There's something to be said for getting what you want. Maybe not all of the time, but in some cases, Kurogane felt that he was completely justified in putting his foot down. Everyone had some areas that they would absolutely not budge in and this was it.

"But, Kuro-bun! It's so pretty on you! Why on earth don't you like it?"

Kurogane shuddered. Pretty? On a murderous, blood-wallowing, if-looks-could-kill ninja? No, pretty was not something you wanted there. Dashing, perhaps, or maybe elegant and deadly, but pretty would not cut it.

"I want it black. It's not black."

Was it really so much to ask? Looking at the ruffled, white collar shirt that Fai had picked out made him feel like they'd gone back to visit that fairy tale town all over again.

Fai pouted. "Alright, fine. We'll just have to find something else that suits our Kuro-pippi."

Kurogane surveyed the store. Rows and rows of clothes lined every wall, weird, tall people with blank faces stopped every so often wearing a particular outfit. It was creepy.

If there was anything he really hated about this world-travel business, it was the fact that everyone seemed so eager to change clothes with each place they went to. He would have been happy just keeping his traditional wear, but no, it stood out too much. Kurogane scowled at a nearby mannequin, as though it were the source of his troubles.

Meanwhile, Fai approached a sales person. "Hello!" He greeted her amiably. "We're looking for clothes that are all black. I don't suppose that you have a section of them here?"

The woman responded that they had a formalwear section, but as for casual clothes, those were scattered all throughout the store. Fai sighed, a little downcast.

"Ah, so they're not organizing the selection by color here. Hyuu, Kuro-pon, this is going to be more difficult than the last time." A smile broadened his features. "This just means we'll have to look through every rack!"

Frowning even more pronouncedly, Kurogane came to the conclusion that his prospects for finding clothes he liked had begun to look black. And not in the good way. The longer they stayed in here searching, the less time he had for his sanity to hold out.

Fai placed a mountain of clothes before him to try on. They ranged from way too dressy for him to fight effectively in to so tightly fitting he didn't think he'd be able to wear armor without it getting in the way. It made him wonder about what sort of priorities these people in this country had, if they let fashion get in the way of their survival. Maybe they got attacked if they weren't dressed right?

It put him on edge. Not having a sword strapped to his waist at all times made him nervous. Mentally, he reaffirmed the locations of all the exits in his head and looked around for what could be used as weapons if an attacker came at them from up close--

"Kuro-tan, you're not paying attention again. Maybe we should just get all these clothes and then you can try them on at home?" Fai said innocently, yet deviously knowing how much that would set the ninja off. Silently fuming, Kurogane grabbed a handful of what looked like the least repulsive and went to go try them on.

This shopping thing was so odd.

Back in Nihon, he'd have tailors make his clothing, or he'd see fabric that could easily be fashioned into something, purchase that, and then have someone else make it. Other than that, most of his things were standard Shirasaki issue, so the palace would replace them and keep him supplied with extras. All this choosing and designing didn't make sense to him. Clothing was practical, unless you were royalty. And it definitely didn't follow that absolutely everyone here was a member of one royal bloodline or another.

When he finished dressing, he stared at himself in the mirror. Ugh.

He must have been silent for too long, because Fai knocked on the door. "Come on, open up, Kuro-run! I want to see what you look like!"

Kurogane was suddenly very thankful that the doors on these compartments had locks.

What on earth had the mage been thinking when he'd chosen this for him? It was shirt that had buttons straight up the front--which, any armor-wearing warrior would tell you, were sure to press uncomfortably against him when he wore a breastplate-- and a weird puffy collar at the top. He quickly shirked it off and tried the next piece on.

He figured that it was best to not even try to find himself another pair of pants. The ones he currently had seemed to go along with everything he had just fine, and it was nice to be able to hold onto something that reminded him of home. Even if it was just a pair of pants.

Small things, Kurogane supposed, small things.

The shirts after that didn't go much better. Some had odd designs on them that Kurogane thought were probably magical symbols (and given his recent run-ins with magical symbols, didn't want to have any more of them clinging to him than necessary), others that didn't seem like they were all there, and still others that must have come from the scribes' or diplomats' sections rather than one for working ninjas. (Fai had mentioned that this world didn't have ninjas in it, but Kurogane didn't believe him for a moment. The mark of a good ninja was that you didn't know he was there to begin with in the first place. Clearly, the mage was no good at spotting them.)

Kurogane hadn't exactly seen them around either, but that just meant that they were extremely good. Hell, he figured, they probably even had secret stores hidden around in nooks and crannies that he and the magician were obviously missing.

He made a note to check more into these when he got the opportunity.

At last, he exited the changing room, deposited the clothes back into the cart that Fai had been wheeling around and declared that point-blank that he hated them all. The magician looked put out for a moment, but then that unquashable happiness returned, and he said something that made Kurogane's hair stand on end.

"Oh, that's okay, Kuro-min! We're in a mall!"

Malls, in Kurogane's experience, were terrible things invented to inconvenience people that had nothing better to do with their time and to take delight in hiding things that people needed most from those that sought it. They also contained enough stores to drive him crazy somewhere around five times over.

So, before he could protest, or even cause enough of a scene so that the wizard would feel obliged to take him back to their living quarters and let him sit it out until they found the feather and could at last leave this place, Fai dragged him on.

The smell of fresh pretzels being cooked lured Fai in as they tried to walk past (well, as Kurogane tried to direct Fai past), and so they stopped so that they could spend some of Sakura's hard-earnt gambling money on a treat. Once this was taken care of, they continued walking.

"Hyuu, going shopping with food in your stomach always makes everything better, doesn't it, Kuro-pon?"

"No."

"Mmm. Nice and salty." Fai licked his lips happily. "Oh, hey! That store looks like it might be nice, want to go in?"

"No." Kurogane replied again, convinced there was nothing to be had there.

"Alright, come on then!"

"Did you even hear what I was saying?"

"Yup!" Fai nodded merrily, and pulled him to the entrance.

Inside, the place seemed dark and hollow. The only light came from occasional lamp peeking through above a display. The racks where clothing was hung seemed to be made out of wood, that looked like someone had recently felled it in a forest and used it straight from chopping as furniture. Something loud was pulsing through the room, and Kurogane instantly felt himself go on the defensive.

Fai plucked some items from the shelves, as Kurogane wandered, staring at the pictures placed throughout the store. A lot of them seemed to be people on endless shorelines, lazing about or swimming in the water.

"What the hell are all these supposed to mean?" He muttered. Fai looked over at him.

"Oh, the pictures? I'm really not sure either, Kuro-moo."

He cast him a withering glare. "Stop calling me those damn nicknames, already. This is serious. Why aren't there houses in any of these pictures? Do you think that these are countrymen of the people that run this establishment?"

Fai gasped. "Perhaps."

Kurogane continued. "It might be unlikely, but maybe something happened to them that they have this pictures up, as a warning. Maybe a tsunami," he considered. Those occasionally happened in Nihon and had been known to do great damage.

"Maybe they're trying to rebuild these people's old town, then!" Fai concluded. "Poor things, it looks like the sea really took away everything. I can't see a trace of their buildings, can you?"

Kurogane inspected all the pictures he could find, and shook his head.

"Well then," Fai said triumphantly, "I think we'll just have to get all these to try and support those poor people." Kurogane couldn't really refuse. Hell, it wasn't his money that they were wasting, not that he tended to really care about money. Shirasaki kept him on a good retainer, and there wasn't much in the way of supplies that he needed to worry about, save the yearly offerings to his parents and the occasional sword polish for Ginryuu.

They left, bags in hand, the cashiers looking a little askance when Fai had wished them the best of luck with the reconstruction, and were hardly off once more before Fai got sidetracked again.

"Saa, Kuro-tan, what is that wonderful smell?"

Kurogane sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. "Don't tell me you're hungry again."

"Nyah, it's not that. It's..." He trailed off, stopping again. "Don't you smell that?"

Kurogane sniffed the air skeptically, waiting for something miraculous to happen. It didn't. All that occurred was that it smelled a little nicer here than it had a few paces ago. Was this shocking?

Fai grabbed ahold of his sleeve again and pulled him into another store. "Come on! We've got to go check this out."

They entered the shopfront, to see shelves lining the walls filled with bottles, and various kinds of potions stacked elegantly on glass tables down the center of the store. A salesperson greeted them, although a little surprised to see two men looking for things together, he showed them around. Kurogane quickly figured out that this was some place where one could buy ointments and liquids to make one smell better, and, out of sheer curiosity (and the fact that Fai was having the man explain something to him that appeared to be very long and complicated), started to poke around.

Most of the smells were fairly ordinary: one smelt like decomposing plants, which Kurogane thought was a little strange, but supposed that there must be a demand for it somewhere, perhaps as camouflage. He grinned. Perhaps he'd have to try that out sometime...

But the thing that really caught his attention was something that smelled to him, just like Nihon did, or more specifically, just like a certain princess of Nihon happened to: like a warm summer night with petals floating on the breeze--

"Japanese Cherry Blossom." Fai read off the small bottle and cocked an eyebrow. "Well, I heard the guy say it's their most popular scent, but typically it's girls that buy it..." He cut himself off. "Ah, well Kuro-rin! Just do what makes you happy."

And so, they left that strange place of smells with two bottles, one thing that Fai apparently needed for his magics ("There are so many kinds of magic, Kuro-pon! I'm surprised that you still don't realize that.") and the one that Kurogane had found so alluring.

It was comforting, he thought. Not alluring. It was a reminder that somewhere home still existed somewhere, and that the rest of his life wouldn't be spent being dragged all over the universe and into stores, just like Fai was doing again...

Only this time, it was a different kind of store.

Young children ran excitedly from one end of the store to the other, picking out animals and then putting the stuffing into them as other adults shepherded them and helped them choose names. Fai, whom Kurogane was starting to believe was just one big child at heart, pulled him toward the first station.

"Aww, come on, Kuro-bun, please! We have to do this."

Kurogane sighed. Any more of this shopping business and he was going to quit. Just like those old geezers out there whose people had abandoned them for all eternity as they sat on those couches outside the windows. He would go and join their clan and get away from all this. But then, he had another idea.

"Fine. But only if you promise me that this is the last place we're stopping."

Fai nodded solemnly, which then turned into an enthusiastic nod as he sped off to go choose what animal he wanted to make. Picking out a soft rabbit, he stroked its long, floppy ears delightedly.

"Alright, now you choose one, Kuro-nan!"

The ninja frowned. Ninjas, he told himself, did not go to places like this to make stuffed animals. They would go here to spy on the children of targets and perhaps followed them home, but to actually go to a place like this for enjoyment seemed like the exact contrary thing to do if he wanted to ingratiate himself with the ninja of this world and find where they kept their secret shopping centers.

But, he sighed, going over to the animal racks to the wizard's cheers, hell, what were the chances he was going to run into them anyway?

He selected a spotted dog, and joined Fai in the line waiting for stuffing, oddly aware that he was just about the tallest person in the store.

"I'm going to name mine Kuro-woof! What about you?"

"That's not even a dog! You could at least name it something more appropriate!"

"Saa," the magician said, looking down at it, "why, you're right. Kuro-bun it is, then! It'll be a momento of our fun trip!"

Kurogane sighed and stuffed his dog disgruntledly.

At last, when they finally made it back home, Kurogane was exhausted. This day had just taken way too much out of him. He sighed, put down the containers with their stuffed animals, the bag of scents, and then the clothes bags.

Curious, he opened these last bags, to see what the magician had bought to support the people without houses on the beaches. He looked through one bag, and then the next, and the next, until...

Damn it! Not a thing in any of the bags was black.

Author's Note:

Ever since I wrote the description for Ninjas and Time-Space Travel Don't Mix, I've always wanted to try this story arc out. This is pretty much a trip through my local mall. Can anyone figure out the stores they go to? Anyway, hope you liked it! This was so much fun to write!

--cy.