Mayu

Chapter 9: Zoshigaya Cemetery

      "Ketchup is the stupidest thing I ever saw! Ever!" Kira remarked angrily.

"Actually, Ketchup is a table sauce, Kira." Azumi stated as she adjusted her glasses.

"The Takamiya family is still alive, girls. Let's go to that bedroom." said Marina as she led her friends to follow her. They arrived in the same master bedroom where they listened many voices coming from inside.

"Don't touch my shoes! I'm telling you!" Tamayo shouted as she struggled to avoid being pulled out. Jiki Fusako, still refusing to listen, ended up removing her sneakers in process. The athletic girl started to crawl her way out of the bed before Jiki Fusako went under the bed and pulled her back. "Hey!" She cried as they started to fight each other, forming a cloud of dust. Their heads and legs appeared out of the fight cloud as they kept punching and kicking.

"What's going on?" Mayu asked.

"It's Tamayo." Marina stated as she kept looking through the keyhole door. In the middle of the chaos, Tamayo finally crawled out of the cloud dust, unharmed.

"Whew! What a relief!" She said to herself as she looked to her orange underwear and smiled in embarrasment before reaching for her removed purple pants. She pulled the pants out from under the bed and has put them on before Jiki Fusako disappeared mysteriously as Mayu and her friends went to the bedroom to see her. "Oh, hey!"

"Gosh, Tamayo, what happened to you?" Hisa asked as she stared at her pants in a moment. "Jiki Fusako took your athletic pants off, tell us what do you saw."

"I was having a fight under the bed. Jiki Fusako is really tough to me, I tell ya! I saw red paint in the bed. Right there!"

Marina checked the bed and realized that Jiki Fusako painted it to look like blood. "The red paint..." She suspected as she opened the closed and saw a open red paint can with an paintbrush above it. "I don't believe it! Jiki Fusako painted the bed!"

"How is it possible?" Hisa asked.

"We gotta go to school and tell everyone about it!" Azumi replied.

"We? We're solving the mystery of our missing friend, Azumi!"

"Let's see...Marina, remember that cemetery thing?" Hisa asked.

"What cemetery thing?" Marina asked.

"Zoshigaya Cemetery, girl. Fusako and I went to see my deceased great-grandfather who is my dad's grandfather. I saw many flowers left and we sadly talked to each other in the great-grandpa's tomb about his early days. Until, all of a sudden, Jiki Fusako appeared mysteriously and pulled out a fake black rose from her pocket and put it next to another tomb." Hisa remembered.

"An cemetery? Where are we going to find one? This is crazy!" Kira has put her hands in her pockets.

Some moments later, Mayu and her friends have left the Toden-Zoshigaya station to look for clues in Zoshigaya Cemetery and find Hisa's late great-grand father's tomb and the black rose.

"Is This Zoshigaya? Looks like one of the neighborhoods in Toshima." said Tamayo.

"Of course, it is." Mayu stated as she gestured her friends to follow Marina. The girls walked in the streets of Toshima and went to the Zoshigaya Cemetery, the public cemetery in Minami-Ikebukuro. "Zoshigaya Cemetery."

"OK, girls. This is where the fake black rose is there." Marina stated. "Mayu, Azumi, you go with me. Tamayo, you go with Kira and Hisa."

"What?! I want to go with you where I can beat you all day long! Literally!" Kira refused.

"Come on, Kira-chan!" Hisa slapped her. "Let's go!"

The girls has splitted up in trios to find clues in the cemetery. Kira muttered to herself, complaining that she would join Marina to go with her. Apparently, they saw some tombs where the deceased people are buried. The trio saw the tombs where Ogata Gekko, Lafcadio Hearn, Takio Izawa and others are buried as well. Hisa went to the right section as she saw many others.

"If Jiki Fusako is plotting something, I'll call Marina," she remarked to herself as she noticed an Himawari on a tomb. "An Himawari." Hisa picked it up the Himawari and observed it. "Hmm...probably, there's nothing bad to that thing." She removed one petal and prepared to remove the rest, but hesitated. "What am I doing?!" Hisa threw the Himawari and focused to find the clue.

"There are many tombs around here, Mayu." Marina remarked.

"And those are deceased people." said Mayu. "Where's that tomb with the black rose?"

"Those tombs got flowers and roses to the loved ones." Azumi brushed her hair. "If they buried some flowers, this means that we don't have a chance."

"Wow, really, Azumi? I never had grandparents who are the loved ones."

"Psst!" Marina whispered to Mayu and Azumi, "Girls! There it is!" She said as she showed them the tomb where Hisa's late great-grandfather is buried. "The black rose is not here, but I think that I remember that his name is Masaki Aochi." She stated as the china doll and the blonde approached to the tomb.

"Where's the black rose?"

"Right here!"

Moments later, the girls are all next to another tomb where the fake black rose stood. Marina picked it up the rose and realized that it's fake. "The fake black rose. Still no signal of Fusako. I wonder where she is in that city." She said to herself.