The Underground Team recovers from a too-close call of a battle. The investigation must go on, especially considering they're still stuck down there.

.o0o.

Lin didn't know how long he was out, be he knew any amount of time was too long. As soon as he felt his consciousness rise back up into reality, he tried to sit up. There were hands on his shoulders, arms, and stomach, confused and trying to keep him steady at best. With a flick of his arm, he got rid of half of them. And as his vision cleared, he realized that he had swatted away John and Yasu. A sharp pain shot up his stomach. He curled over sideways, which was a bad idea, as the twisting of his torso only aggravated the wound.

"Lin, slow down," said Naru, his voice very close to Lin's ear.

Lin put a hand to his stomach, feeling fabric instead of skin and blood. Looking down, he saw that his shirt was open and someone had wrapped his torso with gauze. It was likely a team effort, lifting his body enough to wrap him while lying down.

"How do you feel, mate?" John asked.

Lin nearly responded, like shit, but he thought better of it. "We've spent too much time here." He hoisted himself forward, ready to stand up.

"Don't! Stop," Naru ordered, grasping Lin's shoulders. Despite the destruction of the ghoul, they were still in the forest. Naru's yell directly in his face sent his body into a slight panic. He tensed and raised a hand to protect his head. It happened quickly, but Naru was observant. The boy let out a small exhale. Then in a kinder tone, he said, "We can afford to rest for a while. There haven't been any attacks or otherwise malicious happenings."

"I put down the last of the holy water in this bottle to protect us," John said, lifting said crystal bottle.

Lin closed his eyes. John shouldn't have had to do that. "I'm sorry. I've been burdensome to the team. That's not my intention, but it's the reality." If Mai were still here, she would have immediately protested. Naru was too blunt with this kind of thing to try to immediately soothe Lin, so his silence said it all.

"Come on, Lin. That's not true," said Yasu. "You've saved our butts so many times, it's only fair that we have a chance to save yours in turn. Besides, your nine words were enough to blast that thing to Kingdom Come and then some."

Everyone looked to the far wall. Indeed, the gridded gouges in the wall were deep and impressive. Lin could trace the pulse's trajectory from the round wake-shaped ripples left along the floor. Truth be told, Lin was surprised that he had managed to do so much damage. He chalked it up to desperation and wild panic. However justified, it was nothing praiseworthy. It was a horrible lack of control, the bane of nearly all of his disciplines: Onmyodo, sorcery, martial arts… Nothing about what had happened to him—what he had allowed to happen to him—was anything to be proud of.

Lin finally sat up properly and folded over his torso. His back and ribs gave an audible crack, which made John squirm. Lin began to button up his shirt for the second time today. He began to stand up, and Yasu offered a hand for support. Lin hesitated only for a second before taking it. Despite the roaring protest of his entire torso, he stood up. His other hand wrapped protectively around his middle. There was no use in trying to hide his discomfort.

"Do you need support?" Yasu asked.

"My legs are fine," Lin said. He looked up at Yasu, John, and then to Naru. "If it's all the same to you, I would prefer to get moving."

"What's the plan Kazuya?" asked John, thankfully redirecting the conversation.

"So far, there's only been one real path," Naru said, nodding his head toward the double doors, which were now lying useless on the floor. Naru looked back at Lin. "What's the status of the remaining spirits?"

For this, Lin looked to Fire. The shikigami had been silent since Lin had woken up, but this silence was different from the funeral silence from before. This was a tense silence that signified something was upsetting to Fire.

"Are you all right?" Lin asked.

"The spirits here are just more victims," Fire replied, completely dodging the question. "I don't sense any outright malice."

Lin didn't comment on the deflection. He just nodded. "No hostiles," he said. He walked up to Naru and passed him. "Proceed with caution."

Naru's hand gripped his arm. Lin winced, his mind tunneling again at a sudden hand restraining him. Naru did not notice the impact of his action. "You're not leading. Have you completely lost it?"

"I am still your guardian," Lin countered, turning to face Naru fully.

"You can't protect a damn thing in your condition," Naru said. His words were like worms digging under Lin's skin. The boy was right. Even now, with the hand of a friend holding him in place, he still felt the need to wrench himself free.

John plucked something out of his backpack, revealing another full crystal bottle of holy water. "How about I go first?" he said in his typical defusing voice. Lin nodded, seeing sense in having a competent guide. Naru finally let him go, following John. He allowed Naru to pass him, meeting the boy's challenging stare with his own blank look. He also let Yasu pass him, though Yasu did flash him a confused glance. This just made sense though. Yasu, the non-spiritualist, should not by any logic be keeping up the rear in a haunted facility.

They had to walk slowly for a handful of reasons, naturally because both Lin and John were still reeling from their battle wounds, and because they had no idea what dangers awaited around every corner. Naru was carrying the bolt cutters, and Yasu had the pickaxe balanced over his shoulder like a bindle. The crowbar they had bought had been lost somewhere in the scuffle against the ghoul. Lin's best guess was that his nine cuts had accidentally buried it under the rest of the operating room.

Their slow pace made traveling the long hallway an even longer endeavor. The cells were spaced nearly right next to one another, but with enough room between them so that the walls were impenetrable with mere human strength. Each cell was designed to hold a single person, like solitary confinement. Not every cell had a drain. Maybe every other one did. Aside from that, they were identical. Tiny room, one bench (or the remnants of one), and a broken, simple door.

"Twelve… thirteen… fourteen…"

Lin perked up, realizing that Yasu was counting out loud. It was clear he was counting each pair of doors they passed. The student's voice was hushed, but it was loud enough to pick up, if you were paying attention. Lin silently scolded himself for letting his mind wander.

"Shouldn't we check back with Takigawa and the others?" Lin asked.

The group stopped. John and Yasu looked at him like he had lost his marbles. And then Yasu snapped his fingers. "Oh right! You were out when they radioed. We should fill you in. Apparently, Officer Hattori found them and had a sudden change of heart."

Lin exhaled at the mention of Hattori. Those two officers were the last thing Lin wanted to hear about, but he knew it was for the best that he was informed.

Yasu went on, and the group continued walking. "Apparently, everyone at the station knows at least a bit about this place's history. It is leftovers from the Second World War, with prisoners of war being smuggled in or something, but he couldn't say when the usage stopped exactly. Oh, and Hattori thinks he can find your missing shiki."

Lin's missing shiki. They had become little more than an afterthought, to the team, and more recently to Lin. He was almost ready to give them up for lost, considering the fact that they were a priority to no one. He honestly had no plan of recovering them, just that he would figure something out, but that hardly amounted to a plan of any kind.

"Apparently, they were on patrol near the hospital when you guys first arrived there," Yasu said.

Lin nodded. The timing made sense.

"And also apparently, Hattori is a medium, and a very sensitive one at that. He came because he heard the spirits emerging, and if he can see your shiki, Masako said that's something she has trouble doing."

"I think she can sense their presence, but she can't see them," said Lin.

Naru looked back. "Yasu, are you saying that Hattori sees what Masako can only sense?"

To this, Yasu shrugged. "I can't say. Nobody told me."

Naru hesitated, mulling something over in his head. "We should meet back up with the surface team."

"That's what we've been trying to do, right? But we're kinda stuck down here. Even if we went back to the crematorium, the ladder broke."

"No one's going to be able to lift me out of the pit," Lin added, reminding them again that he was in no condition to do any rope climbing or harsh exertion.

"That also leaves the question of what we're going to do about these ghosts," John said. "Don't you think they deserve some peace after everything they've been through?"

Lin tilted his head back as he thought. "The ones that fled… I think they are at peace. If they were still malevolent, surface team would have reported that by now. The ones that stayed here…" Lin glanced around. Even though all the cells were devoid of anything he could see, he knew the spirits were still there, lurking between the walls. "They were very clear about what they want."

"Revenge," said Yasu, echoing the spirits' words from before.

John exhaled. Right, as a priest, revenge was frowned upon. Even then, revenge in this case would be a logistical nightmare, something that Yasu voiced readily.

"But… some of these ghosts come from World War Two. Their captors must be long dead. And then the ones that are from later, who knows where on Earth their wrongdoers are. And, and…" Yasu paused. Then he flailed his arms. "Who's to say they even know who their killers are!?"

Naru dropped his gaze to the floor, drinking in Yasu's words. It was likely he was still trying to think of options they had left. In a case like this, in which a spirit desired the presence of someone they could not get for whatever reason, Lin would make a hitogata. A substitute. But the problem in this case was that there was too much information they did not have, such as the identities of all of the killers, plus their accomplices such as guards and "doctors." Not to mention the fact that making substitutes of horrible people, even if they were just substitutes, didn't sit well with Lin. After all, who wanted a magical Hitler substitute to exist? Nobody with good intentions, that was for sure.

"We do know one person. Three, in this case," Naru said.

The group focused on him as he spoke.

"Fusei, Nakamura, and Saito."

Lin tensed at the utterance of Fusei's name. He felt something latch onto his spiritual core from behind, an extra essence of rage boiling into him. A spirit had touched him, feeding off of and adding fuel to his own anger. As satisfying as it would be to give in, he knew it would do him no good. He ordered Fire to shoo away the ghost, but not to harm it. The anger seeped out of him like steam from a teapot, until his emotions were solely his own.

It didn't last long though, as another set of emotions latched onto him by his arm. And a third one touched the back of his neck. Like a magnet, he was attracting the ghosts around him.

"Naru!" he shouted, stopped fully in his tracks as more and more hands rested upon his body.

The group halted and looked at him. None of them could tell what was happening, as it was invisible to their eyes.

"What is it?" Naru asked.

"The spirits are latching onto me," Lin said. It was difficult for him to accept touches from his friends; to be so invaded by strangers, by ghosts no less, was nothing short of violating. He wondered if Yasu's talk about revenge had egged them on, but then he remembered that almost none of these ghosts understood Japanese.

"Are you in danger?" Naru asked.

Lin squeezed his eyes shut. He took a deep, grounding breath. Was he in danger? No, that was obvious. The spirits were not trying to hurt him. Their unwelcome hands were hardly aggressive. Rather, it was more like a touch of… solidarity? That was too strong a word, and yet, somehow it was fitting.

"I think… they're amplifying my emotions, especially the ones associated with anger and vengeance."

Naru put a hand to his chin. "Can you control them?"

Lin glanced his way. "My emotions? They aren't my emotions."

"Are they reacting to what we've been saying?" Yasu asked.

Lin shook his head. "They don't speak Japanese." His eyes widened as he realized something that should have been clear from the get-go. "They're reacting to me."

"Can you tell what they want? If they're not harming you…" Yasu trailed off.

"They seem to be trying to ally themselves with me, or perhaps the reverse." He turned away from the team and directed his attention closer to himself. In Chinese, he asked, "What do you want with me?"

Voices whispered in his ears, alarmingly close and way too intimate, "Revenge. Justice. Freedom." Then their voices began to overlap. Lin recognized bits and pieces of names, some of them uttered with hatred—others with desperation and longing. He realized he was hearing the names of both the spirits' enemies and loved ones at the same time, and there was no way to differentiate which was which.

"I still don't understand why you're fixated on me."

The voices slowly unified once again, forming words that Lin could understand. "One of us," they said. The implications of that sent shivers down Lin's spine. Weiguó had implied something like that during the séance yesterday (was it really only yesterday?), but with a much darker undertone. Lin was not a war victim. He was not wronged by the people of Japan. He was proud of his heritage, and he felt a strong connection to it, but he was not like these spirits. He merely shared a country of origin. Even then, it was unlikely that any of them had come from Hong Kong like him.

Realizing that Naru, Yasu, and John were waiting on him, he turned back to them. "It's because I'm Chinese."

Yasu and John exchanged glances. Naru narrowed his eyes. "That's it?" He was the epitome of unimpressed. "If that were the case, then every Chinese person who ever crossed these woods would have experienced what you have."

Lin nodded. "I agree. There's more to the equation than that."

"Sorry if this is sensitive," Yasu said. "But do you still feel the same way toward the Japanese as you did before?"

Lin frowned at Yasu. Where had he heard about that? He wasn't exactly loose lipped about his views, and even then, the hateful words he had spoken to Mai during the Urado case were hasty and agitated by being suddenly outed by their client. He silently wished they had never had anything to do with that damn mansion, as its influences kept haunting them, even after they had set the place aflame.

"I do not," Lin said. He didn't offer any more explanation. Yasu stared at him, but he nodded all the same.

"Maybe…" John said. "Sure there are an unknown number of Chinese people in Japan at any given time, but how many of them are sorcerers and onmyoji? It's like that fallacy asking if there are more artists or more artists who are poker players in a given room at any time. The latter might be easier to imagine, but statistically rarer."

"In other words, our dear Koujo Lin is one of a kind," Yasu said.

Lin furrowed his brow at Yasu's comment. Was Takigawa's absence causing Yasu's flirtatious side to home in on Lin now?

"I'd say, as long as they aren't harming you, let them stick around," Naru said. "They might be useful later."

"Right, for your spirit army," Yasu said.

Naru didn't respond to that. Instead, he just motioned with his hand. "Let's keep moving."

The group continued to walk. Lin carried the spirits with him, unwillingly but without any other choice. They floated behind him like a bunch of balloons won at a carnival and then taped to his back. He could still feel their touches on him, hands on his body the way a brother in arms touches a shoulder of a bereaved man… it was that kind of touch, except the spirits were not his brothers, and Lin had no intention of making them so.

They reached a dead end. The group halted. They stood face to face with a blank, concrete wall. Naru stepped up to it and began to palm the wall, feeling for anything like a hidden door or weak spot.

"I counted thirty one pairs," Yasu said. At John's blank look, he clarified, "Of doors. Sixty two cells in total."

"Sixty two cells? Do you think all of them were used?"

"I don't know. How many test subjects does a group of madmen need at a time?"

"I don't doubt that all of them were used," said Naru, still feeling the wall. "But it's probably unlikely that they were all used at the same time. And it's also unlikely that this place's sole function was for human experimentation, regardless of what anyone said."

"I dunno," said Yasu. "It has a bit of a Bedlam feel in here."

"And what was the purpose of so-called asylums back then? Not to help or house, but to hide the people that nobody wanted to see. And thus, without supervision…"

"Staff could get away with anything, Scott free."

Naru and Yasu continued to speculate on the purpose of the place. Lin silently agreed that this facility was most likely multi-purpose. He did find it hard to believe that the hallway ended right here. He had some kind of nagging feeling in his mind that this wasn't the end, but his brain was having trouble interpreting his instincts and intuition. His mind was becoming fuzz, and that frightened him almost as much as the ghostly hands still latched onto him.

A gentle touch on his arm helped to silence the noise in his head. He looked at John, ever the source of serenity and care.

"You doing all right, Mate?" he asked, quietly enough so as not to disturb Yasu and Naru.

Lin considered lying. John's eyes were too genuinely full of concern to brush him away. Besides, it wasn't good form to lie to a priest. Lin shook his head. John furrowed his brow. "What do you need? I brought a few protein bars. Want one of those?"

It was true that Lin hadn't eaten anything since the previous morning, but the thought of food made him feel queasy. He quickly deduced that this was his survival instinct talking. While in a fight or flight situation, the digestive system would power down. It was strange how his body was still behaving as though his life was in danger, when his head was merely a mess of static.

The flash of a plastic wrapper in front of his face snapped him out of his thoughts. He realized that he had taken too long to respond, so John had acted. On autopilot more than anything, he took the bar. Slowly but surely, he opened it and forced it down, feeling heavier yet less distant with each bite. Before his mind could catch up with him, he had finished it. John was already offering another. Lin shook his head, pocketing the wrapper and turning to the wall, away from John. Yasu and Naru were staring at the two of them now.

"Better?" Naru asked.

Lin nodded once.

"We need to see what's on the other side of this wall," said Naru, accepting Lin's response.

"Battle of the nerds then?" Yasu asked, gesturing to the pickaxe.

In response, Naru glanced toward the ceiling, still full of cracks, holes, and debris hanging by threads. Naru focused his gaze at Lin. His intention was clear. He wanted Lin's shiki to take a peek, which Lin caught onto. Lin had the snack to thank for that. He inclined his head, ordering Fire to peer through the wall.

It came back out not ten seconds later and said, "It's the file room."

Lin almost did a double take. Asking his shiki to repeat what it said in hopes that it would make more sense was irrational, as his shiki were nothing less than direct when obeying orders. "Which file room?" he asked.

"The one in the police station. The one that the enemy marched you to yesterday."

Lin's breath hitched. No, that couldn't be right.

"Well?" Naru asked.

"The police station is behind that wall."

All three of the others couldn't help but shout, "What!?"

"The police station? We didn't walk that far!" Yasu exclaimed. "I mean sure, it's like right across from the woods, but we're talking a lot of woods!"

"The file room that they used to hold me took a long time to get to," said Lin. "They had me blindfolded and deafened, but from the directions they had taken me, I nearly thought that they just walked around the police station twice."

Naru put a hand to his chin and supported his elbow with his other hand. He looked at the wall again. "I'm sure the rest of the facility is beyond this wall."

Once again, Yasu lifted the pickaxe. "We're doing this then?"

"We have no choice."

"Uh, Kazuya, I would appreciate not getting flattened today," said John. "I don't really trust this building. I think it's possible that, considering how far the operating room was from the… this—" he gestured to the wall, "It makes sense that there's probably a way out that we overlooked."

"We didn't pass another hatch when we came from up on the surface," Naru cautioned. "Besides, if this concrete wall here really is just a passage blocker, then it's not a load-bearer. If we take it slow, it should be okay."

"And if you're wrong?" John asked.

"Then we get flattened," said Yasu.

Naru let out a small humph and folded his arms.

"Maybe we can erode it?" Yasu offered. Naru turned to him. "Remember, in the cleaning closet, there were all those barrels of solutions? Considering the activities they got up to, maybe there's some kind of super acid—"

"No," Naru said. "Not that's been sitting around for forty years."

"We shouldn't open them regardless," Lin said. "We don't have a way out if there are toxic fumes."

"Good thinking," Yasu said.

"How did all that stuff survive the blasting anyway?" John wondered.

"That's if the blasting was designed to try and cover this up," Yasu said. "Who's to say it wasn't revolt?" He turned to Lin. "Think your spirit friends can answer that?"

Lin shrugged. He focused on the cloud of invisible spirits following him like a flock of seagulls. He asked them, but they didn't respond. They just kept chanting the names of their old haunts, and every now and then, they affirmed that Lin was still one of them. He suppressed his shudder. It was for the best to ignore their chattering unless it was actually useful. He shook his head, answering Yasu's question.

"Okay, so it's time to get swingy?" Yasu asked.

"Radio surface team first," Lin said.

John did so.

"Surface team, respond," John said.

It was Ayako who answered. "We're all good up here. Underground team, how are you holding up?"

"Not great," said John with a glance toward Lin. "But we're all functional. We found a passage block here, but we believe it leads to the East police station on the other side."

"What do you mean?"

"The room that Fusei kept me in, it's behind this wall," Lin said. "Well, it's attached to an old file room, and that's what's on the other side."

"Lin, are you all right, man?" That was Takigawa.

Lin opened his mouth. Then he closed it. "We're going to try to dig through the wall between us and the station."

"What if you get caught though?" Mai blurted.

"My understanding is that most don't come to this file room. I think only Fusei even knows the prison room is here. Otherwise, how would they have been able to hide me down there?"

"Do you think the place will be able to take all the banging?" asked Takigawa.

"Not sure," Lin said. "It's withstood more damage than I would have thought, just since we arrived." It was true. Neither the rush of spirits nor the fight with the ghoul had destroyed the facility. And if it was indeed the case that this wall's purpose was covering up a secret tunnel, then it stood to reason that it was not load-bearing. He gave a silent nod to the rest of the group. "We're going to commence."

"Stay on the line," Ayako said.

"Right," said Lin.

Yasu began to swing. He kept his strikes gentle and precise, chipping away at the wall rather than Monk's wrecking ball golf club technique.

"So far so good," John said. Naru stood by, watching Yasu carefully. Lin ordered Fire to pass through to the other side and keep lookout. Considering that Hattori could see all kinds of spirits, Lin also instructed Fire to hide. In any other situation, that wouldn't be necessary. So Fire tucked itself away behind some boxes and Yasu made the tiny hole bigger.

It took them about five minutes, but eventually, there was a sizeable hole in the wall. The wallpaper on the other side of the wall still stuck to it, keeping some of the pieces dangling in the hole rather than falling down. Naru gingerly removed them, letting Yasu break more and more pieces until there was a hole big enough for them to squeeze through. Before anyone could stop him, Naru slipped through the hole, the reckless idiot. Yasu made way to follow, but Lin pushed past him. Then came Yasu, with John bringing up the rear.

On the other side of the wall, they emerged into a dank, familiar, musty room. Boxes of papers were stacked high to the ceiling. A small, banged up desk sat in the middle of the room, papers strewn about like one of those file boxes had exploded. The edges of a prison door were peeking out behind a big stack of them. To its left was a much more normal office door, which was likely the exit. Lin drew Naru's attention to the prison door hiding behind the boxes.

Naru hummed. "The spacing is the same," he said. He walked across the room to where the opposite prison cell should have been but was not. "Was the police station built over the facility?"

"Or were they Frankensteined together?" Yasu finished.

"Um, follow up question," said John. "How are we going to get out of here without getting arrested? We did just break into a police station after all…"

Right. They now had humans to deal with, and explaining how they got into a probably deeply restricted area was not going to be easy. Well, it could be as easy as explaining that they had come in through a former World War II prison, but according to Hattori, the land it was buried under was private property, which meant they'd have to explain the trespassing. Then again, they were hired to work on the land, so…

Lin and Naru exchanged glances, having this silent conversation. Naru made for the office door, when Lin touched his arm, stopping him.

"I had been drugged when you found me, is that right?" he asked.

"Right," said Yasu, and Naru nodded.

"I have no memory of leaving this place, so it's possible they took me through a discreet exit."

Yasu nodded enthusiastically. "Right! Then they wouldn't have to explain who you were, what they were doing with an unconscious man, or a whole other bunch of incriminating plot holes, for lack of a better word."

"How do you want to proceed?" Naru asked.

Lin considered this. "It would be best if I had my shiki scout ahead and wait for a report." Fire turned an ear to this suggestion.

"Well we shouldn't wait in the open like this," said Naru.

"Back to the hole?" asked Yasu.

"That, or…"

Lin didn't like the way Naru trailed off, or the way his gaze traveled from the hole to the prison door peeking out from behind the boxes. Even John and Yasu looked uneasy.

"Nobody but Fusei knows it's there…" Yasu said, echoing Naru's thinking, yet his tone was hesitant. He was staring at Lin the whole time he said it, concern apparent behind his glasses. "And if they come in seeing the hole…"

"But we'd have to move those boxes to get in," John said, gesturing to the mountain of boxes covering up the door. "Who would move them back once we were stuffed inside?"

"It would make more sense to go back into the facility, and slide some boxes over the hole," said Naru. In an uncharacteristically sympathetic motion, Naru's gaze softened as he looked at Lin. "The prison idea was stupid. I'm sorry for suggesting such a thing to you."

Lin was stunned at the apology. He hadn't expected to receive anything more than just an, "I'm sorry." Eyes wide, he nodded. He just wished Noll would be more careful with his words all the time, as his previous suggestion was well and truly uncalled for.

With the plan set, Lin sent Fire on its way. Underground team returned to the hole in the wall, and Yasu maneuvered a small stack of boxes as best he could over the hole. Now, all they had to do was sit and wait.

Gene had checked over every police car that entered and exited the parking lot. None of them had any sign of a spirit held captive. It was obvious that Fusei had relocated Lin's shiki somewhere else. The thing was, he didn't exactly need a good hiding place. Fusei and Hattori were likely the only spiritually sensitive people in the station, so Fusei only really had to hide them from Hattori. It was clear that Fusei didn't trust Hattori, and for good reason. If Hattori could be flipped so easily, then he wouldn't make a good partner no matter who the partner was. Truly, the young and stupid officer was not cut out for this.

Gene gave up on the car search and instead began to scour the station itself. If Fusei had an office, then maybe they were there. After half an hour of floating around, Gene discovered that only the captain and sergeant had offices. Everyone else just had desks, some messier than others. Using the spirit world as the fourth dimension, he peered into the drawers and other hidden compartments. He found typical office supplies, papers, pens, staplers, tape, and in one instance a long forgotten and moldy sandwich, but no shiki.

Gene scolded himself. Lin was counting on him! He hadn't seen Lin leave; he only found out he was gone from the station when he peered back into the cell in the wee hours of morning, only to see it empty. Chasing after a lead whose trail was already cold was a waste of time. Instead, Gene resumed his shiki search.

As the sun rose, Gene was close to giving up. There were no signs of spirit cages or bubbles or whatever. The shiki weren't here. But where would they be? If they weren't here, but still somehow under Fusei's thumb, where would they be? Gene thought back, this time from a new perspective. As much as he didn't want to, he wondered, "How would I do it, if I were Fusei?"

There was a lot about the man that Gene didn't know .Was Fusei also an onmyoji? It was possible, but Gene couldn't be sure. He thought back to what he did know. Fusei was able to inflict wounds on Lin's shiki to torture Lin. But the timing was specific, and it did stop after a while. Fusei eventually did get tired and go home. He also stopped in between questions. That meant that he had some way of controlling when to inflict a wound. Unless he had some kind of super telekinesis or invisible voodoo magic, then it would require the shiki plus the weapon used to wound them to be close. Very close. As in… under-his-own-nose close.

Gene swore in his head. Fusei had Lin's shiki, literally. They were with Fusei. It only made sense. If he was able to hide their whereabouts from Lin, their true master, at a distance, it stood to reason that he could hide them from Lin no matter how close he was, as well as Hattori's eagle eyes, and Gene's scouting in the spirit world. Gene shook his head. He should have thought of that earlier. Fusei could capture and hide spirits. How could he have overlooked a fact so obvious?

It was now time to contact someone. Maybe Mai, maybe Hattori, maybe even his idiot of a twin. Though considering how long it took Gene to get to this conclusion, he was willing to call his brother the genius this time around. Goal in mind, he set off to find an ally.

In this case, an ally came to him. Or rather, it whizzed by in a ball of fiery light. Lin's last remaining shiki.

"Wait!" Gene shouted.

The little ball of light stopped. It turned around, taking its original fox form, tails flashing like a peacock train. "What?" it demanded, its eyes piercing Gene. It was clear that it recognized Gene, but this was the first time Lin's most trusted familiar regarded Gene with overt hostility.

"I know where Lin's other shiki are."

The fox curled its tails around its legs, raising its distrustful gaze so that it was looking down on Gene. Gene had never known Lin's shiki to be this cold to known allies. They were sworn to protect their master, but they knew their master was safe from his team. Unless… Unless after everything they had been through, this huli jing no longer counted the SPR as friends.

"I'm waiting," said the fox.

Gene nodded and began his report.

If anyone else is confused about the geography of the woods in relation to the town, the police station, the hospital, and the safe house the team was given as a base, don't worry. I'm confused too. This was likely the least well planned part of this whole thing. Just know that the police station is very close to the safe house and the woods.