Standard disclaimer- Iruka, Shino, Ino, Hinata, Kiba, Neji, Ten-ten, Shikamaru, Temari, Kankurou, Gaara, Naruto, and Sakura are in no way on any plane of existence mine.
Chocho, Tonbo, Kirosuke, Aki, Podo, Ki, Soba, and Hikari however… are mine.
This is something I've been mulling around in my head for a few days, took about a week maybe to write it, edit it and do some touch up work. The story is very centered on Kirosuke.
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Umuino Iruka had awoken with a sort of lingering dread in the pit of his stomach. But being a man of strong will and logic he tried to stop this seemingly groundless dread. It was as he brushed his teeth and cooked breakfast (multi-tasking) that he happened to glance at his calendar and did a double take. Of course! Today was the day the new school season started, a quick glance at the clock told him he had exactly thirty three minutes to get ready.
Thirty two minutes and forty five seconds later Iruka entered a classroom filled with new faces.
"Alright! Everyone line up for roll call and your seating assignments!" With much half hearted muttering the kids got into a rather sloppy line.
The first two names on the list almost made him smirk.
"Aburame Chocho."
A girl with long, blonde, slightly frizzy hair, a baggy low collared coat, and half moon sunglasses that showed off her piercing ice blue eyes raised her hand. Iruka nodded towards a desk.
"Aburame Tonbo."
A blue eyed, sunglasses less version of Shino raised his hand. Again Iruka nodded towards a desk and continued down the list until he got to another last name he recognized. So far it looked like an easy class this year…
"YOU BASTARD I'LL KILL YOU!" A girl with shaggy blackish blueish hair screamed and leapt upon a boy who looked like a taller, short haired version of the young Neji. The girl proceeded to let out a stream of curses that would make the most spartan of sailors gape and blush.
"Hey! HEY!" He pulled the girl off of the boy and held her aloft by her furry coat hood. Iruka looked calmly at the list. "Hyuuga Aki?" The boy stood, brushed himself off and nodded. "Your seat's over there." Iruka was about to continue with the list until a small animal chomped down on his hand forcing him to drop the girl. He looked irritably at the bite marks then diverted his attention back to the list and sighed in a rather annoyed manner. "Inuzuka Kirosuke I take it." The shaggy haired girl turned around, her eyes closed and a big, proud, smile on her face. She had two horizontal red stripes on her right cheek, a single red one on her left.
"Yeah an this is Podo-chan." The girl held up a black cat with several white spots on its paws and bright green eyes.
Aren't Inuzuka's supposed to have dogs…?
She set the cat on her shoulder and Iruka was startled but not surprised to see that the girl looked like a miniature, shaggy haired version of Hinata.
"Take your seat." Iruka said pointing to the chair next to Aki.
"I have to sit next to that ass goblin?" Obviously Kirosuke got her fathers personality.
"Just siddown." Iruka said in an aggravated voice; he was already getting a headache and for the first time in a long time he had thoughts of 'I'm-to-old-for-this'. Muttering darkly Kirosuke sat down next to Aki, shooting the boy a dirty look before turning away from him with a 'humph'. He could feel the headache grow in size as he proceeded down the list.
Several names down he came upon another familiarity.
"Nara Tsuki."
"Ne." The voice sounded rather annoyed and bored. The girl had dark blonde hair tied into four ponytails, three silver hoops in her left ear and four in her right one. Her expression was somewhere between 'get-me-the-hell-out-of-here' and 'I-think-I'll-start-some-chaos'. An odd mixture indeed. He pointed to a desk and continued down the list.
All was well until he got to the last two names… a lump rose in his throat, his blood ran cold, his heart palpitated at an unnatural pace against his ribs and he felt the headache upgrade to a full scale migraine.
"U-uzumaki Ki…?" A boy with long, spiky, dark blonde hair that had a slight pink glint to it grinned at him looking exactly like his father aside from the longer hair and bright green eyes. "Uzumaki… Soba?" The second boy had shorter, spiky blonde hair with a pinkish sheen and looked even more like his father; the only difference was the hair color, the eyes and his forehead was just a bit too big. He inhaled sharply and pointed to the last two desks.
A half Hyuuga half Inuzuka, two Uzumaki's and a rather mischievous looking Nara…
It was going to be a loooooong year.
There were several outbursts where Kirosuke would start screaming obscenities at Aki; Iruka had separated them by a couple desks. Several more outbursts where she would simply tackle him and they'd wrestle and knock stuff over; he'd separated them by a couple more desks. Then there was one time when Kirosuke kicked her desk at Aki who did the Kaiten knocking away the flying desk as well as several others, then both of them had attacked each other using the gentle fist style. Iruka had placed Aki in Tonbo's spot and Kirosuke in Soba's spot so that the two second cousins were on the completely opposite sides of the room.
Needless to say he was exceptionally glad for the end of the day.
"Shut up butt pirate my momma's way greater then your dad could ever be!" The white eyed Inuzuka screamed bearing her teeth at the boy a few feet away from her. They stood outside of the school in front of a raggedy looking swing with the whole class watching them.
"If that's true then why is Hiashi-sama passing the title of leader over to Hanabi-sama?" His voice wasn't snobby as some kids at the age of twelve would be when throwing back insults, he actually had a rather cool, and calm air about him.
She screamed with rage and leapt at him only to be knocked away, narrowly missing the kids who still crowded around to watch their fight.
"Hn. Stupid dog girl… Ow." Aki looked down to see a cat with her teeth imbedded in his foot.
Kirosuke leapt at him snarling like a rabid animal, her clawed hands flashed with chakra as she attacked him with a half gentle fist style half quadruped no justu. It was a very odd thing to observe, to say the least. She slashed his stomach with one clawed hand and at his face with the other.
"Very sloppy, dog girl." Kirosuke was knocked down by the one open palm to her chest then pinned to the ground by a series of well aimed shuriken and kunai. "Hn. Stupid dog." He turned on his heel and walked off towards the Hyuuga manor.
"Get back here you prick! We're not done! I'll still kick your ass!" She screamed at his retreating back as the crowd dispersed.
"You're a real pain in the ass." Tsuki said plucking the pointed objects out of the fringe of Kiro's coat. "But you're not stupid. Honestly… he's the idiot who kept calling you 'dog girl' when it's obvious your more of a cat girl." She said with a smirk and helped her friend to her feet.
"Yeah…"
"It's obvious…"
"He doesn't know…"
"What he's talking about." Soba and Ki said in tandem, approaching their friends with matching grins. Kirosuke took in a long calming breath and put on a huge grin.
"Yeah… that dumb ass probably doesn't even know the difference between a dog an a cat. Come on Podo-chan." The cat leapt onto Kirosuke's shoulder.
"Training at your house today right Tsuki-chan?" Ki asked hopefully
"Yeah Tsuki-chan, your house?" The other Uzumaki twin asked in that odd way they tended to speak in.
"Yeah…" The Nara girl sighed in an annoyed manner but couldn't hold back a grin. "…an first one there gets to pick who fights who!" In a flurry of movement the four kids were scrambling over each other and running full force towards Tsuki's residence. They sped through the town, Kirosuke in the very front followed closely by Tsuki who was followed by both Soba and Ki. The pack of kids blazed trails of dust through the middle of the city and Kiro recognized a familiar body sitting at the ramen bar.
"HimisterNaruto-san!" Kiro yelled as she passed. The blonde man spun around to see who had spoken nearly hitting Tsuki in the process.
"Hello Uzumaki-san." The Nara girl said dodging him. Naruto waved.
"Hi dad." Both Soba and Ki said as they ran past.
"Hey where are you two going!" He yelled after his sons.
"Tsuki-chan's house!" They hollered out not looking back.
"Be back in time for- oh what ever." Was the extent of Mr. Uzumaki's parenting skill.
"IwinIwinIwin!" Kirosuke cried out still running at a breakneck speed through the Nara household, barely having time to open doors as she went, and unable to stop. Tsuki lived with her parents, well mostly her dad but he didn't care what they did and her mom wasn't home very much; so the running was okay until she opened the door to the dining room, saw a blur of color, and slammed face first into a wall. Tsuki managed to skid to a halt, but Soba and Ki had yet to realize there was in fact a wall and slammed into it alongside Kirosuke.
"O-oji-san...?" Tsuki asked as the wall melted to reveal Gaara, Kankurou and Temari sitting around the table.
"Hey." Kankurou said waving at his niece but still watching the girl and two boys who were rubbing their noses.
"Hey Gaa-er…" Ki began.
"Kazekage-sama." Soba ended with a bow, and then punched his brother, who also bowed. Gaara hid mild amusement and nodded once to his friend's offspring.
"Tsuki…" Temari began, her left eyebrow twitching slightly. "Why were you four running through my house screaming like rabid animals?"
"Because I thought you were still on your mission." Well at least she was honest, even if she did get her fathers tact.
"Does your father let you run around the house like that?"
The dark blonde kunoichi looked down at her feet and mumbled.
"It was nice seeing you again Temari-san…" Kirosuke began as she shoved Soba and Ki back through the door they'd 'entered'. "…You too Kankurou-san… Kazekage-sama…" She grabbed Tsuki by the collar. "…and we'd really love to stay but you see…" Temari shot the girl a very scary glare. "…wegottagotrainbyehavefun!" And the door slid shut with a loud 'snap'. It sure as hell wasn't graceful but that Inuzuka girl most certainly knew how to talk her way out of things. Temari closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead seriously contemplating why she just didn't lock all the doors in the house when she was home.
"Those kids…" She muttered.
"You know… Tsuki reminds me of you when you were her age." Gaara said rather quietly and sipped his tea.
"Ha ha… your mom's scary ne?" Kiro asked smacking Tsuki on the back in a good natured manner. The response was a rather irritable mutter as the four of them wandered out the back door to the wide open area (and hill) behind the Nara household. "I won so I pick… Soba!" She said pointing to one of the Uzumaki boys.
"I'm Ki." He said in an almost indignant manner.
"No your not." Kirosuke said placing her hands on her hips.
"How'd you know?" 'Ki' asked in disbelief.
"You just told her you stupid ass." Tsuki said grabbing the real Ki's collar and dragging him aside as Soba and Kirosuke got into fighting stances.
"Soba!" Ki yelled from the sideline. "Don't go easy on Kirosuke just because she's a girl okay?"
"Right." Soba smirked arrogantly as several clones popped up on either side of him. Kiro's arms arched, her hands were held in place firmly but relaxed.
"Kiro." Tsuki yelled, though with far less enthusiasm then Ki. "Don't go easy on him just because he's an idiot." Kiro laughed and nodded.
"BEGIN!" Ki yelled bouncing in his spot impatiently.
To say she sucked at gentle fist style would be like saying Kirigakure gets a bit damp during the monsoon season. Vast understatement. But she was, as one of her less affectionate Aunts had put it 'a resourceful little shit'. Sure her gentle fist style was really lacking… but she was not going to lose to Soba.
The shadow clones leapt at her with gusto and she easily took them out with the few swipes and one rather acrobatic rolling kick. But when she hit what she thought was the real Soba and it turned into a puff of smoke… she got a bit nervous. Suddenly a hand wrapped around her ankle from below.
"AAAAAAIIIIIIIIH! Zombie!" Followed by a yelp from underground as Podo-chan sank her sharp little teeth into the protruding hand, freeing Kirosuke to grab Podo-chan and bound backwards. Soba emerged from the ground and quickly got into a fighting stance as Kirosuke finally landed. The cat climbed onto the girl's back and Kirosuke hunched down. Winning was more important than practicing gentle fist on a moving target. Perhaps it had something to do with her earlier defeat by Aki or maybe it was her natural drive to be the best, to be the alpha. Pack mentality.
"Merow!" Which translated roughly into 'Human effect ninpou'.
"Beast effect ninpou!" There was a puff of smoke and where Podo-chan once stood was a duplicate of Kirosuke. Both Kiro's hissed and launched themselves at Soba who quickly turned into multiples and scattered. Kiro landed first and swiftly launched herself at the nearest two Soba's who barely managed to dodge her claws. Podo-Kiro landed and was immediately tackled by two Soba's who held her down as a third quickly approached and slammed a fist into her stomach. The cat let out a whimper and turned back into Podo-chan. All five Soba's surrounded Kiro as she remained in a slight crouch on the ground, growling deep in her throat. Three of the Soba's behind her moved but disappeared into puffs of smoke at a round house kick, slash and head butt. One of the shadow clones tackled her from behind only to clutch her massive furred coat. With the jab of her hand the clone disappeared and her coat fluttered to the ground.
The only remaining Soba's gaze shifted from the cloth to the girl in the black t-shirt that ended just below her belly button, hands in a gentle fist style with mesh sleeves fluttering in the slight wind. Pale eyes flashed and a rather feral grin came to her face.
Okay… now he was kind of scared.
"EEARAH!" She screamed abandoning the stance and flying at him like a rabid dog. Her nails slashed at his face, missed, hit the ground as a pivot to drill her foot into the Uzumaki's stomach. She swung her foot back to the ground, twisted and launched herself upon him like a wolf would on a deer.
"ONE!" Ki began as Kirosuke pinned Soba's arms above his head.
"Two." Tsuki said rubbing her ear and glaring at Ki.
"THREEEEEE!" Ki squealed jumping up and down, much to Tsuki's annoyance.
"Ha ha! You'll have to try harder to defeat the great Inuzuka prodigy!" Kirosuke failed to notice Tsuki shaking with silent laughter at this statement. She did however notice the figure leaning against a tree at the edge of the Nara property. "Eh… I gotta go kay? See you guys tomorrow!" Kirosuke said grabbing her coat and running towards the person with Podo-chan on her heels. "Oba-san!" She said embracing Hanabi with a grin.
"I heard about your little fight with Aki after school." Hanabi said as they entered the forest heading towards a training ground.
"Oh…"
"I also heard that it was because he said some things about your mother."
"Yeah…" Kiro's Aunt broke into a small soft smile.
"Come on let's go." Hanabi said tousling the young girl's shaggy mop of hair.
"Oba-san Oba-san is it true that Ojii-san is going to make you head of the Hyuuga's?" She asked looking up at her aunt while holding Podo-chan against her chest. Hanabi was mildly startled but smiled and nodded her head once.
"I suppose you heard that from Aki?" The girl nodded furiously. Hanabi sighed. "The information wasn't supposed to be known until next week." She muttered as they emerged from the trees into one of the many clearings for training. "I heard about what you did when you fought Aki… combing gentle fist with that quadruped style. Very impressive." Hanabi said taking a gentle fist fighting stance as Kirosuke grinned sheepishly and discarded her coat. Aside from one or two glimpses Hanabi had never actually seen the interesting, yet highly mocked, quadruped jutsu in full effect.
"Oh you know how it is. I just work with what I have. I got very lucky you know." She said mimicking Hanabi's stance.
"How so? Turn your foot in a bit more." She asked slowly going through some motions.
"Well Hikari has one white eye and one brown one. I think it's really cool but he's so shy about it! Plus it seems to scare everybody in the house more then mine an momma's eyes." Kiro did as she was told and mimicked her aunt's motions with ease. "But he can only see a hundred and eighty degrees around him." She added, still following her aunt's movements as she sped up.
"But he can see chakra lines can't he? Relax your wrist."
"Oh yeah! He's really good at that. It's weird… I fought with him once he didn't even use his Byakugan. Hikari knows where my chakra points are by memory or something... it really shocked momma." She said relaxing her wrist and flowing through the motions. Hanabi's eyebrow arched.
"Really now? Keep your elbows tucked in. Alright… let's see your skill." Kiro resituated herself and looked at her aunt with a half grin as the veins around her eyes bulged grotesquely. Hanabi's veins pulsed similarly to her niece and the two of them clashed.
Kirosuke aimed for the point on Hanabi's wrist, her ring finger grazed the point but it didn't do anything and Hanabi swatted her arm away.
"Come on Kiro. I know you have the speed and I know you know the moves. Hit me." With a determined huff she got back to her feet and moved in for another shot, this time aiming for her torso. 'Hit me' didn't actually mean to punch her, but the hit the chakra coils. But regardless of what was meant Hanabi evaded the thrust and easily knocked the child aside. This was going nowhere. "Kiro what do I have to do to get you to hit me? You have the skill why are you hesitating?" Kirosuke opened her mouth, then closed it and stood up.
"It just... I dunno… I'm really bad at stemming the chakra flow… I dunno, I can increase it without even thinking about it really" She muttered. The was a moment of pause, then something seemed to dawn on Hanabi.
"Your nails." The girl held up her hands showing her aunt the long pointed claw like nails that adorned her fingers. "Stemming the flow uses your finger tip, where as increasing it you use the pad of your finger." Hanabi rubbed her thumb over the point of Kiro's index nail. "When you go in for the hit you need to force the chakra out of your nail points... of course that will take a while to master…" Hanabi paused. It would take the girl a while to get her timing down… but it was do-able.
"Will you teach me Oba-san?" Kiro asked as Hanabi finished examining her nails.
"But of course… this will be like an advanced form of your lessons." Kiro blinked a couple times, and grinned.
"Alright! When do we start?" Putting on a serious face Hanabi scratched her chin.
"Well… I guess right now."
It was about dusk when Hanabi finally halted their training. Kiro couldn't help but wince as she put her coat back on and the fabric grated against one of the little bruise marks over her chakra lines. She was exhausted… but happy. It had taken several hours but she'd been able to tap the chakra points on her aunt's arm and decrease the flow, even if it was only a little bit.
At first it had been very difficult… she barely had the patience to summon, and keep the right amount of chakra in her finger nails. That wasn't the hardest part, just the most frustrating, the hardest part was letting the chakra from her finger nails flow onto the chakra lines and constrict them. It had taken around two and a half hours but she finally had gotten the hang of it and as she shuffled her feet down the pathway the young Inuzuka couldn't help but grin at her progress.
"Hey Podo-chan… I have a really good idea for our next training session… you could use your human effect ninpou and I could teach you how to use the gentle fist style."
"Merow… mew mew meowaru mew meow." Which roughly translated means 'In theory that is a good plan but you forget… I do not have the Byakugen so I would not know where to tap.'
"Oh yeah… I forgot about that…"
The rest of their walk home was silent, until they reached the Inuzuka clan house. Loud vacuous laughter, shouts, a few snarls and barking reached her ears and Kirosuke was tackled by a herd of little boys around six-ish and their puppies; much to Podo-chan's dismay. Despite the pain of having five small children grabbing at her arms and hitting her bruised chakra points Kiro still managed to smile and laugh.
"Alrightalrightalright! Get the hell off me." Obediently the little kids abandoned scaling her like a jungle gym and stood around her in a circle, wide eyed and expectant. For some reason the little kids just loved her.
"We heard you an one of the Hyuuga guys got into a fight!"
"Didja kick his ass!"
"Did he have milk colored eyes like you?"
"Whad he say to you whad he say!"
Kirosuke groaned and rubbed one sore palm against her forehead. How the hell did news travel so frickin fast?
"Come on Podo-chan…" She said pushing past the young boys, the cat hissing at the dogs as they moved by. As Kiro neared the entrance to the house she saw a boy with short shaggy blue-ish black hair push the door open slightly so that only half of his body was outside. A small smile came to Kiro's lips and her eyes softened at the sight of one light brown eye gazing at her. She stopped right in front of the door and for a few moments neither of them budged. Slowly the door slid open and out stepped a boy with one brown eye and one white eye; Kiro embraced the short boy gently. "It's nice to see your feeling better Hi-chan."
"…" Hikari smiled at her and they both entered the house.
"Did you hear about…?" He nodded, the small smile disappeared. "Does momma know?" He nodded again. She took in a bracing breath but smiled. "You should probably get back to bed Hi-chan… it's only been two days since you got pneumonia an momma probably won't like it if your out of bed so soon." The ten year old nodded obediently and turned down a hallway towards his room. "Momma?" She called cautiously entering the kitchen.
"She's at the hospital." A small 'eep' escaped her lips and she turned around veeeeeery slowly to face her father; who looked non to amused.
"H-hey papa." Kiro said; a nervous smile quickly died on her lips as his eyebrow arched.
"I heard about what happened at school." Kiba said crossing his arms.
"Very few people haven't." She muttered then winced under his harsh gaze.
"What have we told you about picking fights with Hyuugas?"
"Don't." Was her lovely response. His eyebrow twitched and she looked down at her feet guiltily.
"I also heard…" His tone got lighter and she looked up. "That you were defending your honor." He was grinning at now her. She snickered scratching the back of her head.
"Well what the hell do you have if ya don't got honor?" He chuckled and tousled her hair.
"A true Inuzuka. But…" His tone lost the lightness. "No more starting fights with Aki."
"Okay…" She said blushing but still grinning. "Hey papa… can we train after dinner?"
"Ah no… your mother and I are going to meet some old friends for dinner." He tousled her hair again. "I gotta go pick her up now in fact…"
"And I can't come." She said in a falsely miserable tone.
"What a smart girl you are." He tousled her hair a third time and grinned. "You stay here and take care of Hikari okay? Besides Chocho and Tonbo aren't going to be there so you'd just be bored."
"Yeah yeah…" Kiro muttered as she watched her father leave.
"Don't wait up!" He said turning around and waving.
"Yeah yeah…"
"You would be bored." And he disappeared down the hallway. Muttering dejectedly she grabbed several bags of chips and two grape pops (or sodas depending on where you live) and headed towards Hikari's room. Without knocking or any other sort of warning that she was coming in Kiro opened the door loudly with her foot.
"Movie time Hi-chan!" The little boy looked up from the circular hole in the floor where a mattress, a cluster of blankets and pillows served as his bed. Aside from a dresser, bookcase, and T.V the room was empty. He smiled at his sister and caught the can of pop (soda) as she 'fwumped' down next to him on the bed. "So what're we watching tonight?" Hikari crawled to the edge of the mass of fluff and blankets and hit the 'play' button on the VCR.
It was an old black and white comedy, so old that the actors didn't have voices and when something important came around their lips would start moving, then a card screen would be next and it would have what they said written on it. Very old indeed.
The movie was short and relatively entertaining but that didn't stop Kirosuke from being restless. "Hi-chan Hi-chan!" She practically yelled bouncing up and down on her butt. "Come on… come on! Let's go see Soba-chan and Ki-chan! Momma and Papa won't be back until later and I bet, I bet Naruto-san and Sakura-san are out with everybody else, so idiots one and two are home alone! Come on!" Hikari's eyes lit up and he nodded fervently, Soba and Ki were like older brothers to him. "Alright lets go!" She leapt up in a triumphant manner and was about to bolt down the hallway when she was stopped by a tugging on her coat sleeve. "Eh? What Hikari?" Communicating with a person who didn't talk wasn't an easy task, neither was licking your elbow that didn't stop Kiro from trying. But she was good at one of those things. "Are you worried about getting sick again?" He shook his head. "Are you worried about getting caught?" Again with the head shake. "Hmmm…" She ran her thumb over her bottom lip in thought.
What would Hikari want…? AH HA! I know!
"Piggy back ride!" She called out in triumph. His small smile was in place and in a flash the small boy leapt onto her back. "Come on Podo-chan!" She called back to the cat, who was eating the rest of their chips but did, reluctantly, follow them.
Hikari didn't have a dog, or a cat or any animal for that matter. Despite having a sweet disposition animals just seemed to not like him. Maybe it was because he was usually sick, maybe it was because he didn't talk, ever, maybe it was his eyes or maybe it was because Hikari always smelt very faintly of blood. But Kiro wasn't the type of person to dwell on such things so she didn't. Instead the child focused her energy on climbing out of his bedroom window with out cracking his head open on the pane. Hikari's room was located on the third floor somewhat in the back of the house nearer to the city then any other room; which made jumping from rooftop to crowded rooftop as fast as she could easier.
Like a lumpy shadow Kiro leapt, climbed, hopped, ran, and damn near fell off of rooftops, light poles, business signs, window ledges and fire escapes until they finally reached their destination.
As opposed to knocking on the door to the Uzumaki residence she went straight to the boys' room window where a note was waiting for her.
'Hey Kiki-chan'
Kiro growled as she read Ki's stupid nickname for her.
'Chocho and Tonbo and Tsuki came by and we went to Tsuki's house 'cause her parents and uncles are gone too. We woulda got you an Hikari but your house is so far away and you know how Tsuki is…
-Ki
P.S Soba says to come by for a rematch unless your scared of him.'
That was it. A challenge clear and simple. Sulfuric rains couldn't of stopped her now.
"Ya wanna see me kick Soba's ass for the second time in a single day?" She asked Hikari arrogantly as she bounded over the clustered roof tops. Her little brother nodded a couple times and his grip on her shoulders tightened excitedly as they turned in the direction of the MidoriKumo residential district. This was a relatively new section of Konoha, it was an out of the way location near the training fields and closer to the farms then any other part of Konoha.
As eager and headstrong as she was chances were running very high that she would lose the fight, namely because training with Hanabi and toting a ten year old brother all over Konohagakure tended to put a drain on ones energy. Though it could've been worse… Hikari was exceptionally small for his age, in fact most of the little six year old Inuzuka boys that made up her fan club of cousins were bigger then Hikari.
Her entrance to the Nara household was in no way dignified; she banged her head on the window pane, knocked the microwave off the counter, tripped on the sink faucet and face planted into the kitchen floor. Hikari stepped through the window and landed placidly next to his sister.
"So nice of you to join us. Come in break more of my stuff." Came the heavily annoyed voice of Tsuki. "Hello Hikari-chan. Feeling better?" The little boy nodded and smiled as his hair was tousled then assisted her with putting the microwave back on the counter. Kirosuke got to her feet and glared at the Uzumaki twins who were shaking with silent laughter.
"Hey Tsuki-chan…" Kiro asked still glaring at the pinky blonde boys.
"Yeah…?" She asked guiding Hikari to a seat between herself and Chocho.
"Is it healthy for two people to share half a brain?" The laughter, however silent, stopped and the Inuzuka girl received glares.
"Why you bi-".
"Leave her alone sissy boys." Tonbo said in an agitated manner as he scratched Podo-chan's ears. Kiro beamed at him, the male Aburame was always coming to her defense. Not so much because he had a crush on her, more so because he spent more time around his mother and had picked up her habits and the ritual of nicknaming his friends. Of course since the 'sissy boys' mother and 'slug's (as he was so affectionately dubbed) mother spent a lot of time together, they did pick up and transfer the playful animosity. "Let's play cards." He said abandoning the cat and removing a deck from his sleeve. Kiro ignored the glares and sat down next to Soba. Tsuki just groaned and propped her head upon her hand
"You do not wish to play…" Chocho asked tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and favoring the Nara girl with an arrogant grin. "…because you know you will lose…?"
"You wish blondie." Came to r.s.v.p to Chocho's challenge.
"Alright ladies… and Hikari…" Tonbo began as he shuffled the cards.
"Hey!" Ki and Soba yelled at the Aburame irritably as Ki took the cards from him.
"Name of the game is str-" Ki was interrupted by Chocho covering his mouth with her palm.
"If you say strip poker I will kill you." Her tone was somewhere between her mothers over emotional challenge and her fathers quiet threat. Really creepy.
"Cho-chan… why d'you act more like your dad?" Soba asked looking somewhat dreamily at the blonde. She arched an eyebrow at him.
"And I suppose you believe Tonbo acts like our mother?" Soba blinked a couple times, his expression said that was clearly what he thought.
"Hell yeah. Slug is like a boy version of your mom." He said ignoring the glare 'slug' shot at him.
"What're we playing?" Tsuki asked watching disinterestedly as Ki dealt the cards.
"Egyptian rat screw." Kiro said taking her coat off. (Also known as 'Egyptian rat race' and probably other things.)
"Fine."
"Okay."
"Alright!"
"I'ma kick your ass Kiki-chan." A pause "OW!"
"Meh."
"…"
Chapter one revised and re-edited. Tell me what ya think.