The voice came out slow, an annoyed warning tone, "Reiko…"
"Shut up." She swung the baseball bat decorated with random 'demon wards' experimentally. "You're my underling. You do what I say, and I say you stay here."
"This isn't like the other times Reiko. You cannot fight that one alone."
She snorted, turning to the nerve-wracked monk whose arm shook as he held an uncomfortable-looking pose that was probably intended to be intimidating. "You can see that big fellow, right? Don't let him go anywhere with anyone but me." A treacherous, too-familiar smirk crossed her lips and she tapped the monk's balding pate with a mocking finger. "Very dangerous. He'll cause all kind of chaos if he gets out without me around."
The monk nodded, and his trembling seemed to increase, setting even his teeth to chattering.
Reiko broke contact with the older man and examined the bleeding Youkai beyond him through half-lidded eyes, "Nobody hurts my underlings. I'll make the bastard pay."
She turned and started to walk away down the shrine steps, only to pause on the third or fourth stair. Her tone took on a momentary gentleness while she wasn't facing the giant Youkai, "You heal up. I'll be back to take care of you in a bit." She glanced back over her shoulder, most of her expression hidden by a sweep of wheat-colored hair, but the playful smile was still on her lips, "If I remember, anyways."
He knew. She forgot to make good on promises all the time - to both humans and to Youkai. It was a familiarity that worried him all the more. She was being too casual about it, and he shifted pained muscles trying to get up and chase after her. His legs wouldn't cooperate and more blood matted his white fur.
She jerked her head to look forward again, pointedly ignoring his effort to rise, and trotted briskly out of sight.
On the flagstones of the shrine grounds, Madara's muscles shifted painfully, he was locked in place by his own pain and the worthless monk's warding spell. He roared after her, feeling truly helpless for the first time in his long life, "Reiko!"
Natsume's eyes blinked open in time to see Madara close his giant golden ones over an expression of pain. "Was that," his voice caught, remembering the retreating older form of Grandmother Reiko, a woman in her early thirties. The one that he had rarely seen in any of the memories granted when he returned names. She must have all but stopped collecting names as she grew up. "Was that the last time anyone saw her before she died? You were the last one to see her, Sensei?"
Madara didn't answer.
Takashi Natsume looked down at the ground, unsure how he was supposed to feel about this revelation, "Is that why you never told me before now that your name was in the book?"