Archive of Our Own ^beta

The lights on the set were so bright they were nearly tangibly heavy, pinning Natori and his scene partner down like insects for the whirring mechanical eyes of the cameras. In his peripheral vision, he caught the director cueing camera three to get a close up. As if in response, the lizard scurried down his jawline and under the collar of his shirt. As loud as it sounded to Natori, he knew from experience that the boom mics positioned over their heads wouldn't pick up the noise for anyone else in the room.

Natori ignored them all with practiced ease, from the human crew clustered around barely out of shot to Hiiragi hovering behind the main camera. His shiki still insisted on standing watch while they were filming, as if it was likely that he'd be attacked by an ayakashi here.

For the ninth time that day, Natori looked into Akiba-san's eyes and took her hands in his. "Makoto," he whispered, his voice husky with emotion. "Please. Don't choose between me and your career. I'm not worth it. I can't take that away from you."

He watched her face twist with emotion, the indecision expertly telegraphed as her eyes looked back and forth between each of his. Natori liked working with Akiba-san; she was especially skilled at these sorts of scenes.

"Hiroshi," she murmured, her voice edging on regretful. Natori took in a quick breath to telegraph both relief at the use of his first name and dismay at what might come next. "I... Thank you."

She slipped out of his hands and he stood there, looking longingly after her. "I'm glad," he said, blinking rapidly as if fighting back tears. He let it go for a few extra seconds for the benefit of camera three.

"Cut! Alright, everyone," the director said, clapping his hands together. "I think we got it. Let's call it a wrap for the day, and we'll see you all on location next week."

Natori and Akiba cheered alongside the rest of the cast and crew.

"Good work today, Natori-san," Akiba said cheerfully. Over the top of her head, Natori saw a piece of paper fluttering in front of Hiiragi's face. She grabbed it before it could drift over to him, holding it between her fingers as if it were a piece of litter.

More exorcist communication, then. Natori wasn't particularly surprised; he was hardly the only exorcist going out of town next week, though he was leaving for a very different reason than the rest of them.

"That's my line," he said to Akiba, smiling down at her. "I'm looking forward to working together in Tokyo."

It took around twenty minutes for Natori to disentangle himself from the cast and crew long enough to confer with his shiki. The four of them clustered around the note in the quiet alleyway behind the production studio, though Natori kept one eye on the door in case some assistant needed to come out this way.

"It's another coverage request," Hiiragi said. Like most exorcist communication, there was no address on the paper save his name. Natori preferred it that way. First, there was no reason to send details on exorcist jobs through the regular mail. Secondly, and more importantly, he didn't need any exorcists knowing where he lived. Getting enchanted letters or scrolls hand-delivered by shiki was annoying enough.

"Who is it?" Natori asked, not because he intended on taking the job but because it impacted how (or if) he'd bother to respond. "And what, I suppose."

"The head of the Takamori," Hiiragi said, which was a surprise. Takamori was one of the more independent houses, and their leader didn't tend to dump busywork on those she thought beneath her. "Assistance for the Yatsushiro job."

An even bigger surprise. The Yatsushiro work was prestigious and long-term. Even if they only needed coverage for a few days, that was a big jewel for someone else to pick up.

Urihime clearly agreed. "If she's passing up the Yatsushiro job, she must have received an invitation to the Night Parade."

"Takamori-san is moving up in the world!" Sasago commented cheerfully. "That's certainly interesting."

It was. Technically any gathering of a group of youkai could be considered a night parade-- they were more of a drinking party than any sort of organized force, especially in this day and age. There was only one worth getting the entire exorcist community on high alert; when discussing the Night Parade, they meant Kyoto. Once a year, a true procession worthy of the old name-- the hyakki yagyou, the night parade of one hundred demons-- descended upon the old city with all the force that it had centuries ago. And so once a year, all sorts of professional spellcasters from across Japan flooded into the city for the same night for what could only be described as crowd control. No one went into the Night Parade planning on conducting an exorcism. The event attracted gods, ancient creatures, the sort of monsters that would each promise dozens of casualties even if an exorcism was successful. And there would be hundreds of them.

Instead, the strongest members of the community traveled to Kyoto to contain, rather than control, the activities. Wards sprung up around the city to hold back the force of the party for the majority of the residents. Normal people may experience stray high winds, unusual illnesses, or unnerving shadows, but walking outside during the Night Parade was no longer a death sentence for the average citizen. That was, if the exorcist community did their job correctly.

And while all of the strongest exorcists were in Kyoto, that left the rest of them to cover whatever issues popped up at home. In previous years, Natori had done well for himself picking up stray jobs that had to be handed off because the Night Parade took priority.

"I'll respond to her," Natori said, adjusting his glasses as an excuse to cover his mouth as a hurried production assistant threw the door open and ran off on her next errand. "She should at least get a congratulations."

As much as Natori loathed getting tied up in exorcist politics, it was impossible to avoid the shifts in the power structure with the Night Parade coming up. Only the most powerful exorcists received an invitation to join the delegation to Kyoto to assist in the preparations. It was dangerous work. People died during the Night Parade if they weren't careful. Going on the trip was a status symbol, and not only because it granted access to the top minds from across the country. It was a sign of recognition that you could handle the work.

Natori had, incidentally, received an invitation to go to Kyoto himself. He hadn't bothered sending back his regrets. It might not have been a joke, but he received one every year, and every year he didn't go. It was a good time to pick up work back home, and he'd rather do that than have to rub elbows with the politicking heads of other clans. Besides, he had his own reasons.

The cafe around the corner from the set had a nice-sized menu and tall enough booths for some privacy, which was enough to make it his default spot to meet Natsume after work. The booths weren't fully deterring the pair of girls in the corner who kept coming up with excuses to pass by their table, but there was no avoiding that.

"So I'll be in Tokyo for all of next week," Natori concluded. "But I'll give you my hotel information in case anything comes up."

He knew that Natsume wouldn't reach out unless it was truly dire, but he had to say it anyway. If Natsume needed help, Natori would find a way to get back home.

"It's okay," Natsume said politely. "I wouldn't want to interrupt." It wouldn't help much to protest that it wasn't interrupting and that Natori would much rather make up a family emergency than come back to find that Natsume had gotten himself eaten, but Natori opened his mouth to do it anyway before Natsume continued. "I won't be here at the end of the week anyway. It's... My class trip is next weekend."

"Your class trip, huh..." Natori said, wrapping his hands around his cup of tea. "That's exciting."

There was something in the way Natsume said it-- shy and almost superstitious, like it was the first time he'd said it out loud-- that made Natori realize: Natsume hadn't been sure he was going to go. Natori couldn't blame him. The nature of seeing the sort of things that they saw meant there was no real guarantee that any particular plan would be upheld, especially those made by classmates who had nothing more to worry about than school exams and where they'd go to university. Natsume would have even more reason to be cautious about those sorts of things than Natori had at that age. If Natsume was telling him about it, he must have made up his mind to go.

Natori had been the same way about his own class trip, back when he was a teenager still trying to figure out how much of his time to devote between his burgeoning exorcist work and the increasingly distant concerns of his classmates. He hadn't even acknowledged the trip out loud until he'd mentioned it to Takuma-san a few weeks before they'd left, and only then because it had been a way to distract Takuma from his familiar refrain about how Shuuichi should spend less time on exorcist jobs and more time on 'being a high schooler.' Takuma had seized onto the topic with more enthusiasm than Shuuichi had expected.

"You should go, Shuuichi-kun," Takuma had said, his face kind. "You only get one chance. Make some memories with your classmates."

It was the same thing all his teachers had said at the time, except Takuma knew what the others hadn't: that he and his classmates wouldn't be seeing the same sights, even if they were physically in the same location together. Takuma understood, without needing it explained to him, that Shuuichi was planning on skipping it. That Shuuichi had no one else he could say it to, and no one who would tell him to go along anyway.

Well, he had told Seiji. But Seiji had just said "Why bother? There's no point to it."

In the end, Takuma was the one who Natori ended up listening to. So Natori had gone, and it went exactly as he'd expected it (feared it) to. He'd trudged along in the back of his class as they perfunctorily took in the top tourist sights in Kyoto, and when everyone split up to do their own activities, he was alone. He couldn't even find any exorcist work to do; it had been a few weeks before that year's Night Parade, and no one was going to humor an unknown teenager with nothing behind him but the name of a failed clan. So in the end, he'd sat in a park with Urihime, doing his best not to think about anything at all. And then...

Well, anyway. The point was, he walked away from his class trip more isolated than ever from his classmates, more convinced that they could never understand him. But, Natori supposed, there was a difference between going as a halfhearted lifeline to a human world that didn't seem to want him around, and... and Natsume. Somehow Natsume managed to walk the line between the human world and ayakashi, but it couldn't last forever.

Natori understood, now, what Takuma had been getting at. Let Natsume enjoy it while he had it.

"That's great," Natori said earnestly. "I'm glad you're taking advantage of the opportunity. You're only in high school once, after all."

Natsume looked quietly relieved, as if he was expecting Natori to warn him off of it. "Did you go to yours?"

"I did," Natori said, and never considered sharing how little it improved his feelings towards the rest of his class. That wasn't what Natsume needed to hear. "And I'm glad I did. I think you should go too."

Something in Natsume's face smoothed out at that-- the validation of his decision to go, whatever else Natsume might be afraid of. Probably somehow dragging his friends into danger. Natori couldn't deny that Natsume managed to draw it all in like a magnet. Couldn't, in fact, deny that Natsume might also be drawing that attention to his friends, however unintentionally. He glanced down at Nyanko-sensei, sitting in his best impression of a stuffed animal on the table in full violation of the cafe's hygiene laws, only to find that the cat was watching him with his strange, inhuman eyes. Natori trusted Nyanko-sensei-- more or less, anyway-- to scare off the worst of what might come after Natsume anywhere they went, but...

"Where are you going? I might be able to pull some strings there, if you end up needing support." Support he was certain Natsume wouldn't take, if only because he knew how terrible exorcists could be, but he needed to offer.

"No, that's fine. We'll be in Kyoto, and Sensei--"

Natori's cup clattered so hard against the table that the other patrons jumped, including the two girls who had been whispering to each other the entire time. He disregarded the stares, leaning in to speak urgently to Natsume.

"You're going to Kyoto? Next weekend?"

"Yes," Natsume said, looking suddenly cautious. "I didn't say anything sooner because--"

Natori shook his head, more in disbelief than to cut Natsume off. Talk about being a danger magnet. "Why couldn't your school just go to Tokyo?" he bemoaned. "If I call them, can they change it? Is it too late?"

"Natori-san," Natsume said quietly, with a self-conscious glance around them. "What is it?"

"You're going to Kyoto on the most dangerous night of the year, Natsume," Natori said, partly as an explanation and partly because he had the vague hope that saying it out loud would somehow make it less true. Very naive; he of all people should know that you couldn't change the reality of something by wishing it. "They'd crawl over each other to get to you."

"I know Sensei said we'd be there during the Night Parade, but..." Natsume trailed off momentarily with a glance towards Sensei before he continued. "He said that the exorcists stopped it from causing problems for humans a long time ago."

Natori could read between the lines there-- he suspected that Nyanko-sensei had said something closer to 'the exorcists ruined all the fun.' He stared at Nyanko-sensei accusingly. "How could you possibly allow this."

"Feh," the ayakashi said, licking a paw with an air of nonchalance. "I'm not going to let anything happen to him."

"Are you sure you won't be drinking with the rest of them?" Natori asked testily.

Sensei puffed up indignantly. "You insolent brat!"

"I'm serious, Natsume," Natori said despairingly. "Sensei isn't going to be the strongest ayakashi there by a long shot. He might not be able to step in if anything goes wrong. And we can't... It's going to be different for you than everyone else. Most humans are protected from the Night Parade because of their own ignorance of the ayakashi around them. It stops the ayakashi from noticing them in return, like a mutual barrier. But for someone like you..."

For someone of Natsume's sheer spiritual power, it'd be like throwing a steak out to a pack of hungry wolves. As soon as he became aware of the hoards of youkai on the streets-- which he couldn't help being-- they'd be aware of Natsume in return. And their awareness was dangerous.

Natsume did at least seem to be taking him seriously; he was worrying his bottom lip, frowning at the table. "What about people with a lower spiritual awareness?" he asked. "Are they at the same risk?"

Natori couldn't see what he was getting at. "To a smaller degree. It's like-- to all these ayakashi, your classmates are going to seem like ants, like something that isn't worth bothering with. Someone with a bit of power might be like... like a cat. A normal cat. Some people like cats, so they might try to engage with a cat on the street, but most people won't stop for it. But you're like... you're like if that cat were human-sized and speaking back to them. And in this metaphor they'd also want to eat the cat."

Natori was aware that he was babbling, but at least Natsume appeared to be taking it into consideration. But rather than anything reassuring, he just said "Natori-san, could I ask a favor? Are there any protective charms you could give me that would stop the ayakashi from noticing someone?"

"Not something that would mask you," Natori said firmly, but then he remembered-- of course, Natsume had that friend who had stumbled into the ayakashi realm during that Omibashira scam. He probably wasn't even worried about himself at all, just his friend's experience on their trip.

Natori buried his face in his hands and thought.

Natsume shouldn't go. He could maybe barter something for this-- give Natsume the charms he was asking for, but have him promise not to go on the trip himself. It was his duty as an exorcist to forbid Natsume from going-- or, well, at least stress that he should change his mind. Or he could come up with something to tell the Fujiwaras to get them to pull Natsume out of the trip. He could maybe even lean on the school, or flex some of his star power if he had to. There was something he could do about this.

Except. Except Natsume wouldn't forgive him if he pulled any heavy-handed tactics-- and Natori was surprised to realize that he wouldn't forgive himself either. He couldn't deny Natsume's friend some extra protection or go behind Natsume's back to try to strongarm Natsume into doing what he wanted, even if what he wanted was clearly the best solution. And he'd meant what he said before about Natsume having a normal life. He had such a short window left to do so.

Natori breathed out the longest sigh he could manage and made his decision. If Natsume was going to go, then it was up to Natori to ensure that the proper protections were in place. Not just giving Natsume and his friends some charms and hoping for the best, but really making sure that they were safe. And that meant that Natori would have to go to Kyoto himself. While shooting in Tokyo.

"Yes," he said in defeat as the next week stretched forward in his mind. "I'll get you something."

"So the Natori clan decided to join us after all," Matoba said the moment he walked into the exorcist hall. "Excellent. Please sit down, Natori-san."

Natori had sent off a paper doll announcing his intention to join the group headed to Kyoto and hoped that would be the end of it. He received a response instructing him to arrive at a 'pre-departure orientation,' for those who were going for the first time. He'd almost thought it was a joke, except that he'd thrown in a reference in his reply to Takamori-san and she'd confirmed that she was going as well. So either it was a very elaborate prank, or...

Natori thought briefly about not going anyway-- of just showing up in Kyoto and lending a hand. And granted, there was nothing stopping him from doing so. If he hadn't received an invitation, he could have hopped on the shinkansen to Kyoto the same as any other tourist might. It would ruffle a lot of feathers in the exorcist community, but it couldn't really impact him that badly. Most exorcists couldn't throw caution to the wind and go off on their own because there would be consequences to the rest of their clan. Since Natori was the full extent of his clan, and already in an odd position besides, that wasn't much of a threat.

But it would also mean being cut out of the larger scope of the protections across the city. He'd be one person working outside of the much more intricate defenses that a group of exorcists could concoct with the proper organization. It'd be inefficient, and more importantly, it'd be less effective. He could legitimately do more working as part of a group than striking out on his own.

So: a predeparture orientation. Fine.

There were only a handful of people in the room, Takamori-san and her second in command among them. Natori made a note in the back of his head to work through the implications of who was present later, since he was distracted by the fact that Matoba Seiji was leading it personally rather than having delegated it out to any of his subordinates. Surely someone else could have spent the several hours that Matoba did on explaining the arrays their fellow exorcists were preparing across Kyoto as they spoke? Surely they didn't need to have the head of the Matoba clan himself to walk through what their duties were on the night of the main event?

"All of you should practice this casting beforehand-- except for you, Natori-san. We understand that this is old hat for the Natori clan."

And surely Matoba didn't have to keep calling him out during the meeting?

Granted, Matoba had turned the mundane discussions of the transit and housing details over to one of his subordinates-- Natori accepted a sheet of paper with the information and promptly tuned the rest of the conversation out-- but this all seemed like overkill. Or maybe Natori was just defensive, because Matoba certainly kept looking at him the entire time as if he were a second away from smirking.

Once the discussion ended, Natori took a brief glance at his booking information to confirm that Matoba wasn't sabotaging him by putting him up in a hotel across town or shorting his stay (he wasn't, at least not that Natori could see at first blush) and then let Matoba have the opening for small talk that he'd been aiming at for the last ten minutes of the meeting.

"It is good to see that you accepted the invitation this time, Natori," Matoba said. "I wonder what's different about this year."

Natori wasn't going to fall for that one. "I'm surprised you're not in Kyoto already," he said instead. "Don't you have people to do these sorts of things for you?"

"Oh, I've been going back and forth for weeks now. There's plenty to take care of back home, after all," Matoba said blandly. With a sudden suspicion, Natori zeroed in on how Matoba was standing, looking for any signs of injuries. He had no idea when the monster after the clanhead's right eye was due, but he wouldn't be surprised if Matoba and the others had purposefully lured it early, on home turf and where they could fully control the interaction, rather than risk it showing up in Kyoto in front of all of those potential business partners. Or worse, at the Night Parade itself. But Matoba wasn't showing any tells; he never did, really, and Natori couldn't expect to be privy to such sensitive information. "But it's important to me that everyone understand what they're getting into with this. Our duty as exorcists is to keep the city safe, at whatever cost to ourselves we may incur. There isn't space for anyone who doesn't take that seriously."

That was likely even true, or at least part of the reason. Say what you would about Matoba Seiji as a person; he took the power and responsibility of his position seriously. The exorcist community being what it was, there were certainly dozens of exorcists from the surrounding prefectures chomping at the bit for the opportunity to rub elbows with the country's elite exorcists, exorcists who could offer all sorts of bribes to sweeten their chances of being chosen, but Matoba refused to take any but the most skilled along with him. Mistakes at the Night Parade got people killed. Natori just hadn't realized that Matoba took such an active role in that vetting. There was something almost reassuring about the fact that Matoba wouldn't put business opportunities over keeping his people safe. It made Natori feel something akin to pride, or at least relief that the boy he had once known wasn't solely the power-obsessed clanhead that his detractors painted him as.

Natori's presence here meant something; meant that when it came down to it, he was better suited to assist in this work than the majority of the exorcists in their region, even many of the exorcists under the Matoba clan. Or it meant that he was more disposable than the same. Or some combination of the two options, and he didn't want to untangle the breakdown, not here.

They had had their chance; it was in the past now. Time to move on.

Natori was pretty sure that when his manager said "take a few days to prepare," she'd meant for him to relax and review his script for the final set of scenes in Tokyo. She likely didn't have this in mind, he thought to himself as he sat crosslegged in the middle of his spare room surrounded by stacks of paper and blessed ink, but he could at least multitask.

Hiiragi was the best of his shiki at charms and talismans, so she was working alongside him writing out protective charms. Urihime and Sasago were alternating between prepping strings of shide and shimenawa and helping him drill his lines.

"Why did you come here," Urihime read unemotionally. She had the script in one hand and held up one end of a length of hemp rope in the other as Sasago expertly twisted the strands together.

"I couldn't just let you leave," Natori replied, running his fingers down and around a piece of washi paper in a move that was now as ingrained as breathing. He let his spiritual energy surge into the paper, and when he lifted his hands the paper doll sat up with them. It floated over to join the neat pile on the floor near the door. "Not like this. Not after... Not... line?"

"Not after everything we've been through together," Urihime said.

"Right." Natori grabbed the next sheet of paper and repeated the gesture, taking a breath and starting from the top of the line. "I couldn't just let you leave." Another surge of power, another rustle as the doll took shape. "Not like this. Not after everything we've been through together. You can't tell me you don't feel the same way?"

"That's besides the point," Urihime said, lifting her hand higher to give Sasago more room to work. "It won't work between us. We belong to different worlds."

"We don't have to." Natori let his breath get lighter at the end, a twinge of hope mingled with desperation slipping into the line. He made an idle gesture with one hand as if reaching forward; on set, he'd take a step to go with it, but making so many paper dolls at once took too much energy to do standing. "We don't! Look into your heart--"

"Consult your heart."

"Really? Ugh, of course. Fine. Consult your heart, Makoto--"

"Don't." Urihime didn't really have the timing right-- she should be actively interrupting his use of her character's given name, not waiting until he finished the line entirely-- but he was hardly going to be picky. Bad enough he was using his shiki for something like this; the exorcist community would laugh him out of Kyoto if they heard. "Don't you say that. We're done, Suzaki-san. I don't want to see you again."

Beside him, Hiiragi finished another protective charm for the pile. Natori judged its height, then nodded. He was careful pushing himself to his feet; he felt lightheaded, a brief surge of vertigo from charging up all the spell materials around him. Most of them were coming with him on the trip, but he had promised some for Natsume and each of his friends, and he'd need to drop those off before it got too late. "Okay. Let's take a break and run these over to Natsume's house."

"Surely it can wait until tomorrow, master," Sasago said, tying off her end of the rope. "You should rest."

The vertigo was back when Natori shook his head, which was probably a sign that she was correct. Even still. "We still have more to make tonight. And we should probably review the scene with the hospital director while we're at it."

Even if he knew his shiki were doing their equivalent of exchanging glances with each other, he couldn't actually trace any of their eyelines, so he was able to ignore it.

The hotel they'd booked him in Tokyo was pretty nice. It was a Western style suite the size of his bedroom and living room combined, as if they were afraid he'd throw a tantrum if he lived in something smaller than the average apartment for a few days. Large windows, pristine white bedding, minimalist decoration, an unnecessary couch and kitchenette as if they weren't catering every meal, and as if he'd do any cooking if they weren't. It actually reminded him of his apartment more than he'd like to admit: clean, sterile, and staged like an ad in a real estate magazine. A place with pretensions of being a home, but in truth nothing more than a picturesque place for him to sleep in between jobs. And after the first few days, he wouldn't even be doing that much.

His first move upon checking into any hotel was to have his shiki sweep the place. It wasn't a surprise that they didn't find anything lurking in the room. While an ayakashi could certainly haunt a business suite if it set its mind to it, they tended to be attached to the ancient ryokans instead of buildings dating to no later than the 80s, with no interpersonal drama seeping into the floorboards or malicious emotions luring creatures into the walls. Even love hotels were more likely to be a problem than these bland, personality-less hotel rooms; at least there, there were torrid affairs and emotions running unchecked to attract the particular sort of ayakashi that fed off of the cracks in people's hearts. But there were always exceptions, and so Natori opened his suitcase for his truly stunning collection of exorcist supplies while his shiki moved out to the public areas of the hotel. They spent an hour warding the room, hanging talismans at key points on the walls and sealing off any vulnerabilities.

Natori wouldn't take any chances, even if he was only going to be unconscious here for the first few nights.

Those first days in Tokyo were uneventful, for Natori's peculiar definition of uneventful. He spent them walking with Akiba-san in front of the cameras and crew, all relying on those brief glimpses of Tokyo in autumn to ground the rest of the movie in time and place. They got their lines down, no one got eaten, and there were no hiccups in the production schedule. They finished filming the twilight scenes on schedule, to Natori's immense relief.

And so when shooting wrapped in the early afternoon the next day, two days before the Night Parade, Natori was able to slip out of the city with his suitcase full of tools and a handful of clothes for verisimilitude.

The good thing about shooting in Tokyo was that Natori had a good excuse to skip most of the unnecessary posturing that the exorcist community called networking. He knew there had been full days of meetings between different clans from across the country, as if this were a business conference and not a gathering brought on by the impending crowds of ayakashi that were already starting to descend upon the city.

Natori adjusted his rolling suitcase full of paper products and set off from Kyoto Station towards the hotel that Matoba's minion had booked him. Unsurprisingly, it was another nondescript business hotel. He wondered what sort of scene Matoba and the other exorcists had caused when checking in here, with their esoteric carts of supplies and an aesthetic that belonged more among half-lit paper lanterns than the benign, clear-sighted electric lights of the hotel lobby.

The receptionist blushed when he gave his name, because Matoba's minion hadn't thought to book him under a pseudonym.

"I'm here as a surprise to a friend, so do you mind keeping this a secret?" Natori said, lowering his voice and winking at her.

"Of course," she said excitedly, fumbling for his key card. "Please enjoy your stay, sir."

The room in Kyoto was pretty nice as well, Natori thought as he dropped off his bag. It was a shame he wasn't actually going to stay here. In a passing bit of pettiness, he raided the room fridge for the most expensive bottle of water he'd seen off of a movie set. Matoba could pick up the tab for him.

He still set up the wards around his room. It'd be careless not to, but here they were directed as much against the other clans as they were any visiting ayakashi. The exorcist community was not above snooping and espionage, not even their prestigious Kyoto colleagues.

By the time Natori arrived at the meeting point-- another indistinguishable conference room in a business hotel, except that it was inhabited by humans and shiki in masks and traditional clothing like any exorcist assembly back home-- the third shift had already received their assignments and went out into the city to begin their work. The people remaining in the room to welcome him were the ones hanging back to organize the endeavor, rather than the ones doing the gruntwork. They greeted him the way he was used to being received by fellow exorcists, which was to say they were superficially polite but certainly gossiping about him behind his back.

He overheard a few judgmental whispers about him arriving late, when all the hard work was already done. That irritated him more than it should have. It wasn't as though he was taking up someone else's spot-- before he agreed to show up, there simply would have been one fewer set of hands to do the work. Four fewer if you counted his shiki, which Natori certainly did even if the community didn't. But it seemed like they would rather have less help entirely than help from someone who didn't bother with the pomp and circumstance. Natori was wearing casual Western clothes in anticipation of his arrival on set the next day, and under the theory that they'd be crawling around the city rather than showing off his best kimono; he stuck out like a sore thumb.

He wasn't surprised at how few of the faces he recognized. Not only were there exorcists here from all over Japan, but the event had drawn out all of the other manner of spellcasters who didn't tend to associate with them. There were onmyouji and priests present, as well as other diviners, shamans, mediums, and even a few miko that he hoped would be going home before the main event. Of those he did know, there was Nanase chatting with three other women around her age. She caught him looking and shot him a knowing smirk as if they were picking up where they left off in some conversation that Natori couldn't begin to place. And, of course--

"Natori-san," Matoba said, without anything in his voice besides professional politeness. He gestured to an older man in a deceptively unadorned kimono that must have cost more than Natori was making for Consultation of the Heart. "Please allow me to introduce you to Kagami-san, of the Ishihara clan."

Natori bowed. The Ishihara were by most measures the most powerful exorcist clan in Kyoto, and therefore functionally the most powerful in Japan. He'd seen references to them going back centuries in the papers in his family's storehouse, but it had been a long time since the Natori family had the sort of influence that would bring him face to face with one of their representatives. Matoba hadn't provided his rank, but Natori was certain that Kagami was very high up.

"It's nice to make your acquaintance, Kagami-san," Natori said. "Thank you for inviting me to assist in the preparations."

"We appreciate the opportunity to see your techniques in person," Kagami replied with a nod that was precisely as deep as necessary for politeness's sake, and not a centimeter more. "It's been an awfully long time since we had a Natori come to help us. What a relief to see the rumors of your clan's retirement from the business were false."

Natori was used to this sort of thing, especially when talking to exorcists who hadn't had a chance to say it for the past six years, but that didn't make it any less annoying. "Haha, not quite."

"It's an... interesting path for an exorcist, isn't it?" Kagami continued, as if he were just making light conversation and not methodically prodding along for a reaction. "It must be hard, juggling this work with your... other activities. I do hope this won't be too strenuous a request of you."

It really wasn't a surprise; Kagami was just a little more blatant about it than less powerful exorcists could typically get away with. But before Natori could think of a response to that, Matoba surprisingly spoke up.

"Natori-san has been of great use in these matters in the past," he said, angling ever so slightly towards Kagami as if he were reasserting a foothold in the conversation. "The Matoba family is confident that he'll be an asset to our work tonight. Which, speaking of, shall we continue before the night settles in?"

"Ah, yes," Kagami said, though he didn't take his eyes off Natori. "Well, seeing as Natori-san just arrived, perhaps someone should show him the ropes?"

"Of course," Matoba said, and Natori couldn't tell if this was what he'd been aiming for the entire time. "I'd be happy to. We've been working on establishing the barriers along the Kamo. I'll show you the next steps, shall I?"

Natori didn't have any way of objecting, not without making a scene-- and he didn't particularly want to stand around talking to Kagami all night anyway. So there was nothing to do for it except follow Matoba out to the darkening streets of Kyoto with his bag full of exorcist supplies.

Neither of them said anything for the first few minutes as they stepped out into the night. There were tourists chattering all around them, but they seemed to pay the two exorcists no mind; the preparations had already started to take effect, then, if they were slipping in and out of human awareness the way the ayakashi would in a few nights. The air was muggy and unseasonably warm, like summer was hanging on too long.

"It's nostalgic, isn't it," Matoba said.

"Mm," Natori tried noncommittally. "You said to the river?"

Matoba's smile didn't fade, as if Natori had responded to the small talk instead of attempting to redirect. "That's right. It hasn't changed much. But you'll see for yourself."

Natori was saved from having to come up with a response to that by the sight of several shiki in the sky setting charms at regular intervals. If he squinted, he could see exorcists beneath them picking their way along the banks of the river. Natori didn't recognize any of them, whether human or shiki, but he did recognize the spell array they were casting. He'd never seen it assembled at so wide a scale before. Of course he'd known that they'd have to cover the entire city, but it would require an immense amount of precision and concentration to maintain like this. A single misplaced charm could leave the barrier weak in that location; a weak barrier could mean the revels of the parade spilling out into the human world. It was critical work. And the exorcists who had noticed their arrival looked up as if awaiting a judgment call.

"You're in charge of coordinating it?" Natori asked after a moment of surprise. He'd expected the Kyoto clans to have a stranglehold over the preparations, out of professional pride if nothing else.

"Ostensibly, Kagami-san is supervising," Matoba said blandly, crossing his arms and looking up into the sky. It looked casual, but Natori could see the careful focus in his eyes, the way he traced the lines between the charms. Matoba could likely see the barrier itself, Natori realized; Natori could only sense its presence from the weave of power in front of him.

"But you're the one who takes the fall if it fails," Natori prompted, when Matoba didn't say anything.

"What a suspicious way of looking at it," Matoba said, which was neither a criticism or a denial.

Potential scapegoat or not, that was a telling sign. Matoba's relationship with the Kyoto clans must have been deeper than Natori realized, if they were trusting him to do the initial setting in the first place. That wasn't something that would be assigned based on reputation alone; they trusted Matoba to do this work. And extending a degree of trust to the Matoba clan was, to put it bluntly, not something people with sense did, if they knew the first thing about the Matoba clan.

Momentarily, Natori wondered if it still stung-- having your name synonymous with 'oath-breaker,' your power itself tied up in the critical fact that you would not be able to fulfill a key promise. For every dig that he got about being a coward, he wondered how many smiling jabs Matoba faced, in this town full of exorcists who could afford to talk down to him instead of having to play nice.

Then he wondered why it mattered.

"The group by the bridge looks like they need a hand," Natori said, rather than following up on that thought. They had the same number of humans as everyone else, but it seemed they were low on shiki who could cross the water; they were at least two charms behind the rest of the teams, and that gap would only widen as the night settled in.

"Good. Put those shiki of yours to something useful, if you're going to insist on using them," Matoba said, because he was incapable of ever letting an argument go. "Show them what real talisman work looks like."

Unable to decide what to do with that compliment, Natori set forth down the grass.

They worked through the night, spending hours trawling along the river until the final point was set and the entire barrier clicked into place. Natori could feel it, a charge of power in the air that made the hair on his arms stand on end; he wasn't the only one, seeing how everyone else around him looked up with a momentary shiver of accomplishment. It was nice, Natori realized, to be working alongside people whose abilities were at least as strong as his were without it turning into a pissing contest. There was something about the us-against-them mentality that really set in; for whatever petty squabbles the exorcist community might throw at each other, there was a unifying factor in working to accomplish something that truly required every one of them giving it their all.

If exorcist work was like this every day, Natori would probably go to more meetings. No one even tossed any snide comments about his family name as they trotted back to the streets for their next task-- though one of the men he'd been working with hung back, avoiding eye contact and finally stammering out "If you don't mind-- my daughter, well, she's just now in high school, and she and her friends are into dramas, so..."

Natori signed an autograph for a member of an exorcist clan from Hokkaido in a state of half-disbelief. The man thanked him and walked off to get his next assignment.

"You have fans all over the country," Sasago said with a hint of approval. "The daughter likes the movies, and the father appreciates your spellcasting techniques."

"I guess," Natori said, still feeling that strange surrealism of his two worlds intersecting, and not just because he was staring down the prospect of a full day's worth of shooting after a night crawling around the streets of Kyoto.

Towards the end of the night, as he was taking one of a small handful of breaks, he pulled Hiiragi aside.

"Stay here in Kyoto," he told her. "Find Natsume and the cat and keep an eye on them. Keep him from getting tangled up with any of this."

It was impossible to tell exactly what sort of face Hiiragi was making at any one time behind her mask, but that didn't stop her from conveying the sort of judgmental doubt he'd come to expect from her anyway.

"Do you think we'd be able to stop him?" she asked.

"No, because he doesn't have any sense," Natori said, with extreme frustration. "But at least this way when he gets in trouble, you can come find me."

"Alright, master," she said eventually. He understood that she was just humoring him; he understood that he couldn't really do much for Natsume on an individual level. He could hardly break away from the rest of the work and shadow Natsume directly. Among all the other reasons that was inadvisable, it wouldn't do to have his classmates reporting that a movie star had spent the night loitering outside of Natsume's hotel, particularly not when he was meant to be filming in Tokyo. Sending a shiki was the best option he had.

He felt a growing headache as he watched Hiiragi disappear into the streets.

As dawn started to bleed through the sky and the majority of the exorcists dispersed to their hotels, Natori caught the first shinkansen out of Kyoto. He stayed awake just long enough to tug a hat down low over his face-- the last thing he needed was to give some fans a (very unattractive) behind the scenes look at him drooling into his seat-- and to put Urihime and Sasago on guard duty. They couldn't stop any humans who were intent on causing trouble, but they could at least wake him up to deal with any issues that would arise. Considering how the two of them were carefully not looking at each other, he doubted they would wake him for anything less than an emergency. But if he didn't call them out on it, he could live in ignorance.

"Go to sleep, master," Urihime said, and he didn't argue. For one, he was so unaware of his own surroundings that he didn't want to risk responding to her out loud in case anyone could hear. Instead he nodded and piled up his jacket against the headrest-- he should make a note to buy a travel pillow at the station on the way out, if he had time-- and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

He woke up two hours later feeling no better rested than before, but the sun was solidly up and the train was decelerating into Tokyo Station. If Natori ran, he could make it to hair and makeup only slightly late-- a little inconsiderate, but not something that would derail the entire shoot. He hadn't brought any luggage back with him for this exact reason. He readjusted his hat and glasses to hide his face, took a deep breath, and set off.

Sasago and Urihime hadn't had to do this for a few months, but they fell into the normal routine like it was yesterday. They scouted ahead to make sure his path to the back door of the hotel was clear. As soon as Urihime confirmed that there was no one inside the emergency stairwell, Natori activated the paper doll he'd hidden near the fire escape when he first checked in. It popped the door open without activating the alarm.

He took the stairs two at a time as Sasago floated down towards him. "Lobby, not room," she reported, which was a huge relief; sneaking past a poor assistant tasked with banging on his hotel room door wasn't impossible, but it took a few extra minutes and made him feel exceptionally guilty besides. Instead, he just had to duck out to the second floor, grab the next down elevator, and pretend he'd come down from the fifth floor where his room was.

The elevator doors opened in the lobby on the nervous production assistant waiting for the last straggling actor to drag himself out of bed. Natori yawned. He might've been overselling it, except he hadn't done it on purpose.

"You cut it close," Sasago added unnecessarily. It was a low blow, since she said it while standing next to the poor man so Natori couldn't reply. Instead, he apologized sincerely for oversleeping, and let himself be ushered off to hair and makeup only 20 minutes behind schedule.

"You don't look well, Natori-san," said Usami-san as she lingered with her brush around the bags under his eyes. "Did you sleep poorly?"

"The sounds of the city kept me up," Natori said automatically with a beaming smile. "I think I'm too much of a country boy at heart."

She tsked, which was fair. No one believed him-- it was just the sort of meaningless thing he'd say in an interview. But he knew they wouldn't call him on it, and more importantly, they wouldn't keep asking questions. He'd expect a call from his manager chewing him out for running wild in the streets of Tokyo or whatever she'd decide he'd done with his time, but they'd get through it.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience," Natori added after a moment, with more sincerity.

Usami-san sighed. "You didn't do too much damage, at least. Just get some sleep tonight, alright? Go to bed early if you have to."

"I will," Natori lied effortlessly.

As he stepped out of Kyoto Station, he allowed himself a moment of disorientation that he was here again-- the same place he'd been standing last night, the same place he'd been standing that morning, the same place he'd been standing 6 years ago when he'd thought there would be nothing for him in this city. Natori found himself joining the group of tourists looking up at Kyoto Tower, except he was eying the 50 meter tall creature shuffling down the street alongside it.

"It's windy tonight, isn't it?" one of the tourists laughed at her companion, the two of them holding onto their hats as the youkai swept by.

They were starting to arrive. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it.

Natori should have headed to his assigned section of the city to shore up the last few defenses against the incoming ayakashi. Instead, he found himself outside a comfortable-looking ryokan, waiting for Hiiragi and Natsume to come out.

"Natori-san!" Natsume looked... well, like any teenager sneaking out from his class trip would look: flushed with excitement and the thrill of breaking some minor school rule. More importantly, he wasn't suffering any life-threatening injuries, meaning either the wards or the personal charms Natori had given him were doing their job. "I thought you were working the whole time. Is something wrong?"

"Haha, I only have a few minutes," Natori said, which was absolutely not true. He didn't have any time at all to be spending here, but he wouldn't have believed that Natsume was safe until he saw him in person. "How's your trip so far? Where's Sensei?"

"He's taking a nap in the room. He's been falling asleep ever since we arrived." There was still a slight thread of concern in Natsume's voice, even though Natori was sure Hiiragi had explained it to him.

"It's likely just the barriers," Natori reassured him. "It's a good sign. It means they're working."

Natsume nodded slowly, as if he were trying the idea out and seeing how it sat with him. "I guess. And it's not like that's unusual for him, except on a trip like this he'd normally take the opportunity to beg for treats."

For a moment, Natori pictured Sensei walking up to each of Natsume's classmates and demanding to be fed in that nasally voice of his. Then he remembered that normal animals did that too, if less vocally. He shook his head slightly-- he was more tired than he thought-- and went on.

"He'll probably be back to normal by tomorrow morning." Natori nearly offered to take a look at Sensei if he wasn't, except that he'd be in Tokyo by the time Natsume woke up. And it's not like he'd know what to do for Sensei anyway. It just seemed like the right thing to offer. "And if not, Hiiragi will keep the two of you safe."

Natsume didn't look like he was worried about keeping himself safe; he was just worried about his cat. But he nodded, so at least he was willing to humor Natori. "I know she will. The charms have been working so far."

"Good." Natori looked the hotel up and down, assessing its vulnerability. "Keep them on you and don't leave the building, and you should be okay so long as you don't attract any attention. You did leave your, ah, valuables at home, right?"

Natsume's hand automatically fell to his bag. Natori groaned.

"There could be ayakashi here whose names are in the Book," Natsume said quietly, with all of the stubborn patience of a mountain. "This might be the only chance I have to return them."

"Natsume, you have to promise me you won't go outside tomorrow night. Especially not with..." Natori made a small gesture towards the innocuous-seeming school bag, as if naming it more specifically would attract unwanted attention to it. Which it could. "No matter what you hear, no matter what names might be in there."

There was more he could say, if he had to. He could point out that something as small as Natsume opening a door might be construed as an invitation inside. That his classmates would be bystanders to any attacks that came Natsume's way. That there was no guarantee that Sensei would be at his full power, not even with the extra time to adjust to the wards.

But instead of relying on guilt and fear tactics-- as true as they may be, that's still what they were-- Natori just said, "Please?"

Natsume blinked, then broke out in a soft, quiet smile. "I understand," he said. "Thank you, Natori, Hiiragi. You're taking the time to look out for me, even if you don't agree with..." He cupped his bag closer to his body. "I'm glad I decided to come, even if it makes it difficult. I'm sorry for making you worry."

"It's no trouble at all," Natori said, and even meant it, sleep deprivation be damned. "Really, Natsume. It's worth it, if it helps you do the things that are important to you."

As if to prove it, Natori spent the next twenty minutes laying down as much protection as he could around the small inn. And Kagami-san could come find him directly if he had a problem with how Natori chose to use his abilities.

But in the end, Matoba was the one who came and found him.

It wasn't as if he had been purposefully ignoring Matoba. It was more that he'd counted on the fact that Matoba would be too busy with supervision work to have time to waste talking to Natori. But of course, Matoba had not only found the time to bother him, he'd managed to time it for when it was just Natori, Urihime, and Sasago, laying down lines along a deserted street.

"Are you really going back and forth between Tokyo and Kyoto?" he heard all of a sudden from behind his head. He was crouching over his work on the street, the lanterns outside the bars casting everything in a reddish glow. "That's foolish even for you, Natori."

Natori didn't have the energy for this. He heard his voice get lighter and more flippant as he kept scratching away at the spell array. "What can I say? I couldn't let my fans down."

"Haha, so I've heard. Sato-san from Hokkaido, wasn't it?" Sato. That was his name. Natori had already forgotten. "How like you to spend your time here signing autographs and playing babysitter."

Natori paused momentarily, halfway through a key character in the spell circle. He'd already given that much away, so there was no reason not to turn back to look. Matoba was smiling, in that same detached way he smiled at everything. He might have just been fishing for information, waiting to see how-- if-- Natori responded.

He thought of Natsume touching his hand carefully to his school bag again, and decided to bite before Matoba moved on to search somewhere else.

"I do remember someone saying something about how we were here to keep the city safe. I guess I took it to heart."

"If you think the protection we already provided is insufficient, you could always invite Natsume-kun back to the base of operations," Matoba said, still smiling like it was nothing. Natori was seized with the cold, sudden urge to force him to show something approaching genuine emotion. "I promise you, if you're not going to do your job properly, there will be plenty of people willing to keep him safe."

"What, you're going to invite yourself onto another class trip?"

He realized as soon as he said it that he'd slipped up. Matoba's face was still serene, untouchable on the surface; most people who saw him would think it was business as usual. Natori was too familiar with how it looked when Matoba found an opening for his arrow.

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

They'd had their first kiss in Kyoto.

At least, it was Natori's first kiss. He didn't think he was assuming too much to suppose it had also been Matoba's; he truly couldn't picture anyone outside of the exorcist community finding Seiji attractive enough as a potential partner to want to kiss him, especially not with the attitude he had towards those outside of the community, but he supposed it was always possible that he was just projecting.

He had gone on the class trip to Kyoto, like he told Takuma he would, and he had been alone, like Seiji had told him he would. And then, when he was sitting in a park waiting for their free time to end so he could be alone with the rest of his class around him, Seiji had shown up.

"Hey."

At first Shuuichi had thought he was hallucinating-- that the voice was a trick of some ayakashi, or just him hearing things. But Seiji stepped in front of him, wearing a hoodie and casual pants but without any sign of his normal bow, and it wasn't until Urihime reacted that Shuuichi had realized that he was really there.

"M-Matoba Seiji!" he yelled instinctively.

"Long time no see, Shuuichi-san." Seiji grinned, hands stuffed into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "I only have until sundown, so let's get going."

"What are you doing here?" Shuuichi asked, gripping his school bag wildly and looking around for-- for something to make this make sense. An ayakashi rampaging through the streets, or a group of exorcists hiding behind the trees to laugh at him. Instead, it was a normal park, and they were two normal teen boys who just happened to know each other from an abnormal activity, only they were 700 kilometers from home.

"The Night Parade is in a few weeks," Seiji said, as if that explained anything.

Shuuichi had read about the Night Parade-- there were references to preparations in the records in his family storehouse. And to casualties. As much as Seiji seemed able to slip into exorcist events that would shut Shuuichi out for being too young, there had to be a limit somewhere.

"You're not going to the Night Parade," Shuuichi had said, preemptively defensive in case Seiji was about to prove him wrong.

"Of course not," Seiji agreed breezily. "But Matoba-san thought it was a good idea for me to start getting involved in some of the early preparations, since I'll be representing the clan in a few years."

Shuuichi never liked to think about the head of the Matoba clan, even if it was in the context of something innocuous like a business meeting. It was just too strong a reminder that that would be Seiji, some day, with his eye covered and his face scarred and the weight of the eleven families on his shoulders. It wasn't ever hard to imagine Seiji one day taking that position; it was just... something else to be reminded of it on a regular basis.

"So you're here for work, basically," Shuuichi said instead of lingering on that, then frowned. "Why didn't you say anything when you knew I'd be going to Kyoto at the same time?"

Seiji shrugged. "I wasn't sure how long we'd be in meetings. Anyway, you're free now, right? Let's take a look around."

Shuuichi wasn't ready to let it go. "Did you come find me on purpose?"

Seiji just laughed. "Come on."

For someone who was supposedly in Kyoto for networking purposes, Shuuichi thought, Seiji seemed awfully casual, and didn't seem all that concerned about getting back for the meeting. But what exactly was he supposed to say? Either Seiji was telling the truth, and he happened to run into Shuuichi while taking a break, or... or he wasn't, about some part of it. About deliberately seeking Shuuichi out, or...

He couldn't get himself to consider that Seiji had talked his way into the Kyoto trip just for him, so he didn't; instead he got up and trotted after Seiji, who was already pointing towards an arcade like they didn't already spend half their Sundays in one.

Natori still wasn't sure which one of them suggested it; he wasn't sure it had even been one person's suggestion, rather than the two of them each taking one innocuous step closer until they found themselves where they wanted to be, unable to look directly at it because it would mean they would have to stop. But he remembered exactly where they were: outside a sweets shop along the river where they'd found a seasonal daifuku that Seiji had been dying to try. The sun was starting to set, and Shuuichi had known that this would be over once it did: that he had to be back at the hotel by curfew, and Seiji had to disappear back into the world of exorcist politics. If he hadn't been lying. They hadn't had much time; they would never have enough time, with the threat of their adulthoods hanging over their heads.

He remembered that Seiji had flour on his lip, because he hadn't bothered to wipe it off. He couldn't remember what flavor it had been. Seiji didn't taste sweet or like mochi. Seiji didn't taste like anything at all, but maybe that was just because Shuuichi had been so focused on not bumping their noses together that he didn't have time to dwell on it.

Kissing was different, nowadays. He had spent so many years doing it professionally, getting coaching on exactly what angle to approach at, exactly what emotions to convey through it for the ever-present audience, that it no longer felt like that sort of spontaneous expression of emotion. It was just what one did when the scene called for it, something to show other people what he was supposed to be feeling.

Natori wouldn't ever be able to recreate that moment when it had mattered, when he'd been bad at it. When it had been just the two of them, Seiji with his hair whipping around in the breeze off the water, Shuuichi with his school jacket slung around his waist in the hopes that no one would recognize him or what he was doing.

Shuuichi had instinctively closed his eyes when their lips touched, but he was sure that Seiji had kept his open.

He went home to Kumamoto the next day, and didn't see Seiji for weeks. When he finally did, he could almost pretend that nothing had happened between them, if it weren't for the way they both kept angling towards the other. But even then, they'd been young. It couldn't last. There were things that were only possible when they were teens who didn't matter yet.

But what Natori failed to realize back then, however obvious it might have been, was that Seiji was never truly a nobody. Seiji had been in the spotlight for his entire life, however much he might have played at otherwise when they could sneak off alone together. And the spotlight didn't leave room for anything so crude as silly teenage whims, or making exceptions for friends, or having a personal identity beyond being a professional target.

So they had stopped.

He didn't even remember getting back on the shinkansen that night-- morning. Whenever. Natori dreamt in unrestful snatches of the barriers he'd spent the night building, and of how the barriers could crumble at a touch. And come sundown, ready or not, the barriers would be tested.

He woke up with a start to Sasago shaking his shoulder and urging him off the train before the conductor came to check in on him. He gave himself permission to be a few extra minutes late to set in order to buy a coffee from a vending machine. He barely remembered drinking it; it took everything he had to present himself as a normal human being who did normal human being things, like sleep a normal amount in the same city where he'd spent the day. He thought he must have figured it out by the time he made it to set, apologizing cheerfully on autopilot for getting lost or whatever had managed to come out of his mouth. He'd never been more grateful that all he had to do was recite a script someone else had prepared for him.

Just one more night. Then one more day, and then he only had one job to focus on. He could get through it.

The Night Parade was like the visual representation of chaos. The streets teemed with ayakashi to the point that it seemed the city could only barely contain them, the flimsy barriers holding them back from the human world close to bursting open at the seams. If this was the Night Parade in its diminished form, it was no wonder it had been spoken of as a death sentence in the past.

It was hard to tell who was human and who was simply a human-sized ayakashi; the exorcists were all in dark kimono and masks, but so were everyone else. Natori looked out from the eyes of a kitsune mask at a creature dressed identically to him save for the appearance of a pair of white tails poking out of their back.

He wondered if any of the exorcists were really here for this reason-- the anonymity and protection of being in a crowd that could be expected to do dangerous things. It wasn't a good thought, but as far as he could tell, everyone else was just as on edge as he was. There was something in the air, like a crackling of electricity promising violence just on the edge of breaking out.

Matoba was still recognizable, even in his mask. His stupid hair was like a calling card just begging for something to grab it in a fight. But that was none of Natori's business.

His job, like all the other exorcists' jobs, was to stand around and keep an eye on anything looking to get through the barriers. Despite whatever Matoba might have thought about it, Hiiragi stayed on watch outside Natsume's hotel room. At least Natori was less concerned about Natsume trying to leave his room. He couldn't imagine anyone with even a sliver of self-preservation voluntarily stepping out into this if they could see what they were walking into.

Well, he supposed he was out here with all the others. But no one had ever pretended that being an exorcist was a sign of good judgment.

Though Natsume probably wasn't getting the sort of sleep his classmates were, Natori couldn't help but think with a wince as a crowd of boisterous tengu bustled by with cups of sake. It was astonishing to him to think that there were people across the city who would remember this night as nothing more than a night of heavy wind, maybe finding their trashbins overturned when they went outside in the morning. He knew that was the point of all of their work here-- preserving that illusion for the normal people in this city-- but it still stuck with him.

There were exorcists staying in Kyoto for days afterwards to help with the cleanup-- ensuring that there were no stragglers hanging behind after the festivities had ended, the debriefs afterwards, probably a lot of patting each other on the back and going back to networking-- but Natori felt no obligation to wait around a moment after Natsume left the city. He was sure this was terribly uncouth and would lose him whatever social currency he'd managed to scrounge up from helping in the first place, but he didn't care. The sooner he could be done with all of this, the better.

Natori was startled out of his thoughts by a sudden cracking sound as an ayakashi the size of a three story building threw its body against the barrier.

They had known this would happen. It was their job to step in at these stages-- and sure enough, Matoba and two other exorcists had already turned to shore up the ward. But Matoba was busy chanting the necessary spell, and so he didn't see the second youkai-- much smaller, only about the size of a human being, with its claws extended-- coming up on Matoba's side. His right side.

Natori didn't think. He launched himself at Matoba to get his body in between him and the attacker, ignoring the sudden start of his shiki as he did so. The thing's outstretched claws snagged gently against a few strands of Matoba's ponytail before digging deep into Natori's shoulder.

The second it pierced his skin, it was clear that something was wrong. The crowd around him was suddenly muffled and distorted, as if his head had been shoved underwater. Poisoned, Natori thought, or something like it. He opened his mouth to try to say something along those lines, but he couldn't find the air to make his voice heard. He tried reaching out one shaking hand, but found he was already collapsed on the ground.

The last thing he remembered was Matoba's face as he lifted the kitsune mask before he blacked out.

Natori's dreams were a riot of colors and movement so strong he felt motion sickness. He saw hands grabbing hold of him, threatening to pull him apart until nothing was left. The same barriers from the night before, from all the nights before, flashing with bursts of white light as the hands probed the wards for the weak points. It was only a matter of time before they broke through, and he had to warn someone before they managed it, but he was alone.

Until he wasn't. He sensed a presence alongside him more than saw it, a comforting blackness that chased the violent pandemonium to the edges of his awareness and gave him a moment to rest.

With relief, he fell deeper into the comforting darkness, giving into the exhaustion past the point of dreaming.

When Natori opened his eyes again, he was in bed-- not the bed in his apartment, but an unfamiliar one in a hotel. Soft light drifted in behind the gauzy curtains. Next to him, Matoba Seiji was sitting in an armchair reading the script for Consultation of the Heart.

"That's confidential," Natori said eventually, after this hallucination didn't dissipate after a few blinks.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Matoba said dryly, flipping the page. He was wearing, absurdly, a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt advertising a brand of bubble gum that Natori had once shot a commercial for. On second thought, Natori thought it was his shirt-- they had given him some merch, and the shirt looked slightly too small on Matoba, who was a little broader than Natori in the shoulders. From kyudo, he assumed; those were the sort of muscles that came from regularly hauling back bowstrings. "It's the same drivel as all the other ones you've appeared in."

Natori kept blinking. When the surreal tableau persisted, he figured he'd have to engage with either Matoba digging through his suitcase-- because he could see now that his suitcase was lying open on the floor, the clothes piled haphazardly inside-- or Matoba being familiar enough with his work to make that sort of statement.

"Just how many of my movies have you seen?" he asked. He'd meant it as a joke, but Matoba didn't hesitate.

"Those detective ones are tolerable," he said. Natori had gone with Matoba to see a few movies when they were teenagers, and the movies that mostly held his interest were the ones with lots of car chases and explosions, so this wasn't particularly surprising.

"But you've seen the others," Natori prompted.

Matoba put the script down. "Yes, Natori. I've seen the others. There is absolutely nothing funnier than watching you play-act at your cheesy romances as an audience full of people who will never know you eat it up. Why you've chosen this as your path is beyond me, but seeing as you're going to keep being stubborn about it I might as well watch them."

Matoba was-- serious, Natori realized. Or maybe Natori had hit his head when he fainted, and his judgment was off? Rather than pursue the image of Matoba Seiji and his posse of faceless shiki sitting in a regular movie theater surrounded by young girls watching Natori flirt on screen, he turned his head to puzzle over the windows. The light was bright enough to make his eyes hurt. Too bright for early morning. It must be...

Natori sat up in a sudden rush of adrenaline, ignoring the way the room swayed around him in vertigo. "Shit-- I need to get to Tokyo!"

"You're in Tokyo," Matoba said testily, and shoved him back down with a hard push on his chest. "Not that I'm surprised that you can't recognize your hotel room, since you don't seem to have used it at all. At least you thought to ward it before you went gallivanting off doing whatever you wanted."

"We're... in Tokyo?" Natori repeated, as if saying it would make it make sense.

"Yes, though you're not shooting today. I had a word with your manager."

"You've had a... How do you even know who my manager is?"

"You have a business card in your pocket. You're sick today, because you've come down with a cold. It didn't sound like she was surprised, so you haven't been fooling anyone."

Natori tried to imagine Matoba having a conversation with his manager and completely failed. A failure of imagination, or else just the dread of having to sort out whatever damage Matoba had caused.

"But why are you here?" Natori asked. "You should be in Kyoto, finishing up after last night."

Matoba didn't look away when he was avoiding saying something; that was Natori's role. Matoba kept eye contact the entire time as if daring the other person to blink first. He was doing it now.

"I haven't heard a 'thank you' yet, Natori."

Matoba liked giving oblique answers when he could; he also liked correcting people when they were wrong. Sometimes you got more information by doing the latter. "Thank you for driving me to Tokyo?" Natori guessed.

"My people drove you to Tokyo."

His people drove them both to Tokyo. And then Matoba had figured out what hotel Natori was meant to be staying in, and then... stayed with him. Without any obvious benefit for himself-- to his detriment, actually. The Kyoto clans wouldn't think much of anyone ducking out as soon as the parade was over.

There were things they could only have gotten away with as teens who didn't matter. There were things the head of the Matoba couldn't do, and that included driving across half the country for... for no reason. To support the head of another clan doing something completely unrelated to exorcisms, and not extracting any benefit from it.

If Natori called him out on it, they would have to stop. Those were the rules. It was far easier to just accept it and not look closely, to go about business as usual as they always had. To let it go back to how it normally was, with Matoba making jabs because it was all he could get away with, and Natori pretending there was nothing going on.

He was awake, and Matoba still wasn't leaving.

"Thank you," Natori said eventually.

"You owe me for this, Natori," Matoba said, because that was the thing that exorcist clanheads said instead of 'you're welcome.'

"You owe me for getting you out of the way during the Night Parade, so I'd say we're even."

"Oh, that. What an unnecessary thing for you to do," Matoba said, because that was the thing that exorcist clanheads said instead of 'thank you.' "Do you really think so little of me that you thought I needed your help with a small fry like that?"

Natori squeezed his eyes shut in irritation. "Fine." This time he sat up more cautiously, testing the limits of his balance. The silence stretched out between them again. Natori saw the gap between what they could and couldn’t say, and saw that either of them could take half a step towards closing it. He took a breath, and then said, "Then I'll take you to dinner once everything is settled, to pay you back."

Matoba looked legitimately caught off-guard, which made it all worth it. He recovered so quickly that Natori would have missed it if he'd blinked. "Haha, are you sure? Well, if you insist. But I'll pick the restaurant."

There were things Natori could worry about here-- about looking into whatever ties the restaurant might have to prominent business interests in the area. Or maybe even leveraging Natori's own image. He could worry about it, or he could accept that this was how Seiji had to take his pleasures-- wrapped up in justifications. So Natori just said, again, "Fine."

"Go back to sleep, Natori," Matoba said, and while it was still needling it wasn't necessarily unkind.

"Have you slept at all?" Natori asked, maybe a little petulant.

"Yes, because I'm not an idiot," Matoba said. "I'm going back to Kyoto to clean up the mess you made."

"Are you sure you don't want to stay around? You can visit the Consultation of the Heart set tomorrow, if you're such a fan."

"Absolutely not," Matoba said cheerfully. "That silly movie has caused me enough trouble as it is. Goodbye, Natori. I'll contact you with the details for our business dinner."

Matoba made no move to take off the stupid T-shirt he'd stolen. Natori wasn't going to remind him. He knew someone-- Nanase, most likely-- would catch it before Matoba showed his face in it, but the mental image of Matoba talking serious strategy conversations with the most powerful exorcists in the country in a cutesy bubble gum shirt and sweatpants was too good to lose.

"Right. Business dinner," Natori said, and found he couldn't stop smiling.

Natori didn't remember falling back asleep again, only that he woke up alone feeling as if he'd slept for days. The light had shifted, with the sun clearly setting this time. Half alarmed that he really had slept for days, he used the hotel phone to call his manager.

"Ah, Natori-san! Are you feeling better?" she asked. She didn't sound particularly concerned, as if he'd missed several days of filming in a row, and she also didn't sound as if she were about to quit working with him to avoid the unpleasant company he kept, as if Matoba had been his worst possible self. So all in all, things were handled pretty well.

"I am, yes. So sorry for not making it to set today," he said earnestly. "I'll extend my apologies to the director."

"He said he'd suspected something was up. You should say something next time! Don't let it get that bad again. Pushing yourself until you collapse..."

Hm. Matoba didn't mention he'd kept that part of the story in. Natori probably should have grilled him more when he'd had the chance. "I know, I know. I'm sorry."

"Rest up, Natori-san," she said kindly. "Everyone just wants the best for you."

As he'd promised, he made it to the set the next day, apologizing profusely to the cast and crew.

"You're looking much better, Natori-san," Akiba said as they stood around the catering table. "But to tell you the truth, I think they might use some of the shots from the past few days anyway. It adds a sort of sadness to Hiroshi-kun, where he's at his worst before he starts to get better, you know?"

"Haha, well," Natori said blandly. "I'm glad something can come of it."

In the end, they finished the shoot only one day behind schedule. Natori didn't linger in Tokyo any longer than he had to; he was honestly looking forward to staying at home for a few days.

"So, did you enjoy your trip?" Natori asked Natsume a week later, as they sat by the bay picking at ice creams together.

Hiiragi never went into detail about exactly what had happened when she was with Natsume in Kyoto. Natsume's bag sat in between them on the bench. Natori wondered if the Book of Friends had fewer pages in it now, and then figured it was better for him not to know. The cat certainly wouldn't tell him, even though Natori had gone out of his way to buy him his own bowl.

"I did," Natsume answered sincerely, smiling to himself. With the careful way he had when he was picking around something still too precious to put into words, he continued. "I'm sorry for all the trouble you went through. But... It really meant a lot to me. So please... if there's something I can do in exchange..."

"Don't worry about it," Natori said, and studiously didn't think about the appointment penciled in his calendar book, where he'd overpay for something too sweet and not to his tastes. "I'm glad to have done it. Besides, I got something out of it too."

Natsume looked over at him, politely curious. He felt the cat's eyes watching him, in that ancient way of knowing that those old ayakashi had as if they could see right through you. Natori ignored that shock of paranoia and swatted at him. "I heard you slept through the tough parts."

"What was that?!" Sensei bristled in indignation and took a swipe at Natori's ice cream cone, nearly knocking it to the ground. Natori laughed and held it up above his head, as Natsume said "Sensei!" sharply and the cat launched himself off the bench. The sun set off the waters of the bay, and the ayakashi were settling back into their homes to cause problems for the rest of the year, and somewhere Matoba Seiji was debriefing his people on his very uneventful handling of the Night Parade.

It still might not work out. They still had so many things to navigate around. But what did they have to lose by trying?