Case 11: Hollow Revenge
Things had been slow at SPR lately. Naru had been turning down cases left and right, though Mai wasn't complaining. She was still startled from their last case, so she perfectly content with making tea all day. In fact she was about to make some more when the office door slowly creaked open.
"Excuse me; this is the office for Shibuya Psychic Research Center, correct?" A woman in her mid-twenties peeked over the door.
"Yes, come in! I assume you would like to speak to Naru- I mean Mr. Shibuya, right?" Mai's face flushed a little after her little blunder. The woman came out from hiding behind the door and gave Mai a small smile of gratitude.
"Yes. I'm sorry if this isn't a good time, but it's extremely important."
Mai could sense that the woman was defiantly worried about something. She really hoped Naru wouldn't turn her down.
"Don't worry ma'am, it's not a bad time at all. Please take a seat and I'll go get Mr. Shibuya." Mai quickly disappeared into Naru's personal office.
"Naru, there's a woman here who would like to talk to you." Naru looked up from his paper work and gave Mai his typical glare.
"Who is she?" Mai was dumbstruck. She had forgotten to ask the woman for her name.
"Uh…well…one moment!" Mai ducked out of the office with her face red with embarrassment. No doubt Naru will lecture her later.
When she returned to the waiting the woman had a very solemn look on her face.
"Miss, are you okay?" The woman jumped a little before turning to Mai with a small smile.
"O-oh, I'm fine. I was just…thinking…Can I speak to your boss now?"
"Oh…well, uhm in a minute, miss…I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but...what's your name, miss?" The woman laughed a little and smiled.
"Oh, no it's quite alright. I'm Haruhana Hayashi." Mai quickly bowed and ducked into Naru's office again.
"Her name is Haruhana Hayashi." Naru simply nodded, he didn't bother to look up from his work.
"What's she here for?"
'Didn't I tell him that she wanted to talk to him?' Mai suppressed her agitation and repeated what she said earlier.
"She wants to talk to you. She said it was important." He sighed and put down his work.
"Send her in." Mai bid Haruhana in to the office and the meeting started.
"So, Ms. Hayashi, what seems to be the problem?" Haruhana's face suddenly dropped.
"Well, I work at Kato High School and…well…odd…occurrences have been happening." Naru raised his eyebrows and Mai furrowed hers.
"Such as?"
Haruhana balled her fists a little and a more pained expression bubbled up to her face. "Well, it started as little things; you know…noises, whispers, an occasional chair moving, nothing too serious. Kids and the staff would joke about our little 'ghost', but you see, there is a student who goes to the school who claims he can see sprits and even communicate with them occasionally. Anyway, one day after class, some girls where talking about using an Ouija board to communicate with the sprit. He was in the room and came up to them and asked them not to do that. He said that he had seen the sprit a few times, and even though it had not done any harm yet, it gave off a malicious aura, and told them, 'Either it's not strong enough to do damage or we just haven't provoked it and Ouija boarding might make it angry, at us.' The girls told him that they wouldn't do it, but from what I heard, they did it anyway. That was the point things went downhill."
"Wh-what do you mean?" A knot was beginning to form in Mai's stomach.
"It got violent."
Naru gave a look concern. "How so?"
Hanaharu looked up, an expression of grate worry plastered on her face.
"It started out small, kid getting pinched or pushed lightly in the hallway, desks would be pushed up against the classroom walls, during one class the psychic student said he heard a woman scream when no else did, scratches on the walls…then it tried to kill a student."
Mai gasped. "What!" 'Did someone curse the schools? Like what happened at Yasu's school?'
"A girl was walking down the stairs with some friends of hers when she was shoved from behind and fell over the railing. Luckily she caught the railing and only ended up with a dislocated elbow and broken arm. And that was just the beginning, another incident happened during a biology class. The kids were dissecting frogs and while they were cleaning up a bunch a scalpels were thrown, by themselves, at a student's face. He covered it in time so the scalpels went into his arms. It's even tried to drown a student. There have also been violent, but less deadly attacks. During class the psychic student heard a terrible noise. I'm not sure what it was, but his ears started to bleed. I've even experienced some of the phenomena, I was teaching class and all of the sudden, I felt this overwhelming…hate. It was so strong, I began to shake…basically…it's a living hell…" Hanaharu began to shake. Mai then noticed that the woman was sobbing. She looked up at Naru with a pleading face. "Please…I need you to take this case, the school will only pay you a fraction of what you charge but the staff and I will pay the difference…please, we really need you to take this case…"
Naru closed his eyes and thought about the offer for what seemed like an hour. Mai was afraid that he would turn the poor woman down, like he had been doing recently. Then he snapped his eyes open with a determined look on his face.
"Don't worry ma'am. My team and I will be out there tomorrow."
After Hanaharu managed to calm down and left Mai turned to Naru with a worried expression.
"Naru…do you think we can handle this?" Naru gave Mai a sharp glare.
"What do mean, Mai? Of course we can handle it. From what Hanaharu has told us it seems like it's just one sprit. Besides we've handled cases with more sprits that were even more violent. You know that."
"I know, it's just that…this sprit is so openly violent…I'm just worried someone will get seriously hurt…or worse…"
Naru sighed and shook his head. "Fine. If you're too scared, you don't have to come."
'That jerk! I aught a kick him for that!' "I'm not scared! There is no way I'd miss out on a case! Hmph!" Mai began to pout when she caught a quick glance at the clock.
"Oh, it's late. Anyway, see you tomorrow Naru. Bye Lin!" Mai grabbed her coat and headed out the door when Naru called back, "That is if you don't chicken out." Naru smiled to himself as he heard the door slam shut.
"You know, you should tease her too much." Lin finally came out of little cave.
"I know, but it's too much fun"