Of Dogs and Men
Author: remthedogsitter
Rating: R (to be safe)
Summary: (AU-ish kakairu) Going home from a mission Iruka suddenly finds himself responsible for a litter of seven puppies surrounded by mysterious circumstances, will he be able to find out where they came from in time before their real owner comes looking for them?
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or their characters in any shape or form
A/N: I know this is my second post today but I couldn't help it x3
Chapter 9: The Lion's Den
Iruka finished tying a hitai-ate on the last of the pups and Nao was wiggling his over his 'funny' eye as he called it making him look more like Kakashi now than before. The journey would take around a week from what Aya estimated after sniffing the scroll Kakashi sent long before, tracing the charkra and using Pakkun to trace the direction.
They decided to pack light, medical supplies and a few rations and a few things for Kakashi, they would hunt on their way and Pakkun and the others would follow after as back up. Seven large dogs and a ninja were conspicuous enough without adding the jounin's pack.
Izo found a cave a days journey and a little of course from their destination and Iruka decided this would make the best hideout when they would most likely bring Kakashi out in a critical condition. The group stopped there for the night, eight dogs and a chunnin huddled up in the cave where he was eating some meat the dogs had caught earlier and some rations. He could feel the unrest in the small space as he ran a hand through Nao's fur for comfort. No one felt like talking. Instead a few of the pups started preparing a safety and genjutsu barrier they would be able to run to on their way back.
"Is he still holding on Pakkun?" he said quietly as he prepared to sleep.
"Boss is stubborn like that." Pakkun said simply looking out the mouth of the cave, the first shift was his.
Iruka closed his eyes and listened, he was using Kaimu as a pillow and Akiyo and Aya were sprawled around him as well keeping him warm. It wasn't quite snowing yet but the cold winds told him they were coming soon, was Kakashi at least warm where he was?
Kakashi blinked his eyes slowly as he sunlight flowed in for that one hour every day, carefully he heaved himself to sit in the corner in it, enjoying at least the small comfort it gave him. He could hear the beast, Shinjiru it had constantly muttered between breaths when it was asleep. The cell was rectangular shaped and rose at least ten feet upwards, the light coming from a small exhaust fan at the top. He was in one of the countless cells in the walls of the inner complex where the beast slept. He had glimpsed other ninja in the cells as well briefly with his sharingan, seeing the stings of chakra stream from there into the beast's form.
He lived through worst conditions, the first thing he did when he was shoved into the cell was look for water hence the rusted pipe he spent three days breaking a hole into. He caught rats with the broken kunai he managed to keep and he managed at least with that and the stale pieces of bread his captors would drop every other day. But his resolve was breaking a little with each week, each day that passed as he marked every time he saw sunlight into the wall. The darkness at times was enough to send him into a restrained frenzy as the screams would start again of men and beast being cut open and men slowly dying in their cells as the last bits of chakra were drained from them. The light was leaving again and he prepared himself, tying a cloth over his eyes so at least he could believe that his eyes were closed and not the paranoia he's had into the first month.
The beast would sometimes talk to him, nonsense mostly and saying that he smelled like something familiar "Something so familiar I hate it." It would conclude and bring its lips up in a frenzied smile as all its eyes would spin madly on their own in different directions, the parts of its body covered in scales and not would glisten slightly and it would turn it back towards the jounin in contempt.
The lines on the walls looked like so many days as the man brought his knees to his chest and held them tight think of something nice he though to himself Iruka's cooking, taking the pups to the playground in the early morning before the children would get there he almost smiled sleeping in warm bed and then he could almost remember how the man's skin felt against his scared fingers. Iruka was the first person in how many years did he let himself get physically and mentally accustomed to, the man's small habits, how he made his coffee, which side of the bed he liked to sleep in and which side of him did he like walking beside when he walked him home, how he treated the pups like kids and insisted on using his teacher voice to teach them a lesson if they were bad.
When you're near death you only think about what's important. He remembered that from somewhere but couldn't really place it and here he was thinking about the chunin and the pups back home. His own ninken were rescue dogs, he leaned into the memory like a child as a cold draft blew in. Pakkun he found seemed to be abandoned in the woods but that little thing despite having just opened its eyes recently and was learning to walk properly insisted on following him even as he hopped through the trees, that small thing was loud mouthed from the beginning, barking as he kept up with him on the ground. He took Pakkun in with the little one's paws cut and bleeding and bandaged it up. He managed to find out the pug's owner, a farmer at the outskirts of town. The man was a crude business man and said the pug was a liability because of his color amongst other breed faults so he dumped him out in the woods. Kakashi gave him a piece of his mind and punched the man in the face. It was his surprise when the pug just started talking out of the blue a few months later.
Usushi was almost the same, treated cruelly since he was a pup because of his looks and grey up a dog terrorizing a village along with Uhei, Shiba and Akino. Bull and Guruko were the survivors of a village that raised ninken before they were annihilated in the skirmishes of the smaller villages, Bisuke on the other hand was the youngest he was given by a friend who found him in a box in an alley.
He willed himself to sleep, almost kicking himself for being such a child but not admitting that may be afraid of the dark.
Iruka signalled the pups at the back to go into position as Nao and Akiyo analyzed the area for traps and genjutsu, as he suspected in reality that place was actually an old prison used during the war modified and rebuilt with powerful genjutsu that changed like it had a mind of its own. The source was probably this monster he was hearing so much about. He considered the options and what he had to work with at the moment.
"We'll be the bait Pakkun, you guys retrieve Kakashi-sensei." Iruka whispered "We'll manage to trap the beast with our Dog Cage Sealing Technique and the new genjustsu we've been working on."
Pakkun would have protested but shut his mouth when he saw the chunnin's face it said I don't need to be coddled anymore and I'm tired of using being a chunnin as an excuse.
"We've got to save dad ok?" Akiyo muttered to Bisuke, his fear bristling and he almost couldn't calm himself, at best he talked himself out an into things. Even with having Iruka's kind of control, they were still pups and bound to get carried away.
The place no longer seemed guarded as noted by the reports any physical guards slowly dwindled over time as if the place was slowly being abandoned.
"We'll enter through the front door, there is an entrance somewhere on the side, a window." Aya said pricking up her ears and scanning the area over again. The trees themselves felt ominous, hanging low and in the dying light of the day it made the small clearing ever darker. Limbs and roots wound around the structure in an almost suffocating manner. She pawed the ground testingly and sniffed the air again "The structure itself goes down but there are some openings you could use to escape. I can smell the fumes of deep earth." She crinkled her nose in distaste.
"We enter in a few minutes get ready." The chunin said looking over his team and getting a gulp of water to wet his parched throat. "Let's save Kakashi."
A/N: *phew* ok build up to drama time get ready for a lot of things happening in the next chapters, save kakashi time! More mysteries about the pups revealed to. Gawd there is so much tension I just want to get them together already x3