Hey yo! Another chapter coming your way. You guys are great, with both comments and patience, you're the best, even if you're new, even you, yes you. You're great. *hearts*

Considering the fact I've technically been working on this story for around/over a year now, you'd think I would have already realized that I'm going to have to mostly make up Sakauchi's personality. Oh, this is going to be fun. Of course, he's not going to appear yet, I'm still deciding on the order of events/which cases they're going to try to fix prematurely. But since his death is somewhat approaching quickly, he (as well as Yasu) will likely be the first ones we go to. After that… Not sure. Probably Kansai, then… Well, probably going to go burn down the mansion in Bloodstained Labyrinth, so technically arson, but it's for a good cause? Kenji will pop up around this time, and then I guess Dollhouse, and now I can't remember any of the other freaking cases. Um. The one at Mai's school is… I have a plan but I'm not sure if it'll work yet. Oh, and if I can't manage to squeak in the other members (Masako being the hardest, Monk and Ayako not particularly easy to get to either, but John should be easy enough to get, theoretically, but their reactions to the whole thing will probably be very different than what they were originally) before facing the fake god thing then I have no plan. Actually, even if I can, I'm not sure how I'm managing it. And I hope to save the lady in the park, the one that got startled by a cat and died, but I'm not sure what I'll do with her either, so maybe I won't and we'll have some lovely angst. Or I can get some adult supervision for these children that are just running around the countryside, burning down houses and breaking into wells below people's living rooms.

I don't own Ghost Hunt.

ENJOY!

STEPS

The first place we went to once we got to Tokyo was my apartment. Firstly, because it was my apartment. There is no secondly on this.

One of the many, many grievances I had about this time travel adventure was the fact that my hair was long again. Long hair, I would like it to be acknowledged, is a pain.

Thus, the first thing I did once I got into my apartment— apart from getting my shoes off and reminding Gene, whom trailing behind faithfully, to do the same— was go get my scissors.

"Woah, wait, what are you doing-" Gene stuttered. To be fair, he had just followed a complete stranger into an admittedly not-fantastic apartment and said stranger just pulled a rather disproportionally large pair of sharp scissors out of nowhere. I could see where his concern was.

"Calm down," I muttered, setting the scissors on the table and looking for a plastic shopping bag. I kept a hoard of them somewhere… "And close the door and sit down, would you? The slippers are literally at your feet."

Gene, not looking completely convinced as usual but going with it anyway, did as told and sat down on one of the cushions.

Meanwhile, I had found my cache of bags. "I know it's not much," I said, setting the bag down on the table and then starting yet another search for a rubber band, "but it is my home."

For his credit, Gene only hesitated a little before asking, "You live alone? Where are your-"

"My parents?" I interrupted as I found a rubber band I did not mind parting with. I carefully worked on getting my hair out of the ponytail it had been in for the past couple of days—aka the main reason I hadn't been bothered by it before just now. "They're not around. I live on my own. Currently between jobs and have a really nice school that lets me attend for free." Hair down, only to be put back up again by the band.

"Oh," Gene said. There really wasn't much to say on the subject.

I focused on my task for a few more moments. "You wanted to know about the team I was on, right?"

"Ah," he immediately grasped onto the conversation change. "Yeah, you told me about working with Lin and Noll, and also about Madoka and meeting my mother, but not about the rest of them, whoever they are."

"Well," I said, only slightly wincing as I tugged the rubber band to exactly the right place I wanted it to be. "Let's start with someone you may have heard of. She's actually been on TV before."

"Oh, woah, really?"

"Yep!" I chirped. Whatever our relationship was, I would proudly brag about Masako's skill, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the offhand coolness I got from being associated with her, none at all. Really. "Masako Hara was our usual medium and our go-to when looking for ghosts."

"Huh…" Gene looked mildly troubled for a second before asking, "And she was the real deal?"

"As far as I could tell. She saw things we couldn't. But we had some debate about whether she was actually a psychometrist or not…" Finally, I had my hair exactly as I wanted it. I set my hair into the bag, and then picked up the scissors.

"What are you-"

The sound of cutting hair is well known by nearly everyone. Thus, my scissors sufficiently accomplished both cutting off my hair and cutting off Gene's words.

"Ah, much better," I said, making sure all the loose hair was in the bag, secured by the rubber band. I already had bangs, and it was a clean cut through my hair. Hair bag in the trash, hands running through my hair to fluff the now-short style, and Gene sufficiently shocked because, well, this really wasn't all that normal. At all. "Sorry about that. My hair was long at this time, but I cut it short like, a week from now? And I haven't looked back. Felt weird to have long hair and I couldn't stand it for very much longer."

"It's- well, I guess its fine. Suits you better, actually."

I smiled. He's keeping up as well as possible, all things considered. "Thank you. Now, who next…?"

"Well, you said there was, what, nine of you in total?" Gene asked. I nodded. "Including yourself, Madoka, Lin, Noll, and Miss Hara, that makes five. So any of the next four is fine by me."

"Ah, well, I guess… John, then. John Brown. An exorcist."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he's actually really young, and has a Kasai accent… It's unfortunately very funny. Um, he's Catholic and comes from Australia, and I think he's… wait, he'd be nineteen right now? He turned twenty, but this is the past… so maybe eighteen…? Is he even in Japan right now…?"

"He's that young and doing exorcisms?" His tone was slightly incredulous.

"Um, yes…? I think we also talked about that, but honestly, whatever he does works so. I don't suppose it honestly matters…?"

"Ah, well," Gene shifted slightly. "What about the last three?"

"Oh, geez, choose between Monk, Ayako, and Yasu? Not an easy choice." I hummed quietly as I thought. "Well, Yasu's as good a start as any. Osamu Yasuhara. He's the most recent, ah, member…? He does killer research, and it's kind of scary what and how much he can come up with in a short amount of time. Super smart, but as always, His Highness Naru will forever have us all beat. Luckily, or maybe not depends whose asking, Naru actually likes Yasu. I think. Maybe tolerates is a better word. Yasu's… a bit of a prankster."

"I can see where your hesitation comes from, then," Gene stifled a small laugh.

I couldn't help the small laugh that came out in response. "Monk and Ayako are almost a pair, honestly. Monk is, well, a Buddhist monk, by the name of Takigawa Houshou. Ayako Matsuzaki is a self-proclaimed Shinto priestess. They're also a rock-band bassist and a doctor, respectively. Monk's pretty powerful but apparently lacks some amount of finesse? And Ayako… well, honestly, unless she's near a 'live' tree, she's a little useless, but her charms work well anyway. They seem to partner up a lot, and argue all the time. They're like an old married couple."

"I… Okay, so the bassist is a monk, and a doctor is a priestess?" my guest asked.

"Yep."

"Let me get this straight," Gene looked right at me. "Noll tolerated a bassist monk, a doctor priestess, a what-should-be-too-young-to-actually-be-able-to-pull-it-off exorcist, a prankster researcher, and you, who I have yet to get a good feel for, and no one died?"

Well, you did, but anyway. "He tolerated me for the tea, if it's any consolation."

"… Oh geez. And let me guess, we're going to track them down, aren't we?"

"Well, I'd highly suggest it."

Gene's grin turned slightly… manic, for lack of a better word. "Oh, this is going to be fun."

I'm not sure who I'm more afraid for, Gene when he meets the others, or the others when they meet Gene.

STEPS

Oliver Davis was a lot of things. Complicated was definitely one of them. Baffled, not so much. And yet…

He couldn't make heads nor tails out of what he just saw. It had been a while since he'd gotten sucked straight into a vision, but as the vision was Gene and he had been grabbing Gene's shirt, as well as the fact that his brother tended to be the exception for a lot of things, Oliver was not overly surprised.

No, what had Oliver confused was that, for a moment there, he had been sure he was about to watch his own brother die. The sickly feeling, the car approaching, the panic that wasn't actually his in his chest…

But then, out of nowhere, a girl just. Appears. Shoves him away. Oliver didn't get a good look at her, as Gene had screwed his eyes shut and it had been dark and then the vision ended. Oliver did hear her surprise in the fact that shoving a person and yourself off a road and into a thorn bush hurt, dummy, and immediately decided that Gene was about to get in over his head. As per usual.

Oliver couldn't quite say what was going on as of yet, but he knew two things.

One. That girl had saved his brother's life, and everyone would be thankful if the story ever came to surface.

Two. That girl had appeared out of literally nowhere.

…Teleportation, maybe? Despite the fact Oliver was basically breathing, real-life science-fiction, Oliver highly doubted that was the case. Or maybe the word wasn't 'doubted' but 'sincerely hoped not' because, as per what tended to happen, if there's one person that good at teleportation, then there's probably more, and then locked murder cases and robberies would get ten times more difficult. And Oliver did not want to think of the implications of that.

Add onto the weird phone call from Gene earlier, cancelling his ticket home for 'maybe a month, or two, or some amount of time, don't worry Luella I'm fine, really', and Oliver had a new case on his hands.

Ah, well, he'd been dreadfully bored recently anyway.

STEPS

Things to note: I wasn't sure whether to do a traditional small Japanese apartment or like, a slightly nicer one, and in the end, canon chose for me. I tried to keep it accurate. Interpret in this chapter as-keeping it as brief as possible. Likewise, the way I'm taking care of the school problem later on isn't exactly like how Japanese schools usually do…. These sorts of things, but, somewhat necessary if these children are about to go on a quest. There'll be a variety of hotels and lodgings, but I'll trend towards what I know, aka not-traditional-Japanese, but my excuse is that Gene is English and Mai is trying to get the tourist out of him and is only about halfway succeeding. Mai's apartment might become something of a home base for this, and thus may later be upgraded by either Mai moving OR them finding a different home base. Maybe the SPR office. They won't really spend much time there, though, at least not right now.

Ah, also, there may or may not be other cases, paranormal or otherwise. I kinda want to get at least these two involved in a murder. "Yeah, so, that person did it, the dead guy told me so." That'll go over well, I'm sure. (And then maybe we'll meet Hirota…) But I haven't officially decided one way or another on it. They have some priorities, you know. If I go for a lighter ending, I might keep it slightly open ended (so it can continue on in its own self universe in your head where this children run through the country side causing havoc and solving stuff). But, again, nothing for sure and, as always, I love any input you guys may have! The ending is rather far off as is, anyway.

UNTIL NEXT TIME, FRIENDS!