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blackkyu: Sorry about the yokai part. Something must have happened during the formatting. Glad you liked the rest through :)

AN: Well here's the next chapter and more of the curse is explained! Don't forget I am working on a missing scenes chapter and if there is something someone would like to see leave it in a review or PM me. Please leave a review!


Chapter 53

Once again Natsume found himself in an old style house. But this one, this one was different. It was falling apart and it had a rotting smell to it. He walked around the endless hallways and he had no clue where he was going. He kept hoping that he would run into the brown haired man again, but there was no sign of him.

As he walked the house got in worse shape and the rotting smell intensified. What really trouble Natsume were the doors he passed. The hallways were lined with them. He tried to open a few of them, but they were locked. He would press his ear against them and he could hear whispering coming from within. Sad whispering.

He continued to walk the winding and twisting hallways getting more and more lost. He frowned to himself. He needed to find the brown haired man or at the very least a way out. The only good thing was that this time there was no shadowy creature after him.

Natsume continued to walk when he finally found someone up ahead. He hoped that he had finally found the man that had helped him the previous night, but when he got closer he saw that it wasn't the case. It was the man with the blue-black hair. The man that he saw in his other dream. The dream that had Akito, but wasn't Akito.

The strange man must have heard him because he looked up. His mouth opened and closed a few times like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Natsume's first instinct was to run, but he felt no bad energy coming from the man, not to mention that he saw him before albeit briefly.

"I thought that I dreamed you up," the man said as he walked over to him.

"No," Natsume answered simply. He almost said the same thing in reply, but he was beginning to wonder if these 'dreams' he was having were really dreams or something else entirely.

"What are you doing here?" the man asked as he looked at him curiously. "Are you here to break my family out?"

"Break them out?" Natsume asked.

"My family is locked up in here," the man said as he touched one of the doors a look of deep regret in his eyes. "Even after we die, he doesn't let us go." Natsume now looked at the doors with melancholy. They were doors that led to cells. No wonder he heard sad whispering coming from within.

"I want to help and I'm trying to. My…" Natsume paused here not sure what to call Kyo. He really knew nothing about this man. "Someone I really care about is part of your family and I want to help him."

"My brother tried to warn us," the man said with regret still in his eyes, but now it was tinged with a sadness as well. "We didn't listen to him though. I wasn't able to save him, but I managed to keep his book safe."

"Your brother?" Natsume asked curiously. The man nodded slowly. "Does he have brown hair?"

"He does," the man said as his eyes lit up he then grabbed Natsume in a desperate manner. "Have you seen him?" Natsume nodded. "Is he alright?"

"I…" Natsume said and nervously bit his lip. "I don't know. We were attacked by a shadowy creature. He managed to help me escape, but I don't know what happened after that."

"I'm sure his friends got him out," the man said as he finally let go of his shoulders, but leaned over and looked at him curiously. "You're like him, aren't you?" Natsume opened and closed his mouth a few time unsure of what the man was asking him. "You can see them. Your eyes are the same. Not the same color, but the same none the less." Natsume nodded.

"I found his book," Natsume told him now glad that he had given his satchel to Kyo. At least he would keep the books safe.

"And you were able to read it?" the man asked. Natsume again nodded.

"The book never mentioned what happened to him," Natsume told him. Here the man sighed heavily as he sat down. Natsume sat down next to him.

"He never wanted what the man promised. He warned us against him, but none of us listened not even me," the man explained looking despondent. "He was my half-brother you see. An illegitimate son. My father got one of our servant girls pregnant and his mother died in childbirth. My father chose to raise him. He was 'part' of the family, but he could never inherit. Most of the family ignored him because of this, and it didn't help that he had invisible friends."

"I was the only one that ever believed him, but in the end," here the man sighed, "I betrayed him too. What was promised to us seemed too good to be true. So I turned my back on him and called him a liar. When I got back from my quest I found out the truth. That my brother had been right all along and his punishment for trying to warn us.

"If you read his book and know our family, you know that we gave our names to the twelve yokai that relate to the Chinese zodiac," the man said. Natsume nodded. "The thing of it is. He needed a vessel, the thirteenth year or the non-year to hold the 'curse' in."

"Oh," Natsume said as he remembered how the brown haired and Kyo had the same bracelet. The bracelet most somehow be the seal holding the curse in.

"You know what I mean," the man said as he looked at him curiously.

"I think so," Natsume said.

"Then you know that once you break the twelve seals, the seal on the vessel should also break and the members of our family will be free," the man said.

"What I don't understand is how Akito connects to all of this," Natsume said.

"Akito? Who's Akito?" the man asked curiously.

"He…" Natsume started to say, but then stopped when he heard a loud thumping noise. It was far away, but Natsume recognized the sound from the other night. That shadowy creature was back.

"He never comes down here," the man next to him said as he went pale. "We need to get you out of here before he finds you." The man then lurched to his feet giving Natsume no choice but to follow him.

The man then began to lead him down twisting hallways. He seemed to know where he was going or at least Natsume hoped he did. This place really was like a maze. The thumping though never stopped. Whatever it was, was looking for them.

"This place has grown continuously since I've been here," the man said as he turned down another hallway that was once again lined with locked doors. "I think it grows to keep all of us prisoner."

"How did you manage to get out?" Natsume asked.

"I'm not sure," the man said with a frown. "One day, not that long ago, my door just opened. I assumed that it was one of my brother's friends that let me out. He locked my brother up after he cursed him."

"Akito, he locks them all up, the ones that carry the curse," Natsume told him. No sooner had Natsume said that, than the banging got louder. Whatever was looking for them was getting closer. They quickened their pace.

"The person that you care about. He's the thirteenth cursed, isn't he?" Natsume nodded. "I looked for my brother, but I was never able to find him. But you were able to find your friend and rescue him."

"I had some help," Natsume thought he would tell him. It was obvious the man truly regretted what he had done and Natsume didn't want to add to his pain.

"You truly are like him," the man said wistfully as the stopped in front of a long hallway with a light at the end. "You're too kind. Now if you walk down that way, you'll find a way out. Just head towards the light."

"Can't you come with me?" Natsume asked. He hated the fact that he had to leave someone else behind that had helped him, especially since he could hear the thumping in the distance.

"I'm afraid I can't," the man said with a small shake of his head.

"Then can you at least tell me you and your brother's name?" Natsume asked.

"I no longer know my name. He has it, you see," the man said with a sad smile. "My brother's name on the other hand. I've never forgotten it. Shinji."

"Shinji," Natsume repeated and the man nodded.

"That's right," the man said with a smile. "When you see my brother again, can you tell him I'm sorry?"

"Of course," Natsume said. The man gave him a sad smile in return.

"You better go before he gets here. He can't hurt me. The curse protects me from that. The worst he can do is lock me back up. Now go," the man then gently shoved him down the hallway towards the light.

Natsume walked down the hallway alone missing the man's company. He looked behind him only to see shadows. He quickened his pace. He needed to get out of there. The hallway was longer than it appeared, but eventually he could tell that the light at the end of the tunnel was actually sunlight.

When Natsume walked outside he took a deep breath of fresh air. It felt good to be out of that place. He looked behind him expecting to see the old house he was just in or at least Shigure's house, but he saw nothing but trees. He then looked around and realized that he had no idea where he was. He didn't have time to contemplate it though as the world tilted then everything went black.