A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.

Chapter 8 - Haunting at the Yukai Karaoke Suite 4

Day 3 – Tuesday

Naru frowned, darting looks towards the time reflected on his laptop screen as he wondered what could have taken that clumsy assistant of his to take so long to arrive at the case site. From what he had been informed of, Mai's lessons for the day end at 2pm. The time now was 3pm; certainly the train ride from her school to their case site would not takes that long of time – right? So just what exactly had his assistant delayed in her arrival then?

While a certain narcissistic was worrying over the absence of his assistant, the said brunette in question was trapped in the hallway of the Karaoke Suite trying to fend off an attempted assault from the possessed waiter. The possessed young man was around twenty years old, with hair in the shade of dark chocolate lined with blond streak in them. Having not paying attention to the interviews conducted on day one of their investigation, Mai had some trouble in placing a name to the face.

However, having been subjected to more than one occasions of witnessing a potential possessed victim… Mai had no trouble discerning the fact that the young man was currently not himself. It could be seen from the glazed look in the young man's eyes, and also the creepy grin erect on the man's face.

'Thump, Thump…' Mai could easily hear her own heart thumping erratically behind her ribcage, while her eyes dart around for possible avenue of escape. Unfortunately, the hallway was too narrow and while it could allow several people to walk together towards the same direction in a group… it was not an easy feat to avoid being attacked as one passes by the other.

Mai kept her alerting eyes upon the man, her mind racing with the various possible ways to deal with the impending assault to come. While she had no idea why the possessed man had yet to strike, she hardly thinks the man was going to let her off the hook either. At most, the man was sizing her up trying to gauge her possible response to his assault later on in time.

Now Mai clearly have two options available, she could take the risk and kneel the man over using her kneecap to attack once the man inches closer to her or she could disregard the secrecy vow behind the rule of keeping magical powers a secret from general public and simply put the man in a full body-bind before anything else happens.

Meanwhile, the nineteen year old Yasuhara Osama was heading for the room to join the SPR gang when he chanced upon the sight of Taniyama Mai locking in a face-off with a fellow waiter of the place.

"Mai…?" Yasuhara called out to the girl out from habit with his usual tone of greeting.

The sound of Yasuhara calling out for the brunette's attention had successfully broke Mai's concentration on the man opposite of her, and that create a gap hole for the man to strike lunging for the brunette in an instant.

"Oh no…was that man possessed?" Yasuhara Osamu blanched, he has been filled in by Lin on the case situation when the elder man called him up and request for his help in gathering research data for the SPR. Henceforth, upon the first sight of the man's attack on Taniyama Mai…the nineteen year old teen immediately reaches for his mobile phone and press the redial number to Lin's mobile without hesitation.

Naru was jolted out from his thoughts rudely when the shrill ringing of Lin's mobile sounded loud and clears in the base room.

"What…?" Lin's response after answering the call was to throw a sharp look in Naru's direction, before hurrying towards the monitor screens.

"Naru, you are supposed to be watching the monitors…why haven't you notice the presence of Taniyama-san on screen all these while?" Lin eyed his ward strangely, but decided to drop the inquisition now. They had a brunette to rescue from a potential sexual assault…

Naru was initially puzzled by his silent assistant's words, but upon following the Chinese man's range of sight he was aghast by his lack of insight to check through each and every corridor hallways in details. The karaoke suite has lightings with dark tones, so it actually was not really working well with the cameras in place. Sometimes one would have to repeatedly zoom in on the screen in order to catch something… apparently, that little detail slipped his notice earlier on and hence resulting in Mai's current precarious situation of being trapped.

"Damn it…" Naru cursed before making his way out of the base mirroring Lin's actions from before.

The duos came running from the base with rapid steps, turning around the corner that led into the hallway Taniyama Mai was trapped with the intention to save the former from her assaulter only to find something unexpected. The possessed waiter was now lying in a heap on a spot opposite of the brunette unmoving, while Mai simply stared on in shock with her pointer pen outstretch in front of her pointing towards the direction of the man stonily.

Naru and Lin shared a common look among them-selves, ignoring the shell-shock figure of Yasuhara Osamu for the time-being and sprang into actions immediately. Lin headed for the unconscious man to check things out while Naru approached Mai gingerly. Judging from how Mai was behaving now, Naru was willing to bet against the fact that using magic on the assaulter was the last thing on Mai's mind and now she was in shock for what she had done from before.

"Oh god…I didn't mean to do that. Please let him be okay…" Mai was consistently repeating under her breath, rocking herself front and back trying desperately to soothe her fraying nerves. Naru knelt down next to the distraught female, and tried to call out softly to the girl drawing her attention to him.

However, Mai was too much in shock to respond to Naru's call… her mind was replaying the scene from before over and over again. Naru was right to assume that using magic on the assaulter was the last thing on Mai's mind because her initial thought was to knee the man over using her kneecap when the man comes closer to her position. She even had the distance between them calculated properly waiting for the moment to strike when one greeting from Yasuhara spoilt her whole plan, due to the distraction caused by the loud and cheerful greeting from the teen… the man had took chance of her distracted body stance to attack her.

Although she had tried to kick the man then, the attack was successfully dodged as the man lunged towards her. It was by pure chance that her wand had rolled itself out from the book she was holding in hand. Mai had been using the pointer as a bookmark of sort that afternoon while on the train journey down to Shibuya from her school, and the attack from the man had startled her so badly that her book had flown out from her hands and dropped unceremoniously onto the carpeted floor. Luckily, the floor of the karaoke suite was carpeted and hence stopping the pointer pen from rolling down the hallway giving Mai a chance to reach for it. Upon her first touch of her wand, Mai had reacted by pure instinct to lift her hands up and thought of the first spell that sprang forth into her mind.

A disarming spell used under defensive motion, it usually disarmed the opponent's weapons and wands swiftly and efficiently. Seeing as the man attacking her was not holding anything to attack her, the spell hits the man directly in the torso area and sends the man flying across the room due to the amount of magic Mai had instilled in her one attack. Her assaulter immediately hits the wall behind with a sickening sound of 'bang' and later dropped to a heap on the ground directly on the floor leaving Mai staring at the sight still in a shocking state of condition.

"Yasuhara-san, make your-self useful and go get the manager over." Lin instructed, heaving a momentary sigh of relief when he realized the possessed waiter was simply knocked out by the force of Mai's magic and not dead or seriously wounded.

"Mai, snap out of it already!" Naru heighten his tone of voice used on the brunette when it becomes apparent that Mai was failing to react to his rare moments of soft approach. Turns out, his snapping tone of voice was exactly what was required to get the girl back down to the reality plane as he found Mai slowly registering his presence by her side and sagged against him in relief.

Naru watched as Mai took several deep breaths before opening her eyes and questioned his other assistant on her assaulter's plight.

"Lin-san…I didn't do anything too damaging to him, did I?" Mai asked, still eyeing the unconscious figure lying in a heap opposite her warily as she made a move to stand. She was very much aware of Naru's close position behind her, probably on stand-by mode to catch her should her knees weakens and buckled under her weight.

"No, I don't think so. I believed that blast of yours only knocked him out cold…as for the actual degree of the damage done on him, I figured we would have to wait until he wakes before we can be certain of the fact." Koujo Lin replied, just as Yasuhara came back on site with the manager – Yamamoto Kyousuke in tow.

"Oh… there has been another assault, isn't it? Taniyama-san, are you alright?" The manager asked, looking at Mai in concern.

"Yes, I'm alright… we managed to knock him out before anything else happens. You might want to have him checked over by a professional though; I think he crashes a little too hard against that wall behind him. There might be a likelihood of him suffering from a mild concussion after that." Mai told the manager in an apologetically manner, keeping away the information that it was actually her that sends the possessed young man crashing into the wall.

Yasuhara stood by the side, flicking glances towards Mai all the time while the brunette simply chooses to ignore him for the time-being. Mai knew what the other teen was itching to ask her about, but honestly she felt it necessary for her to be back at the base with at least a cup of tea in hand to settle her nerves before she launched into the explanation behind her 'powers'.

Moments later, when Mai was settled comfortably in the base room with Ayako and the monk flanking her side. The brunette took a sip of the lukewarm tea she had taken the liberty to pour for herself from the thermo flask, she launched promptly into her tale of how she ended up running smack into the possessed young man.

Long story short, while she was on the way over to the base… she was overcome by the sudden urge to visit the washroom. Seeing as it was apparent that the haunting of the toilets does not merely affected the karaoke suite, but the other toilets on other levels too… Mai figured it would not hurt to simply use the ones on the fourth floor instead. What she failed to take into consideration was that the assaults usually took place in the hallway where the toilets were located, and that the ghost enjoys picking young girls like her to 'play' with.

"Okay… so Mai, what was that cool stunt you pull on that guy just now?" Yasuhara Osamu asked, eagerly. He had been bursting with anticipation all these times, if it was not for the fact that Naru had insisted upon getting Mai's reason being for in that hallway before anything else… he would have put forth his question towards the brunette from the point they entered the room which they were using as the base for the investigation work.

"Huh…? Oh, you mean that…" Mai commented dryly, before adding. "It wasn't PK just so you know; it was a non-verbal magical defense spell."

"You mean its magic?" Yasuhara sounded quite surprise by Mai's words, and the brunette sighed and pulled her pointer pen out from her skirt pocket again. This time, she pointed it towards some notes lying around the room and directs them to pile up nicely on the table where Lin's laptop has been rested upon.

"Wow… that was some wicked ability you could do…" Yasuhara mused, his eyes glinting dangerously as he seemed to be cooking up some ploys in that cunning mind of his.

"No, I am not going to use my powers to prank anyone for you." Mai said in a tone that leaves no room for discussion, and Yasuhara once again went into one of his dramatic performance until Naru cut him off by demanding results to his research work.

"Well, yes… according to what I've found. Pesky Clubhouse established during the 50s by Takahashi Takeshi, a local tycoon businessman during that period of time. The business was later co-managed between his two sons – the elder Takehito and the younger Hayato." Yasuhara said, as he handed over the printouts he had managed to somehow attained through his unconventional way of researching methods.

Apparently, the two brothers were not always on good terms. In fact, their relationship with one another could be classified as 'strain'… and the rift between them grew when the songstress Hideyoshi Ayaka came into the picture. Rumors have it that the songstress had captured the attention of both the Takahashi siblings, and a fierce competition vying for the lady's attention was start between them.

"Okay… so what does it have to do with this case?" Ayako questioned, still bewildered by Yasuhara's presentation of the research data. That teen was narrating his findings like some gossiping paparazzi reporters' trying to bait readers' interest, and it was getting on the red-haired doctor cum self-claimed priestess' nerves.

"It is related to the case because Takahashi Takehito's ghost is the one possessing these male patrons and waiters in here." Mai interjected then, drawing Ayako's attention on her.

"How could you be certain about that?" Ayako asked.

"I am certain of it because my dream guide told me so… and besides, I came across the scene of Takehito harassing that songstress Ayaka in my last dream." Mai responded matter-of-factly, withholding the fact that what she saw was actually a rape scene in Ayaka's point of view rather than just a mere harassing act.

"Well… if our dear Mai sees it in her dream, then it would be best to take her words for it. Since her dreams has never sends us off in the wrong direction before…" The monk interrupted before Ayako could press the brunette for more information.

"What about the flooding incidents…? Masako mentioned the spirits both being males, could it be that the other spirit was that brother of this Takehito guy?" Ayako questioned then.

"That…I had no idea, now let us listen to what Yasuhara still have to say about them... shall we?" Mai said as she directed her gaze back towards the research helper.

"Right… I wasn't sure what happened to Takahashi Hayato later, because it seems like he just went missing out of a sudden in the year 1989. Whereas, the songstress Hideyoshi Ayaka committed suicide a month before Takahashi Hayato's disappearance acts. As for Takahashi Takehito, he was rumored to have gone crazy after the songstress death and was placed in the mental asylum since then. He later died in the year 2003 from colon cancer…" Yasuhara ended his explanation.

"How did people discover his mental disability then?" Mai asked out from curiosity, she was certain that Yasuhara had that information stash away somewhere and it could be a crucial point to solve the mystery.

"Apparently, he was in a state whereby he had gone after all the female patrons and workers in the clubhouse calling them Ayaka and attempted to touch them in a sexual manner. That was when the workers decided that he was crazy and called in the professionals from the mental asylum to attend to him." Yasuhara responded.

"…You don't happen to have a picture of that songstress on you now, do you?" Naru questioned out from the blue, while Yasuhara grinned in a manner that had Mai rolling her eyes at his looks of glee.

"As a matter of fact…I do have it." Yasuhara said, pulling out the profile with the songstress picture on it and passes it around for everyone to take a look before handing it over to Naru.

"Well…at least I should be glad that I wasn't targeted explicitly for this case, then?" Mai was flooded with the sense of relief upon noticing the fact that she looks nothing like the victim this time around. Over their last few cases, she had occasionally chanced upon situation that she was made the subject of main terrorizing from the ghosts due to her looks resembling the ghosts' tormentors in the past. During that few cases, she was often losing sleep due to her fear of being killed in the dreams or that someone will attempt murder on her while she slept.

Mai sighed in resignation when she noticed the fact that she was once again on the astral plane, inwardly she was grateful that she wasn't dump straight into the vision for this time around. Looking around her surrounding, she tried to locate her dream guide – the twin of her boss.

"Gene, where are you?" Mai called out, too lazy to search for the former using her naked eyes. She blamed it on the teen's tendency to camouflage in the dark and then reappearing in front of her as an attempt to scare the shit out from her.

I'm over here." Soon, Mai heard the familiar sound of Gene speaking up and she started to head over to where she thought she heard the sound from.

Gene was standing in front of a bright spot and pointing her towards the direction where the spot of light was.

"Something for me to see again…?" Mai asked, not expecting any response but Gene still nodded towards her despite it being a rhetorical question.

"Well… here goes anything, let's just hope it wasn't another rape dream." Mai muttered under her breath as she braced herself for the past vision to come.

It was not another rape dream, but one that was sets in the office of the night-club or sort. Despite being unable to pinpoint the location, Mai just have a feeling that insisted upon her that this was the office of Takehito. There were two men involved in the scene; they were both heated in an argument.

An argument that involved the songstress, Mai surmised when she kept noticing the mention of the said female's name.

"You bastard, you raped her – didn't you? That's why she committed suicide last month…" Takahashi Hayato accused, and if looks could kill…

"Don't say it in that manner…It's your fault, if it isn't for you…She would have succumb to me by now!" Takehito snarled.

"What kinds of bull-shit theory was that?! How could you claim to have loved her when all you did was to repeatedly try and force yourself on her?! She ran to me because she was scared of you, not because she has romantic feelings for me!" Hayato tried to reason, but it was failing utterly as Takehito was too damn set in his mind that it was his brother's fault that causes Ayaka's rejection of his feelings.

"NO! It was your fault." Takehito insisted upon and in a moment of agitation, he threw his files and folders all towards his brother's direction causing the man to dodge as he tried to avoid being hit in the face.

Mai allowed a gasp of shock to escape her when she noticed Takehito reaching for a fruits knife and then lunging for Hayato. The two men battled fiercely; with Hayato trying to remove the knife from his agitated brother's hand and Takehito trying to stake the knife through his brother's heart. The two men fought for the upper hand in the fight, but it seems like Takahashi Hayato runs out on luck and tripped carelessly over an ornament that was threw in his previous direction in his brother's fit of anger and before he knew it… he was staked by the knife in Takehito's hands.

Initially, he managed to kick his brother's away using his leg while he scrambled away from the crazy Takehito's reach. However, he should not have his back turned against his agitated brother… before Takehito took that opportunity to strike again. This time, there was no escape for the other brother as the knife was stabbed in one of the more fatal point of a human's body.

Mai watched wide-eyed as the figure of Takahashi Hayato slumped down to the ground slowly, whereas Takehito seemed to be unfazed by what he had just did to his own sibling and simply stared on as though waiting for his brother to bounce back up on the foot again. Once it became apparent that Takahashi Hayato was indeed dead and not going to come back up…Takehito started to panic for a moment before he goes still in his actions again. A demented look seeps into his eyes, as he seemed to have arrived at some brilliant ideas.

Taniyama Mai fought the urge to retch upon the sight of how Takahashi Takehito had tugged the body of his dead brother behind him as they reached the kitchen area of the clubhouse. She watched as Takehito took a gigantic trash bag out from a corner of the room, and then retrieves a large butchering knife from the kitchen counter top. Mai forced herself to look on as Takehito worked to butcher his dead brother into several parts, before dropping them all bloody and disgustingly into the trash bag by the side and then he dumped the butchering knife within the same bag. Tying a knot on the bag, he tugged it out of the clubhouse heading for the emergency exit and up the stairs towards the roof.

Mai's eyebrow twitches uncontrollably as she noticed how Takehito took it upon himself to remove the cover to the water tank container atop of the building and promptly dropped the trash-bag containing the weapon and his brother's dead body into the container itself. Slowly, the demented Takehito shifted his glance towards where Mai was and smiled cruelly. By the count of three mentally, Mai screamed and woke up promptly back in reality plane.

Mai wakes up heaving and chest panting for breath, a quick look around told her that she was in her room at her flat. Something crept her out in the last scene, was Takehito smiling in her direction? It shouldn't be, but it seems like it… It was a dream, what happened in there were visions of the past – Takehito should not have seen her at all… unless it was the ghost of him in the vision together with her.

A shiver traveled down her spine as she ran a hand through her hair wearily, but she highly doubted she could sleep again after what she just saw. The memory of what happened before came rushing back to her and she found herself emptying her stomach right onto the floor beside her bed, filling her room with the smell of vomit.

"Damn…" Mai muttered aloud to no one in particular, flicking her pointer wand to her dressing table she levitate the tissue box on it over to her bed and wipe the side of her mouth with a piece of tissue paper. And then, she cleansed up the mess of her vomiting substances on the floor and charms her room to smell of lavenders. The time now was 3am in the morning; she had no qualms of cleaning her house at this hour of time.

Forgoing the idea of sleep, Mai grabbed the cheesy romance novel from her bedside table and flicked on the lamp in the room as she read through the chapter she had stopped the other time. Romance novels often sounded too cheesy for her liking, but at this moment of time she just wanted to do something to rid her mind from the scare in her last dream.

The first thing Mai did when morning comes around was to call up Lin, she felt bad about disturbing the elder man from his sleep but she thought the dream could not be delayed further. The sooner she relayed the information, the earlier they could solve the case and be done with it. She had no intention to find herself being the victim of Takehito's next raping deed…

The case was successfully solved by Naru over the next two days, Mai had requested for the break using the excuses of school projects work. She had no idea what Lin had told Naru after she relayed her latest dream information to the Chinese man, but she was glad that Naru did not make any sarcastic remarks when she claimed that she needed time off from that case of theirs. It seems like they eventually choose to exorcise the spirit of Takehito because he was too far gone in the mind to be saved and Masako refuses to conduct a séance on Takehito's spirit for some unfathomable reasons.

Hayato's spirit on the other hand, has moved on smoothly after his body had been uncovered by local police who had been called in to search the water tank atop of the building. That was followed by an order to demolish the shopping centre, and compensation amount being given to relevant stores owners to shift their business elsewhere as the building would need to be demolished and rebuilt for other purposes.

If anyone was surprised by Mai's lack of interest to find out how the spirit was actually exorcise, they did not find it their position to inquire.

Date started: 3/2/2013

Date completed: 7/2/2013

P.S: Finally case 2 over… pardon the lack of details on how the case was wrapped up, because my mind refuses to cooperate on that. Again, reviews are appreciated. Take this as Chinese New Year present eh? XD