Disclaimer:

Would you believe it? I found the rights to Naruto and all of its characters lying in the middle of Shinjuku station, but then I lost them in a high stakes Mah Jongg game. So now it belongs to someone who is not me. Oh the humanity.

Hypothetical Question

"It's not gonna work."

Daikoku turned to look at his companion, annoyance flashing in his dark eyes. "What's not?"

"This!" the other man hissed, gesticulating almost frantically. "This whole plan; it's a bad idea." Daikoku sighed, exasperated by his comrade's outburst. It was obvious that the young shinobi was too inexperienced for this mission. Unfortunately, he couldn't be picky about his partners. Daikoku knew that their group was severely undermanned, and if they were to have any chance of succeeding, they had to act now.

He took a careful surveillance of their surroundings, wanting to make sure what was spoken there remained private. But the only things that were witness to their conversation were the ring of trees that circled them and the small forest creatures that didn't have enough sense to run from the dangerous ninja. "It'll work, Tsuzumi. We've come too far for it to end now."

"And what if he doesn't show up?"

His companion closed his eyes, as he breathed deeply in an effort to keep from lashing out. "He'll be here. We have something he wants." He reached a hand down to the pouch on his hip, and withdrew an old, worn scroll. He fingered the crinkled edges lightly, turning it over and over in his hands. "This is gold. It's the best break we've had so far, and we can't afford to waste this chance. It's risky, but we're out of options and out of time. He'll be here."

"Awfully confident, aren't we?" The new voice, although soft-spoken still made both shinobi react in surprise, turning to face the newcomer, kunai in hand. Both men relaxed quickly, however, upon recognizing the shinobi standing before them as the one they had been waiting for. "Your note mentioned that you had some documents for me." The man cut right to the point, his arm already outstretched in expectation.

Daikoku stepped forward, smoothly taking back control of the situation. "Of course. But we're gonna need a few things from you in exchange."

The newcomer shook his head. "I don't do anything for you until I read what's in that scroll." Daikoku shrugged, and casually tossed the documents to him. Catching it easily, the man opened it and read through the information. The only indication that the words inside meant anything to him was shown in the way his eyes moved over the paper more frantically with every passing moment.

Daikoku smiled to himself, pleased with the reaction he saw. He threw a quick, knowing glance back to his companion that clearly said, 'it's working'.

The worn edges crumpled even more in the shinobi's hands, the paper in danger of being torn apart. "So what do you want from me?" the man asked in a clipped tone that did little to conceal his anger.

"We need you to use your leverage in the village to get some things done for us. Our organization has a plan to infiltrate Konoha and destroy it. We'll let you know where our forces will be, and you find a way to divert everyone's attention accordingly."

The other shinobi looked thoughtful as he mulled over this proposal. "I'll need to know who I can trust inside the village if this is going to work."

Daikoku nodded. "You'll be briefed on our operatives there, but first…How far are you willing to go to get what you want? Could you really destroy everything that's precious to you?"

The man's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I'll do whatever it takes."

For the first time since the newcomer had arrived, Tsuzumi addressed the man, his voice filled with derision. "Good," he said with a vicious smile. "Now you're gonna prove it to us. We want you to bring back one of Konoha's shinobi as proof that you're serious about this. And it can't be some poor bastard you have no connection to. Show us just how cold-hearted you can be."

Before either of the two partners could register what had happened, the man was on the younger shinobi, hands closed around his neck. "You want to see me in earnest? Fine. I'll give you what you want." The man paused, lifting Tsuzumi until his feet were several centimeters off the ground. "Just keep this little prick away from me." The man loosened his grip, and his prey fell to the forest floor, clutching his aching throat and gasping for breath.

Daikoku couldn't suppress his smirk at the embarrassed expression on his companion's face. "Good. We're camped near here, so we'll expect you to meet us here within two days."

The man shook his head. "I need more time than that. I'll be back within five." He turned around to start walking in the direction he had come from. Daikoku opened his mouth to object to the sudden change in their constrained time frame, but the man turned his head before the shinobi could say a word. His eyes were closed in an amused manner, but his tone was deadly serious. "It's always best for one to observe the target and wait for the most opportune moment to strike. After all, patience is a shinobi's greatest virtue, isn't it?"

'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'

Iruka rubbed his hands over his face tiredly, while trying to blink some focus back into his strained eyes. Three hours later, and he was still only halfway through the stack of essays from last week's lecture. But the source of his distraction was not a wholly unwelcome one. The chuunin teacher sighed happily as his thoughts drifted back to the previous night's events. His silver-haired lover had been more amorous than normal, leaving a slightly sore, but well-sated Iruka to replay those last moments again and again the following day.

Iruka felt an arm drape over his side, and the chuunin let himself be pulled back into a tight embrace. Kakashi placed feather-light kisses along Iruka's shoulder, before nuzzling his lover's neck with a contented purr. "You know what?" the jounin asked softly.

"Mmm…what?" Iruka asked sleepily, as he ran gentle fingertips up and down Kakashi's forearm.

"I love you so much, it hurts."

Iruka's hand suddenly stopped it's back and forth movement as the weight of those words sunk in. He laid there in stunned silence for a few moments, before finally turning to face the silver-haired man. "You do?" Iruka asked on impulse, wincing internally as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Yep," Kakashi replied, giving the teacher a lopsided grin. "Now this is the part where you say, 'I love you too'."

With the tension suddenly broken, Iruka couldn't help but smile back, as he leaned forward to kiss his lover sweetly.

A sudden 'thud' broke Iruka out of his reverie, and looking down at the ground, he realized that the noise had been caused by his grade book connecting solidly with the floor. Exasperated with himself, the chuunin bent to retrieve the fallen item. Stop thinking about it…The sooner you finish, the sooner you can get back home.

So with a firm resolve, Iruka stood up to stretch out his aching back before diving back into the pile of papers. He bent over in half, and then straightened after hearing a satisfying pop.

But just as the teacher was about to sit back down at his desk, his vision went dark; all the light obstructed by a gloved hand held over his eyes. At this time of day, when the academy was nearly deserted, there was only one person that could possibly be the mystery intruder. Iruka gave an overly dramatic sigh, before addressing the man behind him. "Don't you think you've done enough to distract me today?" he asked, only half joking.

The chuunin attempted to move forward, out of the other man's grasp, but the unexpected nick of a kunai at his throat stopped him.

"Don't move, Iruka sensei. And I'd advise against crying out for help." Iruka's blood felt like ice-water running through his veins, as he listened to the voice he knew so well. But that particular tone had only been directed at him once before.

"Kakashi, why are you…" the teacher gasped involuntarily, as the sharp edge pressed deeper into his skin. The silver-haired jounin moved closer, and without the mask as a barrier, Iruka could feel Kakashi's warm breath at his ear.

"I have a shadow clone trailing one of your students, just in case you had the balls to try and fight me. She's a smart girl, Hyuuga Hanabi. Talented too. Unfortunately for both of you, however, she's not quite talented enough." He paused. "Are you getting all of this, Iruka sensei?" Not trusting his voice enough to speak, Iruka settled with a small nod.

"Good." Kakashi said, his voice a grim parody of his normally cheerful tone. "Here's what's going to happen next. I'm going to let you go, and you'll stay silent. Then I want you to pick up your bags and head out of the village. As soon as you're past the guard towers' line of sight, I'll meet back up with you. Pretty straightforward, as long as you don't do anything to put the Hyuuga girl in danger. But you wouldn't do anything that rash, would you, sensei?"

And then as suddenly as he had been blinded, Iruka's sight returned as Kakashi lifted his hand from the chuunin's face. Iruka then felt the pressure of the kunai disappear, but before he could move away, Kakashi dipped his head forward. The jounin's tongue traced a path from the collar of Iruka's shirt to the line of his jaw, collecting the blood that had trickled down his neck from the shallow cut.

Iruka tried desperately to suppress a shudder; frightened by the prospect of Kakashi's betrayal, and embarrassed by his own body's seemingly treacherous reactions. The jounin either didn't notice, or didn't press the issue. He stepped back, allowing Iruka the freedom to move, and the brown-haired man took the opportunity to turn and face his captor for the first time. Even with the mask down, Kakashi was completely unreadable.

"If I follow this plan of yours, you'll call off your shadow clone, right?" Iruka inquired, his voice stronger than he had expected.

Kakashi shrugged casually. "She's not what I'm after. We just thought you might need a little extra incentive."

The teacher frowned. "We?"

The silver-haired man ignored him, however, and turned to pick up the chuunin's bag. Iruka stared at it, but didn't make a move to take it. "Why give me back my weapons?"

Kakashi sighed, and Iruka recognized the man's expression as the same one he wore himself when dealing with a particularly slow child. "The point of this," the jounin began, "Is for you to look natural. It'd be a little suspicious for you to be walking out in the forest without your weapons, wouldn't it? As long as you don't tip anyone off, nobody else needs to get involved."

Iruka's lack of response agitated the jounin, and he finally tossed the bag to the other man, forcing Iruka to react. The teacher caught it, and proceeded to sling it over his shoulder without taking his eyes off the silver-haired man. "What are you getting out of this?" Iruka asked, desperate to stall for time while his mind worked furiously for a solution to the situation he found himself in.

Kakashi shook his head in a silent reprimand. "If you do exactly what I tell you, I may just answer some of your questions. But right now, you're going to walk out of this classroom and through the Konoha gates as if nothing was wrong. Understood?"

The chuunin didn't respond. He simply turned away from the other man and began to walk away with as much dignity as he could manage. He had run out of time, and with the life of his student on the line, he could do nothing but follow the jounin's orders.

Kakashi allowed himself a dark smirk, before quickly disappearing out the window he had first entered through.

'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'

Luckily for Iruka, the streets were nearly devoid of people, as he made his solemn trek through the village. The chuunin teacher didn't think his acting skills were quite at the level necessary to fool many of the shinobi he might run across.

He replayed their exchange over and over searching for a small bit of hope to cling too. But it was too cruel to be a joke, and too involved to be a test. It was so different from their encounter during the chuunin selections. Yes, Kakashi had been cold to him then, but he hadn't been…malicious.

Iruka was so lost in thought that he didn't even register where he was until he heard someone shouting his name. Lifting his gaze from the ground in front of him, the teacher was distressed to see that he was already at the main gates.

"Iruka sensei! Out for a little evening training?" The chuunin saw one of his former students waving at him from the guard tower. He schooled his features into what he hoped was a passable imitation of a smile, and returned the gesture.

"It's a good night for it." He yelled back. "I may stay just stay out in the forest until tomorrow morning." Iruka stopped his explanation there. The simpler his lie was, the more believable it would be. He continued walking, and soon found himself on the dirt path leading from the village. The last of the sun's rays streamed down, stretching the trees' shadows into long, crisscrossed patterns in front of him.

After a few minutes of walking, Iruka turned back to look at Konoha, and saw that the guard towers were now completely obscured by trees and foliage. The teacher knew that Kakashi must be close to him by now, and stopped to scan the surrounding area.

True to Iruka's assumption, there was a casual "Yo," as Kakashi dropped from the branches above. The jounin's mask was back in place, but the teacher could tell that it was concealing a smile.

Smug bastard.

"Nicely done, Iruka sensei. However, our hosts are expecting us, so we need to keep moving." Kakashi gestured for Iruka to walk beside him, and they continued down the forest path.

There were a few moments of awkward silence before Iruka finally asked the first question that popped into his mind. "Why?"

The jounin turned to look at him, but the smile was gone, and Kakashi looked more serious than Iruka had ever seen him. "Why what?"

The chuunin teacher practically growled. "You know perfectly well 'what'! Why threaten me and blackmail me into following you all the way out here? You could kill me just as easily inside the village, so what's the point of all of this?"

Kakashi laughed harshly. "Don't think so highly of yourself. There's no reason for me to kill you. A simple chuunin teacher isn't really all that useful alive, and you'd be even less so if you were dead." The silver-haired man paused to let his words fully register in Iruka's mind. "The men we're going to meet wanted proof of my loyalty."

"As if your betrayal of Konoha wasn't proof enough…" Iruka muttered.

The jounin laughed again, but this time it was much closer to his normal laugh, and the sound of it made the teacher's heart ache. "Even in a situation like this, you still haven't lost your sense of humor, Iruka sensei." Kakashi paused thoughtfully. "Perhaps that was a bad choice of words. Let's just say they wanted to make sure I was serious about my defection from Konoha. There, is that better?"

Iruka didn't answer, but instead aimed another question at the silver-haired jounin. "Why leave Konoha then? What could they possibly tempt you with?"

Kakashi was silent for a few moments, and he refused to look at the teacher. "A chance for revenge." He said finally. But when he didn't offer any further explanation, the chuunin pressed on.

"I don't understand, revenge against who?"

"Against Konoha!" Kakashi yelled, stopping Iruka dead in his tracks. The jounin turned on him, and dark eyes met with a pair of haunted, mismatched ones. "I've been blind this whole time…even with this damned eye." Kakashi stepped closer to the teacher, and his voice dropped to nearly a whisper. "Do you really want to know what happened, Iruka? My father, Obito, Rin…everything was staged. It was no coincidence that I lost everyone that was important to me."

The jounin stopped, as he slowly walked around to stand behind Iruka. The teacher struggled to keep still, as Kakashi slid his arms around the slighter man's shoulders, settling them across his chest. "Shall I tell you why, Iruka? Why the higher-ups in Konoha deemed it necessary to take everything away from me? It was so they could make me into the killer I am now.

"Pressuring my father into taking his own life after his failed mission, leaking information about my team's position to Hidden Stone, sending Rin on a mission that was nothing short of suicidal." Kakashi paused, shifting closer until he was talking directly into the chuunin's ear. "Do you understand now, Iruka?"

"I don't believe it. They would never do something so callous towards someone so young…" Iruka was cut off when the jounin flung him away angrily, causing the teacher to stumble forward.

"I saw the orders, signed and sealed by the Third Hokage himself. I think the council is certainly capable of going to such lengths."

"But how can you be sure!" the chuunin protested. "What if they were forged?"

"I'm not stupid, Iruka!" Kakashi snarled. "I used my sharingan. The pattern of the seal was perfect, and there was no genjitsu on it. That scroll was the real thing." The jounin took a deep breath to regain his composure. "We've wasted too much time here; they'll be waiting for us." With that, Kakashi began to walk away, and Iruka had no choice but to follow.

It wasn't long before the silver-haired man led them off the well-worn path, into a more heavily wooded area. Iruka nearly ran into the jounin's back, as Kakashi came to a sudden stop in the middle of a small clearing.

Iruka heard a low chuckle from the line of trees on his left, and turned to search for the source of the sound. He could only make out the dark outlines of two men standing just outside of the clearing.

"Umino Iruka sensei, I never expected to see you here. A colleague, perhaps, but Sharingan Kakashi's lover? I'm quite surprised." The vaguely familiar voice nagged at Iruka, but it wasn't until the man stepped out of the shadows that he finally recognized one of his fellow teachers.

"Daikoku! But…"

"You know each other, already?" The other man interrupted. He was a short, balding man, and he wore a suit that was several sizes too small for him. It was obvious that he hadn't been present in Konoha, and was probably not even shinobi.

Daikoku nodded. "Yes sir. He's one of the teachers from the academy I was placed at." The other man dismissed his companion with a wave of his hand, and turned his attention to the Konoha jounin before him.

A quick look around the clearing convinced Kakashi that there were no other men hiding in the woods. He smirked to himself. So the shinobi took my advice and left the little bastard at home. Good. That must mean this is the head of operations. He turned and gave the other man a short bow.

"So, Sharingan Kakashi…Why bring me this man?" the boss asked in a bored tone.

The silver-haired jounin gave an indifferent shrug. "He's ranked high enough so that he won't be totally useless to you, but low enough that he won't be too missed in the village." Kakashi turned his head to watch Iruka bristle out of the corner of his eye. "Plus he's a decent fuck, if you're into that…" he continued, his tone devoid of any emotions.

The chuunin froze at those last words, all the blood drained from his face. Iruka made a move to lunge at Kakashi, but was stopped when Daikoku grabbed him roughly from behind.

"You bastard!" he screamed at the jounin, tears streaming freely down his face. "You told me you loved me! How can you do this?"

Kakashi closed the distance between them and casually backhanded Iruka across the face. "It worked, didn't it?" The chuunin remained silent, trying to comprehend the meaning behind Kakashi's words. "You told me yourself how much of a distraction it was. Never were very good at looking 'underneath the underneath,' were you, Iruka sensei?"

Realization dawned on Iruka, and his anger returned tenfold. "I'll fucking kill you, you heartless bastard!"

Kakashi gave the teacher a small smile. "You have the Third Hokage and all the council members to thank for that. It was only through their 'lessons' that I learned not to hold anything dear. Not even you, Iruka sensei." With that, the jounin turned his attention away from the young chuunin, and once again addressed the man in charge.

"I've held up my end of the bargain…Now it's your turn. First I need to know who my contacts in Konoha are. Then we can discuss your tactics in more detail."

The boss nodded slowly. "We don't keep written records of things like that; it's too risky. You'll have to commit the list and the whole of our strategy to memory."

While the man recited the names and ranks of the men and women he had stationed in Konoha, Iruka sagged against Daikoku's hands, still numb from his exchange with Kakashi. The way in which the jounin had so casually dismissed him left Iruka feeling hollow inside. The chuunin teacher was left alone with his thoughts until a wet 'thunk' broke into his silent reverie.

Iruka felt the grip on his arms lessen, and he turned to watched Daikoku fall to his knees. The expression on the spy's face was twisted into a look of confused agony, as his body collapsed onto the ground. Standing directly behind the dead shinobi was Kakashi, his face once again unreadable. A quick glance over his shoulder told Iruka that Daikoku's boss had recently met with the same fate.

"Stay away from me! I meant it when I said I'd kill you!"

The jounin lowered his mask, but Iruka could find no traces of the man Kakashi had been for the last several hours. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you, just please, let me explain."

Iruka, dumbfounded, could only nod his assent.

"The Hokage knew that someone inside Konoha was leaking information to our enemies, but the only way to find out who was spying on us was to lure them out of hiding. That was why I needed to get the list of operatives in Konoha. Tsunade sama ordered me to this top secret mission, so we planted the scroll where the spies would be sure to find it. And then it was just a matter of our enemies propositioning me to aid them."

A look of shock covered his features as Iruka struggled to take in all this information. "So you kidnapping me…?"

"Was unexpected." Kakashi suddenly felt his knees threaten to give out, and he dropped to the ground next to the fallen shinobi. "God, how I wanted to tell you, but…"

Iruka walked over to the other man's side and crouched next to him. "Sometimes in order to convince an enemy, you have to first convince your friends, right?"

Kakashi could only nod weakly, unable to respond otherwise.

The chuunin teacher sighed. "That doesn't make it any easier, though. This mission of yours really shook my trust to the core. I just…Look, we'll work through this later, but right now I just want to get back to the village. Can you stand?"

Kakashi put a hand on Iruka's shoulder to steady himself, and he rose to his feet shakily. "Yeah," the jounin said softly.

The two men walked together in silence for some time, searching for something to say, but coming up empty. It was Kakashi who finally spoke up, unable to bear the heavy silence between them any longer.

"I meant it, you know. What I said last night." Iruka turned to look at the other man, but Kakashi's face was turned away from him, and all he could make out was a dark outline of his profile. "I love you so much that I almost couldn't do it. Knowing what you would think…it tore me apart."

"We all get bad missions, right?" Iruka tried to comfort the silver-haired jounin, but he knew that this was one wound that couldn't heal over night. "We'll work this out somehow. I just…need some time, okay?"

"Okay." It was the only response Kakashi could manage, but it was enough, and the silence seemed less oppressive, as the two shinobi finished their walk back to Konoha. The same guard Iruka had seen upon leaving nodded solemnly to them, as Iruka and Kakashi passed through the village gate.

"He knew about it too, didn't he?"

"Yes," Kakashi replied. "And I never had a clone trailing Hyuuga Hanabi, either. In case you were wondering."

Iruka offered the jounin a ghost of a smile. "I'm glad, at least, for that. Don't you need to go report to Hokage sama before going home?"

Kakashi waved the idea off. "The guard has probably already notified her of our return, and after all this hell she put us through, it will serve her right to wait until tomorrow to hear my report."

The two weary men stumbled up to the apartment they had shared for the past several months. They both nearly collapsed as soon as they entered, physically and emotionally drained. Iruka surprised himself by being able to make it to the bed before his body finally gave up on him.

"I'm going to sleep out on the futon in the other room tonight." Kakashi said. "I think we both need some time apart to…sort things out." Iruka felt bad about turning his lover out of their bed, but he didn't argue. He knew that it would be a long time before he could completely trust Kakashi again, if it was even possible. Both men would need to fight their inner demons before things could go back to normal. But the chuunin couldn't resist one final question.

"Kakashi? What would you have done if that scroll had been real?"

The silver-haired jounin smiled sadly, as he reached for the doorknob. "Go to sleep, Iruka," Kakashi said, before softly closing the door behind him.

Owari

Author's Note:

Yeah, this one needs some explaining. If the image of Kakashi with a kunai to Iruka's throat seems familiar to you, that's probably because it is. I saw the image in a lovely doujin called "Shadows in Silence" by Sannasubi (You can find the raw version at fighting (hyphen) dreamers (dot) org, and I can finally saw that I am now the proud owner of the original work yay). The story is a bit difficult for me to follow, even with a passable ability to read it…so I don't think I stole any ideas. My inspiration came before I ever even read it.

Don't read too far into this fic. It's mostly just an excuse for me to write evil Kakashi. Storyline probably doesn't even make sense. And just for reference, Daikoku really is a teacher at the academy, and Tsuzumi is a real character as well. The unnamed "boss" however, is a product of my twisted imagination.

So yeah, feel free to flame me for this one…I probably deserve it.