Naruto took a tentative swig of milk straight from the bottle and then spat it explosively into the sink. He turned the tap on and stuck his tongue under the flow of water, rubbing furiously to try and wash out the taste.
When he'd wiped the splashes of water off his face, he turned back to the bowl of dry cereal and made a face. It was getting stale anyway. He dumped the cereal back into the box, decided to leave the pieces now scattered on the table to deal with later, and opened a cupboard to find the bread. It was only when he saw the empty space where the loaf should be that he remembered he'd finished the bread yesterday and had forgotten to buy a new loaf.
"So much for breakfast," he muttered. "But it's fine – I can train on an empty stomach. No sweat."
The silence was broken by a loud grumble from Naruto's stomach, complete with a stab of hunger pains. Naruto groaned and opened the cupboard again, in case by some miracle he had something else suitable for breakfast. Mostly there were snacks and packets of instant ramen. Naruto frowned at the meagre offerings of his kitchen. He'd happily eat ramen for breakfast, but if Iruka-sensei found out, he'd get scolded.
Iruka-sensei – now that was a thought. Naruto's face brightened and he pulled on a pair of shoes. Iruka-sensei would feed him, and then maybe later he could go shopping and they could cook a meal together. Humming to himself, Naruto tied his hitae-ate around his forehead and scooped up his keys before leaving the apartment.
It was almost seven and the streets outside were fairly empty. Kakashi had scheduled training for half seven, which meant Naruto could probably spend a whole hour at Iruka's place and still make it to the meeting point before Kakashi showed up. Iruka might not even be awake yet. Naruto paused, considering whether he dared wake Iruka, but then remembered the second key on his key ring. Iruka had also added his chakra signature to the wards, so if he knocked and no one answered he could let himself in. How delighted would Iruka-sensei be if he woke up to find that Naruto had made him breakfast. Naruto grinned at the thought and picked up his pace.
When Naruto reached Iruka's apartment ten minutes later, the wards were already down. The buzz of chakra that usually hung lightly over the doorknob was absent, and when Naruto knocked no one answered. He knocked again, louder, and waited. Iruka usually kept his wards up even when he was at home, and it was unthinkable that he'd leave them down while he wasn't there.
Naruto fumbled his keys out of his pocket and slipped the larger one into the keyhole. He tried to turn it, but it only moved a centimetre and then stopped and wouldn't budge. Naruto took the key out and then tried again. It took him several minutes to realise that the key wouldn't turn because the lock was already open.
Now this was just downright weird. Naruto pushed the door open and stepped inside. The apartment was quiet and still. A cold prickle of unease tightened Naruto's stomach.
"Iruka-sensei?"
There was no answer from inside.
"Iruka-sensei, your door was unlocked."
Naruto left the front door open and stepped further into the hallway. Without thinking about it, he'd lightened his steps and his hand lingered near the pocket where he kept his kunai.
There was no one in the open plan lounge and kitchen area and no one in the bathroom or the spare bedroom where Naruto sometimes stayed. Iruka's bedroom door was shut.
Naruto slipped his hand into his pocket and wrapped it around the cold steel of the knife. Then he opened the door.
Kakashi was on his way to the training ground to meet his team. He'd got bored of waiting for them to notice the pattern in his lateness and had decided, as punishment, that today he was going to turn up a mere five minutes late and then apologise wholeheartedly for making them wait. That ought to infuriate them. He could already picture the expressions on their faces.
He was two streets away from Iruka's apartment when he felt the explosion of chakra. It was a huge flare, blasting from somewhere close by, and spine-chillingly familiar. He had felt that chakra twice before: once on Team Seven's mission to the Land of the Waves and once on the night the demon fox had attacked the village twelve years ago.
There were people at their doors and alarmed faces peering out of the windows at the block of flats where the chakra was coming from. Kakashi recognised it as Iruka's building, and knew instantly where Naruto must be. He didn't bother with the stairs, using chakra to take a shortcut up the side of the building and leaping over the wall on the third floor to bring himself to Iruka's open front door.
This close, he could feel the demon fox's chakra sizzling against his skin like an electric current, raising the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. Against every instinct, he entered the apartment slowly and cautiously, deciding against reaching for a weapon – Kakashi's hands were weapons enough. The smell of blood came through his mask at the same time he noticed the figure in Iruka's bedroom doorway.
Naruto's shoulders were hunched and he was making a low keening noise like an animal in pain. His fingers were clutching at the doorframe tightly enough that the blood had drained from his skin. As Kakashi approached, his head whipped round to reveal wide, inhuman eyes, and he snarled.
"Naruto, it's me," Kakashi said, keeping his voice calm and level. "What's wrong? Where's Iruka?"
Naruto threw back his head and screamed.
And Kakashi was done being cautious. He'd only seen this loss of self in Naruto once before, and that had been when he'd thought Sasuke was dead. Kakashi lunged forwards and caught a glimpse of what lay beyond Iruka's bedroom doorway: the blood, the dull glint of chakra wire, the motionless body on the sheets.
Naruto was on him as soon as he tried to get into the room, catching him around the waist and almost knocking him to the ground, snarling furiously. Kakashi tried to pry him off, but Naruto's arms had locked in a death grip around him, and he was holding Kakashi back from the bedroom with a show of strength Kakashi had never witnessed in him before. It shouldn't have mattered – Iruka was dead, there was no helping him even if Kakashi reached him – but even though Kakashi knew the reality, there was still a terrible hope that if he could just reach Iruka it might not be too late.
Behind him, two pairs of footsteps raced into the apartment.
"Senpai, what's happening?"
That was Tenzou's voice. ANBU had arrived. Kakashi motioned at the bedroom door somewhat desperately.
"In there. Iruka – Iruka's hurt." He couldn't bring himself to say 'dead'.
A masked figure slipped past them into the bedroom. Naruto snatched his hands back from Kakashi and tried to lunge at Tenzou, but Kakashi grabbed him and yanked him back, trying to restrain the writhing, howling boy without hurting him. The second ANBU didn't interfere but remained close, tensed to intervene if Naruto broke free.
Kakashi tried to concentrate on Naruto and not think about the body lying in the next room, but already the thoughts were flooding in: I was here last night and I left him alone. I should have stayed, should have sensed the danger, should have stopped this from happening...
"He's alive."
Kakashi's head shot up. Tenzou was standing in the doorway. He was looking at the other ANBU, still speaking.
"Go to the hospital, tell the medics we have a victim who's been impaled through the abdomen and has lost a lot of blood. There's unknown internal damage so I don't want to risk moving him without some preliminary treatment here. Pulse is slow but regular. This is priority – we need a team here now."
"He's alive?" Kakashi asked before Tenzou had even finished speaking. He gripped Naruto hard enough that the boy hissed in pain.
Tenzou looked him in the eye. "Iruka-sensei is alive," he repeated. "But Kakashi, it's bad. He might not make it."
Kakashi wasn't listening. He was focused on the squirming child in his arms. "Naruto, listen. Iruka-sensei is still alive. Do you understand? He's alive."
The fox's chakra dimmed and Naruto stopped struggling. Kakashi warily let go of him and turned him around so he could see Naruto's face. His eyes were back to normal, pupils no longer slitted, and he looked confused and lost.
"Iruka-sensei is alive," Kakashi said again, as much for his own benefit as Naruto's.
For a moment he thought Naruto was going to collapse, but then he whirled around, breaking free of Kakashi's loose grip on his shoulders, and racing through the bedroom doorway. Tenzou caught his arm, but Kakashi shook his head sharply and Tenzou let him go.
"Don't touch him," Tenzou said as Naruto approached the bed.
Kakashi followed him into the room. Naruto was trembling by Iruka's side. He reached for the chakra wire binding Iruka's hand, but paused, not daring to touch after Tenzou's warning. Kakashi drew a kunai and cut the wire around Iruka's ankles, then handed it to Naruto and gestured towards Iruka's wrist. Naruto's hand shook as he cut it free.
Iruka's normally dark skin was sickly pale. His hair was loose and spread messily across the pillow. Naruto brushed some of it off Iruka's face and Iruka's eyelashes didn't even flicker at the contact. Only one of his hands had been tied to the bed – his headboard was solid and the other bedpost was too far away, leaving nothing to tie it to. There were cuts around his wrist and ankles where he'd struggled against his bonds, and bruises were already beginning to form there. His free hand was covered in dried blood and there were red handprints on the sheets and headboard. Kakashi tried not to look at them.
The centre of the whole gory tableau was Iruka's abdomen, which was still wet with blood, the shirt pulled up to his chest to reveal the extent of the damage. But that wasn't what drew Kakashi's attention. There was a seal covering the wound, the symbols on it drawn clumsily in blood. It looked fairly simplistic, but Kakashi couldn't decipher it. Tenzou was standing at the foot of the bed, and he was staring at the seal as well.
"What is that?" Kakashi asked. "Is it helping him or harming him?"
"There weren't any seals on the other two bodies," Tenzou replied.
Before he could continue, the other ANBU arrived back with two medics in tow. The room was getting crowded, so Kakashi took Naruto gently by the arm and led him back into the living room. He'd expected some resistance but Naruto followed him easily, almost meekly.
Kakashi sank down on the couch, suddenly exhausted. Naruto sat next to him, perching on the edge of the cushions, his head lowered.
"Is Iruka-sensei going to be all right?"
"I don't know," Kakashi answered honestly. "But he's strong and the medics will do their best."
There was a pause and Naruto sniffled quietly.
"Why would anyone want to hurt Iruka-sensei? He never does anything bad. He's always helping and protecting people. I wish – I wish I'd been here last night so I could've protected him."
Kakashi had wondered when the tears were going to burst free. Naruto tried to keep talking, but he was crying too hard, noisy sobs that wracked his whole body. Kakashi reached out and wrapped an arm around him and gently pulled him closer, and then Naruto was sobbing onto his shoulder and clutching at his vest. Dealing with crying children wasn't a skill that Kakashi was adept at, but he'd seen Iruka run his fingers through Naruto's hair when he was upset, and he mimicked the gesture now, hoping Naruto could find some shred of comfort in it.
An hour later, Tenzou stood alone in Iruka's bedroom. After a blood transfusion and an examination of the wound, the medics had moved Iruka to the hospital to be treated, and Kakashi and Naruto had followed them. Since Iruka would be in surgery for some time, Tenzou had decided to stay behind and start examining the crime scene.
The seals on the walls were the same as at the last two murders, but the chakra repressing seals had been overloaded and destroyed by the sheer power of the demon fox's chakra. The chakra pathways in the paper had actually ruptured, which was something Tenzou had never seen before. It was as impressive as it was frightening.
Like the other murders, there was no sign of a struggle, but the drawer to the bedside table was hanging open and a couple of pieces of chakra paper were lying on the floor beside it. One of them had the beginnings of a seal drawn on it, but a smudge of blood had messed it up before it could be completed. It looked like the seal that had been on Iruka's stomach. Tenzou couldn't be sure, but he was willing to bet that the seal on Iruka's wound had been his own doing, and that's what had saved his life. One of his hands hadn't been secured, so he could have reached into the drawer, taken a piece of chakra paper and drawn and activated the seal. Tenzou had never heard of a seal that stopped blood loss, but he wasn't exactly the expert that Iruka was.
If that was the case, then leaving one of Iruka's hands unsecured was a serious mistake on 3am's part. Akane and Eri had both been completely incapacitated, but the design of Akane's headboard and Eri's single bed had allowed for both hands to be tied whereas Iruka's didn't. The killer must have reasoned that even with one hand secured, Iruka wouldn't be able to untie the tight knots before he bled to death, and since chakra wire prevented chakra flow along the pathways, Iruka would have been unable to perform jutsu even if he could make the hand signs. It was pure luck that Iruka had within arm's reach of the materials he needed to at least slow down his rate of blood loss.
Unfortunately, this took his list of commonalities among the victims down from two to one. Iruka wasn't female, but he was a chuunin. But that wasn't enough to be the full picture even if it wasn't a coincidence. Tenzou pulled a small notebook from the pouch strapped to his waist and flipped through the notes he'd taken on the case. Hopefully Iruka would survive and regain consciousness soon, and then Tenzou could talk to him. The best case scenario would be that Iruka could tell him exactly who had tried to kill him, but it wouldn't do to place his bets on that. A skilled assassin would cover all bases, including the possibility of being seen entering or leaving the scene, and so he may have had the foresight to use a henge or genjutsu to conceal his identity.
It said something about 3am that he chose to leave his victims alive but dying. Did he get a kick out of them lying there, bound and helpless, knowing what was happening to them? Or did he have a personal connection to the victims, so that he couldn't bring himself to watch them die?
Tenzou paused at a page of the notebook. It was the final page of notes from his interview with Hinata. At the bottom he'd written E had big possibly public argument with Hyuuga Hiashi shortly before death. Any arguments between H clan and A?
Akane had also argued a lot with jounin while on the job, and although Tenzou hadn't been at the chuunin exams meeting the day before, he'd heard about Iruka's confrontation with Kakashi. Tenzou lowered the notebook. All the victims were chuunin with a reputation for refusing to respect authority blindly, and at least two had had public arguments with jounin shortly before their deaths. Tenzou hadn't yet had chance to ask Akane's colleagues about whether she'd had any particularly heated disagreements recently, but from what Himura had said, there was a good chance she had. And the jounin that Iruka and Eri had spoken back to had features in common as well: Hiashi and Kakashi were both well-known, elite jounin and clan leaders. Even though Kakashi was the last member of his clan and didn't consider himself a clan leader, he still officially held the position.
Was this the connection Tenzou had been searching for? Was it possible that a rogue jounin had decided to punish disrespectful chuunin? The thought was sickening, but Tenzou knew there were jounin who expected lower ranks to defer to them and became unpleasant when this wasn't the case.
Tenzou glanced one more time around the apartment and decided that there was nothing more to be gained from staying. He desperately wanted to talk to Kakashi, but telling Kakashi that he might be the reason why Iruka had been targeted wasn't a subject he wanted to broach while Iruka was still in surgery. That conversation could wait for a less delicate time. Before then, he needed to report to the hokage and he could talk to Akane's colleagues in the archives while he was in the Hokage Tower.
Iruka was in the operating theatre for almost three hours. Kakashi waited outside on an uncomfortable chair that was bolted to the ground. Naruto sat next to him. At first he'd huddled into Kakashi's side and cried intermittently – not the noisy sobbing of the dam first breaking, but a quiet tearfulness that stuttered his breathing and trembled his shoulders. After the first couple of hours he'd made a concentrated effort to pull himself together, even though Kakashi had made no complaints, and was sitting upright with a dry but tearstained face. He was still close enough that their arms were pressed together, and Kakashi felt strangely glad that Naruto was finding comfort in his presence. There was nothing he could do to help Iruka, but he could at least look after Naruto. It made him feel less useless.
When they finally wheeled Iruka out of the theatre, they took him not to the ward, as Kakashi had expected, but into a private room. The ANBU who'd arrived on the scene with Tenzou – a woman in a highly stylised bird mask who Kakashi didn't know – had hung around outside the operating theatre with them, and now placed herself outside the room. Kakashi would be willing to bet that there was at least one more ANBU outside keeping watch on the hospital and paying special attention to Iruka's window.
Once Iruka was settled, the medic who'd been in charge of treating Iruka tried to take Kakashi aside to have a word, but Naruto started to get agitated and Kakashi insisted that Iruka would want them both to hear whatever she had to say. The news was good on the whole. The internal damage hadn't been as bad as it could have been, and they'd managed to stop the bleeding and pump enough blood back into Iruka's system. In all likelihood, Iruka was going to recover with no lasting effects, but there was still a small chance of internal bleeding or infection, so he'd have to stay in the hospital for at least a few days. The two seals they'd taken from Iruka's body – as well as the one on his stomach, they'd found one covering the exit wound on Iruka's back – were still a mystery, but there was a research medic who specialised in seals and they were going to ask her opinion when she started her shift that afternoon. For now all they could say was that the seals seemed to have considerably slowed the blood flow.
It took another hour for Iruka to regain consciousness. Kakashi was stretching his legs by pacing around the small space, unwilling to leave the room. Naruto had dragged his chair so close to the bed that his knees bumped the mattress and had been holding Iruka's hand loosely. Kakashi had seen him stroking the back of it with his thumb in a way that Iruka must have done to soothe him in the past. Now, Naruto made a startled noise.
"Kakashi-sensei, he's waking up!"
Kakashi was instantly at Iruka's other side, watching his face closely. Iruka's eyelids fluttered a little before he cracked them open.
"Iruka-sensei," Naruto started, but abandoned the rest of his sentence.
Iruka turned his head towards him sluggishly.
"Naruto?"
His voice was raspy and in a minute Kakashi would go and ask a nurse for some water, but not right now.
Naruto was crying again and trying desperately not to. He looked like he wanted to fling himself on Iruka and hug him, but he restrained himself enough to simply squeeze Iruka's hand.
"You're in the hospital," Kakashi said. Iruka's head turned to look at him. It took his eyes a moment to focus. "You were attacked by The 3am Killer, but the doctor told me you should make a full recovery. You're safe now."
Iruka's eyes widened slightly. "I remember. I need – ah!"
He clutched at his stomach, teeth gritting in pain, and Naruto shot out of his chair in alarm.
"Iruka-sensei?"
Kakashi darted towards the door. "I'll get a nurse."
The nurse administered a painkiller jutsu rather than medication. It took him a few attempts to get the strength right, and Kakashi watched, half fascinated and half fretting that every second the nurse took adjusting the level was another second of watching Iruka screw up his face in agony.
"You'd need quite strong drugs, and since your stomach was damaged I don't want to give you anything that's going to make you throw up," the nurse explained when he'd finally managed to dull Iruka's pain enough for Iruka to become aware of his death grip on Naruto's hand and apologise profusely.
Sandaime appeared in the doorway as the nurse was adjusting Iruka's bed so that the top part of his body was raised enough to properly look at his visitors. The hokage was looking as grim as Kakashi had ever seen him, his mouth set in a firm line, his ever-present pipe nowhere in sight.
"How are you feeling?"
"Grateful to be alive," Iruka answered honestly. Naruto sniffed beside him and Iruka rubbed his thumb over the back of Naruto's hand.
Sandaime nodded. "You'll be safe here. I've posted an ANBU guard outside your door and –"
"No!"
The outburst was so emphatic that Naruto flew to his feet again. Iruka had tried to lean forward and winced, and Kakashi pushed him gently back against the pillow.
"Sandaime-sama, the man who attacked me was ANBU."
"That's impossible." The words flew out of Kakashi's mouth before he could think about them.
Iruka didn't even look at him. His eyes were fixed desperately on Sandaime, whose face betrayed his own shock.
"Which mask?" he asked.
Iruka chewed on his lip for a moment. "It was blank," he said.
"No ANBU wears a blank mask," Kakashi said. Sandaime shot him a warning look. It wouldn't take a genius to guess that Kakashi had once been in ANBU, but even ex operatives weren't allowed to reveal their past membership to anyone who wasn't currently serving in ANBU.
Iruka turned to him, visibly distressed that Kakashi was doubting him, and Kakashi suddenly wished he hadn't said anything. He was being a prick. If he had doubts, he could voice them privately with the hokage; there was no need to tell Iruka outright that he didn't believe him, especially since it was less that he disbelieved Iruka and more that he didn't want to believe him.
"He was wearing the ANBU uniform," Iruka insisted.
"Did he have the tattoo?" Sandaime asked.
Iruka hesitated again. "I don't know. I don't remember seeing it. Everything happened so suddenly."
"An ANBU could have stolen an unpainted mask," Kakashi said, to redeem himself. The relief on Iruka's face only made him feel guiltier.
"You're sure it was a man?" Sandaime asked. Iruka nodded. "Your current guard is female. I'll make sure no male operatives are assigned to protect you for the time being." He reached into his robe and half withdrew his pipe before remembering that they were in a hospital and replacing it regretfully. "I'm sorry to have to ask you this now, but I need a full report."
"I don't mind," Iruka said softly. "But I think Naruto should wait outside."
Naruto hunched his shoulders and glared at Sandaime as though he'd been the one to suggest he leave. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Naruto," Iruka started, but Naruto overrode him.
"I'm not leaving your side until they catch the person who hurt you. I wasn't there to protect you last night so I'm going to make up for it and protect you now. Besides, I was the one who found you." Iruka made a distressed noise, but Naruto kept talking. "So I saw all that – all that blood, and I thought you were dead, and nothing you say can be worse than that. Nothing."
Iruka reached out and pulled Naruto onto the bed. He perched on the edge of the mattress, as though Iruka were too fragile to risk touching, but Iruka tugged him closer and wrapped his arm around Naruto's shoulders, pressing a kiss to his temple.
Kakashi looked away and saw Sandaime respectfully doing the same. This was a family moment. Somehow, it touched Kakashi to see them together as much as it hurt him to see them in pain.
"All right," Iruka whispered. "All right, you can stay here."
Naruto had finally relaxed against Iruka's side and he stayed nestled there as Iruka started talking.
"I didn't notice anything strange yesterday evening. I set my wards and locked up the house like usual. It was around midnight when I went to bed, and the next thing I remember is waking up when he stabbed me."
Sandaime frowned. "He stabbed you before tying you up?"
"No." Iruka rubbed a hand over his eyes. "No, he'd already set seals around the room and tied me to the bed, but I don't remember that happening." He paused, furrowing his brow, thinking hard about something. Sandaime waited patiently. "Actually, that's not true," Iruka said slowly. "I remember being aware that someone was in my room. I felt him tying my wrist to the bed, but it was so...distant. I thought I was sleeping. Everything felt warm and safe and not worth thinking about too deeply."
Sandaime and Kakashi exchanged a look.
"Genjutsu," Kakashi said.
"Can you perform a genjutsu on a sleeping person?" Sandaime asked.
"I couldn't, but it might depend on which sense you're targeting." Genjutsu worked by a sort of hypnosis, capturing the full attention of one of the victim's senses and thereby ensnaring them in a trance where they became susceptible to illusions. Most genjutsu users worked on the sense of sight, which was how Kakashi's sharingan functioned, but sound was also common, and touch wasn't unheard of. "And it's perfectly possible to wake someone up and catch them in a genjutsu before they even realise they're awake. Even the most highly trained shinobi is vulnerable in the moment of waking up."
Sandaime turned back to Iruka. "Do you remember seeing or hearing anything that might have been a genjutsu trigger?" Iruka thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. "Well, never mind. Please continue."
"I tried to fight back," Iruka said, "but there was nothing I could do. One of my arms was free, but he grabbed it and held it down. He just stood there like that, watching me, until I stopped struggling. I asked him who he was and why he was attacking me, but he wouldn't answer. Then he turned around and left the room, and I heard him go out the front door."
That detail seemed to disturb Iruka, that the man who'd tried to kill him had walked calmly and confidently out of the front door, politely shutting it behind him. There was a kind of genius to it – anyone who'd seen an ANBU leaving through the front door wouldn't have suspected anything, and would probably have forgotten within the hour that they'd seen anything at all.
"The seals we found on your wounds, were they yours?" Sandaime asked.
Iruka paused and glanced, for some reason, at Kakashi.
"Yes, Sandaime-sama," he said. Kakashi expected him to continue, but Iruka only looked at Sandaime, as if waiting for permission to speak further.
"I'll speak to you about those privately," Sandaime said.
Kakashi looked between them. Something unspoken was clearly being communicated about those seals, but for whatever reason they didn't want to – or couldn't – discuss it in front of him and Naruto. Kakashi dearly wanted to ask, but held his tongue.
Naruto, however, didn't know any better. "What seals? What's he talking about, Iruka-sensei?"
Iruka carded his fingers through Naruto's hair. "I used a couple of seals to survive. But if you hadn't shown up and found me, they wouldn't have been enough. So really I have you to thank for saving my life."
Naruto sat up straight, eyes wide. "Really? I helped?"
"You helped a lot," Kakashi said. "It was your chakra flare that brought me and the ANBU running."
Iruka smiled at him, and Kakashi found it endlessly reassuring that he could still smile so easily. Beside him, Naruto was trembling with pride and relief, a far cry from the boy who'd spent the morning weeping on Kakashi's shoulder.
Sandaime rose to leave. "Kakashi, a word outside, please."
Before Kakashi left, he put his hand over Iruka's wrist and squeezed lightly. Iruka moved so that their fingers briefly tangled together before Kakashi gently pulled away and followed Sandaime out of the room. The warmth of Iruka's skin tingled on his fingers.
In the corridor, the ANBU on guard shut the door behind them. There was no one else in earshot, but Sandaime spoke in a low voice.
"Kakashi, I'm grateful for everything you've done to look after Naruto this morning, but as of now all current or former ANBU who fit the profile Iruka described are not permitted any contact with him. I'm afraid you won't be able to visit him again for the time being."
Kakashi stared at him. "Exactly what 'profile' do I fit?"
"An unfortunately broad one," Sandaime sighed. "A male genjutsu user. I also need to take into account the fact that the two of you had a heated exchange yesterday at the chuunin exams meeting –"
"Sandaime-sama, I –"
"– and you were the first jounin on the scene this morning when Iruka was found."
Kakashi understood, distantly, that if the same facts applied to someone else, he wouldn't let them in the same building as Iruka right now, but logic didn't help to lessen his rage. "Sandaime-sama, do you really believe I would hurt Iruka-sensei?"
Sandaime looked tired but his voice was unwavering. "Before today, I wouldn't have believed any member of ANBU would murder innocent people. But since that appears to be the case, I can't make exceptions. You are not to make contact with Iruka until I tell you otherwise. That's an order, Kakashi."
"Understood," Kakashi said stiffly. Then he brought his hands together and made the signs that would transport him out of the hospital before he said anything else that he might later regret.
Tenzou was sitting in a small office in the archives, in theory speaking to a young blond man who looked barely out of his teens, but with regular interjections from the two women who were pretending to work at the other office desks but were mostly eavesdropping. Tenzou didn't mind. It saved him from talking to them all individually.
"Akane-senpai was in charge of the restricted knowledge section," the young man said. "She helped out in the other areas too, though."
"We're all assigned specific areas, but that's just for official documentation," one of the women piped up. "We tend to work in all areas and help each other out. Most of us have clearance for filing and retrieving items in restricted knowledge."
"What exactly is stored in that section?" Tenzou asked.
"Scrolls and books with information on forbidden seals and jutsus, S class and S class restricted mission reports and personnel files – except ANBU documentation, that's all kept in the ANBU records room – and certain documents that come over from the hokage's office. Minutes from council meetings, that sort of thing."
"I assume that's the section that causes you the most trouble," Tenzou said. "Difficult customers, lots of paperwork..."
The archives workers exchanged a look.
"It's the jounin," the young man said. "Not all of them," he added hastily, "but the ones who make a scene are almost always jounin. The rules for retrieving restricted items are very strict. You need a permission slip signed by the hokage or a council member, and you also need to fill out a non-disclosure form, and that's all after you submit a request form to the hokage's office. It's a lot of hassle and it takes a lot of time, and any mistakes invalidate the documents."
"Some of the jounin try to pull rank to avoid the system," the other woman said irritably. "It's so irresponsible. Some of them get really difficult, as though if they yell at us enough we might be willing to compromise village security just to save them a bit of paperwork." She curled her lip in disgust. "We always send Akane-chan to deal with those ones. She gives as good as she gets."
"Do you remember if Fujimoto-san had any particularly heated disagreements in the last couple of weeks before her death?"
Another shared look, but this time of contemplation.
"I don't remember anything worse than normal," the man said doubtfully. "I mean, there were definitely a few arguments, but I'm not sure that any of them were unusual."
"Can you remember the names of anyone Fujimoto-san argued with in that last fortnight?"
"Well, yes." The man looked nervously at his older colleagues, both of whom had turned back to their work. So they were happy to bitch about jounin in general, but were less willing to give specific names.
Tenzou flipped to a clean page in his notebook and put it on the desk in front of the young chuunin. "Why don't you just write down any names you can remember? You two as well," he added to the women. "Then if anyone asks, I honestly won't be able to say who told me."
Five minutes later, Tenzou left the archives and found a quiet corner where he could read the list of names. There were only five, but one of them in particular stood out. Hyuuga Hiashi.
Interesting. So Hiashi had argued with two of the victims shortly before their deaths. If the Hyuuga clan was involved, this was going to get complicated fast, but Tenzou wasn't concerned with politics. He'd been given a job, and nowhere in the ANBU mission statement did it say to make exceptions for those in positions of power. If the Hyuugas had a hand in this, Tenzou wouldn't hesitate to bring them down.
All he needed now was to speak to Iruka. If he could find a connection between Iruka and the Hyuuga clan, it would be the final link he needed to be sure that he was on the right track.
