[( Introspection, somewhat early in the morning.... )

A short time later, the girl is now in a school uniform obscured by a coat. The coat doesn't belong to her - it should be summer, but she'd found her money in the pocket of the skirt and left what little she had for 'payment.' However, considering the feelings of humans isn't her priority here. She needs information. It's time to shake down the locals.

Casually gripping the handle of her new broom, she approaches the nearest 'youkai' with a cheerful-looking smile.] Excuse me!

[Today, Reiko will directly approach anyone who clearly appears non-human... or at least might seem so by the standards of a girl from an ordinary 1950s Japan. Anyone else is watched and then ignored, though she won't avoid a conversation if she's questioned.]

Character

Name: Reiko Natsume
Fandom: Natsume’s Book of Friends
Gender: Female
Age: 17ish
Time Period:
As a flashback character, Reiko has no real ‘timeline’ of events. However she is a high schooler in all the flashbacks we’ve seen, so I’ll assume she’s already accomplished everything mentioned through the third season.

Wing Color: Golden-brown

History: Wiki

Reiko was born with immense spiritual power, which gave her the ability to see and interact with the spirits - ‘ayakashi’ or ‘youkai’ - which inhabit Japan. This ability meant that she was often harassed by spirits who discovered she could see them, and this combined with the fact that she didn’t have any parents made her an outcast in her hometown. Reiko was considered a bringer of misfortune, and thus had difficulty making any human friends. Out of loneliness, Reiko turned to the youkai instead – and began challenging the ones she met to duels. Her spiritual power meant she easily defeated them all. Each time she did, she had them write their names in a book which she began calling the “Book of Friends.” The name of a youkai contains its power, so the holder of the Book has the ability to call on, control, or even kill the youkai within - harm to the paper is the same as harm to the youkai itself.

Reiko eventually died young, though the reason for her death hasn’t been revealed. However, her legacy and powers were inherited by her grandson, Takashi, and he continues to learn about her life 50 years later.

Relevant episodes (with flashbacks:)
Natsume Yuujinchou: Ep 1, 2, 5
Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou: Ep. 5, 10
Natsume Yuujinchou San: Ep. 1, 2

Personality:

Depending on whom you speak to, Reiko Natsume is either cruel or kind, self-centered or selfless. In fact, Reiko is all of those things, her view of the world forcibly shaped by the gift that no one else understood.

Reiko’s odd upbringing makes her a very odd character. She is antisocial, her interactions with humans and youkai having left her with a bad image of both – but this is more of a necessity than a choice. Getting too close to humans leaves them caught in the crossfire with her dealings with youkai, while many youkai are dangerous and dislike humans. Her isolation leaves her lonely and with a bitter worldview.

Reiko is not heartless, however. To the people or youkai who show her kindness, she can be very kind in return… at least in her own fashion. Reiko copes with her loneliness in unusual ways. Beyond just challenging others to duels, she’s fond of teasing the beings she encounters, wearing an almost-perpetual smile to mask her emotions.

Her attempts to entertain herself include pranks and tricks. Reiko tricks one spirit who wishes to see the ocean but can’t leave the forest into giving her his name and then tying it to the branch of a tall tree and leaving it for 50 years, after telling him the sea would boil and the world would end if he didn’t. The end result of the trick is that the tree grows tall enough for him to see the ocean when he climbs to retrieve the paper. This shows off her twisted kindness, although she hadn’t resisted telling him tall tales about what the ocean was really like in the meantime.

She has also been described as being very forgetful. She makes many promises with various youkai, only to completely forget about them and never return to fulfill them. The trunk full of her things Takashi later recieves contains many unreturned library books and unused tickets. She also has sloppy table manners, causing some issues when she flipped through the Book of Friends while eating.

Reiko states that she dislikes both humans and ayakashi. She dislikes ayakashi for constantly interrupting her life, and also for the evil or ‘scary’ nature of many of them. Humans also disgust her because of the way most have treated her all her life, forcing her to be an outcast because of the “lies” no one else can see and the belief that being near her brings a curse. Because of her nature she is shunned and verbally, sometimes physically abused by her fellow villagers and schoolmates.

However, despite these beliefs, Reiko can be extremely selfless at times. Although many of the names in her Book of Friends are youkai she engaged out of boredom, still more are dangerous spirits that she sealed away to protect others. For people, too, she makes exceptions. She befriended a young boy (who later grew up to be Takashi’s guardian) who she considered too young to be really “human” yet, as he wasn’t as cruel as the adults and older children she knew. She eventually helped him by exorcising a spirit that threatened his house – though in the aftermath, she distanced herself from him to keep from having to lie about her actions.

This shows another aspect of Reiko - much like Takashi, deep down, she doesn’t want to be a burden on the people around her. She may be wild, free-spirited, and a bit violent, but she wants to protect the few people (and youkai) she does care for. Though she ‘gave up’ on humans and threw her lot in with engaging youkai for companionship, what she truly longs for are humans who care about her. The problem is that, when you can see both humans and youkai as clearly as she can, it’s hard to tell the difference. An encounter with an elderly youkai whom she befriended, thinking she was a human who actually cared, hurt her deeply when she discovered the truth.

Strengths:

Reiko’s spiritual abilities are extraordinary, meaning she can completely see the youkai which normally live unseen alongside humans, as well as interact with them. Her attacks are strong enough to defeat even the strongest of spirits.

Reiko is clever, able to trick and trap youkai whose very natures make them masters of trickery, as well as surviving years of being forced to interact with their world. She is even able to convince some of them into giving her their names without a real battle. For instance, the fight with one youkai was a game of rock-paper-scissors. Although she doesn't have much rapport with other humans, Reiko made strong bonds with many of the youkai she encountered - sometimes without realizing this herself. This means that, even years later, there are many youkai who still appreciate having known her (or, conversely... hate her for flaking off on them.)

Despite the hardships she's faced, at her core Reiko is strong-willed. She is able to keep living and smiling despite her isolation from other people. She generally keeps her true emotions to herself, ignoring the sadness and instead finding alternate ways to express and entertain herself.

Weaknesses:

The spiritual abilities which make Reiko strong also made her a target for youkai. Strong spiritual energy makes a person smell “tastier.” Furthermore, many youkai consider a person seeing them as reason enough to attack them, meaning she had no shortage of opponents.

After she began making her Book of Friends and word got around, eventually even the ayakashi began to avoid her after hearing rumors of her power. However, after 50 years many have forgotten the fear and instead want to kill her to obtain the Book, not knowing she is already dead.

Although Reiko’s powers make her strong against spirits, against other people she is just a regular girl. She may have honed athletic abilities because of her habits but a larger person could still overpower her. She is able to beat up most of the teenage boys who pick fights with her, but not without getting some damage from things like thrown rocks. She has a small scar on her cheek from one of these.

Reiko also dislikes herself and her current life – her abilities, and her inability to get close to others. She once refused a youkai who tried to return a borrowed mirror to her by saying she “didn’t really like looking in the mirror.” She speaks of wishing to move far away, to a place where no one knows her or her problems, in the hope of starting over.

Samples

First Person:

Hey, what do you think about things that aren't 'normal'? I mean like spirits, ghosts, youkai... or someone who sees them. Though I'm not sure I believe in ghosts.

Anyway, let's pretend you do believe. Would you want to be around something like that? Or would it just be trouble?

My thoughts? Well... I hate scary things. Especially the human kind.

If you are any of those, by the way, let's have a duel sometime. There's not much else to pass the time with here, is there?


Third Person:

High in the snow-covered branches of a large tree perched a bird who'd finally grown wings.

That's how this world felt to Reiko, at least some days. Climbing this tall tree while not having to subdue any spirits who objected to her entering their territory was still an unusual experience.

As far as she could see, the snow-topped forest of Luceti stretched towards the mountains and the glimmer of the ocean. From this vantage point, it was the same. Forest, mountains, sea, peaceful and pristine. But home had been tumultuous beneath the surface, filled with strange beings and hidden secrets just outside of human sight.

Here, everything was exposed. The strangeness of some inhabitants was visible to everyone. No one gave a second look to the weird, the supernatural, the variety of beings that mingled every day in the town square. This village accepted, without question. No one was too different to be cared for.

But... it was also too easy. Reiko didn't like it. She had never cared for the ayakashi, but this place ruled by foreign spirits felt wrong to her senses somehow. It was easy to ignore, but still irrevocably different. And she was afraid of what ignoring it would mean.

Luceti was a honey-trap, baited with everything she'd ever wanted - escape, friends... even family. She could probably be happy in this world forever without a second thought to home, but that, she was sure, was when the trap would snap shut. She would return to that world knowing exactly what she was missing. And if that was how it had to be... maybe it would be better not to experience it at all.

It's easier to be alone when you have no hope of anything better. And so, after having grown wings, Reiko still remained grounded, afraid to take that last step into the sky.