Disclaimer – If I owned Naruto, there would be a swimsuit issue.

Spoilers – This contains spoilers for the anime and manga. Spoilers up to MANGA chapter 238

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Water Runs Red – Chapter 30

Kakashi woke up when a warm ray of sun fell into his eyes, causing him to roll enough to get his head under the pillow. Since he was moving anyway, wrapping his arms tightly around the man sleeping next to him seemed like a great idea. He wasn't a genius for nothing.

Iruka snuggled into Kakashi as the tan man tried to move more into the sunbeam. With a little sleepy rearranging, they managed to position themselves so Kakashi was in the shade and Iruka was in the sun.

After fully enjoying waking up slowly for a change, Kakashi sat up as he realized he over slept. He leaned over and kissed the chuunin next to him, but was pulled back into lying down as tan arms wrapped around him, "Kashi, you're warm."

From how the chuunin was burrowing in Kakashi's chest, he assumed being 'warm' was a good thing. At some point, Kakashi decided that Obito would forgive him for not making it out to the monument and instead decided that watching with the sharingan eye as Iruka snuggled up to him would be something Obito would appreciate. He briefly wondered what his old teammate would say if he saw him in bed with a handsome man who he loved deeply. Hell, he wondered what Obito would say if he knew Kakashi was deeply in love, or in love at all for that matter.

It was around noon when the men were disturbed from their dozing by a knock at the door. Iruka pushed himself up on his elbows. "I'll be right back." He leaned over and kissed Kakashi before kicking a few piles of clothes from the night before. finding where his underwear had ended up, he pulled them back on. He reached into one of the drawers of his dresser and pulled out pair of dark olive green khaki shorts and pulled them on, buttoning them as he reached the door to the bedroom. Kakashi couldn't help but watch him leave, quickly disabling the ward on the room. Part of him didn't think Iruka knew how sexy he looked with his shorts barely held up by his hipbones, but part of him knew his lover knew exactly how desirable it looked.

Kakashi heard Iruka open the door, and then say, "Natsumi-san." He quickly pulled on the borrowed boxers and grabbed a pair of shorts from the same drawer that Iruka had raided. As he was getting dressed, he listened to the conversation in the other room.

"Ah, Iruka, were you still sleeping? The mission ended quite a while ago." The woman's voice was familiar to Kakashi but he was having a hard time placing it. "I would have thought even a chuunin would have recovered by now." Kakashi really wanted to place that voice; he didn't like anyone talking to his Iruka like that.

"You have a reason for being here?" Iruka sounded annoyed, which was very understandable with how the woman was acting.

"Morino-san wanted me to drop off this message for you." Kakashi swore he could hear the smirk on her face. "I see you have a few more love bites on you than last time I saw you. Maybe you should have gotten some rest before going and seeing your girlfriend."

Iruka's voice had dropped in tone, "Do you have any other reason to be here other than dropping off this envelope, which you have managed to successfully accomplish?"

Kakashi couldn't make out the flippant remark as the woman left. He did however hear Iruka stalk back towards the bedroom. When the man walked back into the room, he looked pissed.

Kakashi walked over to him. "What was that all about?"

"I hate that woman, if I am never on another mission with her again in my life it will be too soon."

"Who is she?"

"Minamino Natsumi, the ANBU that Tsunade sent me with on my last mission."

He raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"

Iruka rolled his eyes. "The near constant talk of how she's a jônin and an ANBU and out ranks me and how I am only a chuunin and sure the mission scroll said I was in charge but obviously that couldn't be right." He took a deep breath, "And she has got it in her head that I have some cute little girlfriend, and I was not going to inform her of reality since I'm sure she isn't the type to keep her mouth shut."

Kakashi smiled. "Well I know the truth."

Iruka's frown turned to a smile. "Really? You think you know who gave me these bite marks? I'm starting to feel like a summoning scroll."

Kakashi wrapped his arms around his lover and gently kissed each of the bite marks, "I'm sorry. You just taste so good. Besides, I think you got me back with just as much damage."

Iruka slipped out of Kakashi's arms, smiling. "I did." With a cocky smile, he opened the letter from Ibiki. "I guess I can hold my own against a jônin pretty well." He pulled out the papers from the envelope and quickly read them. "We have a meeting to attend in the T&I building at three."

Kakashi looked over at the paper. "Do you know what it's about?"

"I need to brief everyone on the mission I just completed to Rock and you need to brief on Sasuke's running off to Orochimaru. I'll probably have to go through the old information on Anko when she went with him."

"So why the hurried meeting?"

"It seems several ANBU captains are going to be there. Evidently Tsunade wants ANBU to serve as backup for MABU." He shrugged. "I don't think that's going to go over too well."

Kakashi was looking at Iruka, "I still don't see what the hurry is for this meeting."

Iruka sighed, "I was on a mission. Orochimaru wants one of the Konoha bloodline limits bad enough the snake bastard can taste it. That's why he wants Sasuke. Turns out we most likely have a missing shinobi that was captured a few years ago."

Kakashi looked at his lover. "Another Uchiha?"

He shook his head. "Nope, a Hyuuga. We have a credible lead, and Tsunade is sending us out in force. She was expecting something like this, so we've had plans set up for a while on what would be the best way to infiltrate that country."

"You've been busy."

Iruka nodded. "I have been. We should get some lunch." Iruka wrapped his arms around Kakashi. "I need to get there at about two to go over some stuff with Ibiki, but until then, we should get something to eat."

Kakashi smirked. "I should probably stop in at my apartment and get some of my own clothes."

Iruka nodded. "Yeah, you go get dressed. Where do you want to meet?"

Kakashi named off a small restaurant not too far from the ANBU headquarters and they agreed to meet there in thirty minutes.

While Kakashi was gone, Iruka quickly packed a bag of what he'd need for the meeting. For some reason, Tsunade wanted him to actually inform everyone instead of having Ibiki do it, so he'd need to be in his MABU uniform. He removed it from its spot under the floorboards under the futon. Carefully he made sure the entire uniform was there as well as the weapons that went with it. He threw on a muted green T-shirt and slipped on his sandals as he made his way through the summer heat carrying the bag.

He reached the restaurant first and grabbed a table. Knowing the jônin would probably be late; he ordered tea to sip in the meantime. About fifteen minutes later, Kakashi sat down in the other chair and ordered the food. Kakashi was once again dressed in his normal uniform. They chatted during the lunch about the same type of things they would have talked about before. They discussed Kakashi's friends, the summer weather, and the upcoming festival, but they did not once mention their joint students, that was still too sore of a subject for lunchtime conversation.

To anyone watching it would seem like nothing more than two shinobi acquaintances having lunch. No touching, no teasing, no anything that could be taken wrong. About an hour later they both got up and walked over towards the ANBU building and Ibiki's office.

Iruka walked into the man's office since the door was open with Kakashi following him. Kakashi closed the door behind them as Iruka walked up to Ibiki. "So what's up with this meeting?"

"She's sending you guys off tonight. Team of six, You, Kakashi, Izumo, Kotetsu and two members yet to be decided. We lucked out on the Uchiha at least. Seems Orochimaru already swapped bodies so the genin that slowed the sound-nins down bought us another three years before the sharingan could fall into Orochimaru hands. She is sending you guys to bring back the Hyuuga, the Uchiha would be an added bonus, but we don't expect it."

"So it was her idea that I inform everyone about the information we have on the Hyuuga?"

Ibiki nodded. "I explained that normally I do any informing to keep the operatives as covert as possible. She insisted that's what the uniforms are for." He shrugged. "Seems like a useless risk to me, but she insisted. I don't think I've had one of you guys in uniform in years."

Iruka nodded. "Yeah, I don't think I've put that thing on in a good five years."

Kakashi looked at Iruka and shifted slightly in place.

Iruka looked to Kakashi. "You're all right with being my protection on this mission?"

Kakashi nodded. "Of course."

Ibiki shook his head. "Now you two behave."

Iruka frowned. "I was thinking. You know how we have the full eye contacts; do you think they could do one that wouldn't be see-through?"

Ibiki looked at Kakashi. "You think that Kakashi could blend in?"

Iruka nodded. "I mean if his eye looked damaged instead of a Sheringan and if his hair wasn't silver, I think he could pull it off."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

Ibiki nodded. "It would be a good idea to see if it's possible. I don't know what you guys are going to encounter out there, so it could be a very good idea."

"Should I get worried when you two discuss me like I'm not here?"

Iruka smirked and pretended to continue to ignore him. "I know I have some clothes that would fit him. Hell, we could get him to be discreet."

Ibiki shook his head. "Go look into it. I'll see you at the meeting. Do not be late, either of you."

The two men walked out of Ibiki's office, with Kakashi following Iruka. "Where are we going?"

"One of the doctors does a lot of work with contacts. While a genjutsu would change appearance, obviously actually changing things, but I think we have something that would actually block the sharingan so you wouldn't need to cover it, at least for a short period of time. Just in case."

"Just in case?"

"Just in case things go terribly wrong and I need someone to extract me." His tone was hollow; it wasn't something he liked talking about. Whenever one of them needed to be extracted, it was normally a bad thing.

Kakashi's visible eye looked grim, and Iruka wondered when did he become so good at reading expressions on that slight amount of visible face. After a brief conversation with the doctor, Iruka left Kakashi there excusing himself to get ready.

Kakashi was left with the doctor, who believed he could have a short use contact ready within a few hours and that he could even get it to look like Kakashi's other eye. He wasn't sure whether he should go for the 'damaged eye' look or normal eye, finally deciding on 'normal'. If it worked, it could prove to be something very useful.

He made his way to where the meeting was on the top floor. It was one of the larger conference rooms in the building. When he got there, several of the ANBU captains were already there. He knew who everyone was of course, it hadn't been that long since he had been in the ranks, and he was still called back when he was needed.

He took a seat next to a few of the ANBU he knew relatively well. Falcon looked over at him. "I didn't know they dragged you back for this."

"Bah, that old witch won't let me have a moment's peace and you know it."

Raccoon shook his head. "You better not let Hokage-sama hear you saying that."

Just as Kakashi was about to come up with a witty reply, Tsunade's voice could be heard, "Not let me hear what?" The Hokage walked into the meeting room followed by her two Chuunin assistants, Izumo and Kotetsu.

Kakashi reached behind his head and crinkled his eye in a smiling gesture. "Ahh, I was just telling Falcon and Raccoon here that I forgot the Sake from Wave that I picked up for you back at my apartment."

She looked at him. "Really, you lie as badly now as you did when you were ten, brat."

There were a few chuckles at that and it seemed like most of the ANBU captains were now present as well as four additional ANBU members. Kakashi assumed they were ones that had been selected as potentials on the mission.

Tsunade sat down and glanced at a clock on the wall. "This is a sign of something odd, Hatake."

When he looked up at her, she continued, "For once you aren't the last person."

He did his best 'I'm Innocent' look ... at least as good as he could do behind a mask and the forehead protector. Of course, with a crowd used to reading expressions behind ANBU masks, he actually managed to convey the feeling. Falcon just shook his head at Kakashi.

The door opened and Ibiki walked in, followed by another figure. If Kakashi didn't know that it was Iruka, he would have never guessed it.

Iruka was dressed in a traditional MABU uniform. Kakashi hadn't seen one in years, and he had never seen the male version. His torso was completely hidden by a skintight long-sleeved shirt with the high collar that could turn into a half mask. It was similar to the ANBU shirts in that regard, but this shirt was deep red and shimmered as if it were made of a fabric like silk. The pants were made of the same material, and were just as tight.

The skintight material was covered in many places by what seemed to be decorative armor. Unlike the functional armor of the ANBU uniforms, this armor was black leather with an unnecessary amount of buckles. Iruka's chest was covered in black leather armor, as were his forearms. His hands were covered in fingerless gloves that matched the armor as well. His left shin and his right thigh were also covered in the armor. The unarmored thigh had a bright red cord braided around it

The open toed boot on the left was just black leather, but the one on the right had the same red cording swapped around it and braided almost up to Iruka's knee. Across his back were double swords in deep red and black.

The mask was a simple white mask with only two Hiragana figures on it 'Ma' and 'Bu'. The eyes that could be seen though the mask however were not what was expected. One eye was a very pale blue and the other was Iruka's natural eye color of dark brown. It was a very disconcerting look.

Iruka's hair was not its normal brown either. It had been styled with some sort of red gel making it almost look like it was blood soaked, but the red tone was too jewel toned for it to be blood. Several strands of hair were over the near pristine mask and the rest was mussed and spiked in a very un-Iruka like way.

The room went silent when they saw the man in the MABU uniform behind Ibiki.

Kakashi noticed that Iruka was definitely altering his chakra signature. Actually, he was being obvious about altering it. He seemed to be phasing through the ones that Kakashi had seen him use before on missions.

All eyes were watching the MABU operative, some of the older ANBU straightened up but the younger ones seemed to be on edge expecting an attack or something. It was then that Kakashi realized the younger ANBU had never seen a MABU uniform and probably thought it was another country's ANBU or something.

Tsunade cleared her throat, "Ibiki-san, MABU-san, thank you for joining us." As both men took their seats, Tsunade continued, ignoring the rustling caused by mention of MABU, "A plot against our village by Orochimaru has recently been uncovered." Everyone in the room became painfully silent.

Ibiki turned to Iruka. "MABU-san, perhaps you should start."

Iruka nodded. "Yes of course." His voice didn't even sound like Iruka, he was speaking with a slightly deeper tone and the slightest of grass accents, "As everyone may or may not be aware, I am a member of the Mayakashi Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, or MABU. As you are no doubt aware, Orochimaru has been trying to get his hands on a bloodline limit for some time now. While to date he has not been successful, recent information has come to light that a member of the Hyuuga family that had previously been thought killed in action has actually been a captive of the snake."

There was shifting around the table. "We have captured several people involved in this and finally have enough information to launch a rescue attempt. Unfortunately, MABU does not have the operatives to go it alone and we need to bring in some backup."

One of the ANBU captains spoke up, "So you need us to be the muscle." His tone made it sound like he thought the ANBU forces were too good for that.

Iruka glared at the man's mask. Suddenly his chakra signature went to nothing as he took a step forward. Several of the younger ANBU moved when suddenly the man in front of them showed chakra cloaking on par with the best of them. "ANBU-san," Iruka's tone never left its polite form, "Konoha shinobi have never hesitated to take a mission when the situation is so dire. The fact that the country of lightning seems to be involved and that this more than likely ties into the failed kidnapping of Hinata Hyuuga makes this an ANBU matter as well. This is even truer if a Konoha shinobi with Byakuugan is in the hands of Orochimaru's forces and another village is working with him, Hatake-san has additional information to add."

Kakashi nodded. "For the record, I will be one of the shinobi being sent to back up the MABU operatives on this mission. Yesterday one of my students went missing-nin and defected to Orochimaru. Uchiha Sasuke has delivered himself, and his Sharingan, to Sound. I was unable to retrieve him."

All eyes, whether masked or not turned to face Kakashi. Ibiki cleared his throat. "We have information that Orochimaru had already been forced to change bodies before the Uchiha reached him, thus we most likely have a window of time before he will be able to switch bodies again."

Iruka nodded behind his mask. "MABU forces have uncovered that it takes a minimum of three years between transfers. We also have reason to believe that Orochimaru will be incapacitated for a period of time after the transfer, so now is the time to launch our mission."

One of the younger captains spoke up. "I don't see how it is possible for this 'MABU' to have done all of this without many of us being aware of the organization's existence."

Falcon looked over at the young captain with the rat mask. "Rat, settle down. Just as we have methods most shinobi don't, so do MABU forces."

Kakashi leaned back in his chair. "You are too young to know this, but much of our information during the last war came from MABU forces. At that time they worked with ANBU for backup as well."

Iruka nodded. "While ANBU members are well known for their fighting abilities and power," he went with the compliment them approach, "MABU forces are specialized in more subtle methods of information gathering. Unfortunately, many of us lack the power to get ourselves out of a tight spot if things go poorly. It is in these situations that tradition dictates that ANBU is teamed up with us."

Tsunade stood up. "I am sending a force out tonight under cover of darkness. This will be a civilian clothes mission for infiltration and movement without attracting attention. It will be a six-person mission with the three MABU operatives as well as Hatake and two members of ANBU. Only those people on this mission will know the identity of the MABU operatives. MABU's very existence is not something often talked about so this information should be treated with the highest security."

"Also, there is every likelihood that there will be retaliation for this. We will have additional ANBU patrols between here and sound starting tomorrow and until further notice. This means longer shifts for everyone since we are desperately short of shinobi."

A sign of how disciplined the forces were was in the fact there was no grumbling. "We may also end up in a tricky diplomatic situation with cloud. Knowing that the first member of the backup is Hatake, and that the need for discretion and blending in is paramount on this mission, I am now open to suggestions for who would be the best to send on this." She gestured at the four ANBU members who were not captains. "These four have been asked here on behalf of MABU since they have proven themselves in the past, but any suggestions are welcome."

It took nearly an hour of going over people's records before the people going on the mission were finalized. The final decision was Falcon, based upon Kakashi's recommendation and Ferret, who was one of the four asked there by MABU. He had worked with Izumo before and was highly recommended.

Iruka stood up. "Those who are going should come with me to be briefed, Hokage-sama?"

She stood. "Falcon, Ferret, Hatake, be in my office in fifteen minutes." She stood up and with a brief thank you walked out, flanked on either side by her two chuunin assistants.

Iruka repositioned the sword on his back and then bowed to the assembled ANBU members before, with that he turned and walked out of the room. Kakashi was glad everyone was watching Iruka leave and not watching him. The skintight uniform did amazing things to Iruka's ass.

Kakashi stood up as everyone else stood, but he didn't immediately make his way to the door. Ibiki was one of the first to leave. Once there were only ANBU left, besides Kakashi, several ANBU members started to whisper about MABU and did anyone know it still existed and who they thought was in it. Kakashi was pleased to see neither Ferret nor Falcon were taking part in the gossip. Maybe Iruka wasn't being paranoid about keeping it a secret if even ANBU considered it gossip worthy.

-------------------- Notes ------------------------

Please review, I would love to know what people are thinking of this. The story is now in its final third.