Chapter 3

The morning came both too soon and excruciatingly slowly. By the first dusky light, Kakashi's body was burning. Shoulders, legs, back. All his muscles strained from the awkward position, but he was lucky. His stake had obviously been sized for Iruka – he could plant more of his feet on the ground than its architect intended.

He'd slept poorly, but came easily awake at the first trickling of waking-up sounds and the waft of cooking. The smell made his insides lurch simultaneously with both hunger and nausea. Akasugi approached them amidst the soft murmur of domesticity. They were an easy pace from the tents, but even so near it seemed like a separate, barren world. His shoes had been taken, along with almost everything else he carried, and his toes were numb against the packed dirt.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the chieftain addressed Iruka first, fingering the coarse cloth that he'd been gifted. "Did you make some friends last night?" he asked, uncoiling the scarf. "I spoke to them about it. They said you were a very nice enemy. They compared you to me, even; something about your smile. I was surprised to hear of you smiling. It upset Kabano too. He'd hoped you'd be feeling more pliable this morning."

Iruka refused to answer; he wouldn't even look at the village leader. The passivity convinced Kakashi there was something purposefully deceitful in Iruka's behavior, since the chuunin was nothing if not defiant. The Iruka he knew would not timorously turn away, or seem so close to tears. The Iruka he knew was a fool – and fearlessly so.

But whatever the reason for his act, Akasugi had no reason to doubt it. "Who are you?" he wondered. "That you would humor my children is strange. Perhaps you're a father? Do you have a child at home that I'll be orphaning?" He didn't seem surprised when Iruka said nothing. "Kabano will find out." He said it like a promise, or maybe a threat. "Will you not simply tell me?"

"Ha, don't bother, Akane." Another voice joined them. Kakashi looked up at the sound of the crunching steps, loud against the thin veneer of frozen dew. It was the dark haired, brown-eyed man. His braided cord swung on his neck, and the jounin noticed that it was dissected by a bright copper link. He continued, "You have many strengths, but interrogation was never one of them. Better you stick with stirring up men's courage than trying to defeat it."

Akasugi nodded to the newcomer. "Should I keep the other's away?"

"Let them watch if they like," Kabano said, indifferent. His eyes were bright, almost feverish, and they had settled like serrated hooks onto Iruka.

An uncomfortable shift. "Perhaps I'll send the boys on a training exercise."

"You baby them," the interrogator retorted, almost scornfully. "But if you intend to, do it now. I'm ready to get started."

Kakashi measured this chieftain's action with interest. He didn't looked pleased, only resigned. "Be quick," he commanded.

His second stretched his hands, his fingers, approaching Iruka slowly. "If I can," he said. "One never knows with untested metal."

Cold twisted in Kakashi's chest, a physical revolt against what he knew would happen. Almost involuntarily, his hands twisted in their constraints, but the carefully knotted ropes only gave enough to rake his skin away.

The interrogator greeted Iruka with a nettling familiarity, "Hello, little one," he said. It should have been ridiculous for him to call Iruka that, since they were roughly the same size. Still, Iruka knew the slur for what it was, and his expression bunched, pale with anger.

The interrogator touched his jaw gently, stroked several joints, and then returned to where his heartbeat surely pulsed strongly in his neck. He frowned when his subject drew away from him as far as he could, his expression almost hurt. "Now," he soothed, drawing out a blade. "Now, now. No need to be troublesome about this. It can be very simple. Only a few questions. I'm nice to people who answer me well. You have my promise."

He drew the pad of one finger across the pale scar over Iruka's nose. "A nice mark. Did someone put it there? You carry it very well. I could add," he trailed off, and for a moment it seemed as though he might. Iruka's rate of breathing picked up, but there was no where for him to go.

Angry, Kakashi snapped, "Leave him be!"

The eyes that flickered up to him were dead cold with displeasure. The man said, "This is none of your affair," and then his knife flashed.

Through the rope that bound one of Iruka's arms. Had they tied them separately? Iruka swayed and almost certainly would have toppled if his remaining limbs had not still been anchored. Kabano snapped up his loose wrist immediately, allowing Iruka's brief struggle. With his free hand, he placed his palm firmly against the rotator cuff, chaffing the bare skin, or perhaps feeling the smooth movement of the bone and muscle there. He hummed, a contented sound, as though the mechanics of the body pleased him.

Then he leaned closer, speaking directly to Iruka. "We'll start with something small – hardly valuable at all. Name and rank."

Kakashi was glad he couldn't see Iruka's face, but his back was enough. Rigid. He could almost imagine his chocolate eyes, dilated with fear. The moments drifted like perspiration on a glass, and a hollow wind breathed voicelessly. Kabano's gaze intensified. "Nothing?" he finally asked, and shook his head. "That's too bad."

Iruka's arm broke with a dry sound like stepping on a dead branch.

He screamed – of course he screamed, but it was more a breathless keening than a true cry. "What a sound," Kabano said in a whimsical voice. He took the awkwardly hanging arm almost delicately, then wrenched it with a violence made even more brutal by the contrast.

"Stop, stop." There were tears draining freely down Iruka's face now. He twisted desperately, in spite of the pain. "Stopstopstop."

Kabano was a vice. "Oh, little one, don't tease me," he crooned. "That's pretty, but it's not what I asked for."

The interrogator's eyes fluttered, landed on Kakashi. "You know," he said, leaning in to whisper to Iruka conspiratorially. "I bet he knows more than you. But it would take a long time to find out. Or would it? Shall we see?" He addressed the hostile jounin, "Hatake Kakashi, do you care if I hurt your comrade? How valuable is his name to you?"

He reached for Iruka again, feeling the firm arches of bone lined up against his side. Quietly, almost distantly, he commanded the copy-nin, "Give me his name."

Jounin were trained to withstand torture, even against acts like this when a proxy stood in their stead. But even so, even though he was nothing if not capable of withstanding any technique of this twisted mind, his heart cried out with his need to help Iruka. He wanted to give up what Kabano wanted. But this was no option. How valuable was Iruka's identity? Invaluable. So he gritted his teeth.

The impression of incredible force, holding and twisting even through flesh. Iruka howled, and Kakashi thought he could actually see the blood draining just beneath his skin; ink, blotchy blue, like a tattoo over his side. Kabano broke three more ribs that way – methodically, barbarously – before he was satisfied the jounin would stay silent. Iruka trembled.

Kabano stood after that, obviously disappointed. "Spirited, like I said," he muttered, and took hold of Iruka abruptly, dragging him sideways against the wood and the rope so that the two prisoners could see one another fully.

Kakashi surveyed the chuunin with some anxiety. He was yellow with pain, and the new position had placed him in an even more unsteady and painful crouch. His shoulder was awkwardly rotated in the cuff, bulging slightly. The arm itself hung completely slack, the fingers limp and useless.

Kabano approached Kakashi, who looked down on the man with disdain and a slow burn of rage. "Will you try me now?" he asked without inflection or fear. Anger shielded him.

"Only for a moment," the other answered. He'd regained his knife, a longer, thinner blade than most shinobi carried. It glinted, surgically sharp. "I wonder if you two are friends, or if you held him in contempt as legends are prone to do with their inferiors. I wonder if he'd save you?"

He called Iruka, waited for the dark of his eye. "Name and rank," he repeated, and sliced into the tender meat. The blade cut like a strigil down Kakashi's arm, but Iruka remained mute as a stone. Kabano sighed, clearly disappointed. He flicked his weapon, so that it left thick red beads across Kakashi's face. "Seems you were less kind to him than I hoped. Too bad."

Yes, too bad. Too bad for them both. The interrogator whipped his blade clean as he stood between them. An unusual flush of color had crept up his neck and blotched his cheeks. At first Kakashi thought it was annoyance that his prey had not yielded, but then he heard the breathy laughter. Kabano's shoulders shook. "This is unexpected, because it's not exactly that you're afraid of me, is it, little one? No, though you'd like me to think so, and that's intriguing too. But it's not what keeps you silent."

More soft laughter. Past the burning in his own arm, Kakashi sought Iruka's face. He was staring at Kabano with dread. The man nodded to himself. "This requires a more deliberate attempt," he decided.

Kakashi's face was a pale oval in the pervading dim, visible even under cloud cover and starless night. Often in the past he'd cursed his complexion for how hard it made him to hide, and now he scorned it because he knew his captors were watching them from their tents. The vulnerability nettled.

Ensconced at his own pole, Iruka shone too, but dimmer. Kakashi could barely hear him breathing, and he hadn't responded when the jounin spoke to him, though he didn't know whether it was total refusal that made the chuunin silent or if he was just so hurt that he'd buried inward.

Kakashi didn't know any poetry, so he recited his favorite chapter from volume 4 of Icha Icha Paradise to fill the void between them. He'd have given a lot to hear Iruka tut, but the frosty stillness remained the same all through the night.

It snowed sometime during the morning's early hours.

Kakashi woke up to a hundred pinpricks like soft, fleeting kisses from icy lips. Flakes had caught on his eyelashes, and he blinked slowly through them, disoriented. It took a long moment for his consciousness to reconnect with his body, and when it did the attachment wasn't kind. His muscles seized and his stomach clinched, leaving him trembling all over. A red lichen of frost traced his inner arm, so that the warmth of new blood trailing his skin was almost welcome.

He sighed when the worst had passed, letting his eyes drift closed and his body still. All around him was the insulated calm of a yet unspoiled snow-fall. It was early yet, and no one was up.

It made it easy to hear the voices when they drew near, and he lapsed into a carefully feigned unconsciousness. Crunching against the frozen ground were two sets of footfalls. He recognized the voice that spoke first – Kabano, the malicious tormenter, with his smooth, unbothered tone.

"We're not strong enough to keep him here safely," he said. "Every moment he remains grows more dangerous for us."

The object of their conversation became quickly clear. They halted in front of Kakashi, undoubtedly looking up at him as they spoke. It was Akasugi who responded; this was a meeting of the village's two minds. "Imagine what information we could gain from him," the leader began.

His second hissed. "No. Trust me in this. Alive, he's almost useless. We don't have the time or the right pressure to glean anything from his mouth."

"You don't have confidence in your own abilities?" the chieftain needled, but with a vein of bitterness.

The other answered, "I'm a pragmatist. And we have other options."

There was a break in the conversation then, and Kakashi imagined them gazing towards their other prisoner. When they continued, the steely elder was questioning. "You're sure we can sell him?"

"His body, at least, and we don't have a choice. We can't move past our capabilities, Akane. We have to build patiently. It's your plan."

"Yes, yes I know."

"So you agree?"

A deep hum resonated in the empty air. "Mm. Make your contacts, then," he finally decided. "So long as you're sure about the little fish."

The interrogator's voice darkened. "Give me a day and a night. Lend me some men."

A soft exhale. "Kawa –"

But the younger man would have none of it. Snappishly, he reminded, "You knew what you conscripted me for, Akane. And we didn't get here by being weak."

Another brief silence, and the discussion returned to Kakashi. "You still don't know what Hatake was doing here?" Akasugi asked.

"Does it really matter anymore?"

"It does if there are others," Akasugi said.

But the interrogator was sure. He explained, "We found their camp last night. There was only evidence of two."

"Belongings?" asked the leader.

"Sparse, and nothing interesting. Food, blankets, a couple of books. I showed you the card." Iruka's card. The ribbon-and-glue original, the talisman from his children.

"Cute, but not informative."

"Exactly."

Another sigh. "Albright," he agreed. "Do what you have to, then, but get Hatake out of the cold before you start. If he perishes from the elements, he'll be worthless to any end, and I'm disappointed enough by the options we have. A legendary jounin – and I'm forced to sell him in pieces."

A pivot and a scrape of displaced snow as their village's leader paced steadily away. Kakashi was left with the butcher, silent now and possibly contemplative. Kabano chuckled when a moment had traced it's path, and it was a poisonous sound, mocking and ugly. He said, "You can open your eyes now, Hatake. I know you're awake."

Kakashi bore his teeth at the creature before him. Quietly, he whispered, "Carrion-eater, bottom-feeder."

The man placed his hands on his hips. "Says the bone-cruncher, vein-slasher," he retorted coolly. "I'm unimpressed if your intention is to shame me, murderer of Konoha."

"Better to be a hunter than a pig rutting in blood," Kakashi sneered.

It must have cut a little closer to the heart, because the man's smooth face actually frowned. "You know," he said after a moment. "I'm sorry we don't have more time to spend together. It would be a good experience for me. Challenging. Unfortunately, it wouldn't do to spoil the meat." He looked over his shoulder to the right, where the other pole stood. A shallow drift of snow had shored up it's base and the figure there, motionlessly curled. The image returned some of the pleasure to the face of their captor. "Happily there is an alternative."

"What do you expect from him?" Kakashi fought the spike of fury that threatened his impassivity. Fingers twitching, he longed for the use of his hands.

A casual shrug. "Whatever he holds close. Whatever secret he has. I'll start with his name and work from there," he said. Then, more perceptively and much more cruelly, he taunted, "After all, if he's traveling on a mission with such an impressive companion, surely there's something more there than appearance suggests."

Guilt, grief, helplessness. Kakashi burned with it, furious. There weren't insults foul enough to express how he felt, so he pressed it all into his eyes, glaring wrathfully.

"How frightening," his tormentor commented. Then he called for others. Orders were issued, for the fate of both men. Unable to do anything, Kakashi watched them untie Iruka and haul him out of a half-frozen rigor. The chuunin cried out when they pulled him to his feet, too weak from the strain of his position to support his own weight.

Kakashi waited for the moment when they would remove his fetters to bring him indoors, but was disappointed. They simply pulled up the whole stake and dragged him into a solitary tent. Then he was left to his own thoughts. Waiting for his own slaughter, whenever it would come.

For two days, Kakashi had only the discomfort of his own body to break the monotony of the hours. Destined for death, his captors deprived him of even water. He was growing restless and desperate by the end of the second day, but the only noticeable result of his fitful, sporadic attempts to get loose was numbed fingers and abraded flesh.

His thoughts turned to Iruka at odd moments. He had Kabano's thin face in his mind, and his curling black smile. He wasn't a fool; he knew what Iruka faced. And it made him ache strangely to think of the chuunin suffering.

He knew when the sun went down because the temperature dropped and a lantern was lit at his back. It made the murky interior of the tent seem sinister and claustrophobic. The shadows shrunk inwards, and it was quiet. The rustle of canvas was the most he heard, and the low voices of his guards, speaking through the entrance behind him.

It was sometime in the grey of earliest morning when his ears pricked at a scraping, like a foot dragging over the ground. The interior guard called his friend's name softly, but even as he spoke a soft gurgle cut him off. A gentle thud, a sound like weeping, and then bare footsteps in the enclosed space.

Kakashi started at the feel of a hand at the triangle of his bare back, jerking at the sudden intrusion and unfamiliar heat. Still, there was no where for him to go, and when the hands reached up again, this time to his bound wrists, he craned his neck, trying to see who was behind him.

"It's me, Kakashi," a soft voice answered him. Clumsily, fingers picked at the ropes, tightened almost impossibly from the strain. "Hold still. I can barely reach."

"Iruka?" He was astonished. His breathy whisper stumbled over a swarm of disbelief. "H-how –" Kakashi was forced to swallow; his throat was so dry. "How are you here?"

No answer. His left hand came free with a lurch, and then a flood of fire down the length of his arm distracted Kakashi from further inquiry. His knees gave out when his body was finally loosed, and he slid down, breathing deep and waiting for his heartbeat to revive his limbs. Iruka slumped beside him against the wooden pole.

Kakashi plied his body, stretching and rotating. He clinched his teeth against the pop of bones and hesitating joints. "Iruka?" he said when he could focus outside his own body again. He turned, grunting, and sought the chuunin in the dim light.

A numb curl of horror wound itself up in Kakashi's chest, seeing the damage done. They'd cut his hair, as he'd suspected they would. It was uneven and looked almost torn, as though someone had ripped at it bare handed or sawed it with a blunt blade. He trembled there, filthy and so, so hurt, nerves that had never relaxed quavering still in real or remembered anguish. His face was streaked with weals of blood.

Acting on some innate human impulse, Kakashi reached out, touching the chuunin's shoulder almost gently to draw his eyes. "Iruka," he called the young man, worried by the feeble pulse beneath his fingers. He felt the blood-heat radiating beneath sweat-slick skin, heavy fever. "Iruka," – How did you get here? – "can you stand?"

Brown eyes. Deep brown, like tawny hide or warm chocolate – that was Iruka's eyes before. Now phantoms of them vessels peeked out, half-lidded and hollow. Staring stagnant, he barely looked conscious. Kakashi had to use a very ninja perception to hear the tiny wisps of breath he was taking. Because he was alive.

Iruka recoiled slightly from Kakashi's seeking hand, and his face creased. "I'm alright," he whispered unconvincingly; he struggled to find his feet. "When you're ready, we can leave."

Leave. When had that option stopped sounding plausible? Kakashi levied himself up and extended his exhausted senses. Somewhere in the days of featureless captivity he had stopped thinking about escape, but now it enlivened him. His fingers tingled, and he stretched them eagerly. Free, there was hope. Free, he could help them escape.

Iruka wavered at his back. "Kakashi." His voice seemed unnaturally calm.

The jounin took a step towards the front, alert, but when Iruka attempted to follow wearily, he stumbled. Kakashi looped his torso with one arm, lending his strength. He whispered assurances, "I'll get us out. You've done what you needed to."

"There's no need to be quiet," Iruka said. "It's over. They won't stop us from leaving anymore."

The bleakness that fell off of the chuunin's words deeply disturbed Kakashi. He sought answers in eyes that seemed reluctant to meet his own, but Iruka only pulled away again to limp past him through the entrance. Conflicted, Kakashi joined him, his nerves jingling.

There were two bodies slumped over the threshold, their jugulars raggedly cut. It was imprecise, yet effective. Iruka offered no explanation, but Kakashi noticed the blade clinched in the his hand for the first time.

Kakashi braced himself for attack as they moved further out into the open, but none came. Slumped bodies lay where sentinels should have stood, and the tents wavered in the whispering wind, utterly quiet. Kakashi stopped to peer inside one, and took in the carnage. The thrum of life was utterly absent from this place. He felt it now, and it made the air seemed colder than before.

Feeling empty, he turned to Iruka.

The chuunin was looking past him, at the limp young bodies. A silent dam of moisture lined his eyelids, though no grief fell. Kakashi could tell that Iruka mourned them. "They wouldn't have disbanded." The chuunin was shaking his head, heavy with regret. "Even if I killed their leaders. They were too cohesive, too close knit. They wouldn't have disbanded."

Slowly, Kakashi nodded. His tongue still seemed caught behind his teeth.

Iruka was shivering. When he spoke again, it was with a unique blend of honest weakness and a tonelessness that didn't suit him. "We have to clear the area, but…" He seemed to be sustaining himself on the very last of his endurance. Sounding exhausted, he requested, "Would you?"

The bodies had be destroyed, evidence that anyone associated with Konohagakure had been here eliminated. Kakashi had done such work before, many times. He understood what needed to be finished. And remembering Iruka's record with fire, Kakashi could only feel a strangely common-place relief that he hadn't attempted it alone.

By the time he had finished with the bodies, Kakashi had mostly figured what Iruka's mission had truly been. The clumsy visit to Shi-Tane, the carefully crafted vulnerability – it had all been a ruse. From the beginning, Iruka had intended capture.

He'd found Akasugi's body still sprawled across his bed; he hadn't even been awake to face his death. The whole of the village had been almost ritually slaughtered, murdered in their sleep and complacency. The only person who had been battle-marked at all had been in the furthest tent. There he'd discovered a slender male whose face had been brutally disfigured. But Kakashi still recognized the loose braid around his throat, and the little copper link – it was Kabano.

He'd almost been tempted to further mutilate the corpse.

Before he'd disposed of them, he'd stripped a few bodies for what they would need. Clothes for one, though the shirt he had pulled on seemed thinner than his own and smelled strongly of someone else. He'd had to help Iruka pull his on over his badly broken arm, an exercise that had left the chuunin pale. The cloth covered the worst of his injuries, however, and afterward the jounin saw him clinging to it gratefully. It was privacy; mental separateness.

Kakashi knew how he felt. The scrap of cloth he had tied over his eye itched and didn't stay firmly in place, but it would do for now. He'd found their name plates, but they'd been disfigured, bent inward and badly scoured. They were with him now, anyway, but tucked within their thin pack. Evidence; it would take too long for the metal to burn down.

They hadn't spoken about what happened, but there really wasn't any need. The reels of bodies had been enemies, and Iruka had been following orders. Orders that Kakashi would have fulfilled emotionlessly if they had been his own. Yet he realized that he wouldn't have been able to dismantle this village as a warrior. They had bared their own throat, mocking a vulnerable captive. And then Iruka had torn their throat out with his teeth.

"Iruka, what are you so 'uniquely suited' for?"

"Surviving."

Kakashi closed his eyes.

Before the first pale of morning, they were heading back towards Konoha. Kakashi felt a powerful relief to be out of the last vestiges of the insurgent compound. At the last, it had stunk of fire and the dead. That combined a strong, confused guilt and a profound memory of helplessness made every footfall he put behind them a pleasure. He hoped to never see it again, even in his dreams.

"I saw Kabano," he mentioned one night, early in their returning journey, when Iruka had still been mostly lucid.

Iruka tightened his jaw, drawing inward. "It wasn't an irrational rage," he ground out defensively, but his voice was a fragmented, coming-apart uncertain. It was a hurting-to-be-challenged voice.

Kakashi didn't want to challenge Iruka. Kneeling, he braced a deliberate hand against the other's shoulder. He assured, "Iruka, I'd have done the same to him. Worse, if I'd had my hands untied."

He was amazed how much the darkness receded in the chuunin as he spoke. Had the man really thought Kakashi would despise him for that?

Crumpling, Iruka grieved, "It's just so –" So against what he taught. So against who he was. Drawing his hands over his face, the teacher whispered almost too quietly to hear, "Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite," and swallowed hard on a sound like a choked-off sob.

Watching him, Kakashi felt a fierce burning lick his insides. What was Iruka doing here? He didn't belong on this mission.

After that night, Iruka had deteriorated quickly. He'd been significantly injured, visibly and in ways he refused to speak of. Traveling was hard on him, and it didn't help that Kakashi was at best a negligible medic. He knew field medicine – he had been able to set Iruka's arm, bind his ribs, and straighten his fingers. To fight the source of the fever, however, was beyond his ability. He couldn't prevent infection, or heal the wounds beneath the flesh. It was a reality that haunted him whenever Iruka's breath seemed to hitch, but if the chuunin was bleeding inside, Kakashi couldn't help him.

So he pushed for home, as quickly as he could force his own weary body. Before the end he was carrying his partner, who was by then off-and-on conscious. It seemed like it took a long, long time to get back, and Kakashi finally realized what Iruka had meant when he said it would be his responsibility.

Slipping past the gates of Konoha was like sliding through the lips of an oyster's mouth – from the dark into the dark on a hushed, sleeping midnight. He took Iruka to the hospital. It was surprisingly hard to leave the chuunin in the hands of the medic team. Survival instinct had long since kicked in, and Kakashi was reluctant to trust others. But by that time he was swaying on his own feet, hungry and hurt. So they were separated for a time.

Kakashi's dreams were full of dead-eyed children and Iruka dangling on strings.

When he woke, he shifted out of the narrow cot they had directed him to and wafted ghostlike through the sterile halls, seeking his former partner. Following the thin, unspectacular charka, he managed to wander into the surgical halls.

He wasn't sure whether it surprised him to find the Godaime waiting outside the double doors, peering inside with her hands clasped behind her back. She looked grave, but not distressed. He joined her, and they both stood for a long time, just looking through the glass.

"He'll live?" How did his voice sound so weak, Kakashi wondered. As if he cared much more than he should.

Tsunade looked surprised, too. She said, "You didn't know, did you? That blather you fed me about being closer to him and Naruto, that had nothing to do with why you wanted a mission with him."

"No," Kakashi admitted. "And you knew that."

"I suspected," she corrected. "Were you surprised?"

"I was stunned. Because it was him."

"Did you think that he was less of a shinobi than you, Kakashi?" Tsunade scoffed. "He's defiant, but not disloyal. And he's been participating in missions like this time for a long time."

Kakashi stored these words carefully away, in the file where his knowledge of Iruka daily grew. Then he remembered something the chuunin had said in the forest on the way back and took the opportunity to ask, "Do you think he's a hypocrite?"

The Hokage shook her head slowly. "No, I just think he's been too well trained to believe that what he teaches applies to himself."

"He is an assassin."

"Of a kind." Tsunade bent her head in assent, though Kakashi noticed her eyes never left the surgical team. "He's connected to intelligence, which is why you were supposed to take him to Ibiki. I know I included that in your mission notes."

"He was injured," Kakashi began, surprised at her almost rebuking tone. He shook his head. "He needed medical attention."

"He needed to complete his mission. You endangered him, you know, bringing him here. He wouldn't have been cleared to come to the hospital. The nature of his injuries should have remained classified, for his own good."

The gears of the jounin's mind were rotating. "The academy."

She nodded, distracted. "All of our shinobi involved in intelligence are unidentified to keep them from being compromised. But in Iruka's case it's particularly important. The nature of his missions upon occasion is such that the village's parents might push for his removal. And I think that might kill him. His position is unfair enough as it is."

"Why do you perpetuate it if you think it's so unfair?"

The Hokage's eyes were cold as fish eyes. "Close to fifty enemies were destroyed whose ultimate intention was to threaten this village. This was accomplished with no loss of life, and at minor cost. I would be a poor leader not to facilitate that kind of scenario."

Kakashi was drawn into the memories of snapping, uncertain breath, raging fever, and haunted eyes. And dead boys. He said, "The cost wasn't minor."

The Godaime didn't acknowledge that he'd spoken. Instead, she chose to answer his original question. "He'll live, Kakashi. Living is what he's good at, and you got him back in time." He turned to leave, but she called after him. "I'm sure you already know that you're bound to secrecy in this matter. It's your oath, Kakashi. I require it."

"Sworn."

"Good," she sighed, and sat down heavily in a nearby chair. "Now get out. The hospital is no place for the healthy."

It took Kakashi two weeks to redefine Iruka.

He'd realized that a kind of dichotomy had formed between his life as a citizen of Konoha and as a warrior of it. On one side stood meals at Ichiraku, frivolous competitions with Gai, foolishly grinning brats, and human emotion. Looming on the other side was everything that was the Field. Somehow before, he'd always placed Iruka firmly on the side of citizen, though now that he considered it, he didn't know why.

It was that lingering "why" that eventually drove him to the academy grounds.

Disdaining the front door, he sauntered casually around the building and leapt into the branches. Crouching nimbly, Kakashi unlatched one of the large windows and slipped inside the mostly empty classroom. It was after hours, and so the children were gone.

Iruka looked up when he entered, the bridge of his nose furrowed. However, when he recognized his guest he actually grinned, looking surprised but not displeased. The sling was the first thing Kakashi noticed, and he grimaced inwardly. He'd heard about that, of course. The children leaked like cracked vessels: 'Sensei always manages to get hurt on his missions,' they'd tutted fondly.

Less uncertain about his welcome now, Kakashi's eyes roamed the classroom. It had the same benches crowded with spit wads, notes, and crumpled charka theory quizzes that he remembered. Iruka offered him his seat but Kakashi declined, choosing to perch against the desk instead. He offered his own smile. "Sensei. You look well."

Iruka beamed, an expression that seemed only a little shadowed. "I am well. And back at work, finally."

"I heard," the jounin said. "Genma said there was nearly a riot."

"Not quite a riot," Iruka assured, cocking his head self-depreciatingly. "But the kids did seem glad to see me again." It couldn't be anything less than the truth. Substitutes had a way of being threatening to everyone's lives, and it was well known how beloved Iruka was by his children.

The dialogue broke comfortably in half then, and Kakashi took the opportunity to look Iruka over thoroughly. Mostly, there was nothing to see. The dark bruises on his face and jaw had faded. Someone had evened out his hair too, Kakashi noticed, though it still looked strangely short.

Iruka caught him looking and combed the back self-consciously with his fingers. "I'm still getting used to it myself," he admitted. "Naruto pitched a fit when he saw. He wanted to know who had butchered my hair."

"What did you tell him?" Kakashi asked. The question would have been awkward for him. He didn't know how to – or why one should – lie to children.

The chuunin grinned somewhat wickedly. "I told him I accidentally set it on fire."

Could such a thing possibly have happened before, or was Naruto more gullible than he thought? Kakashi tried to discern the answer somewhere in Iruka's face, but the teacher only shrugged noncommittally. Meanwhile, Iruka reciprocated his frank appraisal. "You look alright, Kakashi. I assumed since you weren't in the hospital, but then," he trailed off, shaking his head and smiling. "How is your arm?"

Without thinking, Kakashi's palm moved to press against his sleeve. The bandage had been removed more than a week ago, and all that was left now was a narrow pink line of healing skin from wrist to elbow. "It's fine," he assured. "Just a little scar."

Despite his dismissal, mentioning the injury had brought bad memories and his face mellowed. Iruka saw it, too. "What did you come for, Kakashi?" he asked.

To make sure you weren't dead. To see if you seem the same, after all that I know about you. And to Kakashi's shame, this last bit was closest to the truth. "To irritate you," he said instead, consciously echoing a conversation they seemed to have had a long time ago. Then, more candidly, he added, "Curiosity."

Iruka smiled at him tiredly. "You always did have a lot of questions, Kakashi."

The copy-nin took the gentle rebuff gracefully, rolling his shoulders and shifting his eyes in chagrin. It was his questions that had begun their journey together.

The teacher didn't leave him to scuff and fidget long. It didn't become the copy-nin, and anyway Iruka wasn't cruel. In fact, his current state of injury made him seem even more harmless. He carried vulnerability well – it made his face softer.

A quiet voice spoke in the back of Kakashi's mind, whispering, 'And isn't that why he functions so well?' To suffer; that was his job, but also to suffer well enough that his enemy did not kill him outright.

Emboldened by Iruka's steady gaze, Kakashi began. "I saw the manacles in Kabano's tent," he said. "And the table."

The wrong words for the right question. Iruka knew immediately what he asked. "They were easy to get out of," he said. "I had the key."

It confirmed Kakashi's suspicion. The little item that Iruka had put away. "The doppelganger," he sought confirmation.

"Yes. Just incase."

"And the rest of them went instead of us…"

"To be seen, yes." The chuunin nodded. "Just a little. Just enough that they'd realize someone was watching. If they hadn't known I was coming, they'd might have been too wary to let their guard down."

Though he didn't say it, the pregnant silence that followed condemned Kakashi. By attempting to help him, he had put Iruka at great risk.

Iruka must have sensed his guilt, because he sighed. "It's my fault too," he said. "I didn't have a right to hand out orders to you. I should have explained the danger better. I'm sorry. You shouldn't have gotten involved."

They were kind words; forgiving, willing-to-forget-about-it words. Except that Iruka had almost pleaded for his trust that night, and he should have listened. Knowing better than to push the issue, Kakashi continued, "You led them into a snare."

"I helped them see what they wanted to see," Iruka clarified.

And then he'd killed them.

Kakashi knew how highly the teacher valued life, all life without exception. He tried to imagine how one could hold such conviction and still function as he had, but it was beyond him. He asked the question that had been gnawing on him for weeks, "Why do you accept the missions?"

Iruka answered, "A desk-working academy sensei shouldn't have to explain duty to the legendary copy-nin," he said, and his inflection was just a little cold.

This answer was clear enough. Choice often had little to do with their profession. A long time, Tsunade had said. Kakashi wasn't ready for that story.

"Not all of my missions are like that," Iruka volunteered, almost as though he were trying to comfort Kakashi. "And you know that I don't go on them often."

It amazed him, the differences between this gentle Iruka and the one who'd stood swaying outside the tents, clinching a bloody knife. Aloud, he mused, "Everyone sees you as this nice, polite teacher."

He had unintentionally trod upon a tender nerve. Drawing back in his chair, Iruka's expression became tight and guarded. "As opposed to what?" he demanded. "A masochist? A murderer of children?"

The jounin blinked. And suddenly he could see it – the little cracks crowded just beneath the surface of this man. The fissures that the bleakness had seeped out of on that early morning. The breaking apart. Kakashi realized suddenly that he'd been looking for signs of it throughout the whole conversation.

"Stop looking at me like that," Iruka snapped.

Then suddenly, the teacher stopped. Perceptive dark eyes took in the small hunch in the other's shoulders, the uncomfortable way that he'd lowered his eyes. Irritation drained form Iruka face, shifting to a slow realization. Leaning forward on his elbows, he asked, "Kakashi, did you come to check on me?"

The copy-nin scratched his silver mane moodily, unsure how to respond. It wasn't something he would have done before, but things had changed. Knowledge always did that.

Though he never answered aloud, Iruka seemed to come to his own conclusions. He sat back in his chair, just looking at Kakashi. A smile crept up on him then – a warm, coming-alive thing that hide away some of the unhappiness. Almost fondly, he accused, "You did."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. Had the two of them gotten closer? Maybe, or maybe not. But at the least they weren't as far apart as they had been. He poked at Iruka's bandaged arm.

"Ow," Iruka complained sourly.

Kakashi smirked. He teased, "Did I hurt your owie, Sensei? Shall I carry you back to the hospital?"

Fuming, huffing, and a little high color in the chuunin's cheeks. Living brown eyes flashed. "Why are you so annoying?" he demanded heatedly.

"Why are you so weird?" came the prompt response.

"Pervert."

"Prude."

"Murderer," the teacher said softly, so soft.

And Kakashi agreed, feeling the same ache. "That makes two of us."

Author's Note: Don't ask me to explain this story to you. It came out of nowhere, and I blame Kakashi. At the time I wrote it, I didn't find him a plausible second character for an Iruka story, since I couldn't imagine them getting along at all. Then it occurred to me that having characters get along is overrated, and in the course of writing, the two of them did this. It's not my fault they wanted to be friends – or whatever.