We're going down, down in an earlier round,
And Sugar we're going down swinging,
I'll be your number one with a bullet,
A loaded God complex,
Cock it and pull it,
Am I more than you bargained for yet?- Sugar We're Going Down-Fallout Boys
His mouth tasted different. The acrid taste of old blood was gone, as well as the taste of burnt flesh. The taste in his mouth was familiar. It was salty and good. It was comfort. It was...
Ramen. The word brought a torrent of half-formed memories and a rush of comfort and safety. Something about ramen said 'I'm safe'. There's something about the taste in his mouth that put him at ease and made him want more. Ramen made him feel safe again.
But what did he need to be safe from? Nothing could harm him. The weak humans that crept through the woods were easy to deal with, though boring. None of them even started to be a challenge, let alone something that could harm him. There was no reason for comfort and safety. He needed neither of those things. They were useless to him.
There was something else. It was a smell--a touch--a memory. It was the smell of salt and clean. It was a calm deep voice speaking to him gently when all the other voices were harsh and scolding. It was a gentle, calloused hand smoothing a band-aid over a scrape. It was food inside a tummy that had never been so warm and full before. It was...
Foolish, unnecessary. He needed none of these things. He especially didn't need someone to give them to him. He'd never been weak or starved for attention. He'd never craved touch or approval from anyone. He needed only himself and wanted only himself. Anything else was useless to him.
But it wasn't. He struggled to remember something.
Remembering weakness was useless. He had no weakness.
It wasn't weak. It was important. It was hope. It was food. It was comfort. It was safety. It was a reason.
"Ruka-sensei," Naruto gasped out. He looked around wildly. He could smell the lingering odor of Iruka from somewhere. He sniffed, but the smell was too faint. He couldn't tell where it came from, and that was maddening. Iruka was near, but where? Where was he? "Iruka-sensei?"
Fighting. Naruto felt the growl rising up from his chest. There was a fight going on. He could feel the spikes of chakra. One was Iruka, and one wasn't. Iruka was in a fight.
Naruto growled again, and sank back into the bloodlust of the Kyuubi. Fight. He would fight. He'd show the pesky humans what a real fight was. He'd kill them both. He hadn't killed in a while...
NO! He wouldn't kill Iruka. He'd never kill Iruka. No one was going to kill Iruka. He'd kill anyone who tried. The Kyuubi growled in agreement.
Maybe Kisame's attempts to 'dig the Kiriga shinobi' out of Iruka had actually worked. Iruka fell immediately to Kiriga techniques as Kakashi attacked. Kakashi showed no surprise at this. Iruka managed to deflect the first few attacks before the two broke apart.
Iruka didn't run or try to circle Kakashi. He stood firmly with his arms held in front of him. Chakra rolled through his limbs, and Iruka was beginning to feel terribly alive again. His heart-beat was pounding in his ears and he knew one thing: Kakashi was trying to kill him, and that made Iruka want to laugh.
Kakashi's hands flashed through seals, and Iruka felt thousands of kunai and shuriken pierce his flesh. They ripped through his tendons and muscles, and struck deep into vital organs. He was mortally wounded, crippled, and beaten. He was streaming blood and falling over, he couldn't support his own weight--
Genjutsu! Iruka realized. He snatched his teeth down and bit into his bottom lip. Real pain made it easy to shake off the fake pain. Iruka then received a solid punch in the gut from Kakashi. Kakashi nearly got his arm broken by Iruka's chakra-enhanced knife strike. The two broke apart, and Iruka was covered in sweat from the genjutsu.
Genjutsu was wasted on Iruka. Kakashi wasn't excellent at genjutsu, and Iruka had spent the last six years teaching all the ways to recognize genjutsu. Now that Iruka knew what Kakashi's chakra felt like--bright white tinged copper like lightning--he wouldn't fall prey to another genjutsu. It was down to ninjutsu and taijutsu.
Kakashi came at Iruka, and the two traded blows. Iruka had the advantage of knowing Konoha taijutsu well, and using a style Kakashi was unfamiliar with. It almost negated Kakashi's extra experience. The two traded blows and blocks in a flurry of chakra-enhanced motion. Iruka stopped thinking and focused on killing Kakashi before he got himself killed.
The two leapt apart again, and Iruka formed three clones pulling water from the air around him and the damp leaves under him. Kakashi answered with his own clones. Iruka dispelled one of Kakashi's clones with a kunai and jumped away as one of his own clones exploded in a mass of steam and hot water. The second followed the first's example, and then the third. Iruka attatched himself to a dead tree and waited for the steam to clear. As soon as it did he raced down the tree towards the drenched and cloneless Kakashi.
Iruka only managed to cut Kakashi's right arm, which was the man's only good arm. His left arm still moved, but it was weakened. They traded more blows, and Kakashi was getting the hang of avioding Iruka's Kiriga taijutsu. Iruka cursed the Sharingan as he received a stinging blow to his shoulder and jumped away again.
This fight was going to drag on for hours. They were almost equals now. Kakashi was a little faster, but Iruka had more power and a better sense of balance. He was also used to the shifting leaves that covered the forest floor. But every advantage Iruka had was negated by an equal or greater advantage Kakashi had.
Then don't think about that, just fight! Iruka thought almost angrily as he received a glancing blow to his head. He let instinct and the flow of battle carry him away.
Itachi spent much of his time resting, if he could. Actually his body was resting, and his mind was a whirr of activity. Plots, strategies, and other things flew through Itachi's mind. Now he was mostly thinking of summoning and sealing jutsu. He was picking through what he knew and trying to decide what kind of sealing jutsu would be needed to smoosh the Kyuubi back into its vessel.
Kisame landed on Itachi's branch, shaking it. The Uchiha didn't even twitch. He'd known Kisame had been approaching him for some time now. His partner had been trying to get some reaction out of Itachi by landing so heavily on the branch, but, as always, it didn't work.
"Enjoy your walk?" Itachi asked. While the Uchiha could sit still for hours Kisame preferred to keep moving. Sometimes the man was a little too much like a shark for his own good.
"As always, but it's boring here," Kisame scuffed his shoes on the bark, and Itachi reluctantly opened his eyes and looked up.
"Nani?" Itachi finally asked as Kisame remained silent. The man looked secretive.
"How important do you think Oikawa-chan is to our mission?" Kisame asked in what was trying to be a casual tone. It wasn't. Kisame was as transparent as Itachi was opaque.
"Very. We might be able to do without him, but if we can contain the Kyuubi in its vessel before we take it back to the headquarters it will be much easier," Itachi closed his eyes again. "In short you may not eat him. It would be a waste of good resources."
Kisame snorted. The two had a very strange relationship. Kisame was practically ancient for a missing-nin, and Itachi was young for even a normal shinobi. Itachi was still the decision maker, but only because Kisame knew Itachi had a better mind for planning than he did. So Kisame, Itachi's senior by many years, deferred to the boy genius when killing wouldn't solve everything.
Kisame scratched at his gills. "What if someone else kills him?"
"I doubt the Kyuubi will..." Itachi trailed off and opened his eyes again. "What did you see?"
"Nothing much. They were moving pretty fast," Kisame said blithely. He was trying to nettle Itachi into a temper. The man loved to know he was possibly the only person who knew how to push Uchiha Itachi's buttons, and he did it rather well.
"Kisame," Itachi kept his voice level and rose to his feet. He was almost eye-level with Kisame's elbow. "Who is Iruka fighting?" Iruka had been gone a long time but Itachi had assumed the former Leaf-nin had simply been overwhelmed by whatever he'd seen the Kyuubi do and didn't want to face Kisame and Itachi yet. He should have been more cautious.
"Oh, no one really," Kisame shrugged. "I'm sure Oikawa-chan will do fine."
Itachi knotted his hands into fists. There was one way to get Kisame to tell Itachi what he wanted right now, and as much as Itachi hated to do it he did it anyway. "Kisame!" Itachi snapped. "Tell me who Iruka is fighting before I melt that smirk off your scaly face!"
Kisame's smirk widened and showed teeth. "Hatake Kakashi."
"WHAT!" Itachi's emotion was real now. He felt a cold stab of dread. There went his easy way out. "And you didn't stop them?"
"No, don't you think Oikawa-chan can take him?" Kisame needled.
"No, he can't," Itachi stated flatly. "C'mon Kisame, we're going to break up that fight up, and you'd better hope that Iruka is still alive."
"Oh, I don't doubt that," Kisame chuckled. "You really think he'll lose?"
"Kakashi is going to paint the forest red with his blood," Itachi almost snapped.
Then the sudden and uncharacteristic flare of emotion was gone, and he was his normal indifferent self. "Come on." Itachi jumped off through the trees and Kisame followed, still smug. If Iruka got killed Itachi decided he really would melt Kisame's face, or at least try to.
Sweat poured off Iruka. Hair stuck to his face. His feet shifted on the fallen leaves as he drew back from Kakashi once again. This was a stale mate, but it wouldn't be that much longer. He needed some way to end this fast. The longer this went on the better Kakashi seemed to do. Even with a mangled arm he was a formidable opponent.
Kakashi got past Iruka's guard, and the punch to Iruka's gut sent him flying. He tumbled across the forest's deadfall and slid to a stop. He lay gasping, pain stabbing deep into him. He tasted blood in his mouth, and he vomited. He had seconds before Kakashi would be on him, and if he didn't get up he'd be dead.
Dead before he got Naruto back. He couldn't do that. He couldn't leave the Kyuubi in control of Naruto's body. He wouldn't. He had to get Naruto back. He had to live. Kakashi had to die, but how?
Iruka jerked up to his feet and jumped away from Kakashi's kick. It had been meant to take him in the face, and with as much chakra as Kakashi had put into the kick Iruka wouldn't have had a face left. The best medic in Konoha wouldn't have been able to save him then.
Medic! Iruka felt a wicked grin break out on his face. He threw his last five kunai at Kakashi, and put more distance between himself and his opponent. Iruka knew how he could win; now he only needed to get his hands on Kakashi's chest without getting killed. That would be the end of this fight, if Iruka could manage it. All his previous blows had landed well away from Kakashi's torso.
Kakashi had paused. He looked at Iruka and gave his head a little toss. The man's white hair was sticking to his face worse than Iruka's was; Iruka's exploding clones had thoroughly drenched the man earlier. Iruka felt his heart pound at the thought of finishing the fight, and maybe, just maybe, at the thought of killing Kakashi.
Kakashi had evidently decided this fight had gone on too long. His hands flipped through signs and Iruka knew what was happening before he heard the tell-tale sound. The silent forest was suddenly alive with the voices of dying birds. Chakra crackled and enveloped Kakashi's hand. The leaves around him swirled away from the chirping mass of electric chakra.
"Chidori," Iruka gasped. He'd never actually seen it, but he'd heard of it. It was almost as legendary as Kakashi.
Kakashi charged; the chidori was held back, scattering leaves with a crackling rush behind Kakashi. The speed at which the man came at Iruka was amazing. The chidori dazzled the eye and made it almost impossible to see the charging man. It was almost like trying to look directly at the Kyuubi. Iruka couldn't see Kakashi well enough to dodge. He probably couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way in time.
So stand and fight! Iruka growled to himself. Kakashi was almost on him. Iruka's hands began forming seals. He sank down into a fighting crouch and took a bolt of lightning straight through his torso.
The force of Kakashi's blow carried them up against a tree. Iruka's shoulder slammed into the tree with enough force to break several bones, and he could only wonder if Kakashi's hand was broken. It had to have at least skimmed the tree. Iruka gagged and choked on the blood from his bitten tongue that filled his mouth and got a glimpse of his own torso. Kakashi's arm was stuck high through his abdomen, right under Iruka's ribs, but there was no blood. The chidori had cauterized the wound, but Iruka was missing several very important organ pieces right now, like most of his stomach and part of his liver and probably a kidney and possibly his spleen.
Iruka jerked his head up, hitting it against the tree behind him. Kakashi stared straight at him, his eyes caught in a wide-open stare of surprise. Iruka's trembling hands dropped away from Kakashi's chest, and he watched the water begin to drain from Kakashi's nose and mouth, darkening the mask covering his features. The water was stained pink with blood as it ran off his chin. Kakashi's face changed very little as the life drained from his eyes.
Kakashi crumpled, pulling his arm from Iruka's stomach. Iruka knew it must have hurt, but he couldn't feel the pain. It was a bad sign. The electrical charge of the chidori had probably fried his nervous system as well as most of his internal organs. Kakashi flopped lifelessly to the ground, and Iruka leaned against the tree and trembled. He managed five staggering steps before he collapsed.
He could see Kakashi's body, and he felt a twinge of regret. The man had been a fine shinobi. It was a shame to see him fall in a place like this to someone who had, until recently, been his comrade. Too many good shinobi were now dead.
You're about to be one of them. Iruka reminded himself bitterly. His death would be a longer, more painful one than Kakashi's. Iruka had pulled water from the man's body tissue into his lungs, drowning him and causing him to fall unconscious in seconds. The man wasn't dead yet, but he would be soon. At least he was unconscious and couldn't think about how he was minutes away from death.
Iruka had failed. He was dying and the Kyuubi still had control of Naruto's body. He was dying. He was dying. He had failed Naruto. Betrayed him. Kakashi had been right. Iruka was just a traitor. He deserved death...except his death was his betrayal.
Iruka almost screamed as pain came back to him. It pulled him down faster than before, and forced darkness into his vision. He tried to fight it, but he knew it was useless. He was going to die, and there was no denying it. He was already dead. No one could help him. No one could grow back bits of major organs. He was dead.
Something brushed against his right cheek--against his newest scar. The memory of burning rose into his mind, but he was too lost in other pain to pay it much attention. He was hallucinating. He was dying.
"You can't die. You can't. Please don't die. I--I need you. Don't die. Please, don't die." A hoarse voice Iruka could have been imagining rose and fell uncertainly. "I can save him? I can? How? How? Please don't die. Don't die."
Iruka wanted to say it was too late. He was dead. He could feel an odd numbness creeping up on him. He was dead now.
The voice that must have been imagined spoke again. "I won't let you die."
A hand touched his chest, and Iruka burst into flame.
A/N: Ehehehe, this was jokingly called the 'anit-kakairu' chapter for obvious reasons, and my lovely editor and sister wanted me to put up a warning for 'findling of major organs'...yeah. I'm going to go hide now, if you don't mind.
Oh, and if you want to see Iruka with his new scar then you can! Miranda Crystal-Bearer/Ymris has drown the Burning Deadfall Iruka. There's a link on my profile page, and you should definately go see it(there's also a picture of Mist!Iruka in her gallery!).
Thanks to the reviewers: Mare, Esoretic Memories, biacebaolck, VascaWithoutWings, A kira, WannabeFireFox, CWolf2, Nicole Miklos, sasori-kun, Miranda Crystal-Bearer, IceDragon3, greengirl6, yro, a.noni, MSYOU, RedTheRetard, icestar-comet-moon, and Ally Plz!
Omygosh! I can't count! There's a reason I'm a writer ya'll! Thanks so much to a.noni for pointing out my mistake last chapter! I'll fix it as soon as I can! I'm going to hide again.
Jaa ne!