Training Kakashi.
Lesson Eleven: Specialty.
"You're pathetic."
"Absolutely pathetic."
"So pathetic you make puppies look fierce."
"It's embarrassing us, please stop now."
"I'm all set to claw my eyes off; anyone wants me to do theirs before I do mine, though?"
"Please, please stop it. Gai can sparkle and get away with it. You're just scary."
"Freakishly scary."
"Snap out of it, Hatake, or we're revoking the blood oath!"
Kakashi sighed. He'd been sighing for good two hours since Iruka left, doing nothing but lying in bed and contemplating his ceiling. His Ninken were starting to get a little antsy at the sight of their owner and master doing a disturbingly convincing impersonation of a school girl with a crush the size of Wind's desert. The downside of intelligent dogs capable of speech, Kakashi mused distractedly, before he rolled on his futon to give his back to the irritated dogs. There was silence, then the shuffle of tiny paws he'd come to recognize as Pakkun and then…
"Fuck!"
Kakashi shot up, standing on a leg and holding the other up as the pug sank his tiny, sharp teeth on it with obstinate determination. Trying to shake him off only managed to make the wound ache more and the rest of the dogs began a chorus of barks, laughter and howls that had the poor sod living in the apartment below his hitting the ceiling with a broom.
Most shinobi kept their summons away from them when they weren't needed, but Kakashi actually liked his dogs. They were more than just weapons to track and attack; he'd carefully picked up each of them while they were still pups, trained them and taught them everything they needed to know. He knew each had quirks and tastes and strange personality disorders that just fit with his. The Ninken were used to staying in the house when they weren't needed. They cluttered Kakashi's tiny apartment and left their scent and shedding on everything he owned. They kept him company when he was tired after a mission and bemoaned his poor attempts at cooking.
Kakashi loved his dogs dearly, the closest companions he had ever had, and the ones that knew basically everything there was to know, because he kept no secrets from them.
It didn't mean, however, that he was above getting pissed at them, because he was. Oh boy, he was.
"Go away, ungrateful mutts!" Kakashi roared angrily as the pug finally dislodged himself from his ankle; he pointed to the open window with a glare of pure irritation, "now!"
The bloody fur balls had the nerve to snicker and laugh as they ran out of the apartment.
--
Iruka watched Midori snuggle down under his quilt – which, if he remembered correctly, she'd given him in the first place – and nodded to himself when she fell asleep before her head hit the pillow. It was… early, actually; a glance to the clock proved it was merely an hour and a half before he was due to wake up – he snorted a bit – and then decided that sleep was actually out of the question. With a defeated sigh, he opened the windows of the living room, set a small training mattress on the floor and sank down into his favorite meditation stance.
He had plenty to meditate about.
He concentrated on his own chakra flow, releasing the knots one by one until he lost himself within his mind. Kakashi, Midori, Gaara, about everything that had gone awry with his life in the past six weeks swirled before his mind eye. He was alert to the background though, like any good shinobi would be, ready to detect a threat should it present itself, despite the depths he was exploring.
The eight dogs sitting around him, watching him with a strange, keen interest didn't present a threat, so he didn't notice when they came, or when they left, seemingly having found whatever they'd been looking for.
By the time Iruka came back to his senses and began preparing for the day, they were long gone, but the faint scent of dog remained. He didn't give it much thought.
--
Shinobi were trained to survive up to thirty-eight hours without sleep and just enough supplies. Iruka took the students that were about to graduate to a week long camping trip in which he trained them and kept them awake most of the time, to teach them a lesson on survival. It was a harsh lesson disguised as a game – indeed, one of the most looked-forward to in the Academy – but the principle stood there. Shinobi had to be functional even if they couldn't sleep eight hours and eat three times a day. Eat now, Iruka's mother used to tell him with an amused, wolfish grin, 'cause you don't know if you'll get to eat tonight. Of course, she never actually left him without dinner, but the knowledge was there.
Iruka actually had a fairly high endurance, all things considered; for someone who spent most of his time teaching or grading and who very rarely went on missions; he was listed as being capable of full functionality up to fifty-five hours without sleep.
Full functionality, of course, being a smooth euphemism for lethally-cranky and snappishly-efficient.
His students cowered all morning. Iruka was too hung up on caffeine and too busy preparing the speech he was going to launch at Ibiki's face to notice, or care. One had to plan ahead to his dying moment, after all. Few men actually knew, when, how and by what means they were going to die.
It was, admittedly a fairly suicidal idea. One simply did not stand up to the ANBU head of Torture and Interrogation, but it irked Iruka in ways he couldn't really explain. He knew the list of things Midori would not do, even if Ibiki asked her, was small, nearly non-existent. Of the few items included, betrayal to Konoha and cleaning the office ranked high in it. And Iruka knew Ibiki knew. Midori's official title was Head Medic Nin of the Torture and Interrogation Department. But she couldn't be anything else, when there were no other medic Nin under Ibiki. No one else could put up with the sardonic, often terrifying man.
After they'd found him bleeding to death under a tree, consoling Naruto and making vain promises of not dying, Midori had stormed in. She promptly dispatched everyone else with a glare potent enough to melt steel and spent the next sixteen hours patching him up. All the while scolding him for being an idiot and an imprudent, thoughtless bastard. And then, she spent a week exhausted in her bed because her chakra levels were so low. At the end of it, Iruka had feared she would be the one to die from the aftermath.
Ah, well, he thought resignedly, what are friends for?
"Konohamaru," his voice was sickly sweet, the sort of tone his students had come to fear and have nightmares about, "don't even think about it."
The boy froze, contemplated his options for a long moment, then lowered the makeshift slingshot and sat back, quietly. The class murmured for a second, before they sat in silence.
Iruka continued his class peacefully.
--
"He's blocking it," Anko kicked a nearby chair and sent it flying against the wall of Tsunade's office. She was pissed. Well beyond pissed, actually. "Fucking little shit's fifteen years old and he's blocking me. Kobayashi pulled a whole damn number on him, and he's fucking blocking me. Me."
The Hokage seemed a lot less perturbed than her; she merely folded her arms and leaned on her desk.
"Do you even know how he's doing it?" The Slug Sannin looked tired. "Anything we can work from?"
"He's in agony. In agony," Anko sank on the other chair, seemingly a breath away from actually start tearing at her hair, "Midori very nearly killed him. His chakra levels are laughable. He can barely move."
"He's a genjutsu specialist," Ibiki rumbled, not moving an inch from where he was comfortably leaning against the wall. "A darned good one. He managed to avoid capture by Kakashi's team and now he's blocking our attacks merely on instinct. He has the information we need, the preliminary interrogation revealed as much, but now he's conscious enough to avoid us. And he's avoiding us like the plague."
"Then what do you suggest," Tsunade leveled him with a quirked eyebrow and a mildly impatient look, "shall I cancel the exam, for the safety of the Daimyo and the Council members that will be present?"
"I suggest, with all due respect, Hokage-sama," Ibiki sneered, "that we call upon our genjutsu specialist, before we take such desperate measures. He might be a little bit rusty, but he's still the best. And we happen to have a sharingan in Konoha again. And he knows the brat."
Anko gaped at him. Tsunade frowned. Silence was tense and heavy while she considered his words.
"I trust you to know what you're doing, Ibiki," her eyes were sharp, vibrant, "and I trust you to not bite off more than you can chew. Dismissed."
--
"Yo, Gaara!" Kankuro let his voice echo in the seemingly empty apartment that cranky, loud woman of a Hokage had given the Sand committee for the duration of their stay. There was a rustle somewhere in the flat, and then a whisper of sand as an eyeball formed in front of him. Kankuro, almost used to it by now, jerked his head to the side, "you've got a guest."
He said it in a little bewildered tone, because even in Hidden Sand, Gaara didn't have 'guests'. He had people sent over by other villages or Jounin and ANBU reporting, but no one that went over to just… visit him. Maybe it was his own morbid curiosity what had allowed the strange kid inside; Kankuro wanted his brother to have this at least.
This meaning, of course, Rock Lee and his most earnest expression as he followed Gaara's brother and bowed politely to each and every Sand Nin he encountered.
Temari was going to have a day laughing when she came back and heard about it.
They found Gaara at the backyard garden of their apartment building, which had been revamped into what the untrained eye would see as a rather pacific Zen sand garden, but which anyone who knew the Kazekage enough could see it as the death trap it was. Gaara himself was sitting atop a rock – Kankuro didn't really want to know where the rock had come from – holding something in his hands and facing away from them. The gourd was gone, dissolved into sand that moved almost soothingly in waves around the redhead.
Kankuro knew his brother hated being startled, so he opened his mouth to say something sensible and smart and which hopefully wouldn't get him killed. Lee bounced right into the sand, splashing it as if it were water and bellowed: "Gaara, I challenge you!"
The sand stilled.
Kankuro went through a litany of very appropriate thoughts in his mind – shitshitshitshitSHITfuckityfuckityFUCK – and tried to think up an excuse to that freaking scary woman these people called Hokage, so as to why one of her Genin had ended up sand-coffin'd.
Gaara turned to face them, tilting his head back slightly. Something green and scale-y scrambled into the folds of his clothing; without the ever-present gourd, he looked small, almost… approachable.
Kankuro nearly shat his pants when he saw Gaara give the tiniest of smiles.
"Okay."
He was still spluttering and staring long after the sand had gathered back into the gourd and Gaara and Lee had left.
--
"Hatake."
Kakashi looked up from where he'd been busy rereading his very first Come Come book; he'd been feeling oddly nostalgic of the late. Konoha's deadliest ANBU looked down at him with a very wide, vaguely unpleasant smile.
"Yo," Kakashi said, because it was what he always said.
"So tell me," Ibiki smirked; it was not a pleasant sight, "really, how well do you actually know Umino Iruka?"
"I fail to see how that's any of your business," the Copy Nin deadpanned easily, just the barest hint of threat in his voice.
"Oh, cut him some slack, boss," Genma appeared next to Ibiki, grinning lopsidedly around his senbon. He gave Kakashi two thumbs up behind the scarred man's back.
"Weren't you supposed to fetch Umino?" Ibiki said irritably, because Genma had this nasty habit of speaking his mind at the most inappropriate times possible and that in turn made Ibiki's liver curl up a little each time he did it.
"Yeah, he ain't in the Academy."
"What do you want with Iruka?" Kakashi's drawl was the most uninterested thing in the whole, wide world.
It also made Genma raise both eyebrows and Ibiki give Kakashi a measuring stare.
"You know where he lives," it wasn't a question, "I'll tell you while we get there."
--
Someone was knocking at his door. Iruka and Midori blinked; he, because it was the first time someone actually bothered to knock in about forever, she, well, because it was a reflex. Iruka smiled kindly and pat her knee, then stood up and walked to the front door, leaving a bewildered Chuunin back in his bedroom.
"What can I—"
He opened the door and came face to face with Morino Ibiki. Behind him, Genma and Kakashi waited; the former looking carefree, the latter scowling. The was a second of tense silence, interrupted only by the sharp intake of breath and the shuffling of feet that proved Midori had gone back to hide under the covers – sadly more literally than figuratively speaking.
Iruka saw red for a moment and forgot all about his carefully, painstakingly planned out speech.
"Bastard!" Before anyone could react, the usually passive, patient, nice teacher had thrown a fist against Ibiki's face.
Genma's senbon hit the ground as Ibiki actually stumbled back, holding his bloodied nose.
"You fucking bastard!" Iruka's hands shot onto the coat and he drove his whole weight to slam the Jounin against the opposite wall. "You… you… fucking… arg!"
Kakashi stood there, thunderstruck, gaping behind the mask.
Genma began hyperventilating.
"Are you quite done now?" Ibiki calmly raised an eyebrow.
"Fuck no," Iruka slammed him against the wall again, and this time a bit of the plaster managed to come off, "Just… no."
"Well, that's a blasted shame, 'cause I am," with all the non-challance he possessed, the Jounin grabbed Iruka's wrists and rather gently shoved him off his person. "Now, wait here, children; I gather she's still inside."
"What—" Iruka started shaking, "the hell you're going!"
"To retrieve my medic," Ibiki said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world; then he added dryly, "really don't want to go find a new one, retraining one would be a bitch now."
"But—" the scarred man waltzed into his apartment and slammed the door on his face when he tried to follow him. "That… that… bastard! The nerve! The very nerve!"
"You… you…" Genma paled, waving his hands around a bit, "you decked Morino Ibiki a right hook." His voice dropped into an awed whisper. "Morino. Ibiki. You hit him!"
"And I'm not nearly done about it!" The Chuunin added fervently, eyes flashing with the promise of revenge.
"Shit, Hatake, how the hell you fuck this… this… thing?"
Iruka would have turned to rant and glare – he wasn't really in the right mindset to produce a blush now, besides his cheeks were flaming already with all the indignation his body could produce – in pure outrage, but then Kakashi flickered his finger at Genma's forehead, glaring and not particularly amused.
"Shut up, we're not fucking," he paused, though, to give the rather alluring image of a truly and well pissed off Iruka a barely concealed leer, "yet."
The glare transferred to him, but Kakashi fancied it was a tiny bit less scary, which wasn't much, really, but which was something still.
Fifteen minutes later, Ibiki walked out, his nose fixed, and with a mouse-looking Chuunin at his heels. Midori sent Iruka a shy, apologic smile. The teacher merely scowled and glared darkly at Ibiki's back. Kakashi fell on step with him, stealing a glance here and there and generally looking very out of his element. He certainly had never expected Iruka to do that, and now he had to reevaluate everything he'd known about the Chuunin. Genma closed up their little party, staring at the ground and mumbling nonsense; he stole a glimpse of the teacher here and there, but that was it.
They went to the roof of the building, rather than the street and then they were soaring through the rooftops at breakneck speed, submerged into deep silence. If you paid close attention, though, you could hear Iruka's teeth cracking a bit under the strain of constant grinding.
--
The prisoner was locked up in an interrogation look with a one-way mirror and Tsunade, Ibiki, Genma, Anko, Midori and Kakashi stood behind it while Iruka steadied his nerves and went inside. Kakashi's sharingan was peering into the room, watching everything run smoothly. He wanted to ask a few things, mainly, what the hell was Iruka supposed to do against a brat that seemingly couldn't be interrogated by Ibiki's finest, or why was he needed anyways, but the Hokage was frowning – never a good sign – and so was Anko – definitely not a good sign – so Kakashi shoved his questions back in his mind and watched.
Later, he'd sit with Iruka and ask, and he was sure the man would tell him. His perception of him might have changed, but Kakashi knew in his gut that Iruka remained the same.
--
"Hello, Ichiro."
Iruka walked slowly into the room, closing the door quietly. All anger and fury had been drained off his face, leaving behind only tired resignation. The boy was tied up to the chair, bandaged enough to pass off for a mummy and still bleeding. The scent of dried blood made Iruka's nose twitch slightly, but he merely walked to the chair across the table and sat in front of his former student.
"Iruka-sensei," the boy croaked softly, something sardonic lacing his voice; he looked terribly tired, "I didn't tell them and I won't tell you. It's useless."
"I know, Ichiro, I know," Iruka tried to smile, though it came out as a grimace, "they are going to execute you, Ichiro, as soon as I walk out of this room. But I'm not here to question you, I merely wanted to talk to you… a sentimental teacher wishing farewell to his beloved former student."
"Your traitor of a former student, you mean," behind the bandages around his face, the single visible brown eye glinted with acrid amusement.
Iruka took a deep breath.
"Yes, Ichiro," he nodded sadly, "my beloved former student is a traitor now." There was a long silence, "but why? Not whom or where or how, Ichiro. Just why?"
--
"Son of a—"
Behind the mirror, everyone turned to Kakashi as Kakashi quickly reevaluated – for the third time that day – everything he knew about Iruka. His sharingan was itching as it tried to follow all the different chakra pathways that had been spread around the room, all flowing steadily from within Iruka and slowly inching their way into the boy.
"Can you see anything?" Tsunade asked curiously, face grim.
"I… I can't count them," the Copy Nin muttered in awe, "I can't count the layers in his jutsu. There's just… too many. Couple of hundred, at least. Maybe even a thousand."
"Makes sense," Ibiki said calmly, "his father could put up almost three thousand and three hundred," he ran his eyes over Iruka's disappointed looking face, "but while he's not as skilled in that respect, Iruka has sure become a fine actor."
Kakashi, disturbed, agreed.
--
"It's the Whore's fault," Ichiro said after a long silence, "it's because of her I left, all of us left." When Iruka didn't answer, he added, "That simpleton of a whore the council named Hokage. When she took command, we knew Konoha had fallen truly low."
"Some would say the Fifth was very well fitted for her post," Iruka, ever the diplomat, said tentatively.
"She's a disgrace to this village! She's… fuck, Iruka-sensei," there was a sneer somewhere in there, buried underneath the snarl and the bandages, "who the hell thought putting up a woman as the head of the village was a good idea? Who the hell thought she could stand on equal ground to Orochimaru and be called a Sanin? She's a fucking bitch, that's all she is."
"So the problem you have with the Hokage is not so much the fact of who she is, but what?"
The sneer came back full force.
"Please, you out of anyone in this fucking shithole know women are no good in a battlefield."
--
The table cracked under Tsunade's hand, Anko's killing intent reached critic levels and Midori's eyes flashed that dreadful red-on-black that announced to the world she was pissed.
Genma and Ibiki edged, discretely, away from them.
Kakashi continued to watch, taken by the delicate way Iruka's chakra was blanketing the room, discretely anchoring itself onto the brat's own chakra; it was the prelude of something grand.
--
"What about Kanna?"
Kanna had been the girl in Ichiro's Genin team. A sweet girl, really, she adored her teammates and mostly everyone she knew. Fiercely protective, as well, as all Inuzuka were prone to be. Iruka remembered her fondly as a hyper energy ball with tribal marks and sweet amber eyes, always carrying her pup in her arms.
"Dead," Ichiro snapped without remorse, "they told me I could do whatever I wanted to her after they were done with me. I could have let her go," his eyes glinted sadistically, "she cried like the bitch she was when I killed her."
--
The mirror cracked, and the sudden, choking deadly intent that began shadowing Iruka leaked through the cracks and into the room behind the mirror. It took their breath away; it was the wrath of a parent avenging a lost child. It was cruel, sadistic, bloodthirsty.
It was most certainly something far above Iruka's usual cranky temper.
--
"I see," the Chuunin said tersely, "good-bye, Ichiro."
He stood up to leave.
"Good-bye, Iruka-sensei," the boy was smirking arrogantly.
Iruka stood, and then narrowed his eyes, all his chakra flared, and Ichiro was lost into the illusion.
--
"Shit," Kakashi mumbled in a show of great eloquence.
Since the jutsu had been activated, he was the only one who actually knew what was going on. The rest only saw Iruka standing very still and the brat's breathing hitch every now and then.
It was evil, truth to be told. So evil it was beautiful, Kakashi thought privately. Iruka guided the illusion into a few nightmares, macabre enough it was became quite blatant that it was genjutsu, but every time the boy dispelled it, another layer came up and it began again. Kakashi had seen worse – had suffered worse, at the hands of Itachi, but Itachi was a bastard and this was Iruka, and the fact remained that he'd underestimated the Chuunin. Seriously underestimated him.
After long moments, the chakra shifted again, now feeding directly from the boy's, with Iruka merely nudging it in the right direction. Kakashi saw the boy and his fantasy – rather unrealistic at that – of how he escaped the ANBU quarters as mangled and injured as he was, and then followed him through dreamland Konoha as he made his way to meet his boss.
The moment the man appeared, wearing the Hidden Rock headband, Kakashi's blood ran cold, not so much as the revelation – he'd had his own theories, really – but at the icy hatred that marred Iruka's usually pristine light blue chakra into something dark and indigo and very much deadly. He could see the illusion, but he couldn't hear, so he didn't know what was being said.
"Hidden Rock," the Copy Nin mumbled, then blinked as the illusion-threads of chakra gathered around the boy and the killing intent in the Chuunin intensified so much Kakashi could taste it.
Iruka watched emotionlessly as the boy screeched in fear and pain. He gurgled incoherently as he unconsciously set his own chakra against himself and cough up blood before falling forward limply. He was dead.
They had planned to kill the brat after Iruka was done with him, but in consideration to his status as former student, they had decided to wait until after Iruka left to do it. It was more a matter of charity, Midori's handiwork was mostly constant agony and they were actually doing the brat a service by finishing him off.
Iruka hadn't been kind about it, though, Kakashi had seen.
The teacher stared at the mangled corpse for about ten seconds, then exited the room wearing a smooth, calm façade which everyone could see right through.
"During the final stage of the exams, Matsude Yajiko, Hidden Rock Jounin, will attempt to murder either the Hokage or the Kazekage, or both, as a token to their alliance with Orochimaru. Hidden Rock attempts to gift Sound with one or both villages to gain his favor." He paused, letting the information sink. "And now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna fall asleep and not wake up for a week. Get someone to teach my classes for me, please?"
Kakashi dived to catch him as he fell. Iruka was oddly light in his arms; he was out cold. The Copy Nin looked at the Hokage uncertainly, choosing to ignore everyone else – mostly since everyone but Ibiki was gaping a bit; Genma's senbon was on the floor again.
"Go," the Fifth made a shooing motion with her hands, "take care of him, we'll manage from here. I'll summon you if I need you; if not, just keep out of my hair. Go!"
Kakashi hesitated for a second, then nodded sharply and, gathering Iruka close, disappeared in a cloud of smoke.