Naru continued sprinting through the forest that seemed to be never ending. He could feel his lungs aching and burning since he never stopped once to try and catch his breath. He could hear the stream off to his left, he knew that as long as he kept hearing its sound it would eventually lead him to the river. Finally Naru saw an opening to where there were no trees, he had finally reached the cliff. When he stepped out away from the tree line he could see Mai looking out towards the horizon.

'Mai whatever you do don't move forward. Just walk back slowly towards me," Naru said to her.

She slowly turned around to face him and all that he could see was the vacant look in her eyes. A single tear came out from each eye and all Naru could do was slowly try to approach her.

"Mai come on let's go back to base," the stoic boy spoke carefully.

"Why would i go back with you, is it so you can make me suffer more," she said but a second voice overlapped with hers.

Oliver concluded that this was the voice of Rei, the spirit who was the cause of everything here.

"Mai it's alright everything will be fine as long as you come with me," Oliver reasoned with her.

"No I won't, I will no longer be your victim," the girl yelled at him.

Oliver felt confused by that last statement, he wasn't sure if this was the spirit's own feelings or if she was taking advantage of Mai and her feelings. He never considered himself as a bully or having bullied Mai, did she really feel this way towards him?

"You will never understand how I feel, or how I felt back them. I bet you don't even care about me or my feelings. I bet you didn't even think twice before abandoning me or anyone else for that matter. When you left 2 years ago it hurt, it hurt because I thought I would never see you again. I could deal with that though, what made it worse is that you completely dismissed my feelings as if they were nothing. You never take anyone's feelings into consideration, you only care about yourself. I won't stand for it any longer, so in order for me to stop suffering I am going to leave this world," the girl explained and took one step back towards the cliff.

"Don't do, it don't do something you are going to regret," Naru said moving forward a couple of steps.

"Why it's not like you'll care, you don't care now and you won't care when I'm gone," she yelled.

"Everyone would be so sad if you died. Do you know what that would do to them if you were gone? I wouldn't like it if you were gone," Naru said the last part before he even had time to think.

Oliver didn't know when it happened but he had gotten used to Mai being around constantly. The only people who he really seemed to care for were his adoptive parents, Lin, Madoka, and Gene, not that he would ever admit that to anyone. A big piece of him had gone when Gene died and Oliver decided that he wouldn't let anyone new into his life out of fear for losing them.

But now here he was convincing this girl, no this young woman, that everyone needed her here including him. Oliver knew it would be a bother if he had to go and find a new assistant, but in the back of his mind he could feel that if she were to die here he probably wouldn't recover from this. His life would change forever, change more than when he found out that Gene had died.

"Please Mai just come with me, let's go back and we can end this," Oliver held his hand out towards her.

The girl closed her eyes and a few more tears cascaded down her face.

While Naru was trying to reason with Mai (Rei) on the outside, inside Mai was also trying to reason with Rei.

"Rei wait please, I understand what you are going through".

"What do you mean you don't know anything," Rei spoke.

Mai peeked towards the screen and could see Naru standing in front of her and was trying to reason with her body. She sighed a little knowing that if anything were to happen to her at least she wouldn't be alone.

"I might not know what it is exactly that you went through but I can relate. My parents died when I was young, thus leaving me an orphan. I was bullied by some of the kids in school, they would call me an orphan and they would always make fun of my clothes when they saw me outside of school. I would cry everyday and hated going to school. That was until one day I met other kids who were just like me without parents, parents who died or abandoned them.

"Just like you I wanted to get revenge on them or wish Karma would come seeking justice for what they had done to me. But then I realized that by thinking those things I was no better than they were. In a way I was starting to become a bully myself. I had to learn to ignore the things that they would say and learn to forgive them instead. I never knew why they were mean to me but I think it was because they had their own insecurities that they were dealing with," Mai explained to Rei calmly.

"But what about those you are currently with surely they must make it difficult for you," Rei said.

"They do, but that's what family is like. They get on your nerves and make you want to pull your hand out, but they keep things interesting. In the end I know they love me and truly care for me, I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world," Mai said smiling.

"I have seen the way that guy has treated you for the last couple of days. The way he talks to you and looks down on you," the spirit said bringing up Naru.

"Who, you mean Naru, he is like that with everyone. sure he makes me mad by acting cold and not even saying thank you for anything, but that's just how he is. He does have a nice side that he keeps locked up inside. I have been fortunate enough to have seen that side of him a few times, I know if I keep trying I could maybe tear off one layer of his guard eventually," Mai explained.

Mai could see that Rei was having a hard time believing anything that was coming out of her mouth. She knew she was running out of time but she just had to keep trying.

"Look Rei if you do this, if you throw my body into the river you are only going to cause more hurt. The more hurt you cause the more the cycle continues, we have to end it right here. Just like I have people who love me so do you. I'm sure that if you had still been alive you would have had many friends, better friends than those three girls ever were," Mai told the spirit,

"Do you really think so," Rei said with tears in her eyes.

"I really do I can tell you are kind, honest, and loyal. I know that you are someone I would want to be friends with for sure," Mai told her.

Just then a warm bright light enveloped the two girls and Mai could tell that Rei's spirit was being cleansed.

"Go now Rei, go to the other side and have all the friends you could ever want," and just like that Rei was gone.

The air suddenly became calm and Naru could feel a change in the energy. Mai was back in control of her own body but she could feel all of her energy had been completely drained.

"Naru...I'm tired," Mai said, this time in her own voice.

The girl's vision faded to black and she fell unconscious. Mai fell backwards to the edge of the cliff and Naru ran trying to catch her before she fell. Naru stretched his arm out towards Mai but he missed and grabbed nothing but air.

He saw Mai's body fall down the cliff and land in the water. He sprang into action and quickly removed his clothes leaving on only a black t-shirt and his black pants. Without a second of hesitation he jumped off the cliff and into the river. After his body hit the water Oliver quickly swam to the surface in order to get a huge gulp of air. He dove back into the water to get Mai who had already sunk down deeper than he would have thought.

He could feel the pressure build up in his ears as he moved down deeper into the water. When he finally reached Mai he wrapped one arm around her waist and used the other to help pull them up toward the surface. Naru could feel that he was running out of oxygen but they still had a ways to go before they reached surface. His lungs started burning but he pushed himself to reach the surface before Mai's lungs had filled with too much water.

They had finally reached the surface and Oliver took in a huge breath of air that he knew he desperately needed. He looked towards Mai to see she was still unconscious and hurried to get them both to land. Once on land Naru worked on getting Mai to wake up.

"Mai it's time to get up now," he said to the girl.

She did not answer her boss nor did she open her eyes. Naru knew just the thing that he believed would guarantee that she would wake up.

"Mai quit slacking off and make me some tea," but even that didn't get a reaction out of her.

Once Oliver actually paid attention to her unconscious figure he couldn't see the rise and fall of her chest. He laid his head on her chest and couldn't hear the beating of her heart. Immediately he began performing CPR and just hoped it wasn't too late for the girl. At this time the rest of the team had finally found them and was running in their direction. Naru didn't pay any attention to them and kept his mind focused on the task at hand.

She wasn't responding to the hand compressions and the only thing he could think of was that she had water in her lungs which prevented her from breathing. The other team members stared at the scene before them just hoping and praying that the girl would pull through.

"Naru let me take over you have to be tired from having swam all the way here," Ayako stated approaching the two.

Naru ignored the priestess and never moved from his position next to the brunette. Ayako knew better than to try and intervene for a second time and took a step back allowing the boy to continue his efforts.

'Would she protest tot eh amount of physical contact if she was conscious to witness everything,' Naru thought hesitating for a moment.

He shook the thoughts from his subconscious and gave the girl mouth to mouth and continued with the compressions. After three rounds of this Naru could hear gurgling noises come from the girl so he sat her up and she coughed up all the water that she had inhaled. Everyone let out a breath that they didn't even know that they were holding. some even started crying out of happiness.

"Naru is the spirit gone," Mai asked him quietly.

"Yeah she's gone, good job dummy," Naru replied.

An ambulance had arrived shortly after, which had been called by Ayako before they left the house looking for the boss and his assistant. Ayako and Monk rode in the ambulance with Mai while everyone else stayed to wrap up the case. A final walkthrough was done by Masako and it was determined that indeed the spirit was gone and there was no residual energy lingering about the property.

Morning had finally arrived and the family had returned home and Yasu was reporting to them everything that happened, save a few details. Naru was busy finishing up with his final report for the client's file. This morning the family had reported that the eldest daughter was acting like her normal self. They were instructed by Yasu just to keep watch over her the next couple of days just to be sure everything was alright. It was late afternoon and everyone was working together to breakdown base. Naru was loading the last of the monitors into the van and he couldn't shake the feeling of anxiety coursing through his body.

'Noll is everything alright,' Gene asked him.

'Everything is alright now go away," Oliver said dismissing his twin.

'Oliver I can practically hear your heart racing from over here. Now tell me, it's Mai isn't it,' the kinder twin said raising his voice.

'You aren't going to leave me alone are you,' Oliver sighed suddenly feeling exhausted.

'Nope just one of the perks of having me as your brother even if I'm no longer alive,' Oliver could practically see the grin on his twin brother's face.

'I just don't understand how she can be so stupid and accident prone at the same time,' the stoic boy said voicing all of his frustrations.

'It's not that, she just has a good heart and people, even spirits are drawn to that. Unfortunately the bad spirits are going to use that to take advantage of her,' Gene said.

'It's only going to get worse from here on out. I guess I'm just going to have to keep a close eye on her then,' Oliver said closing the trunk.

'What do you mean, you can't be with her 24/7 it's just not possible,' Gene asked sounding confused.

'Don't worry about that I'm sure you will understand soon enough,' and with that the conversation and the case came to a close.

A/N: Thank you all again for reading my story. I really appreciate each and every one of you that has been following thus far. Please continue to support me and my story as I do my best to update for you guys. Please like, favorite, and comment as always and I will be here next time. Also I do not own Ghost Hunt or its characters, the only things I own are the plot and ideas in this fanfiction. Byeeeeeeeeeee~