Shikamaru was not happy. The reason he was not happy was because he was awake.
Early.
The white clouds of his breath faded into the frosty air as he sat up, with his blanket still pulled tightly around him, and looked past Chouji's bulk to the tuft of golden hair that was the only visible part of Ino. There was something out there in the shadows that had woken him. Of course it was just past sunrise, and it was the end of freaking November, which meant that the sun was at such a low angle that everything was currently in the bloody shadows
Stifling a sigh, he groped for his jacket and wriggled into it, frowning at the cold air dancing little shivers across his newly exposed skin, and desperately trying to stop his precious warmth from escaping his blanket. There was nothing for it but to get up and investigate.
Normally he'd wait until Ino had almost finished her daily hair and makeup production, and Chouji had almost finished breakfast, or at least that part of his daylong meal that he officially designated as breakfast. And that would give him a good hour or more of extra sweet sleep. Shitty start to the day.
The 'something' shifted.
Nerves finely tuned, chakra perfectly harmonised with his surroundings, Shikamaru stretched upwards, slowly, with the same silent fluidity as the elongating shadow at his feet. The presence, a source of such intense chakra that it was 'blowing out' the auras of every other living organism in the surrounding forest, stretched too. As if it was preparing to do something. Suppressing a tiny flutter of anxiety, he probed the surface of the uneven ground for a heartbeat, wrapped his shadow around… and … got it!
Using as much stealth as he could muster so early in the morning, he closed in on the motionless life form.
"Dammit kid. If you wanted me to stay all you had to do was ask."
Shikamaru released his jutsu and blinked. Twice. "So… er, is Kakashi-sensei making his dogs wear masks now too?"
Pakkun struggled to his feet and eyed him with the air of long suffering indulgence he usually reserved for very young children, mental patients, and foreigners. "Obviously."
"Er… why?"
The little dog snorted, sucking the fabric of the mask into his wide nostrils. Then sneezed. "I think perhaps that's a question you should be asking my master, not me. God knows I plan to."
He tilted his head to one side. "And you'll have to wear masks too, when you get to Konoha."
"We're going back to Konoha?"
"Yes, that's my message. For heaven's sake, wake up the rest of your team and let me do this properly, you've got me all confused."
"Can I assume Kakashi-sensei is back in Konoha?"
Pakkun didn't favour him with a reply.
They walked back to where Ino was riffling through her pack for a mirror and Chouji through his for a bag of snacks. "So, Pakkun-san, if this message is so important, how come you were… asleep?"
The pug's eyes narrowed. It was bad enough being the summons of a damn lazy smart Alec, without having to put up with this Nara kid too.
He sat down and looked at the three teens as imperiously as he could, considering that he was a dog, and a rather small dog at that.
"Listen up all of you. You have to go back to Konoha… now. It's been attacked, half of it's been blown up and they need you to fight. Got it? And I was not asleep, just taking a quick breather while I thought out the best way to wake you up, with this stupid thing on my face I can't lick you or stick a cold nose in your ear. And… before you ask, it was my job to find you because the others don't speak human as well as I do. Lucky sods. Master said it's very important that you tell everyone to put on a cloth mask before they go into the village. He said that would be your job because your team would be the closest to Konoha and could get back there before any of the others. He said he knew you'd be the closest because Shikamaru is too lazy to move fast, Ino is too worried about chipping her nails and Chouji is too fat. Oh, and tell everyone to report to Iruka-sensei, he's in charge."
Fortunately for his continued existence on any material plane, Pakkun had already poofed away before Chouji could reach more than half again his normal size.
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Jiraiya snapped his notebook shut and slipped it away into the dark inner depths of his robe.
"Forget it kid. Not until it's in print."
Kakashi grinned sheepishly from his crouch behind the seated sennin on the gate tower. He had been poised, as still, as silent and as void of chakra, as part of its wooden structure. The old geezer had lost nothing of his uncanny sensitivities.
"Yo. I wasn't really peeking… although… since it might never get into print…"
The toad hermit stood and leaned against one of the stout posts, staring out into the forest. "Not a chance. Perhaps it will give you just the extra incentive you need…. to keep me and this damn town alive."
Kakashi rose to join him, without betraying a flicker of the stunned shock he felt in his belly. Since when was he in charge? "Quiet isn't it?"
"Yeah, that's one of the things I remember most about war, the way it goes from too much quiet to too much noise in a heartbeat. The one is almost as bad as the other."
Kakashi scratched his head, he knew damn well he was stalling. "I made Iruka a promise, one day to prepare his kids. Do you think I can keep it?"
Three eyes swept over the tops of the naked trees, interspersed here and there with an occasional evergreen.
"Dunno, they haven't moved all night. Just standing, like zombies, as if they're waiting for something. Two big groups mostly, at the kyuubi site and the Uchiha district. There were some at the forest of doom, but they've moved on."
Both men knew who they were. The unknown ninjas who'd infiltrated the village in the confusion following the explosions, and who had flooded it with red mist. They knew without the slightest doubt, although neither had been there to see.
"Orders?"
"Suppose so. But I'm damned if I know who'd be giving them, there's no one out there with any real power, unless they're masked better than anyone I've ever seen."
Kakashi remembered how the Blood Wolf Warrior had approached him on Wolf Island, with his chakra so tightly concealed that he had no more presence than a ghost. But he'd have to be way beyond damn good to be invisible to Jiraiya.
"He might be out there, or he might not. Ketsuekimusha, the Mist sennin I told you about, he can control the people he's turned into drones from a distance."
"You're sure about that?"
"Positive. Although maybe not this many at once. I was fighting two of them the first time I saw this mist, and he seemed to be switching from one to the other. It was spooky having two people fight as if they were one, but I understand it now. Looking back, if they'd both come at me at once I'd have had a much tougher time of it."
Kakashi turned around to face the village and sat down again. In truth Ketsuekimusha wasn't his biggest concern. This was what he'd come to say.
"Itachi's involved. He made me an offer, after a fashion."
Jiraiya's eyes opened wide in surprise. Well that was an interesting twist. But in character. The Akatzuki had taken advantage of Orochimaru's attack to try to grab Naruto before. And it had almost worked. Perhaps they'd decided to engineer their own emergency this time.
He bared his teeth in a ferocious grin. "What did he offer?"
But Kakashi wasn't there to answer. He was on the ground, a dozen yards from a cloud of red that was congealing at its centre to reveal a human outline.
A white haired man stepped out of it.
Jiraira started to mold chakra as the men on the ground regarded each other with mutual recognition and mutual loathing.
"You again, damned ninja vermin. Are you following me? What the hell are you doing here?
"All the way to hell. Pirate. Vermin." Kakashi traced a finger around the swirl of the leaf on his headband. "And I live here."
'Ha, that so? Now I'm glad I didn't kill you when Ketsuekimusha-sama told me to. I'll enjoy having you… as my faithful servant."
Well that answered one of his most pressing questions.
"So the old man's still alive? Pulling your strings while you dance around doing all his shitty dirty work for him." Kakashi started to form a seal.
"I don't think you want to do that. All it takes is a thought and I can make anyone in that mist do anything I want. I can make them slit each other's throats, or their own."
It was risk he couldn't take, and they both knew it. Kakashi stopped abruptly, and gave him a look of pure venom.
The pirate stamped his foot and laughed. "Ha, I'll dance to his tune happily enough, as long as it takes me where I want to go. I'm going to be your Hokage Kakashi-kun. This whole village will be mine. Imagine, thousands of people, a whole freaking ninja army. Finally I'll have real wealth, real power."
Kakashi flashed a mental image of Tsunade, with her never finished paperwork and her bottle of sake tucked under her desk. If these would be megalomaniacs had the faintest idea of what it took to rule a hidden village, much less the world, they'd run screaming for the nearest unoccupied hovel.
"Why this village? Why not Mist? Isn't that the one Ketsuekimusha really wants."
"Done your homework haven't you? He'll take back Mist soon enough. Or rather you will take it back for him, you and all the other freaks in this town. Then he'll be gone. And me? I'll still be here, with all the power of the wolf's blood and the blood mist. Not a bad bargain eh?"
So that was the plan, but it didn't explain where the Akatzuki fitted in? Or was the old sennin using his new apprentice to squeeze them out? He didn't know much about the others, but Itachi wouldn't take kindly to that. No one resented betrayal quite as much as a traitor.
A sparkle of chakra caught his attention.
Without the slightest hint of change in his body language or expression, he tracked the plume of energy back to the tower. So Jiraiya had finished building his attack and was waiting… for a signal from him?
He raised one hand, open, fingers spread, ready to cast a barrier between them. To stop the man who was the closest thing he still had to a father figure from killing his own son. But his brain raced fleetingly ahead of his movements, and he held back. Watching in cold detached horror as he let two fingers form a lazy circle. His hand fell to its place by his side and he shoved it into his pocket.
"Yo. Not bad at all."
It was better this way. An accidental end to an accidental life that had been filled with nothing more than cruel brutality. Neither man knew who the other was, neither even knew that the other existed. All the guilt would be his, just a little more to shove down into that damned abyss.
His only real regret was that things could, and should, have been so different. If only the boss of The Mermaid had been raised by his mother and her gentle partner. With his natural strength and force of personality he could have been the best and most powerful leader that the clan of the desert snakes had ever known. Maybe, with his help, they could even have freed the city within the city of Port Kozuimo from the tyranny of the human predators surrounding it.
The rasengen hit, square on the chest, and the pirate exploded into a ball of flames. His final shout was more a yell of surprise than a scream of pain. And then he was gone. A human life reduced in an instant to a puff of smoke and a handful of ash. Kakashi turned away, he'd never even asked his name.
Wherever Little Gep was he hoped that he was happy. He hoped that one day he'd find a truer, worthier love.
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Iruka was bandaging his third kunai wound that morning, and they'd only been sparring for an hour. At this rate his 'soldiers' will have decimated each other before they even come within sight of the enemy. He wrapped the gauze snugly, using his nimble experienced fingers to maintain just the right tension to staunch the blood without restricting movement. And he did it in calm professional silence.
He was a commander here, not a teacher. This wasn't the time for soothing words or gentle endearments.
"Now go back. And dodge faster next time."
The girl, she couldn't be older than seven, hardened her eyes, blinking back the tears she hadn't allowed herself to shed. Her shinobi spirit staring out at him from within the black orbs. Then she bared her teeth, they seemed to big for her mouth as if they'd only recently replaced her tiny milk teeth, in a half-snarl half-grin and ran to rejoin her assigned group.
"Idiot. The first one of them I nail I'm gonna write your name on."
Iruka allowed himself a smile. The kids were good, they had power, but they just didn't have the kind of control they'd need against a more experienced enemy. Precision took time. Time to train the mind, muscles and chakra to work together as a single force. And time was the very thing he didn't have. There had to be something he'd overlooked, something that would give them an edge.
"Ok, weapons away. We'll do taijutsu for an hour then take a short break. Now hop to it and find a partner, someone you've never sparred with before, let's get those muscles stretched and in tune. Inuzuka why are you just standing there?"
Dark eyes flashed towards him from under a shaggy rug of auburn hair. "It's Okonomiyaki Sensei he says he smells something funny. Something that smells like priests."
"Then tighten his mask. I told you, we can't predict how this mist will effect dogs."
Iruka felt his stomach tighten. He knew how it had effected Pakkun, but with any luck nin dogs were the exception. He certainly hoped they wouldn't find themselves fighting off all the animals in the village, wild and domestic, as well as the humans.
Suddenly he looked up in alarm, sensing the movement of someone running towards him, fast. The children were spread out so that he could see all their moves at a glance, leaving them completely exposed, there was no way he could protect them all. Hadn't Kakashi promised him a day to prepare? He gathered chakra ready for his first seal. The figure was close enough to see its open loping gait, its flapping robe and… its…bald… head.
"Sampo-san?"
This close even he could smell the incense.
"Umino-san, I'm so glad to see you. So this weird mist has found its way to Konoha now, place is a mess isn't it?"
He adjusted the cloth he'd tied around his face. "I don't know how Kakashi wears one of these all the time, I'm all sweaty underneath. He is ok isn't he? Kakashi? Is he around here too?"
"Er, no. Yes. That is he's in the village somewhere."
The monk's body relaxed as he shed his burden of worry. "Thank goodness. I met up with some people I know out on the road who said some kids had been asking about you. You and Kaka-kun. They said you'd never come home."
"We got back yesterday."
"I see. Er, need some help?"
When Iruka didn't answer the monk moved close so that he could see the hard spokes of black stubble poking through his scalp and the beads of sweat gathered at his temples.
"Umino-san. I have no idea what your mission was with Kakashi, and I'm well aware that it's not my business to know. But it's pretty clear that you're under attack, and if you're training kids this young for battle it's also pretty obvious that you can use all the help you can get. Konoha is still my home too you know."
Iruka frowned, then smiled. Well he was a martial monk. "I suppose, if you could spar with some of them…"
Sampo's eyes crinkled and Iruka felt his cheeks heat as he remembered his high voltage smile, now hidden by the dark mask.
"I can do at least that. You train kids to use spirit energy to fight. My novices fight in order to train their spirit. It's not so different."
An hour later they were all seated on the grass, sweating and stripped to their shirts despite the chill in the air. And Konohamaru, in particular, had developed a profound new respect for men of the cloth.
Iruka and Sampo sat apart from the others as they chewed ration bars and drank refilled bottles water. For some reason Iruka found the situation discomforting, as if he felt he was being drawn into a friendship he didn't really want.
Apparently Sampo had no such reservations. He slapped his hand onto Iruka's thigh.
"You're good for Kakashi-kun, I'm glad he has you."
Iruka froze. Whether it had been intended to or not, it reminded him vividly of his first, disastrous, encounter with the monk. He put his hand on top. Partly to show a measure of acceptance, but mostly to stop it from moving to somewhere it shouldn't. This man was Kakashi's oldest friend, and that carried all kinds of implications.
"You've been in love with Kakashi for a long time, haven't you Kanchou-sama?"
He rolled his hand over and grasped Iruka's, squeezing it gently.
"Please, call me Sampo. And yes, since I was five or six. I expect you find that hard to believe, that a child so young can have such strong feelings."
"Not necessarily. How did you know him?"
"He came to our estate quite often, with his father. I would know we were expecting visitors from the way all the servants were scurrying around, so I'd strain my eyes to see if it was a tall man at the gate, with silver hair. If it was, my heart would start beating like mad, even before I could tell if Kakashi was with him. But he almost always was."
So Sampo was from a wealthy, maybe even noble, family.
"You knew White Fang too, what was he like?"
"Great, just great. The most wonderful man, part favourite uncle and part magician. He knew everyone's names, the servants and their children and grandchildren. Even our pets. And he always took time to play with us, showing us tricks and making us laugh, when he must have had so many more important things on his mind. I don't think he had very many friends, but to those he had he was the truest friend imaginable. How many civilian friends do you have Shinobi-san?"
None. It was rare for ninjas to bother extending themselves beyond the shinobi world, and the risks involved weren't worth the trouble to most.
"I see what you mean. So what happened when…"
Sampo shook his head.
"We weren't in Konoha. My father had to live in another part of the continent for several years, so we moved away. I've often wondered if things might have turned out differently if Hatake-sama had had just one good friend to rely on, when everyone else turned against him. Someone with a different perspective. Someone who didn't look at the world in quite the same way as a Konoha shinobi."
He smiled sadly. "Of course I didn't find out about his suicide until years later, after I'd started my training. But it explained why Kakashi had stopped answering my letters."
Iruka looked at his downcast eyes. Despite the time they'd spent together, on the sea and on the road, he felt as if he was truly seeing him for the first time.
"But I bet you never stopped sending them."
"No. I never have. Although it's been a long time since I had anything particularly interesting to tell him."
Iruka frowned and clawed his fingers into the cold earth of the training field. "He should have chosen you, not me. You'd be better for him. I'm too emotional, I lose my temper and get upset."
Sampo put his other hand on Iruka's, so that it was between both of his. His lack of inhibition and regard for personal space was starting to feel normal. More friendly than uncomfortable, the way it did with Kakashi.
"Sensei-san, where love's concerned choice doesn't have much to do with it. But I'm glad he found you, he's obviously happy."
When Iruka looked up he was smiling. "So do we have your blessing? As a holy man?"
"Of course, but you don't need it, you're already blessed. You shouldn't worry so much about your weaknesses, give a little more thought to your strengths."
That was it! Not weaknesses but strengths. The simple blindingly obvious truth crashed over him like a wall of water, washing away his doubts and hesitations. And it was something he'd known all along. He took Sampo's handsome face in his hands and gave him a cloth-covered kiss in the centre of his forehead.
The reason a gennin could sometimes defeat a jounin, when a chuunin almost never could, was because they were less trained and less predictable. They made wild moves, out of the blue moves. Hadn't Naruto beaten back the infamous 'Devil of the Hidden Mist' Zabuza, on his very first serious mission, by doing something so bizarre and unpredictable that even Kakashi would never have thought of it?
He needed to ignore the kid's weaknesses and concentrate on their strengths. They may lack precision, but boy could they ever surprise.
Grabbing Sampo's hand, he pulled him to his feet. "Come on I'm going about this all wrong. I don't need an army of inferior adults, what I need is super-kids. And we have less than a day to untrain them."
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Cloaked by stealth, Kakashi spent much of the day scouting the village. To an outsider, apart from the fact that the Hokage tower and the academy had apparently been destroyed and abandoned, it would seem to be more or less normal. True the misty air was tinted decidedly pink, but stores opened and bustled with customers, the sweet and enticing smells of bakeries and eateries mingled with the reek of blood that still hung in the air. Friends hailed each other as they met in the street, gissips gossiped and tradesmen traded. The only things missing were its children and its shinobi population.
The academy kids were with Iruka of course. He could only assume that the other children, the ones he'd seen running and playing in the village streets, were at home. Although he hadn't detected any obvious change in their parent's behaviour, other than the fact that they had attacked and tried to kill him of course. No doubt their own kids were sensitive to more subtle changes, and more fearful. It was just as well. Huddled in their beds or hidden in their hideouts was the best place for them.
As for the absent Leaf shinobi, about half were in the hospital, including most of the jounins. The rest… he had no idea. They must be somewhere, lost in the mist's illusions. A reserve to be activated, literally, when the time came. And come it would, the next day or the day after. If Jiraiya was right, and the people caught in blood jutsu hadn't eaten or slept since they'd arrived, Ketsuekimusha must plan to act soon. Even human puppets were still human, and needed nourishment and rest.
He gripped the ridge of a roof by the projecting edge of a tile, and flipped himself over it, a little of the baked clay crumbling in his fingers at the impact. He brushed the gritty stuff away, before landing silently on the roof at the far side of the abandoned courtyard. It wasn't often that he got the chance to check out every inch of a battleground before the fact, he might as well make the most of it.
Pakkuns's haughty appearance soon after midday, announced the immenent arrival of team Asuma. He knew they could move fast with the right motivation. Sensibly he let Jiraiya meet them and send Ino and Chouji to help Iruka, before giving Shikamaru instructions and leaving him in control of the gate.
Kakashi lingered nearby. He was relieved to see that the villagers paid no attention to the young ninjas. It was what he had expected, but welcome none the less. It seemed that the mist had primed those whose minds it had altered to pick out him and Iruka as enemies, but not the others. But then they were the only ones the sennin had seen face to face. And if he was confident enough to expect the whole village population to be dead or under his control, it made sense. Kakshi filed the thought away. Maybe this was something he could use to his advantage.
Team Kurenei arrived a few hours later, confused, frightened and ready to rip off the heads, freeze the internal organs, and send their killer bugs to devour, anyone who'd hurt their families and their sensei. Iruka got them too.
Team Gai were the last to arrive, accompanied by the big lurcher Jipushi, who looked rakishly ridiculous wearing a polka dot red and white silk scarf around his muzzle. But because they were the oldest, Kakashi knew that this threesome was also at the greatest risk. In fact it was very hard to imagine that Hyuuga Neiji in particular, had ever been a child. And the condition of their sensei would be… problematic, especially for Lee. Kakashi hurriedly masked them, described how the blood mist operated (to knowing looks and nods from Neiji) then sent them over to the hospital.
The copy nin nodded sagely and pursed his lips. Shizune was the best choice to explain the details. It was clear to anyone that a situation like this most definitely required a woman's touch and understanding. Besides, he had precious little time, and a lot that he still wanted to do. He watched the red of the setting sun illuminate and intensify the red mist poisoning his people and his home. He looked as it lit up the backs of the three young shinobi racing over the rooftops towards the hospital. Making them look touched with fire.
If anyone was going to hug him tight and weep on his shoulder tonight, he wanted it to be Iruka, not Lee.