Archive of Our Own

Sam emerged from the library of the bunker, frowning. “What?” said Dean. “Those eggs I made not sitting right? I keep telling you, more tabasco equals more better.”

Sam didn’t rise to his teasing. “It’s not that,” he said, still looking at the laptop he carried with him. “Remember that Japanese hunter we met a few years back? Well, I just heard from her. I guess there’s a big problem in her neck of the woods, and ... she’s hoping we’ll come take care of it.”

Oh, God. Not another flight. This one would be a long one, too. “Why us? Why can’t she do it?”

Sam huffed a little laugh. “I guess our reputation preceeds us. She’s under the impression we can handle anything.”

“Why? Just how big of a ‘problem’ are we talking?”

“Uh ... ‘legacy necromancer with some kind of book that controls an untold number of demons’ big.”

Dean only paused to absorb this for a few seconds, before briskly knocking on the table and getting up. Dean was usually more than happy to stick around in the good ol’ U.S. of A., but of all the places in the world he thought would be pretty cool to visit, Japan was near the top of the list. Asian chicks, man. Moreover, Sam was dying to visit, though he seldom admitted to this out loud. There had been many worse things than a few hours on a plane since the last time he tried it. Besides, that’s what booze was for. “Japan, here we come. Konnichiwa. I wouldn’t mind checking out the place where all that cartoon porn gets made--at the source!”

Sam smiled tolerantly. “Okay, I guess I’ll book the tickets.”

“Aisle seat!” Dean called as he disappeared down the hallway.

There was really nothing for it but to stay at a hot springs resort--the little town where the necromancer was said to live didn’t offer much else in the way of lodgings ... not that Dean was complaining. Nor even was Sam, who got a look on his face as they settled naked into the hot spring that Dean hadn’t seen since he was a kid: total, absolute relaxation--to the point that he was having a hard time forming words as he caught Dean up on his correspondence with the Japanese hunter.

“He ... he’s already got a demon familiar--they call them ‘yokai’ here, which isn’t exactly demons as we think of them; more like a ... mischievous nature spirit. But all of them are kind of bad, and some of them are really bad, including his creature, which wears the disguise of a pig. Yokai are invisible, but this one can be seen when it’s in its disguise.”

“A pig??” Dean chortled. “What is he, a farmer? I guess maybe he is, around here,” he said, looking approvingly around the beautiful surroundings, far out in the country.

“I don’t know. All she said was ‘Looks can be deceiving,’ and said he’s a lot more powerful than he seems.”

“Hm. I guess we take out the familiar first, then take out the bad guy. Maybe we’ll get ourselves a little roast pig, eh, Sammy?”

They wandered the town, asking around for any information they could get from shopkeepers and townspeople, also keeping an eye out for a suspicious-looking pig. “All that Japanese you studied is finally paying off,” Dean said, happily accepting the delicious-looking meal-on-a-stick a vendor was just handing him from under an awning. The vendor pointed to various sauces in bottles, indicating via gestures that Dean could take his pick. Dean gestured back that he wanted the thing slathered with all of them. The man, and the other two people behind the counter--probably his wife and his daughter--were giggling, but they all helped smother his meal with sauces--even going into the back to retrieve a couple of others for him to try.

Dean dug in, grunting instantly in ecstasy. “Oh, God, this is so good! Sam, you gotta try.” He held it out toward Sam before pulling it back close to himself in the next instant, turning away to shield it protectively. “No, wait--go back and get your own; this one’s all mine.”

Dean gave the family a thumbs-up, hoping it was the universal sign of approval, remembering too late that sometimes a gesture meant something entirely different in other countries, possibly something very rude. Apparently the Japanese spoke ‘thumbs-up,’ however; as one, the entire family returned his thumbs-up, beaming, as if delighted to get to see an American make the gesture. Dean turned back, unable to focus on what Sam was telling him about various things he’d been able to overhear and understand on the street. “Seriously, just get one of your own! I want to eat this every meal for the rest of my life.”

Exasperated, or maybe just hungry, Sam finally went and got one of his own, and then they were both silent, happily munching. Sam had to fend off the family’s attempts to smother his as they’d done Dean’s, but Dean couldn’t resist smearing a little of some of the best sauces on Sam’s meal when he wasn’t looking, and the sauces were so good, Sam didn’t complain.

A skinny young kid with light-colored hair wandered by in a school uniform, eyeing them nervously, like he’d already heard something about them and already felt ... hunted. Dean met his eye coolly, dangerously. It was automatic. It was best, as a hunter, to make your prey nervous, to psych them out--and then Dean realized surely this was just a normal schoolboy, simply nervous around foreigners, and he tried to put a non-threatening look on his face--ruined when he suddenly pointed at the creature prancing along beside the kid and exclaimed excitedly, “A pig!”

“That’s a cat,” Sam said witheringly, as the poor kid hunched and scurried off, the pig--er, cat--following, also looking somehow nervous.

Dean dubiously eyed the thing, and its retreating ginormous butt. “You sure?”

“Yeah ...,” Sam said, sounding not at all sure. “A calico.”

“Funniest-looking cat I’ve ever seen.”

“... Me too.”

“I mean, if that’s really a cat, it looks like it lives off a steady diet of pork rinds and beer.”

Sam couldn’t disagree, looking after the kid and his ‘cat’ like something about them was niggling at him.

“What?” Dean prompted.

“It’s nothing. Just ... she said in the e-mail that the necromancer had unusually pale hair.”

“Huh. Yeah.”

They both stood looking after him, long enough to see him hailed by a group of decidedly normal teenagers, where they all joined up as a group and headed toward school. “Natsume,” offered the wife who’d provided all the sauces, seeing their interest. “Natsume Takashi.” They turned to her. Sam said a few intent words to her in Japanese, and she answered back.

Sam and Dean turned again to look after where the kid went when she and Sam were done talking. “He’s an orphan who just moved to town a couple of years ago, to live with a childless older couple who’ve lived here for a long time,” Sam murmured to Dean. “‘The nicest people,’ she kept saying. Says he’s a good kid, always polite, always helpful. Everyone feels bad for him. I guess he had it ... rough before he came here. Real rough.”

Please let it not be him, Dean thought to himself, watching the group of cheerful high-schoolers disappear over a low hill. He did look like a good kid, and gentle, almost fragile. Please, Dean thought, let it not be this sad little orphan and his beer-bellied cat.

It wasn’t too hard to find people in the life around here, or something close. A few questions around town led them right to a massive house way out in the woods, belonging to a clan of exorcists who’d been exorcising yokai for generations.

For some reason, the head of the clan was young, twenties maybe, ridiculously good-looking, and wore a rather stylish-looking eyepatch. “How’d you lose your eye?” Dean asked conversationally as they sat down in what Dean could only think of as a ‘drawing room.’ He made a mental note to ask Sam later what a ‘drawing room’ was for. Drawing? No way. But all the rich guys in old movies seemed to have one, and this dude was definitely loaded.

“I haven’t ... yet,” Matoba Seiji said with an out-of-place smirk. Dean caught Sam out of the corner of his eye making a face exactly like the one Dean was trying not to make. This guy was off. Way off. “Due to a contract made generations ago, the head of the Matoba clan must always protect his right eye, or a yokai will take it from him.”

“So ya made a deal with the devil and reneged. I can relate,” said Dean coolly. “So this necromancer--how do we get ’im?”

Matoba smiled thinly. “He is only human. He will be easy enough to destroy. First you must do away with his beast.”

“Yeah, capturing a demon and forcing it to do your bidding ... that’s pretty high-level magic,” said Sam. He seemed ... thrown, like he looked when nothing was adding up. He must have noticed something ... or somethings. “Doesn’t it require a very high level of power?”

“The highest,” Matoba concurred. His English was perfect. “And he controls a thousand of them, possibly more. You can imagine what a threat he poses.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean said, unconvinced. This Matoba guy posed a threat just by existing; he reeked of magic.

Maybe that was how he knew exactly what Dean was thinking. “Whatever you may think of me,” he said calmly, “these are the facts: The grandson of a profoundly powerful mage, this chil-- this one is poised to become even more powerful than she was. He possesses the power to control an untold number of demons, with whom he consorts daily. He allies with yokai known to be among the most dangerous in Japan, including his bodyguard. Here, take this.” Matoba handed them a bottle, a cork, and a strip of paper. “If you fail to kill the beast, you may at least trap it. Only speak these words.” He handed them another piece of paper, with a series of syllables written out on it in English characters. “Say them exactly as they are written. Combined with whatever magic you cast, it will be sufficient, if all the fables told about the great Winchesters are true.”

“Some of ’em, probably,” Dean said casually, getting up. He had to get out of this house; it was making his skin crawl. “So why don’t you just kill ’im yourself, if he’s such a threat?”

“Our clan reserves its power for destroying supernatural beings. Were we to dabble in human murder, as well, it would compromise the power we use for ... other things.”

“Ah,” Dean said disgustedly, as Sam recoiled. “Good to know. So ya just let the gun-toting Americans do it for you, huh?”

“Something like that.” Another one of those creepy smirks.

“’Kay. We’ll keep an eye out for a pale-haired human and his supernatural pig.”

For the first time, Dean saw a hint of genuine amusement flicker across Matoba’s face. “Pig ja nai,” he said, suppressing laughter. “It takes the form of a cat. Imperfectly.”

Sam and Dean gave each other a heavy look. Dammit. “Great,” Dean said, depressed. “So what, do we bring the bottle back to you, or just throw it in the recycle bin?”

Matoba had perfect self-control, but Dean could tell he had to hold himself back from leaping forward with excitement at the suggestion they might actually bring the bottle back to him. “Back here, of course. We will know how to dispose of it properly.”

“I’m sure you will,” Dean murmured, and he and Sam took their leave.

“So what was it about that guy that got your back up?” Dean asked Sam as they went inside a very small ramen place on the main street--room for five people, tops. Dean had never seen anything like it. How did they make a living on five customers at a time?? Small place, low rent, maybe? That restaurant from this morning was apparently breakfast-only, the awning now folded up, a cloth cover over the entrance, Dean discovered to his great dismay when they headed back there for dinner. And now they were stuck with ramen. Hopefully it’d be better than the ten-cent packs he and Sam used to live off of when they were kids. “I mean, besides the obvious.”

“You know how he kept talking about enslaving yokai like it was so bad, like this was what made the necromancer evil?”

“And how it took all that power, yeah.”

“Well ... I’m pretty sure he has a few himself.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. The proprietor came smiling up to them to take their orders, completely at a loss; he spoke not a word of English, and Sam may know a lot of Japanese, but he wasn’t recognizing the names of any of the fancy dishes here. Sam finally asked him to simply bring them their standard ramen, and he bowed and retreated.

“How come?” Dean prompted Sam.

“His eyes flickered around the room like he was looking at things we couldn’t see. Human-height things. And it wasn’t just him. Other members of the clan did the same thing. Apparently the ability to see yokai runs in families.”

“Well, you know if he’s got some yokai serving him, it ain’t ’cause they like him so much. The way that guy talked about what he does to yokai .... Damn.” He shook his head, sipping beer the proprietor brought, his mood lightening already. It was good. Really good. Then the ramen arrived: a massive bowl filled to the brim with veggies, noodles and broth, piled high with pork (and also some seaweed, but he could eat around it, he figured). “Now we’re talkin’! This ain’t your daddy’s ramen.” He dug in, and promptly decided he wanted to eat this every meal for the rest of his life.

He and Sam were silent, slurping up their dinner--as Sam had informed him that slurping in Japan was not only not rude--it was considered rude not to slurp! Best country ever!

They were able to lose themselves in the steamy comfort of the tiny restaurant and the deliciousness of the meal for a while, before the depressing truth of their situation settled over them both at the same time.

“So it’s the kid,” Dean said heavily, sitting back. He looked at Sam. “Are you sure this hunter knows what she’s talking about?? Maybe that Matoba freak filled her ears with something, and she for some reason believed him, and --”

Sam sounded equally depressed. “Not only am I sure, but stories go back for decades about another Natsume, Natsume Reiko--his grandmother. She’s the one Matoba talked about. And it’s not just humans telling these stories--the yokai tell them, too. Yokai live a very long time; maybe they’re even immortal. A lot of the stories come directly from yokai who knew her.”

“What are these hunters doing having long chats with yokai?!” Dean demanded.

“Uh ... apparently these yokai threw out her name when they were about to be exorcised, claiming she would protect them, vouch for them. It’s not just that one guy, Dean. Everyone says Natsume Reiko was in cahoots with yokai. ... And I guess her grandson is following in her footsteps.”

“Time to pay him a visit,” Dean said grimly.

Sam sighed. “Guess so.”

Better yet, no one was home when Sam and Dean arrived at the place everyone said the Natsume kid was living. Man, the Japanese were so trusting--the door wasn’t even locked. They went in, and soon found the teenager’s room. Only a little snooping in drawers led to the book, the title of which Sam read out loud, as it was calligraphed upon the front: “The Book of Friends.”

“‘Friends’?!” Dean exclaimed. “Guess we don’t have to wonder anymore whose side he’s really on.”

Sam held a piece of paper on which he’d drawn a spell and touched it to the book, whereupon the paper glowed so brightly it hurt their eyes. “This thing has enough magic to power even Rowena’s darkest spells,” he informed Dean.

“’Kay,” Dean said shortly. “Time to gear up.”

They collected all their spell ingredients and their weapons, then skulked around behind Natsume’s house where they couldn’t be seen, waiting for him to go somewhere with the pig-cat. In the meantime, Sam translated what he could understand of what was said between the kid and his adoptive parents. Even Dean could tell the kid was kind of stiff and formal with them, like he was still nervous they’d suddenly decide they didn’t like him or something and kick him out.

Dean tried hard to suppress the intense feelings the tone of the boy’s voice brought up in him, all those days when Dad was pissed and yelling at him and Sam, the day Dad told Sam to get out and never come back, how hard Dean tried to please Dad, how he always seemed to fail. Quiet and studious like Sam, blond and eager to please his folks like Dean, having lost his mother at a young age just like them, all mixed up in the supernatural whether he wanted to be or not ... it was getting harder and harder to want to hunt this kid, made all the harder by Sam’s soft translations: “He offered to bring in the laundry. The woman is making a special dinner for the cat. The man calls it--he has a funny name for it, like ‘meow-purr.’” Sam huffed a soft laugh. Goddammit, they were never gonna be able to finish this job.

Looks can be deceiving, Dean told himself, over and over. All the worst monsters disguise themselves as something sweet and innocent right before coming at you. Except this kid didn’t know anyone was watching; he was just being himself, in his home, thinking he was alone and safe.

“Time to move,” Sam murmured. Sure enough, the kid was taking off, with his ubiquitous cat. Waving cheerfully back at his new parents, Dean could also relate to the way all his faked good cheer dropped off his face the second he thought he was alone, rushing through the woods as that ugly-ass cat skipped along beside him, humming weirdly. Natsume was talking to the cat--and the cat was talking back to him! Sounding like some kind of grizzled old man or something. Meanwhile, Dean could swear there was a whiff of whiskey coming off of him. Maybe it really was a beer belly!

“Did he just call that thing ‘Sensei’?” Dean growled low.

“Yeah,” Sam whispered back, seeming impressed at Dean’s increasing grasp of Japanese. “I know everyone says it’s dangerous, but it ... sure doesn’t seem like it. And it’s definitely not his slave; it never stops giving him attitude.”

“I’d punt that obnoxious little runt right into the trees if it talked to me like that.”

Sam didn’t argue with this sentiment. “He seems to have a lot of affection for it.”

Dean shook his head. “Takes all kinds.”

He and Sam exchanged glances as Natsume finally came to a halt in a clearing and started talking to the trees around him--or no, surely to yokai. Dean started to move in on the kid--he had a clear shot--when suddenly Natsume gasped and looked in their direction. Not even a second later, something hit Dean over the head, and he heard Sam let out a sharp breath as if the same thing happened to him. The blows were coming from all directions. Now twigs, leaves, and small stones were also pelting them. Dean and Sam struck out at whatever was attacking them, but connected with nothing. The rocks were getting bigger.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he grunted, and Sam didn’t argue; they ran out of there as fast as they could.

“Well, that sucked,” Dean grumbled, holding ice to his head. They felt a little silly afterward, to have been driven off by a few small sticks and stones, but how did you fight an enemy you couldn’t see? One big rock hitting at the wrong angle and it could be all over. Dean picked something out of the back of his shirt that had been poking him all this time--a feather! “What the hell?!”

“I guess we have to take out the kid first,” Sam said. He’d cleaned out the little cut on his face, another one on his hand, and otherwise he was just left with a bunch of little bruises, same as Dean. “That wasn’t just one thing; that was a lot of attackers all at once.”

“Or we could steal the book.”

Sam’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. We’ll start there.”

Only after stealing the book, the exact same thing happened the next time they tried following Natsume, except it started the second they stepped off the path into the forest.

“This sucks!” Dean cried when they were back at the inn. All these little cuts and bruises were really starting to add up.

“Maybe he doesn’t need the book actually in his possession to use it,” Sam theorized.

“How’re we gonna get close enough to this kid to get ’im??” Dean growled.

“I guess we need to start with some kind of protection spell and go from there.”

“We’re gonna have to pull out the big guns for that scrawny little punk.”

“Looks like it.”

“Well,” Dean sighed, stripping off his shirt quickly. “Nothin’ like a little hot-spring soak to fix up these cuts and bruises.” They’d only planned to stay in Japan three days, figuring they’d be done with the job by then, but here they were on the third night and no closer to getting the bad guy than when they arrived. Yet somehow, Dean couldn’t find it in himself to complain. Apparently, neither could Sam, who also stripped and headed for the door.

As Dean relaxed in the spring with a deep sigh, he felt a rare feeling steal over him--rare enough that it took him a while to identify: happiness. Despite the setbacks on the hunt, for once, they were in a truly nice hotel--basic but classy--and eating the best food. Despite the language and cultural barriers, everyone they’d met had been extraordinarily nice and polite. The wind gently rustled the leaves in the trees overhead in this private grotto. Tomorrow morning, another breakfast-on-a-stick. A small part of him couldn’t help hoping they’d be stymied again and again by this kid and his yokai servants so that he and Sam would get to be on this hunt for another day, or ... maybe even another week. Maybe two.

Rowena had been rather generous at certain times, particularly with Sam. She’d--sometimes deliberately, sometimes perhaps accidentally--shared some of her best spells with him. He and Dean cast them all before leaving the next afternoon to go find this kid and his ugly alcoholic cat--along with a spell to increase the power of any other magic they might cast. They also drew some protective runes on themselves, and tied charms around their necks. This was the magical equivalent of SWAT gear, Dean thought to himself, as he nonetheless donned his thickest leather jacket. No feather was gonna get through this baby.

They headed with purpose in the direction of the school, shadowing Natsume and his friends on their way home, until sure enough, the kid took his leave, ducking into the forest with some lame excuse Sam translated for Dean. Sam and Dean went right after him--interrupted on their way by two of those friends, a serious-looking boy with black hair and a cheerful girl, who addressed them in awkward English: “You are Americans?” she asked winningly.

They’d thought no one had spied them there, half in the forest, moving from tree to tree as they stalked their prey. They’d certainly thought if someone did notice them, they’d peg them as nefarious dudes and steer clear, but this boy and girl seemed no more put off by their looks and weird behavior than if they were actors playing out a scene from a movie.

Dean felt Sam hesitate and knew the same thing was going through his mind as was going through Dean’s: dare they just ignore these high-school kids and go after Natsume?--soon realizing they couldn’t. Until they got rid of these guys in some more polite fashion, they might try to follow them into the forest, or even report them to their parents or some other authority, who could interrupt at an inopportune time, and maybe put the civilians in danger.

It was Sam who put on his best smile and said, “Yeah! Just here visiting the hot springs.”

“You like Japan?” the boy tried.

“Love it,” Dean said shortly, making clear he wanted to put an end to this chat as soon as possible.

Usually the Japanese were quick to pick up on subtle social cues like this, but now that these Japanese teenagers had some real Americans in their clutches, they seemed unwilling to let them go.

“What is your favorite things about Japan?” the boy asked haltingly.

“The food,” Dean said without thinking. “And the hot springs. The hotels are nice, too,” he couldn’t help but add, weathering Sam’s confused look at his unnecessarily prolonging a conversation Sam knew both of them were trying to cut short. “The natural areas--they’re the best. Look--” he managed to interrupt himself, though he could have gone on, “we need to get to looking at that, uh ... ‘nature’ right now, so ... skedaddle.”

He made the shooing sign. The kids looked at him like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing, not as if they didn’t understand him, but as if ... they couldn’t believe anyone would be so rude. Apparently this kind of thing just wasn’t done in Japan. It occurred to Dean that this could work to their advantage. If they thought of Sam and Dean as boorish creeps, maybe then they’d let them be. “Go on, leave us alone. The Americans have stuff to do.”

The kids exchanged a look, and Dean saw something in that look: accosting Sam and Dean wasn’t innocent excitement at getting to see and practice their English with Americans; this was a deliberate ploy--evidently working for Natsume, who must have instructed them to waylay Dean and Sam. Just how many people did Natsume have working for him?? Humans, yokai, pig-cats ... maybe his magic was strong enough to work even on humans.

Dean scowled, and led them bodily back to the path. “All right, all right, you’ve had your fun. Now stay out of the forest--you’re in danger there, got it? Danger,” he enunciated, figuring even if they didn’t understand anything else he was saying, maybe they’d at least understand that. “Stay here.”

He and Sam went back to the forest’s edge, relieved to see the kids now looked at a loss ... and indeed did not follow. Dean and Sam went into the woods, wasting no time.

Matoba had clued them in to some of Natsume’s favorite areas to work, according to evidence he’d come across in his own excursions. There were certain clearings where yokai liked to gather where Natsume joined them, also meadows, even cliff edges ... and there were areas where he didn’t go, where he might encounter yokai still outside of his ability to control, or areas the Matoba clan had marked off as exclusively theirs. Sam and Dean checked each of these efficiently, along with the first place they’d found him out here.

They knew they must be getting close when they started getting pelted with rocks again. This time, the protection spells worked; the objects bounced off harmlessly. They looked at each other. It was go time.

Sam started making a large spell circle, based on a drawing Matoba gave them; supposedly it trapped yokai inside it, like the Japanese version of a devil’s trap. Dean gathered the ingredients for a couple of spells they could cast if all else failed. He also took out that bottle and set it in the middle of the spell circle, remembering the sound of that obnoxious cat’s voice. He didn’t sound dangerous--he sounded like a whiny, bratty, lazy drunk. Everything Sam translated of what he said supported that impression.

Dean scowled. Their intel was consistent from every source, yet none of it matched up with anything he’d seen with his own eyes. The only thing he had to go on was what that hunter said, about looks being deceiving. Monsters showed their true colors when they were under attack. That Natsume kid would probably turn into some old-ass sorceror with a long white beard and a magic wand or something right in front of their eyes. And they would be ready.

Sam nodded at Dean as he finished drawing the spell circle, just as Dean finished his preparations. They got up, guns drawn, and edged toward the sound of Natsume’s voice. Dean was once again thrown off--he didn’t sound like he was ordering anyone around; he sounded ... keening, pleading. Sure enough, Sam translated that he seemed to be telling his yokai servants to ... save themselves? What the hell??

A great rush of wind roared through the treetops, and with it, a feeling of tremendous power--evil power. Natsume must have spied them and was sending his slaves to do away with Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean ran to the meadow whence came his voice--only to find a scene entirely different from what they’d expected. Dean had expected a spell circle of his own, incantations, maybe some of the weird paper dolls Japanese exorcists used. Instead, they found Natsume alone, standing in the middle of the meadow in a defensive posture, staring upward. Sam and Dean gave one another a nervous glance. Just then, Dean noticed the pelting rocks and twigs had stopped some time before.

Natsume saw them then--and gesticulated wildly. “Iie!” he yelled, gesturing for them to leave. “Go! Go! Run!”

Natsume was suddenly knocked to the ground. Dean saw something he’d prayed never to see again in his life: something invisible clawing through his shirt, leaving deep scratches all the way down the poor kid’s belly. Horrible flashbacks of the hellhounds coming for Dean and doing exactly this, doing this to Jo, took his breath away. Dammit. Hesitating only a moment, Dean ran forward and shot in the direction of where trees were now crashing to the ground, this giant invisible monster wreaking havoc. He grabbed Natsume’s hand and pulled him to his feet, dragging him in the direction of the spell circle Sam had drawn.

“No, Dean--I think this isn’t what we thought!” Sam cried. “From what he was saying, he was trying to get the other yokai to run from this big yokai! It’s incredibly dangerous--”

“You think I didn’t pick up on all that?!” Dean yelled. “We need this kid’s help trapping the monster! He’s the guy who can do it, right??””

Maybe Dean would regret this choice. He’d made enough choices he regretted, and they usually had to do with exactly this: letting the bad guy go because he just couldn’t find it in his heart to kill him. Hell, maybe this was all some kind of setup on Natsume’s part, cleverly making it look like an invisible monster was attacking him so he could get Sam and Dean where he wanted them, but it just didn’t feel like that. Natsume felt--well, he felt like a Winchester: moving around all over the place from the youngest age, dealing in stuff no one understands and rendered lonely because of it, weighed down with burdens of danger and responsibility far too heavy for someone his age. Dean looked at skinny, studious Natsume and just saw Sam, little Sam, caught up in the middle of stuff too big for him to handle, but he had to find a way to handle it somehow anyway.

Natsume was talking frantically in Japanese all the way to the spell circle, Sam translating almost as frantically: “Dean, he says he doesn’t know any spells! He says he’s told he has magical ability but he has no idea how to use it!”

“Then here.” Dean tossed the kid the book full of names of yokai he could control. “Call ’em.” Sam translated for him as best he could.

Right after great relief to see the book, Natsume shook his head wildly. Sam translated again: “He says he’s never used it. Says he only gives the yokai back their names, never enslaves them.”

“Great. Perfect timing to learn he’s the most harmless little necromancer in the world. What about this, then?”

He handed Natsume the bottle Matoba had given him. This, at least, elicited some recognition. He handled it like he was afraid of it, but ... like it wasn’t his first time. “He says he’ll try,” said Sam.

“Good. Because otherwise, we’re all toast,” Dean growled. “That thing sounds like a freight train comin’ for us, and about that fast.” Sam started reading out the spell, exactly as Matoba had written it. Natsume braced himself, like he’d done this before. Problem was, he was flagging. The blood was soaking his shirt. “Will I screw it up if I help?” Dean shouted over the sound of ol’ invisible Godzilla crashing through the forest in their direction.

Sam asked Natsume, but Natsume was in no condition to answer. Whatever; at this rate, the kid was going to pass out before the monster even got here. Dean held him up; then, as the kid’s grip on the bottle weakened, Dean pressed his hands around Natsume’s.

Thing was, Natsume wasn’t even doing anything but holding a bottle. Maybe they didn’t even need him for this. Dean was just about to take the bottle himself and let the kid rest until it was all over when Natsume cringed as the monster drew near, and then his hands--they looked like they exploded with light. Both Natsume and Dean were rocked by the power of this huge yokai somehow being captured in the small bottle.

At that point, Dean sure was glad the kid was there, because feeling the massive amounts of magical energy blasting out of his hands, Dean knew he and Sam would have been mincemeat without the kid there to do this part. Then again, the kid was pretty lucky they were hunting him when they were, because for all his ‘power,’ he, too, certainly would have been dead if Sam and Dean hadn’t been there to save him.

It was obvious when the monster was fully imprisoned, from the peace that suddenly descended over the forest--and from Natsume collapsing onto the ground, unconscious. Dean looked at the bottle, slapping the cork over the opening. He looked at Sam questioningly, who put the piece of paper Matoba gave them over the cork.

“That’ll do it?” Dean asked dubiously.

Sam shrugged, looking at the kid, but he was utterly dead to the world. “S’posed to.”

“Well--just don’t break it, I guess.”

Sam knelt down next to Natsume, lifting his shirt. It was a sight Dean had seen far too many times: a mass of blood and torn skin. “He’s not going to make it to the hospital, Dean.”

“Good thing we’re good at stitching people up, then. Got any dental floss?”

They snuck him into their room at the onsen after stitching his wounds right there in the meadow. They cleaned him up and let him rest. Dean, meanwhile, got madder by the second. He couldn’t forget the way that kid--seconds from being torn to shreds by that thing--only tried to save Sam and Dean--and even his yokai buddies? And that Matoba freak wanted him dead??

“You gotta write that hunter, Sam. Tell ’er she got her facts all wrong.”

“Already did. Oh, and yeah, she says Matoba’s bad news.”

“Ya don’t say. Maybe it’s him we should be hunting.”

“If everything everyone keeps saying about Natsume is true, I don’t think we need to worry. My guess is, one way or the other, he’ll take care of it.”

“What’s with this kid? He’s got all this power and he doesn’t ever use it??”

“I think maybe ... you know, Dean, maybe he’s just trying to make sure he ... never goes evil. I mean, I get it. I get it. When you start messing with that kind of power, it can become a slippery slope.”

Yeah, Sam once had powers. At least Natsume didn’t seem to be drinking any demon blood. Sam looked as sad and ashamed as he always looked when thinking back on that. “Yeah,” said Dean quickly, to pull him out of that vicious spiral. “Seeing him with his friends, though, I can’t help thinking he’s just kinda ... trying to pretend he’s normal.”

“Well, didn’t we?”

Yeah. God, how hard Dean tried not to seem like the freak son of a hunter, when he was in high school. He got pretty good at it, too ... even if Sam couldn’t hack it and was always the odd kid out.

Sam still looked melancholy. Apparently this kid was affecting Sam exactly the same way he was affecting Dean. It was quite something, to revisit your past in another form. It was one thing to live through it, another entirely to see it from the outside. Were Dean and Sam ever really as young and fragile as Natsume? They must have been, right? How did they manage to survive?

“He can try to go on pretending, I guess, but it isn’t gonna change anything.”

“I think he knows that pretty well,” Sam said quietly, looking at the boy’s lifeless form splayed out on the bed. “Any of it he can get, though ... it’s probably worth it. It was to me.”

“Yeah.”

That fat, ugly cat popped up at the window, just like he’d been doing all night. Dean ignored him. He hadn’t been visible during the fight with the big bad, but then again, he wasn’t supposed to be visible when he was in his true form. And a lot of good he’d done them! He probably slipped off for another drink right when the battle was really starting to heat up.

“There’s nothing worse than a monster you can’t even see,” Dean growled.

“Yeah, but ... the look Natsume got when he laid eyes on it ... I think maybe we were better off that we couldn’t.”

Yeah. That was abject horror on his face. What had this kid witnessed in his sixteen short years? Sam and Dean had beheld some horrifying stuff in their time. Dean was just as glad there were some things he’d never have to look at. Regular demons were bad enough.

“So, then ... those invisible things throwing rocks and stuff at us, if they weren’t his yokai slaves, then what were they?”

Sam smiled. “Guess he has a lot of friends willing to try to protect him--human and yokai both.”

“It ain’t called ‘The Book of Friends’ for nothing, apparently.” Dean shook his head. “I guess we can’t say we don’t have a few friends in low places ourselves.”

“You take what you can get,” Sam said matter-of-factly, closing the laptop briskly and getting up. Dean knew Sam was talking about himself. Countless were the times Sam had been left with just about nothing as a kid--even worse than Dean in some ways, because at least Dean could join their dad on hunts when he got old enough, and Dean had friends, popularity .... It didn’t bother him then, really, to see the look on Sam’s face as he got left behind again when John and Dean went out on a hunt, so grateful himself to escape the dreary daily grind of their lives and school, but somehow seeing Natsume’s desperate life brought it all home. Dean was grateful for a lot of things on this trip to Japan, but perhaps the one he was most grateful for was understanding his brother a little better. Understanding everything about their past a little better.

Sam looked like he might be thinking of a little more time in the hot spring, an idea Dean could get behind.

Dean glanced down at Natsume’s pale, still form. Even unconscious, a sense of sorrow and loneliness pervaded his being. “Guess so.”

Natsume seemed delighted they’d stitched him up themselves when he finally woke up, repeatedly brushing off their suggestion that he go to the hospital. Dean got the distinct impression the main reason he didn’t want to go to the hospital was because he didn’t want to worry or inconvenience his new parents. Jeez, even Dad wasn’t that bad, most of the time.

“All right,” Dean said, unhappy about it but hardly in a position to argue, especially since he’d have done the same thing in the kid’s place--and had, plenty of times. “Just keep an eye out for infection.” The literal field was far from the ideal place to stitch someone up, but he’d have bled out before they got him home otherwise. Sam translated for Dean.

Natsume nodded, all smiles, that good-boy act--which Dean could see through like glass, knowing the kid would grit through it, whatever came, and only see a doctor if he thought he was inches from death--just like Dean would.

Dean shook his head, giving him a look. Natsume nervously looked askance, his façade punctured in an instant. If he was going to try to pretend to be normal, he was going to have to get a lot better at it.

“All right, well--I guess you’re the only one I trust with this,” Dean said. He handed Natsume the bottle, who recoiled from it. This kid. Who on earth ever thought he could actually be any kind of threat?? “Go on. I sure as hell ain’t taking it through customs.”

Reluctantly, Natsume took the bottle from him, setting it gingerly in his bookbag, then he turned to them and bowed formally. “Arigato gozaimasu.” He looked up at them, and the relief and gratitude in his eyes was plain. “Honto.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome,” said Dean, before Sam had a chance to translate. Awkwardly, Dean bowed back. “Back atcha. You saved our asses back there.”

Sam translated, probably cleaning it up for this wholesome-looking kid who was tangled up in all this strangeness and darkness. Natsume just nodded, seeming simply glad to have been able to help someone. Just like a Winchester.

“So, uh ... since you’ve already pretty much got the hunter personality and ... lifestyle ... ya think maybe you’d be willing to come help us out if we ever get a case that requires more juice than we can get our hands on?” Dean looked at Sam. “I mean, now that Rowena’s dead, we can’t just call up the most powerful witch in the world anymore when we need a little help. Not to mention this kid’s gonna be way nicer to work with ....”

Whatever he thought of Dean’s request, he simply translated it for Natsume--who instantly protested. Sam couldn’t help smiling at his response. “He says he’s got school.”

“Well, then--summer break!” Dean said, exasperated. “We’ll pay for his flight, and he can stay in the bunker!”

Sam translated, but Natsume was adamant. “My parents need me,” was what Sam translated back. “And my friends--both human and yokai. And just--I want to be here.”

Dean sighed. To have parents, friends, school--all that normal stuff. That was the dream. How could he argue with that?

“All right, then. But if you ever need some help from hunters, you better call, ’cos that breakfast-on-a-stick’s still calling my name. We gotta stop there on the way out of town, Sam, and get another one. I mean, another couple. Maybe a few, you know, for the plane ....”

Sam interrupted him--surely with a stern reminder that there were other cases back in the States. Instead, Sam said, “Well, we’ve already paid through tonight at the onsen, and--”

Dean’s eyes lit up. “Say no more, Sammy! First it’s breakfast on a stick, then a little midmorning soak, then ramen for lunch, and then, I dunno, maybe we can scrounge up another case in the area. Maybe that hunter’s got some leads ....”

Dean waved at Natsume as he turned Sam toward the breakfast-on-a-stick place. Natsume waved back, before spying that boy and girl who waylaid Sam and Dean. He made his slow way to them. They rushed to his side when they figured out that he was injured, though he tried to hide it, and Dean smiled, satisfied. The kid was going to be all right. He had finally found a place he could call home.

The thought suddenly made leaving Japan seem more appealing. Despite all the awesomeness here, he was starting to look forward to getting back to the bunker, their own home they’d finally found. Their lives weren’t so bad. Watching Natsume, he thought, it could always be worse.

“Ja ne,” Dean told Natsume. Sam turned to stare at Dean, bewildered. Dean could tell he was about to ask when Dean learned enough Japanese to be able to carry on his own conversations. He shut it down with a ‘so what?’ look and sauntered toward the breakfast-on-a-stick place.

“Mata ne,” Natsume replied, then pointed at a different restaurant, hidden behind another storefront down an alley. “Ichiban,” he said with certainty.

This was another word Dean knew! And he trusted Natsume’s opinion. An honorary Winchester would definitely know. Dean headed on over there, flipping back the curtain. This one only had four seats. Dean settled down at the counter and started to order (okay, mostly just gesturing and throwing out words he knew like ‘pork’ and ‘large’). He also ordered a beer. He was just about to start on that when that freakin’ cat jumped up on the seat next to him and curled up, regarding him with knowing, inscrutable eyes.

Dean pulled the glass away from his mouth long enough to say to it, “I’ve heard you talk. Don’t try to sit there and look wise. And thanks a lot for not helping during the fight. Some kind of bodyguard you are.”

“Mrowr,” it said, utterly unconvincingly.

“I said, I’ve heard you talk!” Dean yelled, just in time for the proprietor to emerge from the kitchen and stare at Dean like every rumor he’d ever heard about crazy Americans was just confirmed. He set the bowls down in front of Dean’s place, bowed politely, and hurried back into the back.

Dean heard the cat chuckle as it sauntered out of the restaurant and down the street--reeking of alcohol.

Someone on the street said something as the cat dashed past them. “Lucky cat,” Sam translated for him.

“What’s lucky about it?” Dean growled.

Then their meal arrived. Natsume wasn’t wrong--this was the best one yet!

“I hope that kid needs help again soon,” Dean murmured fervently, losing himself in the delicious meal.

Did Dean imagine it? He sure thought he heard Sam whisper back, just as fervently, “Me too.”