility.

An act done without the intent to murder. The culprit had no intention of murdering the victim. ......Tanashi is now unconscious as a result, and that person surely thinks that they lucked out. ...No, kids nowadays are not that bold. They are probably afraid of when Tanashi will regain consciousness and when they will get caught. They are a middle schooler, an odd age group.

Although the minds of people from this age group are that of a child's, they are made to stand at a crossroad in their life; Their very first, and a big one. Placed in a position where an academic report would decide their lot in life, there is no way that they would not give themselves up. ...They would surely stay silent to the end, hoping that they would get away scot-free.

It would be nice if Tanashi regains consciousness, though.

No matter who the culprit is or what their motive is.....this is sure to be an incident that makes me feel terrible even after its conclusion, or so Yuka thought.

...When she noticed, the coffee in her hand had turned cold at some point.

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