Not sure how you'll like this one...hope it doesn't dissappoint. Readers and reviewers, you have my deep appreciation for hanging on this long.

Chapter 22

"Iruka, I am sorry…it can't go well for you now," Jeninki said abruptly, after using a final huge, debilitating gout of force to complete the chakra seal that would assure his subject's physical survival. "I have to conceal myself for the sake of my villagers. I can't afford to be found out yet. I must leave you with Danzou for now; you will have to endure until the opportunity arises for me to come take you into the fold. You'll be free there, I promise, and you won't have to suffer any more."

Jeninki released the hold, withdrawing his hands from Iruka's face as the golden light faded from his eyes. "Danzou, for all intents and purposes, he'll be lost in this world. His only chance for survival now is with me, in my village. But we can't afford to have them find you here with his dead body, and I haven't the chakra left to do more than flee. So take him, make sure he's placed on life support if his body fails, and I'll collect him from Konoha at the earliest opportunity."

Even dropped as if his strings had been cut and then pitched forward, face-down; Jeninki disappeared before his subject's knees touched the ground.

Released from Jeninki's hold, Danzou rushed to his side, rolling him face up. He was coming out of the physical suppression, starting to struggle blindly and cry out.

His Even was gone. Fear, pain and panic flavored the face and vocal inflection of the man writhing under his hands. Never would Even allow such a display. Danzou felt a lump in his throat at the thought; so perfect a protégé he had never before had. Perhaps he never would find his like again. Something in the mix of ferocity, integrity and obedience made Even truly unique among the many ROOT members he had trained.

His naked face revealed that it was nearly restored from Jeninki's touch, the handsome features reemerging, though still lightly dappled in the fading injury that Danzou could easily have finished repairing now. But it was the man within that was now disfigured beyond recognition. Jeninki had ensured that the ROOT leader would never have his greediest desires fulfilled.

At this point, spoiled as he was for any other purpose, the only decent action was to allow Jeninki to complete the induction and free this man from the mangled mess they'd made of his earthbound core. He had won again, Danzou mourned. His senpai Jeninki always won the wars in the end, year after year, decade after decade, no matter the outcome of the battles.

The approaching forces had disappeared from his detection as well, but Danzou wasn't foolish enough to think that it meant that they had gone away. When Kakashi and Ibiki revealed themselves suddenly, it was nothing more or less than he expected.

"What have you done to him? Why did you bring him back here, to this place?" Ibiki demanded as Kakashi boldly stepped up to push Danzou away and grip Iruka's shoulders in an attempt to quiet his thrashing.

"To reassemble him," Danzou said in a voice so heavy with regret it startled both men. He stood away without resistance. "But it has not gone as planned."

"Iruka," Kakashi said, trying to gain eye contact. But the sightless eyes and tossing head were beyond the ability to perceive him. "Can you hear me?"

"Explain it plainly. What did you do?" Ibiki snarled.

"Reunited his chakras. His emotions have been restored. I thought this was what you would want, that it might appease our unhappy Hokage, but…as it turns out, he was not strong enough to withstand the procedure. He is no longer sane. Perhaps he will die."

"The hell he will," Kakashi snapped.

"Surely you know what the odds would be," Danzou said wearily. "His emotion center was removed and sequestered clear back when he volunteered for ROOT. It has been without a life-force connection since then. Still, it should have been within the timeframe to restore it, difficult and painful as that procedure can be. But it deteriorated much faster than is usual. It was gangrenous at best, but then it somehow became dominant when the system re-established. It's destroying him even as we speak."

"That doesn't explain why he's wounded."

"Harmless bloodletting. He performed it on himself. It's part of the ritual of expulsion from ROOT," Danzou improvised flawlessly.

Ibiki glared at the old man, rifling in his mind for the charges they might arrest him for. But attempting to restore a man to his full self was not a crime. Deconstructing him would have been, except that Danzou had received the Hokage's official permission for that procedure, despite the unknown details of converting a man to ROOT.

In Ibiki's experience, Danzou's prognosis was correct. Slapping damaged chakra back into the system was a catastrophic event on the smallest scale. At this level, there would be little hope.

Which begged the question, since Danzou would know this as well…why did he do it?

xxx

When Jeninki's support withdrew, it felt like the beginning of the end for Even, and the end was imminent. The torrent of uncontrolled emotion was entirely understandable in the situation. He did not hold it against his newly arrived weaker nature, although the effect now was that of being dissolved by slow inches in burning acid. As he stopped struggling quite so hard, he was able to reflect on the pieces of memory that were still left intact. It had been a remarkable ride, the achievements he had reached were beyond his expectations.

The end had come rather timely, since the nobility of his efforts had just been exposed as a fraud sold to him whole cloth by his trusted master. Emptiness, uselessness, disloyalty, deceit and waste…these things were the equivalent of sorrow, shame and anger in his emotionless existence…and these were now the known destinations of his ROOT career. So as a personal loss, his disappearance was not so disturbing. It instead seemed rather just; and when the pressure of the exploding pain and fear reached the point where it stretched the last of his self-awareness as thin as was possible, there was no last cry of resistance or thought of protest. He simply experienced the moment, and in the next moment, the unique facets of behavior that had linked to become Even were graying and blurred. He was at the precipice, aware that this was the point where he was about to be exiled into nothingness by the very forces he had once displaced.

As soon as the self-awareness of the healthy shinobi faltered and lost the power to influence him, the raging illness of his other side staked its claim unchecked. In a flash, a high fever broke out, creating illness in the body to match the ravages of the mind.

Kakashi felt the heat suddenly generate and flair out, radiating red in the flesh under his touch, like nothing he had ever seen before.

Danzou's head tilted down, his chin hitting his chest. He felt it in his bones now and he was pretty sure that he was right; Even had succumbed. Iruka was damaged beyond repair, and destined for the same fate any minute; which also meant that, upon seeing her ruined patriot, Tsunade would no doubt revoke her tentative approval of his program. It was back to the drawing board yet again. He had the worst luck of anyone he knew.

But something was happening that he hadn't counted on.

Kakashi removed his hitai-ate and focused the sharingan in desperation. Gathering all of the chakra he could muster, he used the mind-entering technique, impelling it with a force beyond that of his strongest attack. As heavily as he tried to shield himself against the turmoil, it was still like stepping into a meat grinder.

Iruka's emotional life force was patched, poisoned and on attack in high gear. In fighting to survive in spite of disease and starvation, it had become insanely aggressive and desperate. The chakra was in critical condition, nearly unable to sustain itself, yet it had invaded the larger base essence swiftly, causing explosive disruption, viral and corrupting.

Kakashi applied structural support from within with swift, surgical accuracy, while laying on a dampening weight to slow the progression of the damage. He was unaware that it was similar to the treatment Jeninki had been in the middle of administering when he had been interrupted; but for the duration since that interruption, the damage had been allowed to far outpace the needed repairs.

Kakashi detected the evidence of the partial healing going in and cursed Danzou for giving up prematurely, re-engaging in the fight to keep Iruka's chakra from poisoning itself beyond all hope.

He had no way of knowing the mechanics of what had occurred until he used his technique and saw clearly into Iruka's inner light, a light that was shockingly almost completely occluded when he first entered.

As he suppressed the most severe decomposition and manipulated the chakras back into survivable coexistence, it became clear that the task of true restoration was far more arduous and lengthy than anything he could complete in a single intervention. Like a shuffled deck of cards, he'd managed to get the pieces situated back to together, but sense and order would take some doing. The nature of chakra was to seek its own balance, and a certain amount of healing and alignment would try to occur naturally. But this mess cried out for a powerful, expert healer like Tsunade. The chakra drain from using the sharingan so forcefully quickly became debilitating. Unable to do more, Kakashi withdrew, and fell backwards as Iruka's weight pitched up against him in a convulsive struggle. He did not expect that any lucid behavior was possible from someone so completely scrambled and sickened; so he merely took hold to try and prevent any damage from senseless thrashing.

Ibiki caught the copy-nin's shoulder with the top of his boot to allow him to regain his balance and propelled him back upright. "Did it work?"

It wasn't until Ibiki's words drew him out that Kakashi realized he had been submerged in Iruka's being to make these repairs for some time. It was a shock to be released from the sharingan event and while he was relieved to be out of that internal hell, the knowledge that there would be no such relief for Iruka burned in his heart. He needed far more help, but this procedure had stabilized him as much as possible for the moment. At least he should survive to see his next healer.

"It's bad," Kakashi rasped.

"Of course it's bad." Ibiki's voice did not hide his impatience. He was helping to restrain Iruka as his movements increased. "But did it work?"

"Barely. He's still disassociated. He needs more internal intervention." Kakashi used what little strength he had left to hang on tenaciously to the struggling shinobi.

"You can leave him to me now," Danzou said. "His physical wounds are superficial. I'm equipped to deal with him once I recover some strength. Just help me get him back, and I'll take care of him."

"Not anymore. I'm making this is your official notice that he is no longer in your command. What was your goal, Danzou? What was the purpose of putting him through your trial by fire, just to turn around and take it all apart again? You used him to prove your point, but it didn't get you your way, so you just wad him up and throw him out?" Ibiki glared. "Look at him. Take a good look. You must be very proud of what you've done."

Kakashi cast a sideways look at his glowering teammate, hiding his surprise. Nothing in Tsunade's orders gave the man permission to remove Iruka from his assignment, irrespective of the situation. He admired the courage that decision took, and wholeheartedly agreed with it.

"Surely, you don't think that this was my goal. I'm as devastated as you are. If you feel that he has a better chance of recovery in your care, then by all means, I insist that you take him. Perhaps your Hokage's infirmary would be the best place for him?" Danzou kept his head lowered as he spoke, and his hands pulled up so that the sleeves of his robe covered the evidence of his revitalization. If they wouldn't let him keep Iruka, then he would just need to know where the patient was going to be warehoused so that he could pass that information on to Jeninki. As long as they didn't see the youthful features he had been blessed with , they would remain clueless as to what had transpired here. So far, there was nothing they could pin on him for wrongdoing, no matter how badly things had turned out for Even.

Pakkun was growling at the area in general, but held his tongue. He sensed those strange presences again, the ones from Danzou's training room. He could only conclude that they were anchored to the old man's chakra somehow. They didn't seem to be a danger at the moment, but without knowing their purpose, it was wise to keep an eye on them.

This place was full of bad vibes. Pakkun nosed around a bit but couldn't find signs of anyone else in the vicinity. He couldn't fathom why the teacher had been brought clear out here for Danzou to perform such a risky procedure, in the middle of nowhere with no one to turn to for help.

Kakashi had been wondering along those same lines; it didn't make sense…unless he didn't plan to succeed. Maybe his plan was to let Iruka die due to circumstances that would make him appear innocent of the intent. He could then present him to Tsunade as if it were her fault that he felt duty-bound to terminate the program, causing her to be the one to blame for the loss of their precious shinobi.

It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through just to give the woman a slap in the face.

Kakashi had noticed the surreptitious coming and going of Pakkun's investigations, keeping tabs on him without giving it away. He knew from their well-rehearsed means of silent communication that Pak had turned up nothing so far. Kakashi dismissed the ninken with a subtle hand motion. So the situation before them was simply this: it was time to reclaim Iruka and help to restore him as best they could. The battered shinobi's erratic movements were finally starting to lessen.

Danzou was getting a bit resentful with Ibiki, who still appeared to be on the verge of doing something unpleasant to the old man.

"Morino, I engineered a metamorphosis of this man beyond anyone's expectations. I brought him, and full proof of his prowess, before the Hokage, with full faith in her judgment and a heartfelt belief that she would see just how perfect he had become. And she was simply not amused. She who sits and pulls every string deemed him insufficient. In fact, she stated that the removal of his emotional chakra was a 'troubling issue ethically.' Troubling, that was her term. Far be it from me to perpetuate a practice that troubles our Hokage's ethics. Why, that would be disloyal, wouldn't it? Insubordination, perhaps! So I have reversed it, to the best of my ability. My strength ran out too soon, only because he is far more damaged from the initial procedure than I had any inkling of. Had that not been the case, he would have been able to greet you himself when you arrived, no doubt with tears of joy. I am just as discouraged to see him in this way as you are. I had personally obligated myself, at minimum, to return him in no worse condition than I found him."

Ibiki and Kakashi were unconvinced, fully believing that Danzou was lying. But they lacked a basis for that accusation, so they resisted the urge to call him down on his little speech.

Between Jeninki's interrupted procedure and Kakashi's desperate attempt at a save, it was a success to a degree. As far as reconnecting the chakra systems and restoring circulation to the center in charge of feelings went, those tasks had been accomplished. But the systems were still twisted, disjointed, rerouted in unnatural ways. That sort of delicate repair would not happen quickly or easily.

The flow of life energy would eventually revive everything…but for now, the gangrenous force that had been locked away dying was still busily merging back into the whole seeking purification. The initial effect was to tax his health and vitality to the limit. Compounded with the internal shock of being slammed with the return of a lifetime of emotional experience that had been nearly too much to bear to begin with, the effect was shattering.

Kakashi saw it clearly with the sharingan, clear through into naked soul. Although outwardly undamaged, in a very real, spiritual sense, Iruka and his alter ego had been blown to bits. Within him, his sense of self was splattered everywhere and in critical condition. The lucid thoughts to be found there were rare, leaking here and there in errant strings and blobs, like the white that had escaped from a punctured eggshell.

"Look, I'll take him," Ibiki said darkly, moving to gather up the now weakly convulsing victim from Kakashi's tired grasp.

"I've got him," Kakashi protested.

"Don't be stupid. You've used too much chakra. Just let him go, I'll take him. You need to cover your eye, Hatake. You're burning out." Ibiki's hands closed under Iruka's armpits, and his fingertips touched on the thickening residue of blood, reminding him to be careful of the long, nearly clotted wound. The unexpected reaction when he tried to lift him away caught them all by surprise.

"Kashiiiiii!" Iruka flailed up and arched back, as if Ibiki's touch were terribly painful.

"Iruka!" Kakashi and Ibiki both called his name, stunned that he had managed speech, and that he had perceived who was with him.

The serious nature of this revelation was immediately apparent to them both. Iruka had now managed enough consciousness to be fully experiencing the torturous flaying of his chakra.

It was not a good thing to regain your awareness, while stripped of all of your defenses. It had to be unbearable.

Ibiki moved to perform a jutsu to render him unconscious in reflex, but caught himself and stopped. The chakra system was too weak to be adding any more pressure. If he was going to knock him out, it would have to be with a physical blow. He reset his stance and prepared to do so.

"Fucking don't even try," growled Kakashi, positioning himself in the interrogator's way without moving out of reach of the struggling soul. His tone changed dramatically, almost soothing when he said ,"Iruka, I'm right here."

"Hide me," Iruka's hands, shaking, came up without direction, as if he were sightless and unsure of what was in front of him.

"Even!" Danzou gasped. It should have been impossible for Iruka to be this aware. Maybe it was Even, still cognizant, fighting to survive! "Even, I'm here!"

Iruka's reaction to that call was as alarming as the one to Ibiki's attempt to hold him. Within him an invasive pressure rose, threatening to crush him back into darkness. He clutched his head, his cry of pain escaping in protest.

"Shut him up or get him out of here, Ibiki!" Kakashi reached down into his waning stores of energy, finding enough strength to pull Iruka closer. He intended to take him into a firm hold, one that that he hoped would help ground him.

"Iruka, I won't let him take you. It will be all right. We'll go now, it won't take long to get you back safely in Konoha…"

"No! …can't…don't want them to see..." His voice was barely audible, but the desperation in it was louder than a scream. Iruka's hands clawed forward now, grasping at the taller nin. But when Kakashi gripped tighter in return, the hands pushed him away quickly.

"Who? Who is it you don't want to see? Tell me and I'll…" The hands were grabbing at him again, and again he tried to respond, only to be shoved away.

"Don't touch me, don't!" Iruka's voice was growing louder again, nearly a shout.

"Okay, I won't. I won't touch you. But why do you keep reaching for me?"

"I need to…no. I don't want to. I don't know!"

"You can choose to come with me. I promise to isolate you so that no one comes near. You needn't face the village yet. Let me help you," Danzou called out. His last few words were much louder than they needed to be. They had no competition, for Iruka had silenced himself to hear them.

"I thought I told you…" Ibiki warned.

"He should decide for himself, Morino."

"You're the one responsible for destroying his ability to decide anything."

Iruka had stiffened and now grew still. His half-focused gaze drifted in Danzou's direction. His voice was flat when he repeated the word "isolated," and for a moment, his raw emotions quieted, and his face lost its expression.

"Yes! Yes, Even," Danzou encouraged, suddenly detecting a touch of his faithful protégé. "We can handle this quietly, privately, just as I was attempting when we were so rudely interrupted. In total seclusion."

"No. You don't want to go with him. It's not safe." Kakashi physically turned Iruka back to face him but then took his hands up and away to illustrate that he wasn't trying to manhandle him. The moment of calm broke when his attention was turned from Danzou, and the brunette pitched forward against his chest, barely in control again.

"Won't go back," the bruised lips gasped. "Not like this."

"Iruka, try to stop fighting. Try and get a hold of yourself. You've been hurt, very badly, and your instinct is to fight or run. But your mission is over. You need to let go now and let me help you." His arms felt a powerful urge to wrap around his distraught former lover, but he held back, unwilling to make him shy away again.

It might have been true, but it didn't help. Maybe the need to find protection until he regained his bearings was merely survival instinct. But this intense, emotional desire to hide his weakness, pain and confusion was multiplied by the sickness in his chakra. It was a dizzying, nauseating panic that gripped him, and the self-control to temper it was lost, counted among the casualties of the botched restoration.

The shreds of his ROOT self were exerting the same pressure to avoid return to the rank and file as a demoted trauma victim; he would rather self-destruct than return in such disgrace. It was the oddly flat voice again that said "Don't return me in dishonor."

Ibiki stiffened. "It won't be like that, Iruka."

"You've been deconstructed, it isn't your fault. There's no cause for shame," Kakashi said.

"Your efforts have been above reproach. You should be free to do as you see fit. If you don't want to face them yet, shouldn't have to. I can care for you in the privacy of the training room, Even. Restore you to full capacity before you report in. This is all the result of your Hokage's interference. I'll stand up to her in your defense this time, I promise." Danzou frowned at the end of his statement as Ibiki began to get in his face.

"He is not coming with you and I strongly suggest that you stop talking to him now," Ibiki towered over Danzou for emphasis.

"Look, I can take you straight in to the infirmary, into a private room, you can be isolated from almost everyone there. But you need a healer of Tsunade's level. This is a deep, internal wound, it's dangerous and it's just going to get worse. You need to be healed as soon as possible. "

Iruka's fingers dug into the masked chin to pull Kakashi's ear closer. His voice, unsteady and rough with pain, was attempting to quiet enough so that only the two of them would hear.

"I can't bear it. You know. You saw."

Kakashi felt as though he had been caught in a gross indiscretion, and it set him back for a moment. He hadseen it; and if Iruka was aware of that, then he was aware of much, much more as well. When in the depths of Iruka's mind, while using the sharingan in such a way, the barriers between their minds were lifted. Everything from past experience was revealed; thoughts, feelings and every pain and every shame were displayed in crystal-clear detail. Only the memories from Even's shattered time of existence were occluded from the transfer. It was the reason this variant of his technique had been used only on the rarest of occasions, and with one exception, never against an enemy.

Despite the fact that he was there for purposes other than obtaining the contents of his subject's mind, the photographic aspect of the eye technique took in a vast amount of the information anyway. But this was not a one-way street. While the curtain was lifted, indiscreetly exposing every facet of every instant of life to date as experienced by his subject, it was lifted on Kakashi's life as well.

Iruka, for whatever measure of ability he had at the time to take it in, saw the same uncensored details of Kakashi's tragic, brutal, cold and lonely life. And he clearly saw the copy-nin's honest reaction to seeing him now. He took comfort in the knowledge that Kakashi would not condemn him, nor would he coddle him out of pity or deference to his weakness this time. Were it not for the situation, they might have been amazed at the striking similarities in the framework of the bitter experiences that each had been through in his own life.

The ability to understand this was testament to the fact that Even was not quite vanquished. The emotional coup had stopped short of tossing him overboard, and had retained him as navigator while Iruka was struggling ineffectively at the helm. A trace of him was still holding the mainframe together, doggedly determined not to desert his post as the primary force making reasoning possible. The inevitability of his loss of command over the body seemed set; but it was not in him to allow it to become a blubbering, senseless mess suitable only for warehousing until Jeninki would come to collect his lost 'citizen'. He remained the mysterious spot of quiet in the turmoil, something Kakashi had no time to investigate while pulling all the pieces together. He kept Iruka's mind working, making connections, capable of expressing his thoughts, emotional and disappointing though Even found them to be.

"Yes, I saw. But I can't hide you away completely, Ru," Kakashi whispered back. "We need to get you to the medics."

"I would have helped you, I would have hidden you. Don't you want to help me?" His hands, streaked with blood, pressed weakly against Kakashi's vest. Once Jeninki's chakra had released, the flow of blood had gradually returned, until red began to randomly trail down the shining black armor once more. The glistening of the red fluid caught and held his eyes, and he stared at the evidence of his mortality, unable to look away.

'He's right in a way,' Even tried to assert his influence and shake the determination to conceal his vulnerability in some former playmate's care. He should be returning to Danzou's to gather strength for facing the finale to the conflict with Jeninki. 'There is no honor in hiding. Emotions are no excuse for cowardice. Your commitments are with your Master until he chooses to release you.'

Iruka shocked upright at the message, delivered with a sense of another presence in his head. The unknown yet totally familiar intruder was more disturbing that the invasions of Jeninki, Danzou and Kakashi combined. Because the attitude of this force was not subtle; it had no desire to control or influence him. While it lacked the strength to do anything about it, it wanted to depose him; it was convinced without a doubt that the world would benefit from his eviction, as if he were the one who didn't belong.

The cutting edge of one of the dark armor's wrist plates caught Kakashi off-guard when Iruka reacted to the inner conflict; a deep cut opened up on his thigh through the sliced khaki. He didn't take much notice of it.

"Iruka." A gloved hand reached out, almost afraid to make contact. For all of their fighting, power struggles, intimacy and hatred, he had never seen Iruka torn so wide open, so exposed. It wasn't at all what Kakashi had envisioned. He used to picture himself heroically swooping in and rescuing Iruka while in some tragically vulnerable state, and that it would be the opening that would finally convince the proud nin to depend on him. A major break in his careful façade would be good in a way, a gateway to get inside and demonstrate how right their connection was on the deepest of all levels.

Instead, this was like a mortal wound, with all of the vital warmth that he coveted freezing to death from exposure.

"If that's what you need, then I'll do it." His hand lightly rested on the back of Iruka's neck, and the flinch he expected did come, but it was barely noticeable for the trembling. Perhaps proportionate to how insignificant his abuses in the past had been in comparison to what Iruka was going through now.

"You're not seriously thinking of doing what he asks, are you?" Ibiki challenged in a harsh whisper to prevent Danzou from overhearing.

"Technically, he's still in ROOT as far as Lady Tsunade's concerned," Kakashi muttered back. "I agree with terminating Danzou's control, but you can't make it stick if she doesn't. What do we do then?"

"You expect me to keep this a secret?"

"Escort Danzou back now and you won't know, so you won't have a secret to keep. Let me take care of it." He deflected another razor-edged swipe of forearm.

"I don't like it, Hatake. You're up to something, and this is for damned sure not the time for it." Ibiki broke off and stalked away to follow Danzou. "Hold up. You're leaving?"

"What there's no damned time for is endless arguing," Kakashi muttered to himself.

Kakashi spared a quick look to make sure the torture specialist was occupied and then turned his back on him to speak quietly to Iruka.

"Just let me take you back to Konoha, I'll…"

"No! No, I…" Iruka was pushing against him now, but leaning in. Some small measure of conflict had resolved, the need to be supported outweighing the need to escape all human contact.

"Shhh, listen," he whispered, silk mask just touching an ear. "I'll spirit you in, so no one knows, and hide you away. You can stay with me. I have rooms that I haven't gone in for years. I'll set something up so you can't be detected. Then you'll have time to recover for just a little while before anyone knows you're back. You'll have privacy, and quiet. The dogs can be good company when people are just too much. And you will be safe. I can protect you there, if you'll let me."

Iruka was silent. Had he been in his old mindset, he would have slapped the masked face for talking down to him, raged at him to go away, and reminded himself that the last thing he could allow himself to do is show any weakness in front of Hatake Kakashi. Because if he did, if he ever really dropped his defenses and opened up…well, he didn't know what exactly would happen, but considering the way their interactions had gone in the past, he could only expect the worst.

But now, here, he had been exposed on a molecular level under the soul microscope that was the sharingan. And it had been, unexpectedly, a two-way view. They had seen one another in every way, had experienced one another's most influential moments. They were finally on even ground. Had they not bonded in that way, the sharingan's performance in healing him would have been slowed by the resistance of mistrust. At the moment, that bond was the only stability he had, drowning in the emotions that were bleeding out everywhere and threatening to take his sanity and dissipate it as well.

"I do need your help." Iruka choked softly.

The words came as a lighting bolt to the worried jounin. He had always longed for Iruka to need him. The timing was foul but the crack in his dark, hardened heart took a damaging hit. A trickle of hope found its way in with the icy pain of seeing Iruka so uncharacteristically bowed.

Permission to give freely. The copy-nin had never had it before. He gave people shit, he gave people hell, he gave them the ride of their lives. He gave them pause to wonder. He gave them back double, when they deserved it. He always gave them what they paid for.

But what would he give now that he was free to give support and care in the manner of his choosing? It unexpectedly called out a part of him that he had left for dead at around the age of six. The part that knew it was good to be kind, to share, to like and want to be liked as well. The part that knew there was little as important as the inner warmth of caring for and protecting someone precious to you.

"Then I will do as you ask. You have my promise."

The crunch of heavy boots announced Ibiki's return.

"I'll escort Danzou back. It's against my better judgment, but since Umino seems to have focused on you as his lifeline, I won't try to take him from you. You need to take him in to the infirmary and have them treat you both. When they release him, I would propose that we ease his transition from ROOT by housing him in my unit. He can use the ANBU facilities and work in my office under my supervision until we're sure he's stable," Ibiki said.

"You don't need to worry about it. I'm going to do what's best for him."

With strong arms he gathered up the battered soul so in need of his care and held him close. He fought down the urge to ask forgiveness for all the times he'd tried to slash a path to get to this opening between them. It would have been selfish; Iruka was in no condition to be reminded of those things. For the time being, the apology would remain unspoken, still burning old guilt into the copy-nin's gut.

His chakra exhaustion made it very difficult to get them back with much speed. He doubted Ibiki would interfere at this point, since he'd already crossed a line by terminating Iruka's mission without authority. But the threat that he would change his mind was there, and Kakashi was in no shape for a rematch.

Iruka slipped in and out of consciousness, and while conscious, slipped in and out of total disintegration. Through it all, Kakashi kept moving at the best pace he could manage.

When they reached the perimeter detection field, Kakashi used his old ANBU trick and the last bit of chakra he could spare to pass through it undetected. When he jumped them over the wall he found the dregs of his physical strength managed to surge up for the occasion and he made the final distance from there to the Hatake estate on sheer force of will.

When they finally made it inside, he went to his knees next to the futon to brace himself so as not to jar Iruka when he eased him down on the soft cotton pad.

"Kashi," Iruka groaned, reddened eyes rolling a little to take in the slightly familiar room.

"We're here, you're safe now. In my home. 'Ruka, I'm wiped. I'm going to need help." He felt Iruka tense up. "I'm just going to get Pakkun and Tomodachi. If I pass out, they'll be here to help you."

Iruka saw the copy-nin's true condition for a moment, and it frightened him. He was splattered in blood from the both of them, and so much paler than his usual complexion he didn't think it was possible. Kakashi had expended his chakra dangerously.

He wanted to tell Kakashi to go to the infirmary. It was where he belonged. But he was too afraid of being left alone. In truth, he belonged in the infirmary himself. But his mind went white-hot and flared out in all directions at the thought of medic-nin and Tsunade and Ibiki and the rest, hovering and looking into his shamefully rotted soul. Instead of telling Kakashi to go get treated, he battled the urge to roll off the futon and crawl under it.

"You'll be okay," Kakashi said in a worried, exhausted breath. "I'll make sure of it." He dipped his finger in the blood of his still-weeping thigh wound and called up the dogs. To his surprise, instead of the two he called, all of them appeared.

"I've been keeping tabs on you , Boss, so I brought reinforcements. Shit, catch him, Toma!" Kakashi had swayed, close to collapse, but caught himself before the large dog did.

Trotting paws brought a heavy quilt and light blankets. With the quilt for Kakashi to stretch out on next to the futon on the floor, and blankets to cover them both, the situation felt less tenuous. When Pakkun brought bottled waters they drank and then both fell into a dead sleep.

The dogs brought out the first aid kit but worried over trying to treat such deep gashes as if they were minor. In the end, Pakkun ordered the administration of antiseptics anyway. The two shinobi were so far gone even the sting of their wounds failed to roust them. The pack went down to wait in a worried circle around the men and dozed with one eye open.

xxx

Kakashi saw the shadow move on the ceiling and reared up, suddenly awake from his dead sleep and too exhausted to remember his chakra was spent until he tried to raise it.

"Baka. It's just me," Pakkun snorted.

"Pak." Kakashi's field perception clicked on, albeit belatedly. He was on the floor, next to Iruka. The dark eyes were closed, still unconscious, unmoved from the position he'd been deposited in, but the dressed wound appeared to have stopped bleeding and he was breathing regularly. The brilliant idea to bring him here suddenly seemed less than bright. Iruka was going to need internal healing, not just rest and privacy. It would be a matter of days before Kakashi could muddle together enough chakra to do even the smallest bit of that sort of treatment.

"Baka Boss," Pakkun growled. "Should I go get the Hokage?"

"Not…yet," Kakashi groaned. His mind was slightly hazy, and he needed to think this out. He had promised they could hide here for a time. Promised. He now knew just how much a promise meant to Iruka, much more than he ever realized. He would not break his word if he could at all help it.

"You both belong in the hospital. I thought you agreed with Ibiki."

"I never agree with Ibiki."

Pakkun huffed noisily and covered his eyes with a paw in frustration. He was growing quite weary of his role as the 'voice of reason'. Really, wasn't that supposed to be his master's job?

tbc