The island (chapter 2)

                                                      The island (chapter 2)

(This is part of a multi-chapter story, if you haven't read the first one, go to https://pastebin.com/DAVKrwkq or click my name 'MREN' on the top left, to continue where you're at in the story!)

Hisao: 'All set?'

Hisao looked at the group, making sure everyone was ready; Hanako was holding the knife in front of her with both hands, like she would if the murderer was actually there, and she was defending her own life. Shizune had hers at the waist, same as Hisao. Lilly had refused to take one, and while Misha did grab a small one, she looked so overwhelmed by the situation that she could be just as likely to stab herself or one of her friends, than to defend herself, if need be. Emi though...
Emi had a strange expression on her face. A murderous look in her eyes. Anyone who ever saw her on the track knew that expression, but they had never seen her that focused, even during a race. She didn't seem to even be aware she was holding a knife in her right hand... But from the look of her, she might not even need one; If they found out who did that to her friend, she could just as well beat him to death with her bare hands.

Shizune: [We will go room by room, and lock them behind us when we're done.]

She waited a moment to allow Misha to translate, but she seemed so out of it, that Hisao did it for her, and she kept going;

Shizune: [No one leaves the group for ANY reason. If you have to use the restroom, we'll all go.]

They had seen enough horror movies to know how it usually went; The group ends up splitting for a stupid reason or the other, and someone dies. Once Hisao was done relaying her instructions, they went in the first room.

The first thought that someone mentioned upon hearing about Shizune's theory on a murder - and not a suicide - was to just leave the island, of course... But with the storm raging on, and the bridge raised up, they couldn't make it to the other side; Shizune was confident enough she could swim across the water, even during the storm, and perhaps Emi as well, even without legs... But Hisao had a weak heart, Lilly was blind and might get carried away by the current, and while Hanako and Misha didn't have any physically impairing disability, they probably weren't strong swimmers to begin with.

So, swimming to the other side wasn't an option, unless they were to separate the group, and Shizune wasn't having it. She didn't want to leave anyone behind, with a possible murderer around. And so they stayed, but they weren't going to wait passively for something that might or might not happen; If there really was someone on the island, someone who might have been squatting the house in their absence, Shizune wanted to hunt him down. With everyone - but Lilly - armed with a knife, they could overpower anyone.

The first room they searched was Rin's room... And they already had problems there; Emi categorically refused to enter the room where her friend died, and Shizune didn't want to leave her alone, not even for a few minutes. So Misha and Lilly stayed with her in the hallway, in front of the door so Shizune, Hisao and Hanako could see them at all time from inside the room. This meant going back on Shizune's "no group separation" rule, but other than forcefully dragging Emi in the room kicking and screaming, there was no other way. They were only a couple feet away, it should be fine.

They had moved Rin onto her bed and covered her with her sheets so they wouldn't have to look at her... But after looking under the bed, Hanako and Hisao seemed to have the same idea, as they were both looking at the bed itself, pondering their next move; Both being avid readers, they had long ago read the same old "murderer mystery" novel, in which the killer was hiding among the dead, waking up at night to commit his murders. Hisao looked at Hanako, but no matter how she was thinking the same thing, he knew she would never dare pull the sheets to take a look... Hisao would have to do it.

He pulled the sheets, and confirmed it was still Rin under there, and not a murderer taking her place after moving her body somewhere else; It was a silly thought, but they couldn't leave any area unchecked. They were also looking for clues, anything that could indicate someone else had ever been in the house, but they didn't find anything; They weren't exactly detectives, none of them had any clue what they were doing.

The search of the first room took them fifteen minutes, but most of those were spent walking around aimlessly, when they realized there just weren't many places someone could hide in a room.

Hisao: 'There's nothing there...'

"Nothing". Everyone in the group was talking like that... "Nothing there". "Look for something". "Did you see anything?". It's as if they were afraid to even use "no one there", "look for someone", "did you see anyone?". Like they were pretending to look for something, and not someone. Like they didn't want to refer to a person, so they could pretend there really wasn't anyone else in there.

They left the room, and Shizune locked the door behind her.

Shizune: [Emi's room next.]

Hisao translated for the group, but Emi protested;

Emi: 'Why my room next? Why not yours, Shizune? It's the largest one.'

This time, Misha and Hisao both signed her words back to Shizune, who looked at them in confusion, unsure which one to look at.

Shizune: [We'll do my room last.]
Misha: [Why?]
Shizune: [Because if we don't find anything, we're all sleeping in my room tonight.]

This settled the debate, and when her words were spoken to the group, they all went in Emi's room. This one went much faster, not only because they were all six inside this time, but they also were more used and knew where to look, and didn't waste as much time. Room cleared, door locked. Misha's room cleared, door locked.
The bedrooms didn't take them long to clear, but the rest of the house took them a good part of the morning; These rooms weren't all separated by walls, and Shizune insisted about having someone watch to make sure no one moved from one to the next as they cleared a room. It'd be silly to look through the house, just to have someone hide in a room they already cleared...
It was almost noon by the time they were done.

Shizune: [Let's eat something.]

No one had much appetite, and no one felt like cooking anything, but they had to eat anyway. Hisao and Misha grabbed some fruits and headed to the table, but Shizune stopped them;

Shizune: [Not there. Here.]

She pointed to a couch, in the lounge.

Hisao: [Why there?]
Shizune: [We cleared the house. We're alone in there. On the couch, we can see both the front door and the back door. If someone breaks a window to come in, we'll know.]

So this was for safety... They all sat on one of two couches, but only four of them ate anything; Shizune and Hisao shared a few apples, while Emi sat next to them, eating more than the rest of the group combined, as she often did. On the other couch, Misha had an orange, but Lilly and Hanako didn't want anything, even when the others insisted they ate something. When they were all done, Emi was the first to speak.

Emi: 'What now?'
Hisao: 'Well, if it's not inside the house...'

He never finished his sentence, but everyone caught his meaning well enough. Shizune didn't need Misha's translation, she was a step ahead, already grabbing the keys to lock the front door after them.

Hanako: 'H-How big is that p-p-place?'

Hisao translated back and forth for the group this time;

Hisao: 'Not so big. It'll definitely take us the rest of the day, but we should cover everything. We only have until six or seven... Past that, it'll be too dark to see anything.'

Truth be told, they might not even see anything even in the afternoon; The storm was still on, and they could barely see more than two hundred feet away. They didn't have much of a choice though, so after taking the umbrellas again, and making sure everyone had a knife - Lilly took one this time - they went out.
Shizune signed the instructions for Hisao to translate, like an army officer would command the troops;

Hisao: 'We'll be ten or twelve meters apart. This way we can cover sixty meters wide, and comb this place in no time. Shizune will be on the left, I'm next to her. Hanako and Lilly in the middle. Misha next, and Emi you have the right. Everyone got it?'

They all nodded. It was the most logical configuration; Shizune needed someone to translate, Lilly couldn't see, and the only reason she was there is that they couldn't leave her at home... So they gave her - and Hanako next to her, to help if she needed anything - the least important spots. Emi and Shizune being the most physically fit, they had the most dangerous spots. And that left Hisao next to Shizune, and Misha on the last spot. Shizune signed some more;

Hisao: 'No one changes place in the group for any reason. No one stops or runs ahead for any reason. If you do have to stop, tell the group and everyone stops. If you see something, you don't get closer to check it out; You tell the group. No one moves away from the next person.'

They all looked at Shizune, waiting for more instructions, but when none came, they all started walking slowly ahead. Umbrellas in one hand, knife in the other. Some of them with umbrellas, anyway; As they had only four, Lilly was left without one, same as Hanako. It was less important for them to protect themselves from the rain, as Lilly was blind, and Hanako was next to her in the middle, so she was less likely to see something, than the ones on the sides. The only other option would've been to pair people together, but that would mean less ground covered by the group, or they'd have to walk further apart, which Shizune wasn't having.

And so they walked, feeling a little silly, out of their element; They didn't really know what they were looking for, other than... someone just walking around with a length of rope? They stopped once in a while, to look at a suspicious thing on the ground, but it always ended up being nothing important, or something Shizune knew about; Usually, one of Hideaki's toys from when he visited the place, or something Jigoro threw away. When they reached the other side of the island, and the phone, they tried it again, but no change there.

This went on for hours, then the rain suddenly stopped, though the wind was still strong. They were all so tired, it took some of them a few minutes to even realize it wasn't raining anymore, and close their umbrellas. The rest of the walk would've been faster due to the higher visibility, but at this point, they were all walking a bit slower... With Hisao, Lilly and Hanako walking a lot slower. Shizune didn't want to slow down, because it was already getting late... And Emi didn't want to slow down, because, well, when did Emi ever want to slow down? The problem was that the rest of the group could not follow, and they were starting to spread out too much, despite Shizune's best efforts to get them to keep the line.

Thankfully they reached the other side of the island on the last area to clear shortly after, and, without anyone needing to speak the words, they turned around again, and walked back to the house.
Once inside, they all changed into fresh clothes, after drying themselves with clean towels.

Lilly: 'What should we do next?'

Hisao signed her words to Shizune, as she was seemed to be the de facto leader of the group, by the fact that her family owned the place, and that she seemed to be the most resourceful as well. He added his own thoughts as well;

Hisao: [Should we search the house again? Or walk the island some more?]
Shizune: [No. It's pointless.]
Hisao: [What do you mean it's pointless? We found nothing...]
Shizune: [And that's why it's pointless. Either there is nothing to be found, or there is something but we probably won't find it even if we search again.]

Hisao was about to argue more, but she continued;

Shizune: [It's too late anyway. We only have one or two hours of light left, and I don't want to be caught outside in the dark.]
Hisao: [Fine... What then?]

Shizune pointed to the kitchen; She was right, everyone was hungry now. At least the walk made everyone hungry enough to eat something, if nothing else.
Lilly cooked again, with Hanako and Misha helping, while everyone sat on the table so they could see them. They all ate in silence, everyone waiting for someone else to speak up.
Shizune looked very pensive, and Hisao picked up on it;

Hisao: [Is something wrong?]

"Other than the fact that Rin died" was on everyone's mind, but they didn't need to say it.

Shizune: [Me.]
Hisao: [You? You what?]
Shizune: [I'm wrong. I was wrong.]
Hisao: [What do you mean?]

Shizune stood up and faced the group, waiting for Hisao and Misha to be ready to translate her words; Whatever she was about to say, it was important. With Hisao sitting at Shizune's side, Misha had the better angle to see her hands, so she translated her words;

Misha: 'I was wrong. I mean, Shicchan, not me.'

She paused between every sentence, waiting for Shizune to sign some more.

Misha: 'I don't know what happened for sure, only that I was wrong.'
Misha: 'Perhaps I was wrong, and Rin really did tie the noose with her socks on.'
Misha: 'Perhaps I was wrong to search the house and the island that way, and there really is a murderer out there somewhere, but we just couldn't find him.'

This time there was a much longer pause, like Shizune was pondering her words carefully, leaving everyone waiting for her next sentence... But when it finally came, they wished they could unhear it;

Misha: 'Perhaps I was wrong, and there's no one else on this island but the six of us. Which doesn't necessarily means there's no murderer around.'

Some people in the group weren't quick thinkers, and it took a few of them some time to make sense of Shizune's word, relayed by Misha...
But when they did, they all looked at one another, measuring Shizune's claim, against the memories they've shared with their friends over the years.
They wanted nothing more than to deny this possibility.
They wanted nothing more than this situation to be a bad dream they'd wake up from.

End of chapter 2.
Chapter 3: https://pastebin.com/jhmm8vrh