"Aaah!"
The instant that doll appeared, Mumuzawa suddenly rushed toward it on the floor in a panic, trying to make loud noises and play cute to gloss over it.
Dio froze in surprise.
She burst into astonishing speed, snatching up the doll in a flash and hiding it inside her clothes.
Then she turned and gave Dio a sheepish smile. "That wasn't-"
After saying that, she looked around strangely, muttering in puzzlement, "Where did she go? She was right here just a moment ago-"
Squelch, squelch-
Dio frowned and looked toward the dark corridor behind him.
Several strange sounds suddenly came from the deep darkness, their rhythm resembling footsteps.
He made no fuss, because Ripple Sensing detected no hint of danger.
Meanwhile, Mumuzawa, who had been looking puzzled, seemed to think of something. Her eyes suddenly lit up, and she said excitedly, "There you are! How did you get out there?"
As the steady footsteps drew closer, the source of the unknown sounds in the darkness revealed its true appearance in the room's dim light. "Click-"
Against the gloomy backdrop, [she] looked like a tiny, exquisite doll abandoned in a dark alley, her mouth making a sound like jammed gears.
Her curly brown hair framed a black Lolita-style dress layered with blue-and-white lace, and her hollow black eyes held an indescribable deathly stillness. Most striking was the rabbit doll dangling from her right hand-dark red bloodstains spread like spiderwebs across its deathly pale fur, and the wound on the side of its head was still silently "bleeding," as though it had suffered some cruel slaughter.
"This is-"
Dio's brow creased almost imperceptibly as he looked questioningly at Mumuzawa. The more he looked at the doll, the more it resembled her.
"She's a doll I [wove], using myself as the model-"