Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt. This story has admittedly been inspired by many other fanfics, but quite a bit by 'The Cases of London' By MzShellSan. No, this is not a copy of that person's story or anyone else's, nor does it have the same plot lines. I have merely taken inspiration from it in the way of minor details or descriptions of people. I love that story very much. If you have not read it, go do that when you are finished here. It is amazing.

Important note: Naru's name is Oliver Davis, and he is called Noll by his parents and friends in England. I will be changing what I call him a lot, depending on who's shoulder we're looking over at the time. This might be a bit confusing, but just keep in mind that they are all his name, and you'll understand just fine.

Also, in this story I will be using the metric system to describe things. I'll be doing this because that's what they use in Japan and it is also understood in England even though they use miles to describe distance and pounds to describe weight. The metric system is also used here in Denmark where I come from, so it's a lot easier for me to understand. Note: metric system involves Metres, kilometres, kilograms, litres and so on.

"English speaking"

"Japanese speaking"

'Thinking'

Chapter 1

12th of January, Tokyo Japan

Mai Taniyama was sitting at home finishing up a report on her latest case. Even after 6 years she still went ghost hunting on occasion. Okay, maybe it was a bit more than that. She really wanted to work as a paranormal researcher full time, but after having had her start in the business working for none other than the famous Dr. Oliver Davis, or Naru as she had nicknamed him, none of the actual companies that proclaimed to be professional ghost hunters or paranormal investigators, were anywhere near her standards. She knew very well that she shouldn't and couldn't expect the same level of professionalism, quality or sheer work ethic for that matter, from any of them. But having worked for and basically studied under one of the greatest parapsychologists (and narcissists) of the age (not that she would ever admit to this), it was just too frustrating working under such 'poor' conditions.

Generally she would advertise herself as a medium and/or paranormal investigator. She would work with any of the others of the old crew whenever they called and said that they had a case, and any of them would always be there to help whenever she called them. She also had a work phone that was for when an unknown person or other company would call for help. This way was by far the best option when it came to finding work but not having to tie herself to any of the companies she basically considered amateurs.

Of course this didn't guarantee that she always had work on hand, and sometimes she would need to take a different job for a while. Usually waitressing, as that was another thing she excelled at other than speaking with the dead. She didn't actually need to take another job. Her cases paid rather well, so she could in theory live well off for quite a while without any new income. But as she had been fending for herself for so many years now, the notion of taking money out of her savings didn't sit well with her. Although she had enough money to live a very comfortable life in a much bigger apartment then what she had now, as Ayako had pointed out more than enough times for Mai's liking, she didn't want to spend that much money when she was perfectly comfortable where she was. Saving money and never wasting any, had been ingrained in her when she was very young, and she couldn't see any reason why this was a bad thing.

So in the end, even though everyone told her that she was degrading herself by waitressing now and again, she couldn't help going to find a job when there had been a whole month with no cases. Besides, she liked the job. Serving tea for Naru, who had been a total and complete addict to the drink, had made the making of tea and other beverages her way of winding down. So having this job once in a while really also served as a sort of breathing room for her. Of course she would always get fired or have to quit after only working there for a max. of three months, because once the cases started rolling in again, she couldn't come in as many hours as they needed her too.

This last case had been one major disappointment. Takigawa had called her up and asked her to help him determine whether this elicit haunting actually had some truth to it. It most definitely did not. A man had contacted the monk and explained that he owned a building which he rented out for parties and other such gatherings. Over the last few months though, his guests had reported a number of odd things happening. Windows broke in the middle of the night when no one was near it. The trash cans outside kept getting knocked over. The power would suddenly go out for a few minutes and then come back on all by itself. The power lines and electricity had been checked several times, and nothing had ever been wrong with it. One party in particular had reported hearing creepy laughter.

The rumours of the place being haunted had started and spread like a bad rash, and now no one was willing to rent the place anymore. After spending a mere two nights at the place, both Mai and Takigawa found the culprits. And it was not a ghost, but rather a bunch of mischievous kids who found it funny to make people inside the building scream in fear and then would run off before getting caught. Both Mai and the monk had inicially thought this might be the case, and had asked the owner if he had contacted the police. He said he had and that the officer who came out there, said that they hadn't found anything. And of course they hadn't since they had looked for only two hours during the daylight. The police were called in again and the kids reprimanded by their parents.

The parents of course had to pay for all the damages, but had been very angry when they were told to also pay for the investigation. In their opinion, since there had been no ghosts, and spirits and the like were just something in people's heads, there had been no reason to call in a ghost hunter in the first place. So why should they pay for the owner believing in things that obviously weren't real? The case was now going to court and Mai was typing up her version of events. As always when this happened, Mai wrote everything just as it had happened and she didn't try to make her statement sound in the favour of either party, but stayed as neutral as possible. Although in her opinion, the little rascals should be the ones to pay. Naturally though, they didn't have any money, as they were just children, but they should at least be paying their parents back through their allowance over the next few years or so. Maybe that was what was going to happen. She could only wait and see what the court would decide.

Mai glanced over at her clock on the wall. It was five in the afternoon. She needed to go grocery shopping before she could make dinner. And since she had been so absorbed in her work today, she had completely forgotten about lunch. Resulting in her stomach now feeling like a deep pit.

Her work phone rang and Mai imideately picked it up. "Hello, Taniyama Mai speaking. How may I help you?"

"Yes Hello. I'm sorry my Japanese is not all that good. Do you speak English at all, Miss Taniyama?" The voice was that of an older man. He had a kind voice, but Mai thought he sounded a little tired.

Thrown for a moment over the change in language, it took a moment for Mai to understand. Right at that moment she was extremely grateful that she had chosen to take English classes at the community college.

"Yes, of course. I understand and speak English well enough. May I ask who I'm speaking with?"

"Brilliant. My name is Martin Davis. I'm a professor in parapsychology at Cambridge University in London. I'm also the head of an organisation known as the British Society of Psychical Research. BSPR for short."

Mai's breath caught in her throat. Martin Davis. She was speaking with Naru's father. She threw around for something to say that wouldn't sound dumb.

"Oh. It's an honour to speak with you Prof. Davis. I've heard quite a bit about you. As well as BSPR." This was true. After Naru had revealed himself to be Dr. Oliver Davis and left Japan, Mai had been exceedingly curious(After all the anger and sadness had dissipated of course) and had looked him up. She found out that his adoptive parents were named Martin and Luella. His father was a professor in parapsychology and his mother a psychiatrist. She also found out that SPR had stood for Society of Psychical Research and not Shibuya Psychic Research, as Naru had said. That had only been a front here in Japan. Mai reasoned that he must have made the company here as a branch of BSPR, in order to have funding for the work he did while looking for his brother.

"Oh, but it is I who am honoured in talking to you Miss. I too have heard a great deal about you and the impressive work you have done. I'm sorry to be calling you at such a late time in the afternoon, but I was wondering if you had the time to speak with me for a while?"

Mai wondered if he was talking about the work she had done while having been employed by his son, or the work she had done since. Surely, if the former was the case, then six years was an awful long time to take in making such a call.

"Yes I have time now. But, I'm sorry sir. I'm afraid I don't quite follow your meaning. How have you heard of me?" Better to get this out of the way first.

"SPR is a worldwide organisation. BSPR is just the department here in England. I have many contacts all over the world, both in the society and outside of it. A colleague of mine has recently been to Japan in the fall of last year and a few days ago he informed me of a young woman with quite the impressive set of skills. His name is Joshua Norton. He says you worked together on a case at an Onsen in Tamagawa. Do you recall this?"

That sounded a lot like the Prof. had never heard of her before Joshua told him of their meeting.

"Yes, I remember. Norton-san was very helpful on that case indeed. Are you calling to discuss the case details?" She couldn't imagine why. If Joshua was his colleague then shouldn't he have the file on hand or in the company's system?

Prof. Davis laughed a little. "I wouldn't mind at all getting your view on a few of the details. However, that is not my reason for calling."

Okay. Now Mai was definitely confused. If he didn't call on account of the work she'd done for Naru, nor the case she had done with Joshua, then why on earth did he call her?

"Then what is?"

"Well, like I said Joshua told me of your skills, and if you wouldn't mind terribly, I would very much like to know if what he said was true."

"When you say skills, do you mean my psychic abilities?"

"Yes I do indeed. I understand of course if this is something you don't want to discuss. It is after all a private matter. And when I looked you up on the internet, all I found that said anything about spiritualism, was that you advertise yourself as a medium. But according to Joshua, you can do a lot more than simply communicating with the dead. Do you mind?"

The Prof. sounded a bit nervous now. Clearly he understood that this isn't information one would normally give to a stranger, and especially over the phone, but he also really wanted to find out more. Mai thought about it for a moment before answering. "What did Norton-san tell you exactly?"

A wave of mild excitement could be heard in Martin's voice when he replied. "He told me that you have retro-cognitive dreams and showed levels of ESP. He also said that one of your colleagues told him you can do astral projection."

Mai sighed. "Yes, he told the truth. These are abilities that I have."

"Truly? How extraordinary." The excitement in his voice had just tripled. "Can you tell me more about them please?"

Mai gave him a quick rundown of her psychic abilities, as well as a few examples of when and how she has used them in the field. She could hear the sound of a pen in the background.

"May I ask Professor Davis. What do you need this information for?"

"I needed them in order to decide whether you were the right person or not." He answered like a second thought.

"The right person for what? Do you need help on a case?"

"No no, nothing like that. There is however something I would like to ask you. You see Miss Taniyama, it is very rare to find someone with such an impressive array of skills like yours. Most of your abilities are rather rare on their own, so to have them manifest in a single person like this is extremely rare."

Mai was getting a strange feeling in her gut. Like this conversation was about to take a turn that could possibly change a lot of things in her life.

"BSPR is holding a conference in March on parapsychology and paranormal occurrences. I would like to invite you to give a speech about your unique abilities and how you use them in the field of paranormal research. Do you think that this is something you would be willing to do?"

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"English speaking"

"Japanese speaking"

'Thinking'

22nd of February, London England

Oliver Davis had been in the middle of having dinner with his parents when a long distance call had come in for his father. Martin had been gone for about ten minutes before he came back smiling like the sun.

"Good gracious dearest, what has made you so happy?" Asked his mother.

"Oh, I'm just a bit excited. That's all." Martin tried to get the corners of his mouth downwards, but that only resulted in the grin spreading even wider.

Sighing, Oliver took a sip of water and tried to ignore his father.

"Well? What was the call about?" Luella asked her husband. She knew it was very likely something work related, which meant that Martin very much wanted to tell them, especially their son. But she also knew that Oliver would not ask. He had been in a very bad mood for a long time. She was worried about him. Being distant and quiet was not something new for him, but ever since Gene died he had become even more so. It was understandable, having lost his twin and the other half of himself. She and Martin had also been raked with grief for a long time. But they were slowly coming out of mourning. Oliver just couldn't seem to be excited about anything anymore. Not even the work he buried himself in every day.

"Remember how I told you both a little over a month ago that I was trying to procure a new speaker for the conference next month?" Martin answered his wife.

Luella nodded and side eyed Oliver to see if he was listening. He didn't show any sign of having heard what was being said.

"Well, that was her just now. She has finally agreed to come and speak about her work." Martin said with great enthusiasm.

"Remind me again what this woman does. It must be something very impressive, gathering you are so excited you're nearly bouncing in your chair."

"I've never heard of anyone with this combination of psychic abilities. Mediumship and retro-cognitive dreams. Oh and she supposedly can also do astral projection. And she uses all of these abilities while ghost hunting."

Oliver had stopped chewing. This was starting to sound very familiar. His mind instantly jumped to the young girl who had been his assistant in Japan. 'Mai'. He swallowed thickly. He had purposely never told his father about Mai and her abilities. Not because he didn't trust his father, but because he knew Mai was very vulnerable, and at the time he had left Japan, too young to understand what it meant to be the centre of attention for all the scientists in their field. He had wanted to project her in the smallest way he could. Besides, she had just had her heart broken, finding out that the person she was in love with, had been dead for over a year, and she had never truly known him. Oliver pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind. His father couldn't be talking about her.

"My, that is impressive. How did you learn of her? Is she famous where she comes from?" Luella inquired.

"No, not at all. In fact she doesn't even advertise her abilities, other than low mediumship. She calls herself a ghost hunter. Which I think is just brilliant. She doesn't like to have all that much attention on her, so it really was a long shot to ask her to come."

"What made her change her mind?"

"She didn't say. Just that she had spoken in depth about it with some friends and had come to the conclusion that perhaps it was time for the world to find out what she can do."

"Well that's great for her. When will she be arriving?"

"On the 26th next month and will be departing again on the 29th. She has agreed to give her speech Saturday and if it goes well she will also be attending the banquet the following evening. I tried to make her stay a bit longer, but she refused the offer and is determined to go home the day after."

"Maybe you can change her mind while she is here. Find out what kind of person she is. How old is she anyway? She sounds like a very accomplished person."

"See now that is the extraordinary thing. She is only a mere 23 years old and already has several years of experience. Saying she started in this line of work while she was still in highschool."

"Wow. That's…" But Luella's comment was cut off by her son speaking for the first time.

"What's her name?" Oliver couldn't hold his tongue any longer. He needed to know.

Martin was glad that his son was taking an interest in the conversation, but he thought he heard a note of.. Was that anxiety in his voice? "Mai Taniyama. She's from Tokyo in Japan. Have you heard of her? Did you perhaps meet her while you were over there?"

Luella became increasingly worried at the way Oliver seemed to have stopped breathing. "Noll? What's the matter dear?"

Oliver looked down at his plate. What little was left there suddenly didn't seem very appetising. Breathing in deeply he finally answered. "Nothing. Yes I know of her."

"Really?" Martin was both over the moon to get his son's opinion, but also confused as to why he hadn't mentioned her before. "Have you worked with her before? How well do you know her?"

Oliver debated with himself for a moment about how much to reveal. "She was my assistant while I had the Japanese branch of SPR."

"Your assistant?! Why on earth have you not told me of her before? You've known all this time and not said anything about there being such a gifted young person out there." Martin was stunned and angry that his son had kept this from him.

"You have the case reports." Oliver stated matter of factly.

"They never mentioned her name!" His son was being absolutely ridiculous. "We made a deal that the reports need only state the names of you, lin and the client. All the others you only ever mentioned as the monk, the catholic priest, the shinto priestess and so on. Only Masako Hara did you mention by name because she was already well known in our society."

"Exactly. It was an understanding between us all that their names were not to go on the record if it didn't need to. And I simply didn't see any need."

"But having such a gifted employee was surely important to mention. The most noticeable thing you wrote about her was that she was a very good female assistant/secretary and that she showed signs of levels of ESP. How exactly was I supposed to gather her true potential from that?" Martin was outraged.

"You weren't."

"WHAT?!"

"Martin, calm down." Luella tried to appease her husband. "Noll. Your father is the head of the company. This is information he should have had. The girl was on payroll."

Oliver sighed. "You said yourself that she is still worried about coming out to the public. How do you think she would have felt six years ago? She was too young and too inexperienced. She barely had any kind of support system."

"But.." Oliver cut his father off.

"I didn't want her to become food for the sharks that swim in our waters."

His parents both became completely still for a moment. "You.. Didn't want?" His mother asked hesitantly.

"No I didn't. Mai is a very emotional person. When she found out about Gene, she was devastated. It's not that I didn't trust either of you to keep her talents a secret. But if I had told you that this girl had seen and talked to your deceased son, you wouldn't have been able to stop yourselves from contacting her. I wanted to give her space to do her own grieving. If she believes that she is ready now, then that's good. But understand that I didn't want to put any more on her shoulders than what was already there."

Right at that moment the family's butler came into the dinning room with a tray of tea. He placed it on the table, and sensing the tension in the room, he quickly excited again.

"I'm going to my office. Excuse me." Oliver stood and considered for a moment to take a cup of tea with him. But having Mai in his thoughts only made him crave the kind of tea that she made. Jamesons tea was better than many others, but Oliver had never been able to find any that was as good and relaxing as Mai's. And having the memory of the girl in his mind would just make him hate the tea, no matter how good it was. This had happened before. Tea had once been an addiction for him, but being without her's had made him cut back a significant amount. He walked out without it and didn't hear his father call after him.

"Noll." Martin was about to go after his son, but the feel of his wife's hand on his arm made him stop and look at her. She too was watching the door through which Oliver had gone. "What is it?" The look on her face made him a bit worried.

"Did you hear what he just said? I've never seen this side of him before."

"What do you mean?" Anger and being short tempered was not new for his son.

Luella looked at him with a stunned expression. "He just told us that this woman has grieved over the death of our son and that he wanted to give her space to do it. Almost in a way that made it sound like her grieving had hurt him in some way. It was as if… As if leaving her had hurt him. He basically said he wanted to protect her. Protect her Martin. This woman was his friend. By the sound of it, a close friend. And he had just left her behind and never spoken of her."

"You're not saying… You don't think…" Luella knew what he was thinking. She nodded.

"I can't be sure of course, I'm only basing this on how he reacted tonight and what he said. But this type of behaviour is generally seen in someone who has experienced some type of heartbreak. I think.. Perhaps.. There was more between Noll and Miss Taniyama than just the relationship between employer and employee. I would very much like to speak with this woman. If this is the reaction he has to the mention of her after six years. I wonder what will happen when they meet again."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

In his office, Oliver sat at his desk and scoured the internet for anything he could find out about Mai. He had not allowed himself to do this over the years, telling himself that it would be an invasion of her privacy. But now the tables had turned. Mai was willing to come and publicly speak about her psychic abilities, which meant that as soon as it was over, anyone who found her interesting would be doing the same thing as he was now. Mai would of course have thought of this and it showed. It was very difficult to find anything he didn't already know. And very little of that was related to her work as a ghost hunter.

The most he could find was her own advertisement, stating that she was a paranormal investigator with levels of mediumship and contacts to the famous Masako Hara and a few very good exorcists of different classes. This wasn't new information, but it spoke volumes to him. Mai was still in the field, but she apparently worked alone rather than being tied to a company. She did her own research and officework. She occasionally worked with members of the old team and was willing to take just about any case. She had a success rate of 98 percent. Oliver was impressed. Of course she probably also took all of the small fry cases he had always refused to look into. 'Typical Mai.'

He found a quote from her that she had apparently stated to a reporter at some point about a month ago. It was regarding a case she had finished and it had apparently gone to court. "I am in no way saying that all claims of paranormal activity are real. Just like with this case, many of the odd occurrences that people find frightening and believe to be related to supernatural phenomena, are actually the work of human interference. In this case the kids fooling around were purposely making it look like a ghost was haunting the building. They got a kick out of it, and had the police been looking in the right places they would have found evidence of foul play. However, there are also cases where there is no such evidence and yet the culprit is still a living person. In the first case I ever worked I learned of the term 'Poltergeist'. This name means 'noisy ghost' and there are certain criteria that come into play. When investigated properly, it has been proven that nearly half of all poltergeist cases can be attributed to human interaction. This is why investigations are so important. It is amateurish at best to believe that anything you can't explain is caused by a spirit. Any paranormal or supernatural investigator with any worth to their name, would tell you that to make assumptions based on rumours instead of evidence, is unprofessional and does not accumulate any good results."

A wave of pride made Oliver's chest feel warm. Remembering how she had been when she started working for him, it was clear as day how far Mai had come. She sounded like a true professional. The pride was overtaken by guilt and regret. Had he come back to Japan or at least contacted Mai sooner, he would have already known this. He could have aided her on her way to becoming this accomplished. He would probably also have known everything that she was going to speak about at the conference. Determination filled him as he decided to make sure he was going to be there to hear her speak. He would normally not bother going to this bi-yearly event, due to there never being very many speakers he found worth his time, as they all spoke of something he pretty much knew everything about. But this time, there was at least one that he didn't want to miss. Cases be damned if he was going to lose this opportunity.

Mai's advertisement showed a phone number to call. Without thinking about it, Oliver reached for his phone and dialled the number.

"Hello. Taniyama Mai speaking. How can I help you?" A sweet and very tired voice spoke through the phone.

Only then did Oliver realise what he had done. But as to why he had done it, he drew a complete blank. What was he going to say? Well, hello would be a good start. Now he just needed to get his mouth to work.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

Why wouldn't his voice come out of his throat? His mouth was moving but no sound was uttered.

There was a rustling noise on the other end, and it sounded like Mai held the phone away from her ear when she spoke next.

"What time is it?" Looking at the clock on his desk, Oliver realised his mistake. 10:27. Which made it 6:27 in Tokyo. He had woken her up.

"Whoever this is, I can see that the caller ID is coming from the UK. If there is a bad connection and I just can't hear you due to the distance, you can write me an email. The address is MTInvestigations . I'll hang up now and try to call you back in a moment."

The line went dead. What the hell was wrong with him. Why hadn't he said anything? It wasn't like him to be completely tongue tied. He put down the receiver. Deep down he knew what had made him hold back. The sound of her voice had momentarily given him a feeling of sharp relief. Like pressing a cold cloth to an aching burn. He hadn't realised that he had been in any kind of pain. He had acknowledged to himself years ago that he missed the brunette shuffling around in his office. Making tea, stumbling over her own feet, calling him a jerk when he was being rude. The only ones here that ever called him out for being insensitive was Madoka and on occasion his parents. But none of them ever really stood up to him the same way she used to do. She challenged him in a way no one had ever done. He knew he had missed her a little. But he had never realised that the aching hole in his chest had not only been caused by his brother's death, but also by being away from Mai.

He angrily stomped down those feelings. Emotions were not something he used to bother with and he wasn't going to start now. Missing her was a ridiculous notion.

The phone began to ring. Oliver stared at it.

'Pick up the phone.'

It kept ringing.

'Pick.. Up.. The.. Phone.'

More ringing.

'Damn it! Just pick up the damn phone!'