The bathroom was filling up with steam; Yuri had drawn Chikai's bath, just as Yakimura had asked her to. She was at no liberty to refuse, after all, Chikai somehow owned her at this point. Yuri knew if she spoke a word of discontent or reveal a truth revolving around Hikari's murder, she would be left for dead.

"Do you still want that rice pudding..?" Yuri said softly, wiping her hands clean of the water on her fingers. Chikai was over by the window, pulling off her clothes and wiping her eyes.

"Fuck no, leave me alone," she snarled back, giving her a warning tone in her eyes. They spoke quietly to herself as Yuri winced and pulled away.

"I-I'm sorry..." She murmured quietly. "I-I shouldn't have disturbed you..." Yuri quickly retreated to the door; Chikai had a look of disgust on her face as she snarled and growled lightly at her, causing her to gulp and leave for the exit. There was something about her that Yuri was completely petrified of, something that caused her to run and retreat back down the hallway to her safe haven.

The police had left, the body was taken away in a bag in the back of an ambulance, and Yuri felt part of her soul had been ripped away from her. Now, at this rate, as she walked along her own path of darkness consuming every bit of her imaginary world, Yuri began to lose herself in her thoughts.

It was March. The streets were still full of fresh snow, though, admittedly, most of it began melting in the spring days. There was a woman with light brown streaks in her hair. She was walking home from work that day, making her way down to the train station on Nakahara street no later than six o'clock. When she arrived, the sun was setting. A beautiful sunset had cascaded itself among the horizon, one the woman sat at the platform to admire.

Surely, her thoughts were mild and tender; she began to think of her child, sitting in her bedroom at home with ribbons in her hair. She was so sweet and kind, so childlike and innocent, that it put a smile on the woman's face. Oh how much she adored her daughter, running with the wind and butterflies among the daylight. When the flowers bloomed, that was her most favorite time of all. She loved to plant and tend to the plants with her, oftentimes laughing at the names her daughter would give them. She remembered all the nights she read her most favorite works by Kyoko Izumi. This seemed to reassure the particular woman and the longtime depressive, traumatic thoughts swimming through her head. Yet, despite this, it didn't seem to help all that well.

Her eyes began to drift up to the sky, and she watched her breath scatter itself among the clouds. Oh how lovely it was, such a beautiful sight. The thought of life, the thought of another life, was so fragile and beautiful that the woman began to lose herself in tears. She desired another chance to live, another opportunity to forget her sorrows, perhaps even meet the man in another life. How could she bear to see another moment of her pain? For her lover had gone, she was far too distraught to ever recover from such heartache.
These thoughts weren't from nowhere; Yuri was pulling off her clothes as she looked out the window to undress for the night. The teardrops raining from heaven reminded her of this woman, they reminded her of the story and the severe pain, hatred, and forthcoming sadness it brought.

The woman dropped her bag and stared empty at the tracks. There would be an ending to this pain as she stumbled from the platform into the snow awaiting her quite gruesome fate. She would find her neck outstretched on the tracks as she sealed her eyes shut and ventured far away.

Yuri stopped herself from continuing; she could hear the horn, the coffee cup shattering on the floor at midnight, and the radio blaring her most favorite program from her childhood. Most of all, she remembered turning around to her grandmother, standing in the doorway talking to a man dressed in blue, and the tears streaming down her face. These visions all came back to her; that day was already seven years ago, yet, even though she was just a child, she recalled all too well.

The funeral was confusing; she didn't understand the big black box going into a furnace, or the flowers. She recalled quite innocently tugging on her grandmother's sleeve with her favorite toy and asking when the woman'd be back. Grief-stricken, the old woman simply patted her shoulders and told her, "In Heaven, my dear Yurippe," before turning back to the furnace. It was a beautiful spring day when they went to the church three blocks away from their house. Yuri remembered holding her grandmother's hand as she turned around and watched two men carry a small little urn of ashes.

She recalled sitting in the front pew of the holy place, swinging her legs back and forth as the priest blessed the remains inside, and recalled hearing the young man whisper a few words of prayer. Yuri wasn't entirely sure of what had been going on, all she could remember was sitting there playing with her doll as she hummed quietly to herself among the aroma of flowers. The stained glass windows were especially pretty that day, some snow still powerding up the edges of them.

By the time Yuri and her grandmother had reached the cemetery, it was about seven o'clock in the evening. Yuri remembered running around the gravestones, brushing her doll against the markers as she hummed to herself. Then, she began to recall the man from the church standing there, splashing water on the box as he murmured in a language Yuri couldn't quite understand. She was in her own dream, her own reality far different than the truth. She lived in a world in her mind where her mother still tucked her into bed and kissed her goodnight, despite the fact that this was far from the truth.

Yuri simply just smiled and didn't believe, after all, things would be much easier if she did that, right?

She would be sadly mistaken; things got worse, Yuri could paint the memories on a canvas and it would still be mediocre compared to the senseless guilt and sadness she had towards her mother's death. Sitting in her mother's bed in the space they shared, examining the poems hiding in the pages of her books, it all seemed to bring her more despair. There was a great sense of pain and sorrow scribbled into the pages, and thus, Yuri found no one to blame but herself. She wasn't sure if she should hate her, love her, or pretend as though her mother simply never existed. Subsequently, Yuri hid her sadness with work and school, chores and helping her grandmother tend to the garden and whatnot.

As Yuri laid down in the covers of Yakimura's house and Yakimura's bedsheets, she began a cinema of even more memories. She began to remember sweeping her neighbors porches and her grandmother's declining health. She played back the memoirs of the woman's cough and how they couldn't scrape enough money together for a doctor's visit. At that time, Yuri'd begun to sneak into churches after the woman had fallen asleep, and pray as best as she knew how in front of the statues scattered amuck.
Now though, she felt as though her prayers were ignored, or as if she hadn't worked hard enough. Yuri took a moment and thought of Hikari again, feeling overwhelming emotions as she looked out the window.

"She's really gone...I'm such an idiot!" She began to sob, feeling hopelessly sorrowful.

It was at that moment, as Yuri drifted off into her sleep, that overwhelming amounts of dark thoughts began to flood her head. They were far more sinister than anything she'd thought of before, Karlheinz could sense them, and he began to await an opportunity arising.

"I could....kill myself. Yeah...I'll kill myself. After all, I'm no good here. Hikari is gone, she probably hates me, she probably wants me to go to Hell...What if I do, though? What if I really do go to Hell? I'll never be able to see Mama again...I'll never be able to hug her or kiss her..! I won't ever get to say goodbye or tell her I'm sorry! I wanna die! I don't wanna be here anymore! The thought of living another day when everyone hates me is unbearable..! I just want to sleep forever and ever, no one will be able to find me then...I'll stay in my own sacred place...it will be me and mama...forever and ever."

By the next moon, Karlheinz was aware of a great deal of things. Winter had come alas in the human world, and, watchful and careful in his act, he spectated upon the estate in which Yuri had lived in. He knew his chance would be coming, for it grew closer and closer as the same as Yuri's months leading up to her sixteenth birthday.

Chikai began to notice many things around the house; Yuri was sensitive, shy, and far more emotional around her than she had first been the year ago. It was highly suspicious to her. The police returned in the forthcoming days to search more aspects of the house, yet, Yuri retreated to her special place by the lake whenever these incidents rose.

The snow was piling up outside by now, and Yuri slid on the ice down by the river whenever she could; after all, she had no reason to stay at Yakimura's dreadful, cursed house after her chores were finished.

How she loved walking through the frigid December wind and feel a gust of air on her frozen lips. She bundled herself up in the warmest sweater she owned, which was no more than a thin overlay, and would become enveloped in her thoughts. Yuri pulled her shoes off when she reached the crystalized, magnificent black ice. She would slip and slide around in laughter before returning as dusk fell over the horizon, and still continued to think of her mother.

"Mama used to take me ice skating in the winter..." Yuri thought to herself as she hiked back up the hill and through the dead leaves as the sun set. "Yeah...I skinned my knees a lot. I tripped and fell too.." She laughed a little to herself.

Then, making her way through the little threads of ice drifting tree-to-tree and tangling Yuri's pale pink bow, she began to think of Christmas. It was coming soon, she knew she'd be alone, and the thought became unsettling, especially since she was worried Chikai wouldn't be tagging along with the other girls.

As she made her way up the hill back to the estate, there was a man in a long black coat standing at the top. His hair was jet black and waved itself in the wind and ice, and a piercing set of grey eyes greeted Yuri as she marched her way through the snow.

"Hatori, right? My name is Tseng Murakami, I'm with the Kunikida police department, I'd like a few words with you,"

Yuri froze as though she were a glass of water in the frigid winter air. She stared at the man and his appearance with a slight sense of anxiety. Her lips were a shade of purple from the cold, and Tseng could sense it. He began to walk along in the opposite direction as Yuri followed behind.

"I've still got folders of your family down at the station," he said, the snow scrunching beneath his feet. "I know things about you," Tseng began. "I know things about your family, and your mother. This entire ordeal with Miss Owari must be hard for a girl like you,"

Yuri pushed her fingers further into her pockets as she watched Tseng make his way up the slope. She began to feel uncomfortable, and the man sighed sharply and breathed in the fresh air, reaching into his coat. After a moment he pulled a lighter and cigarette out.

"That's why the department and I wanted to ask you a few questions. We spoke around, heard a few things from some of the girls in your room. Said you were cleaning some stairs and were being punished sometime around when Owari vanished."

The thought of it all made Yuri feel sickish. He was on to her, and she could feel it. She froze in place for a moment as Tseng walked along. "Perhaps you could give us some insight on that night, Hatori. I'd like to believe your mother didn't die for nothing,"

After a second, Yuri found herself running; she was fleeing from a great deal of things, not just the man in the dark trench-coat and his cigarette. Her hair blew in the wind as Tseng turned back to catch her.

She darted off through the snow, shaking and shivering in pain, though Yuri hadn't the faintest idea of where she was going. Her lips trembled in the ice, her fingertips freezing as he feet trudged through the weather.

"Stop right there!" Tseng began to pace after her as Yuri darted through the trees. His cigarette fell before his boots, burning into the snow and melting a bit of it.

The area was trapped and covered in the power; Yuri couldn't see where she was going until she arrived at the banks of the river again, the black ice shining off the setting sun. Tseng was snatching back tree branches to get to her, and, scared and desperate, Yuri began to step onto the ice. After a moment she adjusted and started slipping and sliding before Tseng arrived at the banks.

"Yuri! Don't be a fool! The ice is too thin to support you! Listen, just come on back and we'll go back up and talk, alright?" Tseng attempted to negotiate with Yuri, though she was having none of it.

"How dare you talk about my mother that way!" She screamed loudly in an oncoming collision of emotions and tears. "Y-you leave her alone! You stupid, stupid, stupid, man!"

Tseng saw her moving backwards on the ice; the man slowly attempted to follow after her. "I shouldn't have said that, I'm sorry, now please, please come back over here," he pleaded slightly, though he had no reason to specifically care for Yuri other than his job required it of him.

Yuri could see her breath floating like clouds into the air; she felt cold as she stepped backwards. The tears on her face had stuck to her cheeks as ice, and, going backwards on the water, she shook her head again.

"You're not sorry so don't even act like you are!" She cried.

Yuri let out a final scream before something changed; Tseng seemed to be ascending higher, and it baffled her for a moment. It was as if all time had stopped as a cracking sound began to seal her fate in the depths of the black lake, for it was calling. It all happened in a second before the piercing needles and overflowing pain began to consume her body. Then, it became oh so very cold, and oh so very dark.