…. Did I forget to mention that I am writing a filler chapter before starting Bloodstained Labyrinth….? Because I sorta am.

Or, actually, I totally am. And I'm kinda making it up as I go, so let's see where this goes.

I don't own Ghost Hunt.

ENJOY!

BLIND

I sighed as I sat down hard onto the couch in SPR's main room. Lin was who-knows-where, and Naru actually came out of his lair and was on the other couch with tea he had just made me make. It's February, it's cold, and the worst part was that it was almost Valentine's Day. In fact, Valentine's Day was this Sunday. As in, tomorrow.

Despite what you might think, I wasn't all that fond of Valentine's Day.

Neither was Naru, if he was intending to have SPR 'closed' on Valentine's Day. By 'closed', I mean 'no clients in the building but Naru's totally doing paperwork inside'. Considering my friends' reactions to him, and his reactions to them, he probably enjoys the attention girls give him at least a little, but if it gets in the way of his work, he doesn't enjoy it nearly as much. Like if he had a bunch of girls coming in every five minutes with a confession. Even if they weren't former clients of SPR, it's not terribly unknown in the building that there was an attractive guy in the SPR office, and thus Naru had various fangirls.

Therefore, we have a 'closed' office. To help with that, it meant I had the day off. The less people there, the better.

Why I didn't like Valentine's Day… Well, that was more complicated. My Valentine's Days past always ended up… weird.

Suddenly, the door to SPR opened. I was about to let out the usual greeting when I saw it was a certain high school student from a recent case. Osamu Yasuhara had graced SPR with his presence.

"Yasu," I said, surprised. "Not that it's not great to see you, but what are you doing here?"

"I'd like to know that as well," Naru said, sipping his cup quietly.

Yasu smiled warily. "Well, I went through my exams, but I won't know the results for a while. My family's going off on a vacation soon, but my mom insisted I go out and do something for myself in Shibuya." *1

"That still doesn't explain why you're here, of all places," Naru pointed out.

Yasu sighed. "When I said that my mom 'insisted I go out and do something in Shibuya', I mean she forced me in the car, drove here, then dropped me off. She told me she'd call me when she came back to pick me up. Then speed in the other direction."

"… Okay, then," I said.

"She'll probably get me around four, if I had to guess, though," Yasu reassured, "but I don't actually know too much about what's in Shibuya. But I remembered the office, so here I am."

"You actually remembered how to get here? You've only been here once," Naru asked.

"I do have a good memory, you know," Yasu said.

"Hn," Naru hummed to himself. Seemingly content with Yasu's answer, he returned to his tea and whatever file or book he pulled out. Naru was like this from time to time. He didn't actually care much for visitors, but as long as they weren't snooping around, being loud, or disrupting a potential client, he'd at least let them stay for a little bit. Though, he doesn't particularly care for the visits from the unofficial 'We Know Mai is Blind Club'. He managed to get them out of their weekend slot, only for them to come on our least busy day, Thursday. No customers usually came out, and without much more valid reason than them being there and being a little rowdy, there wasn't much Naru could do to get them out.

"So, Mai," Yasu said as he plopped down on the other side of the couch. "Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Do you have a special date planned?" he teased.

I paled. "No way in heck."

"…That was fast," Yasu said.

"Valentine's Day always ends up bad for me," I said. "And it doesn't even stay on just Valentine's Day, the day after or the day before are totally fair game. So I avoid all that mushy stuff. I can't even make chocolate anyway. I can't bake at all."

"Wow, seriously?" Yasu asked. "Ignoring the fact that you apparently can't bake, what happens that's so bad?"

I submitted to having to answer. Yasu wasn't going to let it drop, I knew. And even if he did, Naru was paying attention (even as he pretended not to), and would give me this look after Yasu left that would mean 'explain now' and I'd have to anyway. "It depends every year," I said. "Last year, I somehow ended up losing my part time job, nearly broke my leg, and was totally late to school. And that was just the first five minutes I was awake. The year before, I at one point was being chased by a very loving dog until her owner caught up to her. Two hours later."

Yasu commented in. "Just because those two years were bad doesn't mean-"

"The year before that I was stuck rearranging all the books in the public library with three people who absolutely hated me, and thus I did most of the work alone. Before then, I got a dislocated knee that I miraculously healed from. No complications, somehow, but man did it hurt. Then, the year before that…" I stopped. *2

Yasu noted my pause. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"That was the year it all started," I said. "Let's leave it at 'I almost got stabbed'."

Yasu looked shocked. "You were, what, eleven? And you're just going to shrug off the fact you almost got stabbed back then?"

"I was eleven, I was on a little playdate, I almost got stabbed. Thus started my line of awful Valentine's Days. There, end of story," I said.

Naru, of course, had stop pretending he wasn't interested somewhere around the 'dislocated knee' part. So he chimed in next. "I know you have bad luck, but how did you even manage to get almost stabbed at eleven years old on Valentine's Day?"

I was about to give some sort of not-exactly-straight answer when the door chimed once more, this time for an actual potential client. I shooed Yasu out to the kitchen before turning and bowing to the man in front of me.

"Hello, welcome to Shibuya Psychic Research, how can we help you?" I greeted.

Just another day in the business. For now.

BLIND

The man finally left. Finally. We took each client seriously at the beginning, and even if Naru isn't (read-never) the best with words, he at least bothers to tell them to check their water pipes before hiding back in his lair-ahem, I mean 'office'. Naru caught me calling it a lair when I told Yasu to stay in the kitchen and not even think about going anywhere near Naru's 'office'.

Back to the potential client from before, the man, Morito Yoshika, claimed that his house was cursed. The sound of banging and footsteps, things seeming to disappear only to be replaced by the most random objects, and what sounded to him like a knife being either dragged around or stabbed into the house. Originally, it may sound like a serious case, but spend five minutes with Mr. Yoshika and, well…

You figure out that he's pretty much insane.

He went hysterical a few times, jumped over the couch twice, and has tried to convince us it's an alien living in his house. This was only some of the insanity I had to endure for the past half-hour. We were going to at least investigate (his house or his mental health, I wasn't quite sure), but that was until he said we were aliens working with the one in his house and ran off ranting about wax paper.

Basically, Naru was done entertaining anyone. That included Yasu, and for some reason, I got roped into it.

That's how I ended up with the afternoon off on a Saturday.

That's also how I ended up walking around Shibuya with Yasu.

"I love ramen," Yasu commented through a half-full mouth. It was a cheap ramen place, but it was actually really good. Yasu was hungry, I couldn't stand anymore couples, and I really didn't want to bring Yasu anywhere near my home. Thus, ramen was one of the few choices left.

We were just about done with our little impromptu meal when things started getting weird.

First, Mr. Yoshika, the potential client from earlier, walked in.

Second, Mr. Yoshika recognized me.

Third, we all ended up at Mr. Yoshika's house. How that last one happened, your guess was as good as mine.

"See," Mr. Yoshika pointed to a thin but deep mark in the front door, "I'm certain that something took a knife to my door!"

"It does look like a knife mark," Yasu agreed as he clasped his chin in thought. "Mai, what do you think of it?"

"Not sure…" I said. I walked closer, putting my hand against the wood. "Yasu, keep out an eye for me, okay?"

"Uh, sure…?" Yasu said.

I focused the entirety of my senses on the mark. Unfortunately, this meant that it was pretty much the only thing I could sense, and was my full blind self to the rest of my surroundings. However, it made it possible to get a closer evaluation on the mark without having to use a flashlight or cause more damage by chipping at the mark with knife or pen or whatever a person might use.

"One side has a pretty sharp angle to it," I said. "The other is a bit duller, and more forced in a way, if that makes sense. If it was a knife, it has one sharp side and one duller side. I don't think the not-sharp side is serrated, but it's still a possibility."

I leaned away from the door and let my senses flow out around me again. Yasu seemed a little shocked, and Mr. Yoshika was confused. It was Yasu who spoke first. "How did you figure that out, Mai?" he asked.

Warily, I moved my head slightly towards Mr. Yoshika. "I, uh, just took a really good 'look' at it, but I couldn't, uh, 'see' around me, so I wanted to watch around. You know, just in case."

Yasu seemed to get it, and Mr. Yoshika seemed to accept my answer. "It is a haunted house, you never know what might happen," Yasu agreed.

"Supposedly haunted. We don't know just yet," I pointed out.

"This place is definitely haunted!" Mr. Yoshika protested. "You need a priestess or a monk to cleanse it! Anything else just won't work!"

I sweated a little at that. "Okay, Mr. Yoshika," I said. "We'll see what we can do…"

"In the meantime," Yasu commented in, "why don't you let us in to investigate?"

I paled. It's bad enough that we're here when SPR didn't accept the case. Going in is going to get both Yasu and me skinned alive by none other than Naru.

Then again… It was my time off, and Yasu didn't even work at SPR. Naru might still be pissed, but there wouldn't be a whole lot he could do.

And that's if he found out. Well, this was Naru. Knowing him, he probably already somehow knows, or is about to figure it out.

Regardless, this now meant Yasu and I were investigating the house of a crazy man.

Oh boy.

BLIND

Well, it definitely was not a ghost.

Oh no.

It was scarier than that.

Yasu and I had just entered a room on the second floor of the house when someone jumped out the window.

It was definitely a human. It was definitely not a ghost.

And we were definitely screwed because that human definitely had a knife. A really, really big knife.

But could we convince Mr. Yoshika of that? Naturally, that was a no. Because he's a tad crazy.

Yasu had told him the situation, and he proceeded like a rational insane guy by denying it, locking the front door, and boarding up as many exits as possible. He watched us carefully. Whenever we approached a window, he'd start boarding it up. The doors were already out of the question.

Also, he had an ax. Between Knife Guy who was probably in the house, based on the footsteps that neither one of us are making, or Yoshika the Ax Guy, who was still outside… Yeah, there wasn't a good side of this.

"What do we do, Yasu?" I asked as we hid/explored in the storage room on the first floor.

"We could call Naru?" Yasu said, going through some costumes. Yoshika was a play lover, it seemed. "Or the police."

"If we could even call the police, that is," I said, slamming a fuse-box closed. See, we were in here because Yasu needed candles to see and I wanted to inspect the fuse box. The power had gone out a few minutes ago, and it seemed like the cables had been cut.

By a knife.

Joy.

"Do you know what's wrong with the power?" Yasu asked.

"Cut by a giant knife. I guess we just missed literally running into Knife Guy," I said. "And even if they weren't cut, I wouldn't be sure what to do."

"Neither would I," Yasu admitted before getting quiet for a moment. "He's just playing with us, isn't he? He knows we're in here and is just walking around upstairs to scare us."

Thunk.

"And driving his giant knife in the wall," I said. "I guess he must've been staying up there for a few weeks without Yoshika noticing…?"

"So basically, our options are trying to break out and dealing with Mr. Yoshika and his ax, or Knife Guy upstairs. We can't call the police, and while Naru would probably help us, he might just give us over to one of the two crazies," Yasu said. "I wish I had my phone, but I either dropped it or it got pick-pocketed. Currently, the only one with a working phone is Mr. Yoshika."

"How do you know he has a phone?" I asked.

"It was poking out of his pocket."

I thought over the situation for a moment. "If we could get Yoshika's favor, he might let us use his phone, but he insists that he needs his house cleansed. Neither of us know how to get in contact with Monk or Ayako, and you're no more a monk than I am a priestess."

That's when Yasu got his 'I have an idea' face. "Mr. Yoshika doesn't know that," Yasu said. "Now, I obviously can't be a monk, but it isn't entirely out of the question for you to be a priestess of some sort."

I think I hate Yasu's 'I have an idea' face. "Right, because I have the materials for it. Even if I knew the prayers, Yoshika probably won't believe it without an outfit and an altar," I pointed out.

"We don't," Yasu said, "but Mr. Yoshika does."

That's when Yasu pulled out an outfit similar to what Ayako wears, then a bunch of candles, and finally a small table-altar.

Dammit.

I can't say no, but I really, really don't want to do this.

Thunk.

Right, big knife upstairs.

I sighed. "Turn around so I can change…"

BLIND

Tripped over my lines, my too-big robes, and just looking unbelievable as a priestess, and Yoshika still bought all of it. All I did was pretend I knew what the hell I was doing as I sat in front of a window that Yoshika watched us through (according to Yasu), and Yoshika was satisfied. For now, at least.

Yasu was currently calling the police as I simply focused on covering as much area as I could with my senses while staying near Yasu in case Knife Guy decided to visit.

"Yes, thank you," Yasu said before he hung up the phone. "They're on their way. Should I call Naru?"

I sighed. "I don't know. Geez, I told you that Valentine's Day sucked for me."

"And I did not really believe you. Not until now, that is," Yasu said. "You really do have bad luck."

"Yeah, I do," I agreed. "But bigger issues here… We might as well tell Naru. I mean, Yoshika might call later and I'd rather we told Naru rather than Naru find out through Yoshika."

"Right," Yasu said, and he dialed in SPR's number. After a minute of what I could hear as Naru reprimanding, Yasu hung up again.

"On his way?" I asked.

"With Lin and the van. He's… not happy."

"… Should we have just risked it with the blade-holding hostage situation?"

"Possibly."

I sighed. Oh, well. If he can get us out of here alive, he can skin me later. He'd at least give me time to ponder my death as I made one last cup of tea for him instead of this 'ponder if either of the lunatics will just say 'Fuck it' and attack us' game.

That's about when we heard footsteps walk down the steps and towards the room Yasu and I were in.

Well.

Damn.

We're dead.

Yasu placed the phone in his pocket and grabbed a ceremonial knife that earlier was deemed unnecessary and put back in the prop box. I grabbed a candlestick with a lit candle at the end and got ready to burn someone if necessary.

"Mai, really, this is a surprise," a familiar voice said. The man wasn't close enough for me to sense, but that voice really was familiar.

"He knows you?" Yasu whispered to me. I shrugged. Weirder things had happened. Such as the last half hour of me saying half-assed prayers and Yoshika occasionally making a horrid screeching sound—Yasu said it was Yoshika pulling the ax blade against the window pane mixed with Yoshika actually screeching for no particular reason. Oh, and Yoshika broke the window to give us the phone instead of opening it like a rational person. At this point, nothing was particularly surprising.

The man walked into the room. He seemed… familiar, but I just couldn't place it. And saying he was a man would be a bit of a stretch. He was around my age at least, but no older than Yasu at most.

"You don't remember me? I'm hurt," he said. "It's me, Taro. Taro Minika."

Minika… Taro Minika… where had I heard…?

Wait.

Fuck.

Not this guy.

"Aren't you supposed to be in a mental ward in Hokkaido?" I hissed.

"I was," Taro said, short hair brushing his ears as he shrugged, "but I got transferred sometime after I attacked someone. A girl that looks a lot like you, actually. Well, she's a lot quieter, though. She's mute, in fact. I think her name was Megumi or something. She would deny that she's ill, but you could say a cat got her tongue. I almost got it too, but I'm not the only one who knows their way around some flatware, it seems."

"You attacked a girl because she looked like Mai?" Yasu asked.

"Yes, naturally. I'm a crazy, remember?" Taro laughed at his own sarcastic joke. "She got transferred though. Another woman who looked like you both, but a hell of a lot older. Probably her mom, or something. Never heard a word of it, and the facility seems convinced she didn't exist, but I don't believe that. Regardless, a week after she left, I got transferred near here. It was because I assaulted her, but the records say someone else entirely."

"Someone else?" I prompted.

If Taro was talking, he wasn't attacking. If he wasn't attacking, then the police might come. If the police came, Yasu and I might just live.

"Some idiot named Yoka is on record of being assaulted by myself in the cafeteria with a plastic spork. You know, for a mental hospital, their records are really easy to get into."

"How do you know Mai?" Yasu asked.

"Ah," Tora sighed. "Now that's a story. See, I was Mai's first boyfriend. We were on a cute little date, you know? And then some other idiots from our class came to say hi, and the parental supervisors weren't close enough to shoo them off for us. So took matters into my own hands in a quite literal way."

"As much as I appreciated you driving off the bullies, 'took matters into your own hands' is a light way of putting it," I said.

"True, true. And even so, it was the knife that really drove them away. Too bad they survived just fine. I only nicked them after all," Tora sighed. "Something changed when I had blood on my arms and a knife in my hands. Of course, Mai tried to get me to calm down. That's about when I stabbed her in the leg, if I remember correctly. Then police. And nurses. A lot of nurses."

"You stabbed Mai for no reason at all?!" Yasu said.

"Are you really that surprised?" Tora said. "I did escape from a mental hospital. Well, more like I busted out of the transport vehicle. It did help that some drunk idiot t-boned the heck out of the transport car."

"Why are you here?" I asked. Just keep Tora talking, just keep him talking…

"Ah, well, I knew you lived in Shibuya, little Mai, and through a bit of clever snooping I learned that you worked at a paranormal investigation something-or-another. Yoshika is like me—a few eggs short of a dozen. Take away his meds for a bit, hide upstairs, put 'signs from the ghosts' to go to your little job, and then you'd be here."

"Why would you want me here?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Tora said. "We never finished our date from when we were eleven. Obviously, the ending has to include you dying by my hand like I originally intended. So, I needed you here. Your newest beau is just a bonus."

"Uh," Yasu said, voice a little strained. "Hate to correct you, but, we're not dating…"

"Hm," Tora said. "Not sure what to say about that. I mean, Mai was a handful of bad luck even when she was younger. And you look rather smart, so I'm sure you were smart enough to avoid her and her flat-chested self."

"Hey!" I protested.

"Besides," Tora ignored me. "Mai and I never actually broke up. You wouldn't dare cheat on me, right Mai?"

"I'm pretty sure that one of us getting taken away because they stabbed the other is a pretty valid excuse to say that we're not dating," I said.

"Fair enough," Tora said. "Still, you're mine. It's not like I love you. I just sorta want to murder you. No hard feelings, right?"

"Many hard feelings, actually," I said.

"Really now? Well, that's too bad. You'll be dead soon enough, so I suppose your feelings don't really matter at this point," Tora shrugged. He then got into a dangerous stance, his hand gripping his knife tightly. Did I even mention it was a really big knife? Because it was a really big knife.

Police sirens started up before Tora could do anything, though.

"They're here!" I said, relieved.

"You called the police?" Tora was mad. And scared. But mostly mad.

And thus, he ran towards us, knife at the ready.

Fuck.

BLIND

Yasu's arm is cut, Tora got my leg, again, and I still was wearing the ridiculously big priestess costume.

Also, we were sitting on some antique chests that Yoshika gave us as payment. You know, before he went to get evaluated at the hospital for the whole entire 'I haven't been taking my anti-cray-cray pills for the past few weeks' thing.

We had been quickly evaluated, and when we said we really didn't want to go to a hospital, they weren't able to force us to go. They gave us a quick bandaging—we were cut, not stabbed—and some pain meds before leaving.

Now, we were waiting for Naru and Lin.

This would be one hell of a story to explain.

The van pulled up, and Naru jumped out, rather pissed at us. Then he actually noticed exactly what the hell we looked like.

Yasu's arm was bandaged from elbow to shoulder, shown off by his t-shirt he had worn under his collared shirt. I had a huge cut in the leg of my pants that showed off the bandaging of a rather unserious cut. Also, I still was dressed like a priestess. We both were just sitting there on three large chests that I honestly didn't know what to do with. Also, Yasu was still holding his fake ceremonial knife and the candlestick with now-burnt-out candle in his hand.

Naru blinked twice at us. "I would ask for the full story, but I think a brief summary would get on my nerves less."

Yasu and I turned and shrugged at each other, silently agreeing that Yasu would be the better speaker in this. "Basically, Mai really does have bad luck near Valentine's Day. Also, her first and apparently only boyfriend ever is literally crazy about her."

I took the knife out of Yasu's hand before shoving him off his seat. "Mr. Yoshika had his house, erm, 'blessed' by me, and it turns out there was a teenager secretly living on his second floor. Also, Yoshika really likes putting boards on windows and carrying around an ax."

Naru blinked at us again. "And the chests…?"

"Apparently our payment," Yasu said. "Technically they're yours, and I don't think Mr. Yoshika would take 'no' for an answer."

Naru blinked, then sighed. "Put them in the back and get in the van. We're going back to the office and pretending this never happened."

We nodded before doing as we were told.

There was some good news out of all of this. Yasu found his phone outside, and his mom called.

Yasu passed his exams with flying colors.

BLIND

I think this is my shortest chapter ever. And possibly the worst, at least to me. Oh well. It was a little rushed for various reasons.

*1 I don't know jack about Japanese exams or what there is to do in Shibuya, if anything. But we're going to pretend I do, because I have no internet connection and no way to fact-check.

*2 I also know nothing about dislocated knees. Just that they hurt, they're serious, and they are kinda hard to heal from. Once again, we're just gonna pretend that, somehow, even though there should probably be some sort of long-term side-effect, she healed and there is no retribution. There is a legit reason why she healed just fine, but you probably won't know that for a while unless you are a really good guesser or piece together what happened. Just to be nice to those who actually bother reading these, I'll give you a hint—it has something to do with a woman Mai doesn't actually remember, but has also known for a long, long time.

So, by the way, if anyone is offended by my horrid interpretations of the mentally ill, let me reassure that I did not mean to offend. I only know so much, and it was inspired by me looking up some stuff on a different character who kinda has but also kinda doesn't have schizophrenia (she's not in this series, before you jump to conclusions).

Until next time!