First time trying to write from Seiji’s POV. Just some plotless drabble hehe
~*~*~*~*~
Seiji sat, crouching on the branches of a tree, hidden from view by the thick foliage around him. He’d set a trap in the clearing—a bait of some sort—and in the distant, he could already hear the growling of a certain beast—or youkai. It crashed against trees and made the birds flew in panic. Critters and smaller youkai fled underground for safety. He attached a paper with a confining spell written on it to an arrow and strung that arrow to his bow. He adjusted his position and took his aim.
The crashing and growling grew louder. Any second now. Seiji pulled his bowstring taut, gauging the distance to the magic circle and the flow of the wind. The youkai would break through that line of tree on the other side of the clearing, right over the circle. Seiji would strike it in one blow. The spell would be strong enough to bind it until Seiji could reach it, and depending on how the youkai acted, he would either kill it or take it as his shiki.
A blast of wind tore the trees apart and Seiji let go of his arrow. The youkai let out a guttural scream as the spell the arrow carried bound him and the magic circle beneath him began to light up, stripping him off this power. Seiji leaped down from the tree and strolled across the clearing to the trapped youkai.
The youkai was massive, but not nearly as massive as some he had encountered. A huge mass of smoke and flesh with burning red eyes and grey hair flowing behind. Seiji noted the fangs jutting out in its mouth as it screamed.
“Can you speak, youkai?” he asked.
The youkai screamed again. What appeared to be its limbs were straining against the invisible chains binding it.
“Can you understand me?” Seiji asked again.
Another scream as a response.
Seiji sighed. Another useless youkai. He held his hands together as if in prayed and whispered the incantation that would exorcise it. The light around the magic circle brightened and the youkai let out a final growl that sounded more like a wail before the light consumed it and it disappeared in smoke and ash.
Seiji heaved a sigh, grabbing the arrow that was now lying on the forest floor and crumpling away the paper with the spell. He was wiping away the magic circle when the sound of clapping hands caught his ears and Seiji looked up to see two men emerging from the shadows of the trees.
“Another job well done, Seiji-sama,” one of them said.
Clan members from the look of it, and high-ranking ones at that. Probably there either for the show or trying to curry to his favor, as Seiji was going to be named Clan leader in the next meeting—or as the rumors went, anyway. His father had taken ill these last several months and people were beginning to talk that he might not last the year—which would make Seiji their next leader.
Seiji smiled and continued erasing any trace of exorcism in the forest. “Thank you,” he said. “A pity, however, that the youkai couldn’t be used. It was quite strong too, capable of man-eating if one were to will it. Though, of course, it would never have come to that.”
It was a pointed remark, directed at the two men. He didn’t need favors or the like. All he needed were strong wills and competence. If they had gotten to where they were now by currying favor to his father, then they’d be in such a surprise by how drastically that system was going to be changed when his time would come to take the throne.
The men probably caught the hidden meaning and Seiji almost smirked at how tiny they looked now in front of him. He had finished his work and was gathering his things. “Well, if you excuse me, gentlemen,” he said by way of farewell.
Seiji left the clearing, shouldering his bow and arrows in a more comfortable position. He’d left the clearing far behind when a twig snapped on his right and out came Nanase in her usual black and white suit. The older lady was another high-ranking clan member and somehow, she had gotten herself stuck with him. A secretary? A bodyguard? Call her what you will.
Her eyes behind her glasses crinkled as she smirked at him. “Nicely done, Seiji.”
She was probably one of the only few people who called him without honorifics. Seiji was sure she meant the way he dealt with those two men instead of his failed attempt to take the youkai as a shiki, but Seiji just shrugged and said, “Would’ve been better if it could at least understand human speech. It could have been a great asset to us.”
Nanase fell in step with him and nodded her head. “Yes. Your right eye would be targeted once you become Head and it would do you good to get some strong youkai as a shiki.”
Rubbing salt to a wound. How very much like a Nanase thing to do.
Seiji grinned. “Are you saying I can’t fight it on my own?”
“Heavens no. I know how hard you’ve worked over the years. You’re probably the most powerful exorcist at your age. You can very well fight that youkai all on your own. Though—” Nanase glanced at him through the corner of her eyes, another smirk gracing her lips. “—you’ll probably get a scar or two before someone comes to your rescue.”
Seiji clicked his tongue in irritation. For Nanase to say that—that youkai had to be very powerful. “Point taken,” he said.
“What’s this? Accepting my advice so readily?” Nanase teased.
“You’re one of the only people I trust in the entire clan, Nanase-san.”
“I’m flattered.”
Seiji scoffed. Of course you are, he thought derisively.
“Well, that just means I only need to find another strong youkai lurking somewhere, right?” The country was big with a lot of youkai-invested mountains or shrines or temples scattered throughout. There was bound to be something he could use. “Or, if not, I’ll just get stronger another way.”
Nanase nodded. “I think there are books and tomes you still haven’t read in the library.”
If you don’t become strong, you can’t protect anything.
It was something his father often told him growing up—something he had grown to embrace fully with his heart. He remembered mentioning it to someone some time ago, but the memory slipped his mind.
Seiji turns a page. “Good morning to you too. Is this about that acquisition?”
“Yes. Which you’d know about, given--” Seiji holds up the newspaper, and yes, it’s made the headlines, great-- “...given that you’re, you know, the head of the clan.”
“I don’t make many business decisions. I’m not even the CEO -- you do know that? I forgot if you’ve seen the org chart...”
“Seiji.”
Seiji puts the paper down. “Corp dev has been saying that we should diversify. It’s all very well having stakes in breweries and paper manufacturers -- internal synergies and so on -- but it doesn’t hurt to move with the times.”
Shuuichi looks unimpressed. Seiji has the grace to look mildly apologetic. “You did say you were hoping for decent contract renewal terms. This stake gives us… sufficient leverage to persuade the agency to do better by their artistes.”
Shuuichi sighs. But he sits down at the breakfast table, which Seiji takes as temporary forgiveness. “You don’t have to fight my battles for me.”
“Indeed. We can fight them together. And if you’d rather leave when your contract is up, well. I think we can afford to back a new independent studio, too.”
"I've learnt something new," Seiji announces. "Give me your hand."
Shuuichi blinks, still processing the offhand comment -- "Glad the young master has friends his own age" -- by the clan member who'd showed him in. "What?"
"A protective charm. Come on."
He complies, trying not to resent himself for doing so. Seiji’s fingertips are warm with spiritual power. The brush licks its way across skin.
"There." Seiji lets go; catches Shuuichi's other hand, arrests its questioning fingers. "Don't smudge it." He blows lightly on Shuuichi's palm, says something about waiting for it to dry, but Shuuichi’s past listening--
And then the shadow-lizard emerges from his sleeve.
"Hmm," Seiji hums. The back of Shuuichi's neck prickles. He’s long suspected the lizard knows things he doesn't, about intent or fate or himself: how it shies from attention, its avoidance of his left leg, and now--
Traitor, he thinks, as the lizard curls at rest behind the inked circle.
He casts around for a change of subject: “...How were you planning to test this?"
“I thought we could go after that youkai that’s been stalking the west woods. Just stick your hand out if it attacks.”
Annoyance is a familiar feeling; therefore comforting. “Great.”
How slowly time moves during the last class of the day. Most of his classmates’ faces. Almost all of their names. What it was like to face youkai before he learned to manipulate paper. Calculus. The taste of summer vacation. Too many failed exorcisms. What he wrote on that ‘Future plans’ form. When Seiji stopped calling him “Shuuichi-san”. What he’d felt that first time they met, before everything -- when all he’d seen was another student, a blank slate of possibility, someone who could have yet become an ally or a rival or a friend.)
Maybe it's the gakuran, that visual reminder of how incongruous it is for a high-schooler to be talking about networking and influence and contracts -- with politicians or ayakashi, each their own flavour of dangerous. Maybe it's the way Shuuichi has always felt hopelessly unworldly around Seiji, how that hasn't changed just because he's graduated and Seiji hasn't yet. Whatever the reason, irritation at Seiji’s casual monologue prickles within him, scratches at his throat until it emerges as: "Most third-years worry about entrance exams instead, you know."
Seiji looks faintly impatient. "I'm not going to university, Shuuichi-san. I don't need to, and I'm far more useful to the clan if I stay here."
Of course. That’s what everything comes back to. “Odd that the Matoba clan has to rely so much on a teenager for its power.”
He’s crossed a line, he realises, even as he finishes stumbling across it. Shuuichi can practically see Seiji tamping his impatience down, with self-control no one his age should possess. Under other circumstances, he’d have appreciated the role reversal.
“I do this--”
"--to protect people, yes, yes.” Shuuichi draws a short, frustrated breath. “I know.”
