SPR: Is This Normal CH - 62

14AmyChan: Okay, I'm late, but I'm gonna try to get this case moving at a decent speed. It seems like it's moving super slow to me, and I want to get some progress in the gase as well as interpersonal relations.

Naru: It seems you truly do wish to improve. *slightly impressed*

14AmyChan: My-tea my-tea my-tea my-tea mouse~!

Naru: I retract my previous statement.

Mai: Naru, don't be so mean!

Naru: I refuse. She does not own me or you or anyone in the Ghost Hunt universe.

Mai: True, but that doesn't give you the right to be mean!

Naru: *glares*

Mai glanced about herself in her Astral Plane. There were no ghosts here, and for that she was thankful. However, she felt as though she needed to find something. Something that could be of use to the team and to the investigation as a whole.

But what could she do that would not gather a mob of devastated ghosts looking for redemption or salvation?

Mai hummed about it as she thought over the day's events. Was there anything that could help her narrow the search? Something that someone had said or found during the one day they had been there that would give her a place to start looking?

"My first dream was a useless scene of two people building this place—I didn't even get any names—"

"Kor Kappuri was the original owner of the building back in 1550. He and his coworker, Gina Marie, had built the structure from the ground up."

"Maybe if I had a name I could narrow down my search on the Astral Plane..."

Mai hit her forehead with her palm. She had the information to start narrowing down her search; it was simply a matter of remembering it long enough to do something useful. With her determination renewed, she took a deep breath and decided that the best way to call a spirit to her—should they still be lingering—would be to call their name.

"Kor Kappuri-san?" Mai asked the thin air. Very abruptly, she knew she was no longer alone on her Astral Plane. The presence that accompanied, however, her was not the unfamiliar one she had been expecting. No, this was a very familiar presence.

When Mai turned to the panther, she was greeted with the darkest blue eyes that she had ever known. They were intelligent and seemed to be more than slightly peeved with her and her current actions. She huffed and looked away.

"It's not like we were getting anywhere without me trying anything. You know we have too many options to explore," she muttered. She was only trying to help move the case along. Suddenly, a thought struck her and she turned back around to face the panther once more. "So are you like a thought extension or a totally separate entity altogether?"

The panther glared coolly at her, and she could practically feel the 'are-you-really-that-stupid' waves coming off of the beast. She frowned.

"Hey, it's not like I got a doctorate at fifteen. Only crazy people do that!" she defended herself. It was not her fault that she did not know so much about animal familiars. Perhaps she would have if she had tuned into the professor's and Bou-san's conversation earlier, but that had been the time when she had formed a solid theory as to who the panther was. Or belonged to. Or whatever!

"Kor Kappuri-san!" Mai called out recklessly, deciding to take a few strides forward, deciding to ignore the panther for now. The jilted animal followed her, obviously keeping an eye out for anything dangerous. "Kor Kappuri-san, if you're still in this place, I need to talk to you!"

Mai waited a while longer whilst walking around her plane, occasionally calling out. Every time she did so, the panther that walked with her growled, as though there were something dangerous nearby, but refusing to come.

"I wonder why Kor Kappuri-san isn't coming... It's not like there's any possible way he could still be alive," Mai wondered aloud. The man had lived several generations ago. He would be well over three hundred years old! Mai looked to her companion.

"I wonder... can you talk to me?" she asked. The panther gave her a deadpan glare. She frowned. "No need to be a sour puss... I'm just trying to figure it all out. We've got this case with paranormal activity with seemingly no trigger or culprit, and I've got you around my Astral Plane and I don't even know fully what you are. Though your presence is a lot like Naru's, so I know you're connected to him somehow.

"Masako said that animal familiars were thought forms or spiritual entities. She also told me they kind of serve as a form of protection," she explained. "I know Naru can't go outside of his body, he told me so himself when we found Gene, but if animal familiars are thought forms, and he had a desire to protect me—and I know he does cause he always does and Yasu snuck the file from Lin's office—and Naru has a lot of bundled up psychic energy—like the kind he uses in PK—then it would make sense that you're his animal familiar.

"What I can't put together is why you're showing up now, what part you play in Naru's conscious—like if he's gonna remember anything from this or if you're not a part of his memory—if he can send you while he's awake, and if having you near me will hurt him," Mai finished up, scratching her head. Her last statement caused her frown to deepen. "I wouldn't want to have Naru hurt on my account because he's worried about me… If having you around has him get hurt, I'm going to have to find a way to convince him that I'll be okay on my own."

"Does he not believe in you?" an unfamiliar voice asked from behind, causing Mai's attention to snap drastically from the panther to the owner of the new voice. The brunette's eyes widened as soon as she caught a hold of the person who had spoken.

Naru moved swiftly to base. It was eleven p.m. and he wanted to take his shift now. The only reason he had not done so earlier was because his father had wished to speak to him once everyone had gone to bed. Giving the shift to his teacher was the most competent direction he felt he could have taken, given that she would know exactly what to look for and he knew from prior experience that she had the stamina to watch for however many hours was necessary.

He could not for the life of him understand why his father was suddenly against his staying in Japan. He had only been out of their sight for a few hours and it had been enough to send the man back into his indecisive state.

What did he see that would cause this reaction...? Naru pondered as he made it into the base. I had suspected this would happen to mother given her emotional tendencies, but not to father...

"Noll, did you need something?" Madoka asked, bringing the boy out of his reverie. He had arrived at the base.

"I'll take my shift now," he stated bluntly, leaving no room for argument or complaint. But Madoka has never needed room to argue with her student.

"I'll be staying on this shift, Noll," she returned without batting an eye. "Koujo and I were discussing something that may pertain to the case, but may not."

"Your method of deflecting my attention needs improvement," Naru deadpanned. He cast his eyes toward Lin, who was steadily typing into the computer. He was inputting the data that had been gathered within the past hour or so and would finish shortly. "If it pertains to the case, then there is no reason as to why I should leave."

"And if it does not, then there is no reason why you should stay," the pinkette said. "If anyone were to leave, then it would be Koujo, as he drove into town and has been sitting at this computer all day since arrival. It's obvious that he needs more rest than I."

Naru's eyes narrowed. While her argument was valid, he had a sneaking suspicion that his crafty teacher was up to no good.

Still, he pondered, casting his eyes towards Lin once again. The man did seem tired—as evidenced by his three slip-ups in typing in as many seconds—and he would be needed in excellent condition for tomorrow. He had another day's worth of typing ahead of him, and Naru intended to have the man cart his girlfriend around, hopefully keeping her in line. Yes, the man would need rest.

"Lin," he ordered. The man cast a dangerous look at his charge, daring him to finish that sentence. Naru debated briefly which person would be easier to remove from the base so he could take his shift.

Thud!

A noise from one of the monitors broke the man from his silent debate. All eyes instantly shot to monitor number seven, which was filming the kitchen where the girls had been attacked earlier that day.

Thud!

Nothing was moving on the screen, and for a moment the paranormal experts felt they were looking in the wrong place.

Thud, wham!

Naru's eyes jetted to monitor number five, which was filming the door which held the padlocked construction supplies. Everyone could hear the loud thuds and the obvious disturbance of equipment, as well as see the door tremble slightly with each new sound. The raven haired man watched the screen carefully, looking for any sign of corporeal intruders.

A few minutes later, at eleven fifty-two, the noise ended abruptly. Lin made a notation on his document of the event as well as the times at which it started and stopped and for a moment, his continuous typing on the computer was all the room heard.

"Did we get the tapes from Kappuri-san's security cameras?" Madoka asked Naru suddenly. The boy nodded, thinking that they had not had the time to go through the footage in order to find anything of use.

"Madoka, gather the security footage from two nights ago, when Sora-san and Kora-san were putting the equipment away," Naru ordered. Madoka gave a cheeky grin, her being ordered to work a victory over Naru's previous attempt to shuffle her (or Koujo!) from the room. She looked through the surprisingly meticulously organized tapes until she found what she was looking for. She plopped the tape in and began to watch.

"Looks like Kappuri-san didn't have footage of inside the room," Madoka noted aloud. Naru watched over her shoulder as Kora-san left the room with a kind smile, leaving Sora-san inside for five minutes. It was at that point that Sora-san backed out of the room and fled. Madoka sped the video up and resumed normal speed when the video's time read eleven forty-five, about the time their own attack had just occurred.

As Madoka listened to the track, Naru watched the live feed from behind Lin's shoulder. There seemed to be no activity going on, which gave Naru enough time to glance over at the thermal camera. During the activity, there had been cold spots in the kitchen and in the equipment room. Though the fluctuation in the kitchen happened for only a brief moment and Naru doubted the validity of this evidence.

Was it paranormal, or simply a result of something much more easily explained? He had a feeling he would know by tomorrow's end.

"Well, we're off!" Yasu saluted towards his boss, a pouting Madoka in tow. She had wanted to stick around and bounce some more ideas off of her boyfriend, but Noll had shot that down fairly quickly that morning during breakfast. Evidently, in the interest of gaining more information, the pinkette was being forced to leave.

He just wants revenge on me because I managed to take his shift last night, she thought childishly, remembering with glee how she had finally pushed the young man to get some rest. She would have to share her secrets with Mai later, though part of her believed the girl would come up with her own methods soon enough.

"We shouldn't take long," Madoka stated to Naru, her silent promise to get him back later if her overly sweet smile was not an indication enough. She rested her hand on her boyfriend's shoulder, pleased when he halted in his typing long enough to give her a look of temporary farewell. She always loved it when he looked at her with those caring eyes of his.

"You wound me, Koujo!" Yasu shrieked playfully, ruining their moment. "I thought we had something!"

Lin went back to his typing in a hurry.

"Are you feeling sick?"

Mai blinked back into reality, startled to find Ayako's face so close to her own. The woman was currently checking the brunette's temperature with her hand.

"Ah, no, I'm fine, Ayako," Mai hastily reassured the miko, waving her hands in front of her and breathing in quiet relief when her mother-figure backed up an adequate amount. "I'm just thinking about some things."

"Oh?" the miko wondered, her suspecting tone sending warning flags to Mai. "Does it have anything to do with why you left the room at about three o'clock this morning and didn't wake Masako or I, and then didn't return until five in the morning?"

Mai's face paled when she realized that she and Ayako were not the only participants of their conversation due to the loudness of the latter's tone. She could feel Naru glaring daggers into her back and raised her hands in surrender without even turning to look at him.

"I came to the base to tell Naru about a dream I had, but he wasn't here," she defended herself. "Madoka said he looked sick, so I went to check on him and—"

"Ara? You watched Shibuya-san as he slept? Most improper," Masako lightly scolded her friend from behind her kimono sleeve, who was becoming redder by the second. The medium glanced over at the boss to see that his eyebrow was raised and he was looking at Mai seemingly nonchalantly. Masako could detect no other difference in his facial expression.

"It wasn't like that!" Mai whined. "I just looked in for a second and then came back to base! Madoka was lying, anyways, Naru was fine!"

"Oh? So you felt his forehead for a temperature?" Ayako checked, pushing Mai further. The girl shook her head swiftly, attempting to find a way out of the conversation. She should have been too embarrassed to do so, but she eventually looked to Naru for help. The look on his face was evidence enough that he was not going to be of any assistance. At least, not willingly. To Mai, it was obvious that he was surprised that she had been hear him while he slept. He seemed torn between amusement, embarrassment, and a need to get work done. Mai—in a desperate attempt to get the attention off of how she invaded Naru's sleeping quarters last night—decided to appeal to the latter of his emotions.

"A woman talked to me last night in my dreams!" she blurted loudly. Her diversion tactic worked, though a touch too effectively.

14AmyChan: Okay, I hope this works for all of ya'lls!

Madoka: Just out of curiosity, what was with the "my-tea mice" thing?

14AmyChan: Choral warmup. It's supposed to be "mighty mouse", but I use "my-tea" to get the pronunciation right. XD

Madoka: So it's not just gibberish?

14AmyChan: Nope.

Madoka: Ha! Lin, you owe me twenty yen!

Lin: *silently passes the money to Madoka*

14AmyChan: You guys were betting on my answer?

Madoka: It's a good way to make some cash.

Lin: If you were entertained and looking for the next chapter, please relay your thoughts to 14AmyChan so she can continue to write.

14AmyChan: Oh, and by the way, all ten of you liked the idea of Mai as an otter. XD