Dangerous Souls

To Receive and to Deceive

Chapter 3-Difficult

December Day 2, 1:52 P.M.

"Are you sure?" Naru asked the medium as they sat in Base waiting for Mai to return with his notebook.

"Like I said, I do sense several spirits here, but they are blurry, transparent if you will," Masako replied.

"Isn't that like most spirits?" Ayako teased, earning a scoff from the medium.

"What I mean is, they are almost hollow, like when Naru was possessed a few cases ago. I can't even tell you the ages or whether the spirits are male or female. I simply can't see them clearly."

"As though they are hiding themselves?" Naru asked, but she shook her head.

"No, that's just it, it doesn't feel as though they are hiding themselves. It's as though they are being forced to hide."

"Interesting..." he muttered to himself as the door to Base opened.

"We're back," Mai called as she walked in with Yasuhara, Monk, John and the other monk behind her. "This is Yuudai, he's the monk the principal hired." She handed her boss his notebook after introducing the monk. "That's Ayako, Masako, Lin, and my boss, Shibuya Kazuya."

"Nice to meet you," came the instinctive reply of the girls as they bowed.

"And you as well," Yuudai replied with a bow as well. "I hope my student here hasn't been harassing pretty ladies like yourselves, has he? He had some issues with that when he first came to Mt. Koya."

"Flirting with girls?" Mai raised a brow.

"No, the fact that he couldn't flirt with girls!" the monk laughed, causing Monk to cross his arms.

"Now, this guy is a total liar!" Monk reprimanded. "He's the one who would flirt with the mikos during ceremonies!"

"You're guilty of that too, Houshou!" Yuudai laughed. "I gotta say, it's good to be working with you again. Like old times."

"Yeah, it has been a while," he commented.

"So, Naru, what do you want us to do next?" Yasuhara asked. Naru opened his notebook, jotted something down and closed it.

"According to the EVP session yesterday and what Miss Hara has told us, we appear to have several spirits here, one we can assume is Kaede, the child who passed away several weeks ago. Yasuhara, I want you, Miss Matsuzaki and John to research the property and try to find the identities of the other spirits," he ordered. "Miss Hara, I would like you and Mai to visit room 3B, you said you weren't able to get in there due to students having class, according to Mr. Matsuoka, they should be having gym now."

"What are you going to do?" Mai asked him.

"Lin and I will brief Monk on what we know so far, and cooperate with Yuudai, to hopefully resolve this case quickly and efficiently." He stood up and looked at his team. "If there are no more questions, I would suggest we get to work."

Everyone stood up and went their separate ways.

***

Well, this is unusual, Mai wondered to herself. Naru has never really partnered me with Masako before. He normally wants Ayako with her because she can defend herself. Well so can Masako, but Ayako can exorcise spirits. Maybe he doesn't want to exorcise anything just yet?

"Are you going to just stand there and daydream or are you going to at least pretend to be productive?" Masako's smug voice broke Mai from her reverie.

"Geez, I'm sorry that I don't know what you want me to do, it's not like I'm paired with you every case," she retorted, crossing her arms. What the hell is wrong with her!