Disclaimer: I love Naruto. Unfortunately, I don't own any of it. Tsume isn't even quite mine; I saw the name around and liked it, so I "borrowed" it. However, I do lay claim to Inuzuka Kiyame's current incarnation, and to Shuurai no Jutsu and Kyouken no Jutsu.

Author's Note: This chapter was gonna be a lot longer, but it just seemed to end nicely here. So eh, whatever. Enjoy! And see Author's Notes at the end for reviewer comments.

Chapter Four: Arguments

Half-way up the stairs, Kakashi started to wonder if visiting Kiyame was really such a good idea after all.

His face hurt and his chest hurt, and the four-hour nap he'd taken after his visitors left hadn't seemed to refresh him at all. Worse yet, the pretty nurse he'd charmed into giving him a crutch ("Just for short walks around the room, I need to get my strength back as fast as possible.") had refused to provide him with any clothes ("Your old ones are ruined, and besides, you're not going to be leaving your room, Hatake-san."). So he was condemned to hobble down the sterile halls of the Konoha Hospital dressed in only a pair of pale blue pajama bottoms and an impressive array of bandages. Oh well. The bandages offered nearly as much covering as his usual turtle-neck shirt and mask, anyway. And it wasn't like Kiyame hadn't seen him in much less…dear gods, that sounded wrong. Well, actually it sounded like something out of Icha Icha Paradise, but that was something you tried not to associate with your fellow jounin, especially those with chancy tempers.

He groaned. Mental babbling was not a good sign. And of course, it doesn't help that I can't even remember what she looks like, apart from tattoos and a lot of blood and—stop it!

Kurenai had told him Kiyame's room number before she left, sandwiched in between quiet but sincere thanks for his willingness to talk to her friend. The Inuzuka was in room 305, a floor above and half a hall away from his room. He'd had to take the back stairs, since both the main staircase and the elevators were likely to be full of doctors and nurses who would immediately send him back to bed. It added another slow, painful five minutes to the trip, and it made him feel ridiculously like Gai, pushing himself past the brink of endurance for some idiotic self-assigned challenge. At least the hospital was fairly quiet during the hour before supper-time, and he ran into no one as he made his limping way down the hall, up the stairs, and through another hall. Two crutches would have made it a heck of a lot easier, but his right arm was still bound tightly to his chest, and Tsunade would have his hide if she discovered he'd messed with the bandages. She'd probably have his hide for creeping out of bed early anyway, but a ninja's life was full of risks.

The hall outside Kiyame's room was empty but for an enormous mound of black and white fur curled up beside the closed door. An Inuzuka dog, Kakashi realized as he came closer, which meant that there was probably another Inuzuka visiting Kiyame. The dog seemed to be sleeping, his scarred head pillowed on his massive paws. But even asleep, his missing ear and the black patch over his right eye gave him a menacing air that reminded Kakashi a little of Dokuga, the most vicious of his Earth Tracking Fang summon dogs. Of course, Dokuga would never let anyone walk up on her…but apparently the Inuzuka dog wouldn't either. As Kakashi approached, the left eye flickered open, fixing him with the aggressive direct glare of an alpha male to a challenger. Which meant that this dog was the alpha male for his pack, which meant…

Kakashi sighed. "Kuromaru, right? Partner of Inuzuka Tsume, the clan head?" He balanced on his crutch long enough to hold out his empty left hand. "Hatake Kakashi. I'm here to see Inuzuka Kiyame."

The dog gave his hand a cursory sniff and then settled back on his haunches beside the door, obviously losing interest. Kakashi reached for the door handle—then stopped, as the low murmur of voices beyond the door rose into shouts. No Inuzuka had ever been accused of being too quiet, and these two were pure Inuzuka and pure fury.

"…let yourself get caught like that! Dear gods, Kiyame, you're a jounin, you're in ANBU for all the gods' sakes—"

"Not anymore! Mom, listen to me!"

He recognized that voice; he had last heard it rough with shock and grief, pleading with her dog to hold on to life. Inuzuka Kiyame, which meant that the first speaker was her mother, Tsume. Both the women had unusually low voices, but Kiyame's was a shade lighter, a bit smoother, a little less angry and more desperate.

"—and then to use that jutsu, when you know what it's done, when you know it's forbidden, when you've seen what it did to—"

"That's why I used it! I had nothing left to lose, it was the only way I could be sure of taking them all out—"

"Nothing left to lose? Damn you! What about Katsu! What about Hatake? What about the clan? Can you imagine what it would have done to Kiba, losing—"

"Akira and Amaya were dead. Katsu was dying. Hatake-san—" The young woman's voice faltered for the first time, but she regained control with the next breath. Her voice was steel. "He would have done what he had to do. What the others did."

Kuromaru's ear twitched. His nose crinkled, baring slivers of fangs in the hint of a snarl. Kakashi watched the dog warily. Kuromaru seemed to have forgotten about the jounin…but he could remember at any time, and the results might not be happy.

"Except he didn't." Tsume's voice was always harsh, but now emotion roughened it still further. "Tsunade-sama told me what he said. You turned on him, Kiyame. And he didn't kill you. The gods know he could have—in that state, you had no mind to dodge with—and he didn't kill you! If Katsu hadn't…"

Kiyame took a deep, shuddering breath. "And that's why. If Katsu hadn't dragged himself between us, I would have ripped Hatake-san apart. Don't you see? I'm too dangerous. I can't trust myself anymore. I broke the seal, Mom!"

"You've giving up." Her mother's words cracked like a whip of ice. "I didn't raise you to be a coward, Kiyame."

"You think this doesn't take courage?" Kiyame's voice trembled with fury. "You think this is easy for me? You've got no right to judge me! You've never ripped a man's throat out with your teeth and woken up to realize you enjoyed it!"

Mad golden eyes staring straight into his…a predator's low growl rumbling in her chest…crimson tattoos almost invisible beneath the blood that masked her face… Kakashi shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the images. She beat it, he told himself sternly. But he remembered keeping the kunai, and he knew why she couldn't be sure.

"No one else has survived this jutsu, Mom," Kiyame was saying in a low voice. "No one. There's a reason it's forbidden, there's a reason it's classified as an assassination-suicide kinjutsu. It's because no one else has ever been known to recover his mind from the madness. So how can I know that I am sane? How can I know that seal won't break again someday? I can't risk that."

"So you desert your duties," Tsume said bitingly. "You flee every shred of responsibility you have—quit ANBU, turn in your forehead protector, abdicate your position as heir—and what good does that do? You can't turn back time, Kiyame, and you certainly can't take Katsu and run off into the wild to live like the feral you've convinced yourself you are."

"I'm not fit for any of those duties! I'm not safe! We don't know how the seal works after it's been broken once, we don't know if it can ever be whole again. At any moment I could snap. The slightest stress, and I'm feral again. And that time, there may not be a Katsu to bring me back."

There was a long pause. Kakashi could hear the whisper of cloth against skin on the other side of the door as one of the Inuzuka women moved. Then, slowly, Tsume asked, "What about Kiba? He's got neither the training nor the temperament to lead the clan—as much as he likes to play alpha, he'd make an even worse mess of it than—than Kuromaru would! And think of the example you're setting for him. No loyalty to duty, no loyalty to pack—"

Kiyame's voice was as sharp as the blade of her katana. "Would you rather have another Uchiha Itachi on your hands?"

Fist hit flesh so hard that Kakashi winced. Kuromaru bristled and glared, baring a little more fang. For a moment there was a stunned silence, broken only by the two women's heavy breathing and by the beginning vibrations of the dog's growl. Then Tsume said vehemently, "Don't even think that. Don't you dare compare yourself to that— —"

Now that was an impressive bit of language, Kakashi thought. He could see where Kiyame had inherited her penchant for fierce and creative swearing. Not even Anko could string so many expletives together without repeating herself once.

Kiyame sighed. "Mom…" She took a deep breath, and suddenly her voice sharpened. "There's someone out there. Damn! It's him!"

"Kuromaru!" Tsume barked.

The teeth were all there, in a display to eclipse even Dokuga's. Kakashi realized uneasily that while he was one-armed, weaponless, and bound to a crutch, Kuromaru was in top fighting trim, outweighed Kakashi by at least twenty kilos, and probably wouldn't hesitate to attack on his partner's command. Kakashi's throat might not be in immediate danger—but if he tried to open the door, he'd probably lose the hand.

"Inuzuka Tsume-sama, Kiyame-san," he called loudly, "it's Hakate Kakashi." As if they hadn't already told that from your smell, idiot. "I'd like to speak with Kiyame—"

"Go away!" Kiyame yelled.

Kuromaru snarled. His single eye closed into a glowing slit, and his ear flattened to his skull. Kakashi took a hopping step backward and thunked his crutch into the wall. That certainly provoked a reaction. There was a strangled growl from inside the room, and a kunai smashed through the thin sliding door and embedded itself in the opposite wall. Kuromaru's snarl climbed a few decibels.

Kakashi decided that the best tactical decision would be to leave now. Still, he couldn't help but give a parting shot. "I'll come again when you're feeling better, Kiyame-san."

A second kunai joined the first. Kuromaru gathered himself for the spring. Kakashi didn't quite run for the stairs, but he probably set a new record for the 50-meter hobble.

He slowed down at the top of the staircase, when it became obvious that Kuromaru wasn't following. Navigating the stairs was tricky enough without adding the extra factor of speed. He was sweating and breathing hard by the time he reached the bottom, and he wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed and plan his next assault. Unfortunately, the pretty nurse who'd given him the crutch caught up to him halfway down the hall. She wasn't nearly so pretty when she was yelling. She marched him back to his room, confiscated his crutch, and ordered him to stay in bed for the next twenty-four hours under pain of confiscating all his books as well. Tsunade must have been talking with her, Kakashi thought darkly as the nurse left with a sniff and a glare.

At least Kiyame had only threatened him with bodily harm.

He sat on his bed and stared out the open window, watching but not really seeing a pair of starlings quibbling in the branches of a nearby tree. Before his talk with Kurenai, he'd never expected to exchange more than a few words with Kiyame, expressing his regret for her loss (and perhaps digging a little to find out more about that baffling jutsu of hers). Now—now he was genuinely concerned and curious.The conversation—alright, the argument—he'd, ah, overheard had left him with even more questions than it answered.

Kakashi liked answers. And he was willing to do just about anything to get them.

Author's Note: As always, first thanks go to Phoenix, my beta reader, who has squashed a great many horrible ideas and encouraged some good ones. The general lack of over-angsting/melodrama in this chapter may be attributed to her, since she says I'm still not to be trusted with angst.

Daniel of Lorien: Thanks for the review! I'm glad to see you like where I'm going with the story.

PinkyMcCoversong: Thanks again! I hope Kiyame in this chapter lives up to your expectations…and I'm sorry we never actually got to see her. Oh well, chalk it up to my over-liking for suspense…

Chevira Lowe: Wow. This is the kind of review I dream of. --:does Happy Dance of Joy:-- I'm so glad to see that I got Sakura and Tsunade right, since I was really worried about writing Tsunade. And Kurenai…yes, she does need hugs. I am also doing my best not to over-angst—and Phoenix will do her best to prevent me from doing so.

Kakoii Kakashi: Here's your update, then!