A/N: Thank you very, very, very much for your comments. They are so encouraging, and I appreciate them so much. Here, at last, is the penultimate chapter. I hope you enjoy!
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He moved like a snake in the grass, shifting and low to the ground. The night concealed him completely, and the rain quickly covered his trail. Above, the sky was furious and black. At the horizon, lightning rolled among imposing cumulonimbus; thunder grumbled restlessly. The heart of the storm followed close at his heels.
His comrades were dead; their mission was ruined.
They would pay for the loss.
There was a magnificent crash of thunder.
At first, Kakashi was angry. Immensely so. The emotion of it emanated from his body, to such an extent that Iruka felt it a tangible force, brimming and unfettered at his fingertips. The beat of his own heart quickened in his chest. He refused to withdraw his hands. The pounding of the rain thrummed in his ears. He would not lie: at that moment, he was fearful of the man before him.
"Kakashi-san. . ." he said delicately. Iruka swallowed and brought his hands to rest on the Jounin's shoulders. They did not speak. They did not move. The minutes slowed, and Iruka was pointedly aware of the crawl of each second. Then, at last, the shoulders slumped.
"You're awfully tenacious, do you know that?"
Iruka blinked. There was another pause.
The confession passed between the patter of the rain.
"Will you. . . keep doing that?"
For a moment, Iruka did not understand. Then, he understood perfectly. With an accepting smile, he smoothed his palms across the curved plane of Kakashi's back and began again to knead.
It did not take long for Iruka to realize that Kakashi had slipped into sleep.
He was slouched forward, deceptively casual. His silver eyebrows remained furrowed, but in some hidden way, he had calmed. Iruka sighed in immeasurable relief, feeling as one who meets a wild creature, to emerge unscathed and awestruck - and to find that, underneath it all, the creature they feared was gentle and kind. And perhaps frightened themselves.
Iruka leaned the dozing man against the wall of the overhang. As always, his breathing was shallow and imperceptible. Then, he leaned back himself. His clothes were damp, but gradually drying. He wondered how long the storm would last. Lightning flickered sporadically in the ink that enclosed their shelter. He could hear the shiver of leaves.
They had not lit a fire; it would be too conspicuous. Iruka rustled a hand through his hair. As he did so, a peculiar luminosity glimmered at the corner of his vision. Initially, he attributed it to a trick of the eyes, or to the rage of the storm. But in the breath between the lightning and its roar, when all was black, he saw it.
It was so incredibly faint, to the point of transparency, that he was forced to squint even to distinguish it. Like a timid glitter or the flecks of a restive iris. In the reposed, upturned palms of Kakashi's hands, infinitesimal points of blue-white leaped, vanished, and effervesced.
It was as fascinating as it was alarming.
Then it was gone.
Kakashi woke shortly. It seemed to Iruka that hardly half an hour had passed, but he could not be sure. He turned to the man, whose only sign of waking was the gleam of a gray eye.
"Kakashi-san, are you aware that you were glowing?" Kakashi cocked an eyebrow, but was not as impressed, or surprised, by the news as Iruka might have expected.
"That's highly unlikely, in the first place." He looked down, scratching his nose. Then he sat up with a curt shiver. The air had grown cold, and he reached for his shirt. He thought for a time, a hand absently ghosting his bare back. "Although. . ."
"Although?"
Kakashi shook out his shirt with a shrug.
"The man that attacked me. He was a lightning user."
Iruka raised his eyebrows expectantly. That did not provide an adequate explanation, he felt.
"He landed a hit."
"And?"
Kakashi gave him a look as though it were apparent. Slowly, he realized it was not.
"His attack was lightning based," he explained patiently. "Probably, what you saw was his energy exiting my body."
Iruka watched him.
"Not your own?"
"Not my own," he said softly, and Iruka could have sworn that he was embarrassed.
"You know, you don't have anything to be ashamed of."
Kakashi pulled on his shirt and zipped his vest. Then he froze.
There remained a few hours before sunrise. Tsunade sat with her back to her desk, and eyes to the wide panel of window. At the corner of the cluttered desktop perched a small tear-shaped instrument, with a flat bottom, and no bigger than her thumb. It glowed mutedly. She tried to ignore it.
In a hidden village, the position of kage, expectably, brought with it an endless list of responsibilities. Yet the responsibilities which plagued her above all others were self-imposed. The reality of the shinobi was such that, in every way, lives could be quantified in terms of very real value.
At the moment, there were fifty-two shinobi on missions, from D-rank up to S; there were fifty-two reasons for her to worry; fifty-two empty beds; fifty-two lives she wished desperately to make it home; and there were infinite unknowns. So who could say her position had nothing to do with math? She knew how to turn a number, but no matter how neatly they added up, the sum was always less. Because humans were not numbers.
A penchant for drinking, gambling, and evasion of work might have disguised the fact; her shinobi were her world. And they kept her up, late into the night, pretending to be indifferent.
When Kakashi returned, she would have no qualms about informing him how vastly she disliked to worry for him.
The godaime hokage rested her head in one palm, elbow propped against the arm of her chair. Outside, she watched the street lamps. A storm was rumbling to the north. One of the lamps was dimmer than the rest. She observed as, gradually, it flittered out. The bulb had died. It would need to be changed. If only, she thought briefly, shinobi were more like lamps.
There was a flash of lightning which lit up the horizon. Abruptly, the small glowing instrument on her desk fluoresced intensely. Then it shattered. She swore.
In the darkness, there was a sound above the rain that was neither the shudder of trees, nor the rush of the wind. It was almost like the sound of laughter.
"It's good to know that you won't prove much of a fight!" shouted the fourth of the Dokujya members above the downpour. Before Iruka could react, the enemy came at him; the sharp leer of a blade arced above his head. He braced himself for the strike, guarding his vital points as hastily as he could. It never hit. Iruka heard a grunt of discomfort.
Quick as a flash, Kakashi was standing over him. The edge of the blade embedded itself in his forearm. Kakashi tugged his arm towards himself, yanking the handle from the enemy's grip. Without hesitation, he pulled out the weapon and tossed it to the ground. The enemy clucked his tongue.
"You've got quite the glare. My boss would appreciate your. . . spunk. I've got half a mind to break you for him." Kakashi's fists clenched. "But considering the trouble you've caused, you'd better hope that I wind up killing you."
Kakashi did not spare time for rejoinders. He swiped a powerful kick across the enemy's chest. His hands flew through the seals; the flame of a katon consumed the overhang. Red-orange light flickered across the contours of his face, through the mask. It was an expression of concentrated steel.
Even as Kakashi's form shielded Iruka from the intensity, he could feel the heat of it skim against stone, and char whatever organic material that clung to it. The enemy leaped backwards into the night. Kakashi nodded to Iruka. They followed after.
Only the brief flashes of lightning gave any hint to their surroundings. The enemy had blended seamlessly into the rain. But he was not gone.
Iruka wondered why Kakashi did not reveal the Sharingan. Then he realized that Kakashi did not want to raise his intrinsic value. They did not know what sorts of tricks this group would use to capture their targets; their enemy would be easiest to eliminate if he were pushed to kill, not if he acted to trick and ensnare. So far, their enemy did not appear to recognize him for who he was.
The two Leaf shinobi stood back to back, scanning. Kakashi sniffed suddenly, and his body tensed. He had found him. The scent was diluted, but it was there all the same: burnt flesh. And something else.
"Left," Kakashi murmured.
The voice changed positions unpredictably. But it was coming closer.
"At this point, it doesn't matter what price I could get for you. I'm going to kill you."
Just out of reach, their attacker came into view. His face was burned. His eyes were severe. Angry black and red skin wrapped up his neck and across one side of his cheek.
Suddenly, and seemingly without reason, Kakashi fell. There was a muffled thud as his knees struck the ground. He was clutching his arm.
"Kakashi-san?"
Iruka could not wait for a response. The enemy came at him. He tore a kunai from its holster and caught the blade across it. Whatever he did, he could not let those blades touch him. It had done something to Kakashi. He was certain that it must have been poisoned.
Kakashi heard the clink of metal against metal. His head was spinning, and a searing pain pulsed from his forearm to his chest. He was furious at his carelessness. Iruka was still at his back. Kakashi dug his fingers into the mud and the ground seemed every second to inch closer. The poison was unrelenting. Tsunade's words of warning flitted through his head; don't over do it. This is nothing you can't handle. And he had been stubborn enough to try to convince her it was so. He scoffed. It seemed as though he couldn't handle anything. This mission had fallen completely and unnecessarily out of control. The rain pelted them incessantly; it ran down his face and dripped from his forehead. Kakashi was a man who prided himself in his versatility. But this struck too deep. Who, indeed, was he kidding?
Then he felt it. It was a sensation so familiar, but entirely foreign. The air was thick with it. He could feel it jumping through his clothing. The fine hairs on his arms, ever so subtly, began to stand on end. His heart raced. Electricity. He knew this feeling; he had to react. He had to get Iruka out. His vision was spotty. Without a second thought, he slammed his arm against the ground. The pain exploded up his limb. For that brief instant, it overpowered the haze of poison. He did not hesitate.
There was almost no time. It all happened in less than a fraction of a second. There was nothing else to do; he shoved Iruka. The Chuunin yelled in shock and frustration as he stumbled back.
"Kakashi-san, let me help!" he shouted angrily.
Iruka moved forward, and Kakashi challenged him. "Get back."
There was no opportunity to explain. With all of his force, he shoved the Chuunin again. He regretted to hear him gasp at the blow, but he fell back.
The enemy was screaming in laughter. In the blink of an eye, Kakashi had seized him, standing at his back and closing his arms around him. The enemy laughed deeper. Surely these Leaf shinobi had lost their mind.
"You're going to die now," said the man, preparing the seals. Kakashi looked to the sky. The enemy's singed hairs began to stand on end. Infinite pinpricks of energy spread through his skin.
He tore off his forehead protector, and thrust it into the air.
Gai was watching the storm with interest. The air was peculiar, and filled with tension. Somewhere to the north lie the worst of the storm. There was a gray covering of cloud in Konoha, which appeared to him like a sheet of crawling black in the night.
"You two probably want to make your way home," he said to Naruto and Sakura with a gleaming thumbs up. "There's rain on the way."
Naruto glanced over his shoulder.
"Yeah," the boy agreed. It was already starting tentatively to sprinkle. "Sakura-chan, you can borrow my jacket!"
"A true Gentleman!" concurred Gai. Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Thanks, Naruto," she snorted. Naruto threw a few bills onto the counter and rubbed his stomach.
"Thanks for the meal, old man!"
"Truly!" Gai chimed in as he ushered out the young Genin. "Your skillful Culinary Art has nourished the Flowering Youth of Konoha."
Just as they ducked beneath the flapping curtains of Ichiraku, all three watched as, far in the distance, a jagged bolt of lightning scrawled across the firmament. They jumped at the furious boom of thunder that followed it. Naruto shivered.
"That was a big one," he whistled.
"Yes," said Gai, more softly than Sakura thought him capable. He regarded the sky carefully. A very distinct image had returned to him, and he was not at all comforted by it. "It was."
Iruka furiously wiped mud and rain from his eyes. How could one man be so mulish! he thought in fury.
At precisely that moment, he looked up, and understood in horror exactly what Kakashi had done. There was utter quiet, and then an unfathomable swell of power. It happened in the blink of an eye.
Lightning split the sky. The bolt exploded through the metal of his forehead protector, and through their bodies. The light of it was blinding, and illuminated the forest as if it were day. There was a deafening boom. Everything flickered in violent shapes of black and spectacular white.
"My god," whispered Iruka.
The energy surged through him, and it surged through the other man. It felt as terrible as a thousand knives. And infinitely more exquisite. He could scarcely see, and he could not hear for the magnitude of it, but he could feel it - crackling and searing through every millimeter of his body, from the clench of his teeth to the soles of his feet. His bones groaned. It was terrifying. He refused to relinquish his hold.
The man at his front shuddered. His clothing was fried. His eyes were wide.
"Hatake Kakashi," he growled. But that was all the more he said.
...