The two Konoha ninjas examined the holes in the desert floor. And the broken wood boxes. Kakashi pricked a finger on the tip of a needle, scowling. He'd risked Iruka for this?

"I'll send Jipushi ahead to Tsunade to tell her what we've found. He's got the speed and strength to cross the desert but he can't communicate like Pakkun, so we'll have to be right behind him."

Even as he spoke a huge hound appeared beside them. Kakashi scribbled a note and tucked it into its collar, then watched as it took off at a run.

The splintered wood from the crates stuck out from the sand at odd angles, half in and half out of the holes. Looking abandoned and forlorn in its ugliness. Iruka kicked one over. "These are just an ordinary bombs aren't they? I mean they couldn't be nuclear warheads or anything."

Kakashi shook his head. "I can't smell anything here but steel and explosives. If they had uranium or plutonium I'd be able to pick out the ionisation of the air. And from the size of these packing cases they weren't big enough to have the kind of shielding that would stop them from leaking completely."

"I'll take your word for it." Iruka kicked at the sand too, frowning. "One thing I don't get is just how anyone could hope to bring a village the size of Konoha to its knees with a few conventional explosives. I mean they're nasty, but as you said, not big enough to destroy a whole building. You could do more damage with a simple earth jutsu, even Sakura could."

"Yes and no. A bomb is an explosion, a sudden release of energy. Any kind of energy… including chakra. If there was an explosion in the mission room, in the heart of Konoha, anyone there would instinctively release chakra. And that would almost certainly include a few jounins."

"Are you saying that would… feed it?"

"Exactly. Chakra is positive energy, it wouldn't suppress an explosion, it would multiply it, to make the most powerful chakra bomb you can imagine. Using our jounins as fuel and destroying them at the same time. The bombs that were hidden here are just the fuses."

Iruka's eyes flashed wide open. "Kakashi, call back your dog. Now!"

The copy nin looked at him in surprise.

"Don't you see? If the Hokage gets your message that bombs are being smuggled into the village she'll call an emergency… she'll stop sending people out on missions."

Kakashi did see. He sliced open all four fingers of his left hand in his haste to call back and realease his summon. The great lurcher appeared at his side still in mid gallop, turned its head to give him the most bewildered look possible on a canine face, then poofed away in a cloud of chakra smoke.

Its master sank to his knees on the hot sand, his thoughts racing through the possibilities. "And if none of the jounins are out of the village they're more likely to be hanging out in the mission room. They could all be wiped out with one blast… and because of them that blast could wipe out the Hokage tower and most of the centre of the village with it."

Iruka knelt beside him, took his hand and gently licked at the liquid oozing from the slits on his fingertips. It was a simple gesture of comfort, but as his tongue made contact, all gentle thoughts vanished.

He'd tasted his lover's blood before, kissing wounds to bless them into healing faster, licking lips split from the dry desert or cold mountain air, soothing skin chaffed to bloody sores by armour worn for too many days, or too many weeks. But it had never tasted like this. It was strong and heady, like a powerful drug that set every nerve in his body on fire. Like life. Kakashi's life. Powerful, exciting, dangerous, the light at the centre of his universe.

He sucked and swallowed, probing with his tongue for every last drop as the flow slackened and stopped. Suddenly, it wasn't enough, he wanted more. He wanted Kakashi. Wanted him in every way that one human could want another. Grabbing the other hand he pressed their palms together, then pushed harder, collapsing his lover onto the sand beneath them, grinding his hips into him. He was rock hard, pulsing with the flow of his own blood as it throbbed through his body. Kakashi stared up at him, seeing need so bright that it almost hurt to look at it.

"Iruka, I'm sorry, not now. We have to find Sam and get back to Konoha. We don't have time to stop… not for anything."

Iruka slowly pulled himself to his feet, blushing fiercely. "Of course. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

Sadly kakashi was almost sure that he did.

They found Sampo exactly where they had left him. Finishing his final cycle of prayers.

Kakashi tossed him a ration bar. "Gotta go. Eat on the run. It will be dark before long but it should be a clear night. We'll make good time."

Iruka held back. "You should go without me, I'll follow with Sam. You'll be much faster on your own, and they can track me can't they? I'll give away your position."

"No, out of the question. I still have to get you home. And it doesn't matter, they know we'll go straight back to report. That's why they left the boxes for us to find."

It took Sampo less than a minute to gather his things, then they set out at a run through the cooling air. Before long it seemed that Kakashi had been wrong in his prediction for a clear night. The wind picked up lashing them with biting sand as great swirling clouds of dust obscured the sun, darkening the evening sky until it seemed as if night had already fallen. They had been on the move less than an hour when the sandstorm became so fierce that they were forced to slow their movement to a crawl.

Kakashi swore under his breath. Interference already. He'd hoped he would get close enough to Konoha to send Iruka on ahead with Sam before something like this happened.

He heard Iruka's voice over the howling wind. There's a shelter of some kind, a tent. Let's get inside until the worst of this passes."

"Iruka no! Don't trust it!"

But he knew that it was already too late. Finding an opening in the large black shape looming through the brown clouds of dust and sand, he stepped inside. Sampo followed close behind.

They stood in the doorway, wiping grit from their eyes. It was bright, but with no obvious source of illumination, and sumptuously furnished like a fantasy from the Arabian Nights. Except for a low table that seemed quite out of place in its plain simplicity. A lone man was seated there, on an elabourately patterned rug, drinking tea. He wore a dark blue robe spotted with stars.

"Gentlemen, I've been expecting you. Won't you join me?" The voice was familiar.

In a move as fluid as falling water, Kakashi knelt down, reached across the table, and brushed aside the man's black silken hair so that he could see the eyes half-hidden beneath. Uchiha eyes, identical to the jet-black orbs that had stirred so many emotions so long ago. They captured him, captivated him, as they had back then. He took a deep breath, disguising it as a thoughtful pause, as he smoothed his chakra seamlessly and re-trained his focus. Black eyes were his past, brown eyes his present… and his future.

The cool breeze of reason cleared the cobwebs from his brain. Long black hair, spooky eyes.

"Itachi? So you're wearing stars now. Were clouds too sunny for you, or have you changed your allegiance again?"

His cool reason foundered on the other's icy indifference. "Mmm, perceptive. It's still the sky. I suppose you could say that this is my… dark side." A momentary flash of crimson brightened the black.

The reaction wasn't lost on the copy nin. So maybe it wasn't indifference. Maybe the jagged edges of the ice were keeping another emotion at bay. "You were the one who gave the Mermaid pirate that ship. The one who's been collecting ninjas."

Itachi sighed, there was a hint of disappointment in his voice, or was it just a mocking imitation of disappointment. "All business? For a moment I thought… " His grim down-turned mouth flattened to a neutral line, but resisted twitching up into a smile. "But I'm not the one you were remembering, am I? It was another Uchiha, the one who died for you. And before his death you didn't have the same power to remember. But I do, I always have."

Kakashi's agile mind started to reach back, then balked. Uchiha Obito. That well of pain, guilt and grief, he was his greatest strength and his greatest failing. Had he met Itachi back then? Before? Despite his bitter rivalry with his teammate, the rambling Uchiha clan had always reached out to him, openly urging Obito to invite the genius Hatake orphan into their wider family.

And if he had met Itachi, had he slept with him?

Surely not, they were both too young, neither of them could have been more than eleven or twelve, although he had become unusually promiscuous unusually early. Living alone, with no family to guide him. Always poised on the razor-edge between survival and death that came from his too violent existence. The young Kakashi had very quickly discovered that sex was the only thing that had enough intensity to come close to providing the same satisfaction.

Then somewhere, far underneath, he felt a bright flicker of… something. Silky black hair sliding through his fingers, a hard boyish body under his, eyes blacker than the blackest sin that even they would witness. And overwhelming simultaneous orgasms, so powerful that they had both almost fainted. His first? Their first?

He blinked, but just once. No. Itachi was using a sharingan trick, he had to be. If…and it was a big if, the memory was real it must have been Obito, not Itachi. Only that could explain why he'd suppressed it.

Itachi's cold smooth voice felt like a whisper of seduction in his ear as he continued, "The Atakzuki are rich and powerful. Nothing is beyond our reach."

Kakashi didn't allow his composure to fail for even the tiniest fraction of a second. He stared at a sylised bird woven into the carpet near his hand. Or was it a fish. He preferred his art straightforward and easily recognisable, real life so seldom was. Then curved his eye into its familiar smile. "I'm sure you are, but what the hell do you want with me? A barely suitable host for an Uchiha eye?"

Itachi wasn't quite as fast in smothering a hint of… regret? "Very well, I'll be all business too. Our mutual old friend Orochimaru is starting to get in our way. We need a distraction to keep him busy. And, of course, he has a village behind him now."

At last, something that made sense. "You want to establish a Ninja village in Wave Country, on Wolf Island. Using the power of the blood mist."

"No. I plan to take over an already well-established village, one that I know quite well. And one that Orochimari has always felt he has some kind of claim on."

"Konoha!"

"It's ripe for picking. With the police force gutted since the er, 'fall' of the Uchiha clan, the centres of the village are Hokage tower and the academy. Such a foolish arrangement, expecting the academy teachers to work in the mission room too. It gives chuunins far too much knowledge, defense plans, strengths and weaknesses. Mine's a little out of date."

Kakashi kept his anger locked so deep within that not even the sharingans would detect it. So he'd been right about Iruka. "Why are you telling me this?

"The blood of the wolf. You overcame my clan's blood limit but somehow I can't come to grips with yours."

"There is no blood limit in the Hatake clan, there never has been."

"No not exactly, but you have the blood of the wolf. You have the potential for any number of Wolf blood limits. But you don't have to believe me, ask the abbot here. He's been researching them for me, for some time."

Sampo let out a long breath. "I'm sorry Kaka-kun. I had no idea. Supporting the shrine and its good work by researching stuff I'd have paid to have the chance to do. I should have known it was too good to be true."

Itachi glared in his direction, through his hair, eyes spinning. "Shut up monk."

The abbot sat back onto the sand in dazed silence as Itachi turned his attention back to the other man. "He did a good job. Led me to Ketsuekimusha and the Succubus girl. Between them I'd have got everything… if you hadn't interfered."

He sipped at his tea and let the silence between them stretch painfully.

"You killed my little recruit but you'd be a good replacement. You see it takes someone with the blood to activate the blood jutsu. And, as I believe I just said, you have the blood."

"So?"

"You've proven yourself more powerful than we had… anticipated. Ever wanted to be Hokage Hatake? You're a natural choice. Chuunin at six, Jounin at thirteen, Konoha's number one ninja. I can't believe it's never crossed your mind."

"You… you want me to join you? Join the Akatzuki? On the basis of some old legend?" Kakashi felt sick, as if there was a ball of something especially nasty knotted in his stomach. He knew exactly what Itachi had done to be considered 'worthy' of membership in that particular club.

"No." The word sounded light, as if he was smiling, but he wasn't. "We have Iruka-sensei. We have his blood. Nothing short of his death can change that. It's only a matter of time before he spills all of Konoha's secrets. Even if he fights it to the death we'll be able to get what we need first. You would be more of an… associate."

Or a lackey.

"We'll find someone else to be Hokage if we need to. But it won't be someone who cares for Konoha the way you do. Or who gives a fuck about Iruka-sensei, alive or dead."

Against every instinct Kakashi kept his heart rate slow and steady. So he knew about Iruka. Of course he did, he was in league with the sennin, he must know everything. "You plan to use Iruka's life to blackmail me?"

Itachi finally smiled. On his stoic face it was so out of place and so startling that Kakashi couldn't imagine him with a more frightening expression.

"No. That was never part of our plan. Even I didn't anticipate getting hold of someone you held so dear. And I think I understand you rather better than the old man. I have no doubt that you're loyal enough to sacrifice him to save Konoha, the way you sacrificed my cousin. I want to give you something, not take. The blood mist power. You see I have blood, Ketsuekimusha's blood, and I want to give it to you. The power to control the thoughts and intent of those around you. All but the strongest. We'll take care of those separately. You have the blood of the wolf in your veins already. I'll give you the blood limit that goes with it. I'm offering you the power to save Konoha from Orochimaru and his followers. Again."

Itachi pulled an elaborately carved cylinder from his sleeve, snapped off the end and tipped it so that a syringe filled with dull red liquid rolled onto the table. Kakashi eyed it carefully but didn't move.

"You want to start a war between Sound and Leaf, but you'll give us what we need to hold our own. To make sure the war goes on for a very long time."

"War is unavoidable. I'll just help you control the timing. Better now before Orochimaru gets even stronger. And he has my baby brother, you know that you don't have long."

"And what if I find the old man and kill him? Cut off the blood jutsu at its source?" Kakashi was sure it couldn't be that simple, but he had to ask.

Itachi laughed, not the cold cruel sound Kakashi would have expected, but filled with genuine amusement. Somehow it was even more disturbing. "Then Iruka-sensei dies, every innocent we have within the jutsu dies. No one can live without blood."

This simple conversation was proving more exhausting than the fiercest battle. "And how many innocents is that?"

The Uchiha's eyes flashed red again. "Enough to get the job done."

Kakashi lashed out and the other man's head spun across the tent spraying an arc of crimson. His body quivered then slumped. It had been dead for days and was wearing the uniform of sand. It's severed head rolled over the smooth pile of the carpet and came to come to rest at Kakashi's feet. As he'd expected the headband tied around its yellow hair was unmarked.

Damn cowards. Even now hiding behind those they'd used and destroyed.

The tent and its furnishings disintegrated into twinkles of nothing and melted into the clear air around them. There was no sign of the storm. Now Kakashi could see where Iruka was lying on the sand, as still and silent as death, shrouded in red mist.

Kakashi took one of Sampo's hands in both of his, pulling the monk to his feet and out of his stupor in the same move. "Don't blame yourself Sam. If Itachi wanted to find out about the Ookami's badly enough, he would have eventually in any case."

Despite the copy nin's calm controlled voice, Sampo wasn't fooled. He could see the shine of unshed tears in his eyes and feel the vibration of the tremor in his grip. He spread his fingers and folded them over Kakashi's palms so that the Kakashi's hands were within his, looking small and delicate, almost like a woman's by comparison.

Without another thought he pulled Kakashi's body against him, hugging him close, wracked with guilt for enjoying the contact at a time like this. There was hot breath in his ear as Kakashi started to tremble from head to toe.

"There must be some way to remove this jutsu. It's Iruka Sam."

Sampo's grief had layers worthy of a ninja. "I know Kaka-kun, I know."

He held the other man folded into the hollow of his huge body, desperate to bring him some kind of comfort. Hatake Kakashi. His dearest childhood friend, his idol, his obsession. The man who would never return his love, breaking apart for the sake of another man.

"I wish I could help, but I don't know anything about these arts. We're martial monks. But maybe… He hesitated for a moment, then pulled away enough to take something from an inner fold of his robe. A box of matches.

Sampo blushed fiercely, his face and bald head turning scarlet under their tan. "I have a hair from the mother of the Ookami clan. I took it from her tomb. Maybe she wanted me to, or maybe I just wanted it and I'm making excuses for myself. But perhaps I can use it to summon her."

Kakashi looked at him with a mixture of suspicion and awe. "Sam, are you saying you know how to summon spirits?"

"In theory. I'm willing to try… if you are. Surely she will know how to break a blood limit jutsu from her line."

Kakashi looked over to Iruka, he'd moved at last, and was lying on his back and apparently sleeping peacefully. He nodded to Sampo. "Let's do it."

The layer of fine sand deposited by the storm seemed to be a perfect medium for setting up the circle. And Sampo's skill and dexterity in using it to form the shapes and signs of the mantra seemed to contradict his claim to lack expertise.

It took a long long time, but Kakashi was patient. Endlessly still and endlessly patient. Glancing up occasionally to make sure that Iruka was still sleeping, and monitoring his chakra constantly for anything out of the ordinary.

Eventually it was ready. Sampo set a match to the cluster of incense sticks he'd stuck into a mound of sand at the centre of the circle, then blew them out so that a stream of fragrant smoke rose up in a sinuous stream. The smoke didn't dissipate. It formed a white cloud, hovering within the enclosing charms a few feet from the ground. He dropped the single white hair onto it and the cloud took on the form of a lean white wolf. It rose on its hind legs and changed shape again, to become a beautiful white haired woman, pale skinned, amber eyed. Wearing a court kimono from another age, splattered with red flowers and edged in white fur.

She turned towards Kakashi. "My child? Son? You've grown up to be so beautiful, let me see your whole face."

He felt time and space spinning around him, winding his reality into a tight coil. But despite the dizziness it caused he stepped forward and pulled down his mask, then straightened his headband, but kept the sharingan tightly closed. The wolf mother stretched out a pale slender arm from the draped silk of her sleeve, as if to stroke his cheeks and jaw.

He heard Sampo's voice floating towards him, like a leaf riding the ripples on the surface of a pond. Hardly more than a whisper in the thick air, but with a resounding note of urgency. "Kakashi, don't break the circle, if you do who knows what could cross from the spirit world."

Kakashi nodded and opened his eye. Now he could see the edge, the line separating the dimensions. "Ookami-hime? Wolf Princess? Wolf… Mother?"

He raised his hand, flattening his palm against the barrier that would be invisible to anyone else. The wolf woman raised her hand in response on the other side, so close that the distance between them could be measured in molecules. Kakashi could feel her heat and smell her musky scent through the perfume of the incense.

"You look so much like your father. Except your eyes, you have a stranger's eyes."

"Wolf Mother, please forgive us, we called you here to ask for your help. How can I break the blood jutsu, the power of the blood of the wolf, of your blood?"

She bit her lip and shook her head slowly, so that her long white hair rippled around her shoulders. "The blood of the wolf isn't mine, it's from the wolf demon Makami. I went to him for help, for a jutsu forbidden by man and by wolves. But he betrayed me. Instead of using the blood to make me human he tried to use it to make humans the slaves of the wolves. In my greed for more than I could have, I let my blood become tainted."

Kakashi could feel pressure, like an impossible weight, squeezing his heart and his lungs. "Someone I love is tainted now too. Can I remove it before its power destroys him?"

She turned to look at him with the same fixed stare he'd seen in the eyes of the old sennin. "The death of the blood host will destroy the jutsu, but those within the jutsu will not survive. Only the blood host can take back the blood. That's as much as I know."

She didn't break the stare but something in her eyes seemed to soften. "If there's another way you must find it for yourself. The blood is powerful, but remember that love is a great power too. Even love like mine that defied the laws of men, of wolves, and of nature. I wish I had understood human love sooner, realised that love was all I'd ever needed to become human, before I made my reckless bargain."

Kakashi looked at the affection in her amber eyes, and the concern for him in her face. "You've succeeded Wolf Mother. I fell more humanity from you than from most humans."

She smiled, turned away from him, and was gone.

"Did she speak to you, did she answer your question?" It took a moment for Kakashi to realise that it was Sampo who was asking.

"Er, yes. You didn't hear?"

The monk shook his head. "All I saw was a shadow in the smoke. She came here to talk to you, not me."

Kakashi was painfully aware of the sadness in his voice. He knew that Sampo must feel that the Wolf Mother had rejected his devotion, just as he had himself.

"Go home Sam. Go back to your shrine and train your monks. It looks as if we might need a safe place to stay near the border with Hidden Sound very soon." He intertwined their fingers, keeping the other man at arms length as he looked at him fondly.

"Got enough food and water?"

The monk nodded.

"Know the way from here?"

The monk glanced towards the ridge of hills on the darkening eastern horizon and nodded again.

He leaned closer, taking in the scent of incense, day old sweat, and the warm waxy odour that was pure Sampo. "You're very special to me Sam, you do know that don't you?"

Then he stretched to claim the abbot's mouth in a deep lingering kiss, hooking his hands behind the thick column of his neck, using his lips and tongue to show the full extent of his affection in ways that words never could. By the time Sampo opened his eyes Kakashi was kneeling over his precious chuunin a hundred feet away. He sighed and set off towards the east.