Natsume Hyuuga

Natsume Hyuuga is one of the main characters from the Alice Academy anime and manga.

One of Mikan's classmates whom she met during her visit to the Academy. After insulting her during that first meeting, she immediately declares him as her enemy. A member of the Dangerous ability class, he possesses the Alice of Fire and is often sent by the Academy for various missions.

Appearance
Natsume has short raven black hair and red eyes that he has inherited from his mother (brown in anime). On each of his ears are alice restraining devices. On his right ear, attached is a gold plate with dragon carvings while the on the left ear, is an earring with a red ball made of blood crystals. Natsume sometimes wears a black cat mask which is the signature for his nickname, the Black Cat (kuro neko in Japanese), which disables his alice and gives him endless headaches as a form of punishment inflicted upon him by the school and can only be taken off by teachers. However, it is stated that Natsume's alice is so strong, if he concentrated, he could activate his alice even with the mask on. He wears the standard elementary boy's uniform; a black, long-sleeve vest along with a white collar that does not have his star on it, red plaid shorts, and knee high boots. He often looks angry, and has a stern expression on his face. He is described by many to be very good looking and, as an adult, he is taller and more muscular.

Personality
Natsume comes off as cold and easily angered, but his attitude is mostly a facade. He wishes to get involved with no one and vice versa. However, Natsume has followers who admire him for his rebellious attitude against the school, such as Mochiage; who also regulary skips class. He also has admirers, like Sumire who likes Natsume for his looks and "coolness". On the other hand, Natsume has people who fear him for being the Dangerous Ability Class and call him a murderer, like Sumire's brother. Natsume brushes off these accusations, but it is clear how he feels about this. Natsume seems to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, as he frequently has nightmares and anxiety episodes due to the abuse inflicted on him. As a result of the abuse and the dangerous missions he is forced to do, he began to lose hope in life and in his future. According to Ruka, before Mikan arrived, Natsume threw his life away and was on the road to failure, but upon her arrival, Natsume changed for the better and became stronger. Ruka and later Mikan are some of the few who knew about his kind side and his motives behind his behavior.

Natsume is protective of his friends and family and he is willing to suffer for them and sacrifice his life and freedom so that they won't get hurt. He hates the academy and wishes to escape to live peacefully with those he carea about. Being forced to do missons in the Dangerous Ability Class, Natsume has experienced the darker side of the academy. In the beginning of the story, he told Mikan to watch out when she was being targeted. He also warned her to not trust Narumi or any of the teachers. He suspected that the Elementary Principal was growing interested in her Alice and was causing her problems. Although he is against using violence that amounts to killing his enemies, Natsume makes the ESP an exception. Due to the abuse he suffered at the hands of the ESP, Natsume was overcome with rage and desire for revenge, and instantly took the opportunity to try to kill the ESP twice in the Current Arc, although he was warned it would mean risking his life. This shows that he can be reckless at times, especially considering that he promised to Mikan that he would not be reckless and endanger his life.

His personality is inherited from his mother, Kaoru, who was also intelligent, blunt, and rebellious. Also, both mother and son had a much softer side for their friends and loved ones. Like Mikan, he hates the Elementary Principal and Persona for the abuse they have inflicted upon him and force him to do missions for the school. Although he refuses to listen to them at times, he complies to their orders in order to protect those most important to him (ex. Mikan, Aoi, and Ruka). He is aware that he suffers from the life-draining alice form and has admitted that he is afraid of dying in the near future. Caring about his friends, he kept his illness a secret from Mikan and Ruka, so they wouldn't worry, but they already knew and assures him that they will support him.

He is very perverted for his age, as he stole Mikan's underwear (took off her skirt in the anime) in the first episode/chapter, and due to this, he calls Mikan 'polka dots'. Natsume has commented on her chest size when he touches her chest and repeatedly pulled on her top to have a look. He also often teases Mikan and calls her names. He found Mikan's cheerful personality annoying in the beginning and constantly bullies her very often just to make her mad. However, as he gets to know her, he falls in love with her. This changed him to be more gentle and open with others. He sees Mikan as the sun due to her personality and comes to believe she is the light that can save him from the darkness of the academy. He easily gets jealous when he sees Mikan with other guys and tries to get her away from them (sometimes he uses his Alice on them). Sometimes, Natsume can be rude with Mikan and bicker with her. However, other times he is gentle and kind towards her, and becomes blunt about his feelings. Once they finally confessed to each other, Natsume openly declared his desire to be with Mikan and proposed marriage to her, which surprised their friends. Seeing how she is sinking into the same darkness he is in, he makes it his personal goal to protect her and take her out of the academy so he can live with her forever. He becomes overly dependent on her, as he says the idea of living without her is the same as being dead. Natsume promised to Mikan that he would never allow himself to die, knowing how it would devastate her, but he was still willing to make that sacrifice if its necessary. Before he died during his fight against the ESP, all Natsume could think about was Mikan and how she has become the most important person to him. When he found out that Mikan was expelled and her memories were erased after he was saved, Natsume still refused to give up on Mikan and spent four years searching for her, and when they finally reunited even though she still didn't remember him, he embraced her and declared that she still belonged to him. When her memories are restored, Natsume and Mikan happily rekindled their relationship and spent all their time together, which included him “monopolizing” her, before they finally got married after graduating from the Academy.

Abilities
Natsume has a Fire Alice that he inherited from his father like his sister Aoi. This Alice gives him the ability to create and manipulate fire to his will. He possesses the life-shortening alice shape that was passed down to him from his mother. This means his Alice is dangerous and powerful. However, constant use will threaten his life, because everytime he uses it, he damages his body. The Fire Alice's weakness would be Mikan's Nullification Alice.

Though early in the story Natsume could use his Fire Alice on her, because she lacked control over her Nullification Alice. Also due to ice and fire being each other's weakness, Nobara's Ice Alice is on par with his.

To limit the use of his Fire Alice, Natsume has to wear an earring and an ear ornament that cannot be taken off. Sometimes he is forced to wear a cat mask that shocks him whenever he disrespects the teachers. He usually wears the mask during missions which is the reason why he is known by the nickname "Black Cat".

According to Narumi, Natsume could still use his Alice when he wears the cat mask. The stone that was inserted in him was Sakurano's Will Alice, which temporarily strengthens his Fire Alice and gave it different variations.

Trivia

 * In Higuchi's previous work M to N no Shozou and her current work Gakuen Alice both the male and female lead start with the same letter, the letter "M" is Mitsuru and Mikan, The letter "N" is Natsuhiko and Natsume. The mangaka admitted that this was a coincidence.
 * Natsume's alice stone color is red.
 * Natsume is the only Special Star in the elementary division, though he does not wear his star.
 * Natsume's name in Japanese means jujube, (edible berrylike fruit of Eurasian plant, formerly taken as a cough cure). His name is given to him by his mother who learned that the fruit was healthy and hoped it would by symbolic to Natsume who has inherited her alice type. She also chose the name to be connected to Yuka as Mikan and Natsume are both fruits.
 * Natsume has been fated to be with Mikan since they were born because of their mothers' friendship and that they were both named after fruits because of a connection Kaoru wanted to establish with herself and Yuka.
 * When Natsume was born, his mother originally wanted to name him "Kintarou".
 * In the time travel arc, it is revealed that Natsume is 6 months younger than Mikan (she was actually born in May and he was born in the following November).
 * Natsume's promise to be with Mikan forever technically means that he is engaged to Mikan.
 * It wasn't until after the Hana Hime arc that Natsume stopped calling Mikan names and started calling her by her name more often.
 * Natsume's eyebrows are short because of genetics, his mother also had short eyebrows.
 * Although Natsume is a star student, he has no musical talent; seen before Yura's graduation, when he tried to blow a saxophone and produced a weird noise.
 * Natsume loves strawberries, but when Aoi (who used to hate them) changed her mind and said she loved them, he said he now hated them she could have them.
 * Natsume is a fan of manga books, which he brings with him to class everyday.
 * Mikan is Natsume's first love; this is proven because when Narumi used his Alice on him in chapter 1, Natsume fainted. Only people who have never been in love faint in result to Narumi's Alice.
 * Natsume is the only character to have been brought back from the dead.
 * Natsume's first smile was when his mother, Karou gave his name to him.