Iruka wasn't paying very much attention to what Kakashi was saying at all, the things his sweet lover was doing with his fingers were much too distracting. He'd had a long day, a very long day. He'd covered twice the distance he'd normally expect to be able to, been attacked by Jiraiya, by Gai, by half the village, and had returned to find the academy a smoking ruin. And that was the least of it.
Dealing with and comforting so many scared children, without giving away how scared and in dire need of comfort he was himself, had stretched him past all his limits. But right now Kakashi was holding him, and stroking him, as he so often did when he'd worn himself down too far. Soothing him with the warm glow of diffused sexual pleasure. And Iruka was at that place, on the edge of unconsciousness, where extreme stress-induced exhaustion gave in to sleep. His answer to Kakashi's question slipped out without any input at all from his conscious mind.
"Like tigers."
Suddenly he was wide awake.
"What the hell? Fight? Kakashi… they're just kids, you can't seriously expect them to fight."
He pulled himself away from the safety and comfort of the other man's arms and stood with his back to him. Shaking with indignation anger and fatigue.
Kakashi slipped off the table behind him and Iruka tensed expecting to feel arms wrap around him again, as rage knotted inside him. But instead his elbow was gripped securely and he was half led, half dragged, outside.
The lights of the village shone like ruddy smears through the mist, but directly above, the sky was cold and clear. Spangled with the first faint stars of night and dominated by the orb of the moon, in its last quarter, just off full, it seemed to heavy for the sky to hold. Kakashi reached towards it, as if preparing to catch it in his hand.
"Do you know that there were people who believed that the sky was ruled by wolves? They thought the sun and the moon ran across the sky because wolves were chasing them, and that one day the wolves will catch them and eat them… the beginning of the end of the world."
He circled his arm in a wide arc, to indicate the half-obscured village. "Look Iruka! There it is… Konoha. Our home. Our world. How many parents have come beating down the academy doors demanding to know if their children are safe?"
He continued, without a break, already knowing the answer. "The mist has them, and we both know what that means, they'll come after us and the kids. This mist will make them attack their own children. I doubt they even know that they have children"
This time he took a long breath, searching for words that were still honest, but sounded less harsh.
"Look I know how you feel about these kids. You want to protect them, save them, but unless we can defeat this evil they're already dead. You weren't picked for that mission to Wave by chance, and the school wasn't attacked at random. Ketsuekimusha and his cronies know perfectly well that these kids are their biggest threat. You were supposed to give them the information about when to set off that bomb, to make it kill as many as possible, and then come back here to finish off the job."
Iruka was trembling, but maybe it was just the cold. "So you want to lead these children into battle."
Kakashi let his hand slide down Iruka's arm to grasp his hand, then used two fingers of his other hand to stroke the line of his jaw through the cloth mask, tilting his chin a little.
"No Iruka, not me, I wouldn't know how. And anyway I'll have battles enough of my own. You have to be the one to lead them."
Iruka swallowed hard, but his voice still came out half strangled. "But Kakashi I…"
Kakashi pressed the same two fingers against his lips, then pointed to the west, where the mist thickened like an inkblot, sucking in the darkness.
"That's where it's coming from. This jutsu uses blood, lots of blood. He's activated the blood of those killed by the fox."
He paused as Iruka blanched, making his scar stand out as a dark line in the moonlight. Kakashi hated himself for awakening such a cruel memory. But he was desperate, with the kind of desperation that could justify even what he knew he had to say next.
"You've told me about that night. How you were dragged away from the battle, screaming to be allowed to fight, to save your parents. That wasn't a fight for children, but this is. This time they are the ones who must fight to save their parents, and it's up to you to lead them. To give them the chance that you never had, the chance to do what you couldn't."
He watched Iruka struggle within himself. Knowing that he'd put him in an untenable position, straddled across both sides of an unwinable argument.
"Is it really the only way?"
Kakashi couldn't meet his eyes. "No it isn't. There's one other way. The wolf's blood. Do you remember what the old sennin said on Ookami Island, just after you were bitten?"
He pulled a syringe of dull red blood from his weapon pouch and looked at it hard before pressing it into Iruka's hand. It looked so… harmless, like something unreal, a practical joke.
Iruka stared at it, then at him, and shook his head.
Kakashi looked away again. "S'ok, didn't really expect you too."
It was true, in fact he had rather hoped he wouldn't, although he hadn't been able to forget a word of it.
"It's demon blood. The evil in it has condemned Ookami descendents to unhappiness down the ages. Given us blood limits that make us feared and hated. I'm lucky my family doesn't have one. But he said that because I have the blood, because I'm related to him by blood, if I inject myself with this I'll become a blood host… like him."
Iruka felt as if an icy hand had just clutched at his heart. "So you've thought about using it."
"With everything that's at stake here how can I not think of using it? If I do I might be able to cancel the blood jutsu and call back the mist."
"But… but then won't he control you?"
Kakashi turned to go back inside. "Don't know, maybe, maybe not. Sleep on it, okay."
Iruka froze for a moment before shouting after him. "Hell no! Kakashi!"
A tear left a streak of silver in the moonlight. He scrubbed it away with the rough cloth of his cuff, threw the syringe down and ground it under his heel.
"One of the two people I love most is already demon possessed. I can't possibly handle another one. We'll fight this the old fashioned way, like ninjas. We'll use every deception and sneaky trick in the book, but we won't sink to their level. These kids do have power, real power, maybe more than any class since Naruto's. Give me one day and I'll give you the best damn army of nin children you've ever seen."
Kakashi's slouch didn't change, but something deep within him did. Some new spark. Hope? Hope that they still had the thinnest sliver of a chance?
"I know you will sensei."
He turned back and smiled, then picked Iruka up like a new bride and carried him into the school.
Jiraiya hadn't missed a word of the other men's conversation. Well he wasn't the world's greatest spy for nothing. He sat and watched in silence as Kakashi lay his almost-asleep teacher on a mat next to Konohamaru and pulled a blanket over them both.
It was strange, seeing such tenderness in Sakumo's son. The legendary White fang had been many things, kind, generous, loyal, but tender had never been one of them. He shook his head, scowling at himself for comparing the two. Kakashi was Kakashi, a unique individual and a hero in his own right, hadn't he proven that by now? The sennin's lips twitched into a hint of a smile, heaven forbid that anyone should compare him with his father.
"He's a fire-cracker isn't he? That sensei of yours. Just what do you do to keep someone like that happy?"
Kakashi hopped up onto the table and sat cross-legged next to him. "Whatever he wants Jijii, whatever he wants."
The older man laughed, a deep rumbling guffaw. "I almost envy you kid."
Kakashi looked at him in surprise. "Envy? How do you mean?"
"You two can understand each other man to man. Women are soo difficult."
Kakashi scratched the back of his head. "You might think. But the truth is that most women understand themselves and what they want pretty well, so at least half the relationship knows what it's doing. Both of us are just muddling through, making it up as we go along."
Jiraiya looked at him with an unexpected softness in his flinty eyes. "Whatever it is you're making up, you've got my blessing kid. Now if everything's under control here I'd like to go and guard the gate."
This time it was Kakashi's turn to laugh. "Why? To make sure none of our enemies get out of the village during the night?"
Jiraiya bared his teeth in a grin that would have looked terrifying to someone who knew him less well.
"Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but I just don't feel good leaving it wide open like that. I'll post a clone and sleep in the gate tower, just in case."
Kakshi looked at Jiraiya fondly, even indulgently. Who would ever have figured? Now that Iruka was asleep the two of them were the sanest men still conscious in all Konoha. God help them.
"Okay, but give me an hour, I want to check things out over at the hospital."
Jiraiya sucked in, then let out, a deep breath. "Right… Naruto."
Kakashi nodded. "And I'll see what Shizune has to say about the others while I'm there."
"If you mean Tsunade, I wouldn't worry. It will take more than a couple of bombs to put a dent in that old battle axe."
The flicker of concern under the flippancy wasn't lost on someone as perceptive as Sharingan Hatake. So that's who Jiraiya had been angsting over. "Actually I was thinking about Sakura and Gai. But I'll get an update on Hokage-sama for you too."
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Shizune knew that she was forgetting something important, very important, but she was damned if she knew what. At Kakshi's suggestion she'd had surgical masks put on everyone in the hospital. She'd also rigged up a sensor to monitor the levels of demon chakra that each person had been exposed to, and was using it to set a timetable for checking each of them.
She'd just finished with Naruto. He was the only one not showing symptoms of poisoning, but he was badly concussed. Apparently the kyuubi hadn't cushioned the blow quite fast enough. She closed the door to his room, secured the tungsten-steel locks, the chakra locks, and setup a network of wards. That really ought to keep anything in… or out. But the best security would be Naruto himself. Just as soon as he was awake. Alert, and fighting mad.
While she was musing, she strolled along the too bright corridor to the next room, Gai's. His symptoms were more troubling. The jutsu induced sleep was straightforward enough, and would probably last at least another day as Kakashi had said. But there was something else. Something that made her so uncomfortable that her skin was positively crawling. And she wasn't even in the same room yet. Kakashi hadn't mentioned anything that could explain that.
She unlocked the room with a few hand seals. Maito Gai lay stretched on the bed like the corpse at an autopsy. She'd never imagined the energetic man could be so still, or so expressionless. Now that she was seeing him without it, his blinding smile seemed as if it had always been as much a fixture on his face as his eyebrows.
She placed a hand on his forehead, he was cool, almost cold, and breathing no more than once every few minutes, like a hibernating bear. She made a mental note to find out more about this jutsu. Perhaps she could ask Kakashi, the next time he...
Speak of the devil… Konoha's copy ninja appeared next to her in a cloud of smoke.
Shizune barely flinched. "Hatake-san, this is a locked isolation room. You do realise that it's supposed to be impossible to do that here?"
He looked down on her from his greater height and tilted his head.
"Oh. Sorry Shizune-san, must have forgotten. Mustn't get caught doing anything impossible, right?"
She caught the quick wink of his visible eye, shook her head slowly and sighed. Just how did this annoying man manage to bring out her all maternal instincts and her fan-girl instincts? He had the charm of an unrepentant puppy, making her want to scold him and snuggle him at the same time.
He snapped her back to a harsher reality. "How's Naruto?"
"Naruto? I was just with him. About the same, but he's incredibly strong, I'm sure he'll be fine in less than a week."
"Ok." But just how much less might be critical. "And Sakura?"
"She's doing amazingly well. It seems Naruto directed most of the fox's chakra to protect her, and a good deal of his own to protect her from the fox. With any luck she'll be able to help me out here in a few more days."
Kakashi smiled with genuine relief. His teammates were going to be ok. It was more than he had hoped for, although he knew that he was going to miss their support in the 'Battle for Konoha' that lay ahead. They made a great team and he'd come to depend on them… in a way he'd never quite been willing to depend on those other teammates, a lifetime ago.
"Oh, by the way, Sakura was holding this. Just in case it's important." The medic shrugged and held out a scroll.
He took it and unrolled it, then returned the shrug. One of his old mission scrolls. He tucked it away into an inside pocket and turned his attention to his self-appointed rival.
"And how about Gai's team? Are they in here too?"
Shizune could see her own hand coming to slap her forehead as if it was in slow motion. Her jaw dropped and she stood gaping. That's what she'd forgotten.
"Er… er… no, they aren't. Gai's, Asuma's and Kurenai's, they all left the village. They went to look for… for you and Iruka-sensei."
"You mean they weren't in the village when…"
Shizune nodded. "I sent them myself, now if only we had some way to contact them, call them back here."
Kakashi felt his lips curving, he knew those kids pretty well. Good fighter's, all of them, and young enough to have pretty good resistance to the mist. Masked they'd be invulnerable. Between them and the academy kids and Iruka… the odds were starting to improve.
"I have some friends who'll track them down. Just tell me which way to go."
Shizune's intelligent eyes flashed instant understanding. "I can do better than that. I have lists of the people they planned to contact. I'll get it for you as soon as I've finished in here."
"Then I'll tag along if you don't mind. Jiraiya's not expecting me back just yet. By the way, I said I'd ask about Hokage-sama."
A frown line formed between Shizune's eyebrows. "Her heritage gives her natural resistance to demon chakra, but in a perverse way that stopped it from protecting her fully from the blast. But she's very strong. She's been drifting in and out of consciousness since late this afternoon."
"Then you should get her out of here, in case we fail."
Shizune shook her head. "She wouldn't want that. I think we both have a good idea of what the big 'big picture' is."
Kakashi glanced towards the wall that separated them from the next room. "Yes… Naruto."
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Jiraiya wasn't entirely surprised to see a small pack of assorted canines stream out of the gate at top speed and fan out. He was surprised that they appeared to be wearing muzzles along with their usual Konoha accessories. But he could only assume that Kakashi knew what he was up to.
From above, the mist looked just like any other fog. Leached of its colour by the pale moonlight, swirling in patches through streets and open spaces. And in the centre of each a human presence. And everywhere the reek of blood.
He set about using his vantagepoint to make an inventory of the enemy chakras. As he'd expected, they were a match for the ones he'd picked up out in the forest. What he hadn't expected was for them to be arranged in such tight clusters. Wouldn't it make more sense to have them spread through the village? And he still didn't feel ripples from energy greater than chuunin level. Did that mean that the threat was still gathering, that the leaders were still waiting? If so, for what?
Well there wasn't any action to be taken tonight. He'd sleep on it. With a wink to his clone he settled under his blanket. It was cold. He wondered if they'd survive long enough to see this year's first snow.
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Iruka was pulled from his dream of a blood red ocean, and of trees shedding crimson leaves that turned to liquid as they fell, by the familiar feeling of strong but gentle hands squeezing his butt. He smiled and blinked himself awake. To find himself staring into a chubby round face, topped by unruly dark hair.
"Kakash… Konohamaru… what the hell?"
There was hot breath and a rich baritone voice in his ear. "Language Sensei, and in front of the children too."
It took him a few moments to process the information enough to realise that he was sandwiched between the man and the boy. Well, at least he had a pretty good idea which of the two was groping his ass. He stabbed a sharp elbow backwards and sat up, but was too slow to make contact. Naturally. So he settled for piercing the jounin, who was now bending over the mat they'd been sharing, hand outstretched, with his iciest of icy glares.
He took the hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Kakashi somehow pulled down both their masks, ran his tongue over Iruka's lips and into and around his mouth and had both masks back in place by the time they were both fully upright. Iruka flashed his eyes around the room nervously, grateful that his mask was hiding most of his blush. He knew these kids, and knew they didn't miss an opening.
He hissed a warning. "What the hell are you playing at? Are you trying to embarrass me to death?"
A limpid jewel shone from within Kakshi's wide open eye. "No. But I decided that just in case we don't survive this, I'm going to love you as much as I possibly can, every moment I have left."
Iruka's anger melted along with his heart. "Just cut it out in front of the kids. If you want me be to be their leader you'll have to leave me with a tiny shred of dignity."
"Don't sweat it Iruka-sensei. These kids will follow you anywhere. Right Konamaharu-kun?"
The boy's mouth twitched at the corners, while he kept his eyes tightly closed. "You bet Kakashi-sempai. Anyway we've seen you and Iruka-sensei kissing lots of times."
Kakashi had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. Iruka's squawk was just that priceless. "So, I got everyone breakfast."
"Breakfast? Where? I hardly ate a thing yesterday." Konamaharu was on his feet scouting around in an instant.
Kakashi indicated the large boxes on and under the tables at the end of the gymnasium.
Iruka recognised the name on the side. "Field ration bars?"
"Yep, four cases, I brought them back from the armory last night. They should last us about six days."
"But… field ration bars? You expect these kids to live on field ration bars for six days?"
"Hey I've survived on them for months at a time before now. They have to learn the real hardships of the shinobi life sometime."
"Hey how bad can they be?" Konohamaru had ripped open a box and was stripping off a wrapper.
He took a bite. "Uck, I see what you mean. But I guess if you're hungry enough you'll eat anything." He grabbed six more and went back to his mat."
Iruka watched open mouthed in amazement. "If they're all like him we won't have enough."
Kakashi pulled him aside as the kids descended on the boxes. He eye had become dark and intense.
"Don't worry, if things go the way I expect, we'll need to switch to soldier pills pretty soon in any case. See you at sunset… and remember that promise."
He eased down their masks, stole another slightly longer kiss, and vanished.
Iruka stood gobsmacked, literally, for just a few moments before switching to full teacher mode and full teacher volume.
"Right, while the rest of you finish up and get ready, pre-gennins grab some food and come with me. We're going to find every usable weapon in this building."