This is for you, grandpa! You just wait, I'm gonna throw you a curveball and you're gonna be like "Wow, I didn't see THAT coming!"

But not yet. This chapter is all about gathering data.

To everyone else, sorry about the long wait. I had a bad case of writer's block, but I've finally plotted out the rest of the story, so I'm hoping it won't take too much longer. Please enjoy!

I don't own Ghost Hunt.

Chapter 8- Naru

Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.

Following last night's events, Ayuka was taken to the hospital via ambulance. The preliminary assessments done by the paramedics on the scene suggested that Ayuka would not be returning to the orphanage for the remainder of the week at the very least. Midori has now taken charge of the children and will now be the one we inform of our findings.

Meanwhile, word somehow spread through the children that Kara was present when Ayuka was injured and is now being thoroughly shunned by the other children out of fear. She's now regularly spending time either with Mai or myself, avoiding the others at all costs. For this I am grateful, since I'm quite positive that if she were to spend time around the other children, there would be an extraordinary amount of PK incidents throughout the house.

Worst of all is that upon waking up this morning, another child turned up missing. To top it off, there was still an extra child amongst the group who has yet to be identified.

I stared at the screen before me in frustration, commanding it to yield some answers. To my left sat Lin, and behind me on the couch were Mai and Kara, flipping through the reports of the past couple of days. Earlier this morning, Mai had related to me the information she'd gathered through her own latent psychic abilities. When I'd learned she'd intentionally brought on a vision, I scolded her. In such a volatile area, she really should have known better. It's a wonder we haven't had to call an ambulance for her.

That aside, the information she'd given me did prove to be somewhat useful and fell in line with the information already gathered. However, we were still lacking in answers. Typically, at this point in the investigation, I would have Monk, John and the Priestess perform exorcisms on the house in order to draw out the spirits and face then head on, but because of the orphanage's policies, it would be impossible to bring them in. Theoretically, between Lin, Mai and myself, we could cleanse the spirits trapped here, but in order to do that we need to know what it is that is keeping them here.

This is turning out to be far more difficult than I had anticipated.

I turned around in my chair, facing the girls on the couch. They were currently absorbed in whatever files they were flipping through, trying to find some sort of clue. I'd barely decided to leave them be when Mai slammed the binder shut in frustration, exclaiming "There's nothing useful in here!"

Kara giggled. "Maybe we should just go through what we know." She suggested. She turned to me, as if she'd been fully aware of my gaze from the beginning, and added "Daddy, what do we know?"

After four days of being called 'daddy', I can't decide if it's annoying or… not. Regardless, she made a good point, so I started "We know that 73 years ago, twenty children were killed in this house, nineteen by an unknown assailant and one by his own father. The father was charged for all twenty murders and spent the rest of his life in jail."

"What do we know about Ryo?" Mai interjected. "He was isolated, right? His father didn't let him interact with others."

I nodded. "Ryo was telekinetic." I added. "He was feared by his parents, who kept him locked up. It's possible that this fear is what drove the father to kill his own son. However, according to my information, Ryo Furuka showed no signs of PK after the family moved to this house."

"Maybe…" Mai said. "But that doesn't bring us any closer to the real murderer. Do you think it might have been one of the family members?"

"It's highly unlikely." I answered her, recalling my visit with Ms. Ichinose.

"Forgetting that," Kara jumped in. "Fast forward to today. A few months back, two children came to the orphanage. After, strange stuff starting happening, like noises and footsteps, things moving around, and a boy started showing up. Now kids are going missing. With Fujiko and Tana gone, there should be eighteen kids, but we're actually at nineteen, and no one knows who the extra kid is."

I noted, slightly impressed, that Kara had a rather advanced vocabulary for her age and a well-developed thinking process. She's smart. I skimmed over what she just said and a light bulb flicked on. "That's it." I stated, causing both girls to look at me in confusion. I clarified. "The reason the haunting occurred when it did: it has to do with the numbers. Once those twins showed up, the number of kids in the orphanage reached twenty, which is the same number of children who were murdered here. That was the trigger." I felt like slapping myself for having missed that. It was so obvious.

But it still wasn't enough. Such a simple reason didn't provide any useful answers.

"So the spirits of the twenty children are still trapped in this house," Mai continued after a slight pause. "And from the vision I had in the attic, I'd say the spirit of the father is trapped here too."

Kara continued. "In the basement, when daddy asked Ryo if he was the one keeping the other kids here, he said they were his friends. If they were his friends, and they were killed here, maybe Ryo thinks it's all his fault."

"That's a definite possibility." I answered, my mind spinning with possibilities. "Perhaps our thinking has been too confined. The boy did not say that he was keeping the other children trapped in this house. It's possible that the reason Ryo remains earthbound and the reason the other children remain earthbound are completely separate. Supposing that Ryo believes he is at fault for the death of the others and that is what keeps him here, then the others must have different reasons. The other nineteen might be seeking the justice they never received, assuming the true murderer was never caught."

"What about the father?" Mai interjected.

I thought about it for a moment. "Based on what you saw in your vision, it is most likely that he remains here out of guilt for murdering his own son."

That, I decided, was the most likely scenario. In that case, our top priority should be figuring out who killed the nineteen children. That will cleanse the nineteen, which will in turn allow the children to relieve Ryo of his guilt, which will then relieve his father of his guilt. Three birds with one stone. The problem is, I am a ghost hunter, not a detective. And this case was closed around seventy years ago.

Kara, after another pause, asked "But if the dad and the son are both here, why doesn't the dad face Ryo and make things better?"

That was a good question, but a simple one. "At the moment, both Ryo Furuka and his father are projecting a negative energy. Since they are existing in this house as separate entities with neither in control of the other, the repel each other. It is likely that in the years since the father's spirit came to this orphanage, they've never met."

"Are the other kids existing as separate entities too?" She followed up.

Very good. She was asking all the right questions for someone who's first learning of the paranormal world. I answered. "No, it is my belief that the nineteen children are at least partially under the control of Ryo Furuka, both because of the strength of his spirit and the fact that Ryo is aware of their presence."

"Oh," She muttered, trying hard to take it all in. She pondered this new information for a second, then suggested "But then, if Ryo is in control of the other kids, he has to be the first one to leave, right? Because if Ryo is still here and doesn't want to leave, then the others can't leave, either, even if they want to."

I frowned. The thought had already briefly crossed my mind. Overcoming that barrier was entirely dependent on my theory being correct. Of course, if it turned out that the reason Ryo stayed here was something else entirely, then finding the true killer would be of no use for the nineteen children. Even if they felt satisfied enough to leave, Ryo wouldn't let them. It is also quite possible that Ryo's statement was not his reason for staying here, but his reason for keeping the others here. If that was the case, then I was at a loss.

Mai continued to consider what had been said. She was a much more inquisitive girl then she had once been, and had probably come to many of the same conclusions as me, no doubt leaving her equally frustrated. "If only we could find out more." She said. "If I could have another vision, then maybe…" She glanced toward me, a slight hope gleaming in her eyes.

I didn't even have to think about it. "No." I answered. "It's too dangerous. You'll end up in the hospital again." The very thought of having to send her off in an ambulance made me cringe internally. The last time it had happened, she'd been unconscious for four straight days. I'd had a migraine the whole time from the sheer stress of it all.

Mai sighed in defeat, with no attempt to argue. Perhaps she, too, remembered what could happen if things went wrong.

Kara glanced back and forth between the two of us, perplexed, before finally asking "Can't Daddy do it too? He's got powers like Mommy. I can tell."

That was interesting. It would be incredibly useful to be able to tell who was a psychic, particularly in my line of work. Incredibly, my mind had begun to devise future scenarios in which this new ability would come in handy when I strictly reminded myself that I wouldn't see Kara anymore after this case was finished.

I quickly banished the confusing thoughts and answered Kara "While psychic powers are similar in essence, different psychics will be able to do different things. Do you understand, Kara?"

She nodded, then asked "So what can you do, Daddy?"

I began to answer, but Mai was the one who spoke up. "Naru's like you, Kara." She said with an excited sparkle in her eyes. "He can move things and break windows and a lot of other things. He can also learn certain things about a person by holding something that belonged to them, like if they're alive or not. If they're dead, he can even see how the person died."

While Kara gaped in awe at Mai's feeble description of my abilities, another light flicked on in my head. I abruptly stood up, causing both girls to go quiet and look up at me expectantly.

"Kara," I started, being very clear, "Do you know if there is anything in this house that was here before the orphanage opened?"

"Lots of stuff." She answered. "Stuff in the attic and in the basement are really old, and sometimes we find stuff in the yard that are old and dirty."

Good. That means there was a good chance that I might find something useful. "Mai," I started, calling to her with the authority she was used to hearing when I need her to do a job. She perked to attention. "I want you to take Kara and start looking for old toys or clothes in the places Kara mentioned, anything that might have once belonged to a child. Bring anything you find here."

I didn't explain myself further, but with a furtive glance at Mai, I found I wouldn't have needed to. As soon as the order had been given, Mai had understood the intention. She really was a smart girl.

The two girls darted off while I called Lin away from the computer to help me search other areas of the orphanage. He wasn't discovering any particularly useful information anyways.

Hopefully, if this search was successful, we would have some real answers by the end of the day.

Okay, I know nothing happened in this chapter, but it hit 2000 words and it's been so long, I felt obliged to post something. I promise to make the next chapter more exciting!