Someone is showing her all this. But who? And more importantly, why?
Is this Nagisa? As if to answer her question, a figure appears in her peripheral. She gulps, and prays this is part of the vision and not the dream. The figure moves closer to her. Mai finally turns her head around to look at…Nagisa? But this Nagisa is wearing a pale yellow yukata and her expression is softer. She says, "Sorry."
"Sorry? For what?" Mai asks, her heart dropping to her knees.
"She has trapped us both here?"
"W-who?"
"The other Nagisa."
"The other Nagisa?"
This Nagisa nods her head and puts a finger over Mai's lips. A wind whips around them and again they are transported somewhere else. Mai had her eyes closed when the wind picked up. When she opens them she sees they are in a shrine. Nagisa removes her finger. She smiles kindly at Mai and says, "We are safe here. But you are living, you should not stay here. Youu should go back." She sits down on a stone step and pats the space beside her. Mai sits down.
Mai chokes, as she holds back the tears of desperation, "But how will I?"
"Can I ask you something?" Mai nods. "If you are here that means you can travel through dreams, do you not have a dream guide?"
"I had one…but he disappeared. But can I ask you something?" Nagisa nods. "Why are you here and what is happening? What did you mean by other Nagisa?"
Her face saddens. She bites her lips, "I was most of the times, okay, almost normal. I would be happy and jovial. Then sometimes clouds would darken everything and I would become this…this monster. I was like that when my mother died and my father remarried. I was so jealous of Nanami's beauty and popularity. But then Nanami with her kindness and good heart, brought me back to normalcy and for a while I really loved my step-sister too. That doesn't mean I didn't have episodes of violence. People started calling me a witch. Nanami still kept protecting me from everything and everybody. Only she could make me return to myself. Then…Kenji and Saito…" A sob breaks out.
Mai wraps her arm around her and says, "I saw that. Was it your doing, or?"
"No, no I did that. So you see, when I got to know of their deceit, I broke completely. I wasn't a witch, but I read about the occult. So I…"
"Somehow bewitched yourself to exact revenge on those who wronged you."
She puts her face in her hands and her entire body shakes as she cries, "Yes. The other me took over completely and I only watched from a distance as she slaughtered everyone. All the blood on my hands! Maybe this is why I cannot have any peace! I have been damned forever!"
Mai doesn't understand the how of it all but her heart goes out to the girl beside her. She pulls Nagisa closer and hugs her as the girl keeps on crying.
But their moment is destroyed when a shrill, blood-chilling female voice shouts, shaking everything—the trees, the shrine, the very air—around them, "No escape! No escape! They all must die!"
Nagisa looks up and whimpers, "That is her. Who will she kill next? How much bloodshed, how much more bloodshed?"
Mai looks up at the grey sky and wonders the same thing. Three centuries and the spirit is still not satisfied. She hopes she can get out of this hell. She looks at the teary girl in her arms, she fervently hopes she can leave as well.
But how?
"It has been two hours, Mai never naps for so long!" Ayako shouts at Lin.
Lin, after making his decision to see her, had made to Mai's room only to find her sleeping. So he had left, thinking he would tell her what he feels later when she wakes up. Then a couple of hours passed. He got busy typing in the day's events in his report when Ayako bursts into the base proclaiming the abovementioned words.
Naru frowns, "What do you mean?"
"Come look for yourself, something is not right," Ayako says.
The two men follow her. Mai is still on the floor but she is crying in her sleep. Ayako says, "I think she is dreaming. But touch her hand or feet."
Lin touches her hand and looks up at Ayako in shock. He says, "They are ice cold."
"Naru, what if Nagisa did the same thing she did with Masako to Mai too?" Ayako asks Naru, her eyes shining.
Naru scratches his chin. He looks at Lin, "Can you do anything? Mai can be helped right? She is different than Masako. Her conscious is far more..."
Lin stoically nods. Even though this is very invasive, going into someone's mind, he will do anything to save her. He sits down Indian style and closes his eyes. He calls on one of his shikis for protection. The familiar and his master coordinate their minds as they jump into Mai's unconscious mind.
Ayako was right. Mai is stuck in her mind. Must be Nagisa's doing, because he cannot find her essence anywhere. Maybe he will have to travel further and deeper. Maybe if she still had Gene as her dream guide she wouldn't be so indisposed. First, he comes across her conscious. The guilt and remorse of telling him her feelings makes him stumble. He had no idea she was this strongly and severely affected. He will make up to her, he solemnly promises.
Next, her subconscious offers no trace of her self either. Here, again the feelings and emotions, and all the memories dazzle him momentarily. He doesn't browse or touch any of her memories. But he accidentally brushes his conscious against one. It is the memory of the time when he had told her he hated the Japanese. With a pleasant jolt, he sees as Mai tells herself that day Koujo Lin has a nice smile. She also thinks he is a nice person. Was it that day that he too realised that Mai Taniyama was a nice person too? He wants to stay and look at himself through her eyes but he cannot. When he saves her he will let her know that it made him happy at how he made her worry-free that day.
Then, finally, he reaches at the last step of the human mind: the unconscious. Instantly he encounters a block. He instructs his shiki to break down the wall. His shiki gets to work.
Houshou enters the base with John in tow carrying a tray of tea and snacks. He looks surprised at the scene in front of him: Mai is on the floor, fast asleep with an immobile Lin seated stiffly with his eyes closed and holding her hand while Naru, beside Lin, and Ayako, near Mai's feet, look on. Also someone is burning incense in the room. He thinks if it is his wife's doing.
Houshou is about to ask aloud when Ayako spots him and shushes him. She gets to her feet and drags them both out of the room. When they are in the corridor, Ayako whispers, "Mai is stuck in a dream, Lin is trying to get her back. Don't dare make a sound you two, okay?"
The priest and the monk simultaneously nod.
It feels like a lifetime but the wall breaks. More memories and past dreams brush past him. He makes sure not to touch them. He calls out, "Mai! Mai!" He orders his shiki to scout ahead.
He puts his hands on his hips. Where is she? Has she left her body completely? His heart thumps in panic when he toys with the idea. No. That cannot be. He is sure she is still here. Stuck.
The shrill laughter would periodically boom. Nagisa, in between tears, says, "She keeps on doing this. Mocking me, making me feel more miserable than I already am."
"How cruel," Mai mutters. Suddenly they hear someone shouting, "Mai!"
She recognises that voice. Lin!
When his shiki returns and reports to him, he gets the gist of it all. An unknown conscious has imprisoned Mai in her mind. He can take a blind guess at the spirit responsible. He asks his shiki to show the way and then they take off running along the dark tunnel of her mind.
Then they encounter the final obstacle. A spirit, her face twisted and her malevolent aura makes a seasoned onmyoji shiver a little. He quickly puts his shiki to work. The spirit and his familiar clash, and Lin feels his energy seep out a little. This is going to cost him much energy.
Back in the outside world, the awake SPR members gasp aloud when they see Lin swaying and his body falling sideways on the floor. Houshou quickly gets him a pillow and gently puts his under his head. He says, "Lin must have encountered the spirit."
"Oh God," John crosses himself.
They all notice that Lin still hasn't let go off Mai's hands. Outside the sun slowly starts it descent.
He doesn't know how long it takes but finally he wins. The spirit screams and disintegrates. He knows he hasn't banished her. This was like a hologram protecting the entrance. She must have fathomed Mai's abilities and attacked her accordingly, creating a channel between her and Mai on the astral plane. He shouts again, "Mai!"
Mai hears him and gets to her feet. Nagisa says, "Oh thank all the gods! Someone is here for you! Go! Don't wait any longer! Follow the voice!"
Mai almost starts running when she turns around and extends a hand towards Nagisa. She sadly smiles and says, "No Mai I can't go with you."
"But!"
Nagisa pushes her, "Go, go, go! Quickly before she returns!"
Mai bites her lips. She conveys her apologies through her eyes. Nagisa sadly nods, she understands. Mai starts running, she shouts back, "Lin!"
The scene around her shifts again. She is in her mind again, she realises when she is back at the dark, seemingly eternal and endless place. She runs forward, without stopping as she keeps shouting, "Lin! Where are you?"
"MAI!" he hears her. She must be getting close. He says, "Just follow my voice!"
Then she sees him. A spotlight trained on him. But the creature beside him halts her in her tracks. It is a huge dog-like creature bright as snow with glowing orange eyes and orbs of flames of orange hovers all over its furry body. She notices swirls of purple symbolic designs on its paws and around its glowing eyes. What shocks her next is the collar of beads and skulls around its neck. Lin's shiki, she figures it out, it is impressive.
Lin says, "It is okay. He won't hurt you. He knows you well."
She smiles as she recognises the warmth that seeps into her mind, "Is he the one you always send to protect me? He feels…warm."
He smiles, "You feel them, don't you? Not everybody does."
She shrugs, "I am after all, SPR's weirdness mascot."
He laughs. If you asked him now, he wouldn't be able to construct a coherent sentence about how he felt to see her right now. Relieved, happy were the tip of the iceberg.
And ditto for our girl too. The shiki pads slowly over to her and licks her face. She giggles, but then gasps when a smooth baritone fills her head, "Master Lin must like you very much. Take care of him." She looks into those mesmerising orange eyes and realises that he just talked to her. She touches his nose and bows her head. The shiki goes back to stand beside his master.
Lin, who has seen the entire exchange, observes with amusement, "He must really like you. He did something on his own volition now."
She walks up to him and holds his hand. She smiles, "Let's go back, eh?"
"Yes."
Mai and Lin both wake up at the same time. Mai wakes up to see Houshou, John, Ayako, Naru and Yasu (who had joined them in the meantime) looming over her. She feels something holding her hand. It is Lin with his long fingers entangled with hers, who straightens up and scratches his head. He asks, "How long…"
John answers, "Nearly six hours! It is quarter past ten now!"
Mai sits up and shouts, "Six hours? What?"
"Yeah," Houshou says, "We nearly send you both to the hospital as well."
Naru passes two cups of strong, hot tea to Mai and Lin. He says, "Drink up. And when you are done, tell me everything."
After a few minutes when they are both done, Mai starts with her dream. When she tell them about the two Nagisas incident, they are all shocked. Then Lin tells them about his adventure and tell his theory, "Mai's ability and emotional vulnerability was harnessed by the other Nagisa to hurt her mentally."
"Emotional vulnerability?" Houshou whispers to Ayako who gives him a solid jab under his ribs. He yelps a little.
Naru, who was deep in thought after their narrations, finally speaks, "Could it be…that Nagisa had multiple personality disorder?"
Ayako gasps, "That would make sense about the whole other Nagisa thing!"
John asks, "Multiple personality disorder?"
Ayako explains, "It is a kind of mental disorder where the mind creates one or many alternate selves to counter some sort of great tragedy. In Nagisa's case, I can safely assume the death of her mother and remarriage of her father could have triggered her to create a stronger alternative personality to protect herself."
"Yes," Naru says, "It could have been that she reverted completely to her violent personality after she heard about the Kenji-Nanami engagement. Maybe she had normal episodes and Nanami helped her. But her other self took the news of the engagement hard and subsequently it led to all this."
"What about the whole waterfall scene?" Mai asks.
"I have an idea," Houshou says, "Vengeful spirits, or onryo, of the living are said to inflict curses upon the subject or subjects of their vengeance by means of transforming into their ikiryo form."
"You mean," Lin says, "That when Nagisa stabbed herself she had already left her body in spirit form and then later returned to her own her spirit got corrupted."
"What is an ikiryo?" John asks.
"Ikiryo refers to a spirit that leaves the body of a living person and subsequently haunts other people or places," Houshou answers.
"Then when she had already cursed Nanami and the Tamako brothers, and when Saito killed her, her physical body finally died," Naru surmises, "Then she turned into an onryo completely. The burial kimono. Before that it was ikiryo. But is this really possible? Two kinds of spiritual transformations?"
"Yes," Lin says, "Remember she was very, very angry and extremely determined. Also she could have chanted a spell to achieve exactly that. And I am sure she might have harnessed evil spiritual energy to do so."
"Hmm," Mai says, "The nicer Nagisa is trapped inside still. Uh, could it be that the deaths didn't happen could be because nice Nagisa stopped them?"
"It is plau—Lin!"