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Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt.
(A/N: Sorry, sorry, SORRY! I know I haven't posted in forever, but I haven't been in the writing mood lately. I wanted to post this yesterday but, it was my Dad's bday so I was busy.)
The first day of the school festival had finally arrived. With only a few minutes before the school festival is open to the public, many students hurried to get ready. Mai was one of those students.
Mai quickly tore open a package as Oliver stood against the wall watching. Soon Mai held up a 'screamer' costume. It consisted of a white mask and a full body black cloak. The costume was pretty light weight so Mai could simply wear it over her clothes. Upon examination of the costume, Mai frowned. "Aw, it's way too big for me! They must have screwed up my order!"
"Looks like you need to someone at least twice you size for that." Oliver pointed out.
"I guess you're right." Mai sighed. "I really wanted to scare people too! Oh well…Now who should I…" Mai looked around and trailed off when eyes met Oliver's. A big smirk was planted on her face.
Oliver glared. "Don't even think about it Mai." Oliver warned as he backed up and Mai quickly approached. Soon his back was against the wall and he had nowhere to go. "Don't even dare or I swear you wi-Umf!"
A few minutes later, Mai looked out the second story hall window. Her smile brightened when she saw them. "They're here!" She cried giddily and took off running.
Mai ran down the hall, down the stairs- with a good grip on the railing this time, and out the first front entrance to the school. Once outside, she scanned the crowd for them.
"Mai!" Ayako called out to her.
Mai looked to her right to find Ayako, Houshou, Masako, and John. You might be wondering, what are they doing here? After all, the principal specifically said that he didn't want them on the school campus until there is proof the school haunted. However, since the school is open to public during festival hours, they are allowed to come. Consider it as a loophole.
"Hey!" Mai panted as she ran up to her four friends.
"Hey, kiddo!" Houshou said ruffling her hair. "This is quite a festival you kids put together."
"Really, thanks!" Mai grinned.
"He's right, Mai." Masako said behind her sleeve as she approached. "Though it's a shame we won't be able to look around ."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Mai asked confused.
"Shibuya-san, asked us to work during the festival hours." John explained.
"Speaking of Naru, where is here?" Ayako questioned as she looked around.
"Helping out with the haunted house." Mai smirked.
They looked at her in disbelief for a moment and then burst out laughing. "Good one, kid." Houshou chuckled not believing her along with everyone else. "Seriously though, where is he?"
Mai sighed knowing that they would have to see it for themselves to believe it. "Follow me." She said leading them into the school building.
At first, Oliver wasn't pleased. Mai had managed to put the costume on him. He didn't even know why he let Mai so close to him to begin with. Let alone, why he was even doing what Mai said. Currently, he stood in the library behind a bookshelf waiting for students and visitors to pass. When they did, he would jump out and scare them, getting shrieks as a response every time. He had been doing this for the past fifteen minutes or so. When he first started, he disliked it because this was completely out of his character and it hurt his pride too much, but as time passed he realized of couple things.
Everyone thought he was Mai because that was supposed to be her costume. Though you might think people could tell it wasn't Mai because of the height difference, however it was dark so no one noticed. He also didn't use his voice. Also, he soon found the peoples' reaction were quite humorous to him. Oliver couldn't help but smirk as he scared them.
Mai led them to the library's entrance where Mai told them to wait. As she walked through the haunted house while scary music played, no one scared her because they knew it was her, except for one who knew but didn't care.
Oliver jumped out from behind the bookshelf smirking as much as a person could smirk. Mai jumped and squealed, "Oh, geez! Naru!" She placed her hand on her chest as she tried to calm down her breathing.
"You've faced ghost, demons, and who knows what else, yet you scared of a guy in a mask?" Oliver questioned. His words were slightly muffled due to the mask her wore.
"It's a natural reflex!" Mai defended and then remembered why she was here. "Anyway, everybody is here. They are waiting outside the library."
Oliver nodded and they walked through the rest of the haunted house looping around the library back to the entrance. Outside, everyone was waiting and Lin had just joined them (Osamu was busy tutoring).
When they saw Mai and the mask figure approach them Houshou grinned and said, "Seriously, where's Naru?" Everyone besides Lin was thinking similar things.
Oliver gave an exasperated sigh and he removed his mask, causing Ayako, Houshou, John, and Masako's jaw to drop. Though Oliver was ashamed- this hurt his pride after all- he refused to show it. So he went straight to business, "Today, the four of you will be interviewing the students to find out their experiences at base. You should already know he procedure by now. Lin will take you to base. I- unfortunately- am busy."
Mai was pleased with the last part. She thought he would try to get out of helping out of the haunting house.
With that being said, Oliver quickly reentered the haunted house followed by Mai.
The rest of the team stood stunned, except for Lin who simply smirked. "This is…weird." Ayako said a bit confused. Why would he help out with the festival, let alone wear that costume? It goes against his entire ego!
"This isn't weird, this downright scary!" Houshou corrected.
"Koujo-san, is something wrong with Shibuya-san?" John asked concerned.
"Yes, Lin. When did Naru start to act so abnormal?" Masako questioned also concerned.
"Abnormal?" Lin repeated still smirking. "I'd say Naru is acting quite normal." 'For someone in love…though I doubt Noll knows that.' Lin added in his head. "This way." Lin said beginning to walk quickly down the hall.
"Lin, what does that mean? Lin!" Ayako shouted as they chased after Lin for answers.
A half an hour later, Lin, Ayako, Houshou, John, and Masako sat on one side of the long table in base. Students stood in lines before them while the team hurriedly wrote their experiences down. When the team had put the cardboard sign at the door telling the students to come in if that had encounters with the spirits here, they never imagined so many would come in.
"A couple weeks ago I was walking down one of the halls on the first floor after staying late to help my teacher when I heard an eerie voice calling me name. I turned around but saw no one there. When I looked forward again I saw this mangled body of a young girl in a kimono on the ground. Suddenly the girl looked up at me with bloodshot eyes and said with an inhuman voice 'Play with me'. I ran after that." One girl said.
"Sometimes the classroom doors will suddenly lock even though there is no one there to lock them." Another student said.
"Once about a month ago, I was walking down the stairs I felt this freezing hand push me down. It was a good thing a had a good grip on the railing." A boy stated.
"Me and my friend were eating lunch outside few days ago when a little boy that wore clothes that looked like they were from the Taisho period came running up to us. He looked hungry so we offered him some off our lunch but he didn't take. We talked with him for a few minutes and everything seemed normal with him until he suddenly said he had to go and then ran straight through a wall!" Another girl exclaimed.
It went like this for another hour until they finally had to close base due to the fact they ran out of paper and they had a lot of paper to begin with. Lin gathered all the paper into a single large stack. Houshou stretched out in his chair. "Either the ghost has one hell of a multi-personality disorder or we are dealing with a lot more than one." Houshou said referring to the large range of encounters the students had.
"There are at least two spirits here, Taniyama-san and Naru have confirmed it themselves." Lin stated.
"Two? There has to be a lot more two!" Houshou exclaimed.
"We must remember not all of the statements may be true." John reminded.
"Well Masako, what do you think?" Ayako questioned.
Masako held her sleeve up in front of her mouth in thought. "There are definitely more than two spirits here. How many exactly- I am not entirely certain. Some of the spirits keep disappearing while other ones pop up. It is impossible for me to tell just how many there are." She explained.
Before any more questions could be asked, Osamu had burst through the base's door. "Well, what's up my peeps!" Osamu grinned.
"Yasu?" Ayako questioned and then she remembered. "Oh that's right! You are tutoring here right?" She recalled the email he sent them.
"Yep, I'm on my break now so I thought I'd swing by and see what's up." Osamu explained as he pushed up his glasses. "So, what's up?" He leaned against the table.
"Trying to figure out what's going on with this school, that's what." Houshou groaned.
"All we know is that there are several spirits here." Ayako stated.
"Perhaps we can find a pattern in the experiences." John said trying to help.
Osamu eyed the large stack of papers on the table and then slyly said, "I would love to help, but I have work to do." He smirked as he walked to the door and left. In a way, he was glad he had an excuse not to help because that stack was huge!
"Lucky bastard." Houshou muttered as Osamu walked away. "Why is it that we have to do all the work while Mai and Naru are having all the fun?"
"Because that's what I pay you for." A familiar ice cold voice sounded form the doorway. The team looked to find Oliver. He had removed his costume and just wore his school clothes.
The team, besides Lin, was rather shocked to see him in anything other than black. "Naru, I believe we have enough statements from the students." Lin announced.
"Good, go through them." Oliver said making the other four groan. He then quickly changed the subject to the real reason he was here. "Have any of you seen Mai?"
"We thought she was with you…" Masako stated.
Oliver's eyes narrowed in response. "She was…until she disappeared."
Several minutes earlier…
Mai stood outside the library's entrance monitoring the growing line of people waiting to get in. 'Wow, I was right. The haunted house is really popular.' Mai thought. Oliver was currently inside scaring people.
Satoru suddenly peeked his head outside of the library. "Taniyama-san, someone spilled their juice all over the floor."
Mai sighed. "Alright, I'll go get the janitor. Don't let any more people in until we get that cleaned up. Someone might slip." She said as she started to walk away. "Oh and put a sign up that says 'No food or drink'." She added.
"Okay!" She heard Satoru reply.
Mai walked down the especially crowded halls of the school. Soon Mai stopped at the door of the main janitor's closet. She then knocked on the door, when there came no reply Mai slowly opened the door and peeked inside.
"Hello?" She called but no one was inside. Well, it looks like she will have to clean the mess up herself.
Mai walked inside, past an old desk and chair, to the shelves that held cleaning supplies. As she passed, she noticed two small doors on the ground that were padlocked shut. "Huh, that's weird. I didn't know he school had a basement…." Mai mumbled to herself.
She just shrugged and grabbed a towel and a squirt-bottle of cleaner off one of the shelves. Mai walked back to the door and was about to open the door when she heard a loud click behind her.
Startled, Mai turned around to find the padlock on the basement suddenly unlocked.
"That's weird…" Mai said kneeling down in front of the door and placing her cleaning supplies on the ground next to her. "I could have sworn this was locked before…" She fiddled with the padlock.
She kept wondering what was down there. After debating it for a minute, curiosity got the better of Mai. 'I mean, a little peek won't hurt would it?'
Mai removed the pad lock and slowly opened the doors. She couldn't see much, only a rustic old ladder leading downwards. It was too dark to see anything else at that moment. There was no eerie vibe emanating from down there as far as Mai could tell, so she assumed it was safe.
Carefully she stepped on the ladder and worked her way down. She was a bit surprised that the ladder didn't give out on her. Mai knew what she was doing was probably very stupid, but if there was something down there that could help solve the case, she wasn't going to pass up on the opportunity!
Mai jumped on the stone floor and looked around to see the see the yellow-brick walls. She knew just by the state of the floor and the walls this room was very old. Maybe even older than the school.
Straining her eyes, Mai tried to see what was on the other side of the room. Mai's eyes widened when she finally saw it. It was a cremator! "Why is there a cremator under the school? I have to tell Naru!" Mai exclaimed frightened now knowing she should have never have come down here.
After dashing to the ladder, Mai managed to climb a couple of steps before the doors suddenly slammed shut on her and there was a clicking sound. Someone or rather something had locked her in.
The room was only dark for a split second before flames erupted from the cremator and a horrifying vibe filled the room. Many cold and long transparent hands grabbed Mai and tried to pull her towards the cremator. Mai clung on to the ladder for her life. Luckily, the ladder was bolted to the wall or else she would have been long gone be now.
She also heard many voices, but they all wailed the same thing, "Join us." Mai knew she had to get out of there fast, but how?
Mai was able to free one arm from a spirit's grip. She banged on the doors and was about to call out for help when a hand covered Mai's mouth preventing her from speaking. Her head was titled back trying to fight the spirit's pull.
Suddenly the step Mai was standing on gave out leaving Mai dangling. Mai was going to die, she just knew it.
(A/N: So some of you probably figured out why the school is haunted after reading this chapter.)
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