Chapter 52 The Secluded Carriage

How did Runa Kitano end up here?

This was a question not only on the mind of Toru Uesugi, but equally on Runa Kitano's own.

She had merely yawned and blinked while riding the subway, so why had all the Special Affairs Bureau officers beside her vanished?

"This is bad. This is seriously bad..."

She murmured under her breath.

Following the incident with the White Hannya just a few hours ago, Runa's vigilance was currently at an extreme high. She refused to do anything alone, making sure to have a female officer accompany her even to the restroom.

Yet even so, it was impossible to prevent this sudden, bizarre development.

She realized she had been dragged into an unknown supernatural event.

Runa knew that screaming and crying would solve nothing, and would only drag the situation further down into despair.

The greater the fear, the calmer one must remain.

She took out her phone and tried calling Fuyuyu Shizuma.

"As expected, it's a dead number..."

Undeterred, Runa kept her body almost completely still while rapidly darting her eyes to gather information about her surroundings.

—A drunken middle-aged man, a high school girl scrolling through her phone, a quiet girl in the corner with her eyes closed saying nothing at all, and a hooded figure sitting next to a girl in white.

—Near the door, a grumbling middle-aged woman and a group of chattering high school students were walking in.

So, which option looked the safest?

Cold sweat streamed down Runa's temples. Years of watching anime told her that choosing the wrong one would likely lead to a fatal end.

At that moment, the middle-aged woman marched briskly past Runa and plunked herself down right next to the high school girl.

Bizarrely, even though the woman hadn't said a single word, the high school girl turned her head with a smile and said, "There is no problem."

The woman was startled, furrowed her brow, and scolded the girl twice.

Runa thought to herself, *That woman is doomed...*

High school girl: eliminated.

While she hesitated, the high school students had already found their respective seats and begun chatting aimlessly.

A high school girl leaned against the window and complained, "The scenery outside looks no different at all. Urban legends really are fake."

This group of high school students were ordinary people!

Runa was just about to call out to them when she heard a boy with dyed blonde hair, Ryo Miyamoto, shrug and say, "No way! This is the train bound for Kisaragi Station. You must just be too careless and didn't notice it, hahaha!"

It was over.

Runa wore a blank expression. Kisaragi Station had actually appeared; wasn't walking into this as an ordinary person just marching to her death?

Yet right at that moment, a hoarse voice rang out.

"Miss," she heard the voice come from beneath the hood. "If you don't mind, there is an empty seat here."

Runa dared not hesitate, terrified the speaker might change their mind, and immediately sat down beside the hooded figure.

Because if she wanted to survive the legendary Kisaragi Station, she absolutely had to secure help from something beyond ordinary humans!

So even if this was an invitation from an evil spirit, she accepted her fate!

—Gazing at the girl sitting rigidly upright beside him, Toru Uesugi nodded.

After all, if she had chosen to sit next to any of the other entities, protecting her would have become quite troublesome.

Runa had made the right choice.

Even so, he remained puzzled as to why Runa, who had no connection whatsoever to Kisaragi Station, had appeared here.

Could her spirit-attracting constitution be acting up again?

Before Toru could dwell on it further, someone among the group of high school students let out a startled cry. "Why is it suddenly so blurry outside?!"

"Same here! I can't see anything on either side!"

"Could this train really be heading to Kisaragi Station!?"

A minor panic was about to break out.

"Hey, hey! Fog rolling in late at night is totally normal, stop scaring yourselves." Ryo Miyamoto patted his thigh and pulled out his phone. "If you're scared, I'll call my boss to come pick us up!"

Next, a busy tone indicating a disconnected number echoed from Ryo's phone.

For a moment, the train car fell dead silent, with only the rhythmic clanking of the moving train echoing in the space.

Someone suggested, "Th-then what about going to the other cars to ask?"

"It's useless."

Tomomi Maki pushed up his glasses. "I tried it while you were all chatting. The other cars look perfectly normal, but in reality, we can't open the glass partition doors at all."

"Bullshit! I'll try!"

Ryo rolled up his sleeves, a panicked expression already creeping across his face.

He kicked the seemingly fragile glass door several times to no avail, and even pressing his face against the glass to shout at the people on the other side achieved nothing.

It was as if the car they were in existed in an entirely different world.

"Wh-what do we do?"

Ryo retreated two steps in helplessness, then grabbed Maki by the shoulders. "Maki! You have a way out, you must have a way, right!"

Ignoring the commotion erupting on the other side, Toru stared at the LED screen inside the car, which read: [Passenger Count: 3].

This strange number made him perk up, because the number of people currently inside the car was clearly more than three.

Yet Toru couldn't make heads or tails of it for the moment, so he simply stayed seated and waited for the train to reach the next station to see what would change.

As time ticked by, even the previously unfazed middle-aged woman began to feel that something was wrong. She stood up and muttered, "Why hasn't it reached a station after a whole twenty minutes?"

At that moment, the high school girl beside her turned her head once more, wearing a bizarre smile.

"Who knows?"

The woman still failed to notice anything amiss with the girl. "If you don't know, then you don't know. Nobody asked you anyway."

Several more minutes passed. Just as the fear among the high school students was about to morph into outright panic, the train slowly decelerated, and an announcement chimed.

"Next stop, Sumidagawa High School..."

Ryo, who had been slumped on the floor, brightened up immediately. He exclaimed, "The train's stopping, and it's stopping at Sumidagawa! My house is right in Sumidagawa!"

At these words, almost everyone, including the middle-aged woman, crowded toward the carriage doors, preparing to rush off the train at the earliest opportunity.

Although ordinary people only knew of ghosts and spirits through urban legends, the urge to immediately flee the scene when trouble struck was always correct.

Toru pondered for a moment and also stood up.

Since the train would be stopped for a few minutes, he decided to stand by the door and observe the outside world a little.

Before he could take a step, however, Toru felt the hem of his jacket being tugged.

Runa trembled and said, "It doesn't look any different outside. It's, it's best not to get off."

She was considerably more observant than those kids who had come specifically for a test of courage only to have their nerves completely shattered.

"I'm just taking a look."

Toru noticed that the high school girl had also stood up, appearing ready to disembark.

Thus, he deliberately positioned himself directly behind the girl, waiting for an opportunity to act.

With a hiss, the train came to a complete halt.

The seemingly impenetrable carriage doors slowly slid open to both sides.

"Quick, get off!"

Someone shouted, and the few high school students and the middle-aged woman who had gathered by the door rushed off the train almost instantly.

But Toru heard it clearly.

That voice belonged precisely to the high school girl standing right before him.

And at that moment, she was slowly stepping off the train with a strange smile, blocking the exact center of the carriage doorway.

Amidst a wet, squirming sound, a total of five elongated heads extended outward, staring in unison at the crowd that had stepped off the train.