Thank you for your kind reviews!...ok and this is the edit, I tried to fix the ambiguity with the dialogue. Not sure if it's better or worse now...
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, although I do look stunning in orange.
sigh...
Marsh shook his head, breaking off another attempt at finding a tolerable approach to his patient.
"I don't want you to!" Iruka complained, shoving hands away, but Marsh was starting to suspect that he was just being put off.
"Iruka, talk to me. What is acceptable to you?" Whatever it is, just say it.
This was getting worse. Tsunade, for all of her micromanaging bravado, was too busy to schedule time to work with Iruka this week. Now Iruka had no talk therapy, which he likely needed more than ever due to these rather provoking and sometimes upsetting sessions. Enough. He went and threw Iruka his shirt, symbolically ending the surrogacy session for the day only ten minutes into it.
"Sit back. We're going to have a regular session, like before. No touching, just talking."
Iruka looked at him in confusion, not sure if he'd done something to piss him off. He pulled his overshirt on and buttoned it carefully, dragging out the process to cover for the resounding silence.
"Iruka, tell me what's going on in your head right now. What are you feeling?"
He frowned and looked down. "I'm disappointed," he said finally. "I think this is as far as I can get."
"Disappointed. So we haven't met your expectations. We're nowhere near done yet. What did you expect that hasn't been addressed?" Marsh sat back and flipped his pad past the used pages and folded back the cover. He looked up at the lack of reply.
Iruka was shaking his head 'no'.
"Why do…" Marsh began again.
"Leave me alone, okay? I don't want to talk, I don't want to touch, I just don't." Iruka clenched his fists.
"No, I won't leave you alone. What do you mean, you just don't?"
"You're driving me crazy! Just picking and poking at me, what the hell are your intentions? You don't really want to do this either, do you?" Iruka glared accusingly.
Marsh looked startled. Iruka's legendary temper flared. "It's true then! This wasn't your idea at all, was it? I bet you were against it! Shit, who wants to be forced to touch the freak, right? Did your skin crawl when I kissed you? So fucking professional, did you have to take something to keep from throwing up afterward? After you let me…" Iruka slammed his fists into his own face hard, too hard for Marsh's comfort. He surprised himself, too. It hurt, but he wanted it to hurt, he wanted it to hurt enough to stop his stupid mouth from letting anything else escape.
"After you.." harder, he hit himself harder, he had to shut up now, before he admitted to Marsh how much that one session got to him. He felt his hand getting wet, what a weak idiot, tell me those aren't tears. So wet…and sticky? Finally, he could shut up, the surprise at seeing the blood, that did it. Thank heaven he'd finally managed to shut up.
Marsh gaped and hit the call button, not even trying to intervene yet. Iruka's intense self-assault was brief and brutal, opening up an impact cut under his left eye that streamed blood immediately. It must have met his goal, because as soon as the blood flowed he quieted somewhat.
Probably a side-effect from the latest substantial increase in medication, the doctor reasoned worriedly. But it had appeared that he was on the verge of finally saying something significant.
"Don't look at me!" Here they come, Iruka thought, still angry. I guess I'm supposed to get all flustered now and beg forgiveness. Fuck 'em.
A lone orderly popped in and looked to Marsh for direction. Of all the times for just one guy to be on duty, Iruka thought in bitter amusement. He cupped his hand and let the blood drip into it from his chin, counting drops absently. Hurry up, start the show, everybody panic. The psycho's at it again...
Marsh grabbed him hard by the collar and shoved his nose right up to his. "After I let you what?" he demanded. "Finish that sentence! Finish it!"
"Get off!" Iruka tried to retreat, slipping. The orderly caught him but Marsh was still on him.
"Not until you finish that sentence!" he grabbed Iruka's wrists hard and held him as tight as he could, provoking him deliberately. "I won't let go unless you tell me what's going on!"
Iruka's body and memory pulsed with the sudden pain in his wrists and time gathered silently as things began to transform. He straightened up slowly and faced the doctor, possessed by a powerful dead calm that was concentrated in the driving pain and pressure in the back of his head. Medication he had taken not all that long ago was culminating in his first full powerful erection since his injury, and the arousal further stimulated the pain in his head into something surreal. Things were falling into place now.
"Mine forever." Mizuki admonished deep in Iruka's head. "What took you so long?"
"How long has he been here?" Iruka asked without emotion, unreasonably strong as he twisted his hands out of Marsh's grip and clamped onto his doctor's wrists instead. "He was here all along, wasn't he? Why didn't you tell me?"
Marsh watched in deepening terror as Iruka's face grew cold and dark, his eyes no longer familiar.
"I don't understand! Who's here?" he gasped. "Try to calm down, please."
"If you don't know, then you're no help. Go." Iruka slipped his hand up and applied pressure skillfully to Marsh's neck, dropping him efficiently, barely making a turn to dispatch the orderly the same way.
He snapped off the call button and crammed the unconscious men into the base cabinets, locking them in.
Casually pulling on his vest and strapping his boots, he tugged at his hair and his determination increased with the corresponding pain. "I'm ready now. Let's go," he called, wiping his welling facial cut on his sleeve. He slipped out into the hallway when it was clear.
vvvvvvv
"I'm coming too!" Naruto bellowed, and Kakashi grimly weighed the merits of it.
"I have to bring him back no matter what. Even if it means a body. You know the rules, Naruto. We'll have latitude in our methods but the result is not negotiable. Can you handle that?"
"He'll come back for me if I go! He has to know that someone still cares about him."
Tsunade had no quips, no heart for negotiation. "If you can do this thing, do it fast, both of you. Genma and Raidou are tracking him, I should have word soon on his direction of travel."
"Tell me again exactly what was said," Kakashi pinned Marsh with his unmasked eye and the shaken doctor repeated the exchange he'd had with his patient up to the point of finding himself incapacitated, fielding the questions afterward as best he could.
"He was still bleeding?" Kakashi asked, still looking for some missed clue.
"He was when he knocked me out."
"So what's your professional opinion of all this? What the hell went wrong?"
"Maybe he's been schizophrenic for a while, for the whole time, I don't know. It's a complicated case. He might have been able to hide it until it got to be too much. I'm convinced that he believed there was someone else there, but he didn't say who it was." Marsh looked like he wasn't certain of anything at all.
Iruka was still in his right mind about one thing, Kakashi thought. You're no damn help at all.
vvv
He skimmed the treetops, it wasn't a very cunning or clever approach, but he'd found that it worked well for him. He had no false pride motivating him to use more complicated methods of travel, no jounin reputation to protect. Since this was so simple it tended to throw people off and make it the last thing they'd suspect for one who should be moving in stealth. He crashed forward with great speed, this was also the best method for making up ground quickly. One could travel as the crow flies and not be diverted as on land where structures intruded and paths meandered.
Genma and Raidou had picked up Iruka's trail and sent back the direction with the messenger. They didn't dare take to the treetops yet if at all, not wanting to alert their prey.
"I know we're not supposed to get too close, but what if he gets there before Kakashi catches up?" Genma fretted as they paused to rest while their quarry did the same a mile ahead of them. "I don't think I can just squat around and wait around while he goes in there."
Raidou sat catching his breath, shaking his head. "We've got at least a day of travel before it comes to that. He's got to be out of his mind. But there must be some reason why we can't just take him down now. Stick to the orders, man."
"I think they're just trying to see what he's up to. Maybe they think they'll be able to reason with him. Just watching the way he's moving, I'd swear that was somebody else. We'd probably have to dart him just to get near him."
"He's moving again already." Raidou hauled himself up to his feet. "His pace is like…"
"a madman," Genma finished, shaking out the kinks as he picked up speed again.
vvv
"Well, see here!" Mizuki crowed, "I told you I had a visitor on the way." He walked up to Iruka, smiling as he checked him over carefully, maintaining a casual appearance.
"You can leave us alone, isn't that right, my friend?" he clasped his hands on the smaller man's shoulders and he nodded calmly in return. The guard watched them for a moment then left to stand by the door. Mizuki turned and brought a hand under Iruka's chin and tipped his face up. "You look amazing. Did I forget, or have you changed that much?"
The years in prison with nothing to do but lift weights had turned the already buff man into a hulking bodybuilder. Mizuki dwarfed the chunin as he leaned in closer, whispering in Iruka's ear seductively. "You made me wait so long. We'll have to do something about that. I was beginning to think that you'd forgotten me." He alone laughed at his joke, then whispered detailed orders into Iruka's obediently attentive ear.
"You understand me? Go now, I'll be waiting. We'll be together soon enough." he pulled at Iruka's hair by the banded tail and buried his face roughly in the back of his neck. "It's perfect. And you still smell delicious." He pushed his visitor away reluctantly, and Iruka walked quietly to the exit.
"You done already?" the guard asked, and led Iruka back to the entrance, returning his vest, weapons, belt and boots.
Genma pulled short and they ducked back - Iruka was coming out already. No sign of disturbance - maybe he had a plan that required checking out the layout of the prison first. Maybe they'd denied his attempt to get in - he couldn't be the first person who tried to get in to take their own justice out on a prisoner. As long as he hadn't done anything wrong yet, they could grab him and get him back to the medics without delay. If he succeeded in murdering Mizuki, it would be out of their hands. Genma was itching to move in and secure the situation, Raidou nervous at the prospect of insubordination if they took that route.
Iruka made the hand signs as Mizuki had instructed and disappeared. His startled trackers were starting a search perimeter when Kakashi and Naruto caught up with them.
Kakashi considered his next move. Murdering Mizuki himself topped his list, but it unfortunately wasn't an option. If they just waited , Iruka would likely return. Genma and Raidou were to continue searching in the meanwhile. Naruto fretted and told Kakashi for the hundredth time that he was wrong. What ever his sensei was up to, murder wasn't it.
Iruka searched in Mizuki's old cave and found the scrolls he'd described. He would be unable to get them past the guards. But as he has been instructed, he unrolled the scrolls and using brush and ink began to transcribe the symbols onto his body, stomach first, then down the front of both legs, up the back of his calves, finishing up across his chest and upper arms. Dressing and making sure none of the writing showed, he deposited his vest and weapons in the cave and made his way back out into the clearing before transporting himself to the prison entrance.
His moment in the clearing gave Genma and Raidou just enough of a reading to get a bead on his direction. When he disappeared, they made their way to the cave to investigate.
Naruto spotted him first, jerking Kakashi's shoulder hard and pointing. Iruka was at the visitors' gate. They popped up and jogged down behind him as he placed his restricted items in a bin to prepare to enter.
'Iruka." Kakashi said his name quietly, tensing for his reaction. He got none.
Dropping his boots in the bin, Iruka held up his arms for frisking.
Kakashi moved into his field of vision. Iruka's eyes scanned him with disinterest and returned to his business with the guard.
"We're here to see Mizuki as well," Kakashi said, reluctantly starting to deposit his wealth of weaponry into a bin. Naruto tossed his weapons into another bin, peeling off his shoes without untying them and waving them to dissipate the smell.
"You'll have to wait. He's restricted. One visitor at a time."
Kakashi shifted gears quickly, reclaiming his weapons and barking at the guard. "Don't leave them in there alone! Keep a guard with them at all times. Something might happen."
Sizing up his informant, the guard thumbed a button and orange lights dotted the hallways.
He called out "Code Orange!" and waited for a reply, starting to move when he got no response.
"Code Red! Code Red!" yelled the guard running back from the room he'd escorted Iruka to moments before. "They're gone! He's escaped!"
Mizuki laughed as he took his hands off of Iruka's half-clad symbol-covered body, moving to gather some things for the road from his old cave dwelling.
"I can't wait to see how my handiwork turned out," he smiled, pausing to grab Iruka's ass roughly as he passed by. Shaking the creases out of his flak jacket, he pointed to the table where Iruka had left his weapons and vest. "Get dressed and get your stuff. Take those boots over there. We need to get moving."
"Come here, Iruka," Kakashi called from the entrance, poised for attack.
Mizuki scowled, then brightened. "No. Come here, Iruka."
Iruka turned and went silently to Mizuki, who pulled his head back and handed him a kunai.
"Cut your throat if they touch you, cut very deep and make it quick." Iruka nodded and brought the blade to his throat artfully as if preparing to draw a bow across violin strings.
Mizuki smiled. "We have an understanding now, don't we? We'll just be a minute longer, then we'll be on our way."
"Sensei, don't!" Naruto called, and Kakashi threw a hand out to keep him back. If there was any level that Naruto's voice had registered on, it didn't show on the wooden face.
Mizuki moved further in to the cave to finish packing up, pulling Iruka back with him by the neck of his vest. The sudden movement caused the kunai to slip and make a thin slice on Iruka's neck.
"I am sorry."
Mizuki's large paw moved the hand holding the blade for a second and traced the ribbon of blood with his finger. "Don't be sorry, it's nice. Like old times."
"Were you getting ready to give it to him when he took off?" Mizuki asked Kakashi mockingly, making an invasive motion with his bloodied finger. "Why did it take you so long?"
Kakashi was confused, but was beginning to see that this must have been in the bastard's plan all along.
Mizuki turned back to his packing. "Never mind who was molesting him. I made sure it was never going to happen."
"Explain it to me. You've done something brilliant, I suppose, but nobody gets it. What did you do?"
"You don't appeal to my ego at all, Hatake. Figure it out yourself. After we're safely away. I have things I need to catch up on. You've heard the saying "fuck like a convict"?…" he smiled and shook his head.
He was smashed in mid-gloat from behind by Genma and Raidou, surprising him from their hiding place in the back of the cave. Raidou made sure to silence him so he couldn't give Iruka more orders.
"Don't touch him, Naruto," warned Kakashi as they approached Iruka. His blade was set at the slippery edge of the cut and his distant eyes warily watched their hands.
Naruto felt his hair stand up on end as he sensed the connection between Mizuki and Iruka. He let his chakra follow it, fueled by his desperate need to find a way to protect his sensei. It was powerful, a double-binding forbidden seal, almost a curse with a disguised chakra signature and hidden triggers. It was years old, too, from the depth it seemed to be embedded. It hummed painfully in Naruto's questing senses like an open microphone with the volume turned too high.
"Make sure you've got him," Kakashi glanced at Genma, moving slowly up to Iruka.
Genma and Raidou definitely had Mizuki. For all of his size, he was no match for the finely-coordinated team of two.
His dark eyes were almost blank, rarely blinking, only taking in movement and distance. He moved uneasily, trying to make sure he could comply with his orders unhampered. Once Naruto got behind him it became complicated. He couldn't see them both at once.
"I know where it is," Naruto said quietly. Mizuki began to fight again, angry that they might disconnect him from his servant. They subdued him once more.
"But I can't release it without touching him. I'm not even sure how it's embedded." Naruto shook his head, wracking his mind for a solution.
"Don't chance it. We need to get him back and make sure it's done right." He measured the distance to the kunai, the reaction time. Still too close. Kakashi reached up slowly and uncovered the sharingan. He focused on Iruka's eyes, aiming to slow his reflexes. He watched him slow a bit, having more difficulty watching them both. He slowed him a bit more, almost there…
His hand darted out and grabbed the hilt, Naruto moving a split-second later, thrusting his hands protectively between the waving blade and Iruka's throat. Iruka pulled desperately in an off-balance tug of war, Naruto holding him bent slightly backwards to reduce his leverage. Kakashi stripped the weapon away and pocketed it securely. They wrestled him to the ground.
Naruto stripped off the hair band and pressed his fingers to part the hair and reveal the seals activated in the swollen scalp.
"Stop it," Kakashi snarled at Mizuki. "Release him or else."
He shrugged and nodded, Genma and Raidou had him silenced. He looked amused, enjoying the waves of anger from the four men itching to end his breathing. They loosened their hold reluctantly.
"Okay. Fine. Iruka," he smiled. "It's okay if they touch you. "
The resistance drained out of Iruka like air from a balloon, almost instantly.
"Just kill yourself no matter what, any way you can…" Raidou snapped his head back and cut him off, too late. Iruka was struggling again, and Kakashi spotted the blood and gasped, jamming his fist into his friend's mouth. "Knock him out!"
Naruto fumbled and hit the right points, dreading hurting him. As he went limp Kakashi pulled him up, working his bitten fist out and inspecting the damage. He'd managed to get only a slight bite into his tongue before Kakashi stopped him, and it bled freely, mixing with saliva. A few seconds later and he would likely have succeed in biting his tongue off in an effort to bleed to death.