The eccentric mix of peaked roofs, tiled ridges, and naked trees that made up the Konoha skyline, stood stark against the first rays of daylight that were just streaking the heavens with pink. And although it was a softer, less sinister shade, than the red staining the air in the streets below, the dawn of the new day seemed to promise nothing good.
Most of Konoha was still sleeping. It's ninja population, who would normally be out training before the day's missions, returning from night training, or regretfully slinking back to the cold comfort of their own cold beds, was nowhere to be seen.
Except Jaraiya.
He watched three crows rise from a utility pole. Black shapes, with broad rag-edged wings, rising as one then taking off to their separate destinations. Only three, it could be worse. He bounded up the steps to Iruka's apartment, four at a time, and rapped on the door with his knuckles.
A voice came from within. "It's open."
The door yielded at his touch to reveal Iruka sharpening a few final weapons and Sampo engulfed in a cloud of incense smoke.
"Good morning Sou-sama, Iruka-sensei. So how does it feel to be an honest man at last?"
Iruka didn't look up from his stone. He stared at his broken and bitten fingernails as he ground the edge of his blade against it in small circular movements.
"Jiraiya-sama, Sampo-san used his power as a holy man to sanctify our union. But neither Kakashi nor I said anything that we hadn't already promised to each other, and that we didn't already know in our hearts. Nothing's changed."
Jiraiya leaned against the wall inside the door watching him closely. His eyebrows twitched. "You mean last night there wasn't some extra fire between you? A new level of passion unleashed by your public declaration to worship each other body and soul?"
Iruka felt heat prickling his cheeks. Maybe just a little, but it wasn't up for discussion. "There were the four of us and some nin dogs. I'd hardly call it public. And Kakashi's in the shower, so if you don't mind waiting…"
"Really? He's already awake? Iruka-sensei, I'm impressed, you've made a new man of him already."
Jiraiya ignored Iruka's snort and headed towards the bedroom, where the bedding looked satisfyingly stiff and rumpled, and to the bathroom leading from it.
"Don't worry, we're all men here. If he's got anything I've never seen before I'll be sure to put it in my next book."
Steam billowed out to meet him as he pulled open the door, and he took a moment to observe the signs of simple domesticity. Two toothbrushes standing in a single glass, two razors lying side by side. A uniform shirt soaking in a bucket in the corner, ah yes bloodstains could be such a bitch.
He tapped on the glass door of the shower to get Kakashi's attention. Then opened his hand, slowly, deliberately, his thick rough fingers uncurling to reveal the sheaf of papers he'd been clutching as if his life depended on them. It might, all their lives might.
"Here you are kid. I was up half the night finishing them. Gave me writer's cramp."
Kakashi looked at him through the falling water, genuine concern creasing his brow. "Nothing permanent I hope?"
The old pervert set the papers down on the edge of the bathroom sink and sat on the closed toilet lid, wriggling his fingers in a way that was both goofy and mildly obscene
"The right kind of exercise should cure it, gentle squeezing. Something soft and warm… that I can curve my hand around..."
"You're drooling old man."
Jiraiya shot him a sly look. "So are you."
The plinking of water on tiles slowed, then stopped.
Kakashi's pale arm, shining with wetness, groped around for a towel past the glass door, before being followed by the rest of his pale wet body. He blotted his face then wrapped the towel around his hips. Jiraiya eyed him with professional appreciation. If he'd had those kinds of looks when he was younger he wouldn't have had to sneak around outside the women's bathhouse. They'd have invited him right in.
A large hand swatted a much finer one away from the pile of papers. "Hey careful you're still dripping, you'll smudge the sutra, it's only blood."
"Blood! Whose blood?" The idea seemed much more alarming than it would have a few weeks before.
"Mine of course. I incorporated elements from the seal I created to control the kyuubi with the chakra seal you brought back with you. They shouldn't effect anyone who isn't infected with demon, and they'll hold as long as they're in contact with skin. The chakra will still be there but inaccessible, unusable, so the effect will be like total chakra depletion. I believe you have some idea of what that's like."
Indeed he did. Kakashi felt an involuntary shudder travel up his spine.
"Nice work Jijii. Even the youngest kids can use them, without nobbling themselves and each other by mistake. You're a genius."
Jiraiya's broad face beamed. "Takes one to know one kid."
They were interrupted by a tentative knock at the door. "Is everything ok, do you, er, need anything?"
"Better watch out kid, your sensei's getting jealous."
"No, he's just being extra hospitable. Come in Ruka, invite Sampo too, the more the merrier. We'll have a three way, and Jijii can take notes. Although by the time it's published at least two of us will have tits… and be missing a few other important parts to make up for it."
Iruka perfectly understood Kakashi's need to tease right now, however inappropriate and brittle the humour, but it didn't prevent his predictable response.
Loud footsteps stomped away from the door. "You're disgusting, both of you."
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Outside the academy gymnasium they were met by Chouji, looking round and happy.
"Great food Kakshi-sensei, thanks,"
Iruka looked at him with first one eye then the other. Surely he couldn't be joking, Akimichi's never joked about food.
Food, he could smell it, real food. Once they were inside he understood, or rather he didn't. The kids were seated on their mats on the floor, gorging themselves on delicacies of every kind.
He looked at Jiraiya, then at Kakashi, who looked back in a suspiciously guilty way.
"I er, sent one of my dogs here, with a note and some cash, quite a bit of cash. Had the older kids go to the market and buy breakfast."
"You did what? You risked…"
"I needed to test a theory. The villagers went after you and me because Ketsuekimusha knows who we are, he can pick out our chakra. But he doesn't know the others… yet. As long as they stay masked they're invisible to him. The two of us were on Wolf Island for days before he tracked us down, remember? And these kids could use a good feed."
He stooped down to score a couple of bean cakes from the nearest box. "We all could."
Iruka wasn't a genius, but he was sharp enough to have survived this long living with one. He grabbed a few cakes for himself. "So for as long as the kids don't use chakra…"
"Exactly, at least until your cover's blown. With any luck they can get into strike position without the enemy knowing they're there. Then just get these seals on any way they can. A bit like playing tag, but the 'tags' are our life or death weapon."
So this really was going to be the kid's fight, not his. He'd have to stay in the background, leading from a distance. It wasn't going to be easy. He swallowed a cake in two bites.
"How do we know which ones to tag?"
"They have blank headbands. Probably so that you will see whichever mark you expect to see more easily. I'm hoping that the old wolf sennin is using them to create the mist for him. With them out of the picture everyone else should go back to normal."
Kakashi took a cloth bag from an inside pocket and pressed it into Iruka's hand. "Take these too. Soldier pills. But don't give them out until you need to or the kids will be popping them like jellybeans. I know. I used to."
Now that was a confession that couldn't be allowed to pass without comment. Iruka was just about to pry out some details, when Shizune teleported in, with such speed and power, that he was almost knocked flying. She ignored him. All her attention was focussed on the two other men, and her dark eyes were flashing back and forth between them. Iruka felt his heart skip a beat. Anything serious enough to make Shizune-san forget her manners simply didn't bear thinking about.
"Gai's gone, and he took Naruto. The whole back wall of the psychiatric wing is busted out… from the inside."
Instantly Kakashi was pure shinobi, as emotional and as tough as a rock. He turned to Jiraiya. "Get them back, anyway you can, just do whatever you have to."
If Ketsuekimusha could unleash the kyuubi it was all over for Konoha. …Forget Konoha. If he handed Naruto over to the Akatsuki it was a threat to the whole world.
"Iruka, get everyone ready. We strike now, starting with their western enclave. If we can drive them away from the source of the mist they'll be weaker. You take half the kids and attack head on. He'll sense you coming so be careful. Sam, take the rest and come round from the south in a flanking maneuver. That should drive them north, into open country.
He just hoped there'd never been a bloodbath up there that he didn't know of.
The boxes of food lay scattered and abandoned as Iruka called everybody to order. They may be hungry children but they were soldiers of Konoha first.
Iruka darted between the scared but determined children. "Okay, remember your teams from yesterday. Check that you have all your weapons, check that your shoelaces are tied properly, and lets go."
He caught Kakashi's arm as the copy nin prepared to teleport away. "And what will you do?"
Kakashi's expression was unreadable, but it still filled him with dread. "I'm going to check out the Uchiha district. Something tells me that that's where I'll catch the scent of wolf."
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Iruka signaled for his little troop to stop. There was a presence behind him that he recognised, in a very distressing way. At a silent signal the kids scattered, vanishing under eaves, behind walls, and into the slender morning shadows.
Iruka took a defensive stance, a fistful of shuriken at the ready. But she was already face to face with him.
Within seconds she was swarming with midgets. Six mini ninjas jumped her, bound her and presented her to their teacher like a completed homework assignment.
The Sound woman they'd rescued from the pirates? What the hell was she doing here? And why was she wearing a surgical mask? Well, he knew why, but how the hell had she known?
She shrugged off the ropes, peeled the seal from her forehead, and tossed it aside. Undeterred the kids closed in, bristling with weapons. Iruka picked up Jiraiya's seal. So she wasn't blood infected. She was also wearing a headband clearly marked with the emblem of Cloud, which suggested that she'd returned to her deeper loyalty.
"Don't let her touch the dust, if she makes a move kill her."
"Well what do you know? Hatake's little friend, Iruka wasn't it? I suppose you're wondering what I'm doing here. I heard that some kids out on the road had been asking questions, the rumour was that you and your… sweetie had never come home. I thought I'd offer to help look. But obviously they were wrong, although you do seem to have… other problems."
Iruka looked her over nervously, she didn't seem about to attack, and she hadn't been exactly hesitant in the past.
"So… how did you know about the masks?"
"There was a box of them at the gate, which is unguarded by the way. I assumed there must be some kind of poison in the air. Is there?"
"In a way, it's a Mist jutsu, the blood mist. It takes over your brain."
Her hand went to a weapon at her waist, Konohamaru responded by pressing a kunai to her throat, although he had to stretch to reach. The quivering of her tense neck muscles showed that she did not take the threat lightly.
"I have seen this red mist before, when my brother went missing. …Will you let me help you?"
Well that was unexpected.
They were in the very heart of the village, in a fight for Konoha's survival. This woman offering to fight with them was a jounin from Cloud, one of their oldest enemies, who had defected to Sound, their bitterest enemy.
Iruka loosened his grip on his shuriken and signaled for his 'soldiers' to stand down. "Um, okay."
They needed all the help they could get.
She shook out her hair and smoothed her clothes. "By the way, I meet two Sand ninjas at the gate. A blond woman and a man in a weird costume…"
"Don't tell me, they'd heard rumours that Hatake Kakashi was in trouble…"
"Yeah, they were looking for someone called Naruto."
"Did they take masks? Like you did?"
"With all this red in the air anyone would."
Then at least he should be able to count on Temari and Kankuro fighting for the right side… and Kakashi had saved their brother's life.
"Perhaps you could go with the Aburames, your attacks should be… compatible. And we're aiming to immobilise not kill, your brother may well be with the ninjas we have to fight."
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The Uchiha district hadn't been so densely populated in over a decade. Kakashi picked out fifteen people without even trying. All had strong chakra signatures, definitely shinobi, but none stronger than chuunin. Piece of cake.
He uncovered his sharingan, he'd be able to tag them with seals before they knew what hit them.
The closest was standing in a tree, upside down. He slapped a seal on the back of her neck, put an arm around her waist and with a single hop, lay her on the ground. Now that he'd announced his presence he'd have to work fast. Flying from rooftop to treetop, from courtyard to abandoned peace garden, (whoa, he knew that guy, he'd been on a team with him once) he slipped a seal under the clothing of each 'mark', leaving them to lie where they fell. As the last of them crumpled at his feet, he scanned the vicinity from a roof, Obito's roof he realised with a stab of emotion. He'd decide which emotion later.
Handclaps echoed across the empty space, long and slow. Then a voice he had last heard on Ookami Island reached him through the mist.
"Well done Hatake-san, as impressive as ever."
Kakashi leapt to an open plaza. The mist had thickened, blotting out the sun so that the place was sealed in a blood-red twilight. Had the wolf blood eaten the sun for the whole village? The whole world? He saw movement, white within the red and knew that he was surrounded by dozens of wolves. They circled around the open space, claws clicking against the cobbles and their bloody slather adding to the mist. Drawing ever closer until he could smell their foetid breath past the constant reek of blood.
He stiffened into a fighting stance with his hand poised to unsheath his sword, as he tracked the movement of the apparitions and calculated the moves needed to take out the first six.
Hadn't they had this fight before?
He spoke into the mist. "But you already know that you can't defeat me. You're too old remember."
"On the contrary, I've defeated you already."
Ketsuekimushi stepped out of the mist, biting a dumpling from a wooden stick. "Good food in this place by the way. I'll have to remember the name of that stall. Bit of a dive, but the best ones often are."
Kakashi bypassed his sword and reached for a seal, snatching it up and a grabbing a kunai between each of the fingers of his other hand.
The wolf sennin pulled out an identical seal. He sniffed it and licked at the jutsu inscribed in dark red letters.
"These were a brilliant idea by the way, but it was a big mistake to use Shiroi Hekireki's blood. Is that why you killed him? So that you could use his blood for these seals? But surely you knew that his blood is already mine."
The old man smirked, holding the paper lightly between the finger and thumb of one hand, while he bit another dumpling from the skewer in the other. The paper disintegrated into a sprinkle of white dust and a puff of red vapour.
Kakashi watched in silent shock. But hadn't Jiraiya said he'd used his own blood? So who was Shiro Hekireki ?
The name fitted just one person, perfectly. The pirate boss, and he was Jiraira's son, they shared the same blood. Or close enough for the Wolf sennin to channel his jutsu to it.
Shit.
Even dead the damn pirate was still plaguing him. So that was his name, Shiroi Hekireki, White Thunder, the brute had always made him think of a horse. Maybe in a former life he'd been a white stallion. Or then again maybe not a stallion. If he'd been a gelding it might better explain his behaviour in this life.
Kakashi scanned the mist and its impatient wolves with his sharingan, molding chakra between his palms. His options were getting rapidly worse, but keeping Naruto out of the hands of the Akatsuki had to be his first priority. He had to buy Jiraiya some more time.
A tangled knot of lightening left his hands, making the air prickle with ozone. It struck over the heads of the wolves, he'd already learned that lesson, and into the surrounding buildings. They cracked, and shattered, sending cascades of stone and brick crashing onto the ghastly animals.
His hand went back to his sword, ready to finish the rest.
The sennin laughed. "Maybe you can defeat me in a fair fight, but I have no intention of making this fair."
The remaining wolves raised their muzzles to the sky and howled. As the sound waves met, melded, and reinforced each other, Kakshi felt the ground vibrating and crumbling beneath him. Ketsuekimusha hadn't had this kind of power before.
He pressed his hands to his ears to try to deaden the echoing shrieks that seemed to be shaking his brain to mush. Almost as if in confirmation, his palms detected sticky trickles of blood. The red smears smudging his vision told him that his eyes were bleeding too.
But the sharingan wasn't obscured so easily.
He knelt low in the hollow being carved by the sound as he charged his blade with chakra. Through the sharingan he could see the waves, ever expanding circles, like ripples on a pond. And he could see the exact place where they met at their vortex.
With a great leap high into the air, he slashed through it and watched the circles of standing waves accumulate around his sword like hoops at a ring toss, until it was thrumming so hard that he could barely hold it still with both hands. Then with one great effort, he redirected the energy down the length of his blade, to strike his enemy, full force, point blank.
The sennin flew backwards in a blast of white power. Through the whitewashed wall of an empty mansion, through each of the interior walls, to land under a heap of rubble on the far side.
The grand old house collapsed, spewing a fountain of grey into the air.
As Kakashi rubbed at the powdered masonry adding to the blood sweat and grime already clinging to his forehead, he saw the old man. He was walking towards him, over the still-settling pile.
Kakshi ground his teeth together. That redirected attack should have flattened him along with the house. This was bad.
As the white figure emerged from the dust he heard him chuckle. "You really are wasting your time, and your energy. As I said, I've already defeated you."
Kakashi blinked the blood out of his eyes. "Maybe I've decided that you shan't win so easily?"
"I can't make the choice for you Hatake, but if you fight me here I'll unleash all my warriors, your warriors, against their own people. All of them, and my wolves. Do you really want Iruka-sensei to see what they can do to children?"
His chakra was still good, but he couldn't afford to waste it, he had to stall. "So that's one choice. What are the others?"
"There is only one other choice. Take the power of the blood mist yourself. Make all these good shinobi your servants, and servants of Konoha. Make my wolves your wolves. Declare yourself Hokage. That's the only way that everyone lives."
"You offer piss poor choices old man."
Kakashi stretched out his hand, pulling back a sleeve to bare the white flesh beyond his glove. He clenched his eyes shut, as if it was too painful to watch.
"Ok, do it."
The old man used the tip of the kunai to drag a red line along the palm of his own hand, then scraped the redness onto the blade. He held it in front of him at arm's length, like a religious offering.
Kakashi reached for the knife. Once it was firmly in his grip his eye curved into a smile.
"So when did you kill the old sennin Itachi? Or maybe not kill completely, just how much of him is still left in there?"
The sennin straightened to haughty tallness, white hair became a cascade of black, his simple garment became rich, dark, and pattered with red clouds.
So he was willing to show his true colours at last.
"Clever! I should have learned not to underestimate you by now Hatake. But I didn't kill him. Ketsuekimusha has been more or less dead for fifty years. It's the blood within him that's still alive."
"So you're using goukakyuu to control his body."
"Be grateful. The old man is much messier than I am. He enjoys seeing people bleed."
"But you, of course, are honest, merciful and wise."
Itachi's expression didn't change, but his voice took on a more threatening tone. "I didn't lie to you Hatake-san. If you all fight until you drop, Orochimaru will be here within a day. Of course as soon as I withdraw the mist he'll have a very rebellious village on his hands. And that should keep him out of our way for a very long time. If you eventually destroy him, well then that's good too."
He licked at the crimson still oozing from his palm, lapping at it with broad strokes of his tongue, and smacking his lips in appreciation, as if it tasted like honey.
"Blood Hatake. The blood of the wolf. Accept it and be Ketsuekimusha's true heir, use it to control the mist, it's the only way to protect this miserable village you value so much. And the only way to save your precious sensei and the children he's about to die with.
Kakashi held the kunai between his finger and thumb, still dripping with the sennin's blood… and dropped it… point down.
Immediately red bubbled up around the edges of the blade. The release as the mist streamed from the ground knocked him back like a shock wave. A tsunami of hate and malice.
Itachi's handsome face remained calm. "Kakashi-kun, I don't see how you think releasing more hostile spirits can help you. Unless you accept the blood jutsu yourself, you won't be able to control them."
"And you think you can Itachi? Didn't you recognise the part of the village we're standing in?"
The mist was swirling, roaring, like the thrumming of a powerful engine, and he had to yell to be heard above it.
"Or did hate and ambition blind even those Uchiha eyes?"
Itachi glanced around at the ruined buildings from within the eye of the red tornado, and saw. The blood that had just been aroused was the blood of his clan, his own victims.
Kakashi caught one last look at his still impassive face before their sharingans locked. And as the mist enclosed them in a suffocating world of red, he was lost within the spinning wheels. Seeing through them, and… through a tiny window at the centre, right into Itachi's soul.
At the same moment Itachi was within his, and he felt a tug at his very essence.
"A blessing! You're protected by a sacred blessing!"
There was a flare of red power that made him feel as if his head was about to explode and Itachi's voice filling the whole universe.
"How did you know?"
The connection broke, and the mist started to dissipate, it's link to the mortal world disrupted. Itachi was gone but the revelation that brief moment of contact had exposed made Kakashi shiver. As much with hope, as much as with the cold sweat covering his body. He'd expected some kind of answer, but the sharingan had revealed a question. Why?
Did Itachi really not understand what he'd done? Did he really feel that the murder of his family and his clan was justified?
Just what had he expected to find through Obito's eye?
Deprived of its intended victim the blood sucked back down into the ground, leaving behind a frail relic of what was once a man. The old sennin now looked more like a crumpled rag than someone who had armies at his control, using nothing more than his blood jutsu and his mind.
Kakashi stood staring at him, he had little choice, he'd used the sharingan too much to risk moving. When Iruka and Sampo found him he knew that he'd been standing there for some time, but he had no idea just how long. He sagged into his partner's support, his body heavy and leaden, well that wasn't exactly a surprise.
"Kakashi, what the hell happened here?
"It was Itachi, he tried to take something from me. Whatever it was he wanted it very badly. It's almost as if he tried to steal my soul. But he couldn't because it's not mine, it's yours Iruka, and it was protected by a greater power. The blessing Sam placed on us, it must have prevented him from tearing us apart."
He let Iruka lower him so that he was seated on the ground. "Is it over, is the jutsu broken?"
"I think so. We were doing really well at first, these kids are incredible, but then suddenly all the seals failed. All of them, everyone we'd already defeated came back at us, stronger than ever. I was planning a retreat into the forest when the mist vanished, just like that. And everyone we were fighting. Well they collapsed, as if they'd all blacked out. We sent everyone back to the school and came to find you."
Kakashi leaned forward so that his head was between his knees. "Let's hope they have. Blacked out that is. This would be an evil thing for them to have to remember."
Sampo knelt by the sennin's body and clapped his hands together, he was a holy man first and a fighter only by necessity. "Is he dead Kaka-kun?"
"Yes… and no. I think he's in a coma, after a fashion."
Kakashi pulled the kunai from the ground beside him, it's blade still glistening red.
"Just think of the things people are willing to do, and willing to give up, for a little more power. Sasuske, Orochimaru, Itachi. But all I have to do is prick my finger with this and I'll be the next Ketsuekimusha, I can take over the world.
Iruka grabbed his wrist, forcing the bloody knife up and away. "But you wouldn't want that would you?"
Kakshi looked at him, the way his brow was furrowed with concern, the endless play of emotions in those bottomless eyes. The sweet love.
"No."
Only things that were given freely were truly worth having. Everything else was so much baggage.
He took the kunai in his other hand and lay it gently on the ground. "I already have everything I want."