A/N If you haven't you should read chap 34. A lot of people are missing it. It's really all one chapter but I split it in two because it was too long. A lot of the resolution takes place in 34.

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Iruka stretched the length of his back against a streetlamp, trying to contrive some measure of support from its too narrow, too upright structure. But he was still as uncomfortable on the outside as he was on the inside. He pulled his woolen overcoat tighter around his throat against the chill, almost glad that he'd been forced to home and change. Poor Kakashi, well, they'd wiped off as much slime as they could.

Kakshi had been in there a long time now, in the council chamber. At least that part of the Hokage building should have been left completely undamaged by the explosion. Iruka had been down there, once or twice, delivering reports and folders. So he knew that it was a big hollow space, full of statues and columns. Too impressive, too big. Like many of the formal places in Konoha, it had been built to awe and intimidate, as much as to inspire.

Well good luck to the Council trying to intimidate Kakashi.

As Iruka waited, and fidgeted, he let his eyes rake over the outside of the building. Up close he could see that the damage was much less than he'd imagined. The top of the tower itself had collapsed, but that was chiefly an architectural detail. All in all they'd got off very lightly.

The whole area had been encircled by orange construction tape almost at once. Civilian and ninja work crews had shored up the most unstable parts of the building almost as fast, and were currently clearing away the remaining rubble. He supposed it was worth the effort, that whether Kakashi won or lost the final battle with Itachi, Konoha would go on. It would be a sad shadow of what it had once been, at least for him, but Konoha would still go on.

The mist had vanished completely, and so had all the enemy ninjas that they'd left where they'd fallen. No doubt they were all on their way home now, bewildered by their blank headbands and relieved to have escaped with their lives after mysteriously waking up in the wrong village. He knew because it had happened to him not so long ago.

After what seemed far too long, a dark clad figure emerged from the doorway. How could anyone move with such speed and purpose, and still make it look like a shambling slouch.

He walked over to meet him half way. "So how'd it go."

Iruka didn't really need to ask, the murder glinting in that one eye told him all he needed to know.

"Well I have new respect for Tsunade, putting up with those old fuckers every day. They looked at me as if I was scum, alright I admit, I smell like scum, but I tried to explain. They choked when I told them we need all the hunters to track down Itachi. They want them to help out the ANBU, to arrest everyone that came in from the outside. Including those who came to help us out, 'just in case'. Including Temari and Kankuro. That will do wonders for our alliance with Sand. They even want me to bring in Sam for questioning. Sam!"

Iruka took his hand, discretely. They may be married but they still weren't officially 'out'.

"So what will you do?"

Iruka hesitated, then put an arm around his shoulders. They had only been able to wipe most of the toad mucus off his clothes, but on the other hand, he must be really upset to be showing this much emotion in a public place.

"I don't have much choice. They're the only law here now. I'm just the poor sucker who'll get dumped with the blame." The copy nin's eye crinkled into a smile without loosing any of its fire. "Starting tomorrow. Right now I need to rest, relax, maybe read for a bit. I was in a big battle yesterday. You know, sharingan, chakra depletion. By the way Sam said to say goodbye, asked us to visit soon."

So that had been his first stop. But if Kakashi had come back here to cover his tracks it meant he knew he was being watched. He removed his arm. "And the others?"

"Word spreads fast in a ninja village."

Kakashi stopped them in front of a small café. "Is it too early to get a drink?"

A woman seated at an outside table waved.

Kakashi's eyebrow twitched. As if he wasn't agitated enough already, now strangers were waving at him. He'd never been comfortable being the Famous copy cat ninja. Ninja's shouldn't be famous, they should live in the shadows, secretive, unknown. He smoothed two fingers along the edge of his mask.

Then he recognised her, the bug woman from cloud. She was apparently eating breakfast, sitting alone at the wet table, under the dreary sky. Maybe she hadn't felt welcome inside where it was warm. Maybe he wasn't surprised. But he was glad to see her. He could show his appreciation even if his village wouldn't.

"Hey there. Iruka told me how you helped him. You didn't have to, and you won't get any thanks for it back in Kumo. But thanks."

She shrugged. "You two saved my butt first."

Her black eyes darted to their interlocked hands. Damn waste. "A friend in need and all that… well I've gotta go, might as well. You'll be kicking all the foreign nins out as fast as you can anyway. Or locking us up, I know how things are in a hidden village."

He certainly did. "Did you find your brother?" Kakashi was surprised to realise that he really cared.

"Yeah, the little squirt doesn't remember a thing. At least not after that white haired slut went prancing off into the bushes with him and his team and a bottle of sake. Men, once you get their dicks interested in something the rest of them just follows right along. He's over at the morgue, couldn't find one of his teammates so he's checking through all the stiffs."

"Well I hope he finds his friend."

Kakashi felt a sharp kick to the ankle. Yes he could have worded that better. He scratched the back of his head. "Just… not there."

"Well there are pretty lean pickings from what I've heard. Less than twenty dead on both sides. If it wasn't just a bit too ironic I'd describe this as a bloodless war."

"It's still twenty who won't go home to the people that love them."

A single snowflake, a fragile crystalline feather, descended to the tabletop in a slow spiral, and vanished on contact.

"Hey, you can't blame yourselves for that. You're one hell of a shinobi Hatake-sama. I never had much regard for Konoha, always thought of you Leaf nins as rich and soft. But now I can see that you're as tough as any of us. Tougher. That's what gives you the wiggle room to be a bit… kinder. And your pretty swordsman here, he's alright too."

Iruka had hoped he'd be left out of this, the woman still made him unbearably uncomfortable. "I'm, er, not a swordsman. I mean I can handle a blade but it's not what I do. Actually I'm an academy sensei."

She gagged, choked, and laughed so loud that if they had been just a bit slower, she would have sprayed mango juice all over them. They'd been slimed enough for one morning.

"Hell no wonder you handed us our arses back in the last secret war, if even your school teachers…" Another flake melted onto the back of her hand as her fingertips touched the empty glass, sliding it aside as she stood up. "I'd better get that kid, before he gets himself into trouble again. We've got a ways to go and the weather is turning against us."

"Wait." Kakashi leaned over to scribble something on the back of her receipt. "Hand this in at the gate, they'll give you papers, safe transit out of Fire Country, no questions."

She trapped it under a finger and scraped it off the edge of the table. "I see, you've got hunters out there. Well 'a word to the wise', we won't hang about. Wouldn't want to run into them… or whoever they're hunting."

She waved behind once, then sauntered away in the direction of the morgue. Iruka squeezed Kakashi's fingers. "You think Itachi's in the forest?"

'I hope he's in the forest, but I'm afraid that he's not. That he's already here."

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They walked away slowly, watching the sky gently scatter its burden of snow. It wouldn't stick, at least, not yet. The ground was too warm and too wet. It would probably just accumulate into a layer of dirty, slippery slush. But the temperature was falling rapidly. Iruka pulled his coat around him some more and glanced at Kakashi, in his uniform, in shirtsleeves. And he was always the first to complain about the cold. So Kakashi was still dosed up on enough soldier pills to make an elephant tap dance… after it had jumped over the moon. He must be like a furnace inside.

The snow thickened considerably, pulling the flat grey of the heavens down to the level of the streets, only to transform to a frosting of white on every horizontal surface. Kakashi had got a little ahead of him, and Iruka quickened his pace to catch up. As he fell into step beside the dark silhouette, it turned to face him.

"Say, excuse me sir, could you tell me where I can find Hatake Kakashi."

Iruka stumbled in surprise at hearing the name of the man he expected to see, coming from an unexpected, unknown face. His hand darted for a weapon.

"I know he said we should go home… but I came all this way, I just got here. If I could just say 'thanks' in person."

Iruka stared at the young man. He wasn't a ninja, that was for damn sure. Even for a civilian he seemed unusually awkward and uncoordinated. And despite his height and angular build, he seemed almost delicate, like a very tall bird. His stooped posture drooped further under the inspection, then bent forward into a formal bow.

"Oh, I'm sorry Shinobi-san, my name's Gep."

Gep, where had he heard that name before? Right, the Mermaid pirates. The kunai slipped back into his pouch with a soft ching.

"So er, you're… Little Gep?" The youth was at least two inches taller than he was and Iruka found himself wondering just which part was little. Or was it a joke because he was so big? He blushed in shame. He'd been living with that damn pervert for too long. "Kakashi told me about you."

But the sneaky bastard hadn't mentioned his bottomless eyes and cute little lisp.

"Wow, you know Sharingan Kakashi in person? For real?"

A soft glow suffused the young man's face and his huge dark eyes misted over. "He saved me you know. Of course I don't remember any of it. I don't remember anything. But I heard that he's as handsome as a God, a giant with white hair like a snow capped mountain."

Something deep inside warned Iruka to be very wary of what he said. "Well he's taller than average, and his hair is silvery white, but I…"

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As they turned a corner Kakashi realised that Iruka was no longer with him. Snow was falling hard now. Straight down, without a single breath of wind to stir eddies or form drifts. But it wasn't real. He was in a genjutsu… of a snowstorm within the snowstorm. All the streets were completely empty. No sound, no movement, under a blanket of silent snow. And he wasn't alone.

So this was where they'd play out the final scene of their little drama.

"You might as well show yourself, I know you're here. …But why are you here Itachi? After everything you did to break every bond you have with this place?"

The Uchiha materialised, leaning against the wall in front of him. As always his expression was neutral, blank, like that of a statue, or a sleeping tiger.

"Who knows why we do the things we do when it comes all the way down to it. Many small reasons, a few big ones. You know most of it. I didn't lie. There are many levels of truth Hatake-san. The truth, the honest truth, half-truth, things that are true in words only. But you wouldn't be the shinobi you are today if you didn't already know all of that. Let's just say the time was right."

He pulled himself upright, peeling his body away from the wall like a drunk at a carnival. An instant later Kakashi felt bricks against his back and heard the rustle of silk on either side of his head. He clamped down on his emotions, determined not give the other man the satisfaction of acknowledging his fear. But not even he could suppress the cringe as Itachi slowly eased up his headband.

Itachi's breath was warm on his skin in the cold air. "I want something that only you can give. I'd hoped to avoid this, with the wolf's blood you'd have given it willingly, but now it looks as if I'll have to take it by force."

Kakashi pressed back against the wall, trying to avoid those burning red eyes. "You won't find Obito if that's who you're looking for. Do you hate me so much and want me so much, just because I have his eye? Or are you willing to settle for his affection second hand, and you'll put up with the unworthy host to get it?"

Then for the second time in as many days he was bound, eye to eyes, sinking into the crimson depths, linked into a single consciousness. But this time he was ready. Red brightened to white, dazzling, whiter than the falling snow. And they were standing in a place of white mist that wasn't mist. Where they could see nothing because there was nothing to see.

Kakashi knew it at once, the void between life and death. But to his surprise, so did Itachi. So he'd seen this place too, the place that no living soul should ever have seen.

How? Through the sharingans of a dying Uchiha perhaps? Had they died so that he could gaze into this place of nothingness?

And having seen it, had he looked for a way to get here? …And to bring someone back?"

Kakashi pushed further, sweeping them along, until they could see a speck in the far far distance, a tiny smudge against the white. And then they were under the tree of life, bathed in its perfect aura of quiet calm.

From high in its branches Obito looked down… at both of them, through the portal of his memory, and winked. Smiling and flirting with the eye they still shared.

Kakashi became aware that he was shaking, or rather was being shaken.

Itachi had him in a vice like grip, physically as well as mentally. "How did you do it? How? How did you get there and get back? Tell me damn you, tell me."

The Uchiha's massive power, unleashed in its rawest elemental form roared around them. Whipping the snow like a tornado, with the two men at its eye. Their Uchiha eyes. Locked together, two flawed prodigies, dark and light. The one who'd had everything and destroyed it to gain nothing. And the one who'd had nothing, but by accepting it had been given everything.

Kakashi threw Itachi back with a single blast of lightening chakra, jerking away his sharingan, and shoving his headband down over it for good measure. "It's gone now. It was a path that could only be used once. Obito's not yours and he never was. And neither am I. You can't use me to reach him."

Itachi stood staring at him for a moment more, his face etched with anguish and disbelief. Then Kakashi watched the ripples of his hair and the billow of his robe as he turned, and faded behind the curtain of falling snow.

So that was it. It was over, in the space of a few minutes, and without so much as a murmur in the real world beyond the genjutsu.

Uchiha Itachi had once used the power of the sharingan to throw him into the pit of the abyss, into a world of his own hopelessness and despair. Now he'd used it to show Itachi a glimpse of the tree of life, a place of perfect peace and perfect understanding.

As the proud Uchiha vanished into the snowy streets he wondered which of them was guilty of inflicting the greater torment on the other.

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Iruka was where he'd last seen him, a few feet away. With the last person he ever expected to see again. Little Gep.

He stepped behind him, fighting to calm his racing pulse, and breathed in his ear. "So are you two talking about me? Nothing good I hope."

Iruka stamped backwards, hard, aiming for Kakashi's instep. But only succeeded in jolting his ankle and knee. Damn him, just how long had he been lurking there stealthed?

Gep watched Kakashi's hand snake around Iruka's waist. His jaw dropped open. "Are you two…? I mean… are you…"

In answer to his half question Kakashi pulled down his mask, planted one hand firmly on each sweet pert teacher buttock, and claimed Iruka's gaping mouth in a bruising, tongue wrangling, kiss. A kiss that apparently contained a secret jutsu to bypass a normal human's need for fresh oxygen.

He pulled away leaving Iruka gasping and quivering. "There's more than one kind of love in this world kid. They're all good, as long as the people are good."

Gep was blushing as much as Iruka, and that was saying something.

"Wow, you know, you see I have this new friend, Chu. He's from across the sea, he came to study our marshes. And I know he likes me, and he's so cute. But I…"

Iruka noticed a steely glint to Kakashi's eye that suggested there was more to this than he would ever tell.

The copy nin scratched his head as his eye closed to a crescent. "Go for it kid. You're parents will get over it. They wouldn't want to risk losing you again, trust me."

When he opened his eye it had become narrow and calculating. "You know I'm glad you came here. Those marshes around Stonebridge Village, they're pretty isolated, good for hiding something in, right? Perhaps you wouldn't mind taking someone back with you, a priest. I've been told he's cute too."

Kakashi slipped his other arm around him and squeezed both brown eyed men, laughing. Come on, I'll write out a visa so that you can stay until Jiraiya gets back. We'll pass you off as a merchant. What do you want to sell? Bootleg CDs, fountain pens, kinky underwear?

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The secret expedition to take Ookami Ketsuekimusha back to Hidden Mist left as soon as Jiraira returned with a delegation of priests and the crystal sarcophagus. Three of the red robed priests went with it. The other three accompanied Gep and team Kurenai deep into the marshes of cloud country, to select and prepare a new chamber in a more secret place.

Tsunade came to watch them go, in her first public appearance since the attack. She looked as young, as strong and as healthy as ever. But the more perceptive of her shinobi noticed that she only stood for a few minutes and that Shizune was never more than a couple of feet from her side.

Kakashi, Iruka, Naruto and Sakura watched from a rooftop. No one else knew the significance of the strangers' presence, or of the danger sealed in the draped box they took with them. And they all knew that that was exactly the way it should be.

"So there they go." Iruka commented, as he tracked them through the streets, bumping past the bustle of a normal day. "But no one's cured though, are they? If he's revived he'll still have control of everyone in the jutsu, including Gai. It's hard to believe that fragile glass box can really hold him."

Sakura waved to Tsunade, who waved back to them. "Yeah but Tsunade-sama didn't just hand him over. She's got some pretty serious jutsu's of her own. The Hundred Year Rest, she called it. She said it's a traditional number for sleeping beauties. And as long as he never wakes up the blood jutsu won't either."

"And in a hundred years everyone already infected will have already died a natural death."

"Exactly, that's the idea. And when the coma ends he'll die to."

Kakashi reached for Iruka's hand. "He's been denied death for far too long already. Maybe then even the wolf demon will be able to find some peace."

Naruto squinted one eye closed. "It still kinda seems like a waste. All that power just dumped in the bottom of a marsh. There oughta be some way to make good use of it."

Kakashi looked at Naruto coolly. Maybe… if he had the wisdom of his Sensei. The skill to seal a demon into a child, so that the child had all the demon's strength but none of its evil. But that had been done as an act of desperation, this was different.

"It's better this way."

He turned as Iruka touched his masked cheek. "It is a lot of power. Are you sure you'll never be tempted to go there and take the blood jutsu for yourself? You've done some pretty desperate things."

"Have I Iruka?" He trapped the hand under his own and gave it a cloth covered kiss.

Was Iruka starting to remember, did he know that he'd followed him to the shadow between life and death, and that he'd risked more than anyone could ever justify in his desperation to bring him back?

There was something as solid as the earth beneath them in the depths of Iruka's eyes. "You're the only one who can answer that."

"Well I hereby guarantee that I won't reactivate the jutsu and try to take over the world. " He shot the other man a sneaky look. "Although it would be nice to use it on Gai, to stop him with his damn challenges."

"Kakashi, don't joke about it, that's a dangerous power. How can you be so sure you won't ever be tempted?"

"Because if I did I would make you so angry that you'd never talk to me again. And not even world domination is worth risking that."

Sakura felt her heart flutter. She wished to God they'd just pull that damn mask out of the way and kiss properly. Kakashi looked at her as if he expected her to add something. So he'd seen her looking at him.

"Er, besides, world domination sounds like a lot of work. As Shikamaru would say it would be extremely troublesome."

Kakashi smiled, but she knew she hadn't fooled him.

"You said it kid."

The village spread at their feet, a few familiar buildings were damaged beyond repair, but on the whole everything looked just the way it should. Already filled with villagers, still sweeping up broken window glass, clearing rubble and counting their mixed blessings at sharing their home with the world's best ninjas.

Kakashi felt a glow stirring deep within, that went far beyond the satisfaction of a successful mission. "There's another reason I can be sure. That old sennin was right, I'm not a wolf, I'm a dog. Only dogs are can offer unconditional love."

Iruka's eyes, as brown as the forest floor, held him as tight as any binding jutsu. "You mean for Konoha?"

"Yeah." He met the look with a blue eye misted with more emotions than any of them could fathom, as he added under his breath, "that too."