Awp, kinda short and slow arriving - it's been a difficult time to get any writing done, but that seems to be improving...many thanks for reading, and gold stars for reviewing!

Chapter 5

Iruka couldn't help but admire this generous young shinobi, but he was probably just being polite, offering to meet him here. He figured that it wouldn't be likely that they would actually hang out together again. Someone like Mizuki certainly would have more important things to do than watch some pathetic academy student fail at his only task.

His mind tripped over that thought. Fail. Somehow he was thinking something like that now?

"No comment?" prompted the white-haired boy, leaning over him. Iruka hadn't noticed him slide closer and sit up, closing the distance between them.

"I'm sorry. Yes, please, I'd like to come back here with you sometime."

"How about tomorrow? I can bring you some food from home. The old lady'll never miss it."

Iruka blinked in surprise. In the muted light Mizuki's features made him look like some recruiting poster, upright and handsome. When the strong hand came back to his shoulder, that polite yet somehow very personal contact reapplied, Iruka melted just a tiny bit. A plan to meet? Something sort of good to look forward to?

"When?" Iruka asked, his voice a touch hopeful.

"Eh, I'm on early guard duty at the east wall damage, I'll probably be stuck there all day. I ought to be out of there by four. If I go by home first, I'd say I'll be here about five or so? If I'm not here yet, wait for me, okay?" Mizuki released the thin shoulder and dared to slip a hand into that intriguing ponytail, just feeling the texture and weight of the hair.

"Yeah." The light touch to his hair gave Iruka a sudden chill down his spine and he shivered, shaking his head away from the ticklish feeling with a half-smile.

"So, great. Go then. See you back here." Mizuki watched, assessing, as Iruka rose unsurely and gave a poorly concealed look of apprehension at the darkening forest. An uncomfortable minute ticked by, then another. The brunette's embarrassment at showing weakness in front of the older boy grew the longer he stood frozen in place, but he was gathering his courage to go as quickly as he could.

Once he was certain Iruka recognized the great difficulty he was having making himself move into the night, Mizuki grinned. "Look, kid, I should go too…let's walk together, eh?" He was rewarded with a couple of things he hoped that small manipulation would produce. One, Iruka looked grateful and this was surely cementing him in the younger boy's mind as a trusted friend, perhaps a protector; and two, Mizuki could find out where Iruka lived without arousing any suspicion as to why he wanted to know. Truth was, he didn't know exactly why he wanted to know. But he did. He wanted to know everything he could about Iruka. Funny, Iruka accepted being called "kid" now, too. Already learning who the alpha dog was.

Mizuki wasn't sure why his hands kept wanting to touch the boy, and his arm was slung across that cute neck as they walked before he had time to analyze the impulse. He was like a magnet, with an invisible field that pulled irresistibly. And why resist it anyway? He was a self-proclaimed throw-away, making him free for the taking. Mizuki was a bit of a loner, but having this particular boy for his protégé might not be a bad idea. He might be useful.

They got to Iruka's home and Mizuki feigned disinterest while carefully taking in the way Iruka released the traps to enter the yard. The house seemed decent enough, the grounds average-sized. Not a huge clan compound, like the Inuzakas or the Aburame's, but adequate for a small family without kennels or apiaries.

From what he knew about Konoha's economic council and civil government, the kid was about to become a resident of an orphanage or homeless anyway. The Umino property was desirable and Iruka would be in no political position to stop them from repossessing it. They would likely take any remaining assets the couple had and seize them as offset for the expense of providing shelter for their son at the orphanage. Never mind that the house alone would probably equal a hundred times more than the cost of Iruka's care. The excuse would be what the excuse always was: the 'excess' money was needed to help with recovery from the most recent disaster, for the greater good.

Things like that did not make Mizuki angry. It did, however, adjust his mindset. One of the basic tenets of shinobi training was that Konoha was inherently good and therefore worthy of defending to the death to perpetuate. He made his own judgment based on observed fact, one he was wise enough to keep to himself. Konoha was a greedy, controlling, bloodthirsty civilization. There was just enough 'good' that the upper echelons, the ANBU, jounin and sannin, had a proper existence. But anyone below that level bore the brunt of the shit with poor compensation. The boring, the tedious, and the filthy duties all fell to the ranks below, and they were at the mercy of the Hokage and his upper-level cronies.

Mizuki knew, therefore, that it didn't pay to be anything less than jounin as a Konoha citizen. Deep inside he had already decided that if he didn't make jounin, he would find another life outside the Leaf village walls. It would help to have someone close to watch his back and assist with training, whichever way his career and citizenship path went. Iruka seemed malleable enough, and had a strange attractiveness that was hard to pinpoint. His parents had been exceptional shinobi, two of the best in the village, so he should be a capable partner. And fate had delivered him in an unnaturally vulnerable state straight into Mizuki's lap.

Who was he to question the forces unseen? In the same way that his assessment of Konoha was permanently fixed in his mind, suddenly Iruka's place in his life clicked in as well. Iruka was his second. It was a done deal and Mizuki went forth on that assumption from that moment on.

"You should pack up the things you want to keep. Things that are important to you. I'll help you stash them away where no one can find them."

The statement seized Iruka's attention. Did Mizuki think he couldn't secure his own house? "In case of a break in?" he asked skeptically.

"No. But the officials will want to inspect the premises, or search for booby traps, or some lame excuse, and they'll take whatever they want that isn't nailed down. If they don't just flat take the whole place first. Look, do you want me to go in with you to make sure its safe?"

Iruka balked. "Not going in. I told you."

"You better. Get in and get your stuff and stash it somewhere safe, don't say I didn't warn you!" Mizuki shrugged and shoved his hand in his pockets, a sullen look crossing his face. "Later."

Iruka sealed the gate behind him, pacing back to the porch, wringing his hands helplessly. No matter how hard he wracked his brain, the answer never came. He was a shinobi on orders, orders that were his parent's dying wishes. How could he fail at it so quickly? He didn't know anything about public domain, or village politics, or property taxes.

Taxes. Money. His family's savings. Of course! As long as he paid for everything, whatever that everything might be, they should leave him alone, right? He knew where they kept the money. Banks were for civilians and other incautious, overly-trusting fools. In the master bedroom the family floor vault held all their monetary valuables and the massive cedar chest held the irreplaceable family heirlooms.

But he'd have to take the risk of going inside to get it. For a second, he had regrets over sending Mizuki away. Setting his young jaw, he moved to undo one portal of his otherwise iron-clad security. He released the tags from the back door, sapping away the chakra charge. His keys fumbled and he almost dropped them, nervously unlocking the bolt and holding his breath as he stepped in.

It was dark but he didn't consider turning on a light. The sad feeling of shattered familiarity hit him like a brick even without most of the visual clues. His feet were ingrained with the layout, and he immediately oriented and moved through the silent space without looking around. The floor vault was set in his parent's closet, under the bamboo planks. Without having to think about it, he defeated the trick trap on the bedroom door, flicked on the lights and made the proper steps on entering the room to avoid the touch-trigger for the overhead grid. He found himself standing face-to-face with the closet door and stared at it for some time; but suddenly, he lost his resolve.

Instead, he was drawn to his parent's bed, clouding over with sadness. He remembered a night years ago when he had been allowed in here briefly, the rarity of that indulgence creating one of those oddly crystal clear moments in time. His mother had been in her night robe, moving about this room and going over the things she expected him to do the next day. He had been staring at his toes with his legs in the air, flaked out comfortably on his back on the huge bed that smelled of his parents favorite bath soap, feeling pleased and secure. His dad had been in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and adding a comment here and there. It was the first time they'd decided to leave him alone to guard the house, and they let him in their room as a rare treat as they went over their expectations in detail. It was one of his all-time favorite memories, and it hit him hard now.

He took a moment to compose himself and remember to be the reasonable, responsible son of those two elite shinobi. He could not afford to be impulsive or careless. He had to admit that he was not up to this now. It was late, he was tired, and he was upset. The closet was going to have protections on it. The floor vault was trapped and sealed beyond a doubt. It would have to wait until morning.

He forced down the urge to leave and preserve the sanitation of the house. His tired, aching heart longed to stay here and just be with the things associated with life when it was normal and familiar and reliable. So instead of leaving, he unrolled the thick comforter, intensely aware that the last things nestled in it had been warm, alive, and everything to him. He rolled himself back into it and absorbed the imagined residual warmth until he fell into a restless sleep.

At daybreak he rose, still tired. Throughout the night, he woke up and worried over his situation over and over. Mizuki's warnings would not stop eating away at him. He had to get this resolved now, before it drove him crazy. After rolling up the bedding and storing it away, he set his mind on the reason he had come to be in this room in the first place.

It made his hands shake and the bile rise in his throat to smell the familiar scent of this closet, of oiled steel, old leather and ignition tags. The clothes were still hanging as if nothing was out of order. The empty sleeve of a combat jacket brushed his cheek when he knelt to lift the boards, and he swiped it away urgently, as if it were a stinging insect.

He disarmed the obvious initial tag. Beyond it, he found the hidden seal. Although it was of expert-level complexity, he properly released it as he had been trained to do. His mind raced ahead to worry about the contents now that the security measures were out of the way, whether it would be sufficient to see him through until he could find a way to earn subsistence money on his own. It should be plenty. They did without a lot of the extras he saw other kids indulging in, store-bought sweets and sports equipment and pets. They probably saved up all that money, and if they did, it would be here.

An unpleasant surprise greeted his scrabbling hands. His anxiety and fatigue blinded him to caution, and he tripped an inner security tag; his parents hadn't told him about this one. He should have known that there would be one kept secret from him as well – because he had been warned that the vault was off-limits. He cursed his stupidity even as the concussion threw him backwards along with an armload of formerly neatly-hanging shinobi uniforms.

His butt hurt where he landed on it, his hands were burned and he was blinded and deafened for the moment from the flash and the roar of the explosion, struggling to blink his eyes into obedience. Now he was in deep shit, even aside from the mess. The house wasn't secured properly. If the disturbance had been detected, others might enter. In a shinobi village, so soon after disaster, an energy release of this magnitude would probably bring the security patrols immediately. He lurched to his feet, groping painfully to try to make his way to the back door, to get tags to back up to fortify the door lock at least.

The latch alone wouldn't stop them; he had to get the tags back up now. He dizzily cursed himself for his carelessness.

He tripped, stunned, and then realized there were clothes tangling his legs from the closet. He kicked them away hard, but not fast enough. Flashes of light were starting to erupt in his failed vision. The door, he could imagine the latch being slipped and the intruders barging in. His hands were incredibly painful but he used them to find the walls and blunder down the hall way regardless.

His eyes cleared a little, and what he saw stopped his heart in his throat. He'd made it as far as the kitchen, but now he froze. The outside light against the opaque glass of the back door outlined the large shadow of a man. The door made a rattle and the knob twisted back and forth.

"Anybody in there?" the voice called, deep and completely unfamiliar.

Don't panic, Iruka scolded inwardly. He fingered his kunai, ignoring the sharp pain of his burns. He would be within his rights to defend himself in his own home.

"He's there, I'm picking him up not too far in. Umino Iruka! Open up!" A higher, younger voice, but still not one he recognized.

"Hold on. The shinobi that lived here were experts in tags and traps. This is one house I used to think twice about before entering, even when I was an invited guest." The third man raised his voice, but kept it even and friendly. This voice was quite familiar. "Iruka-kun, it's all right. It's Aburame Shibi. Open up, son. I need to see that you're all right."

Iruka cringed; so it was the bug spy and at least two others. It was an almost unbearable amount of attention. He had to get them to leave, and he had no doubt they could get in now. Aburame was a senior ninja, to throw a seal on the door now would be detected by all three and it would be an act of insubordination.

"I'm here," he called back. "I'm fine. You can go."

"Let me see you. Open the door, Iruka; we're not going until I see you."

"You heard him, he sounds fine. He's all right, let's go. I don't have time to be babysitting," the younger voice drawled, sounding annoyed.

"Go ahead and go, then. We don't need you for back-up. But I need to see him."

"Maah, help yourself, Aburame-san. I've got an overdue report to write." Iruka detected a flashy pulse of chakra as someone teleported away.

"Man, that kid is something else," the other voice said. It belonged to the tall shadow darkening his doorway, and it hadn't retreated an inch.

"Agreed." Shibi turned his attention back to Iruka. "Iruka, open up. Now. It's an order."

Iruka bit the inside of his lip and forced himself to unlatch the door. He tried to step out, to block them from entering, but he was gripped by the arm and propelled back firmly, and the two shinobi stepped inside boldly.

Shibi's eyes raked over Iruka and he slipped his hands to the thin wrists, turning them over to inspect his palms. "You're burned. What is it with your hands, Iruka? Are you hurting yourself on purpose?"

Brown eyes narrowed and a fiery blush shot his cheeks. "I made a mistake, okay?" he blurted angrily. "I don't know where all the tags are in the house yet."

He twisted involuntarily, but the jounin held fast. "I'm taking you to see a medic."

"I don't need to."

"You took a hard hit," one hand released his wrist and touched his forehead. It must be bruised or something, Iruka frowned.

"It's nothing. Hey, where are you going?" the other nin had moved past, heading to check out the detonation site. "You can't go back there!"

"Iruka, stop,"

"No, don't!" he was almost fighting, struggling in rising alarm. "That's my parent's room! Stay out!"

"He's got to see what happened, it's…"

"Get out! Don't touch anything!" His voice was nearly a scream now.

The other shinobi retreated out of the hall, not to obey Iruka, but to assist with subduing the boy if he became combative. "Concussion?"

"Definitely." He tried to let Iruka calm down, holding him in place and waiting. Both men fell silent, and the only sounds in the room were the heavy, frantic breathing and the occasion grunt as Iruka tried to pull away.

He seemed to slow a little, but when the red-headed nin tried to head back down the hall, he began to fight again.

"He just needs to check the damage and clear the room of tags, Iruka, that's all."

"No! Enough, please, just get out, you can't hold me like this." Tears threatened to embarrass his cheeks. His vision, marginal at best already, flickered and he went limp for a second, catching himself when his muscle control flicked back on.

Shibi picked him up easily. "I took your Dad to the hospital this way a few times. No shame in it, Iruka. Everyone needs help sometimes. Isetchi-san won't touch a thing he's not supposed to. Would it help if you watched him?"

The brown head nodded, losing fight in spite of himself. Things were getting dimmer, and his stomach clenched in a sudden wave of nausea. He knew this feeling from before, the nausea and repeated brief loss of consciousness after a mild concussion. Frustration, diluted with physical weakness, permeated his body.

He was limp by the time Shibi brought him into the bedroom, so he placed him down on the slatted wood bed frame to help Isetchi check the room.

"This was a pretty harsh tag for the location. Damn, my kid would kill himself if I did this. And there are three more as bad or worse. The one on the sword case is enough to bring down the whole house."

Disarming was one of the rusty-headed nin's specialties, and he set to work after retrieving a disarmer's uniform of plated armor from a scroll in his vest. "You should take him out of here in case I set something off. The ceiling has trip wires, he's just lucky he didn't set off something big enough to disturb those. He'd be living with his folks right now if he had."

Shibi wondered if it wasn't purposeful on some level, setting off that tag. A way for the boy's parents to take him with them. Iruka was a bit of a savant at tags and traps, it seemed unlikely that he would have missed it, or tripped it trying to disarm it, if he was aware of it.

"Did you notice the way he's kept the house up?" Shibi asked, preparing to lift Iruka back up off the bed slats.

"Yeah, and I noticed that all of the appliances are unplugged and pulled out, like he's moving or something."

Shibi paused. "I'll be right back."

He took a quick trip into the kitchen, flipping open all the doors and drawers. Utensils were all there, regimented and spotless. But not one crumb of food, staple, spice or drop of consumable liquid was to be found anywhere. The counter shone like glass, as did the white porcelain coatings on the major appliances, all unplugged and standing in wait.

Another quick look – the smaller bedroom was spotless and the futon mat rolled and tied next to the empty bedframe.

Where was the boy living? He couldn't be living like this.

Back into the master bedroom, Isetchi waited on his knees by the closet floor, hands on his thighs, not willing to risk setting anything off with the boy in the room.

"Sorry. Have a look around when you're done, tell me if you think there's any way he's been living in here recently." Shibi gathered up Iruka, carrying him to the back porch so the chakra disturbance wouldn't bother the traps inside. In a flash he transported him to the intake doors of the infirmary.

The intake had been slow for days, the majority of the overload now centered on the ongoing care of critically injured and permanently disabled patients. Medical personnel as well as patients had lost their lives the day of the attack, the ultimate punishment for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. It left them short-handed in the face of the crisis, so it was with great relief that Shibi found them willing to look at the boy right away.

The medic-nin worked methodically, almost detaching her mind from her body's automatic movements after so many repetitions of this act over so little time.

"A tag, you say? Just as I suspected. He does have a concussion, and it's a good one. Those burns are deliberate tag-burns; whoever set up that trap wanted to punish their target for a while. If he took the full brunt, and I'm thinking he did with the severity of the burns, this was the main purpose of the tag. Somebody's got a nasty sense of humor if this was a prank."

Or a nasty way to discipline their child, the bug jounin though darkly. Iruka had no doubt been told to stay out of his parent's closet. But this is how they enforced it? He had witnessed the Uminos delivering corporal punishment to the boy fairly often, in spite of their son's obedient nature the shinobi couple believed that hard blows made for strong defenses so they lit into him over every little thing. But a good strapping with a belt or bamboo cane is one thing; tag burns and concussions were quite another.

Well, it did no good to think ill of the dead. But it might explain some of Iruka's reluctance to be around people, and his lack of reassurance when he was brought into a family home. He'd never really relaxed at the Aburame house. Unfamiliar family settings would probably not translate into the idea of a safe haven for the boy at all.

"I have no rooms available to put him in here, but we can fit him on a gurney in the hallway, Aburame-sama. He needs an IV with fluids for the balance of the day and through the night, and he needs to be watched for twenty-four hours to make sure he doesn't slip into a coma. Very unlikely, but with a concussion like this it should still be done."

"I can take him. We'll watch him tonight. Does he need to come back?"

The medic-nin nodded in mild relief that she wouldn't have to subject the boy to the noisy, crowded halls. "Watch those hands as well; I'm concerned about the depth of the damage. Keep the salve on it thick, don't let it dry out at all. No water on it, either. Bring him back in the next day or two for a recheck. Don't hesitate to bring him back in if you notice any negative changes in his vital signs, or if you can't wake him up." With that he was released into Shibi's care.

o0o0o0o0o

Shino stared at the slow rise and fall of Iruka's chest. A little hand reached out, but his father stopped him gently, picking him up and holding him back out of reach

"Not dead." Shino pronounced in satisfaction, pointing to the moving chest.

"Just resting. He hurt his head, so we're going to watch him for a while here in case he needs help. You need to let him rest. If you're good, you can be the one to wake him up when we check on him."

"You said let him rest," puzzled the toddler.

"True, but he also needs to be awakened, just for a minute or so, every hour so we make sure he's just resting and not getting worse. I think you'd be good at waking him up, don't you?"

Shino wiggled in agreement, trying to think of a really good way to wake someone up. He probably shouldn't jump on his stomach, and that was his favorite way to wake up his dad.

Shino settled on blowing in Iruka's face. He blew and puffed and inadvertently spit until he was panting in the silent face. Nothing.

"He's sleeping pretty deeply, son. I think you need to try something else."

Shino nodded obediently and a small hand pinched Iruka's nose shut. "Hah!"

His dad smiled. Smart boy. Iruka was twitching and shaking his head, the movements to escape the uncomfortable pinching and unblock the airway bringing him further into consciousness.

The smile died when Iruka reared up with a start, wrapped hands swinging up hard. Shino jumped back, his excellent reflexes in perfect compliment to his father's, who caught him and whisked him out of harms way in mid-jump.

Iruka only managed to hit thin air and fall back out of balance, never really waking up completely.

"Bad!" scolded Shino, waggling a small finger accusingly.

Iruka drooped back down onto the bed, going back into darkness under the weight of his fatigue and the pain medication.

Shino looked at his dad. Was that it? Shouldn't they wake him up for a minute like he said?

"Let's let it go until next hour. He's fine for now. Now, don't you be trying to wake him up unless I'm right here with you. I'll come get you when it's time."

"I wanna stay in here."

"No, I want you to stay clear of him unless I'm in the room. When a shinobi's been injured everyone, even the medic-nin, have to be careful. Sometimes a ninja's defensive reactions that save him in the field can hurt his comrades if they aren't careful how they approach him."

"You too?" squeaked Shino.

"Yes, I'm afraid it happens to everyone at one time or another. But there's no excuse for it here. We have control over the situation. And that's why I want you to stay out of this room if you're alone. Okay?"

Shino nodded, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

"Come on, caterpillar; let's get you down for your own nap."

When the next hour's awakening time arrived, Shibi let Shino sleep through it. Instead, he went to Iruka's side and gazed at the boy's face, contemplating. His forehead was bruised and his face was reddened, as if he'd been sunburned.

His parent's theories on raising a strong boy were sound. In application, though, it seemed that they should have taken their son's individual nature into account. Had they realized how young Iruka would be when they left him alone for good, perhaps they wouldn't have been so hard on him all the time. In a couple of more years, when Iruka's normal path of development would have him rebelling and asserting himself, the balance would have been struck like a perfect note.

But cut off here, still oppressed and a tad submissive under their strong micro-controlling influence, Iruka was poorly suited for self-management. He was suspicious of adult supervision and uncomfortable in family settings. He had loved his parents in spite of the upbringing. Faced with the structure of parental power without the family affection, he couldn't get away fast enough.

He wondered what Iruka thought, when he saw them cuddling Shino. The Aburames were not saps, but they believed very much in positive reinforcement and working with the natural flow of living things and not against them. Nurturing a harmonious relationship with the insects central to their family's special talents was key for the bug nins. It was the only way to successfully utilize the full power of their bloodline limit; to a degree, they raised their young with that theory as well.

Shino was adorable and willful and it was difficult to tell how his personality would develop yet. But here was Iruka, earnest, kind, diligent and – well – sort of chivalrous. He had an old-fashioned way about him, a natural sense of honor and dependability. If he would stay, Shibi couldn't image Iruka ever causing much trouble or making a fuss. Likely, he would be a great help and a valuable addition to the household.

But not against his will. Iruka also had a stubborn streak and a temper, neither crushed by punishment or the threat of it.

Shibi gently shook Iruka's shoulder.

"Iruka-kun," he called. "Wake up for me. Wake up and talk to me for just a minute, so I can make sure you're all right."

Iruka stirred, and began to toss a bit. He seemed feverish, but Shibi carefully felt his reddened cheek, and it was cool enough.

At the touch, Iruka made a quick intake of breath. "Dad." He breathed.

"No, Iruka," Shibi said quietly. "It's Aburame Shibi."

"Ahhh," Iruka moaned, in pain or sorrow, it wasn't clear which. "What happened?"

"You had a mishap, but you're fine. I need you to look at my hand and tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

"Nooo, it hurts to open my eyes."

"Just do this quickly, Okay? Then you can go back to sleep for a while. I just need to make sure you're not getting worse."

Iruka squinted one eye open, then winced it back shut. "Three."

"Good boy. Okay, you've earned your rest. Go back to sleep."

"Where…"

"My home, Iruka-kun. Rest." He placed hand on the boy's forehead and sent him back to sleep.

He wondered how his partner was faring at disarming the Umino household.

xxxx

Mizuki walked the broken stretch of wall restlessly. He had to admit to himself, for the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to something that was not mission-related. It was with far less interest that he observed the approach of one of the chunin charged with coordinating the watch on the compromised wall.

"Touji. Report."

"Nothin'. No movement. No one in or out."

"Good. There was a small disturbance in town. No indication it's a breach, but we're checking up on the perimeter as a precaution."

"Mm. What's up?"

"I understand it was some home security mishap. Just some kid. I didn't pay too much attention."

Mizuki frowned. He had an excellent sixth sense. The first thing that came into his mind was a vision of Iruka trying to get into his house.

"Whereabouts?"

"SoKon; section two or four, I think."

"So. Was everyone all right?"

"Minor injury I guess. Not much damage."

"Well, that's good."

"Hey, gotta run. I need to hurry up and do the whole perimeter or Bushan-sensei will have my hide." Weird. It was the first time he'd ever heard Mizuki say something like that. He always had the distinct impression that anytime there was a disaster, Mizuki liked hearing the death toll, and the higher the number the better.

Maybe the carnage of the demon attack made a positive change in the guy.

With a wave he darted on to parallel the wall, leaving Mizuki to stew in his conviction that the injured kid in question was probably his kid.

Mizuki felt the tiniest bit responsible, since he's pushed Iruka to go in and get his things.

He hopped up to observation height in a nearby tree to continue his watch and contemplate how this incident might somehow work in his favor.

tbc