Ayako whipped out her phone and dialed a number, but Naru gave her a scalding look. "Do you really think we're going to have reception in a haunted place this one time?"
Judging by Ayako's distressed expression, Mai could tell that he was right. She stood up abruptly from where she'd been sitting on the floor, determined. "We have to go get them," she declared. "They're relatively safe while they're outside the house, since the thing doesn't like to leave according to my dream, but if they come in here unprotected, not expecting…" She shivered.
"Let's not panic," Naru reprimanded upon hearing her anxious tone. "They haven't arrived yet. Lin and I will go to pick them up. We'll be well protected enough by Lin's shiki. The rest of you should stay here. Make sure and replace the barriers on the doorway once we've gone, and again after we come back in."
He turned and began toward the door, Lin following like a larger shadow. Before Mai knew what she was doing, she was following them, telling Naru firmly, "I've seen the thing and I might be able to sense it. I'm coming with you. Don't try to argue with me."
Naru raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, but Lin beckoned her along. After checking that Ayako and Monk had barriers at the ready, the three opened the door and stepped outside. Lin called upon his glowing shiki, which circled them protectively, but not before Mai felt the horrid presence nearby. Her knees almost buckled, and Naru calmly grabbed her elbow to stabilize her.
Mai hated that she blushed, even when she was terrified.
The entire house was icy cold and smelled faintly of roses, just as it had been in Mai's dream. The brunette felt comforted by the light of the shiki that were protecting their little group, but the long hallways they passed through were still forbidding and ominous; Mai half expected the spirit to jump out at them every time they passed a corner. Luckily, even in this huge house, it wasn't far to the front door, and they somehow made it there and out onto the front porch without interruption from the malice-filled presence.
Once they were outside, Mai could breathe freely again, and sat down on the steps where she and Naru had been not long ago. Naru and Lin, however, did not sit down, instead choosing to lurk by the doorway like stress-filled shadows. Despite the late autumn wind, the air outside was significantly warmer than the air inside, and Mai's shivering shoulders unclenched.
They didn't have long to wait before a taxi pulled into the large driveway, and John and Masako clambered out with small suitcases in tow.
"What on earth are you guys doing out here so early?"
John's familiar accent was like music to Mai's traumatized ears, and she swept him into a hug. She would have done the same to Masako, who also looked rather confused, but she was afraid she would get a sharp slap to the face if she attempted that.
John looked surprised, but only responded by returning the gesture. Letting him go, Mai hastily returned to Naru's side, followed closely by Masako.
"Is something wrong?" the medium asked coolly, her eyes fixated on Naru's. Mai felt the usual twinge of jealousy and annoyance, but overlooked it in the face of the present danger.
"This house is not very safe at the moment, so we came to escort you to the base," Lin explained, causing Masako to unwillingly tear her eyes from Naru's to look at him.
"It's so dangerous that you think it'd take us out in the time it takes us to walk to base?" John asked, clearly shocked. "That's pretty rare. What exactly are we dealing with?"
Naru and Lin both looked pointedly at Mai, who shifted uneasily. "I only know that it's really bad," she muttered; she didn't really want to relive the dream right now, as it was hard enough to keep the unsettling images from flashing through her mind already.
Naru, evidently sensing this and deciding to be nice for some reason, added, "We can elaborate more when we're back with Monk and Ayako. I don't want to leave them alone for too long. What we are dealing with is not a joke." He glanced at Lin, who nodded to confirm that his shiki were still ready to go. "Let's go, then."
The instant that they stepped beyond the front door, Masako nearly passed out and was caught by John. Naru didn't stop, and John half-carried Masako along behind him with Mai following tensely.
Again, they made it through the hallways without any disturbance other than the staggering scent and unnatural temperature. When they reached the door to the base, however, Mai instinctively knew that something was very wrong.
She charged ahead of the others and busted through the door, heedless of the peril; she gagged at the even more overpowering smell of roses. The others hastened after her, Naru hissing at her for rushing ahead, but everyone stopped just inside the doorway, struck with a sudden inability to speak.
Each and every monitor was still well lit, but all of the screens were half-smashed in, causing them to show nothing more than freakish arrays of color and emit eerie, high-pitched noises. All of their carefully set up equipment lay broken on the ground. For a long, suspenseful moment, Mai's eyes couldn't find Monk and Ayako in the dreadful, pulsating light, but she managed to spot them. Both of them were in the corner of the room, leaning inanimately against the wall.
Sensing that she was about to go rushing to their aid, Naru seized Mai by the wrist and whispered to the group, "Everyone stay still."
Masako shook her head, clearly queasy and very pale even in the current lighting. "It-it is not here anymore. It has moved on. I can feel it moving around elsewhere-" She actually gagged, and John supported her more firmly. "It is-unlike anything I've ever-"
She hadn't finished her sentence when Mai violently broke Naru's grip and bolted to the side of her still friends. Neither showed any signs of movement, but when she anxiously watched their chests, she could see the comforting rise and fall of their breathing. Lin, who had followed her, checked their pulses and then looked back at the rest of them.
"They appear to just be sleeping," the tall man said in a comfortingly collected voice, and hoisted Monk onto his back, his dark hair covering most of his face. "We need to find a safer place to set up base-we don't know enough about this spirit yet to know whether it has poisoned the atmosphere in here somewhere, or made a hole in the remaining defenses that we will be unable to detect before it sneaks back in." He paused for a moment, looking around him as if taking a head count. "Mai, support Masako. John, get Ayako. Naru will gather whatever supplies he can find for creating barriers and other protection. We need to move quickly."
"I will need either Miss Hara or Mai to tell me where in the house the thing is and what direction it is moving in so that we can choose a secure place to set up," Naru informed them.
Mai shook her head slowly, trying to contain the panic that was threatening to rise in her throat and suffocate her. "I can't tell where it is. I think I may have felt it pass by when we left-" She swallowed. Of course, she'd felt it. She was so stupid-she hadn't said anything, hadn't stopped-it had slipped through just as Lin had summoned his shiki, although she hadn't known at the time that the sensation she felt was it actually coming so near to her-it was her fault, then, all her fault that Monk and Masako were-
"Miss Hara?"
Naru's impatient voice snapped her back to the present.
Masako managed to bring herself around long enough to say, "It's-it's in the opposite corner of the house right now, it's very far away, I don't think it likes the shiki-a room very close to here should be safe-"
After Naru quickly salvaged remaining materials from the wreckage of their equipment and the others made the necessary arrangements to carry their coworkers, the weakened group moved into the room directly across the hall. Lin immediately began writing protection barriers, his shiki guarding the walls, ceiling, and floor as he worked. With Ayako and Monk out of commission, Lin was the only one that could complete the task, and Mai watched him worriedly; she remembered how tiring it was for him. It may have been her imagination, but she thought she saw him drowsily shake his head a couple of times, as if to keep himself alert.
When he had at last finished, and the barriers were put up around the new room, those who were still able tried to make Monk, Ayako, and Masako comfortable. They'd abandoned the sleeping pads in the old base, but Mai, Naru, and Lin offered up their jackets as pillows for their ailing companions. Mai hoped that their own jackets would keep the sleeping ones warm enough, but was concerned about Masako, who was in her usual attire and unprotected from the cold. She took off her overshirt to cover Masako up, and as a result was left shivering and shaking in her camisole. As her teeth began to chatter, Naru gave her a sideways glance, but didn't do anything.
It was only another half hour before the lights from Lin's shiki abruptly disappeared, leaving the room pitch black other than the light of the waning moon through the small window. Mai gasped when it happened, but Naru seemed unaffected; he checked on his bodyguard, who had fallen asleep sitting against the wall, but did not appear to be concerned.
Once again finding herself to be effectively alone with Naru, Mai stared down at her knees, not wanting to make eye contact-although it'd be rather difficult to even do so in this dim lighting. She shivered yet again, wishing that she'd listened to her inner voice when it had told her to wear more layers, as cases sometimes got chilly.
She didn't even notice that Naru had approached until he sat down beside her, utterly silent and expressionless; even if it were brightly lit, Mai doubted that she could read what was in his dark eyes at the moment. She was justifiably surprised by his movement, but didn't say anything, not wanting to break the unnerving quiet; she felt that if she said something now, the volatile nervous energy in the room would somehow snap.
Naru was sitting very close to her, and she could feel the heat coming off of his body in the biting cold. Leaning slightly away from the wall, he carefully and deliberately unbuttoned his overshirt, draping it instead over her shoulders. He sat back against the wall again, still not saying a single word or betraying any hint of emotion; Mai, however, could only stare at him, hardly able to process what had happened.
This was so uncharacteristic of Naru; everything from the kind and intimate gesture to the sight of Naru in a simple white undershirt seemed surreal, but she didn't question it. Instead, she looked away and hid the redness in her cheeks, an easy feat in the darkness, and hugged the shirt closer to her skin.
The two of them stayed like this for what seemed like hours, but Mai knew it was probably only a few minutes before the newfound warmth and comfort lulled her into an unwilling sleep yet again.
When she opened her eyes in the dream world, Mai found that she was still in the room she'd fallen asleep in, which was unusual. Perhaps, she thought, it was all of the barriers.
What was even more unusual was that she could see her own body; she had slumped sideways a little, her head on an unmoving Naru's shoulders. She thought that she saw Naru turn his head ever so slightly, lips upturning a bit, but it was more than likely just that she couldn't see well in this environment. Still, she felt butterflies in her stomach and struggled to quell them.
Mai straightened up, trying to focus, and looked around at her dream world, which was dimly lit by what she thought of as the firefly lights. As always, walls provided no real visible barrier, and her wide brown eyes roved over the entirety of the house until she found the malevolent spirit.
As Masako had said, it was nearly as far away from them as it could be; maybe it didn't realize the shiki were gone, or maybe it had other business to attend to. Mai couldn't possibly know which. The room she was in was utterly empty of any spirits, and Gene was nowhere to be found. Mai supposed he probably didn't have his full strength back up yet and hoped he'd stay away, just to be safe.
Her gaze was still fixed on the black, nebulous thing when she noticed something odd.
There was something else near the spirit-no, a couple of somethings. They seemed to be spirits, but they didn't give off a strong glow like Gene, just weak sparks in the intense darkness. She couldn't make out what they were from here, but when she heard a cry from their direction, her heart seemed to stop.
That couldn't be….Monk and Ayako?
As soon as the thought occurred to her, she took off running. When she got to the walls of the room, she was thrown back with a small flash of light.
The barriers….I can't get through them!
Hoping against hope that it would work, she raced to the window and hoisted herself up as best she could. The effort was successful, and she was able to fall through the glass and outside. Once there, she went in through a different wall and continued as quickly as she could.
The closer she got to the spirit, the more clearly she could see it; the thing was looming over the spirits of Monk and Ayako, who seemed to be attempting to fight back. She could faintly hear Monk reciting his mantra, but it didn't seem to be very effective; she thought she heard him stuttering and pausing in his chant. Ayako, meanwhile, was quivering on the ground behind him, clutching her arm as if nursing an injury.
It took her at least a full minute to reach them running as fast as she could, and she burst into the room without considering it first. Ayako gasped upon seeing her, which distracted Monk, who stopped chanting.
As soon as he did so, the thing lunged at them, but Ayako seemed to have come to her senses; she grabbed Monk's arm and jumped out of the way in the nick of time, and the thing twisted so fast that it was barely visible.
Not knowing what else to do, Mai raised her hands and slashed them in the familiar pattern to perform the nine cuts. "Rin! Pyo! To! Sha! Kai! Jin! Retsu! Zai! Zen!"
The thing was blasted backward a mere millimeter from Ayako's face, giving a shriek and releasing a vent of noxious, rose-scented grey smoke. Acting purely on adrenaline now, Mai seized Monk and Ayako by the wrists, pulling them along behind her. "Go!"
Both of them obliged and sprinted after her as the thing wailed behind them. Ayako stumbled a couple of times and was stabilized by Monk, but they were making good ground. Terror rushed through Mai when she felt the thing's presence again and knew it was following close behind them, but just then, they flew threw the outer wall of the house and onto the cold ground. All three of them stumbled and scraped their knees, but Mai urged them on. She couldn't tell whether it was following them any more; it didn't feel as close, but from what Gene had told her, it could leave if it really wanted to.
They reached the outside wall of their little base, and Monk and Ayako both turned to her so fast that they almost fell over; when Mai indicated the window, Monk hoisted first her and then Ayako through it, pulling himself through last.