New multi-chapter story!
characters (c) Masashi Kishimoto
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"Mist Village?" Kakashi cocked his head to one side as he took the scroll from the godaime. "What do they want with us?"
"I'm not sure." Tsunade laced her fingers together, "But the whole mission request stinks to high heaven."
"You think so?"
"When was the last time you can remember a village requesting an independent review of their training program?" She snorted. "When was the last time you can remember Mist Village requesting anything from us?"
"Maa, point taken." Kakashi carefully rolled the scroll closed. "You want me to be careful."
"Are you ever not careful? I want you to be more than careful; I want you to be on your guard." She rose to her feet. "I want you to find out why they're requesting something like this."
"I'll be on my way, then." Kakashi pocketed the scroll.
"Not on your own."
"Eh? I thought you somewhat were worried about this being a trap."
"I am." Tsunade strode to the window and rested her hands on sill. "But I'm also worried that it's legitimate. And you're not exactly the soul of tact and diplomacy."
Kakashi clutched his hand to his heart. "Maa, I am deeply wounded."
Tsunade punched his arm, and he was grateful that she hadn't put all of her considerable force behind it.
"So who's joining me?" A tentative knock followed right on the heels of his statement. "Well, whoever it is, they've got perfect timing."
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Enter."
"Iruka-san."
"Kakashi-san." Iruka didn't even completely cross the threshold, pausing with one hand on the doorknob, and was clearly in full preparation to flee. "I'm sorry; I can come back."
Tsunade gaped at the murderous intent rolling off the two shinobi and leaned over to Shizune, who was currently huddled in the corner. "Did something happen that I'm not aware of?"
"It must have been before we got here…."
Iruka's narrowed gaze finally slid off Kakashi. "You wanted to see me, Tsunade-sama?"
"Yes, I have a mission for you." Iruka looked puzzled when she didn't hold out a scroll for him. "Kakashi has the information."
"He's the one who's coming on this mission?" Kakashi snapped.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Is this lowly chuunin going to be a burden to you?"
"Well, everything would certainly be easier without your input."
"Do you really still think that I wasn't right about the exam? Do you realize how much wouldn't have happened if you hadn't insisted on them participating?" Iruka shot back, clamped his mouth shut and blushed furiously.
Kakashi jerked like he'd been slapped.
Tsunade slammed her hands down on the desk, ignoring the ominous crack it emitted. "Enough! You are on this mission because I assigned you to it, so you two need to get over whatever this thing is between you and start acting like a couple of teammates."
The two men glared at each other.
"That's an order." She planted her hands on her hips. "Or am I going to have to beat some sense into you?"
"Ah, no, Tsunade-sama, that's fine."
"Maaa, I think we can manage that." Kakashi spoke in the same breath.
"Good. You need to leave in the morning." Neither man budged. "That was a dismissal." They both looked like they wanted to argue with her about something. "Get out of my office."
Asuma and Kurenai dodged the pair as they stepped through the door. Iruka'd held back to let Kakashi go first, but the dark look on his face suggested that the gesture was intended to be sarcastic. Asuma waited until the door slammed shut, and then jerked a thumb at the spot where the other two had been. "Did you really have those two in the same room?"
"I was not aware that was a taboo around here. What is the story behind all of that?"
Asuma sighed. "There was a little bit of an altercation before the last chuunin exam. We all – Kakashi, Kurenai and me – nominated our students for the exam. They were all just fresh out of school and barely had enough missions under their belts. Iruka objected, very vocally."
"Well, they'd all been his students, and, in his defense, they hadn't grown all that much from when he knew them, and he didn't think they were ready. We understood where he was coming from. We didn't agree with him, but we at least got the reasoning. Kakashi, on the other hand…" Kurenai trailed off.
"Not being the king of tactfulness." Tsunade chimed in.
"Yeah. He made a 'joke'" Asuma accented the words by raising his fingers and drawing quotes in the air. "About how the kids could use some pain in their lives and crushing them would be fun."
"Which, of course, just triggered Iruka's protective nature."
"And then Kakashi basically told Iruka to fuck off." He shrugged. "He acted like a jounin on a power trip and treated Iruka like a brand-new chuunin with no experience.
"I mean, Iruka does a lot of teaching, but he's a good person and a good shinobi, and he just wanted to do the right thing. And then, well, the exam was such a fiasco. Out of those from his class, Hinata almost died, and so did Sakura and Naruto when they went up against Gaara, and then Sasuke…."
"Orochimaru would have gotten to Sasuke no matter what." Tsunade pointed out. "But still…" She sighed heavily. No matter what had happened to them in the past, Iruka and Kakashi were the best available pair for the mission. "Do you think there's any chance they'll make it to Mist Village before killing each other?"
Kurenai and Asuma silently shook their heads.
"Well, shit."
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Iruka groaned and dropped his head back on the edge of the bath. The water was practically scalding, but he planned to spend several hours in it soaking out the general frustration of the day, and he really hated to refill it. As it was, he had both arms and one leg draped over the rim of the tub.
He was grateful for the hot water – he'd been on the verge of killing Kakashi only a few minutes after leaving the hokage's office. The man hadn't said a single word to him, forcing him to ask to see the mission scroll.
Kakashi'd tossed it over his shoulder unceremoniously, and Iruka'd had to practically dive to catch it.
Once he'd straightened and dusted dirt off the one knee that hit the floor, Kakashi'd vanished.
In hindsight, Iruka realized that he probably should have found the jounin and returned the mission scroll, but if Kakashi'd been willing to leave it with him, Iruka sure as hell wasn't going to go out of his way to track him down.
He stretched, splashing water across the tile floor and sunk lower in the bath, until the water came level with his scar. "Mist Village, huh?"
The mission duration was two months, effectively filling his summer break from the Academy. The Academy teachers were not actually required to take missions – partially because the hokages and village council always believed that the teachers should focus on education and partially because good educators were hard to replace and the average life span of a shinobi wasn't all that long.
Most supplemented their income by taking missions because, even though the pay for chuunin missions was abysmal, the pay for chuunin teachers was worse. Iruka survived during the school year by working double shifts at the mission desk around his classes.
During the summer, a few lucky teachers managed to get tagged for remedial classes. Though the classes themselves were filled with mind-numbingly painful repetition in order to get some of the slower students up to the level of the rest of the class, the assignment still meant a guaranteed paycheck. Iruka rarely got picked up for that job, so his summer had typically been spent in the past taking a scattering of C and D rank missions and working the mission desk.
Contrary to the other teachers, Iruka rather enjoyed working at the mission desk. The paperwork he had to take care of didn't fill the entire time, so he spent a large portion of his hours reworking his syllabus and drafting up new teaching strategies for his class.
A single two-month mission, regardless of the rank – someone had strategically blacked out the rank label on the top of the mission scroll – would pay much more than he usually made, especially if he was careful with the per diem.
The water temperature had finally cooled, and he unhooked his leg from the edge of the bath and dropped it in the water, scratching idly at the scar across his nose. With this mission during the summer, he might even be able to cut back on the number of hours he worked during the school year.
The real question was, whether or not putting up with Kakashi was worth it.
He'd managed to avoid the other man since the incident at the exam. Even at the mission desk, Kakashi purposefully stood in longer lines in order to be waited up by any of the other shinobi working the desk. And Iruka was overwhelmingly grateful for it, since he wasn't sure he would have been able to hold his tongue, but he was also absolutely certain that the infamous jounin could make his life a living hell, if he didn't just up and kill him.
He sighed and submerged completely under the water. Whatever rank the mission was, the pay was worth it, and he was just going to have to be civil with Kakashi and prove to the other man that he was, in fact, a capable shinobi.
OOOOOOOOOOO
Kakashi dropped cross-legged onto his bed and leaned against the wall. Icha Icha lay open next to him, but he hadn't turned the page in several minutes.
Only the fear of getting his ass handed to him had kept him from storming back into Tsunade's office and demanding a change in the mission.
He'd looked up Iruka's information. The chuunin had completed a couple of A rank missions, but the card was mostly filled with Cs and Ds, and the number of missions was vastly below the average for most chuunin.
He ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it up. No matter what their past was, Iruka was going to be a comrade, which meant that Kakashi would have to do everything in his power to bring him safely home.
Of course, it wouldn't have frustrated him as much if he'd been teamed with a competent shinobi instead of this teacher.
Kakashi had a sneaking suspicion that he was going to spend a large percentage of this mission saving the chuunin's ass.
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Thanks so much for reading! I hope it's interesting so far.
