"Testing. Testing." I sang into the ridiculously huge mike. I popped my earpiece in. "Good?"

"Better. Mai did a decent job on her own, though." Naru remarked over the line. "Where did you learn to wail like that?"

I ignored the last question. "She's great." I agreed. "You don't meet many people like her. Did you listen to the recording?"

"Yeah."

I huffed. The least he could do was be a little grateful for sticking up for him. There was slight static as he disconnected. "How can you stand him, Lin?"

Zzzz. "It takes a lot of self-discipline." Zzzz.

Poor guy. Sprinting up the stairs, I found a dusty old chair and dragged it into the mostly disassembled lab. Setting it in the absolute center, I dug the piece of chalk from my baggy jean jacket and did my best with the circle Naru had me draw around it. Satisfied that I'd done a good job, I set up the tripod just as Naru led Mai and John inside. "Where should we place the infrared camera?" The blond priest asked, shaking a chunk of hair out of his eyes.

"On the tripod." Once he did, Naru turned it on and strode back out into the hall. As I leaned over to adjust it, I smiled as I heard Mai pestering Naru. "Hey, hey, hey, hey. What's this?" She asked. "Naru-chan, Shibuya-sama. What is that?"

"It's a radar."

"Like one on an airplane? What are we using one for?"

I shook my head, chuckling. "How's the image?"

Zzz. "Move out of the way for a bit."

"Oh, right." Still squatting, I scuttled to the side.

"It's fine." Zzz.

Of course, working with both of them could get really old really fast. You'd have to have unmatchable energy to deal with these two. A pair of beaming faces surfaced in my mind. Madoka, and...

Eugene.

"Are you coming out?" John's kind face poked inside of the room. "We wouldn't want to seal you inside, would we?"

"No, of course not. Sorry." I hustled out and stood out of the way as Mai and John got to work, Mai hammering as John held the boards in place. I offered to help a few times, but each time I opened my mouth Naru found a new chore for me. Take the extra wires to the van or stack them on the side. Find the markers. Go out to the van—don't be lazy—and check the email. Why can't you make a normal cup of tea?

"Because I'm not your maid." I growled, shoving the cup back towards him before standing to grab my backpack. Mai and John had left for the night, and it was high time we'd left as well. "Not now, not ever."

"Don't you remember our agreement?" He took the cup and sipped it. It wasn't that he didn't like the tea, I realized, it was that he needed something to tease me with. He wouldn't show it, but if you watched he would get this sort of glint in his eyes. I had to correct my earlier observation: he was worse than I was. "Be grateful I'm not asking you to perform an exorcism."

"That would be really dumb of you." I assured him as he chugged the rest of his tea despite the steam curling off of it. "Since you're not dumb, I'm not worried."

I scrolled through the video the next morning. "Huh." I said, more than a little impressed. "I know this is real and all and I know they'll believe you, but I can't help but admire how trusting people can be. I mean, come on. What if the chair was pulled by strings?"

"They would've shown up in the infrared tape." Naru replied, bending down to watch the video again, no doubt dreaming about their incredulous reactions.

I paused. "Right, okay." I stood up, stretching my legs. "Why don't you sit down, Lin? You shouldn't move around so much, crutches or not."

"I'm fine." He said bluntly, leaning over to watch with Naru. They'd gotten a few seconds in when a groggy Mai stumbled around the corner, looking beyond annoyed. That melted into very obvious panic as she spotted Lin, whose already flinty stare hardened. Naru, however, didn't seem to notice. "You're early today." He observed.

"Well, something's been bothering me since yesterday." She replied pointedly while flashing Lin a smile he didn't return and bowing. "Can't you tell me? Please, oh please?"

Naru seemed to be actually deliberating her question. "Mai...can you keep a secret?"

She straightened, right hand in the air as if taking an oath. "If you tell me not to tell anyone, I won't." She said seriously.

He thought about it, then gave up. "Wait. Everyone's arriving now."

"Everyone? Why?"

It was pointless. Once he was absorbed in his papers, he was gone. Sighing, she turned to Lin and managed a bright, cheerful smile. "Is...is everything okay?" She asked sweetly.

No response, other than a stormy glance that sent her edging away as fast as possible without seeming rude. I gave him a long look.

It was a while before the others—including Kuroda, which annoyed Ayako to no end—showed up. "And what are you going to show us today?" Bou-san asked, amused. "Shouldn't you quit before you embarrass yourself again?"

I'd been holding the camera for Lin and moved to give him a piece of my mind. Naru, though, was faster. "I just need you to be one of the witnesses for the experiment." He said cooly as Lin took the camera from me and powered it on. "Mai, John. Please make sure the papers you signed yesterday are not damaged in any way."

"Ah, sure." Mai quickly ran an eye over the veneer boards. "They're okay."

"Right." John agreed.

"What about your signatures on the door?"

"Looks fine."

"Mine too."

Naru hefted our brand new crowbar and, without hesitation, drove it deep into the boards with a sharp crack. The others looked on with confusion, but I couldn't help but beam as he tore down the veneer and stepped aside to let the others see the room. Lin's camera focused on the disturbed chalk circle and then moved to the chair lying on it's back on the other side of the room. "The chair!" Mai yelped.

"Shibuya-san, the chair moved!" John said, his blue eyes wide.

Naru smiled. "That's right." He said, his voice oozing satisfaction.

"Hey, no way!" Ayako protested angrily. Naru's smile didn't waver as he checked the infrared tape. A bright orange glow lit up his face.

"Hey, Naru-chan..." Bou-san began, but Naru cut him off.

"Thanks for your help, everyone. I'll be leaving later on today."

Mai looked as if she'd been physically hit. "Are you implying that you've solved the case?" Bou-san demanded.

"That's exactly right."

Ayako smirked knowingly. "Land subsidence?"

"Yes. The case requested by the school principle can be explained as a result of land subsidence."

"Ha!" Bou-san shook his head, amused. "But how do you explained what happened in the lab yesterday, and the poltergeist from yesterday?"

"Those were poltergeist." Naru replied, rewinding the tape.

Bou-san gave us an I-told-you-so grin. "You can't exorcise them, can you? You're just going to leave after you're done with your research."

I really wanted to knock the smile off his face, but Naru wasn't fazed at all. He was probably used to his type. "In my opinion, there's no need to exorcise. Would you like to a look?"

Like they would turn down the invitation. They crowded around, watching quietly as the camera focused on the immobile chair. The only one who seemed mildly uncomfortable was Kuroda, the one who'd insisted there were ghosts here from the beginning. "What's this all about?" She demanded.

Suddenly, the chair moved.

It marked backwards smoothly as if an invisible person jerked it backwards, the wooden feet screeching against the old wood floorboards. Startled, Mai clutched Bou-san, but I didn't blame her. A chill ran down my spine and I found myself mentally running through every dua that I knew. One of my sisters had always jokingly blamed everything mildly spooky on jinns, but now that I was watching the chair it wasn't even mildly funny.

The chair probably would've gone until it hit the wall, but I was moving so fast that it tipped backwards with a thump. Bou-san cleared his throat as Naru stopped the tape. Their eyes were glued to the chair lying a few feet away. "That..." His voice cracked, but no one was in the mood to even smile. "That was indeed a poltergeist! We'd better exorcise—"

"That's not necessary." Naru cut him off as he bent to lift the chair. "I had autosuggested to all of you yesterday that the chair would move last night."

Mai's eyes widened. "In the principal's office!"

He acknowledged her with a nod. "All of the windows and doors in the room were locked from the inside and covered with veneer boards. Nobody could enter the room, and if anyone did try to break in, it would be apparent."

"I see. The boards would be broken and couldn't be replaced because John and I wrote out names on all of them." Mai agreed. John nodded in confirmation.

"Correct."

I wasn't sure about that. It would be easy to remove the boards and replace them, and replicating their handwriting would be a matter of carefully lining up the veneer. I wanted to say as much but seeing how that would ruin Naru's experiment, I kept my mouth shut. I'd suggest a fingerprints test to him later.

"Half of all poltergeist cases are attributable to humans."

"Pranks?"

"No. A type of psychic energy. Most of the time, it happens unconsciously." Mai didn't seem to understand, so he translated. "For example, say someone is stressed out. He or she strongly desires to be noticed, or wants attention from others, and is unconsciously building up energy. In such cases with autosuggestion, a situation like this can occur."

Bou-san nodded to himself slowly. "So you're saying the chair was moved by human willpower?"

"Most likely. At least my experiment to prove this didn't fail." Naru replied oh-so-modestly. Self confident was the explanation he'd given me, but I was starting to think that there were limits to self-confidence.

Everyone was silent and thinking, their eyes moving around the lab as they tried to figure out who it could have been. Slowly and surely, their eyes landed on Kuroda.