notes– This was written for a friend and I had a lot of fun because Shura brings out the sulky, darker side of Yukio that he usually keeps underwraps pretty well. The two of them are a great pair as pseudo-comrades or as something more.

we have to stop

The first time they met, Yukio was speechless. It was mostly because he nearly got beheaded by the demon he was hunting (a rookie mistake, not assessing if the beast could rematerialize its limbs into sharp claws). He was thirteen and he was already disappointed.

"Good thing the old man asked me to keep a watch on you, huh?" the woman spoke after taking care of the demon. In one swift action, she sheathed her sword into the tattoo at the base of her neck. She was only as tall as him, but he could tell she was years ahead of him in seniority from the way she moved with precision and familiarity, the aura of confidence wreathed around her. That long hair was bright even under the backdrop of the night.

Yukio's mind remained blank for a moment, staring at her (and how little she wore) before evaluating the situation at hand. "F-father sent you?" he stuttered, collapsing onto the pavement of the quiet street. His legs still shook from fleeing from the demon, from the idea of death.

"Yep, he told me to look out for you just in case. He promised me a whole pack of beer too!" she giggled a little. "You go get yourself home now, I'm going to go claim my reward! See ya'!" she said her goodbye and charged off into the shadows behind the street corner.

She was gone by the time Yukio jogged up to the street she ran down. He later learned that she was Father's apprentice, skilled with the sword and a number of classes higher than him. Father spoke both kindly and casually about her, harping on how she liked to drink and how she was never going to be as serious or as dependable as Yukio. Still, Yukio couldn't help but threatened – couldn't help but feel like he had an unspoken duty to outdo her. He was his father's star pupil. As if fighting metaphorically with Rin wasn't bad enough.

"She's twenty-three," Father told him. "You've got a lot of catching up to do."

Yukio was thirteen and the youngest meister in history. He was also thirteen and still a child.

The second time they happen across each other, Yukio was far less delighted.

"You're welcome!" she said before he even got a chance to speak.

"I could have handled that," he told her with a sour tone, frowning a little as the demon dissipated at her ankles.

"Name's Shura. Shura Kirigakure. Thanks for asking," was her reply. She propped the blade of her sword against her bare shoulder and gave him a onceover. "And who are you exactly, four-eyes?" she asked once she realised he wasn't going to introduce himself.

"Yukio Okamura. Not four-eyes," he corrected her, sliding the loaded gun back into its holster on his belt with a little more moodiness than necessary.

"You pouting because I stole your kill?" Kirigakure laughed, flashing him a smile framed by her pink lip balm. "Sorry four-eyes, but I was itching to fight." She swung her sword around to emphasize her point. Yukio took three steps back to emphasize his.

"I could have taken care of it myself," he repeated, biting the inside of his cheek. He'd spent the last few months running himself ragged in order to advance through the higher ranks. He no longer needed baby-sitting, but here she was, saving him again. Why was he getting so worked up over her? He could keep his composure around Rin and his antics easily, but Kirigakure – Kirigakure knew how to push his buttons somehow. It made her dangerous, in a figurative sense rather than a literal sense. He cautioned a glance at her sharp blade before deciding that she was most likely a literal danger too.

"Sure you could!" She nodded in carefree agreement. "Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta' go!" She spared him a casual salute before bounding onto the dumpster and climbing up the ways of the alley to the roof. She was gone the next instant, leaving him alone, staring up at the full moon and trying to collect his emotions. He had to cook dinner for Rin and Father that night, after all.

"We've got to stop meeting like this, I'll end up losing a leg for you one day," Kirigakure smirked. Behind her, the offending demon exploded unglamorously into dark dust. She didn't even bat an eyelid.

"Kirigakure, look," he started, but was immediately shushed by her sealing the hilt of her sword against his mouth.

"Shura," she said.

"Kirigakure," he muttered defiantly through the taste of metal.

"Shura." She gave him a sweet smile and pushed her sword against his teeth.

"... Shura," he sighed, giving into her demands.

The weight of the sword left him, as did Shura herself, disappearing just as quickly as she had appeared. Yukio frowned. He wasn't even done talking to her. Knowing his luck though, it wouldn't be very long before they met again.

He was right. Drat.

"Sorry bout' last time, I remembered I had an earlier engagement to get to," Shura apologised as she sliced through one demon in the pride that surrounded both of them. She made a dismayed noise with her tongue when she realised that that wasn't going to cut it. The demon recovered from the blow to its side and reared back, poised to attack. Human ghouls were hard to come by in Japan, taking them out required aptitude and knowledge of their weak points.

"It didn't really matter to me," Yukio replied coolly, nicking two demons in the head with his guns. They crumpled back immediately, just like the books in the archives said they would. He took out the one roaring over Shura simply because it was convenient. The woman smiled at him with narrowed eyes, accepting the unsaid challenge.

The demons were massacred within the next minute.

"Eight," Yukio counted off, tossing the empty cartridges from his firearms.

"Eleven." Shura winked at him, sticking her tongue out in mock-cuteness. Yukio would never see anything more terrifying than that.

"I know how old you are," he told her. He'd managed to land the finishing blow on the demon this time, which gave him the liberty to deliver the first punch line for once. The two of them practised sportsmanship that way.

"Oh yeah?" Shura grinned, daring him to say it. She sat herself on the lamppost towering over him, crossing her arms and looking on with interest.

"Twent-!" He barely dodged the heel of her boot colliding too far below his belt.

"Ooo, you're pretty fast!" She seemed impressed as she settled on the ground. Then, she cleared her throat. "But I'm eighteen, and if you say otherwise, being fast won't make much of a difference," she said cleanly, leaning close to him, as if proximity would highlight her point. Yukio stared back at her but kept quiet because while he was competitive, he was not reckless.

The demon fizzled out of sight, its treacherous howling still echoing throughout the warehouse.

"We did it, four-eyes!" Shura brandished her palms at him, waving them rapidly in his face and waiting for the high-fives to come. Yukio didn't want to humour her. Instead, he cocked an eyebrow and scrutinized her: flushed cheeks and hysterical chuckling.

"You're drunk," he concluded, unamazed.

"You betcha', scaredy-cat!" she snorted, hooking an arm around his neck.

"What?" Yukio reacted to the second part of the garbled exclamation. The weight of her chest against his arm became an afterthought.

"Tha's right, scaredy-cat! 'Member that time when we first met! You were sucha' wuss," Shura explained in her drunken stupor, leaning against him even more with every passing moment. How she managed to find her way here in order to spite him and kill his target after drinking so much was a curiosity in itself.

That was a lie though. Shura had a latent talent as an exorcist and a fighter in general. She could manoeuvre herself even in her sleep. He knew that, and the thought made her an eternally annoying individual who'd won his unquestioning respect.

The latter emotion won over the former. He brought her back with him to the church and she slept there, nursing herself with Father's best tea for the next few days and bundled in the blanket Yukio used to love as a child.

"See what I said?" Shura grinned again. That happy, confident grin Yukio grew to dislike over the time he had to spend with her. He could only think of unhappy things when he thought about him and her – fighting over demon-slaying and verbally-sparring, avoiding cleavage or getting diced by a demon sword. Everything flashed behind his eyes.

"Okay, so I didn't really lose a leg, but this– " she hissed, cringing at the pain and then cringing at herself for showing pain.

She was careless because on any other occasion, nothing would have been able to touch her. She was careless because she diverted the attack away from him. She was careless because he was careless.

Shura plastered her free hand over the slash on her waist, steady on the soles of her feet in spite of the wound. Still strong, still talented, still two classes higher, still better than him.

Yukio inhaled.

He charged towards the chuchi, the forest leaves crunching under his feet. The gigantic moth screeched as bullets bit into its wings and tore through flesh and drew blood. It clawed furiously at him, desperate and dangerous in its last moments. Shura followed behind him, leapfrogging over his shoulders, pushing off him and launching herself into the air. She gripped her sword with two hands and brought in down, carving through the bug demon with finality. It shrieked and convulsed, but its end still came.

"I could have– " Yukio stopped himself. Shura knelt on the forest floor and examined her wound, more interested in seeing herself bleed than concerned by the prospect of it.

"Here," he sighed. He approached her and extracted a vial from his belt, holding it out. "I got a Doctor qualification while you were out drinking your nights away," he mumbled. Being a Dragoon wasn't going to be enough if he wanted to compete with her on even footing.

"Thanks, four-eyes," she said, uncorking the ointment and applying it on the wound. "This is just a bruise though, I've had worse," she continued, not even flinching against the sting of the medication. Yukio felt the contradictory jealously and admiration gnawing at the pit of his stomach.

"See, no sweat!" Shura got up on her feet and examined her legs, brushing off the soil and twigs stuck to them. She looked up at him, her lips quirking a little. Was it because of the height difference? Come to think of it, he'd grown a lot these past couple of years.

"You're hurt too," she pointed out. Shura reached a hand up to brush the cut on his cheek, dabbing her fingers at it. He stood there and allowed her to touch even though it didn't seem like she was making things better. He could humour her, even if it was only once.

Shura inserted a hand into the tattoo on her stomach, picking at something before finding what she'd been looking for. She pasted the bandage over his cheek, patting it for good measure.

"There, you're all better now, four-eyes!" she announced.

"Thanks," he said with far less enthusiasm than one would usually expect.

"No," Shura smiled. It was a small, secretive one. "Thank you."

Yukio exhaled.