Disclaimer: Another disclaimer bites the dust! Or, I do, since I own nothing...not even the fake lyrics used in this disclaimer!? That's messed up. DX

Moriko: You're readers won't get a chance to shoot you, Swirly.

Me: Death by guns never appealed to me. -gets sword- EN GAURDE!

Gothica: You spelled that wrong, Swirly.

Me: I KNOW!

Naruto: -.-"

-

Hockey Nin

The dark, angrily glinting brown eyes of Moriko glanced at each face in the room, glaring first at Jiraiya, then Naruto and Kakashi and Geshi. She started in a low, serious tone:

"What I tell you? Yeah, it will be kept confidential until absolutely necessary. No one outside of this room who does not already know the unfolding of events will hear a word of this."

It was not a question. The heavy, oppressive silence in the room told Moriko they had all agreed with her, and she nodded once, thoughtful.

She sighed, and some of the anger seemed to deflate out of her. "Eh, I really shouldn't be taking out my pissed-off-ed-ness on you guys, but..." SHe shrugged once, noncommittal, and the rest of the ire seemed to vanish. "I'm kind of vain, really. I, ah, I like an audience sometimes." Suddenly, she grinned crookedly. "Of course, the fact that I've been reading a lot of books starring Hercule Poirot recently hasn't helped."

Jiraiya broke in, shattering the spell of silence in the audience. "Yes, yes, that's all fine," he growled gruffly, "But what is it that you're here to say, Mori?"

She chuckled wanly. "What beans I'm here to spill, you mean?"

"Yes, fine. You can put it that way. Just, out with it!" Jiraiya's face looked expectant and slightly irritated at all this delay over nothing. Geshi, Naruto, and Kakashi looked from him to moriko, who nodded slowly again.

"Yes," she murmured meditatively, "Yes, I'l tell you than...As near to the truth as I can recall. Okay?"

They nodded. Naruto cleared his throat. "Er, Moriko? If Shay ever finds out, you're kind of screwed. Would you rather me tell them? I mean, she can't kill me..." he tried to smile. "...Too many bodyguards for her to kill a famous hockey player."

Eye roll. "Bodyguards? Yeah, right."

"Then don't blame me if she skins you," muttered Naruto, "And don't thank me when i save you, either."

"Dually noted. Now, will you allow me to tell the adult units, or not?"

Long and hard, Naruto stared at each of the elder people in the room. Finally, he bobbed his head and said gruffly, "If you must."

Moriko flashed a brief, wry smile at him and began her narrative.

"Shay and Gaara are both from a different place than Konoha--they're from Kumo. Gaara's life sucked, sure, and...so did Shay's." She glanced quickly at her listeners to make sure they were paying attention--and to reinforce the statement that the whole thing was confidential. She inhaled through her nose and continued, "Shay lived with her father for a while, just them, after her mother died..." She pursed her lips and corrected herself, "No, not died. Killed herself."

Jiraiya shifted where he leaned against the wall by the window, but other than that, the only thing to show that could be counted as a reaction among the adults was a darkening in Geshi's eyes, and a slow blink out of Kakashi. Naruto, who had known all of this already, ground his teeth and his nostrils flared. Moriko hardly paused.

"She--Shay's mother--poured gasoline over herself...and lit a match..." Now, she did pause, grimaced. There was a sharp intake of breath from someone in the room, but from whom it was hard to tell. As if trying to shove the details away, Moriko waved a hand empathetically and resumed, her hands moving in a flurry along with her words in a way typical to her Italian blood. "...I won't go into details. But, for a while, the...body..." another grimace, another spasm of movement from her hands, "...was always lying there...And it happened right in front of Shay."

This time, someone hissed, loud, low, and long through there teeth. When it stopped, Moriko waited another moment and went on. There were no other interruptions for a time.

"She hates fire, you know, even to this day. She'll freeze, and unless it's put out or Gaara is there...eh, she just won't thaw again. We all have our demons..."

"...You know Temari. Well, Temari does not approve of Shay. In fact, you might almost say that Temari was happy when shay vanished...even though it made Gaara very sad. He was depressed for weeks...Well, that's a very underestimated calculation, but you understand."

"Erm, you know how Gaara...well, you've heard of a time when he had...a few important screws loose? Ah, you have. Good. Well, Shay DOES have a few loose, but in a different way. The reason Temari doesn't exactly...eh, enjoy Shay's companionship with Gaara is...She's worried that Gaara will revert to being the way he was if he stays around her." She shrugged half-heartedly. "It's a theory I look down on myself, and I think she's really being too hard on Shay, but...?" She shook her head and murmured, "What can you do?"

Sighing helplessly, Naruto held out his hands to show he had no idea. Geshi, Kakashi, and Jiraiya showed no change, kept their faces blank.

The brown eyes flitted across them each momentarily, deciphering what they might be thinking in whatever way she did. She murmured softly, "...But no matter how hard any of them tried to do anything about it, it didn't stop Shay from getting a car crash...then a coma...and they out of town."

Geshi interposed, saying quietly in a matter-of-fact, sympathetic voice, "It wasn't really an accident, was it, Mori?"

Slowly, her question was met with a shake of the head, another helpless shrug of the shoulders. Then, Naruto was the one who continued the tale...

"Nah. 'Course it wasn't really an accident. But that's what the police put it down too, that's what witnesses claimed it to be, and that's what we told everyone it was--" he let out a huff of breath "--even though we were lying in the extreme...Shay had been staying over with some friends of hers, including Mori. She hadn't seen her father for weeks, and that was the way she liked it. Apparently he was drunk, driving in his car...he recognized her license plate as he was directly behind her in the lane. On some kind of impulse, he rammed his front bumper into her car, swerved to the right of her, and drove her forcefully into the sheet of rock on the side of the road."

"That's worse than drunk," Kakashi said under his breath. Unseen to everyone else, his hands clenched momentarily before relaxing again. "That's purely mindless. Who the Hel is this man?"

"Dead," said Mori flatly, "That's who he is. The bastard's dead."

"And may he stay that way," snarled Naruto. He stood up abruptly. "Moriko, that's the whole story, isn't it? Or am I forgetting something?"

After a moment of looking at him steadily, Moriko shook her head again. "Nah. That's it. You're right..." she flashed a brief, wan smile at the adults in the room, held the door open as Naruto stormed out of the room, and looked back over her shoulder once. "The next time you hear from Kani," she told Kakashi and Geshi, "Tell me, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, she closed the door behind her.

And no one at all noticed the small, hunched over figure who had been holding her breath around the corner disappear down the stairway.

-

Naruto's skate's hit the ice with a BAM! as he jumped into the rink (a very stupid thing to do). Mercilessly, he joined his teammates in their drills, smacking Shikamaru's stick out of the way without warning, driving the puck with furious smacks from his stick down the ice. He didn't register the bewildered shouts and exclamations from behind him as his skates carved thin lines on the ice and he fired the puck like a catapult down the line.

Chouji didn't really have much of a chance to save it in the first place, and he hit the ice with an 'umpf' as it sailed past his outstretched stick and rattled the netting.

Naruto swung to a halt, spraying slush over Chouji, panting with wild eyes as he glared at the harmless thing sitting in the back of the net with a ferocity. His head jerked up as a ball of slush hit him on the back of the helmet. He snarled, then stopped as another splattered against his face (he'd left his helmet guard up).

"Oi, you jerk!" shouted Kiba, shaking his stick threateningly with another ball of slush in his right hand ready for use. "What the Hel was that for? You nearly sent Shikamaru flat on his face when you hooked his stick like that! Do that in a game and you're on the bench...What's the matter with you?

Sasuke growled and added, "And what the friggin' Hel took you so long up there, anyway?"

Naruto snapped out at them, "None of your damn business!"

They must've looked a but more than shocked at the furious edge to his ton,e because Naruto blinked and immediately backed up. "Sorry, guys," he muttered gruffly. "I have not had a fun morning."

"I gathered," Sasuke put in dryly.

"You can at least explain," threw in Kiba, letting the slush ball splatter back over the ice.

But the captain shook his head. "No, I can't right now. Maybe later. Sorry, guys."

"Apologize to Chouji and me," grumped Shikamaru, gliding to a stop in front of them. He inspected his stick with seeming carelessness, but anyone on the team could see the way his eyes roved over every inch of wood anxiously. Even to Shikamaru, what's a hockey player with a damaged stick?

"Er, yeah..." Naruto had taken his helmet off, and was now scratching the back of his head and looking to the ceiling in a self-conscious way. "Sorry, you two," he apologized. Attempting a smile, he stuck out a hand to Chouji. "Need any help, goalie-man?"

Chouji shook his head and pushed himself up with his stick. "No, thanks, Naruto. I get it. It would've been worse if you'd kept angry like that for the rest of the day instead of spending it all at once."

Shrugging half-heartedly, Naruto said, "Yeah, you're right," and turned around again at an exclamation of dismay from Shikamaru.

"Urg, you idiot," he groaned, clutching his stick tightly. "You nearly broke the damn thing clean off! Our game is tomorrow. I play the Gangmen with this and we're screwed."

"Giving yourself a nice high place on the team, lazybones," muttered Kankuro, who was in an especially bad mood since Gaara had, true to certain predictions, not shown up.

Shino stole quietly onto the scene and weighed the broken stick thoughtfully. Finally, not seeming to notice all eyes on him (Shino had that effect when he made himself known), he returned it Shikamaru, saying, "It's a fracture. The end of the stick would snap off immediately if you tried to hit the puck with any decent amount of force. I suggest you go to the store immediately and buy yourself a new one. Don't bother to have it repaired. Why do I say this? Because even if you had it fixed, it would still be too weak to last much longer than a few minutes against any team at all."

And, wisdom given out for the day, Shino slipped out of the crowd of players that had assembled and quietly picked up into his drills again.

Shikamaru sighed (which was nothing new, but you understand). Curling his hand carefully along the splintery crack along the length of the stick, he shrugged and flashed his teammates a bored smile. "Ah, I'd need a new one soon anyway. Thanks a bunch, Naruto."

"Happy to be of service," Naruto grumbled. "Now go get a new one of those, and don't come back until you do!" he added in a mock threatening voice, shaking his own stick at Shikamaru.

Kiba pounced immediately. "High-sticking!" he called out again, snatching the puck out of Chouji's gloves with a nod of thanks and shooting to the other end of the rink. "Two minutes for high-sticking, Naruto! The captain was high-sticking again! Ref!"

"Go to Hel, Kiba!" Naruto shouted, shoving off and circling around kiba to steal the puck. "You lousy excuse for an offense!"

The taunt worked. With a scowl, Kiba immediately raised his stick. Naruto grinned and laughed. Kiba, realizing the setup, slammed Naruto against the plexiglass. Sasuke and Neji stepped in to break it up, and for the rest of the practice things went along closer to normal than anyone might've expected.

So it was that a few hours later, gear in a bag over his shoulder after having examined Shikamaru's new stick, Naruto swaggered out of the locker-room with a small grin on his face. Moriko was no where to be found, as she had left soon after speaking of Shay. Sasuke was still in the locker-room, changing out of his gear. Alone and hungry, Naruto pondered where to go to eat the night before the game.

Lost in thought, as he rounded a bend in the hallway, he didn't notice the person he was about to run into.

"What the--oompf!"

"S-sorry, Naruto-kun!"

Blinking and coming out of his daze, Naruto stared bewilderedly at his other victim of the collision. "Oh, it's you, Hinata. Sorry about that. My fault."

She looked down at the floor, murmuring softly, "No, no, I-I'm sure you were thinking about something important..."

But naruto just shrugged and bent to pick up the paperback books she had dropped. Piling them gallantly, he returned them to her with a flourish. "Your literature, Madame!"

Taking the books back from him, she smiled a tiny smile and raised her eyes. "It's 'mademoiselle', Naruto-kun."

"Eh?"

"I'm too young--and single--to be called 'madame'."

"Oh." He blinked. "You speak French."

She looked down again. "Er, n-not really...I only took a few classes in high school..."

"So you do speak it."

"W-Well, not exactly..."

He laughed heartily. She looked at him, startled. He smiled apologetically again and then paused, thinking of something. "Hey, Hinata."

"Y-Yes, Naruto-kun?"

"Do you know where I should go for dinner tonight?"

The question was so unexpected, she stared. She recovered herself, "Er, uh, I th-think that that little place Sakura-san took us all too the other night was nice..."

Naruto grinned. "That's right! Ichiraku! Why didn't I think of that?" He nodded appreciatively. "Thanks, Hinata! Hey, you'll be at the game tomorrow, right?"

She blinked, then managed to gasp out, "Of course!"

He smiled, nodded again, and breezed out the door. She stood in the vacant hallway, looking after him, biting her lip.

Should she have told him? Maybe it would've been smarter. Maybe...

No! Hinata shook her head violently and made up her mind. Now was not the right time...In fact, she may never need to tell him that she had been listening earlier that morning...It wasn't eavesdropping, anyway! It was just...kind of by accident, and the wood to those doors was hollow and easy to hear through...

Maybe, though, to tell him what she knew that he evidently did not would be a good thing...Later. She would tell him later. If Hyuuga Hinata was a good judge of anything, it was the right time for things.

She bundled her stack of paperbacks under her arms and continued on her way, trying to push down the feeling of doubt and guilt with thoughts of the hockey game that was only a night away.

It WAS an important game, after all.

The first game of the official season, now that the preseason was over.

That's right, Hinata suddenly realized, and the thought almost made her drop her books again. Because tomorrow was also the day that Kani and Shay would be returning from Egypt.

-

Author's Note: So...Arrival of Kani and Shay plus First Game of the Season equals what, my dear readers?

ACTION! DEE DA LI DAH DEEE!! --enter batman theme again-

...Eh, yeah...Hope that makes up a little bit for the jack-assed-ness of the over past few updates. -shrugs- And, if not, bite me.

...Just kidding. Eh, I have other stuff to update...and another convention this weekend...

Crap. Hey, I hope those of you who read Convention Remix won't mind if I finish it before the end of the month and delay updates on everything else for a while. But I want to make a Con-Remix story for every con I go to (or at least the best/ most of the ones i go to) and before I start another story of ANYTHING I want to finish SOMETHING that I have up already...WLaS is close to being done, kind of...buncha fights planned, dramatic revealings, and I might even let you people know some of those ghastly secrets being kept in the world of the fic! : D Now, wouldn't that just mark the end of the world, eh? XD

Oh, yes, and as to the reference to Agatha Christie's character Hercule Poirot (pronounced Air-cule Pwuh-row), I think that if I mention my obsession with those books one more time my sister will skin me alive. O,O"

Poirot: And then you wish I were a real detective, mon ami! So as to avenge your death on your sister, because even you have a grudging streak. Is that not so?

Me: SEE!? He's a freaking psychic!

Ani: -.-" No, he's a private eye. They're paid to know everything.

Gothica: Swirly? A grudging streak? NOOOOOOO, REALLY?!

Splode: Sarcasm! XD

Me: Jerks. -wanders off to go find my book again...and a nice cup of hot tea...and some chocolate...oh yeah. great way to end a Thorsday, eh?-

Eh...bye!

P.S. Yes, I said 'Thorsday'. That's because (1) I'm Nordic, and (2), 'Thursday' was originally named after Thor, the god of thunder who wields the hammer that is the defense of Asgard.

Thank you and have a nice day.

...This had been random lessons with Swirly! XD