A Swan's Tale

Disclaimer: The characters of Ghost Hunt are the property of Fuyumi Ono, J.C. Staff and its other respective owners.

A/N: Sorry for the longer than usual wait! But here it is!

Mai ground her teeth in frustration. After trying so hard to get anybody's attention, they were all leaving, except for Gene and Rothbart, who were busy duelling, and Sir John, who'd been kept hostage. She hovered anxiously by the window, torn between the limited view the ballroom windows afforded and the desire to go after Naru. Madoka and the rest of the mages had formed a small but fiercely irate battalion and were getting ready to charge. It seemed that Rothbart had finally outstayed their hospitality. Mai's decision was made. They could handle themselves, the mages' pent up thirst for revenge would no doubt put them in good stead for a while yet. As she ran out, glass crunched loudly under her feet. Looking down at her dozen reflections winking brokenly around her, Mai bent down and picked up the largest shard. The dim shapes of people reflected in it. In smashing the glass earlier, Rothbart had unexpectedly gifted her with a portable window back to the real world.

She smiled grimly.

The garden was pleasantly dark and quiet after the bright lights and incessant stream of conversation in the ballroom but Mai was in no mood to admire the artfully trimmed topiaries or the soft globes of lamp light that illuminated them. It had taken her a few wrong turns and one dead end before she'd spotted a flash of Masako's dark dress in the distance through the glass shard in her hand. Hitching up her own skirt, she climbed over the low wall which separated the palace hall from the garden. Several flowerbeds and a couple of low hedges later, Mai arrived, panting slightly outside a stark grey courtyard dominated by a fountain in the middle of the square. It was empty, but when she held up the shard to it, the shapes of two people appeared in it. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

Approaching them, she aimed a kick at the air where she thought Masako's feet would be. On checking the shard however, she was annoyed, though unsurprised to find that it had had no impact whatsoever. "Oi…" Mai said. When neither of them seemed able to see nor hear her, she mooched over to the fountain and plopped down thoughtfully with her chin cupped in one hand. They were so close now and yet given her predicament, worlds apart.

"And what good are you?" she muttered as she spun the shard despondently. It was balanced perfectly on her finger and emitted pale flashes of light as it spun. As she stared into its depth, she stiffened in shock. Their eyes had met – Naru's blue ones gazing intently at her own startled ones. She dropped the shard with a frightened squeak.

Naru hadn't expected to be presented with an opportunity to be alone with Mai. He had presumed she was tired, but it seemed he had been wrong. She had been chatting nonstop, a rapid-fire barrage of idle babble that he'd lost track of somewhere between the ballroom and this courtyard. But, when he'd chosen to remain tight-lipped, she too had eventually fallen silent, sagging a little from the exertion of talking. It was during one of these moments of peace when he thought he saw a pair of disembodied eyes gawping at him when he happened to turn to his other side. Far from panicking, Naru had only felt a mild curiosity in them and it was only because he was sure he recognised the face which they belonged on. Mai had seen it too, but it was the expression on her face that first began to induce a sense of disquiet in him. She looked flustered, which was alright, but he could also detect an upwelling of anger under the panic and even more intriguingly, an absence of surprise.

"Mai?"

At the sound of his voice, she turned to him and for the first time that night, Naru felt a chill of suspicion. Her lips were smiling, but there was still hard anger smothering in her large brown eyes. His head was pounding again.

"Yes?"

"Did you see that?"

Her smile wavered, to be replaced by an innocent look. "See what?"

He fell silent, only glancing at the empty space behind him. Mai cleared her throat nervously.

"My… It's a lovely night isn't it?" she said, her hesitant tinkle of laughter fading as she stepped away from the fountain.

Naru stared coolly at her but didn't press the issue. If he'd guessed right, that pair of brown eyes wasn't about to leave them alone for long.

Mai had no intention of leaving Naru and Masako together after this. Although Naru seemed to have realized something fishy was happening, she was dreading the moment where Masako might act first.

"Think, damnit!" she had said when she noticed a flurry of movement in the fountain's reflection. Squinting, Mai's heart pounded faster. Already, Masako was making her move, and had sidled up to Naru. He did not look pleased as through the gurgle of the fountain, Mai heard patches of their conversation. "...water...trust me? ...demons... afraid..."

That little! Pressuring Naru's trust was the last straw and the way she was leaning against him was a total invasion of personal space! Even she never clung like that to Naru when they were alone!

I doubt demons would find you very palatable, she heard Naru say coldly and silently applauded him. Hah! Serves that Masako right! Masako however seemed unruffled by the insult. She only snuggled closer, her head tilting upwards, lips puckering...

No way was she going to allow that.

Mai didn't even stop to think. Mentally cursing her slow reaction to the obvious build up, she accidentally stepped on the shard, which splintered into a fine powder. She barely gave it a second look. There would be time later for regrets. Plunging her arm into the fountain, Mai groped around blindly until she felt its smooth wall. Following it, she traced it till her fingertips felt the cool, dry air of the other reality. Wiggling with all her might, she managed finally to find purchase on the tail end of Naru's coat and yanked on it – hard.

Out of sheer instinct, Naru had flinched backwards as he tried to avoid her. Instead, he found himself sitting down inside the fountain and dripping water into his boots, which were very likely ruined. The loud shriek beside him affirmed that Mai had fallen in as well when she'd pushed him. "Something grabbed me!" she wailed.

"Oops," Mai muttered. Still it was better than nothing. She felt a surge of power flow through her.

The only good thing Naru could see about his situation was that the pale hand rising out of the water was not clamped to his hand. Even so, that didn't stop him from regarding it with the same cool curiosity that he had the pair of disembodied eyes. If he'd surmised rightly (and he was seldom wrong), they belonged to the same person, whose watery image was reflected in the fountain between him and Mai. She looked exactly like Mai too, except that unlike the one seated in the pool and wearing a mortified expression, she wore a tatty nightgown, her mouth pursed in a grim line. They could have been two peas and yet, somehow, Naru felt he preferred her to the one in the soaked ball gown.

"Hello," the Mai in the water said, and waved.

At least the reflection seemed harmless. His only problem now was that there were now two of them, but that seemed to be sorting itself out as well. At first, he'd thought it was the dampness that was causing the Mai's hair to darken but when she finally uncovered her face, he saw that her eyes were a different colour. Specifically, they were dark blue and they were looking at him in utmost confusion. In fact, it wasn't much of stretch to say that she was a completely different person.

""Why am I in a pond?" Masako said.

"Fountain," Naru corrected automatically and shivered. It was starting to turn cold and sitting in the water up to his ankles wasn't helping. Evidently, the newly restored Masako was little better.

"I've no idea what came over me. Where's Sir John? I don't seem to remember seeing him after he left with…" Her face paled, her eyelashes fluttering weakly. "I don't seem to remember a lot of things," she said, before reeling forward. If she'd been expecting Naru to be gallant, Masako had thought wrong, and her swooning act only landed her with a loud splash.

Naru raised an eyebrow sceptically. Clearly some things just didn't change.

"You seemed very conscious of trying to kiss me just five minutes ago," he pointed out flatly.

"What?" Masako laughed, her voice unusually hight-pitched and nervous. "I mean of course I wasn't! Whatever would Sir John say... And forgive me for saying so, but this is a strange place to have a ball," she said as she struggled to stand up under the weight of her soaked clothes. The hand that was still clamped to her tugged violently. Masako jumped. Evidently, she'd only just remembered it.

"M-Mai..."

Naru stared down at her but did not move to help.

"You don't remember me but you remember the ball?" he said.

Masako flushed. "Don't tell him please," she begged. "It was Rothbart. I couldn't do anything. I really really tried to stop myself..."

Hugely gratifying as it was to see Masako embarrassed and guilty, Mai couldn't help but feel a pang for her rival and Masako was looking sufficiently contrite. The love spell must be wearing off or Naru would have to suffer her throwing herself at him by now. She tugged at his wrist to get his attention.

Naru must have understood because he sighed exasperatedly.

"Tell Rothbart that if he has anything to say to me, he may find me here, instead of casting spells on the incompetent."

Masako must have felt grateful because she didn't pick on being called 'incompetent'. Still, that didn't stop her from getting the last word in by planting a light kiss on Naru's forehead.

"That is for the dunking," she said with a smirk in Mai's direction before shaking off her grip (she'd been too shocked and had slacked in her hold) and scurrying off.

Mai looked anxiously to Naru's response and snorted gently, relieved that far from being smitten, he was wearing a certain smug look of his own. She pinched him. "That's for being narcissistic," she scolded when he frowned at her reflection in the water. "And she only did that to annoy me." That was the real Mai, of course. They looked at each other awkwardly.

"You idiot."

"Hey. I'm not the one who nearly proposed to the wrong girl," she huffed before relenting. "At least you got us sorted out in the end."

"I usually do," came Naru's reply. He knelt on the ground, the better to hold Mai's hand and pressed his lips to it. "Better?"

"I'm not jealous, just so you know," Mai said. But she was mollified anyway. "I thought you'll never dare touch me again," she confessed happily. Things have changed since you've lost most of your memories... but things can still change. That was the important thing.