Sasuke rubbed his chafed wrists and sighed in relief after Sakura cut the wire that bound him to the post when she was reasonably certain that their new Sensei was long gone. Before he'd departed, his new Sensei had left him with a great deal to think about. The first of which, was the fact that the man didn't seem to practically worship the ground that he walked on like his Academy Instructors barring Iruka, who treated all of his students based on their actual performance rather than their clan affiliation, had done. In fact, his new instructor seemed to hate him.

After Hatake-Sensei had informed him that the team had passed when Naruto and Sakura had shared their lunches - which were sadly devoid of the tasty cherry tomatoes he'd watched Naruto eating - with him, the man had told them that "Those who break the rules are trash, and those who abandon or betray their teammates are worse than trash". The man had been looking directly at him when he'd said that.

After Naruto had run off rather than explain how he knew the contents of that dirty book that belonged to their new Sensei and Sakura had left, the man turned to look at him as he struggled with his unusually complicated bonds which had resisted all attempts at the rope-shredding technique.

"Did you know it was an Uchiha who had told me that?" the man had asked after studying him for a few seconds.

"Told you what?" he'd asked.

"Those who break the rules are trash. Those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash." the man had replied.

"Hn." he'd said noncommittally, replying how he usually did when someone recounted a tale involving one of the members of his clan, usually to show their "understanding" of his loss.

"Obito gave his life for his teammates, and his village during the war." the man had said. "When the time comes, would you do the same?"

He'd given another noncommittal "Hn."

"Thought so. More's the pity since, when the older generation think of the Uchiha, the first thing that comes to mind are those amongst your clan who were willing to die for the village and risked their lives daily to protect its people." the man had said coldly before he'd turned and walked away leaving him tied to the stump.

He'd then spent the next half hour wondering if he would be willing to die for Konoha. If he did so too soon however, he would never get his revenge against Itachi, and his clan would never be avenged. That vengeance had been his reason for existence for the past four and a half years. Could he die for something as ephemeral as "the village" and a pair of morons that he disliked, knowing he'd failed in his quest? Would he be willing to die for Konoha after he'd avenged his clan?

Feeling vaguely guilty that the answer to both questions seemed to be "No", he brushed past Sakura without thanking her and headed home, ignoring her pleas for a date.

During the week following the Bell Test, things had been interesting for Naruto to say the least. The morning after the bell test, Kakashi had given him an "Even though you covered me in orange paint and took my book I still like you" hug and a cherry sucker on the way to the team's usual rendezvous point. Learning that Kakashi paradoxically hadn't hated him for pranking him had taken a great deal of weight off his shoulders that he hadn't known he was carrying. After trying to sort out why this might be, he finally figured that Kakashi had decided to call them even after he had forced him to sit through The Talk for over two hours. With a relieved smile over the fact that his sensei didn't hate him, he raced ahead so he wouldn't arrive after Kakashi again. Being later than Kakashi was just too weird for words.

Iruka-sensei had seen that hug by some odd coincidence, and his reaction to it had been downright...unusual. The minute Kakashi had dismissed the team at the end of the day's training, Iruka had come over and led him to a nearby park. When they'd reached the park, Iruka had led him to a relatively isolated spot and looked around as if he was afraid of being overheard. Once he was pretty sure that they were alone, he started giving him the lecture on the "bad" kind of touching that the Old Man Hokage had given him after a certain incident when he was five. Naturally, he found this to be far more embarrassing than receiving The Talk from Kakashi who - much to his relief - hadn't brought out visuals as Ero-Senin had when he'd given him The Talk during their training trip.

He'd been completely puzzled as to why he was receiving this lecture until Iruka-sensei had started asking strange questions about Kakashi. Iruka had thought Kakashi was one of Those kind of perverts! The thought of Kakashi being like that had been too alien to process, so he did the only thing he could at the time, he started laughing and he didn't stop until he nearly passed out from lack of oxygen. It didn't help Kakashi-sensei's case any that Iruka-sensei knew him well enough to know his smile was a mask to cover his pain and loneliness more often than not and that his laughter was often a cover for embarrassment and discomfort.

Because he knew him so well, Iruka-sensei had taken his hysterical laughter to be a clear sign that there was something seriously wrong. Rather than taking his laughter to mean that the exceedingly uncomfortable conversation had just gone way past embarrassing and was rapidly heading off into uncharted territory as it had, Iruka had come to the mistaken conclusion that Kakashi had been molesting him and started seriously interrogating him. Seeing the look on Iruka's face after he'd told him that nothing had happened and that the hug he'd seen earlier that day had been an apology for making him sit and listen to The Talk for over two hours when he'd tried to reassure him and tell him that things with Kakashi-sensei were fine, he knew he'd said something wrong.

"Two hours?" Iruka yelled. "Two hours? The lesson on biology as it pertains to human reproduction is only an hour long! What the hell was he talking about for the other hour?"

"Um, the other stuff." he'd replied, turning slightly red.

During the talk from the day before, Kakashi had not merely gone over the purpose and basic mechanics of sexual intercourse as the Academy had done during one of the lessons he'd skipped, but had given him the advanced lecture which included information on the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and the various diseases one could contract as well as information on a couple of the not-so-basic positions. Aside from the lack of mortifyingly embarrassing visuals, the Talk he'd received from Kakashi-sensei had been rather similar to the one he'd received from Ero-senin on his fourteenth birthday. Being forced to sit through either lecture was an experience that he'd rather forget.

"What other stuff?" Iruka asked, looking as if he were dreading the answer.

"You know, the stuff that's in those perverted books he likes to read." he mumbled, trying to end the conversation, not wanting to continue this discussion as he had wanted to forget the embarrassment of Kakashi's lecture and put it behind him.

The look on Iruka's face when he'd stormed off at that point had been positively murderous. When he was called into the Hokage's office the next morning, both Iruka and a somewhat bruised Kakashi were there. Both men were dismissed upon his arrival, and the Hokage had set up a bunch of privacy seals before speaking with him. Apparently, after he'd stormed away the evening before, Iruka had beaten the crap out of a very surprised Kakashi, and had leveled some pretty serious allegations against him.

After a long conversation with the old man Hokage during which he was practically interrogated about The Talk, the hugging, and the gifts Kakashi-sensei had been giving him, he was finally released and Kakashi had been called in. After an hour during which he'd anxiously waited outside, afraid of what could happen to his sensei thanks to an unfortunate misunderstanding, the one-eyed Jounin left the Hokage's office with an odd look in his eye and a book on parenting in his hand. When the old man Hokage had explained to Iruka that it had all been one hell of a misunderstanding afterward, his former sensei apparently didn't believe him because, he had taken to following him every spare minute he had, and rather closely scrutinizing his interactions with Kakashi whenever he was in the vicinity.

Jiraiya smiled as he finally reached the gates of a still standing Konoha. The journey here both had and hadn't been arduous as the points that defined his trip depended on when one considered it to have begun but, he was finally home. What to do first? Find an apartment, talk to his godson, then do some research? Find his godson, get an apartment together, then research? Research and save everything else for later since the information he had would be spoiled if he moved too soon meaning that it had to wait?

What the hell had he been thinking? Research first of course! He'd been walking all day and he wasn't in the mood to go tromping around town this late in the afternoon searching for either Naruto or an apartment or both.

Plan decided upon, he went to find the small knothole in the fence on the women's side of one of the local onsen which had been there for generations. Naruto could wait for a while, as he'd waited for longer before, he could get a room at a hotel for the evening, and Orochimaru wasn't going to be here for months. Research came first.

Tenzo sighed as he glanced around the bar. Contrary to the information he had been given, Tsunade wasn't there. Or she wasn't in the more public area of the bar at least. Maybe she would be found enjoying the unregulated gambling in the back room...

Sighing, he made his way to the back where a slightly less than legit craps game was taking place. She wasn't in the back room.

Time to check the next bar.

Sighing in frustration once more, he left. He had spent a week drifting from town to town and so far his search had been fruitless, and it could take several more weeks or months of relentless searching before he found his target. At night, he had nightmares where he went searching from town to town practically forever just one step behind Tsunade, failed to get the necklace from her in time, and instead of releasing less than a tail of the Kyuubi's power, Naruto ended up completely losing control and turning the completely freed Kyuubi loose on the helpless land of Wave.

Kakashi practically melted at the look of appreciation in Naruto's eyes as he handed him the newly completed outfit that he'd just picked up from the tailor. It had definitely been worth the expense. All in all, the outfit which had been modeled on the clothes that the boy's mother had made for him wasn't half bad, and Naruto clearly appreciated it if the way he was turning around in front of the mirror was any indication.

The loose, embroidered top that went down to just below Naruto's knees, as he'd apparently grown a few centimeters in the year between now and his death since the top was supposed to come to his knees, had several nearly invisible pockets hidden amongst the elaborate embroidered wave and leaf design, and had the full Uzumaki clan symbol rather than the general one for Uzushogakure that was on Naruto's old clothing stitched onto the back of it nearly as large as the Uchiha fan was on the Uchiha brat's shirts. The flame orange pants that went with the top weren't too tight or so loose that they hindered Naruto's movement like with the over-sized tracksuit the boy always wore, even though the cuffs had to be rolled up.

"I had some extra tops and pants made in a similar style, though not nearly as elaborate as those. There's two orange, one blue and one green top all with the Uzumaki clan symbol. There is also one other pair of pants in orange two in blue, and one in green." he said as he held out another one of the bags he'd brought with him when he'd come to his student's apartment after leaving the tailor's shop.

At this, Naruto showed his appreciation for the gifts he'd just received by giving him one of the flying tackle hugs he usually reserved for Iruka. Smiling behind his mask, he returned the hug. He continued to smile throughout the meal of Instant Ramen that Naruto had offered him afterward. That Naruto had been willing to share his precious ramen with him had been a clear sign that he had indeed been truly grateful for the gifts he had received.

The instant he left Naruto's apartment building, Iruka stepped out of the shadows of a nearby alley and accosted him.

"How did you know Naruto's measurements?" Iruka asked, not even bothering to mask his suspicion.

I measured him for his clothes for his funeral because you couldn't do it, and the Hokage didn't force you to. he thought as memories he'd been trying to forget had come unbidden.

That day had been horrible. Iruka had been nearly as broken as him at that time, and possibly even more so. Naruto had been a bit like a son and a little brother rolled into one to the scarred Chunin, had been the first of his students to die, and at the hands of another of his students no less. In the state he'd been in, Iruka had been unable to face seeing Naruto's body again, and so out of the few people Tsunade could trust with the task, it had fallen to him to take the measurements. After he had refused to acknowledge the Hokage's summons three times, Shizune had come to his apartment carrying a black edged storage scroll that had contained Naruto's body and forced him to get out of bed to do the task. His student. His fault. His responsibility.

He would of course be telling the current Iruka none of this.

"I checked his clothing size when I put away the groceries I brought him while he was out. I then measured a couple outfits in those sizes, added a couple inches for future growth so he didn't need new clothes right away, and gave my estimates to the tailor." he said, making up his answer on the fly.

Iruka clearly didn't buy his explanation. Probably because all of Naruto's old clothes were over-sized. He'd known his answer was a lame one the instant he'd uttered it but, it had been all he'd been able to come up with as he'd tried to tamp down memories that didn't belong now that he'd been given a second chance to make things right. Memories of things that would never happen again.

The second Iruka lunged for him, he ran for it. Sticking around when the Umino was like this was inadvisable. The man was at least twice as strong as usual when it came to defending Naruto, and was willing to protect Naruto both in life and in death. After the boy's funeral, the man had singlehandedly stared down the mob that had come to object to the fact Naruto had been buried beside his father. Going up against Iruka when he was like this was pointless, and would most likely end with him being hospitalized, which he definitely did not need right now.

He could understand Iruka's suspicions in regards to his intentions towards Minato-sensei's son. His 'sudden" interest in a child he had gone out of his way to avoid for the past twelve years would seem highly unusual to anybody who knew him. But, he just wished that Iruka would go back to being mad at him for something he had actually done. At least then, he would have earned the beating he was sure to eventually receive.

Getting a drink and waiting for Iruka to cool off sounded like a good plan right about now.

When he arrived at the bar, Maito Gai had come over to where Kakashi was seated by himself with the vague idea of challenging him to a drinking contest. From the look in Kakashi's eye as he swirled the drink in his glass, something was wrong. Considering the rumors that had been making their way through the ranks lately, he had a feeling that Kakashi's mood had something to do with Iruka's accusations.

"What's wrong?" he asked his eternal rival when he reached the booth that the man was holed up in. Standing in front of his rival as he currently was, he could clearly see that now was not the time for such things as drinking contests.

"If, say that Hyuuga you have on your Genin team for instance, decided to betray Konoha and killed that clone of yours Rock Lee and you went back in time to prevent it, how would you react when you saw the Hyuuga boy and Lee again? How would you treat your students knowing one could kill one or both of his teammates at any time and your time with Lee could be cut short all too soon?" Kakashi asked looking at him in a manner that indicated that his question was entirely serious, and that he was asking for an honest answer from a friend rather than a fun answer from his Eternal Rival.

At first, the question threw him. Of all the things Kakashi could be upset about, that was what he had been brooding over? It seemed so completely random and off the wall until he thought about it for a second, trying to see "underneath the underneath" as Kakashi was fond of saying. Now that he was looking beneath the surface, he could see that Kakashi clearly thought that one of his students was a danger to the others and believed that it would be a short time before said student murdered or at the very least seriously injured one or both of his teammates.

"Why would Neji betray Konoha?" he asked trying to get more information so he could formulate a response that could possibly help ease his friend's worries.

"He was offered power so he could get revenge for something that happened in his past." Kakashi replied.

"Why would Lee die?" He asked, hoping for more clarification as Kakashi's answer to the first question had been vague enough to be a reference to either the Uchiha boy or the Jinchuriki since both boys had events in their pasts that they could want revenge for.

"He thought Neji was his friend for some strange reason, and went to get him back." Kakashi replied sadly, looking into his drink once more.

Still too vague. But then there were Kakashi's actions to consider. Iruka had accused Kakashi of being a pedophile because he had taken to constantly hugging the fox child, which was rather out of character for the man. There had, of course been some raised eyebrows when he himself had started hugging Lee to show his support, and appreciation for a job well done. He would've hugged his other students as well if they didn't run at the first sign that he was about to do so. Would Kakashi be more likely to hug someone he thought needed a reminder that there was someone there for them, or would he be more likely to hug someone he was afraid he was going to lose? Seeing as Kakashi wasn't really one for showing physical displays of affection, he honestly didn't know the answer to that question.

Not knowing exactly which way to go on that question, he decided to consider what little he knew of Kakashi's students. The Uchiha boy had been the only survivor of the Uchiha massacre besides the perpetrator, was the top rookie of his year, and was known to be somewhat aloof. Aside from that, the boy was an almost complete cypher. He knew almost nothing about the pink haired girl, and Kakashi had indicated that the likely murderer would be male. After a long series of pranks that had grown increasingly destructive as time passed, the fox brat had recently defaced the Hokage Monument and had also rather recently gotten into trouble for stealing a scroll of forbidden jutsu. Both of those activities hinted at something much darker than the pranks they'd been passed off as.

"So, is Uzumaki going to be a danger to anyone else?" he asked, wondering if he should warn his team about the boy who'd recently started showing up to talk to Lee and Tenten out of the blue.

The crunching sound of Kakashi's glass breaking in his hand startled him as did the way Kakashi was looking at him. The man's glare was positively murderous.

"Why is it when there is trouble, everyone blames Naruto?" Kakashi asked coldly. "He is completely loyal to the Village, his teammates, what few real friends he has, and almost none of them have repaid him in kind. Despite all that he has been through, Naruto would sooner kill himself than betray Konoha or his teammates."

He decided it would be best to retreat at that point as he'd apparently put his foot in his mouth. He'd obviously given the wrong answer and hit a seriously raw nerve in regards to the Uzumaki. Noticing that Asuma and Kurenai were sitting together at the bar, he indicated that he was going to head over and talk to them, before he practically ran off.

"What was that all about?" Asuma asked as soon as he reached them.

"The Uchiha boy has said or done something to make Kakashi believe that he's going to snap and kill his teammates." he replied, wondering how the hell he managed to miss such an important clue when Kakashi had been talking to him.

Kakashi had used the member of one of Konoha's most powerful clans who had been wronged by family as an example of the possible murderer and his most devoted student who had to overcome discrimination due to his so called disability as the possible victim. His beloved student who had been considered a loser and the Dead Last back in the Academy. The parallels were pretty damn obvious.

"Why was he upset at you though?" Kurenai asked.

"He'd been trying to hint at it rather than say it outright, and I misread the clues he was giving me and guessed that he'd been talking about the Uzumaki boy." he replied.

"Why would Kakashi get so worked up about that?" Kurenai asked.

"My father did offer Kakashi custody of the boy at one point after there was an incident at the orphanage he was living at at the time which had resulted in the child no longer being welcome on the premises. There must've been a reason for him to do so, and it is possible that Kakashi was close to one or both of the boy's parents before they died. If he felt that the child of the person he had been close to was in danger, it would be quite likely for him to be upset. It also explains why he acts so out of character in regards to the boy." Asuma said thoughtfully.

"He only started showing affection towards the boy shortly after Mizuki attempted to murder him in an attempt to frame him for the theft of that scroll, probably out of guilt that he hadn't been there to protect him as he felt he should have. Considering the fact that Kakashi generally keeps people at arm's length, and the only other time I remember Kakashi going through a sudden personality change was after that teammate of his died, the incident must have severely shaken him." Asuma continued, looking down at his own drink contemplatively.

Edited 11-1-12