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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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---
Monday, September 15
Day 4 
 

 
The train station was old; it looked older than this century, at least.
The stones of its walls and arches were cracked from years of pressure, 
though little mold had grown into their crevices. Yellowed and 
darkened, once-white tiles clicked under the soles of her shoes.

A blinding, dirty light flooded the entire place with a sickly tone of 
yellow. But aside from her steps, the station was immersed in unnatural
silence, despite the great amounts of people milling to and fro... or
even those who, as if under a spell, stood silent and with their
heads bowed, frozen statues in the business of the station.

It was a group of four such people that caught Sakaki's eye, as she thought 
she had spotted familiar faces among them. Relieved at her discovery, 
she picked up her pace and headed towards them, long black hair 
trailing behind her as she ran. Their backs were turned to her, and 
remained so in spite of the loud echoing of her stride.

She approached the group. "Tomoko-san?" she called, placing a hand 
on the short-haired girl's shoulder. But her addressee did not even move 
under the contact. All four companions simply stood still, shoulders 
slumped and faces downcast.

Worry etched on her face, Sakaki stepped around the group, trying to 
face them. But as she did, she gasped. Regardless of previous length and
style, their hair had grown and shifted to completely cover their faces.
It sent shivers down Sakaki's spine.

More confused than afraid, she backed away. The sound of her steps 
had grown unbearably loud, bouncing off the arched walls of the 
station like surf within a cave. But Sakaki had not yet walked more 
than a few yards away when, from amid the group, a fifth figure 
emerged, just as if born out of thin air. However, unlike the eeriness of 
her former classmates' look, the appearance of this creature sliced into 
Sakaki like an icy blade.

Its face, like all the others, was hidden behind a wall of hair. But while 
the four girls' hair had simply fallen forward or grown differently, the 
mane of this entity had clearly been made that way. It was thick with 
mud and slime, yet darker than the blackest pitch. It easily covered 
down to the apparition's waist from the front, and Sakaki guessed that it 
reached just as far down its back.

Shining almost in contrast to the soiled mop that cascaded from its 
head, an immaculate white dress covered the being's body. It was 
brutally plain and austere; just a thick camisole that reached down 
almost to the ankles and whose sleeves covered only to mid-forearm. It 
took a second glance to notice the dirt and caked mud that clung to the 
edges of the cloth, which matched the grime on the entity's bare feet.

Sakaki backed away further. There were very few things she could be 
genuinely afraid of, but just the mere sight of this phantom had caused 
her heart to race like it never had before. It irradiated a level of menace 
and hatred and such absolute *fear* that her mind simply could not 
understand it.

It took a step towards her.

Not taking her eyes off the creature, Sakaki backed towards a wall and 
followed it, her hand guiding her so she wouldn't run herself into a 
corner. It was only with a broken, unnerving gait that the ghost 
followed, as if it were confident in her inability to run away at all. More 
unnerving was the fact that, although the station was filled with people, 
none of them seemed to even notice this horrifying apparition as it 
stumbled among them.

After shuffling back several yards, Sakaki came across an intersection 
in the structure. Behind her, an ancient locomotive whistled, 
announcing its future departure. The side passages were deserted, their 
destinations hidden by the yellow light of the environment. Ahead, the 
creature continued its relentless, terrifying advance. Sakaki began to 
tense her legs to dash for one of the remaining corridors when she 
heard a voice. A voice whose tone and timbre chilled her to the bone 
from hearing them in this terrible place.

"Sakaki-san!"

Sakaki whirled to the side. "Ch-Chiyo!" The pigtailed girl smiled at her 
from one of the sides of the crossing corridor. Stopping in its path, the 
creature shifted, as if turning to face a new target.

Narrowing her eyes, Sakaki dashed towards Chiyo and stepped 
between her and the monster, limbs akimbo in a shielding stance. It did 
nothing to deter the approaching terror.

Then, without warning or the slightest fanfare, a round, cat-like being 
just popped into existence next to Sakaki. It turned to her, lifted one of 
its spindly arms and said, in plain English, "Hello everybody how are 
you?"

"Oh, it's daddy!" Chiyo exclaimed, ever so innocent.

The creature at the end of the hall flinched ever so slightly. Sakaki 
noticed, and quickly turned to Chiyo. "Go with him!" She pointed 
down the corridor they were in. "I'll distract that thing!"

Chiyo nodded happily and took the... hand of the orange cat. They both 
took to the air, one by turning into a shifting rainbow of glowing colors 
and the other by flapping her pigtails energetically. "Do you like 
tomatoes?" the cat asked, producing said vegetable with its free appendage.

"Go!" Sakaki shouted. The pair shot down the corridor at what Sakaki 
thought was Mach 2. She then turned back to face the long-haired 
phantom. "Stay with your father, Chiyo-chan," she thought, repeating 
the phrase like a mantra in her head. The creature, which had been 
standing more than a dozen feet away, was suddenly upon her as 
though it had always been there. Sakaki felt a cold numbness begin to 
cloud her thoughts.

"Aa!"

Again, a familiar voice! Sakaki looked around wildly, trying to find its 
source, when she found herself lifted bodily off her feet and pulled far, 
far away from the monstrosity. She saw the station's arches fly by one 
by one, then a final passage marked the end of the structure and she 
plunged into darkness.


-			O?			-


It was some time before she could come to her senses. When she 
opened her eyes, she found she was sitting at her desk, back in her 
high-school homeroom. The day was bright and clear, the cherry trees 
in full bloom down in the courtyard. Yet there was nobody there, nor in 
the classroom or the hall. Only Sakaki sat before the blackboard, a 
breeze whistling softly through the open windows. A funny little scrawl,
resembling a well, had been drawn on the blackboard.

With a sigh, Sakaki let out the tension built up inside of her. She then 
leaned back on her chair, but as she did she caught a glimpse of a 
disturbing figure in the doorway --long and dark hair accompanied by a 
pristine white dress. She gasped and stood up.

But, when she looked again, the person that stood at the door was no 
other than Osaka, her eyes wide and innocent and her smile both 
vacuous and knowing, just as it had always been.

"Ka... Kasuga-san," Sakaki said. Somehow, she had never really taken 
to call her by her nickname.

"Sakaki-chan, Maya-chan, hi!" Osaka said happily. Sakaki blinked, 
puzzled, then realized that Maya was sleeping soundly on her desk, and 
she had been stroking the mountain cat's fur without knowing it.

"What is... this place?" Sakaki asked. "Who was that... thing?"

At that, Osaka's smiled faltered and she bowed. "Aaa... I'm sorry, 
Sakaki-chan, but Sadako-san got to them before me..." She looked 
down at a black VHS that had suddenly appeared in her hands. "It 
needs a lot more work before it's ready..."

"Wh-what? Why do you have that?" Sakaki stared at the VHS, 
frowning.

"A! But I'm almost done with everyone!" Osaka smiled happily. 
"Thank you for adding Maya-chan and Chiyo-chan, Sakaki-chan!"

Sakaki had literally no idea what Osaka was talking about, other than 
she was holding the tape and was utterly unafraid of it. Thus, she only 
nodded once, "Uh, yes."

And now Osaka was standing right beside her, although she had never 
seen her move. Osaka's expression took a turn for the odd, like a 
malicious smile joined by swirling eyes. "Now it's time for you to..."

All of a sudden, the floor started to shake. Sakaki exclaimed, "Quake?"

"Up!" Osaka sprouted a rocket-pack and shot upwards.

And Sakaki woke up.


-			A?			-


"So yeah, it took a whole day, but we finally located Yukari-sensei," 
Yomi spoke into the phone. Kagura's, "That's great! Where is she?" 
came through from the other end of the line.

"She's still in Osaka," Yomi replied, walking into the kitchen to pour 
herself a glass of water. "And guess what? We're hitting two birds with 
one stone with this one."

"Huh?"

"Yukari-sensei lost her hotel reservations, so she didn't have a place to 
stay when she got there, and had to stay with a 'friend'..." Yomi 
explained. "And guess who happened to be visiting her grandmother 
two weeks ago?"

There was a brief moment of silence on the other end, during which 
Yomi rolled her eyes and drank from her glass of water. "Ah!" Kagura 
finally said. "She crashed with Osaka!"

"That's right. The house of the Kasuga family, where Osaka lived 
before moving here."

"Whoa, that's really great," Kagura said, astounded. "So we'll finally 
get in touch with her when you find Yukari-sensei."

"It's more than that, actually," Yomi frowned. Thinking to herself, she 
added, "I could almost swear Yukari was with Osaka when the video 
was made. And I'm sure that's both of them in that image with the 
mirrors." Out loud, she continued, "In any case, we're heading for 
Osaka tomorrow by train. I'm sure we'll--"

And her glass of water burst into flame.

"Gyaah!" Yomi tossed it away, also dropping the wireless handset. 
Miraculously, the glass fell upright on the table, not a drop spilled. It 
continued to flame away merrily, casting uneven shadows on the 
kitchen surfaces as the fire danced the night away.

"What... the..." Yomi stared at the impossible event. Her eyes glued to 
the glass, she knelt and felt around for the telephone, but jumped when 
she felt something wet and slimy in her fingers. "Ah!" she exclaimed.

An annoyed sea slug quickly crawled away from her. Before she knew 
it, it was several feet away, and it was gaining speed. "What the hell?!" 
Yomi stared at it in a mix of annoyance and surprise. "Wait, come 
here!"

She chased the sea slug down the corridor and up the stairs, all the way 
up to Chiyo's room. Its door was ajar, and creaking slightly. It was also 
late into the night, so all lights were off in the house, but Yomi noticed 
that a strong glare, almost like sunlight, came through the opening in 
the door. She inched cautiously towards it.

"Chiyo-chan?" she called, creaking open the door just further enough to 
cross it. Her eyes widened upon entering, as what she saw inside caused 
her breath to come still and her heart to skip a beat.

It was --or at least, that's who Yomi thought it was-- a teeny version of 
Osaka, maybe five or six years old, bouncing back and forth on a 
school chair as if it were a rocking horse. She was surrounded from all 
sides by colorful plastic spheres, exactly the kind found in playgrounds 
all over the world. Chiyo was nowhere in sight.

"O-Osaka...?" Yomi approached. Distracted, the little girl turned to face 
her but lost her balance on the chair. "Ah!" she cried as she started to 
fall. Startled, Yomi dove to the floor to catch her, but as soon as she 
touched the child's shoulders her vision was filled by blinding light. In 
an instant, a flurry of images coursed through Yomi's mind --an old and 
decrepit cabin in the middle of the woods, with a flaming red maple 
tree looming over it from a nearby hill -- a girl no older than six inside 
the cabin, watching a bright Ring of light on a TV screen -- the same 
girl standing right outside the infamous Cabin 12, clutching a familiar 
videotape before disappearing in a hiss of static.

Yomi woke up screaming, clutching her chest and panting. A few 
moments of taking in her environment reassured her that she was still 
in bed, the previous having been just another strange dream. A clock on 
the nightstand read eleven thirty, almost midnight.

She had just calmed down enough from the nightmare when she heard 
a fearfully familiar children's song. But it wasn't coming from her head. 
Puzzled, she rose from bed and followed the sound, noticing it was 
coming from downstairs.

Then she noticed the glow coming from the game room.

Her breath died in her throat once more, and she rushed towards the 
room. Flinging open the door, she froze in place when she saw Chiyo, 
sitting before the giant wall-screen, just as the cursed video displayed 
an image of a classroom with a stone well. And just before it cut to static, 
a small ladder rose out from the depths of the well, followed by a feminine 
hand grasping one of the bars.

"No!" Yomi screamed and raced for the VCR, ejecting the tape and 
violently flinging it out the open door. She then grasped Chiyo by the 
shoulders, seeing the girl's eyes wide and unmoving. "Chiyo-chan!" she 
yelled, "Chiyo-chan, why did you watch that?!"

Chiyo blinked once, her voice monotone, "Sa... Sakaki-san told me to 
stay with him..." She pointed to the side. Yomi followed the motion to 
where a stuffed doll, the orange cat-like creature, lay on the floor. A 
zipper on its back was open. Through her shock and confusion, Yomi 
cursed herself for hiding the original in such an obvious place.

Again, Chiyo blinked, then her eyes gained focus and she stared at 
Yomi. "Yomi-san?" She looked down at the cat, then at Yomi's face 
and at the silent static that ran through the wall-screen. Tears welled up 
in her eyes.

"Yomi-saaan!" Chiyo cried, hugging the older girl with all her strength. 
Yomi held her back, clenching her teeth in anger at the videotape that 
stared back at her from the darkness.

A phone in the room began to ring. Yomi gasped and swallowed, 
remorsefully letting go of Chiyo before rising to answer. She nervously 
approached the "Disconnect" button, her finger trembling, until she 
noticed the ID on the display. She quickly picked up. "Tomo? Is that 
you?"

"Yo, Yomi!" Tomo said cheerfully through the phone. "You wouldn't 
believe what I just found out! There's no control track on the tape!"

"That's not important right now," Yomi grimaced. "Tomo... she saw the 
video."

"Huh? Who did?"

"Chiyo... Chiyo-chan watched it."

There was a pause from the other end.

"Uoooooh! Did you tape it?"

Yomi flung the phone out the door.



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Azuringu Dai-O!

End of Day 4
Three days left

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