The Shepherd's Dog
Author: remthedogsitter
Rating: M
Summary: It's been five years since Iruka left the village on an important mission and Kakashi has been searching for him ever since. Kakashi's journey leads him deep into iron country where he is later rescued by a shepherd and his eight dogs. Will Kakashi manage to solve the mystery and save Iruka in time?
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or their characters in any shape or form
Chapter 6: Changing Tides
"What moonsongs do you sing your baby?
What sunshine do you bring?"
–Luna, Smashing Pumpkins
The snow was frozen in the air and nothing stirred except for the creak of branches being weighed down as Shinjiru maneuvered through the treetops till he arrived at the opening of a cavern. Time standing still (literally) began the moment the Shinjiru took Kakashi and fled from the mountain and the wolf pack's howls that were chasing them.
He shook the snow from his fur before going inside. There was a small pit in the middle with a pile of wood kindling, the pelts of various animals including wolves lined the floor and some parts of the wall and a work table was deeper inside with various guns and ammunition on top of it.
"How much do you remember?" Shinjiru asked slipping Kakashi down near the warmth. One couldn't even here the cackle of the wood burning, with all of time standing still.
"My name is Kakashi Hatake. I am a… Shepherd… no a Shinobi of Konoha." He muttered, a palm pressed into his spinning eye. His head felt like it was splitting, all the memories were jumbled and contradicting with each other. "We're in a… illusion…save Iruka."
"That's enough for now." The wolf curled around him, taking gently with his jaws the shepherd's staff and most of the man's clothing that was beginning to soak from the melting snow. "She's doing something drastic, a major revision in the illusion because of what happened between you two." He gestured with his muzzle how everything was frozen. "But… this is actually to our advantage. She's made you an enemy of her world… hunter." The wolf grinned almost sinisterly and the white haired man could feel the killing intent, so reminiscent of the monster he once was in Orochimaru's lab.
Kakashi blinked his eyes slowly as he felt the heat from his eye fading and at the same time his headache melting as something cold began to slither into his consciousness.
"Now it wont matter if I give some of your memories back, she's building her defenses." He muttered as an after thought. "I wont have to keep them from you now because you're 'natural' enough in the illusion after all this time of being in it."
The man opened his mouth to speak but his body refused to move, it felt like a waking dream where the body was completely numbed. The illusion, was being pulled tightly like fitting on a new skin before it could be loosened.
"You must listen now, moon of my brothers, when you wake up, you'll be the hunter of this world so take the guns you've been given in this illusion and hunt. You'll remember our plan (to provoke the experiment in any way possible to get her into the open), we already risked so much and so much time just for this shot. She's getting sloppy. We'll have our chance Kakashi."
He was with the dogs walking on a bright sunlight path through the forest, they were just traveling away from waterfall where they met an experiment who turned out to be protecting a child in a little cave by the sea. It was wolf with scales like a fish but she was their kin. It was a good ending really for the second to the last pup they found a home for. Kaimu the largest had reached his full size, larger than a miniature pony and the other pups aren't pups anymore. Nao reminded him so much of Kakashi that thinking of it sent a pang of pain through his gut, such strong chakras inside him however cause a lot of mental instability in the past where the white dog would just stare at nothing. Soon he would see the man he loved soon after this one last lead in to Iron Country.
You're supposed to be doing something. It sounded like his own voice but not quite. The world is black.
Iruka opened his eyes and experimentally blinked for a few minutes. A dream. A very very weird dream. He sat up groggily, his hand meeting a furry head which he patted before reaching his staff. He went through the motions of his morning, preparing hot oatmeal and warming the offal stew for the dogs as well. He frowned realizing as he mixed the pot that contained his breakfast that he had made too much again. He stroked Aya's head when she placed herself under his hand, he felt uneasy.
The forest and the sheep were feeling tense as well over the past week when he had taken them to graze. The winter was taking a turn for the worst and it showed in how the sheep bleated at the end of the day telling him they were still hungry. The wolves hunted almost every night as well and that was saying something about how slim the pickings were. Then there was the added stress of the hunter in the woods.
/
The man sipped his drink at the bar, shot gun slung over his shoulder alongside an intricately carved wood of a metal pointed spear. The men from the village talked in their own little groups, they were staring into his back.
"That crazy hunter still alive eh? I'm surprised the wolves haven't eaten him yet."
"Oh when they get their chance you bet your wife they would."
"I bet that 'er shepherd wasn't none too happy seeing him hunting the wolves."
He finished the remnant of his brandy in one gulp. His white hair was tousled by the snow and hung messily around his angular features. He sported an eye patch and several scars on the skin that could be seen and a black scarf covered the lower half of his face.
"I hear he killed a bear with his bare hands."
"I head he killed a whole prison of bandits when they locked him in there."
The man left his payment on the counter and picked up his more recent purchases of oil and parchment before exiting through the door into the snow storm brewing outside.
"There goes the man who thinks he can kill a god."
/
Iruka knelt down in prayer over the body his dogs had found. It was a wolf whose chest was blown in by a gunshot and blood had splattered into the snow. The shepherd stroked the head of the wolf and prayed it a safe journey up the mountain to meet its ancestors. A little way off he could hear the wolf pack howl a very sad song to the moon.
There was a shadow watching him from somewhere up the trees. Watching. Waiting. "Iruka." The name was muttered so carefully that no one heard it except the night wind. Elsewhere the man could imagine Shinjiru hiding, waiting for a way to provoke the beast and find a tear in the illusion, killing key players in the illusion seemed to incite a reaction. He could remember everything and the life they were supposed to have if this never happened. His gut churned hot with the thought of more than five years of their lives stolen, there would be nothing to lose now. Soon, it would be do or die.
A/N: *breathe* ok have the "revisions" helped?