Most people voted for Chapter 4 to come out earlier, so here it is. You probably won't get chapter 5 till next week at the earliest, but I promise it won't be another hiatus like last time ;)

Chapter 4: Ward 26D

To the Lady Ayami,

I am writing in regards to your RSVP for the upcoming summit located in Pompei.

We had been previously assured by His Grace of the House of Alexander that you would be attending the next meeting. We regret to point out that you have not been present for a single bi-yearly meeting of the Five since your ascension of the title.During this time, you have had His Grace represent all votes for your clan. We understand that your time is precious;however, these meetings are essential to the continual armistice of the Five, hence we urge you to reconsider your decision.

With all due respect, my lady, your use of profanities in your refusal note will not appease the other three families when they enquire as to why both the Caecilius Clan and the House of Alexander were unable to attend the bi-yearly summit.

Unfortunately, "Fuck you" is not a viable response.

Please understand our difficulties in this matter. We have heard that you have acknowledged an heiress for the Caecilius Clan. If you are unable to make the event, may I respectfully suggest that the Lady Mai Taniyama attend in your place? The head of the Ramirez Family, Don Zacharias Ramirez, has elected to send his heir therefore the Lady Mai would not be the only successor at the meeting.

We have included another copy of the invitation for your perusal. It would be a great honour for our entity to be sanctified with your clan's presence.

With Regards,

Constantine de Ansa

Head Minister of The United Collegia

April 7th, Day 3

6.57AM

Breakfast was again a disheartening affair when the beeping sound just would not relent.

Mai had done everything she could think of to rest last night. She'd read, she'd suffocated herself with her bed sheets. She'd even tried luring, freezing, and exorcising a few wayward spirits in order to exhaust herself but that hadn't worked either.

Now, here she was, trying to have breakfast without even a minute's sleep from the night before. Mai tried her best to eat, but with the noise so prominent in her mind, all she could do was lean her eyes against her palm as she tried desperately to rest. She knew her elbows were on the table and she knew that she probably wasn't a pretty sight, but Mai was so tired at the moment that she really couldn't care.

She wasn't even sure how long it was she'd retained that position, but suddenly, a slight shift in the air alerted her of company and when she dragged her head up, she saw that someone had donned to sit down across from her with a half-eaten plate of food.

What on Earth was Naru doing here? When she'd taken a random stroll in the wee hours of the morning, she'd seen that his room was still brightly light. She wasn't even sure what time it was he'd slept, but now, here he sat, bright, fresh, and awake, when she could barely even keep her eyes open.

There was something really unfair about that.

"I'm going to go check up on all the equipment," Mai said, pushing her still-full plate in. She hated wasting food, but she really couldn't eat. To her surprise, Naru imitated her action after setting his knife and fork down.

"I'll come with you, Mai."

"I can probably manage alone," Mai told him. They'd said so themselves yesterday – these ghosts seemed quite pedestrian, so Mai could probably hold her own against them. While she probably wasn't the most powerful of them all, Mai was confident that she could handle the everyday ghost without aid.

"A camera in Ward 26D appears to be faulty. I need to check on it myself."

He probably didn't trust her to check on his equipment in her half-dead state and honestly, Mai couldn't really blame him. Her entire body felt like lead. So instead, she nodded a few times before grabbing her clip board. Just as she was about to head out, her eyes caught sight of his still-full plate.

"Well, why don't you finish your food first," Mai suggested, collapsing into the crook of her arm. "It's not good to forgo breakfast."

She felt a flicker of concern from his direction – which was impossible, seeing as she wasn't looking for him –and Mai ignored it. Mai wasn't sure how long it was she'd sat there for, but eventually, she heard the rustling of Naru standing, so she moved to do so too.

Even Mai, partially spaced out though she was, could see the numerous looks and whispers the employs of the hospital were giving Naru. She vaguely recalled Naru getting the same reaction yesterday when she'd been walking with him.

Naru, however, seemed completely indifferent to their stares and continued looking straight ahead as he walked beside her.

"If your abilities are bothering you, perhaps we can have Lin seal them off momentarily."

It was warming that he seemed concerned, but in a hospital like this, the last thing she wanted was to go without her powers. She was sure that the other members of SPR could help her out, but Mai didn't want to be anyone's burden when she knew she could take care of herself.

"I'll be fine," Mai murmured. Then, a thought struck her. "What about you? Gene's apparently in this hospital, too. Have you been able to sense anything from him?"

Ayami had sent her various books based on supernatural studies. One of them, authored, ironically enough, by an O. Davis apparently claimed that psychic twins had even more of a connection than normal ones. His empirical research had been limited, especially since the number of psychic twins was rather limited. To about one set. Apparently, he looked at twins in history too, and his theory had been proven through those records.

Mai figured that her cousin thought it would be amusing to provide Mai a book written by Naru to describe Naru's link with his brother.

"I haven't been able to sense Gene at all. If the information hadn't come from your cousin, I'd have doubted the validity of the source."

Wow. A compliment paid to Ayami. Mai made sure to commit this moment to memory, because she doubted there would be many words leaving Naru's lips that heeded in Ayami's favour.

Naru, however, had moved on from her cousin. He paused momentarily as he held the door open for her. "How are the developments of your abilities? I know you've been practicing on your own."

Mai slipped through the opened door quickly and Naru shut it behind him. "We left for this case pretty soon, so I could only practice for a few hours. But ah, it's good. I've been practicing, and Ayami drew some seals for me before she flew back to Australia. A few of them have been attracting some weak-levelled spirits. I've managed to freeze a few of them and I exorcised a few ghosts too."

She'd been extremely pleased with herself after she'd managed to attract and exorcise her very first ghost on her own. Mai had smiled for hours.

Naru, however, didn't seem too impressed by what she had to say. To him though, what had taken her hours to accomplish was probably something he mastered within minutes.

"You've been practicing by yourself?"

There was a hint of disapproval veiled in his words. Again, Mai blinked. Perhaps she was super tired, because lately, she felt as though she were imagining everyone's emotional responses.

"Ayami's seals are pretty good and I've been meditating every day," Mai said, nodding slowly. "So yeah, it's not too hard."

They'd reached the first camera, and after Mai checked it and ticked it off on her clip board, they moved again.

Naru, surprisingly, was the first person to speak. "I have been using my abilities in an attempt to imitate your action of freezing Yukito-chan. It's not quite as easy as you made it out to be."

It took a moment for the implications of his words to register. Was he trying to say that she was pretty good at this?

Nah, that couldn't be it.

"I thought you said your psychic powers were a little off ever since Gene went missing," Mai said instead.

"I'm starting to be able to control them again," Naru stated, "without putting so much of a strain on my body."

Mai nodded, then, slowly, her lips curved to the point of a grin. They'd reached the next camera, but even as she inspected it, the humour didn't leave.

She nudged him, her slight headache forgotten. "Ayami's method works, eh?"

He didn't say anything, but he did cast her a dry look. Mai's amusement deepened as they continued walking. "Why can't you just admit that she's not that bad? You know, she actually not a horrible person."

"Pity she likes to keep that a secret between the two of you."

Mai snorted back her amusement. While she didn't like what he had said, she couldn't really argue with it. Mai would never go as far as calling Ayami a good person and she knew that what little empathy Ayami had for the world was kept very well hidden. Strange, though, considering her cousin was one that was not a fan of beating around the bush. At times, it was almost as though Ayami were afraid that someone would find out that she cared more than she should of.

Naru turned away, now moving to observe the camera that they'd reached. Mai watched him, hands in short pockets as Naru fiddled around with the camera. It took her a moment to realise that they'd actually arrived in Ward 26D.

Mai stood by patiently with her clipboard, eyes scanning the ward. There had to be at least five or six private rooms here, but Mai didn't see any open beds at all. It appeared that this ward, unlike all the others, didn't have shared areas for the patients. While that wasn't overly surprisingly, considering Mai had read that the people here were namely comatose neurology patients, what startled Mai was the fact that beside she and Naru, there appeared to be no one on the floor.

Mai could, however, actually feel the supernatural presence around her, and they were unexpectedly pronounced, almost as though the spirits were right there with them.

Suddenly, Naru's eyes focused in her direction, but they weren't focused on her. Alarmed, Mai lowered the clipboard as Naru took a step forward to stand closer to her.

The hallway was suddenly very crowded.

Mai blinked in momentary horror as she realised that they were surrounded by spirits – dozens of spirits, in fact, and in the middle of them all, stood Gene.

"You're very close," Gene said.

And then he vanished.

OM

On the other side of the hospital, at that exact moment:

"Run faster!" Houshou shouted. He was sprinting down the corridors as Lin-san and John moved beside him.

Ayako, in her heels, had of course fallen behind. Even further behind her, of course, was her doctor brother, waving what looked to be a stack of files at his sister as he attempted to keep up with them. Ignoring them both, Houshou looked back in front of him.

The explosion of spiritual energy caused him to stagger. Cursing, Houshou picked himself up quickly and he resumed running.

Damn, if the spirits could be felt at this distance, then Naru and Mai needed them to get there as soon as possible.

The ghosts might not have been strong, but there sure were a lot of them.

OM

Mai swallowed.

She was back-to-back with Naru now, and Gene had vanished moments ago. The spirits around them were eyeing Mai and Naru as though they were something to be devoured. Two ghosts had leapt their way, only to be frozen by Mai before Naru murmured something in a language she didn't recognise, causing both ghosts to dissolve.

Whatever happened to these ghosts only attacking doctors?

"There're a lot of them," Mai pointed out, looking around nervously. Naru felt very still behind her. So still, in fact, that had it not been Naru, she'd have assumed that the person behind her had gone into shock.

Naru's voice, calm and unworried, spoke. "Mai, you said that you can control your powers better now."

"What?" Mai wanted turn her body around to see what his face was like. Was now really the time to be having this kind of conversation? Then again, if it was Naru, there had to be a reason for it.

"What of it?" Mai asked, frowning when she recognised the ghost to her right. It was the bomber from her vision, but he wasn't carrying any bombs. In fact, his hands were pressed by his side almost harmlessly as he eyed her along with the rest of them.

"This is a form of qigong. To lessen the burden to the body, we can bounce our energy off of one another. We can stop the ghosts this way."

He'd said that he could do that once, hadn't he? But if he did that, wouldn't the spirits die completely, without any chance of rebirth. Mai hesitated, just slightly, but Naru didn't give her a chance to voice her doubts.

"Gene and I often bounced our PK energy off one another in order lessen the strain on my body. We would send a ball of energy, amplify it, and then send it back to the latter."

"You want to try that with me?" Mai verified, turning her head towards him slightly.

The back of Naru's head nodded once. "We're going to have to do that if we want to stay alive. The others are pretty far away from us."

Mai swallowed. She could do this, right? She'd been practicing almost every night now (okay, so that was three nights) and even Ayami had said that Mai was improving. Surely she could do this.

She could.

"Let's try," Mai stated, and Naru nodded again.

She had about a half-second warning before a ball of literal energy dropped towards her. Concentrating a bit of her own energy, Mai pushed the ball back with her hand and felt the ball zapping the power from her fingertips before flying back in Naru's direction, a fraction larger in size.

Amazing.

They continued like this for moments as the ghosts watched on, obviously confused as to what was going on. Every time the ball bounced between them, she injected a little more power of her own. The energy ball was about the size of a car wheel now and even without Naru telling her, she could tell that it was nearing completion.

Mai just hoped he knew what to do with it.

"What the hell is this?" the voice of Matsuzuki Keito demanded. He stood by the door with rest of the SPR team, eyes widened in horror as he took in the scene before him.

Her attention wavered, and as the ball came this time, Mai's energy snapped out a microsecond too late. Instead of bouncing back, the energy ball that she and Naru had been forming for the last few minutes fell into her.

Mai's eyes widened. "Whoops."

And all hell broke loose.

The ghosts leapt for them immediately. Mai barely had a chance to react before Naru shoved her to aside and threw some silver energy at the ghosts. One reached to grab her and Mai saw him freeze momentarily before bursting into will-o'-the-wisps. All of them – every one of them of them in SPR - were exorcizing the ghosts and for once, Mai could help them. The incantation sat at the corner of her mind, and just as she was about to freeze a ghost and exorcise it, at the corner of her eye, she saw the bomber run for Matsuzuki Keito.

"Stop!" Mai shouted, and she pushed a fraction of her powers out to emphasis her demand. Suddenly, she could feel Naru's energy inside her – actually feel it, and as she turned around, she realised that every other ghost in the room had frozen too.

Not daring to move now, Mai froze, making sure to send a steady stream of energy towards keeping the ghosts still. The most she'd ever managed on her own was three, and she'd been running high on adrenaline then. During all the times she'd practiced, she'd never managed to freeze more than two at once, and if she did, she couldn't exorcise them on her own. It wouldn't do for the ghosts to unfreeze themselves now become even more infuriated.

"Wow," Bou-san noted from a distance, his eyes widening slightly. "Mai is handy to have around."

Now that was a compliment, but not one that Mai was able to appreciate at this very moment. Instead, she did her best not to move; the last thing she wanted was for her concentration to break.

"Would you hurry?" Mai muttered through gritted teeth. "I'm not sure how much longer I can manage."

OM

Two figures stood outside Saito General Hospital, eyes focused on a particular window of the building. Neither moved nor spoke for minutes long, and the silence of the night was eventually broken by the smooth, hum of an incoming vehicle that caused both figures to turn towards it.

A black car stopped by the side of the road and front door opened. A chauffer, dressed from head to toe in black, hastily moved to the back and opened the car door. From it, a black cane first appeared, followed by a western-looking elder – tall, thin, and unsmiling – that was the very image of Death.

He exited the car slowly and as the chauffer moved to close the car door, eyes swept downwards in subservience, the old man straightened his jacket. The two women nodded at him – the teenage girl with respect, the young women with hesitation – before turning back to that particular window.

"How is the Caecilian heiress?" the man rasped, his eyes on the hospital.

The younger of the two women smiled before responding in the same language he spoke. "Not bad at all, grandfather. It looks as though Ayami Domjouji has chosen well."

"We will need the Peerless's help in finishing the spell, though," the old man noted. "It doesn't look as though her heiress will be able to perform this kind of magic."

The older woman scoffed. "The girl has potential, but she can hardly be called the next First Lady. Compared to Ayami's, her powers are nothing."

The girl turned over to the young woman, frowning. "Compared to Ayami's," she reminded her, "your powers are nothing."

The woman bristled at the insult, her eyes temporarily glowing red. "That little bitch was just lucky to have the father and mother she did. Without that, she never would have been blessed with Caecilia."

The girl's eyebrows arched at the obvious implication of those words. "If Caecilia was the only reason why Ayami Domjouji was powerful then we would have initiated our plan a long time ago. Don't let your hatred for her cloud your judgement. If you run in there blind, Caecilia will knock the wind out of you before the Peerless even registers your presence."

"That's where you come in," the woman said, turning over to the girl. "Or are you telling me that you're not going to be there like you promised?"

Anyone could read the challenge in the woman's tone. "I will, but I won't let you ruin our plans. We've worked too hard and we can't afford any liabilities."

"Are you threatening me?" the woman demanded.

"Do I need to?" the girl asked sharply in reply.

"That's enough," the elder cut in, his tone slightly raised. The two stopped their argument and for a moment, silence ensued.

Then, with a scoff, the woman turned and left.

The girl shook her head. "She's going to ruin our plans," the girl said, watching the departing figure of the woman temporarily.

The old man coughed before replying. "If she becomes a liability, we can easily dispose of her. It will be fine, child. After all, if the Peerless was so easy to kill, her own mother would have managed it. I doubt Yoshiko will succeed where Kaia has failed."

The girl let out a sigh with her nose before nodding. "I suppose you're right," she conceded. "What are you doing here anyway, Grandfather? I thought you were with in Australia."

The man coughed again, this time a little more seriously. His granddaughter moved to rub his back with soothing motions.

When the coughs finally ceased, the girl let out a slight sigh of dismay. "It's getting worse." She moved to meet her grandfather's eyes. "Does it really have to be the Peerless who does the spell? I don't think you can sustain that boy for much longer."

The man shook his head, still leaning heavily on his cane. "Only Ayami Domjouji could summon enough magic to perform the spell. Keep an eye on her heiress. We need Mai Taniyami to be our bait if we want the Peerless to fall for it."

The girl nodded once. The elder's heavily wrinkled eyes crinkled more in thought.

"Are you ready for the summit?" the elder asked his granddaughter.

The girl shrugged. "As ready as I can be."

He nodded once, his brief smile revealing his several missing teeth. The woman shrugged, and together, the two of them turned back to the hospital window yet again, watching as though they could see what was going on in there.

OM

The beeping had gotten worse.

She'd thought that after exorcising the ghosts, the sound would cease. If anything, it had actually grown louder, bringing on a headache so intense that Mai was actually sweating from the pain. She felt as though she'd been spending hours, not minutes, hearing the beeping at this volume.

Naru had left her here on the chair, and now, she could hear him talking to Doctor Matsuzaki on the side. When she'd almost collapsed before, he'd pushed her onto one of the chairs outside one of the private rooms,

This wasn't going to help, though. Mai didn't like it, but now, she was ready to call Ayami for help. No one could figure out why she kept hearing the sound. Even Lin-san didn't know. Bou-san and Ayako had told her that they hadn't seen any case like this one before and John-san had returned to his room quickly to consult his books. Her cousin, Mai realised with a sigh, was the only one left.

Mai raised her head, looking around for a moment before a particular door caught her eyes.

This was, Mai noted with a thudding heart, the door that Gene had been watching her from during her vision on the first day. Before she knew what she was doing, Mai found herself in front of the door, her fingers wrapped around the doorknob as she stared at the glass before her.

From here, she could see that there was a single, occupied bed in the room, next to an array of hospital machinery that Mai had never bothered to learn the names of.

Was it significant? Was the fact that Gene had stood at this particular door actually important? It could have been coincidence, but Mai's instinct screamed otherwise.

Well, there was really only one way to find out.

Mai pushed the door open and took her first steps into the room.

What she sighted caused her entire body to fix in shock.

Mai's eyes widened, horrified, as her brain froze along with her body. It took a moment for her faculties to return to her before she was able to drag her feet over to the bed and look down at the person beneath the sheets, next to the monitor.

The beeping in her head, Mai noted absently, had stopped, and along with it, the headache had disappeared too. But the beeping sound she heard now was identical to the tones that she'd been hearing for the last two days.

The beeping. It didn't come from the sound of any bomb. It had nothing to do with the other ghosts at all.

All this time – she'd been mistaken. The beeping was something else entirely.

A heart machine.

Lying there on the bed, beside the machine, was the very image of Naru. Dressed in the generic light blue hospital gown, with countless tubes attached to his still body, his eyes were closed almost peacefully as the machine beeped away beside him.

He looked sickly – lifeless, even, and the thought of Naru ever being that ill caused chills to run down Mai's spine. This wasn't Naru, of course. Naru was outside still, talking to Doctor Matsuzaki, which could only mean one thing.

By the looks of it, Mai had just found Gene.

25th September, 2013: How was that, eh? :D :D :D I don't know if it was a cliffhanger for you guys, but I quite liked this chapter. It's one of my favourites so far. It was written in less than a day, too. The next chapter, however... sigh. I've got bits and bits, and I've got it planned - now I just have to write it.

In case it wasn't obvious enough, yeah - Gene's actually alive. Well, he is at the moment. This is pretty much the most important chapter in Cursed. The next chapter is more of a "what should we do next" before we have the "Epilogue" and the final segment of the story! Man, I hope I finish this series before the end of the year.

Please leave a review on your way out.