There is a companion fic to this explaining a bit of the history behind the party that is thrown every year. Check my author page for it, its short only 800 some odd words.

Disclaimer – The people doing the star village arc in the filler episodes have not been taken out back and kicked, thus Naruto is not mine

Spoilers – This contains spoilers for the anime and manga. I am not sure of the exact chapters and episode numbers, but it is well beyond what Cartoon network is showing. It is also beyond what is released by VIZ in English manga since I believe the events referenced are in volume 14 of the manga. This contains spoilers for the end of the Chuunin Exam arc.

This has been a broadcast of the scribbles alert system, we now return you to your regularly scheduled reading

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Water Runs Red – Chapter 18

Kakashi woke with a start as a strange alarm clock started to go off. There was then the sound of it crashing into a wall. The chuunin lying next to him in bed barely moved, only delivering a well-placed kick to the offending piece of electronics.

Iruka's arms were still wrapped around him and he was greeted by a very sleepy set of brown eyes opening up to look at him. The chuunin yawned, "Good Morning."

Kakashi shook his head and kissed the younger man's forehead. "Sleep well?"

Iruka nodded, "You?"

"Surprisingly well."

Iruka pulled himself out of bed and stumbled over to the chest of drawers to find a new uniform, "If I don't get moving, I'll be late."

Kakashi stretched, "I should get moving too, I'm sure there is plenty to do today."

Iruka started mumbling something about setting up town patrols and wall guarding schedules and that they were days behind on paying missions now. Suddenly he looked over at Kakashi. "You're not much taller than I am; feel free to rummage through here and see if anything fits." The chuunin was pulling on a fresh uniform and slipping into his chuunin vest.

Kakashi nodded and pulled his mask and forehead protector on. He borrowed a spare uniform as Iruka excused himself to make breakfast. When Kakashi made his way out to the main part of the apartment, there was music coming quietly from the stereo. From the smell of things, Breakfast was almost ready.

Iruka wandered out to turn off the stereo, "Morning." He had a cup of coffee in his hands and was seeming much more awake finally. "Coffee?"

After the two men had coffee and breakfast, they walked to the administrative center. The sun was just rising and the damage the town had suffered was apparent. When they got to the mission room, Kotetsu was there alone going over reports. Iruka walked up to him, "Where's Izumo?"

Kotetsu glanced at Kakashi before answering, "Ibiki sent him someplace last night … alone." Kotetsu didn't look at all happy about that.

Iruka muttered, "Fuck, I'm sure he's OK." Before grabbing some reports. He tossed a scroll to Kakashi, "That's who we have available. I need plans for covering the perimeter of the village with as few people as possible so we can start assigning others to missions."

Kakashi just nodded, definitely not even thinking of pulling rank and started to figure out how to do this with the fewest people as Iruka started to organized groups to rebuild the village and Kotetsu prioritized the external missions.

As the sun got higher, the plans became more viable. Soon shinobi were showing up and being quickly assigned to where they had to go. Kakashi and his Genin were put into one of the rebuilding work details. Genma had shown up shortly after that and was preparing reports for the village elders about how things were going. Iruka was handing out mission scrolls to shinobi in front of them and Kotetsu had left to go and get some sleep. About an hour after Kakashi and his Genin had left to go and clear debris, Anko, Kurenai and Asuma walked in.

The mission room was operating once again like a well-oiled machine. Iruka handed out a scroll to a shinobi who instantly headed off for his mission. Iruka then turned to look at a very tired looking Anko. Suddenly she paled. Iruka paused in mid-movement and Kurenai walked up, "What do you have for my team."

Anko collapsed to her knees, her hand gripping her neck as she struggled to breathe through the pain.

Kurenai was down at her friend's side in a second. Iruka jumped the table and was at Anko's other side. Genma was standing up behind the table, watching and ready to do anything he could to help.

Kurenai glared at Iruka as he removed Anko's hand from on top of her seal and placed his own hand over it. Instantly, he was talking to Anko softly, telling her it was OK and to relax. As he started to guide her through a relaxation exercise Anko should know well enough to not need guidance, some of the tension in her body started to leave.

Iruka looked over at Genma, "When is Izumo expected back?"

Genma shook his head, "Tonight at the earliest."

Kurenai looked at Genma, "What does Izumo have to do with this? What the hell is going on?"

Iruka ignored the woman's question, "I'll have to seal it up then."

Kurenai looked at him, "What do you mean?"

Genma frowned, "Izumo is a seals expert. Iruka isn't half bad himself."

Iruka frowned, "Genma, can you handle things here? Kurenai-san, Asuma-san, can the two of you help me with Anko-chan?" He was softly petting the woman's hair as he continued calming the seal on her neck.

Asuma nodded and Kurenai didn't say anything, which was as good as Iruka could have hoped for. Genma tossed the chuunin's pack over to him, he caught it, placing it on his shoulder, and he picked up the smaller woman. Anko shuddered a little as she was picked up, momentarily whimpering, as Iruka had to take the hand off of her dark seal for a moment.

He carried her out of the mission room, ignoring the looks from incoming shinobi as Asuma and Kurenai followed him. He led them to an empty room down the hallway. "Asuma-san, can you hold her?" As he passed the mostly limp form over to Asuma, He carefully placed the other man's hand over the black mark on Anko's neck, "Just keep a firm pressure here. Until I can get it sealed, this is as good as we can do for pain control. She's going to whimper a little bit, but I'm going to go as quick as I can."

He started to dig through his pack, grabbed a bottle of ink and a brush, and started to go to work on the bare floor. He wasn't as quick at this as Izumo, but he was still very quick. Kurenai kept an eye on what he was doing and moved over towards where Asuma was holding Anko. She tried to comfort the woman, a very concerned look on her face.

She stayed close to Asuma. She watched as Iruka flew through writing out the designs of the seal without needing to consult anything. "What is going on, Iruka?"

He sighed; too worried by the events to realize Kurenai was speaking to him like an actual human being. He kept writing, "Her cursed seal has destabilized. I am not sure why, either because of the contact with Orochimaru, or the death of the third, or something else. It hasn't been this bad in years though. The seal the third put around it to help stabilize it is completely gone, so I'm going to have to re-do it."

He gingerly took Anko from Asuma and started to carry her to the center of the circle. "If anything goes wrong, Kakashi might be able to finish it, either that or sedate her until Izumo gets back, OK?" With a kiss to Anko's forehead, he gingerly placed her in the center of the circle, his arms holding her tenderly.

Iruka then pulled out a kunai and slit his palm, pressing the bloody hand onto the writing of the circle. Slowly, over the course of ten minutes, he poured chakra into the sealing jutsu, holding it steady as the writing wrapped right around the two of them, ending with a tight circle of glowing writing encircling her cursed seal. He was drained. The ten minutes of complete exertion left him with almost no chakra and he collapsed onto Anko, his head falling onto her shoulder, as he was just barely conscious enough to cushion their fall to the hard floor.

Anko's fingers were clutching his vest and she was just barely conscious. Kurenai disconnected Anko from Iruka and carefully picked her up, looking down at Iruka as Asuma knelt down and propped Iruka up into a sitting position. Iruka managed to say, "Just give me a second, that was … tiring."

The door opened up and Ibiki walked in. He quickly looked around, "Genma told me what happened. Is Anko OK?"

Iruka nodded, not even bothering to open his eyes yet, "Yeah, I sealed it up. I want Izumo to check it when he gets back."

Ibiki frowned, "He sent a message. He's delayed and needs backup. I'm sending you."

Iruka just looked up at the man from his position on the floor. His expression blank and unreadable.

Kurenai frowned at Ibiki, "We can't be that short staffed that you'd send someone like him."

Iruka just pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his head in his palms waiting for this all to end. He was much too tired to try to defend himself to Kurenai.

Asuma said, "But, he is worn out, he just did a seal on Anko, I don't think the guy has enough chakra to be sent out."

Ibiki looked from one jonin to the other. "Look, Iruka works for me." He ignored the chuunin trying to sink into the floor. "He can infiltrate to where Izumo is without being suspicious, so he will have to be the one to go." He threw an envelope to Iruka, the white paper landing in front of the chuunin's feet.

Iruka simply grabbed the envelope and opened it. His eyes widened as he read what was written on it. There was a look of burning rage in his normally peaceful brown eyes as he looked up at Ibiki, "You fucking monster."

Ibiki didn't say anything; he just clenched his jaw and waited. Asuma tightened his grip on the chuunin, just in case.

"What the hell were you thinking sending him there! Alone! Don't you ever learn you fucking sadist." Tears were welling in Iruka's eyes as he glared at the jonin interrogator.

"It had to be done." Ibiki frowned, "I didn't want to, but it had to be done."

"I barely lived when I was inserted into that place." Iruka looked down at the floor and bit his lip. He then looked back up at Ibiki.

The torturer was looking at the floor, "I'm sorry."

Iruka sighed, "I'll get him out of there. I don't know how, but I will."

He took a vial of powder out of the envelope; it was standard issue chakra powder for ANBU forces. The stuff would give you a jolt of chakra and energy but coming down off it was a headache. There were three more vials in the envelope, "I'm going now. Anything else?"

Ibiki shook his head as the other two jonin watched him. "You know where. Find Izumo, get the info, and get out with him. I'll keep patrols out that way as backup once you cross the border back into fire."

Iruka simply nodded, "Someone needs to keep an eye on Anko until we get back."

Kurenai looked from Iruka to Ibiki, finally noticing she might have been wrong with her assumptions, "I can take her back to her apartment and split watching her with my student Hinata."

Iruka simply nodded and uncapped one of the vials. "This stuff tastes like shit." Instead of mixing it with a liquid like ANBU normally do, he brought the vial up to his nose and inhaled it with a practiced ease no one could miss."

He winced as the powder kicked in, shuddering a bit as he breathed in shaking gasps. After a minute or so, his breath calmed down and he stood up. Iruka ignored the shocked looks on Kurenai and Asuma's faces at having just inhaled chakra powder like it was nothing unusual. For him it was typical, they just didn't know that.

He dumped out the contents of his pack and pulled on tan pants and a tan shirt – completely ignoring whomever he was quickly changing in front of, "I'll need someone to escort me out of visual range of the main gates." He pulled on his lighter green vest with the double pockets and pulled up the mask on his tan shirt to hide the scar across his nose. He took his grass bandana and covered up as much of his hair as he could. He then popped in blue contacts before shoving everything back into his bag.

Asuma looked at the chuunin, "I can escort him."

"I'll get Anko set up at my place." Kurenai for once was not glaring at the chuunin.

Ibiki nodded. "No word to anyone about where Iruka went, Genma knows so don't worry about him,"

Ibiki turned and left and Iruka took one final look at Anko before kissing her forehead and whispering, "I'll be back real soon with Izumo, don't worry precious." He squeezed the unconscious woman's hand again before standing up and gesturing he was ready to Asuma.

He nodded to Asuma and followed the larger man out of the building and to the gates. As they were walking through the trashed streets, the larger man turned to Iruka, "Iruka? I didn't know you worked for Ibiki."

Iruka nodded, "Kurenai told you about her student, Keiko, right?"

When Asuma nodded, Iruka continued, "I've worked for Ibiki a long time. Things go wrong on these missions. You know things go wrong on missions. I swear I never abandoned a comrade though. I killed the man that did that to her."

Asuma lead him through the front gate, "Ibiki doesn't trust a lot of people."

Iruka shook his head, "I've worked with him for a very long time."

Asuma nodded, "When you get back, we should clear the air. I think we might have misjudged you."

Iruka smiled, "That sounds good. I'll be back with Izumo real soon, I can't let Anko down." With that, he took off at his top speed through the trees. He had a lot of ground to cover and very little time to do it in. He didn't even have a chance to register the surprised look on Asuma's face at the speed of the chuunin's movements.

Iruka didn't waste any time. He went full out at a breakneck pace. If Ibiki was sending him out after Izumo, it was bad. Not just bad, but really bad. He needed to get to Izumo before anything horrible happened. He still had nightmares about the place and he hadn't been there for four years. He ignored the havoc the chakra powder was wreaking on his body. It was never good when Iruka had to resort to that stuff. It made controlling his chakra very difficult, and for someone like him, control was everything.

He propelled himself through the forest as fast as he could, pure instincts leading him away from Konoha and towards grass. He knew where Izumo would be. There was a border town barely inside of grass territory. The place was lawless and anything could be found there for the right price, including people. It was a perfect place for people like them to work – Too perfect. He stashed his backpack in a small cave along a stream. He frowned as he placed his own backpack next to another one hidden there. He had to get Izumo out.

Taking the rest of the first vial of chakra powder, he set off towards the town at an even faster speed. He wouldn't last long like this, but rest was for the dead, not shinobi who had to save a teammate.

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Please review, I would love to know what people are thinking of this. Now that I'm back, updates should be back on their every other day or so schedule. I still plan to have this done by the end of the month.