Naruto dug into his fourth bowl and stole a glance at Tsunami-san across her large wooden table. She was just a bit too old for him to seriously consider marrying, but boy, could she ever make ramen. A wide grin lifted the whisker marks on his face. When he was Hokage he would hire her as his personal cook.

Sakura set down her chopsticks and folded her hands on her lap. "That was really really good Tazuna-san. You should open your own restaurant."

The woman flicked her dark hair away from her face and laughed. "I do quite enough cooking already, with Inari and half his fishermen friends here almost every day. It's unfortunate they had to go before you got here, but he'll be back this evening."

Naruto sipped at his soup as politely as he could, it really was delicious, and wiped his lips on the back of his hand. "So you're pretty sure Kakashi-sensei left already."

The woman was still smiling, but more thoughtfully. "Well not completely sure, I didn't see him myself, but the boat Hirame-san lent him was returned sometime this morning, it was already there when Imari left. I can only assume that Kakashi-san must have been in a hurry, he doesn't seem the type to miss out on a free meal."

Naruto choked and snorted as broth ran down his nose. "You're right about that, the greedy bastard eats more than I do."

"Naruto! Don't talk about Kakashi-sensei like that." Sakura scolded. Then her eyes widened. "Hey, you don't think Iruka-sensei was hurt do you? And that's why they had to leave so fast."

Tsunami shook her head. "I'm sorry, Kakashi-san didn't tell me anything about his mission. All I know is that he was very weak when he was brought here and very sad when he left a few days later. I had the impression that he must have gone through a terrible ordeal"

Naruto and Sakura exchanged a concerned glance. Weak and sad were not words they associated with their sensei.

The youth slapped the palms of his hands on the table. "Come on Sakura-chan, let's go and check out that island right now."

"No!" Sakura looked up to meet his bright eager eyes. "Look I want to find out what's going on just as much as you do, but we just completed a mission. We have to go back and file our report."

Naruto's jaw dropped open. "What? We walked with the old guy to the Capital, then we walked with him back here. You want us to abandon Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei so that Hokage-sama can know that?"

"Of course not you idiot, but it's Kakashi-sensei's mission, not ours. We can't just barge in and interfere. Anyway, Wolf Island is the one place we're pretty sure Kakashi-sensei and Iruka-sensei aren't right now. But they only have half a day's start on us, if we hurry to get this report in, there's a good chance we'll catch up to them."

Understanding slowly registered on Naruto's face. "You're right Sakura-chan, we wouldn't be interfering just extra punctual, that's brilliant."

"Yeah well, that's why I'm a chuunin and you aren't."

Naruto's cheeks flushed pink so that the whisker marks stood out as stark lines. "Hey that's just a technicality and you know it."

"Technicality or not I'm still in charge. So wash those dishes for Tsunami-san and let's get going. Tazuna-san, tell Imari that we're really sorry…"

The woman stroked Sakura's hair, just when did the girl get to be so pretty? Then she set to work packing up a lunch of rice cakes and fish in a checkered cloth for them.

"That's ok, he'll understand. I'll invite you back really soon, when my father's here too. And I'll be sure to cook something very special."

The air was cool and dry and the ground covered in leaves that crushed with a whisper under even the lightest tread. Maybe that's why they'd gone less than a mile when Sakura noticed the first group of ninjas. By the time they were halfway to the bridge she was starting to feel that something was definitely up.

"Hey Naruto, what do you think all these shinobi are here for?"

"Eh? Shinobi?"

"Yes you must have seen them. There were three down in the village, we just passed another two on the road and there are more in the trees right ahead of us."

"Really? Say you're right, there is someone up in those trees."

He raced ahead and leapt into the spreading tree, landing near a woman with wrappings around her forehead and torso. He felt a flare of hot red chakra from within his body. The kyuubi? It was almost as if he'd felt it snarl. Why was the fox stirring now? The only other times it had done that on its own was when he'd been in mortal danger.

In an instant the woman was on the branch next to him. She traced her finger around the leaf mark on his headband, looked at him carefully, then leapt away. Vanishing into the mangrove swamp.

"Well that was really stupid, even for you." Sakura commented, once he'd rejoined her. "So what did she say?"

Naruto wrinkled his brow. "Dunno, she didn't say anything. But you know what was really weird? She seemed sorta dressed like a Sand ninja, but there was no mark on her headband."

Sakura sucked in a sharp breath. "You… you mean that was a missing nin?"

"Maybe… but from I've been told they usually polish off their village mark or scratch it out. This was just plain blank, as if there was never anything there in the first place. And there was something really creepy about her too."

Headbands without village marks. Why was that familiar? "Naruto, I'm worried. I hope we catch up to Kakashi-sensei soon."

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

Iruka followed Kakashi out of the ruined house, rubbing his eyes against the bright sun.

"You know this place looks different. When I first arrived here it was green, almost as green as Konoha. Now it seems grey."

"They wanted you to think it was pretty, so you did."

"You mean the mist…"

"You can't trust anything here to be what it seems." Without missing a beat Kakashi slipped into stealth, signaling for Iruka to do the same.

They had the man hog tied on the ground before he knew what hit him. Kakashi rolled him over, then roared with laughter.

"Sampo-kun?'

The monk looked at them, spluttering in terror.

Kakashi tossed a kunai to Iruka as he put a hand over their prisoner's nose and mouth. "Cut off part of his robe, cover his face."

Within a few moments of being masked he'd stopped struggling. "Umino-san? Kakashi? Where did you come from, what happened to the wolves. They were just about to tear me apart."

Kakashi helped the monk to sit, then crouched and rubbed his bald head with a gloved palm, as if he was polishing it. "No, that would have been us. As I was just saying, nothing here is what it seems. But what the hell are you doing here Sam?"

He massaged his wrists pulling a face at the red lines left by the too efficient ninja bonds. Kakashi always had been good with ropes "Umino-san, you were the one who said there were still Ookami's on Wolf Island. I came to see for myself."

His blue eye flashed open as Kakashi grabbed his old friend's shoulder. "Just a minute, how did you get here? Do you have a boat?"

"Er, yes. I left it tied up by the cliff at the end of the path."

"Come on we're getting off this damned rock. Now!"

The monk pulled himself away. "Hold on a minute." He looked from one deadly ninja to the other, and swallowed hard, not easy people to disappoint. "You can't expect me to leave now. I've been travelling for more than a week, I only just got here."

His hopeful look met Kakashi's and he didn't need to see the rest of his face to know how fiercely determined the other man's expression must be.

"There's something bad here Sam, really bad. You thought we were wolves just now, who knows what you might see, or think you see, up there." Kakashi indicated the outline of Ookami castle, where its tumble of hard shapes stood out from the weathered profile of the hills.

Seeing the abbot from the Shinto shrine again had been quite a shock for Iruka. Try as he might, he couldn't help flashing back to his last 'encounter' with the man. There was just as much tension in the air now. But this time it was much more aggressive, he could almost taste the testosterone, and he could still feel an undertone of sex, although now it was strictly between the other two men. With his help Kakashi had taken down the monk easily, but they'd caught him by surprise. If he put up a fight it would cost them and the copy nin was far from recovered from his last battle.

Obviously there was some history here. He wondered what complications that might create.

Iruka took a half-gloved hand in his and gently intertwined their fingers. "But it is his boat Kakashi. Perhaps we should go with him, we ought to try to find out what's going on in any case."

"No!" Kakashi clenched his fist, gripping Iruka tightly. "After what they did to you? I'm not letting you get near that place."

Sampo smiled serenely, calming the atmosphere by several degrees. "Kaka-kun, I'm a monk, no one's going to do anything bad to me. And you know that I can take care of myself pretty well. Just give me 'till sundown. If I'm not back by then go without me. You can ask someone from the mainland to bring the boat back and I'll just wait."

Kakashi's lips tightened, forming a hard line under his mask. "You have no idea what you might be getting into, but you're an adult, and I have no right to tell you what you can and can't do." He drew in a deep breath then let it out, as if steeling himself. "But keep that mask on, it will protect you. And an hour before sunset, I don't want to risk those rocks in the dark. We won't wait."

"Sampo winked. "Glad I won't have to fight you over it. And I'm glad you found your chuunin."

They watched the abbot hurry along the path towards the hills. His large dark figure getting gradually smaller, moving surprisingly fast and with surprising grace for someone of his bulk.

Iruka reached for Kakashi's other hand. "Your chuunin?"

The remaining tension vanished as a blue eye arched into a smile. "That's what you told him."

Iruka reached up, brushing their lips together mask to mask, eyes twinkling. "So, my jounin, what shall we do for the next four hours?"

Oooooooooooooooooooo

Tsunade sat staring into her teacup, seemingly focussed on the tealeaves that had settled into a dark cluster beneath the pale liquid. And oblivious to the fact that coils of steam had stopped rising from it long ago. Tea definitely wasn't what she wanted to drink right now. Without raising her head she barked an order to the dark haired woman hovering like a ghost nearby.

"Shit, I'm done with sitting around waiting. Send out a memo to all the mission room staff, we're going on a first stage emergency alert, no new missions are to be accepted or given out unless I've tagged them as vital to our defense. And step up the training of the new genins too, we may need to use all the resources we have."

Shizune was as quiet and as calm as ever, only a slight stiffening of her spine betraying her true feelings. "Do you really think things are that serious?"

Tsunade glared at her tea as if it was a hated enemy. "I don't know. Dammit I just don't know. But I'd sooner piss off a few cranky clients than risk having half our people out in the field when we need them most."

Her assistant took out a calculator and started tapping on its keys. "If we limited missions to C rank and below we'd be able to keep almost half of our income stream. And we could keep everyone in radio range at all times."

"And if we get caught off guard again we might not have any income stream. Not even enough to pay a mason to carve all the new names on the monument."

Shizune pocketed her calculator but didn't move away.

After a long minute had passed Tsunade looked up at her. "Go on, spit it out. Tell me why I'm wrong."

"Well sometimes its wiser to hedge your bets. Having everyone in the village has risks too, especially if the jounins are left with nothing to do for too long. Without any obvious threat to prepare for that is"

The older woman sighed. "You mean at least if they're out on missions they'll be armed and ready. But if they get bored they'll start injuring each other in stupid contests and getting drunk."

Shizune's eyelashes fluttered down. "Something like that Hokage-sama."

"Alright, you win. Assign jounins to all the C and D ranked missions, they'll hate it and they'll hate me, but it will keep them busy. The feistier chuunins too. And make sure they understand they could get called back at any time."

With her decision made Tsunade risked a tiny smile. "Go ahead and send Tonton to stay with your cousins outside the village too, the fewer lives at risk the better. And ask Jiraiya to see me, I think I'd like the old Horny Toad to do some snooping."

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo

"No Kakashi, you can't put that in there."

"Why not?"

Because that's my territory already, see these are my stones."

"Not all of them. These two are mine, see they're dark grey."

Iruka picked up a pebble and looked at it closely, then set it back on the grid of squares scored into the dirt. "Are you sure?"

Kakashi sighed. "Of course, look the dark ones have more black speckles."

Iruka sighed louder. "This is useless. How can we play go if I can't tell the dark grey stones from the slightly less dark grey ones."

"You should have let me use a jutsu to make yours white, I know half a dozen that would do it, then you'd be able to see the difference."

"No Kakashi! You're not wasting your chakra on a stupid game." Iruka took a handful of pebbles and tossed them in the palm of his hand. "I don't know why I'm playing go with you in the first place. It's not as if I can win."

Kakashi grabbed him and pulled him down, face to face as he collapsed onto the ground, scattering the stones. "You've beaten me before, twice."

The man on top chuckled. "Yes twice, in how many years?"

He felt a rumble like a low growl come from beneath him. "We could go back to my original idea for passing the time."

Iruka's pulse throbbed, his lips were burning with the need to kiss. "Aah Kakashi, it's not that I don't want to." He ran his fingers over the familiar masked face. " I do, I really do. It's just…" Brown eyes flickered across the horizon, through the ever present layer of thin mist. "I feel… I just feel as if we're being watched."

The blue eye closed into an arc. "Then we'll have to make sure we put on a good show."

With a puff of smoke Iruka was standing, looking down at the man sprawled at his feet. He couldn't keep the laughter out of his voice. "You damn pervert."

Kakashi pouted, missing the weight of the other's body. Then, without warning he sprang to his feet, but not playfully. He was tight hard muscle, a coiled spring shot through with energy, like a cat ready to pounce. He'd seen something, half obscured by mist.

At first he thought it was his own reflection, some kind of optical illusion. But the hair was too long and wispy, and it wasn't wearing a mask or a headband. Even when it was close enough to see clearly there was no trace of chakra to betray the man's presence and his simple dark clothes had no identifying features, but Kakashi knew who it was.

The white haired apparition spoke. "So here you are, found you at last. I knew one of you would use a jutsu eventually. I caught a hint of chakra yesterday, but not quite enough to home in on." His burning eyes shone through the mist. "Defeating Yoko took a lot out of you didn't it?"

Kakashi moved closer still. Now he could see that the man was old, ancient. "Ookami-sama?"

"As a matter of fact I am, but I might say the same of you."

Kakashi's eye narrowed with suspicion. I'm an Hatake, not an Ookami. My family were farmers, not nobles."

The man maintained his unnerving stare. "Really? We're both wolves. How much do you know of your family history Hatake-san, before they came to Konoha? This silver hair didn't come with age. I've always had it. You see Hatake, you and I are distantly related. You probably have as much right to claim Wolf Island as I do. In fact all the white haired clans in all the five countries are related by blood if you go back far enough. All of us brilliant, but… flawed."

The air prickled between them as Kakashi looked him over. The man had stopped hiding his power. It was the kind of power he knew from Tsunade, Jiraiya and… he realised uncomfortably, Orochimaru.

"You're the sennin!"

The old man lowered his head and his eyes in a mocking approximation to a bow. "I'm here to make you an offer Hatake-san. Will you join my pack?" His lips curled into something between a grin and a sneer. "Or are you content to wear a collar and leash and call yourself a dog?"

Kakashi let his body seem to slacken into his lazy slouch, his mind whirring with frenzied concentration. All the white haired clans? Kimimaru and Kabuto of Sound? They were brilliant enough and flawed enough for anyone. Who else? Jairiya? Hate though he did to admit it the description was pretty close, that's why the white haired sennin had turned down the position of Hokage in favour of Tsunade. And of course there was his father…

He kept his eye level as he tapped the Konoha mark on his headband. "If loyalty is the mark of a dog then I'll be a dog."

The sennin stepped closer, so that their auras touched. "No, you're no dog Hatake. Obedience doesn't come naturally to you, I can see the defiance through that mask. Is that why you wear it, to disguise yourself as something you'll never be? Is that your flaw?"

The copy nin's expression didn't change. "No one's perfect. Everyone has weaknesses, but the strongest will overcome them."

"Yes everyone has weaknesses. Let's test the loyalty you claim to your village against a more… basic loyalty. Maybe then you'll choose to throw off the leash… and become a true wolf."

He threw back his head and howled. The mist in the air picked up the vibration, red, heavy, saturated with danger.

Kakashi darted in front of Iruka.

The sennin's white hair deformed, and a second head bulged above his. A wolf's head.

Kakashi molded chakra in the palm of his hand.

The wolf leapt out from the sennin's body, bounding high into the air. Followed by another, then another, until in less than a minute a dozen were circled around the three men.

The chakra in Kakashi's hands crackled. "Iruka, keep down. Let me handle this."

The wolves lowered their heads, snarling and slathering blood. Two leapt at Kakashi from opposite sides, lightening zigzagged towards them and they shattered into clouds of red mist. The mist solidified into six new wolves.

So chakra was no defense, they absorbed it and used it to multiply. Kakashi drew his sword and pulled Iruka in close. He slashed at the closest animal, slicing off its head. It melted into a puddle of red. Good, that worked.

All the wolves attacked at once.

He nudged up his headband as they ran towards him, weaving in a confusing tangle of white. Yellow bloodshot eyes and yellow fangs trailing blood, tails held stiff and straight, powerful legs pushing powerful bodies, each one a lethal weapon. They were fast but he was faster, a blur of motion, spinning between them, cutting, slashing, stabbing.

The remaining wolves regrouped for a slit second. Six were closing in on Iruka, but the teacher was ready for them too. One fell back, its skull split with a shuriken, a second collapsed with a kunai in its throat. Kakashi dispatched the two still within his reach, then turned to help.

Aided by the sharingan he could predict their movements, but Iruka could not. Kakashi stabbed through the chest of one and while Iruka was hurling Kunai at another the last two circled around. Iruka stepped back to aim at the closest, and into the strike zone of the other. Kakashi was there in an instant and severed its spine, but not before it had sunk its teeth into Iruka's leg.

They stood panting, surrounded by mist and gore. There was no sign of the old man.

"Here, let me see that." Kakashi used a kunai to slit open Iruka's pants.

As they watched the torn flesh knitted together and the punctures healed, within minutes the damage had disappeared.

"That's not a natural wound, I don't like it. And those wolves were drooling blood."

A voice reached them through the mist. "The blood of wolves, this island is soaked in it. It's rich. Rich and potent."

It cleared enough to reveal the sennin eating dumplings from a stick. "Excuse me, but a good fight always gives me an appetite. And it was a good fight wasn't it? Of course I knew I couldn't take you, I'm too old now. But I got what I came for."

He looked Iruka up and down with cool detachment, then a lecherous smirk spread over his thin lips.

"Passionate isn't he, I can feel it already. Yoko was my tool, so I already know what it feels like to have him in me. It feels just as good to be in him, but then you know that too don't you?" He looked over to the copy nin, who was glowering with icy hatred. "His blood is my blood now. You have two choices Hatake, let me take him, or join me and keep him yourself. It's up to you."

"Go to hell old man."

"When the time comes, but I'll have good bargaining power. Think about it for a while."

The sennin vanished in a cloud of red.

Iruka was trembling as if he was cold. He took Kakashi's hand. "What do you think that means?"

"It means we have to get you home, as soon as possible. We have sennins in Konoha too. Jiraiya and Tsunade will know what to do. But first we have to get away from here."

A deep calm voice reached them through the mist, startling them both. "Kakashi, what's been going on here?" The abbot looked down at the puddles of red around his sandals. "I thought it was the castle that was supposed to be dangerous. What is it with you ninjas and blood?"

"Sam!" Kakashi was at his side in an instant. "I'm glad you made it. We're going back to Konoha now. I'd like you to come with us if you can, we might need some help. But of course that's up to you."

"What? The great Sharingan Hatake asking for help from a humble monk?" He caught the look in the other man's eye and the desperate confusion in Iruka's, and lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. "Of course, I'll do anything for you, you know that."

Kakashi stretched an arm as far as it would go across his broad shoulders. "Thanks Sam, it means a lot. Now let's get off this damn island before anything else bad happens."

Despite his size the monk could run almost as fast as the two shinobi, so a short time later Kakashi was steering them away from the black granite cliffs. The boat was small, too small for all of them, and Iruka was almost sitting on Sampo's lap. He just hoped the monk wasn't enjoying it. But from the way Kakashi's exposed eye was alternating between amusement and jealousy, he was almost completely sure that he was.

Two men watched them from the top of the cliff. The younger one's starry robe billowed behind him and he brushed his windswept hair away from his face.

"So you got him?"

"Of course. But for now we should let them run, give the blood time to ripen. I can reel him in easily enough when I want to." He shook his white head and went back to eating the dumplings from his stick. "Not easy to let go, not easy at all, I can understand why Yoko risked everything trying to keep him."