A/C - Hello! Chapter 15 is finally in the books and I must say...this was definitely supposed to take a different turn but I'm happy it didn't! Just means more words to go into the story.

Please review (tell me what you like, don't like) and I'll try my best to get back to you! I'm in the mood to start doing shoutouts for reviews next chapter! Don't forget to follow/fav!

Enjoy!

Chapter 15 - Standing in the Fire

When Sara touched me she had unconsciously pulled me into her memories. Maybe that sensitive side of me latched onto her spirit and allowed me into her head, I couldn't say for sure.

It wasn't a full vision. This was a swirl of memories, thoughts and emotions on a plane of darkness.

One thought, in particular, I remembered. It was closely tied to the vision I saw with Hana when she was caught going into the basement to see her mother. I was seeing it through Sara's consciousness this time.

Sara knew that Hana shouldn't be down there - it would only lead to more misery for her. For all of them.

The Dark man, who claimed to be their father was named Izanagi. Sara also knew that he was saving them for something horrible. While she hadn't known the details, she knew it involved satanic rituals and demonic possessions.

Hurting the family also fueled a dark cruelness from deep within him.

Sara didn't know why he was doing this to them, for what reason, but she knew that they would have been all dead a long time ago if she hadn't committed herself to him. She had dredged up enough will-power to play the part she had been pretending for years. She knew it meant her sister and mother would hater her but it was all she knew how to do in order to keep everyone alive until the time was right. Then maybe, just maybe, they could run away.

In the memory, Sara had to drudge up the will from deep within her to go into that basement. She hated this basement, hated what cruel secrets were kept down there.

I learned, from Sara's thoughts, she was doing it to protect them. She wanted to have Hana's strength to believe in a greater good but Sara had to believe in the hard reality that they lived in. The truth was there was no greater good that would protect them. So, Sara pretended to be what the dark man wanted. She burdened the horrible deeds he forced her to do with hope that she could see her sister and mother leave this place.

A flash and another thought trickled in - an angry thought.

From what Sara was told by Izanagi, she was supposed to allow a demon to use her body as a vessel. That way it could live and breath on this physical plane.

However, he didn't use her as a vessel, as he had intended. Instead he used Hana, and killed their mother.

Instead, Sara was left to bleed out, until she woke up on the other side, with that...thing by her side. She knew it was Hana but it had a mind of its own. It had desires. There was no breaking through to it, she had tried and failed. Eventually, she gave up hope that Hana was truly inside. It made her feel sick that her sweet Hana could be stuck inside that horrible creature.

Sara learned, throughout centuries, that the creature listened to her. She was the master of it and both of them were stuck in this eternal purgatory in which they fed off the souls of recently passed people in the area.

For the rest of her years Sara endured it. She had been stuck here for so long that she began to feel herself change. There was an relentless need to be cruel and continue to be what that man was looking for - if not for his sake than for her sanity.

If she had any hope of ever leaving this place, Sara couldn't remember it. She had nothing and she simply just existed. Until the curse was over, this was her personal hell.

^.^

I awoke to chaos.

The throbbing in my head told me I must have hit it. My back was pressed against a wall and I, shakily, pushed myself into a sitting position.

Sounds came back in waves - I didn't know how long I was out for but at some critical point the Pishacha came into the cabin. The last I remembered was the room we were in had been mostly intact. Now, furniture had been thrown around and the entire room was in a dismay. My eyes came to settle on Naru, who was standing beside me.

I don't know what happened during the time I was unconscious but now it looked like Naru was squaring off with the Pishacha. I looked closer to see a long kitchen blade lodged in the creatures shoulder.

Sara was nowhere in sight, which must have been how Naru escaped those dark bonds I last saw him in.

I tried to get up and the movement caught the attention of the Pishacha. It whirled, that grey body twisting and those long canines exposed as it growled at me.

"Mai," Naru's voice sounded so raw. "Get out of here."

"I know what we have to do." I shakily tried to stand. "Hana, can you hear me? We can help you. Please, hear us!"

"Run, Mai."

"No, I'm not leaving. We have to get through to her!" I panted through the exhaustion, determined to break through to Hana. That was our only way to survive. "Hana, please, if you can hear me you have to break through."

The Pishacha growled at me.

"You are strong enough to do it. I know you can. Follow my voice, Hana. You are not this monster, you are not lost to it. You can break through."

This time the Pishacha jerked backwards, its eyes were pupil wide as it stared at me - half in understanding and half in complete surprise.

I thought I saw a flicker of...human in those white-eyes. "That's it! Keep going!"

Naru's hand was on my shoulder suddenly and I snapped my head to look at him. He placed an arm around my waist to help me stand. The gesture was unlike Naru and I gripped his black shirt, pressing my fingers into his arm. His heart was racing like a rabbit's but, being Naru, he did not show any of this on his face.

"I know what we have to do: we need to find Sara's body to break the curse."

Sara hadn't realized what she had shown and revealed by allowing me into her mind. I connected what Gene had told me all that time ago with what I remembered now. Then, everything just made sense.

Sara was the anchor to this curse. But it was not her soul that was anchored, nor was it an artifact which Gene originally thought. No, it was her body - her physical body. And, she was still on this property.

To break the curse we needed to find her remains and destroy them.

The Pishacha crouched onto all fours, snarling at us. It broke my train of thought and my head snapped to it.

Milky eyes stared back at me and my body froze. The distance between us and the creature was nearly five feet. There was no possible way of escaping those talons and teeth - no feasible maneuver that wouldn't end with us impaled on the end of those sharp claws. I kept my breathing very still but I felt my heart slamming into my gut with dread.

We were going to die.

Then, I realized why Naru had moved to me. He realized we were cornered and had no way out.

We were going to die.

Under normal circumstances, he would have never held me. He would have barked orders at me to get out of here.

Together, I realized. He wanted us to go together.

I gripped him tighter and in a moment of sheer confidence I tore my gaze from the creature in front of us to look at Naru.

Beautiful indigo-blue eyes were already staring at me. He knew that this could be our last breathing moments together.

Our last moments together and I was staring into those deep blue eyes, drowning.

My eyes dropped to his mouth that I knew was his main weapon. He repressed the lush shape of his lips by constantly pressing them into a hard line.

I couldn't resist the urge to know how soft they felt under mine.

My body move on its own and, slowly, I lifted myself onto my tiptoes. Naru stilled under me when my lips touched his.

The kiss was merely a suggestion, just a brush of lips. I felt my body warm when he gripped my waist tighter and he pressed me harder into him. It was just a subtle movement against me but I was so hyper-aware of Naru that I felt everything. I felt the tension in his body as he fought back the urge to desperately take flight. I felt the sweet, subtle recoil of muscles when he gave himself to the kiss. I knew I shouldn't be kissing him but if I we were going to die there was no point in hiding it.

I wanted Naru and only Naru.

I would always come back to him.

It was crazy and bizarre moment, we were going to die and all I could think about was that I was kissing Naru, and he was kissing me back!

Naru pulled back, ending the kiss and I was breathless. I saw a flash of grey in my peripherals when the Pishacha moved and I tensed, readying for the impact.

For the first time, in a long time, I was completely content. I was ready and prepared to die - prepared for that final blow.

I close my eyes and a tear I hadn't noticed slipped down my cheek. I tasted the saltiness on my mouth as I waited for the pain.

My heart was beating hard, black panic threatened to crush me. I forced myself to calm down and remember my last moments were with Naru. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Suddenly, the warmth of Naru against me was gone. I snapped my eyes open and noticed the Pishacha was gone too.

"What -" I breathed, hardly able to form a sentence. Naru was already moving and pulling me along.

"It left," he said. "We need to get out of here. I don't know if you broke through to it or how long it will stay gone for."

Naru lead the way to the door that lead outside. I cradled my arm for support, winching with every movement that caused my shoulder to tense. I had nearly forgotten about it when we were cornered. I silently thanked what ever God was looking down upon us because somehow we were still alive. The Pishacha, with some change of heart, decided not to kill us.

Maybe it wasn't the Pishacha at all - perhaps Hana had broken through, if only for a split second.

It still would give us time to escape, I thought, as we reached the wide yard. Then, I felt something pull at me, like a tug on my spine.

I remembered what I told Hana when I begged her to break through. This moment, even a couple of minutes, could help us search.

I stopped, putting my heels into the ground. "Wait, we can't leave. The curse can be broken, we have to find Sara's body."

It was the reason Hana broke through. She believed that we could break the curse. We must have been close.

"You've just learnt, now, how to break the curse?" Naru said in a rough voice.

"Sara showed me," I squinted into the night. "When she touched me...I connected with her thoughts. She showed me that her body, not her soul, was the anchor to the curse. I only just figured it out now."

"And you believe her?" Naru asked, skeptically.

"Yes."

Naru quieted, absorbing the information I gave him. I tried to make out the obscure surroundings in the night.

Suddenly, there was one detail that jumped out at me - a tree. A tree that I had witnessed two bodies being hung on in a vision.

"There," I said, pointing towards the tree. "Sara's body was there the night she was murdered."

We were going to end this. They had given us a chance, had put their hope in me that I could end all their suffering and I couldn't disappoint them. I had to end this - for Sara and Hana.

I didn't know how far Hana had taken that creature before it fought back to the surface. We had mere minutes at the most and I was going to make every second count.

Naru and I moved towards the tree until I felt a hard tug on my spiritual bond. It was like standing in an electric field, an ancient and horrible sensation buzzed around me. I dropped to my knees, Naru did the same and we used our hands to begin digging into the earth. I made sure to protect my left arm, which was throbbing.

The ground was hard and compacted when we finally broke through the surface layer. My fingers and arms were singing with pain but I kept digging.

"She's here," I told Naru as we continued to dig deeper. "She has to be."

My blood roared in my ears and pure panic controlled me now. Dig, dig, dig…

Then, I hit something hard.

"Here!" I cried. "Naru, there's something here!"

I worked fast to uncover it, carefully working around the large, solid mass.

After what felt like hours of digging, I pulled out a human skull.

The woods around us were so quiet that I could hear my ragged breathing. It was almost impossible that we were sitting here with this object, especially when it was so important. I expected someone, or something, to come and try to attack me. I expected Sara to come out from shadows and laugh in my face as she took the artifact.

But none of that happened. There was only silence in the night and, slowly, I stood up.

"This is it." I looked at Naru. "Now we just have to break it."

I turned it over in my hands and I noticed how old and small it was. I felt queasy when I pressed my thumbs into the eye sockets and with as much strength as I could muster I pushed down - hard.

I pushed and pushed but it wouldn't give.

"I can't break it." I breathed, looking up at Naru. He beckoned for it, also trying to push into the eye sockets. Not even a crack sounded in the air.

Neither of us could break this with physical strength and even though it looked fragile, it was as tough as concrete.

Maybe only a spiritual power could break it. We didn't have the time (or the convenience) to put me into a trance again so I could try in the spirit realm.

We were running out of options and had the key to the curse in our hands.

I thought back to all this time that I had restricted my powers and regretted it. If I had just been strong enough I could have beat the depression. I wouldn't have had to resort to using pills and I would have been able to practice using my gifts. We wouldn't be in this situation right now.

Instead, I was weak. And now, because of my weakness, I was hurting all those that had believed in me.

Naru, Gene, Hana and Sara. All of our friends that were worried.

They believed in me and I wasn't able to help them.

Feeling frustrated, I felt my cheeks flare with the heat of embarrassment, shame and guilt. I felt my body go numb.

If Sara and Hana had to live another day in this curse, it was because of me.

I was so fixated on my thoughts that when a familiar voice said, "Noll" I didn't comprehend it.

Naru stood up and that broke me out of my trance. I hadn't sensed Gene's entrance, who was standing in front of us.

I looked back and forth from the twins.

For a moment I thought I had taken myself onto that spiritual plane during those intense emotions I had felt. However, the pale look on Naru's face told me that this was, indeed, happening right now.

Naru stood very still. "Eugene."

My heart sunk. This was real - this was real and Naru could see Gene.

"It's Gene to you, little brother." Gene said with a sad smile.

"H-how can you...be here right now?" I asked, confused and dumbfounded.

"This spot has a high amount of residual energy. You feel it don't you?" Gene asked me and I nodded, still in awe that he was actually here.

"I don't have much time though." Gene looked back to his brother.

Something fundamentally important hit me - Naru has not seen Gene for who knows how many years. Who knew how shocked he was to see his older brother.

I saw the reels of control he exerted on himself. He kept his hands still even though I could see them twitching to move. His shoulders were straight and his cool gaze was on Gene - pupils flared. As if he couldn't quite believe it himself.

"Mai can't break the skull on her own," Gene said, speaking to Naru. "But we can if we do it together."

Naru was breathing very carefully. "That's not possible."

"The bond isn't broken," Gene said in a different tone. As if there were conversations, or arguments, they had frequently. "It will work, you just have to try."

"And when the Pishacha, or Sara, come running back the second we attempt to destroy that thing? Who will protect Mai if I can't control -" Naru clenched down on his jaw, air hissing out of his teeth. His hands had turned into fists by his sides. He didn't need to finish because Gene and I knew exactly what he meant.

Naru liked control, and the last time he used those powers he had lost that control on himself.

"Mai won't be protected unless this thing is dead. The infection can't hurt her if the curse doesn't exist." Gene walked over to his brother and I could hardly believe that I was seeing the twins at the same time.

I could hear the frustration in Gene's voice, a tone I had never heard him use before. "We're running out of time, Noll."

They looked completely identical, especially now that Naru opted to wear black clothing. It was amazing and I realized this might be the only time I would ever see them together again.

Gene held out his hand and waited for Naru. He was teetering on the decision as he made it, turned it over, made it again.

His breath was unsteady when he reached out and took Gene's hands.

A beautiful white light began glowing from their linked hands. It was such a wonderful light, full of joy and happiness and content. Naru closed his eyes and then I felt the air changed. Wind whipped around us, grabbing at my clothes and hair. It so was strong and this feeling that was pressing down on me was so intense. I remember feeling this once before, the one time Naru had used this power on a God during a case.

I could feel the power almost reach it's potential, but a glimmer of dark movement from behind the twins caught my attention. I moved on my own, only half thinking. I had to protect Naru no matter what. No one would disrupt them.

Both of the twins now had their eyes closed and they were close to being ready to use that power. Lin had told me how it worked once, how Naru would harbor the power and bounce it back to Gene multiple times until Naru could amplify it into a precise energy.

I didn't know how long that amplification process took but I knew one thing - I couldn't let anything, or anyone, bother them. I wanted to be the one to do that for them.

So, I forced my tired legs to move and I went beyond that light of goodness into the night. The Pishacha and Sara rounded the house. It was the first time I had seen them together and not trying to kill me.

They watched the light growing behind me.

"It's over," I told them. "No one is going to hurt you anymore."

I looked at Hana who was still in the form of that horrible creature. "I knew you were strong enough. Thank you, you gave us enough time to find it."

The Pshacha stood, unmoving at Sara's side. Sara didn't say anything either, but she turned her attention on it.

Their eyes met and it was like...they understood.

They were waiting for it to end.

"And thank you. You showed me how to break it." I said, shifting my gaze to Sara.

A tear slipped down Sara's face, "it won't work."

"What?"

"The curse can't be broken."

I blinked, confused. "Why?"

She gulped and for the first time in a long time she looked like a vulnerable fourteen year old girl. She let out an unsteady breath.

"It'll only be stalled until you find the -"

The warning that Sara was on the verge of finished was abruptly stopped when Naru and Gene exploded with power.

They used that powerful, beautiful light and blasted a clearing through the trees - destroying the skull. Destroying that horrible, awful tree too. There was a blinding light in the area, creating a glow all around me. In the moment the light exploded around us, I saw nothing at all and squinted my eyes to look for the figures that had been in front of me moments ago - they were gone.

I didn't know where they went, or what to make of Sara's final words...but I hoped that this was what we needed to do regardless of Sara's final warning about the curse.

I hoped it was over.

However, when the light faded, I felt a horrible wave of nausea pass through me. My head felt like it was going to explode, the world tilting, and I fell to my knees and vomited on the ground.

It was as if something were passing through me. I couldn't stop the retching and I gripped the dirt when it slowed, panting for breath.

My insides felt like they were being ripped out. And my head...oh God, my head felt like it was being pressed into the concrete by a semi-truck.

I dropped my head and hunched my shoulders, waiting for the pain to pass. Soon, a strong and cool hand pressed into my back.

"Are you alright?" Naru said. "It's over."

"I-I'm fine... where's Gene?" I tried looking around the clearing.

"He's gone. Can you stand?"

"I don't know."

I didn't feel okay, something felt very wrong and my body was responding. As Naru tried to help me stand, I felt that buildup in my throat and retched again. Naru did not balk away. Instead, he stayed sitting with me, with a hand on my back until the last of the sickness passed.

I leaned back on my knees, breathing hard. Nausea slowly started to rise in my gut again and I forced it down.

"Mai, what happened -"

"Naru!" A distant voice said, interrupting Naru. "Mai!"

Our heads both snapped in the direction of a voice, where we saw figures begin to take shape and we saw flashlights shine from through the trees.

There was no way no way the team could have found us. No way, and yet the voices grew louder.

"Can you hear that too?" I whispered, hardly believing it.

It was impossible but if the curse was broken, maybe it wasn't so impossible. I had found Masako using trance. Perhaps without the curse blocking us from the physical world, we could be found similarly. "Is it really them?"

"We're here over here," Naru said into the darkness.

I watched, hardly breathing, as those lights came closer to us and began shining in our faces.

"Are you two okay?" The voice said, it was Bou-san.

I felt tears rising as I nodded my head, feeling relieved and finally safe. For a moment recalled how close Naru and I came to dying. How close we had come to being lost in these woods forever.

I couldn't stop the tears from falling when I saw Bou-sans face. "You found us."

Bou-san smiled, "we wouldn't have been able to if you hadn't told Masako where you were."

"Where's Lin?" Naru asked.

Another voice answered, "right here. What happened to -" Lin couldn't stop the shakiness from entering his voice. "Naru did you use -"

"It doesn't matter," Naru said. "We need to get Mai medical attention, now."

Naru stood up, his warm handing leaving my back.

It was Bou-san who took off his jacket and swung it around me. I had lost Naru's sometime during the fray.

"You must be freezing. Where are you hurt?" he whispered when he knelt down beside me.

"My arm." I said, stretching it out. "My arm is -"

I stopped and stared at my skin in confusion.

"What the hell," Bou-san jerked back to see the full extent of my arm too. "What is that?"

"What's wrong?" Naru moved back over. He had grabbed a flashlight and shone it onto me.

No one said anything as we stared.

My arm was no longer on the verge of some kind of infection. Instead, there were swirls of black ink where the cuts were. Not a design, I realized. There was a square outline and three lines of an ancient looking text now occupying the place where the three cuts would have been.

"We need to get out of here," Lin was the voice of reason. "Hara-san and Matsuzaki-san are waiting in the car. I've arranged a flight for us tonight."

Slowly, I looked up at Naru who looked pale. His eyes met mine and he didn't say anything when he turned his back and began walking away. Lin followed.

"Come on," Bou-san used an arm to help lift me up. "Don't worry, you're going to be okay."

Bou-san carried me back. From behind us, I watched the cabin disappear in the darkness.

I recalled what Sara was trying to tell me. Or rather, what she did not finish telling me.

The curse can't be broken. It'll only be stalled until you find the -

As we left that cabin, and the horrors there, I knew that it would never disappear from my memories.

^.^

We waited at the airport for our flight. The team had decided not to heed my message to Masako and instead tried to find us. Lin had said that since the two spirits seemed so fixated on us, they could find us with his Shiki. They packed up all of the stuff, leaving most of the equipment at the prison because they deemed it too dangerous to try and go back. Then, they came to get us.

We were now on a flight out of this horrible place and I hoped we would never come back.

This wasn't the first case we had left unsolved. This certainly wasn't going to be the last time we heard about this case.

I opted to sit in a cluster of chairs alone on the private plane. I needed the rest and just wanted some time to think about everything that happened on this case.

The biggest thing was this mark. We didn't know what it meant, or why it was there. And, it was written in a language none of us (even the all-knowing Naru) could understand. Plus, Lin suspected it might be written in cipher.

I was determined to figure out exactly what it meant but in the meantime I tried not to worry about it and other thoughts drifted into my mind about that night.

I kissed Naru. It was when I thought we were going to die, but a kiss is still a kiss. Especially for a girl who has a boyfriend waiting for her back at home. Sure, maybe I kissed Naru because a selfish part of me has always wanted to kiss Naru. It was still not fair.

It wasn't fair to feel like this for someone else when I was with Lucien.

Lucien.

I hadn't even given him much thought in all of this.

What would he say when he found out I kissed another guy? Not just any guy, but Naru. He has been very patient with me through this. I could keep it a secret but I felt sick at the very thought of that. I couldn't keep this secret from him.

I also couldn't keep him hanging on when I was not fully committed to him. That was one thing I learned from this trip.

I wasn't ready to let go of Naru.

What a mess.

I hadn't noticed Naru come up to me until he sat in the seat across from me.

Had this been in the beginning of the case I would have let all those frustrated feelings become unleashed on him and tell him to get away from me. But, his presence was welcoming...soothing even. Naru and I looked worse for wear, neither of us had slept, or bathed, for almost two days. We were still covered in dirt from digging for Sara's remains, and I could, literally, smell our stench from the other side of the plane. Naru did not seem to care as he remained seated across from me.

"When we get back to Tokyo I want to have everyone write a full report on what happened here." He said, not looking at me but gazing outside. The sun was just beginning to rise and we were nearly home.

I nodded, too tired to say anything else.

Naru's gaze shifted, looking down at my arm that was now covered with a sweater.

"We'll figure out what that is," said Naru.

When he looked at me, I knew that he meant it. Naru always had a deep loyalty that lied within him. I had full confidence that if anyone could figure this out, it would be him.

"I know we will," I said.

Naru did not move to get up and leave like he normally would. He just sat there, staring out of the window. I wondered if he was thinking about anything else beyond the mark on my arm. Perhaps he was thinking about Gene.

Then, it occurred to me he saw Gene. It was only for a moment while they used their power to break the skull but still...that was big. Huge. I made a note to talk to him about it when we landed. I also made a note to talk to Gene about it too, since the Davis brother's seemed to suck at conveying their emotions and feelings to anyone.

There were so many questions, so many things that I needed to figure out.

Exhaustion hit me when I leaned my head back and sleep fully, and soundly, took me under.

The end of our most deadliest case was over.

And, I had a strange feeling we weren't quite done here yet.

^.^