The Fire Dome 2 (ファイア・ドーム 下)

Chapter Three

The second book resumes with the search for missing elementary-school pupil Kotaro Narui, whose disappearance has revived memories of the unsolved—or supposedly solved—kidnapping and murder of his aunt, Sae Niinuma, twenty-five years earlier.

Kotaro’s classmates, Hayato Kurai and Kazuki Sakai, have followed their own suspicions to an abandoned school building once used by a youth football club. They believe that information exchanged among children may reveal something the adult investigation has overlooked. Their courage, however, places them in genuine danger. Inside the deserted building they encounter Naohiro Tsubasa, an unstable adult associated with the football community and the location.

The abandoned school becomes a terrifying maze. Tsubasa pursues the boys, breaks windows and attempts to prevent them from escaping. Hayato and Kazuki are forced to rely on one another while confronting the fact that their investigation is no longer a game. The danger also exposes the larger failure of the adult world: children have been left to investigate because adults repeatedly dismissed their knowledge as childish gossip.