A/N: Three new foster kittens have come on board! Everyone welcome

Lucy, Linus and Schroeder as they are now the patron cats of this story!

Where The Light Enters

"Chapters Best Forgotten"

Mai watched Naru in trepidation. Staring at his face was easier than staring at the thing behind him.

It looked like a child, but it wasn't. It was like some horrible caricature of a child.

It was covered in burns, and she swore she could smell smoke and singed flesh. She had to fight the urge to gag, and she didn't even want to know why the floor under the sofa was wet.

She needed to tell Naru and the rest of the team about her dream, but first she and Naru needed to get out of that room.

A part of her wanted to just bury her face in his chest and let him deal with whatever these creatures were.

But she didn't get to do that.

Not anymore.

She raised two fingers, signaling to Naru with a nod of her head that she was ready. She was still in a prone position, which meant she was going to have to get upright quickly...

His hand reached out, grasping her forearm. She could feel power thrumming under his skin, but he seemed to have it under control.

For now.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

From the other room, she heard the sounds of the other team members returning from their investigations. They were all due to conference together, but the others apparently hadn't noticed the drama taking place in the next room yet.

Naru's hand tensing on her arm was her only warning before he heaved her upright, straight into his arms. She scowled as she did her best to position herself facing the spirit blacking the door behind Naru.

She could here Naru chanting, a low murmur in what sounded like Chinese, perhaps something Lin had taught him. She wasn't sure how effective he could be without using his PK, but she didn't have time to worry because the not-child blocking the door was rushing towards Naru's exposed back.

"Rin-Pyou-Tou-Sha-Kai-" The syllables flew off her tongue, her recent anger and frustration lighting them with an intense inner fire.

The thing, whatever it was, flew back into the wall with a horrid screech. Suddenly, Naru yanked her closer to his side as something flew by her face.

Whatever was going on behind her was clearly escalating...

"The door's clear!" She screamed. She could her exclamations from the other room as their teammates discovered their predicament, but they were already in motion. Naru races for the door, dragging her behind him.

Though the room was large, it was still only a matter of a few feet to the door.

She nearly made it before something caught her arm.

She shrieked, but refused to look back. Naru did, looking grim and a moment later whatever had caught a hold of her was gone, but Naru suddenly stumbled.

He'd used his powers on whatever had grabbed her...

Refusing to lose momentum, she dived under his shoulder, bearing his weight as best she could as she stumbled towards the door.

John and Bou-San were there, pulling them through while Yasu slammed the door shut. Mai could see one of Ayako's wards taped to the door on their side.

She stumbled to the ground, losing her balance under Naru's weight. Though he'd gone pale, he hadn't passed out, and he managed to shift enough to avoid landing on her.

"What was that?" Tanaka asked while Hime growled threateningly at the door.

Mai could only shake her head breathlessly. Using the Nine Cuts and then carrying Naru had left her gasping.

"I don't-"

Suddenly, the door shuddered, as if a great force had rammed it from the other side.

And Mai froze.

Because she realized that while every other door in and out of base was brown, this one was white...

Oh, kami, Not now...

"Poor little crazy girl..." The voice that sang out was not in the least childish. Apparently whatever this thing was, it was tired of dressing up like dead children.

"Everyone will think you did it to yourself..."

She began to shake.

It had decided to dress up as one of her personal demons.

"What is it talking about?" Yasu asked, glancing around at all the other team members. Masako was glued to his side, staring at the door as it shuddered and shook in its frame.

"Not what." Naru said, pushing to his feet. "Who."

Mai found herself standing also, just now realizing that Naru had never let go of her hand.

"Mai..." Tanaka said warningly, the only other person in the room able to understand the monster's cruel game.

"Shhh." She shook her head, unwillingly taking another step back as a particularly loud "bang" reverberated the door.

"No one's coming to save you!" The voice bellowed and if Tanaka hadn't been standing there, white as a ghost himself, she'd have thought she was going crazy.

It sounded just like her old landlord...

She shuddered again.

"Mai?" John asked questioningly, walking closer.

She just pressed her lips together as she stared at the door, wincing at each new shout and bang.

Suddenly, the noise stopped.

"The blood..." Mai hadn't even realized she had said the words out loud until she saw her team mates startled looks. But there was no time for questions, because as they watched, blood began sleeping under the door.

Everyone backed up, staring in horrified fascination as the pool widened, reaching out across the floor like fog rolling across the sea.

And then the blood itself began to change. The surface began to stretch, as if it were some elastic substance and not a linguist.

It was as if the pool of blood was a door covered in plastic wrap, and something was trying to come through...

Hands, misshapen and twisted reached up, grasping the air, searching for purchase, like something climbing out of a well...

"No one's going to save you, you little bitch..." The sound was no longer coming from behind the door. The thing in the blood was talking, a horrendous face straining to break free. The words echoed from its gaping maw, and Mai screamed without meaning too.

Suddenly, Bou-San was chanting, as was Ayako and Lin.

The thing shrieked, jerking and twitching wildly. It reminded her of that old American movie, the Wizard of Oz, where the witch began to melt at the end.

Before their stunned eyes, the pool of blood began to shrink, retracting back under the door from where it had come from.

Within moments, the blood was gone without a trace.

"Mai, Mai...are you okay?" Ayako was in front of her, staring at her worriedly. Over her shoulders she could see Bou-San and Uasu.

Pull it together...

"I'm fine..." She said faintly.

"Was that something you dreamed?" Lin asked.

A part of her wanted to say yes, to agree with Lin's guess. That she had dreamed of that happening to someone else and seeing it in real life had simply upset her.

But her eyes met John's, and she stilled.

His eyes seemed to speak to her, to urge her to tell the truth.

But why? Why now, of all times. All it could do was spread her pain between the people she loved.

She didn't want to be someone who paid her pain forward.

But John's gaze didn't waver, and she was the one who looked away first.

"I didn't dream it." She mumbled quietly. "I lived it."

She'd survived it. Surely she could stand to tell it just one more time.

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She told the story as quickly as she could, hearing the dispassion in her own voice.

All around her, shock and horror bloomed on her companions faces, just as she'd know it would.

Lin seemed the calmest, and Yasu and Bou-San the most outwardly upset.

But she could sense a thrumming energy coming from the man to her right.

"But you could have told us afterward!" Ayako exclaimed.

"You has your miscarriage just a few weeks after that." Mai said quietly.

"Then you should have told me!" Yasu half-yelled.

"You...weren't in a very good place." She replied before he could say anything else. He froze, a pained expression on his face.

"And...John was the only one you told?" She could hear the hurt in Bou-San's voice.

She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

John spoke up then. "Father Toujo and I helped Mai with the logistics of the court proceedings. She was still a minor at the time, so the court agreed to seal the records per her request.

"Tanaka lost his job for shooting your landlord." Naru's voice was flat, but she could hear the rage simmering in it.

"Suzuki had a lot of friends on the force. Even if I had been retained, things wouldn't have gone smoothly for me. I agreed to sign a non disclosure in return for them releasing Hime to me. I then turned to private investigation." Tanaka said.

"Non disclosure?" Masako asked.

"Had Mai decided to sue the precint, she probably could have one. She was attacked with an hour of leaving after trying to make a complaint." Tanaka said.

"But the publicity..." Naru said.

Mai nodded, ready for the discussion to be over. "It would have been fodder for every crazy magazine in the supermarket."

She was ready for this to be over. She could see the hurt on everyone's faces. She had known telling her story would do nothing but make everyone else feel like crap.

"We lost you." Masako said quietly.

Mai stilled, looking at her friend.

"We were barely speaking at the time." She pointed out.

"That didn't stop you from coming after me when that spirit took me." Masako crosses the room quickly, embracing Mai.

With that, the spell was broken.

Suddenly, Mai was being hugged from every direction. She felt the tears well up, tightening her throat, but she forced them down with a smile.

"You guys do realize this happened like, three years ago, right? This ghost is working with old material..." The joke wasn't that funny, but she needed to break the tension or she really would cry. The circle parted around her, and she found herself facing Naru again.

"Did you call SPR?" He asked, still as serious as when her story began.

It was the one part she'd left out. In another life, she might have lied to make it easier for him.

But she really didn't have anything left to give him but the truth...

"I tried. Maybe the message got lost in translation." She said finally.

He stared at her for a long moment, and everyone else in the room seemed to vanish for a moment.

Suddenly he turned, locking his hands across the back of one of the conference room chairs and flinging it halfway across the room. Her breath caught, and Lin and Bou-San started towards Naru, but he held a hand up, signaling them to give him some space.

She could still see the wildness in his eyes, feel it echoed in her racing heartbeat, but otherwise, he gained control of himself quickly.

He walked over to the fallen chair, setting it upright once more.

"Alright. So what is this thing, and how do we kill it." He asked calmly.

Mai blinked at him. They'd exorcised spirits before, but she'd never heard him use the word "kill" before.

"It won't be as easy as that, I'm afraid. Because the spirits aren't actually here." Masako said grimly.

"What do you mean?" Naru said intensely.

"It's a curse. A Hollow Curse, if I'm not mistaken."

Lin gaped and Bou-San sucked a breath in through his teeth.

"I'm afraid I haven't heard that term before." Ayako said, and Mai nodded.

"A living curse." Naru stated. "A curse created and maintained through repeated sacrifices. It's like a living being."

"And it's encompassing the entire village." Masako agreed.

"That makes no sense. I lived here for years and saw more today than the entire time I lived here." Tanaka argued.

"A living curse requires maintenance. In return for the sacrifices that power it, it offers benefits to the people who created it. Probably the ancestors of the villages." Lin explained.

"My dream!" Mai exclaimed. "I dreamt I was one of the murdered children. I was killed by a women in a Miko's outfit."

Naru nodded. "At least someone in this village is responsible for the curse's upkeep."

"But why have I never seen activity like this before?" Tanak insisted.

"You brought in outsiders, threats. The Hollow Curse is called a living curse because it truly acts like a living being. We're a threat to it. The things we've been seeing, they are like the curses immune system. It's defending itself." Masako said quietly.

A/N: The Hollow Curse is a device of my own making.