Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt. Volume 12 would be out.
Chapter 10 – Ghost Hunting Techniques
-0O0-
The next morning, Mai stared out her window, deep in thought. Her arms were once again ensconced in their black silk protection, burning reduced to a minimum. Last night's dream had ushered in a new issue, though – where was Gene? Mai had assumed that it would be easier to talk to him once she was in his home country, but she hadn't yet been able to communicate with him. And it certainly wasn't for lack of psychic dreaming.
When the Japanese foursome returned to dine at the Davis mansion the next day, Mai was quiet and stared unseeingly at her plate. Maybe if she meditated in Gene's room… but Mai wasn't foolish enough to try. Apparently, Luella couldn't bear anyone going in there – that door was (physically and metaphorically) shut tight. Perhaps later, Mai could covertly make her way around the house and feel for strong signs of Gene's presence. By the second course, Mai was so lost in thought that she failed to notice Professor Davis' constant glances.
From his seat at the head of the table, Martin surreptitiously studied Mai Taniyama. She was unusually quiet today… and she and Noll had never gone so long without fighting. Martin should take advantage of this and open a serious discussion about Mai's incredibly interesting paranormal abilities. Wednesday's training episode had been thrilling, but now he wanted to talk about the paper! Martin shoveled down the last of his noodles and mentally ran through his long list of queries.
Across the table, Luella noticed her husband's telling actions and sighed, resigning herself to a long evening of paranormal theory discussion. Honestly, she couldn't believe Martin had waited this long… Her husband steepled his fingers over his newly empty plate and eagerly addressed the new students.
"Taniyama and Yasuhara," he began.
The transfer students in question looked up to meet their professor's excited gaze.
"Now that you're all settled in and rested up from Wednesday, I would really like to talk about the paper you two sent me!"
Mai and Yasuhara both smiled warmly.
"Of course, Professor Davis," Mai enthused.
"Excellent. Now, according to the paper, Taniyama, you have the ability to consciously manipulate your aura… tell us about that."
Mai saw the light of extreme intelligence in Martin Davis' eyes, and knew immediately where Naru had gotten his penetrating look from. She smiled, blushing a bit. "Yes, I can do that. It's been coming along, just like the monks said." Mai threw a glance at Bou-san.
"Monks?" Naru encouraged.
"Yeah. About a year and a half ago, Bou-san took me up to see his family. They're a whole bunch of monks," Mai told the table with a grin. "Bou-san figured they would be able to help me train my spiritual awareness as well as my ability to connect with spirits."
Naru raised an eyebrow, wondering why Mai had suddenly found it necessary to train her abilities – she'd shown no desire to do so during her time as his assistant.
Mai could apparently read eyebrow-language. "After SPR closed, Bou-san sometimes brought me along to his independent exorcism gigs – because I can see spirits. But my abilities were really unpredictable. Sometimes I couldn't even identify the presence of a spirit."
"Until it attacked you," Bou-san muttered under his breath.
"Since I knew that Yasu and Madoka-san e-mailed each other," Mai continued brightly, ignoring her adopted father, "I asked about for tips to improve my… usefulness. Madoka-san suggested that I start by training my more 'instinctive' abilities, like sensing danger."
Madoka herself cut in. "Those instincts form the base of Mai's spiritual powers, so I figured a better understanding of them would go a long way towards the control and consistency she wanted to develop."
"So," Mai continued, "Instead of randomly sensing things and not really knowing what to make of them," Naru smirked at this and Mai rolled her eyes. "I could be able to consciously identify spirits – like Masako-chan. Madoka-san said I should also try to interpret the danger I sensed."
Mai became caught in Naru's gaze as she finished speaking, waiting for his remarks. He was regarding her steadily, with his very-interested-investigator stare cutting blue lasers into her mind. Then Mai noticed Professor Davis shift out of the corner of her eye and belatedly realized that she should have been addressing him, not Naru. Damn it, she was so obvious!
She hurriedly turned to meet the amused eyes of Naru's adopted father. Trying very hard not to blush, Mai continued. "So first, we enlisted Masako-chan's help – she's a professional medium, and her abilities meshed with what I wanted to learn. But… that didn't go so well. Masako-chan is very patient with ghosts, but not so patient with students." Mai rolled her eyes.
"Well," Yasuhara threw in, smiling, "You and Masako-chan still weren't really getting along back then. You know, because of – ai!" He winced in pain.
"Their very different dispositions," Ayako finished. She removed her spiky heel from Yasuhara's ankle and smiled. "Continue, Mai."
The teen psychic sent her almost-adopted-mother a grateful look. "Anyway, Bou-san knew a couple of monks who were especially adept with spiritual awareness. They work at his father's temple on Mt. Kouya. So after I graduated high school, off we went. I spent a whole week doing nothing but studying; it was really peaceful – and really useful!"
"What specifically did you learn?" Lin asked. Mai should have known that Lin would be interested; he was an onmyouji, after all. Mai wondered if he could sense things like she could.
Apparently, she had wondered aloud, because Lin replied, "I have to meditate deeply in order to sense auras, which you seem to be able to accomplish almost subconsciously." It sounded so much like a compliment that Mai felt compelled to respond in kind.
"Well, you can control shiki and destroy scary stuff by just whistling," Mai said admiringly. "That's way cooler than what I do."
Lin gave her a small smile and Mai grinned widely back. Naru cleared his throat purposefully (everyone hid a smile) and Mai remembered that Lin had asked her a question.
"Oh, right! On that trip I mostly learned to meditate properly, and make myself more aware and receptive to my natural and spiritual environment," Mai answered.
"In practical terms," Yasuhara cut in for the confused-looking Luella, "Mai-chan spent a lot of time sitting cross-legged in a temple, humming and learning to tell the difference between the auras of living people and those of spiritual entities."
"Right," Mai affirmed, "But there's more to it than that. Sensing them is only part of the skill. Once I could feel the spirit, I had to learn to figure out it's… feelings, I guess." Mai bit her lip and tried to explain the process. "You have to gage if it's malicious – which is pretty easy to do, actually. Spirits that mean harm, especially if they're powerful enough to cause a lot of damage, are easy to spot. Their souls have an… angry energy that grates on the othersense." Mai closed her eyes and thought about how angry ghosts usually affected her. "It kind of feels like they're burning my senses, or grinding against the edge of my consciousness." Mai opened her eyes and locked eyes with those of the enraptured Professor Davis.
The clearness of Mai's gaze and the certainty of her words made Naru's stomach jump. She sounded professional; it made him feel strange. She was obviously still Mai, though – however learned she may have become, her answers still relied on feelings and instinct (rather than the detached observations that he himself favored). Naru felt reassured and amazed simultaneously.
"Eventually," Mai went on, "We went back to Mt. Kouya for more help. I had also been training at home and I was much better at controlling my astral projection (Mai wanted to gloss over Gene's instruction as quickly as possible, but had to mention the development of her other powers). I still get pulled into death visions quite often, but I can usually pull out of them if I have to." Except for her cyclic vision of Gene's death, of course. She had never managed to escape that one.
"I would pull out the first second," Luella noted fervently. She shuddered and reached for Mai's hand.
Mai grasped Luella's with a smile, but shook her head gently. "I usually don't try to escape the visions – I mean, the spirit is trying to tell me what happened to them. It's usually something we need to know anyway, for the case, but… so many of the ghosts were murdered, bodies hidden, loved ones never knowing. Most of them just want someone to find them and put them to rest. If I can do that for them, then I should ride out the visions. So they can tell somebody. It usually helps them move on… like ghost therapy." She smiled at a sad-eyed Luella.
What a girl, thought most of the table. Naru tried not to notice the warm feeling that spread through him at Mai's words.
"So…" Mai said brightly, trying to lighten the mood, "Once I had the hang of sensing and, um…"
"Categorizing," Yasuhara supplied.
"Yes," Mai flashed Yasu a quick smile. "Once I could regularly sense and categorize spirits, we moved on to manipulation of my own aura. It kind of happened by accident. TTMPI was on a case that involved hollow spirits in Kyushu. Remember how I said that malicious spirits are easy to sense? Well, hollow spirits are really hard to sense."
"Hollow spirits?" Professor Davis repeated. It wasn't a term he was familiar with.
Mai's eyes swung back to the professor. "It's an Eastern term for ghosts that are servants of a more powerful spirit – like the spirits from the Yoshimi case, if Naru's ever told you about it."
Martin nodded slowly. That was one of the cases that landed Noll in the hospital.
"Masako-chan says that hollow spirits don't really have a will of their own, so it's very difficult to find and track them," Mai continued. "Masako-chan and I had been trying for two days, but we couldn't keep one in our 'sight' for more than a couple of seconds. So we were all sitting in base discussing this problem, and then John-kun – that's our priest friend from TTMPI, you met on the video – came up with a really cool idea." She grinned excitedly. "He figured that if powerful ghosts could mask their servants' auras, then we probably could mask mine, too."
"You aren't a slave to a greater entity," Naru pointed out.
"That's what I said," Yasuhara replied. "But Mai-chan kept at it and managed to figure something out."
Mai went red. "Well, I had help," she replied. "You see, hollow spirits are hidden by the more powerful spirit – which is mostly because that spirit's emotional output is so much greater than the hollow ones. It's not so much that the hollow spirits are hiding – it's just that the emotions we use to sense them are only faintly present in comparison to the much more obvious emotions of the controlling spirit."
"A reasonable conclusion," Martin agreed.
Mai smiled brilliantly at the praise. "So the monks and I (really Gene and I, but sooo not going there) brainstormed, and we developed this kind of reverse thing."
"That clears everything up, Mai." Naru's smooth voice was tinged with annoyance.
"Shut it, Narcissist, I wasn't done. And it's really hard to explain." Mai bit her lip again. "Okay, well, in order to sense spirits, I have to open myself up and stretch my othersense. To start the masking process, I have to go the other way – consciously pull inside myself. My, uh, main instructor says that some mediums – especially astral projecting ones like me – tend to always be… broadcasting to spirits. Kind of like a beacon on a dark ocean, my abilities are constantly in 'on' mode and telling spirits I'm there. It's why I usually wind up in trouble on cases." The trouble-magnet rolled her eyes.
This account greatly interested Naru. Firstly, this explained Mai's disturbing penchant for finding trouble. She was apparently calling to every spirit in the vicinity on a constant basis. Secondly, her chosen method for reversing the process, meditative internalization, was creative. And finally… Mai's stumbling over the words 'main instructor' had Naru's 'Mai-is-hiding-something' sense on overdrive. It sounded like she was trying to conceal the identity of her primary mentor in Japan. But why? She'd already said that Bou-san's monk associates had been teaching her, so why the secrecy?
Ignorant to Naru's inward questions, Mai kept talking. "So once I pull inside myself, I have to mentally put up a wall between me and the outside world," she explained. "Like the blank emotionlessness of hollow spirits, I picture a blank spiritual wall that spreads across my skin. It's all a mental thing, but then again, so is astral projecting. When I project, I pull myself out of my body and drop back in again, all using my mind. I use the same ability to manipulate my aura back inside myself and close out others."
"It makes sense to imagine a wall encapsulating the boundary of your spirit," Lin affirmed. "Like a pseudo-physical reinforcement to help the mind create what it needs."
Mai grinned, nodding emphatically. "That's almost exactly how I had it explained to me!"
Lin's eyes narrowed a fraction. "It's a spiritual technique taught to onmyouji," he said slowly. "Is your 'main instructor' familiar with onmyouji methods?"
Mai put on her best poker face. Gene was familiar with onmyouji methods because Lin had taught him about them. Must be careful. "Yeah, probably," Mai replied, as flippantly as she could manage, "I never asked." And she hadn't. Gene had volunteered this information.
The Chinese magic-user still looked suspicious, and a quick glance at Naru clued Mai in to the gears turning in her former boss' head. Quick, deflect! "I don't really like hiding my aura for too long," Mai admitted. "It doesn't feel right, not being connected to the outside world. Plus, I can't sense spirits when I'm drawn so tightly into myself."
Madoka understood. "It's meant for short-term stints, then. Good if you need to hide yourself from a possible attack."
Yasuhara made a noise of agreement. "That's undoubtedly the most useful application. Mai-chan tends to wander off by herself a lot…"
Bou-san and Ayako both grunted. Mai giggled sheepishly.
"… so she often needs to conceal herself from the homicidal ghosts she stumbles upon with alarming regularity."
"They're not all homicidal!" the subject of Yasuhara's censure yelled. "Some of them…"
"…only want to maim you."
"Some of them only want to talk with me!"
"Few and far between," Ayako grumbled.
"You know, most spirits just need a little help!" Mai insisted.
"Yeah, but we don't usually get called in to deal with the peaceful ones," Bou-san noted.
Mai gave up, pouting. Her adopted father had a point. "So that's how it works, basically," she finished.
"Apart from the holes," Professor Davis cut in merrily.
"The holes?" Mai and Naru asked together.
"Yes, Taniyama. The holes that you 'punch' in your aura-mask in order to track the spirit during an attack. 'Like breathing holes for an animal in a box,' the report said."
"Oh!" Mai exclaimed. "I forgot about that. That's still a skill-in-progress; I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet."
"The hang of what?" Naru persisted.
"Um, like I said, when I'm drawn into myself and hiding behind the mental barrier, I can't really sense spirits," Mai repeated. "Which is a problem. I mean, I need to hide my spiritual abilities from interested ghosts, but not knowing where the ghost is or whether it's preparing an attack is a problem. So we… my instructors and I… came up with a theory. We figure that I can punch mental holes in my barrier – small ones – that wouldn't leak a lot of telltale energy, but would allow me to feel any malicious ghosts." She grimaced. "So far, it hasn't really worked. Punching mental holes seems to screw with the whole barrier. It falls every time I try."
Naru considered this problem. "Does it 'fall' because the barrier itself is very weak, or because suddenly compromising what you've worked hard to create is counterintuitive to your mind?"
"Hah?" Mai was lost.
Her former employer smirked. "I forgot that I need to explain things so that you could understand," he purred.
"Oliver!" Luella scolded.
Mai glared and gritted her teeth.
Naru only smirked more widely. "In your opinion, Mai, do the 'mental holes' cause the barrier to fall because it's already fragile? As in, not strong enough to withstand holes being punched into it?"
Mai pursed her lips. "No, I don't think that's it."
"I don't think so, either," Naru agreed. "Knowing how you operate – single-mindedly and straightforward – I think that forcing your abilities to do two opposite things at once is the issue. First, you concentrate very hard on forming a wall – and then you try to weaken it."
The transfer student still looked confused. Naru sighed. "Think of it like this – imagine you've just finished a paper. It took days and you're proud of it. But the moment you finish, you're asked to rip it apart. How would you react to that?"
"Not well," Mai growled. "I wouldn't want to do that. Plus I'd feel like I wasted that effort."
"Indeed. I postulate that your mind applies a similar reaction to punching holes in your mental wall. You've just said that perfecting the technique took lots of time and training. How do you think your mind feels about expending all that energy just to sabotage the product?"
Mai stared at Naru, gobsmacked. Months of effort and discussion with TTMPI and Gene without finding an answer… and Naru figures it out in a couple of minutes. She could feel, in her gut, that he was right. It would certainly explain her inexplicable instinctive reluctance to make the holes.
"Not to mention that perforating the barrier while maintaining its function can't be easy," Martin threw in. "Using two high-energy, high-concentration skills at the same time must be exhausting."
Mai shrugged. "I've done worse, but I see your point. You're both likely right."
"So you should incorporate that into training somehow," Yasuhara suggested, excited at a new idea for the long-standing problem. "Work on it while you're sleeping, like you usually do."
Mai shot Yasuhara a shut-up-right-now look. Naru had figured out the holes quandary in minutes; he could probably unravel that dream training included Gene in seconds. No need to tell him more than he needs to know, Mai told her best friend with her eyes. She would tell Naru about Gene's continued presence in her dreams eventually. She was still just getting used to being around him again, and she didn't want to ruin the reunion. Besides, she wanted to talk strategy with Gene first.
Unfortunately, the idea of dream training had caught someone else's attention. "You train while you're… sleeping?" Luella asked, lost.
"Um, yes," Mai said slowly, as she frantically tried to think of something to say that wouldn't give her secret away.
"Mai-chan's primary and best-developed skill is astral projection," Yasuhara jumped in to cover Mai's hesitation. Mai obviously still didn't want to discuss Gene-san – and this time at least, Yasuhara fully understood her thinking. Gene's grieving family was sitting at this table; it was hardly good manners to blunder into such a sensitive topic. "In order to use and train astral projection – and her clairvoyance, which often works in tandem with her astral projection – Mai-chan has to be very relaxed. So she meditates and often falls asleep. Most of the non-PK training actually occurs in dreamland."
Dreamland. Naru's eyes popped wide open and his fist tightened around his fork. No one reacted to Oliver Davis' strange behavior – the 'dream training' discussion was drawing everyone's attention and no one saw the epiphany break across his face. Mai's hesitation to discuss her 'main instructor' suddenly made perfect sense.
Because her 'main instructor' wasn't a monk. If most of Mai's training was accomplished while sleeping, Mai's trainer had had to be with her on the astral plane. And the only person that Naru knew to have met with her there was Gene.
Naru could understand Mai being cagy in order to keep Martin and Luella from getting upset. But Naru couldn't explain why Mai kept looking away from him. He already knew that she dreamed of Gene's death – why would she want hide this? There was something else afoot. If Mai's 'main instructor' was Gene… then Naru had been right that his twin's psychic link with Mai remained open. Too open. If Mai and Gene still saw one another on a regular basis, it could be dangerous. Perhaps the reason that Gene was still around was because he'd attached himself too closely to Mai. Naru narrowed his eyes in consternation.
Mai's secretiveness wasn't anything new. During the days of SPR, she never wanted to tell anyone about her dreams or instinctive responses to cases. Considering the results of Mai's ESP test (a thousand guesses, zero right), Naru was convinced that Mai had not foreseen a single bulb lighting because she was loath to have or reveal any ESP abilities. Mai's instincts had responded to that and so she'd missed every bulb.
So Mai's reticence could be expected. But Gene… why would his normally very open twin try to hide something so important? Could he really have been meeting with Mai without telling Naru?
Dr. Oliver Davis gritted his teeth. If he wanted to interrogate Gene (and oh, did he ever), he needed a case. Tomorrow morning he was going through SPR's requests with a fine-tooth comb.
-0O0-
The weekend passed in a blur of talking and idea-development with the SPR gang, but Monday afternoon found Mai still worried about her spirit guide. This had been the longest she'd gone without communicating with Gene in a long time. In fact, this was the longest break since his mysterious post-burial return.
Mai knew that Eugene somehow used their psychic connection to find her and transport himself to Japan. Gene told Mai that he used her spirit as an 'anchor' to guide his movements. This explanation had confused Mai in the past – although now that Mai could trace Naru's presence using a similar connection, she understood much better. If Mai needed to find Naru somewhere, she could zero in on their connection and follow it to him.
It only worked when Naru was nearby, though; Gene managed cross-continental journeys almost every time TTMPI had a big case. Maybe it was easier to maneuver in the spirit world… or maybe Gene was just loads better at it. She'd ask him, but he wasn't around. Mai really needed to talk to him – Naru had already figured out that her recurring Nightmare was about Gene. Mai needed advice on how to keep them at bay. And the more Mai thought about the whole drama, the more nervous she became. What if moving to England had damaged Mai's psychic connection with Gene?
Then again, she thought, Gene usually only appeared on cases. Eugene had told Mai that it was difficult for him to 'wake up' enough to reach her – only extreme emotions or great danger seemed to call him out. Her self-appointed spirit guide rarely appeared in normal dreams – outside of ghost hunting, he had only pulled Mai into an astral projection once.
Mai hit herself in the forehead – the answer was obvious. What she really needed was a case!
-0O0-
She enacted her plan that very evening, showing up at the Davis house at six. Martin should be home – Luella had told Mai that he usually clocked out of SPR around five. It was also a good hour before Naru and Lin would arrive ("Five minutes before seven o'clock dinner," Luella complained). James showed Mai into the downstairs study, where she was gratified to find her quarry all alone.
"Professor Davis?" Mai asked in a halfway-to-pleading voice. "I finished all of this week's reading, testing isn't until Wednesday, and… I miss working. Might there be any cases I could, um, consult on?" She smiled brightly, having noticed that Naru's father was susceptible to Madoka's happy charm.
Martin assessed Mai's eager face for a moment… and grinned. He really did enjoy her fervor. So like his own passion for parapsychology. "Of course, Taniyama! You know, I'm quite glad you've asked."
Mai smiled even more widely.
"You see, Noll just recommended a new case the other day, and he and Lin have been researching since Saturday. But the facts just don't seem to add up. I know that your 'instincts' are much more observable while actually on haunted property, but perhaps you can still identify the possible culprit. I remember that you somehow knew that Yasuhara was right about the spirit on that case we watched on video."
His student nodded. "It doesn't always work that way, but I'll certainly try."
"And that's all any serious parapsychologist can ask for. We know better than to think that psychic ability is regularly compliant." He handed Mai an electric-pink folder full of notes.
She raised an eyebrow at the very loud color.
"Madoka," Martin Davis replied by way of explanation. "She thinks it adds… levity to scary cases."
"SPR's filing must look super-professional."
"Sometimes it's just better not to fight her," Martin told a giggling Mai.
-0O0-
Mai studied the biographies and photos before her. Apparently, several middle-aged men had been injured in the last five years. All of them had suffered a choking feeling, followed by… well, followed by severe genital pain. (Mai had done her best not to blush horribly in front of the Professor as she read this.)
She re-read the bios of all the victims… but still came up with nothing. Not even a twinge of her danger sense. "Well…" she said finally. "I'm not getting anything. Either my psychic abilities are just being, er, non-compliant today… or the victims have nothing to do with the cause of the problem."
Martin nodded slowly.
Mai pursed her lips. "Now, since all of the men are around the same age, have the same build and the same personality profile… I'd say that the ghost is taking revenge on men who resemble the person who wronged them."
"So you think it's a residual haunting?" Martin inquired. He agreed; he was simply testing her.
The young psychic nodded. "Yes. It bears several hallmarks of a residual haunting, especially the victim selection. Something bad happened to somebody there – and my guess is that it was… sexual in nature."
"I believe you're right – the genital pain issue is rather telling."
"These notes say that this haunting is in Liverpool." Mai observed. "If that's nearby, why don't we take a short trip to this warehouse and I'll see what I can sense?"
"No, I don't think so." Naru's voice stated firmly.
Mai whipped around to face the interloper – since when had he been home? "And why not?"
"Consider, Mai, the gender and age range of the victims."
"Middle-aged men," Mai recited. "I'm not either one."
"And my father is both," Naru said icily. "Glad to see your observation skills are as good as ever."
Mai clenched a fist in anger before realizing that Naru was right – dragging the Professor to the haunting was an exceptionally bad idea. She turned and bowed her head to her new mentor. "I'm sorry, sir, he's right."
Martin tried not to smile as Taniyama managed to throw a glare at his son while apologizing. "But I think you've been right on so far, Taniyama," he said in a placating voice. "Noll and Lin should have a good set of notes on any crimes, disappearances, and rape reports that took place in or near the warehouse. We can look over it all and see if we find anything useful."
"Our records are complete – from fifty years ago to the present," Naru informed them, holding up his notes. "Accounts are spotty before that period. The first company that utilized the warehouse did not keep good records."
"That's a shame, but we have a good start." Martin smiled. "How about we discuss it after dinner, when everyone is here?"
Mai nodded enthusiastically. She grabbed the files from Naru's hand and threw herself onto the couch. "I'll just start now, then." She threw another nasty glare at Naru. "Maybe I can make up for my awful observation skills by studying the notes really closely."
"Maybe," Naru replied nonchalantly, walking past her out of the room. Mai shook a fist at his back.
Martin sighed. "Taniyama, I'm sorry for Noll's behavior…"
"It's okay, Professor." Mai rolled her eyes and almost smiled. "I'm used to it."
Martin nodded speculatively and followed his son out, intent on reprimanding him anyway.
Alone now, Mai settled in to read over Naru's notes. Twenty minutes in, however, she was becoming seriously bored. There was a reason that she tended to push this stuff off on Yasu. Mai was more about action than research.
Then she happened upon a report about several incidents of 'hazing' at a shipping company. The company started using the warehouse twenty years ago, remained there for ten years… and about a year before they closed, a third of their workforce was either fired or placed on probation over the 'hazing.' Mai wasn't actually sure what hazing was, but if the hot tingling in her fingers was any indication, she should probably find out as soon as possible.
As Mai stared at the report, she suddenly felt very tired. The words on the paper started to run together, and Mai felt the pull of unconsciousness. To her joy, she also thought she felt a familiar spirit. Her hand and the file fell onto her stomach as she passed out.
-0O0-
AN: This might not be the most action-filled chapter, but since I wanted Naru and Mai to be able to discuss ghost hunting together like grown-ups, it had to happen. Plus Martin needed some screen time. By the way, the title of this chapter refers to Mai's improved techniques and to hunting a particular ghost – Gene:)