I'm sorry it took me so much time to update! I worked really hard on this chapter because I didn't like it much. As a matter of fact, I still don't like it, but there's nothing I can think about to improve it anymore. Feh...

Thanks a lot to trasgapoca for correcting it for me! I truly appreciate your kindness - and your efforts to make me understand my stupid mistakes!

Next chapter is going to be hard to write but very fun to read - or at least I hope so. I'll try to update soon

Enjoy everyone

Chapter 3

The cat gets out – Part I

The night was cold and merciless, a bone-chilling wind blowing on the Konohagure village. Between veils of clouds could be seen the shape of the moon, distant and fuzzy in the darkness, barely lighting the path of the daring men roaming down the deserted streets of the sleeping village. But Kakashi was far too tired to look up at the sky. Hell, it was almost a miracle he was still able to stand up and walk, as slowly as it might be, toward his apartment - he was totally drained and only the thought of his dry and warm bed kept his exhausted and sore body moving. Long assassination missions could do that to a man.

The wind was blowing hard on his soaked and blood-stained clothes, making him shiver as he walked down Konoha's streets. How many days has it been since he left the village for that mission? Four? Five days? More? He couldn't even tell. And yet, being back home didn't comfort him at all. There was nobody truly waiting for him here and nothing holding him back to this village – except maybe his strong sense of duty and his loyalty. There were his students of course, but the whole place felt oddly cold to him nonetheless. When had he started to feel he did not belong to this place anymore? When had he stopped calling Konoha home? He preferred not thinking about it...

After too many painful steps, Kakashi finally reached his apartment and disarmed his traps wearily, some part of his mind wondering why he even bothered to set the bloody traps before he left – it was not like there was anything he truly cared about in there either. This empty apartment didn't feel more like home than this village did, he realized gloomily as he closed the door behind him and activated his traps again. But at least here, he was safe from the kunais and the harshness of the icy fall wind... And somehow, that was all he cared about at the moment.

Sighing tiredly, the jounin went through his bachelor apartment like a zombie, not even caring to turn on the lights, his numb members protesting with every step he took as he headed for the bathroom. His aching muscles longed for his bed, but the jounin purposefully ignoring them, knowing from experience it wasn't such a good idea to go to bed after an assassination mission without getting some clean up done first. It made waking up a very unpleasant mess.

The ex-anbu stripped down slowly, scattering carelessly his drenched and strained clothes on the cold bathroom floor, and went into his shamefully small shower. The Sharigan user then mechanically turned the water on and a jet of cold water poured down on him, making his already frozen skin burn unpleasantly.

Gradually, Kakashi felt his cold and sore muscles prickle painfully at the contact of the warming up water and leaned heavily against the shower's wall, letting his thoughts drift away. He thought tiredly about team 7 he would have to teach and supervise the following morning. He thought about the Godaime and the next mission that would be assigned to him far too soon. And he thought about that strange chuunin, Umino Iruka. At the thought of the brown-haired man, the jounin sighed heavily, feeling even more depressed than before. How was he supposed to get to know the man if he kept messing up every time he tried to talk to him? Because there was no doubts about it, he had messed up his last discussion with the academy teacher – even to him, it had sounded just wrong. How had he managed to ruin a discussion about the weather anyway? After that, the chuunin probably thought he was some kind of delusional weirdo… Or worse. Not that Kakashi held it against him; the poor man was probably right about it too. Those thoughts somehow made the silver-haired man feel even more miserable than he already was. At this rate, he would never find out what was bugging him about Umino Iruka...

Once his numb members started to feel warm once again and stopped prickling, Kakashi absent-mindedly started to clean himself. He mechanically looked for injuries as he cleansed himself, but luckily found none – except for a couple of scratches, but those didn't count as injuries. Once he was done removing all the mud and the dried blood from his hair, he turned the shower off and briefly dried himself with the nearest towel. Not even caring to put something on, the exhausted jounin went straight to his bed and collapsed on it. He buried himself under layers of warm blankets and a blissful, dreamless sleep stole over him in seconds.

Sun was long high in the sky when Hatake Kakashi woke up, as he could feel the heat of sunlight pouring annoyingly on his face. Even with his eyelashes closed, the sun was blinding him. How annoying. He tried to move away from the cruel light, but somehow his muscles wouldn't move. He tried to move again, but his whole body protested against it, pain quickly spreading through his weary muscles and the jounin winced at the sudden ache invading his senses. His whole body felt sore and weary, and more than it had in quite a while. And now that he thought about it, his throat was raw and felt way too tight too. And that, he knew it only too well, was never a good thing.

The silver-haired ninja sighed and buried himself again in his sunbathed blankets, trying to go back to sleep - he didn't want to face the horrible state he would be in when he truly woke up. Not yet.

As the Copy nin was slowly drifting back to sleep, somebody loudly knocked on the door, waking him with a start. When Kakashi realized what had woken him, he relaxed and lowered the kunai he had grabbed from under his pillow out of reflex, his head falling back to his pillow heavily. Grunting with annoyance at being woken up, Kakashi ignored the visitor pounding on his door, only wanting to go back to sleep. Hopefully, the visitor would get the hint and leave the damn door alone...

But he soon found out that his visitor wouldn't leave the damn door alone as more knocking could be heard coming from the entrance and the jounin growled with annoyance. Couldn't they get the hint and let him sleep already? Who the hell could want to see him so much so early in the morning anyway? Kakashi painfully forced one of his eyes open and looked at the clock on his nigh table.

Okay, in the afternoon.

Since the knocking still wouldn't stop, the ninja slowly and difficultly sat up in his bed and did a quick mental check. Aching muscles. Heavy head. Slow mental process. Raw throat. Damn…That was just his luck, really. In his misfortune, it seemed like he had managed to get himself a cold during his mission.

The persistent visitor knocked yet louder and the Sharigan user almost winced at the sound, his head pounding painfully. Ignoring his protesting muscles and pounding head, Kakashi got up and grumpily walked toward the entrance to stop the way too loud knocking and give a piece of his mind to whoever had dared to force him out of his warm and comfortable bed. Midway to the door, his foggy mind reminded him that he was still as naked as the day he was born and the jounin groaned, lazily going back to his bedroom to grab something to put on. He took the closest blanket, put it around his shoulders and resumed heading to the door slowly. But on second thought, he walked back to his dresser and dig out of it a stingy and atrociously flashy acid-green scarf Maito Gai had given him years ago for Christmas – the Sharigan user suspected the Green beast had knitted it himself – and wrapped it lazily around his maskless face. Exhausted or not, he still had his pride.

The guy behind the door seemed to be getting a bit impatient. Well, that angry yell couldn't have been a girl's, now couldn't it? He wondered why a man would want to see him so badly... Some logical part of his foggy mind reminded him that no girl would want to see him as well, so the sex of his visitor didn't change a thing in the end. But still. It almost made sense at the moment.

Reluctantly, Kakashi made his way again to the front door, where the yells were getting more and more aggressive. He was started to feel pissed with whoever had come to see him; couldn't they just get the clue and leave him alone or did they think smashing down his front door was the best way to have him inviting them over for a cup of tea? Hoping it was at least some kind of important, the jounin opened the door and blinked at the sunlight, momentarily dazzled. In front of him stood two very serious looking jounin – even though they momentarily seemed quite taken aback to find him in such a state. Kakashi guessed he probably wasn't a beautiful sight. Or maybe it was because you didn't run often into a half-naked grown-up wrapped in a blanket and an acid-green scarf at 2:38 in the afternoon.

"Are you Hatake Kakashi?" one of the two men asked him on an authoritarian tone. The jounin stared back at him coolly, making it quite obvious that he was not impressed by the man's forceful tone and that they were not welcome. The two nins looked at each other, then one of them took out of his pocket a scroll and flashed it at Kakashi.

"The Hokage requests your presence at once for you to explain yourself," the man holding the scroll said on a slightly condescending voice. Kakashi blinked at them, surprised. To explain himself? Explain what? She couldn't possibly be angry because he didn't give her his mission report as soon as he came back to town? Even she wasn't that sadistic.

"…Sure. Tell her that I'm coming in half an hour," Kakashi said lazily as he closed the door, but the other jounin stopped him midway and pulled the door back open.

"It seems that you misunderstood us, Hatake-sama," he warned the Sharigan user boldly, obviously getting impatient. "The Hokage asked us to bring you to her. You have to come with us. Obey and follow us and things will go smoothly."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow defiantly at the younger man. "And what do you think you'll do if I refuse to obey, hm?"

Kakashi was aware of his reputation, so were the two men; they stepped back nervously, their faces suddenly crisped with anxiety. It amused the silver-haired man - that'd teach those arrogant jerks to show respect. The Copy nin knew far too well that he probably wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight in his pitiful state, but they didn't know it and it felt good to put those brazen youngsters in their places. After a few seconds of tense silence, Kakashi decided he had scared the wary jounins enough for the time being and spoke up nonchalantly.

"Just let me put something on."

The Sharigan user closed the door to two stunned ninja and slowly went back to his bedroom, looking through his dresser to find some clean clothes to put on. Unfortunately, it seemed that luck wasn't on his side; he had no clean sweaters left. Sighing, the jounin dug in the dirty clothes tub to get a sweater that hopefully wasn't too dirty. He pulled out one, sniffed it and judging it still acceptable to wear, put it on. As he was slowly getting dressed, he suddenly felt a bit nauseous, his head getting heavier with each second that passed by. The jounin couldn't remember the last time he had felt so sick - he usually didn't catch colds to start with. The Hokage sure chose well her day to be angry at him, he mused darkly. It promised to be another wonderful day...

Once he was fully dressed, Kakashi returned to the entrance and left the house with the two jounins – who seemed still a bit unsettled and kept on giving him nervous sidelong glances. Not that Kakashi minded. He tended to do that to people. It was some kind of annoying and fun at the same time.

After a few minutes of unbearable silence - for the two younger jounins of course - they finally reached the Hokage's office, where the Godaime was surprisingly enough already waiting for him. There she was, sitting behind her huge desk and staring at him from behind her hands with an unreadable face, her disturbingly piercing eyes firmly set on him as if she was trying to see through him. At her right stood her right-hand and assistant, Shizune, a mildly upset expression on her young face as she stared at him. Kakashi heard the office's doors close behind him and the heavy silence that followed made him feel both uneasy and wary. The abnormal seriousness of the whole situation and the unbearable tension that seemed to fill in the air in the Hokage's office stroke to him as incredibly odd - obviously, he must have done something pretty horrible to deserve such a welcome committee. Yet for the life of him, he could not thing of one single thing he had done recently that could possibly explain his current predicament. What the heck was that about? What had he done to piss her off her so much? Whatever it was, it seemed he was in big trouble this time... The Copy nin waited silently for the Hokage to speak up, feeling probably calmer than he should have been. After what seemed to be an eternity, the blond woman spoke up at last.

"I dare say you know why you are here today," she told him very seriously, her big hazel eyes scrutinizing him.

"No, I'm afraid I don't," answered Kakashi in his usual unaffected tone.

"Is that so?" the Godaime snorted in a strangely disappointed way. Then she got up and turned her back on him, staring at Konoha's village through the huge window. She stayed silent for a while as she silently contemplated something, which only made the jounin feel warier - he had never seen the Hokage act that way, and he didn't know what to make of it.

After a few minutes, she spoke up quietly to the window, "A strange behavior of yours has been reported to me, Hatake."

Kakashi's eyebrows rose. "Only one?" he asked in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood.

Tsunade remained silent, gazing at her village with a strangely expressionless face. So it didn't lighten the mood... Damn. Whatever that meeting was about, Kakashi realized, it really wasn't looking good for him. And he didn't like it one bit. He would have honestly preferred facing Ibiki down in the interrogation room to this: at least, he knew what to expect out of the torture master. This, whatever it was about, was starting to scare the shit out of him.

Suddenly, Godaime turned around and stared at him sharply.

"Iruka told me."

Kakashi blinked blankly at his superior, puzzlement showing on his mostly masked face. Heh? Umino Iruka? What did the brown-haired chuunin have to do with this?

Seeing the elite jounin's confusion, she added coldly, "He told me about that latest little sneaky hobby of yours."

...Sneaky hobby? The jounin stared at her with utter confusion, feeling at a loss about what was going on. What sneaky hobby? And why did Iruka – But right then, his brain finally added two and two and his eyes widened as the realization fell on him. Oh! She was talking about that! The silver-haired man inwardly sighed with relief as he finally understood what the whole meeting was about.

"Is that so? I had no idea he knew about it. I thought I made sure he couldn't sense me..." The Copy nin explained calmly, his hands stuffed in his pockets nonchalantly.

"So you DO admit you spied on Umino Iruka," the Hokage growled, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Yes," the jounin answered frankly, not really understanding why she was making such a deal about it. Of course, Kakashi understood that she could be annoyed at him since he had done it on his own authority and had wasted precious time he could have spent on duty instead of spying over the chuunin. Annoyed, surely enough, but not downright pissed like that. Somehow, he felt like he was missing something important...

"Tell me, how long have you had this hobby Kakashi, hm?" she asked hotly and the jounin felt increasingly wary. Obviously, he was missing something out again…

"Hm... I don't know... A few months, I guess?"

This answer further irritated the Godaime, who had to fight back a growl. She knew that Kakashi tended to have weird conceptions about those kind of things, so she didn't know how to take care of that issue at all. That man sure was one of the best elite jounin she had, but he was damn hard to deal with at times – especially in moments like those. With a sigh, she let herself fall in her big cushion armchair and started massaging her temple, annoyed at the silver-haired man standing in front of her. "How can you say that so casually? Dammit, do you even realize how wrong it is to stalk a coworker, Kakashi?"

The jounin frowned. Stalking? Since when has it been question of stalking? "But I wasn't stalking him," he protested, mildly insulted.

"Really? Then what do you think you were doing?"

"I..." Kakashi didn't know how to put in words what he meant to say. "... was trying to learn more about him."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow at him, looking skeptical. "Don't you think you could have asked him questions, like normal people do?"

"What I wanted to learn was not something that could be asked..." When the woman only gave him a dubious stare as an answer, Kakashi bit his bottom lip behind his mask with hesitation. Damn, he had wanted to avoid having his mental health under check, but he could be damned if he was able to lie his way out of this one. It seemed like he would need to explain himself to set things straight this time. Making up his mind, the jounin spoke up again. "May I speak freely, Hokage-sama?"

This serious request seemed to mildly puzzle Tsunade, who raised her eyebrows at him. "Yes, please do so."

To the Hokage's surprise, the silver-haired jounin then started to talk with this neutral, business-like voice of his, the voice the Copy nin used only to report back important missions and to give orders to his subordinates back when he was still an ANBU member.

"I am under the impression that there is something wrong with Umino Iruka's character. I know that I have no proof of what I am saying, but my instinct is telling me that there is something weird about him, something unclean. I don't know what exactly is wrong with him, so I followed him around in order to discover whether or not he was a potential treat for the village."

Both Tsunade and Shizune blinked at him several times, taken aback by this sudden "revelation". As the jounin's words sank in, the Hokage had to repress a frown; this situation was ridiculously ironic. Umino Iruka, weird? He was probably the sanest and the most normal shinobi in the whole damn village. How could Kakashi – Kakashi, of all people – consider Iruka's behavior strange? If she wouldn't have known Kakashi better, she would have thought he was trying to come up with a bad story to explain his perverted habits. But she knew perfectly well that Kakashi was a total emotional and social wreck. God only knew what seemed normal to him! At that thought, she sighed again. What a mess…

"Do tell me what exactly makes you think that your 'instinct' is warning you against Iruka?" she asked tiredly, massaging her eyes.

"Well, I... there's something off about him. Whenever he's around, I feel somewhat strange and somehow he's always on my mind. I really can't get rid of him, I'm always thinking about him. That's definitely not normal. Nobody ever made me feel that way before!" the jounin said fiercely, as if daring them to contradict him.

The two women gaped at him for a few seconds, looking positively stunned by the jounin's words. Then, the Godaime's blank face cracked into a small, wavering smile and she started to chuckle. Her chuckles soon turned into howls of sardonic laughter, her shoulders shaking violently as she repeatedly knocked her powerful fist against her desk. Kakashi stared at her, dumbfounded. What was so funny? He was serious about this!

When the blonde finally calmed down and let out her last chuckle, she wiped her eyes and gave the silver-haired jounin an unreadable look.

"You don't have to worry, Kakashi. Iruka-sensei is perfectly normal, if not a bit too much for his own good. I can assure you that he's one of the most loyal and honest shinobis of Konoha. This... "weird" feeling you have in his presence is by no means some kind of instinct warning you about him. You just, hum... let's say misunderstood your feelings, that's all," the Hokage answered casually, her eyes gleaming with amusement.

"But I insist, Hokage–sama -"

"Enough nonsense, Hatake," she cut him sternly, all amusement vanished from her young features. "Do you think that if Iruka would have been a threat you would have been the only one to notice it? We have special teams which only purpose is to detect those kind of abnormalities and I can assure you that they are extremely effective. If Iruka's behavior would be even only slightly doubtful, he wouldn't be in charge of children in the first place. You should be ashamed to put so little trust into Konoha's shinobis," Tsunade answered sharply, before adding, "Moreover, if someone knows how normal Iruka truly is in his everyday life, it's got to be you. I dare say that stalking him for months taught you so much."

At these words, the jounin's shoulders fell and he stayed silent, his eye staring shamefully at the ground. Of course, she was right about it: Umino Iruka was the probably the most normal and boring person Kakashi had met with in his entire life. He had realized so much after only the first few weeks of stalking. Yet he couldn't help but thinking, like he had thought back then, that there was still something fishy about the chuunin, something amiss. But what if he was wrong about that too? What if he had just misunderstood his feelings, like the blond-haired woman just told him, and that the problem was not Iruka, but him…? But what was that supposed to mean exactly? Somehow, that explanation didn't make much sense to the tired and aching nin. Had she meant his instinct had lured him on a false trail? Was he loosing his touch?

The Hokage stared at him silently for a while, before speaking up again with an authoritarian tone. "I hope you realize the consequences of your thoughtless and egoistic little mission: an elite jounin such as yourself should be ashamed to break into the intimacy of your peers like that over such a trivial issue. Do you have any idea how Umino Iruka must be feeling after being stalked by a stranger for months? Don't you think he already has enough to cope with all these children he must watch over without having somebody stalking him on top of it?" she paused to let her words sink, hoping to get the message through. When the jounin's head lowered shamefully, she was satisfied and spoke up again on the same stern voice.

"Listen to me now, Hatake. Such a behavior won't be tolerated anymore. Since I know that you didn't intend to harm anyone at all, I will be clement for now. But if I ever hear you're 'trying to learn more' about Iruka again, I won't go so easy on you and that's a promise. Got it?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," Kakashi muttered quietly, "It won't happen anymore."

"I hope so for you." Tsunade growled. "You are dismissed."

The silver-haired jounin turned around and left the office, seeming a bit lost in the way he walked away. As soon as the door closed behind him, the Godaime's serious expression and shifted into a sorry smile. She let out a small tired laugh and sighed.

"Guess this is what happens to people who are turned into weapons too young..." she said softly to her assistant. Shizune, who had stayed silent during the whole conversation, walked toward the older women, a slightly worried expression on her young face.

"What do you plan to do?"

"Oh, nothing for now," Tsunade answered lightly, "I think it'd be better to let him find it out for himself. He ought to get it one day or the other." She was silent again, staring at the door the man had just passed through. Very quietly, she added "...I just hope he won't get hurt in the process..."

After his meeting with the Godaime was over, Kakashi painfully dragged himself home. He felt utterly uneasy for some reason. His emotions were so mixed together that he couldn't tell what was making his heart ache in such an uncommon way. Shame? Guilt? Disappointment? Or was it something else? Whatever it was, it was making him feel confused and miserable. And as if that wasn't enough, his aching muscles and his cold symptoms had returned full force. He felt like hell, and it must have showed because people stared at him more than they normally did. Usually, he wouldn't have minded the attention, but in his current state he somehow couldn't stand having those judging eyes on him. He wanted to be left alone for a while.

To avoid bringing more attention to himself, the silver-haired man left the main road and decided to use the village's narrow and sinuous alleys to walk home, even if it would take him a little longer to arrive to his apartment. At this hour of the day, those streets were always empty and a bit gloomy, fitting perfectly with his present mood, he thought ironically, and his chances of running into someone he knew were very slim. Not that many people had ever gone out of their way to talk to him anyway…

As he strolled down Konoha's deserted little streets miserably, he heard somebody walking toward him. He looked up just in time to see Umino Iruka walking out of another alley into his and his heart clenched painfully at the sudden sight. When the younger man saw him, he froze, his tired expression turning sour at once as he gave him a dark, resentful look. The Hokage's words came back to the silver-haired man as he saw the bitterness, the humiliation and the resentment the man's usually warm and cheerful eyes withheld at his sight and the Sharigan user suddenly understood why the old woman had summoned him to her office in the first place. He had never intended to, but somehow while trying to figure out what was wrong with the man, he had managed to deeply hurt the good-hearted chuunin's feelings. But before the jounin could even think of something to say, the brown-haired man had pulled himself together and hurried past the him, ignoring the silver-haired man's presence as he walked away. Kakashi stared at the man's retreating back, his uneasiness and guilt making him feel a bit nauseous. Some irrational part of him wanted to call the chuunin back to explain himself, to tell him he had never intended, never wanted to hurt him, but he didn't know what to say at all. So he stayed helplessly silent as he watched the brown-haired man disappear into another dark alley, leaving him alone with his guilt and confusion.

Somehow, the Sharigan user managed to drag himself home, his chest and his throat painfully tight. He hadn't felt this troubled in years, he mentally observed as he entered his small bathroom to get some painkillers for his throbbing head and muscles. The first thing he saw were his still soaked, bloody and already mold-smelling clothes forgotten on the floor. He groaned at the sight, cursing himself for forgetting them there. And as if his day had not been bad enough like that, he had no painkillers left in his medicine chest. He sighed at his empty painkiller bottle and promised himself to get some first thing in the morning tomorrow. Then Kakashi sneezed and looked at his bed longingly. He remembered he had to write his mission report and train Team 7 today before he could tuck in. Which meant moving. And wasted energy. Not that he had much to spare anyway...

He hesitated a few seconds before giving up on his responsibilities for the time being. He felt like hell and nothing good would come from him in his current state. He knew he would have to face the consequences tomorrow – Team 7 and Tsunade would have his head for sure – but he didn't mind it much at the moment. And he would have to face Iruka one day or another too... That was another story, though. Without even changing, he buried himself once again under his bed's blankets and waited for sleep to overtake him.

The physical pain was annoying, but he was used to it. At the moment, Kakashi only wished his uneasiness would go away. Somehow he couldn't get out of his mind Iruka's resentful eyes, the image of the man's hurt expression burned into his mind making his chest ache in a bizarre way. And the whole meeting he just had with the Hokage kept on coming thick and fast to his memory, which didn't help at all.

The thing that was upsetting him the most was the fact that he was wrong about the whole thing. He trusted Tsunade's deduction power and if she told him that there was nothing out of place in Iruka's character, he would believe her. But somehow it didn't make sense to him and he didn't understand why. His instinct had never lied to him before. Could he already be loosing his touch? She had said that he was the problem… Then what was his problem exactly? Why did he feel so strange around the brown-haired man? What was wrong with him?

Kakashi coughed under his blankets, his throat raw. It had been another wonderful day indeed... And somehow, he could tell that more of them were to come.

To be continued