Chapter 20

It was several hours later by the time Mai came down from the room the women's team had claimed. When she entered the base, she found Naru reading through various papers while Lin was sitting by the computer. Mai cocked her head slightly. 'I wonder if Lin-san's slept at all during this investigation?' He'd been present pretty much all the time she was in the base or whenever she woke up after napping in the base. Shaking her head slightly, she went over to the diaries she'd been reading the night before. However, before she could settle down and start reading again, Ayako poked her head into the base.

"I thought I heard you come down," she said. "What do you think you're doing in here? Hurry up and have something to eat before you start reading."

Mai frowned slightly, "But..."

"No buts." Ayako pointed her finger rudely at Mai. "You haven't been eating properly, you certainly haven't been sleeping enough, and you've been out in the cold a lot. You need to take better care of yourself."

Mai sighed slightly before protesting. "I slept lots over the past couple of nights, and Naru's barely let me out of the base since yesterday. Besides, what about Naru and Lin-san? They've been working every time I've been up."

Ayako rapped Mai on the head. "You might not be aware of it, but they've been resting and eating about as much as they normally do... although they do seem to think people should be able to live off of just air and work. Besides, what about the rest of the time you've been here, and how long were you out in the cold the other day? Food, you," she ordered imperiously.

"Coming..." Mai said reluctantly as she left the base again.

"By the way, did you see Masako leave this morning?" Mai asked curiously as she sat down at the table in the kitchen. "Did Naru say anything about the loft?"

Ayako glanced at Mai as she laid a plate in front of her. She shook her head. "Masako got up and left very early, so I didn't see her leave, but Naru had a strange look on his face by the time he and the others returned. If you want to find out about what she said, you'll either have to get it out of Naru or see if you can hitch a ride with Bou-san tonight when he goes to pick her up at the train station."

Mai sighed. Somehow she didn't get the feeling Naru was going to be too forthcoming with information. "I wonder if he'd let me go," she wondered out loud.

Ayako chuckled. "I heard about what you did last night, so I wouldn't count on it."

Much as Ayako suspected, when Mai asked a few minutes later if she could go with Bou-san to pick Masako up at the station that night, Naru didn't even look at her when he said no.

Annoyed at being refused such a minor request, Mai rounded on her boss. "Why not?! It's not like I'm asking to go to the loft or the abandoned house or anything."

Naru still didn't look up as he continued reading through his file. "I said no, so that means no, Taniyama-san."

Mai shook in anger at her boss's refusal to listen to her and struggled to get her temper under control. "Fine, what did Masako see this morning then? You had her go out there before going back to Tokyo, so you can at least tell me that much."

"And what are you going to do with that information?" Naru asked uninterestedly. "Are you trying to imply that you'll see something in the data that the rest of us haven't?"

Mai frowned at Naru. "How can I? You won't tell me anything!"

Ayako chuckled as Mai sulked over being kept in the dark. "Naru wouldn't tell me anything either, but he's not the only one who was present, Mai. You do realise you could try talking to one of the others instead?"

"Ah! You're right," Mai said and smiled. She turned and looked at Bou-san. "Bou-sa~n..."

Naru and Bou-san both looked at Ayako annoyed. Their looks spoke volumes. 'Quit giving her ideas!'

Naru sighed. "Hara-san said the place looked strange and that she wasn't sure in what way, but that it was different from when she looked around last night. Hopefully, she'll be able to articulate exactly what's different when she goes back again tonight."

Mai grinned in victory, but quickly became serious again. "Was there any response overnight at either location?"

Naru sounded impatient as he responded to her question. "There were some minor temperature fluctuations and even some rapping and knocking sounds at the abandoned house. However, overall, the response has been weak, so whatever's there may not be particularly strong. The loft went through a sudden sharp temperature drop last night thanks to two idiots deciding to go out for a walk. Now, if you don't have any other questions, Taniyama-san, I'd appreciate it if you'd get back to work, and see if there's a clue in the diaries about what might be in either of those locations."

"...Yes sir." Mai had a mixed look on her face. She was glad Naru took the time to answer her questions and get her caught up to speed, but at the same time, she wished he could have worded things a bit differently.

It was well past 8 P.M. by the time a tired-looking Masako returned to Kyoto and was able to take another look at the loft Mai had been trapped in. She still had a strange, somewhat uncertain expression on her face when she returned to the base with Naru, Bou-san, John, and Hirota.

"Welcome back," Mai said barely looking up as she waved to them from her corner of the room. She was currently sitting surrounded by a small mountain of diaries. Several of the journals had markers in them denoting entries that Mai had considered to be significant. Ayako was also reading through the volumes particularly the ones that Mai had marked, while Yasuhara sat nearby still working through the pile of papers that had been shoved in the box.

Naru glanced at Mai and raised an eyebrow slightly at her greeting and the mess surrounding her. "...Mai, tea."

"...M'kay. Coming..." she said distractedly as she carefully picked her way out from her corner. She'd immediately returned to reading after waving at the others and scarcely glanced at Naru as she wandered past him towards the kitchen with the journal still in her hand. Mai switched the book from her right to left hand as she shook her fingers trying to relieve the stiffness in them. She'd been reading through the journals almost the entire day.

Naru watched as she left and couldn't help wondering if the tea she was about to make would be drinkable since her attention was clearly elsewhere. Masako must've thought the same thing as she called out to Mai, stopping her, before she reached the kitchen.

"Mai, put the book down. I would like something other than extremely bitter, green liquid," she said with a contemptuous sniff. "You're not like a certain individual whose nose is always in a book so as to be able to make tea at the same time as you read."

Mai turned at the sound of Masako's voice, but her attention was still mostly in her book. "You wanted gyokuro, right Masako? You're lucky we're in Kyoto since Uji specialises in gyokuro tea."

Masako stared at her friend for a moment before taking a deep breath. "MAI!"

Mai jumped in surprise dropping the journal. She glared at Masako. "What?! Jeez, you don't have to yell..." Mai's voice trailed off as she looked around her. "Eh? What am I doing out here? Was I about to go do something...?"

The others all heaved a sigh and shook their heads. Yasuhara laughed as he got to his feet. "I'll help you make tea, Taniyama-san," he said as he exited the base, picked up the journal Mai had just dropped, and quickly led her off to the kitchen.

Several minutes later, Yasuhara and Mai returned with drinks for everyone and quickly set about handing the drinks out. Masako took a sip of her tea and closed her eyes in pleasure as the flavour spread over her palate. She gave a small, tired sigh before opening her eyes and turning to look at Naru.

"The change I noticed this morning seems to have... become more pronounced," she began slowly. "I'm not quite sure how to describe it, because that space is already very unusual."

Masako stared off in the general direction of the loft as she murmured, "It's getting weaker."

Naru frowned. "Weaker? How? Can you be a bit more specific?"

Masako returned her gaze to Naru. "The void is getting weaker. It's as though it's slowly closing up again..." Masako cocked her head to one side. That didn't seem quite right to her. "Maybe, something's closing it from the other side...? No, that doesn't sound right either." She shook her head confused.

Naru considered Masako's statement for a moment. "If we leave it alone, do you expect it'll go away naturally, or will it shrink to a certain level and possibly wait before it opens up again?"

Masako shook her head. "I don't know."

Naru looked at Yasuhara and Mai. They exchanged a brief glance after which Yasuhara decided to report first.

"It seems that the Sengokus have kept a complete record of various happenings in this area. At first I thought that the papers were kept in no particular order here, but after reading through a number of the clippings, I think I've figured out at least part of their filing or rather 'piling' system." Yasuhara tapped one pile of newspaper clippings. "These ones seem to be what they considered related to whatever involved their daughter. Most recently added to this pile was the article last Monday when two teens snuck out of their homes to take a break from their exam studies. I believe you noticed this one when Hirota-san came to the office, Taniyama-san. It's the one where the mother of the teen who was attacked thought that her son's friend had been possessed by a fox spirit."

Mai nodded and frowned. Possession. She remembered the voice that was constantly whispering in her mind when she hit Naru. 'Possession... by a fox spirit?' She remembered that such possessions typically happened in females who were under psychological duress. 'Maybe a teenage boy studying for his entrance exams would be psychologically stressed enough to exhibit signs of fox spirit possession, but such "possessed people" don't normally attack others... do they?'

She remembered fighting against the spirit's insidious whispers to a degree. It had wanted to her to do much more than hit Naru, but what it wanted went well beyond anything Mai could ever consider doing. She'd fought it down from using a weapon against Naru, to slapping him. 'I wonder, if I were stronger and more sure of myself, if I hadn't been so uncertain about being on an investigation and possibly seeing Gene again, could I have fought the spirit off entirely...?' She didn't know. The whispering had been incessant and so invidious. It had eaten away at her resistance until it found a weakness it could use.

"...i."

"...ai."

Mai heard a distant sigh when suddenly a book rapped her sharply on her head. She rubbed her head and looked up in surprise.

Naru stared at her annoyed. "I find your ability to sleep with your eyes open quite astounding, Taniyama-san. However, we're trying to have a meeting here. So, if you'd be so kind as to make your report...?"

Mai frowned, but unfortunately, her train of thought had since escaped, and she couldn't remember what was so important about the spirit in the abandoned house that had possessed her.

Mai glanced at the journals that she'd read through so far. "Umm... well, the Sengokus' daughter Megumi was a really prolific writer, so I haven't managed to finish reading all her journals yet," she began as she pulled one of the earliest journals from the pile. "But one of the first interesting entries I noticed happened when she was a young child, perhaps seven years old."

Mai opened the journal to the marked page. "She talks about how her grandmother and her relatives had all gathered and they became very upset with her when she mentioned that her grandfather was playing with her baby cousin making him laugh. Megumi was quite traumatised when they scolded her for lying and her father apparently spanked her for it."

The base members glanced at one another with an odd expression on their faces. They couldn't see the relevance of the entry to the case they were investigating.

"A few days after that, she and her grandmother were taking a walk on the mountain in Yawata City, but when her grandmother wanted to go up to the shrine, she refused because her grandfather was saying that it would rain soon and that they should go home. Her grandmother immediately took her to the shrine and had the priest pray over her for half an hour. She wrote that she found the whole thing quite boring but her grandfather was laughing about it and entertained her during the whole thing, so she put up with it." Mai flipped to the next marked page. "A couple years later, she comments how she was scared of one of the boys in her class because he was always staring at her. She didn't know what his name was, and the teacher apparently never looked at or spoke to the boy. She also mentions that there were rumours in the school of a boy having drowned accidentally in the pool several years earlier, so she wondered if the scary boy was the one who drowned."

The looks on the base members' faces became serious as they realised why Mai had chosen the entries she had and the possible implications. Apparently, similar incidents of seeing or sensing dead spirits occurred on rare occasion, including those where she got in trouble, but overall, Megumi seemed to be a fairly happy and normal child.

"Mai, how likely do you think those stories of her seeing the dead are?" Bou-san asked slowly as he stared up at the ceiling when Mai finished her report.

Mai shrugged. "I've only managed to finish up to the end of seventh grade. From what Yasuhara said, she did at least start high school, so that means I have around three more years to get through. But, if Megumi and Mrs. Ikeda did know one another, it could mean that there was more to the seances and games like Kokkuri-san that Mrs. Ikeda referred to than she thought."

"Kokkuri-san...?" Bou-san asked his voice rising in disbelief. "Who's been doing Kokkuri-san? Ever since we went to Yasuhara-shounen's high school, I hate hearing about people doing that." Mai glanced at Bou-san. "Well, yeah, but you know how it is when you're a kid. You have fun with that sort of thing."

"I don't recall hearing anything about Kokkuri-san in particular either, Taniyama-san?" Naru's chill voice echoed in the base.

Mai cocked her head as she looked at Naru. "Eh? I told you about it back when I first reported about talking to Mrs. Ikeda. And I'm pretty sure I mentioned it again when I told you about talking to her son." Mai protested.

Naru glared at her. "Unlike you, I have a very good memory and I remember what people report. I can assure you that you did not report anything about anyone doing Kokkuri-san," he stated flatly.

"Jeez, I really don't like it when Kokkuri-san's involved, you know?" Bou-san said plaintively. "It can call up some real nasties and it might explain why Masako-chan can't see whatever's in that house clearly since she can't see wandering spirits very well. Hmm, so what are we dealing with? The kids did Kokkuri-san and one of them was...... oh wait. The Kokkuri-san was about three decades ago, wasn't it?"

Mai nodded. "As near as I can tell from what Mrs. Ikeda told me, yeah."

Bou-san frowned. "I've heard of mass hysteria and people ending up acting and believing that they were possessed by fox spirits and such because they did Kokkuri-san, but I don't think I've ever heard of a case lasting 30 years."

Bou-san sent a side-long glance at Mai and gave her a sly grin. "And do you remember the key issue about people doing Kokkuri-san and why it's such a problem, young lady?" he asked.

"Eh?" Mai looked surprised at the sudden question then frowned as she thought back to his explanation so long ago at Yasuhara's high school. "Umm... aah!"

"Right." Bou-san nodded. "Even though anyone might be able to call up a spirit by doing Kokkuri-san, sending that spirit back requires training. So, if Megumi-chan and her friends did manage to call up any spirits while they were doing Kokkuri-san, the question then is what did they call up and did they get rid of those spirits afterwards?"

Mai stuck her tongue out at Bou-san slightly. "And even if they didn't, if you got rid of whatever they might've called up, then this case is over, right?"

Bou-san grimaced slightly. Mai's comment made things seem so easy. "......Well, yeah..." he agreed slowly.

Mai made it all sound so easy. Bou-san sighed but didn't say anything about how she was oversimplifying the issue. If anything was after his 'daughter', he'd do what he could to keep her safe. "Mai, get back to work. We need to know about the rest of that girl's junior high and high school life."