Chapter 6:The Possession…
"What's happening to Mai!", Ayako-san said.
"I don't know a concussion or something. Hey Mai! Wake up!", Yasuhara-san answered.
"I'll call the hospital." Brown-san said as he went away, towards the kitchen.
"She's under a spirit." I said. The smell of the spirit is so strong. She has purple clouds around her, too.
"But she's fighting it. It makes her jerk so badly." I said so that they'll know.
"Sending her in the hospital may help a little but," I said, "I'm not so sure if the spirit can be exorcised by a miko, a monk and an onmyouji all at once."
"What are you talking about!?" the miko yelled at me.
"It's not that I hate her, but the spirit is just so strong…"
And the Miko rushed to the kitchen to suddenly grab the telephone and dial a number she knew by heart and another that she must know by it.
o0o
"You don't know how to send your uncle to the spirit dimension?" I asked her.
"I'm sorry, but I told you everything within my knowledge already." The redhead answered.
"It seems to me that it is impossible to send this strong a spirit…" Lin commented.
"If he managed to stay here, then he can manage to go back. If he can, we could make him to…" I said.
"That is theoretically speaking, Noll", Lin replied.
I stared at my hands. Gene…
"There must be something that he left behind… or maybe his emotions were great enough to 'summon' him back…" Madoka mumbled on.
"Hey! Maybe you're right! If his emotions were great enough to summon him back every three and a half years, then all we need is an exorcist with enough emotion to send him away." Takigawa-san said.
"You may be right, and you may be wrong…" I said to him.
"You should have asked your parents to banish him for you…" Takigawa-san mumbled.
"I don't even trust that they are my parents… I'm not even sure if they are telling the truth or if they are illusions made by the spirit." I truthfully answered.
…
"This makes my head hurt!" Takigawa-san blurted out while scratching his head, "why can't the spirit just go 'poof' and be gone!"
"He's … he's starting it…" Tanaka-san said as her eyes turned to misty amber.
"What is he starting?" Madoka said.
"He's… he wants to obtain your colleague's body. He… he's trying to possess her."
I looked up at her…
"Who?"
"The red head…" she answered and her eyes went to their normal almond brown color.
Mai!
o0o
"She's in a stable condition now, Matsuzaki-sama. Would you and your friends need anything more?" the head nurse answered me.
We all breathed out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness…
"Maybe a cup of tea for all of us would be good." I replied.
The nurse bowed down and I bowed down to her also.
"Thank goodness that your father's hospital is so near Mai's apartment." Yasuhara-san answered.
"Well, it was that reason that I acquired the knowledge of Mai's apartment number." I answered.
We went in the room and we saw Mai with all those machines. I went and sat down the chair nearest her and held her hand. So cold…
"We should call Naru…" the medium said.
"But we don't have his telephone nor cellphone number…" Brown-san answered with his head bowed as he leaned on the opposite wall.
"I have Madoka's cell phone number." Yasuhara-san said.
We all looked at him. He had her number… ?
"Here…" he said handling over his cell phone.
I took it and called.
o0o
"Are you sure about this address?" Madoka answered back at her cell, "Ok, we'll be there in an hour."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Mai got confined in a hospital." She answered back.
"I already have the address." She added as she looked at Lin and Naru.
"What do you mean she got confined in a hospital?!" I almost yelled… almost…
"Let's hurry while we can, Takigawa-san, and interview them later." The Chinese man answered as he went to the door and grabbed his coat.
He has a point…
"Who's driving whose car?" I asked, "And who's going to keep watch of Tanaka-san here?"
Lin hesitated in inserting his right arm in his coat.
"Could you drive, Takigawa-san?" he asked with his back turned.
"Of course, I could!" I said. It was rather offending that I would be asked about something as simple as driving.
"Could you drive the van? I would stay here and keep watch of Tanaka-san."
I froze. This man could actually ask???
"Well, ok. Guard her," I said as I took my western jacket from the coat stand and shrugged in, "good…"
It was all that I could say…
"Who told you to tell orders, Lin?" Naru suddenly barked from my right side, outside the house, "Takigawa-san can stay here and keep watch."
"Lin can go now, Noll. We should leave an onmyouji in case something may happen." Madoka reasoned from the van parked a few feet away from the door. She, I noticed, put a strain in making her voice louder to reach our ears. It must've been hard, considering that it's still freezing outside.
"I will stay behind, Noll. The three of you, go ahead to the hospital." The Chinese guy said.
"I know that you don't trust Takigawa-san with this spirit, considering its type." He added, "There's no one else that I would trust more with watching this girl than myself."
The boss and the babysitter stared at each other, with me plastered in the side of the door.
"Fine." The teenaged-boss replied with a sigh, "Let's get the van started, Takigawa-san.
I shook myself out of my daze. There was something between those two when they stared at each other…
"O... Ok. Lin-san, the keys?" I asked as I held out my hand.
"Madoka has them." He said
"Hey! You having a long chat in there, huh?! We got a friend there at the hospital to visit, you know?!" Madoka irritatedly yelled from the van. To her irritation, she seamed to have started its engine.
"I'm going to leave you slowpokes if you keep on standing like statues there!"
And we hurried on, to the van. I maneuvered the van and I heard the house door slam shut.
o0o
"What happened?" Madoka asked.
"This sort of spirit, a vengeful one, seemed to have a liking to Mai's shell and decided to possess her…" I answered in a low and whisper-like voice.
"Do you think you can know who or what the spirit is?" Naru asked me.
"I think he's someone Mai acquired from the girl you bought in the office earlier this day." I said.
He then looked at her, as if he's thinking of something important. He can't hide the truth from me, though. I know that look. It's the same look I used to give him whenever he got confined because of exercising his PK. The same look…
Suddenly, he spoke…
"We would take shifts in watching her, in case she would wake up or something." He said, "Takigawa-san and Matsuzaki-san, can you still keep awake for at least an hour more?"
"Maybe... I guess…" It was the miko that answered for the both of them.
"I would follow your shift. Brown-san and Hara-san would take the next, about after two hours, and Madoka and Yasuhara-san by morning." He said, "Your shifts will be an hour each, or longer if you can."
"But I advice you to stay up to only an hour," he hastily added, "We might need each and everyone's energy to send this spirit away, if the case arises. As for now, do you think it can be possible that we would all occupy this room for this night, Matsuzaki-san?"
"Of course! I planned that I would spend my night here anyway."
The tea arrived and everyone went to his or her own sleeping bag after drinking the rich tea. I positioned myself so that I could see sideways and catch a glance at the "Narcissist, arrogant, proud boss" of ours…
His eyes remains closed, but I could feel his worry. It feels as if I'm being smothered by a warm and thick blanket of air. I could almost touch it in the wind. The tension was breakable, like glass. The sum of worry the miko and the monk produced, even if you would count the worried glances they gave each other, wouldn't surpass that of Noll…
Good thing I managed to stop myself…
Good thing I stopped…
And as I drifted of to sleep, how I thanked the fates for making me stop…
For making me stop loving him…
AN: AWWW…. Poor masako-san…