"Are they gone?" asked Iruka.

His voice was quiet and tired and surprisingly emotionless. He sounded wrung-out. That was how Kakashi felt, as if he had gone through a wringer and had ever last drop of emotion squeezed out of him. That absence of emotion was a relief after...the last few minutes? Had it only been a few minutes? Maybe his sense of time was still messed up.

"Yes," said Kakashi.

The room had cleared quickly. Ino had been the first to bolt, dragging Shino out with her. Kakashi hadn't looked up, but he clearly remembered hearing Shino grumble in confusion and her hissing at him to shut up. Bunchu had lingered, talking quietly to Iruka as if Iruka was in any condition to hear him, as if Iruka had even noticed Mister Reliable's presence. Eventually Kakashi had glared at the man until he stopped trying. Bunchu had talked quietly to him then, agreeing to wait but warning him that it couldn't wait for long. He had to talk to Iruka about this. It was important. Kakashi had mentally scoffed at that. The only thing important at the moment was that they had all survived more or less intact. Physically. Mentally, well, if his first encounter with Itachi was anything to go by there would be some lingering nuttiness to deal with. And trauma, because according to Bunchu all of Iruka's shields were down. Would Iruka be able to put those back up on his own or would Bunchu have to help him with that? Kakashi didn't want Bunchu helping him with that. He didn't want anyone going anywhere near Iruka's mind ever again.

"Sorry," Iruka murmured. He didn't lift his head. He tightened his arms so Kakashi hugged him back a little harder. "It was just the relief of being home. And then the rest hit me. I remember everything. I always thought not remembering was the worst part, but it's not. It's so much worse knowing where I've been. They're monsters. Tenka tried to tell me but I refused to believe it. Some of my kids were in the hands of those monsters. And Naruto was-"

Iruka tensed, and Kakashi waited for him to push away, to demand to see Naruto. The reassurances were on the tip of his tongue when Iruka finally moved, pulling him down until he was half lying on the bed. The awkward position hurt his back a little. His ass was still firmly planted in the chair, but now his cheek was pressed against Iruka's chest and Iruka was petting his hair. He blinked dumbly and wondered if he should say something or just play along. Was this the lingering nuttiness or the trauma? Iruka's heart was pounding away beneath his ear. He waited.

"I shouldn't jump to conclusions," Iruka said, finally. "I have never understood my talent. I never knew where I went, so of course I couldn't understand the how or why of it. I don't know how much of what I saw was influenced by the things Itachi showed me. That could have been just another vision he gave me for reasons known only to him. But, Kakashi?"

"Yes?"

"I think I saw Naruto being born."

Kakashi couldn't stop himself from tensing. That didn't sound like a little lingering nuttiness. That sounded like an outright infection of the insanity. What was he supposed to say to that? Iruka was waiting for his response. He had to say something that would make this better and not worse. Logic. Iruka adored logic so much he could wrap his brain in knots with his mental gymnastics. Logic and a healthy dose of skepticism was the only correct response.

"Really," Kakashi drawled. "How is that possible?"

Iruka huffed. The sound was almost a laugh. "It isn't. I know that. She died. It couldn't have been a real memory. How could I have seen the memory of someone who has been dead for years? I went from her to the mind of someone who was watching, and then I stayed with him until he died, too. That's impossible. Even when I found Shikamamaru it was in the past. That can't have been real, either, because I affected things. You can't change things that have already happened. All I have to do is ask him and I'm sure he'll confirm that it didn't happen the way I experienced it. It couldn't have."

He sounded much more confident now. Kakashi shifted off the chair and onto the edge of the bed so he could prop himself up and look at him. Yes, he had said the right thing. Iruka was now thinking his mind into logical knots in order to reach the conclusion he was most comfortable with. Kakashi allowed the amusement to show in his eye. "What does Shikamaru have to do with Naruto being born? They're the same age."

"Right?" Iruka said quickly. "It's nonsense. They see the world the same way, Itachi and Sai's Order. For Itachi it's a net where all mutants are connected in some way. So for him, it would make sense that someone who was there when Naruto was born would go on to torture someone Shikamaru would save. Maybe that man was a mutant, too, and he just never realized it. He connected Naruto to Chouji, and Chouji to Shikamaru. But Chouji's father is the one who introduced Naruto and I to each other. What are the odds of that? As if it was all fated to happen and they were just waiting for the pieces to fall into place. It's no wonder that Order was so interested in Itachi. They see the same connections. They might as well recruit him for their cause. I'm the most rational person I know, and even I can't deny that the coincidence of it all is too...coincidental."

"I'm fairly sure getting Itachi to act as their pawn was their goal all along," Kakashi informed him. "The Order wanted Sasuke out of the way so they could use Itachi. All that talk about him being a 'wild card' and the unpredictable changes he made in the mutants he encountered? Yeah, they must like some of those changes. They viewed his fixation on Sasuke as the only predictable thing about him, so they wanted Sasuke dead so Itachi would be free to do whatever it is that he does. In some ways, they're worse than he is."

"What do you-"

"Later," Kakashi smiled. "I suspect Sai is long gone, so I'll tell you all about my last conversation with him later." He rose and tugged Iruka into sitting upright. "I'm surprised you haven't asked yet. Naruto is alright. He's sleeping, but you can go see him now."

Iruka flinched, and then scowled at him. "Of course he's alright. You said it yourself. Itachi wants something from me. He won't get it if he hurts Naruto."

Ick. Was that guilt twisting around in his gut? Kakashi's smile became a bit strained. He had told Iruka that, and he had firmly believed it at the time. Having seen Naruto's ruined body he now realized how foolish his confidence had been. Itachi had nearly killed him. Whatever 'trade' Itachi had made with Iruka, Naruto's safety obviously played no part in it. But that could wait for later, too. There was no way the kids would keep quiet about Naruto having been skinless. He would deal with Iruka's reaction when the time came. For now he really just wanted to see Iruka on his feet, maybe cuddling his kid and reassuring the others. Then he and Iruka could sit back down for a long talk about exactly what Itachi had shown him. The questions could wait. Well, most of the questions could wait. Two were itching around behind his ear too much to ignore.

"Why do you think it was Naruto you saw being born? And who is Chouji?" He frowned and scratched another itch. "And what does Shikamaru have to do with any of it?"

"Oh! We left Shikamaru in the attic. He was injured. I had better-"

"Nope," Kakashi sighed. Iruka had made it to his feet. Walking with a little assistance might be doable. Healing, however, was out of the question. "Sorry, but you don't have the energy to be healing anyone. If Shikamaru is in the attic he'll find his way down or we can send someone up to fetch him. Is Chouji the one you rode back with, then?"

"I know his father," Iruka said sharply. "The resemblance is uncanny. He has to be his son. But the odds of that..."

"Too coincidental."

"Exactly!"

"And Naruto...?"

"Impossible," Iruka grimaced. He shook his head sharply. "Nonsense. I'm sure I'm just not thinking clearly. I didn't even make the connection until I saw you and realized I was really home and..." He let out a disgusted breath. "What I saw couldn't have been real so it doesn't matter what it looked like. But she did. She scratched the baby's face when she was trying the clear the mouth so it could breathe. Three scratches on each cheek. That's..."

"Interesting," Kakashi agreed, "but as you said, the odds of that? Don't think too hard on it right now. If there is an explanation, you'll find it by carefully sorting through the facts. If it's pure insanity there's no point diving down that hole. You'd get lost trying to find something that makes sense of it all."

"Exactly." Iruka stopped him before he could open the door. He leaned his head on his shoulder and smiled. "Thank you for pandering to me. That's what I need the most at the moment."

"I wasn't pandering."

"Of course you are. You once tried to convince me that I should have sex with you for the sake of the children. We don't think alike at all. My thoughts are a mess. When I get them straightened out I'm sure we'll reach very different conclusions."

"Maybe," Kakashi shrugged, "but don't forget. I was right about the sex. I'll probably be right about this, too. Keep that in mind when you start thinking yourself in circles to try and deny that I'm right again."

"You were not right about the sex," Iruka informed him. "If I hadn't intervened, Naruto would have stashed one of your balls in the freezer by now."

"He would have tried." His smug tone gained a smile, and then a hug. He sighed as he hugged him back. "You haven't asked about Sasuke."

"If he hadn't made it, you wouldn't be here teasing me. I knew the moment I saw you that they were both okay, that everything is going to be okay. Thank you."

That was definitely guilt eating at his insides. Kakashi was glad Iruka couldn't see his face at the moment. Physically, the boys were okay. There was no telling how their minds would be once they woke up, especially Naruto. Sasuke was used to being reduced to nothing and picking himself up again. Naruto and that fox of his had thought they were invincible. Even if Itachi hadn't fucked with their heads, he had nearly killed them. This would be a harsh reality check. He still believed a reality check was just what Naruto needed to help him grow up. But if this had broken his spirit? Iruka would blame him and Sasuke would blame himself. Sai's Order was right about Itachi, after all. An encounter with Itachi was bad, but it was the aftermath that really fucked things up.

.-.

His father had used the sharingan on him. That was why he had so few memories of his childhood, of Itachi. His father had shut most of them away that night, their last night as a real family. He had been in his mother's room that night. He wasn't supposed to be in there. There was a good reason, things had happened, bad things, but he couldn't remember any of it. He hadn't remembered any of it that night, either. Maybe that night wasn't the first time his father had used the sharingan on him. But that night was what kept coming back, because that was the night it all ended. He had gone into his mother's room and pretended with her and then instead of going to sleep in his own bed, he had snuck into Itachi's room. He had known better. They weren't allowed to be alone in a room together. He upset Itachi when he got too close to him, hurt him with the things that followed him, and Itachi was the one who got in trouble for it. He especially wasn't allowed in Itachi's bedroom. His room was clean. Whatever the things in the dark really were, they didn't dare enter Itachi's room. That was why Sasuke had gone to his room that night, because he had been afraid to be alone, in the dark, seeing those things every time he closed his eyes.

He had brought his blanket with him, covered from head to toe with it, so nothing that was on him would touch Itachi. And Itachi had let him in without saying a word. He had shut the door so his room was as dark as Sasuke's, but it wasn't scary like his because it was clean. Empty. He stood just inside the door and closed his eyes while Itachi ran his hands over the blanket, from the top of his covered head to his shoulders. All the way down. As if he were crushing them and brushing them off. Sometimes it worked. Never completely, but enough for Itachi to let him sleep on the floor by his bed. Everywhere he touched burned even through the blanket. His skin was going to be red and his father would see that and they would both get in trouble. He gritted his teeth and tried not whimper from the pain. If it worked enough for Itachi to let him stay it would be worth it. Getting in trouble would be worth not having to go back to his room. But it hadn't worked last time, or the time before that. He could barely remember when it had worked. He was getting worse. Going to his mother's room was making it worse.

The hands fell away and he peeked out of the blanket. Itachi's back was to him. His throat tightened and his eyes burned. It hadn't worked.

"Go back to your room, Sasuke."

He choked. His face screwed up to keep the tears from falling, but that just made them worse. "Why? I just wanted to make her happy."

"Why?" asked Itachi. His voice was quiet, as always, but his eyes when he looked back at him were accusing. "Why do you care about making her happy? She hurts you and you hurt me. I'm your brother. Care about that."

"I do care!" He didn't know how to make it better. When he turned from her, it hurt her and that hurt him. When he tried to see what she wanted to show him, it hurt Itachi and that hurt his father and that hurt her and that hurt him. He hurt everyone. She promised that if he learned the control she was trying to teach him then all the hurt would go away. He had to believe that because-

Itachi turned away again. "Go back to your room, Sasuke."

And he did. He turned to the door with his hands fisted in the blanket, his eyes blurring and a knot in his throat he could barely breathe past. He opened the door to find his father standing in the hall and that was it. That was too much. The disappointment and anger in his father's eyes made him flinch back and scream, "I didn't touch him!"

"Sasuke," his father said sharply.

He flinched again. He didn't need to close his eyes to know those things had reacted to his voice. If his mother heard him and came they would react to her, too. And Itachi was the one who would suffer the most from it. He was making it worse. Why did he keep making it worse? "I didn't-"

"All you have to do is stay away from him. It's that simple. How many times must I tell you that? You're old enough to understand what you do to him. Just leave him alone."

The tears were falling freely now. He was crying in front of his father. Making it worse. Always making it worse. He took one step into the hall, and then a hand fell on his shoulder.

"I don't want him to leave me alone," said Itachi. "He's my brother and we're Uchiha. He will belong to me until one of us dies."

Sasuke saw his father's eyes widen and his face go pitch white. Then he was turned and Itachi pushed the blanket back just enough to kiss him on the forehead. Sasuke stopped breathing. Itachi's lips were touching his skin. What would that do to him? He didn't look sick or in pain when he pulled away, but his eyes were cold. His hands were cold, too, when he brushed the wetness off his cheeks.

"Don't cry," Itachi murmured to him. "You were born wrong. That isn't your fault. It's theirs. They will pay for what they have done. Go back to your room now, Sasuke."

He went back to his room in a daze. He didn't shut the door all the way. He remained just inside, huddled under the blanket and listening to every word.

"What are you thinking?" his father hissed. "Have you completely lost your mind? How could you say that to him?"

"Isn't it true? He should never have been born. How many times have you said that when you thought we wouldn't hear?"

The silence was so long that Sasuke scrunched down on the floor next the cracked door. He was crying again. He muffled the sounds in his blanketed knees.

"If you heard that," his father said quietly, "then you know I didn't mean it that way."

"I know you thought he would be a girl. Her daughter, not your son. Had you known he was a son you would never have allowed him to be born. All to deprive me of my brother. But you failed. He's mine now and no one will ever take him away from me."

"Listen to me, Itachi. You're confused. He isn't what you think he is. He is not your brother. He will never be your brother. Not like that. He doesn't have the eyes. He never will. He inherited her blood, not mine. He's different from us. Not wrong, just different. Accept him for what he is or leave him alone. Trying to change him is madness. You would destroy both him and yourself and it would be for nothing. Why can't I make you see that?"

"Are you going to send me away again? You would send away me, his only protection, and keep him here where she can taint him further. You're no better than she is."

"No, I'll put a stop to that as well, before he ends up as mad as you are. You need distance from each other, from all of this. Maybe in time you'll understand that what you're thinking is wrong. It can't be done. You can't change him into what you want him to be."

"Why not? You have."

Itachi's voice was wrong. Sasuke's breath caught in his throat. There was a memory just out of his reach. He had heard Itachi's voice sound like that before and something bad had happened. He turned to stare at the crack of light, wanting to go out there and stop them. But he was afraid to. He didn't want to see what Itachi's face looked like when his voice sounded like that.

"I can fix him," Itachi murmured. "You know that I can and will. You know how. Yet you would send me away again, rather than stop me now? How cowardly of you. You should know better than to disappoint me like that, Father."

There was a crack and a thump, and Sasuke scrambled off the floor and onto his bed. He curled into a ball with his hands over his ears. One of them had struck the other. It didn't matter which one had done it. The dark was roiling around him. Itachi's monsters were writhing and frothing and his mother's dead were howling. He curled tighter, willing it all to go away. Fear bled into anger. Hatred. He hated his father and Itachi for fighting when the one they should have been hitting was him. And his mother, he hated her for keeping him in the middle of it all when she knew he couldn't say no. He hated himself most of all, of course, for always being the cause. He should never have been born. They would all be happy if he had never been born.

The rocking brought him out of his cold coccoon. His mother was rocking him and humming, the things in the air forming a warm shield around them. But was a thin and fractured shield because she was also crying when he finally uncurled enough to look up at her. He wished she hadn't come. He didn't want her to try and make him feel better when she was hurting as much as he was.

"It isn't your fault," she murmured into his hair. "None of this is your fault. We thought it would be safe. I knew the moment you were conceived that you would take after me. That should have been enough. He is your brother, Sasuke. He always will be. It's just that the word means something different to him, something twisted and wrong. That isn't his fault, either. It's in his blood. He takes after your father like you take after me. They see things differently from us. That isn't anyone's fault."

He wanted to tell her that he didn't see things like she did. He didn't see things like Itachi did, either. The things he saw were different from both of them. Except that wasn't true any more. He did see what they saw because they wanted him to. His creatures had been replaced with monsters and corpses and he wished he couldn't see anything at all. It was his fault because he was the one hurting everyone. "I was born wrong," he cried. "I wish I was dead."

"Don't be ridiculous," his mother laughed quietly, but she was still crying. "Death isn't a punishment or an escape, it's just a step into another world as wonderful and painful as this one. Besides, there is nothing wrong with you. You just have a much further reach than I did at your age. Once you learn control you'll be perfect. And you're my son. My beautiful son. If this is someone's fault, it's mine. I wanted a child who took after me, so I could pass on everything my mother taught me. What did I care about the Uchiha traditions? One child per family is unfair to both the parents and the children. Ridiculous nonsense based on silly superstition. Even your father never really believed in it. And then, after...the first time, I was so sure we could fix it. I would teach you to control what you called, he would teach him to understand what he saw and everything would be fine. It should have been fine. I don't know where we went wrong. All we've done is hurt you both. But I love you, Sasuke. I love you both so much. I didn't want to give that up. It was selfish of me and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She curled around him, sobbing, and her shield splintered into pieces. The air churned around them, miserable and dark and hurting. And that was fine. He was miserable. She was miserable. They could be miserable together. They stayed there together until his father opened the door and told her to come say goodbye to her son. Sasuke didn't get to say goodbye. He stayed there, waiting, until his father came back and took it all away with three words and eyes that glowed red in the darkness.

Sasuke refused to dwell on the emotions that memory evoked. He had lived too much of his life without that memory. It might as well have happened to someone else. But his father had been the one to take that memory away by using the sharingan on him. That was...a betrayal. That hurt. He understood why his father had done it. He had been watching one son slip into madness and hadn't been willing to let it happen to both of them. That still didn't make it acceptable. If he had remembered how Itachi had left he might have reacted differently when Itachi came back. His parents had known what Itachi would do. His mother had been so terrified she had decided he was better off dead than in Itachi's hands. Why hadn't they at least moved so they would be harder to find? Had they thought Itachi was gone for good? Where had his father taken him that night?

Sasuke had never asked where Itachi had gone or why. His parents never talked about him and he didn't either. That hadn't seemed strange to him. His mother had spent most of her time in her room with the door locked to keep him out and his father had barely looked at him at all. None of that had seemed strange to him. His father hadn't just shut that one memory away, he must have been using the sharingan on him often to keep him from wondering and prying until that door in his mind cracked open again. What did that make him? His mind was a series of door with parts of him that been locked away, and then a burned stain where Itachi had destroyed the rest of him. It was no wonder he had been so confused when he had finally 'woken' in that hospital. He had been an empty shell with just enough bits of 'Sasuke' shoved back in for him to function. And that was the 'brother' Itachi had wanted so badly? One who felt nothing for him because he had no memories of caring about him? Itachi could have opened those doors and given him back those memories. He had chosen not to. Why? And if Itachi hadn't wanted him to have those memories, why hadn't he burned them? Why leave them behind those doors where they could get out to find him now?

It made no sense. Nothing with Itachi ever did. Sasuke was only trying to make sense of it now because it distracted him from the obvious. Had Itachi given him their father's eyes? He couldn't think about that and breathe at the same time. He would have to tear them out, destroy them, and die. He didn't want to die, so he couldn't think about that. He wasn't that distraught child from that memory who blamed himself for everything. Itachi had gutted that child, burned him up, and destroyed the only brother he would ever have. Too bad for him. Sasuke didn't care about any of that. He refused to care.

"Is that blood in his hair?"

Sasuke looked over to see Iruka sitting on the edge of Naruto's bed. Kakashi was leaning against the desk and staring at him. How long had they been in the room?

"I'm afraid so," Kakashi told Iruka. He didn't take his eyes off Sasuke. "But as you can see, he isn't injured. I'm sure it will wash out."

"How long has he been asleep?"

"A few hours, since I brought them back. He did wake up at least once, though."

Kakashi waited. When Iruka didn't say anything else, he pushed away from the desk. Sasuke was sitting on the floor by the window, across from Naruto's bed. He hadn't moved when they entered, hadn't seemed to hear them talking until Iruka had asked about Naruto's hair. Even now that Sasuke was looking back at him, he appeared more asleep than awake. He should have been asleep. How had he even gotten in here? He crouched a few feet away from him and slowly edged the band off his sharingan. Sasuke didn't even blink.

Kakashi had a sharingan and he hadn't needed someone else's eye to get it. Sasuke focused on that as hard as he could. He didn't know what Itachi had done with the eyes. He might never have to know. He stared until Kakashi covered the eye back up, and then he had to blink. There were no shadows in the room now. Maybe they didn't like Kakashi's sharingan. Maybe facing that memory had driven them away. Now if Naruto would just wake up before they came back he could sleep.

"How are you awake?" asked Kakashi.

"Sheer stubbornness," said Sasuke. And an unsightly amount of fear of what might happen if he slept without knowing Naruto would be there to wake him up again. It was one thing to accept that he wanted Naruto. This sudden need for him, the dependence, was irritating. He should be stronger than that. But he wasn't and couldn't be. Not right now. The other shadows were gone, but he could still feel the hand. That wasn't sane, which meant he wasn't sane.

"Your energy is better," Kakashi told him, "but it's the wrong color. There is a hint of purple to it. Is that due to Sakura having healed you?" It was a wispy echo that reminded him of Iruka's blanket, only lighter and...less attached somehow. It looked more like Chouji's energy had looked when Iruka was possessing him. He didn't like the implications of that.

"I have no idea."

Had Sakura healed him? Had she mentioned that? She might have. That would explain why his ribs didn't hurt. He tried to remember his talk with her. She had wanted to put him in Naruto's bed and it had irritated him. He had snapped at her until she finally left, and then he had fallen and been forced to crawl his way over here because the room wouldn't hold still. For a while he had thought she was still in the room, hovering over Naruto's bed. But then he had realized it was a shadow woman who just looked a little like Sakura. Then the shadow woman had turned into his mother and he was back in her room on that last night, failing to learn the control she was trying to teach him because he didn't want to believe in any of that.

"Sasuke...?"

"What?"

"Are you all right?" asked Kakashi. Sasuke didn't look all right. He looked confused and lost and...vulnerable. It was especially disturbing because he was sure Sasuke had no idea how he looked right now. Sasuke would never willingly let people see him looking like this. "What happened?" Those dark eyes remained unfocused for a long moment before slowly turning to him.

"No," Sasuke admitted. He wasn't all right at all. "Stop talking to me. I'll sleep when Naruto wakes up."

Confused, but still Sasuke. Kakashi smiled and rose. "Okay, then. I'll leave you alone."

"Wait," Sasuke said, before he could leave. "Did you see things on me with the sharingan?"

"Things...?"

"Forget it. Go away." The shadows were gone for the moment, so Kakashi wouldn't have seen them even if they were real. The important thing was that Kakashi hadn't seen the hand because the hand wasn't real.

He looked down at his right hand and then closed his eyes. He didn't see it, either. He thought he could feel it, but maybe that was just because his hand was swollen and stiff. It felt strange because it was busted. He curled his left hand around it and pressed hard. The pain was startling, but without the numbness he could clearly feel his thumb pressing the top of his hand. He couldn't feel any ghostly fingers pressing anywhere else. It was just a busted hand with damaged nerves, just his imagination getting away from him. He was so relieved he dropped his forehead onto his knees and sighed. Then he fell asleep.

"Is he all right?" Iruka asked quietly.

"I don't know." Kakashi looked over to see that Sasuke's head was down. That was better than the way he had been staring blankly at nothing when they had entered the room. "I doubt it."

"Why is he over there by himself?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "You would rather have come in to find them in bed together?" That earned him a flush and a glare. "I walked in on that earlier, except it was Sasuke's room and Naruto had fallen asleep on his chest. Sasuke's ribs were broken at the time, so I ended that little cuddling session and had Naruto put back in his own bed. If I had known Sasuke would find his way in here, I would have tucked Naruto into the bed beside him to save him the trip. Our kids just can't stay away from each other."

"Kakashi!" Iruka sent a quick look at Sasuke, and then a longer scowl at Kakashi.

"Just the truth," Kakashi shrugged. Sasuke hadn't reacted, so either he wasn't listening or he didn't care. He reached past Iruka to poke one of Naruto's cheeks. The boy wrinkled his nose. "Well? Are you going to wake him up or not?"

"Should I?"

"It wouldn't hurt him if you did. His energy is low, but not dangerously low. You could get a few hugs in before he goes back to sleep."

A quick check with the sharingan showed that Naruto's energy was just a little lower than Sasuke's. It wasn't surprising that Naruto was already recovering his energy. He would be back to normal in a day or two. Sasuke, on the other hand, should have been in a coma. He shouldn't have had enough energy to wake up, much less walk his way in here and be conscious enough to talk. Kakashi looked back over at him. Sasuke's energy was normally a silvery white with hints of icy blue. That purple was completely out of place. It was also darker now than it had been just a few minutes ago. He didn't like that at all. But it didn't appear to be smothering his energy. That was something. Hopefully.

"Kakashi?"

"Sorry, what?"

"I'm going to check on Shikamaru now."

"You're not going to wake Naruto up?"

"No," said Iruka. "I'll wait for him to wake up on his own."

Like Sasuke was doing? Iruka was cute. They were both cute. Naruto had better appreciate them both or he was a fool. Kakashi wasn't a fool. He covered the sharingan and followed him out of the room with a smile.

.-.
TBC