Chapter 3-Tension
February Day 1, 1:12 P.M.
Naru was not happy about the situation. No, "not happy" didn't nearly fit the description of what he was feeling about the situation. After seeing Mai's makeup job, well, it really didn't help the anger he was already feeling. It more so transferred his real anger back onto the man who did that to her. Needless to say, Naru was furious. And he wasn't thrilled that Ayako would go behind his back and not tell him ahead of time. Of course then he would have just dreaded their arrival.
"She must have made a damn good argument back in Tokyo last night, didn't she?" Naru remarked dryly, pushing himself from his thoughts.
Ayako nodded. "At least that bastard didn't hurt her enough to damage her determination."
"Does she know you are informing the whole team?"
"Well, she figured out from your phone call yesterday that I told you." Naru looked as though he might actually protest. "Calm down, I listened to the message, I think it might have been clairvoyance as to how she knew. That or I fell for her bluff."
"Mai bluffing? Remind me not to play poker with her," Yasuhara commented, earning an elbow from the medium next to him. "Ow."
"What compromise did she bribe you with?"
Ayako opened her purse and pulled out a small stack of papers. "You know your assistant well, that's for sure. She suggested being on Base duty with Base sealed up with protection charms. I made plenty for everyone, as well."
"Look at you coming all prepared," Monk teased, earning a smirk from the priestess.
"I knew this place was going to be dangerous, but Mai insisted on coming. Might as well be prepared."
"Naru, the witnesses will be here soon," Lin commented from the monitors.
Almost immediately afterward, there was a knock at the door. Yasuhara stood and went to answer it. Mai, John, and Kiko all filed in. "Good, now we can get some work done," Naru said, arms still crossed. "Mai, you'll stay here and help me conduct interviews with Lin. Miss Hara, do another walkthrough of the property and show Miss Matsuzaki around. I want you two to compare what you sense now to what you may have sensed earlier this morning. John, if you would accompany them?"
"Sure thing."
"The rest of you, I want you to set up cameras and microphones in these areas." Naru handed a clipboard to Kiko. "Once the interviews are complete, we'll go over the angles and adjust them accordingly."
"Got it."
And that was how Mai found herself sitting at the table directly across from their witnesses, with Naru and Lin at the two heads like bookends. They had interviewed five already, but for the most part it was only shadows and voices and objects moving out of place. Little things that didn't really call for a paranormal investigation team to be called in. So why was Ayako so adamant that this case was too dangerous for her to attend?
Then the next girl came in, she was probably around eighteen or nineteen, with black hair cut into a pixie with fringed bangs. What was a little startling to Mai was the girl's big dark chocolate eyes, they looked empty. Not the kind of empty that possession victims obtained. But another kind, whatever it was, it made Mai grateful she didn't eat that day.
"Have a seat," Naru said, motioning to the empty chair across from Mai. The girl nodded and sat down. "What's your name?"
"Rina Maki." She looked down at the table, she was so tense Mai could feel the pressure from where she sat.
"Miss Maki, you are the victim of a vile act here, is that correct?" The girl nodded stiffly. "Can you tell us what happened?"
Vile act? Mai wondered to herself.
"It...it happened last week," Rina began, taking a deep shaky breath. Mai felt the shift in the air, she was starting to regret coming along. "I was running late for class, because I had forgotten my textbook, so I went back and got it. It was a late evening class, there was no one in the hallways of that building. At least, I thought there was no one. I was walking up the stairs and almost made it to the door, when I was grabbed from behind."
The girl paused and took another shaky breath. Mai noticed that Naru was being much more...gentle with this witness. Something she wasn't quite used to seeing. "What happened next?" But she didn't want to continue, and that made Mai regret not listening to Ayako's warning about this case. "Miss aki, did the person who grabbed you proceed to rape you in the stairwell?"
Rina sucked in a breath and did her damned best to hold back the tears. "I shouldn't have come, I'm sorry for wasting your time. I'll be on my-"
"Miss Maki." She had been about to stand but Naru's voice stopped her. "We are not the police. We are not going to get them involved unless you decide to do so. All we're here for, is to figure out what is going on and there is more to the story isn't there?"
Slowly, Rina nodded and adjusted her sitting position. She took another slow shaky breath, truly not wanting to continue this interview, but as much as Mai wanted to reach over and guide her out of the room, she knew that they needed to know the whole story. From her side.
"I'll ask you again. Were you raped in the stairwell that night?"
"Yes." Her voice was quiet. Her eyes were focused on the table. Mai could feel the emotions radiating off of the poor girl. Fear. Anger. Sadness. Guilt. One giant mixture. "No one was going to go through the stairs for another half hour, so he had his way with me."
"Do you know who raped you?"
"It wasn't him." The mix of emotions shifted at the determined answer.
"Who?" Lin's constant typing helped to keep Mai grounded from imagining the awful deed done to this girl.
"Rikuto. But it wasn't him! It couldn't have been! He is too quiet of a guy to do that!" Mai's head tilted at the answer. If he was the one who did it, why is she defending him?
"But he was the one who grabbed you and forced you in the stairwell?" Naru asked again for confirmation.
"Yes, but he wasn't there." The comment caused Lin to skip a beat in his typing. Even he seemed a little unnerved even though he knew just as much as Naru. "I couldn't see him in his eyes. They weren't his eyes."
"They weren't his eyes?" Mai's question couldn't be contained. The girl looked at her and seemed to study the makeup job that had been done earlier.
"The Rikuto I know from class has deep brown eyes. Whoever did this to me had bright yellow ones." And thus, Mai understood why SPR had been called into the case. "It wasn't him. Someone else was in there."
"You believe he was possessed?"
"He wouldn't have done it otherwise." Rina sighed, looking back down at the table. "He doesn't even know that he did it."
***
"You really thought bringing her here was a good idea?" Masako commented with her eyes closed as they walked through another dorm building. Ayako was almost certain that the medium was rolling her eyes.
"Believe it or not this is a more controlled playing field," Ayako answered with her arms crossed. "Is the setup in this building the same as the one we're staying in?"
"Sort of, only this one is four floors," John answered as they entered the stairs. " Floors one and three are for the male students and floors two and four are for females."
"Controlled? I don't see how a place with such a vile spirit can actually be considered a 'controlled environment.'"
"Simple, given that pretty much everyone understands what happened to her, the likelihood that she would even be alone is slim to none. But if I leave her in my apartment and I'm at work, you and I both know Shouta could come and try to get her to come out. Or if she gets bored and decides to leave the apartment, he could find her wandering the streets. She's safer here where we can all watch her."
"And if one of the guys becomes possessed by this monster? What then? None of us are safe, Ayako." Masako's argument came as a bit of a surprise for both investigators.
"Then, it's a good thing I made so many charms." Ayako simply moved ahead down the hall of dorms. "Glad to see you actually defending her, I knew you two were on your way to becoming best friends."
"Oh please, like that could ever happen." Masako seemed to scoff behind her kimono sleeve. John sweatdropped as he followed the bickering women. "I just don't think this is the best place for her right now. Even with the makeup, she can't hide the eye being bloodshot."
"Now, ladies, should we really be arguing over this? Naru's agreed to having Mai tag along, and we all know he takes precautions. Mai's in Base with him right now, I can't think of a safer spot for her to be in," John said. He tried his damned best to soften the situation. Unfortunately, bickering women tend to make the opposite happen.
"Not sure about that," Masako said. "She is in Base with Naru, conducting interviews. There are four confirmed rapes and two of those victims are still here. I wouldn't be surprised if they are talking to her now."
"I'd rather have Mai there to lessen the intimidation of Naru and Lin's questioning, even if it makes her uneasy, than to come back to my apartment to find her beaten again." Ayako stopped at one of the open doors. "Now, if you don't mind, I think we have some work to get done. I'd rather learn the layout of the buildings than argue why I did what I did."
This isn't going to be an easy case, John thought to himself as he continued to follow the two women.
***
"You could've told us you knew why they weren't going to come with us." Monk shook his head as Yasuhara steadied the camera stand and Monk tried to attach it to the tripod. It was proving troublesome. Kiko stood back setting up the microphone.
"It wasn't my business to tell, hell, Ayako shouldn't have even told me the little bit she did. I just had to ask," Kiko shook her head as well, finishing up the microphone and unwinding some cable.
"So how much did you know?" Yasuhara asked as the camera was finally cooperating.
"Honestly?" The boy nodded. "Not much. Ayako called me on Sunday asking if I would stop by Mai's place and pack up her things. When I asked why, she just said that Mai and Shouta broke up and it didn't go well." She handed one end of the cable to be plugged into the camera. "It wasn't until I actually got to her apartment that I realized just how bad of a breakup it was."
"How bad was it?"
"I could tell there was a struggle, it was only in the walkway by the front door, but it was enough to knock over the front table she had." Kiko shook her head and sighed.
Monk let out a stressed breath and resisted the urge to punch the nearby wall. "How did we miss it? At least one of us should have suspected something."
"It's no one's fault, Monk," Yasuhara said, standing up. "We all noticed Mai's been shutting us out for a while now. And a lot of us took the initiative and tried to confront her about it. And then she seemed to be getting a little better, but it might have just been her hiding the issues from us. Maybe Shouta was the reason why she was becoming so closed off, and maybe her trying to still seem normal with us caused their relationship to break down."
"That could make sense, but it seems like you're reaching." Monk raised a brow. "Their relationship seemed just fine on the outside up until he gave her that black eye."
"Just because something is fine on the outside, doesn't mean it's not broken beneath the shell," Kiko said softly as she shook her head. Too bad neither boy seemed to hear her.
"You were a little more preoccupied with stalking your sister on our last case, so you probably missed some behind the scenes drama."
"Do you really have to make me sound like a creeper? I wasn't stalking my sister, I was keeping an eye on her."
"Literally the entire investigation. There were very few instances where you let her out of your sight."
"That can be considered stalking."
"Kiko, I understand he's your boyfriend and all, but do you really have to take his side on this?" Monk's comment caught the girl off guard, but the college student, of course, had the perfect comeback.
"Monk! How could you ever think I would cheat on you! I thought we had something special!" Yasuhara's song and dance, came with the inclusion of dramatic arm throwing. The show caused the monk to sweatdrop and the teenager to burst out laughing.
"I really hate it when you do that!" A visible shiver crept up Monk's spine. Kiko laughed harder. "Why do you find this so hilarious!"
"Sorry, I just can't believe Yasu still does that old joke," Kiko replied, finally calming down, the boy she spoke of wore a cheeky grin. "The day I met him I swear he did the same thing to one of the upperclassmen. Scared the boy shitless, it was hilarious."
"I don't know whether to be relieved that he's done this before or concerned that this is apparently a regular joke he pulls."
"On a more serious note," Yasuhara said, changing the subject. "I don't know about anyone else, but I sensed Mai was going through a rough patch with Shouta. You know, just with her reactions with him texting her and her overall attitude throughout the case."
"You're right," Monk replied shaking his head. "I didn't notice."
***
"And you don't recall how you ended up in the maintenance closet?" Naru asked again, as the boy across from Mai continued to get more stressed out during the interview.
"I don't! Honest!" Mai was sure the boy didn't mean to shout, but he was obviously distraught by what he had done. "I was in the library and the next thing I knew I was in a broom closet next building over, with Airi crying under me." He looked down, horrified, at his hands. "That was when I realized my pants were down and I had just finished...raping her..."
"Airi Sonazaki committed suicide several weeks ago, why did you decide to come forward and be interviewed today?" Naru's voice was calm and even as he spoke. Mai wondered how he could do it, she could barely sit there and listen to the incidents that may or may not have been paranormal.
"Because, she told her friend, Rina. And Airi wasn't the first girl to have this done to her." Hideki looked up at Mai but immediately looked back down at the table. "I didn't do it. I mean, I didn't mean to. I mean, I wasn't conscious. That doesn't make sense, how can someone unconsciously rape someone? But that's what happened! I blacked out! I-"
Naru just held a hand up, silencing the student. "That's all we need Hideki, thank you for your time. You may leave." Hideki nodded nervously and walked out.
Lin closed the door behind the student. "He was the last one for now. We may have others stop by after their classes."
Mai let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Well, what do you think?" It was the first thing Naru had directly said to her aside from ordering her to stay in Base for the interviews.
Needless to say, she was a little apprehensive to answer. She came on the case for normalcy, to stop thinking about what happened with Shouta. Yet, she was unable to answer a simple question that was supposed to help distract her-
"Mai." She really needed to focus. She blinked hard and looked at her boss. "What do you think?"
"I think he was very likely possessed," she answered automatically. "I also think this case won't be easy to solve. And we certainly have our work cut out for us. I don't have to be a medium to tell you we have the spirit of a serial rapist and probably the spirits of his victims haunting the place."
"It's a good place to start, that's for sure," Naru agreed, standing and walking to the monitors. "Lin, do you have the floor plan up?"
Lin, who had wandered over to the bulletin board, was busy pinning pushpins to the blueprints. "I have the areas where the assaults, or attempted assaults, occurred in red. While I have the area of minor activity marked in yellow." He stepped away to reveal his work. "Just as Kohaku mentioned last night, this building had a majority of the activity reported. One of the rapes occurred here, several attempted assaults and quite a few unexplained occurrences."
"About what we expected, of course there may be more victims to come forward and the pattern we have could be changed." Naru examined the monitors. "Looks like everything is up and running, we'll need to adjust the cameras in the other dorm and the two main buildings. We also need to get started on researching the property."
"Well, what do you know, we managed to get everything done at the same time," Monk said as he and the rest of the team walked in together. "Either we were quick to set up all of the equipment or you got lost trying to sense spiri-ow!"
As per usual, Ayako clonked the man on the head with her fist. Eyes closed, standing tall and poised, she pretended that the incident never occurred. "It's almost four, what's our next step?"
Naru had ignored the bickering investigators and jotted down something on two clipboards. "We finished interviewing the witnesses, and I need you to make adjustments to the cameras specified on here. Miss Matsuzaki, you'll go with Father brown," he handed her a clipboard, "Monk and Miss Hara will be the other group." He handed Monk the other clipboard.
"And us?" Yasuhara asked.
"You and Kiko will go to the library and do research on the property. See if you can find any connection with a serial rapist and the school." He leaned against the table where the interviews had been held. "Mai, Lin, and myself will stay here and communicate what needs adjustments." Lin handed two headsets, one each to Ayako and Monk. "Once we have more information we'll be able to figure out what's going on."
"Understood." Two by two, the three teams left the room.
For whatever reason, Mai felt a coldness deep inside herself. It came with no warning and sent a shiver down her spine. She reached down to touch the seat of the chair she sat in. It didn't feel abnormally cold, or hot for that matter. I must be imagining it, she determined. "Mai."
She lifted her head to her employer who had called her. "Yeah?" She internally cursed herself for her voice sounding so small.
Unfazed, Naru continued. "Why don't you go make some tea? Lin will show you where the lounge is." Naru turned his attention back to the cameras and put on a headset. "Move camera four two centimeters to the left...Wrong left Matsuzaki."
Lin had stood up and guided the girl out into the hallway. On another case, in a different year, with a different Mai, Mai might have made a fuss about having to be escorted down the hall to make tea. She probably would have gotten into a heated argument about it. But this case was different, whether it was the danger aspect or the fact that Mai had grown up so much in the last few months. Something had changed. A lot had changed. Her stomach churned at the thought that things may never go back to the laid-back and carefree days as when she first started working for SPR.
Mai had never cared to worry about what the future might hold. But now, after everything that happened, she was afraid.
She was terrified.
***
February Day 1, 3:55 P.M.
"I already know what I'm going to hate most about this case," Kiko said as they entered the library.
"Oh? And that would be?" Yasuhara held the door to the stairs open for her.
"Thanks. And I'm really going to hate moving from building to building, especially if there's going to be a snowstorm." They made their way up to the second floor, where there were rooms they could set up their research base.
"Point taken, and it's been unusually snowy in Tokyo so it's probably going to be even worse out here." They found a room and removed their coats, placing them on the backs of two chairs set up in there. "Do you want to be the one to run around searching? Or stay nice and cozy in here with the computer?"
"You can hang out with the computer and search newspaper articles. I'll see if the librarians have any old records or yearbooks or something we can use to tie in everything."
"Sounds good," Yasuhara replied and sat in front of the computer that was in the room. Kiko left to find something of use. "This is going to be a fun case."
***
"What the hell did he mean, 'wrong left?'" Ayako grunted as she kept the mic of the headset from hearing what she had just said. "I moved it left, if he wanted it moved right he should have said right."
"Maybe he's dyslexic." John shrugged with a sympathetic smile on his face.
"Naru? I wouldn't expect him to be dyslexic at all." Ayako rolled her eyes and huffed, crossing her arms. "I'd sooner believe he wasn't fluent in Japanese and mixed the words up."
John laughed. "And you know that can't be, if anything, I'd be the one to do that."
"He must be messing with me to get back at me for bringing Mai here." Ayako sighed and closed her eyes. "It's not like I had a choice."
"You could continue to complain about it, but you were the one to bring her here." The muffled voice that came through the headset was loud enough for both investigators to figure out what had been said. "And I'm not dyslexic."
"And I know what you're going to say next, 'get back to work.'" It took everything the priestess had to not mimic the young man's stoic voice.
"Actually I was going to say you passed a camera you need to adjust."
John sweatdropped but smiled anyway. "Okay, okay, we'll go back." Ayako rolled her eyes and turned around.
***
"I don't like the idea of Mai being here." Masako stood to the side as Monk adjusted the camera in the dorm hallway.
"Okay, we're onto the next." Monk took the headset off of his head and turned the mic off. "And neither do I, but what can we do? You heard Ayako, she's not safe in Tokyo. Shouta is probably looking for her trying to get her to come back to him."
"Her being here may be a worse alternative," she said, hands clasped together down in front of her.
"Did you have a vision about it or something?" Monk crossed his arms as they headed down to the next room.
"Visions aren't exactly my sort of thing, unless a spirit wants to show me something. Mai's the one who has the visions," she replied, following him. "Before you ask, no none of the spirits have spoken to me, but they aren't giving me a good feeling. Especially now that Mai is here."
"We're just going to have to make sure she doesn't leave any of our sights." Monk stopped once they reached the next camera. He turned on the headset. "We're at camera eighteen, how much do you want it adjusted?...Okay...how is that?" Monk paused again as Naru must have answered him. "How about this?" He adjusted it ever so slightly. "Great. We're on the female floor of dorm two, there's only a couple other cameras here to adjust, right?...Got it." He turned off the headset again. "Since when are you so protective of Mai? I thought you two couldn't stand each other."
"Remember how Mai had that dream of the maid's memories back in April?" The monk nodded. "I never mentioned it back then, but I've seen some horrible visions that felt very real. Sometimes spirits want you to experience what they went through in life to better understand and help them." The medium sighed. "What I've experienced in a vision isn't something I would wish upon my worst enemy, let alone someone I just can't stand some days."
"You've had a vision where-"
"Yes." The monk was thankful he didn't have to finish that sentence. "I wouldn't wish her to have a vision of it. And I especially wouldn't wish her to experience it in real life if someone were to become possessed."
Masako led the way to the stairs to the next floor. Just enough time for Monk to mutter, "I think I might sew the protection charm to my chest."
***
Mai's fingers trembled as she placed the kettle on the stove and turned it on. She quickly balled her hands into fists and crossed her arms to hide them. Maybe she could pretend she just felt cold. It wouldn't be a total lie, she had felt cold back in Base and it had settled in the pit of her stomach. Another visible shiver went down her spine. "Mai?"
The stoic Chinese man's voice awoke her from her thoughts with a start. "Huh?" It took everything she had to calm her racing heart.
"Are you okay? You're shaking," Lin asked. Mai noticed he seemed to keep his distance and stood by the door, but she just sighed and nodded slightly. "Have you eaten today?"
"Yes," she lied. She knew she should have eaten something, but she really wasn't hungry. At all. Luckily the kettle whistled. Saved by the bell. "I'm fine, Lin."
Lin knew not to press any farther. He was lucky she hadn't completely shut herself down. But even he was aware that his worry was evident in his eyes.
Mai continued to put the leaves in the teapot and poured the hot water. Making tea was somewhat therapeutic for her. However, it lost its serene touch when she was being watched so closely and she could feel the eyes of her co-assistant behind her. Ignoring him as best as she could, she found a few cups in one of the cabinets.
"How was the drive up?" It was a stupid question and obviously being used to fill the silent void. But even the man who spoke knew it was out of character for him to do so. He practically lived in silence.
***
Kiko wasn't having much luck as she looked through yearbooks. It seemed that the trend of having yearbooks died somewhere around ten years before. Leaving her with not a lot of recent information, but quite a bit of old. She was also looking for old print outs of newspapers. If there had been anything like what the school was facing before, there had to be media attention. Otherwise they wouldn't go to such lengths to hide.
"That's odd," she said aloud as she was going through newspapers. "Why are there no papers for this prefecture? Hokkaido. Ibaraki. Tokyo. Kyoto. Hiroshima. Okinawa. But no Akita?"
Despite the possibly irrelevant information, Kiko grabbed several of the newspapers. She shook her head.
"I'll have to ask one of the librarians later."
***
"Move the camera up half a centimeter," Mai said into the headset. "A little more...perfect. Now to the right just a bit-there! That's perfect, Ayako."
"Thanks, I work so much better when someone can actually tell their right from their left," the priestess commented, Mai made a mental note to ask about that later.
"Okay, you still have about eight cameras to adjust." Mai rolled her eyes as she spoke and shrugged.
Aside from the orders to adjust cameras, Base was silent. Not that Mai minded. After having awkward small talk with her co-assistant, she was somewhat grateful for the silence. She just wished that their team was in a better mood. She wasn't sure if it was the nature of the case or her joining and everyone just happens to know what happened to her.
Jeez, stop it, Mai, she chided herself. Even you know how obvious your coverup job is. You never wear makeup.
"Monk, you walked past the camera," she said absently into the headset.
"Whoops, we're getting too good at hiding these things, I'm walking right past them!" Monk's voice could be heard over the line.
"Or age could just be catching up with you," Masako commented dryly in the background.
"You tease now, but trust me, young lady, you'll be old yourself one day. And I'm not that old!"
For the first time since she arrived, Mai felt the ghost of a smile grace her face as she listened to the banter. But work had to get done. "Just move it up a little, please...thank you. You have one more camera in that building and three more in the next and then you're done."
"Why thank you, young lady, we'll get this done ASAP."
She watched everyone on the cameras as they headed for the next assigned adjustment. She might not have been in the safest place in the world. Maybe she was safer waiting in Tokyo. But she was sure of one thing. She felt safer here than anywhere else. She may not be close enough to these people to really call them her family, but at least she felt that she could entrust them with her safety. She just hoped that she hadn't stepped into another snake's nest.
***
"No! Stop! Get away!" The feeble cries came from a voice that was all too familiar. A familiar scene. A different setting. It had changed every time.
The brunette ran down hallways in one version of the story, only to be caught and tackled to the ground. Or had been attacked in a park of some sort. Either way, the ending was always the same.
Tears. Bruises. Blood. Pain. Light draining from her eyes as her cries died down. There was nothing he could do as he saw her pinned to the undressed cot. Her tears ruining the makeup job she had done to cover her eye.
"Please...don't..." Her voice was barely a whimper now.
He watched helplessly as the unseen being tore off her clothing. The scene became black just as the girl let out a bloodcurdling screech followed by a choked sob.
***
February Day 2, 3:08 A.M.
"Mai!" His voice was breathless as he jumped out of bed. He was about to leap for the door when a hand grabbed his arm.
"Was it the same dream?" The tall man seemed completely unfazed to have been woken in the middle of the night. Then again, did he actually sleep? He guided the younger man back to his bed to sit down. No answer. "Same dream?"
The younger man let out a breath trying to gather his thoughts, but he nodded in answer.
Lin walked over to his own bed and sat down. "What was different?"
"It was here. Mai will be the next victim of this monster." Never in the young narcissist's life did he want to throw up just to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth.
Never had the narcissist been so sure he had a vision of the future.
Never had the narcissist dreamt of the future.
Never had the narcissist wanted to halt the investigation and get out.
Never had the narcissist felt so trapped in his own actions.
Never had the narcissist wished he never hired another assistant.