Aw, I feel abandoned! T-T Not many reviews on the last chapter...must be summer vacations! Maybe I just have no life... :D But thanks to those who did review!!!! Sorry about the wait on this one, too....I guess I was just slacking... :D
*I do not own Ghost Hunt in any way, shape or form*
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After a VERY tearful, happy-huggy-time reunion, Bou-san brought up the mystery of the attacks.
"I'd just like to know what the haunting is about," he said seriously. "And I want to know what that sentence 'Good girls obey all rules' has to do with this."
I shuddered when I heard the sentence come from his mouth. It brought back eerie memories.
"I think I can help you with your confusion, Bou-san," Naru said.
Everybody gasped and looked at him. "What?!" Ayako yelled. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?!"
"I just barely pieced it together," Naru explained. "There's no need to yell."
Ayako huffed and sat down. I stared at Naru, curious and waiting for his explanation of the case's events.
"The culprit," Naru said, "is Minori Sasaki."
My jaw dropped. "What?!" I exclaimed.
"That's impossible, Naru!" Ayako shouted. "We've hardly seen her this entire case!"
"Calm down, Matsuzaki-san," John said nervously. "I'm pretty sure Shibuya-san can explain it to us."
"What's your evidence, Naru?" Bou-san asked, bewildered.
Masako stayed silent, but her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Naru waited for them to quiet down, then turned to Bou-san. "Our evidence is right in front of us, Bou-san."
"It...is?" he said in confusion.
"Yes, it is." Naru turned to look at me. "Because Mai is our evidence."
Everybody turned their heads to look at me. "Huh?" everybody said after a stretch of silence as they tried to figure it out.
"While we were waiting for Mai to wake up, I came up with a theory. I called Lin to have him do some research, and he found some old newspaper articles for this city that talk about a woman with amazing psychic power. The woman in these articles was named Minori Sasaki."
I looked around, and everybody still had looks of confusion on their faces.
"In one of the articles, it said that Sasaki-san became very self-confident in her power. She began to do great things for the city, and her confidence kept growing. She eventually convinced herself that if she became a 'ruler' of Japan, she could even take on the entire world."
Ayako gave a snort. "Typical," she muttered.
Naru glanced at her impatiently and continued. "Sasaki-san rallied people together; brought them to her side of things. They thought up an elaborate plan to overthrow the Japanese government, but were stopped when the government found out about it. Sasaki-san was sentenced to twenty years in prison."
"Didn't she just escape using her powers?" I questioned.
Naru sighed. "Mai, Sasaki-san wasn't the only person with psychic ability."
"Oh. So somebody else with powers like her watched her?" I asked.
Naru ignored me and didn't reply. "After she got out, it's not surprising that she still hard feelings toward the government. The orphanage must have been her way at getting back at them...her secret way of hurting people of Japan and having her own little place where everybody would obey her."
"Why didn't she just try taking over Japan again?" I asked him.
Naru glanced over at me, looking annoyed. "Mai, not a lot of people would have wanted to listen to someone who was previously in jail. She wouldn't have gotten far on her own, either."
I huffed. Why did he always have to act like I was an idiot?
"I suspect that Sasaki-san knew that one day she would run out of power, so she made some sort of seal in the orphanage that took most of her power. As long as she is in the orphanage, she can do whatever she wants to the objects and people in it," Naru concluded, leaning back against the wall.
We were all quiet as all of the facts sunk in. "So...what does Taniyama-san have to do with all of this?" John asked after a few moments of silence.
"When a girl from the orphanage came to the office with the case, Sasaki-san panicked," Naru began, not pausing for a second. "She quickly disposed of the girl who had contacted us as punishment, then found out Mai's name. She dug around and found Mai's address, and with the little power she had left, she disguised herself as a government official and came to snoop around the office to see if I had a weakness--something that she could maybe use or do that would stop me from taking the case. And, to her luck, she found out that her disguise and excuse had worked perfectly to her advantage."
"Why?" Bou-san asked.
Naru looked up at me. "Because she found Mai to be the weakness she was looking for." His voice remained steady, even--not embarrassed or pausing in the least.
There was silence for a few moments. The air was crackling with tension, and I was frozen. Had he just confessed that he loved me?
Then everybody reacted. John's jaw dropped, Bou-san began laughing, Ayako smiled mischievously, and Masako looked stricken. Her eyes were wide, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
"So, tell us Naru," Ayako said slyly, "when did it start? Have you known it all along?"
Naru sighed. "Matsuzaki-san, it's not my fault that nobody will date you. If you need to bother someone because of that, please bother somebody else who actually wants to be bothered."
Bou-san began to laugh harder, holding his stomach as if he was in pain. He looked like he couldn't breathe, he was laughing so hard.
"SHUT UP, YOU STUPID MONK!" she screeched, beginning to beat him with her purse. He began to let out a mix of yelps and guffaws.
I clamped my lips together tightly to keep myself from laughing out loud at Ayako and Bou-san. Why did they always have to be so amusing?
"If you want to kill Bou-san, Matsuzaki-san, please do so somewhere else. Otherwise, stop making all that noise so I can finish my explanation," Naru said coldly.
They shut up almost instantly. Bou-san silenced his laughing and began rubbing his sore spots. Ayako, somehow still managing to look dignified, sat back on her chair and folded her arms.
"Sasaki-san hoped that taking Mai would make me want to quit the case," Naru started again. "Obviously, she was wrong, so when we arrived there she injured Mai in the hopes of warning us or distracting us."
I reeled back in shock. Was she really that desperate for control?!
"When that didn't work, she eavesdropped on us at some point and found out about Mai's prophetic dreams. While Mai was sleeping, she sent her a false dream, hoping it would send us in the wrong direction. Unfortunately for her, Mai knew it wasn't real, and told me about it in the hall. Sasaki-san came and talked to us after we were finishing up talking about her dream, so she must have heard that Mai knew it was wrong."
Bou-san gave a heavy, bleak sigh. "Which resulted in her taking a last resort: killing Mai and hoping that we would leave."
Naru nodded grimly. "Exactly."
"So...how do we get rid of the seal that she made in the orphanage?" I asked. "I don't want anymore girls getting hurt or killed because of her."
Naru looked over at me. "We'll have John do an exorcism, and then we'll have to burn the building down."
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Okay, hoped you liked it! ^-^ Read and review, please!!! Oh, and I hope I spelled Ayako's last name right! Please tell me I did!!!