Iruka nodded sleepily and rolled out of bed, wondering why the sun wasn't shining. It was obviously going to rain today. He stumbled across the room, wincing at the pain in his lower back. He must have slept wrong. His hand was on the door handle when he heard the voice again.
"You might want to put on some clothes before you go out there."
He looked down. He was naked. Why was he naked? Then everything came flooding back and he turned away from Genma to pick up the boxers he'd shed and pull them on, his face a deep shade of scarlet.
"You ok?"
Iruka nodded and then shivered as Genma licked over the freshly tattooed ANBU sign on his shoulder.
"Nng! Genma let go! I have to go see this messenger." He managed to detach the jounin and made his way into the main room.
There was a young chuunin standing awkwardly beside the kitchen door, a scroll in his hands which spun it around in a fit of nerves. He caught sight of Iruka and grinned before noticing the ANBU was in his boxers.
Iruka smirked as the grin fled from the young man's face and his cheeks turned red. He took the scroll from the twitching hands and thanked him.
"T-the Hokake w-would like to see you at the earliest p-possible time please."
Iruka heard Genma's laugh from the bedroom doorway as the chuunin fled. He turned around and scowled at the jounin lounging on the door frame.
He raised an eyebrow as the brunette held up a small hand mirror. He instantly realized why the chuunin hadn't been able to keep his eyes off his neck. It looked like his natural skin colour included purple bruises. And bite marks. "Genma! Did you have to fucking bite me?"
The jounin grinned, sauntering back into his bedroom.
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Dressed in his ANBU uniform, thankful for the high neck and mask which hid his flush and the cause of it, Iruka appeared in the Hokage's office. A moment later Raven and Cat appeared either side of him.
"Did you get attacked Iruka?"
He looked blankly at the Hokage for a second before glancing at the only part of his body left uncovered. There was a dark hickey on the spot between his shoulder and his collar bone and several deep scratch marks running down from the bottom of the ANBU mark under his glove. He ignored her.
Tsunade's grin fell off her face when she realized Iruka wasn't going to be any fun. "S rank mission, destroy a group of nuke-nin who are plotting to invade the village. I expect you back here by dawn tomorrow." She threw a scroll to Tenzou who caught it easily and unfurled it.
"We meet at the gates in 10 minutes. Bring something you can eat whilst moving. You," he looked pointedly at Iruka. "Need to eat something other than ration bars. Also bring something to put water in. There's going to be a river or water source near their camp."
10 minutes later found the three nin standing just outside the massive gates, their masks firmly in place and their swords strapped to their backs.
"They're about 2 miles away from the village wall. There's 10 of them, two low level but very strategic, the others somewhere between high chuunin low jounin level. They had a lot of traps and are very well hidden according to our informant. We should observe them until dark and then dispose of them quickly and silently during the night. We must be back at the Hokage tower by dawn at the latest. She will be waiting for us." He wound the red scarf closer to his neck so that it wouldn't snag of any tree branches as they were running. He nodded and leapt off into the semi-dark forest, his squad following closely behind him.
They continued in silence for an hour, running silently through the foliage until Cat stuck his arm out, indicating for them to stop, and came to rest on a high branch. The setting sun was shining through an opening in the canopy and far below them it was glinting off hundreds of nin-wires spread across the floor. Directly ahead of them was an exploding tag attached to the bark of a thick tree.
"There's another one there, there and there." Said Raven, pointing out the other three in the trap formation.
"We'll have to go around it then." Cat muttered before leaping sideways onto an adjacent tree.
"Don't go that way, there's a genjutsu around it." Iruka resisted the urge to shout after the commander but sighed in relief as he nodded and went the other way around the trap. The genjutstu left a strange tingle in his senses that he couldn't shake off, but couldn't work out what it was.
The closer they got to the two mile point, the more traps they avoided both narrowly and with a wide berth. They finally stopped on a large dead bough and looked around.
"We're almost two miles from the village. I don't see anything to indicate a camp though."
The strange tingle erupted in his body again. "There's something over there. It feels almost like the genjutsu we passed a while back."
Cat nodded and they made their way cautiously over to where Iruka had sensed the presence. A thin coil of smoke rose up into the trees as they looked down into the camp. It looked as though it had been there for quite some time.
"It's him," Iruka pointed to the long-haired red-head who was sharpening a pile of kunai a little way from the fire. "He's the one who set up the genjutsu. It must have been his chakra signature I was sensing."
Raven looked at the dolphin-masked man. "That's a really good skill to have. You sound surprised though."
"Well I never noticed it before now."
"Because your body wasn't ready to unlock it's full potential. You weren't powerful enough previously."
They both turned to look at Cat who was still staring into the camp.
"We have about an hour of light left. We need to observe them as fully as we can in that time. As soon as the dark falls we go in."
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"Eww!" Iruka whined as he tried to wipe the blood off himself. They hadn't been as unprepared as they had expected and a fully fledged battle had broken out. He glanced over at Cat and Raven who were dispatching the last nin and piling their bodies. He glanced down at the corpse by his feet and wondered if he was strong enough to lift it, let alone carry it across the camp. He bent down and heaved the man onto his shoulder, staggering a little under the dead weight and manage to add him to the rapidly growing mountain of death.
Raven's fingers flashed through hand signs and lit the pile as soon as all ten were dead and accounted for. They left it burning and made their way back to Tsunade's office with two hours left until dawn.
"How did you manage to stay so clean?" He asked as Raven went to wake the snoring blonde.
"Practice." Came Cat's monotonous reply.
"You stand well back when the head goes flying." Suggested Raven as he caught Tsunade's half hearted attempt to punch his head in.
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"Dolphin, I'd like to apologize."
"Huh?"
Raven snorted, clapped a hand onto Cat's shoulder and vanished.
"Eloquent." He took off the mask and Iruka found himself staring into dark eyes. "I said I would like to apologize. I should not have said the things I did. I apologize."
"Uh, don't worry. I forgive you."
Tenzou smiled and Iruka was sure his heart skipped a few beats. It was the first time he'd seen and emotion in the other man's face but the sight was amazing.
"You make a fine ANBU Iruka." He slipped the mask back on and vanished.
Iruka stood for a few moments staring blankly at where the ANBU had been. 'OMIGOD! He said my name!' Inner Iruka screamed. He decided, as he formed the hand seals, that Tenzou had the nicest voice he had even heard. He followed his squad's example and vanished back to his apartment.