Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume3 Chapter1 (section)

===4===


The first group who came to the conference room included Itou-san, the girl who came to SPR earlier. Her friend had been possessed by a fox spirit. She looked nervous.

Naru told the six girls who came to sit down as he prepared the tape-recorder.

"I want to confirm the incidents that occured here," he said.

As Naru spoke to Itou-san, all the others became nervous.

"As I recall, your friend has been possessed by a fox spirit. Is that right?"

"...Yes."

"Is she here today?"

"No, she has been staying home for a long time now. Her mother won't let her leave the house even though she seems to be healthy now."

Itou-san looked back at her friends for confirmation, and they nodded.

"Please tell me the situation again."

Itou-san repeated the story. The group of girls murmured agreements, and we were able to get a better grasp on the story than from what we heard in the SPR office.

One day that girl just suddenly did something really strange. Her unusual actions (jumping onto a desk, running around the classroom, and then crying and laughing aloud) became worse (bad-mouthing others, proclaiming prophesies, just a lot of things that didn't make sense). In the end, she jumped into the pool on a cold day, and then she swallowed sand, pebbles, and chalk.

"Did she hurt anyone?" Naru asked.

"No, she didn't."

"I see. —You said she was possessed by a fox spirit. Why do you think so?"

"That's because..."

Itou-san looked back at her friends. Somebody...

"That's because she said so herself," one of the girls said.

"Yeah," another girl agreed.

After we heard the details, that girl seemed to have said her friend was possessed by a fox spirit.

Naru lightly tapped his desk with his finger.

"Well, at the time we thought nothing of it. When someone's at that state, wouldn't you think she's sick? Wouldn't it be a good idea to take her to a neurologist?"

The group of girls started to whisper to each other. Eventually it was Itou-san who answered.

"It's because...she said, 'I am Oinari-san's servant, the white fox'. And she started acting strange after we played Kokkuri-san last month."

"Kokkuri-san... With paper and...what else? Glass? Goblets? Did you use any of those?"

"No, we used a pencil. We wrote five characters onto the paper with a pencil."

"...I see. It sounds quite simple. Did you have fun with it?"

"Yes." Keiko-san nodded.

"Nothing else was strange, but... Kokkuri-san didn't return, and we didn't make fun of him either. But, as we were leaving, she said something weird."

"She told us she felt like she was possessed. She complained that her shoulder felt heavy."

"That's right. She started acting strange the very next day."

"Yeah."

The girls started to talk amongst themselves again.

"...Okay. Where did you do Kokkuri-san?"

"In the classroom. First year, room three."

Naru looked up at the rough map of the school, which was on the board. He was clearly contemplating something.

"Please write down your friend's name and contact number. I will investigate this throughly."