Chapter 10: Windmill Crusaders

Kakashi was instantly alert as his eyes jolted open upon waking up—not to the sound of his alarm, but to a steady pounding on his front door. He took a quick glance at his clock and leisurely rolled out of bed after taking note of the time. No wonder his alarm hadn't gone off: he had forgotten to set it. Again.

The frantic knocking increased as he ambled over to the doorway, absently thinking about what to have for breakfast; he was running much later than usual and was, regrettably, out of cereal. Sighing, Kakashi yanked open the door and was surprised to see Iruka standing there with one fist raised, looking very much like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world.

"Good morning, Kakashi," Iruka said hesitantly, lowering his hand.

Kakashi stared at him in silence, his expression somewhat irritable—he never had appreciated uninvited company, especially in the morning—and he noticed that Iruka couldn't seem to look him in the eyes for more than a few seconds at a time.

"I was instructed to escort you to—" Iruka paused and gulped upon seeing the Kakashi's face,"—that is, the Hokage needs to speak with you immediately."

Kakashi held back a yawn and gracelessly slumped against the doorframe. "..What have they done this time?"

"Er, well. You see..."

"Can this wait? Team Seven's scheduled to leave on a mission in-" Kakashi looked back into his apartment, his eyes locking on the small clock on his desk, "Well, we were supposed to leave-"

"The mission's been reassigned," Iruka said curtly, his mouth a grim line. "Please come with me."

The walk to the Academy was uncomfortably quiet.

Iruka was uncharacteristically skittish on the commute there and in spite of Kakashi's not so subtle prompting, he refused to reveal the nature of their impromptu meeting. To Kakashi's surprise, Iruka led him past the Hokage's office and instead escorted him into a nearby chamber that was generally reserved for meetings with foreign visitors. Iruka closed the door behind Kakashi and remained outside of the room.

The area itself was sparsely furnished: a vast, rectangular table covered the majority of the room and the only source of light came from the large overhead lamp centered over the wooden fixture.

Upon entering, Kakashi spotted Sarutobi seated at the far end of the table. He seemed older and far more exhausted than usual—and, oddly enough, bored. Next to him sat his assistant Fujioka, whose face lit up in a smug, self-righteous sneer as Kakashi walked through the doorway. Kakashi gave them both perfunctory glances before his eyes were drawn to the third figure in the room. The man was seated facing away from the door and Kakashi only had time to stare at the figure's mane of thick, slicked back brown hair for a few seconds before he turned towards Kakashi with a tight smile.

"There you are! Kakashi Hatake, correct?" The man's smile widened. "Nice to meet you. Why don't you have a seat?" He said brightly, motioning to the chair across from him.

Kakashi was immediately on edge. Choosing to ignore the unknown figure, he inclined his head towards the Third Hokage as he spoke. "Who is this?"

"This is Sagara-san," Sarotobi said disinterestedly.

The older man made no move to continue and instead seemed to be staring off into space, presumably deep in thought.

Taking that as a sign to speak, Fujioka chimed in, "Sagara-san is a part of a special division of ANBU. As a matter of fact, he's one of our best interrogators. Danzo-sama himself recommended him."

If Kakashi was a lesser man, he would have started sweating. "Alright then. Why is he here?"

"Fujioka-san saw fit to inform the Council of our meeting and they insisted on having an impartial investigator present for the questioning," Sarutobi drawled out, irritation evident in his voice.

Kakashi blinked once. "Questioning?"

"It's standard protocol," The Third sighed. "Please just cooperate. The sooner this is over with, the better."

Warily, Kakashi took a seat opposite of Sagara. The investigator's face was clean-shaven save for a trim mustache. His entire countenance screamed 'exceedingly well-groomed' and his muscular frame was the only real indication that he was shinobi.

"I apologize for pulling you from your mission so abruptly. No worries, though. Another genin team has been assigned to pick up the slack. Madam Setsuna's golden locket won't find itself, after all," Sagara chuckled lightly to himself and Kakashi wasn't entirely sure what was supposed to be funny. "So, Kakashi the Copycat ninja. Ex-ANBU. Shame we've never met before now—you're practically famous. This is your first year teaching a genin squad, isn't it?"

Kakashi grunted in acknowledgement.

"I've heard great things about your team. The last Uchiha, huh? I've been told he's shaping up to be quite the prodigy. And that Uzumaki kid, too. They must be a handful."

Sagara paused and waited for Kakashi to speak. When he didn't, Sagara prompted, "Want to tell me about them?"

"What's to tell?"

Sagara folded his hands and rested them on the table. "I'm sure you're well aware, but those two have made quite a name for themselves among Konoha. The Delinquent Duo, I hear. I can only imagine how tough it must be to teach the lot of them."

Kakashi folded his arms, looking disinterested. "What's this about, exactly?"

"Kakashi, don't be difficult," Sarutobi said sternly, fixing an admonishing glare on him.

Kakashi's jaw twitched, but he said nothing.

"If they were my students..." Sagara said, trailing off as he shook his head in disapproval. "When I was younger, we'd never get away with that kind of behavior."

"They don't get away with anything."

"Genin squads are composed of three rookies, though, aren't they?" Sagara smoothly continued, "How is your third student? Sakura, was it?"

"Is this about my qualifications as a teacher?"

"Hey, I didn't say anything about that," Sagara held up both hands in mock surrender. "I'm sure you're perfectly qualified. I mean, I can understand your situation. It'd be hard to teach students who refuse to show up for training. It's not your fault if none of your students have learned anything from you."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "Naruto and Sasuke might not be interested, but Sakura's made lots of progress. She was more interested in finding a boyfriend than being a ninja when she first graduated. Nowadays, her chakra control is nearly better than my own and she's mastered several genjutsu techniques. It's hardly fair to say that she's learned nothing."

"You're right, you're right," Sagara agreed. "That's pretty impressive. It must have taken a lot of extra attention to get her to focus like that."

"I suppose..."

"I bet it was easier to concentrate on Sakura without the boys fighting you at every turn. Handling three genin at once can be quite a handful."

Kakashi paused, unsure of what to say. He briefly looked over at Sarutobi and Fujioka, but both had their eyes fixed on Sagara and seemed content to simply listen in. "Sasuke and Naruto have never missed a mission and in spite of their poor attendance rates, their skills have progressed rapidly as well."

"But regardless, you focused most of your attention on training Sakura."

Kakashi shrugged. "She's the only one who wanted to learn anything."

"Have you tried giving your other students an incentive to show up? You know, like offering to take them to lunch or rewarding them for good attendance."

"Oh, I've tried." Kakashi said. "Bribery is not as useful as you'd think."

"So you've given your students gifts before then?"

"Sure."

"What sort of gifts?"

"Ah... let's see..." Kakashi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You know, useful things. New kunai, shurikens, explosive tags... magazines." He paused. "Well, mostly useful."

"I see, I see." Sagara nodded. "Sasuke and Naruto didn't take to them, then?"

"Well..." Kakashi halted. "Sasuke and Naruto didn't exactly show up to get them ever. So, no."

"Oh, so you haven't given gifts to your students then. You've only given gifts to Sakura?"

"Sakura is my student," he said defensively, brow furrowing.

"She's clearly your favorite, though."

Kakashi took a steadying breath, his patience starting to wear thin. "I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused about where this is conversation is going. I don't even know what I'm being questioned for."

"We're just here to talk about your students, that's all. There's no rush," Sagara said, smiling briefly. "So they don't respond well to gifts. Have you tried encouraging them in other ways? Maybe a pat on the shoulder, or on the head?"

"I don't know. Sometimes."

"Have you ever hugged any of your students?"

At this, tiny warning bells started going off in Kakashi's head. "No? Naruto may have jumped on me once or twice."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

Kakashi made an irritated noise, refusing to answer.

"Have you ever touched any of your students with lustful intent?"

Kakashi openly stared at him in complete silence for several seconds.

"Excuse me?" He bit out, his voice laced with disbelief. "What kind of question-" Kakashi furiously whipped his head towards the Hokage. "What is this really about, Hokage-sama?"

"Do you think it's appropriate to expose children to sexual materials?"

Kakashi turned back to face Sagara, glaring coldly as he spoke. "No. Why would I?"

"Do you think it makes your students uncomfortable when you show them pornographic material?"

"I don't-"

"You don't think it makes them uncomfortable?"

"No, I-"

"What's your relationship with Sakura like?"

There was a beat of silence as Kakashi stared at him incredulously.

"Kakashi, are you familiar with the concept of sexual grooming?"

Kakashi was done, he decided. Completely, one-hundred percent done.

"Sexual grooming occurs when an adult takes a special interest in a child with the intention of coercing them into a sexual relationship. The adult will create opportunities to spend time alone with the child; they'll give the child gifts, have adult conversations with them... They'll initiate inappropriate amounts of physical contact with them and will expose the child to pornography. In order to 'get them used to it,' so to speak. Any of this sounding familiar?"

By this point, Kakashi was refusing to speak. Sagara sighed and continued, "Kakashi, we brought you here because we have reason to believe that you have been sexually involved with your student, Sakura Haruno."

"This is insane," Kakashi said, dazed. "I can't even-"

"You aren't denying it, then."

"Of course I'm denying it!" Kakashi spat, abruptly rising from his seat.

"That's interesting, because we have a witness who attests otherwise. I'm going to ask you one more time. Have you been sexually intimate with your student, Sakura Haruno?"

"Who the hell told you that?"

"Alright, alright, calm down." Sagara lifted up his hands as he spoke. "Look, I don't think you're a bad guy, Kakashi. I don't think that you think you've done anything wrong, or that your relationship with her is inappropriate, but I need you to be honest with me."

"That's enough," Sarutobi said sharply.

The ANBU investigator leaned back in his chair at the sound of the Hokage's voice. "This normally isn't done with an audience, Hokage-sama."

"And this isn't supposed to be an interrogation, Sagara-san. This is strictly informal questioning."

"Can I go now?" Kakashi ground out. Another minute of this and he'd be in danger of losing his composure.

Sagara gracefully rose and pushed in his chair in one fluid movement. "You can go after I've finished informally questioning your students."

With that, Sagara left the room. Fujioka and Sarutobi rose from their seats, the latter signalling for Kakashi to follow them through the door. Kakashi spotted Iruka upon exiting; the chunin had been standing outside near the entryway and from the look on his face it was clear that he had been eavesdropping.

The group traveled down the hall and into a new room. The area was dark, and immediately to the right of the entrance was a one-way mirror overlooking a smaller adjoining room that featured a compact table and two sets of chairs.

Sarutobi and Fujioka moved to the far corner of the room, but Kakashi stopped near the door after entering and Iruka moved to stand next to him. The four men stood in silence as they watched Sagara enter the adjoining area.

Leaning towards the Academy teacher, Kakashi whispered, "What the hell is going on?"

Iruka sighed, somehow managing to appear even more uncomfortable than before—which was quite a feat considering that he hadn't stopped looking that way since he showed up on Kakashi's doorstep. "Sasuke may have said some things..."

"Sasuke said some things? Sasuke?"

Iruka cringed at the vehemence in Kakashi's voice. "Yeah, the Hokage didn't seem terribly impressed either, but... I'm sorry, Kakashi. We can't just blatantly ignore that kind of accusation. How would that make us look, if there was something going on and we didn't even check into things?"

"This is a little more than 'checking into things', don't you think?"

"It might have gotten a bit out of hand once the Council got involved," Iruka admitted.

"You don't say," Kakashi deadpanned. "Am I being charged with something?"

"Not yet." After seeing the look on Kakashi's face, he quickly amended, "I-I mean, I'm sure you won't be at all. It's just procedure. I mean, there's no actual evidence, right? You haven't done anything inappropriate with Sakura?" His voice lilted almost questioningly, in such a hopeful, unsure way that Kakashi immediately blanched.

"You aren't seriously asking me that, are you? Please tell me you're joking."

"N-no, of course not..."

To Iruka's relief, the conversation was interrupted as Naruto was escorted into the interrogation room. The kid looked as chipper and blissfully ignorant as ever.

Sagara began engaging Naruto in light conversation: he was overly friendly, and it was clear that Naruto had no idea what was going on. Either way, Naruto seemed happy enough to have gotten out of what he declared was a "boring, lame D-rank mission." After a series of seemingly innocent inquiries (How's your training going? How do you like being a genin? Do you get along with your teammates? How about your teacher?), Sagara followed up with a string of increasingly suggestive questions.

"Your friend Sasuke tells us that your teacher spends a lot of one-on-one time training Sakura. Do you think it's fair that she gets special attention and you don't?"

Naruto scrunched his nose. "No. That's not fair at all."

"I've also been told that your teacher actually discourages you from showing up to training by overworking you. Sasuke says that you both feel like Kakashi doesn't want you there at all. Do you agree with that?"

"I guess so," The younger man shrugged, tilting his head thoughtfully.

"Well, I'm sure Kakashi has his reasons for doing that. He's a little weird, isn't he?" Sagara grinned.

"Yeah, he's really weird," Naruto yawned. "He's always late, even though he's the one that tells us when to show up somewhere. I mean, why can't he just tell us to meet at a later time? It's crazy! And he's always giggling at his porno books."

"Porno books?"

"Yeah! You know, like Icha Icha Paradise. He reads those all the time when we're on missions. I don't know why—they're so boring!"

"Boring?"

"Yeah. I don't get why he likes them so much."

"So you've seen them?"

"Oh, sure."

Kakashi's stomach dropped—this was not going to end well.

"Has your teammate Sakura been acting strange lately?"

"Uh..." Naruto looked at Sagara in confusion. "I don't know."

"Have you noticed Sakura spend a lot of time alone with your teacher outside of training?"

"Um... I haven't really noticed anything different..." Naruto paused. "I guess she does, yeah."

"I see, I see." Sagara nodded approvingly. "Your friend Sasuke told us that Kakashi frequently touches and hugs Sakura in front of the two of you. Does that make you feel uncomfortable?"

Kakashi abruptly stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut as he exited. Iruka followed him out shortly aftewards and found Kakashi quietly fuming by the entryway.

His chest was heavy with sympathy as he watched Kakashi try to regain composure. Iruka stood next to him awkwardly for a few moments before he felt comfortable enough to speak. "Don't stress over this. It's almost over. It's just a necessary evil to get through; nothing'll come of it. In the end, it's just your word against Sasuke's. I'm sure once they bring Sakura in, the whole thing will be dropped-"

"That isn't the point!" Kakashi snapped, causing Iruka to hastily shut his mouth. "The point is that Sasuke's getting his way yet again. The point is that it's a joke that we're giving this ridiculous accusation attention in the first place. And Sagara?" Kakashi shook his head, laughing humorlessly. "Those were some of the most biased, suggestive questioning techniques I've ever seen. He should be fired."

Iruka didn't know what to say to that, so he remained quiet.

"That kid is a sociopath," Kakashi continued heatedly. "Sasuke thinks he can do and say whatever he wants and he doesn't give a damn about how it affects other people." Noticing Iruka's startled expression, he calmed himself and managed a strained smile. "Sorry about that, Iruka. You're right. Everything will be fine in a few days. I'll just throw out a few molestation jokes here or there to break the ice and I'm sure my twelve-year-old student will forget all about being asked if she's had sex with her teacher."

"Sakura should be up shortly," Iruka shifted uncomfortably in place. "We should probably head back in-"

"I don't want to see it. I'll wait in the other room, thanks."

"Of course," Iruka said weakly. He stood in the hall for several minutes after watching Kakashi depart before returning to watch the rest of the investigation.

Thirty minutes later, Sarutobi, Fujioka, and Iruka arrived back at the initial meeting room and found Kakashi comfortably lounging at head of the table reading Icha Icha Paradise. His eyes never left the page as they entered, and he made no further move to acknowledge their presence.

When everyone was seated, Sarutobi broke the silence. "Well, I'm fairly certain that we've accomplished absolutely nothing today."

"That's hardly the case, Hokage-sama," Fujioka objected, somewhat offended by the statement. "We've-"

"Iruka," Sarutobi interrupted. "If you would be so kind—please tell Sagara to escort the rest of Team Seven here. I'd like to get this over with as quickly as possible."

Nodding once, Iruka disappeared from the room and returned several minutes later with Sagara, Naruto, and Sasuke in tow. Noticing several questioning glances, Iruka said, "Sakura is currently in session with Dr. Shigure. He'll be bringing her in shortly."

Sagara pat both boys lightly on the back and gestured for them to sit down. As he took a seat, Naruto's expression became a bit more solemn than usual and he seemed to have finally caught on that something serious was going on.

Sasuke was doing his best to remain stony-faced, but Kakashi could see his lips curl into the beginnings of a self-satisfied smile, and it took every ounce of willpower to stop himself from leaping over the table to throttle him.

A/N: Somewhere, in a more disturbing parallel universe, this is alternatively titled Not A Mere Windmill.
Thank you for your comments. You guys are awesome. Kakashi sends you hugs and kisses (but only if you're over the age of consent).