Ghost Hunt

Evil Spirits All Over?

Everything was dark all around me. I was standing in a forest, new saplings where decorating the region all around me turning the once cleared ground into a forested area. Ruins of the once fantastic and amazing Miyama Manor decorated the area, burnt and charred structures all over as well as tumbling stone walls. This was once a place that housed one of the most malicious spirits that I had ever come across.

Twenty years ago I and the rest of Shibuya Psychic Research (SPR) had come to this vary location.

We were sent to verify and or disprove the existence of a ghost in the Miyama Manor, which had at the time still been standing with all it interesting architecture. I remember having gotten lost more than once in the building; stairways that disappeared into ceilings and doors that opened to reveal walls on the other side.

After we had proved or disproved the presence of a ghost we would then try to exorcise the spirit present or leave the location with an explanation to the home owner as to the reasons why things were happening in the building in question.

As it turned out, the only reason that we were in the Miyama Manor was to investigate if the person saying he was Oliver Davis was truly Dr. Davis. The spirit we encountered however was no less real and no less dangerous. Two of the visiting researchers had died in the first two days of the investigation all those years ago.

We at Shibuya Psychic Research (SPR) had concluded that the haunting of the Manor was the former owner, one Kaneyuki Miyama who later went by the name Urado. He had in life become so fixated on his diminishing health that he had taken a page from Elizabeth Bathory, killing young people to then bath in their blood in the hopes of retaining his youth. We had speculated that he would drink the blood of his victims as well but it was never proven. He had been killing young people as an older man and after his death he had warped his spirit into true evil by seeking out anyone young enough in the manor and then killing them.

It was this act of killing and bathing in blood that had turned Kaneyuki (Urado) into such a dangerous spirit, we had no way of exorcising him as he had over the years become far too powerful a spirit for SPR to handle.

The ghost had turned itself into a demon, by feeding off of the blood of others.

At any rate it was Dr. Davis that we were there for.

Dr. Davis as it was had turned out had been a fake who had left swiftly after the second disappearance. I remember that the stress had gotten to the man and after yelling and slamming the door behind him I had never heard or seen him again. I also recall trying not to laugh at the poor guy that had thought ghosts where nothing but lore and legend; if he had seen some of the things that we had that guy would have been toast.

Kazuya Shabuya, aka: Naru… aka: The Real Oliver Davis, CEO and founder of SPR had immediately decided to withdraw the team to a safer location in which to deal with the spirit. We had made the recommendation that burning the Manor down would fix the problem by purifying the grounds and eliminating the ghost.

It was sometime after that, that one of our own mediums had gone missing. Masuko Hara, she was sixteen then and rather famous for cleansing spirits and holding séances to talk to the dead. This sent the team into a race against time to find Masuko and the hidey hole that the demon used, she wasn't just the medium we used on our cases she was our friend. That was why we had tried so hard to find her.

We had torn wall after wall down to reach the center of the building that was blocked off from all the construction that the previous owners had put the manor through. I had been so terrified for Masuko that I had astral projected myself for the very first time just to find her. Later that day the ghost had come after me for helping Masuko. I still remember the smell of blood in the room Masuko had been in as well as the tub full of it.

Lin who was on of Naru's assistants at the time had saved my life by sending his Shiki after Urado and temporally dispelling him, we were all very lucky to get out of that alive.

A few months later the manor had been burnt down as we had instructed it to be. I remember being so relieved that so much evil had been erased from the world.

That was one case that I would never forget. For all the bad it did I still managed to fall in love. It was funny how everyone seemed to think that it was Naru the narcissist that I was in love with. It wasn't.

Well anyways, the plan had worked and the spirit was gone… or rather that's what we had thought.

Twenty years later here I was again.

Children had started to go missing five years after the manor had burnt down. It started with only one or two children disappearing every second month or so. It had gotten to the point where a young person would go missing every week that was when the media got ahold of the story. We wouldn't have even gone if not for Naru reading all the news reports about the missing children. It was blamed as a serial killing pedophile. It wasn't hard to connect the dots with this one, knowing the past of the area I had insisted in investigating. It hadn't helped that the Urado case had been in my dreams for weeks before I had heard about the missing children in the news.

So Naru had called in the old crew, everyone from the original case was back to investigate and solve the mess we had left behind.

Hoshou (Monk) and Aniako who had both gone and gotten married not long after Naru and Lin had returned to England. Masuko the medium had married Naru after fallowing him to all the way to London to profess her love to him. Then there was Yasou, our research king, John the exorcist priest from Australia. And lastly Lin Koujo, the man who's family had taught me everything about Omyoudo (being an Omyouji) that I knew today.

We had gotten here a week ago all of us ready to put this crazy spirit to rest. What we hadn't thought about was that the moment we had burnt down the manor that imprisoned Urado he would be free from the chains of the building. Urado was free to travel the area and take that which he thought he needed. Blood of children.

Meaning that we had thought that like last time we would be safe so long as we were out of the manors grounds and away from the old house that Urado had inhabited we were wrong. Monk was the first to die. We had found him the morning after our arrival lying in the bathroom tub with his throat slit and swimming in his own blood. On the walls, written in his blood were the words: "I WILL NOT DIE". Monk hadn't lasted the night.

Aniako was next then Yasou, both died the day after Monk. John and Masuko died after them, it was four days after Monk died. Naru had tried his best but even with his extensive powers it was no match for the now even more powerful Urado. Lin died yesterday… protecting Naru just like he always said he would. A few hours later Naru had passed from the stress of wielding his powers as he had. I was the only one left now.

Before Lin had died Naru and I had concluded that the reason Urado was killing the SPR team was that he remembered the fact that we were the ones that had so painfully released him from the manor, I can only say that he was probably trying to show his gratitude by killing us all.

I had been fourteen that first time SPR had come to the Manor and meet the Urado. Now I was thirty-four and maybe more scared then I had ever been in my life. Standing in the ruins of the old manor I was struck with the morbidity of the entire thing, all my friends where dead and I was all that was left. My life like this manor was in complete ruin.

I could feel the temperature falling all around me a sure fire way to indicate the presence of a spirit, Urado was coming for me. I knew I was going to die tonight and it was going to be far from painless.

The tree next to me started shaking as works scratched themselves into the bark.

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE" he was here.

Well this demon was about to get a shock, the last time we had gone against Urado we had been found sourly lacking, it had ended with us running for our lives. Now though I knew how to kill it.

My spirit 'friend' wasn't the only one who had become more powerful in the last twenty years. I had come a long way since I was fourteen and only having precognitive dreams. I was now one of the best offensive spell casters in Japan let alone the SPR, second only to Naru though our powers were far from the same. I was a spiritualist but Naru he was something else. My powers had emerged when I was fourteen; Naru had been born with his powers. I however had gotten slowly more powerful as I learned about spiritualism to the point where I was a shockingly well respected authority in the parapsychological community.

I had traveled all over the world learning different skills that would help me on my case investigations. My most often used skills where taught to me by Lin's family in Hong Kong, Omyouji, Ekiki the use of Shiki and then I like to used Hetagata (straw effigy dolls) these were my two specialties. I was proficient in many other things as well one of which was that I was throwing Buddhist sutras at spirits as that was the only way I was able to exorcise them have long gotten too powerful to do so the normal way, something I admit to being very proud of.

However my Shiki where my first defense and offence and unlike Lin's Shiki mine where far from normal, I had used my knowledge of Omyoudo to create Shiki from concurred demons. It was my Shiki that I planned to use to kill Urado. My Shiki burned with the cold fire of the dead I was hoping that they would be enough to purify Urado. To kill this spirit I was going to have to use the power of all Six of my Shiki and infuse them with my own powers, it was this that was going to kill me in the end using all my life force as power for my Shiki to eat and gain the power they would need to destroy Urado, it was also going to hurt like a bitch.

Now I was just waiting for Urado. I had protective barriers all around me to insure that no one but me would get hurt in this little endeavor I was waiting for him to cross through to begin. A moment later it happened and one of my Shiki immediately closed the spiritual wall incasing Urado and I in a vertical tunnel of white fire. It was time.

I started without hesitation; if I was going to die it was going to be with professional dignity. That's when the pain started, pain from the spirit fire and from Urado trying to stop me, he was pushing and pulling at my Shiki and when they wouldn't give into him he turned to me. My Shiki where doing their job, very well but if Urado had it his way I knew this wasn't going to end yet.

The cold spirit fire surrounding the shield I had put up exploded inward toward me and Urado attacking us both. The light of the fire washing my skin in cold blazing agony as it purified my soul into nothingness and burned my body to ash.

I Mai Tamiyama felt every moment of it and so did Urado I watched him as he was purified into nothing and knew that my turn wasn't far off. At this point it couldn't be stopped I was going to die, it was long after that everything went black.