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 fell from the stairs. So that's wrong? It was actually from the railing side?"

"Yes. She then fell down..."

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 fell.

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 Tanashi made when she fell, was still there, its slightly oval shape caused them to imagine the sort of state she was in when she landed there. The rainwater had built up in that oval hole and formed a puddle. The raindrops made layers upon layers of 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.

Not knowing what standards allowed her to work out that the vice principal is new, the police officer asked, surprised.

"Y-You did well knowing that the vice principal was new; How did you know?" 

"Eeeeeasy. Vice principals usually know the school best. It's normal for them to be brimming with confidence. Them being meek usually means that they have just been assigned here!"

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

"Excuse me, teacher. Is there any talk about this place being the hanging out 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 it after seeing the flashlight of a teacher who entered the building. The prefab school building does not have electricity anymore."

"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 have been 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 fell from.

"......Sure is dangerous for 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 coiled up 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 wrong 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 be 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 blindspot 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 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 blindspot?"

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

"...Perhaps she coincidentally slipped so perfectly that she slid under the railing."

"From the hole at the spot she fell at until this edge, 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 scrapped against the edge, so there should have been noticeable scratches, right? I didn't hear anything about that. Let me try asking the teacher 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 have been 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 the police should get 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, the key lies in her friendships at school... Also, the records from the incident when bones were scattered after Miyoko Tanashi's house was broken into clearly show that she was facing bullying with strong ties with the word 'Bone'. ......The stories about the 'Curse of The Bone' that I heard many times from my niece, who commutes to the same school... I had known that something slightly prank-like, called the 'Curse of The Bone' was trending in that school. But I had concluded that they were the 'Stress-relief type', who had no specific target. An example of 'Stress-relief type' bullying would be throwing eraser bits from the back, a harmless prank, but something as risky as summoning someone and pushing them off, the bully would definitely refrain from. Being anonymous and having no risks are the very reasons that 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 feel that the 'Curse of The Bone' has.

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

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

The rain showed no signs of stopping. It would likely turn dark as is.

"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 was no suspicious damage to her clothes."

"The girl is now wearing a hospital gown, right? Is 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 shoe? 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 some leads would conveniently come up, so she said that she would be waiting without any expectations, and left.

"There's no leads at all. It looks like this will snowball 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 who was 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 the conclusion—the incident took place outside, so the culprit must have been drenched—had long been reached. In addition, she had called for a search for a student drenched but even the students had no inkling as to who that individual was.

......That is only natural though. If this was 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 from which Tanashi fell. The height of two floors was middling. It was a height that 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 from the second floor's landing does not click with me. Preparing a knife and stabbing the victim is more surefire and reliable.

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 be 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 off......

...That is the most feasible possibility.

An act without an intent to murder. The culprit had no intent to murder. ......Tanashi fell unconscious as a result and that person surely thinks that they got lucky. ...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, a weird 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 her consciousness though.

No matter who the culprit is or what their motive is.....this is sure to be a contemptible incident, or so Yuka thought.

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

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