The Holes in our Hearts
Chapter 6: Who is Mai?
Mai sat up slowly and looked around the room trying to establish her whereabouts. Then her eyes came to rest on Grimlock, who was watching Mai very carefully. "Grim!" Mai shouted with excitement as she smiled at him. Gone was the tension and mistrust that had hindered her movements when he had first appeared in Naru's apartment. It was obvious that she had gained utmost faith in the man standing in the shadows.
"So you're awake then. From your reaction, I'm going to guess that you found the door."
"Yeah, I never realized that I had so many memories until I was in that hall of doors."
"Are you feeling okay? Most people can't break through the locks in their mind and come back unscathed."
Mai looked at Grim somewhat questioningly because she had really not encountered that many obstacles on her journey to find the memories of her past. "I'm one hundred percent fine. I'm a little tired and pretty emotionally drained though. Opening all the wrong doors took a lot out of me. Then of course, there were the memories of the war…" Mai trailed off with a distinct note of pain in her voice.
For the first time since Mai woke up, Grimlock moved from his position in the corner and came over to look Mai directly in the eyes. "I am so sorry that you had to see that. If there was any way that I could have given you your memories back without you having to see that, I would have. Unfortunately, it's an all or nothing deal."
"Ahem…" Naru, having sat in his chair watching the exchange with an immovable mask on, decided that he had had enough of being kept in the dark. "Would one of you care to explain what is going on or should I just continue to sit here and wait until you have finished catching up."
Mai was slightly taken back by the harshness in Naru's tone, but Grim just smirked. He knew the reason that the worm's voice was so taunt. He was afraid. He had clearly fallen head over heels in love with Mai and never made a move to do anything about it. Now there was someone else in the picture, and the worm was afraid that Mai might have someone else to focus her attention on.
"Well, worm, that's a story Mai should be quite capable of telling you now." Turning to Mai, Grimlock whispered in her ear, "You have a lot to tell him, but don't feel like you have to tell him everything. I'm going to leave you two to it. I'll be back later and then we have to move. My brother will not wait forever." After seeing Mai give a quick nod, Grimlock moved to the door and slipped out leaving the room feeling a lot bigger and the silence a lot more awkward.
Quietly Mai cleared her throat and looked at the young man across from her, her eyes landing on the blue of his eyes that resembled the flower in the field. As she realized that it was thinking of Naru that got her to move to the next stage of her journey, Mai blushed a deep crimson and was very thankful for the dim lighting in the room that hid most of it.
Meanwhile, Naru looked at Mai out of the corner of his eye. He watched as she observed that creeps exit, as she sat lost in thought, and finally as she blushed and turned away hoping he wouldn't notice. Realizing that she would need a little help to get the story underway, Naru cleared his throat.
"So, care to share your newfound knowledge?"
Mai looked up at him first with a little bit of fear, but then her nerves seemed to steady themselves as she looked at the swirling blue that made up Naru's eyes.
"Yeah. I still can't believe everything that I forgot. I guess the best place to start is with the year after my parents died." Her voice broke a little at the end of that statement, but with an encouraging glance from Naru she steadied herself again and continued. "After my parents died, I was incredibly depressed. By this time, I had figured out how to play the system so I could live on my own without having to worry about the adults. That didn't change the fact that I was still very much alone. Apparently, I was sitting in the park one day when I saw the impossible. I saw Grimlock."
"I saw him too Mai, that doesn't seem to impossible." Naru interrupted with his usual narcissistic voice. Despite its aggravation, Mai took some comfort in the fact that Naru would always be a narcissist.
"Hardy har har Mr. Hilarious. Anyway, Grimlock belongs to an entirely different world. All around us there are humans that are afraid of things they don't understand. This has not only been evident in our ghost hunting, but in all the stories throughout time that include beings like werewolves and vampires. Humans have now become literally blind to this world. That's why I shouldn't have been able to see Grimlock that day."
"So is that jerk a werewolf then?" Naru asked with a mixture of disbelief and sneer in his voice.
"For one Grim is not a jerk…"
"Oh so it's 'Grim' now is it?"
"Oh shush. It's no different than me calling you Naru. And no, he's not a werewolf. He's a hunter. He belongs to an organization of humans that have trained their spiritual and physical abilities to monitor the actives of the darker things in the world. In the event that one of these creatures goes and gets out of line, the hunters come in and exterminate them. That's actually how I met Grim. I was sitting in the park minding my own business when suddenly a wolf dashed out of the bushes and turned into a man. I was so surprised I couldn't even scream. Before I could, a man dressed in black with two long blades came out of the bushes and decapitated the man. By this point I was screaming and running for help. The only problem was that no one else saw anything. They just looked at me like I was crazy. The man came up and realized I could see him. He then introduced himself as Grim and took me back to the Order."
"Hold on Mai. What the heck is the Order?" Naru was now just staring at Mai like she had completely lost her head.
"The Order is the name of the entire organization of hunters. Anyway, he took me there and after running some tests they realized I had incredible potential to be a great hunter one day. So I began training. Grim taught me everything: how to wield a double edged sword, clean out a vampire nest, test a human for fey blood, the whole nine yards. For a while, I was happy. There was purpose to my life. Then the war came."
"It sounds like these hunters are in a constant war. What happened that was different." Finally, Naru's tone was beginning to lose a little of the disbelief and became more serious.
"Grim had a brother. They come from a strong family of hunters. Evidently Grim's brother had a huge falling out with the rest of the hunters and he left. Under his leadership, most of the Others," sensing another question coming on Mai quickly added, "That's the name we have for all the things in this world that aren't human. Anyway, most of the Others joined forces. They hated how the hunters kept wiping out their numbers. They launched a huge attack. So many died that night. For the second time in my life I lost my family. I thought that everyone was gone. I still don't know how I survived that night. Anyway, after that my memories are of a normal human life. No Others, no Grim, and no one else. This was exactly a year ago. Just before I met you actually. Since then I have lived a normal life with the most excitement being in my ghost hunting with you."
With her tale finally told, Mai finally looked up at Naru. "One last question Mai. That jer…" Seeing Mai's eyes narrow in disapproval he quickly amended, "that hunter, he said he loved you. Is that true?"
By the end of the question, Mai was in shock. She had just turned his reality upside-down by admitting the existence of every monster in history and he was concerned about her love life? 'What if he does care? No, Mai! There has to be another explanation. He's never said anything. All those glances earlier, I simply must have put too much stock in them.'
"I suppose it is, we were really close before the war." Naru visibly flinched at this. She had just confirmed his greatest fear. That man, the one who obviously had such a powerful connection with Mai, did care about her. And judging by her tone, Mai felt something special for him too.
"Naru, look at me." Slowly, swirling blue eyes met chocolate brown ones and Mai saw. In Naru's eyes she saw the acceptance of the story she had just told him from her recently recovered memories, worry for her safety, a little bit of anger, and finally that emotion she couldn't place earlier mixed with the purest form of grief Mai had ever seen.
"I don't know what you're thinking Naru, but this was a very long time ago. I may have cared about him in that way once. But it has just been too long. I still care about him, and I don't know where things will wind up when all is said and done, but I'm not going to leave you, okay?"
For the first time that night, dark blue eyes reflected a sense of peace. He still had a chance. He could make her understand that she meant more to him than an assistant should. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the door to his apartment burst open to reveal none other than the bastard that was the cause of all his worry in the first place.
Gone was the sullen expression he had worn earlier. Grimlock was now in high spirits. He came in with a bag of take out and passed a box to both Mai and Naru. "Well, I'm assuming from the absolutely lovely atmosphere in here that the worm is caught up to speed. Now then, I've placed a barrier around this place that should be strong enough to keep my brother and anything else from disturbing us for the rest of the night. Now it's my turn to explain something to the both of you."
Mai and Naru shared a quick and somewhat uneasy glance at the sudden shift from Grimlock's earlier melancholy attitude. That only lasted a second before Naru replayed what he had just heard. He had had it with being called a worm. "Alright you twerp. I am not a worm. I have taken on a god and won. What makes you think I'll tolerate a wimp like you calling me a worm."
Suddenly the temperature in the room dropped. Grimlock looked up from his place on the floor to reveal a pair of eyes that glowed green as blazing emeralds. "Listen, I admire your determination to keep control of the things around you. That's a good quality to have in this business. But let me make one thing clear. You are way out of your depth. That 'god' you took on could be squished with a snap of the fingers by anyone in the Order. You may have some power but you have no idea how to control it. So sit down. That little stunt just earned you enough respect that I'll upgrade you from worm to leech. With all that black on you seem more like a leech anyway" With that the pressure lifted off the room and Naru looked at Grim with a great amount of disdain.
"Now then," Grim continued "Mai, I've been watching you. The dreams have started haven't they?"
"Yes, but I can't remember anything."
"This is all my brother's doing. Before the war he sensed the incredible level of your powers. He knew that with training you would be able to stop all his plans to destroy the Order. So he launched the war to destroy as many of us as possible and then he blocked your mind. I can only imagine that it was to keep you from getting stronger. Now he's ready to make his move. This new case the leech took involves my brother. It was a plant to draw you out Mai. He wanted to pull the most powerful opposition to him out so he could destroy you in one blow. Not only that but he's incredibly confident. He lessened the block on your mind. It shouldn't have been that easy for you to get your memories back. He's coming Mai. He's coming to kill you.
Mai looked up at her old friend in terror. "Okay, so I haven't done anything but sit in school for a year and now I have to fight one of the most powerful evil jerks alive?"
"Basically. Don't worry though. From this point on I'll be joining you as a new member of SPR."
"You'll be what?!" That was the first time Mai had ever seen Naru lose his composer. Not only had he yelled, he seemed genuinely rattled. However, the outburst aside, he was still doing a fabulous job of hiding his emotions. No one besides Mai could probably pick up on how angry and distressed he was.
"Yep. Face it leech, you're out of your depth. I'm the only one who can get Mai out of your next case alive."
"Well here's an idea," Mai said, wary of the two boys shooting lasers with their eyes at each other over her head, "let's just not take the case."
"It's too late for that. My brother already has his sights on you Mai. If we don't face him now, he'll just keep taking away people you love until you will have lost your entire family again."
"Alright," Naru said in his business tone. His emotions were now fully in check and he had a goal: protect Mai at all costs. "Mai will stay here in the guest room tonight. You can sleep on the couch. Tomorrow we will head to SPR. We are scheduled to leave tomorrow afternoon. As much as I hate the idea, another set of eyes to watch Mai will be helpful."
"Good to see you finally have gotten the situation through your little leechy brain."
Naru, seething internally, merely brushed off the name and turned to lead Mai to the guest room. "Another thing, what's the name of this lunatic that has caused so much trouble?"
"His name is Ash. It's something you won't forget in a hurry after this case."
With that, dark thoughts all on their minds, the trio settled in for bed. They all knew that tomorrow was going to be a hard day, and that their pain had only just begun.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt. I'm just amusing myself and others with my own twist to the plotline.
Hello. I am so sorry for how long it has been. Let's leave it to say that a lot of bad things happened and I lost my will to write for a while. But now I am back and I hope you all enjoyed the latest chapter. Honestly, it has been so long that my original ideas have gotten shuffled around a bit. All suggestions are welcome. Please leave a review, they help so much to keep me motivated!
And a huge, "I'm sorry" to Naru. I feel like he got pounded on a lot this chapter between Grim and Mai both taking things out of his control. Don't worry, Naru will be back to his commanding and narcissistic personality next chapter!