Inside the living room, the bright lights dispersed most of the gloom, yet they couldn't drive away the heaviness lingering in the air.
Fujino Terumi had likewise been frozen in place by Amamiya Rin's sudden action, and it wasn't until that muffled thud of something striking the glass came through that she snapped back to herself, her heart pounding wildly.
"Rin-kun, have you thought of a way?"
She spoke hesitantly, her voice still carrying a trace of tension that hadn't yet faded.
Amamiya Rin didn't answer right away.
He walked over to the coffee table, set down the notebook and pen, then picked up that cup of barley tea and tilted his head back, slowly drinking it all down.
The icy liquid slid down his throat, cooling his rapidly churning mind just a little.
Only after setting down the teacup did he turn his head to look at Fujino Terumi.
Fujino Terumi's face was pale, the rims of her eyes faintly reddened, but apart from fear, all that remained in her gaze was intense anticipation.
She fixed her bright, burning eyes on Amamiya Rin, hoping to hear a direct answer from his lips.
"I do have some ideas, going from the simplest to the most involved—I have three plans, but I'm not certain which one is the one that will truly work."
Amamiya Rin sat down beside the sofa, his body leaning slightly forward, his hands clasped together propping up his chin, his gaze distant, his tone grave.
"Because these are only preliminary concepts, whether they're actually feasible, and how to carry them out, still needs to be verified. But you only have one life—you can only verify once. The moment it fails, that's death."
There were many methods, but to verify whether one was effective, he would have to destroy The Hanging Balloons. If Fujino Terumi was still alive after The Hanging Balloons was destroyed, it would mean his method worked; if the method had no effect, then Fujino Terumi would already be dead.
Listening to Amamiya Rin's words, Fujino Terumi too became aware of the danger involved in this.
But unexpectedly, no greater panic surged onto her face.
Compared to before, when she had been completely shrouded in the despair of the unknown, now there was a concrete direction.
Even if hope was slim and the risk extremely high, it was already the only faint glimmer of light in the darkness.
She drew in a hard breath, reached out both hands, and resolutely laid them over Amamiya Rin's clasped hands.
"It's all right, Rin-kun."
She spoke each word distinctly, her gaze clear and sincere.
"I trust you. Compared to doing nothing and waiting to die, having a chance to fight for it—even if it's only one in ten thousand—is better than zero. I trust your judgment, and I believe you can definitely find a true path to survival."
"I need to look into some materials and confirm a few things. This might take several days, or it might take a dozen or more days. I'll do my best to adopt the safest plan to break the curse of The Hanging Balloons. During this time, you'd better not go out—wait for word from me."
Faced with Fujino Terumi's trust, Amamiya Rin gave a slight nod.
Good. Fujino Terumi wasn't some brainless NPC out of a horror film. As long as she had this kind of trust in him, then he could devote his full effort to seeking out a genuine path to survival.
As for Amamiya Rin's instructions, Fujino Terumi showed a troubled expression, but she still nodded earnestly, indicating that unless absolutely necessary, she would never go out, and that no matter what happened, she would not travel at night.
Amamiya Rin understood Fujino Terumi's predicament.
As an idol star, it was impossible for her to stay indoors for ten-some days.
Still, she now had an awareness of the danger, so she wouldn't lose her life the moment she stepped out.
Leaving the Fujino residence, Amamiya Rin picked up the several bullets he had fired off earlier.
Whether it was that the supernatural aura repelled the living, or that the Japanese were simply cold and indifferent enough, The Hanging Balloons had appeared for so long and kicked up such a commotion, yet no one had come out to take a single look.
For Amamiya Rin, this was a good thing—at least he wouldn't have to deal with trouble brought by humans while dealing with monsters.
"Still… things are already bad enough. It feels like even a little more trouble wouldn't really matter at this point."
Sitting in the driver's seat of the jeep, Amamiya Rin couldn't help but heave a sigh, expelling all the pressure he'd built up at the Fujino residence.
The next day, in the small hours of the morning.
Amamiya Rin went out for a jog, bought two breakfasts, and brought them back to the apartment.
While listening to Tomie's nitpicking voice, Amamiya Rin took out his phone and checked the time.
7:20 a.m.
At this hour, Mamiya Yuka should already be up, right?
Mulling it over, Amamiya Rin decided to give Mamiya Yuka a call and ask her to help look into a lead he most urgently needed to know about right now.
After dialing the number, it wasn't long before Mamiya Yuka picked up.
"Yaaawn~~ Amamiya-kun, calling me this early? How rare. Don't tell me it's because you want to join my investigation? Or have you run into some trouble with the Slit-Mouthed Woman investigation?"
Along with a yawn, Mamiya Yuka's voice went from weary to brimming with energy in the span of a single string of words—she really did love investigating supernatural incidents.
"It's neither of those. I have something else I'd like your help with."
Amamiya Rin said with a wry smile.
"Something else? Let me guess—another supernatural incident? You really do attract these things easily, don't you? I'm so envious of you."
Mamiya Yuka said brightly.
"Envious…"
Amamiya Rin was speechless for a moment, then sidestepped the topic and got straight to the point.
"Mamiya, I remember your teacher is a professor of folklore, right?"
"Mm, is it a yokai related to local folklore this time?"
Mamiya Yuka, never able to go three sentences without circling back to her field, asked expectantly.
"…It doesn't really count as a yokai. I'd like you to help me consult that professor and find out whether he knows of an ancient ruin where an infant was buried—a ruin shaped in stacked, overlapping layers. Once, some unknown professor led a team to excavate that ruin and retrieved an infant's skull from it. He handed the infant's skull over to a certain university, and then he himself died a few years later."
Amamiya Rin flipped through his notebook, giving a brief summary of the story's background from "Layers of Fear."
The curse that appeared in "Layers of Fear" would turn human skin into growth rings—with each year of growing older, the body would gain an additional layer of skin, while the conditions inside the body stayed frozen at the very moment the curse had taken hold.
And the source of the curse was precisely the ruin Amamiya Rin had spoken of.
In "Layers of Fear," the victim was cursed from childhood, and even after growing up, the innermost body was still in the shape of an infant, twisted into an abnormal form by the growing layers of skin.
One of the plans Amamiya Rin wanted to use to break The Hanging Balloons was precisely that curse-bearing infant skull, or that ruin itself.
Among the people he knew, only Mamiya Yuka's folklore professor might possibly know about this sort of thing.
"An infant's skull? Could it be some kind of curse? Did that professor die because of the curse?"
Hearing Amamiya Rin's account, Mamiya Yuka grew even more excited, taking the whole thing on without hesitation.
"It's fine, leave it to me. I'll go to the school today and consult the professor, and see what the situation is with that ruin and the skull."
____
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