Iruka checked his watch, cursed quietly and hurried out of the front door. His foot had no sooner hit the mat than Kakashi appeared in front of him, standing upside down on the underside of the walkway roof.

"Yo!" Kakashi said by way of greeting, then added somewhat redundantly,"You're going out."

Iruka narrowed his eyes. "No, I'm in the bath - Of course I'm going out! Now please move, Kakashi-san, so I can lock my door."

He didn't, of course, that would have been the polite thing to do and Iruka despaired of Kakashi ever doing anything so mundane as being polite. "Where are you going?" he was asked instead.

It was getting late. If Iruka didn't go now the store would be closed and he wouldn't be able to stop for groceries on the way home. "To visit someone. Who that person is, is none of your business."

Suddenly Kakashi was the right way up and right in his face, radiating righteous irritation. Iruka instinctively took a step back, and when Kakashi followed, he took another. A third found him plastered against the wall with Kakashi so close he could feel the jounin's body heat. They stared at each other, virtually nose to nose, for a long moment before Kakashi said, "Scroll?"

"Eh?" Iruka was finding it hard to think. This close Kakashi smelled of sharp-edged metal and salt underlain with a musky scent that made Iruka's head spin. He could see the depths of colour in his uncovered eye; swirls of deep brown layered with a grey so dark it could be black. And the intensity - it was like looking into a thunderstorm and finding it staring back at you.

Then the clouds lifted, the eye curved into its usual happy arch. "The summoning scroll, sensei, for when you get into trouble."

Iruka fumbled in his jacket pocket and tugged it out wordlessly. Kakashi took it, unrolled it, bit his own thumb hard enough to make it bleed and wiped a fresh sample across the summoning seal. Then he re-rolled the scroll, tucked it back in Iruka's pocket, gave it a little pat and vanished in a swirl of leaves. Iruka stood there staring into the space he'd occupied, trying to drag his brain back from whatever fox-hole it had hidden itself in. After a moment or two, he puffed out a word his students would have been shocked to hear him use, spun on his heel and headed for the stairs.

Three minutes later he reappeared, red-faced and panting, locked his front door, then vanished again at a dead sprint.

The Sarutobi compound was on the edge of town, about half as far from the new academy as Iruka's house. It was also relatively new, having been rebuilt after the kyuubi attack. Back then, Sarutobi Hiroshi had been clan patriarch - Sandaime having formally eschewed clan loyalties when he retook the mantle of Hokage. The newly married Sarutobi heir had built for a clan in ascendency, his hopes for a large family reflected in the size of the new compound. With seven different buildings set around three courtyards, it was solid and functional, though lacking much of the graciousness of the older Hyuuga and Uchiha estates. It was also achingly empty. The last time Iruka had visited had been not long before Sandaime was killed and the place had felt like a graveyard even then. Hiroshi-sama had been dead several years and Asuma-san had retreated to an apartment in town, leaving just Yuuna-sama, Hiroshi's widow, Konohamaru, his single child, plus few family servants as the only residents.

Iruka closed the heavy gate behind him and made his way up the stone pathway to the main house. The sun was long down and the night getting chill. He jogged the last couple of steps and knocked quietly. The door slid back to reveal a small figure knelt on the other side. It was covered from head to toe in grey robes.

Taken aback slightly – this looked like neither of the house servants he remembered - Iruka stammered, "I-I'm sorry. I was hoping to visit with Yuuna-sama. O-or Konohamaru-kun if the lady is too busy?" The figure dipped its head, then rose gracefully and began to walk deeper into the house. Taking it as tacit permission to follow, Iruka quickly replaced his sandals with house-slippers, and hurried after... her, he rather thought, going by the way she walked. Tiny, delicate steps, which hardly showed the tips of her toes under the hem of her cloak. And what a strange garment that was; with its deep cowled hood and long flowing sleeves, not a scrap of skin was visible.

They crossed the hallway where the woman...girl... knelt down, slid another door open and then waited with her head bowed for Iruka to enter. Ahead of him was a large washitsu room with traditional shoji screens and tatami mats on the floor. It was sparsely furnished with only a blanket-covered kotetsu, an antique black and gold lacquer butsudan and a free-standing screen painted with cherry blossoms, which was placed towards the far end presumably to offer some level of privacy from casual visitors. Feeling desperately self-conscious, Iruka shucked his slippers then stepped through the door, hearing it slide closed behind him. Again he followed the girl, this time to the other side of the screen.

And there was Yuuna-sama, sitting seiza at the side of a futon upon which lay the frighteningly still form of her son, Konohamaru. The boy looked truly awful; his skin paper-pale, his cheeks sunken, his eyes dark-ringed. Iruka had heard that the jutsu which had caught him was a nasty one, but he'd never dreamed it was this bad.

"Don't let it scare you, Iruka-sensei," came Yuuna-sama's quiet calm voice. "It may look terrible but he rests quite peacefully."

"What- what was it?" The question popped out of its own volition and he felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment.

"A child's prank gone terribly wrong. I don't remember the name of the specific justu-"

"Yang Release: Great Hungering Maw," the cloaked girl interjected. Her voice was nothing like Iruka expected it to be. Given the graceful way she moved, it should have been soft and cultured, and instead it was brash and edged. It was like bending to smell an exquisite lotus blossom and having frog croak at you.

The tiniest of frowns appeared between Yuuna-sama's brows. "Yes, thank you, Kaori-chan, you may go." Not another word was spoken until Kaori had left the room, then Yuuna-sama turned back to Iruka and continued as though she had never been interrupted. "However in effect it was similar to the Akimichi ability to convert their body mass into chakra. The Kumo boy who used the technique had stolen it from his father and it's thought that he had no idea it would do such damage. It killed him, his team mates and his jounin-sensei before it reached Konohamaru. We can only be grateful that it failed before it took him also." Her hand drifted out to rest on the covers next to Konohamaru's; their fingers barely touched. She was looking in his direction but Iruka got the impression she seeing something else entirely. "He is the only one I have left, you know. The last of the Sarutobi. Who would have thought we would lose them all so soon."

It was terrible to watch such a wonderful woman suffer and know there was nothing you could do. "I'm so sorry," Iruka said in little more than a whisper. "I had no idea..."

"Nor should you have had," Yuuna-sama said, somewhat more forcefully. "As Tsunade-hime said, the potential for conflict to erupt between ourselves and Kumogakure would have been huge. Not only that but it would have been very bad for morale for news of this to get out. It was the first chuunin exams since the war and it was vitally important that everything went well."

"Hmph, the best way of ensuring that would be not to enter kids without the proper training to start with."

Her eyes flashed. "Oh my dear Iruka-sensei, I do wish more of Konoha shared your attitude. Just yesterday I had Netsuto-san complaining that his daughter wasn't available full-time for missions yet. Little Tsubame is six years old for goodness sake and frankly I don't care if she can already summon an adult eagle, she is not equipped to deal with conditions in the field!"

Beside them, Konohamaru shifted uneasily at the sound of raised voices. His mother flushed a little and ducked her head, patting his cheek and tugging the covers up around him more tightly. Then she gestured to Iruka and they both trod quietly back to the kotetsu. "I just wish there was something we could do. They must be allowed to mature properly or we will lose yet another generation to mishaps and foolishness. Did you hear we lost Daichi-kun and Hibari-chan six weeks ago? In all that's nearly twenty-five percent of that class already and they've only been graduated for two years." Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.

"Half the trouble is the kids themselves," Iruka said, taking a seat opposite Yuuna-sama. "I remember Konohamaru going off the deep-end when I told him he wouldn't be allowed to graduate until he was at least twelve. His uncle Asuma became a genin at nine and he was determined he could do the same."

"I know. I even suggested to Tsunade-hime that we artificially suppress their chakra, to make them think they're not as powerful as they are. Goodness knows some of them have it to burn."

"What did she say?" It sounded like a great idea to Iruka. Half the problem with the kekkei genkai kids was them being able to do more than their childish bodies could be trained to handle.

"That the parents would never agree and that she could never formally condone doing it behind their backs." Yuuna-sama sighed. "Personally I think she was just dodging the issue."

Iruka's back straightened as she spoke, his heart doing a quick double beat of excitement. "Are you absolutely positive that's what she said?" he asked in a surprisingly level tone for a man whose hands were trembling.

"Completely." Yuuna-sama smiled at him. "It may have been some years since I was on active duty but village politics keeps me on my toes."

"Eh..." This was likely the most foolish thing he'd done since creeping into Ebisu-sensei's office that day. He asked anyway. "Can I ask, how were you going to do it?"

Yuuna-sama frowned slightly. "Oh it was nothing too complicated. Just a simple medicinal compound that's often used for patients recovering from severe chakra exhaustion. I believe it was developed by Nara Shikamu to treat Kakashi-kun after he was gifted the sharingan. It was touch and go for the poor boy at one point and it was absolutely vital that he be prevented from using every scrap of chakra he generated."

Iruka could imagine. "So it's completely safe."

"Entirely."

"And how is it administered?"

"As a powder diluted in water. Or fruit juice which was how I was planning-" She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Iruka-sensei, surely you are not suggesting what I think you are?"

He shrugged helplessly. "Hokage-sama said it herself; ' she could never formally condone doing it'. If we do it for her and don't tell anyone, then the parents have no choice but to accept their kids aren't ready to graduate yet, the kids get to stay at the academy until they're trained enough not to get blown up by the first pretty jutsu they come across, and Hokage-sama has plausible deniability. It's a win-win-win scenario."

Yuuna-sama stared at him, her normally pale face tinged with rose. "But the compound will have to stolen from the hospital. It will all have to be done in absolute secrecy. What if we're caught?"

"We'll just have to make sure we won't be." Iruka grinned bravely. His own future was wrecked anyway. After this mission was over and the truth about him cheating got out, he was finished as a teacher at either academy. He'd just need to make damned sure not a scrap of blame fell on Yunna-sama. "It'll be just like the old days, sneaking into places and nicking things."

Her laugh was like a silver bell brightening up the evening. "You were such a terror back then. Half the time Otosan didn't know whether to scold you or promote you."

"Really?" He smiled with genuine pride. "Yuuna-sama, thank you. You have just made my night."