Disclaimer: I certainly do not own Naruto and any characters of the manga/anime. Neither do I own the characters Ayumu and Aemi (who belong to Illegitimi), nor the term "touchstone" (which belongs to Sunlight through Leaves). Unfortunately I neither own "Seirei no Moribito", the Dire Straights or Handel's "Messiah" - except in CD/DVD-form. I don't even own my bitchiness – I'm owned by it!

A Tense Mission

Hatake Kakashi was walking down the road of life, which, in this case, was a nameless, thankfully quiet alley off Konoha-cha near the academy, when suddenly he heard a heartfelt groan. His eyes wandered to a second-floor window, then to the little orange book in front of his nose and back to the window again. His brow rose.

Seconds later somebody whimpered and loud thuds echoed through the alley.

The virtuous jounin didn't think twice – in order to rescue his fellow citizen he climbed up to the window and peeped through. "Yo!"

The sight that met his eyes was definitely not what he'd expected. (And to tell the truth, he was just a little bit disappointed.)

With a pained expression Umino Iruka raised his head from his desk.

"Care to tell me why you're trying to imprint your hitai-ate into your forehead?"

"Umm... I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei." The blushing teacher's hand crept surreptitiously towards his computer keyboard to close whatever website he'd been looking at, but unfortunately the jounin caught the almost imperceptible movement. Before Iruka was able to blink, his guest was looking over his shoulder at the screen. Resignedly the chunin drew back his hand.

"He lied in bed." Kakashi quoted the first sentence "Poor fellow! About what? 'That was the best-'"

"Kakashi-sensei, please!" The teacher lightly slapped his hand and blushed a little more. Which he hated. Promptly his colour rose to new, unexpected pitches. "Actually, I believe it should be 'He lay in bed'" he added miserably.

"That's better..." The jounin nodded sagely. "More fun, at that."

Iruka made a wry face. "Not for the reader."

"Why not?"

"Have you tried to read any further?" the younger man asked in a sepulchral voice.

Kakashi did so. After a few lines he shook his head in dismay. "Oh my..." He'd known an academy teacher's life was miserable (Badly paid, with a hefty workload, not to forget hyper ninja wannabes armed with training weapons... and, perhaps even worse, parents), but that... "I didn't know what a load of crap you teachers had to read!"

Iruka mumbled something into his non-existent beard.

"Pardon?"

The teacher raised his voice irritably: "This isn't school-work."

"What is it then?"

"It's called fan fiction."

Now, that was a new one. "Explain."

"Basically this means that fans write something – stories, poems, sketches, whatever – about their favourite film, series, book and so on. The creepiest thing is real people fiction, choosing some 'star' and inventing stories about him or her."

"Real people?"

"You have no idea." Iruka shuddered when he thought about what would happen if his guest ever discovered all the stuff about them and prayed he wouldn't ask too much about RPF.

Kakashi decided he didn't want to get the idea – or better, to forget the idea which had just encroached on his mind. He read on, wincing at mistake on mistake. "If this was written by a fan, I don't want to know what somebody who loathed the source would do to it. - And why do you read that?"

"Because it can be a lot of fun. There are quite a few very good stories out there. I have read some full-blown novels four or five times by now. They are that amazing."

"This one isn't."

"Well, no, it isn't." Iruka had to admit. He glared at the screen disgustedly.

"Iruka-sensei, the back button is your friend. Hit it and forget about this crap."

The young teacher sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Ah, well, you know, I'm used to plough through badly written texts." He pointed to a pile of freshly graded essays, weighed down by a heavy stone Naruto, to Kakashi's consternation, had once brought home as a souvenir from a mission. Just why had the boy wanted to weigh himself down with that piece of junk?

"You mean you can't resist because you're a teacher? Your fingers itch to grab a red pen?" He stopped as he remembered something Izumo and Kotetsu had been discussing only yesterday when he walked past them through the gate. "Wait a minute... Somebody left smudges of red permanent ink on a computer screen in the academy staff room some days ago." Kakashi pointed an accusing finger at him. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"Well, sometimes it's that bad, you see..."

His guest gently patted his shoulder. "I do." He tried to read yet another line of the story on the screen and threw up his hands "Kami-sama! Do they have to write in English?"

"Not necessarily. They might use their mother tongue, but English is the language most writers apply. They want readers after all."

"If I had written this, I'd rather have hidden it in a deep hole!"

"No, you'd have burnt it." Resignedly the teacher leant back in his swivel chair. "If you had indeed written such drivel, which I doubt greatly. - Do you know what's really frightening? This writer is supposed to use English as his or her first language."

"No kidding..." Kakashi shuddered. "He doesn't even get his tenses right."

Iruka nodded wearily. "Yes, that's a general problem. Loads of writers don't."

After staring silently at the screen for a while, Kakashi asked: "Can anybody upload stuff?"

"Yes, as far as I know."

"Then do what you do best, man, teach!"

Iruka just gaped at him. "You mean I should write an online grammar guide?"

"Better than suffering. Better than battering your head onto your desk or destroying innocent computer screens. - Isn't the advancement of knowledge your mission in life?" Kami-sama, hopefully Iruka-sensei hadn't caught him sounding like Gai! He worriedly glanced at him, but, to his surprise, the teacher's eyes had glazed over.

Kakashi patiently waited for a few minutes, but obviously he had just put Iruka's mind in a loop and so the chuunin wasn't his usual polite self. Shrugging, the scarecrow went into his host's tiny kitchen to make some tea. When he came back, Iruka was bent over some paper and scribbling away furiously. The jounin set a cup of tea onto the desk, leant over the younger man's shoulder and read:

Iruka's Guide

to

The English Tenses for Fan Fiction Writers

"Nice" he commented "But write 'Iruka-sensei'. You are a teacher after all."

"Do you think so? Isn't that too pretentious?" Iruka doubtfully scribbled the word over the line in question.

"That's better!" Kakashi read on: "Before I get down to business: This is an account of the English tenses for the purpose of writing stories. It is in no way intended to be a study in linguistics, so I am going to keep things as simple as possible. - That's commendable. Textbooks on linguistics tend to be extremely boring. Why don't you read on?"

"Lazy jounin..." Iruka muttered. "As you like it.

Basics:We basically have three tenses in English – past, present and future."

"Wait..."

Iruka raised his hand, smirking. "'Wait a minute,' I can hear you say 'I've heard about a lot more tenses!'"

"Damn right you are! There are at least-"

He was rudely interrupted. "Yes, there are. Theoretically there are 25 tenses, not counting the subjunctive."

"25, really?"

"As I said, "theoretically". Quite a lot of them are almost endangered species, poor things. They are used on such rare occasions that you will hardly ever encounter them in the wild.

So, three tenses.

The Past Tense is used for actions which are already finished."

"Who would have thought!"

Iruka looked at him witheringly. "That was your great idea, Kakashi-sensei, if I may remind you."

The jounin leant back in his host's comfy sofa, sipped on his tea and waved his hand encouragingly. "Go on! Enlighten me!"

"This makes it an ideal tool for storytelling. It's far easier talking about things in the past than about things happening right now, since you can hint at things happening later on in your story. That's a logical no-go if you write in the Present Tense."

"And you don't have to think about the third person singular all the time."

The teacher gave him the encouraging nod he usually used for weaker students who had got one thing right for a change."The Present Tense is used for actions taking place right now or at least nowadays."

"Eh?"

"I'll cover the distinction later, I promise! - Telling a story in the Present Tense can liven it up, because the reader feels like being on the spot and witnessing the plot first-hand, but at the same time it can be difficult to handle, because the storyteller restricts himself quite a lot – as I already said, you can't make hints at things happening later on."

"And it's difficult to shorten the plot." Kakashi added "The whole point of using the Present Tense is staying close to the action and to follow the protagonist, so you can hardly cut out boring business."

Deep in thought, Iruka played with his worn pen. "That could actually be an interesting use for it: to show the mundane, the humdrum everyday life. 'He gets up, goes to the bathroom, showers, brushes his teeth, dresses...' Boring! But sometimes it can be just the right way to express something."

"Yes – boredom. That works in the Past Tense as well, though."

"Yes, that's right." Iruka continued reading: "Even experienced writers use the Present Tense sparingly, e. g. they might slip from Past to Present Tense for a special exciting scene to which they want to draw the reader's attention. Or perhaps they want to expound on an unalterable fact, something that is a 'given'. Like,hmm... 'It's a well-known fact that the sun always rises in the morning if you don't live too close to the poles.' If you want to try using the Present Tense, do so, but handle it with care! Writing is a lot like cooking: Put in too much of a special seasoning and your food is inedible."

His stomach chose that exact moment to start growling. "Oh, drat..."

"Don't you worry!" Kakashi rose from the sofa. "I'll fix us something for dinner."

Iruka's jaw dropped. Since when had they been that chummy? They talked to each other when they met in the street, they sat together when they met at Ichiraku's, but there wasn't anything more between them, right? Right?

Right.

"Go on reading!" his guest shouted from the kitchen. Iruka heard the tinkling of glass as his fridge was torn open and got up worriedly. "Where do you...? Found it! - Go on! I can hear you fine from in here!"

The teacher took a deep breath, sat down again heavily and did as he was told:"The Future Tense is used for – guess what! Right, it's used for things happening some time in the future. That makes it rather useless for storytelling purposes if you don't want to write down plans, promises or predictions."

"Nice alliteration." Kakashi returned to the living room. From the kitchen came some muffled sounds.

"Thanks. Sometimes I surprise myself. - Did you just summon a clone?" That guy had too much chakra for his own good, the academy teacher thought enviously.

Insouciantly the jounin threw himself onto Iruka's couch once more and wriggled into the cushions. "You've got such a nice sofa, you know?" Far nicer than his own, in fact. He returned to the topic at hand: "The stuff you described was easy so far."

"Yes, that's true. Unfortunately things aren't quite as straightforward as that."

"It would save you a lot of trouble if it were."

Iruka flashed him a grin that was almost as blinding as one of Gai's (Almost – nobody ever matched the Green Beast in that respect.). "It's a lot more fun this way."

The copy-nin blinked to get rid of the after-image dancing in front of his right eye and muttered: "Fun..."

If possible, Iruka's grin got even broader. "Yes! So now we come to the next chapter: Simple and Progressive."

"Oh great..." Kakashi reached for his tea. "Get going!"

"I already said that there is a difference between things happening now and nowadays. In English it is quite simple to differentiate between them. We use the so-called Simple Tenses (Past Simple, Present Simple and Future Simple) to talk about things we do regularly.

Why are they called simple? That's easy: Because they are the simplest forms there are. In Past and Present Simple you just use one single verb, in the Future you use "will" and the infinitive."

"Infinitive?"

Iruka shook his head in exasperation. "Oh, come on! Everybody knows that's the basic form of the verb, the one you have to use to look it up in the dictionary."

"Hey, if those writers don't know how to use tenses, I greatly doubt they know about linguistic terms either. That's usually the first thing you forget after leaving school."

Iruka had to admit that was true and made a note concerning the infinitive. He continued reading: "Actions taking place at a special point of time, be it in the past, present or future, take the so-called Progressive Tenses. 'Progressive' literally means 'going forward'."

"Which means you can only use it with actions taking some time."

"Right!" Iruka nodded encouragingly. "You'll hardly be in the middle of an action if the action is over in the blink of an eye."

"Therefore we say 'I close the door' and not 'I'm closing the door'."

The academy teacher winked at him. "Unless the door is stuck and it takes you ages to close it."

"In that case I challenge Gai to do it and let him go first. That's what Strong Fist is for."

"That sounds exactly like what you'd do." Iruka looked him up and down full of disapproval. "I really wonder why a nice man like Gai-sensei is putting up with you."

"He's crazy." Kakashi offered as an explanation, but suddenly something gave him pause. He leant forward. Iruka liked Gai? Gai? "Oi, what was that about?"

"What?"

"You think Gai's nice?"

"He is. He's always helpful and reliable, turns in his legible reports on time... Sure, he's a little eccentric..."

"He's crazy." Kakashi repeated.

Iruka mildly peered at him, before he turned to his spiral pad once more, smoothing the paper. " That's practically in the jounin job description, isn't it? - To construct these tenses you need two verbs, one of them being the all-time favourite of every language learner: to be."

"I've yet to encounter a language distinguishing between tenses in which this verb is regular!" Kakashi agreed and took another sip of his tea, still a little miffed about Iruka favouring Gai. Of all people. Gai.

"The other verb is the 'full verb', i. e. the main verb in the clause, and in Progressive Tenses it is always used with its -ing-form.

So there is a difference between 'I drink tea' and 'I am drinking tea'. What is it?

'I drink tea.' (Present Simple) This means I like to drink it on a regular basis, let's say every morning for breakfast."

"You drink coffee!" Kakashi corrected him without thinking.

"So what? It's just an example." Iruka shrugged, but then he suddenly smelled a rat. "Wait, how do you know about this?"

Oops. Better not tell him about stalking - umm, using him as a target for surveillance training. "Naruto told me you had always been drinking coffee when he was around. - Far too much coffee for your own good." he added primly. Did Iruka buy it?

The chuunin thought about it for a while, but then he nodded. He wasn't too keen on calling his guest's bluff. Somehow he had the unpleasant feeling he wouldn't like what he'd have to discover then. "'I am drinking tea.' (Present Progressive) This means that I am holding the cup in my hand right now and that I'm sipping on the drink. I might never have drunk tea before and I might not like it and therefore will never drink it again, but right in this moment I am drinking it."

"You don't like my tea?" Kakashi gave him a hurt look.

"Oh, come on, it's just an example!" The teacher hastily gulped down his lukewarm tea, before his guest could start pouting. His pout was surprisingly potent for somebody who hid the greatest part of his face. Iruka really wondered how he managed that one. Was it a jutsu? "The same applies to the past and the future:

'I drank tea.' (Past Simple) This means that I used to drink it regularly some time ago, e. g. when I was a kid. - And before you ask, Kakashi-sensei: I did drink tea then. Coffee isn't a suitable beverage for children.

'I was drinking tea.' (Past Progressive) This means that I was right in the middle of emptying a cup of tea when something else happened, e. g. the phone rang."

"Iruka-sensei was reading a naughty story when I came in." Kakashi gleefully offered as a second example.

"Not that naughty." the blushing teacher qualified and returned to his own example. "'I will drink tea.' (Future Simple) That's a prediction about the future: I will drink tea on a regular basis when I'm older." He smiled indulgently. "Because you make some rather good tea, Kakashi-sensei."

The copy-nin beamed at him, strangely happy about the praise. "I had to learn it for an undercover mission years ago." he boasted.

"I hope you accomplished more than just learning to make a nice cuppa." Kami-sama, the jounin was like an overgrown kid!

"Classified information. But since I'm sitting here, you can imagine the outcome."

"Yes, I can. - 'I will be drinking tea.' (Future Progressive) This is once again something that happens at a special point of time. This point of time is in the future, let's say tomorrow at five o'clock. If you happen to phone me then, I might be annoyed, because that's the time at which I will be drinking my tea and I hate to be interrupted."

"Then I'll come over some minutes earlier and join you in your afternoon tea." Kakashi happily invited himself.

Iruka gave him a flat look and continued: "Next chapter, if the difference between Simple and Progressive is clear."

"It is. Simple for things happening regularly, and Progressive for actions taking place for a longer period of time right at that moment. - With what are you going to regale your lucky readers now?"

"Perfect Tenses, Part 1:

Until now we have covered six different tenses and now I am going to add six more: Present Perfect Simple, Past Perfect Simple, Future Perfect Simple, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect Progressive, Future Perfect Progressive."

"Six of them, heavens!"

"Don't you worry, they aren't that much of a problem!

What do we need them for? Just imagine you are baking a cake, a nice, sinfully sweet cake. When is it perfect? When you begin mixing ingredients for the dough or when you have already eaten it? At none of these moments! It's perfect the moment you have finished baking and decorating it (As long as it isn't a German-style cheesecake – that needs to be left outside the oven in its baking tin for a day before it's actually edible."

"What's this? Do your readers get 'Iruka-sensei's Guide to Baking Cake' for free?"

Iruka pointed accusingly to the kitchen door. "That's a side effect from having to smell that cake! Your clone apparently is a great baker."

"It's my clone, after all." Kakashi replied complacently.

Iruka rolled his eyes and bent over his spiral pad, trying to ignore both a copy-nin with an inflated ego and his grumbling stomach. "So the Perfect Tenses are used to talk about things that have been finished at a special moment in time. And since they are used to express the end of an action, they are usually used in their simple forms.

'I have drunk tea.' (Present Perfect Simple) This means that I've just put the cup down again and can still feel the heat of the beverage and its taste on my tongue.

'I had drunk tea.' (Past Perfect Simple) This means that I had finished drinking it, before something else happened, let's say a friend came to visit me. Poor guy –"

"Gai? Gai visited you?"

"Guy. G. U. Y. - He was too late to get any tea."

"And your wonderful chocolate chip cookies. Which I couldn't find in your kitchen, by the way." Kakashi sounded decidedly disappointed.

"Of course not, since I ate the last of them yesterday. - Oh, don't pout, you overgrown baby! I'll bake some this weekend." Just why had he promised that? Didn't he have more than enough to do? By then his class would have written the next test which would have to be graded over the weekend. Sometimes he didn't know how to cope with his workload. Miserably he continued reading: "'I will have drunk tea.' (Future Perfect Simple) Okay, drinking tea is a bad example, since this means that I will have finished drinking tea by a special point of time in the future and why would I ever want to talk about that? The Future Perfect Simple is actually quite useful, though. You have no idea how often I get to hear it!It's the tense you use to promise to have finished some job by a given time in the future. 'I will have finished my essay by Monday, sensei! I promise!' or 'I will have written my report before your shift is over, chuunin-san!'" His brows drew together. "Which reminds me..."

"Dinner!" The jounin jumped up and dashed into the kitchen. "Dinner will be served in a moment!"

"You would save us both quite a lot of trouble if you handed in your reports on time just for once!" Iruka called after him. Really, like a child! An irresponsible, happy-go-lucky, adorable child.

Kakashi didn't answer. Better not tell the teacher how much fun it was to watch him blow a gasket.

The chuunin sighed and followed him to the kitchen, carrying his spiral pad with him. For some reason he had the nagging feeling he had to punish Kakashi-sensei for something. The late reports, perhaps. Or the way he invited himself and then took over. Something. Anything. And what was a better punishment than having to listen to somebody babbling about grammar?

Sitting down on his usual chair, he read on: "Let's have a closer look at the formation of the simple forms of the Perfect Tenses."

"Oh, come on! They might not know when to use which tense, but surely most of them know how they are built!"

"I'm not so sure about that" Iruka disagreed "I've got a favourite novel, which I have read four or five times by now, an absolutely stunning work of art, but the author mixes up progressive and passive forms repeatedly, e. g. 'He was knelt next to the bed.' Mind you, nobody forces the boy in the story to kneel there at kunai point!"

"All right, do as you please!"

"Where was I? Ah, right... We always need a form of 'to have' and the third form of the full verb. Present Perfect Simple: 'I have drunk tea.' That's a present tense form of 'to have' and the 3rd form of the full verb."

"Infinitive."

"Pardon?"

"Infinitive of 'have'."

"Ah, no, it isn't. It's a Present Tense form. You can see it better in the 3rd person singular: 'He has drunk tea.' 'Has', you see?"

"All right, Present Tense form. - Go on!"

"Past Perfect Simple: 'I had drunk tea.' That's a Past Tense form of 'to have' and the 3rd form of the full verb.

Future Perfect Simple: 'I will have drunk tea.' That's 'will' plus the infinitive of 'to have' and the 3rd form of the full verb."

"This time it's the infinitive." Kakashi said triumphantly.

"Right. 'Will' is picky about its neighbours. - Which leads me to the next chapter of this wonderful paper."

"No."

"No?"

"No! - Let's have dinner first!" Kakashi, who could only take that much grammar at a time, frantically shoved a tray with a couple of little bowls and plates under the teacher's nose. "Eat. Now."

Since he was ravenous, Iruka didn't have to be asked twice and tugged in.

The copy-nin watched him eat until he was sure his host wasn't going to raise his head, then he pulled down his mask with a relieved sigh and started eating as well.

Iruka saw the movement from the corner of his eye (He might not have a sharingan or a byakugan, but the legendary teacher's eye was almost as awesome. There was nothing he didn't spot in his classroom, to the chagrin of his students.), but chose not to fluster his guest, as hard as it might be. It was simpler to leave the jounin their quirks. "That's delicious." he mumbled into his miso soup "You're a great cook."

"Thanks."

His voice sounded different without the mask. Iruka had to admit he liked it a lot better like this. He fought a violent battle against himself to keep his head lowered – he wasn't a saint, no, he was as curious as the next nin and wanted to know what the scarecrow looked like.

Finally Kakashi set a plate of chocolate cake in front of Iruka.

The chuunin took a bite. "Oh, kami-sama!" he moaned blissfully, as his eyes fluttered shut "That's delicious!"

"Better than Gai?"

"Yesss..." Wait a moment... Kakashi-sensei was still hung up on him praising Gai-sensei? Ah, the possibilities... "I don't know." he said truthfully and took another bite of sheer chocolaty bliss "I've never eaten any cake Gai-sensei has baked." Perhaps he should tell Kakashi-sensei's eternal rival about this marvellous cake. The Green Beast would surely challenge the scarecrow to a cake-baking contest and if Iruka played his cards right, he might end up as referee. - As much as Kakashi-sensei tried to play the perpetual challenges down, he took them very seriously once he had embarked on them. His natural competitiveness was almost as highly developed as Gai-sensei's. Almost. Nobody really compared to the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha in that respect.

Kakashi had the unpleasant feeling of knowing exactly what his host was contemplating. Hastily he tried to divert him: "So now you're going to explain the Perfect Progressives to your readers?"

"The what?" Iruka irritatedly looked up from his plate into the already re-masked face of the copy-nin. "Ah, yes! No. No, I don't. I think it would be better if I explained about the auxiliaries first."

Now that was a surprise. "Why?"

"Because they are extremely important and it is easier to understand what I've got to say in the rest of my paper if I get them out of the way first."

"If you think so... Go ahead, Iruka-sensei! I'll do the washing up while you're doing your job."

The teacher gave him a doubtful look, but then he thought that Kakashi-sensei might as well do the dishes. He had invited himself over, after all. And cooked. And laid the table. Oh well. Iruka happily grasped the occasion of getting away from this tedious chore. Rather to write an essay about grammar than to wash up! He gladly returned to his desk and started to correct his next chapter while the soft tinkling of china could be heard from the kitchen. Almost soothing...

After Kakashi had finished playing home-maker, he slipped into the living room, set a fresh cup of tea onto the desk and settled back onto the part of the sofa he already thought of as "his". He congratulated himself on persuading Iruka-sensei to write this essay since otherwise the prim teacher (Really that prim? Reading a story beginning with some guy in bed pointed in another direction.) surely would have got rid of him hours ago. This way he was at least able to watch his fill – and it was a view the copy-nin liked very much. The younger man was completely focused on his text – Kakashi doubted whether he had even realized that the cup of tea was sitting right in front of him.

He wondered briefly whether that meant that Iruka wasn't a good shinobi, but dismissed that notion immediately. The chuunin would never survive a day in the academy if he were negligent. Could it be that he trusted him that much? Or was he simply so happy to be doing something different from his normal curriculum? From the teacher's file (which Kakashi had perused to be able to get a better grasp of Team 7, of course, what other reason could there possibly be?) he had learnt that Iruka had an unusually wide range of language skills. This might be one of the reasons he was working at the mission desk more often than the other chuunin and why his security clearing was so high. All those languages sure came in handy when dealing with foreign clients and scrolls. Like Sarutobi Tsunade occasionally used the teacher as interpreter and translator.

At school he could only show a fraction of what he was able to do, perhaps he resented that. Ah, nonsense! Iruka-sensei loved teaching those brats (which, in Kakashi's opinion, and perhaps in other Konoha nins' opinion as well, made him even weirder than Gai), he'd never ever even consider promotion to jounin, as long as that entailed leaving the academy. The copy-nin knew for a fact that his host had been invited to test for jounin several times.

So now Iruka-sensei was showing off at least a little of his knowledge and it certainly looked as if he were enjoying himself. Kakashi chose to remain silent in order not to disturb him.

The tea got cold without Iruka realizing it. He was working. Working on something he hardly ever had a chance to use! By now his desk was littered with dictionaries, thesauruses and grammar guides. Of course he knew his stuff, but sometimes a reference book was helpful.

The long day in the academy and at the mission desk finally took its toll. Even while he was looking up some expression in his beloved thesaurus, his burning eyes finally closed and he nodded off.

Kakashi wasn't sure what to do, but after watching the sleeping man for a moment he gently picked him up and carried him to his bed. Iruka didn't wake up, but snuggled into Kakashi's arms. Once he'd laid him down, the chuunin curled up into a tight ball and hugged his pillow.

The copy-nin had read a considerable part of the fan fiction his comrade had been reading when he arrived and knew it was something about two guys falling in love. Now, wasn't that promising? He wondered what those fan writers would make out of him bringing a cutey like Iruka to bed. Real people fiction indeed...

He left a note on Iruka-sensei's bedside table, announcing his return for tea the next day, and left silently.

His day off duty was spent sparring with Gai under the not quite bored, interested and enthusiastic eyes of Team Gai (Neji, Tenten and Lee respectively). Brushing up on his taijutsu skills never hurt, did it? This session had the added bonus of keeping the exuberant Green Beast away from the very busy Iruka-sensei – the mere thought of Gai wasting the teacher's time with his flowery speeches! - and thus saving the chuunin a lot of trouble and annoyance. Kakashi believed he should be nominated "citizen of the month" for doing a public service. He managed to slip away from his rival in time for tea.

The plate full of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies slipped from the teacher's hands when the copy-nin actually climbed through the living room window on time. Kakashi blurred into action and dived forward to catch them before they crumbled on the hardwood floor. It would have been a damn pity if they had! Enraptured he inhaled the heady aroma of chocolate, honey and vanilla. "Just in time."

"Why don't you manage to hand in your reports on time as well?" the mission desk worker bickered good-naturedly.

Kakashi beamed up at him from his awkward position on the floor – at least Iruka supposed he did. He could only see that one eye curving upwards happily. "For some of your cookies I might think about it." the copy-nin said.

"That's all it takes? Some cookies?"

"Not any old cookies!" Kakashi clarified " Not some cardboard-like bought stuff! Your cookies!"

"Do you actually believe I've got so much time?"

"Think about how much time and trouble you'd be saving if I turned in my reports on time..."

"Think about the hours I'd be spending in my kitchen – you're almost continually on missions." Missions, he might have added, of which he had no way to know the date of completion beforehand. And, of course, should he once start bribing Kakashi-sensei with treats, the others would soon be clamouring for sweets as well. It would be unfair not to reward them for their hard work.

His guest gracefully got up again and set the cookie plate onto the coffee table. "Tea? Now?"

"Ah, yes, right!" Iruka fetched the pot. "Take a seat, Kakashi-sensei!"

They politely chatted over their tea, until Kakashi asked: "Did you get any farther on your grammar project?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm finished." The teacher reached behind himself and pulled a folder from his desk. "I've only got to type and upload it."

Quickly the copy-nin thumbed through the manuscript, admiring his host's neat handwriting. "Wow! When did you write all that stuff?"

"During my lunch break at the academy and..." Iruka lowered his voice and murmured confidentially: "there were actually downtimes at the mission desk."

"Impossible!"

"Well, you, for instance, didn't come to hand in your over-due report. And quite a few teams are away on missions right now." His eyes worriedly gazed over the roofs of the neighbouring houses to the Hokage Monument.

Oh great, now he had reminded Iruka-sensei of Naruto, one of those nin gone for a mission right now. Kakashi tried to remember whether the teacher actually had reason to worry. No, he decided, he hadn't, the boy was still on schedule. Iruka-sensei was just his usual worry-wart mother-hen self once again. The jounin hated seeing him like this – at least as long as he was worrying about somebody else. Worrying about him was acceptable. "Why don't you start reading from your masterpiece?" he tried to divert him.

"My... Ah, right." Iruka shook himself and opened the folder at the place where a little orange post-it stuck (a birthday present from a very much younger Naruto who hadn't had a lot of money, but the desperate wish to give something to his beloved Iruka-sensei). "We were getting to the next chapter, weren't we? Auxiliary or 'Helping' Verbs."

"I still don't get it why you chose to insert them right here."

"Because they are exceptionally important if you want to construct your tenses correctly. - To be honest, all of the verbs we need to help us to form the different tenses are a lot like teenage girls."

"Eh?" The cup clattered on the saucer as Kakashi set it down abruptly. "Explain."

The teacher grinned. "You can almost hear them whine: 'No, I don't want to sit next to Verb A, I want to sit next to Verb B!' The reason for the helper's aversion is not who Verb A is, but its form – just the way nasty girls don't want to sit next to the kid who doesn't wear the latest fashion." He lifted his cup to his lips and smiled beatifically. "I'm so glad you greatly skilled jounin have to deal with them when they get really annoying."

Kakashi, who remembered the rivalry between Sakura and Ino only too well, sighed miserably.

"These helpers are called auxiliary verbs." Iruka raised his hand to prevent Kakashi-sensei from interrupting him. "'Auxiliary' is Latin and simply means 'helpful' or 'helping' - but it sounds ever so much grander, doesn't it?"

"I never understood why that stuff had to be called by Latin names. It just complicates things."

"As a matter of fact, it makes things simpler, once you've learnt those terms, since they mean roughly the same in different languages and that helps you to compare them to each other. - Anyway: Which words do we use as helpers?"

"Oh, come on, sensei, do tell me!" Kakashi squealed theatrically, clasping his hands in front of his chest.

Iruka glared at him over the edge of his folder. "There are the modal auxiliaries, e. g. can, may, might, will, must, need to, would, could, should. They are the verbs which can't stand on their own, they always need another verb to keep them company (again a lot like teenage girls who always go everywhere in herds!)."

Kakashi groaned reminiscently. Gennin get-togethers were a nuisance in general and they were one of the many reasons he had tried to avoid getting his own team like the plague for ages. Nowadays he often had the dubious pleasure of chaperoning these events while at the same time trying to avoid chattering swarms of fan-girls who were pestering him with questions about Sasuke and Sai – and, to his consternation, Naruto. He wasn't quite sure whom to blame for those D-ranked missions, Tsunade, who was worried about his anti-social behaviour, or Iruka-sensei, who just wanted to torture him for missing reports. Well, Iruka-sensei's presence was the best thing about those parties and he spent most of the time trying to get the teacher's attention. A difficult task, seeing as mother-hen Iruka-sensei's eyes were constantly riveted on his former students.

"We need them to express the mode in which we do things. There is a difference between 'I may train taijutsu.' and 'I must train taijutsu.'"

"You can't get Gai out of your head, can you?"

Iruka chose not to comment on that. "In the first case I am allowed to do so and in the second case I am forced."

"You should train taijutsu" the copy-nin thought aloud "and you will train taijutsu, but with me. Gai isn't called 'Beast' without reason."

The teacher rolled is eyes. His guest's jealousy was getting ridiculous. "Modal auxiliaries are easy to spot: They have just one form instead of the usual three (And no, 'could' is not the Past Tense of 'can'! It is just used as a convenient stand-in for a slightly more difficult construction.) and they always go with the infinitive of the main verb.

Only one of them is actually used to form some real tenses: 'will'. We use it to construct some of the Future Tenses."

"Some."

"Ah, you know the future is a source of everlasting joy."

The ever pessimistic Kakashi's brow rose.

Iruka ploughed on: "Then there is the wonderful verb 'to be', the only verb in the English language with more than the usual three forms (or four forms, if we count the -ing-form). There's no helping it: All of the forms of 'to be' are important and they have to be learnt!" the long-suffering teacher preached "'To be' is picky, but still more variable about what kind of verb it wants to be connected to. It can stand alone, but of course it's a full verb in that case, e. g. 'I am hungry.'" He looked pointedly at Kakashi.

The copy-nin didn't react.

"It can be connected to a verb in the -ing-form, helping us to form a Progressive Tense, e. g. 'I am waiting for dinner.'"

Kakashi rose and plodded towards the kitchen. "I've spoilt you already, haven't I?"

Iruka grinned broadly. "It can be connected to the third form of the main verb and form a passive, e. g. 'Dinner is cooked by a friend today.'"

"A friend, am I?"

"He who cooks for me is my friend."

"Everybody?" Kakashi sounded hurt.

The teacher shook his head. "Baka! - And then we've got the wonderful auxiliary verb 'to have'. 'Have' always wants to be connected to a third form. Always, no matter what. We need it for our very useful Perfect Tenses."

"So now we finally return to the Perfect Tenses?" Kakashi urged.

"No, not yet. There's something else I briefly want to mention before that."

"What is it?" the copy-nin called from the kitchen.

"Have you already spotted the pattern? Where do we find the verb that actually makes sure which tense we are using? Right, it's always the first one! English is convenient in that (I know what I'm talking about: Do you know German? That's a lot more complicated!): It always puts first things first."

The cook stood in the kitchen door, thoughtfully playing with a paring knife. "You're right."

"You might compare the formation of tenses to your pocket calendar: If your Aunt Kyoko comes to visit you on November 16 and leaves on the 21st, you don't write on the page for Nov. 19: 'Aunt Kyoko came three days ago and will stay two more days', no, you need the information beforehand to get the spare bedroom ready and therefore write on the page for Nov. 16: 'Aunt Kyoko is coming today and staying for five days.' Far more sensible, isn't it?

The predicate of an English sentence (That's the part of the sentence which tells you what is done – it consists mainly of verbs. Mainly, because there might be the odd adverb coming along for the ride. That's the part of speech telling you how the action is happening, e. g. 'Kakashi-sensei cooks well.' How does he cook? 'He cooks well.') -"

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome! - The predicate gets the tense question out of the way before even telling you what the verb really is by using helping verbs."

The jounin once again summoned a clone to do his work and returned to his favourite place on the couch, folding his long legs into the lotus position. "I've never thought about this."

"You see, there are still some things a lowly chuunin like me can teach a genius like you!"

"I never doubted that." Kakashi refrained from telling him that he was the most remarkable teacher in the whole history of Konoha – no need to swell his head.

"And now we finally return to the Perfect Tenses. - Perfect Tenses, Part 2:

So far I have only told you about the three Simple Tenses (Present Perfect Simple, Past Perfect Simple and Future Perfect Simple). They are used quite often, whereas the Progressive Tenses (Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect Progressive and Future Perfect Progressive) are used relatively rarely.

There is a very good reason for that."

"Is there?"

"Yes, of course there is! - If we think about it logically, there should not be anything like a Perfect Progressive, since 'perfect' means that something is already finished and 'progressive' means it is happening right at that moment. You can't be baking a cake at the time you are actually finished doing it."

"Or the cake will burn and turn out very, very bad – and we don't want that to happen, do we?" Nastily Kakashi added: "Gai tends to let his cake burn, you know? He always goes too far with everything he does."

"I'm quite sure he'd be able to bake an excellent cake, should he ever turn his mind to it!" Iruka replied gleefully, knowing full well that by now a cake-baking challenge was in the offing. His guest simply wouldn't be able to resist. He chose not to comment any further, so Kakashi wouldn't realize he was played, but instead read on: "Oh, it is possible to construct these structures! And they can even be useful. Let's take a different example this time, just because it makes more sense. (I once tried to learn Georgian and the verb used as an example for conjugating verbs was "to die". "I died"... "I had died"... Umm... For some reason I think the writer of the textbook could have done better than that.)

"Whatever did you learn Georgian for?"

"I said 'tried'! And why not? It's a deliciously weird language. Should you be interested, the verb is 'mokvdeba'." He managed to produce a sound as if he were gagging on the letter "k".

Kakashi wondered whether he should whisk him into the bathroom to vomit there, but the younger man actually looked quite healthy and unperturbed. "And here I always thought you were too busy for your own good."

"That was in my pre-Naruto period."

"Ah, that explains it. - So what's this brand new example of yours?"

"Present Perfect Progressive: 'Kurenai-sensei has been writing invitations the whole morning.'"

The copy-nin blanched. "Oh no, don't tell me she's planning another party!"

"It's only an example! But yes, she is. I guess you'll find an invitation in your letterbox once you come home."

Kakashi began thinking about how to avoid said party (A mission? Blowing up his letterbox and pretending never to have got the invitation? Feigning sickness? Hacking off his foot?) and so he didn't pay attention to Iruka's next words.

"That's a Present Tense of 'to have', the 3rd form of 'to be' and the -ing-form of the full verb.

Past Perfect Progressive: 'Kurenai-sensei had been writing invitations for a whole week before her party last Christmas.' Here we've got a Past Tense of 'to have', 3rd form of 'to be' and the -ing-form of the full verb.

Future Perfect Progressive: 'Kurenai-sensei will have been writing invitations the whole morning, before her next party takes place.' That's 'will', the infinitive of 'to have', the 3rd form of 'to be' and the -ing-form of the full verb.

You might say: 'Wait a minute, I've actually seen constructions like these!' - and you would be right, you probably have."

"I've been trying to come up with an excuse for not going to that damn party, but I just can't find one!" a distraught Kakashi blurted out.

The teacher smirked. "That's an excellent example of a Present Perfect Progressive, Kakashi-sensei! - The Perfect Progressives are used to express a certain mood: the one of being annoyed and fed up with the thing you've been doing for quite a long time."

"Thanks, but that doesn't help me a lot!"

"For heaven's sake, Kakashi-sensei! You'll go to that party if I have to drag you there myself!"

"Promise?"

"Eh?"

"You're going with me? Not with Gai?"

"Why should I go with Gai-sensei?"

Kakashi mumbled something incomprehensible.

"Pardon?"

"The way you're always going on about him is telling."

"I'm going on? Kakashi-sensei, you can't stop talking about him!" Shaking his head, the teacher returned to his folder: "Let's face it: If you had been writing invitations from 8.00 AM till noon, you would be sick of it as well, wouldn't you? I'm sure I'd throw my pen through the whole room – and I love writing with a fountain pen!" He brandished his old and worn fountain-pen. Kakashi remembered having seen it on Sandaime's desk quite often. An apt heirloom for the young teacher.

"Wait... I guess you've read quite a few Naruto fan fictions by now."

"There are Naruto fan fictions?" Kakashi screamed.

"Don't ask." the teacher pleaded, wringing his hands. "Please, don't."

"Then do go on." the jounin relented, but at the same time decided to do some online research as soon as he came home. ('Real people fiction' Iruka had called it, hadn't he? - But why anybody should think Naruto might be a star was beyond him.)

Iruka gave him a suspicious look. He was up to something. "Have you ever come across the expression 'mission mode'? When a shinobi returns from a very intense mission, he might not be able to switch back to normal immediately. So even though he's safely home and his job is done, he can't stop thinking about it. That's quite a lot like the Perfect Progressives: You've been slaving away for a long time and now you can't stop thinking about whatever you've done.

Since they are useful, you might use the Present Perfect Progressive and the Past Perfect Progressive quite often, but the Future Perfect Progressive is used far more rarely. You might use it to whine beforehand about a tedious task assigned to you, but that's about it. 'Kakashi-sensei will have been whining about going to that party until he'll finally have arrived there.'"

The jounin pouted, but Iruka ruthlessly ignored it. "He'll love it as soon as he's there. - And isn't that a wonderful transition to our next chapter? - Future Tenses." He looked up to see whether Kakashi-sensei wanted to say anything or not. Obviously not. Oh, well, if he wanted to sulk, that was his problem. "'Ah, that will be Future Simple, Future Progressive, Future Perfect Simple and Future Perfect Progressive.' I can hear you say.

Umm... No.

Or at least, that's not all there is to the Future Tenses.

To be honest, I haven't called the ones you know by now by their full name. The ones I told you about are the so-called will-Futures. You will recall that you have to use the modal auxiliary 'will' and the infinitive of the main verb to construct them.

That should be enough, shouldn't it?"

Kakashi nodded emphatically.

"But no, the English language has a nasty way of springing surprises on you. Hey, I discovered that I had previously thought one of these tenses was virtually impossible, when I suddenly realized I was actually using it in the first draft of this chapter of the Guide.

So there are the four will-Futures, three going to-Futures, the Present Simple and the Present Progressive."

His one-man audience frowned. "Present?"

"Wait, I'm going to tell you about that later on! - The main Future Tenses are the will-Futures and the going to-Futures. Once again it's a matter of situation which of them you use. You use the will-Futures for things that happen inevitably, e. g. "The sun will rise tomorrow morning" or "Kakashi-sensei will hand in his reports late.'"

"Oi!"

Iruka's brow rose. "I'm still waiting for your latest report, which, as far as I recall, was due..." He looked at his calendar. "four days ago."

"Well, I was just going to write it when I found an adorable chuunin being attacked by a plank of wood and had to rescue him."

The teacher wisely chose not to react. "Or you use the will-Future for things that happen spontaneously. Let's say, you are walking down Konoha-cha and the shopping bag of the granny walking right in front of you bursts and all her groceries spill out."

"Ah, Tsunade can cope."

"She's not the only... elderly citizen in Konohagakure. There are civilians, too. Loads of them. - Being a nice and well-mannered young lady -"

"Oooooi!"

"- or gentleman (Please, let me remind you that this is targeted at fan fiction writers and they are predominantly female), you don't think about it for some time, but decide on the spot: 'I'll help you!'"

"Or you might see a cute little chuunin schoolteacher threatened by ghastly stories on the internet and you decide right there on the spot: 'I'll rescue him!'" Only his heightened ninja reflexes made him duck out of the way of the stapler in time. He looked at the deep hole it had left in the crumbling plaster right where his head had been only a fracture of a second before and swallowed.

"The going to-Future won't help you in such a case," Iruka read on sweetly "because you use the going to-Future to talk about things you plan to do, e. g. "I'm going to watch the whole Seirei no Moribito series over the weekend." (That's something I can only recommend!)"

"Is it?"

"Yes, it is. It's such a relief to watch an anime without scantily clad pre-teen heroines!"

"And are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Going to watch the whole series this weekend."

"I could. It's definitely worth watching it once again."

"I'll bring the snacks."

"You'll... Oh, so you've just decided to invite yourself over again." The teacher wondered when he'd find time to grade all those tests.

His guest beamed cheerfully. "On the spot. Therefore I used the will-Future."

"Ah, if you give me such a good example... But back to my example, right? - You don't ponder on helping granny for ages, you decide to do so on the spot," He winked at Kakashi. "but you might think a while whether you actually want to spend your weekend watching 26 episodes.

I don't think I have to go into detail about the construction of the different will-Futures, since we have covered them in the previous chapters, so let's turn to the going to-Futures.

They are basically constructed like Present Progressives with a tail added to their backs. Present Progressive? A form of 'to be' and the -ing-form of the main verb. In our case the 'main verb' is 'to go' - and it turns out not to be the main verb at all, because after it there follows another verb in the infinitive and that's the real main verb. (As I said before, it is always the last verb in a verbal construction that is the main verb – you use all of the helpers to get stuff like tense and mode out of the way, before you can focus on what is actually happening in your sentence.)"

"Like a good action story." Kakashi pointed out "The hero fights the small fry first and only shortly before the end he meets the main adversary."

"Exactly" Iruka beamed at him, making Kakashi go all mushy inside. "Since all of those main verbs are used together with the 'to' we know from learning our verbs (Remember? 'to write – wrote – written', 'to fight – fought - fought'), the tense is called 'going to-Future'.

As I said, there are three different going to-Futures.

Let's start with the most widely used. Since the two other versions are so very, very rare, this tense is actually just called going to-Future: 'I am going to drink tea.' (a Present Tense form of 'to be' + 'going' + to-infinitive)

When do I use this expression again? I use it when I plan to drink tea, I might even have filled the kettle with water already.

There is a going to-Future Perfect as well, but it's a tense you'll hardly ever encounter in the wild. 'I have been going to drink tea.' (That's a Present Tense form of 'to have', the 3rd form of 'to be', going and a to-infinitive).

Using the going to-Future Perfect implies that you planned to do something, but that you have stopped planning right in that moment. Perhaps you are standing in front of your kitchen cupboard and spot a jar of coffee, so you change plans and make some coffee instead. As you can see, that's a tense with only very limited use."

Iruka raised his head and looked at his guest, alarmed. "Oh, I totally forgot that this is a guide to story-tellers."

"You're doing fine! I don't think non-linguists will have problems."

"Yes, but there's something that has irked me quite a lot whenever I've come upon it in a story and now I've forgot to mention it."

"You haven't uploaded a word of your text yet, there's still time to insert whatever it is." Kakashi soothed him "Come to think about it... What is it?"

Iruka scribbled a few words into the margins, before he recited them to the jounin: "There is something important we mustn't forget if we are writing our story in the Past Tense, something you know from indirect speech. In direct speech a character might use whichever tense he wants, but there is such a thing as a tense-shift in indirect speech. E. g. '"I go to the cinema" he said.' That's direct speech. The same sentence in indirect speech would look like this: 'He said he went to the cinema.'"

"Do you want to insert a chapter on reported speech here?"

"No, there's just one thing that might be useful to observe. - And the same applies to the words straight from the narrators mouth or, better, pen. Sometimes characters plan to do something in a story. Now, if the story is written in the Past Tense, you can't just tell your readers 'He is going to visit Gai-sensei', no, you've got to make sure that your character is still anchored to his own temporal surroundings, so you write 'He was going to visit Gai-sensei.'"

"True..." Kakashi nodded "But you can use this tense for something else as well."

"Can I?"

"For instance, if you planned to do something some time ago, but you have changed plans in the meantime."

"'I was going to grade papers this weekend, but then Kakashi-sensei decided to visit.'"

"Exactly. Or 'Iruka-sensei was going to visit Gai, but then he made up his mind and had dinner with Kakashi instead.'"

No, he would not react to that! Kakashi-sensei could flutter his eyelashes as much as he wanted. "And if we add that little pinch of annoyance to it, we might even use the going to-Future Progressive in the Past: 'I was going to be grading tests the whole weekend, but then Kakashi-sensei rescued me.'" The teacher laughed, placed both hands over his heart and breathed smarmily: "My hero!"

"Ma, I'd love to throw my cloak into a puddle so you can step over it daintily without getting your shoes dirty."

"You do remember that I'm a shinobi and not some 16th century lady?"

"Hmm... I wonder what you'd look like in such clothes!"

"Baka!" He tapped lightly on his manuscript. "Come to think of it, that tense we played around with just now, is the Past Tense version of the tense with which I surprised myself: 'the going to-Future Progressive. This might actually be a little more useful than the going to-Future Perfect. 'I am going to be drinking tea.' (a Present Tense form of 'to be' + 'going' + to-infinitive of 'to be' + -ing-Form of main verb)

Going to-Future Progressive means that a planned action is going to be taking place some time in the future and that it is going to take some time to finish.

'That's all very nice' I hear you grumble "but why should I ever talk about being in the middle of drinking tea, let's say, tomorrow night?'"

"Damn right!"

"Yes, you are right. But what about this example: 'I am going to be writing my essay tomorrow evening'? If you want to visit me, do so, but don't believe for a minute that I'll be a good host!

"Aww..."

Iruka gave him one of his patented flat looks which (among other things like his temper) made him a force to be reckoned with both in the classroom and at the mission desk. Many battle-hardened shinobi cringed when that look hit them. It spoke of bad marks. "So there is a use for this tense. Unfortunately (for the poor going to-Future Perfect, that is, not for hard-working writers!) there is a far simpler way of expressing something like this.

Do you remember that I told you that Present Simple and Present Progressive can be used as Future Tenses as well? Let's just recap: What is the difference in meaning between Simple and Progressive Tenses?" He pointed at Kakashi.

"Simple – regular, Progressive – at that moment."

"Exactly.We use simple forms for actions taking place regularly and progressive forms for actions taking place right at that moment.

In the example 'I am going to be writing my essay tomorrow evening' I was talking about a plan for an action I was going to be performing at a special time in the future. Now, where do we write down what we plan to do at a special point of time?

Yes, exactly! In our calendars! And here's the nice thing: We use the Present Tense to talk about plans for the future we have written down in calendars or timetables or which we can at least pinpoint to a specific time.

Just imagine this situation: You are talking to some of your friends about your plans for next Wednesday. There's a new film you want to watch, so you suggest: 'Let's go to the cinema on Wednesday afternoon!' Your friend Aemi apologizes: 'I'm sorry, but I have piano lessons on Wednesdays.' Your other friend, Ayumu, sighs and tells you miserably: 'I am having an appointment with the dentist on Wednesday.'

Did you spot the difference? Aemi always has her piano lessons on Wednesdays, so she uses the Present Simple, the tense you use for actions taking place regularly. Ayumu hopefully doesn't have to go to the dentist every week, so this is something out of the ordinary. Therefore she uses the Present Progressive to tell you what she is going to be doing at the time the film is shown at the cinema." Iruka took a deep breath and looked up from his folder. "And that wraps up the Future Tenses."

"Phew!" Kakashi shook himself like a dog, making Iruka wonder whether he spent too much time with his ninken. "That sure was a lot of information."

"Too much?"

"Well, let's say, enough for now. I think dinner's ready."

"Great! I could get used to your cooking, you know?" Iruka winked flirtily at him, got up, laid the folder on his desk and turned around. "Kami-sama!" he exclaimed, jumping back from the window.

Immediately the copy-nin was at his side, a couple of shuriken at the ready. A huge eagle was perched on the window-sill, watching them with wild, golden eyes. Kakashi froze. "No dinner for me." he said quietly.

"Ah." The teacher had heard about Tsunade summoning ANBU by eagle, but he'd never have expected one to turn up at his place. It didn't bode well for his guest. "We'll have dinner when you return." 'When', not 'if'.

"Sure, I want to hear the rest of your essay." The copy-nin nodded to the bird. "Coming." His hand brushed lightly over Iruka's shoulder and off he was, melting into the darkness.

So Kakashi-sensei really was ANBU. Iruka had always supposed so, but had never found any confirmation, since ANBU missions weren't filed at the mission desk. For Tsunade to summon the jounin so boldly this must be a mission of the utmost importance.

With a heavy heart Iruka went into his kitchen and put all the food away. He wasn't hungry any more.

The teacher threw himself into the bustle of Konohan activities in the next few days, teaching, taking double shifts at the mission desk, venturing out on some short C- and B-ranked missions (short, because he had to be back for school the next morning), anything, really, but staying at his lonely home and worrying. He did not watch any DVDs at the weekend.

Almost two weeks later, on a sunny Thursday afternoon, he was sitting on the wooden gangway leading to his flat, surrounded by huge laundry baskets full of apples, a present from the Aburame clan.

It is a little known fact that the Aburame maintain some of of the most stunning gardens of Fire Country, simply to provide feed for a wide range of the insects they work with and since the clansmen are of the opinion that if things are worth doing, they are worth doing well, they don't go in for some half-assed gardening. By protecting some of the fruit trees from said insects later on (which is, in fact, part of the little crawlers' training) and selling the produce, the clan makes some extra money.

Ever since Shino had been an academy student his family gave loads of fruit to Iruka-sensei in deep gratefulness for his excellent work on integrating and supporting their awkward child. No mean feat in a classroom full of girls out for cute boys and decidedly less than friendly to boys surrounded by what they called vermin! Anyway, there was no way the young teacher was able to eat that much fruit, so he usually processed the greatest part of it and gave it away to the orphanage. Most of the apples he was peeling right now were supposed to be boiled into apple sauce, their juice was to be extracted (Iruka had bought an extractor for all the fruit the Aburame gave him, since he couldn't go and borrow one every few weeks.) or they were to be dried on a rack in his hot, stuffy and dark attic.

The teacher had dragged the heavy baskets outside, so he could catch at least the latter end of a perfect summer afternoon in the sun, after being cooped up inside the whole day so far. Tsunade had made him pour over some of the most boring paperwork he had encountered in years and although he understood her allergy to red tape, he was not at all amused about being the one left holding the baby while she ran off to the nearest bar, strategically leaving him to stall Shizune. It hadn't helped his mood that the kunoichi had kept fluttering her lashes at him the whole time. Nothing against Shizune, but... Oh, well.

He was just 17 apples in when he suddenly felt a strange chakra reaching out to him. He froze. His eyes surreptitiously swept over the neighbourhood and finally alighted on the roof of the opposite building. An ANBU was cowering on the old roofing tiles, silently staring down at him. Very, very slowly Iruka put down his knife and tried to look as little threatening as possible for a nin wearing his uniform and undoubtedly carrying loads of concealed weapons. 'Don't look at him, don't look, don't look, don't look!' he thought 'He'll go away if you don't look.' He hadn't done anything to warrant being watched or even dragged off by ANBU, had he? His eyes betrayed him and roved back to the shinobi on the roof. A light breeze ruffled the shock of dirty silver hair. Kami-sama... That was...

With a soft thud Kakashi landed on the wooden gangway right in front of the teacher.

Iruka slowly got up. "Welcome home!" he said in his most soothing voice.

The lanky ANBU slumped against him and enveloped him in a tight hug. Nonplussed, the teacher let his hands stroke gently over the man's shoulder. This wasn't like Kakashi-sensei! Sure, he often made off-colour jokes, but he never used to get all touchy-feely, especially not with nodding acquaintances. With trembling fingers the jounin tore off the ANBU mask and dropped it on the wooden floor. He nuzzled his (still masked) face against Iruka's neck - to the great discomfort of the younger man. It wasn't done to be seen cuddling in public while wearing an ANBU uniform. It wasn't done to be seen, period.

His visitor stank, stank of blood and sweat and substances even worse. Had he been creeping through sewers? Had he gutted somebody? "Are you injured?" the chuunin asked anxiously "Is that your blood?"

Kakashi-sensei dazedly shook his head.

"Come inside!" Iruka dragged him into his flat and silently closed the door behind them (no need spooking an overwrought ANBU with loud noises), hoping nobody had seen his peculiar visitor and especially not that he had removed his mask. They both could get into a lot of trouble for this indiscretion. There were rumours that people who had found out the identity of ANBU had been... disappeared. Iruka steered him towards the tiny bathroom. "Take a shower! You stink like a skunk wrestler! I'll get you some fresh clothes in the meantime."

Kakashi didn't protest. He stumbled towards the shower-stall, shedding his filthy uniform on the way. The body armour dropped to the ground with loud thuds, its edges leaving dents in the floorboards.

In his bedroom the teacher frantically searched for clothes his unexpected guest might put on without looking too ridiculous. He finally decided on a black tank-top and a pair of uniform trousers – you couldn't go wrong with black, could you? After some thought he tore a nice dark green scarf (Better not tell Kakashi-sensei that Gai-sensei had been his secret Santa on Kurenai-sensei's last Christmas party!) from his chest of drawers and hastened back into the steam filled bathroom, picking up dirty clothes from the floor. He had already very, very delicately plucked the hidden and, as likely as not, poisoned weapons from them and chucked the washable bits into his trusty washing machine (Working with over-enthusiastic ninja wannabes tends to get your clothes very dirty very quickly, so a washing machine is quite a sensible investment.), when Kakashi-sensei stepped out of the shower. Without any further ado the teacher opened his first-aid box and patched his guest up, while the copy-nin drew the scarf around his face. Silly, worrying about his face, while Iruka-sensei was getting an eyeful of deliciously naked Kakashi. The younger man tapped on his shoulder and handed him an eye-patch to cover the sharingan. Whatever his visitor had been doing, he'd been damn lucky not to get hurt any worse. "Get dressed, will you?"

With a tight little smile (Kakashi was too gorgeous by half and Iruka regretted that he wouldn't get to admire that sight more often) he gave his guest some space. He returned to his apples and nervously started juggling with three of them while he tried to eavesdrop on what the copy-nin was up to. From inside his flat he heard some muffled sounds, the creaking floorboards, the door of the fridge (Kami-sama! He had forgotten to get some food and drink into the man! - Oh, well, Kakashi-sensei had made himself familiar with his kitchen weeks ago.), some rustling paper... Paper? What the heck did he want with his lesson plans or worksheets? The irritated teacher caught the apples and rose to check up on Kakashi, when the jounin appeared in his front door.

"What are you doing?" Kakashi inquired, his voice low and tired, and pointed at the load of apples.

Iruka explained about the Aburame's present.

"And you're the one left doing the whole work as usual."

"Well, somebody has to do it. Don't you think it would be a darned shame to let all of this food rot, while there are people in our village who desperately need it?"

"Hmm..." Kakashi roughly shoved him out of the way. "I'll do it."

"You?"

"Do you think I can't handle a paring knife?" the man growled.

With a shrug Iruka stepped aside. "Suit yourself." he replied, even though he was greatly worried about his guest. Only a few minutes ago he had looked as if he'd collapse in his arms – but who could tell the great Sharingan no Kakashi-sama what he was to do?

"Just..."

"Yes?"

The jounin dropped down on the doorstep and held up a dog-eared folder. "Could you read the rest of your essay to me?"

"My essay?" That darned thing couldn't still be on his mind, could it?

"Just... talk, will you?"

Hesitatingly Iruka sat down on the balustrade and opened the folder. He understood. There were times the one thing you needed after a harrowing mission was to be close to a person you trusted and the one claim on Iruka's hospitality the copy-nin had, now that Naruto was gone, was their joint work on the essay. Doing some fairly mindless work while he listened to the teacher's voice droning on would be more restful for him than being put to sleep. Iruka wondered whether he should try to get word about Kakashi-sensei's arrival to Tsunade or Ibiki. They'd be livid about the ANBU not coming to debrief immediately! No, rather not. If they found out that the scarecrow had discovered his ANBU existence to someone, they'd both be up shit creek without a paddle.

The silver-haired man grabbed the sticky paring knife his host had left on the wooden floor and started peeling apples, long, nervous fingers dancing delicately over the shiny skins.

"All right, whatever you want... We were just finished with the Future Tenses, weren't we?"

The copy-nin didn't react.

"Then the next chapter is 'Active and Passive.'"

No reaction – but hadn't his shoulders just lost a little of their tension?

"Until now we've only talked about the active mode, but there is a passive one as well. What is the difference?

In short: focus."

Yes, he looked slightly less tense.

"An active sentence focuses on the person or thing that does a deed, whereas a passive sentence focuses on the person or thing the deed is done to, the one to 'suffer' from the deed. That's the reason the passive is called "Leideform" ("suffer-form") in German."

Still too tense. Iruka looked around helplessly. Where was Gai-sensei? He knew the Green Beast well enough to have gathered that he usually turned up out of the blue when his 'eternal rival' was upset. The chuunin would have to keep his eyes firmly shut in order not to notice something as obvious as the Gai-dar – and he was greatly surprised that there were only very few Konoha shinobi who were aware of it. Kakashi-sensei might not willingly acknowledge the fact, but his comrade was the best friend he had.

"Let's imagine me on a horse." he continued, willing his knees from twitching – an upset and armed ANBU definitely didn't need anything else to get on his nerves. Not that an ANBU needed a weapon to wreak havoc. Hell, Iruka trained pre-gennin on how to use their surroundings as weapons - how much much more skilled would an elite jounin be? "Then I could say: 'I ride the horse.' I am actively making the poor animal go where I want. And, as a matter of fact, in this example I am the important factor: It is important that it is me riding the horse and not – Gai-sensei!" the teacher squeaked when the big, burly green creature alighted on the balustrade right next to him, striking a pose.

"Why, my Eternal Rival!" Gai managed to catch Iruka in his strong arms before he could fall down into the alley, looking, for all it was worth, like the frontispiece of a cheesy romance novel ("Icha Icha Princess" immediately comes to mind.). He gallantly made sure the younger man was perching safely on the thin railing. "What are you doing here?"

Kakashi ignored him as usual, but Iruka had seen how he had dropped into his usual slouch the moment the green jounin's attention had been turned on him. Now, the mind is a funny thing – and the teacher knew that it was easily fooled. Relaxed muscles and a relaxed stance might trick it into believing it was relaxed itself. "Kakashi-sensei has just volunteered to help me peel these apples." Iruka beamed at the taijutsu master.

"Why, what a Noble Deed, my Eternal Rival! To help the Esteemed Educator of Konoha's Proud Youth, while he is engaged with-" The Green Beast blinked away the tears he was shedding profusely, being touched by Kakashi's, doubtlessly hip and modern, helpfulness, and bent down to look at the open folder. "What are you engaged with, Iruka-sensei?"

"Nothing that should concern you!" the copy-nin hissed testily.

Iruka, however, chose to explain at great length about his essay and the fact that it had been Kakashi-sensei who had proposed he should try to write down whatever he thought might be important about the English tenses.

The tears were raining down even harder, while Gai praised his comrade for his Great, Unprecedented Helpfulness and his Noble Endeavour to further the Vital Knowledge about such an Important Subject Matter. Iruka, as usually when he encountered the Green Beast, marvelled about how many adjectives fitted into one single sentence.

"Shut up, Gai!" Kakashi interrupted him, as soon as the jounin took a breath (Yes, even Gai-sensei had to breathe from time to time!) "I want to listen to what Iruka-sensei has to say about the passive form!"

"Umm..." Slightly perplexed the taijutsuist looked at him. It wasn't often that the copy-nin threw him, but a professed interest in the passive voice was something new. What other reason could he bring up to stay here and look after his friend? After a few seconds he got up out of his crouch on the balustrade and treated his rapt audience to Good Guy Pose No. 17, artfullly modified to cope with him balancing on a wobbly two-inch railing. "Herewith I challenge you to a contest in peeling apples!"

"What?" Iruka gasped "An apple peeling challenge?"

"With kunai!" Gai clarified brightly "And if I don't peel more apples that you, my Eternal Rival, I'll do fifty laps around our beautiful Konoha on my hands, juggling ten apples with my feet!"

"Oh my..." The academy teacher glanced at his guest – only to find that Kakashi already held a kunai in his hand. Where had he... Oh, of course, he had transferred his weapons from the basket where Iruka had left them (in plain sight – it didn't do to hide the arms of a nervous ANBU!) to his borrowed trousers. He was just home from a nerve-racking mission, he'd never walk around unarmed.

Gai sat down next to his rival with a flashing smile and drew a kunai as well. "Please, Iruka-sensei," he asked courteously "would you go on instructing us?"

The teacher held his breath as the jounin drew his knife – how would Kakashi-sensei react to the imagined threat?

He didn't react at all, but simply chimed in: "Please, go on!"

Iruka complied: "Now, if the horse were more important than the rider (It's the horse, not the pony, the donkey, the camel or the elephant!), you would write from the horse's perspective: 'The horse is ridden by me.' The poor horse can't do anything about it, it has to suffer me on its back. And, believe me, it would suffer!"

Kakashi leered at him and opened his mouth for a comment, but Gai bowled him over with his elbow. "Don't you dare to corrupt the Pure-Minded Educator of our Innocent Youth with your Foul Language!"

Pure-minded? Iruka could hardly stifle a snort. He caught the copy-nin's eye, as the man was straightening up again and saw him wink at him. "Oh, right!" The teacher wisely refrained from reacting to Gai-sensei's well-meant interruption. "Should any German speaking person ever read this: If I ever have to read or hear a sentence like 'The horse rides over the meadow' again, I'll make you suffer! Horses. Can't. Ride!"

"I don't know why you keep going on about German all the time!" Kakashi complained with a deep frown.

"Hush, my Eternal Rival! The Learned Iruka-sensei surely knows what he's doing!"

"I didn't doubt -"

Iruka rolled his eyes and raised his voice: "So the horse is passive. - For passive sentences we always use a form of the verb "to be" and the 3rd form of the full verb.

Don't be alarmed, but there are passive modes for almost every tense."

Kakashi groaned.

"It would be theoretically possible to construct them for all of them, but they simply aren't used with the Perfect Progressives, so I won't even bother with showing you how that would look."

"One has to be thankful for little blessings."

"Quite so, Kakashi-sensei. - Now let's have some examples." Iruka smiled indulgently at the two men peeling apples at incredible speed and chucked his original example "He writes a letter/The letter is written by him" out. "Let's start with the Present Simple. Hmm... 'Gai peels the apples.' - Sorry, Gai-sensei, but you have such a nice, short name!"

The supple taijutsuist managed to bow to the teacher from his crouched position and said with an alarmingly wobbly lower lip: "I'm Deeply Honoured to be Immortalized in your Worthy Essay!" His voice was choked with emotion and the tears started to trickle down once more.

"'Gai peels the apples.'" the teacher repeated with a patient smile "Who knows the passive form?"

Gai's arm shot up, but Kakashi didn't even wait for Iruka-sensei's permission to speak. "The apples are peeled" he answered and added with a sneer: "And even though it isn't important who's doing the deed: ...by Gai."

No, Iruka was not going to get involved in their squabbling! "That's right, Kakashi-sensei. And the Present Perfect Simple? 'Gai has peeled the apples.'"

This time the Green Beast reacted faster than his comrade: "The apples have been peeled by... Gai." Gai, not Kakashi, he gloated.

"Fine! Past Simple: 'Gai peeled the apples.'"

The copy-nin didn't even look up from the apples he himself was peeling: "The apples were peeled by an obnoxious idiot."

"Kakashi-sensei!"

"Oh, don't you worry, Iruka-sensei! My Eternal Rival loves making Hip and Modern Jokes like that!"

"The insult obviously wasn't understood by the thick-headed moron."

That's enough, Kakashi!" Iruka's eyes flashed dangerously.

"I was called 'Kakashi' by a cute little teacher – and was very pleased with it!"

"Oh, man..."

"Iruka-sensei was embarrassed by you!"

"Has been." the chuunin corrected Gai weakly "It started in the past and goes on until now. That's a Present Perfect."

"He's right, you know?" Kakashi said with a straight face "Iruka knows everything about the English tenses – which in the passive voice would be 'Everything about the English Tenses is known by Iruka'."

"Kakashi-sensei, really..."

"Ka. Ka. Shi. 'I was called Kakashi by you a minute ago.' - Which is a very nice example of a Past Simple passive, so I propose to get on to the Past Perfect Simple. That would be 'Gai had peeled the apples'." he added helpfully.

Iruka groaned. "Right. 'The apples had been peeled by Gai.'" Wait a moment! When had Kakashi-sen- Yes, all right, Kakashi taken over? "Let's start on the Future Tenses! Will-Future Simple: 'Gai will peel the apples.'"

"'The apples will be peeled by Gai.'" Kakashi said automatically, but then his brows drew together. "Doesn't make much sense, though..."

"Right, because there's neither inevitability nor spontaneity about Gai-sensei's apple-peeling endeavours, as long as Tsunade-sama doesn't send him on an apple-peeling mission. But what about 'Gai-sensei will challenge Kakashi'?"

"'Kakashi will be challenged by Gai!'" the Green Beast beamed "An excellent example!"

"Quite so." Iruka nodded indulgently. Gai-sensei was just wonderful at diversionary manoeuvres! By now Kakashi had obviously stopped fretting about the mission. "How about something a little more... challenging? The will-Future Perfect Simple? 'Gai will have peeled the apples in..." The teacher looked appraisingly at the laundry baskets. "...about an hour'?"

"Oh, I know!" Kakashi rudely pushed his comrade aside. "'The apples will have been peeled by Gai – a long time after I will be done with mine!'"

"According to grammatical rules that's correct." the teacher admitted, toying with the fountain-pen he used to jot down the new examples "Whether you'll really win the challenge is quite something else."

"I'll show you!" The speed with which the copy-nin peeled his apples increased considerably.

Gai winked at the teacher. "Come, Noble Iruka-sensei, the next tense!"

"'Noble Iruka'?" The young man chuckled. "See, Kakashi-sen... Kakashi, there's a man who knows how to treat a teacher!"

The jounin watched him through a half-lidded eye. "Next tense, oh worthiest of all the educators in this world!"

"You aren't as good at implied capitals as Gai-sensei, Kakashi." The insulted copy-nin took a deep breath to make amends, but Iruka stopped him before he was able to speak another syllable. "Next would be... the going to-Future Simple. 'Gai is going to peel the apples.'"

"'The apples are going to be peeled by Gai.'" the Green Beast said with a blinding smile.

"That sounds stupid." Kakashi muttered "As if the apples were queueing eagerly to be peeled."

"You're right. It sounds as if they had the intention of having something done to them."

"Masochistic apples!"

"The sentence is absolutely correct, but perhaps writers should be aware that a going to-Future passive might look unintentionally funny." The teacher made a note. "And it's even worse with the going to-Future Perfect! That's the reason why it isn't used in the passive all that often. The whole set-up can easily look ridiculous."

"So we don't need a sentence like..." Kakashi carefully constructed a going to-Future Perfect passive. "'The apples have been going to be peeled by Gai'?"

"Only if there ever is a sentient sort of apple, Kakashi. But... Wait... What about 'He has been going to...' No, sorry, stupid as well. Forget about it."

"So we are done with the Future Tenses?"

"We are done with the Simple Tenses, period." The teacher beamed at the two jounin.

"And now we are moving on to the Progressive Tenses, aren't we?" Gai asked eagerly and took another apple.

Iruka grabbed it from his hand and took a hearty bite. "Thanks." he munched "Let's start with the Present Progressive."

The green Beast's arm shot up and he snapped his fingers in the time-honoured way to annoy every teacher. Iruka's brow started to twitch immediately. "Yes, Gai-sensei?"

"That would be 'Gai is peeling the apples'."

"Exactly. - And the passive form?"

Kakashi lazily lifted one finger from his sticky kunai. "'The apples are being peeled by the teacher's pet.'"

"Kakashi-sensei! - But you're right about the form."

"Not only about the form. - Gai always was a teacher's pet."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Iruka reprimanded him, even though he secretly believed the copy-nin wasn't too far from the point. Maito Gai was well-known for trying to be friends with everybody and his addiction to impressing other people was one of his most obvious character traits. Why should he exclude his teachers from the people to impress?

"At least I know how to behave around other people, my Eternal Rival." Gai replied pompously and snatched an apple from the basket in front of Kakashi. They started to scuffle for it.

"Past Progressive!" the teacher snapped, exasperated.

The silver-haired nin let go of the apple of contention, sending Gai hurtling into the door frame. "'Gai was peeling the apples,'" he answered automatically, at the same time wondering why he did so. Was it the young teacher's voice? He had often heard Team 7 and loads of other shinobi talk about Iruka-sensei being able to make everybody cower in fear. A sound-based jutsu, perhaps? Or was it something to do with his eyes? Did the Umino family have a bloodline limit? He resolved to check the chuunin's family records as soon as possible.

Gai didn't bother with wondering why he obeyed – for him it was just common courtesy. His parents hadn't brought him up to be disrespectful to his teachers! "'The apples were being peeled by Gai.'"

"That's correct, Gai-sensei!"

Kakashi's kunai slipped when he saw Iruka smiling at Gai and giving him a thumbs up. "Will-Future Progressive!" he barked and wiped his bleeding finger at the uniform trousers he had borrowed from his host.

"'Gai will peel the apples.'" his self-proclaimed rival smiled, no, smirked. Smirked!

"And passive?"

Kakashi rudely shoved the Green Eye-sore out of the way. "'The apples will be being peeled', sensei!"

"A most ridiculous, if grammatically correct, sentence, Kakashi!" Iruka said with a broad smile and pulled a sticking plaster out of a pocket of his flak jacket. ("Be prepared!" was the motto of every single academy teacher.) "Don't you think I didn't see what you've done to my trousers!"

"Wait... Iruka-sensei's trousers?"

The copy-nin didn't react to Gai, but extended his hand to the teacher and let the cut be bandaged. "Kiss it better, Iruka?"

"Don't push your luck!" the chuunin said in a flat voice and added "Of course, this last example doesn't make a lot of sense. The will-Future Progressive passive is, again, one of those endangered tenses. - And that wraps up the chapter about the passive mode."

"Yeah!" Kakashi cheered "What's next?"

"The Conditional."

"If I had paid better attention, I would have known."

"You would, wouldn't you? If there's anybody who can remember all the stuff I've blathered, it's you!"

"No, it isn't." Kakashi shook his head and admitted grudgingly: "It's Gai, actually. If he had listened to your whole essay, he would have been able to predict what you were planning."

Iruka nodded thoughtfully. So his assumption had been right. It was impossible for an elite jounin to be as oblivious as Gai-sensei proclaimed to be.

The Green Beast blushed. "I would be very grateful if our Learned Iruka-sensei started on his Noble Endeavour of broadening our Eager Minds."

"More likely 'feeble mind', where you are concerned." Kakashi mumbled.

The teacher pointedly ignored the copy-nin and smiled at Gai (a far better punishment for Kakashi's bad behaviour than remonstrations, he had already discovered). "I guess by now most of you are wondering about the if-clauses, so we'll discuss them next, even though, strictly speaking, they aren't even real tenses. However, they are exceptionally useful.

Useful? For what?

We use them to talk about events which only happen under certain conditions (hence 'conditional') and we distinguish between three conditionals by measuring the probability of the condition.

Let's start with the First Conditional: 'If Iruka is at home, I'll visit him.'"

"Oh, are you talking about yourself in the 3rd person singular by now? Who do you think you are? Julius Caesar?"

Iruka took a deep breath. "It's just an example, Kakashi! - In this case I'm quite sure he's home – he doesn't go on many missions and has a rather predictable schedule, after all. If the condition is very probable, we use the First Conditional. To do so, we use the will-Future in the main clause and the Present Simple in the (subordinate) if-clause."

Gai-sensei opened his mouth, but Iruka stopped him in time. "Do you know what main and subordinate clauses are? Well, basically, the main clause is that part of a sentence which can stand alone and still form a complete sentence: 'I'll visit him.' If a subordinate clause is on its own, it is incomplete: 'If Iruka is home' – yes, what is going to happen then? We don't know. That's a subordinate clause. ToEFL teachers hate subordinate clauses which aren't connected to a main clause, but they can be very useful for writers of fictional texts. They either leave some room to be filled in by the reader or a message is hammered into his mind.

As a matter of fact, I just used a variant of the First Conditional to describe the different clauses: 'If a subordinate clause stands on its own, it's incomplete.' Here we've got an if-clause in the present Simple, but the main clause is in the Present Tense as well. Why? Because in this case we are talking about something that happens without fail under the given condition. 'If you don't pay attention in class, you write bad tests.'"

"Wait, what about geniuses like Shikamaru and me?" the copy-nin protested indignantly.

Iruka sighed. "All right. 'If an average student doesn't pay attention in class, he writes bad tests. But if geniuses like Kakashi write tests, they ace them without fail.' Better?"

"Better."

"Or 'If Kakashi doesn't hand in his mission report on time, I am seriously p- miffed."

Gai smirked. "But don't you know? 'If Iruka-sensei doesn't man the mission desk, Kakashi doesn't hand in his reports at all.'"

The teacher blushed and glanced at the copy-nin who had coloured faintly behind his make-shift mask, his skin-tone clashing violently with the colour of the scarf. Better not comment. "There's yet another version of the First Conditional: You can use it with an imperative. The imperative is the form of the verb used for orders. 'If you are home, turn in your report at once!'"

"If you see Gai, run!"

"If my Worthy Rival talks nonsense, don't listen to him!"

Iruka groaned. Just why had he agreed to writing this essay? "Let's move on to the Second Conditional. This is used for conditions which might occur, but are rather improbable. 'If Kakashi-sensei were at home, I would visit him.' Kakashi-sensei is almost always away for missions, so finding him at home is a rare event indeed."

"It might happen, though."

"Rarely enough." Gai pointed out, uncommonly sober, and added helpfully :"If you were looking for him, you should try the memorial."

"Thanks for the tip – and for pointing us to a variant of all the Conditionals. Sometimes they aren't formed with a Simple Tense, from time to time Progressives crop up as well. But back to the Second Conditional!"

Before Iruka could read on, Kakashi interrupted him: "We use a Past Tense – usually a Past Simple – for the if-clause and a..." He paused. "How do you call that?"

The teacher shrugged. "I'd simply say we'd use either would, could or should plus an infinitive if we wanted to form a Second Conditional."

"Because the modal auxiliaries are so very picky." Kakashi added "Like teenage girls."

Iruka smiled at him, making the copy-nin go all fluttery inside. "Exactly."

Gai, however, scratched his head, messing up his shiny hair. "I think you've lost me there."

Condescendingly Kakashi explained about the modal auxiliaries and their quirks, adding: "If you had read the essay, you would have known about this."

"Why, thank you, Kakashi! You've just introduced the Third Conditional!"

"Of course." The silver-haired nin complacently juggled with some apples, before dropping all but one of them. His kunai danced over its skin. "I'm just that awesome."

"Are you indeed... Anyway, the Third Conditional. 'If Kakashi-sensei had handed in his report, I wouldn't have been scolded by Tsunade-sama.'"

"Why are you scolded for my Eternal Rivals Deplorable Failure?" For once the Green Beast was flabbergasted.

Iruka shrugged. "I haven't got the foggiest. Go and ask her if you want to know!"

"Are you serious about that?" The copy-nin gave him a contrite look.

The teacher buried his face in his folder and continued: "We use the Third Conditional for impossible conditions. In most cases they are impossible because the opportunity was some time in the past, e. g. 'If I had had the time, I would have watched "Inception" in the cinema.' By now the film isn't shown at the Konoha Cinema any longer, so unfortunately I missed the opportunity to watch it."

"Isn't that the film about some guys who use some kind of genjutsu to steal or implant thoughts?"

"Apparently. At least that's what Kurenai-sensei says. She loved it, even though she didn't quite catch how they managed the jutsu. - As I said, I didn't watch it. Too much to do."

"Poor Iruka-sensei! Our Noble Hokage should not squander an Invaluable Asset like our Esteemed Iruka-sensei so... thoughtlessly."

"Hear, hear!" Kakashi nodded vigorously.

"Don't you think I might want to go on the odd mission or two for a change? It doesn't do to get all rusty." The teacher stretched his back. "How do we construct a Third Conditional?"

Gai thought about it for a moment. "We use the Past Perfect in the main clause" he finally said "and would, could or should followed by a Present Perfect in the main clause."

"E. g. 'If Gai hadn't been so loud, he could have crept up on us without our knowledge.'"

While marking the part of his essay Gai-sensei had just got right, Iruka wondered whether Kakashi had really heard his self-proclaimed rival or had just made it up to taunt the other man. The teacher hadn't seen or heard the taijutsu master until he had alighted on the wooden balustrade only a foot away from him.

The Green Beast drew himself up to his full height. "Herewith I challenge you to an exercise in stealth! We will... liberate the sake from our Worthy Hokage's office without her knowledge. And if I don't manage to do so before you, I'll... I'll bathe in a whole tub full of the worst rotgut on top of Hokage Mountain, singing a medley of drinking songs!"

"Are you nuts?" Iruka's bellow made the windows vibrate in their frames. "You want to take on Tsunade-sama?"

"You're on!" Kakashi said curtly "I'm looking forward to watching you immerse your battered taijutsuist body into a tub full of schnapps!"

Covering his eyes with his hand, the teacher shook his head. "Kami-sama! You haven't finished this challenge and you're already chomping at the bit to start the next one!"

"We are Konoha nin!" the Prideful Green Beast exclaimed in a stentorian voice "We challenge each other to keep our Youthful Competitive Spirit!" He managed an impressive good guy pose, complete with sunset backdrop, crashing waves and blinding smile, even though he was still holding a half-peeled apple in his hand.

"I don't know what to say..."

"You could go on with your essay!" Kakashi proposed helpfully. Gai nodded vigorously and gave Iruka yet another thumbs up.

"Umm... Right. I'm almost done anyway."

"So are we." replied Gai sunnily and pointed to the peeled apples.

"Great... Last chapter: The English Tenses – A Jigsaw-Puzzle.

After telling you at length about all those wonderful and perhaps a little confusing English tenses, I want to tell you a secret:-"

"Behold, I tell you a mystery!" Gai-sensei started to sing mellifluously.

The others gave him a blank look. "Why do you start with recitatives from "The Messiah" now?" Iruka wondered. Not that he was surprised by Gai-sensei liking baroque music. It was so over the top, it suited him to a tee.

"Sorry, I got carried away." Gai-sensei blushed a little.

"Apparently." Kakashi said "Please, go on, Iruka!"

"...I want to tell you a mystery, umm, sorry, secret: Constructing those tenses is easy if one only knows about the sequence of all the verbs needed. It's in some respect very much like a jigsaw puzzle: every part has just one specific place where it belongs.

Let's just for a moment do something a writer should avoid like the plague: mixing metaphors. (Do you know what a metaphor is? It's a picture made up from words to make a text more vivid and sometimes more easily understandable, e. g. "raven hair". The person with said hair hopefully hasn't huge black birds with vicious beaks sitting on his or her head -"

Kakashi snorted. "Sorry." He waved his hand apologetically, his kunai coming dangerously close to Gai's face. The taijutsuist didn't even budge an inch. "I just thought about Sasuke. - Do go on, sensei!"

What was it with that tone? The teacher suspiciously glanced at him, but did as he was bid and read on: "-but simply has black hair. Mixing metaphors means that you apply two different pictures at the same time. This almost infallibly lets your story sound very weird.) Up to this moment I've been talking about jigsaw puzzles, now I'm going to talk about my absolute favourites: books and bookshelves (I can plan the perfect outlay for some new shelving for hours on end. A guy can dream, can't he?)"

Thoughtfully the copy-nin looked up at the chuunin. "Is that so?"

"It is. - Why?"

"Oh, it's nothing..."

"Umm..." Just why did he get a really bad feeling right now? "Right. Now imagine all of the words you need to form a sentence as books in your shelf, books belonging to one series. What do you do if you want to find the right volume easily? You place them in a special sequence, first volume 1, then volume 2, then 3, 4, 5 and so on."

Gai opened his mouth, but Iruka hastily added: "This might not apply to copy-nin and other geniuses who are that awesome that they can find everything, no matter where they may have hidden it."

"Yes, a photographic memory is definitely a blessing." Kakashi smiled beatifically.

"I prefer my books in the right order, Kakashi. - Each of your helpers is a book and, even though sometimes not every book is in the shelf, the actual sequence doesn't change.

Not every helper is a verb, though. There are two things we haven't talked about at length until now: negations and adverbs."

"You are not planning on talking about adverbs now?" Gai gasped, remembering some exceptionally tedious lessons at the academy "You could write a whole essay just about them!"

Kakashi nodded. "Damn right!"

"I believe you're right, both of you. The correct placement of adverbs is complicated and doesn't really belong here. Perhaps I'll write something about them at a later date. Let it suffice to say that their placement in many cases depends on whether a sentence is positive or negative.

The other odd man out is the negation, the wonderful word "not". It is so weak that it can't stand on its own – rather like a very slim volume which keeps falling over if you don't prop it up with another book or a bookend."

"Well, it is a very slim volume." Kakashi pointed out "It contains just one word."

"'Not' always comes directly after the first helper – and if there isn't a helper, you have to add one just for the sake of the 'not'."

"As a bookend." Gai said.

"Exactly. - That helper is the verb 'to do', e. g. 'I ride my bike. / I do not ride my bike.'

Before you run away screaming, here's the actual sequence:

modal auxiliary or 'to do'

negation

'to have'

'to be'

main verb

Now that we know what goes where, we can start solving our jigsaw puzzle, to return to my first metaphor. - Hey, before you start solving the usual kind of jigsaw-puzzle you roughly try to sort the pieces as well, don't you? There are some rules to make the different pieces of the puzzle match – they should have corresponding shapes and colours. You don't just hammer them together any old way.

There are only four rules where the tenses are concerned – yes, 25 active and ten passive tenses and only four rules!

Summing them up will be the ending of my essay:

Modal auxiliaries are always followed by the infinitive.

"To have" is always followed by the 3rd form (to construct a Perfect Tense).

"To be" is either followed by nothing at all (as a full verb/main verb), by the -ing-form (to construct a Progressive Tense) or by a 3rd form (to construct a passive).

The full verb always comes last."

Iruka dropped his folder to his knees and looked up at his audience.

"And that's it?" Kakashi asked, stunned.

"Yes, that's it?" Gai chimed in.

"Gai-sensei, you only caught the tail-end of this paper and we had some mild fun coming up with examples and Kakashi-sen- Kakashi, you listened to it on three sittings."

"Did you, my friend?"

Kami-sama, was that Gai-sensei leering? Iruka wouldn't have thought it possible. If there was one really Pure-m- pure-minded shinobi in Konoha (Never mind the academy teacher's reputation of prudishness!), it was Gai-sensei! Frankly speaking, Iruka didn't care much about his grinning and winking, it looked decidedly creepy, what with those bushy brows dancing up and down, and even more theatrical than his other poses.

The baffled chuunin was still looking at the Green Beast, when the two jounin both reached for the final apple. After a short scuffle Kakashi got hold of it and stripped it out of its skin in an instant.

The two older men glared at each other and began counting apples. Iruka left them to it. Shinobi were born tricksters, so the pair of them knew every trick out of the book, and therefore were able to monitor each other well enough without him butting in.

After a while they were finished. "A draw." Gai said, slightly disappointed, but he perked up in seconds: "Ha, my Eternal Rival! You cannot best the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha!"

Kakashi shrugged. "Whatever."

If Gai was discouraged by his his friend's snooty behaviour, he didn't let it show. On the contrary, he gazed at the heaps of apples which already started to get brown. "That sure is a lot of apples." he said thoughtfully "What were you going to do with it again?"

"Mind like a sieve, that one!" The copy-nin pointed at him.

Iruka opened his mouth to repeat his plans, but Gai interrupted him, before he could utter one word. "It would be quite a lot of apple cake."

"You don't want Iruka to bake a cake for us, do you? He's far too busy for your shenanigans."

Iruka glanced innocently down at his ink-stained fingers. "Did you know that Kakashi is excellent at baking cakes?"

"Is he?" Gai looked at his rival through narrowed eyes.

Moaning blissfully the teacher added: "He baked such a lovely cake for me two weeks ago."

The moment Gai-sensei jumped to his feet Iruka knew he had won. "Herewith I challenge you to an Epic Apple Cake Baking Contest!"

"Iruka has only got one oven." the copy-nin pointed out, less than enthusiastic. He wanted some quality time with Iruka. Only Iruka. "It would be unfair if we took turns baking. You might study a lot of recipes while waiting."

Gai pointed theatrically to the sky. "Down to the bakery!" He grabbed a laundry basket full of apples and jumped down into the alley. "Come on, my Eternal Rival!"

With a grim smile Kakashi grabbed the second basket. Nobody stopped the most energetic shinobi of Konoha! "Get going, Iruka! - That's what you wanted all along, isn't it?"

Drat, he knew! The teacher felt his cheeks heating as he hoisted up the third basket and followed the two jounin. He arrived at the shop shortly after them, right in the moment Gai-sensei saw the scandalized baker from his own premises. The man looked at the teacher imploringly, but Iruka guiltily averted his eyes. No way could he help him against Gai's vigour! Kami-sama, he would have to do without bread, rolls and cake from now on. No way would the baker let him live this down. "I'm sorry!" he called after him.

"No, you aren't!" Kakashi said loud enough that the baker could hear him from the street "You wanted cake, after all. - You deliberately goaded Gai on, didn't you?"

Definitely no fresh bread any more. Miserably Iruka followed the silver-haired nin into the bakery where the two jounin planted him onto a chair in a corner without any further ado. 'Out of harm's way' he thought with a sinking feeling. Suddenly this challenge didn't sound as much fun any longer. What were those two up to? He tried to slice some of the apples to a manageable size for his extractor, but Gai-sensei – the ever-polite Gai-sensei! - rudely snatched the basket from his hands. The jounin divvied the fruit up between them. After weighing them they started dividing all the other ingredients in the bakery in two equal parts.

"You don't want..." Iruka squeaked to no avail. - Nobody listened to him. This was unacceptable! He jumped up and shouted: "Just one cake each!"

The two men turned to him, blank-faced, but then they both started to grin manically and told him it wouldn't be possible to compare their Culinary Achievements from just one Measly Cake! - And there were so many completely different, but equally Wonderful Recipes. Wouldn't it be unfair to compare a simple yeast cake to a sumptuous gateau?

Well, Iruka grudgingly had to admit they had a point.

As soon as he had conceded it to them, the two jounin really got down to work, measuring ingredients (pinching some from each other, but since they did so in an equal manner Iruka didn't interfere – tough luck for the one who let stuff go missing!), sifting flour, chopping and grating hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews and almonds, marinating fruit in alcohol... The teacher had a hard time keeping an eye on them through all the flour getting stirred up in the bakery. Thus he almost missed the copy-nin making hand-signs. Snake, sheep, monkey, boar, horse, ti- "Stop that at once, Kakashi!" he thundered "Are you mad?"

Both men flinched and turned around to him. Kakashi rubbed his itching nose, generously painting the green scarf with white smudges.

Iruka looked as flushed as if he were going to suffer from apoplexy. "A Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu! You can't seriously be thinking of using a fire jutsu in a room where the air is thick with flour! Do you want to blow up the bakery?" He knew what he was talking about: Only last year he had blown up a mill, in which some missing nin had set up headquarters, by hanging an old sack half filled with flour from a beam, tied up by a thin rope which he had burned through with a candle flame, so that the sack emptied itself over a small fire. The explosion that he had watched from a long way off had been spectacular, if he said so himself. "If you want to make some caramel, do it the proper way!"

Meekly Kakashi turned on the stove and set the saucepan with the sugar on top. He glanced over to smirking Gai – kami-sama, how embarrassing to get that badly carried away that he forgot about flour explosions! Especially since he knew only too well about Iruka's mission: Anko, who had been team leader on that memorable occasion, had praised her resourceful team-mate to the skies whenever anybody leant her an ear, nearly equalling Gai in gushing about the teacher. As far as Kakashi recalled the affair had resulted in yet another invitation to test for jounin – and Iruka declining as usual. Tsunade had not been amused. In retribution she had almost drowned him in double-shifts at the mission desk and her office, having him do her tax return, hunting for misplaced receipts all over town and trying to file gambling debts under 'expenses'. (Iruka had been dismayed when he realized how many foreign emissaries knew about her gambling habit and used it against her and Konoha!) The copy-nin had stumbled upon him in a bar where he was trying to wheedle a receipt out of the landlord, so he could file the tab as expenses for entertaining an ambassador from Suna and after the copy-nin had soused him up that evening, Iruka told him about his plight. Just why the chuunin kept employing his considerable wit to avoid promotion really escaped the jounin. He couldn't love teaching those kneecap biters that much, could he? That was just... wrong. Creepy.

He glanced at the teacher from the corner of his eye and was rewarded by the sight of a drooling Iruka. So it wasn't only chocolate... Kakashi mentally filed the information away. A regular sweet tooth, his Iruka. He couldn't resist the smell of caramel and drew closer to a triumphant copy-nin – only to douse him in cold water: "If I were you, I'd take the pot from the flame before your caramel's completely burnt!"

Kakashi swore under his breath and pulled the saucepan away, burning his fingers on the hot handle. "It's just the way I need it." he claimed and found an oven cloth to wrap around it "Do you want to try some?" He enticingly waved the pan in front of Iruka's nose.

"I'm not that daft, Kakashi!"

The copy-nin looked at him, deeply hurt. "Hey, I don't want to bribe our referee. Far be it from me!"

The teacher clarified: "I'm not that daft that I would try to eat liquefied sugar! That stuff's at least 340°F hot!" He should know: the melting point of various materials was part of the curriculum at the academy. It was very useful knowledge if you wanted to set traps.

"Oops... My bad."

"Just use it for whatever cake you wanted it for." The teacher sniffed regretfully. "It smells great, though..."

"Why don't I just set some of it aside for you? You might eat it once it's cooled off."

"Now, that does sound a little bit like bribery to me..." Laughing, Iruka returned to his chair in the corner and resumed watching the two men, his arms crossed over his chest. He almost wished his students were here to witness this. Two equally experienced elite jounin doing the same type of work, but so different from each other... Gai-sensei, all flashy moves, boisterous and showy, Kakashi, with lightning speed, flitting about without a single superfluous movement. Iruka took some time to watch the Green Beats closely and suddenly realized how much he accomplished whenever people were lured to look the other way by his expansive gestures. There was definitely a lot more to his fighting style than brute force and speed. In his way he was as subtle as Kakashi, but while the copy-nin chose a mask of invisibility, Gai-sensei chose one of diversion.

The teacher contemplated inviting the pair of them to the academy for a demonstration, but decided against it. It didn't bear thinking about what those two would get up to in front of his poor students if they were together! Only too well did he remember the day he had asked Gai-sensei to do a demonstration of taijutsu at the academy – Kakashi really hadn't needed to remind him that Gai-sensei wasn't called "Beast" without reason. Not only had the green-clad man weirded the students out with his mannerisms (Some parents had come to complain about their precious tykes' nightmares featuring green monsters the next day.), he had also brought Lee-kun along and watching those two get down to work had been an education in itself. Iruka hadn't believed it possible to train that hard and brutally. Had he known about Gai-sensei's training methods, he'd never agreed to his appointment as jounin-sensei at all! When Gai-sensei had invited him for a little "sparring session" that day, he'd almost chickened out, but, well, he was far too proud to be seen as a scaredy-cat by his students. Even to this day he was grateful that Gai-sensei had treated him like a gentleman and not thrown him through the walls of the dojo. He'd prefer sparring with Kakashi any day, though. He thought.

Both jounin had decided to try their hands at apple strudel – to Iruka's delight and awe. He had studied the recipe and silently opted to forget about it. The preparation of the dough wasn't exactly easy. And now those two elite jounin were standing in the middle of the bakery vieing with each other for the thinnest dough. They had rolled it out and stretched it with their hands that thin that Iruka was able to see the pockets of Gai-sensei's flak jacket through it.

"Kakashi!"

Iruka nearly toppled from his chair when Tsunade burst through the door, shouting at the top of her voice. The baker hid behind her, but not well enough that Iruka couldn't see his 'saves them right'-face.

The spooked copy-nin dropped his dough, but thankfully Gai had the presence of mind to dive for it and save it. The Green Beast looked scandalized at his Hokage. How dare she interrupt this challenge?

Tsunade heard the scraping of Iruka's chair on the tiled floor and turned on him. "What were you thinking? Kakashi -"

Iruka drew up up to his full height and graced her with the smile that wrapped nearly everybody around his little finger. "Kakashi-sensei and Gai-sensei kindly volunteered to help me with... a bake-sale in favour of the orphanage."

She crossed her arms under her far too ample breast and tapped her foot. "A bake-sale?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes, I... I was just going to..." Through the open back door he caught sight of Konohamaru who had followed Tsunade when it looked as if something interesting was going on and caught him by the sleeve, smiling blindingly at him.

Tsunade wondered whether he might be somehow acquainted to Gai. There couldn't be two unrelated people with such a dangerous smile? A bloodline limit? Something worth investigating...

Bless the boy for being that nosy! "I was just going to tell Konohamaru to summon as many people as possible to the sale at the assembly hall of the academy at... nine o'clock. Right, nine. - Get going, boy! And ask Udon and Moegi to help you!" he nodded encouragingly at his student. "It's ever so kind that those two elite jounin have decided to volunteer for those who are in need of help. - You know how poorly funded the orphanage is."

"Umm..." Yes, she did – she had had to listen to both the orphanage's director's and Iruka-sensei's pleas for more money often enough. The young teacher's remonstrations had become rather more pointed since she had badgered him into doing her tax return. On second thought it hadn't been her best idea to grant him an insight into her finances.

Somebody cleared his throat in her back. "Good idea, Iruka-sensei." Ibiki said, glaring at the copy-nin "I'll certainly come and try some cake. - Oh, Kakashi... You and Gai will report to me about... the result tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock sharp. - Gai, I'll hold you responsible for your punctuality."

Both jounin stood to attention. "Yes, sir!"

"I'll go and spread the news about your bake-sale. Are you coming, Tsunade-sama? There's something I'd like to discuss with you." He turned and slammed his hand on the quaking baker's shoulder. Having to watch his scarred face from such close quarters wasn't exactly producing warm and fuzzy feelings in the civilian. The shinobi in the bakery almost pitied him. "Well done, young man. We greatly appreciate how you support the community." Brushing some flour from his black coat, the head of ANBU T&I turned and left as suddenly as he had appeared. Tsunade followed him, before Iruka could make any embarrassing remarks about the village's finances.

The chuunin's knees threatened to give out under him, so he hastily plopped down into his chair again. Saved by Ibiki... He could hardly believe it.

"That was some quick thinking." Kakashi said.

Iruka anxiously looked up at him. "Are you in trouble?"

"Not more than usual." The jounin shrugged. "Back to work, the time's running out. - Oi, Iruka?"

"Yes?"

"How about some posters?"

"Right!" The teacher dashed into the shop and fetched some of the sheets of paper the baker used to wrap his goods. With a thick felt-tip pen (Yes, he didn't only carry scrolls and weapons in the pockets of his flak jacket. Sometimes the pen is more powerful than the sword, after all. And more useful.) he wrote the invitations on the backside, shoved them into the shop-owner's hands and instructed him to hang them up around town. The poor man left, still quaking in his shoes after his close encounter of the Ibiki kind.

Iruka clapped his hands. "Get going, the pair of you!" He looked at the clock at the wall. "You've got just one more hour to finish. We've got to haul the whole stuff to the academy, after all."

The jounin blurred into action.

One hour later the three shinobi dragged carts full of cake to the assembly hall. With the help of Chouza and Chouji (who had already been waiting in front of the doors for the sale to begin – trust Akimichi to turn up where there is food!) Iruka organized some tables and put every discreetly marked cake neatly in its place. The whole thing would be pointless if there weren't a way to distinguish between Kakashi's and Gai-sensei's cakes – and after all that trouble no-one wanted the challenge to fizzle out without resolve.

Two more academy teachers turned up out of the blue, offering to make coffee. What was cake without coffee, they argued and the coffee-junkie Iruka agreed from the bottom of his heart.

He sat Gai-sensei down at the till and waited for the copy-nin to open the doors. The baker, Konohamaru and Ibiki had done a great job – the citizens of Konoha were thronging at the academy's gates. Iruka explained what they were doing here to his impatient audience (There were Akimichi out for cake!). For 100 ryo the visitors were allowed to eat as much cake as they wanted, coffee had to be paid extra. After paying their entrance fee they got a marble which they were to throw into the box in front of their favourite cake before leaving. "Understood? Right, then welcome!" The teacher hardly managed to jump out of the way of the invading Konohans, as they rushed past him and clustered around the till.

The baker came over to Iruka, looking rather stunned by the turn-out of cake-eaters. "All very well that you thanked me for the use of my bakery, but who's going to pay for all the ingredients those two nicked?"

"Well..."

An arm landed heavily on the chuunin's shoulder. "Gai and I always pay our debts." Kakashi promised without consulting his comrade first. Iruka supposed asking the deeply honourable Gai would be unnecessary anyway. He turned to the baker. "I certainly don't want to throw an expert out, but why don't you go and replenish your stocks? You can hand me the bill tomorrow morning and I'll make sure we pay you for the damages."

Pacified, the baker left.

"You are aware that that's going to be quite expensive, aren't you?" Iruka asked Kakashi.

"Oh, well, the fun was worth it." The jounin moved yet a little closer to the teacher who seemed oblivious to the arm still slung around his shoulder.

Iruka laughed hollowly. "Fun?"

"Oh, quite so." Kakashi chucked 100 ryo into the till, reached into the big box of marbles and handed one to Iruka. "Go and have some cake, referee! - Isn't it ridiculous that the sweet tooth who coaxed us into this challenge hasn't eaten one piece of cake until now?"

"Now you're saying it..." The chuunin armed himself with a plate and fork before he started walking down the battery of cakes, leaving Kakashi behind. It wouldn't do to let him influence him any further. He nibbled only the smallest bits of cake – there was so much of it, so many, many different ones. So many delicious ones! He wondered how the two jounin had been able to memorize all those recipes. So all right, Kakashi had a photographic memory, no surprise there, but Gai-sensei? Nobody had ever claimed he had a remarkable memory – unless people were going on about how remarkable bad it was. He had forgotten about meeting a weird-looking bingo-book villain like Kisame, but he knew all those recipes by heart? And it wasn't as if somebody with such a hard training regimen were eating loads of cake... Gai-sensei puzzled him more and more the longer he thought about him.

The young teacher tried a little of an apple gateau, felt whipped cream melting and flaked almonds crackling on his tongue and the combined taste of apples and cinnamon exploding in his mouth. This was so, so good! His legs almost gave out under him in sheer bliss.

A soft buzzing reached his ear. "If you don't rein in your bugs, Aburame-sama," he said without even turning around "I'll be seriously annoyed."

"Don't worry. I'd be loath swallowing some of them." Shibi loaded some of the gateau onto his plate and took a bite. "Nice." he commented quietly "Perhaps a little lacking in apple flavour."

"If you want more fruit, try that one!" Iruka pointed to a cake to his right. "Shortcrust pastry, loads of apple filling and a topping of whipped cream, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar." he moaned, enraptured (Shibi was reminded of a film he had once had been dragged to the cinema to watch with his wife, some comedy called "When Harry met Sally" - he still didn't know why. There hadn't been any bugs in it.) "Delicious." Iruka continued " Rather like a much simpler version of this here." He tapped with his fork on his empty plate.

The Aburame clan-leader helped himself to a piece of the cake the teacher had recommended. "Not bad at all." he said full of approval.

"One of my favourites so far." Iruka confided.

"So this year you decided to raise money for the orphanage instead of delivering food directly."

"I didn't plan to do so. Things just happened." He related the story of the apple-peeling challenge and the way it had somehow led to an apple-cake baking challenge. No word about Kakashi dropping by after his mission crossed his lips, however.

Shibi glanced at the copy-nin in his unusual garb and nodded slowly. It was unnecessary to say anything. "We can easily provide you with some more fruit. The kids at the orphanage need vitamins like everybody else."

"Aburame-sama..."

"It's all right. The harvest was good this year. - And I'm sure Kakashi will help you with your work." His dark glasses flashed when he raised his head to look at the teacher. "Just be quiet about it to Gai or you'll have the next challenge on your hands."

"I fear so." Iruka took a cup of coffee from one of his colleagues, dutifully paying for it. "Thank you! - But he's doing a great job collecting money for the kids."

He was indeed. Gai had placed a huge glass jar next to the till. Most guest hastily threw some coins or bills into it before bolting past the broadly smiling man into the assembly hall.

"He's blabbing so much that they donate money just to get rid of him." Shibi snickered quietly and pointed with his chin towards the till. A dazed looking Hyuuga Hiashi was just throwing a rather hefty sum into the jar. In his back Neji and Hinata couldn't resist smiling (Neji smiling! Now Iruka was absolutely sure this was a red-letter day.). Little Hanabi solemnly sacrificed some of her pocket-money, her sister and cousin following suit.

"Sometimes I'd like to cuddle Hanabi!" Iruka smiled, earning him a shocked look from Shibi - not that the teacher would have been able to read it without having taught Shino for some years. The way the Aburame hid behind dark glasses and high collars made it quite an effort.

"Cuddling with a Hyuuga?" Kakashi spoke up in the chuunin's back "You must harbour a secret death wish!" He placed small squares of yeast cake onto Iruka's and Shibi's plates. "Try this! - Oh, and Iruka?"

"Yes?"

"If you want to cuddle, look for someone your own size!"

"Hmm... Izumo? Kotetsu?" He winked at Shibi and slung an arm around him. "Aburame-sama, perhaps?" A cloud of bugs rose indignantly from the grey coat.

"Oi!" Kakashi drew the teacher away. "You cuddle with me!"

"Present Simple? Something I do regularly?"

"Starting today."

"You didn't even ask me..." Iruka coyly turned his back on him and started on his yeast-cake. "Hmm..." Simple, but absolutely delicious.

"Some whipped cream?" Chouji came over with a bowl of cream.

"No, thank you. - These are the perfect apples for such a cake, cream would only spoil it."

"Do you think so?" The tubby shinobi loaded his own plate with two pieces of yeast-cake and spooned whipped cream onto one of them. He seriously tried both of them. "You have a point there..."

The teacher nodded, shoved the last bite of his cake into his mouth and gulped down some coffee after it. "What's next? Apple muffins? - No, that's too much. Would you share one with me, Abu- Oh, he's gone. - Well, what about you, Kakashi?"

"Let's share." The jounin threw a muffin into the air, a kunai flashed (letting all shinobi in the room stand to attention) and two neatly cut halves tumbled into his hand. "Here you are, Iruka!"

"Thanks." Companionably they nibbled their muffin.

"What do you think?" the copy-nin asked.

"As if I would tell you of all people! I'm supposed to be some sort of referee here!"

"Ah, yes, right.." Slightly disappointed Kakashi gave him some room. "In that case, I'll just... I'll let you go on sampling, right?"

"Thanks. Why don't you relief Gai-sensei from the till?"

"Because nobody's as good at badgering people into donating money as him."

"Yes, in some respect he's amazing." Through the thin scarf Iruka saw how the jounin's lower lip wobbled. "Not like you, though." He gently patted Kakashi's upper arm. "Get going! Find something to do, will you?"

The jounin's eyes widened as he looked over Iruka's shoulder. "Yes, I'll better be on my way. Perhaps I'll start doing the dishes." He rushed off towards the other end of the assembly hall.

Iruka turned round and found Ibiki contemplatively looking down on him while munching a piece of apple strudel. "Not bad." the head of T&I said after a carefully calculated pause "Who'd have thought they were such marvellous bakers?"

The teacher tried to hide his rattled nerves. "Yes, I was surprised as well." he said worriedly. So Ibiki had really turned up. "Are you fond of apple cake?"

"I'm partial to it." the heavily scarred ANBU admitted gravely and wiped some icing sugar from his lips "But I'm even more partial to stability."

"Stability, Ibiki-sama?"

"Hmm..." He grabbed a muffin. "Are those any good?"

"I'm not too keen on the combination of this kind of dough with apples, I'm afraid."

"Is that so? - I want to see you in my office tomorrow."

"Me?" Iruka squeaked. Kami-sama, he was already in trouble because of Kakashi!

Ibiki took a hearty bite into his muffin. "Well, I like it. - Yes, right after school." He turned to walk away.

"I'll ask... Aoba to take my shift at the mission desk." the teacher said, trembling.

"Do so."

As soon as he was gone, an alarmed Chouji came closer. "Is anything wrong, Iruka-sensei?"

'I wonder.' "No, of course not!" He gave his former student a fake smile. "Why should it?"

"Oh, I don't know..." the youngster replied – even though he could imagine quite a few reasons for trouble. He had heard stories about Iruka-sensei, stories about his trickery and the way he spoke up to his betters. "But that was Ibiki..."

"It was indeed. Perhaps he wants to discuss my lesson plans."

"Ibiki?"

"Well, he might think I don't teach the kids sufficiently about the art of persuasion." His smile widened until it looked like a feeble Gai-smile. "I might ask him to hold a lecture at the academy one day."

"The babies would wet their pants!"

Kakashi popped up at Iruka's side, feeling guilty for having left him in the lurch with his boss. "At least they would find out what might happen to shinobi who get caught." he said. For some reason he needed to be close to his friend right now. Ibiki... What did he want from Iruka? He didn't want to punish Iruka for Kakashi's transgression, did he? The copy-nin knew only too well what happened to people who found out about the identity of ANBU – he had disappeared one or two of them himself. Kami-sama, what had he done? He had endangered his friend for the petty reason that he himself had been miserable! But no way could Ibiki kill Iruka, could he, not the best and most popular academy teacher they had ever had! If Iruka were gone there would be an uproar shaking the whole village. He shuddered when he only tried to imagine how Naruto would react.

The chuunin worriedly looked up to him. "Kakashi?"

"Eh? - Oh, it's nothing. - Why don't you go an sampling cakes? You haven't tried the strudel yet, have you?"

Without commenting Iruka took the next piece of cake. Apple strudel, yumm! He watched the scarecrow skittering back to doing the dishes. A Kakashi as nervous as that wasn't exactly what he had hoped for – he needed to relieve the stress from his mission, not to add some more to it. And then there was this short conversation with Ibiki. It had rattled him more than he would have thought possible, more than he could let on for the sake of his students and, even more so, for the copy-nin. His nerves killed his sense of taste. Worriedly he munched on the paper-thin dough and for all he tasted it could have been paper anyway.

"You don't like apple strudel, do you?" a downcast voice said behind him.

Iruka had to turn round to recognize Gai-sensei, who had relinquished his post to Lee-kun. Strange, his voice sounded completely different now. "Oh, I do!" the teacher assured him.

"Then it's something else?" the jounin guessed and looked around. "...Ibiki?"

"Well..." Iruka kept his eyes trained on the floor.

"Kakashi is a far too valuable asset – he'll get off lightly."

"If you say so."

"And Ibiki won't do anything to upset him any farther." Gai added shrewdly "You know Kakashi and his, well..."

Iruka nodded slightly.

"My guess is that Ibiki is curious about why Kakashi came to you in his hour of need instead of holing up in his own flat and he might want to discuss how to employ Kakashi's infatuation."

Kami-sama... Iruka suddenly remembered reading a wrongly filed report a psychologist had written about a new programme he proposed to support jounin and specifically ANBU. What had it be called again? The "Touchstone Project"? Had it ever been implemented? Oh my...

"Don't you worry." Gai heartily slammed his big hand on the teacher's shoulder, making Iruka's knees buckle.

"What are you doing to m-... Iruka?" Kakashi suddenly popped up next to them, glaring at his friend.

"Nothing, my Eternal Rival! Nothing but asking our Esteemed Teacher whether he enjoys the Uplifting Fervour of our Beloved Fellow Citizens."

Iruka's face softened. "You certainly made them cough up quite some money."

"Oh, I don't think my Gentle Admonishments are of any Greater Importance. Our Worthy Fellow Citizens are imbued with the Ardent Wish to help those in Dire Straights."

Kakashi dug Iruka in the ribs and murmured: "Kami-sama, don't let him start singing again!"

That had sounded more like the Gai Iruka knew! Relieved, he beamed at the Green Beast. "Sometimes they need a little reminding – and who would be better suited to that purpose than you?"

Kakashi snorted. "He prattles so much they pay up as ransom!"

Shaking his head, Iruka handed his empty cup to one of his colleagues. "As long as it works..."

"I'll return to bullying our guests then!" Gai grabbed (and paid) two cups of coffee. "If that's the only thing I'm good at..."

Oh, he was good at a lot of things – things Iruka wouldn't have believed to be possible. Things like easing his mind. He felt Kakashi bristle at his side and turned around. Tsunade strolled through the hall, followed by Shizune. Tonton was almost going berserk: the smells were just too tempting. "Oh my..." The teacher edged a little closer to Kakashi. Should they try to escape? Too late – the Hokage had discovered her two subordinates and steered towards them.

"Your bake-sale goes well, it seems." Tsunade said. Half hidden behind her, a blushing Shizune stuttered a greeting to the chuunin and almost forgot saying hello to Kakashi. If looks could kill, she'd have dropped to the floor right now and Iruka seriously doubted whether Tsunade would be able to revive her. She'd drop dead again at the continued venomous looks. The copy-nin glowered at her, slipping an arm possessively around Iruka's waist. For once the chuunin didn't try to wriggle out of the close contact. Perhaps this finally drove it home to Shizune that he just wasn't interested, sorry, more subtle methods like wearing a discreet rainbow flag badge on his flak jacket hadn't worked. Watching her mournful looks out of a corner of his eye, he felt almost sorry for her. "It's a pity you're so late." he said to the two women "Most of the cake is already eaten."

"So I see." Tsunade handed the shrilly squeaking Tonton to Shizune who relievedly scooted off to get them some cake.

"Perhaps another hour before everything's gone." Kakashi estimated without releasing Iruka from his hold "You have to hurry up if you want to sample everything, Iruka!"

"After today I won't be able to look at an apple for a long time!" the chuunin moaned. He leant back against Kakashi and smiled. "You two have done such a marvellous job and baked such a load of cake!"

"No doubt imbued with youthful spirit and a will of fire." Tsunade said drily. "I'll better go and protect Shizune from your watchdog, Iruka."

The copy-nin nodded curtly. "Do so."

They watched their Hokage amble through the hall, talking to people and eating cake. From time to time she glanced disgustedly at her coffee cup.

Iruka bravely took it upon himself to try every single cake he hadn't sampled yet, taking great care not to let Kakashi out of his sight. He had not forgotten about the challenge to liberate the Hokage's sake – and he couldn't deny he liked being close to him, even though they were the butt of many a joke. So what? He managed to snatch the last piece of apple pie from the greedy hands of a disappointed Akimichi, nibbled it and found it was good.

Now that every last crumb of all those cakes was gone, he sent Kakashi back to the till to help Gai with counting money. As soon as his... friend? Boyfriend even?... had turned his back, he flitted back to the box in front of the empty plate of that wonderful shortcrust cake with the whipped cream and cinnamon-sugar. He quietly dropped his marble into it. From the muffled click following it he gathered that this cake had been the favourite of quite a lot of people. While Kakashi, Gai and Lee-kun were still counting money, Iruka, Shizune (a very mopy Shizune) and Iruka's fellow teachers started counting marbles.

They finally convened to compare their lists and Iruka took note of the three most popular cakes.

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee-kun!"

Oh my... That meant they had finished counting as well. The teacher strolled over to Kakashi (who looked as if he'd prefer to be in the middle of Otogakure right now), Gai-sensei and Lee-kun. The latter two were crying profusely. "Are you done?" he asked, ignoring their emotional display.

"Oh, yes, we are! Iruka-sensei, I am Deeply Moved to announce-"

Iruka hastily interrupted him: "Wait, Gai-sensei! Be deeply moved when you announce the proceeds to the public!"

"You want him to speak to the public?" Kakashi's brows rose until they almost disappeared under the hair flopping into his face this evening.

He had a point, but the teacher disregarded it. "Yes, of course, he made a lot of it after all." He grinned. "Did you see Hyuuga Hiashi's face when he was standing at the till?"

"But, Iruka-"

"I hope you're brief, though, Gai-sensei. I've got to announce the winner of your challenge afterwards."

Both jounin perked up. So Iruka had the results of their challenge? "Nee, Iruka..."

The teacher indulgently ruffled Kakashi's hair. "After we know how much money we've made." he promised.

"Then get on with it!" Kakashi pushed both Iruka and Gai onto the stage.

"May I have your attention?" the teacher called – not loud, but with that tone which made both students and adults listen up now. "We have finished counting! - Please, Gai-sensei, would you be so kind?"

A collective groan went through the assembly hall.

The manically grinning Gai ignored it. " I am Deeply Moved by-"

"Oh, get on with it!" somebody yelled, and others murmured their agreement – until Iruka shot them a withering glance. Suddenly they were all on their best behaviour.

The Green Beast blithely roared on: "-the Unprecedented Magnanimity of the Gentle and Helpful Citizens of Konoha."

Kakashi who was standing next to Iruka groaned and mumbled: "See? That's going to take ages!"

The chuunin discreetly rustled with the piece of paper he was holding in his hand.

Gai's eyes were drawn to it. "We had 457 visitors which makes 457,000 ryo, the coffee brought another 2,805 ryo" he said eagerly "and in addition our Generous Citizens donated... 432,849 ryo."

A collective gasp went through his audience.

"You really did your Beloved Village proud! - This means we have collected... 892,654 ryo for the orphanage. And since the academy's Most Generous Headmaster has agreed to let us use this Wonderful Location for free and even donated the Fragrant Coffee of which we partook this Glorious Evening, the whole sum goes to the orphanage!" He bowed to his audience.

Tsunade whistled softly. What she could make out of that sum at the casino... "Thank you for your short summing up of the proceeds, Gai." She nodded at him in dismissal and turned to the waiting crowd. "And thank you for your generosity! - As far as I have gathered Iruka-sensei has something else to tell you."

"Yes, thank you, Tsunade-sama, Gai-sensei!" His head bobbed in two small, grateful bows, before he turned to the assembled Konohan citizens. "And thank you all for donating so much!" His smile warmed the whole crowd. "As you all know, Kakashi and Gai-sensei were competing against each other for the best cake. We have by now counted your votes and I must admit I'm slightly surprised, but at the same time deeply gratified. The results show that sometimes simple beats refined and plain beats sumptuous. Our two Wonderful Bakers -" He stalled when he realized he was channelling Gai-sensei. "- were leading a neck to neck race until the very end. - In third place we have an apple strudel with just a tiny hint of cider adding that certain zing to it, baked by... Kakashi. - Well done, Kakashi!"

The copy-nin nodded tightly.

"Second place goes to a classic as well: a simple yeast cake with deliciously fluffy dough, not too thick, not too thin, and expertly chosen apples – once again baked by Kakashi!"

By now Gai-sensei looked slightly disappointed.

"First place goes to a variant of the classic apple pie: a cake made of shortcrust pastry, filled with a fruity apple filling and topped with whipped cream, sprinkled with the classic combination of sugar and cinnamon. So the winner is..." He made a show of looking at his paper. "Congratulations, Gai-sensei!"

"Yeah!" Gai gave them good guy pose no 3, blinding the audience with his flashing smile. Lee-kun crowed in joy and pride and hugged a deeply embarrassed Neji.

"And that wraps up this wonderful evening!" Iruka hastily added, before Gai-sensei could break out into a speech "Let me thank you once more for your participation. Good night!"

The room emptied in a trice. Everybody knew what a thank-you speech of Gai was like, namely loud, long-winded and boring. In the end only Iruka, Tsunade, Shizune, the two jounin, Hinata and Team Gai remained.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee-kun launched himself at his beloved mentor.

"Lee-kun!" Teacher and student hugged each other tearfully, while Neji and Tenten tried to look as if they didn't know those two embarrassing people.

"Right!" Iruka clapped his hands. "There's still a lot to do. We need to do the dishes and tidy the assembly hall."

"That's our job!" Neji said, pointing to his team-mates and Hinata "Let us contribute something to this evening as well."

"Well, in that case..."

"Why don't you give me the money, Iruka-sensei?" Tsunade proposed. Shizune blanched and made frantic rejecting movements behind her back. "I'll keep it over night and hand it to the director of the orphanage first thing tomorrow."

"Thank you for your offer, Hokage-sama." Iruka bowed to her with a steely smile. "But we'll come by the bank on our way home. The manager lives on the premises and will surely credit such an amount to the orphanage even this late."

"Doubtlessly you have befriended him, Iruka-sensei."

"I had to spend a lot of time in his presence trying to find out about some money transactions while doing a tax return."

"Is that so?"

"Don't you fear for our Stalwart Iruka-sensei's safety!" Gai boomed "Nobody will dare attack a chuunin as Capable as the Talented and Strong-minded Educator of Konoha's Budding Youth!" He grinned slyly. "Least of all today, since my Eternal Rival accompanies him."

"He does what?" Shizune sputtered. Sure, Kakashi had been all over Iruka the whole evening, but no way would the teacher allow that slob into his flat!

"He has to, hasn't he?" Iruka said with a straight face "His clothes are still in my washing machine."

"Do you think they will be dry by noon tomorrow?"

"Ha, that must be one of your Hip and Modern Jokes! I'll be on the Gentle Iruka-sensei's doorstep at 07:45 tomorrow morning to accompany you to our Most Important Meeting with the Staunch Ibiki."

Kakashi closed his eyes. Oh no – Gai never broke his promises.

Iruka looked at the clock on the wall. "In that case we'd better get going. It's past midnight and I'd like to sleep for one or two hours tonight." Smiling, he held a hand out to Kakashi. "Come on, let's go home!"