OOOOOOOO
The fruits were laughing at him. He'd never been any good at picking out ripe pineapple. Not that he had much experience. Maybe that's why this was so hard. A little, blue-haired old lady had taken pity on him and given him a not-so-short dissertation on the signs that he should look for.
It had only served to make him more anxious about the whole process. He'd finally just grabbed one and hoped.
And had proceeded to knock over an entire stand of grapefruits. Yes, they were definitely laughing at him.
He juggled the pair of bags as he trudged back to his office. Kakashi had made him dinner for the last three nights, and he was starting to feel a little guilty about the fact that the jounin was buying all his food and committing a fair amount of time each night. Maybe more than a little guilty. Guilty enough that he was going to try to make something that approximated edible and was at least a little more complicated than pasta.
Kakashi'd made that for the two of the last three nights.
Not that it was a competition or anything.
The stairs creaked under foot as he trotted to the top floor, and he was reminded again that he really should move somewhere more reputable. Perhaps somewhere that had seen routine maintenance sometime in the last ten years.
As he reached his door, a shadowy figure dropped from the roof above, one hand reaching out to snag a package of something that fell out of the bag tucked under his arm.
"You bought groceries?" Kakashi tossed the rescued item back into the bag.
"Yeah, well I figured it was about time I reciprocated." He rested his hand on the doorknob.
"You're going to cook?"
"I figure it can't be nearly as bad as that baked-rice-chicken-kiwi disaster last night."
"You said it was good."
"I said no such thing!"
"You ate it!"
"So did you."
Kakashi pointed a finger at him, opened his mouth and didn't say anything for a moment. "It was pretty bad, wasn't it?"
"Not completely inedible, though." Iruka chuckled and wrestled the bags into one arm so that he could unlock the door.
"Maa, so it seems to me that I should have a chance to redeem myself."
"Uh-uh." He slapped a hand against the wall to turn the lights on. "I was attacked by a full army of grapefruits today for these ingredients. I am going to make dinner."
The jounin stared blankly at him. "I don't think I should ask."
"No, probably not. It's kind of embarrassing."
"Are you really going to insist on cooking tonight?"
"Absolutely."
"Che. Wish I could have gotten here earlier." Kakashi shouldered Iruka out of the way and started to put his groceries into the rapidly filling cabinets.
"I was going to ask about that." Iruka leaned back against the counter, idly crossing his feet at the ankles. "To be honest, when I didn't see the lights on in my apartment, I figured you might not even be coming."
"I swear, I'm going to lock those two in a very small room until they get themselves sorted out."
"Naruto and…what was his name…Sai?"
"Have you ever seen a guy get attacked by painted octopi? In the middle of the forest?"
Iruka laughed. "I don't think I've ever seen that, in the forest or not."
"Maa, Naruto did attack him with a rasengan. I missed what Sai said before it, but it was probably something about Sasuke."
"Octopi, really?"
Kakashi rolled up his sleeve to reveal a set of closely spaced red circles. "Still got the sucker marks to prove it." He made a face. "That's what I get for trying to pull the Root boy's jutsu of Naruto. Should have just let him suffer. He would have healed. Sorry." He said the last word quickly, clearly remembering Iruka's last reaction to his desire to put his team through the chuunin exam.
"It's okay. He'll learn eventually."
"Maybe. But the question I'm particularly interested in is: are you sure you're going to be cooking?"
"What?" The complete change of topic caught Iruka off guard.
Kakashi waved a pot in front of Iruka's face before vaulting over the counter and sprinting down the hall towards Iruka's bedroom.
"Damn it, Kakashi, give that back!" Iruka tore off after him.
"It's your own fault for only having one pan." The voice trailed off, and Iruka got the distinct impression that Kakashi'd just leapt out the window in his bedroom. He slid on the well-worn floor as he tried to change direction and raced back towards the living room, arriving just as Kakshi dropped back through the window.
"You sneaky…Give me that pot!" Iruka lunged, and Kakashi ducked under his outstretched arm with lightning speed that only a jounin and some very talented chuunin could muster. "Freaking jounin." Iruka dropped, grabbed hold of the carpet, and yanked. Kakashi leapt, pulling his feet out of the way. He twisted and threw out a hand to grab the teetering lamp that was set off kilter by Iruka's movement. As he spun to set it right, he felt a hand close over his wrist and then his fingers. The pot was wrenched from his hand as the fingers dug into a pressure point next to the bone, and he was unable to keep his grip.
Iruka danced away from him, brandishing the pot. "Ha! Take that!"
Kakashi gaped at him.
"The feeling will come back in a few minutes." He said apologetically when he saw that Kakashi was massaging his wrist. "It's something I learned right when I started teaching. It's really useful when you've got a whole bunch of hyperactive kids, most of whom have never held a weapon and you're trying to teach them how to fight. Makes getting the kunai away from them very easy."
The jounin snorted and wiggled his fingers gingerly. "Not too shabby, sensei. The light was a nice touch."
"I figured you wouldn't let my main source of illumination plummet to the floor." The pot clanked as Iruka dropped it on the stove and started busying himself with the food.
"You know me so well."
He was in the process of pulling a cutting board out from the lower cabinet when Kakashi said it, and he stopped and turned to face Kakashi. The words, in any other situation, from any other person would just have been harmless teasing.
But here? Now? This Kakashi was…doing exactly what he'd done…
"Something wrong, sensei?"
"Nothing." Iruka planted the cutting board on the counter and proceeded to hack at the pineapple. Huh. It was ripe. Go figure.
OOOOOOOO
"I still say that if you didn't involve innocent appliances you never would have won."
"Oh, come now. Isn't the fifty-sixth shinobi rule that everything is a weapon and should be used to your advantage?" Iruka raised an eyebrow at the jounin.
"There are only fifty-five rules, Iruka-sensei."
"Are there really?" The chuunin was the picture of confused innocence.
"I feel bad for your class." He laughed when Iruka stuck his tongue out at him. "Still so immature. I guess I'll still have to keep coming over."
Iruka's steps slowed. "Ah, about that. I just wanted to say that…that…Well, that I…"
"Kakashi-sensei? Iruka-sensei?" Both shinobi turned around at the confused voice behind them.
"Sakura-chan. Naruto-kun. I haven't seen you in a while. How are you guys doing? Surviving your new teammate?" Iruka smiled at the two teens.
"We're doing well, Iruka-sensei." Sakura smiled brightly at him, ever the perfect student.
"Sai's a jerk." Naruto had a well-developed, full-body sulk wrapped around his frame. The offense may have occurred the previous day, but it wouldn't be soon forgotten and would be forefront in Naruto's mind for several days to come.
"Naruto!"
"Well, he is!"
"That doesn't mean you have to say it." Sakura flushed slightly and shifted sub-consciously from foot to foot. "He is our teammate."
"You punched him. Several times!"
"But I didn't talk about him behind his back!"
Iruka inclined his head towards Kakashi. "Do you really deal with this every day?"
"Why do you think I'm so anxious to get to your place?" Kakashi whispered back.
"And here I thought it was my winning personality and exceptional cooking."
"Maa, that too. At least the first part."
"Ha. Ha."
A loud smack resounded through the street as Naruto finally pushed enough of Sakura's buttons that she felt she needed to retaliate.
Iruka winced and jumped as Kakashi leaned over his shoulder. "I mean it."
He could feel the chuunin's wide eyes on his back as he strode away.
OOOOOOOO
"You wanted to see me, Tsunada-sama?"
"Yes, Kakashi. Come in and close the door." Tsunade waived him forward and waited for the latch to click before starting to speak. "The ANBU, we'll call him Himura, since that seems to be his chosen pseudonym, is returning from his mission this afternoon. The investigations group is staking out his apartment as they need some proof of his guilt before they arrest him."
"They're hoping to catch him in the act? Aren't they at all worried about potential victims?"
Tsunade massaged her temples. "Well, yes, they are. They've borrowed three ANBU to help. But I don't think they're being careful enough."
"You want me to be there too." It wasn't really a question. It didn't have to be.
OOOOOOOOO
'MOVE!' It was physically impossible to shout with hand signs, but Kakashi managed to put enough urgency into the gesture to get through to his fellow ANBU. On silent feet, they raced around the corners of the building and burst through the other entrances as he rolled through the front door, sharingan spinning wildly. The special eye gave him enough vision in the dark room, and he dropped, slamming his foot up to break Himura's grip on the weapon that he was a breath away from driving into the chuunin's abdomen.
The other two ANBU knocked their comrade to the floor, while the third wrenched the unconscious victim from his arms.
Kakashi stood slowly, watching as Himura was bound with chakra suppressing ropes. One of the investigations group bundled the chuunin – who was someone Kakashi had never met – into his arms and transported to the hospital. He and the other ANBU hauled Himura unceremoniously to his feet and transported to the attacker's apartment. The narrow-faced investigations jounin who had overseen Iruka's 'interogation' was flipping through the files he'd pulled from under the floorboards.
Shinobi ID pictures were stapled to the top of wrinkled and creased information files for close to fifteen chuunin. A second folder contained information on the previous victims, and all of the images had a shaky, red 'x' drawn across them.
"Why?" He hadn't meant to ask, but he just couldn't fight down the urge.
"Come on." The bound jounin rolled his head backwards to eye Kakashi. "You see it to, don't you? Just how useless some of the chuunin of our village are? Not all of them, of course, but the ones that took forever to get to jounin or have been chuunin for years and years and years. Useless! And they won't just leave on their own, and we would just be so much better off without them." He grinned darkly. "I'm…just pruning the garden."
"You were going to kill the one we caught you with tonight, weren't you."
"Oh, yes."
"And who would you have gone after next if we hadn't caught you?"
"Fifth…fifth page. I was going to take him last, but I just couldn't wait." His smile was almost beatific. "He and I, we were going to have some fun."
A familiar face smiled out from the worn picture.
His fist connected with the side of the ANBU's face almost before he'd decided to hit him. The punch knocked the other man over the back of his chair, and Kakashi fell on top of him, grabbing the front of his shirt and hauling him forward into each brain-rattling hit.
It took all three ANBU to pull him off.
One of them received an elbow to the face and, consequently, a broken nose and cheekbone for his trouble.
OOOOOOOO
"Good god, Kakashi, what the hell were you thinking? Believe me, and this does not leave this room, I'm glad you beat the bastard's face into a bloody pulp, but the elders are having a fit. If it got out to the other villages that we deal with our prisoners like this on a regular basis, we'd be called up in front of a full Kage council. Again, I could give a rats ass about it, and most of the Kage's will agree with me, but the elders don't even want to open that can of worms. Plus they're a little surprised." Her stare pierced him. "It's not exactly like you to fly off the handle like that."
Throughout her time at the village, Tsunade had seen Kakashi in the aftermath of every imaginable situation, from the purely ridiculous brought on by leading his team through D-rank missions to blood-drenched ANBU missions where he had killed more people than he could count on two hands and had almost died himself.
Yet she had never seen him look as terrified as he did in this moment.
OOOOOOOOO
Sorry about the wait - I was out of the country and then scrambling to get this written, before deciding it belonged in two chapters and that I needed to get both written before submitting. But guess what? It's a double-chapter submission again! Hope you enjoy it!