All three of them collapsed on the floor, spluttering and coughing as the thing gave another ear-splitting shriek from the hallway outside the base.

Ayako indeed had an odd black wound on her arm, which seeped a viscous, dark liquid. She and Monk both looked very alarmed to see their bodies lying on the floor, and Monk turned to Mai, his chest heaving.

"Mai, what the hell?" he panted. "What are you doing here? What's going on?"

Mai shook her head, also breathing heavily. She felt her heart starting to slow down, but her throat was dry. "I don't know. I don't know how you two are in my dream world-I don't understand what's happening. But I don't think it's going to follow us outside at the moment and it can't get through the barriers, so we should be okay for now."

Monk gave a heavy sigh, obviously trying to calm himself enough to take control of the situation. "That monster struck Ayako on the arm, and it's been hurting her a lot. If you hadn't come and grabbed us, I think it wouldn't gotten us both." He looked ashamed. "I was too confused, and I didn't recite my mantra well-I almost got us both killed."

Mai shook her head. "It's okay now." She was still shaking, and Monk noticed. Before he could say anything, however, Ayako spoke up.

"Are we dead?"

Monk glanced at her a little too quickly, but Mai told her, "No, we've been checking you guys and we think you're just asleep." She pondered it for a moment, and added, "I think we should try to get you back in your bodies. It's too dangerous to stay like this-I don't know how being in this state for long periods of time would affect us."

"How do we do that?" snapped Ayako, and Mai knew from her irritable tone that her pain was probably flaring. "We're not exactly experts on this, Mai."

Mai knew she was right, but she didn't know what to do, and panic was threatening to engulf her yet again. She forced herself to breath slowly.

"We just have to experiment," she responded. "I don't know, try going over to your bodies or something."

Ayako looked doubtful, but Monk tried it, and after a small flash of light, his spirit disappeared into his body successfully. He woke up instantly, sitting up and looking around in alarm; Mai knew he couldn't see them anymore, and was panicking. Ayako followed his lead and woke up as well, gasping. Mai wasn't sure if it would work for her, as she hadn't been able to find her body in her sleep before, but she had to try. She saw that Naru had noticed the activity of Monk and Ayako and was gently removing her head from his shoulder, and she attempted the jump into her body; she felt a momentary rush of warmth as she was reunited with her physical form.

She straightened up so fast that her head hit Naru, who was halfway through standing up, in the face; he stumbled slightly, glared at her, and continued over toward Monk and Ayako. Lin, John, and Masako were also awakened by the sudden noisiness.

Mai slowly rose and followed Naru, her body aching. The two whose spirits had just been returned were both sitting upright and seemed unharmed, other than a large purple bruise on Ayako's injured arm. Mai breathed a sigh of relief, almost unable to believe that they'd all escaped unscathed.

"What happened?" Naru asked sharply, and it was Monk who answered.

"That thing must have slipped in here when you opened the door," the blond man answered, shivering slightly in the cold. "I felt this chill hit me and suddenly, I was outside my body, and it was holding me. I managed to break away from it and run, though."

"The same thing happened to me," Ayako added. "It dragged me out of my body and threw me against the wall. I got the sense it would have killed me then and there if it hadn't been distracted by Monk running about."

"We managed to evade it for a while, but it had us pretty well backed into a corner when Mai showed up," Monk admitted, his face rather red. "I'm sorry to say that I was too flustered to protect us properly. She used the nine cuts and brought us back. Additionally, neither Ayako nor I could really see anything before she showed up-it was too dark, and we had run away blindly without being able to see where we were going. It was hard to even see the monster, whatever that was, although it was much blacker than its surroundings. Mai seemed to be able to see just fine, though, and led us back and through the window-the walls blocked us out. She really saved us."

Mai thought to herself that they were all awfully lucky to have escaped at all, especially with her being the one who'd come to their aid; she was honestly surprised that she'd managed not to fall on her face and get them all killed, as would be her normal tendency.

She became uncomfortably aware that everyone was staring at her, and she cleared her throat as quietly as she could. Naru finally broke the silence, his face illuminated only by a thin beam of moonlight.

"We do know a few things, at least. Firstly, we know that this this attacks by removing one's spirit from one's body and then attacking the spirit directly. It is probable that the spirit cannot do real damage to a physical body, and needs to drag the spirit out of the victim's body to make it more vulnerable. Additionally, it does not seem to mind attacking multiple targets simultaneously." He tilted his head back a bit as he continued onward, seeming to contemplate the ceiling.

"Secondly, we know that Mai's spiritual abilities allow her to see and interact with the dream or spirit world in a way that the rest of us cannot. This means that the rest of us are probably relatively helpless in spirit form as far as finding our way back to this room goes. It also means that Mai is the only one who will be able to intentionally interact with the wraith aside from those who have been attacked and had their spirits removed. Thirdly, we know that the barriers placed on the surfaces of this room block all spirits from entering and exiting without physical form, including our own."

He turned back to face them drearily as he concluded. "Lastly, we know that those in spirit form can have an effect on this specter using exorcism and defense methods."

The others listened in silence, waiting for him to finish.

"No one leaves this room without the protection of Lin's shiki when it is dark. Miss Hara, keep a constant eye on where this thing is-do not lose sight of it. Ms. Matsuzaki, you'll need to make additional barriers-Lin's won't last forever, and neither will his stamina. As soon as the sun rises, we'll be attempting to exorcise it, so sleep while you can."

Lin fell back asleep almost immediately, as did Masako, but everyone else sat in silence. Mai figured that the sun would be out in an hour or two, and anyway, she was getting rather tired of continuously falling back asleep. She was a bit concerned about Naru, who had returned to Lin's side; as far as she knew, he hadn't slept a wink all night, and it didn't look as if he intended to do so now. She understood, of course, that this case was very odd and stressful, but it wasn't like Naru to let anything faze him so easily.

To be fair, though, she herself had spent the entirety of the night either screaming, shivering, or holding her breath in terror. She supposed she couldn't blame him for being a little restless.

They waited until the sun was high enough to shine in the windows before they made a move.

Naru-to whom Mai had returned the borrowed overshirt-didn't wake Lin, but he had John wake Masako, who was looking much better. As Mai followed Monk, John, Naru, and Masako out into the house, she thought she knew why; the smell of roses had diminished significantly, and the air was almost back up to a normal temperature. All the same, Naru left Ayako with Lin as a precaution; he obviously didn't want his bodyguard to be disturbed in his slumber.

They were assigned different parts of the house; Naru went with Masako and John to the second floor to begin purifying, while Monk and Mai were assigned the bottom floor.

As much as she would like to pretend that she was helping, all Mai could really do was watch over Monk as he recited his mantras, his eyes closed and his face serene. She wished with all her heart that she could believe these exorcisms would be successful, but when she felt the warmth of the sunlight through the window on her skin, she somehow knew that the thing had long since hidden where they couldn't touch it: the cellar. She sincerely doubted that their exorcisms out in these bright, warm rooms would do much good.

Still, they had to try. It took hours for them to finish their work. It was nearly dinnertime when the five of them met up at the base, all exhausted. After some consideration, Naru decided to give the surviving food left in the old base a try, as everyone was starving and it was all they'd brought; it took only a few moments to transfer it to the room where Lin was, surprisingly, still asleep. Before Mai and the others could even think about starting in on their meals, however, Naru gave them all a rather pointed glare, and everyone but Lin and Ayako followed him outside again.

"We haven't gotten rid of it, have we, Miss Hara?" he said in a low voice. Masako shook her head slowly, and Naru's eyes hardened. "I thought so. That was all useless, then. Is it hiding in the cellar, as Mai said it would?"

Masako's smooth brow furrowed for a mere moment before she answered. "I believe so."

"Then that's where we're going," Naru instructed. "It's not dark outside yet, so it will likely not run away from us into the house. John should try first; his exorcism has the best chance of success in this situation, I think. Now-"

"That's really not a good idea," Mai whispered, and Naru silently waited for an explanation. "It's just that-" Without warning, her dream replayed in her mind again-the dark cellar with its terrible presence, doorless, windowless-it was a death trap. She somehow knew that going in would not end well.

"You don't have to come with us," Naru told her flatly, and turned to leave.

"No way!" Mai shouted at him, angry that he wasn't listening to her. "You didn't see it, you don't understand. We can't go after it, Naru! It'll attack us all!" When the pale boy did not respond, she grabbed his sleeve and yanked at it like a frightened child. "Please, Naru-"

He did not make a move to physically break her grip, but when he turned and looked at her, his eyes were stony. "What would you like us to do, Mai? Run from it in fear? Are we not here to exorcise it? Should we give up and allow it to kill anyone who dares enter this place?" The entire group visibly cringed at his icy tone.

Mai shook her head, hating the way that tears were gathering in her eyes, hating herself for her weakness but unwilling to agree with him. "There has to be a smarter way to do this than walking into that cellar. We can think of a plan, I know we can." More silence. She released her hold on Naru's arm, her knees trembling. "I know that this isn't what we're supposed to do."

Something in Naru's face softened. "We'll leave it alone for tonight," he told her.

Monk, John, and Masako all seemed relieved as well, and when they closed the door to the base, it was with a sense of finality. Lin was awake by now, although he still looked weary. When he spoke, however, his voice was as strong and even as ever.

"No luck, I take it?"

"No," Naru answered, and took the bread Lin was handing to him. "It seems that we need to think of a safe way to get rid of it."

The room was silent as everyone distributed and ate the sorry meal. Apparently, Mai thought, no one else was having any brilliant ideas about how to exorcise this thing, either. Lin did take the opportunity to add a seal to the window, just in case the thing decided to go outside in order to access it.

After a while, when the sky was starting to darken, Ayako spoke up.

"Mai, you said you let it out through a door or something, right? Can you close it back in if you go back into your dream?"

"I don't even know how I opened it in the first place or what it was," Mai admitted shamefacedly. "I was trapped with it, and then the door just...appeared."

"It probably took advantage of your astral projection to break a seal of some sort that had been placed on something in the cellar," Naru said. "You thought you were opening the door, but there may have been something there that you accidentally removed. If that's the case, though, it may be impossible to tell how it was originally sealed."

"You think someone else trapped this thing in the cellar before?" John asked, widening his clear blue eyes. "Like they couldn't exorcise it and tried sealing it instead?"

Naru shook his head. "It's impossible to know for sure, especially as Lin and Mai did not observe any physical evidence of a seal when placing the camera in the cellar. We could look in the morning, but I doubt we'd find any evidence; I'm sure that malignant spirit will have done away with any traces of it by now." He stared off into space, apparently deep in thought. "Mai, you said it didn't want to leave the house. Do you know why?"

"Ge--I think," Mai corrected quickly, but not before Naru narrowed his eyes slightly, "that it is attached to something inside the house, and doesn't want to go too far away from it."

"Sounds like a sensitive spot-something that it wouldn't want us to find," Monk considered.

Masako, who had said nothing for quite a while, added, "If that is the case, I would assume that this object lies within the cellar somewhere, out of sight."

"Maybe we can use whatever it is to force the spirit outside the house, where I can exorcise it," Ayako said, a fresh note of confidence coloring her tone. "There's a grove of trees not a fifteen minutes' walk away. If we can lead it out there, I can deal with it."

For a moment, the mood in the darkening room lightened considerably, but Naru squashed their hopes promptly. "How do you suggest we obtain whatever this object is? During the day, going into the cellar would be equivalent to walking straight into the thing's arms, and during the night, it roams freely through the halls and may attack at any moment. In order to find whatever this is, we will need an extended period of time to search the cellar uninterrupted."

This stumped everyone, and they descended into uneasy silence once more.

A thought occurred to Mai-a thought that she was one hundred percent sure she would regret sharing, but she had to do it, as it was the only idea they had.

"I could distract it long enough for you all to search tonight," she said, and although her voice shook, her resolve strengthened with each word. "It won't work during the day, because it doesn't have anywhere else to go. At night, though, it comes out. I bet if I'm annoying enough, it'd follow me just about anywhere. I'm sure it won't even notice you guys poking around the cellar if I push its buttons just right. After all, isn't that what I do best? Annoying people?" She gave an unconvincing smile, and knew that no one was fooled by her falsely bright tone; she was sure her heart was pounding loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"That's out of the question," Naru said with a sense of finality, but Mai wasn't done.

"It's the only idea I can think of," she snapped, and instantly felt bad; Naru was just worried about her safety, that's why he rejected her plan-and yet-

And yet, if Mai didn't snap, didn't react with her normal aggression-if she listened to him-he might be able to dissolve her determination again, and then her plan would fail. She had to have her confidence behind her on this.

Naru just glared at her. "No, Mai. It's not funny, and it's not happening."

The others nodded their heads in agreement. "We've never tried a method that dangerous before," John rebuked gently. "When we've done exorcisms in the past, it's always been with a fair amount of certainty that what we're doing is reliable and safe. This plan is neither of those things."

"I don't hear any other ideas," Mai responded irritably, at which everyone looked awkward.

"We could try burning the house again," suggested Monk half-heartedly, but Naru shook his head.

"It's quite likely that burning whatever object it's attached to will not be enough to get rid of the spirit, and if that's the case, destroying this house and that object would be the equivalent of simultaneously freeing and angering it."

Apparently, no one thought that sounded particularly appealing, as no one spoke up to argue.

"I could perform my exorcism from farther away and trust it to draw the spirit out," Ayako said, "but if it is really attracted to something in the cellar that strongly and hides, I don't know whether it will work or not. If we try it and it fails, we'll lose my exorcism as a possible method, since the trees will need to rest after they are used."

Mai knew that she was not alone in thinking that simply leaving was technically an option, but not one of them said it. They couldn't just leave it here to kill whoever stumbled across the place next, especially not when Mai had suggested a viable option.

Naru spoke up rather aggressively. "You know, I could probably-"

"No," snapped Lin and Mai simultaneously. Mai glared at Naru until he sighed and leaned back, conceding.

"Look," the young brunette told them vexedly, "my suggestion is the only one that makes any sense, and unless you all want to spend another day and night here, you'd better decide pretty fast." As Naru opened his mouth, probably to shoot her idea down again, she talked a little more loudly. "I'm not helpless, you know. The nine cuts worked on it before, and I can actually see what I'm doing and where it is in the astral plane. Can anyone else say the same?"

It was extremely unlike her to speak this way about her abilities, and she hated how boastful it sounded, but she had to get her point across. She tucked her hands into her jacket pockets to keep her friends from seeing how they trembled, and took another deep breath.

"I know it sounds dangerous, but I promise that it will be fine. You'll need Masako to warn you if it stops paying attention to me and comes after you guys, though." Or if it kills me and then comes after you.

"I think it's a good idea," Masako said suddenly, as if called to attention by the mention of her name.

For a moment, the thought crossed Mai's mind that Masako was definitely still jealous of her, but she shook her head to clear the idea away; Masako would never suggest she do something dangerous for such a petty reason. As much as the petite medium liked to pretend she felt complete disdain for Mai, she really did care, and Mai knew it. She felt a little bad about the fact that her mind had instinctively jumped to that thought, and felt her face turn red.

An accumulation of protests pulled Mai back to the conversation, and Masako hushed them.

"The spirit's presence is strong enough that I can keep an eye on it," she explained. "I think we should trust Mai to know what she's doing. We don't have any idea how that world works for her, so if she says that she can do it, well-I think she'd know better than we would."

No one was protesting now, although the air felt charged and anxious.

"Well, then, can't Lin send one of his shiki with Mai, to protect her?" John asked hopefully. Monk and Ayako were nodding in agreement, but it was Lin who shook his head.

"It has not thus far bothered with my shiki, most likely because they would not be overly easy to defeat were it to attempt to attack them and because getting to us is not worth the risk of trying to get past them. For that reason, seeing a shiki with Mai would undoubtedly deter it from following her. The entire point of getting it to follow Mai is to distract it, so that it does not realize in the first place what we are doing; I suspect that if it decides not to follow Mai and instead notices what we are up to, it will be more than willing to take on my shiki. I doubt that they will last against a spirit that powerful, as hesitant as it seems to fight them."

"Someone can at least go with Mai, then," Ayako said, clearly grasping at straws now out of concern. "She shouldn't be all alone!"

"I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on letting that thing get close enough to touch me," Mai argued, and, somehow, she laughed. "Do you really want to let it tear your spirit out of your body again? Are you sure it won't take the opportunity to catch you and injure you quickly this time?" She felt more and more guilt at her tone every time she opened her mouth, but she had no idea how to deal with this except to force them to stop arguing with her.

"Not only that," Masako added, "but whoever went with her would be blind and helpless in comparison as well. I do not think Mai's chances of successful escape will be increased by dragging one of us around by the hand."

They all looked to Naru, who didn't speak for several seconds. Finally, however, he admitted defeat. "We'll try it. But Mai, the instant you get into trouble, I'm expecting you to return to this room and to your body. Understand?"

Mai nodded, not sure whether to feel relieved that they'd accepted her idea or terrified that she'd have to follow through with it.

"Mai doesn't always go into her dream world," Masako pointed out suddenly. "Even once she falls asleep, we cannot begin safely until we know that she is around and able to draw it away. Even if I feel it leaving, it may just be wandering rather than chasing Mai, and could come back at any time to attack."

"But Mai can use her astral projection abilities to move things, can't she?" Monk pondered. "She has moved physical objects before in her dreams, right? Maybe she can give us some sort of sign?"

Naru looked at her expectantly, but she felt a lump in her throat. "I've never done it on purpose before. I have no way of knowing whether I can do it when I'm actually trying to do it."

"If you fail, we won't go ahead with the plan," Lin said simply.

Mai nodded. "I guess...I just have to try to sleep?"

No one argued with her; moonlight was flooding through the window again, indicating that it was time to put their plan into action.

"Mai," Lin told her, "I'm going to remove the barriers from one wall of this room and place one of my shiki here to protect it, so that your body can remain here, and so that this place will still be safe when we return. If you need to flee into your body, the shiki will let you through, but will prevent the spirit's entry as best it can. Again, I do not believe it will care enough about catching you to fight them, as it will be dangerous for it."

Mai nodded, forcing herself to breathe in and out slowly and trying not to think about what she was about to do. As much faith as Masako and the others had in her, she knew that it wasn't deserved, and she also knew there was a high chance that she wouldn't succeed. They overestimated her, but then again, that had been her intent, since this plan was the only thing she could think of and she couldn't bear to see any of her friends hurt.

"I'm going to try to sleep, then," she said, unable to keep a slight quiver out of her voice. No one was quite looking her in the eyes.

"Be careful," Naru said, so quietly that she almost didn't catch it.

She nodded her head once, and as Lin and Ayako began taking down the barriers on the wall the door was on, she closed her eyes and willed herself to fall asleep.