PART VI: GOODBYE, TAEKO

It was the voice of her senpai. After all those years she’d still remembered the warm tone that she spoke in. It brought her back to reality, but she still felt no remorse.
“I guess we’re still playing.”

--

Leaving bloody foot and handprints through the halls, Misato reached the roof's entrance. The door to the roof was never functional. The students and staff were taught a special way to open the door. Lift up the handle (lift your toes while you’re doing it), twist it sideways, and use all of your body weight to push the door open. The old trick worked, and the door swung open.
Taeko turned around to see her underclassman, Misato Ito, covered in the blood of Taeko’s minions. She smiled. “You found me again, Misa-chan!”

The two stood facing each other. Taeko looked… the same. She hadn’t changed. Her thin black hair covered her shoulders and ended at her hips. Her smile was still sweet, and her eyes had forgiveness in them. But the air around her was cold, and her skin was pale. But Misato didn’t notice. All she saw was her humble upperclassman, still the same after 10 years.

“Do you want me dead?” Misato asked, shaking off the wet blood from her hands. She stepped closer to Taeko. Taeko backed up the ledge of the roof, turning her head to face the violet sky. “‘I’m not sure… Misa-chan, I’m not me anymore. I’m not sure what I wanted from you after I died.” She sighed, now looking up at the sky. “At first, I wanted an apology. I’d done nothing to you, and you’d killed me. I didn’t get it. But now,-” Taeko looked Misato in her eyes as she finished. “Yes, I do want you dead.”

Misato chuckled. She wanted to take it all back. All of it. If she just properly rejected her senior, then none of this would’ve happened. Taeko probably would’ve been alive now, playing professional volleyball or selling her beautiful painting for unimaginable prices. But her future was taken from her.
Misato sat next to Taeko on the ledge of the roof. The police sirens were so loud she could hear them from all the way up there. Someone must’ve found a phone. The children and teachers in the gym were going to be saved.
Misato sat there, trying to think of a lie that could save her. Maybe Kyoko went crazy and killed those four, killing herself from the guilt. Or that the psycho killer going around killing women in their apartments changed to attacking schools. But nothing sounded good. Maybe the first one could work, but Misato was unsure if they’d believe her for even a second. Misato was going to be arrested, and she tried her best to accept that in her final moments.

“You know what, Taeko? I’m not sorry.” Misato said, smirking. She gave Taeko a peck on the cheek before purposefully losing her grip and falling off of the roof.

Kyoko Hanamori had bled out and died from her injuries, believed to be the one who murdered the four girls. Her family was outraged that the police would even consider the fact that she killed

those poor girls, but they couldn’t find any evidence saying she didn’t do it.
Kyoko died a murderer.
Misato survived the fall, but barely. Because she survived, Taeko’s spirit now burns with more hatred than before. More and more of the kind Murakami-senpai from 1977 was being replaced by a spirit who only wanted revenge. It didn’t care about finding peace in an afterlife, all it wanted was to hurt the one to hurt them. The lost spirit consumed the school, creating the legend of poor Taeko-san.