A/N: Here's to all the adventure that the pair will share. Thank you for reading.

AN INCURABLE HOMESICKNESS FOR THE ROAD

Many, many years later.

'It's empty, the Yuujinchou. That was the last name.' Natsume said.

With a strange feeling of empty fulfilment, he looked down at the aged green cover.

They had been roaming around for no short time, returning names almost every few days. Most of the yokai came seeking them as they had back in the Fujiwara home, and they went to the yokai who couldn't; the ones which had become to weak to travel a long way anymore, or those who who were bound to a certain place whether physically or mentally. Nothing was far away: Reiko-san might have been moved from family to family as Natsume had at the start, but she never strayed too far from where she was sent. They met yokai that knew her everyday, so he should have expected the moment in which he would return the last name. But he hadn't.

He was not the same as before: he was no longer the lost little naïve boy who sought to find purpose in their journey. He was no longer terrified of his fate. He was definitely not afraid that now the Yuujinchou was empty, Madara would leave him.

But it was the Yuujinchou, which now lay empty in limp hands, that was the whole reason why he had Madara by his side right now, and all the years before. This was how they met, the reason the put up with each other at the start. It was the thing that they had fought and argued over, the thing that they had protected together. It was a memory of his grandmother, and a token of all the yokai they that they had returned names to.

Because of it yokai had come to his window in the middle of the night, begging to have their names returned. Because of it, Madara had shouted at Natsume countless times, for it seemed that every time he came back from a drinking party, Natsume lay exhausted on the floor with the thinner book by his side. Because of it, he was living this out of the ordinary life right now.

It was in every sense, the basis of their companionship. To this day, they blamed the fact that they stayed together on the book. Even now, when it didn't even apply anymore, Madara often commented that he should have let that yokai eat Natsume, so that the Yuujinchou would be his before it got any thinner, and still Natsume shouted at Madara about how useless he was as a bodyguard. All in good jest, of course, but then what was this feeling of unease?

Natsume looked toward's his sensei, with a strained smile.

'I guess now the Yuujinchou is empty, I won't need a bodyguard anymore.'

He was happy, he truly was: the yokai were all free now and their fates were not tied to fragile sheets of paper. But still...

He bit his lip with uncontrollable dread of the answer to come, but he needn't had worried.

Nyanko-sensei just huffed dismissively, pouring a cup of sake for himself indifferently.

'Idiot. You haven't needed a bodyguard for a long time.'

It is was almost expected that the last name he had returned was back in this place. The town where he had found his own family.

'Sensei?'

'Hm.'

'I understand now, this is not my home anymore.'

'Oh?'

'Although, the people and yokai are precious to me, my home is somewhere else now.'

A smile, and a gentle huff: 'Then let's go home.'

fin