Author's Note: Here's the next chapter! Please review, even if it's just one word. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt in any way, shape, or form. :(
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Chapter Three: A Past Best Forgotten
Day One.
8:58 A.M.
Mai squinted as her eyes met the unusually bright blue sky above her, so different from even the sunniest of days in Tokyo. No buildings blocked the horizon and the air wasn't tainted by the smog of a city. She fell into a momentary lull as her she felt the rays of the sun warming her skin then snapped to her feet. When had she gotten off the train? She looked down and gasped, seeing nothing but hunter green treetops below her; but as she realized she wasn't falling, it registered that she was dreaming again.
"Gene?" She called, looking around for her ever-present spirit guide. Despite the mystery of his death being solved and his body properly buried, he had never passed on into whatever other life or realm waited him. Mai often questioned him while they were alone together in her dreams why he hadn't left, but he seemed as clueless to the reason why as Mai herself. The idea of Gene's spirit remaining had nagged Naru for quite a long time after he had returned to Japan, causing his mood to become more sour than it had been before if such a thing were possible. Once in desperation, he had asked Masako to channel Gene's spirit, but nothing was accomplished in the attempt. Gene never came. Sometimes Mai wondered if Gene really had passed on and it was just her imagination projecting his image in the astral plane, but the feeling of his unique presence was undeniable.
Gene was nowhere to be found. This confused Mai as she took in her surroundings more. She was floating above a small mountain, a stream flowing from it that forked into three as it wound its way to a wooden structure far below her. Everything seemed far too vivid to be a normal dream, but Gene was also not there. Her mind wavered while contemplating if this was astral travel at all or just anxiousness over the unknown destination of their case.
Suddenly, a scream echoed through the treetops, bouncing off the hills and piercing Mai's ears. She jolted upwards, finding herself back in her seat on the train.
"Mai?" Masako reached her hand to rest on Mai's quivering arm. "Are you alright?"
Mai inhaled deeply, calming her racing heart. Why did that scream feel so familiar. "Fine, fine.' She assured. "Just a dream." She bit her lip as soon as the sentence came out of her mouth, but why should she hide anything from Masako?
"Anything..." Masako eyed her inquisitively.
Mai shook her head. The rest of Masako's sentence wasn't needed for Mai to grasp the meaning.
The seat in front of Mai's moved ever so slightly. Mai sighed. Naru had been listening no doubt. "We should go back to sleep. We'll probably need it once we get to wherever we're going, since Naru will undoubtedly treat us like slaves when we get there." She said the last part a bit loudly for Naru's eavesdropping benefit, perhaps a bit too loudly as a two high school students ambling down the aisle shot a look in her direction. "Honestly, Masako." Mai smiled, settling back into her seat.
"Masako?" A male voice said quietly. "I told you it was that fraud ghost girl."
Mai eyed the speaker carefully. The voice came from the same two students. On closer inspection, they looked like the typical high school deliquents Mai had seen on the countless cases SPR had taken at various schools. She cringed and grabbed Masako's hand protectively.
"Hey, you." The other shot his voice contemptuously at Masako. "You hate your country so much you have to pretend like your some foreigner? You can't expect to sucker so many people and think you can just get away with your shit by dying your hair blonde."
Both boys snickered as Masako did nothing but bow her head and try to hide her face in the hair they just mocked.
"Both of you!:" Mai shot to her feet. "Mind your own business!"
The yelling continued as if Mai had never said a word. "You know, you helped," he spat the word out like a violent curse, "my grandmother contact her husband after he passed. Good thing you were proved to be a little money leech of a fake or she would be rolling over in her grave not knowing what kind of sick anti-Japanese liar had dishonored her husband's spirit." He shoved Mai to the side, raising his hand dangerously above the still cowering Masako.
"Excuse me." Naru grabbed the boy's risen hand. "This is the first class section. If you do not have a seat here, I would suggest you proceed to the section you are seated in before you disturb anyone else."
A look of incredulity spread across the perpetrator's face as he turned to see who had hold of his wrist. He furrowed his brows, half confused and half furious. "You! You're the one who discredited the wretch!"
The shouting now had woken the rest of the SPR team, most of which were still too groggy to register the confrontation going on before them, but John was getting to his feet. A flash of anger coursed through his body, an emotion he was not very familiar with.
"You are waking the other passengers. You should be on your way before I have the police meet you at the station in Kyoto."
The teen's hand relaxed and dropped to his side. Mai chanced a glance over his shoulder to look at Naru, and it only took her a second to realize that it was the glare coming from the navy eyes that had made the boy back down like a wounded animal and not his words.
"Let's get out of here." He said to his companion, and the two boys dashed out the train car as quickly as the compartment door would open.
Mai smiled a meek 'thank you' to Naru before wrapping her arms around Masako's tiny frame. Her racking sobs shook Mai as well, but somehow, Masako managed to keep her crying silent. John cautiously approached and rested his hand over Masako's own in a comforting gesture. It had been quite some time since Masako needed to control her composure; it was something that was never necessary out of the spotlight while living together with Mai. She could always be herself with Mai now.
Mai squeezed Masako even more tightly in her arms, mentally kicking herself for letting her guard of Masako relax. Just because time had passed since the incident didn't mean that all of the public had forgotten. But why couldn't they? It had been so long since that ridiculous scandal! The media had been so relentless that they had practically chased Masako out of the country, luckily John had needed to return to Australia for awhile and was able to bring Masako with him for a brief respite from the onslaught. The only positive outcome of the situation was that she had gone from friends and coworkers to best friends and roommates with Masako after the situation.
Masako had never stopped blaming Naru for the calamity even though she had forgiven him. Her own celebrity combined with the sudden celebrity of SPR in general when Naru was found out to be the reknowned Oliver Davis had caused their group to be tailed by the media, not even just reporters with paranormal magazines and the like, but the mass media in general since "unexplained" incidents had been on the rise. SPR had received a request to investigate an old Japanese military facility, and the sensitive nature of the surroundings had caused Lin to be a bit more vocal for his distaste of the Japanese. Naru had sent Lin and Masako out to gather some data during Mai's break, and while they wandered the grounds, part of their conversation had been recorded by an underpaid staff writer for a magazine that published paranormal photos looking for a fat paycheck. A few edits to the material and an expose leaked to a major media outlet had turned Masako from Japan's darling media medium helping the departed into a dangerous evil who held nothing but anti-Japanese sentiments. Before all of SPR could even convene to discuss the matter, Naru, using his persona of Oliver Davis, had given an interview to the reporters swarming the SPR office where Masako had been trying to hide. In one sentence he had denounced Masako's abilities as fraudulent, discredited her former work, and painted her as just another money-making project for her agency and the station that aired her program. Shortly after that, that greedy writer retracted his article, stating that his personal dislike for Hara Masako's subterfuge led him to embellish his statements of her personal views and that he had doctored the recording.
Naru's actions nearly caused a war to break out among the small group of SPR employees during the immediate aftermath, but eventually one by one they came to understand his reasoning. Naru had, in a cruel way, protected Masako. Her previous clients and people in general would feel much more comfortable with the idea that Masako was a fraud rather than believing a medium had communicated with their loved one, but that medium was malevolent. It would only take one overly superstitious person to try to harm Masako if that were true, but on the other hand, psychics were often proved to be nothing more than glorified illusionists. Even so, the pain Masako had to bear was great, and the life she had known disappeared so quickly like sand running through her hands. She was left alone, her parents, both famous themselves, didn't want her associated with their name any longer.
Mai often wondered if this was the reason her bond with Masako had grown so deep. In a way, they both were orphans now; Mai physically and Masako in spirit. Each could empathize with the other. However unlike Mai, Masako had a pretty hefty amount of money to live off after her abandonment.
The rest of the train ride dragged by. After some time, John reluctantly returned to his seat after Masako assured him she would be okay, even though a hesitant tear would still slide down her spotty red complexion from time to time. Eventually, the tears stopped altogether and Mai took Masako to the bathroom to make her presentable for meeting the prospective client. Ayako gushed over the phone to her fiance; and almost immediately after the call was received, Bou-san claimed his legs were aching and he needed to stroll the train. Madoka had tried getting information out of Naru about the case, but since she was no longer his superior in any substantial way, he didn't budge.
After the announcement announced over the audiosystem that the train was now arriving in Kyoto, Naru rose to his feet and cleared his throat, catching the attention of every member of SPR immediately.
"The case we are investigating will be taking place at Kiyomizu-dera."
Gasps escaped numerous mouths simultaneously.
"But that's a temple!" Ayako protested, her mouth agape. "What could possibly..."
"Cause a disturbance or haunt sacred ground?" Bou-san finished her sentence before she could finish. He furrowed his brows, deep in concentration.
"Maybe it's nothing." Madoka interjected light-heartedly. "A ground subsidence."
"Or a prank." Ayako chimed in again. When SPR became more well-known, several of their cases had wound up being well-played pranks. She now seemed to blame pranks for things even more than earth spirits.
"Or it could be something more serious than anything we've ever dealt with before."
A flash of Urado's mansion ran through Mai's mind quickly and she shuddered. Her eyes desperately looked to Naru for some sort of answer.
He stood with complete stoicism, but for a the shortest of split-seconds, Mai could have sworn she saw a flash of fear shoot through the navy orbs.
"It's something worse." She whispered gravely for only herself to hear.
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Author's Note: Please review! Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed so far, it really means a lot! This chapter was originally supposed to be a part of the previous chapter, since it was still the train ride. The upcoming chapters will be longer and split in better places. New chapter will be up soon, because I really want to get into the case part of it ;)
