Title: Height Difference

Description: After an incident, Nya explains to the ninja why Kai spikes his hair because it really is an unusual hairstyle choice.

Main Characters: Kai, Nya, and Cole

Setting: Sometime after Season Five

Rating: K

The sound of swords clashing together is not a typical sound for most people, but the ninja are definitely not most people. Hearing the swooshes and clinks of a duel at six in the morning for a sunrise exercise was not an uncommon sound for the residents of the Bounty. And now that there were an even number of ninja again, they could train in pairs. However, with six people training on one ship's deck, things could get a bit crowded.

Lloyd dueled Kai, sword on sword, while Zane and Cole fought together close by. Things were going well until the earth ninja, armed with his signature scythe, decided to use spinjitsu, not one of his brightest ideas considering the cramped space. Cole's scythe made direct contact with Kai's pride and joy, his hair. With a single swoosh, the top few inches of the red ninja's spikes were cut clean off. Kai slowly reached his hand up to feel his hair which now resembled Zane's.

"What did you do?!"

At that point, no one on deck wanted to be in Cole's shoes; they thought he was a goner for sure.

"I'm so sorry, Kai. I didn't mean to, I swear. At least it will grow back, right?" Cole said in an attempt to make the situation better.

For a moment, Kai looked furious and the ninja thought that he might combust, but he didn't. The fire ninja took a long breath and calmly said, "You're right, it's nothing to get all worked up about. I may just need a minute or so though."

Without another word, Kai walked off into the ship, leaving the others stunned.

"Wow," Lloyd said, "he took that rather well."

"Indeed," Zane remarked.

"Yeah, Cole, I thought you were gonna get it. Did you see how shocked Kai looked?" Jay said, laughing a bit.

Cole chuckled himself a bit, "Haha, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen him without his hair spiked up."

"It's certainly been awhile," Nya said.

"Has Kai's hair always been like that?" Lloyd asked.

"No, not always. I can tell you about it if you want, but you have to promise not to tell my brother or he'd kill me."

Once the other ninja promised, Nya began her tale.

"Well the whole thing began when I was about eleven, making Kai twelve. Now the people he hung out with, who were mostly older than him, were all at least a few inches taller than him. As a kid, Kai was always on the shorter side and this never bothered him too much until a comment one of our Dad's shop's customers made:

"Oh and are these your children?" a middle aged man asked Nya and Kai's father.

"Yep, this is Kai and Nya," he put his hand on his children's heads as he said their names.

"Now I never knew your oldest was a girl," the middle aged man remarked.

"Nya? No, Kai's my first born."

"Oh, I just presumed because of the boy's size— Well never mind, my mistake."

Nya and Kai ran off to play, but Kai could not get that "because of the boy's size" off his mind. Was he really that short? He knew that he and his sister were close in size, but he never thought that Nya, his baby sister, could be taller than him. That was unacceptable, Kai thought. There was no way he was going to be shorter than his little sibling. However, Kai knew that there really was no way to grow at least three inches overnight; he would have to make himself appear taller.

Throwing the ball they were playing with to Nya, Kai said, "I've got to go do some stuff. See you later!"

The young boy immediately ran off to his bedroom to see what solutions he could come up with. He knew he had seen something that might help him in one of his books, and scanning over the bookshelf, Kai found the one he was looking for. It was a book on what you were supposed to wear and how to act if you were going somewhere fancy. The book had been a gift for Nya and she wanted nothing to do with it, but Kai found himself looking through it from time to time; mostly when he was in trouble and sent to his room (which happened more often than he would have liked).

Kai read that you were supposed to wear fancy high heeled shoes to make yourself appear taller. Perfect, just what he was looking for, but as Kai looked at the pictures, there were no men wearing high heeled shoes, it was only the women. Shaking that idea out of his head, Kai continued to search until he found what he thought the perfect solution was, wearing a top hat. He was sure his father had one somewhere and a top hat would make him over three inches taller. So digging through his father's closet, Kai found just what he was looking for and immediately put it on. The hat fit awkwardly as it was too large for the boy, but he thought it would do.

For the next few weeks, Kai wore his father's hat with pride. He looked absolutely ridiculous and completely out of place, yet his parents could say nothing to make him take off the ill-fitting hat. Kai slept with the hat on, played with the hat on, ate with the hat on, and refused to get a haircut because that would mean he would have to take off his hat.

However, when Kai was out playing on a windy day, the top hat was blown off his head and into a pond. Rushing to retrieve it, he found that the water had ruined it, making it not so tall anymore.

"I'm sorry about your ha—" Nya began to say, but she could not finish her sentence because she began laughing so hard.

"What? What's so funny?" Kai questioned, irritated at his sister.

"Haha, you've got hat-hair."

"Hat-hair?"

Looking at his reflection in the pond, Kai saw that his hair was sticking up every which way from the hat. He was about to push his hair back to normal when he realized something. When his hair stood up like it was, it was like the hat in making him look taller.

"So ever since that day," Nya said as she finished up her story, "Kai has continued to make his hair stick up because he never did grow taller than me."

"Huh," Lloyd said, "yeah I guess I never did realize you were taller than him."

The next morning everything seemed normal until Cole looked into a mirror and saw that his hair had been dyed fluorescent pink. So that's why Kai had seemed so calm, Cole thought. He was plotting his revenge on the earth ninja.

Hi, guys! I hoped you liked that story, but please tell me what you thought. :D

As the description states, this will be just a collection of little stories so if you have any suggestions or requests, feel free to comment them or PM me about it. I'm open to anything really and I don't really have a plan on how often I will update this. And I will do what I have done here at the beginning of every chapter, put the plot of the one shot with the main characters and so on. Have a fantastic day/night and God bless!

P.S. Sorry I stink at titles ^_^"