[52] Altercation

Kagami had walked home with her brother in silence after the incident. She refused to forgive him for letting her fall.

"I will never buy you a book ever again."

"I don't see what the book has to do with this."

"If you hadn't been reading that book you could have done something."

"Kagami, you could have dodged him easily."

"I didn't anticipate the chair tipping over."

"Well I didn't either."

"You could have easily caught us."

"I was reading."

"Which is why the book is part of the argument."

Now, sitting at home in bed, she is still mad at him. She is laying on her side, Her eyes glancing over the words in her book. She lazily writes down the words she doesn't know in her notebook, her motivation lacking. She glances at the window every now and then to watch the sun fall further and further past the horizon. She listens to her brother walking around the house, hoping he trips on the kitchen steps.

'That is a little mean, Kagami.'

'Oh hello Yua, have you decided to stop ignoring me?'

'I wasn't ignoring you.'

'Oh?'

'Yes, I was ignoring the old men.' Yua growls lightly, obviously not liking her new company.

'They are alright.'

'They are teaching you things you don't need to know.'

'Yua, I'm thirteen.'

'Kagami, you are thirteen,' The spirit huffs.

'Ah,'

The guardian suddenly realised something, 'Isn't your birthday soon?'

'Mhm, and?'

'Tell your brother.'

'Absolutely not.' Kagami writes down another word, lightly tracing the pencil on the paper.

'And why not?'

'Because I have decided,' Kagami flips over the page in her book, pressing the crease down firmly to keep the page from flicking up once again. 'He doesn't need to know.'

'And why doesn't he need to know?'

'Nobody needs to know, Yua.'

'And why not?'

Kagami's frustration begins to grow, it would seem that all she has done all day is argue with the people around her. She is also upset that it seems a little tense between her and Shikamaru because of the incident.

'When's your birthday Yua?'

'None of your business.'

'You should tell Masaru.'

'Now why would I tell Masaru?'

'Exactly,' Kagami snuggles into her bed, thinking she has one the argument, but no.

'Kagami, Masaru is not my brother, which means it is not exactly, but it is exactly different.'

'Can you just leave it?'

'No,'

"Well then I'm cutting you off now.'

'Bye, bye!'

Kagami sighs as she severs the link, hoping that soon she will be able to learn more from her guardian. Yua has been with her for longer than she can remember, yet, Kagami has never been able to learn anything from her because of the close eye of the Root. But once this mission takes place and she can leave the village, hopefully, she will get some time to herself when she can learn more than just channelling her chakra.

Kagami snaps her book closed and places it and her notebook on her side table, the pen rolling away from her bed on the floor. She glares as it rolls away from her and out of reach. She raises her hand and tries to reach it, but from her spot, there is no way she would be able to grab it. So she just pulls her sheets up to her chin and closes her eyes, hoping tomorrow will be a better day for her.

s.h.o.u.t.

"Kagami, let's get barbeque."

She nods slightly to the large Genin in front of her. It has become custom for her to go out with Team 10 since her's is currently dysfunctional and definitely not a team. She spends most of her day avoiding Anbu watch-outs and walking around with the group.

She would avoid cloud watching with Shikamaru though, she found it extremely boring and would have the tendency to fidget and annoy the boy, instead she would sit a few meters away and entwine the grass to make something.

"One plate of the lot, please!" Choji smiles at the waitress, making his way to their usual seating area.

Kagami follows to see Shikamaru and Ino are already seated and waiting for the two. Kagami nods to them both as she squeezes into the booth next to Choji.

"Ah! Choji! We have to listen to Shikamaru now that he's a Chunin. Apparently he is 'above us.' Hmph." The girl crosses her arms and shakes her head.

Choji shoves a few chips into his mouth, "technically he is above us in rank."

The boy shrugs at the girl, causing her to gaze at him.

"How can you not react to this? He might order us right to our deaths!" Ino lets her head fall into her hands.

Shikamaru shakes his head at her, "Troublesome woman."

Ino snaps her gaze to him, "Troublesome man!"

Kagami smirks lightly at this, enjoying the interaction slightly. She has grown to like these times more than the ones where she spent all day receiving and carrying out missions. She picks up her drink lightly, twirling the straw around so the ice clicks against the glass lightly.

"Hey, Kagami!" The girl looks over to Ino, "What actually happened yesterday?"

The girl knew the question was coming, "I brought Naruto ramen to eat while he was in hospital, he became very excited and jumped on me to hug me, which resulted in him breaking the chair."

"Geez, he has always been very rowdy." Ino takes a sip of her drink, glancing at the roof, "your team has got it hard, huh?"

Kagami gives her a confused look, tilting her head to the side lightly.

Ino sighs, "I mean, first you are all injured in the attack during the exams, and then you and Kakashi-sensei get injured by intruders, and then Sasuke-kun and Naruto are injured while out of the village, it seems like a very bad coincidence."

"Ino," Shikamaru shakes his head at the girl.

But, Kagami just shrugs, twirling her straw around again. "Most of our injuries are foolish. Sasuke shouldn't have left the village after the intruders, Naruto didn't have to be out of the village. Kakashi and I made a few foolish mistakes during our fight. But most of all I believe it just shows that emotion does control our decision making enough to cause harm."

Ino looks at the girl, "but a little emotion is good right?"

Shikamaru and Choji give the girl a look, not sure where the girl is going with this.

Once again, Kagami nods, "A little emotion is good, having no emotion also impedes the clarity of our decision making. But too much results in what has happened to my team." Kagami looks up at the tree sitting around her. "Plus they have shocking teamwork skills."

Shikamaru chokes on his drink as she says this, while Ino and Choji let out a laugh. Choji pats the girl on the shoulder and nods at her.

"At least you know,"

Kagami smiles a little just in time as their food arrives, a massive plate of meat served ready to be cooked. She pulls her drink and plate back a little to make space for the woman to put it down. She gives her a greatful smile before nodding to everyone on the table and heading back off to the kitchen.

"Ah, I'm so hungry!" Choji places at least a third of the plate on the cooker immediately, causing Ino to sweat-drop.

"You are always hungry, Choji." The girl puts some meat for herself on the cooker, shoving over Shikamaru's to make space for hers.

"Troublesome woman, let him eat what he wants." Shikamaru pushes hers back over, also putting on some for Kagami because he knows she won't do it for herself.

He glances at her as he does. She is watching his hand as he places the food on the cooker. It had become apparent to him quickly after he met her that she had very few social skills, not because she chose to but because she hadn't been in many different social settings. She had no experiences to teach her new things about people.

So he made it his mission to take her out to do many different things with him so she could, and so far she seems to be picking it up fast. But, she never really does the barbeque thing. She shrugs and chucks in a few more pieces of meat before looking back up and around the table.

Now they wait for it to cook.

"Have any of you gotten any missions lately?" Ino asks her teammates.

"No, just helping clean up the village," Choji watches his meat intently.

"Same, nothing out of the village for me. We have had an extreme amount of orders at the shop though. I think for gravestones." Ino Flips over her meat, obviously liking it less done.

Kagami nods, she had recently had to help clean up the rubble they once called their village boundary wall. There were many bodies buried in the rubble. Mostly nin who were on guard jury when they were attacked, they didn't have a chance.

"Kagami? Do you have any information from the inside?" Ino raises her eyebrows at the girl, hinting at the fact the Kagami still has higher clearance than all of them combined.

She picks up her chopsticks, ready to eat, "the Hokage wants to speed train up the ninja we have left, our numbers have been cut almost in half."

Ino's eyes widen, but she nods in understanding. She picks up her meat and places it on her plate, ready to eat. She knows to not ask for more than that, whatever Kagami's gives her is all she can give, the rest would be a breach of security.

"The village officials have decided that it would be a good idea to turn down any high profile missions, so we don't attract attention. Mostly B-Rank and below." Kagami snatches a piece of meat off the cooker and places it on her plate, waiting for it to cool.

"You got called to the Hokage's office, right? She was going to change your rank?" Shikamaru lazily places a piece of meat in his mouth, watching his friends.

Kagami shakes her head, "nothing yet, I'm still a Genin." Kagami sighs and rests her chin on her palm, glaring at her steaming meat.

"Hey! Being a Genin isn't that bad!" Ino defends herself and Choji, irritated by the girl's tone of voice.

Kagami's gaze snaps up at the girl, "maybe for you, but I was an Anbu. Now I'm going to have to go back to feeding babies with Team 7."

"Exactly, it's not that bad. You aren't in any danger."

"Ino, I enjoy hunting people down and getting information out of them."

The girl shrinks back in her chair, suddenly scared of the girl. Shikamaru shakes his head and picks up all the meat on the cooker, placing some on Kagami's plate and some on his.

"Kagami, I think you would like children." Choji pauses in his eating to speak to the girl. "You can talk about murder to them and they won't understand."

Shikamaru sighs heavily, his head falling to the table, "what a drag."

Kagami looks at Choji, realisation flashing in her eyes. She nods at him, her eyes hard in concentration.

"No, Kagami you can not just walk up to kids and talk to them." Shikamaru yanks down her mask and shoves food into her mouth before she can ask why.

The girl pouts a little but chews on her food anyway, staring down at her full plate. She grabs another piece of meat and eats it, not really caring that the three can see her face, they have the tendency to not look anyway.

"Choji, has your dad had any missions lately? Dad's only had file work and Mum hates him mulling around the house all day." Ino picks up some meat, blowing it lightly before eating it.

Choji just shakes his head, mouth full. All three of them sigh and lean backwards in their seats, not having anything to talk about.

"Woah ho! Shikamaru you're here!"

The booth turns to the door, where the living fathers of the booth walk into the shop. 

Drunk.

"What a drag," Shikamaru shakes his head as they walk over, Inoichi laughing loudly as Choza stumbles a little on the way.

The rest of the restaurant pay no mind, not being able to hear them over everyone else's antics.

"Wah, Ino and Choji! How are you?" Shikaku leans against the table as he smiles at everyone.

"Dad, you're drunk." Shikamaru shakes his head at the man.

"Of course I am, it's my day off."

Kagami almost laughs at this, but she decides to hold it in and pull her mask up.

"Oh? Kagami? Did you get the file?" Inoichi leans against his friend as he notices the girl sitting quietly next to Choji.

The girl nods to him. He smiles.

"Good, I don't particularly trust those two blokes. Anyway, we'll be off!" He grabs Shikaku and drags him to another table, almost falling over him as they sit down.

"Troublesome."

s.h.o.u.t.

Kagami walks along silently with her brother, both completely comfortable with no conversation. Kagami glances up at the sky, noticing large swarms of birds flying away from something. She traces their route, wondering if it is something she should actually worry about.

Her eyes land on the hospital, sparks of light visible from the roof. She sighs heavily and looks over to her brother, who is also looking at the situation, not impressed.

"We should probably do something about that." Kakashi takes off in a sprint, weaving between buildings and people alike.

Kagami glares at his back before following, jumping atop roofs to avoid as many people as possible. She can also see what's happening from here.

"Naruto and Sasuke." She calls down to her brother, who nods while leaping elegantly over a lost toddler. Kagami's eyes widen as she watches the scene unfold, "Sakura is running between them."

Kakashi's eyes widen and they both bolt forward, not bothering to go through the hospital and just rebounding up the front wall and over the wire fencing. Kagami kicks Sakura back, effectively winding the girl but saving her life in the process. She grabs Sasuke's wrist and swings it towards the ground, causing his body to follow and topple over itself. He lands on his back with a grunt, the Chidori dissipating. Kakashi just grabs Naruto's wrist and holds the boy back, his size being an advantage Kagami doesn't have.

Sakura stands up from across the roof, her eyes wild.

"Kakashi-sensei! Kagami!" The two don't answer, they just stare at the boys in front of them.

Kagami huffs and drops the boy's arm, stepping over him and walking over to Sakura. She checks for any injuries on the girl.

"Naruto, Sasuke, what were you thinking?"

Neither of the boys answer their sensei, both of them just glaring at each other from their places on the roof. Kagami grits her teeth.

"What were you going to think once you had murdered Sakura? Huh?"

'Kagami,' Yua warns the girl.

'They need to learn, Yua.'

'Well it doesn't seem to be working is it?'

"I want you to tell us," Kagami steps away from the girl and up to the two boys, "Exactly what caused this. . . Altercation."

s.h.o.u.t.

ooh, a slightly longer chapter.

question of the chapter!

who would you want on your team if you were in naruto?

~shadow