Late afternoon had settled onto Inaba one beautiful spring day. Kanji walked quietly home, alone as usual but he had long since stopped being bothered by that. After his experience in the T.V. world, he was trying his best to not let other people's opinions trouble him as much, so the few whispers he heard as he strolled were ignored. He was feeling pretty proud of himself as he turned the corner onto the riverbank.

"Hiyah!" Kanji stopped in his tracks, curious about where the strange noise he had just heard had come from. Looking around, he noticed his senpai, Chie, kicking at the air in a clearing near the river. He was about to continue walking, but thought better of it. Chie-senpai had already accepted him into her group of friends, so he shouldn't be afraid to talk to her or any of his senpais. In spite of this knowledge. Kanji's stomach was filled with knots of nervousness.

"H-hey! Chie-senpai!" Kanji called, walking over to her. Chie stopped what she was doing and turned towards him.

"Oh." Chie said, somewhat startled by Kanji's sudden appearance. "Hello Kanji. What's up?"

"Nothin' much." Kanji replied. "Just wondering what you're doing over here."

"Training!" Chie said happily, grinning from ear to ear. "We need to be ready for the T.V. world, right?" Kanji considered for a moment.

"Ya, I s'pose." he said. "But I can't think of any shadows that can stand up to a good Kanji pounding!" Kanji punched his hand, practically oozing confidence.

"How can you be so sure?" Chie asked. "You haven't been in that world as much as I have. They've been getting tougher each time. A little training never hurt anybody."

"Hmm...you do have a point...OK, I'm in!"

"What?" Chie said, confused.

"I'm in! I want to train too! Ain't no shadow gonna get the best of me!"

"Oh." Chie said, taken aback by Kanji's sudden outburst of interest. Her tone made Kanji start to worry. Maybe she wanted to train alone and he was imposing? Maybe she didn't want him around at all? Maybe the only reason his senpais put up with him at all was because they felt sorry for him? All of these ideas quickly spun around in his mind until Chie finally responded.

"Well, I usually train with Narukami, but the more the merrier, right? I'll let you know whenever we plan to meet up." Kanji smiled as all of his silly fears left his mind. He needed to get himself out of the mindset that everyone who meets him will automatically hate him. He was never going to make any friends that way.

"Cool," he said. "So...um, I'm not doing anything right now...Would you like some company?" Chie smiled at him.

"Sure! Let's get started..." Kanji set his bag down and started following Chie's training instructions. Her training set was pretty rigorous, which took Kanji by surprise. She was much tougher than she looked and she almost left him in the dust more than once. But he was happy for the exercise and they trained together until sundown.

Kanji and Chie feel a faint bond forming between them…