Chapter Text
Natsume swallowed an agonized moan as his grip on the futon below him tightened to turn his knuckles white. His fingers felt stiff, bloodless – irrevocably frozen against his palms and the smooth-wrinkled sheets. He worked to focus on that small discomfort as bright stars of pain forced him to squeeze his eyes shut and bite back a fit of nausea.
His back. Oh, god, his back. He tried not to think about it, because thinking made it worse – the pain that was like claws severing skin and muscle and twisting about inside of him, the pain of burning black and searing flame. He felt something thick and cool on his skin – blood, he realized with a panicked widening of his eyes – blood, it was blood, and it was staining the sheets where either of the Fujiwaras might find it or him sooner or later.
He tried to shake his head – jerky, spasmodic movements that strained the muscles of his neck – to clear his head, to hear the whispers of approaching footsteps or the chipper voice of Nyanko-sensei coming home early. It felt like hours of waiting, but he did hear it eventually – that damned cat calling out to him, something about food or sake.
The voice stopped ever-so-predictably when it came near enough. Natsume took a quick, deep breath and then forced his eyes open – and there was Nyanko-sensei, mischievous eyes wide and stunned, mouth frozen halfway open.
“H-hey,” Natsume breathed, and he very nearly bit his tongue as another throbbing wave of agony rushed forth from his back to cover the rest of him. He didn’t know what else to say, really. He felt like leaving it up to sensei, because sensei knew about things like this. He’d know what was wrong and what to do – what kind of ayakashi it had been and what it was doing to Natsume now.
“You fool,” he heard, and he realized only then that he’d closed his eyes once more. Opening them, he saw Nyanko much nearer, now staring at him from mere centimeters away. “Tell me what happened.”
The teen sighed and tried in vain to look somehow put-upon. His vision blurred, his eyebrows drawn down by the weight of his suffering; he felt like screaming, not talking. “Blood,” he panted after a moment. “It hurts.”
“About the ayakashi, moron,” Nyanko-sensei snapped. “You met one, didn’t you?”
Natsume hummed a short yes. “Just – briefly. In” – he shuddered – “in the sky. Blonde hair, kind of long. The mask had the character for – agh – for ‘wing,’ I think.” He’d only caught the briefest glimpse, after all, and he wasn’t even sure that the ayakashi had seen him looking. It had been flying low over the forest, clothed in pure white, spectral silence and an unsettling sort of grace.
It was the only ayakashi he’d seen all day – the only lead he had – so he couldn’t disregard it now as he had at first. (As he often did, when an ayakashi had nothing to offer but threats or requests.)
The cat’s eyes widened further – alarmed and maybe even a little bit furious. “Have you met any others today?”
“Not that I... noticed…”
Madara cursed under his breath, closed his eyes and was instantaneously rendered huge, warm white and agile limbs. He narrowed his eyes when he noticed the damage thus far done – the black feathers sprouting from torn-up-and-bleeding skin, already maybe a quarter of a meter long and growing longer. The kid was soaked in sweat, his chest rising and falling at a feverish pace while his heart – Madara could hear it, of course – hammered away there.
“Sensei…”
The youkai quickly returned to his smaller form, waddled closer and gently prodded Natsume’s lower back with one paw. The kid hissed and buried his face in the futon. “Look at me,” Madara directed him. He did so only slowly, reluctantly, and Madara added, “You crossed a deity, Natsume. It’s called Shirotobi – a capricious thing, not very well known.”
“Why’s that?” Natsume wondered at a volume that was barely above a whisper.
“Catch it on a bad day, and it’ll punish anyone who looks at it. It’s incredibly sensitive to spiritual power, which would explain why it noticed you, a human – and it must have decided to mark you.”
Natsume bit back another yelp, and – yes, Madara could taste it in the air, the blood and the ominous undercurrent coursing through the child’s body. “Mark me – what is it?”
“You mean you haven’t seen it?” Madara wondered aloud. “Hm. They’re wings. The pain’ll go away as soon as they’re done growing” – Natsume’s breath caught in his throat, panic in his eyes as he considered the ramifications – “but you won’t be entirely human after that.”
Natsume pulled his arms together and leaned onto them to raise himself into what was almost a sitting position. “Not human – sensei, I can’t – ”
“I know,” Nyanko-sensei sighed, sounding annoyed. “I’m going to go looking for it. Well, not that I can promise you much of anything, anyway. It’s probably long-gone by now.”
“Please,” Natsume murmured. “Hurry.”
“Mm,” Madara responded – and then he was gone, the window open and Natsume left to collapse and curl into a ball of breathless agony and forced silence.