CubexCursedxCurious:Volume9 Chapter3

Chapter 3 - Whom Does the Shrine Maiden Dance for? / "Surely, for the man who lost(found) the words"

Part 1

In any case, the whole group started a planning conference directly in the Hayakawa living room. Despite the tragic remains of the paper sliding door and other articles, they simply piled up the debris in a corner to make enough space for everyone to sit.

"It's really true. Hmm... Fact really can be stranger than fiction in this world..."

In order to hold a discussion, the first thing they needed to do was to explain to the priest again. Since he had seen everything already, this could not be helped. Although it was not instant, in the end, the priest still believed in the explanations from Haruaki's group. After all, having witnessed Fear turning her drill back into the Rubik's cube and Kuroe moving her hair around, he probably thought that there was no choice but to believe. The priest seemed like quite an upstanding man in personality, so there was probably no risk of him publicizing this to others.

"Thank goodness you're willing to believe us. If possible, these are matters that we don't actually want to mention to others, but there's no choice given the circumstances... Of course, the problem at hand is how to stop Isuzu from stealing more voices. From the way she spoke, she definitely intends to continue her crimes. When the time comes, please lend us your assistance, Chief Priest."

"Yes... Of course. As long as it's something I can help with."

"After all, victims have appeared among the shrine visitors. She must be stopped. That said..."

"No matter what, we have too little information on our hands. We'd like to ask the person who knows her best."

Kirika looked at Chihaya, who was currently sitting on the veranda with her back towards Haruaki's group, looking down as she played with her cellphone. She seemed like she was rejecting everything.

"Hey~ I hope you can assist us, is that okay!?"

"..."

"Muu~ Ignoring me is so mean. Looks like this calling for me to explode with my super secret move... I'll tickle you until your tears run nonstop."

Kuroe's hair rustled as they danced, brushing against Chihaya's shoulder. Instantly, her shoulder shook in surprise but she immediately pushed the hair away with her hand in annoyance. Then after playing with her cellphone for quite a while, she finally sighed in exhaustion, apparently noticing everyone's gazes stuck on her back.

"...What do you guys wanna ask about?"

"Everything. Please tell us everything you know."

"Everything huh.. That girl is a cursed bell. I discovered her roughly a month ago in my home's storeroom. Then she asked if I'm willing to become her owner, so I took her in as my flunkie~"

"Then what about her curse or abilities?"

"Who knows. She only said that she was originally a tool used at some shrine. I didn't dig into her detailed origins at all. I also heard that she can pray like a shrine maiden to gods and bring about raging winds. As for the curse... You must have heard our exchange just now. Namely, my current, hoarse voice. After all, it doesn't matter if I'm getting a flunkie to do my every bidding in exchange."

"How could it not matter? So long as you continue to be her owner, your voice will never come back. No, not only that, as the curse increases in strength, the situation could very well become even more severe. Don't underestimate curses—That's right, this is the message we wanted to tell you in the first place."

Fear crossed her arms and stared intently at Chihaya's back.

"After a tool is cursed, it will begin to emanate its own curse, thereby causing human victims to give off further cursed thoughts—this is an endless cycle with absolutely no benefit to speak of. Even if it begins like a children's game, cursing behavior resembling a ritual is definitely not a good thing. That's why you shouldn't work as a curse expert or anything like that. Why do you do it?"

"This has nothing to do with the current incident, right? It's none of your business."

Chihaya rejected Fear's question with an extremely cold tone of voice.

"Curse expert...?" The priest also cocked his head and looked at Chihaya in puzzlement, but of course, she ignored him as well. Although it was expected already, even the priest did not know what work his daughter was doing? It looked like the father-daughter discord was really quite deep-rooted after all.

In any case, Chihaya did not seem like she wished to talk anymore about the curse expert issue. As though saying "it can't be helped," Kirika nodded and spoke:

"Anyway... The curse and voices? Looks like there might be clues there."

Perhaps due to returning to the topic, Chihaya scoffed indifferently and answered:

"However, I really have no idea why Isuzu would do that. I only found out today that she is able to steal a person's voice apart from my own."

This did not sound like lying. When Haruaki's group was catching them in front of the pond, Chihaya had questioned Isuzu: "Why did you do that!?" She had seemed quite angry about Isuzu taking action on her own. That could not have been an act.

"Hmm, we still don't seem able to get the information we want..."

"Even so, we can't stand back and do nothing. We must prevent the number of victims from increasing. More importantly—We must retrieve Haruaki-kun's voice."

Konoha's tone of voice was very quiet but carried a serious intensity that would bring chills to the listener. Haruaki could feel Konoha's unmistakable wrath. To be honest, he would not be surprised if her hands would slice apart the table they were resting on. Apart from Konoha, the other three girls were equally anxious.

"Of course. It was a rare chance to hear about Haruaki's childhood just now, so we must get his voice back and make him continue."

"Even if it weren't so, not being able to speak is absolutely ridiculous to the extreme. We must find a way... If necessary, I think even a slightly violent solution would be fine."

"I agree. Now is not the time to be concerned about image~"

They were all angry on his behalf. Thinking he could not push everything onto the girls for them to shoulder, Haruaki racked his brains. Information, clues. What was Isuzu planning? She wanted to steal other people's voices. Although the purpose was unknown—but wait, that's right. Was anybody's voice okay?

Haruaki tried to enter his idea into his cellphone and placed it on the table.

"'Those whose voices were stolen, what did they have in common?' huh... I see, if she could steal anyone she encountered, there should be more victims than what we have now, right?"

"Hmm, we could try thinking from this angle. But the victims to this point include me, then Haruaki..."

Next, Kirika continued and shifted her gaze.

"Then there's the ordinary person the priest mentioned just now. Chief Priest, how is that person now?"

"She immediately recovered consciousness, I think she already left... Her partner said that depending on the situation, if she still can't speak, they will go to the hospital."

"Then we can't meet them... It can't be helped. By the way, what kind of person were they?"

"Yes. Uh... I remember a young woman, accompanied by a man, with long hair... I'm sorry, I didn't take care to memorize the details because I never expected this. Also... Oh right, their clothes were quite fancy, the man also had a leather jacket with a skull emblem..."

Kuroe's eyebrow twitched and she instantly said:

"Were the words 'Go to Hell!!' written on his back?"

"Hmm... Now that you mention it, I think those English words were written there."

Haruaki recalled something from the depths of his memory. Kuroe was right. They had seen this leather jacket, rather incongruent with the shrine environment, somewhere before. Where had they seen it...?"

"Kono-san, do you still remember? The people who drew o-mikuji fortunes after us."

"Oh, that's right. That seems to match their description. Back then, I was so demoralized, thinking it was too unfair, so I remember it very clearly. I remember that after Fear-san drew her fortune, it was this couple's turn. The woman was very happy about drawing the Devil's Great fortune—"

"...Both Haruaki and I got the Devil's Great Fortune too."

After Fear murmured without paying attention, everyone sitting at the table looked at one another with a sudden realization. After a second's pause, Fear also realized the significance of her comment and kept blinking.

"C-Could it be, that's what's going on?"

"Although it's still unclear, since three out of three victims had drawn the Devil's Great Fortune... It's up for consideration."

"Also—Just before Fear-kun's voice was stolen, that girl said something strange. It bothered me at the time, so I still remember it... She said something like 'everyone's luck is quite good' then proceeded to guess all our o-mikuji results correctly."

Indeed. Haruaki remembered as well. At the time, he was wondering if she had some sort of power to sense o-mikuji results.

"Well then, let's suppose that she possesses 'the ability to sense other people's luck.' Lucky people will draw Great Fortune. People with even better luck will draw an o-mikuji fortune better than Great Fortune... Suppose she selects a target before stealing their voice, then it must be because it's better for her in some way of course, or people with good luck are absolutely required. In other words, she could be seeking the voices of 'lucky' people."

"Yes. She is targeting the voices of people who drew Devil's Great Fortune—Looks like this theory can be established... Well then, what should we do?"

"That's the main point. After all, we have no idea at all about other people's luck. Using the o-mikuji...? No, besides, it's meaningless once she leaves the shrine..."

Just as Konoha murmured these words—

"...That girl won't leave the shrine."

Chihaya spoke up. She was still sitting on the veranda with her back towards Haruaki and the others, playing with her cellphone—but presumably listening to their conversation all along. But currently, it was still unknown whether she was willing to help find Isuzu or not.

"Why?"

"Because I've never taken her on a walk in this area, so she shouldn't be familiar with the surroundings. At most, she only knows the route to school. Besides, that girl appears to be linked strongly to me. She once said that she's unable to get too far away from me."

"I see. In that case, she really will continue to steal voices in this shrine now when there are the most number of people..."

Konoha nodded, seemingly finished organizing her thoughts. Hence, she began to discuss with Kirika and Kuroe, asking the priest whenever they had questions, deciding on their approach for the operation next. To prevent more victims and for the sake of retrieving Haruaki's voice.

Haruaki was very grateful. These girls were really dependable. But he could allow himself to simply rely on them all the time—Haruaki also typed on his cellphone to take part in the dialogue. He asked the priest about the probability of drawing Devil's Great Fortune as well as the layout of the shrine's confines. Gradually, a clearer outline emerged of what they needed to do.

(However... This really resembles human wave tactics. In the end, we still need to wait for Isuzu to act. If anything, I really hope we could have more manpower...)

However, it was necessary to start the operation as soon as possible. While they were still dawdling, Isuzu might strike again. Pointless wishes would not help things at all... Just as Haruaki sighed—

He had been staring at the cellphone screen all along in order to type. At this moment, the phone rang with a text message alert. Haruaki gestured with his eyes to apologize to the group while opening the received message—This was a reply to the message he had sent out last night just after midnight as an invitation to go on the New Year's first shrine visit. One which he had sent to Kirika as well. Haruaki had forgotten about it because there was no response until now—

'Happy New Year~! Because Shiraho fell asleep while watching the Red-White show, so did I~ Really sorry for failing to reply to your invitation for the New Year's first shrine visit! Right now, you guys probably finished and went home to sleep? Although a bit slower, we're planning on visiting a shrine now~! If there's enough time, we might drop by your house to say hi on the way back. Oh right, Shiraho's sleeping face is already adorable normally, but yesterday when I was watching Shiraho sleep while the Red-White show was on television, she looked even more vulnerable than usual, it really made me wanna hug her tight~ But in fact, I did her hug her~"

Almost reaching the character limit, the text message was filled with showing off her lover. Haruaki skimmed through it quickly and closed his eyes. Sorry. I'm very sorry. I'm really sorry for doing this right at the beginning of a new year. In fact, let me apologize right here.

Haruaki clapped his hands together towards the cellphone screen to transmit his thoughts of apology. Next, while mentally simulating how he should dodge an exorcism arrow to the eye from the one with the adorable sleeping face (allegedly), he once again opened up the text message screen to key in a short sentence. Then he handed the cellphone over to Konoha who was watching him in puzzlement.

'Sorry, could you help me make a phone call? I'll shoulder all of the consequences.'

Part 2

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Translator's Notes and References

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