Hi guys,

Sorry I haven't been writing. I've been studying for my mcat, and my time and creative energy have taken a hit.

This chapter is a bit short…but I wanted to write something about Naru and Mai. The story will again proceed in the next chapter.

Thanks for your patience and staying with this story so long.

-atlantis71186

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt but the OC in here are my own.

Mai rolled her eyes to the skies above.

She almost head deep in dark sludge, oozing slime running around her legs, through her fingers, soaking her clothes. If she closed her eyes, she imagined herself in a puddle of thick, viscous mucus. Wonderful.

What was even more uncomfortable was being almost head to head with one idiot scientist. Bringing back to the what happened less than 20 minutes ago : Mai came careening into the oozing sludge, with a momentum that could rival the force of a sledgehammer, which combined with the impact, brought her dangerously close to said idiot.

Unfortunately for Naru and Mai, this close proximity was less than romantic. After calling for Mika for 2-3 minutes straight, it was concluded that she either was asleep or something happened to her -which meant they needed a different way to get out of this literal mess. Another thing was that the ooze had a unidirectional movement, almost like quicksand.

Naru was currently ignoring her and mumbling what sounded a lot like physics and a little bit of chemistry. Sebastian, now fishing for some useful items in Naru's bag, seemed to be gulping back the panic and worry he had for their pitiful situation.

"Did you find my rope?" Naru asked aloud, probably the question was aimed toward Sebastian.

"Yes, but not enough to pull any one of us out of here." Sebastian replied, pulling a pathetic piece of twine between his hands.

Fortunately they had stop sinking so that Mai could still have enough leverage to respirate. All that was exposed in Mai's body was her ears and her face, while as Naru and Sebastian were taller and had movement of their arms. She let out a frustrated sigh. It felt a bit claustrophobic for her being a quicksand type of situation, and in comparison to the vertically favored, she felt utterly useless.

Or perhaps not. She looked rolled her eyes back and forth – looking around as much as possible. Trees, rocks, dirt. It occurred to her that Naru could make her eat dust when it came to strategy and preparation. Heck, the guy was a genius, and could strategize and win against the most of the world when it came down to it…but she had something that even Naru couldn't explain: phenomenal intuition.

Intuition now told her to look around. There was something she was forgetting, something she had recently learned while tredging around this crazy place.

Trees, rocks and dirt…Mai thought…

…then she saw it.

"Errr…Naru…"

"…I'm not holding your hand anymore." Naru said nonchalantly, eyes closed, and between mumbles.

Mai blushed painfully red at the thought. For a few moments Naru had held her hand to prevent her from completely panicking and perhaps quickening her own doom. However, after realizing that she had stop sinking he had broken contact and went into smartass mode.

"Unbelievably arrogant until the end…" she said quietly. Because of their close proximity, the words would have sounded as clear as fire engines, yet he showed no response.

"…Sebastian?" Mai called out. "Do you still have that short rope?"

"Yes. What do you want with it?" Was the swift reply. So helping, unlike some people.

"…And is there some kind of tea scooper in that pack?" Mai asked, knowing the answer already.

"let's see…yes…right here…"

Mai grinned. Naru looked at her from the corner of his eye. Subtle curiosity sparked in its blue depths.

"What are you planning?"

Mai's grinned widened. "It's your turn to watch and learn, Baka."

"Tie the scoop to the rope and through it near the soil around the trees, scoop that soil towards you."

Sebastian tied the two together, and threw the small scoop long enough to get to the soil beyond. As he pulled the rope back, the scoop came with it, picking up the soil. As the soil ladened utensil came towards them, the black ooze withdrew sharply.

"What in the name of …?" Sebastian said wide eyed. The ooze began to repel from the soil, and it felt a few inches had retreated back into the ground. Mai smiled, it's just like before…

"…unbelievable…" Naru murmured.

After a few more throws of the ladle, and another 30 minutes, they were knee deep in ooze -Enough for them to waddle out to the sidelines.

After they had gotten out, they immediately started to clean themselves using various techniques – mostly scraping and wiping. During this time, Naru moved in on Mai, brushing closely against her ear.

"Give me an acceptable explanation."

"N-Not so close!" Mai said, finally being able to withdraw a little away from him. She was only neck deep in the ooze how.

Naru withdrew his head with a cool, yet interested expression. "how did you know it would do that…?"

After a few breaths Mai pointed to the soil.

"It can't stand that stuff. I don't know why. It happened to me before when I went head to head with a tsunami of this garbage."

The area that they had been sequestered in had dirt, not the rich soil layer around threes. There was a patch of dirt, and a few trees off to the right. Piles of brown rich soil were in dense regions around the tree.

"Ah." Naru said, instantly understanding the situation. The piles of soil had been the layer that he and Sebastian kicked aside earlier when they were trying to examine earth underneath.

"So it's the soil that is saving us!" Sebastian said happily, "we're okay as long as we stay on this! If only Mr. Wang could hear about this kind of thing…!"

Naru continued to stare at the soil with the jigsaws twirling around his head. Mai looked at him intently, as she scraped more sludge off her body.

"What? Spit it out! That expression makes me queasy…" Mai trailed off.

Naru examined the area once more, and pointed to the dirt. "This material can ward off the sludge, but it won't be able to protect us from anything else. If what you told me earlier is true," he said, eyeing Sebastian, "It will work both ways. This layer probably can serve as a wall to guard from spiritual auras and energies to be detected through. It is most likely this mundo has a network balance between the upper ground and the lower ground. If we face any hostiles, the side with that can perceive what's on the other will gain the upper hand."

Mai kicked a bit of soil in with her foot, enough for it to sprinkle around the ooze. Taking a bag she found in Naru's pack, she put a bit of dirt in it.

"Weapon of choice?" Sebastian said, with a slight smile. Awed at her ingenuity when most people would want to get the hell away from the whole area, and run screaming to safety.

"Let's call it a precaution." Mai replied back, filling the bag with more dirt. "if we come agains this demonic ooze again, we'll have a way out." In the next moment, Sebastian left to go look for Mika, and Mai was left alone, filling a bag of dirt with Naru.

With one hand, she took the bag, and tried to ziplock it with her teeth, since her bad arm (at best) was throbbing with pain. During the time of complete panic, she had forgotten her bad arm entirely. (Now the pain had multiplied with the recent amount of sudden movements) As the bag slided against her teetch, a small rip in the bag made her taste dirt, thus stopping the zipping the process.

Mai hissed a curse at that moment but knew that the pain was tolerable.

Feeling a touch on her arm, she was again abruptly face to face with the blue-eyed baka scientist.

All Mai could think about was how embarrassing it looked to try to ziplock a bag with one hand, fail, and literally eat dirt. Despite her mild mortification, Naru gently pulled the bag away from her, sealed it, and threw it into his pack –within seconds. Mai could not help but feel a little envious of his mobility, as her bad arm swayed pathetically at her side.

"Thanks…" Mai began, but immediately stopped as Naru began to take bandages out of his pack to re-dress her arm. "It's ok Naru…I can do that…"

Naru gave her a warning look, and continued to dress her arm in silence. Mai, feeling her mortification rise, looked away, mumbling how they should get back to camp.

Mai looked back up to see Naru concentrated on the dressing. Except for that one incident where Naru had brought her tea, this was the first time he took the effort in caring for her in such close contact. It was almost comical to Mai to see her usual stoic boss trying so hard to at a task. After all, it wasn't like he had the practice for this kind of thing. Most likely Lin, Takigawa or Ayako would be doing it in such a situation…

After a few moments of a somewhat pleasant silence, Naru withdrew his hand and Mai had a newly protect arm from infection. Mai gave an inward sigh from the loss of contact.

"We should be getting back." Naru said while turning away from her. Pleasantries over, Naru had gone back to being the cold egotistical bastard that was his number one charm. Mai mentally kicked herself for being the one that continued to chase after him…always, always, seeing his back, never quite keeping up, even after all the years they've worked together.

"Thanks." Mai said softly, as she followed a few steps behind.

What she didn't see was the slightly clenched hands as he strode away from her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N: story will spiral into more intrigue for the next chapter! Lin and Kana showdown? Will Ayako and Takigawa find their way into the interim mundo? What will come out of the Mai-Naru dynamic in the forest?

Muahaha! Coming soon in the next chapter.