Kakashi slowly became aware that his clothes were wet. His first instinct was to blame his dogs, he really shouldn't let the puppies fall asleep on his lap. But there were no dogs around, and besides the smell was wrong. It was the cold smell of rust, not the potent tang of dog pee.

He was in a metal box, open to the sky at the top and with about an inch of water in the bottom, probably some kind of tank. Slowly unfolding his legs from their cramped position, he climbed out onto a rooftop. How the hell had he got up here?

The bright light was blinding and his vision blurred, but by squinting hard he was just able to get a fair impression of the surrounding area. It was like a war zone. One building was completely blown to bits, with fragments of concrete and wood scattered for hundreds of feet. The four around it were partly demolished and the roofs damaged on at least a dozen more. It looked like something Naruto might have done, who else had that kind of power?

The whole place seemed deserted so he jumped to the ground silently, glad to escape the heat up on the roof, which was unbearably intense. Even though from the position of the sun, it was still several hours before noon. So by his reckoning he'd lost a night and almost half a day. The marks on his wrists and ankles suggested that he'd been cuffed, surely he couldn't have been in a sex club? He hadn't done that in years and never on a mission. And where were his shoes?

After looking around, he jumped back onto the roof and found them in a corner of the water tank. Great. He hated having wet feet, but at least it wasn't cold. There was a piece of parchment tucked inside the sole of one sandal. He took it out and looked it over carefully. A jutsu scroll, but not one of his. In fact he had no idea where it could have come from, but he could feel its power. He hastily rolled it up, put a power seal on it and tucked it with the other scrolls in his front pocket. In a state of blissful ignorance he re-entered Port Kaizoku.

Now Kakashi had been a ninja since early childhood so, by the time he'd turned the second corner, he knew perfectly well that he was being followed. What he couldn't tell was exactly what the hazy shadow was. It didn't seem to present any dangerous intent, and that worried him, really worried him. He liked to know, hell with his level of skill he expected to know, exactly what kind of threat he was dealing with. So when the dark shape followed him into an alleyway, he doubled behind in an instant and held a kunai to the back of its neck. It stopped then turned to face him. He blinked. A woman. Again. But this time it was a very small, very old woman.

Judging by the over-sensitivity of his normal eye he couldn't risk uncovering his sharigan. So he reached out to touch her wrinkled face and feel the crepey skin on her arms. No, it wasn't a henge, or an illusion.

Her mouth twitched as she stood still, allowing the indignity. "I think you'd better come with me young man."

He blinked again. She was being held at knifepoint, he was the ninja, and she was telling him what to do. He was getting this a lot recently.

"What did you say?"

"Anyone whose eye is that dilated in this light is in no condition to be wondering the streets. I dread to think what other one's like if you had to cover it up like that." The wrinkles on her ancient face rearranged into something that might have been a smile. "Come on along, I'll take you somewhere safe."

He was shocked at the suggestion, but practiced nonchalance and natural paranoia kept his voice calm and remote. "Why would you offer to take in a stranger? Particularly here?"

She grinned, showing more gaps than teeth. "Your smell."

He looked at her curiously. His smell? Just what the hell did that mean?

"Dakatsu's almond cakes. She must have taken quite a shine to you, she doesn't give them to just anyone."

Kakashi almost keeled over in relief. At last, a true friend. Someone whose information he could trust. He tucked away his weapon and grinned under his mask.

"Then let's go Granny. I'll share them with you."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Iruka was really starting to regret grabbing Yoko by the waist of all places. In the narrow space it had caused them to land with her on his lap and her bare legs hooked around his hips. To make matters worse she'd leaned forward onto his shoulder when he whispered and had never leaned back. The result was that they were clinched together in an extremely… provocative position. And he'd been trying to keep his distance.

This position was all too familiar. It was the way he sat on Kakshi's lap when he wanted to distract him. In the years they'd been together he'd learned that his genius lover's quiet calm covered a tumultuous ocean of much darker emotions, and by now he'd come to recognise when Kakashi was starting to slide into the pit of depression. God knows there was enough sadness in his past to brood on. It would have broken a lesser man. He never spoke about it, but there were times when his shoulders would droop and his jaw clench, more visible without the mask. Finally his eyes would become unfocussed so that the pain behind them showed through. Both eyes.

Iruka knew very well that he was the only one allowed to see the other man's heart this way, and he treasured it. Even though it tore him apart inside. He'd respond by crawling onto Kakashi's lap and hugging him close. Showing him the best way he was able, that even though his past had been hard and lonely, his present and his future were filled with companionship and love. Especially love. It always ended with sex.

As he was thinking he idly ran his fingers through the silvery hair at his shoulder and he felt his groin twitch.

Damn. He hoped Yoko hadn't noticed, he mustn't think about Kakashi like this. Not while he was holding her. It wasn't as if there was nothing else to think about right now, the danger surrounding them for one.

"Come on out, we know you're here somewhere. You can't keep your position masked forever." It was the strong proud voice of a kunoichi.

So they had seen them. And she was right he couldn't keep both of them hidden indefinitely.

"That fucking white haired bitch knows where my brother is, and his whole team. They disappeared right after she met up with us. You'll be next Shinobi-san. Come out and give her up. Do us both a favour."

As she moved closer he could make out her presence. There were others too, most likely a team of four. He had plenty of weapons but in civilian clothes he had no armour, although they didn't have to know that. If she was the team leader she probably outranked him too, so he had to pick off the others first. If he could face her on her own he might have a chance.

Yoko emerged from a cloud of smoke and dust and ran for her life while Iruka, in his chuunin uniform, stood blocking the kunoichi's path. Just as he'd expected, she was wearing the mark of Hidden Sound.

"So one of the pretty leaves from Konoha. Just what are you doing poking around here? Not that it matters. I'll get a nice bonus for taking you back with me, more if you're still alive. Orochimaru-sama is always reminiscing about what good guineapigs Leaf shinobi make. I'll kill the bitch for free… when I've finished with her."

Iruka hurled a hail of kunai. She blocked three, dodged four more but took the last in the muscle of her outer thigh, close enough to the bone to have nicked it. Her leg buckled for a fraction of a second before she redirected chakra to compensate.

"Well you've got guts, and speed. I think I should end this quickly."

A cloud of dust marked her teleportation to a hundred feet back down the road. So she was a distance fighter. Iruka mentally thanked Kakashi for all the times he'd scolded him for rushing in too fast. 'Always take the time to assess your opponents strengths and weaknesses. A few seconds could save your life, and your team's.'

She scooped up a handful of dust and blew into it. Automatically Iruka directed more attention to the clone facing her, while maintaining his henge well enough to fool the others. He slackened his speed. A woman couldn't move this fast, even running for her life. His clone watched the puff of particles gradually swell into a cloud of buzzing insects that quickly engulfed it.

The first sting hurt, a lot, he slackened his connection just before the clone was dissolved by the poison from a thousand more. Six seconds, he duly noted. The transformation from dust to deadly had taken six seconds. That's how long he would have to take her down.

Iruka dropped his henge in favour of a substitution jutsu, as the two nins chasing him came within throwing distance. A log appeared on the path where Yoko's form had been and was instantly studded with weapons.

He watched impassively from the branches of a fir tree by the road. Good aim but they weren't holding their shuriken properly, he mentally took off three points out of ten. The two Sound nins seemed typical of the outcasts Orochimaru liked to recruit. Raw, but full of determination and gratitude. Only genin level skill, but their lack of formal training made them unpredictable, and therefore dangerous. Luckily raw untrained talent was something he had some experience with.

Two genins shouldn't be so hard too deal with. He dropped out of the tree behind one of them, then teleported away just as fast as the man slumped to the ground, to reveal a third ninja holding a bloody sword. The swordsman was good. Iruka could barely follow as he slipped from fighting stance into action to take off the second genin's head in a single cut.

So the odds had been evened. But the one man he was now facing was clearly a more dangerous opponent than both of the others put together. And he didn't have a sword. But he had ninjutsus and genjutsus. Iruka filled the air with an illusion of falling leaves to cover his teleportation jutsu. Predictably the enemy glanced up towards the trees. Without coming within sword thrusting distance Iruka took advantage of the distraction to launch a dozen shuriken at him. From a dozen different clones. Each cut a little deeper than the one before, as the man's chakra shield failed. By the time Iruka was ready to throw a shuriken himself, the man lay dead. Four shadows retreated into the woods unseen.

Iruka looked down at the three fallen men. Why on earth had they turned on each other? Of course. He'd been henged into Yoko, a beautiful defenseless woman. His stomach tightened in disgust. And he hadn't believed his opinion of Sound nin's could get any lower. The scum had killed each other fighting over possession of a female prisoner.

The swordsman had no mark on his headband, must be a new recruit. Iruka picked up the sword and wiped the blood off it onto the man's leg. It was a good blade, very good. In fact much too good and too expensive for a Sound genin, and it looked almost new, so it couldn't be a family heirloom. But it would be useful, swordplay was one of his better skills. Not that he'd ever been able to beat Hayate, but then that was why Hayate had been a jounin and he wasn't. And Kakashi had given him a few private lessons since then too.

The Kunoichi was where he'd left her, waiting. "I'll enjoy this, Shinobi-san, haven't had a decent challenge in a while. Orochimaru-sama's been away working on new jutsu's for months and I'm bored with being patient."

Iruka scowled. Damn, she'd seen him already. He had to get in close before she had time to start her jutsu and she already had a pile of dust in the palm of one hand. He directed chakra down the edge of his blade, as Kakashi had taught him. It was a good sword, a very good sword, but was it of a high enough quality to stand up to this kind of use? The metal sang in a clear high pitch and a stream of energy blasted the dust from her hand. She dodged to the side as the sword's cutting force left a slash in the road where she'd been standing.

Yes it was.

Iruka used the opportunity to close the distance between them, but she'd anticipated his move and was already fifty feet away. Dangerously close to where Yoko was hidden. The kunoichi was still favouring her injured leg, so he might have the edge on her in speed, if he had the opportunity to take advantage of it.

She was already reaching down to scoop up more dust, and he couldn't blast her there, not with Yoko so close. She puffed it into the air, and he watched in horrified fascination as it swirled into a dark cloud.

Six seconds. He was on her, with his sword through her gut, in one.

She laughed as she sank to her knees, fixing him with black waspish eyes. "You think that you've won? Why do you think I left Cloud for Sound? Don't you know that Orochimaru-sama can cure death? And you still have to face my babies." She disappeared leaving nothing but a bloodstain on the dusty road.

She was right. Iruka turned to face the buzzing cloud. It had switched direction and was bearing down on him. Four seconds at the most. He had to get them as far from Yoko as possible. Without another thought he raced forward, knowing what he had to do, destroy as many insects as possible before they were fully formed. Directing chakra to the sword he cut through them like a blur of silver death. Glittering black eyes, translucent wings and fierce hooked mandibles fell out of the air like rain where it passed. By the time they were fully armed with their poison stings, there were few enough for him to pick them off one at a time, spearing them with the sword's cutting force.

Staggering with exhaustion and gasping for breath, he went back to where Yoko had been hiding the whole time. The bushes reverted back to rocks and he offered a hand to pull her up from between the boulders. She didn't exactly look as if she'd been cowering in fear, in fact she seemed flushed with excitement. Was that from watching him fight?

"You were amazing Umino-sensei. I'm just glad you didn't believe her. Her lies about me I mean."

He leaned back against one of the boulders. "Of course not. I have more sense than to accept information from Hidden Sound at face value. But it wouldn't have mattered if I had. My mission is to protect you, even at the cost of my life. Protecting my village is the only thing that's more important than that right now."

Yoko stared into the distance for a moment, then turned to face him. "Oh, I see. You're very brave." There was an intensity to her expression that he hadn't seen before.

Reluctantly he pulled his tired body upright. "We need to keep moving. After this experience and last night's I'd really would like to get you inside the village defenses before it gets dark."

Yoko pouted and pulled on her pants. "Yes, of course you're right Sensei."

The Sound woman hadn't been lying he would be next. This man may be more resistant to her sex appealthan any she'd ever taken, and he had to be the one to want her, that was the way it worked. But he would, they all did, it was only a matter of time.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The little old woman led Kakashi through the narrow streets of the port to the very centre of the town, where the streets were at their very narrowest. The buildings seemed centuries old, some maybe even millennia. Tall mounds of mud and stone crammed side by side, holding each other up in defiance of the laws of gravity. Repaired and altered recklessly without any regard to their original form or the nature or colour of the building materials. The overall effect was a strange organic beauty, like a cluster of termite hills or some unusual kind of fungus.

She pulled him into a slit like opening between two of the buildings and then almost immediately into a doorway hidden behind a thick, dusty hanging. It was so dark that he was blinded after the bright sun outside. She seemed to know this and took his hand as she used the other to open a door with a large metal key strung on a chain around her neck. The heavy door creaked open.

"Duck down laddie, or you'll brain yourself."

He felt for the top of the doorframe with his free hand. Good thing she'd warned him, it was at least six inches shorter than he was.

"Rest yourself on the couch, it's about ten steps ahead of you. Wait 'til your eyes get accustomed and I let in some light. We're in the old part of the city here, you'll be safe. None of the outsiders know their way around here."

Kakashi followed her instructions, feeling ahead until his hands touched soft luxurious fabric. He turned and lowered himself onto it with a sigh of gratitude.

"Outsiders? You mean the pirates? But this is Port Kaizoku, the pirates have been here for hundreds of years."

"Hmphh, well there's those of us has been here a lot longer than that. This was a good place to live, a long time ago, a very long time ago. They never made their way into the city proper, these little streets are too easy to defend, lose your enemies in, if they don't know their way around. So they just built their own damned city around us. But there's plenty of the old families still here, in the city within the city, we takes good care of each other."

He felt her move a few feet away, there was a loud grating sound, and a shaft of sunlight opened into the centre of the room. Now he could see that the room was small and low ceilinged, except for the hole where light was shining through. It was cluttered with unfamiliar objects and ancient heavy furniture, like an eccentric's art collection, but his vision was still too blurred to see clearly.

"There, that's a bit better. Now let me take a look at those eyes." She sat next to him. " What did you do to this one that you have to cover it over like that?"

He raised his hand to his sharigan defensively. "Er, nothing. It's just very sensitive."

"Well I won't touch it if you don't want me too."

She stared into his other eye, covering it with her hand, then uncovering it and looking again. "Hmphh, not surprising you got into trouble, you need both eyes about you in this town. Did you see who jumped you? Looks like they doped you up pretty good."

Jumped? Someone had jumped him? That didn't seem likely. He shook his head.

"Don't remember a thing. I left Dakatsu yesterday, reached the port here after dark, then woke up on a rooftop."

She traced her finger around the Leaf insignia on his forehead protector. "Not one of Young Gaara's boys are you? So what are you doing here?"

He was uncomfortable with the interrogation, but if he wanted answers he would have to offer answers. And it was no secret that a shinobi wearing a Leaf headband was from Leaf.

"I'm from Konoha, Hidden Leaf, in Fire Country. There were rumours of a plot against us. I followed them here."

She snorted again, it seemed to be a habit, or maybe he amused her. "Hmphh. I wouldn't be so quick to trust those rumours. Dakatsu tells me Gaara's lost eleven people so far this year. Sand hasn't had that many go missing this past decade."

"You think they were drugged and kidnapped?" He still hadn't accounted for the desert bandits' attempt on him. Maybe they thought he was from sand?

"I just know what I'm told, and what I see. She said they were good loyal men and women. And some of the gangs have been strutting their stuff recently. Flashing a lot of cash. The Crew of the Mermaid bought up a whole brothel for a week, the most expensive one, with the prettiest girls, and boys. And the Mermaid hasn't left port in months so they didn't get rich from honest piracy."

Honest piracy? That was an interesting idea. But then he'd carried out plenty of assassinations without question, who knew how honest they were? "But why kidnap ninjas? Especially loyal ninjas. They'd have to be more trouble than they're worth."

"Can't tell you that dearie. But the story is they have a sennin working with them. Puts them under some kind of spell. Now how about those cakes you were going to share?"

A sennin, that was interesting. Could Orochimaru of Hidden Sound be up to his old tricks?

Kakashi pulled his pack towards him and reached inside for the honey cakes. Well at least some of his instincts were still good. This was definitely someone who's information he could trust.