Disclaimer: See chapter 1... it pains me too much to admit that Natsume Yuujinchou doesn't belong to me...
Chapter 8 – That which is forbidden
Mid-autumn made its arrival that year blusteringly, accompanied by cold, rainy days and northern winds that cut through you as if you were nothing. Mid-terms were fast-approaching, and the panic had begun to subtly settle into the young high school students.
"Oh gods! I can't revise all of this – I'm going to fail… I'm so going to fail!"
Well. It was subtle in some students.
Natsume Takako was currently trying to go through her own revision note cards whilst simultaneously giving absent-minded reassurances to Sasada, who had become a blubbering wreck within the last week or so, since the first time the literature professor had pointed out a passage and uttered the ultimatum 'you shall be tested on this later'.
"You're not going to fail, Miss I've-never-fallen-below-number-fifteen. If anything, I'm going to fail maths and chemistry – both the teachers I've ended up with are notoriously stingy with marks." Nishimura moaned, although his actions were a little contrary to his verbal worry. "Oh no! I lost another life!"
"What game is it this week, Nishmura?" Tanuma asked, his concentration having already been broken by Sasada's outburst earlier.
"Ah, my brother gave me a new one from work – it's a Mario game…"
Natsume forced herself to tune out the background noise as she tried to focus on the formulae that had taken to swimming around the page in front of her, much like ayakashi script tended to do before she immobilised it. And wasn't that an effort to learn, she mused sardonically, recalling the three days' effort that it took for her to learn how to call energy to her hands without trying to set anything on fire, and another day to learn how to fine-tune that energy to the wavelength needed for immobilising the slithering script on what had turned out to be a scroll of spells.
Between her human studies and the studies that Nyanko-sensei had shoved onto her plate, Takako would be the first to admit that she had pushed her least favourite subjects out of her mind for the last term. Subsequently, she had barely managed to pass Maths and her Chemistry mark had only been saved by her efforts at extra credit (prompted by Sasada, who seemed determined to make sure no one from her class would end up in extra classes after hours), and narrowly missed being called out on her constant fainting spells.
They're getting better though, Natsume tried to be positive, I returned three Names in the last two days, and I haven't fainted even once at school.
Sensei would be impressed at my increased strength, if it wasn't because of continuing to return the Names my grandmother spent so long accumulating.
"Natsume? You're doodling again… what the heck is that? Some sort of cartoon?"
Startled out of her reverie, Takako glanced down at the so-called 'doodle' that Kitamoto had pointed out, which turned out to be a drawing of one of the newer residents of the Yatsuhara Fields. Since the little guy either didn't want to tell her his Name, or didn't have one, she had taken to calling him 'Moustache', since he was probably the first ayakashi she had come across who went around with such well-groomed facial hair adorning his face.
It does look rather like a cartoon, huh?
"Ah, something like that, yes." Well, she could hardly admit to the drawing being someone she had met in person – the head was a little too out-of-proportion with the body for that to be true.
"You have the weirdest imagination, Natsume. Sometimes, I worry." Kitamoto commented, raising an eyebrow at her scribbling.
"Only sometimes? You've got a pretty high tolerance for these things, huh?" Nishimura jibed, although his eyes never left the screen of his gameboy, "Oh shoot! Game over – again!"
"Well, I am friends with you, after all." Kitamoto parried, smirking at Nishimura's third 'death' of the day.
"Oi! Quit kicking a guy whilst he's down!" The shorter of the pair griped, as he prepared to restart the game. Unfortunately, his plans were cut short by an English dictionary impacting his head at a not inconsiderable speed. "Ouch! Geez, Sasada – what the hell was that for?"
"If you won't self-study, at least let me study in peace! Now get reading – your English last term got a red mark, didn't it?"
"Yeah, but chucking things at my head and knocking out the rest of my brain cells isn't going to help me pass anything." Nishimura grumbled, although he wisely shut up and picked up the dictionary after being treated to an infamous 'Sasada glare'.
"Ugh – why can't you take a leaf out of Tanuma's book? He's quiet, calm, well-behaved and actually studies." Sasada complained, whilst not even once taking her eyes away from the Chemistry practice paper she was now self-marking, "Shoot – I knew that I should have revised mechanisms a little more."
Despite the chaos and panic that seemed to be radiating off Sasada in waves and slowly infecting the rest of her group, Natsume allowed a small smile to grace her features. Even I, with my relations to spirits, can have such a peaceful day.
It was a luxury. She was uncomfortably aware that a storm was brewing somewhere in the near future, but for now, Takako was determined to enjoy the small amount of ordinary she had been afforded for now.
The next day, her gut feeling of that peace breaking showed itself in the form of a petite, pretty girl who was introduced as Taki Tohru by an extremely excited Nishimura, who had dragged her all the way from their own classroom to the end of the hallway, where the new girl's classroom was.
"See? She's cute, right? Right?"
"Nishimura, not that I don't appreciate that you consider me a good enough friend to drag me around and gawk at girls with, but I think this might be more in Kitamoto, or Tanuma's comfort zone." Natsume pointed out, a little confused as to why she was here, watching Nishimura pine after his latest crush.
"I need a wingman! Or woman, in this case… look, she's been here for a week already, but nobody's even gotten her to speak with them – she's so mysterious, and secretive, and it's kind of intimidating trying to talk to her! I can't just ask a guy to go up to her and talk me up, and Sasada's absolutely useless around this time, and since you had kind of the same aura about you when you first came, maybe you could… you know… bridge the gap?"
Natsume took another glance at the girl – she was cute, to be sure, but one look told her that this girl was somewhat… isolated from her classmates. As if she's afraid of making contact, Natsume realised, recognising the resigned, guarded posture of the fellow teenage girl.
"I'll speak with her."
Takako was rather unprepared for the outburst of gratitude from her lovesick friend, and ended up toppling over from the friendly nudge the guy gave her on the shoulder.
"Er… Tohru-san, is it?"
The girl jumped at the mention of her name, and looked up at Natsume with wide, doe-caught-in-headlights eyes. "Erm… yes!"
Intimidating? She looks more scared than I feel, talking to a random stranger…
"I'm Natsume Takako, from class A. I don't know if you know about me… I was one of the transfer students before you…" Shoot, how do you initiate conversations when the other person isn't willing to respond… "Er… it's just that… er… if you wanted someone to talk to, if anything's bothering you…"
The girl cast her eyes downwards, and stuttered a 'thank you', before going back to her book. Takako sighed, again cursing her lack of practice in talking to humans rather than spirits, and resigned herself to this particular conversation as having come to a bit of a halt.
Well, the line's been given – it's her move now. Takako was somewhat satisfied that she had done her duty, and left it at that – there was no use in forcing a relationship when the other party wasn't willing, after all – and resigned herself to a ten minute self-pity session courtesy of Nishimura when she told him that Tohru-san probably wouldn't be very responsive to his advances.
"You're still putting too much of yourself into these spells, Natsume! It's a spell – stop saying it as if it were a Name!" Nyanko-sensei was being particularly short that evening. It probably had something to do with Natsume having found his stash of alcohol in the corner of her cupboard, and having poured it out of the window after Tohko-san had commented she could smell sake from somewhere in the house.
"Stop being so vindictive, Nyanko-sensei – whose fault is it, exactly, if I don't know the difference between what power to put into a spell and the power I use to return Names? It's not like I've used any other spells before." Takako protested, the scroll of spells still glowing in her hands.
"I've told you already, haven't I? You use spells all the time when you're dealing with those low-level scum who try to eat you on a regular basis. Your kicks and punches are all infused with energy that makes them effective against us spirits – that energy is a type of spell itself! You're just using the scroll and words now to focus that energy into something that doesn't take such a toll on your body, so that you at least have the energy to fight more ayakashi after the first has been dealt with." The maneki neko explained in a halfway serious tone. It always surprised Natsume when the feline spoke so solemnly on her ayakashi education, since the cat so rarely showed any seriousness towards her safety from other ayakashi (six attacks and five threats in the last month didn't make Takako feel very 'protected', as the cat claimed she was with him as her bodyguard).
"The energy comes to me unbid – I have no idea how to summon it offhand, since I only use it when I'm about to be eaten, killed or horribly maimed." She muttered, although she continued practising her reading of ayakashi script. Since she had learnt the trick to keep the script still long enough for her to decipher, the cat had promptly gone out for another midnight jaunt, and returned with another three scrolls with similar dancing letters and more secrets written into their contents, and promptly ordered Takako to have the scrolls read and memorised by the end of the week, lest she wished to have a limb eaten.
The problem is that I don't even know if the pig-cat was joking or not, Takako thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Nyanko-sensei, her most unorthodox teacher.
Sasada and the gang have no reason to complain about the schoolteachers – at least they don't threaten dismemberment or slow digestion when you haven't done your assignments.
"Hey, sensei – is it possible to somehow… sense if someone else has the same powers as me?" Takako asked offhandedly, reading through a particularly confusing passage on the newest spell scroll. "Another human, I mean."
"Don't think so – we spirits can hardly tell you apart from the crowd. There's spirits like the wonderful me, who can smell power, but weaker spirits can only really weed you out from the blind sheep if you acknowledge that you can see them. As long as you act the part of an ignorant sheep, then you should at least be safe from those weaklings."
"Well, that's a lie – plenty of the ayakashi who chase me around are what you consider weak, but they obviously still manage to find me."
"You carry the Book of Friends with you – with the number of Names you've been returning, you've gained somewhat of a celebrity status amongst the ayakashi in this area; even spirits eventually learn to distinguish a particular human face from the rest." Nyanko-sensei replied frankly, swatting at her head with a pudgy paw, "Which is why you need to either quit returning Names, or learn to use those spells! Now get studying!"
Slave-driver, Natsume fumed, returning her attention to the scroll. Although she was a little loath to admit it, the exercise she got from having to concentrate on keeping the ayakashi spells from slithering across the parchment like snakes had somehow improved her endurance when it came to using her powers. Whereas she used to feel absolutely exhausted the day after returning a Name, since beginning her training (as Nyanko-sensei called it) she could quite easily return up to three Names in one night and still be able to attend physical education lessons the next day.
She would have asked the insufferable feline about the reason behind her sudden increase in endurance, if it wasn't for her fear of Nyanko-sensei's exponential head-growth. His arrogance already knows no bounds – he'd never let me forget my supposed debt to his greatness…
Maybe I can ask Shinmichi at some point – she wouldn't be nearly as annoying as sensei is at imparting information.
The next day at school, after having stayed up until eleven to try and memorise the newest spells Nyanko-sensei had shoved onto her, and then staying up until two in the morning trying to make headway in her Physics revision, the bags under Takako's eyes were fully visible and causing some concern amongst her well-meaning friends.
"Natsume… why won't she even acknowledge me…?" Nishimura wailed, prostrating himself on her desk, completely obscuring her revision notes.
Again, it was some of her classmates who were concerned.
"Nishimura, leave Natsume out of your weird little world of fantasy romance – it's bad enough that you have to moan at us guys about it without involving a girl as well." Kitamoto groaned, shoving his friend sharply, knocking him off his chair, "Natsume – feel free to abuse this idiot until the message actually sinks in."
"What message?" Takako asked, one eyebrow raised at the two boys' antics.
"Well… actually, I'm not sure of the message exactly… just feel free to hit the guy – he's usually done something during the day to deserve a punch." Kitamoto admitted, a teasing grin playing at his lips.
Takako laughed nervously – she recognised Kitamoto's jest as a joke, but at the same time, she wasn't entirely certain how comfortable she felt close enough to share these jokes with a boy, even just as friends. Throughout her youkai-ridden life, boys and make-up and puberty had taken a bit of a backseat, but it seemed that recently these issues had become backseat drivers and had taken over a large portion of her life. I blame Sasada. I really do.
Ever since she had come across Natori and his sparkling smile and unmissable charm, she had become increasingly aware of any contact with the opposite sex, small or otherwise. Considering that the majority of her closer acquaintances were male, her increased awareness had become somewhat of a hindrance on her ability to fit in, as it were.
It didn't help that Nishimura was the touchy-feely type, and didn't seem to differentiate between his guy-friends and girl-friends in terms of his skinship.
"Natsume-sama!" Takako winced from the sudden extra weight of an adolescent boy on her shoulders, and struggled to keep a blush from blossoming across her cheeks, "Please! Speak to Taki-san again for me?"
This time, it was Sasada who grabbed Nishimura by his ear and dragged him off her shoulders, "Stop pressurising her, idiot. Go and get rejected by yourself; don't drag your friends into the mix." She reprimanded.
Takako could have hugged the girl, she was that grateful for her intervention.
"Tanuma! Do you mind if I catch the bus with you?" Natsume asked after classes, her questions about what Nyanko-sensei had been teaching her still circling around in her head, "I need to talk to some… mutual friends."
"Eh?" Tanuma, a little confused over her choice of phrasing, "Oh! Right… is there something… wrong?" He asked tentatively. He still hadn't forgotten the threat that the fat cat had delivered to him the last time he had become a little too involved in Natsume's relationship with things that weren't visible to others.
"Oh, nothing – not much. I just had a few questions and I thought it might be a good opportunity to have a visit your father as well. I haven't seen him in a while." Natsume reassured Tanuma, walking with him towards the bus stop, "And I'm not sure which bus to take from school to the Yatsuhara Fields."
Although her reply somewhat pacified Tanuma, he remained unconvinced; there's always something going on with ayakashi in her world. It just means that this time she hasn't been knocked around and bruised yet.
As they were boarding the bus, Natsume noticed that the new transfer student, Tohru Taki, had also boarded the bus. She frowned slightly as she noticed a rather long, thin sports bag in place of the usual satchel students favoured: she hadn't taken the girl as a kendo practitioner when she had spoken to Tohru-san the last time. Her frown deepened as she remembered that the school didn't even have any qualified teachers to supervise kendo, let alone teach it.
"Hey, Tanuma – do you have a dojo around your area?" She asked, her eyes not quite leaving from the exercise bag, "Or a kendo school or anything?"
"No – why do you ask?"
"Nothing… just a thought."
"A bit random, even for you, Natsume." Tanuma smirked teasingly, "Are you sure it's not you wanting to learn some new moves to keep that cat of yours from running his mouth?"
"Are you kidding? I'm hoping that someday he'll run his mouth so fast that it'll run away from him altogether." Natsume retorted with a straight face. The straight face lasted until Tanuma began to guffaw, when Natsume also began to laugh at the image of her chasing Nyanko-sensei's larger form with a wooden sword.
It really has been a while since I visited the Yatsuhara bunch properly, Natsume thought as she approached the field, I should visit more often- sensei causes them far too much trouble on a regular basis for me not to come over.
Having greeted Tanuma the elder, and politely declined the offer of tea in favour of meeting with the Yatsuhara bunch, she hurried over to the field where she knew where at least a few of them would be on the lookout. Despite her repeated promises that the Shinto priest would stop blasting them with purifying energy, some of the more… conservative members of this ayakashi group had refused to take her word for their safety, and had insisted on regular sentries to look out for any movement from the human priest.
"Hey! It's Natsume-oyabun!" It was Kimyokawa, the kappa who had a rather bad habit of letting his head-bowl to run dry at an alarming rate. How the spirit had survived long enough to even meet Takako. "Oyabun!" Kimyokawa began to run towards Takako, and, true to form, managed to trip and empty his head-bowl.
It's just as well it's become a habit to carry a bottle of water with me now (see AN). Takako thought drily, unscrewing the cap on the plastic bottle that was in her bag, preparing to revive the kappa. At least it's better than during the summer, when he'd let the sun dry him out so far away from any water source.
"Kimyokawa, please, do me a favour – keep some water on you somewhere. My shoulder is starting to hurt from hauling this water around with me all the time."
"Ah, thank you, Natsume-oyabun! I'm sorry that you had to see my clumsiness." The kappa replied gratefully, now sitting upright again, "Have you come to pick up Madara-sama?"
"Pick up? What's the dumpling cat done this time?"
"Ah, not too much – he may have overindulged last night, since the sake springs were flowing freely last night. He and some of the others are still asleep."
Takako sighed; she felt as if she was a daughter picking up her drunken father from some bar after he had fallen asleep. Following the directions Kimyokawa had pointed out to where the main group had gathered, she dreaded what she might find. Although the cat usually stayed in his smaller form, which Natsume could just about stagger around with, she knew from experience that her sensei's control over his shapeshifting abilities got a little out of hand after a round of sake, and he was liable to shift into his original, massive form that had almost broken her table the last time a couple of the Yatsuhara bunch had to drag his lazy self back to the Fujiwara's house.
"Sensei? Are you there? Nyanko-sensei?" She called, hoping against hope that the dozy cat would hear her and reply. Of course, Lady Luck had never been very kind to her, and the air remained stubbornly silent.
I'm putting the thing back onto a diet. Natsume decided, a little petulantly, she admitted to herself.
"Psst! Natsume-sama!"
Takako halted so suddenly she almost pulled a Kimyokawa stunt, but managed to right herself at the last moment. Looking around for the source of the hiss, she saw a crouching Hoshikari in the grass, who was sitting next to Moustache, the ayakashi she had met a while back. Hoshikari looked much more presentable compared to the last time she saw the frog-youkai who served the powerful Misuzu. Having her Name returned to her had apparently given her enough power to disguise her originally webbed fingers into more human-looking fingers, and her croak had been replaced by a musical tone.
"What's going on? Are you hiding from another ayakashi?"
"No! From that." Hoshikari jabbed a finger at a lone figure in the distance, a silhouette of something that looked like a human.
"Er… a human?"
"Yes… but it's what it's drawing that's the problem, Natsume-dono." Moustache replied, his voice lyrical in its tone, "Observe, please."
Natsume cast another eye over the silhouette in the distance, and saw that the figure was carrying a stick of some sort, and had halted in the path to crouch over and point the the stick on the ground. No. Not pointing – whoever it is, they're drawing something onto the ground.
"Why are you hiding from that person?"
Moustache and Hoshikari looked at one another, and silently elected Moustache to be their speaker. "It started recently, Natsume-dono, just after we were introduced to each other. I was walking along a human road, as per usual, when I observed a litter of circular symbols on the dirt ground. I did sense some sort of a curse on the circles, but as it did not feel very powerful, I did not go out of my way to avoid them. However, as I walked down the road, an elderly, distinctly human person screamed and pointed at me, screaming monster."
"A human saw you?"
"Well… it's a little more complicated."
Natsume now frowned, wishing that Moustache would hurry up and stop skirting around the point, "What do you mean then?"
"I have seen that human many times in her lifetime. As a child, as a grown human. Not once has she ever been able to see me before that day. After some sleuthing of my own, I found that others in the community have experienced similar troubles, and they all seem to have experienced it in the same circumstances." Moustache pointed at the figure in the distance, "When we stood within the accursed circles that human is drawing."
Takako's eyebrows flew up so fast she could have sworn that they were now in her hairline. Something that allowed normal humans to see ayakashi? It's like a childhood dream come true, she reflected, remembering that her deepest wish at one point was to have everyone in the world see the same thing as she did, if only to show people she wasn't a liar.
"Is it really so bad to be seen?"
"Of course! For any human to be able to see us is both insulting and dangerous!" Hoshikari replied this time, indignant at her question, "Humans who do not even have the smallest hint of essence within them do not deserve to be able to look into our world."
"I never knew that spirits were so elitist, Hoshikari. I'm rather surprised at you." Natsume dropped casually, a little shocked at the blatant discrimination against humans from one of her first friends in the spirit world. Although Hoshikari remained unrepentant, the ayakashi at least had the decency of looking a little abashed.
"If you're certain the person is human, why didn't you contact me earlier? I could have tried to help." Natsume reprimanded, a little hurt at the Yatsuhara group's hesitation to contact her. "You kidnapped me from my bed to help with the Tanuma family, but you won't even ask me in this case?"
"The One-Eye and Ox-Head considered it, and were about to contact you, but Madara-sama refused. He said that you had enough on your plate for now, and that bothering you now would do us no good." Hoshikari replied, "He said that he had begun to teach you our spells, so we thought it best to leave you in peace whilst you made a study of our ways."
Natsume felt a little touched – not enough to reconsider putting the cat back onto a diet, but touched nonetheless. He does care… at least a little.
"Well, next time, just come and ask me if there's a human involved. I'll go and talk to the human, and see why they're carving these circles into the ground." Natsume said, already heading towards the figure. She was immediately yanked down to the ground by two pairs of strong hands.
"Natsume-sama! You must not make contact with this stranger – what if they are from an exorcist clan and mean you harm?" Hoshikari hissed, although it came out more as a croak, true to her original form, "Misuzu-sama and Madara-sama would never forgive me for allowing you to do such a foolish thing!"
"Hoshikari-dono speaks truly, Natsume-dono! You must not act in haste!" Moustache supported the frog-youkai, whilst keeping an arm on Natsume's sleeve.
"Oh for… I believe that I can communicate with exorcists a little better than you can – after all, as a fellow human, it's not like they can spirit me away without consequences. If you're really so worried about my safety coming out of your hides, accompany me!"
And with that announcement, she yanked the two ayakashi to their feet, and half dragged the couple of still-protesting spirits towards the now stationary figure. As they approached the figure, however, and the decidedly female figure turned towards her, she felt her eyebrows rise in suprise once again. Tohru-san?
"Hi there. May I ask what you're doing here?"
Apparently, the girl had been so engrossed in drawing something in the dirt that she hadn't even heard Natsume approaching. But if she can see spirits, surely she should have heard Hoshikari and Moustache before she heard me call out? Takako was a little confused by the whole situation, and was about to reach out to the girl before she squeaked out the first multi-syllabic word Takako had heard from her to date.
"Natsume-san!"
The surprise was evident in the girl's voice. The horror that was evident on her face, on the other hand, was far more interesting to Takako.
"I'm so sorry!"
As was the apology. Has she heard rumours about my strangeness already? But to hear rumours, you need to talk first…
Oh. And now, with the running away. Takako found herself hoping that she wasn't quite so skittish and predictable as this particular specimen of human teenage female. I need to find more company outside of sensei – I'm even starting to sound like him! She began to follow after the girl, yelling, "Please! Wait! I need to ask you some questions on behalf of some friends!" As she began to pursue the still retreating girl, Takako tripped from the weight of Moustache still hanging onto her sleeves, and landed in an undignified heap on the ground.
The exclamations of pain, on the other hand, stirred the fleeing girl's guilty conscience, and caused her to turn back. And that was all that was needed to confirm what Moustache had warned Takako about not two minutes earlier.
"Gi… gigantic floating moustache!"
It was only then that Natsume and Moustache looked at the ground they stood upon, and realised that in their struggles, Natsume had managed to tug Moustache's head into the area above the circle.
Well… this should be interesting. Natsume thought, wishing with all her might that she had left the whole circle business well enough alone.
As soon as it was established that, as long as the two ayakashi decided to stay outside of the circle, Tohru-san was as blind to them as the average member of the population, both Hoshikari and Moustache opted to stay out of sight, although they remained right next to the young girl, arms folded defensively.
"So… any chance of an explanation at all, Tohru-san?" Takako asked tentatively, a little wary of the rather terrified girl sitting on the grass next to her; Tohru-san looked as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment.
"I… My name is Tohru Taki, but you can call me Taki. I'm not too good with polite speech." Tohru-san… no, it was Taki now, took a deep, steadying breath before raising her voice above a whisper. "It's a little complicated, the explanation for all this."
"In that case, begin with the circles." Takako prompted, suppressing the disappointed feeling that she had felt when she realised that Taki could not see ayakashi without the help of those strangely foreboding symbols drawn on the ground.
"It… it started two-hundred and ninety seven days ago. My grandfather was really interested in folklore, ayakashi and the like, since our family was originally an onmyouji family. He was adamant that spirits existed, and that if we used the right methods, we would also be able to see them. My parents never believed in him, and wrote it off as superstition, but I'd always found it really interesting, so my grandfather passed all of his papers and research onto me."
Taki pulled out a piece of rather crumpled and tear-stained paper that looked like it was torn out of an exercise book. The design that was scribbled on it was the same as the symbol that had been scrawled onto the dirt next to them.
"I found this in amongst the papers, and I drew it in the backyard of my parents' house on a whim. I didn't really expect anything to actually happen, but one day, I saw a really small, masked person walking through the circle. I couldn't believe my eyes at first! The small thing disappeared pretty much as soon as it left the circle, so I was sure it was just a trick of the light. But, just another day later, there was another, much larger figure that wandered through it, that had a fox's tail sticking out of its yukata!"
Takako looked down at the circle in dawning realisation, "So, in other words, you'd found a tool that allowed you to see beyond what the average person can see?"
"Yes."
"So… can you see these two behind me?" Takako pointed at her self-appointed bodyguards (she seemed to end up with a lot of those lately).
"No… there are two? I thought there was just the gigantic moustache head next to you? There was another one?" Taki asked, her eyes widening even further in curiosity.
Well. That answered that question.
"Alright. So, if I were to do this…" Takako led Moustache, the less resistant of the two ayakashi accompanying her, into the circle by his sleeve, "Can you see him now?"
The girl's eyes were the largest Takako had ever seen as Taki took in the full visage of Moustache. Her fellow teenage girl nodded her head vigorously, as if her tongue had lost the ability to move.
"So these circles… they can allow any human to see spirits? Regardless of their heritage?" Takako pressed.
"I'm not sure. I didn't dare to show anyone else, not if I wanted to keep grandfather's work a secret. He was adamant that, if we ever saw ayakashi, we weren't to tell the general population, in case they viewed the spirits as a threat to humans." Taki replied, "But I think it would allow anyone to see. My family may have been an onmyouji family before, but according to records, we've not had an active spell-user since the Bunka era (1804-1818), so if we ever had the talent to see youkai without the circles, I reckon the ability has already died out long ago. I'm probably as average as they come."
"In that case, that's problem solved for you, right?" Takako directed at Moustache and Hoshikari, "Just spread the word to the Yatsuhara group – telling the One-Eye and Ox-Head should do the trick. Just avoid stepping into these circles for now, and that should avoid any unwanted contact with humans."
"Demand to know why she has been scrawling these accursed symbols everywhere, Natsume-sama. If she wants to keep us a secret, as she should do, then she should not be carelessly…"
"Tell her yourself. Stop using me as a mediator just because you don't want to be seen." Takako interrupted, a little fed up with Hoshikari's attitude. Has she forgotten that, for all my knowledge and ability to see beyond human capabilities, that I am a human as well?
"That's right, Hoshikari -dono, you must not be so rude as to use Natsume-dono as a go-between. I do not believe this girl is affiliated with any exorcist clans, going by her reaction to the sight of myself."
"Then how do you explain that circle? It is not the work of an onmyouji!"
"Regardless, it is not the tool, but the wielder who is responsible for how the tool is used that should be judged. Do not be so fast to attach each person who wields the tools of an exorcist with those accursed people." Moustache's reply had a rather reprimanding tone to it, as if he was telling off a child.
What made the situation even stranger was the fact that Hoshikari hung her head in shame, much like a child would after a scolding, and stepped sullenly into the circle.
"I am one of Natsume-sama's protectors, human. Bow before me."
It was a start, at least.
"Why have you continued drawing these accursed symbols on the ground, even after you admitted that your elder had insisted on our existence remaining a secret?" Hoshikari demanded to know, her demeanour as imperious as her Name sounded. "Answer me!"
"Ho… You're scaring her, can't you see that? Calm down!" Takako managed to stop herself in time from shouting out the spirit's Name; if this was the spirit's reaction to just having another human see her, there was no telling if even Takako would be safe from the ayakashi's wrath if she let slip her Name in front of Taki.
"No! It's fine! I… I'm really very sorry – I didn't realise that it would cause so much trouble for you!" Taki replied, her back as straight as a rod, kneeling as if apologising, "It's to do with what happened two hundred and ninety seven days ago."
"Why such an accurate number, Taki?" Natsume asked, recalling that the girl had mentioned the same figure earlier on in the story.
"Well… I had drawn the circle again to see if I could see anything that day, when a much larger… far scarier figure stepped into the circle. It sent chills down my back, and I couldn't sleep for days after seeing it. I still can't sleep properly now." The teenager clasped her head in her hands, as if doing so might somehow keep the image of whatever was scaring her out of her head, "And… and while most of the spirits who passed through the circle never noticed me, this one did. It… it was angry that I had seen it, and cursed me. It gave me three-hundred days to find it again, and that if I managed to find it before the deadline, it wouldn't eat me." The tears had gathered in Taki's eyes and had already begun to freefall down her cheeks.
"That explains why you're so clear on the days then, and why you're drawing these circles everywhere, since you can't see ayakashi without them." Natsume mused aloud, "But it doesn't explain why you apologised to me after speaking to me the first time."
"That's a part of the curse the youkai placed on me – for the next three hundred days, anyone whose Name I called out would be eaten in the order I called out to them in, and the spirit would save me for last, as a punishment for seeing him." The tears had become sobs, and her explanations were choked on emotion, "Why? Why does he have to be so horrible, just for me being able to see?"
Why indeed. Natsume was sympathetic towards Taki – after all, she seemed very much like a normal high school girl, and, unlike Natsume who had had a lifetime of being threatened with slow digestion in the bowels of some demon, had become involved in the world of ayakashi by accident rather than design.
"And I take it that I am now one of those on the hit list, so to speak?"
"I'm so, so sorry! I really am!"
"Please, Taki – stop your tears. I may be able to help you in this matter. You may have noticed that I don't need the help of a circle to let me see these guys," Takako gestured towards the two figures standing in the rather cramped circle, "So if you tell me what this guy looks like, I should be able to help you in tracking this thing down."
"You… you can see them? Without the circle? Are you from an onmyouji family?"
"No, not a family. I suppose it might run in the family, since my grandmother could see them as well." Natsume was a little hesitant over revealing this particular fact – after all, she hardly knew the girl. But one thing was for certain; the girl had been terrified out of her mind by this formless spectre that she couldn't even see normally for the last ten or so months. "You don't have to face this alone anymore."
The teary gratefulness that was evident on the girl's face shone so brightly that Takako had to resist the urge to back away in apprehension – no human being had ever looked at her with such an expression before, and she was a little wary of the consequences that might follow. "Anyway, just give me a description – my two friends here can go and spread the word to the others, right?" After getting the affirmatives, she turned back to her slightly overwhelmed schoolmate. "Let's get going. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not get eaten by something that I can't even identify."
It was fair to say that, by the time she had found Nyanko-sensei, and had whacked the cat over the head for managing to get so drunk off his head as to pass out in his giant form again, and then explained the situation to him, the bakemono was absolutely livid.
"You… you idiot! No! You're less than an idiot! An idiot would at least consult their teacher before getting so involved in such a troublesome matter! You… you…"
"Sensei, calm down! It's not like I could just leave her alone, with her drawing those circles everywhere and terrorising both the youkai and human populations with sightings." Natsume tried to reason with the glaring maneki neko. "It's just finding the thing and letting Taki see it again. The curse should end then."
"Hmph – any ayakashi who manages to wander into such a circle without even suspecting the consequences is either an idiot or looking for trouble. Neither of those is good news for us. Just let that Taki brat get eaten – you're not even friends, are you?" Nyanko-sensei announced heartlessly, slapping his paws on Takako's knees, making her wince from the impact that was sure to bruise, "I'm really, really put out! Why do you insist on poking your nose into each and every little thing?"
"I do not! I only help those who ask for it, and those I know! It's only been the Yatsuhara group that I've helped out!" Natsume protested, feeling that her sensei's accusations were a little unfairly directed.
"Only!? What were the small men last week that you helped find a water source then? That god a few weeks back whose last believer passed away? That fox brat you still visit when you think I'm gone for the weekend?"
Natsume flushed, feeling a little embarrassed by the extent that Nyanko-sensei had observed her, even when she wasn't aware of it. Each of those accusations rang true, although it was hardly on a random whim that she helped each of those individuals. And, since nothing negative had really come out of any of those encounters, she hadn't considered them to be of any consequence. "If you won't help me with this out of compassion, then maybe you'll help out to protect your investments."
"What are you yammering about?"
"Well, another part of the curse is that every person who Taki called by name in the last two hundred and ninety-odd days is going to be eaten as well." Takako took some pride in the look of dawning horror in Nyanko-sensei's beady eyes, "Of course, she has already called my name out by accident, so unless you help me find this youkai that's hunting Taki, your hard-won prey is going to be eaten by something else."
Takako was half-afraid that the fat feline was going to morph into his massive form and swallow her whole there and then, the expression on her sensei's face was so angry.
"I… there are no words. There are actually no words. Where is this girl who's managed to drag you into this horror of a situation? I might eat her first – that'll certainly get rid of the stupid curse." The anger-inflated cat seemed to visibly deflate as he realised the full implications of what his troublesome human had managed to get herself involved in. Even his threat didn't have the same bite to it as before.
"She's just over there – I've got her erasing the circles around the Yatsuhara Fields for now, if only to reassure the residents here." Natsume gestured in the general direction of her classmate. "Try and be gentle, sensei – you know not all humans react to talking cats as well as I did on our first meeting."
"Hmph. Just because I dislike having contact with many humans doesn't mean I don't know their habits – don't underestimate me, brat!" Nyanko-sensei snapped, morphing into his human form again, "Any better?"
"Better… but do you have to keep on morphing into me? It's a little disconcerting, to tell the truth." Natsume complained, still not quite used to seeing herself outside of a mirror.
"Don't underestimate the power needed to shapeshift, Natsume. It takes some concentration to maintain this form, and currently, the only humans I've had a really close look at are you and your grandmother – it's natural that I'd be using the two of you as a template." The transformed girl groused, as if it pained her to admit this shortcoming. "I assume that the girl will appreciate this form better than one of a talking cat."
"And you realised this after you talked in front of me, and then Tanuma, and got bad reactions both times?"
"I hardly got any reaction out of you, brat…" The cat snapped back, the truth stinging a little.
"If you say so, sensei, if you say so…"
"Ah, Natsume! Er… who's this?" Taki was visibly relieved when Takako came back with Nyanko-sensei in tow. The feline that had shifted into a human form was regarding the young human girl with some rather detached disgust.
"This is my teacher… you can just call hi… er… her sensei." Surely a title wouldn't count as a name…
"I'd rather not. I'm not too sure about the rules."
"Natsume, you mean to say that you've involved yourself with a human idiot who doesn't even know the full terms of the contract a spirit put her under? Apparently I give you far too much credit." Nyanko-sensei scolded, the frown deepening further, "So? What does this thing look like? Everything cancels as long as you see it again, right?"
"Um… yes, I think so."
"Well then! Get going!"
"Yes, sir!"
As Natsume blinked in the wake of the apparently timid girl scarpering away from the (admittedly intimidating) disguised Nyanko-sensei, after shoving a piece of paper with a hastily scribbled drawing on it. "Nyanko-sensei… try and at least get along with this girl – remember what I said? It's not like she involved me with this on purpose."
"I don't really care. The fact remains that she's managed to endanger your life, and so is a pain in my neck." The grumpy cat griped, folding her arms in a confrontational manner, "What's that?"
Natsume was clutching a piece of paper that Taki had managed to stick in her hands before the girl had run away from the glaring Nyanko-sensei. The drawing was… simple, at best, and looked even worse than some of her doodles that she sometimes drew on her notes. "She drew what the demon she saw looks like… although it doesn't seem that fearsome from this sketch…" She held the crumpled piece of paper up for the morphed youkai to discern, "I'll ask the Yatsuhara bunch to keep a lookout as well – we only have three days before the deadline."
"What kind of an idiot gets involved in a contract without even getting the rules out of it?" Sensei grumbled once more, dismissing the piece of paper without even glancing at the picture, "I have the girl's scent from this thing – I should be able to trace the youkai by her scent. It's far more reliable than whatever scribble your new friend has attempted."
"How do you manage that?" Natsume asked, tracing the paper again in an attempt to discern whatever 'scent' Nyanko-sensei was getting from the flimsy piece of paper her yearmate had left her with. She could just about make out a large, scar-like mark on the forehead, and a rather grotesque smile, but otherwise, it was a farily unremarkable piece of paper.
"And again, you rely far too much on your human sight. You have enough power to see beyond the mundane, and yet you let it go to waste."
"And how is that my fault?"
"Don't try and pin this on me, Natsume! It's hardly my fault that you're too simple to even grasp the most basic of concepts!"
"For… you're being ridiculous! How can you expect me to suddenly apply the one thing you've taught me to do into suddenly being able to do everything."
"Hmph… Reiko was a much more gifted student than you are, that's for sure." The morphed youkai muttered, enraging the sensitive teenage girl even further.
"Fine! I'm stupid! I'm just so sick of you being so snide all the time, as if this was something that any human could do!" Takako yelled, frustration and tiredness overcoming her long-established control over her emotions. "Let me go about my way, and I won't bother you anymore with my incompetence!"
Then, wishing she had a door to slam in the shape-shifted cat's face, she spun around on her heel, stalking off in a random direction and refusing to look back towards the rather bemused pseudo-human, who was now scratching her hair in a way the ayakashi had often seen Reiko do before, wondering what was bothering the troublesome teenage human this time.
"Tch… women! And Hinoe wonders why I prefer to talk with males…"
It should be noted, however, that the shape-shifting cat said this very softly, under its breath, to make sure that the surly human girl didn't hear that particular comment.
"Stupid cat… losing his temper over something that I've only just begun to understand… how am I supposed to know by instinct how to do any of this…?" Takako muttered rebelliously, kicking the grass as she walked. As she muttered a few more choice words under her breath, none of which were suitable to be repeated at all.
Coming to an empty grass plain, Takako collapsed onto the soft, drying grass, trying not to get any grass stains on her skirt. As the anger she had just vented gave way to her more rational side, she flushed at how childish she had sounded. I need to apologise… Natsume laughed a little at the petulance she put into that admission.
I'll buy him some Nanatsuji-ya sweet buns later.
Happy with her resolve, she got back on her feet, and brushed off her uniform skirt, and patted her waist-bag again to check that the Book was still on her person. The check had now become almost habitual, since she had realised just how important the burden her grandmother had left her with was. After all, having a physical representation of a being's Name that was tied to their very being was a heavy responsibility indeed.
Raising her head though, she realised how big a mistake she had made when she had lowered her guard to do that check.
"So… you're the human brat that's been sniffing around and trying to steal my prey from me?"
Looking up, Natsume's breath was stolen by the sight and pressure that the youkai was emiting. The scrawl that Taki had drawn did not do the terrifying presence that was obviously the youkai that had cursed Taki all those months ago. The spirit stood an easy two feet taller than she was, and the gigantic youkai was masked by what looked like a massive gravestone, with a stitch running across the forehead. The grey mask was foreboding, and it felt as if the whole weight of the gravestone was trying to crush her chest.
"Now… what should I do with you…?"
The fear that the voice put in her made her cry for help catch in her throat. Instead, the cry rang true through her head, and she could only hope that Nyanko-sensei would be able to smell her distress.
Sensei!
Author's Note
It seems that every single time I write one of these, it's to apologise. Things have been a little heavy in RL lately, and this chapter has been hanging around for a while, but with deadlines and on-calls and night shifts, it's been a little difficult for me to finish checking over it and making sure it makes some sort of sense.
I'm still not 100% happy, but I felt that this is the best I can do for now - next chapter concludes the Taki arc, and finally, finally, introduces the Matoba family (although not Matoba himself, sorry about that).
Also, I'm going to upload a drabble series that's related to Natsume Takako, where there are some of the scenes that I really wanted to write, but didn't quite fit into the plot. And so, I'm writing a separate ficlet to get rid of some of the drabble bunnies (a new term?) and hopefully give people something to read in between the main chapters.
Also, in relation to kappa, check out google - long story short, it's said that this spirit gets its power from the water in the bowl-shaped hat on top of its head, and if the bowl runs dry, or the water falls out of it, the spirit becomes powerless, which is why Natsume now always carries a bottle of water in her bag as a just-in-case for Kimyokawa.
Until next time! I'm hoping for some time before Christmas...
Fiametta
