After returning to the ground, Shin stayed in his hanyou form longer than he should’ve. He’d forgotten that Kaori was a miko, as well as a ninja. He was reminded of it all of a sudden as her rosy aura hit his demonic senses like a slap in the face. Mid-leap, he phased back into his human self, kinda figuring the gig was up. But when he burst through the bushes behind her, she didn’t seem fazed, one way or the other.

Damn, he thought, her miko senses sure are dull.

Arms crossed, Kaori said, “You’ll have to try harder than that if you want to surprise me.”

Shin grinned. “Guess so.” Sauntering past her down another old deer trail veering southwest, he called back over his shoulder, “It’s this way—I’ve remembered.”

“Have you?”

“Yeah…!” He pointed at something random down the trail. “See that rock over there that looks like a turtle? This is the way for sure.”

“All these rocks look like turtles,” Kaori grumbled, but she trotted after him anyway.

“So,” Shin said conversationally, eyeing her over, “what sort of stuff do you like? I like chocolate milk, and superheroes, and cheeseburgers,” he said, keeping it to strictly ‘human stuff’ as he ticked them off, “and chocolate cake, and swordfighting, and—hey, what’s so funny?”

When he’d said ‘swordfighting’ with a swipe of his practice sword to demonstrate, she’d let out a little ‘pfft’ of laughter. Now even with the pointy end of it leveled at her, she giggled again. Shin scowled.

“You call that ‘swordfighting’?” she said, shaking her ponytailed head. “You’re just swinging a stick around.”

“Oh yeah?” Shin challenged back. “If you know so much, K-sama, then why don’t you show me?”

Kaori rolled her eyes. But she marched off into the woods, and after rustling around for a bit, she came back with a stick of her own in hand. After pulling off a few more twigs, she gave it a testing swish. It seemed way too bendy to Shin to make for a good practice sword. 

But hey, it was her funeral. 

They’d barely squared off across the trail from one another when Shin rushed at her. His practice sword slashed upward in a wicked diagonal he’d been perfecting—but she knocked it aside with her bendy stick like it was nothing. He skidded aside with a huff, quickly raising his guard in case she countered. But she didn’t. She didn’t come at him at all. She just held her ground, peering back at him in this cool, superior way that made even his human blood boil.

Snarling a smile at her, Shin readied his stance and said, “Just so you know, that was only a warm-up!” 

He charged her again—and again—to no avail. No matter what angle of attack he tried, or how much force he applied, she deflected his strikes without budging so much as an inch—let alone striking back. He’d never faced an opponent like her—he was used to mowing down the other kids in town with just a couple of whacks, tops. It was exciting!

But at the same time, she was really starting to piss him off.

Panting, he shouted at her as he lunged again, “You just gonna keep standing there, doing nothing but blocking? Some great sword-fighter you are!”

Kaori’s eyes narrowed—a split-second before she struck out at him, smacking his wrist so swift and sharp that his practice sword flew out of his hand and went clattering down the trail.

“Shit!” Shin yelped, clutching at his stinging wrist.

Turning up her snub nose at him, Kaori said, “You’ve got power, but your grip is weak.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi