********************* 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. ********************* --- Friday, September 12 Day 1 If there was one thing that Chiyo disliked about large houses, it was the silence. Houses such as hers should always be filled with friends and family; people running through the halls, laughter at somebody else's joke, relatives getting into heated arguments over the silliest things. This morning, even though Yomi was there, Chiyo's footsteps were the only sounds in the hallway. She wished that her parents had let her bring Tadakichi-san over for this trip; at least, she would have had some company. "Yomi-san?" she called, knocking on the guest room's door. "I'm... I'm going to the hospital now. I'm leaving you some tea and rice cakes out here, okay?" There was no reply. Yomi was probably still asleep; she had arrived pretty late last night, even though Chiyo hadn't expected her for another couple of days. Sighing, Chiyo set down the tray she had been carrying, touching the small porcelain kettle on it to make sure it was still hot. "I'm going now!" she called again, heading down the hallway. "I'll call if something happens!" Chiyo then hefted the backpack she had left lying by the stairs, and hurried out the front door. It was still early, yet the overcast skies promised rain for later in the day; she was taking an umbrella from a stand next to the door when the bell rang. She pressed a button on the intercom. "Hello? Ah, Tomo-san! Wait a moment, please." The gate at the end of the compound slid open slowly, and Chiyo saw Tomo, who was grinning back at her despite the bags under her eyes. "Yo, Chiyo-chan!" "Good morning!" said Chiyo. "Um, I think Yomi-san is still sleeping. I'm going to the hospital to be with Sakaki-san and Kagura-san." "O-K," Tomo flashed a thumbs up, then watched Chiyo run down the street towards the hospital. With a yawn, Tomo pressed a button on the outer wall, closing the gate, then headed slowly for the front door. "Dumb Yomi, dragging me out of that neat resort and now getting to oversleep when poor Tomo-chan misses her beauty sleep." She stretched and yawned again. Yomi, however, was not asleep. As a matter of fact, she hadn't slept a wink since last night, when she arrived at Chiyo's house and threw the damnable tape under a pile of clothes in the guest room. Now, all she could hear going through her head was that distressingly sweet children's song; it would be annoying if it weren't so gosh-darn-it cute. Sitting down on the bed, Yomi went through yesterday's events in her mind. Sakaki and her classmates had probably seen that same video, thus leading to the grim results of last Sunday. However, she couldn't help thinking that, as bizarre as the images had been, they had instilled her with both dread and adoration for them. If anything, she still blushed at how cute some of the scenes had been. That brought the issue of Chiyo's appearance in the tape to the forefront. Whoever had made the video obviously knew the girl, but what possible reason could they have for making her such a prominent figure? And who was that woman that first appeared brushing her hair, then screaming at the camera before dropping into the ball pit? She fished the tape out of the clothes that buried it. Did she really believe the legend? Would she have her own obituary by next Thursday, or end up in a coma, like Sakaki? "Yo, Yomi!" Tomo's voice in the hallway derailed her train of thought. Panicking, Yomi juggled the tape in her hands before finally hiding it behind her back, then cursed herself for not finding a better hiding spot once Tomo entered the room. "Yo," Tomo said again, lifting a hand in greeting and seamlessly turning the greeting to a yawn. "What'cha up to?" "Uh, nothing, nothing, I just woke up," lied Yomi. "Did you get our appointment with Kaorin and the doctors?" "Aw, we just got here," Tomo complained. "I'll TRY to get it today, OK? What's the rush, anyway?" A telltale motion behind Yomi's back made her blink. "What's that?" "Uh, what's what?" Yomi backed away, trying to hide the tape from Tomo's view. "Hee-hee..." Tomo grinned. With a cry, she pounced on Yomi and tackled her to the ground. The two of them wrestled for the tape for a moment, until Tomo headbutted Yomi and ran off, giggling maniacally. "Tape! Tape!" she chanted. "I knew you'd find it! It's Cursed Video time!" "Wait, you idiot!" Yomi staggered to her feet, and chased after Tomo. "Waai, waaai!" Tomo kept cheering as she ran all over the house, looking for a TV of any sort. She was finally rewarded when, upon arriving at the game room, she came across a wall-screen armed with surround-sound and a cat-shaped popcorn machine. "Uuooooooooh!" Tomo breathed, then laughed excitedly as she jammed the tape into a VCR set under the screen. When Yomi finally caught up, it was to see a ring of light proudly dominating the room. "Ah," Yomi stood there, paralyzed, as the video played once again. But as she had seen it once before, at least her mind was alert enough to try to make sense of the images this time around. Tomo, for her part, was entranced, giggling in excitement all the while. However, by the end of the "feature," her face had taken that same look of absorbed adoration as Yomi's had the day before. Her visage completely flushed red, she simply stayed frozen as the shot of the ball pit in the classroom appeared, a popcorn kernel hanging from her lips. "C-cute," she finally said. "Can I get a copy?" Yomi fell over. "A copy?! Why the hell would you--" *riiiiiing* Both girls stared at a nearby phone, neither daring to move. It rang four times before the answering machine picked up. "Hi!" said Chiyo's recorded voice. "You reached the house of the Mihama family! Please leave a message after the beep, please!" The machine beeped. There was an awkward silence from the other end of the line, then a frustrated sigh. The line went dead. "Damn it, Tomo!" Yomi said, finally getting a grip on her nerves. "Ah, you said you didn't believe in this story anyway," Tomo defended. "What's a video gonna do? Trip me up with the tape so I fall down the stairs and crack my head open and leave gooey and squishy brain stuff all over the floor for people to slip on and go, 'Hey! The video did it!'?" Growling in frustration, Yomi looked around the room and spotted a digital camera nearby. She grabbed it and forced it into Tomo's hands. "There!" she said. "Take your picture and see if I'm worried over nothing." Tomo looked at the camera, then at Yomi, and at the wall-screen that was showing mute static while the tape rewinded. Then she took a picture of Yomi. "Not mine, jerk!" Tomo turned the camera around, and snapped her own picture. "Eheheh... Yomi's such a scaredy-cat..." She switched over to the camera's image viewer, then just about fell backwards when she saw the results. "Yo-yo-yomi!" she exclaimed, "You have Chiyo-chan's pigtails! And a really weird face!" Yomi sighed. She hadn't expected a different outcome, but had still held hope. She took the camera from Tomo's hands, and ascertained the inevitable: Tomo also had the infamous pigtails. And was making the horrifying-joy expression as well. "See? That's why I didn't want you to watch this tape!" Yomi reprimanded. Tomo just looked downcast, shuffling her feet. "B-but," she said, "That tape was cool! Pleeease make me a copy, Yomi- chan!" "Gah! You *still* want a copy?!" "Sure! It's weird and cute and scary and it had Chiyo-chan in it! And I wanna show it to Kagura!" Yomi slapped her upside the head, "Fine, have your copy, but you're NOT showing it to anyone else!" "Awww..." pouted Tomo. "Thanks, Yomi-chan! I'll go reserve the video rooms!" "Video rooms?" Yomi wondered. "What for?" "Well, we're investigating, right?" Tomo assumed her smarter-than-thou posture. "We'll need to analyze this tape down to the last second! And we have just the equipment back in college!" Yomi stared at Tomo with a mixture of horror and admiration. "That's... that's actually a pretty good idea. Try to get them as soon as possible, and I'll make a copy for us to work with." "O-K!" Tomo grinned and gave a thumbs-up. "I'll let you know how it works out!" "Right," Yomi said. "Now let's go visit Sakaki-san." ********************* Azuringu Dai-O! End of Day 1 Six days left ********************* Jorge A. Pratt jorgepratt@prodigy.net.mx terbril@rocketmail.com