Me: Hey ya!
Naru: Didn't you just upload a chapter?
Me: I felt bad for depriving my readers for so long so I uploaded another one.
Mai: Yay Silver! Keep it up!
Gene: Silver doesn't own Ghost Hunt, Please R&R!
Mai's POV:
My feet ached as I flew down the pavement to the office. My alarm clock had gone off an hour late, making it so that I had to skip breakfast after I took a five minute shower when I normally took at least fifteen. Luckily I had been smart enough to pack the day before, but it still didn't make all that much of a difference. It still ended up with me being at least fifteen minutes late. I looked down at my wristwatch and saw the time and sighed. 'Scratch that, I'm eighteen minutes late. 'I depanned, sighing to myself as I picked up my pace even more. When I turned round the bend to the office I saw everyone already outside with the vans all packed waiting for me.
"Mai, you're late again." Naru said, glaring daggers at me as I approached and slowed my sprint to a slow walk.
"Sorry Naru, I overslept." I panted, trying to regain my breath after the mile and a half sprint I just did with my duffle bag weighing me down the entire time.
I could feel the sweat drip down my face and chest as my tank top and shorts did little to help cool me down on this eighty-something degree spring day. I could already tell that my hair was a mess from the wind, and I wanted nothing more than to get into the air conditioned car and fall asleep. Unfortunately, before I could even put my bag in the van, two strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me into a painfully tight hug.
"You need to get a new alarm clock Jou-chan." The person hugging me said. Instantly my annoyed mood changed, and I giggled as my father figure twirled me around.
"Monk!" I exclaimed, laughing at his usual antics until a loud whapping sound was heard and I was dropped back onto my feet. Turning around I saw Monk squatting down and holding his head in pain as a fiery woman stood above him holding her red Gucci purse in a threatening manner.
"Don't strangle her you idiot!" Ayako scolded, glaring at him only for him to return it and stand up to tower over her, trying to use his height as an advantage to her violent outbursts against him.
"Hey! Watch it old lady!" He snapped back, getting in her face only to pale as she held up her purse to him once more.
"Now, now you two, let's not fight." John said, getting between the two arguing adults like always. His hands extended the distance between them and made it so that Ayako's purse couldn't hit Monk and would hit him instead if she even tried to. Monk must have realized this and knew that she wouldn't ever try to strike the priest for he smirked and crossed his arms confidently.
"Yeah, you heard John you crone."
"What did you say you cockroach!" she shouted, pushing past John with her purse raised to strike him.
Monk shrunk down and covered his head with his arms preparing for the impact of the heavy purse upon his skull, only for a cough to interrupt their fight. Both paused in their actions and looked to the source, only to see that it was Naru who was currently staring daggers at them both. Waves of anger and annoyance seemed to roll off the young narcissist as he simply stood there with his arms crossed. His presence alone over powered the two adults as they shrunk to the size of ants under his intense gaze, giving them the illusion that they were two children being reprimanded for doing something bad by their father.
"Will you all just get in the cars. We're already twenty minutes late."
"What about Masako and Yasu?" Monk asked, as I threw my bag in the back and closed the trunk to the van so that we could leave when Naru deemed so. He sighed at Monk's question and pinched the bridge of his nose. Already I knew that a migraine was forming in his already confined mind, and I piped in before he could snap at the poor unsuspecting soul and quite possibly make the ride even tenser then it already would be.
"Masako has a shoot near the beach and will be meeting us at the house. Also Yasu has a project he's finishing up. He said he'll look up information for us before meeting up later on in the case."
"Oh." He said, nodding in response to my answer.
"If you're all done now I would like to get going." Naru snapped, making us all jump a bit at the tone that he used.
"Sorry Naru!" we all said, quickly running off to our respective vehicles. As per usual, Ayako and John went in Monk's car as Lin, Naru and I headed for SPR's van.
"Mai, if you continue to be late then I will have to start deducting it from your pay." Naru said as he made his way to our mode of transportation. I simply rolled my eyes at his overused expression that, he never once acted on by the way, was really starting to get old and falling on deaf ears.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." I said, slipping into the back seat of the van as he and Lin got into the front. Immediately as we started to move the sound and feel of the van lulled me to close my eyes. Fighting to stay awake though I forced my eyes open, only to see that I was no longer in the van, but the black endless void of the dream world.
"It's been a while." A familiar voice said, causing me to whip my head around and come face to face with a smiling replica of my crush/boss.
"Gene! What are you doing here? I thought that you were at peace when Naru brought your body back to England." I said, running up to him and tackling him in a hug. Immediately he caught me and chuckled at my antics.
"You'll find out soon, but that's not what I called you here for." He said, releasing his hold on me and keeping me at arm's length. I raised my brow at him in puzzlement, not quite getting what he meant.
"Then what is it?" I asked, confused as to why he would call me here if it weren't to tell me why he was back in my dreams.
"Look and see for yourself." He said, all smiling and happiness aside as a look of strict business took over his features, making him look exactly like his twin that I saw every day. He pointed off to the distance, and when I looked I saw that the scene had changed and that we were now at the bottom of a cove that had a small cliff like jump into a small pool of water. At the top of the cliff was a woman in a soft yellow kimono. Form what I could see she had brown hair that fell in soft waves to her waist and was staring emotionlessly into the pool of water below her.
"What is she doing?" I asked Gene, looking over at him, only to frown and look back up to the woman. Before I could question him a soft voice echoed within the space we were in.
"Why? Why did you do it? I thought we were best friends, so why?"
Realization dawned on me that it was the woman that was on the cliff that spoke. Something fell into the pool and created a ripple that stretched out to the edge of the pool. Before I knew it, another ripple was made, and another, and another, and before I knew it the woman's legs gave out as she collapse crying into her hand. A pang of sadness shot threw me as I watched this young woman at one of her lowest points in her life. Suddenly, she whipped her tears with the back of her hand and stood up with shaky legs. She took a step closer to the edge of the cliff with no expression on her features except pure defeat. As she took another step, her toes now hung over the edge of the cliff and it didn't take much to put together what it was she was about to do.
"No, don't do it!" I exclaimed, getting ready to race off and get up to her to pull her back, only for Gene to grab my arm and shake his head. I looked at him in confusion only to see sad eyes staring back at me.
"It's already happened. You can't change anything." He said, making my heart drop as I heard the woman take another step and plunge into the water. Looking over I saw her claw at the water to try and reach the surface, but soon her struggle ended as well as the short life that she had lived. Not quite sure how to take seeing the suicide of a woman I hadn't even known, my legs gave out and I just stared at the water voidlessly. It wasn't until I felt a hand on my shoulder that I looked up from the woman's watery grave. Gene gave me a small encouraging smile as a light wrapped around our surroundings. "It's time to wake up now." And just like that I was jolted back into my body.
"Mai, wake up." A strong voice called, waking me from the grogginess of sleep. I groaned at the disturbance, but none the less I listened to it and got up stretching my arms up to the sky in the process. Opening my eyes I saw that it was Naru who had awoken me from my slumber.
"Hmmm, oh Naru, what's up?"
"We're here." He stated, instantly making me come from my semiconscious state to being completely awake and aware of my surroundings.
"Is Masako here yet?" I asked, looking for the girl who was always clad in her typical kimonos. While although we were, and I'm not quite sure if we still are, rivals in love for Naru's attention we had become quite close after the Urado case and formed a nice little friendship with one another over the past year of working with one another. Naru's brow rose at my question but shook his head in response.
"No, she'll be here in an hour or so."
"How do you know?" I questioned, wondering how he knew that while I didn't and I had been the last of the group to speak to her since we took the case. Naru rolled his eyes at me and crossed his arms in his typical fashion that always meant that he was about to make me feel like the idiot that he always called me.
"She called. Now grab some equipment to set up base."
"Yes sir!" I said, accepting his answer as I hopped out of the van and headed to the back where all the equipment was. Without much thought, I grabbed a monitor, only for it to be taken out of my hands. Looking beside me I saw Monk wink and clutch the monitor to his chest.
"Hey Jou-chan. I'll take that, you just take the shelves with Ayako and leave the monitors to Lin, John, and I?"
"It's alright. I am pretty strong after all."
"Suit yourself. So where's the owner?" he asked, watching as I picked up another monitor and headed to the door. He soon followed my lead as we got to the front door and I set down the monitor to get the key that Shen-san gave me the previous day.
"She said that she had a meeting to attend to and that her niece would be coming up to take of care the house later on today."
"Oh, so she trusted a house to strangers she just met. She doesn't sound like the brightest crayon in the box." Ayako said, making me sweatdrop at how I felt the same exact way. It's not that we would do anything like steal, but still the fact that she gave it to us for an empty house still made me worry a bit for the strange woman.
"Maybe she just has a really good sense of character?" John offered, looking just as confused as the rest of us as to the reasons she left us to our own devices.
"Maybe." I said, picking up the monitor once more when the door was unlocked and the key was back in my pocket.
"Well whatever, let's just get base set up." Ayako sighed, walking in before us with part of the shelving system for the monitors.
So far it's been two hours since we set up base, and everyone has gone off to work. Ayako was doing a little walk around to see if she could pick anything up in any of the rooms and had John accompanying her, Monk was looking for a floor plan to the building, Lin was on the lap-top as always looking up research and reading what Yasu had sent him via email, Naru was reading his little black book of doom, and I was stuck watching the monitors while fighting off drowsiness as always.
"Does anyone want tea?" I asked, getting up from my seat and stretching, looking for anything to do, even if it meant being a tea slave for Naru once again.
"Yes please." Lin said, bringing a smile to my lips.
"No prob Lin-san." With that I waited and looked over at Naru, waiting for him to actually respond to my question. Of course I already knew his answer was yes from the moment it left my lips, but still hearing a 'yes please', or even just a 'yes' would be most appreciated. However, this was Naru, and as I expected he simply looked up from his black book and raised a brow at me.
"What Mai?"
"Nothing Naru." I sighed, sweat dropping at myself for still thinking after all this time being with Naru that he would actually say 'please' or 'thank you' to me. Dejectedly, I headed to the door only to pause when Naru called out to me.
"Oh Mai."
"Yes Naru?"
"When you come back go with Takigawa and take the temperatures of the rooms." He said, not even looking up from his book to look at me.
"Yes sir." I sighed, turning around only to bump into a hard chest.
"Hang on Mai, I'll go with and we can do temp first and then bring Mr. Crabby pants over there his tea." Monk said, walking in at just the right time with the floor plans in his hand. Quickly he handed them off to Lin and then took me out of the room as he snatched the clip board and thermometer from the coffee table.
"Thanks Monk, works for me." I said, glad that he was done with his part and that I would now be able to engage in some conversations that wouldn't end in me being upset, feeling like an absolute idiot, or wanting to put poison in Naru's tea.
"So when do you think Masako's gonna get here?" He asked, catching me off guard by his random question. Taking a moment I thought and eventually shrugged my shoulders remembering that Naru said that she would be here within the hour since we had gotten here.
"Dunno, could be at any time."
"Hmmm, I see." We lapsed into a bit of silence as we went from room to room measuring the temp until he looked at me with an accusing eye. "You two have gotten pretty close since Naru left haven't you?"
"Yeah. Before he came back we would meet up once a week and have a girl's night. Ayako sometimes tagged along, but most of the time it was just us." I explained, reminiscing about all the times we had bonded and grown closer. We really were like sister, her and I, and I was very happy that we had moved on past our rivalry to be able to get to that point.
"So now that Naru's back are you two gonna be rivals again?" he asked, voicing one of the questions that had been on my mind since his return. Masako and I hadn't really discussed the topic and ever since I told her what happened at the lake where we found Gene's body she had a slight distaste for the guy.
"I dunno. She said that she really doesn't care for him anymore, but who knows. I just hope we stay friends." As if speaking of the devil, I hear a car door close and assumed that it was her. "Oh that must be her now."
"Here, you get the door, and I'll finish up with the temp readings." Monk offered, causing a smile to break out on my lips.
"Thanks Monk." I said, handing him the clipboard and racing down the stairs. In a matter of seconds I had reached the front door and threw it open to welcome her. "Hey, it's about time you got here Masa-"
"Mai?" a voice cut me off, making me stop and stare at the girl in front of me. My eyes widened as I looked into two pools of bright amber that reflected the same shock and confusion that was mirrored in mine. Quickly realization kicked in as my mind processed and recognized the stranger that was currently in front of me.
"Kaguya?" I asked, completely bewildered as to what she was doing here. Then at the same exact time the only question that seemed to logically fit in this situation blurted from both of our mouths.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"
Naru: Another chapter, and it was longer….
Gene: Good job.
Me: Thank you. ^_^
Mai: Please Review everyone!