Between a Scarecrow and a Sand Dune

By Swiss

It was just after dawn, and the first jets of light were peeking over the Hokage monument and spilling liquidly into Konoha's crevices. It was a market day, and the little shops on the village's main street were already starting to spread their awnings. Few people were out yet, but they couldn't be long in coming, and as the shadows trembled and lost the last of their footing on the edge of daybreak, a lone figure could be made out, his dark hair bobbing in a neatly secured ponytail. Against one shoulder, he carried a blond toddler.

Iruka enjoyed getting out before the sun. His mornings always began early at the academy and so he was used to it, but he also found that Naruto did better out of the milling midday crowds. There was a general merchant about half-way down the street, and he greeted the old man with a faint smile and a nod, his hands too full to wave.

While he waited for their order to be filled, Iruka sat the drowsy child on the edge of the booth long and adjusted the buttons on his flannel jacket. The uppermost pair had been worked half-way out of their holes, and Iruka paused when the pads of his fingers ran over the tooth-marks in the soft bone. He frowned.

Naruto had the unfortunate habit of pulling up his jacket to chew on his buttons, so that Iruka was forever tightening the loosened strings or outright replacing those that went missing. The mismatched set of colors and sizes made the child look homeless, which grieved Iruka. As he smoothed the thinning fabric he reflected that the whole jacket would need to be replaced soon. Already it was too short at the wrists.

It made him fret, just a little, and the ridge between his eyes creased. He went on fewer missions these days because of Naruto, and apprentice teachers made so little.

"Sensei." The child took fistfuls of the chuunin's own jacket, burying his face sleepily in the warm material. Iruka fluffed the baby-fine hair, curling am arm around Naruto.

Meanwhile, the kind old shopkeeper had finished wrapping their purchases, and smiled in a soft, knowing way while Iruka fished awkwardly for his wallet, which was in the pocket opposite his free hand. He was faintly rosy at the edges of his ears and nose when he finally managed to lay out a sprinkle of coins against the wood, but the old man just shook his head in a gentle way and helped him adjust his load so that he could carry both the food and Naruto without dropping them both.

Iruka sang to Naruto as they walked along the main road – a waking-up song – and his smile twitched when he felt small feet begin to swing with the simple rhythm. Even more when the sweet little voice started to follow along, just loud enough for them both to hear.

The sun was beginning to really make itself known, the milky pearl giving way to a fresh, clear blue. The chilly breeze was lightening too, promising a fair day. Nice enough, perhaps, to eat lunch outside. Iruka mentioned it to his humming companion. "Hey, you. How about a picnic today?"

Naruto was awake enough now to squirm happily. He declared, "May-doh," which was his favorite spot.

Iruka nodded. "The meadow it is."

They were just passing through the crowd when the parcel in Iruka's hand began to slip. He slid Naruto to the ground and adjusted his burden, pausing long enough to smile at the increasing bustle, the heartbeat of the village. It was during this brief halt that he he heard someone call his name.

"Sensei!"

At first, he didn't recognize the voice, but Iruka placed it immediately when he saw the stout woman break away from what seemed to be a hasty council with two other men in jounin vests. Her brisk, smooth strides brought her to them quickly.

Iruka's bow was a half-beat late. "Inuzuka-san," he greeted her.

He was surprised to be addressed so publicly by a clan leader, and he had to work to lower his raised eyebrows. It wasn't that he found the Inuzuka clan snobbish or superior; compared to the Uchiha or Hyuuga they were downright friendly. However, while he'd always been on good terms with Inuzuka Tsume, their relationship was necessarily formal. Though, he recalled with some discomfort, their first meeting had been unusual.

It had taken place during one of his earliest parent-teacher conferences. The Inuzuka were known for a distinct lack of personal space (a canine characteristic, it was widely supposed), yet the Iruka had still been startled when the fierce looking woman stepped practically toe-to-toe with him and then stuck her nose into the empty space between his ear and neck. There had been the most distinct sniffing sound, and then Tsume had clasped his shoulders with bone-crushing force and smiling. Iruka remembered her sharp teeth, and that same, direct voice telling him that it was a pleasure to meet him; that Kiba seemed very fond of him.

Facing the clan leader once again, he was struck anew by the jarring force of the Inuzuka personality. He didn't even realize that she wasn't alone until she thrust Kiba into his arms. Adjusting his grip automatically, Iruka blinked down at the little boy, who was still sleeping, curled up like a puppy.

"Ah, Inuzuka-san," Iruka began, but a slice of her hand silenced his inquiry.

"I'm being called off on a brief mission, and I haven't got time to drop him off at home. You'll watch him for me, won't you, Sensei?"

Iruka was good with children, and often babysat for parents in the village. This wouldn't be the first hand-off he'd received in the market, or even the most abrupt. He pulled his student more comfortably into his arms. "Of course. I'll take good care of Kiba."

He was treated to another flash of that somewhat pointed grin, but didn't have time to react when the woman abruptly reached out and dragged their forehead's together in a kind of roughly affectionate salute. Then she turned and jogged off to rejoin her group. "I know you will, sensei," she called. "And thank you!"

The three of them – one slightly concussed teacher and two sleepy children – where left. Beside him, Naruto began to whine, shifting from foot to foot and reaching for him. Iruka pressed a hand against the crown of his head, knowing he couldn't carry them both and their groceries. "Quiet now," he hushed. "You'll have to take turns."

"Nono," Naruto was working up to real distress. He tugged with the half-angry, half-desperate forcefulness of the very young on his peer's shoe. "Nono, Ruka-sensei. Mine, Ruka-sensei!"

Kiba had woken at the pull on his leg, and made a grumpy face. However, Iruka repeated they had to take turns, he helpfully held out his fist toward Naruto. Iruka watched the determined succession of victories and defeats until it was altogether decided that Naruto would be walking. He scolded the child's ill-tempered squall of protest and took his hand to lead him. That was quite enough nonsense for the moment.

They reached the meadow sometime near midday, stepping out from the forest into warm sunlight. Naruto squalled in delight, breaking ahead to cavort and throw his arms out as though the brightness might pour over him. Obligingly, the sun got caught up in the tangles of his hair, and he shown, flashing amber and gold. It was beautiful to watch; his happiness.

"Pretty," Kiba commented, pointing with his free hand over the little grassy area to the far trickle of water beyond.

Iruka smiled at him. "You haven't been here before, have you Kiba?" he asked. "Well, it's one of our favorite places. I bet you'll like it too."

Though they called it a meadow, but it was really just an empty space in the middle of the forest, fringed on one side by a crumbling rock formation and a stream. It was nice place to picnic, well worth the relatively long walk from the village. The trees shielded it from the wind, but the canopy opened wide enough to let in the light. The water was clean and good for drinking, and there were plenty of occupations to keep a preternaturally curious child busy while his over-worked guardian got a few papers graded.

The boys were captivated by the stream. They splashed at the shallow fringes under their keeper's careful eye. "Sensei!" Naruto crowed when a hiccupping ripple betrayed a school of playful silver minnows. They followed it along the bank until the fish slipped into the deeper pool and out of sight.

After that, they settled down to eat in the shade. Naruto claimed what he saw as his rightful space, small fingers plucking determinedly until Iruka shifted and allowed Naruto to clamor onto his lap.

Iruka noticed that Kiba chose to sit quite close as well, spreading out his lunch between his legs, one of which was just near enough for the teacher to feel the brush of his bare toes. It made an affectionate rush flow through him, but then, he'd known Kiba was going to be one of those special students since the day he'd patched up the boy's knee and Kiba had licked him.

Naruto sang a meal-time song while Iruka unpackaged their lunch and handed out the articles one by one, until his voice became muffled with a mouthful of orange slices. Kiba, who didn't know the words, merely moved his head in time and munched on the cucumber sandwich Iruka had handed him.

It was a peaceful, with only the sounds of chewing and the rustling of leaves clicking together to break the quiet. A sudden, distant uproar drew their eyes immediately. In a clamor of whistles and alarmed bawling, a cloud of birds lifted from the northwest, darkening a corner of the sky in a patchy living curtain as they fled wildly with a sound like a thousand wings.

Kiba pointed at the disappearing creatures, speaking through his mouthful. "Pretty."

Beside him, Iruka sat, disquieted. Then his nose wrinkled suddenly, his senses twitching. What on earth –

Without warning, he swung Naruto out of his lap just as a fast-moving body materialized from the foliage and collided with him, sending them both crashing backward against the unforgiving ground. Iruka felt the skin of his back scrap the earth, and grimaced as he looked up through displaced bangs at the person now half-straddling, half-squashing him as he kicked and struggled to regain footing.

Iruka had the sudden impression of one stretched, round eye as black as the deepest part of the sea, and beside it a half-covered crescent the color of crimson. The wildness of the gaze stunned him almost as much as the impact, so that there was a moment when Iruka both did and did not recognize who had hit him.

Reality descended with force when the approaching charka signatures exploded like hostile sunbursts on the edge of his awareness, livid with killing intent and coming upon their position with tremendous speed. Iruka's heart grinded to a panicked halt, only to restart hammering painfully. Enemies were in the way here. His eyes darted to the children. Wrong place, wrong time. But nothing could change their involvement now.

In the half-second that it had taken him to assess all this, he had pushed to his feet and summoned a henged clone. A passable white-haired jounin manifested, and the teacher sent it straight onward. Simultaneously he shoved Kakashi – Sharingan Kakashi, his consciousness reeled – in another direction, forcing Naruto into his arms as they went.

Then they were running crazy.

The world was a revolving spiral.

The leafy canopy surrounding Konohagakure was an endless, twisted maze of natural platforms and pitfalls, impossible to navigate without the possession of charka and the reflexes of a nin. Going slowly, monitored closely, his fledgling students might have been able to make a halting, straggling path back to the village. But now they were racing for their lives, with Iruka holding Kiba tucked securely under his chin and the little boy clutching at him as the world hurled itself past in a cacophony of flailing green and protruding brown. Already Kakashi was pulling mercilessly ahead, and – thank God, thank God – he had kept hold of Naruto.

A twinge and Iruka threw his body sideways, so that the volley of shuriken sank harmlessly into wood instead of flesh. He panted. He didn't have to wonder how they'd been found so easily; he and Kakashi could probably conceal themselves and Kiba, but Iruka knew form experience that Naruto would stand out like a star and lead the enemy straight for them. What enemy? He didn't have time to wonder. Whoever, Iruka could see them now, dancing around and just behind him in the trees.

A sudden burst of charka sent Kakashi diving to another branch as his current foothold exploded with splinters, and suddenly the two Konoha shinobi were almost level again. Iruka glanced at the legendary jounin, whom he had never met.

With the odd sharpness that sometimes came in such times, the details assailed him. The copy-nin was missing his vest – destroyed or discarded – and the black body suit that remained was blotched and starchy with dried blood. Iruka had heard about the mask, but it seemed inconsequential to the roving red eye. For while the black was dead, impassive and intense, the crimson swirled of its own.

There was no time for any explanation to pass verbally between them. They both knew all they needed. A pouch bulged against the jounin's hip; a mission. He was on a mission, likely something vital, important, impossible. And Iruka and his children had been in the way. Now Iruka was his teammate. Their combined goal was to make it close enough to Konoha to set off the alarms and bring help. Their goal was to do it before they died.

Though he ran as fast as he could push his body, Iruka still couldn't keep pace with Kakashi. Even at the very edge of his limits, he still lagged, drawing apart the distance between them. He stained his body so desperately that it made him want to cry out, but the effort made no difference. He could not keep up.

There was a hiss of displaced air, and then before him was a wall of earth, looming like the fist of God. Iruka couldn't break hard enough to avoid it, and Kiba screamed as he wrenched in midair, barring his left side and not the child to take the full force of the headlong collision. He felt as much as heard the crunching sound that resonated through his whole body, and then he fell like a stone, paralyzed during that essential instant when he might have recovered and avoided the volley of kunai. They peppered the air as he plummeted, too insensible to tell if any found their mark.

A ribbon of light lanced out then, wrapping the area and exploding with the intensity of the sun. It was like the detonation of a lightning bolt, or the death of a planet – a light so great that it's expulsion into the air made noise. A thousand screeching birds.

Iruka lost precious moments in the half-second it took him to realize the blaze had not blinded him, though he sensed the stagger of their pursuers and heard cries of pain and surprise over the rush in his own ears. Blood, rich and red, was saturating his back and shoulders, so that his shirt clung to him. Numb, numb; his whole left arm was insensible. Kiba was clinging tenaciously around his neck, unsupported.

"Sensei!" the boy pleaded, and at once the chuunin's mind snapped back in place, so that he instantly halted their descent. The barrier of light burned behind him, so he sprung forward and away from the jutsu that was – for the moment – shielding him from the enemy. Kakashi was beside him in an instant, urging him to follow with a gesture.

Somewhere ahead they paused, and the two shinobi sucked in breath as they balanced on a slender branch. "He's drawing them towards us," Kakashi said the obvious, and however impenetrable his expression, Iruka saw through the tense control. He could feel the jounin's anger, burning.

The man was drawn like a bowstring, taut to the breaking point. It was in the dark crescents pooled under his eyelids, in the line down his forehead, and in the way that he stood. He had a tremendous investment in whatever mission he was completing, the work of who knew how many days or weeks of toil. The pale blue eye tracked involuntarily to the bag at his hip, and he shifted Naruto in his arms.

With a dawning horror, Iruka realized he was weighing Naruto over whatever he had in that bag, and it electrified him with fear, because he knew that alone he could not save his students. His nerves and his heart were on fire, yet his mind was already searching for a solution.

Sliding Kiba to the bough of the tree, Iruka pressed a high, fearful note into his voice. "We can't just keep running." Bending to brace his weight against his knees, he made a show of gasping for air. Stumbling as he straightened was easy; the bloodless pallor of his face was unfeigned. He inched closer. "Konoha is too far."

Kakashi was cold. He sneered, "Perhaps too far for you."

"Maybe you're right," Iruka said, biting down on his anger. "Maybe you should go ahead."

Predictably, Naruto – hitherto mute with terror – awakened at the mention of separation. He jerked in Kakashi's arms, reaching for his guardian. "Nono. Ruka-sensei!"

Iruka smiled at the little boy fondly, pleased with the momentary distraction and the way Kakashi's face bloomed in consternation. He'd have liked to tell the boy goodbye incase his plan failed, but there just wasn't time.

"Hatake, don't leave them," he said suddenly. The other looked up without comprehension, hands full of struggling child. Iruka begged him, "Trust me."

"What?" Kakashi began, tensing. But by then Iruka's hand was down the mouth of the all-important pouch and Kakashi could only shout, "NO!"

Iruka was already gone, racing back the way they had come. Determined. Because he didn't care what was on the scroll he now clutched in his fist. It wasn't worth the lives of his students.

Iruka ran madly, back into the arms of the enemy. He sensed their wild confusion as he darted through their line, scattering them. Some would probably ignore him. However, he had a curl of paper clearly visible in one hand, and they couldn't disregard that.

He felt a few take the bait, and he sped up, just enough. This had to be a chase.

He weaved, pleased to keep the shinobi who followed him guessing and apart. One tenacious clinger closed steadily, never swerved by Iruka's reckless changes in direction or minor illusions. Iruka caught flashes of the broad, grim face, sensed his resolve. Iruka raced on until he felt his heart might give out. Only then did he finally let his leg miss a foothold, so that he collided forcefully with a narrow limb.

It was the opening his pursuer needed. Almost the instant Iruka stumbled, a press of charka swarmed over him. The energy was gritty, crushing, and swiftly replaced by its master's physical form.

For a moment, feverish hands groped him while Iruka panted, pinned helplessly against the tree. The bark chaffed, digging in cruelly while the shinobi in front smothered him. The enemy nin made a choked, gurgling sound of relief when he found the scroll tucked in Iruka's waistband. Dragging it out, he was too distracted to react when his prey suddenly wrenched in his one-handed hold and forced his elbow deep into his captor's gut.

Iruka ran, and the enemy let him go. As he fled, Iruka's grin was predatory, sharp, and proud.

He was still running when Kakashi found him again. He was a blur among the tawny forest landscape, when from nowhere he was snatched out of the air and thrown against the truck of yet another tree. He got the confused impression of bent branches and sheltering leaves, and then pain focused him on an infuriated jounin.

His thoughts a little wild, Iruka's first reaction was to feel annoyed that people kept throwing him against trees and molesting him.

It wasn't there. It wasn't there. Kakashi's heart was a hammer on a drum. His pulse was painful tattoo against his skin – too hard and too fast. Because it wasn't there.

Dimly, he recognized the chuunin in front of him, that he held the Sandaime's favored academy sensei beneath his hands. Dimly, he recognized the brats discarded behind him. But it was hollow, hollow. Buried, blinded by the adrenaline that had been carrying him through the last weeks of his existence – weeks, weeks of work – and, delirious with dawning horror and fury, Kakashi realized this – this had given it up.

Shaking him even with his damaged shoulder, Kakashi screamed into Iruka's face, "What have you done?"

Outraged by the violence against his guardian, Naruto squalled and ran to beat against the jounin's legs. Kakashi shoved the boy back, so that he fell to his bottom. It drew the teacher's scattered senses together, and Iruka tried to push free. "Hey," he began, but another brutal slam against the tree snapped his teeth shut on an indrawn breath.

Bristling, beyond all measure of reason or civility, Kakashi spoke. "I would like to know why an under qualified chuunin is wandering around so far outside the village with two valuable infants, and then saw fit to not only impede my mission, but also to forfeit the objective of it."

Iruka protested, "I was trying to save our lives."

"THAT SCROLL WAS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR LIFE!"

The teacher went instantly quiet, but then the aching look that had swallowed his expression faded to blankness. "Alright," he said, and his eyes flickered with the briefest vein of fierceness before he shoving the genuine scroll back into Kakashi's gut and pushed past him to go to the children. He lifted Naruto, and the boy curled into his undamaged shoulder, clinching compulsively.

Kakashi's hands were trembling around the scroll. Relief and chagrin flooded him so suddenly that his knees felt weak. He caressed the scroll's stiff edges, recognizing his own charka seal on the paper. It was real. He looked over to where the chuunin stood, propped wearily against the tree. At his heels, Kiba was glowering at Kakashi with a child's righteous indignation.

Slowly, the unflappable composure Kakashi was better known for reinstated itself. "We can't stay here," he said, glancing around their burrow, and at the fragile rice-paper seals. They were child play-things, and suddenly their presence puzzled him. He had stumbled across the shelter accidentally, and now that the larger part of his anxiety had dissipated, he wondered why they were here.

"It's a tree fort," the chuunin said, as though sensing his confusion. "Something a pre-genin would make after studying basic concealment." The teacher squinted at the rudimentary scrawling. "Maybe Tamaki-kun? I thought he had a knack for seals. Though his penmanship could use some work."

It was so ridiculous it put Kakashi off-balance. To comfort himself, he clinched the reacquired scroll in his fist. This – this junior and his babies – they were not his fault. They had been in the way. However, he recognized the Inuzuka brat now, and the little charka beacon could only be the kyuubi. He was bound to return them to the village, whether or not he liked it.

"We can't stay here," he repeated. The primary school seals had bought them minutes only. Yet as his mind raced, he struggled with a course of action that might actually suceed. They could not out-race the shinobi who followed them.

The academy sensei grunted as he pushed himself upright, swaying as his face drained and then flushed. He was panting slightly when he addressed the little dark-haired child. "Kiba, do you think you could follow on the branches?"

"I-I'm not real fast." The boy sounded stunned, uncomprehending.

Iruka nodded. "Yes, but you have good balance. You're one of the best in the class. I know you can do it, Kiba."

The little Inuzuka puffed up at his teacher's words of confidence, and fisted his hands tearfully. "If you say so I will, Iruka-sensei."

His teacher smiled at him. He nudged the little blond in his arms with his forehead, drawing up the disconsolate gaze. "Hey, you," Iruka said. "Enough of those tears. It's time to be a ninja. I need you to be very brave."

Naruto rubbed his nose against his teacher's shirt. "Ruka-sensei," he mewed.

"You're going to be fine. Are you ready to be brave? Kiba's ready, aren't you, Kiba?"

The other child nodded, trembling head to foot.

Kakashi almost recoiled from the warm body pressed into his arms, but the chuunin's eyes were ferocious, and he felt his hands moving to support the child. Kakashi was taller than Iruka by a handswidth, and possessed a strength, an ability, and a wealth of experience that could hardly be compared to this sensei. Yet just then – looking into the creased, perspiring face – Kakashi recognized the eyes of a parent, and it was he who felt inexplicably young.

"You're holding," Iruka had to swallow to bare down on the intensity of his emotion. "You're holding something much more valuable than any scroll."

His tone was deadly, but in a moment so mercurial as to hardly be measurable, the command wavered, and what came out next was more of a plea.

"Please take him home," Iruka begged, and his uninjured hand was there briefly, ghosting over Naruto's wild, fine hair like a farewell. He faced Kakashi again. "Please take him home. And I'll do what I can."

His implication came to Kakashi at once, and at once he was nodding. He was a genius. He understood. He agreed. But… "By the time we reach the Konoha," he said. "There will be no reason to send a rescue."

The chuunin nodded, but although his tired posture showed resignation, Kakashi detected no fear. Iruka grinned ruefully and said, "I am the perfect lame duck."

Beneath his spoke words were others, resonating between them. Deliver the children, deliver the scroll, deliver yourself. Though his outburst had been unprofessional, out of character, and possibly cruel, Kakashi had spoken the truth earlier. An heir and a vessel, the success of a mission, and a valuable warrior all far outranked the life of a grade-school teacher.

Iruka folded his fingers and suddenly there were more bodies crowding the enclosure. A silver-haired, featureless clone stood, already holding a considerably more convincing blond toddler. Iruka reached to pick up Kiba's doll-like double while the real child stared, his eyes stretched wide. Smiling at him, Iruka said, "Be good. And look after Naruto, okay?"

Kakashi moved closer to the child on foot, crouching. They would stay still for a time. "Go," he signaled, and the teacher and his clones disappeared, so swiftly as to almost never have existed. Naruto threw out a hand, choking on a wail of despair that was swiftly muffled by the heavy hand of his new keeper.

"Quiet," the stranger commanded, and Naruto miserably obeyed. They waited to a count of sixty, and then left the shelter, fleeing like rabbits for Konoha and safety.

Cornered. Iruka could see their hitai-ate showing opaquely on their foreheads. Sand nin.

His back arched against the tree where he was crouched, aware there was nowhere else to retreat. "Kakashi" stood beside him, with the little blond mannequin tucked against his heart. However, even knowing they weren't real didn't stop his blood from freezing when one of the hunters drove a flying kunai through them both, causing the pair to erupt – not in blood – but in pale white smoke.

There was an isolated cry of rage, but most of the hostile masks around him were grim but unaffected. So they had suspected. Too late. Kakashi and the children would have reached the village by now. Unable to stifle a vein of thin triumph, Iruka let "Kiba" fall from his arms. It too disappeared in a cloud as it plummeted, even before it hit the forest floor. Left alone, he stared back upon his pursuers with a kind of resigned tranquility. Like them, he already knew how this was going to end.

"That's the one who had the scroll." It was impossible to guess where the voice came from among the foliage, but Iruka rightly suspected it was the unfortunate who had stolen the false scroll from him earlier and then let him go.

A figure emerged from the others. He had a face Iruka might normally have considered handsome. The broad, strong lines reminded him of one of the Hokage's sons, the one that smoked – Asuma. But the comparison was lost in the fury emanating from him as he pulled a clinched paper from his vest.

"You thought this was funny?" he asked, and though his voice remained low he punctuated his words by impaling the scrap with a blade, pinning it to the bark just to the right of his captive's ear.

Iruka's eyes shifted automatically to the fluttering paper, not indeed a scroll of secrets or stolen jutsu, but a charcoal doodle of a hippopotamus sitting in a scribble of grass. Naruto had gifted it to him the night before, and Iruka had slipped into his own jacket without thinking. He thought the outrage was unjustified; really, it was a very fine drawing.

The madness of the thought made a hysterical giggle well up inside Iruka, but though he managed to suppress it, the sand nin must have taken the smile that stole upon his lips as mockery, because he lashed out – a brutal strike to his side of his face. Hard eyes pierced him as he sputtered, spitting blood. His judging eyes reminded Iruka of Kakashi, and he glared hotly, unwilling to seem submissive.

He might have saved his effort; the Sand captain was clearly not impressed. Teeth grinding, he spat orders at his men. "Strip him. Find that scroll."

"And if he doesn't have it?" one asked as they moved to comply.

The squad leader's expression twisted. "Then he will die regretting the deficiency."

As soon as he came close enough to Konoha, Kakashi had activated the alarms – specifically, the ENEMY WITHIN PERIMETER alarms – so that when they finally flung themselves free of the wood, there was a crowd gathering. Kakashi discarded the kyuubi immediately, secure in the knowledge that he had fulfilled his duty by him.

Over the little blonde's tears, he sought out capable faces. "Sand nin, pursuing," he reported. "I don't think they'll risk an assault on the village itself."

Oblivious to the stunned expressions and the atmosphere of confusion he was leaving behind, Kakashi made to leave the group, his mind already planning all that he must say in his meeting with the Hokage. His focus was so one-minded that when hands suddenly seized him and swung him around by his shoulders, he was taken by surprise. Inuzuka Tsume had him in a vice grip.

"Where is the boy?" she demanded. She shook his slim shoulders, shouting into the too passive, blood streaked face. Fiercely, she emphasized, "The teacher, the little sensei that was with them. Where is he?"

Behind her, Kiba was shaking, pale in his sister's arms. The girl's eyes were liquid as she smothered her brother against her chest.

Quietly, limbs indolent, Kakashi said, "He stayed behind to give me time to reach the village with the children." Then, as though he felt compelled, he added, " They'll have him by now."

Naruto wailed louder.

Tsume and a handful of others were swiftly retracing the path that Kakashi and the children had taken, back towards the sand nin and their likely captive.

'They'll have him by now.' A numb horror had poured into the clan leader when she'd heard those words. She'd always liked Kiba's sensei, the Umino boy, ever since the first time she met him. It was hard to lie or hold false intentions around an Inuzuka, and this teacher had radiated sincere dedication to his students.

Now, she balked to see that dedication demonstrated so graphically. She had trusted her child to him, but not to this. In many ways, Umino was a child himself, and the image of him as she'd last seen him – wide-eyed and fumbling to balance a grocery bag and her baby – gave her such an impression of overwhelming smallness and vulnerability that it made her physically ache.

They stopped when they found the abandoned tree-fort Kiba had described. Umino had apparently left them from here, but though the ancient forest around them reverberated with an unnatural stillness, they could sense no one's presence. Another shinobi stopped beside her on the branch, peering around at the woods. "There's no one," he began, but she silenced him with a snarl.

"Split up," she commanded, and leapt onward. She refused to believe they were too late.

A slick crimson weal of blood against a branch gave them their eventual lead. Tsume thought longingly of Kuromaru, but he was concluding their morning business, and she didn't expect him before tomorrow. Slowly, she ranged forward. Further on, she found another blotch curled around a possible handhold; she could see where slender fingers had gripped…

They came upon the site so suddenly that Tsume wasn't prepared. The wind had been at her back, and so she hadn't caught the scent until they were upon it, and then she reeled, almost overcome. The fresh metallic smell was oppressive in her nostrils. She felt one of the other nin come up beside her, and heard his sharp inhale of breath. "By the Hokage," he murmured, aghast. Tsume's stinging eyes cleared, and she looked up and saw.

The Sand nin had left behind their worthless captive when they had become sure he did not have what they wanted. However, true to their captain's words, they had not left him whole. He reeked, from a purely olfactory perspective – blood coated him, glistening in thick black runnels across his body and down his bare sides. Whatever clothes he'd been wearing, he'd been divested of them, and the result was a appearance of defenselessness that stole Tsume's breath. It made it easy to see the damage that had been done – the alternating rawness of the wounds and the mottled, blackened contusions. His toes curled inches from the base of the branch he might have stood on in the moments before they caught up to him. They'd left him hanging, pinned – held in place by the weapons driven into his body. Tsume could see the steel rings of the kunai dark against the pallor of his skin. They were buried inside him.

And Tsume could not sense even the dimmest thrum of life.

Tanaka, whose family were medic nin, bypassed her stunned rigor, reaching to grip the teacher's chin. "He's alive," the man said after a long moment, and briskly pulled away one of the blades driven through Iruka's shoulder. An outpouring of blood drew a fresh curtain down his body, but Iruka didn't even grunt.

Tanaka called to her, "Tsume-sama, help me."

She moved immediately, bracing the little sensei's weight while the other went about freeing him. Alive, she thought in astonishment, and set her face. It meant they had time.

It was the end of a very long and difficult night for the Sandaime. He had recovered a scroll of great significance to Konoha's continued relationship with the Village Hidden in the Sand, but the process of its delivery had very nearly cost him three innocent lives. For hours, he'd supported the team at the hospital while they laboring to save one of his dearest, and he'd only just left there to come on this errand.

A pretty young woman answered the door when he knocked. She wore a patterned dress and a full length apron, folded down over her lap. As she let him in, they exchanged tired smiles.

"How is he?" the old man asked, sorrowfully observing the child crouched in an isolated corner with his back to the door.

"He hasn't stopped crying since he got here," the woman said. The little boy had been dropped off at their shop yesterday evening by a confused looking shinobi who had no message except that they were to watch over the child until someone came to fetch him. "He's exhausted, and I believe he thinks his father is dead."

She looked at the elderly man, who she knew as a grandfatherly figure, as wise and kind leader more than a warrior who regularly sent men to die.

"Who is he?" she asked. She was very young. "Is his family really dead?"

"His family?" the Sandaime repeated, and his heart eased in spite of the circumstances. "Yes, they are dead, but he is not alone. I've come after him now. Someone he'd like to see is awake."

"Oh, thank goodness," said the woman. "He's so little to be alone."

The Hokage led the boy by the hand, guiding him down long halls. "Naruto," he said when they were finally outside the hospital door. "Do you want to see Iruka now?"

"Ruka, nono." The child constricted, hunching and rocking with his arms squeezed around him. "Gone."

"He isn't gone," the old man reassured, his own heart panging at the sight of such sorrow. He didn't wonder that abandonment haunted this child. "He was hurt trying to keep the bad men away from you and the village, but the medics have fixed him. He's just inside."

The baby just swayed as though he hadn't heard, and the Sandaime sighed, turning to push open the door. The shaft of hallway light illuminated the low bed against the far wall, and the still body propped against the pillows. Iruka's face was bloodless, his eyes sealed shut. Naruto caught sight of him and sobbed, taking a drunken step into the room. He wobbled toward the bed, drizzling tears.

Perhaps it was the sound of his gurgling, but halfway there Iruka's eyelashes flickered. His head moved feebly, and his fingers stretched and curled against the blankets. Hoarsely, he called, "Naruto?"

The little boy stood paralyzed.

"Naruto." Iruka sounded more certain now, less like he was speaking from the dead. Heavy eyes pressed open, so full of pupil as to be almost black. The lines of pain smoothed as he made out the boy. "Hey," he asked, "Why are you crying?"

Naruto closed the distance between them in a run that was more like an uncoordinated stagger. He climbed up beside his guardian and practically collapsed against his chest. It had to have hurt, but Iruka's grimace was hidden in blond hair. "Poor baby," he said, rubbing circles in the narrow back. "Everything's okay now. Everything's okay."

The Sandaime watched the touching reunion from his post at the doorway, smiling softly.

Kakashi didn't come by the hospital to check on a gravely wounded comrade. In all honestly, he'd come out of professional curiosity. Indeed, to ask how he had died. He knew by now that the chuunin he'd encountered was called Umino Iruka, a popular young teacher – and perhaps more famously – the self-appointed guardian of the Kyuubi vessel. The tiny Kyuubi vessel. The little brat had been an infant, complete with tears and tantrums and an absurd connection to that teacher.

To his great consternation, the child had writhed and screamed the entire way back to Konoha. Kakashi had known when they separated that he was signing off on the younger man's death. Umino had known it too. Kakashi had been irritated the kid wouldn't shut up about it.

He'd already been before the Sandaime by the time the Tsume and the medic, Tanaka, brought in the body. Since there was no reason it should be classified, he assumed they would take him to the hospital to gather what information they could. There hadn't been enough time for the Sand nin to do anything really interesting, but Kakashi was curious anyway.

Imagine his surprise when he'd found his Hokage standing braced against his walking stick outside a hospital door, watching over its very live occupants. The old man had seemed surprised to see him.

"Kakashi. Well, then."

For a moment, the jounin thought he saw something disapproving or even sad in the man's weathered face, but he moved to make a place for the newcomer at the door anyway. Kakashi peered through the dimness, to the breathing, living chuunin lying on the bed, and Naruto with him.

Astounded, Kakashi turned to his leader. "I saw him when they brought him in. I was sure he was dead."

The old man nodded slowly, "He was very badly injured. By the time we was brought here, he did not have enough charka left to sustain a body like yours or mine. But charka conservation has been a part of Iruka's training for all of his life. It's a limitation, but in this case I believe it saved his life. We assume the sand left when they sensed others coming, though they did force a kunai under his ribs before abandoning his body. That he survived that was luck on his side. Perhaps he twisted in just the right way; it missed his heart and did not pierce an artery. As it is, he'll recover in weeks with no permanent damage."

The Sandaime smiled then, almost fondly. "He's tough for being so unspectacular, eh?"

It was a chastisement, Kakashi knew, and pressure built in his chest. He'd misjudged the situation this time, pretty badly. If Tsume hadn't been so stubborn, Umino would have died, and he would have been responsible. In the last difficult years, Kakashi thought he had become numb to losses. Losses were acceptable, inevitable. But for him to live? It left him to face all that he had said and done, because Iruka would be there in the future.

"Should I say something to him?" Kakashi wanted to know. He didn't think he could manage an apology. He wasn't sure he was sorry.

"He isn't expecting it. He thinks he did his duty, and he believes you did yours. Why? What do you want from him?"

Kakashi considered the question. Absolution? For what he had done? No. He had no need of that; as the Sandaime had said, in his actions he had done his duty. But for the first time in a long time, he found himself concerned with what would not go into the mission log.

"Perhaps I want to thank him?" he ventured. But no, one did not thank a fellow shinobi for doing as they were required. He tried again, "To tell him I am pleased he lived." But that part wasn't even true. That Umino had lived didn't please him, in any more than the abstract sense that it was a recovery of the village's resources.

Sandaime waited patiently for him to make up his mind.

Finally, Kakashi decided on a truth. "I think I'd like to ask him why he's alive."

"Hm," his leader acknowledged, looking into the room discreetly where the exhausted Iruka lay sleeping, injured but breathing strongly with the four-year-old pariah draped across his lap. "Perhaps that's not a very good question," he suggested.

The silver-haired ANBU nodded. It'd be best if he went back to his work. In his fast moving world, a few weeks from now this whole incident would be a part of the distant past. Probably he would never see Umino or Naruto ever again. And anyway, a shinobi had to live without regret.