Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt. Manga would still be going lol.
Chapter 13 – Employee Conflicts
-0O0-
Mai felt something warm fall on top of her – it felt nice. She also felt something warm near her; strands of gold wrapped around her. She reached out for the source, her powers caressing the presence. She smiled and curled into the warmth all around her, falling deeper into sleep.
There was blood on the vise. The words echoed through the blackness surrounding her.
"What?" Mai asked the empty space. She wasn't in a psychic dream now, was she? She couldn't see anything…
Because her eyes weren't open.
"Idiot," Mai reprimanded herself, opening them wide and looking around. She was in the warehouse again… but it was empty. No people. No lights on upstairs to indicate the presence of drunken marauders. Just a warehouse at night.
"What's this doing here?" a gruff voice asked. Mai whipped around… but saw no one.
"It looks like… blood, sir." This voice was nervous, quavering. Both were men. She still couldn't see anyone.
"That's because it is blood, Gallway," said the gruff voice.
"Gallway," Mai repeated, committing the name to memory. "What blood?" she wondered aloud.
"On the vise," came a whisper. A frightened whisper. Mai suddenly felt the presence of the more docile ghost – but saw nothing. "Where are you? What's a vise? Where's the blood?" Mai spat rapid-fire questions until her investigative training kicked in and tased her nervous tongue. Masako always warned Mai not to ask too many questions – it tended to agitate spirits. But Mai was a little freaked out – she couldn't tell what was going on. She could hear voices and sense the first ghost, but she couldn't see anything in this supposed vision. And somehow, that scared her more than watching another murder.
"Are you Gallway?" she asked the spirit. No answer. She could sense him flitting around on the edge of her consciousness. Like a dog… one that had been beaten and was skittish around people... Mai inhaled sharply, understanding. "You were the victim, right?" she asked the empty space. "You were the person they wanted to get back at. And you're not the ghost that's hurting people now – that's definitely the other spirit. So why are you here?"
"I'm going to call Jimmy at the hospital and ask some pointed questions," the gruff man's disembodied voice rang through the space. Mai couldn't even identify a vague location – the words seemed to be coming from everywhere.
"Jimmy?" Mai reiterated. Another name. At least Madoka and Naru would have something more to go on. Then Mai felt a surge of something coming from the upstairs corner of the main room – opposite the corner where the mysterious machine once rested. The wispy form of the first ghost materialized. Clearly a man, eyes wide and horrified, he hovered in the corner of the room. Arms flat against the wall, as if he were trying to push himself through it. His ghostly fingers scrabbled on the concrete. He wanted very badly to get away from something. But what?
Maybe she was scaring him. "Hey, I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help," Mai told him. She adopted a warm, soothing tone, which her fellow mediums suggested for conversations with troubled spirits. She reached out a hand. "Jimmy?" she guessed, offering the spirit a smile.
"JIMMY," boomed a different voice. A bad voice. Its echoes crept up Mai's arms like waves of polluted water. The second presence was back – Mai felt a sudden chill and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. She turned, arms raised in her defensive stance… but still couldn't see anything.
And then the screaming started.
Horrible, awful shrieks, angry yells, wounded-sounding moans. And worst, begging. Voices of terrified men begging someone to let them go, to stop, that they were sorry… The first ghost was screaming, too, although Mai couldn't identify his voice above the din. She could see his mouth open wide, though, and his terrified eyes as he turned away and tried to claw his way out.
Mai had no idea what to do. She couldn't exorcise something she couldn't get a lock on! The screams rang in her head and she felt like the whole warehouse was shaking around her. Her eyes and othersense swept the room, searching frantically, while her hands clamped over her ears in a vain attempt to drown out the awful noises…
And then a familiar hand grabbed Mai's arm and pulled her away from a smoky substance. It was all around her and she hadn't even noticed! She looked up at Gene, uncomprehending and frightened – and he yanked her toward the door, out of the smoke, and through the door to a supply room. The shrieking was much quieter almost instantly, although Mai wasn't sure whether it was because they were in another room or away from the encompassing fog.
"Sorry," Gene gasped. "It took me a while to get in here. That guy has some power for somebody so scared. He locked me out."
"The first ghost locked you out?" Mai asked, confused. "I mean, I know he locked us in…"
"He probably wants you to deal with the other ghost – none of you are its type, so he must figure that you guys are his best chance to get rid of the fog thing."
"Fog thing?" Mai asked, amused despite the situation. "I would think that Mr. Perfect Medium could do better than 'fog thing.'"
"Well, I can't talk to it," Gene groused, shooting Mai a glare that lacked the frigidness of Naru's. "I don't even know that it's one person. I actually think it's more than one entity."
"You're right," Mai said, suddenly sure. "When it looked at me, I could feel lots of eyes on me."
"Alright, well, you tell Noll that when you wake up," Gene instructed her. "We have to go. This isn't going to get any better." His gaze flicked toward the other room, from which blood-curdling screams still emanated.
"But the scared spirit!"
"You have to help him in the real world, Mai," Gene reminded her. "That's where ghosts need to be exorcised from."
"Right, sorry, it's just…" She saw those scrabbling hands again and shivered.
"I know," Gene squeezed her shoulder. "It'll be alright. He'll move on as soon as you get the other one. Tell Noll and Madoka what you saw and maybe they can make something out of it." He placed his hand on Mai's forehead. "But be careful, Mai. Don't mention me at all, okay? Noll's been trying to contact me since day one of this case and I think it's because he's suspicious. Explain this dream in a way that makes it look like you don't know what's going on."
"Well, that shouldn't be too hard," Mai replied, rolling her eyes. "I don't know what's going on."
Her guide snorted and pushed her backwards. The teen psychic closed her eyes, relaxed, and followed the pull of her body. Mai fell back inside herself and waited until the spinning feeling slowed before opening her eyes. "Is everything alright?" she asked woozily.
The room seemed mostly empty… except for a blurry shape hunched over the computer monitors. Mai blinked until Lin came into focus. He was wearing headphones and studying the readouts intently. She wondered if he heard the screaming voices – which thankfully, she couldn't hear now. She couldn't feel either spirit anymore, either. She did get a couple of names, one of which might be the name of the nicer ghost. A part of Mai couldn't believe that Naru wasn't harping on about the dreaming yet. Usually, he would have accosted her by now… "Where is Naru?" she asked quietly.
"On that chair over there, sleeping," Lin replied. Mai jumped; she hadn't been expecting an answer, he was wearing… nope, Lin now held the headphones in his hand. "Did you witness any of this?" he asked, waving a hand at the digital readouts of high noise levels. Apparently, the screaming had crossed over into the real world.
"Yeah," Mai said, nodding. "Did you hear the yelling?"
"I heard a lot of static and noise – and what might have been a few screams." Lin raised an eyebrow.
"Lucky," Mai muttered. "I heard lots of it." She edged off the couch and made to join Lin at the desk. Then she glanced over at the wingchair - and froze at the sight of a sleeping Naru. Mai unconsciously stopped breathing and blushed. He looked so… beautiful when he slept.
Lin cleared his throat and Mai blushed harder. She also thought she saw a glimmer of a smile before he motioned her over. Interview time, Mai knew.
-0O0-
"Day two of being stuck in a warehouse," Bou-san groaned.
"This is not what I had in mind for today," Ayako moaned. "I figured we'd go on a tour this morning. We haven't really done that yet." They both slouched onto the couch in base and pouted like moody teens.
"You guys could do something useful and try an exorcism on the doors," Mai suggested edgily. "I really don't think any of our problems are going to be solved with whining."
"Spoken like a true Boss, Mai-chan," Yasuhara noted with a smile.
"Shut up, Yasu. How's that research on Jimmy coming along?"
"As well as before – nothing useful. No one named Jimmy worked here in the 1980's, according to the employee rolls. Unless he was off the books, in which case..."
"There wouldn't be someone named Jimmy on any employee rolls," Naru said suddenly, peering at Yasuhara.
"Why not?" Mai asked. "I definitely heard the bad ghost say 'Jimmy' – right before all the screaming started."
"Jimmy is a nickname," Naru replied. "Employee records wouldn't list someone by their nickname. You should be looking for someone named James."
For a moment, Yasuhara and Mai just gaped at him. Then they both sprang into action, grabbing files and starting over again.
"Early 1980's first, Yasu. That license said 1982," Mai reminded him as her eyes ran feverishly over names.
"On it, Mai-chan. Ooh! Here!" Yasuhara pointed excitedly at a name. Mai and Naru both came to stand behind him, bumping shoulders. Naru glared, Mai smiled back.
"Battle of the Bosses, huh?" Madoka asked. "Well, since I'm really the boss, why don't you just give me the info?"
-0O0-
"Day two in the creepy warehouse," Yasuhara repeated, using Bou-san's words from hours earlier. Then he grinned wolfishly. "Or rather… night two. Ready for bed, Mai-chan?" He ducked as a clipboard and a couch pillow came flying at his head, courtesy of Bou-san and Mai herself.
"Didn't we already have this ridiculous conversation?" Naru inquired tightly.
"Yes, but bedtime is like jackpot time for us," Yasuhara replied. "Mai does her best work at night." Then he waggled his eyebrows at Naru. "Interpret that any way you want."
"Hey!" Ayako yelled as she slapped him upside the head. "Don't be nasty. Wishful thinking on your part, anyway."
"Can't blame a guy for trying to move things along," Yasuhara murmured.
"What things?" Mai hissed. "Propositioning your best friend?"
She really is dense sometimes, Yasuhara thought with an internal groan. "Oh, Mai-chan. I'm flattered to think that you imagine me propositioning you…"
"Who else would you be propositioning?" Naru asked through his teeth. Ayako was engaged, and Madoka was with Lin.
Yasuhara assessed Naru's irritation level and decided not to push the issue right now. It wouldn't do for Naru to glare all night. After all, if Naru assumed a non-threatening face, Mai was much more likely to blush and stare at his pajama-clad hotness. Big Boss wasn't on base duty tonight, and Mai's reaction to 'Naru at bedtime' would likely be very entertaining. So Yasuhara decided to go with a different tactic… and annoy someone else. "Well, those two aren't married yet," he replied cheerfully, pointing to Bou-san and Ayako. Adopting an extremely serious face, Yasuhara intoned, "I won't give up on Bou-san until the day he's wearing a ring."
"Shounen!" Bou-san cried, shuddering. "We've talked about this!"
"I remember – you declared your undying love for me," Yasuhara nodded solemnly. "But you're afraid that society will shun us, that I'm too young for you, that Ayako will stab you to death with a wedding-cake knife…"
"Yasu, you know I hate it when you get creepy like this," Bou-san warned.
Mai and Madoka both snickered into their sleeves.
Yasuhara feigned shock. "I'm creepy? You're the one who wants to seduce a teenage boy."
"Ugh! I do not, you little…" Bou-san lunged for his tormentor.
"Bou-san, please!" Yasuhara caught Bou-san's hand and clasped it to his own chest. "I know it feels like it's been forever, but wait until we're alone." He lowered his eyelashes demurely.
Takigawa's mouth dropped open in shock… before he came to his senses and ripped his hand away from a grinning Yasuhara. "You are one sick kid, Yasu. And you know what? I'm going to fix this the same way I did last time." Bou-san pulled out his cell phone and wiggled it for emphasis. "I'll tell your mother that you're hitting on me… and that your 'magic number' is fifty. Girls and guys."
"Fine, fine, I'll stop!" Yasuhara waved his hands in surrender. "I don't want to deal with the yelling. She'd probably come to England and drag me home by my ear." He sighed in defeat and grabbed a flashlight. "By the way, my number is nowhere near fifty. I'm good, but I'm not that slick. I'll take it as a compliment, though." He marched off toward the stairs, followed by a snickering Mai.
Naru took a sleeping bag and race-walked after them, figuring that he could secure a couch and make sure the profligate Yasuhara was sleeping a good distance from Ma – from the only unattached woman in their group.
-0O0-
Mai wandered around the dark warehouse. It looked different, somehow. Still creepy, still full of machines – no, wait. The machines were different. In the present, Mai was sure there was a gigantic saw over by the stairs (she always tried to memorize the locations of anything she felt she might trip over on site). She was in the past again. And sure enough, that crank thing was sitting in the corner. Mai walked over to consider it more closely – it felt like it was calling her somehow. It was a strange-looking machine… it seemed to center on two flat pieces of metal that were attached to a crank. Mai reached out to touch the crank – and her hand fell right through it. Right, dreaming. She stepped back and studied her surroundings.
Until scuffling noises came from another room. This is most likely the crime scene, she figured. This guess was reinforced by the entrance of six people. Five men were pulling a sixth one across the room, toward Mai. The sixth man was obviously only semiconscious – his head lolled back and his feet dragged along the ground. He was ferried up to the machine Mai had been studying.
"Wake him up!" one of the other men hissed. For the first time, Mai noticed that all five were wearing black handkerchiefs over the lower halves of their faces. That couldn't be good.
Another man slapped the sixth guy hard across the face. He groaned in pain as he came to. Mai sympathized – face-smacking was Ayako's emergency wake-up of choice.
"Where am I?" the man asked foggily. Once he opened his eyes, Mai recognized him. It was the first spirit!
The others laughed. They weren't nice laughs. "Some prize employee this one is," one of the masked men said. "Can't even recognize the factory he works in."
Murmurs and mean laughs rang across the empty room, and Mai realized she'd heard all this before. These were the people from her first dream. Then she thought about the shrieks from the second vision. Ice dropped into Mai's stomach as she grasped that she was definitely about to be witness to something awful.
"Well, Jimmy, we have a little thing we like to do with all the new guys – well, all the new guys who make us look lazy." The masked man who'd spoken first was talking again now. Mai took him to be the leader. His voice was definitely the one that gave her shivers in previous visions.
"You're… hazing me?" The mostly-conscious man (who Mai now knew was definitely Jimmy) asked.
"Yeah, you could say that." Mai could hear the mean smile in Leader's voice.
Hazing, Mai's mind screamed. That was in the police report. Something about people getting in trouble for hazing. Madoka had explained it as pranking or fighting… but apparently it also meant dragging a drugged colleague into work after hours and marching them up to some machine.
Which Leader was now operating. Mai watched him turn the crank – the two flat pieces of metal were inching closer together. What would that do, exactly?
She shouldn't have wondered. As if in answer to her unspoken question, Jimmy was shoved up against the machine. The pieces of metal were at waist level. Eyes drawn there already, Mai couldn't help but notice that another of the men took hold of Jimmy at the waist and yanked his pants and underclothes down. She turned away instinctively, embarrassed – some guy's… equipment would be hanging out!
Equipment… her stomach dropped. All of the haunting victims wound up with crushed genitalia. Mai's eyes flew to the crank – if those two pieces of metal met, and Jimmy's very nearby manhood got stuck in there…
"Flop it in there, boys," ordered Leader. Mai felt sick.
"We're not touching it!" yelled one of the two men holding Jimmy.
"You don't have to touch it, you idiot." Another man was speaking. "Just kick him forward a little."
"What – what are you doing?" Jimmy asked, now fully awake and panicking.
"Teaching you a lesson in workplace safety," Leader replied calmly.
More ugly laughter. Jimmy was shoved forward, and from his reaction, Mai gathered that it was in there.
"I don't understand – why are you doing this?" He sounded terrified now. Mai hated these dreams.
"I just told you – for the foreman's new lapdog, you sure are slow." Leader shook his head mockingly. "We're teaching you a lesson – two, in fact. Number one – don't get your dick caught in a vise. And number two – don't make the rest of us look like fools. I almost got fired this week because of you." Leader turned the crank turned slowly, and the metal pieces crept closer together. Jimmy tried to move, tried to escape, but there was no way he was getting past five big factory workers. The crank kept going.
Mai knew exactly when the metal started its terrible work and met flesh – because Jimmy redoubled his efforts to escape and started yelling incoherently. He managed to hit somebody… but wound up being punched a few times as punishment. The crank kept creaking, and Jimmy whined in fear, thrashing. Mai closed her eyes, feeling like a chicken but not being able to stomach any more. A horrible screech rang out, and she clapped her hands hard over her ears, humming a tune and shaking her head as if that would make it stop.
Thankfully, Mai felt a sudden swirling around her, which usually meant that she was leaving a vision. She found the courage to open her eyes and watched the dark shapes around her dissolve into the warehouse in daylight. The machine (the vise, she now realized) was still there – looking less lethal and looming than it had in the dark. But Mai took one look at those unforgiving hunks of metal and shuddered.
As she watched, a man in a hardhat approached her. A younger man walked beside him, pointing to the machine. "Something's wrong, sir. The crank felt funny when I started up this morning, and I know it's in a different position than when I left it yesterday. And when I looked closer – it's very… shiny, sir. Like someone cleaned it up really well – but I know I was the last one here."
The hard-hatted man nodded, inspecting the machine himself.
"Also, sir – I…" the younger man looked down. "I heard something this morning." His voice was very low.
Hardhat stopped his inspection and motioned for the nervous man to continue.
"Well, it's just… some of the guys were saying that they had some fun with Jimmy last night. And Jimmy's wife just called… he's in surgery at the hospital. And he's the third one this year with a mysterious hospital visit. None of them say exactly what put them there."
"Yeah," Hardhat replied slowly, grimacing. "I think there's some stupid shit going on here."
The younger man looked down again. "Me too, sir. The last time.. I'm pretty sure that some of my coworkers broke in here the night before Ray was hospitalized. And the vise was very clean that time, too."
Hardhat turned back to the machine, running his eyes carefully over the operational section. Suddenly, he froze. "What's this doing here?" he asked urgently.
The other man moved to Hardhat's side immediately. "It looks like… blood, sir."
"That's because it is blood, Gallway," Hardhat said in a heavy voice. Mai recognized this dialogue – these were the bodiless voices she'd heard in the second dream. "Well, just to be sure," Hardhat continued. "Call the police. Do it quietly… and have them test this substance. If it's blood, I know who to interview about it. I'm going to call Jimmy at the hospital and ask some pointed questions." His eyes hardened. "I don't mind hazing if it's not harmful. But I think there's something really nasty going on here and that's not going to fly anymore. Call the police and then hole yourself up in my office with the secretaries. I don't want those idiots after you, too. There's no way they'll do anything in front of the women."
Gallway gulped nervously, but nodded and hurried off.
Hardhat looked at the incriminating spots again before walking away in disgust. After he'd walked across the room and picked up a phone, Mai took action. She edged forward, and after a moment, found what the two men had seen. Spots of blood speckled the dark wood that supported the metal pieces. Someone had wiped down the metal and even scrubbed the wood, but blood was hard to get out of things. Plus, the five masked men had been operating without a lot of light, so they might not have been able to make out the remaining dark stains on the dark wood.
Jimmy was still alive, Mai realized. And if the look on Hardhat's face indicated the fate of the masked creeps, they were going to get in big trouble. Good, she thought rather fiercely. Mai looked at the dusty window, face grim, and the world spun again. This time she knew she was waking up.
-0O0-
Mai groaned as she opened her eyes. Naru was sitting right next to her, already dressed. (No longer in the dark blue pajamas that Mai had idiotically blushed over last night.)
"You were moaning in your sleep," he said by way of explanation.
She only nodded, staring out the small window. It was still pitch-black outside. "I had a dream," Mai offered. "It was… really awful – but very helpful."
Naru said nothing, but retrieved his black casebook and a pen. And Lin.
Mai smiled a bit at the familiar actions. Then she put her head in her hands and started talking. "Well, for starters – I was right about the genital-crushing not being a sexual thing." Mai shuddered as she remembered Jimmy's struggling, and the men's laughter. She wondered how she was going to get through this interview. Mai decided to go with a method that Ayako recommended for trauma witnesses at the hospital.
Naru raised an eyebrow as Mai stared resolutely out the window and re-told her quite horrifying dream in a quick, detached monotone. Her fingers' twisting in the blanket was the only sign that she was emotionally affected by her tale at all. Knowing Mai as he did, Naru guessed that this was her coping strategy. And knowing her visions were often as disturbing as his… she needed one. Even Lin looked a little green when she got to the vise closing and the screaming.
"Alright," Naru said finally. "I think that's enough."
"Then the dream shifted," Mai continued as if she hadn't heard him. She wanted to get this all out so she'd never have to say it again. "It was the morning after, and one of the workers and his boss noticed some missed bloodstains and figured out the gist of what had happened. They called the police. And then Hardhat told the worker to go hide in his office, because the bad guys wouldn't hurt anyone in front of the girls who worked in there."
"They called the police?" Naru furrowed his brow. His mind flashed back to the police report of mass firings and jail time. If the whole thing had been taken care of… why the continued issues? The victim survived and his tormentors were punished. Why would the spirit be looking for justice?
Mai, however, was no longer paying attention. Her focus was on the second presence, more powerful and darker than ever, out in the main room. While Mai was telling the story, it had burst into being like a spark of fire in a dark room. By the time she got to the end, it had grown into a swirling wildfire of darkness.
Bou-san evidently sensed it, too, because he woke out of a dead sleep and bolted out of the room.
Naru looked up in alarm.
Mai answered his unasked question. "The other ghost is back, Naru, and it's bad."
Lin quickly rose from his chair. "It's in the main room of the warehouse," he said, walking out the door.
The sound of Bou-san's chanting got Mai and Naru up and into the main area. Upon reaching the trouble spot, Mai gasped. The presence was huge now, menacing but still amorphous. It was easier to see, though… more like smoke than a person… or… like a person inside a moving cloud of smoke. Mai could see a pair of cherry-red eyes piercing through the cloud.
"I don't understand," Mai murmured. "I thought it was more than one spirit…"
"What do you mean?" Naru asked, as they both watched Bou-san face off against the ghost.
Across the room, Ayako, Yasuhara and Madoka ran onto the landing at the top of the stairs. With a hard swallow, Ayako stepped in front of the two non-combatants and raised her hands to prepare for the Nine Cuts. Realizing she should be doing the same, Mai mirrored Ayako's hand movements and stretched with her senses. The ghost was really angry, but Mai couldn't sense… Suddenly, Mai felt a wave of something go through the presence. The smoke around the ghost roiled in response, and Mai saw the brief outline of a burly hand reach toward Bou-san as the noxious smoke rolled forward.
Too late, Mai yelled. "Bou-san! It's going to attack!" She started to run, but an iron hand clamped around her upper arm. She turned as Naru pulled her backwards and behind him. "Naru, no! I've got to…"
"AAAAH!" Bou-san's body flew backwards and crashed into the cement wall. He crumpled to the floor and lay unnaturally still. Mai screamed. Ayako took off down the stairs and yelled the Nine Cuts at the ghost, movements sure and eyes on fire. Lin whistled, and two shiki rocketed through the attacking cloud of smoke. Their combined efforts did the trick, and the smoky mess collapsed back in on itself. Ayako reached Bou-san and threw herself between his fallen body and the spirit. Its attention turned to Ayako, and Mai felt another wave of something rock the enormous smoky spirit. Fearing another attack, Mai fought Naru's solid grip on her – but instead of billowing forward, the red eyes dimmed and the ghost vanished. Ayako and Lin converged on Bou-san as Madoka and Yasuhara rushed down the stairs.
Mai yanked herself out of Naru's hold and ran for her adopted father. Ayako had Bou-san's head in her lap and was searching his skull with skilled fingers. She found a lump, but no blood. When she pressed lightly on the mark, Bou-san groaned and his eyelids fluttered. "Ayako?" he slurred. "You look upset… did you knock me out this time?"
"No, you moron, the ghost did!" Ayako's voice was shaky and Mai could see tears in her eyes. She hunkered down next to her adopted parents and held Bou-san's hand. He squeezed it lightly, and Mai relaxed a bit.
"The ghost knocked me – wait... it didn't crush my dick, did it?" Bou-san launched upwards, almost knocking heads with his startled fiancée.
"No," Ayako gritted out, "But I might, if you don't lie back down this instant!"
Bou-san winced and obediently dropped his head back onto Ayako's lap. Mai laughed despite herself and waited for Ayako's verdict.
"Well, you've got a nasty bump on your head, Houshou, but nothing serious. You've also scratched your arms; I'm assuming the scratches are the result of your collision with the wall – there's cement in one of them. Otherwise, you're okay."
Mai breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, jou-chan, I'm fine." Bou-san smiled at Mai, brushing worry lines from her forehead. "I'm actually happy it's not you for a change."
"Whatever," Mai replied, rolling her eyes. "I'm not happy. I should have been there to help you." Her eyes flew up to fix Naru with her nastiest glare. "What were you doing back there?"
Naru glared right back, eyes narrow. "Keeping you from doing something stupid," he replied icily.
Mai clenched her fist. "Something stupid? You mean like providing back-up, which I do all the time?" Naru opened his mouth to speak, but Mai cut him right off. "I might have needed protection back then, Naru, but I don't now! Just because you haven't been around to see me fight, you just assume I can't do it! Well, I've greatly improved my fighting skills in the last two years – as I'm sure we've mentioned already. If you hadn't held me back, I could probably have done something to help Bou-san!"
"Vague attempts to 'do something' are not helpful, Mai," Naru retorted frigidly. "Jumping in front of the ghost without a plan only changes the ghost's target, not the outcome."
"I was going to throw the Nine Cuts at him and decrease the force of the blow. I knew exactly where the attack was coming from, Naru. I'm probably the only one who saw the arm moving inside the smoke. And I'm the first one who knew the attack was coming. But noooo, Mr. Know-it-all had to interfere, because he knows best in every situation!" Even emotional situations that he doesn't actually understand. "What if Bou-san had gotten really hurt? He's my adopted father and I have every right to try and protect him – especially since I know how!"
"You said 'him,' Mai-chan," Madoka said suddenly.
"What?" Mai asked irritably, reluctantly turning away from the fight.
"You said you were going to use the Nine Cuts on him," Madoka elucidated. "You believe the second ghost is a man?"
Mai blinked. Had she said that? She thought about it for a moment. "I definitely think that the ghost in the center – the one with the red eyes – is a man."
"The center?" Yasuhara repeated.
"Yes, the eyes in the center of the smoke. There's a man in there, at the center. I could barely see an outline before – but those eyes definitely scream out 'guy' to me. And I think that the guy is one of the people who tortured Jimmy."
"Tortured?" Bou-san asked from the floor.
"Yeah, I had another dream. A bunch of awful guys, the drunks from my other dream, they drugged Jimmy and brought him to the warehouse at night. Jimmy made them look bad, or something. Then they crushed his… equipment in the vise. That's why there's all that crushing going on now. But it's not Jimmy – the first ghost. I still don't know why he's here. One of the bad guys is doing the crushing… but I really thought the fog thing was more than one person. In fact, I'm almost sure it was more than one person." Gene had thought so, too.
"Fog thing?" Naru intoned condescendingly.
Mai bared her teeth at him. "Not my words, Dr. Davis," she hissed. It had been the great Naru's perfect medium brother who'd coined the term... and she wasn't supposed to say anything about that! Damn her big mouth!
Naturally, Mai's statement (and the wincing that followed) sparked Naru's interest. "Really? Whose words, then?"
Mai didn't hesitate. "Yasuhara's." She hoped her best friend was on the ball.
"Yes, well, I figured our nasty spirit should have an appropriate moniker. It adds a bit of levity, don't you think?" Yasuhara asked gaily.
Naru gave Yasuhara a long look, as if he were trying to see into the transfer student's mind. Mai had a brief vision of Naru's laser glare bouncing off of Yasu's glasses and burning holes into an unsuspecting wall.
Mai marched off to the stairs before Naru could turn back to her (and read the guilt on her open face). "I'm going to get dressed," she called archly. "And I'll get Bou-san an ice pack."
-0O0-
Mai heard footsteps approaching the makeshift bedroom. A quick psychic scan told her it was Naru. She zipped up her hoodie, pulled her toothbrush out of her bag, and made for the employee bathroom. And then, like before, Naru's hand caught her arm in an unforgiving grasp. Mai whipped around, pissed all over again. "What now?" she seethed. "You think I can't brush my teeth without supervision?"
"Sometimes I wonder," her captor replied unhelpfully.
Mai made a disgusted sound and tried to rip her arm out of his grasp. Naru held fast.
"Wait," he said thickly. Something in Naru's tone made Mai obey, although she glared mutinously at the side of his face. Oddly, Naru seemed to be struggling to speak. Finally, he said, "I… apologize for misunderstanding your intentions."
Mai's mouth dropped open; she couldn't help it. This was maybe the third time Naru had apologized to her… ever. "What?" she asked dumbly.
Naru glared at her, assuming that Mai wanted him to apologize twice. But a closer look at her astonished face made him realize that he needed to elaborate. Naru stared resolutely out the window while he spoke. "You have grown… exponentially in experience and ability since our last case together. My usual course of action – to keep you from involving yourself in a fight – may no longer be appropriate."
Emotions swirled in Mai's gut – astonishment, warmth, smugness, and gratitude all fought for dominance.
"However," Naru continued, facing her again. "I would like to remind you that I have yet to see you in 'action,' Mai. As you are well aware, I base my reactions on facts. So until I see evidence to the contrary, my first response will likely be to pull you out of harm's way. I have rescued you enough times for the compulsion to be understandable."
Mai wasn't sure what to think. Naru's usual condescension had returned to his voice, which would usually get her back up… but his words weren't mean or unfair. They were true… and implied that Naru cared about her. She knew he did, but hearing him actually say something like that rocked Mai to the core. It almost sounded like Naru was saying that he wanted to keep rescuing her. Mai's breath hitched and she looked away quickly. "Yeah, you have rescued me a bunch of times," she replied feelingly. She remembered Naru's body crashing on top on her, arms caged around her as they fell, protecting her from the collapsing ceiling at Ryokuryou High School. It was one of her favorite (and most blush-inducing) memories.
"Indeed," Naru agreed tonelessly. Mai wanted to see his face, but didn't trust herself to look at him. She'd blush, he'd see it and smirk, she'd start yelling, and they'd be off to the races again. "I was also thinking about the eight hospital trips that led to your adoption," he continued. "And not ten minutes ago, Bou-san said that he was relieved that you weren't the one hurt, for once. Your aura is constantly calling for ghostly attention. You said it yourself."
"I have developed several skills to deal with that attention, Naru," Mai reminded him. "And if you want evidence that I can do it…" She turned and looked straight into his eyes. "You're going to have to let me."
Naru stared blankly back at her for a moment. "Fine," he agreed tightly.
Mai smiled. Victory!
Naru wasn't done, though. "But… you have to be more cautious. You do tend to charge in first and ask questions later, Mai, even after all your training. You are still driven by emotions and impulses, a combination which does not often engender good decision-making."
Mai huffed. He had to ruin the moment, of course. But he also had a point. "It's true that I get hurt a lot, Naru." She sat back on her couch-slash-bed. "But my impulses are often very useful, as you yourself discovered on the Hexer case. Relying on my impulses is a good thing – and emotion makes my powers more effective."
Naru raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
"They do!" Mai argued. "You just saw it happen with Ayako! She was worried about Bou-san, and her powers responded! She was better at exorcising than usual!"
Naru sighed and rolled his eyes. "Lin's shiki attacked as well, quite efficiently and probably more effectively – and Lin is a paragon of emotional control."
"Yeah, because Lin totally didn't flip out on me over the Japanese thing, or laugh at Yasuhara's stupid 'equipment' jokes. Oh, wait, yes he did."
"Have you ever seen Lin lose it during an exorcism?" Naru asked.
"Yes." Mai smirked. "In the cave, when you decided to go crazy and almost kill yourself." She had him there!
"At which point he became spiritually useless," Naru shot back. "Instead of trying to incapacitate me, he just stood there yelling and watching. You were more useful."
"Right, electrocuting myself by touching you was super useful, Naru," Mai muttered.
"It was," he replied softly. "I remembered to focus my energy in tighter, into my hand, to avoid harming anyone behind me."
Mai remembered Naru grasping his wrist, the light of his powers concentrating in his hand. He had done that right after she'd tried to touch him. Mai had no idea that Naru had even been aware she was behind him in the cave; he'd given no indication that he noticed her. Of course, Gene had told her later that summoning and controlling Naru's PK required tremendous concentration. Naru couldn't have spoken to her without losing control.
"Well, good, I guess," Mai mumbled, happy that she'd helped, even by accident. Wait, that's it, she thought. "I guess my impulse to reach for you was a good one, then. Good thing I followed it." She grinned broadly.
Most unexpectedly, Naru smiled. Not a smirk, or a fake smile, but his real smile. Mai's heart stuttered.
"A logical point," he noted, meeting Mai's gaze. The discernible warmth in Naru's eyes made Mai's breathing go funny.
"That's three for me, I think," Mai said, embarrassed by the breathiness of her voice. "I should start keeping score."
"You'd only wind up depressing yourself," Naru replied calmly, turning away and rooting through Madoka's supply bag.
Mai threw a pillow at him. He ducked it with infuriating ease and threw an ice pack onto her lap.
"Didn't you want to retrieve one of these for Bou-san?" he reminded her.
"Oops. I was too busy replaying that apology in my head to remember the ice pack," Mai replied with a grin. "Bou-san would probably be happier to hear about that than get an ice pack, anyway..."
-0O0-
AN: Feeling almost better now, but two days late! So here's an extra-long chapter as a combination "I'm sorry" present and Easter present!