CHAPTER EIGHT: LANGUAGE BARRIER

She stared up dumbly at the gray-haired man. He looked back at her with equal curiosity.

Slowly, she raised a tentative hand until it was right in front of the masked man's face.

What the hell is she trying to do??? wondered Naruto. Next to him, Sasuke and Sakura looked equally puzzled.

The girl stared blankly at Kakashi for a few more moments, her hand still hovering uncertainly in front of his face.

Then, without warning, she pinched the Jounin's cheek.

And pulled.

And grabbed his other cloth-covered cheek with her other hand and began to stretch Kakashi's face in various directions, distorting it into several grotesque shapes.

There was a loud clunk as Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura's jaws hit the floor.

Staring into his crystal ball, the normally unfazable leader of Konohagakure begun to get worried. The suishyoudama showed him a view of whatever area he wished to see within a given radius depending on the viewer's chakra, which in his case, included practically the entire village. By focusing on a particular person or group of persons, he could also find out where they were.

However, search as he might, he was unable to find Kakashi's team 7 anywhere. This meant that either they had traveled beyond the outskirts of the village, or had got seperated, or were dead. Since the mountains of Konoha were within his viewing range, logically speaking, he should have been able to locate them right away, but he was unable to do so. Individually looking for each member of Team 7 had also yielded no results.

Bushy-gray eyebrows knitted together in concern. Granted, there were some areas in Konoha that were protected by high-level jutsus from scrying, but the search couldn't have taken Kakashi and his students near any of them.

Then again, Team 7 was well known for getting into troublesome sitauations from the most simple-seeming tasks. The last time he'd asked them to do some simple escorting duty of an old man to the Country of Wave, they had gotten themselves tangled up in a battle against two extremely dangerous, Jounin-level missing-nins from Mist and one evil political boss Gatou, not to mention the insane amount of wicked minions Gatou controlled. Who knew what a missing-book search would lead them to? A mysterious portal to another world?

He snorted at his own ludicrous ideas. Hmph, I guess I really am getting old... he thought to himself. Well...Kakashi is still young, I'll let him deal with whatever trouble his students stirred up this time, he decided. Though he couldn't shake of a nagging worry that something didn't feel quite right, he was the leader of Konoha and had the entire village to look after, not just Kakashi and his students. Sighing, he turned back to the suishyoudama and began viewing another part of the village.

After she had finally got her voice back and made sure that the four people she found inside the Community Laundry Center were actual flesh-and-blood human beings and not illusions (she had squished each of their faces like play-dough herself to make sure), she soon ran across another obstacle.

"So, uh...." Kakashi said, rubbing his sore cheek. "Are you alright?"

"Huh? I'm fine," she said automatically. She blinked in surprise as they looked at her with puzzled faces.

"Saki hodo warukatta na...!@#^$001mph(*&%...." Kakashi tried again and went on to mumble something else she didn't quite understand.

Then, it suddenly hit her and she understood what he was saying. He had said, "Sorry about that earlier, my subordinates can get a little hot-headed sometimes." The girl smacked herself on the head. DUH!! They're speaking to me in Japanese, or whatever that language is called in their world, and I'm replying in English!! Hoo boy.....what a mess this is... she thought to herself. Opening her mouth to reply, she suddenly realized with a shock that she couldn't think up a single word to say. She'd been studying the language for some time now and was quite proficient in it, but somehow in this crucial instant she had managed to forget, or get shocked into forgetting, almost everything she'd learned so far. Oh god. Of all the times this could happen....

Racking up all the knowledge of Japanese she could remember, she tried to think of a suitable reply. "Uhhm...su...sumimasen........eh, eehh...ocha o irimasuka?"

"Uhhm...ex...excuse me........um, uumm...would you like some tea?" the girl asked.

WHAAAAAAA??! thought Naruto. If he was puzzled at the girl's odd actions before, now he was downright baffled, and if the looks on Sakura and Sasuke's faces were any clue, they were feeling the same as he was. What the hell is wrong with this girl?? She just recovered from a near-death experience, she pinches us all on the cheek, we're trying to ask her if she's okay and she's asking us if we want tea?? His face was screwed up in confusion as he turned to his sensei. "Anosa, anosa...Kakashi sensei!" Naruto interjected.

Kakashi turned to look at him. "What is it?"

Naruto squatted next to Kakashi and whispered into his teacher's ear. "We should try to get away while we can...there's somethin' weird about that girl..."

"Ahhhh! Chigau chigau!!" the girl exclaimed suddenly, burying her face in her hands. They turned to look at her, and watched as she took several deep breaths, then tilted her head to the side, apparently thinking. Finally, after a long period of silence, she struggled out a few more words. "Um...this place...talk...bad....my house, come, talk? Please?"

Sasuke sweatdropped. "Is she trying to get us to go to her house?"

Kakashi shrugged lightly. "It would appear so..."

His students turned to look at him expectantly, waiting for him to give his decision.

The Konoha Jounin eyed his students, then looked the girl, considering. They needed a place to stay for the night, and someone to ask information from also. Before, he hadn't really considered the possibility that the place they had been transported to was so far away that the people spoke a completely different language, but the girl's strange tongue forcibly reminded him of that possiblity. At any rate, it didn't seem like they would be able to find shelter and information together anytime soon. He scratched his head awkwardly. "Well...I guess there's no harm to it..." he said, looking at the girl. She understood, and picking up the basket she dropped earlier, she led them towards the exit.

However, at the doorway she suddenly stopped, as if she suddenly remembered something. Turning to them, she tried to say something, then promptly gave up and with a few large sweeping gestures bade them wait. They watched as she walked back to the fallen security guard, a frown on her face.

The girl bit her bottom lip in thought, trying to decide what to do with the big, burly, unconcious man lying on the floor. Dragging him out wasn't an option, people would see him and wonder. She considered waking him up and telling him a lie, but she doubted that would work either. Glancing around to see if there were anything that might be of use, she spotted a folded-up sign in a corner along with a mop. Smiling now, she grabbed the mop, which was still wet, and hurriedly mopped the floor around the KO'd security guard, making sure to be especially sloppy around the area of the security guard's feet. That done, she took the sign that was with the mop and placed it just besides the security guard. The sign, unfolded, read: "CAUTION! WET FLOOR".

Sasuke observed this all with a snort. Though he couldn't read the words on the sign, there was a picture on it that was clue enough to what the sign was for. So. When the guard wakes up and sees no one else around, he'll just take in the obvious, put two and two together, and blame himself for his own stupidity. The boy had to admit, the girl was pretty ingenious.

That done, the girl then walked to the wall where the kunai was still embedded in. Around the point of impact there were several cracks in the wall. Eyeing it warily, she grabbed hold of it with two hands and with some difficulty managed to tug it out. There was nothing that could be done about the cracks; she just hoped that people would make up their own reasons as to how that happened. She handed the kunai handle first back to Sasuke, who took it back without saying a word. Shrugging, she turned and with a wave of her hand motioned for them to follow.







A/N: BWA HAHAHAHA! T-T I don't care if no one is reading this, I've fallen off the cliff of insanity and there's no coming back now.
*Suishyoudama: suishyou = crystal + -dama = ball, so, put together it equals crystal ball. (Hopefully.)
*Saki hodo warukatta na- Sorry about earlier.
*Ocha o irimasuka - Would you like some tea?
*Chigau - wrong!