Note: Alternate universe. Fluffy friendship. Lots of WAFF! You have been warned.
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Down The Untrodden Path
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Chapter Three
Kakashi leered gleefully and turned the page of the bright orange book he was holding.
After months and months of endless waiting and endless pining, the new volume of Icha Icha was finally out on the market. This explained why he was currently crouching in a dark, dingy corner of the dilapidated shack situated at the very end of the back garden of the capital's constable headquarters. He snickered to himself for the umpteenth time that day, as he read a particularly disturbing sentence involving various methods of head dissection he had yet to come to know about. Perhaps he could regurgitate this in explicit details to scare the next criminal he would be in charge of interrogating. Another snicker escaped his lips. Being the chief of constables was so much fun.
"KAKASHI-SAN!!"
...except, of course, when he had to deal with this one client in particular. Attention momentarily interrupted, he glanced up from his book. The shout just now had sounded rather far off, so he was probably safe for now. Kakashi sighed. He hoped his subordinates would be powerful enough to stop the rampage. At least, until he was safe and away from the zone of danger. He did not want to spoil his good mood by having to deal with the enraged tutor of Naruto when it was almost time to knock off.
All hopes of escape flew out of his mind, however, when he heard the sound of destruction getting closer and closer to where he was hiding. Just outside the hut, he could hear muffled shouts - and was that a scream? - from all directions. Before Kakashi had time to adjust his weight and thus hightail out of the run-down shack, a single body of one of his subordinates crashed through the wooden door beside which he was crouched, flying spectacularly into the wooden crates stacked near the door.
As the crates were old and termite-infested, they broke into a few thousand splinters immediately upon force of impact. The poor constable was also - thankfully, knocked instantly unconscious.
Kakashi sighed. He briefly wondered how much the medical fees the rampage would come up to this time.
From the now opened door, poured light of the afternoon into the musty old shack. A shadow, following footsteps that were harried and determined, quickly claimed the light. When Iruka stepped into the room, the air stilled. Kakashi was still crouched with his book, and he lifted a casual eye up to stare at the furious looking Iruka.
For his part, Iruka had been glancing about wildly around the room when he entered - not realising Kakashi was crouched low beside the wall near the door. Once Kakashi looked at him, though, he noticed the attention. Following the prickly feeling in his skin, he found the nonchalant chief of constables, crouched and reading a book that was unlikely to set a good example for all the citizens of the land who looked up to the chief as a perfect, model example of chastity and responsibility.
"Yo!" Kakashi greeted simply, one hand upraised. "Dropped by to return me the money you still owe me for that table you destroyed two weeks ago, Iruka-sensei?"
After a brief, deceptive silence, the smack of a teacher's rod against bare skin could be heard - three blocks away from the shack of origin.
--
"No one uses this corner room," Naruto was saying, while opening the door that led into a small, neat, but empty-sounding room. Sasuke stepped in quietly after him. The blond continued, "so you can stay here for the time being. I'm usually the one checking the rooms on this particular hallway, so you don't have to worry about Iruka-sensei suddenly appearing, either! Good deal, huh?" He grinned at the impassive Sasuke.
Sasuke grunted something approvingly in response. He stepped forward, into the middle of the room, where there was a wooden square table and four chairs arranged around it. From there, he examined the room. One corner had been blocked by folds - the designated corner for changing and stuff like that. The corner opposite it was occupied by a single, simple bed. In between the two items, was the wall, where a window to the outer world hung. Sasuke finished the appraisal of this room by looking up at the ceiling. If he had to make a quick getaway, the ceiling would be the best choice, he noted to himself.
Turning to the still grinning Naruto, he said, "Thank you," in a dull, bookish tone. Like he used the phrase because it was a step-by-step reaction procedure taught to him by a textbook. "For an idiot, this is not bad thinking," life returned to Sasuke's voice when he said this, along with a knowing smirk.
Naruto stopped grinning. His face became a cross between anger and exasperation. Throwing his hands up in the air, he yelled, "That's it! That's IT! You're staying here for tonight and that's ALL, you hear?" He pointed angrily at the Uchiha, who was currently more interested in shrugging his dirt-covered cape off than listening to what Naruto had to say. "Then you go back to your heroic wanderings and I'll go back to my training and everything'll be back to normal," Naruto nodded sagely to himself, folding his arms across his chest, "just like it always was!"
Sasuke dropped his tattered cape to one side, looking at it with slight horror and slight fascination. Had he really been walking around with such filth? "And you're going to come with me, right?" He asked, loudly and clearly, after Naruto finished his pronouciations. He sat himself down on a chair by the table and started to peel his boots off.
"Nope, not going with you," Naruto's reply was devoid of his usual exasperation. After all, he had gone through this with Sasuke enough times so that the situation was no longer new to him. Although he had to give credit to the Uchiha for not being able to get the hint at all. Without waiting to hear what else Sasuke had to say, Naruto turned to exit the room. "You stay in here and don't go out, otherwise Iruka-sensei will find you and we'll /both/ get into deep trouble," he shuddered, as if remembering something unpleasant. "I'll bring you water to clean up and some food. And if I find any clean clothes I'll bring it up as well. Only for tonight though! And don't break anything if you know what's good for you!" Naruto wagged a teacher-like finger before his face, bottom lip upturned, likely disturbed by the other's lack of response. He shrugged, then slipped out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Leaving Sasuke alone with the hushed silence of the room, dark eyes focused on the door which Naruto had just gone out from - thoughtful and solemn.
--
"Iruka-sensei, that was really uncalled for, don't you think?" Kakashi sighed, while pressing an ice pack to his left cheek, which was now smarting, thanks to a powerful point-blank whack from the thin slope of a teacher's rod. He was now in the inner hall, seated across the very person who had given him the sore spot on the cheek. "Whatever it is you think I have done to Naruto this time, I have not. You can ask the little fellow himself," he held a hand out in a mock gesture. "Royal tutors shouldn't jump to conclusions just like that, you know."
"I know," was Iruka's cool reply. He sipped the cup of tea he had been served. "That particular blow was for the reading of unwholesame material during the course of work and duty, setting the /worst/ example a constable chief could for his subordinates." He stressed, to which Kakashi sighed again.
Iruka had always been unnecessarily worried about how Kakashi's porn-reading habits would have a bad influence on Naruto, who constantly hung out around the chief. Not that Naruto wasn't already a rather cheeky boy himself, though he doubted Iruka knew that. He wondered briefly if Naruto had demonstrated his newly perfected Oiroke no Jutsu on Iruka yet. Probably not. If he had, then Kakashi wouldn't be sitting here, sipping tea with the guardian. He would most likely be running like hell and utilising all the known camouflage and teleportation Jutsus in the world.
"And for issuing a /restraining order/ on me!" Iruka continued, slamming his cup down on the table, making Kakashi look on the floor sheepishly. "What crime have I committed to warrant an action like that, sir?" The smile Iruka was giving Kakashi was unnerving.
"Well," Kakashi, however, was not in the least bit fazed, although he did find this whole thing quite a big bother. "If you hadn't barged in to the headquarters once every month or so demanding to see me and thus interrupting the constables in their work, it would not have been necessary, I'm sure."
"Only because you simply refuse to leave Naruto and me alone," Iruka pointed out. "And what work? I always made sure I dropped by during break periods!" Shaking his head, Iruka poured himself another cup of tea. "Except today, but today is an exception!" He paused, downing the tea in one huge gulp.
"Oh, really?" Kakashi removed the ice pack from his face and set it down on the table. He touched his left cheek, wincing slightly, now knowing better than to mess around with the scholars of the court. Who knew what other fantastic feat they could achieve with harmless looking items of study? "Care to share what great event happened today to bring you down to the constabulary in such a fluster?"
Iruka's eyes flashed. "Come off it, Kakashi-san," he maintained his polite tone of voice, "you were the one who sent him, weren't you?"
"..." Kakashi wondered how to phrase his reply, which eventually turned out to be a rather befuddled, "...huh?"
"You were the one," Iruka pressed on, both palms flattened on the table, eyes narrowed, sentence sure, "who sent Uchiha Sasuke to Naruto."
There was an exact second of silence.
"Uchiha..." Kakashi's eyes widened slightly, ".../Sasuke/?!" He rose to his feet. "You saw him? You saw Uchiha Sasuke?" It was the first time since their long acquaintance that Iruka had seen Kakashi looking so alarmed. Naturally, therefore, he was also slightly affected.
"The boy came through the inn doors a couple of hours ago," Iruka was slightly taken aback by Kakashi's unexpected reaction. "An hour or so after you left from my kitchen ceiling, anyway," he snorted slightly at that particular encounter. "It doesn't make sense to me why the royal family would send an Uchiha after Naruto, when Tsunade-sama will be crowned by the end of this week, though," Iruka frowned. He noticed that Kakashi was steadily getting paler and paler in the face.
"Of course it doesn't make sense," the constable chief ran a hand through his hair, trying to stay calm. "Because the royal family sent no such person after Naruto."
Iruka had no idea how he got over his initial shock, but he did. "But he..." he managed to stammer, amidst his surprise, "...he was... he had... Sharingan..."
"Sharingan..." Kakashi frowned. "...then he can't be an imposter... it really is him..."
"What's going on, Kakashi-san?" Iruka felt a rising panic from within. Kakashi had stood and gone over to the weapons rack, drawing out a long, sharp blade and sheathing it by his side. He turned around, his face graven.
"You left the palace to tutor Naruto ten years ago, so you may not be aware. The royal bodyguards - the Uchiha clan," a painful glint took over his eyes for a split second, "has been eradicated. Orochimaru ordered it."
"I am aware of the massacre," Iruka spoke quietly, from the background. "I was also told that there were at least a few survivors - one of whom being Uchiha Itachi, the clan genius Orochimaru used to wipe out the clan..."
"You are generally right on that count," Kakashi shouldered his patrol pack, which consisted of a few Jutsu scrolls he thought might be useful, "except that there weren't /a few/ survivors." He gestured for Iruka to follow, and the tutor did. "There were only two. And only because Orochimaru permitted it."
"That means that Sasuke is working under Orochimaru?" Iruka gasped. That would put a whole new perspective onto the matter. And that certainly meant that the next time he saw Sasuke, the boy was as good as died or captured and locked up. He followed Kakashi out of the door and entered the main hall, where the several chatting constables there were instantly hushed and dispersed off quickly to their workstations. "What does the tyrant want with Naruto?! Does Tsunade-sama know of what he's been doing behind the throne?" Iruka continued to ask.
"Orochimaru may have nothing to do with it this time, I'm afraid," Kakashi was obliged to answer. They crossed the main courtyard quickly and arrived at the double-leafed front door, which was pushed open for them by the two constables stationed there. They stepped out. "Uchiha Sasuke disappeared from the palace three years ago, taking along with him the Sword of Jewels - the only item that can verify whether a person truly belongs to the royal line. Since then, no one has been able to locate him, or the Sword."
All around the hastily travelling duo, people retreated to the sides of the streets. It was not, after all, every day, that they saw the chief of their constabacy stalk down the street looking like the next person who crossed his path would end up very painfully dead. "Iruka-sensei," Kakashi continued to speak, "did Uchiha Sasuke tell you what the purpose of his visit back to the capital was? And so close to Tsunade-sama's coronation, too?"
At that, Iruka's eyes became slightly downcast. "Yes, he did," he murmured, and Kakashi stared at him expectantly. "He said that he's here to bring Naruto back to where he rightfully belongs... before it's too late..." He laughed. "He kept harping on the same thing you did, Kakashi-san, which was why I thought you sent him."
Kakashi shot Iruka an amused but slightly bothered look. "Did he have the Sword with him?" He inquired, as they turned a corner into a deserted back alley.
"I did not notice," Iruka shook his head. "I was much too afraid of him to notice what he had or was wearing."
Kakashi blinked in surprise. He had known Iruka to be a brave man who would spit in Orochimaru's face if push came to shove. "Why were you afraid of him?"
It took Iruka a long time to sort his feelings out and find the answer, before which even he himself had not known why. "Because he had the eyes..." he glanced up at the heavens, which had began to open its floodgates upon the earth, "...of someone who had gone into the deepest pits of the abyss... and back. Someone... who will not let /anything/ stand in between him and his ultimate goal..."
Only the sounds of the passing rain and their own footsteps accompanied
the duo, as they continued on the last leg of their journey, towards
their unknown destination. --------------------------------------------------------------
6/1/2005
tougenkyou . net / xd