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| - As the third chapter of Watanagashi-hen opens the five are in their classroom once again, and it appears that after leaving from a meeting Hinimizawa's village head, Kimiyoshi Kiichirō, has disappeared. When Keiichi asks if he fell victim to Oyashiro’s curse, everyone falls silent. Later outside the school Keiichi continues to dwell on why the village head is gone; were it the curse, Shion and he should be the victims. Suddenly, Rika appears and in a worried voice asks him “Did you do something bad on the night of the festival?” Keiichi wants to tell her the truth, but fears that because she is the shrine maiden, she will be the most unforgiving of anyone. While he contemplates, Rika tells him a cat slipped into the storehouse the night of the festival. According to her analogy, the cat was taken aback and darted away frightened. Keiichi, playing along, asks her what the cat should do, because dogs have begun to follow and question the cat. Rika smiles and tell him she will protect the cat, and that the dogs were wrong to question it. “However,” she replies, “the elder sister cat (Mion) is very angry. The younger sister cat (Shion) did a bad thing, so she’s very angry.” She tells Keiichi club activities will be called off from that day on, as that is how Mion wants it to be. Rika requests that if the dog wrongly blamed for biting the village head were to start snarling at the cat then he must tell her quickly. At home, Keiichi is thinking everything over when he gets another phone call from Shion. He apologizes for his behavior before, for which she forgives him. She tells him they need to cooperate with each other, as they are a similar predicament. Shion brings up the topic of the village head, and says last night she had told the village head what happened on the night of the festival, yet now he has vanished. Keiichi scared by the event, does not want Rika to perish, and proceeds to call Rena. Rena and Keiichi meet up in the village, where it seems that Keiichi attempted to call Rika, but could not get through even after ten minutes. Mion rolls up on her bike, and the three of them ride over to where Rika and Satoko live together. A now observant Rena notes that neither Rika nor Satoko had left their bikes where they usually do. The house doors are locked, so Keiichi climbs a ladder to check the windows. Rena decides to check the main Furude house, which Rika has left untouched since the death of her parents, and leaves Keiichi and Mion alone. Mion explains that Satoko’s parents have died, her brother Satoshi has vanished, and that she is cursed. Mion violently shakes the ladder and proceeds to pity Satoshi for his hard efforts in caring for his sister, only to die by Oyashiro’s curse. In this manner Mion rants against Satoko, blaming her for Rika’s disappearance. Rena comes back with the key to the house, followed by several other men. Mion reverts to a normal state, sending Keiichi into a state of fear. He claims that at that moment he thought for the first time there may be a different Mion than the one he knows. Rena, Keiichi, and Mion walk inside the house to find it empty. Mion speaks of the village head’s disappearance, and in frustration Keiichi wanders outside to an area with a full view of Hinamizawa from above. He sees various men searching for Rika, and breaks down blaming himself for what has occurred. Rena comforts him, and it appears she already knows about the incident with the storehouse. She, thinking ahead of Keiichi, states that she will definitely not disappear. Keiichi, considerably shaken by the recent events, does not fully believe her. The next day, Rena and Keiichi wait for Mion by the waterwheel, but decide to go to school as Mion is presumably fatigued from searching for Rika throughout the night. Rena adds that a lady who runs a tofu store saw Satoko purchasing some tofu before she went home. Rena states that in looking over Rika and Satoko’s home she noticed a pot on top of the gas cooker with miso soup inside. When Keiichi doesn’t understand, Rena explains that you only add tofu to miso soup at the very, very end. She concludes that Rika was standing there cooking until just before it was time to eat. The analysis furthers as Rena explains the nearby rice cooker was full enough for both girls, and their refrigerator contained several untouched side-dishes in plastic wrap--tofu among them. Keiichi believes that means there was no need for them to eat dinner in the first place. Rena estimates the time of their disappearance to around seven o’ clock, but Keiichi still fails to understand. The soy sauce container they saw on top of the table, Rena claims, was empty. The two usually keep a big bottle of the sauce under the sink, but there was none. Rena speculates that Rika left the house with the bottle to get more from some neighbors, but because she was not returning Satoko called wherever Rika was getting more from to check on her. The person Satoko called would have replied that Rika was preparing dinner and that Satoko should come over, claiming Rika had already eaten. This would have called Satoko away too, letting the culprit “spirit them away”. As they reach the school, Ōishi calls Keiichi into his car, Rena running ahead to class. The detective claims to have no leads on the deaths of Tomitake and Takano, frustrating Keiichi further. Regarding the village head, Oishi informs Keiichi that the head had snuck into a proctology clinic and kept that ordeal a secret. Because there was a train accident then, Kimiyoshi rushed straight to the shrine. This bewilders Keiichi, as Shion could not have had any time to tell Kimiyoshi about the storehouse incident. Ōishi already knows about the incident, as it was a rumor around the village the day after the festival. The detective continues to question Keiichi, and tells him his main point: he wants to know why “all the others became victims, but you didn’t.” When Keiichi asks what he means by “others”, Ōishi laughs (he appears less friendly in this arc) and tells him that Shion has disappeared. Later that night, Keiichi sits curled up on the couch in his house, alone. Deep in his thinking, Keiichi hears the phone and picks it up--to hear Shion’s voice on the line, to which he thinks that maybe it isn‘t really Shion calling him. After explaining nobody found Rika nor Satoko, Keiichi asks Shion when she confessed, and describes Kimiyoshi’s hemorrhoid issues. Shion replies that she knew of his problems, but is unaware of which hospital he received treatment at (so she could not have confessed there). Keiichi suddenly understands she couldn’t have confessed to Kimiyoshi at all, as he rushed to the shrine upon hearing of the train accident so as to not miss the village meeting. When Keiichi reveals his thoughts to Shion, he is put into a speechless, stunned state as he hears her voice comes out of the phone--laughing maniacally.
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