The shrill scream cut through the suffocating darkness of the clubroom like a knife.
Yumiko and Hina were already scared witless by the impossible scene in front of them. They collapsed onto the floor without a shred of dignity, trembling as they pointed at the white figure slowly crawling out of the television. Their mouths opened and closed, but not a single coherent word came out.
Yui was shaking just as hard, but the absolute trust she had in Natsume let her cling to a thin thread of composure. She grabbed the hem of his jacket with both hands, clutching it as if it were the safest harbor in the entire world.
"Creak... crack..."
With that horrifying grind of bone against bone, the cursed spirit called Sadako finally forced most of her body through the TV screen. Her long, wet black hair covered her face completely and trailed down onto the floor. The stench of damp, stagnant well water mixed with dense resentment spread through the room in an instant.
At the very moment that would have shattered any ordinary person's sanity, the boy who had been calmly sipping black tea in his chair finally moved.
Natsume did not even stand up.
He simply set his teacup down, lifted his gaze, and let those pale blue Six Eyes rest on the horror crawling out of the television. His expression was indifferent, as if he were looking at some insignificant bug that had wandered indoors.
"So noisy."
He let three lazy syllables fall, then slowly stretched out his right index finger.
There was no blinding flash, no thunderous roar, no flashy spell name.
The instant he pointed, an invisible field of cursed energy erupted from him, vast and heavy enough to twist the very air, and wrapped around the entire clubroom.
Sadako, who had just wriggled free of the TV and was about to unleash her boundless hatred, suddenly froze.
Her body of pure curse seemed to be impaled by tens of thousands of invisible steel rods, nailed in place where she was. She could not move an inch.
She let out a soundless scream, a hiss of malice only audible to the girls whose eyes were still under the effect of Cursed Spirit Eye. The ink-thick resentment boiling off her body surged and writhed, turning into countless black strands of hair that tried to break free of the unseen restraints.
But it was like slamming into an invisible wall.
Every tendril was crushed down and pinned in place, unable to move forward at all.
That sudden and absolute reversal left all the girls in a daze.
The fear had not yet faded from Yumiko and Hina's faces, but it was quickly drowned out by a deeper, more primal kind of shock. They stared, blank and speechless, at the boy who was still sitting there with that relaxed air, and for the first time truly realised that beneath his calm surface was a power far more terrifying and unfathomable than any cursed spirit.
"S... so cool..."
Yui's eyes were shining like twin stars. Her admiration for Natsume had already crossed the line into outright worship. In her mind, anything her club president did, no matter how impossible, was nothing more than what he ought to do.
The only professional in the room, Yashiro, had a very different expression.
Her unusual double pupils blazed with a heat completely unlike the others.
*He is not exorcising it... and he is not sealing it either...*
In her sight, the power Natsume had released was not a wild burst of destructive energy. It was a field of cursed power that was impossibly pure, impossibly condensed, and absolutely controlled.
*He is purifying it...*
That realization made her overly mature heart pound in her chest.
To take a powerful cursed spirit saturated with hatred and, without destroying its core as a spiritual entity, forcibly strip away and neutralise the curse at its center... that kind of technique, unheard of and godlike, was irresistible to someone like Yashiro, who devoted herself entirely to the pursuit of control.
The respect she had for Natsume turned into an almost obsessive desire to learn.
"Then, let us end this."
Natsume stood up and walked over, unhurried, until he stood before the immobilised Sadako.
He raised his left hand, palm facing up. A ball of cursed energy began to form in his palm, glowing with a soft, pure white light.
"Your existence is built from a curse named hatred," he said, looking at Sadako with that same calm. "In that case, if I erase that hatred, you will be free."
With that, he reached out and pressed the sphere of pure energy gently against Sadako's forehead.
A harsh hiss rang out, sharp, like something burning away.
Sadako's body started to convulse. The black resentment that had been clinging to her like tar evaporated on contact with that pure power, melting away like snow under a blazing sun.
"Ah...!"
A scream tore itself out of her, full of agony, but somewhere within it there was also a faint note of release.
The white light grew brighter and brighter, swallowing Sadako's horrifying form entirely. When it finally faded, both she and the television that had served as her medium were gone without a trace.
The clubroom lights snapped back on with a soft click. The icy chill that had filled the air dispersed like smoke, as if it had never existed.
In Natsume's hand, only a single old videotape remained, looking utterly ordinary.
He had completely purified the core of Sadako's curse and sealed the harmless residue of her spirit back into the tape.
...
After the event, once the first wave of shock had passed, Yumiko and Hina were overwhelmed by a joy so intense it felt unreal.
They thanked Natsume again and again, pressed the fifty thousand yen fee they had prepared into his hand without hesitation, and then hurried away together from the place that had given them such a deep psychological scar.
Once she was sure her friends were safe, Yui also cheerfully got ready to head home.
Before long, the large clubroom was empty save for Natsume... and Yashiro, who had been watching him with intense focus.
"Teacher."
Hugging her rabbit plush, Yashiro walked up to him and got straight to the point.
"I want to see Sadako after she has been purified."
Natsume looked at those double pupils filled with curiosity and hunger for knowledge, and could not help a small, helpless smile.
"Fine. I will let you see."
He lifted the tape and channeled a thin thread of cursed energy into it.
A soft white mist began to seep out of the cassette and gathered slowly before them, twisting into a human shape.
When the mist cleared and the figure came into focus, even Natsume, who had seen more than his share of strange things, and Yashiro, whose face almost never changed, froze at the same time.
There was no trace of the terrifying, hate-filled ghost they had faced moments ago.
Standing there was a girl, about one meter sixty five, dressed in a simple white dress. The long black hair that had once been a wet, heavy curtain now fell behind her in smooth, glossy waves.
Most striking of all was her face.
Without the erosion of resentment, she had a delicate, almost adorable countenance. Pale skin, fine features, and a pair of large eyes filled with soft, newborn confusion and shyness as she carefully looked around at the two in front of her.
In that moment, with her timid posture and almost translucent complexion, she looked...
"So... adorable..."
The word slipped out of Yashiro's mouth in her usual flat tone, completely at odds with her usual style.
Natsume could only stare as well. He glanced down at his own palm, then back at the now completely off-style "Sadako," and fell into deep doubt about himself.
*Do my techniques... come with built-in beauty filter and moe buff or what…*