All, or nothing...

That night I had the most vivid dream I'd ever experienced. Kouki was dead at my feet and I felt no shame or pain, only joy. I walked through the Takahashi manor and found everyone there dead as well, all lying sprawled out, just a streak of blood leaking from their lips just like Kouki. As I walked the town everyone in the entire village had suffered the same fate and I was the only one left still standing.

Then flames arose from their corpses, making them dance with light, and all the flames took their forms and came up and bowed before me. I moved through a sea of fiery people, all praising and worshiping me, and I felt terrific. Then I grabbed one small young fiery woman, unsure who it was as they all looked the same and took her in my arms and kissed her. The fire in that kiss filled me up and I breathed her whole form into me, feeling her soul feeding me.

The taste and feel was intoxicating so I took another. This one tasted different. The first had been exotic and spicy, while this one had been wholesome and earthy. Both were delicious, but before I could take another a scream snapped me up and I realize something was wrong. It wasn't yet morning, but there was a flashing yellow light all around me. Kouki was screaming and shaking me, but I was still half in my dream and didn't understand why she was so scared. Then with the smell of smoke clogging my lungs I finally broke free from my deep slumber and saw our house was on fire.

We rushed outside and saw that it wasn't just our house, but half the manor was in flames. I rushed over to the barrel of water we had for just such emergencies, and began to splash water around, but strangely the wind seemed to blow out half the fire quickly, as if it just didn't want to burn now that I was awake.

Once it was out on our home I turned to Kouki and urgently said, "Go fetch Natsumi. I'm going to see about the Takahashi's!" She nodded and took off at a run past the manor as I went around its back with my pale toward the koi pond. The fire was fairly contained on just one section and again, the fire just seemed to die off as I battled it. It didn't make sense, but maybe there had been a rain in the night that had helped wet the wood. I didn't think so, but nothing else made any sense.

As it was almost out Setsuko and Azami came out from the gardens where they had fled. They must have been woken up and escaped safely, but there was no sign of their **** Chizu. "Where is Chizu?" I asked, but neither seemed to know so I went running inside the still-smoking building.

Azami shouted something to try and stop me, but I ignored her. I wasn't sure where she slept, but I knew she didn't have a room proper as far as I could tell. There was a basement and the flame damage seemed to have come from down there. I explored deeper, careful on the sooty stone steps found a half-melted candle that I lit on a smoldering plank. I hadn't been in here in ages, and it looked much different now.

In my youth, my grandfather had once used it as a wine cellar until dad drank up all the saved wines before selling the house to the Takahashi family. Now it was open and filled with some odd wooden chairs, stools, and planks, most with leather straps or chain manacles. One wall had a variety of various tools, most of which didn't look like they served any purpose. Most were long tonfas of various shapes and thicknesses, but there were whips and straps and then it came to me. This was a sex dungeon filled with perverse implements of **** and defilement.

My eye caught on a large pile of black ash against one wall with a strange 'X' singed against it between four chain manacles that were coated in soot as well. My gut wrenched and I knew as I reached down what I would find, but I just had to see for myself. I pushed my fingers into the black flakey charcoal and immediately hit something hard and smooth. I dug at it and pulled it up and the white flash of bone reflected the candlelight brightly as a skull came to the surface.

I jumped back, scared even though I had suspected it, but just the reality had been too much for me. "Matsumoto!" I heard someone yelling from above me, and I turned, glad to get out of that cursed place as fast as I could.

I almost ran into Natsumi who had called out my name as she probed around the charred house, obviously looking for me. "Come with me," she ordered and I just nodded and followed her back to the pond where Kouki was talking with an angry Azami while a mute Setsuko just stood on the verge of sobbing.

"I know your bastard brother did this!" the older woman yelled at my sister.

"I swear, he was asleep and almost died in our own house," she explained, but Azami was only half listening.

"And you probably helped him!" She tore into Kouki. "Your father should have drowned you when you were born!" My anger boiled up in me again and I ran right up to Azami and shoved her hard into the shallow koi pond. She hadn't seen me coming and Natsumi was too slow to realize what I was going to do.

She shrieked and I thought it a fitting irony that she had mentioned drowning as she flailed headfirst into the water. Natsumi caught up and threw me to the ground as Azami came up unhurt sitting shocked in the large pool of cold water, spitting up a mouthful of it she had taken in.

"You leave my sister and me alone!" I yelled at the bitch. "We saved your house and you probably started it in the first place!"

Natsumi then turned back to me seriously, "What do you mean Matsumoto?"

Azami was still shocked and just sputtered as I leveled my accusation. "I found the source of the fire in the basement. It was Chizu." I gulped down trying to swallow the hard lump in my throat, but just couldn't do it so continued speaking. "She'd been chained up in the cellar and set on fire." Then I looked right at Azami in the eye, "She'd been reduced to ashes and bone!"

"What?" she stammered, but seemed unsure of what to say. "Yes, she was being punished and I had her chained up, but there was no fire involved!" she explained to Natsumi as if trying to weasel out of her guilt.

Natsumi however just looked at me and said, "Show me." I lead her back into the house and to the basement and showed her the ashen remains with the skull poking out. She looked around it and all over the rest of the room, but I didn't know why. I almost asked, but she looked very serious and worried, plus I didn't want to interrupt her lest she break one of my arms.

After a few minutes she came back up to me and I got up enough courage to ask, "What's wrong?"

"This is impossible," she muttered, but seemed to speak aloud to help her think, not actually to me. "To get a fire hot enough to turn flesh to ash and scorch bone, it would take a bonfire that would have burned down this whole house, but here the fire has been tightly contained and barely damaged the house at all." Then she turned to me, "What else do you know about this?"

"What?" I asked confused, "I already told you I…"

"I know you're hiding something," she spat at me. "The Yamada house was also burned to the ground and you were seen talking with her yesterday."

"Yuki?" I asked worriedly. "Is she okay?"

She gave a sidelong glance to the pile of ash that was once Chizu and I knew the answer. My chest tightened and I found it hard to breathe. I didn't feel well at all, but she kept pressing, "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing! I…" *SLAP*

Her palm on my face was so quick I hadn't even noticed it until my head snapped around and half my face went numb. The blood was pounding in my ears and I could taste a few sweet drops leaking from a split lip. I could barely think anymore when a little voice inside me whispered, <How dare she!>