Title: Understand A Girl's Heart, or Exercises in Harem Building

Characters: Inugami Kotarou, Takane D. Goodman, Murakami Natsumi

Genre: Friendship Through Violence And Misunderstanding

Rated: T

Timeframe: After 'Darkness' arc, before summer break

Spoilers: None for the main story, just information about what Kotarou did after running away from Mahora when Natsumi graduated high school.

"Takane," Kotarou said, bobbing his head at her in greeting.

The blonde woman stared at him a moment, her eyes wide. "Inugami Kotarou...? You're older than you should be..." her eyes narrowed. "And you stink like black magic."

Silence fell between them on the sidewalk.

"I could say the same of you," Kotarou said quietly as he tugged his wide brimmed hat down more securely on his head to ensure his ears were still hidden. "I never caught it before, but then again...that was before."

Takane watched him carefully for a moment, then motioned for him to follow as she headed for a nearby alley. He followed without complaint. They went through the narrow alley, crossed the street on the other side, and headed down another alley, much longer than the first. Takane stopped about halfway down this alley, with her back to Kotarou.

"You trained under him," Takane said. Her tone made it an accusation.

"If you mean Kagetaro, yeah, I did," Kotarou replied. He watched her carefully; any student of Kagetaro's was dangerous, now matter how she chose to present herself to the world.

Silence fell between them. With Takane turned away from him, Kotarou couldn't tell what she was thinking, though her body looked tense.

"...did he say anything about me?" Takane finally asked, still facing away from him.

Kotarou shook his head, but realized belatedly that she wouldn't be able to see that. "Not much; he did say he taught a 'young brat who decided to run away'. I didn't know it was you until I got back."

"Yes," Takane said, a hint of cynicism in her tone. "The great Takane D. Goodman, one of the magic association's more famous members, trained in illegal black magic until she ran away from her master at the age of ten."

Kotarou frowned as he looked at the woman in front of him. He hated seeing any girl upset, and that cynical sound she was making bothered him a lot. He knew Takane was a good person; she was an upstanding member of the local magic association after all, and from what he had always heard, she never passed up a chance to help someone who needed it. "Hmm..." 'She's thinking too much, just like Negi...She needs to lighten up,' he thought, and plunged ahead.

"Yeah, but I did the same thing, pretty much...except I did it twice: first with the people in Kyoto, then with Kagetaro. So that makes me worse than you," he said, his voice light in that way that drove Natsumi crazy when he was teasing her. Takane whirled on him, glaring as if he had insulted her.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" she snapped.

Kotarou's eyebrows went up and he raised his hands in a placating manner. "Hey hey, take it easy, okay?"

Takane glared at him as if he had just kicked her favorite puppy. "I will not 'take it easy'," she snapped. "That lowlife black magic shadow user sent you to kill me, didn't he? He probably hates me after what I did; he saved my life, and I repaid him by stealing his rings and running away!"

Kotarou didn't know what to do; it appeared he had stepped on a great big Takane-shaped landmine. He had trouble enough dealing with Natsumi when she got in one of her moods, but she never acted like she hated the fact that he was still breathing, not like Takane was doing. He was a simple guy; he knew it and liked it. Smart people tended to talk too much, or think too much, or take all the blame for every stupid little thing that happened, like Negi and, judging by the way Takane was talking, like her, too. People like that needed a good old fashioned dose of idiocy to lighten up.

"Well?" Takane demanded after she had waited a moment for him to speak. "Aren't you going to say something?!"

Kotarou heaved a sigh and looked around for a moment, working out the quickest way to get to the location he wanted.

"Stop ignoring me!" Takane screamed at him. She moved right up in front of him, glaring, not unlike the way Natsumi did whenever they got into an argument. "Stop it!" she said, tears appearing in the corners of her eyes as she glared at him.

He heaved another sigh, took her by the shoulders—which, oddly enough, made her face go red—and held her out at arm's length while she glared. "Look," he said. "Kagetaro said he's only taken on two students: you, and me. He didn't say anything about hating you-"

"Lies!"

Kotarou sighed for a third time, looked around to make sure nobody had spotted them in the alleyway, and threw Takane over his shoulder. She let out a startled squawk, but he ignored her, jumped up to the top of the nearest building, and raced along, heading for the forest that hid Eva's house. He wasn't heading for Eva's place, however; there would be too many people there. What he wanted was a nice deserted clearing where they could go wild without anyone watching to make them hold back.

"Let me down! Let me down right this instant you, you beast!" Takane wailed.

"Be quiet, will you?!" Kotarou said in exasperation as Takane pounded her fists against his back and kicked her legs wildly. She wasn't doing any damage whatsoever, but it was really quite annoying, in his opinion; he had to hold on to her tightly to keep from dropping her as he ran and jumped through the city rooftops, and her efforts to get him to let her go a hundred feet or so above the sidewalk only made him hold on tighter.

They quickly reached the edge of the city itself and entered the outskirts, and Kotarou was forced to descend to street level as the tall buildings thinned out. He continued on regardless, and noticed after a moment that Takane had stopped trying to escape; instead, she had stabilized her position by planting her hands together against his back so she could hold her head up and look around as he ran. He was grateful for her change in behavior, but he had a feeling she'd want to take it out on him as soon as he stopped. 'Well, that's what I'm doing this for,' he thought to himself. 'Takane needs to relax, and the best way to relax is by fighting!'

They soon passed through the outskirts of the city and entered the forest, where Kotarou had to slow down even more. Going fast in a city was one thing—there was a lot of space up at roof level, after all—but if you tried to go fast in a forest you'd just end up bashing your head against a tree. The way to move fast in a forest, Kotarou mused to himself, was to go line of sight...running or jumping from spot to spot with a clear line of sight between one spot and the next. In this, all the ninja training he had done with Kaede served him well; jumping from tree branch to tree branch was much quicker than walking around at ground level, even if you did end up with leaves stuck in your hair.

They eventually reached the clearing Kotarou had been looking for, and he set Takane down on her feet. She staggered and fell against him, so he put an arm around her to steady her.

"Hey, you've gotta be careful; I didn't know your legs had fallen asleep," he said.

Takane blushed furiously as she looked away.

Kotarou waited until she could stand on her own before letting go of her. She immediately moved away from him, and stood facing him out of arm's length, arms crossed over her chest as she looked off to the side. "W-why did you take me here?" she demanded.

Kotarou cocked his head to the side. '...huh?' He just looked at her a moment, unsure of how to respond to that. After all, wasn't it obvious...? Takane's eyes darted to his, then skittered away as she blushed. Heavily. 'Okay, whoa, wait, something's not right here,' he thought, suddenly nervous. Why was she acting like that? Was...was this one of those times big sis Chizuru would sigh and tell him he didn't understand a girl's heart? No, no way. There was no way Takane could possibly be interested in him; he was with Natsumi, after all. They had a pactio and everything! And besides, didn't she like Negi like all the other girls? 'Negi must be rubbing off on me...I'm thinking too much.' He shook his head to clear it.

"Well," he said as he stripped off his shirt. "Let's get started!"

"Wh-wh-what?!" Takanae blurted, horrified as she her eyes locked on to his upper body. "I-I-I'm not, I can't, with you, wh-what about Murakami, we couldn't, I-I-I..."

"Come on Takane, you can't do anything like that, can you?" he said, waving his hand at her cute skirt and top. For some reason he didn't understand, her whole face had gone red. "Come on, you know you've gotta to do this sort of thing once in a while, right? I mean, me and Madoka do this all the time; it's a lot of fun."

Takane's whole head went red, and she started to squirm as she stood there, seemingly unable to look at him.

Kotarou just blinked at her. "Hey, are you feeling alright?" he used instant movement to close the distance between them, and Takane yelped in surprise, her eyes wide. "Do you have a fever? You should've told me if you did, Takane; we can't do anything if you're too sick," he said, gently taking hold of her head and moving in close to touch her forehead with his, the way big sis Chizuru always did when she used to check his temperature. Takane went still as a statue.

"Huh...guess not," Kotarou said as he abruptly let go and walked back, leaving Takane standing there with her eyes shut and her lips puckered. "Shadow Armor," Kotaoru said, finishing up a quick defense spell. 'Huh...I wonder why shadow-based armor spells always work better when they're up against bare skin? Weird...' he thought to himself as he waited for Takane to cast her own shadow armor spell. Kagetaro had been a good teacher, if an unorthodox one...his methods might have been questionable, but his results never were.

Takane's eyes shot open and she stared at Kotarou in open mouthed shock for a moment. "Sh...shadow armor? You're not going to...you aren't...huh?"

Kotarou cocked an eyebrow. "Hey, did you hit your head on a tree branch, Takane? We're going to spar! You need to relax, and I can't think of any better way to make that happen," he said, cracking his knuckles. "...aren't you going to summon your shadows? Kagetaro said his previous student was almost as good as he was at that...Takane? Are you alright? Your face is turning purple..."

"...why you...you...arrogant jackass...playing with a...a pure maiden's heart...in such a way...!" she growled out between clenched teeth. Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists as she ripped off the cute top and skirt she wore, revealing the black underwear she wore underneath. She then kicked off the boots she wore. "Lorica Umbrae! Nocturne Nigredinis!"

"Nice, Takane! You've gotten good with the shadow golems!" he said as he watched a huge shadow golem come into being behind her. Her discarded clothing was quickly replaced by new clothing made of shadows, offering far more physical and magic defense despite covering less skin on her upper body.

Takane didn't reply. Instead, she kept her head down, her blonde hair hanging down and blocking his view of her face as she muttered under her breath; other shadow golems began to form, springing into existence all around her.

"Uh...Takane? Isn't that enough...?" Kotarou tried.

Takane ignored him and continued chanting.

"Uh..."

Kotarou started to sweat. Maybe he had caught Takane at a bad time...? He had no clue why she seemed so mad at him. 'Man, I sure am glad Natsumi's so easy to understand,' he thought to himself as he watched Takane. She didn't stop summoning shadow golems until pretty much her whole side of the clearing was full of them; only then did she look up at him, her face red and her eyes wide, a little vein twitching in her forehead as she pointed at him. "CRUSH HIM!"

Kotarou's eyes went wide and he scrambled to summon his shadow clones as a hundred shadow golems rushed to dogpile him.

Kotarou lay on his back in the clearing, covered in bruises with a little trail of blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth as he looked up at the sky high above. "You got strong, Takane..."

"I was always strong," the woman replied immediately from where she lay nearby, sounding somewhat affronted.

"Well yeah, I always knew that," Kotarou replied flippantly. "I meant you were stronger than I thought; I'm impressed. Sorry about your clothes."

Takane sighed. "It's alright. I already made a call; I just have to wait for Mei to get here with some replacements. She's bringing a shirt for you, too."

"Thanks," Kotarou said.

They laid there in a comfortable silence for a long moment.

"So..." Kotarou began carefully. "Why did you get so mad at me? I mean yeah, going all out as friends like that always makes you feel better after its over, but for a while there you looked like Touko when she found out her boyfriend was cheating on her back when Natsumi was in high school."

The silence turned awkward.

"...you really do not understand women at all, Inugami Kotarou-san," Takane said stiffly, laying the formality on thick in her tone and word choice.

Kotarou glanced over at where she lay, then quickly away; he had forgotten she had been left mostly naked by the loss of her shadow armor spell. He would have offered her his shirt, but he had no idea what had happened to it; their spar session had pretty much completely destroyed the clearing. 'She's way bigger than Natsumi,' he thought, then shook his head to clear it. As far as that went, so were big sis Chizuru and big sis Ayaka, and big sis Chizuru was bigger than Takane, too. In the end though, Natsumi was Natsumi and everyone else was everyone else. He smiled as the image of her smiling face floated through his mind...then his smile froze.

Natsumi...

She wouldn't like the fact that he had been sparring with Takane, or 'that stripper girl' as most of Natsumi's friends called her.

Especially not just the two of them.

ESPECIALLY not just the two of them, alone, in a hidden clearing in the forest, away from the prying eyes of all their friends, and were now lying in a field, him half naked and Takane even more.

Kotarou began to sweat.

He desperately wanted to get up and run away, but he couldn't just leave Takane alone like that, not to mention the fact that she had really done a number on him; their fight had been the most fun he had had since his spar sessions with Kagetaro, and it had left him in a similar condition: so sore and bruised he could barely move. Takane was in much the same condition, he knew.

Just then, his nose caught a familiar scent, and his eyes widened in panic.

"...Takane?"

"Yes, Inugami Kotarou-san?" she replied, still excessively formal. He wondered how he had offended her.

"...can you get up?"

There was a long moment of silence, followed by a groan. "...no. Is something wrong?" she asked, a hint of nervousness creeping back into her voice.

"See, it's just that I can smell Natsumi and Mei coming this way..."

"Murakami...oh no..."

Kotarou risked a quick look over at Natsumi as they walked down the sidewalk on their way back to Natsumi's apartment. She walked stiffly with her arms crossed over her chest, her mouth held in that cute little pout she did whenever she felt offended by something stupid he had done. She refused to look at him.

Kotarou let his thoughts turn inward as he recalled the arrival of Mei and Natsumi at the clearing. Neither he nor Takane had expected Natsumi to show up; evidently Mei had run into her on the way, explained that Takane had somehow ruined her clothes in a private spar, and Natsumi had volunteered to come along in case anyone needed to be healed. Then they had arrived at the clearing...he felt like his ears should still be burning at the tongue lashing Natsumi had given him.

Natsumi was always so unsure of what he felt about her; that part of her annoyed him. What, did she think he'd just jump at the next pretty girl that walked by? As he had thought earlier, Natsumi was Natsumi, and everyone else was just everyone else.

"Want some ice cream?" he tried. Natsumi glared up at him, but her glare softened after a moment. He knew that she knew that was his awkward attempt at an apology for something he didn't even really understand. Though he was trying to understand it, it was hard...he had a feeling he'd never understand 'a girl's heart', not really.

"...alright," she said a moment later, then turned on him, waving her finger in his face. "But don't think I've forgiven you with just this!" she said, pout-glaring up at him in that way she had no way of knowing made him want to just pick her up and hug her until he died. ...not that he'd ever ever admit that to anyone ever.

EVER.

"Okay then. Your treat?" he asked, smirking at her as she smacked him in the arm.

She crossed her arms again and let out a huff, looking away. "No! This time is yours! Definitely!"

He grinned back down at her. "'kay."

Author's Notes: So, Kotarou's got the beginnings of a harem himself, though I doubt he'd call it that. With both Mei's probable crush and Madoka's definitely canon crush on him, his thing with Natsumi, and now Takane, he's off to a pretty good start...good thing he's loyal.