"Iruka!"

Someone yanked his pillow out from under his head. It wasn't enough to fully wake him up, but it startled him out of a truly deep sleep. "Mmf," he protested. He couldn't have gotten more than two or three hours of sleep, and his dreams had been less than restful. He could feel tight patches of skin on his cheeks from where his tears had dried.

"They said it's getting bad again."

Now that Kakashi mentioned it, Iruka could feel more behind the heavy exhaustion than a simple lack of sleep. He could feel the fire just starting to burn beneath his skin. His eyes flew open, and he sat up. The overabundance of magic wasn't nearly as bad as it had been earlier; with any luck, the Sharingan would be able to balance things out.

Kakashi was sitting on the edge of his bed, pillow clenched in one hand, staring at him. "You've got the..."

"Sharingan, I know." Iruka rubbed sleep out of his normal eye. "You can tell? I thought the brown color wasn't all that different from my normal eyes."

"The brown isn't... That's not the way the magic expresses itself."

Iruka remembered the dark-haired boy with the scarlet eyes from his dream. "Then..." He shoved off the bed and practically sprinted into the bathroom. He hadn't even thought to look in the mirror last night. In retrospect, he was glad. It probably would have unnerved him, to say the least.

His right eye remained the same. His left, on the other hand, was a vivid red with a second, thin ring of black around the pupil that supported two specks of black spaced evenly around the curve. He took a step back from the bathroom mirror, the dream all too clear in his mind. "I was you."

Kakashi had followed him to the bathroom and was watching him intently. His head jerked up, clearly taken aback. "What?"

"I dreamt about Rin and Obito." The words turned to ash in his mouth at the stricken look on Kakakshi's face. Throughout the entire dream, he'd felt the pain that their memory caused. It was brutal and everlasting. "Kakashi," he started, but he had no idea what to say. He'd lost people as well – his parents – and no words ever really helped. "I'm sorry," he said and then plowed right over Kakashi's derisive snort. "For prying. They're your memories. I didn't do it intentionally, but that still doesn't mean I had any business mucking around in them."

"It's not like you had any choice."

"Well, that's certainly true." The influx of Kakashi's memories confirmed what he'd suspected when he recognized the Sharingan last night. The turbo charge of power must have been coming from Kakashi's magic, but he couldn't figure out why. "What happened?"

"They were going to take my magic." Kakashi shook his head, as if he was replaying what had happened and looking for other options. "I didn't have any other choice."

Iruka turned and leaned against the bathroom sink so that he could see where Kakashi was slouched in the doorway. "They?"

"A woman and a boy; I didn't see their faces. Talented, though. The woman was casting a complicated spell on par with some of the highest level ones I saw in ANBU, and the containment circles she'd held me in were skillfully done."

"If they were that well done, how did you manage to get control of it? I mean, they can't have meant to send your magic to me."

Kakashi snorted. "No, they didn't, but I know how to get around the containment. It means that, while you can use your magic, it's horribly unwieldy. In order to actually accomplish anything," he hesitated. "You need a focus."

"And you just happened to have a focus handy? Oh." Iruka's eyes widened as he realized that Kakashi had, in fact, had a tailor-made focus literally stitched into his skin. "So it's not like you had any choice either. Sorry you got stuck with me."

Kakashi's face did something complicated behind his ubiquitous black mask, and Iruka resisted the urge to reach out and rip it off. Over the years, he'd learned that Kakashi was inscrutable under the best of circumstances, and the mask certainly did nothing to help. He always felt that he'd understand Kakashi better if he could just see his face.

When he'd asked about the mask, Kakashi'd told him that it was enchanted to filter germs from the air. Iruka hadn't believed him believe him for a second but figured it was a fairly personal question and hadn't begrudged Kakashi for the lie. Later, once they'd fully transitioned from colleagues to acquaintances to friends, Iruka realized that it was entirely plausible that Kakashi had been telling the truth. He wouldn't put it past him to be a germaphobe, but he also wouldn't be surprised if Kakashi had lied through his nose about it. He still hadn't decided which version to believe, and he hadn't asked again.

Regardless of the reason, Iruka'd slowly learned to interpret the minutiae of movements around Kakashi's eyes. Every once in a while, he caught Kakashi's face involved in an expression that he couldn't interpret. This was one of them. He waffled for a moment, considering the simple expedient of just asking him what was wrong, but decided that he could probably take a guess. Completely losing your magic was enough to make anyone flaky. He rubbed a hand across his face and shoved away from the bathroom sink. "Look, let's go see Tsunade. She might be able to get this sorted out."

Kakashi stared at him for a long moment, mouth working as if he was going to either comment or protest, but eventually decided against it.

Iruka lunged forward and grabbed his arm. "Stop moving."

"I'm not."

"You were going to."

"Well, we were just talking about leaving. Did you have some magical way to go see Tsunade without moving?" He drawled out the word 'magical' in the same way that people who had never encountered the real thing talked about card tricks.

Iruka dropped his arm and glared at him. "Don't be a smartass."

"You started it."

It was strictly true. Iruka had been responsible for the first smart comment of their friendship, and no matter how much he argued that Kakashi couldn't use that as an excuse to make smart comments during every subsequent conversation, he hadn't managed to convince Kakashi to stop. So he dealt with it the same way that he had the last 100 times this had happened – made a mental note, again, not to use that phrase, rolled his eyes, and ignored it. "Just stay behind me."

The bathroom had been stifling when he'd gone in there, but it seemed to have cooled down in the interim. The floor also tilted interestingly as he started to move, and he cursed under his breath. He hadn't been quite as amped up as earlier, and the Sharingan burned power faster than he expected. It would take a while to get the balancing act down. He staggered and squeezed his eye shut.

Kakashi caught him, letting Iruka lean against his chest for a moment to catch his balance before setting him back onto his feet. "Are you okay?"

Iruka was grateful for the momentary aid – his legs seemed convinced to be less than helpful in keeping him upright. He waved Kakashi off and walked slowly back to his bedroom. "I'm fine; I just need to find something." He let the words trail off even as he yanked open a drawer and started fishing into the very back corner. After a few minutes of searching, he pulled out a scrap of fabric with a triumphant grin.

"What is that?"

"I can't keep one eye shut forever. I'll look like a psychopath, and my eyelid will fall off." He paused in the doorway to wrestle with the two long ties attached to the fabric.

"You know how I deal with it."

"I am not getting a permanent tattoo for a nonpermanent problem." He ducked his head to line up the square of cloth with his eye and tied off the laces under his ponytail.

Kakashi peered at him and his rather pathetic, leftover Halloween costume eye patch. "Huh."

"What?"

"I didn't think of that."

Iruka goggled at him in disbelief before letting out a bark of laughter. "You thought of tattoo before you thought of eye patch?"

"You have to admit that it makes me look very suave and debonair."

He grabbed keys, wallet, and cell phone, then tucked them into his pockets, commenting offhandedly, "Only you could make a bunch of symbols and filigree around your eye look sexy."

Awkward silences were certainly more common at the beginning of this strange friendship than they were now, but that didn't mean that they still didn't happen. A casual observer might point out that comments like that between people who are friends and only friends don't make for awkward moments. Unfortunately, neither of them was casual enough to notice this. Iruka cast around for something to say, blaming the exhaustion and general lousy feeling that had disconnected the filter between his brain and his mouth.

"Very rakish, Iruka. Don't you think, boss?"

Trust the dogs to make it worse.

Tsunade ran the entire magical community in Konoha. This meant that she was: 1) a highly talented mage and 2) almost completely unreachable unless you booked an appointment several months in advance.

They solved the problem by simply ambushing her at the local coffee shop during her self-imposed 10-minute break. Kakashi knew that Iruka wouldn't hear the end of it from the dragons that guarded and scheduled her time, but Shizune would just have to deal with it. If he'd heard right, they were running out of time to catch the people who'd done this.

Tsunade took one look at them over the brim of her mug, eyebrows climbing, and said, "What the hell happened to you two?" At least it didn't look like she was going to bawl them out for absconding with her precious break. As situations go, the one that had landed in Kakashi's and Iruka's lap fairly clearly warranted unorthodox methods.

The summarized version took a little less than five minutes. When he'd finished, Tsunade sat back, clearly digesting the information. She laced her fingers together and eyed him. "They just let you go?"

That had surprised Kakashi too, when it'd happened. "I hadn't seen them, and besides the voices, there was nothing for me to identify them with." He paused. "I don't think they actually wanted to hurt me. That spell could have easily drained my magic and my life force – if they were looking for power, that would be the smart thing to do – but it was set up with a hard stop to keep from doing that. They left me with what any normal human would have, and they didn't have to."

"I'll take whatever you can give me in the way of description and pass it over to ANBU. You said they were on a deadline?"

"The new moon."

"Then they can't afford to lay low." She was silent for a long moment. "I'll put the ANBU out and hopefully we'll get our hands on them. In the meantime, let's see if we can get you two sorted out." She shoved her chair back and swiveled around to look fully at Iruka. "I've never seen anything like this," Tsunade admitted finally, scowling down at Iruka's torso and the tangle of magic there. "Given time, I might be able to come up with a reversal spell, but I can't promise anything."

Iruka tilted his head to one side. "Or we can just find out the easy way." He pointed at the Sharingan. "They're not going to be able to pass all of this up. I probably look like an all-you-can-eat buffet."

The suggestion was ludicrous – to use himself as bait in order to copy the spell using the Sharingan. It was dangerous and foolish, and Kakashi wasn't going to just stand by and let him suggest it. "No."

"I'm sorry, do you not want your magic back?"

"You're not going to throw yourself into some..."

"Dangerous situation that I can't handle? I can handle just about anything right now, and it's not like I'm planning to go without backup."

Once he'd acquired the Sharingan, it had taken Kakashi weeks to break the habit of finishing other people's sentences. He'd spent the entire walk over here being interrupted every other sentence, and this was one too many. "That is getting really annoying."

"You think it's getting annoying for you? At least you could turn it off. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to walk straight if I ever get rid of this thing, and the eye patch is not all it's cracked up to be." Iruka had smacked his knee on no fewer than three obstacles on the way over here and had needed to grab the doorframe when he came into the shop to make sure he actually made it through. "Figuring out a way to live with this – like getting the stylish face tattoo – is not an option. I'm going to fix this." He caught Kakashi's eye and sighed. "Relax, I'm not going to lose your magic to them."

"I'm not worried about that!" Kakashi snapped. "I'm worried about you losing yours. It feels like someone sawed off your leg while you weren't looking. I keep reaching for it and then realizing it's not there and I can't remember how I functioned before I had it readily available." How could Iruka have thought he was worried about himself? Living without his magic seemed impossible, but he'd never forgive himself if Iruka had to go through the same thing simply because Kakashi had seen fit to involve him.

"Which is why we're going to get yours back to you," Iruka shot back.

"You don't..."

"Hey, if you're allowed to worry about me, then I'm allowed to worry about you."

Tsunade looked from one to the other and finally dropped her hands down flat on the table, pushing herself away. "As much as I hate to break up this fascinating and enlightening discussion, how are you planning to get yourself captured by these psychopaths? Konoha isn't Tokyo, but it's not exactly tiny either. You can't just wander around and hope to get caught."

Although she had a good point, she didn't offer a solution. Kakashi tilted his head towards Iruka.

"Why are you looking at me?"

"It's your idiotic plan."

Iruka glared at him. "You said they mentioned something about the new moon?" He didn't even wait for Kakashi's affirmative before he was fishing a slim smart phone out of the front pocket of his jeans. Although almost every mage had the dates of the full moon in their back pocket, the new moon was less prevalent. As the lunar cycle reached its apex with the full moon, a mage's power peaked as well. The new moon, on the other hand, was more commonly associated with rebirth. He tapped rapidly on the screen. "We have a little under a week before their deadline – the new moon rises this Tuesday. Can you get one of your TNTs on it?" He asked Tsunade. Iruka would normally have been the first choice for a track and trap job, but with the level of magic flowing through him, he wouldn't have the delicacy to manage it without singeing, and therefore warning, the targets.

"I'll get someone on it, and I'll call you when we get something."

There was no mistaking that dismissal. Kakashi gave her a sardonic salute but dropped it to catch Iruka, who'd started to turn and immediately staggered. Iruka's shirtsleeves were rolled up to just above his elbows, and his bare skin practically scalded Kakashi's hands. "What...?"

"I have a feeling your ability to regenerate your magic is significantly better developed than mine."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't run my tank down past empty on a weekly basis. Your body's been adjusting purely out of self preservation." Iruka leaned on Kakashi's arm to right himself and groaned in dismay even as he reached for the eyepatch. "There are going to be people everywhere, aren't there? How do you use this thing without making yourself motion sick?"

Kakashi didn't bother to answer; it wouldn't satisfy or help Iruka. Simply put, he didn't use it unless he had to. That usually meant that he was either fighting someone, in which case the adrenaline allowed for such superb tunnel vision that he wasn't bothered by the movements of bystanders, or he was trying to copy a specific spell from a very specific person, which also engendered tunnel vision. Other than that, he left it turned off. It used a huge amount of magic and, for the most part, the benefits didn't outweigh the splitting headache that came from a brain swamped with far too much predictive information. An idea struck him, and he reached out to stop Iruka's hand. "Will you be okay for the next," he paused to estimate the distance, "twenty minutes or so?"

"I think so. I can always toss the eye patch if I need to."

He stepped away from Tsunade's table and Tsunade, who was eyeing both of them suspiciously. "Come on."

"Try not to demolish the whole neighborhood!" She called after them.

Kakashi waved a hand in the air over his shoulder, ignoring Iruka's worried questions about what exactly she thought they were going to be doing. This would be payback of a fashion – like bringing back a souvenir for someone after they house-sat for you. If nothing else, it would be more pleasant than simply turning the Sharingan on and not really using it for its intended purpose.

Assuming Iruka didn't manage to kill them in the process, but Kakashi'd had four years to watch Iruka demonstrate iron-tight control and precision that made simple tracking spells that should have been easily avoided practically undetectable and successful against some extraordinarily talented mages. He wasn't worried.

"Are you breaking in?"

Kakashi chose to blame the rude insinuation on the fact that the nearly forty-five minutes it had taken them to get here – Kakashi was rubbish at estimating time when he was traveling via such a mundane means as walking – had taken its toll on Iruka. He turned and jingled a key ring a few inches from Iruka's face, and then he stuck the key back in the lock and wrenched it around until the disused lock gave way.

He almost never used the front door. When his mother had finally taught it to him, teleportation had been a favorite – it required skill and strength and had felt like a right of passage at the time, a demonstration of his talents as a mage. It also saved massive amounts of time, giving him that much more opportunity to learn other spells when he wasn't wasting his time getting from one place to another. He used it so incessantly that it became second nature. When he was in range, he would simply zap straight to his living room or, if he wasn't bleeding to egregiously, his library.

He was lucky he'd had his keys on him at all.

Iruka rocked back on his heels, eyeing the low porch that encircled the entire building. "Is this your house?"

As if in response, the entire pack of Kakashi's familiars came skidding around the corner of the house, claws scrambling on the polished wood. A rousing chorus of 'Boss!' also helped announce them, and they slid more-or-less to a halt. Bisuke and Akino didn't turn on their brakes quite early enough and collided gently with Iruka's shins before stopping. Tails thunked happily against the floor.

"You have a house. How did I not know that you have a house?" Iruka sounded bemused and followed Kakashi into the house, craning his head around to get a good look at his surroundings.

"Where did you think I lived?"

"I thought you were nomadic."

"You wound me with your assumptions, Iruka." He kicked the door shut behind them and the dogs.

The dogs wove around their legs across the narrow hallway to the sliding door on the far side. They were almost always eager to get to the dojo because they could lounge in the sun around the outside.

Kakashi pushed the door open and ushered Iruka through, grinning at the look of stunned amazement that crossed Iruka's face.

The dojo took up the majority of the central part of the house, with all of Kakashi's living spaces arranged around the outside. The center of it was carpeted in soft grass and opened to the sky. A partial ceiling protected the benches, cabinets, and well-loved dog beds that lined the outside.

He stepped sideways around Iruka, who was still blocking the door, and swept the eye patch off his eye with a graceful gesture. "Watch," he instructed, waited until Iruka tore his eyes away from the scene, and formed several deliberate hand signs that allowed him to initiate and focus the spell. It would be interesting to see if this would work. He had no magic to actually complete the spell, and so it was entirely possible that, to the Sharingan, it looked like he was simply making a series of complicated, albeit predictable, hand gestures.

Copying spells wasn't simply about knowing the components – the written characters, the hand gestures, and any material goods – although that probably encompassed 90% of what the Sharingan did; it was also about how the magic was used. Applying magic at the beginning versus the end of the spell produced very different results – sort of like putting baking soda in cookies after they were baked instead of before. It wasn't a perfect analogy because throwing out a boost of magic at the end of spell didn't always result in disaster. Even the way magic was applied affected the results. A slow, constant push would do something different than a sharp spike.

Most mages would tell you that all spells – within your affinity, but that was another argument for another day – could be learned given enough time, enough practice, and enough magic at hand. The Sharingan took the need for time and practice out of the equation, but that was assuming you were copying from a fully functioning mage who had mastered the spell in question.

Iruka watched him, brow furrowed in concentration, and matched his movements. The air surrounding the grassy center of the dojo rung like a struck crystal and a faint shimmer rent the air at the point closest to them.

"Protective spells?" Iruka asked.

Kakashi swallowed his surprise before answering. He'd hoped it would work, but he hadn't really expected it to. "Keeps everything in. Magic, physical items, everything."

"I was wondering where you'd been letting Naruto train."

"He probably would have leveled half the city by now if I'd let him practice outdoors," Kakashi agreed, a hint of pride coloring his voice.

"Letting him have any more than a block of demolition to his name really would have been too much," Iruka laughed and turned, and some of Kakashi's shock must have still shown on his face, because Iruka's gaze dropped to his hands. He flexed them thoughtfully and then touched the corner of his eye. "It's odd. You weren't backing any of that up with magic, but it's almost like I could see where you were trying to use it, so I knew..." Iruka trailed off, his jaw setting in a hard line. "Come hell or high water, we are getting this fixed. I may need to fight them. Teach me."

"Battle magic isn't one of your affinities."

"No, but it's yours." Iruka stepped through the shimmering window in the protective spells. "The Sharingan is an innate ability – the people who have it are born with it or they've acquired it physically – but it's clearly inextricably bound to your magic or I wouldn't have gotten it. Whatever this is, whatever they did, it transferred more than just your raw power. It transferred the metadata as well."

"You think my magic is still earmarked with my...?"

"Affinities, yes. Only one way to find out. Show me how to close this."

Magic affinities were as innately ingrained in a person as personalities. Some people were born fighters, others born liars and sneaks, and others born healers. Some affinities were so common that people never even thought to mention them. For example, most people have some modicum of self-preservation so an affinity for protection spells, like the shield spell Kakashi had just showed Iruka how to open, were common. Very few mages had a single affinity, although some combinations were stranger than others. Tsunade and Sakura, for example, had battle and healing affinity.

Kakashi had at least a pinch of affinity for all variations. It was one of the reasons the Sharingan worked so well for him – he had the ability to put his magic towards just about any spell. Without an affinity, even the most skilled mages found it extremely difficult verging on impossible to apply their magic to even a simple spell outside their affinity.

Iruka's main flavor of magic was technically characterized as sneak magic, although almost all of the stand-up TNTs were lobbying to get that nomenclature changed. The original classification had broken magic into battle, healing and sneak, with the understanding that if you weren't willing to meet your opponent head on with battle magic, you were cowardly indeed.

The original classification authority had been composed of the thick-headed bruisers of the magical community. This had been ameliorated later by instigating sub-categories that were significantly better named, but the main category remained.

Iruka also held the common affinity for protective magic and a touch of affinity for healing magic but not even a gnat's whisker of an affinity for battle magic. If he could manage to execute any of the battle spells, they would draw from Kakashi's magic alone.

Kakashi grimaced at the thought. Granted, he'd brought Iruka here with the specific intention to teach him new spells, but he hadn't been planning on choosing any from his vast collection of battle magic - they wouldn't do Iruka any good in the long run and it was nice to have one friend completely free of battle magic. He'd been understandably worried about trying even non-battle magic spells with Iruka given the amount of magic currently at Iruka's disposal.

Even Tsunade had recognized his skittishness and had called him out on it, but she hadn't seen the inch-thick rind of ice that had covered Iruka's bathroom. She hadn't realized what he was capable of with his new-found strength.

Battle magic was tumultuous under the best of circumstances, but the protective spells would hold it in, and he'd be careful to pick spells that wouldn't stand a chance of hurting Iruka.

The seals for closing the shield spell were so well-practiced that he didn't even have to spare a second thought for them. It was decidedly strange to watch Iruka mirroring his actions with only a half a heartbeat of delay, but the shimmering between them faded and the shield spell went back to being wholly closed and undetectable.

"Alright." Iruka backed into the center of the circle.

Kakashi had a catalog of spells roughly 400 miles long thanks to the Sharingan, but there were a few that he commonly used that always sat near the top of his memory. The one he decided to start with was technically battle magic although he had always used it as a rather showy and dramatic deterrent. He walked through the seals quickly, feeling himself reach for magic that wasn't there.

Iruka finished a half a second after him, and a roiling circle of flame exploded around him. He let out a startled shout, from surprise, not pain – Kakashi's spell was carefully constructed to conjure the flames far enough away from the wielder to not pose any threat – and spun on the spot. Concentration lost, the flames flickered and died. "So that's battle magic?"

"Not bad for your...," he teased, meeting Iruka's huffed out laugh with a smile.

"First try?" Iruka gave him a rueful grin. "You flatter me to assume that this was my first try at using battle magic. But I do have to say that this was significantly more successful."

Another spell to try was right on the tip of Kakashi's tongue when he realized something. "You were surprised at what the spell did even though you saw it."

Iruka had been shaking his hands out and resetting himself in the center of the circle. "I didn't. I can see what you're doing, but since you can't actually activate the spell..." He let the sentence trail off.

A verbal reminder wasn't any more unpleasant than the constant, nagging void within Kakashi. He shrugged it away. Dwelling on it wouldn't do any good, and his magic was being stored in about the only place he would have considered safe. He tossed that thought aside as well despite the fact that it could probably benefit from a closer examination. "Let's try another one."

"Are you going to let me know what this one is?" He paused for a second and then, as Kakashi was about to open his mouth, exclaimed, "Lightning?"

"You really need to stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Finishing my sentences."

"I am not...,"Iruka began to protest and then hesitated. "Am I?"

"It's one of the frustrating side effects of the Sharingan."

"I thought I was saying it with you or just after. Is that why there's that weird echo?"

"Afraid so."

Iruka cocked his head to one side and shook it as if that would clear the echo of Kakashi's voice. "How did you deal with this?"

"Generally, if I had it on, there wasn't a lot of talking happening."

This time, Iruka left an unnaturally long silence after Kakashi finished talking. "Alright, I think I can hear it, and if I just wait for a little bit, I can be sure you're done."

"Like an overseas phone call."

Iruka laughed and lifted his hands up again. "So you were going to teach me to call lightning?"

"Something like that," Kakashi murmured and began the seals for the spell.

A spluttering globe filled Iruka's hand, popping and cracking with vague ominousness. Kakashi had never really seen it from the outside, and he had to admit that it looked rather like Iruka was holding a lit firecracker in his hand. He didn't blame Iruka for the wary look he was casting at the ball of sparking light. "It's your own magic, so it won't hurt you."

Iruka moved his hand slowly through the air. The air molecules snapped and protested. "What happens if I hit something with it?"

"The magic won't hurt you, but the flying debris is under no such compulsion."

"Right." He took a deep breath and let it out. It was a common technique for gathering your wits around you before releasing a spell's magic. The ball of contained lightning shrunk until it disappeared completely from his palm.

Unlike the ring of flames, that particular spell wasn't used just for posturing. Kakashi scanned Iruka's face, looking for some sign that Iruka had sensed the darkness, pain, and, in general, death that surrounded that spell. It was battle magic at its most raw – a fighting technique that was really only ever used for one thing. To Kakashi's great relief, he couldn't find a trace of that realization on Iruka's face. Some of his memories had clearly transferred with his magic, but he didn't know if his emotions had as well. He had never used that spell in a way he'd regretted, but that didn't mean that he'd liked what he had to do with it.

He'd taught the spell to Iruka solely because he knew that Iruka was right. This situation could very well end with Iruka fighting, and he wanted to give him the best chance he could to come out of the other end of it alive and unharmed. He hoped Iruka would never have to use it.

In the hour that followed, they tried a dozen or so more spells, all common battle magic, all ones that would give Iruka a leg up in any fights between him and the mage that had tried to steal Kakashi's magic.

The last couple of spells had been more on the nonlethal side. Although they still fell under the umbrella of battle magic, they worked better as deterrents than as actual attacks. Kakashi remembered another nonlethal spell – one that had rocked him back on his heels and was the magical equivalent of getting sand tossed in his face. He closed his eyes as he finished the final seal, but the bright flash of light still left after images on the inside of his eyelids. When he opened them again and had blinked enough to clear his vision, he noticed that Iruka had dropped to one knee in the center of the circle, a look of surprise plastered across his face.

"That." Iruka braced his hand on his knee and stood up. "Was not battle magic."

Kakashi blinked. One of the problems with having an affinity for everything was that you never really knew where each spell belonged. Had he learned them out of a book, he might have had a better handle on it, but as it was, he simply had to use the situation as his best judge. He'd learned that spell in a fight and so he had assumed it was battle magic. It wasn't a spectacular assumption, but it was the best he could go with. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. That one pulled from my magic as well." Iruka braced his hands on his knees and leaned forward, clearly catching his breath. "It's a lot easier to control one person's magic at a time. The battle spells couldn't touch mine, so I was only managing yours. I wasn't expecting quite so much of a flood of magic with that one."

"I thought it was a little brighter than I'd intended."

Iruka laughed and sank to the ground. "I think we've managed to exhaust your magic. I'm starting to feel more like myself again." He formed the seals to call lightning to himself again and spread his right hand. A tiny spark appeared there, flickered anemically, and vanished. "I don't feel like I've been hooked up to the magical equivalent of a fire hydrant and asked to water the garden anymore."

The sun had climbed past its apex as they worked and was beating down on the dojo. Under the awning, between the shade and the slight breeze, the heat was manageable. Inside the protective shield, which let in the light but kept out the breeze, it must have been sweltering. Iruka plucked at the front of his shirt and then paused to swipe a sleeve across his brow. "I'm starting to regret the decision to wear jeans."

The spells had burned off Kakashi's magic, which put Iruka in a more tenable state. A few spells here and there over the next few hours should be enough to keep him from overpowering himself again.

Kakashi stepped back away from the shield, beckoning to Iruka with the eye patch. "Come on."

Iruka opened the shield, took the eye patch, and stepped gratefully into the breeze. He turned his face into the fresh air and inhaled deeply. His shirt was plastered to his chest, partly from the heat, partly from the exertion the magic had required.

"I'm going to call Tsunade and see if there's any news. Do you want...?"

"To use your shower?" Iruka met Kakashi's glare with a wicked grin. He would be the type of person to use his newfound powers to piss people off.

Kakashi pointed wordlessly. Had the situation been different, he would have countered with some sort of well-crafted innuendo. But he'd seen the disdainful twist of Iruka's lips after each spell – recognizing the need for battle magic and actually desiring to use it were two completely different things. Iruka's mind was clearly filling in images of what these spells could do when aimed at people, and, like Kakashi, he didn't like what he saw. Kakashi kicked himself out of that thought cycle. Necessity was necessity, and this might mean the difference between Iruka coming back with magic as opposed to coming back without.

The moment for well-crafted innuendo had passed, but he wouldn't let the opportunity pass. "Don't worry, I know this is just an excuse to get naked in my house," he called after Iruka. It wasn't his best effort, but it elicited the desired spluttering cough and protest.