A short way into the forest, the little ponytailed ninja-girl threw a few sharp glances around at the trees and said bossily, “So, where are they—those ‘bruiser’ centipede youkai you were bragging about?”

Crossing his arms behind his head, Shin side-eyed her. Bossy or not, she was pretty cute. Tomboyish and a little snub-nosed, maybe, but cute all the same. He’d never seen purple eyes like hers before, either. Having weird eyes himself, this stood out.

“Slow your horses, nee-chan,” he said, grinning over at her as she shot him a glare. “What do you think, that they’re just gonna be hanging out in the open, at the edge of the woods? That’d be pretty dumb. Pretty boring, too. No,” he said, shaking his head, “they’re deep in their lairs, you know, doing centipede stuff. So we’ve gotta go find ‘em and flush ‘em out.”

With a huff, she seemed to let it go. But after a while, as they came to a clearing where he turned about a few times squinting and hmm-ing under his breath (because he wasn’t used to tracking by sight instead of scent), she got snappy again.

Arms crossed at her chest, she said, “If you don’t know where they are, just say so.”

“Geez,” Shin said, arching a brow, “for a ninja, you’re not very patient, are you, nee-chan?”

“I’m not a ninja!” she said, balling her fists. “I’m a youkai taijiya—and stop calling me ‘nee-chan.’”

“Okay, so what should I call you, then? My name’s Higurashi Shin.”

“Nakamura Kaori,” the girl replied, turning her snub nose up at him as she went on to say, “though if this were a proper hunt, we’d use aliases, since some youkai can use your real name to control you.”

“Oh,” Shin said, scratching at his neck, “you mean like ‘code names’?”

“Code…names?” she blinked back at him, stumbling over the English.

Shin waved. “Yeah, anyway…so I’ll be ‘The Prince,’ and you can be ‘Agent K.’”

Kaori stamped her sandaled foot. “That’s not how it works! And why do you get to be ‘The Prince’?”

“‘Cause my dad’s a warlord, so that makes me a prince,” Shin said with a shrug. “I thought ‘Agent K’ was pretty cool. But if you don’t like it, then how about ‘Lady K’? You know, ‘cause your dad’s a prince and all. So, that makes you a Lady.”

Kaori blushed. “Don’t just keep making up names for me!”

“If you’re so put out about it,” Shin said, smiling back at her slyly, “then why’re you blushing?”

“I’m not!” Kaori said, blushing harder.

Shin grinned. She really was cute, especially when she was mad. Fun to mess with, too, for that matter. But he decided to take it easy on her.

“Okay, okay,” he said, putting up his hands. “You’re not blushing. So now that that’s settled, let’s get going.” He pointed a finger toward one of the deer paths through the trees. “I’ve just remembered it’s that way.”

“Really?” Kaori said, eyeing him narrowly.

Shin nodded. “Really,” he lied, trusting he’d figure it out along the way.

She stalked past him toward the deer path. Smirking, Shin followed after her.

Under his breath he said, “Lady K it is.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

One more fun little detour for the road 🙂

<3