A/N: Well if you're a Trekkie bitch like I am, you'll recognize this kiss as the deleted second rape scene between Counselor Troi and Shinzon in the turbolift in TNG: Nemesis. This also is related to the second kiss.

Disclaimer: Na Kishimoto, I have some J-pop CDs and $5 bucks. Wanna trade?

Fourth Kiss: "Our Distance and That Person"

"He didn't complete the field report from his cell's last mission." Iruka thrust a soy sauce-stained scroll in Kurenai's face. Caught off guard and cornered like a doe in headlights she stared down the chuunin running the mission desk. Iruka busied himself kneeling behind the wood piling scrolls and files on the desktop. "You're heading in Kakashi's direction. Just drop it off at the house." His curt order miffed the jounin as he took an abrasive liberty with his superior position at the shinobi headquarters. Then again she felt a similar empathy for Iruka as she did Shizune as they took on so much of the tedious grunt work from their betters who so blithely abused their post-battle duties. Of course Kurenai did no such thing as she spent her days off and sleepless nights scrupulously completing her paperwork.

When had the pervert moved back into his family's house no one knew. And why was a whole other affair they chose not to dabble in. The Hatake home was falling into serious disrepair from a sinking porch, overgrown garden, and a roof that showered shingles. Then again Kakashi primarily inhabited in his bedroom with little use for anything else, save the kitchen for sustenance. Bringing up her left foot to scratch her right calf, Kurenai's fingers contracted on the weathered brass doorknob but instead dragged her hand up to clutch the darkened doorknocker. She rapped forcefully and waited the customary sixty seconds. Her hypersensitive ninja hearing picked up on vibrating footsteps from deep within, there was a chance he did not hear, but if she were Tsunade she would bet a month's salary on Kakashi ignoring her what with his canine-esque senses.

Kurenai justified her rude entrance due to Kakashi's signature snubbing by her little display of daring intruding on the excruciatingly private copy nin's precious personal space.

"Well looks like you did it again, Hatake!" Kurenai announced strolling to the kitchen where she heard the sound of rushing tap water. "Pissing off the dolphin teacher like that won't sit well with Tsunade-sama considering Shizune-chan will threaten to strike if her koibito isn't shown respect even by you! Not that you'd understand any of it…" Waving an arrogant hand like royalty Kurenai swayed into the late afternoon sun-drenched alcove preparing her verbal assault hoping for its success taking Kakashi down a notch. "Still," she shot, "I have better ways to spend my off-hours rather than coming here to watch you-" Her words were caught in gridlock as she clamped her teeth down. One hand in soapy water and naked to the waist in a pair of old sweats Kakashi stood, guppy-mouthed at Kurenai. The woman standing adjacent of them was wrapped in a tiny towel, purple as her face paint. The perfumed warm water beaded on her creamy skin falling to little puddles about her feet like the childish tears Kurenai once shed about this house and the unfortunates who occupied it throughout her lifetime.

Evocative of Hinata, Rin's pale kiss-swollen mouth robotically opened and closed like a malfunctioning doll until she gave up and chose to keep still, her sweet brown eyes studying her toes. Donning her fangirl mask as easily as Kakashi does his, Kurenai smirked provocatively but failed abysmally since her amusement did not reach her alluring garnet eyes.

"Definitely, the Erojiji was your sensei." She flashed the victory sign. "Well this is yours," Kakashi's scroll sailed past him splashing into the sink spattering detergent-laced grease water into his mismatched eyes. He was unfazed. "Don't do anything I wouldn't! Ja!" Kurenai phase shifted out of sight. Throwing open his front door Kakashi got as far as the first step.

"Kurenai!"

The trees were a windswept blur of greens and browns as she flew from one bough to the next, her feet no longer touching the wood. 'Atashi wa no baka!' This went on for an undetermined duration until she felt the burn from lack of oxygen in her lungs fill like fire spewing from a napalm cannon into a closet. The unfamiliar glen she reached was delimited by a copse of white birch wood blotting out the fading sunlight into slits of ochre slashing the ground. Stumbling around the small area she gleaned that there was no visible egress and her suspicions kicked into high gear, she was the genjutsu genius with a rarer bloodline than the Sharingan. Kunai in hand she primed for battle scanning the full circle about her.

"Yuuhi… Kurenai…" She gasped and yelped whipping her raven hair wildly about seeing a figure behind her that she did not see just seconds ago. Facing him she shrunk away as he advanced like a cobra they circled one another like vultures around carrion. The red lined black mantle woven with red clouds dusted the grounds majestically, its high collar concealing his face reminiscent of Shino split apart as his left hand swept an arc in the air. Kurenai could see the whirling toma in his fully developed Sharingan and immediately averted her own red gaze recalling how he fired her own genjutsu back at her when she successfully trapped him in her demon tree. The prickling of the evolving Tsukiyomi slashing her psychic jugular threatened looking into his deceitful youthful and beautiful visage making her wonder at his age. "I am always with you… aisuru…"

"You're not real." She punctured the air with her kunai. "You're not here!" Kurenai hissed. Her back met a tree roughly tearing at the white material of her wrap dress from its coarse mars and bumps.

"I can make you for get all about him," he enticed, his clammy tapered white fingers uncurled to brush the backs of them tenderly athwart her jaws. "Hatake was always a useless bastard," the weasel spoke of his former ANBU teammate.

"No…" A helpless moan issued from her parched throat. Itachi curled his lip as only just a few more seconds were needed for that final push for rage to win the battle for him.

"I can feel your hunger…" He cradled her chin lovingly between his thumb and fore and middle fingers, hovering his lips hot and hard aloft hers. "Your need for me to teach you the Uchiha ways… the old ways…" Her violet eyelids dropped and saw a moving screen of erotic images behind them. Naked flesh intersecting as she was tied down fondled and fucked as she darkly desired. Every schoolgirl fantasy she ever salivated over lay in the facets of that red jewel resting on the palm of his hand. Her rage and yearning taken out on beautiful, overpowering shinobi she would dominate. Her encapsulating feminine warmth throttling their cocks to bursting, pulling their hair making them know she was more woman than they bargained for.

'I am a woman!'

Gratingly slow she dragged her thumb up her kunai's diamond-shaped blade and pierced the flesh. Her blood exposed to air made the shallow wound sting and saved her from becoming an Akatsuki slave all because of her insignificant timidity and immature disappointment.

"You're… not… real!" She hurled Itachi backward with a combo knee thrust and elbow strike shattering the illusion like glass shards between slabs of gold. Itachi flicked his lengthy black ponytail to swish silkily as his phantom vanished into a dissolving birch. Kurenai dropped to her knees in a grove in the Forest of Death, her pants reckless sobs and she screamed triumphantly and petrified.

Laid out on the examination table surrendering to the soothing warmth of Sakura's green chakra scanning her for injury, gliding her fanned hands up and down her body Kurenai finally felt secure. Hinata stood behind the pink-haired medic nin, poking her index fingers together a nervous habit that she was unable to break. Ibiki stood leaning against the door, Anko and Asuma in quiet conference as he was the one to find her unconscious on the forest floor. Tsunade supervised her diligent apprentice with unconcealed fury in her lovely face. Shikamaru on one knee, his fingers steepled and eyes closed in deep reflection. Shino and Lee arrived moments earlier; Naruto would be on their heels anxious for news. Yuugao slipped in to whisper in Ibiki's ear and took a seat. The door opened once more and Neji, Tenten, Choji, Ino, Kiba and Naruto filed in. While only several of them were promoted to chuunin he would be damned if they did not include him on this mission.

"All right sensei…" Kurenai sighed as Sakura assisted her in sitting up. "Aside from elevated levels of adrenaline and serotonin, you're physically fine."

"Kurenai," Ibiki stepped into the wan yellow fluorescent light, "I have to ask you in, detail, what occurred on training grounds 44." Kurenai would not meet the scarred man's stony stare as the torture and interrogation master knew at that moment she was transparent from the roiling emotions that were churning in her psyche. She pressed her pale rose lips in a firm straight line and swallowed audibly, when six more joined their group. She was just able to suppress a glare at the happy couple that walked in last.

"It was… a violation."

"Please elucidate." Ibiki's tone was flat but he was going about his job strictly adhering to procedure. However this was no time to spare her dignity both as a woman or a ninja for the safety of Konoha was at stake. For it was the first lesson of her nindou.

"The assailant utilized jutsu to entrap and engage me." Her use of clinical and antiseptic terms allowed Kurenai a bit of respite to disassociate herself from her rape. Anko was the next to speak as she dropped a fist on the space beside Kurenai.

"Was it bunshin or henge?"

"Both. A genjutsu was used to disorient and lure me into a vulnerable position. I was caught and unable to decipher a way out of the illusion. I can say without uncertainty that he used a kage bunshin when he attacked me. I resisted, and when I broke the genjutsu, a henge replaced the clone and vanished." The tokubetsu jounin nodded tossing a glance at her superior who inclined his head in unanimity. Kurenai filled her lungs with the fresh air that was wafting through the open window bracing herself for the killing blow.

"Could you identify the ninja who did this?" Ibiki inquired.

It escaped her lips in whoosh. "Uchiha Itachi." For a split second the sound of a butterfly alighting a grass blade could be heard in that room, but the violent tension that gathered shared the density of wet concrete. Naruto blew off a bloodthirsty howl.

"KUROSHIME! TEMME!" It was no simple feat to restrain the orange-clad blonde from jumping out the window. Kyuubi no Yoko was murderous and had to be sated. Jiraya was about to intervene since Kiba and Choji were losing the battle until a green blur whipped like a dervish past him hurling Naruto to the far end of the room, slamming his back into the stone wall creating a crevasse traveling up and crosswise going left and right. His blonde head slumped to his left shoulder as a grunt escaped his breath.

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata shouted running to his aide but all focus was on the chuunin pulling taut the slackening bandages on his left fist.

"Lee…" Gai murmured. His star pupil dropped his now dormant hand to his side.

"Naruto-kun, we all share your anger. But acting irrationally will not help us in this war that has cost us already one life." Sakura closed her green eyes moist from tears. "Kurenai-sensei's tragedy is the starting point of our mission and if we are to avenge her honor we must begin by preserving our own. For the battlefield awaits our arrival without fear… and then we will have truly earned the glory." Genma's senbon dangled by the saliva coating his lower lip, Asuma's cigarette burned down to the butt without him caring, and Neji's right brow quirked the semblance of emoting after nearly sixteen years of repression. Rin burned twin lasers into Gai's jounin flak jacket and Kakashi simply shut his eyes as his eternal rival shed crocodile tears. Lee soldiered over to the fallen Naruto receiving care for his inconsequential wound, hunched down on his knees and held out his hand complete with a winning smile.

"Oy, Geijimayu," Naruto slammed his hand into Lee's in an arm wrestler's clasp. The muscles of both boys outlined clearly beneath their sleeves making Hinata's opal eyes widen to the size of platters. Neither would break the other's iridescent stare. "You're a real schmuck." Lee hauled Naruto to his feet and thumped him twice on the back. Naruto confronted Ibiki, arms akimbo feet shoulder width apart. "So scarface, what say you?" He sneered. Ibiki's ebony gaze fixed on the aquamarine crystal on the black silk thong that once rested between Tsunade's plentiful bosoms on Naruto's black mesh-covered toned chest. The bear-like man sighed the sigh of the long suffering.

"Gear up and be at the gate in one hour, or don't bring your sorry asses all." He vacated the room as quickly as possible. Naruto pumped a fist leaping in the air.

"Yatta! All right men let's move out!"

"You're not Hokage yet, dobe!" Kiba erupted Akamaru's yips backed him up.

"Temme!" The room broke out into a flurry of activity, cells and senseis rushed out or stayed behind to plan. Tsunade's rosebud mouth pulled up in a prideful smirk at her finest, but thunder crashed behind her sepia eyes as the clique she was waiting to isolate began to break up.

"You four clowns!" She barked her blonde pigtails flew up from the force of her cry sending invisible fuuma shuriken to pin them all down. Genma, Raido, Gai and Kakashi stopped dead in their tracks. "Kurenai, Anko you're with me."

"Tsunade-sama…" The Godaime did not hear Kurenai as she stormed down the hall into an empty office. Anko ushered her off the table and followed their liege. The four ANBU appeared first in a communal cloud of smoke.

"You," she brandished her finger like a katana addressing the men, "get your war paint on. You'll be taking the low road for the success of this mission." Anko and Kurenai joined them on the briefing. "We need a medic." On cue Rin meekly opened the door silently asking permission for access. "Thank you for volunteering Rin."

"H- hai." Tsunade was about to lay the blueprints of the mission when Kurenai interpolated breathlessly.

"Tsunade-sama, I request to be removed from active duty. I have become a liability for not only this mission but to Konoha as well and request to be confined to my living quarters." Tsunade shook her head adamantly.

"Request denied. Kurenai, if you can tolerate these attacks by Itachi we have gained a tactical advantage."

"How so?" The Yuuhi refused to back down from Fire Country's champion.

"With you out in the open as bait we can spread a net and you need do is have a bit of patience."

"It figures." Kurenai flounced from the room slamming the door behind her. Anko went after her friend the crackle of Kurenai's chakra did not go unnoticed when Rin stepped into the room.

In the women's locker room Kurenai lobbed her balled-up wrap dress into a laundry bin. She tore through the wrappings on her thighs, hips and hands with a kunai and peeled off her red trimmed black mesh tank before stepping into the shower.

"I brought what you asked," Anko called over the loud scathing spray setting a red gym bag on a long oak bench.

"Domo." The ancient knobs creaked shutting off the water. Kurenai emerged into the changing area by the lockers and used a jutsu to dry her body and hair. Stepping into red cotton bikinis and pulling over tiny black mesh shorts over them she began speaking. "I realize that I was always the weakest link, but I do not appreciate being made fun of."

"You're not weak Kurenai."

"No?" Over her head went the red sports bra. "How long have I been a jounin Anko?"

The violet-haired woman answered that question with one of her own. "Didn't you say that you were happy being a chuunin?"

"What does that have to do with it?"

"And didn't you say that the Sandaime forced the jounin exam on you because he needed the bodies on the field?" Kurenai slid on the standard-issue jounin gloves slamming her fist into the opposite palm for to mollify the tight blue leather. "And didn't you say that the only reason Morino was getting pissed at you was because of your near purposeful forfeits during the exams?" Kurenai smoothed the pliant Lycra and cotton of her mock turtleneck sleeveless crimson mini dress, strapped on a thigh holster, and zipped up her jounin flak jacket.

"Your point is Anko?" She applied a coating of Vampish on her lips.

"My point is girlfriend… what's going on with you, the mousy medic and the copy perv?" Kurenai beatifically clicked her compact shut sliding it and her lipstick on her pack before shouldering it.

"Nothing at all."

Several miles into the forest the group of seven watched Jiraya, Asuma, and Iruka lead their hodgepodge of genins and chuunins into the great unknown as they commenced their shadow op. Garbed in black and white with their masks down Raido, Gai and Genma dispersed into the trees to tail the three kunoichi. Kakashi stopped Kurenai and she told Anko to go on up ahead. As soon as the tokubetsu was out of an earshot Kakashi was confident about clearing the air between them.

"I want to apologize to you, Kurenai." She had not turned to face him and the only acknowledgement he got was an angle of her head.

"Don't bother Kakashi. We both know how you really feel anyway." And once again the lady in red made a fool out of him.

OWARI