She visibly sank into her memories before beginning to speak. I leaned back against the wall and crossed my arms.
"At first, of course, not much happened. And now I, unfortunately, have to betray myself after all," she began theatrically, caught in the act, and turned to me.
"Hellhound, right?" I beat her to it knowingly.
Megumi had already clarified that with me over the phone when I confronted him about it shortly after.
Her cheeks, caught red-handed, turned red.
"He already told you?"
I nodded while Shoko joined in with interest.
"What exactly was going on with Megumi's hellhound?"
I held back on purpose now to hear Mayu's version of events.
"Oh, I had recently talked with Megumi about his shadow technique and did some brainstorming. And this morning he gave me a capsule in which he had extracted his cursed energy. That allowed me to manifest his hellhound in the shadows, and I basically had help."
"From Megumi?!" Shoko asked in surprise, and Mayu nodded, "That's amazing. So I only have to shorten Satoru by half a head."
Mayu burst out laughing, while I could only manage a resigned twitch of my mouth.
"No. You don't need to shorten his head, but mine. This was my doing. Anyway, with the hellhound I kind of made the mall unsafe. We found a few residues together and eventually also the cursed spirit – but it didn't come from the hellhound."
"But from what then?!"
"We were on the middle floor. In a small restaurant. Just when I wanted to take a closer look, a bell rang out from the main hall. Short and to the point. Not too loud, more like... gentle?! At first, I thought it must have come from the cursed spirit, but it didn't. When we checked, the ringing came from a lilac-colored butterfly – similar to my hair color," she symbolically untangled one of her hair strands before continuing.
"I'm not sure, but I think it lost a curse particle while flying. It flew in the direction of the room from which the cursed spirit ultimately emerged."
"And you're absolutely sure it couldn't have just been a butterfly?"
Good thing we had a curious Shoko in front of us.
"Absolutely sure. Why else would it fly into exactly that room? Also, it dissolved into thin air, and even the hellhound wouldn't have reacted like that to a perfectly normal animal."
Shoko thoughtfully placed her fingers on her chin, "... Did you feel strange in any way? Different?"
"N-no," Mayu shook her head gently and thoughtfully, "actually, quite normal."
A butterfly, then?
Unusual.