When Mai and Naru returned to the base, Naru reinforced to everyone that no one should be alone, not only at night but at all times.
Although a bit confused, everyone slowly agreed as they sensed the serious tone in his voice and with a nod, the two of them made their way to the two other bases used by Minami Psychic Research and then the one by Igarashi and Suzuki.
As Mai expected, Minami didn't seem to take the two of them seriously. He laughed in their faces and claimed that the respectable Oliver Davis wouldn't let him come to trouble. Atsugi remained quietly in the background and Mai couldn't help but speak when Minami wouldn't shut up.
"Hopefully this comes as no offense, Minami-san." She took a step forward from behind Naru, where she remained silent for the most part. She smiled humorlessly. "But we're not all that worried about harm coming to you or the respectable Oliver Davis, since you're a bit over the age group we're concerned about."
Minami's smug smile fell slightly. "Age group?"
"We're here to warn Atsugi-san, specifically." Mai turned her gaze to the male in the back who jumped in surprise at the mention of his name. "Don't go anywhere alone."
Atsugi slowly nodded and he looked from his boss to the young girl. "Okay."
"Okay?" Mai smiled with an unsure feeling about whether her words got across to him before her and Naru made their way down the hall to where Igarashi and Suzuki were.
Suzuki opened the door when they knocked. "Oh, it's the investigators from Shibuya Psychic Research." She informed her boss over her shoulder before turning back to the two teens, opening the door more widely. "Please, come in."
"Good evening." Naru greeted blankly as he entered.
Igarashi sat at a table with a shawl draped across her shoulders and she smiled at the two of them. "Forgive me, I don't remember your names?"
"Narumi." Naru bowed slightly.
"And Mai." Mai bowed as well before smiling up at the older woman and Suzuki as she came to sit beside Igarashi. "We're here in place of our boss, Shibuya-san, as he's a bit busy at the moment. Shibuya-san theorized that only younger people seem to go missing in this mansion and we've take the precautions ourselves to not travel anywhere alone, especially the younger people on our team. So we've come to warn you as well that Suzuki-san shouldn't be running errands alone."
"Oh." Igarashi glanced at Suzuki, who also seemed a bit surprised. "Alright, that sounds fair enough. We don't ever split up all that often anyway."
"E-even in the middle of the night!" Mai suddenly exclaimed. "You shouldn't be walking around alone in the middle of the night..."
"Of course not, Mai-san." Suzuki chuckled softly. "I'll heed your warning carefully."
As Naru and Mai made their exit and began the walk back to their base, he noticed her uneasy look. "What is it?"
Mai frowned and glanced up at him. "We should have sent Lin or Bou-san to warn them."
"Why?" Naru narrowed his eyes.
Mai sighed and she thought of Suzuki and Atsugi, both who didn't seem all too concerned about their words. "I think they didn't take us seriously. Bou-san and Lin are older so maybe their words would have more weight if it came from them."
Naru opened the door to the base and let her walk in first. "Perhaps." He commented and entered as well, noticing that everyone seemed to be lounging around. "Has the night vision cameras, thermography, and condenser microphones been set up?"
"Yes, boss." Ayako rolled her eyes. "It's almost midnight, we've been done for a while now."
Naru walked by them towards the monitors. "Then I guess you all don't really need to be crowding the base right now."
Mai laughed nervously as Ayako clenched her hand into a shaky fist, face turning red. "S-shall we go to the room for the night?" She asked before the miko blew up.
"I'll stay." Masako spoke up quietly. "I'll have Naru walk me to my room later on when I'm ready to retire for the night."
"Alright." Mai nodded to Masako before turning to Ayako. "You ready to go?"
"Yes." Ayako stood and the two returned to the room where the girls would be sleeping for their stay at the mansion. "Can Naru get anymore rude?" Ayako asked as the two of the entered and she walked to her luggage immediately. "He could have just said that we were free to leave instead of 'I guess you don't really need to be crowding the base right now.'" She mimicked him with a huff.
"If Naru was polite I would probably be more bothered than if he was rude." Mai commented. Naru had awful manners but that was normal. What wasn't normal was him being nice.
After complaining a bit more about their young boss, Ayako went into the bathroom to shower and when she was done Mai took her turn immediately after. She washed the days work and sweat off her body and lathered shampoo into her hair and when she was finished she stepped into her night clothes and exited the bathroom, the steam spilling into the bedroom as she opened the door.
With a towel to her hair, Mai made her way towards her bed and fell into it with a sigh. "We did a ton of walking today."
"This mansion is wacked." Ayako sighed softly as she laid spread out on her bed, looking at the ceiling. Her eyes wondered to where the clock on the wall read half past midnight and then she sat up suddenly, startling Mai at the sudden movement. "I can't believe that girl."
That girl? Mai thought to herself. "Masako?"
Ayako gave the brown haired girl an exasperated look. "Yes, Masako!" She looked hard at Mai in disbelief. "Does it truly not bother you?"
Mai let her hands fall from her hair and gave the red head a confused look. "Does what not bother me?"
"Masako and Naru." Ayako clarified and her expression fell into a more serious look. "Does Masako constantly trying to get Naru's attention and him entertaining it not bother you?"
The younger girl thought of her boss and Masako briefly before she shrugged. "Not really. Why should it?"
"Don't..." Ayako paused as she looked at Mai, wondering if she should open this can of worms before steeling herself. "Don't you have feelings for Naru?"
Mai threw her hands up with a groan. "Why does everyone think that?!"
"I mean... he's good looking." Ayako's cheeks reddened, embarrassed to admit it.
"Yes, he's good looking." Mai repeated with a roll of her eyes. Everyone knew Naru was good looking. It wasn't anything new. "And I see him most days of my week. Eventually you get used to it."
Ayako nodded slowly like she understood her point. "But sometimes I get the feeling like the two of you just connect. He's only a year older, he's accomplished, and he's handsome." She ticked of her fingers as she thought of Naru's good qualities before looking at Mai with a shrug. "I mean... what's not to like?"
Mai looked at her fingers in her lap as she twiddled them around each other.
Naru was incredibly good looking and sometimes he did catch her by surprise. Like when the sun was setting and the warm glow was shining through his office window behind him and his eyes became so much more prominent. Or how he leaned against her desk beside her while she sat, staring down at her calmly as they had conversations. There were certain moments when he caught her eyes and she became unable to look away, but that kind of attraction was surface level.
She couldn't think of a time when her and Naru's conversations penetrated further than anything work related into something deeper and more meaningful. The most personal thing Naru ever told Mai was that his mother made a dinner on Christmas and that wasn't much. Even their conversations that addressed her dream, which were once incredibly personal to Mai, were now work related.
Mai needed something more to have romantic feelings for someone.
"The most I could say about my feelings towards Naru... is that maybe I'm attracted to him?" Mai said truthfully as she looked up at Ayako. "I mean, he all of those things." And more, went unsaid. She shoved that thought away. "...but I would rather have Naru as a friend."
Ayako looked like she wanted to say something more but she stopped, and Mai was thankful they didn't have to talk more on this subject. Ayako didn't understand fully and maybe to her the way the two teens interreacted seemed more romantic than platonic but Mai knew better.
"Then, any boys at school?" Ayako asked curiously and looked over at the girl. Mai rarely talked about her school life unless someone asked and boys and dating were never mentioned. "Besides Yasu, I don't think I ever heard of you talking about going on dates. I mean, when I was your age I had been on my share of dates already."
Yes, well we all can't be a long legged red head. Mai thought to herself before she shook her head. "I don't need romance right now. It's so... frivolous."
"Wow, this is most dull girl talk I have ever had before." Depressed, Ayako closed her eyes and fell back onto the bed. After listening to the younger girl finish drying her hair she slowly opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling above her. "Mai?"
"Yes?" Mai glanced across the room at her.
"Don't grow up too fast. You should enjoy your youth." Ayako told her calmly and although Mai thought she wasn't finished the door opened and Masako entered the girls room with a displeased expression, cutting their conversation short.
Mai raised an eyebrow when she saw the mediums annoyed expression. "What's wrong?"
Masako sighed. "Naru refused to walk me to the room so Lin-san did instead."
"Pfft!" Ayako tried to hold back her laugh, unable to help herself.
"Oh hush." Masako snipped back with a glare before snatching up her night clothes and stomping to the bathroom.
As the door slammed shut, Mai and Ayako shared an amused look.
Day 2
"Do you smell that?"
Ayako glanced up. "Smell what?"
"Like... metal." Mai answered with a cringe, standing from the bed and bringing her hand to her nose as she looked around the room for the smell. "It's so strong. Where is it coming from?"
"Maybe in the bathroom?" Ayako said with an unsure expression and stood, walking towards the bathroom where she disappeared behind the door.
Mai looked underneath the bed and then in the trash can in the corner of the room but found nothing. "It smells disgusting. What is that?!" She started to get frustrated. The smell wouldn't leave. It penetrated everything. She ripped the duvet from her bed and then ripped through the clothes in her luggage looking for the source. Nothing.
Then she heard it.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Mai stood slowly, her bed and her clothing around her in a messy heap and then slowly looked over her shoulder. "Ayako?" Silence. Mai spun around and began to walk towards the bathroom. "Did you find anything? It's smells like... like something is rotting." Her feet tapped against the tiles as she entered the bathroom and the dripping sound came from her right where the bath tub was.
Ayako was no where in sight.
"Ayako?" Mai tried once more and walked slowly towards the bathtub, the unease settling in as she near the closed bath curtains. "Are you there?" Her fingers shook as she reached for the curtain. The red haired woman was just here. Why wasn't she answering? "Aya... ko?" She ripped open the curtain quickly and looked down to see that the tub was filled to the brim with a sticky red substance.
Blood.
Mai took a slow step back as her eyes grew wide and the red seeped over the lip of the tub, falling to the tiles below. Then suddenly something jumped out of the tub with its arms outstretched and a cold hand latched onto her wrist and yanked her close.
Urado came face to face with her and as he opened his mouth to speak, blood fell out.
"I don't want to die!"
Mai sucked in a sharp breath as she opened her eyes, moving to sit up. A hand against her shoulder stopped her and she reached up to grab it, heart racing in her chest.
Cold blue eyes stared down at her. "Relax."
Mai let out a shudder as she realized she had been dreaming as she saw the person above her was Naru and she was on the couch in their base. She remembered that they had finished measuring the rest of the rooms in the mansion and after long hours of walking back and forth she sat down on the couch and must have fallen asleep.
Naru slowly back away, staring at her quietly as he watched her get her bearings. "I didn't mean to scare you. You looked like you were having a nightmare."
Mai tried to smile but she couldn't even force it. "Yeah..." She remembered Urado's face inches from hers and clenched her eyes shut. "I was having a terrible dream."
"One of those dreams?" Naru asked as he walked back to the monitors, where he had been sitting before Mai started breathing oddly while she slept, which had caught his attention.
"No. Just a normal dream." Mai said and then rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around to notice that no one was in base except the two of them. "Where is everyone?"
"Dinner. I wasn't done with my work yet and Matsuzaki-san wasn't able to wake you up earlier." Naru told her before his eyebrow quirked upwards. "Did you sleep at all last night?"
Mai smiled sheepishly. "Not really. Tossing and turning all night." She admitted to him. "Should we head to the dinning room? I'm hungry and you shouldn't skip meals. It's not good for you." She couldn't help but scold slightly. Naru had awful eating habits, especially when he was engrossed in one of their cases.
Already used to her nagging about him eating, Naru stood and didn't bother addressing her words. As they walked down the hall to the dinning room, Mai yawned before glancing over at her boss. "Were the measurements alright?"
"Some of them had to be redone but the most of them were fine."
"Hopefully most of them were fine, we spent all day remeasuring certain rooms." Mai muttered to herself bitterly as she remembered how many wonky rooms had measurements that came out different every time they remeasured.
When they made it to the dinning room, Mai pushed open the door to see that the SPR team were the only ones eating at the moment.
"Sleeping beauty is awake at last." Bou-san called out with an amused expression. "Have a good nap?"
Mai tried to ignore the way her cheeks reddened in embarrassment as she took a seat beside Masako. "Sorry I couldn't help with retaking some of the measurements."
Bou-sa waved his hand around nonchalantly. "No worries, me and Yasu did just fine. Did you hear that Igarashi-sensei is going to be holding a séance later tonight?"
"Oh really?" Mai tilted her head as she began eating, not surprised. "That should be interesting."
"Very interesting actually, Masako is going to be channeling the spirits tonight." Bou-san glanced at the young medium who simply remained quiet before turning back to Mai, frowning when he saw the confused look on her face.
"M-Masako?" She repeated and looked to the black haired girl.
Masako nodded and wiped her lips with the napkin carefully. "Yes. Igarashi-sensei said that Suzuki-san was going to channel the spirit but after hearing it would be her first attempt I volunteered myself. I have done this many times before."
Masako was going to channel the spirit instead of Suzuki? "Oh..." She didn't know how she felt about it. Originally, Masako offered to channel Suzuki's spirit after she went missing but Mai interfered and so it never happened but if she was being totally honest she felt curious about Masako channeling spirits. This wasn't an opportunity that would ever come up in their future cases so she wanted know how it would turn out.
She heard stories of mediums able to channel spirits whose voices came out completely different than their own and even spoke different languages despite not previously knowing those languages.
Mai lifted her fork to her mouth, raising her eyes to Masako's pale face.
She was excited for this séance.
"Please, come in."
Mai smiled at Igarashi politely as she entered the room first, the rest of the SPR following closely behind her. It had been a few hours since dinner and Masako had left with the professor and her assistant to prepare and they were finally ready to hold the séance.
The room was dimly lit but Mai could see that there was a round table with chairs placed around it, and on the surface a candle and a pile of papers with a marker.
"Can you turn the lights brighter? I can barely see anything through my camera!" Minami's annoying voice broke through her focus on her surroundings and Mai watched as the fraud complained to Igarashi, only for the older woman to reply that she thought he would've known better and brought a night vision camera.
Amateur. Mai held back a laugh before she stepped forward with a smile. "We've brought a night vision camera, Igarashi-sensei."
"Oh." Igarashi watched as Lin set up the night vision camera Mai had asked him to bring. "Perfect." She commented and brushed past Minami towards the table, taking a seat beside Masako who had been sitting quietly. "Are you ready to perform this séance, Hara-san?"
Masako nodded quietly, lowering her head slightly. "Yes."
"Good, I'd like to ask Shibuya-san, Minami-san, and Dr. Davis to join the circle." Igarashi called out to them.
As Minami and the fake Davis moved to sit down, Mai noticed that Yasu remained standing and she kicked the back of his knee lightly. "Go!" She hissed quietly.
"Oh, right!" Yasu jumped and sent Mai a grateful smile, ignoring Naru's annoyed look at his faulty memory.
The five of them sat at the table and Suzuki lit the candle before moving to turn the lights off around them, leaving them in darkness with only the single candle as their source of light. Igarashi guided them to hold hands and she said a prayer before turning to Masako with a firm nod, which the dark haired medium returned quickly.
"Take a deep breath and call out to the spirits." Igarashi said and closed her eyes. Everyone around the table followed her instructions easily. "To the spirits who dwell in this house, please make use of this woman's hand," Igarashi held up Masako's hand, "And speak your mind to us. Please, speak to us. If you can hear my voice speak to us through the host we've provided you with. We promise to respect and send you off carefully, so please..."
This continued for a while longer and although her coworkers were beginning to get restless from where they stood, Mai remained with her eyes latched onto Masako's face, waiting for some kind of sign.
The candle light flickered and something in Masako's expression shifted.
Then her hand began moving rapidly, flying across the papers in front of her as she wrote with her eyes closed.
Everyone's faces dropped at the same time, their mouths falling open in shock and disbelief. Even Mai, who had been expecting it, couldn't help the cold chill that ran through her at the moment.
A loud bang against the wall made everyone jump and Bou-san yelped. More banging followed and the chandelier above the round table started to sway back and forth. The table started to shake and the light from the candle started to flicker like it was being blown on, creating warped shadows that moved across the walls and everyone's shocked faces in an eerie way.
Minami cried out and stood, breaking the circle and the candle flame went out, submerging the room in darkness.
"Please sit down, Minami-san!" Igarashi's voice broke through the tense silence.
"W-w-what is that?!" Minami yelled out and Mai just barely seen his shadow as her eyes adjusted to the dark.
Then a strange wind blew past Mai's legs and she shuddered as the picture frames on the wall behind her started clattering against the wall and moments later she heard a smashing noise and felt glass hitting the back of her heels. Spinning around in shock, Mai backed away from the wall as the frames started falling from their place to the ground.
Just then, the candle flame flickered back to life and Mai turned to see what was going on in the room only to freeze, her body going cold and eyes widening as she came face to face with Masako, who stood an inch away from her with an intense look in her eyes.
The candle flame went out once more.
"No!" Mai screamed out in terror and Masako shot forward with her hands outstretched, her fingers wrapping around Mai's throat and she shoved her back. Her shoulders slammed against the wall behind her and her head whipped back as Masako pushed into her before she yanked her forward and then smacked her back against the wall with a strength that wasn't her own, disorientating Mai.
"What's going on?!" Ayako cried out, searching the dark for Mai having heard her scream.
She tried to cry out but Masako's grip tightened and she leaned closer. "Get away from here! Get away! GO!" She screamed at Mai, distress in her voice. Despite the situation, Mai thought that the words Masako was screaming at her was reminiscent of a victim of Urado rather than Urado herself.
"Grab the lights!"
"Naumaku san manda bazaradankan!"
Naru flicked the lights on and Masako's grip on Mai was released immediately as she backed away, her grey eyes wide with horror as the spirit left her body. "I-I don't I didn't mean to..."
Mai remained with her back pressed against the wall, staring up at Masako with a shocked expression and she slowly brought her fingers to her throat. Seeing that intense look gone from the medium's eyes, she let out a breath of relief and let the tension release from her body. Mai slid down the wall to the floor, leaning forward and coughing as she finally was able to breath.
What the...
Having seen the situation and everyone else in shock, Naru moved across the room quickly and grabbed Masako's arm lightly and looked her in the face with a serious expression to make sure she was alright and lucid. When he saw that she seemed to be herself again he dropped to the ground and placed his hand against Mai's shoulder, pushing gently. "Look at me." She slowly raised her head and he ducked forward to look at the skin on her neck, where it was slightly red but nothing alarming. "Can you breathe alright?"
Mai shuddered as she nodded slowly. "Y-yes, I can breathe."
The silence in the room broke as everyone began talking at once, the tone in their voices rushed and worried as they moved about trying to pick up the chairs and papers that had fallen to the ground in the chaos.
Mai slowly stood with the help of her boss, his hands guiding her up and she came face to face with Masako once more who looked pale and scared. "Are you alright?" She reached for her and Masako leaned away from her hands.
"I'm fine. I'm so sorry, Mai." Masako apologized quietly and her fingers were shaking but her hands disappeared into the sleeve of her kimono as she attempted to compose herself.
"It's alright. It wasn't you." Mai grabbed ahold of her hand firmly, giving her a nod before turning to look around the room and noticed the papers on the floor.
"It says help." Igarashi said with wide eyes as she picked up on the papers on the ground before her eyes looked beyond the one paper and to the others strewn about. "They all say help."
Bou-san tore his eyes away from the two teen girls after he made sure they were alright and looked down, narrowing his eyes and reaching to pick up a paper. "This one is different." He commented and turned the paper around to show the paper that was written in red rather than the black ink Masako had used.
'I don't want to die'
Mai closed her eyes as she remembered her nightmare from earlier before she looked up. "Let's go back to base." She said suddenly. She didn't want to be in this room anymore. "We should watch the footage we caught from the camera."
"Good idea." Ayako nodded with a nervous smile. She too seemed to want to leave quickly.
As everyone filed out of the room, Masako remained holding onto Mai as they walked down the hall to the base. She was looking at the ground with her free hand covering her mouth and Mai could see that her complexion hadn't regained any of her natural colour yet. "Masako? Are you sure that you're alright?" Masako looked up and tried to open her mouth to speak before her legs gave out as she fainted. "Masako!" Mai cried out and fell with her, trying to slow her fall.
"Move over!" Bou-san said to Mai as he approached quickly and placed his hands on either side of her face, frowning as he felt her temperature. "She's not warm at all. I think it might be the shock." He said and then reached down, hooking his arms underneath her legs and picking her petite body up. "Let's bring her back to base for now and lay her on one of the couches."
Naru nodded and turned his head to look at the group of people and then he froze. "Igarashi-sensei?"
Igarashi looked from Masako's fallen figure to the dark haired male. "Yes?"
Naru turned fully, his face grim. "Where is Suzuki-san?"
"Eh?" Mai spun around at his words and looked around the hall to find the young adult, but she was no where to be seen.
Igarashi gasped as she saw that her assistant was gone. "S-Suzuki?!"
"Lin, go check the room where we had the séance. Igarashi-sensei, please go and check your shared room with Suzuki-san." Naru ordered quickly and then spun around to make sure that all of his team members were accounted for.
"He shouldn't go alone!" John exclaimed when he saw Lin quickly run down the hall.
"Lin can protect himself." Naru answered immediately and his eyes zoomed in on his assistant, who's face had lost its colour as she stood near Bou-san. She looked shocked, something that didn't happen often. Suzuki was supposed go missing on the third day, so if they couldn't find her tonight then things were changing already.
The fated event Mai wouldn't reveal to him weighed heavily on his mind, and Naru clenched his hand into a fist.
Soooo obv this fanfic is a slowburn as there isn't much romance yet and i feel bad for those of you who are patiently waiting for the mai/naru even though we're a case away from the ending of the anime so i just want to let you know that there probably won't be much romance until... the second book!
for older readers you know that i attempted to incorporate some original cases but it didn't work out and i didn't think that it went well with mai's whole pre cognitive dream and all so i just deleted that part of the story. but i still want to write original and new cases for SPR as that part of writing fanfic for Ghost Hunt is always something i find different about this fandom since most fanfics follow along with the anime/mangas, but most Ghost Hunt fanfics always take place after the anime. so that's what i'm going to do. there's going to be a second book with new cases and the mai/naru scenes you've probably been waiting for!