Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt

Chapter 12: Apologies and Strategies

Mai and Naru entered the room to find the other bruised and scratched team members. They crowded around the couches in several states of dressing their wounds. Emma had her shirt off, completely comfortable in her bra, letting Yasu paste a hot patch over the bruise spreading across her shoulder. A bruise was forming on her elbow. Her pajama pants were already pulled up to her knee, a hot patch covering the bruise that was there.

Ayako held a wash cloth soaked in hot water over her cheek, grumbling nonsensical things to herself, glaring at the floor. Monk sat beside her, a bag of ice pressed over his crotch. He groaned, pressing his face into his knees.

Masako sat with her head tilted back against the back of the couch. John had a white towel pressed over her nose, murmuring to her. Her hands were folded in her lap. Blood still caked her wrists and palms.

Lin was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm so sorry, guys! I didn't mean to hurt you!" Mai shouted, bowing to as low as she could go while pregnant, which was only about one-fourth of the way that she usually could bow. She stayed there for a long moment before Naru pulled her back up.

"It's alright, Mai, really. We're not that hurt, just bruised and Masako is scratched up a bit, but we're relatively okay," Emma said, pulling her back around her shoulders and buttoning it up.

"I'm feeling pretty hurt over here," Monk gripped, still leaning over his knees.

"What did I do to him?" Mai whispered to her boyfriend, looking back at him for the answer.

John chuckled, still holding the towel to Masako's face. "Well, let's just say that Monk will be lucky if he can children," he said, grimacing as he glanced towards Monk.

"Sorry Monk!" Mai cried, shuffling as fast as she could over to Monk, throwing her arms around him, "I'm really sorry, Monk! Don't be mad with me!"

"I'm not, I'm not," Monk said, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head on her shoulder, "I can't stay mad at you." He sighed, pulling away and raising his eyebrow at Naru. "So, Naru, what's going to be our plan of action today? I don't think it'd be a good idea to go back to bed."

Naru paced into the room, his chin in his hand, his elbow captured in his other. "Well, first things first, we're switching up the sleeping arrangements. Then we'll be doing more research, and Mai will go with Masako and Ayako to check room temperatures and see if she can identify the room from her dream. We'll do that later though when the Tsukiyomi family leaves later today. They said they were going out to do something."

"What about me, Naru? What am I going tomorrow?" Emma asked, raising her arm as high as it would go with her injured shoulder.

Naru pursed his lips, looking over at her. "I'd like to get the research over and done with as quickly as possible, so you'll be assisting Yasu tomorrow. You know more about the house so you may be some help besides just researching things."

John shot his hand into the air, speaking before anyone even looked at his hand. "Is it alright to ask what Mai's dream pertained to? It may help with the research. We could focus our search a little." He let his hand drop, looking a little sheepish now.

Mai's face contorted in anguish for the fraction of a second. With her still hugging Monk, she was facing away from the others and her expression was luckily not caught by any of the others. She took a deep breath to compose herself, and turned to face the others. "Simple version, a maid who used to work here was murdered in one of the rooms by someone who also lived here," she said quickly. The expression she put on made it obvious to the others that she was more than deeply disturbed by vision.

Yasu, ever the one to keep his mind on work, spoke up next. "Alright, then Emma and I will focus on disappearances around this area spanning back ten to fifteen years, would you say?" he asked Naru, absently twirling a dark brown strand of Emma's hair around his finger.

"I think that would be a good idea, though I don't think we're going to find anything that far back," Naru replied, pacing back and forth in front of the monitors. He glanced up at the screens every few seconds, searching for what, they didn't know.

The two men fell into discussion, easily pulling the other two men in with them. Mai, Ayako, and Emma, moved over to the couch were Masako still had John pressing the towel to her nose.

"Is the blood flow coming to a stop?" Ayako asked, gently pulling the towel away from Masako's face to inspect her nose. She stood so that her body covered Masako's face making it impossible for the other two to catch a glimpse. "Good news is that it isn't broken, and you're not missing any teeth. Bad news is that it's probably be bruised for a couple weeks, and the blood has yet to stop. Mai or Emma, whoever, could you hand me another towel?"

"Sure," Mai said quickly, snatching up one of the towels from the stack in the middle of the coffee table. She tossed it to the older woman who snatched it out of the air effortlessly, replacing the towels so quickly that it was impossible to see what Masako's face looked like. "Did I do that?"

Masako grumbled her conformation, placing her hand over John's.

"Oh my god! Did I do that too? I am so sorry, Masako!" Mai cried, spying Masako's scratched up and bloodied wrists.

"Yows thre te sme," Masako mumbled from behind the cloth, staring down her nose at Mai so that she wouldn't have to lift her head. She pointed to Mai's wrists.

Mai glanced down at her wrists and found them equally as bloodied and scratched up as Masako's. "Did I do this?"

"You sure did," Emma said, pushing Mai into an open armchair, "You were struggling so much and fighting so hard. It was nearly impossible for us to keep you from hurting yourself. These were already there by the time we realized something was happening." She pulled a towel over her lap, pouring hydrogen peroxide over her wrist. Pink ran from her wrist, staining the white towel. Mai hissed in discomfort. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. We actually have to good shit instead of the more watered down version. His hurts more."

"I can tell," I murmured, giving Masako a pained look of sympathy because she was also letting out the same hiss.

All talking ceased like sheep halting at the edge of a cliff. All eyes were trained on the door where a young woman stood, staring curiously in on them.

"I-Is it alright if I come in?" Victoria asked tentatively, looking just a bit self-conscious and embarrassed.

There you go. I realize it's a little late, but I hope it's sufficient enough. I'm on break for the next three weeks now. Don't expect extra chapters though xD Anyway, I'm going to try and upload a Hetalia Christmas story if I can get it done by tomorrow, we'll see. Look forward to it, okay? Review please, they fuel the creativity that runs my soul.