Dangerous Souls

Break A Leg

Chapter 5-Breathe

January Day 4, 3:56 P.M.

It was a warmer day today, the sun was out and the snow was melting. However, our favorite brunette knew that there was another set of snow showers heading their way within the next few days. It was a very snowy winter this year. About time, they hadn't had such a pretty winter in years.

Despite the warmth from the sun, Mai felt a shiver go down her spine. Ever since the incident on the roof she felt cold to the core. She was starting to think that maybe she was possessed, especially after what happened with Masako. But she really thought she had just spaced out and was wandering. It wasn't exactly unusual for her to do so.

She rounded a corner and yawned. She hadn't slept well at all. She woke up at one thirty and never went back to sleep. At the very least she got all of her homework completed for the weekend and she and Tsubame beat their record for their run, she was really getting sick of only getting two to four hours of sleep a night. To make matters worse, the events of the night before continued to play throughout her day and made it difficult to get her work done.

Ayako had examined the medium's eyes and sure enough, she was now blind. Inoue was flipping out on everyone and no one at the same time. Naru pretty much just scratched the poltergeist idea off the list, but still decided to let the experiment play out. The strangest thing wasn't that Masako didn't sense anything, but that she couldn't sense anything. Not wanting to worry her family, it was decided that the medium would stay at the priestess's home for the remainder of the case. Naru determined that once the case was solved, her sight would return. Or at the very least, he hoped.

To make matters worse, Mai had to cancel her plans with Shouta. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy and was hopeful to reschedule for the following day. So long as the case was solved before evening on Saturday, she was in the clear.

"Is there anyway you can get out early?" She remembered their phone conversation the night before.

"No, I've been skipping work a lot lately, Naru's going to get suspicious."

"Fine, just try to get out Saturday. He can't keep you there all day, even if he is paying you it's gotta be illegal."

"I'll try."

She yawned again, trying to stretch the sleepiness out of her arms at the same time. This was going to be a long day.

Buzz. Buzz.

That was either Shouta or Naru, Mai was sure. Shouta usually sent her a text right after class ended. However, she did text Naru to find out how Masako was doing. She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened the message.

No change in Miss Hara. Waiting for you to check the experiment.

Short and to the point. No sweetness involved. Definitely a Naru text. But the text came from a number not in her phone. How was that possible? She sent him a text earlier, and she could see it in the feed of previous text messages to that number. She could have sworn she resaved his phone number a few days ago. Maybe if they finished up the case quickly enough she and Shouta could go and get her phone looked at. There had to be a logical reason behind this. Right?

She turned one more corner and there the theater was. Her phone issues would have to wait. Her first priority was to help solve this case. Her second priority was to get some sleep.

***

Mai had gotten changed and left her bag and coat in Base, then met up with her boss and the crew. "Mai, Lin and I will check the experiment and see how that went. Miss Matsuzaki, Monk and Miss Hara will stick together and do temperature readings. Yasuhara, look deeper into the history of this place, see if there is a connection between the deaths and Miss Hara's blindness," Naru ordered. "John, continue to watch over Hoshiko, just because Miss Hara was attacked doesn't mean that she's the new target."