Case 03-Part 02

Yuasa High School (2nd Day Investigation-ongoing)

Naru was not really surprised they came back empty handed again today, and so far they had not seen anything supernatural in this school. Which was strange because towering pile of report meant their chance to see something was pretty high. However when he returned to their base they found two odd facts.

First, both other team got attacked. Bou-san and John had a spear thrown at them, and of all places to get hurt the priest was in the middle of getting his temple bandaged by their resident Miko.

"It's not a joke." Bou-san told him in grim tone. "I mean… no one was there and the spear was thrown at us! John was extremely lucky it just grazed him!" Everyone refrained to point out if he was lucky, he wouldn't have gotten a spear thrown at him in the first place.

Then their miko reported, "And in my case! I couldn't even got any exorcism done… not for the lack of trying! Mind you!" She huffed, "Try to finish your chant in the middle of objects flying all over the room, chant and dodge in the same time! I almost got a concussion when that desk almost hit me!" She began to ramble, "And Masako, she-"

Hara Masako of all people didn't see anything. "There is no spirit in this school."

Her face was colored with confidence. Which while admirable made Naru wonder how she could say that when she was in the same room as Matsuzaki, who described the room as having a mini tornado inside when they were there. She even had small bruise on her left knee to prove it.

Being firm and confident was good, but stating there was no spirit and no effort at trying to explain the reason whatsoever? Not so professional of her, more like mere stubborn streak. Naru closed his eyes, and face-palmed. If it was Gene… he would look closer, and tried to find something instead throwing the verdict, there was nothing and that was the end of the story.

"...That can't be." Bou-san muttered in disbelief.

"But there aren't any…" She insisted sternly, "I've thoroughly looked all around the school, and there were also no spirits in other places."

And you took your sight for granted and didn't look further. Naru supposed it could be blamed to her celebrity status or pampered upbringing, he couldn't compare Hara-san to Gene who was raised by his side as a medium who assisted a scientist. The mindset was already different in the first place, so it was unfair to compare this girl to his twin.

Bou-san interjected, "At least there should be one in that accursed desk! Four girls fell victim to it!"

"Then we're being deceived." Masako stated, unwavering in her conviction.

Did she even listen to what she said herself? She had just accused four peoples faking getting dragged by a train. All of them could present their medical record if asked. Naru, not for the first time since his twin was gone wished this girl while not as good as Gene but at least had half of his open-mindedness as a medium.

What was the difference between trained police dog and medium then when spirit was concerned? Your task didn't end on sniffing out spirit.

'The least you could do is not coming up with an even more ridiculous conclusion. You may take pride in your ability and skill, but closing yourself to possibility outside of the box blinded you from the truth.' Naru thought to himself.

Bou-san shared Naru's sentiment, "Masako… I respect your ability, seriously I do! But do you listen to what you just said?!"

"It's a fact." She insisted stubbornly.

"Yeah… because pranking us is so worth getting dragged by a train." He muttered sarcastically. "Then there is that fox possessed girl, if it's not a proof… I don't know what is!"

She averted her eyes from the Monk and looked elsewhere, ignoring him. It was her silent way of telling him that she was not going to waste her effort in convincing him.

John looked uncomfortable as he informed us of his trip to hospital, "But that girl who was possessed can't be faking it. The exorcisms isn't effective. Takigawa-san and I alternated our exorcisms numerous times, but in the end we had to struggle to do it, and they came back anyway."

"I see..." The girl he recommended to go to see a doctor. Maybe he should've been more detailed when talking with her friends. Mai would have thrown a sarcastic remark at him by now, about how at last he regretted his lack of courtesy and sympathy.

"About that…" Naru began, "It's very likely my initial analysis of her situation is correct, that girl's condition fell under jurisdiction of a doctor not a spiritualist."

"Eh?"

He sighed and began to explain, "What seems to be an evil spirit could just be a neurotic disease. It's not uncommon to mistake hysteria as a case of possession and vice-versa… considering this girl has visited a temple and no apparent reaction, it's more likely it's hysteria."

"Ah..." Bou-san rubbed his head, "And that also explain why we didn't get any result either." He nodded sagely, "However… is it really a hysteria fit?"

"It can be easily confirmed later if we visit this girl again…" Naru sighed, "We can just get Hara-san to look at her to know." She looked pleased Naru was depending on her. "However… in other case, a more complicated possibility… Mai, who is unfortunately not here would be a better choice to confirm it."

"?"

Masako looked like she had swallowed something sour but Naru was too deep in thought to notice or care.

"Another possibility is, quasi combination of both." He explained, "The girl who played Kokkuri-san has already suffering from hysteria and it became a trigger to her bout of hysteria. The way she acted is because of the spirit… so it's like the shackle of reason that stopped her snapped and she behaved as if she was possessed."

Naru closed his eyes, "Of course real spirit could be responsible to make the girl, who already have inclination to hysteria to get worse… so even though John and Bou-san exorcise the spirit, the symptom persist."

Bou-san was nodding now, "Oh yes… then if it's Mai, she will be able to detect the shift of emotion. Spirit or no spirit… the girl has her own emotion."

Naru nodded, "Right…" He didn't want to corner Masako, but presenting possibility of spirit wasn't involved at all would be counter-productive to them all. They had to look at bigger and smaller picture, and her single-minded insistence was not going to help this investigation or Yuasa High School population.

Masako frowned, "But what a Shaman like Mai-san could do? In the first place it's strange she could sense spirit but she can't see them at all… she is a half-baked shaman."

Silence…

"…Did you just call her a shaman?" Bou-san asked in disbelief. "Who told you that?"

Matsuzaki blinked at her, "Mai isn't one! She is… an ESP user right? A psychic!"

"Eh?" Masako blinked in confusion. "But… then what of the spirit she called forth to protect Ayami-chan back then?"

John chimed in, "But Mai-san said… what she called to protect Ayami-chan was not her familiar."

All of them looked at him as one, silently inquiring his input. Naru sighed, "Actually… even I have not conclude a solid analysis of 'what' Mai is… ESP seems to be her most obvious classification. But what she could do defy traditional classification so it could be something else entirely…"

Especially offensive ability she was still hiding, it made her extremely tired and the air of surrounding area warmer. Which mean it was more or less loosely related to PK because object affected by it would be warm. However… he who was a PK user only made the object he affected warm not the surrounding area. Even in PK category Mai defied traditional classification.

Maybe her lack of progress in researching herself was not because she was bad at it, but because she was 'new type' of psychic. It was so Mai though…

"But…." Bou-san began in confused tone. "We thought she is an ESP user who is also studying onmyoudou under you?" He looked at Matsuzaki-san. "That's what we…"

Naru sighed, this was when lack of information worked against them. He and Mai gave away so little and these guys made their own ridiculous assumption. "I've not say anything about being an Onmyouji… beside what kind of Onmyouji-in training Mai was if she didn't really know about Devil Gate?"

Her lack of knowledge in that direction could be excused because so far they covered psychic side in their lesson, she made an effort to learn old mystical material but she spent more on psychic and new discovery.

"So you didn't teach her?"

They seemed to ignore the first statement on him in favor of second on Mai… this was why these ignorant peoples…

"I didn't teach her Onmyoudou…" Naru confirmed sternly. "She is learning parapsychology in SPR, not ancient art of yin-yang."

Bou-san looked sheepish, "Oh I see… so what did she do back then to protect Ayami-chan?" Then he paused, "Hey, there is one time you tell her to 'not do' something when we're in Morishita house? I was concentrating on my mantra so I forgot…"

Naru sighed, "Remember she keep sleeping after she saved Ayami-chan in the garden? I assumed she has offensive ability and it severely taking a toll on her stamina."

"You don't know what it is?" Matsuzaki pressed on.

Naru became irritated, "In case you forgot, how Mai reacted when you call her 'post-cognition' as convenient ability?"

Matsuzaki and Takigawa winced in unison. "Oh yeah…"

"That's it for today." Naru concluded, "We're not here to discuss Mai's ability." And he didn't want them to pry for idle curiosity. "Let's continue tomorrow."

The next day (Naru's POV)

I was very close to throw all respect I had in Hara-san out of the window, and it was not for the lack of trying to respect her talent as one of the best medium in Japan. Which stemmed from my avoidance of bias against her skill as medium because of Gene. Which in the first place was a very unfair comparison if what I saw of her so far was to be believed.

Gene was a pure and perfect medium, Hara-san in the other hand fell to category of ESP user medium. They couldn't even be compared in the first place. Crude comparison would be like looking at genuine jewelry and an imitation, function wise it was the same, wearing either could fool people who had no eyes for jewelry. In the end the value was still different.

"Of course there wouldn't be any reading in your equipment that support spirit is exist in this building." Hara-san stated confidently. "Because there isn't any like in old school building back then either… as I didn't find any either."

How ironic that was then, because she seemed to forget just because my equipment didn't support presence of spirit I didn't stop looking for a solid analysis back then. In this building people were suffering because of spirit, there were too many of them to be ruled out as just product of their imagination. It wouldn't make sense to rule spirit out because both Hara-san and electronic equipment didn't present input that support their presence.

After all my job was investigating the unknown in the first place.

"That didn't change the 'fact' something happen in this school and it involve spirit, and it's imperative for us to determine their cause."

And also… did she just say my equipment and her would came out with the same reading? Hara-san, then what good were you as a medium compared to machine then?

"We can't stop investigating until we find the cause." I stressed my point.

"It's no use no matter how you look at it."

And who were you to decide that?

"Naru." Lin warned me, sensing my darkening mood.

I inhaled deeply, "Let's go back to the base."

SPR's Base

Of all people in this 'not quite a team' I have gathered surprisingly or perhaps not, the most open minded and creative was apparently Takigawa-san. Which was probably he got along well with Mai. In spite of his insistence a day ago on supernatural cause, today he pointed out a new possibility. Which also what I had in mind since yesterday. He was not as fast as me in analyzing phenomena, but better than other spiritualists in here. In fact I wouldn't be surprise if we rank spiritualist in Japan, he would rank pretty high.

"So when we talked about Mai yesterday it made me think… back in the case of her school, that Kuroda-girl was involved. I mean in the end the cause is half-natural cause and half-supernatural right?"

"What do you mean? Get to the point!" Matsuzaki-san demanded.

He huffed, "What I mean is… like Naru-chan said about the fox-possessed girl, it seems in this pile." He gestured towards the towering pile on our desk which was not decreasing at all much to our frustration.

"Out of all the complaints we've received, how many do you think actually happened?" I finished for him.

Bou-san grinned, nodding enthusiastically. "Yeah! There seems to be some misunderstandings," the monk waved his finger, "There are only a few of 'real' phenomena but it start a chain of reaction."

John who was the most understanding began to catch up, "Strange incidents continue to occur in this school. No one feels comfortable anymore, and everyone feels like prisoners," John said sadly, recalling the stressed face of general population of this school.

"Since everyone feels so uneasy and frightened, they might experience hallucinations. This could be the reason why the girl possessed by a fox spirit became such a wreck. I know this sounds vague, but something similar to a curse must be causing this―At least, that's what I think. If this situation continues, the uneasiness will increase, and people will believe the school is haunted or that there's a curse. And then the more sensitive people may panic."

In short their hallucination was genuine in a sense because they were affected by 'bad' aura of the curse. They were unfortunate victims who happened to be close.

Matsuzaki winced, "Like… passive smoker then? They got affected even if they didn't smoke."

"Right," I agreed with Bou-san and the Miko, more to the first who brought a semblance of logical conclusion back to discussion after the disaster the day before.

"We can't determine whether or not these incidents are due to spiritual phenomena because of all the possible exceptions and the sheer amount of incidents that has occurred." I offered my input, there were too many incomplete puzzle. "Moreover...even if that's true, the amount is still abnormal. There must be a reason behind all this despite the fact that incidents only occur to those related to the school."

Bou-san groaned, "Still, we haven't the slightest idea what those reasons could be...right?"

All of us fell to deep thought, contemplating what we just analyzed so far. I glanced briefly at Hara-san whoa apparently was the sole exception, she just stared blankly at my direction. "Now the only one we can rely on is Hara-san..." I muttered in hope she could try to rectify her opinion.

Hara-san raised an eyebrow before responding, "...There are no spirits in this school."

I let out a sigh upon hearing her stubborn answer. "...So that's your conclusion. Have we reached a dead end this soon?" She was hopeless.

"Maybe Masako is right?" asked the Miko.

Hara-san turned towards her. "Matsuzaki-san is undoubtedly correct."

I was not Mai but I knew Matsuzaki had zero intention to be her ally. "Exactly. However you think about it, if the ghosts aren't there, then there's no way they are the cause." Her remark was thickly coated in sarcasm.

Surprisingly perhaps in spite of her repeated claim for earth spirit she was more open minded for broader possibility and she was annoyed Hara-san keep claiming no spirit with zero input of what else could be the cause. Or maybe it was because Hara-san just watched her got attacked the day before and still claim she was not attacked by a spirit.

She turned toward me. "Kazuya-san believes me, right?"

What do you expect me to say to that? I had nothing to believe aside you present me a fact you couldn't see the spirit that causing the incidents in this school. "Spirit frequently lies… and in our previous case I believe Mai called the spirit of children are playing hide and seek with us." That was her intuition talking.

'It's like… the children is playing a game a hide and seek.'

"Then!" She covered her lips with her kimono sleeve, "Why we don't ask Mai-san's opinion then if she is better than me!"

Matsuzaki-san nodded, "Yeah. That's a good idea… at least Mai will listen to what people say. She also won't ignore if someone got attacked in front of her eyes and still saying there is no spirit!"

Hara-san glared at her.

"Come on you two!" Bou-san chided them, "Keep it cool, we're helping people here! So put the fighting aside for when general population of this school is not on the verge of going crazy."

"Hmph!" They turned their face away from each other petulantly.

"At any rate…" Bou-san sighed, "Naru-bou, I feel bad for Jou-chan but this is emergency. Can we at least call her to get some insight? Knowing Mai-chan she won't mind since we're helping people here…"

I sighed at him, "Unfortunately since she is in Italy right now, I don't…" I had no idea how to contact her and considering how fluent her Italian, indicating she spent years living there so most likely she was using different phone number.

"Then Shibuya-sachou… we will set the phone here for you..."

Tojo-san who appeared out of nowhere put an iridium satellite phone on the table, the conference phone version I swore I just saw released last month. It was shaped like a black Frisbee, and using touch screen like smart phone nowadays. It also ran using solar battery and apparently for no reason whatsoever could stand a bomb exploded on it. Which was why the price was ridiculously high rather than the technology behind it.

We stared at the phone and then to the two borderline invisible men who for some reason still dressed in gakuran even though they had graduated high school. Tojo and Shima in return, waited for us expectantly.

"Erm…" Bou-san stammered, "Who are you guys?"

"Tojo Koshiro." He introduced himself, "And my coworker here is Shima Renzou." The other man nodded and both of them gave us a curt bow. "Nice to meet you!"

Then all eyes turned to me and I resigned myself. "Our new employees, or to be exact they're Mai's. They're the one who moved our equipment with Lin and standing guard in our base when we're out." I informed them, "It baffles me how ignorant all of you to not notice their presence or how strange it is for me to leave our base empty."

"But we didn't see them!" Bou-san protested.

"It's our pride to move unseen and as unobtrusive as possible to ensure your comfort." Tojo said proudly.

"Since when did you hire Ninja?" Matsuzaki asked in shock.

"We're not Ninja though." Tojo waved his hand in negative. "And instead of concerning yourself about us, we thought you need to contact Hime?"

"Hime?" Bou-san blinked owlishly, "You mean Jou-chan?"

"Hai." They nodded in unison. "Then without delay, please use this phone Shibuya-sachou…" Tojo gestured at the phone.

I stared at them, then asked. "Why didn't Mai tell me how to contact her?" Why I sounded like a petulant child when I said this?

"Because she assume you would ask us how if you need her?" They supplied. "To be honest Hime herself tend to forget what she refer as… 'Pesky details' because communication line back home change system constantly. Since she knew we have a phone that set on speed dial to her number in Italy… she figure it will work out… and yes, hime herself didn't know how to contact her own number."

As ridiculous as it was sounded, it was so Mai.

In short it never occurred to her that Tojo and Shima would fall so far under my notice, I didn't expect them to know how to contact her. Then again for someone with intuition like her, these two were no different than normal people. Again… it astound me how that girl kept forgetting I was not as sensitive as her.

I do have sixth sense, but in comparison to hers I fell short in detecting presence.

"You guys aren't ghost, right?" Bou-san asked, still in a daze. Then again he had just been informed two broad shouldered guys had been around for a few days in this room and he didn't notice them at all. It must hurt his pride.

"No, they're not." Hara-san said in sharp tone. "You'll not able to see him if that is the case. So, what are you waiting for Kazuya-san?" Hara-san asked me. "Call Mai-san."

I suppressed my urge to sigh, and wondered why did I even bother calling her over. "Tojo, if you please."

"Hai." He nodded and began to dial, he called it speed dial but he had dialed ten numbers before it was connected. "Please don't make a sound, since there would be a voice check later."

Voice check? What for?

It took one ring, and someone picked it up but there was no hello or greeting whatsoever. Tojo cleared his throat and with practiced ease recite something that sounded like a group name, his name and an ID number. "Divizione Nuvola, Tojo Koshiro-027-018-643…"

Then there was a typing sound so quick it didn't sound like human's doing, then followed by a robotic voice. "Sì, Signor Tojo. Al quale io collegare questo invito?" It asked, and I presumed was about who Tojo wanted this call to be connected with.

"E 'disponibile la nostra principessa?" Tojo answered, he was speaking very quickly and it was a wonder how he didn't bite his tongue. I felt illogical discomfort that Mai's name was not said as an answer.

"Sicurezza codice di liquidazione, per favore." From its tone, it was requesting something.

Tojo cleared his throat, closing his eyes as he recited very quickly. "033-59-L-80-6996-02772." Obviously a security code and somehow had one alphabet among numbers. What was ridiculous was Tojo spoke it in different language, half of the numbers were said in Japanese, one in Chinese and the rest in Italian. Who the heck could come up with such code?

I had a feeling if I asked Mai about this, she would laugh and said it was just how her family and their company rolls. Sometimes I wished she could just lie instead of resorting to being uninformative, misleading, vague and twisting truth no one could tell the head and tail of.

"All clear..." Suddenly it switched to English. "Please wait, we're connecting your call..."

Then a cheerful music that didn't fit the atmosphere at all started to play and the tension popped like a balloon.

Bou-san was the first to comment, "What was that?"

"Please don't concern yourself about it." Tojo told him curtly.

"How can't I? Was that security system?" He questioned, "I heard uno and other... like in Uno? Number in Italian."

"Hai."

Beeeep...

"Ah, it's already connected."

"Click." She picked it up already? "Se èancora il nostro foschia traumatizzare qualcuno, seguire la procedura nella sezione sessantanove."

"..." It was Mai's voice but the clipped tone and different language made it sounded alien. "Hai?" John let out on reflex.

I strained my ears, there was a lot of scribbling sound in the background, paper flipping and stamping.

"Giapponese? Che cosa ha detto?" Mai asked something in confusion and John who had blurted it out repeated it again. It seemed the priest who undoubtedly knew Latin could guess what Mai said. "Scusi. parla Giapponese?

"Hai! Parla Giapponese!" John replied nervously, it seemed because he already spoke he went along with it.

Mai cleared her throat in the other line, and we heard someone else asked her. "C'è un problema, Mai?"

"Yes." Mai switched to Japanese at last, "I thought we already tell all of our Japanese members to speak Italian when calling us?"

"Yeah~ but like we have time to scold our guys now." The voice was crisp and monotone. "Get on with it!"

"Alright, in Japanese then... If it's Mukuro traumatizing someone again, just follow procedure number 69 in your Neo-V.G book... and speak Italian next time, only Kyo-san get away with it. Understood?"

Then someone, a girl with solemn voice said. "Uhm, I'm on the phone for that Hime..." Then there was the sound of rustling. "It's done, I will head over there later."

"Send a fruit basket while you're at it."

This phone was undoubtedly had high quality if all voices and sounds from the other end could be heard so clearly. I didn't know why it didn't occur to me to speak out so Mai would recognize she was on the phone with who. It was mostly her fault, she didn't give us much room or none to talk after John answered her in broken Italian that I was sure he botchered from Latin.

Mai groaned, "Alright, if this is Lambo's school complaining about candy on lunch set again..." Mai said in a long suffering voice.

"Hahi! Haru is talking to Lambo's school principle now, Mai-chan!" Overly cheerful and cutesy voice said over the phone.

"Ah, if this is about Ryouhei-nii's patient having hearing problem... please follow procedure under section 33, the same if he bulldoze something by accident and..." Mai said in patronizing tone but she was cut off again.

"I am on the phone on that, Mai-chan!" A cheerful, upbeat voice said. "Onii-chan is really..."

Mai's voice turned grim, "Please don't tell me Kyo-san stumbled upon Mukuro..." She sounded like she wanted to cry, "And I've been working hard for days so they won't..."

Ring! "Ah... Not that one either Hime, I'm on that one." The one with solemn and soft voice said. "I will head over there to make sure nothing bad will happen." Then sound of door opening and closing followed.

"It will happen!" Mai snapped, "It's those two! I swear... if!"

"The phone, Mai!"

"If Xanxus complaining about his meat again..." She trailed off. "Just suggest to Squalo to feed Xanxus to shark. It would be a poetic justice..." Mai said wistfully. "Wait, why did Varia's complain got here? Did someone mess up the line again?"

What was Varia?

"I'm on that one… and yeah someone mess up the line! Che!" The stern voice cut her off. "Mai, you're still on the phone and it's on speaker because you hate repeatedly lifting the receiver when you're working on paperwork." The one with stern voice reminded her. "And... I think for once you should confirm why you get that call instead of guessing it with your intuition."

She did what?

"This is the first time you missed since... Saturday? Are you slipping?" A snort and then followed by a laughter and giggling from different girls. "You guessed correctly for all the phone calls we're holding for you... so the one you're on is from who?" She wondered out loud.

"Uhm... Moshi-moshi, who is this?" Mai asked in cautious tone.

Bou-san was about to open his mouth but I beat him to it. "You seems very busy, Mai."

"...Naru?!" She squeaked. "You... you heard everything just now? Wait! Never mind! Don't answer that!" I could tell she was flailing in the other end. "Hold on!" Then there was a sound of hushed whisper, door opening and something exploding and crashing that quickly deafened down together by sound of door closing.

"Mai...just now." I began, what was that?! When the door opened, I swear wherever she was, it sounded like a warzone.

"Don't ask." Mai growled threateningly, "Is there something I can help you with?" She asked in overly cheerful voice as if she never talked to us in clipped and business like voice, or even growling like just now.

"Mai-chan!" Bou-san interrupted before I could speak. "I'm so happy to hear your voice! We have a problem!"

"Bou-san?" Mai exclaimed, "Hm... oh, everyone is there." And just like that she knew right away all of us were in the other end? Then she laughed, "Okay... what do you need then? I'm stuck here for a while so is it something can be done over the phone?"

"Erm..." Bou-san looked at me pleadingly.

I sighed, "We have a case now... students and faculty members of a highschool is terrorized by a string of supernatural incidents. The amount and frequency are abnormal. However... Hara-san can't find any spirit in the school premise, and reading from our equipment come up with negative responds..."

"I got attacked by poltergeist!" Matsuzaki-san interrupted, "And poor John got a spear thrown at him! And Masako has the gall to say there is nothing in this school! AND the whole school is deceiving us!"

I would have said something to her interruption, but she did deliver a report I would have trouble to phrase without offending Hara-san. Not that I cared about her feeling, it just didn't worth the following trouble.

"Hum... that's strange and dangerous, did anyone got hurt?" She asked worriedly. "Is everyone alright over there?"

Matsuzaki looked like she was close to tears, "And that's what you should say to someone who was attacked!" She growled at Hara-san who turned her face away from the Miko.

"Erm... I get the picture, but what do you guys want me to do for you?" She asked in confusion. "Naru? What can I help you with?"

I cleared my throat, "I need you to use your intuition to sort complains we received so far."

"EH?!" Much to my annoyance that was not coming from Mai but our team, except Lin of course.

"Hm... you mean there might be fake complain mixed?" Mai drawled, "The school must be a very stressful environment now, everyone is so tense..."

Matsuzaki blinked owlishly,"Erm... how do you know that?"

"Your voice... you're tired and tense." She answered as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. "The one who spoke with me in Latin is Father John, right? Sorry... I was on a trance so I didn't pay attention... is the exorcism not working either? It must be mentally exhausting."

"How do you know we have tried exorcism?" It was Bou-san this time who asked.

"Your voice." Mai answered with the same reply. "I've made you bring heavy equipment for me, so I can tell... your exhaustion after physical work and exorcism are different... and it shows in your voice."

His eyes widened in awe, "Amazing... you can tell just from our voice."

"Hai, if it's just your physical condition it's very easy." Mai told him. "Doctor also can use voice as indication, not just me."

"Mai." I interrupted her before she could get off topic. "So can you do it?"

She laughed, obviously she heard impatience in my voice. "What do you have with you then? Like I told you in our experiment... no matter how good the quality of voice or image transmitted by electronic device it can't beat face to face communication. It's like listening to a phone with bad reception..."

"I didn't need you to guess what they're thinking exactly." I corrected her and I could almost hear her usual protest. "Yes, you're no mind reader... you told me." I sighed, "However… Since you can tell our physical condition from our voice, that means you can tell whether they're lying or not right?"

"Yes." Her tone was clear with no hesitation whatsoever. "I will have no problem if it's just differing lie and truth... however, like I said before people who hallucinate will believe what they see as the truth so they're not lying..."

"So it won't be different at all like what you sensed from Kuroda-san?"

"There will be slight difference." Mai informed me. "Hallucination and spiritual phenomena affected their victim to different degree... it's like seasick and people who got ill after a roller coaster ride."

Only Mai would come up with that kind of comparison. How did she tell the difference between motion sickness because of swaying vehicle and roller coaster anyway? "So, can you do it?"

"I will try my best." She assured me. "But still... you have not tell me what you've got, a video or voice recording?"

"After the first day I asked several witnesses I've chosen to recite their complain on the second day." I informed Mai, I had done this when everyone was out exorcising. The teachers were strangely uncooperative when asked. "I have videos... ten of it, each with duration less than five minutes each... and I'm sending it to your mail address now. I also included a brief summary."

She sighed, "I don't mind but... It will take around an hour for me to finish it. Or do you have specific order you want me to watch it with?"

"I don't mind waiting, we have been on this for three days... one hour is nothing." I assured her.

There was a long pause before she said, "Hm... I may have a better idea so you don't have to wait that long." She sounded like she was grinning. "I will tell our receptionist so your next call don't have to go through the long line."

She had no idea how relieved I was about that, their security was ridiculously tight just for a phone call. "Alright... I will be waiting."

Click.

Palermo, Vongola HQ (Mai's POV)

That was one exhausting call but everyone in Japan sounded very tired, it looks like they have another goose chase like our first case in old school building. I better not made them waiting too long. "Ah... Haru-chan!" I called the ponytailed girl.

"Hahi! Mai-chan, what can I do for you?" She asked me cheerfully.

"I'm using our theater room for a bit." I informed her, holding my open laptop in one hand which was in the middle of downloading video from Naru. "Please hold all my calls unless it's an emergency!"

"Hai~" She saluted.

The room I wanted to use was just next door so it didn't take long for me to reach, after all it was also used for video call with our branch all over the world. "Ah it's done downloading..." I quickly connect my laptop to the screen and chose thumbnail display so the screen would be divided to ten so I could watch all of them at once. I muted the voice and got ready to make myself dizzy a little.

"Yosh!" I played the video.

I cupped my chin as I looked at the ten faces on screen, three of them were middle aged men and the rest were high school girls. So this school was an all -girl school? All of them looked tired and stressed in various degrees. However... it was strange to see the old guys I presumed as their teachers were more tired than their students, and I doubted youth was the reason. In fact from what I have watched from video of investigation and our own, girls their age would be frailer than these guys to spiritual phenomena.

The girl from track club didn't seem to be affected much, rather than tired she was annoyed. The girl whose friend got possessed and the other with ulcer because spirit touch were worse off. Strangely the girl who got dragged by train and suffered one of the worst case of injury was mostly fine... How to say it, she got over the incident and only got scar on her body but mentally she was one of the better ones.
However... from what I watched here, what Naru asked of me wasn't important at all. It didn't matter which was a case of hallucination or real phenomenon. It was trivial in comparison of what I saw here... what my intuition sensed strongly from them.

"Naru wrote... they're suspecting a case of mass curse and hysteria, ne?" I mumbled to myself. "Then... it's this guy I have to watch closer."

The teacher by the name Yoshino-sensei. The one who looked ready to keel over. Hopefully by the time I was done watching his consultation with sound, he was still alive.

Twenty minutes Later~ Japan (3rd POV)

As soon the satellite phone rang they quickly picked it up, eager to hear what Mai would say. It was much faster than they thought, not even half an hour had passed. They expected to hear Mai's cheerful greeting but no, she open the call with a question.

"Is the teacher by the name Yoshino still alive?"

"..."

"...Mai-chan." Bou-san began, "Of all things to ask... the guy looks ready to keel over but you shouldn't ask something like that."

"Doesn't matter!" She huffed, "By now class is already over in Japan right? Is that teacher already went back home?"

They looked at each other, confused why Mai was so hung over the guy. "Most likely... he is one with worse health and still around in school after all. I always saw him going home early with his car." Bou-san offered.

"Argh... the recording is from yesterday?"

"Yes." Naru answered. "What's wrong with Yoshino-sensei?"

"Naru... I don't care how you do it, but drag that guy back to school! Like... NOW!" Mai ordered which surprised them because Mai had just made an order to Naru.

Naru frowned, he was not offended because Mai sounded like she had a justified reason to make an order. "Why? Is he in danger?"

"He is already in danger from that supernatural disturbance." Mai said, "Yesterday or today wouldn't be much difference... he should be in hospital by now instead of working." Mai stated matter-of-factually.

"Mai-san..." John sweat-dropped. "Even though that's true... you don't have to say it like that."

Naru could almost see in the other end Mai was rolling her eyes, "Okay, you can drag him to base tomorrow if he is still alive."

She ignored Bou-san's chiding her, unknown to Mai she was still in 'mafia princess mindset' to her, life was fleeting so she had no problem talking about it lightly.

"The problem is... that teacher has not been very honest with you, he is hiding something…"

"...What could that be?" Naru asked, his curiosity piqued. "And what make you think so?"

Mai sighed, "You said... there is a possibility of a curse right? I can't say I'm one hundred percent sure... but you're most likely correct on that one. Someone cursed the faculty members and students of this school." Then her sigh got longer, "The problem is... most if not all, they all know why they got cursed and they didn't tell you."

As expected an uproar broke at her statement. "Nani?" Bou-san paled, "All of them?"

"That's ridiculous." Masako who had been quiet for quite some time protested sharply. "Mai-san... if they suffer so much they shouldn't keep secret from us."

And this coming from the girl who had accused all of them had lied to SPR team.

"Are you agreeing with Masako that the whole school lied to us?" Ayako asked in disbelief.

She snorted, and Naru was surprised her voice got very cold. "You would be surprised of how much pride can cloud judgement and they wouldn't even notice that... their damn pride could kill them."

Masako froze on her spot, stunned by the coldness in Mai's voice.

"And Ayako-san... Not lying, they just didn't tell... there is a world of difference between those." She paused, "Especially we're talking about teachers here..." She sounded oddly nostalgic when she said this. "From what I see they get it worse than most of their students." She stated with confidence. "To be honest I wouldn't have noticed this if the three teachers didn't give me the same readings... "

"Mai." Naru was getting impatient. "Elaborate."

Mai cleared his throat, sighing again. "I get it, I get it! Geeze... Teachers in general are proud adults, you will be surprised that they could have pride as big as a director of a company. This is because... they have means to exercise their authority to a large number of students in daily basis..."

Bou-san raised his hand, as if Mai could see it. "Question! Is it really alright to generalize all teachers who had come with complain to us so far?"

It was Naru who answered him, "Unobservant." He stated plainly, "Didn't you notice all teachers who have come forward share one similarity?"

"Erm… they look like they lost a lot of sleep?"

"That apply to general population that affected by the supernatural activity of this school." Naru corrected coolly, "All these teachers came after they confirmed none of their students could see them coming to complain. Considering the stream of complain we received, have it occur to you why not even once they come in the same time as their students?"

John laughed sheepishly at that, "I guess they're embarrassed to come for help in front of their students."

Mai sing-song voice then added, "And here comes a group of spiritualist lead by Naru who is the same age as their students~ it's no wonder they're in so much pain just to tell you their problem, exposing their weakness... their pride hurts." She giggled a little at that.

"Hmph." Naru scoffed. "We're here on their request... my age shouldn't matter to them. And Mai... you're stalling."

"No, I did not." Mai objected his accusation. "I'm explaining in a way so everyone can understand like you always do... if I get to the point the one who can follow me would just be you!" She coughed, "Anyone follow me so far?"

Bou-san nodded, inwardly he was crying. "Yep... you just implied we're not as smart as Naru, as if he didn't remind us constantly about that."

Naru called them idiots was just a slap on the wrist at this point, but coming from Mai it was very painful. Especially because Naru called them that because he was much smarter than them and his arrogance, Mai though… she was plainly honest.

"You said that to yourself." Mai said pointedly, "Anyway back to the topic, the situation give me a profile of the possible culprit... or rather the people they believe has a reason to curse them."

Their eyes widened at that, "ALREADY? Just like that?!"

"Bou-san! Miko-san!" Mai hissed, "The speaker is very sensitive, are you trying to make me deaf? That's why I told you to let me explain slowly... don't interrupt me!"

Bou-san and the Miko looked guilty, "Hai... continue, Jou-chan."

"And I said... it's a 'profile' so it's only to narrow down the suspect." Mai reminded them sternly, "It's my intuition talking... these three teachers you show me on video know someone or a group of people has grudge against them, and it brings me to 'why' this suspect have grudge against them... since we're talking about teacher most likely this person challenge their authority. Which is the greatest pride of a teacher in general."

Naru nodded at that, "So... a student most likely?"

"Hai... only a student is in a position to make three teachers feel their authority is defied in the same time." Mai concurred.

Bou-san fought his urge to clap, "It makes so much sense..."

Miko-san nodded in agreement. "I got it!"

"Congrats." Naru said sarcastically, "Mai, next time I will leave it to you to explain to these fools. You're much better than I am at explaining thing to idiots..."

Ayako snarled, "In one hand... he just admit Mai is better at something than him! But he insulted our intelligence too!" She was torn between gleeful and enraged.

"Naru... this is so not the time for sarcasm." Mai huffed, "Back to the topic, I checked the school... Yuasa High ne? One of my senpai in middle school used to go there... so I know a little. They're neither new nor old, an all-girl private school and very lax with grades... what's strange is... they're strict with rules."

True, a strict school like Yuasa was strangely lax with grade and infamous for it. That was a strange policy Yuasa was running with.

Mai's voice drifted off and they could hear sound of typing. "Which is nice... because while not accurate we can cut down in how this suspect offended the teachers... most likely it's not because of bad grades or other common rebellious behavior. In fact how the school run is why this school is pretty popular even though it's not ranked high in academic or anything... they has a very low number in delinquency if not nonexistent because of their strictness. Pretty much a perfect school for girls to have a happy and bully free high school life..."

They could imagine that.

"As long as you didn't get in trouble with their rules..." Mai added. "Or so she said..."

"Huwaah..." John's eyes widened. "So it used to be a pretty good school for both students and teachers?"

Bou-san nodded, "Who would have guessed looking at its current situation?"

Ayako shook her head, "Not me for sure."

Naru's frown deepened, Mai never implied this school was a good school in fact it was the opposite. "I see... I understand what you're getting at, high school girl's network is pretty amazing." He snorted, "I wouldn't have known..."

"Naru, seriously... if you want to compliment someone stick to it, and don't add sarcasm in." Mai scowled, "So... Anyone follow me so far?"

"Erm..." Bou-san rubbed th back of his head, "We got the school is for good girls... I can see Taka fit in nicely, but... what are you getting at Jou-chan?"

Naru sighed, "After everything we've said, you didn't get it? Hopeless…"

Bou-san and Ayako clenched their fist, "Well... sorry, we're idiots!" They hollered in unison while John helplessly tried to placate them.

"No, you guys are just a little slow... it didn't mean you're idiots!" Mai said cheerfully.

"Jou-chan... if you're trying to comfort us, that's a too Naru-like line." Bou-san pointed out. "Anyway... can't one of you just tell us already?"

Naru crossed his arms, "Let me take it from here then... considering the school's reputation for being lax in academic, disciplined, and nonexistent delinquency... it's mean if one or several students acted out of the norm, they'll get infamous overnight... in fact it will not surprise me at all if what cause of suspects were deemed challenging teacher's authority is ridiculously menial and unfair... and in fact, it would be ignored in most schools..." He shook his head, "And you want us to question Yoshino-sensei most likely because..."

"He looks like to be the most guilty of all... he paused a lot, and averted his eyes from you... in fact I'm not surprised he spent the whole day avoiding eye contact with students nowadays..."

"I did find his behavior strange even for someone who lost a lot of sleep..." Naru grumbled to himself. "But anyone is fine right?"

"Right.. So any question?"

"...Erm... we kinda get it but..." Bou-san trailed off, "I feel there is a lack of conclusion here and we lost you two somewhere, so who is the suspect?"

Mai was the one answering, "Forget conclusion... judging from your current situation I am really surprised. Naru, I'm SO disappointed..." She said with a huff.

Naru looked like he was holding a grimace, "Mai... I know, you don't have to rub it in..." His voice was tense too.

"Nani-nani?" Bou-san groaned, "Don't have an inside conversation we don't get! Mai-chan please! I can't stand the tension!"

Naru grumbled to himself, "You'd regret asking that to her..." He looked somber even more than usual for some reason. "Here is the profile Mai has in mind, a student, presumably alone or in small number, avoided by general population of this school... in short, the black sheep of this herd like school population."

"Herd?"

Naru sighed, "This school most likely have more herd mentality than usual because of their strict rules... plenty of fresh grass for all of them but they have to stay in confinement and watched closely by their shepherds." He droned on, "A teacher... their job is to teach and quality of that is reflected to their student grades and yet... this school is 'infamous' for their lax academic policy. But in the same... teachers in this school constantly enforce their authority in discipline..."

In short it didn't paint a pretty picture, these teachers slacked off in their main duty but keep their student in line like law enforcement.

Mai let out a long sigh, "In short… teachers there are more interested in disciplining their student rather than teaching them…"

"Thus… exercising authority granted by their teacher status." Naru added.

"As Naru said, they're not teachers but shepherd."

He snorted, "Or even lower, mere sheepdog… and from there it's not hard to find the suspect at all considering the environment of this case."

"Heh?" Did they just finish each other sentence? Wait did she just imply…

"We mean... if you want to know this suspect I'm talking about, there would be no serious detective work involved." She droned on, "You can just grab any random students of Yuasa High and ask, did anyone piss off your teachers in the last three months? Presumably... in public?"

"..."

"...In fact, you could have gotten a name since day one if you just ask." She sounded exasperated. "You didn't even have to know what we just told you first… I mean how hard it is? Curse most of the time is because of grudge, if you already arrive to possibility of a curse why no one ask, who have grudge against those who got cursed?"

Off course asking about who had a grudge on them to a bunch of proud authority figures would be denied. It was why they hid it in the first place. No one liked to expose they were getting their just dessert. However Mai was not going to enlighten them on that tiny detail, because it didn't excuse the fact that no one and not even Naru noticed. Which surprised Mai more than anything. They were all spiritualists, shouldn't grudge and curse something common in their profession? It kinda go hand in hand in her unprofessional opinion.

Silence...

"It can't be that easy!" Ayako hollered. "You said we would have already get a suspect with just asking?!"

Mai snorted, "I'm sure by now there are still students around, staying for club activity... try it." She said the last part as if she was offering a minor to drink alcoholic drink, crisp with dark promise.

SLAM!

In that very moment an enthusiastic genki girl known as Takahashi Yuuko slammed the door open, "Hi! Norio... how is the investigation?" She asked cheerfully as skipping towards him. "Aiyaah... for the last two days it's hard to approach you since you guys are all in full armor." She laughed at her own joke at their religious costume. "So... what's up?"

"..."

"...Taka." Bou-san began, holding the girl's shoulder, his eyes were like that of a dead fish. Which scared her a little. "This might be a strange question, but is there any student pissed off more than one teacher in this school lately? In public?"

Taka didn't even take more than a second to give an answer and began to ramble, her whole face lighted up like a Christmas tree. "Oh, you mean Kasai Chiaki-senpai? Boy... it was awful when she got hauled in front of the whole school during morning assembly to prove her psychic power! Yoshino-sensei is especially awful! He is a teacher but he led half of the faculty to attack Kasai-san mentally in public!" She huffed and continued her rambling. "I mean... if he disagree with psychic power he didn't have to make a commotion out of it... I mean, sure we got pretty noisy and excited over spoon bending... but it's no excuse to bully his student!"

Then the cheerful girl froze, "Oh... Kasai-san snapped on stage because of that and say things like she will curse them to death too." She cupped her chin, looking thoughtful. "Hey... that's also when all these strange incidents started..." She said to herself. "It's really awful now everyone in school is saying, maybe it's because of Kasai-san's curse."

It was quite a talent Takahashi Yuuko could say all that in two breaths, but no one marveled in her rambling skill.

"..."

"..."

"Erm... did I say something wrong?" Taka asked in confusion, shuddering at attention she just received from all spiritualists plus psychics in the room.

Her idol, Norio looked ready to burst to tears. "Three days... and the answer is just laying around for us to pick..." His jaw fell open and something white like ghost hung over his lips.

The woman who dressed like a miko and wearing thick make-up was looking absentmindedly at nothing. "So... three days of tiring exorcism is for what...?"

The cute blond priest was trying and failing to console the miko and monk. "Erm... I'm sure our effort is not in vain! God watch over us who work hard for His children... so..."

Hara Masako was red on her face, and looked like she was swallowing something very sour.

Then the two guys dressed in gakuran with buzz cut she never knew existed. "As expected of our Hime..." They nodded sagely.

The handsome guy who led SPR looked very solemn, and for some reason Taka felt the guy was even darker than the first time she saw him. And was that a cloud of gloom she saw hanging over him?

"I'm really sorry if I made you guys upset!" Taka bowed, she didn't know why but it seemed she had said something that upset them greatly. "Are you guys alright?!"

Then she heard a voice coming from frisbee looking device on the table, which most likely was a phone. "Guys... snap out of it, and answer her question... If that's all you need from me, I will end the call here."

"Nya?"

"And Naru?"

"Yes." He responded crisply.

"I'll be back by tomorrow night... or earlier, you guys makes me really worried." The feminine and caring voice said. "In fact... I think you guys should call it a day now."

Naru didn't even look at the phone and continued to stare at his reflection on the window. "I think so too..."

She cleared her throat, "And one more thing, as for Yoshino-sensei, I'm afraid..."

RING RING!

Taka picked her phone and checked her mail. "Whoaa! My friend just send an email that Yoshino-sensei got to a car accident and now he is in hospital!" She announced in panicked voice.

"Never mind... I will see you tomorrow…"

Click.

Beeeeeeeeep..

And that was how their third day of investigation ended, it took all Naru's self-control to not give in to his urge to blow the whole school and people involved up and got done with it. At least now he knew why their investigation was stalling, it would be just what Yuasa High deserved.

EXPLANATION: in short SPR team is not hopeless without Mai, not really... it's circumstances LOL

To be fair to SPR team...they are in unfavorable position compared to canon, this is an all-girl school... rumor circulated much faster than co-ed for sure XDDD so I presume Naru already have a reputation as... erm... cold hearted bastard, never mind how good he looks. They also think the whole school is honest to them, and 'come' to them not the other way around... in canon they knew Kasai 'after' Mai inadvertently made Taka spill about Kasai so yeah... that was WHAT the two buzz cut ex-prefect missed in last chapter.
This is their downfall... they busied themselves with suppressing the problem they didn't figure out yet and missed the obvious. Naru is not wrong though to prioritize safety of people in school because Yuasa is already on their last leg. They who is in location is in hurry... Mai isn't so she can think calmly about it... in a way Mai is much better than anyone in their team in dealing with stressful situation. It's like duck meet water to her.

Naru is a genius but as shown in canon, this guy blatantly shown has not much patience and could be fed up. It's a canon he suggested to blow up the school on DAY ONE so yeah... even in canon a lot of his guest would have run away if not for Mai ha ha ha...
It baffled me too, they already think there might be a curse... the first concern is a cursed desk... why no one think it involves a grudge? It's a simple reasoning Mai could get in less than one hour... well, lack of social skill and common sense here LOL

The most tiring part of this ARC, GRRRR... how did it end like this? Oh well Gene would be in next chapter...btw THIS ARC IS 6 PART SO... 4 more to go and we will enter original KHR arc.

NEXT: In which Gene need a reminder, and they have heart to heart talk, twins, idiot brother and psychic link

He smiled sheepishly at me, "He he… Noll always scolded me for not paying attention too."

"And call you an idiot?" I guessed.

"Wow… you really know Noll very well." He said in awe and I had a feeling he was going to clap.

I waved my hand in negative, "No no… that's what younger sibling in general feel when their older brother did something stupid… especially when they looks like you, the irritation double because it's like looking at yourself doing something you wouldn't do." I was sympathizing with Naru of all people, wonderful!

He blinked at that, "Older brother?" He echoed.

"Twin." I corrected, "I have an older twin brother, we're supposedly fraternal because of our different gender but we looks very similar."

"heh?"

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