Case 1: Day 1
"It was some sort of spirit." Gene observed. Lin and Madoka looked at each other knowly and Lin pulled out a notebook and began taking notes.
"Um… Hello?" An older woman snarkily greeted us where we stood. She was wearing an expensive white pantsuit and dripped gaudy gold jewelry. "Are you people from the Society of Psychic Research? When will you be finished with this? Can't you just perform an exorcism or something?" She questioned.
"Hello, Madam. My name is Madoka Mori." Madoka introduced herself, extending her hand out to the old lady to shake her hand. When the lady didn't accept her hand, Madoka retracted it with a tight smile and directed towards Lin. "This is Lin Koujo; he is my partner. And, the three younger children are his students." She introduced us to the old lady, not that she was interested.
"Whatever." The old lady waved us off, "I just need you guys to hurry up and take care of the problem." She made a sharp 180 degree turn and started walking off. "Come on.", she commanded. We quickly followed after her and she made an abrupt stop. She turned towards us, pointed to an empty room, and said, "The other people from your company said that you would require a room for your equipment; I had given them this room previously, so you can continue to use it." She promptly left after giving us a brief rundown of the manor's layout. I peeked into the room out of curiosity and it was bare with the exception of some foldable tables and chairs left by the initial field team.
"Alright children, Lin and I will go bring in our equipment while you three stay here and hold down the fort. Understand?" Madoka asked.
"Can we help, too?" Gene pleaded.
"The equipment is far too heavy for children to handle. Wait here like Madoka had just told you to." Lin ordered. They headed out shortly after that, so Gene, Naru, and I found a chair and sat down at one of the tables.
"Mai, did you say you saw a dog when you entered the home? You, too, Gene?" Naru asked, pulling out his notebook and pen.
"I saw a little puppy sitting in front me when we just walked in." I explained, "It looked so real that I didn't realize it was a spirit."
"What I saw was a dark glowing orb, like a fox fire." Gene explained that he could see the 'shape' of the spirit but, rather, its 'essence'.
"That's interesting. Could it be that the spirit shows a certain favor towards Mai?" Naru mused.
I added,"I'm feeling really sad and angry, but I'm not sad or angry." I continued, "I don't really like this place; it feels cold and bad."
"Yeah, I get what you mean." Gene trailed off. Naru continued taking notes of what we had discussed while Lin and Madoka shuffled in and out of the room with the equipment. Gene and I decided to take a small nap while Lin and Madoka were setting up. I decided to walk the astral plane to see if I could gather more information on the house. Gene had the same idea and he was waiting for me. We looked down on the house together and I saw the disturbing orb Gene had described. It was in what looked like the study, in what looked like a small shrine.
"I'm going to look closer." I said, drifting towards the study.
"Wait!" Gene reached out and grabbed my hand, "It's not safe to go alone.", he said. He held my hand as we drifted down to the study together. When we arrived at the study, I decided to reach out and touch the orb.
After touching the foxfire, everything around me changed; the study turned into a familiar field. We were transported to the field we passed when we were coming to the house. An old man hovered around something. I decided to walk closer to get a closer look and I instantly regretted it. He was hovering over some other men burying a dog alive; they stopped when the dirt reached its neck. They patted the dirt around its neck to ensure the dog is definitely stuck, then they place a large piece of raw meat just out of reach in front of the dog. After they had placed the meat in front of the black dog, a man dressed in what looked like shinto priest robes started performing some ritual over the painful whimpers of the dog. Once it looked like the ritual had finished, everyone left; the dog remained whimper and struggled to get out of the ground.
Tears began to form in my eyes and I said, "It's okay, puppy. It's okay." The dog continued to struggle regardless of my soothings; I knew it didn't hear me. Gene squeezed my hand as my tears spilled over knowing I could do nothing for the puppy. As my tears blind my vision momentarily, the scenery around Gene and I changed again. It looked like several days later since the dog had been buried. The man and the priest were back again. The meat had looked as fresh as it had been on the first day; they must have switched it out. The priest walked up to the, now, emaciated dog with a katana.
"Don't look." Gene said as he placed his hand over my eyes to shield me from what was coming. I heard the faint, exhausted whimpering then a wet crunch. "It's okay, Mai. It's ok; you don't have to see this." He said, attempting to soothe me as I began breaking down.
I heard some chanting through my quiet sobs; they were probably performing some ritual. I pulled my Gene's hand down and, with some resistance, he relented. I saw the dog's severed head with the meat in its mouth. When the shinto priest was done with his "ritual", he put the severed head in a box. They transported it to a crossroads and buried it right in the middle. The scenery changed again; it looked like it was months later. The man and the priest dug up the box and brought it to some sort of industrial oven; the priest chanted over the box and he threw it in the fire. When the fire cooled, they pulled out the dog's skull. We were now back in the study; the priest erected the shrine, then he placed skull in the shrine. The curse was complete; they created an inugami.
Gene and I woke up from our "nap" and immediately started looking for Lin or Madoka to discuss our findings. When my eyes finally focused, I saw Madoka and Lin were right in front of me; though, Lin had his back to me as he typed away on his laptop. Madoka was looking through Naru's notes on our observations and taking down notes of her own in her notebook. She looked up from her notes and gave me a gentle smile.
"Good morning, sunshine! Did you have a nice nap?" She asked gently.
Tears welled up in my eyes again as I remembered what happened to the dog. "No…" I said, fighting back my tears.
"Oh no, sweetie! What happened?" Madoka asked as she walked over to give me a hug, even Lin turned around to see what was going on.
"It's an inugami. I saw them make one…" I said quietly, trying to stop my voice from cracking, "It's in the study."
Madoka patted my head and said, "It's okay. I understand." She turned to Lin and asked, "What do we do next?"
"I need more information, but we are closer to solving this knowing for sure that it's an inugami." Lin replied.
"Okay." Madoka answered, then she pulled away from me and said, "Mai, Lin and I are going to go gather some more information on the family and the house; you will stay here with Naru and Gene, alright?" I nodded in response, not being able to speak. She turned to Gene and Naru and asked, "Will you two take care of her?"
"Of course!" Gene answered enthusiastically, despite him seeing even more horror than I had.
"I have no problem babysitting the children." Naru replied coolly. Madoka and Lin left shortly after and I huddled by Naru and Gene for comfort. Naru turned and looked at me; I had curled up in a foetal position between him and Gene. Naru ordered, "Mai, look at me." I turned over to look at him. "I would like for you to meet my pet." He said, "Hey, come out and say 'hi'", pulling out a coin from thin air.
"What are you talking about?" I asked. I added, "That's a piddly little ten pea."
He tucked the ten pea in his hand and said, "Look. He hid himself because you made fun of him."
"No way!", I exclaimed. "He must be in your hand.", I observed.
"Where?" Naru asked smugly. He opened both his hands to show me they were empty.
"Huh!?" I exclaimed in confusion.
"I wonder where he went?" Naru wondered as he patted himself down. "Here he is!" He declared, pulling the coin out of his elbow.
"How did you…?" I started. "Hey, let me see that!" I demanded, holding out my hand for the coin.
"Here you go. Catch!", he said while, seemingly, flipping the coin in the air. I attempted to catch the ten pea with my hand, but they were empty when I opened them.
"Hey! You really didn't throw it!" I whined. He opened his hands for me to see that they were empty. "What now?" I asked.
"It seems like he got scared and hid because you raised your voice." He said.
"I didn't raise my voice!" I cried.
"You just raised your voice again, didn't you?" He mused. I gasped and pinched my lips together. "Oh," he said, "he was hiding right here.", pulling the coin from thin air.
"Wow… You're a good magician." I giggled.
"You really thought that was magic?" he asked.
"It wasn't?" I wondered.
"No, I'm not." a third voice said. Did the coin really speak?
"Are you scared of Mai or something?" Naru asked.
"… Yes." The coin said.
"You don't need to be scared of her." Naru reassured, "Mai's not as intimidating as she seems."
"Really?" the coin asked skeptically.
"Impressive!" I thought to myself. Naru is quite a gifted ventriloquist. He really makes it seem like the coin is talking. A loud giggle behind me interrupted my thoughts.
"Oh boy!" Gene said, in between his giggles, "My brother has really gotten good at wooing girls!"
I turned around and gave him a scowl. I turned back to Naru and said, "Forget him, Naru. Please do some more magic!"
He smiled a small smile and said,"I can't do anything more complicated right now. I don't have the tools." He looked over my face for a moment and asked, "Are you feeling better now?"
I thought about it for a moment and said, "Yeah! Thank you, Naru!"
MissTurtleGurl: Hello, again, everyone! I am back with chapter 7. Turns out I really have to take that short hiatus. I have 3 different final projects, a midterm, and a final exam. I am really sorry, but I will have to go on break until December 4, 2020. That is when all my stuff is due. I will be back with a new chapter after that. Please continue to support So Stupid even in my short absence. I will be back with chapter 8 probably a few days after the 4th. Please leave a review to let me know if you enjoy what I have written. Don't forget to follow/favorite So Stupid, so you would be notify when I post an update. See you when I get back.