"We seal it, of course!"
"Shut up, exorcist!" Nyanko-sensei snapped.
Natsume's instructor stared in disbelief at his student's "shiki". No other shiki have ever spoken to him in such a way that it left him at a loss for words.
"Sensei," Natsume said in a barely audible voice but still caught the attention of both his teachers. "I'm sorry, but could I please talk to him first?"
"Hmph. Natsume, you naive brat!" Nyanko-sensei fumed in anger, called him names, and jumped on his shoulder to hit him on the face, but he made no move of physically stopping his charge from plunging into yet another life-threatening situation.
"Sensei..." Natsume smiled. He knew that despite his Sensei's harsh words, he'd go along with his request in the end.
"As if I'd let a weakling have his way with my prey!" The cat shouted so loudly that it was a wonder why the ayakashi they were spying on haven't noticed them yet.
"You can't!" His instructor stepped in on their conversation. As someone who was entrusted of the safety of a student, there was no way he would allow such a dangerous plan. Besides there was no reasoning with ayakashi; they're different from humans.
"It's okay. Sensei would be with me." Natsume reassured the other man as he petted the cat which was still on his shoulder and with one last look at the instructor's worried face, he stepped out of the bushes.
"Oi, Natsume, be careful. I'm more than capable of defeating such a low-level ayakashi, but even I can't save you from your stupidity." Nyanko-sensei reminded the boy always seemed to act before he thinks. He usually won't worry as much, but this was the youkai that hurt a human without any sort of explanation; it could lash out at them at any moment.
Natsume only gave him a curt nod. Despite the possibility that the ayakashi would react violently to a presence suddenly creeping up from behind him, the boy took no defensive stance and just approached the other party stealthily. When he was only a few meters away, he called out, "Hey."
The ayakashi didn't even turn around before clambering over the other side of the clearing. He looked so scared, whoever attacked him must've been really frightening for such a tough-looking ayakashi to cower in fear like so. "No! Stop! You promised to let us go, right?! " He begged.
Nyanko-sensei jumped off of Natsume's shoulder and stepped up to the spirit's side. . "Calm down, idiot. Do we even look like we want to fight?" He pointed out as he gestured towards the boy who had both his hands in the air to show that he was carrying nothing that could be of harm.
The ayakashi fearfully turned his head. "Oh, a pig-cat." As if he wasn't fearing for his life just a moment ago, he ignored the shouts of protests from the seemingly harmless creature and moved to see the other presence in the immediate area. "Natsume... -sama..."
The two were obviously shocked by this new development, but had no time to express it when an arrow with a paper wrapped securely at its tail came zooming past them from behind and onto the spirit's forehead.
A piercing shriek erupted from the ayakashi who then fell onto the ground. He writhed and cried, but Natsume had no idea how to reverse the spell. All he could do was watch as the spirit slowly turned into ashes and hold onto the his arm comfortingly until that too was burnt to the ground along with every part of his body.
"That was close. Ayakashi are deceitful; you shouldn't let your guard down just because they look hurt, Natsume-kun." There, stepping out from behind the trees, was the head of the clan himself, Matoba Seiji.
Author's Notes: Whew! Finally, an update. There's something going on with my laptop so I didn't have the chance to write this, but then I noticed that a lot more people are following this story now so I was like, "Screw this, I'm writing on my tablet!" So yep, I'm on my tablet. I'm sorry if there are more mistakes than usual.
Thank you for reading!
6/23/15