Well… hi?

How long has it been?

Too damn long.

Right to the story then!

I don't own Ghost Hunt.

PURE

It was quiet. The whole of SPR and the ghost of Mai stood there as the sun seemed to bathe the bad away, cleansing the world gradually in its heat. They hadn't noticed before, but it had seemed rather cool here compared to everywhere else.

The spirits were giving a continuous golden light, and although it was strange and sad, the sight was beautiful.

Even so, Mai stubbornly stayed where she was.

Then, a resounding cracking noise, like that of a tree before it fell, shook the sadly peaceful place.

The whole of the team turned around, looking in all directions at the forest surrounding the place. Not one tree fell, but the thick, ominous trees were changing. Suddenly and yet somewhat gradually, the trees shrunk and untwisted and twisted themselves into a forest of dark red cherry blossom trees.

"Red?" John questioned.

"It's a legend," Mai said, ever calmly, to the foreign priest, "that a cherry blossom tree's petals are white, but turn pink when a body is buried beneath it. Or something like that, it's been a while."

"I get it," Monk said. "Since there was so much murder here, just imagine how many would be…"

"It didn't help that, even if you weren't killed by that maniac, you were still drawn here as a spirit," Mai said.

Ayako gasped. "Something's changing," she said. "More than the obvious."

It was about then that the red petals swirled into the wind that picked up out of nowhere, coloring the sky red as they scattered away. As they flew off, though, they almost burned into the sun. At least, it seemed that way. Instead of leaving the trees bare, instead the trees were now covered in pure white petals. They shined in the sun.

"I feel like," Madoka commented with a faint smile, "there should be a shrine here."

"That might be a good idea," Masako agreed. Even without the light of the purifications that had long-now ended, the petals seemed to give off an almost golden hue.

They all stood there in silence, looking at the now not-scary woods. In was peaceful, almost happy, and had a feeling of just uplifting your spirit from even the darkest worry.

But of course, it couldn't last.

"I have to leave soon," Mai said, shuffling her feet. Even though she had been a ghost, even while she preoccupied the killer long enough for sunrise to come, she had regained a solid look. Until now that is. She started to look fainter and fainter by the minute.

SPR turned slowly to Mai, sluggishly avoiding the inevitable, trying to stretch out the moments as much as they could.

Mai smiled sadly at her friends. "Though our time is much too short," she said wisely, "I did enjoy it. And if you think for a second my feelings for you were ever false, they are not. Even now, without an actual heart to feel, I can say that honestly."

"Mai-" Yasu began but couldn't finish.

"Hush now. I will see you again. I will wait for you, and dammit, you better make me wait for a damn good long time." At this, Mai looked pointedly at Naru. Even without ever acknowledging it, Naru was, in fact, rather reckless at times.

Even though tears pinpricked her eyes, Madoka was the one that spoke up for the group. "We will," she promised.

"Good. Oh, and the Ichigo person? The one that hired us?" Mai said. "I think that was my sister. Yes, she's dead, but so am I and I still worked for a ghost hunting company for, what, two years? So I think we should still keep our minds open to new ideas."

With that, Mai dissolved into beautiful golden light, leaving the rest of the team to totally break down.

They screamed. They cried. But Mai was gone. She was never even there.

Not one dry eye. Not one.

And no one judged for it.

PURE

It had been nearly two years since then, and much had changed.

For one, the suggestion of a shrine went through. And who managed such a shrine? Monk and Ayako, of course. Married, too. It was a beautiful ceremony, and in one of the group pictures you could see a figure, turned like she had been walking past and then saw the camera, thus deciding to smile softly in the picture. That figure was undoubtedly Mai. It made sense. They did have the marriage at the shrine.

The gravesite having been found, the bodies either found new homes or got proper gravestones and burial rituals. Those that had lingered like lazy old men waiting for this left at that time, making the place surreal to be. As if guarded by angels or gods or the like, the place wasn't particularly sad. It was beautiful without a doubt. No matter how you looked at it, it was beautiful. Except for why they were there.

The whole fiasco set up an uproar across the nation and somewhat across the globe. There was memorials and even a sort of parade thing every year on, go figure, Mai's birthday. Her original one. Which was still July 3rd anyway.

Not even Naru could exactly explain what had happened with Mai, but it went like this—in order to get Mai of that maniac's (in case it wasn't obvious, they tried to avoid using his name as much as possible) back, he had put a curse on Mai, similar to Mai putting a curse on him.

Every few years, Mai's spirit would enter (with permission by the original inhabitant) the body of a stillborn girl born on July 3rd in Japan. Mai would go through life, purely by her spirit energy and the expectations for her to live normally, but wouldn't remember a thing. Then, around her seventeenth birthday, she'd start remembering, spewing out prophecies of her demise and knowing things about the area of her death without ever being there. It was possible she remembered more than just her first actual life, but it was uncertain. Somehow, Mai would end up at the Murder House and die. But because of timing, particular the patterns of a leap year, it didn't happen this time.

Also, Mai was a pyrokinetic in her original life. Every year, a fire would start at the sunrise of the day Mai finished off the Murder House Case. It was small, almost playful. Then again, after only two years it still frightened the dickens out of the shrine couple. Maybe they'd get used to it.

Or not.

Madoka and Lin finally (finally!) got married and now lived near the shrine. Both Ayako and Madoka were trying for children, but yet seemed unsuccessful. It seemed both of them wanted a baby now that their husbands finally got a clue and married them.

That was a trump compared to Masako. Masako was about due. October was her due date, and it was still midway through September, but she looked like her small frame would pop any given moment. John was proudly but awkwardly the father.

Yasu, well, he was still searching. But he had scored pretty well. You'd be surprised about how popular he was. Or not. He was a rather gentlemanly man, and had a sense of humor.

Unlike someone else. Oh yes. The Narcissist.

The reason the whole group was together. It almost seemed as if Mai was there too. She might even have been.

After all, it's not often your love is now having his funeral, even though the body wasn't even there.

PURE

Should I leave it there?

Well, I still need to make the last chapter, so yes. But I did consider doing a 'SPR recovers and takes on cases' sorta thing. But this thing kinda needs to die already. No offense meant (especially since I just killed another character…).

I'm gonna dodge your angry rants in this bunker now. Till next time!