A/N - Back again with another ANBU/seals/KakaIru plotfic. To those who've read Bleed Out, you'll recognise some features of the landscape, but the fics aren't connected (as will soon become apparent). Takes place after Naruto &co graduate from the Academy, but before the chuunin exams (maybe even before the Zabuza Arc). Unlike Bleed Out, I'm writing this fic in real time rather than in advance, so don't expect the same lightning-quick update schedule, though I do write pretty quickly in general.

FYI, this fic contains some explicit sex scenes, just as a word of warning. And it's not a deathfic, but there is technically a major (non-permanent) character death.

Iruka first laid eyes on the book one Saturday morning when he was summoned to the hokage's office. He'd been hoping to spend the whole weekend curled up in his flat, recovering after a particularly gruelling week of teaching. His new students were almost rowdy enough to make him miss Naruto's class – almost, but not quite. The last thing he'd expected that day was for an ANBU to turn up on his doorstep before he'd even found the willpower to get dressed and tell him that his presence was requested immediately at the Hokage Tower.

Sandaime was waiting for him with another ANBU Iruka recognised as Cat. As he stepped into the room, Iruka got the distinct impression that they'd been talking right before he came in and had abruptly stopped.

"Iruka, thank you for coming," Sandaime said. He looked more serious than usual, and Iruka suddenly wondered if he was in trouble. "I'm sorry to interrupt your weekend, but something's come to my attention and I need your expertise."

Iruka relaxed. Not in trouble then. "Which expertise? Children or mission reports?"

That elicited a small smile before the hokage beckoned him forwards and gestured to a book lying on his desk.

"Neither," he said, but didn't expand, leaving Iruka to come to his own conclusion.

Iruka picked up the book. It was old, the cover made from leather that had once been black, the title now faded and illegible. Iruka opened it carefully, noting the weak join between the cover and spine, and fixed his eyes on the first page. He frowned. Then he flicked through several more pages and his frown grew deeper. The book was handwritten in faded ink, but not in any language Iruka had ever seen. He turned another page and then realised why Sandaime was showing it to him.

"It's a book of seals," he said. He glanced up at Sandaime, who was still watching him patiently. "You want me to try and interpret them?"

"Exactly."

"Wouldn't it be easier to have the text translated? It might take me a lot of time to figure these out without the context."

"We've already asked several language experts to take a look," Cat said, speaking up for the first time. "None of them recognised it, so we think it's written in code. We've sent samples of the text to Torture and Interrogation, and if they crack it, we'll have them translate it."

Iruka nodded slowly and turned a few more pages, casting an eye over the seals. They were complex, but he recognised some of the base symbols. Base symbols were the purest, most basic forms of the characters used in seals, and were then built upon and combined to produce more complex effects.

"These are Mist style seals," he observed.

Cat and Sandaime exchanged a glance. "The book was found in Fire Country, but near the coast," Cat said. The Village of the Mist was in the Land of Water, a group of islands off Fire Country's east coast. "There's a large immigrant population there."

"I trust that's not a problem?" Sandaime added.

Iruka gently closed the book. "No, they're not actually that different from Fire seals. I might need some reference materials from the archives though."

"I've already written you a permission slip." The hokage passed him a sheet of paper. Iruka read it and had to read it again.

"Hokage-sama, are you sure this is appropriate? I mean, considering my clearance level…"

Usually, checking out restricted materials from the archive was a bureaucratic nightmare. A request form had to be filled out and a permission slip obtained for each individual item, which was only valid for forty-eight hours. The document Iruka now held gave him unlimited access to all restricted scrolls and books filed under seals for an indefinite amount of time.

"You've handled highly classified material before," Sandaime said. "And this is an important project. I don't want you to waste time with paperwork."

"Of course," Iruka said faintly. "Is there anything else I should know?"

The look that didn't pass between Cat and the hokage felt as significant as the one that had.

"Only that there is no official deadline, but I want this to be your priority," Sandaime said. "I'm relieving you of all Mission Desk duties until further notice, though you'll continue to teach. I'll expect weekly reports of your progress. If anyone asks, you can tell them you're doing some seals research, but any further details are restricted. You can only discuss your work with myself, Cat, and another ANBU, codename Snail."

Iruka hesitated. He'd been consulted as a seals expert before, but never with such secrecy. He wanted to ask about the details Sandaime wasn't telling him and had to bite back the question. There'd be no point in asking; if Sandaime wanted him to know, he'd have already told him.

"I understand, hokage-sama," he said instead.

When Iruka had taken the book and left, Tenzou turned to Sandaime, shoulders stiff with disapproval.

"We should have told him."

Sandaime sighed and lit his pipe. "Perhaps. But he's right about his clearance level. Besides, Iruka is very skilled, especially considering how young he is. He was taught by Hiwatari Asuka, you know, before she left Konoha. I have faith that he can read the seals, even without the context."

"It could put him in danger."

"No one knows he has the book. If there is a threat, it won't be to him." Sandaime looked at Tenzou pointedly. Tenzou ignored it.

"Have you made a decision about Phoenix?"

Sandaime took a long pull of his pipe, looking pained. "It's been a week. By the time you find her body – if you find it – it will no longer be fit for retrieval. In that case, you have my permission to deal with her remains locally, however you find appropriate."

"Will she be…" Tenzou paused. "Replaced?"

"No. As long as neither you nor Snail object, I'm going to keep the two of you assigned to the mission. I'm passing leadership to you, and for the time being I want you to work as a two-man team." He fixed Tenzou with a penetrating but not unkind stare. "How do you feel about that?"

"I'd prefer it that way."

"Good. You can leave tomorrow."

"We'll leave today," Tenzou said firmly. "After the funeral."

Iruka had intended to look more thoroughly at the book when he got home, but when he stepped inside he heard the quiet sounds of someone rummaging through his kitchen and humming. Iruka smiled and went into the combined lounge and kitchen to find Kakashi making lunch, his hair damp from the shower and wearing some of the casual clothes he kept at Iruka's flat. His face was bare, his sharingan closed without a covering, and he looked up and smiled as Iruka came into the room.

"Want a sandwich?"

"Sure." Iruka put the book down on the counter and leaned in for a kiss. "How were the terrors?"

Kakashi grimaced. "Naruto and Sasuke spent forty-seven minutes arguing about whether a kunai was pointier than a shuriken."

Iruka laughed. "Pointier?"

"Technical term. Naruto proposed that a kunai is sharper and Sasuke countered that a shuriken has more points. It was a thrilling and heated debate."

Kakashi glanced around for a knife and Iruka passed him one from the drawer.

"Sounds like you had a fun morning."

"Fun," Kakashi repeated, as if tasting the word. "You know, I'm not sure that's exactly how I'd describe it." He pushed a plate towards Iruka and started making a second sandwich. "What about you, where have you been all morning? I was very disappointed you weren't still in bed."

Iruka glanced down at himself. He'd forgotten that he was wearing his shinobi uniform, and he shrugged off his vest and lay it on top of the book. "Sandaime-sama called me in. He wants me to look into some seals."

"Oh yeah? What kind of seals is it this time?"

"Not sure," Iruka replied, untying his hitae-ate. "I haven't looked at them yet."

They moved over to the breakfast bar that cordoned off the kitchen half of the room from the lounge and perched on the stools to eat lunch.

"Actually, the hokage summoned me too," Kakashi said. "Yesterday. I'm being sent out on a mission."

Iruka frowned. "A Team Seven mission?"

"No, the other kind."

It was rare for jounin-sensei to be sent out on higher level missions while they were teaching, and only happened when a mission required their specific skills.

"What do they need your sharingan for?" Iruka asked.

"Nothing fun. There's some scroll they want me to memorise." Kakashi looked bored stiff by the very idea. Iruka hid a smile.

"At least it sounds low-risk."

"It's a B-rank," Kakashi said, scandalised.

"Oh no. However will you cope?"

"I might not. It'll probably be the death of me."

Iruka snorted and shook his head. A thought occurred to him. "How long will you be gone?"

"A week or two," Kakashi said, pulling a face. "I leave tomorrow morning, just me and some chuunin, in case I need help reading the long words." He glanced at Iruka. "I asked if you could come with me but Sandaime said no."

Iruka pressed his thigh fondly against Kakashi's. "You really asked?"

"Yeah, of course, why wouldn't I?" Kakashi scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "In fact, I was thinking. Maybe when the Academy is next on a break we could go somewhere. Like a hot spring or a shrine or something."

Warmth curled in Iruka's stomach. He'd been with Kakashi for almost a year now but they'd never been on a trip together. "I'd like that."

After they'd eaten and Iruka was washing up the plates, he noticed Kakashi glancing at the clock.

"What time's the funeral?" he asked lightly.

"Two."

Iruka nodded and didn't say shouldn't you be going home to get ready?

He heard Kakashi tapping a finger on the breakfast bar, and then the scrape of the stool as he stood up. A moment later, warm arms encircled Iruka from behind, a little more tightly than usual.

Kakashi leant his cheek against Iruka's. "Can I stay over tonight?"

Iruka turned and kissed him on the jaw. "Of course."

Phoenix's funeral took place in the afternoon, an open-air ceremony in the cemetery. The September air was still warm with memories of summer, but the wind, when it gusted around them, held a chill. There was no body, and therefore no grave; only a small granite memorial with the name Ban Miho and a short sentence in her native language, which Tenzou couldn't read. There was a large photograph of Miho propped up next to the marker and a stick of incense was slowly burning to purify – what? Miho's missing body? The earth where she wouldn't be buried?

Most of the people paying their respects were ANBU, dressed in plain clothes. Miho's only family was her father, who had fled with her from Mist when she was a child, from what threat Tenzou didn't know. They'd been in the same ANBU cell for four years and Tenzou had never asked. What kind of friend did that make him?

Kakashi gravitated to his side, his bearing straighter than usual. He'd served in ANBU at the same time as Miho and had been shocked when Tenzou had given him the news of her death. That was all Tenzou had managed to say: Miho's dead. And then he'd walked away before Kakashi could say a word.

"How did she die?" Kakashi asked now.

Tenzou stared straight ahead at the photograph. "I don't know exactly. Blood loss, by the state of the room."

"But you didn't find the body." Kakashi paused, and Tenzou knew what he was about to say. "So theoretically, it could still be possible…"

"She's dead," Tenzou snapped. "I know how much blood the human body can cope with losing. She's dead, Kakashi. The killer left her mask behind."

"Do you know who killed her?"

"Not yet."

Kakashi looked at him and his expression softened. "I'm sorry for giving you the third degree. I know this must be hard."

"No, you're right," Tenzou said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I have a duty to her, to bury her, or at least find out what happened. I'd have wanted her to do the same for me if I'd died first."

Kakashi nodded. "You'll find her. I have faith in you." Maybe that should have made things better, but it didn't.

"Senpai, I'd rather be alone right now," Tenzou said bluntly. It was a stupid thing to say in a crowd of people, but Kakashi didn't look offended.

"OK. You know where to find me."

Kakashi moved away as the priest took his place beside the memorial and the funeral began. Tenzou was relieved. He didn't want to talk about Miho, not yet before he'd given her a proper burial and brought her killer to justice. And he would, if there was any possible way. ANBU didn't abandon each other, even in death. ANBU were family because many of them, Tenzou included, didn't have anyone else.

When Miho's father gave his eulogy, he translated the text on the memorial. It was a line from an old Water country poem. Life doesn't end with dust, but starts again.

The ceremony was almost over by the time Tenzou felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Kawaguchi Rikuo, the third member of Team Phoenix.

"I thought you weren't coming," Tenzou said quietly.

Kawaguchi shrugged. He stood close enough that their shoulders brushed together, and usually Tenzou would have stepped pointedly aside to reclaim his personal space, but today he allowed it.

"I hate funerals," Kawaguchi said. "Especially shinobi funerals. No one cries."

It was true. Even Miho's father was firmly dry-eyed next to the memorial, his spine rigid, his expression forcibly blank.

"It doesn't mean we're not sad," Tenzou said.

The priest finished his final prayer and a slow surge began towards Miho's father or away from the cemetery and back towards the village. Tenzou saw Kakashi among those who were leaving. It wasn't only Kawaguchi who hated funerals, Tenzou knew. Shinobi were taught that it was shameful to display their emotions in front of others, and so for all that they encountered death, they were badly equipped to deal with grief.

"Is there a point to this?" Kawaguchi asked. "All this ceremony and she isn't even here."

"Funerals aren't for the dead, they're for the living." Tenzou couldn't remember who'd told him that, but the quote tasted dry in his mouth.

"We have to find her."

"We will. Sandaime-sama's sending us to complete the mission. Just the two of us. We'll leave in an hour."

Kawaguchi nodded and finally stepped away from Tenzou's side. "Guess we're Team Cat now."

Tenzou threw a last glance at the photograph. "Team Phoenix sounded better."

Once Kakashi had gone, Iruka got changed out of his uniform, made himself a cup of tea and curled up on the sofa with the book of seals. Since he'd spoken to the hokage, his curiosity had only grown. Considering Cat had been present in the office, the book had probably been retrieved on an ANBU mission, although Iruka couldn't begin to guess what business ANBU had out by the coast. There were a couple of larger port towns by the sea, but mostly it was quiet fishing villages or uninhabited stretches of rocky cliffs. The area had a reputation for poverty and multiculturalism.

Maybe there'd been some trouble with the Water Country immigrant communities. There'd certainly been some tension during the last war, Iruka knew that much, but he couldn't imagine what might have sparked further unrest. It was all so far away from Konoha and Iruka was ashamed to admit that he didn't know much about it.

But he could speculate later about where the book had come from. Right now, he was much more curious about the seals. He started at the beginning of the book and flipped slowly through the worn pages. The first chapter was entirely text, most likely an introduction. Iruka skipped it grudgingly, knowing that all of the answers lay in those unreadable pages. He hoped the code-breaker at T&I was good at their job, but for Sandaime to give him the book without waiting, it was either a very difficult job or deciphering the book was more urgent than Sandaime had let on.

The second chapter contained a key to the more unusual base symbols used in the book. Base symbols were like kanji that way: there was the simple set taught in the Academy that everyone could read, and then there were more specialist or unusual characters that needed further explanation to be understood. Difficult kanji were written alongside the phonetic alphabet and difficult base symbols were defined in keys. Certain areas in seals work were more specialised than others – medical seals, for example, were notoriously difficult to read because of the specificity of the base symbols. Iruka had studiously avoided medical seals for that exact reason. Who wanted to deal with seals where at the simplest level you had a different character for each vertebrae in the human spine? No thank you.

Unfortunately, the key in this book was a long one. It covered two full pages, none of which Iruka could understand. His only hope was that he could find the symbols referenced elsewhere, otherwise he was going to find it very difficult to interpret anything. His chances of reading a seal without understanding all of the base symbols were practically zero.

Iruka marked the page with a slip of paper and moved on. Chapter Three contained some detailed depictions of seals, which were hand-drawn in black ink over fainter blue lines that represented the chakra pathways. Seals were generally drawn on chakra paper, which was specially designed paper that contained synthetic chakra pathways. These directed the chakra that a shinobi infused into the seal. The pathways used in the vast majority of chakra paper were an imitation of the pathways found in the right hand. Iruka had seen gimmicky 'left handed paper' for sale in the less reputable shinobi supply shops, but it didn't actually make a difference and you had to remember to draw the seals in reverse.

The chakra pathways in this chapter weren't for either hand. Iruka frowned and flipped forwards into Chapter Four. The pathways were different, but still not right for a hand. Was there a wider range of chakra paper available in Water Country? Iruka couldn't imagine why there would be. Hands were used because they had the most complex chakra pathways, which was also why hand signs were used to mould chakra into jutsu. There was just so much more you could do with a hand.

In the end, Iruka had to get up and dig out the biology textbook he used in class. There was a whole chapter dedicated to the chakra circulatory system, including several diagrams. The book may have been aimed at children, but the diagrams were accurate. Iruka was sure of that. He'd taught enough Hyuugas that one of them would have pointed it out if they'd been wrong.

The chakra pathways in Chapter Three were from the chest, paying special attention to the left hand side, above the heart. Chapter Four dealt with the abdomen. Iruka went through the book, chapter by chapter, painstakingly examining the textbook as he went. There were seals based on the upper and lower back, the neck and throat, and the upper arms and thighs. Iruka made a note of each chapter's contents in a small notebook and then sat back and frowned.

Before he could think too hard about what the use of different pathways meant, the front door opened. Kakashi usually called out when he let himself in, and Naruto – the only other person who had a key and could pass through Iruka's wards – always started talking as soon as he was inside the front door. Iruka put the book aside and waited.

Kakashi came into the room, already changed out of his mourning clothes and into casual wear. He sat down on the couch next to Iruka without a word and laid his head on Iruka's shoulder. Iruka gently kissed his hair and Kakashi sighed.

"How was it?"

"Depressing," Kakashi said simply. "It's bad when the strong ones die. Makes you wonder who'll be next."

"Don't say that."

"I can't help thinking about it though. If there's someone out there who can take out Flamethrower Miho, then what's so special about Sharingan Kakashi?"

"Please don't."

Kakashi looked up at Iruka's tone.

"Hey, I'm sorry." He put an arm around Iruka's shoulders and peppered his face with kisses. "Funerals put me in a weird mood."

Iruka leaned into him, feeling suddenly guilty for getting upset at talk of death when one of Kakashi's friends had really died.

"What are you working on?" Kakashi asked, changing tack.

"The seals I mentioned earlier."

"Know what they do yet?"

"No," Iruka admitted. "The book's written in code. Possibly code derived from a foreign language."

"So a nice easy job then."

"It'll keep me busy while you're away."

They sat in silence for a moment and Iruka fidgeted lightly with the hem of Kakashi's shirt.

"How did you know Miho-san?"

"We did a few missions together, back in the day. I hadn't seen much of her recently but I heard about her a lot. She and Tenzou were close."

Iruka had only met Tenzou a handful of times, but he liked him and thought the feeling was mutual.

"How did he take it?"

"Badly."

"How about you? Are you really OK?"

Kakashi sighed softly through his nose and tugged Iruka's hairband free so he could tangle his fingers in Iruka's hair.

"You never get used to it," he murmured. "Every time someone dies, I think it'll hurt less next time, but then next time rolls around too soon and it never does."

"Is there anything I can do?"

One of Kakashi's fingers gently traced the outline of Iruka's ear.

"Can we just sit like this for a while?"

Iruka relaxed further into Kakashi's side and placed a kiss on his shoulder. "For as long as you want."

Kawaguchi met Tenzou at the East Gate shortly after Tenzou arrived himself. They were both wearing full ANBU uniform, which was cumbersome to travel in due to the weight of the armour, but Tenzou was used to it. Their destination was a small fishing village called Shukunegi, where their original mission had begun and where Miho had died.

"Do you remember how long it took to get there?" Kawaguchi asked as they passed through the gates.

"Four days, but we made it back in three."

Kawaguchi cracked his knuckles. "Three days it is."

They set off at a run. Tenzou hated travelling this way; it was tiring and boring, but it was faster than riding in a cart or on horseback.

"I spy with my little eye," Kawaguchi muttered, and Tenzou almost smiled.

"Don't start that again."

"I had a sealing scroll and in it I packed..."

"Armour," Tenzou said automatically. "Wait, no, we're not playing any more damn word games! You can't possibly be that bored already."

"Have you not met me? You're lucky I lasted a whole five seconds."

This time Tenzou felt the smile twitch his lips and felt a pang of guilt. How could they keep joking like everything was normal when Miho was dead?

"When we get there –" he started, but Kawaguchi cut him off.

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"We don't have to talk about that yet."

"But we will," Tenzou said flatly. "Last time we fucked up and paid the price. I won't let that happen again. This time we'll be prepared."

Kawaguchi was silent for a moment.

"Fine. We'll talk mission now on the condition we don't talk about it for the whole damn journey."

"Deal."

"So what did Sandaime-sama say to you? Has the mission changed in any way besides finding Miho?"

Team Phoenix's original mission had been simple but unusual. A small village had reported the theft of a body that was due to be buried the next day. This wouldn't have necessitated ANBU intervention by itself, but the following day the body had been discovered dumped in the graveyard, naked and painted with intricate Water Country seals. It was the possibility of Mist involvement that earned the mission its S rank status, and since Miho understood Water language and culture, Team Phoenix had been assigned the mission. By the time they'd arrived, a second body had been discovered in similar circumstances. The main difference was that this victim had been alive when he'd disappeared.

"No, nothing's changed. Our priority is still to find and stop the killer."

"What about the seals? We're still none the wiser on what they mean."

"If either Iruka-sensei or T&I figure something out, Sandaime-sama will send us a message. But God know how long that'll take. Hopefully we'll solve the case sooner than that, then we ask the killer himself."

"I hope so," Kawaguchi said darkly. "I'd love to have a nice, long chat with him."

Tenzou thought of the bloody basement room covered in Miho's blood. "I'd prefer a short chat."

They entered a forest and took to the trees to avoid tripping on the roots and undergrowth. Not too far ahead they would hit the river, and Tenzou adjusted their course slightly to head towards the bridge.

"So what's our approach?" Kawaguchi asked. "Do we go back in as ANBU or should we try something subtler?"

Tenzou weighed up the options. The problem with broadcasting their presence as ANBU was that in a village as small as Shukunegi, everyone paid attention and everyone knew where they were and what they were doing at all times. That easy flow of gossip had allowed the killer to track and control them last time. The alternative was going undercover and posing as civilian or chuunin travellers, but Tenzou wasn't sure it would help them much for a similar reason. The villagers might pay them less attention, but strangers in town would still stand out, and if they started asking questions about the murders, the killer might put two and two together and figure out who they were.

"We'll go as ANBU," Tenzou eventually decided. "The village is too small for infiltration to give us an advantage, and besides, it'll help people feel more at ease if they see we haven't given up and abandoned them."

"If they still have faith in us to do our jobs," Kawaguchi said. "I wonder how many more people have died while we've been away."

Two villagers had been murdered in total. As well as the first, who'd died before they arrived, a woman had disappeared while Team Phoenix had been in town. Tenzou had found her in the cellar of an abandoned cottage, her neck cleanly snapped, still clothed and without seals but covered in Miho's blood.

"We'll find out soon enough," Tenzou said grimly. "This time, we're not splitting up, no matter what happens."

Kawaguchi was silent, and Tenzou wondered if he was going to argue.

"Will that be enough?" Kawaguchi asked. "You saw the room where Miho died. It was so – neat. Besides the blood, I mean. There weren't any signs of a struggle, like she just stood there and let herself be killed. If someone could take her out that easily, do we even stand a chance?"

"We have something Miho didn't have."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

The need for vengeance prickled under Tenzou's skin.

"Anger."

Iruka woke early the next morning to lips on the back of his neck and an erection pressed against the cleft of his ass.

"It's not even morning yet," he mumbled.

"Of course it is," Kakashi said, punctuating the sentence with a sharp suck on Iruka's earlobe. "Just the pre-dawn variety. I need to be at the Hokage Tower in two hours. It'll be embarrassing if I turn up like this." He ground his cock against Iruka, who hummed sleepily and pressed back into him.

"We must have had sex less than twelve hours ago."

"Twelve hours is a long time to not be fucking you."

Iruka turned over and pressed his lips to Kakashi's in a lazy open-mouthed kiss. Kakashi reached between his thighs, fondling Iruka's cock until it grew hard and Iruka was moaning into his mouth.

Kakashi pushed him onto his back and Iruka's legs fell open in invitation. The duvet slipped half onto the floor as Kakashi settled between Iruka's thighs and began kissing a path down his body, tracing lines on Iruka's stomach with his tongue, and then he took Iruka's cock into his mouth. Iruka groaned and reached a hand down, and Kakashi laced their fingers together, his other hand on Iruka's thigh, his thumb rubbing circles teasingly close to Iruka's balls. Iruka's hips twitched and Kakashi's eyes flicked up to meet his, sinking his mouth slowly further down and then sucking, his cheeks hollowing obscenely.

Only when Iruka's head fell back and his hand began squeezing Kakashi's spasmodically did Kakashi pull back, giving Iruka's cock a final slow lick from base to head. Then Kakashi was looming over him, watching him with a hungry expression.

"Hands and knees," Kakashi said lowly, and Iruka obeyed. A warm hand pressed down between his shoulder blades. "Down." Iruka lay his head on the pillow, his ass still raised in the air. He closed his eyes, his cock slick against his stomach, both hot and cool in the morning chill.

The bedside table rattled as Kakashi pulled the lube from the drawer, and Iruka listened to the faint sounds of him slicking his cock and inched his thighs wider. He could imagine the smirk on Kakashi's face as he noticed, and then two fingers pressed into him and Iruka let out a slow breath and rocked back.

"I don't need, ah, much prep."

"No," Kakashi agreed, curving his fingers and making Iruka shiver with pleasure.

The fingers stroked him once more and then slid out and Iruka felt Kakashi's knee nudge against his calf. Then a hand curved firmly around his hip and Kakashi's cock pushed against and into him. Iruka gripped the pillow and groaned loudly as he took Kakashi's full length.

Kakashi leaned over him and licked the bumps of his spine. "You always feel so delicious."

"Fuck me," Iruka gasped. Kakashi hummed low in his throat and waited. "Please."

Kakashi dropped a soft kiss on his shoulder blade. "Anything you want, Iruka."

He started to move slowly, leisurely, pressing in deep each time, fingers twitching tight around Iruka's hips with each thrust. Iruka arched his back and raised his head, but a hand gripped the back of his neck and pushed him back down.

"Stay still." Kakashi's voice was breathy now. He withdrew his hand and Iruka kept his cheek pressed against the pillow.

There had been a time when Iruka would have bristled at the very idea of being told what to do during sex, but there was something hypnotically sensual about Kakashi's voice. It was low and husky with want, and the act of obeying those soft commands was erotic in itself.

"Is that good?" Kakashi asked.

"Yes. You can, ah, go harder."

Kakashi made a rough noise of approval and changed his pace, fucking into Iruka hard enough to rock Iruka's body forwards an inch on the mattress.

"Like that?"

"Yes, fuck, Kakashi."

They were both panting now, and Iruka clawed at the pillow, his fingernails scratching a sound from the fabric. Kakashi reached a slick hand between Iruka's thighs and started stroking him in time with each thrust, until Iruka's throat hurt from the noises Kakashi rent from him and Kakashi was swearing under his breath. Then Iruka came hard into Kakashi's hand and Kakashi gripped his waist, hot and sticky, and stuttered shallowly into his own orgasm, gasping Iruka's name.

Iruka rolled over to collapse onto his back as soon as Kakashi pulled out, closing his eyes and becoming conscious for the first time of the thin layer of sweat on his body. He felt the mattress dip as Kakashi moved, and then Kakashi was wiping him clean with a handful of tissues. He opened his eyes to see Kakashi throw the tissues in the vague direction of the bin and miss, but couldn't quite work up the energy for a disapproving glare.

"That was nice," Kakashi said, and then yawned and settled down over Iruka like a blanket. Iruka groaned weakly and pushed at him.

"Too warm."

Kakashi let himself be pushed away, but nestled into Iruka's side and draped an arm across his chest with a sense of finality, burying his face in Iruka's neck. It was still too warm, but Iruka knew it would be useless to protest any further. He turned and kissed Kakashi's hair and Kakashi made a small happy noise and hooked an ankle around Iruka's leg.

After several minutes of lying in drowsy, contented silence, Iruka peered over at the clock. The sun had risen sometime while they'd been having sex, and although Iruka didn't know exactly when Kakashi was due to leave the village, he had a feeling that Kakashi wasn't going to break his habit of arriving fashionably late.

"Don't you need to start getting up?" he asked, somewhat reluctantly because he'd cooled down and was enjoying the warmth cuddled up to his side.

"Mm. Soon," Kakashi mumbled.

"Don't go back to sleep."

"'m not."

Iruka smiled fondly, suddenly overcome by a rush of affection. He turned over to lie facing Kakashi, who shifted slightly to allow it.

"I'll miss you," Iruka said softly.

Kakashi blinked one eye sleepily at him. "I'll come back soon."

Iruka kissed him on the nose. "You better."

A second villager had disappeared and Miho was pissed.

"Right under our noses," she ranted, flinging her hands up in outrage. "The killer knows we're in town and he's not scared at all."

"What did you expect?" Kawaguchi asked. "That he'd break down and confess once he heard ANBU had come calling?"

They were in Miho's room at the inn, which, Tenzou couldn't help noticing, was much bigger and nicer than the twin room he'd been sharing with Kawaguchi for the last five days. Kawaguchi had settled himself on the double bed and Tenzou was leaning against the opposite wall. Miho paced between them, scowling.

"We were supposed to stop this from happening," she said.

"It's too late for that now," Tenzou pointed out. "So what are we going to do about it?"

Miho stopped pacing and stood up straighter.

"Kawaguchi, go and talk to the victim's family and friends, find out where she was last seen, where she was going, and if there's any possibility that this isn't our killer. Tenzou, you come with me and we'll start a search."

"Of where?"

"Both bodies were dumped in the graveyard. That's on the inland side of town, and since the killer needs somewhere private to hold the victims until he dumps their bodies, he's probably holed up somewhere outside the village border."

"That's a lot of ground to cover," Kawaguchi said. "There must be hundreds of places to hide. No one lives within about five miles of here, further if you're heading inland, and it's all cliffs and scrubland."

"Do you have a better suggestion?" It was a serious question.

"Not really," Kawaguchi admitted. "But maybe talk to some of the locals before you leave. If there are any well-known haunted places that no one will set foot in, start there."

The villagers were certainly superstitious. Tenzou had seen charms hung from most windows, and when he'd asked the innkeeper about them, he'd been told they were to ward off evil. The villagers spoke of vengeful spirits at least as often as they spoke of murder.

"Good idea," he said.

"Yes," Miho said. "Now, shoo! Go talk to that family and come up with some more bright ideas."

Kawaguchi rolled his eyes and pulled his mask over his face. "Yes, Captain."

They split up outside the inn, and Tenzou followed Miho towards the graveyard. There was an ancient shrine close by, on the outskirts of town, and a row of wooden houses, all in need of serious repair.

"I'll take a look in the shrine," Tenzou offered, and left Miho alone to knock on the first door, the noise loud in the silence.

The shrine was small, a single building built on the uneven land where the village started to slope up towards the cliffs, and the effect was a disconcerting lop-sidedness to the whole building. Tenzou cautiously climbed the rotting wooden steps and pushed open the door.

The room before him smelt more of smoke than incense, and there was a draft even after Tenzou had shut the door behind him. The shrine's interior was plain and unadorned except with strips of paper which were strung up on the walls with rope as charms to ward off spirits. Tenzou was surprised to see that there were two icons, each placed reverently on a low wooden block to raise it above those who knelt to pray.

There was no one else inside, so Tenzou left and walked around to the back of the building. There was a small garden, but of the vegetable variety rather than the traditional Shinto affair. A middle-aged woman wearing a pair of faded red hakama and a white haori was crouching on the soil and digging lightly with a trowel, but she looked up as Tenzou approached and hurriedly climbed to her feet. Soil clung to legs of her hakama.

"You're here about those deaths," the shrine maiden said. She bowed. "Thank you for coming to help us."

Tenzou inclined his head in return. "I'm sorry we couldn't protect the girl who went missing last night."

"Are you here to ask about her?"

"Sort of. My captain and I are going to search the surrounding area for her, outside the village. We wanted to know if there was anywhere we should stay away from."

The shrine maiden nodded seriously. "It's bad land on the cliffs. Impure. The ghosts of drowned sailors and fishermen, they wash ashore here and scale the cliffs, searching for their loved ones. We keep them out of the village with prayers and charms, but once you set foot beyond the last grave, it's best to keep to the path, where you can, and never look back over your shoulder."

Tenzou nodded politely. "Are there any places that are particularly haunted? Places no one in the village would dream of going?"

"The widow's cottage," the shrine maiden replied without hesitation. "It's an old house on the top of Sister's Peak, abandoned for years now, but when I was a child there was a young woman who lived there. Her husband disappeared at sea, and the day his empty boat floated back to shore she threw herself from the clifftop."

"You think her spirit's still there?"

"The north road passes close by the house, and people have heard her crying for her husband." The shrine maiden touched the magatama around her neck – a comma shaped bead made from some cheap gemstone with a hole in the top, protection against evil.

"We'll be sure to stay away from there," Tenzou lied. "Thank you for the warning."

He made to turn and leave, but the woman took a hurried step towards him.

"Wait. If you're leaving the village, let me give you something to protect you."

She led him around the side of the shrine, and Tenzou followed her up the steps and back into the small room. The woman knelt by a chest at the back of the room and withdrew a pocket-sized bag sewn from blue cloth and tied with a white ribbon. She handed it to Tenzou, who pressed the material curiously, trying to feel what was inside.

"It's full of sea salt and sand," the woman said, watching him. "If you accidentally glance back and see a spirit following you, open the bag. It'll smell the sea that drowned it and flee from you."

It made sense, in a way. Tenzou slipped the bag carefully into his pocket and bowed.

"Thank you for your generosity." He hesitated, looking past her at the two icons. "Why are there two gods in this shrine?"

"Ah, you noticed. There used to be only one, but the Water Country people brought another from overseas." She gestured to one of the icons, a twisting sea serpent hewn roughly from pale stone.

Tenzou had been surprised when they'd first arrived in Shukunegi at how easily the different communities intermingled. Apparently relations weren't so smooth in some of the other coastal towns, especially towards the south, but Water Country immigrants had lived in Shukunegi for generations and parts of their language and traditions had been integrated into village life as a whole. Even the possibility of a killer from Water Country didn't drive a wedge between them. As one Fire native had put it: They wouldn't try and drive us out if it were Konoha seals.

Outside, Tenzou found Miho walking towards the shrine.

"Did you hear about the widow's cottage?" he asked.

"Yep, plus a whole bunch of haunted caves and a sacred hill or something." Miho waved a hand dismissively. "But we'll start with the cottage. I spoke to a little girl on the street whose father apparently saw a woman near there last night."

"Could be our missing person."

"My thoughts exactly. Say, you wouldn't happen to remember which clifftop was Sister's Peak, would you?"

Shukunegi was nestled between two cliffs, and Tenzou pointed towards the north.

"I don't think it's far, but it's all uphill."

"Good," Miho said, rubbing her hands together and starting to lead the way along the path that twisted past the graveyard and up into the cliffs. "Nothing like a bracing walk in the sea air. It's colder here than Konoha, don't you think? My father always says the seasons change faster by the sea. Right now, he'd say that autumn was being washed ashore on the waves like driftwood."

"That's very poetic."

"They're all like that in Water Country," Miho said. "Poetic and vicious. I'd like to think I've broken at least one of those moulds."

It only took half an hour to walk up to the clifftop, and then Tenzou spotted an old wooden cottage perilously close to the overhang, and they started towards it. The land up here was hilly, long grass and rocky outcrops, and the soil was mixed with sand that had blown up from the shore. They walked along the edge of the road, which was little more than a stony path. Tenzou was glad for his mask, which shielded his face from the sandy sting of the wind.

They were almost at the cottage when they heard a shout behind them, and Tenzou glanced back over his shoulder to see a young girl, maybe eight or nine, running down the road after them, waving for them to stop.

"That's the kid I spoke to before," Miho said.

They waited for the girl to catch up, and then waited for her to get her breath back.

"They told me to fetch one of you," she eventually panted. "Your friend's hurt."

"Hurt how?" Tenzou demanded, instantly tense.

"I don't know. I was just told to get you. He's at the doctor's house."

"You go," Miho said. "Make sure he's OK. I might as well check this out while I'm up here and I'll meet you back in the village."

Tenzou hesitated. "Maybe we should both go down and come back later."

Miho waved him off. "It's fine. I'll be careful, and if something's going down in the village, the two of you can take care of it without me."

She carried on down the road and Tenzou started back the way they'd come. He glanced down at the girl, who was watching him curiously.

"Are you all right walking back by yourself?" he asked. She nodded. "I'll go on ahead then."

Moving downhill was easier, and he hurried as much as the uneven ground would allow. It only took fifteen minutes until the graveyard was in sight, and then he was moving through the twisting, narrow streets, not completely sure of his route but heading downhill in the vague direction of the main square in the centre of the village.

He turned into a street he thought he recognised, and then heard someone calling his code name. Frowning, he turned and saw Kawaguchi coming towards him, unhurried and unhurt.

"Did you misplace the captain?" he asked as he reached Tenzou. "I thought the two of you would still be out searching."

"You're not hurt?"

Kawaguchi stared at him. "No. Why would I be?"

"A girl followed us up to the cliffs and said you were with the doctor."

"Then she lied to you, or someone lied to her. Where's Phoenix?"

"Still up there." Tenzou remembered how the girl had phrased her message and felt his stomach clench. "The girl said she'd been sent to fetch just one of us."

He started running, aware that Kawaguchi was hot on his heels. It was a trap. Miho was walking into a trap and he'd let her. Absurdly, he remembered the warning the shrine maiden had given him: keep to the path, where you can, and never look back over your shoulder. The girl had called out to them and Tenzou had looked back.

It took too long to navigate through the rows of houses, too long to make it up the sloping path, and by the time they reached the cottage, Tenzou was achingly aware of time, and how inevitably it passed.

The cottage door was open, and inside everything was quiet and still.

Tenzou went in first. There was only one storey, and four doors led off the narrow hallway. Kawaguchi slipped past him into the first room on the right, and Tenzou went left, into what must once have been a living room. There was a fireplace with the grate still inside it, and an old armchair, moth-eaten and mouldy. The rest of the furniture had gone, and so Tenzou's eyes were drawn instantly to a rug, not new but in a better state than the rest of the room, which lay neatly beside the back wall. When Tenzou kicked it aside, he found a trapdoor that presumably led down to the cellar.

"In here."

Kawaguchi was in the doorway seconds later. Tenzou gestured for him to lift the trapdoor while he readied a weapon, in case someone was waiting for them below.

The trapdoor didn't creak when Kawaguchi lifted it; someone had recently oiled the hinges. There was a wooden ladder fixed to the wall, but using it would mean turning his back on the rest of the cellar. Tenzou pulled a small torch from his pocket and switched it on, then crouched by the hole and prepared to jump down. He couldn't see anything in the dark space, but when he leaned closer to peer into the gloom, he caught the scent of blood.

"Something's happened down there," he said lowly. "Don't follow me until I say. It might still be dangerous."

"Got it."

Tenzou swung himself down through the trapdoor, landing lightly in a crouch, and immediately flashed the light over the room.

There was blood all over the floor. The room was full of old crates and pieces of furniture, stacked against the walls, and in the centre lay a body with a porcelain mask covering the face. Tenzou stood very still and breathed in deep for three long beats and then counted out the exhale.

It wasn't Miho. Now that he'd forced his brain back into gear, he took in the civilian clothes and the blonde hair spilling from underneath the mask. Miho's hair was dark.

Tenzou threw a kunai across the room, and it pinged safely off the opposite wall, not triggering any traps. Above him, Kawaguchi shifted and the floorboards creaked. Tenzou stepped forwards, skirting around the pool of blood as best he could, and knelt by the body on the other side. Gingerly, he plucked Miho's mask from the woman's face and recognised the girl who'd gone missing. Her head was hanging limply from a broken neck, and Tenzou tried to find where the blood had come from. There was no wound.

"Cat?"

"Come down," Tenzou called. He tried to say something else but his throat stuck.

He was vaguely aware of Kawaguchi dropping down through the hole the same way he had, and heard the sharp intake of breath as Kawaguchi shone his own torch over the blood.

"Is that –?"

"The missing girl."

"Then we should…" Kawaguchi trailed off as Tenzou held up Miho's mask. "Shit. You think someone took her?"

"She's dead."

Kawaguchi stepped further into the room. "What do you mean?"

Tenzou gestured at the blood. "This isn't the girl's. Her neck is broken. No other injuries."

"It could be the killer's blood."

"She wouldn't have left her mask."

There was a long silence. Tenzou became aware that something was digging into his thigh. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the small blue bag the shrine maiden had given him. The ribbon was tied loosely, and he tugged the knot open; the smell of brine and salt cut weakly through the sickly scent of blood. A warning to chase evil spirits away.

It was too late. Miho was dead.

On the evening of the third day after the funeral, Tenzou and Kawaguchi reached the path that would take them down between the cliffs and back into Shukunegi. The widow's cottage hulked against the edge of the cliff, steeped in shadow now that the sun was sinking down past the hills in the west. Tenzou stopped and stared at it, and sensed Kawaguchi pause as well. He waited for Kawaguchi to tell him to stop being morbid, to take his arm and lead him firmly down the path.

"Do you want to go back inside?" Kawaguchi asked quietly.

Tenzou slowly shook his head, and then came the hand on his elbow, and Kawaguchi steered him onwards towards the village.

"I wonder if anyone's found her yet," Kawaguchi said.

"I wonder if anyone else has died."

"There was nothing we could do except go back to Konoha. Standard procedure when a cell leader dies. We spent two full days looking for her, that was enough. At least we found the book."

"It hasn't been much help so far."

"Give it time. We're not done yet."

The winding streets were steeped in shadow, and there were few people outside. Those they passed stared and whispered. Tenzou wondered what the villagers thought of them now, after their captain had been killed and they'd run back to Konoha with their tails between their legs.

The innkeeper was perfectly polite, however, when they told him they'd be staying for a few more days, and they learnt that no one else had died or gone missing since they'd left. Miho's body still hadn't turned up and Tenzou felt strangely relieved. He wanted Miho found, but if she'd been buried by strangers in a strange place, he'd have felt as though he'd failed her.

"No point starting anything tonight," Kawaguchi said when they were alone in their room – the same room they'd shared the last time they'd been here. "I'll go ask if we can have some food brought up."

"I'll go," Tenzou said, and left the room before Kawaguchi could reply.

That night, he couldn't sleep. Eventually he sat up, sick of tossing and turning. Kawaguchi was breathing evenly in the other bed, eyes closed, expression peaceful. Tenzou watched him for a while. So this was leadership: the responsibility for another person's life. Leading someone who trusted him deliberately into danger and trying to fumble them both through to the other side. Usually when ANBU operatives were promoted to cell leader, they received further training before they were sent out into the field with their first team, but Tenzou hadn't had time for that. He wondered what would happen when this mission was over: would he be given a second person to risk and watch over in turn, or would someone else step into Miho's shoes? Which would he prefer?

He slept in fits and starts throughout the night. Morning was a long time coming.

Kakashi had been gone for seventy-two hours and already Iruka was counting down the days until his return. Admittedly this would have been easier if he'd known when to expect Kakashi back, but he'd decided to take Kakashi's longer estimate of two weeks so that he wouldn't be disappointed if Kakashi didn't make it back in one.

He'd finished his final class of the day three hours ago and was currently sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, a cushion beneath him and the coffee table before him covered in books, scrolls and sheets of paper. In the centre of everything was the book of Water Country seals, which was currently open at the key in Chapter Two.

The first time Iruka had gone through the book, he'd ignored the writing, knowing he wouldn't understand it, and so it took him until the second research session to realise that there wasn't one set of handwriting – there were two. The second was much more recent, the ink not nearly as faded, and while it was also written in a kind of code, this was a code Iruka could understand.

Among seals researchers there existed a form of shorthand, unintelligible to the uninitiated, but Iruka used it himself on a semi-regular basis when note-taking from reference materials or when developing new seals. Aside from the help this second set of notes had afforded him, there was another interesting fact about the shorthand: it was only used by shinobi in the Land of Fire. Whoever else had tried to figure out the seals in this book had been trained in Konoha.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though whoever had made the notes had more depth of experience than Iruka. Many references were phrased along the lines of: Similar to extended animation, re: Nara, connections 4 lines from central. Iruka had never seen the Nara clan scrolls and couldn't imagine what 'extended animation' could mean. He had, however, found this particular base symbol in two different seals in the book: one using the chakra pathway for the thigh and another for the upper arm. If he extrapolated to include all four limbs, he could see the four connections – a single stroke from each seal was designed to follow a chakra pathway from the limb to the navel, where each line was then integrated into the abdominal seal.

Iruka could see this because he'd also realised that the chakra pathways from different body parts didn't refer to any specialist chakra paper, but to the body itself. It was common knowledge that seals could be used directly on the body instead of through the medium of chakra paper, but it was a much more unusual practice. Generally, it required two people: the seals user and the seals receiver, since activating seals on one's own body was a feat of extraordinary chakra control rarely achieved even by practised seals experts. The other possibility, for permanent seals, were seal tattoos, which were generally used for medical reasons and could be created with an in-built trigger, a sort of switch that meant the seal could be made active or inactive through a simple jutsu.

Iruka wasn't sure whether the seals in the book were designed to be permanent or single use only, but he could see that they were all connected. They flowed together across the body, joining through the chakra pathways, complementing and feeding into each other in ways Iruka couldn't begin to comprehend. To call it frustrating was an understatement.

Through his research and the notes the Konoha shinobi had left, Iruka had managed to loosely interpret three of the base symbols listed in the key. There was the extended animation symbol, preservation, and something that Iruka thought was related to blood.

Iruka had asked for and received permission to access the Nara clan scrolls, and with the help of a seals expert from the family, who was also a medical researcher, he'd discovered that the Nara family had a scroll on seals designed to animate inanimate objects. He imagined they were designed to complement the clan shadow jutsu, although he hadn't yet managed to determine what was meant by 'extended animation', and whether it referred to extended time or extended surface area, or something he hadn't considered.

Preservation was an archaic base symbol used for foodstuffs, which had been important before the invention of fridges and freezers, but was no longer commonly used. The specifics of the blood symbol continued to evade Iruka, although he found it used in several different seals, and always in conjunction with another base symbol that wasn't in the key because it was simple enough for even a genin to read. Blood and chakra. The strokes of the seals combined them tightly, blending them into one single unit. What did that mean?

Iruka leant back against the sofa behind him and sighed, tapping a pencil absentmindedly against the table. He was making progress, but at a snail's pace. There was still no word from the code breaker at T&I, which Iruka assumed meant he was having even more of a tough time. Iruka had even asked around in the Konoha seals community to see if he could find the person who'd made the shorthand notes, but no one had known anything about a book of coded Water Country seals.

There was no choice. If Sandaime wanted Iruka to figure out more seals, he'd have to give him more information. Iruka glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. He had an appointment scheduled with Sandaime for three days' time, but that was too far away. The sooner he contextualised the seals, the sooner he could make some sense out of what he was reading.

Iruka sat thoughtfully for a moment longer and then stood up. No time like the present.

When he reached the Hokage Tower and spoke with Sandaime's secretary, he was asked to wait, and it was forty minutes later that he was allowed to enter Sandaime's office.

Sandaime was sitting behind his desk and shuffling paperwork about when Iruka finally entered.

"Sorry to make you wait," Sandaime said, straightening one last pile and then giving Iruka his full attention. "How can I help you, Iruka?"

"It's about those seals you asked me to look into."

"Of course. One moment."

There were two ANBU hanging back in the room as always, and now Sandaime gestured for them to leave. One slipped through the door, closing it soundlessly behind him, and the other swung himself out of the window to perch on the wall outside.

"Carry on," Sandaime said when they were alone.

Now that it was time to ask, Iruka hesitated. But it was too late to change his mind, so he pressed forwards.

"There's more to this mission than you're telling me, isn't there?" he asked.

Sandaime didn't bat an eye. "Of course."

"I need to know more," Iruka said bluntly. "The base symbols are too complicated without the key. I'm getting the gist of some of the meanings, but I can't make total sense of them without some idea of the context. If the ANBU who recovered the book saw the seals used, or if they know what kind of person owned the book, I need that information."

Iruka was aware that he'd just made demands of the hokage, but they had an informal enough relationship that he didn't feel he was overstepping himself. If Sandaime refused, Iruka wouldn't push the point.

"How long do you think it would take to understand those seals with the information you currently have?" Sandaime asked.

"Months."

Sandaime leant back in his chair, mulling over Iruka's request. Iruka waited patiently.

"I don't have months," Sandaime eventually said, and Iruka tried not to let his happiness show. "All right, I'll tell you why those seals are important, but this information is classified to the same level as the book. You do not discuss it with anyone except myself, Cat and Snail."

"I understand."

"That book was recovered during a homicide investigation. Two people were murdered in a fishing village and their bodies were discovered painted with seals from the book."

Iruka frowned. "Do you think the seals killed them?"

"It could be. However, initially the ANBU team weren't sent to catch a killer, but a grave robber. The thief stole a body that was being prepared for funeral, and it was also found covered in the seals."

"So the seals were applied after death?"

"In at least one case."

Iruka filed that away to examine later. "Were the seals painted with ink or were they tattoos?"

Sandaime raised a hand to his face thoughtfully. "I seem to remember there was something odd about them. Let me get the file."

He rose and went over to an old filing cabinet with a dent in the side and opened a drawer, rifling through the files inside before selecting one. Iruka watched with fascination.

"You keep active ANBU case files in a filing cabinet?"

"I have to file them somewhere."

"But it isn't even locked or warded!"

"I lock it before I leave the office. But I doubt anyone would want to go through my agricultural policy documentation in any case."

The file he lay down on the desk said 'Agriculture Dept.: Crop Theft in the Coastal Region, Section PCS'. Iruka had to hand it to Sandaime – it sounded so boring that if he'd stumbled across the file, he wouldn't even wonder whether it was code.

Sandaime leafed through the file and extracted a mission report.

"Here we are. Let's see, there's a description of the seals here." His gaze flicked along the lines of neatly-written text. "Ah, yes, it looked at first glance as though the seals had been written in blood, but on closer examination the marks were ingrained within the skin like a tattoo. Attempts were made to remove them before burial, but they couldn't be washed away."

"Some kind of blood tattoo?" Iruka mused. "I suppose there's no reason why it wouldn't work. There are some seals users who prefer to use blood even with paper seals."

"Yes, I've heard it makes the seals more powerful. Is that an urban legend or is there any basis behind it?"

"Organic matter carries chakra better. Using blood doesn't exactly make the seal more powerful, but if you're using a particularly fiddly seal, it can help with accuracy."

Sandaime tapped his fingers on the desk. "Could that be a reason why bodies were used? As a sort of highly conductive substitute for chakra paper?"

The same thought had occurred to Iruka. "It could be. I don't know whether it would be possible, but it's theoretically sound. It would allow for a much more complicated set of seals than chakra paper. I've never heard of anyone using a human body for seal creation, though. Not a dead body."

"It's an extremely disturbing idea."

Iruka thought about seals on dead bodies. Three dead bodies. Why three?

"Were the seals identical each time?" he asked.

Sandaime scanned the mission report again, and then picked up a second sheet of paper and continued reading. "It only says here that the seals appeared similar. I'm afraid ANBU is short on seals specialists, and I imagine the team didn't pay as much attention as you would have done. To them, it was simply a connection between the stolen body and the murders, and a possible motive. Nothing they could comprehend further."

"Isn't that a rather large oversight?" Iruka asked, unreasonably annoyed that the ANBU hadn't compared the seals in more detail.

"ANBU and scholars work in a very different way," Sandaime said calmly. "You want to understand the seals. They only want to know who made them. One answer won't necessarily lead to the other, although I'm hoping that in this case it will."

Iruka sighed. "I'll do my best. Is there anything else you can tell me? Do you know who owned the book or where it came from?"

"No, unfortunately not. It was found at the side of a road by a local civilian." Sandaime put the sheets of paper and down and looked up. "I think that's all I can tell you."

"It was helpful," Iruka assured him. "Thank you."

But not helpful enough.

Tenzou and Kawaguchi resumed their investigation the next morning by tracking down the woman who'd found the book of seals and asking her to take them to the place where she'd picked it up. The woman was young but older than Tenzou, late twenties, and spoke with a Water Country accent that had been worn down by a generation or two.

"My husband and I were coming back from visiting family in the next village," she told them as she led them up along the clifftop path, south with the widow's cottage at their backs. She'd already told them this on the day after Miho's death when she'd brought them the book, but she seemed nervous in their presence and Tenzou didn't mind her filling the silence with the story.

"And it was just lying on the road?" he asked.

"Near the road. I picked it up and saw those symbols inside, like the ones on the dead." She reached into a pocket to touch a charm or amulet. "So my husband said I should bring it to you."

"We're very grateful to you for that."

She stopped and looked around, recognising some feature of the landscape, which all seemed the same to Tenzou, and then crossed to the other side of the road and pointed down at a patch of rocky ground where the grass had failed to grow.

"Here. I found it here."

"Thank you for showing us again," Tenzou said. "Sorry for making you come all the way up here."

The woman inclined her head nervously, and Tenzou noticed that she closed her eyes before turning to go back the way they'd come, making sure she wouldn't glimpse a spirit behind her.

"We're not going to find anything here," Kawaguchi said once she was out of earshot.

"Maybe not," Tenzou admitted. "But the last time we came here you said the book was the biggest clue." He looked down at the rocks and started to recount what they'd deduced from where the book was found. "It was found the day after Phoenix died, but since there were no seals on the body we found in the cottage, it could have been dropped here earlier."

"Not dropped," Kawaguchi corrected him. "Someone left it here to be found. Whatever those seals mean, they're key to the murders. The killer wouldn't be careless enough to lose it, and he certainly wouldn't want it to fall into our hands, so someone else must have stolen it and left it by the road. In this spot, it's just hidden enough that it can't be seen from a distance, but once you get close it's obvious."

"If someone stole it from the killer, why leave it here? Why not bring it to us directly? And why here, outside the village?"

"Exactly the right questions," Kawaguchi mused. "It must be someone close to the killer, for them to have had a chance to steal the book. Maybe an accomplice who got scared, or who was being forced or coerced from the beginning."

"And who was afraid to be seen talking to ANBU in case the killer realised they'd turned traitor."

"Right. As to why here, maybe we're close to where the killer's been painting the seals on his victims."

Tenzou frowned. "But surely the cottage was the hideout."

"So where did he take Phoenix?"

Tenzou turned and looked back towards the cottage, a smudge against the sky and sea from this distance, piecing together what he'd seen that day. He'd found the cellar entrance immediately, and once Miho had gone into the cottage she'd have noticed the new rug on the living room floor, just as he had. If someone had really been trying to hide the trapdoor, they could easily have done a better job.

"It was a trap from the very beginning," he said. "The killer wasn't after that village girl – she was just the bait. When Phoenix discovered her in the cottage, she wasn't uncovering the killer's hideout, she was walking into a trap disguised as a hideout."

"The killer wanted an ANBU," Kawaguchi said. He stared out towards the sea, thinking. Tenzou knew better than to interrupt. "The kid who told you I was hurt, did she specifically say she wanted you to come back with her?"

"No, Phoenix sent me."

"Then it didn't matter which ANBU. But still, why let two of you go up in the first place?" He turned to Tenzou. "Why did you go to the cottage?"

"You said we should start with the places no one in the village would go, so we asked around. The shrine maiden mentioned the cottage to me, and a child told Phoenix that a woman had been seen near there." Tenzou suddenly remembered one more detail. "It was the same girl. She told Phoenix to go to the cottage and then had me sent back to the village."

"Henge," Kawaguchi said flatly. "That's why we couldn't track her down. No one suspects kids. They're hard to pull off for an adult, but incredibly useful if you do it right."

"She thought Phoenix was alone," Tenzou continued. "Then she must have seen us together and intervened. Two ANBU would have been too much for her to handle. Or him. Whoever that child really was."

"Probably the killer, who then followed Phoenix into the cottage and killed her. And then took her body somewhere before we turned up."

"We're not far from the cottage here. Maybe half a mile, maybe less."

"Then we're close to the real hideout. Shit, why didn't I see it the first time?" Kawaguchi ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

"Neither of us was thinking straight. But this time we're going to do it right. Come on."

Tenzou stepped off the road and started walking inland. Kawaguchi followed him.

"So we're just going to wander aimlessly until we stumble across it?" he asked.

"It's our only option."

"OK. Just checking that was the plan."

The landscape before them was hilly grassland, which Tenzou knew stretched for several miles before giving way to forest and farmland. It was difficult to see any distance because the ground was so uneven, rising up into a rocky crest or hillock and blocking the horizon. The grass was long and dry, rustling around Tenzou's calves in the breeze, and the whisper of the stalks brushing together was the only sound besides the cry of sea birds hovering overhead or nesting in the cliffs behind them.

"Do you hear that?" Kawaguchi asked. "Sounds like running water. I thought the river was further south."

Sure enough, now that Tenzou listened closer, he could hear the rush of water beneath the sigh of the wind through the grass.

"Might be a stream. But we're looking for something hidden, like a cave or a hollow."

Kawaguchi started to reply, but at that moment a cry rang out somewhere close by. A human cry: female and desperate.

Tenzou brought his hands together and body flickered to the top of the nearest hillock. From up here he could see more clearly, and a movement caught his eye. The stream was closer than he'd thought – straight ahead but hidden in a shallow dip – and as he tracked it further he saw the figure of a woman crouching in the water.

"That way!"

Kawaguchi started moving in the direction he'd pointed and Tenzou followed. When the woman came into view from ground level, her back to them, kneeling in the middle of the stream, Tenzou realised with a shock that she was naked and that there were dark red seals inked over her body.

The woman cried out again, but this time it was almost a sob. The water level in the stream was shallow, less than knee deep, and she was scrubbing the water furiously over her skin, trying to wash away the marks that Tenzou had only seen on the dead before.

Kawaguchi got to her first, crouching down cautiously on the bank beside her.

"Hey, are you all right? Do you need help?"

He reached out, but then the woman looked up, her hair falling away from her face, and Kawaguchi shot back from the stream as if scorched.

Tenzou was by his side in an instant.

"What's –?"

He saw the woman's face and knew what was wrong.

"Help me," Miho said.

The last pre-genin was barely out of the classroom door before the ANBU appeared noiselessly in front of Iruka's desk. It took all of Iruka's skill as a shinobi not to jump out of his skin. He was about to inform the ANBU that he did, in fact, have a perfectly functional door, but then noticed the tense set of the ANBU's shoulders.

"The hokage needs to speak with you immediately."

His voice was carefully neutral, but it was firm in a way that brooked no argument. Iruka put down the pile of students' work he'd been holding.

"Can I pack up my things first?"

The ANBU nodded, and Iruka put his pens and a sheaf of history tests into his messenger bag. It was less than twenty-four hours since he'd spoken with Sandaime – what could have happened in that time to necessitate summoning him as soon as the Academy let out for the day?

As they walked across the square towards the Hokage Tower, Iruka wondered whether T&I had finally cracked the code for the book of seals and needed the full text to make a translation. He hoped that was the case. If something else had happened with the ANBU mission, he doubted it would be good news.

The ANBU knocked on the door to the hokage's office and a voice from inside called for them to enter. Iruka had been expecting the meeting to be about the book of seals, and so he was surprised to see that there was another chuunin standing by the hokage's desk, a woman he recognised as a member of the archives administrative staff. She glanced up as he entered and her expression changed from upset to distraught.

Sandaime also looked grim, and Iruka felt a whisper of unease as he crossed the room to stand in front of the desk. Behind him, the ANBU softly shut the door, but Iruka barely heard it.

"What's happened?" he asked.

Sandaime stood up and came around the desk. He put a hand on Iruka's arm and the unease became dread.

"Something happened this morning," Sandaime said gently. "I wanted you to hear it from me."

He hesitated, and in that brief moment Iruka felt a thread of hope inside him quietly snap.

"I'm sorry, Iruka," Sandaime said. "Kakashi is dead."