Important note: In the interest of everyone understanding the timeline, here is what I'm working with. Mai was 16 when she met Naru. She worked for him for 14 months (according to my research) and was therefore 17 when he left Japan in late summer or early fall. Now 6 ½ years later she is 23 and Naru is 24.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt.

"English speaking"

"Japanese speaking"

'Thinking'

Chapter 2

27th of March, London England

Taking a deep breath, Mai focused on the room in front of her. Filled with parapsychologists, scientists, paranormal researchers, spiritualists and the like. Nerves ran like electrical waves through her body, making her hands shake. She had prepared for this for weeks, and yet standing here now, she couldn't help but wonder why she had agreed to do this in the first place.

"Goodmorning, Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mai Taniyama and I have been asked to come here today to tell you all about my spiritual and psychic abilities and how I use them in the active field of ghost hunting. The abilities I will be covering today are mediumship, aura sensing, ESP in the forms of psi-missing, retro-cognitive dreams and pre-cognitive flashes. As well as astral projection."

There was a low murmur around the large room. People were evidently surprised at her sheer number of abilities. One person in particular however, wasn't talking. Waiting with raped attention, Dr. Oliver Davis was sitting in the first row alongside his father, Professor Martin Davis, as well as Lin Koujo and Madoka Mori. Oliver's eyes had widened slightly. A small amount that would have been undetectable to anyone not looking at him, but since Mai had been looking right into those shockingly blue irises the moment it happened, she noticed the exact moment it became clear to him just how far Mai had come since he had left her side in Japan.

She looked away quickly, seeing his face only made this harder. She had known that he would be here, of course he would. It was his father that had invited Mai to come after all, him having heard so much about her. Although it had sounded a lot like Naru hadn't mentioned her at all and all the professor had heard was from other sources. Perhaps she could find out later.

"Before I begin, please excuse me if I stumble in my speech. English is not my first language as you can no doubt hear from my accent. I am also not a scientist, nor is my IQ very much above the average. So please don't expect me to know all of the scientific names for things, because I won't. If I explain something that has a different name than what I use, please just bear with me."

She gave the room a kind smile which a few people returned and many more nodded in understanding. Some had also laughed a little at her comments. Mai caught the eye of her friend Osamu Yasuhara. He was sitting off to the side of the stage on which she was standing. Prof. Davis had allowed her to take along an assistant of sorts and Yasu was the obvious choice as he knew just about everything when it came to her work. He was there to help her if she were to lose track or have problems explaining something. 'And if I should have a panic attack.' she reminded herself.

Yasu nodded to Mai in a way of saying "You're doing great. Keep going."

Eyes turning back to the room, another deep breath, and stealing her nerves to relax. Now was the moment to sound intelligent and confident.

"Alright. Let's get started on the interesting things." Turning around, Mai clicked the remote in her hand to switch on her power point presentation. "Aura sensing and psi-missing are both located in the same area for me. They both revolve around the same purpose for me in the field. Which is ultimately to deduce right from wrong and discover the truth.

"Aura sensing is pretty straightforward and simple if you know the concept. For the sake of everyone understanding I will however be explaining the basics. When focusing on a person's aura, it is normal for it to show itself in a variant of colours. Learning what the different colours mean lets you read the aura and determine how that person is feeling. In my case however I experience it a little differently. Unless I focus really hard, I don't see the colours. I feel a sort of whisper of their emotions. I can know how a person's mood is without them having to express it through words or facial expressions. This I believe is not an uncommon ability. I have a theory that many people experience this to various degrees. In many works of literature, it is sometimes expressed how a person feels the anger or tension in a room before having to enter the room very far or even face the people inside. So this is not a very impressive ability. I do however believe that I feel the emotions more strongly, since I can often tell just by looking at a room from afar or a closed door. This also shows itself when I am surrounded by a large group of people, like for example being in a shopping mall or the centre of a large city. The emotions around me can get very stifling."

'Or like today being at the centre of everyone's attention' she thought wryly. So many auras crowded together was suffocating and it took a lot not to give in to the slight strangling sensation in her airways.

A hand raised in the air and Mai was momentarily thrown as she had been focusing very hard on just getting the words out. The hand belonged to Madoka. Mai nodded at the pink haired woman. "Yes?"

"You said that if you focus you can see the person's aura in colour. When would you use this in your field work?"

"Say I'm interviewing a witness. If I can feel that they are holding something back or if I have an underlying feeling that they are lying to me, I would use this as a sort of lie detector. I don't use it often and I won't use it for very long as it tends to give me a headache if I strain myself too hard. It's not of course 100 percent reliable, far from it, but it can help me determine if someone is being honest or not."

Mai looked down at her notes for a moment, trying to get the ever gittering nerves off of her. Deciding that standing still was making her more nervous, she stepped away from the speaker's podium and started to slowly walk around as she talked, occasionally clicking the remote to show the next slide.

"Psi-missing is also a way for me to determine right from wrong. This however does not only apply to people but mostly to objects, scenarios or locations. This is also the first ability that was ever officially tested. The lightbulb test, where I was to try and guess which lightbulb would light up next. In the case of determining whether psi is a factor in the results, there has to be a significant difference between the acquired results and the average results of random guessing. For psi-hitting, one would need to guess the right answer most of the time. And of course the opposite for psi-missing. In the interest of having you all believe me and not just scoff at me, I will not tell you the results. I will now show you."

A smirk made its way onto Oliver's lips. True. He had been the one to first test Mai's abilities, and had he not been the one to administer the test, he would not believe something like that could be possible. Remembering how it had gone, he was not surprised when he heard a series of low gasps and the auditorium started murmuring again as she pulled up the results on the monitor. Over 1000 tries and not a single hit. A feeling of pride subtly warmed Oliver's chest for a reason he didn't understand. Why would he be proud of this? He was not the one with this impressive ability.

"It is very nearly a mathematical impossibility to not have one single correct answer in over a thousand tries. And yet that is the evidence before you."

Martin Davis raised his hand in the air, and Mai nodded for him to speak. "How do you use this ability in the field?"

Oliver rolled his eyes at his father's impatience. Had he just waited a moment, Mai would probably have gotten to that point next.

Mai however didn't bat an eye at the professor's impatience. "In regards to field work, this is honestly at times a rather useless trait to have."

Many people raised or furrowed their eyebrows at this. One woman in the back called out "Why do you say that?", without even raising her hand.

A fund look came over Mai's features. "The story of how it was thought to test this skill was because I had shown unusually sharp instincts on a case. There had been a lot of reports about paranormal activity in a relatively limited space and all of the evidence was pointing to a single person. Everyone, even my entire team was convinced that this young girl was the cause of it all. But I said and knew to my very core that she was innocent. It was a feeling deep inside that I knew to be true, and it turned out to be so as well."

"Then why do you say it's useless? It helped you find the truth in the end." Asked a surprisingly inraptured Lin.

Mai smiled sadly at him. Oliver thought he knew why. Lin had been there and should already know this. Oliver had certainly already guessed where Mai was going.

"Because while I could point to this girl and call her innocent, I could not tell who the real perpetrator was. I had in fact been in the same room and in very close proximity to the real culprit multiple times. Even shaken hands with this person, and yet I had no idea that they were the one we were looking for. I could not, for the life of me, point out who the culprit was. And that ultimately was why we kept getting stuck. Over the years I have been in similar situations and while it is useful to be able to tell that something is the wrong answer for the purpose of eliminating where not to look. Looking at the right answer and not being able to tell that it's literally staring me in the face, is something I call useless. True this skill does help out occasionally, but if I'm looking for one correct answer among 50 wrong ones. Then eliminating every wrong one before I can find the right one, is just wasting time."

Letting this sink in, Mai took a moment to steal herself once more before continuing. "ESP or extrasensory perception is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to the reception of information not gained through the recognised physical senses, but sensed with the mind. That was directly recited from the book Extrasensory Perception by Joseph Banks Rhine. It explains in a very simplified way the concept of how ESP works. In my own experience however, that statement is slightly off. When I said before that I felt the girl's innocence in my core, I was not lying. I did not feel it in my mind the way it is described, but in my heart. My soul.

"Which brings us to the other two versions of ESP in my repertoire. Retro-cognitive dreams and pre-cognitive flashes. As to these two I have no evidence or proof that it has happened. I can tell you though, that when the dreams and/or flashes occur I gain information that helps with the investigation. They help me to understand what has been happening in the location I am at and why the spirit or ghost is haunting said location. And possibly how we can help it move on. Or regrettably how to get rid of the entity."

Several hands flew into the air. Mai became a little intimidated at the number of questions. An instinct pricked in her heart and pushed her to use her aura sensing for a brief moment. Two seconds was all she needed to reveal that over half of the people in the room were coloured with disbelief and scepticism.

She pointed at a man at random. "If you have no proof, how do we know you are telling the truth? Why should we believe you when so many in the past who have made such claims of seeing visions have been proven wrong?"

A few people around him nodded in agreement. Simultaneously the majority of the people who had been coloured in the favour of belief, turned and scowled at the man. Mai held eye contact with him, looking as unimpressed as she could muster. Face blank.

"What do you do sir? What is your area of expertise?" She asked calmly.

"I am a physicist."

"So you work mainly with things that have evidentiary support, correct?"

"That is correct." He looked so proud of himself. Mai sighed.

"Then I will not bother answering your question."

There was an uproar from the man and the people who had agreed with him. Mai was ready to just wait until they had screamed themselves hoarse, but five seconds later none other than Dr. Davis himself stood up and fixed his stare at the people. They took one look at his frown and icy glare and shrank down into their seats. Oliver did not know what had made him do it. An urge to protect had thrown him to his feet, but he was unwilling to look very closely at that and brushed it away. All he knew for sure, was that a fellow researcher and trusted colleague.. No, friend? Yes, that word was a bit better. A trusted friend whom he knew to be telling the truth due to her inability to lie, was at the mercy of the piranhas he himself had been battling for years. And he would not stand for it. He also knew that Mai was not a person who could take this sort of attack and not be affected later, no matter how calm she looked. Better to end it quickly. For her sake.

Oliver sat back down and looked back at Mai who looked a little shellshocked. She quickly took a breath and nodded at him in thanks. She then turned back to the rude a**hole, or so he was now named forever in Oliver's head, and spoke in a surprisingly still very calm voice.

"Sir. I did not come here today to be questioned on whether or not I should be believed. I did not come here to convince you to believe in me. I came here to explain what I believe in. Which is what I've been doing. In your field of work, if you do not have proof or evidence then your work is most likely not credible. This tells me that I will not gain anything from arguing with you, since your mind is fixed on the fact that if you can not see or touch it, then it is not real. And I cannot convince you otherwise. And I will not be standing here telling you stories of how I've seen visions of people dying or how it feels to witness happenings from the past. Many of you are probably thinking right now that I am lying and that such things are impossible. I will not be able to explain it in a way that will make you believe me and therefore I will not try. All I will say is that I have experienced these things and I believe wholeheartedly that they were real. Believe me or not. It is your choice."

Silence filled the room and Mai caught the eye of her former employer. 'Why does Naru look like he's impressed with something? He looks almost proud that I won't explain myself. Talk about doing a 180. Years ago he would have yelled and scolded me for not explaining myself completely. Then again, he probably knows what it's like standing up here in front of the firing squad. I'll have to thank him properly later.'

This thought made her sigh as she had hoped not to have to face him directly. Even though it had already been 6 years since Naru had broken her heart and left Japan, it still hurt when she looked at him. 'Come on, Mai. You're not a teenager anymore. You're 23 years old. A grown up. You face ghosts and near death experiences all the time. A short conversation with Naru won't hurt you.'

Turning around to check that the monitor was showing the right images, she clicked the remote again. Various pictures and illustrations of possession and communicating with the dead were now being shown. She went over mediumship and how communicating with the deceased helped once again to gain information to further a case. She explained how she usually had another medium by her side when she attempted it after forming a plan (Masako of course, though she did not say her name), but that she could also do it by herself if need be. This part was over rather quickly as mediumship was nothing new in this field.

"Coming up on the last point. Astral projection. Now I have not personally been able to find any piece of literature that correctly specifies what the astral plane is. Perhaps it's out there and I just haven't found it yet. Many films and books talk about the spirit world, the spirit plane, the spirit realm and so on. And there are just as many different descriptions of how it looks as there are people that claim to have experienced it or have a notion of what it is. I am going to try to explain how my understanding of this place works."

Mai clicked the remote and an image of a few plain pieces of paper floating above one another and never touching, came onto the screen.

"Imagine that our plane of existence is on the middle piece of paper shown here. The other pieces of paper are the other planes of existence. There are many of them. They are not exactly above or below us. Neither are they beside us. They exist however like layers on the same level. Like cling film. Extremely thin and fragile yet incredibly strong. The more layers you peel away the more you can see what lies underneath."

Mai absentmindedly sat herself on top of a desk on the left side of the stage. "I've been to several of these different planes and each one is more consuming than the other. The further you go in the harder it is to find your way out. To my knowledge, the spirits who haunt houses keep mainly to the first few layers. That way, they can still see everything going on in the location they are at, yet nobody can see them. A medium can usually see through the first layer. That is how they can see or sense if something might be there. Even if the spirit is not in the first layer, they will still leave a trace behind that the medium or spiritualist can find and possibly track."

Looking up Mai's eyes widened the tiniest bit when she saw an older man, wearing old rags covered in dirt and with a long grey beard and shabby hair, looking straight at her. She knew the moment she saw him that he was no longer a part of the living world. Her spine tensed for a moment, ready to react, but he simply smiled and mouthed a few words. 'I'll wait until you're done'. Then he disappeared.

Mai blinked a few times and immediately caught the eye of the crowd. They looked confused. She then realised that to everyone in the room, she had been staring off into space for maybe over a minute. Laughing a little and grinning sheepishly, she quickly tried to explain.

"Sorry, everyone. I just lost myself in my own thoughts for a moment. Uuhmm… Where was I again?" The last part was more to herself than anyone else. She was therefore a little taken aback when someone answered.

"You were explaining how a haunting occurs on the first few levels and how that is why a medium can find the spirit haunting the place." Oliver answered.

He had become a little concerned when he had seen her eyes widen, having looked to his left in the direction she was looking and not seeing anything, he knew what she must have seen. And it worried him more than he would like.

Mai was again distracted. It had been years since she had heard Naru's voice. And aside from getting a little deeper in tone, it sounded exactly the same. Pulling herself away from that train of thought she hopped off the desk and started walking around slowly again.

"Right, thank you. So now that you all know how the layers work in the basics, I will explain how I experience astral projecting. An astral projector or astral walker as they are also known, will start the process by finding a place where their body can be safe while they are away from it. Then they will sit or lie down and relax their body almost like meditating. Slowing down their breathing and mentally letting go of their body."

Clicking the remote again, images of people with closed eyes were depicted with a string attached to another identical body that was floating above them or beside them, was shown.

"As soon as the astral walker leaves their body behind, they will find themselves on some level of the astral plane. If they focus they can choose how far in they go initially, but usually not any further than the first few levels. The attachment to the body will not allow for the soul to go too far away. I've been told that staying on this plane immediately after leaving the body and not being pushed further in, is very difficult and takes a lot of practice. If the goal of the projection is to go to another location on this plane, it is much easier to travel while on the astral plane. It is however very hard to navigate without knowing the exact place you want to go to. Going far away is possible but one has to be very careful, as being too far away from one's body or for too long, can cause the physical body to go into distress or sometimes shut down completely. "

"What is the furthest distance or longest time you have ever been away from your body in stride?"

Mai halted and looked into Naru's eyes. It was strange the way he looked at her. Almost as if.. No.. Was that worry she saw there?

"Furthest away. Maybe somewhere between five to ten kilometres? I'm really not sure, sorry. I didn't go there intentionally, but rather because a spirit dragged me. They wanted to show me something and I unconsciously followed suit. But, other than my body being really tired afterwards, I didn't feel any strain."

"And the longest time?" There was that look again. He could see that she was safe and alive, so why look so worried?

"Eight days." She answered blankly.

The loud murmuring broke out again, but Oliver didn't care. "And what strain did you feel on your body after that?"

Swallowing thickly, Mai looked down at the ground between them. 'He must know something about how much that drains the body of energy. That's why he's looking like that.'

"When I woke up…" She stopped. Oliver waited with baited breath. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Yasuhara shift nervously. As though redying himself to jump in front of the woman.

She met his eyes square on then and didn't look away as the next few words sprang forth in a level tone, but it sounded almost like she was confessing to something bad. "I was in a hospital and they told me that I had gone into cardiac arrest."

Eyes wide in shock and fear, Oliver's jaw slackened. He wanted to say something. To rage because she had put herself in such danger. To grab her and hold onto her so she never did anything so stupid ever again. But his body wouldn't move. All he could do was stare at the woman in front of him as though she was just a fading image. For a moment he was reminded of Gene. Dying while he was on the other side of the world. Not able to help. Only to learn of it after it had happened. 'No! Never again! And especially not Mai'. He didn't know where the especially not Mai had come from, but at that moment he did not care. Slowly regaining control of his limbs, he controlled his features and asked in just as calm a voice as before.

"What happened to make you stay away for that long?" The cacophony of voices had not lowered in the slightest. In fact many people were yelling out questions for Mai to answer. But she only focused on the man who was looking like he could murder someone right now.

Mai's eyebrows furrowed. "I'm sorry Dr. Davis, but that is not something I am willing to discuss in an open forum like this."

The sound of her calling him by his given title was the final straw that made him lose his resolve. It just sounded wrong coming from her. "Fine." He said coolly. Standing up, he grabbed his jacket and briefcase and started walking towards the stage. Despite his father and Madoka calling his name, he didn't stop for a second.

"What do you think you're doing?" She asked him as he got closer.

"You and I need to talk." He stated firmly.

"We can talk when I'm done here." Her voice was just as stern as his.

"You are done here."

"That's not for you to decide."

"These people are not going to calm down enough for you to get back to where you were, and you want to get out of here as much as I do. You're just being stubborn about it because I'm not asking nicely."

"Well maybe you ought to try it."

"I'll drag you."

"I'll scream."

"I don't care."

"Noll! What is going on?" Martin and Madoka had finally pulled themselves together and had gone after Oliver. Lin was standing resolutely in front of the small steps so no one else from the crowd could follow them up there.

"Naru, I swear if you grab me…" She pointed a finger at his chest, but in that moment she instinctively knew that she had lost, when the smirk appeared on his face.

"Now that's much better."

"What is?"

"Don't call me Dr. Davis. It sounds wrong when you say it."

Completely taken aback at what he had just said, her body released some of the tension it was holding and her cheeks flushed red.

Seeing his moment, Oliver grabbed her arm which was still in the air in between them and started dragging her towards the exit. Having been so distracted, Mai didn't even think of screaming for help. She did struggle quite a bit though.

"Naru! Let go of me!"

"Yasu. Grab her things and come along."

Not seeing any other way out of this Yasu did as he was told.

"No! Yasu! Don't do as he says!"

Sounds faded into the background behind them as Oliver dragged Mai along down the long hallways.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere quiet." He stated simply.

After a while, Mai resigned herself to her fate and just followed along. Not once thinking about how, even though she no longer struggled, Naru didn't let go of her arm. Furthermore, not thinking about how he eventually let his hand slip down to wrap around her wrist instead so he could grab on more firmly without hurting her. Almost like he wanted to make sure, not that she didn't run away, but that she wouldn't disappear.

'No way. Don't be stupid Mai.' But somewhere she knew, an instinct telling her that she was right. Naru wasn't just angry or determined to make her talk. There was a small tinge of fear coming from him. Guilt settled in her stomach as she realised. 'I should never have told him.'