Well long time no write guys! Sorry I have been MIA I've been going through some things but I hope that that is behind me now. And I won't waste your time too much up here so here's the chapter! Stay tuned to the note at the end. enjoy!

Chapter 5-Breathe

January Day 4, 3:56 P.M.

It was a warmer day today, the sun was out and the snow was melting. However, our favorite brunette knew that there was another set of snow showers heading their way within the next few days. It was a very snowy winter this year. About time, they hadn't had such a pretty winter in years.

Despite the warmth from the sun, Mai felt a shiver go down her spine. Ever since the incident on the roof she felt cold to the core. She was starting to think that maybe she was possessed, especially after what happened with Masako. But she really thought she had just spaced out and was wandering. It wasn't exactly unusual for her to do so.

She rounded a corner and yawned. She hadn't slept well at all. She woke up at one thirty and never went back to sleep. At the very least she got all of her homework completed for the weekend and she and Tsubame beat their record for their run, she was really getting sick of only getting two to four hours of sleep a night. To make matters worse, the events of the night before continued to play throughout her day and made it difficult to get her work done.

Ayako had examined the medium's eyes and sure enough, she was now blind. Inoue was flipping out on everyone and no one at the same time. Naru pretty much just scratched the poltergeist idea off the list, but still decided to let the experiment play out. The strangest thing wasn't that Masako didn't sense anything, but that she couldn't sense anything. Not wanting to worry her family, it was decided that the medium would stay at the priestess's home for the remainder of the case. Naru determined that once the case was solved, her sight would return. Or at the very least, he hoped.

To make matters worse, Mai had to cancel her plans with Shouta. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy and was hopeful to reschedule for the following day. So long as the case was solved before evening on Saturday, she was in the clear.

"Is there anyway you can get out early?" She remembered their phone conversation the night before.

"No, I've been skipping work a lot lately, Naru's going to get suspicious."

"Fine, just try to get out Saturday. He can't keep you there all day, even if he is paying you it's gotta be illegal."

"I'll try."

She yawned again, trying to stretch the sleepiness out of her arms at the same time. This was going to be a long day.

Buzz. Buzz.

That was either Shouta or Naru, Mai was sure. Shouta usually sent her a text right after class ended. However, she did text Naru to find out how Masako was doing. She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened the message.

No change in Hara-san. Waiting for you to check the experiment.

Short and to the point. No sweetness involved. Definitely a Naru text. But the text came from a number not in her phone. How was that possible? She sent him a text earlier, and she could see it in the feed of previous text messages to that number. She could have sworn she resaved his phone number a few days ago. Maybe if they finished up the case quickly enough she and Shouta could go and get her phone looked at. There had to be a logical reason behind this. Right?

She turned one more corner and there the theater was. Her phone issues would have to wait. Her first priority was to help solve this case. Her second priority was to get some sleep.

Mai had gotten changed and left her bag and coat in Base, then met up with her boss and the crew. "Mai, Lin and I will check the experiment and see how that went. Matsuzaki-san, Monk and Hara-san will stick together and do temperature readings. Yasuhara-san, look deeper into the history of this place, see if there is a connection between the deaths and Hara-san's blindness," Naru ordered. "John, continue to watch over Hoshiko-san, just because Hara-san was attacked doesn't mean that she's the new target."

"Got it," everyone answered in agreement, and got up to go to their orders.

"I don't understand why Naru has me doing temperature readings," Masako grumbled, holding tightly to Monk's arm. "It's not exactly like I can see the thermometer."

"I think it's more of a chance to see if you can feel the spirit that's here, now that it has made it's appearance known," Monk replied, as Ayako wrote down what the thermometer said in the lobby.

"But I didn't sense anything before, and this thing was able to take my sight," she muttered bitterly.

"Masako, this thing was probably hiding specifically from you because you were here before. It's not the first time that you had difficulty sensing a spirit," Ayako chided, as they headed for the basement.

"But I was always able to sense something there, this is just so odd," she said, gripping tightly to the monk's arm as he lead her down the stairs.

"That is odd," Monk added. "And we have major activity with you and Star getting attacked, then we just have small strange activity like the camera moving and-"

"And the wires being cut in Mai's headset on Tuesday," Ayako finished.

"She didn't seem to sense anything either," Monk commented, he felt Masako tense up. "You okay? Did you sense anything?"

"Just a chill," she said. "I'm fine."

"Well, I don't blame you, it's almost eight degrees colder down here!" Ayako said, shivering herself. "I get it that we're in a basement but it wasn't this cold here yesterday."

Monk shrugged and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Mark it on the list then and we'll tell Naru about it later. We can't exactly change the temp right now."

"Don't sass me, Houshou." Ayako rolled her eyes and made a note on her clipboard about the temperature change.

"Who said I was sassing you?"

The two continued to bicker, Monk breaking away from Masako's grip. Suddenly, she wasn't sure where she was. She knew she was in the basement, but didn't know where in it she was. She knew she was with people she trusted, but now that Monk had let go of her, she wasn't sure if she could trust them anymore. It was bad enough she couldn't see the spirit here in the first place. It was much worse now that she could no longer see the building she was in.

Needless to say, as the two adults bickered, the medium hated her predicament. Hated this building. Hated the actors and crew. Hated this spirit. Hated everything.

"How is Masako doing?" Hoshiko asked John as the seamstress was pinning the girl's costume.

"She's adjusting as well and anyone would," John replied. "I think she's more upset that she didn't see this coming."

"You've worked with her before, is she legit?" She winced as the woman accidentally poked her with a pin.

"I don't think there was ever a case where she was wrong," John nodded. "Maybe a little mistaken or it wasn't exactly as she had put it, but never this off before." He noticed a piece of paper crumpled up on the floor. He walked and kneeled down to grab it.

"What did you find?" She couldn't turn her head without disturbing the seamstress's work.

The blonde walked over so she could see him. "You dropped your charm." He held up the crinkled paper. The girl tilted her head.

"Huh, I thought it was in my pocket." Nevertheless, she took the charm that he placed in her outstretched hand. The seamstress nodded to allow her to put her arms down and move about. "Oh well, must have fallen out." She did a slow spin for the seamstress. "Do you think you'll have to take it in again?"

"Hmm…" The seamstress put her finger to her chin in thought. "I think we are good for now, but I want to check again next week before opening night, just to be sure." She put her hands on her hips in satisfaction. "That way, we'll know it'll fit you perfectly!"

"Works for me!" Hoshiko smiled and the seamstress took out the pins. John headed for the door.

"I'll be right outside." Hoshiko nodded as he closed the door so she could change. The seamstress gave the young girl a peculiar smile.

"You certainly have yourself a keep, Star," the woman laughed, causing the girl to blush.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," she stammered. "We are just good friends." With help from the accusing seamstress, she removed the costume and put on her clothes. "Besides, it would never work out even if I did."

"Oh sure it could, I see no reason why not!" Hoshiko folded the charm and slipped it into her jeans pocket.

"Whatever, Shion-san…"

"Well, Naru, we've managed to piss off another spirit," Mai commented as she and her boss stood in the doorway of the once locked costume room.

She already knew that her boss had scrapped the idea of the culprit being a poltergeist. But they had already done all that work to hypnotize the cast, it would be a waste not to go through with the experiment. After all, then they wouldn't have found the wonderful message the real culprit had left them.

Now, just as they had suspected after the incident with Masako the night before, the costume chest was still in the exact same place as it had been, the chalk circle around it was undisturbed. The only other object in the room was the camera and that seemed to be doing just fine, what was concerning was the message that was scribbled on the wall in what appeared to be blood.

"'Nice try Ghost Hunter,'" Mai read aloud. "Fitting, I must say."

"That we have managed to displease a spirit?" Naru replied absently, as he walked over to the camera to rewind the footage.

"No, that they called you a ghost hunter, I don't think we've ever met a spirit who identified us as such." Naru ignored her comment and concentrated on the small screen in front of him. Looking frustrated, he closed the screen and turned off the camera. He walked up to the blood written message that Lin was examining. "Naru, should you really touch that?"

Ignoring her again he touched the wording. "It's stage blood," he answered after a moment.

"Great, at least it was considerate enough to make it easy to clean up," Mai said, then stopped herself. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me."

Ignoring her once more, he picked up the camera and motioned for the girl to follow him out of the room, along with his taller assistant. Something didn't feel quite right about it. Something that the young brunette couldn't explain at the time. Nevertheless, the feeling filled the pit of her stomach as she followed her boss out.

He was used to coming up empty. It appeared to be a trend with the recent cases. Only being able to find out the basic information about the history of a property that seems to have all of the answers, then to be thrown such a curveball that nothing makes sense. It took quite a bit of out of the box thinking to figure out the culprit of their last case at his cousin's elementary school. Not to mention, he wasn't even able to come up with the answer for the case at the nursing home, that was all Mai. The Ishikawa Hotel case was also pretty tricky. As much as he loved a challenge, he was starting to feel a little hopeless about finding an answer to what's going on at the theater.

Granted on those three cases mentioned, the ones who were able to either help him out or figured out the history themselves, had some help from their own psychic abilities. But that wasn't helping him as he sat in the local library, digging through newspaper articles and occupying a computer with digital records of the area trying to find a connection to the medium's blindness and the theater. He had been there for more than an hour and had no such luck.

"Naru's not going to be happy about this," he sighed, leaning back in his chair. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't slept too well either. Having to get up for a six A.M. class and then spend five hours at his internship only to come over here and work on this case. He was exhausted.

Now don't think he would ever consider leaving SPR. He loved his job, it was very exciting compared to the boring high school lifestyle that Ryoukuryou had drilled into his brain. It was just days like this where he wasn't sure when he would be able to get a good night's sleep.

I have an online exam due tomorrow, too…

It was clear that the workload for the young college student was never done. Oh well, he could complain about it another time. He had work to get done and this mystery wasn't going to solve itself.

"So there were no blind actors, or writers involved with this theater or any of their productions." He took a sip of the lukewarm coffee he had bought when he got to there. "Maybe they had done a production involving a blind character…"

He clicked and typed away like the Chinese assistant was probably doing back at the theater. A moment later, list upon list of play synopses appeared on the screen. Of course a theater that had been open for decades would have performed countless plays by now.

"Let's see how we can narrow this list," he muttered absently, continuing to click and type away.

"I just don't understand why they still have her here," Ichika grumbled, helping with the set along with Hoshiko and a few other cast mates.

"She's blind because of the spirit here, she can't leave until she gets her sight back," Hoshiko responded, adding last minute touches of paint. "It's not exactly hard to figure out."

"She didn't do what she said she would do, she lied to us, she's a fake!"

"It seems this is the first time she was wrong, can't you just leave her alone?"

"Why are you defending her?" the girl countered, noticing John backstage speaking with a crewmember. "Or are you just trying to defend your boyfriend?"

"Ichika, just stop it," Kuniharu's voice shut her up instantly. The tall gentleman walked onto the stage leaving the piece of set he was dragging behind. "You're being catty for no reason. Just leave it be."

"Aw, looks like someone can't fight her own battles, right, Star?" the girl mocked.

Hoshiko just took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Ichika, shut up and mind your own business," she said and continued her work.

"I'm terrified." But the girl in front of her didn't acknowledge the comment. She was doing what she should have done in the beginning, ignoring the girl. The only conversation she was going to make with her, would be line-related until the play was over.

"Ichika! Fittings!" Fuyumi directed from the other side of the stage.

"Whatever." The young woman scoffed as she walked off.

"What is wrong with her?" Kuniharu shook his head. He made his way over to the girl who continued to add the finishing strokes of paint to the set before her. A hand gripped her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just fine," she said, throwing her brush onto the paint plate. She stood up and walked past the tall young man to the piece of set he had been dragging. "Where were you bringing this? I'll help you move it."

"I got it, Star." He rushed over to stop her. She had already put her hand on the handle to lift it. "Really," he took the handle from her hand, "I don't think you should put any added stress on that knee of yours."

"I told you, I'm just fine." She went to the other end of the set to push it. "Now where do you want this?"

Something had changed in her eyes. She wasn't the same as she had been a few minutes ago. Even the tall man in front of her could see that. "Over here," he replied and they began to drag the set across the stage. Kuniharu knew this girl had had enough. Ichika had been trying to make her life Hell since the rehearsals started. Now she was the target of some malevolent spirit and the girl still hadn't backed off.

It was no surprise that the youngest crewmember wasn't talkative anymore. It was best for him not to pry any further.

They continued their work, not noticing the man who had seen only the last part of that scene. He wasn't too happy as he walked back out into the lobby.

"Do you sense anything?" Monk asked the medium as he sat her down on a little bench by the costume rooms.

"No, nothing," she replied bitterly. She needed help to sit down. Sit down! She hated feeling this helpless. She was useless to all of them now that her sight was gone, hell, she was useless from the beginning of this case! She couldn't even sense there was a spirit in the first place!

"Ow!" the monk winced as an elbow was shoved into his rib.

The priestess simply whispered back, "Lay off the sensing question, Idiot!"

"There are better ways of saying that, you old hag!"

"You're older than me, you're no one to talk!"

Their whisper battle continued as a sweatdrop appeared on the young medium's head. She furrowed her brow as her hands were folded perfectly in her lap. "You do realize I'm now blind not deaf?"

A shiver went down both bickering adults' spines. The icy stare that came from the blind medium shut both of them up immediately. The adults both silently swore that the temperature dropped slightly in that moment. Or it was just the awkwardness of the conversation they just had. "Sorry about that, Masako," Monk apologized, scratching his head sheepishly, while the priestess crossed her arms.

"I'm sorry, Masako." Ayako's eyes held a sorrowful look, after having been told how she was useless for so long, she could definitely relate to what the girl was feeling. Masako didn't have to see the woman's face, she knew the exact expression she would be faced with. She could feel it.

At least there was one thing that she could sense.

Too bad it was the one thing she didn't want.

January Day 4, 6:17 P.M.

"Pfft, figures," the college student scoffed, rubbing his eyes again. Another hour had passed and he was still having no luck. To be fair, he really had only gone through about half of the synopses that had popped up, but that didn't mean that he was looking forward to spending another hour searching through paragraphs only to come out fruitless.

"So far, no connections," he sighed, leaning back in his seat. For whatever reason, he was unable to narrow down the amount of synopses any further than plays performed involving a blind character. The amount that came up was astonishing to say the least. Then again, a lot of them had no mention of a blind character, requiring him to dig deeper and actually investigate the plot.

Of course most of the time that just meant there was an optional snippet of a scene where "blind woman walks across stage right" or whatever. Sometimes there was mentioning of a blind neighbor, however no actual characters that were introduced with actors.

"I swear this thing is just trying to mess with us…" He stretched his arms and rubbed his temples.

He leaned forward and clicked on the next play synopsis. No mention of a blind character there. Looking for the plot or script, whatever he could fine, there wasn't even the mentioning of a blind character!

Needless to say, the college student was frustrated.

"I hope everyone else is having more luck than I am."

Back in Base, Lin was going through the footage of the camera that had been locked up in the costume room. Naru was going through the footage of the cameras outside of the locked room. Mai had run to fetch the group tea. No one had tampered with the surrounding cameras and since it was impossible for him and his assistant to unknowingly lock someone in the room as there was nowhere for them to hide, the cause wasn't human.

"Well, this wasn't a poltergeist or someone sneaking into the room," Lin determined, taking off his headset. "Unless they were to have taken all of our cameras and edited the footage, but we had Akiyama-san lock up Base last night."

"The hypnosis was a success. If we were dealing with what Mai suggested, then the costume chest would have moved," Naru commented, leaning back in his seat. "We should be grateful."

"If she was in fact possessed by the spirit that wrote on the wall," Lin corrected. "Which would make sense, it was odd that she was so adamant about this being a poltergeist."

"How so?"

"If she really was trying to do it, when you stopped her she more than likely would have tried to play it off as she was possessed by the spirit here," Lin explained. "Surely, you have already come up with that possibility."

"She's smarter than I give her credit for, she knows that if she had gone with that and Hara-san was right about there not being a spirit here she would have more to explain." Naru shook his head. "If a spirit didn't possess her, then it was smart of her not to blame it on anything. Now that we know there is one here she could use it to her advantage and say the spirit blocked her memory of getting to the roof."

"And if there wasn't a spirit here, how would she cover up almost jumping?"

"She didn't jump." The black clad president pinched the bridge of his nose. "She could always say she was looking at the view and almost fell over. It would become her word against mine."

"And you still aren't sure she was possessed?"

"Would be very coincidental, don't you think?"

"You're overanalyzing this-" Lin cut himself off once he heard footsteps coming toward Base.

"Okay, three cups of tea, one for you," she said, announcing her presence as she placed a cup in front of Lin. "One for you." Another went in front of her boss. "And one for me." She sipped her own cup and sat down by the table where she had placed her bag. "So, did you guys find anything in the video?"

"It couldn't have been a poltergeist," Naru explained, sipping his tea. "It doesn't appear that anyone snuck into the room either and the cameras weren't tampered with."

"Hey, guys, any luck?" John asked coming up to the group in the lobby.

Monk shook his head. "None, aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye on Star?"

"I-"

"I texted him offering to switch," the priestess piped in. "I heard things were getting catty earlier and thought he might want a break from the actresses."

"So where is she right now?"

"Rehearsing the scene where Oiwa causes her husband's death," the priest replied.

"And you just left her?"

"For a minute, Houshou," Ayako defended, crossing her arms. "If he had to use the restroom were you expecting him to hold it or drag the girl into the restroom with him? Even priests have to go sometimes." And with that she walked away, hair bouncing and heels clicking with each step.

John simply sweatdopped. Masako rolled her eyes, despite not having the satisfaction of seeing the reactions to her action. "What's with her?" Monk turned to the medium behind him expecting a response. "Right…" He turned back to the priest. "Nothing interesting on your end?"

"Just a little drama amongst the actresses." The priest walked over to the bench that Masako was sitting on and sat next to her. "How are you feeling, Masako?"

"About as fine as anyone else could be, given the circumstances." She let out a sigh and closed her eyes. Something wasn't feeling right in her stomach. "How does the show look? It's one of my mother's favorite plays."

"I've only seen bits and pieces and not in the right order, but it's really coming along," he answered. "I honestly hadn't even heard of it until Hoshiko-san came to me telling about it. It seems very interesting and tells the story from different sides."

"It is, my mother would joke around that if-"

"Wait, you knew Hoshiko before the case?" The monk tilted his head slightly."How long has she been wandering Tokyo?"

"Actually, yes, she started volunteering at the church where Father Tojo runs his masses. Primarily playing with the children and helping around the parish house." John looked up at the young monk. "I met her probably just before Ishikawa, Daisuke's baptism."

"All the way back then? Why didn't she tell me?"

"I think she wanted to," John admitted. "You are-"

"John!" Masako gasped, her sleeve instinctively coming up to cover her mouth.

"What's wrong?" Both men turned their attention toward her.

"It's that presence from yesterday…" she whimpered. "The one that took my sight…"

"What! Where is it?" But Masako shook her head.

"I-I don't know for sure…"

The two men stood at the ready for some paranormal activity to start. Rapping sounds, flickering lights, ominous moans, the whole shabang. But nothing happened. They waited. And waited.

Nothing happened.

"Are you sure, Masako? Nothing's happening," Monk asked, crossing his arms.

"Do you still sense it?" the priest asked once he saw the medium's tension soften.

"No, I-I don't," she stuttered letting out a shaky breath. "But I know it was the same spirit. I don't think I can forget that presence."

"So did it just want to scare you?"

"I'm not sure." She shook her head and let out another breath as Lin rounded the corner. Damn, she hated this case.

"Lin, go check cameras three and five we're getting some static," Naru ordered, staring at the monitors as his assistant scurried off. Mai still sat by her things pondering the case over her empty cup.

"I just don't understand how Masako wasn't able to sense anything, she has been spot on since the beginning!" she said to herself, her brows knitting together.

"It's not uncommon for young mediums to be either on point or completely off, I've told you that before, haven't I?" Her boss didn't even turn his head from the monitors.

"Yeah, but what would cause her to be so off? We've had multiple cases with her and she has been accurate on every one of them until now. It's strange, isn't it?"

"It is a little odd, I'll give you that," he replied, grabbing his notebook. "However, it could be any number of reasons. This spirit purposefully wanted to remain undetected from Hara-san, meaning it is powerful enough to cause some disturbances but weak enough to be able to conceal itself."

"But it was able to make her blind, Naru! Urado was able to make people pass through solid walls, but even she managed to sense something ominous there!"

"Urado didn't necessarily want to hide itself from her, he just wanted to bathe in her blood, and yours and everyone else in the mansion."

"Still really creepy to think about." A shiver went down the girl's spine and she shuttered. "It's just weird that she couldn't sense anything."

"At least we have an explanation for your incident on the roof last night," Naru commented. Mai's head perked up at that.

"What do you mean?" Another shiver ran down her spine.

"You were on the roof last night with no memory, I'm surprised you didn't immediately claim you were possessed." He turned in his swivel chair. "It would have been one of only two logical and believable reasons."

"Two reasons?" She repeated, standing up. The air felt cold around her. She felt her heartbeat quicken with each second.

"Lin and I saw you go up in the video and I went up to find out on the edge."

"You thought I was suicid-" She didn't finish. It felt as though the air had been sucked out of her lungs and she gasped for breath. Inhumane squeals erupted from her throat as she tried to gain the air she had lost. Her face turned red and purple as she dropped to her knees. She heard the distant voice of her employer trying to help her. Her vision began to blacken and blur around the edges and darken and lighten in rhythm. She swore the floor was moving beneath her but that would just be her falling right?

She was sure her face was blue, but it didn't matter now. Not now that her vision began to fade and her will to fight had given up. Her eyes rolled back as she fell forward into her employer's arms.

"Mai!"

So I had major writer's block with this chapter. Primarily because of my day job and other stressors. I will be back in the swing of things soon. I will be taking another break, I'm now at the part of this case where things are going to get interesting and I'm trying some new writing styles and methods and I hope you all like what's about to come.

Thank you for reading this chap and all of the others that brought this fic so far if it weren't for you I would have given up long ago. Thank you for all of your support and I do hope you leave a review.

:)