Disclaimer – If I owned Naruto, the phrase 'well, it's better than the Star arc at least' would never have been uttered because the filler would have never happened.

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

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Water Runs Red – Chapter 33

When the sun rose, Iruka seemed a lot better as Kakashi gently kissed his forehead to try to wake him up. He was pretty sure his lover was just sleeping now and no longer knocked out. With a slight mumble, Iruka moved further into Kakashi. Gently, he ran his fingers through the chuunin's dark hair. "'Ruka, love, how are you feeling?"

Slowly the chuunin's eyes opened, squinting in pain at an obvious headache. He buried his head into Kakashi's chest. "Too bright."

Kakashi pulled a blanket over them to block out the light. "That better?"

His head still against Kakashi's chest, Iruka slowly nodded. His voice was obviously hoarse as he whispered, "She put up a good fight."

He smiled as he held his now conscious lover. "So did you, so did you. You took out a Mist Jônin all by yourself."

"Nuh uh, needed saving."

"You still took her out. The others should be in here soon to see how you are."

"We're alone?"

Quietly, Kakashi nodded, his cheek against Iruka's temple. "Yes, have been all night."

Iruka sighed, "Missed you."

Kakashi's arms tightened around his lover. "I missed you too."

He held him close as the chuunin drifted back into sleep. All too soon, there was a knock on the door and then it gingerly opened. Tadashi and Izumo walked into the room.

Kakashi sat up in bed as the men entered, pulling Iruka into a position where Izumo could see him. As Kakashi moved, Iruka's eyes flickered open, and he dragged a hand up to put his forearm over his eyes.

Izumo kneeled on the side of the bed and pulled Iruka's arm off from over his eyes, apologizing as he did it. For some reason, Kakashi was reminded of that party all those months ago and how he had noticed Anko, Izumo, Kotetsu, and Iruka all had no concept of 'personal space'. It definitely seemed like a MABU thing.

Izumo finished checking over Iruka as Kakashi got out of bed and threw on his clothes. Finally, Izumo smiled as he looked at Iruka. "If you feel up to it, I don't see a reason you can't come with. It's a day and a half to Lightning, so I can't see you not being at least close to in mission shape once we get there, and kami knows none of us have been 100 in months anyways."

Iruka tried to smile. "I'll be OK. I survived how many years of Anko's cooking? What's a little poison compared to that?"

Izumo looked up at the ceiling and playfully bapped Iruka on the side of the head, barely enough to even move his hair, just to get the point across. "Let me get something for that headache of yours. The stupidity of having eaten Anko's food -- that I can't do anything about."

Soon they had Iruka patched up and on enough painkillers to be able to walk with the rest of them to the boat they had found passage on. Once aboard, Izumo and Iruka fell asleep, taking two of the four bunks. Kotetsu wandered about the decks talking to people and getting familiar with who was on the boat with them.

The three jônin stayed in the cabin. It had four bunks between the six of them, and Daisuke and Tadashi quickly figured out no one would care if they each claimed one. With nothing to do but listen to the transmitter that Kotetsu was wearing, the first day passed in the uneventful boredom that was all too familiar to the shinobi.

Izumo only woke up to eat, but Kotetsu assured them that it was normal. Iruka also woke up only to eat or to take some painkillers, but they all knew that was not normal. Kakashi stayed with him the entire time, as if he had always guarded the recovering chuunin. When night came, the jônin split watch between them, not even questioning that Kakashi was going to stay with Iruka. Of course, no one batted an eye at Kotetsu crawling into bed with Izumo after his long day of socializing with the crew.

The night went without any major events and the three jônin changed watch shifts without waking a single chuunin.

Come morning Izumo was marginally easier to wake up and Iruka only looked hung over instead of half dead. After breakfast, everyone seemed a little bit more like themselves. They decided that since they only had a few hours head start on the Mist-nin, the group should not stay the night in the town as they had originally planned, but instead immediately set out towards where they believed the Hyuuga to be.

It was early evening before they landed, and Kotetsu had managed to uncover some good news. There was a chance that the Mist Nin were going to be delayed because during the night a storm had been sighted just behind them, so with any luck the boat that the Mist-nin were in was delayed by the bad weather. Once they got off the boat, they made their way south of town before taking to the trees in the forest and heading towards the dot on the map that should be their destination.

The pace wasn't as hell-bent as when they were crossing Fire to get to Water. It was still fast though. Kotetsu and Daisuke were also being exceptionally careful to cover any signs of their passing. It would not be good if the Mist-nin behind them had a trial to follow right to them. They continued like that until shortly after nightfall. They were almost to the southern border of Lightning, so they called a halt for the night and set up the tents.

By unspoken agreement it seemed, Izumo and Iruka sat under Tadashi's watchful eye as the other three each set up tents. Within moments of stopping, Izumo's eyes started to close. Iruka thought briefly that he felt about as tired as Izumo looked. While Iruka was disorientated by his exhaustion, the tents were set up, and Kakashi helped Iruka into a tent. Iruka dimly realized he was being pulled into a warm embrace under blankets but was asleep before he could even think of doing anything besides sleeping.

One tent over, Kotetsu put a mostly sleeping Izumo to bed and the two other ANBU sat up, one officially on watch the other looking for a chance to talk.

In a quiet whisper, Daisuke leaned over to Tadashi, "If this comes down to a fight, do you think either of them are in shape for it?"

Tadashi shrugged. "I have no idea what their fighting capabilities are, do you?"

Daisuke shook his head. "Both missions I backed Izumo up on were near a new moon and the guy hardly slept. I didn't see him even touch a weapon or do anything beyond using chakra to make better time traveling. I have no idea what his abilities in a fight are."

Tadashi nodded. "I have no idea about what the fighting capabilities are of any of the MABU. I found a record of their chuunin exams, but it took place in Suna and the outline report didn't really say anything. Kakashi, I know a bit, but I don't have any worries about him holding his own."

"Even with his relationship with the school teacher?"

Tadashi nodded. "Kakashi is someone that can be trusted. I wouldn't worry about him doing anything stupid. I don't know if I can say the same for any of the chuunin though."

Daisuke nodded. "You should get some rest. I'll wake you in a few hours for watch."

Tadashi nodded and crawled into the tent to get some sleep.

The night went quietly, with the three jônin switching shifts for watch. When the sky was just starting to lighten, everyone was up and getting ready. With any luck, they'd reach their destination before the sun was down.

They were dressed in fighting clothes now; the need for their cover stories was gone. The two ANBU were in standard jônin uniforms. Kakashi had the contact out and his forehead protector over his eye and his mask back in place. The three chuunin wore their standard uniforms as well. The only differences were that Iruka had a holster of senbon on his thigh and Izumo had two pieces of leather wrapped around his wrists with sharp spikes on them.

The six men repacked camp and took off through the forest. Everyone had their chakra signatures covered. They traveled for several hours to get to the spot the intelligence had told them about. As they got closer, their pace slowed. Around three in the afternoon, they paused in a grove of trees. Kotetsu whispered, "I can smell something up ahead. Astringent, like a hospital, but something smells wrong about it."

Iruka nodded. "OK, we will start scouting now and make our move as the sun sets. Izumo, you rest until then. Kakashi, do you have a summons who will work well?"

Kakashi nodded, and performed a quick summoning jutsu, and when the chakra smoke cleared, a very irritated looking pug was sitting in the clearing.

Iruka smiled. "Good afternoon, Pakkun-san"

Kakashi looked at his summons. "Pakkun, I need you to do a quick scout of the area around the building about five miles to the west."

The dog grunted, "I see his manners haven't rubbed off on you yet." The pug may have complained, but he took off in the direction indicated without another comment.

The men sat in the clearing, waiting for Pakkun to return. Kotetsu was pacing and Iruka was digging through his pack for a ration bar. Both ANBU were obviously waiting for anything to come towards them while Kakashi was glancing from Iruka to Izumo.

Iruka opened a mist-ration bar and handed an extra to Kotetsu. He pulled out a map and started to look at it with Kotetsu. Kakashi kneeled next to Iruka. "What's up?"

Iruka was still looking at the map. "Trying to decide what the best way to get from here to Fire is after this is over. I want everyone to have a very clear idea of where we are going once we get the Hyuuga out of there."

Daisuke and Tadashi kneeled by the map as well, within fifteen minutes they had their best path back to Fire plotted.

Iruka then broke out the two way communicators, quickly getting them all calibrated to the same little used frequency. "We won't have much range on this frequency, but it should be more than enough for what we are doing. This will greatly reduce the chance of it being intercepted though."

As he finished handing out the radios, Pakkun came back to report. The pug walked up to Iruka instead of Kakashi, sniffing the chuunin. "You've been poisoned."

Iruka smiled at Pakkun. "Yes, I'm fine though. What did you find out?" As if he did this everyday, Iruka handed over a piece of jerky from his pack to the dog.

Pakkun looked up to Kakashi and started to detail entrances, when they were each last used and various other observations about the building. According to Pakkun, he smelt seven different people, but two of them were faint and either hadn't been out of the complex in several days, or had left and were not currently there.

Kakashi sketched out what Pakkun described and soon they had a good idea of the layout of the complex. They decided on a course of action. The three groups would split up in order and use the advantage of surprise to their benefit. Kakashi and Iruka would penetrate from the South, while Izumo and Daisuke would take the North. The west would be Kotetsu and Tadashi.

While Kotetsu and Tadashi were inventorying their weapons, Pakkun discretely walked up to Iruka. The chuunin leaned over to be at the same level as Pakkun. The pug whispered, "You smell like Kakashi."

Iruka nodded. "I know."

Pakkun nodded. "You're his mate."

Even though it wasn't a question, Iruka still nodded. "Yes, I am, and his love."

The pug snorted, "Don't hurt him."

"I can't promise." Iruka looked very serious. "Hurting him would hurt me as much though, if that makes you feel any better."

Pakkun nodded. "He's been through a lot."

Iruka smiled. "So have I. I love him. I can't promise any more than that."

"Good. If you had, I'd know you were lying." The pug turned to Kakashi, and at a normal volume, he huffed, "Are you done with me?"

Kakashi nodded a puzzled look on his face now that he realized that his summons and his lover had been discretely having a conversation. "Yeah, you can go."

With a poof of Chakra smoke, the pug disappeared. Iruka stood up and walked back to the rest of the team. "Kotetsu, why don't you wake up Izumo? We'll be moving out in about an hour so start giving him BRTs and CFSs"

Kakashi looked up. "What are CFSs?" He knew very well what blood replacement tablets were, but he didn't know why the chuunin needed them. "and why the BRTs?"

"Coffee flavored stimulants. We're going to be fighting and Izumo's going to need both to hold his own." Iruka flanked over to where Kotetsu was digging through a pack, "Izumo's fighting style uses a lot of blood." He kneeled at his pack and started to load up every pouch on his uniform with some sort of item from his pack. "We'll head out in one hour and infiltrate exactly thirty minutes later. Keep radio silence as long as possible."

Kotetsu returned with a now awake Izumo who was popping back pills and swallowing them down with water. Kotetsu quickly brought Izumo up to speed.

Kotetsu and Tadashi took all the packs after everyone had what they needed out of them and carried them to a spot that was marked on the map ten miles to the south towards Fire country in preparation for when they would regroup after the operation. Having to pause to grab the packs afterwards would be foolish.

The four remaining shinobi remained in the clearing, waiting for the other two to get back. Iruka started to stretch his muscles out, and Izumo was sitting perfectly still, barely breathing as he calmed his chakra. Daisuke and Kakashi did final inventories on their weapons.

When Tadashi and Kotetsu returned and reported no problems, they went through a final verbal rundown of the plan before breaking off into their two man groups to mount a coordinated attack on the facility.

The sun had set and the mostly full moon was high in the sky as the three teams got into position around the facility. There was no sign of life, but they could sense there were people in the building. Hopefully Pakkun's nose was right and the numbers were not too many.

All six shinobi hid in the shadows, cloaking their chakra as they waited for the designated time.

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

Sorry for the short chapter, I needed to break here before the next bunch of scenes… plus half of 32 was originally in this chapter