Chapter 1

Standing outside a office, a 17 year old girl was almost afraid to go in, she placed a hand on her cheek, it stung and a sharp pain was held in it. " there going to start getting suspicious… " closing her eye's going back to that morning.

Earlier that day

The young girl was making breakfast for herself and her boyfriend, she was dressed in a simple pair of baggy black jeans with a whole in the knee area, there was also another one just below the right pocket near her arse. She also wore a black vest, her black hair tied back so it wasn't in her face, her chocolate brown eye's held sadness. She placed the food onto two plates and walked over into the living room of her apartment, she had been living in for the past 5 years, 4 of them was alone, then the last year her boyfriend had moved in with her.

" Hibiki, breakfast…" she spoke, almost afraid to wake up the man. The man groaned, as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, " Hibiki love.." his eye's snapped open and his hand flew backwards slapping her around the face hard, " how many times have I told you not to wake me up! I wake up on my own accord!" she held her face and lowered her head. " Sorry Shou," she turned around to walk out of the living room when he grabbed her wrist tightly, yanking it back with much force.

" since you've woken me I can't go back to sleep. Mai, your going to make it up to me." with that he stood up and kneed her hard in the ribs before she fell down he ragged her hair back and slapped her again even harder. Throwing the girl to the floor kicking her in the ribs he walked out of the room going into the kitchen to eat his breakfast while sitting at the table with a bottle of beer next to him.

Mai just sat on the ground, how she had ended up in this type of relationship she didn't know.

Taking a deep breath she opened the door to the office, straight away she heard a man shout, " your late! That will be docked off your pay check, and tea!" giving out a sigh she walked straight past his office without muttering a word and placed the kettle on, it wasn't long before the office began getting lively with other co-workers. Pulling out extra cups the kettle whistled. Indicating the water had boiled.

Once the tea was made she walked out of the kitchen each of the tea's all on one single tray, the red haired woman looked up " Mai he- what the hell happened?" this caused the other members to notice the large bruise forming on the girls face, Mai just gave a small smile, " oh Ayako you know how much of a clumbsy girl I am. I tripped over while trying to clean up at home this morning." raising her eye brow the red haired miko wasn't all that convinced about the girls story.

Placing everyone's drinks onto the maroon coloured table, she walked over to Naru's door knocking, he told her she could enter and with that the girl disappeared into his office.

Walking up to the desk she placed his drink onto the table, " Naru… I'm sorry about being late this morning I promise to make it up to you." Naru looked up from his case file, he sighed at the girl Mai was wearing the same jeans from the relay that morning, but along with a black zip up sweat jacket, " Forget it, you was only 3 minutes late. I won't dock your pay but tomorrow I expect you to wear something more appropriate, what happened to those old clothes you use to wear?"

Mai gave a look out of the window, " I don't know… I don't even know" she slowly walked to the door, " oh and Mai," She turned round looking to him. " I've left a stack of papers on your desk that needs filing, once that is done I will let you go home early. You're getting bags under your eye's, get some rest and come back tomorrow morning" Mai was shocked, Naru was being nice? He had never been nice.

"thanks Naru but I'd rather stay here and still come back in the morning." she opened up the door and walked out of the office, something was definatly wrong with that girl and it hurt Naru to know that. He had seen the bruise on her cheek but didn't want to mention anything. He wanted Mai to talk to her openly like she use to. Ever since a year ago she had slowly shut everyone out, and built a sort of protective wall around herself, every other day she was coming in with bruises on her body, bust lip. She even came in once with a broken wrist which took 5 months to heal. So when ever they went on cases she couldn't be of much help apart from using her abilites to help get the case solved faster.

He had even thought Mai was getting haunted at home since she was such a trouble magnet for spirits but the wounds on her body always indicated someone was hurting her. Gripping onto his pencil tightly as it snapped in his hands, he hated the thought of someone abusing the poor girl.

Outside the door Mai noticed the other members had already left leaving a thank you note for the Tea she clentched up her fists, she didn't want to go home, she'd rather roll around on the streets for the night. Going and sitting down in her chair she began the filing doing it as slow as possible, every now and again a shoot of pain went threw her ribs from the abuse she had.

After an hour she had fallen asleep Naru had come out of his office expecting that Mai had left, but when he found her slumped over on her desk a piece of her long hair falling in front of her face, she looked cute, she must be really worn out. It the other members had even told her to take time off work since she had vacation time saved up but she had refused, she said she would rather be working then stuck at home doing nothing. His eye's scrunched up, was something going on at home that made her not want to go? He had found out earlier in the year she was dating someone from her high school. An they was currently living together.

It had shattered his heart as he had come to love the girl that was currently using her desk as a bed, he walked over and placed a blanket around her, picking up the empty coffee cup that was beside her. When he heard her mutter something, "No… I'm sorry… please…no" he noticed a tear fall out of her right eye. Reaching down he was about to wipe it away when the door to the office flew open revealing a man with midnight blue hair, his eye's matched his hair colour, wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, green vest and leather jacket over it.

"MAI!" Mai snapped her head up seeing the man that was in the office building, she shrunk back " oh god I'm sorry I fell asleep, wait Hibiki? What are you doing here?" the man stalked over to her desk and grabbed her by the wrist.

" I was worried about you I'm so sorry for this morning, I wanted to apologise by making it up to you," He gave a hard start at her, she knew she was in trouble, looking up she saw Naru who had his back turned to her. Mai stood up as she finished off the paper work. " thanks Hibiki, if you give me a moment I'll be ready to go, Naru is it still ok if I take off?"

Naru nodded " Just be here at 8.30 sharp ok? We have a case to go on, remember to make sure you pack for a week"

Mai stood up and walked over to Hibiki as he wrapped his arm around her waist they walked out of the office, but the night wasn't going to be happy-go-lucky for her.

The next morning came, Naru was outside the office as everyone was there but Mai, crossing his arms tapping his foot to the floor it was already 8.45, he could have sworn he told Mai to be there at 8.30 sharp.

That's when a shout came from the other side of the road, Mai was wearing a pair of baggy blue jeans, black turtle neck sweater with a black leather jacket, her black hair was tied back, " I'm so sorry I'm late! I'm really really sorry!" they all was gob smacked as they saw her, the bruise on her face had gone darker, but her left eye looked like it had been busted open, it looked fresh.

" Mai what happened? Don't tell me your getting more and more accident prone…" Yasu spoke, making Mai sigh and bow her head in apology, Naru watched her when he noticed her flintch in pain, looking to his side, Lin had also noticed it. " yeah, sorry about that,"

"enough lets get moving were wasting time."

With that they all got into the vans and prepared themselves for the long journey, Naru, Lin and Mai in one car and the rest in the other car. Halfway threw the trip Mai had fallen asleep, leaning her head on Naru's shoulder which caused him to look out of the window trying not to blush. Lin watched him closely, " What do you think" Naru snapped his head to Lin at the question.

"what are you talking about Lin?" Lin changed gears in the van and made a left turn going onto the highway, " For the injuries she keeps getting every week, I highly doubt its due to accident prone, I've noticed that Mai takes a lot of care and pride in the way she is, but over the past few months she's let her appearance slip. She's dyed her hair, and looking depressed."

Naru looked down at the girl, she wasn't even sleeping peaceful, her face was in pain as her hands held around her rib cage. " I met her boyfriend yesterday, he didn't look the friendly type,"

Lin looked at the poor girl that was sleeping up against his young charge, 'could she be living with an abusive boyfriend?'

While they was in silence threw the drive, Mai began to get a little more protective of her body, Naru felt something on his shirt, he looked down seeing Mai's right hand gripping his jacket, " No… please… I'm sorry…" there it was again, What was Mai apologising for in her sleep? It seemed almost silly.

Wrapping an arm around the protective girl, he felt her ease up and sleep with peace on her face.

This indeed was going to be case where he would find out what was happening in the young girls life.

/

Woop, New story!

I hope you all enjoyed the beginning I know wasn't much detail about the case

Stay tuned for more!

Curedream90 over and out!