Inevitability:

Summary: Naru leaves Japan for England. 2 years later SPR is established again, but Mai is missing. Their first case is at a haunted Ryokan. Almost immediately Naru's path crosses with an amnesiac mother and her child. NaruxMai

Chapter 1:

"There was absolutely no need to meet me at the airport," a certain English scientist complained irritably. "Or follow me here. How many times have I reminded everyone that this office is not a cafe."

"Stop complaining Naru-chan," Bou-san answered dismissively. "We haven't seen you or Lin for two years so we thought we would give you a friendly reception at the airport."

"Like you gave me a friendly send off two years ago?"

He though back to his departure from Japan two years ago. He and Lin had entered the terminal to find a red haired priestess, a long haired monk, a blonde Australian priest, a famous teenage physic and a bespectacled student waiting to say good bye again. When he had walked off his flight at Narita two years later, he had found the same group waiting for him. But yet again a certain bubbly teenage girl hadn't been present...

Naru snapped back to the present and sat down in his usual armchair. "Is everyone willing to become involved in SPR cases again?" he enquired. "This is why I informed you of my return, not so you could greet me at the airport."

Everyone in the office exchanged looks before nodding at each other. Bou-san spoke first.

"We're all willing to rejoin SPR and help you again, but..."

"But what?" Naru asked interestedly, having a feeling that it involved the missing person.

"...Can you help us track down Mai first?" the monk finished his request.

For a reason unknown to Naru he felt a shiver run down his spine. "Mai is missing? How long has she been missing for?" he demanded as he pulled his laptop towards him and in the corner Lin began to take notes.

"Two years," Ayako answered.

"We haven't seen her since the night before you and Lin-san left, two years ago," John said with a faint Kansai accent.

"Really?" Naru wasn't sure that he had heard right. "Did you inform the Police?"

Ayako sighed. "After three days of having no replies to our phone calls, we visited her apartment and she didn't seem to be there. We talked to her landlord who said he hadn't seen her for three days, but he had seen her leaving on the morning that you left."

"So she had been intending to go to the airport," Naru said slowly. "She disappeared somewhere in between her apartment and Narita."

"That's what we thought so we contacted the Police and they made enquires for several days with no avail," Yasuhara informed him. "Then one of the officers gave us a list of all the people involved in traffic accidents on that day."

The scientist felt the first seeds of dread which increased when he saw the sad looks on everyone's faces.

"There were two traffic accidents with female victims that happened in the vicinity of her apartment and the airport," Bou-san began. "One was fatal.. and the body was so crushed that it was unrecognisable and we couldn't identify it."

Naru began to feel sick. It wasn't right that someone as cheerful as Mai could have an end like that. But then again, his kinder brother had encountered a similar fate."

"The other accident?"

"By the time we got the list, narrowed the results and tracked down which hospital the victim had been taken to, the person had left the hospital and the hospital wouldn't give out their name for security reasons," Yasuhara said.

"So Matsuzaki-san threatened them and they gave us the name, but it wasn't Taniyama-san," John continued. "Apparently the patient had amnesia from the accident, but it wasn't major amnesia and she did eventually give the hospital her name."

"So it seems that the fatal accident victim is Mai," Naru summarised after a moment of silence. "Judging by the fact that you have asked me to search for her, I'm assuming that you are all holding out hope that she was the second accident victim who you can't trace or she was neither and somehow disappeared."

"Is it wrong for us to hope!?" Ayako demanded angrily and stood up.

"Even I hope that she isn't dead," Masako, who hadn't contributed anything yet, said.

Bou-san pulled Ayako back down, fearful of what she would do to Naru who was their last hope.

Lin decided it was time to join the conversation. "I feel the same way as everyone here. I would like to hope that Taniyama-san will be found."

Naru regarded him for a moment before answering, "Of course you can all hope. I never said that I wasn't going to help, I was merely summarising the information."

"So you will help us...?"

The thought of his former assistant lying dead somewhere or being a victim of a horrific car accident did affect him on the inside, he just chose not to let his poker face slip. The memory of her tearful face two years ago when he had asked "Me or Gene?" made him want to trace her even more, he never wanted to see her get that upset again.

"Do you have an item that belonged to Mai? I want to use Psychometry first so we can ascertain first whether or not she died in a car crash?"

Everyone in the office perked up. Ayako drew out a familiar red bow from her handbag. Naru recognised it as being part of her school uniform, which was what Mai had been wearing when they had first met.

Naru got up and accepted the bow from Ayako and entered his office. He didn't like the idea of anyone watching him as he delved into Mai's life and experienced what happened to her.

He held the bow in the palm of his hand and concentrated. He was running down a street which was definitely in Tokyo, supporting the idea that she had been on her way to the airport. As Mai, he crossed at the traffic crossing as the sign flashed blue. He was the only person using the crossing.

There was the sound of breaks squealing. As Mai, he turned his head to watch a car speed towards him and he stood still in fright before being thrown up in the air by the impact and crashing down onto the bonnet of the car, hitting his head hard as he fell.

There was a slight darkening at the edges of his vision, indicating that Mai had lost consciousness. However there hadn't been a green explosion which meant that she hadn't died...yet.

Naru pulled out of the vision as he had got the information that he wanted for now and he could continue later.

"Mai was in a car accident," he informed everyone as he returned to the main office and sat back down. "She wasn't crushed and she didn't die instantly which eliminates the possibility that the dead victim is her."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"That means that she is the amnesiac," Bou-san said in relief.

"It is very likely. She was thrown up in the air and she did hit her head very hard."

"How far did you go, Naru?" Lin asked.

"As far as the accident. I immediately knew that the fact that she didn't die wiped out all possibilities apart from the patient with amnesia. I will continue again."

"But when the patient eventually gave their name after a week, it wasn't Mai Taniyama," Ayako interjected.

Naru paused. The priestess did have a point. Now it was vital that he continued the Psychometry as neither traffic accidents seemed to fit the bill. Had it turned into a hit and run with the driver taking Mai's unconscious body with him or her? It brought Gene's death to the forefront of his mind again. It was imperative that he found out what happened to her, he never wanted Mai to end up like Gene with her body at the bottom of a lake like Gene's and he never wanted to have to identify a body again.

"Do you really have no idea what their name was, Matsuzaki-san?"

"Hospital records are private," the red haired priestess snapped back.

"I thought that the Police were involved? Couldn't they get access to the patient's record?"

Masako took over answering Naru's questions as she was one of the more level headed people in the room.

"Considering Mai's situation, the fact that she was living alone, coupled with her job at SPR and her erratic absences from school, they were reluctant to get involved and that was before I mentioned that she had received an emotional shock a few days before. They seemed to draw the conclusion that she had become mentally unstable and had run away to commit suicide, but they said they would tell us if any likely corpses turned up and when the body from the first traffic accident was identified,"

"We haven't heard anything for two years..." John finished sadly. "You are our last hope."

The narcissist assumed that the emotional shock was the revelation that the nice Naru in her dreams was actually his twin brother and not him, followed by his rejection of her confession of love. A frown passed over his face. If he hadn't rejected her, would she still be here, making tea?

His mind rejected that instantly. Mai had forgiven him and she had been going to see him off at the airport which indicated that she wasn't avoiding him and she had been present at his leaving party the night before. And she had been hit by a car instead of committing suicide.

Unknown to him, Lin was observing him interestedly. It seemed as if his charge was actually having some self doubt for once and showing some real emotion.

Naru stared at Mai's bow which he was still clenching in his hand.

There was a knock at the door as he opened his mouth to say that he would continue the Psychometry.

Everyone in the office stiffened.

Shibuya Physic Research had a client again, for the first time in two years.