Consciousness was a cold, viscous darkness.
Yukino felt herself sinking into a bottomless sea. Her limbs and bones were not merely cold, they were being torn apart, as if her entire being was about to be ripped to shreds.
It hurts...
Her right hind leg... seemed already broken. The sensation of bone piercing flesh was horribly clear. Any tiny movement sent waves of searing, stabbing pain lancing through her.
Blood was slowly draining from this small body that did not belong to her. Life itself was ebbing away like the receding tide, slipping irretrievably out of this frail shell.
This was... a cat's perspective.
Fragments of memory flickered through her fading awareness in broken, disordered flashes.
Three nights ago, in the rain. She had been walking home from cram school under an umbrella when she noticed, in the corner by the garden wall, a silver-grey kitten curled up in a puddle, its fur soaked and caked with mud. Its hind leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, clearly shattered by a car. Its weak cries of pain were like needles, stabbing into Yukino's heart, a heart that looked cold on the surface yet was softer than anyone knew.
She had never been able to resist cute things, especially cats.
So she hid it from everyone, secretly bringing the poor creature home and settling it in the little attic in the backyard, the place that had once been her childhood secret base. With clumsy first-aid skills, she washed its wounds, disinfected them, applied medicine, and wrapped the leg. Every day, she would quietly bring it food and clean water.
However, human kindness could not turn back the withering of a life.
Just last night, the kitten's condition had suddenly worsened. Its body grew cold, its breathing turned shallow, and those beautiful, mismatched eyes gradually lost their shine.
Yukino held it in her arms, feeling that tiny life slipping away bit by bit. Her heart was full of helplessness and sorrow.
At that moment, from within the kitten's dead body, a surge of purest resentment and desperate will to live erupted, the final echo of a dying life. It twisted and congealed into a newborn cursed spirit, chaotic and raw.
Yukino had felt her vision go black. The entire world spun. When her consciousness returned, she had been horrified to realize that she could now "see" her own body.
She saw "herself"... saw her own beautiful eyes glinting with a savage, inhuman bestial light.
And she herself was trapped inside a cold, broken, soon-to-die cat's body.
Their souls had swapped by accident.
I cannot die.
I cannot just die here like this.
That fierce will to live was the only thing propping up Yukino's collapsing soul. Enduring the agony of the shattered leg, she forced this unfamiliar body to move, dragging herself forward with three remaining legs and her teeth, inch by agonizing inch, out of the attic.
She did not know where she was going. She did not know what she could possibly do. Guided only by instinct, she just wanted to find a place... somewhere that felt a little warmer, a little safer, to spend the last of her time.
In the end, she crawled into an old cardboard delivery box that a servant had thrown away in a corner of the yard.
Curled up on the cold cardboard, feeling the last warmth fading from her body, Yukino's consciousness sank slowly into an eternal darkness.
Sis... Father... Mother...
Goodbye.
Just as her consciousness was about to vanish completely, a beam of light pierced the darkness.
She "heard" hurried footsteps, and Haruno's tearful cry calling her name.
Then, a calm, steady voice rang out above her, a voice carrying a power that seemed to reach directly into the soul.
"Found you."
...
Natsume stood before the half-worn cardboard box, looking down at the silver-grey kitten inside, barely clinging to life.
To the others, it was just a pitiable stray on the verge of death. Yet through Six Eyes, he could clearly see, within that frail shell where life was almost severed, a thread of pure, tenacious soul-flame that belonged to Yukino. Like a candle in a storm, it trembled on the edge of going out.
"Yukino..."
Haruno and the councilor rushed over as well. When Haruno saw the kitten's miserable state, she could no longer hold back and broke into sobs.
Natsume ignored the commotion behind him. He simply watched the kitten, calmly confirming the presence of Yukino's soul within.
"Right on time."
He slowly knelt down and extended his right hand toward the kitten in the box.
His movements were light, gentle, as if he were afraid of disturbing the life that was about to slip away.
Under everyone's tense gaze, a faint, pure blue glow of cursed energy blossomed at his fingertips once more.
He did not touch the kitten's body. He only held his hand just above it.
The next moment, another miracle unfolded before their eyes.
A cluster of light, pale and soft, shaped vaguely like a human, was slowly drawn out from the kitten's body by an invisible force, intact and complete.
As the soul was fully extracted, the kitten gave a tiny shiver. Its head tilted to one side, and it lost the last trace of life.
The light cluster that represented Yukino's soul floated gently upward, then settled quietly onto Natsume's broad palm, radiating a warmth that soothed the heart.
"You do not need to grieve for it," Natsume said as he stood, holding the soul in his hand. He looked at Haruno, who was crying beside him, and at the councilor, whose face was lined with sorrow. His tone was calm, almost solemn. "In a way, you should be thankful for it."
"It was because, at the moment of its death, it gave birth to that cursed spirit... weak, yes, but with an intense attachment. It forcibly linked itself to Yukino's soul, which allowed this body to cling to a sliver of life until now. Otherwise, under the normal flow of death, once this body died, Yukino's soul lodged within it would have already dispersed."
His gaze shifted to the kitten's corpse, now cold and still, and his expression hardened.
"But we must handle what comes after properly. This body carried a cursed spirit and is soaked in deep resentment. If we do not purify it at once, a new cursed spirit will arise here soon, one even more troublesome than the last."
"Purify... how are we supposed to do that?" the councilor asked quickly.
"Burn it," Natsume replied, simple and direct. "Completely cremate it. Fire is the most effective method of purification that ordinary people can use."
"I understand."
The councilor nodded heavily and turned at once to a middle-aged man who looked like the head butler, giving the sternest order.
"Do exactly as Master Natsume says. Use the highest standards to handle this benefactor's remains."
With those arrangements made, everyone returned once more to Yukino's room.
Yukino lay quietly on the bed, still unconscious. Her breathing was steady, but her face was chalk-pale, without a trace of color.
Natsume stepped up to the bedside, the soul-light cradled carefully in his hand.
Everyone held their breath as they watched his every move. In their minds, what was about to happen had to be a mysterious ritual, one that demanded immense effort and carried countless unknown risks.
Yet what Natsume did was far simpler than anything they had imagined.
He merely held his hand over Yukino's chest and loosened his fingers.
The soul-light drifted free. As if drawn by some primordial attraction, it slid into her body with not the slightest pause or rejection, merging back into her without a sound and disappearing from view.
When he was done, Natsume dusted his hands lightly, as if he had just finished a trivial task.
"All done."
"Th... that is it?" Hiratsuka blurted out, voicing the doubt in everyone's hearts.
Natsume glanced at her, and for once, a faint smile tugged at his lips.
"A soul returning to its rightful place is simply the way things should be," he said evenly. "Once the foreign 'virus' is cleared, the rest is just like putting the right key back into the right lock."
As his words fell, color began to return to Yukino's cheeks at a speed visible to the naked eye, a soft, healthy flush spreading beneath her skin. Her breathing, once a little uneven, grew long and steady.
"Yukino is..." Haruno watched the changes with mounting excitement.
"She will wake up in about an hour," Natsume said, giving a precise estimate. "But having her soul separated from her body for so long has put a heavy strain on both her mind and body. She will be very weak for a while. She needs plenty of rest, and you must not let her experience any emotional shocks."
"This is wonderful... this is truly wonderful..."
The councilor looked at his daughter, finally returned to normal. A man who remained unshaken even when political storms crashed around him now stood there with tears running down his face. He gripped Natsume's hand tightly, stumbling over his words to express his gratitude.
Now that he knew for certain that his daughter was out of danger, his attitude toward Natsume had already shifted from treating him as a simple contractor to someone he absolutely had to befriend... a true master.
"Master Natsume, we are deeply, deeply grateful. You are not only Yukino's savior, you are the benefactor of the entire Yukinoshita family," he said with utmost sincerity. "To express our heartfelt thanks, please, you and your friends must do us the honor of staying for dinner."
Natsume glanced at the window, where night had completely fallen, then at Yu's stomach, which had been growling nonstop for a while now.
In the end, he nodded.
"Then we will accept your hospitality."
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