"Are you alright?"

The voice was so low that she barely heard it. Mai glanced upwards. "I'm fine..." She answered her boss slowly, her hand resting against the stinging skin against her cheek. They were still gathered in the kitchen and Lin was taking a temperature reading around the area, his eyes narrowed and his stance stiff as he walked over to the kitchen window to close it so the outside temperature wouldn't affect the kitchens.

"Naru!" Lin jumped backwards in shock and Mai glanced upwards. "There was a shadow." Lin explained to the younger male as he pointed to the window before leaning out to see if anyone was in the yard and found nothing, turning to everyone else with a frown. "It was small, like-"

"Like a child." Mai finished his sentence.

Lin nodded curtly. "Exactly."

Naru's eyes traveled from Mai to Lin carefully and crossed his arms. "I think we should question Ayami. There's a possibility it was her outside." He turned to Noriko and although she seemed a little uneasy she nodded and so they made their way up the stairs together and Mai slowly creaked open the door to Ayami's room and watched as the younger girl was tucking in her doll with a small blanket.

That's creepy. Mai cringed as she observed the doll.

Noriko reached into the room and turn the light on causing the young girl to glance upwards. "Aunt Nori." She blinked innocently.

Noriko moved further into the room and grabbed Ayami by the shoulders gently. "Ayami, were you outside? You're not in trouble but Lin-san saw someone peaking into the kitchen window." Ayami shook her head and Noriko frowned softly, "Please Ayami, if it was you just tell us. I won't be mad." The young girl pulled away, clenching her fists.

"It wasn't me." She shook her head softly.

Noriko, seeming frantic for an explanation, reached for the girl once more. "Ayami, please!"

"It wasn't Ayami!" Ayami screamed and a loud vibrating shook the room around them. This shaking continued and Ayami repeated the sentence, the vibration getting stronger and stronger until the bookshelf behind Noriko began tipping over.

Crap. Mai's eyes widened and she reached forward uselessly, however the book shelf fell and Noriko went down with it.

Day 3

It was just past midnight when everyone was gathered in base around the monitors, Bou-san and Ayako bickering to her side.

Mai could hear everyone's voices but she wasn't focused enough to comprehend them fully. She was very upset with herself. Her notebook should have had that information about the bookshelf falling. Granted, Noriko wasn't hurt but what if she had been? Mai was frustrated because she didn't understand why she didn't remember something like that but now that she thought about it she didn't remember other small things, like Kuroda's name. She seemed to remember the big events rather than the small details, which meant she would be caught off guard more than a few times.

"Naru." Lin's deep voice was like a knife cutting through her concentration. "The temperature in Ayami's room is beginning to drop rapidly."

Naru rushed forward, eyes intense and his body becoming stiff. "Speaker!" He barked at the older male and Lin complied, turning up the volume for everyone to hear the rustling of the items in Ayami's room moving and bumping.

With everyone focused on the noise Mai turned to the temperature, because one thing that had been implemented in her mind was that the stronger the spirit the lower the temperature. She leaned over Naru's shoulder. "And the temperature?" She asked and he jumped, seemingly surprised at her voice but nonetheless he turned to the temperature monitoring to get the current results.

"Incredible." He said to himself and turned to glance back at her. "It's dropped so fast and in a matter of seconds it's almost below freezing."

Mai swallowed. "And that means?"

Naru turned away from her and his hands clenched around the edge of the table. "That means this couldn't possibly be the work of humans."

They observed the phenomenon until it stopped and by then Mai was dead on her feet. She turned to began making her way to the kitchen as she wanted some tea before she went to sleep. The kettle was just beginning to get hot when Naru entered the area, seeming to be a man on a mission as he marched towards her.

"Sit down." He snipped.

Mai took a step back instinctively. "Excuse me?"

Naru took a seat at the table and placed down a white box. "I said sit. I don't like being in debt to anyone."

"In debt?" She was confused but she did as she was told and sat across from him. He opened the box and Mai realized that it was a first aid kit and watched in shock and confusion as he took out a few band aids and some treating ointment.

"Yes, in debt. Now rest your hand right here." He motioned to the space spread between them on the table, waiting expectantly. Apparently she wasn't fast enough for him and he reached forward for her hand himself but she jerked away. "Mai." He said exasperated.

"I'm having trouble understanding what's going on." Mai told him slowly and despite the situation she could feel her heart picking up speed in nervousness that he would reach for her hand again. She'd never held hands with a boy before.

Naru sighed and motioned to the space. "When we were investigating at your school you bandaged my hand, even though I had been rude to you previously." His eyes averted down to the band aids and ointment to put them in place but Mai had her suspicions that he just didn't like meeting her eyes while he admitted that he owed her one. "And so I am returning the favor. Give me your hand."

This time Mai had no trouble giving him her hand and her heart slowed back to a normal pace in calmness when she realized his good intentions. She watched quietly as he cleaned the burns on her fingers where she'd been singed earlier and she witnessed how detailed and slow he was in certain ways, as he made sure that the band aids wrapped around each of her fingers were aligned carefully and wrapped neatly and not too tight. He threw the wrappers away after a minute and picked up a white spray can and shook it.

Mai tilted her head curiously as she watched him obliviously. "What's that?"

Naru's answer to her was to turn to her sharply and spray the contents of the can onto her face, causing her to jump in shock. She stared at him after he was done and he blinked at her nonchalantly. "Cooling spray." He explained shortly. "For your cheek."

"Thanks." Mai told him bitterly when she realized that the cooling spray was really helping her stinging cheek.

Naru ignored her thanks. "Now we're even." And he swiftly picked up his things and left, leaving her to deal with the screaming tea kettle.

She made and drank her tea in base on one of the couches and a half hour later Mai yawned, stretching her arms above her head to make some noise to bring attention to herself. "Is it just me or is that doll of Ayami's suuuuper creepy?" She brought up casually and did her best to sound like she was oblivious. She faked an over exaggerated shiver. "It's just like a doll you would see in a horror movie." She stood and smiled to everyone. "Well, I'm going to sleep now. Good night."

As she was leaving the room she could began to see the wheels turning in Naru's mind, the slight narrow of his eyes and the way his fingers tapped a slow but steady pattern against his paper in thought.

She had planted the seed very carefully and now it was time for Naru to help it grow.

Mai grabbed the fire extinguisher in the hall way upstairs as she passed it and she spent the night curled up around the red metal tube in fear that the ghost would retaliate and set her on fire instead, and in the morning she woke up with the handle of it imprinted on the skin of her cheek.

Mai spent the morning seated in the base with a pencil in between her fingers and writing notes about last nights events. Naru had told her that they needed a personal statement from someone at the scene, as sometimes personal and the events in the data could be different, and that between the two any holes should be covered if their story was brought into any question.

She hadn't even realized that she'd fallen asleep until she was seated in the guest room where she was staying for the time being and Naru was staring at her. It was a dream she realized after a brief moment of staring at his face but before she could open her mouth to stay anything a hand grabbed her shoulder, startling her awake.

This time the male in front of her was truly Naru, as he was staring at her intently as his hand fell away.

"What did you say?" Mai sat up quickly, a little shaken up by the words she'd heard.

Naru frowned at her. "I didn't say anything."

"You said..." Mai trailed off and she felt idiotic. It wasn't Naru who said it, now she wasn't delirious from being woken up so quickly she was able to make sense of who and what was said.

"I said what Mai?" Naru asked her sternly.

Mai decided to humor him. "Ayami is in danger." She answered quietly. Seeing his frown she explained. "Just as I woke up, I heard that... I think."

Naru frowned and placed his finger underneath his chin. "Interesting." He thought for a moment before turning to look back up at her. "I was coming to tell you that I looked into your comment last night about how the doll was creepy and Noriko-san told me something very interesting." He sat down beside her. "She said that Ayami had mentioned that Minnie told her that Kana-san was a witch and was trying to poison her."

Mai nodded slowly and pushed away the pride that he picked up on her seemingly innocent comment. "That would explain Ayami's hesitance to bond with Kana-san."

"Yes it would, but that's not the interesting part." Naru shifted in his seat so that he was facing her and his eyes seemed much more blue in his intent focus. "I asked to see the doll and Noriko-san brought it to me and explained that Ayami's strange behaviour began after her father gifted her with the doll. I barely got to finish the conversation with Noriko-san before Ayami came into the room. She was very distressed, more so than any other child would be in a situation like that."

"Unnatural attachment." Mai began to say when the door opened and Bou-san walked in, stopping in his tracks when he saw the two.

"You two are having a civil conversation?" He asked shocked.

Lin pushed into the room past him. "Shocking." He mumbled underneath his breath.

Mai ignored their comments and stood. "Wait until you hear what Naru has to say."

Naru explained the findings he made to Bou-san and Ayako and the four of them made a plan, that later when Ayami was asleep they would take the doll and place it in Ayami's room with a camera faced at it to see if anything would happen.

And so that's what just they did.

"Dolls were originally meant as vessels for trapping people's souls." Bou-san was telling her over her shoulder as they all gathered around the monitors to observe Minnie sitting on Ayami's bed. "Without any soul and being empty on the inside they're easy to possess-"

Naru stood abruptly and that drew Mai's attention to the screens when she realized where his attention was focused on.

It was Minnie, not sitting, but laying down. They watched as the doll slowly began to move, inch by inch making its way towards the edge of the bed before it finally fell to the ground, it's head breaking off and rolling quickly towards the screen, stopping against the lens with it's face covering it. Mai shivering and ignored the way her stomach dropped at the sight, staring at the empty green eyes peering back at her.

She decided that rather than a fire extinguisher, she would be sleeping with a blow torch that night, because that creepy doll wasn't going anywhere near her.

an explanation on my absence: i started my first semester at university and idk if you know this but uni is kinda super hard lol. not to mention that i work five days a week and between work and school workload i haven't had time to write more than 200 words for this chapter which is why it's soooo late. HOWEVER, it's been twently minutes since i've finished my last final research essay and i now have more time to write!

thank you for sticking with me if you are still here, and i loooooved the reviews you guys sent. They are so nice and supportive.