Before Kaguya's knuckles could touch the door
Creak.
The door slowly swung open from the inside.
Standing there was a man who looked to be in his forties. He wore a wrinkled set of loungewear, his hair a disheveled mess, his eye sockets sunken, his face so pale it held no trace of blood. His entire being radiated a nervous, haggard instability.
It was Class A's homeroom teacher, Murata.
When he saw Kaguya at the door, a clear flash of panic crossed his eyes.
"Shi… Shinomiya-san? It is so late… what are you doing here?"
"Murata-sensei," Kaguya said coldly, getting straight to the point, "there is something I wish to ask you. About the 'Midnight Game' that has been spreading around the academy lately, do you… know anything about it?"
The words "Midnight Game" hit Murata instantly.
The color drained from his face, turning it an even uglier shade of gray.
"I… I do not know! I do not know anything!"
He shrieked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, throwing his arms wide to block the doorway, trying desperately to keep them from entering.
"You are not welcome here! Leave at once, right now!"
His reaction was answer enough.
Natsume did not even bother wasting words on him.
He stepped forward, and under Murata's terrified stare, casually reached out and pushed.
The push looked light and effortless, yet it carried a brute force the other man could not resist.
"Ah!"
Murata screamed as he was flung backward, stumbling several steps before falling heavily onto the floor.
Expressionless, Natsume walked straight into the room.
"You…!"
Kaguya flinched at his roughness, but with Murata's guilt laid bare, she had no time left to scold him. She rushed in after Natsume, Ai and Yashiro close behind.
The sight that greeted them all left them frozen.
The living room was a complete mess, clutter piled everywhere. A sour stench of rotting food hung in the air.
But the most eye-catching thing was at the very center of the room.
Where a coffee table should have been, there stood instead a large, upright freezer taller than a person, humming softly as it ran, completely out of place amid the chaos.
Through the Six Eyes, Natsume could already see the dense cursed energy inside the freezer.
Without a moment's hesitation, he walked up and pulled it open.
A blast of white mist rushed out, freezing cold and thick with the metallic stink of blood.
Kaguya, who had followed right behind him, glanced inside on reflex.
In that instant, her ruby eyes contracted to pinpoints.
The blood drained from her face all at once.
"Ah!"
A scream tore out of the genius young lady's throat, raw enough to pierce eardrums, soaked in absolute terror.
Inside the huge freezer, a female corpse was curled up, frozen stiff, wearing a red dress.
Her hair was dripping wet. Her face was still twisted into the expression of unbearable fear she had felt at the moment of death.
And her lips…
The lips that should have been painted with lipstick had been neatly, cleanly cut away with something sharp, leaving behind a mangled, bloody wound.
That wound was identical to what Ai had seen on the lipless woman in the mirror.
With the corpse exposed, something in Murata finally broke.
He stopped trying to argue or pretend. Instead, a laugh burst from deep in his throat, shrill and broken, like a screeching night owl.
"Keh keh keh keh… you saw it… you all saw it…"
His eyes twisted with warped resentment as he stared at them and howled,
"It reflected on you! Just like it reflected on my wife back then! None of us can escape, none of us! Hahaha… hahahaha!"
As the manic laughter grew louder, his whole body began to convulse violently. Foam poured from his mouth. His eyes rolled back and he collapsed, unconscious.
The moment Murata fell, Yashiro, who had been on guard the whole time, suddenly narrowed her eyes.
She had noticed it.
In the rigid, frozen hand of the woman in the red dress, something was clutched tightly, pressed against her palm with a corpse's death grip.
A small, old hand mirror, its frame carved with intricate, ancient floral patterns.
From the antique mirror, a faint pulse of cursed energy leaked outward.
Without missing a single one, it fell upon the bodies of every person still standing in the room.