The Day of Thunder

He tilted his head at her. Despite the eerie feel of the woods, and the uncertainty of matters in the Empire, Norikage couldn't help but be a little too human at times.

"I'd say what I was looking for found me", and he narrowed his eyes just so. "but then again I paid the beetles to bother you into finding me."

Despite wearing a mask, it was easy to tell he was very amused with himself.

This drew a look of genuine consternation, and she gazed more carefully at the handful of bugs she had not yet extricated, as if checking them for signs of bribery. Then glancing at herself, as if wondering if she carried something of importance or value, and then finding nothing, glancing around the forest for anything which might have followed her here.

After a pause, and perhaps feeling foolish, she looked back at him, cat's eyes bright under a furrowed brow, stating with a perhaps endearing simplicity, "Wakaranai*."

----
TL: I do not understand.

"It's called flirting."

That was met with an utterly deadpan expression.

After a moment she glanced back and forth, and then gestured back at herself.

"With me?"

"You don't like it?" he asked. "I can stop."

She seemed confused, turning over his question in her mind.

"I do not know. It has not happened before. I do not know how I should respond."

Her face was a little pink, and she added, "I do not think I have the right to tell you how you should behave, Norikage of Bayushi."

"Huh? You have the right to determine how you're treated, Ryoshun Yukara-san", he said flatly. "Don't let some idiot force anything on you."

She considered that. She hadn't intended to let anyone force something onto her, but she also didn't see how she should restrain others... provided they weren't like... them. That had been a line crossed - but this was not that. It actually made her blush a little more, that he felt concern of some sort.

"Do you believe you are an idiot, Norikage?"

"I'm here in a cursed forest with a nice girl and instead of suggesting we leave and have tea somewhere I'm being awkwardly trying to tell her she's a little cuter than she might think", he said. "So yeah, have been, am now, likely will continue to be."

"I do not think acting on your sincere thoughts is stupid... though I am not certain I fully understand. Cute, as in a child?"

She pondered, "Or do you mean pretty? I haven't been called such before."

With a lingering pause, she added. "Thank you, I think."

Looking over him, she added, "I am not sure you would call me a nice girl if you knew what I do - but I appreciate your sentiment."

"I'm not sure you would appreciate my compliments if you knew what I do", he replied with an amused chuckle. "And why not, sure. Pretty. I don't see why anyone would avoid that word with you. Too much blood on your sword, maybe?"

"Perhaps that, and perhaps the eyes of a demon."

She scowled at the mist. "Hard to comfort the terrified when your eyes remind them of their nightmares. I sometimes wonder if I harm more than I help."

Looking back at the mask she chuckled, "I could try the mask, but if I placed it over my eyes, I should likely embarrass everyone with my bumbling."

"Hmm?" he walked closer and leaned forward somewhat, looking her in the eyes. "They're a bit light, the hue is off, but I could see some people mistaking that for red...given the right circumstances."

He straightened up. "I also have done your job, admittedly I'm not much comfort either."

Her cat pupils narrowed as he drew close, though she did not flinch away.

"You are a fascinating man, Bayushi Norikage. You have a unique way of looking at the world, one I have not encountered before."

With a small shrug, she added, "I am who I am. I do not bother asking fate to make me otherwise. I do what I must, because none else were there to do it."

"I do what I did because I took an oath when I picked up these swords", he replied. "It's a little different, I suppose. Where are you from, exactly?"

"A small village that no longer appears on any maps, and never will."

She didn't show much emotion when discussing it - perhaps long at peace with it, or disassociated, perhaps. "When bandits were driven from the lowlands, they came to my home. I lived with a monk as his student for many years. In time he was also taken."

Her right thumb idly traced the wood haft of the bisento, as she added, "Then I had to rely on what he taught me. That was what led me onto the path that eventually brought me here."

"Oh, my people are the types who did that to you, my father was a real villain", he said. "Raiding was just an excuse for him to kill, he was in love with it. Though at least he managed to die years before I became an adult. I've been living in Kashouji ever since, big town outside of Beiden Pass."

"Beiden pass? Is that far south?" She sounded genuinely curious. "Are there mountains down south as well? I have not ever been able to travel. This is the farthest I have ever gone, and I cannot say it is particularly far from...." She didn't say home.

After an awkward moment of thought, she offered, "... where I live."

"It's far, but yeah. You've never heard of the Spine of the World mountains?"

"No." She gazed at him, unflinching.

"I would like to."