I didn't budge a muscle.
Lin stood frozen in the doorway.
Naru snoozed away at my feet.
"You just...entered?" He said slowly. "Nothing happened?"
"Yeah. There was a spider crawling towards his face, and as funny as it would've been I didn't want to see him eat it. I thought I'd shoo it away or kill it and completely forgot about the barrier." Since he didn't look too pleased, I added, "Sorry."
He sighed. "Well, at least it saves me the worry of having to attend to him all by myself." He remarked. "Where is it?"
I stared at him blankly.
"The spider." He elaborated.
I mutely held up the rolled-up paper to display the brown smear. Sighing again, he ushered me out.
Masako and John arrived several hours after I finally figured out how to feed a sleeping person oatmeal, and by then I really didn't want to see the tan mush again. Maybe I could change it up every day? Wouldn't Naru like that? I plopped down at my laptop and checked my email. Madoka was at the top of my inbox. Look at this picture! The email screamed in bright pink letters. I tapped on the attachment and found myself staring at a picture of sleeping Naru.
I closed out of it. Forget oatmeal—I was going to get tired of listening to Naru's breathy snores real quick.
"Same thing happened in the corridor." Ayako was saying. Through the gap created by her arm and Mai's, I could see little floating lights swirling around Hazuki-chan's room before disappearing.
Lin's fingers flew over the keyboard. "Switching to the feed of the room overlooking the cove."
My view was blocked as Ayako and Mai leaned forward in time to the awed gasps. "What are they? Lights?"
"It looks like they're rising from below."
"Are they apparitions?"
Bou-san leaned back to look at Lin. "How's the audio?"
"No audio. No vibrations either. The other sensors are within normal levels. Except the temperature dropped five degrees."
I tilted my head at that. "We should set up thermographs in varying locations so that we can be sure that it's something paranormal and not the night air—like a control group."
Bou-san jumped—apparently he'd forgotten I was there—and covered it up with a cough. "Who do you think you are, Naru?"
"I took two college-level research classes in my universe. Some things tend to stick."
He rolled his eyes at me. "Also, aren't the floating lights a dead giveaway?"
Not really, seeing how paranormal phenomena could be faked, like how Kuroda had jammed a door with a nail in the very first case. I wasn't in the mood to argue, so I settled with, "Was the pun intended?"
There was a knock, and Mai went to go allow Akifumi inside with the coffee. He was starting to act like our personal butler. Another email from Madoka popped up. Lo and behold: Naru was grinning.
No, that wasn't Naru. There were smile creases at the corners of his eyes. It was Gene.
Naru when he isn't PMSing, the caption read.
Naru when he's on crack, I replied.
Oh, good one. I'll use that another time.
"Impossible!" Akifumi said sharply, making me flinch. "Did you go down there? I wouldn't have allowed it. Those stone steps are dangerous."
"What did you do, little girl?" Bou-san called across the room.
"I...might have done something."
"Huh?"
Red faced, Mai explained her dream, not including the parts with Naru. "—and then, human souls were being summoned from the sea into the cave. They turned to spirits that looked like fish."
"Fish spirits?" Bou-san demanded, not hiding his skepticism.
"I know, it sounds crazy! But it's true." Mai protested before turning to Akifumi, who'd been looking pretty dazed the entire time. Poor guy had probably assumed she was a normal girl. "If they're 'fish' maybe they're still alive. Right?"
"There really is a cave as you described." He admitted. "Salt-drenched corpses would wash ashore there. People who died in the nearby sea would float into that cave. Not just people, but large objects too, including that hokora shrine. Our house dogs washed ashore there too since this is where their souls were apparently summoned."
They couldn't really ignore that, so it was decided that the others would go take a look at the cave while Lin and I remained behind. I stared at the picture of Gene, thinking hard. "So." No reply, aside a slight pause in clicking. "What should I do?"
Lin eventually stopped typing. "Naru had originally planned to take a trip to the local library, but I think it's best for all of us to stay here. Anything could happen, and our first priority is the client." He said slowly. "Is there anything else you remember him planning?"
"If you don't know, what makes you think I would?"
The are you serious stare made its comeback.
I clicked through my laptop, thouroughly chastened. "I wonder what he was thinking when he was going 'I see'." I said, just to make small talk.
Small talk became microscopic talk when Lin turned back to his screen. Even though our relationship had gone from 'I'm not your stinking babysitter' to 'distant relative from another universe', he had a tendency to revert back to the former. I wasn't sure how normal that was so I just left him alone and harassed my brain cells into giving me a straight answer.
It felt like multiple eons had passed before Bou-san and the others returned. As they were resting from the long walk, Bou-san spoke up. "Say, everyone, shall we put some monitoring equipment down in the cave?"
"If we can resolve the seawater issue, we'll set it up, but where do we get electricity...one battery can only last two hours." Lin paused, then turned in his chair. "Although I did bring along some interval timers."
"What are those?"
"A device that switches power on and off at preset times." He explained. "For example, say we want to record only ten minutes out of every our. At that rate the batteries could last us half of a day. The point is that they give us the ability to switch the equipment on and off to conserve power."
I tried to do the mental math to confirm it, then promptly gave up. Lin knew what he was talking about more than I did.
Bou-san nodded decisively. "Gotcha. Oh, any idea how high that cliff is?" He asked, directing the question at Akifumi.
"About ten meters."
Lin did some more mental math. "Maybe we could drop a cable from here. That is, if you're sure you have enough energy to carry the equipment down." He glanced at me, probably about to offer my help, but the silently pleading look on my face must've been enough to change his mind. "Nira will be replacing the tapes while you two are busy."
I wilted horizontally. "What? Why?"
"Nira..."
"Ugh, fine."
I sped walked throughout the entire chore, only stopping long enough to smile at a passing Yoshimi or glare into the lens of every camera. I returned in half an hour, puffing and sweating. Ayako, who clearly had nothing better to do than run her mouth, smirked as she buffed her nails on her dress. "You didn't have to run the entire time." She said lightly.
"Is running a sin?"
Her frown returned. "That's not—"
"If it's not a sin, I don't see why I can't do the occasional sprint. At the end of the day, I'll be fitter than you."
She rolled her eyes at me, which roughly translated to 'there's no point in talking to you.' I agreed.
Lin nodded shortly, and for a moment I thought he was also agreeing. "You did a good job. Check the temperature readings."
"I literally just got back, sir."
"Humor me."
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
He stared at me.
"You said to humor you, and jokes are humorous." I shook my head as I plopped down. "Do the world a favor and loosen up, please."
"No."
At least he'd given me an answer. There would be times at the office or over a meal at the hotel where I'd make some sort of crack and he'd just stare at me like I'd quoted Shakespeare in French while cutting an Irish jig with a taxidermied chihuahua balanced on my head. At which point Naru would very carefully resume whatever important conversation they'd been having. Good times, good times.
The temperatures were fine aside from a discrepancy near the front, and the speakers hadn't recieved any sort of noise. I planted my forehead on my keyboard, well aware that I was leaving a stream of random letters all over my story/report. "What's the status on the cave?"
"Taniyama-san and Takigawa-san have just finished powering on the equipment. They'll be returning shortly."
"Got it." I glanced at Ayako and Masako, who were still sitting there. "Can either of you tell me what I missed on your stroll?"
Masako obliged. "We went down to the cave as a group to se the hokora shrine with a piece of driftwood shaped like a Buddha statue. There were also the Sanroku mounds near the family shrine and the two stones in the sea, Okobu and Mekobu."
I blinked, then positioned my hands on the keyboard. "Start over."
She repeated the spots, pausing as I typed out each item. "Takigawa-san has a theory that perhaps the fox spirit possessing Naru is the spirit of the missing mound, but I disagree with it."
I still typed it out for reference. "Two of those three spots mark dead people." I noted, highlighting them. "Sanroku mounds near the shrine. Okobu and Mekobu...those are the princess and her lover, right?"
"Why'd you ask if you knew?" Ayako demanded.
I ignored her. "Think that'll cause more problems?"
Masako shrugged daintily, kimono sleeve at her mouth. "It's hard to tell."
Not as enlightening as I would've preferred, but it wasn't her fault. I slammed the ENTER key. "Well, those are the points we should research." Raising my voice, I called, "You hear that, Naru? Stop lying around and get to work."
Still looking at the monitors, Lin shook his head.
Bou-san and Mai returned another thirty minutes later, grim with news of Yasutaka's attempted suicide. Akifumi joined us after, still looking a little pale. "My brother apparently hears voices when he's alone." He sighed, lowering himself onto the tatami mats. "They say, 'kill your family.' He said when he sleeps, he actually does have dreams of killing them. He can feel his hands stabbing them, and then he wakes up. These dreams were so disturbing he felt he couldn't tell anyone about them. Still, he doesn't believe he could ever really harm his family."
Bou-san bowed soberly. "Because we were late in discovering this, there was one victim. We deeply apologize for not preventing this."
Akifumi's eyes widened. "No, no. It's also my fault for what happened to Shibuya-san."
At the mention of Naru, he pushed open the sliding door. A small tree at each corner of his futon created a barrier, and a red character had been painted on his forehead—Lin's sleeping spell. Bou-san leaned in the doorway, his face unusually serious. "Lin. Do we still have rituals to turn Naru around?"
"Yes."
"Do you understand what happens if the spirit absorbs itself into Naru?"
"Understood."
Bou-san shifted. "But, on the other hand, do you understand what happens if the spirit leaves Naru?"
Lin gave him a look that bordered on are you serious, which made me feel a little better about myself. It might've been because a question like that was a slap in the face to someone who was literally trained in this since birth. "Of course I understand. As long as the prevention spell is in place, the spirit cannot leave."
"So you say. But maybe there isn't just one spirit haunting this family."
"HEY, HOLD ON!" Ayako burst out. "What was that? Was Yasutaka-san possessed?"
"I can't answer those questions, but we must watch over all the members of the family. There isn't just one spirit, but the possibility of three or even more. John."
The priest perked up like a puppy. "Yes?"
"What did you think of what we saw before, near Hazuki-chan?"
He paused, answering carefully. "Well, I personally couldn't figure it out, but Hara-san might have because there's a possibility that this is a malicious curse. I performed a temporary, simple exorcism and sealed the room."
"The result?"
"I don't know."
Bou-san turned to Masako. "Masako, do you know what this spirit is?"
She took even longer to respond. "I don't know." She said softly. "Only that I have the same feeling as the spirit possessing Naru. If I had to say, it is an empty spirit. If there were no resentment, I would not sense this grudge."
Bou-san nodded, though I had to admit that her response had been a little cryptic. "I see. And you, Mai?"
"ME!?"
"Do you sense anything?" He elaborated. "It's fine either way. If you have those dreams again, will you get trapped in them?"
"Uh...um..." Mai's face cleared as she remembered something. "This seems to be in conflict with Masako's opinion, but I think there are dead people harboring a grudge. People who were brutally betrayed, surrounded by enemies, and killed. At this point, the dead people probably no longer have a connection with this land."
Masako sniffed. "If it is that kind of spirit, I should have recognized it already."
"It was probably just a dream."
"IT WAS JUST A DREAM."
Bou-san glanced at Akifumi, who was once again wearing that shell shocked I thought she was a normal kid look. "What do you think? Have you ever heard anything like that?"
"No...I've never heard that story."
Bou-san exhaled. "Well then, do we know around when the Yoshimi family moved here?"
Akifumi winced apologetically. "I asked that, among other questions, and even my grandmother didn't know."
I almost felt bad as Bou-san scratched his head with more than a bit of frustration before sighing. "John, go to the hospital and try an exorcism on Yasutaka-san. While you're at it, submit the business report, as I've told you before. I won't fail a second time."
"I'll go right now."
Once he trotted out, Bou-san glanced at the others. "Ayako, hand out the charms. Give one to every human among the family and all of us."
"Ok."
"I'll head out shortly. Akifumi-san, my apologies for asking, but could you show us your family temple?"
I waited as everyone filed out, then sat back with a sigh. "I miss Naru." I muttered. In a louder voice, I added, "Why do I have a feeling that this is going to take longer than necessary?"
Lin didn't respond.