Chapter 2 - Enjoy!

OOOOOOOOO

Kakashi grinned behind his mask at the furious expression plastered across Iruka's face. So what if the mission document said they were supposed to leave at dawn? He was only three or four hours late.

"It's one in the afternoon!" Iruka fumed as he sauntered up.

Make that seven hours. He hadn't intended to be quite that late – even an hour or two would have driven the chuunin up the wall – but must have lost track of time in front of the memorial stone.

He passed Iruka at a leisurely pace, not bothering to make eye contact or answer the accusation. Once he'd gotten several meters ahead, he turned around, "Well, are you coming? If we don't start now, we'll be late."

For several seconds, he was almost positive that Iruka was going to haul off and punch him, but the chuunin seemed to manage to resist the urge, hefted his pack higher on his shoulders and muttered darkly under his breath as he caught up with Kakashi.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi dropped lightly to the ground and straightened, surveying the overgrown clearing. He would have preferred to sleep on one of the wide branches of the trees that hung heavy overhead, but since the mission was supposedly all in good faith from Konoha's perspective, he figured that they'd be better off trying not to look too sneaky.

The chuunin he'd been saddled with touched down behind him, and Kakashi wondered evilly if sheer pride alone kept him standing. He'd pushed the pace faster than even he could handle for more than one day, but the sore muscles were certainly worth it since he got to hear the Iruka scrambling and slipping behind him as he tried to keep up.

His subconscious realized that he was tormenting Iruka for no good reason, but the teacher just rubbed him the wrong way. He had far more experience as a shinobi, so where did Iruka get off telling him how to train his team? The man was naïve, insulting, and infuriating, and Kakashi intended to exact revenge for it during this mission.

It took an act of sheer will to keep from planting his hands on his thighs, hanging his head between his knees and gasping for air, but Iruka pressed his lips together and managed to keep the panting to a minimum. Kakashi'd set that pace either to enforce the fact that he was superior to Iruka or just to be an ass.

Or both.

After the overwhelming fire in his lungs died down, Iruka unbuckled his pack, set it on the ground, and followed it down as slowly as he could manage. He might be arrogant enough to not let Kakashi see him gasping, but he certainly wasn't childish enough to get into a standing contest with the jounin.

A short search through his pack located his rations, and he peeled the wrapper back and gnawed on the corner, blatantly ignoring his campsite companion. One more day and they'd be in Mist, and he would have a job to do and other people to spend time with.

He could survive Kakashi-san for another day.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka craned his neck as he stared up at the massive structure that made up Mist Village's front gates. Unlike Konoha's, which remained open from shortly after dawn until dusk, the ebony gates were closed and barred and reached several stories towards the sky. The ground directly in front of them was choked with weeds and scrub brush, and Iruka spotted a small tree poking out at the very base of the enormous doors. From the looks of things, the gates hadn't been opened in tens of years.

A bald shinobi slouched against the enormous uprights, his dark eyes focused on the interlopers that had just appeared. His hand dropped to the weapon strapped to his thigh. "Who are you?"

"Hatake Kakashi of Konoha. Here on a mission requested by the Kirikage."

The eyes flicked up to Iruka, who's lips had pressed into a fine line both to suppress the urge to grab his side and massage the stitch in his muscles away and to keep from snapping at Kakashi. "Umino Iruka. I'm on this mission as well."

He thought he saw the guard's eyebrow twitch, but the other man turned his attention back to Kakashi. "Identification?"

A quick search produced their IDs, which were taken, examined and handed back. "Wait here." The guard pressed against a slightly discolored portion of the gate and stepped through the opening that appeared.

Iruka studied Kakashi out of the corner of his eye as he waited. The trip this morning from their camp to the village had pushed his tolerance to the absolute limit. Kakashi'd slowed down from the previous day – and Iruka was fairly certain that the only reason was because Kakashi wasn't able to keep up that pace – but had still forced Iruka to run faster than he would normally travel.

They'd stopped halfway, and a fast movement just behind Kakashi's head had caught Iruka's attention. Without thinking, he palmed a kunai and skewered the enormous snake that had been investigating Kakashi's hair.

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, with a knee in his gut, and something sharp, and likely very deadly, wedged against his throat. Iruka gagged on the blade and managed to gasp out "Snake…" as his desire for self-preservation won over his irritation that Kakashi assumed he was stupid enough to attack the jounin.

Kakashi'd glanced over his shoulder at where the snake was pinned to the tree, and the pressure of the knife had eased as he stood and moved away from Iruka, who'd picked himself up and dusted his uniform off.

Iruka hissed as his legs wobbled underneath him and rolled his shoulders, trying to release the aches in his upper back caused from Kakashi's flying tackle earlier, and he focused on a particularly large knot in the wall to keep his mind off the pain spreading through his body.

The door opened again, and a slender shinobi with a long gray-brown ponytail and a pair of fragile-looking glasses balanced on his nose stepped out and smiled brightly at them. "Hello."

Iruka returned the smile. "Hello."

"I'm Fujiwara Naoto. I'm the head teacher here. And you are…" He glanced between the two Konoha shinobi, clearly unsure of who was who.

"Umino Iruka." Iruka gestured towards Kakashi, "And this is Hatake Kakashi." See? It's not that hard to act like a professional.

"Nice to meet you." Naoto put a shoulder against the door and pushed it open. "If you'll come with me, I'll show you around."

The village beyond Mist's imposing wall was overwhelmingly dreary. The buildings were entirely constructed of gray wood and stone, and the street was filled with a low-hanging haze that seemed to be a permanent decoration of the region and was probably the source of the village's name. The visibility was barely fifty feet, and Iruka concentrated on the twists and turns they took as they made their way into the village. Between the homogenous architecture and the low visibility, landmarks were practically useless, so he focused on building a mental map to keep from getting lost.

"If you turn right here," Naoto stopped at a nondescript corner and pointed in the specified direction. "You'll reach the school. It's only about a block down from here." He started off, continuing straight instead of heading towards the school.

"Ah…are we not going to the school?" Iruka queried.

"The students are taking an exam right now, but you'll be able to meet them and the teachers after lunch. I figured that we'd head to your apartment so that you can drop off your stuff and get settled in." Naoto glanced back and forth between the two Konoha shinobi, as if he was looking for confirmation.

"That's fine." Iruka nodded.

Kakashi remained silent, scanning the surroundings.

Naoto unlocked the door and jiggled it open before handing one of the keys to Iruka and the second to Kakashi.

Kakashi looked down at the keys before holding it out to Iruka with a look of dark humor. "I don't need keys to your apartment." Iruka heard the underlying message loud and clear: I don't plan to be associating with you outside of work.

Not that Iruka was all that upset by the prospect – the thought of Kakashi having free access to his apartment conjured up images of shredded uniforms, dulled kunai, and booby-trapped futons.

"Um…" Naoto broke the boiling silence. "This is…the apartment. The only apartment." He took a step back and held up his hands when both Iruka and Kakashi turned to glare at him. "I'm terribly sorry, but for accountability reasons, we need our visiting shinobi to stay in the designated lodging, and this is all that's available."

"There's really…nothing else?" Iruka choked out.

Naoto shook his head. "So, you can come back to the school in two hours – we should be done by then."

"Alright. Thank you." Iruka resisted the urge to shove Kakashi back as the jounin pushed past him into the apartment and barely managed an apologetic smile when Naoto cast him a strange look. He did wait until after the Mist shinobi had disappeared down the stairs to snarl at Kakashi, who simply shut the door to the only private room in his face.

OOOOOOOOOOO

The initial meeting at the school was uneventful. The students clouded around Kakashi, alternately badgering him with questions about his mask and his covered eye and speculating about what the two strips of fabric hid.

The conversation was boisterous enough, that Iruka was left relatively ignored and free to talk with the two teachers who managed the classes – Naoto and another fellow who's name Iruka had promptly forgotten, mostly because the other man had been grading exams since before they arrived and hadn't said anything outside the required polite greetings.

And even that had been a little strange.

A sudden shriek from the students surrounding Kakashi got both of their attentions, and, as Iruka spun around, a flash of bright orange caught his gaze. "You…" Two long strides brought him across the room, and he snatched Kakashi's book out of his hands and smacked him upside the head with it.

Dead silence fell in the room, and Iruka froze, the hand clenching Kakashi's book still raised high in the air from where it had finished its strike. Half of him wanted to shrink away from the terrifying aura rising around one of the world's most dangerous jounin, while the other half was still rallying from the fact that he was in a classroom, albeit not his own, and, therefore, was on his home turf.

The later won out.

"How dare you bring this out in front of a group of children! This might fly in Konoha where everyone's used to you and your perverted practices, but we are guests here! You're a jounin. Act like one!"

For the second time in that day, Iruka found himself on the wrong end of a weapon wielded by the copy-nin. But he glared over the blade, knowing full well that Kakashi wouldn't kill him in front of all these people. Too many witnesses.

But he'd probably be wise to make his own food for the next few months.

Still, the fear didn't stop him. "So, this is acting like a jounin? Jounin aren't only the pointy end of the spear used to defend the village. They're also role models and teachers for all of the younger shinobi. You might have beaten some sense into your own team, but you are failing miserably at inspiring anyone else to be anything but a public pervert who happens to be good at fighting! You've made such a big deal out of what I said to you at the Chuunin exam, but you know why I said it? It's because I don't respect your opinion! You care more about yourself and your own entertainment than what is best for anyone else. And if that isn't true, then you should damn well start showing it, because that's all anyone sees, and all it's doing is teaching every chuunin, genin and pre-genin out there that they can be self-centered pricks as long as they can continue to complete missions and beat the living snot out of any and all opponents." Iruka huffed slightly as he finished his tirade.

He vaguely heard Naoto ushering the kids out of the room behind him, but was too busy watching Kakashi's mostly obscured expression in the vain hope that he'd be able to dodge if the jounin decided to kill him.

He couldn't quite tell if Kakashi was just beyond angry or simply astounded that the chuunin had dared to stand up to him again, but the blade was suddenly pulled back from his throat, and the other man vanished in a swirl of leaves.

"Um, is everything alright?" Naoto had his back against the door, and Iruka could hear the clamor of children outside, all of the voices hoping that there was a massive fight taking place inside.

"It's fine." Iruka pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay; we've got our share of people who don't get along. They just don't usually get sent on missions together."

"New leadership." Iruka shrugged. "Our current hokage wasn't around when the original problem occurred, so she had no way of knowing."

"Well, we'll be around here." Naoto grinned at him. "If you're lucky, you won't have to be alone with him except at night."

"I think I'll be lucky not to be killed in my sleep, actually. Especially after this."

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi checked that the door to the bedroom was firmly closed before sinking down onto the edge of the bed. He peeled off the metal-backed gloves and studied the multitude of scars etched across his hands.

He was a good shinobi, a good jounin, and – no matter what Iruka thought – a good role model.

Well, he was at least decent.

He peeled the hitae-ate away from his face and blinked at the sudden increase in detail and colors that always came with revealing the sharingan. The skin around the eye ached down to the bone. He'd asked Tsunade to do something about it, but she'd said it was a complication of the original implantation and wasn't anything she could correct. Not that he really minded the pain – it was a constant reminder of what his youthful arrogance had cost him.

When he was younger, after his father's death, he'd flung himself head first into any solo assignment ANBU would offer him. He hadn't taken a team-based mission for a very long time simply because he believed that other people would make him weak, like they had made his father.

But whatever he had been in the past, Obito's sacrifice was the swift kick in the pants that he'd needed, and he strove to pass on both Obito's and his father's message to everyone he taught.

That was why he'd never accepted a team until this one – none of the others could manage to put their own selfish desires aside.

But what Iruka'd said back there…. Despite everything he believed….Everything he taught….

Kakashi dropped his head and wound his fingers through his hair.

Was that really how other shinobi saw him?

As much as he wanted to discount Iruka's words as just being spawned by anger, they'd hit a deep truth that he couldn't escape. And whether Iruka really meant them or not, whether his reasoning was the actual truth as to why he'd stood up to him originally, didn't matter.

Because the chuunin - no matter how annoying he might be - was right.

He was a good shinobi, a good jounin, and a good role model. But no one, outside his team, Asuma, Kurenai, and possibly Gai, though Kakashi didn't put much stake in the latter, could recognize that.

He flopped back on the mattress, opening Icha Icha out of pure habit, but didn't read a single line. Only a tantalizing smell wafting through the cracks of the door brought him out of his deep contemplation.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka groaned as he hefted the bags onto the counter and shuffled through them looking for anything that needed to be refrigerated. He'd managed to locate a small grocery store on the road between the school and their apartment and had picked up just enough for dinner and breakfast. He knew he should get supplies for the following few nights, but he was too tired to wrap his brain around what he would feel like cooking tomorrow or the day after.

A short search located the utensils he needed, and, after he muttered a quiet thanks to whoever had been intelligent enough to supply their quarters with a fully functioning and fully stocked kitchen, he busied himself preparing the food in an effort to ignore the closed door just down the hall.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi sat up slowly, his stomach reminding him that he hadn't eaten since rations the previous night. While he had, on many occasions, gone without food for days on end, he still preferred to eat.

The whole situation was made worse by the fact that whatever Iruka was cooking smelled fantastic. Unfortunately he wasn't entirely sure how to deal with Iruka. He wasn't even sure if the chuunin would be willing to share.

A soft knock at the door was followed by a hesitant cough, "Kakashi-san?" Kakashi winced at the honorific – he'd been the first one to stop calling the other 'sensei,' mostly because it required no effort and pissed off Iruka so well – but now he fully understood why Iruka had glommed onto the use and turned it back on him, "I've got more than enough food out here, if you'd like some."

Iruka pressed his ear to the door and listened. He wasn't even sure that Kakashi was in there, but despite his underlying frustration with the porn-reading jounin, he did feel bad about the outburst earlier. One of the fastest ways to loose control over a group of students was to show dissidence between the teachers, particularly since Kakashi outranked him. Though he felt his reaction was completely justified, Iruka still wished he'd managed to keep his temper in check until after they'd been back here.

He was sure he could hear Kakashi breathing, but didn't hear any movement to indicate that the other man was coming out. "It'll be on the stove if you want it."

Iruka rolled his eyes as he turned away from the door. I have to admit, though, that if he'd made dinner, I wouldn't have touched it either.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka flopped down on the lumpy couch. He'd managed to scrounge up a blanket that only smelled slightly of mildew out of one of the cabinets. He attempted to nestle down deeper into the couch, punching one of the cushions into something slightly more comfortable.

He would kill for a real bed right now, especially after the mad dash they'd taken from Konoha to Mist. But that would require flinging the door open to the bedroom and either dragging Kakashi from the bed and depositing him on the couch or crawling in with him.

Iruka shuddered. Neither possibility was even the least bit amusing.

His eyes finally slid closed as his body gave into general exhaustion that was strong enough to overwhelm his very active dislike of his makeshift bed.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"I want them out here now!" Kakashi heard Iruka scrambling off the sofa as the shout echoed down the narrow corridor towards his bedroom.

Kakashi lurched to his feet and staggered out into the hall in time to see Iruka pull a loose uniform shirt over his head. "I'm sorry; is something wrong?" Kakashi was amazed at how polite the other man managed to sound despite the decidedly rude awakening.

"What?! Are you just going to pretend that you haven't done something?!" The man took a poorly-aimed swing at Iruka, and the chuunin ducked it, carefully catching the man's arm, pulling it down and immobilizing him. The move was smooth, well-practiced, and probably used often on irate pre-genins.

"We haven't done anything." Iruka insisted without releasing his hold.

"My son's vanished! It had to be you people; you met him this afternoon! I told you," The man raised his head and shouted at the people in the hall, spittle flying off his lips. "No good'll come from letting outsiders in here! And now…my son…" He sagged in Iruka's grip, and his weight threatened to drag the chuunin down as well. Tired sobs echoed out from his lowered head. "My son…."

Kakashi padded farther down the hall so that he could just see out the front door. Several shinobi who looked like they belonged to the guard crowded in the narrow hall along with Naoto, who seemed to have come along simply because they were suspected. Naoto was holding both his hands up, palms forward and was arguing sotto voce with the other mist shinobi.

"We've been here since the sun went down." Iruka said directly to Naoto.

"Both of you?" One of the guards, a sour-faced man with closely set eyes, an unkempt scruff around his chin that was more than a five o'clock shadow and somewhat less than a proper beard, and a sneer that looked to be permanently affixed to his face. "Are you vouching for each other?"

"I'm sorry…?" Iruka shook his head as if that would help clear the confusion and wondered if his brain was still a little fogged over from lack of sleep.

"Is there anyone else who can verify that you didn't leave?"

"No." Kakashi stated bluntly, causing all eyes to snap in his direction. "You will have to take our word for it."

"Please." Naoto went as far as to step between them. "They are fellow shinobi, from Konoha. I'm sure they're trustworthy. Besides, Daisuke-kun has a penchant for wandering off. I'm sure we'll find him in the morning."

The guard snorted darkly and whirled, disappearing down the hallway. Naoto reached out and put an arm around the sobbing man's shoulders, pulling him gently off the floor, and Iruka released him with an apologetic smile.

"You have no idea if I was here or not." Kakashi pointed out.

Iruka turned towards him, his arms folded across his chest. "And if you weren't, if you were just out reading that book of yours in public – because no matter what I think of you, I refuse to believe that you would kidnap a child – then you have no idea if I was here. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed."

OOOOOOOOOOO

Thanks for reading!