Now I know it's you [KyouHaba]

Chapter 15

The village was even quieter that morning. The leader did a great job explaining last night events to just woken up people, who seemed to share his resignation. Yahaba felt incredibly sorry for the people. He could see they were scared, that they asked themselves why even Hunters couldn't help them stop this killing spree. It was infuriating and heartbreaking at the same time.

There was no reason to ask people if they saw anything during the night when they saw it with their own eyes. Besides, Yahaba doubted anyone would want to talk with them after what happened. And he didn't blame them. It just solidified his decision to call for the help of other Hunters by the next day.

He sat by the door in their shack and watched the people gathering in small groups around the village, chatting with each other as if nothing happened. But their tense faces told a different story. No doubt some of them were thinking about leaving the village.

"It would be better if they left."

Yahaba sighed as Kyotani's warm form settled next to him.

"But some of them have nowhere else to go. They are stuck here with a killer, and they know there will be more death if we don't solve this fast."

"Do we even have anything besides the missing hearts?" grumbled Kyotani, his shoulder lightly brushing against Yahaba's.

"It is probably someone from the village who knows a lot about people here. So they are either great listener or observer."

"Or a stalker."

"The victims were home alone when they died, and the killer waited until the night before the other people living in the house were supposed to come back. It somehow got into the house without anyone else noticing, and killed its victim without any mess or noise. It tore their hearts out of their chest and let them bleed out. And then it disappeared without a trace."

"And you still think it's not a demon," stated Kyotani with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm telling you the lines were working."

"I'm not saying they weren't. But couldn't it just ... I don't know teleport inside the house? Or summon or whatever."

Yahaba shook his head.

"Hogo protects the whole house, so even if the demon summoned itself inside, it would hurt it and prevented it from moving further. So no, I won't believe it's a demon unless it shows me how it got around the protections."

They stayed silent, each of them lost in their own thoughts. It was an unusually serene moment for them, and Yahaba soon found himself drawn to the warm presence next to him. He'd give anything to just be able to lean more into Kyotani's shoulder, to feel the other's strong arm around him and listen to the gruff voice telling him everything will work out fine. But that wasn't going to happen, and he knew that.

"What about the Hayashi girl?" spoke up Kyotani suddenly, spitting out the name as if it was the most disgusting thing in the world. "You said it was small, right? And she is what, about 150 centimetres? She told us about the alleged secrets, and she's a weirdo without a doubt. And we never saw her around unless we talked about the murders."

"But why would they let her in in the middle of the night? I mean, people usually fear the strange."

"Maybe they really believe it's just her wild fantasy acting up? Or maybe they are used to it. We don't know how long they've been living here."

"That's right," said Yahaba slowly and stood up, an idea flashing in his mind. "That's right, we don't. Come on, we need some answers."

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