Balance
Nyanko Sensei watched Natsume fiddle with the device, something which the humans called a scale. The dynamics of it were quite curious, one side was perpetually heavier than the other, and he supposed the point of it all was to find some semblance of balance. A rather stupid idea if anyone asked him, not that they would because he was a youkai, and a great powerful one such as himself simply took what he wanted.
Nyanko sensei's attention was once again drawn back to Natsume's hands as he tipped the scale, then let go. Both figures watched as the weight struggled to right itself, swinging wildly back and forth, until finally both sides were even. Natsume was completely absorbed in the swaying of the motions, allowing a comfortable silence to settle over the two. Nyanko sensei was almost lulled into a doze by its lazy swings.
"Sensei, where do you suppose the balance between darkness and light begins?"
It was pretty ironic that Natsume decided to ask a youkai of all things. Nyanko sensei was not by any means an expert on human matters, but he had the vague suspicion that any moral protocols, if one could even call it that, held by youkai greatly differed from those of pint-sized humans. For one, most youkais had no qualms about eating a human, it was simply second nature, a bad habit perhaps, like a person swatting a fly. Merely a fact. More so than anything, youkai were removed, more inclined to isolation.
At this thought Reiko's face came to his mind, her loneliness and solitude he knew well. It was upon their meeting, Nyanko sensei understood that, sometimes the things you couldn't see were the most brutal. Youkai sometimes ate humans, humans sometimes ate animals. But a youkai's anger, a human's anger devoured everything whole.
And so, if Nyanko sensei had to choose, he wasn't sure which side would weigh more, the darkness or the light, human or youkai? To which side would the scale tip? But, in the end, perhaps it wasn't a question of what things were, but rather what they weren't. Things would balance each other out eventually. Just like the scale, which had stopped moving. This was the simple, natural order to things.
To his right, Sensei felt Natsume shift forwards, moving to push the scale again. This was the trouble with being around humans for too long, they always had a knack for complicating things. But a glimpse of Natsume's face told Nyanko sensei, his previous question was long forgotten. That was fine too, it wasn't as if he was expecting any answers. The Great Madara didn't have all day to think about such matters. After all, there were greater concerns at hand. Such as the issue of sake.
Sake over life-questions, for some reason it seemed very Nyanko Sensei-like (which hopefully excuses the amount of uncharacteristic brooding present :))