The Story Continued (Ghost Hunt)

Chapter 24

The team hurried to the room. It truly was messed up. "Check if anything is missing." Naru ordered after getting a good look at the mess. Strangely it was only the girl's stuff that was messed up. No furniture was touched. "Nothing is missing." Mai reported followed by Masako and Madoka. "Same here." They said one after another. "I'm not missing anything but my hairbrush is in two pieces." Ayako added holding the said object. "Just what happened here," Monk questioned. Naru shook his head. "More importantly...who did it? Human or not?"

"There's no way it was the family, right? We are here to help them." Mai shrugged it off. Naru glanced at Mai then focused again on the state the room was in. "Mai, did Iwao-san say something that stood out when you interviewed him yesterday?" He asked. The girl froze. She was going to get yelled at. "Mai?" Naru repeated. Mai slowly turned to look at him, noticing his already raised eyebrow. "About that..." she started but was cut off. "From the look of your face, I can say that you either forgot," Naru stated. Mai smiled awkwardly in response. "Something along these lines." Naru sighed. "Come to the base after you clean up this mess." He then left the room. "There were four of us there. Why am I always the one to take the blame?" The girl whispered to herself as Madoka, Ayako, Masako and she herself started to clean up the room.

Naru was standing in front of a closed door. He was not sure if he was supposed to knock. The door was slightly different from the normal ones. Ah, it was giving him a headache. This house was so difficult to get used to. He decided to just go in. "Mr. Fujiwara, we have a few things we would like to ask you. May we?" The boy asked. The man put down the pen he was writing with. Well, a brush. It looked more like a brush. "Enter." He said pointing at two seats in front of him. The atmosphere around him was worse than the one around Naru when he was pissed. Naru walked in and took a seat. Lin followed. "Did you ever hear a story about...something being summoned by your ancestors?" He asked pretty straightforwardly. It coughed the man off-guard. "We have a legend in our family. It was written years ago." He started.

"It tells the story of the third head of the Fujiwara family. After being betrayed by his business partner and almost losing this house he supposedly made a pact with the 'devil' to protect the family from outsiders. The son of the man who betrayed him was sacrificed in the process." Iwao then got up from his seat. He moved the wooden table he was using, lifted a small part of the tatami mat, and pulled something out. "This book or rather a diary was written by the fourth head of the family, then continued by the 10th. It describes how the 9th head sealed 'it'." The man then handed Naru the book. The boy wasn't sure if he was about to kill Mai for not interviewing this man or the man himself for not telling him this at the beginning of the case. Naru took the diary to the base and decided to read it there. He, of course, did not read the whole thing, that would be a waste of time. A few parts seemed interesting.

'They feared betrayal so they reached for help. The help they chose was dark and needed a sacrifice. They summoned the devil and formed a contract. It was written by this man's blood, and signed by the third head, my father.'

Next

'It never gave his name so we called it 'It'. 'It' was supposed to protect the family and for that, it could use the life energy of whoever was an outsider.'

Some pages later.

'But 'it' needed energy as it grew and needed to be fed constantly. It soon started to target all who just stepped into the house.'

Naru then noticed the change in writing.

'We were fed up and decided to take action. The 9th noticed that 'It' was weaker. There were no strangers in the house for years. 'It' had no food. We used this opportunity to seal it. That's the only thing we could do.'

"Two days of figuring things out and it's all written in here." Naru sighed

Mai, Masko, Madoka and Ayako joined the team after they cleaned up, and took a little break. Upon entering the base Mai expected to be yelled at but instead, she was handed a book to read. Maybe she preferred the yelling after all. "You get it?" Naru asked. Mai nodded. "I'm sorry, we wasted a lot of time because of me." She apologized. Naru noticed that the girl really was feeling guilty. "Come on, it already happened. You've proven yourself again, that's for sure." He added referring to her dream while taking the book from her. "As if I hadn't proven myself enough." Mai murmured. Loud enough for her boss to hear. He turned around. "Well, today you've also proved your irresponsibility. You have a lot to learn, Mai." Her boss turned back as Mai stuck out her tongue at him.

"So, our main goal is still to find where it hides." Takigawa stated as Naru was done explaining. "Don't want to complain but it's already late and we had nothing to eat yet, soooo~ can we maybe start tomorrow? It's not like we can run around while others sleep anyway." He suggested. Unwillingly, Naru agreed. He remembered that Mai was feeöing off the whole day. It would do her some good to have a proper rest. They had a game of Hide and Seek planned for the next day after all. So the team went ahead and got some food then disappeared into their rooms. "Do you think we will have an interesting night again, Mai?" Masako asked as she laid down. The girl sighed. "I wish I could just sleep through the night like Madoka and Ayako."

"I'm turning the light off." The priestess in question yelled.

Mai placed her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. Suddenly, she felt something on her futon. Coming nearer. Was she already dreaming? "Meow~" Mai heard. The girl lifted her head. "Yoru? You scared me." She laid back down feeling the cat come even closer. Yoru laid down right next to Mai's head. The cat disappeared again for the whole day and made its presence known only now. Mai calmed down. Her eyes closed as she relaxed. Soon enough she was asleep.