Author's Note:

Here we are with the first proper chapter! A big thanks to you lovely people who gave me reviews and please do keep them coming!

Without any further ado - Chapter one!

"So everyone did see the same thing on the Midnight Channel last night… Interesting," Naoto murmured, stroking her chin "And you say that the image only becomes clear when the person is already inside the TV, correct?"

Yosuke nodded "Yep. So now is the time for us to try and find out who the person was that we saw last night."

"I agree," Chie chirped, swinging her legs under her chair "I just wish we could have seen that person more clearly, whoever it was seemed to be all curled up."

"It may be worth trying to find the girl that was being interviewed last night, it did look like a girl's figure," Naoto suggested, looking to the others with a soft smile, "Does anyone know her?"

"Harumi Moto, she's a First Year student like us," Rise chimed in, "Never really wanted to talk to her though… seemed a bit bratty." She wrinkled her nose a bit, as if the mere mentioning of her name made her feel slightly ill.

Yu spoke up "Well, we have little choice. We have to make sure that we know enough about this girl before she is thrown into the television," the group nodded in unison, all rising from their seats and splitting up like usual to talk to as many different people as possible.

Yu, as leader, travelled into the Central Shopping District in hopes of finding this Harumi girl. Again, he felt this dread in his stomach that only continued to throb. He shrugged it off as him just being worried of having yet another group member. He had been fairly lucky with his friends so far, he was just waiting for that one person that would end up being a thorn in his side. He sighed and swept those thoughts out of his head, surprised that he could still form judgements about people he didn't know.

He looked down at the road as he walked, his right hand resting in his pant pocket like always. Every person he passed, his eyes scanned with incredible precision, looking for any slight hint of usefulness. The Shopping District wasn't too crowded today but he did see a group of teenage girls walking down one of the side streets towards the houses. For just a brief moment, he swore he could see familiar blonde curls before the girls hid them once again, turning the corner and disappearing from sight.

Breaking into a light jog, he traced their steps around the corner before slowing to more subtly follow the girls without alerting them to anything suspicious. He took out his phone and pretended to text while straining his ears in an attempt to listen to their conversation.

"…it's not right… how could she do… you have to do something about this!"

They sounded frightened, as if they were holding onto information that could bring great danger to them. He frowned and continued to listen to their hushed voices.

"What are you going to tell them?... Be heartbroken… If you're sure."

Now things were getting suspicious, he had no idea what they were talking about but their voices were frantic and concerned. One was taller, black haired and was wringing her hands nervously; she did most of the talking. The other three weren't physically striking in any way, just regular schoolgirls. Except one, the one that happened to wear those very curls he had seen before. He had no doubt in his mind that this was the girl he had to save.

The four stopped outside of a fairly rich looking house, definitely an upper-middleclass household residing within. The taller was about to knock on the door when the blonde rudely pushed her to the side, hissing "I'll do it!"

Yu saw that a bench was positioned just opposite the house for a bus stop and took a seat. Whatever was happening, he knew it would somehow be very important to their rescue mission when it truly began.

The blonde knocked loudly on the door, tapping her heel impatiently against the concrete floor of the porch. Despite her harsh exterior, Yu did notice a genuine fear in this girl. Whatever was behind that door, appeared to be the thing that scared her.

Curious and unseen, he rested on the bench and watched the scene that unfurled before him.

The door opened to reveal a man around Dojima's age, still fairly young and with high levels of energy in his dark eyes. He frowned slightly upon seeing the blonde, speaking in a steady but authoritative tone "I believe the school made it clear that you are not permitted to be near my daughter."

Yu leaned forward in his seat, things were getting interesting.

"I didn't come here to see her!" The blonde snapped, throwing her arms down in frustration, "I came here to talk to you, Akiyama-San."

The man, Akiyama, rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed, "Harumi…" So it was her, "You have told me many things about my daughter in the past, none of them have been true. Now, I am going to ask you nicely to please leave before I call the school aga-"

"She killed her real parents!"

Her exclamation shocked everyone into silence. She just stood there, red faced and clenching her fists.

"I think that's quite enough, Harumi. I will be calling your parents to tell them of your horrible lies, I will not tolerate any more of this." Akiyama spoke calmly but his eyes were filled with rage at her accusations.

He turned to close the door on the blonde but Harumi stopped him, grabbing his sleeve and harshly tugging him back around, "Listen to me! I know she did it! Why else would she be so messed up like this?! Killers…Killers the-they always do weird stuff, right? And she always carries around those stupid dolls a-and she…" Her desperate rambling was stopped when her tall friend put her arm around her shoulder, gently pulling her back away from the door while whispering softly to calm her.

Akiyama straightened his clothes, taking a breath and calming himself before he spoke again "For that, your school will also be notified. If I see you here once more, I will call the police. Don't make me do that to you." And with that, he closed the door on them.

Harumi seemed close to hyperventilating, struggling against the grip of her friends as they desperately tried to calm her. She started screaming in pure anger, tears staining her face with smeared mascara. "I HATE HER!" She screamed over and over again, practically delusional with her hate, not even noticing as Yu stood to leave. He had seen enough.

He glanced once more at the group, watching as the vicious blonde slapped and scratched at those who tried to help her, and frowned. He couldn't help but dislike this girl but at the same time, her story had to have held some significance or truth even if it was exaggerated.

For just a moment, he felt as though a pair of eyes were on him. He looked up instinctively at the upstairs window, just a moment too late to see a person quickly draw the curtains so as not to be seen. He stared at those curtains for a few moments longer, entranced by what he thought he had glimpsed. He shook his head, picked up his bag and started off back towards Junes.

He walked slowly; there wasn't anything that could really be done until the kidnapping had occurred. He wished that they could help these people before it even happened to them, but every time they tried, the culprit still always succeeded in taking them to the other world. It was almost as if they were fighting for nothing as whenever they thought they had won, another would go missing.

"You…You bitch!"

Yu turned quickly, having only walked a few blocks down the street, and saw the blonde viciously attacking someone. He had thought her treatment of her own friends was brutal but that quickly changed when he saw the cruel, evil intent this girl put into attacking the one she called a 'bitch'. He couldn't see her very well from there; all he could see was that she was being pinned to the ground by Harumi, as if being strangled by her, the girl's long black hair splayed around her.

Yu nearly stepped in until he saw the man from before run out into the street, gripping Harumi by her shirt and pulling her forcefully off of her victim. The yelling was constant and unintelligible now, with all five of them screaming at the top of their lungs.

The only one who stayed quiet was the girl on the floor. He watched as she slowly lifted herself off of the road, stumbling a little when regaining her balance. It was only then that he recognised her. With her long, black hair, white dress and pale skin, she was undoubtedly the 'ghost girl' that Nanako had seen the previous night.

Yu saw as she looked over at the confrontation, horror flitting across her reddened and bruised face. In a flight reaction, she took off towards him, running barefoot without even knowing where she was going.

Yu stepped quickly to the side, watching as the short, elf like girl ran past him, tears in her vibrant blue eyes. She turned the corner, heading down the side street he had come through and she was gone, just as quickly as she had appeared.

Confused and concerned, Yu attempted to run after her but she had vanished, like she had on the news report.

With nothing else he could do, he texted Yosuke and headed back to Junes to tell them of what he witnessed.