Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt. Although I wish I did!!! ^-^
Chapter 3
~*Mai's Dream*~
"Hello?" Mai asked out into the darkness. She frowned. Dream Naru wasn't there, and this worried her. He was always there to help guide her through a certain dream. He even explained some of its meanings, so why wasn't he here? She turned her head this way and that.
Nothing.
She called out again, but this time she heard voices and some giggling coming behind her. Mai quickly turned and saw that she was now in a beautiful yard. It had clean cut grass, beautiful, rich colored flowers, and tall, strong trees. A teenage girl and boy were standing by the most beautiful tree of all.
"Come on Haku-kun!" said the girl. Mai was having a hard time seeing her face, seeing how the girl's back was facing her. The boy leaned against the tree, slightly frowning.
"I hate it when you call me 'Haku-kun'. I told you before, just call me Haku." he said. The girl giggled and hooked her arm around his.
"Ok, Haku." She said. In a flash, Haku took the girl in his arms.
"You know I love you, right Isabella?" he asked her, his eyes soft. The girl tensed slightly in his arms and turned around. Mai let out a small gasp. The girl named Isabella, was the same woman in the portrait that looked just like Mai. 'So that's her name…' Mai thought.
"Isabella? Are you alright?" asked a worried Haku. There was a moment of silence, then she let out a sigh.
"Of course I do…because, I love you, too." Isabella said smiling. She turned around and looked at him, blushing. He smiled, his eyes showing pure love. Haku bent his head down and kissed her sweetly. Mai smiled at the scene. A bad feeling crept up Mai's back right after she smiled. She turned around. A boy, around their age, was standing behind a tree spying on them. He was grimacing. Mai noticed that he looked familiar, but didn't know why. He was gripping a branch tightly, making his knuckles pale white. He muttered something under his breath that only Mai could hear.
"Isabella is mine. Only mine." He said. Mai shivered at that and looked over at the couple. They looked blissfully happy. A smile couldn't touch Mai's lips because she knew that something was going to happen, and she didn't like it.
The scene quickly dissolved and once again Mai was in darkness. She waited to see if Dream Naru would come, but again. Nothing. Mai's eyelids were beginning to get heavy. She let them close and heard a distant voice calling out her name.
~*End of Dream*~
"…wake up." She heard a voice say. Mai frowned a little. She opened her eyes slowly, her vision was blurry. She looked around and felt someone next to her. She blinked the blurriness away and sat up slowly. Mai realized that she was in her room. She tried to find the owner of the voice, but saw that no one else was there but her. A feeling of panic rose up her chest. She moved the sheets away from her body and got up slowly. She stood there doing nothing, listening to see if the mysterious voice would say anything else.
Silence.
She moved towards the window and looked out. It was very dark. The clouds were dark grey, heavy with rain just waiting to fall. She let the curtain fall over the window and turned around.
"Mai…" a voice said softly. A breath got hitched in her throat. She let it out shakily and turned around. There was nothing there, yet Mai couldn't shake of the feeling that someone or something was there with her. She hurriedly went out of the room, not wanting to wait for the unknown visitor. She tried to calm herself as she was going out the door. A sudden appearance made her scream loudly.
"Miss, it's just me! Rosalie!" said the panicked maid. Mai stopped screaming and took a huge breath. She closed her eyes tightly.
"Sorry about that..." she said, her eyes still closed. She felt Rosalie help her stand straight. Fast approaching footsteps could be heard. Mai forced her eyes open and saw that almost all of the SPR team was coming up.
"Mai!" Bou-san screamed. She groaned inwardly. Why did this stuff always happen to her? Bou-san was now holding her shoulders and checking her for any injuries.
"What happened? Are you ok?" he asked looking at her. Mai nodded.
"I just freaked out a little bit. It's nothing." She told him. Bou-san sighed. He looked over at Rosalie for a second opinion.
"I was going to check on her when she came out of the room. She looked a little frightened and when she saw me, she screamed. I think I scared her unintentionally." Said the maid in an apologetic tone. She bowed her head, but Mai patted her back and smiled at her.
"No, it was my fault. You had nothing to do with it." She looked back up at Bou-san and tried to look reassuring. She heard a scoff and looked up to see Masako, her sleeve covering her face.
~Masako's POV~
I was just about to hug Naru when we heard a scream. There was a slight hesitation in the monk before he ran out of the room. John, Lin, and my Naru followed after. I glared at nothing in particular. I had a feeling that it was that idiot of an assistant that Naru had, who was screaming. I went out at my own pace, Ayako was slightly running up the stairs. As I reached the top, my suspicions were proved correct. That attention seeking assistant was the one that had screamed. The monk was demanding to know what had happened, while she only looked for excuses.
"No, it was my fault. You had nothing to do with it." Mai told the maid, who was blaming herself for the scare. Mai looked back up at Bou-san.
I knew perfectly well that she was the one at fault. She probably did this thinking that she didn't have enough attention when she entered the building nor when Lin had stopped the van just for her to get off and cause another scene. I scoffed and she turned to look at me. I had my sleeve over my face. She glared at me, I could only snicker.
~Normal POV~
Mai rolled her eyes at Masako and glanced at Naru, who as always, had an unreadable expression on his face. A few seconds later Ryuuji came running up the stairs.
"I heard a scream. Is everything alright?" he asked a little out of breath. Mai could see that the Rosalie was just about to say something and suspecting that she would take the blame, Mai spoke first.
"Everything is fine. I just…freaked out a little." She smiled slightly at him. Ryuuji had an unreadable expression on his face as he looked at her.
"Other than that, are you alright? You know, you gave us quite a scare when you just suddenly fainted." Ryuuji asked Mai, slightly tilting his head to a side. Mai nodded again. Naru suddenly turned on his heel and walked down the stairs.
"Now that you're awake, Mai. Get to work." Naru said not looking back. Mai puffed her cheeks and turned red with rage. 'Leave it to Naru to make me feel worse.' Mai thought to herself angrily. Masako, looking like a dog trailing after its master, followed closely behind Naru, making Mai even angrier. She went back to her room, forgetting why she had left it in the first place, and put her shoes on, which had been taken off. She suspected that it was probably Rosalie.
"Would you like me to get you anything, miss?" asked the faithful maid. Mai smiled at her and shook her head.
"No thanks. I'm fine." Mai said as she went out of her room, closely followed by her personal maid. She made her way back to the base, dismissing Rosalie. When she went in, she saw that the rest of the team were sitting on the couches, all of their attention on Ryuuji and Naru. It seemed as if Naru was interrogating him.
"Well, can you tell us anything else about this house that might help with our investigation?" Naru asked Ryuuji while Mai took a seat next to John, who gave her a smile.
"Well…back at the age with my ancestor, whose name was Kyoshi, many things happened, but I'm not sure that they have anything to do with this." Ryuuji said a little uncertainly. Naru opened his mouth as to say something, but was interrupted by a sudden arrival of an unknown woman.
"Wow, when you said you were going to hire some people to help with the house, I never thought that you would hire a pack of ghost hunters, bro." the girl told him, an eyebrow raised. The girl looked surprisingly so like Ryuuji. As if answering Mai's question and apparently that of the others, Ryuuji stood up as to explain.
"Guys, this is my twin sister Kagome." He said, then he turned back to his sister, "I thought you weren't coming back in a while after…your incident." He said looking at her questioningly. Kagome smirked.
"Oh please Ryuuji, you know that since I was a kid I never let a cold stop me from playing outside, right? This is just one of those situations." She winked at him playfully. She let out a breath and looked at the team. "So you gonna introduce me to them or what?" she asked him. Ryuuji looked around.
"The boss of this team is Kazuya Shibuya," he said pointing at Naru, "the rest are Houshou Takigawa, Ayako Matsuzaki, Masako Hara, John Brown, Lin Koujo, and Mai Taniyama." He said pointing at each one of them. Kagome stepped up to Mai.
The only difference between Kagome and Ryuuji was that Kagome's hair was a dark black color instead of blonde. Mai could see that she was pretty.
"You're very cute!" Kagome told Mai while pulling her cheek, making Mai blush. Kagome smiled even more at her. Ryuuji pulled her away, smiling apologetically.
"Sorry about that, Mai", he turned to Kagome and whispered, "will you stop it?" he asked her frowning. Kagome rolled her eyes.
"Ok, fine. So what are you guys doing?"she asked looking around at everyone. Mai giggled. She couldn't help but think that the innocent expression on her face was funny. Kagome turned to look at her and smiled.
"They're trying to gather information about this house, maybe they'll find something that can help them." Explained Ryuuji.
"Oh, well why didn't you say so? Can I help? I know many stories of the history of our house, thanks to our father." Kagome said smiling.
"As a matter of fact, you can." Said Naru looking down at his file. He looked up at her. "Can you tell us anything that might help us?" he asked her. Kagome plopped herself down on the couch next to Mai.
"Duh! My dad used to tell us stories about what happened here at this house. He loved histoy, especially ours." She smirked. She looked over at her brother frowning.
"You haven't told them?" she asked him. Ryuuji scowled at her. "They're just ghost stories our father used to tell us to scare us." Naru looked at him coldly.
"Enlighten us." he told him using a very cold tone. Mai gave him a stern look. Kagome raised her hand as if she were back in school.
"I can do that!" she laid her hand on her lap and continued, "Well it all started when my dad was about twelve years old. He was walking down the hallway by the ballroom and heard some voices coming from inside of it. He went to check out what was going on, when he went in he saw that it was totally empty. But when he was about to close the door to the ballroom, he saw a lady in one of the windows. He described her as being very beautiful but that she had a certain sadness emanating from her. Another time was when he was playing outside in the backyard with some of his friends. They suddenly heard a scream from the forest out back. They went to check it out but found nothing. Oh! And here's the best one yet!" Kagome said with some excitement.
"My dad was once walking through the upstairs hallway, he saw that woman again but that time she looked very frightened and before he knew it, the hallway got super cold and a dark shadow swept over the woman and in a flash she was gone." She finished with a letting out a much needed breath. Mai shivered. 'So some evil spirit is attacking Isabella? Why?' Mai asked herself.
Naru and the others were thinking hard. Why would a spirit attack another? And why would that same spirit, in theory, attack mostly women? This case was proving to hold more questions than answers. And apparently it was somewhat toying with them.
"You see why I didn't want to tell you guys this stuff? It's nothing but ghost stories. Nothing important really." Said Ryuuji.
"When will be able to interrogate the rest of the maids? We are in need of more information." Said Naru thoughtfully. Ryuuji looked up at the ceiling for a fraction of a second and looked back at Naru.
"Tomorrow, if that's alright with you." Ryuuji told him, his tone slightly hinting a question. Naru nodded and began looking down at his file again. Mai frowned at her boss. Couldn't he at least thank her for the stories? Mai shook her head slightly and turned to Kagome.
"Thank you for telling us the stories." She smiled at her. Kagome got up quickly and took Mai's hand pulling her along. Kagome turned to Naru.
"Hey Mr. Serious, I'm gonna take Mai and seeing how my brother was the one that hired you, that would make him captain and me co-captain, right? So you can't argue." she winked and started pulling Mai out of the base.
"I was wondering if you wanted to go check out the ballroom. Maybe we find something scary there." Kagome told Mai teasingly. Mai was surprised at how that girl could be so charismatic and innocent at the same time. She couldn't stop the smile that was forming on her lips. She had the feeling that her and Kagome were going to become very good friends, and she seemed like a fun kind of friend.
"You know, I was wondering. The maids said that you're called SPR short for Shibuya Psychic Research, right? Are any of you actually psychics?" Kagome asked Mai, slowing down. Mai thought about her answer for a second.
"Well, Masako Hara, the girl wearing the kimono, is a psychic. She can see spirits and talk to them. And Naru says that I have ESP", Mai tilted her head, raking her brain for the words Naru had used to describe her special power, "he said I have an internal radar, enabling me to tell who's a friend and who's a foe. I usually have dreams on a case." Mai said.
"So? Don't we all have dreams? And who's Naru?" Kagome asked, confusion evident in her voice.
"Well, mine are…somewhat different. I dream of things of a case we are on. Like I dream about that past or maybe of something that might have happened in that certain place. It's sometimes scary. Oh and I call my boss Naru for certain reasons" Mai finished explaining.
They had reached the ballroom doors and Kagome turned to her. "You wanna come in? I'm pretty sure that's what you do seeing how you're a ghost hunter. You investigate this sort of stuff, right?" Kagome asked her, tilting her head the same way Ryuuji would. Mai kept her smile on.
"Of course. And if we actually find any ghosts, we exorcise them. Well Bou-san and Ayako do." Mai told Kagome. Before she could ask, Mai answered her question.
"Bou-san's a monk and Ayako is a priestess." She said putting a hand on the door knob. Kagome looked as if had understood and she put her hand on the other knob. They both opened the doors at the same time. Mai looked around, amazed at how large the room really was. This was yet another room she hadn't seen. Chandeliers were hanging down from the seeing. Mirrors were hanging on some walls, making it look even more beautiful. The camera that Mai had setup in there looked very small.
Kagome went to center of it and began twirling around. She beckoned Mai to join her. Mai couldn't resist herself and she too began to twirl around. Happiness went up through her chest. She felt like a kid again. They both stopped and looked at each other smiling.
"Hey, is that a camera over there?" Kagome asked pointing towards it. Mai nodded.
"It's a special camera. It'll help us see if there's any ghost in this room. And…well, the others can see what we're doing right now…" Mai said, flushing embarrassed. Kagome smiled again and began making silly faces at the camera.
"We already danced in front of it. Why not make faces?" Kagome made another face by pulling her cheeks and sticking her tongue out. Mai laughed and began making faces, too. She suddenly got the feeling that they weren't alone in the room. Mai stopped and looked around but found nothing. She knew that the presence was familiar so she grabbed Kagome's hand and went out of the room, almost running. Kagome was confused but let herself be led out off the room.
"What's wrong?" she asked Mai. As they were out of the room Mai had slowed down.
"Nothing. I just thought that we should get out of there before my boss gets mad at me." She shrugged, perfectly hiding her unusual feeling. Kagome also shrugged and they both began to head back to the base.
As they went into the base, Mai made sure to avoid Naru's eyes. She heard Bou-san laughing quietly.
"If you liked to be in front of the camera Taniyama-san, you shouldn't have joined this job." Naru said icily. Mai shivered.
"Hey Shibuya, don't blame her. I made her do those faces. So if you don't mind, lay off of my friend. And I don't care if she works for you. I'm like her second boss, so she's forgiven." Kagome said sternly. Mai looked up at Naru and saw that his eyes flickered with surprise. She couldn't help but laugh. The others soon joined in, making the whole house echo with laughter. The only ones who weren't laughing were Masako, Lin and Naru, but Lin looked as if he were having a hard time not to. Mai had stopped laughing but the others were still at it. Three things happened at the same time. Her gaze fell on to the window and saw a silhoutte of a man. Lightning struck somewhere and lit everything outside, letting Mai see the man. Who, to her surprise and horror, was the same man in her dreams that was spying on the couple, but this time he had blood running down his face. And Mai felt herself being choked by an invisible force. She wanted to scream, but couldn't.
A few seconds later, Mai was bending down, hands on her knees coughing. She tried to take in some breaths but couldn't. Panic spread through her body. But she wasn't so much as scared for herself, if not for her baby. She began feeling dizzy, and couldn't decipher what was going on around her. She was half-conscious when she felt the floor underneath her. Mai couldn't see anything, nor hear voices correctly. She couldn't breath and little by little she felt herself slipping into unconsciousness, but this time it felt different. She felt pressure on her chest and air going in her mouth. The process repeated again, and Mai felt herself growing conscious of her surroundings. Loud voices could be heard around her. And she slowly opened her eyes. A fit of coughs came out of her mouth, somebody helped her sit up to breath better. She looked around for the only person that made her feel extremely safe. Their eyes met and she found her voice.
"Naru! The window!" she screamed pointing weakly at it. Both Naru and Bou-san went over to it, but saw nothing.
~Naru's POV~
As soon as the clients sister finished telling us the stories, I got to thinking. Why would that 'shadow', as the girl referred to it, attack that certain spirit? This case was proving to have more questions than answers. It was irritating me.
"You see why I didn't want to tell you guys this stuff? It's nothing but ghost stories. Nothing important really." Said Ryuuji. I looked at him.
"When will be able to interrogate the rest of the maids? We are in need of more information." I said thoughtfully. Ryuuji looked up at the ceiling for a fraction of a second and looked back at me.
"Tomorrow, if that's alright with you." Ryuuji told me, his tone slightly hinting a question. I nodded and began looking down at my file again.
"Thank you for telling us the stories." I could hear Mai telling Kagome. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kagome get up quickly and take Mai's hand pulling her along. She turned to me.
"Hey Mr. Serious, I'm gonna take Mai and seeing how my brother was the one that hired you, that would make him captain and me co-captain, right? So you can't argue." she winked and started pulling Mai out of the base. I looked up as they left. I frowned on the inside. Mr. Serious? What the hell was up with that name?
"I was wondering if you wanted to go check out the ballroom…" Kagome's voice faded out. The ballroom? Why was she going there? I stood up and headed over to the cameras slowly as if I was doing it on pure coincidence.
Both of the doors opened, Mai and Kagome went in. And I raised my eyebrow at seeing the overzealous girl begin twirling around as if she were a little girl. I saw her wave over at Mai and I had a feeling she was going to start dancing too. As always, I was correct. She did. They both stopped and smiled at each other. Kagome pointed at the camera, she asked Mai something and Mai nodded. I couldn't hear them, seeing how I didn't bother to turn the volume up. It looked as if Mai was explaining something to her and she blushed.
'Why is she blushing?'I asked myself. She probably told her that we could see them. I smirked. Kagome began making faces at the camera. Bou-san, who was beside me, was snickering. I resisted to roll my eyes. Soon Mai joined her too. I wanted to laugh, but I composed myself and continued watching them. Mai suddenly stopped and looked around. Apparently Bou-san had seen her action and stopped laughing.
"Do you think she's feeling something?" he whispered, worry stitched into his voice. I didn't respond. I readied myself to run in case if something happened. But relief spread through my body as Mai left the room taking Kagome with her.
"I apologize for my sisters actions." Ryuuji said, surely embarrassed. A few seconds later both girls came inside. Mai avoided my eyes as she came in. Again, I heard Bou-san laugh quietly.
"If you liked to be in front of the camera Taniyama-san, you shouldn't have joined this job." I told her icily. Mai shivered. I was irritated at her. She knew better than to do those things in front of the camera while being on the job.
"Hey Shibuya, don't blame her. I made her do those faces. So if you don't mind, lay off of my friend. And I don't care if she works for you. I'm like her second boss, so she's forgiven." Kagome said sternly. Mai looked up at me. I felt surprise flicker in my eyes. Mai began to laugh. The others soon joined in. I could hear the house echo with laughter. The only ones that weren't laughing were Masako, Lin, and I. I glanced at Lin and saw that he was having a hard time not laughing. Masako had a sleeve over her mouth as usual. I frowned.
Mai was the first one to stop laughing. I saw a flash of lightning behind us. Something was strange in her look. The next thing I knew, she was bending down, her hands on her knees. She began coughing a lot. Mai fell back on the floor and looked as if she was out of breath. Everyone stopped laughing. I stood up quickly, but before I could do anything, Ryuuji was at her side. He called out her name, but she didn't respond. Bou-san and Ayako were both at her side now.
"She's not breathing!" Ryuuji screamed alarmed. Everything went slowly around me. I couldn't believe it. Was Mai going to die? I began to feel the same pain inside of me I felt when I found out that something had happened to Gene. My body froze, refusing to let me move.
"You need to do CPR on her!" Ayako screamed. Ryuuji nodded and began to give her mouth-to-mouth. Although this was a life and death situation, I couldn't stop the feeling of anger that was rising in my blood. 'Nobody can touch Mai's lips, but me'I thought furiously. Ryuuji did it again and I could see Mai's eyes flutter.
"She's breathing!" Bou-san screamed. I was surprised at how much relief spread through me as he announced that Mai was breathing again. My favorite brunnette began coughing a lot and Ayako helped her sit up. She looked around and our eyes met.
"Naru! The window!" she screamed pointing weakly at it. Bou-san and I ran to the window, but saw nothing. I turned and saw that Ayako was calming her down, telling her to take deep breaths.
~Normal POV~
Bou-san picked Mai up and let her sit on the couch. Naru walked over and knelt in front of her. Her eyes were wild and unfocused. He took her head in between his hands and made her look into his eyes. Somewhere in the background, Masako glared at Mai.
"Mai, what happened?" he asked her firmly. She finally focused on her surroundings and on the person in front of her. Naru repeated the question.
"A man was out there…there was bl-blood running down his face. And he looked at angry. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe. I was scared for my…" she let it drop there, realizing that she was about to let her secret slip. She averted her gaze. Knowing Naru, she knew he wasn't going to let it drop.
"For your what?" he asked her. Mai tried to look for an excuse. Surprisingly, Ryuuji saved her.
"Well what else do you think she would be afraid for? Her life, of course." his voice was surprisingly angry. Mai saw Naru's eyes flash angrily. She stood up.
"Mai do you need to lie down?" Ayako asked her while stroking her back. "In fact, I think we should all go to bed. It's already 11 o'clock." She said looking at her watch. Naru sighed and let them leave, mostly because he wanted Mai to rest. Lin shut down his laptop and left, leaving Naru alone.
He sat there thinking. Anger was coursing through his veins. Not only did the ghost try to kill Mai, but Ryuuji had practically kissed her. He was already planning to torture the ghost somehow or getting it exorcized as painfully as possible. What he didn't know, was what he was going to do with Ryuuji. He glanced up and saw movement in one of the cameras. He got up quickly and went over to them. The figure had passed the camera and was heading to the base, as far as he could tell. He turned around, waiting to see if it was the ghost that he had come to hate so quickly. What surprised him was that it wasn't the ghost, if not Mai. Her eyes were squinting and her pajama top revealed her right shoulder. Mai rubbed her left eye, making her look very cute.
"Naru, what are you doing up so late? It's past midnight." She tried to look at him sternly, but failed seeing how she was tired.
"I was thinking about the case." Naru picked up a file. Mai frowned and grabbed his hand and started to pull him out of the room.
"No, you need to sleep. If not, you might get sick." She continued to pull him along. At first he tried to resist, but gave in when he started to feel the sleepiness he was supposed to feel a long time ago. Mai dropped his hand as they went up the stairs. She grabbed the rail to steady herself. As they walked side by side, Naru began to feel a slight force on him. He turned around to find Mai slumping next to him, to tired to walk. Naru stopped and made her stop alongside him.
"Mai, can you walk?" he whispered. She grunted slightly. Naru got her by the shoulders and began to carry her bridal style. Good thing she was mostly asleep, if not she would have made a scene. She had leaned her head against his shoulder. Naru smiled one of his rare smiles at her action. He enjoyed how close he was to her after all the time he couldn't be with her. He heard Mai whimper in his arms.
"Naru…why did you…use me?" she whispered, a small tear falling down her cheek. He had reached her room by then. He frowned at what she had said, laid her down, and pulled the covers over her. He opened the door to his room and quickly changed his close to lie down. What Mai had said in her dream kept running through his mind.
'How did I use you Mai?' he asked himself right before he slipped into unconsciousness.
So how was this chapter guys? Good? Boring?
If it was, please give me some tips to make it better!! ^-^;;
Thanks for the reviews!! –Bows-