Wow, sorry for the late update guys! I wrote my second-to-last Uni exam today and the entire day, I've been feeling as if I'm forgetting something and just now I remembered, I have to post this chapter. I see from my update date and publish date that I'm waffling between Monday and Tuesday apparently. For future reference, it's supposed to be on Monday.

Thanks for the follows and favourites and a huuuuge thanks to Fancy Kagome86 for reviewing, you're awesome!

And so, enjoy!

Chapter 3

It was snowing when Naru and Mai finally arrived at the large red brick building and Naru reluctantly had to shake Mai awake. She was still rubbing her eyes as she sat up, watching sleepily as Naru paid the taxi driver and got their bags. Stretching, Mai helped Naru carry their meagre possessions to the gate security building as the taxi drove away and she got her first look at the site they'd be investigating. The main building was directly in front of her, with another building to the left side and a cluster of trees to the right. She could see a path stretching to the back of the main building, but her thoughts weren't occupied by what lied beyond it, but rather the hospital itself.

From the front, it looked quite innocent, not showing the horrors it halls contained within. Built with red bricks in the Baroque architecture style, it had multiple small white windows on the facade and a large double doorway situated beneath a rectangular cream archway, with pillars encasing the large arched window above the doorway. Neatly trimmed bushes grew halfway up the walls and precise flowerbeds lined the anterior of the building. In front of the building was a small roundabout that was filled with plants, though they weren't in bloom as it was winter, and a fountain-like statue in the middle that also contained some greenery. Two chimneys flanked the main roof and a miniature clock tower was situated in the middle of them.

All in all, it looked quite professional and unassuming; if one didn't know its history or what was happening in one of the unoccupied wings at this moment.

Turning back to Naru, Mai spotted one of BSPR's camera's standing inside the small security building, where it wouldn't be harmed by the elements; so, ignoring Naru's explanation to the guard, she walked towards the camera, checking that it wasn't damaged. She then got out a spare tape she had packed in her bag just for this purpose. Switching it out with the tape inside the camera, she pocketed the used one. She doubted they would get any relevant information on this camera, but better to have looked at it and found nothing that to have leaved it and missed something.

"Mai, we're good to go. The manager is coming to meet us and show us to the wing where the rest of the team are." Nodding absent-mindedly, Mai walked with Naru towards the main entrance, where the manager was apparently meeting them and couldn't help but smile at the worried glance Naru flashed at her. To anyone else, it might have looked neutral, but the tension around Naru's mouth and the slight wrinkle near his eyes told her he was feeling some measure of concern.

Squeezing his hand in reassurance, she could see the muscles around his mouth relaxing, allowing him to revert to his professional self. It always amazed her how easily she was able to read him now, though she knew it was mainly due to four years of marriage and observing his every mannerism.

"Do you feel anything?" Taking some time to mull over Naru's question, Mai was forced to reluctantly shake her head.

"No, nothing. There's no ominous feeling like with the Urado case and neither the site nor buildings make me feel scared or uneasy. In fact, it only feels a bit… impersonal, maybe; nothing else. Though, if I compare it to that case two years ago… Yeah, it feels a bit like that. Like when we finished the Mitoyoshi case and the building was cleansed, leaving it with no personality almost…"

Despite her rambled answer, she knew that Naru would understand her, as the case two years ago had not necessarily been a hard one to solve, but rather a gruesome one. A house built quite recently was reported to be haunted by the newly moved in family and, with a bit of investigation, they found out why. Turns out that the children, of the family that had commissioned the house, had all been murdered one night during a burglary that had gone wrong. The burglars had held the children hostage while their parents were out and told the oldest one to bring them all the valuables in the house. For each ten minutes that went by without her being able to deliver these valuables, they would kill one of her siblings in front of her, before killing her.

She had four younger siblings…

Needless to say, the eldest daughter, being only eight herself, had been unable to move on and had thrown the equivalent of a spiritual rage, unable to accept what had happened to her and her siblings. The house, before the cleansing, had felt heavy and depressing, as if it was stained by its history. After the cleansing however, the building had lost all of those feelings, almost as if it was a blank slate, wiped of its history.

This was the feeling Mai was getting from the hospital. As if all the previous exorcisms and cleansings had wiped the building of all its spiritual history, leaving it empty as if it was newly built. It was quite an unsettling feeling to have of a building that's purportedly haunted and it seemed like Naru shared her unease by the look on his face.

"Ah, you must be Mr. and Mrs. Davis, I presume. I'm Mr. Collins, the manager here at Bethlem Royal Hospital." A thin man with a stern face and a smart suit walked forwards as he held out his hand to greet Naru. Mai got the feeling he was a man used to being listened to, as he had a no-nonsense air around him.

"A pleasure. I'm sorry for the inconvenience our team has made upon you and your workers Mr. Collins. We'll work as speedily as possible to ensure this case doesn't receive undue attention."

"Please see that you do. Now, if you'll follow me, I'll take you to where your team is, though your father told me I'm only to deliver you to the side door and not enter the building myself…?"

It was obvious Mr. Collins was quite confused by Martin's statement, but Mai didn't listen to Naru's vague deflection, instead preferring to watch the grounds they were walking by. They were walking along the main building, where the Bethlem Museum of the Mind now was, towards a small corpse of trees on the right. Though they called their site of investigation a side wing, it wasn't actually connected to the main building, but rather hidden among the trees.

Reportedly, it was a separate building where they had kept some of the more dangerous and unhinged patients, but the records were quite spotty and as such, not all the information could be trusted. Mai looked upon the medium sized rectangular building, still not feeling the usual clench in her gut to tell her something was amiss. It stood quietly and unassumingly between the trees and if it wasn't for the general feeling of neglect the building gave, she would have thought it was just another normal part of the hospital.

"Well, there you go. It's not as large as the man building, but it's still quite an important part of the history. We want to restore it so that it could be put to use, but unfortunately we need you guys to investigate it, so that Mr. Bailey can be satisfied. If that's all, I still have important work that needs seeing to, so I'll be on my way."

With that, Mr. Collin briskly walked away, his back straight and his stride sure. Mai was feeling a bit guilty about the relief she felt at the stern man's absence, since he hadn't been rude per say, but decided to put it behind her as Naru inspected the building. She could see the front door, innocuously facing them, as well as a broken window on the far side of the building.

That must be where Alexis broke through…

"Well, let's get started with the measurements first, so we have something to compare their map on the inside with." For the next hour, Naru and Mai measured the outside of the house, marked the locations of the windows and single door on the paper floorplan, leaving the inside blank, except for the little they could see through the windows. Finally, there was no more that they could document from the outside.

"Mai, be prepared for anything. Also, as soon as you feel something, tell me. No keeping it to yourself until 'you're sure it's relevant'." Flushing at Naru's reminder about her tendency to keep things to herself until she was absolutely certain it would help the case, she cheerfully replied in the affirmative, trying to hide her anxiety as her husband's black clad figure walked up to the front door.

The door swung open silently, its hinges well-oiled by the caretaker, Mr. Bailey, and the cinnamon haired woman looked around the entrance hall. It was quite small, with doors in the front and left and right of her. It was still eerily quiet and though Mai could see another of their camera's standing in the corner, there was no greeting from the other researchers. With one last glance at Naru, Mai took the door wedge they had brought with and wedge it beneath the front door, making sure the door stayed open.

Going to work quickly, Mai and Naru took the entrance hall measurements, adding it to their drawn map. At this point in time, they were still certain that the spirit was unaware of them and took the time to make a map that they knew was uninfluenced by any hallucinations.

"Right, according to Miss Reid, they made their base in Lab 3, which is through the door across from us and then the second door on our left. Let's go, the sooner we find the rest of the team, the better."

Opening the door across from them, Mai followed her husband and boss down the long corridor, walking past Lab 1 on her left and Lab 2 on her right, before they reached Lab 3 and 4. Mai could see Naru roughly sketching in the corridor on their map, measuring it with his strides as he walked and guessing the rest. Opening the left side door, they entered to find the base, with the computer monitors set up and papers strewn across the three desks in the room.

Across from them was an observation window looking out into a decrepit lab room, filled with an old gurney, some rusted chains and broken desks. A cup of still steaming tea coffee stood in front of the monitors, but otherwise, it was empty.

"Hmmm, seems like they all went out. I wonder if they'll be back soon, or if we should go look for them." Mai mused out loud. Naru didn't reply, as he just walked over to the desks, rummaging and reading through the papers. He seemed to have found the buildings blueprints, as he was comparing two pages, but Mai wasn't overly concerned with her husband's actions.

The psychic didn't want to admit it, but she was feeling more unsettled by the minute, not because her intuition told her something was off, but rather because her intuition wasn't telling her anything. It was as if the building wasn't haunted.

Clicking on the keyboard, she quickly flipped through the monitors and different cameras, trying to find their wayward team. She found the camera that was connected to the security house at the gate and saw it displaying a frozen image of her and Naru. It had probably stopped working as soon as she had finished changing the tape. Reaching into her backpack, she took out the old tape and placed it on the table for later viewing, before she continued her search.

It was as she was watching a camera that had been placed in the right-side corridor, between the lab rooms and the patient rooms, that she found them. Four people were crowded around a gate that cut them off from the main hallway and they were surrounded by what looked like a fine white mist. Without waiting to see what happened further, Mai immediately turned for the door.

"Naru! Hurry, they're in trouble!" Without ensuring that her husband was following her, which she was sure he would, Mai about flew out of the room, running towards the topmost door at the corridor, which would lead to the back of the building, and ripped it open. Uncertain for a moment where she should go to, a panicky voice drew her attention to the right, and without sparing a glance behind her, she tore down the hallway.

As the voices got closer, she began to make out separate voices and saw a large metal gate where the hallway would branch off. The gate was closed, as she had seen on the monitor, but on the other side of it were two men and two women, with one of each chanting. The chanting woman, darker skinned with long black hair, looked like she was coated in a flame cloak, while the man seemed to be actually trying to talk to the spirit, which Mai couldn't see with her bare eyes. The other man was fiddling at the gate, his movements jerky as the last girl, who had platinum blonde hair, urged him on in a panicked voice.

Lifting her hands, Mai started Bou-san's chant, her voice strong and echoing around her.

"Nau mak san manda bazara dan kan. Nau mak san manda bazara dan kan. Nau mak san manda bazara dan kan!"

Mai lifted her right hand up in front of her body, two fingers held out.

"Rin! Pyou! Tou!-" By now, the 23-year old could feel the slightly oppressive, heavy feeling of the entity and her gut immediately clenched. It was surrounding her body, pressing against her curiously, but as she chanted the Nine Cuts, it recoiled slightly.

"-Shah! Kai! Chin!-" The four people in front of her had by this time turned around, three of them looking at her with wide, surprised eyes and one with narrowed eyes, but she didn't pay them any mind as she finished the chant.

"-Retsu! Zai! ZEN!"

Slashing her hand horizontally in front of her, she yelled out the last Cut, her voice echoing around her in the confined hallway and with one last resistant push, the spirit disappeared from her senses, though she was certain it wasn't defeated yet. As soon as the spirt was gone, the metal doorway gate clicked open, making it seem as if it had never been locked.

Sighing, Mai straightened from her defensive stance she had automatically assumed as she had neared the gate and her shoulders relaxed. She smiled reassuringly at the still surprised BSPR employees before her and the woman who was still cloaked in fire, whom Mai assumed was Alisha, broke the silence.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? How di-"

"That's quite enough Miss Malakar." Mai cringed as Naru's frosty cold voice crackled from behind her and she sheepishly turned to see his carefully concealed, but livid expression. His body was straight and tightly strung, while his fists were subtly clenched.

"Ahhh… Naru, I'm sorry. I just… I saw them and I couldn't le-"

"We'll discuss your idiotic tendency to run off later Mai. Right now, let's move to the base, where we can talk properly." Mai flinched minutely and shrugged sheepishly at her still baffled new teammates, before contritely following Naru down the hallway. She immediately heard a scrambling behind her and four pairs of footsteps following them. She was also relieved to find that Alisha had extinguished her flame cloak, no matter how impressive it was. It had started getting hot in the confined space they were in.

As soon as they entered the base, Naru turned and leaned against the desk, his expression stony. This time, it was the platinum blond who spoke up first.

"You're Oliver Davis right! O my gosh, it's such an honour to meet you, Professor Davis always talks about you and I've read your books and-"

A sharp jab to her side had the woman snap her mouth close, as she glared balefully at the hazel-eyed man who elbowed her as he saw Naru's expression become frostier. Mai couldn't help but giggle at their behaviour, reminding her of her own team back home.

"Naru, put them out of their misery, they didn't do anything wrong. Hello, my name is Mai Davis, it's nice to meet you. Sorry about Naru's mood, he's angry that I ran off. Give him a bit of time and he'll be back to his normal self; not that it's much of an improvement mind you." Mai threw her husband a sly glance, her lips tilted up in a teasing grin and after a few tense seconds, Naru sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as his shoulders relaxed. The room became slightly warmer as Naru's anger seeped away and the atmosphere lightened.

"Naru?" The hazel-eyed man questioned. Mai's face lighted up and she prepared herself for her great and enlightening speech, only to pout as the man himself intervened.

"A childish nickname my wife bestowed on me some years ago, do not pay it any attention." Sulking, Mai muttered under her breath about how if he wasn't such a narcissist, she wouldn't have called him that. The others, while looking interested in her mumbles, quickly snapped to attention as Naru cleared his throat in irritation, one finely shaped eyebrow lifting.

"Ah yes, uhm, I'm Rhys Foster and this twit here is Emily Taylor." The guy who had elbowed the platinum blond previously stated and Mai recognised him as the one who had been trying to get the gate open before. Emily waved as she was introduced and Rhys went on to point towards the other two team members.

"This guy over here is Cian O'Brian and this grumpy cat is Alisha Malakar. Please excuse her earlier rudeness, she takes some time to warm up." Rhys and Emily snorted as if he had just made some funny joke and Alisha glared at them as a small flame came to life on her finger tip, which shut them up quite quickly.

Mai couldn't help the amused smile which lighted up her face at the interaction between the group. A noise caught her attention ad she turned towards Naru, who had picked up a file earlier and had now snapped it shut to gain everyone's attention. Mai had noticed it was one of his favourite techniques and she felt like rolling her eyes at him. Judging by the amused glance he sent her, he was well aware of her exasperation.

"If we can put aside all the foolishness, then we can actually solve this case. Now, firstly, are these blueprints reliable?" Naru held up a large, thick paper and Mai saw the layout of the building for the first time.

The building was the shape of a perfect rectangle, with one main hallway running around the entire building and three corridors running vertically. The corridors to the left and right both had gates instead of doors at the top and bottom junctions connecting to the main hallway, as they led to the patient rooms, of which there was room 1-5 on the left side and room 6-10 on the right side. It was also via these corridors that one gained access to the main area of the lab rooms, of which there was four. The centre corridor was the only one that had access to the observation rooms, which were part of the labs, but cut-off by the observation windows of reinforced, one-way glass.

Mai felt sick looking at the symmetrical floorplan, which was obviously designed in such a way that the patients never had to leave their one corridor. She didn't even want to know what they did for bathroom, since the only one there was a small one located in the bottom left corner of the main hallway, presumably for the doctors and nurses. On the bottom right corner was a small kitchenette, not even walled, where one could make coffee and such. Mai assumed that the patients' food was brought from the main building.

"Yes, we got that from the hospital and had verified it on the first day. After the fourth day, it became a bit more difficult to verify it with the naked eye, as our perceptions became distorted, but with that blueprint we created the GPS-device." Naru nodded, his eyes scanning the plan to memorise it, though it was fairly straightforward. Finally, he looked up.

"Right, tell me what happened since Miss Reid escaped. Last we heard Miss Malakar was still missing. Also, Mr Foster, can you make another such GPS-device? Miss Reid lost the previous one sometime during her escape."

Looking between themselves, it was Rhys who answered, seeming to be the spokesperson for the group. "Um, I don't think I'll be able to make another one, unless I dismantle some of the equipment we have here. I used up all my spare parts. About what happened, well, I assume Alexis told you of our plan right?" Seeing Naru nod smartly, he continued.

"Ok, so when all three of us woke up together in one of the patient rooms after trying to escape, we determined that Alexis had made it through since she wasn't there with us. Or rather, we hoped she made it through and wasn't just kidnapped like Alisha. All we could do was try and find Alisha before it was too late. We found her about three hours later, lying unconsciously in one of the patient rooms. She hadn't been there before, but we didn't question her appearance much, just happy she wasn't seriously injured. This morning, we decided to investigate the room where she was found in, but as soon as we set foot in it, we got attacked. We tried to retreat, but it locked the gate. That's when you two arrived."

"And what happened to Miss Malakar while she was missing?"

"She tells it better than I do." Everyone turned towards the scowling woman, waiting for her to elaborate on her kidnapping, Naru especially impatient to get the details. She did so immediately, speaking in a clipped tone.

"Well, I was walking along the main hallway when I was attacked. The temperature had dropped considerably, which says something since I usually don't notice it when the temperature drops, and my vision turned red, before I fell unconscious. When I woke up, it was to see a white padded room, like the ones the patients stayed in, except it was entirely empty and smaller. There was also no door that I could see, just seamless wall.

"I tried finding an exit, but I hadn't been up for long, before the entity came. I couldn't see anything, but the room became colder again and I cloaked myself in my fire. No matter what sort of attack I did, the spirit didn't retreat, instead, it seemed to become agitated. Right after I threw a fireball at it, it seemed to have enough, because a scream resounded in the room and I was knocked back into the wall. The energy the spirit used knocked me out and when I came to, I was in another room that I recognized as a normal patient room."

"Have you found this room you were kept in initially, or do you have any idea where it is?" The team shook their heads and Naru sighed.

"Right, no one is to go anywhere alone. Make a habit of counting your steps starting now, so that you roughly know where you are even when your senses betray you. This s the measurements Mai and I took outside the house, so use that for reference." Mai stood back as the four people crowded around Naru, listening to his explanation.

She was quite amused to see that Emily was a full-blown fangirl of Naru's and his looks enamoured him to her even more. The initial flash of jealously had long since disappeared, as Mai knew Naru loved her and would never leave her, much less for someone who posed no challenge. Naru might say otherwise, but she knew he appreciated her guts and that she stood up to him. Turning, she grabbed the kettle and started preparing some tea. Naru would be barking orders for a while more and tea would only help him relax and protect the rest of the team from his irritation.

She was certain this was the start of a long day.

GH

So, what did you think? Please ask if you don't understand something, I'll be happy to explain. I tried to keep things as close to reality as possible, though Mr. Collin/Bailey are my own creation and this extra wing doesn't really exist on the grounds.

I'm excited to hear what you thought about Naru's preparations and your first impressions of everyone, though the next chapter will be a bit more thorough in that regard. Please review!