Onto the weird next chapter~ I suppose I should start being more fluffy and creative with this story.

DISCLAIMER: Vocaloid's not mine Nippah~! (contains traces of Higurashi.) And Ryuunizawa is not a real town/city. Sadly, maybe that's a good thing I don't know.

Rin's POV

I felt a hand grab my own before I could take another step to head out the door. I grit my teeth.

"What do you mean?" Len demands.

"..."

"I know you have something to say."

"...I just don't want to involve anybody okay?" I try to block out a tear trickle but it was vain. Len doesn't say anything, he just keeps on holding my hand. I quickly brush the tear away with my sleeve as I turn back to him, my head down. Why does he care anyways?

"Let me just hear you out," Len suggests.

"..."

"It's okay. Really," he pleads.

After quite a long while, I say, "...I don't want to die."

"What..."

"June 12, 1982. I'm going to die. I don't know how, or when exactly. I've just been cursed since that day. Because that's the Death Anniversary. Kagamine, please. Somehow, I need help. But I can't ask for anyone's help," I spill some words out quickly.

"I-I help you! You won't die! I-"

"And how do you plan on saving me?"

"...Well..."

I smile a little bit, "Kagamine, it's not something you can change. This is my fate. And yours, is to live after the Cotton Washing," I pause before continuing. "The day after my death, June 13, keep a close eye on her."

"On who...?"

"Because if you don't...then it'll be a shame to your name," I mutter, pushing my black-rimmed glasses up my nose.

"Rin what're you-"

I squeeze his hand. What should I do? Should I make him swear he won't tell anyone? I wasn't supposed to tell anyone anyways! The damn idiot... Now they'll just want to kill me more.

Len's POV

I stare at the girl with shining lens.

Rin's going to be killed?

Wait, shouldn't the police be handling this...? But, why would she say 'again?' And...I just moved here, so what is this Cotton Washing thing?

I left Rin later on in the day to let her be alone for little while. I called up Mikuo.

"Hello?" I called.

"'Tis I, great Mikuo Hatsune at thy service and how may I entertain you peasant today?"

"MIKUO!" Bang... That's all I heard.

And then, "OWW MIKU!"

"Hellloooo?" I nearly yell.

"Oh, Leeenn! What's up bro?" Mikuo asks in a ragged voice.

"I just moved here and I don't know many-"

"Yep, newbie."

"Right, so, what is the Cotton Washing?"

"...Well, there is a huuuuuge history behind that holiday, so, it'll take a little while to explain. Why don't you come over?" Was that..., hesitation I hear in Mikuo's voice?

OOO

I flopped onto Mikuo's huge pillow cushion and waited for him to start as he and Miku, his sister, opened up snack bags.

"Cotton Washing Day, huh? I wonder if that's going to happen again?" she mumbles to just herself, but Mikuo answers.

"Let's hope not. And hope it's all been a coincidence," he says, his voice unusually somber. "Well," his voice returned to an upbeat sound, I almost thought his seriousness was my imagination. "At least we'll get to eat all that yakisoba again!"

"Truuueee!"

"You guys mind telling me now!?" I complain, exasperated.

Miku plops down, a leek in her mouth and Mikuo stuffs leek chips in his face and offers me a bag. I shake my head 'No thanks.' Mikuo crunches his snack down and starts coughing up the story, but not without more complaints from me.

"Cotton Washing Day, has absolutely nothing to do with cotton," Mikuo declares.

"Yes it does!" Miku objects.

"OKAY! Well, SOME of it!" Mikuo folds his legs, "The thing with the cotton. This festival is the biggest summer-festival we have in this tiny city of Ryuunizawa. You just put cotton in the little stream down yonder hill and let it float, or sink, away. It kind of is meant to symbolize the washing away our sins and so-to-speak filth."

"Ohhh, okay," I interject. "But what were you guys talking about before? Like hoping that that won't happen again?"

The Hatsune twins pass a glance at each other, one glace asked 'Should I tell him?' and the other snaps 'Do we have a choice!?' but it had a mask of uncertainty.

Mikuo sighs, "To be honest...there have been strange murders."

"M-murders!?" I exclaim, nearly fainting away to the carpet.

"Now now," Miku calms me down. "All we know is that every year around this time of the festival, one person gets there death and another goes missing practically off the face of Japan and the planet. Simple!"

"You make it sound so happy Miku!" Mikuo retorts at his twin-tailed sister.

She shrugs and picks up another leek. No snide comeback, nothing.

"They call the incidents the curse of the village god: Kaguya. It's happened, I think 5 times now. This year'll be the 6th time, if it does happen," Mikuo sighs once more.

"What happened before?" I inquire.

"Wee-ell," Miku stretches the word needlessly, "All the deaths seem to be closely associated with the Land War."

"Aaaa-and what is that?" I copy her.

She looks at me a bit annoyed then continues, "There was a campaign to remake Ryuunawa into land for homes since it's kind of a rural area here."

"In other words," Mikuo girts his teeth and his tone turns angry fire, "The government wanted to run the place over already with residents to build new places for new residents to make the already inhabited place re-inhabited." He snaps a leek in half and chews on one end halfheartedly.

"It seemed all the deaths were closely associated with the Land War. The 1st time, a corpse was found. It was a lynch dismemberment of the Land War construction manager. All the murderers were apprehended except the Leader. He disappeared."

"Alrighty then, what about the 2nd case?"

Miku fell quiet and nudged Mikuo who immediately sighed again and replies quickly, "Mom and Dad fell off cliff, the end of story."

"What?" I barely heard anything except a jumble of words.

Miku abruptly stands up and announces she'll be going to the restroom and strangely, Mikuo does nothing to stop her. It's weird and interesting because the Hatsune twins were known for somewhat rash bragging and throwing fits at each other but they are able to be counted on.

"Our mother and father...they were caught in an accident while we were on a family trip. The fence they were leaning on suddenly broke and they fell over the edge. They actually supported the Land War so...," Mikuo closes his fist.

From the room, I heard somewhere in the bathroom a girl was throwing up her just-eaten leek.

The boy in front of me hit the ground, "I will protect her. I won't let anything happen. Not this time..." They found the father in a pool of blood at the bottom of the cliff, but, their mother disappeared; her body was never found, so it was deemed that the mother should be dead.

Mikuo waited until a very pale Miku came back and continued with the history. "The 3rd time it happened, one of the members of the Three Great Houses died and his wife vanished. The head priest died of an unknown disease and the wife supposedly committed suicide by drowning herself in the river; the body was never found. They sympathized with our family for being ostracized in the Land War so Kaguya-sama's Curse fell upon them."

"Who're the Three Great Houses?" I ask.

"Well, there's the family who are the true leaders of Ryuunizawa: the Sakine's. Then the other two are the Yuzuki's and finally the Kagami's."

I flinch. "Rin...?"

"That's right, the Psychic Girl," Miku comments. "Her parents died the third time it happened."

Rin's parents...died?

"Oh, but you needn't pity her just yet."

"YET!?"

"The last time it happened," Miku's blue-green orbs narrow. "Her aunt was killed and her brother ran away."

"...What? How can that..."

"She never got on good terms with her aunt. Ever since her aunt and uncle came, she's been missing at least 3 days pf school and when she did come, she would come with bruises and even more dead eyes," Miku's voice lowered, as if she expected Rin to jump out and snap her neck for telling.

"But, her brother?"

"Rinto just one day picked up his backpack and walked away probably forever," Mikuo says. "The police kind of suspected him for killing his own aunt since he wasn't on the greatest terms with the aunt too. I don't think the Psychic Girl ever let go of her brother."

There was so much that happened on this day. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I never had expected such a dark history behind the rural town of Ryuunizawa. ...I knew I was listening to the Hatsune twins' cries for help. But I was so fixated upon the tragic chain-events of the Cotton Washing Festival and Rin's past and the heavy burden she had to carry. I asked myself Am I going to do something about Rin? Only then did I hear Rin's small voice in this head of mine: "There's nothing you can do about it, Kagamine."

Super update to compensate for short ones before. I have a gut feeling this FF is going to be a looonngg one. Hope you enjoy~!