Title: Unexpected Developments

Fandom: Ghost Hunt

Case File I: Attenuate

Chapter 4

Day 2 continued

Mai was certain there was something wrong with her. She had to be some sort of broken. She never reacted like this, never felt like this before. Yet, she had cried into Ayako's shoulder over a dress that had appeared in her dream for almost ten full minutes. She felt so hopeless and helpless-it was nothing she hadn't felt before, but it had been a very long time since she had felt these emotions so viciously. That was what was foreign. The intensity of the emotions. It felt out of place-wrong; almost like it didn't fit her situation.

She also felt fear, which she understood. She understood fear far too well since starting to work for SPR. Sometimes she wonders if she ever knew what fear was before she had her world opened beyond her orphan high school routine. Fear, in all its varying degrees, was no longer a stranger to her.

Fears about her dreams were no odd occurrence either. She had been born into a world of routine and normalcy; Naru had introduced her to a world in between what is and what was: a plane of existence where the dead affected and interacted with the living. But it was Gene who dragged her into a third world. A world far more terrorizing; where realities blurred together and she lost her existence, her identity, where she could feel a death wash over her that didn't belong, feel pain that wasn't her own, feel fear and sadness and anger that was projected into her against her will.

She didn't hate him, she reminded herself. She had been born with these abilities. Once, in an email, Madoka had hypothesized that with Naru's extreme levels of PK, especially with how he had liberally used it within her presence, trying to save her from her bad luck with the supernatural and, she was sure, as part of his little magic trick he had done to make her feel better, had stirred awake what had lay dormant inside of her. She had been told that it could have been a lot worse without a spirit guide, though she never told Madoka who her spirit guide had been; apparently it was normal to have a complete stranger be your spirit guide, to name your own guide-this made her feel unending amounts of guilt. Had she pushed the role of Naru onto Gene? Mai asked Madoka, who had come to Japan to oversee some equipment transfer and had invited the teen to dinner, if she had given the wrong name to her guide if he could have corrected her.

"The wrong name?" Madoka had asked, looking thoroughly perplexed.

Mai had flushed pink and couldn't make eye contact with her. "What if a spirit guide looked like someone I knew?" she whispered, shame clearly coloring her voice. "What if he looked like someone so I called him by that name?" She had tried to will back the tears of self-embarrassment. "But that's not who he is and he pretended to be because that's what I called him."

Mai suspected Madoka knew then. Mai hadn't said it was Gene, but maybe Naru had acted oddly enough around the subject of his twin's spirit that this question linked together all of the evidence for her. The older woman had affectionately pet her head and Mai had to bite her lip to keep from bursting into tears. "He wouldn't have pretended to be anyone if he didn't want to, Mai-chan," she had said softly. "I don't know why. Maybe he thought it was for the best. That you'd feel safe with who you called him by instead of a stranger."

Sometimes she wondered if Madoka was right; if Gene had really pretended to be Naru so she would feel safe with him. Part of her wished he hadn't moved on so quickly so that she could thank him for protecting her as her spirit guide. Without him, she could have completely lost herself within other realities. It was easy to blame and hate Gene, especially when he was no longer here and after he had lied to her, putting her into the situation she was in with Naru, but she knew, in the end, that it had nothing to do with him. If anything, he kept her from tumbling into insanity.

There were times where she would lay in bed and laugh to herself about how bad of a guide Gene actually was. Yes, he protected her from insanity, but he used to spoon-feed her information. She supposed it was easier just to tell her than to try to teach her while pretending to be his twin; she also knew he hadn't meant to be found when he was. Perhaps one day he would have told her the truth and would have taught her how to find information instead of just handing it to her.

Honestly, that was the hardest part of Gene moving on. She didn't know how to find what she needed in her dreams and she didn't know who to ask for help. Like the dream earlier today in the van; she was unable to pull herself from the mirror to even begin to ask for what she needed to know.

She shuddered suddenly. The dream had been about her. It wasn't unusual to take on the identity of the spirits in her dreams, but that dream had not been about a spirit. Mai had been wearing the dress that Ayako had just bought for her. It had been Mai who was so deathly ill. Despite the disbelief that mounted in her stomach, the want for it to be anyone but her, something stirred inside of her that ached with the realization that it was.

Mai still hadn't told anyone. She had spun some half-ass excuse about being stressed about school since everyone was starting to ask where she wanted to attend university, which, as true as those events were, weren't really causing her distress. She had worked hard on her grades and was gathering her courage to ask either Lin, Madoka, or Naru himself to write a recommendation letter to the university his father worked at so she can attend parapsychology classes.

Honestly, she didn't think either Masako nor Ayako bought that excuse, but they had dropped the subject once Mai seemed visibly calm. She was thankful she had been able to calm down before Naru had sent someone to check up on them. She also hoped they didn't say anything to him; knowing Ayako, she would demand he give her less hours until her stress went away and she really didn't want to lose some of her income now that she was diligently saving for university, especially when she was thinking about attending one overseas.

She was currently setting up cameras and audio devices silently, mulling over the dream in her mind, turning the experience over and over in her thoughts to look at it from different angles. Mai was only barely listening to the monotonous orders Lin was giving her as she agonized over the meaning of what she had witnessed. Would she get sick no matter what? Was this a warning she may get sick if she wasn't careful?

If she was going to get sick, no matter what she did, she decided she didn't want to tell the family she had made at SPR. She had looked god awful in her dream, like she was going to drop dead any day. As much as she would hate dying alone, having the people she had come to love watch her waste away would be the last thing she wanted. Her stomach was twisting in knots at the thought of dying as young as she had looked in her dream. She hadn't looked much different than she did now, so she assumed it would happen within the next couple years.

Stopping in the middle of the hallway, she let out a deep sigh and closed her eyes. She was healthy right now. Thinking about this and worrying constantly about what may not even happen was going to destroy her. She pushed her thoughts into the corner of her mind and sealed it away to go over later. She shook her head a little and brushed her hair from her face before she set up the last camera, replying with a quiet affirmative when Naru told her she could return to base.

On her way back, she grabbed the apple she had stored inside of her bag from the girls' room. Working on the cameras never failed to make her hungry and she was now fully regretting not having eaten before going into work today.

Walking down the main hall, she could see Naru, John, and Monk speaking with Takada-san outside of the main room where they had set up base. She could hear their voices, but, out of respect, she didn't listen in. Instead, she brought the apple to her lips to take a bite, wanting to curb her hunger before Naru dismissed them for lunch.

The apple never made it to her tongue.

Just as she was going to bite into it, her arm went icy cold and the fruit was yanked from her fingers, a high-pitched yelp slipping from her lips as it was, and flung away. It flew down the hall, landed with a loud thud, and bounced to the feet of the men who had turned to look at her, startled, when she cried out.

Her body was quivering. She still felt freezing cold, but it was now spreading from her arm to her entire body. Mai could see her breath forming visibly each time she could get her lungs to breathe. Overwhelming sadness flooded her, so much she couldn't move. Sadness and disgust crashed over her mind in powerful waves, drowning her in the intensity. Her knees buckled and her body crumpled to the floor, her hands clasping over her heart as she began hyperventilating.

Mai heard a distressed voice calling her name, felt warm hands on her upper arms trying to pull her to her feet, and someone who had to have been John reciting a prayer. She felt the flecks of water splatter on her skin before the cold dissipated quickly, leaving her gasping on the floor, Monk holding her.

"God, Mai-chan, you're freezing," the monk said, rubbing her arms with his hands, trying to bring the warmth back to her limbs. "What the hell just happened?" Her body quaked and she turned her body slightly to seek out the warmth he offered her. Though the cloud of cold was no longer surrounding her, Monk had been right, her skin was still clammy and chilled to the touch.

She jumped a little as something was set around her shoulders. Her head snapped up to see Lin placing a blanket on her with a concerned frown on his face. Behind him, Naru was holding open the door of the room where they had set up base. Suddenly she was in Monk's arms and he was standing up, carrying her into the main room, her body still shaking from adrenaline, fear, and cold.

Mai was gently set onto the couch and she huddled into the blanket, drawing it over her head. She wanted to be small right now. She could still feel the leftover emotions that had ripped through her heart, emotions she recognized but were clearly not hers. It scared her. She's felt fear from being in contact with ghosts before; it was her body's natural response. She has also felt emotions from taking on their realities inside of her dreams, but never like this when she was awake. Yet, despite never having felt quite like this, it felt vaguely familiar and sent her instincts rolling in her stomach.

The teen could feel two bodies, one sitting down on the couch on either side of her. From the gentle touches and the flowery smell of perfume, she knew Masako and Ayako had returned from their rounds. "Shibuya-san," Masako asked quietly, "what happened? All I felt was massive amounts of hate for a few moments." Her small hands rubbed Mai's shoulders through the blanket. She shuddered and leaned against her best friend, her body seeking the comfort she so desperately wanted.

"The ghost took interest in Mai," he said, his voice contemplative, "It took an apple from her and threw it down the hall towards us." Mai felt herself slowly coming down from the high of her fear and pulled back the blanket from where it was around her head. She saw Naru staring, eyes slightly narrowed, a frown marring his face, at the hall, his chin resting between his two fingers. "You said you felt hate, Hara-san?" he inquired, gaze swinging over to where the women sat on the couch. At her nod he seemed even more thoughtful. "Where did you feel the hate being directed?"

"It felt aimless," Masako commented, voice slightly puzzled.

The more they spoke, the calmer Mai felt. She realized their voices were anchoring her to her own reality. Her friends, the ones she loved, they were keeping her from falling too far deep into lost lives, without even knowing it. From inside of her, she felt her instincts pulse with warmth at the thought and it spread throughout her body.

"Aimless?" he questioned.

Masako shifted uneasily under his gaze. "It felt aimless, but I was too far away to actually get a good reading on the ghost for what short amount of time she showed, Shibuya-san," she elaborated. "It could have been directed at you, Mai, or the universe. It seemed aimless for the moment I felt it."

"It's for sure a girl though," Monk asked, "right?" The medium nodded her confirmation and Naru seemed to be in thought again. "Locking doors and throwing apples seems like pranks boys would pull," the monk mused quietly, "not something a girl would do."

"And how, pray tell, would you know what a girl would do?" Ayako asked, huffing. She flicked a lock of her hair over her shoulder and leveled him with a glare. "Girls can do anything a boy can do, you know."

Monk scoffed and rolled his eyes. "That's not what I'm saying, old lady," he quipped. "I'm trying to say that it felt like a prank. Like it was trying to make us think Mai would throw an apple at us. It backfired on the punk because Mai would never do that, at least not to me."

"Old lady?" she hissed. "You're one to talk, ugly old monk! God! Why would a ghost try to frame Mai for a prank? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Do you even listen to the shit that pours out of your mouth?"

"I'm just saying! Takada-san said it used to lock the mother and daughter in rooms and they thought it was their younger sons for a few months," he reasoned defensively. "It seems like a pattern to me."

John shifted uncomfortably where he stood. "Unless you take into account the shattering mirrors and Takada-san's daughter being dragged from the dinner table," he pointed out. "It was a good theory though, Monk-san." The monk visibly deflated at the point.

Through all the talking, Mai had completely relaxed and she felt warm again. She dropped the blanket from around her shoulders and let it lay in her lap. Suddenly she found Naru looking at her and she blushed at his intense look. "Feeling better, Mai?" he asked evenly, making everyone in the room bring their awareness back to the teen. She nodded, her flushed cheeks brightening under everyone's sudden attention. "What happened, Mai?" he asked, nodding towards Lin, who sat at the computer and started typing before waiting patiently for her response.

She was thankful the moment Takada-san entered base; she was unsure of what to tell her boss. The girl was still reeling from what she had experienced. Mai ignored Naru's obvious distaste for the interruption and greeted the man with a smile. The man, still clearly distressed about what he had just witnessed happen to her, bowed deeply in front of her. "Please forgive me, Taniyama-san."

Guilt. He's guilty. Her eyebrows drew together in confusion at the thoughts that popped into her mind and shook her head. Why would he be guilty? He hadn't done anything wrong. "Ah, no, Takada-san. I'm alright," she explained nervously, shaking her hands in front of her. "Don't apologize. And please just call me Mai!" Why did she feel so certain he felt guilty?

The man rose from his bow, but was still apologetic. "I am so sorry, Mai-san," he said. He wouldn't elaborate, however. Hiding something. Shame. He is hiding something. She bit her lip and looked away. Wasn't this what her notes had said too? Why was she thinking these things? Despite her wanting to think she was being silly behind her suspicions, she felt so positive in her thoughts.

"Takada-san," Naru suddenly called, tearing her from her thoughts. "You said your wife refused for her and the children to be in the house during the investigations, correct?" When the owner of the house nodded, the young man frowned in annoyance. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood still, looking at the floorboards for a few moments in tense silence. "I usually don't let this happen, but if she is being uncooperative, I will allow you and your family to stay at your sister's home unless it becomes clear that the ghost is attached to one of your family members." His voice was hard, an edge of anger that she had often heard when someone defied what he wanted, which she knew was only the best he could do for clients and employees, so she understood why he was upset.

The older man paled at the phrase of the sentence and nodded. "O-of course," he stammered, "thank you, Shibuya-san." He bowed his head at the young man and then gave one more apologetic look towards Mai. "I will leave you to your investigation then and go to my family." He then hurried out of the house and left them sitting in the room.

Naru still had a displeased look on his face and he curled one of his hands into a fist. In that moment, Mai breathed in sharply as she felt the air around her buzz. He sharply breathed out of his nose and loosened his hand from the fist. The space in the room suddenly fell stagnant and lost the sharp edge to it. She peered breathlessly at him, unsure as to what had just happened.

Her breath caught in her throat again when he pinned her with his eyes. Naru stared at her and she felt like he was studying her. Again, it felt like he was waiting for her. Like he knew something was not right and he was patient in waiting for her to tell him. Suddenly, the air felt like it was moving again. Except, instead of a sharp buzz, she felt a gentle vibration and it caused a blush to stain her cheeks.

The vibration stopped when he tore his gaze from her and started ordering the rest of their team. "Monk-san, take Hara-san to finish the rounds she was doing before Mai's incident. Matsuzaki-san, make charms for the base, the kitchen, the main halls, and the two bedrooms." With their tasks set, although sending a reluctant glance over their shoulders towards Mai sitting on the couch, the three left the room. "Brown-san, write a statement on how resistant the ghost felt and everything you gathered while chasing it away." The priest nodded and made his way to Lin, who promptly started typing out the report.

Then it was just Naru and Mai.

He moved until he stood just in front of where she was sitting on the couch. With a firm tug, he brought the blanket back up to rest around her shoulders. "Tell me what has happened since we've been here," he said, voice leaving no room for argument. "Have you dreamed? What are your instincts telling you?"

She avoided his piercing gaze, looking everywhere but him. "I just felt really cold when she took the apple from me. She seemed sad."

"You sensed it was female as well?"

Mai shook her head a little. "No. I didn't, but I believe Masako-chan."

"And have you dreamed?"

There was a beat of silence. "No, Naru, I haven't dreamed."

When he didn't answer, she dared to raise her eyes to his and nearly crumbled at the calculating look he was giving her. He didn't believe her. That was clear as day. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and he let out an impatient sigh. "Mai-"

"I had a nightmare about a test at school," she lied suddenly, adding anger behind her voice to make herself sound more confident. "I highly doubt my academic insecurities have anything to do with this case, Naru."

His jaw clamped shut and there was that feeling of the air buzzing sharply, something that made her hair stand on end and made her body shudder inexplicably. He looked upset, his eyes pinning her in place and making her feel as if she couldn't even look away. She knew that he knew she was lying. It surprised her he wasn't calling her out. Maybe he didn't feel as though he had enough evidence to pin her for lying to her employer. Maybe she was playing a dangerous game with him not telling him everything that had changed since he had left for England last year, but sometimes she felt like she physically couldn't get the words to form. Maybe she had made a mistake ever coming back to work for him. It was so clear she wasn't over whatever she felt for him. It was like a dark stain on the fabric of their platonic and professional relationship; one that would never wash out.

She was so dramatic, a teenage brat. No wonder he hadn't wanted her. Mai wasn't pretty enough; he had grown up in England and she was just a plain little Japanese girl. Sadness, disgust, and self-hatred washed over her, feeling so foreign and familiar all at once. Her gut twisted violently but she brushed her instincts aside. He was so much more powerful than she was. He had destroyed a god. She was miniscule compared to him; how was she ever supposed to-

"Mai."

Her head jerked up from where it had tilted for her to stare unseeingly at the floor. All three of the men who were in the room were staring at her. Concern. They're worried. She shook the thought and stood shakily from the couch, keeping the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Mai felt their eyes follow her as she walked across the room.

Unsure of what to say, she could only dumbly whisper, "My apple…" She wrenched the doors to the hall open and her apple still lay on the floor, forgotten in the chaos. Mai bent to pick it up and rolled it in her hands as she straightened. Looking back into base, she noticed Naru and Lin hadn't moved, but John had followed a little behind her, all still looking just as concerned as they were when she first stood. Still not knowing how to soothe their fear, she found herself saying quietly, "It's all bruised…"

John's eyes flickered to the beat up apple that lay in the palm of her hand and frowned a little. "Ah, I have rice crackers in my bag." he offered gently, "would you like some, Mai-chan?"

For some reason, the idea of him getting food for her made her feel the overwhelming wave of sadness and disgust again. "No thank you, John-san," she heard herself say softly, "I wasn't hungry anyways." And, although just seconds ago hunger had been tearing at her stomach, she found the statement to be true.

She didn't want to eat anymore.