Notes: Sorry about the bit of delay, folks. Hopefully this'll answer some questions about what's going on. Also, it might be a good idea to do a quick re-read of chapter one. Trust me. :)


OoOoOoO


Iruka must have drifted off during the night despite his best intentions to say up and keep watch, because the next thing he heard was Kakashi's slurred, "They're here…" A moment before the first ward was tripped.

Iruka came completely awake at once – it felt as if his stomach had contracted into a tiny ball and fallen down to his sandals. He scrabbled for a moment to light an oil lamp and then to find the sword he'd taken from the dead man. It had slipped from his fingers in his sleep.

Kakashi had somehow pulled himself upright again to lean against the wall. Strands of silver hair were plastered to his forehead with sweat and his right arm hung dead at his side. While he no longer seemed delirious, his eyes were still strange and unfocused – especially the left, whose pupil was blown wide open. "Go," Kakashi breathed. "You might still escape if you leave now."

Iruka's fingers found the handle of the sword at last. He gripped it tightly, his breath coming short and hard. He didn't acknowledge Kakashi's words: it was difficult enough to force his voice past a squeak. "I'm going to see if I can stall them." He stopped and swallowed. "If… if they let you live and you escape, tell my mom and dad how I – that I died as a shinobi. Okay?"

"Iruka…"

But Iruka was already standing. He made sure to take the lamp with him as he strode down the passageway to the mouth of the supply-cave, leaving Kakashi to wait in dark. There was no need to alert the enemy-nin to exactly where Kakashi was.

The passageway itself was not long, but it still felt like it took him a long time to come to the end of it. Every muscle seemed to be a-twitch, as if his own body was fighting the command to go and face his own death.

He reached the mouth of the tunnel at last. Setting the lamp down, Iruka shielded it so the light wouldn't immediately be visible from the outside. Then he crouched at the side of the entrance and waited for a sight… a sound… anything.

He wanted to cry, but he wouldn't.

And in those dark moments, waiting and knowing Kakashi was waiting somewhere behind, out in the darkness, unable to defend himself and alone, Iruka thought he caught a glimpse of what his academy sensei was always talking about. The will of fire. It meant doing your duty. Not because he had to do it, but because there was someone who depended on him, and who would suffer if he failed.

Iruka knew he would do whatever it took. If he was lucky maybe he could wound a couple of them… maybe even kill one. Anything to give Kakashi more of a chance to escape if he could. Maybe Kakashi was right… maybe he should have left while he could. Others would have. But he knew deep inside that was not his shinobi way.

There was no way he could live with himself if he left Kakashi to die.

The minutes passed into silence and he heard something – the slight fall of loose shale outside, as if a foot had slipped. Iruka licked his dried lips and closed his eyes, trying to focus in on where the noise had come from. It sounded as if it had been close to one of his carefully prepared traps. Perhaps—

"Whoa!"

He heard a loud exclamation and felt a ping deep inside him as one of his chakra wire traps went off – empty.

"Geez, that almost got me!" the voice yelped. Then, "Wait… this is one of Iruka's traps."

Iruka opened his eyes, staring out into nothing, hardly daring to breathe.

"What?" asked another voice. Higher pitched. Female. "Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah. He's gotta be around here somewhere! Hey!" the man called, "Iruka-sensei! Are you—" A sudden whapping sound and then a barked, "Ow!"

"Dobe," a third voice grunted. "Don't be so loud."

"In there!" the woman shouted. "Do you see that? I think it might be a cave."

And a moment later three shinobi had squeezed through the large crack in the rock. One blond man, one young woman with pink hair and a dark haired man, perhaps eighteen or older.

All three of them wore Leaf headbands and all of three of them stared, dumbfounded, as Iruka rose from his defensive crouch.

"You're from Konoha?" Iruka asked, weakly, still clutching the sword in a ready position.

The blond man didn't seem to hear him, only exploded, "Iruka? What happened to you?"

"It's not a henge," the dark-haired man intoned. His eyes were swirling with red, gleaming in the weak lamplight. Iruka instinctively looked away. "Whatever this is, it's not an illusion."

Not enemies. They were clearly from his village. It still took an effort of will to force the point of the sword down. "I…I don't know what happened," Iruka stammered. "We woke up in a field and we were attacked and…. M-my friend's been hurt. He might be dying. Please, you have to help him."

All three stared at him as if he were insane, but at the mention of the injury the woman blinked. "Someone's hurt? Where?"

"Over here." He grabbed up the lamp in one hand, her wrist in the other and led them back down the passageway.

The woman let out a gasp as the light fell over Kakashi's form – slumped boneless and exhausted on his side as if he had tried to rise, but failed. Iruka thought she was reacting to the state of him until she breathed, "Kakashi-sensei," and knelt to examine the boy.

"Will he be alright?" Iruka asked, but she gave no answer. Her hands, sheathed in green, gingerly lifted Kakashi's injured arm.

"Oh man, Kaka-sensei too?" the blond exclaimed, upon entering the cave behind them.

Iruka looked to him. "Why do you keep calling him that?"

The blond and the brunet exchanged a look. Then the dark-haired man spoke. "Do you know who I am? Or him?" He nodded to the blond.

"You bastard! Of course he does!"

But Iruka shook his head, adding a low, "Sorry," at the blond's stricken look.

The other man nodded. "I'm Sasuke, the idiot behind me is Naruto—"

"Hey!"

"And that's Sakura, over there."

Iruka took the names in numbly, not truly caring. He risked a glance at Kakashi, but he was still lying unconscious and Sakura was not paying Iruka any mind.

The blond man touched Iruka's shoulder to get his attention and knelt so that they were eye-to-eye. He had a set of strange marks on each cheek, Iruka realized. They looked almost like whiskers.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Naruto asked. "Start from the beginning."

And haltingly, Iruka did. He told them about teasing Anko, and waking up in a field with the dead men. How he and Kakashi had camped out. Then the attack by the enemy-nin, what they said and how they acted. And finally, to how they came to be in the cave here.

The dark one, Sasuke, nodded at the end and Naruto offered up a slightly wavering smile. "You did great, Iruka. Really, really great." He lifted his hand, almost as if he was going to ruffle Iruka's hair, but then stopped himself at the last moment. Replaced his hand on Iruka's shoulder. "We're going to take it over from here and Sakura… she's the best medic-nin around. Believe it. But now… I gotta tell you a story."

Sasuke made a sound of protest in the back of his throat and Naruto whipped around to glare at him. "You know how I feel about keeping secrets from people! Besides, he needs to know."

"Know what?" Iruka asked, looking between them.

Sasuke pressed his lips together, but didn't say anything more. Naruto must have taken that as tacit permission because he turned back to Iruka.

"Three weeks ago a team was sent out on an S-ranked mission to find out the reason why entire cells of jounin and chuunin from all the countries were going missing in this area. Souta-san, Kakashi-sensei and you. Souta returned, injured, but you two never made the meeting point. So Granny Tsunade sent us out to find and extract you if we could." He paused, took in a deep breath and the hands on Iruka's narrow shoulders tightened. "Iruka-sensei – you're supposed to be old. Well not old-old," he amended quickly. "But, uh, thirty, I think."

"Twenty-nine," Sasuke corrected.

"Right," Naruto said, as Iruka stared. "Anyway, you're a Chuunin – you're our old academy teacher and you, uh, even helped raise me a little."

Naruto stopped then and looked at Iruka expectantly, as if waiting for him to speak. But Iruka didn't know what to say, didn't know what to think at all. "Are you sure?" he asked, voice small. His mind reached out and gripped the very first thing that came to his thoughts. "I'm a Chuunin?"

The two exchanged another glance and Sasuke dipped his head in acknowledgement. "You could have been promoted to Special Jounin, but you've declined the exam several times, because you would rather teach at the Academy."

"Hey, I didn't know that," Naruto said, eyeing his teammate. "What, do you memorize people's files for fun or something?"

Sasuke didn't bat an eye. "Yes."

Iruka shook his head, feeling his face heat up. "That's not what I meant," he said. "I'm ten years old." He picked at his white shirt, now gone gray from days on the run. "These are my clothes. I'm not – I can't be grown up! I don't know any of you!"

Naruto's lips thinned and he nodded. "Yeah… I don't know what happened – how any of this could be possible." He hesitated, then admitted, "I've never heard of anything like this. But, we'll get to the bottom of it," he added, with quick, cheery optimism.

"But… but…" Iruka felt too scattered to think clearly. He turned latching onto the only familiar thing in the room. "So, Kakashi too? He's not a kid?"

"He's our Jounin-sensei." Naruto said, with a smile that did not quite conceal the worry behind his eyes. "Our lazy, pervert sensei."

Iruka could only shake his head: Kakashi was many things, but lazy was not one of them.

As if on cue, Sakura stood. "I've stabilized him for now, but that cut in his arm was poisoned and I don't have all the ingredients in my medical supplies here. He'll have to be taken back to Konoha." She looked directly at Naruto. "His Sharingan is gone. It's as if he never had it at all."

"Sharingan?" Iruka repeated, weakly. Then he lifted his hand to touch under his own left eye, remembering that odd moment by the spring. One of Kakashi's eyes had looked wrong to him, and he couldn't figure out why.

And slowly, he started to believe.

Naruto let out a long breath. "Okay, that's… strange." He looked to Sasuke for confirmation and only received a shrug in response. Naruto made a face in reply and turned to Iruka, crouching low. "Up on my back, Iruka-sens—ah, Iruka-kun," he corrected and muttered under his breath, to his team, "This is so weird."

Iruka couldn't help but agree.


OoOoOoO


Kakashi woke to a light touch to his chest. He came aware at once, although he was far too well trained to open his eyes and announce to any enemy that he was conscious. He took in a deep breath and registered the sharp scent of antiseptics mixing in with the pungent earthy richness of herbal medicines.

A hospital, then.

"I know you're awake, brat," said a very familiar voice above him. "Stop pretending to be asleep and report."

Kakashi blinked open his eyes. Lady Tsunade was leaning over him, all irritation and large breasts.

"Report," Kakashi repeated, and swiftly took stock of himself. He was lying in a hospital bed, garbed in a standard gown although some thoughtful person had replaced his regular fabric mask with the medical type. His right arm was swathed from wrist to shoulder in constricting white bandages and his chest felt tight and full at the same time – as if he were getting over a particularly nasty cold. Most importantly, he was alive. "To you?"

Tsunade's light brown eyes narrowed. "Name and rank."

"Hatake Kakashi," he answered, crisply. "Registration number 009720, Chuunin."

She nodded, her face as blank as a mask, giving away nothing. "And the date?"

At this, he hesitated. "I want to know the status of a teammate, Umino Iruka."

"He's adjusting," she said, eyes narrowing. "Answer the question, shinobi of Konoha."

Adjusting? Kakashi thought, as he gave his answer. Well, at very least it sounded as if he were alive. But adjusting? To what?

Tsunade's expression betrayed nothing, but a dark haired woman behind her was busy with writing down Kakashi's answers and then looking up something in a thick folder. It was his own file, he realized. When had it become so thick?

"Twenty-three years, three months and seven days," the woman said, at last. "And nineteen years, six months and five days for Iruka-sensei."

Tsunade put her hand to her forehead. She looked like she was getting a headache.

"Should I know what that is?" Kakashi asked.

"That's how much age and memory you've lost, brat," Tsunade snapped.

Kakashi blinked and let himself absorb that for a quiet moment before he said, "You look the same."

"The Hokage-sama has always maintained her youthful appearance," the dark haired assistant piped up, from the back.

He stared at her. "Hokage? Her?"

"I need a drink," Tsunade groaned.

Kakashi's voice was cold. He felt cold. "You are saying that I am actually thirty-three years old."

"Congratulations," said the Hokage flatly. "You and Iruka-kun somehow stumbled into the fountain of youth while on an S-ranked mission." She paused, eyes closing briefly. "As far as I can tell, all of your scars, your experiences and any knowledge you've gained since you were ten years old have been wiped away. I could find no evidence of broken bones I helped set myself," she added, the last bit in an almost frustrated snarl. "Konoha has lost four teams without any trace in that sector alone, and now one of my elite jounin and my best teacher come back as children. I need to know why."

Kakashi looked from her to the dark haired woman and back again. He had suspected that he and Iruka had been subjected to a memory modification, but… this?

"I need Jounin Hatake," Tsunade continued. She withdrew the scroll Iruka had retrieved from the attacking nin and lightly tossed it over. Kakashi caught it on instinct and glanced down at his own mark, etched in his handwriting. "Intelligence has not been able to open it without danger of it self-destructing. Try to remember what you've done – it's your scroll and it may contain the answers we need."

He turned it over in his hands, considering. Minato-sensei could do it. He had an irritating habit of being able to break every seal Kakashi could produce. But he wasn't here – he always visited when Kakashi was injured.

It felt as if his heart had frozen in his chest. "Where is he?" Kakashi breathed, and looked up. "Where's Minato-sensei?"

The dark haired woman let out a little hiccupping gasp and Tsunade's angry features melted into something shocked… then grim. She shook her head, once.

"I'm sorry. He died close to seventeen years ago."


OoOoOoO


Kakashi heard the footsteps long before his visitors arrived. He raised his head, dully, and sat up as someone knocked once and the door to his hospital room opened.

"He's in here," said a pink-haired kunoichi, over her shoulder. She turned to Kakashi and graced him with a smile before she moved to the side and ushered someone else in.

Iruka stepped into view from behind her. His face lit up and he rushed over to Kakashi's bedside, calling out behind him, "Thanks, Sakura-san."

The woman, Sakura apparently, hovered for one awkward moment on the threshold, watching Kakashi and Iruka with something both sad and wistful in her eyes. Then she blinked and looked away, the door clicking softly behind her.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Iruka said, seating himself on the edge of Kakashi's cot, as if he belonged there. Kakashi couldn't find the energy to complain. Seeing his slightly strained expression, Iruka frowned. "You are getting better… Right?"

"As much as can be expected," Kakashi answered.

There was a wealth of regret underneath those words. Iruka's lips tightened and he drew his knees up to his chest. "Yeah." Someone had lent him a dark shirt with the sleeves a bit too long and a matching pair of dark pants with a rather vivid orange stripe running along the seams. The skin under his eyes was puffy, too, as if he had not gotten very much sleep over the last couple of days, but had done a lot of grieving.

"I got flowers and cards," Iruka said, nose wrinkling slightly. "From my students. One girl gave me an apple – she's older than me, but they all call me Sensei."

"I was a jounin," Kakashi said, with no feeling of pride whatsoever. It was hard to feel he had earned the promotion when he couldn't even remember it.

"I heard. Congratulations."

He shrugged, and wondered to himself if Minato-sensei had been alive to see it.

Iruka was quiet for a moment, then swallowed, looking down. "My parents are… gone. Naruto-san told me he would take me to see their…" he trailed off and swallowed hard, again, eyes suddenly wet. "I didn't want to. Not yet… None of this even seems real."

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said. Iruka's hand was there, lying inches from his own. His own fingers twitched, but he couldn't bring up the courage to get them to move. When he glanced up, he saw the other boy watching him.

"I'm sorry, too," he said, with a soft, soft look. And Kakashi knew that someone had told him of Minato-sensei – and Iruka had somehow known he didn't want to talk about it directly.

Kakashi only nodded his reply and they fell into a companionable silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Absently, Kakashi withdrew the scroll from behind his pillow: Tsunade had agreed to allow him to work on it while he recovered and as soon as Kakashi was released from the hospital he planned on finding out where his older self lived and going through his notes. The answer to all of this had to be somewhere.

Iruka sighed and rolled his eyes when Kakashi said as much.

"Good luck," he muttered. "Hokage-sama won't even tell me where I used to live. Naruto said something about letting me get settled before it blew my mind. Then Sakura-san hit him."

"And you let that stop you?" Kakashi asked, eyebrows raised.

A ghost of a smile flickered over Iruka's lips, and at that moment Kakashi saw again the mischievous brat who had walked up to the wagon out of spite, and who had refused to leave a downed companion even to save his own life. "No, but he's fast," Iruka said, with the air of someone who had tried to escape his assigned babysitter several times. "I think I taught him."

Kakashi didn't smile back, but it was as if a little of the cold fog he'd felt since hearing about Minato's death had begun to lift. Just a little.

"I'm a jounin," he said. "Or I will be again. Our mission was an S-class, top secret. So I'm certain the Hokage will give us access to whatever we need to open the scroll."

"Really?" Iruka's eyes widened in wonder. He clearly hadn't been informed of the mission's rank. He held out his hand. "Let me see it?"

Kakashi did and in the second they both gripped the scroll – Iruka holding one end and he the other – they both jerked a shock of chakra zipped through their hands. The thrill of the chakra felt old and familiar: it felt like home.

Iruka's eyes met his. "I don't understand. We've both held it before."

"Not together," Kakashi said. "Not like this." His fingers tentatively crept over, covering over Iruka's warm hand. The chakra under their palms rose – nearly sang – before it finally faded.

And with a tiny click, the locks upon the scroll disengaged.

"Someone should get the Hokage," Kakashi breathed.

"I will," Iruka said, the mischievous glint back in full force. "After I see what's inside."

Kakashi started to protest: it wasn't proper, but Iruka had already scooted up to side with him, and his argument died in his throat. Together, they unrolled the scroll.

"At its root, the Reversed Life jutsu is similar to the Kamui," Kakashi read, the characters inked in his own efficient handwriting. "As it uses a warping of both time and space to alter its victims, starting back from a predefined set point."

"Down here." Iruka jabbed at a point near the bottom of the scroll, having either skipped ahead or else was a faster reader. "Kakashi… I think it's a way to counteract the jutsu!"

He took in a sharp breath, eyes scanning the scroll. "Get the Hokage."

This time Iruka obeyed, sliding off the cot and racing out the door.

It only took a few minutes for Tsunade return with her assistant and Iruka trailing behind.

"Finally," she said, snatching the opened scroll and scanning it. "Hmm… it only opened to the both of you?" She scowled. "If I'm able to fix this, remind me to yell at you for being so damned sentimental, Hatake."

The assistant hid her smile by being busy with her clipboard while the boys exchanged confused glances.

"Hmm," Tsunade said again, after what felt like a small eternity. "Well it seems straight forward enough." She lowered the scroll to look directly at the both of them. "But as all of this is completely untested, there will be a measure of risk. Konoha needs your skills as adults, but I also want to give you a choice." She paused. "This could be a second chance, for the both of you."

To his own mild chagrin, Kakashi felt himself hesitate. He knew nothing of Jounin Hatake, although he gathered from bits and pieces (said and unsaid) that he was at least well respected. Still, he would be putting himself at risk to become someone who was practically a stranger.

It was Iruka who surprised him. He shook his head after only a moment's thought.

"I want to try, Hokage-sama. It's clear I have a life here with good friends and students who need me. I couldn't be there for them if I stayed like this to grow up all over again. It would be like I was abandoning them."

Tsunade smiled tightly at him. "That is a very mature observation; one I would expect from Iruka-sensei. Very well." She looked to Kakashi. "Brat?"

He hesitated only a moment longer, glancing at Iruka. "I choose to take the risk as well."

She nodded. "It should only take me a few minutes to prepare."

After a quick consultation with her assistant, Tsunade directed both boys to stand side by side. Her hands flashed through the seals and Kakashi's vision became washed in green…


OoOoOoO


"Get back here!" Iruka heard Anko shriek. Then, "I'm going to gut you!"

Iruka turned and sprinted across the top of the roof, prize in hand and flapping behind him like a flag of victory. And despite the fact he could hear Anko leap the roof and gaining on him with every step, he still laughed – loud and carefree.

The roof slanted down from its apex and came to an abrupt end. There was another roof out beyond, a few feet too far away to be counted as anything like a safe distance.

He gathered as much chakra as he could in his feet and leapt…

… and fell short.

His grabbed for the edge of the roof, fingers catching briefly. But his weight and momentum were too much to hold on. Iruka slipped and fell with a short cry, landing in a clatter of trashcans. He rolled, somehow gained his feet – and then ran headlong into someone's chest.

Iruka bounced back and fell right on his butt. The other person didn't so much as take a step back.

There was a solid thump as Anko landed behind them.

"Back off!" she said aggressively. "He's mine."

"Is he?" the other drawled, and Iruka looked up to see a boy several years older than himself standing there. He was tallish, more lithe than bulky, with wild silver hair. There was a skintight mask covering half of his face and his Leaf headband pulled down to cover his left eye. The teen's visible eye curved at him. "Nice bra."

Iruka looked down – the clasp of Anko's lacy red bra had become somehow caught on the under-mesh of his sleeve. He flushed and hurriedly ripped it away.

Anko stepped forward. "This isn't your business, Kakashi-san."

"You're right," Kakashi said and Iruka felt his heart plummet. He was dead. "But I was interested to know what was causing so much noise and interrupting my reading." His stance was casual, even lazy, but there was something ice-cold under the words as he focused again on Anko. "You're Orochimaru's newest apprentice, are you not? I'm sure he would be very interested to hear that you were causing a scene."

As Iruka watched in shock, all of the color drained from Anko's face. Was she afraid? Anko?

"I see," Kakashi murmured. He reached down, plucked the bra off the ground with no apparent embarrassment at all and tossed it back. Anko caught it out of the air, and again Kakashi's visible eye curved up. "Then let's keep it between ourselves, shall we?"

Anko clenched her free hand so hard her knuckles turned white, and if looks could kill Iruka would surely have been a small pile of ash on the ground. Then she turned and stalked off.

Iruka let out a sigh of relief and he climbed to his feet. The teen didn't help him, only watched with mild curiosity.

"Thank you," Iruka said, bowing.

He shrugged. "As I said, all the noise interrupted my reading." Kakashi then reached into the pocket of his jounin-vest, pulled out a garish orange book, and continued on his way as if nothing had happened.

Iruka watched him go. For a heartbeat of time the boy had seemed… familiar. But the moment was over almost before it started and the last he saw of Hatake Kakashi was his back as he flash-stepped out of the alley completely. As if he expected Iruka to believe he had just been hanging around in the shadows, reading that book. Right.

"What a strange guy," Iruka muttered, brushed himself free of the worst of the street-dust, and took off to find where Mizuki had run off to.


OoOoOoO


Epilogue will be up either tomorrow or the next day!