24 Dazed and Confused... yes, both.

Shameless bastard, she thought in a rage. Her shame and embarrassment only deepened as she recalled that she did not fight this kiss, even welcomed it for some unknown reason. He must have felt her confusion from this distance as he spoke up. "Passion is passion. The heat of the moment causes us to rely on instinct alone, in fact there is little difference in intimacy when it boils down to it. Whether it be opponents, joined in combat, or two lovers joined. Passion, is passion. Instinct, is instinct." His hands moved to the back of his head and he looked quite comfortable laying there on the grass by the stream... with a flag pole at full mast as well. She quickly looked away and tried to digest what he had said, indeed there was some truth to it.

"Xiao Li na." She spoke softly as she pondered. While he had not saved her life, he did keep her from being injured... and in fact she felt that this entire fight had been nothing but a spar for the two of them. Li na thought about his movements during the bout, trying to avoid thinking about a certain thing that flapped about with his every jerk or thrust... Her head shook as she cleared her thoughts. This was her first time seeing a man in such a away. The redness in her face felt like it would stay there eternally. Kano smiled in a genuine fashion, yet a smirk also quickly took over. "Your surname, Miss? After all, I believe you should give me some face being able to fight you to a standstill."

Li na was shocked... she had deliberately given him the generic title of Xiao, in order to confuse him. But, somehow he knew... "Feng Li na."

The smirk returned to the genuine smile. "Being that I captured what is obviously your first kiss, I shall call you my Li Li from this day hence. Don't worry, your husband is good to his wife." He found that he wanted to tease her, he was not sure why, but the flustered look on her face was much more cute than her war face. It was something for which he had no defense against. A beautiful woman, his greatest weakness.

Li na jerked at his words, "Who says we are so?! You scoundrel, you bastard, you pervert! I will end you some day!" She stomped her foot in anger and her hands instinctually went to her hips in defiance. "But my dear wife, to die by your hand would be as it should be. Such a death would be as heaven just like the first time your beautiful fist impacted my face. What other person would have such benevolence?"

She was again flustered by his smooth words and was about to refute but quickly understood that he was much better at word games, so she simply glared at him and crossed her arms under her chest. Little did she realize this actually forced her rather ample bosom to be lifted upwards. Kano nodded his approval and a look spread across his face that state how nice he thought it looked.

"I take your silence as acquiescence. Don't worry my dear wife, I will marry you properly soon, then you can give up your wanderer ways and settle down with our children." He stopped as he pondered and then looked at her questioningly. "Oh, how many do we want anyway? Well, doesn't matter. More the merrier I suppose."

Li na did not even allow him to finish his sentence, she was already gone. Her powerful figure vanished over a small rise in the direction of the village. Kano smiled and shook his head, it was too easy to mess with a virgin's feelings. Well, maybe she will think twice about attacking me next time, he thought. Then his thoughts turned to the feeling of her taut form on his. Her muscles were defined and lithe, like a panther. She had an athletic firmness that was strangely soft at the same time. 'I wonder, just what will become of this? I don't have any premonitions about meeting her... I wonder what that means? No deja vu? No flashbacks or whatever... Odd. I had images of Vicky, Sarah, Tiffany, Ruolan, and possibly two more... I wonder why I have no visions here... I better talk with Bill again.' And he turned to his clothes on the bank, only to find they were no longer there.

***

Li na ran all the way back to the Academy. She did not stop nor rest until she was firmly back in her room. She bounded into her bed and quickly pulled her quilt up over her head. "Bastard. Pervert." Her face was still as red as it was earlier in the day. It was then that she looked down at her hands and realized she still had the man's clothes that she had snagged as she ran away. Li na giggled a little as she thought about him having to run back to his home naked. Then she recalled his body and how he looked and her heart began to speed up. She had never seen a man naked before, nor had she been fought to a standstill like that since she was just a novice.

Her door creaked open and a red haired woman in white robes squeezed in. "Li-Li? Are you okay?"

It was Nastalia, her squadmate and good friend. Her blush deepened and she pushed the man's clothes deeper into the quilt. As she did so, a gentle face peered into the opening she had left in the quilt to breathe out of. "Are you in there? What happened?" Nastalia's voice was full of concern and was always so kind and gentle.

"Nothing. Nothing happened."

"My cousin said you went out to scout the necromancer we spotted. The really handsome one. Did you see him?"

Li na burrowed deeper into her quilt and rolled over and away. "No."

Nastalia laughed lightly and started crawling under the quilt as well. "It doesn't sound like nothing. Come on, you can tell me."

Li na tried to roll away again, but Nastalia was there blocking. Finally she huffed and sat upright, Nastalia sat up and faced her as well. "I found him."

"And?"

"He was..."

"He was?"

Li na blushed again and whispered under breath. "Bathing."

"What? I didn't hear. Say it again Li-li."

"Bathing. He was naked!" Li na returned a little louder than she intended. Her face blanched and then burned even more, she wished there was a hole she could crawl in at that moment.

"Oh. Well... I guess that was a wonderful sight then. Tell me more."

Li na glanced at the rather pure looking priestess and gave her a quizzical look. Nastalia just looked her in the eye and laughed. "Yes, I worship the goddess of the Hearth... and what do people do by the hearth in winter? They keep warm." And she waggled her eyebrows at the monk while grinning lasciviously.

Li na giggled and smacked Nastalia's arm. "Your a bad priestess. I know now why you never chose to follow the Lord of Light."

"Too restrictive. People should be free to love and learn. Mistakes can happen, as long as we love each other we can learn to do better. Herapashi's teachings always seemed so strict. So I follow Revia instead. Anyway, what did you see? Did you get a GOOD look?"

Li na blushed again and pulled the quilt up to hide her face. "So you did. Did you talk to him?" She pulled it up over her head and shook. "So you DID. That means you probably attacked him. But considering you look a little worse for wear, I mean, come on your hair is a mess. There is bark and leaves in it... wait... NO!... you didn't?!"

Li na rolled away onto her bed and shook her head while trying to fix her hair. "NO, NO I did not. It was only a ki-" She stopped short before she could speak anymore and slowly turned her head to look at Nastalia whom was grinning ear to ear.

"A kiss, huh? Seeing you like this, I guess you enjoyed it. He is handsome after all, and well built. Which means he must have actually held his own if you are this interested in him."

"Who said I was interested?! He's just a shameless pervert who stole my virtue!"

"Oh, he did that did he? Tell me, was it as wonderful as people say? Did you bleed a lot?"

"No! Not that! No! He stole my first kiss!"

Nastalia stopped short and looked at her friend in confusion. "That's it? Just a kiss? Or was it A KISS?" and she waggled her eyebrows again but Li na was already buried in her blankets. "Oh, that kind of kiss. Well, you look like it must have been some kiss. Hmm, I guess I'll have to head down to the graveyard and see him for myself now. We can't let some vulgar ruffian take advantage of my little monkey-wonkey now can we?" A pillow smashed into Nastalia's cute face and she giggled in hysteria as she quickly responded with a pillow of her own.