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The likeness is there, right down to the seal over the right eye.
As a widely hunted head of the most powerful clan, Matoba Seiji has seen a great deal in his relatively short time as an exorcist and has often come to consider himself immune to surprise.
Sure, shape-shifting and mimicry are common enough tricks but something about this, in its present context, rapidly tips the scale in favor of chilling him in a way he hasn't remembered in some time.
The wretched thing smiles as it blocks Seiji’s path and he wonders if this is how it seems to others when he wears it himself, the expression smug and more than a little cruel.
“I’d offer a tour but you are not welcome here,” says the yokai, and surely, it has to be a rather crafty one to pull this off. Its voice is a perfect mimicry of Seiji’s own timbre though Seiji can swear it sounds colder. “The defenses of this house will attack all intruders,” and it tips its head up at the shimmering flecks of white dancing against the darkening sky.
Seiji had taken stock of the sight on his way in. It could’ve been mistaken for heavy snowfall from afar but was in fact a murmuration made up of scraps of charmed paper, sharp enough to break skin.
An old Natori clan technique.
He'd heard about it but never seen it in action before.
Focus, he tells himself. He needs to get beyond the courtyard and inside the house.
In spite of himself, his mind goes to dark and ugly places when he tries to think of what he'll find–
No. He’s stronger than that.
The hesitation leaves just as quickly as it came.
Seiji hates that it was ever present at all. He readies his bow and aims but before he can fire, the thing before him vanishes in a trail of smoke leaving behind the echo of a chilling laugh.
Lining his path to the entrance of the house is a row of stone lanterns.
Handfuls of camellia flowers covered in snow sit curiously inside their unlit fireboxes.
~~~
Technically, Seiji is a guest.
Technically, he was invited, or rather, called upon as an emergency measure.
He does not know if those rules of welcome still hold and does not quite want to test them as he makes his way inside.
The message had come from Natori two days ago, gave directions to this old, abandoned residence once used by his clan.
It requested Seiji's presence here if he hadn’t received a follow-up note in a day and half's time. Aside from describing the task as a particularly tricky exorcism that he suggested he may struggle to finish off on his own, it was sparse and cryptic.
At the time, he had thought it must be something dire indeed for Natori to swallow his pride and ask for his help.
He was also under no illusions that he’d been the one asked likely because Natsume was either not available or because the task required far more advanced methodology than the boy could help with.
~~~
Much to Seiji's relief, Natori Shuuichi is still alive.
He is also very much ready for a fight.
There's a dangerous glint in his eye and a snarl that bares his teeth. It's a look Seiji can’t remember seeing on him in years if that.
Under different circumstances, it would be dazzling.
Under these ones, it is still a sight to behold but he knows he can’t let himself get distracted by it when shards of razor-sharp paper charms come flying straight towards him.
Seiji dodges the makeshift blades but just barely. He’s sure one of them has nicked a strand of his hair.
“What are you?” Natori cries out, apparently all action first and questions later today.
And Seiji thinks: Interesting. Not who but what.
“Imposter,” Natori hisses. “Hiiragi, come.”
There’s an answer in there, one that Seiji is still parsing out. He knows he should be quicker but something about that word makes his thoughts and movements stutter.
The masked shiki comes as called but does not charge towards Seiji. Just as well, he thinks. He'd rather steer clear of harming her if avoidable and dealing with the fallout later.
“Master,” Hiiragi says, almost placating.
And immediately, Seiji realizes his mistake: his own unwillingness to see exactly what he was up against as the answer slots itself into place.
“You heard him,” says the thing from earlier as it materializes, wearing his face and guise, a pale hand curled loosely around Natori's wrist.
As warped as everything about this scenario is, it’s ultimately the sight of Natori's hand shifting and clasping at those fingers, threading his own through--a gesture that holds the ease of something done countless times before, that makes Seiji’s blood run cold.
The mimic lets go of Natori’s hand and fires, bizarrely enough, a string of paper dolls at Seiji.
The charms end up winding around the sheath of Hiiragi's intercepting sword.
So it can mimic techniques as well, thinks Seiji, and there's too much to take apart, least of all why Natori's shiki is protecting him in all this.
It's still at enough of a distance that he can't throw a talisman at it and so has no choice but to ready his bow. What he’s not prepared for is Natori stepping in between them.
“You go through me first,” says Natori, voice chilled.
“Very touching,” Seiji says, trying to barrel on through and secure his aim as his head buzzes. “Get out of my way.”
“Shuuichi,” purrs the mimic, soft and saccharine in a way that sounds all wrong, “don’t you worry. Together, we're unstoppable.”
Seiji can't help but laugh, a sharp, hollow sound. This day is going to take years off his life. “I haven’t called you that in ages.”
“Sasago! Urihime!” Natori's eyes are wild as he beckons his other shiki. "Stop him!"
They materialize beside Hiiragi but do not act further.
“Master,” Sasago says. “We are following your earlier orders. As much as we dislike him, he isn't the enemy.”
Seiji ignores the jab, asks, “What were these earlier orders?”
“To protect you,” says Urihime, toneless, “no matter how much he may later command us to act against it.”
Seiji's mind threatens to reel in a million directions and--
Focus, he tells himself, again and again.
So, these are his unlikely allies and he has to act quickly.
Realistically, he knows the talisman on his arrow will only impact the yokai but he would like to avoid impaling Natori if he can help it.
He’s weighing the options when Natori fires another handful of sharpened paper charms his way and he curses in his head, knowing the danger if he even attempts to deflect them back the way they came.
He shifts in time but only just, gets the sleeve of his haori nicked this time around and Natori's shiki take some minor hits as well trying to block the attack.
He knows this isn’t going to be sustainable without one of them being hurt sooner or later.
Sweat beads at his brow and he swerves to the side sharply, misdirects with a shot and manages to fire another arrow in rapid succession over Natori’s shoulder when Natori mirrors Seiji's lunge in the wrong direction.
But the yokai wearing his face vanishes once again before Seiji's arrow makes contact and just as Natori looks over his shoulder.
Struck with panic, Natori cries out his name, his given name, with an agony that reverberates within the room and right down to the marrow of Seiji's bones.
~~~
Natori had glowered and furiously shot a series of charms sealing the exit behind Seiji before he had rushed into an adjoining room. He'd sealed the doorway behind him as well from the way it hadn't budged when Seiji had charged at it.
His shiki, still by Seiji's side, are no help either against Natori's seals now.
"You have to get through to him," Hiiragi says. "The yokai has him under a powerful illusion."
"I gathered as much," Seiji says, verging on irritable, though its directed more at himself than her.
He doesn't know what exactly he's supposed to do other than exorcise the yokai to snap Natori out of this nightmare, tries not to think that maybe, for Natori, this is not a nightmare, maybe it's just tailor-made to torture Seiji above all--though both those trains of thoughts are different sorts of complicated.
He's not thinking even half as clearly as he needs to be and he knows it as he tries yet another counter-spell to break through Natori's seal. He isn't even sure it will work either against Natori's charms or the older wards already present in the clan house but continues the chant with the insistence that he was invited by the current owner and clan head.
Fortunately, it seems to take.
Seiji makes his way through several dark rooms, many of which are empty and others rife with artifacts that he would have been much more compelled by any other day.
The size of this house parallels some of the larger Matoba compounds and the thought comes unbidden: what wasted potential of what this house and clan could have been.
It is followed by another reminder that hasn't crossed his mind in some time, perhaps since they were both much younger, partly because it didn't serve him to dwell upon it and it was unpleasant to do so: even if it was different in nature and by his own choice, a reasonably heavy weight sat upon Natori's shoulders as well.
When they had first met, Seiji had tried to picture their roles reversed.
He had soon decided that he had it better after all, that he far preferred carrying the weight of a living thing's survival over a dead thing's revival.
~~~
Following his ears for any noise, the smallest creak of steps or hushed voices, yields nothing in the maze of this house until one arbitrary hallway leads to doors that open to stony steps and the snow-covered grass of a courtyard.
The picture before him is almost deceptively serene.
Natori's back is to him and he is something of a shadow against the stark white of the snow, partly framed by the trunk and branches of a large tree.
He's crouched over the snow and when he stands, Seiji sees him setting camellias that must have been shed from the tree above inside the opening of yet another tachi-doro, identical in design to the lanterns by the house's entryway.
Seiji's heart is in his throat at the sight and he knows that anything he says or does will fracture the moment.
Natori is the one to turn to face him, slow.
Unexpectedly, he smiles.
It's not just any smile but one brimming with warmth, familiarity.
Seiji feels himself getting a little lost in it and is hyperaware of it all at once. He should be strategizing ten steps ahead but a part of him also feels a little frantic, thinks, if only he can get closer.
Somehow, he tells himself, he'll be able to say something, do something, to break through the spell, as his feet move almost on their own accord towards where Natori stands.
It's a bad idea--no, even worse, it's an absolute absence of an idea--and on any other day, any other job, he's certain he would catch this.
“Seiji,” Natori says, whisper-soft, as he takes the last step to close the distance between them. He reaches out with a hand, snow-chilled fingertips tracing along Seiji's jaw.
For a moment, the name isn't a knife to Seiji's windpipe.
“I'm so relieved,” Natori says. “I was worried you'd been hurt.”
And Seiji feels frozen in his tracks, can hardly move or think or breathe when Natori moves to press his lips to Seiji's own.
Seiji closes his eyes for the briefest of moments. Maybe this is the seduction of the illusion, he thinks absently, this feeling of being seen.
Being known.
Being loved.
A spark of outrage jolts Seiji from within, making him tear himself away from the touch, and it's directed at no one but himself.
There he goes, making the one mistake he had been trusted to not.
Beyond being outright dangerous, this was flagrantly foolish. He'd either underestimated what he was up against or overestimated his own objectivity or worse, been guilty of both. Rather than dispelling the illusion, the last thing he needed to be doing was getting caught up in the hoax himself.
His voice feels stuck in his throat when he tries to answer Natori's look of wounded confusion and that only makes what he has to say feel infinitely more brutal. "Shuuichi--" and then, he corrects himself more firmly, "Natori. This isn't you."
Natori's frown deepens. "What are you talking about?"
It's wretched that it doesn't come as easy as it would once have, as it should for both their sakes here and now.
"This isn't us. We’re not together. We’re hardly friends." It's a burn in the back of his throat, salt in his own wounds just as much as if not more than it may be for Natori.
Natori, at least, is under a spell whereas Seiji has no excuse. Even so, he can't figure out why it feels like the most ruthless thing he has ever had to do and he has certainly done plenty.
"Is this a trick?" Natori snaps, clearly hurt, but there is also finally a crack in his perception and Seiji can feel it. "You're the imposter, aren't you? And I fell for it."
You certainly fell for something, Seiji doesn't say though petty jealousy briefly tempts him. He pulls the folded piece of paper that he'd received with Natori's unmistakable script and opens it, hands it over. "You called on me to come here, to find you."
Natori turns the paper over then crumples it in a ball in his palm. "If we're hardly friends, why would I call on you?"
"Because you trusted me," says Seiji, unequivocal. "Because it's what we do."
Through the flashes of fear and anger and despair, he can see something settling and focusing in Natori's gaze, and his stance shifts ever so subtly, something painfully desolate about it.
When Natori speaks next, it carries the dejected weariness all too reminiscent of the exorcist he knows. "You came."
Seiji whispers, "Of course."
~~~
The illusion breaks but there is no time to dwell on it.
Likely, thinks Seiji, that's for the best and not just because they have to act fast.
Once Natori has his bearings, it's almost frightening how efficient they are together.
They wait for Natori to seek and lure out the mimic who finds him invariably.
Natori persists with pretending he is still under the spell, still loyal to and enamoured with the yokai. Seiji, meanwhile, remains out of sight and is back inside the house.
Through a window, he can see them, and it's a reminder of Natori's acting being a far more transferrable skill than he would have once given the man credit for.
Natori moves towards the mimic in reassurance, embraces it warmly, and this is the signal.
Rapidly, the yokai is bound by Natori's paper chains, unable to move or vanish as it could before, and this is precisely when Seiji fires two arrows into its back, one after another, not taking any chances.
Seiji sees the yokai's face only from an angle as it twists and writhes against Natori's binds. It flickers through a dozen or so faces and guises, blurring one into another, and lets out a resounding cry in a chorus of echoing voices before it disappears for good.
~~~
The moment the exorcism is complete, Natori drops to his knees in the snow.
He remains perfectly still, like his precious, beautifully frozen camellias.
Seiji approaches and joins him in seiza. They sit, motionless, for some time in a drawn out silence where Seiji can sense the other exorcist slowly tying himself into knots.
"That was quite a mess I dragged you into," Natori says at length.
Seiji had finally placed it just at the time of its exorcism, remembered the call for the job more vividly only now: A yokai deep in the mountains, supposedly already weakened, known for its treacherous manipulation. It preyed upon loneliness, vulnerability, longing...
The significance twists something inside of him. "Seems that we dragged you in instead," says Seiji. "This was the job you took at the last meeting from the Matoba, wasn't it?" Seiji hadn't been involved in the assignment personally. It hadn't even occurred to him that this was the job Natori asked for help with.
"Yes and so much for that." Natori laughs, self-deprecating. His gaze is downcast when he adds, "I need to apologize to my shiki."
"It was an illusion," says Seiji, meaning for it to be a comfort though he knows he is far from the best person to offer it. The concept of apologizing to shiki in itself was absurd but of course Natori would think of it. "They won't blame you."
"And to you," Natori adds, finally, looking at him.
"It was an illusion," Seiji repeats, clear, decisive. He's giving Natori an out, giving both of them the simple courtesy of not having to dig any deeper into any of the number of questions that can so easily threaten to throw everything deeper into chaos.
Neither of them can likely give words to why there was suddenly palpable grief in the air that had no real reason to exist.
Seiji decidedly does not press about why the yokai chose his guise or wielded such specific affection and is grateful that Natori doesn't push back, doesn't comment on Seiji's multiple lapses in judgement throughout the day.
Most of all, he offers Seiji the mercy of not bringing attention to the fact that, for the briefest of moments, Seiji had kissed him back.
Perhaps, they both have come to understand that in the complicity of their shared silence, in that liminal space between knowing and not knowing, there is its own sort of safety and companionship.
Seiji's clothes are starting to soak through from the snow below, the chill creeping in through the skin by his shins and down to the bones. He imagines the same must be true for Natori.
He stands slowly, brushing himself off, and offers Natori a hand to help him up.
Natori looks up at him and sighs audibly at the gesture. It's a sound that is complicated and layered with what is likely frustration and exasperation. He gives Seiji a look colored with humor both dark and genuine, and it's deeply insufferable in the way that it's so very him that Seiji will forever be charmed by it.
Just as Seiji thinks to let him be, wonders if that would be yet another unspoken courtesy between them, Natori surprises him and takes it.