Our strange little group—all of us in our school uniforms save Sakanaka and one shrine maiden—faithfully traced the route of Rousseau’s daily walk. Whether or not it was normal or strange, Sakanaka seemed quite serene as she walked along the path. It felt like we were heading east. If we kept heading this way, we’d encounter the river—the same cherry tree–lined river I’d thrown that turtle into, only to pick it back up and give it to the boy in glasses. It did have a walking path that would have been the perfect place to take your dog for a walk…

Just as I was contemplating it, Sakanaka came to an abrupt stop.

“Oh. Look, see, here’s where he stops.”

Rousseau had frozen in his tracks, feet firmly planted on the asphalt. Sakanaka tugged on his leash, but he resisted and backed away.

His owner wasn’t the only person to heave a sigh of dismay at this end to our progress.

“Huh.” Haruhi’s eyes went wide as though she’d just remembered our real reason for being here. She surveyed the area. “This doesn’t seem like a particularly suspicious area.”

It was a residential neighborhood, but also close to the river, and greenery was plentiful. To the north, a mountain just about as high as North High’s mountain was visible. There weren’t bears around here, but I’d heard stories of wild boars occasionally coming down. But even so, it would be strange for them to appear in such a built-up area, and so near a train station; I’d never seen any news along those lines.

Sakanaka held the obstinate Rousseau’s leash. “Up until last week I’d continue straight on ahead here, heading up the riverbank steps and walking along the path. After walking a while, I’d come back down the steps and come home. That was the route. But a week ago Rousseau started refusing to go near the river.”

Asahina bent down and scratched the unmoving Rousseau’s ears. Looking at the white, flicking points, Haruhi grabbed her own earlobe.

“Isn’t the river pretty suspicious? Maybe it’s been polluted with toxic waste. Maybe there’s a chemical plant upstream or something!”

We North High students should know better than anyone else that there wasn’t anything like that. If you followed this river upstream, you’d run smack into the route we took to and from school. There wasn’t anything but mountains up there; it was deadly boring. It was so rural that there wasn’t even anyplace decent to buy a snack.

“About that,” said Sakanaka, explaining, “he doesn’t mind heading farther up, nor farther downstream. Higuchi and Mrs. Anan said their dogs are the same way.”

“Huh, interesting.” Haruhi watched Rousseau lick the palm of Asahina’s hand, then suddenly picked up the ball of fine white fur. “Okay, J.J.! You’re gonna guide us around this area. When we get to a point you don’t like, you just bark, got it? Here we go!”

Haruhi strode forcefully forward, but only got as far as the length of the leash held by Sakanaka—because the moment Rousseau had started to whine, his owner hadn’t taken another step forward.

She looked every bit as sad and scared as Rousseau and obviously didn’t want to see him traumatized. “I’ve never been angry with Rousseau,” she said, taking him out of Haruhi’s arms and stroking his head. “Did you know that there are dogs who die from the shock of their owners being angry at them? That’s why.”

I couldn’t believe how dog-crazy she was. Even for the spoiled daughter of a rich family, there had to be limits to such things. I wanted to make her put up my Shamisen for a night. I’m sure it would’ve been like paradise for him.

Haruhi, too, gazed at Sakanaka in surprise, her mouth half open, but Asahina seemed to agree with this, nodding emphatically. I was a little jealous of the dog having managed to steal Asahina’s heart so quickly.

“We weren’t planning on forcing him that much,” said Koizumi mildly as he cut into the conversation. The map fluttered in his hands. “Right now, we are”—he made a mark on the map in red pen—“here. The place from which dogs are sensing some sort of danger should be ahead of us. It should probably be considered an area rather than a point, but in any case, the farther we proceed, the harder it will be to narrow down the orientation of the phenomenon.”

Before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about, Koizumi gave Sakanaka a smile, like a door-to-door salesman giving a hard sell.

“Let’s head back for now. We’ll let Rousseau lead the way, and he’ll be able to enjoy a nice walk.”

Just as Koizumi suggested, we headed back down the path we’d taken, and after about five minutes of walking, we took a left at an intersection and proceeded south. The closer we got to the train station, the more people there were. Fortunately, Asahina was more interested in Rousseau than in her own outfit, so she didn’t seem too concerned about the looks she got from the passersby around us. Or maybe she’d just gotten used to going out in costume.

At the front of the group now was Koizumi, map in one hand. This was itself a fairly rare sight. He served as the trailblazer, handsome face, friendly smile, and all.

“This way next.” Having initially directed us south, Koizumi now turned our little parade east.

And then, after another five minutes of walking, Rousseau began to whine again.

“Maybe it is the river?”

The direction Haruhi pointed was the direction we were all facing, from which we could see the slope of the riverbank’s levee and the cherry trees that ran along it.

Once Koizumi established our exact location by checking some nearby addresses, he carefully marked our current spot on the map.

“And with this it starts to become clear. One more location should be enough.”

I had no idea what was becoming clear to Koizumi, but we started heading south again. This time we didn’t return to the street we’d taken to get here, rather taking a path that headed roughly toward the sea. Of course, we were nowhere near the actual sea, and it didn’t seem as though Koizumi was planning to go that far; we’d only walked this way for about five minutes. We’d walked just about as far as we had from the place Rousseau first froze to our second stop, then headed east again.

This time it didn’t even take three minutes.

Whiiiine.

For the third time, Rousseau refused to proceed. It was pretty sad, seeing the cute little stuffed animal–like dog get so upset, and I could understand why Sakanaka immediately scooped him up into her arms. It even got to me.

Asahina was agitated, Nagato was expressionless as ever, and Koizumi smiled cheerfully, as though satisfied. “I see,” he said.

He put another mark on the map, then turned toward us as if to explain that the real challenge would start here. I fully expected him to say something incomprehensible again, but I couldn’t very well keep ignoring him.

“What’s going on?” He seemed to want me to ask, so I asked. I hoped he was grateful.

“Have a look at this map.”

We all looked at the map Koizumi opened.

“The points marked in red are the points where Rousseau refused to continue. Including our position right now, there are three of them. Starting from the first one, we’ll call them points A, B, and C. Looking at them, is there anything that jumps out at you?”

What, was he giving an open-air lecture now?

I’d given up on any academic study outside of a classroom, so I refused to answer the question, but Haruhi jumped on it without so much as raising her hand.

“The distances between A and B, and between B and C, are just about the same.”

“Exactly so. That’s why I chose this particular route,” said Koizumi, satisfied at his model student. “The important concept to understand is that the individual points are not meaningful by themselves. Point B, in particular, is a mere checkpoint. Since evidence is better than theory, perhaps it would be easier to understand if I drew it.”

Koizumi took the red pen and drew quickly on the map. It was a curve that led from A to C, with B as the midpoint. There was now a small arc on the 1:10,000-scale map.

“Oh, I see how it is.” Haruhi seemed to have understood more quickly than anyone else. I had no idea.

“Kyon, don’t you get it? What do you see in this curve?”

I didn’t see anything other than a curve, I said.

“That’s why you’re so hopeless at math. You’ve got to understand this stuff intuitively. See? Koizumi, here—” Haruhi borrowed Koizumi’s red pen and dropped a new line onto the map. “I’ll extend the curve through the full sweep of its arc, and it makes a circle like this, see?”

Indeed it did. I was impressed at her ability to draw a nearly perfect circle freehand. It looked almost like the kind of mark you saw on a map that showed where the treasure was buried.

Oh. I finally understood. So that’s how it was.

“You’re saying that this circle is the area that dogs won’t enter.”

“It is merely a hypothesis,” said Koizumi. “If the area is indeed circular, then we can hypothesize it thusly. While we have no way of knowing whether the cause is a supernatural phenomenon of some kind or some kind of harmful man-made substance, this does make it a bit easier to understand.” He indicated the circle he and Haruhi had drawn. “If there is something here, the most suspicious point is the single place that’s the same distance from every point on the circle—in other words, the center. With only three points of reference, there is a sizable margin of error, but not necessarily mistaken. And that puts the center—”

Haruhi, holding the pen, beat Koizumi’s finger. “The riverbank!”

I didn’t need Haruhi to say it. The center of the circle on the map was the cherry tree–lined path that was very familiar to me, directly opposite the bench I’d sat on and had that memorable conversation with Asahina.

“Wow!” said Sakanaka, impressed. “I’m amazed you could think of something like that, Koizumi!”

“It is nothing,” said Koizumi with a smile.

Sakanaka looked keenly in his direction. I wanted to tell her she was better off staying away from him. You could never quite tell what he was thinking, plus he occasionally turned into a ball of glowing red energy.

I was about to warn her off, but I kept my mouth shut and continued to look at the map.

I got the feeling that every time something mysterious happened, I always seemed to find myself in familiar places. It was like I was being called there. I just hoped that this time I didn’t have to save a boy from being run over or deal with some foul-mouthed new character showing up. Back then it had just been Asahina and me. But now the whole gang was here. There was no telling who would do what, especially Her Excellency the brigade chief.

“Let’s go!” ordered Haruhi cheerfully. “To that mysterious spot. Sakanaka, J.J., you guys just relax and imagine you’re on a pleasure cruise. Once we’ve taken pictures of the ghost or whatever it is, I’ll be sure to exorcise it!”

“E-exorcise…?” Asahina hugged herself, apparently remembering what outfit she was wearing.

Haruhi grabbed her arm. “Now everyone, full-speed ahead!” she said, and took off running.

The spot in question was not far away, and we got there quickly thanks to Haruhi’s forced march. The mystery spot indicated on Koizumi’s map was right on the cherry tree–lined riverbank path, where the trees quietly gathered energy in preparation for their annual bloom.

Squinting at the map, Haruhi looked for the precise center, despite the fact that Koizumi’s calculations had been fairly rough, making such precision pointless.

“Maybe around here?”

“This should be roughly the location.”

In contrast to Haruhi’s intent comparison of map with landscape, Koizumi’s answer was vague.

Only the five full members of the SOS Brigade had come this far. Sakanaka and Rousseau retreated to their house—or rather, Sakanaka insisted that she “couldn’t possibly force Rousseau to go somewhere he doesn’t want to go,” and declined to accompany us. Since the dog and the girl were useful only as witnesses, neither Haruhi nor I objected to this. Although, I must admit that if we’re discussing utility, I myself was only worthwhile as an extra observer.

The one whose role was clearest was—

“Mikuru! Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s your turn now!”

“O-Okay…!”

From Haruhi’s perspective, Asahina was the only one to turn to now. That’s why she’d forced the poor girl into that shrine-maiden outfit. If we turned around and headed home now, the costume would have been totally wasted.

“B-but, um… What should I…?”

“Don’t sweat it! I’ve got everything ready. You just stand there, Mikuru. Right, and then hold this staff—”

Haruhi handed Mikuru a staff and made her take up a position in the grassy area near the river, then produced a rolled-up piece of copier paper from her skirt’s pocket. “All right, now.” Haruhi held the tremulous Asahina by the shoulders; Asahina looked beseechingly at the rest of us. “I don’t see any obvious ghosts, so let’s start the exorcism!”

K-kanjizaibo… satsugyo…? Gyoujinhannyaa… haramiitajii… sh-shouken goun kaikuu… u…

I was wondering what sort of “spell” Haruhi would come up with, but it was nothing—just the same Heart Sutra you could hear priests chanting at any Buddhist temple in Japan. I got the sense that the Shinto shrine maiden chanting a Buddhist sutra was sort of asking for trouble, but who was to say doubling up on religions wouldn’t double the magical effectiveness of the ritual?

As she chanted, Asahina stared intently at the paper Haruhi had brought. I felt like I wanted to beg the forgiveness of the religious workers at every shrine and temple.

Haruhi continued to act as Asahina’s assistant, flipping the phonetically transcribed pages of the Heart Sutra such that Asahina could keep reciting.

D-d-doichi saiku yakushari… shikifu ikuukuu fuiishiki…?

As Asahina continued to piously chant the sutra despite being a bogus shrine maiden, I took a look at the one person whose reaction I was very interested in. I think it goes without saying who that was.