Sakura Biyori

"Cherry Blossom Weather"

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Season Two: Capture.

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"Last I recall," grumbled Natsume as she adjusted her backpack on her shoulder. "I punched you in the face and kicked you out. Why on earth are you still here bugging me?" True, she'd been very rude and unwelcoming. After she punched the silver-haired yokai, surprisingly, he hadn't lashed back but had ordered his men to retreat. But that had only resulted in his constant stalking.

"Let me eat him!" Nyanko-sensei offered gleefully as he chased after another butterfly and generally forgetting his duties as her bodyguard. Natsume threw him a filthy glare but the glare was once again aimed back at the silver-haired yokai by her side.

"Get lost," she repeated moodily, patience running thin when the red-eyed yokai merely smirk at her feeble attempt to chase him away. Natsume crossed her arm, scowling; a good evening, where she usually take a walk around town, had already gone out the window. This silver-haired yokai who called himself Rikuo was damn annoying, she'd prefer a normal yokai begging her help than this nuisance. "I don't want to see your face."

"Me neither!" Nyanko-sensei cheered as he dived into the bushes and disappeared.

Rikuo smirked. "Why so bothered? Consider me your second bodyguard!"

"No need. One is enough. You're acting like a stalker—you nearly gave the Fujiwaras a heart attack!" Before Natsume can finish her rant, Rikuo lunged. She flinched, thinking that he was about to hit her for the rather rude remark, when his leg connected with something behind her.

She blinked owlishly, before turning around to see who had sneaked up behind her. Her eyebrow twitched, annoyed, when she saw a yokai. Instantly, she was helping him up; which irked Rikuo greatly, that stranger yokai might be dangerous and he can't have her dying.

"Hey," he said to the older girl who ignored him smoothly. "I just saved your life. Repay me by coming with me."

"Shut up," snapped Natsume, punctuating her venom with a glare before she turned her attention back to the ayakashi before her. "What's wrong?" she asked uneasily when the yokai started bawling and latched onto her arm.

"Natsume-sama, please help my friend!" Rikuo's eyebrows rose and he was about to helpfully decline the offer when the yokai continued. "His foot is stuck and if it keeps up, his foot will.. will..." he was unable to finish as he broke into sobs again.

Natsume sighed. "I'll help," she said as the yokai's mood did a 180-degree turn. "Where is he?"

"Wait, this might be a trap!" Rikuo protested as the two left. He would've liked to follow but the blasted cloud clouding the sun was already leaving and he did not possess the ability to manifest in this form before the sun. He cursed, turning and leaving before they could catch a glimpse of his human form. He swore he'll be back.

Natsume, on the other hand, was glad for the distraction. She didn't even notice the annoying pest's absence until she was having trouble lifting the boulder. She grunted, sweat beaded down her face. "Hey, Rikuo—" she stopped because when she glanced back, the silver-haired yokai was not present. She scowled heavily. "Great, where was he when you needed him?" But after a few more hard pushes, she managed enough for the trapped cow-like yokai to flee.

"Natsume-sama, thank you very much for helping my friend!" the yokai gushed which made the human girl smile gently. "But you really must hurry and escape."

And the smile slid off as she watched the two yokais flee like there was no tomorrow. Against their warnings, she lingered, wondering what was the danger. Just as she turned to leave, a figure leapt forward, blocking her path.

"You are... Natsume of the book of Friends correct?"

She flinched, turning around and noticing that she was surrounded the the same species of yokais; all of them wore strange masks with lion manes, and had human bodies. She gulped; great time for her self-proclaimed bodyguards to disappear on her when she needed them the most. She swore she'd chew them out the next time she see them. If she ever see them, she amended herself when they yokais crowded around her.

"What do you want?" she demanded in a harsh whisper.

"Hand over the rumored Book of Friends, Natsume."

That answer was pretty much a good incentive to scream. She blanched, turning a shade whiter and just as she was mentally writing her will, a familiar cat landed on its feet before her. "Nyanko-sensei!" she cheered, relief flooding her as he unleashed his banishing aura and she took it as a cue to run.

She panted for breath as she reached the neighborhood of her current home. "New pack of enemies," she murmured, wiping a sweat from her brow. "Guess I'm not going to the festival after all."

"What! Where! When!" Natsume glanced down at her pet cat, annoyed but he'd already leapt up and into her face. "I'll protect you with everything I've got. Just promise me you'll buy me some squid!"

Natsume scowled as she walked home. It was after a long moment before she spoke, "I was tricked again. Those yokais didn't even need help. They were threatened by a larger bunch of yokais. I hope because they blabbed they don't get it from their bosses."

"You're too nice," Nyanko-sensei snapped disapprovingly. "If you die at their hands, I'll never get the Book of Friends!"

Natsume rolled her eyes. It was her current life goal to return as many names in the book as possible and until she succeeded, she won't be.

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The next morning, there was no annoying silver-haired yokai to bother her like the days before, which automatically threw Natsume into a good mood the whole day she was in school. However, it was totally foiled when the freaks from before threatened her in her own class.

She choked, strangled by the ayakashi's arm. Much to her horror, more of his gang gathered around her. With one last effort, she elbowed the ayakashi, grabbed her bag, threw a lame excuse to her classmates for her questionable behavior, and fled. Natsume didn't get far. It didn't take long for the monkey-mask-wearing yokai to catch up with her, grab her and haul her off somewhere to be killed.

She trembled but she tried not to show her fear. "I'm not giving the book to you!" she snapped, holding her backpack to her protectively, feeling the Book within thrum in power and she hoped that they didn't notice.

"You have no choice," one of them rasped.

The other held out his hand. "Our leader is a more suitable candidate for it."

"Go away!" The human girl yelled, punching the yokai in its gut before she made a break for it. Stumbling blindly, she still noticed the odd paper stuck on the trees. She was confused; what were talismans doing in this forest — "Whoa!" she yelped as someone pulled her into the bushes.

She blinked, hand raised in the air for a punch, when she realized it was Nyanko-sensei. "Honestly," the cat sighed. "I take my eyes off you one moment and you're in deep trouble."

She pursed her lips, unhappy. "I didn't ask for the trouble," she muttered as she peeked out the bushes.

"Where's your stalker."

"He only comes on cloudy days or rainy days and after the sun set."

Nyanko-sensei whistled suggestively. "Already memorize when he'll take you out on a date — ACK!" The last part was because Natsume had punched him rapidly a few times.

Natsume would've continued to use her bodyguard as punching bag had a shadow not swoop past her. She jerked back when the shadow — shikigami, she realized numbly — leapt onto one of the masked-yokais. The rest of the yokais scattered the moment their friend was captured; Natsume thought it to be cowardly but seeing as she was trembling in fear herself, she couldn't actually say anything concerning bravery.

One question bugged her: who caught it.

She leaned forward, straining to see; she barely managed to restrain the gasp that threaten to pass when she saw the shikigami holding the captured ayakashi flow into a jug, held by a hand attached to a broad shoulder which belonged to a very familiar and handsome man.

Human man, her mind supplied unnecessarily. Shut up, she told it.

She strained to hear but couldn't make out anything. When one of Matoba Seiji's attendants approached her hiding place, she fled, uncaring as to which direction she was running and the fact that she was quite lost in the dense forest.

"We shouldn't have waited, Nyanko-sensei—" Natsume stopped, blinking when she noticed that there was no fat lump of fur running besides her and lacking was the constant whining. "Nyanko-sensei?" she called uncertainly, stumbling over a few branches before she emerged in a clearing.

Facing her were wooden gates, enormous and old. She blinked, what was an abandoned house doing here? She approached, maybe Nyanko-sensei caught the scent of food and had snuck into eat something. She grumbled disapprovingly at the thought as she neared the place. She placed a hand on the gate, and cried out in surprise as something grasped her hands, tying them together with a rope and hauled her in.

She struggled and squirmed, realizing belatedly that both she and her bodyguard had been caught by Matoba's shikigami. She cursed herself as she was thrown into a jail. With how harshly the shikigami handled her, she was sure a few brusies were already blossoming. She grunted in pain, sitting up and scanning her new environment.

One thing stood out: her bag was gone.

The book of Friends was taken?!

She groaned, slumping back onto the ground; great, just great. All hope was lost — not yet, her mind supplied helpfully this time as her eyes riveted to the opened doors. The stupid thrice-damned shikigami had forgotten to lock it and was now hovering back to do so.

Well, too late; Natsume leapt out, kicking the shikigami in and locking it. "Bye," she snapped as she fled, spotting a flight of stairs and choosing to go down. The basement was most likely where they store things, like most people did but could the Matoba Clan be considered as normal?

After about fifteen minutes of running around and only finding empty rooms and many dead ends, Natsume slumped down below a deck of stairs, breathing raggedly. This place was huge and, lacked the presence of anyone living there. She didn't know whether it was good or not. If there were people, she could've threatened them into helping her; but she didn't think herself as threatening at all.

"...Oh?" Natsume tensed as footsteps approached her. "There seemed to be someone behind here."

He found her! Natsume blanched, grabbing the blanket closest to her and hurling it into Matoba's face before she started running again. He said something about hiding her belongings in the cauldron room? Luck was shining on her, she surmised as she stumbled into a room full of odd items.

She glanced around, her Book of Friends must be here. She stepped through the threshold cautiously but she nearly jumped out in shock when she heard sounds of rustling and grumbling. She tensed herself to run again but she blinked when no one showed, she studied the room and her eyes landed on a box of garbage. A tail and a bum of a cat was showing, wriggling around and the sounds seemed to have come from there.

"Uwah! Someone threw something that looked like Nyanko-sensei into the box!"

"It's me you idiot!" the struggling cat yelled. Natsume, annoyed and ticked off, hauled the cat none-too-gently out by the tail which elicited a yowl. "I was caught," the cat was saying. "and thrown into a bag. But I pretended to be a lucky-cat and they threw me into the garbage instead! Can you believe those stupid shikigamis?! I won't forgive it!"

In response, Natsume giggled. But that earned her a punch from the cat. "It's not funny, you fool!" Nyanko-sensei snarled. What followed was a long lecture on how to improve her srengths and being berated of how weak she was; Natsume took it all in stride, not offended as she started running again, trying to find the Book of Friends.

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled the human girl. "no need to—"

"Oya...? Isn't that the name of the human girl, Natsume?" Said girl stopped, she whirled around until she saw the clattering pot, the voice she'd heard coming from within. "Oi, brat, let's make a deal. I've been here before and I'll lead you out if you free me from this pot."

"The pot talked!"

"You know I"m locked in here!" the trapped yokai screeched back when the girl yelled the earlier statement.

She crouched before him, the yokai could feel the movement along with the wariness and suspicion. "Your kind tried to kill me once, why should I believe you?"

"Hmph, you low-class paranoid creature — Oi! Stop that, you piglet!"

"Nyanko-sensei, listen to him! He isn't a ball of yarn!"

The cat did as told. "Hmph," he mocked, wanting to cross his arms as he said so but his paws were too chubby so he settled for pouting, which was quite hard to do. "As advance payment, loser, tell us where the paulownia room is." After the yokai gave the directions, the cat hmmed in deep thought before he leapt off the closet. "I'll go get it; you two stay here!"

"Be careful, sensei!" Natsume called to which Nyanko-sensei answered with an annoyed grunt. She glanced at the pot in her hand. "Why did you guys wants the Book of Friends in the first place?" she asked curiously.

"...If our leader had the Book of Friends... he could surely change the forest back to what it was before you filthy humans pollute it."

"The Book of Friends is not a magic tool like that. And using ayakashis to do your bidding... how different would you be from Matoba-san?"

"Ah, speak of the devil..." Before Natsume can catch onto the implication of the yokai's statement, someone's hand latched onto her forearm. She jolted in shock, a tremble of fear shooting up her spine when she glanced up into a very dreaded person's face. She yelped, trying to pull away. The keyword being try as Matoba had a firm grip on her.

"To be able to sneak up here," Matoba chuckled, amused. "It's like you're a cat yokai."

Natsume bristled, unable to tell whether it was an insult or a compliment.

"It's a compliment, Takara-chan," the clan leader said teasingly. "Have a seat. I believe it's time for us to have another chat anyway. Though it's strange... where's your pet cat?"

Natsume swallowed; she was in deep trouble now.

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"What?" cried Hinoe, shocked. "Natsume-sama had been attacked by a band of monkey yokais?"

"Yes. They are after the Book of Friends, as usual," agreed Misuzu with a sigh.

"Where are they then?"

Both yokais stiffened at the new voice. Hinoe whirled around, scowl only deepening when her eyes settled on the male yokai. She never tolerated males — yokais or humans — and this boy was rudely intruding in on their conversation; she was irked. "None of your business," she said coldly. "You better leave before I make you."

"That's what Natsume Takara said to me too," the silver-haired yokai said, amused. "My name is Nura Rikuo and Natsume-san is my cousin. Her business or whatever is happening to her, is my business so spill the beans: where is she?"

Misuzu and Hinoe exchanged glances, silent communication and agreement passing. Hinoe turned back to the stranger who exuded a rather powerful aura though there was the scent of humans on him as well.

"You see, Natsume-sama might be in danger..."

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Author's Note: Late update, yeah but that's just because I don't know where to start for this chapter. So, review?