Nobody talks about this one. It's a single episode that does what the whole series does: it shows you a moment where Natsume's kindness costs him something real, where a yokai gets to be more than a problem to solve. Nyanko-sensei's loyalty isn't cute here, it's the reason Natsume keeps choosing to be alone. The episode earns its quiet ending by refusing to make loneliness look noble. It's built for people who watched the series and realized they weren't watching it for the plot.

While out on a walk, Nyanko-sensei, the powerful youkai Madara, loses track of his companion Takashi Natsume. On his own, he stumbles upon two small siblings who have gone astray while running an errand for their mother. Kids are not his specialty, and he would rather slip away, but the hungry youkai of the forest make him worry for their safety, so he sets out to guide them. As Natsume keeps searching for him, Nyanko-sensei has to cope with the children's playful, endlessly curious antics while trying to work out where they were meant to go. The one-episode special is a gentle supernatural slice-of-life story with an original plot that appears in neither the manga nor the earlier anime, and it was released on DVD as a gift for subscribers of LaLa and LaLa DX magazines.