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Pieces
Part Two: Watching and Wondering
by katanashi
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"I don't really want to go away," complained Kaoru, his fangs making his pout all the more adorable.

"Why's that, Koganei?" Recca called over his shoulder as he hefted one of Yanagi's bags onto his back.

Kaoru looked down at the ground. "'Cause…I'll never see Raiha again, or Kurei, even if he did live, because I know what Mori-san would do if he did find him."

"And what's that?" Recca asked.

Kaoru looked uncomfortable. "Bad stuff. Trust me, Mori is one grisly guy. He likes blood almost as much as Kai's weapon did. Besides," he added, a faint trace of winsomeness in his voice, "I don't have anywhere to stay, and my parents got rid of me a long time ago…"

Yanagi hugged him. "It'll all be alright, Kaoru-kun," she said reassuringly. "You can live with Recca-kun and Kagero-san at Hanabishi-san's house."

"Sa, that's right, Koganei," Recca said with a grin, coming over after depositing the bags in the car.

"Honto?" Kaoru looked hopefully at Recca.

Recca squatted down on his heels so he was face to face with Kaoru and pulled his eye down to make his patented funny face. "Yeah, really. We can drive oyaji crazy together, and then he'll turn on that famous 'charm' of his," he added in a confidential whisper with a wink. "Trust me, you'll be glad you never had parents after you meet mine!"

Kaoru laughed and made his own face. "Ne, niichan, you need to make better faces! No wonder your tousan always gets the better of you!"

Recca suddenly noticed Yanagi's arms on Kaoru's shoulders.

"Why you--" Recca began chasing Kaoru around the parking lot. "I thought I told you not to touch my hime!"

"That wasn't you!" Kaoru yelled. "That was Mikagami-niichan! And anyway, I didn't hug Yanagi-neechan-- she hugged me!"

"Koganei, you get back here!"

"Make me! Nyah, nyah!"

"You little baka! Don't make me call out Setsuna!"

"Nadare would get mad at you for siccing him on a little guy like me!"

"Nadare's MY dragon, and on top of that, you have your Kougon Anki! Don't act like a defenseless twerp!"

"I never said I was!"

Fuuko shook her head. "Boys," she said, more amused than annoyed. She tossed her last bag into the trunk and clapped her hands together. "That's it for Fuuko-chan!"

"Amazing," remarked Domon. "You had at least five bags--"

Fuuko whonked him over the head before he had a chance to say anything further.

"Fuuukkoooo!!!" Domon protested, his eyes starting to water as a huge lump materialized on his head.

"Nani?" Fuuko asked, innocently enough.

"I was going to praise your ability to actually fit them all in so neatly!"

"Sure, sure," Fuuko said with a careless wave of her hand. "Whaaatever." With a sniffle, Domon headed back to the hotel for the last of the bags.

"I wonder where Mikagami-kun is," Kagero remarked. "He's usually an early riser, isn't he?"

"Mi-chan? Of course he is. He's never been late to school once; I swear he's perfect in every way."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was," Recca grumbled.

Yanagi coughed a bit uncomfortably. "Ano…where is Mikagami-sempai?" she asked.

Fuuko scratched her head. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him since the tournament ended yesterday," she said thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Kaoru added. "He didn't even go out to dinner with us."

"Well, you can't expect him to jump for joy after what happened to him," Kagero murmered quietly. The group grew silent as they recalled the revelations that had been unearthed during Mikagami's fight with Kai.

"I still can't believe what a heartless bastard Meguri Kyoza is," Fuuko half-snarled. "How dare he do that! Killing an innocent person just for the sake of his own glory! Did he ever think how it would affect Mi-chan?"

"Apparently not." Recca glanced towards Yanagi. "I somehow think that Mori Kouran and Meguri Kyoza belong in the same lot. And deserve the same fate."

Fuuko nodded. "Definetely."

"That's not for us to decide," Kagero said firmly. "I've been around four hundred years, children. I've seen people get what they deserve more times than not-- many more times. Eventually, everything comes back to haunt them. You'll see. Meguri Kyoza will not go unpunished, whether Mikagami takes revenge or not."

Kaoru made a face. "Somehow, I think Kurei-sama got punished too much for nothing," he commented quietly.

"Why's that?" Recca demanded. "He can torture and kidnap people, blame me for his life's problems, and what the bastard's been through can explain that?"

"That's not what I meant or said!" Kaoru denied vehemently. "What I mean is, everything just kinda went wrong for Kurei-sama. He just had to get adopted by Mori Kouran, he just had to fall for Kurenai, and Mori killed her! He's not a bad guy, really! And if he'd just not been brought up by Mori, he'd be different!" He glanced around at his silent circle of friends. "Honto! He'd be different!" he repeated, stamping his foot in a rare childish moment.

Recca broke the silence. "Nobody doubts that, Koganei," he told the younger Hokage softly. "And I guess a lot of this mess can be blamed by Mori Kouran. But you have to realize that a lot of this was Kurei's decisions too. He isn't a bad guy, but he has a sort of bad nature instinctively."

"Not really a bad nature," Kagero interjected. "Just really more of an active pessimist. And I'm not sure if his flame is truly cursed, but if it is, then it may have affected how his life turned out."

"Since when have Kurei and Mi-chan belonged in the same sentence?" Fuuko asked impatiently. "We're leaving for home in an hour, and Mi-chan had better haul his own bags out to the car, otherwise he's staying here with Mori!"

Recca shuddered. "I think just the last reason will be enough to send him running back to his house without a single stop."

"Probably all of us," Kagero admitted ruefully. "That man is inhuman sometimes, and what he does in his house makes me nervous."

"And you're immortal, too," Fuuko pointed out. She thought about it. "Hey, why don't you just teach him that Time Manipulation spell if all he wants is eternal life?"

"Fuuko!" Recca exclaimed, aghast. "You can't be serious!"

"Do you know you just said?!" Kaoru yelped. "Mori Kouran is the LAST person you want to have around forever!"

"Not a bad idea," Kagero allowed.

Recca fell over, completely flabbergasted. "Kaachan!"

Kagero chuckled. "I was joking, Recca."

"Thank goodness," Kaoru declared, taking a deep breath. "I think the world will be better without Mori Kouran."

"Or Meguri Kyoza," Fuuko added darkly.

Kaoru looked hopeful. "Maybe Mikagami-niichan just needed some time for himself," he suggested. "I mean, Kurei-sama, when Kurenai-sama first died--"

"Kaoru, those are two completely different situations with two completely different people," Kagero said gently. "Kurei is even more emotionless than Mikagami sometimes; they'd react differently in almost any situation. Granted, they may both control themselves to an almost inhuman extent, but they are different. I remember Kurei; he wasn't a terrible child, but Reina raised him in a terrible way. She made him think the world revolved around him, when in truth, if he was to be the Hokage leader, he would have to adjust to the needs of the people he led."

"None of this is helping Mi-chan," Fuuko remarked. "Forget Kurei; that chapter is over and done with-- hopefully," she added as an afterthought.

"Koganei's probably right," Recca put in. "He's just needing some time for himself. I mean, wouldn't you have wanted to just spend some time to yourself after something as traumatizing as what Mikagami has been through?"

"I'm not sure about that." Kagero's eyes clouded with old memories. "His only purpose in his life was to avenge his sister's death. Swordsmanship, Hokage-- everything he ever did was fueled by that one motivation. And now, it's like his life is over."

"Kagero-san, how would you know this?" Yanagi asked.

A winsome smile crossed her face. "I, too, lost my life. When I rose the next day after the attack, I found not a live soul that belonged to the Hokage, not a single one. Every person in the clan had been killed. As I went on with my life-- if it could be called a life-- it was difficult not become immersed in the past instead of looking into the future. When the past has been terrible to you, it's almost impossible to cast its weight away."

"So you're saying that Mikagami thinks he's a worthless piece of crap now?" Recca looked a bit skeptical. "That doesn't sound like him. How can he feel worthless with all that's going for him?"

Kagero decided, wisely, to refrain from entering into an argument with her son. She knew that he'd inherited his father's stubborness, and frankly that was something that she just didn't want to deal with. Besides, Recca just couldn't see things the way Mikagami was seeing them right now. Kukai had been right; the two were completely different.

"He wouldn't be himself anyway," Kaoru reasoned. "I bet none of us would be ourselves if we just got a shocker like that."

Fuuko stamped her foot, trying to get a wedge of mud off her shoe. "Like I said before, none of this is helping him," she remarked crossly. "Let's go up and talk to him, or something. He's got to break himself out of this gunk."

"Are you sure you should be the one doing that?" Recca said suddenly.

Fuuko glanced back, surprised. "We're his friends. We should do that."

"Well, the way you've been, you wouldn't be helping," Recca said flatly. He ducked a swipe. "I'm just trying to be honest, really!"

"Really." Fuuko looked skeptical-- and angry. "Why?"

"You've been so touchy about Mikagami and Meguri, I was really afraid you go and beat up Meguri yourself." Recca looked off to the side with a sigh. "Look, Fuuko, we all don't agree with what Mikagami's master did, but you're not going to help things by going off half-cocked all the time, and Mikagami's not the type to appreciate it either. I learned that yesterday."

"Eh?" Fuuko's eyebrow arched.

"Kurei, when he referenced to Joker slashing Saicho…"

"Joker was supposed to kill me," Kaoru whispered. "It's my fault that Saicho got put into the hospital." Kagero put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

Recca tossed a concerned look at the youngest Hokage before continuing. "Well, anyway, when Kurei referred to Koganei as-- trash," he spoke the words reluctantly, but Kaoru didn't flinch. "I got really mad. I mean, really, really mad. I was ready to go charge him, kill him, the whole deal. But old Kokuu held me back and made me see things the way they were. Kurei had said all those things deliberately to make me angry, because that was what he wanted. He intentionally tried to provoke me."

"I remember now. But you're going to have a hard time convincing me that Meguri Kyoza killed Mikagami Mifuyu just to set me off." Fuuko looked even more skeptical.

Recca rolled his eyes. "I'd be very scared if that was the case. No, what I'm trying to say is, you've got to be in control to make the situation turn out the way you want it. Look at the fights between Kurei and I. Last night, we were both out of control. But the first time we met, he was in complete control, while I was a bit above insanity. Look who had the advantage there. I got out of there only because of the Hachiryu."

"So, you're saying that I should control myself better," Fuuko said slowly.

Recca nodded. "It's the next step to becoming better, Fuuko."

The girl shrugged. "I'll need to become better anyway. Worth a shot." Especially since the Fuujin's dead now, she thought with a pang.

Recca nodded. "Alright…now, let's go see Mikagami. We can catch Domon on the way."

"He's coming this way right now," Fuuko observed. "Why don't we just wait for him?"

Recca shrugged. "Sure."

Within a minute, they had explained everything to the biggest Hokage, including their take on the current situation and what they planned to do about it. Domon, who didn't seem too fond of Mikagami in the first place, nevertheless agreed wholeheartedly that they were obligated to do it. "And even if we didn't have to, it wouldn't be right not to," he'd pointed out.

"Sometimes Domon really surprises me," Recca told Fuuko quietly as they tromped into the hotel. Domon was in front of them, being needled by Koganei on another random issue.

"Me too," Fuuko confided. "We've all learned so much about each other. I mean, who would have guessed that Kaoru would become our fifth member, or that Yanagi has some sort of a backbone?" The important words being 'some sort', of course, she added mentally.

"Yeah," Recca agreed. "But you notice that Mikagami is the one person that we know nothing about, other than the fact that his sister died by Meguri Kyoza's hand?" He looked thoughtful. "I wonder what we're going to find out now."

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Well, I had aimed for finishing the story, but I guess there's one more installment to take place.

Comments and feedback always appreciated ^^.
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