Ghostly Hauntings:

Chapter 6:

From Lin's hypnotism they had a hint as to the identity of Naru's almost murderer. Mai was more shocked than the rest of them because the answer had been in her mind for over a year. If only she had been aware that the person she had believed was helping Naru had been the one trying to kill him.

She sat staring at the unconscious Naru whilst Lin called the others back in.

"Do you know who the 'doctor' was?" Yasuhara asked immediately once the three of them had been told.

Lin scowled. "He didn't go in the ambulance to the hospital. The nurse did and gave the staff there rundown of the injuries. That's why finding out who the 'doctor' was not essential because the nurse had provided all the information. She didn't ever find out his name."

"She probably saved Davis-san's life," John noted. "If she hadn't been there, the man would have been able to finish him off discreetly there and then."

It was a sobering thought. Naru had been on the brink of death that night. Mai looked over at Naru again. It could be said that he was dead because he was unable to wake up and she was seeing him as a ghost.

She checked the time and realised that he was due to appear.

"Lin-san, it's time for Naru to come," she called out.

The omnouji stilled momentarily and nodded.

Mai waited for Naru's spirit to make an appearance. She didn't have long to wait for a flicker of translucent white soon became visible and slowly formed the black clad Naru. They locked eyes as he opened his eyes.

"Hello Mai," he greeted and looked around. "Is this a hospital? There's someone new here as well."

Mai knew he meant Lin and waited for him to notice the person lying in the hospital bed. She saw the shock in his eyes and then the confusion.

"…Is that me...?" he asked wonderingly. "Am I not dead?"

For the second time that day Mai felt guilty. It was partially thanks to her that Naru was having to go through this.

Lin spoke for the first time. "No Noll, you are not dead. You've trapped your spirit halfway in this world and in a death state."

Naru's eyes turned on him.

"…Who are you?"

"I was supposed to be accompanying and looking after you on your parents' behalf. I seemed to have failed," Lin told him. "I'm Koujo Lin."

Naru took this in his stride fairly well. Mai didn't think the remainder of everything else they had found out would go down quite so well.

"I see. What is my real name then? What happened to me?"

Lin provided Naru with his real name and paused before telling him the answer to his second question.

"You were on the track of your brother's murderer. You must have found him because he came very close to killing you, it's luck that you are still alive," he stopped to amend his statement. "Your heart is still beating and you can breathe on your own. It's your mind that won't wake up."

Naru faltered and didn't speak for a minute. Mai was unable to read his face to deduce how he was feeling. He was completely closed off from her.

"…Do you know how I can get back to my body?" He asked quietly. "I still cannot remember anything."

Lin sighed. "I can't tell you. What I do know is that we need to find out soon, the doctors aren't expecting you to last another three months. You are fading out in this world."

It was then that Mai knew that Naru had realised why he was spending longer as a spirit in the living world. He must have assumed he was getting stronger. He drifted down and sat down on the bed next to his real body.

"There are signs of hope for you," the omnouji pointed out.

Mai stared at Lin in confusion. In all honesty, she hadn't seen any signs of Naru being able to wake up from his coma. She knew there were cases of people being in comas for multiple years and waking up, but if the doctors weren't holding out much hope, there wasn't much she could do.

"Firstly, you recognised your real body as being yourself. You should have no idea what you look like because you can't see yourself in a mirror," Lin explained.

Immediately Mai was thankful for having Lin on their side. She would have never noticed the significance of that. Judging from the looks on everyone elses' faces they would have missed it as well.

"There is also a significance to you being unsure if it was really you. It means that deep down you remember what your brother looks like," Lin continued. "You are also aware that your real name is Oliver from what I have heard."

That was something only Lin would have been able to notice so Mai didn't feel like she had been unobservant. Naru's brother must have looked a lot like him.

"You've also attached yourself to Taniyama-san here rather than anyone else you've seen over the past year. I think that you saw her for a moment by the road when you were barely conscious and wanted to reach out to her for help. Your subconscious recognised her when you encountered each other a few days ago and you could say that you have reached out to her successfully now."

Those words produced a blush from Mai and stare down from Naru. The spirit then transferred his gaze to her and she blushed further.

"I can't say I didn't wonder why I am able to find Mai," was all he said. "So, there is a potential that I can remember everything and find my way back to my body?"

"I believe there is," Lin said.

John was the first society member to speak up.

"I do as well. Most spirits do remember more than you so that can be what's stopping you from waking up."

The society president, Yasuhara stepped forward. "I feel like everything I knew about ghost before was inaccurate now, but I'm willing to do anything to help."

Michiru and Keiko also voiced their assent which left Mai. She raised her eyebrows when she noticed that everyone was looking at her.

"Of course I want to help Naru return to his body."

She also wanted to because some of the blame for his current state rested on her shoulders. If only she had thought more about what she seeing on the day of the accident.

Yasuhara cleared his throat.

"Now that we know who Noll is and where his real body is we need to return to one of the society's original questions. Why is Noll connected to that high school? Mai isn't connected to it and he didn't attend it either."

That was true. They hadn't questioned Naru's presence at the high school a lot before. Now that they knew he wasn't a high school student in Japan and he had been looking for his brother's murderer, it became all the more confusing. There wasn't an easy answer.

John turned to Lin for some information.

"Did Davis-san keep a diary of some sort that we could use?"

Lin smiled slightly despite the seriousness of the situation.

"Noll is not the type of person that would keep a diary. When I went into his hotel room that morning, when I was looking for him I found a note saying that he was going out investigating a lead. That was suspicious because we usually investigated together and he would normally text me first."

Yasuhara filled in the blank. "Do you think that he knew it was going to be dangerous and that you wouldn't approve so he went without you?"

The omnouji nodded. "Exactly. There was always a risk associated with Naru doing the investigating. You see it was likely that if Naru encountered the murderer he would certainly be killed. To put it simply, there's a very strong resemblance between Naru and his brother."

Mai understood. If Naru looked closely like his brother, the previous victim, the murderer might have thought that he hadn't finished him off properly and would finish the task. Perhaps that was what had happened.

"Did any of your leads connect to that high school?" Keiko asked.

"No. I have no idea why Naru's ghost is attached to that location. He could have gone there on that day, but I can't say why and who he went to see."

It was clear that Lin had no clues about the high school.

"How far is the high school from that accident site?" Michiru asked. "From what Mai-chan said it sounds closer to her high school than mine."

Lin walked over to his briefcase on top of small table in the corner and opened it to produce a map. The map had a bright red circle on it and Mai recognised it as being the road that the attempted murder occurred on.

"It's mostly in between the two schools, although Taniyama-san's all girl's school is ten minutes away and the other one is a little further," he pointed to something else in the map. "There is car park a few metres away from the accident. I believe that the murderer transported Noll's unconscious body by car and then half carried him a few metres and then pushed him off the bridge."

It did sound plausible. Then again, any theory would sound plausible based on the lack of facts they had about the case. Surely Lin and Naru must have known more to be investigating in Japan in the first place.

Yasuhara had reached the same conclusion as her.

"What lines were you investigating on before Noll disappeared?" The society president asked.

"Noll's brother died in and hit and run. Normally we wouldn't have known this because his body has never been found. However Noll is gifted."

John filled in the gap. "He used psychometry."

It took a moment for Mai to remember what psychometry was from John's explanation earlier.

"That's right. Noll used one his brother's shirts and saw his death. Our first priority was to find his body-all Noll could tell was that it was dropped into a lake. Then Noll switched to wanting to find the murderer instead. He must have performed it again and seen something he hadn't noticed before."

If Mai had understood correctly using psychometry would mean that Naru would have experienced his brother's death and repeating the psychometry would have meant that he had gone through it again. It wasn't nice to think about it.

She looked around for him and jumped a little when she realised that Naru had been standing next to her chair the whole time. He looked down at her with an amused look on his face.

"Mai, you should pay more attention to your surroundings," he teased lightly.

Mai flushed and focused her attention on Lin again. The omnouji was staring at her and Naru strangely. Maybe Naru had been very different in real life. Seeing his ghost act different was probably very disorientating for Lin.

"I will see what information I can get about that high school from my Police contact," Lin informed them. "Noll, where do you want to go? You can stay here with your body and I can tell you about your real self. Or you can go with Taniyama-san."

"I want to stay with Mai," was Naru's answer.

A/N: As a reply to the anonymous reviewer who asked about the nurse: she is not Ayako.