In Vino Veritas (Ghost Hunt) (NaruxMai)

Red Bow

Summary: Naru leaves Japan for England. 2 years later SPR is established again, but Mai is missing. Their first case is at a haunted Ryokan. Almost immediately Naru's path crosses with an amnesiac mother and her child. NaruxMai

Chapter 1:

"There was absolutely no need to meet me at the airport," a certain English scientist complained irritably. "Or follow me here. How many times have I reminded everyone that this office is not a cafe?"

"Stop complaining Naru-chan," Bou-san answered dismissively. "We haven't seen you or Lin for two years so we thought we would give you a friendly reception at the airport."

"Like you gave me a friendly send off two years ago?"

He though back to his departure from Japan two years ago. He and Lin had entered the terminal to find a red haired priestess, a long haired monk, a blonde Australian priest, a famous teenage psychic and a bespectacled student waiting to say good bye again. When he had walked off his flight at Narita two years later, he had found the same group waiting for him. But yet again a certain bubbly teenage girl hadn't been present...

Naru snapped back to the present and sat down in his usual armchair. "Is everyone willing to become involved in SPR cases again?" he enquired. "This is why I informed you of my return, not so you could greet me at the airport."

Everyone in the office exchanged looks before nodding at each other. Bou-san spoke first.

"We're all willing to rejoin SPR and help you again, but..."

"But what?" Naru asked interestedly, having a feeling that it involved the missing person.

"...Can you help us track down Mai first?" the monk finished his request.

For a reason unknown to Naru he felt a shiver run down his spine. "Mai is missing? How long has she been missing for?" he demanded as he pulled his laptop towards him and in the corner Lin began to take notes.

"Two years," Ayako answered.

"We haven't seen her since the night before you and Lin-san left, two years ago," John said with a faint Kansai accent.

"Really?" Naru wasn't sure that he had heard right. "Did you inform the Police?"

Ayako sighed. "After three days of having no replies to our phone calls, we visited her apartment and she didn't seem to be there. We talked to her landlord who said he hadn't seen her for three days, but he had seen her leaving on the morning that you left."

"So she had been intending to go to the airport," Naru said slowly. "She disappeared somewhere in between her apartment and Narita."

"That's what we thought so we contacted the Police and they made enquires for several days with no avail," Yasuhara informed him. "Then one of the officers gave us a list of all the people involved in traffic accidents on that day."

The scientist felt the first seeds of dread which increased when he saw the sad looks on everyone's faces.

"There were two traffic accidents with female victims that happened in the vicinity of her apartment and the airport," Bou-san began. "One was fatal.. and the body was so crushed that it was unrecognisable and we couldn't identify it."

Naru began to feel sick. It wasn't right that someone as cheerful as Mai could have an end like that. But then again, his kinder brother had encountered a similar fate."

"The other accident?"

"By the time we got the list, narrowed the results and tracked down which hospital the victim had been taken to, the person had left the hospital and the hospital wouldn't give out their name for security reasons," Yasuhara said.