So as it turns out, having a genetic autoimmune disease that decided to manifest as mostly neurological issues can have some wild effects on your personality, and said effects can continue and CHANGE as you begin to treat the problem. Wild, absolutely crazy, I KNOW.

.. SO YEAH I got diagnosed with Celiac Disease, which. Seems kinda minor on the surface but OH BOY. IT HAS LIKE 300 SYMPTOMS IT CAN PICK AND CHOOSE. And the only damn thing I can do is avoid wheat, barley, and rye, because they have the protein that causes me to react. Only problem is that wheat is in damn near everything.

I've had a fun time. No, rEALLY. TRULY. IM NOT MAD. OR DISTRESSED. AHAHAHHA…. Ha. I also now am a working person, because long story short, my university decided to run me around like an asshole and now I owe money. Which I'm paying off but I am still quite pissed about. Also I changed majors. I might change majors again. Who knows not me that's for sure. I managed to get a job that I quit after like, 19 days because of SEVERAL messed up things happening, and am now a few months into a different job and it is… It's a whole thing. But now I'm still tired a lot of the time. Which sucks. Add that to my mental health, and then my writer's… block? Kind of? Like I'll get ideas and I can develop things but the second I try to formally make a story? Nope. Not happening.

Anyways. Thank you for your patience.

Without further ado, and a reminder that this story is based on what is a horror anime,,,,

LETS GO!

Waking up in a bathtub is not an experience I can recommend.

I had inevitably dozed off at some point, and woke up to Izumi shaking me awake. As it was now, I was trying to bring myself fully to the present and soothe the pain from my neck from sleeping at an awkward angle, tucking the house key I had clutched in my sleep back into my shorts pocket.

Still fuzzy senses, aches turned to specific points of bruising, no nausea, and increased headache.

Oh, and I was still stuck in an underground tunnel system.

Lovely.

I should just go back to… sleep…

"Come on, now," Izumi poked my face. "We got food."

I grumbled as I straightened into a proper sitting position, then perked up a bit. There was no way to genuinely tell when I had last ate, other than a general consensus of 'a while', so the thought of actually eating something was a pleasant one.

Izumi brought a bundle closer to where I was. It wasn't much, a… woven? basket with what smelled like a simple rice and chicken meal and what I guessed were two bowls with… utensils held within.

"So we do get fed," I said. "I know you mentioned that you got food left out for you, but… Well. Anyways. That's… interesting. And for right now, a good thing."

"It's kind of weird, I guess, but uh… I otherwise probably would have… like… already…" The word he was avoiding was probably either 'starved' or 'died', not that the difference mattered as the end result was the same. But if he wasn't willing to say it, I wasn't exactly going to push.

I grabbed what turned out to be a set of chopsticks out of a bowl. "I guess the doubles of everything means that our two kidnappers is… are? Is… We probably share just one kidnapper. Or they're working together."

Izumi did an interesting expression that I couldn't entirely sense, but it caused his face to scrunch up as he filled one of the bowls. "I'd rather deal with one guy over two."

"Yeah," I took the bowl he filled with a soft nod of thanks. I not-so-fondly remembered Urado's assistants. "It sucks when your kidnapper has friends."

Another interesting expression, then, "What did you say your job was again."

"Officially, assistant to a paranormal investigator. Unofficially, a trouble magnet gopher that gets paid way too nicely for mostly making tea and gets a slight bonus whenever I end up in a, ah, situation during a case. Which… has happened nearly every case so far… Maybe it's just a case bonus?" I shrugged and began to eat.

Compliments not to the chef, but at least it was edible.

There was a brief pause as Izumi began on his own serving. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but… what are these… situations you've mentioned."

Ah, how to answer… "Well, I've gotten possessed before." Great starting line. Perfect. Wonderful. "Mostly, I end up in some sort of… potentially physically harmful situation. Like the time I got dragged down a well that opened up in a client's living room. Or the time I got tricked and nearly fell into a manhole. That time the floor fell on me, and then the ceiling… Or, oh, I guess that time with the formaldehyde, which lead to the whole floor collapsing thing when… you know what you stopped eating so I'm gonna stop now."

"Please," was the slightly strangled reply before Izumi slowly started to eat again.

Well. I guess not everyone is used to someone getting into increasingly more dangerous situations during their job dealing with supernatural beings and people with scary abilities. Of which, I guess I technically counted as one of the latter. Who knew. I'm sure one of my parents would be proud. Or, maybe screaming at me to stop almost dying.

Not today, mom and dad. Unfortunately.

… Although, suggestions on how to not die would be appreciated right about now.

We finished up rather quickly, with Izumi gathering our scrapped clean bowls—I didn't want to think I'd be here for too long, but if I was, I had to eat everything I was given, like Izumi did. "I figured out pretty quick that our… ah, friend doesn't like it when I don't give back the empty plates. Threatening notes and nearly inedible food isn't worth trying to keep a cheap plastic bowl."

"Even the disposable chopsticks?" I questioned. I'm not sure how they'd be useful, but…

"Even the chopsticks."

"Huh… wait, this guy left you notes?" I asked.

"Just the one," Izumi said. "Typed out, big font, had to come in here to read it. Real short, said something like… 'don't be greedy with what I give you', or something. Demanded I give the note back too." With that said, he stood, and I started to try to get up to follow, only to realize that that wasn't my smartest idea, and I ended up back where I started. "Hey, now, stay here. I'll be back in a bit. We'll see how you're doing in like, an hour, okay? Led the calories catch up to you."

I didn't have much choice here, did I? "Yeah, okay. Just… I don't know. Don't take too long?"

Izumi hummed. "I'll be back soon, promise."

And with that, he left, and I was alone.

BLIND

Naru disliked phone calls.

He also disliked the amount of phone calls he had to make.

No way was he letting Lin do this, he was the boss here, and Mai was his responsibility. The policeman on the phone was courteous enough to almost calm his nerves completely, but it wasn't enough to keep him from making the whole house an icebox. Frankly, he was glad he hadn't broken any windows.

Or bones.

Making a house a refrigerator was really the best case scenario as far as his abilities… "blimping up" went.

…. Crazy how psychic powers and supernatural energies could change temperatures like that. Takigawa looked like he wanted to complain, but was too stressed about Mai going missing to say anything. Not that Takigawa really knew the cause, despite any subconscious ideas that might arise in him. Although, once Mrs. Matsuzaki got to the home, she'd probably complain enough for the both of them while berating him—whichever 'him' of the three men from SPR who were currently on site not actually mattering—for letting Mai get kidnapped. Again.

Of the phone calls Naru had to make, most of which being to the other SPR extras, he also had to call the police. They said they'd be there shortly, and to stay where he was and to be prepared for questions.

Staring at the phone, Naru felt the frustration begin to well up again, as it had been on and off for the past day or so. He couldn't even find Mai's things, which was distressing, and as to why that was happening was lost on him. If it was a ghost, why take anyone at all? If it was a human, then how did Mai, and Mr. Izumi for that matter, disappear so completely, and what was it that linked those two together? As for their belongings, that really didn't match either. Why take their things? Was it a psychological thing of who, or what, took them?

Most importantly, where were they. Or, at least, where was Mai.

Maybe it was selfish that, between the two, he'd take Mai's life over Mr. Izumi's. It was cold, and probably a moral dilemma of some sort, but Naru generally knew what he felt when he felt it. Maybe it wasn't easily described in words, but he knew. If he could only save one of the two, he'd save Mai. He hoped for the safety and return of Mr. Izumi, because it was a fellow human being even if he was probably a pumpkin or some other squash. Naru wasn't so cold as to not know that human life was supposed to have value. It didn't mean he understood that concept completely, but the facts remain that Mr. Izumi was an innocent, and though Naru would take Mai over any stranger, he wasn't going to give up on finding both alive and… well, maybe not well, at this point, particularly for Mr. Izumi, but...

… Why take Mr. Izumi's stuff? If it was just Mai's that went missing, then Naru would suspect that maybe, somehow, the kidnapper knew Naru could find her that way—which would also imply it was a human, and not potentially another case like the one they just got back from not too long ago. However, both victims, and didn't that sound dehumanizing, had their stuff taken without a trace, just like how the victims themselves had disappeared. So why… and if it wasn't human, Naru wasn't sure how he could beat an entity powerful enough to make someone disappear like that, and if that were the case then it meant that there was almost no way Mr. Izumi was alive…

As Naru spun through his thoughts, unintentionally memorizing the details of the house phone of the Furukawa family, all he could think of was the one phone call he didn't have to make, because Mai's parents had died long ago.

Somehow, that just made everything worse.

"Naru?" Takigawa approached the teen. "We should get ready for the police to come, make sure we don't leave anything out."

Naru took a deep breath, then tore his stare away from the telephone. "Right."

They still had work to do.

BLIND

"So how far do these tunnels go?" I asked. After seeing that I could walk, now, if maybe just a bit wobbly at times, we had begun wandering. In part, it was to see if I could bring a new perspective into what Izumi already knew was there, and also so I could become more familiar with the limited space I was stuck in. Plus, Izumi insisted that I could easily become stir crazy if I didn't. As it was, Izumi wasn't exactly doing great about his own mental state, though he seemed to be hiding it well. That, or the new company, as in me, let him edge slightly back into sanity.

"How far? Not sure. Some parts are blocked off, or locked, or impossible to get through. There's at least one cave in…" Izumi muttered a bit. "I'll show you that last one later, I think there might be a door behind it, but uncovering it has been… slow."

"Because of the chance of another cave in, right?"

"Yep," Izumi popped the p. "You have to go carefully, which also takes a lot of time, and I wouldn't be doing it if it weren't for the door, since it's taking so long… but, unfortunately, we've got nothing but time."

Well, at least we had that, though. It was a resource, just like any other.

By this point, we had wandered down a few curves and turns in the tunnel. It seemed to be mostly one hall, albeit long and winding. Some parts seeming to be some kind of storage, a series of small closet-like rooms, but the doors that were perhaps once there had long since disappeared or, potentially, been covered by dirt and grime to the point I couldn't determine there was a door in the first place. Perhaps if I could sense fully, I could figure it out, but… as it was, I kept my hand on the dirt walls, for both stability and for getting around with minimal risk of tripping.

We had been walking what felt like forever, or at least for an hour, when we arrived at a large chamber. I hadn't noticed before, but there was a slight slope to the entire tunnel. It rose and fell a bit, that I had noted, but I hadn't quite put together that it mostly sloped upwards until we reached the end of it.

In the chamber, there was a drop down to the floor, not a dangerous one but large enough to have to think on how to get down and then carefully step your way to the new floor level. The room was surprisingly airy, despite being underground, and the ceiling was far above our heads. A few 'shelves' had formed in the wall, erosion of some kind, at varying heights, but none of them seemed to be close enough together to climb, and a fair few seemed unstable. Granted, my ability to sense was still a bit off, they could very well be sturdier than I thought, but there wasn't any way to climb to them to check. Up, high enough that my ability to sense could only just brush a fuzzy picture of it, like just feeling something with the tips of your fingers, was a bare strip of what seemed to be… wood? Yeah, wood.

Were we under a building then?

"If you're wondering," Izumi interrupted my thoughts, "this is under the house, I think. But it's too far up for them to hear even if you yell. I've managed to hit the ceiling where that little bare patch is a couple of times, but… all I managed was dislodging the dirt there, so…"

"Can we hear when they're up there?"

"Barely, if they're being loud. That's why I know they can't hear me. They can hear the bangs if I manage a hit, but…" Izumi gestured over to the right of where we stood, just beside the entrance to this place. "There are some pipes down here though, and while we can't yell through them or anything, that sound will travel." Izumi walked over to the right, towards a long column pipe, picking up a hand sized rock as he did. He threw his hand back, and hit the pipe as hard as possible.

The resulting

BANG

practically rang in my ears, I could almost feel it in my bones with how it echoed in the chamber, the reverb powerful as it shook the air. It shook me to my core, and it just wouldn't stop, it seemed.

After what felt like a good two minutes, although my actual time keeping at this point left much to be desired, it began to wind down and die out.

To his credit, Izumi waited until after my hands had finally peeled away from my ears to talk. "As you can guess," he said, "I don't do that often, it's not pleasant to do constantly, and I'd have lost my hearing before now if I did."

"If you do that again, Izumi, I'll be forced to personally punt your skull into the wood up above."

"Noted."

I huffed at Izumi's too-relaxed response. Ironically though, my headache wasn't any worse, and almost felt better. Or maybe it was the hearing damage—hard to say. "I'm guessing that might be at least some of the bangs the Furukawas had reported… what are these pipes even for?"

"Honestly, no clue, I'm not an architect. But… I might have… a theory. I think the house might have had a different purpose when it was built."

"What? Why would… what makes you say that?"

"I'm sure you noticed that it's huge, yeah? That's not really the norm around here. And, there's a few weird things about it."

"Weird?"

"Well, the pipes here, for one," Izumi said, lightly tapping the pipe he had hit. "In essence, the way the house is… it's almost like a hotel."

A hotel?

…Thinking on it, it kind of did resemble one. Not overtly, it didn't exactly scream it, but it did kind of seem like one. And, there certainly could have been renovations to get rid of some of the walls. At the very least, there were a high number of bedrooms, and the first floor had a lot of rooms that could be lounges or sitting areas.

But…

"If it is a hotel," I said, "and I guess it could be, maybe… Why here? We're in the middle of a farm."

"Maybe the land was something else, once?" Izumi shrugged. "I don't really know, there isn't exactly a wealth of knowledge on land history down here."

He… had a point.

Izumi continued speaking. "All I really know is that the Furukawas were not the original owners."

Oh? "Do you know who was?"

"No. They were talking about it, but hadn't finished telling me before I… you know, before all this, and then… well, I've been here."

"I'm sorry." The words had spilled from my mouth before I could even think about it.

I think Izumi tried to examine my face, although I doubted there was much light, if any, down here for him to see me with if he was. "What for?"

I shrugged. "In general. That you got kidnapped. That we couldn't find you. That I can't rescue you right now and I'm not all well and I can't… help. I'm just… here."

"You're real," Izumi responded, an almost hysterical laugh bordering his voice. "You're real and you're here, and, frankly, I'd begun naming the spiders. I consider you a blessing, and I'm sorry because you're only down here because you were investigating the case because I disappeared and-"

"-And we're going to escape, and you'll get to see the sun and, uh, an honest to goodness shower, with soap, and I'll have my boss and several others putting me on house arrest for disappearing, again." I smiled as much as I could, considering that whatever feeling I had wasn't exactly a smiling one. It probably came out as more of a wince. "So don't be sorry. This… isn't your fault."

"Then it's not yours either," he said back. "Its whoever decided 'hey, these endless fields of plants are boring, lets spice things up with some good old-fashioned kidnapping', and then went and did just that. Twice."

"… Yeah, who just does that?"

"Don't know, and I wouldn't want to know if it weren't for the fact that I kinda want to punch some of their teeth in." There was a brief pause, and then, "Do I really need a shower that bad?"

"I mean… I'm pretty sure you've been using the shower in the bathroom, and that's probably helped but… soap was invented for a reason. Could be worse, but uh…"

"I'm no daisy field, right?"

"Yeah, you're… really not."

Izumi stared up at the ceiling. "If I was a soap, then… I'd want to be… something floral."

"What is this topic… And isn't that most soaps?"

"Hush, you. You'd be sandalwood."

I blinked slowly at Izumi. I wasn't even sure what that scent was. "… Why?"

"Because."

"Flawless logic."

"Thank you, I try. I do."

"Yes, you do. You are very trying."

"Hey now."

I gave a small laugh, then turned my thoughts back to whoever kidnapped us. I know we were trying to lighten up the mood, but... "Say, Izumi… any theories as to why we're being kept alive?"

"What?"

"I just mean that… why do that? Kidnap some teens and keep them alive in some weird tunnel?"

Izumi took a moment to mull that over. "Why keep us alive… I originally thought that it was guilt, maybe? But… I'm not sure that makes sense anymore."

Now it was my turn to be a bit confused. "What do you mean?"

"I thought, maybe… this guy didn't like… intend to kidnap me? I'm not sure how you accidentally do that, but… I figured maybe Mister Kidnapper felt guilty, and just wasn't sure how to… let me go? But… I think he would've let me leave by now if that was the case. And now you're here, and… not to bring it up, but I think that if this was some kind of… trafficking ring, there'd be more of us, and this just… that just doesn't sound right for this situation. And, uh… these tunnels, they kind of remind me of…" Izumi trailed off.

"Izumi?"

He paused before speaking again. "I said earlier that I thought maybe this guy was… bored, and decided to stick someone down here and…. These tunnels. They remind me of those hamster tunnel things that are like, actually really bad for hamsters and rodents. So… I don't know but… it almost feels like I'm being kept."

My voice turned to a harsh whisper. "Like… like a pet?"

Izumi nodded. "We never see this guy, but that doesn't mean he can't see us. I… I don't want to think that we're being watched as we wander around, but what if we are and…" Izumi couldn't finish the sentence, though he did seem to try.

"If we are," I said, trying to keep a steady voice through the slowly rising panic. "Then we're not expected to be able to escape. And if we're like… entertainment, or something, then…"

The boy next to me, just around my age, definitely no more an adult than I am, took a long, stuttered breath. "If this guy gets bored, what will he do with us?"

Neither of us bothered to actually answer the question. We were already overrun with the possibilities.

Then something came to mind instead that I somehow found worse than just being… say, tortured somehow by someone I don't know. "What if this guy never gets bored?"

Izumi took a moment to reply. "… How do you mean?"

"If we never bore this guy," I explained. "If this is all for a big laugh. Will he just… keep us here forever…? To just wander down these tunnels for the rest of our lives?"

Izumi hummed to himself. "As much as I hate to say it, I really do think that… that this guy will kill us before we get to live out our lives here. For better or for worse."

I nodded. I agreed with him. I brought up the alternatively possibility because it was still a possibility. As for actually believing in that possibility, well… I doubted that we'd live here in some sort of messed up mole people reality TV show, and I felt sick but also sure of it when we brought up the possibility of our captor intending to kill us… but… well, animal instinct can be wrong, right?

… Right?

… Wait. Animal.

"Izumi, earlier," I said, waiting until I had his attention. "You mentioned spiders…?"

BLIND

Naru could not be more stressed if he tried. Dealing with getting interviewed by the police, then calling his own coworkers to reiterate their alibis and when exactly where they going to get here already, and answering dozens of questions he didn't know the answers to, in what he counted as his second language no less, was not exactly relaxing.

The thought of eating or drinking was also generally unappealing, which was not going to help with his anemia, or his stress, or Lin's stress for that matter. And so far, everyone had avoided the tea kettle in the corner of the room. Naru had only managed to brush his fingers against it, and once he found nothing on Mai through the object, had pretty much glared anyone away from where he surrounded himself with case notes.

One of Mai's lesser known duties was organizing files as they came in, separated from research to house construction and family records, and, depending on the case and Mai's whims, they might be organized by time periods, by a connected relevancy, or by who researched them. He was tempted to get her to organize by what she thought most to least relevant, to see if her psychic abilities might poke through that way—but with her not here, not only could he not do that, but his organization skills were… less than stellar.

Lin, at least, had a system of his own, but Naru couldn't make heads nor tails of it. It seemed random, except it wasn't, and Naru had a sneaking suspicion that it might have been one of Lin's shiki doing the organizing, probably to specifically mess with anyone who tried to find a relevant file for goodness sake, what was this, a thrift store book section?

"Uh, boss…?" Takigawa poked his head in. "Masako and Ayako just pulled in. Thought I'd warn you."

"I thought I heard a car," Naru mumbled, elbow deep in trying to find the specific file he wanted. "They came together?"

"Yeah… so, I'll go greet them, and then yell a danger scale from one to ten for you."

"Don't bother, they're at a seven at least regardless, considering the situation and that they came together. Willingly."

"… You have a point. Alright, so I'm just. Going to suggest that dinner is soba for Ayako, and then see if there's any mochi for Masako. Hope that appeases them enough to not tear off everyone's heads as we search for Mai."

"Try not to appease them too much," Naru pulled himself up, the file in his hands. "I still want to aim them at whoever, or whatever, decided to kidnap two teenagers at an otherwise peaceful farm."

Takigawa's grin was a bit sharper, a bit more mischievous than was quite usual for the monk. "Got it." He left without another word, likely off to do as he was asked, leaving Naru to begin reading his finally found papers.

Deaths in the area. A general report of who has died, and how, and where they had been found. Naru barely questioned where Lin got his sources, and, once Yasuhara arrived, would feign complete and utter ignorance as to whether or not his sources, although still valid, had been obtained in… less than public ways. That way, if the police searching around the place asked, he did have a rather solid case of plausible deniability.

Looking at the grim possibilities before him, Naru didn't really want to read these files. But it might give them an idea of a time frame, if these things had happened before. It was too soon to say if things were too late for Mr. Izumi, but Naru refused to think he could ever let Mai out of his grasp when she was so close. She certainly couldn't be far. Whatever this was, it was local. So Naru would do what he did best. Take a bunch of data, all the research he can find, stuff it into his head, and then find the result. Like an equation.

There was always an answer. There was always a reason.

He just had to find it.

He just…

He just had to find Mai.

BLIND

After a good long while of the both of us feeling sorry for ourselves and our ever increasing perception of our own mortality, Izumi resumed showing me around the tunnels that he'd grown very used to roaming through in the past month. Here a weird tunnel that just ends in a concrete wall of all things, there a single actual step rather than the smoothened dirt, so on.

Eventually, we ended up underneath where we were pretty sure the horse stable was.

Or, well, correction. Where the sounds coming from the horse stable came from. Wild guess, it was another huge metal pipe.

"Izumi, I swear, if you hit that thing with a rock again—"

"I won't, promise."

The chamber with the pipe was more boxy and room-like than most of the areas in the tunnel. It was also the place Izumi went to the least. From what Izumi can tell, there's about two entrances into this tunnel system. The first, the door where he'd receive food every couple of days. He was reasonably sure this was near our captor's headquarters, as that was the entrance that Izumi received things from. The second was here, near the horse stable. There was no trapdoor in the ceiling—instead, what seemed to be a downright airlock door was very unfittingly placed here. As well, the airlock door was against a metal wall, with the pipe running along the top of it.

While not the most accurate way of describing the tunnels, you could get a decent idea of them by imagining them as a large and shaky Y, or an almost a T shape. The top left point was the chamber below the house, the top right was the airlock room, and the bottom point of the letter was the door we had received a meal from earlier today. About two thirds up the bottom leg was where our strange little bathroom was placed.

"Feel free to have a go at the airlock door," Izumi patted the door. "I'll tell you the truth that you're not going to get anywhere, and you'll mostly be frustrated, buuut sometimes it's better to try things for yourself, just so you'll be sure—and to get it out of your system. And who knows, maybe you have the magic touch."

I snorted. "With how many times I've broken things or fallen over myself? Ha. Haha. No. But I do want to feel it out…"

I lightly touched all around the wall with my fingertips, and then did the same to the door and to the large circular wheel handle—locked in place, and with no sort of keypad or anything that might be used to unlock it. Which was… really weird, actually.

"What's the point of a door that can't unlock?" I mumbled.

Izumi heard me anyways, and answered. "Isn't that what prisons use?"

"Well… no. People move in and out of cells. Those doors unlock. Maybe only on one side, but they do. An airlock door like this… I'm no expert, and movies aren't really my thing, but even in space—wouldn't there be a way to get back through it?"

"So. A locked door that can't unlock…"

"It's basically a wall that gives false hope." I gave the handle one more tug for good measure, but it only ever went maybe a centimeter before stopping. Just enough to tease you. Just enough to infuriate you.

"There's not really anything else here," Izumi said. "Other than that door I'm trying to remove the dirt from and hoping I don't get buried alive… but uhm. This is where I can usually find spiders. They're not harmful, from what I can tell, but I'm still not a fan of them… I can't imagine you are, either. Which is why I'm wondering why you wanted to know."

"I'm not… a fan exactly. But, let me put it this way. We don't have any exits we can use ourselves, right? And even with the door occasionally opening because of our kidnapper, there's not exactly a lot of time for air to circle out… and while I don't know the exact numbers in my head, you've been here for almost a month… you probably should've run out of air, if this place was airtight. And with there being more spiders here, and they're still alive…"

"You think there's an airdraft here?"

I nodded, then regretted it. Right, probably concussion. "I do. We can focus on the door you're trying to unblock, but…"

"But it could be just as destroyed on the other side as it is on ours. If it even goes anywhere, or opens."

"You know… it's weird. There's all these doors into here, although we can't access them anymore, and while there's even functioning electricity, it doesn't seem like this place was made to last."

"Inexperienced tunnel makers?" Izumi prompted.

"Maybe… or… well. Something about this place…" I bit my lip, trying to figure out if what I thought would even be useful. "This place seems almost like a half-built service tunnel."

"Wait, like railway and train tunnels?"

"More or less."

Izumi paused, then seemed to delve even deeper into his thinking. "So, what, they were going to build a railway out here? We're not exactly in the city, but we're not that far from a train station as is."

"I wouldn't know, I'm not local. I'm just… trying to figure out what this tunnel even is."

"I guess that makes sense…" Izumi suddenly got excited. "Because even if it's a half built, abandoned railway service tunnel, that means there should be some sort of control room. And if there's a control room, there just might be a chance of there being a radio."

"An old radio, if there's one at all…" I interrupted. "… But its still a chance. Might even be in that doorway you've been clearing. I know I dismissed it a bit just now, but…"

Izumi smiled, and I don't think he'd done so in a while, because it was almost stiff. But, from what I could tell of it, it was honest. "Being a pessimist works when you live in an optimistic world. So, we're going to be optimists instead. Lets go!" He began to lead the way out of the area.

Well, even if I wasn't sure this would work… I couldn't help but feel a little bit more optimistic too.

"If that blocked doorway doesn't work out," I said as I followed, "we'll focus back on here. Or alternate between the two… you've been down here longer, though, so I assume you've probably tried every which way with this door."

"I like having options of escape." Izumi shrugged. "I don't wanna give up on there being a radio. Like what if we get out just to find our kidnapper right there? I want reinforcement. But while I did try that door quite a few times…. I don't think I tried the walls."

"We'll figure a way out." I said.

Staying was never an option.

BLIND

Masako was unusually quiet, even for her.

She was a reserved, respectable young psychic, prone to somewhat insulting her coworkers while also giving credit where credit was due. When her mouth was not lashing out sharply at people, she still seemed alive in her own way. Her arms moving to hide her face, or her shoulders tensing, perhaps shaking with withheld laughter. The small things that separated the porcelain girl from being an actual doll.

Currently, though, one could be forgiven for thinking that someone had made a life-sized doll, and sat her in the living room of a supposedly haunted farm. She looked almost perfect, still as she was, quiet as she was, beautiful as she was.

That is, until someone looked closer.

In the ever so golden sunset, the gorgeous glow helped illuminate the stress line beginning to form just at Masako's eyes and mouth. Her kimono was just a slight bit skewed, the ties and knots just shy of their usual perfection. Her hands, which usually were somewhat animated, even if hidden, were almost still if not for the subtle shaking.

Masako would like to say she's almost used to people in her life disappearing. The ghosts she helped, for one. The ghosts that helped her, for two. Costars and other psychic groups going into dangerous places—the bloody mansion was hardly the first time she ended up going home with less people than the investigation started with, although usually it was the other person's own foolhardiness in an old building that caused the… unfortunateness. Even friends would drift from her side. After all, she was both a minor celebrity and a psychic, two things any one person might find othering combined into one Masako Hara.

But someone she knew, someone she'd call… an acquaintance, going missing while she should have been moderately safe in the backyard of a farmhouse?

That was… new. And scary. And Masako was… terrified.

Every person, every psychic, no matter how jaded or weathered, got frightened sometimes. Masako allowed herself to cry when she watched people die through what they showed her. When in danger, she screamed and begged for help, because while she was stiff and cold, she was still warm and flexible and human. She got scared, and she got scared a lot. Sometimes in her own school, her own neighborhood. Her own home.

Scared, she was used to. Fear, she grew up with, it was practically a parent, a member of her family. She was scared, frightened, when Mai went missing the last case she joined SPR on, because Masako knew that whatever it was, it was after her, and Mai took her place.

But they knew what was happening… mostly. Still scary, still likely to get hurt, but Mai was retrievable, they knew where to do, and they just had to keep going, keep running, keep pushing. So, the fright ended. They almost died, true, but they didn't, and that was what counted.

Masako was even familiar with horrified, considering she pretty much lived in a horror film since she was a child.

Terrified, however, that was… new.

She had expected it to feel like she was scared, where fight or flight kicked in, and her knees shook, her voice crying out.

It didn't.

She expected it to feel like horror, where she felt like she was sick and helpless but could still try anyways, because what else was there to do? The twinge of almost thrill that Masako hoped would never ever take on a bigger role than it already did. A peppering of dread on the edges of it all.

It didn't.

She expected it to feel like a frightening experience, where her heartbeat lived in her upper chest and head, pounding to an invisible beat and playing into the universe's music, bringing her emotions to the back of her eyes and demanding attention, bringing shrill tones and heightened fear. Somewhat short-lived, usually, but still intense, still leaving an impression.

It didn't.

Terror was… cold. For Masako, at least. Everyone dealt with this differently, she knew, because Ayako's terror was hot and destructive and loud. Not for Masako, though.

Terror was… quiet. A lead weight, perhaps something close to dread, strapped to her legs, then her arms, then her heart, and eventually her head. It didn't make her mind buzz the way these things usually did. It was almost silent, and her thoughts didn't even echo when she thought them. She didn't even have the pleasure of being numb, because everything was all too real, all too sharp against her skin, but couldn't seem to pierce through to let anything else but this… quiet, quiet coldness in.

If Ayako's terror was a fire, of burning, then Masako's was water.

Of slowly, painfully, silent drowning.

Because as Masako looked around this supposed haunt site, policemen occasionally passing by a window or asking her a question she couldn't answer, as she watched her coworkers move about the house, Masako was trying to do what she did best.

And yet, Masako was all alone. Not a whisper of anything else to be seen, or heard, or asked anything at all. Not one echo, not one word, not one beckoning hand.

Which, really, meant a few things, that really all meant one thing.

She was useless, and couldn't help anyone.

If Mai was taken somewhere, it wasn't near here, and because Masako would eat her sash if the two disappearances weren't related, if that Izumi boy was dead, he would be where he died, and if he was alive… Masako didn't think he was alive. Experience didn't make her an optimist.

If Mai was dead, she was lonely. If Mai was alive, she was lonely.

And finally… even if there was a haunting, the ball of dread in Masako's stomach told her that whatever took Mai this time…

Masako was almost certain that whoever took Mai… was all too human.

And humans scared Masako more than any ghost ever could.

After all, she was one.

She lived in human society. She knew the exact horrors Mai might go through, might be going through, might have already gone through.

Yet, all Masako could do… was sit, and be still. Like a doll.

Masako was unusually quiet, even for her.

BLIND

Ayako frowned as she watched the family of the house pack. The police would be escorting them, and watching over the family for the next few days as they stayed at a neighbor's house.

With another police investigation, a ghost investigation, and now two missing teens on their minds… she didn't blame them for leaving. But oh, she wanted to. In particularly, Ichiro Furukawa, the uncle. Ayako didn't like him. Plants died around him, she could tell. She did not like him.

She wanted to blame Naru and Lin, but its not like when Mai went alone in Yasuhara's school. She was outdoors, in daylight. Maybe the buddy system would've helped, but… it was already a somewhat thin spread, for what seemed to be a mostly tame haunting.

Well.

Other than one missing Akio Izumi.

Even his disappearance was nothing like Mai's. He had been asleep, in his room. Then, next morning, he's gone and so are all of his things. For no reason.

It wasn't impossible he was a runaway, at least… not at first. But he still hadn't shown up at all, and from what Ayako had overheard from some of the search teams, his parents were doing quite a lot to find him. Plus, with a second teen mixed in, it went from 'possible runaway, missing kid, keep an eye out' to 'potential serial kidnapper, be vigilant'.

Regardless, Ayako could not blame anyone. Not the Furukawa's—though she did keep her eye on them, because two kidnappings on one property?—, not Naru, not Lin. She's casting a wary eye on the neighbors, but so far, nothing. They were all so nice and understanding. Minamoto, their direct neighbor and new host, even helped the family pack, giving the police officers homemade hand soap for their troubles. Another neighbor by the name of Sato gave the SPR team like, three days worth of prepared food to stick in the fridge and reheat later.

So, perhaps it was a human. Perhaps it was another kidnapping spirit. A land spirit that wants… what? Certainly not another young blood, young life… thing. Regardless of what others thought, that wasn't really all that common. And, the universe had a sort of balance to these things.

SPR had just dealt with what equated to a vampire. And this case was not at all similar to that… mess.

Yasu was apparently hitching a ride with John, and they'd be here soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Ayako furrowed her eyebrows. Mai might not even have tomorrow.

… Ayako decided to go for a walk. Do some snooping. Talk to some… friends. If any of them were here. This was, after all, farm land, though the Furukawa's yard seemed to be mostly wild grasses. Were they new to the area? Or was it just an off year… She was a doctor, not a farmer. Regardless, what she means is that there wasn't a whole lot of old woods.

If nothing else, at least she'd be another set of eyes and ears.

BANG.

"The hell?!" she muttered. She followed the source, or what she thought the source was.

… some sort of family room, or parlor, or… something. It had a weird cast iron cat holding the door open, so it wasn't a breeze, and based on the conversation of the police and Lin, no one had been near the room.

But the sound didn't repeat. The carpet under her had no answers that she could see.

Just a short delay in Ayako's quest for answers.

Still, as the reverb died in the very mild shaking of the house's pipes—whatever the hell the sound was, the spirit had to be strong—Ayako couldn't help but think of how much Mai wouldn't have cared for the loud noise in the slightest.

Off to talk to some… rather grounded potential friends.

BLIND

Naru did not, repeat, did not like how his research was shaping up to be.

There was absolutely nothing unusual about anyone's deaths in the area. Accidents, old age, the like all existed, and might lead to a spirit or two…

That is, until about four years ago. One person went missing each year, like clockwork. Usually around this time. And the police had no leads.

Izumi was just within range, timeline wise, for these disappearances. But all of the other disappearances were women.

And so, with Mai disappearing… and none of the bodies were ever found, nothing for him to even begin looking at for a guess at a location.

…. It was late. There had been no activity outside of that bang from earlier. Anything else was likely a few creaks of the house settling at best.

The sound of a car approaching caught his attention. A quick look, and there were John Brown and Yasuhara, arriving even quicker than anticipated.

Naru hoped Yasuhara wasn't at all tired. He was dragging the student into research immediately. Perhaps John too, even if the man never expressed a particular talent for it.

He never was very good at waiting for other people to do something that he was capable of getting done himself. He'd find Mai, and he'd find…

He'd find Mai.

BLIND

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Izumi and I actually managed to unearth the door in the tunnels.

Our grand prize?

A bucket.

Did I mention I hated this tunnel?

"I was really, really hoping for a radio," Izumi said. "I don't… really know how to use one, but I would have winged it."

"Well. We have a bucket now." I put my hand on the wall, and… oh? I clicked the switch and—

"The lights work!" Izumi was excited. "Oh, bless, I can see. I can see that we are absolutely fucked."

Or maybe he wasn't excited, and he was just a hyper nihilist. And you know what, fair, honestly.

"I'm guessing that there's nothing else in this room, then? I didn't notice anything, but…"

"Its pretty empty. Compacted walls, compacted floor, compacted ceiling. And like all the other ceilings, not close enough for us to maybe dig our way out. If that's even possible. The walls are mostly pretty sturdy."

"I suppose we could use the bucket and start on making our own tunnel, but without braces…" I winced. If you didn't make a way to support the dirt above you when making a tunnel, its likely to collapse. Gravity works. Trust me, I'm an expert.

Plus, the walls were very, very solid, even if they weren't actually rock.

"I guess its back to the airlock door spider room to find the draft source, then?"

"If we can find the draft, maybe the wall there is loose enough that we can dig. And if this was, like, a service tunnel… maybe it leads to another section?"

"The airlock door is kind of different from every other thing here." Izumi drooped, but then stood again, bucket in one hand. "Lets go tangle with some spiders then."

"Was… that a pun about spider webs?"

"I have literally nothing else to do."

… Fair. But also. "You're gonna need a psychiatrist after that bath of yours."

"You need to not be so used to this."

"I'm not… used to it, it just keeps happening, so I gotta just roll with it."

"Uh huh," Izumi said as he began leading us once more. "That's called getting used to it."

"I think I liked you more when you were concerned about my concussion."

From there, we walked in silence until we got to the airlock door.

"Alright, then." Izumi huffed. "Where do we start? I'm not exactly feeling a wind."

I replied by licking my thumb and holding it to the air.

"What the—we were just digging in dirt—"

One spot of my thumb became rather cold, and I tried to follow it to the corresponding spot on the wall. A small crack, but that might not be it. I licked my thumb again, and held it up to the crack—no, a little to the left, away from the door.

A somewhat larger crack. And… a slight smell. Like pond water?

"I think I found a good spot to start," I said.

"Uh, what was that?" Izumi asked. "Wait, was that like, your psychic powers?"

"No, uhm. You can tell what direction a wind is coming from by wetting a finger and holding it out. One part will get cold, and that's the direction it comes from. Sometimes it works for drafts… my next trick would've been to just start smelling the air and knocking on the walls."

"… Huh, interesting. So it smells different over there?"

"A little," I shrugged. "Not much, but considering everything here smells like earth, and we're underground, I wasn't sure it would work."

"A start is a start," Izumi said. "How do we start?"

I pointed to the bucket. Izumi huffed, and seemed to deflate a little.

"I hate this stupid thing."

BLIND

Naru could feel his emotions starting to build up the further he went into the search.

Yasuhara had data that Naru was, again, just going to enjoy having and not question the how, because he really did NOT want to know how he got, of all things, the dating profiles of the presumed dead missing women, and it didn't paint a good picture.

… But it did paint a clear one.

Someone, so far mostly women, would go missing every year. Sometimes passing by workers, sometimes someone visiting relatives in the tiny town they hadn't even noticed on the way up… always visitors, and their luggage always went missing. As if they were gone, scrubbed away from the town itself.

Was it something that didn't like visitors? Naru was fairly certain this was human, though. So, why only one person? A sacrifice, so to speak, so that the perpetrator wouldn't try to hurt everyone that they didn't like? Or someone who was only there once a year themselves…?

He had sent John to bed upon seeing his exhausted face, and Yasuhara was still awake but clearly clumsy, slightly tired. In the morning, though, he'd see if he could convince John to go around to these areas the women went missing in. As the most 'foreign' looking of the group, he'd be marked as an outsider quickly. Yasuhara could go with him, pick up on any particularly odd reactions.

… If Naru had known it wasn't just Izumi that had gone missing, he would've been better prepared.

He was supposed to be better prepared. He had to be able to have the answer, and he had to be able to get it quickly, and he had to be able to protect people, and all he was doing was failing at it, just like always, just like he did with Gene and now with Mai and always with his powers— he was getting worked up and he just couldn't pause it, couldn't breathe it out, couldn't—if he could just help Mai-

A slight shake.

A tiny rumble.

And now he felt sick.

Did he seriously just… lose control like that?

He felt… not great. Not… needing a hospital, he knew what that felt like, but… this was…. It was minor, all things considered, but he couldn't stress himself like this. Or his heart. Palpitations, hurt like hell, but he knew he'd be fine. After resting.

"Big Boss—hey, are you okay… Boss?" Right, Yasuhara.

Naru shook his head. "Anemia. Get Lin."

"On it," Yasuhara said, quickly getting up to go find where Lin was resting for the time being.

Not that Naru noticed when he returned. He shook again, although he was fairly certain he hadn't lost control again. Probably just himself.

He really only noticed that he got led to bed, and wasn't this nostalgic, making library shelves shake and then needing to rest for a while because Gene wasn't there—

Naru let himself rest as Lin fussed at him. It was all useless anyways.

BLIND

"Uh…. Izumi?" I said, hair on end. "Did you feel that, just now?"

"A little shake, right—woah!" Izumi grabbed my arm, but I was already backing away from the fist sized hole we just spent, like, an hour making in the wall—mostly Izumi, as a nasty bruise on my leg had begun developing and made it a bit difficult to stand in place.

The reason for the hasty retreat?

The hole just got a whole lot bigger.

The shake was minor. Barely felt.

But here we were, digging holes in walls, and then a minor… earthquake, maybe? And now…

"Welp. To whoever just made this entire section minorly collapse in on itself. I express my graditude." Izumi said. True enough, the only really loud rumbly sound we heard was a wall just. Sort of collapsing? Well then.

We waited for any aftershocks. A brief rumble we only felt because we were aware of it. And it was over.

I carefully stepped over the newfound pile of rocks. While still not a huge entryway, the hole was large enough to go through, and it had a platform underneath to step on. I couldn't sense much else without stepping through, or taking my sense off Izumi, but the smell of pond—or perhaps, stagnant water?—got stronger.

… and we now had an access to an entire new section of tunnel.

BLIND

Omake:

Izumi stared at the hole. "You've been here for like, a day and already made more progress than me."

I shrugged. "I'm a protagonist and you've gone through at least three revolutions to the point where you're a little flat. You weren't supposed to become a companion like this, so… anyways."

Izumi, to his credit, didn't cringe too much. Not that I could fully tell, with the half forgotten injuries and the fact my senses were kinda fuzzy when it benefited the plot. "Okay, but you've still been here like a day."

"Meh, more like two years."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it."

BLIND

Fun fact, you can't really feel earthquakes underground very well. But this wasn't exactly an actual earthquake, now was it? Haha. The feel when you're so upset about helping the person you love that you cause a minor geological event and make a hole in a tunnel for her. #goals.

Me: You'll never guess why Izumi won't be an issue for Mai and Naru.

All of you, collectively: heh, GAAAAY.

Which. I mean. You're not wrong. And I was not subtle. Even if I was, I'd reveal it in story later. Because I didn't really want Izumi to be subtle about it.

Tangent time. I remember as a kid always seeing all these Straight Couples in movies and books, and feeling so uncomfortable and the romance itself would feel rushed and unrealistic (key note—I'm asexual myself). It ruined quite a few stories for me, so I decided that either I'd write love right, or not at all. As such, it makes me really happy that my tiny bits of a romance plot are actually working out, if reviews are to be believed (which, thank you, always! I go through them on bad days, and as soon as one pops into my email, I read it. I even have a few saved in a file!). Further, I'd have people like me and my friends (most of whom are LGBT+) within the story. I'm not sure when I'll incorporate it in yet, but Izumi isn't just a 'token gay character' (although I can't say that he'll be any more reoccurring than any of the other clients, but besides the point). He's also another reversal of a trope of sorts, which should get a bit more on the nose soon, but it might not be quite as obvious as I think it is. Then again, I maintain that you guys are far smarter and way more observant than me, so maybe you'll just call me out on it again.

Ah, there is a bit more to the whole 'Izumi won't get in the way of the couple' than that (for example, some of you pointed out that Naru is still a possibility for Izumi). There's a couple of reasons for that, beyond Izumi being as gay as Yuri on Ice, and some of them show sooner than others… But, there's some bits won't show up for a while even in Blind itself, so don't really worry about it. (And, I should mention, even if one of them decided to officially date someone else, like, say, Mai with Yasu or Naru with Masako, this is still Naru and Mai endgame. Kinda breaks the illusion that you know those relationships, should they have any, won't work out, but Naru and Mai was decided pretty much from the start. Ahh, and those are just example relationships—other than maybe joking (mostly in the case of Mai and Yasu) and suspicion/blackmail dates, they won't be happening. One of either of those couples alone could probably take over the world. Terrifying.)

Personally, I'm going to try to fit in whatever LGBT+ headcanons into this, but I'm not sure how many will manage to show up/make themselves known. Not only just because some of my own are contradictory and thus can't exist at the same time in the same story, but also because it just. Might not show up, for some reason or another. I mean, they just exist, you know? I'm not gonna hide or avoid it if and when it comes up, but forcing it up and out of the story is also wrong. ((If you want a run down of how everyone does, would, or will identify in Blind though, I can mention it in an author's note later.))

So, of course, I have a question for you guys. What's your favorite LGBT+ couple and /or headcanon for Ghost Hunt? Personally, I'm a huge fan of the whole Yasu and Gene thing, even if it breaks my heart the tiniest bit, since Gene's dead. I haven't a clue why I like it, but I do find it adorable. Wouldn't count on that ever making it into Blind, though, haha.

Anyways, I'm not sure much happened in this chapter either, but we should be getting to the final conclusion next time. Hopefully. (and it hopefully won't take another freaking YEAR TO YEAR AND A HALF, but what can I say I don't have 2020 vision ayyyyyyyy…. Listen my migraine meds are STRONG okay, excuse anything in author's notes from THAT.))

UNTIL NEXT TIME, FRIENDS!