Chapter 4
Aki's P.O.V
"Aki, we're here." Mai said shaking me awake. I opened my eyes and yawned as I stretched my arms above my head.
"Oh, so this is the school, huh? It's pretty big." I said as we got out of the car.
"I wonder what kind of poltergeist activity is going on. Naru didn't exactly tell us what's going on." Monk said frowning as we walked up to the school. We spotted Ayako, Masako, Lin, and Naru waiting by the school entrance with a man whom I obviously didn't recognize.
"Well he didn't exactly get the chance to tell us." John said smiling as we walked up to them.
"This is Hideyoshi-san, he's the counselor. He's going to take show us where we're going to set up base." Naru said as we bowed respectively towards him.
"Hello everyone, thank you for coming. Ichirou-san the principal isn't in today, so the vice principal Ishida-san asked me to show you to your room."
"Thank you." Mai frowned at this.
"Hey, Mai, what's wrong?" I whispered to her.
"Why can't Naru ever thank me when I bring him tea!?" She whispered furiously. I chuckled.
"He liiiikes you~" I said grinning. She blushed.
"He does not!"
"Aw, you're so cute when you're in denial." She glared at me and I just laughed.
"Is something funny?" Naru asked staring at me hard. I rolled my eyes.
"Yes, but you wouldn't get it if it danced in front of you naked, so why bother asking?" Everyone just stared at me opened mouthed and wide-eyed in shock. Naru sighed looking annoyed.
"Can we just get back to work?" He asked after a short pause.
"Sure thing, boss man!" I said grinning. He began to massage his temples as we finally arrived at our destination. I smirked. This isn't going to be as bad as I thought it would be.
"You can all use the conference room." Hideyoshi-san said looking a bit awkward after hearing what I said to Naru.
"Thank you Hideyoshi-san." I said smiling and bowing. He nodded and left the room a bit quick.
"I think you scared him." Monk said snickering a bit. I shrugged.
"It's not my problem." Naru sighed.
"Let's go over the poltergeist activities and get the stories from the students before we get the equipment brought in."
"Aye, sir!" I said grinning.
"I thought you said you weren't going to do the grunt work?" Ayako said smirking. I shrugged.
"I didn't realize how fun it would be to annoy Naru, so I'll be happy to help." I said smirking at Naru. He sighed.
"Fine, do whatever you want."
"Aye, sir!"
"It's a bit heavy." Monk said as I followed him and Mai out of the room. I shrugged.
"That doesn't bother me."
"We thought for sure he'd get mad at you earlier." Mai said looking relieved. I snickered.
"Nah, if he's the kind of person I think he is, he'll get me back for it later. I look forward to it."
"Oh? I never knew you had a reckless side." Monk said grinning.
"Yeah, well what's life without a little recklessness?"
"You know that way of thinking can get you into a lot of trouble." Ayako said frowning. I shrugged.
"It's not like I have to try or anything." I muttered as I picked up a monitor and it was heavy but oh well.
"Why do you say that?" Mai asked curiously.
"Hm? Oh, it's nothing." I said distractedly as I followed Monk back to base with the monitor. I always seem to get into some kind of trouble whether it's my own fault or not. It's mostly others bullying me because they heard I can see and talk to ghosts, but then there are times where I would be walking home or just walking around in general, then something weird would happen; like if the sky was clear, it'd suddenly start thundering and lightning out and I'd get soaked. This one time I was walking home from school and this guy tried to take my school bag, but thankfully the friends that I had at the time, showed up and scared the guy off. Then there was this other time where after my friends at the time found out about me seeing ghosts, I was just walking to the grocery store to get some things for Nii-chan, I was at a stop light waiting to cross the road. It was weird because I was the only one there and there weren't any cars, so when it said walk, I started to cross the road and the next thing I know, a car was crossing the road at high speed and I just barely got out of the way, but it was just so strange.
"Aki, is something wrong?" Ayako asked looking concerned.
"A-ah, yeah, I'm fine...." I gasped as I heard a loud crack from above Mai's head. "Mai, look out! That branch is going to fall on you!" She gasped and ran towards me and Ayako. The branch nearly missed her.
"What's going on?" Naru demanded as he and Lin ran met up with us at the door.
"That tree branch nearly flattened Mai." Monk said shocked.
"And Aki told me to move out of the way. How'd you know?" Mai asked looking at me with wide-eyes. I sighed.
"This always happens to me. It doesn't matter where I'm at or who I'm with. I told you before."
"That was the doing of a ghost?" Ayako asked raising an eyebrow.
"I'm not sure. It's always been like this since I was little. Incidents like just now, they've always happened to me. This is the first time I've seen it happen to someone who isn't myself..." I said worriedly. "This doesn't look good."
"So this has nothing to do with the case?" Naru asked frowning. I sighed.
"No, it doesn't have anything to do with the case. It doesn't happen very often but I'm worried that it might happen again now that it's happened to Mai."
"I see, we're going to have to be more careful." I nodded. We finally loaded all the equipment up in the conference room and Naru told us about the poltergeist activities. In the library, tables and chairs would be flipped over when the librarian walked in first thing in the morning, in the cafeteria, the food trays would be scattered all over the floor and tables, in the chemistry classroom, the test tubes would be broken and the chairs would be strewn across the floor, and in gym, the balls would be scattered everywhere and sometimes the doors would shut on their own and lock the students in for about ten minutes tops. Wow, this is very serious. I wonder if whoever's doing is doing it because they're angry with the school or they're just doing it as a prank.
"Do you think maybe this could be a human?" Monk asked curiously.
"I'm not sure, but if it's okay with the principal, I'd like to gather all the students and staff members in the gym and test them." Naru said thoughtfully. Hm, I wonder what kind of test he's talking about. Mai seemed to know what he meant and nodded.
"I'll go find Ishida-san and ask him." She said determined.
"Have someone go with you, I don't want something to happen like earlier." Naru said frowning. I sighed. Then I'm out.
"I'll come with you, Mai." Ayako said shrugging. Mai smiled and the two left the room.
"So have you seen anything yet?" Masako asked me. I frowned.
"No, but I've only been here and the entrance of the school. So I can't be sure." I said shrugging.
"Then you and Miss Hara can take a walk through of the school and report anything you might find. Monk and John, you two can take go too. Lin and I are going to work on where to set up the cameras." Everyone nodded and I followed Masako out of the room.
"So, you can sense the presence of spirits, right?" I asked her curiously.
"Yes, can you?"
"No, I can only see and speak to them."
"Did you see any spirits when that branch almost hit Mai?"
"No," I said frowning. "Now that I think about it, I've never seen any spirits when stuff like that happened to me. It's almost as if the spirit is hiding."
"When was the last time it happened?"
"That was three weeks ago, I almost got ran over by a kid on a bike. He lost control of it. I mean I heard him a few meters back and he was doing just fine but as soon as he got close to me, he lost control and I was almost hit."
"Hm, that does sound troubling."
"I don't know what it is, but it's starting to scare me. I'm afraid one day I won't be able to get out of the way in time." I said sighing.
"I'm sure Naru is trying to figure it out at this very moment." She said smiling. I chuckled.
"He sure is one for the mysteries, huh?" She chuckled.
"Yes, he wouldn't be himself if he wasn't."
"That's true."
"What were you talking about before that branch fell?" She asked curiously.
"Oh well, Mai told me she thought for sure Naru was going to get mad at me but I told her what's life without a little recklessness and then Ayako told me that that way of thinking would get me into trouble and I couldn't help but think of all the times I've had those incidents and then as we were about to enter the school, I heard the tree branch snap and told Mai to get out of the way." She nodded. "If I didn't have a monitor in my hands, I would've ran over there and pushed her out of the way."
"And this hasn't happened to anyone else but you before?"
"Nope, that's why I'm so worried." There was silence between the two of us for a few minutes before she gasped. "Do you sense something?"
"There's a dark spirit heading towards the roof."
"Should we go after it?" She shook her head.
"I'm no exorcist and I don't know any warding spells strong enough for this. Let's head back." I nodded and the two of us quickly went back to the base.
"What's wrong you two? You look like you've seen a ghost." Monk said teasingly as we walked in looking out of breath.
"I felt a dark spirit going to the roof." Masako explained. Naru narrowed his eyes at this. I decided I was going to go check the roof and ran out of the room.
"Aki, where are you going!?" John called as he and the others followed me.
"Outside to see if it's there!" I yelled back as I made it out of the doors. I quickly looked to the roof and gasped.
"Do you see it?" Naru asked curiously.
"Yes and it looks pissed. Maybe it's because of us? I don't know. All I can tell that it's saying is that it wants us to go away. This one is different from the ones I usually see. It's corrupted by anger and hate." I muttered shivering slightly. Suddenly it looked me in the eyes and I froze up, eyes wide. What does it want from me? I saw the look in its eyes. There was evil behind it and it was definitely up to something.
"Aki, what's wrong?" John asked looking concerned.
"It's up to no good..." I said sliding down to the ground. "We have to watch our backs."
"Aki!" Mai called running over to me. She and Ayako had just shown up. "Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah...." I have a bad feeling about this case. Why did I agree to do this? Naru was right, of course. I could've just said no but I was curious about what their usual cases were like. Well, you know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat. I took in a deep calming breath and let it out slowly.
"Are you calm now?" Naru asked me. Wow, who knew he could be so nice?
"Yes, sorry." I said standing up. "But I'm serious, this thing isn't going to go without a fight." I looked back up at the roof. "It's gone now. I wonder where it ran off to..."
"I'm not sure, but I don't think this will be the last of it." Masako said frowning. Naru sighed.
"Let's get the cameras set up." Mai nodded.
"Oh and Ishida-san said it was okay for us to do the test. He said he'll call an assembly tomorrow morning at 9."
"Good. Mai, you and I are going to do the test tomorrow in the gym. And while that's going on, I want everyone else to check the data. Lin is going to do some research on the school. Miss Haru, you can come with me and Mai. I assume you want to know what the test is." I nodded. "After we have the cameras set up, you can all go home. There isn't much for us to do. Let's meet up at the office at 6." Everyone nodded and I decided to help Mai with the cameras and microphones. John came along with us.
"You didn't have to help me." Mai said as I helped her carry some stuff. I shrugged.
"I'm in no rush to get home." John was being oddly quiet but oh well.
"Can I ask you something personal?" She asked quietly after a few minutes of silence.
"Sure, knock yourself out."
"Do you and your parents fight all the time?" I frowned.
"Yeah, we do a lot and it gets exhausting after awhile. That's why I'm not really in a hurry to get home."
"Have they ever gotten physical?" John asked looking concerned. I shook my head.
"No, but there were a few times where I thought my dad was going to. He never did though. He'd just turn around and stomp out of the house and then my mom would yell at me for making him mad and finally I'd just give up and go to my room and ignore her. I don't get why she hates me so much, her sister used to be able to see ghosts and talk to them."
"Used to?" Mai asked curiously.
"Yeah, she died in a car accident when she and my mom were 18. Mom said she saw a ghost out in the middle of the street and thought it was a living person. So she stepped on the break and I guess the back breaks weren't working properly so, the car ended up flipping over and my aunt died on impact but my mom got out of there with a concussion and some scratches." I said sighing.
"Maybe she doesn't hate you, but just the fact that you have the same ability as her sister." John said thoughtfully. I shrugged.
"I don't know. I guess it really doesn't matter anymore because we still fight anyways." Mai frowned at that. There wasn't anything she or any one of them could do to change that. I can't make my mom not hate me for being able to see and talk to ghosts. After setting up the cameras, we all squished back into the cars and headed home.
"Are you sure you don't want me to just drop you off at home?" Monk asked me curiously, once we were back at the office. I shook my head.
"No I'll be fine walking home." I said smiling. "But thanks for the offer." He sighed. "Good night everyone."
"Good night, Aki." Mai and John said smiling. I nodded to them and headed home. Today's been a really long day. I thought as the sun started to set. I'm surprised mom and dad didn't care that I went on this case with Naru and the others. I thought for sure that they would oppose to it. Oh well... I thought as I walked into the house.
"I'm home." I announced walking into the living room. Mom ignored me, Dad grunted, and Nii-chan just smiled at me. "Good night." I said before going to my room. I took a quick bath before going to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day too. I needed to be ready for what may happen.