One of my reviewers for a fic I'm working on suggested this manga, and I'm so glad I read it. I hope the characterizations ring true. I've only read the manga and even then I've only been able to find the first forty-three chapters; I'm going to have to go to a bookstore to find the rest. This is based on the scene in chapter 18 where Nyanko-sensei transforms and Natsume can't see him.
Also, Nyanko-sensei is a big softie. He might threaten to kill you for saying so, but he is.
I own nothing.
Madara, or Nyanko-sensei as he has come to be known by the child, does not set much store by the qualities of compassion and kindness. Compassion doesn't fill the belly; kindness does not put a roof overhead to keep out the rain and cold. In the end, he maintains to himself and all who might ask, the only things that matter are power and pragmatism. If you are not willing to be pragmatic you are lost; if you have no power you are nothing.
Still, he wants the human's child to be able to see him again.
Natsume Reiko would have agreed with Madara's vaunted values. The girl who ruthlessly trapped ayakashi and the one ayakashi she came upon but could never trap had a grudging respect for each other. They did business occasionally, traded banter, were sometimes downright unfriendly to each other. Watching Reiko in action has always provided ample entertainment.
There was Reiko, long sheets of pale hair like sunlight trapped in strands of silk, except Reiko didn't always take the best care of herself and her hair often looked rather dirty. When it was clean, it gleamed bright and shining, but for the most part it was tarnished, which Madara still finds rather suiting of her personality.
It's amazing how humans wither if their fellows deny them acceptance. Madara has often wondered whether or not Reiko was ever a cheerful, happy human being. She might have been once, when she was very young and she either still had her parents or just didn't comprehend that the fact that she could see things others couldn't made her different. It's hard to think of Reiko as a carefree, happy, laughing little girl but maybe she was that once.
She certainly wasn't by the time Madara met her.
By the time Madara met her, Reiko was a staunch misanthropist who respected power and little else. She had a weird charisma about her, a power that no one who met her could deny. Even so, everywhere she went the people shied away from her—and that was if she was lucky. If Reiko wasn't lucky she would have water or rocks thrown at her, jeers launched at her as she retreated, back still straight and head held high. Her mouth formed a thin, cruel line and any ayakashi who was unfortunate enough to cross her path afterwards got a generous taste of Reiko's suppressed fury.
"Nyanko-sensei?" The boy's voice trembles, so quiet in its hopelessness. "…I can't see…"
As much as Reiko put forth the image of being implacable, completely towering in her contempt of all, Madara could see that was just a human girl, completely and totally broken by the world. Humanity had descended upon her and torn her apart, and she had been reconstructed by her resentment and howling loneliness. And she could be kind, kind in small, barely noticeable ways that nevertheless betrayed her human weakness. Those small kindnesses, Madara supposes, was what Hinoe had fallen in love with, that and the fact that Reiko for once repaid loyalty not forced with halfway decent treatment.
In the end though, she'd been a creature consumed with anger. Madara has no idea who the father of her child must have been, whether he was human or otherwise—Reiko could tolerate the touch of no one and he wonders, to this day, under what circumstances her daughter must have been conceived. Whoever it was who managed to break through her anger or didn't, Madara can't deny that he is impressed.
Where Natsume Reiko was a human's child filled with anger, her grandson is like her only in matters of his face. Natsume Takashi looks so like his grandmother—granted, he is cleaner and better-kept, but only because the humans he lives with now actually take the time to make sure he is. He has the same eyes, the same pale skin (always with the touch of sickness and frail health), the same soft, fine hair and delicate frame. That's where the similarities end.
Natsume Takashi was torn apart by the world as well, but where Reiko was reconstructed with resentment, Takashi was built up again by the petty human concept of love and with kindness. There was never any human to love or even like Reiko, but Takashi keeps finding them by the day.
He's too soft. He insists on involving himself in the affairs of ayakashi even for the pettiest things and even when he knows it will only put him in harm's way. Madara keeps telling the boy "You can't live with a foot in each world; you have to choose, one or the other." It will tear him apart some day; Madara is sure of that. And despite the fact that half the ayakashi Takashi meets wants to take revenge on his grandmother through him or simply wants to make a meal of him, Takashi still exercises an insanely naïve trust in the goodness of ayakashi and humankind alike.
Trusting Natori is a mistake—too shifty, too unreliable, with a glib charm that can only spell trouble—though Madara is relieved to note that at least Takashi is not so naïve as to inform him of the existence of the Book of Friends. That would be a disaster.
The softness of humans, this human in particular, never fails to astound Madara. Constantly putting himself in harm's way for strangers; this is precisely the reason Takashi can't see Madara now. He's the sort to die young, Madara decides, even by the standards of humankind.
Still…
Madara wants the eyes of the human's child to clear and be able to look upon him once more.
The basis of their relationship is Madara's eventual inheritance of the Book of Friends upon Takashi's (likely untimely) death, and if anyone were ever to ask, Madara would staunchly maintain that this is the only basis for their relationship, that this is the only reason he stays. With the power of the Book of Friends, even diminished as it is by Takashi's good will, Madara can once again be what he once was: a lord of ayakashi, might backed up by more than simply an impressive form.
In spite of all this, as annoying and frankly distressing as the human's child can be, Madara finds… He finds, with a numb surprise, that the urge to protect him is no longer simply the act of looking out for his own interests. It is automatic now, no longer forced. It's not simply about the Book of Friends, and it is no longer just about a favor given and a deal struck.
There is one more point of similarity and difference between Natsume Reiko and her look-alike grandson. Both are deceptively frail, bearing thin, malnourished frames (though Takashi is starting to look better) that hold a fierce strength. They stand stalwart against the world. But where Reiko never needed to be protected, Takashi does, from ayakashi, from humankind, and from himself.
The thought of Takashi dead no longer brings him any joy, or even satisfaction, so Madara makes protecting him his task.
"Are you there?" There's no hint of tears in Takashi's voice. He simply sounds weary, and tired, and so devoid of hope that he might as well be a dead thing. He kneels on the floor, his dull, glassy eyes staring off into space. "Sensei… Sensei?"
He can't see that Madara is wrapped all around him, and he certainly can't see the heavy look in Madara's golden eyes as he stares, long and hard, at him. That is probably for the best, all things considered.
Finally, Madara speaks, giving Takashi an answer. "I'm here, Natsume," he replies, in a quiet voice utterly unlike him. "Just… Just go to sleep."
Takashi sleeps that night with his head pillowed against warm, coarse white fur, sleeping the warmest, most untroubled sleep he has ever known. Madara does not, and finds himself hoping, despite everything, that the sunlight will return Takashi's sight to him.
Since when has he been my human, and not my prey?