This is my apology to Kakashi and Iruka for using them for my wellness project. Since it's a high school project, I had to make Iruka female... take out all the smexing... make it PG... make it CHEESY... gah. This is my apology to them- chapter one of my newest Kakairu fanfic. And by Kakairu, I mean EVENTUAL Kakairu. But, unlike my last fic, Kakashi and Iruka are at least in most of the scenes. I'll also say right now that I've never really liked fics where Kakashi stalks Iruka. I'm trying to make this one very different from the others. And I'll also say that Kakashi/Hound is not ever going to attack/rape Iruka, since I'm not a fan of that plot, either. Well, enough of my rambling. Enjoy!

Prologue

The ANBU commander gave a slight nod once the operative in front of him had finished speaking. He quickly wrote down what information would go on file, then looked back up at the shinobi and inclined his head in a signal that the meeting was over. "Konoha thanks you for your service. Due to the nature of your mission, it is required that you take three days leave. You will not be called upon unless in case of emergency."

"Understood, Lion-sama."

Lion looked back down at his desk, slowly rolling up the now finished scroll. It was a practiced speech, the one given to every ANBU operative who returned home alive and not on a stretcher or a teammate's back. The words weren't the false, meant-to-be comforting speeches given to little genins returned home after a difficult mission; he was speaking to trained soldiers who had long ago sold their heart and soul for the safety of Konoha. Nothing he said and no time off would ever give these ninja peace of mind from the nightmares that they committed and saw, and everyone knew that. The three days off were more to ensure that this operative simply didn't lose it entirely and break like glass- they weren't meant to heal or ease mental agony. Nothing could do that.

"You are dismissed, Hound."

Hound gave a stiff salute, and then vanished in a whirl of leaves.

Hound jumped across the rooftops under the night sky. His pack thumped against his back, the familiar weight comforting, the smells that invaded his nostrils oddly safe and soothing. He followed his nose more than his instincts, letting it guide him to the civilian district. His eyes closed behind his mask, and his nose twitched.

His feet jumped lightly from one rooftop to the next, and then he abruptly skidded to a stop when the scent grew so strong it could only be coming from right underneath him. Hound slowly opened one eye and jumped back to land lightly on a tree, melting into the shadows before turning to face his saving grace.

What? A shinobi?

Hound frowned. The man through the window was definitely a ninja. He wore the chuunin vest and the Konoha forehead protector. What was a smell like this doing coming from a shinobi's home?

A quick glance around told him that had not even made it to the civilian district. He sighed in disinterest. A false alarm. Hound immediately prepared to turn and bound away again- and then something caught his eye.

The shinobi had unzipped his vest and folded it neatly on the back of the couch, and was putting on… an apron? What was this?

Hound decided to stay and watch, if only to sate his curiosity. The ninja walked throughout his home, smiling and humming to himself, and made his way into a neat and orderly kitchen. He began pulling supplies and materials out of well-stocked cupboards and the fridge and laid them out, smiling all the while.

While the ninja prepared, Hound took the opportunity to examine him further. Without the vest, he just wore the standard navy blue uniform against tanned skin, with his long, dark brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail. He seemed rather nondescript- in fact, his only distinguishing feature was a long, pale scar that ran over the bridge of his nose. There were no other battle scars that Hound could see on his hands or face, but the rest of him was hidden from view by the ridiculous apron.

Hound watched, intrigued, as the man moved about the bright little kitchen, still smiling. He began mixing several of the- ingredients. Yes, that's what they were. He was baking something. Perhaps a poisoned item for an assassination mission?

He sighed heavily and prepared to turn away again, but then something stopped him. Hound looked back and was surprised to find no poison among the materials. He shifted imperceptibly in the shadows, drawn to at least discover what the ninja was doing.

Soon, the ingredients had been mixed together to create some kind of sticky, stretchy, bland thing. The ninja's front and face was covered in powdered white, though it hardly seemed to bother him as he went about shaping his creation, pulling it apart and rolling it into rough little half-spheres. Hound kept waiting for him to stick tiny little shuriken in the mix or drop a few touches of poison into the bowl, but the only thing the man added were dark little somethings that were plainly visible on his preparation's surface. If that was supposed to be poison, then the ninja wasn't a very smart one.

Then the man put his creation- now divided up into twenty or so little circles with the dark things added in- right into his oven and set the timer. Hound frowned darkly. This was very confusing. His calming trip to the civilian district would have to wait. Whatever this shinobi was up to was worth investigating.

While his preparation was cooked, the ninja took off his apron and went about cleaning up his mess. When that was done, he sat down at a small table and pulled up a satchel, digging out a stack of papers and a red pen. He started to work, then, marking up the papers and occasionally shaking his head and muttering under his breath, though always with a fond smile. Hound wished he were close enough to hear.

This was how the shinobi spent the next hour and a half. Just pouring over the papers and quietly correcting them with his pen. Hound was slightly perplexed, but at least this was more normal than the baking.

It was nearing midnight before the ninja's creations were done. He raised his head at the sound of the timer going off, then jumped forward, grabbing a potholder- a potholder, what kind of shinobi used a potholder?- and moving his whatever it was out of the heat. And the moment they slid out of the oven, Hound recognized them.

Chocolate chip cookies.

What the hell?

Those were things he remembered from when he was much younger, little sweet things he disliked that his sensei had occasionally tried to foist on him. They were certainly not poison and certainly not any shinobi weapon.

Hound's suspicions were further confirmed when, after they had cooled a little, the ninja picked up one and took a bite out of it. His expression brightened immediately and he popped the rest of it into his mouth, meaning it couldn't be poison or a weapon. But, then, what were all those cookies for? Shinobi did not bake cookies.

He didn't get to find out, because of instead of eating any more, the ninja slid them all into a little plastic container with a lid and put it next to his satchel. The, with a yawn, he began repacking all of those papers before he neatly slid off his shirt and folded it next to his flak jacket, over the couch. The absence of a shirt revealed a well-muscled torso, but he also wasn't too thin, like he went on missions a lot and lived on rations bars. He looked almost like a civilian who kept himself in shape. The absence of battle scars contributed to this theory; there were several- one pale line on his shoulder, a jagged mark between his hip and his ribcage, a long previous injury on his forearm- but not enough to convince Hound that he really was a shinobi. He looked far too big to be a genin, but a chuunin or a jounin would not look like that.

Hound continued to watch as the man got ready for bed. He pulled a kunai out of his small stash of weapons and hid it under his pillow- finally, something normal for a ninja- and Hound stayed until the man had fallen asleep.

How intriguing.

Hound decided he didn't need to go to the civilian district after all. He'd found everything he'd been looking for right here.

Hound returned to his apartment with a lightening of the heavy guilt weighing on his shoulders. His visit to the strange shinobi's home had reminded him of why he served Konoha, of why he sold his soul- because it was worth it. That's right. It was worth it. Hound didn't know why that shinobi seemed so completely normal and peaceful, but it had been what he needed. And now that he could make even an attempt at justifying those memories forever burned into his skull, he could now remove his mask and begin to recover.

Hound disabled his traps and slid silently into his apartment. He went systematically about his post-mission ritual, unlacing the ANBU armor and gear and dropping his things off by the door. It had been a surprisingly easy mission, considering, so there was no blood to clean or injuries to bandage. Just injured morals that barely existed anymore to try and nurse back to health and a guilt to try and lessen to the point where it wouldn't kill him.

The last thing he did before he slid into bed was remove his ANBU mask. With a sad sigh, Kakashi curled up onto his side, cloth mask still in place, and closed his eyes.

Chapter 1

The next morning, Kakashi awoke at his normal time, just as the sun was peeking above the horizon. Whether he was on a mission or not, his internal clock remained the same. Since he had absolutely no intentions to return back to sleep, not with the memories lurking just beneath the surface, he shifted into a sitting position and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He knew what was going to happen now; his mornings always progressed in the same fashion. Breakfast was not a luxury afforded to ANBU; it was hard to break the habit of grabbing sleep when and where he could, wolfing down rations bars only once or twice a day. Kakashi's mornings were spent on a mission, in a hospital, or at the memorial stone- there were no exceptions.

He wasn't on a mission, and he wasn't injured or Chakra depleted. That meant he had one place to be.

Kakashi watched dully as the light progressed up the surface of rock, turning more and more mere rough scratches into legible names. It didn't matter; he knew exactly where his friends were, and his night vision was good enough to read the names from twenty feet away. But now, it was visible for the whole world to see- not that it mattered; this place was often ignored and forgotten, too much pain associated with a gruesome, macabre list of the dead to be visited often.

"Ne, Sensei," he murmured at length, his eye moving over the late Hokage's name. "You were Hokage. Would you have accepted this mission? …They say it was crucial to village security. But I think it could have been accomplished other ways. Perhaps not as easy or simple of a fix as this, but, I think it was worth the risk. But they don't care, do they? Whatever gets it done the fastest. Decimate the mental health of their shinobi, milk them for what their worth, and toss them aside once they've outlived their usefulness… I see now why you didn't want me to join ANBU. The Third just likes to pretend things like this don't happen, missions like the one I just did aren't assigned. He's wonderful for the village, don't get me wrong, but he's happy to let Danzou's philosophy dominate ANBU, even if I'm not in ROOT, so long as he doesn't have to get blood on his hands. I don't think his conscience would allow him to use us until we break, that's why he gives us to Danzou and Lion-sama. But you, Sensei… you would've made this your business… I don't think you would have ever assigned this mission in the first place. You would've gone the hard route in order to spare me- or whatever operative it was, actually."

Kakashi sighed. He slid half-gloved hands into his pocket, raising his head to look up at Obito's name instead of Minato's. "What about you, Obito? Would you have accepted this mission? …Somehow, I think not. But then, you were always the more moralistic one of the group. Moralistic and idealistic. Heh… I don't think you wanted me to use my eye to do this. And I'm sure I'll be given something just like it in three days… what would you do if you were me? I'm sure I'll end up doing just the opposite. Maybe I should just resign from ANBU… what do you guys think?"

A light, warm breeze answered him, ambiguous and unhelpful. He sighed again. "There's not really much point, though. I'm only good as a tool for Konoha, and if they can best use me in ANBU, then who I am to back out? Oh… I know what you're thinking, Rin, and I'm sorry- I know you hate it when I objectify myself like that, but you know it's true. You guys- Sensei, you had a family, Obito, you had your friends, Rin, you had your sister… you all had people to live for, but I don't. Everyone I lived for is dead. There's no point in trying to get out of these god awful missions, of killing the innocent; who am I trying to save myself for?"

His conscience roiled uneasily, and he shifted to give a playful glare at Minato's name. "Sensei, you don't want the likes of me taking care of your son. He's better off alone than with me- any ANBU, actually. We're not the most cuddly people in the world. Face it; I'm alone and better off that way. No one else needs this, needs some crazy guy talking to spirits at dawn.

"What else is going on? Maybe you guys want to know that? Sorry… ANBU talk is always depressing. Well… hmm… oh! Actually, there is something. I got back home last night and went to the civilian district, like always. But I found the same kind of smell coming from a shinboi's house. So I went there and stayed, out of curiosity. He was baking cookies, Sensei, can you believe it? What kind of a shinobi has the time for that? But it helped. Normal, peaceful… all of that. He also intrigued me. I'm going back over to his house later this morning to find out why the hell he was baking cookies; he didn't even eat them. …Sorry I don't have much to tell you guys… I don't think you want to know the details about my mission, and, well, that's all I have to say. …I'll tell you more about the cookie guy tomorrow. Hopefully his name. When I'm Hound, I don't really care much about names, but now it seems kind of stupid to just keep referring to him as the cookie guy."

Kakashi left the memorial stone with mild determination and an eagerness to stop talking to the dead. If he kept going on much longer, he would run out of things to say and would just end up describing his last mission to them- and these three days were to forget about the mission, not keep remembering it.

He arrived at the strange shinobi's house and hid in the tree as he had the night before to keep watch. It was now a little past six, and he was already up, moving briskly around his home with an energy that gave Kakashi the distinct impression that he was a morning person. He had changed into a fresh uniform and seemed to have just prepared breakfast. The faint, yet tantalizing smell of the onigiri made Kakashi wish he had eaten at least something this morning- he hadn't had anything in over twenty four hours, now, and his last meal and been a single rations bar eaten on the run. He licked his lips beneath his mask, watching hungrily as the food rapidly disappeared down the man's throat.

Finally, at a quarter to seven, the man washed his few dishes, put them away, and slid on his flak jacket. He quickly pulled his hair back into the same ponytail it had been in the night before, dropped the satchel over his shoulder, and headed for the door. He seemed more like a civilian preparing for work than a ninja getting ready for a mission.

Kakashi followed the shinobi as he walked down the road, keeping to the rooftops and trees. He moved at a slow, easy pace, occasionally waving or saying hello to other ninja he passed on the way, the only others out this early. He reached his destination rather quickly, and it answered many of Kakashi's questions about why he seemed so civilian like- he worked at the Academy. He was likely a teacher.

His eye narrowed in slight distaste. Ah. A shinobi who had the 'easy life', then. No wonder he seemed so civilian like. Academy sensei rarely took missions and, on occasion, were just strong genin promoted due to a severe need for teachers. And the cookies- probably for his class.

The fact that the man's presence had been what he was looking for last night and been able to calm him was the only reason Kakashi didn't turn and leave right now. The man was no longer anywhere near as intriguing.

When they reached the Academy, classes were not in session, and yet it was half past seven. Kakashi's Academy classes had started at six thirty in the morning and lasted until four thirty in the afternoon- but, that had been in wartime, when graduating at seven or eight was not an anomaly but was expected. Admittedly, graduating at the tender age of five had still rather made him stand out…

The teacher began setting up for the day, and Kakashi was a bit surprised to not see weapons or diagrams or thick textbooks coming out immediately. He wrote a few notes on the chalkboard, glanced down at a clipboard on his desk, then returned to checking over- probably grading, he now realized- the papers he'd been working on the night before. The notes on the board pointed to a lecture about Chakra control, but they were painfully simple, even for a class of pre-genin.

It took Kakashi over a minute of blank confusion for him to realize that this, too, was part of what he was looking for. Like a little bit of what he found in the civilian district; that the Academy could teach such pathetically easy things to their students at such a slow place was a sign that he was doing his job. His job was to protect the safety of those in Konoha, take on all the blood and pain so they didn't have to. If their ninja-in-training could afford to be so innocent and weak, then he was doing a very good job indeed. The very existence of such things meant this world was still salvageable and this village was still happy, even if he was neither of the two.

He watched on as the sensei prepared for his day, and when the clock hit eight, the students began arriving. A loud Inuzuka with a dog on his head, a tentative little Hyuuga who looked like the wind would blow her over, an Uchiha with an unwanted harem of girls fawning over his ever move, the little Yamanaka girl yelling at a pink-haired girl with bright green eyes. He blinked in surprise when he saw his sensei's son join the mix, a blast of bright orange and a voice just as loud as his jacket, and the Academy sensei greeted them all cheerfully and with a smile. The students seemed to love him just as much as he did them.

"Iruka-sensei, Iruka-sensei, guess what?"

"Sensei, I finally did the henge last night, isn't that so awesome?!"

"I drew this for you, Sensei!"

"Sensei, look at this!"

Kakashi watched in surprise at the children's adoration of their sensei. All he remembered of his Academy sensei was a cold, unfeeling man who gave them no illusions about what they had signed up for and what he was preparing them for. He hadn't been their friend, hadn't even tried to be. He had been their first captain, nothing more.

Perhaps that such an easygoing, happy class with a sensei that was their best friend was another sign of the times, and that his efforts to keep Konoha safe were succeeding.

Kakashi was invariably interested to see more. He stayed in the tree, watching as this Iruka stood at half past eight and addressed the students, signaling the start of class. "Now, everybody. Remember last week, when I gave you your midterm on the specifics of taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu? Remember how I promised to give you all a present if you all got an A?"

There was an excited chorus for an agreement, little faces brightening as they all leaned forward together, eager. Iruka raised a stack of papers from his desk, beamed, and pulled out the cookies from his satchel. "Well, you did it! And if you fulfilled your side of the bargain, then I suppose I just had to fulfill mine, didn't I?"

The cheers were so loud that Kakashi didn't near Super Jounin Hearing to hear them from his perch in the tree. A civilian half a mile away had probably heard them.

Iruka moved about the room, passing out one cookie to each student, but the Academy sensei paused when he reached the row in the back and shook his head. The child that Kakashi recognized as the next Nara in the line, whatever his name was, was sitting silently at his desk… fast asleep.

Class had barely been in session for five minutes. And how could he sleep with such a racket going on around him?

Kakashi's eye twitched in annoyance before it curved up into a smile. It was slightly amusing.

Iruka seemed to feel the same way, because he held a finger to his lips and gestured for the rest of the class to be silent with a conspiratorial smile. He picked up a textbook from a nearby table, moved forward on exaggerated tiptoes, and raised the book to slam it against the sleeping boy's desk-

A half-gloved hand ghosted forward, pale skin luminous in the moonlight. It approached the slim neck of the sleeping eight year old, partially hidden by the silk blue of her nightgown. Dark curls of hair lay across her skin, rising gently with each breath. Hound did not hesitate as securely wrapped a hand around the girl's throat. Brown eyes flickered open in innocent shock, and then Hound twisted and broke her neck.

The boy sat upright with a cry of alarm, prompting a round of laughter from the class. He looked around, wide-eyed, before he just slumped back in his chair and sulkily accepted his cookie.

Hound withdrew a specially bought kunai and quickly sliced a long, jagged cut across the dead girl's throat. He added several other scratches along thin arms for good measure, letting her bleed before her body went cold and her blood had stopped moving. He deposited her body in a slump on the floor and quickly moved about, silently creating a mess in the room that could indicate a struggle.

"Shikamaru," Iruka scolded, shaking his head. "If you can't stay awake for five minutes, then go to sleep earlier at night. If I catch you at it again, then it'll be detention."

Hound set the transportation scroll on the ground and summoned the dead body of a mercenary clothed in the distinctive garb of the Southern Kingdom. He set the weapon in his slack hand, dragged the body closer to the girl's, and scattered the shards of a broken vase around his head. That, along with the gaping wound on his head, should point well enough to his cause of breath. As a finishing touch, he took out a vial of the man's blood, collected beforehand, and carefully poured it over the shards and the floor.

"Yes, Iruka-sensei," Shikamaru grumbled, prompting another few chuckles out of the class. Still smiling, Iruka moved along the row, finishing passing out the rest of the cookies.

Hound looked about the scene with a critical eye. He slowly gave a satisfied nod, then turned and vanished through the window.

Kakashi clutched at his hair, nearly falling out of the tree as the horrible wave of memories continued. He doubled over, a sudden set of tremors wracking his body, and suddenly found it hard to breathe. Oh god oh god, I killed her, she was eight and innocent and I killed her

That room full of students next to him, all eight years old and innocent and dead, by his hand

The Northern Kingdom wants to launch a revolt against Konoha. Kill the princess and set it up to look as if the Southern Kingdom is responsible

Wide brown eyes scared and shocked, just like-

Kakashi only just barely possessed the foresight of mind to jump from the tree and run.