Fatal Frame Parthenon claim, 4/10

[estinose]

Title: Tugs for Help
Prompt: Travel
Muse: Hinasaki Mafuyu
Fandom: Fatal Frame/Zero
Length: 526
Summary: Mafuyu may have some help in breaking the curse.
Disclaimer: Mafuyu, Kirie, and everyone else belong to Tecmo.
Notes: Part 4 of a Fatal Frame AU.


Kirie seemed content to leave Mafuyu alone for a while, telling him to come down to the gate when he was ready.
 
He supposed that the room was his home now, that he would spend eternity connected to it. But for the moment, he wanted to explore the mansion. Why, he wasn't sure, because it wasn't like he didn't have eternity.
 
Or less, if he figured out how to break Kirie's curse.
 
"I'm sorry," he told Yuu's ghost. The ghost ignored him, unable to hear him. None of the ghosts besides Kirie could hear him now. His friend walked down the final plank and across the last path, disappearing through the door and leaving him alone, for the moment.
 
It didn't matter. He'd be back. Mafuyu could always come back and he'd find his friend.
 
He walked back to the other door. Kirie had said that Miku was nearby. She was traveling in her own patterns, living through her own last days, just as he'd apparently done before he became conscious. He peeked into room after room, slowly becoming comfortable with the fact that he could just walk through the walls instead of worrying about doors.
 
Miku was in a room full of dolls, inspecting a piece of paper. Mafuyu walked up to her. "Miku?"
 
She probably couldn't hear him, but it wouldn't hurt to try.
 
"Miku? Can you hear me?" But she didn't respond. He peeked over her shoulder, recognizing his own handwriting.
 
His sister was reading one of his notes, the one about not being able to save Takamine-san or the others. "He's alive! My brother's alive!" Miku said to the wall.
 
And then she ran off, camera in hand, flashlight in the other. Mafuyu sighed. He wasn't alive, and neither was Miku, but it wasn't like she would know that at the moment. He doubted she'd noticed that she went right through the door without opening it first.
 
Traveling in circles, in patterns. That's how most everyone in this mansion worked. He and Kirie were probably the only ones who didn't do that.
 
Maybe he should get back to Kirie. Nothing was likely to change here; nothing seemingly did.
 
"Help me..."
 
He looked down. The little child ghost. He'd forgotten about her.
 
"You must help me...."
 
Kirie, as a child. She'd helped him around the mansion when he'd been lost, and he had no doubt she'd done the same for every other living person.
 
"I'm dead."
 
She shook her head. "I've forgotten my duty...."
 
It was entirely strange, he thought, to be talking to Kirie-that-was. "I can't touch anything." As much as he'd like to, he couldn't.
 
"But you can show others how to help me." She looked at him with wide eyes and a worried expression.
 
He could do that. Miku, too, once she woke up like he had. He could help people, keep them from being killed. "The Camera Obscura. I can't move it, but...."
 
Kirie might be upset if it was moved to somewhere where it could hurt him and Miku, but it was his best chance.
 
The girl, Kirie-who-was, merely nodded, and disappeared.
 
Maybe there was hope, after all.