Whelp! Another case in the books! I hope you all enjoy and be sure to read the note at the end with a preview of the next chapter. It will be post case with a few cute moments. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4- The Deal

March Day 4, 4:12 P.M.

"Sayaka, can you move?" Mai asked as she hovered over the intern. She and John had just walked into the building and found the intern as she fell down the steps. Sayaka just blinked as she lay across the stairs. "Sayaka, I need you to answer me."

"I…I…" The poor terrified girl could only stutter. "I was just coming down to grab coffee from the café next door. A hand…" She had managed to sit up as her tears came out and Mai placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Did you see anyone? Is it possible someone snuck up behind you and pushed you?" John asked. But Sayaka shook her head.

"I was completely alone." Her shoulders shook as she spoke. "S-something shoved me and then…"

"And then you were down here with us," Mai finished, giving John a look. "I'll take care of her. You should let Naru know what happened."

John shot her a look back, but he nodded nevertheless. "Okay, I'll be in Base."

As he walked up the stairs, Mai held a hand out for the intern. "C'mon, you probably need some air and we should probably grab that coffee you were going to get. You were getting it for the employees upstairs, right?" The girl nodded. "Let's go before anything else happens."

Sayaka took her hand and together they headed for the small café next door. She ordered eight drinks and both she and Mai carried a tray of four back to the office. "This is all my fault," Sayaka whispered with a shake of her head.

"What was that?" Mai asked, snapping her head over. The intern was caught off guard and immediately blushed.

"N-nothing!" She kept her head down as they were almost back in the office building.

"Hey, do you know anything about a Kawaguchi, Akio? I've been in charge of research and his name came up," Mai interjected smoothly as they walked through the lobby and into the stairwell.

Sayaka shook her head. "Kawaguchi is the head of the company, but his first name is Katashi." She tilted her head to the side in thought. "Was he his father? Do you think he's haunting the office?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Mai replied and then shrugged as they entered the room of cubicles. "So who gets what coffee?"

Together, the two of them handed out the coffee cups. Mai had the last one on her tray and noticed that the smell coming from it was not like the strong espresso that had filled her nostrils from before. Tea?

"Oh!" Sayaka said, taking the cup away from the investigator. "That one's for me. Thank you again…"

"Mai. Taniyama, Mai." Mai smiled as the girl ran off with her cup of tea. A strange feeling filled the pit of her stomach. It sat heavily in her, but the oddest thing was how familiar the sensation was. Snap out of it, Mai. You're just tired is all.

And tired she was. It was amazing that she was still standing after so many days of so little sleep. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to convince the demon to give her back her memories from her blackouts. She just hoped that John would be able to help her as painlessly as possible.

Speak of the devil, John was walking toward her with Masako in tow. "How's Sayaka?" he asked. Mai just shrugged.

"She's okay now," Mai replied with a sigh. "What did Naru say when you told him about her? I saw there's a camera in that section of the stairwell now."

"Not much we can do until we exorcise the spirit," John admitted reluctantly. "Once that's done we can alert Kawaguchi-san and let him know about the hoax. Then I think we're done."

That was when she noticed the young man was decked out in his priest gear. "Are you performing the exorcism now?" She couldn't help but raise a brow.

"He's just going to perform blessings in the rooms with the most activity," Masako explained. "If that triggers anything, we might be able to corner the spirit."

"Corner it with what?" Mai wondered. "Ayako's not here with her charms. We can't seal a room without them."

Masako nearly rolled her eyes at the girl's stupidity. John simply smiled and held up a small vial. "I can't actually seal the room with this oil," he explained.

"Don't you know anything?" Mai swore she heard Masako mutter, but ignored it.

"I guess I'll go to Base and see what Naru wants me to do," Mai said with a shrug, mentally brushing off the stupid feeling she gained. I really am an idiot.

The stupid feeling changed to that strange one she had felt with Sayaka just moments before. It sat in the pit of her stomach and honestly made her feel a bit nauseas. Why does this feel so familiar? She wondered as she saw the door to their Base. But it was there that she stopped in her tracks.

Just outside of the door, Mai saw Naru sitting in front of the monitors as usual, but that's not what made her stop. No. It was the girl in front of him that did. She handed him the coffee cup and proceeded to blush and say something, but Mai was too far away to hear. Sayaka lied, she noted to herself, as the feeling in her gut seemed to grow and tug at her.

She wasn't sure just what she was going to do, but she stood still and watched as Sayaka left Base with a somber look on her face. Rejection. And thus, the twisted feeling in Mai's gut dissipated and she could finally breathe easily. But the relief didn't last long.

She knew exactly what that strange feeling was. She had felt it many times, it had just been a while since the last time she felt it. Normally, it happened whenever Masako would go on a "date" with her black clad employer.

Mai bit her lip as she realized just what this meant. She swallowed the realization and went into Base pretending nothing was wrong. Pretending everything was okay. Pretending that she wasn't just jealous a moment ago. Silently hating herself for what she just figured out.

And she thought she had gotten over her silly childish crush.

March Day 4, 6:21 P.M.

She blinked hard at the unfamiliar screen before her. Blinking again, she looked around her and finally settled her eyes on the clock above the doorway. Crap, another blackout, she thought as she looked to her notebook for answers. I guess I didn't have many leads. Why did Naru send me to the library anyway?

She thought long and hard trying to force the memory to return. But it would never come. Knowing it was useless, Mai shook her head and turned her attention back to the computer. It was up on a Facebook page. Mai grimaced at the name at the top of the screen.

Don't tell me my crush is making me petty, she thought worriedly. I mean, I wasn't petty enough to look up everything on Masako when I realized we were competing for him, right?

But she mentally groaned as she remembered meeting the young medium almost two years earlier. Michiru was all too excited to show Mai everything she had found on the girl. Looks like Mai has had plenty of petty moments.

"Has Mai talked to you?" Masako asked after John had said a prayer in one of the conference rooms. "About anything aside from the case, I mean."

John just shrugged. "Not really," he replied, capping his holy water. "Why? Do you think the spirit might attack her?"

Masako shook her head. "No, it's just," she took a breath and pursed her lips, "lately, I've been sensing this other presence when I'm around her. I've felt something off about her for a while now. I thought it was just something to do with stress at school or something, but it's no longer a feeling. It's a presence."

That would fit with what Mai told me, John commented to himself. "Do you think she's possessed?" John asked honestly. He was still debating that thought since Mai told him everything she was dealing with.

Masako shook her head. "It's not that type of feeling. More like she has a little cloud following her. I felt a little uneasy talking with her earlier, but now that she's at the library the uneasiness is gone. I don't even really sense a spirit here anymore."

"So you think something might have attached to Mai? Not possess her, but is following her?" The medium nodded. "Do you think the attack on Tuesday was because of a spirit in this building or because of whatever is following Mai?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "But I don't like it."

"Why don't you come to the church tomorrow afternoon? I might need your help."

Despite herself, Mai found herself still scouring the young intern's Facebook page. You're crazy, Mai. What do you think you'll find?

She scrolled over to the "About" icon. Clicking it she found her education and work history and then something struck her as odd.

Why does she state that she's interning at a hotel in Taito? Mai wondered as she continued to search. Something's not adding up about her…

"She'll be back soon," Lin commented from his laptop. "It's not even seven yet, stop worrying."

"I'm not worrying," Naru replied finally as he scratched out what he just wrote in his notebook. "I just think I should have sent John with her. Or at least Hara-san."

"They are needed more here." Lin looked up from his typing and saw as the young manager moved his pen but did not write anything. "She asked if she could continue research for you. She had a hunch and wanted to look into it. She's just two blocks down the road."

"I just don't have a good feeling," Naru admitted, putting his pen down and crossing his arms. "We should have given her one of our phones, if she's going to be late getting back here I'd rather her call."

"That was the one good thing about her relationship with that boy," Lin commented, ignoring his charge's protectiveness. "I believe she sent the phone back to him."

"I asked Atsuchi to keep an eye on her apartment, in case he came back," Naru confessed, ignoring the previous comment. "He's being transferred to Ichihara in a few weeks."

"Shouta has left her alone for a few weeks now," Lin chided, double checking that the door was closed. "He doesn't know you have Atsuchi-san driving by her apartment, so I doubt he's going to start knocking on her door as soon as he leaves town. But if you're absolutely paranoid I can drive by there after we close the office. Just remember that she's not my priority, your safety is."

"Not necessary," Naru said with a shake of his head and ignoring the last comment. "I have another idea in mind."

"Moshi moshi, Toyama desu," a rather cheerful voice rang through the phone that Mai had asked to use back at the office building.

"Moshi, moshi, my name is Taniyama Mai and I'm calling in reference to a Toyama, Sayaka?" Mai made sure to pronounce the intern's name as thought she were reading horrid handwriting. "She's been an intern at our agency for a little while now, and Kawaguchi-san asked me to followup with references for a possible employment opportunity."

It took Mai her entire walk from the library back to the office to come up with that cover story. Something wasn't adding up with Sayaka, and who better to ask than her own mother. It took a bit of searching but Mai was able to find contact information for the woman who was surprisingly young in her profile picture.

"K-Kawaguchi, Katashi-san?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Mai replied, trying to sound nonchalant. "What is your relation to Sayaka-san?"

"I-I'm her mother. My god, Sayaka never told me she was interning there!"

"Is anything wrong, ma'am?" Mai asked a little concerned. She wasn't expecting this reaction from the woman. Even if she didn't know where her daughter was interning. Why did she sound almost scared? "Ma'am?"

"I'm sorry." Mai could practically see the woman shake her head. "It's just Sayaka never informed her of her internship. I'll have to call her to congratulate her. Was there anything else that you needed to speak with me?"

"Actually, yes-"

"I'm so sorry!" Mai could hear some sort of commotion in the background. Is that a baby crying? "I'm afraid I'll have to cut this call short. I have a crying baby that needs me. Have a good night." Click.

"Well, that didn't get me too far," Mai complained with a sigh as she hung up the phone. She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. But maybe it got me just as far as I need.

Mai walked over to the reception desk in the lobby. "Excuse me, I'm sorry, but is there any way I might be able to borrow a computer for a few minutes? I'm with the ghost hunting team upstairs and I forgot to look up something my boss asked me to."

"I've sealed off the exits for when we perform the exorcism," John said once he sat down in Base with Masako. "Is Mai back yet?"

"She's in the building, yes," Naru replied, drumming his fingers on the table. "Following a hunch, I assume. In the meantime, most of the employees have left for the evening, I want you to start cleansing the property," his eyes were on John, "start from the bottom up and seal all entryways after you've exorcised the room. Hara-san, I want you to accompany him and let him know when the spirit has left the room."

"Got it," the two agreed before standing up and leaving to do their job.

"You're going to start the exorcism without her?" Lin wondered as he looked over his notes on his laptop. Naru wandered over to the monitors again. A sense of déjà vu washed over him as he remembered another case. "Is that a good idea?"

"We have all of the information needed to proceed with an exorcism," Naru explained, finding the monitor that showed Mai talking to one of the older employees on the floor above them. "Besides, I don't think that she's researching the spirit here anymore."

"Do you happen to recall if a Hisakawa, Mariko interned here? It would have been a very long time ago," Mai asked the older woman, holding up a picture she had printed of the woman. She was probably in her late fifties or early sixties, with dyed black hair in a pixie cut. She also wore cat-eye glasses in front of dark chocolate eyes.

"Mariko?" The woman wondered aloud tapping her finger to her chin. "That name does sound very familiar. You said she was an intern here how long ago?"

"Almost twenty years ago," Mai replied, suddenly realizing how suspicious she sounded. "My boss asked me to do some research and I came across her name among others, but she was the one who I got the least amount of information on. Probably because she married after her internship-"

"Oh, but she never finished her internship," the woman said knitting her brow. "I remember her now. She was very young, just graduated high school. I was surprised that she had gotten the internship because we usually require at least a semester at university. She was set to intern for six months, which I found was a long time, but she only made it to four. Rumors went around that she was pregnant and since she wasn't married, Kawaguchi had to let her go to keep that publicity out of the company."

"She was pregnant?" Mai repeated as she made the note on her notepad.

But the woman just shrugged. "No one knows for sure, but I did see her marriage announcement in the papers two months later. She never mentioned being engaged and never had a ring on her hand, so it does make you wonder. Perhaps she found out she was pregnant and forced the father to marry her." She shrugged again and check the watch on her hand. "I'm sorry, but it's about time for me to head home. It's been nice talking to you…"

"Mai," Mai replied with a small smile.

"Mai-chan," the woman said with a smile. "Nice to meet you, Mai-chan. Here," she handed her a card, "if you ever need an internship when you get to college, don't hesitate to call me."

"Thank you," Mai said as the woman walked off.

"That went better than I thought," John commented once he made it back to Base with Masako. "Mai's still not back yet?"

"She's still on her own investigation," Naru said, turning to face the two. "The exorcism was successful?"

Masako nodded. "I don't sense the presence here anymore, I believe John's blessings worked." She walked over to one of the chairs and sat down. "What is our next move?"

Naru looked down at his watch and then looked at the monitors. "I think I'm going to leave the equipment here for the night. Just to make sure that the exorcism was successful." He then turned up the volume on one of the microphones in one of the conference rooms.

"I don't know how you managed to steal my bag from Base, but I'm sure it had something to do with flirting with my boss," Mai said as she walked into the conference room and shut the door. "Your pranks might have convinced everyone else that the building was haunted, but it won't fool us. So put my bag down, Sayaka."

Sayaka smirked as she dropped the bag. She slowly turned around with her hands up like she had just been caught by the police. "You caught me." She nudged the bag toward the investigator with her foot. "I wasn't going to blow up your bag, for the record. Just give you a little warning to stop your snooping."

"So, did your mother tell you?" Mai asked with a shrug of her shoulders. "Or did you figure it out when you looked nothing like your father and he wanted a baby of his own?"

"How did you know it was me?" was all she asked.

"You were the main target of your own hoax. Meaning, either someone was out to get you or you did it to yourself." Mai walked over and picked up her bag, making sure there was nothing wrong with it. "Until, things that happened weren't your doing. That's why you were so freaked out when you fell down the stairs earlier. You didn't realize that there really was a spirit here, did you?"

She shook her head. "I didn't think Akio would have been haunting the office building, he never worked here."

"But he was the perfect cover, right? He loved practical jokes, including rigging the sink to run blood instead of water. You wanted to freak out Kawaguchi-san, didn't you? To give him a little payback for throwing your mother out."

"You just had to call her, didn't you?" Mai watched as the girl tensed up at the mention of her mother. "I can't believe she told you a thing."

"She didn't," Mai admitted with a shrug. "I had to do my own research and speculation, but it wasn't too hard to figure out that you're really Kawaguchi-san's illegitimate daughter. You just wanted your father to notice you."

"I'm not saying another word, I haven't done anything illegal."

"And I'm not a cop, but there is a camera and microphone on us right now and I'm positive my boss is recording everything we've said. Now you have two choices."

"You little bitch!"

Mai ignored that. "Either you stop the hoax and continue your internship without a hitch, maybe even talk to Kawaguchi and tell him who you really are. We'll tell him that the spirits have been cleansed and that everything will return to normal." Sayaka gave her a skeptical look. "Or we hand over the recordings of this conversation to him and let him decide on what to do with you. While you might not have done anything illegal, I'm pretty sure what you've done is grounds for termination of your internship. Your pick, Sayaka."

"Wow!" John said with bright eyes as he and everyone else in Base watched Mai's confrontation with Sayaka. "Mai would make a good detective!"

"So that's why you let her go research again today," Masako commented as Naru leaned back with folded arms.

"I told her I was here to solve a haunting, not a hoax. She decided that she would take that job," Naru admitted, nodding to Lin who was in the middle of making several copies of the conversation. "We'll meet back here tomorrow and dismantle Base in the morning."

March Friday Day After Case, 12:23 P.M.

"Who'd-a-thought our little Mai would be a gifted private I?" Genji teased as he, Taiki, and the three girls ate their lunch in the classroom.

"I'm not a P.I. guys," Mai said with a roll of her eyes. "I didn't do anything I hadn't done on other investigations, it's just this time I was looking for a living culprit instead of a deceased one."

"Either way, it sounds like pretty impressive detective work," Taiki said with a nod. "Have you about what you're going to study in college? Criminal Justice might be up your alley, you could be a real detective instead of an amateur sleuth."

Mai resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. "I haven't thought about that really, I was thinking maybe linguistics since I've been doing well in English class, but-"

"Ooh! Then you could be a translator for the police, maybe even get involved with international police work!" Michiru exclaimed, pointing her chopsticks at her friend.

"You mean Interpol?" Keiko asked with a raised brow. "It would lead to a lot of interesting stories that we'll probably not be able to know about because they're classified. We wouldn't be able to ask her how her day was!"

"Guys, I still have a year left, I don't have to decide right now," Mai chided with a smile, but was met with several serious looks.

"Mai, we're almost done our second year, we don't have that much time before we have to decide where we're going from here on out," Keiko said with a sad look in her eye.

"Yeah, I'm still waiting on the results of my entrance exams," Genji said with a shrug. "It's going to be so weird not sitting with you guys at lunch."

That's right, Genji's a senior, Mai remembered. "Wow, we really don't have that much time, do we?"

"Cheer up, kid," Genji said with a grin and a playful nudge to her arm. "I'm commuting so I'll still be around to hang out. You can't get rid of me that easy."

"Yeah, you're like a fungus," Michiru smirked as she said it, earning a pout from the older boy.

"Just means I'm growing on you, right?"

And Mai smiled. It looked like Michiru was finally healing after what Akira did to her. I'm glad Genji's the one who was able to help her trust again, Mai thought to herself as she continued eating her barely touched bento.

Friday, 4:32 P.M.

Just as John had promised, he came to pick her up after classes ended and brought her to the church. She didn't sleep the night before, she didn't want another run in with the demon. She was going to be rid of him once and for all. She was sure of it.

The priest led her to a rather empty room. The walls weren't painted and the only furniture was a table chair. The sight of the room gave her an eerie feeling. "Sit down, Mai," John said and she obeyed. She almost jumped when John started to tie her wrists down to the arms of the chair. "It's just for safety, I don't know how attached this thing is to you, but I don't want it to hurt you when I try to extract it."

Mai nodded and closed her eyes as he tied her ankles to the feet of the chair. It brought back the memory of something. Not a vision but a voice.

Please! Please stop! I can't take anymore! Where are you!

She snapped her eyes open. Just what was that about? What confused her most was that it sounded like her own voice. She shook her head to see that John had finished tying her to the chair.

"I need to know, did the demon ever ask you to accept him. Or for you to invite him in?" John asked with a somber look on his face.

Mai looked at the floor in thought. "Yes," she said as she recalled several dreams. "He did, but I didn't accept him." She made a face. "I almost did, but something stopped me."

"No! Mai! Don't!"

She remembered that voice clearly. If it weren't for that, she would have given in to the demon without realizing just what she was doing. She watched, as the priest seemed to let out a breath of relief.

"Good, then hopefully a blessing is all you need," he said with a smile. He opened his Bible. "Shall we begin?"

Mai nodded and closed her eyes as John said his prayers.

Try to get rid of me all you want. The damage is already done!

6:47 P.M.

The exorcism took almost two hours to complete. The demon holding onto Mai did not want to let go after having housed himself there for several months now. But he did finally leave. John had left Mai in the care of Yukiyo and her tea and cookies. He thought it was best for her to settle for a bit before he took her home and he needed to talk to someone.

Masako was waiting for him in the living area, sitting on the couch staring at her hands. John sat down next to her. "Well?" he asked as the medium realized his presence.

"That was one of the spirits at the Ishikawa's hotel," she said after a moment. "It must have attached to her when she almost fell into that portal. I just can't believe it's been haunting her for almost six months and I didn't sense it."

"None of us did," John said with a shrug. "We all knew something was wrong, but we didn't know what it was. Ayako and I thought it was depression, and maybe there was some of that, but I think the spirit had a big part in causing it."

"I should have sensed it," Masako argued shaking her head.

"It was a powerful spirit, it probably hid its presence specifically from you so it could weaken Mai to the point that she would invite him in. Just from looking at her, you can tell she hasn't slept a full night since that investigation. His main focus was breaking her down. He would have shown himself when he succeeded in doing that."

"It explains so much," she said with another shake of her head. "She wasn't giving in, so he was trying harder when she was awake and that's why I was sensing something odd about her. I don't sense him now but do you think that he's really gone? That he won't try to attack her again as soon as she goes home?"

John just shrugged. "You can't ever be sure in these situations," he admitted. "I'm going to convince her to spend the night here and send her home with a bottle of holy water. I know she doesn't practice this religion, but it won't hurt."

She was stuck in a thick blackness. It didn't feel as ominous as it had for the last month, but it wasn't pleasant either. She felt as though she had just been in battle. Her body was sore and her hands and arms itched like crazy.

"I don't want to die!"

Urado? What the hell?

In her hand was a knife. She could feel the handle held in her fingers. It was only then that she realized her eyes were closed. Knowing that it was probably the worst idea that she could come up with. She opened them.

Sure enough, just like several cases ago, she was standing in front of her dazed friend. The very one who had helped her just hours before. Her arm was held above her head and was slowly plunging down.

This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real.

And her arm stopped. Just like how it actually happened. She felt an arm around her waist and a hand around her wrist. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

I wasn't going to hurt John. That wasn't me. That was one of the maids controlling my body.

And the scene changed. She was back on the undressed mattress. Unable to move as her possessed boss held her wrists above her head. His eyes glowed yellow as he reached for the buttons on her shirt.

No!

March Saturday, 2:23 A.M.

Mai shot up in her bed and had to figure out just where she was. Her breaths came in huffs as she tried her best to calm her racing heart. She tried to grip reality as she looked at the room around her.

She was in the spare bedroom at John's church house. He said she should stay there for the night, just to ensure that the demon didn't try to reattach to her. She agreed and even accepted the little bottle of holy water that she kept on the small nightstand next to her bed. She looked at the digital clock next to the vial.

Well, I slept three hours this time, that's not too bad, she thought to herself as she rubbed her eyes.

She leaned over the bed and pulled out her notebook and textbook from her backpack. She turned on the light and began her homework, just as she normally would when she woke up this early.

She had figured that even with the demon gone, she probably would still have the insomnia. After all, she had gone several months getting little sleep. She wasn't going to all of a sudden sleep through the night now that her little friend was gone. She even expected to have the nightmares.

But they aren't nightmares, she noted. They're memories.

What she didn't expect was to look at the clock next to her and see that two and a half hours had passed and she was having difficulty keeping her eyes open.

She put the books down and turned out the light. At least she was able to sleep a little bit at a time now. And at least she could finally remember what she did when she blacked out.

Yay! The demon is gone! A little too easy huh? Well, sometimes the answer to a difficult problem is easier than you think, you just need to ask for help. This isn't my favorite case, but I needed it to serve as a buffer between the last case and the next one. And there were some pretty important scenes in the last few chapters that will have everything start to fit together. Now that Mai got rid of her demon she has a lot of work to do to get back in touch with the girl she used to be. Which we'll start to see in the next chapter and most certainly in the next case! In the meantime...

Next Time- Post Case 6- Token- Mai works on her relationships with her friends and tries to figure out a way to contact her spirit guide. And Naru is just full of surprises.

Hope you enjoyed!