A Pure Heart

Chapter 20

Hikari yawned as she stretched, already wearing her purple ninja gi, walking past the ninja's room.

A series of groans and thuds and alarm clock ringings reached her ears, and she doubled back and looked through the doorway in time to see Lloyd sitting up and shooting a green energy sphere, blowing up the alarm clock.

"Is it Wednesday already?" Lloyd moaned groggily, rubbing his head tiredly. He was still in his pajamas.

Hikari couldn't help but giggle at this. "Glad to see you're using your powers maturely," she said, emphasizing the last word.

Lloyd looked up at Hikari's voice, his face turning the faintest shade of pink. "Oh! Hikari. Hey," he said, his voice sounding oddly squeaky. Hikari leaned against the doorframe. "Hey," she said back casually, though inside a storm of butterflies were insisting they bust their way out. "Guys, did you forget there's a sunrise exercise today?"

"No," Jay moaned, "I hate sunrise exercise."

Sensei Wu walked through the open door. "Good morning! Morning, morning! It's a new day. Up, up!"

Zane looked totally fine, while the other guys looked as though they were zombies (in terms of being awake. In terms of looks they were perfectly fine, and some of the ninja's not-so-secret fans thought they looked more than fine, if you know what she means). "Before we start out with our sunrise exercise, the dragon made another mess outside. It looks like a... two person job." And then he slammed the door again.

Hikari looked at the ninja. They all suddenly claimed they heard an SOS call or that they hadn't heard Sensei.

Lloyd glared. "You might've been able to dump chores on me when I was a kid," he accused them, "but I'm grown up now! That's not fair!"

The ninja paused in the doorway, and Hikari added, crossing her arms and arching her eyebrow, "Plus, Sensei said it was a two-person job. And I don't know about you guys, but if Lloyd skives off too, you're leaving me to deal with the whole mess."

Kai sighed and turned back with the others, looking guilty. Lloyd smothered a grin and whispered in her ear from behind, "You might not be a kid anymore but you can still charm people to your advantage. And I think the fact you're still pretty cute helps."

Hikari turned red, and Lloyd froze as he realized what he said, before clearing his throat and straightened up. "Um.. anyway..."

"You're right, Lloyd. We need to settle this like men. With a round of rock, paper clamp!" Kai said, sounding very cheerful at the end, almost like a child, and Hikari casually crawled underneath one of the beds. "Seeing as I'm automatically a candidate for this job, I'm exempt from this," she said, starting to shake with laughter.

"On three. One, two, three!" Presumably Lloyd lost anyway, because they heard a slap of the hands and a cheering sound from Jay, and a groan from Lloyd.

"Paper beats rock!" Jay gloated as Hikari came back out, still smiling but no longer in danger of having a laughing fit.

Lloyd grumbled again. "How does paper beat rock?" he asked, sounding annoyed as Hikari stood next to him, and putting an arm around her shoulder and pouting at her. "Well... looks like we're on pooper scooper duty," he said, sounding vexed.

Hikari giggled slightly, making his scowl fade. "Well, when you put it like that..."

I see you're getting chummy with Lloyd again.

Hikari's smile faded at these words from Nariko. Oh great. You. Shouldn't you be off being an annoying shadow in that arena or something?