Surface team handles their tasks better than the underground team, especially considering that they are able to receive the answers that fall into their lap. Meanwhile, there is one person left on this earth willing to give a shovel talk on Lin's behalf.

.o0o.

Surface team had fanned out slightly, examining trees around the perimeter of the circle. They were still all within earshot, so they could hear each other if they called. All of them were knocked off their feet when the huge geyser of spirits erupted from the chimney. Ayako threw herself over Masako, who had curled into a tight ball and was pressing her hands to her ears hard enough to crush an orange. Every tree with a living spirit in it moaned—logically speaking, only those who had regular encounters with spirits should have heard it, but Ayako swore that such a cacophony should have been audible to everyone within a two mile radius.

The sound of wails petered out after three long minutes. Ayako's head was positively ringing. She was sure that she would come out of this experience with permanent tinnitus, just from that event alone. The remaining silence of the woods was almost too much to bear. The wind rustling through the dead leaves was disturbingly clear.

"Everyone okay?" Monk murmured. He was several feet away from Ayako, but she still heard him. Mai, at the other side of the circle, was probably too far away to hear that.

Ayako gave Monk a nod. She then got off of Masako, who sat up.

"Thanks," said the medium.

"What was that?" Mai exclaimed, running up to the team.

The radio crackled. "Surface team, report!" That was Naru.

Mai had the radio. "A whole bunch of spirits exploded out of the chimney!"

"They escaped after we opened a locked door," Naru said. "Did you see where they went?"

Mai glanced around at Ayako, Monk, and Masako. Nobody moved. "I don't think so."

"They aren't here anymore," Masako said.

Monk waved for the radio, which Mai handed over.

"Are you all okay down there?" Monk asked. There was no response. "Hello?"

It became clear quickly that Naru had hung up on them. The situation was too precarious to write it off as typical Naru rudeness.

"Should one of us go down?" Mai asked.

"I say we wait for further news," said Ayako. "If there is none within the next ten minutes, then we go down."

The others nodded. Ayako privately praised herself for keeping a level head. She turned her attention back to the tree. She put a tentative hand on it. Her eyes widened as she felt honest-to-goodness rumbling. It was like a pot boiling over.

"Masako, what do you make of this?" she asked.

Masako tilted her head, focusing her vision back in the spiritual plane. "They're all stirring. Shifting. The escape of the spirits must have disturbed them sufficiently. But… they're not leaving. They're just wiggling in the trees. It's like they're lost, or drugged, or like the door is shut."

Ayako huffed. She reached out her hand. "Fire axe please," she said.

Takigawa stared at her with a raised eyebrow. "You're not going to cut down a tree with a tiny fire axe like this." Nevertheless he handed it to her.

"I'm not trying to cut the tree. I'm going to… make an opening!" Ayako swung with all her might. The blade touched the bark, and proceeded to bounce right off. The power of the ricocheting axe knocked it clean out of Ayako's hands. Monk dove to the ground, just narrowly avoiding making contact with the spinning blade. The axe landed near the chimney, and nobody could take their eyes off it.

It was only appropriate that the one who nearly had his head taken off was the one to say anything. "Well I'm no tree expert, but I'm fairly certain that isn't supposed to happen."

Ayako shot him a sympathetic yet startled look. "Sorry, I didn't think it would do that."

"Who would?" returned Takigawa. He stood up and touched the tree. "So. What's up with you?"

"Are you talking to the tree?"

"You do it all the time."

"Yeah, when I sense living spirits."

"Of which this tree has many."

Mai fished around in one of their backpacks and pulled out a Swiss army knife. She exposed the blade and attempted to carve something into the tree. No matter how hard she pressed, she couldn't make even a scratch. Eventually, she was too tired to keep going. "Whoa! It's like there's a shield or something!"

Ayako and Takigawa exchanged glances. "Is that possible?" Ayako asked.

"You're the tree lady," Monk said.

"But to make a barrier so precisely shaped?"

Takigawa put a hand to his chin. And then the radio fizzled to life. Mai was first on the reaction, grabbing it off the ground where Monk had dropped it.

"What happened? You all got cut off so quickly!"

"John's down. We need you to come get him," said Naru.

"Is he okay?"

Monk held his hand out for the radio, which Mai handed over. Naru was still explaining what had happened, that they had a hostile encounter with the ghost that had brought them to Ayako's hospital in the first place.

Monk put his hands on the lip of the chimney. "I'm here. Does he need to be carried out?"

Ayako didn't hear the response, but she knew Takigawa was about to climb down. She got up and moved toward him, in case he needed help. And she thanked every god she didn't believe in that she did, as the chimney suddenly started to crumble, nearly taking Takigawa with it.

He was just hanging onto the edge like Mufasa in the gorge, with Ayako holding his hand for his dear life. Well not really, the drop was only a story and a half down, but still.

"Pull me up, pull me up!"

Ayako pulled. The rest of the wall crumbled. Monk was literally dangling by his wrist. Mai and Masako finally made it to Ayako's side, far too late for Ayako's tastes. They grabbed Monk's other arm and sweater, helping to pull him up. He stayed sprawled on the ground for several seconds. Then he sat up and dusted off the dirt and ash from his face and shirt.

"That was too close," he said.

"Is everyone all right?" Naru asked through the radio.

"Yeah, I'm good," Monk returned, masking a noise of disgust as he fished ash out of the neck hole in his sweater.

"The whole ladder just caved in," Masako said.

Monk scoffed. "Not the ladder, the whole freaking wall."

Naru clicked his tongue. The sound of shifting and metal resonated over the radio, along with some muffled speech. Eventually, Naru spoke again. "We're going to have to find another way out."

"And how do you know there's another way out?" Ayako questioned.

"We got in through a crematorium, so it stands to reason that there's a way in and out that living people are supposed to use."

"I meant intact."

"That I don't know."

And before Ayako could tell him to keep them posted, or at all report what they had found out about the tree, he had hung up.

"What's the point of this thing if all he wants is to hear his own voice?" she grumbled, gesturing to the radio.

"It sounds like they're in danger though," Mai said. "Should I…?"

Ayako shook her head. "Not yet. I say we do ten minute check-ins. If they don't report back, then you can go."

Mai nodded, as did Monk. "Sounds like a plan. But what are we going to do about those trees?"

"I think that's more your area, Houshou," Ayako returned. "It's a barrier, right?"

"Right. At least, I think so. The shape is just weird though. Barriers are usually a simple shape, like a sphere or a cube. This barrier is hugging the tree like a thin film or something."

"Is that a problem?"

Takigawa tilted his head, not quite committing to a shake or a nod. "It's just an unusual method of making a barrier."

"Do you need skill to do it this way?" Mai asked.

"No, just patience. Lots of patience. Think about it. What's easier, a single central point around which to erect a barrier, or painstakingly laying smaller points around the surface of your object? Especially if your object is as complex as a tree?"

It made sense that Monk would think like that. His tokkosho was his main tool in putting up barriers, which would mean that the simplest shape to form around such a tool was an oblong. Then again, the tokkosho was a rather complex shape, and scaling it up proportionally would logically make a tokkosho shape. Ayako didn't know how to take Monk's hypothetical.

Mai put a finger to her chin, mulling this over. "All right then. Why would you make a barrier like that, instead of doing it the easy way?" She started pacing in circles around the chimney. "Unless… this is the easy way?"

"How would this be easier than a conventional barrier?"

"I don't know. Maybe whoever did this didn't actually make the barriers?"

"What, like the barriers were already here? Just some tree-shaped barriers existing in the middle of a woods where the unimaginable happened?"

Ayako listened to the spit-balling. Mai's spitballs were oftentimes ridiculous, but every now and then, she was right on the money. Maybe Mai didn't realize it, but it was enough to get the more experienced members thinking in unconventional ways. And this notion of the barriers already being present and tree-shaped definitely got Ayako thinking. She moved back to the tree and put her hand on it. It was gruesome, like performing an autopsy with her bare hands, and with no PPE. But as she scanned the tree more deliberately, digging through the messy innards that were the soul husks, she realized what had happened.

"The tree spirit… it is the barrier."

The team turned to her, surprise and confusion etched onto their faces.

Ayako felt again. Yes, the souls were crammed inside the tree, squeezing into every last nook and cranny. But there was, as Takigawa had said, a thin layer of film between the spirits and the bark. Ayako had come to the realization that this thin layer of film was the desecrated soul husk of the tree itself, hence the tree-shaped container.

"The spirits were stuffed inside the tree spirit itself, using it like a large skin-sack."

Mai and Masako recoiled with visible disgust. Monk schooled his expression the fastest. "So like… like a stuffed turkey?"

Ayako tilted her bead side to side. "I suppose. It's more like filling a scarecrow, except instead of straw and a pumpkin, the scarecrow's outer shell is human skin. Except… the tree-spirit equivalent."

"You are scarily capable of explicit analogies," Monk said.

Ayako shrugged. "I'm not going to sugar coat something so dire."

Mai stepped forward. "So then what do we do? How do we fix this?"

"I…" Ayako took a deep breath. Truth be told, she had no idea how to even begin approaching this. Well, actually, she did, but the axe she used had gone flying and nearly decapitated someone.

Monk hummed. "The thing about barriers is that their purpose is to be unbreakable. It's partially skill and partially strength force to take one down, if you weren't the one who made it in the first place, obviously. Or else, you need the key."

"Barriers have keys?" Mai asked.

"Some do, in the conventional sense of a key. For others, you just need to work backwards and deduce how the barrier was put up, and then you'll find its weakness. For example." He raised his tokkosho and pointed to it. "If this is holding up a barrier, move this, and you move the barrier."

"So then how would you put a spirit in a tree if you had to?" Mai asked. Monk sat there, thinking.

Ayako pondered this for a moment. "I would try to find a physical opening in the tree and then maneuver the spirit in through that. Like a knot, or a broken branch. Magic always works best when some of it feels intuitive."

Mai glanced up at the tree. "And if there aren't any of those things?"

"Well, then I'd try to make an opening. If you're asking whether a spirit can be pushed into a tree through the bark, I'd say yes, but that's too hard to do for a multitude of spirits like this." Ayako gestured to the tree. "No, if I had to channel multiple spirits inside a tree, I'd want to use the taproot, or the main root that the tree sprouted from."

As she spoke, she ran her hand down the tree, feeling out the shape of the tree spirit. This time, she focused down toward the taproot. To her surprise, the feel of the taproot was a far cry from the trunk and branches. The taproot part of the spirit was soft and spongy, almost reminiscent of root rot. It was completely unlike the crusty rubber of the dried, leathery trunk. Instantly, she recognized that the tree's spirit had been cauterized shut, somehow. The taproot below ground had escaped the damage. She wracked her mind for anything, any news about a fire that had happened in this area before. She came up empty. She reported her findings.

"I had been wondering how the tree spirit's body was able to stay intact with all that pressure inside," Masako said. Ayako had nearly forgotten she was there, as she had been so quietly listening for the past several minutes.

"What could have cauterized this entire forest?" Monk asked.

"It's not the whole forest," said Ayako. "These trees are packed. The trees farther out are less so. Right, Masako?"

The medium nodded. "I saw no human spirits at the edges. Only when we got close to this area did I see any of them."

"I think our culprit is right there," Ayako said, pointing at the chimney. A wave of discomfort passed through the group. That chimney had carried the smoking, ashy remains of human victims. The smoke, heat, and malice could have been enough to choke the life out of the tree spirits, leaving only their hardened spirit husks behind. "I'll feel better confirming this if we go back to the forest's edge."

"So that you can inspect a tree farther away?" Masako asked.

Ayako nodded. "The only remaining question now is why the spirits aren't escaping through the bottom. The tree's spirit body is naturally porous, and the taproot is still so, even if it's weaker."

Masako put a finger to her chin. It looked oddly infantile, considering that she wasn't in a kimono. The action looked too mundane on the usually otherworldly woman. "The way a bear climbs a tree to escape a forest fire but only traps itself, so have these spirits sealed their fates."

Ayako looked her way.

Masako put her hand to the tree. "The one clear emotion that I can still pick up is fear. These spirits were afraid."

"Of going down?" Mai asked.

"Of the ground," Ayako said, gesturing to the ash all around them. It was the only thing she could really think of. The spirits were afraid of touching the ground, which had been tainted with ashes born of evil intentions. And so, they accepted their fates as discarded ghosts.

Ayako turned to Monk. The two of them may have bickered on many things, but as both were seasoned professionals, she was sure he was thinking along the same lines. She cleared her throat, getting his attention. "I think it's time to report to Naru, don't you?"

Monk turned on the radio. "Hey Naru, there's some news we want to tell you about."

They waited. Silence. Monk and Ayako exchanged worried glances. Monk lifted the radio to his mouth again.

"Naru? Lin? John? Anyone?"

Any other time, someone would have snickered at inadvertently calling Yasu "anyone," but this wasn't the place for humor.

"Do you think they need help?" Mai asked.

"I don't know," Monk said. "They might not be able to respond now."

"That would only be for bad reasons though."

Monk clicked his tongue. "Let's not get carried away."

Mai looked up at Ayako. "How about I just go check on them? If there's a problem, I'll come back right away."

Ayako didn't think much of that idea. She glanced first at Monk, who looked unsure. Then she looked at Masako, who was staring at Mai with a blank look that Ayako couldn't read. Ayako folded her arms. "I… I don't know if this is the best place to be doing that. Something about this wood doesn't strike me as all right for your spirit body to be wandering around outside your physical body."

"But what if they need us?"

"Then they'll call."

"And what if they can't?"

"…Then we likely can't help them anyway. Think about it. We don't have a way down there. Even if they needed something from us, we can't get it down to them."

Mai clenched her fists. "Then we need to help them look for another way out. That's what they said they're doing. So we should help them up here."

Monk began nodding. "That sounds like a good plan to me."

"All right," Ayako said. "Let's begin then."

As they didn't see any obvious holes in the ground on their way to the chimney, the team reasoned that they should walk along the direction of the crematorium. It extended out, away from the ladders, which was forty five degrees from the direction they had come from. With no better plan, the surface team began to walk.

Lo and behold, their straight trajectory led them to the side road, which ran parallel to the highway. This was the same side road that had been built over something else, at least according to Yasu's research. Masako commented that the density of human spirits had drastically decreased, and Ayako paused beside a nearby tree to check it. The spirit was still lodged inside, but unlike the skin-sacks that surrounded the chimney, these spirits were shriveled like raisins. Normally, they would have dissipated into the earth, but these spirits would not do so.

Ayako took a step onto the tar. Tension she didn't even know she was carrying washed out of her body. She breathed a sigh of relief as her shoulders loosened. She waved to Mai.

Mai stepped up. Her eyes widened as she exclaimed, "Oh!"

"What is it?" Takigawa asked, stepping up. And then he stopped, too. "Oh man, that feels great." He looked back at the woods. "Did we pass through some kind of barrier?"

"Some kind of threshold, yes," Masako said as she too joined them on the road.

Monk stepped off the road, back toward the woods. "I don't feel any different."

"Maybe the effect is cumulative over time?" Masako hypothesized.

Ayako looked at her watch. "It's just after three-thirty," she said.

"I thought it would have been later," Monk said.

"If we continue that way," Ayako pointed to her left, "We'll meet the intersection that Yasu indicated on the map."

"Is that what we're gonna do then?"

"Well, if our goal is to find another exit," said Mai, "Then I think we should head for the intersection. Maybe we'll find something."

"We should have brought the car around," Ayako muttered.

"It would just get towed, like mine almost did," said Monk. "Speaking of which, I haven't seen a sign of Lin's car at all, have you?"

"It most definitely got towed by now, idiot."

Monk shrugged. "Yeah, but who has it right now? The city, or did Fusei and his creepy friends steal it?"

"Lin's car is the farthest thing from a priority."

Ayako began walking, and the group followed, still hauling the hardware they had brought with them. As they walked along the road, they saw no signs of another way down. At this rate, they would have to tear up the road, and for that, they needed a bulldozer.

"Maybe Mai could use her astral projecting now," Masako suggested.

"To find Naru and the others?" Mai asked.

"No, to scout underground. See if we're at all on the right track, or if there's a point of entry close to the surface."

"And we'd just wait here, right?" Monk asked.

"We could, or we could keep walking and carry Mai's body with us. I can keep tabs on Mai; Mai can keep tabs on the ground. We're not in the forest anymore, so this should be an all-right place to project."

Ayako looked at Mai. "I don't know about this."

Mai returned her stare. "It's worth it to make sure the boys are okay."

"All right. We'll be walking along this road. If we need to run, we'll leave the shovel pointing in the direction we went."

Mai hesitated. Then she nodded. She sat down. Monk walked up behind her. "Maybe I should pick you up now, while you can still shimmy into a comfortable position." Seeing the logic, Mai nodded and clambered onto Monk's back. He hoisted her up into a piggy back ride. She clasped her hands around his neck.

"Hey, Ayako, tie my hands together. That way, I can still hang on even if I'm not here."

Ayako pulled out the cable from her backpack and did so, making a knot that would easily come undone if Mai needed her hands back quickly. Mai looked at Takigawa. "All good down there?"

"All good," replied Monk.

Mai took a breath. "Okay. I'm going." She closed her eyes and rested her head on Monk's shoulder. Neither Ayako nor Takigawa could tell when Mai had left, but Masako was able to see her spirit as it floated away. A nod from her told the other two what they needed to know. Ayako watched as Masako's gaze went up and then down, to the road. Presumably, she was following Mai's spirit into the ground.

"She's done a lot of astral projection lately," Monk said.

"She's getting better at it every time, but as she grows stronger, her need for formal training increases," said Masako.

Ayako nodded. "Discipline is the key to control." She then considered who among them might be best at training her in projection. "Would it be you?" She gestured to Masako.

"I offered to teach her about mental filters, now that she can commune with spirits."

Monk hummed. "I know that other, stronger monks are capable of a type of astral projection, but their technique is for enlightenment rather than…" He waved his hand at the tar. "This."

"In any case, we should keep moving," said Ayako. The trio continued to walk. To their disappointment, nothing changed or stood out when they reached the intersection. Monk gave Mai a bump. Surely his back had to be tired by now.

"I'm gonna put her down, okay?" Without waiting for a response, he moved to a nearby tree. He suddenly paused and turned around, reconsidering his choice to put her down there. Instead, he crossed the street and put her down next to a living tree, one that was not part of the haunted woods. It was a good call. Had he not thought of it, Ayako would have told him to do that.

Once his load was gone, Takigawa twisted and stretched, back cracking from relief. He and Ayako began tapping the ground with both the shovel and fire axe, searching for any sign of weakness. After all, if there was a whole underground bunker down there, it only stood to reason that there was more of the facility under here, where Yasu had indicated.

"We should have a bulldozer for this kind of work," Monk said.

"We only have Mai," said Ayako.

"Should we be digging directly under the road here? And how far do we go before…"

Monk stopped. A car was turning from the perpendicular road onto theirs. Monk ushered Ayako out of the road. The car pulled over. Ayako prepared to shoo away any would-be good Samaritans, or otherwise tattletales. But then the window rolled down, and Ayako's remarks dissipated into air.

Hattori was sitting in the driver's seat, staring at her with a look that could only be described as concern. He wasn't in uniform, which made it slightly harder to recognize him, but Ayako was absolutely sure this was Fusei's little student.

"What are you doing here?" Ayako demanded.

"I heard the wailing, and I came to… Can I start from the beginning?" What he was talking about was lost on Ayako, but all she did was fold her arms.

Hattori got out of the car. "Maybe we should move off the road."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Ayako said. "You have something to say, you say it here and now."

Hattori nodded, mostly to himself. He took a breath, and then he spoke.

Sixteen hours ago…

Hattori had known something was rotten about Fusei the moment they met. Hattori was a relatively new graduate of the academy, but his previous T.O had to take a leave of absence. Thus, Hattori was in need of a T.O., and Fusei was a recent transfer—like, very recent—available to step into the role. They had only met about five days ago. Hattori had come from the big station downtown, but since Captain Nazomi had retired, Sergeant Takato was promoted to the new Eastern Village captain, and Fusei transferred over from the big station to fill the Sergeant's vacancy (though not rank).

Hattori hadn't asked Fusei why he was here, or why he, a seasoned detective, had settled for a T.O. position of all things.. No, of course not. Not with those eyes. Eyes that Hattori had only ever seen on war veterans, and not the Saving Private Ryan types. No, the Amon Göth war criminal type. The kind that didn't do what they had to; but rather, what they wanted to. And Hattori was right under this man's thumb. Captain Nazomi had mentioned something about Fusei wanting to be closer to his wife, and that Hattori could learn a lot from the seasoned detective. Hattori scoffed to himself about the wife part. No one could make Fusei happy. That man didn't do happy.

Hattori now learned that Fusei had a deep distrust of anyone not in his "clan," which excluded everyone except for traditional, conservative, straight Japanese men older than fifty, preferably war vets. That left Hattori waaaay off the list. Truth be told, Hattori was sure Fusei was just about ready to fire him from police work entirely, when his job was saved by two white spirits patrolling the same hospital they had been assigned to that day. Hattori pointed them out, and Fusei reeled them in. How on earth Fusei did that was a mystery to Hattori, and Hattori knew better than to ask. Fusei sealed the two spirits in a bubble of some sort and locked them in the trunk. He elected not to tell Hattori what his plan was. What he did say was, "Kid, you've proven yourself good for something after all."

And then, not one day later, they met Mr. Shibuya, Mr. Lin, and Mr. Lin's three remaining spirits. And no matter what Hattori did, good or bad, he couldn't derail Fusei's focus on the Chinese foreigner, even long after the encounter by the woods. Fusei had somehow acquired a warrant, and Mr. Lin was quickly ushered through the gaps in the police system. Just before sealing himself and Mr. Lin in the hidden cell, Fusei told Hattori to go do desk work. He didn't check whether or not Hattori had obeyed. Hattori stood by as Fusei began his brutal control regime. He stayed, even as the screaming began. He would witness this, if nothing else. When he could take it no more, he ran toward the bathrooms to vomit. On the way out of the bathrooms was when he saw Kazuya Shibuya, but in ghost form. Hattori could see it in the ghost's eyes. The ghost was worried. Perhaps it was the key to stopping this. But no, it vanished without a word. Hattori went to go do desk work.

Eight p.m. Time to go home. Hattori did not go home. Under the premise of overtime, Hattori stayed there. He made his way back down to the old file room. The screaming had stopped. He knocked on the door. No response. The handle jiggled. It was locked. Of course it was locked.

"Officer Fusei?" Hattori called. Still no response.

"He left," said a jarringly familiar voice. Hattori turned. There was the Mr. Shibuya phantom, arms crossed, leaning against the wall. The spirit was regarding Hattori with a hostile, wary eye, and yet it was talking to him. That had to be a good sign. Maybe.

"What do you want, spirit?" Hattori asked.

"I want my friend freed."

"I told you. I'm not in a position to be able to do that."

The air in the room turned ten degrees colder. Hattori reflexively hugged himself. "Bullshit," Mr. Shibuya said. "Apart from the man who used his spiritual abilities to torture my friend, you have the most power of anyone in this situation."

"I'm just a rookie!"

"You're a medium. Now, if you are unwilling to set my friend free, you will instead tell me where his shikigami are. They are either in the form of white lights or dragons."

"Yes, I know them. I was the one who saw them, and Fusei caught them."

"Where are they?"

"Does it matter? He—" Hattori nodded to the door, "has one more still with him."

The air grew even colder. At this rate, Hattori would get frostbite. He relented and answered the question he had dodged. "Last I knew, Fusei put them in the trunk of our car. I have no idea if they're still there."

Mr. Shibuya nodded. He pushed off the wall and looked off to the side. After a moment of standing around, the ghost vanished, as if it had never been there. The cold temperature in the room rose back to normal. Hattori glanced back and forth, from the wall to the cell door. If he had the key, if he knew where the key was, such a jailbreak would be an option. But no, even if he wanted to, it was out of his hands. Still, he couldn't help but feel guilty for his unwillingness to even try.

"As you should!" crowed Ayako. Hattori shrunk under her withering glare. Good. "Not even try, my ass."

"Did you find Lin's shiki?" Takigawa asked before Ayako could throttle the rookie cop.

"No, that's why I'm here. I don't know what Fusei did with them, if he did something, or how he's holding them captive. Like I said, last I knew of them, they were in the trunk of our shop."

Ayako, Takigawa, and Masako exchanged glances. They then looked back at Hattori.

"That means my police car," Hattori clarified.

Takigawa's expression hardened. "I think, after the crap you put us all through, it's only right that you tell us everything you know."

"I just did!"

"What about these woods then?" Ayako asked, motioning to the woods in question.

Hattori shrugged. "They've been here for as long as this place can remember, and slowly but surely, development has pushed it back to just this stand."

"Are you aware it's slated for demolition?" Takigawa asked.

"I'm not surprised. It only stands to reason that the city would eventually want to finish what they started."

"And why did you come here now?" Ayako asked.

"Like I said, I heard the shrieking."

Once again, Ayako and Takigawa exchanged glances, silently debating with each other whether or not to spill the beans. It was all too possible that this young, stupid officer was a mole for Fusei. It was also possible that Hattori didn't know that he was going to be used later.

It was Masako who ended up spilling said beans. "Are you aware of the atrocities that happened here forty years ago?"

Both Ayako and Takigawa looked down at her, and then at Hattori. To their surprise, Hattori slumped and nodded, a big sigh coming out of his mouth.

"Everyone at the station knows," he said. "We call this place Site 387. You don't get stationed in Eastern Village because you're a good cop. You get stationed here because you can keep a secret, or because you don't have a chance at moving up and out. That's why it was so strange that a detective like Fusei willingly came to work here. The city owns the property, and people aren't allowed in it, because they might find the crematoriums." He then looked up at them. "Wait a minute. You're from downtown Tokyo, aren't you? How do you know about Site 387?"

Takigawa folded his arms. "We're spiritual investigators. Ghost hunters. Solving ghost mysteries is kind of our thing."

Hattori nodded. "So the ghosts told you. I can't get them to tell me a thing."

"Gee, I wonder why," Ayako muttered. Then she did a double take of her own. "Wait, you've seen the ghosts here?" She jutted out her thumb at the woods.

Again, Hattori nodded. "I can see them, remember?"

Masako cradled her arms together, looking down. Ayako glanced her way, but when the medium said nothing, she didn't press it.

Takigawa crammed his hands in his pockets. "Listen. Tell us everything you know about what happened here. Our friends are trapped underground and we need to find a way to get them out."

Hattori hesitated. Then he caved. "All right. But you have to understand. This place is a remnant of World War Two. None of my generation had anything to do with its use."

"What about Fusei's?"

Hattori nodded again. "Someone as old as him? Absolutely."

"Was he?"

"I don't… I don't know for sure."

Ayako folded her arms and nodded. "Continue. This place was a remnant of the Second World War?"

"Right. You know about the atrocities Japan did to China. And the way we treated our prisoners was no different. Most of them, including human experimentation sites like Unit 731, were handled off-base in China. Everyone knows about Nanjing. Not everyone knows about Unit 731. So that's why it became so easy to bury this." He gestured to the woods. "Eighty years ago, there was a single road in and out of a forest ten times the size of this property. Eighty years ago, prisoners were smuggled in by the dozen. I can't say how, but they were, and their fates were no different than those of the Holocaust or Unit 731. What I've been told was that they worked in secret, like a… a medical mafia or black market of bad knowledge."

Ayako scoffed, loudly. "A black market of doctors?"

Hattori jumped back, hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry, that's just what I've heard!"

Ayako pursued him, keeping her eyes locked with his. "Do you realize how many people would need to be in the loop for some crazy operation like this? You'd need doctors, teams of security, smugglers, both internal and external, and a spotless record! What you're suggesting is an internal, organized conspiracy!"

"I don't think the numbers were the same, at all," Hattori said. "Like I said, during the war, it was several dozen at a time."

"What about after?" Ayako pressed.

Hattori appeared stunned. "After!? I don't know anything about after. Definitely not in the same wartime numbers; that would absolutely have gotten noticed. Maybe a dozen a year?"

"And the staff?"

"Maybe they were also leftovers from the war. Crazy sadists all dressed up with nowhere to go!"

"How do we know you're being honest?" Takigawa asked, hands still in his pockets.

"I guess you don't. You're investigators. So am I. I know how it is. At least, I'm learning how it is."

"Why this change of heart?" Ayako asked. "Why come and spill all your guts out when you know Fusei will skin you alive if you got found out?"

"Because… Because this isn't why I wanted to join the police force, okay? When Fusei started torturing that Chinese… your friend… I knew no way I could ever have his back again. And if the police force demands that I always stay by my partner, to the letter and to the spirit, that's not something I can promise."

"You could report him," Takigawa suggested.

Hattori barked out a laugh. "A senior detective, tattled on by a rookie. Yeah, that'll go over really well. My case would have to be solid as diamond-enforced titanium, and I don't even know if that's possible!"

"Which one, the case or the diamond-enforced titanium?"

"Both!" Hattori flailed his arms in the air.

Ayako and Takigawa stood quiet for several seconds. The information that Hattori had given them was useful, but they now needed a plan of what to do with him.

"Do you know another way into the site?" Ayako asked.

Hattori shook his head. "I never saw it. And there are no blueprints." A quick look of realization flashed across his face, but he hid it. Ayako, however, was quicker than Hattori.

"What? You just thought of something. What is it?"

"The old file room. Some of those files are probably a billion years old. If I dig through there, maybe I'll find… Oh what am I saying? It's a goddamn office stacked to the top with old musty boxes."

"Don't you dare think of backing out on us now," Takigawa growled, finally taking his balled fists out of his pockets.

"I might be more useful looking for your friend's missing spirits," Hattori said. "When I find them, what do I do?"

Masako chose to speak this time. "It's likely that Lin's shiki are trapped in some way. Maybe under a spell, or imprisoned inside something. If the latter is the case, you just need to break the prison, and they should return to him naturally. If it is a spell, you'll need to break the spell."

Ayako took off her backpack and dropped it. She dug through it and fished out a manilla envelope. From the envelope, she pulled out a charm. She held it out to Hattori, who took it with obvious hesitation.

"If you find Lin's shiki, try to touch them with this paper. It should provide them with enough strength to break free of average restraints, whether it's a prison or an enthrallment. Only if the caster is stronger than Lin himself will this fail."

"I don't know. Fusei's pretty strong. And he's thirty years older than Mr. Lin."

"You owe it to us to try," Ayako said.

To this, Hattori nodded. He folded the charm, and when Ayako did not protest, he slipped it into his own pocket. With nothing left to say, he walked slowly back to his car.

"Hey kid," Takigawa crowed. Hattori stopped. "Don't even think about double crossing us." And then he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Hattori stared, confused. And then he paled. He nodded and returned to his car. The engine started, and the three SPR members watched as he drove off.

Once gone, Ayako turned to Takigawa. "You recorded him?" she asked.

"For two reasons. One, we got him on tape if we ever need it. Two, I didn't have to take notes."

Ayako stared at him, unsure about his plan. It was possible that the threat would scare Hattori into running to his cop friends, rather than an effective blackmail scheme. After all, a cop that could be blackmailed was a bad fit for the job. Then again, Hattori didn't seem to be cop material. Certainly not for this police force.

A quiet moan caught their attention. They all turned to Mai, sitting up against a living tree, looking disoriented and rather distressed. Ayako couldn't help but smile. Despite everything, Hattori had missed Mai in the bushes. Good.

Mai rubbed her eyes, hands still bound together, chest heaving as her breathing hitched. It became clear that she was either crying or close to panic. The three of them rushed to her side and crowded around her. Monk fished for the Swiss army knife.

"What did you find, Mai?" Ayako asked.

"It's Lin. He's… We've been failing him, this whole time. I don't know how much more of this he can take. Or I can take. We need to get them out!"

"What about the second exit, did you find that?" Takigawa asked, using the knife to cut Mai's hands free.

Mai shook her head and buried her face in her hands. Ayako thought back to Mai's epidemic of nightmares. The girl was always sensitive when it came to the safety of the rest of the team, but her worry for Lin's well-being was unusually high. Then again, Lin's safety was unusually compromised.

"Start from the beginning, Mai," Ayako said. "Walk us through what happened."

Mai hiccupped. She took a few stabilizing breaths, and then she spoke.

Mai sunk through the ground. She traveled through a few feet of darkness, the ground solid and hard. It was to her surprise that she emerged in a room with the entire underground team in it. She spotted Lin immediately, lying on the floor with a grisly wound cut into his stomach. Sitting next to him was Naru. He was holding Lin's hand while John kept pressure on the wound. Even with his hands covering it, Mai recognized that wound. She had seen it twice on Lin in her dreams. To see it on him for real nearly sent her reeling.

Yasu was digging through the backpacks, pulling out the bits of medical equipment that Ayako was thoughtful enough to put in every pack. As they treated Lin, the scene began to fade to darkness.

"Wait, no! What's happening!" Mai exclaimed.

Everyone around her disappeared, save for Lin, lying asleep.

"You have some nerve coming here," a voice growled. Mai's eyes widened as a fox spirit with nine beautiful tails materialized on top of Lin's chest. Its fur was cream colored, and it had markings like swirling war paint decorating its face and flanks. It was no bigger than a real red fox, save for the eight extra tails. Its coat shimmered like the iridescent feathers of a monal pheasant. A single, bright wire connected the fox to Lin, stemming from both of their chests, right over their hearts. Two more wires extended outward, to a place Mai could not see. The old spirit put a paw forward and bared its teeth.

Mai realized quickly that she was talking to Fire, Lin's last remaining shiki. She took a careless step forward, hands held up in a placating manner. "I just wanted to find you. We're trying to mount a rescue—"

"Do not approach!" Fire yowled, flashing all of its tiny, white teeth.

Mai stopped. "I'm not going to hurt you or your master."

Fire lowered its head, still glaring at Mai. "You have caused quite a bit of trouble for us, human."

Mai flinched. She looked at Lin, still lying on his back, the vertical cut on his stomach bleeding with less and less intensity. The rest of the team must have been working to patch him up. It was as though his body was overlayed with images of his injuries. He was still clothed, but Mai could still see the wounds as clear as day. What was more alarming however, were the two sets of webbed scars stretching out from the center of his chest, crossing the cut, reaching across his sides, and almost curling to his back. Was that the damage caused by the cut tethers?

"Where are we?" Mai asked.

"My Master's mindspace," said Fire. "I brought you here so that I may destroy you on my Master's behalf."

Mai stepped back. "What do you mean? I'm not… I…"

"Isn't this something you humans are familiar with? Shovel talk? Well here you go. You betray his loyalty; I turn you to ash, as is my willfully sworn duty." As it said those last few words, its tails changed from bright cream fur to hot, orange fire. It began to stalk forward, hurling accusations as it did so.

"How many times has Master saved your necks? Worked nonstop in the background to finish the fires you all start? You would think the least you could do for him is have his back, but no. He is maimed by those who claim to be his friends."

A harsh image of Takigawa slicing through one of the glowing wires played all around them. Lin's cry of pain rang through Mai's ears. Mai would have gasped if she needed to breathe. She hadn't realized that this event still held a piece of Lin's mind prisoner. The fear and resentment he must have been suppressing, of Monk of all people…

"The ones he cares about are left to die, as if Master's bonds are worthless!"

A panda grabbed by countless hands, hot, sticky, pulling in different directions. Burning, tearing, screaming, suffocating.

A door slammed, a bedroom in darkness, and the sounds of stifled weeping, so as not to disturb Mai and Naru just outside.

Mai froze, a jolt of guilt piercing her heart. Oh Lin, of course he would mourn the loss of Wood. Why had Mai been blind to that fact?

"He is abandoned and left in the claws of the enemy!"

A voice emanated from somewhere: "Koujo Lin, you are under arrest for espionage."

"Stay back! It'll do no good if you get into trouble!" That was Lin's voice. A car door slammed, and it drove away, the sound of squeaking wheels growing fainter in the distance. Mai could only manage a whimper.

"And after bravely withstanding torture for you, host of Weiguó, he is then forced to return to the very forest that screams threats against life every second that it sees him."

Another voice, this time one that Mai had never heard before: "If you do not have Weiguó, then where can I find him?"

No response. The sound of a sword being unsheathed. A grunt that could only be Lin's.

That cruel voice emanated again. "I can do this all night, you know."

The stifled grunt gave way to a howl of pain, terribly familiar, like what Mai had heard in her first dream, except ten times worse. Mai had her hands clutched in her hair. Had she been corporeal, she would have torn her hair out at the roots.

Fire pinned Mai with a fierce glare. "Is loyalty truly worth so little nowadays?"

Mai backed up several steps, clutching her head and yelling, "No, wait, please. We tried everything we could! I swear we didn't mean for this to happen!"

The spirit stalked forward, teeth bared. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

"Enough!"

Fire and Mai looked back, spotting Lin's form. His eyes were still closed, and he hadn't looked like he'd moved, but there was no mistaking that he was speaking.

"Fire, enough. Please. No more."

The tone was pleading and vulnerable. Fire glanced back at him with a sympathetic, almost pitying look. Those memories had come from Lin's own psyche. Did that mean that Fire had inadvertently forced its master to relive them?

Fire sat down and wrapped three of its tails around its legs. Mai had a feeling that she could pass by the agitated shiki if she tried, but it didn't seem right to just leave it at this. She held out her hand toward Fire. Her face was streaked with tears.

"I didn't… I'm sorry, I… I didn't realize…"

Fire curled its lip, folding its ears back with distrust.

Mai bowed her head, shame washing over her.

"You're not going to get anywhere with my shiki, Mai," said Lin. Mai looked away from the fox spirit and toward Lin, still lying motionless on the ground, eyes still closed. His face was the picture of serenity, but she knew better. She passed by Fire, giving it one last apologetic and unappreciated glance.

She crouched down beside Lin. She tensed, now seeing his injuries, both physical and spiritual, up close. She could see faint outlines of stab wounds dotting his body, and a vicious ring of indents around the left side of his stomach. She recalled the stomach injury as the bite dealt to Fire, and a quick glance back at Fire's flank revealed the same wound still in its tiny torso. The stab wounds were unfamiliar to her. Was this what Fusei had been doing to him?

"Lin, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Mai whimpered. Lin didn't show any outward sign of having heard her, even though she now knew he had. Mai reached out and touched his arm, finding comfort in the solid material beneath her fingers. Maybe he found comfort in it too.

"Just hang on. Surface Team is looking for another way in as we speak."

"Go back to them," Lin said. "While you still can."

Mai felt herself fading, becoming weightless. A glance at her hand revealed that she was becoming more and more see through. Either she was waking up, or she was being kicked out of the mindspace. A quick look back at Fire revealed that its eyes were glowing. Had Lin given it an order to banish her from his mind? Regardless, she turned back to him and said, "Just hang on, Lin. We'll put an end to this." And then she faded, waking back up in her own body.

And with that, we finally get the name drop of the fic's title. Only took 15 chapters. Yay.