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Azuringu Dai-O!


Azumanga Daioh! is owned by Azuma Kiyohiko, Media Works
Ringu is owned by Koji Suzuki.
Ringu/The Ring, Asmik Ace, Dreamworks SKG.


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---
Thursday, September 11



It hadn't really taken much effort to connect the dots at first. Like Kagura
said, school records showed that Sakaki and a few other classmates had 
taken a trip to Okinawa recently (though, more accurately, it was Sakaki 
who tagged along just so she could visit Maya's home again.) Also, a 
quick check into yesterday's obituaries had revealed that, indeed, four of 
such classmates had died under mysterious circumstances; and they all 
died around 10 pm, Tuesday night.

Trying to visit Kaorin was a no-go for now, though. With her being in the
Psychiatric unit of the hospital, Yomi would need to schedule an 
appointment, as well as permission from a relative. Maybe she could get 
to see her by Saturday.

"U-uoooh! Here it comes! Here it comes! Waaah!"

Thus she found herself sitting on an airplane seat, trying to let the
soothing, relaxing roar of the airplane's take-off sequence drown out
Tomo's enthusiasm.

Despite Kagura's insistence, Chiyo had stayed behind for this trip. That
way, she could also stay around Sakaki in case there were any changes, or
if Osaka finally contacted them. Come to think of it, that was weird in
itself. They hadn't heard from Osaka for a little over a month, almost 
since she came back from a family holiday. Maybe they should check up 
on her after dealing with this Cursed Video story.

"Say, Yomi," Tomo said, struggling valiantly with her bag of peanuts. 
"Where are we going, anyway?"

"I thought I showed you already," Yomi said, plucking a set of 
photographs out of her pocket. "Look at this. I got this from Sakaki's 
house."

"Oooh..." said Tomo, leaning over the photos. As Yomi flipped through 
them, they showed various stages from the trip --a cat-shaped vending 
machine at the airport, a little girl from the plane wearing cat-ears, a 
bizarre yet cute display of teddy bears at the airport in Okinawa, and so 
on.

"Notice anything unusual about these pictures?" asked Yomi.

"Yeah. Sakaki-chan likes the Chicago Cubs. Weird," Tomo pointed at a 
picture of Sakaki posing next to the Cubs' mascot, whose team was 
apparently visiting. "Oh! I got it, I got it!" she exclaimed, ripping her 
peanut bag open and lifting it in victory.

Yomi sighed in frustration, "No, I meant that there's nothing strange at
all about these pictures. See these four people here?" she pointed at a
particular group that was about to enter a resort villa. "These are Sakaki's
classmates that died the day before yesterday."

"Oooh..."

"But something happened there. Sometime during the trip, they were 
changed. Look at these pictures." And Yomi quickly flipped to the end of 
the set, where the same group was now exiting the resort. "Now do you 
notice anything weird?"

"It... it can't be!" Tomo gasped in shock. "Th-they all... they all have
Chiyo-chan's pigtails!"

Yomi nodded. "Exactly."

"Uwaaaah!" Tomo yelped, standing up, then banging her head hard 
against the overhead compartment. "Oooowww..." She sat back down, but 
it didn't stop her tirade, "They... They stole my idea! They're all doing
the Chiyo-chan Show and they're probably famous by now! They're getting 
all the royalties and dates with movie stars and I get--"

"Idiot!" Yomi silenced her with a quick jab to the shoulder. "Quiet down!
And no, it's not the 'Chiyo-chan show' or whatever. Look here, even 
Sakaki has them."

She showed another picture. Indeed, while she was relatively normal in 
all prior photos, all pictures of Sakaki after the resort included Chiyo's 
very own pigtails, auburn and bread-shaped, somehow attached to 
Sakaki's head amid her own hair. At a second glance, though, Yomi 
noticed that Sakaki's face in those pictures was also locked in that 
horrible, unsettling look of joy that Kagura had described. The other girls 
in the photos had the same look, but considerably toned down --rather, 
almost nonexistent, which was why Yomi must have missed it in the first 
place.

"So, whatever did this to them," Yomi continued, "It happened here." She
took a picture where the name of the resort was prominently displayed --
in a cat-shaped sign, even.

"Yamamura Inn."


-			O!			-


Tomo and Yomi stepped out of the airport terminal, the latter red-faced
as if a few gallons of ketchup had exploded in front of her. "That's the
last time I ride next to you on a plane," she said.

"Aw, come on, Yomi..." Tomo said, tugging a few transparent plastic 
tubes from around her neck. "They let little kids into the cockpit all the 
time! Why shouldn't they let me, a college student, try out this stewardess 
act?"

"BUt you didn't even ask!" snapped Yomi. "You almost choked yourself 
AND that poor old lady with the air masks!"

"She wasn't wearing it properly! And that bitchy stewardess kept ripping
it off!"

"She was trying to save the lady's life! I'm actually surprised she
didn't call you a 'terrorist threat' in the first place..."

Tomo pouted, "That's mean, Yomi..." She picked up her bags and headed 
for the taxi concession. "And I didn't even get the Junior Pilot modeling 
set I asked for."

"Probably because you would have set it on fire and crashed it against my
head," thought Yomi, then headed for the taxi cabs herself.

It turned out, Yamamura Inn wasn't in Okinawa proper. It was one of the
few inns and resorts in the island of Iriomote, where Sakaki and Maya 
had found each other so long ago. After a quick ferry trip and bus route, 
the pair found themselves standing before the infamous cat-shaped sign.

Despite the luxury that the rest of the resort seemed to exude, the sign
itself was quite weather-beaten and decayed. The name itself, Yamamura, 
was split into two rows --the kanji for "Yama" on the upper, and kana for 
"mura" in the lower. The wood had darkened in many places, almost as if 
by fire, but aside from the name the words "Family Inn" were clearly 
visible at the bottom.

"Yamamura Family Inn, huh?" Tomo said. "Must be a chain or 
something."

"What are you talking about?" Yomi asked.

"Well, I went to Izu on vacation with my family, when I was in junior-
high. They had a Yamamura Inn there too. Really creepy place."

"Hmm. I don't think it has anything to do with this one," Yomi said. 
"Come on."

They walked up the twisting path from the road to the resort area. In stark
contrast to the sign, the cabins and tennis courts seemed brand-new and
spotless. There was even an outdoor, black-tie restaurant in a plaza 
among the villas. Yomi winced in sympathy as her wallet considered 
suicide.

Tomo tugged at her arm. "Yomi, look!" She pointed at one of the 
buildings.

"Cabin 12," Yomi whispered. She quickly rifled through Sakaki's 
photographs --it was the very same cabin that Sakaki and her group had 
stayed in.

"I'll go check if it's available," Yomi said, shaking her head out of the
cloud that seemed to envelop her for a moment. "Look around, but 
DON'T touch or break anything."

"Yes, mommy," Tomo mocked. She simply dropped her bags on the 
ground and raced around the cabin, going "Oooh!" and "Uwaaa..." at 
regular intervals.

Yomi rolled her eyes and sought out the registration office. Unlike the
resort itself, the building that housed the main office was a simple
concrete box, sparsely decorated and hidden away among the trees. 
Inside, Yomi found a no-nonsense wooden counter with a guestbook on 
it, though at the moment no one was there to receive customers; to the 
side, an impressive rack of VHS tapes --anything from ancient Doraemon 
tapes to horror movies. A sign above the racks read, "VCR-equipped 
rooms! Free videos for loan during your stay!"

There were easily a hundred or more tapes on those racks. Yomi had 
almost grown tired of reading the various titles when, at the corner of her 
eye, a simple black slab stood out to attention. She leaned closer to it
--it was an unlabeled, anonymous black VHS, lacking a box or even a 
handwritten note about its contents. Among the multicolored cases and 
cardboard slips, the solid black compelled her sight towards it.

Swallowing, Yomi began to reach for it with her hand... She could almost
FEEL sparks in the air between the tape and her fingers...

"May I help you?"

"Gah!" Yomi jumped, startled. She quickly turned to the counter, from 
which a thin, middle-aged man stared at her amicably. He was tall, taller 
than Sakaki, probably, and wore wire-rim glasses that reminded her of 
Professor Kimura. His unkempt hair reinforced that opinion.

"I, uh, wanted to stay at Cabin 12 for a couple of nights," she said. "I'm
afraid I don't have a reservation...?"

"Oh, that's fine," the innkeeper said. "You just have to sign on the
guestbook and leave a 5,000 yen deposit." He glanced over at the tapes, 
"You can take any one you like, if you want. We get most of our 
collection through tapes left behind by previous visitors."

"I see," Yomi said, absentmindedly signing the book. As she fished out 
the yen notes from her pocket, her eyes wandered over to the unmarked 
tape once again, and she found herself asking, "What's that one about? 
Did the case get lost?"

The innkeeper frowned, his glasses fogging up for a moment. "I don't 
know anything about that tape," he stated firmly. "I had never seen it 
before in my life."

Yomi considered the change in the keeper's demeanor. But any 
consideration of his knowledge about the tape faded when she heard 
Tomo's loud call, "Hey Yomi! Come look at this!"

Snapping out of her thoughts, Yomi hesitated for a second before taking
the tape. "Thank you," she said, nodding to the keeper, who simply stared
at where she had been standing, even long after she had left.

"Not..." he finally whispered to himself, his jaw slowly, but surely, going
slack to create a horrifying yet familiar look on his face.

"Not high-schoolers anymore! WAAAAAAH!"


-			O!			-


Yomi joined Tomo on a slope by Cabin 12. The latter, doing her
middling-to-adequate detective impression, was poking around the small
garden that had been planted there, nosing around the very the wooden
lattice that prevented curious people from nosing around beneath the 
cabin itself.

"What is it?" Yomi said.

"Look," Tomo said. It was already growing dark, so she had to point a
flashlight at a spot on the ground. "What's that?"

Yomi recognized the object on the ground immediately. It was a so-
called, "Daddy-Hat," shaped vaguely like the head of a cat. She thought 
back to her own souvenir hat, stored safely after the second Culture 
Festival back in high-school. Could this particular hat be Sakaki's?

"Let's take it," she said. "Come on, we have the cabin. Let's get inside and
think about what we're going to do next."

They climbed up the slope again, circling cabin 12 towards its entrance. 
But had they stayed a little bit longer, they would have heard a faint, 
almost whispered, "Aaaa... Where's my hat...?" coming from the darkness
under the cabin.


-			O!			-


Yomi turned the tape in her hands over and over. She hadn't told Tomo 
about it yet --she had a feeling that Tomo would go, "Yeah! Cursed Video 
time!" and sit down afterwards with a bag of popcorn and candy. Not that 
she REALLY believed the stories, but... Well, she just didn't want Tomo 
messing up her investigation.

She waited until Miss Boundless Energy went to take a shower (the cabin
itself was almost a small house, and possibly more luxurious than one)
before settling down at the living room, from where the darkened TV set
dominated the world. A VCR waited on a shelf beneath the TV, its 
flashing clock almost teasing her to get it over with.

Stalling, she switched on the TV. Half the image was static on most of the
channels, which explained the presence of VCRs in all cabins. Normal
television reception must be incredibly bad out here. Eventually, she
settled on a channel with no signal, muting the hiss of static as she did.

"Come on," she said to herself, "It's just a stupid video. It's not like
it's going to flip open and strangle me with the tape, right?" She fiddled
with the tape's hatch for a moment until she caught herself, then cursed 
and slammed the tape down on the coffee table in front of her. "Stupid, 
stupid, stupid," she chanted, standing up and pacing around the table. 
"You're getting scared because of a silly urban legend about a 'cursed 
video.' There is NOTHING on that tape. Here, I'll prove it!"

Annoyed, she plucked the tape from the table and jabbed it into the VCR. 
It whirred slightly, then caught the tape in its belts and began to pull it
in. Yomi, panicking for a second when she saw the tape had no overwrite
protection, tried to yank the tape back out, but her fingers could find no
purchase on the smooth, black edges.

The static on the TV was replaced by solid darkness almost instantly. 
Yomi peered closer, kneeling in front of the TV.

However, the darkness continued for a good minute or two. Yomi was 
about to eject the damn tape when, all of a sudden, the entire screen was 
filled by the image of a white, almost blinding ring of light. It 
came with an eerie, high-pitched sound not unlike a girl's voice going, 
"Eeeee..."

Yomi's pupils dilated.

After five seconds, the image of the Ring glitched away, replaced by yet
more static. But it didn't last long; a picture of a bun of melon bread,
suspended on a fishing hook, came up instead. There was no trace of 
color in the picture, as if the video had been shot in a degraded reel that 
was days away from turning green.

Then, just as a nondescript feline mouth rose from the bottom of the 
screen to bite the bread, the image switched to that of a small girl
sitting on a chair. Or, more accurately, her pitch-black silhouette, as
seen from the side.

That image was also replaced, this time by a shot of a woman, facing 
away from the camera and framed entirely within an oval mirror, 
brushing her long brown hair.

She brushed her hair twice, three times, then in a split second the mirror
that contained her switched to the other side of the screen, showing a 
young girl clad all in white and with her hair completely obscuring her 
face. Just as quickly, the mirror came back to the woman, then quickly 
zoomed into her mouth as it curled up into an evil grin.

This time, an image of a playground came up --its swings and cages 
brightly colored though the rest of the image remained in washed-out 
black and white. A swing on the right creaked and moved, then a bizarre, 
cat-like creature with spaghetti arms floated by, waving at the audience.

As soon as the floating cat reached the other side of the screen, the image
fizzled into a landscape filled with uncountable mountain cats, all
identical to Maya, and all facing the screen with the same bored
expression. Briefly, almost imperceptibly, there was the image of a man
among them. He wore black trousers and a spotless dress shirt, and had a
Dad-Hat covering the entirety of his upper face. His hand was pointing to
the side, at something beyond the screen, but he flashed by too quickly
to notice what it was.

A gigantic eye then filled the screen. It was too close to tell if it was a
man or a woman, but there was a kanji glowing brightly in its pupil. It
started out as the kanji for "Sada," "Chastity," but then morphed
erratically into the katakana for "mara." Then the whole thing exploded 
into a shower of dozens, if not hundreds, of flying Chiyos.

But Yomi was too entranced to realize this. One of the Chiyos flapped her
pigtails to face the camera from up close, then flashed a grin that sent
unknowing diabetics into insulin shock over the entire world. Yomi 
blushed despite herself, her jaw going slack and muttering by itself, "C-
cute..."

Before she could adjust to the intense cuteness, however, said cuteness 
was replaced by an extreme close-up of a woman, ranting so hysterically 
at the camera that her face couldn't really be identified. Fortunately, the 
only sound that came from the speakers was a painfully sweet children's 
song that went on about flying on cotton-candy pigtails.

The woman gave one last shout, and then was suddenly standing on the 
edge of a playground's pool of balls, her back to the camera again. She 
lifted her arms dramatically, then simply dropped forward into the ocean 
of multicolored balls, not to surface again.

Then followed a series of lightning-fast clips: the silhouette of a
long-haired girl with hiccups; a glass of water, on fire, sitting on a
table; the same playground with swings and cages as before, but without 
the cat-like creature anywhere in sight. Then a final, widening shot of 
millions and millions of Chiyos all mouthing the words, "It's done!"

The barrage finally stopped, and there was one last image on the TV set: a
small stone well, in the middle of a classroom, faced by rings upon rings
of schooldesks. The sound of forest insects and birds was almost deafening.

Then, all of a sudden, static. The tape whirred inside the VCR as it started
rewinding.

Yomi stared at the static on the TV for a few more seconds. Her jaw was
slack, her face blushing intensely, and her glasses fogged to hide her eyes
from the world. Eventually, she let out a breath, then gasped for air while
still kneeling by the TV. An errant hand rose to turn off the appliance; but
when she looked up, the blank screen reflected a girl clad all in white, her
hair obscuring her face, standing just behind Yomi.

Sucking air, Yomi whirled around --and found Tomo, wrapped in a 
humongous white towel, drying her hair. She almost felt like decking her.

"Hey, Yomi, what'cha doing?" Tomo said. "Anything good on TV?"

Yomi tried to speak, but her mouth had suddenly gone all too dry. She
ejected the tape then rushed to grab her luggage. Just as she grasped one 
of her suitcase's handles, however, the phone burst to life with a 
deafening ring.

Yomi stared at it.

Tomo stared at it.

Yomi gulped, then quickly picked up and answered, "Hello?"

There was utter silence in the line, aside from Yomi's troubled breathing.
Then, startling her to no end, came a girl's voice, "A! Sorry! Umm... 
seven days?"

The words were followed by a cacophony of singing children, all of them
repeating the cotton-candy pigtail song. Yomi shuddered visibly and hung 
up.

"Who was that?" asked Tomo, adjusting a towel around her hair.

"Get your things, we have to go NOW," she commanded.

Tomo blinked at her, puzzled, "Did you forget your diet book again?"

"I said MOVE!" Yomi bellowed and grabbed Tomo by the arm, pulling 
her along and out of the cabin. Unfortunately, the door slammed onto the 
very edge of Tomo's towel.

"Eeeeeek!"

"AH! High-school girl!"

"Wear some clothes, idiot!"

"YOU were the one who pulled me out! Biiidaaah!"

Meanwhile, inside the cabin, the TV flickered on for a moment. If one 
had been paying attention, the silhouette of a long-haired girl, facing
sideways, could be seen going, "Aa, still needs work..."



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Azuringu Dai-O!

End of Day 0
Seven days left

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Jorge A. Pratt
jorgepratt@prodigy.net.mx
terbril@rocketmail.com