So I wanted to update this simply because. *shrugs* Enjoy!
Amy47101 does not own Ghost Hunt. Only Emi.
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File Nine
Emi
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There was a figure behind Saki.
Mai took a small step back from the monitor as Lin clicked through to another screen. This one showed the figure a bit clearer, Saki's head a tan blur just barely visible on screen as she fell down the stairs. It was an old woman, wearing older clothing, maybe dating back a couple decades or so. She had gray hair pulled back in a tight bun, her sharp features seemingly made even more prominent. She stood straight and rigid as she stared down at the falling Saki.
No one really said anything for a moment.
"No offense, Emi," Monk finally said, turning to her. "But is it really smart to be calling this lady a 'damn bitch'?"
"Pssh, do you know what this lady's deal is? I've just figured it out." Emi closed one eye lazily. "She's a coward."
"She seems pretty bold to me." Ayako said with a wave of her hand. "Possessions, floating cups, pushing people down stairs? It's almost like she's mocking us."
"Nope. She's a definite coward." Emi said with a nod of her head, crossing her arms to prove her point. "Think about who she possessed, who she attacked. The quads are just kids and everyone knows that twins, triplets, quads or whatever share a close bond. If she had a strong grasp on one, she'd get a semi decent on on the others. Add that to their young age? I'd call it a perfect recipe for a four way possession. And did she attack any of you? How about Sakura? Ao?" Emi shook her head. "She knows that you guys are to strong to take on, face to face. She also knows that Sakura and Ao are old enough to understand friend and foe. If she just approached them, they'd flip shit. But who can she approach and hurt and scare? The kids."
"It still doesn't explain why she goes after Saki." John mentioned with a furrowed brow. Emi raised an eyebrow.
"Sure it does. She's a kind soul, that girl. Wouldn't hurt a fly even if you paid her to do it. Add that with being completely mute. She wants to hurt her just to hurt her. She thinks it's fun." she spat the last word out, glaring angrily at the screen.
There was a heavy pause.
"Emi..." Mai paused. "Why doesn't she go after you?" Emi paused, as if contemplating something for a moment, before a crooked grin came onto her face.
"Say that there's a family. A big family, and there's a murderer among them. There's one cop there to protect them and he has to figure out the mystery. Would the murderer go after the armed cop first, or pick off with the weaker one's first?"
"I'm guessing you're the cop, eh?" Monk asked. Emi pursed her lips.
"Perhaps."
"Then you're, quote on quote, 'armed', correct?" Naru asked, speaking for the first time. "With what?"
Emi didn't say anything for a while.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." she finally said, standing up straight.
"You'd be surprised." John chuckled. Emi glanced at him, then shook her head.
"Honestly, you'd be more surprised." Emi smirked. "So what're we going to do?"
"We're going to figure out who this lady is and why she's still here." Naru said. Emi wrinkled her nose.
"Research? No thanks to that." she turned towards the door. "Have fun, ya'll. I'ma going to take care of the kids."
And like that, she walked out the door.
o.0.o.0.o
Mai's eyelids were to heavy for her to even open them.
She laid weakly on the floor with one wrist hanging loosely above her, bound to the wall. Regardless, she opened her eyes, and with a rusted nail, continued to scratch out words.
MaY You HEal. RePeNT. I ForgIVE.
The letters were capital in some, easier to write out, she supposed. Her hand then dropped to her neck, blood pooling around the wound, nail clattering away. She was to tired. To weak. As she closed her eyes, she heard the click of the door opening. Someone walked towards her. She tensed, afraid.
Something prodded her stomach. She coughed, gurgling as blood flowed from her mouth.
"God..." a woman muttered before there was a sharp tug on her hair. "How are you still alive?"
She gurgled. She couldn't speak. She could feel her life draining away. The woman said nothing, taking the bloody knife from where she had thrown it, despite her weak state, and put it back in her fingers. She undid her arm from the restrain above her.
"I need this to look like a suicide, girl."
o.0.o.0.o
Mai yawned slightly, blinking as she woke up. She glanced around, and saw Lin typing on his computer while Naru was looking through a file. Everyone else was gone.
"Where is everyone?" she asked.
"I sent Ms. Matsuzaki and Monk to do research at local libraries. John is with the kids."
"Emi?"
Naru's brow furrowed slightly in irritation.
"She's in the living room, playing that infernal contraption again." Mai glanced at the monitors, seeing Emi sprawled across the couch with a 3DS in hand. She was muttering things to herself as she kept frantically pressing buttons. Mai assumed she was muttering something about the game, when she saw Lin's eyebrows furrow slightly in confusion.
"Are you listening in on her?" Mai asked, glancing at him disapprovingly.
"Listen to what's she saying." Lin stated, passing the headphones to her. Mai glanced at him disapprovingly, then place the headphones over her ears.
"Capital M, lowercase A, capital Y, capital Y, lowercase o, lowercase u, capital H, capital E, lowercase A, lowercase L..."
"See now?" Lin stated. "She's been at it for the past hour or two." Mai blinked, then widened her eyes slightly, then raised her finger to her lips, indicating the silence she wanted, as she continued to listen.
"Capital R, lowercase E, capital P, lowercase E, capital N, capital T, Capital I, Capital F, lowercase O, lowercase R, lowercase G, capital I, capital V, capital E, Capital M, lowercase A, capital Y..."
Mai practically threw the headphones at Lin as she bolted out of the room.
"Mai?" Naru asked, though she was long gone. She turned down the stairs, skidding to a stop in the living room, Emi still on her 3DS and muttering the sequence of letters.
"How do you know that phrase?" Mai asked. Emi blinked.
"Meh?" Emi asked, not moving her eyes from the screen.
"That phrase. 'May you heal. Repent. I forgive.'"
"Oh, that? Yeah, some chick told me it. She kept muttering it over and over. Now I guess I am too. I'm trying to figure out what it means. She won't tell me. She just sorta sits in the corner in the fetal position and keeps muttering it. Sometimes she's crying, sometimes she's scared." the game let out a small tune, indicating something good happened. Emi smirked, but continued playing.
"What does she look like?" Mai asked. Emi frowned.
"Brown hair. She's got a small nose and big, dark eyes. Almost a mousy appearance, really. She looks like she's eleven or twelve, but she's really sixteen."
"Where does she appear?" Mai asked. Emi shrugged.
"Wherever I am. I think she wants my help."
"How can you help her?"
Emi didn't say anything. The only sound was her clicking furiously on the 3DS and the theme music that came with it.
"Emi..." Mai trailed off, sighing. "Can you see them?"
"See them, talk to them, help them, plus some extra's." Emi stated, holding up on hand and bringing up a finger with each thing she could do. "You'd be surprised."
"Do you think the spirits come to you? Are they attracted to you?"
"Sure." Emi shrugged. "Everyone wants their voice heard. They know you can see them. Unless, of course, they're residual energy. You can't really do shit about a residual haunting."
"So... you know how to get rid of that woman? The one who pushed Saki?"
"Psssh, she's to far gone. She won't listen to reason."
"Then what are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting..." she trailed off as another jingle rang out on the game. "That you're going to need to force her out."
"Emi." both girls looked up and saw Naru standing in the doorway, arms crossed. "I want to talk to you. Mai, come along."
Emi blinked, then sighed, snapping the DS closed.
o.0.o.0.o
"So Big Boss," Emi sighed, arms crossed as she sat in her chair, eyes closed. "Did you send Mai out to interrogate me or what?"
"N-No! Of course not." Mai exclaimed. "I just had a dream about a girl carving that message into the wall. I just wanted to know where you heard it. I thought that maybe-"
"What? I have weird dreams too?" Emi chuckled, crossing her legs. "Nah, not on my range of talents."
"So you admit that you have talents." Naru said. Emi smirked.
"Yeah. I can play one mean harmonica."
"This is no joking matter." Naru stated, brow twitching. "What do you know?"
"Eeeehh, I know that if you pair Olivie and Henri together in Fire Emblem Awakening, you can get one mean Dark Knight Azur."
"This is no joking matter, Emi." Naru said, anger starting to lace through. "You claim to care about these people, they're getting hurt, and you're treating this like it's some joke. Stop wasting my time and talk!"
Emi snapped her eyes open, the playful, carefree nature gone.
"Listen, you narcissistic prick." Emi said in a low voice. "You can question my abilities, you can question the words I say, but don't fucking question how I feel or who I care about. Do you think I've just been sitting here, fucking living the damned life? Do you think it's easy on my end, being a fucking magnet for these things? Well, it isn't."
The tension seemed to rise as the temperature seemingly dropped. Mai blinked. Something shimmered around Emi again. Emi ran a hand down her face, trying to calm herself. She bowed her head for a minute, then sighed, looking up again, hand falling to her lap.
"The ghosts just like me." she said. "They know who can and can't see them. They know who's a threat and who's not. And it's not like I don't mind talking to them, some of them have great stories, but it's the bad one's I've gotta worry about."
"You said earlier this lady can't attack you." Mai said. Emi looked down.
"She can't. I'm to strong for that. But she wanted to talk to me."
"What did she tell you?" Naru asked. Emi averted her gaze. There was a long silence.
"She wanted me to take one of the kids and lock them in some room, and just... leave them there. If I didn't, she said she wouldn't move on. She said if I didn't she'd choose someone herself." Emi tilted her head back and sighed. "Now I suppose she did. Every night she comes in my room and says stuff about what she did in her past life and ponders what it would be like to kill one of the quads because she never killed one before or how she would have loved to get her hands on Saki..." she trailed off.
"Did you just ignore her?" Mai asked. Emi shrugged.
"What else was I supposed to do? I might be able to counsel some spirits into moving on, but how could I choose someone to go to their death if I don't even know them? How do I play the part of judge if I know they're innocent? Why would I want to, let alone need to? Why does she want this?"
"She's been pestering you with this since you got here?" Naru asked, raising an eyebrow. Emi nodded.
"I just thought she was some angry spirit who wanted to vent her frustration, but every single night she's been coming and coming and coming. Then the kids started getting sick, and the quads would act strange, and Saki began having 'accidents'. The first month or so I was here, I thought the thing with the quads was normal. But Saki was falling down the stairs or off stools once or twice a week, or even a day. I thought it was abuse, but Sakura..." Emi shook her head. "I feel foolish for even suspecting her."
There was a long heavy pause.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Mai asked.
"Because how do I casually come up to someone and say, 'hey, creepy dead bitch been bothering me for a couple months'?"
Another heavy pause, this one cut off abruptly as Naru's cell phone rang. Naru looked at the device, then answered. After a brief conversation, he hung up.
"So who was that?" Mai asked.
"Who do you think?" Naru stated, crossing his arms, his tone of voice intending to insult Mai. "It was Monk. He said he found something big." A hot retort was on Mai's tongue when a roar of laughter came from Emi. Mai and Naru slowly turned their attention to the girl, who's laughter was somewhat under control.
"You just insulted yourself!" she said, laughing even harder. Mai blinked slowly, then turned away to hide her own chortles of laughter. "So you're telling me," Emi continued, pointing at him. "That you don't have any friends? A girlfriend?" Naru glared at her.
Emi only laughed harder at this.
o.0.o.0.o
"Okay," Monk said, spreading out some newspapers and notes. "All this researching isn't my cup of tea, but we did find something."
"How many deaths have been on the property?" Naru asked. Everyone began glancing through random articles, including Emi. Mai had a feeling she was looking for the girl she had dubbed 'Mouse Princess'.
"The earliest death dates back as early as 1905." Ayako said, pointing to a certain article. "Akio Notsero, age sixty-three, died of a heart attack. He was the original owner of the house. It had several other owners and such throughout the first world war, but they moved."
"Did Akio ever have a wife?" Mai asked, looking at his picture.
"No." Monk shook his head. "The next death wasn't until after the second world war."
"That's funny." Emi mused. "You'd think after two world wars, this house would have had at least one more death."
"What happened afterwards is stranger." Monk said, pulling out another article. Mai widened her eyes at the headline. Suicide at Homoshi Orphanage.
"Oh God..." Emi muttered, glancing at the picture. "Mouse Princess." she took the article, paling. "That's Mouse Princess."
"Mouse Princess...?" Ayako asked, casting her an odd glance.
"She's a girl that I keep seeing." Emi explained, flipping the article over. "She never told me her real name. I thought looked like a mouse, and I kind of started calling her that. It made her happy, I guess, 'cause she kept smiling." She glanced back at the picture, smiling slightly. "Masau. Ha! Even her name means mouse. It's fitting, don't you think?"
"Well, Masau is one of many." Ayako said, pulling out more articles. "1955, suicide by hanging: Hikari, age fifteen. 1957, suicide by poison: Megumi, age fourteen. 1958, suicide by throwing herself from the roof: Hana, age seventeen..."
"How many more?" Naru asked.
"About five, Masau being one of the last." Ayako said. "All of then were ruled as suicides, although Masau is different."
"Her throat was slit." Monk said. "She was found down in the basement, knife in hand and blood around her. There was a suicide note too," he brought out another picture, showing a note with some blood on it.
I can no longer bare the thought that my father does not want me. Soon, mother... soon we'll be together...
"Wait, so she slit her own throat?" John asked, widening his eyes. "That's horrible." He passed the note to Emi, and she read it over.
"Wha... No, that can't be right." Emi said, shaking her head, reading over the note again. "Masau never knew her mother. She died after her birth. Her father adored her, but he died from complications after the war. She remembered nothing but fond memories of him." she glanced at the note again. "If anything, and this is only if Masau was feeling really down, she'd write about how she felt guilty about killing her mother, which was true. She did feel guilty about that."
"It's not just that." Ayako said. "She cut her jugular vein." she tapped said vein on her neck to prove her point. "If anyone knows anything about the human body, the minute you slice that, you're bleeding. A lot. It might take several minutes for you to fully bleed out, but the cops noted a rather small pool of blood around the corpse."
"So her body was moved." Naru stated, reading over the article.
"Yeah, but since the knife was in one hand and a note in the other, plus with no other blood evidence, they ruled it a suicide."
"Or the police were paid extra." Emi muttered. "I mean, come one, it couldn't have been a suicide. Either investigators were to lazy to be thorough, or they were tipped off by the owner." Emi narrowed her eyes into a fierce glare. "Who the hell owned this orphanage?"
"Akira Homoshi." Monk answered, pulling out another picture. Mai widened her eyes, seeing that the woman shared a strong resemblance with the one caught on camera. "She apparently collected all the life insurance on-"
"Whoa, whoa, hold your horses." Emi said. "She had life insurance on orphans?"
"Apparently so."
"Seriously?!" Emi slammed her hands down and shoved her chair back. "How much did this damned bitch pay these cops?! There's no way this says anything but murders! At least with Masau!"
"Emi, calm down." Naru ordered. "Line up the victims in order of the year they died." Ayako and Monk set to work, lining up the victims. Mai furrowed her brow.
"They all have long, wavy brown hair." she muttered.
"Saki. She always went after Saki." Emi muttered. "Is that why?"
"Is she intending on making her death look like a suicide?" John asked.
"More likely an accident." Naru said.
"So I'm guessing everything else was just an attempt to scare us." Mai said.
"Or mock us." Emi said. Everyone turned their attention to her. "What? You didn't think I didn't know about that red-light-trick thingy?"
"You saw through it." Naru stated, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, more like a little birdie told me, but yeah." Emi sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck, grinning. "I got what it was for, you know. Lotsa teenage girls and all that here. Never know if we've got a latent psychic or whatever. Outside of me, of course." she grinned. "Speaking of which, need a new member on your team?"
"We don't need a half-witted psychic."
"Half-witted? Why Kazuya, I'm insulted." Emi's hand fell over her heart to prove her point. "I'm a jack of all trades, I'd say."
"Can we perhaps discuss this after we solve this problem with Akira?" John suggested.
"Yeah, that would be smart." Mai sighed.
"I don't want to hurt Mouse Princess." Emi said. "Just, before you go pulling out all your spirit ridding stuff, just let me help her on, okay?"
"I don't want you angering her." Naru said. Emi grinned.
"Don't doubt me, Kazuya." Emi grinned. "Maaaaaybe if I do well, you could put me on a payroll."
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Meh. Okayish ending. I hope ya'll enjoyed!
Amy47101 signing off! ^.^