Chapter Four
Kakashi's quarry was working peacefully at his desk when the jounin encroached upon his classroom window, which was currently propped open to let in the breeze. Discretely, he took in the hunched back, the crinkle of parchment, and the soft humming.
"Sensei!" he hailed, secretly delighted when the younger shinobi startled with a flurry of papers. His face full of false reprobation, the jounin tsked. "You should be more aware of your surroundings, Sensei."
Iruka sorted his scrambled work. His look of annoyance, however, was poor concealment for the quirk of amusement he harbored. He greeted, "Kakashi. Are you here for something particular, or just some general malice?"
Kakashi's smirk grew. He requested, "Walk with me?"
Konoha was a rambling city. Drainage pipes meandered along the sides of haphazard apartment housing, while green things grew out of roof singles and cracks in the aging plaster. Above them, stretches of laundry bridged the upper-levels, navy blue mixed unevenly with patches of civilian garments.
"You're a hard shinobi to come across, sensei," Kakashi began once they were on their way. "I check the school and they tell me you're at the mission desk. I check the mission desk and I'm told that you're tutoring. I peer over the civilians and get smacked with a broom for asking scary questions about beloved Iruka-sensei."
"Yes, the grandmas of Konoha are very fearsome, shinobi or no," Iruka intoned.
Kakashi coughed, unperturbed. It always pleased him when Iruka failed to withhold his dryer sense of humor.
The teacher continued, "But I should be spending considerably more time at the academy. It's almost time for mid-term evaluations."
He seemed happy talking about his students, but personally Kakashi liked Iruka best out of context. There were times it seemed as though Iruka-sensei was never without a handful of papers or an armful of brat. It made him seem slightly dislocated now, like a plant that stood out better against a different wallpaper.
In the lull, Iruka asked, "How goes the world of the great copy-nin?"
Kakashi felt a touch of umbrage at the sardonic tone in the other's voice, as he always did when Iruka used his title to address him. Still, he answered, "Very like always. Busy. Tsunade is a hag."
Iruka just nodded. The easy agreement would almost have been funny, but by now Kakashi knew that Iruka and the current Hokage had a complex relationship which to define as "rocky" would be an understatement.
The two oddly matched shinobi wandered comfortably under the colorful tiles, footholds, and vandalism of their labyrinthine home. A game of tag was interrupted in their passing, and the children called out, "Sensei!" Their teacher waved.
"So what's this about?" Iruka remarked as they moved away, passing under a patterned awning. "Still trying to root out my air of mystery? I'm really not that complicated, you know."
Kakashi answered more or less frankly, "You're a preoccupation."
"Naruto claims you want to be my friend, and that being a nuisance is your socially challenged way of expressing it," Iruka suggested, utilizing one of his favorite methods: the blunt presentation of something that Kakashi didn't know that he knew.
"Naruto is a vomiting babbler with no sense of decent intelligence," the jounin retorted.
"Hm. I think you underestimate him," the teacher disagreed. Obliquely, he added, "After all, he's made some interesting observations about you."
… What exactly did that mean? Ill at ease, the copy-nin shifted.
"It's unsettling to wonder about, I know," Iruka sympathized.
The jounin rolled his eyes. He was going to eat Naruto.
"So is that what this is about? Iruka pressed. "Being friends?"
It was such a straightforward, unexpected question that Kakashi momentarily balked. He paused to consider his motivation. He had friends, but a shinobi's life was different. He thought that maybe it was because Jounin walked too close to the veil, ever aware that the next time one heard from an acquaintance it might be a funeral notice. It lingered in the back of him whenever he was with these "friends."
It was in their eyes too: restraint.
He had no idea how Iruka defied that instinctual filter. How he allowed himself to bring the weakest and most vulnerable so close to his heart. Without even a twinge of denial, Kakashi would admit that such as risk would surely break him. However, Iruka held onto things. He brought people close.
Was it was selfishness, greed that made Kakashi want to find his way into that circle? Did he want to 'be friends'?
"Yes," it came out without thought or explanation – a simple statement of fact. Slightly stunned by his own bluntness, he repeated himself, "Yes."
Iruka responded by gazing at him for a long moment, just looking. Then he smiled, the deliberately cryptic one that drove the ninja in Kakashi crazy.
"Well, okay then."
On day eleven, the doppelganger began to seem restless. The pleasant smile that Kakashi had grown used to faded. That night Kakashi came up beside the clone to find it looking into the southeastern sky, purple and red like wine with the dusk.
"What is it?" he asked, facing the horizon. "Is something wrong?"
'Iruka' looked at him and ducked its head. Kakashi was discomforted by this strange behavior. It added to the stirring of concern already awake in his stomach since the rendezvous date had passed. He asked, "Is Iruka alright?"
The being shuffled, its eyes suddenly brimming. Then it turned back to the horizon.
Something was wrong. The sickly certainty had barely pervaded Kakashi before he was taking a step toward the west. But before he could go further, hands were gripping his arm. He looked back at his captor and the clone shook its head, though moisture still clung to its eyelashes.
Kakashi couldn't help but grasp the message. He breathed, "Okay, Iruka."
He'd wait. And pray that he wouldn't regret it.
It took him three more days to come to terms with what he had to do. Three days of watching his companion dissolve into a distracted, shivering mess, hardly able to keep its eyes off the westward sky. Of frightened, wordless looks and whimpers at night. Three days of knowing that something had gone terribly wrong.
After that, there came a point where Kakashi could no longer honorably abide by Iruka's wishes.
During the past days, he had more than once attempted to set off, but each time he'd been drawn back by his partner's ghost. Unable to break away, he'd attempted to reason with the double, but when he'd tried 'Iruka' ran a single finger down the inside of his arm. There, beneath the fabric of Kakashi's shirt, was a long scar, and it reminded him of the last time he had compromised one of these missions.
"He could be dying," he'd pleaded for understanding. "I could save him."
'You could die.'
"You can't exist apart from him, you know," Kakashi tried.
But the double was unmoved. How could one be selfish unto oneself? Iruka, all of Iruka, would accept death rather than risk another's life. It was a part of his nature to protect, to value others above himself.
Finally, in his growing desperation, Kakashi came to his wretched conclusion. If he tried to leave, the doppelganger would resist, and any strong counter would leave the being like dust; it would flicker out like a candle. And while that shouldn't have mattered – because it was a clone, a clone – somehow it seemed too much like murder now. 'Iruka' barred the exit.
"You thought of that, didn't you, Iruka?" Kakashi growled into the morning. The double was still curled near him, warm as an infant bird with heartbeat just as fragile. "You thought I wouldn't be able to destroy a creature with your face so easily. You devious bastard."
He rested his chin on his folded hands, his eyes hardening. "But you overestimated me."
'Iruka' followed him guilelessly, head low and consumed by whatever far away thoughts preoccupied it. It looked up, though, when Kakashi stopped by the splintered tree, shoulders tense.
"It's been unexpectedly nice getting to know you. Or else, the part of Iruka you are," the copy-nin began, and the double offered him a smile. It made a hand signal: comrade. This made Kakashi's throat clinch.
"I didn't set out to like him…you that first mission. I just wanted to see what made you tick." He paused. "Things are different now. You're the strangest shinobi I've ever met, Iruka, but you've grown on me. And I'm not going to let you die."
The clone looked at him without comprehension, perplexed and still sorrowful. It flinched when Kakashi took a step forward and placed a hand on either of its shoulders. However, it didn't pull away.
Quietly, Kakashi said, "I'm sorry."
With those words his hands slipped upward, gripping the doppelganger's chin and neck. A sharp jerk and a resounding snap as bone split apart. There was the briefest impression of wide eyes, incomprehension, shock. Then nothing, a haze, smoke in his arms.
There was no body left sprawled across him, no head lolling awkwardly against his shoulder. Only a dissipating smell like chalk and yellow tendrils that snaked through his hands and then turned transparent in the early morning air. No body, dead-eyed, to cry out betrayal.
But somehow having nothing to hold on to only made Kakashi feel more bereft.
He left almost immediately after that, destroying all traces of their presence with an experienced ease and passing away into the shadow like a thought. The comfortable camp was mist behind him, the spring and the tree. It was like returning back to life after a pleasant dream – he felt invigorated, vividly alive – but also, somewhere core deep, he ached.
Viciously, Kakashi squelched the sensation of mourning working inside him. He would not grieve for phantoms, neither the dream or the reflection of his friend. 'Friend?' he castigated himself. How could one befriend a clone? It was foolish to even dwell on it.
He doubled his speed. The real Iruka was out there tonight, very likely suffering, not expecting rescue. Long past his due date. However, Kakashi knew Iruka was alive because the clone was alive, or else it had been until he killed it. He had orders to return home, but Kakashi had always been particularly unsuited for this kind of mission. Experience said fourteen days. After that it was too late for rescue.
But Iruka was alive, and to Kakashi, alive meant there was hope.