But seeing the adults running off without regard for the pouring rain outside, they could not help feeling uneasy and concerned.
"Let's go take a look, shall we? I want to know what happened too."
Jessica was not trying to act tough with those words. She voiced what everyone was feeling.
"Maria, are you coming with us, or are you going to watch TV?"
"Maria wants to watch TV."
"Then it'll just be the three of us. Maria, we'll be right back, so be good and wait while watching TV."
"..."
By the time the younger ones came outside, the adults who had left first were already nowhere to be seen.
But Jessica seemed to have roughly guessed where they were headed from the direction they had run.
Led by Jessica, they ran through the rain-soaked Rose Garden,
The wind suddenly seemed to grow stronger, while the spiteful thunder kept rumbling like it had the night before.
It felt as though some dreadful thing blanketing the entire island had gained a will of its own and was deliberately trying to stop them from going forward.
"Jessica, what's farther ahead?"
"I think there's a storage shed for gardening tools."
"What could possibly be happening in a place like that?"
The shed Jessica had mentioned gradually came into view ahead of them.
The adults were there. The shed's metal shutter was open, and several adults appeared to be searching through something inside.
For some reason, only Natsuhi Ushiromiya stood outside the shed. Without even an umbrella, she faced away from them with her head bowed, utterly motionless. Aside from Genji, who had just gone out, Nanjō and Natsuhi Ushiromiya, Kanon, Eva, and Hideyoshi, who had come out earlier, were all here too. There were so many people, yet the atmosphere was not